The Certain Death Tournament.

[Morathi1]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

@Hans. Ouch! R.I.P Ulquiorra-san. That is some bad luck right there! Meph can be very dangerous and shouldn’t be underestimated. If he gets his spells going in repetition it can be deeds in a heart beat. I once lost a character to that Cold ball, it can hit very hard!

@JayeM. R.l.P GlassJaw. Hopefully GlassEye can revenge his death and hopefully have more luck than GlassJaw!

Anyway I have had quite a bit of free time today so Drake received a lot of attention. Here is his story so far.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drake wondered out into the Bloor Moor and wacked some skulls with his starter club, a few quick levels saw a Poison Creeper and Oak Sage join his journey. Drake boosted his STR to 36 early to allow him to upgrade to a Scepter and wear a 3soc Ringmail. It turned out to be a good move. As early as the Mausoleum Drake had already accumulated 5 chipped topaz’s, placing each one into his helm and armor. By the Stony Field Drake had amassed 11 chipped topaz’s! (I believe that is a personal best for me). Its a shame that Aliza, the Fire rogue who assisted us, couldn’t make use of the extra topaz’s .

Very quickly Drake became a dominate force, to an absurd degree. Fissure and Boulder just dominated everything on p/8.Cold Crow was a push over and received the Boulder treatment . 1 shot wipe out, nice! Rakanishu and his mob were wiped clean with just 1 Fissure, it really was that easy!

We rescued Cain with relative ease and he decided to let us travel with him for free! Thanks Cain!

The battle with Andariel was an absolute joke, level 8 Fissure just humiliated her. Her drop, didn’t have anything to get excited about (was hoping to see some unique Heavy Gloves) .

Aw well onwards to act 2 !

Interesting notes/Finds:
*Here is Drake finding his first S/U. Would have been nice vs Andy if i had remembered to equip it :doh:.
*I have noticed that Fissure works almost exactly like Blizzard. Faster monsters seem to take alot more damage than slower ones. Stationary monsters are alot harder to kill than ones that are moving. This has made me alter my strategy to horde and force monsters to move around, or just use Boulder. Also, the faster the hit recovery of the monster, the more damage it takes. I am beginning to really like this skill!
*By the end of the Act Drake had accumulated a whopping 16 chipped topaz's (a personal best for me!)

[highlight]Drake the Fire Druid, Level 20.9, Normal Lut Gholein, 101 life (137 with Oaks), aided by Emilio the Prayer merc[/highlight]

 

[EmperorMoo]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Well, I've had a very busy week this week -I've just had time to race through the last ~10 pages of this tournament - you guys sure have been busy while I've been away!

I made the decision to retire my mojomancer: he was too unstable, I had numerous NDEs by the time I reached Cain. He was just going to be a waste of time. I have spent a large amount of this week on trains and in meetings, and have decided that a concbarb (taking a slow and steady approach may well be just the ticket here. It's also dead handy that BO is a synergy to concn - 2 for the price of 1!

He's currently at the Outer Cloister, having had a straightforward journey so far, with no NDEs or interesting drops. I seem to be getting an ironic amount of chipped rubies, but they'll cube up nicely once I'm in LG and have the cube.

Good going everyone, let's have a deeds-free week!

[highlight]EmperorMoo, MELIKECAKE, concbarb, Outer Cloister, lvl16[/highlight]

@wakiki: Please remove my mojomancer (BraveSirRobin) from the table, he won't be participating anymore.

 

[scrcrw]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

@wakiki The poison damage is over ~30secs, so not that much. I was rather referring to the 13-37 physical damage
For future reference: Kaikos final exp count is 341835685 according to Atma.
I thought Amarantine would take the lead, since she was that tiny bit further along. Exp-wise Kaiko seems to have the edge though. I won't complain either way. Someone is bound to finally get that elusive conqueror title.

Gameplay-wise I just got the cube with Jenna and after a few tries managed to cube a decent savage polearm. Took 6 or 7 tries. At the moment I am considering not going for the valk and keeping my merc this time (since decoy doesn't count). If Alhizeer, the prayer merc, performs well enough until Level 30 he might not be stripped and killed off. Still no nde's. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up the pace once I learn how to use plague javelin more effectively.

@jdkerr, drystan Count me in as one of the Stealth lovers. I think every single of my sp chars wears one at some point. Pretty sure my Trapsin, Hammerdin and Fishymancer all wore Stealth till Mat/Pat. Even Kaiko wore one for some time until it had to go because of too much poison res... Currently waiting for my first Eth (or some Nefs) with Jenna. The Countess was nice enough to provide the Tal.

[HIGHLIGHT] scrcrw, Jenna, Poison Java, Halls of the Dead lvl 3, level 23 [/HIGHLIGHT]

 

[kavarin]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

So far, Roadkill has been operating as a caster (it is good to be ranged when life is low). Later on, probably in A5 normal (assuming things go well) he will develop werewolf / fury for an alternative physical damage attack. Why wolf? Well, I think it is probably the minimum route to having a decent AR with a druid.

For some reason progress seems slow although I can't think why this is. Most things drop dead even on p8 within a couple of fissures. Could it be a subjective thing due to the casting delay?

The belt slot is reserved for +life and is currently occupied by a gambled perfect heavy belt of the wolf (+20 life). Together with a grand charm with +16 life, a large charm with +10 and a small charm with +7 that gives Roadkill a fairly comfortable 250 life in the field with Oak Sage support. The defiance meat shield has more than 600 life and so far everything has been very smooth and safe. I can only think of a couple of occasions where life has dropped by as much as a third. I have some worries about Duriel, but surely others must have succeeded with even less life.

For the rest of the equipment, I shopped a wand with +13 ENE and a shield with +18 mana which means that I have plenty of mana even at base energy and everything else has +MF (approximately 160MF without the merc). That finally paid off in one of Tal Rasha's false tombs when Bloodfist popped out of one of the chests.

Skills currently look like the following:

Raven ............ 5
Oak Sage ......... 7 (usually cast with +1)
Poison Creeper ... 1
Carrion Vine ..... 1

Firestorm ........ 1
Molten Boulder ... 1
Fissure .......... 8
Volcano .......... 5

[highlight]Roadkill, Level 28 Fire Druid, inside Tal Rasha's true tomb[/highlight]

 

[HanShotFirst]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Here we go again! . . I’m in again, this time with a mostly Fire Druid (at the time I thought it was going to be unique to the tournament but it turns out that I had forgotten about Kavarin’s and hadn’t yet read about Morathi’s . . . sorry guys, hope you don’t mind one more).

Scorn (no, no, I don’t hold a grudge) the Fire Druid did a complete clear of Act 1 at Players 7 and really didn’t have any problems at all. Raven was boosted to six points early on (for some reason I was sure you could have seven ravens at skill level seven but I think I was thinking of Ravenlore and ended up ‘wasting’ a skill point . . . I’m still debating if I should boost Raven to an even level ten and pretend I meant to do it . . . at least it would distinguish Scorn from the other Fire Druids :grin: ). Early on the level six ravens were very effective at killing (so perhaps it really wasn’t a ‘wasted’ skill point). Molten Boulder came next and was really great (even though I never put more than one point in it). Fissure got the rest of the points (well, one point went into Oak Sage and Cyclone Armor) but the rest went into Fissure and everything was easy street . . . though I agree with Kavarin that the casting delay was a bit annoying (perhaps mostly because I’m comparing it to my beloved Bone Necro . . . no, no, no grudge at all). Andariel went down fast to Fissure (she maybe lasted 30 seconds) and dropped not a single set/unique even though Scorn had pretty reasonable mf . . . 66 on him . . . 45 on the merc <but is now discarded> . . . who I thought got the kill . . . but maybe not . . .)

Happily there were good drops leading up to Andariel. The first set/unique was Hsarus’ Buckler (not really useful but it was nice to see a green drop pretty early). Arctic Furs dropped next and got some use before it would have pushed Scorn’s resistances too high. Hotspurs dropped in the Barracks! . . but considering the resistance restrictions it turned what would have been absolutely positively endgame gear into something that I probably won’t be able to use). The same could also be said with the next drop, Death’s Hand . . . such great resists and top of the line poison length reduction . . . but probably can’t be used . . . too bad). Let's see, what else, ah yes, and the Countess dropped an Ith and only an Ith.

Here were Scorn’s stats at the end of Act 1.

[highlight]Scorn, Fire Druid, Lut Gholein, Level 20[/highlight]

 

[Morathi1]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Scorn had pretty reasonable mf . . . 66 on him . . . 45 on the merc . . . who I thought got the kill . . . but maybe not . . .)

What? i thought we cant have MF on mercs in normal?????

Oh and welcome to the fray! i am sure there will be variation with our druid's so don't worry about joining in with one. Mine is already different to yours, i haven't placed a single point in Raven :smug:!

 

[Bluechip]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Well Inevitability deeds'd. Was teleporting around in the black marsh (NM). Ran out of pots, and just as I was opening a portal I got hit by an archer arrow. Apparently they are poison tipped in those parts, and my -24% poison resistance didn't cut it. Got too aggressive. It was totally my fault. Ah well.

Inevitability, dead, level 44.

 

[wakiki]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

not a single set/unique even though Scorn had pretty reasonable mf . . . 66 on him . . . 45 on the merc . . . who I thought got the kill . . . but maybe not . . .)

Yeah, Morathi is right, you shouldn't have MF on your merc. Andy's drop was the game punishing you for it, I think. You aren't disqualified or anything, just remove that MF a.s.a.p.

 

[HanShotFirst]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Yeah, Morathi is right, you shouldn't have MF on your merc. Andy's drop was the game punishing you for it, I think. You aren't disqualified or anything, just remove that MF a.s.a.p.

Oh shoot! . . I forgot about that rule change . . . consider the merc mf gone and I won't use any of the set/uniques that have dropped (I didn't really use them anyways except for the Arctic Furs and that was only for maybe two areas) . . . let's see, the rest of my equipment was shopped/gambled except the rings and amulet so if I get rid of those and I should be back on track . . . sorry everyone!

 

[Zefimas]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Well, been looking for a reason to come back once more, this seems like the perfect opportunity. Count Susannah the bowzon in, starting now
(playing 1.12 btw)

GL everyone!

 

[wakiki]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Oh shoot! . . I forgot about that rule change . . . consider the merc mf gone and I won't use any of the set/uniques that have dropped (I didn't really use them anyways except for the Arctic Furs and that was only for maybe two areas) . . . let's see, the rest of my equipment was shopped/gambled except the rings and amulet so if I get rid of those and I should be back on track . . . sorry everyone!

Thanks. You don't have to go to that much trouble; I'm fine with it if you use the items that you found. But if you would feel bad otherwise, then go ahead and restrict yourself. Also, rings can't be white, so if they are blue there's just no reason to throw them away.

I'm about to take on the Chaos Sanctuary....really nervous hehe. I'll be breaking out my Bloodfists for the D fight, and I have my fire and lightning resists close to 50. I have a whopping 218 health (giggle). Shopped some replenishing throwing axes for both IM and big D...we'll see how this goes *gulp*.

 

[Brutass]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Death has struck - 3 times. An extremely unsuccessful weekend

Tane the Fire/Summon Druid, Lvl 30, Chaos Sanctuary- hosed to death by Diablo
Snatch - trapsin, death entering the barracks (just another one), Lvl 18
Sparky - Lite/Orb sorc, Lvl 6, death in the den

Enter Sparkles, another Chain Lightening Sorc

Sparkles, Lite/Orb Sorc, Lvl 11, Outer Cloister

 

[kavarin]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Here we go again! . . I’m in again, this time with a mostly Fire Druid (at the time I thought it was going to be unique to the tournament but it turns out that I had forgotten about Kavarin’s and hadn’t yet read about Morathi’s . . . sorry guys, hope you don’t mind one more).

Fine with me sir! :thumbup: - I thought it seemed like a great choice: life boost, blinding, and ranged autohitting attack. What is not to like?

Scorn (no, no, I don’t hold a grudge) the Fire Druid did a complete clear of Act 1 at Players 7 and really didn’t have any problems at all. Raven was boosted to six points early on (for some reason I was sure you could have seven ravens at skill level seven but I think I was thinking of Ravenlore and ended up ‘wasting’ a skill point . . . I’m still debating if I should boost Raven to an even level ten and pretend I meant to do it . . . at least it would distinguish Scorn from the other Fire Druids :grin: )

Raven is is actually a big part of my plans. I've used it in the past and really like the blinding so I'll be aiming for 15 or maybe even 20 after +skills if Roadkill lives that long.

The rest of the plan is 20 sage, mumble in fissure / volcano and the rest in werewolf / fury (what rest you may be asking).

Anyway, good luck to everyone, you Morathi and any other fire druids especially

 

[wakiki]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Okay, now that I'm going to update for real, I can respond to everyone.

@Tarantella & scrcrw: This is an interesting situation. I hadn't considered the idea of someone moving farther along in the same location. I'm going to stay with the original policy of going by experience and leave the table the way it is. Next tournament I might be more specific for fixed locations though. I don't know what I would do if one of you had died in one side area and the other died to Baal's minions without clearnig the side areas. In that case I would go by experience, I guess. Hrm...

@JayeM: OUCH man, I remember bolts from normal monsters taking off more than 25% of my health. 3 of those at once from a boss would probably be instant death. RIP. Thanks for joining again.

@Drystan: Do you think that's just a graphical glitch or do the extra shards do more damage?

@Morathi: That sounds pretty cool actually. Makes me wanna play a fire druid.

@EmperorMoo: I'd rather just leave your Mojomancer in the table. Is that okay with you? You are allowed to have multiple people in the tournament, and also, I hate seeing people's progress wasted. And who knows?...you might want to pick him up again. If you deleted him, I could put "retired" next to his name. Another option would be for you to ceremonially kill him. In any case, thanks for rejoining!

@kavarin: Remember, we don't want MF on mercs.

@Bluechip Aw man, sorry to hear that. I've had several cases where I had to scramble for a TIP as my life drained to 1 from some random poison hit. RIP.

@Zefimas: Welcome to the tournament and good luck!

@Brutass: You must have been in a hurry. :crazyeyes: Thanks for keeping on though. RIP.





BathtubPancake had a blast after the Travincal. I absolutely love the structure of Act III: the exhausting, difficult swamps, then the city regions, each getting more difficult and the landscape getting more and more imposing. Then you cross the enormous Causeway and into the stone city itself. Epic!

The Council went down easily, and the Durance was a blast. On normal, the Dolls do just enough damage (in this tournament) to make you worry about getting surrounded, but they aren't insta-death either. And Maulers have to be some of the coolest monsters ever. Night/Blood Lords were actually pretty scary. I let myself get hit by a Meteor, and it nailed me for about 1/3rd of my life and sent me into hit recovery while burning my health away pretty quick! I didn't let myself get hit by another Meteor, ever. Bremm Sparkfist was fun. I would let him approach us, then charge him and knock him back. He would move forward again, I would charge again and back off, while my merc plinked him to death. I think I accidentally spawned Mephisto on /p8 so he took all my health pots, but his damage was pretty consistent so I was never worried.

Act IV was a bit of a chore. I had all the annoying enemies: spawners, leapers, bats, gloams, and those homing missile shooting things which are fine, except for that Iantha liked to kill them over lava and pits so I didn't get items from them. Hephasto took about 90% of my health in one hit with his Holy Shock aura, which was fun. I reverted to my Bremm tactic then: Charge, Back off, let him approach, Charge again. What a fun skill.

At the upper River of Flame I met a Cursed boss pack of Abyss Knights. I took alot of damage from them, but I was ready with fat purples as my health dropped to 20% a few times. They would have eaten Iantha alive if I tried to make her tank 'em. There was a somewhat more difficult Oblivion Knight Champion pack at the entrance to the Chaos Sanctuary. I duly switched to my Throwing Axed of replenishing to take them out. I lured a few doom knights away and kill them, then moved forward to take on the champions. Unfortunately, a pile of Bone Spirits and some cold/fire bolts hit me at once, resulting in Deeds. Awww. I didn't even have them on my screen at the time. (The possesed champ moved forward as I took the screenshot.) Oh well, I definitely had a blast with that character.

If I make another Chargadin, I will:

1) Not put a point into Meditation. It was convenient, but I could have just used mana potions and saved a skill point, and Redemption is a better 1-pt-wonder that gives more life, more mana, and removes corpses, obsoleting Meditation.

2) Put 1 hard point into Zeal. 3 hits (+1 skills) is enough, really. It costs more mana, and your damage output is lower, but I hated being frozen in place for so long.

3) Not get Holy Shield until much later. Especially in this tournament, where you are drowning in stat points and can max block easily (especially on a Paladin.)

4) When using an elemental aura, Charge can be a 1-point-wonder. Even if I'm not playing a charger, I'll definitely use that Bremm/Hephasto tactic with any Paladin. It deals alot more damage, costs less mana, and is safer than Smiting.

[highlight]RIP Bathtubpancake, level 34 H. Freeze Chargadin, killed by a champion Oblivion Knight pack at the end of the River of Flame[/highlight]

and meet.....

[highlight]ShadowSalad, Meleemancer, lvl 1, Rogue Encampment[/highlight]

Now I'm off to update that table.

 

[Morathi1]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Raven's is actually a big part of my plans. I've used it in the past and really like the blinding so I'll be aiming for 15 or maybe even 20 after +skills if Roadkill lives that long.

The rest of the plan is 20 sage, mumble in fissure / volcano and the rest in werewolf / fury (what rest you may be asking).

Anyway, good luck to everyone, you Morathi and any other fire druids especially

Looks like we are all going down different paths then :thumbup::nod:.

Drake is a pyromaniac and thus will spend almost all his points into fire skills, with the exception of Oak's which he plans on spending around 8-10 points in. No summons, no shapeshifting what so ever, its not his style :smug:.

 

[holiecows]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Made it to Act 2 this evening, no real notable drops from Andy. I got my first S/U on Cata 4, Arctic Bindings, too much res, cannot wear. At level 18 I picked up fade so all of my res are close to max for normal.The res charms I have might have to get stashed depending on what drops. Best drop, 12 FHR 5 Res All GCharm

[highlight]HolieCows, HolieTraps, Assassin, Lut Golein, 21[/highlight]

 

[Tarantella]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Damasque (Amarantines 2nd cousin once removed) feared for the worst. No news had been received and so with Debi helping her through act 1 to defeat the evil queen and then Haseen, who had been the last to see her cousin apparantly, helping her defeat Duriel she had soon reached fabled Kurast.


Using lower player settings for a safer faster run, no uniques so far but a twin set item drop off Radament included the excellent Sigons boots and Cleglaws sword.The others set items to drop include Hsarus's shield, Civerbs cudgel dropped in acts 1 and 2 respectively and an Artic set belt dropped on the way to the Spider forest waypoint.Three 3 life charms(+42 L) and a nice 12 fhr/10LR gc take up space is the inventory along with several elemental damage/resistance charms.

Using 1.12 again but this time with Atma and allowed mods.


Tarantella Damasque Skirmisher Spider Forest level 26

 

[wakiki]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

Shadow_Salad has cleared the Stony Field and will take on the Underground Passage next. He has 5 topazes total (4 being used and 1 in stash for a Gem Shrine) and 6% MF from a rare ammy (no other good mods). He found one of the best low leveling items I've ever seen:

Imp Prod
Javelin
Throw Damage: 6 - 14
One Hand Damage: 1 - 5
Quantity: 100
Required Level: 3
Fingerprint: 0xd66303e
Item Level: 5
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+40 to Attack Rating
Poison Resist +7%
[highlight]+1 - 5 Fire Damage
Replenishes quantity
Increased Stack Size[/highlight]

100 fire Javelins for 1 gold repair cost? I'll take it. The only way to improve them would be to replace the fire with cold. (Well, and to add a few mods. But really, replenish+cold+stack size is all you need.)

He also found a lovely double well in the cave. The enemies were incapacitated by an ever-increasingly potent Dim Vision (level 8 currently), then they were flattened by the artillery barrage of fire javelins and burning arrows. He did suffer a humorous NDE to Rakinishu, however. Damn those experience shrines! So tempting!

[highlight]Shadow_Salad, level 13 Meleemancer, Underground Passage next[/highlight]

 

[jdkerr]

Re: The Certain Death Tournament.

A certain insidious necromancer now lays dead. The Ancients are next, followed by Baal. I am shocked at how quickly you gain levels in Act 5! I guess I never noticed before.

Anya gave me crap, as usual. I persist in gambling away millions in gold on a regular basis -- the finds are few and far between, but great fun when they arrive.

I have collected a lot of useless S/Us. The major drops of interest so far have been 'Thul' and 'Sol' runes (one of each). Now if I could just find three or four 'Amn' runes...

Gear is pretty much the same as it was last update.

[highlight]Lifeless the Wind Druid, level 44, Halls of Pain Waypoint[/highlight]

 

[Mursilis]

Need a little break from BGII, so this works for me. Entering with an Assassin trapper by the name of Jaheira, should be interesting as my only other assassin played was a martial artist.

Jaheira started off going toe-to-toe with all of the monsters encountered. Only exception was Corpsefire where I used Fire Blast instead as I just didn't want to risk it, and needed to find out how effective Fire Blast could be. Not very so left that skill alone and continued the melee fight. There really weren't any close calls for Jaheira, especially once Charged Bolt Sentry became available. That coupled with Burst of Speed means she's very much uncatchable by monsters. Run up, throw a few traps and then sprint away. Well at least until Cloak of Shadows became available, then Jaheira wasn't injured at all.

Going wasn't even slow since no points are allowed into Vitality I've put the vast majority of stat points into Energy so Jaheira doesn't run out all that often and spams traps and CoS as if they are going out of style. Once she made it to Act II things were a bit simpler as now she picked up a desert mercenary to tank, so she doesn't have to worry about doing that herself anymore.

[highlight]Jaheira the Trapsin, Level 22, Normal Dry Hills[/highlight]