So not that I’m attempting to cause trouble but let’s say that I came here to the SPF to read up on the Certain Death Tournament and instead noticed that the PTR for v1.13 was up and running and went off to test it with everyone else . . . now I thought that it was only supposed to be v1.13 on the PTR . . . but it seems that my single player is now v1.13 also . . . (it says it’s v1.13 and my hammerdin can’t kill Guardians anymore . . . interesting). So what does this mean for my tournament participation now that I seem to be running 1.13? . . (am I still good? am I out?) . . . sorry and thanks!
EDIT: Forget I asked (I fixed it by logging into USWest . . . everything is v1.12 again).
Morathi – Glad to see you’re back! I started a Barbarian after Mara died but dropped him after Blood Raven in favor of my much more powerful Sorceress. Hmm anyways, . . Best of luck for Blake! :thumbup:
CE Raptor boss at the entrance to the Far Oasis. The Valk finished him off while Soapie was still in range of the nova (running away hard).
The insane gear choice (I had hinted at) was to use Treachery to make up the resistance loss in Hell. That worked well enough and the ias boost was fun.
I'm 99% sure Fade was on at the time of death, so somehow the cold nova must have hit extra hard (Soapie had (barely) survived one unfaded before). Cold Res in the Jav Slot was 35.
Notes:
1) Raven Frost from the sparkly chest in the Pits. Luckyzon indeed. Not that it helped in the end...
2) LCS entering A2: Javelin Slot - Bow Slot (with Fade and Venom and some Antivenom - real poison res was 47).
3)Thanks, Countess.
4)From the Smith. Might explain why he hits so hard.
5)/p3 for A1, except for Cats lvl 4 (p1). Playstyle was mostly fast and loose. Not even remotely full clears (except for the pits, they were fun, i.e. had no LIs).
6)I might have made the ugliest zon ever (see gear). So fading was sort of non-optional.
7)Gear:
slot1: rare +3java ceremonial jav (from anya nm) + rhyme bone shield
slot2: wws NefEth
armor: treachery gothic plate (only 3os armor I had stashed)
helm: valk wings +2skills (ptopaz)
belt: tgods
gloves: crappy blood crafts
boots: 22lr/21pr 24mf 10fhr
rings: dwarfstar + raven frost (16 - 195)
amu: some mana, some lr, some fr, some strength (placeholder)
8)Soapie's GoMule stash contains ~250 gems of all shapes and colours and ~60 full rejuvs
9)35 stats and 8 skills saved up.
10) The extra cold res on treachery was a *****: +40(wws) +60(fade) +20(2xanya) + 30(treachery) - 100(hell) = 50, i.e. not a single point of cold res allowed on the rest of the equipment (which is why soapie lost her +2p&m 9all res amulet).
11) Juggling resists doesn't get easier when only one slot has a shield.
12) I crafted 5 or 6 blood gloves entering Hell. None of them was very good (i.e. had +jav/p&m or ias). Also gambled around 1,5million on amulets (with Edge). Nothing good.
13) Mf was usually ~50 (bow slot) and ~75 with Rhyme. Somehow staid the same after every gear change.
Well, that sucks. It was huge fun while it lasted. Also finding WWS, Valkwings, Thundergods, Dwarfstar and Raven Frost in a single-pass game is truly awesome.
[highlight]SoapBubble, LFStrafezon, level 78, Far Oasis Hell - RIP[/highlight]
Josephine continues to leave her camera behind but has made good progress.
She started off the last session about to descend the stairs to the River of Flame. Frozen Orb here, Frozen Orb there and suddenly we were at Diablo. The HF drop wasn't memorable (no Ptopazes or any rune higher than what had already dropped in the field).
With Diablo, she was able to get in a couple of static fields as he materialized before we had to start playing the teleport game. The merc went and got himself killed to a pink lightning hose of death or a firestorm. Josephine stayed in long range run mode and lobbed orbs in big D's direction. It wasn't long before the old Tristram music popped up and off to Harrogath.
Continuing on in Act 5, Josephine cleared the siege quickly and headed off to save some barbarians. Shortly after saving the third group I had a game freeze
So, we had to restart and save the dumb barbarians again. In the end, Josephine made it to the entrance of the Frozen River in the Arreat Plateau.
Heading into NM Act 3 Hadriela’s biggest concerns were Dolls and stair traps. Hadriela did a full clear of everything at Players 7 and therefore had plenty of opportunity to encounter both but she made it alive and virtually unscathed.
Dolls were found pretty much everywhere they spawn (they were in the Flayer Dungeon, The Swampy Pit, the Sewers, and the Durance Level 1 . . . but not the Durance Level 2 that was absolutely and ridiculously huge . . . so lucky me I guess). Further good news was that neither Azrael or Hadriela could kill Dolls in a single hit so that really reduced Hadriela’s chance of accidentally blowing herself to bits (as my Mara did as you might recall). Another great thing about Hadriela was that she had freezing armor and if the dolls got too close to safely kill she could simply let them hit her (they then freeze) and she could then retreat to a safe distance and orb them to bits. Most all of the Dolls were therefore extremely easy to handle but there was one really nasty bugger in the Sewers (conviction and extra fast) . . . these extra fast Dolls exploded onto the screen and went buzzing everywhere before mostly settling on the merc (if Hadriela had been trigger happy she probably would have blown herself to bits . . . but she wasn’t and once the extra fast dolls settled down it was no big deal).
So onto concern number two; stair traps. The Forgotten Temple, Forgotten Reliquary, and Disused Reliquary all had stair traps. The Forgotten Temple and Forgotten Reliquary really didn’t have much of anything dangerous but the Disused Reliquary had a ton of monsters waiting for Hadriela including at least one unique viper. Now you may have notice that I said “at least one” . . . Frozen Orb rapidly disposed of most the monsters in a real hurry and Energy Shield plus Greater Mana Potions negated the damage so it was no big deal.
Everything else was pretty unremarkable. There were Gloams in the Swampy Pit but not the Great Marsh (and indoor Gloams are pretty easy to dodge). The Council was defeated with great ease. Monsters in the Durance must have heard of Hadriela’s coming because some of them attempted to hide (it didn’t save them). Mephisto should have hid (Hadriela’s static and orb plus Azrael’s Kelpie Snare resulted in him dropping dead in under twenty seconds (maybe less). (Ah yes, Ulquiorra-san is resting in peace now knowing that his nemesis has been so thoroughly and completely trashed :cloud9: ).
Mephisto dropped the one good find of the entire Act (the unique amulet turned out to be a Saracen’s Chance . . . worst resistances possible but I’ll probably use it going into Hell . . . I can’t use it at present because it would put Hadriela’s resistances way too high or cause her to need to ditch something important). Other random set/unique drops included: Magnus’ Skin Gloves, Lance of Yaggai, Tancred’s Weapon, Sigon’s Helm, Arctic Gloves, Berserker’s Armor, another Arctic Gloves, Hellclap, Angelic Sabre, and Hwanin’s Bill. A Sol Rune still hasn’t dropped but Hadriela has managed to amass three Amn Runes (over the course of NM Act 2 and 3 . . . well four if you count the Amn Rune that went into the Spirit) . . . anyhow . . .
Here were Hadriela’s stats at the end of NM Act 3.
Hadriela’s first order of business in NM Act 4 was to create a Sol Rune (Kelpie Snare is nice but the original plan was Insight and I wanted to see how it performed so it seemed to be a decent use of three Amn Runes). The Insight got a pretty good roll concerning the Meditation Aura but the enhanced damage was pretty poor (but who oh well! . . it’s still an amazing weapon . . . of course it would have been even more amazing back in NM Act 1 . . . but that’s a different story). The Insight did not disappoint and as Hadriela stepped out into the Outer Steppes she was soon feeling rather invincible (a rather dangerous feeling in this tournament but nothing bad has happened yet so why not cherish the feeling while it lasts). Hadriela really hadn’t needed to use many health potions in NM Act 3 but had gone through a ton of mana potions (mostly due to casting Frozen Orb I suspect . . . but also because I was attempting to keep the mana pool at least 2/3 full) . . . Insight made NM Act 4 nearly potion-less (and that made me feel rather invincible . . . not to mention it was really nice not to need to run around thinking “mana potions! mana potions! where can I get more! mana potions!”.
So everything in NM Act 4 was really easy. The only problem was Gloams (they tore through Hadriela’s mana pretty quickly . . . but nothing that mana potions and dodging couldn’t fix). Everything else was a breeze. There was IM in the Chaos Sanctuary (of course . . . though apparently v1.13 is going to put an end to that) . . . but strangely IM was only cast once and it only hit Hadriela (lucky Azrael). For Diablo, Azrael was armed with the Kelpie Snare and Hadriela located a Lightning Shrine and the battle was really easy and safe.
Diablo didn’t drop anything useful and nothing useful dropped anywhere else. The set/unqiues included: Blinkbat’s Armor, Civerb’s Amulet, and Isenhart’s Armor. The Forge drop could have been really disappointing . . . except Hadriela really didn’t need anything . . . so no worries . . .
Here were Hadriela’s stats at the end of NM Act 4.
And in related news, I ran off and made a test realm character but then decided that I’m done with Battle.net and this tournament is better . . . so hopefully my next update will be reasonably soon and include Hadriela avenging Mara and me finally reaching Hell . . . we’ll see! :thumbup:
Ohomemgrande – No need to worry about leaving the camera at home, Josephine is Hadriela’s sister character and Hadriela continues to take way too many screenshots for one character so between the two I think everything balances out pretty well :thumbup: .
scrcrw – Ah, what a way to go . . . congrats on getting that far though and on the amazing finds (I imagine Soapbubble’s deeds of honor will be long remembered).
I can't remember if you mentioned it but have you decided on what your plan is for cold immunes? They'll start showing up in this act!!
The more I plan, the more I think I'm going with firewall. I've been trying to shop a decent leaf candidate but haven't found anything yet. I'm hoping to make some good progress over the weekend and wish you good luck as you finish NM. Like I said earlier in the thread, I think this build has a very good chance to make Guardian. I know that my "optimized" ES build could stand up to everything the game threw at me (at least for a few hits) and that was playing very aggressively (blind teleports, standing in mobs of monsters, etc.) Playing in the tournament is not so crazy so I think it's an even safer build and it shouldn't be too hard to gather good gear to keep them safe. (I'm envious of your Shaftstop but I think I would have dropped a Sol into it).
Ohomemgrande – Hmm, my plan for cold immunes . . . um, “Lock the Doors . . . and hope they don’t have blasters!†(and for those of you who haven’t spent too much time watching Star Wars) . . . I can’t say I have good plan. At present I’m going to be going with static and the merc (could be really bad idea). I’m a bit undecided . . . at level 67 I could still hope to max a fire skill (probably Fire Wall) but I don’t know that it would be maxed in time to do much good . . . I think I’m going to sit on all the skill points I get during NM Act 5 and (if I make it that far) decide on a path of action before starting Hell.
(oh wait! . . on second thought I’ll simply wait until v1.13 is out and then I’ll do the Den of Evil and respec so that Fire Wall is instantly maxed . . . yeah that sounds easiest)
Back to being serious . . . Yeah, a Sol Rune would have been nice in the Shaftstop but I didn’t and still haven’t found one (and I only now had enough Amn Runes to cube the one the Sol Rune) . . . so no regrets.
Morathi, RIP for a tough character. Mine almost doesn't count as melee in this tournament, since I can attack monsters from the other side of a prison with a long-range polearm. Meleeing is so hard in this tournament because having no life puts you into hit recovery all the time (and I don't have to deal with that). If you want to go melee rather than throwing, I would suggest Whirlwind, simply because you avoid the recovery.
Glad to see you back. I'm afraid Brutass has you beat for most tries, though. You have four and he has six. As a side note, I have been playing Fere in the GWE tournament. I'm in the Arcane Sanctuary and haven't found any sets/fought any interesting battles yet so I haven't updated.
cenyth, you can park and wake up your character at will. Welcome back, sir.
Moosa, sorry for the disappointing death. At least you didn't suffer such a death in Act IV Hell though! Thanks for rejoining, too. Your update was entertaining to read, if somewhat psychedelically formatted! :crazyeyes:
Han, I would have made the Spirit in the ethereal sword. They look cooler, and you'll never lose durability anyway. Congrats on getting your two desired runewords.
Alfonso, that Eye may actually be really useful to you. Each cold damage item adds a second or two to the duration on Freezing Arrow, but the Eye is specially because it adds alot more. I forget how much more though; check Atma.
scr, RIP man. What a tough way to die...those Raptors die so quick. Fast-moving, low-HP Cold Enchanted monsters are like a bolt from the blue in this tournament. I'll remember that (and would advise others to take note). My guess is that you received a low roll on the first nova, and a high roll on that one. Congrats on getting into Hell and then beating an act and a half though. That's quite an accomplishment.
Han, nice updates. Congrats on getting past your previous mark.
@wakiki: Hmm...maybe I'll toss it on come NM if it turns out I need the extra boost in helping to kill things/safety. I'd like to keep my MF as high as possible for as long as possible! :yes:
@scrcrw: Condolences for your deeds. Soapbubble was doing so awesomely well, too! She will be avenged!
Fishyzon exited Harrogath's front gate and unleashed agony. The only thing that put a dent into the Valkyrie were the Death Slashers (or whatever) if they "ganked" her with their underground tentacle attack. Skirted the catapults something fierce and let LF work its magic on the mobs that mingled on the catapult platforms. Gained three levels in the Foothills. Awwwww, yeah. All the points went into LF to power it and CS up. Shenk was Valk-tanked and CS'd to death; Eldritch and the Highlands saw much in the way of LF used against the Gremlin hordes, with CS reserved for Crush Beasts, catapults, the SU Overseer there (can't remember his name...), and the scenery. For a change, I wanted the gremlins to teleport onto the battlements; it took but a single CS to topple, while the gremlins could avoid some or even all of the bolts on the ground thanks to their small size. Two deaths for the price of one-tenth my mana ball is a steal!
Clearing continued up into the Arreat Pleateau, where I ran into a lovely Extra-Strong Overseer and his brood. I went up to do so some CS magic but he aggro'd on me for whatever reason and here's the result of a single (critical) hit. Jinkies, that's close! Regular swapping between CS and LF remained the game of the day. Thresh Socket was large and very quickly no longer in charge.
Continued on into the Crystalline Passage. Found a fun drop that I would not be able to use until Hell. Not that I would use it, mind you. Frenzytaurs were less an issue than I thought they would be, with the exception of a Might-enchanted brute near the exit to the Glacial Trail. He and his brood tore through the Valk like butter and (for once!) Decoy saved the day as I spammed it to keep the mob occupied, feeding my blue potion addiction and LFing my little heart out to thin the herd.
Since the WP for the Passage was WAAAAAAAY on the other end of the level from the exit to the Glacial Trail, I pressed forward through the caverns. Frozen Horrors were, for once, a vaguely credible threat, as they could put a dent in the Valk with their Arctic Blast attack (of all things!). Here's what one gave up, for laughs. The drop-love goodness continued with the sparkly chest. Why couldn't Fishyzon be TheAragorn?
Two pictures back you may have seen the overhead map, and the location of the entrance to the Trail in relation to the exit, so you could only imagine where the WP was. I pressed forward to the Frozen Tundra, since the WP there is smack in the middle and can be used to divide up the place fairly cleanly. The initial hordes of gremlins and their steeds were most lucrative, and not all the loot was sold, nosirree. And a little while later I found something else. Again. Vidala's Barb is going to be my Isenhart's Case, I can feel it!
I snagged the WP and called it a night (or day, since I had to go into work). Join us next time, as Fishyzon tackles the Halls of the Dead and spends an inordinate amount of time trying to find some Ruby/Amber Light Gauntlets/Gauntlets of Luck and some Ruby/Amber Greaves of Luck!
My condolences to all those who have lost characters above! The D2 gods are busy with this tournament!
----
I quested through the end of Act 3 Norm last night. Was fairly intoxicated, so it's a little hazy but...
I do recall gambling this amulet, which I cannot use in Norm because of the resists, but am going to keep for possible later use.
The battle with the Norm Council was pretty uneventful. I spammed a lot of traps and Fire Blasts while bravely hiding as far away as possible. When I went to cube up the flail I had a bit of a hand on forehead moment... Apparently I charged right past the underground area with the Heart. D'oh! When I went back, I found a path from WP to the stairs down without any monsters, so re-clearing was nil, and no real harm done (except I had to stay up later).
Don't recall anything eventful happening in the Durance.
Found an Experience shrine right at the entrance to Durance level 3. I used it right away, and not sure if that was the best use for it (think it got killed by Amp shortly after), oh well. I very distinctly remember Bremm charging out, past me and coming to stop beside one of the pillars. My knee jerk reaction as he charged out was to RUN. Bremm ended up beside a pillar, I ended up way off behind the pillar and Haseen ended up poking and tanking Bremm. With the merc and the pillar absorbing LE bolts, I had pretty much accidentally fled into a 90 degree safe zone. I hope more battles go like this!
Originally I planned to battle Mephisto at /players 1. During my first trip to town to refill on pots and regroup I realized the beer had made me forget to change the players setting... meh. Haseen's AI was being user friendly for this battle. I skipped out to town 3 times, almost every time when I got back, Haseen manned up and went to tank right away, leaving me safe. Near the end I think I got hit with 2 of those weird specter things that pop up... They hurt! Drop.
I have to go into work either Saturday or Sunday... Haven't decided which. But hopefully I can find some quality AlreadyDead time this weekend to rattle off Act 4.
The upgraded Blastbark was a nice merc weapon when I first upgraded it, but now it´s slow going for my duo in Nightmare.
(and some of you know that when I think progress is slow, it´s not an overstatement...)
Slow as it is, progress is quite safe. Most of the time, Morte and Iantha take no damage at all. Dim Vision is needed almost the whole time (which is part of why it´s slow - I often have no time to use Amp/Decrep to boost the damage).
I am not impressed by Morte´s level 18 Bone Spirit. OK, so the synergies aren´t boosted that much yet, but still...
I tried it against a particularly annoying Carver Shaman. It took Morte´s entire mana bulb to kill the bugger! And it was just enough.
I got into a somewhat scary situation in down-right part of Pit level 2. LE archer boss and LE Bone Warrior boss. I Dimmed or Terrored all minions, backed off a bit, used constant Decrepify on the bosses and threw javelins like crazy.
Morte´s life is only a measly 245, despite hitting paydirt on my first belt craft:
[Highlight]Havoc Clasp
Mesh Belt[/Highlight]
Defense: 60
Durability: 10 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 51
Fingerprint: 0xde5bcc2a
+49 to Life
+47% Enhanced Defense
1% Life stolen per hit
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
9% Chance of Open Wounds
Rune luck has improved. I´ve found three Amn runes in Nightmare and I got a Dol from the Countess. I want to use the Dol in a White runeword. I went back to Normal Drognan to shop for a suitable wand. So far, my best prospect is an unsocketed Bone Wand with +3 Dim Vision and +1 Bone Wall.
(Dim Vision and Corpse Explosion are my most desired skills to boost, but CE will get +3 on a White wand anyway. Would have been really nice to get both as staffmods, of course. I use the normalizing recipe on all low quality wands with 2-socket potential, but the level 6 staffmods are not common on those ilvl 1 wands).
Other interesting finds: 2x Angelic Halo (gib da amulet, plz!), Tancred´s Spine, Tancred´s Hobnails (Again. They dropped this time - my 2nd ever that has dropped.), rare amulet with Teleport charges and decent minor bonuses, ring with Telekinesis charges, some jewels with big single element resists.
I am really starting to like this character. If I can get powerful enough gear for Iantha and top-notch of (allowed) +life gear in time, I think I may actually have a chance here...
[Highlight]Destroyer Morte the Mojo/Bonemancer and Iantha the Cold Rogue, level 51, NM Barracks next.[/Highlight]
Josephine is now Destroyer Josephine and has saved Cain in NM. There really isn't much to say other than Frozen Orb cuts through monsters like a hot knife through butter. The rest of normal was done on P8 without any issues. No major drops but I have upgraded some gear through gambling and shopping. She is now wielding a staff with +2 to sorc skills and +2 to Energy shield An Angel's amulet also is around to provide another slight bump to power. MF is 161%, hp is 159 and mana is 492 (with the option to bump that up to 578 with my nifty circlet. The circlet has been replaced for the time being with a Tarnhelm (32% MF).
Current skills after saving Cain:
FO: 20 (24)
CM: 13 (17)
ES: 7 (13)
all prereqs: 1 (5)
warmth/static field: 1 (5)
I'm going to ramp up ES and start getting a few points in Telekinesis while unlocking Fire Wall during NM.
Strength is 79, Energy is 211 while Dex/Vit are base. I'm slowly ramping up strength so that I can equip a Spirit Shield if/when I'm fortunate to find the proper base.
[highlight]Destroyer Josephine, lvl 49, Dark Woods[/highlight]
Guess what happens when you run into a fire while poisoned down to 1hp?
Yes, you are correct.
Too bad I was laughing so hard that I missed the "Summer was slain by Fire" message for the screenshot (also: naming her Snowflake would have been even more awesome).
Well, that's my entry for "Most creative death of the tournament" :whistling:
The actual deeds of Summer, the (not yet) Blizzsorc, were few and not worth remembering. Standard clear of A1 on /p7 by the Rogue Merc, helped along with lvl 1 Frost Nova and later on Glacial Spike.
I'll put "Andariel" as location of death, she did 58 of the 59 damage necessary to kill poor Summer.
AlreadyDead and I plowed our way through early Act 4 norm without much problems. There were Gloams, but they don't really hurt in norm. I did have to watch out for the Megademon's Inferno's though... it emptied the life bulb fast.
Hell forge rune was actually not bad for Norm (Amn). I didn't think to take a screenshot before picking it all up, so it's here. It's convenient that my first Pgem of the tournament is a Ruby... and I cannot use it.
Found another Amn rune in the CS. Definitely my best 2 rune drops so far.
I was nervous about the fight with Diablo, because he can be so unpredictable, and there really isn't any room for that with 176 health (or there about). My merc died instantly, there was no point in returning to town to revive him, because he would just die instantly again. So I stayed alone. Diablo actually behaved pretty well at the beginning of the fight. He stayed inside his little star and I stayed on the opposite side of the fire pits. Then I just ran back and forth constantly to avoid is fire attacks, while dumping traps at his feet. His fire ring was good for about half of my health, but he only cast a couple of those. He just clipped me with his hose at one point and that emptied AlreadyDead's life bulb. There wasn't time to stop and check, but I'm sure there was only something like 1-15 life left... very close.
After that he started charging around more, trying to catch me. I tried to keep something between us, generally the fire pits around his spawn location. I was starting to get low on pots, and he was getting more dangerous now that he was charging around like a fiend. So I decided it was time to return to town to stock up. I ran away from him so I could TP out from a safer area... right before I stepped through the portal, while Diablo was just off screen... he went ahead and died. The traps left on the ground before I started fleeing had done their work well! Diablo left his usual assortment of crap for me.
Anyway, off to Act 5 I guess... except I still have to go to work sometime today, ugh.
I've described my funniest deeds in some thread already, but it was poisoned to 1 by NM Radament and dallying there enough time that some skeleton emerged while I had inventory and cube open. I just closed them when I see DEEDS.
Darnit, Wallerina just got her *** handed to her on a plate.
Everything was smooth sailing with firewall dominating hard (around 2000 dmg, i had a leaf with an extra +3 firewall), and my storm was doing ok dmg (300 ish)
Then we engaged diablo and his hp were dropping pretty quickly, somehow i manged to keep my merc alive... but then he suddenly onehitted my merc, and did not waste a milisecond to charge me.. the charge put me in hitrecovery, and was instantly followed up by a lighning hose wich i could neither dodge nor teleport out of (because of aforementioned reason), and i died with diablo having about 10% hp left.
Wallerina was great fun while it lasted though (firewall is so much more powerfull than i thought, and storm, while not very damaging did have various uses).
Next time i will make sure not to stand to close to my merc to avoid the charge/hose combo.
Wallerinas stats:
str: 65
dex: base
vit:base
energy:150
hp: 160
mana: 350
magic find: 203%
resists: around 30/30/30/30
Talents:
Fire: all prereqs 1 warmth 3 firewall 13 fire mastery 1
Lightning: all prereqs 1 e-shield 5 t-storm 6 mastery 1
Frost: Freezing armor 1
Interesting equipment:
17% naglering (very interesting "cough")
+29 life, 24 slot belt
runeword "leaf" on a +3 fw +1 enchant staff
35% magic find amulet
20 life grand charm, 12 life large charm, 10 life small charm.
rest was all gambled magic find/resist gear, total magic find was 203%.
Interesting finds:
steelclash
3 ral runes
1 ort rune
1 tal rune
1 sol rune
skewer of krenitz (or something like that :whistling
rogues bow
a lot of isenharts stuff (seriously, this isenhart dude has like 5 different sets of armor!)
4x cathans seal (ya rly)
a lot of the gecglaw set
a rare circlet with +55 life, 13 all resists +103 ar and 4 damage reduce. (too bad i wasnt allowed to equip it)
amulet with +20 resist all and +1 java skills
Well, im not sure yet what my next entry will be (maybe another sorc), but i will come again and stomp diablo into the ground (and baal too, while im at
it :smug
Commiserations for the sorceressess that died today.:tombstone::tombstone:
At p8 Mortiphye and Harry were soon joined by a small platoon of skeletons and created havoc in the otherwise peaceful Western kingdoms. Apart from a near ambush at the Monastery gate act 1 was soon cleared. Being initiallly a power play build amp, bone armour and then CE were all got off items so that all skill points could be allocated to SM and RS. Andariels drop included cleglaws gloves and despite topazed helm and armour the only other set item dropped was an infernal cap in the barracks though this useful head dropped early on.
The massacre continued in act 2 with the stony tomb yielding up an umbral disc, an angelic armour in the Lost City and a crushflange in the Palace. The Maggots lair (where the unique shield proved occasionally handy) being left till just before the encounter with Duriel was subsequently approached with very strong skeletons and near fatal overconfidence. A tal dropped in the sanctuary clearance but rather than wear stealth a breastplate with flawed topazes was used. The tomb clearances resulted in this nice rare belt and steelclash being dropped. Duriel was met after 3 points were spent in the summon resist tree and amp was more than enough to finish the job on p8 allowing progression to act 3 at level 28
Early act 3 was breezed through with stealth being shelved indefinitely when Sanders boots dropped in the flayer jungle soon after reaching level 30. Hsaru's belt and the Angelic sabre then dropped in the dungeon itself; Hawkmail was found in lower Kurast and all three items stashed. There were several nasty stair encounters in the six temples clearance but it was the inhabitants own fault for loitering near the bottom of the stairs.
For the end of act elemental attack encounters accrued skill points were now spent in the decrepify tree. The Durance was completely cleared. Harry personally lead the team in flying wedge formation on reaching level three and after a sickening crash with a countercharging doll pack and the flame and dust had settled Bremm and his near council members were nowhere to be found.
Mephisto fell without incident and the drops were sold.
Shatterproof is not dead yet, although she had enough NDEs that I lost count. She started by casting decoy across the river and shooting whatever attacked it whenever possible. One scary NDE when a cursed blood hawk boss dropped most of her life in one hit. Luckily, amp didn't proc on her, and she was able to run away.
Then she ran into the first creature she could not kill. This screenshot showed the absolute maximum damage she ever managed to do to it. The lightning sparks, even with slow missiles active, were problematic, as the valk and the walls were only sometimes in a position to block them, and she couldn't always get into the safe spots due to the V-shaped piece of corridor it was in. The poison immunity ensured she couldn't stop it's excessively high regen rate unless her 5% OW proc'd, but I don't think that would work anyway unless it had amp on it already. Speaking of which, it was hard to get amp to go off on it, since it was stone-skinned, which meant that it was physical immune unless amp'd, and very hard to hit with only 3.5K AR.
Right after that screenshot, amp wore off, and it started regenerating it's health quickly again. I often had it at around half health or so, but I couldn't keep it down. I spammed my pathetic level 2 FA (with +skills :whistling: ), tried switching to my more damaging bow when amp went off, stocked and restocked ammo and blue pots, but to no avail. I don't have an exact count, but I spent over 600 arrows and 30 mana potions before I gave up.
Stormtree provided a series of NDEs and dangerous situations, since he and his crew were the first things I'd seen in a long time that could not only kill my valk, but kill her quickly. At least twice, the valk died while I was in the middle of a strafe cycle, and I only just avoided getting smashed by running away and casting valk and/or decoy in a panic behind me. I don't remember if I ever actually got hit in that fight or not, but it was quite dangerous either way.
Then I misclicked at Asheara and accidentally ressurected Mizan. My first choice to kill him off was to take the waypoint to the great marsh, which I'd previously cleared, but when I did that I saw gloams, which I'd been lucky enough to avoid the first time. They could have taken care of Mizan pretty quickly, I'm sure, especially since he was level 29 and naked in hell with -42% resistances. But I didn't want them taking care of me while I was at it. So I used the flayer jungle WP instead. Then I had to unsummon the valk to stop her from tanking for him, and then finally he died.
The Ruined Temple provided another set of NDEs, since I was too close to a large cluster of monsters, who eventually got too close to me while trying to get to the valk. I ended up running deeper into the temple, past the spider magi, one of whom bit me (which hurts in hell with 14% poison resistance). Fortunately nothing scary was waiting for me on the other side, and I could set up a better defensive position. Another somewhat less severe stairtrap convinced me not to try to finish clearing all the temples.
Most (if not all) of the hierophants in Travincal were multishot enchanted. This one was the hardest to kill, since he was holed up away from the open area, but could still see it and cast blizzard there. With knockback and valk, the council itself wasn't hard.
The durance was a bit rough, surprisingly more because of the blunderbores than the dolls. The dolls could be distracted and safely blown up far away, but the blunderbores had a tendency to be able to kill the valk after a bit.
Wyand Voidbringer was conviction enchanted, and thus very dangerous (especially since I only had 25% fire res. anyway and he had a pack of vampires hanging around). After teasing him out and running away just enough, I got him.
A combat shrine helped greatly with Mephisto, not just with damage, but with some much needed AR (for some reason, it's easier to hit things with 17K AR than 3K AR :crazyeyes: ).
Right after finishing Meph, I got distracted fighting the vampires behind him and got hit by one of those stationary ghosts. :dizzy: I almost died. It was the emptiest my life bulb has ever been, although it still had slightly more than a sliver at the bottom.
Amulet of Life Everlasting
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xf96d0a6f
Damage Reduced by 22
Beryl Small Charm of Pestilence
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 24
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0xff5b8be4
Poison Resist +3%
+25 poison damage over 5 seconds
Pestilent Large Charm of Fire
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 58
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x158f42f8
Adds 2-3 fire damage
+175 poison damage over 6 seconds
Amber Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x4a8d579d
+12 to Life
Lightning Resist +11%
I've also started a trapsin who will be investing heavily in BoS and maxing fireblast early called RPG (standing for Rocket Propelled Grenade, since she will run fast and throw grenades). She's level 14 IIRC, but I won't do a real update until she at least kills Andy.
I'm mostly going to use her to do a little relaxation, since minor missteps won't kill her like they probably would Shatterproof.
In the Barracks, Morte experienced some weird stuff: parallel dimensions. That´s a substantial area where two different places would have the same GPS coordinates.
I am getting used to the slow killing, and it´s not as annoying any more. And with every level-up, I increase my chances of gambling what I want: a high-end Ferocious rare bow. With the major wealth in the next act, I think I have good chances of scoring something nice.
I was up to three perfect topazes when a Gothic Plate dropped in the Jail. This is past the point where ilvl is guaranteed to be high enough for 4 sockets max. Since my current armor has only 39% MF, I gave the socketing recipe a try (if I get 4 sockets, I could now have 48% MF with two open sockets). Rolled 1 socket - how´s that for useless...
I got into a great fighting position against Fouldog. He was focused on attacking Iantha, but his spits just hit the wall. On the other hand, Iantha didn´t hit Fouldog either. Since the situation was stable, I could use Amp without worry, and Morte´s javelins finished him off.
The fight against Andariel was very safe, as I found out that (at least in NM), Bone Prisons are immune to poison. They also blocked all poison fired in Morte´s and Iantha´s direction. I even tried some Iron Maiden, but it was hard to see if it worked as I wanted. I switched to Decrepify full-time because that gave me more time in the fight. I simply recast Bone Prison every time parts of the big cage I had made collapsed, and kept up the Decrepifying. Iantha did the rest.
(I had to return to town 4 times to buy another column of mana potions, but when I did that, Andariel was still imprisoned when I got back. )
Her drops, as well as every drop from Barracks and in, are not worth mentioning.
[Highlight]Destroyer Morte the Mojo/Bonemancer and Iantha the Cold Rogue, level 53, NM Lut Gholein[/Highlight]
In the Barracks, Morte experienced some weird stuff: parallel dimensions. That´s a substantial area where two different places would have the same GPS coordinates.
You just didn't notice the gradual downward slope that was in the barracks
I'm not sure but does gps contain height?(1)
(1) I once had to correct an international body that two coordinates describing a place on earth wasn't enough, you need three. It's three dimensional spherical coordinates as there are places underground and overground not everything is on ground level.
@ancalagon the black. Amazing progress! Congrats on reaching Act 4 Hell! I wish you the best of luck and look forward to reading about your battle with Diablo.
@Hans. Awesome progress with Hadriela! And some very nice drops too!
@Ohomemgrande. Well done on making Destroyer with Josephine!
@Jian. Way to go Morte! Very nicely done against Andy! Did she manage to even attack you, trapped behind all those Bone Walls? Good luck in Act 2! Revenge Drake for me in the Arcane Sanc :nod:.
Right out of the gate (literally), I hit a sweet spot, netting two early chipped topaz’s :thumbup:. It’s usually rare for me to find just one chipped topaz in the Blood Moor, but to find two, is awesome! The early MF became apparent against Bishibosh, who dropped a nice early armor in Artic Furs. I used it momentarily until I was able to assemble a 3 chipped topaz Ring Mail. Ithera, the Fire Rogue, who aided us on our journey, became the recipient of the Fur’s.
Early on Blake tried to avoid melee at all costs. I resorted to throwing instead, while Ithera reluctantly tanked for me. I placed an early point in Throw Mastery to help out. When I had to melee, I used Double Swing, with dual gambled Flails. It’s fast attack speed and relatively low mana demands proved to be the most effective.
At level 12, I placed my first point in Find Item and proceeded to quickly boost it up to slvl 5 for a decent, 32% chance to Hork . I was successful in horking a few champions and Super Unique’s, however none yielded anything useful .
In the Black Marsh, Blake came across a fearsome combo. Two Brute packs, with one of the champion's sporting a Conviction Aura and the other, LE. What made matters worse, was the fact that these two packs were positioned just 1 screen away from each other! Ah oh! Luckily I had cleared the whole area, so I had enough space to retreat back to fight them off. I kept my distance, throwing my rare javelin from afar, keeping on my toes, dodging the lighting bolts with great caution. Ithera did the bulk of the damage and took them down with relative ease. Good job girl!
At level 17 I began gambling Mauls. Their big and slow, but hit hard. I struggled to gamble anything decent so I settled for a “Jagged Maul” (20%ED). One hit kills were very common with this bad boy. Even some champions dropped within a few hits. I preferred this set up to the Double Swinging one. It’s safer and the killing speed is enjoyable. Some situations however, were too dangerous for melee, so I switched back to throwing. Pitspawn was a great example (seems like Morte had the same idea also ). I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that he was trapped, helpless behind bars. Too easy!
Andariel was clubbed to a pulp very quickly. With the Maul, Blake hits very hard, especially for this stage of the game. Each hit took a fairly large chunk off Andariel’s life. Ithera stayed behind Blake, so she was kept safe by his big frame. She never took any damage! The drop was rather disappointing. I was hoping to see some unique Heavy Gloves, but unfortunately, received nothing but useless rares.
Onwards!
[highlight]Blake the Zerker, Level 20.8, Normal Lut Gholein, life = 127, aided by Ithera the Fire Rogue [/highlight]
. . . yeah that sounds easiest)
I'm afraid Brutass has you beat for most tries, though. You have four and he has six. As a side note, I have been playing Fere in the GWE tournament. I'm in the Arcane Sanctuary and haven't found any sets/fought any interesting battles yet so I haven't updated.
:crazyeyes:
Congrats on getting your two desired runewords.
. I used it momentarily until I was able to assemble a 3 chipped topaz Ring Mail. Ithera, the Fire Rogue, who aided us on our journey, became the recipient of the Fur’s.
