S/U’s were very common throughout the Act. Even Icehawk Riftwing gave me a double S/U drop. Something I haven’t come across for a very long time (maybe even my first ever double S/U drop from a super unique :scratchchin.
Hmm, I haven’t come across one of those in a long time either but today Mara got a double unique drop from NM Stormtree (crazy timing eh)? . . now if only one of our four items had been useful . . .
In related news, Mara destroyed every monster in every corner of every area in NM Act 3 (all at Players 7). Despite her overwhelming damage Mara continued to advance cautiously; using traps to scout everywhere she went. Using these tactics everything was pretty safe with the greatest danger coming from the Kurast Temples. I considered dropping the players setting (in the event that the stairs were trapped) but I decided against it and got lucky as only one of the temples was stair trapped (and that stair trap didn’t even have any nasty uniques).
The only other seemingly dangerous areas were the Flayer Dungeon (dolls), Swampy Pit (dolls and gloams), the Sewers (dolls and unravelers :shocked: ), and the Durance Level 2 (did I mention dolls). Okay, so that sounds like a lot of areas but really it was all pretty easy. The traps were great for killing the dolls off screen (by far the preferred method) but if they did manage to get on screen the lightning blast from the traps tended to stun them long enough for Mara to get out of danger. The unraveler/doll combination in the Sewers was a bit scary at first but turned out to be no big deal as death sentry was really handy for both disposing of monsters and their corpses all at once :grin: .
The Council members and those in the Durance Level 3 were all pretty easy to handle (Mara simply needed to make sure that she was out of range of their death blasts . . . which was really easy for Mara considering killing stuff off screen happens to be her specialty). Speaking of killing stuff off screen, Mephisto got hit with the moat maneuver (note, Mephisto is not on screen :thumbup: ). Mara and Mizan both survived Mephisto (which means . . . Ulquiorra-san has been avenged at long last)! . . and it only took three characters to do it . . .
Tarnatella - Best wishes for reaching the finish line! . . and as others have said, that screenshot of you in a bone prison next to a lightning breathing Hell Diablo is really epic! Keep up the great work! :thumbup:
@tarantella: Impressive results! Good luck :thumbup:
@soulmanz: it's usually overconfidence that gets me too... condolences
Britta has made a small amount of progress since last update, completing act I and clearing the Lut Gholein sewers along with that uninvited guest Radament.
Act I held a couple of surprises for her, all good ones this time though!
First: gem shrines in consecutive areas for a total of 3 in act I! Crazy odds against that, but Britta has a flawless topaz already.
Second: random vampire boss drops a gull in catcombs 3! MF will be easy with traps and gull. Just have to watch out for that overconfidence!
Last: Andy drops something useful!
The Gnasher turned out to be ethereal, but with OW and CB it will be a useful weapon to use with BF to knock back some harder bosses. And who would say no to +40 life from bloodfists! Anyone notice the claw in Britta's hand for that screenie? I forgot to do the weapon switch and still got two uniques, amazing luck.
I hope she hasn't used up all her luck now!
Britta, lvl 21 Trapsin, LutGholein in normal. Next stop desert.
Nice progress everyone. Some very good item finds (Ohom and CB in particular).
soulmanz, RIP for sparky. I placed her in the Great Marsh (finding the waypoint doesn't matter; just the fact that you entered there is fine.) I think that you died to overconfidence....and the fact that you were playing in SC. If you weren't allowed to play the character afterwards, I bet you would have been much more careful. Thanks for playing and good luck with your Druid. If you are unsure about his eligibility just ask. (here or via PM).
Morathi, thanks. Are you using RWM? I myself used a 'Steel' Giamt Axe from Act IV normal to halfway through Act I NM, hehe. It's a fun weapon, although it sadly will fall way behind by that point. Although on your case, all you really need is Rabies and Open Wounds....
Loz, nice Summoner picture. You caught him in the middle of his casting animation with a ring of fire around him. Cool!
CB, that's some amazing item luck! The Gull will pay off big time. Just hold it 100% of the time would be the best strategy. That's the perfect item for a trapper. I don't think you need claws yet. The Gnasher is an excellent BF weapon. Heck, since it's eth, it might even be worth upgrading! You never know....I've also had similar shrine luck before. I bet you feel good about saving that first topaz eh?
Holding my breath for news from Tarantella. :nervous:
Looks like our progress is pretty close (I´m about halfway through the next act). Hopefully we can spur each other on.
BTW, I see you have Fury on the right-click button. Is there a specific reason for this? (I tend to have all the melee skills (including attack) on the left button, and toggle between them there).
BTW, I see you have Fury on the right-click button. Is there a specific reason for this? (I tend to have all the melee skills (including attack) on the left button, and toggle between them there).
It`s cool that people have so different styles I always have main attack on right click, and some sort of attack for special occassions on left click (feral rage, berserk to name a couple). The reason is quite simple; When clicking the RMB on the ground and just hold the button, the character attacks everything it runs into. Pure laziness:yes: One of the reasons I hate Paladins are that you must have the attack on left-click. However, it can lead to some incredibly reckless play and is more dangerous than having it on left-click (at least for me)
I guess it must be quite difficult for you to use Whirlwind and maybe even Frenzy when you`re used to having attack on left-click, or am I wrong?
I have only really played one Barbarian in recent patches, and he used Frenzy (with left mouse button) quite a bit, at least in Normal. That wasn´t hard.
Whirlwind: Oh, that may be one reason why I never seem to 'get the hang of it'! It seemed like the whirls often stopped a long way before I wanted them to. I did click on the ground, like guides told me to. Could have been the left button use, could have been that I ran out of mana (I only played with it in Normal, so mana was low, weapon damage was mediocre (meaning the mana steal wasn´t good)). I didn´t like the skill either way, even when it worked like I had planned. It´s the same with Zeal, it´s far too "unprecise" for my liking (it gets slightly better with a weapon with long range). I want to have the freedom to attack with full focus on one particular monster. I guess I simply prefer the single-click melee skills. I´ve had a blast with Dragon Talon, Smite and Berserk. When I made a Passion Champion Sword for my sword-amazon, I tried Zeal a few times, hated it and went full-time Berserk!
Ah the thread fell to page 2 . . . I've never seen it on page 2 . . . oh well, it had an amazing run . . .
Mara made it through NM Act 4 at Players 7. The passage should have been pretty easy but things got messy in the middle . . . here’s what went down: Upon departing the Pandemonium Fortress Mara was immediately met by a unique welcoming party (I didn’t get a screenshot of the multiple shots Balrog breathing four plumes of flame but it was pretty scary). The Outer Steppes also had Leapers that were annoying but not too bad. The Plains of Despair had Burning Souls (oh noes!) . . . bad news but at least they weren’t lightning immune (yet). Then about 30% of the way through the Plains of Despair things got messy. For some reason monsters stopped targeting the merc and only went after Mara (yes I understand that this happens when the merc needs to teleport to get to the character but I didn’t see that happen and I don’t know what he could have gotten hung up on in the Plains of Despair anyways . . . weird). Anyways regardless of what caused the merc bug to happen it was certainly bad news. Considering the area was swarming with Souls I really wanted to exit and restart but Mara was so far from any waypoint that I would have had to have killed a ton of monsters to get back to where I was so in the interest of good form I decided against it. The rest of the Plains of Despair was really scary as every Soul went after Mara (thankfully there weren’t any dangerous unique Souls . . . that probably would have been deeds). Izual was scary too. Izual of course opted to ignore the merc and pursued Mara with everything he had. After some brief debate concerning how best to deal with Izual Mara ended up leading Izual on a chase around a corpse on pole (with Mizan chasing Izual) and with the traps slowly wearing Izual down. Finally Izual and the last of the Souls were defeated and Mara proceeded to the City of the Damned with her full clear intact. I was hoping to find the City of the Damned Waypoint in a hurry but as luck would have it the waypoint was in the next to last place Mara looked . . . so that was another area where everything targeted Mara (at least there was nothing lightning immune or very scary). The City of the Damned was cleared with relative ease and then I finally got to exit and restart :alright: .
The rest of NM Act 4 was easy and bug free. The Forge dropped a Ko Rune (not really anything I wanted but it could be useful later I suppose). The Chaos Sanctuary was easy to clear (most of the killing was done off screen). The only monsters that managed to do much damage were the Infector of Souls group (they chased Mara across the Chaos Sanctuary into the middle where Mara tp’ed out . . . and when she came back Diablo nearly spawned on top of her head :shocked: (apparently the Infector of Souls died at the same time that Mara tp’ed out . . . oops). After the initial panic Diablo was pretty easy. Mara managed to do most of her damage off screen (fight like an evil overlord) and Diablo died without incident.
Diablo dropped a good number of set/uniques but not the ones that Mara wanted. Other set/unique drops included: Cathan’s Armor, Angelic Sabre, Cathan’s Ring, and a Pierre Tombale Couant (could be useful but the Hone Sundan seems better). Other notable finds included these rare boots from Izual (I’m a sucker for tri-resistance gear) and a +15 all resistances jewel (that I don’t see myself using on Mara but you never know).
The only monsters that managed to do much damage were the Infector of Souls group (they chased Mara across the Chaos Sanctuary into the middle where Mara tp’ed out . . . and when she came back Diablo nearly spawned on top of her head :shocked: (apparently the Infector of Souls died at the same time that Mara tp’ed out . . . oops).
I've always left one of those non-summoning seals closed so that this cannot happen. I got the drawings of the four possible side configurations which is the summoning and which the non-summonig seal so that I don't make a mistake from memory.
They are:
Code:
Left:
-------- or --- ---
|x o| |o| |x|
| |----- | ---- |
| | -- --
| |
Right:
--- --- or ---
|x| |o| ----|o|--
| ----- | |
| |------ --| |----
| | |x|
---
x - summoning seal o - non-summoning seal
The Lost City and Ancient Tunnels went by smoothly. The final urn I kicked open had a surprise inside. I returned to town to do some gambling too. Yowza. Still kept my 3 P-topaz helm, though.
The Viper Temple was touch-and-go for a minute. The silly graphical glitch happened where a door looks closed but is actually open, and I got mobbed by some Champion Salamanders after I headed over that way to put the hurt on some mummies. Yipes. Fangskin and his brood were likewise worrisome; I had to run and kite and dodge and chug pots with Holy Freeze working its magic as the merc tanked as many as he could and we slowly nibbled down their numbers. I hate my auras sometimes.
On into the Valley and various Tombs. The first one entered spat up Twitchthroe, and then another! But wait, there's more! And then I picked up an amazing rare jewel from Kaa. I was unable to get a screenshot of him personally because of the furtive dodging and not-dying going on. Man, things were just going great.
So, now we're back here. How the hell did this happen? Why, it was the final tomb, the real one! The one I had to enter and couldn't skip over or reroll, since S&Eing is tantamount to deedsing. We entered to the lovely four-way intersection starting chamber, and were immediately besieged by a mob of beetles led by an Extra Fast, Cold Enchanted specimen, which spawned in the "north" hallway. Yipes. So, while Hazade ran up to do what he does best, I backed away to a position safe from the waving bolts, nearer the "south" hallway.
Thanks to Holy Shock, I aggro'd about 5 Gorebellies. Whoops. I panicked and ran back a bit to the entrance to get some space and turn my attention to them, and in so doing Hazade came rubber banding back to me, pulling along Dragon Wing and his brood. They promptly surrounded Hazade and me, and some of them actually died, which of course set loose a mighty wave of sparks. GG try again.
So I decided to make a Fishyzon named Fishyzon...Amazons seem to have the best odds of seeing this through to the end. She's tearing through Act 1 and is currently headed to the Tamoe Highlands. About the only interesting find so far has been this. Unfortunately (for Fishyzon, not for my grail), it spawned ethereal, so she stands around looking statuesque while Klaudia does most of the dirty work of killing. I will be going the Valkyrie route with her.
Alfonso, no! Sorry, mate. Some crazy drops you were getting there.
There but for the grace of the gods go I ... I still remember the nasty entrance trap I had in one of the false tombs, which so very nearly killed me off.
Glad you're rejoining, a fishyzon looks a good bet to me.
Update to follow, but in short:
[highlight]WitherStick, Poison Daggermancer, Level 60, The Great Marsh (NM)[/highlight]
Bugger, Alfonso - sorry on the Deeds. I am enjoying your tongue-in-cheek commentary so glad to see you are re-joining.
Fantastic progress by everyone!
Ok, on to my progress - not much at that.
Icy has completed Act 1 - a bit ho hum and nothing exciting to report except for perhaps an Arctic Furs dropping which increased her defense to the dizzying heights of 100. Found a large charm and gambled a belt with some + life. Her life hangs in the balance since she has no use for a shield. When up against ranged opponents, more than a couple of arrows dropping her life bulb by more than half. Now she's in Act 2 she has fired the rogue and hired a combat (prayer) merc and life is not such an issue. Radament when down with ease and cube retrieved with only one NDE. Icy is Lvlel 21 and her next aim is to gamble a circlet with lightning damage to compliment her cold damage
I agree that Amazons are set up well for this tournament, but I think that the trapsins that people have been starting up recently have a very good shot too.
I started the act with trying to swap out +skills gear for +res gear, and gambling most of ~2M gold I had sitting around. I decided to use my Amn to make an 'edge' bow. :unimpressed: 'TirTalAmn', the superior gemmed hunter's bow, is not what I had in mind. I eventually got RWM to work, but not the runeword, which is now sitting in a separate stash to keep it from crashing my main stash. I'm glad it wasn't a nice runeword like Harmony, though. Eventually I made another 'Edge' with an Amn from the countess drop, and this one worked.
I gambled a chromatic circlet, got 2 sockets from larzuk, and stuck the +13 res all jewel in it.
I left one socket open for awhile, but eventually just put a Ral in there when I found nat's boots (usable this time), and needed to swap out my fire res boots to wear them.
Cruel Finger
Heavy Bracers
Defense: 61
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 64
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 74
Fingerprint: 0x41c9afb0
+37% Enhanced Defense
Attacker Takes Damage of 3
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Knockback
10% Increased Attack Speed
5% Chance to cast Level 4 Frost Nova when struck
Level 3 Inner Sight (27/27 Charges)
With knockback, 25% MF, and 10% IAS, I doubt I'll be replacing these with anything.
res on leaving the rogue's camp: 15/39/47/20 (which is an improvement over the -40/-16/-12/-35 I had before gear swapping)
Found a blue diamond bow early on, and cubed a 2os diamond bow of amp dmg out of it with one roll. This lucky find replaced the crossbow as a main weapon.
Until Rakanishu dropped a blue matriarchal bow.
More chippy cubing resulted in these crappy rolls:
2os +4 min dmg
2os +5 max dmg
1os 20% IAS
2os +1 max dmg
2os w/ 33 level 1 cold arrow charges
1os +3 min dmg
1os +44%ED vs. undead/+37 AR vs. undead & 3-11 cold dmg
2os +7 poison dmg over 3 seconds
I found a white mat bow a bit later, and burned my hell imbue on it. Craptastic pretty much sums it up.
Found a sol, dol, and a shael in the catacombs/jail area.
Eventually I decided to replace the 'stealth' I'd been wearing since early normal. I went shopping for 4os armors, and had my first ever NDE while shopping. I'd been going between NM and hell, trying out the various shopkeepers, and when I came back to hell, I was refreshing the shops by taking the WP to cold plains and back, and discovered a big group of fallen near the WP. No problem, I thought, I'll just use Stony Field WP instead. And I did. Until I forgot and hit cold plains by reflex, landing right next to a swarm of fallen right next to the WP. So I went back to NM Anya, and eventually found this:
Russet Light Plate of Amicae
Defense: 105
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 41
Required Level: 43
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0x3e36067e
Damage Reduced by 15
Fire Resist +16%
Again while clearing from a WP, I got a drop I can't use on this character. Fortunately, it was only Trang's gloves, not something useful for a bowazon. Aside from the MA sin and summon druid gear, I also found a very nice sacred targe.
The RNG also decided, at the cold plains WP, right outside the blood moor, and within easy running distance of town, to give me a portal shrine. Thanks RNG.
The outdoor areas weren't too bad, although fallen getting ressurected and physical immune bosses slowed things down sometimes. The amp on my bow took care of phys immunes, and a level 1 FA took care of fallen. Eventually. Indoor areas, however, proved to be dangerous. Boss archer or elemental caster packs could lurk around any corner, like this one that I ran past too quickly. One such boss in the jail caused me 3 separate NDEs. He hit hard, and at one point, I think I was hit by 2 of his 3 missiles at once. I don't remember if that was before or after I went to town in a panic and drank about half a dozen thawing and antidote potions, but it was dumb to try to get close enough to read his boss mods. I survived him, but I probably shouldn't have.
Here I demonstrate proper tactics -- my valk is in the other room, and I'm strafing at things that I can't see, and never did see until I walked into the room where they were safely dead. My door-opening tactics include opening the door from the side, with a decoy in front of the door, after casting slow missiles next to the door. I had never used slow missiles before this character, and now I love it. I've also been cured of wanting to see the boss mods of dangerous monsters.
I had accidentally clicked on the outer cloister WP while heading down to see Andy, and it had a resist poison shrine. Having heard at some point that res poison shrines make it impossible to get poisoned, I decided to test the theory on Andy. It works. The shrine effect didn't last the whole battle, so I did get poisoned, but since I'd also drank about a dozen antidote potions beforehand, the poison wasn't bad. Andy was the only thing besides IM to kill my valk since I got it up to level 20. I did get hit by Andy once, because I got overconfident and stood too close while strafing, but eventually I killed her and she dropped IK gloves.
At the end of the act, my resists were 25/50/50/10ish.
GeneralJoe is now standing at the stairs to the River of Flame and a date with big D.
The "upstairs" areas of act 4 were pretty non-eventful. I used Dim Vision on the flame-blowing Pit Lords and occasionally on the Burning Souls in the Plains of Despair. Lightning blasts don't hurt too bad in normal
I saved an experience shrine for Izual but he outlasted it
After his reward, I had 3 skill points to place (leveled up on his death) which all went to Raise Skeleton and/or Skeleton Mastery. That gave me a 6th ground troop and the army seemed quite a bit hardier after that.
The greens are really starting to drop now and I found a Ral and an Ort in the City of the Damned.
[highlight]GeneralJoe, lvl 30, City of the Damned[/highlight]
i recently picked up diablo 2lod again after playing a lot of different games since im looking forward to diablo 3 and starcraft 2.
Online play is quite dissapointing though (not gameplaywise but mass spamming to buy items online, bad manners etc etc.)
SP has proven to be a lot of fun to do though (all hail atma and /players 8!), especially when reading stuff on this forum.
thus i want to participate in this tournament.
my first entry (since i will most likely die soon due to massive lack of d2 knowledge) will be a guided a/strafe/valk amazone. (i really like bowzons :yes
I will start her grand scheme of world domination (whait..what?) erm i mean world de-demonisation right after this post.
char name: Moossacre (i fail at being creative) lvl: 1(duh) location:my mind
Mara did a full clear of NM Act 5 at Players 7 (every monster, every evil urn, every everything) up until the NM Throne of Destruction where she will now be eternally resting with Kaiko and Amarantine. Mara entered the Throne of Destruction . . . nothing. She stepped to the right . . . Ghouls! . . great those are easy . . . killed them. Mara rounded the corner . . . Hell Temptresses . . . okay those are pretty easy . . . killed them. Okay so what is monster type number three? Mara dropped some traps in the hallway going off to the right . . . nothing . . . Mara adavanced to about where the traps were and at that point some dolls rounded the corner at high speed, sped through the shadows and blew up next to Mara faster than I could turn to run or hit a Full Rejuvenation Potion. Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! . . and I had even been thinking about that scenario moments before the death :banghead: .
[highlight]Mara, Traps, NM Throne of Destruction, Level 73, RIP[/highlight]
@ ancalagon: Wow, amazing Andy drop. Were those all uniques or is my monitor playing with me?
@ MOOsaccre: Welcome to the board and welcome to the tourney! Good luck with your 'Zon!
Tiny Fishyzon update. Things go way, way more slowly with Klaudia killing everything. Cleared the Highland, the Pit, Inner Cloister, and Barracks. Mostly Fishyzon locked herself in the cells as Klaudia shot an arrow at a Dark One, walked three steps, fired another arrow, walked seventeen steps as the mob chased her, stopped, shot an arrow, killed a Dark One, fired two or three more arrows as the mob scattered, repeat. WHY did my Gull have to spawn ethereal? And why can't I trade Klaudia in for an Act 2 merc yet? /whine.
I hit level 18 in the Barracks and spent about 4 skill points on assorted skills. Hmm...gambled a splendid pair of 20% MF boots, got some 15% gloves, and with all my other equipment that puts me at a solid 193% MF.
edit: @ HanShotFirst: NOOOOOOOOO! Mara was doing so well! As a guy who was just offed by one of his skills doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing, I can commiserate. Hope you rejoin!
.
If you weren't allowed to play the character afterwards, I bet you would have been much more careful. Thanks for playing and good luck with your Druid. If you are unsure about his eligibility just ask. (here or via PM).
