Ok, I'm in again - I just can't seem to keep away. This time I am determined to beat Mephisto & Diablo since this is where my other characters have met their demise.
This time will be a javazon of some description using, mostly lightning skills with jab & plague mostly likely as back up skills
She was happily shooting everything in sight hiding behind her valk, lots of demon carcasses, less than lots of decent drops... everything was well!
till she ran into one of the temples, paniced because there was a huge pack of vipermagi+arachinds+those act 1 rogue lookalikes, tried to get away but was steamrolled to death.
well next time i will just have to pay attention (i could have left the temple instantly, but instead i took 2 steps to the right and recast valk, then started a strafe and was surrounded)
oh well atleast she got through act 1 and 2.
rip moossacre lvl 32 strafezon
anyway, time for a new char.
introducing : ....... VikingJohn the concentration/find item barb!
The idea behind this bugger is that though he wont have a lot of life, he will have loads of defense and max block. Maxed battle orders will give him some decent hp (atleast for this tourney)
Also he will have 1 or more point in find item, wich will (hopefully) help him getting some decent gear (i had some really terrible drops with my zon)
i could use some advice on how to play him & what merc to get (prolly act 2, but wich one? i can see multiple of their auras beeing nice)
im worried though that he wont dish out enough damage to get stuff to actually die (i put my first points into sword mastery, good weapon choice or should i remake him?).
also : is it safe/smart to use berserk when IMd?
and last but not least : where is the diablo 2 screenshot folder :whistling:?
@Moosaccre Sorry to hear about the death of a fellow strafezon. It's astonishing those temple stair traps have not claimed other casualties yet (fingers crossed).
Your screenshot folder is either the d2 folder (e.g. "c: \program files\diablo ii" (damn smilies)) or, if you use a mod like rrm and/or rwm, it's the folder of the mod (for me "...\diablo ii\redrunemod")
Good luck with your (melee!) barb. I don't know anything about barbs, so I won't try to give advice :whistling: I'll definitely follow your progress.
edit: I can recommend the (sticky) Mat/Pat/Guardian thread. Maybe there is a similar build you can take pointers from.
@my previous ramblings: I decided to go with NefEth for the WWS. This frees up the gloves slot (previously cleglaws). My next update will be more of an equipment review, since battles have been far less eventful than gambling, crafting and reshuffling equipment.
Yes, as long as you don´t run out of mana. If you do, your barbarian will do an Attack instead, which can be lethal to him if he´s got a powerful weapon.
There are Storm Casters in the Chaos Sanctuary, and their missiles drain mana. But that is not much, and it can easily be handled with potions (I like greater mana potions best, because they give mana over a long time (as long as the mana orb isn´t full)). Mana Burn bosspacks are more dangerous around IM, as they can wipe out all mana in one hit.
The young fallen, playing innocently by the stagnant pool hard by the Rogues camp, failed the see the thin pale stranger sidle uneasily out of the shadows of the palisade into the bright sunlight of the moor.
I do so hate physical violence, thought Mortiphye, as he mumbled a brief incantation over the diminuitive body that lay half submerged in the murky water. A handful of daisies floated away.*
"So you, you shall do for me......Harry.......... Yes........ I shall call you Harry"
The Summoner smiled as within seconds a single tall bleached white skeleton filled with evil intent arose on the Moor and smiled back.
Very nice drop. How much gear did you have to swap out to be able to wear it? After this and the skystrike/skystrike/skystrike drops for everyone else, I was definitely wrong to ignore MF.
Tarantella – What?! You’re really going to leave us hanging at the Hell Ancients and create another character (phew, you sure know how to build suspense). Nice intro by the way!
Hadriela started NM by changing out some epuipment (monstly ditching her Umbral Disk (bye bye +20 life) for a two pdiamond shield so that her resistances and stats were these (only 150 life . . . uhohs). Hadriela’s big hopes were to locate a four socketed sword and an Amn Rune (Spirit) and a four socketed partizan and a Sol Rune (Insight). After doing a full clear of NM Act 1 at Players 7 Hadriela managed to locate an Amn Rune and a four socketed partizan! . . good that she found half the things she wanted . . . bad that she still can’t make any of the runewords she so desperately wanted. There were however a couple of good finds (bad news is they were both gloves). Magefists dropped in the Mausoleum and seemed to help ease Hadriela’s mana consumption until Bloodfists dropped in the Outer Cloister (boosting Hadriela’s life from 156 to 196 . . . 25% more life! . . yes, I’ll choose that one any day). The finding of Bloodfists offset the disappointment of not finding a four socketed sword (for Spirit) . . . 156 life made things really scary . . . 196 life made things seem much safer . . . (and 240 life is going to be super awesome I’m sure . . . now why couldn’t I find a single four socketed sword :scratchhead: )?
Hadriela’s battles went much better than her item finding. Here was a dangerous mana burn / extra strong archer (hey, I did say ‘was’) . . . that pretty much sums up NM Act 1 . . . there were plenty of monsters that could have killed Hadriela but her massive Frozen Orb damage got them before they could get her. Okay, so there was a bit more to it than that . . . Hadriela was extremely cautious in her advances and employed her strategy of scouting with Hydra and using Telekinesis to open doors (the using Telekinesis to open doors probably saved Hadriela’s life as there were lots of nasty monsters camped out right behind a great many closed doors).
The Forgotten Tower was seemingly the most dangerous area (Hadriela only had 154 hit points at the time and it was indoors so Hadriela’s light radius was pretty small). The Forgotten Tower had a couple stair traps (neither too bad) and plenty of dangerous uniques (numerous mana burners) but Hadriela didn’t get hit once due to the heroic actions of Azrael who (with Hadriela’s nudging/teleporting) boldly went into danger at the forefront of the charge (he also died a couple times but better him than Hadriela :grin: ). Azrael also boldly led the charge against Andariel (buying Hadriela time to static the demon). The battle against Andariel lasted about a minute and the good guys almost made it out unscathed but Andariel’s poison got Azrael seconds before the demon dropped.
@Jiansonz. Congrats on making it to NM! I look forward to reading about your adventures in Act 1. Oh and gieb me Goblin Toe! Iago is hungry for some CB to speed up his killing speed. CB is a mod very high on my wish list and Goblin Toe would be great! Although Gore Riders would be even better :smug:.
@scrcrw. Holy dam! Nice finding a Witchwild String! That is a really great bow and will be great in the hands of a strafer. Upgrade it ASAP for more physical damage!
@Hans. Dam you are speedy arn't you! Nice progress! Good luck in Act 2. Be very careful of bettles! Their lighting sparks are very dangerous, especially for someone like Hadriela who has low life. Poor Drake, who still lays on the floors of the in the Arcane Sanctuary, urges you to be careful of them.
@Tarantella. How dare you leave us hanging at Hell Ancients! Lol jokes....but seriously!
@Everyone. Great progress all! Keep it up!
Just a smallish update on Iago. Since returning to Melbourne i haven't had much time to play with him, so there hasn't been much progress. Although he has managed to kill the Countress and is ready to progress further.
I've decided to slow down to let Jiansonz catch up .
Imp Cowl
Circlet
Defense: 28
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 29
Fingerprint: 0xc2dd7a57
Item Level: 34
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Sorceress Skill Levels
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+86 to Mana
All Resistances +6
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Attacker Takes Damage of 8
Too bad there's no FCR but I'll take everything else at this point in the game.
She is now sitting in the Pandemonium Fortress after zipping through the final bit of Act 3. Mephisto didn't put up any fight. Between my static field and Chalan's savage bill, P8 Mephisto was vanquished in about 10-15 seconds. He dropped nothing of use.
I saw my first stair trap in one of the temples. We walked down into a bunch of beetles. Glacial spike to "pause" the action followed by a quick teleport to reposition everyone and that was that.
Tarantella, congrats on getting so far. I assume you are starting a new character just to put off finishing the tournament. That's pretty cool. So far, Gloams seem to be your only difficulty so far in the game. Good luck not getting them in the WSK (whenever you do get around to it).
Brutass, welcome back to the tournament.
Moosa, RIP for your character and thanks for trying again. You wouldn't happen to remember which temple it was would you? If it had Flesh Hunters it was likely to have been the Ruined Temple (although the other temples can certainly have those as well). If you can't remember which it was, can you remember whether it was in the Bazaar, Upper, or Causeway area?
scr, AWESOME drop dude! You made an interesting choice with the runes. People usually put Shaels/IAS jewels in there, but Nef + Eth might be smarter in your untwinked case.
Iago has had a rather tentative start to NM. Being Melee, low life and very fragile isn’t exactly fun at all. I wish I could tell you the amount of NDE’s I have had, unfortunately there has been too many for me to remember...its been quite absurd really. Not a good indication at all of Iago’s future!
I soon realised that my “Steel” Battle Axe wasn’t useless after all! Despite its low damage, the attack speed makes up for it and allows for very quick attacks, which means, quicker life leech. The Halberd hits harder, but is considerably slower, making it quite scary if I have to rely on the life leech in dangerous situations. However, having said that because the Halberd hits harder, I leech more life. So it really came down to preference and the situation at hand. I ended up using them equally.
I new the considerable amount of NDE would eventually lead to Iago’s demise. I was right.
In the Pit level 2, I somehow managed to get surrounded between a pile of rocks and Fallen, who mind you hit very hard! I think the champion must have had extra fast, because they closed in on me in a flash. I new at this stage I was done for. With no shield for blocking, I was put in hit recovery every time I tried to Fury. Each swing was just too slow for me to rely on my LL to re-fill my bulb. I tried to break free, gulping reds and purple’s like crazy. There was just too many of them!
It seems like melee characters are going to have a very tough ride in this tournament. Hats off to anyone capable of making it all the way! Wakiki i am looking at you!
So it’s yet another deeds for me and for this tournament. I guess all is not lost though, as Iago, embarrassingly..... is my most successful melee HC character lol. Thinking back I haven’t made alot of HC melee characters, so Iago is now my benchmark. Also looking at the table, pending on where Thomh's Fire Claw Druid is, Iago is the 2nd highest melee character! 1st is our tournament creater, Wakiki, whose Meleemancer is still chugging along nicely :nod:.
Will I join this tournament again? I can’t say right now. I think I need some time to mourn over Iago’s death and get back to the drawing board.
@ wakiki it was the upper left temple in the kurast bazaar, i screened but cant find my screenshot folder (its not in the d2 directory, and safe for atma i have no addons)
Vikingjoe sped through the cave, where he found a superiour, 3-socketed sword. After stuffing in 3 gems (a chipped saph,emarald and ruby), he proceeded clearing everything up to blood raven having loads of exp shrine luck. Having 50% magic find pretty soon thanks to good topaz drops, he found a lot of rares (some rings a belt, a lot of crappy leather armors)
After dispatching of bloodraven and her graveyard-smash, the sturdy barbarian went to go bother the tree of inifuss and free deckard cain, and is now chilling out at the rogue camp.
VikingJoe, lv 14 conc barb, the black marsh.
edit: damn, rip Iago. Awesome job coming that far though (i hope my barb will come that far)
i hope to avoid getting shield or hitrecoverylocked by using concentration, but between that, watching the hell out for iron maiden and having such low hp, i can imagine it beiing really tough playing a melee char.
Those little buggers sure can swarm you quickly. Too bad you didn´t retreat a few steps before they closed you in. They would not have been able to stand a chance if you had met them on the stairs just next to you. What a cruel fate.
(and I bet you wish you´d had a Cold Act III merc in this situation)
Those little buggers sure can swarm you quickly. Too bad you didn´t retreat a few steps before they closed you in. They would not have been able to stand a chance if you had met them on the stairs just next to you. What a cruel fate.
(and I bet you wish you´d had a Cold Act III merc in this situation)
It was quite amazing at how fast they surrounded me!
They seemed to do it tactically as well, some charged first, directly head on and attacked, then a few of them came from 2 differernt angels and boxed me in!
Funny you say that about the stair fighting, because I was doing that just prior to getting surrounded. I used the long range from the Halberd to stand behind Chalan, who tanked. However, as i moved down it opened up to a larger space with more paths and the sheer amount of monsters prevented me to keep the formation.
@moosacre
If you're running Windows Vista/7, try checking
"C: \Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Diablo II"
I'd like to park my singer barb Wababa (lvl 17, outer cloister) to start a wind druid, if that's OK. Using Find Item on every single corpse is very tedious and time consuming. If he needs to be killed off, I'll do so, but I'm hoping to resume him when the druid dies.
Sorry for the delayed update, but I had to take the wws out for a quick spin (i.e. Act IV). I was not disappointed. Also: Scroll down towards the end for new absolutely incredible drops (if you don't want to read the rest).
At the end of the last update SoapBubble, the strafezon, was standing in the NM Rogue Encampment, slightly worried at her dismal resistances (-13 lr).
Nevertheless she bravely ventured out into the wilderness.
The first exciting finds were 2xShael in the Stony Field and Dark Wood respectively. For the moment they were of no use though.
After Tristram (iirc) she got her "Edge" bow out (well, actually it was the main bow) for a bit of gambling. The results did not disappoint:
Code:
Brimstone Hood
Circlet
Defense: 28
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0xcf6a7b0f
Item Level: 44
Version: Expansion 1.10+
12% Chance to cast level 4 Nova when struck
Adds 21 Poison Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
+5 to Dexterity
All Resistances +17
Lightning Resist +35%
24% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items 1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
and
Code:
Stone Emblem
Amulet
Required Level: 30
Fingerprint: 0x639805eb
Item Level: 43
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Passive and Magic Skills (Amazon Only)
+10% Faster Cast Rate
All Resistances +9
Poison Resist +21%
Damage Reduced by 4
Both Items were gambled within a few tries. This meant of course that resist problems were a thing of the past. The (inbuilt) socket was a nice extra.
Together with the armor this meant I could keep up around 50% mf (not great, but better than nothing). The armor is actually still the one from early A2 Normal:
Code:
SoapBubble's Armageddon Cloak
Chain Mail
Defense: 85
Durability: 135 of 135
Required Level: 7
Required Strength: 48
Fingerprint: 0x4460061c
Item Level: 18
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+17% Faster Hit Recovery
+13% Enhanced Defense
+1 to Strength
+10 to Life
+3 to Mana
26% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items 2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Flawed Topaz
Socketed: Flawed Topaz
Maybe Soapbubble will wear it till hell...
The rest of Act I was no problem. The Valk was still going strong, so it didn't matter that strafe did no actual damage. I was keeping my eyes open for a Ceremonial Bow to socket or imbue though.
After Radament the next big decision was to be made. Valk was maxed and so I had to decide on a secondary attack. Since the Numbers for FA failed to impress me, I decided to go with the obvious choice: Lightning Fury.
Luckily I had "Pelta Lunata" stashed away since early Normal and paired with some random Ceremonial Javs went to the second slot (Zephyr had to go). Rhyme was not an option, since the bow had no resistances.
I also crafted some (weak) blood boots:
Code:
Skull Trample
Light Plated Boots
Defense: 10
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 27
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0xabb583d9
Item Level: 51
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10% Faster Run/Walk
3% Life stolen per hit
+18 to Life
Replenish Life +7
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
Repairs 1 Durability in 33 Seconds
Shortly afterwards (in the Far Oasis or so) much better boots dropped:
However Soapie couldn't put them on yet, because she had too much light res...
Equipment fixed for the moment, the rest of A2 was quickly finished.
Duriel dropped nothing of interest (and was easily tanked by the valk). Lightning Fury was beginning to be decently effective against larger groups.
Several lr charms (around 50-60% in total) found in late A2 and early A1 prompted the next equipment change. Soapie again put on the old circlet (fire dmg, 20mf, fr, cr) and the new boots with mf and lr. The rest of the lr (up to 47 or so) was provided by charms.
Maybe I should mention at this point that since mid A5 normal, I have played on /p5 (p7 for WSK and the Arcane Sanctuary NM).
In A3 most of the single-target-kills still had to be done by the valk. Larger mobs were efficiently eliminated by LF. Strafe (still with the Edge Reflex Bow) had stopped to do any noticeable damage and only provided ow, cold etc.
Since the valk easily tanked Mephisto, I could simply walk away and get a coffee (i.e. I would have in SC, for HC I stayed and watched :whistling.
As you already know, Mephisto dropped a WWS. This of course prompted another gear reshuffle (which turned out to be rather minor). I swapped the mf/lr boots for the blood boots again, stashed several lr charms and the life lc which had to much cold res on it.
I also switched Cleglaw's gloves for some blood crafts.
For the WWS I decided to go with Nef (for the KB) and Eth (cth is not that high at ~3k ar). Shael didn't seem worth it for the minor speed increase.
Additionally, to get the resistances on the javelin slot up, I made a Rhyme bone shield. Max Block is obviously no problem with nearly 300 dex.
With the equipment sorted out, Soapie took on A4. This was quite a lot of fun, with improved strafe and really strong LF.
First decent drop was a ring with 10x ar and 30 life (somewhere around Izual).
The HF yielded a Lem. Rather disappointing, since Treachery is not allowed (for boosting resists higher than 50) and relying on the ctc in Hell seems a bit dangerous. I had hoped for Pul or Lum for maybe upgrading my wws at some point. The highest rune (besides Lem) is a Dol, so that won't happen anytime soon.
The CS was rather easy. The Valk died only once to IM. The Vizier and De Seis were quickly dispatched. For a change the Infector was actually the easiest since LF worked great against his group. After the smoke had cleared I spotted this on the floor. Since it turned out to be +2 zon skills, Soapie will probably use it once she has enough strength.
I was a bit scared of Diablo and decided to spawn him at /p3. As it turned out the fight was rather easy. The Valk managed twice to get near enough to him so that the lightning hose couldn't hurt her.
His drop was even more incredible than the valk wings :smug:
Enough for now. I might add a few things later, but rl is calling.
@ wakiki it was the upper left temple in the kurast bazaar, i screened but cant find my screenshot folder (its not in the d2 directory, and safe for atma i have no addons)
Vikingjoe sped through the cave, where he found a superiour, 3-socketed sword. After stuffing in 3 gems (a chipped saph,emarald and ruby), he proceeded clearing everything up to blood raven having loads of exp shrine luck. Having 50% magic find pretty soon thanks to good topaz drops, he found a lot of rares (some rings a belt, a lot of crappy leather armors)
After dispatching of bloodraven and her graveyard-smash, the sturdy barbarian went to go bother the tree of inifuss and free deckard cain, and is now chilling out at the rogue camp.
VikingJoe, lv 14 conc barb, the black marsh.
edit: damn, rip Iago. Awesome job coming that far though (i hope my barb will come that far)
i hope to avoid getting shield or hitrecoverylocked by using concentration, but between that, watching the hell out for iron maiden and having such low hp, i can imagine it beiing really tough playing a melee char.
It probably is but it will deserve extra special congratulations
You could get up to over 1500 health quite comfortably, which is not too shabby. With a defiance merc and a high shout you will also have not insignificant defence. If you also go for max block then...
If there is one thing I would say it is: Howl. It is an incredible skill for a hardcore melee barbarian. Also, don't forget to use taunt on mummies and souls, to force them into melee and unable to use ranged attacks. If you are not going for whirlwind (probably a bad idea in this tournie) at least still put 1 point into leap or leap attack; it will save your bacon at some point, I gaurantee it.
Tarantella, congrats on getting so far. I assume you are starting a new character just to put off finishing the tournament. That's pretty cool. So far, Gloams seem to be your only difficulty so far in the game. Good luck not getting them in the WSK (whenever you do get around to it).
Cheers, actually I'm putting off dying in the keep.:alright:
Joking aside, Damasque didnt enter the keep so Arreat Summit is her current pitch (and 85 her current level) I'll probably do the temple first first but its not territory I'd normally choose to enter in notwink hardcore. However if someone gets close on the ladder I'll go straight for Baal otherwise I'll stand down till after xmas so people with time on their hands can carry on playing during the hols.:wave:
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unk: nice!
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