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Vessel of Hatred

The Committed Tournament

Finished Act III NM. Some nice finds I'll summarize below:

View attachment 2000

These were helpful Io's, which you'll see why below.

View attachment 2001

Doesn't beat my Malice Halberd.

View attachment 2002

A multitude of melee characters would have loved this weapon.

View attachment 2003

YES!

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Alittle cube magic and then....

View attachment 2005



Lionheart
Breast Plate
'HelLumFal'
Defense: 66
Durability: 33 of 50
Required Strength: 26
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0x1c3af82b
+25 to Strength
+10 to Energy
+15 to Dexterity
+20 to Vitality
+50 to Life
+20% Enhanced Damage
All Resistances +30
Requirements -15%
Socketed (3: 3 used)

With this I was able to change my gear significantly. I moved out 6 inventory spots worth of strength charms (which can used for live and mana now) but I lost +1 skills, cannot be frozen and magic damage reduction on the Spirit Shroud. I am going on crafting spree shortly and hopefully my gear will improve more.

Element the all energy, lightning sorceress, level 64, with Ahsab the Prayer Guard, Act 4 NM
 
I typically don't post updates "mid" act, but this was just unbelievable (the memory staff was dropped to equip the hammer).

View attachment 2006

The lighting is a little weird, but here is it. Plus I have the more difficult of the two runes needed to upgrade. I've already used 2 Lum runes (one found, one cubed) on the Memory Staff and Lionheart Armor and don't have any more to spare, so the upgrade will have to wait. I actually just made Treachury for my mercenary so I plan on dropping in a Shael (to hit the 65% breakpoint) and the other two will probably be Amns for essential life steal. Those coupled with his circlet of life steal (6%) should keep him alive given my lack of decent crowd control.

Hone Sundan
Yari
Two-Hand Damage: 101 to 205
Durability: 28 of 28
Required Strength: 101
Required Level: 37
Spear Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0xce3536b5
+180% Enhanced Damage
+20 to Minimum Damage
+40 to Maximum Damage
45% Chance of Crushing Blow
Repairs 1 durability in 10 seconds
Socketed (3: 0 used)


Edit: Unbelievable....just found this literally 6 minutes after the post above.

View attachment 2007


Edit #2. Thank you Lord De Seis. If I get my strength up to 55 and find some other pieces of Tal's set, we will have matching headpeices.

View attachment 2008
 
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Quick question. Would I be allowed to use 'Enlightenment' armor and wear it to prebuff energy shield? Below is the read out from Arreat Summit:

Enlightenment (Sorceress)
3 Socket Body Armor
Pul + Ral + Sol
5% Chance To Cast Level 15 Blaze When Struck
5% Chance To Cast level 15 Fire Ball On Striking
+2 To Sorceress Skill Levels
+1 To Warmth
+30% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +30%
Damage Reduced By 7

I do not think this is a "sorcessess only" +1 to warm; therefore, it would fall under the same rule that allows anyone to use berserk with 'passion' and should be allowed. Let me know your thoughts.
 
kestegs, does this mean that Sharon can wear Peace?

From AS:

4% Chance To Cast Level 5 Slow Missiles When Struck
2% Chance To Cast level 15 Valkyrie On Striking
+2 To Amazon Skill Levels
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+2 To Critical Strike
Cold Resist +30%
Attacker Takes Damage of 14

Since Critical Strike is not "amazon only" on this armor?
 
Yes, that too. An amazon can't use a melody bow is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.
 
Thanks for the clarification kestegs. I wonder if the Valkyrie will poof without a hard point in the skill. I guess it is worth the runes to find out. Sharon's horsepower is pretty low, and a couple of additional skills will help. Of course, her resistances are terrible...

Enough about Sharon, I have another character to introduce. I started to think about doing a titan werewolf a couple of weeks ago and since in tournaments I normally choose for caster type characters to stay out of the fray, I thought I'd break the mold and go with a melee character. So let me introduce Whitefang, the all-strength werewolf. He is committed to using an act III cold mercenary to assist in his travels. So let's post up some pictures of his journey thus far.

He started the quest to win his love's hand with a simple club and buckler but before long had acquired a scepter which hit a bit harder. Coldcrow was a bit of a challenge with her chilling effect, but after she got separated from her comrades, she went down.
View attachment 2011

Here is how I "dismissed" the bow mercenary. You can see that by this point Whitefang was fighting in his wolf state, and had access to Feral Rage, which I've never used before. It is a very cool skill which has been the workhorse skill so far. This stairs trap would have been real trouble without the life leech from Feral Rage.
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Any Ghostly type champion was difficult due to the fact that my attack speed is greatly reduced in wolf form when chilled. Mental note for later I suppose. I tried to keep this guy away from me by fighting in doorways but my placement wasn't always perfect.
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Andariel required no special treatment. I walked straight to her and raged away. Radament got the same treatment.
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Act I was pretty slow, and so was Act II, at least until I got the Horadric Cube. At that point I was waiting for a Tir rune to make a Steel Large Axe and upgrade my damage from the slow junk I was using (I had a level 4 Werewolf skill and no IAS - Ugh). I was able to cube a Tir from Elds before I found one, made the Steel, and shortly thereafter was able to cube a savage Lochaber axe with 30% IAS, which is my current weapon. It works really nice at this point and the Steel Large Axe is still on switch for when I want to stop monster regeneration (like with champions).

Here's a situation that would have been deeds for sure without Feral Rage. If I was careful about attacking leechable monsters every few targets, the life bulb stayed pretty full. A mana potion to keep the rage going and a red now and again were all that were necessary to walk away from this.
View attachment 2015

I employed a similar tactic in this room as well, though it was pretty dicey for a while. I ran in searching for unravelers and stirred up a hornet's nest and got trapped. I figured it would be a good ending shot if I died. I can't leap out like a barbarian or teleport out like a sorceress.
View attachment 2016

This is in the same room about halfway through the battle. I switched from skeleton to beetle to skeleton to gorebelly to keep the leech stable. If I'd killed all the leechables first, it would have been game over.
View attachment 2017

Here is the same shot after breaking free on one side and going to hunt down the unravelers. You can see one by the sparkly. I did three false tombs after I killed Duriel, in case you're wondering about the life/mana totals. I needed to mule to ATMA.
View attachment 2018

That was the craziest mob I've ever gotten out of without being either a barb or a sorc. I am guessing that tactic won't work well in NM or Hell. Looks cool though.

Duriel dropped a Manald Heal, a 7% Mana Leech version and my days of drinking blues are about over for now. The +20 life is more than doubled too. You can probably guess my tactic for fighting Duriel - stand toe to toe and let Feral Rage keep the life bulb full, which it did.
View attachment 2019

Act III was uneventful, and Whitefang wasted to no time getting his newfound Iron Wolf Ajheed into the mix. For the most part Mephisto concentrated on my Feral Raged Druid but twice he was kind enough to throw an ice ball of doom at Ajheed, killing him before I could kill him. His drop was all rares and a low rune.
View attachment 2020

Whitefang, level 32 Titan Wolf, Pandemonium Fortress
 
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I made the Peace RW armor and tried it out. The valk did poof but it was pretty useful in many situations like this one.
View attachment 2023

Then I bumped up against some cold enchanted infidels in the crystalline passageway and once they killed the merc they got a lucky swipe on Sharon and she was slower than they were and I was slower on the rejuvs than I needed to be. The infidel killed me on the third jab. Argh. I guess I'm rustier at this game than I thought.
View attachment 2024

RIP Sharon, level 69 Bowazon in the Crystalline Passageway
 
Sorry about the deeds to all, really feel for you guys :( Haven´t been here for a long time as I had really brutal hard work weeks recently and all this happens...

Screenshot070.jpg

Yajirushi managed to finish Act II, slay Duriel and clear all the false tombs. In one of them she found a fancy rare amulet (35% MF!!!) but she better sold it for a good amount of gold. On the way East, her and her companion meditated. When leaving the deck, Yajirushi sniffed something really nasty. She has seen nothing, though. Only Meshif, who´s face was looking uncommonly red. Was he blushing?

YAJIRUSHI - Pure Dexterity Bow Assasin - Level 28, Kurast Docks
 
Darn, sorry about the loss. I'm afraid a rusty moment like that will get me as well. But at least you had a backup already with good progress.

And now my update, as promised:

I had considered bumping act 4 up to /p3, but am glad i did not, as things were tougher than I expected. The merc died many, many times, and I was rather worried that I was going to run out of money early on. There is a much higher physical resistance in general it seems, and a lot of bosses became PI. Here's a tough one in the plains.

I thought that this fanaticism spawner was pretty bad, but he was nothing compared to his brother.

When I went to apply my reward points I realized that I had been pumping the wrong fire skill on accident. I had been putting points in firestorm to increase the duration of armagedon, only problem is that you actually need fissure for that. Oh well, reading is hard.

Somehow, all my bad drop luck converged to find the very unlikely charm.

I was feeling confident heading down to the river, we started walking down the stairs and were immediately greeted by some regular monsters and a pack of mage knights. I wasn't too worried, but then the merc dropped instantly. Before I could figure out what was going on I had several NDEs in a row, with life reaching below 25%. I went back up the stairs, resurrected him, and this time tried heading away from the boss pack to clear some space. After doing so I headed back down to the boss and bam, merc was dead before I even saw the pack of monsters! Some how I was able to lure the boss away just far enough to get a shot of him. (cursed, FE, Extra fast) At first I thought he must have had some kind of holy aura, because I was getting cursed off screen most of the time before I even saw him. I finally figured out that he and his minions were bugged to not show their projectiles. I tried a bit to figure out a way to get him down, but his pack was just a few steps away, and he wasn't going to budge. With no was to get any closer there was no way tornadoes were going to kill him. So he had to get parked, and he, his minions, and anything else that was hiding in that back section join PI/CI Corpsefire on my "allowed to live" list.

I was excited about the forge, as it was guaranteed to be my highest rune drop so far. I was still trying to determine just exactly how the game was going to screw me with runes again though. Oh, that's how! Not much to do but make a principle I guess, pretty useless rune without another good rune to go with it.

Nothing else was too eventful, Infector was difficult, but not too bad with a lot of running and being very careful.

Diablo far exceeded my difficuly expectations. The merc was pretty good at getting melted, and was not of much use. Diablo took to regularly trying to prison me, like every 15 seconds or so I think. Not too dangerous, except the one time when I screwed up the buttons on my switch and couldn't get out for about 5 seconds. But in the end he went down without too much difficulty. Drop is interesting, and actually pretty useful. The rockstopper got a hole punched in it and went on the merc, which should help him be a lot more tanky, as his resists were all in the 50s. The demon limb will sadly never see any use with its far too high str requirement.

On to the final act now!

I'll try to get that table updated soon, been slacking off there.
 
GL Kestegs with the final act! Maybe you can leave the Demon Limb on the ground somewhere for my wolf to use. He can't hit the broad side of a barn.
 
Yes, Abyss Knight bosspacks are bugged as heck in v1.13. It's not just invisible projectiles, it's the fact that they act like one being and it's nigh impossible to break up the packs. The invisible projectiles seem to carry the effects of every member of the pack and hit all at once.

I had to deal with a double pack of these with my Passive-Aggresive tourney Enchantress. They were in a bad spot, too, a narrow passage I had to get through. I did evetually defeat them using an insane number of fast teleports and sacrificing the merc many many times (and even more fat purples to him every second a couple of times) just to kill one of them (if I was lucky) each 'round'.
 
jiansonz said:
Yes, Abyss Knight bosspacks are bugged as heck in v1.13. It's not just invisible projectiles, it's the fact that they act like one being and it's nigh impossible to break up the packs. The invisible projectiles seem to carry the effects of every member of the pack and hit all at once.

I had to deal with a double pack of these with my Passive-Aggresive tourney Enchantress. They were in a bad spot, too, a narrow passage I had to get through. I did evetually defeat them using an insane number of fast teleports and sacrificing the merc many many times (and even more fat purples to him every second a couple of times) just to kill one of them (if I was lucky) each 'round'.
Click to expand...
I thought I vaguely remembered that being the case. The one guy seemed to hit for around 3-400ish damage, without being cursed, which seems high, especially since it was all physical due to cyclone armor.

I only had about 10 full juves, otherwise I might have tried some suicide runs on him. I also might have tried harder if I hadn't already blown my full clear [emoji14]
 
Alright, another update, because I may forget this stuff if I don't do it now...

Act 5 started out with a bad roll, and I got javelin cats and burning archers in the foothills. Both have very low life though, so at least they go down quick if you can safely get close enough. Got a nice armor there as well, although he can't use it yet due to needing his current one.
Merc is just hanging back doing something while I do all the dirty work here . Shenk was a little rough with his conviction aura.

Got more spear cats in the frigid highlands, yay! Interesting drop I tried to use it later, but my AR was way to low to hit anything enough to even keep them poisoned. (pus spitter)

Pit or Acheron was actually not too bad, only bad monster was the witches (life tap curse ones). This was a little scary :p
Oh but wait, just when I thought the coast was clear there were 3 champ Blood lords guarding the chest. Groaaaan. At this point I had built up a ridiculous amount of juves from the previous area and so I was able to get them down, took about 3 full juves and some healers for each one. I think I had 25+ juves before them.

The plateau was really easy, with boars, light mages, and demon tricksters. The pit area was simple as well, it had lords in it, but no bosses or champs of them. Thresh was fairly easy. (Holy shock aura)

Going down to the crystal passage there was only one thing to worry about: Lords. Only took a very short amount of time to figure out I had them, and I immediately had a boss pack. With good placement and twister spammage he could handle a couple minions at a time without too much trouble. Almost all of the damage to them comes from my hurricane, the merc does almost no elemental damage. And here's the boss. I tries briefly to get him, but after 4 juves a dead merc and an NDE it was clear that wasn't going to happen. So he got parked by the entrance.

I also got snakes. Yay for snakes! They packed quite a punch and there were some close calls with the 2 boss packs I found. Merc is tanking 4 lords pretty well here. Got another bad mod lord boss. He was also parked. There was also a champ pack of lords guarding the passage entrance. I killed one of them, but at that point my once robust belt was looking very thin with only 3 full juves left in it. I might have been able to full clear the area if I had loaded my whole stash with juves before the session, but even then I don't know. I didn't like it, but I had to end the session there. I now have to make a crazy long trek from the Wp to the glacial trail or crystalline passage for my next session, but I had no choice. I'm not so sure about the crystalline passage either, I think I may save that for later. much later.
 
Mago the Summoner has made it through the jungle. Not much exciting to report, really. Those Flesh Beasts at the start of the act was a great gift to get an army started, then it pretty much rolled along nicely. I was pleased I could bring a good number of Revives with me to the Sszark fight:
MagoH21%20Spider%20Cavern_zpsh6gqkz0m.jpg


The harder they hit, the faster they fall to Thorns (unless they are PI).

I drew Gloams in the Great Marsh. Not as bad as I had feared, because my army is good at tying them up in melee. Plus lightning is the one element I have good protection against.

Lower Kurast had two types of enemies that flee, so we had to do a lot of chasing there.

I do not fear the temples as much as usual (knock on wood) because Revives provide such great protection. Snakes always have the potential to mess things up, though.
Not sure what I will do about multiple zakarum priest packs. We kill slowly, have no way to blind them and I have only one castable minion. I suppose I can make an Iron Golem from a Knockback weapon to try to separate them. We'll see.

[Highlight]Conqueror Mago the Golemancing Lord of Mages and Ajheed the Fire Mage, level 82, Hell Kurast Bazaar next [/Highlight]



The cursing brother of Mago has completed the first act. He's found a green and a gold that have both been useful: Arctic Furs and The Gnasher. The Gnasher gives him enough STR to hold a Small Shield. Dim Vision has been maximally pumped - it now has a duration of over half a minute. He tanked Andariel with crappy blocking but with 268(!) life.
[Highlight]
Geezer the Curses Necro and Blaise the Fire Rogue, level 20, Lut Gholein. [/Highlight]
 
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Whitefang tackled the forces of Hell by acting as a tank versus Izual. His Feral Rage was greater than Izual.
View attachment 2053

He acted as a tank versus Hephasto as well. The aura just meant that he got hit every time. He still swung much faster than Hephasto with his Lochaber Axe of 30% IAS-whatever-the-heck-it-is, so the leech was greater than Hephasto. I think we had to use a couple of reds due to the Spectral Hit, which adds cold damage on some swings. That really puts the hurt on Whitefang and it is his Achilles heel for sure. Must... find... CBF...
View attachment 2054

My fire and lightning resists were just barely out of the single digits when facing Infector of Souls. He nearly melted Whitefang twice and it kind of scared me to face Diablo with such poor resists. During the Infector fight, we had to portal out and return via the waypoint twice. Eventually we prevailed. There was a nice combat shrine right at the entrance to the Chaos Sanctuary that I abused each time as well.
View attachment 2056

Diablo himself was a very entertaining fight. I hadn't been able to make any blood gloves yet since I didn't have any perfect rubies made, and I was still using the 10 to 99 damage savage polearm I had made right after getting the cube, so it was a slow fight, and combining poor damage, about a 60% chance to hit, bad resists, and a merc that ran around a lot and got pummeled often by Diablo's spells, I was pretty pumped that we made it past him. His drop was crap.
View attachment 2057

Moving on to act V, Frozenstein and buddies were not easy since they were also cold enchanted. In fact pretty much all of act V saw Whitefang chilled to the bone and moving at half speed. Half speed means less leech, less damage, and more danger. Plus, the monsters started to get harder to hit here. Whitefang's base AR (remember he is all Strength) is just a shade under 200 I think. It is multiplied nicely by the AR bonuses on werewolf and the attack skills but multiplying a small base number yields trouble. I have been putting points in Werewolf because the 15% AR boost is more than Fury or Feral Rage. So I'm sacrificing raw damage output for chance to hit. I found an Iron (+76 AR) grand charm that raises my chance to hit by about 5%! I need to find a good rare ring or two with some base AR or dexterity on it.
View attachment 2055

Fire boars were easy peasy, especially when they can't mob me like in this walkway over the lava.
View attachment 2058

The Icy Cellar had a nice stair trap with a few cold enchanted monsters. Ugh I hate those guys!
View attachment 2059

The Ancients were FAR easier than the cold areas. I could tank them all, but I did run around a bit to separate them so it was always a 2 on 1 scenario.

I couldn't handle more than two minions of destruction at a time but eventually I got myself backed into a wall so that their knockback wouldn't mess up my swinging range (which seems a bit buggy, especially with Fury) and they went down OK.
View attachment 2060

Baal wasn't too hard. Whitefang didn't have any slow, and he missed Baal about 20 times in a row once (I mean come on, maybe I am 50% CTH but really???) but he had found a 2 os Giant Axe, which swings at 9 fpa for Feral Rage and 7 fpa for Fury (same as the lochaber axe) with a Steel RW in it, which gives +50 AR and 50% OW. It is a good weapon at this stage of the game for ole Whitefang. Every time Baal thought he would be cute and put up some appendages, Whitefang would target them since they are far easier to hit and provide great leech. They were basically purple potions.
View attachment 2061

A cow runner this guy is not. Good thing Ajheed froze many cows. The Cow King was on us almost before we explored, and he was pretty dangerous but he went down and we cleared the level to the tune of a single Eth rune.
View attachment 2062

Whitefang, level 48 Titan Wolf, NM Rogue Camp
 
The action in the preceding update happened a few days ago. Whitefang has ventured into NM with his trusty Lochaber Axe in search of better items. He was able to gamble some better boots and make a pair of blood gloves so he has 7% CB and some additional life. I had been lamenting his lack of CBF though.

And then like Mana from Heaven, this dropped almost right out of the gate. It isn't a Ravenfrost which would satiate much hunger but it is a great start.
View attachment 2063

Shortly after that, I got this drop. Whitefang had found a +3 Lycanthropy wolf head VERY early on and this meant he could make it a +4 wolf head. Done. The Spirit Shroud's +1 skills also gave him a life boost, and a +1 Druid skills amulet added to the pre-buff joy. He normally sports a "Stealth" RW armor for the FRW, as does Ajheed, albeit for the FCR in his case.
View attachment 2064

Ghostly champion stair traps and cold enchanted archers aren't so deadly now that we have a source of CBF.
View attachment 2065

Griswold got tanked. Feral Rage > Griswold, at least here in NM. I'd spent most of my accumulated gold gambling giant axes hoping for something with an open socket (for a Shael) and some ED but it was very dry. I finally found a rare Maul on the ground with a socket in it, so I used one of my two Shael runes in it and upgraded it to a war club, which helped my killing speed by quite a bit. I'd used that Lochaber axe for almost an entire difficulty!
View attachment 2066

Here is Akara's quest reward ring. Not helpful in the least! I need base AR in a bad way!
View attachment 2067

I was hoping this drop would be the answer to my AR problems, since I already have an Angelic's ring, but this turned out to be a Tancred amulet. Still on the lookout! Maybe I can shop or find a nice Fool's weapon.
View attachment 2068

So Whitefang is at the Outer Cloister and raring to go forth and do great things. Ajheed is the group's MVP though; he is great so far. He can freeze enemies endlessly while Whitefang takes huge whiffs of air, missing the enemies' frozen bodies entirely because he can't hit anything. Maybe he should look into getting some glasses or contacts?

Whitefang, level 50 Titan Wolf, NM Outer Cloister
 
I haven't done a very good job of documenting Orbin's progress. He, Fazel, and assorted ravens, wolves, vines, bears, and nature spirits tore through Normal difficulty at /players 8. For almost four full acts I never even had any close calls. They annihilated everything everywhere they went. Nothing could possibly stand against their onslaught. Orbin and friends were unstoppable, invincible even.

Then I reached the end of Act IV and the game's title character curbstomped them all out of existence. Oh well, their deeds of valor will be remembered...

It was fun while it lasted! I still like the idea of doing three tournies at once and I already have an idea for another Committed Passive-Aggressive S/U Worshipper, but for now I'm just going to concentrate on my MFing Amazon. (And maybe do the Living Color tournament even though I really don't have time for it.)

Orbin the Summoning Druid, level 34, DEAD.
 
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