The Committed Tournament

[Kestegs]

Some more nice progress out there! I like the LoM, and I'd expect it's a bit more interesting to play than a traditional summon necro.

Normal was finished with no major issues. Things mostly just melted against my tornadoes. Got an interesting find in the halls, but probably won't ever wear them, as FCR isn't really that crucial, and I'll probably feel like I have plenty once I get a spirit sword. Ancients were actually a bit harder than I expected and they almost killed my merc. I didn't really try to separate them though. Baal took right at about a minute to kill, as he died just after I recast hurricane once. Nothing good dropped though.

Cows were pretty fun, tornadoes one shotted them, so it went very quickly. Here's a shot of my stats/skills at the start of NM. I would like my resists a bit higher, but probably not that big of a deal since I rarely take damage from elemental anyway. I could get rid of my hasauru's buckler if I added a few str charms, but I don't really feel like that. But that would easily max my resists if I did. I guess I'll probably just do that, as I could drop resists charms instead and be better off in the end. At least until I make spirit and have to find enough strength to wield a crystal sword (hopefully eth).

Rhett, Elemental druid, level 48, start NM

I'll get the table updated tomorrow!

 

[SunsetVista]

@Azimuthus - wow, incredible! That was an epic battle! Sorry about the deeds.

After reading the rules, my first thought was everything in Energy ES Sorc. If I join this (not sure if ready to commit) I'm choosing an Act V merc because I am so sick of Act 2 ones.

 

[Kestegs]

I went ahead and made a couple pieces:

Spoiler

Gemmed Breast PlateBreast Plate
Defense: 65
Durability: 49 of 50
Required Level: 18
Required Strength: 30
Fingerprint: 0x97dbb7f
Item Level: 22
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10 to Strength
Replenish Life +5
+38 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 19%
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Perfect Skull
Socketed: Perfect Sapphire
Socketed: Perfect Amethyst

and

Ancients' PledgeLarge ShieldRalOrtTal
Defense: 21
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Level: 21
Required Strength: 34
Fingerprint: 0x2fbbde16
Item Level: 20
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+50% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +43
Lightning Resist +5%
Fire Resist +5%
Poison Resist +5%
10% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune

That puts me at near max resists on all but poison now. Cleared out the moor and den, and it feels good. I forgot how many more boss packs there are in NM. Loving that!

Table of Heroes:
Forum Name        Class                   Char Name  LVL  ACT  Area
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jiansonz          Summon Necromancer      Mago       54   A2(NM) Rocky waste
Dezrok            Martial Assassin        Marita     50   A1(NM) Dark woods
kestegs           Elemental Druid         Rhett      48   A1(NM) Cold plains
felixbavaria      Shadow Assassin         Cisa       48   A1(NM) Rogue encampment
Southpaw8668      Javalein Amazon         Ema        34   A5     Harrogath
japanzaman        Martial Assassin        ??????     30   A5     Ice Caverns
Pb_pal            Shift Druid             Yau        28   A3     Kurast Docks
Toa3t             Bow Amazon              Marnie     14   A1     Blood moor
logoutzero        Warcry Barbarian        Tremolo    11   A1     Stony field
jamesixgun        Bow Amazon              Fatema     11   A1     Cold plains

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Fallen (RIP):
Forum Name        Class                   Char Name  LVL  ACT  Area
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Azimuthus         Trap Assassin           Fury       80   A5(H)  Ancients
logoutzero        Warcry Barbarian        Barry      51   A1(NM) Jail
Southpaw8668      Summon Necromancer      Krelos     30   A3     UK temples
Dazliare          Fire Sorc               Atronach   19   A1     Catacombs
Collateral.Damage Combat Paladin          Parker     15   A1     Stony field
GooberGrape       Shift Druid             Vilkas     14   A1     Black Marsh
Dazliare          Fire Sorc               ???        12   A1     Stony field
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Pb_pal1]

As I mentioned before, last week we were away from reliable internet, hence the lack of updates. Luckily, our playing time wasn't too limited, so we have a fairly substantial update:

--

Yau left the Kurast docks to continue his solitary journey. He was starting to get a little bored having nobody to talk to but the monsters he was pawing in the face, and they never even had anything interesting to say either. His trip through the jungles was fairly easy up until we hit Sszark. Taking him and his pack on alone was not easy, and we had to use up almost all of our Full Rejuvs. Through a mixture of leading him away on purpose and running for our lives, we got him seperated from his minions and were able to deal with him accordingly. Shaman packs in the jungles could be dangerous if we were not careful. The infernos do a fari bit of damage to Yau, but as long as we got to them quickly and stunned them, the threat was neutralized.

We were a bit worried about Stormtree, as if there are several of his kind around, the stun can really put Yau into a bad spot. Luckily, we had no trouble seperating him, and he ended up being quite tame. We cleared the the Kurast cities above ground, and then made a plan for the temples. Interesting to note is that you cannot teleport while shifted, so we had two options. Either go in un-shifted with very low life and try to teleport if there is danger, or go in shifted with reasonable life and just try to establish a foothold that way. We opted for the latter, and figured Shockwave could help us if we got in trouble. The Disused Fane had a very small stair-trap, although I don't know if that can even be considered one, and gave us no issues. We got lucky and could meet Sarina's pack excatly where we wanted to:

Liberal use of Shockwave, plus the stun for Maul made this a walk in the park. None of the other temples ended up having any traps, so it was smooth sailing up to (and including) the council. The Durance was cleared without problems, although exploding dolls can be a bit dangerous as we have no way to hide from their explosion just yet. We are still using our 'Steel' Battle Axe, so we basically bled Meph out:

He still required us to use a bunch of pots, even with being pre-buffed with antidotes. He was never really a problem though, and his drop netted us no improvements over our current gear. Onwards to Act 4!

Not alot to note from Act 4, we just keep growing our life total from our equipment. I have a feeling this will be a major factor in our gear choices down the road. Izual took so long that we un-shifted twice, but was never a threat. Hephasto was dispatched with no trouble, and the Hellforge gave us an Ort. Up we moved through Diablo's Sanctuary, and one the seals were cleared it was time to take the big guy on.

We weren't sure how this fight would go. On the one hand, we had maxed fire and lightning resists and decent life, and on the other we had zero crowd control to use on him and he was going to be done on /p8. Oh well, no better way to find out than to go for it! We hit the last seal and ran into his pentagram. Right away he hosed us and the had to pop a rejuv. Okay, this could get interesting. We basically spent the fight smacking him enough to keep OW triggered and Maul fully charged, while running like a giant baby from his lightning hose. The fight took a LONG time, and we had to make a bunch of town trips to restock pots but eventually we were making progress:

In the end the fight was never super dangerous, as long as we got the heck out of there when he tried to hose us. We did get clipped by a couple for some scary moments, but nothing too bad. His drop, like Meph's, provided us with nothing of use except some gambling gold. We didn't mind, as we were just excited to hop through that portal and get to Harrogath and hire ourselves a partner. All this alone time was making Yau a little loopy.

We cleared up to Shenk without issues, and immediateyl ran forth to free the barbarians from thier cages. FINALLY we had a mercenary! Welcome Ulric, our new companion. Now we not only had a friend to hang out with, but a welcome distraction from Yau for the monsters. He immediately proved his worth, and I'm really liking the extra stun he brings to the party. Progress was quicker now, but more importantly, less tedious. It was not fun for Yau chasing down all those imps by himself. The Pits of Acheron gave us an interesting, and useful, chest drop:

What a lucky break! Those boots are high on Yau's list for end-gamers, and we did not expect to find them with zero MF, much less from a chest! Having some permanent CB is a very handy resource. Act 5 was now pretty much a breeze, and I'm liking Ulric so far. I've only used barb mercs sporadically before, so I'm interested to see how he will turn out. Nothing really notable happened for quite some time, and progress was quick and safe.

Ancients were done with no problems. We got the thrower stuck on a pillar, and Ulric dispatched him while Yau took on the other two. No problems, no NDEs. The WSK and throne were cleared out with no problems, as was wave 1 of Baal's minions. Wave 2 was a real pain, as the cold damage from the skellies made Yau realllllly slow, and the Unravellers refused to move out of Baal's decrep range. We did, however, have some cold damage from charms, so we could shatter the skellies semi-reliably. Lister's pack was tough. They hit hard, and were hard to contain. We managed to seperate Lister and a couple of his buddies from the pack, and we had to lead them all the way down to the entrance, and back up into one of the wings where we could finally kill the minions and get a good position on Lister.

The Baal fight was pretty standard. We made 'Strength' in a maul for the added damage and CB, and switched back and forth from that to our 'Steel' axe during the fight. The OW and CB made fairly short work of Baal, and we were never in too much danger, although his mana drain was annoying.

Another useless drop, but at least we saved Sanctuary from all that evil everyone was talking about. The Cow level was easy, and quite the breeze after meeting the Cow King right off the bat:

A fairly easy trip through normal all in all. Hunger keeps our life and mana bulb full when we need it, and shockwave was useful, even though we only used it sparsely. I'm anticipating needing it alot more in NM, and our AR is starting to suffer, so some gear switching will be necessary I'm sure. The fact that Yau's main attack stuns enemies, and Ulric also stuns them means we manage to keep everything pretty much contained for now, but again we will see how that changes in NM.


Notable finds:
- Duskdeep (currently Yau's helmet until we find a suitable pelt)
- Goblin toe (Yau's current boots)
- Wormskull (Providing some leech for Ulric)
- Only 1 Shael in normal this time, a stark contrast to Calabi's 4 from the PA tournament.



[highlight]Destroyer Yau the Titan Mauler Bear and Ulric the Barbarian - lvl 48, NM Rogue Encampment[/highlight]

 

[Dezrok]

Great progress everyone.

@Pb_pal - nice work with the Bear! Especially nice to find those boots!

@kestegs - just a note for the table. Marita deeded so should join the ranks of the fallen.

 

[jiansonz]

@Pb_pal: nice going getting though Normal, especially without any help at all in the first four acts.

I don't think Hunger will help much later. You will want to spend your time either using crowd control or dealing good damage. I think Hunger is like Cobra Strike, a convenient tool to save potions in the early game but nothing you have time for later.

Wave 2 was a real pain, as the cold damage from the skellies made Yau realllllly slow,

With a build like yours, I always lure those 10 guys out of the throne room before dealing with the Unravelers.

 

[Pb_pal1]

@jiansonz - I have a feeling you're right about Hunger. Yau is already seeing it decline in usefulness. It's still okay situationally, but I'm relying on potions first now, with Hunger as a backup/lazyness skill for when Yau isn't overwhelmed.

--

Yau has set out from the Rogue Encampment at /p8 (NM will be done at this setting in it's entirety). The first thing he noticed is that his AR has become a problem. Maul is now maxed, so we did some gear switching with our jewelery to boost it up to a respectable cth. Our resistances have taken a hit because of this, but they are still very reasonable, so I'm not too worried just yet.

The Den was cleared without issue, as was everything up to the Burial Grounds. Blood Raven took a while, but we managed to track her down and pin her in a corner eventually. Coldcrow proved to be a bit of a challenge, as an archer pack came to help her out partway through the fight (you can see them in the screenie). I don't remember what that pack's mods were, but they vaporized Ulric pretty quickly. We led Coldcrow away and took care of her on her own, and Shockwave made the archers useless while we took them and their boss out. We ran into these nasty buggers right as we finished clearing out the Cave:

There is a second boss pack in there with a Cursed, LE boss. As will be a theme for the rest of Yau's life, Shockwave was the saving grace here. You can see in the screenie that it does a fantastic job of neutralizing minions, even sometimes bosses (it has a 10% chance to stun them). Combine that with the stun from Maul and Ulric, and I've actually got some decent crowd control happening. For now, all future points are going to Shockwave until I'm happy with the duration. IIRC it's actually capped at 10 seconds, despite it displaying higher on the skill readout, so we'll probably stop around there before working on our other skills.

Up and through the Underground Passage, and Treehead gave us a surprise as soon as we entered the Dark Wood. Luckily he wasn't too probelmatic.

We got the scroll, nabbed the WP, and went to save Cain. Griswold was no problem, so we got the old bird out of his cage easily. The game must know that CE bosses and Yau's worst nightmare, as in the Black Marsh we got a CE brute pack, and 2 CE raptor packs all right near each other. They weren't much of a problem as we encountered them later in the clearing, so we had lots of room to work with, but CBF is extremely high on Yau's list of wants right now, and will be very important for Hell. The Countess dropped us a Thul, and we made our way up to the Inner Cloister easily.

The Smith has Blessed Aim, so he connected alot, which actually made him a bit dangerous. We managed to push him up against his fire pit, and from there he was killed. We had to use all of our red pots, but we were never in too much of a bad spot. We found Venom Ward breast plate in the Catacombs, which was a welcome find! The increased PR was going to be handy against Andariel, especially since right now it's sitting at -1. We hit level 53 in Andy's room, so Shockwave now stuns for 4.6 seconds, which is great for dealing with regular monsters. We don't get very overwhelmed anymore, and the playstyle is starting to feel more stabilized. We got Andy parked by the stairs and cleared out the rest of her level, then popped back to town to prep for the fight.

With prebuffed antidotes, and our shiny new Venom Ward, Yau was sporting 95% PR, while Ulric had 85%. The armour switch left us with ~130 less life while shifted, but we figured the higher poison resistance was a good trade off. It turned out to be the right choice. Even with 85% PR, Ulric died almost instantly, so Yau was left to fend for himself. We still had our old 'Steel' axe on switch, so the fight consisted of smacking Andy enough to get her bleeding, drinking pots like a fish, and running laps around her blood pool. She still hit quite hard, and was dangerous enough that we could not fight in melee range for sustained periods of time. We had a couple NDE's where she would hit us a couple times in succession while we were applying OW, so we had to be ready with the purples. Her poison still did serious damage, even with 95% resistance, so we were chugging reds and antidotes like crazy. In between lots of town trips, using all but 3 of our full rejuvs, and 200k+ in merc resurrections and potion purchases, things were finally going our way:

Check out that blood trail around the pool! Eventually we got her down, but it was quite a difficult fight.
We are going to have to start seriously looking for some upgrades to Yau's (and definitely Ulric's) equipment in the next act. Great idea again kestegs with the MF restriction, it's certainly making things interesting.


Other notable finds:
- Io rune
- Carmine Jewel of Carnage (+21 max damage) <---this might be fun to pop in a socket later.


[highlight]Destroyer Yau the Titan Mauler Bear and Ulric the Barbarian - lvl 53, NM Lut Gholein[/highlight]

 

[Dazliare1]

Please welcome Quelana to the tournament! My third attempt at finishing act one on a sorceress...I'm in the stony field.

Anyone know where the name came from??

 

[SunsetVista]

Please welcome Quelana to the tournament! My third attempt at finishing act one on a sorceress...I'm in the stony field.

Anyone know where the name came from??

Google says Dark Souls. My brother and I are playing Demon Souls now, it's awesome. Can't wait to play the later games. =)

Good luck with the sorc!

 

[jiansonz]

Maggot Lair was pretty slow going for Mago and his army. This screenie of a typical situation explains why:

Only golem and two mages are actually fighting (and one is a lightning shooter and those are not so useful against beetles). Mago stepped in several times and applied OW with his flail.
Swarms were pretty easy anyway, since the golem's fire punches were enough against them.

This snakes battle shows the best kind of battle situation:

The battle front takes up the whole width of the area, which means that my magi are pretty safe, and they are all close enough and have clear shots. Another example, this one even 'bigger' in every way:

These guys are some of my favourite Revives. They stun, deal good damage (including CB) and are big enough to tank several foes each. Mummies are also good because of their strong poison. Plague Bearers are also poisonous but their thoughts so "dense" that they often just wander around and don't enter the fights...

Specters in the AS also often wandered around aimlessly. When they tanked they were good, but I could never count on that. I had my teleporting staff on the switch there, mostly so my army wouldn't kill too many Specters in spots where I would lose the drop. Still couldn't stop that from happening a few times - they died so fast if the main part of the army shot at them.

Here is another type of bad battle situation:

The battle is too spread out. There are at least three fronts, and most of my meleers are gone (didn't help that I had no Revives going in). Vampire minions (=> extra amount of life => more regeneration) that aren't poisoned are almost impossible for 1-2 mages to kill. At least it took many minutes. And when they get hurt they flee, positions get changed, mages usually switch to a target with full health, and - argh!
A situation like this will be far far worse on Hell difficulty, where my mages will be owned in these 'one on one' or 'few on few' fights.

Another problem for me to fight is mummy sarcophagi. If the room feels relatively safe (not a ton of enemies), Mago tries to block it by standing next to it. Next best thing is to try to place a golem next to it. It's harder than you might think to get that right. Sometimes my only chance is to simply and slowly drive my battle front in the direction of the sarcophagus, and Revive as much as I can:

I "lost" this one (meaning, lost a tiny bit of XP) - the casket eventually collapsed from exhaustion.

Seven tombs were SO MUCH FUN with this character! If I get there on Hell difficulty, I have a feeling that will be the high point for this character. But you never know.

Duriel:

This time around, the magi were sturdy enough to survive the HF pulses. The 9 that were still around at the time of the screenie lived through the whole thing.

I am going to gamble circlets now. 80% of the time, they will be high enough in ilvl for +3 skill tree affixes.

Recent finds:
Venom Grip
Cliffkiller
Bonesnap
Amber (29) Grand Charm
Fal rune
Better Circlet of the Magus for Ajheed (some +life and resists)
Rare Circlet that beat my 'Lore' helm: +1 Necro skills, 40% lightning resist, +31 life
Rare Circlet with Teleport charges (the other stuff is mildly useful)


[Highlight]Destroyer Mago the Golemancing Lord of Mages and Ajheed the Fire Mage, level 60, NM Kurast Docks[/Highlight]

 

[Pb_pal1]

Yau and Ulric continued their journey, and set out to conquer the desert. First off, they cleared out the sewers and disposed of Radament without any trouble. Shockwave makes any normal monsters harmless, so it's only really if there are several bosses or a champ pack around that we really have to be careful. More on that later.

We cleared out the Rocky Waste and got ready to go down into the Stony Tomb. Remembering how Creeping Feature almost killed us way back in normal, Yau vowed to get proper revenge on him. This boss pack of beetles gave us a bit of a tough time, managing to kill Ulric. It wasn't too bad though, and after resurrecting him, we took it a bit more slowly and killed them off no problem. Down in level 2 we ran into our old friend. He was not prepared for us this time, and we took him out without even taking a scratch. Revenge is sweet.

The Halls of the Dead got off to a bad start. The worst configuration we can have is a big open room to start a temple. Yau is much more successful if there are at least some corners to funnel monsters around. His worst monster draws are of course Unravellers. We got both of those in the Halls. We couldn't deal with the skellies fast enough to get to the Unravellers, and Ulric bit the dust, so we had to lead them over the the stairs and park them there to return through a TP.

The lack of life in the screenie makes the situation look a bit more dire than it truly was, as shockwave eliminates the possibility of taking surprise hits, as long as you are diligent with it. After returning through the portal, we took out the Unravellers quickly, and then the rest of the tomb followed suit.

After a couple nasty boss packs in the Far Oasis, we ran into a bit of a bind. Our entire back-up stock of Full Rejuvs is gone. All we have left is what's in our belt. We really need to find/make an upgrade for Yau's weapon, as we are currently still using the 'Strength' maul made in normal. Don't get me wrong, it gets the job done, but it's on the slow side and we would like to be able to deal with packs a bit more quickly. As our purple stocks dwindle, terror for the Duriel fight is beginning to creep in. Best not to worry about the big bug yet, we have lots to accomplish first.

Coldworm's chamber took some time, as usual, but was never a threat. In fact, the whole Maggot Lair was quite fun, as the single-file aspect of it makes Yau a happy happy bear. It's pretty easy when all you are doing is smacking a stunned monster in the face until it dies, then taking a few steps forward and repeating the process.

Up and through the lost city we went, stunning and crushing everything in our path, when we found ourselves at the entrance to the Claw Viper Temple. Yau looked up at the Giant snake statues on either side of the entrance, looked over at Ulric, and walked down the stairs. Great, another big open room. Yau walked forward a few steps and skellies started coming after him. Great, Unravellers again. Wait a minute, what is this, minions? Oh dear, a boss pack of Unravellers in the main room. This should be fun...

Great, the boss is CE. If you've been following Yau's journey you know there is nothing he hates more than being chilled. Also notice the positioning of the two Unravellers, they're far enough out in the room that it would be difficult to park the skellies by the entrance. Okay, maybe we can park them up by the door at the "top" (northern-most door) of the room. Nope! that door was already open, and as soon as we got close, skellies started pouring in. Minions again! Yeesh, ANOTHER Unraveller boss pack (multi-shot, stone skin) to deal with. Wait a minute, what's that behind him? Oh goodie, an LE serpent boss pack too! Luckily we did not get close enough to wake the snakes up, and they stayed put in the hallway.

So now we had to figure out how in the world we were going to do this. We had to try and kill the Unravellers without using the top third of the room or so, for fear of bringing those snakes in. So we did alot of hopping back and forth between a portal and the stairs, trying desperately to separate the skeletons enough to let us deal with the Unravellers. We managed to take out the regular Unraveller, but the skeletons made an appearance before we could deal with the boss. We tried a few more times to get the skellies to stay away, but it just wasn't working. It was too hard to establish position, and the resurrections were quicker than the kills. We had to make a drastic decision, and ducked into the lower hallway hoping to draw some skellies in there and deal with them. Yau has some cold damage, so we can shatter them, it just takes time, and isn't super reliable. Things were going well, the skeletons were filing in through the doorway and we were killing them, even shattering some. Then, all of a sudden snakes came flying out from the next room. Uh-oh. Shockwave was spammed mercilessly, trying to keep everything in check, but things were going downhill. Before we know it, we were pinned in.

Ulric was dead, the portal was slightly too far, and very hard to even name-lock, as the skeletons kept surrounding it. We were drinking healing pots like crazy, just trying to keep everything stunned. We desperately cast another portal, took some hits, drank some purples, and clicked maniacally on the TP. To our great relief, Yau popped up in Lut Gholein.

That was a TERRIBLE decision, going down that hallway. What we should have done was just stick it out in the main room and wait until we had shattered the skeletons enough to go after the boss, no matter how long that took. On the bright side, now most of the skeletons were in that hallway, so after Yau changed his underwear and went back down the stairs, he took a wide arc around the room and could take the boss on with minimal distractions. He was shockingly tough, and poison damage just wrecks the two of us right now, but we got him! All it took was a seriously close NDE.

After that we had some breathing room, so we took on the other Unraveller boss and the Serpent boss as well, before clearing the rest of the halls with not so much as a couple healing pots needed. We were now down to 4 Full rejuvs and 1 minor left. That's going to be a problem, if we don't find enough by the time we get to Duriel, we might have to cube ourselves some. We also managed to shop a Ferocious (165% ED) Giant Axe, which gave us a noticeable increase in killing power/speed before heading down into Fangskin's Lair.

We caught a lucky break and had Fangy spawn where he wouldn't pose a threat:

Look at that stare-down by Ulric! We're liking him more and more as time goes on. It must have shaken Fangskin, as it was super easy to run around and take on his pack from the stairs. No problems whatsoever. We ran into a tough boss in the Palace, and had to play a little game of ring-around-the-stairs:

As soon as his amp proc'ed, he would take out Ulric in 2, sometimes 1 hit. Another problem was his regen was so high that in the time it took Yau to run back and get Ulric, he would be back to full health. We eventually got him with the OW from our 'Steel' axe, but he gave us a few scares when he tagged us while we were amped a couple times. The Arcane Sactuary was super easy, as the single-file fighting is perfect for Yau. We managed to fill our belt with Full Rejuvs due to the easy fighting, and we even have an extra in the stash. Our duo is now resting at the Canyon WP, trying not to think about what happened in the CVT and what might happen in the false tombs.

Shockwave is amazing. Like, AMAZING. We got it up to 6.4 seconds stun length about halfway through the act, which I think is where we'll keep it for now. That's a REALLY long time to have all regular monsters stunned. As I mentioned before, normal monsters are rarely ever a concern anymore, it's only bosses/champs that give us trouble. This is definitely the MVP of our skills by a long shot, and is the only reason we are still alive. We are currently pumping Lycanthropy for the extra life boost, our life is currently at 895 as we had some armour upgrades since that last screenie.

Notable finds:
- Dol rune
- Nokozan Relic Amulet
- Frostburn

@jiansonz we are extremely jealous of that Bonesnap that Mago found! Gieb!

[highlight]Destroyer Yau the Titan Mauler Bear and Ulric the Barbarian - lvl 58, NM Canyon of the Magi[/highlight]

 

[SunsetVista]

@Pb_pal - Wow! Excellent write up of that Claw Viper Temple entrance NDE. I thought you were done for and was so relieved to hear you made it out alive. Thanks for showing the power of Shockwave, too. I haven't played a werebear very far yet and now I am excited about it. =)

 

[Dazliare1]

Quelana made it into the jungles last night after a marathon session through the entirety of act 2. I'll talk more about it when I'm not at the office.

 

[jiansonz]

@Pb_pal: Shockwave is great crowd control indeed. I was surprised when I first tried it because it did not work as I thought it would. I had envisioned some sort of 'stomp' (along the lines of what the crush beasts do) that would spread in a circle from the werebear's position, but it's aimed in a direction. As you probably have figured out, it spreads out more the closer to the bear you click.

I played a Maul/Shockwave bear in a somewhat recent tourney. I have forgotten which one. I've also forgotten how I died somewhere on Hell difficulty...



Mago the Summoner has completed another act. The mostly open spaces in the jungle and in Kurast suit us well. First session was also easy to get started with corpses from the Flesh Beasts generously provided by the Dark Wanderer. Two of the other sessions were quite a bit harder to get going in, especially the one in Travincal. Golem and merc can damage Zealots easily enough, but their fleeing behaviour caused problems for them to finish the job. I had to lure back a few into the house by the WP (where I started the session) so we could use corners and walls to trap them. Mago had to tank (golem was busy tying up three others) the one that would eventually give us the important first corpse. That required three super healers. Ouch. Mago is a really bad brawler...

Zakarum priests are annoying for this build. Although the total damage output for my army is decent, it usually takes a while to kill each individual enemy since the damage is spread out among several enemies. And then those damn priests will heal and heal and heal those buggers. Whenever I could, I cast a golem in the face of the most annoying one:

Note that one of my skeletons has been smart enough to attack another priest. That's a good boy!

Easy-peasy Mephisto fight:

Okay, I had to recast three mana potion's worth of fire golems but it was still over fast, and 9 magi survived.
(Actually, I switched to Clay Golem in the second half because it was better. It's cheaper, has better cold resist and still has about 2/3 of the life a FG has)

Recent finds:
* Rockfleece
* Angelic Halo
* Ko rune
* Golemlord's Bone Wand of Enlightenment (+24 ENE) with +1 Raise Skeletal Mage (shopped)
* Golemlord's Circlet. I socketed this (bad luck - only one socket) and put a perfect ruby in it.
* Wyrm's Amulet of Teleportation (gambled)
* Gambled rare Amulet with resists and TP charges:

I liked this one, until I took a closer look. Oh crap...

I now have +9 skills, with another +1 to Mage. Full army consists of Mago, Ajheed, 5 Skeletons, 12 Mages and 10 Revives. That many Revives is usually not practical, plus I may need corpses to replace the others. I try to keep about 4-6 Revives whenever I come across good monster types for it. Bone fetish creep me out with their sounds, so I avoid reviving those. I was surprised that Council Members can be revived.


The start of Act IV may well be really hard, especially if I draw the FI Doom Knights. Venom Lords and Cliff Lurkers are also highly fire resistant. I've muled in a 'Malice' Trident that I'll make a golem from, if needed.


[Highlight]Destroyer Mago the Golemancing Lord of Mages and Ajheed the Fire Mage, level 64, NM Pandemonium Fortress[/Highlight]

 

[Kestegs]

Great progress everyone! And great write-ups. Stay safe out there!

Act 1 NM has been finished. All in all it was pretty easy, but I quickly realized that this game fully intends to kill me if it can. I seemed to get archer boss packs at every turn in the early parts, and some nasty ones like cursed/multi shot. Tried to take some screenies, but I kept missing them. Had 2-3 NDEs in the first half of the act. Towards the end of the act I finally got a 4 row belt! WooHoo! Found a blue sharkskin and crafted it, came out decent with a resist at least. I found a 4os crystal sword, and then realized that I hadn't even found a single amn yet! Found my first one around the middle of the act though. I still haven't made spirit yet though, I don't have the str to equip it without more charms, and I'd lose 15 all resist form my sword. But maybe soon I will, we'll see. Had another NDE later when I came across a FE/CE boss. I was standing very close when he went off, taking out my cyclone armor and over half my life. Yikes! Which leads me to my gripe about this character...Yes he has really high damage and the cyclone armor is great. But aiming those tornadoes can be awful sometimes! It's really bad when the merc bottles them up at a door, and I have to try to get a tornado through the door frame. What it ultimately leads to is me getting into melee range far too often and taking some scary hits. And with my pitiful amount of defense I get hit all the time. I just have to be more careful, and I'm getting better at it at least. This vampire in catacombs was a real pain, stone skin is not my friend. Andy was really not too bad, she killed the merc 3 times though, and I used 8 Full juves trying to keep him alive. But it went well and she died, leaving me nothing useful of course. The weapon would probably be pretty nice if I was a shift druid, it's got decent stats.

Onward to act 2!

Rhett the elemental druid, level 53, act 2 NM

 

[Pb_pal1]

@Pb_pal: Shockwave is great crowd control indeed. I was surprised when I first tried it because it did not work as I thought it would. I had envisioned some sort of 'stomp' (along the lines of what the crush beasts do) that would spread in a circle from the werebear's position, but it's aimed in a direction. As you probably have figured out, it spreads out more the closer to the bear you click.

That's exactly what I was expecting as well, although I'm happier with the way it actually works. I like that you can control the spread on it, it opens up some more strategic elements and makes it less of a "panic" skill. It also goes much futher out than I was expecting, which is quite nice!

I played a Maul/Shockwave bear in a somewhat recent tourney. I have forgotten which one. I've also forgotten how I died somewhere on Hell difficulty...

Interesting, I'll take a look and see if I can find it. I'd love to read through that.

@kestegs - Nice work! Tornadoes are awful, I feel for you.
--

My D2 time is limited this week, so not much progress will be made. I will update you all if Yau can make it to Kurast.

 

[jiansonz]

Found my Werebear's tourney - Envious of the Green and Gold, hosted by Morathi. Area of death was the place that has scored the most kills against me, Reliquary (the left temple) in Kurast Causeway. I've even died there twice in Normal, both with Frost Zealots in All Alone tournies (Charge-locked by snakes while CE archers shot me to death).

I still managed to make a Guardian in Morathi's tourney - an Immolation Arrow Amazon.

 

[japanzaman]

I've managed to kick my way to LK on Nightmare with fairly few issues so far. NM Andariel was actually quite a fight for me, and I had to burn through quite a few Rejuvs to finish her. I didn't use any Weaken charges for that fight which could have helped a bit, and my armor was not that great at the time either.

I'm currently using a pretty simple setup with the Bloodcrescent as my primary means of attack. 15% LL and 33% open wounds has been good enough to get the job done so far. I might switch to a weapon that has an Ignore Target Defense depending on how enemy defense increases from here. I don't anticipate being able to kill Hell enemies with just my kicks alone, so it's going to be necessary to be able to charge my Phoenix strike quickly before I get killed.

I'd still like to get my hands on a Black runeword but no Io as of yet. Perhaps from Hellforge. An Um or Lem would be the best situation there. Merc is pretty poorly equipped, but hopefully I can get something elite on him by Hell. I am using a defiance Merc as I need the defense badly.

 

[felixbavaria1]

View attachment 1279
Tired of CoS-related crashes (Hawk Nests I hate you!!), I'm entering with a second character, a bow-wielding Amazon named Paige. She will only put skill points in the bow tree, all stat points in Energy and stay with an Act II Prayer merc. A recipe for lots of fun and a quick death, I suppose.

Act I was easy after Exploding Arrow got available. Furthermore, Countess dropped a Ral which makes Exploding Arrow really OP at this stage. Andy died in like 20 seconds at /p8, but dropped junk. Only 4 slots in armor due to lacking strength, filled with 3 rubies and 1 sapphire. Some low-end +life charms I would never care about in other circumstances have proven to be very valuable. 146 life, 224 mana (yeah!), no NDE so far.

Paige the BFG Zon and Pratham the Prayer Merc, level 21, Lut Gholein (Sewers finished)

 

[Kestegs]

@japanzaman: nice progress! Keep it up!

@Felix: CoS crashes are the worst, so sad they never fixed that.

That's a tough character for sure, should be fun though, good luck!