The Committed Tournament

Bones found the Jade Figurine almost right away in the Spider Forest. Life is now a cool 500!
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Spider poison in the caves was a lot more potent that I remembered it being. Bones had to TP to town and pre-buff antidotes before continuing. With a supply of antidotes ready in the stash Bones was able to make it through without any issues. Pretty much every spider got prisoned, so it took a while to clear due to often having to wait out the timer on the prisons. Bones scored an amazing drop in here, from a normal spider no less!
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The TP Staff I had shopped in Act 2 will be thanked for its services and let go as soon as I get Bones's strength up to be able to wield the Steelspell. Check out the initial repair bill for it. It was only after I had paid for the repair that I remembered the Ort/Chipped Gem recipe...
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Had a 10 FCR/14 all res amulet drop in the Flayer Jungle. Equipping this kept all resistances maxed and bumped Bones up to a 12 frame FCR. Will have to see if the increased FCR makes up for losing 13 life. Stormtree had dangerous mods, but they did not help him when he couldn't get out of jail. I kept a steady stream of prisons going on him because he took a bit to kill and was frenzied up and Bones did not want to see him coming at us like that.
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Hit a stair trap in the Ruined Temple. Sarina's pack came charging out as soon as Bones popped in. I had prison queued up and started spamming as soon as I appeared. Ended up trapped in with 2 of the minions, but Bones swapped to his TP staff and was able to TP into the corner. From here, Bones laid down a bunch of prisons so that nothing could move in the first room. Bones and Kyoko then proceeded to wipe everyone out from complete safety, occasionally refreshing the prisons to maintain control.b Fortunately Sarina herself did not come out until Bones had cleared the first room and moved closer o the door. She went down locked alone in some prisons! Kyoko will need a more powerful bow if we make it to Hell temples, as the Wailers will be magic immune and pack a punch.
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Hit a beetle stair trap in the Forgotten Temple, including a champ pack. Couldn't get prisons off when I first went down but was able to pop back up the stairs and re-group. Switched to the TP staff, re-entered and teled down to a fortunately empty room. No issues clearing the temple from here. Also hit a Manaburn boss pack of beetles in the Ruined Fane. Bones got manaburned as soon as he came down the stairs. Popped a juvie and was able to get some prisons off. Once the first few prisons were out the situation really calmed down and Bones and Kyoko could clear the room out in peace.

Racked a Vipermagi in the Durance Level 1/2? (I didn't write it down thinking I had it in my screenshot but I had turned the map off to show it off nicely...) Not sure yet if Bones wants to wear it. I thought if I put a P. Ruby in it might let me drop my current breastplate but Bones doesn't have the strength to equip the Vipermagi without punching a Hel in and rearranging charms to bring some strength ones back in, negating this option for now. Ended up being a 30 res one.
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An Extra Strong Extra Fast Mauler pack in the Durance Lvl 2 almost surprised Bones as he entered one of the rooms. They ate up the prisons pretty fast, but Bones was able to string them out with prisons while retreating. I've started casting bone walls into rooms before entering to try to deal with these situations. It can cause some annoyances when the room is empty and the wall block Bones from proceeding, but these are good practices to lock down now before Hell when they will need to be done right.
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Mephisto jumped out at us when we were fighting one of the council bosses in the room right before Meph. Caused a bit of a panic as we retreated with a quick teleport. Cleared out the other side of the room and pulled Meph back into his normal area. Another quick teleport across the moat and Bones and Kyoko were free to fire away without incident. Bones kept Meph locked in prisons so that he wouldn't move and all of the spears would hit. Bone Spirit doesn't quite outdo spear damage yet, but at some point it should. Once that happens, that will be the spell of choice for large single enemies like act bosses. Meph dropped a bunch of rares, but none of them were any good for Bones or Kyoko. On to Act 4!
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Bones, the level 64 Energy Bonemancer, and Kyoko the Fire Rouge. Act 4 NM.
 
A triple boss pack of corpse spawners jumped as right at the start of Act 4. One pack was magic resistant and took a while to whittle them all down with all the children they kept creating. I can definitely tell that Kyoko needs an improved bow for these types of monsters, and then fortuitously Bones had his first Ko drop in the Plains of Despair! Harmony is now a reality, though Bones doesn't yet have a base I want to make it in. The only 4 socket bow we've seen drop so far has been a Cedar Bow, so Kyoko will keep the Edge for now. I will consider making the Harmony in the Cedar Bow if nothing better drops. Izual dropped a Gravenspine, which I hadn't ever really looked that closely at but provides 10 stength and dexterity on top of the +2 to necro skills. Bones will be keeping this around just in case, though it would take a lot to get me to give up the White wand.
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Hephaesto had BA aura and came out early but was no trouble at all. The whole fight can be summed up by the pic:
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Hellforge dropped a Hel... River of Flame and CS were a lot of fun. Many long, narrow corridors meant Bones could drop one wall/prison and then have spears hitting everything on screen at once! These were easy clears and generated good exp. Seal bosses were really easy because they spawn in predefined locations so Bones could pre-emptively set some walls up before popping the seals. These would give us enough time to prison the whole pack, even if they spawned extra fast. Infectors pack could drop the prisons pretty quickly but not faster than Bones could drop 4-5 more. It took a little bit to kill them all as the prisons were refreshed every few seconds but it wasn't dangerous. Kyoko kept wandering too far away during this fight so that she wasn't shooting and I couldn't tell if the Thorns aura was even working. Bones would try to pull her back in to help, which had to be delicately done because the infernos have a surprisingly good range on them, and with 2 or 3 going at once can be pretty damaging with low life.

Somehow Bones made it through the whole CS without noticing that bone spirits cast at Bones don't care about walls and prisons being in the way until the Lord De Seis fight. I saw him cast the spirit, but didn't think anything of it. It packed a punch when it hit Bones! Life didn't drop that dramatically but if he had cast a few in a row it would have gotten interesting. This tidbit will be stored away for Hell if we get that far.
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Diablo fried Kyoko immediately. I had wanted to see if Thorns + Prisons would have any effect on Diablo so I resurrected Kyoko, got the Thorns aura running, and Diablo fried her again before she could do anything... So be it; Bones decided to go it solo. I've been pumping bone spirit in anticipation of this fight, thinking that the tracking effect of the spirits would really help as Bones ran around. It worked OK. Bones would cast spirits towards D with him off screen, then slowly move towards D while the spirits were in flight. If Bones aim was OK to begin with, the spirits would maneuver to hit D as long as he didn't move sharply. If spirits were cast while he was namelocked they would trail him wherever he went, but Bones was typically only able to get a few off before having to relocate. It was kind of fun to have 10ish spirits chasing D at once and then all of them would catch up and hit him at the same time! Bones was never really in any trouble during the fight, though I did have to go back to town once to prebuff stamina pots... This is a really amusing side effect of having no vitality that I am actually really enjoying. I was keeping a close eye on my potion situation during the fight so I noticed it with plenty of time and popped through a TP before it could run out. The drop was great for a Necro, but wands are the one thing Bones really doesn’t need.
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I am really noticing the impact of having no MF at this stage. Bones really doesn't need much from sets and uniques but the lack of rare and even magic items is going to cause some challenges if we make it to Hell. Bones almost never sees rares, and those that do drop are often of a type that we can't use (swords, maces, etc.). I've been holding off on a gambling spree thinking maybe I'd be able to get a Lionheart going, which that would let me wield an Edge bow. With so few rares dropping Bones wants every gambling opportunity he can get.


Bones, the level 67 Energy Bonemancer, and Kyoko the Fire Rouge. Act 5 NM.


OldSoldier: I thought hard about going with Teeth when I started Bones, but I wasn't confidant it would be able to hack it later in the game as a secondary attack without a bunch of plus skills so I decided to try Spirit instead. Teeth just looks so much cooler as a spell though. Bones also had an Io rune drop early but then just could not get the Dol (or the Shaels to cube it) for some time. Very annoying to have an end game weapon tantalizingly close but not quite there. I'm looking forward to reading more about Splat and Sharon!

Dazliare: Sorry about the deeds.

Everyone else: Awesome progress, keep it up!
 
Norcim, argh the forum ate my reply. OK, in short:

Love your drops! Spellsteal opens so many doors against the Ancients and Act bosses. I think it is the most OP weapon in the game myself. If you gave me a choice between that and a Grief or other ridiculous runeword in a single pass tournament, I think I'd pick the Spellsteal. It certainly makes up for my poor reaction time and fat finger syndrome during the heat of battle.

What players setting did you use in act IV? Splat is at the Kurast Docks now (update in a few days) with 294 life, a far cry from your 500. And he has craptastic resists. I am not sure when to start dialing down the difficulty a bit. I feel he's destined for a one hit kill sooner or later.

I use teeth far less now than I do spear. I even swapped out my +2 teeth necro head for a +2 spear one. I do still like it in densely packed situations, and I am currently pumping it a few levels to make it work better (spear is maxed, spirit I think is 14, prison and wall are 8 apiece). Teeth is now at 13 hard points. I will stop after five more levels and focus on CE to get its radius up a bit when I tackle hell difficulty (likely at /P1). I sure wish it would hit like Amazon's Charged Strike, but alas it does serve its purpose.

On another note, let me complain for a second.

I am noticing such a weird discrepancy with rune drops between my two characters in this tournament. Sharon has reached NM Travincal and has received the following runes above Ort:
6 Amn
4 Dol
1 Fal
1 Hel
2 Io
1 Ko
2 Shael
5 Sol
12 Thul

Splat has gotten to the Kurast Docks and has received:
5 Amn (I think three or four of these in the false tombs alone, so recently)
1 Hel
1 Io
1 Ko
1 Shael
1 Sol
2 Thul

That's so pathetic that Splat can't even afford to do much crafting, at least of the rings and amulets. I'm amazed it has been so bad at almost the halfway point in the entire game. I thought rune drops were increased with the last patch Blizzard released right before I took my "second child" hiatus. I think I even saw a tournament where someone got 2 Fortitudes in a single pass tournament. That's nuts, I have played this game since the beginning and have never seen a Lo. I think I saw a softcore Ohm once. Nope, I checked, it was a Vex.

Oh well, Splat is still alive and still moving forward. I guess that's all that matters.
 
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Bones has been on p8 the whole game (cleared up to the Frigid Highlands WP). Spear is just really powerful when you have the mana to spam it around; piercing damage that most monsters don't naturally resist is a nice weapon to fling around! I've noticed that it is general taking several extra spears now to drop most enemies, but I feel like my progress is still pretty quick because I don't have to spend as much time scrounging up mana pots playing in this fashion.

I will post a full gear readout if I complete Nightmare, but I went through and dug up the details for Bones life situation.

Level 68

185 base life

338 added from gear

20 - White wand
88 - Circlet
100 - Breastplate
130 - Charms​

523 total life.

I'm hoping to get this closer to 600 before Hell while maintaining solid resistances. I'm already starting to debate what player setting to use in Act 1 Hell. I'm confidant that Bones could maintain a good killing speed at something like p5, but with a low life total I'd have to play really carefully as the margin for error would be pretty low at this setting. I feel like p3 may be a nice compromise, but I'd hate to give up the experience/drops if I don't need to. I'm looking forward to reading more about Kesteg's experience with Rhett at p5 to help sway me!
 
Nice progress! Spellsteal is really a cool find for sure.

I've also had terrible rune luck. 1 Lum, 1 hel, 3 IO, 4 Dol, and a fair amount of lower ones, but that's with /p8 through normal and NM. I still can't make a lionheart!

Hopefully I'll have an update in a day or two, been playing him lately though!
 
Well, things started to go a bit more smoothly at least, Had a decent weapon for the merc drop fairly early into the session. Can't remember where, but probably the mausoleum based on the item level. The damage is a bit low, but it's comparable to his Hwain's he'd been using and it has leech! The lightning damage is also good for PI or CI monsters. His survivability went up quite a bit with some leech.
Wraith GoadGrim Scythe
Two Hand Damage: 37 - 88
Durability: 34 of 55
Required Level: 52
Required Strength: 140
Required Dexterity: 140
Fingerprint: 0x8e4e187b
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10++30% Increased Attack Speed
26% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1 - 301 Lightning Damage
14% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +3
Level 3 Zeal (17/27 Charges)
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune

The crypt/maus were not too bad, but there were some annoying PI guys like this one. Best to just let the merc die and run around him with hurricane.

Ad expected, the cave was no fun at all, producing some really stupid rogue archer packs. Fanaticism archers! And of course a might/extra fast/cursed one just for fun. Coldcrow was semi tame, with only multishot as a real nasty ability. These packs all required a lot of running away to reposition, merc resurrections, and Fat purples.

Stony field produced another PI/CI. Goat I think. I started experimenting with various secondary spells. Molten boulder is nice for the knockback, but not that great really. And then a very cold resistant/PI ghoul. Arctic blast became my main PI solution as long as they weren't CI. It doesn't do a ton of damage, but its at least better than just running around in circles.

Underground passage was not too bad with some not so bad monsters. I always love the triple enchanted boss. Of course he ripped my merc to shreds instantly since he only has about 50 resist all. level 2 was almost too easy, drawing devilkin as the only monster type.

I seemed to draw quill rats in every possible area, which was just stupid. These things should just not be this tough! This one was just horrible. I think that's holy fire aura, not might. He and his friends were all spread out in the trees, so getting tornadoes in there was tricky. They nearly got me a few times.

And then there was nothing left to do but head down to the dreaded tower. Probably the thing I was most worried about in the act, besides maybe pit level 2. It proved to live up to the hype, too! Of course the first ghost pack I hit was also CI. I didn't realize right away, as you can see by me trying to arctic blast it :p You can also see my attempted use of volcano, but I think boulder is probably more damaging. I also put twister on my left click now, This is not that useful most of the time, as the stun is only .4 seconds, and I can't fully stun lock things without more fcr. But if I encounter a pack of ghosts it's the best way to keep the merc alive so he can poke them.

Nothing more too eventful happened before level 5. Level 5 started out with a devilkin boss at the stairs, glad it wasn't something worse! After they were dead I walked a little closer to the door and was immediately rushed by an extra fast pack of ghosts. Crap, crap, crap! That was the one thing I was really worried about, but hadn't encountered on the other levels. Merc just couldn't hold his ground for more than 2 seconds without a purple, so I had to take a blind teleport into the left wing. Luckily it was empty and I was able to get a good position to get them down. I never saw the mods on the boss before the merc got him. I cleared out the right wing and then headed up the left side to countess. As I come around the corner I'm once again rushed by ghosts. Seriously? Another pack of extra fast ghosts? Yup! And this one is CI to boot :p You can see my use of Armageddon here. The damage is pretty bad, but it looks cool at least. I now have a point in every elemental skill, as my main skills/synergies are maxed. I'll probably pump fire skills now, rather than arctic blast, for a better PI/CI solution. Countess didn't drop anything too useful, but that war scythe has potential if I can upgrade it.

Also found this beautiful bow at some point. If I wasn't committed to an act 2 merc I would seriously consider hiring a rogue. I would also consider using it myself if I could meet the requirements, but that's not gonna happen. In the end it's just a depressing drop for this character.

Tamoe of course produced more quill rats. At this point I fully expect to see a mysterious reappearance of flamespike if I make it to the inner cloister. The highly unlikely boss pack in the tiny gate area.

Pit level 1 was tough, but not too bad. Just one nasty archer pack by the entrance. It also included a pack of champion archers before they got separated. The teleport on her actually helped me, as she teleported around the corner from her buddies at one point and I was able to kill them more easily. And then there was pit level 2. Almost immediately there was a pack of skeletons on me. It was pretty hairy for sure. After the merc died the first time I came back and tried again and tried to go just a bit more down to get some space. Of course that was a bad choice and just drew more monsters in, but luckily no bosses. I ended up tp'ing out and walking back from the WP. Once I got the minions and other monsters dead it was not as scary at least. There really wasn't enough room for me to run around and hit him with tornadoes in that small area, so the merc had to help. Unfortunately the merc could only stand up to him for about 3-5 seconds without a purple. And with his stone skin it was going to take at at least a couple minuets of engagement to get him down. So I had to play run up the stairs and heal. I'd fight a bit and then when the merc was almost dead I'd pop up to level 1 to let the healing pots do their magic. It was a long fight, but we eventually wore him down. After maybe 20 super healers. And 8 full juves. The rest of the level went smoothly and I am now ready to take on the barracks!

Rhett, level 80 Elemental Druid, and Pratham the prayer guard, Outer cloister
 
Nihlathak's halls were not scary. Frenzytaurs, shambling undead and death brigadiers on the first level. Fetishes, quill rats and spawners on the second level. Boars, witches and vipers on the third level. Since we can shatter all the boars before Nihlathak can CE them, it was very easy once we had taken care of the vipers.

Then, WSK 2. I had S&E'd there after clearing the level because the WP was directly next to a 90° turn leading to the stairs to level 3. Unfortunately, there was also a boss spawn point in between. At the first try, I saw melee fetishes, bats and a might aura. Immediate S&E. At the second try, there were some overlords, undead guardians and mages, nothing scary, so we could run through at /p1. Level 3 was very tame, with imps and other clowns. ToD had cursing witches, unfreezable frenzytaurs and Pit Lords. Luckily the merc is wearing a Face of Horror which makes witches slightly more annoying but frenzytaurs very manageable.

Waves 1-4 were easy, and Lister was no problem with Lower Resist.

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The Baal fight took rather long, with him casting Blood Mana and cloning himself all the time. His drop was useless and sold immediately.

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The Cow Level dropped us Lum and Io runes.

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The Io is next to useless for this character (the only use would be as socketable in a godly rare bow). The Lum, of course, opens up some interesting gear possibilities.

Gambled a nice circlet too:

Raven Shell
Circlet
Defense: 28
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 63
Fingerprint: 0xaadbb333
Item Level: 68
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Druid Skill Levels
+27 to Strength
+30 to Life
+17 Maximum Stamina
All Resistances +18
Magic Damage Reduced by 3

Main reason to be excited is the hefty Strength bonus, of course.

Conqueror Paige the Energy Bowazon and Pratham the Prayer Merc, level 73, Rogue Encampment (H)
 
Mago, Summoner Necro (restricted to 1 point in Raise Skeleton) with even stats distribution has begun his Hell adventures. He is committed to players 1 for the rest of the game.

It has been going quite well. Starting a new army the three times I've done it has not been that hard. But I am worried about doing it in some of the areas ahead. I will probably play some very long sessions (hibernating the computer overnight, etc) so I can bring my army with me longer.

"Whose army is going to destroy who?"

MagoH01%20Raven_zpsohzkfog2.jpg



Ah, nice to have a full army:
MagoH02%20full%20army%20UGP_zpsvnzba8fz.jpg


For once, I was not the least bit worried about the start of UGP level 2. Only the golem broke free from where we entered, which lead to concentrated mage firepower, and there were enough non-fire shooters to win here:
MagoH03%20UGP2_zpsqf6rxal6.jpg


Fallen Fallen were raised as skeletons.

I was pleased to be able to bring a bunch of Vile Hunter revives up to Dark Wood, in case Treehead's pack would be waiting. Which it was, incidently:
MagoH04%20Treehead_zpssoyhda20.jpg


This Might enchanted Spearwomen pack gave us some trouble:
MagoH05%20tough%20Wood%20fight_zpsbcjvvh9e.jpg


They are FI, which is the immunity that takes the longest for us to overcome. You can't see them, but there is also a full archer boss pack further up-left. No real nasty mods on those, but they still all had Might help, of course. My melee skeletons were quickly killed and the fire golem died twice in a short time. I was getting a little nervous here, especially when the first spearwoman minion we killed shattered as ice. But once one or two more died and got Revived, I knew the front would hold.

Recent finds: another Fal rune.


[Highlight]Conqueror Mago the Golemancing Lord of Mages and Ajheed the Fire Mage, level 76, Hell Black Marsh next[/Highlight]
 
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Hi, I've mostly stalled out in the PA tournament. I'd like to get back to it, but Beldric is so slow at killing things that it feels too much like work. So I want to try something different.

I'll be entering this with Orbin, the summoner druid. For added ridiculosity, Orbin will enter both the Committed and S/U Worshipper tourneys and follow all the rules for both.
 
ranagrande said:
Hi, I've mostly stalled out in the PA tournament. I'd like to get back to it, but Beldric is so slow at killing things that it feels too much like work. So I want to try something different.

I'll be entering this with Orbin, the summoner druid. For added ridiculosity, Orbin will enter both the Committed and S/U Worshipper tourneys and follow all the rules for both.
Click to expand...

Welcome Ranagrande.
I hope you realise that the commited tournament forbids any MF at you items and MF is pretty important stat in a ruleset where you are only allowed to use green an gold items!

Good luck!
 
Paige, Pratham and the walking Decoy aka slvl 3 Valkyrie are progressing smoothly through Act I Hell. The only dangerous moment was an encounter with a FI/CI Cursed melee rogue boss in UGP2.

I'm really liking Harmony on this character, for the extreme FRW and the significant freeze length even in Hell, which makes all non-CI monsters a pushover.

Speaking of CI monsters, the merc bug hit when running through UGP1 to the Dark Wood. It did not help that Treehead was Cursed. I really did not want to try if he can one hit me, so I just kept abusing the Valk as a Decoy. After that, Cain was rescued without incidents.

Somehow I did not manage to take a screenshot during the fights, but here is the LCS when entering Hell:

View attachment 1759


Current setup:

'Raven Shell' circlet (see above) socketed with Thul rune
Garnet Amulet of the Whale (28/98)
Harmony Stag Bow
Artisan's BP of the Whale (98) with PAmethyst, PEmerald, Ort rune
Rare Sharkskin Gloves with CR/FR/+1 bow
Rainbow (11) Ring of Dim Vision (3)
Garnet (28) Light Belt of the Whale (88)
Crafted Blood ring (20 life) with STR and LR
Amber (33) Heavy Boots of Acceleration

Inventory full of life and resist charms except for a 4x2 space.

Merc: 'Strength' Ogre Axe, Face of Horror, customized 4os Full Plate Mail 'OrtRalSol' + 15% IAS jewel (aka poor man's Treachery)

FA, CA, EA and Fire Arrow are now maxed. No idea where to put the remaining skill points.

Paige and Pratham, level 75, Dark Wood (H)
 
Let's update Splat first since he's a bit behind Sharon. He was all set at the Canyon of the Magi, ready to turn those Horadrim Ancients into piles of boney holey goo. He was able to get some decent boots that gave him 44% resistances and acceptable FRW (he is wearing Stealth armor and a 7% charm for now). In order to get to 30 strength he had to move some stuff around and put on a few charms but it isn't too difficult.
View attachment 1775

I ended up selling this amulet. I am interested to know if anyone thinks it is a mistake. My amulet now is the Mahim Oak Curio. Be honest, I haven't played in years!View attachment 1776

In one of the false tombs I ran up against this guy... View attachment 1777

This guy right with him, and another named boss monster AND a champ pack all in the same hallway, right off the stairs. I didn't get a screenshot of the champs or the first boss I killed because I didn't realize it was so crazy but my merc went down twice to multishot unholy bolts so I know there was another boss in there. When I killed them all and pressed "Alt" to see what dropped, pretty much the whole screen lit up with loot.
View attachment 1778

Black Hack sighting! Has there been an Insane Wayne sighting in recent years?
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This guy and another stacked on top of him, dropped Emilio like he was stealing cookies at an orphanage.
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I thought there was another boss in here but I guess it was just a normal ancient. Notice I've taken to blowing up skeleton corpses to keep them from being raised against me. 293 hit points does not last long against an unholy bolt, which normally took about 1/4 to 1/3 life and went right through the bone armor. Emilio's Iceblink helps a lot too as many enemies simply shatter when they die.
View attachment 1781

Here's an interesting item. One handed boss nerfer? I'm thinking about the 50% slow but I haven't tested it to see if I can name lock a spell on them like Bone Spear and have the slow take effect. Might be something to think about for later. I certainly can't get into melee range with just about anything.
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Duriel beat up on the merc but some prisons tamed him otherwise. There was a mana shrine right outside the entrance to the chamber and with 918 mana and a shrine active, you don't have to worry about mana one little bit.
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Duriel dropped the unique gothic axe, continuing my run of unique axes in this tournament. He also found the unique voulge, long sword, tower shield, and greaves. The boots would be nice but he tried putting them on but couldn't even lift his feet. Funnily enough he could lift them when they were stashed in his backpack. Go figure.

Splat, level 60 Bonemancer, Kurast Docks
 
Small report for Sharon as she spent the last week or so lost in the jungles of Kurast. Nothing really spectacular happened, so I didn't get many screenshots. The safety of Freezing Arrow is pretty nice and even though the damage is less than her fire arrows, she uses it more and more to stop the merc from getting swarmed. The pace is not nearly as fast as Splat (hence this small update rather than playing another area). Here is the first temple I went into in the Kurast Bazaar. You can see that a might enchanted pack along with some big ole wendingos would put a real hurt on us but Freezing Arrow for the win! Haseen can usually go one on one with a single boss. He has a nice rare ethereal partizan with ctc amp that manages to go off often enough to be pretty darn useful.
View attachment 1784

Nice! Runes now for either Harmony for her or Obedience for the merc. Decisions decisions...
View attachment 1785

One thing is for sure with ole Sharon - she's addicted to the blue pots. Drinks them like she's a mosquito in a barn full of cows.

Sharon, level 63 Bowazon, Travincal WP (city not cleared, it was a mad dash!)
 
I'd like to introduce my next project, although with summer in full swing, playing time will be very hit or miss and I don't intend on taking this character very far until this fall.

Introducing Element, the energy only, lighting sorceress. She will specialize in chain lighting and lightning and will utilize energy shield as she will have a massive pool. She will also max telekinesis to assist in reducing the penalty associated with energy shield. I do not intend to put any more than one point into energy shield as plus skills (banking on a memory staff) should be sufficient.

I forsee strength being an issue, but I have a couple work arounds in mind. I will also use an act 2 desert guard, prayer during normal and maybe will respecialize once in NM to holy freeze if crowd control is an issue. If I can make delirium then that should be sufficient for crowd control purposes.

Element, lightning sorceress, level 1, rogue encampment
 
OldSoldier said:
bladejj, Delirium is verboten in this tournament because of the MF inherent in it. Maybe a Nadir instead?
Click to expand...
Ouch, you are right. Unlikely I'd find an Ist aneyasys, but I've never actually made that rune word so I'm not even sure all the stats besides confuse. Nadir may be the way I have to go then.

Does anyone have any experience with energy shield? I know the mechanics of how it operates, but sometimes there is a sharp contrast between crunching numbers and actually playing.
 
More progress...

We last left off at the outer cloister in my endeavor into P5 Hell.

Nothing too bad in the barracks, the smith was a little scary, but nothing a little cheese couldn't handle. If this shot doesn't bring back that nostalgic feeling I don't know what will.
Jail level 2 created some issues right away, with a double boss pack of skeleton archers a few screens in. I decided to park them for now, and try to come around from the other side later. Pitspawn had some good merc melting power, but not too dangerous for me. Found this really awesome charm in jail 2 as well. Another rough ghost pack, merc was no help here, had to separate and let hurricane do the job. And finally we were back around to the double archer pack. I was contemplating how to best approach them, when one just popped right around the corner, this was a really lucky break, as he was the one that needed to die first. The rest of the 2 packs was tough, but not nearly as dangerous without being cursed.

Spiders are no fun for me, and this one was tough for sure, had to kite that pack half way across the level to separate them, and that room was originally packed with stuff. But the worst monsters are Ghoul lords for sure. High regen, fast, and resistant to my attacks. This guy threatened to have to be parked, just getting his minions killed was brutal. After trying a few different strategies I ended on spamming molten boulder at him. This allowed the merc to not die and not require very many potions, as without boulder putting him into hit recovery he was very quickly killing the merc. It was a long fight, but pretty simple once he was in position.


I wasn't terribly worried about Andy, but I wasn't sure exactly what my strategy was going to look like either. At the begging of level 4 I kept thinking...where are all the boss packs? Well, they were all right next to her, unfortunately. The merc immediately ate it, and it was apparent that he was not going to be a part of my strategy. After I got the extra monsters cleared up it was just me and Andy. 82 poison res with potions made it pretty safe. I ended up just running around and casting a tornado every time I got enough distance. Most of the damage was probably done by hurricane though. Drop was nothing to write home about.

All in all the act was not as bad as I had originally thought it might be on P5. It almost went smooth enough to make me do act 2 on P3. Almost.

Rhett, Elemental Druid and Pratham the Prayer guard, level 81, Lut Gholein.
 
I've decided I'll enter this. I think this is my first tournament ever (although I dunno, I may have entered one many years ago, but I have no recollection of it). Nonetheless, since I consider myself a pretty OK player I'll go with something reasonably challenging. Since even distribution of stat points blows everything else out of the water for most, except maybe pure vitality for non-gear-dependent casters, I'll go with something that picks neither of those. Since such a build is unlikely to win the game on Hell, or perhaps even be viable at all in it (I'm OK, but not great) I might as well go for something completely exotic and exciting just for the fun of it!

I'll probably go with a Shadow Disciplines assassin specializing in Dexterity. The build idea is to use auxiliary skills like Cloak of Shadows and Burst of Speed to be really agile, fast and hard to see, thus focus is on avoiding hits instead of tanking them. I'll use throwing weapons and a shield. Weaker shields and throwing weapons up to exceptional require little strength (25 for exceptional throwing weapons, for example) (except for the Short Spear and Glaive-class javelins, but I'd prefer the throwing knives and axes anyway for larger stack size), which is plausible to reach from 20 base strength. With BoS, throwing speed should be very fast - aside from the Amazon, it seems that the Assassin is the other class that enjoys an above-average weapon IAS on throwing weapons. Massive investment into Dexterity means that even a crappy buckler should be able to reach max block eventually, I think, after which we'll stay at max block (which should be pretty important, it might mean life or death against a surprise ranged pack for the few seconds it'll take to run away and regroup). That's the reason why throwing weapons fit this build so well. They're ranged, so I don't die instantly in melee, and one-handed. Though other ranged weapons (bows, crossbows) need more strength anyway.

A Shadow Warrior/Master will be employed to tank, and I'm still thinking about what other skills could be employed. Venom would be nice to boost the damage of our normal throwing attack, Mind Blast is a nice touch that might even the odds with those conversions. Well, that's pretty much all that are relevant to our build. Complete with prereqs, I should be able to max 4 out of those 5 skills before the theoretical end of the game, but it's obviously more relevant what I'll max first. I guess the build won't be very viable at all in Hell, but maybe could complete Nightmare - though confined spaces like Duriel's chamber and the Ancients battles will be, well, a nightmare (or hell, if you will).

All of this is based on pure theorycraft and may completely crash and burn in the course of the game. (I haven't even used half these skills in a serious build... I've no idea how effective Venom, Mind Blast or the Shadow summonings are in practice.) I won't play today, but maybe in the next few days. I'll play HC to avoid temptations to cheat and accusations of not being legit if I do manage a good achievement, although I'll certainly strip the character after death (for self-use only) if I find something valuable enough.
 
Good luck! I played a very similar character (but using dual claws in order to exploit maxed Claw Mastery) but I gave up on her since CoS is very likely to cause a crash whenever an inanimate enemy structure is in its range (mummy sarcophagi, hawk nests, etc.). In Normal it's not a problem since you can just mow through everything with Venom and hardly ever need CoS but in NM it got so annoying that I retired her. I hope your D2 installation is more stable than mine.

As to accusations of not playing legit, stripping HC characters is not considered legit here, since HC is partly about the possibility of losing items. If you care about the items you find, you might want to just play SC until first death (plus if you play SC otherwise you can use all the items you find in the tourney for other characters). Technically it is very easy to cheat in tourneys, no matter whether HC or not, and people will believe / not believe in your achievements based on how you tell your story (at least I do). So if you post tomorrow that you got a guardian equipped with high-end runewords, people might think you cheated but if you document the ups and downs of the journey no one will raise doubts about your achievements.
 
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