The "I am Overburdened" Tournament!

[skoolbus1]

@Dazliare I would recommend giving it another go for sure!

I had more time than I suspected this weekend and played Gerudo some more. Finished up Act II, always walking a fine line of using CoS and risking a crash, or spamming mind blast. I'm at the point now that I don't use CoS unless it's an emergency or something like gloams I need to deal with.

Act II didn't bring much in the way of excitement. I thought I could handle Duriel on /p8, but when I saw how quickly he ate my merc, I regretted that. I was lucky if the merc lived long enough for me to lay 5 LS traps and hit Duriel with a lower resist charge. Eventually I gave up reviving him and kited Duriel around the room. Not fun, but effective. The drop wasn't anything useful.

I started crafting a lot in Act II. Basically as soon as I get a Ral, Thul, Amn, or Jewel, I'm crafting something. Trying to upgrade my merc's helm and armor, my gloves and rings.

I'm currently at the WP in Lower Kurast, and I read earlier in the thread that you can't personalize jewelry, which is a shame! In the flayer dungeon, this beauty dropped, my first one ever!

The Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 51
Fingerprint: 0x880ba710
+20 to Mana
Adds 1-12 lightning damage
Increase Maximum Mana 25%
+1 to All Skill Levels

I had more good luck in the flayer dungeon, also finding a Peasant Crown and this beauty of a jewel:

Scintillating Jewel of Daring
Required Level: 26
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0xcb084557
+2 to Dexterity
All Resistances +12

Really just posting an update because I'm excited to share about finding a SoJ, despite the irony of not being able to use it.

Gerudo the trapsin, level 60, Lower Kurast

 

[skoolbus1]

Well, Gerudo will have to go ahead and bow out. I hit the wrong key and swapped weapons to my teleport staff instead of mind blast. This resulted in me teleporting straight into the middle of about 20 venom lords and oblivion knights in the chaos sanctuary. I mashed my full rejuvs, and probably wasted about 5 of them in my frantic attempt to remain alive before I hit esc. I tried three times to unpause, rejuv, and do ANYTHING, but it was not meant to be.

Rather than go down with honor, I took the cowardly way out and S&E'ed. I am bummed. I was in no way in any danger of dying if I didn't inadvertently teleport into the middle of a huge group and then hit another hotkey in my confusion. I will have to be more careful and not click as fast in the future. I had been using the ground in town as an extended stash during each D2 session, so I lost my sweet 30%FRW/40%LR boots and my Spirit Shroud.

I will eventually continue playing Gerudo, first I must decide about attempting to continue under the (majority) of the rules of the tournament, or begin using an extended stash and use that sweet SoJ I muled off the other day and just go for guardian. I wish those still remaining the best of luck!

Gerudo the trapsin, level 66, shamefully quitting in the Chaos Sanctuary

 

[jonny5]

Barb has finally finished full-clearing Act 3 Nightmare. For this stage in the game, if I were to rate Barb on a scale of 1-10, he is about a 2 in kill speed and a 9 in safety. It makes for an exceedingly dull experience (although I am sure that will change sooner or later). Neither overwhelming numbers nor Conviction gloams posed any real danger. Well, reviewing my screenshots, I do recall that Fanatic Stormtree was a bit touch-and-go, but careful use of Taunt to pull away his minions made things very manageable. Of course I stayed well clear of Geleb before he popped. Zealots constantly running away and being healed was extremely frustrating, but at least Taunt greatly helped shorten their leash so Barb and his net -10% FRW didn't need to chase them down too frequently.

My concern is that this very lopsided defense/offense is simply delaying the inevitable. Even the strongest defense eventually gets overwhelmed by a nasty combo of mods in Hell. All I really need is one good sword gamble and things will speed up dramatically, however, so I am picking up and selling rather frequently considering the tight inventory space.

Other than a couple of minor charm changes, I didn't have any gear changes since my last update. Oh, he did find this fantastic small charm that I am sorely tempted to mule off and transfer to softcore, but to me it would undermine Barb's development. Hopefully Barb (and by extension, that charm) will survive!

Barb, level 64 Concentrate Barb, onward to Act 4!

 

[Dazliare1]

That charm makes me moist

 

[jonny5]

Well that just made me laugh out loud at work, thanks for that @Dazliare. Early in A4 I found another nice one although with a gold find suffix, so not quite as gg as that one. They actually add like 25 to my max LCS damage which is sadly significant at this stage.

 

[TwentyMuleTeam]

Well after reading through this thread I can't help but join. Bremusa, the soon to be CS/plague javazon, has made her way into the Tamoe Highlands. Together with her trusty rogue mercenary, they've made quick work of their foes, as expected.

I've had terrible luck thus far gambling, and only 3 chipped topaz to speak of to this point. Countess dropped a Tal, and I've found plenty of other gems that I've stashed for now. This is my first tourney in years and my first play through without an extended stash, so it should be fun!

I'll add Bremusa to the table after she's made some more progress. Thanks for hosting @Dazliare

 

[jonny5]

Welcome to the tournament, @TwentyMuleTeam! Good luck! It was getting lonely in here...

 

[Dazliare1]

Well after reading through this thread I can't help but join. Bremusa, the soon to be CS/plague javazon, has made her way into the Tamoe Highlands. Together with her trusty rogue mercenary, they've made quick work of their foes, as expected.

I've had terrible luck thus far gambling, and only 3 chipped topaz to speak of to this point. Countess dropped a Tal, and I've found plenty of other gems that I've stashed for now. This is my first tourney in years and my first play through without an extended stash, so it should be fun!

I'll add Bremusa to the table after she's made some more progress. Thanks for hosting @Dazliare

Welcome! I may try this one a third time, though Classic WoW has been taking most of my free time recently...

 

[jonny5]

Barb has finished A4 NM. Act 4 is always nice when play time is limited as it makes it feel like I've made more progress than I really have. But first, I forgot to show Meph's drop from A3:

The Chance Guards were average (33%), and the rest was junk. It's odd that with this character having already used his personalization quest, the most exciting part of these drops is the rares.

Act 4 with its wide open areas presented a new challenge for this character, as if I did not advance carefully and retreat liberally, it was easy to get surrounded. Fortunately with Barb being as tanky as he is, situations like that still weren't very concerning as long as it wasn't a boss pack with nasty mods. The Outer Steppes was also kind enough to yield another nice small charm.

The Plains of Despair took a while, as there was no shortage of gloams to hunt down or dodge, depending on how many showed up at any one time. Izual himself was expectedly easy; although his incessant use of frost nova slowed things down, he inevitably gave up and collapsed in on himself. The best thing to come out of the Plains of Despair wasn't those two skill points though, it was the long, long-awaited Amn rune drop. Although upgrading a newly-gambled sword I have waiting in the stash would have given me some much needed storage space, I instead opted to upgrade Hazade's rare pike into a lance as it would net our team a much bigger BPS boost.

The City of the Damned wasn't particularly noteworthy, other than the fact that this map had a lot of large structures to explore. These evil forces took way too long to break for being made out of glass.

Some Extra Fast, Conviction Pit Lords did their best to impersonate the bane of CS hammerdins, but were easily dispatched, as was Hephasto. The Hellforge drop was actually quite good:

Too bad Pul is good for upgrading unique exceptional weapons, and Um is needed for rares. Maybe we'll luck into a second Pul at some point.

The RoF also yielded my first elite sword drop, a white Falcata! Imbuing white elite swords is one of the few means I'll have of possibly acquiring a decent elite weapon, so I immediately took this back to Charsi, who promptly disappointed me. Damn. One down, two to go.

All I'll say about the Chaos Sanctuary is that while I didn't mind fighting the Grand Vizier or the Infector, or even Diablo, I hated having to constantly chase down un-tauntable oblivion knights while decrepified. That took a hugely disproportionate amount of time, and it virtually assured that we fought all our battles while cursed in one fashion or another, as the OKs had to be hunted down one at a time after every big melee. For the Diablo fight, I put on my Blood gloves, took the obligatory standing-in-the-bugged-lightning-hose pic, and hacked away. Big D was even kind enough to only target me, allowing Hazade to participate for the whole fight, which surely helped speed things up. I took one trip back to town to refill red pots, but it was over before long, and Diablo's drop was surprisingly decent for once...

...except for this tournament, where the only rare dropping being a non-Barb class specific made this drop a disappointing tease. If only I were a caster and/or hadn't already used my personalization quest! The weapon, while only decent, likely would've been end-game for Barb once upped - That Pul rune would've been begging for a Lum companion right about now.

Barb, level 67 Concentrate barbarian, NM Harrogath. The Bloody Foothills are next!

 

[jonny5]

No major update yet, but I am approaching Nihlathak's temple - as an untwinked Conc barb with severe gear restrictions and glacial killing speed. All I can think is:

Anyone have any suggestions for how to navigate the temple's many charging zombies? I think I have a reasonable plan in mind but would gladly listen to any suggestions.

 

[skoolbus1]

@jonnyphive I don't have any actual advice, only thing I can think of put it on /p1, have shield, and BO every 30 seconds? I skipped Nihl on NM (and am planning to skip him on Hell as well).


I decided to continue Gerudo under the tournament rules (though I broke the no S&E rule in the Chaos Sanctuary). I put it on /p1 and went to the River of Flame waypoint. First champ I encounter, drops a Titan's Revenge. I would have probably second guessed my decision if I was playing a Javazon... Anyway, to mitigate any potential XP benefits of rerunning a large portion of this map, I kept it on /p1 for the whole area (I had cleared ~half on /p8 before). This time, taking extra care not to tele into large groups of dangerous mobs, Gerudo was able to summon and kill Diablo with ease. He dropped a potential game changer in an eth Bonesnap. IIRC blade fury doesn't use durability, so that would have been about the best blade fury weapon I could hope for on a single pass. I quickly decided that my 0 point investment in blade fury couldn't justify using my only set/unique/runeword item. Diablo also dropped a second Heart Carver.


Act 5 rained great drops. I found 2 Ko runes in/around the Crystalline Passage. I found a 34 resist all Skin of the Vipermagi in the Drifter Cavern (I think). Found too many other great items for an untwinked character to list, muled all of them off save the Vipermagi armor, thinking that is certainly a candidate for the personalize. Gerudo was able to cruise on players 8 the whole act, save ancients and baal. Ancients didn't pose much of a threat. Baal and his minions were easy.


I was very nervous starting out Hell, Gerudo's resists were hovering in the mid 50s and 0 points in weapon block. I cleared about half the act on /p3, pretty much until I ran into my first conviction boss pack. Seeing the moron get instantly vaporized, and all of my resists in the negative, made up my mind to personalize the Skin of the Vipermagi. Once I got to the outer cloister (good spot to go back to normal), I personalized my Vipermagi. I kept the 4 PTopaz gothic plate in the stash to swap to for act bosses.


Seeing FR/LR/CR at 75 and poison at 55 gave me a lot of peace of mind. The rest of Act 1 went pretty smoothly. Act 2 was even easier, no difficult monsters. Fangskin didn't pose an issue. I had been doing pretty much full clears up until the Arcane Sanctuary, where I cleared 3 paths and didn't bother with the fourth (you know which one). I also skipped all the false tombs, deciding to just make a push for guardian.


Act 3 was an absolute nightmare. Short of seeing no gloams, I have nothing positive to say for it for a character with lightning damage. The army of LI flayers was the easy part. The Urdars were unbearable. The council was a 45 minute fight, trying to lure each one out individually, and spamming mind blast to keep the merc alive.


I flirted with death numerous times in the Durance of Hate. Level 2 had an unkillable (and not converted with mind blast) boss pack in the first room. I foolishly brought them right back to the stairs. This was like 3 NDEs in one. I eventually managed to blindly teleport several rooms away to where it was semi-safe. I never went back that way. Level 3 was equally horrible, I tried to just moat trick Meph without attracting any attention. Of course what happened was I attracted the attention of everything at once. 45 minutes later, I was able to moat trick Meph. He didn't drop anything noteworthy.

Sorry for the wall of text, with any luck, the next one will be for guardian! Or more likely, a deeds...

Gerudo the trapsin, level 80, semi-playing by the rules in Harrogoth

 

[skoolbus1]

I just figured out where my screenshots were going, so I have a picture this time!

View attachment 52106

As you can see, Gerudo killed Baal and became a guardian! This is my second guardian (very ironic that my first was a fire trapsin), but first tournament one.

Now that the important stuff is out of the way, I'll pick up where I left off last post. Act IV was extremely slow. Despite no gloams, every LI boss was also FI, which meant I had to resort to mind blasting nonstop for the merc's abysmal damage to slowly whittle away at them. It would have been a good idea to shop a throwing weapon with prevent monster heal, but for some reason I didn't. I seriously contemplated skipping hellforge because Hephaesto was FI/LI. I slogged it out though, got a Ko rune. Yay....

The first time I cleared out the chaos sanctuary, the mods on all the seal bosses were perfect. Nothing remotely dangerous, no immunities I couldn't easily deal with, piece of cake, never even saw Lord De Seis. Yes, I said first time. I have no idea what happened, but when I killed Diablo I didn't get credit for the quest. I TP'ed back to town to swap armor to my 4 PTopaz armor, but I did it super late, and my only guess is that a LS bolt was in the air when I went through the TP, so Diablo died .01 seconds after I was in town and I didn't get credit. If it wasn't that, I have no explanation. His drop was nothing of any use. The second time in the chaos sanctuary was horrendous. Polar opposite from the first. I lured the balrog one out, hoping it was like Baal's minions, but eventually resigned myself to having to kill him. FI/LI, extra fast, cursed, extra strong. Even mind blasting him into a wall was perilous. This time I did shop a prevent monster heal weapon. Doing everything again cost me about a third of my remaining gold (~500k) with the numerous merc revives. I was nervous I'd run out of gold in Act 5.

Act 5 I was still moving in straight lines from area to area, minimizing kills to the extent it was safe. Outdoor areas were filled with archers. I decided to risk using CoS again (hadn't used it in hell up to this point). Really wasn't too bad for the most part, LI's were very uncommon. Found a second eth Bonesnap and a Tal's Mask right around Eldritch. Used my socket quest on my +2 Assassin skills/20% IAS claw, got two sockets and stuck two Shaels in. Probably a waste, but didn't need any more resists in my Vipermagi and didn't have a PRuby to stick in it. Skipped Anya, and all side areas, so I moved through the act quickly. Had to reroll the ancients twice, before the merc lasted more than .2 seconds. I put a point into Shadow Warrior and Shadow Master right before the ancients. Thankfully I realized that I wasted the Shadow Master point because she would cast CoS and crash the game. Oh well.

On my third try on the ancients, I got the whirler separated first. Don't remember his mods, but he wasn't LI and had nothing remotely dangerous, and he was more interested in the Shadow Warrior than me, so that was nice. After a lot of teleporting around, I managed to get the leaper on his own. Also not LI and also didn't have anything scary. When I got him down to ~1/4 life, he killed the merc and gave chase to me. Managed to finish him with LS without getting hit. The axe thrower was LI and extra strong, and would kill off the shadow with 2 (maybe 3) axes. I switched over to my lower resist balanced knife and rejoiced when I saw it would break his LI! It was slow going, and I ate a fair number of axes running around. Fortunately getting hit with both left me with a solid 350ish life and my rejuv mashing was spot on. I got very nervous when the potions I dropped on the ground all disappeared and I had 2 mana potions left, 0 health, and 6 full rejuvs. Thankfully that was enough.

Gerudo navigated through the WSK pretty well, minimizing unnecessary areas. WSK 2 and 3 had gloams, but CoS works wonders. Only encountered 1 gloam boss pack in the Throne level. The stairs to the Throne level had a fairly decent stair trap, but CoS and liberal mind blast made it not too bad. Baal's minions were very easy, as was the Baal fight.

Overall, your cookie cutter lightning trapsin. Very fast killspeed, very very safe being a ranged assassin. I had a good deal of luck with MFing (though that wasn't particularly helpful in this tournament) and only 1 real NDE in the hell durance (other than my S&E in NM Chaos Sanctuary). I had been muling off items I knew I wouldn't/couldn't use, so I'll probably give Gerudo some of those back and grab some more WPs and complete all the quests. I'm still using the same circlet I gambled in act 2 normal....

@Dazliare thanks for hosting the tournament! I will 100% not be joining again. I am a compulsive packrat and it was too tedious going through hell having to drop charms to pick up every blue item I knew I could sell. I can't handle that level of tedium again lol.

I'll post a guardian thread with my gear/stats and whatnot, this post is already far too big.

Good luck to @jonnyphive, @TwentyMuleTeam, and anyone else still going!

Gerudo the trapsin, level 82, Guardian

 

[jonny5]

Congrats @skoolbus, and impressive pace through Hell! Always nice to see more finishers in a tough tournament like this.

 

[Dazliare1]

We're back my friends!

Leandra the enchantress will probably die prior to reaching Nightmare, but currently level 10!

 

[jonny5]

Welcome back, @Dazliare! Enchant + static + merc seems like a good way to get through NM, honestly. Between TP repositioning, the relatively high fire damage you can give your merc, and a decent radius static to soften enemies up first, you'll probably find that your merc can rip through most of norm and NM fairly safely - especially if you use your personalization on some sick spear/polearm drop.

As for me, Barb has finally completed NM! Well, except for cows, but that'll be wrapped up later today or tomorrow.

The journey up Mount Arreat started calmly enough, steadily swatting away rats and cats on the way toward Shenk. We found a Fal near Shenk, meaning I am now "just" a Pul or Um away from being able to upgrade an exceptional rare weapon to elite. Too bad I have yet to score something worthy enough.

Having max block and max fire res was a big help in the Frigid Highlands, as burning dead archers were everywhere. I again relied heavily on Taunt to give Hazade and I a battle position in which we didn't have to constantly go after the archer groups:

The above situation was beneficial to us as Hazade and I could stack on top of one another, allowing me to block most attacks coming toward us while Hazade could attack with impunity.

I was thankful for the many natural choke points in Abaddon, as dolls + frenzytaurs are not a nice combination to get surrounded by. One or two at a time were easily managed, though. Hooray for bridges!

There were frenzytaurs in the Glacial Trail, but nothing too dangerous, and the Frozen River was fairly tame as well - mostly non-dangerous melee mobs rather than gloams and witches firing from across the river in every direction. This may be the first time that I got a truly usable reward from Anya, as this helm will be what I use when starting Hell:

The +3 BO is huge, and the +1 to Increased Speed is surprisingly useful as well. I avoided spending any skill points in Inc Stam/Speed in an effort to squeeze every bit of damage out of this character I can (by putting points into synergies instead), so a free boost to my R/W speed (which is currently -10%) will be greatly appreciated. Combined with 2os to plug whatever gaps there are in my Hell setup, this helm is surprisingly good. Thanks Anya (for once)!

Most of Act 5 went by smoothly, with difficulty generally ranging from easy and fairly fast to a slow yet safe grind when lots of chilling monsters were around. One irritating drop, however, came on my way to visit Nihlathak, as some random mob dropped a Bloodletter. Had I waited to use my personalization quest, I would have now had access to a Bloodletter Falcata, as I have Pul + Lum for upgrading exceptional unique weapons to elites. The decent %ED, raw damage add, and a Shael in the socket would allow for a very solid 4 FPA whirlwind weapon. On the other hand, I might also have already deeded Barb, as he was getting into quite a grind earlier in the game before personalizing the Twitchthroe and respeccing. So, easy come, easy go, for this one. Anyway, the Halls of Pain had zealots/heirophants, grotesques, and maggots, which was an irritating spawning/healing combination, but it made the Vipers in the Halls of Vaught seem relatively easy by comparison. Sure, they ate my merc pretty quickly, but I slapped on my Amulet of Life Everlasting (saved for almost an entire difficulty for this exact situation) as soon as I saw them and they barely touched me. I'll be holding onto that amulet for Hell.

Nihlathak inevitably fell, and soon it was time for the Ancients. As expected, the battle was very slow, and eventually the extra potions I dropped on the floor poofed, and my sword broke (it started at full durability...). So in the end I sat back and watched Hazade duel with Talic, ready to give him a full rejuv if needed. It was never needed, and Hazade carried us down into the WSK. I also gambled a very nice belt that might see use in Hell.

Nothing particularly noteworthy happened in the WSK, but the Throne of Destruction had a dangerous almost-stair trap waiting for us:

See those Mighty Doom Knights at the top of the screen? I was able to Taunt away one or two individually before accidentally waking up the whole pack, but fortunately spawns were light nearby and we were able to run just enough to split them up and pull them away from the unique with the aura. As in the CS, Oblivion Knights were incredibly irritating with their tendency to cast decrepify and run away. Usually most battles distilled down to me and Hazade painstakingly chasing down OKs long after everything else had been taken care of.

All 5 waves were surprisingly easy; 4 of the 5 can be safely Taunted, and having already cleared the throne, it was easy enough to break up Lister's pack and take them out 1-2 at a time. Barb is very sturdy against single enemies. The fight with Baal took a good 15 min, even with my blood gloves on, and it looked like this most of the time:

The clone was spawned almost immediately, which was only really irritating when it distracted Hazade from the real target. Still, I was perfectly content to tank against Baal and his clone while Hazade and I slowly chipped away. Baal fell, and Barb became a Conquerer.

My plan now is to chop up some beef, then complete the Den of Evil in hell before respeccing one final time and swapping all my gear over. Selling off my MF gear will be fantastic for freeing up inventory space - I don't plan to worry much about MF in Hell.

Barb, level 75 Concentrate Barbarian, Hell Rogue Encampment.

 

[Dazliare1]

That barb helm is sweet

 

[jonny5]

Yeah, I think I had already selected it and was on my way to selling it when I realized I had actually seen a flash of something useful. With this helm, I should be casting BO at level 30 in Hell (2x echoing weapons, helm, BC), which is a really nice boost to health!

 

[Dazliare1]

Leandra has finished Act 1. I levelled through most of it with Frost Nova just for grins, though it wasn't particularly effective. I found an early jewel of envy, which I dropped into a longbow for my fire mercenary and she carried most of the act.

At level 18, I used my normal respec to swap to Enchant as I didn't want to kill Andariel with Frost Nova. I've been swapping between 1h/shield, and this decent Bardiche:

Dread Nails
Bardiche
Two Hand Damage: 1 - 27
Durability: 39 of 50
Required Level: 3
Required Strength: 40
Fingerprint: 0x11b96dda
Item Level: 11
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+16% Damage to Demons
+45 to Attack Rating against Demons
Adds 1 - 8 Lightning Damage
Fire Resist +6%

I plan to gamble a few Pikes in act 2, which should increase my damage output tremendously. By the end of Act 1, I was actually surprised how effective my damage was, though I can already tell this character is going to be a real challenge.

One thing I will need to sort out is how I want to handle stats. I went into this thinking that it wouldn't be worth going 1H/shield since the damage output won't be great unless I find a good 1H, and the block frames on a sorc are really rough, so I would have to sacrifice loads of vit to make that work. On the other hand, I can already tell AR is going to be a problem. Having enough strength for a decent weapon is also going to be a challenge. So we'll see how things go. I may read up on a few Mat/Guardian threads for ideas.

A 'Passion' definitely isn't out of the question, though I might have to get lucky with a Lem. I'm also not entirely convinced that's a good option without supporting gear. I'm worried about being locked into a slow Zeal animation.

So lot's of questions, but we're making progress!

 

[jonny5]

@Dazliare One thought regarding weapon choice: Since your main source of damage will be fire rather than physical, consider focusing on a fast 1-handed weapon rather than something with high physical damage. High physical damage weapons require multipliers, which paladins and druids excel with (for example), but sorcs lack entirely. Rather, I would think that the focus should be on applying fire damage quickly, meaning that a fast weapon would be preferred. By extension, since physical damage won't be great either way, and since you'll be up close and personal with your fighting, a shield and one-handed weapon may make the most sense. Deal fire damage quickly and block 3/4 of incoming attacks... What about a 'Steel' flail? Some of the highest early-game physical damage, and one of the fastest attack speeds you can manage initially untwinked, should easily carry you through normal with smart investment in Enchant + synergies/mastery.

Edit: Similar thought process to Holy Fire/Freeze/Shock pally: weapon speed >> physical damage. Also, Enchant has a %AR boost, so any AR you can get from equipment (Fools mod!!) will get at least *some* multipliers from skills (unlike physical damage).

 

[Dazliare1]

Arcane Sanctuary is done. I'll probably finish Act 2 tomorrow, at which point I'll give a proper update. This character is surprisingly insanely strong right now