The Passive Aggressive Tournament

[Kestegs]

Alright, I'll do a little update and officially announce my entry.

I'm working on a necro named WallE. He sounds a lot like what bladejj is making, but a little different at least. I was originally going to go iron maiden/bone wall/prison, but I finally convinced myself not to I will still heavily invest in wall/prison/armor, but will likely use confuse or attract. I've never used either of those skills, so I'll give them both a point when I get that far and see how they work out. I'll also likely use fire golem, as he's my favorite. I'll likely use a rogue or act 3 merc, I plan on heavy bone wall use in late game and I want them to be able to attack over it.

Early act 1 was very easy, I always forget how good necros are at the start with amp and bone armor. Haven't had a ton of topaz luck, but I'm only 2 short of completing my merc's gear. gambled a pair of 22% mf gloves and a nice rare boot with 9% though. No uniques have dropped yet, but I found a death's sash early on, which could be useful later. I also just gambles a Hsaurau's belt, which is a pretty nice early belt!

I've cleared up to the outer cloister and am a hair off of hitting level 18.

[highlight]WallE Necromancer, lvl 18, outer cloister [/highlight]

I've enjoyed reading everyone's updates as always, keep up the good work!

 

[Old_Frog]

@Dazliare:great job with Vladimir the Kathos Clan would be proud!
Welcome to this adventure, it has proven to be quite fun.

 

[Pb_pal1]

@bladejj - I'm pretty sure I remember you back from my first stint in these forums (2004-ish). Congrats on all the life achievements, and welcome to the tournament!

@Southpaw8668 - Congrats on the Destroyer! Interesting to see a few examples of crafts. I think they will be my last ditch effort, mostly due to the cost.

@Dazliare - Welcome to the tournament! Calabi will be glad to have some Amazonian company

@djmbbandie - Good luck on the sept! Let us know when the ladies get back to it.

@kestegs - Welcome (officially) to WallE!

To stegs and bladejj: Both of those plans are not far off what my next char is planned to be after Calabi has finished, so I will be watching closely. Thanks for taking the test drive for me!

--

I was going to wait to update once she had made more progress, but I want to get a new table with all the new entries, so I figured may as well let everyone know where she is. Also, I thought it might be interesting for the other competitors to see how my imbuing etc went. Here goes!

The rest of Arcane was done with no big problems. It sure was slow though, as there were a ton of PI ghosts. It wasn't necessarily the fact that they were PI that was an issue (although it didn't help), but the fact that the flee on Calabi's axe meant that they would fly off into space after a few hits. Basically we let Kasim and the valk take a group on and let them slowly take them out with the ctc Amp on the valk's spear. While they did this Calabi would seperate 1 (or 2, ideally) and Berserk it until it flew off, then wait for it to come back to her and repeat the process. Let's just say I'm glad it's over.

We finally got a magic elite spear to drop (Stygian Pike), so we decided the break after Arcane was a good time to try for a weapon upgrade for Kasim.

First step was to test out our 3 imbues on some of the Ogre Axes we had found. Here are the results:

#1

Spoiler

#2

Spoiler

#3

Spoiler

That went about as well as expected. We then used up all of our saved chipped gems re-rolling the magical stygian pike we had found, with even poorer results. The best we could manage was Merciless (96% ED) with one socket. Yuck. We were sufficiently discouraged to stop trying there, and instead decided to socket the other white elite polearms we had found and see if anything came out with 4 sockets. We had one Great Poleaxe and 4 Colossus Voulges to try. The GPA came out with 3, so that will be kept in case we find an UM rune for Crescent Moon, and on our last CV we managed 4 sockets.

So we bit the bullet and upgraded Kasim's cheese stick (it came out with 230%ED and +3 to critical strike). Since the STR requirement is so high on CV's, we made him a Lionheart in a Gothic Plate to match Calabi's. Here is what his stats look like:

That'll do for now, his killing speed and survivability rose significantly but we had to sacrifice a pile of MF. We are still at ~175% on Calabi's Rhyme switch, so I'm quite happy with that, although I think soon we will make the switch to full killing/survival gear for Calabi (I'm starting to get a little wary of her life total). We will take some time later on to roll our Flawless/Perfect gems and do a bit of crafting to see if we can score a better/more interesting weapon for Kasim.

So with that our little group cleared out the Canyon, as well as the first false tomb. A boss unraveller pack (Extra Fast/Cursed/Fanaticism) gave us a scare in the room with the gold chest when the boss all of a sudden sprinted at Calabi and melee'd her while she was fighting another Unraveller (he took off over half her health). Other than that, nothing too exciting, and no good finds.


[highlight]Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 84, False tombs (1 complete)[/highlight]

--

Table of Heroes:
Forum Name     Class        Char Name      LVL    ACT       Area
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jiansonz       Sorceress    Sissy          84     A3(H)     Kurast Docks
Pb_pal         Amazon       Calabi         84     A2(H)     False Tombs
Zylo           Druid        Hoyt           59     A3(NM)    Kurast Docks
felixbavaria   Sorceress    Swoosh         51     A1(NM)    Inner Cloister
Southpaw8668   Necromancer  Hallow         47     A1(NM)    Rogue Ecnampment
sivaeB         Necromancer  Toast          45     A1(NM)    Rogue Encampment
srrw           Druid        PurpleHaze     35     A5        Harrogath
thefranklin    Druid        FollowTheBear  35     A5        Harrogath
djmbbandie     Assassin     Natasha        32     A4        Pandemonium Fortress
ranagrande     Barbarian    Beldric        28     A3        Kurast Docks
pharphis       Sorceress    SlamDoorsShut  23     A2        Far Oasis
Morathi        Assassin     Carrisa        21     A2        Lut Gholein
kestegs        Necromancer  WallE          18     A1        Outer Cloister
Jocular        Assassin     ?????          14     A1        Stony Field/Dark Wood(?)
bladejj        Necromancer  Relic          10     A1        Stony Field
jamesixgun     Druid        John           6      A1        Rogue Encampment
Dazliare       Amazon       RIP_Vladimir   1      A1        Rogue Encampment

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Fallen (RIP):
Forum Name     Class        Char Name      LVL    ACT       Area
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Southpaw8668   Amazon       Contessa       15     A1        Andariel
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[jiansonz]

We then used up all of our saved chipped gems re-rolling the magical stygian pike we had found, with even poorer results.

Oh what a waste of gems! It was destined to fail. Merciless was in fact the best +% damage prefix you had a shot at...
The qlvl of Stygian Pike is too low. It's only 66 - you need a weapon with at least qlvl 75 for Cruel (which you want 99% of the time) to be possible on low ilvls. That means Cryptic Axe, Great Poleaxe, Giant Thresher, Ghost Spear or War Pike. The last two are shoppable from Hell Fara (beware the high DEX requirement of Ghost Spear).

(Technically, Ghost Glaive and Winged Harpoon can also get Cruel but they are not worth rerolling becuase of lower damage and no socket(s).)



Nice progress otherwise.

 

[Pb_pal1]

Well that's a shame! Guess I should have looked into it more.

Oh well, that gives me hope for my flawless/perfect gem cubing. Thanks for the info, live and learn.

 

[jiansonz]

Oh well, that gives me hope for my flawless/perfect gem cubing.

Don't forget the mid-size gems (those that are just called Ruby, Skull, etc). As soon as you have done one reroll on a magical weapon with chipped or flawless gems, the weapon is magical and socketed, which means the mid-size gems recipe works on it.

Perfect gems recipe, otoh, does not change the ilvl, so that could have worked to get Cruel on the Stygian Pike, if the initial ilvl was 75 or higher. Downside is that it's a costly recipe, and you don't get any bonus socket(s). It's probably better to just power shop vendors instead, even though that gets boring fast.

I prefer saving the perfect gems for rerolling charms and jewels, and for recipes for socketing, upgrading and such.


Bit of a luxury problem for you now anyway. It's not easy to get your hands on anything that can beat an Insight CV.

 

[Kestegs]

Okay, let's try the right thread this time...

Made some more progress!

WallE has completed act 1. The most odd thing that happened was that I didn't find a single experience shrine through the whole act! I now have full topaz gear plus 5 in the stash, so not too bad. It wasn't until the catacombs that I found my first unique, and then my second and third

Spoiler

That second one was from a barrel, which is pretty crazy! I immediately put the crushflange to use in the upcoming battle, the other 2 are gathering e-dust.

I started to really like confuse, so I started pumping it, works great to distract large groups of monsters and have them (slowly) kill each other. I might actually go ahead and hire an act 2 merc, because I hate rogues so much and she is getting slow at killing, then I'll pick up an act 3 merc and keep him.

[highlight]WallE, necromancer, lvl 20, Sewers[/highlight]

Been thinking of an idea for a tournament myself, so I might work on that idea a bit this weekend also.

 

[Dazliare1]

We're off to an interesting start. My goal is to be through the first half of act 2 by Monday, but we'll see. This is an early update, because I didn't want to forget. I was about halfway through the Tamoe Highland when my computer crashed. I lost all the maps and a bit of exp, and I have no way of knowing what is already cleared. I lost the Black Marsh map too, so just to make things easy, I decided to reclear the Tamoe Highland. I don't think I'm breaking any rules - I just wanted to let everyone know.

 

[Old_Frog]

Destroyer Hallow, Mizan and Golem of choice have made it to the Inner Cloister waypoint and have decided to take a rest for a spell. Hallow really hates Carvers and the like, such cowards.

Nothing to exciting to reveal thus far, just standard operating procedure of Dim the ranged assailants, Attract the hordes together and Amp them while Mizan kills everything. The Golems don't really kill much, which is why Gumby works best, due to his wonderful slowing effect. He also makes life much safer with him out there, since many of our opponents have had increased speed modifiers.

Think the countess dropped us a Ral. Insight Partizan is working beautifully in Mizan's skilled hands. We need to beef up our armor for sure, I found a Full Plate with 3os but I wanted to hold off for a 4os one to drop or purchase so I don't waste my perfect topazes I've gathered.

During our adventures we have managed to find and mostly sell several set pieces that would most certainly serve a Paladin much better than a Golemancer.
Treasures include:
Sigon's belt (2nd) and boots
Milbrega's Helm to go with the shield we found in norm. - Barracks
Unique Kris - Cave Level 2
Unique Belt - Black Marsh
Vidala's Bow - Jail Level 1
Cleclaw's Claw (3rd) - Tamoe Highlands
Tearhaunch - Trist
Hel rune - Underground Passage Level 2
Unique Morning Star (2nd) - Mausoleum

Destroyer Hallow, Mizan and Gumby, Level 51, Inner Cloister WP

 

[sivaeB]

Player setting was all over the place in act 1, we got a decent rune drop in Black Marsh, we had no other drops beside a worthless Isenhart Horns.Only trouble we had was in Jail level 3, where there was 3 bone mage boss packs stacked on top of each other, to scary to screenshot, Waheed sacrificed himself a couple of times. After this we just ran through Catacombs to get to Andy, so yeah Toast is pretty underleveled at this point.

[highlight] Destroyer Toast with Waheed the Defiance guard, level 49, Lut Gholein. [/highlight]

 

[Old_Frog]

We rested up a bit and decided to push on towards slaying Andariel.

We slowly approached her chamber, however once again she decided to blaze out from her throne. Gumby must really tick her off, because she was totally focusing her poison attacks on him. Hallow and Mizan would occasionally chug an antidote potion, but poor Gumby was not so fortunate. He had to be raised around a dozen times right in her face. She was slowed to a snail's crawl once he connected with her. She lasted for much longer than I expected with Mizan jabbing her with his Insight weapon. Then we did take her on /p8 in hopes of a juicy reward and she still dropped junk. More came from the outer chamber than her throne room. We found the General's unique flail, so I raised an IG from it for chuckles and give Gumby a little break to recover from all that nasty poison.

Destroyer Hallow, Mizan and Gumby, Level 52, On Caravan Eastbound

 

[Pb_pal1]

@Dazliare - No worries about the crash, it happens. I think you picked the right spot to start back up from. Hopefully you don't have any more troubles from now on!

@kestegs - Consider my interest piqued about that tourny, looking forward to hearing about it!

--

This is a strange part of the game for me. Late Act 2 (post-Arcane) is probably my least favourite area in the game, and the early Act 3 jungles are my favourite. It makes for a strange combinaion of not wanting to grind through it, but simultaneously being very excited because of what's to come.

Alas, it was time to bite the bullet and take on the rest of the false tombs. The third tomb had the entrance that is just the one big room. Luckily there was nothing dangerous waiting for us there, as it can be quite tricky to deal with threats here. However, on the other side of one of the doors was a pretty scary boss pack of mummies:

The combination of Might, Spectral Hit and HF is absolutely deadly for Calabi as she needs to be able to retreat quickly if need be. This pack was actually dealt with extremely easily, and I included this SS to show just how much of a beast a fully synergized valk can be. Her health never moved. Kasim and Calabi were able to safely kill the entire pack from outside the door without getting a scratch.

The next two tombs were quite straightforward and Kaa was dispatched with no issue, so feeling good about themselves, the group descended into the 6th false tomb ready to clear it out. We started to clear out the first hallway, and were charged by a group of extra fast, extra strong ghosts. They hit pretty hard, and it's basically up to Calabi to kill them, so they can be quite tough. We got pushed back to the entrance, and were not making much progress killing them. Kasim was dead, the valk was faltering, and then everything went hay-wire. A mis-click opened the door just above the pack, and in poured some skeletons. Oh no, the last thing we need right now is to have to deal with the unravellers. We had two options: either stay here and try to fight the ghosts and skellies, hoping not to wake anything else up, or push forward through the hallway and try to establish position there. We chose the latter. We made it passed everything, but ended up getting cornered in the next room.

This position was actually not nearly as dangerous as it seems. Nothing could hit Calabi, and we had outrun most of the ghosts, so the valk wasn't overwhelmed. Whatever ghosts did come near were driven away with the flee on Passion, which managed to keep the pressure at a manageable level. Before we knew it we had killed this pack, and the ghosts, resurrected Kasim and cleared the room. Phew! The rest of the tomb went well, except for a room that contained a Mummy Sarcophagus and 3 Unravellers with their skeletons. It took probably an hour in this room alone to be able to pull everything away from the Unravellers and stem the tide of ever-flowing mummies.

Fun fact: we drew Unravellers in ALL 6 false tombs, and PI ghosts in 4 of them. Needless to say, it was slow going.

We considered dropping it from /p5 to /p3 for the true tomb, as our patience was beginning to run thin, but eventually we decided that we had come this far, we may as well finish it off. Besides, what are the chances that we would draw Unravellers in all 7 tombs?

...

Good enough to get them again. Oh, and we drew Ghosts too.

The tomb was actually not difficult, just slow. We FINALLY after all those tombs managed to cast a valk with amp, so that definitely helped. Duriel was taken on with the old decoy-valk-merc-sandwich tactic:

Between the valk's amp, and Kasim's CB from Guillaumes Face, the fight was very smooth and relatively quick (it was done on /p3).

Staying in true Duriel fashion, he droped us absolutely nothing of use:

But at least we were done with Act 2! No more false tombs for Calabi, ever!

Other notes/finds:
- Lum rune (our third)
- Que Hegan's Wisdom
- Demon Limb. This proved quite useful, and we will keep it in the stash from now on. The Enchant, although not super powerful, at least gives Kasim and the valk a bit more power in PI-heavy areas.
- Sigon's Armor to complete the set.
- We learned alot about blocking mummy sarcophagi during this trip. Decoys work well, but truthfully, I prefer this method.

[highlight]Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 85, Kurast Docks[/highlight]

 

[jiansonz]

I swapped Waheed's ethereal Insight Partizan for an Insight Thresher. I got a better ED roll (and 1 higher Critical Strike level) this time; the average weapon damage per hit is only 7 points lower.

Jungle areas were pretty smooth to clear out. I drew gloams in the Marsh - lots of teleporting to lure them back to favourable situations for Waheed to fight them (and to make sure they were fully on land to secure the drops). The Enchant damage just owned them. Sszark the Burning was Extra Fast + Teleportation. Could easily have been worse.

Had trouble with some river hydras in the Marsh, as none of us could reach them with our hits. Bought some throwing daggers but Sissy missed too much for that to be effective enough to kill them (they are PoI too, so the poison charm doesn't stop regeneration). I ended up buying a Halberd, which provided enough range to get them all.
Stormtree was Conviction + CE.
(I made sure to stay well away when Waheed fought him. I had collected enough full purples for him to stand his ground in that fight.)

When I entered Ruined Temple (T-formation with main room to the right), there were two speedy Flesh Hunter minions bouncing out and in through the doorway. "Great", I thought, "we can meet the pack in the doorway".
Wrong!
I teleported to a spot slightly too far back and half of Sarina's pack poured through, including Sarina herself. They were CE and it was soon clear they would easily defeat Waheed, potions or not. I had to take my chances and move. I chose the two small rooms down-left. Same mistake in that doorway as well. Ran into the inner room. MORE rogues, and now we're Amped also!

See the cardinal "sin" I committed here? Yup, clear those rooms first, you idiot!

Portal out, heal curse, restock potions, enter from stairs, double teleport to the two small rooms up-right. Only two minions followed and we could establish a foothold by those doorways. Sarina was NOT Cursed?

Ah, OK

The only other temple that was a bit hectic was the one in UK that is not Forgotten Temple. Empty by the stairs but soon a powerful CE Extra Strong rogue pack appeared. I chose to teleport further inside which may not have been the smartest thing to do. Lost the boss and some minions but others followed us to the upper right corner where we tried to stand our ground right in the corner, against 3-4 of those chilling hard-hitters plus a regular Flesh Hunter pack. There was also a spider pack there but so far none of the spiders attacked. Not wanting to draw their attention, we fought it out in the corner. Painful for Sissy - at one time there were at least two of those strong minions wailing on her.

Lucky break in the Durance (no risk to get overwhelmed):

Mephisto was less scary than I thought. Defiance really does help against act bosses. Misses are not uncommon. With both of us using CB, it was a pretty swift victory.

River of Flame provided our third PIFI boss:

Main tactics was the same as before. Hit with 'Steel' axe until it bleeds, then an elemental weapon. The one you can see here is a Shocking Military Pick.

Totally crazy fight here:

Really tough combo of abilities. The CE and the MR both prolonged the fight a lot (since only physical damage counts). Red potions did nothing to stop Heffer from owning Waheed time and time again. After several deaths for Waheed, I started to portal to town extremely often. I came to realize that it would be best to preserve that Defiance once it was up. It does cause Hephasto to miss quite often. The screenie shows a typical fighting scene. 2-3 hits scored from Hephasto, and out we go.

Hellforge drop was a Pul. Normally a fantastic rune but now I have no exceptional unique weapon I want to upgrade. Our profile this time around just doesn't involve unique weapons. Do you have any runeword suggetion using a Pul (and nothing above Ko)? I need to look up those, I think.

And another Stone Skin demon boss. And this one we have to defeat, right? Don't think you can face Diablo if you don't.

The HF of course made it even more sluggish. I had to restock potions for Waheed about 10 times. That's 10 times x 18 healing potions per trip...
Those two FIPI bosses each took longer than an act boss to kill. This was a new session (I saved at the River WP) so I did not have my Shocking axe to use against the Infector, but Jamella sold me a near-perfect Shocking Battle Staff that was even better.

Same setup against an act boss again. Diablo focused on Sissy and used very few Firestorms. The LI is of course just free fighting time when you melee him here on Hell and the Flame Novas are pretty meager. The melee hits added up damage, of course, with Sissy only at 13% blocking. Had to dip into the purples a few times.

One of Diablo's drops was interesting:

At first I was annoyed by the etherealness but I soon understood it was not bad. OK, the throwing aspect is very limited but this piece will last nearly forever in melee. Plus the DEX requirement is lowered by 10. This would be a pretty darn good solution against potential FIPI bosses as long as I can equip it and arrange a fighting situation where I won't get hit (might be hard since the melee range is the shortest possible) or where I can afford to get hit.

OK, so how do I solve the DEX requirement while still keeping my Passion elite axe dream alive? I started by gambling Coronets for a couple of millions. Pretty soon scored this:
Havoc Mask
Coronet
Defense: 31
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Level: 51
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 84
Fingerprint: 0xf91dce43
+5 to Energy
+20 to Dexterity
+89 to Attack Rating
All Resistances +13
Level 4 Holy Bolt (30/30 Charges)

Only 10 less resist all than my current headgear, and if I save Anya, that's restored. 20 DEX frees up many points and the +AR is of course something I treasure wherever I can get it. This will do.

I have three different elite axe types with 4 sockets in my ATMA stash: Feral, Silver-Edged and Decapitator. The Silver-Edged Axe already requires a decent DEX investment but only 6 more points in STR. OK, Silver-Edged it is. I now invested enough DEX to be able to equip the Gimmer. 6 points need to saved for more STR. That left 6 points I could give myself a bit more life with.

Max damage with the Gimmer tops at 3000-something. That's without Enchant! But one should think away all the fire damage (including Mastery boost) because it will only be used against FI monsters. OTOH, my level 5 Cold Mastery will lower enemy cold resist by a good amount.

I found both magical Demon Heart and magical Vortex Orb in Act IV. Time for chippie/mid-gem rerolling!
Result:
Volcanic Vortex Orb of Wizardry
One-Hand Damage: 12 to 66
Durability: 37 of 40
(Sorceress Only)
Required Level: 63
Orb Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 30
Fingerprint: 0x8b256e1b
+20 to Energy
+9 to Life
+1 to Teleport (Sorceress Only)
+3 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)
Socketed (2: 0 used)

Yes, I know a Leaf staff is better for Enchanting, but this weapon can be used with my shield, and it has an automod and two sockets. I think the best I can put in the sockets is my two Io runes but I may need those for the beastly merc weapon I have planned. I thought I was close to it in my last update, and I still do not need much compared to what I've found, but I still need 1-2 non-trivial runes.

Seems like I am cursed to be forever chasing our ultimate weapons and now there is not much left of the game.
But we're still alive and that's most important.
My only concern is that I am now down to just 8 full purples. I guess Waheed is destined to die a bit more. Money is not a problem.


Recent other finds:
* Wilhelm's Pride (I only need Guillaume's Face to complete the set now. I have no idea if the set bonuses are any good...)
* Dwarf Star
* Imbued my ethereal Ogre Axe but that came out with 37% ED and some life steal, so meh.


[Highlight]Conqueror Sissy the Axe Enchantress and Waheed the Defiance guard, level 86, Hell Harrogath[/Highlight]

 

[felixbavaria1]

Nice. I expect at least two guardians in the near future. I wish I had more time to play my throwsorc (currently at UK waypoint - in NM, that is).

Gimmershred is one of the weapons I thought was jackpot for her but the melee range really sucks - she definitely prefers Throwing Spear class weapons, for the attack speed and the melee range. The plan is to go melee with a decent elemental damage javelin against FIs. All that elemental damage is borderline useless (at least by my standards) if not augmented by Mastery. I have a couple of points in Lightning Mastery but since we can't respec I'll probably save the rest of the skill points until I find a good weapon for Hell (which might have good physical damage so I can have a few hard points in ES - I already have a Memory-capable +2 ES battle staff but no Lum rune so far).

I have a non-eth ilvl 40 Partizan in my stash but I'm holding off using a socket quest until at least Act IV where FIs start to show up regularly. Plus, if possible, I want to stay away from ladder runewords ...

 

[Old_Frog]

We have killed the Summoner and decided to pause for some local Ale, prior to continuing on to the Canyon of the Magi.

We've found another pair of Tearhaunch greaves, Woestave halberd, Diciple set boots, Unique Kite shield, Isanart's helm, Manald ring, unique Ancient Sword and a Dol rune to add to the pile of treasure. Keep finding a bunch of Paladin-centric gear, so I keep selling the lot of it or making a IG out of it which usually doesn't live very long in battle. CG still proves to be the best choice out of the CG, IG and FG. Haven't bothered with BG thus far. FG is maxed and so costly I can't even cast it with my current gear and mana levels.

Destroyer Hallow, Mizan and Gumby, Lvl 57, Canyon of the Magi WP

 

[srrw]

Act V done.

Slow, steady and quite boring progress, a bit annoying in the outdoor areas because of the bloody Imps. Baal was a lot quicker than I though he would be, since I didn't want to S&E to mule in an Amn for 'Strength' and one did not drop in the last few areas I cleared. Brought an Amp stick but didn't have the chance to use it, since he kept moving around.

Screenshots, as usual:

Spoiler

GIEB SHAEL FFS!

Used the cube recipe to socket it, got lucky

I'll update with NM gear after I decide on what I'm going to gamble away my ~3m.

[highlight]Destroyer PurpleHaze, Summoner and Vikhyat the Prayer Guard, Level 48, Act I NM next[/highlight]

Sort of a build question:
Is it worth putting points in Werewolf/Lycanthropy if I intend to melee later on? I have never played a shifter, but I remember they had terrible IAS and FHR breakpoints.

 

[Pb_pal1]

@jiansonz - Wow, amazing progress! It's great to hear that defiance is actually having a noticeable effect, I'm definitely going to have to try that out in the future. As for the Pul rune, nothing really worth making for your character without higher runes I'm afraid. The only thing I would consider would be Enlightenment for an armour, but there are far better options anyways. I would hang on to it and hope for an Um, then consider some of the other runewords (Stone, Gloom).

@srrw - Congrats on the Destroyer, great helm too! As for your question, if I'm not mistaken, if you are shifted and get hit for fatal damage it morphs you out and leaves you at 1 HP. That's a good little insurance policy I'd say, although I'm not familiar with their breakpoints so you'll want to check in on those before you commit.

@felixbavaria - Looks like I have her way back at the Inner Cloister in the table, hopefully I didn't miss an update along the way! If you let me know her level I can update her in the next table, or if you'd rather just wait until your next update that's fine by me as well.

On that note, if I've missed anyone's progress in the table along the way, feel free to let me know and I will update accordingly!

--

Calabi left the docks and strolled through the jungles without many issues. These guys were waiting right by the entrance of the Arachnid Lair, and gave us a fair bit of trouble. We couldn't hold our position here as Kasim got killed very quickly, so we had to bounce back and forth from TP's to the WP (right outside the entrance) to try and contain them. Once the boss was killed, the minions were no problem, as was the rest of the lair. The above ground areas were going so smoothly that even the game didn't want us to go back to town. That's the first time I've seen a failed portal shrine, does this happen to anyone else?

Sszark was initially quite scary, but he actually did us a huge favor tele'd himself away. This allowed us the clear his minions easily after healing the curse. He was then no problem as we found him cowering in a corner.

We didn't draw gloams in the Great Marsh, so it was a cakewalk. The Swampy Pit, however, was not as nice. These two bat boss packs made our lives difficult on the first floor, as their erratic flying made it hard to keep position, and we had to stay very aware that Calabi didn't get overwhelmed. Level 2 provided us with this room:

Aside from that doll pack, there is a second doll boss pack in there (Cursed, Extra Fast), and an accompanying champ pack of gloams. This took alot of care, alot of merc deaths, and alot of Slow Missiles to keep the gloams under control. Calabi had a scary moment there where we had been pushed back into the hallway, and a doll ran around Kasim just as he killed it, exploding it right in Calabi's face. It took off a decent bit of damage (though not really a NDE), and luckily we weren't cursed at the time, but it was still scary.

Stormtree was harmless, as he had a major preoccupation with the Decoy. We then ran into LK and grabbed the WP so we could quit and do some muling. We figured this was a good time to switch over officially from MF gear to full survival/killing mode as we wanted to use some of the goodies that we had found. Basically what happened so far was we added Tal's helm, and these Gore Rider's that we found, and did some charm/ring swapping. I'm still adjusting the gear, as I want her life to be a bit higher.

Here is a quick look at her stats/skills right now on her Axe switch. Resistances go up to max on her shield switch.

I might post a full gear/stats update once I have her gear all sorted out (probably after the next or the end of Act 3 if I get there) if anyone is interested, or I might just hang on until she's finished her journey.

So after we the gear swapping, we continued on and cleared out the 3 kurasts above ground, as well as the sewers. No issues at all, even the Horadrim Agents we drew in the Sewers weren't very annoying. I guess they heard how much we hated their brothers in Act 2 and took it easy on us. That is where the group stopped for now, temples are up next!

Other finds:
- another Lum rune (that makes 4)
- Gore Riders mentioned above
- Ruby (38%ED) Jewel of Ire (+4 max damage)

[highlight]Conqueror Calabi the Axe-wielding Amazon, with Kasim the Blessed Aim Guard - lvl 86, Hell Kurast Temples next[/highlight]

 

[Dazliare1]

@Pb_pal - I'm glad to see you made it past the great marsh. Perhaps you were able to avenge Vladimir's death along the way. You're right about Gloams making that zone very scary. Good luck moving forward! I plan to read through this thread and take some notes on how you've done.

We finished Act 1, and started the sewers. I've never played a passive zon before, so I'm actually really excited about it. I'm planning to keep the rogue merc for awhile, because I find my own character to be a quite suitable tank. I have high block, and points in dodge and avoid, and find myself taking very little damage outside of tough bosses.

Andariel was a cakewalk. I tanked her with a couple of antidotes, while my mercenary (I can't remember her name right now because I'm at work ) picked her off with a 3x chipped ruby long bow. I only ended up using 1 health potion because she had such trouble hitting me. Good times.

 

[Pb_pal1]

@Dazliare - Calabi made sure to personally kill as many of the gloams she came across as possible, and did it in Vladimir's name.

As for the merc, it's definitely doable with a Rogue. I took Kasim to make sure AR was not an issue, but truth be told he is not necessary (my chance to hit still feels perfectly fine when he's dead, thanks Penetrate!). Once you have the decoy and valk, that's way more than enough tanking ability than you need, even at low skill levels. I sometimes wish I took a rogue, as the ranged attack can come in very handy.

The passive zon is a very sturdy, and deceptively fun character. I've been very fortunate with some of my finds, but even when I was running around in full MF gear (up to Hell cold plains iirc), she never really felt all that fragile. All in all, this is probably the most entertaining character I've ever played. Best of luck, I will be watching your progress closely!

 

[Pyrotechnician1]

It's been a long time sense I've been to these forums and fired up Diablo, over 5 years in fact. My last character was a HC barbarian in the no vitality tournament who died in hell. Sense I've last been here I've graduated college, worked for two public accounting firms, currently work for a world leading automotive manufacturer, and have gotten married! Yet here I am and D2 has sucked me back in again.

Without further ado, I announce Relic, the necromancer who will specialize in iron golem, curses, and will not use cheese explos.... Error I mean corse explosion to get through the game. While contemplating curses, I plan to utilize and invest at least one point into decrepify, attract, dim vision, and confuse. I also plan to heavily synergize and use bone armor. Now with iron golem as my main and only summonable, I was considering maximizing iron maiden to basically allow monsters to beat themselves to death. Against ranged attackers I will utilize other curse as I see fit.

Any thoughts, suggestions, improvements on my build? My playing time will be sparse so I want to make sure I make the most of this opportunity.

Edit: I forgot to mention I started this morning and he is up to the stoney field at level 10.

Two public accounting firms? Neat. I'm at my second public account firm now. You wouldn't happen to need tax consulting services at this automotive manufacturer now would you?

Its nice to have another accountant re-join the fun! You can hang out with me and djmbbandie.