@Morathi - I am both honoured that I've managed to pull you back in, and also very excited to see how you do. I just hope I didn't make the tournament too simple for all you vets
Good luck with Carrisa! I've added her to the table above your post, for completion's sake.
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Calabi has ventured on to bring the sun back to Lut Gholein, everyone was getting grouchy in the perpetual darkness. She cleared out the Lost City and Ancient Tunnels without any issues, and pushed on through the Claw Viper Temple. She paused at the stairs down to level 2, and felt a slight twinge of nerves for the first time this tournament. Thankful that she had recently acquired Decoy, she hotkeyed her TP, took a breath, and went down. Immediately on entering she threw up a TP and stepped to the corner. Nothing. She inched forward, but Fangskin was nowhere to be seen. She managed to clear out nearly the whole room before
finding him. The merc and decoy handled him with no problems. Well that was anti-climactic. She grabbed the amulet and left.
Instilled with new confidence, she worked her way through the palace, got rid of that pesky summoner, and cleared out the Canyon of the Magi, and even managed to
cube this handy ring for the Duriel fight. Things were slow, but safe. Now that she had some form of crowd control in decoy, she felt confident. Until the second false tomb.
The final room had the standard group of unravellers with their skellies, and some ghoul lords hanging around. Seems okay, although the unravellers can be a pain. Even though Calabi has taken a page out of Sissy's book, and now carries a big sword on switch, she still doesn't do a ton of damage (and it leaves her quite vulnerable), so keeping up with the resurrections of multiple unravellers takes time. Regardless, Calabi and Kasim (yes, Kasim. a note on where Emilio went will be at the end of the post) slowly worked their way through the doorway, while Calabi threw decoys up to distract the Unravellers and keep them from res'ing their little bony friends too quickly. Well, Calabi must have thrown a decoy slightly too far, and out from the back corner came a boss pack of Ghoul Lords. I have no screenies, because things got way too hectic, way too quickly (I have no idea how you guys get those shots so well!). The decoy went down and Kasim confronted the Ghoul Lords. Cold enchanted (and extra fast, if i recall correctly *shudder*). Uh-oh, now Kasim was slowed, and Calabi didn't dare get too close, as slower run speed could mean she couldn't get out quickly enough. She tried to run but the Unravellers had started raising the skellies at the door, it was blocked! Then Calabi noticed something..mummies were trickling in from the back corner. Great, a mummy sarcophagus is NOT what she needed right now.
She threw up decoys while pounding mana pots and feeding Kasim healers, but the skellies were rising up faster than she could kill them, and Kasim was VERY pre-occupied with the boss pack (good thing too, Calabi couldn't have taken them), and the steady stream of mummies. I considered TP'ing out, but Calabi decided that she wanted to take a stand (this ego-trip will have to be adjusted in later acts
). All of a sudden, Kasim had taken out a couple minions, and the decoys were working their magic on the unravellers. The tides had turned! Calabi cleared the skeletons, and then turned her attention to the unravellers. Eventually the room was cleared, and with no mana OR healing pots left in the belt or inventory, and only 2 Full Rejuvs remaining! Whew! While I wouldn't call it a NDE, it was definitely the most intense D2 moment I've had in a long while. At least I got alot of decoy practice!
Upon returning to town, Calabi vowed that at the next break she would mule some runes back and make a Nadir helm to keep in the stash as soon as humanly possible.
The rest of the act was straightforward, and /p3 Duriel dropped
nothing of use. Calabi is now looking forward to Act 3, and is also already terrified of Ssark. Should be fun!
So what happened to Emilio? I decided to switch from Blessed Aim to a Defiance mercenary, so hired a new one. I then changed my mind and went back to Blessed Aim. No real reason for it, but it's nice not worrying about if he can hit anything. What does everyone think of hiring a Thorns merc (if I get that far)? I know they aren't exactly stellar, but Thorns on a beefed up Valk/Decoy might be fun. Maybe?
[highlight]Calabi the Amazon, with Kasim, lvl 28 - Kurast Docks[/highlight]
PS- how often do people want the table updated? I figure once every 20 posts or so, depending on the amount of progress being made. What do you guys think?