Re: The quest for level 99- progress thread
I asked a similar question above re: most efficient way to 98 -> 99 assuming you could run everything. Result I got was that Nihl is more efficient w/o shrine than Big D /w Shrine. And Baal pales in comparison.
On the Big Three targets:
Baal is the most tedious because you need to wait until the waves clear for the next one to drop and you're stuck until that happens. In v1.13 (or was it v1.11/.12?) wave 3 got harder because of the damage boost to Hydras. Basically you need to teleport away from hydras if you want your merc to live, or run 90% fire res /w GA. I don't like Baal /w a lightning sorc (vs. Blizballer) b/c Lister is so damn tough and him and pack are unaffected by Delirium.
Big D is the most dangerous of the three, mostly because the locations on the monsters and boss packs are variable. You're also going to deal /w a Fanat'd De Seis everytime. Trick for lightning sorc is to kill from distance and let merc tank, and I have no idea how those HC hammer folks managed to get to 99 running that. That said, it is likely the most fun because of the variability. I may just switch back to all lightning and run that if Nihl ever gets tedious, keeping same setup but swapping BKWB/SoJ for Nature's Peace.
Nihl is very fun for me right now, even after 35M xp. He's simple, clean, and has enough variability to make the runs interesting. I teleport to the same spot everytime - the back of his area, which is up and right of his chamber - best spot for it, IMO - and fire away. Only dangerous times were listed above - cursed, conviction, might + vipers, fanat.
I don't check for Act 1 Shrines /w nihl right now - I don't think it's worth it given the extremely short time the runs take. I would if I ran D. As for keeping the XP shrines, I don't worry about witches killing my XP shrine, I just roll with it. It'll hit eventually, and it's not worth the time to really deal with it.