@ioupainmax Long overdue indeed =P. And thanks for bringing this back up! I totally forgot to post my update here too.
Sadly though, it's an update to let ppl know that I gave up on this challenge.
I had been farming NM Andy/Normal Diablo for a couple of months for Gores or Rattle Cage - only sources of Crushing Blow in classic, other than full Cleglaw's set or Bonesnap. It quickly got tiring trying to farm very specific items, all the while having to repair the two lances every run. And when Bonesnap dropped for what felt like the 10th time, I decided it just wasn't meant to be.
He's since been parked in Act 2 Hell.
Once I finish some other characters, I'll give this one more proper go. iirc there was a forum member who tried the safety-craft Jabbazon some time ago. Maybe @Maltatai??
Good luck to @ioupainmax and anyone still in this!
No, even my time for absurd diabolical theme projects has its limits. Me being...me, I do of course have a draft for a craft sept complete with colour themes and skills adapted to crafted items;
Crafted items. Will need town guard or iron wolf to be able to equip the hireling properly.
Javelin crowd fighting specialist.
Cold Iron Wolf to compensate for lack of valkyrie and add element and good skirmishing.
Safety amulet and safety or hit power shield.
Topazes, matching lightning and hair and golden plate.
Assassin
20 Venom
20 Cloak of Shadows
20 Shadow Warrior
20 Dragon Tail
6 Burst of Speed
1 Death Sentry
Fire Wolf as decoy. One hand axes or maces or javelins. Linuviel with javelins and less speed and a more controllable shadow. And lamps to light up dark places of course.
Skulls, sneaky black shadows.
Whirlwind with spear or leap attack with maul or frenzy with two weapons, built to enable effective use of all potential crafted weapons.
Holy Freeze Town Guard? Funny to taunt the slow and help welcome to survive absent shield and battle orders.
Focus on hit power armor to aid holy freeze. Whirlwind with knockback gloves to push crowds away.
Diamonds, dull grey plate.
Druid
20 Spirit of Barbs
20 Poison Creeper
20 Rabies
20 Fury
7 Lycanthropy
7 Werewolf
Reflected damage and rabies and multiple hits around town guard. Mauls and axes are a werewolfs favourites.
Thorns Town Guard.
Emeralds, natures color and poison.
Necromancer
20 Poison Explosion
20 Poison Nova
20 Bone Spirit
20 Bone Prison
1 Decrepify
7 Clay Golem
Call enemies to a place with bone walls, trap them and frighten them and slow them, then destroy with ranged attacks. Will also need to be able to hit dual immune enemies to help hireling. Melee with golem and poison explosion early on.
Lightning Wolf to stay out of trouble and be protected by bones and golem and add damage type.
Sapphires, goes with decrepify and potentially frost novas.
Throw out hammers to thin out crowds, then charge. Wield war hammer or war scepter for hammer looks.
Mighty Town Guard?
Blood helm and plate.
Rubies, matches aura.
Sorceress
20 Enchant
20 Fire Mastery
20 Lightning Mastery
20 Cold Mastery
9 Warmth
1 Energy Shield
1 Frozen Armor
Masterful Enchantress. Axes and mauls call to her.
Defiance Town Guard. Try to obtain high defense armor and see results. Hide behind and swing away or throw on occasion. Gather life and cold and lightning damage charms. No static, just hitting.
Amethysts, color of spectral damage.
There is a safety craft barbarian among the patriarchs at least. Amazon sounds vaguely familiar but I may just as well mix it up with some other weird item context, another tourney maybe.
@Gynli Sorry to hear; the game dropping piles of Bonesnaps and no other crushing blow items is truly mean! Hopefully your next effort with King results in King King
Yo yo yo! So glad to see this thread active. Well it's not exactly active right now, but I see there were many posts in 2019. Hope everyone is enjoying their spear characters!
I haven't played the game since... may 2018? I had made a Passion RW in a Mancatcher, and it was really bad, and that demoralized me greatly. I lost the will to carry on. But I did keep my savegames and my tourney stash. And recently I found myself playing Diablo2 again. I was playing an untwinked HC strafeazon, who is currently in NM Lower Kurast. Slowly plodding through nightmare reminded me of the good times I had with my spear barb, so I decided to find those savegames, find that tourney stash, and see what's up.
When I loaded him up, Outer Cloister was the farthest waypoint he had acquired. I set the game to players8, and off I went. It was really scary after all this time. The monsters in hell take a long time to die on players8, even with my current weapon, 286% Cruel Lance. But once I've adjusted, I managed to push ahead, defeat The Smith and get the Jail waypoint.
According to the rules I wrote, killing the Smith means all of act1 up to him in considered complete. Which means I can run the Pit on players1. I think I'll try one run on players8 just to see if I can really do it.
Also, I think it would be good to have one of those tournament tables, so we can track who is playing and where everyone is at. Maybe we can copy someone else's table and modify it.
...Also, I think it would be good to have one of those tournament tables, so we can track who is playing and where everyone is at. Maybe we can copy someone else's table and modify it.
I was thinking maybe just 1 table? With 2 sections, victors at the top, everyone still alive at the bottom. Copying 4 tables seems a bit overwhelming. Also, what's E/S? I presume S/U means Sets/Uniques?
I added myself to the active table, and I added a players setting. I thought that's relevant information for this tournament.
[HIGHLIGHT]Thrusted Spears[/HIGHLIGHT]
Rich (BB code):
Forumite Character Build SC/HC Class Level Location PSetting Date E/S S/U Grail
--------------- --------------- --------------- ----- ----- ----- -------- -------- ---------- --- ---- -----
ioupainmax Alicia Fendazon HC Ama 62 NM A4 2019-08-28 Yes 111 84
Pijus TheTailor Whirlwind HC Brb 83 Hell A1 Players8 2019-09-23 Yes - -
As for my progress, I managed to complete the Pit level 1 on players8. I then ran the Pit on players1(was relatively easy), and eventually managed to complete the Pit level 2 on players8. Looks like I'll be running there for a while. It's a good place to find Mancatchers, and if I'm lucky, runes. So far got 1 white Mancatcher, about to socket it with the cube. Also found a Fal rune and a 3 socket Archon Plate. Gonna make that infamous Glood runeword once I get the runes together.
Edit: After some thinking I guessed that E/S means Extended Stash.
I did some more countess runs, and finally got the runes to make Gloom. Used that 3 socket Archon plate that I mentioned in the last post. Amplisa is wearing it, since WW barbs can't proc, and Gloom has ctc Dim Vision on it. Amplisa doesn't proc Dim Vision too often either, but I see it sometimes.
After that upgrade, I decided to press on to act2. My furthest waypoint was Jail 1. On players 8, jail is one of the worst areas for me. It had loads of bone archers(can't leech) and ghosts(Phys Immune). Ended up running past most of them, and only fought Dark Ones. The Catacombs were slow, but since all the enemies were fleshy(leech-able), I had no problems.
Andariel was doing me a lot of damage, much more than I could leech. Had to rely on a lot of health and antidote potions. My poison resistance without potions was -5. I had to attack her for 5 seconds, then run away for 5 seconds, drink potions, wait, and then attack again. This strategy was slow but very reliable. So now I am in act2. I don't anticipate problems with organic mosnters, but I dread fighting all those skeletons and snakes.
I wonder what runes monsters can drop. I know chests can drop Zod only in act5. But I think with monsters it's different. I tried looking around a bit but didn't find any data.
I'm at level 84.8 now. Mostly from doing the Countess and the Pits. I actually rolled a new Countess map, so will be running her some more. The drops are good. Aside from what's in the screenshots, I found several mid level runes, including 3 Puls(Used them to make Gloom). Still not finding any white Mancatchers. I found a magic amulet with 8% mana leech and 11% all resists. Replaced my rare 15%MF 3% mana leech amulet. My next goal is to find an armor and some runes to make Treachery. I figure the damage reduction, curse length and resists will help me in Act2.
Update time everybody! And boy have I got some stuff for you. First, the journey, then, the itamz.
Since last update, I made a Treachery Russet Armor. I tried using it on myself, but was not a fan. The attack speed sure is nice, and Venom helps too. But Fade doesn't trigger often enough to rely on it. I found myself in some pretty dangerous situations while trying to use it. I eventually gave Treachery to Amplisa, and equipped Gloom myself. The resistances and pretty good defense is quite helpful. Especially against mana burners.
I tried to progress into act2 on players 8. I skipped the sewers, I really didn't feel like dealing with those skeletons. The rocky waste was doable. About the same difficulty as the end of act1. On players8 it took long to kill stuff, but as long as I could leech, I could do it. The first time I ventured into Dry Hills, Amplisa died, and I found myself unable to kill the monsters at the entrance of the area. I looked at my chance to hit and it was in the 60s. No good. Eventually, after a few days break, I managed to get through. The outer areas of act2 were slow but steady after that. However, the dungeons were a real nightmare. There was just no way for me to deal with the Unraveler packs in the Halls of the Dead. I ended up running, leaping and whirling past most of them. Bloodwitch the Wild spawned in an empty room, so I manged to kill it. It was a manaburner, I howled the minions until I killed it. But then(amplisa died) and I couldn't kill the rest of the minions.
I skipped most of the Maggot Lair. At this point I started to get worried. What if I can't kill the next possessed whatever? Or a tough boss? Well, once I got to Coldworm, there was just no way to kill him. He spawned too many maggots, and they spawned too many maggots, and it just wasn't gonna happen. I grabbed the staff and left.
I ended up running past most of the Lost City. When I got to the Viper Temple, it became clear I couldn't do it. I could kill a single bosspack of leechable bats or snakes, but if they were surrounded by skeletons, there was no way. Whirlwind only hits 1 monster at a time, and when fighting a crowd, everyone's moving and regenerating. Except me, I'm losing life and mana all the time
I ended up running and whirling past huge crowds of skeletons and the occasional bosspack of snakes until I found the second level. Keep in mind we're still on players8 here. It was as harrowing as it sounds. I didn't even bother fighting Fangskin. There were skeletons down there. I took the Viper Amulet and ran.
At this point I was thinking about what to do. It was pretty clear I can't progress further on players8. I thought about skipping everything and just trying to fight Duriel. I reckoned I could take him. But Andariel was pretty tough, and I wasn't sure. In the end, I decided to leave the palace cellars and arcane sanctuary for later. I went back to act1 to farm some more.
Did a few pit runs, did a few countess runs. Nothing good was dropping, and my clear speed was lower that I'd like, especially in the Pits. I'm still using my Cruel Lance, which means I have to do short whirls. It's a mana hog. I decided to try farming Andariel for a change. I rolled a good map in 3 tries. Killing her was tough, even on players1. Not super dangerous, but I have to keep chugging potions, both health and mana. And sometimes go back to town to heal up Amplisa(who is doing much better now).
Andariel drops me very few items. Usually about 3. I don't remember if I quest bugged her. I'm sure I went to act2 after defeating her, but her drops aren't blowing my hair back. However, just 30 minutes ago, she dropped me this ring:
It replaced my 24%MF, 29% Light Res magic ring. As an untwinked Barb, I can never have enough leech. Even with this ring I have to drink potions against Andariel. But it's definitely nice. I had a small pile of gold from selling Andariel's loot, and I gambled some brandistocks. As one does. Lo and behold, I got this:
Despite the unfortunate roll, I'm going to try using it. I will upgrade it. Then I will use a socket quest on it. I believe I still have the nightmare socket quest saved up. I mean look it at! It's sad, yet beautiful! Perhaps I can get some max damage charms to help boost the damage a little.
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