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Vessel of Hatred

The Untwinked Level 99 Progress Thread, Revenge of the 99ers

Unlucky with the death @PhineasB but also very lucky that it was early on and you could recover the body. And you've already gotten Mal and Sur from Nihlathak? I've done close to 1000 Nihlathak runs and all I've gotten is Pul...

How fast are you with Nihlathak at the moment? You'll probably get a lot faster once you get more runs done and gain confidence. Looking good so far and isn't it nice to gain those few first pixels of XP? :) Now that I have enough XP gained to actually call it an XP bar, it seems like if I play for a week and gain 20 mil XP, the bar has not moved at all :p So welcome to the "keep an eye on the bar all times" -club, it's both fun and frustrating!
 
@PhineasB - Sorry about the death, but cool to see the results of your testing (and some rewards already in rune form!). As for the XP bar, I was tempted at times to put a sticky note over it to keep myself from meticulously checking if it had changed. Too bad I would then just check the LCS every run to watch the numbers climb. :p

Good progress everyone!
 
Thanks @Neksja and @Pb_pal. The death wasn't really that bad, largely because I was pretty sure it would happen. I'm glad I tested things out very early on in the level before XP penalty really takes effect.

As to the runes @Neksja, I think that was pretty lucky. But as @NanoMist found, the increased drops from killing all the minions rather than targeting only Nihl make a difference. As you can see in the screenies, both runes actually came from other monsters around Nihl's platform. I almost missed the Mal, and with the Sur also very close to the edge of the screen, Mercy now teleports to middle of the platform before S&E every time (gotta make sure there isn't a Zod hiding in the corner ;)).

Although lucky (and I'm DEFINITELY not complaining), those two early rune drops have actually slowed down the running a little because I scan the whole area for shiny objects + that teleport to get good view of the edges. For me, though, it's definitely worth it, as the idea of killing Nihl over and over without increased chances of nice drops feels like something that I'd burn out on.

I've timed two half hour sessions (one right before respec-ing and one yesterday). The XP/30 min was 1.15M and 1.18M, respectively. So significantly less than 2.5M/hr.

I am pretty sure that will pick up with practice and also as she gets out of the habit of picking up non-rejuv potions. I am pretty sure Malah once every 5 runs (or whenever mana or healers run out) will be faster -- that's the next thing to test. And not looking at the XP bar or LCS during sessions (only after) to help morale :p

Also, a quick question for the 99ers and close-to-99ers: what do you recommend picking up at this stage? I am picking up charms (small and grand); flawless amethysts; jewels; Ral, Sol and Hel+ runes; all unique and rare rings and ammys; and elite sets and uniques (as a trophy, regardless of whether needed for her grail). Am I missing anything or picking up too much? Thanks!
 
At that point all I picked up were Ist+ runes, SC/GC, Flawless Amethysts/Rubies, unique jewelery and the very occasional grailer/useful S/U. I had basically no MF at that stage though, so I wasn't picking up much of the latter stuff.
 
At that point of the journey I took much more joy in saving a second or two rather than picking up my umpteenth Mal/Um that would inevitably go unused. :p
 
I also picked up the usual stuff already listed by Pb_pal, except my rune cutoff was at Um. Rare amulets from Nihlathak only, rare rings anywhere. Sometimes I check gray items and rare boots, sometimes I don't. ID items and discard while death sentry does its thing or fire blast if nothing else to do.

When I rerolled maps, I also searched for a well in Halls of Vaught along with those 3 shrines. I used the well once every few runs, but it could help with using less potions.
 
@PhineasB you are still a bit faster than I am, my average XP per hour at the moment is somewhere around 2.2M. But I kinda know why I am not faster...

I pick up some much garbage. Every rune. Yes, that's every rune, even Els and Elds, I've gotta catch em all. And every Set and Unique. In addition to that, I pick up all rare rings, rare amulets if they are from Diablo/Nihlathak and all Grand/Small charms and Jewels. I did give up on picking up flawless gems while running LK, it was slowing me so much down. But that shiny El, oh that's no waste of time at all... :oops:
 
Is it too late to get in on this? This is exactly what I'm doing with my next character.
 
Not at all. The more the merrier !!! What character are you playing?

Good luck :). Read through the thread for a ton of info and useful tips.
 
I am playing a (currently level 85, started a couple of days ago) hardcore Amazon named Fugu. She's a LF/FA hybrid until her gear improves. Right now it is abysmal; so abysmal, in fact, that yesterday I accidentally found myself without javs by throwing down to 0 the best javelin that my (then 82) character had found up until that point -- superior maiden javelins. Seventeen years playing this game and I never knew that if you threw a white item to exhaustion it would disappear instead of going down to 0. My mercenary, with his shaft, rockstopper and perfect ca insight, is doing a lot better than I am.

I'll add myself to the chart when I finish playing for the day.

I read quite a bit of the thread already and it's been quite interesting reading some of the stuff that's happened to you guys.
 
Thanks. I love playing amazons, but I personally don't think they do too well at untwinked. I've been at Shenk for a couple of days and I think I'm going to be stuck here until my gear improves by a significant margin.
 
Welcome! Always good to have new characters join.

Also, thanks to everyone for the responses about what you pick up for level 98. It was progress for me to stop picking up all runes, but I will likely cull down the mid-runes a bit more. I have a hard time seeing myself leaving a Lem run sitting there though :rolleyes:
 
Welcome Me2NiK ! :D


Pb_pal said:
At that point all I picked up were Ist+ runes, SC/GC, Flawless Amethysts/Rubies, unique jewelery and the very occasional grailer/useful S/U. I had basically no MF at that stage though, so I wasn't picking up much of the latter stuff.
Click to expand...

OMG !

My 2 cents : I also pick up every single rune since I play this game, I hardly let on the ground chipped or flawed gems...
That's also probably why I'm so slow, and it's obvious now I keep record or the hours played for the first time : I realized yesterday that my sorceress who needed 100 hours to get lvl 90 is a joke compared to Naomist sin, who needed... 30 hrs for the same result :eek:. Same for T72on1's Neverland, about 33 hours to get lvl 90. So I'm the problem here :p

Obviously, if I could handle playing over /p1 to /p3 it would be far better, but I'm yet drinking mana pots (thanks to the lightning branch) too often, babysit/resurrect my mercenary far too much to afford /p5 ou /p7...
 
What's the point of picking them all up though? Where do they all go? I find myself with absolutely ridiculous numbers of midrunes even just by the time I get to 90. Having said that, I would certainly pick up um and mal.

The other side of this is that when you need a specific rune and you don't have it it's a real pain to get it. I spent over an hour yesterday farming for an ith.
 
Yeah, definitely try to have at least some of every rune. Would be really silly to find a Zod, want to make BotD and then have to farm for an El ...
 
Me2NiK said:
What's the point of picking them all up though? Where do they all go? I find myself with absolutely ridiculous numbers of midrunes even just by the time I get to 90.
Click to expand...

I know it's not a smart thing to do, but I do this anyway.
It may comes from the way I played Diablo 1 for the first time, back in 20th century :D : I picked every gold pack, even if I knew I would end up soon with an inventory full of gold packs.

On the other hand, I'm far from the situation you describe : my untwinkled sorceress from lvl 1 to 90 gathered :
8 El
6 Eld
21 tir
22 Nef
33 Eth
...
50 Ort is the max rune amount, so I'm far from a ridiculous number of runes.
And the infinite stash make all this easy, but it was the same when I played on battle.net...

Usually, I cube up to Nef, Ral, Sol low runes to use as craft material, and I keep Shael and so, I cube them up if needed,but I never spend hours to cube runes.


Once said, I'm a very slow player, I know why, but I can't help it.
 
Chaostar, I am truly humbled to be in the presence of the player with fifty orts. I don't know what you'll do with them all, but it doesn't matter.

When I said "excessive amounts of midrunes", I was referring to my five sols.

Gear still pretty shabby, but I got a 49 War Travs today, which is leaps and bounds better than anything else I've found. Anya also gave me +2/+2 javs, which is the first time I've ever gotten anything of worth from her.
 
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