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

[Yng]

Since updates are in the air I figured I'd post a quick one while I have time now that the MFO is finished.

Sophie reached clvl 93 shortly after the MFO, finally putting us in a position to start setting up for P8 Vizier + Infector runs. Also cubed up to Ist and finished that beautiful Delirium:

Spoiler

A few notable drops during the MFO that will aid in the quest for 99:

Spoiler

And while we're on the topic of LK, these + 2x Um dropped in maybe 75 runs last night:

Spoiler

Progress Update

Name          (C)            SC/HC    Class  Level/exp   Extended Stash  #of S/U   Grail/504   #of deaths  # of Hours
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
zticazzy      Perkele         SC      Barb      99             No            -          -            -           -
Pb_pal        Eleanor         SC      Sorc      99             No         3068        437            5           -
NanoMist      Izuna           SC      Sin       99             No         5109        470            4         360
PhineasB      Mercy           SC      Sin       99             Yes           -        475           11           -
Neksja        Aura            SC      Paladin   98.50          Yes        8606        464            -           -
T72on1        Neverland       SC      Sorc      98.25          Yes        2190+?      477           13         270?
PhineasB      Hiatus          SC      Sorc      98.25          Yes           -        457           21           -
hasuprotoss   Reina           SC      Sorc      97             Yes        1751        384            -           -
Tarantella    Tarasha         HC      Sorc      96             Yes           -          -            -           -
Grim          Furious_Blonde  SC      Ama       96             Yes           -          -            -           -
ffs           HelpYourself    SC      Sorc      96             Yes           -          -          many          ?
XyleneCyanol  Fishie          HC      Sorc      95             No            -          -            -           -
ThomasJohnsen xInTheBuffx     HC      Sorc      95             Yes           -          -            -           -
darkstarhub   Neptune         SC      Sorc      95             Yes           -          -            -           -
PhineasB      Phaedrus        SC      Pala      94             Yes           -        274           12           -
Dezrok        Salome          SC      Sorc      94             Yes         645        296            -           -
Reyz          Qty             SC      Sorc      93             No            -          -            -           -
Yng           Sophie          SC      Sorc      93             Yes           -          -            7           -
Chaostar      Prairie         SC      Sorc      91             Yes         659        261           12         126
OldSoldier    Battleforge     HC      Pala      91             Yes           -        236            -           -
tokerdin      tokeress        SC      Sorc      91             yes           -          -            -           -
Zenigma       Ayura           SC      Barb      91             No            -          -            -           -
Gynli         Amazon          SC      Amazon    91             Yes           -          -         many           -
Southpaw      Njord           SC      Druid     90             Yes           -          -            -           -
Qwernt        CanbeOnlyBlizz  SC      Sorc      90             Yes           ?          -        Dont want to know
MercMan       Este            SC      Ama       90             Yes        1212        278            2  Classified
Me2Nik        Fugu            HC      Ama       90             Yes          80
Yng           Kyrie           HC      Druid     90             Yes           -          -            -           -
Lynchgrinch   Tattersail      SC      Sorc      89             Yes           ?        321         too many    lots
LiquidClear   Sally           SC      Assn      **             Yes         225          -            1           -
liquid_mage   zDadColdSorc    SC      Sorc      **             Yes           -        160            -           -
Neksja        Turirao         SC      Druid     87             Yes         191        124            5           -
Gladstone     Socrates        HC      Druid     86             ?             -          -            -           -
Zenigma       Gnosis          SC      Druid     86             No            -          -            -           -
Lord Molyb    Cruise_Control  SC      Necro     86             No          115         94           19         idk
Naturallog    Athos           HC      Barb      84             No          159        105            0           -
Lord Molyb    Verisimilitude  SC      Ama       83             No           28         25            0         idk
Qwernt        AmaAgainstAll   SC      Sorc      81             Yes           -          -            -           -
Gambit        Mallenroh       SC      Sorc      81             Yes           0          0            0           0
Lord Molyb    But_Why         SC      Sin       81             Never        55         51           53
Jean Avila    SpeedAdict      SC      Ama       77             No            -          -            -          50
logo          Digimon         HC      Nec       76             Yes          85         65            0           -
TwentyMule    Rayne           SC      Sorc      76             Yes         195        140            ?           ?
Gripphon      Ryu             SC      Sorc      76             Yes           -          -         over 9k       13
Darke Rahl    Bells           HC      Ama       74             No           19          -            0
Vildecor      Celia           SC      Ama       59             Yes          52         43            0           -
ioupainmax    Durnik          SC      Paladin   52             Yes          50         42            -           -
TrU           Henryk          SC      Barb      41             Yes           -          -           22          12
Gambit        Colossus        SC      Pal       39             Yes           0          0            0           0
Smancer       Smancer         SC      Necro     26             Yes           1          -            -           -
Ergroilnin    Erilinda        HC      Sorc      20             No            -          -            -           -
Kitteh        Kaylin          SC      Ama       19             Yes           -          -            0           -
hackedagainanda Hugo          HC      Barb      16             Yes           -          -            -           -

The Fallen

Name (F)    Name (C)       SC/HC   Class   Level/exp   Extended Stash   #of S/U   Grail/504   #of deaths   # of Hours
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
coju        NintyNine_orRiP HC      Sorc      81             Yes           -          0            0         a few
TwentyMule  Valus           HC      Barb      76             Yes           -          -            1           -
Pb_pal      Stevesy         HC      Paladin   76             Yes           -          -            0           -
Tenecabo    OldShatterhand  HC      Druid     49             Yes           -          0            1           -
coju        fB              HC      Sorc      29             Yes           1          1            0           2
Kitteh      Verallus        HC      Druid     26             No          N/A        N/A            0          N/A
logo        Rolex           HC      Barb      21             Yes           0          0            0           1

 

[Kitteh1]

Good progress all! Kaylin is in Nightmare act 5, but it could take a while to progress as my finals are next month and I have a heap of reports and a literature review due end of this month. Keep up the good work!

 

[Yng]

I may be playing for a while tonight, and I’ll be streaming if anyone is interested in some P8 content. I’ve been doing mostly LK/RoF superchests to build up runes for a future Zerker but I think I’ll do some CS for the sake of moving the XP bar.

https://www.twitch.tv/ynggaming

 

[aarrgus1]

Greetings everyone. After getting the itch to play D2 again, I made sure to visit the old Single Player Forum stomping grounds and lo and behold a level 99 topic, untwinked no less. So here I am ready to throw myself into *finally* making a serious run at a 99, and this time untwinked for added fun.

Let me introduce you to Acala the Frenzy Barbarian. As a lover of puzzles and self imposed video game challenges, I am revisiting an old idea for a Pure Vita Barbarian. That's all attribute points into Vitality, no points allocated anywhere else. It's not particularly original, but it seems like a good challenge nonetheless.

The good news is I have reached level 32 and have finally hit normal Pindleskin. The bad news is I am completely strength starved. Until I hit Pindle I was literally stuck with the same weapons and almost all the same armor I had in act 1. All those str and dex charms you get playing the game normally that you just throw away? Yea you'll never get them when you need them lol. But now I am finally pushing 50 strength through charms, ammy, ring, etc so I'm finally starting to get gear upgrades. Even with that said, I would love for enemies to drop some charms please.... I've not seen a single charm drop in all of act 5 haha. So for at least a little while I'll be running Pindle for lucky gear drops and levels until ready to move to NM.

Anyhow, I know that I'm low on the list (for now), but I wanted to make sure to say hello to everyone.

Name          (C)            SC/HC    Class  Level/exp   Extended Stash  #of S/U   Grail/504   #of deaths  # of Hours
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
zticazzy      Perkele         SC      Barb      99             No            -          -            -           -
Pb_pal        Eleanor         SC      Sorc      99             No         3068        437            5           -
NanoMist      Izuna           SC      Sin       99             No         5109        470            4         360
PhineasB      Mercy           SC      Sin       99             Yes           -        475           11           -
Neksja        Aura            SC      Paladin   98.50          Yes        8606        464            -           -
T72on1        Neverland       SC      Sorc      98.25          Yes        2190+?      477           13         270?
PhineasB      Hiatus          SC      Sorc      98.25          Yes           -        457           21           -
hasuprotoss   Reina           SC      Sorc      97             Yes        1751        384            -           -
Tarantella    Tarasha         HC      Sorc      96             Yes           -          -            -           -
Grim          Furious_Blonde  SC      Ama       96             Yes           -          -            -           -
ffs           HelpYourself    SC      Sorc      96             Yes           -          -          many          ?
XyleneCyanol  Fishie          HC      Sorc      95             No            -          -            -           -
ThomasJohnsen xInTheBuffx     HC      Sorc      95             Yes           -          -            -           -
darkstarhub   Neptune         SC      Sorc      95             Yes           -          -            -           -
PhineasB      Phaedrus        SC      Pala      94             Yes           -        274           12           -
Dezrok        Salome          SC      Sorc      94             Yes         645        296            -           -
Reyz          Qty             SC      Sorc      93             No            -          -            -           -
Yng           Sophie          SC      Sorc      93             Yes           -          -            7           -
Chaostar      Prairie         SC      Sorc      91             Yes         659        261           12         126
OldSoldier    Battleforge     HC      Pala      91             Yes           -        236            -           -
tokerdin      tokeress        SC      Sorc      91             yes           -          -            -           -
Zenigma       Ayura           SC      Barb      91             No            -          -            -           -
Gynli         Amazon          SC      Amazon    91             Yes           -          -         many           -
Southpaw      Njord           SC      Druid     90             Yes           -          -            -           -
Qwernt        CanbeOnlyBlizz  SC      Sorc      90             Yes           ?          -        Dont want to know
MercMan       Este            SC      Ama       90             Yes        1212        278            2  Classified
Me2Nik        Fugu            HC      Ama       90             Yes          80
Yng           Kyrie           HC      Druid     90             Yes           -          -            -           -
Lynchgrinch   Tattersail      SC      Sorc      89             Yes           ?        321         too many    lots
LiquidClear   Sally           SC      Assn      **             Yes         225          -            1           -
liquid_mage   zDadColdSorc    SC      Sorc      **             Yes           -        160            -           -
Neksja        Turirao         SC      Druid     87             Yes         191        124            5           -
Gladstone     Socrates        HC      Druid     86             ?             -          -            -           -
Zenigma       Gnosis          SC      Druid     86             No            -          -            -           -
Lord Molyb    Cruise_Control  SC      Necro     86             No          115         94           19         idk
Naturallog    Athos           HC      Barb      84             No          159        105            0           -
Lord Molyb    Verisimilitude  SC      Ama       83             No           28         25            0         idk
Qwernt        AmaAgainstAll   SC      Sorc      81             Yes           -          -            -           -
Gambit        Mallenroh       SC      Sorc      81             Yes           0          0            0           0
Lord Molyb    But_Why         SC      Sin       81             Never        55         51           53
Jean Avila    SpeedAdict      SC      Ama       77             No            -          -            -          50
logo          Digimon         HC      Nec       76             Yes          85         65            0           -
TwentyMule    Rayne           SC      Sorc      76             Yes         195        140            ?           ?
Gripphon      Ryu             SC      Sorc      76             Yes           -          -         over 9k       13
Darke Rahl    Bells           HC      Ama       74             No           19          -            0
Vildecor      Celia           SC      Ama       59             Yes          52         43            0           -
ioupainmax    Durnik          SC      Paladin   52             Yes          50         42            -           -
TrU           Henryk          SC      Barb      41             Yes           -          -           22          12
Gambit        Colossus        SC      Pal       39             Yes           0          0            0           0
aarrgus       Acala           SC      Barb      32             Yes                                   1
Smancer       Smancer         SC      Necro     26             Yes           1          -            -           -
Ergroilnin    Erilinda        HC      Sorc      20             No            -          -            -           -
Kitteh        Kaylin          SC      Ama       19             Yes           -          -            0           -
hackedagainanda Hugo          HC      Barb      16             Yes           -          -            -           -

The Fallen

Name (F)    Name (C)       SC/HC   Class   Level/exp   Extended Stash   #of S/U   Grail/504   #of deaths   # of Hours
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
coju        NintyNine_orRiP HC      Sorc      81             Yes           -          0            0         a few
TwentyMule  Valus           HC      Barb      76             Yes           -          -            1           -
Pb_pal      Stevesy         HC      Paladin   76             Yes           -          -            0           -
Tenecabo    OldShatterhand  HC      Druid     49             Yes           -          0            1           -
coju        fB              HC      Sorc      29             Yes           1          1            0           2
Kitteh      Verallus        HC      Druid     26             No          N/A        N/A            0          N/A
logo        Rolex           HC      Barb      21             Yes           0          0            0           1

 

[Dezrok]

@darkstarhub I've had quite a bit of time to play recently and the novelty of playing at these levels and finding lots of loot I've never seen before has kept me keen. I feel like I'm just about to hit the XP plateau though and progress will become a lot slower from now on.

Nice progress @Yng , I dropped in on your channel about 15 mins after you posted but you were offline.

Welcome to the fun @aarrgus and good luck with the journey!

and @Kitteh thanks for the regular motivational messages.

I almost accidentally discovered I had a pretty good LK map

Spoiler

View attachment 6895

The armor rack in the middle drops Spiderweb Sash's ... I didn't check but I'm pretty sure that Arach Mesh can't drop from it so I haven't been popping it.

So thought I might spend the day in LK running for runes and see what dropped. While Salome's gear is okay, I figure a few high runes will help things along nicely. Any of Ber, Ohm, Lo, Vex or Ist would be great to see.

I would love to use the Lo in this baby!

Spoiler

View attachment 6896

Salome could also do with a whole heap of better charms, especially for resists. So LK it is!

I decided I didn't want to count runs or time them, I figured that would become frustrating for me. However, I did a time trial at the start and runs were about 35 seconds, this dropped to about 30 seconds pretty quickly and when I did a time check around the middle of the day Salome was averaging 25 seconds per run, which I was super happy with.

A pretty conservative estimate would be that I did 1000 runs during the day, probably was a bit more than this but 1000 will do. During what was probably the second hundred runs we had 35 minutes where we got Um, Pul and Ist.

View attachment 6897

View attachment 6898

View attachment 6899

And the entire rest of the day gave us one more Pul, along with lots and lots of Lem and lower. Apparently this is pretty poor rune form for LK, but I didn't have any expectations (and didn't check until I was finished for the day) so didn't get at all frustrated.

Plenty of nice charms to pick through including a second cold skiller, so it wasn't all a waste. Also quite a few gems and jewels for crafting.

A secondary aim for the day was to break my habit of using the mouse to choose the difficulty level and instead to re-train myself to select the difficulty using the keyboard. I figure there is a much lesser chance of accidentally choosing the wrong difficulty and re-rolling maps this way. Will mark this one up as a success and hopefully will have less accidents in the future.

Not sure if I'll invest another day in LK just now or get back to killing things and finding S/Us.

Probably should go and find a 3os helm from somewhere first and use that Ist for the much talked about Delerium. Seems to be the merc helm of choice for 99'ers. Wouldn't mind an eth elite polearm base for Insight either .. maybe I can go for a spin around the Moo Moo Farm tomorrow.

 

[PhineasB1]

It’s been fun to catch up on the progress in this thread over the last six weeks. Great progress, particularly from @ffs with HelpYourself. And welcome to those who have joined -- very cool to see the Amazons represented. I also like seeing people entering a second character!

I’ve been away for a bit and then spent limited play time when I got back to participate (in limited fashion) in MFO. So Hiatus had only gained 1M XP since the last update until Friday. She’s now moving again, with another 20M gained and a bit past 98.3.

I was worried about a death when she returned, so took it slow initially. That actually paid off, with some changes in run style that improved efficiency, as she netted 2.7M XP for the last hour that I tracked. (She also avoided dying!). The main improvement was moving the primary landing spot around Nihl’s platform, and more recently no longer casting Battle Command.

Significant finds that warranted screenshots were a Lo (which took some work to retrieve due to vipers and Nihl having been cursed), a Mal, and Ravenlore. The other improvement was finding BKWB, which she swapped out with the SoJ for extra life. That upgrade is what finally led to trying runs without Battle Command.

The game trolled me with a Chilling skiller, which is her fifth, but still only one lightning skiller. Other finds of note were a 5/5 cold facet, an Um, a 3os Tomb Reaver, a 30@ Metalgrid, and another Azurewrath. Maybe her best find though was this jewel:

Scintillating Jewel of Fervor
Jewel
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x93f3e6b2
Item Level: 95
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+15% Increased Attack Speed
Cold Resist +12%
Lightning Resist +12%
Fire Resist +12%
Poison Resist +12%

Keep up the progress everyone! It’s nice to see this thread so active, so keep the updates coming.

 

[Yng]

Couldn't resist spamming LK/RoF superchests the last couple of times I played (and a tiny bit of HC Sorc progress). No XP update but..

Ayy more runes:

Spoiler

This one is a new P7/8 pattern:

 

[Dezrok]

Very nice jewel! @PhineasB

After yesterday's intensive LK effort I took things a bit quieter today.

An early stroll through the farm. First run dropped an Ist and a Pul, along with the 3os helm I was after. That pretty much put me on equal footing with yesterday's entire LK running. Two more runs gave two more 3os helms but no more high runes and the trip to get Wirt's Leg was way too far.

So, I cruised through a few other areas to see what felt good and settled on doing a few CS runs with about 40%MF. Nothing much in the way of drops but the XP bar moved along a bit.

Things were a little intense in CS so for a change I thought I'd check out AT, still with only about 40%MF. First run was a mess, teleporting into packs, misclicks and general uncoordination. Picked up a second pair of Trang's Gloves along the way. Eventually reached the sparkly chest at the end, popped it and out came two golds - a ring and gloves. I normally get excited at the sight of gold jewellery, even knowing it will probably be another Nagelring, but after that shocker of a run I couldn't raise much enthusiasm.

Back to Cain and he tells me Salome has got herself a shiny new SoJ!

Not bad returns for a day of stuffing around!

 

[Amanda Maynard]

I don't know what to tell you coju. I like blizzard. I don't like FO as much. FO/CL gogogo?

 

[Kitteh1]

I don't know what to tell you coju. I like blizzard. I don't like FO as much. FO/CL gogogo?

New people Welcome to the SPF!

 

[ffs]

@PhineasB thanks, good to see you picking up where you left. Oh and it's actually your fault that I wasted a good amount of time recently on this stupid project haha. After all when that Griffon's dropped I was only running casually, but you finally pushed me to switching to pure lightning, which left me with that massive to do list I was working on since then. Way to ruin other people's lifes, so thanks for nothing!

Nice progress @Yng and @Dezrok, and welcome @aarrgus!

 

[PhineasB1]

Way to ruin other people's lifes, so thanks for nothing!

Just doing my part to support the community Maybe it's offset by pushing through to 99 with a pure lightning sorc without Griffon's or Arachnid's? Or Phaedrus committing to continue his climb and at least keep HelpYourself company until she pings 99?

In all seriousness, definitely cool to see that Griffon's put to good use. I'm excited to see how much faster she is at Nihl for 98 than Hiatus. Also, congrats on the SoJ @Dezrok -- always a nice find.

 

[Kitteh1]

Kaylin has almost finished NM. I just tried to make an Insight (definitely the right recipe) but it appears that my RWM has suddenly ceased to function, so no idea what is wrong there... Kicking butt though, I mean its a furyzon, not a whole lot to say

 

[PhineasB1]

I've had similar issues with RWM before. I'm not at my computer but I'll try to describe as best I can what worked for me:

There is a Data subfolder in the D2 directory. If you click through the sub folders there, there are no files in any until the last subfolder. You will probably see a bunch of files (I forget the extension, but maybe .bin) and only one .txt file (I think it's runes.txt) Delete everything but the txt file, restart D2, open your character, and hopefully you'll see an Insight rather than a gemmed polearm!

 

[Kitteh1]

Damn, still a gemmed polearm Thanks for the input!

 

[Albatross]

Even if you fix the RWM you won't "see an insight" it will remain broken, but newly made runewords should work. This is best tested on the cheapest possible runeword (obviously).

 

[Kitteh1]

I tried that too, with Spirit, and got nothing I will try it again in a while, once I finish reading this badly written paper on gene therapy. *grumble grumble* *blood idiots*

 

[Gynli]

@Albatross when i was fiddling arnd with my rwm the gemmed polearm turned into an insight after restarting the game from a correct path. Is the current gemmed polearm something different?

On topic, friend is in town so i didnt have many hrs to put into the amazon. Shes switching between pindle on p3 and lk on p7 with no luck so far.

I do have the runes for a delirium; would it be a useful helm for both desert and rogue merc? Theres always a chance of a wf+faith setup for a bowazon.

 

[Albatross]

I guess I'm wrong then, but I remember "failed" runewords not being fixed retroactively.

 

[Dezrok]

@Kitteh I also had this happen recently, but it was because I'd changed my D2 shortcut when I installed glidewrapper and forgot to add -direct -txt to the path ... of course you wouldn't do anything as shamefully stupid as this ... (but just in case). Once I fixed the shortcut I was happy to find my runewords were working properly again.

@Gynli I have just made Delirium for my Act 2 merc ... and found Insight/Delirium/Treachery was less survivable than Insight/Vamp Gaze/Treachery. I'm thinking Delirium will be the better option once I get CoH for the merc and he has a source of leech on the armor but there is no need to rush to make your Delirium. I'm guessing it could work on the Rogue merc though, as they are less likely to be tanking.