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

Thanks @NanoMist and congrats on the SOJ @Tarantella.

I ran Pits until Level 93, with no further excitement on the drops front. I then re-geared and rolled LK maps. Found a decent one with two fire pits in ~10 rolls and set to. My goal is another 250 runes, and then I may switch things up a bit to avoid burning out. Of course, if I find a Ber or Sur x2 before then . . .

About 30 runes in, I found a Captain's GC of Balance, which my 2H Fanazealot will enjoy at some point, and then a nice 11% Amber SC with strength. And then rune #45 was Sur #3 (from LK). Almost there (or not anywhere near there, depending on the random drops). Three runes later was Pul #6 and then near 100 I got Pul #7. I also found a Martial Arts skiller and lots of flawless gems that I have cubed up for GC re-rolling.

I had a really strange stretch of about 30 runs where I found only 2 runes. I suspect that's a pretty low-frequency occurrence, although I'm not going to do the math to figure it out. Anyhow, I can hardly complain.

Table update below.

Code: 
Name (F)    Name (C)       SC/HC   Class   Level/exp   Extended Stash   #of S/U   Grail/504   #of deaths   # of Hours
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pb_pal      Eleanor         SC      Sorc      96             No          890        309            4           -
T72on1      Neverland       SC      Sorc      94             Yes         351        206            9          52.5
NanoMist    Izuna           SC      Sin       94             No          484        243            1          124
PhineasB    Mercy           SC      Sin       93             Yes           -        245            8           -
Tarantella  Tarasha         HC      Sorc      92             Yes           -          -            -           -
hasuprotoss Reina           SC      Sorc      89             Yes         329        194            -           -
OldSoldier  Battleforge     HC      Pala      87             Yes           -        114            -           -
Gambit      Mallenroh       SC      Sorc      81             Yes           0          0            0           0
logo        Digimon         HC      Nec       76             Yes          85         65            0           -
Darke Rahl  Bells           HC      Ama       74             No           19          -            0           0
Southpaw    Njord           SC      Druid     54             Yes           -          0            0           -
Kitteh      Cyanosis        HC      Assassin  45             No            -          -            -           -
Tenecabo    OldShatterhand  HC      Druid     40             Yes           -          0            0           -
Gambit      Colossus        SC      Pal       39             YES           0          0            0           0
Ergroilnin  Erilinda        HC      Sorc      20             No            -          -            -           -
Smancer     Smancer         SC      Necro     26             Yes           1          -            -           -
 
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I'm slowly working my way towards level 95. Not far from the 94 starting point though, as I haven't had much time, and one more death to boot, bringing my total to an emberrassing 10 deaths already. I guess I'm really sloppy, compared to my HC Blizz Sorc, who got to 95 before dying.

Anyway, still having terrible drops, until a golden Sacred Armor dropped while doing some more AT runs after my weekly group game. Alas, not THE golden Sacred Armor, and a very low roll, but still a first ever for me:

Code: 
Templar's Might
Sacred Armor
Defense: 1646
Durability: 46 of 60
Required Level: 74
Required Strength: 232
Fingerprint: 0x3ed70090
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Offensive Aura Skills (Paladin Only)
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+174% Enhanced Defense
+281 Defense vs. Missile
+10 to Strength
+13 to Vitality
+48 Maximum Stamina
 
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Not much of an update. Hit 90 a few days ago. Been slowly going through LK since it's not exactly my most favorite of things to run!

Reina's highest rune found is Mal, of which I've found 4. No Um's, no Pul's a good number of Lem's. Just looking for a Vex and an Ohm and I think I'll move on for now. May stay on Blizzard a lot longer than I was expecting so as not to return for the huge amount of high runes required for Infinity, Chains of Honor, and whatnot. Reina is itching to kill.
 
Sup guys! My homie is currently at 3M exp, so I thought I might give it a try.
Code: 
Name (F)    Name (C)       SC/HC   Class   Level/exp   Extended Stash   #of S/U   Grail/504   #of deaths   # of Hours
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
zticazzy    Perkele         SC      Barb      97             No            -          -            -           -
Pb_pal      Eleanor         SC      Sorc      96             No          890        309            4           -
T72on1      Neverland       SC      Sorc      94             Yes         351        206            9          52.5
NanoMist    Izuna           SC      Sin       94             No          484        243            1          124
PhineasB    Mercy           SC      Sin       93             Yes           -        245            8           -
Tarantella  Tarasha         HC      Sorc      92             Yes           -          -            -           -
hasuprotoss Reina           SC      Sorc      89             Yes         329        194            -           -
OldSoldier  Battleforge     HC      Pala      87             Yes           -        114            -           -
Gambit      Mallenroh       SC      Sorc      81             Yes           0          0            0           0
logo        Digimon         HC      Nec       76             Yes          85         65            0           -
Darke Rahl  Bells           HC      Ama       74             No           19          -            0           0
Southpaw    Njord           SC      Druid     54             Yes           -          0            0           -
Kitteh      Cyanosis        HC      Assassin  45             No            -          -            -           -
Tenecabo    OldShatterhand  HC      Druid     40             Yes           -          0            0           -
Gambit      Colossus        SC      Pal       39             YES           0          0            0           0
Ergroilnin  Erilinda        HC      Sorc      20             No            -          -            -           -
Smancer     Smancer         SC      Necro     26             Yes           1          -            -           -

[highlight]The Fallen:[/highlight]
Code: 
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
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
 
My necromancer has made it to hell. Reckon I'm going to be running pits for days. He may be level 71 or so, I'm not sure as I'm afk.

Fishy, so I am getting to where I have too many skill points. Will probably pop them in amp for effectiveness, some in dim vision and confuse. It's a blast!
 
@zticazzy Hey look, we have a new 'leader' :). Welcome to the fun. Which targets are you planning to run?

@coju Welcome back to Hell :). Hopefully this one will go all the way !!!
 
@zticazzy - Welcome! Glad you decided to join, I really enjoyed his thread a while back. What's your leveling strategy from here on out? Is he staying with his current gear?

@coju - Nice! Great progress. :)

--

Not really much playing time for Eleanor since last update. I did do a bit of number crunching for level 96 though, same as I did for 95.

She now gets ~222k XP/run (based off of 100 runs) doing the standard 'Gripphon Run' in the CS. This means she'll need just over 1k runs to ping 97, assuming no deaths and I maintain the XP rate. The levels are starting to get more daunting now, but hopefully my playing time should pick up again soon and I can give Perkele a run for his money ;)

As noted eariler, she has decided to stay pure Blizz until at least 98 (and maybe Blova after that) so there have been a couple gear changes. She used up her first socket quest and popped a facet (4/3) into her brand new +3 Blizz Ormus' Robes. We don't need any extra kill-speed right now, so she isn't going to use her other socket quests just yet (so she can keep her current map which sports a good LK/AT combo as well).

We also found a pretty nice eth Archon Plate with 4 sockets, and since we're not going to make an Infinity until 98 (or maybe even at all, to be honest), we burned our Ber and made this nice present for Emilio to reward all his hard work:

znW27qE.jpg

.
Not a bad upgrade from his Treachery! He seems to be much more durable now too, as I hardly ever have to babysit him with pots.

I also realized my last LCS shot for Eleanor was before she found her beautiful new armour, so here she is completely up to date:

4ZsymsM.jpg

.
Needless to say anything not CI melts extremely quickly. I should really use a respec though to re-allocate some of those wasted points in Strength. Ah well, maybe another time.

Happy running folks!
 
@T72on1 My plans are:
1) Baal runs: p8 wave 1-4 / p5 lister / p3 baal. Classic choice, the only downsides are that these runs are very boring to me, and p8 Lister is kinda tough even with dual ebotd so I have to lower the settings a bit. Averaging 3,5m exp per hour here (rough estimate).
2) Chaos runs, p1 seals / p7 diablo. I have a map with 2 stable shrines and I can sometimes gain an extra bit of exp, but I'm not really counting on it. I'm around 2,8m/hour without exp shrine, if only I had a better map this option could be on par with baaling.
3) I'm also planning to lose time wandering around because whynot :rolleyes:
I also considered running nihl with my etomby, but the place scares me and I don't want to lose the portal to pindlegarden, so he's out.

@Pb_pal hi there! No worries man, I'm pretty sure you'll finish this challenge first, given that my char is a rather slow runner and my motivation goes on and off depending on the weather :) As for the gear, let's say that I've spent many absolution tokens right now to test several weapons (etomby, azurewrath...) and hybrid builds, and now I've chosen a full vita build (5,6k life - only 30-40 points spent on dex and str) whirling with my two pretty ebotd twins. Sounds weird to say, but I must admit that tomb reaver really helped me with safety in WSK because skellies were unbeatable against those wave 5 minions, they were able to tank even 3 or 4 of them at a time, so it's a shame I had to give up on the tomby because of its lack of AR, thus DPS. The point is that the -25% target defense and dual leech of ebotd help a lot to make my char safe and fast, and as weapons the twins are better than any other combination I've tested so far. I also switched SoE for arach, gores for wartravs, and I'm currently using teh rare ring of destiny along with ravenfrost.
 
Tarasha stopped running the LK chests at the start of her runs on reaching level 92 concentrating solely on the Crypt superchest (taking a quick safer detour to Bonebreakers front door when necessary) and on the Mausoleum money run to the superchest. Vampire gaze was found first and exchanged for the mercs Tals to help soak up the heavy physical damage of the inhabitants at p8

An Ist and an um were then found within a few runs of each other soon after with gold rolling in at ~200k per run. Runs are taken at a slow pace with lots of trips to the shops justified quite often by clearing curses followed by an amulet gambling session every 10 runs. Here's a nice one worthy of a screenshot.

View attachment 3169

Xp gain is varied but noticeable and runs improved by knowing where the bosspacks are likely to be and where not to blind tele accordingly. With that in mind to allow wearing the SoJ 20 points were spent in strength with charms reshuffled for lower life and reasonable resists on swap but maxed F/C/L resists still on Hoto for initial teleing which took in a nearby shrine. Taking time to look at rares, orbs, charms and such led to the finding of a nice legend sword with 300 ed, +1 to paladin skills and cold damage and after many runs a second Guillames, Goreriders and Oculus* had all been acquired. Two more diadem rerolls produced a usuable +2 druid item and a poor +1 sorceress one.

Approaching the half way mark and 2 billion xp count Tarasha picked up a Tals belt but idle thoughts of completing the set were completely dashed several sessions later when this dropped.

View attachment 3170
With Tarasha patiently waiting for extra strong, aura enchanted fire enchanted Bonebreaker to expire before dashing forward to pick up the charm to go with the Jah found quite some time ago now.


*see make your own tourney thread.
 
Thanks @all and @T72on1 @Pb_pal for the welcome backs! Looks like y'all have been doing awesome! Some awesome finds! Looking forward to some non-Sorc updates! (Unless I missed some, then more!)

My guy is actually 72 with 20fres and 36 lres. My drops have been mediocre so far. +2 Skeli Zombie head I found in Normal, Spirit sword, Lore Helm, and socked body armor with MF and basic MF boot/glove. Eth Goldwrap to wrap it all up though! Believe I've been singlepass so far. I don't recall running any areas as I've been trying to get to where I'm at as quick as possible.
 
@Pb_pal - Nice bliz damage right there. :eek:

@Tarantella - Sweet amulet and Ber rune too!


Small update:

Found another Vex rune, maybe I'll cube up to a Lo for a possible Fortitude. Hard luck with the 4os eth polearms. One example: before and after. Finally found a plain eth CV after numerous Pit runs, and thought about whether to use the socket recipe for a 50% chance at 4os or just take it to Larzuk. Not the greatest polearm base to be using the socket quest on, but wanting to move on, I went back to normal Larzuk and made Infinity. Also used my first respec while I was in normal.

For now, running P8 CS runs including Diablo, as I am still looking for Shako.
 
@Pb_pal Wow, that Blizz damage is insane. I think I'm only sitting at some 5K - 6K. Not sure if that is before or after the Snowclash belt I found yesterday, which replaced my Goldwrap, but I think that's after :(. Really need to get some skillers.

@Tarantella Congrats on the Ber.

@NanoMist Congrats on the Infinity. Really nice ED% roll, right in the middle for the -enemy light res. I feel sorry for the monsters you'll encounter ..

Still crappy drops for me I'm afraid. Best was a Mal rune. Leveling also is slowing down at this point. I'm currently somewhere at the 94.25 mark. Still mainly doing AT runs, with sometimes CS runs in between. I haven't had the time to play much though, and it seems like it will be like this for quite a while. Ah well, this is a long term project anyway, right? It's just that 94 is so close to 99, purely mathematically speaking ;).
 
T72on1 said:
@Pb_pal Wow, that Blizz damage is insane. I think I'm only sitting at some 5K - 6K. Not sure if that is before or after the Snowclash belt I found yesterday, which replaced my Goldwrap, but I think that's after :(. Really need to get some skillers.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've never had Blizz damage this high before. A huge part of that is between my Fathom and faceted Ormus Robes I have +38% cold skill damage.o_O I do have 3 skillers too, so that always helps. Blizzard is at level 38 after using Battle Command.

To be honest, it feels like overkill most of the time, but that's all part of the fun! :D

@NanoMist - The Shako eludes me as well so far. Amazing Infinity though!
 
Pb_pal said:
Yeah, I've never had Blizz damage this high before. A huge part of that is between my Fathom and faceted Ormus Robes I have +38% cold skill damage.o_O I do have 3 skillers too, so that always helps. Blizzard is at level 38 after using Battle Command.

To be honest, it feels like overkill most of the time, but that's all part of the fun! :D
Click to expand...

There's no such thing as overkill in D2 ;).
 
My highest was 94 as well, until I got my HC sorc to 95 some time ago. Both were Blizz Sorcs. So now my minimum goal is 96 :).
 
Time for an update! Reina has just hit 91 in Ancient Tunnels, and despite some growing pains is finally getting through things without pointless deaths. She blames her handler, which I won't exactly debate...

Decided to forgo getting a Vex and an Ohm in LK, which is probably a mistake and what we'll be hitting up next. Hopefully just having two runes that I need to find can motivate Reina to find them! Still using a Spirit Crystal Sword (30% FCR) and we found a nice 4 socket Monarch that became a Spirit shield (30% FCR as well...)

Reina's Blizzard damage doesn't compare to Eleanor's, but we're getting through runs quick enough for our liking and we know that the gear will come with time.

Onto the pictures!

MagMbf9.jpg

Mal #1, almost missed it in the clutter, luckily caught the orange as I tele'd away!

tkmBn2L.jpg

Mal #2

7pAghdK.jpg

Mal #3!

4Xuurks.jpg

Mal #4!!

OohAi7y.jpg

Wonder what's hiding behind the cursor!?!

Don't know what I'll do with that Ber rune. Could make Chains of Honor if an Um drops, could hold out for another Ber and cube up two of the above Mals for Infinity... So many options that I think I'll just hold onto it for now. Hopefully more of these show up soon, I have a lot of runewords that would provide an upgrade for either Reina or Durga.

Code: 
Name (F)    Name (C)       SC/HC   Class   Level/exp   Extended Stash   #of S/U   Grail/504   #of deaths   # of Hours
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
zticazzy    Perkele         SC      Barb      97             No            -          -            -           -
Pb_pal      Eleanor         SC      Sorc      96             No          890        309            4           -
T72on1      Neverland       SC      Sorc      94             Yes         351        206            9          52.5
NanoMist    Izuna           SC      Sin       94             No          484        243            1          124
PhineasB    Mercy           SC      Sin       93             Yes           -        245            8           -
Tarantella  Tarasha         HC      Sorc      92             Yes           -          -            -           -
hasuprotoss Reina           SC      Sorc      91             Yes         381        217           -           -
OldSoldier  Battleforge     HC      Pala      87             Yes           -        114            -           -
Gambit      Mallenroh       SC      Sorc      81             Yes           0          0            0           0
logo        Digimon         HC      Nec       76             Yes          85         65            0           -
Darke Rahl  Bells           HC      Ama       74             No           19          -            0           0
Southpaw    Njord           SC      Druid     54             Yes           -          0            0           -
Kitteh      Cyanosis        HC      Assassin  45             No            -          -            -           -
Tenecabo    OldShatterhand  HC      Druid     40             Yes           -          0            0           -
Gambit      Colossus        SC      Pal       39             YES           0          0            0           0
Ergroilnin  Erilinda        HC      Sorc      20             No            -          -            -           -
Smancer     Smancer         SC      Necro     26             Yes           1          -            -           -

[highlight]The Fallen:[/highlight]
Code: 
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
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
 
@hasuprotoss Nice going there !!!

This evening this went a little smoother. I'm at the 94.75 point now, doing a mix of AT run and to a lesser extent CS. The latter sometimes even start to go quite some faster, so that's definitely a good thing.

Dropwise, it was very poor again. Only at the very end I found this one:

View attachment 3174

Quite rare, rather good roll on the +skills.

I also keep on finding far more ethereal uniques than usual. This one was probably the best so far, and dropped a few runs after the Darkforce Spawn:

View attachment 3175

Once I hit 95, I'll probably reroll maps to do LK again. I need a break from AT.
 
Ugh T72on1 such disarray with those charms - and to the left . Can't look!

Cool finds though....
But get those charms in order or crop the SS pls :D (just kidding ofc - to each his/her own)

#EDIT: And a greater healing pot where a super healing pot clearly belongs. Tingling with OCD itches here.
 
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