The Untwinked Level 99 Progress Thread, The Saviours of Sanctuary Rise Anew

For 97 specifically Baal is definitely worth it. I was talking more about lower lvls.

My 4k CS runs gave me like 2 TC 87 items and it took me almost 100 hours. Baalruns gave me like 20 of them in 130 hours. They both aren't good for item finding that's for sure, but Baal is still better even after taking my luck into consideration. Can always calculate the chances, but i honestly have no idea where can you get TC87s from in CS XD Is it even worth it to take P1 minions into consideration? You won't be killing some random packs at 97 if you want to focus on exp, right? On the other hand, those saved 7 hours will give you more items in Pits than any of those 2 mentioned, so it should be better to go CS? There is also HR aspect of Baalruns, but the probability of finding like Ber or Jah even in the whole 90-98 lvling is like 30% or some shit. Cumulative chance for vex+ should be way higher than that and higher than in CS, but we are only talking about 97-98, so it kind flattens.

You don't loose time picking up items when running waves, but you loose some time picking up items from Baal and when you identify them at Cain. You can always push it and do it quickly, but i don't think i want to be focused on the game 100% for 100 hours doing the same shit ^^ My average over 2k runs was sub 3:50, but i wasn't really pushing it that much for mentioned reasons.

Yeah, for purely exping reasons, CS is better, but it's way more demanding imo. Btw, did you check how berserk compares to WW in CS? You have to howl minions away to focus on the seal boss, so you miss out on that minions' exp, so it should be worse. I went with berserk on my barb later on, but i was using totally different gear, so WW wouldn't work out for MF imo.

Yeah, you won't get that Vipers' bug without merc, but it's still kinda risky to play without crowd control. Witches and archers can hit hard. You've done Nihla with melee Pala, so maybe you know a little bit more. I would definitely focus on getting some higher life leech to compensate for the luck of Delirium.

Stone Skin Nihla takes significantly longer to kill, therefore he is more annyoing, that's for sure. The probability of dying is higher. He has more time to teleport around, so those runs can get significantly longer. I tested running with and without Howl over those runs i did. Both approaches have their pros and cons, but you can definitely play without it. Berserk sounds like a good idea, cause you have like 500ed conc vs 50 phys res nihla with the standard build, and 600ed berserk vs 25 magic res nihla with the berserk build. You loose leech, but it still should be worth it imo ^^
 
Nice stuff @ffs

I have also tested Diablo vs Baal with the final level in mind, and for Stevesy it's looking like Diablo is significantly faster than Baal could ever dream of being for 98-99 (though not as fast as your times, of course). Granted, he's a slow character and his single-target attacking kind of skews things in terms of efficiency, but on the flip side his massive life and leech made him feel safe enough even going toe-to-toe with De Seis.

Yes, they are clunky runs since I'm constantly shifting in and out of wolf form, but it will warrant a proper good look once I get him to 98. I won't be touching Nihl, for what it's worth.

For WW this may not be the case since as you state De Seis can be a real pain, but I hate WW so I'm a *little* bit biased in that regards. ;)
 
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In my case I didn't bother to experiment and try different things out. I fell in love with the strategy and the gameplay @ResTTe was doing and @Bewitch did before him and I just wanted to do the same thing. I might have done a couple of CS runs just to take a break from Baal, but it must have been a negligible ammount since I can't even remember doing them. Sorry I can't contribute any experience to this discussion, @ffs . I also thought CS runs would be too dangerous for my barb since my fire res was always negative and De Seis makes me nervous, but I think I was always thinking about P8/P7 and never P1/P7.
 
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"Yeah, for purely exping reasons, CS is better, but it's way more demanding imo. Btw, did you check how berserk compares to WW in CS? You have to howl minions away to focus on the seal boss, so you miss out on that minions' exp, so it should be worse. I went with berserk on my barb later on, but i was using totally different gear, so WW wouldn't work out for MF imo."

I would not use Howl on the last boss in CS, whether it is Vizier with rerolled map full of champion packs or Infector of Souls. By doing that you could maximize the experience gain I reckon. Leap / Howl should be the safest way for Lord De Seis. My first level 99 was a barbarian in HC and I never felt endangered back then whatsoever ... even with a Bnet lag :) . These mobs could not even hit me :). Idk about the run time with Diablo. Seal runs have to be below 1 min for sure Oo. Probably something like 40-50 seconds on P8. Barb should be faster than Paladin in seal runs to be honest. Tons of FCR is making the runs so much enjoyable for the Barbarian as well.
 
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@ResTTe you know he means p1/p7 CS runs for lvl 97-98 right? Was just confused when you said the things about less minions meaning less xp. That should be a nonfactor. I think the biggest issue with going zerk is killing p7 diablo. Also do you think howl would not be ok for cc in nihlathak (with no merc, so no confuse proc)? I most certainly do not know and have no experience, but I would have guessed a decent level howl and no merc would make nihla barb nearly unkillable.

@ffs I honeslty just don't think anyone has thought to test p1/p7 runs for barb at lvl 97 (tell me if I'm wrong though @ResTTe). Everyone thinks about try gripp runs or full p8/p7 runs with barb at 97 (which just doesnt seem to worth that well from what I've seen), and ofc people think of p1/p7 runs at 98, but I hadn't seen anyone mention it even as an idea for 97. As for the hc/safety stuff, I certainly understand, but could you just put 10 points into howl or something to make de seis minions a nonfactor? I don't want to be the reason you kill your barb, but I'll be a bit disappointed if I dont get to see you test these :D.

@D30D043 you dont get exp for monsters that are killed through the seal pop. What do you mean about 40-50s seal runs? Just killing infector and vizier and no minions on p8?
 
Yep, just seal bosses. I would not kill any other mobs with Berserker and there is no point doing P1/P7 runs, because run time will stay pretty much the same :). Few sword swings here and there ...
 
@D30D043 I'm thoroughly confused. That seems like a very poor exp run. Vizier and Infector have 11 and 10 minions, respectively, who offer the same amount of exp as the seal boss themselves offer. So If I do 2 seal runs with a paladin, and leave lets say 2 minions unkilled per pack, then I would make (1+9) + (1+8) = 19 monsters worth of experience, as oppose to the 2 monsters worth of experience in the runtype you're describing. So 19/2 = 9.5x the exp per run.

If you meant you kill de seis as well (still wasn't clear on that), he has slightly more exp than vizier and infector (about 58% more than them), so those aforementioned paladin 2seal runs would only give 19/3.6 = 5.3x the exp per run.

Furthermore, when I do that type of run I described in the first paragraph, I can get sub 39s runs with the paladin. So those ratios only hold for exp/hr if the barb does the runs in sub 39s as well.

Anyways, not trying to be accusatory or something, just very confused. Are you getting exp at a rate that you feel is reasonably fast progress doing those runs?

And just for reference you can see the amount of exp given by the different seal bosses and their minions at different levels in @Nano's tables in the 99er compendium here.

As for why p1/p7 runs are different... at lvl 97, players 7 diablo gives you 65.5k exp, whereas players 8 vizier himself (no minions) gives you 2.9k exp... and you can get an exp shrine for diablo to boost that by 50%.
 
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@ResTTe right, there are situations with Witches and Might/Fana stuff or whatnot, but that comes with a much bigger reaction window than Viper clouds which can make you poof instantly. Think one of these days I'll use one of my SC Barbs to test a couple of approaches for Nihl.

So far I used Berserk in CS only against stone skin seal bosses or when I knew I had to howl for sure. Fun things like Might/Fana/Amp at the seals. Otherwise I just teleported on boss and switched right to WW on RMB, no horking (I don't have it skilled atm) and just moving on after the kill. Against De Seies I howled every time. Of course one could howl all bosses and snipe them with Berserk, and even hork for extra drops, but re XP it's all the same and whatever really. The actual reason to go with WW build is the fight against P7 Diablo as @Luhkoh mentioned, because Berserk just takes much longer than WW to kill him on P7.

I kind of regret going HC with this guy already, and that's not even in anticipation of his inevitable demise, but because with SC I'd be much more willing to take risks and do more interesting things. :) I must admit I underestimated the variety of options for Barb. Now in HC I'm kinda leaning towards the safer and more boring options. As it stands I think I'd also stick to Baal for 97-98 and Nihl for 98-99, should my Barb live long enough. I'm convinced CS is much better, but I think I'd be too scared of that one decisive slip against De Seis. And while for 98-99 it really seems CS is still on par with Nihl, I'd also suspect Merc-less Nihl runs to be a little safer and perhaps a bit more efficient, too. Maybe not unkillable as @Luhkoh put it :) but in HC I'd prefer dealing with witches over 10k runs to dealing with De Seis over 4-5k runs.

@D30D043 First of all, where's the write-up on your 99er Sorc!? :) Re CS runs, as Luhkoh said those kills after popping the last seal are not attributed to the player by the game, so no XP for those. Berserk is strong against single targets on low player settings, but for things like P8 seals and P7 Diablo it's a bit lacking.
 
@ffs I'm interested in restte's response, but with a high level howl, idk why you'd be dealing with many witches at all even. Assuming you safely get a howl off, I'm not even sure what the primary threat would be anymore.

If you baal to 98 with this guy, then I guess you're just gonna have to get your sc barb to 98 on diablo ;).
 
@ffs I agree totally. The experience gain is definitely worse, however, berserking CS is quite fun :). I personally just could not do these W5 Lister runs :)

@Luhkoh By seal runs I meant seal bosses - Vizier, Seis, Infector. I´d say that it might be wise to kill all these seal mobs before level 96 or 97 with AoE characters, but with Berserker I would rather prefer seal bosses and Diablo at level 96 and 97 instead (if you are fast enough obviously). I would not bother to kill all these Vizier or Infector packs at level 97 to be honest Oo.

This is the fastest leveling method in Bnet by the way from level 80 onward I reckon. You just need to clear CS and enter Throne room by the time wave 1-2 spawns. Even if you do not make it for the first or second wave, exp from wave 1-2 on P8/8 is marginal and you pretty much stay even at level 85-90 onward. Depends on your level really ... and your target would be W3 from level 97 onward, which gives you time to kill Nihlathak as well if I remember correctly. Good csers like Paladin, Barbarian and Necromancer should be able to clear CS before wave 1 spawns if there is no Amazon at the Throne room.
You have a 20 games limit for one hour in Bnet, therefore you really need to maximize your exp gain per run. That is why you see high levels such as 97 and 98 Es up before dp and bp even if this slows down the runs for the rest of the party.
 
Yeah, vipers can pop you instantly, but you can always S&E when you see them, especially when they have some funny aura. You don't even have to try to push it. Witches and archers kinda put your senses to sleep, cause you definitely won't S&E everytime when you see some random pack of archers at Nihla ^^ That's with Delirium and iDR gear of course. Without merc, i would consider S&E when i see some funny combo with archers/witches. iDR gear shouldn't be necessary if you go without merc but i guess you have to be extra cautious when Nihla teleports so you always teleport on top of him and don't run around by mistake. You can get to 5k life on a barb but it can still get kinda scary imo.

Howl works fine most of the time, but it isn't 100% reliable. The spread of those projectiles at longer distances is too big to affect all mobs at the Nihla spawn. It will work ok for his minions, but some ranged mobs can still get you. There is also that one thing with making some free space for Nihla when his minions run away. He can move around and mess things up a little bit, so you would have to teleport on top of him everytime he moves, right? That sounds kinda annoying.

Berserk against P3+ Diablo is very bad, but you can go with a hybrid build if you want to. Berserk for seal bosses and WW for Diablo. I am still not sure about WW in CS tbh, even on P1. It wasn't that much tempting when i was trying it. I didn't push it too much though. What i basically did was something like this: did a few runs with different builds and apporaches, came to the conclusion CS is kinda scary, need some attention and is too much absorbing overall, decided to come back to baalruns. It's not like i wanted to do the fastest UT99 barb or something. I just wanted to get there in more or less optimal way and have fun. Achieved my goal in about 320 hours, which is kinda fast imo, especially for the first UT99 char. A few hours here or there wouldn't change much for me. That's my reasoning. Running CS at some point sounds fun and saving some time by doing that makes it even better. It wasn't something i wanted to optimize with my barb though.

Btw, what do you think about going with Grief PB and Beast BA? That addtitional CB against Diablo should be pretty nice and you get good attack speed with Berserk. That only applies if you go with the hybrid build of course.
 
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Yep, exactly, hybrid build (berserker / x) is what I had in mind for Brute after level 96/97. I need to test CS and Diablo on these levels and figure out, when does killing Diablo become efficient. I estimate that clearing CS with berserker on level 96 will net 5-6,5 M/h. I won´t be able to test it any time soon though, because I am still tilted over that 5 soc Pb :D and I joined Kinkara´s Necromancers team instead :)
 
Btw, what do you think about going with Grief PB and Beast BA? That addtitional CB against Diablo should be pretty nice and you get good attack speed with Berserk. That only applies if you go with the hybrid build of course.
At one point I checked a bit more thoroughly to see if Grief + Grief (in PBs) or Grief + Beast (both in BAs) worked better, but that was for Baal running. Should be pretty much applicable for Diablo as well though. The short version is on paper G+G is still faster, that's when looking at damage output for the Barb including CB/Fana from Beast. But it becomes complicated/hard to quantify when taking into account more Decrepify uptime from Merc as a result from using Beast. In the end this makes both setups very even. However, overall at least I didn't actually see better overall run times with G+B BAs, and in the end I still preferred G+G PBs mostly just for indestructibility really. When using mix of PBs and BAs and only one mastery (I guess swords) then it probably tips the balance towards G+G though.

In CS, I liked WW over Berserk as go-to attack, because I kinda want to leech during the run. Not being able to leech from Diablo is already a bit annoying, basically having to pick up 1-2 pots after popping the last seal each run. And at least for P1/P7 runs, Insight is not a good option for mana management IMO, because against P7 Diablo I want to go with Reaper's Merc. So I used Berserk only situationally. WW brings down seal bosses quickly as well after all.

Howl works fine most of the time, but it isn't 100% reliable. The spread of those projectiles at longer distances is too big to affect all mobs at the Nihla spawn. It will work ok for his minions, but some ranged mobs can still get you. There is also that one thing with making some free space for Nihla when his minions run away. He can move around and mess things up a little bit, so you would have to teleport on top of him everytime he moves, right? That sounds kinda annoying.
Makes sense re the projectile spread from howling. I also think in any case it's not like Howl solves all problems, should work well enough to use it to increase safety though.
Still time to switch to Wolfbarb and not have to worry about such things as 'efficiency' or 'good run times' that seem to keep getting in the way.
True :D tbh for me personally, comparing options and their efficiency and finding the best way to do something is half the fun... I need it to keep the grind interesting, even if most of my 99ers (or attempts) end up taking suboptimal routes anyway. :p
 
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Don't know why, but i have a hard time learning that you can't go with Grief PB and Beast BA combo and be happy, cause you will only have 1 weapon mastery XD Dual Grief PB is superior because of indestructibility as you said, but i for some reason thought DMG won't be that big of a problem against Diablo if you can get very high CB with 1 weapon. That doesn't make sense though, cause it will make your overall CB chance higher by a small amount. Fana compensates for lack of Axe mastery in some way, but you still have that Beast BA DMG being 1/3 of Grief PB DMG problem XD I guess those Zod bugged BAs would do the trick, but we can't use them in that case.

I had the same problem with WW. You want to have Insight for mana regen, but you can't use it cause you actually need that decrep proc on Diablo. All that stuff makes CS complicated, but if you try hard enough, you can make it possible. You can overcome many obstacles and solve remaining problems with getting used to them XD

I just tried no merc Nihla with maxed Howl. Got many mobs at the spawn with fana and a few archers. Howl didn't do shit, cause the mobs had nowhere to run to and they ended up hitting me XD I am very interested in that new Nihla approach. Don't think it would be comfortable enough for me to play that way on a casual char though.
 
So I've gone ahead and gotten a 2 campfire map for my amazon and I've been running it every now and then. Just came to complain about my bad luck to see if that will help! Just under 8 hours so far (657 runs) and I've only gotten one Mal rune to show for it. It's starting to feel like the bad LK luck from my previous amazon is carrying over, which I do not want to see!
 
Here is a little update. Pretty much done with LK for now. I got no useful skillers for Faust, but got all the runes I need to keep going. I kind of feel I could stay in LK longer and farm Infinity since the game gifter me a Jah. Maybe I'll go back, at least to see if I can get some P&B skillers.

After the Lo and the Jah drops that can be found somewhere in a previous post, I went back to LK to roll some maps. I was never wuite satisfied with what I was getting, but while rolling them is when my luck was at it's highest. Sur, Ohm, Ist and a second Sur, and a great MF sorc ammu, all while rolling maps the same day. So one day after getting the Jah I was pretty much done with LK. With Enigma and a Luhky (it's just a term I'm trying to get people to use when CtA rolls 1 BO) CtA done, I just needed a Vex for HotO, which would take some time to get. First a Gul and then a second Lo, I was starting to feel discouraged because, although I was getting stuff, it was still stuff I didn't want. But at the end, as always, everything worked out alright and the Vex for my HotO dropped yesterday.

Now I'll go to farm some Mephy for Shako, Arachs and TO Gloves. I'd also like to get Andy's, WT and Mara's, but I'll leave those to be found in the Pits if Meph doesn't deliver.

Cheers, everyone, and good luck ;)
 
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