That is a good question indeed and might be associated with my brain just saying goodbye while I posted between wrapping up presents for hours...The only option could be a Cham Andariel's for the merc.
But once Patch 2.4 drops, everything may look differently anyways, so maybe I just keep running Pindle at p8 for now (gives almost double the XP than p1 AT runs per hour while also having double MF...) and see what happens/drops
Alright, I am really getting interested in this now. I have read some assassin guides and the warrior monk one (BF/DT) sounds like so much fun, but after reading through it, it sounds like I would need about 13 Jahs to equip properly....I wonder if it could be viable with more budget gear? Maybe like a ribby or similar. Also, I am not sure the best way to MF with assassins along the way to gear up. They seem to be super versatile but maybe not the best MFers.
It seems like most people vote traps for HC, and this would likely be safer, but for my theme, a warrior monk or actually a sin using Chaos would be the best...I have started her out and after like 5 levels I was not really sure where to put skill points as I am not committed to a build yet . I would love any insights on how viable going for 99 untwinked HC a warrior monk or other MA assassin might be, or other tips for progressing towards this goal.
@PhineasB IIRC Indrek did a HC no ladder runewords Sorc to 99 in sub 300hour with the 98-99 portion as P1/P7 Diablo pure Blizzard with Reaper’s merc, so that should work fairly fast too (albeit slower than Lightning Sorc etc @ Nihlathak)
Hmm, interesting that Reapers merc could take down de Seis quickly and consistently enough to get solid XP/hr at last level. Maybe with static and telestomp it wouldn’t be much slower than half powered Nova for Blova build?
@Nona I will give more thought to Warrior Monk build. But one limitation is that 2H weapons get 3/8 penalty for blade fury, so Ribby has liabilities for that build.
I think a more kick/DS build with BF back up might work, but area of effect for bigger XP gains will be a limitation. But as with all 99ers, any end game build can get there, and I think this build would be in that boat, with Baal as a solid option. As I said, I’ll look back at my two warrior monks and think about how they’d translate into UT 99er challenge.
So I am working my way through with the assassin. I didn't realize how fun these characters are! I sort of stopped trying in the xmas item find tourney and am into this character now. I had some issues with normal diablo initially and ultimately needed to S&E to avoid certain death when he trapped me in a bone prison and then lit me on fire...got out with ~60hp. So I ended up farming LK for gems and upgraded my mana and health pool and then went all lightning traps on him. Got my second snakecord and a General ta dan so li ah. The second item is actually a sweet one for my plans to kick bosses in the future. Now on to act 5. No awesome finds yet but did nab a bane ash in act 1 which is the first time I think I have ever found that item. Lvl 30 now and on to ACT 5. I have a savage partizan waiting for my merc and plan on putting some ammys into a helm or armor so that he can equip it soon. CoS is pretty amazing...I think for now I will plan for a lightdancer. Once I get crazy wealth I may make that warrior monk I was thinking about earlier.
As levelling at Pindleskin is less and less beneficial (I will probably stop Pindle after reaching level 94 in about 3 hours - took 1150 runs at p8 from 93 to 94 and the number will increase greatly from 94 to 95, I suppose) I am looking for better areas. Being HC, the usual options don't seem so tempting...For Blizzard sorcs, CS is usually recommended. I will try to stay pure Blizzard though, so no backup element. Maybe AT at higher player settings is more rewarding (and safer) because of CI Lord de Seis? Could it be an option to switch to p1 for Lord de Seis and then switch back?
Also, what about equipment? Checking the SPF99er compendium for CS Res Fire and Lightning are the most important I suppose? So I was thinking about Hotspur + Dwar Star for safety? I was also thinking about some safety boot crafts for the inherent Fire Res and some low PDR/MDR and hoping for some good additional mods instead of Hotspurs?
What is the experience on running CS with Reaper's instead of Insight and foregoing Meditation aura? I really am used to Meditation aura now and don't know if I can stand to swtich back to gulping potions again...this might take more time after all then if I simply had used Insight?
Would I be better off running Nihlatak from the start? Then I'd need Delirium on my merc and for me a Nature's Peace, right?
I want to balance safety and speed. Because if I went pure safety, I could just keep on running Pindle till my eyes bleed (4k runs in already!). Pure speed seems too dangerous though.
Plan is to maybe hit level 98 with some combination of AT/CS/Nihlatak (other ideas?), then do Ancients and then maybe even Baal runs for some change? Wave 2 will be annoying though...
@Grisu First, I assume you have CtA right? It's really 100% required for any reasonable target going into the 90s. In case you don't, get it asap. With CtA and a bunch of life charms you should easily get into 2.5-3k life range depending on +BO roll. IMO that's fine for both CS and AT.
Until 98 you'll get the most efficient XP from doing 2 seal CS runs, running only Infector and Vizier seals and skipping de Seis (and Diablo ofc). With these runs, usually the only real danger comes from Conviction enchanted Infector. A quick fix here is to use Rising Sun, then you'll actually get healed rather than taking damage from fire. Otherwise, Hotspurs or Waterwalk are good options.
Nihlathak only becomes a viable target no earlier than 97 (mostly 98 really), before that he's much worse than either CS or Baal. Speaking of Baal: While a pure Blizzard has the issue with cold immunes in wave 2, Lister/Baal runes are definitely the safest option, so could be worth considering too.
@Grisu I weaned my merc off of Insight with my pure blizz sorc. If you get your mana pool up to ~650 or more (charms, etc., or BO) with some mana regeneration from items, you'll probably keep that blue bulb mostly full even spamming glacial spike. Opens things up for Reapers or other weapons for the merc.
Thanks both of you and thanks @PhineasB for your awesome writeup and tips here. So far I only manage around 9,100 XP/s at 2 seals (compared to your 17,400). But so far I only went for the seal bosses and the boss packs there. I'll try to add the boss packs on my way, maybe that changes the numbers. But it is probably due to the gear differences (no skiller vs. 8 skiller, Shako vs. Cold Facet Nightwing's, Oculus vs Cold Facet DF, Vipermagi vs. 1.07 Arkane's Valor).
Already reached level 94. Took 62 CS runs with 75 sec each (roughly 1h 15min). Pindle would have taken me 3 hours instead. So yeah, I could have levelled much faster...anyways. On to more XP!
Septimus is a quarter way into the last level, smooth-ish sailing at Nihl. I managed to get just shy of 98.1 by the start of the Balancing the Finds tournament in early December. Then I was struggling to get motivation to get in runs with him, getting only 5M until this past weekend. But then we ended up getting 36M for the tournament and finished up the quarter level during the week.
For the quarter level, the highest rune was a Lem :\ And the only two items worthy of screenshots were 11/20 Ruby SC of Vita and BKWB, which push his vita pool north of 6000 with Oak and fire resistance to nearly maxed.
A couple thoughts on the runs with a Windy:
- Ghosts are the worst! They keep moving to their target unless interrupted, even when confuse procs. So that means they fly through other mobs to Septimus targeting Nihl, then they are in Decrep radius and don't get confused/it gets overridden, and as a result follow if Nihl teleports, mana burning the whole time. With Viper clouds, that can mean he is stuck without being to teleport out, and he has to refresh mana pots regularly.
- Ghosts generally weren't a problem with the prior 5 Nihl-running 99ers. The casters were out on the perimeter and could generally move around, so they didn't get swarmed. And Death didn't really care about mana burn because he was leeching.
- I've actually started casting Grizzly in the ghosts' path if they are coming from one direction, which isn't always the case. It seems to be worth the extra key strokes and time to cast, in terms of overall time and frustration saved.
- Tornados don't do enough damage to put Nihl in hit recovery. Death was able to limit Nihl teleporting because he hit hard enough for hit recovery to trigger and slow down Nihl's movements. So Nihl teleports a lot, which makes runs less straightforward.
- Based on the above, these are the least enjoyable Nihl runs so far. It may also be a function of having done this 5 times before, and having done the majority of level 97 at Nihl with Septimus already. But I think the build is the main factor, and inability to have linear runs on autopilot for long stretches.
- Even so, he is netting 2.5-2.6M per hour, so not much slower than Mercy or Hiatus. I don't have the same S&E lag now that I did back then, so the average runs are actually slower. But the progress per hour of play is about the same as my first two 99ers.
So about 88 hours to ping, assuming I can avoid a death. He's actually pretty safe, even with my approach of trying to teleport out of viper clouds. If I see might or fanat, or get cursed, it's an S&E but otherwise I can almost always complete those runs without issue. I'm also hoping the rune drops pick up becuase that helps keep things more interesting. I'm setting a goal of 20M per week, which will see him ping in mid-March.
Good luck to everyone who is running, and keep up the great progress!
Gogogo @PhineasB! Can’t wait to witness you finishing this project, which IMO will be the singe most impressive feat in D2 ever accomplished. History in the making!
Need some advice on finding an 5os ethereal Ettin or Zerker axe to make a Death. War spike might suffice, but I really don't want it.
I just hit 89 with my trapper and have been looking for an axe since the end of the tournament (82). I want to make a death. I can handle /p5 in pits, but am wondering if there is any area that might be better to run to find one as I've leveled pretty much exclusively from 86-89 in pits. I have a total of +9 trap skills for level 29 skills.
Ettin Axes are only qlvl 70 and thus are easier to get, you can even rack or run cows for them. For BA, Pits is probably your best bet, at least I don’t know any other/better option. When looking to increase rune drops in the Pit, what I and others have done was to get a map with several devilkin camp areas. Those spawn a lot of monsters and such density helps when looking for such bases as well. Good luck!
@Foghorn Leghorn Correct, no difference between 7 & 8 - I'm running at P7. I have even double checked the paterns of the Ohms to make sure nothing weird is going on
The thing is it only ever takes one or two drops to turn it all around. Here's hoping for another hot streak...
I have what might be an odd question when it comes to rolling (and rerolling) LK maps. Is it possible to roll double campfire maps where one map might have a significantly higher monster pack density than another? In other words, will some maps have packs inherently stationed in some of the huts? I've levelled up an untwinked Frostmaiden (soon to be added to the list), and I've managed to roll a pretty decent map in terms of campfire locations....but it sure feels like this map has more monster packs than others I've recently tried, like every 2-3 runs there are multiple packs in the two areas, and more often than not one of the packs has the Might aura,. That makes things pretty hairy for a squishy hardcore Amazon whose charms desperately need upgrading.
Absolutely...monster spawns are definitely influenced by the map seed. Heck, when folks say they have a good Pit map, its really not about the tile layout (as it is in LK, getting two close campfires), but rather about the monster spawns, especially bosspack density... other places, such as AT, its about both layout and monster spawns.
@Foghorn Leghorn - I can anecdotally say as well that map seeds definitely seem to dictate monster spawn/density. I have no actual proof of the matter, and the SPF is notoriously scientific about this sort of thing, but I've been working under the assumption that monster spawn location/density is tied to a couple things:
a) map seed
b) travel route
We know travel route can affect certain things (Trav spawn locations - ie. the 'magical line' - and rack spawns). I know in my experience that getting used to certain teleport paths on the way to a target is not just for comfort, but also to know where packs are likely to spawn (and therefore avoid them). I've talked at length before about an important step in a good strategy for Nihl runs is to figure out where your "landing spot" is for Nihl's room, and therefore be able to know where the safe areas are (and more importantly, aren't).
Basically what I'm saying is; if you like the map, try varying the run route to see if you can reliably get good spawn locations. If not, I would re-roll. Dual-campfires are not that rare, and over the course of thousands of runs I would 100% of the time take a more comfortable (ie. favourable monster density) route over a slightly more time-efficient one. Just my opinion of course, I tend to take a more lax approach as compared to some of the efficiency-bots of the SPF.
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Oh. Yes of course, I'm here for an actual update as well!
I know I know, I haven't been able to update as frequently as I would have wanted with Stevesy. Truth be told, RL is being extremely uncooperative as of late. I'm sure I'll be able to weather the storm and get back to some proper D2 to finish Stevesy, but for now you'll have to settle for something I've previously alluded to.
The finds continue.
Ormus Robes (Ice blast - a new one for the Ormus grail)
And then an actual gear upgrade! Sure, it's a very VERY marginal upgrade on his current SoE, but I'll take anything at this point for some intrigue. However, here's a juicy little something to properly show off:
No harm, no foul. Stevesy toughed it out and continued. I actually got some playing time an pushed him just north of 98.3, where he sits now.
I can't promise anything remotely close to regular updates. But I can tell you that I will keep pushing him towards 99 when I can, whenever that may be.
I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to overtake @PhineasB for top spot, for what will almost certainly be the last time.
Nice @Pb_pal and great to see Stevesy’s continued safe progress! But Septimus is already nearing 98.35
And I can also confirm the impression of LK huts. I’ve definitely noticed some maps with much greater spawn frequency in one or more hit. Some maps have none and I’ve commented on how much safer some maps are across my 99er updates. Even without scientific testing, I feel very comfortable saying it’s a thing enough to support rerolling a map myself if as described by @Foghorn Leghorn
Balancing the Finds Pindle runs took me up to level 89. I'm now at just under 11000 LK runs, but the good news is I finally have Enigma and Fortitude done. I still need 2x Ber for Infinity and I would really like to get a +6 CtA still.
So I am at a bit of a crossroads. I could take a break from LK and start running for Keys and Meph / The Pit for the other items I need and hope for a lucky rune drop. Or I could stay on my current path and keep my nice LK map and run (or rather finally tele) for more runes.