'Three Way Dance II' - H.C 1.10 Tournament

[angiras]

Wow, nice to hear about being able to use charges...that may make a big difference later...especially in Ancients Way where there are usually tons of tough champion and fanat LIs.

Well, angirasa the zon killed Izzy...he was easy with charged strike. Getting to him was a little problematic tho. Had to reroll once due to a pack of fanatical gloams hanging out at entrance to Izzy's level. Almost killled the zon when a few hit her. On reroll the territory was a lot friendlier...a few gloams, which were easily discovered by casting decoy out front, and dealt with by simply running away, and then letting merc and valk pick off followers, while watching from edge of screen..hehe.

What worries me more than anything is Hell Ancients. Im not sure my valk and merc will be able to take em down if they are LI. And if I have to pound on Korlic with CS...it will be very bad news. Hell Ancients are usually the downfall of my HC characters...how do you guys deal with them? reroll again and again till you get some decent mods? Lol, many of my HC ancient fights consist of running around the summit like a chicken with my head cut-off, trying to keep from being one-hit killed. I think HC is teaching me something....be more patient! But damn, after years of rushing through SC and taking a few deaths in stride, its hard.

 

[PSYCHO]

That is a shame! I am sorry to hear the loss, of yet another High lvl hero.
For your inventory, you could use the other chars as 'mules' of some kind, at least for their body slots. Ask Psycho first though, but i don't see any problem with it.

Good luck with Hazel,

Gouda

If by this you mean that you could open the dead characters in ATMA and use their body slots that way, then no, this is not permitted. In Diablo, a dead character cannot start a game, so there is to be no muling of items off dead characters, and no dead characters can be used to store items.

 

[Porius]

Team Venom - Total 29 points

Adder - Level 24 Amazon (Jav/Passive) Act II Normal - 10 points
Asp - Level 22 Assassin (Shadow/Traps) Act II Normal - 7 points
Viper - Level 25 Necromancer (P&B/Curses) Act III Normal - 12 points

Well, it appears that my last post was squid-bait, so I'll put up another update. I only get to play a couple hours per week, so progress is slower than most here, but I'll get there one way or the other.

One interesting note is the items I'm finding. If these were any other characters, I'd be jumping up and down. Now, I'm just jumping up and floating :scratch: . So far, I've found 2 nagelrings, one with 30% mf, a gull, a 15% mf amulet, 15% mf gloves, 14% mf ring, and others. Also, if I find a set item, I seem to find another part of the set right next to it! Duriel dropped two Isenhart's pieces and some random things in the desert dropped two Angelic set pieces. Not that their rare or particularly cool, but it was weird.

Stay safe out there.

Porius

 

[erimatbrad]

[highlight]Team Eddings (erimatbrad)[/highlight] - 234 points
Conqueror Polgara - (Sorc - Light./Cold) - lvl 81 - Act III Hell
Conqueror Liselle - (Amazon - Jav./Passive) - lvl 74 - Act III Hell
Conqueror Zedar - (Necro – P&B/Curse) - lvl 65 - Act II Hell

Liselle made it through the rest of the act. Yay!

I took some advice and went slowly, left my merc alive, and it went brilliantly. The maggot lair was much easier that way. The CVT was phenomenally easy, because everything got mowed down by my Fury. Even Fangskin dropped like a ton of bricks.

The Arcane Sanctuary, again, free of LIs (excepting the spires), cake.

The Tomb, though, that was scary. It took a lot more doing to kill the skeleton revivers, and I ended up switching to Charged Strike to finish them off.

This is also the first time in a long, long time that I cleared 100% of the map before finding the orifice.

Duriel killed my Merc in no time flat, but not before he got a weaken blast off. (I love the unique bill, I do...). The Valkyrie valiantly tanked the rest, and I stood back and chunked spears at him (and the wall) so the fury would strike him twice. He dropped 4 yellows (wow!), none good (aww...), and now she's chilling in Kurast.

New item finds: A tiara, for possible imbuing, and a dusk shroud, which I socketed with the recipe and stuck all my P. Topazes in (3, need one more), so I've got some armor to switch over for MF when the time is right...

I might bring her on through to Mephy, so I can avoid juggling characters (which makes me forget where my skills are placed) until necessary...

 

[nemar]

[HIGHLIGHT]Team HALL OF FAME[/HIGHLIGHT] – 195 points


Conqueror Andariel - Necromancer - Summon / curses – lvl 74 - 63 points – actV - nm
Conqueror Baal ......- Assasin - Trap / Passive .......... – lvl 73 - 66 points – actV - nm
Conqueror Diablo ...- Amazon - Passive / bow .......... – lvl 70 - 66 points – actI - Hell
Be Afraid, we are back ! !

Character Rewards :
Andariel : Jewellery & armor
Baal : Jewellery & armor
Diablo : Gloves & Jewellery

one cow for baal and some runs, baal and pindle were very poor but just right the las wp a big monster drop a Toothrow, very good armor for Baal (40% Chance of Open Wounds is very good with open blade fury)


Be serious and stay alive

 

[a_shikoff]

[highlight]Team 'Three Old Men'[/highlight] - 182 points
CONQUEROR CallOfTheGraves[/b] - Necromancer (P&B/Summoning) - lvl 72, Act V NM (66 points)
CONQUEROR AngerOfNature - Druid (Elemental/Summoning) - lvl 71, Act V NM (66 points)
Destroyer CatchThis - Barbarian (Combat/Masteries) - lvl 61, Act IV NM (50 points)

Another conqueror joins the group and my barb steps into dangerous areas of act IV. He killed Izzy and found the WP. Next - hellforge. I've collected 2 Ko's and a Lem so far

 

[xxarcherxx]

Team The Deadly Trio (xxarcherxx) – 24 points
TDT_ArrowSwarm – (Amazon – Passive/Bow) - lvl 17 - Act I Nml Last quest completed: Andariel
TDT_FlamesofIce - (Sorc – Cold/Fire) - lvl 20 - Act I Nml – R.I.P Slain by fire
Last quest completed: Malus
TDT_RagingBeast - (Druid – Shape/Summon) - lvl 25 - Act II Nml Last Quest completed: The Golden Bird

ArrowSwarm killed Andariel with ease, and then I took my Druid into Act 3. I'm looking for a two socket War Bow or Stag Bow to put Zephyr in.

 

[CraZySorc]

I told you all I'd report when I had something to report. I've procrastinated over the past month, thinking 'nah, progress is slow, I won't bother posting', until I realised the last time I posted I had only one conqueror.
Soooooo...since last time...I've boosted Boromir and Arwen into Hell and started Pit running and Countess running. Galadriel is a healthy level 81 and is waiting for the other two to catch up, as usual, before moving through to Act III for Hell Meph runs. Arwen and Boromir are both level 75. Boromir's completed Act I, and I'm just playing it slow with Arwen, levelling and moving forward at less than a quest every few days, taking no risks at this stage of the competition.

Items-wise, things have gone rather well, though not surprisingly well given that I am now killing level 85 monsters. Arwen has a Natalia's Mark waiting for her at level 79, and Boromir has equipped a Tals Mask in place of his Rockstopper and is swapping between Horizon's Tornado and the Windhammer. Merc gear needs an upgrade, but as I'm relying on rares for them I guess I'll have to be patient.

NDEs are frighteningly common in Hell, and Rakanishu has given my sorceress a surprise on four seperate occasions. She now avoids the Stony Field whenever possible. Other NDEs include an extra-strong Corspefire, Fanatic Ghosts ambushing me when I ran from being cursed, and of course the Archer population of Act I who shoot arrows engraved with 'Welcome back to Hardcore'.
I was searching for a three-socket Beserker Axe to socket with Cresent Moon, but the finding of a Windhammer more or less negates the need for that. I think I'll find a three-socket elite polearm instead, for merc use. Question...does equiping a Merc with the Cresent Moon reduce the lightning resistance of monsters as far as the Sorceress accompanying said mercenary is concerned? If not, I'm not terribly upset, as the damage and IAS stats are still quite awesome.

On a side note, a file corruption resulted in the complete destruction of my item stash. I hadn't (at that stage) found any elite sets or uniques, and my characters, of course, had all the best items on them. I was forced to backups and lost a total of 8 levels across my characters, but that was nothing I couldn't recover from. The real drama was the complete loss of all my stashed softcore items!
Good news is, the task of recovering from this loss to my softcore characters is so daunting that I've put it aside from now, and will be concentrating purely on this tourney.

It's troubling to see so many people rocketing forward through Nightmare and the early stages of Hell. Slow down, you crazy basterds! Hell is nothing to be taken lightly.

[highlight]Team Tolkien (CraZySorc) - 214 points[/highlight]
Conqueror Arwen - (Assas - Martial/Shadow Mastery) - lvl 75 - Act I Hell
Conqueror Boromir - (Barb - Combat Skill/Warcries) - lvl 75 - Act I Hell
Conqueror Galadriel - (Sorc - Lightning/Fire) - lvl 75 - Act II Hell

And it's showtime, people. Hell is where it's all decided.
Be careful out there.

 

[Igor Potapov]

I was searching for a three-socket Beserker Axe to socket with Cresent Moon, but the finding of a Windhammer more or less negates the need for that. I think I'll find a three-socket elite polearm instead, for merc use. Question...does equiping a Merc with the Cresent Moon reduce the lightning resistance of monsters as far as the Sorceress accompanying said mercenary is concerned? If not, I'm not terribly upset, as the damage and IAS stats are still quite awesome.

You are right – it doesn’t work so. When your merc is equipped with Crescent Moon monster’s lightning resistance reduced only against his attacks. However you may make it in a sword or axe for your sorc!

 

[erimatbrad]

[highlight]Team Eddings (erimatbrad)[/highlight] - 235 points
Conqueror Polgara - (Sorc - Light./Cold) - lvl 81 - Act III Hell
Conqueror Liselle - (Amazon - Jav./Passive) - lvl 75 - Act III Hell
Conqueror Zedar - (Necro – P&B/Curse) - lvl 65 - Act II Hell

Liselle got to the Great Marsh before I had to quit today.

I've never effectively used Decoy before now. With so many giant mobs of LI's, it served as an excellent distraction for me to either pick them off or slip sneakily by.

She managed to pick up the bird (and first quest) by offing a set of spiders when she got Khalim, Part I. Those hitpoints were well appreciated.

Once in the Great Marsh, she actually started to kill things again (shock!), since there were significantly fewer LIs. Perhaps this will be a haven of leveling.

There are a few things I've never done in D2 -- one is have characters that are pushing 300+ vitality. Polgara and Zedar, of course, have significantly more life, since Liselle has 100+ STR/DEX for Matriarchial Javs, but she's getting there too with equipment (like her +14 res +80ish life circlet).

Resistances are still a bit of a problem for Liselle (and all my characters) -- I'm still hoping to find a good 2 socket armor for smoke (to tide me over until I find a Fal...) -- I might make it in a Ghost armor for portability across the characters, but I rather like them all having their own stuff. (I could, of course, make 3 smokes as I have all the runes for it... but Stealth works well enough 99% of the time for my casters anyway).

Still no exciting S/Us found yet. Grr I say!

I'm already contemplating my next HC jaunt after I finish the TWD (I admit, I'm probably planning a little too far ahead, I've got a lot of work to do) -- the thought had occured to me to do a similar TWD style with three characters of the (now) missing skill trees in my retinue.

It's interesting, because I think it would work... relatively well. Perhaps in a few weeks you'll hear the tales of:

Exhibition Team Idlewild
Necromancer Halloween (Summoning)
Amazon Fantasia (Bow)
Sorceress Vashti (Fire)

...who knows? I might decide to go back to poor mister randomly challenged and finally get him killed.

I think this update has rambled on (and off topic) long enough...

 

[madmaxxam]

[highlight]Team History Class[/highlight] – 216 points
Conqueror Cleopatra - (Sorc - Cold/Light.) – lvl 79 - Act II HELL
Conqueror Rasputin - (Necro - Summon/Curse) – lvl 78 – Act II HELL
Conqueror Ieyasu_Tokugawa - (Druid - Summon/Elem.) – lvl 79 – Act II HELL

Long post warning: :lol:

All my guys have succesfully beaten Act 1 hell. Since my last update I did some more mfing and leveling with my characters before moving onto Act 1 Hell. For the stash I found a perfect Chance guards and a Carrion Wind, in addition to others. I've found/rolled 5 skill charms now, including 3 that I can use. 2 summoning (1 necro, 1 druid), and 1 curse. I also am holding onto 2 ilvl 50s that I'll be rolling as I collect gems in hell. Progress for the individual chars:

Rasputin: As a fishy, everything is going really easily. Should be even easier now with the +skill charms I found for him. Didn't get a chance to use them yet, he already had made it through A1 before they were farmed. I was also lucky to get this shield from Anya in Act 5:

Blood Guard
Hierophant Trophy
Defense: 128
Chance to Block: 42%
Durability: 19 of 20
(Necromancer Only)
+81% Enhanced Defense
+10% Increased Chance of Blocking
Damage Reduced by 1
Lightning Resist +28%
Adds 2-7 poison damage over 3 seconds
15% Faster Block Rate
+1 to Bone Spear (Necromancer Only)
+2 to Summoning Skills (Necromancer Only)
Level 5 Dim Vision (56/97 Charges)

I'm just happy about the summoning skills.

Cleopatra: Doing surprising well for a character that has to leave any cold immune to her merc. No NDEs to speak of, and her blizzard makes very quick work of anything not CI. Bosses are easy, and assuming she makes it through Act 3 she'll be my main MFer on meph. Her HF merc has a good weapon, and also this really sweet circlet that Rasputin gambled. Might pass it around if the other chars' mercs start dying:

Bitter Visor
Coronet
Defense: 31
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Level: 65
+22 to Life
+87 to Attack Rating
All Resistances +14
+7 poison damage over 3 seconds
8% Life stolen per hit

Every mod useful. Even the poison can act as a PVM vs. no poison immune monsters. :uhhuh: This is type of item that prevented me from choosing merc helm as a reward. Almost as good as Tal Rasha's.

Ieyasu Tokugawa: He had the hardest time. Not because of any particular weakness, just due to the nature of a wind druid and the close proximity to monsters. 2 NDEs, both involving FE, LE monsters with invisible LE bolts :rant: Don't even know I'm being hit until my cyclone armor is gone and my health is down to 10%. I pumped some more points into oak sage, but I'm still torn btw. oak sage, cyclone armor, and spirit wolves. The wolves still die a bit more than I like. A +2 to elemental, +3 tornado helm is keeping his tornado at a healthy lvl 29, although I hope to be able to get a similar helm with +2 druid skills to help out my army. I'm disappointed with my shield reward choice for him. Lack of foresight, plus I wanted to jump into the tournament. I really need the rhyme for cannot be frozen. Maybe belt or boots would have been a better choice.

Lots and lots of really nice rares are keeping my characters going. Even some magic items like a +14 all res ring.

Lastly, since this is a major update, an as of yet unused rune count:
Tal: 2
Ral: 2
Ort: 7
Thul: 3
Amn: 3
Sol: 5
Shael: 4
Dol: 2
Hel: 1
Lum: 1
Lem: 1
Um: 1
Mal: 1

Might start a big cubing mission soon, accompanied by countess runs. I already have cubed a few through Sol and Shael.

Good luck everyone, hope to see a few Guardians soon. :thumbsup:

 

[jiansonz]

I'm already contemplating my next HC jaunt after I finish the TWD (I admit, I'm probably planning a little too far ahead, I've got a lot of work to do) -- the thought had occured to me to do a similar TWD style with three characters of the (now) missing skill trees in my retinue.

It's interesting, because I think it would work... relatively well. Perhaps in a few weeks you'll hear the tales of:

Exhibition Team Idlewild
Necromancer Halloween (Summoning)
Amazon Fantasia (Bow)
Sorceress Vashti (Fire)

The Summoner: will probably be useful, if a bit limited at times. You can get some key curses from wand charges. You have several ways you can deal with PIs. None of the ones that I can think of is particularly effective...

Pure Bowazon: not easy. Tanking merc and Knockback for the amazon will be mandatory. For crowd control in dangerous areas with CI monsters, consider a 'Nadir' helm. That´s what I intend to use with my Ranger in this tournament.

Fire Sorc: I made one in 1.09. She rocked. FIs were taken care of by her Barbarian mercenary (using a rare Dusk Shroud, Tal´s mask and a 'King´s Grace' Legend Sword). FI + PI critters, she took care of in a cheesy way: using a TalTalTalTalEth Long Battle Bow. She made it all the way to Hell Crystalline Passage, where an LE Holy Shock Moon Lord named Ooze Razor ended her life (I still have a screenie of that b*stard!). My second HC death ever, and the most painful one.

My fire sorc version was allowed +skills from the other trees on items, so she had an orb with Teleport. You should probably hope to find one with TP charges. 'Leaf' is nice up to when you really need the defensive capabilities of a shield.

...who knows? I might decide to go back to poor mister randomly challenged and finally get him killed.

If you mean Seven, wrong tourney... OK, so he is randomly challenged as well, but he is mainly S/U Worshipping. BTW, were you in DiamondSoul´s Randomly Challenged tourney?




@madmaxxam:

:clap: Excellent progress! :clap:

Nice rune collection, there. You have the runes to make 'Smoke', 'Crescent Moon' and 'Passion'. Wow!

 

[erimatbrad]

If you mean Seven, wrong tourney... OK, so he is randomly challenged as well, but he is mainly S/U Worshipping. BTW, were you in DiamondSoul´s Randomly Challenged tourney?

Since he doesn't have all 16 slots filled sith S/Us, I don't consider him a S/U worshipper yet. I don't think I was in DS's tourney -- I think yours was actually the first I'd played in.

Stuck at work - so bored... just got out of an hour long conference call and I'm ready to play some D2, but I've got four more hours of work. :hanky:

And, to go back on topic, I was considering making a Passion bow for Zedar's rogue merc -- has anyone tried this?

 

[Lacerta]

Team Estrogen (Lacerta) – 125 points
Destroyer Kadiya - (Amazon - Passive/Bow) - lvl 52 - Act II NM [38]
Destroyer Haramis - (Sorc - Cold/Light.) - lvl 60 - Act III NM [49]
Destroyer Anigel - (Assassin - Shadow/Trap) - lvl 52 - Act II NM [38]

I think that is right on the scoring. I'm at work right now, so I don't have my notes.

Kadiya hasn't made any further progress, and has finished through Radamant.
Anigel has toasted off Andy and Radamant.
Haramis has had most of my attention, since the other 2 reached act 2, I took her through Mephy and did a few runs on him, gaining several levels in the process.

Last night I decided that I needed to free up some space if I was going to be doing any sort of MF runs, so I put all my gems and runes on one character and upgraded them all, and then put all my charms on one character and sold off about half of them. I've been selling off jewels all along, since I'm not a crafter and never will be. I know you can get good stuff crafting, I just can never make myself do it. I feel like those items are being wasted, even though selling them is wasting them even more. Anyway, doing all this cleared up about 1/3 of one characters stash, so I have some space again.

The only decent find that sticks in my mind is spellsteal axe, which has charges of decrepify and teleport, and Kadiya has weapon as her NM slot, so it will most likely go on her switch. Oh, I also found a unique Ghost Armor (don't remember right now what its called, it has +1 to skills), and Anigel has armor as her slot, so that armor is on her at the moment.

Tonight I'll try to get either Kadiya or Anigel (or maybe even both) through Act 2. Anyway, not much progress compared to some, but I hadn't updated in like 5 pages, so I thought it was about time.

 

[CRG]

Yes, I am alive and well. So here's the deal with my long (week long...) absence.

I am a very busy man as of late, and I had to reformat my comp due to Sasser. Great. The reformat was done last week.

So I finally turned on my comp today and it is as I thought it was. Nearly completely bare.

So I need to have it looked at, as I'm currently sitting in some ridiculously small monitor resolution, which sucks.

Also, I can't use the net cuz I don't have an anti virus right now. I'm going to get it from campus, who has a sweet deal with systemec. Download their Antivirus and it's good for life with continual updates, paid for by the university, even after I graduate (SWEET!).

So yeah, I haven't even installed D2 yet, or any other programs for that matter.

There you have it. The beginning of my story about a computer rebuild.

crg

 

[erimatbrad]

I, too, love the free Symantec you get from being a Student/Faculty/Staff of a University (although we usually tell people they have to uninstall it after they graduate, because the license no longer applies to them. No-one does, though )

I spent a good two hours playing today, and only managed to get from the Marsh to the Flayer Jungle WP and to save the Gidbinn and then sneak past the Witch Doctor to Body Part 2.

Ugh. Stupid Lightning Immune Soul Killers.

That's all I'll say. No NDEs at all, but, man... it took a year and a day to kill those little tykes.

Hopefully Kurast will prove more friendly.

And, the obligatory score post, for those playing along at home:

[highlight]Team Eddings (erimatbrad)[/highlight] - 236 points
Conqueror Polgara - (Sorc - Light./Cold) - lvl 81 - Act III Hell
Conqueror Liselle - (Amazon - Jav./Passive) - lvl 75 - Act III Hell
Conqueror Zedar - (Necro – P&B/Curse) - lvl 65 - Act II Hell

 

[Gouda]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick note to let you all know I'm still alive. No real progress in the tourney though, but my barb did pick up a horadric cube, still in normal.
He had an uneventfull journey there, but his weapon damage is lacking quite a bit. Oh well, I'll keep pushing concentrate and see how far I get.
Still hoping for a nice weapon, but that will have to wait till I go rune hunting in a major way probably.

So no changes in the score, just one more lvl for my barb. I'll probably won't be playing much till december, because I made a deal with my GF that we will try to finish our house before Xmas, after almost 2 years of rebuilding.
Only little things to go, but about three pages of double columns of them.
So from now on, work during day (no holidays left) and work on house in the evening. I'll try to slip in a few minutes left and right, but they are usually for a quick Pindle run to see if i can find some grail items.

I'll be around to check your progress though!

Have fun, don't die,

Gouda

 

[Mage11]

Congratulations to the new Conquerors and Destroyers, and condolences to those who have lost a character.

I have managed to make some progress, although only picking up one quest point. Klaudia made her way through from the spider forest waypoint to the lower kurast waypoint, picking up the relevant body parts along the way. Unfortunately it took a lot longer than I planned, as I had to go through the whole of both the Spider Forest and the Great Marsh before finally finding the entrance to the Flayer Jungle. No real danger problems, which was a relief, and having a Shadow master looks like a good step up.

Current Status:

[highlight]Team Mage1 (Mage11) [/highlight] – 28 points
Sara – (Amazon – Passive/Bow) – lvl 23 – Act II Nml - 7 points
Klaudia – (Assassin - MA/Shadow) – lvl 30 – Act III Nml - 14 points
Starm – (Sorc - Cold/Light.) – lvl 22 – Act II Nml - 7 points

 

[Gouda]

Hi mage,

It seems we're keeping perfect pace.My team is also on 28 points, and at the same points in the game. So: great progress!!
Us old veterans will show 'm!

Gouda

 

[madmaxxam]

@madmaxxam:

:clap: Excellent progress! :clap:

Nice rune collection, there. You have the runes to make 'Smoke', 'Crescent Moon' and 'Passion'. Wow!

Thanks. I'm actually surprised by the amount of runes I've found. Never been this lucky with them before.

I'm planning on making a 'Smoke' for my necro at least. I find that with past fishys, it's often elemental damage that somehow gets through. I want to make a 'crescent moon' for one of my mercs (probably my druids, the static would be very useful for him), I'm still looking for a good elite poleaxe class weapon. Finding one with 3 sockets isn't all that easy. And then I have the sadness of using the first 1.10 Um I've ever found. Found 3 Ists in regular play, but this was my first Um, thank you NM hell forge. Not sure on the 'passion' though. Might just hang onto the runes. All of my characters will probably take a week or so item farming in act 1 hell. The Pit, countess runs, some any runs. Before I move onto act 2 and 3 I definately want to be well equipped.