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

[Hiedran]

[highlight]Team Melee (Hiedran)[/highlight] - 142 points
Destroyer Axe - (Druid - Shape/Summon) - Lvl 66 - Act V NM - 52 points
Destroyer Claw - (Assassin - MA/Shadow) - Lvl 57 - Act III NM - R.I.P. Cloud stalker - 44 points
Destroyer Mace - (Paladin - Combat/Offensive) - Lvl 61 - Act III NM - R.I.P. Undead doll boss pack (Sewers 2) - 46 points

Well, I opened the way for one conqueror faster than I intended to....and slammed the door shut for the other one. I wasn't fast enough on the escape after I got hit with some potent poison. I also forgot how to play Claw since I haven't touched her since early Saturday. Lesson learned: When using a new skill as a key to the arsenal when it has never been used before, don't wait days before playing again, especially if playing a different char entirely in the interim or if the new skill isn't a main attack.

Now, the only character left is one that's been taking caster-style approach: Axe, the sword-wielding rabies druid. Man, I don't think I've ever had as much fun playing through the jungles of Kurast as with a fully powered rabies. The same tendency for flayers to swarm means they have an extreme tendency to die by infecting each other. I bite one, they all swarm around the HF merc and bear, and when they scatter they start dying, even at /players8. My L24 rabies with a full poison creeper synergy does 6.5k-6.9k over 13.2 seconds. It takes two to four bites to dispose of Chaos Sancutuary enemies. Fury isn't really an option now, 'cause with L14 I'm barely cracking 100 dmg with my rare cutlass. (Not much else is an option because I need a 1-hand extra fast weapon. Maybe with enough +1 shifting skillers I can go to a 1-hand fast weapon and still be at the proper fury breakpoints.) I'm going down to /players3 to try to keep killing speed up.

 

[erimatbrad]

Ouch! My condolences on losing Claw. I hope things continue to go well for Axe, though. Hopefully you won't run into poison immunes until you get a better fury weapon.

Here's hoping for a Conqueror to appear soon!

 

[Hiedran]

Ouch! My condolences on losing Claw. I hope things continue to go well for Axe, though. Hopefully you won't run into poison immunes until you get a better fury weapon.

Hahahahaha! The Act V burning archer "guests" are PI. I just reroll until I get something without them.

I've managed to find a whopping three exceptional uniques. The one that had to go in the pile was the Skins of the Vipermagi. The one that I chose to get sent in was the Rockstopper, unique sallet. The one I'm holding onto is Stormrider, the unique tabar. (Weapon is my conqueror reward for Axe.) Nice damage, but it's two-handed. Socketed with a skull for mana leech is an option, or maybe I should only use it for the PI monsters. If I ever run into PI/PI/LI monsters, then I'll really hang back and let Emilio take care of him.
(Good thing there's not PI/PI/LI/CI monsters...I hope...)

I'm really thinking about abandoning my extra fast requirement so I can use nagas or higher.

 

[erimatbrad]

Hahahahaha! The Act V burning archer "guests" are PI. I just reroll until I get something without them.

I've managed to find a whopping three exceptional uniques. The one that had to go in the pile was the Skins of the Vipermagi. The one that I chose to get sent in was the Rockstopper, unique sallet. The one I'm holding onto is Stormrider, the unique tabar. (Weapon is my conqueror reward for Axe.) Nice damage, but it's two-handed. Socketed with a skull for mana leech is an option, or maybe I should only use it for the PI monsters. If I ever run into PI/PI/LI monsters, then I'll really hang back and let Emilio take care of him.
(Good thing there's not PI/PI/LI/CI monsters...I hope...)

I'm really thinking about abandoning my extra fast requirement so I can use nagas or higher.

Fortunately, there can only be 2 immunities on a monster (I think! )

I usually try to get a different map if there are burning dead archers. (I just hate them so much!)

Interesting thought about the Stormrider, but it only does like 80-200 damage, right? And a lot of the extra stuff is elemental. I'm not sure if 3% ML (after all the penalties) will keep you ahead of the game with a low level Fury, though. It might be worth running Mephisto (if you feel you can safely handle him) for a better axe. I'd make sure you have the weapon thing worked out before you leave for Hell, though. For Liselle / Zedar, I've not been doing too much to give them alternate sources of damage, and have been letting their hirelings kill immunes.

If worse comes to worse, you can always use your summons to park baddies that you can't kill...

 

[Hiedran]

Fortunately, there can only be 2 immunities on a monster (I think! )

I think once upon a patch I saw a PI/FI/LI or somesuch. Stoneskin + LE + Magic resistant on a monster with natural fire resists.

Interesting thought about the Stormrider, but it only does like 80-200 damage, right? And a lot of the extra stuff is elemental. I'm not sure if 3% ML (after all the penalties) will keep you ahead of the game with a low level Fury, though. It might be worth running Mephisto (if you feel you can safely handle him) for a better axe. I'd make sure you have the weapon thing worked out before you leave for Hell, though. For Liselle / Zedar, I've not been doing too much to give them alternate sources of damage, and have been letting their hirelings kill immunes.

If worse comes to worse, you can always use your summons to park baddies that you can't kill...

You mean there will be monsters I can't kill? Horrendous! I must kill every monster I see, minus those teleporting imps.

I'm constantly gambling for some gloves with IAS, mana leech, and good resists. I'd settle for IAS + leech at this point. I've also got a ring with 5% mana steal, so that might keep me good. Stormrider does about the damage you said and I've got +355% dmg or so with Fury. (My cutlass does 11-34 dmg or something like that. ) I think I'll be able to keep up with the 4 mana/Fury. The thought of casting L16 charged bolt every two furies or so and L10 chain lightning every four furies makes for a pretty image in my mind. Is that and up to 200 lightning dmg/strike worth the loss of blocking? Maybe for a weak solo monster....

 

[Hiedran]

Fortunately, there can only be 2 immunities on a monster (I think! )

I think once upon a patch I saw a PI/FI/LI or somesuch. Stoneskin + LE + Magic resistant on a monster with natural fire resists.

Interesting thought about the Stormrider, but it only does like 80-200 damage, right? And a lot of the extra stuff is elemental. I'm not sure if 3% ML (after all the penalties) will keep you ahead of the game with a low level Fury, though. It might be worth running Mephisto (if you feel you can safely handle him) for a better axe. I'd make sure you have the weapon thing worked out before you leave for Hell, though. For Liselle / Zedar, I've not been doing too much to give them alternate sources of damage, and have been letting their hirelings kill immunes.

If worse comes to worse, you can always use your summons to park baddies that you can't kill...

You mean there will be monsters I can't kill? Horrendous! I must kill every monster I see, minus those teleporting imps.

I'm constantly gambling for some gloves with IAS, mana leech, and good resists. I'd settle for IAS + leech at this point. I've also got a ring with 5% mana steal, so that might keep me good. Stormrider does about the damage you said and I've got +355% dmg or so with Fury. (My cutlass does 11-34 dmg or something like that. ) I think I'll be able to keep up with the 4 mana/Fury. The thought of casting L16 charged bolt every two furies or so and L10 chain lightning every four furies makes for a pretty image in my mind. Is that and up to 200 lightning dmg/strike worth the loss of blocking? Maybe for a weak solo monster....

 

[madmaxxam]

Congrats on making it through, Max. I found the CVT to be easy (because I could either orb or lightning, but not both), but Duriel's tomb was really difficult due to the fact that the raisers were CI (i think...). Are you still using CL? I'd suggest more of an investment in Lightning rather than CL, because chain only works when the enemies are far apart, and you're coming up on areas soon that will have a lot of CIs....

Ooh - the gauntlet has been thrown. Don't make me get 2 more guardians this weekend, kiddo!.... Or maybe I'll just spend the weekend having a :drink:

CL? Lightning? Nah, those skills are for two tree sorcs. :lol: The only skills I'm using from the lit tree are static and teleport, other than that I've made a pure blizzard sorc. I've made it past the only part of Hell that I'm afraid of before act 5. Also, my merc has some really sweet gear, which takes care of most CI pretty quickly, vipers are just too much for him. Once she gets to meph though, she's just going to run him until the other two are both dead or guardians, and then she'll make a mad dash for the gold.

And don't worry about the weekend, I'll be spending most of it having many :drink: Oh, and I'm in Japan, so I've already used a good part of it.

 

[Hiedran]

[highlight]Team Melee (Hiedran)[/highlight] - 158 points
Conqueror Axe - (Druid - Shape/Summon) - Lvl 72 - Act I H - 66 points
Destroyer Claw - (Assassin - MA/Shadow) - Lvl 57 - Act III NM - R.I.P. Cloud stalker (Spider Jungle) - 44 points
Destroyer Mace - (Paladin - Combat/Offensive) - Lvl 61 - Act III NM - R.I.P. Undead doll boss pack (Sewers 2) - 46 points

That's right, I've defeated NM Baal. I'll keep running him for a while since I've got a nice WSK3 map with the stairs down right next to the stairs up. I've also got an ammy of teleport for WSK2 where the waypoint is all the way across the map.

Baal's drop was crappy. But NM Cows was verrrrrrrry nice. It dropped Bonesnap (Maul), Aldur's Rhythm with three sockets, Ume's Lament (Grim Wand), and Earthshaker (Battle Hammer). I was sorry to have to kill the Cow King, just in case another Moo Moo Farm run would have been just as productive. Aldur's Rhythm is now sitting in the grubby paws of my druid. Another decent drop was Skystrike (Edge Bow) from somewhere in WSK. Aldur's Rhythm has boosted my physical damage to the 500-1k range. Using Stormrider makes it 800-1.7k, I think.

I've also got a piece of good and bad news. I found my first HC SP SoJ evar! And now it's sitting in the prize stash...

I've come to realize having mana leech for the poison immunes is kinda silly, since most of them are of the skeleton family. Not too much to leech there, so I'll just have to whack the snot out of them.

Now my hardest decision is figuring out what to socket Aldur's Rhythm with...

 

[jiansonz]

Speaking of the Stone of Jordan, I have two questions for Psycho (or however he spells that user name...) in case I get so lucky as to find one.

1.) Must a character have "jewelry" as reward slot to be allowed to socket a rare using this unique ring?

2.) If that is the case, is the resulting socketed rare allowed to be used by the other two TWD characters?

 

[erimatbrad]

Speaking of the Stone of Jordan, I have two questions for Psycho (or however he spells that user name...) in case I get so lucky as to find one.

1.) Must a character have "jewelry" as reward slot to be allowed to socket a rare using this unique ring?

2.) If that is the case, is the resulting socketed rare allowed to be used by the other two TWD characters?

Hmm -- that's an interesting question. I seem to remember that Necros w/ the Summon tree could not use Iron Golem on S/U items to summon them. I'm not sure if things would be the same for using it in a cube recipe, though.

I'm leveling up Zedar, doing WSK2 and 3 runs before finally going after Baal. I found Alma Negra off a skeleton mage boss in WSK2 (right next to the waypoint, actually), which is probably the rarest item I've ever found. (Isn't it a ILvl 85 item?). What's more, it's a +2 skiller, although I can't remember where the other stats on it are in the ranges right now.

After this, I thought I'd gamble for items, hoping for something better than anything I was using now. 2.5M gold later, and I was still wearing the same old stuff. Seems like the item finding luck had run out.

Zedar's now level 79, and my thoughts of him being far behind the rest of the team when he made Conqueror have faded away...

 

[erimatbrad]

Wow... A drop from Pindle, and it's in the stash because I think it's neat:

Cruel Bite
Scissors Quhab
One-Hand Damage: 101 to 212
Durability: 60 of 68
Required STR/DEX: 82
Required Level: 48
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x2295caf4
[highlight]+432% Enhanced Damage[/highlight]
+362 AR
+1 cold over 2 seconds
+7 poison over 3 seconds
9% Mana stolen per hit

I'm seeing a lot of items I've never seen before -- I've never had a +400% ED rare before

 

[PSYCHO]

Speaking of the Stone of Jordan, I have two questions for Psycho (or however he spells that user name...) in case I get so lucky as to find one.

1.) Must a character have "jewelry" as reward slot to be allowed to socket a rare using this unique ring?

2.) If that is the case, is the resulting socketed rare allowed to be used by the other two TWD characters?

1. No, because the object of affection is the rare item, not the ring itself.

2. Yes, the rare item can be used by the other characters.

This was an easy question because seriously...who the hell is going to use a Stone to socket a rare? I just found my first Stone of Jordan in this tournament as well from Andariel. And I've been playing since DII came out...

 

[erimatbrad]

[highlight]Team Eddings (erimatbrad)[/highlight] - 288 points
Guardian Polgara - (Sorc - Light./Cold) - lvl 82 - All Quests Complete :winner:
Conqueror Liselle - (Amazon - Jav./Passive) - lvl 77 - Act V Hell
Conqueror Zedar - (Necro – P&B/Curse) - lvl 79 - Act V Hell

Yay! Someone has actually scored points on Team Eddings.

I decided to indulge one last bit of Pindle running. As you can see, he dropped a high ED claw for me earlier, and two runs later, he dropped an Ethereal Bonehew.

Hmm... Looks like I've got a new merc weapon for someone. I decided to try it out on Liselle's merc, but realized he didn't have the strength. Time to level her (and him) up a touch, then.

Unfortunately, I couldn't keep the merc alive long enough to level him. That will come when she runs Shenk and Elditch.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. While hunting for Izual, I got not one, but two types of LIs, and one was Gloams. Viperfork is actually -very- handy, although I'd be happier if it didn't come with CTC poison explosion, because Liselle stops attacking and raises her spear like a dummy.

Izual dropped pretty easily with Charged Strike, and that led to a quick run to the River (which was fortunate -- Abyss Knights are LI!).

The River had Fire spitters, corpse spitters, and baby spitters :lol:. Fortunately, nothing I couldn't handle... except for bosses. There were a few LI/PIs that I left aside.

Hephy dropped pretty quick with CS, thanks to being Aura Enchanted/Fast/Cursed. The Hellforge dropped another Lem rune...

The CS was scary -- I actually did the seals in what I think of as 'reverse' order (fire spitter / de seis / ghost) since the ghosts were LI. All I'd have to do was off the boss ghost, and the minions would fall.

The plan worked pretty well. Everything except the ghosts are vulnerable to Lightning. I actually used LF more than CS for the first time in the act. Once I popped the final Seal, Diablo was easier than ever. He actually targeted my Valk, and since his lightning breath is broken, I could safely stab him with Charged Strike.

He does his dramatic death scene, leaving me with 5 rares and a berzerker's Hauberk (grr!), and now she's chilling in the snowy north... and is actually in the same town with all her friends for the first time in a long, long time.

Eight quests and two kings to go until 330 points!

 

[xxarcherxx]

Congrats, erimatbrad. I don't think anyone really has a chance to catch you at this point. I've finally realized why I've lost all my characters. I'm too stingy with potions. I don't like to use them up and always try to run when I'm low on health instead of using a potion. I've lost more HC characters to stupidity than any monsters combined.

Team The Deadly Trio (xxarcherxx) – 34 (or 37?) points
TDT_ArrowSwarm – (Amazon – Passive/Bow) - lvl 24 - Act II Nml Last quest completed: Sewers R.I.P slain by Embalmed
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 42 - Act V Nml Last Quest completed: Anya R.I.P Slain by Diablo

So, I played my druid through Frigid and the Arreat Plateau, then I went into the caverns and saved Anya. After a bit of Pindle Running, I got the bright idea of, "Hey, I'll do some Diablo runs! He has the best chance to drop Bonesnap!"
I breezed through the CS, and then took on Big D. I got him down to 1/4 health, when I got lightninged down to 1/8 health. Once again, because I didn't want to use a potion, I tried to run away to the health shrine. Mistake. I got prisoned, and then came the lightning of death. I was able to get free, but the lightning hit me. I tried to use a potion but it was too late. Once again, a death to stupidity. At least it was Diablo this time and not Fire.
Psycho, let me know when your collecting the prize stashes.
It currently consists of: 2x Arctic Belt, 2x Arctic Furs, Berzerker Armor, Blood Crescent, Bloodfist, Cleglaw Gloves, Crushflange, Death's Touch, Felloak, Infernal Belt, Ribcracker, Sanders Gloves, Sigon's Boots, and of course, Isenhart's Case.
Good luck to everyone.

 

[GregTheGreat]

Not that I'm in this tourney but I have to say congratulations to erimatbrad, you must of worked very hard to get this far!

 

[madmaxxam]

Congrats, erimatbrad. I don't think anyone really has a chance to catch you at this point. I've finally realized why I've lost all my characters. I'm too stingy with potions. I don't like to use them up and always try to run when I'm low on health instead of using a potion. I've lost more HC characters to stupidity than any monsters combined.

Anyone who hasn't lost a character yet has a chance to catch him, since time to Guardian is not a factor. Of course, I can't actually beat him out in terms of low level though, and I believe that is a factor. Congrats though, all 3 chars in act 5, it'll take me a while to get there, especially with my windy (I'm being very conservative with him). Should get my sorc to meph during my Japanese day though. I need something to do to recover from last night. :uhhuh:

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

[highlight]Team Gods of Egypt (Jaffa Tamarin)[/highlight] – 57 points
Anubis – (Necro - P&B/Curse) - lvl 32 - Act IV Nml - 18 points
Horus - (Druid – Shape/Summon) - lvl 36 - Act V Nml - 21 points
Sekhmet - (Sorc – Cold/Fire) - lvl 32 - Act IV Nml - 18 points

Twice more the old Gods of Egypt have humiliated the upstart Mephisto

 

[AndiDi]

[highlight]Team Bavarian Forest (AndiDi) [/highlight] – 126 points
Resl – (Amazon – Passive/Bow) – lvl 24 – Act II Nml - 11 points - R.I.P. Duriel
Conqueror Hias – (Necro – Summon/Curses) – lvl 71 – Act IV NM - 66 points
Destroyer Sepp – (Paladin – Combat/Offensive) – lvl 62 – Act IV NM - 49 points

Hias: WP: Harrogath - Last Quest: Cow King
Sepp: WP: Pandemonium Fortress - Last Quest: Mephisto

Hias has killed Nihlathak and the Cow King. Then he did a few Pindleskin and Baal runs to gain some items and levels. He is now level 75 and ready to step into Hell. However he has to wait until Sepp has at least finished Act IV.

Recent Set/Unique Items:
- Cathan's Visage
- Isenhart's Case
- Cathan's Seal (The second)
- The Scalper
- Magefist
- Milabrega's Robe

 

[madmaxxam]

[highlight]Team History Class[/highlight] – 240 points
Conqueror Cleopatra - (Sorc - Cold/Light.) – lvl 81 - Act IV HELL
Conqueror Rasputin - (Necro - Summon/Curse) – lvl 80 – Act III HELL
Conqueror Ieyasu_Tokugawa - (Druid - Summon/Elem.) – lvl 82 – Act III HELL

Big progress to report today, as Cleopatra defeated Duriel, and Meph, and Tokugawa defeated Dury.

The end of act 2 was somewhat annoying for cleopatra, as the tomb spawned with all possible CI monsters, so I was left frantically teleporting to try and find the oriface. Once there I was confused as to why my staff didn't fit in the oriface, and it took me about 5 minutes to realize that I hadn't cubed it yet. :lol: I think that was the most challenging part for Cleo. Duriel wasn't bad as I kept feeding my merc healing pots as the blizzards chilled him.

Act 3 had a few annoying areas: Flayer Jungle/Dungeon, with all those really annoying CI flayers forcing me to tele around to find things, ruined temple, with plenty of CIs that I had to let my merc finish off after static, and travincal, with both the healers and the vampires being CI as usual. After I cleared much of th Travincal, the coucil didn't give me too many problems. There were 2 that were CI, but my merc had good enough gear that he could take them after I seperated the two. Durance wasn't bad, and meph was a push over, as are all bosses when they meet blizzard.

Tokugawa had a few NDEs going through act 2. He's my strongest offensive character, and despite his high life, Cyclone armor and resists (58, 75, 37, he's often living on the edge. Radament was FE, and I thought I was outside his 'pop' radius, but I wasn't, and it went through my cyclone armor completely, and knocked my life from about 1350 to about 130. I had 58 fire res also. :scared: Another was from an FE leaper pack in the desert, and another was from a FE, CE, Holy shock group of beetles in the canyon of the magi. Duriel was very easy though, he wasn't able to significantly harm my merc and his 7000+ defense, and tornado tore him apart quickly. I've decided that I like windys.

I added some new items to the stash, nothing exciting. As soon as Tokugawa is done with Act 3 I'm gonna make a run for guardian with my necro.

 

[erimatbrad]

Hmm -- I don't think low level will determine the winner (as it was thought to be, perhaps, unfair...).

That said:

[highlight]Team Eddings (erimatbrad) [/highlight] - 307 points
Guardian Polgara - (Sorc - Light./Cold) - lvl 82 - All Quests Complete
Conqueror Liselle - (Amazon - Jav./Passve) - lvl 77 - Act V Hell
Guardian Zedar - (Necro – P&BCurse) - lvl 80 - All Quests Complete

So I finally made a run with Zedar. He killed Nihlithak with little problems... the corpse exploder met his fate in an appropriate manner.

There were an assortment of baddies in the Halls, mainly Fanatics and Zealots. Lots of blizzards and lightning bolts to dodge. The only problem was that I had to do that on two of the floors (or so my memory tells me). Grr!

Once I actually made it to Nihlithak, though, things were easier. There were ghosts, which ignored my bone prisons, but they simply fell victim to the corpses on the ground.

Nil didn't drop anything good (boo!), but it was a confidence booster to go after Baal.

WSK2 held skeleton mages, and two wussy enemy types. Prison, spear, boom boom boom. WSK3 held more of those blizzard throwing fiends that I hate.

Throne Room (WSK4? ) held... Ancient Horadrim.

Immune to Magic.

Crap.

I parked the boss pack that was near Baal's room in the corner, and cleared out the meteor throwing distractions that surrounded me.

The first wave of Baal's minions was easy, because I could CE the little ones, and then take out the Shaman.

Wave two was a bit more difficult. I tried in vain to lead them away from the room to park them for five minutes, but all of them just wouldn't chase me.

I then realized I had terror on my shield.

So, I eventually terrorized them to the narrow entranceway, and set up a huge prison around them.

It broke during wave 3. I killed all the Council-people, reparked, and had no problems during wave 4. Lister & Co. did take a bit longer, though, during wave 5.

Finally, after such a long time, Baal jumped towards the Worldstone.

This was a difficult fight -- he kept throwing appendages at me, which actually hit pretty hard. I eventually found the right distance from him where he would breath his mana drainer at me and miss, and I could still spear him. After that, it was just a waiting game.

Baal did finally die (woo!), left me a bunch of crappy items, and a small charm of ickiness, which went into the stash, because it seems people liked small charms off Baal once upon a blue moon.

Not wanting to leave anything undone, it was cow killing time. I opened the portal.... right inside the King's castle. He appearantly was having a meeting, as there were several Dukes and Lords of the kingdom there. I was being Holy Froze (twice!) and Fired all at once!

I ran out of the room and put my back to the wall and surrounded myself by prisons on all sides. I kept a steady flow of potions (both mana and health) and eventually killed two or three cows with spear. I then corpse exploded the other thirty cows. The King managed to survive my assualt, but I finished him off with magic.

No good drops from any of the cows, but I did make a fair amount of gold.

Liselle is the only one left...

I'll post skill/stat distros and equipment layouts for Zedar and Polgara later today for the curious...