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

[PSYCHO]

Hello everyone

Congratulations on the Guardian, Nemar! I know you are out with a vengeance to take top spot in this competition following your high rank in the 1st TWD and with your progress, you will certainly do that :drink:

Nothing much to talk from my characters. I finally moved Dysarinad through the rest of Act III and levelled him up to 65 (I am following a very strict levelling guide for all of my hardcore tourney characters to ensure I hit Hell at a very safe level), thus heralding Cristahlia's turn to take on the forests.

I was very impressed with the killing speed of the Lycander's Aim. I am giving serious thought to upgrading this to Elite when (if), I get the runes to do so. I also would like to socket it, but have no idea what to put into the socket - any ideas? The extra four skill points from the bow are exceptional as FA is now pushing nearly 750 damage (at a total freeze length of 2.5 seconds, post-nerf).

The lack of NDEs from any characters of mine can easily be attributed to the fact I have an order of priorities:

1. Resists
2. Life
3. Merc survivability
4. Everything else

Every character has maxed resists in NM and will probably have to make sacrifices in order to make that a possibility in Hell. Life is obviously the next most precious thing and small charms are a particularly good way of achieving a substantial boost in life. The Mercenary is central to all characters - if he survives, I have a better chance of surviving. Mercenaries are given decent resists gear and more importantly, a good source of leech. Right now my mercs are using:

Dire Crest
Coronet
+6 to Minimum Damage
Cold Resist +32%
Poison Resist +34%
5% Life stolen per hit
+2 to Combat Skills (Paladin Only)

and a Strength Partizan for 12% Life Leech.

[highlight]Team P§ÃÇHÕ[/highlight] – 141 points
Destroyer Cristahlia - (Amazon - Passive/Bow) - lvl 60 - Act III NM
Destroyer Dysarinad - (Necro - Summon/Curse) - lvl 65 - Act IV NM
Destroyer Martabian - (Druid - Summon/Elem.) - lvl 65 - Act IV NM

 

[AndiDi]

[highlight]Team Bavarian Forest (AndiDi) [/highlight] – 161 points
Resl – (Amazon – Passive/Bow) – lvl 24 – Act II Nml - 11 points - R.I.P. Duriel
Conqueror Hias – (Necro – Summon/Curses) – lvl 81 – Act I HELL - 72 points
Conqueror Sepp – (Paladin – Combat/Offensive) – lvl 79 – Act I HELL - 78 points

Hias: WP: Lut Gholein - Last Quest: Killed Andariel
Sepp: WP: Arcane Sanctuary - Last Quest: Killed Duriel

Sepp has completed Act II by killing Duriel. Monsters are getting more and more dangerous. Especially FE bosses gave me a few NDEs. But I found some nice items for the price stash in this run. Additionally I found another UM rune (The second one in this tourney) from a random monster in the true Tal Rasha's Tomb. This gave me the possibility to make a Stone-Armour for Sepp and the merc got the Smoke-Armour Sepp was using. In the Arcane Sanctuary Sepp found this nice amulet:

Chromatic Amulet of the Locust
Required Level: 45
All Resistances +26
5% Life stolen per hit

This brings his life leech up to 14%. I hope this will be enough for the rest of Hell.

Recent Set/Unique Items:
- Immortal King's Pillar
- Death's Touch
- Leadcrow
- Blood Raven's Charge
- Que-Hegan's Wisdom
- Vidala's Fetlock

 

[steelsixtyIV]

Team Steel (steelsixtyIV) - 213 points
Conqueror Steel_Sword - (Barb – Warcries/Com.Skills) - lvl 73 - Act I Hell
Conqueror Steel_Poison - (Necro - P&B/Curse) - lvl 73 - Act II Hell
Conqueror Steel_Magic - (Sorc - Fire/Light.) - lvl 73- Act II Hell

Magic and Poison aced big bad Andy while Sword moved up to the Inner Cloister WP. I did craft a nice axe for Sword and should finish up Act I tonight.

Carrion Sunder
War Spike
One-Hand Damage: 67 to 108
Durability: 9 of 26
Required Dexterity: 54
Required Strength: 133
Required Level: 61
Axe Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x5db539b0
+14 to Life
+125% Enhanced Damage
+172 to Attack Rating
Adds 1-6 lightning damage
Adds 11-31 cold damage over 2 seconds
3% Life stolen per hit

 

[CRG]

[highlight]Team Renewal - Points: 111[/highlight]
Destroyer Hera - (Ama Javelin/Passives) - Lvl 53 - Act 2 NM - 38 Points
Destroyer Hades - (Nec Poison/Curses) - Lvl 49 - Act 1 NM - 35 Points
Destroyer Fogged_Mirrors - (Sorc Lightning/Cold) - Lvl 55 - Act 2 NM - 38 Points

Hera rocked Andariel and Radamant today. Her killing speed is improving after I upgraded her jav, but LI's are a slight problem (as few and far between as they are). LF still carpet bombs everything, and I can't wait to get her into Act 3 smoke some flayers.

Fogged_Mirrors is by far my most powerful character right now. with FO orb maxed, Everything from here on out is getting dropped Lightning Mastery and CB's synergy, lightning bolt. The damage on CB is improving steadily, but I really need to start to find +skills weapons for CB for the damage to really boost.

Hades is being a slight disappointment right now. Fallen encampments are annoying, and while the AI curses keep everything at bay, Hades kills slower than everyone else. It is frustrating, but he is probably the safest when played well. Because of his killing speed, his merc got a "Strength" partizan and he recieved a Rhyme bone shield to ail his low resistences.

Homework is calling my name!

crg

 

[steelsixtyIV]

Team Steel (steelsixtyIV) - 215 points
Conqueror Steel_Sword - (Barb – Warcries/Com.Skills) - lvl 73 - Act II Hell
Conqueror Steel_Poison - (Necro - P&B/Curse) - lvl 73 - Act II Hell
Conqueror Steel_Magic - (Sorc - Fire/Light.) - lvl 73- Act II Hell

Team Steel is 1/5 of the way to Guardian :clap:

 

[Mage11]

Congratulations on the new Guardian, Nemar. You're going on strong, and I'm looking forward to seeing you get a couple more. Stay safe!

I'm on the road to recovery, and should be back into playing in the tourney soon. So just as a reminder for me, and to show how far behind everyone I am, I'll re-list my status.

Good luck to all who are still playing.

Current Status:

[highlight]Team Mage1 (Mage11) [/highlight] – 48 points
Sara – (Amazon – Passive/Bow) – lvl 26 – Act III Nml - 12 points
Klaudia – (Assassin - MA/Shadow) – lvl 31 – Act III Nml - 17 points
Starm – (Sorc - Cold/Light.) – lvl 32 – Act IV Nml - 19 points

 

[XorceR1]

Congrats on the Guardian nemar! :worship: Now we have a total of 4 Guardians!

I was very impressed with the killing speed of the Lycander's Aim. I am giving serious thought to upgrading this to Elite when (if), I get the runes to do so. I also would like to socket it, but have no idea what to put into the socket - any ideas? The extra four skill points from the bow are exceptional as FA is now pushing nearly 750 damage (at a total freeze length of 2.5 seconds, post-nerf).

I Guardianed my bowazon (MA/Passive) using an upgraded Lycander's socketed with Nef. It's an excellent weapon,, very fast, high damage and a very nice (and useful) knockback from the Nef. But if you have an FA zon knockback may not be that useful. A *cough* Ber would be better but it's nearly impossible to find. Maybe a Shael or a nice ED/IAS jewel would be appropriate.

p.s. I've installed D2 on my sistem. I haven't played it but I've already installed it. hehe

 

[Gouda]

Congratulations nemar!

But.....I'am still in the tourney, so don't sit back and relax yet!

Quite a bit of progress this weekend. My GF wen out with my sister friday night, so i spend a whole night playing DII, and finished a few loose ends on sunday night playing 2 - 3 more hours.

So what happened?

First Persophone continued her adventures, going the long way to the ancients, full clears on every level. The ancients themselves were easy, but i did them on players 1, since there is no reason to take any risks.
After that the worldstone and baals minions proved no obstacle. Baal himslef took a bit longer to die, but still went down within a minute.
So a new Destroyer a my list!
A few finishing up moves after that, cows and leveling her to 50, which took only two Baal runs. Offcourse once i finished that i found some nice stuff: a coronet with +1 sorc skills (gambled) a +1 sorc skill amulet (Baal) and the icing on the cake: a +2 sorc skills, +2 frozen orb staff. Not bad for a last run in Normal to prepare for the next difficulty.

Sunday I went back to playing Morpheus.

He is by far the slowest killing char I have int his and the previous tournament. The lack of a proper weapon is getting really annoying, but I guess i'll have to wait for that till hell (second reward = own weapon). On the other hand with a defense of 3500, and 70% blocking he can tank almost everything, except for thoze frozen cold breathing things, because they just take toooo long to kill. Still working on maxing my resists, now ~50% all, but both shield and armor have no resist whatsoever, so i should be able to get there soon.
Anyway questing went well, and Morpheus managed to save Anya without much trouble, gaining two levels in the process. I am still very dubious about making an untwinked concentrate barb, but he'll be getting all the imbues and socketing quests from my other two chars, so he'll have plenty of support!


Team the Matrix II (Gouda) – 79 points
Morpheus - (Barb – Warcries/Com.Skills) – lvl 40 – Act V Nml (Looking for Nihlatak)
Merovingian - (Necro - Summon/Curse) – lvl 50 – Act V Nml (Finished)
Persephone - (Sorc Fire/Cold) – lvl 50 – Act V Nml (Finished)

Have fun, don't die

Gouda

 

[PSYCHO]

I Guardianed my bowazon (MA/Passive) using an upgraded Lycander's socketed with Nef. It's an excellent weapon,, very fast, high damage and a very nice (and useful) knockback from the Nef. But if you have an FA zon knockback may not be that useful. A *cough* Ber would be better but it's nearly impossible to find. Maybe a Shael or a nice ED/IAS jewel would be appropriate.

In all honesty, that was going to be my main choice. I currently have no knockback gear available, and it would be nice to be able to have that handy, so I think I'll go ahead and do that before I get any further into Act III. Larzuk, here I come!

 

[erimatbrad]

It seemed odd to play again after not doing so for a week or two. I didn't do much, because I wasn't *that* motivated, but I did manage to get partway to another level, and another bag full of gold that got wasted on circlet gambling. I'm hoping to find nine white circlets/coronets/tiaras to imbue with all three characters... but those are slim, slim pickins'.

I think Nemar might very well take the lead from me soon! I doubt I'll have the time or motivation until after the holidays to perfect my ancient trumping strategy...

 

[nemar]

arg; problem with my net connexion

so I hope this time is good one

thanks for all congratulation

not completly agree with psycho

1. Resists
don't need resist poison, if you have a potion of heal poison, you don't need something else. and don't forget runes on armor, without using a rune word you can use +30resist rune

2. Life
don't forget dext and a shield if you can use it. if you block you need less live. But live is you're..... live !


3. Merc survivability
yes but you're merc must be strong also, If I omit ancients and baal, I NEVER walk without merc. merc is killed = tp = return to town and not in two minutes, right now. and time to time, I make tp before. buy a tp is nothing so use more you need but be in town saved is the more important

4. Everything else
no but only because I'm a stupid psychotic froggy,

I make some runs with my necro, gamble some items , found only a +3 passives, but I did have already a +2 passives with extra things so nothing in fact. bad runs
oh a 1-77 lighting damage charm (one of the best I founded)

 

[AndiDi]

[highlight]Team Bavarian Forest (AndiDi) [/highlight] – 162 points
Resl – (Amazon – Passive/Bow) – lvl 24 – Act II Nml - 11 points - R.I.P. Duriel
Conqueror Hias – (Necro – Summon/Curses) – lvl 81 – Act I HELL - 72 points
Conqueror Sepp – (Paladin – Combat/Offensive) – lvl 79 – Act I HELL - 79 points

Hias: WP: Lut Gholein - Last Quest: Killed Andariel
Sepp: WP: Flayer Jungle - Last Quest: Found the Eye

Sepp explored the Spider Forest, found a nice Jade Figurine and an Eye. He although managed to find the Great March and there he discrovered the exit into the Flayer Jungle. After finding the WP there he is now ready for a little rest.

Recent Set/Unique Items:
- Peasant Crown

 

[CRG]

[highlight]Team Renewal - Points: 133[/highlight]
Destroyer Hera - (Ama Javelin/Passives) - Lvl 62 - Act 4 NM - 49 Points
Destroyer Hades - (Nec Poison/Curses) - Lvl 56 - Act 3 NM - 43 Points
Destroyer Fogged_Mirrors - (Sorc Lightning/Cold) - Lvl 57 - Act 3 NM - 43 Points

Huge update for me. I have been putting it off because of how Act 2's quests are structured

Hera just finished Act 3 and began meph running. On the third run, this drops :surprise:

[highlight]Skin of the Vipermagi[/highlight]
Serpentskin Armor
Defense: 279
Durability: 20 of 24
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0x2bd115a
+120% Enhanced Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 10
All Resistances +35
30% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels

I was so happy this dropped! FM is getting it (as that was her reward selection for norm).

Anyways, Hera is by far my fastest killer, but I am the most careless with her. Regardless, she's a tough cookie, and cruised through Act 3, easily handling Flayers. No NDEs with her yet.

Hera is also the farthest I have ever taken a HC character in any version of D2. From here on out is new ground for me HC wise, but not character wise.

FM, as most FO sorceresses do during NM is kicking the pants off of everyone! The new armor is just going to make life for everything else just scary. She already has max res (before the vipermagi) in NM, and stacking the vipermagi plus NM Anya quest, she'll have suitable res for hell.

Hades, once again, is pulling up the rear. He is fun to play, but the slowest because Bone Spear does not just carpet bomb the entire screen like FO and LF do. I still maintain he's the safest to play, and I learned a lot from playing Act 2 with him, especially on dealing with LI creatures (BP absorbs lightning).

The final stages of act 2 were depressing though. Hades turned more into an Explod-o-cro, relying on BS to get only the first kill or so and then CE'ing everything in sight.

I say it is depressing because that is going to be how I handle MI's later in the game. Damn that sucks.

Anyways, back to work!

crg

 

[Porius]

If you are playing a bone-spear Necro, what merc are you using?

My suggestion is to go with something ranged (like a Rogue) and use bone prison on those pesky magic immunes. You'll be in little or no danger, while your merc kills them. Amp will help with that...

Porius

 

[CRG]

If you are playing a bone-spear Necro, what merc are you using?

My suggestion is to go with something ranged (like a Rogue) and use bone prison on those pesky magic immunes. You'll be in little or no danger, while your merc kills them. Amp will help with that...

Porius

I'm using an Act 2 Norm Defensive merc (Defiance).

My build is no block, high life (and huge Bone Armor), so not getting hit (defense) helps a lot.

I am going to stay with my merc because...

1) Jab + any amount of CB = Dead Act Boss/Ancient/etc.
2) Tank up front. Yeah, I know I have Bone prison, but I still like the feeling of shooting from behind a moving wall.
3) Lastly, I have never used an Act 1 Merc past act 1. I'm not going to start now.

crg

 

[nemar]

play another tourney so no change since last news.

 

[erimatbrad]

Team Eddings (erimatbrad) - 311 points
Guardian Polgara - (Sorc - Light./Cold) - lvl 82 - Finished
Conqueror Liselle - (Amazon - Jav./Passive) - lvl 84 - Act V Hell
Guardian Zedar - (Necro – P&B/Curse) - lvl 80 - Finished

Liselle hit level 84, and managed to find and imbue a circlet. Unfortunately, it was a +1 barb (boo!) circlet that happened to be dual leech.

Oh well. Eight imbues left to burn!

 

[CRG]

[highlight]Team Renewal - Points: 148[/highlight]
Destroyer Hera - (Ama Javelin/Passives) - Lvl 64 - Act 4 NM Completed - 52 Points
Destroyer Hades - (Nec Poison/Curses) - Lvl 56 - Act 3 NM - 43 Points
Destroyer Fogged_Mirrors - (Sorc Lightning/Cold) - Lvl 64 - Act 4 NM Completed - 52 Points

Hera and FM cleared all of Act 4 (FM did all of act 3 too) enroute to decent Durance 2 maps and a Lycander's Flank from a random monster in Act 4. It's a great weapon, but I really don't want to lose my shield or invest 50 STR to use it. Ick.

Helforge dropped a Dol (third one...) and a Pul (Woot!). FM also found a Lum in the Flayer Jungle

Hades is staying put, just chilling out. His progress is the only thing between me and two Conquerors.

crg

 

[Hiedran]

Good to see that the tourney is still progressing, and that teams are advancing past my fallen team. (Though pride dictates that I feel a little sting that I won't be as high up in the final rankings. Maybe I can take pride in being the second team to fall....)

I'm almost tempted to reinstall D2 and play a team (unofficially), but for two problems.
1. Halo, NWN, and KotOR take up too much disk space.
2. My D2C CDs (and the subsequent keys for D2C and D2X) are in a place I cannot get to, nor can I request the return of said CDs.

Lycander's Aim rocks! I got one for my LF 'zon in 1.09, and it did wonders for killing PIs and/or keeping my mana up if I got too low. But then again, GA could multi-pierce.

 

[erimatbrad]

Did you know that if the you kill the ancients at level 84 you only get half a level?


[highlight]Team Eddings (erimatbrad) - 312 points[/highlight]
Guardian Polgara - (Sorc - Light./Cold) - lvl 82 - Finished
Conqueror Liselle - (Amazon - Jav./Passive) - lvl 84 - Act V Hell
Guardian Zedar - (Necro – P&B/Curse) - lvl 80 - Finished

Liselle triumphed over the Ancients!

It took a neat combination of a wand of lower resist, Gargoyle's Bite, and my +3 skills replenishing maiden javs. Fortunately, there weren't any Fire Enchanteds, and that Lower Resist broke the LI on the Ancients.

Things were very very difficult, until I realized I had 60 charges of Plague Jav. Then I could keep them occupied with poison, lower their resists, and fury them. Repeat the process a few zillion times, drink lots of blues that were on the ground, and... Victory!

Up next (probably Thursday?), Baal. A piece of cake, I think. And then Moo moo, and then, the trifecta of completed characters!