Tournament: Envious of the Green and Gold
- Thread starter Morathi1
- Start date
jiansonz
New member
I owe you two screenies from last session :
That Halls of the Dead 3 situation where I used CoS (it got worse - the Champion spearthrowers hadn't entered the fight yet)
Martina finally having a clear line of fire to Coldworm.
Claw Viper Temple level 2 was quite hectic with another snake boss (CE something Claw Viper) showing up on the western side. Thankfully, Fangskin never woke up until that pack was defeated. Snakes (even Salamanders) burn quite well on players 1.
I knew Blunderbores in the Palace would be tough. Strong meleers with lots of life and fire immune on top of that.
This guy was the worst. In the screenie, you can't see what aura it has. It's Might.
The Gorebellies in the seven tombs were equally nasty and harder for Jemali to damage (because of cold immunity). Good for Martina that they could be burned. Well, most of them. (aura this time is Holy Shock).
I took on Duriel on players 1, hoping to quickly reduce his life with Crushflange. But Martina almost could not hit him with that mace so I gave that up and went 'Decoy spamming, potions-for-merc, and burn' instead. That worked really well and the fight was over faster than I expected. The drop was hilariously bad:
- Rare ring
- Flawless skull
- Four(!) TP scrolls
There was a very nasty Poison Spinner boss pack near the stairs of the Spider Cavern. Not quite a stairs trap, but almost. Boss was Conviction + LE + Magic Resistant. The MR meant it was difficult to kill, and since Poison Spinners are poison immune, I could not stop its regeneration other than possibly with an Impaler hit and I did NOT want to get that close to it! Not with LR way down in the negatives...
The Sszark fight, on the other hand, went much better. I got the opportunity (while keeping the distance) to test how long it took for Sszark to kill a Decoy. She held up so well that I did not hesitate to go for some CS action. I recast the Decoy when Sszark was half dead and then again when Sszark fled to a wall, where Jemali could do the final stabbing.
No success with the dozen or so Pgem rerolls of a Grand Charm, trying to score a Coral (or at least Ocher/Shimmering). No Gloams in the Marsh though, so I could proceed without much risk even with 31% lightning resist. I am going to skip Swampy Pit for a while since Gloams can spawn there. Arachnid Lair is cleared out, though.
Recent finds:
Magnus' Skin
Razor's Edge (first EU, but deemed useless and sold)
Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth
Hexfire
a second Fal rune
[Highlight]Conqueror Martina the Immozon and Jemali the Holy Freeze guard, level 84, 13 S/U items equipped, Hell Lower Kurast next[/Highlight]
That Halls of the Dead 3 situation where I used CoS (it got worse - the Champion spearthrowers hadn't entered the fight yet)
Martina finally having a clear line of fire to Coldworm.
Claw Viper Temple level 2 was quite hectic with another snake boss (CE something Claw Viper) showing up on the western side. Thankfully, Fangskin never woke up until that pack was defeated. Snakes (even Salamanders) burn quite well on players 1.
I knew Blunderbores in the Palace would be tough. Strong meleers with lots of life and fire immune on top of that.
This guy was the worst. In the screenie, you can't see what aura it has. It's Might.
The Gorebellies in the seven tombs were equally nasty and harder for Jemali to damage (because of cold immunity). Good for Martina that they could be burned. Well, most of them. (aura this time is Holy Shock).
I took on Duriel on players 1, hoping to quickly reduce his life with Crushflange. But Martina almost could not hit him with that mace so I gave that up and went 'Decoy spamming, potions-for-merc, and burn' instead. That worked really well and the fight was over faster than I expected. The drop was hilariously bad:
- Rare ring
- Flawless skull
- Four(!) TP scrolls
There was a very nasty Poison Spinner boss pack near the stairs of the Spider Cavern. Not quite a stairs trap, but almost. Boss was Conviction + LE + Magic Resistant. The MR meant it was difficult to kill, and since Poison Spinners are poison immune, I could not stop its regeneration other than possibly with an Impaler hit and I did NOT want to get that close to it! Not with LR way down in the negatives...
The Sszark fight, on the other hand, went much better. I got the opportunity (while keeping the distance) to test how long it took for Sszark to kill a Decoy. She held up so well that I did not hesitate to go for some CS action. I recast the Decoy when Sszark was half dead and then again when Sszark fled to a wall, where Jemali could do the final stabbing.
No success with the dozen or so Pgem rerolls of a Grand Charm, trying to score a Coral (or at least Ocher/Shimmering). No Gloams in the Marsh though, so I could proceed without much risk even with 31% lightning resist. I am going to skip Swampy Pit for a while since Gloams can spawn there. Arachnid Lair is cleared out, though.
Recent finds:
Magnus' Skin
Razor's Edge (first EU, but deemed useless and sold)
Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth
Hexfire
a second Fal rune
[Highlight]Conqueror Martina the Immozon and Jemali the Holy Freeze guard, level 84, 13 S/U items equipped, Hell Lower Kurast next[/Highlight]
Last edited:
Merlin The Wizzard
New member
London soon realized that having lots of distress over the rats wasn't really going to help her in anyway. First of all, while it was quite fashionable at home in her social circle to have some sort of therapy going on(actually, when she left, the latest rage was therapy against therapy addiction, which was just too weird even for her), she wasn't at home, and no one here would find it remotely interesting that she was squeamish about rats. Second of all, her doctor wasn't even here. Thirdly, she found that a ready cure for being distressed about having to fight rats, was actually killing rats. Which sounded sort of paradoxical, but London really couldn't care less. So after a little self help therapy, she ventured back forth into the field. She got the feeling that sticking around in the camp wasn't helping her make friends anyway.
But to her surprise, soon after she was welcomed back with a genuine welcoming committee. Everybody cheered, and there would even have been cake, if there had been food, or indeed, if cake had already been invented. It wasn't, so London wasn't really in a position to miss it anyway. Akara welcomed her with the following words: "It has never been a greater pleasure for us to see a hero succeed in their personal quest. But you did it London, so feel free to go home with pride. Really. The exit is right over there, so go."
"What? I succeeded in what?"
"Well, you wanted to find green and gold items, and look at this! When I took stock of the last batch of crap... err, I mean, the last batch of battlefield spoils that you sold me, I noticed like 60 or so green items! It's great! You are bedecked in green!"
"Wait, what?"
"Seriously dummy, don't you even check your own possessions? I'm talking about that set of 60 green javelins you returned, you know, the septic javelins of frost? So anyway, congratulations, and please leave. Now. Please?"
"I almost get a feeling I'm not welcome here!"
"Whatever gave you that idea? You are extremely welcome, as long as you don't enter the camp. We absolutely love for you to be somewhere else. Seriously!"
"Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but those don't qualify."
"Why not? They are green, and you know, there are a lot of them! You could make a really big scarecrow out of them, or a picket line, or play giant mikado even. Just, you know, not here!"
"I am not looking for magic items that happen to be green, I want set or unique items!"
Akara pouted: "Oh please. Can't you just take the javelins and leave? Look, what if I take my magic wand and use it to engrave your name in them? You could name them London's Javelins. Your very own set item!"
"No! I want genuine authentic set & gold items to brag about to my friends!"
"Well, couldn't you go hunt for them somewhere else? I hear there's a lot of REALLY great items in ...ehm, Warriv, can you help me out here?"
"Sure! I think the Swamps of Misery are far away enough for my taste... Oh, sorry, I mean, there are really great items there!"
"Right. Not convincing."
"Fine, fine. Ok. Just, you know, be diligent in your search, so don't come back to the camp too much. Or, at all."
"I'll just ignore your remarks. And as far as the lovely green javelins go, you can all collectively stick them where the sun doesn't shine!"
After that bracing encounter, London felt inspired to go out there and find better things. Seeing as how she eventually found herself in a graveyard, complete with a crazy zombie raising woman, her quality evaluation as to what had to be better things then the camp was pretty out of whack. Thankfully, she found some unexpected encouragement. Hsaru's Iron Fist! While the red colour was not entirely to her taste on a buckler, she figured it would be advantageous, since blood probably wouldn't really show up too much on a blood red shield.
After she killed the crazy lady in the graveyard, she figured it was time to do something about the man/woman ratio in the camp. It took a bit of time and work, including killing a rather scary looking former blacksmith zombie. However, to see the tremulous smile on the face of the old geezer, the stammers of joy, the tears of gratitude, and of course the promise of identifying magic items for free made for a gratifying reward.
While London was looking around for the old guy, she also found this weird book on a pedestal, which mentioned an old tower. Apparently, there was loads of treasure to be found inside. Naturally, this appealed to London's sense of right and justice and the freedom of redistribution of financial goods. So she happily ventured into the tower, and after many, many stairs, and many many monsters, she finally reached a point where there were no more stairs to traverse.
Instead, there was a lot of cash, and another lady villain. But something told London this one would be more to her liking:
"Would you like a bloodbath?"
"Oh my, would I ever! Seriously, I finally meet someone here who is interested in body hygiëne and skincare! Do you have any idea what those heathens back in the camp are like? Not to mention all of those smelly demons... and frankly, nothing is more appalling then the undead. I also had to fight rats for a bit, but I'm thankfully starting to come to terms with that. And through all of those ordeals, I just missed my friends, like, SOOOO much. You know, we could chat about the latest heroes, and the latest fashion, and on how to take good care of our bodies too! Apart from the bloody guts from your minions I just butchered, it's like I'm back home! So tell me, you think a bloodbath is best for the skin? I heard it said that mule's milk has very purifying properties as well. Makes the skin feel very smooth and soft, you know. It also makes it easier to deal with those pesky leg hairs for shaving. But I never really tried blood. So what does that do?"
The countess was a bit thrown by this exuberant greeting: "Well, ehm, it's... refreshing?"
"Yeah, but so is a bath in plain water. But I do imagine that it will give your skin more of a ruddy afterglow, won't it? Anyway, what sort of blood do you use?"
"Ehm, I was going to use yours..."
"Hey now! Let's leave my blood right where it is! Besides, I would sort of think you'd go for the blood of something else, like, ehm, The fallen or something. There are like zillions of them, and if you bleed them dry and toss the body in front of a shaman, it'll come straight back to life... Endless blood supply, anyone?"
"Look, I'm evil. It's part of my jobtemplate to crave the blood of the innocent. Dealing with you herotypes is enough of a stretch as it is, since most of you are far from innocent. Especially Necromancers toe the line in the moral department. But we usually manage to squeeze you lot in the target group, since you are all out there slaying our fellow demons and undead and rats. Now, if I started to bathe in the blood of the Fallen, they'd cast me out. And after another millenium or so, I'm looking at a very cushy job tormenting tax evaders in the seventh layer of hell. On the other hand, if I bathed in your blood, I would not only stay properly evil, but I would also get bonus points for being cruel and original. I might even squeeze my promotion in a couple of decades sooner then planned, although such a thing is really hard to come by in an evil bureaucracy!"
"Oh, so I guess we are going to have to fight then, instead of chatting?"
"It looks that way..."
"Are you really sure about that? I mean, you saw what happened to all of your minions right?"
"I'll take my chances."
"Well, let's go!"
<Cue bloody mayhem for about 5 seconds.>
"Sigh. Back to the seventh layer of hell.... Err, I mean the camp it is..."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@zaphod: You are obviously right. I rectified it above
@jiansonz: Well, look at that, set item number one! Look out world, here I come!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the top story says it all. Nothing overly exciting happening so far. Tamoe Highlands next., and then it's cloister time!
London_Hilton, level still too low to mention, mental health: a tad depressed, about having to go back to the camp where she isn't all that welcome. Set & unique items: 1. I also have a rogue in tow, but heck if I recall her name atm. It's not important anyway, she is quite temporary. I just can't seen to handle controlling them at all, so I wind up preferring all the other classes more then them. (And yes, I read Jiansonz post).
Question: How do I link images? Is there a maximum size involved?
Question 2: Is there a list which says when to start gambling for specific set and unique items? Like a certain dagger?
But to her surprise, soon after she was welcomed back with a genuine welcoming committee. Everybody cheered, and there would even have been cake, if there had been food, or indeed, if cake had already been invented. It wasn't, so London wasn't really in a position to miss it anyway. Akara welcomed her with the following words: "It has never been a greater pleasure for us to see a hero succeed in their personal quest. But you did it London, so feel free to go home with pride. Really. The exit is right over there, so go."
"What? I succeeded in what?"
"Well, you wanted to find green and gold items, and look at this! When I took stock of the last batch of crap... err, I mean, the last batch of battlefield spoils that you sold me, I noticed like 60 or so green items! It's great! You are bedecked in green!"
"Wait, what?"
"Seriously dummy, don't you even check your own possessions? I'm talking about that set of 60 green javelins you returned, you know, the septic javelins of frost? So anyway, congratulations, and please leave. Now. Please?"
"I almost get a feeling I'm not welcome here!"
"Whatever gave you that idea? You are extremely welcome, as long as you don't enter the camp. We absolutely love for you to be somewhere else. Seriously!"
"Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but those don't qualify."
"Why not? They are green, and you know, there are a lot of them! You could make a really big scarecrow out of them, or a picket line, or play giant mikado even. Just, you know, not here!"
"I am not looking for magic items that happen to be green, I want set or unique items!"
Akara pouted: "Oh please. Can't you just take the javelins and leave? Look, what if I take my magic wand and use it to engrave your name in them? You could name them London's Javelins. Your very own set item!"
"No! I want genuine authentic set & gold items to brag about to my friends!"
"Well, couldn't you go hunt for them somewhere else? I hear there's a lot of REALLY great items in ...ehm, Warriv, can you help me out here?"
"Sure! I think the Swamps of Misery are far away enough for my taste... Oh, sorry, I mean, there are really great items there!"
"Right. Not convincing."
"Fine, fine. Ok. Just, you know, be diligent in your search, so don't come back to the camp too much. Or, at all."
"I'll just ignore your remarks. And as far as the lovely green javelins go, you can all collectively stick them where the sun doesn't shine!"
After that bracing encounter, London felt inspired to go out there and find better things. Seeing as how she eventually found herself in a graveyard, complete with a crazy zombie raising woman, her quality evaluation as to what had to be better things then the camp was pretty out of whack. Thankfully, she found some unexpected encouragement. Hsaru's Iron Fist! While the red colour was not entirely to her taste on a buckler, she figured it would be advantageous, since blood probably wouldn't really show up too much on a blood red shield.
After she killed the crazy lady in the graveyard, she figured it was time to do something about the man/woman ratio in the camp. It took a bit of time and work, including killing a rather scary looking former blacksmith zombie. However, to see the tremulous smile on the face of the old geezer, the stammers of joy, the tears of gratitude, and of course the promise of identifying magic items for free made for a gratifying reward.
While London was looking around for the old guy, she also found this weird book on a pedestal, which mentioned an old tower. Apparently, there was loads of treasure to be found inside. Naturally, this appealed to London's sense of right and justice and the freedom of redistribution of financial goods. So she happily ventured into the tower, and after many, many stairs, and many many monsters, she finally reached a point where there were no more stairs to traverse.
Instead, there was a lot of cash, and another lady villain. But something told London this one would be more to her liking:
"Would you like a bloodbath?"
"Oh my, would I ever! Seriously, I finally meet someone here who is interested in body hygiëne and skincare! Do you have any idea what those heathens back in the camp are like? Not to mention all of those smelly demons... and frankly, nothing is more appalling then the undead. I also had to fight rats for a bit, but I'm thankfully starting to come to terms with that. And through all of those ordeals, I just missed my friends, like, SOOOO much. You know, we could chat about the latest heroes, and the latest fashion, and on how to take good care of our bodies too! Apart from the bloody guts from your minions I just butchered, it's like I'm back home! So tell me, you think a bloodbath is best for the skin? I heard it said that mule's milk has very purifying properties as well. Makes the skin feel very smooth and soft, you know. It also makes it easier to deal with those pesky leg hairs for shaving. But I never really tried blood. So what does that do?"
The countess was a bit thrown by this exuberant greeting: "Well, ehm, it's... refreshing?"
"Yeah, but so is a bath in plain water. But I do imagine that it will give your skin more of a ruddy afterglow, won't it? Anyway, what sort of blood do you use?"
"Ehm, I was going to use yours..."
"Hey now! Let's leave my blood right where it is! Besides, I would sort of think you'd go for the blood of something else, like, ehm, The fallen or something. There are like zillions of them, and if you bleed them dry and toss the body in front of a shaman, it'll come straight back to life... Endless blood supply, anyone?"
"Look, I'm evil. It's part of my jobtemplate to crave the blood of the innocent. Dealing with you herotypes is enough of a stretch as it is, since most of you are far from innocent. Especially Necromancers toe the line in the moral department. But we usually manage to squeeze you lot in the target group, since you are all out there slaying our fellow demons and undead and rats. Now, if I started to bathe in the blood of the Fallen, they'd cast me out. And after another millenium or so, I'm looking at a very cushy job tormenting tax evaders in the seventh layer of hell. On the other hand, if I bathed in your blood, I would not only stay properly evil, but I would also get bonus points for being cruel and original. I might even squeeze my promotion in a couple of decades sooner then planned, although such a thing is really hard to come by in an evil bureaucracy!"
"Oh, so I guess we are going to have to fight then, instead of chatting?"
"It looks that way..."
"Are you really sure about that? I mean, you saw what happened to all of your minions right?"
"I'll take my chances."
"Well, let's go!"
<Cue bloody mayhem for about 5 seconds.>
"Sigh. Back to the seventh layer of hell.... Err, I mean the camp it is..."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@zaphod: You are obviously right. I rectified it above
@jiansonz: Well, look at that, set item number one! Look out world, here I come!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the top story says it all. Nothing overly exciting happening so far. Tamoe Highlands next., and then it's cloister time!
London_Hilton, level still too low to mention, mental health: a tad depressed, about having to go back to the camp where she isn't all that welcome. Set & unique items: 1. I also have a rogue in tow, but heck if I recall her name atm. It's not important anyway, she is quite temporary. I just can't seen to handle controlling them at all, so I wind up preferring all the other classes more then them. (And yes, I read Jiansonz post).
Question: How do I link images? Is there a maximum size involved?
Question 2: Is there a list which says when to start gambling for specific set and unique items? Like a certain dagger?
jiansonz
New member
Try the 'insert image' icon (two steps to the right of the usual 'Link' icon). Hmm, gonna try it myself. Looks like you can either link to an image stored on the web or upload one from the computer:
View attachment 4296
Yup, looks like it's working. No clue about maximum size, though.
This list shows the qlvl of both the base items and the specific S/U items. Since the ilvl on gambled items can go down as low as clvl-5, you should be 5 levels above the highest of the two qlvls in question to guarantee that every gamble results in an ilvl that is high enough.
Last edited:
Merlin The Wizzard
New member
Thanks for the advice Jiansonz. By the way, great progress on your Amazon, but I wouldn;t really expect otherwise from you
I tried to link up images of the buckler and the javelins on photobucket, but it either failed or filled my entire screen with the image, and it's supposed to be a linkie right? Hence the question. But I'll just try it again another time. It's not like these pictures were that epic to start with
I tried to link up images of the buckler and the javelins on photobucket, but it either failed or filled my entire screen with the image, and it's supposed to be a linkie right? Hence the question. But I'll just try it again another time. It's not like these pictures were that epic to start with
jiansonz
New member
I tried to link up images of the buckler and the javelins on photobucket, but it either failed or filled my entire screen with the image, and it's supposed to be a linkie right? Hence the question. But I'll just try it again another time. It's not like these pictures were that epic to start with
If you do not want to actually paste in the pics (like I did with the cat above) but use links (like I do in my character reports) you should get hold of the 'direct link' URL at Photobucket, mark the text you want to use as link then use the 'Link' icon and paste the URL there.
jiansonz
New member
MerlinTheWizzard said:
Thanks. But my Blaze Sorc died in Act III Normal, so major failures do happen for me. She was my fourth HC death in Normal in tourneys over the last few years.
Martina encountered a puzzling situation in Kurast Bazaar, a Champ pack of Sextons. They kept healing each other, and the barrage of spells was tough for merc and Decoy. Standard way for me to deal with these is to separate them, which is usually done with skills (Bash, Smite, kicks, TK, etc.). Not available to Martina. Then it struck me, Cliffkiller has Knockback.
I did not lower the players setting for Ruined Temple (kept going on /p3). Big mistake. Start was OK. There was a Flesh Hunter boss pack that attacked right away but the boss had only 3 minions with her, and their abilities were not nasty (CE something). Then came the vampires (Night Lords). Big boss pack and one or two regular packs, so about a dozen of them. I had killed a Night Lord boss pack in the first temple so I knew it was going to take time and hurt a lot. Martina has 85% fire resistance but even she can't take Meteor barrages for minutes on end. Merc has under 50% resist. I added a couple of Cloak of Shadow castings but ultimately decided to plunge deeper into that large first chamber and portal out. I was met only by a regular Spider Magus pack. Good.
Portalled back and killed 3 of the spiders. No vampire had followed, very nice. When we attacked the fourth and final spider, three of Sarina's extra fast minions charged. We pulled back and killed them. However, that last spider turned out to be a real pain, both because my merc (the moron!) chased after it so the entire remains of Sarina's pack came storming! Extra Fast Spectral Hit Extra Strong LE Sarina and 7-8 of her minions. Plus that spider that kept poisoning the Decoy so she couldn't survive 4 seconds against the pack.
I TPed out and swithed out my spear for the dagger and shield setup. This was a precaution because if the pack would ever manage to mob me when I was shieldless, it would likely mean game over. So every entry through the portal was done with the shield up and I kept it that way until I had cast Decoy and CoS, only switching to bow when I had some distance and an exit TP ready.
It's hard to describe how messy that fight was. I think I resurrected Jemali 6 times, made at least 10 town trips and my full rejuve supply I had brought in that session went from 14 to 2! Sweet victory. When I could finally enter Sarina's room, the only monster there was a Night Lord. The Night Lord boss pack was still back by the entrance. I could later lure them out a few at a time from the other end.
It was next to impossible to keep Jemali alive in this fight, so I barely tried. Money was in much greater supply than purples at this stage, and Jemali wasn't needed in this fight. Slow Missiles makes it easy to dodge the Unholy Bolts in case the Decoy gets destroyed. Then I just recast it.
The Treebeast From Hell. This fight went quite well because I kept spamming Decoy between my Immolation Arrows.
I had learned my lesson and played the other four temples on p1. Only one more boss stairs trap in the temples: a Blessed Aim something bat pack in Ruined Fane.
Recent finds:
Toothrow unique Sharktooth Armor
Isenhart's Parry
[Highlight]Conqueror Martina the Immozon and Jemali the Holy Freeze guard, level 85, 13 S/U items equipped, Hell Travincal next[/Highlight]
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Very nice progress jiansonz, though it seems its one man tourney right now...As for Thor, he finished Normal difficulty and i parked him somewhere around Black Marsh NM (probably month ago), unfortunately i had no time for playing him since then, hopefully next week during short holiday...I will do real write-up after finishing Act1, i promise 
GL to all and especially to You, jiansonz
GL to all and especially to You, jiansonz
Yup, definitely one-man tourney. Good luck!
I finally found a bit of play time. Hagar has reached Normal Kurast Bazaar and has retrieved Khalim's body parts. Last update was such a long time back ... let's see what's happened since then.
Main gear update is Milabrega's shield. I don't remember ever being so excited on finding one. The merc lost some MF as I found Isenhart's Case and had to equip it. Effective MF is now 76 for both me and the merc, so I have started becoming more active in killing.
Killing is mainly through merc (with decrepify support), poison explosion (great against dragonflies and the like) and level 2 poison nova (effective against big mobs and hard to reach critters like water monsters) I don't feel the mana pinch except when using poison nova but even that is only used once every 2 seconds, so it's not bad.
Gambling targets have now been expanded to anything that gives mana: daggers, skull caps, caps, chain gloves. I'm also gambling for unique daggers so I can use poison dagger. Anyway, the count is now over 500 items gambled for zilch.
I finally found a bit of play time. Hagar has reached Normal Kurast Bazaar and has retrieved Khalim's body parts. Last update was such a long time back ... let's see what's happened since then.
Main gear update is Milabrega's shield. I don't remember ever being so excited on finding one. The merc lost some MF as I found Isenhart's Case and had to equip it. Effective MF is now 76 for both me and the merc, so I have started becoming more active in killing.
Killing is mainly through merc (with decrepify support), poison explosion (great against dragonflies and the like) and level 2 poison nova (effective against big mobs and hard to reach critters like water monsters) I don't feel the mana pinch except when using poison nova but even that is only used once every 2 seconds, so it's not bad.
Gambling targets have now been expanded to anything that gives mana: daggers, skull caps, caps, chain gloves. I'm also gambling for unique daggers so I can use poison dagger. Anyway, the count is now over 500 items gambled for zilch.
jiansonz
New member
Travincal was pretty tough, mostly because we had no reliable way to keep Zealots from running away. I needed to arrange the fights so they were out of Heirophant healing range and hit them when they were in fightning situations where they would soon run into a corner when they fled.
Players 1 Mephisto was moat tricked and died quickly (like, after only a dozen blue potions' worth of Immo Arrows). No gold/green in the drop.
As expected, Act IV was slow going due to many monsters with high life and fire immunity. The Impaler was used more than the bow. Standard procedure against Venom Lords was to attack with Charged Strike until I was out of mana and then keep stabbing with Attack. That stole back most (sometimes all) mana, thanks to Manald Heal and the fact that the ITD caused pretty much all the stabs to hit.
When I enter the Plains of Despair, I saw want I didn't want to see, Burning Souls. These are dangerous for Martina and her 31% lightning resistance, and their shots go right through merc and Decoy. I decided to play Swampy Pit before the Plains, with the small hope of getting another resist charm. Swampy Pit was interesting as usual, but no real danger (despite two Gloam boss packs and some tough dolls).
So I had to take on the Plains anyway. Careful Decoy scouting, smart recasts and being ready with potions and dodging Lightnings were key actions. At least they die fast to Immolation Arrows.
City was a breeze (but the Abyss Knights made life hard for Jemali).
Next session, I made the mistake of typing in players 8 instead of players 3...
Good thing I had already planned to get away from the Fanaticism Maw Fiend pack on the peninsula to the left of the stairs. This was even before I had discovered that monsters took forever to kill. Every one of the first three Grotesques and three Maw Fiends felt like a boss. For the Maw Fiends, I let them eat and spit all available corpses before trying to kill them.
Once I reached far away to get into players 3 territory, it wasn't so bad. But there was still that early boss pack to deal with. I waited with that pack until the way to the WP was secured and I only had Hephasto's lair and the area past Hadriel left. Here is the boss, a nasty bugger that required a couple of merc resurrections.
Hellforge gave a Lum rune. Now I want a Pul so I can upgrade a weapon.
I stashed The Impaler and packed on my shield setup on the switch for the Diablo fight. I had a feeling I was going to need that shield, and man, was I ever right! Diablo completely ignored the Decoy. He was very fond of using Fire Wall (that is normally not often seen). He was also hot with the Bone Prisons, jailing Martina a total of 6 times. Good thing it's so easy to TP out of them.
The fight went on for quite a while (this was /p3). I managed to get a nice screenshot where D looks as goofy as I've seen him. Like a green horse-lion or something. Ha! If you ignore the horns, his facial profile also looks...peculiar.
The drop was nothing special, but I think the Evil Forces made for a nice screenie.
[Highlight]Conqueror Martina the Immozon and Jemali the Holy Freeze guard, level 86, 13 S/U items equipped, Hell Bloody Foothills next[/Highlight]
Players 1 Mephisto was moat tricked and died quickly (like, after only a dozen blue potions' worth of Immo Arrows). No gold/green in the drop.
As expected, Act IV was slow going due to many monsters with high life and fire immunity. The Impaler was used more than the bow. Standard procedure against Venom Lords was to attack with Charged Strike until I was out of mana and then keep stabbing with Attack. That stole back most (sometimes all) mana, thanks to Manald Heal and the fact that the ITD caused pretty much all the stabs to hit.
When I enter the Plains of Despair, I saw want I didn't want to see, Burning Souls. These are dangerous for Martina and her 31% lightning resistance, and their shots go right through merc and Decoy. I decided to play Swampy Pit before the Plains, with the small hope of getting another resist charm. Swampy Pit was interesting as usual, but no real danger (despite two Gloam boss packs and some tough dolls).
So I had to take on the Plains anyway. Careful Decoy scouting, smart recasts and being ready with potions and dodging Lightnings were key actions. At least they die fast to Immolation Arrows.
City was a breeze (but the Abyss Knights made life hard for Jemali).
Next session, I made the mistake of typing in players 8 instead of players 3...
Good thing I had already planned to get away from the Fanaticism Maw Fiend pack on the peninsula to the left of the stairs. This was even before I had discovered that monsters took forever to kill. Every one of the first three Grotesques and three Maw Fiends felt like a boss. For the Maw Fiends, I let them eat and spit all available corpses before trying to kill them.
Once I reached far away to get into players 3 territory, it wasn't so bad. But there was still that early boss pack to deal with. I waited with that pack until the way to the WP was secured and I only had Hephasto's lair and the area past Hadriel left. Here is the boss, a nasty bugger that required a couple of merc resurrections.
Hellforge gave a Lum rune. Now I want a Pul so I can upgrade a weapon.
I stashed The Impaler and packed on my shield setup on the switch for the Diablo fight. I had a feeling I was going to need that shield, and man, was I ever right! Diablo completely ignored the Decoy. He was very fond of using Fire Wall (that is normally not often seen). He was also hot with the Bone Prisons, jailing Martina a total of 6 times. Good thing it's so easy to TP out of them.
The fight went on for quite a while (this was /p3). I managed to get a nice screenshot where D looks as goofy as I've seen him. Like a green horse-lion or something. Ha! If you ignore the horns, his facial profile also looks...peculiar.
The drop was nothing special, but I think the Evil Forces made for a nice screenie.
[Highlight]Conqueror Martina the Immozon and Jemali the Holy Freeze guard, level 86, 13 S/U items equipped, Hell Bloody Foothills next[/Highlight]
Mephisto, I love you! <3 He dropped Maelstrom, unique Yew Wand. +3 Terror +3 Iron Maiden +1 CE 30% fast cast and best of all, 40% lightning resist. Resists are now 71/50/68/0 (and I have charms to boost up cold or poison resist if needed, but potions do the job when needed) I take a small mana hit by unequipping Sander's wand but that's ok.
Other finds:
ethereal Chieftain, unique Battle Axe
Tancred's Crowbill
Vampires were tough to round up and kill. Gumby and decrepify made sure they didn't get away very fast, but stooopid Ilzan simply couldn't keep his focus on killing one monster before moving on to the next. The council members were similarly painful as they threatened to run away and awaken more monsters. But they don't run away with such predictability so it wasn't all bad.
Ilzan's weapon is becoming less and less powerful. I expect more poison nova spamming from now on. Dimoak's Hew just isn't built for act 4. A bigger belt will also be nice.
Hagar is level 32 now. Act 4 normal next.
jiansonz: Great screenie with all the fire and the bone prison. Does TP out of the prison always work? Or is there a need to position yourself in a particular way before you cast the portal?
Other finds:
ethereal Chieftain, unique Battle Axe
Tancred's Crowbill
Vampires were tough to round up and kill. Gumby and decrepify made sure they didn't get away very fast, but stooopid Ilzan simply couldn't keep his focus on killing one monster before moving on to the next. The council members were similarly painful as they threatened to run away and awaken more monsters. But they don't run away with such predictability so it wasn't all bad.
Ilzan's weapon is becoming less and less powerful. I expect more poison nova spamming from now on. Dimoak's Hew just isn't built for act 4. A bigger belt will also be nice.
Hagar is level 32 now. Act 4 normal next.
jiansonz: Great screenie with all the fire and the bone prison. Does TP out of the prison always work? Or is there a need to position yourself in a particular way before you cast the portal?
Islandstone
New member
Vlad died.
The third S/U weapon dropped in the second last tomb. Neither weapon could be used by the merc, so his damage disappeared as well. Killing was slow, so I went gambling, but failed to find any spears or polearm for my merc with my gold (~1M gold). I reduced the players from 8 to 3, and entered the last false tomb. In the chest room Vlad died against lots of scarabs and a Ghoul Lord boss pack (fire enchanted I belive).
The third S/U weapon dropped in the second last tomb. Neither weapon could be used by the merc, so his damage disappeared as well. Killing was slow, so I went gambling, but failed to find any spears or polearm for my merc with my gold (~1M gold). I reduced the players from 8 to 3, and entered the last false tomb. In the chest room Vlad died against lots of scarabs and a Ghoul Lord boss pack (fire enchanted I belive).
jiansonz
New member
The early outside part of Act V Hell was, as usual, interesting. Here is Martina's monster draw in these areas:
Foothills: Thorned Hulks and Slingers
Highlands: Slayers/Lashers, Vile Archers (fire attacks) and Blunderbores
Arreat Plateu: Demon Gremlins, Carver Shamans/warriors and skeleton mages (fire)
Pit of Acheron: Maulers, Night Lords (PI Frenzytaurs) and imps
Abbadon: Devilkin Shamans/warriors, imps and Vile Witches (the nasty succubus type)
So more melee oriented than usual, and I lucked out with some wimpy imps and skelly mages.
Thresh Socket was PI and I never managed to get him to attack the Decoy rather than Jemali. Sorry, dude!
Recent finds:
Radament's Sphere Ancient Shield
Ondal's Wisdom Elder Staff
A second Manald Heal (I replaced Cathan's with this.)
Angelic Halo (gambled!)
Interesting ability with 5% extra XP on Ondal's staff, but for a single-pass character, such an ability needed to have been on an item possible to find much earlier in the game for it to be really useful.
I used the final Larzuk reward to put this (green) amulet in Skin of the Vipermagi:
Shimmering Jewel of the Icicle
All Resistances +6
Adds 3-9 cold damage over 2 seconds
The extra resists meant that one of my small charms with fire resist was now next-to-useless (84% fire resist without it), so I used that freed up space to replace a +10 Life small charm with a +24 Life large charm.
[Highlight]Conqueror Martina the Immozon and Jemali the Holy Freeze guard, level 86, 13 S/U items equipped, Hell Crystalline Passage next[/Highlight]
Foothills: Thorned Hulks and Slingers
Highlands: Slayers/Lashers, Vile Archers (fire attacks) and Blunderbores
Arreat Plateu: Demon Gremlins, Carver Shamans/warriors and skeleton mages (fire)
Pit of Acheron: Maulers, Night Lords (PI Frenzytaurs) and imps
Abbadon: Devilkin Shamans/warriors, imps and Vile Witches (the nasty succubus type)
So more melee oriented than usual, and I lucked out with some wimpy imps and skelly mages.
Thresh Socket was PI and I never managed to get him to attack the Decoy rather than Jemali. Sorry, dude!
Recent finds:
Radament's Sphere Ancient Shield
Ondal's Wisdom Elder Staff
A second Manald Heal (I replaced Cathan's with this.)
Angelic Halo (gambled!)
Interesting ability with 5% extra XP on Ondal's staff, but for a single-pass character, such an ability needed to have been on an item possible to find much earlier in the game for it to be really useful.
I used the final Larzuk reward to put this (green) amulet in Skin of the Vipermagi:
Shimmering Jewel of the Icicle
All Resistances +6
Adds 3-9 cold damage over 2 seconds
The extra resists meant that one of my small charms with fire resist was now next-to-useless (84% fire resist without it), so I used that freed up space to replace a +10 Life small charm with a +24 Life large charm.
[Highlight]Conqueror Martina the Immozon and Jemali the Holy Freeze guard, level 86, 13 S/U items equipped, Hell Crystalline Passage next[/Highlight]
OldSoldier1
New member
Looking great Jiansonz, good luck in your final push to the end!
jiansonz
New member
With the finish line approaching, I have tried to become more careful. Not that I would ever consider skipping or quitting an area (you know I wouldn't...) but I have started to enter all indoor areas on players 1 and raise that to 3 only when the first part is cleared.
Crystalline Passage and Frozen River were quite relaxed, with no real dangers. Nice to have better resists. With Malah's scroll, they now went to Fire 85, Cold 40 and Lightning 47. Cold can of course be taken to 85 with potions.
Glacial Trail was also a bit tame, but then came the Drifter Cavern, reign of the fire immune Moon Lords. Entrance area was calm, and thankfully not located on the central island. Some early Bone Mages could be killed. When Jemali chased after the last one in a pack, I noticed multicoloured Moon Lords. Ah, champs. I knew I had to fight one at a time, otherwise they would overpower the Decoy and Jemali quickly. I set up an escape portal in a far end of the southeast island, which was secured. If any duo (or more) of those bullheads would get there, I could get out, return from WP and get at least one more chance to separate them when I approached from the entrance.
This was the best fighting situation. Decoy is closest, followed by Jemali and then me. There were a total of 13 (!) such Champions and one Fanatic in this place. Every one of them required a full column of blue potions to support the Charged Strike usage. Decoy typically died about 2-4 times in such a fight, but I experienced everything from 0 to over 6 deaths. At one time, Martina happened to be closer than Jemali when a Decoy died, and her life went to half in an instant. Ouch!
There was a boss Moon Lord, too. I knew it had Might aura because we had lured a couple of his minions away from the pack and out of Might reach already. Then I saw the boss: Extra Strong! Oh crap...new method needed - too dangerous to recast Decoy when it dies. Need to spam it so the boss never attacks anything else. Then about three Charged Strikes and new Decoy recast. A good thing with high-level Decoy is its ultra cheap casting cost. Twice, the Decoy was recast further away from the boss than Jemali was, and he died. Of course I quickly popped out both times (note the portal).
Easy Frozen Tundra and tough Infernal Pit with Doom/Oblivion Knights, Balrogs and vampires. I had to do some portal parking early on several times. The Decoy usually does not survive tanking several Doom Knights for long. As soon as their heavy poison hit, I know she does not have many seconds left. Two Balrogs spawned on that weird strip of space out in the lava that you can't get to without Teleport. I had no Spellsteel with me this session, so I had to kill them with arrows. They are FI, so I used regular Attack instead of Immolation Arrow. I needed more than a full arrow pack to kill them. Thankfully, they dropped only gold (would have been very annoying if they had dropped something nice that I couldn't get to!).
Halls of Valor had a tough melee setup with Night Lords, beetles and Death Whatevers (forgot the exact name - those that shoot spikes through the ground). There were two Frenzytaur boss packs, but I saw both early, through walls, so I did not "activate" them until I had lots of space to fall back on. Also, this type of Frenzytaur is vulnerable to fire, plus they did not have too dangerous abilities either.
Halls of Pain was taxing on the patience but not dangerous. Most monsters had some type of fleeing behaviour (FI Flayer blowdarters, Temple Guardians and Zakarumites) so much of the gameplay was about pulling Jemali back to where I wanted him to be and stop him from chasing after fleeing monsters and wake up a gazillion of enemies before the last pack was killed. Halfway through, I experienced the 'ignore the merc' bug but it was really weird because it did not affect the Flayers. They still shot at him, but the rest went straight for me or the Decoy. Once I got used to it, it wasn't so bad. I just needed to be more aggressive with the Decoy castings and keep in mind that Jemali could not be used to shield me from the melee dudes or the Heirophants.
Halls of Vaught had one of the worst monster mixes possible: skelly archers, Arachs and Tomb Vipers. Both the latter are highly poisonous but their poison works differently. When I entered, I cast Cloak of Shadows immediately. There was one archer pack and one spider pack there. It got a bit crazy and Jemali died. Once I had almost reached some control, we happened to wake the first Viper pack. More crazy fighting, and I managed to win without plunging into unknown territory (always a plus). Jemali was now back to normal. What happened on the last floor was weird. Not typical 'ignore the merc' because that is not curable within a game.
Nihlathak had Cursed + Stone Skin. Deep in his room, there was one spawn pack of Vipers, one of spiders and two of archers. Lots of work needed to lure out the meleers and kill the archers. Before I was done, Jemali had died (probably Corpse Exploded too much) and the Decoy soon was also dead. A frenzied Ice Spawn (not mutated, but boosted with that red aura that makes them hit harder) chased me and I instincively fled.
BOOM!!
No visible life! Panic purple!
There must have been a corpse there just in front of the mound that acts as a wall to Nihlathak's room and here I was on that corpse, AMPED! In any other version of D2, I'd be very dead by now.
I thanked my good luck, my 85% fire resist and heavy focus on getting life as high as possible, and vowed to be more careful. Stand FAR away from corpses and if Jemali dies, recast Decoy in Nilly's face and TP out asap.
Everything went according to plan from then on.
Recent finds:
- Cloudcrack (grailer for me, if you count v1.10 and onwards. This sure brought back memories from my first Swordmistress (= passive skills amazon using 2h-swords) back in Softcore 1.09. This was her weapon for the late game.)
- Ohm rune, from random container on Frozen Tundra (my second highest rune ever)
- Mal rune, in Halls of Pain (only second Mal I've ever seen)
Anything above Pul is useless in this tourney! I muled off those runes to a special stash, in case I ever feel like twinking some nice RW, or maybe I'll just eventually give that stash away. It starts to get quite impressive now (at least for my standards).
[Highlight]Conqueror Martina the Immozon and Jemali the Holy Freeze guard, level 86, 13 S/U items equipped, Hell Ancients' Way next[/Highlight]
(Next session will be the Guardian run. I'll bring Speelsteel so I can separate Ancients with Teleports. Not sure if I want to bring my spear to the Summit. Talic is the FI one, isn't he? Not sure I want to be close to him at all. Those 8 spaces will be much desired for potions (plus I think I want a backup arrow pack with me). Maybe I'll bring it, drop it on the ground and then go back for potions...)
Crystalline Passage and Frozen River were quite relaxed, with no real dangers. Nice to have better resists. With Malah's scroll, they now went to Fire 85, Cold 40 and Lightning 47. Cold can of course be taken to 85 with potions.
Glacial Trail was also a bit tame, but then came the Drifter Cavern, reign of the fire immune Moon Lords. Entrance area was calm, and thankfully not located on the central island. Some early Bone Mages could be killed. When Jemali chased after the last one in a pack, I noticed multicoloured Moon Lords. Ah, champs. I knew I had to fight one at a time, otherwise they would overpower the Decoy and Jemali quickly. I set up an escape portal in a far end of the southeast island, which was secured. If any duo (or more) of those bullheads would get there, I could get out, return from WP and get at least one more chance to separate them when I approached from the entrance.
This was the best fighting situation. Decoy is closest, followed by Jemali and then me. There were a total of 13 (!) such Champions and one Fanatic in this place. Every one of them required a full column of blue potions to support the Charged Strike usage. Decoy typically died about 2-4 times in such a fight, but I experienced everything from 0 to over 6 deaths. At one time, Martina happened to be closer than Jemali when a Decoy died, and her life went to half in an instant. Ouch!
There was a boss Moon Lord, too. I knew it had Might aura because we had lured a couple of his minions away from the pack and out of Might reach already. Then I saw the boss: Extra Strong! Oh crap...new method needed - too dangerous to recast Decoy when it dies. Need to spam it so the boss never attacks anything else. Then about three Charged Strikes and new Decoy recast. A good thing with high-level Decoy is its ultra cheap casting cost. Twice, the Decoy was recast further away from the boss than Jemali was, and he died. Of course I quickly popped out both times (note the portal).
Easy Frozen Tundra and tough Infernal Pit with Doom/Oblivion Knights, Balrogs and vampires. I had to do some portal parking early on several times. The Decoy usually does not survive tanking several Doom Knights for long. As soon as their heavy poison hit, I know she does not have many seconds left. Two Balrogs spawned on that weird strip of space out in the lava that you can't get to without Teleport. I had no Spellsteel with me this session, so I had to kill them with arrows. They are FI, so I used regular Attack instead of Immolation Arrow. I needed more than a full arrow pack to kill them. Thankfully, they dropped only gold (would have been very annoying if they had dropped something nice that I couldn't get to!).
Halls of Valor had a tough melee setup with Night Lords, beetles and Death Whatevers (forgot the exact name - those that shoot spikes through the ground). There were two Frenzytaur boss packs, but I saw both early, through walls, so I did not "activate" them until I had lots of space to fall back on. Also, this type of Frenzytaur is vulnerable to fire, plus they did not have too dangerous abilities either.
Halls of Pain was taxing on the patience but not dangerous. Most monsters had some type of fleeing behaviour (FI Flayer blowdarters, Temple Guardians and Zakarumites) so much of the gameplay was about pulling Jemali back to where I wanted him to be and stop him from chasing after fleeing monsters and wake up a gazillion of enemies before the last pack was killed. Halfway through, I experienced the 'ignore the merc' bug but it was really weird because it did not affect the Flayers. They still shot at him, but the rest went straight for me or the Decoy. Once I got used to it, it wasn't so bad. I just needed to be more aggressive with the Decoy castings and keep in mind that Jemali could not be used to shield me from the melee dudes or the Heirophants.
Halls of Vaught had one of the worst monster mixes possible: skelly archers, Arachs and Tomb Vipers. Both the latter are highly poisonous but their poison works differently. When I entered, I cast Cloak of Shadows immediately. There was one archer pack and one spider pack there. It got a bit crazy and Jemali died. Once I had almost reached some control, we happened to wake the first Viper pack. More crazy fighting, and I managed to win without plunging into unknown territory (always a plus). Jemali was now back to normal. What happened on the last floor was weird. Not typical 'ignore the merc' because that is not curable within a game.
Nihlathak had Cursed + Stone Skin. Deep in his room, there was one spawn pack of Vipers, one of spiders and two of archers. Lots of work needed to lure out the meleers and kill the archers. Before I was done, Jemali had died (probably Corpse Exploded too much) and the Decoy soon was also dead. A frenzied Ice Spawn (not mutated, but boosted with that red aura that makes them hit harder) chased me and I instincively fled.
BOOM!!
No visible life! Panic purple!
There must have been a corpse there just in front of the mound that acts as a wall to Nihlathak's room and here I was on that corpse, AMPED! In any other version of D2, I'd be very dead by now.
I thanked my good luck, my 85% fire resist and heavy focus on getting life as high as possible, and vowed to be more careful. Stand FAR away from corpses and if Jemali dies, recast Decoy in Nilly's face and TP out asap.
Everything went according to plan from then on.
Recent finds:
- Cloudcrack (grailer for me, if you count v1.10 and onwards. This sure brought back memories from my first Swordmistress (= passive skills amazon using 2h-swords) back in Softcore 1.09. This was her weapon for the late game.)
- Ohm rune, from random container on Frozen Tundra (my second highest rune ever)
- Mal rune, in Halls of Pain (only second Mal I've ever seen)
Anything above Pul is useless in this tourney! I muled off those runes to a special stash, in case I ever feel like twinking some nice RW, or maybe I'll just eventually give that stash away. It starts to get quite impressive now (at least for my standards).
[Highlight]Conqueror Martina the Immozon and Jemali the Holy Freeze guard, level 86, 13 S/U items equipped, Hell Ancients' Way next[/Highlight]
(Next session will be the Guardian run. I'll bring Speelsteel so I can separate Ancients with Teleports. Not sure if I want to bring my spear to the Summit. Talic is the FI one, isn't he? Not sure I want to be close to him at all. Those 8 spaces will be much desired for potions (plus I think I want a backup arrow pack with me). Maybe I'll bring it, drop it on the ground and then go back for potions...)
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Very nice progress, and nice first ohm find! If only you could use runewords you could (probably) make a CtA for the first time
Don't forget to periodically pick up the arrow pack during your fights, because they're on a timer and gabby lost for that reason, right?
doesn't hurt to bring 2 of them
Don't forget to periodically pick up the arrow pack during your fights, because they're on a timer and gabby lost for that reason, right?
doesn't hurt to bring 2 of them
GoldenredDragon
New member
Heyo !
Update : Golgren got his first weapon ! Isenhart's Brand ! Not that bad as weapons go. But that's one less bow possibility available for Gwini, my faithful rogue. He's now sitting at level 25, having cleared all the desert areas before going into the palace. No sewers yet. Poison explosion is really good, and it costs very little mana (I mean with the amount of blue pots all over the place...), so I spam it very hard whenever I kill loads of skeletons. And DV is really the best skill in the game.
Finds : Arctic armor thing. So there goes my 18MF. And Coif of Glory (that I put on the rogue, so she too can blind people) so there goes another 18MF. Oh well. Still missing boots, gloves, rings and amulet.
G.R.D. (Not quite as far as some around here... )
Update : Golgren got his first weapon ! Isenhart's Brand ! Not that bad as weapons go. But that's one less bow possibility available for Gwini, my faithful rogue. He's now sitting at level 25, having cleared all the desert areas before going into the palace. No sewers yet. Poison explosion is really good, and it costs very little mana (I mean with the amount of blue pots all over the place...), so I spam it very hard whenever I kill loads of skeletons. And DV is really the best skill in the game.
Finds : Arctic armor thing. So there goes my 18MF. And Coif of Glory (that I put on the rogue, so she too can blind people) so there goes another 18MF. Oh well. Still missing boots, gloves, rings and amulet.
G.R.D. (Not quite as far as some around here...
)
