Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

[jiansonz]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Nice to see several new faces! GL to all of you. :yes:

@Merlin: Ouch! You seem to be cursed somehow...



A very interesting act (and a little more) for Pete. I took the whole thing on /players 3, which was actually much easier than I had expected. Those Revives make some GODLY tanks! With my new wand and Homunculus, Revive works at level 5, and I could often have my own private little army.

My gear choice was maybe a little too much on the conservative side, with priority to +life and resists (and Teleport charges) over +skills and MF. However, I think Pete and his team is certainly powerful enough to finish the game; and then a little extra cushion towards distasters may not be bad.

Ms. Raven getting seriously mugged by her former servants.

For those of you who didn´t belive the Fool's/Grinding selling "trick" I mentioned in the rules, here is proof:
* Selling from inventory.
* Selling from equipped slot.

The occasional annoying unbreakable PI ghost boss showed up. OW from Riphook and a Pestilent War Sword for the merc (helped by Lower Resist) took them down. Eventually...

Gosh, I am running out of hotkeys! But I decided to free up the keys I had been using for Raise Skeleton and Raise Skeletal Mage. Those skills are pretty much useless at the low levels they are at.

Scary start in Tower Cellar level 5, with a Holy Freeze archer boss. Thankfully, Drus soon cornered that boss, and Life Tap was enough to keep him alive.

I do not remember exactly where, but a rare Highland Blade dropped around the middle of the act. Those are, of course, exciting for me to ID.
Yowzers!! :crazyeyes::thumbup:

What had been some rather easy progress now became just ridiculous. The speed which Drus cleaved up the enemies has to bee seen to be believed. He didn´t need much Life Tap either. Because of his high damage output, the little leech on his helm was quite enough most of the time. Add in the Revives, the golem (which has some major slowing going on) and Pete with 'control' curses (Terror and DV) and Amp + CE and it was a slaughter. The D2 random gods sure has smiled upon me...

This screenie is called: "Insert the blade here"
(Decrepify + golem was enough to keep both Pete and Drus out of trouble.)

Not that many interesting finds during the act, with the exception of Duriel´s Shell. A defensively much stronger CBF option for Drus than The Spirit Shroud. A good find.
I also found an elite unique: Bloodmoon. Not ethereal, so it was a puny weapon.

On level 3 of the Sewers, I got my miracle drop. A grey Legend Sword. Ethereal and with 3 sockets! Less than half an hour later, I finally found another Shael rune.

With all three imbues left and the chance to chippe-cube a Cruel sword (plus the current Highland Blade isn´t exactly sucky either...), I thought about a Duress armor. But I was almost addicted to the merc having CBF. It´s just immensely useful, because it makes him able to keep whacking the monsters and healing himself (with Life Tap help, if the situation is serious). Also, Duress has cold damage, which can be a major bummer in stairs trap situations when I desperately need to Revive or explode the first corpses that drop.

So, in the end, the choice wasn´t that hard. :smug:

I can use those imbues on circlets, and I can use the chippies to reroll a Grave Wand*, hoping for a Necromancer´s with useful staffmods, maybe even with a useful suffix, and 2 sockets if I get lucky. Oh yeah, it has potential...

(*Grave Wands have qlvl=49, and magic_lvl=1, so they can get Necromancer´s at any ilvl)


Waste, Tomb, Hills and Halls: cleaned out with extreme ease.
I don´t even need to block the mummy sarcophagi - a CE chain cleans house.

(And I seriously LOVE the Chain Lightning show!)


[Highlight]Conqueror Pete the Necromancer and Drus the Barbarian merc, level 81, Hell Far Oasis next. [/Highlight]

 

[Rhia]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Wonderful job to Pete and Drus!
I've not had any time to play anything with my job, but I still read every once in awhile and I love reading the updates!

 

[sethyboy]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

What the?

I thought this thread had died. It had no posts for many days and now there are lots. :O

Oh well, I guess I'll have to juggle between 2 tourneys and my non-tourney char now...

As for Ragnar, he has done pretty well since the last update. I had a few close calls with the 876889 unique skeleton archer packs in the underground passage, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.

Level 17

Stats (including +stats):

Strength - 52 - I have gotten really lucky with the strength stat. Something tells me it isn't helping as much as I want it to though.
Dexterity - 40 - I have been OK with dex. I still hit everything enough that I don't lack it.
Vitality - 49 - Also gotten pretty lucky here.
Energy - 29 - Besides a couple lof levels with 3 in energy, I have also gotten lucky here.

Overall, my stats are very lucky (although I wish it was on another class).

Skills:

1 Bash
1 Double Swing
2 Leap
1 Stun
1 Double Throw

1 Howl
1 Shout
3 Find Potion (sad face)

2 Sword mastery
1 Mace Mastery
2 Spear Mastery
1 Pole Arm Mastery

Overall, my skills aren't too good. I suppose the sword and mace mastery help since my new decent weapons are a sword and a mace. As for combat skills, I mainly use double swing and not much else.

 

[OldSoldier1]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Well done Jiansonz! I haven't posted in a long time about Calavera, because, well, she encountered this.

I usually don't concern myself much with cold resist, especially in normal. Add in the fact that my random vitality rolls were about 20 fewer than any of the others, and she had pretty low life for being in A5.

I think what actually happened was that Frozenstein's death nova hit at the same time that the CoS ran out, because that lone reanimated horde (which had risen from the dead) charged me, so it might have been a one-two punch. It certainly happened without any warning from full life to death.

As such Calavera's reign of vengeance was ended and she rests in peace.

She was pretty tedious to play. I never got any points into useful traps (Blade Fury) any Shadows or Mind Blast. She hadn't even opened up Lightning Sentry, so Death Sentry likely would have been relegated to a claw mod, limiting her options.

Keep up the good fight!

 

[XxUberStarxX]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Sir_Lionell has been tracking along nicely through Act I and am currently in Act II in the Arcane Sanctuary. From what i remember from my first attempt it takes quite along time to do full clears of the arcane sanctuary and tombs, so i think i'll sleep on it for the moment. The only equipment of note are the 2 hsarus pieces i've found hsarus belt and boots.

Oh and say hello to my blessed aim merc Razan. Got to say it's extremely helpful having a merc, especially with the damage he's doing.

Stats
A little is strength, not much in dex, a fair amount in vit and far too much in energy, breaks my heart every time i have to put a point in it. Some of the strength you see above is from charms and equip, same with the dex.

Skills:

3 Prayer
6 Resist fire :weep:
2 Defiance
2 Resist cold
1 Cleansing
1 Resist Lightning
1 Vigor

1 Might
2 Holy fire
1 Thorns

4 Smite
2 Charge

Haven't been too lucky with the skills, especially the 6 in resist fire, which is absolutely useless. Been using Holy fire as the main aura and switching between charge and zeal, depending on which scepter i'm using. I obviously have a scepter with zeal as i haven't got a skill point in it yet.

[highlight]Sir_Lionell, Arcane Sanctuary, Lvl 25[/highlight]

Update:

Managed to clear out the tombs without any dramas and Duriel went down without much of a fight, as per usual didn't drop anything useful. Made it all the way through Act III with relative ease on players 4 and gave mephisto an old school *** whoopin. As with Duriel he didn't drop anything useful.

After the marathon that was Act III, was glad to reach Act IV knowing it wouldn't take very long to clear out. Took a little time to kill izual, but he went down eventually none the less. Got to the forge and took down Hephasto, got a perfect Ruby and an eth rune from the forge, was hoping for a better rune, nevermind. Retro fitted Sir_lionell with a rare short spear for his journey throught the Chaos Sanctuary, was still using holy fire with charge as my main skills and wasn't sure if charge is subject to iron maiden, so i took no chances. The battle with diablo took forever i actually resorted to using sacrifice as the main attack as charge doesn't seem to work to well against single targets. Finally a useful drop, the Tannr Gorerod. Razan has been making quite good use of it!

Started Act V on players 2 and have keep it there, i haven't found a decent weapon yet and any higher setting is too hard. Razan seems to be doing most of the killing and i just chip in where i can. Found a sol rune as i was clearing the bloody foothills, combine that with my ort rune from the rescue on mount arreat quest and i've got a Lore helm with +1 skills :thumbup:, just need to find the right helm for it. Had a bit of a minor scare in the Crystalline passage when i ran into a pack of these not once but twice. Nasty bastards, especially once they get a few hits in and go frenzy on you. As it stands, i've rescued anya and plan to continue after a bit of shut eye. Only just recently got a point in blessed hammer which is the last pre req for Holy shield. Hoping to get a point there before i get to the ancients otherwise i don't know if i'll survive.

[highlight]Sir_Lionell, Nihlathak's Temple, Lvl 37[/highlight]

 

[XxUberStarxX]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Is this tourney over or am i the only one actively playing at the moment? Anyway, Sir_lionell managed to take down the ancients in normal on players 1 with relative ease and then went on and after a fairly long battle with Baal he is now officially crowned Slayer Sir_lionell. Soon realized that Sir_lionell was in desperate need of a new (and powerful) weapon if he was going to make it anywhere in Nightmare. Found a 4 socket battle scythe early on and after much searching in Act I, he eventually found a tir rune so as to make this baby. Now it really kills me to put stats in energy he hasn't used a mana pot since!

After making the insight he cleared the rest of Act I on players 4 and after a minor skirmish with Andariel was in Act II. Made a couple of nice unique finds in Act I and II here and here. Was able to clear the majority of Act II on players 2-4 with several quick gulps of rejuv potions saving his bacon several times. I have had to radically change my playing style for this tourney, as i am so used to just barreling in all guns blazing, consequences be damned. I have to remember the first goal is preservation.

Still using charge as his main attack and holy freeze is now the main aura, coupled with insight he does roughly 400-820 charge damage. Now all he needs is to find another sol rune so i can upgrade Razan's unique pike into a lance. Eventually made it up to Duriel. Twas an epic battle to be sure, Razan could only take about 4-5 hits before i had to tp out and go to the healer. But after about 20 tp's in and out, he eventually succumbed, dropping a unique jo staff. Pretty useless for a paladin! Oh if only he had been a sorc, has so far found Trang golves(20fcr), spectral shard unique blade(50fcr) and a rare +2 light skills with 16 all resists. Luck of the draw i guess.

Updated skills:

5 Prayer :rant:
7 Resist fire :rant:
2 Defiance
4 Resist cold
2 Cleansing
3 Resist Lightning
2 Vigor
1 Meditation
2 Salvation

1 Might
3 Holy fire
4 Thorns
1 Blessed aim
3 Holy freeze
1 Sanctuary
1 Conviction

2 Sacrifice
6 Smite
2 Holy bolt
3 Zeal
2 Charge
2 Blessed hammer
2 Holy shield (which strange enough i don't use as his main weapon is 2h)

[highlight]Sir_Lionell, Nightmare, Spider Forest, Lvl 56[/highlight]

 

[jiansonz]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Nice progress, and it´s always cool to see a character with a scythe. :thumbsup:

Is this tourney over or am i the only one actively playing at the moment?

I am still in, but I give priority to Green With Envy III at the moment. Assassin is the only class I need for my SPF tourney septavirate, plus I love the build I am plying there. So she gets my attention, probably until she dies or becomes Guardian.

Now all he needs is to find another sol rune so i can upgrade Razan's unique pike into a lance.

Tannr Gorerod? The slow pike with a little fire damage and only up to +100% ED?

If you have Ort + Amn, you should be able to do better than that by gambling a rare weapon and upgrading it. You have a chance to get Ferocious (up to +200%) damage on it if ilvl-qlvl/2 is at least 41.
For Example, Pikes are qlvl 24, and the average ilvl of your gambles is 56. So you´ll get on average 56-24/2=44 as affix level on gambled Pikes. 80% of your gambled Pikes will be high enough for Ferocious to be possible.

There may be better item types to go for, though (as they are faster). I haven´t checked their ilvl and how far from a Lance the base damage of the exceptional weapon type is.

 

[XxUberStarxX]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Tannr Gorerod? The slow pike with a little fire damage and only up to +100% ED?

If you have Ort + Amn, you should be able to do better than that by gambling a rare weapon and upgrading it. You have a chance to get Ferocious (up to +200%) damage on it if ilvl-qlvl/2 is at least 41.
For Example, Pikes are qlvl 24, and the average ilvl of your gambles is 56. So you´ll get on average 56-24/2=44 as affix level on gambled Pikes. 80% of your gambled Pikes will be high enough for Ferocious to be possible.

There may be better item types to go for, though (as they are faster). I haven´t checked their ilvl and how for from a Lance the base damage of the exceptional weapon type is.

Hi Jiansonz, nice to know there is at least one person still playing! Thanks for the kind words and advice, i would never of thought to gamble a rare and then upgrade it, will start gambling like mad asap. Have been making a fair bit of progress as this is the only SPF tourney i'm in. Plus the fact i'm off work for 2 weeks after an operation on my hand, so all i'm doing is eating, sleeping and playing D2. Might have a look at that Green with Envy tourney myself. Cheers!

 

[XxUberStarxX]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Unfortunately i just went back and was clearing out the parts of the Arcane Sanctuary that i missed the first time through, and rushed head first into a pack of 15 monsters, got surrounded and inevitably Sir_Lionell is no more. :banghead: Went through 12 rejuvs, 4 super healing pots didn't help, even threw up a tp but couldn't get to it.

Having too much fun to stop now, so third times a charm. Say hello to Cador the barbarian who will be using an Act III lightning merc. (Lets see if i can learn to be a little more cautious this time. :whistling

 

[jiansonz]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Unfortunately i just went back and was clearing out the parts of the Arcane Sanctuary that i missed the first time through, and rushed head first into a pack of 15 monsters, got surrounded and inevitably Sir_Lionell is no more. :banghead: Went through 12 rejuvs, 4 super healing pots didn't help, even threw up a tp but couldn't get to it.

Major Ouch!

Yes, this place is not to be underestimated, because in some parts it´s easy to get surrounded. I lost a Druid here in the 'When it rains, it pours' tourney (also in Nightmare). He got sandwiched between Ghoul Lords on the stairs up to the Summoner. The irony is that my summons kept me safe from the Summoner´s spells, but it was the combined fire spells (and some cold punches) from 2-3 Ghoul Lords that did me in.

Having too much fun to stop now, so third times a charm. Say hello to Cador the barbarian who will be using an Act III lightning merc. (Lets see if i can learn to be a little more cautious this time. :whistling

That´s the spirit! :thumbsup:

You drew an intersting combo, the same as I Guardianed in the first tourney I hosted (Set & Uniuqe Worshippers). We had a little more control over the skillpoints there (only 2/3 of them were random) and full control over the statpoints. Near the end, I was pretty impressed by my Lightning mage (although I would have preferred them to use Lightning a lot more than Charged Bolt, not the other way around...). For example, in the Arcane Sanctuary on Hell difficulty, he shot down the Specters pretty quickly so I didn´t need to use the bothersome Berserk skill much at all.

(Sidenote: why did I use a Lighting merc there? Well, tourney rules stated that we had to choose merc type so we could equip as many of our S/U items as possible. So once we had found 3 shields and three 1h-weapons (including a sword) we had to use Act III mercs. The fire variant sucks, and I was addicted to the Find Item skill. I wanted to use it on every corpse, so I avoided the use of cold damage of any kind.)

 

[XxUberStarxX]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Cador has been leveling up nicely on players 8 in Act I till i got to the outer cloister. Did the rest on players 4 mainly because cador's clvl (17) was just too far ahead of the alvl and the experience penalty wasn't worth it. Took down Andariel with ease and she came up with an interesting drop. Three rare wrist blades! Would be good if he was an assassin. Currently up to the Far Oasis in Act II, just made a nice "steel" battle axe which should serve me well for most of Act II.

Skills:

4 Howl
1 Find potion
2 Shout

2 Axe mast
3 Mace mast
1 Pole mast
1 Throw mast
1 Spear mast
1 Increased stamina
1 Iron skin

2 Bash
1 Leap
1 Stun
1 Leap attack

[highlight]Cador, Far Oasis, Lvl 21[/highlight]

 

[XxUberStarxX]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Cador has been traveling along nicely, after finishing the marathon that is Act II, he reached Duriel and disposed of him fairly easily, although i realized half way through that using a shield was much more effective than a 2h weapon. With a 1h weapon + shield duriel hits far less. Nothing much to note about Act III except for a couple of nice finds: unique Spiked Shield, Berserkers Hauberk Splint Mail which adds +1 to barb skills and Sigon's belt + Shield, the shield adding +1 to all skills as well but Cador doesn't have the strength to wear it yet. Took down Mephisto with relative ease, having Raldin my new Iron Wolf lightning merc certainly helps.

Reached Act IV still using a "steel" flail that i made back in Act II, considering its low damage output, i did most of Act IV on /players 2 and the CS on /players 1. Cleaned up the CS with a short spear and Raldin doing most of the killing and after opening all five seals it was time to tackle Diablo. Was a little worried about taking him on, since i wasn't sure my weapon would even do any damage, but in the end it was enough and as usual Raldin did a great job. Just had to make sure i stayed away from his fire/lightning attack as i only had 33 lightning resist. Lo and behold when diablo died this popped out! Now i have 3 peices of the Sigons set. The extra 30 ias on the gloves and the 10 life leech as a partial set bonus will come in very handy.

Skills:

4 Howl
1 Find potion
2 Shout
2 Find item
1 Battle orders

2 Axe mast
3 Mace mast
1 Pole mast
2 Throw mast
2 Spear mast
2 Increased stamina
2 Iron skin

2 Bash
2 Leap
2 Stun
2 Leap attack
1 Concentration

[highlight]Cador, Bloody Foothills, Lvl 30[/highlight]

 

[sheayua]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

I haven't played this game for 5 years. Because of this thread I'm in.

Why this tournament is amazing:
play w/ the cards you're dealt, great idea

you don't have to deal with stupid bnet, you can just play the game the way it was meant to be played, no rushes, no MF or lvling runs, just straight out play, randomizing holds all else equal except your ability to play the game, without dying.

there's no incentive to cheat really, since that defeats the purpose of joining this tournament..

you don't have to keep up with the latest duping or be afraid of the latest duping techniques.

best of all, you don't turn into a bot, doing cow runs or baal runs or meph runs or whatever the heck they do on bnet these days.

I've also never played past patch 1.09, so this will be a new experience.

I'm in.. assassin, never played this char before. Lvl 5, Cold Plains

 

[jiansonz]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

@sheayua: Nice post - you point out several things about what makes this tourney format interesting (although I don´t think total randomization falls under "how the game was actually meant to be played"...:grin

randomizing holds all else equal except your ability to play the game, without dying.

Yeah, plus sheer luck (especially with item drops).

I'm in.. assassin, never played this char before. Lvl 5, Cold Plains

Assassins have many good one-point wonders, so it was a good roll. What merc type did you roll?

 

[XxUberStarxX]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Cador has now made it into Nightmare difficulty. Act V was fairly slow and tedious as he was using a rare war hammer and even with the 30 ias on the sigon's gloves his killing speed was slow even on P1. With BO his life was around 550 so he wasn't in any real danger of dying even against the ancients. Had only one real NDE and that was against Baal, the battle took about 10 mins and i guess i just let my guard down a bit. Don't know how close it was but his life globe was down to a sliver, a couple of rejuvs later it was back into the fray. Cleared out the Den of Evil in nightmare also, still can't manage to get a point in beserk yet.

[highlight]Cador, Nightmare Cold plains, lvl 39[/highlight]

 

[Greizer]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Hello,

Sorry for the intrusion (I'm not participating in this tournament), but I have a question regarding rule #13, namely: does this work on Bnet? Cause if it does and it yields enough, it could be a major exploit (no need for a gold finder!).

Sorry if the question has already been answered; I'm too lazy to read through 8 pages.

Gl to all who participate. I hate randomness more than most things, and one tournament at a time is enough (I'm planning on taking part in the "Sword of Destiny" tournament). :yes:

 

[jiansonz]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Sorry for the intrusion (I'm not participating in this tournament), but I have a question regarding rule #13, namely: does this work on Bnet? Cause if it does and it yields enough, it could be a major exploit (no need for a gold finder!).

I think it worked for a time, and then they fixed it.

 

[Greizer]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

I think it worked for a time, and then they fixed it.

Ok, thanks for the fast answer. I guess I could try it myself to be sure, but for now I'll take your word for it; I suppose it would be known if it still worked. I hear many other things are still f'ed up in single player that they fixed on Bnet... Maybe the patch will fix some of them. :cloud9: :fire: :weep: :grouphug:

 

[sheayua]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

I rolled an Act 2 Normal offensive blessed aim merc. Lookin forward to it.

I've played hardcore with a variety of different builds just not with an assassin yet. I'm fairly well-versed in knowing how to stay alive, but I've had many save-exits in the life of my characters... looks like i'll be even more conservative this time around.

good times

update later today

 

[sheayua]

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Update: lvl 17, just got the Jail Level 1 WP. Heading into Jail level 2 tomorrow morning. I literally have never had this much fun in D2 since classic's 1.04 version. I recommend everyone to play this tournament!!

There were some semi-dramatic moments but not really. Always have an ample supply of potions and cobra strike + tiger strike + dragon talon absolutely crushed an 8 player smith. Cruising along right now, even demolishing large crowds of Fallen, Wrath and Dark Clans with an assortment of Blade Sentinel, Wake of Fire, and Tiger/Cobra/Talon.

In desperate times, I'll unleash a few wake of fires and run away. Come back unleash run away. Lame group of Champion skeleton mages shootin fire bolts ... burned to death.

I look forward to fighting Andariel, my one drop so far was a set Death's gloves, which give 50% poison resist.. should be pretty helpful against Andy.

More updates tomorrow morning.. gambled a rare cestus, increased damage pretty significantly.

Burst of speed is also very very useful, even at lvl 1.

The first few hours of playing confirmed that this randomized tournament is a test of d2 resourcefulness. How well can you play the cards you are given? How well do you know the map? The enemies? Your skills? Where do you get your best gear? Gambling? Charsi? Finds? Most dramatic of all, can you survive fighting melee and range opponents, some of which are champions, two of which are elites and your health is dropping 25%/hit?

Assassin, lvl 17, entering Jail level 2.. tomorrow.