Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II
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[U]Forum name Character Lvl Merc Area reached[/U]
Oscuro ? (D) 27 A1 Cold Chaos Sanctuary R.I.P. (Diablo)
jiansonz Pete (N) 28 A5 True Tomb
Oscuro ? (Asn) 20 A2 Might Halls of the Dead R.I.P. (Bloodwitch the Wild)
Rhia Aimless Andy (D) 19? A2 Thorns Jail lvl 2 R.I.P. (Pitspawn Fouldog & 2 minions)
JayeM Barbie (Ama) 11 A3 unknown Barracks R.I.P. (Black Rogue boss pack + archers)
PandadudeSP Modnar (P) 14 A2 Might Black Marsh
ILikeRocks Korweil (B) 13 A3 unknown Black Marsh
Vang WoG (N) 11 A2 Prayer Cold Plains
linkato1 Hulk (B) 7 A5 Cold Plains
zarfen Joanne (Ama) 12 A1 Fire
Pyrohemia Iron_Wolf (Ama) A3 unknown
Pipboy Lex (P) A2 Prayer
sirpoopsalot ? (P) A2 Thorns
Gahzban ? (Asn) A3 Cold
Morathi Wendy (S) A5
Amoeba Napkin (B) A3 Lightning
RGValdearg RandomGuy (P) A3 Fire
Poppis Sherah (S) A5
JayeM Vincent (N) A5
Rhia Slapdash (P) A1 Cold
Machete Shazza (Ama) A1 Cold
Alright, it´s about time for a table!
(Note: I prefer to be the one maintaining the table - we don´t need to see it every other post...)
Condolences to the fallen. I see that the notorius HC killers Fouldog, Bloodwitch and Diablo got new notches in their belts.
Pete the Necromancer is doing quite well.
(btw, it may look like I´ve played a lot, but I really only got a head start. I hadn´t even finished up the rule writing when I was halfway through Act II.)
Pete was lucky with two things early on:
- Getting a point in Clay Golem at level 7
- Reaching STR 25 one or two levels earlier than what would be expected on average
So he could soon use a Scepter. Factor in some early points in Amplify Damage, and the early areas were no trouble. Javelins were used to keep the distance to LE bosses and death effects of CE and FE bosses.
Pete struggled quite a bit in late Act I, because the damage was lacking. He did pick up a rather powerful rare ethereal Axe (with self-repair) but it was damn slow...
In time for the showdown with Andariel, Pete had rolled a point in Iron Maiden (lucky!) so that and a
large number of golems were used to kill her.
Got lucky again, and reached STR 41 on the last level-up in Act 1. In Act II, Pete started off by buying a Deadly Flail of Venom, and a short time later he gambled some pretty cool Short Spears. They had >70% ED. I guess I must have rolled both a +%ED prefix and a '+%ED and +AR' prefix. Pete
still has these javelins on the switch.
He lured away Radament´s posse to a
strategic point and made sure to destroy the corpses when they were defeated.
Pete found his third Eld rune in the Far Oasis, so he could cube up to a Tir and make a 'Steel' Flail, a weapon he still uses. (I quickly understood that buying wands for staffmods with skills I wanted to use was not the way to go at the moment - wands are too crappy weapons for fighting!).
Voodoo heads have been used ever since they started to drop. Since Pete has little life and I still have not rolled any points in Bone Armor, I tote around a non-magical Preserved Head with +1 to Bone Armor (and +1 DV and +1 RS).
Two cube recipes will be used many times, in order to improve my chances of getting good voodoo heads:
* Magical shield + Spiked Club + 2 skulls -> magical shield of Spikes. Item level gets set to 30, so I have a chance to get +1 to a skill tree with the four lowliest head types. No success here yet (other than improving the sales price for a couple of heads)
* Low quality armor + El rune + chippie -> Normal quality armor. This sets the ilvl to 1, so only level 1 and level 6 skills are possible. This is a way to see more heads with good runeword potential. My best result here is a head with bonuses to the very three 'level 1 and 6' skills I think I´ll appreciate the most in the long-term perspective: +1 Corpse Explosion, +2 Dim Vision and +2 Clay Golem.
The way I fight now is to let the golem engage things, then I wade in and hit monsters 'over the shoulder' of the golem. The excellent range of the Flail makes this possible.
I got a newfound respect for a skill I have never used before. In Halls of the Dead, I got annoyed with all those Returned. I figured Corpse Explosion wouldn´t help much since Returned have so little life. "What´s this, Poison Explosion? 28-86 damage. That´s not much, unless the monsters are wimpy. Hey, didn´t I just think that Returned have so little life!?" Yay, a very useful skill, this Poison Explosion. On about the third casting, whole packs of Retuned dropped like flies. I was quick to clear out corpses with my cheapest corpse destruction skill, Raise Skeleton.
I didn´t dare to go in clinch with Fangskin. I really love the fact that the golem is immune to knockback. Amped (/p8) Fangskin went to down after being hit by only
four of Pete´s powerful javelins! This is still
my method vs LE bosses.
Some lucky gambles so far. Circlet of Luck already in Lost City, Boots of Luck when I cleared the tombs. So now I engage in really "posh"/luxury gambling: for amulets. It´s almost amazing I have not been able to get anything with more MF than 14. One would think at least a Fortune one would have showed up by now. Oh well, just need to keep at it, I guess.
Other lucky finds:
TWO Angelic Halos, both in Claw Viper Temple. Nice future potential.
Gambled Tancred´s Hobnails, already at level 26 (when there was only 40% chance that the ilvl would be high enough to make the Hobnails even possible. So the chance was 1 in 2500 on each gamble!). It would be really cool and useful to find the amulet now.
Pete has over 40% fire + lightning resists, mostly thanks to some nice charms and his 19% Ocher Belt of Stability.
Skill rolls have been quite good. In the Summoning tree, I have 2 RS, 1 SM, 3 RSM, 2 Clay Golem and 2 Golem Mastery. P&B tree holds Teeth 4 (yuck!), CE 2, PD 1, PE 1 and Bone Spear 1. I have a point in all curses up to the important and useful DV, Life Tap and Terror. Two additional points in Amp and one in IM. Nothing feels wasted in the curses tree.
[Highlight]Pete the Necromancer, level 28, Tal Rasha´s True Tomb next.[/Highlight]
(I could just write my own program, but dammit, I'm frigging lazy..)
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