Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II
Another update from a place without my writeup, but oh well, the detailed listings will come soon!
Fate and Fiona are level 57 and have reached the Arcane Sanctuary. Still travelling along pretty well doing full clear /players 8.
The test of my resolve to do all full clears will be soon when I get to the Canyon of the Magi. Generally I hate doing all the tombs, particularly because I don't have any area of effect skills (that are effective at /players 8 at least), and no reliable method of corpse disposal assuming unravellers will abound. My cold rogue merc and my own minimal added cold damage usually result in me needing to kill skeletons 3-4 times each before they shatter! Urgh!
However, the /players 8 full clears started to show benefit when in a far-flung reach of the palace where I seldom (if ever) tread, a Fal dropped. So now I have the highest rune in obedience should I chose to go down that path!
Generally the stats are falling pretty evenly. I certainly have runs on one stat over a few consecutive levels, but that is usually followed by a bit of a famine, so overall it's pretty well evening out. I think Str and Dex are mid-high 80s, Vit is in the 90s as is Ene.
Skills are all over the place, and I have to admit, I've been hanging out for any one of 5 or 6 to come along each level, and they REALLY aren't. In fact, after my early luck with Shadow Warrior, luck has deserted me in the skills stakes. Talk about far-fetched odds, in 4 consecutive skill rolls, with 27 "open" skills, I rolled Dragon Talon and Dragon Claw (or whatever the lowest 2 "finishing skills" leading towards Dragon Flight are called) for ALL 4 allocations! I think looking back a fraction further it was 5 out of 7 to those two skills, which are absolutely worthless...unusable and provide no synergies to anything! *sob*
But, anyway...as long as the show goes on, there is always hope. The Shadow Warrior is very fragile, so I actually find myself having to wait for the casting delay in some fights already. I'll definitely have to hunt down some significant +skills backup equipment for when I cast him (or Shadow Master, who already survives longer at slvl 2 compared to Warrior=slvl 5). Hopefully I can make it to act 5 for a big claw shopping session.
I did have a real situation in the Maggot Lair. I couldn't get into the room to get the staff. I couldn't kill the spawners quickly enough. I tried many options.
* I shopped for a long time trying to get something with TK, but couldn't find anything.
* I used teleport to go to the chest but aborted after a couple of tries because it was so overpopulated around it that I couldn't press on the chest to open it.
* I shopped a Blizzard staff, which did thin out the room somewhat, but not quite enough, and the 150k repair cost wasn't going to see me able to get in there (even with a teleport in after thinning with blizzard, which I tried).
In the end, I pressed on further into the desert and got the amulet first, hoping to find an item which would help me get in there and finish them off.
Finally, I had a brain-wave. I was still on /players 8. Theoretically, if I lowered it to /players 1, as I killed off the /players 8 spawned critters, the new spawns should be easier to kill. Sure enough, this simple solution worked, and after an epic battle, I was able to finish off the room and kill Coldworm and take home the loot. Really it was such a simple solution, it just took my brain a while to arrive there!
So we keep on keeping on. Good luck to all continuing their journeys of chance!
Butz.
Oh and he got yet another point in Cold Resist for his troubles.
