Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Ergroilnin said:
So I've decided to try out this tournament as well, whole game (or as far as I gets really) will be done on P1, full clears, all quests, HC.
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Another acolyte to the randomness of things!

The amazon seems to me a tough draw as points are bound to spread in both bow and javelin trees. Hopefully you will get soon to valkyrie as that is a wonderful tank and its level can be boosted very much at cast time.
 
I thought that Amazon would be hard without specializing in either bow or spear tree but I am slowly reconsidering, bow on switch for those really dangerous bosses, jab and other meele javelin skills as main offense is what I am doing right now. Also I rolled Fire rogue, I really wanted the cold one but what can be done.
 
I stumbled onto this forum a few days ago and I decided to start rolling or clicking the randomness. So after reading that druid is believed to be the most difficult character for this endevor, what do I end with? Just that along with an Iron Wolf, which in all my time playing have never used. So i thank the RNG for this unique opportunity. So far I haven't faired too terribly, with five of my points going towards Ravens and one in Werebear. This has been quite nice due to the added strength and health boost. One point in Firestorm and one in Arctic Blast, the first I found semi-useful early on, but then found arctic blast to be more damaging to most and would help lock monsters within my deadly one point poisonous vine and pecking Raven onslaught. I've gambled a significant amount of gold and come up with a quick little rare Scimitar to speed up the painfully, slow Werebear AR. I'll add more specifics on his stats later when online once again but for the most part I've rolled the majority of my points into the bottom three stats, so I definately don't have issues shape-changing and spamming either of the two elemental skills, which was nice once I confronted Blood Raven and Cold Crow.
 
Welcome to the tournament!

I played two druids in this tournament and I can say that they were immensely fun. Although is very hard to imagine a druid in Hell with these restrictions, I suspect you will enjoy the gameplay, at least until deeds :). I would suggest to optimize the draws (if possible) for the grizzly as it is very helpful in tanking.
 
Sid_Vicious has made his way through Act 1 normal with not too much trouble. The Smith, Bone Ash and Andariel were dealt with utilizing numerous annoying, sometimes blinding raven pecks, poison vine creeper and appropriate Werebear mauling. With only one point in Werebear the rapid shape-shifting is rather annoying thus far, since my health bubble suffers greatly when it happens, however the added power and health are very much welcome when up against tough unique boss packs. I've really come to appreciate the swirling five ravens and oak sage that seems to draw most of the heat off of me at least here at lower levels.

Here's what he rolled thus far:

Sid_Vicious LVL 15 Druid

STENGTH - 37
DEXTERITY - 38
VITALITY - 37
ENERGY - 39

Elemental
Firestorm - 2
Arctic Blast - 1

Shape Shifting
Werebear - 1
Maul - 1

Summoning
Raven - 6
Poison Creeper - 2
Oak Sage - 1
Carrion Vine - 1

As you can see he's a bit of a Summoner at the moment, which in my past experience is doable early on but gets really tough as you near late Act 3. I've purchased or gambled gloves and a helm with +3 frozen nova 5% CTC when hit and those things are lifesavers worth every gold piece. They seem to fire off at the best possible times, while I am starting to get surrounded, then everything just stops for a second and I gain the upper hand very quickly. :D
 
Randomergia died at level 22 in one of the tal rasha tombs's being surrounded by thousands of skelletons and tousands of unravellers resurrecting them. Oh well no more HC for me for now.
 
Following the frustrating demise of Adriana from Skill-less Tournament, I return to Ion, the Random Paladin who is waiting to start Act 3 Normal. I am always enthusiastic to start this area of the game as a lot of good stuff begins to drop and the jungle is usually populated with easy monsters that provide plenty of drops (just think of a flock of flayers and the ground full of items). Ion started by selling stuff from previous acts and gambled some more circlets and boots. We managed to score two circlets of Luck (33% and 27%, so we'll continue the gambles), but nothing in terms of boots. The resists are quite low, and checking the stash, no resist charms were found. Ion seems to have been a bit unlucky in that department, but he has a lot of small charms with +life, so, with the Golden Bird quest's help, he manages over 300 life at this stage. The low fire resist created a perilous moment in Spider Forest when a Shaman sneaked on Ion and toasted him a bit, so Ion started using the Crushflunge instead of 'Steel' as a companion to Smite (his main attack since Zanarhi , the Defiant merc, joined him). As shield, he had been using a spiked one (for the increased damage), but now blocking is more important, so we prefer a bone shield of deflecting.

We are also happy to have found a relatively cheap staff with Teleport charges (18k) at Ormus, and that will be carried inside the temples to help avoid stair traps. An important mistake made with Adriana was that no backup skill was present for the situations when the monsters completely surround her. As I'm too reckless to completely avoid this kind of thing, backup is required. That, for Ion, can take the form of TP charges, Terror charges, maybe Conversion skill (not available yet), Smite in some contexts.

We cleared the jungle until Great Marsh (a glimpse into which showed that it contains Drowned Carcasses and Hulks, yay!). Ion is 29 and eagerly awaits level 30 to have a shot at Salvation and Holy Shield, with 5 skill points to spend at that time.

This is one of the best tournaments ever! A lot of the gameplay depends on the random skill draws, so one needs to constantly adapt to what is available. Long term planning seems less significant. Of course, this comes from a player who spends his vast majority of playtime in Normal (which really can be conquered almost regardless of class/skill/merc as numerous people have showed), so things might have a different perspective for a better one.
 
Nice to see some progress here. I currently enjoy playing my skill-less Assassin too much to move on with my Barbarian here. He is about to enter (the slog that will be) NM Arcane Sanctuary. Concentrate with Bloodletter, not powerful by any means. But at least his Lightning Act III merc will be quite useful against the Specters. At least I hope so.
 
@jiansonz : So Ion the Paladin (along with Pete the Necromancer) will probably have to wait for Brad to join them as Guardian (I wish...) :). IMO, in this kind of tournaments, barbarians are hard to kill by monsters, they are usually lost to boredom, especially if no damage support is available in the form of a strong merc.

And another update for Ion as things have happened. First, he had a small corner of Spider Forest left to clear, where he found a MF jewel (7%) which I always am glad about. Nothing to stuck it in for now, but either a good scepter or a adequate rare shield might get it.

Running to get to the Great Marsh (from the other arm of Spider Forest that lead to Flayer Jungle), we again (unintentionally) lost Zanarhi. Consequently, we had fun by using trunk passings over rivers as slaughter places, or, if Zanarhi got over, we could hide there as only one monster usually gets to hit Ion if he stands there. So no swarming potential. When the bug hit, Ion gave up his scepter of Holy Bolt (as Zanarhi had no more need for healing and undeads are no big issue; dolls will get it later) and took up a Terror wand on switch. The Marsh provided the grand scepter and the helm.

Passing into the Flayer Jungle, Ion soon hit level 30, so we took on some more gambling (ended with another circlet of Luck, 34%). Having two with high values (33% and 34%) we concentrated on boots from that moment on. Finding it hard to refresh the screen for enough times to find socks, I resorted to the occasional amulet with no significant outcome. At level 30 Ion also reached that age where we could gamble for Salvation. He had 5 saved skill points and, with fingers crossed, we rolled them all. Sadly, no Holy Shield or Salvation were hit. Points landed in Defensive Auras Tree (Meditation, Cleansing) which has the bulk of them, two opened up more the Offensive Tree (Blessed Aim and Holy Fire) and one consolidated the ignorable Blessed Hammer. Ion now has a 1 in 21 chance for each of the HS or Salvation at a draw.

Swampy Pit was a very nice place to us (I don't understand why people avoid it; I'll probably find out if I ever reach it in Hell :) ). We found there the heavy gloves (a very nice improvement for boss and other tough fights). The thrasher pack at the entrance of Lower Kurast was dispatched easily because we are capable of luring out monsters one/two at a time, even Extra Fast ones. LK had inside a rare chest (with no less than 11 rares and an Eld) and lots of different low level runes. Elds began to be used for repairing damaged war scepters in the hope of finding better staff mods (for instance Conversion) which cost a fortune to acquire from shops. Other overall finds were still more small charms with +life which I suspect will be very important for Ion as he will have low base life.

Stopping for the night in mid-Kurast Bazaar (I put the computer on Sleep), at level 31 (Resist Lightning).
 
epaminondas said:
Elds began to be used for repairing damaged war scepters in the hope of finding better staff mods (for instance Conversion) which cost a fortune to acquire from shops.
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You can't get Conversion this way, but it's great for low-level staffmods. With the item level set to 1 this way, each skill has 80% of being a level 1 skill and 20% of level 6 skill.

Chippie-rerolling magical ones can get Conversion - 20% chance a staffmod is a level 24 skill.
 
Ion has advanced further.

Clearing the rest of the Bazaar, he popped a chest from which a morning star sprung out. That's a very nice weapon for a character that does need damage, but, as Ion has a more decorative role for the moment, it got stashed away. One of the temple provided a stair trap for Ion to test himself against. Of course, he brought inside the terror wand as a safety measure and, with also the help of an Armor Shrine, managed to avoid getting cursed by the brute boss and the minions were put into constant running until boss was dead. Quite a mild trap, so we'll need a tougher situation to test our lesson from previous character. The other temple has something similar with no boss, so again, easy. Sarina's pack was again divided with the help of small steps and an invisible merc so no peril found Ion in her temple. An extra fast boss pack of lords gave us some trouble though, and only afterwards we remembered we had a nice Holy Bolt damage available (100-200). From that point of view the 3 points Blessed Hammer got are not wasted, as I mistakenly believed. Ion seems to develop into a cleric, which is not at all bad in my book. The temples also had me excited about a ring. Alas, it was only Cathan's.

I have come to quite dread the Sewers of Act 3. The monsters are ok, the drops are ok, the dreadness comes from the fear of missing some corner and its chest and that exhausts me. I was glad to exit it.

The rest of the act was relatively uneventful. I kept the merc ignored by not saving. I also scored a Savage Bill for him, so there were moments when I had to re-type /players 8 as I was not sure the players setting was really that high. A few other sets dropped along the way (nothing very memorable).

Against Mephisto we had the benefit of a combat shrine, but had we searched better Durance 3 we would also have found a Resist Lightning shrine which would also have been useful. In the heat of the fight I forgot the merc is ignored so stepped away a bit to re-curse Mephisto with Life Tap and that provided him the opportunity to launch his ball attack which got Ion under half life. As he had only about 415 of it, the moment was quite scary. Salvation is very much needed for Diablo. Meph dropped relatively fast to Smite & Crushflange, but, having the scare fresh in my mind, I forgot to switch in the MF (lost about 68%). He dropped some sets (among which the sabre) and some other stuff that hinted that the extra MF might have been useful. There were a failed spetum and failed broad axe, along with a rare morning star and rare grand scepter. As I already have morning star, the only real loss is a higher chance for the grand scepter which has ilvl 23 (Meph is 26) and it could have been good for this character.

The 32nd level skill point went to Vigor, which is ok. Gambling yielded a perfect boot of Luck so we gamble amulets now. The rings and ammys we find in the field we will keep to cube at level 36, in order to have a shot at the 'of Luck' suffix. I will still not S&E until Diablo, hopefully I'll find on the way some resist gear, otherwise I might be forced to, to mule in some helpful stuff.
 
Further advancement was achieved by Ion.

Entering Act 4, we found the steppes rather difficult. The place was populated by venom lords (amongst other creatures) and one extra fast pack of them created a dangerous situation right at the exit from Pandemonium Fort. Luckily, a Fire Shrine was nearby also so, with heavy help from Terror charges, the day was saved. It still worries me the high percentage of life lost to the inferno attacks although the cruising fire resists passes over 50%. Must remember to use that shrine against Diablo when he shows up.

Among the trips to town, one of the vendors happened to have a mechanic tower shield of deflecting which was promptly bought with the intention of making it a super-blocking shield. Consequently, I was very happy to meet gloams in plains of despair as they (unlike flies :) ) have a greater chance of dropping runes. Indeed, that fact was documented by observing no less than 3 Orts (!), but we had to wait a bit for an Eld. We would have been satisfied also with an El (which could be cubed into an Eld), but it refused to drop. After the Eld was found and stuck into the said shield, that same item was made obsolete by the appearance of the tower shield, which was preferred due to +1 skills. The gloams also had an Eth amongst other runes, for a stash reserve, should the Shael drop sooner than usual. All in all, a very productive harvest of runes from the gloams.

Another ring made Ion's heart jump, but, again, it proved to be only another Cathan's. Adriana, from the Skill-less tournament found only Angelics, Ion finds only Cathans. Such is life: some have all the luck :).

Skill-wise, 33rd level went to Holy Fire (not useful) and Izual reward was allocated to Defiance and Cleansing. Izual died relatively fast so we have no thrilling tales on that subject.

Spawners were seen in all the areas beyond Outer Steppes and we come to hate a little that species, as we haven't adapted very well our gameplay to its presence. It's pretty dangerous to try and stun lock the things as something has to be present to smite against and, while maneuvering, critical situations can appear. A group of champion spawners created some panic in our party, but as we managed to approach them one at a time in known territory, that went easier than expected.

The level 34 skill point was wasted on Thorns, but Hephastos was killed without him attempting a single attack and the Hellforge was the best in recorded history: Amn and Perfect Topaz, so the dissappointment of the skill draw was somewhat dissipated. We now randomize between 22 skills with 3 of them being very much needed (while having no points allocated yet): Redemption, Holy Shield, Salvation. Ion is close to level 35 so we'll have another shot at these beauties soon. Maybe we'll also manage level 36 before Diablo for an extra skill-point in that fight. For the moment, we occupy a strategic position at the River of Flame waypoint, still keeping the merc in the ignored state.
 
Ion has wasted no time, pressing on towards Diablo's sanctuary.

The first rock he kicked (leftover from the previous session) yielded the skull cap. Argh! It would have been very nice to be the unique version. The rest of the River of Flame contained more spawners (easily dealt with now in the narrow passageways), urdars and corpse spitters. The Arcane Sanctuary allowed us to observe the behavior of Oblivion Knights toward the ignored merc: they seem to notice him, but they don't curse him. I was prepared to make heavy use of Holy Bolts, but that was not needed, as Zanarhi was king. Everything dropped in a few hits (he has a savage bill with + 5 to minimum damage).

DeSeis was the easiest DeSeis I remember encountering, but Infector created some panic as I tried to lure him along with his pack to one of the corridors (tactic shamelessly cloned from @Sput 's post from here :) ). However the corridor was not well chosen as two infectors fit in its width, and two make more damage than Ion can take. Should have used Terror to separate them, but we decided to risk it and nearly died. The hardest of the seals was the Doom Caster one, which was a first. Too many of them came at once and Ion was forced to run away and had to employ Holy Bolt heavily to thin the pack. Didn't dare to use Terror for fear of losing the monsters over the lava stretches. Unfortunately, all that running got Ion near the Diablo's altar as the last caster died, so, when the ground began shaking, we needed to make a healthy sprint (screaming like a little girl) toward the corridors.

Ion achieved level 35 (Resist Fire) before Diablo, but due to the sparsely populated Chaos Sanctuary (negligible amounts of Dooms and Oblivions), level 36 was a bit away, in spite of /players 8. Still, better equipped, we returned, wearing a Resist Fire shrine (conveniently placed at the exit of Pandemonium Fort) and some equipment bought specifically for this fight from town merchants. The fight went smoothly with the occasional Life Tap on top of the boss which allowed merc to replenish from damage taken from elemental Diablo. Ion was positioned on the other side of Diablo and did not move under the lightning hose, taking its full hit, drinking health pots during the attack. He did not move for fear of getting Zanarhi under its effect, which would be surely lethal to him. Close to Diablo's death, red potions run out so we returned to town to replenish. Seeing as things went well, we decided to switch in the MF for the remaining part. That was not a very good call as the fight became dangerous. We were using Might before, but now switched to Resist Lightning to compensate resists. Still, the loss of life from other equipment made for some edgy moments when life almost disappeared from Ion's bulb. Zanarhi died once as Ion tried to dodge the hose and accidentally lead it to Zanarhi. But Diablo died, eventually, dropping nothing of interest. It seems a guy named Cathan was the previous hero who challenged the Lord of Terror because two of his items were found on Diablo's corpse: his mask and his chain mail.
 
Ion is now fighting in the barbarian mountains.

I decided to use the Hellforge Amn to make Ion an 'Edge'. It's the first time I use this runeword and, as Ion already had a 3-socket razor bow, we had the ideal conditions to try it. Alas it needed 62 dexterity (Ion had 60). He was close to 36 and Act 5 is rich in level-ups so we chanced it. It came out not exceptionally well (+7 all attributes, low half of % enhanced damage to demons) but its main purpose is sales. I was secretly hoping that it would also get better prices at selling stuff. That is not the case, of course. At level 37 Ion finally managed to get to 62 dex, so we experimented a bit with the bow setup. Fast and reasonable damage for the moment, but we'll stick to the shield and maybe fall back to the bow in selected areas. A Thul dropped soon into Bloody Foothills and I'm beginning to have a good feeling about Ion's luck with runes. I'm sure another Amn will drop in time for a probable pike upgrade in Act 1 Nightmare. He seems to be a very lucky paladin, though he's probably also going to die to my stupidity in the end, like the rest of my chars.

Level 36 got Ion the jack-pot: Holy Shield, while his 37th level skill-point landed in Prayer. Level 2 HS (from +1 of Sigon's shield) has 55 second duration and +18 % to blocking. Nice! At level 36 we also cubed a stash-full of ammys and rings hoping for the Luck suffix on amulets. No recountable outcome, but as we closed up our session (at first WP of Act 5) we cubed some leftover amulets, and the rings resulted were also combined to produce an almost perfect amulet of Luck (34%) so now we have 207% MF for chests and 279% for kills, AND 2 perfect topazes in stash. We're rocking!
 
Ion has rocked further.

He is level 40 now having reached Arreat Plateau WP, very close to the entrance to the Crystalline Passage. We have (for some time now) again the merc ignored (probably lost in some lava pit along the way), fact that helped very much in keeping boars from turning into the exploding type. Dim Vision charges do not work on lashers, so the tactic used is to lure out as much as we can without the Lasher to begin its lashing. After that, approach fast, some boars begin to frenzy, retreat so they follow (fast, so no time to be turned into Consumed). We managed to pretty much avoid explosives, except for some areas in the lava zones, where lashers could see us much in advance. The rivers of lava provided testing ground for the Edge as the consumed needed to be killed from afar (for XP at least), while some frenzytaur packs needed to be softened up a bit before coming to close. We also made use of the bow to kill a lasher pack that spawned inside the lava area. The lasher even dropped some gold onto lava which, sadly, could not be reached :).

All that trouble caring for boars payed off as two of the 'almost exploding' ones dropped the long war bow and the bone helm. We also found the bone shield and some other sets (among which our second tower shield) and our best Rhyme candidate up until now: a superior heraldic shield with +9 Resist All. Only the Shael missing. The 3-socketed helm from Larzuk was found relatively early and, with 2xPerfect Topazes in, upgraded our MF with 15%.

Zanarhi is closing in to the strength requirement for the savage partizan (111 now) so we keep some diamonds in stash to cube the krises we find in the field. Right now he sports a Savage Bill of Excellence. We had a Savage Battle Scythe at our disposal which did slightly better damage per frame, but preferred the bill due to the longer range.

Skill points have landed into Prayer, Blessed Hammer, Resist Cold. Not completely bad, I think.
 
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