Re: Tournament: The Sword of Destiny
Well I’ve been doing plenty of playing and not much reporting so here comes the wall of text.
After defeating the demon Andariel Hinamori dismissed Kyle (cold arrow merc) and traveled to Lut Gholein were she met Razan (combat merc). Hinamori, Razan, and the Shadow Warrior turned out to be a very formidable fighting force (so strong that Hinamori often seemed a bit superfluous). Hinamori continued her strategy of punch, punch, punch, with fists (of fire) and then switching to the sword to unleashed fiery destruction. This strategy was plenty effective at players 5-7 and the biggest problem was getting in four hits before Razan or the Shadow finished off the monster in question (which of course, really wasn’t a bad problem to have at all). There really wasn’t anything that would qualify as an exciting near death, but with zero poison resistance, Hinamori did find herself in town with one hit point left on more than one occasion. The biggest monster problem was appropriately Duriel (who was done at players 7). The big problem with Duriel was getting chilled to the point that it was almost impossible to land four hits before getting stunned or really hurt . . . that’s where Razan and the Shadow came into play. Razan probably did most of the damage while Hinamori got beat up. The Shadow served mostly as a distraction as it was unable to withstand enough hits to finish charging up Fists of Fire and strike. Razan and the Shadow died many times in the battle but happily the prohibition on gambling had left hundreds of thousands of dollars in the budget for reviving poor Razan. Duriel
dropped some nice things (the Tarnhelm turned out to have 42mf).
Here were Hinamori’s stats at the end of Act 2.
Hinamori proceeded through Act 3 much as she had through Act 2. Fists of Fire and Razan continued to be very effective. The biggest problem in Act 3 was a lack of resistances that made monsters like the Flayer Shaman a bit scary, so the quest
reward ring was very helpful (and incidentally, it was also the first rare ring Hinamori encountered). Another rare ring with nice fire resits was also found but mostly Hinamori seemed to excel at finding
Set Items (wrong tournament though :doh: ). Hinamori hit level 30 right before the battle with Mephisto and was excited to finally get to use Phoenix Strike, . . only to find that a level 1 Phoenix Strike was next to useless (and really wasn’t used at all until the very end of Act 5). So Hinamori ended up killing Mephisto with more fire power (she attempted to use
even more fire power . . . but it didn’t seem to impact Mephisto). Mephisto didn’t
drop anything worth getting excited about.
Here were Hinamori’s stats at the end of Act 3.
Act 4 went by very fast (up until Diablo). The most troubling monsters continued to be ones that dealt elemental damage (such as the fire breathing pit lords). Another troubling monster was the Oblivion Knights (for pretty much the same reason that Duriel had been an issue). The Oblivion Knights of course did plenty defensive casting of Decrepify which slowed Hinamori’s attacks to the point that even if she able to somehow charge up Fists of Fire she rarely managed to deliver the death blow (the Knights would move out of the way before her sword finally fell). Then came Diablo . . . who is pretty scary to a poor little melee Assassin with only around 40 fire and 50 lightning resists (even with a level 1 Fade). As soon as the battle began it was clear that Hinamori really wasn’t going to be able to use Fists of Fire . . . to start with, she was troubling hitting the demon and furthermore had to dodge every elemental attack . . . and while she was busy dodging the elemental attacks any charge up she had managed to get would disappear . . . so the battle fell to Razan and the Shadow (and as the Shadaw would go bye, bye, anytime Diablo unleashed anything elemental . . . it all really fell on Razan to defeat the demon). So the general battle plan became Hinamori approaching Diablo in such a way that Diablo would facing Hinamori and the merc could approach from behind (Razan didn’t handle elemental attacks all that well either). Hinamori would then pretend to attack Diablo’s frontside while Razan did all the damage from behind. Lots of dodging, some resurrecting and a ton of potions later, Diablo
dropped a number of pretty nice rare items (one of the belts was ethereal, but the other belt and the boots are still in use).
Here were Hinamori’s stats at the end of Act 4.
On a side note, if you’re still reading this I salute your endurance.
Armed with new boots and a belt that together granted Hinamori poison length reduction, half freeze duration, faster hit recovery and some good resistances, Hinamori zipped through Act 5 very few problems. Fists of Fire was maxed so all skill points went into Phoenix Strike which still wasn’t that awesome by the end of Act 5 . . . so punch, punch, punch, with fists (of fire) and then switching to the sword continued to be the tactic of choice. Act 5 was done at players 5 (except the Ancients and Baal) and none of the monsters except the Plucked Chickens were able to stand up to Hinamori’s fiery attacks. The Plucked Chickens were mostly able to put up a good fight due to their ability to repeatedly stun Hinamori to the point that she couldn’t charge up Fists of Fire . . . but in the end the Plucked Chickens were separated and killed with a combination of all three phases of Phoenix Strike plus Razan (who continued to be very handy, especially after a rare Partizan with good ed was found). Baal was done at players 1 because I really wasn’t in the mood for a long and painful fight . . . at players 1 (using Fists of Fire) the battle was completed very quickly and the
drop was still pretty good (though not useable).
Here were Hinamori’s stats at the end of Act 5.
Destroyer Hinamori then tested herself against the
Cow King and found she was very effective (but what would you expect from a level 41 characer).
Here were Hinamori’s stats entering NM.
Code:
Name Character Class Area Level Current Sword
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hanshotfirst Hinamori Assassin Rogue Cmp NM 41 Rare Giant Sword
Cyrax BigSword Amazon FlayerJungle 27 2-H/ch skull/topaz/emrld
Sixstringer Stormblade Paladin Dry Hills 21 Claymore/Ral rune
Carolus Rex Conan Barbarian Lut Gholein 20 Claymore/2 ch skull
JayeM Howell Druid Lut Gholein 20 2-H/ruby/skull/J.ofEnvy
Buraz Macho Barbarian Lut Gholein 20 2-H/2xch saphire/1 ch topaz
Kimppi ChosenOne Barbarian Lut Gholein 19 2-H/2xch skull,1xch ruby
sveinbjorn Elric Necro Lut Gholein 19 2-H/2 ch emrld/skull
Thaquitz Thrain Barbarian Lut Gholein 18 2-H/2 ch emrld/topaz
DemonOfWrath Sardinath Barbarian Stony Field 12 2-H/ch saph/skull
TLOD Norris Barbarian Cold Plains 7 2-H/ch skull
jamesixgun Judith Assassin Cold Plains 6 2-H/3os
Brutass HugeWilly Barbarian Rogue Camp 1 Start Axe
Fallen heros
Name Character Class Area Level Current Sword
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
sveinbjorn Fafhrd Barbarian Cathedral 19 2-Hand/2 ch emrld
bcoe Walter Paladin Catacombs 3 17 2-H/JofEnvy
JayeM Leona Sorceress Monastery 16 2-H/Ch Skull/topaz/sapph
) it might be worth talking about adding in some personalization rules. 
Google