Dracul's are terrific gloves, but in the end it depends on ias breakpoints you want to reach, amount of life leech on the rest of your gear ... The CTC life tap also interferes with Reaper's CTC decrep.
I have no clue how anyone does LK for an extended period of time. Over the last week I set out to get some runes, since I really only had El-Ko and a lone useless cham. By the end of my week, I'd augmented my stash to include everything except jah and zod, but it really very nearly drove me insane. LK is both incredibly boring and deceptively dangerous. It's been years since I've lost a hardcore character over the course of normal gameplay, but I came a lot closer than I'm comfortable with in LK. Anyway, being that I'm playing a javazon I could really use an infinity but I simply don't have the stomach for that much LK. Accordingly, I got my second sur, cubed it up to a ber, and made this:
I will not be returning to LK. If it takes me a hundred years to get two bers in the pit, so be it.
I also managed to make a rather average CTA, which is an item I don't ordinarily pursue but found myself with the runes to make. I realize how irregular it is to play exclusively hardcore and not use CTA, but I find it a very untrustworthy item; if you're not paying attention you could find yourself with over a thousand life less than you're expecting to have. However, I clear /p8 pits so quickly now that I have enough time to get a run done before BO expires. One major change that it has allowed me to make is that I am no longer forced to go to town if I get amped.
I'm not updating my character on the chart because I gained only about a fifth of a level since the last time I posted, but I'm ready for the long haul now. I have max resists, cold/light absorb, max block, capped dr%, d/e/a just in case, and a level 41 lightning fury. It certainly could be better, but I'm done with the mf/rune find foreplay.
As an aside, seeing those posts of softcore characters on the verge of death makes me very uncomfortable. There's a shot a few pages back of a guy saving an exiting next to a bunch of cursed blood lords with might with about a hundred health to his name. The stuff of nightmares, folks.
Dracul's are terrific gloves, but in the end it depends on ias breakpoints you want to reach, amount of life leech on the rest of your gear ... The CTC life tap also interferes with Reaper's CTC decrep.
@AlexTheNextOne As T72on1 and Kitteh pointed out, Drac's make wonderful gloves and can really help survival, but once you also got Reaper's, Drac's may only serve to interfere with Decrep. It's a good problem to have to decide which CTC curse is more important to you.
As an aside, seeing those posts of softcore characters on the verge of death makes me very uncomfortable. There's a shot a few pages back of a guy saving an exiting next to a bunch of cursed blood lords with might with about a hundred health to his name. The stuff of nightmares, folks.
I'm traveling for the next three months to teach at three different Highway Patrol academies and will be living exclusively out of hotels. I'm not bringing my PS4 or anything so I started an untwinked trapper a few weeks ago. Mariah, the trapper, is sitting at eight-eight right now. Found an Ist from Nightmare E/S/P runs, Mal from Hell Hellforge and Vex from one of Shenk's goons. I definitely won't be hitting 99 but I imagine I'll get farther with this one than any of the others just because of my free time opening up.
@MizzouFTW - Looks like the tables got mixed up, double check you've got the most recent one for your next update. I added Mariah to the most recent version, so all should be good now. Also, make sure you check the 'Use the rich text editor to create and edit messages' box in your preferences, or else @ioupainmax will find you, and kill you.
Was able to get some runs in on Zic this past weekend, pulled up to the 3.2b EXP mark. Getting sooo close to 98 and then the real grind begins! I will update the table once I hit 98 and do the ancients, hopefully by this coming weekend.
Made my way to hell on my SC sorc I was going to use for practicing Nihl runs and I have got to say, you guys were right. Nihl is no pushover. His place can be crazy hectic. My SC sorc is of course not nearly as geared as my HC sorc, but even on /p1 I have come to respect the difficulty that are Nihl runs even more than I already did. I am beginning to think that Nihl runs may not be the future for Zic.
Which brings me to my next question. If Nihl runs aren't in the cards for Zic, my next option would be CS runs with p1 for seals and p7 for big D himself. I also like this idea as I can continue to do some (minor) MF and keep working on my grail.
As for the seals themselves, I would like to have 2 damage types to deal with immunes and not depend on my merc for kills. I want to continue with Blizzard as my main spell and think a lightning spell would serve best for my backup as Infector can regularly spawn FI/CI. I know Blova is a popular dual-spec, but I feel like Nova may not be the best bet if my purpose for a second element is just single targets on p1. My initial thoughts are Lightning with maybe 1 synergy (chain lightning?) and 1 hard point in Lightning Mastery. Planning to read through some of the Mat/Pat/Guardian builds and see what others have done for dual-specs. I do know I have read more about Frozen Orb + Lightning than I have Blizzard + Lightning due to the synergies involved, so perhaps that's a possible route.
I am thinking of transitioning my SC sorc to the purpose of CS testing now instead of Nihl testing but first things first, I want to get Zic to 98!
So 500 LK runs complete. One Sur. Nothing else above Io. Seems RNG is having some fun with me..... Still picked up some useful charms, 2 SC of Vita, one P&M skiller and some FHR.
Used my first respec as well as managed to get a 4os Monarch cubed. Was a bit concerned that my life would go down too much with having to pump strength so much but with the extra skills that the spirit shield gives me, it's actually up to 2.4k with oak.
Ran pindle on p7 a few times to test out the new set up and dropped a 37 gheeds. First time on sp so that's nice .
Need to go back to LK though. Need enough for enigma cTa and CoH for Merc. One sur down 7 more to go......
@buckcrazy for P1/P7 Diablo runs I would strongly consider going pure Lightning (assuming Infinity). Lightning/CL makes quick work of P1 seal bosses and Charged Bolt will bring down Diablo quickly. I tested this quite a bit with my 99er Sorc and it was a very strong option even on a sub-par shrine map. Way to go if Nihl is not an option IMO. There is also some discussion on this in the draft of the 99er compendium IIRC if you want to look it up.
The only problem is that I don't currently have RWM. It's certainly something I could add for the final level, it's just that I have made it this far without it and was checking my options to finish without it.
Having said that, the temptation of Infinity (and other ladder runewords) is growing on me...
So took a break from LK today and geared up for running Pindle for an hour or so and levelled to **(edit: eighty eight - not sure why get **). Need to change gear again for going back to LK so have three new stashes 1 - LK running; 2 - Levelling/Safety 3 - MF. Means I dont miss anything
Shopping list ( apart from runes for Enigma, CoH and CtA)
Bases for above - I have 3os Scarab Husk (95 str requirement) with 455 def. Would prefer superior but cant cube that - any other suggestions? 95 would be highest str
Reapers
Andys Visage
Aldur boots or Nat boots
Better rings now - have two rares with FCR that no longer required
@buckcrazy - Here's a post in the draft Compendium that @ffs referenced, with his breakdown of testing.
If you aren't going with RWM, blova may be slightly better option than lightning (especially at p1) due to more consistent damage spread. Lightning (with one synergy) is basically the same as nova with maxed lightning mastery in terms of skill points. p1 de Seis will drop very quickly with novas, whereas you may have to cast multiple lightnings (at lower cast rate) on some runs due to low damage possibility. Lightning allows your sorc to keep her distance, which has up-side in HC, but at p1 I don't think de Seis is really a risk as long as you hit 86 FHR breakpoint, which I guess might be hard without OP Sprirt from RWM. Either way, good luck!
Forumite Character SC/HC Class Level Exp Date E/S S/U Grail Deaths Hours
--------------- --------------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ---------- --- ---- ----- ------ -----
RIP Kaira_II HC Sin 95 2.55 2018-09-06 Yes - 399 - -
Kitteh Gwynt HC Druid 87 XXXX 2018-11-07 Yes - - - -
Bewitch itsreal HC Sorc 87 1.xx 2018-04-24 No - - - -
MizzouFTW Pure HC Necro 86 1.15 2018-01-10 Yes - - 1 -
Vildecor Celia HC Ama 84 0.99 2018-05-30 Yes 125 97 1 -
coju NintyNine_orRiP HC Sorc 81 0.74 2016-04-07 Yes - - 1 -
RIP Attila HC Barb 78 0.59 2018-09-26 Yes - 73 - -
TwentyMuleTeam Valus HC Barb 76 0.48 2016-10-27 Yes - - 1 -
Pb_pal Stevesy HC Pala 76 0.48 2017-06-19 Yes - - 1 -
weezaard Cypher SC Druid 66 0.00 2018-02-21 Yes - - 20+ -
Tenecabo OldShatterhand HC Druid 49 0.04 2016-06-16 Yes - 0 1 -
Pijus Pyrestarter HC Druid 36 0.00 2018-05-21 Yes - - 1 -
coju fB HC Sorc 29 0.00 2016-04-09 Yes 1 1 1 2
Kitteh Verallus HC Druid 26 0.00 2016-03-25 No - - 1 -
logoutzero Rolex HC Barb 21 0.00 2016-03-26 Yes 0 0 1 1
Ok good it's done, I'm in !
IpBanPrevales, will be some trapsin with maybe some melee stuff, i'll discover during this journey ! Kinda V based character (the one from V for Vendetta), heading 99 by the 5th of november ! Let's find out the year, now...
If you aren't going with RWM, blova may be slightly better option than lightning (especially at p1) due to more consistent damage spread. Lightning (with one synergy) is basically the same as nova with maxed lightning mastery in terms of skill points. p1 de Seis will drop very quickly with novas, whereas you may have to cast multiple lightnings (at lower cast rate) on some runs due to low damage possibility.
This is worth a look, especially if you don't mind blowing a respec.
Blovas are awesome in the CS. Mine had Infinity, sure, but I'd be willing to be she'd still be quite effective without it. Nova tends to put monsters in hit recovery on /p1 as well, so safety should also be fine. It's not an instantaneous killer, but it's a safe and effective one (most of the time). Bonus: they're also good for Nihlathak.
This is worth a look, especially if you don't mind blowing a respec.
Blovas are awesome in the CS. Mine had Infinity, sure, but I'd be willing to be she'd still be quite effective without it. Nova tends to put monsters in hit recovery on /p1 as well, so safety should also be fine. It's not an instantaneous killer, but it's a safe and effective one (most of the time). Bonus: they're also good for Nihlathak.
IpBanPrevales now lvl 19, running Andy quest until 20 at p3. Got a Hsarus belt, made a Stealth runeword in a random armor, and switched to Combat merc for now. Nothing really interesting at those lvls..! Going the LS branch for now, with Shadow support...mana pot-oholic !
True, but i mean, in my mind game reallly starts in NM, for normal mode you more or less choose something to specialize in and you're fine or so.
Major interest at this stage - for me - is rushing, lots of plans to make regarding fast progression, running through, targeting stuff at specific levels, etc... i'm not in that mode right now
Reached lvl 83 with the old trapsin. Was planning to update after reaching the visible bit in the questers' bit, but hit a sort of wall. Need some advice
Now level 83, 6 pts left, lightning traps maxed, got 1 pt in the useful shadows. Hp and mana are ok, damage is 1-4k. Gear: Lore, 50 hp armour with 3x ptopaz, rare boots/gloves/belt/rings, amu +1 trap, 1claw +2 traps, other +2 LS. Charms, low res, hp, mf. Merc: insight, 3sol hat, shaftstop.
Can run p1 pits, trying to reach pindle to level the merc a bit. LK has a very good map, but no finds so far. Also not been successfull finding a lem for treachery. Goals: leach hat for merc, and then... 3 x ber 1 x jah for enigma and infinity.
What do I do in the meanwhile? Even in 1.13+ finding that lot of runes is a bloody nightmare.
Level 90 Sin, Mariah. I'm in the same boat. I decided I'm just going to play the game for a while. I'm going to do pits/ball until 94. Then I will spend what time I have to in LK. I also want to wait until 94 so that I can start crafting caster amulets with the mats I'll get from LK.
I think most trappers at that stage either blitz LK to gather runes, or do a mixture of Pits/LK to get runes and appropriate bases, while gaining some XP. You could switch it up with Baal at this point, but if you've still got your ancients saved I'd keep them for a later level at this point.
Are you pure lightning or FB hybrid?
At that level my sin was running p3 LK. Got a few lucky drops and stuck around until I had CtA and hoto. The charms and rare drops are a nice added bonus for untwinked. I would think either pits or LK should provide a lem in pretty quick order.
Thanks for the heads-ups, Pb_pal, TwentyMuleTeam, MizzouFTW.
Am pure light, so I guess it's time to go back to the grindstone, LK/Pits, get Lem/Vex/etc... Oh and a monarch would be nice too, have only found 1 magic one.
As with all my untwinked sorcs I am visiting Meph in hell frequently and enjoying the item finding progress. Can anyone please let me no the definition of the "Grail" column? I cannot get behind the "483" mentioned by T72on1 as the flavie report states 448 total S/U (117+119+85+62+65), but I surely I am missing something. Thanks!
Most of us track it relative to 504, which is the total for "All Items" at the very bottom of Flavie report (505 = 378 U + 127 S), minus Normal Azurewrath that can't drop in modern patches but shows up in Flavie.
I can't find it on quick search, but I there were a few posts (including a couple from me) much earlier in this thread where I think we reached consensus on this point. The 504 includes each facet type as a discrete item because all 8 types (plus Gheeds) are separately listed in the jewelry category among the 30 total items.
Most of us track it relative to 504, which is the total for "All Items" at the very bottom of Flavie report (505 = 378 U + 127 S), minus Normal Azurewrath that can't drop in modern patches but shows up in Flavie.
I can't find it on quick search, but I there were a few posts (including a couple from me) much earlier in this thread where I think we reached consensus on this point. The 504 includes each facet type as a discrete item because all 8 types (plus Gheeds) are separately listed in the jewelry category among the 30 total items.
That's what I had in mind too, but I did not find the posts on my first try.
Somehow I overlooked the Jewelry and Class-specific catergory. Adding these (30 + 27) I end up at 505 as well. Thank you very much for the quick reply!
Without question, finding that Dracul's Grasp as well as Reaper's Toll were what brought me to a new level and allowed me to push through to the end of Act V Hell. Burning Soul enemies were EVERYWHERE in level 2 and at the Throne of Destruction, but they were a nuisance at best, considering I have 85 lightning resistance and a Thundergod's Vigor as my main belt. My mercenary wasn't quite as fortunate during those times.
I'll post a better summary probably late this evening, with a list of my current items, and what my plans will be going forward ('cause I still have 11 levels to go!). Any advice about where to go from here would be greatly appreciated!
I definitely need to work on improving my shield at the very least, I feel I can do much better than my "Rhyme" Kurast Shield (probably going to forget ever finding that HoZ), and my trusty Tearhaunch greaves (which I've had with me since NM Arcane Sanctuary, oh the memories) could use an upgrade as well; I'm holding out for Gore Rider here.
Forumite Character SC/HC Class Level Exp Date E/S S/U Grail Deaths Hours
--------------- --------------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ---------- --- ---- ----- ------ -----
RIP Kaira_II HC Sin 95 2.55 2018-09-06 Yes - 399 - -
Kitteh Gwynt HC Druid 87 XXXX 2018-11-07 Yes - - - -
Bewitch itsreal HC Sorc 87 1.xx 2018-04-24 No - - - -
MizzouFTW Pure HC Necro 86 1.15 2018-01-10 Yes - - 1 -
Vildecor Celia HC Ama 84 0.99 2018-05-30 Yes 125 97 1 -
coju NintyNine_orRiP HC Sorc 81 0.74 2016-04-07 Yes - - 1 -
RIP Attila HC Barb 78 0.59 2018-09-26 Yes - 73 - -
TwentyMuleTeam Valus HC Barb 76 0.48 2016-10-27 Yes - - 1 -
Pb_pal Stevesy HC Pala 76 0.48 2017-06-19 Yes - - 1 -
weezaard Cypher SC Druid 66 0.00 2018-02-21 Yes - - 20+ -
Tenecabo OldShatterhand HC Druid 49 0.04 2016-06-16 Yes - 0 1 -
Pijus Pyrestarter HC Druid 36 0.00 2018-05-21 Yes - - 1 -
coju fB HC Sorc 29 0.00 2016-04-09 Yes 1 1 1 2
Kitteh Verallus HC Druid 26 0.00 2016-03-25 No - - 1 -
logoutzero Rolex HC Barb 21 0.00 2016-03-26 Yes 0 0 1 1
Finally found one of the more important items that I was looking for! In the end Mephisto will drop what you need. Now at lvl 88 I might do some more leveling at Pindle and sooner or later target LK.
Well Zic has made it to 98 at last! And CS even had a parting gift for me in the final 5m of EXP.
And here is the screenshot right after the level-up.
And she had been saving the Ancients this whole time, so I went ahead and kill them off with ease.
She is now ready for the final level! I am planning to do a little more testing between p1/p7 Diablo runs and Nihl runs on my softcore Sorceress while also deciding if I want to add RWM.
At times, I didn't think my Paladin would be able to make it all the way through (early NM especially comes to mind, having gear as bad as Isenhart's breast plate on back when I was a Holy Freeze Zealer), but I stuck with it, and early this afternoon, as I had previously posted, I finally managed to Pat my (now) Fanaticism Zealer, at level 87+1 (had to write it like this because it's strange that the next number up is being censored), and it was absolutely worth it.
I was getting tired of running Pits and AT after a while, and summoned the courage to finally try to slog through the Frozen River once more to find Anya, and honestly, it was a lot easier than it was last time I tried, but that's the item grind for you, right? Nihlathak's domain didn't give me any trouble, as I already knew to park the bus if I came up against a bunch of tomb vipers, and with 8500+ defense and 75-85 resists, they went down pretty quickly provided I stayed on my toes and remained aware of where to walk and where to avoid.
The Ancients were just as easy to take down, I think I chugged two full rejuv potions in total, mainly because of Talic's whirlwind that would take a decent chunk of health off me from time to time. I'm pretty sure my merc took on Madawc entirely on his own, and he was a total badass here.
I was dreading the Worldstone Keep after having manhandled the Ancients (muh Burning Souls), but having 85 lightning resistance and Thundergod's Vigor made them a complete joke, though Jemali melted about as quickly as the villains at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie, which was expected. Sorry bro, but I'm the hero of this story.
I didn't show Hell Baal's quest drops earlier simply because they were embarassing. Thanks buddy, I'd call you far worse, but I don't want to do that here, I'd like to keep this civil.
As helpful as Dracul's Grasp may have been with the undead and swarms of succubi with their frigging blood stars, I think my merc's Reaper's Toll was probably the game-changer, as it provided me with both fantastic crowd control, as well as breaking physical immunities of pesky enemies like ghosts.
Though I know I still have more to do to complete this challenge, and that such a completion deserves a more in-depth summary of my journey, I felt I should share what I managed to complete the full game with.
My merc was sporting a Reaper's Toll, along with a Vamp Gaze, and Duriel's Shell (or is Shaftstop better until I find a Lo rune to make a Fortitude? I have another non-eth 4os archon plate that's only missing said Lo rune).
So what should I do next? I have my 3os archon plate base, and I'd love that Enigma, but I also want to get a better shield (I want a HoZ so badly), and boots. But part of me thinks that Enigma is the priority here, which would allow me to run Mephisto quickly and (hopefully) get a HoZ and Gore Rider.
Fugu is level 95. This is a big deal because 94-95 only took a month. That seems long, but 93-94 took eight months. 92-93 took a year. The difference is that I have an SS, CoH, and a CTA. I can do /p8 pit and baal without any real risk of death and without needing to make a million trips to town. I used to have to S+E a lot (like when I'd get amped somewhere precarious or if the throne room was filled with souls/dolls), but no longer. My gear could be better - I have the lowest possible mara's, two off the lowest possible titan's, and one defence off the lowest possible shako - but it's good enough. I'm finished with dedicated runefinding or MFing until at least 98 now.
As I mentioned in my last post, I did a lot of LK during 94 and got a whole bunch of high runes (my high rune count went from 1 (cham) to 6 (vex ohm lo sur sur cham)), which allowed me to make CtA and CoH. The rest of 94 was mostly uneventful. I got a bunch of items for my other characters and I inexplicably managed to find every unique amulet in the game except for metalgrid, including three fresh finds today. I also got another ohm in a baal run, which will either turn into a faith (if I ever get a jah) or go in a windforce (if I ever get a windforce). As is, I kill LIs with jab. It's not great.
This is tied for my highest level hardcore character ever, so here's hoping we don't die. Hall of Fame
Thought I'd post an update on Arkana. She's up to lvl 80. After finishing farming hell countess for treachery for the merc, it was time to advance. Still questing through hell on p8. This is TOUGH haha. Never done it before. Been at least making myself kill the monsters that are guarding the things you get to advance. Duriel took a while but wasn't too bad. Icehawk Riftwing dropped me a Goldwrap! I resorted to tactics such as killing witch doctor endugu's pack by fireballing them through a grate, and Mephisto took a LONG time with several merc resurrections and a few deaths. But I hadnt seen nothin yet till I got to Hephasto. That guy one shot all but about 50 of my health and ~2 shot my merc. So i dwindled my gold down to 400k as I resurrected the merc over and over and died myself a few times too. However he gave me a pretty nice reward!
Now I'm spending probably all my play time today farming p8 NM Mephy for gold, while hoping he drops tals mask for my merc (who's using undead crown, non-eth wire fleece treachery, and non-eth thresher insight). Send thoughts and prayers for p8 CS
Normal mode completed at lvl 29 for IpBanPrevales ! One new stuff: serpentskin Stealth rw - same than previous one, with 70 def more.
Now i'll go baal running for few levels and hopefully some drops, then go NM toward countess for next runewords (Smoke probably, Treachery if getting multiple Ko's - maybe i'll try hard the Treachery anyway).
Nice progress @buckcrazy to get a level 98 character back in the questing heroes table. And nice work @AlexTheNextOne and @Me2NiK to push further along!
* * *
All right, let's do this once more, for six of seven classes officially entered
Meet Death, the Barb 99er to be. This guy was the third of my Trio of Twins, a little project I started as motivation to quest new characters through Normal and NM difficulties. The idea was three characters using other-than-A2 mercs, with the character class matching the other three merc traits—making them twins.
The Barb got a barb merc obviously. Death was born in August 2017 (according to time-stamp for first screenshot in early A1 Normal) and progressed to A1 NM in that first month. His playthrough had some extra restrictions:
Death is untwinked and playing as a 2-handed berserker with War Cry for stunning enemies. I’m also playing him with some extra limitations: no extended stash, and a modified single pass approach where, in each difficulty, he can select only 5 areas/targets to rerun 5 times each (otherwise, it’s single pass).
He picked up Ragnar in A5 Normal, and he's still Death’s companion, now at level 85. After that initial progress, I didn’t return to him until Hiatus hit 99 in December 2017, and he only progressed to Outer Cloister over the next month and then was parked again. When Phaedrus hit 99 in November 2018, Death started making real progress again, moving to A3 NM and A5 NM in December 2018, and then to A2 H, A5 H, and finally Patriarch in January.
I won’t repeat what’s in those updates, but the short version is that he stuck to full-clears through A4 NM (except early A3 jungle areas), p8 for Normal and p7 for NM. He had the absolute worst roll that I’ve ever had (worse even than Quinta’s NM roll) in clearing NM tombs, with Unravellers in all 7, with 6 of 7 having bosses, including multiple overlapping packs. Hell was p1, with full clears of all A85 areas and all underground areas in A5. He ended up with pretty solid gear for untwinked, basically single pass
Since he reached Patriarch, he has been the main break from Pit runs with Pestilence. Up to level 85, he ran Council on p1 and LK on p7 killing packs. Drops up to level 85 where very solid, with Trang armor from Council a nice option for LK runs, and then a really surprising and useful drop from LK (5 life leech to boot and helpful for resists):
Then we got Vex #1 and Gul #1 from LK poppables, with a Shimmering SC of Balance mixed in. With the Gul from HF, we cubed to an Ohm, leaving him an Ohm and Mal short of Grief (and a base, which is no small thing). He also picked up a 3os Wire Fleece, a 3os Legend Sward and another Lem, allowing Treachery and a Lawbringer for the Merc, with the idea of transitioning to p3 council for a while.
But due to a bug with Berserk (where it went with normal attack instead of Berserk about half the time, including sometimes getting stuck on not triggering Berserk period), I eventually got frustrated and respec’ed to WW early into 85. I was planning to farm one of each essence and get a better second weapon before respec’ing, but really got frustrated with the bug.
It was underpowered with only Doombringer (and Razor’s Edge as next best damage output option), so I decided to just do quick LK runs for runes to make one Oath or Grief (Mal needed for either, and luck would dictate whether Grief could happen first). Charm and jewel luck continued, with LK providing 5 cold resist 19 vita SC and a Scintillating JoF. LK chests also finally delivered with Mal #1 and Gul #2.
I am maintaining limitation of no extended stash, and I may end up staying with Ragnar the whole way. Might aura and Reaper’s, if it drops, may alter that decision though—it will just up kill speed so dramatically that I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay loyal to the twin
Stash management is definitely an interesting wrinkle and additional challenge, at least at this stage. It’s actually somewhat liberating to not pick up flawless gems in LK. I kept one pRuby for blood rings (now abandoned), and have built up 3 pAmethysts for weapon cubing, but otherwise leave them. Same for runes, basically down to Fal+ at this point after cubing up Lum-Ko to free up stash space. He's still death-free, although that will likely change once we get whirling in earnest
Death will continue to be a break from Pit runs, and I plan to make him my RFL Rd 2 entry. So I may eventually focus on him in early April if he hasn’t gotten the Grief yet. My thought is that it’s worth holding out given the Ohm and Mal already stashed and lack of eth base for Oath. I’m thinking p1 Cows (due to p7 hork) may be best option to find bases once I have the runes.
I also have two socket quests, planning to save one in case Reaper’s drops and I decide to abandon Ragnar. Guillame’s is already socketed, so I’m guessing the last one will go toward Arreat’s, Andy’s, or Vamp Gaze (or maybe a second Guillame’s?) because I can’t think of anything else that would be a candidate. At this point, I’m holding off though.
The RJoF and Scintillating JoF may end up getting use. The RJoF in Guillame’s, in particular, seems like a worthwhile investment, especially in light of the final gear @zticazzy went with for Perkele. Definitely welcome feedback on how to use those and my planned approach.
* * *
Pestilence continues to make progress, now less than 20M to 97.5. I'll hold off on his update until then, hopefully sometime this next weekend. I also tidied the tables a bit, moving characters that haven't been updated since July 1, 2018 into the resting heroes.
Some key milestones completed in the last month with Atheyanore reaching L95 yesterday from her AT /p5 runs . Its feels like the lowest level base camp on this climb
Then I pushed her from act 2 lost city until to the ancient ways WP in act 5 collecting most quests, I just left the Pindle portal open. Progress was on a combo of p3 for act 2 and p1 for acts 3 through 5, except for LK which was cleared on p7
No skips for great marsh with gloams as well
Act 4 had souls on the plains and then more gloams in the Frozen river with the succubi and sirens , progress was slow with a few might enchanted boss packs
So many cold immunes meant some slow clearing and skipping sections. The merc tanked ok just needed help for the nastiest packs with a 9 frame teleport.
IN the AT had 3 deaths between 93 and 95 . Couple of might enchanted smack downs with only 1250 life going in less than a second
She needs some gear before the RFT but level wise she is ready
Had some key drops
Finally got a 4 OS eth elite polearm , a CV . Will make insight at of that initially. Hopefully I will find another eth 4 OS polearm before I get a ber to get infinity
But she has some great luck
Found her end game ammy
Possibly her end game headgear
has two options for 4 os elite armour for CoH
and the two BKWBs
switch CTA will be a 5 os war spectre and 2 4 os monarch
Also had some good finds with charms
Merc hat
Looks like I will need to remove her MF gear and get to running LK for runes. The current map has 2 camp fires so is pretty good.
Made several key RWs including an Obedience GPA, Treachery Dusk after a Lem dropped about 94.25 with wo go with the merc hat. The merc had good killing speed .
I've been more focused on Klaus lately, but I've been progressing Stevesy as well when I need a break from Nihlathak and my TWD characters. So here's a quick little update for him!
Stevesy picked up again at the start of Act 4, ready to make it to hell and truly begin his career.
He plowed through the act on /p1, first offing Izual, getting a Fal at the Forge, and grinding his way through the seals before taking on the big guy. The Diablo fight was actually quite easy with Stevesy snugged up in front of the Hose.
CB and OW did the trick just fine and he dropped nothing of value, and Stevesy headed for his homeland.
It was a quick trip to Shenk, and a pit stop at Eldritch to gain some much-needed levels. By the time he hit 57 he managed to upgrade his weapons (finally!) as two Aldur's Rhythms dropped only a few runs apart (1 + 2). Stevesy tossed an Eth and 2 Shaels into each, and the extra damage, speed and a whole whack of dual-leech emabled us to increase the /p setting to 3 and keep runnign Eldritch until level 61.
With his new firepower (Stevesy is actually able to help kill things now!) and some extra safety from the levels, he pushed on through up to Anya where he tried out a few Pindle runs to see if he could get some quick XP. The runs weren't as smooth (or safe) as I'd like, so instead he progressed through and beat the Ancients before pushing his way to the Throne.
The first 4 waves were no issue at all, and Lister's group was manageable by separating them out into small groups. The Baal fight was long, but harmless enough with the Kelpie on the merc. Stevesy officially made Conqueror at level 63, and he'll now focus on leveling a bit more before progressing into Hell.
I'll update his spot in the table once he gains some more levels and jumps up a few spots.
I really like that you guys are playing barbs too. I haven't played very much lately, maybe 10-20 hours since my last update. When I've been playing, I've been running baals and seals.
Super bad fire absorb, but an eth grailer nonetheless
This was about 10 runs before hitting level 91. Unfortunately, the green ammy was Vidala's. I keep trudging along, waiting for an Ohm to drop so I can make CtA
Been doing Normal Pindleskin and Andy runs lately instead of Baal - much quicker xp and Nagel hunt for MF.
Got one with 24MF, not bad hopefully another one before NM, that i will jump in in few levels.
To be continued !
Note: i'm making some screenshots here or there to get the practice when drops will be more significant, but for now i am so often ip banned on PC that i have to make those reports on phone... Immortal style
Complement: now lvl 50, doing countess runs in NM in P7, killing stuff.
Andy gave me a second nagel -23%-, and i stuffed MF as much as i can, now at 150+%.
Got crappy resists, but when needed i'll use Fade and i should be ok. Next target: Andy NM !
Hey guys, I'll add devi soon, but I wanted to ask if any one of you non-sorc players who farmed LK for enigma/infinity have pictures of a good map AND some ideal run times. I have had two maps with ~45s per run, but felt I could do better. I have 30%frw boots + stealth + BoS + zephyr bow. I'll get a harmony when I find a ko + 4 os bow (had some but didn't save them). @ffs @NanoMist @PhineasB
Orion just found Naj's Puzzler in AT, so that'll allow me to teleport past the rabble in the Durance level 3 and allow me to run Hell Mephisto repeatedly in the hopes that he finds the fabled Herald of Zakarum.
Once you get the Harmony, I think 30 seconds per run with circular map (returning to A4) is reasonable target for *great* map without teleport. With BoS, I actually found non circular as fast with Mercy, using teleport charges to short-cut hut path. So you may want to see if you can hit/get close to that with linear option on your Sin before rerolling. More poppables on non-linear may also balance out overall efficiency even if slightly slower. I know Gripp's guide suggests otherwise for pure runes, but other drops and runes were solid with more poppable a as long as not diverting on direct path and helped keep me engaged for longer stretches. If you can laser-focus on chests with long spells of nothing a possibility (not me), circular may be worth rerolling until you land great map.
With both my Paladin and my Barb I got a good lineair map first and decided to stick with that. My reasoning was that, withouth teleport, it wouldn't be faster to get a circular map and return to Act 4. I didn't test it though, so I might be wrong about that. Especially the Paladin had a lot of frw, since he had maxed Vigor to begin with, so it didn't take that long to run through Act 3 town.
I didn't even get close to 30 second runs, but then again most of the times I'm slower than the fast players on this forum, so that's not really a reference. I don't have my runcounter data here, but judging from my notes, the fastest run times with my Paladin were around 32 seconds, but including id'ing and selling stuff and cubing gems and rerolling GCs I was at 43 seconds average, maybe a bit less near the end. I remember that the Barb was even slower, although I had the feeling his map was better.
Once you get the Harmony, I think 30 seconds per run with circular map (returning to A4) is reasonable target for *great* map without teleport. With BoS, I actually found non circular as fast with Mercy, using teleport charges to short-cut hut path. So you may want to see if you can hit/get close to that with linear option on your Sin before rerolling. More poppables on non-linear may also balance out overall efficiency even if slightly slower. I know Gripp's guide suggests otherwise for pure runes, but other drops and runes were solid with more poppable a as long as not diverting on direct path and helped keep me engaged for longer stretches. If you can laser-focus on chests with long spells of nothing a possibility (not me), circular may be worth rerolling until you land great map.
I considered teleport staff. I use it a lot questing. Didn’t know if the short fast runs made it too expensive. I also like other poppables but I think I’d like to hardcore focus runes only until enigma. One thing about Ric’s map you posted is that he has enigma. When I look at his map, it feels about like the maps I’ve averaged 45 seconds on.
T72on1 said:
With both my Paladin and my Barb I got a good lineair map first and decided to stick with that. My reasoning was that, withouth teleport, it wouldn't be faster to get a circular map and return to Act 4. I didn't test it though, so I might be wrong about that. Especially the Paladin had a lot of frw, since he had maxed Vigor to begin with, so it didn't take that long to run through Act 3 town.
I didn't even get close to 30 second runs, but then again most of the times I'm slower than the fast players on this forum, so that's not really a reference. I don't have my runcounter data here, but judging from my notes, the fastest run times with my Paladin were around 32 seconds, but including id'ing and selling stuff and cubing gems and rerolling GCs I was at 43 seconds average, maybe a bit less near the end. I remember that the Barb was even slower, although I had the feeling his map was better.
Thanks for the feedback. I think, based on your all’s opinions, I’m going to try and roll a good linear so I can time myself. I’m glad I’m not the only one who hasn’t been able to get 30 second runs, T72on1. And I’ll experiment with the teleport staff. I also have a telekinesis ring... maybe it would be useful if i get a circular map and end my run on the wrong side of the wp?
I wonder if dragon flight has ever been used to speed up these runs. It would be dynamic each run but might work.
I saw a person on reddit mention that they respecd 20 BoS and 20 mind blast and 20 shadow warrior for running LK. I could also get 1 in dflight to see if I like it. I have a spare respec... I’m gonna consider that also.
@sir_cyclops indeed that map was after Enigma, but I also posted the one I farmed Enigma on earlier in this thread (don’t have time to look for it atm sorry ). It was pretty much an ideal linear one and I also chose to walk through town in A3. After Harmony it took about 30-35s on average IIRC (picking charms and crafting materials).
@sir_cyclops indeed that map was after Enigma, but I also posted the one I farmed Enigma on earlier in this thread (don’t have time to look for it atm sorry ). It was pretty much an ideal linear one and I also chose to walk through town in A3. After Harmony it took about 30-35s on average IIRC (picking charms and crafting materials).
Amazing, it sounds like I am definitely going to find a good linear map. Devi is wicked fast with harmony, BoS, stealth, and 30rw boots. I might search for your picture today sometime. But I will also just time myself on all linear maps and see if I can get a 35 second one. If so I will keep it.
@Pb_pal Long time, welcome back and definitely join again! Also cool to see you start running @kyndig!
As for me, HelpYourself is making steady progress and is on track to hit 98.50 this weekend... unless I do something stupid. Itching to report on a few cool things, but that will have to wait for that next update in a couple of days hopefully! She's dropped a bit from 4M/h but still averages around 3.7M/h when I last timed it. But I think it's a good pace for her, runs are more relaxed and her routine feels comfortable and safe, so not going to push her that much any more. Instead I'll have a go with a twinked/full skiller inventory Lightning Sorc at some time, to see what the build is really capable of.
In the meantime, Ric did get some playtime here and there recently. He's still in LK and picking up a lot of stuff: GCs, SCs, flawless amethysts, other gems landing on his feet, polearm bases (for future Insight IGs), rare circlets and jewelry. Also runes to roll Insights or Spirits, as well as possible bases for runewords that he will at least try at some point (Hoto, Beast, CtA, Oath...).
Runs are ~34s on the map below. Still not sure whether I should reroll due to the WP being in center. But campfires are so close, I believe it's not easy to beat without investing a lot of time, so I'll stick with it for now.
Anyway: Reason for this update is that after finding his first Sur just last weekend, he went on quite the streak. All of these dropped within a total of some 4-5 hours of running here and there since the weekend:
Sur #2.
Same Ist pattern again some 15 minutes later:
Also two Pul I didn't take a screenshot of.
Two more Surs/one Ber to go until Enigma. I've slowly started to hit more poppables in LK to look for armor bases. Did find a 3os non-superior Light Plate that I think would be fine. Not sure whether I should wait for a suitable BP though. The str req difference of 11 is not much, but I could see myself being annoyed by it at some point. Also looks need to be considered of course, with LP winning for most chars IMO, but BP looks better on Nec. Tough decisions ahead -- any convincing opinions?
Don't forget that you can get frw on circlets too. I used a plain blue one with frw on my Paladin, combined with Stealth, frw boots, Zephyr bow and maxed Vigor. I did have weapon / shield on switch (CtA quite quickly, when I found the Ohm early on), in case I ran into a nasty monster pack.
Don't forget that you can get frw on circlets too. I used a plain blue one with frw on my Paladin, combined with Stealth, frw boots, Zephyr bow and maxed Vigor. I did have weapon / shield on switch (CtA quite quickly, when I found the Ohm early on), in case I ran into a nasty monster pack.
Yeah, I haven't found a circlet with frw. Gambling them is expensive. Maybe I should use my imbues? Thoughts on that? Also, I think I will shop some 40frw boots.
Correct me if I am wrong on this, but I believe even circuits can give +2 skills once character level is like 60-70+ due to their high quality level? I think even a very low level character can get +2 skills on an imbued Diadem again due to its very high quality level.
Correct me if I am wrong on this, but I believe even circuits can give +2 skills once character level is like 60-70+ due to their high quality level? I think even a very low level character can get +2 skills on an imbued Diadem again due to its very high quality level.
Based on my quick googling of an old thread on here, I believe it is level 83 for circlet, level 78 for coronet, and level 1 for diadem but i'd love to have that confirmed.
@sir_cyclops that sounds about right. I didn't realize the circlet and coronet were that high, but it doesn't surprise me and diadem being level 1 does match what I previously thought.
Thanks for correcting my statement. I suppose I could have googled myself, but its easier to just spew my thoughts and have others do the research.
@sir_cyclops that sounds about right. I didn't realize the circlet and coronet were that high, but it doesn't surprise me and diadem being level 1 does match what I previously thought.
Thanks for correcting my statement. I suppose I could have googled myself, but its easier to just spew my thoughts and have others do the research.
So another 100 runs at LK tonight, times down to 47 sec average mainly thanks to a FRW of 87 and Harmony Aura. The S&E/Reload process takes 12 seconds according to the run counter. Seems high to me
Anyway, a Mal and an Ist for my troubles and a NDE. Extra Fast Doom Apes cornered with fanatical leapers around. Almost missed the Esc key.........
IpBanPrevales now 58, just killed Meph on NM ! Been doing some NM Countess runs before, got nothing higher than Shael
After getting lvl 55 with Andy - no useful drop here either - been rushing through acts 2 and 3, for stuff efficiency, trying to get to Anya as soon as possible to buy trap claws - plan is a pair of traps as main, pair of shadows/shadow master in switch.
After some reflexion and readings, i respec'ed in order to get maxed LS and DS, putting some more points in Shadow master (will go to 10, hoping to reach 17 with stuff in hell for best gear), then will max fire blast and CBS to finalize damage output and get double elemental damage.
I'm still under BoS steroids for now, Fade not required for fights right now. Hope the one point will be enough with +skills on switch claws in Hell, and maybe get some skillers at some point. The need for CoS also appeared during this part of the journey - good thing as i will learn to use it before Hell.
For drops, nothing exceptional, dropped a Fal on random monster or chest in Act 3, getting me closer to Treachery - time to find a base maybe, or will wait Hell for better armors, will take the first when i get the Lem. Crafted an Insight for Holy freeze merc on two weaps, one went lvl 17 aura but only 201%ed - life changing - and dropped an armor for him with cannot be frozen mod, nice also, but he still dies quite frequently...will need to find some life leech and resistances if i want to keep Insight aura and Holy freeze on.
So another 100 runs at LK tonight, times down to 47 sec average mainly thanks to a FRW of 87 and Harmony Aura. The S&E/Reload process takes 12 seconds according to the run counter. Seems high to me
Anyway, a Mal and an Ist for my troubles and a NDE. Extra Fast Doom Apes cornered with fanatical leapers around. Almost missed the Esc key.........
How do you see S&E time in the run counter? 12 seconds can't be right I think. I mean, I have 6 - 7 S&E lag for some targets in act 5, but haven't heard of many (any?) people having issues with it for LK runs.
It's easy enough to count though, or put a clock next to it.
From when I hit save and exit and get back to start point it is 12 seconds on the counter. That's with nothing else loaded, and using enter/h for loading.
I had intended to try for a 99 untwinked HC Sorc and then Classic WoW release date was announced and I’ve been preparing for that ever since. Best of luck to @buckcrazy with finishing your Sorc, be careful with Nihlathak! Also best of luck to everyone else running untwinked characters and kudos for all your accomplishments! I’ll be watching from afar until the day comes when the itch is no longer bearable. It always gets you eventually..
@ffs @T72on1 Call me Sur_cyclops now, haha. So I farmed a decent LK map (shown below) and got Sur off a corpse along with Mal, Ist, Ist in the first 500 runs I can do the map in as low as 26 seconds flat, but I average between 28 and 35 depending on my exit and join delays, how many items I'm picking up (if i pick up gems and search for stuff in jackpot chest dumps), how much I end up stashing over the course of the run timer.
I have 40 rw boots, stealth, lvl 6 BoS, harmony bow, and a 7% frw gc. I pick up blue and yellow circlets, coronets, tiaras, etc. in search of a 20 or 30% frw helm as well. No luck yet.
Questing is done!! With completion of Anya quest and gaining the ancient's way waypoint, Arkana is done with questing material, at least in theory, till lvl 98. I had never done hell on p8 and wanted to experience it, though with a sorc so it wouldn't take forever. Though it was tough! And took quite a bit of patience.
Hephasto was the toughest part of the whole playthrough and I had only 400k gold after merc revives after finally finishing him off. However, after thinking further afterwards, I'm wondering if Hephasto can be knocked back with telekinesis. Anyone know this? If he can, I'll be kicking myself, because that would have made the most difficult part of this playthrough a joke haha. Anyways, with 400k gold I went back to nm mephy and farmed him (still p8) till I had full stash gold, and I bought lower res and life tap wands during this time. Found aldur's boots here, which were welcome. Shopped a 99 to life belt, and some 30 light res gloves, which allowed me to use whistans (75 block) instead of rhyme (50 block) for the rest of the playthrough
Then it was time for CS. It took a very long time (just under 2 hours), but was really pretty doable. Holy crap the life tap wand was indispensable. I was spamming it liberally, and i finished CS with no deaths myself and only like 2 merc deaths pre-diablo. Diablo flatlined the merc of course even with life tap, but was surprisingly easy to deal with. I struggled with him far less than Mephisto. First I tried meteor and fireball, but he ran around too much on meteor, and fb locked me into place a bit too much to where I'd take the lightning hose a bit too long. So I figured out my best strat was using frozen orb and running around the whole time. The slow from orb, and the open space of CS to run around Diablo made this work very well.
Then finally, Frozen river gave me some serious trouble, as expected. I think it's the hardest area in the game. Idk about drifter caverns or something, but definitely harder than wsk/throne room/CS in my opinion. Even though I attempted it every time, I had to s/e like 4 times in a row, nearly dying to souls. I got a map with ghosts and chargers on that fifth time though and managed to tele all the way to the back and clear a little area, and set up shop there. Frozenstein was close thankfully and i was luring his minions out one or two at a time, but then near the end of this process i accidentally clicked an eveil urn and nearly died. But thankfully frozenstein's herd was mostly thinned by then and I just tele'd to Anya and finished off the group.
Finished at lvl 82, and then promptly, blessedly, set the players down to 3, and allowed access to her larger untwinked stash. Got some low level mf gear going and started playing some pits/AT/mausoleum. Got up to lvl 85 from that. Do you think I should make a "patmat, sort of" thread for her? She was documented ok here, but I guess I could make one with more detail on gearing and challenges and such.
This is unrelated to Orion's journey (though this is also an untwinked character, as my Sorceress was the first character I made since I wiped the slate clean of a mod-that-shall-not-be-named, so technically it's valid here, plus I post the most often here), but I just HAD to share this with you all. I'll let the picture speak for itself, save for mentioning that this was with around 430% MF and on /players5.
@AlexTheNextOne unreal drop congrats. I'm drooling i still need both of those!@
sir_cyclops said:
I saw a person on reddit mention that they respecd 20 BoS and 20 mind blast and 20 shadow warrior for running LK. I could also get 1 in dflight to see if I like it. I have a spare respec... I’m gonna consider that also.
I just respec'd my sin after reading your comment. Hadn't thought of that one, thanks for the tip! I'm making myself run LK until I have runes for enigma and infinity. In other words will update in 2020.
@AlexTheNextOne That is the nicest drop I've ever seen. Congratulations man.
@TwentyMuleTeam How do you like the respec'd sin? I'm running my sin as a normal trapper with one campfire map and getting 27-30s runs. I don't know if I would want to waste a respec on that unless it drastically improves the run time.
I'm thinking about joining this tournament in a month or so, when I finish some work-related projects and will have more free time.
I just want to make sure about rules, so two questions:
1. No limit on reruning (Meph, Diablo, AT, Pindle, etc)?
2. If I understand correctly, I can use separate stash in GoMule and use it without limit (just the stuff found with this character, of course).
If I join, I wont be aiming for 99. At least not at first. First of all I'd like to aim at level 97 - it would be my own personal record
I'm thinking about joining this tournament in a month or so, when I finish some work-related projects and will have more free time.
I just want to make sure about rules, so two questions:
1. No limit on reruning (Meph, Diablo, AT, Pindle, etc)?
2. If I understand correctly, I can use separate stash in GoMule and use it without limit (just the stuff found with this character, of course).
If I join, I wont be aiming for 99. At least not at first. First of all I'd like to aim at level 97 - it would be my own personal record
@MizzouFTW RunCounter says I'm averaging 32.5s runs. That's on p7 and hitting 4 poppables plus chests, and picking up jewels, charms, runes & rares. If I was focusing on just chests and runes no doubt it would be ~29s runs.
She's got 20 frw helm, 30 boots, 25 from stealth, 10 vigor & 20 BoS and absolutely flies. Also I had all 3 respecs and plan on being in LK for thousands of runs so it was worth it for me.
@MizzouFTW based on my math, it wasn’t worth the respec. It only increased my run walk speed by 10-20 run/walk. I will say that you should definitely get a better map. I can run 24.5s on my two campfire map. I average about 30s if you include picking up and identifying crafting material, good rares, and charms. I do have a lot of run walk though:
Stealth, harmony, ~ lvl 5 BoS, 40% boots, 20-30 from charms. I have been identifying any headgear that can have run walk but no luck yet. Also, I’d love cats eye or mavs belt, but honestly shes already REALLY fast.
This is unrelated to Orion's journey (though this is also an untwinked character, as my Sorceress was the first character I made since I wiped the slate clean of a mod-that-shall-not-be-named, so technically it's valid here, plus I post the most often here), but I just HAD to share this with you all. I'll let the picture speak for itself, save for mentioning that this was with around 430% MF and on /players5.
I'm looking for some input on my sorc. So after my initial enthusiasm from having completed questing with Arkana, and having been successful with my inefficient questing goals. I've run into a few issues. First off the original goals were:
1. Small stash
2. Hybrid the whole time
3. Players8 until end of questing except tower lvl5 reruns
4. No hell mephy reruns
5. No hell pindle reruns
6. No LK
7. No larzuk quests until end of questing
Small stash was done while questing, but has been scrapped for the post game, and the p8 questing and no larzuk quests were a success, but I'm running into the issues on the others for the post-game. So the first misconception was that I thought I'd be able to do p3 pits/tunnels/mausoleum in a reasonable amount of time as an undergeared meteorber. However I've found that even with 50% block, archer packs in pits lvl 2 make pits just too dangerous for me. And mausoleum just has awful density. But more importantly, I timed some runs, and was taking ~7min per area
Needless to say this is rough. If it was even like 4-5 minutes I might be ok with it. But this makes me think I just need to go blizz and focus on AT. However theres also my second big misconception to consider. I thought pits/tunnels/maus at p3 would yield decent runes in a reasonable amount of time. However, I calc (guessing 6 bosses, 36 minions, and 36 normals) that it'll take ~4000 AT runs for an ohm. Thats right, an ohm, not a ber or jah. Cubing up gul and vexes would reduce this to 2500ish, but at 7min a run, that time before CTA is just unacceptable. Perhaps more comprehensible with better runtimes after a blizzard respec, but with 2min per run (seems optimistic) its ~70 hours including cubing. So fathomable, but about 10x as long as LK.
Also trav is not an option in any reasonable sense for now. I'm far more willing to bend on the hybrid build than on no LK/mephy, so I'm leaning toward a blizzard respec and focusing on AT efficiency a lot harder. And just hoping for a lucky ohm. Would trav be remotely feasible as a weak blizz sorc without infinity?
Or am I giving up on the ole meteorber too easily? Would a few hundred runs be likely to improve my efficiency (through gear or playing skill) enough to consider sticking with it? Thanks all!
Hephasto was the toughest part of the whole playthrough and I had only 400k gold after merc revives after finally finishing him off. However, after thinking further afterwards, I'm wondering if Hephasto can be knocked back with telekinesis. Anyone know this? If he can, I'll be kicking myself, because that would have made the most difficult part of this playthrough a joke haha.
I keep meaning to test it on my sorc. Would take like two minutes but I keep forgetting. I saw on @Pb_pal 's charger write up he could be knocked back with charge which is what gave me the facepalm reaction that I really should have tried telekinesis on him.
I keep meaning to test it on my sorc. Would take like two minutes but I keep forgetting. I saw on @Pb_pal 's charger write up he could be knocked back with charge which is what gave me the facepalm reaction that I really should have tried telekinesis on him.
1750 or so LK runs done, 1 Mal one Ist and one Sur to show. Did about 200 today averaging about 43sec but was getting slightly annoyed and impatient so decided to switch my gear and run Pindle on p3 more for a break than anything else. Getting impatient and playing HC are not a mix I want to employ.
Kinda Glad I switched.
Delighted, looking at the way its dropped I am assuming its from a Minion and not Pindle himself. Either way, means I am only a Sur away from Enigma but still looking for my Ohm for CtA. Back to LK we go I guess.
PS - I was so exicted by this, I almost forgot to pick it up after taking screenie, worse still, my inventory was full so had to open inventory to drop it into cube. Nearly lost it twice!!! Can you imagine??
1750 or so LK runs done, 1 Mal one Ist and one Sur to show. Did about 200 today averaging about 43sec but was getting slightly annoyed and impatient so decided to switch my gear and run Pindle on p3 more for a break than anything else. Getting impatient and playing HC are not a mix I want to employ.
Kinda Glad I switched.
Delighted, looking at the way its dropped I am assuming its from a Minion and not Pindle himself. Either way, means I am only a Sur away from Enigma but still looking for my Ohm for CtA. Back to LK we go I guess.
PS - I was so exicted by this, I almost forgot to pick it up after taking screenie, worse still, my inventory was full so had to open inventory to drop it into cube. Nearly lost it twice!!! Can you imagine??
That is awesome! Those screenies are dangerous. I was fiddling around with trying to get a screen of a Lem when I was farming countess for treachery and then ended up s/e'ing without picking it up. In this case it obviously would have been so. much. worse. But that is awesome and I'm glad you successfully picked it up! Congrats!!
I was so happy with LK as had Sur so early but then it bit me. Hopefully another Sur will be forthcoming so I can start TPing around to speed up my timings and find my Ohm......
Zic has made it to 98.2 while settling into Nihl runs for the long haul!
I got my softcore "test" sorc to level 90 just MFing and trying to find some half suitable gear in order to run. While the initial runs were a bit more nerve racking, getting into a rhythm and adding Delirium to my merc made huge differences. Once I got comfortable on my softcore sorc, I decided to start giving it a try on Zic.
Zic's current gear for the Nihl runs:
Shako (with Sol)
Ormus Robes (+3 Lightning and +15% lightning damage )
Bloodfist gloves
Arachnid belt
Aldur's boots
Chromatic Ammy of Life Everlasting (21 all res, 22 PDR)
Nature's Peace (11 PDR)
BKWB
HotO
Stormshield (with fire res/all res/dex/-req jewel)
And for the moron:
Delirium
Treachery
War Scythe (with 5x Shael + Gul)
I feel fairly comfortable with Zic's survivability. She has max block, 2.1k HP with BO, 40 PDR, 45% DR, and 75/75/75/58 resists. She also hits the 60% FHR and 78% FCR breakpoints. The merc is set up to activate confuse as quickly as possible, hitting (what I believe to be) the fastest attack breakpoint at 145% IAS, adding a Gul for more AR (and thus more likely to strike and proc the CTC). War Scythe was obviously used to minimize damage in order to avoid killing mobs and causing unnecessary Corpse Explosions. I really haven't had any NDE, but I know I have a LONG road ahead of me.
Completed run times right now are around 25-30 seconds (probably closer to 30) which I am happy with considering the lack of Infinity. I had never used a run counter until now and I should have probably used on more in the past, it is quite nice! I rolled the map with the WP in the room with the pillars, it seemed to have the shortest distance to the stairs. However, I have maybe 1 shrine along the way and have seen folks with as many as 3? Do they take one of the longer WP-to-stair maps in order to maximize the number of shrines?
She does have to S&E when Nihl is lightning immune obviously, no way of breaking that at the moment. I am considering switching out the Sol in my Shako for a -5/+4 lightning facet to provide some additional damage when he spawns with some extra lightning resists but isn't quite immune. I regret using a socket quest on my merc's old Reaper's Toll that could probably be more useful now, but can't change the past.
I think the biggest upgrade I could get would be a Griffon's Eye (judging by the Item Find Thread, everyone is getting this but me ). This would allow me to switch out my Ormus Robes for my old CoH, which may allow for more flexibility in my remaining gear and some charms. Either way, I am quite happy with my current set up.
Nihl has had a couple nice gifts for me early on, and I will share those once I am home from work and have screenshots. Otherwise, I will do my best to avoid the deeds and update again at 98.3!
@buckcrazy amazing dude! Super excited to see a HC 99er. We’re all rooting for you. Don’t rip on us! No distracted play. Hand on ESC. Teleport in such a way where you avoid the center of boss packs!
@buckcrazy Run times are a good factor of course, but especially for xp gain, there exists an xp meter. See this post for the link. I really loved using it, especially from 98 - 99. For a long time, 2.5 M/hour was considered as a benchmark. I was getting close to 3M/hour near the end, but some were even way above that. A lot depends on how many runs you have to abort, and how bad your S&E times are (bad for most people, me included).
Speaking about aborted runs ... those are a big deal for efficiency. Seeing that you already got a Ber from Nihl, I'd definitely make an Infinity for your merc when you can.
Yng said:
You can roll a rack that drops Thresher close to LK WP. I think I invested 1-2 hours to get an Eth 4 socket Thresher.
Quote from a very long time ago, which I found while looking for that xp meter. But definitely applies to Grapelike it seems. Not for Threshers, but in my case for a good base, ideally for Grief, otherwise for Oath or Death. Grapelike just can't seem to get good bases to drop (quite some PBs, but never the right amount of sockets when dropped or in the cube).
@T72on1 Now I might be off, but looking for that grief base, and I assume we're talking PB's there, I have a vague recollection of reading that LK can't rack PBs, not sure if that's true though, but might be nice to check that before you put too many hours in searching for that rack.
If you keep running the pits the PB's will come though. Hang in there!
I guess cows is always nice for bases. But as I stated earlier. Pits seems like as good a place as any since you'll get some MF done while you're at it.
Edit: Sorry, I missed you asking specifically for racks. nvm me going on about the pits and cows
@Bobbo @T72on1 I believe LK rack can technically drop phase blades (LK racks are alvl 79 and pbs are qlvl 73), but it's such a small likelihood as not be considered, since racks almost never drop crystal-type swords. It's the same as bows or whatever where they can be dropped but it's way way less likely. I think I read about this in that big rack running thread here and then again on mrllama's video on racks.
Edit: So if we disregard phase blades, you could rack a zweihander for grief near anywhere, a colossus sword anywhere alvl 81 or higher, and a colossus blade cannot be racked. Highest pertinent alvl in the game is 85, racks are alvl-1, and cblade is qlvl 85. TC doesn't matter with racks, and a berserker axe similarly cannot be racked. Are there any other relevant bases?
Completed run times right now are around 25-30 seconds (probably closer to 30) which I am happy with considering the lack of Infinity. I had never used a run counter until now and I should have probably used on more in the past, it is quite nice! I rolled the map with the WP in the room with the pillars, it seemed to have the shortest distance to the stairs. However, I have maybe 1 shrine along the way and have seen folks with as many as 3? Do they take one of the longer WP-to-stair maps in order to maximize the number of shrines?
First off, nice job and great progress! As for shrines, Nanomist and I did a pile of testing way back when we were first hitting Nihl in here and it turns out on runs of your speed, shrines don't actually made any considerable distance in a purely xp/time sense. The extra time of checking and clicking the shrines basically negates the extra XP over the long haul.
What they DO help with is that they lessen the amount of total runs you have to do, and therefore the danger of dying. This is obviously especially handy for HC. For what it's worth, I didn't bother with shrines for the last ~75% of the level (or something along those lines) with Eleanor as I preferred a more fluid and direct approach. Basically, it's up to you what you prefer as it won't drastically change much in the long run, but for HC I think the general advice would be to roll a map that has 1-3 shrines along your path (regardless of which map you roll, though the pillar one is the shorted path) that you can check without wasting time, and run that. Do what is comfortable for you, that's the best way to endure you make it to that final ping.
@T72on1 Thank you for the XP link. I was wondering if that were possible, seeing as the run counter checks save times what would be stopping from it checking the XP while also checking save times and sure enough, someone had already made it!
As for the Infinity, I think you've convinced me to finally install RWM. Along with the Nihl drop, I also had one at the end of my CS runs. With the two of them just BER-ning a hole in my stash, probably wouldn't hurt to put them to use.
@Pb_pal Thank you for sharing your knowledge! Right now I have a sweet spot to pull up the LCS and teleport directly from WP to stairs and it feels fairly safe. I am glad to hear that it isn't a huge difference in saved time going between shrines and no shrines, but I agree that the fewer the runs the better for HC. I will have to think on this one a bit more, but your insight should help.
@buckcrazy how much time is it going to save you? It would be SWEET to do HC 99er without RWM. But I don't think I could leave those Ber unused if I were you... so it's a tough call.
@Bobbo @Bewitch Random question, but I was reading through old posts and was surprised to see the ut99er barbs going with phase blades for grief rather than zweihanders. Are the repairs too annoying?
Grief adds absolute damage so the base damage is almost irrelevant. That’s why PB is by far best choice due to fastest WSM (and no repair as a bonus).
Regarding XP shrines, like @Pb_pal said it’s not worth checking them if it takes extra time. But I’d strongly recommend rolling a map with 2 shrines directly en route. That’s what I did for both 99ers, and it does reduce runs required by some 5-10% in theory if I recall the numbers correctly.
Grief adds absolute damage so the base damage is almost irrelevant. That’s why PB is by far best choice due to fastest WSM (and no repair as a bonus).
Regarding XP shrines, like @Pb_pal said it’s not worth checking them if it takes extra time. But I’d strongly recommend rolling a map with 2 shrines directly en route. That’s what I did for both 99ers, and it does reduce runs required by some 5-10% in theory if I recall the numbers correctly.
I thought zweihander and pb both hit the last ww breakpoint independent of grief ias roll, so the speed was effectively the same for a whirl barb. But it has better range, so a slightly higher chance to hit. I'm not experienced with whirl barb at all though so tell me if I'm mistaken. I have no idea if the zweihander is too slow once respeccing to conc for nilly though. Maybe thats it. Or maybe the repairs are too frequent? Was just curious since the barb I'm working on is the only one who I plan to use grief with at the moment.
You are right for WW it doesn’t make a difference in terms of speed compared to Zweihander, but WW is the exception. I guess the repair (yes it is annoying) is the biggest reason to go PB if you exclusively use it for WW. Zweihander only has one extra range, but I guess maybe some players would take the repair annoyances for that. Personally I made all my Griefs in PB so far, though a Grief BA/Beast BA Barb is on my agenda.
@buckcrazy how much time is it going to save you? It would be SWEET to do HC 99er without RWM. But I don't think I could leave those Ber unused if I were you... so it's a tough call.
Hard to say exactly, but if I had to guess I would say maybe around 15-25%. That's between the slightly faster Nihl kills each time and the reduced number of abandoned runs. I am not going to go run home right away and make it. My current plan is to try and rigorously record how long it takes to go from 98.2 to 98.3 without the Infinity and make some sort of judgement from there. I agree that doing it without RWM is an extra little bit of fun and it hasn't really caused any issues until now.
As for the Bers, don't you worry! Even if they don't make it into an Infinity for Zic, they will be put to use for whatever character I opt to twink the heck out of next. As for which character that is, well I got a few thousand Nihl runs to think about that.
well at least to me it would be too annoying^^
btw i hitted 99 on PoD hardcore a week ago, but im still playin it. but wont take toooo long until im back i guess^^
hope its ok to post that screen, otherwise just delete it^^
@Luhkoh well, I went pb mostly for the repairs and didn’t care about the range as I’m not ww. I have a feeling I will respec sooner or later though, single target builds dont feel all too viable for the long haul tbh.
Nice continued progress, @everyone, and @buckcrazy in particular with the push toward 99! Keep it up.
As for me, it's been a while since my last update, with busy work and several work trips limiting my D2 time a bit. But we've hit a milestone, so it's update time!
* * *
Pestilence finally hit the half-way mark toward level 98, with a couple extra million to hit 3.1B. As mentioned in updates for my other entries, he continued in the Pit, with >300 MF and averaging only just over 3M/hr. Slow going, but very solid drops, including quite a few TC87s and an overall grailer.
In the first four weeks after hitting 98.25, he gained only a few million XP as I focused on finishing the Barb’s playthrough and then some leveling. But during that stretch he picked up Pul #9, with Steelrend #2 an early TC87 drop, followed by his first Ravenlore.
Those screenshots show his Pit map pretty well, with the left-hand L the main route with consistent 5-boss pack density average; when they weren’t in the long arm of the L, we went right and generally found 2-3 over there (along with a well, which we also would hit if he got amp’ed early).
We then focused on him equally with Death, with this drop serving as some motivation:
Yep, his second Templar’s, and my seventh overall non-Pindle one (+2 of those), without a Tyrael’s
Code:
Templar's Might
Sacred Armor
Defense: 1833
Durability: 56 of 60
Required Level: 74
Required Strength: 232
Fingerprint: 0xdf1e2f9a
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+1 to Offensive Aura Skills (Paladin Only)
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+205% Enhanced Defense
+257 Defense vs. Missile
+10 to Strength
+14 to Vitality
+41 Maximum Stamina
He then started making some solid progress, with a Captain’s skiller with FHR, Shaeffer’s, Griz Caduceus #2 and Vortex Shield building up to a highlight of this stretch:
Shortly after that, he finally got his first +skill ring, a Stone of Jordan, and picked up Windforce #2. Then we got another nice, long-awaited drop:
It picked up 4os with the cube recipe (my third attempt overall with >40@ Sacred Rondache or Targe), and became Exile, to bring me to runeword grail -2. Sur #2 dropped, which allows him to make a second Enigma with the Jah. That may actually happen when he transitions to Nihl for corpse recovery kit.
That was followed by a remarkably stupid death: every 50 runs or so, I’d accidentally teleport into Might or Fanaticism pack. If amp’ed it was immediate S&E, and if there was also mana burn, it was S&E if first attempt to teleport out didn’t work. Well, this time, I immediately S&E’d by instinct, but then realized he wasn’t amp’ed and had full mana with only a fanaticism aura and multiple revives between him and the boss. So I said, “I got this.” Esc again, and all at once, amp triggered, I realize there is overlapping Might aura, and the Might archer boss pack is behind him. Poof. I was so annoyed with myself for the dumbness, I forgot to take a screenshot. Anyhow, corpse recovery was successful, so only a little more than 2 hours lost. But tremendously dumb death, when I’d actually gotten Esc in time but decided to wade in nonetheless.
I guess he was rewarded, with the other major highlight of this stretch happening as he gained back the lost XP:
It was Earthshifter, which brings to me grail -2 overall (Mang’s and Tyrael’s missing, so still a long way to go). Mara’s #2 followed, with an upgrade over 20@ to 27@. The last two drops meriting screenshots were the Grandfather and another Fungal skiller (for 7 overall ) at the very end.
There were plenty of other notable drops during this stretch, including Fleshripper, two Giant skulls, two Nat’s claws, Unique Champion axe, etc.
Earlier today, I did a little testing on CS runs, trying p1 to get revives, 3-seal, Gripp runs, and both 75 and 125 FCR set ups. I just can’t get it to work. XP-wise, one set-up appeared comparable to Pit, if maybe a little faster (75 FCR set up with Shako, 2-seal runs, with p1 to pick up early revives), but it’s way more hectic and will have much worse drops.
I also tested out Nihl (his current Pit map amazingly has good CS and Nihl map), with only a little faster XP gain with current set-up (swapping in Aldur’s and Dwarf Star, plus some vita and resist charms). He has one last respec, and rebalancing stats and skills would make Nihl more manageable (higher level amp in particular). I am pretty sure @ffs is right, and HoTo/Shako will beat his Dweb/20FCR amulet set up, but I don’t have the dexterity to equip the HoTo with current spec to test without sacrificing boot or ring slot.
So I think he will go back to the Pit, at least for another tenth of the level. MF set up allows nice drops and it’s safe. But I run out of steam fairly quickly it seems (I wasn’t able to do enough sustained runs with him to get more than 5M in a day over this quarter level), so I may need to transition after that. We’ll see.
* * *
Death also made some progress, currently at level 87. He mixed up straight p7 LK, p7 LK taking on and horking boss packs, p1/p3 Pit, p1 Countess, Andy, Pindle, and some Meph runs along the way.
That last pic shows the result of his first death, which was pretty dumb: door bell rang, I thought I hit Esc to head downstairs, and apparently not. Oh well He’s no-longer death free, but still hasn’t died during actual gameplay.
He now has the runes for two Oaths, or with another Ohm/Lo, a Grief and Oath, but no bases. He’s now focused on Pit runs in search of a base, so far with 3 failed attempts to cube a 5os PB, and one failed attempt with an eth balrog blade (but it ended up 3os, allowing the Lawbringer upgrade).
Stash management isn’t too bad, with Shako now muled off. Wishes on drops are: String of Ears, Gore Riders/War Traveler (Goblin Toe aren’t too bad, but the FRW would be nice), and LoH. Highlord’s and BKWB would also be awesome (and worth it to drop Angelic jewelry, although the AR bonus is really nice), as would Steelshade for Ragnar and Council runs. But his MF is pretty low, so I’m not really holding my breath on any of that. But that should help in the search for bases
well at least to me it would be too annoying^^
btw i hitted 99 on PoD hardcore a week ago, but im still playin it. but wont take toooo long until im back i guess^^
hope its ok to post that screen, otherwise just delete it^^
@PhineasB Again great stuff. Skiller #7 to go with DWeb and that 2/20 amulet? One of the most OP geared Necros I have ever seen – and he's untwinked.
Regarding Nihl running indeed Hoto/Shako is hard to beat, allowing easy 125 FCR, %PDR and opening up ring slots for Dwarf Star, further increasing safety, whereas PN damage has not much of an effect for these runs. DWeb setups may just be pushing too far in terms of squishiness. I tried with Beast (great DWeb substitute) and found it way too dangerous with 125 FCR, which is more or less required for the CE battle. But I didn’t have a 2/20 amulet, so it could be worth a try in your case since at least you could incorporate a Dwarf Star.
One thing though, I wouldn't put extra points in AD. For dangerous spawns I found it very helpful to be able to CC (I went with Confuse) the whole screen, but then immediately cast a targeted AD on Nihl and whatever the Merc was fighting, while all other opponents remained CC'ed. With higher AD radius, those situations would be more dangerous. I'd rather have Confused Vipers than Amp'ed ones.
To add to the above (putting this in spoiler since I assume @PhineasB is the only one currently interested in this ):
"Normal" runs are very straight-forward of course. Whenever possible it’s a simple sequence:
Amp. (Lower radius is fine since you can start the CE chain even with a low number of Amp’ed monsters. It’s about killing Nihl and not the creeps, so if some of them live a little longer it doesn’t matter as long as you can chain CEs.)
PN until Merc delivers first corpse.
Spam CE until Nihl dies.
But there are many deviations which I think keep these runs pretty entertaining. These are the tricks and tweaks I implemented over some 18k runs:
Spiders are good! Yes their corpses deliver the highest damage CEs, but that is actually an advantage and I was always happy to see them. Instead of randomly spamming CE, cast it on them if you see one die (and not give Nihl a chance to use it). These are in fact the fastest runs more often than not.
Keeping Witches Confused with active XP shrine: When seeing Witches in HoV and having grabbed an XP shrine in HoP, often it’s possible to get to Nihl’s platform without being cursed just yet. In such case I would only use Confuse and make sure it covers everything. That way you can often hang on to the XP shrine (unless Nihl rolls amp/otherwise nasty). Targeting Amp may seem possible at times, but after losing shrines to unseen Witches lingering in some corner a few times, I just stuck with Confuse for the run in such cases.
Get cursed on purpose in case of spotted but not yet taken XP shrine: When seeing Witches in HoV and an XP shrine (in HoV) while not being cursed yet, it’s the other way around. Wait 1-2 seconds until the Witches curse you, then grab the shrine. They will not cast it again and the run can be continued and finished with the extra XP (again assuming no Amp from Nihl).
Curse splitting: As mentioned above and also earlier in this thread, in case of dangerous spawns (= Vipers or *many* Witches), I’d cast Confuse first. But most of the time it’s possible to find a spot to cast AD right afterwards, and hit Nihl and the Merc area with it (hence lower radius is good). Pretty sure a vid in Ric’s 99er write-up has some examples of this, it quickly became an important part of his runs.
Taking the Arctic Blast hit: When landing at the platform, take a step along the edge of it, not back. Nihl will then often cast his AB on the Necro instead of the Merc, who will therefore deliver the first corpse quicker (assuming Merc doesn’t have CNBF ofc). When taking a step slightly away from the Platform however, which may seem more intuitive, the AB will usually hit the Merc and thus briefly chill him, delaying the corpse a bit. No biggie, but I tried to avoid it often.
Trying to always land directly on the edge of the platform: Merc should fight immediately and not have to take a few steps first. Saves valuable time.
Casting AD first: When starting out I cast PN first to get that DoT going. Not smart, again it’s about the Merc. Whenever Confused is not required, AD goes down first to double his damage, PN comes second.
That’s all I can think of for now, if anything else comes to mind I’ll add it.
IpBanPrevales reports +2lvls on her run to Countess. Bunch of lightning immunes archers packs there, not able to get one to the countess for now, i have to understand how i can do it with my die-so-fast partners, don't succeed in proc'ing DS explosions...
A Fal dropped in a chest, getting closer to the Lem anyway !
Forumite Character SC/HC Class Level Exp Date E/S S/U Grail Deaths Hours
--------------- --------------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ---------- --- ---- ----- ------ -----
RIP Kaira_II HC Sin 95 2.55 2018-09-06 Yes - 399 - -
Kitteh Gwynt HC Druid 87 XXXX 2018-11-07 Yes - - - -
Bewitch itsreal HC Sorc 87 1.xx 2018-04-24 No - - - -
MizzouFTW Pure HC Necro 86 1.15 2018-01-10 Yes - - 1 -
Vildecor Celia HC Ama 84 0.99 2018-05-30 Yes 125 97 1 -
coju NintyNine_orRiP HC Sorc 81 0.74 2016-04-07 Yes - - 1 -
RIP Attila HC Barb 78 0.59 2018-09-26 Yes - 73 - -
TwentyMuleTeam Valus HC Barb 76 0.48 2016-10-27 Yes - - 1 -
Pb_pal Stevesy HC Pala 76 0.48 2017-06-19 Yes - - 1 -
weezaard Cypher SC Druid 66 0.00 2018-02-21 Yes - - 20+ -
Tenecabo OldShatterhand HC Druid 49 0.04 2016-06-16 Yes - 0 1 -
Pijus Pyrestarter HC Druid 36 0.00 2018-05-21 Yes - - 1 -
coju fB HC Sorc 29 0.00 2016-04-09 Yes 1 1 1 2
Kitteh Verallus HC Druid 26 0.00 2016-03-25 No - - 1 -
logoutzero Rolex HC Barb 21 0.00 2016-03-26 Yes 0 0 1 1
Will update properly via my other thread later on but have pushed on a couple of levels and have pushed through Kurast and the sewers and havereached Travi. Minor **** up there though as having killled all the council carefully and various other monsters and champions i went into the temple and went after the last champion inside. I killed it but the other lot behind killed the merc and there were far to many to deal with myself in a confined space so had to S&E out of it so not quite triggered the zealots run from me bit.
No drops or runes of note on the few LK runs i have managed on top of this but still barely over 100 there.
Today I created my Lightning-Sorc-to-be, VelvetSky. Not sure if I ever needed this long to make it through act 1, but it's been pretty much 10 years since I played completely untwinked. Played on /p1 only, ran the countess several times to get a few runes for Stealth and just killed Andariel at level 17. No deaths so far. Currently she has 4 points in Charged Bolt, 5 in Static Field, 6 in Nova, 1 in Warmth and 1 in Telekinesis. Plan is to put the remaining points into Nova, then respec to a Meteorb build once she hits 30 for questing up to hell Pindle. At that point I plan to respec her to a Blizzard sorc to farm Meph and AT for a few essential items (Arachnid Mesh, Andariel's Visage and Griffon's Eye), then LK to get the runes for Infinity, Fortitude, Chains of Honor and Call To Arms. At that point I will do her final respec into a pure Lightning sorc.
@PhineasB Interesting stuff, good read. I also just respeced to a Pestilencemancer (or so I think), but I use Amp as my main curse. Which is your curse of choice?
Thanks @NamelessPenguin - For Pestilence, it's been exclusively amp for the Pit runs. When I tested CS, I tried lower resist as an alternative, and actually the approach that worked best was to switch between them: amp on merc so the monsters near him are amp'ed, poison nova a couple times, then lower resist where merc wasn't, poison nova, and then back to amp when we got a couple corpses--but I couldn't get enough corpses early to make the runs comfortable, generally having to reposition at least once.
@Yng Generally Nihl wouldn’t be my first choice for HC but 99% of the time Nihl never got a spider corpse once I consistently targeted them with CE. Nihl is actually very slow with his CE in comparison to Necro, he gets CEs only once there are several corpses and if he chooses another one than the Necro. Plus generally Necro gear should be aimed at considerably reducing CE damage (%PDR, FR, absorb), so taking a hit is usually no biggie unless Nihl is cursed.
You are a beast @PhineasB. Just straight up awesome leveling.
After my stupid death a few nights ago I have made up the lost XP(thankfully I got the corpse back). I am at 97.25 now and getting somewhat better at being efficient, but that death really pissed me off since it was my 3rd one since getting to 97 which is around a 21 mil XP loss. Could always be worse as one death at this level without getting the corpse back is 27 mil. But, there are no participation trophies getting to 99. It’s either get it and win or not get it and lose. I am going to stay FO/FB to 98, but will strongly consider lightning and Nihl after that.
The map I’m currently using is getting old and I might reset my maps soon. I will hate losing my current LK map, but I have more Runes for this character than she needs so getting a better C.S. map will be more advantageous.
A quick update I have one of the required end game equipment after 16 tries
Then I found a potential game changer as well
Yes, its not a great roll but still could be the EGG.
Now need another 4 socket Monarch. Lots of plain and 1 os Monarch from drops and the recipe. So am still running the AT for that piece until I can move on to LK. So more AT runs until then
Message of warning: don't play HC when very tired and after a few beers .
I'm so mad at myself. Well, no not mad actually. Disappointed. Because I'm still convinced that I could have taken ShouldBeEasy to 99, and even with relative ease. At least in a very safe way, as the grind to 99 is never easy.
But yeah. I almost never drink. For once I did, but as it goes when you aren't used to it, it only takes 3 beers to feel the effect of the alcohol rather hard. So when I came home and didn't feel like going to bed, I decided it was best to play my SC characters. First some Pit runs with Grapelike. Then with the FA Amazon I'm leveling. But after a while I really felt like playing ShouldBeEasy. And so I did, without any issues. Hammerdins are just such safe characters, almost nothing can get them down. In my opinion, from the experience I've had with him now, in CS there is only one thing that can take down a Hammerdin, unless you aren't careful and teleport into a Fana / Might pack when amped, and that is Conviction Infector.
And I'm 99% sure that's exactly what happened. I actually wanted to call it a day after a while, but then realized I hadn't backed up my D2 files for a while, so decided to do that. Then I figured that I might as well play some more during the 10 minutes or so it took to upload the zip file. Wrong decision . On my last or one of the last runs of the evening, doing the same routine I'd always do, I hit the Seal, teleported to Infector's pack, and before I knew it I was dead. I never saw the Conviction aura, but the only instances I've ever had that my life went down so fast, was in the particular case of Conviction. So yeah, 3200 hitpoints away in the blink of an eye .
I'm quite sure this wouldn't have happened if I wouldn't have been so tired and after a few beers. I've had instances before that I didn't notice Conviction Infector at first, but was always fast enough to hit a full Rejuv. I wasn't even close now.
So after a bit less than 103 hours, ShouldBeEasy, who actually lived up to his name, is no more. Even the easiest of characters can get killed if their driver completley wrecks it. He was about 1/5th on his way to level 96, which is the highest or close to the highest I've ever been in HC. My first ever character after joining this forum was a HC Blizz Sorc, who also made it to 95, but iirc never went far beyond that before dying in my first ever RFO here. After my last update on ShouldBeEasy, there were two drops of note. A Gul, and then this new Insight I made for the merc, which got an incredibly good roll, including max possible ED% and CS roll:
I enjoyed my first ever Hammerdin a lot, but as you all know, I didn't enjoy farming for that Enigma. So I'll do a remake, in fact I have already even started that one, but not untwinked, and not in HC this time. I do plan to keep the character alive at all costs, and hopefully one day I'll be able to brag with a level 99 Hammerdin who hasn't died a single time. That's definitely the goal I set myself.
Next to that, I'll still play Grapelike of course. If nothing else, I owe it to his name obviously .
@T72on1 Aw man, that sucks! My condolences! That's the main reason for me why I could never play HC. All that time and effort put into it, all that grinding to get those items. But one little mistake and, in the blink of an eye, it's all gone. I'd probably rage-quit at that point , but glad to see you're jumping right back in, even if it's not HC and not untwinked.
Omg...at least i don't like beer, one point to be safer in HC ! But i already feel stupid when losing some xp, so...lvl 90+ in HC i can't even imagine oO
Feeling kinda sad for this character, but that's part of the game - completing Hell in HC would be the only challenge i may be ok with, couldn't grind that much xp, it was already huge getting there man !
My condolences @T72on1. Good thing you still have grapelike. I always feel like having another character ready to go helps with taking the edge off the loss of a hc toon.
So... time to get another up and running
I still miss ShouldBeEasy. I still think the name is a good name for a Hammerdin. So if anyone is seeking for a good character to enter this challenge with: look no further .
Not much activity from Barbamel for a while now. He's back at running LK for the Enigma, but has also been put on the backburner in order to level another character just to have a backup in case things go south and he deeds. I went with a Javazon as that's pretty much the opposite of Barbamels slow single-target chugging along. I didn't enter her into the tables yet planning to do so when she felt safe enough as to not have to erase her from the tables. Well, let's just say, she's no longer with us. I don't even remember what got her, but that doesn't matter now.
However, I do have another project going, again, will enter into the tables once it feels safe enough, probably after finishing the anya quest in hell or after beating Trav to start running LK.
Currently questing through hell act 2.
Most notable drops as of yet are a Pul (will come in handy some day) a Lem (for treachery once I have a decent base) and a Fal (which will go into an Obedience once I have an elite base) from Hell countess runs, a viper magi (24@) from questing in act2 NM and a pair of 37% chance guards... eth though
Taking a break from my softcore projects to start up a 99er on HC. Hocus will be a novamancer. The goal is to stay away from LK entirely. I'm going to focus on Pits until 94 and then reevaluate.
@T72on1 Noooooooooooooo! I was gone all weekend on a snowboarding trip and I have to come back to someone's deeds? Not cool! I used Rising Sun while in CS for the sole purpose of avoiding the problems that come with Convicted Infector, that is one nasty dude! Well best of luck on your next project, look forward to reading about it!
I know I haven't officially added Devi to the table, but she's still a part of the ut99ing I'm at just under 2000 LK runs. Sur and Lo are the only high runes. It's a bit (read: very) depressing to be so far from Enigma. That said, I wanted to show you all how a real LK runner does it:
Highlights (in case you don't want to watch all 16 runs):
@ 2:05 watch Devi get out of an Ape trap with telestaff
@ 2:55 you can see her smoothly dealing with a nasty set of mobs
@ 6:42 you can can see a SUB-21 SECOND run
@T72on1, running LK with a runner instead of a sorc isn't really that much slower.
Secretly hoping that@Gripphon and @ffs are impressed by the efficiency
@everyone- I got the Hall of Fame with all the active links back in there. For those of us who *can* post links, make sure you are grabbing one with links so we don't lose them all to the ether. Also to the newer members, make sure you have checked the option to use the Rich Text Editor, as explained in @ioupainmax awesome Table Formatting Guide. It makes the tables MUCH easier to use, and should help eliminate confusion moving forward.
@PhineasB - Awesome progress! Some really amazing finds in there too, great stuff.
@T72on1 - Condolences. That's awful, I thought for sure you'd go the whole way with him. Best of luck on your SC counterpart!
Great progress to all others as well!
--
You know, it's funny. After completing Eleanor I thought I'd never run Nihlathak again. Having spent some time there with Klaus, I dare say I actually missed the pasty little guy.
With more numbers in, I feel comfortable giving some thoughts on running Nihlathak with a fire druid. First off, the XP is comparable to running Diablo with an XP shrine every run, so it's significantly faster. Faster, of course, is relative. A typical run is somewhere around 35 seconds, going as low as 30 but as high as 40 depending on the run. Consistency (in terms of run times) is not really a thing for fire druids, just by nature of how Fissure works.
Sometimes it absolutely mows Nihl and company, other times it literally just doesn't hit him. It makes sense, since he's such a narrow target, but it sure can be frustrating. General strategy is as follows:
1. Teleport in to a safe landing spot on the outside of Nihl's platform, throw a Fissure in and then use the casting delay time to figure out your next step.
If it's safe:
2. Keep Fissuring if he's in a "sweet spot" and taking damage, or telebomb and Firestorm him to death (very effective, as long as he doesn't go on a teleporting spree)
If it's not safe (active vipers, tons of witches/archers etc)
2. Either Fissure from the outside, or Volcano if Fissure isn't hitting. I'll also use Volcano if he only has a bit of health left, as it's the most reliable (even if not the most damaging) skill.
Always abort on FE, it's just too slow.
That about covers it. It's quite safe overall, but it can turn QUICK.
That's the worst I've had so far, here's how it happened. I teled through and for some reason went to land in the corner on the left in the screenie. That's not my normal spot, I normally land in the opposing corner, so why I went over there I do not know. See what's over there? Fanatacism Spiders and Vipers.
Next mistake; I tried (and luckily succeeded) to teleport out of the pack instead of simply aborting. Oak got vaporized immediately and my health (which was now half of what I normally have) plummetted. I got lucky this time and survived, but from now on I will make sure to have an even quicker trigger fringer on the ESC button, and use it liberally. That's the one problem with Oak too, you get accustomed to a certain amount of life and how quickly it depletes, so when the oak dies your pool is much smaller then you might think and can go shockingly fast.
Onwards and upwards, drops weren't as fun this round but there was still some pretty useful stuff, and some grailers (for Klaus, anyways) like Gimmershreds, a Gul rune, Giant Skull, Rune Master (5 sockets), and Klaus' second Halaberd's Reign. Nihl was feeling more liberal with the runes too, getting an Um and following it up quickly with an Ist before giving us our first real rune find at about 45% of the level:
It was actually a bit of trouble picking that one up. I had to tele back out of the room and clear out some vipers and witches before diving back in.
Finally a Boneflame (+3 skills, 26 all res) capped off the first half of level 97 for Klaus.
Other finds:
- plain Ruby jewel (35%)
- 4os eth GP
@T72on1 - NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Like @buckcrazy alluded to, my biggest fear of my trips into this thread is scrolling down and seeing a Deeds screenshot. And this one is especially painful to me, as I have a previous HC death under very similar circumstances - get home after a night of bottomless beers, log on to play a few minutes while scarfing down the first piece of food I can find....and then literally fall asleep in my chair....only to get roused out of my slumber by my Necro's death scream.
@Pb_pal That NDE please be careful down there! Awesome and of course extremely ballsy to actually run him in HC, no matter the amount of life or whatever defensive stats.
But IIRC Elenaor was way more fragile and yet you didn’t let her die after 96. If you pull this one off with a Fire Druid – bragging rights for decades. Gogogo!
Sorry to see the deeds @T72on1 - such a rough way to go. I'm very impressed with how well you've handled it, and hope the SC twinked attempt goes as smoothly as hoped.
Great progress also to @Pb_pal although I agree with @ffs that the NDE is terrifying (and I don't even play HC). Stay safe!
So after 5500 or so runs I have *finally* got my 2nd Sur to make enigma. On the way got a couple of Lo, one Vex and three gul. A few Mal and Ist runes were also liberated but no way on earth in line with expectations.
Edit: no Pul in 5500!!!! /Edit
I will post screenshots once I resolve the size issue again, for some reason too large but for now, it's getting used to playing with a short range caster and teleport so have gone back to act 1 for some familiarisation before map hunting for Mephisto shopping.
But IIRC Elenaor was way more fragile and yet you didn’t let her die after 96. If you pull this one off with a Fire Druid – bragging rights for decades. Gogogo!
She was more fragile in general, yes. And you're correct in her surviving, so I'm hopeful! The thing is, without oak Klaus doesn't have that much more life than she did, so I think the trick will just be being mindful of keeping oak up at all times (5.1k is a bit better than 2.6k ). The main reason for that NDE was that I deviated from my normal landing spot. Never again!
So after 5500 or so runs I have *finally* got my 2nd Sur to make enigma. On the way got a couple of Lo, one Vex and three gul. A few Mal and Ist runes were also liberated but no way on earth in line with expectations.
Edit: no Pul in 5500!!!! /Edit
I will post screenshots once I resolve the size issue again, for some reason too large but for now, it's getting used to playing with a short range caster and teleport so have gone back to act 1 for some familiarisation before map hunting for Mephisto shopping.
Update
VelvetSky killed Hell Andariel and hit level 76. 7 deaths so far. 1st came from Normal Diablo, which I had expected. 2nd came from Nightmare Diablo. Unnecessary, but I can live with that. Next 4 deaths came while farming NM Meph in her mid 60s after killing NM Baal at level 64. At that point I was close to rage-quitting and restarting that character. I wasn't happy with her performance as a Meteorb sorc at all and kinda regretted not going Blizzard instead, even though that would have made questing in hell a tad more difficult. Meph took ages (or about 20 Meteors) to kill with the moat trick, unless she static'd him down first. But due to only ~20 lightning resists and about 500 life, he sometimes 1-shot killed her with his charged bolt attack while doing that. Didn't help that she had to run him for hours upon hours until he finally dropped a Vipermagi and Magefists, at which point she was finally able to move on from him. Killed Pindle a few times to level up to 71 before she moved on to hell.
Resists are good now, with Fire and Lightning maxed, Cold at almost 40 but supported with Cold Absorb from a Raven Frost. 105% FCR is reached. Act 1 was pretty easy, Andariel went down quickly. Since she got a good Countess and Andariel map, I decided to run the Countess for a while to upgrade my merc's armor before hitting Act 2, since his resists are only at 55 at the moment. Not sure yet whether I should put a Smoke or Treachery on him. Other than that he's wearing Tal's Horadric Crest and an ethereal Insight Partizan... 7th death came while running the Countess. I had already killed her and teleported into the room next to hers to pick up some items. At that point she already had about 700 life, when all of a sudden she got one-shotted out of the dark by an extra strong boss archer, who stepped into the light after the kill-shot. Didn't even see it coming.
Not much to show in terms of pictures, except for these two shots while running the Countess. First is a Ko drop from NM Countess, which is the highest she can drop and outside of her special drop if I'm not mistaken.
Second one is an Ist from Hell Countess. Highest from her special drop. Nothing special per se, but this is actually my very first Ist rune drop since my return this past December.
@T72on1 : Almost a week later, but my condolences on your loss. Losing any HC character is tough. Losing one with so much time investment just plain sucks. Very glad to see you decide to forge ahead in re-making the character (and I don't blame you for not wanting to reaquire the runes for Enigma).
I've been playing my Zon off and on since I popped back in. That Ber drop I got was actually enough to make Infinity. I stuck it in the first 4os polearm the cube gave me. Been running the Pits since then. Pretty fun and easy. Need to squeeze some more MF on her.
I also decided to use her for the upcoming RFO. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be saving the ancients anyway, so now I just gotta mop up the last few Act 5 quests to open up the cow slaughtering.
Quick, but significant update. Went through Hell and hit level 79. What a difference a few +skills and more resists can make. Act 1 - 3 were kinda easy, act 4 a bit more challenging. Hellforge dropped an Io. I pretty much just teleported through act 5, just stopping to kill Shenk, rescue the soldiers and free Anya. Died for the 8th time in the Crystalline Passage to an extra fast boss pack of Pit Vipers with Fanaticism aura. I hadn't found the WP for that area yet, so I had to start from the Frigid Highlands WP again. Also, apparently I didn't wait for the soldiers after opening their cages the first time, so I had to do that quest again, too. But now that Anya is safe and sound back in Harrogath, VelvetSky's time as a Meteorb sorc is over and will be respec'd to a Blizzard sorc to farm Meph first, then either Ancient Tunnels or Pindle.
Notable find in the Flayer Dungeon:
Now I'm just missing a Mal and a base item to make a Call To Arms. Maybe I will run the Countess a bit more for that Mal before the respec.
Important NM Meph drop I forgot to mention last time:
Code:
War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 128
Durability: 48 of 48
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 95
Fingerprint: 0x5706682b
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+25% Faster Run/Walk
Adds 15 - 25 Damage
+168% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
40% Slower Stamina Drain
Attacker Takes Damage of 8
45% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+30 Maximum Durability
Felt the urge to play for the first time in a while!
Killed my alt in Act 4 normal, basically on purpose. Got surrounded by Infector wave, and spammed pots to try and tank it out because I was too lazy to reset. She was going to be an untwinked Javazon, but I wasn't particularly excited about it as I've already got a persona non grata Javazon- so no great loss!
On Terrahork I decided it was time to change up some old faithfuls.
First I went back to Nightmare to pick up a Might Merc. You've served me well, Razan, but all good things just come to an end
Second I switched out my trusty Angelic ring and amulet for Mara's and a Ravenfrost, in order to replace my Arreat's with G-Face.
Not overly thrilled with the look of the spiky helmet, but it'll have to do as it's a big damage increase! Transmog is one of the few genuinely good features of D3!
In honor of the drop I just got from LK run number 2499, it's time for a proper update.
As I said yesterday, I was able to craft Infinity with the Ber I got a couple of weeks ago. I spent quite a few runs in the Pits to get a base, and after 5 cube socket attempts I made my first ever Infinity:
I kept going in the Pits from level 80 to 86. The map I have is very linear, which is quite fine w/o Teleport. I didn't bother to time any of the runs, since I wasn't really after speed. I still have a bunch of gaps in my gear, and figured I'd see what managed to drop for a few levels worth of runs. Unfortunately, nothing helpful. Still wearing Stealth armor, Lore helm, and rare javelins.
Now with the RFO coming up, I've gone back to LK to get the runes for Enigma. After that, some Hell Mephisto/Pindle runs to try to squeeze out a few more gear slots. At least now that I have Thunderstroke I won't feel like I have to keep running until I get a Titan's. They'll still be nice to have, though.
However, I do have another project going, again, will enter into the tables once it feels safe enough, probably after finishing the anya quest in hell or after beating Trav to start running LK.
Well, say hello ho My little friend. Gimmelbop a lvl 84 HC trapper. She has been speced as lightning since the get-go.
She’s currently running eldritch for exp and items mixing in some LK from time to time.
Her defensive stats are lacking though so I keep pretty much exclusively to eldritch for now.
She’s been semi lucky with drops. 2 vipermagi @24, 2 chance guards with 37 mf, one eth.
With runes,she’s been more lucky. She’s sporting a treachery (in a low def base though). Has the runes for obedience and treachery for the merc, just waiting for eth elite bases. She’s also found a gul which might go toward an ohm if I don’t find one before I can cube one for CTA.
But most importantly, she’s already found a Ber from LK.
Question is if I should go for enigma or infinity first. Opinions?
On mobile atm so I’ll enter her into the table when at my laptop.
Yeah, I thought there might be some mixed opinions on this
Until I have the next Ber (or Jah, luck permitting) i'll probably know what to do, kind of also depends on what bases I find I guess.
Just now it feels like my damage is lacking, which makes me lean toward infinity, but i'll probably improve on my gear quite a bit before I get my hands on the rest of the runes.
Last thing that happened last time I played was I cubed 4 sockets into a newly found monarch and built myself a spirit. Haven't tried it out yet though, but I bet it'll make things die a bit faster than with Rhyme. I'll sure miss the CBF though. Also, as I'm hoping for a stormshield I'm kind of reluctant to get used the the skills from Spirit as those skills will be missed later if I ever find that SS
For a trapper though, getting infinity means being able to clear almost all areas really quickly. Though waiting for the merc to catch up is tough sometimes I'm sure.
As someone who has made Infinity first on three separate occasions for an untwinked trapper, I can wholeheartedly say you want Enigma first just as long as you already have the FCR gear. If you are just barely geared then definitely go infinity first.
As someone who has made Infinity first on three separate occasions for an untwinked trapper, I can wholeheartedly say you want Enigma first just as long as you already have the FCR gear. If you are just barely geared then definitely go infinity first.
I thought this as well, but I'm able to run consistent sub-25 second LK runs without enigma. So I'm not sure it would really increase my times that significantly.
Usually I'd say Enigma too, without a doubt. In that very much untwinked setting, where killing speed still is low, combined with the fact that you do LK so fast without it, I'd say Infinity definitely has something going for it too though. However, the merc not being able to keep up with you if not going for Enigma, probably is a reason to still go for Enigma.
Usually I'd say Enigma too, without a doubt. In that very much untwinked setting, where killing speed still is low, combined with the fact that you do LK so fast without it, I'd say Infinity definitely has something going for it too though. However, the merc not being able to keep up with you if not going for Enigma, probably is a reason to still go for Enigma.
If you want to make Infinity first, do it. Perfectly good reason.
If you want the fastest progress, there is no arguing with Enigma. It will deliver the runes for Infinity faster, and eventually you want both, so that’s what makes most sense objectively.
For example Assassin is one the fastest non-teleporting LK runners, but even in her case cutting run times from 25s to e.g. 20s means going from ~7h per Sur to ~5.5h per Sur, statistically. So ~6 hours saved when farming Infinity in LK with teleport. With slower running characters, differences are even bigger. And FCR gear is easy to come by, after all you don’t need any particular stats for LK.
Making Infinity first means you can have some fun before grinding again for Enigma. But honestly, that also applies to Enigma immunes remain a problem a little longer, but teleporting around is just as fun, and more efficient for most types of runs.
Right, I'm sold on enigma based on potentially better LK run times, mizou's experience with 3 chars who did the opposite, and mainly because I want to try CS seal glitch runs for RFL round 3.
Thanks y'all for the inputs. Feels like it's a no-brainer for me now. With enigma I'll be able to up the rest of my gear faster doing meph or pit runs more efficiently, and it will also be easier to get an LK map suitable for teleport than a good map to go on foot. I currently have a good LK map for running, but it's no good for most other spots so it will have to be rerolled sooner or later. It will be hard to not build an inifinity when I have the runes for that instead of waiting for the last rune for Enigma, I guess I'll have to hope for a straight Jah drop... as if that's ever going to happen
It's been awhile since I focused on playing (and updating), so a little bit about where my Necro is now. I had a milk run going that involved, in order:
-Pindleskin
-Eldritch
-Thresh Socket (right beside the Arreat Plateau waypoint)
-Ancient Tunnels
-The Pits
-Mephisto (Durance level 3 entrance close to the waypoint)
-Travincal
-Chaos Sanctuary
I had a couple of "Never Found Before" drops:
(the Arreat Plateau waypoint is literally just off the screen to the left)
(very excited to finally find a Windforce!)
But the experience gained felt very....slow. So I decided to bite the bullet and do Ancients, so I could start doing Baal runs. Pindle runs @ P5 were netting me about 200,000 experience per run, so Gordon put his head down and bored through half a level of them to get to 93, at which point the experience chopped in half. Only one notable here (as well as a pair of Aldur's armors):
(my first Grandfather! Now I have an Executioner's Justice and a Grandfather just screaming to be used SOMEHOW)
He hit 93, and then I decided to make one small change with the moron, to see how it goes. I swapped out Insight and made him an Obedience out of an ethereal Thresher I had leftover from trying to cube an Insight, figuring it might help with killing speed with the Ancients, Lister & Co., and Baal. I was right - easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. And here is what Baal dropped as the quest drop:
Four Normal Items (none a unique), a gem, and some gold. Pure, unadulterated rubbish.
So anyway, I'm now about a quarter of the way thru 93, and running Baal to see how that goes. Here is how Gordon and the moron are now equipped:
Gordon
-Shako (socketed with P. Topaz)
-Spirit Broad Sword
-Rhyme Spiked Shield (have not found a single shrunken head worth putting Rhyme in instead)
-Bone Dusk Shroud
-Goldwrap Battle Belt
-Spellsteel on switch (to Teleport to Baal in Worldstone Chamber)
-rare or crafted gloves, boots, rings x2, ammy
-charms are mainly +life or +resist, + one Gheeds
After nearly a month of near-constant Hell Meph farming with Orion (made far easier after having found Naj's Puzzler for a source of not-horrendously-slow Teleport), the drop I finally was graced with only just 15 minutes ago made me feel like providing an update.
Some notable drops during this slog include Gore Rider, which I must have forgotten to snap a screen of when they dropped because I can't find it (Tearhaunch, you served me well), as well as the following:
As I promised myself and you all that I would remain a Zealot, this doesn't help me any.
One small step closer to a CtA, I suppose, I'll take it.
Now we're talking! Love this helm, carted it off to GoMule, will probably keep it for some funky throwing Barb build I've been itching to try for a while now.
Huge box to check off of that grail! What else can I say about this that we don't already know?
The penultimate drop of my post and it's a good one, 39% MF and 13% reduced vendor prices, which helps me when I burn through all my extra gold gambling really bad amulets.
But the reason I felt an update was necessary today was because of this, FINALLY, after all this time:
I am so glad Orion found this and not another character, in order to respect the rules of the challenge. Should I socket it with a PDiamond or wait for an Um rune?
@AlexTheNextOne Depends on whether or not you need the extra +3 resists that the Um rune offers. But why not put a PDiamond in it for now and unsocket it later if you rather put an Um into it?
Great stuff, @AlexTheNextOne !! Hell Meph paid off for you a lot more than me, luckily for you. As far as your question about the HoZ - I would put a Perfect Diamond in it. The difference in Resistance is pretty negligible (19% vs. 22%), vs. the cost of the Um. When you do find the Um, I'd save it for something else. And the Mal gives you a great step towards an Oath as your end game weapon (Shael + Pul + Mal + Lum, and I'm guessing you have a Shael and a Lum lying around, it's just the Pul that I don't know about?). I think I see a Crystal Sword in your hands - are you still using Lightsabre? If so, to me Oath is an excellent upgrade.
Yes, you really want something ethereal to take advantage of the Indestructible part of Oath, for sure. The Pits and the Ancient Tunnels are great for those bases. Plus, you want to ensure that whatever you get allows you to achieve 4 fpa Zeal. Granted that the 50% IAS of Oath gets you a good portion of the way there on its own....
@AlexTheNextOne Grats on the HoZ! Though I agree, you should try to get an Oath base ASAP. Seems like otherwise he has many of the core items. What’s the next target for Orion? Going for things like Enigma and Grief? Baaling without Enigma?
Devi has officially been added to the charts. After 2250 LK and only 1 sur, I decided to do some pindle and eldritch runs. I got up to level 82, added myself to the charts below. In the spoiler below is a handful of fun drops (also gonna post in her thread a bit later). She’s now going back to Lk in hopes of enigma before RFL.
I've not been around much recently so I've fallen behind on reading through the thread, but it looks like there is progress at least, bar a couple of recent RIPs. Keep it up, and I assume that some of these characters will be RFLing?
I've not been around much recently so I've fallen behind on reading through the thread, but it looks like there is progress at least, bar a couple of recent RIPs. Keep it up, and I assume that some of these characters will be RFLing?
I've not been around much recently so I've fallen behind on reading through the thread, but it looks like there is progress at least, bar a couple of recent RIPs. Keep it up, and I assume that some of these characters will be RFLing?
Long answer (include good strategy for doing pindle as a trapper):
So, I ran on p1 because p3 was hard-ish until I realized I could handle p3 with a lower resist wand and really good skill management. I tried p5, but it seemed too hard. After dozens of runs at p3, I felt like I could do p5 so I tried it, and it only took a few more seconds on average and I was able to do it. The same thing happened for p7. @Luhkoh told me this idea and it made sense to me: Raising player setting for experience is a good thing assuming you can do it and it doesn't drastically change things like how much you have to town for pots/healing/etc. Experience scales linearly and monster hp scales linearly for higher p settings. So you're saving time by not having to run or teleport to the monsters. This was the main motivator for me in running p7.
I found it interesting enough to write up instructions for so here's the strategy that works:
Stand out of building and cast 3-5 LS inside (takes a little practice but not too hard). If they are too far to the left they won’t fire or won’t hit the enemies.
Walk in and mindblast the front-most guys so you don't get charged. The goal is 2-3 guys converted and keeping them as close to the back of the room as possible. More than that and your traps aren’t damaging enough of them so the run takes longer. Also, if only 2-3 are un-converted, the death traps CE isn't as good since it doesn’t affect the converted ones.
Run into the nook on the left hand side to pull the merc inside.
Drop 2-3 death sentries.
Immediately start throwing fire blasts into the center of the group.
If Merc is inside, you’re good to go. If Merc is outside, he’s likely about to die so run to the back of room and pop in and out.
**If merc is outside AND you can’t get to the back of the room, there’s 2 options. Save and exit OR mindblast the guys around him outside and continue to fight alone inside. I usually do the second one until I’m about to die and then I s/e.
If at any point there’s none-converted or if mercs life drops to half, drop a CoS and mindblast again.
Great activity here, everyone, keep it up! Just wanted to say congrats to @sir_cyclops -- that Jah drop is spectacular, and I would agree the absolute best drop a trapper can get early on.
Edit: Actually, it's pretty much the best early drop any non-Sorceress character could get in this challenge
Thank you @sir_cyclops for writing that out. You know how annoying it is to accidentally place your traps just a tad bit too far to the left so all they hit is wall. I'd like to expand on your write up if I could. If you do everything sir_cyclops told you to do, you should run to the middle-left. There is a nook and if you run there your merc always comes in from the outside.
Why p5/p7? Drops on p7 are the same as p8, but XP is higher on p8. I also ran P8 Pindle with LR wand while gearing up my Sorc on lower levels and before I had Infinity, definitely worth getting one.
@MizzouFTW added both to my notes and edited my post above! Glad someone else knows the struggle
@ffs of course I want infinity! the plan has been to do LK as much as I can stand it until i have both enigma and infinity and then focus more on leveling/mfing/clearing. For p3/p5/p7, since they are item breakpoints, I just aim for those. I guess I could have tried p2 before p3, etc. You're probably right that I can do p8 if I can handle p7. Once I go back to pindle, I will definitely do that.
Once you get Infinity, lower resist wand isn't needed, especially when compared against value of Battle Orders.
Edit: Congrats @Bobbo as that's such a game changer. Curious as to choice of armor base though; won't that mean you need to put extra hard points in strength beyond what's needed to equip Monarch with Enigma's +strength?
Been farming Andariel a little- after a Highlord's for Terrahork so I can potentially put my Mara's to better use on the Javazon I'm building for the RFL.
Got a rather unexpected surprise...
My current Grief is +373, so I think I'll hold on to it for the time being...
@Bobbo congrats!!! why the 118 str base? With my calculations, it was hard to justify anything above Mage plate without losing out on hundreds of life (due to assasins good scaling + cta)
Might have been a bit of a miscalculation on My part, forgot about the str on enigma and thought it wouldn’t matter as I will use a monarch anyway. One might say I was a bit excited for a while there shit happens
Pestilence continued his progress, making it another quarter of the way toward level 98. After the solid drops for the last quarter level, I decided to continue in the Pit for a bit. And that’s what he did for the full quarter level and will do until he hits 98.
Unfortunately, the drops weren’t as good on the item and rune front, with the exception of jewelry (and charms, but none useful for him). The only Pul+ runes were a Pul and an Um, which was disappointing.
In terms of items meriting screenshots, it was pretty limited, with Griz Caddy #3, a nice Metalgrid followed shortly by Seraph’s Hymn, the IK armor, and then two more Stones of Jordan, sandwiched around Griz Caddy #4, for three total SoJs found so far this level:
I would actually consider using one to socket a 2/20 rare circlet if he found one, but no luck so far (he has used all three Larzuk rewards). Also sandwiched between the two SoJs was the highlight of this stretch, low +cold damage (23%) but 39/40 on the resists:
There were quite a few other green TC87 items, as well rare-ish uniques (shadow plate, ward). He picked up some nice charms that will contribute nicely to my overall stash, with Harpoonist of Life, Passive Zon of Vita, Amber GC of Sustenance, Warcry Skiller with 20 GF, Offensive Pally with FRW, a couple 10/11 resist with decent secondary mods, and some vita SCs with lower tier resist as the prefix. He also got an eth Sacred Armor that will get tossed in the cube when he gets the ingredients.
All in all, pretty smooth sailing, despite downturn in drops. I’ve stopped gathering ingredients for caster amulets and am leaving jewels, which sped up average XP a bit. Toward the end, the need for S&Es increased, as I was getting sloppier, so he’s due for a break, probably at least until start of RFL round 1.
Instead, we will do a little testing with Quinta in anticipation of entering her in RFL Rd 1, as well as focusing on Death a bit more. Speaking of him, he’s made some solid progress since the last update, getting an eth base to make his first Oath, having runes for a second one, and now only a Mal short on runes needed for his first Grief (with cubing, and still needing the 5os phase blade base). He's also nearly level 89, but I will hold off on a proper update with the details until he hits a more natural breakpoint.
@sir_cyclops , @Bobbo - Nice runes! Well done and always nice to see a big chunk out of the rune pile like that.
@PhineasB - Awesome progress, and great finds as usual!
Great work to everyone else as well!
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Okay, time for a proper (if still short) update on Stevesy! We left him off just having hit Conqueror and prepping for his first foray into Hell.
First off, he did a mixture of Pindle/Eldritch/Baal to get himself to level 67 (and finding a Ko in the process) before heading out into Hell (at /p1). His kill speed with the dual Aldur's is actually still decent, though his resistances are an abysmal 6/8/1/-18, and he reeks of general squishyness so care must be taken at all times. That said, there really isn't a ton to talk about gameplay-wise as Frenzy is a pretty simple hold-right-click-and-wait-till-things-die.
Corpsefire fell easy enough and Stevesy got to make an Insight Partizan for the merc in the Stony Field, which helped him out a bit. Soon enough Cain was saved and it was officially time to start his gear-collecting phase. As previously mentioned, Stevesy will be a no-LK runner, so I figure the first course of action is to pit-stop at the Countess to gain a bit of mid-level rune stocks to upgrade some gear. My hope is to get a couple Oaths in a decent amount of time (even in sub-par bases if need be) so that I can actually have some decent weapons and be able to kill things quicker than molasses in January. If that's enough to do Trav even on /p1, then that's where he will live until further notice. But I'm getting ahead of myself there, so it's the Countess first.
He fought his way down and got a Lum on the first kill (awesome!), as well as an Ali baba from a boss-pack which might help with some future MFing. The PI Ghosts in the Tower, coupled with the immense layout, meant that fighting his way down each time is simply too time consuming, so he shopped a staff with teleport charges to cut out a pile of travel time and make for some halfway-decent runtimes.
It started off pretty great, with a Lum + Mal drop on the third (!) run.
Another Lum shortly after, but then a dry spell hit which prompted him to push on through to Andy.
After a pile of merc deaths we eventually whittled her down successfully. Stevesy is level 74 now (moving him up a single spot in the table ), and will take a small breather before heading back to the Countess for some more runes.
Other finds:
4os highland blade (countess tower) - potential (less than stellar) Oath base
4os crystal sword (jail lv1) - for a future Spirit
Bloodletter (andys chamber)
So after my Jah drop, I went to town on LK. It only took a few hundred runs and after 2800 total LK runs, i get my first sur pattern:
I had found a sur at LK already but it was from a corpse. I also found a trap skiller in those last few runs. In summary, it took me 2800 lk runs and I found 2x sur and 1x Lo. The lucky Jah from pindles minions was what really made this possible. So here's what we've all been waiting for... (okay mostly me!) I decided to use my mage plate, which I used the socket recipe to repair, because it rolled perfect defense for a non-superior mage plate (261), it has low requirements (maximizing life), high durability for less repairs, and most of all, it looks good on assassins. Cross your fingers for 775
It rolled perfect! So this is a 100% perfect (non-superior) mage plate enigma! PRETTY AWESOME!
Devi needs fcr gloves, shako, vex (hoto), ohm (cta). Hopefully the last two will come from RFL. So I went to meph and andarial runs to find the first two and she drops another end-game piece of gear:
Zic has made it another 10% through the final level, up to 30% now. To start off with the notable drops from Nilly, nothing too note worthy during this stretch other than a couple nice drops in a 3 minute window. I posted them in the 2 weeks too late - Item Find Thread April 2018 thread. I think my only notable rune during this stretch was a single Pul rune.
Not sure how much I will be playing/updating over the next 2 months. My job as an actuary requires me to take a lot of standardized exams and my next one coming at the start of May, my free time should be more focused on studying than gaming. However I still plan on playing when I can so I am not moving myself to the resting heroes category!
To Infinity, or not to Infinity:
I have been considering this a lot and I think I am going to avoid using RWM and making the Infinity. Using the EXP calculator that @T72on1 pointed me to, I have been averaging somewhere around 2.5m EXP per hour. Still on the low end compared to some of the champions (crazy to hear folks doing 4m an hour!) but I don't think Infinity alone would push me to those highest levels of EXP per hour. Honestly I think my FCR is probably slowing me down almost as much as my lack of Infinity if I had to guess. To average 4m an hour, you need something like 20 second runs. I don't think I am even getting to Nilly until close to 20 seconds.
Survivability:
As a HC character, this is always of high importance. As I stated before, this character feels quite safe and my runs only serve to support this. I would guess a vast majority of the runs I take less than 100 damage, or no damage at all, out of 2100 life. The viper clouds are more like fairy dust with 40 PDR and 45% DR (not really though, they can still do damage). Honestly I have found myself staying and killing Nilly when he's even got might aura or cursed, unless he's got magic resistant or something that will take a little longer to kill. I know deaths can happen anytime so I am trying not to ever get comfortable and always on my toes but the more I run, the more I believe in set-up.
Strategy:
My general strategy hasn't really evolved a whole lot to be honest. Still using the same map as before and not really going too out of my way to check for EXP shrines. Honestly, I like teleporting from the WP to stairs without closing the LCS, allowing further teleporting and less chances to get stuck on something and caught in a bad group of mobs. I will say I have gotten better at keeping my moron alive. If I have vipers near my normal landing spot, I have gotten quite good at rotating around Nilly's alter to avoid letting my merc in the clouds until he procs confusion and the whole room is attacking each other.
Not a whole lot else to report on really. Most runs seem quite generic not that I am really into the rhythm. Going to try and take some more notes or screenshots this next 10% as I feel like my updates much slimmer than everyone else! Wish everyone the best of luck leveling and gearing up, love following along with all the other updates!
@buckcrazy Great progress, just stay on your toes there and don't get too safe, we really need that HC 99er up in the top table!
Now, I don't practice what I preach as I wouldn't run without RWM myself, but since you're so close, the achievement is even bigger if you go without RWM now, just my 2 cents.
@sir_cyclops Huge congrats on finally get that enigma, and with that roll to boot! The Andy isn't too shabby either
@Pb_pal Nice going, and here's to hoping the bases start dropping soon.
@PhineasB Wow, just wow. Sick drops and great progress. What p-setting are you running the pits on btw?
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As for Gimmelbop, the enigma made a huge difference as I now can either get to meph safely over the moat or farm pindle quite efficiently, currently running on p3 as I don't want to up the settings too much yet, easy does it for HC Meph is still a bit slow, maybe I should learn something from @sir_cyclops and shop an LR wand to get things going a bit faster.
Now I only run untwinked characters at the moment, but it's starting to get time to do a twinked character I think as I still don't have any guardians since I'm saving ancients for the time being. But this feels like a good time to do a twinked WW barb just to get a feel for that build in case I get tired of Berserk for Barbamel:
First time I've found that one myself.
Another first for me:
Might come in handy some day.
I also found this, I've been thinking of using one or two of Gimmelbops respecs to try out blade fury or WW so this might see some use, although I doubt it as GFace or Shako is probably a better option in both those cases I guess... I found it quite cute though:
The more I think about it though I'm thinking it might get Charsied as both WW and Blade fury benefit less from skills and more from what I can get on both GFace and Shako.
@buckcrazy Awesome update we're all rooting for you! I'm pumped to hear you're thinking no RWM and that the runs have felt fairly safe so far.
buckcrazy said:
Honestly, I like teleporting from the WP to stairs without closing the LCS, allowing further teleporting and less chances to get stuck on something and caught in a bad group of mobs.
@Bobbo good update! I hope I find some dracul's because I think it would be fun to try and respec to kicker for RFL travincial round. Seems like it might be feasible. Trav is hard as a trapper, or it was before I had enigma. Maybe it'll be easier now. Hoping to get infinity out of RFL
Devi has few more updates:
oh hi
hole punched
having gotten enigma and shako, i decided to go to nightmare to use a socket quest on my merc's andy's, change to a Might merc, and farm some magefists from andarial (hopefully a random soj will drop also haha).
Devi is still 87 and farming nm andy for mage fists. After she gets them, it will be off to RFL practice or CS seal glitch. I really hope to get an ebug 4os armor to make Forti with because the Lo I have is burning a hole in my pocket. Also I think fort will shine in Cows. I really hope to end up with an eth elite 4os polearm for insight->infinity. Currently using non-eth thresher. And I'm anxiously awaiting vex and ohm for hoto and cta respectively.
Edit: I didn't even tell you what I socketed them with. Devi got a ptopaz and Haseen got a 15 ias jewel for now. I have a 15 ias 9 fire res which will likely go in soon.
I was able to cube all my Vex+ runes to get what I needed to make Enigma. In fact, it looks like I still had a Vex left over (probably from one of my test Hell Cows runs).
My total haul from LK includes this Enigma as well as the runes for Infinity and Call to Arms. I also netted 42 skillers, 3 of which are Jav & Spear.
I had my first death with Trina while messing around the Moo Moo Farm. Only spent a couple of hours there to get a feel for things...which I'll probably have to do again, now that I can teleport.
I think now I'll relax a bit and run some more Pindle and Mephisto.
Thought I'd post a quick update. After my ut99er existential spiral, which came after finding out I was SLOW with Arkana as a meteorber, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with the character. I eventually decided I wanted to hit up LK after all, with the thought being to farm an infinity and go light sorc. A more conventional approach for sure, but I've actually never played the build and am thinking I would enjoy it.
So yesterday I decided to try and find an ok LK map. While looking, (on p1) I popped like 2 chests total, and this fell out.
Well alright. Good start early . Sorry forgot to ss the pattern, but it was a tad hot in the hut, as you can see from my health bulb.
Then after about 20 minutes total of map resetting, I sent a message to @sir_cyclops complaining that looking for maps wasn't any fun. The very next map after that was this one:
Alright alright complaining helps. Productive night! Only issue now is I have neither spirit nor fcr gloves, so can't get to 105fcr, and my mephy map is looong. Not that I'm complaining. A couple hundred runs on that map for gloves is a small price to pay, if i don't find a 4os monarch first. Gonna try out these racks for that.
@sir_cyclops @Bobbo @Vildecor Congrats on the Enigmas everyone! Glad to see so many happen in such a short span.
@PhineasB Those drops are insane! Makes me wish I was MFing again as opposed to just running Nihl. Griz Caddy and Deaths Fathom are still both items I have yet to acquire, nicely done!
@Pb_pal Great progress on your barb! Makes me think I need to start a back-up character instead of spending all my time zapping Nilly. Any news on Klaus? I need another 98 HC to help push me along!
@Luhkoh @T72on1 Yup, big fan of the alt-teleporting as well! It almost habit that when I teleport anywhere, I also have the alt key held down. I usually use the extended teleporting trick when I know exactly where to go (line my cursor up with a specific spot on the outer border) and use the alt trick whenever else I am teleporting around.
Just catching up on thread, not had any play time in last couple of weeks due to heating system failing and having to replace it all including internal pipes and a load of electrics.
Some good progress and some awesome drops as well. Well done all
@Pb_pal Great progress on your barb! Makes me think I need to start a back-up character instead of spending all my time zapping Nilly. Any news on Klaus? I need another 98 HC to help push me along!
The only update I can give on Klaus is that he is still alive. XP comes slowly to fire druids in the first place, and I've got Stevesy and my TWD tournament characters going too so I'm afraid I won't be much competition in a race. I wanted to hit the next landmark (97.75) before the RFL, but it's not looking likely.
Back-up characters are nice, both for the mental comfort of just having another character, but also to be able to switch things up so your current one doesn't get stale. I always get myself into trouble in HC if I'm playing the character more as "work", rather than as a desire to play that particular character, so having some other stuff to do once the tedium kicks in helps to keep it fresh - and safe.
Soooooo....last night for some reason I decided to ignore my Cardinal Rule of Hardcore (“What’s the hurry?”) in attempting to nudge Gordon Chen closer to 94. The result?
The Gloams were Extra Strong, Lightning Enchanted, and Cold Enchanted based on the boss I hovered over afterward (and there are more off screen, based on the number of lightning streaks that assailed me simultaneously). It was basically two quick streams of lightning from the whole lot, and it was over before I could pop a Full Rejuv. My resists were 75/57/75/30 and my life bulb was at 1626, which is why I’m kind of mystified that this happened so quickly. Sigh….well, I still have my Fanatic Zealot Dirk Struan at 85.
I also wanted to pose a question to you all. I believe I’ve mentioned before that when I started back up again a couple of years ago, it was with an untwinked Whirly Barb that I used as my initial LK runner (where my complaining about my brutal LK luck began). I never actually posted Toranaga in this thread because I didn’t think he qualified as I hadn’t mentioned him until the point he is currently parked at (and been so for quite awhile, at lvl 87). I’m positive that he’s still untwinked (armed with his trusty upped Ribcracker and little else), so my question is: does he qualify? If he does not then no harm done, and I won’t put him on the list. If he does, then I’ll write up a brief blurb with some major milestones (going from memory but that’s fine, because there aren’t many anyway). What do you all think?
As for your bar, as long as he is fully untwinked he qualifies. We've had a couple characters join much later than him (two of them at 97 I think), so add him in there!
These recent hardcore RIPs are stressful! Can't even imagine how frustrating it must be for those of you losing characters. Hopefully these sacrifices are building some kind of a karma shield for Klaus and Zic.
@sanguillen NOOOOOOOOO! Every time I get even a little comfortable or confident about my survivability I see another deeds post and get all worked up again.
As for adding your barb to the list, I haven't been around long enough to call those shots but I will say that I didn't even join the forums let alone the tournament until I was half way through 97, so you shouldn't feel bad about joining later!
Devi has a decent update. I plan to use her for RFL so I started testing with cows. She couldn’t handle p3 due to merc constantly dying. I may have been underutilizing mind blast, but it also wasn’t very efficient to constantly spam it. I saw three options ahead of me:
Resign to playing on players one (so inefficient)
Do LK runs in hopes of Ohm for cta (recently built 2800 so nah)
Come up with a strategy to keep the mercenary alive. Ideas: delirium, fortitude (have Lo butno ebug base), more damage by getting eth elite base for insight, life top wand
Respec her to a kicker somehow
Being indecisive, I ran pindle for a level and took devi to eighty eight! Then I decided to sorta do 2 and 3 by farming for an LK map where I was super close to a rack that drops elite polearms or elite armors. I figured when exploring these maps I would pop all my super chests, racks, and random poppables that are near me and hope for some decent stuff. Within 3-4 hours of farming for a map, I found one that was a campfire about 10 teleports from WP but it was 90% consistent with a great hauberk or balrog skin. After an hour or two, I got it to drop a no-socket non-superior ethereal balrog skin. Mediocre base defense roll, but I don’t mind
Happy it’s over 3k! And 30 all res
With the fort, I can do p3 so that’s a huge relief. Gonna do some test runs and try to get better at herding those cows. He has over 4K max damage with Might aura and the fort with his non eth thresher insight. Can’t wait for an eth elite base.
Other finds this week from pindle, running those random LK maps, running the decent one at the end, and even from my single cow run on p3:
I'm starting another wave of LK running with IpBanPrevales this afternoon (guess i would be more efficient with my Sorc, but untwinked drops open the possibilities for IpBanPrevales to make something), probably will make up to 250/300 more runs if i'm efficient enough.
Still searching for that Ber for Infinity - still need an eth base, Tresher would be perfect but i'd take any elite other than Colossus Voulge, too much strength req, or Lo/Ohm for twinked chars. A Jah would be nice too to complete Enigma on either twinked or untwinked - already got the dusk shroud bases on each, would prefer an archon plate on twinked, but it will not happen doing those runs.
@sanguillen - sorry about the deeds. That's brutal. Looking forward to your next entry and continued progress with Dirk.
@Bobbo - I realize that I didn't respond to your question. Pestilence is doing p8 Pit runs; his gear is pretty sick, especially in untwinked setting, with 7 skillers, DWeb, and a 2/20 caster amulet giving him crazy fire power in the relative safety of Pit runs and still allowing 303% MF.
Good job to everyone else! Great to see continued progress. Speaking of which . . .
* * *
As mentioned, Death has made solid progress, and he’s been the main focus since Pestilence hit 97.75 last weekend. Sadly, Ragnar was finally dismissed during this stretch, as the lost damage from Might aura became too much for me justify, even against the decrep proc from Lawbringer. Given that Death’s too squishy to run Council effectively yet (and the merc even more so, regardless of whether A2 or A5), decrep isn’t essential given the targets that he’s run (LK, Pits, Meph).
He’s now about a quarter of the way into level 90, with some nice upgrades along the way. That is a lot of progress and drops since his last update in mid-February, so apologies in advance for the wall of text
We started at LK, running p7 to cube up amethysts and gather Ral/Amn, and once the stash got full went to the Pit on p1 looking for bases and then back to LK when we had burned through the socket recipe on eth elite 1x4 swords and phase blades. This approach saw him to level eighty eight, with an early AR GC with life, then successful 4os eth cube on the third attempt (first two had been highland and balrog, with two failed phase blade attempts mixed in) that became an Oath to replace the rare phase blade and pair with Doombringer. As you can see, making Oath also freed up some space in the stash, which had gotten tight.
Shortly after this, I rerolled maps, checking racks on the off chance I could find a needed base in addition to runes focusing only on LK. Death eventually happened upon a really interesting map, which had a semi-stable demonhide sash rack (about 60% of the time) in one of the big, four-room structures immediately above the WP, a fire pit immediately above that with the weapon rack dropping Threshers consistently (maybe closer to 50%)! The downside was it had only the one fire pit. But it had quite some boss packs just in that little stretch also, making decent XP progress at level 87.
So I got stubborn and decided to run it on p7 until String of Ears and a 4os eth Thresher dropped, hoping for runes to allow Grief along the way. The drops did not come quickly, with the first notable drop (aside from a Ruby (10) SC of Good Luck (7)) being Pul #1 from LK a little more than 3/4 toward level eighty eight. Mal #3 dropped shortly after, and then Death’s persistent paid off:
It was 8LL, 10% damage reduction, and 14 MDR, and a Ruby SC of Dexterity dropped shortly after, and he pinged the level.
His stash was full again at this point, with ingredients for 3 socket recipes. I thought about going back to the Pit for runeword bases (with makings for a second Oath still stashed). But the Pit map was not good and I still hadn’t gotten a 4os eth Thresher (despite a couple failed cube recipe attempts). So Death decided to stick it out, at least for a while, and culled his charms a bit to free up a little space in the stash to gather makings for Insight.
Very soon thereafter, the rack finally coughed up a 4os eth Thresher, and Death had his Insight makings (it was a terrible roll, and he proceeded to Hel and reroll it seven times before landing on the current one, noted later). So he went back to NM, picked up Hazade, and rerolled maps. He eventually got a nice linear 2 fire LK map with a compact Pit map near the Outer Cloister, and settled in to the same routine of trying Oath bases and phase blades until he ran out of cubing ingredients and then back to LK to restock.
Gul #3 dropped (I had miscalculated runes to cube up to Lo, and he was still a Vex short), followed by this Scintillating Jewel of Strength that replaced the Ruby jewel in Guillame’s to bring Hazade to 69@ resists. Then Death obviously got another SoE, but it was thankfully lower roll on LL. That was followed by a Fine SC of Life.
He was making decent XP progress, as I took on boss packs of leapers and buzzards. This map averaged about 2 bosses/run, and actually fighting during the runs made them feel less like LK runs, i.e., not as tedious. I was itching for Grief, so decided that, even though I want to limit his LK runs as much as possible, he would focus on LK, which he did for almost the entire rest of the level. Based on that approach, the next Ko went to a Harmony to speed up the runs, forcing him to finally drop the Angelic Sickle and Rhyme shield. He kept angelic jewelry for the AR.
No major drops, unfortunately, but some decent charm upgrades, and this nice dual leech ring, which I recently muled off after realizing he doesn’t really need it, at least any time soon, and as stash management continues to keep things interesting. Pul #2 was the only other notable drop.
Just before hitting 89, I finally got tired of LK and went back to the Pits, which delivered almost immediately with a Wizardspike (potentially end-game for him) and just after pinging 89 what was probably his next best possible drop along with Reaper’s (aside from runes for Griefs or Enigma):
Amazing luck! I guess 56 MF can deliver sometimes We then went back to LK/Pits, focusing on bases. On his eighth Insight attempt, he finally rolled a keeper, which also meant he could ignore Hel runes and Insight makings again! He eventually rolled a second Oath base (I think this one was attempt #2 after the last one, with three failed phase blade rolls). The Doombringer had served him well, but it finally was dropped in favor of the second Oath.
Despite the upgrade, Council runs were quickly abandoned after a few attempts on p1 due to squishy merc (who has Skin of the Flayed One for armor as best option to give some life leech). So we went back to p8 LK runs taking on boss packs and mixing in other targets for a break, a little Pindle, Pits, and some Andy runs. And this is where things stood when I posted Pestilence’s update last weekend.
An early 8FR SC of Vita dropped in LK. Black Hades from Pindle was interesting due to sockets and +demon damage for Council as a likely improvement over Lionheart, but it was eventually Charsi-ed due to stash limitations. Then another highlight from a base gathered in the Pit and cube socketed:
I had dreaded how long it might take to get that, and figured that I'd have the runes before the base. So that's nice to have in hand. Death still had 2 pAmmys, so I decided to roll caster amulets after gathering jewels from LK, and Pul #3 dropped before getting a second jewel. After confirming gambled amulets were high enough ilvl in GoMule, one of his two crafts was this, which he kept and now has equipped for the MF:
At this point, he buckled down and focused on LK up to level 90, with only limited breaks for Pit runs when I was wearing down on LK. Drops were: Scintillating SC of Shock, Pul #4, Pul #5, Um #2, Pul #6, Pul #7, Um #3, Gull from the Pit Superchest (!), and the rune highlight:
He also picked up a Gheed’s (31 MF) toward the end, which he kept. He’s now at >1500 LK runs, still without runes for Grief. He’s gotten lots of Pul+ drops for the number of runs (in part due to taking on boss packs and horking, as several are from monsters), but they’ve mostly been Puls and Ums. Still, he got quite a few other helpful drops along the way that made up for it I think.
He did a few more LK runs after hitting 90, and Crown of Thieves dropped. This (and getting tired of LK) prompted him to give the merc the new helm, equip the Guillame’s himself, and reroll maps to change targets. Guillame’s and Goblin Toe make p3 Meph runs and p5 Pit runs manageable and have gotten him a little more than a quarter of way into the level. We came really close to another end-game drop, but the War Boots were green. Unfortunately, Council is still too tough on Hazade, even on p1.
I think he will get at least to 90.5 this weekend focusing on Meph runs, but then I’ll turn to rolling a good Cow map with Quinta to get ready for RFL Rd 1. I’ll need to go back to LK if he still doesn’t have at least one Grief before RFL Rd 2 and figure out some solution for Hazade if Meph doesn’t deliver (or maybe go back to Barb Merc and roll another Lawbringer).
Anyhow, no extended stash continues to be interesting, with Harmony and some jewelry (Angelic Combo, a second good ML ring with different secondary mods that may be needed, and Mahim amulet) in the cube in his Stash + 5 open squares in the Stash, and 3x4 in his backpack. The 5os PB with Eth and Tir socketed, Arreats, IK boots, two jewels and a second Nagel (28MF) fill out the rest, in addition to runes and gems for cubing up the runes: Ohm, Vex, Ist, Mal, Pul, and 2x Lem, Fal, and Ko, plus a Mal and Ral to finish Grief when we can cube up the Lo. Plus the Sur, so also 1/6th of the way to Enigma!
VelvetSky hit level 91 earlier today. After my last update, I respec'ed her into a Blizzard sorc for MFing purposes. 3more deaths since then. She ran Pindle a few times (1 death), then switched to AT (2 deaths). She hasn't paid Meph a visit yet. He could drop some items that would be useful for this MFing stage, but not much in regard to her planned endgame gear, so I've been avoiding him for now. She's still running around with dual Spirit, ptopaz'd helm and armor, Goldwrap, Magefist, War Travelers, a Nagelring, and a FCR ring + amulet. 331% MF. So, improvements could definitely be made. I'm just not sure where to go from here. Basically, what I need for endgame are Griffon's Eye, Arachnid Mesh, Andariel's Visage, Mara's and maybe a perfect Vipermagi. Not sure about the latter yet, as I might go with Chains of Honor instead.
Pindle: Probably a lot more efficient than the AT at this point, but he can't drop Arach's and I always freak out a little when he drops a Sacred Armor. Not that Velvet has a use for the latter, but it would obviously be an overall grailer.
AT: can drop everything, but is slower for me, since she's still kinda fragile with crappy resists and no CtA to boost her life.
Meph: He'd be a good target to get some MF essentials like Skullder's, Occy, Shako, and also Arachnid's, Mara's, and Andariel's Visage.
LK: Will have to run that eventually, but figured I'd get that Griffon's first. Chances aren't too low that a Ber drops before Griffon's, so I might be able to cut some time on LK runs. I really could use a Mal rune to make Call to Arms, though, and a HotO would help, too.
@LongingForDeath - I'd consider rolling a good Meph map and switching up between Meph and Pindle as the mood suits you. Vipermagi sounds like it would help with AT, and he Meph can drop Shako, Arachnid's, Andy's, and jewelry that would be upgrades. The other option is to roll a good LK map and go for HoTO, as that represents a major upgrade, as would CtA for AT runs. In the ideal world, you roll a good LK map and also have a nice Meph map and then you don't have to choose, but can switch things up
You mentioned an a5 lawbringer merc for the council. Are a5 mercs with a good lawbringer generally able to handle hell council? What helm and armor are best for that?
@LongingForDeath id personally do countess for mal if that’s all your lacking for cta. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. Then I think the plan they mentioned is great. Meph for essentials to get the majority of the end game gear to make AT more bearable and then AT til griffs
@sir_cyclops A Mal rune is indeed all I'm missing for a CtA. Countess might be a bit tough to run, though, considering her and her minions are all cold immune. Not an ideal target for a pure Blizz sorc. And the merc is still using an eth Insight Partizan. Probably should have kept running her for a bit before I respec'ed from Meteorb to Blizzard. I might give it a shot, though.
I'll probably start rerolling maps tomorrow and see what I'll get first: Countess, LK or Meph.
Forumite Character SC/HC Class Level Exp Date E/S S/U Grail Deaths Hours
--------------- --------------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ---------- --- ---- ----- ------ -----
RIP Kaira_II HC Sin 95 2.55 2018-09-06 Yes - 399 - -
T72on1 ShouldBeEasy HC Pala 95 2.52 2019-01-04 Yes lots 320 NA 103
Kitteh Gwynt HC Druid 87 XXXX 2018-11-07 Yes - - - -
Bewitch itsreal HC Sorc 87 1.xx 2018-04-24 No - - - -
MizzouFTW Pure HC Necro 86 1.15 2018-01-10 Yes - - 1 -
Vildecor Celia HC Ama 84 0.99 2018-05-30 Yes 125 97 1 -
coju NintyNine_orRiP HC Sorc 81 0.74 2016-04-07 Yes - - 1 -
RIP Attila HC Barb 78 0.59 2018-09-26 Yes - 73 - -
TwentyMuleTeam Valus HC Barb 76 0.48 2016-10-27 Yes - - 1 -
Pb_pal Stevesy HC Pala 76 0.48 2017-06-19 Yes - - 1 -
weezaard Cypher SC Druid 66 0.00 2018-02-21 Yes - - 20+ -
Tenecabo OldShatterhand HC Druid 49 0.04 2016-06-16 Yes - 0 1 -
Pijus Pyrestarter HC Druid 36 0.00 2018-05-21 Yes - - 1 -
coju fB HC Sorc 29 0.00 2016-04-09 Yes 1 1 1 2
Kitteh Verallus HC Druid 26 0.00 2016-03-25 No - - 1 -
logoutzero Rolex HC Barb 21 0.00 2016-03-26 Yes 0 0 1 1
Small update on Nena. Some LK runs and some AT runs which was highly productive tonight as i only did 5 and got Jade tan do, undead crown, head hunters and gladiators bane. Not to bad at all. Having just reached lvl 83 its a good time to push back onto the council to kill them and go down after Meph. Always do this at start of level then when the annoying little gits blow me up i dont worry too much about lost XP.
So, I did a Countess run with VelvetSky. Didn't go too well. Survived, but I don't think it's feasible with a not-so-well-equipped merc. Rolled a decent Meph map, but merc kept dying, too. Might have to use the moat trick for a while. So I decided to keep running Pindle for now. After all, the only item I need that he can't drop is an Arachnid's Mesh. And indeed he did drop a failed unique Spiderweb Sash during those runs. A bit frustrating, but overall I got a decent haul from him. Some highlights:
An all-time grailer for me, though I kinda would have preferred the Swirling Crystal to be golden instead:
A Windforce that I'm sure actually dropped from one of his minions:
Code:
Rainbow Facet
Jewel
Required Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0xdd82f3ac
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
100% Chance to cast level 41 Nova when you Level-Up
Adds 1 - 74 Lightning Damage
-5% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
+4% to Lightning Skill Damage
And finally, the one thing I've been running him for mostly, which will be essential for end-game:
Almost perfect roll on the important mods, too!
Code:
Griffon's Eye
Diadem
Defense: 202
Durability: 16 of 20
Required Level: 76
Fingerprint: 0xc4c8ac80
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+25% Faster Cast Rate
-20% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
+14% to Lightning Skill Damage
+148 Defense
I'm really happy about that one. It's the 3rd Griffon's Eye I ever found in my D2 career. First one was an ethereal one on BNet, 2nd one had mediocre rolls on them. So I'm glad that the one for my untwinked character is the best one I've had so far.
I might keep running Pindle until I reach level 92. Maybe he'll drop a Tal's armor until then. After that I'll probably hit up LK or Meph.
Now, with the last item comes one question. Obviously, VelvetSky is untwinked and will remain that way. At least until she reaches level 99. So she won't receive any items that were found by other characters. However, can I use this item on both her and my other characters? I mean, in principle I should be able to. She found it herself. Letting other characters use it doesn't change that. Of course, Velvet will be the one who uses the Larzuk quest on it and uses her own items to fill in the socket. So no items from outside will go in and no other characters will modify it in any way.
@LongingForDeath - Good luck with the map rolling!
Edit: And major congrats on the Griffon's! Such a great drop
Good progress everyone else, especially @Bewitch getting close to 98 again!
@sir_cyclops - On your question about A5 mercs for Council, I mentioned it as something I might test if Death continued to be missing some key pieces of gear. That said, I think A2 will almost always win out, even if he’s missing Reaper’s Toll, due to limited damage on Lawbringer. Death’s eth Balrog Blade one got only 82-177, with 7% LL that’s not much against Council. Granted, Death was still in mid-80s and had sub-par gear, but Ragnar couldn’t survive a Council run on p1. When Hazade was swapped in, he could at least survive some of the time. I think Steel Shade (unique Armet) might change things, as hydras would be largely neutralized. But I suspect many characters with Steel Shade will also have Reaper’s available.
Speaking of which, some great drops has sped along Death’s progress
* * *
Patriarch Death and Hazade the A2 Might Merc, Lvl 92
On literally the first Meph run after my update Saturday morning, Bremm Sparklefingers had something hiding in his corpse:
With the 5os base he already had, we got ready and had his first Grief:
Solid roll, and the better news that he was now only a Vex short of runes for the second Grief! Two runs later, Bremm coughed up Dracul’s, which are cool but were muled off. Only ten minutes later, he picked up a Gul for an extremely productive ~15 minutes, which inspired some focused running for the rest of the weekend
The Grief really sped up runs, unsurprisingly. I didn’t have quite enough dext, but had kept a Mahim-oak amulet in case he could build the runeword before leveling. So that was that, and the drops came steadily as we switched between Meph and Pit runs, allowing him to improve gear consistently through the leveling.
These almost-spectacular javazon gloves (1/20 with mana leech and low fire resist) dropped early, followed by Tal’s mask (which replaced Crown of Thieves to allow Hazade to max all resists), eth Verdungo’s, and then this cool Meph drop:
It was BKWB and a 29 MF Nagel:
Code:
Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band
Ring
Required Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0x2317a876
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
5% Life stolen per hit
+46 to Life (Based on Character Level)
+50 Maximum Stamina
We stuck with the 30 MF Nagel and mana leech ring, but it was cool to have one of those in hand already. As he approached 91, he picked up Crown of Ages. Sadly, it was 1os and low resist (23@), but it was stashed as a potentially nice complement to Reaper’s (2os would have been stellar).
Code:
Crown of Ages
Corona
Defense: 394
Durability: 33 of 50
Required Level: 82
Required Strength: 174
Fingerprint: 0xe9862e03
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Indestructible
+1 to All Skills
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
+50% Enhanced Defense
+145 Defense
All Resistances +23
Damage Reduced by 14%
1 Sockets (0 used)
He then picked up the set Corona, a Steel Charm of Vita, and Duriel’s Shell from the Pit (which replaced a Vipermagi he had found from Meph), and a 21 fire resist RJoF from Meph, for a possible socket filler if he finds an eth Andy’s or for the CoA:
Code:
Steel Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x8004b1b6
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+36 to Attack Rating
+16 to Life
Ruby Jewel of Fervor
Jewel
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x868241d7
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Increased Attack Speed
Fire Resist +21%
Shortly after pinging 91, Meph delivered Arachnid’s, which I stashed and now have equipped (more on that later). Only a few runs later, Bremm’s crew delivered another Gul, which allowed him to cube the Lo. With the Mal (and an Um and Ist to spare), he needed only to pick up a Tir and Eth as he went for the makings of Grief #2, minus the base (but that's not a small caveat).
At this point, we split time more evenly between Meph and the Pit. Drops were Gladiator’s Bane (stashed), a Gul from the Pit, and then the biggie at just past the half-way point to 92:
Really tremendous luck for him! Around this time I took stock of the inventory and realized Death had most of he needed in terms of S/U that Meph could give, and those would eventually drop elsewhere. The base for Grief was the key, so he focused on Pit runs.
I tried Arachnid’s and BKWB at this point, and really liked that better than SoE/Nagel, largely I assume due to +2 skills making faster running from the WP and FCR breakpoint for horking (and maybe the slow from Arachnid’s?). Only notable drop was Vamp Gaze, allowing the Tal’s mask to be muled off.
As for Grief bases, I realize just how lucky he was earlier, not only with the 5os roll (on his sixth attempt) but with finding 6 plain PBs. For this stretch, he found only two plain PBs (which cubed to 2os and 1os), with five blue ones, 2 white superior, and one grey superior that got me briefly excited (2os). Granted, much of 90-91 XP came from Meph runs, as did some of 91-92.
But honestly, Death is not complaining. That 5os base will fall or cube, and he’ll be set. Runs are smooth even without it. He’ll rest here until I finish my RFL Rd 1 set with Quinta, but then Death will return to the Pit in search of that base!
Code:
Grief PB/eth Oath Champ Sword
Wizzy/Gull (Switch)
Guillame’s (Scintillating jewel with +strength)
Lionheart Wyrmhide
Arachnid’s
LoH
Goblin Toe
2/5 caster amulet with fire resist and 25MF
BKWB
Mana leech rare with AR and 11@
Backpack: Mostly resist SC charms, 1 Sharp GC, 1 Steel GC,
Gheed’s, Cube (empty), 5 open spaces
Merc
Vamp Gaze
Duriel’s Shell
Reaper’s
Stash
Glad Bane
CoA
SoE
30 MF Nagel
Nature’s Peace
Mahim-Oak Curio
RJoF x2 (one damage, one fire resist)
Grief runes
SoE upgrade runes (Lem, Ko)
3x cube socket recipe for PBs
Sur, Gul, Ist, Um, Ko
9 open spaces
The only real upgrades, other than 5os PB and better rolls of items he already has (looking at you eth Reaper’s!), are boots (War Traveler and/or Goreriders) and Highlord’s, and Steel GCs. And the runeword armors (Enigma, Fortitude in that order of priority), which I hope RFL Rd2 will contribute toward.
* * *
The rich text formatting for Hall of Fame fell out since my last update, losing the links to the write-ups. I added them back but please, everyone, update your settings to support rich text!
@PhineasB Oh my, from my past experiences with necros I wouldn't have thought p8 would be viable from an efficiency perspective, but then again, my gear was nowhere near what you have there. Thanks for clearing it up though. Makes me itch for a necro, as if I have time to play the characters I have enough as it is.
Great progress on Death as well I see, sick find with the dual rings there, big grats!
----
As for my own progress, Gimmelbop (whom I really need to enter into the tables) has not had much progress, I've been rolling LK maps and doing pindle but with not much success...
So I switched to Barbamel for a while and ran Eldritch, still looking for Arreats face. Didn't find that, but Did find LoH which is an upgrade over the lava gout I was running. Also found a new Reapers for the merc which upgraded him 5-10% on the ED and 1-2% on the life leech, still not eth though
I really like my eldritch layout though, I've got a shrine just north of Eldritch's pack and more often than not there's 1-3 more boss packs close enough to get aggroed while I fight Eldritch.
----
By the way, When I insert the quote for the hall of fame etc all entries are indented unevenly. Is that normal or am I doing something wrong? Feels like that's alright as long as it shows up correctly when posted, but it gets a bit confusing knowing how many spaces to put in there for Gimmelbop whom I want to enter into the tables.
I'll read up on the table formatting guide again, but if you've got any tips I'd appreciate it.
Edit: Ok, so I read up on the guide, am I right in assuming I can change the font of the quoted blocks so that I get it aligned without screwing things up? I'm pretty sure I've seen my quotes monospaced before, but when I quote now it's not monospaced which I guess is the problem, correct?
@PhineasB I hate you for having the Grief I'm looking for for quite a while now. Not sure how many PBs I had dropping, but it's a lot more than 6.
Obviously, if anyone deserves such luck in this thread as you just had, it would be ... you, mister untwinked 99er himself. So I'm actually really glad for you . Good luck on the rest of the journey.
Maybe I should reroll maps again too, until I have a good Meph map, and then take the Pit map that goes with it and just see how it goes. I have not done so yet, because I think I will have a hard time taking on Meph. But maybe it's not that bad. To be continued, but probably only after the RFL.
@LongingForDeath You should be fine having other characters use items from your untwinked Sorc, as long as you can keep track of those items. I did so too for a few key items, which were easy to keep track off. If you only have one Infinity and CtA for example, you just know where they come from . One suggestion someone made at some point was to use the personalize quest on that item (if it's only about one item), so that it's even more clear. Obviously, if you don't want to reroll maps, that would mean doing Nihl in Hell, which can be a bit dangerous. But you could always do that after you have gained a level, so there isn't any loss in a death.
@LongingForDeath You should be fine having other characters use items from your untwinked Sorc, as long as you can keep track of those items. I did so too for a few key items, which were easy to keep track off. If you only have one Infinity and CtA for example, you just know where they come from . One suggestion someone made at some point was to use the personalize quest on that item (if it's only about one item), so that it's even more clear. Obviously, if you don't want to reroll maps, that would mean doing Nihl in Hell, which can be a bit dangerous. But you could always do that after you have gained a level, so there isn't any loss in a death.
Given that it's currently my only Griffon's, it's easy to keep track of. But I was planning on personalizing that one, anyway. I'll be rerolling LK maps today, so killing Nihlathak in normal and nightmare is no problem. I completely forgot that I had to kill him to get the personalize reward from Anya.
@sanguillen Sorry about those deeds, pretty brutal
Great progress everyone, keep it up!
I dont have much free time lately, so Blackwell is still sitting at lvl 94. I take him out for a spin from time to time, but there was no serious session in couple of last weeks. Good thing this isnt a race and my characters cant expire
When I get the chance, I'll provide a brief intro regarding my WW barb Toranaga - and also move Gordon Chen from Questing Heroes to The Fallen.
In the meantime, I will mention that Toranaga currently has 4/6 of the IK set (wearing the belt, helm, and boots, and the Ogre Maul is stashed), missing the War Gauntlets and of course, the Sacred Armor. Where would you all recommend I run him in search of the two missing pieces? For the armor, I'm presuming The Pit is as good a place as any of the few that would actually drop it (as well as maybe Pindle)?
If you accidentally go to NM instead of Hell, I believe you can use the task manager to kill the D2 program and when you go back you'll still have your Hell maps and what not. I would assume this is within the SPF accepted practices although it may be better to double check with someone who is more familiar.
Setting IpBanPrevales as resting hero. No real progress regarding level, mostly LK running the past weeks, stabilized at lvl 78.
Now that the RFL is about to start, she will be parked for some time.
Gearwise, the next update will probably be for merc: has runes for Fortitude, and one Sur close to Infinity. Maybe switch to Hoto/Spirit also, if Monarch drops... Will need some luck to find the bases, but these are the goals for next upgrade !
Small update for Devi. I've been running Meph (for arachs, wart travs, goldwrap, soj), some CS seal glitch runs which I plan to post a video of soon on the thread for that, lots of pindle for the exp, and some test cow runs for RFL rd 1. She is now level 89. It bumped her up a good number of slots in the Questing Heroes table below. I posted a small item-find update on the IFT thread here.
Most notably, with finding goldwrap, I can hit 102 fcr, 9 frame trap laying (fastest), 300+ mf, and good killing speed. I also found a 14% sorb/ 20% mf wisp ring. So that will help with souls when I switch to WSK + Baal runs.
The biggest items she is lacking are still: hoto, cta, and infinity. The last of which I still need a base for. Hopefully I can knock out most of that list with the first round of RFL. My times are not great since I don't have infinity. I am doing p3 runs in about 5-6 minutes.
Oh, I also found a reapers, but I'm not sure I'll ever use it. The merc stays alive with his high roll non-eth thresher insight, does good damage, and keeps my mana bulb full.
Small update for Devi. I've been running Meph (for arachs, wart travs, goldwrap, soj), some CS seal glitch runs which I plan to post a video of soon on the thread for that, lots of pindle for the exp, and some test cow runs for RFL rd 1. She is now level 89. It bumped her up a good number of slots in the Questing Heroes table below. I posted a small item-find update on the IFT thread here.
Most notably, with finding goldwrap, I can hit 102 fcr, 9 frame trap laying (fastest), 300+ mf, and good killing speed. I also found a 14% sorb/ 20% mf wisp ring. So that will help with souls when I switch to WSK + Baal runs.
The biggest items she is lacking are still: hoto, cta, and infinity. The last of which I still need a base for. Hopefully I can knock out most of that list with the first round of RFL. My times are not great since I don't have infinity. I am doing p3 runs in about 5-6 minutes.
Oh, I also found a reapers, but I'm not sure I'll ever use it. The merc stays alive with his high roll non-eth thresher insight, does good damage, and keeps my mana bulb full.
Excellent point. It rolled 14% leech. Now to theory craft (or just search posts on here) about the best helm/armor options alongside reapers for running trav.
Of which I have neither. I guess I should have been more clear in that I needed to research options for trav under those circumstances to compare against what I have found. I did find a rare templar coat from meph in the last day or two
Of which I have neither. I guess I should have been more clear in that I needed to research options for trav under those circumstances to compare against what I have found. I did find a rare templar coat from meph in the last day or two
I'm going to be trying out some strange budget setups as well . I have kiras but no reapers or GA. No idea if it will work but first test will be duriels shell, tannr gorerod, and kiras. Haha should be interesting. For you i would guess darkglow and a 3x ral helm would be a good try.
I'd like to second the use of vamp gaze and/or gladiators bane for the MDR they provide. Can also consider steel shade for the integer fire absorb which will have the hydras healing your merc.
If you accidentally go to NM instead of Hell, I believe you can use the task manager to kill the D2 program and when you go back you'll still have your Hell maps and what not. I would assume this is within the SPF accepted practices although it may be better to double check with someone who is more familiar.
Quinta's also a javazon, so probably more nightmare-ish. And welcome @buckcrazy
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