Guardian #1 - Bastone-II

[MizzouFTW]

I got a wild hair a few weeks ago to install Diablo II again. It took me a couple of days to find some time to play but I made it happen and I've been somewhat busy!

This is untwinked Guardian #1 of a 7 untwinked Guardian Sept.

Defeating Hell Baal:

Defeating Hell Ancients:

Only NDE:

Finds:

Spoiler

+1, Non-eth

+1, Eth

Um (came from farming NM cows)
Um (came from farming NM cows)
Mal (came from farming NM cows)
Pul (came from farming NM cows)
+1 Trap/+35 Life GC (came from farming NM cows)
+1 Paladin Combat Skill GC (came from farming NM cows)
+5 FHR/+5 All resist SC (dropped from Pits)
Entire Immortal Kings set
Naj's Staff
Darkforce Spawn
Thundergods Belt
Trang Gloves
1x 50MF Tarnhelm
1x 43MF Tarnhelm
Trang Armor
1x 34% MF Chance Guards
1x 34% MF Chance Guards ETH

Normal Forge: I don't remember but I definitely picked up those gems!
Nightmare Forge: I believe this was a Lum rune (which went to make my merc's 'Smoke')
Hell Forge: Ist

Stats/Skills:

Spoiler

Name: Bastone-II
Class: Necromancer
Experience: 1057607551
Level: 85

Naked/Gear
Strength: 136/136
Dexterity: 90/92
Vitality: 240/240
Energy: 25/25
HP: 681/742
Mana: 193/214
Stamina: 388/402
Defense: 22/23
AR: 405/428

Fire: 55/15/-45
Cold: 61/21/-39
Lightning: 45/5/-55
Poison: 45/5/-55

MF: 12 Block: 9
GF: 0
FR/W: 0
FHR: 0
IAS: 0
FCR: 0

Amplify Damage: 1/1
Dim Vision: 1/1
Weaken: 1/1
Iron Maiden: 1/1
Terror: 1/1
Confuse: 1/1
Life Tap: 1/1
Attract: 1/1
Decrepify: 1/1
Lower Resist: 1/1

Teeth: 1/1
Bone Armor: 0/0
Poison Dagger: 0/0
Corpse Explosion: 20/20
Bone Wall: 0/0
Poison Explosion: 0/0
Bone Spear: 0/0
Bone Prison: 0/0
Poison Nova: 0/0
Bone Spirit: 0/0

Skeleton Mastery: 20/20
Raise Skeleton: 20/20
Clay Golem: 1/1
Golem Mastery: 19/19
Raise Skeletal Mage: 1/1
Blood Golem: 1/1
Summon Resist: 1/1
Iron Golem: 1/1
Fire Golem: 0/0
Revive: 1/1

Gear (please note that Bastone-II died about 5 minutes ago and therefore I cannot do an item dump of his corpse. If someone knows a way to get this information, please, let me know)

Spoiler

Weapon#1: 'Spirit' Broad Sword
Shield#1: +1/+2/+3 Darkforce Spawn
Helmet: Rockstopper
Armor: 'Bone' Mage Plate
Belt: Thundergods Vigor
Gloves: Trangs Gloves
Boots: Aldurs Boots
Ring#1: 10 FCR/+5x mana
Ring#1: 10 FCR/+3x mana
Amulet: Rare +1 Necro/3x LR/14 MF
Weapon#2: Naj's Staff (for teleport charges)

Mercenary
Weapon: 17 Insight non-eth Thresher
Body Armor: 'Smoke' eth cubed wire fleece
Helmet: Set Winged Helm

I played this guy fast and loose. I did full clears of normal and nightmare on /players 8 and then switched to /players 1 for all of Hell. The only issues that I really had with this guy were in WSK. After defeating Hell Ancients I walked him to the exit of WSK3 and entered the throne room. As soon as I entered I was greeted with a large population of souls and dolls. I immediately pressed escape and exited. There was no way I would have survived that. My mercenary might have taken one of those dolls out in one hit and it would have been game over. I tried again two more times before I found a map without souls and dolls. Baal's waves were easy (confuse is amazing) and Baal himself was a cakewalk.

I made Guardian yesterday. I was running Nith on players 1 for about 10 minutes today when Nith popped off a CE quicker than I could. Deeds, unfortunately.

Future Plans:
None for this guy. He's dead. However, I will be remaking him within the next few weeks. I've also been giving some thought to some different builds. I love the idea of having summons. It makes playing SP a lot less lonely. I also love playing fast and loose. I like to rush in, tear shit up and then ask questions later. I play very aggressively which is also why I probably lose more characters to stupid deaths than anyone else on this forum haha. I'm toying with an idea for a twinked melee necro with summons and no corpse explosion. I'm just waiting on the perfect 1-hander or 2-hander to drop for me to plan around.

Current untwinked projects in the works:

 

[D2DC]

Congrats! At least he crossed the finish line!

 

[Kitteh1]

Congratulations! I'm curious about your other two deeds

 

[maxicek]

Congratulations and condolences.

Melee Necro without CE in HC will be hard. Expect lots of running away.

 

[jonny5]

Congrats... and condolences! Just out of curiosity, why were you running Nihlathak? Seems like an exceptionally dangerous target, all things considered.

 

[T72on1]

Congrats and condolences. Weird to have those two in the same sentence though.

 

[Kitteh1]

Congrats and condolences. Weird to have those two in the same sentence though.

They often both apply. Like, condolences for the deeds, but congratulations on making it all the way to normal Rakanishu

 

[MizzouFTW]

Congratulations! I'm curious about your other two deeds

Dana was an untwinked blizzard sorceress that had just made her way to Pindle. She ran him from 80 - 89 and managed to net this a 2os Crown of Ages:

Spoiler

Crown of Ages
Corona
Defense: 367
Durability: 48 of 50
Required Level: 82
Required Strength: 174
Fingerprint: 0x49008e04
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Indestructible
+1 to All Skills
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
+50% Enhanced Defense
+118 Defense
All Resistances +26
Damage Reduced by 13%
2 Sockets (0 used)

I got overconfident and ran Hell Meph with negative lightning and cold resists. I don't know if there was an aura on Meph or not but he killed me in one shot. She was only alive for a little over 80 hours. I had created her just a few days before.

The first Bastone was killed while attempting to navigate the Great Marsh. It seemed like I found the one map where the only way to access the Flayer Jungle is through the Great Marsh. I thought I would be OK with about 30 lightning resist but turns out I wasn't. What I did differently with Bastone-II was I utilized Confuse. Confuse is actually a skill I had never really used. Believe it or not I've spent most of my D2 career playing HC characters without properly utilizing their support skills. That's what happens when you spend your first year playing D2 just playing SP, not reading guides and developing bad habits.

Congratulations and condolences.

Tim is also dead now as well. Dead at level 70. I leveled him as Holy Shock (which was pretty OP btw - will revisit this with another toon soon) and switched to Hammers as soon as I could cobble together two spirits in A1 NM. From then on it was a cakewalk to NM Ancients. Talic was Cursed, Fire Enchanted and I went ahead and just hammered away anyway. That was disappointing because I felt like he was going to be a steamroller. I'm way too overconfident sometimes!

Melee Necro without CE in HC will be hard. Expect lots of running away.

Man I hope that's the case. If my health bulb isn't below 50% I'm not having fun haha

Congrats... and condolences! Just out of curiosity, why were you running Nihlathak? Seems like an exceptionally dangerous target, all things considered.

Well, I play Hardcore for the thrill. I don't get upset when I lose these guys because I start another immediately after. Losing precious items also keeps the game interesting for me. I usually game for a few months to a year and then uninstall Diablo II while also deleting all my characters and stashes. So, I don't mind starting over because beating the game with only what I find is where all the fun is. I guess that's the main reason why I prefer running dangerous targets like that with my characters is the potential for reward is really high while also keeping it interesting.

 

[jonny5]

I really like that mentality... basically filtering out the 'easy' parts of hardcore for more excitement - I'll call your playstyle "hardercore."

think the mantle of "hardestcore" is permanently reserved for @superdave and @Insane Wayne, though .

 

[Drystan1]

Congrats on the Guardian, regardless. It still counts!

Next one, max out Dim Vision. If you like being active and aggressively pushing forward, you can cast Dim Vision at the edge of the screen, blinding a huge range, and can even run into the middle of groups when playing him properly. After maxing out DV, you can pretty much make any Necro build you want. But definitely try out Dim Vision! It completely nullifies Gloams and exploding Dolls, and many other dangerous mobs; you just have to actively cast it every chance you can, and pre-emptively cast it before running too far ahead.

 

[MizzouFTW]

Congrats on the Guardian, regardless. It still counts!

Next one, max out Dim Vision. If you like being active and aggressively pushing forward, you can cast Dim Vision at the edge of the screen, blinding a huge range, and can even run into the middle of groups when playing him properly. After maxing out DV, you can pretty much make any Necro build you want. But definitely try out Dim Vision! It completely nullifies Gloams and exploding Dolls, and many other dangerous mobs; you just have to actively cast it every chance you can, and pre-emptively cast it before running too far ahead.

That's a really good idea. Normally with Summoners I max Golem Mastery and as many points as I can into Blood Golem in order to pump up my Iron Golem Insight slave. I could definitely reroute most of those points into Dim Vision. Good lookin' out, friend!