TWD Redux - Feb 25, 2020
Ketto - Singer
One final character, one final act. All that stands in Ketto's way is the need to free his barbarian homeland and he will find out which one of his brothers he will be joining. Will it be Ribble, sitting at the pub enjoying a well-earned brew? Or will it be Bedoe, resting for eternity in the great beyond? Only one way to find out!
Honestly though, I'm quite sick of constantly chugging mana pots so this will be nowhere near a full-clear of the final act. Ketto will be bee-lining his way through the quests as best he can. Hopefully that doesn't catch up with him too quickly!
Shenk was soon
dispatched, and he moved quickly to free his brothers from their cages before heading down into the caverns below. Gloams in the frozen river really slowed us down, both in needing to taunt them all out individually to be killed, and Gloams having higher innate physical resistance so WC took a while to kill them. 75% LR made it safe enough, at least.
Frozenstein was easily handled, and Anya subsequently saved, before Ketto took a trip down to visit the skinny pale dude one final time. The trip down there was actually the hardest part of the journey, as once he hit the Halls of Vaught (and confirmed no Vipers) Ketto simply ran right in and
took Nihlathak on face-to-face. Simple enough, moving on!
Up through the ancients way with ease. It's worth noting that up to this point Ketto has been EXTREMELY fortuitous with monster rolls. Only a couple PI draws here an there, but we've always found the entrance to the subsequent area before they became an issue which frankly is a godsend with such a slow killing character. He soon found himself at the summit, stocked up on pots (including a big pile left in each of the 4 corners of the maps), hit the altar and waited to find out what would greet him. None of the Ancients were PI, so it's a go!
The first one we could separate was
Talic. He killed the merc, but was able to be dealt with decently. We used up an entire corner's worth of potion supplies in the process, but it worked and I was hopeful for the remaining two fights.
Apparently I forgot to take screenshots of them, but they both followed similar arcs. Madawc was separated next, followed finally by Korlic. The fights consisted of hitting them with the Butchers pupil offhand until bleeding started, and then warcrying them down very, VERY slowly. I used up all the pots I took as stockpiles except for 4 mana and 2 health, so I guessed (or rather got lucky with) the amount of resources needed quite well! The Ancients were ultimately much easier than I had anticipated and were essentially nothing more than a waiting game (this seems to be a major theme for Ketto). After a quick trip to town to get more pots and grab the merc, it was on to the WSK.
By this point I was getting pretty sick and tired of this build, honestly. It's slow, it's tedious to upkeep mana pots, and frankly, it's boringly safe. I mostly Howled and ran through the WSK, only stopping for big packs of easy to kill fetishes and the like. Ketto made it through to the throne, and soon cleared out the witches/oks/gloams that inhabited it. Time for the waves!
Colenzo we simply let bomb us and WC
took care of them with me troubles. Achmel's skeletons were drawn out with Taunt and dispatched before going for the
Unravellers. Easy enough so far. Wave 3 was mana burn, which was a bit of a concern. Ketto had to separate them out to groups of 1 or 2 and kill the minions off before going in for
Bartuc. Wave 4 was surprisingly easy as they were gathered in a neat semi-circle and WC did the rest. This is what ti looks like when WC performs at its best:
Lister's group was their typical difficult selves. We started by pulling the minions out 1 at a time and killing them in safe isolation. Eventually Lister came to challenge us and...
Huh. Well, I tried, but Cursed + PI meant the merc couldn't do it and it was too dangerous, so Ketto swallowed his pride, parked Lister by the stairs, went back in and finished off his remaining minions, and then went for the big boss himself. It was at this point that it became evidently clear I had not actually planned out a certain very important part of Ketto's journey; how the hell was he going to kill Baal?
Baal's mana burning made it all but impossible to War Cry effectively, so I had to regroup. The merc is next to useless, but I do have a Butcher's pupil. Okay.. stat check:
8% chance to hit. Not good.
Battle cry decreases Baal's defense by 92%. Okay, that's doable. 25% OW on the Pupil, let's do this!
The plan consisted of healing in town, running in and war crying as much as possible until mana burned, then switching to BP, hitting baal with Battle Cry, and
swinging away hoping to get some bleeding until either my mana pot refilled me for more yelling, or the clone showed up.. rinse and repeat.
It wasnt glamorous, it certainly wasnt quick, but it was pretty
safe.
Exactly 62 minutes later (and yes that's on /p1):
There it is. 2/3, I'll take it.
Drop was garbage rares, by the way.
Some thoughts:
- Singers are obnoxiously safe
- I don't recommend doing it without a MUCH bigger mana pool/insight, it's way too tedious to be constantly potting.
- I do not recommend an A3 merc with this build, immunities be damned it's too slow. And let's be real, he hardly dealt with PIs anyways.
- I'm really glad he's done, but it was a fun experience taking him through.
This was a super fun tournament overall, so I'm going to take an extra moment to thank PSYCHO for hosting, as well as everyone else that participated. And thank you as well to anyone who followed along with the team's travels, as few and far between as they were.
--
Team Parmecia (Pb_pal) - 280pts
Bedoe - (Paladin: CSkills/Off.Auras - 7/2) - lvl 78 - Act IV Hell-
80pts (RIP)
Ketto - (Barb: Warcries/Mast. - 7/2) - lvl 80 - Act V Hell -
100pts
Ribble - (Necro: Summ/Curse - 10) - lvl 81 - Guardian -
100pts