3/8/19
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!