Weapons of the Commoner and the Blessing of the King Tournament

[Dazliare]

Going to think about this one for a bit, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if I enter a character, as I do for most every tournament, and I'm a sucker for these unique ones. Paladin seems an obvious choice, maybe frost zealot. I hate melee druids. I've never played a kick assassin though, so I'll toss that around the old noggin.

It's been a while since I played a barb in a tournament as well, and they're a lot of fun, so maybe that's the ticket.

I'll report back when I make a decision

 

[Vang]

Well, I have been cracking my way through Acts 2, 3, and 4 with my trusty Ribcracker being able to learn how to twirly-whirly properly in HC.

Unfortunately, I've only had one item drop that I could use that changed my layout, but not points and the one ring I swapped didn't add points anyways before or after.


Level 50 (10)

Ribcracker (4)
Circlet (2) Mana Leech/39%LR
Gemmed Armor (2) Ort/Ral
Blood Gloves (2) LL/30%CR
Rare Belt (1)30%PR
Boot (1) 30%LR

Total: 12

Level 60 (12)

Ribcracker (4)
Circlet (2) Mana Leech/+1MA Tree
Gemmed Armor (2) Ort/Ral
Blood Gloves (2) LL/30%CR
Rare Belt (1)30%PR
Boot (1) 30%LR

Total 12





Looks like I didn't hit my Hellforge which I raced too hoping for a Pul to upgrade Ribcracker. So since it didn't drop (Lum) the alternative would be dual Black Clubs and go back to double swing/frenzy combo if I can't find one and the Ribby can't handle /p1 in hell.

Going to run some Meph for a bit hoping for an item or two since I got a good layout and maybe some council.


BobtheSlob, Staff wielding Barbarian from some unknown lands, Lvl60

 

[Vang]

Well, I've smacked myself into level 70 by hitting Pindleskin and Nith a few times over the past day. Oh my. This was brutal. I couldn't find any good runes to make a decent RW (or base, a smoke will greatly help!)

So basically I lost all my Magic find, which obviously wasn't doing me any good anyways, so:

70 (18)

Ribcracker (4)
Blood Gloves (2), 30%CR/LL
Dwarf Star (1)
Wilhelm's Pride (2)
Boots (1), 30%LR
Rare Helm (2), +2 Barb Skills, 56life
Chest (4), Artisan, Ral Ort Thul
Amulet (2) +1summons skills(nec), 5%ML

Merc: Hwanin's Weapon, Skin of the Flayed One, and LL circlet with other mods.

Going to go smack Baal around a few times, maybe on the way something drops that provides more than a Modifier slot, this King of mine needs to give me my own lands once I vanquish this evil as I think he wants me to perish with all the good things I have to avoid!

BobtheSlob, Staff wielding Barbarian from some unknown lands, Lvl70

 

[Vang]

I've smashed myself into guardian status.

Final equipment consisted off most of it done by mid-act1


70 (18)

Ribcracker (4)
Blood Gloves (2), 30%CR/LL
Dwarf Star (1)
Wilhelm's Pride (2)
Boots (1), 30%LR
Rare Helm (2), +2 Barb Skills, 56life
Chest (4), Smoke
Ring (2) LL/ML

The only item off the list is the amulet, which was just a bad Amulet of Everlasting with the lowest number (16)

My mercenary was flying high with: Nat's helm, Hwanin's Justice, and an Upped Boneflesh.

Guardian BobtheSlob, Staff wielding Barbarian, King of Bob, Lvl80

 

[Vang]

Going to reenter with an Amazon, SlothShooter using mainly xbows I envision. (My druid I was going to roll with hasn't been created)

 

[Pb_pal]

Forward through the first act!

Hit level 8, grabbed a Fire Rogue and headed off to Blood Raven and then Cain. From there I popped some points into FoF (a synergy for PS and convenient early game OP skill), threw my axe away and went to go punch the Countess in the face.

She left us a single Tal, but more importantly while we were down there we finally found the first chipped topaz! I don't think it's ever taken me that long to find one before, but I could be wrong. It was shortly followed by our second in the Barracks before meeting the Smith, finding our first S/U and then making our way to Andariel. As you would expect from a character with massive fire damage, it took no time at all. She left a topaz-filled drop and it's off to the desert!

Okay, first thing was to grab a Prayer merc, actually equip a weapon, and then run for the Cube and pray (see what I did there?) that a savage polearm ends up being a Scythe or Voulge to make it useable. I have 5 tries, so I'm feeling optimistic.

And on the 5th and final try (you can see the fruits of her labor in her stash), she got one!

He'll have to wait a bit for the stats (if he even gets them before 30), but that's alright as Scatha found this decent little spear on the way down to Radament for his to use in the meantime.

Progress is smooth and easy through the desert. Found a Witherstring the the ML, which is techincally useable (though not that useful) so she's got that on switch just in case she needs a ranged attack at some point before level 30.

Coldworm and Fangskin fell and shortly she was through to Duriel.

Took a few town trips to bring the merc back and restock pots but we got him. Drop was crap (ring was Cathan's) but it's on the the jungles. Getting excited now as gear restrictions will start kicking in soon and things can get interesting!


Other finds:
- The Diggler (too bad daggers are banned, or else this definitely had potential)
- Civerb's amulet and shield

Scatha the future Phoenix Striker, lvl 25 - Kurast Docks

 

[ranagrande]

I recently found my way to this new forum and found this tournament as a nice way to get back into things again. So I will introduce Valko, the furious summoner commoner druid.

Acts 1 and 2 were pretty easy. The closest thing Valko has had to a near death experience was near the very beginning, against Blood Raven.



Things were a lot easier after a Rogue joined the team, and became easier still after finding the first unique in the Monastery jail:



And then it was time to take down Andariel.



Floria wanted to stay behind and help her fellow rogues rebuild, so Valko hired a prayer merc in Lut Gholein. Kasim immediately became the heavy hitter for the group, and progress was steady and easy. A second unique was found in the Maggot Lair.

I know it doesn't show in the picture. It's buried in there somewhere. It was a Skewer of Krintiz anyway; useless for this tournament.

It wasn't long before we faced Duriel. He was able to one-shot most of the druid summons, but Kasim and Valko are made of sturdier stuff and took him down easily enough.



In addition to the two aforementioned uniques, we've also found three set pieces (Cathan's Seal, Civerb's Ward, and Cleglaw's Claw) and 68 rares.

Of course, the quest thus far has not been without sacrifices. There have been a number of deaths already: 1 Oak Sage, 2 Poison Creepers, 3 Carrion Vines, 5 Dire Wolves, and 6 Spirit Wolves in Act I, and 2 Oak Sages, 3 Carrion Vines, 3 Kasims, 10 Solar Creepers, and 19 Dire Wolves in Act II. (Mostly against Duriel.)

This is a fun character so far. I am looking forward to level 30 when I'll get Fury and Grizzly and the blessings start coming into play.

Now it's time to sail east and hunt down Mephisto!

Valko the werewolf, level 27, Kurast Docks.

 

[Pb_pal]

Into the jungles we go! First stop, Sszark was killed off easily and Scatha and company progress easily through a gloam-infested Great Marsh (Thanks Fade!) and to the Flayer Dungeon to grab another organ. On the way, she grabbed an actually useful Ormus ring!

Nice! Through Stormtree and into the cities and full-cleared them in an attempt to gain the last couple levels to 30. She easily took out Sarina, and popped down to the Sewers for the final organ. She then cleared the remaining temples in Upper Kurast and nabbed the Trav WP just shy of 30, so she decided to get the group ready equipment-wise for her first real "breakpoint". My priority is to maintain as much MF as possible to hopefully find some useful stuff for later on that can help us reach modifier levels.

Merc
- His weapon from the previous update has mana leech on it, so no need to change that (thankfully, because he's been doing the heavy lifting!).
- His armour looks like this. Tal for the 30 psn res, and then some MF. I debated making him a 'Stealth', but it would be a waste of an Eth imo when I can get some MF otherwise.
- This shopped helm gets the same treatment.

Little bit of a yikes on his gear for now, but this is just to hold me until better stuff becomes shoppable (very soon!).

Scatha
Again the goal is going to be keeping MF to a maximum on her, so to get her 3 modifiers she used:
- Hatchet Hands with some life leech (1)
- A ring with some leech and cold resist (1)
- A shield with 30% LR (1)

Not bad, I'm super happy to leave her big MF pieces untouched. So with that it was back to the Council.

Which pinged her lvl 30 so she can finally officially become a Phoenix Striker, and then into the Durance where we plugged away until Meph.

He dropped nothing worthwhile and that's where we sit now.


Scatha the Phoenix Striker, lvl 30 - Pandemonium Fortress

--

Small question for @Vang here, if I have something with dual-leech does that count as 2 modifiers? One for the LL and one for the ML, or do they both fall under the "Mana or Life Leech any%" and count as 1 modifier?

 

[Vang]

Small question for @Vang here, if I have something with dual-leech does that count as 2 modifiers? One for the LL and one for the ML, or do they both fall under the "Mana or Life Leech any%" and count as 1 modifier?

Both count separately, so 2 modifier points.

 

[Vang]

SlothShooter has slowly made her way into the beginning of Act3.

My formula was to get a 3 Ral Long Bow and FIRE away, literally.

She hit level 26 and is awaiting further commands at the docks.

Funny find:

 

[Pb_pal]

Alright, she's set for modifiers for the next little while so it's all about progress now. She's plenty strong at the moment, her limiting factor is mana consumption. I'm definitely going to have to figure something out for that at some point since pounding blues is a little tedious.

Izual took a while, but at least he provided Scatha a chance to try out some fireworks.

Through the RoF she offed Hephasto and grabbed a Thul from the Forge. She also shopped herself some beautiful boots:

Those give her another modifier, so she's good until level 40 now with her current gear. Nice! Also worth noting is that those up her FR to 70, which is nice considering where she's headed. Up through the CS with relative ease she found an Ort (or as I like to think about it, a free modifier point!) and soon it was time to take on Diablo.

Tough fight. The shadow and merc were useless, so it was up to Scatha. Lots of running in circles avoiding the hose, sending a meteor down whenever I could, or maybe some lightning.

Eventually she would prevail! The drop was crap, but it's off to Harrogath.

Scatha the Phoenix Striker, lvl 33 - Harrogath

 

[Vang]

Glad to see your still kicking! I'm slowly working on my Amazon who is in Act 2, but kind of slowed D2 down to the crawl for the summer as lots of stuff to do around here.

 

[Pb_pal]

Still kicking! I fully plan on taking her the whole way, but likewise between summer stuff and too many other D2 projects, progress will be a bit sporadic. I'm really liking this tournament so far, and really recommend others to take a shot at it too. The gearing system adds a really fun and unique take on how to build your characters, kudos to you @Vang for making it work!

 

[Vang]

Sloth Shooter has achieved the first level that matters: Level 30.

To reach my equipped goals it was rather easy: Cathan's Ring, boots with 36%LR/~75GF, and a Stealth.

My mercenary on the other hand does not have an armor currently as I couldn't purchase one with a required mod as of yet.

I looked back and didn't take a bunch of screenshots.

The game so far been quite a breeze after I made my RalRalRal Long Bow infused with an exploding arrow. Upon entering act five it was switched to my Repeating Crossbow with RalRal and some ed/ar.

Diablo was a pain like usual on normal taking around 15-20minutes to pluck away. Overall really safe, just slow.l






8 minutes later!!!!

 

[Vang]

Really playing a tad slow, just /p1 and rerunning some areas. Hopping back to normal to kill Baal with my new toy

Spoiler

Edge

. Been having some pretty good drops so far with around 80 MF.








I did miss the Bloodletter drop on my way to the Countess and since I want an Act2 Might mercenary, I didn't go back and change out my mercenary.

The Rattlecage is awesome for me using Strafe and although I wanted to do a sweet xbow build, they haven't dropped yet so I'm shooting this:



But onto the real deal:

Character level 40(6) saw me utilize:

Artisan Helm (1)
3%LL/33%FR Amulet (2)
Belt with 5X life (1)
Stealth (1)
Cathan's Ring (1)

I swapped to a decent bow that actually provided quite a few prior to getting edge (Life Leech, Damage Undead, etc)

Character Level 45(8) which I just dinged:

Edge (4)
Artisan's Helm w/ 2 P.Topaz/Ort (2)
3%LL/33%FR Amulet (2)
60 life belt (1)
Cathan's Ring (1)
Emerald |40%| Boots of Fortune |25%| (1)

Total: 11


Looking good so far! Onward to 50![/spoiler]

 

[Zedwardson]

This is a really neat concept, and it HC too. Will have to throw in one, even if it fails badly.

I am going with a Spear wielding Conc Barb. I currently have a few HC characters, so can't promise it will be fast leveling till a few of the others get Deeds.

 

[Zedwardson]

WOC_Xebec has been created, just Lvl 6 and getting ready to go though the underground passage in the Cain quest.

Here he is finding a dinky ring that he will be keeping. He is a Spear Conc barbarian. Did start off with the legal hand-ax but now he switched to spear and is training up his spear skill. Will say he had one of the easiest blood raven victories I had in a while. (Blood Raven always is tough if you rush your guy/gal along too fast.

Do need to figure out how to get the mule software to work on linux.

 

[Zedwardson]

Xebec adventures continue, beating andy and now in act 2, almost level 21.

I did actually use the respec<sp> and he now a Ax Conc barb. Spear attack speed is just a bit slow for dealing with mobs of little ones. Did find a +1 Warcry amulet which I suspect due to the rules might be worn for some time.

 

[Zedwardson]

I thought I paused the game when I went to get the dog in, came back to deeds.

I will do another entry soon.

 

[Zedwardson]

WOC_Treesoul (Druid) is my new entry after the unfortunate deeds.