- Mar 13, 2019
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I was in the mood to play some untwinked 1.00 and read up on potential builts in the Time-Traveler's Vortex by @Helvete :
Normal
Pius XIII was conceived last sunday evening and started his life as a melee fighter with a single point in Might. For some reason I did not bother to use Sacrifice and when I reached level 6 and 7 I went with a conservative investment of two points in Zeal. That was enough to get the job done and saves valuable skill points for BH and Concentration later on.
Throughout act 1 I reached level 13 with my path to level 10 being sponsored by Underground Passage runs which usually involved killing Rakanishu, three random bosses and popping the sparkly chest. (Note that only minions don't give extra XP, bosses give the usual 500% XP and a juicy magic item which can either be used or sold for gold)
Levels 13 to 16 were spent doing Stony Tomb runs, again killing three random bosses, the superunique Creeping Feature and finally popping the sparkly chest. This is also around the time I started to gamble for stuff with my general gambling strategy being:
At level 18 I did not get Blessed Hammer since I would not be able to afford it at a whooping 5 mana per cast (and 0,25 extra mana each level) so instead I stayed a zealot and just put points in concentration until I hit the River of Flame at level 24. At that point I had gambled myself a Nightsmoke and a Wall of the Eyeless (second try!) which meant I could sustain constant casting of Blessed Hammer.
I have barely any notes on the CS, it was just a breeze with my new skill. Diablo wasn't of any concern either since I had maxed fire resist. And so:
Nightmare
Again there are barely any recordings of Pius XIII in acts 1 and act 2 of Nightmare. Things simply died when they crossed his path. I eventually gambled Magefists and reached level 28 before reaching Duriel which means that I dealt 341 physical damage at 11 frames per cast.
If you played through 1.00 before you know how deadly Duriel's charge is and how even if you are in melee range he will knock you back and charge you just to make you suffer. Usually charges are either one hit kills or leave you with a sliver of health but Pius XIII did not die a single time to NM Duriel.
So now that I reached the halfway point (which happened wednesday at around 11pm) I had some pretty decent gear, a lot of good rares and some uniques like Greyform, Nightsmoke, Wall of the Eyeless and Magefists. My weapon was a "+2 to Blessed Hammer" scepter which was simple but effective.
Act 3 was uneventful except for that one death where a relentless vulture murdered me in cold blood. I killed all council members except for Maffer and Wyand which were both cursed and just all around nasty. So they got parked at the door to the Durance of Hate level 2.
With them out of the way Mephisto died a quick death and I proceeded to run through act 4, skipping Hephasto of course. Again most things throughout act 4 simply died. De Seis offered some resistance but couldn't hurt me. Thanks to Greyform I could stand in Diablo's Lightning Hose for 5 seconds without dying. Of course that didn't matter because he went down so quickly. Thus:
To finish off the day I shopped a +2 BH/Conc scepter and farmed RoF until level 34. The next day I farmed my way to 36 and did some gambling when lightning struck:
This is just the best possible gamble at this stage. Massive resists, +1 to skills and another +3 MDR which together with the MDR from Greyform makes +6 MDR. Absolutely sick...
With this find it was clear that today I just had to finish him and so I went to Hell.
Hell
I arrived in Hell with an average damage of about 800 and so it shouldn't come as a surprise that everything until Duriel except for the maggot lair was a walk in the park. Even Fangskin was easy because of a convenient cluster of urns blocking him from charging me. But the maggot lair was a different story: I literally gained a level just from standing in front of Coldworm's chamber killing baby maggots and I just couldn't get in.
I eventually made it through and could make my way to Duriel whom I took on with a new strategy: Upon entering his chamber I ran to the bottom right wall and positioned myself so that I would be wedged between Duriel and the wall. This way he could only charge me once and his knockback+charge combo was impossible to execute.
As in Nightmare Duriel's attacks only served to fill up my mana bulb (Nightsmoke!) and he died quickly. I expected the worst despite having 611 life and 50% block but it just didn't come to pass.
Now act 3 was actually challenging:
That little window was enough for the Hammer to pass through and kill them
Compared to act 3 the monsters in act 4 were harmless. After going all the way to the RoF WP I reached level 45 with a whooping 931 average hammer damage (Conc and BH maxed at level 23). Again the only scary things in CS were de Seis and Diablo. De Seis put up a fight but he could not use his game crashing magic on me because my belt was empty.
Diablo went down in about twenty seconds of hammering without ever dealing any sort of serious damage to me. Didn't I say Hammerdin was a powerhouse in 1.00?
Character Stats and Items
I finished the game with these stats:
The strength and dex values are due to his zealot beginnings and could potentially have been avoided by simply switching to Hammerdin earlier. And yes these resists are in Hell. It simply pays off to gamble on boots, caps and quilted armors!
My gear at the end was as follows:
I only listed relevant stats on the rares/magics to keep it simple.
I invested one point in Vigor, maxed BH and Conc and invested another two points in Zeal early on. I didn't bother with Holy Shield, it starts out at 30 seconds and costs 35 mana which is just obscene.
***
Thus Pius XIII became my first untwinked Baron in 1.00 and it only took 6 days!
Thanks for reading and thanks to @Helvete , @treeharl and @Fruit for providing info about 1.00!
I have to say that this is absolutely not true. Hammerdin is a powerhouse in 1.00 due to the insane Concentration "Synergy" to Blessed Hammer. In fact Blessed Hammer and Concentration are different in a few ways to their modern incarnations:
- Blessed Hammer does physical damage so Stone Skin monsters are your worst enemy.
- The effect of Concentration on Blessed Hammer was not intended and because of that it works at full efficiency instead of being halved. (the halving was a compromise by Blizzard to keep Hammerdin viable while nerfing him a bit)
- Both Concentration +% ED and Blessed Hammer damage grow linearly so the resulting combined damage grows quadratically. It's not hard to reach damages in the range of 800-1000 which one shots most things in Hell.
Normal
Pius XIII was conceived last sunday evening and started his life as a melee fighter with a single point in Might. For some reason I did not bother to use Sacrifice and when I reached level 6 and 7 I went with a conservative investment of two points in Zeal. That was enough to get the job done and saves valuable skill points for BH and Concentration later on.
Throughout act 1 I reached level 13 with my path to level 10 being sponsored by Underground Passage runs which usually involved killing Rakanishu, three random bosses and popping the sparkly chest. (Note that only minions don't give extra XP, bosses give the usual 500% XP and a juicy magic item which can either be used or sold for gold)
Levels 13 to 16 were spent doing Stony Tomb runs, again killing three random bosses, the superunique Creeping Feature and finally popping the sparkly chest. This is also around the time I started to gamble for stuff with my general gambling strategy being:
- Always buy (leather) boots, leather gloves, quilted armors and caps. They cost between 2300 and 3250 gold and can yield great rares and some good sets/uniques.
- Otherwise buy whatever slot is lacking at the moment. That would be a concern only later on in NM and Hell.
- Don't ever gamble sashes, they suck.
At level 18 I did not get Blessed Hammer since I would not be able to afford it at a whooping 5 mana per cast (and 0,25 extra mana each level) so instead I stayed a zealot and just put points in concentration until I hit the River of Flame at level 24. At that point I had gambled myself a Nightsmoke and a Wall of the Eyeless (second try!) which meant I could sustain constant casting of Blessed Hammer.
I have barely any notes on the CS, it was just a breeze with my new skill. Diablo wasn't of any concern either since I had maxed fire resist. And so:
Nightmare
Again there are barely any recordings of Pius XIII in acts 1 and act 2 of Nightmare. Things simply died when they crossed his path. I eventually gambled Magefists and reached level 28 before reaching Duriel which means that I dealt 341 physical damage at 11 frames per cast.
If you played through 1.00 before you know how deadly Duriel's charge is and how even if you are in melee range he will knock you back and charge you just to make you suffer. Usually charges are either one hit kills or leave you with a sliver of health but Pius XIII did not die a single time to NM Duriel.
So now that I reached the halfway point (which happened wednesday at around 11pm) I had some pretty decent gear, a lot of good rares and some uniques like Greyform, Nightsmoke, Wall of the Eyeless and Magefists. My weapon was a "+2 to Blessed Hammer" scepter which was simple but effective.
Act 3 was uneventful except for that one death where a relentless vulture murdered me in cold blood. I killed all council members except for Maffer and Wyand which were both cursed and just all around nasty. So they got parked at the door to the Durance of Hate level 2.
With them out of the way Mephisto died a quick death and I proceeded to run through act 4, skipping Hephasto of course. Again most things throughout act 4 simply died. De Seis offered some resistance but couldn't hurt me. Thanks to Greyform I could stand in Diablo's Lightning Hose for 5 seconds without dying. Of course that didn't matter because he went down so quickly. Thus:
With this find it was clear that today I just had to finish him and so I went to Hell.
Hell
I arrived in Hell with an average damage of about 800 and so it shouldn't come as a surprise that everything until Duriel except for the maggot lair was a walk in the park. Even Fangskin was easy because of a convenient cluster of urns blocking him from charging me. But the maggot lair was a different story: I literally gained a level just from standing in front of Coldworm's chamber killing baby maggots and I just couldn't get in.
I eventually made it through and could make my way to Duriel whom I took on with a new strategy: Upon entering his chamber I ran to the bottom right wall and positioned myself so that I would be wedged between Duriel and the wall. This way he could only charge me once and his knockback+charge combo was impossible to execute.
As in Nightmare Duriel's attacks only served to fill up my mana bulb (Nightsmoke!) and he died quickly. I expected the worst despite having 611 life and 50% block but it just didn't come to pass.
Now act 3 was actually challenging:
- I could barely snatch the Eye out of the chest before Sszark and his minions cornered me against a wall of baby maggots. I S&E'd with a sliver of health remaining.
- Flayer Dungeon and Ruined Temple posed some problems due to their claustrophobic nature. Things had to be slowly dragged into an open space and killed with a repeated hammering while running away.
- Council was so powerful and disgusting that I had no choice but to cheese them to get a boss kill (and thus the flail).
- The council members in Durance of Hate level 3 were absolutely insane and I had no choice but to park them in front of the entrance again.
- Mephisto hit like a truck but I had rejuvs stacked up and he went down in less than half a minute.
Compared to act 3 the monsters in act 4 were harmless. After going all the way to the RoF WP I reached level 45 with a whooping 931 average hammer damage (Conc and BH maxed at level 23). Again the only scary things in CS were de Seis and Diablo. De Seis put up a fight but he could not use his game crashing magic on me because my belt was empty.
Diablo went down in about twenty seconds of hammering without ever dealing any sort of serious damage to me. Didn't I say Hammerdin was a powerhouse in 1.00?
Character Stats and Items
I finished the game with these stats:
My gear at the end was as follows:
Code:
+2 Conc/BH scepter
Fastest hit recovery; +1 PDR; +23% fire res; +17% lightning res rare cap
Greyform
Rare amulet (see screenshot above)
Wall of the Eyeless
Magefist
+36% cold res magic ring
Nightsmoke
+1 MDR; 16% poison res; 45% lightning res; 22 mana; 18 life rare ring
+25% PLR; +11% poison res; +27% lightning res; +43% fire res rare bootsI invested one point in Vigor, maxed BH and Conc and invested another two points in Zeal early on. I didn't bother with Holy Shield, it starts out at 30 seconds and costs 35 mana which is just obscene.
***
Thus Pius XIII became my first untwinked Baron in 1.00 and it only took 6 days!
Thanks for reading and thanks to @Helvete , @treeharl and @Fruit for providing info about 1.00!
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