Tournament: Lethal Weakness

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Shannon thumbed the runes in her staff nervously. Out there, beyond those doors... Andariel was waiting. And Shannon was all too aware of her own lethal vulnerability to poison damage. How to survive?

Idea
You pick one resistance out of the four. Lightning, Fire, Cold or Poison. That resistance CANNOT be raised above it's basic starting value. So 0 in Normal, -40 in Nightmare, and -100 in Hell.

Basic Rules
-RWM/RRM allowed
-HC only
-Single pass only.
-Untwinked.
-All quests and all waypoints must be completed/tagged in each act.
The Horadric Malus/Kill Shenk the Overseer/Kill Nihlatak quests are considered complete when the quest is done. You may leave the reward open if you wish.
-Full clears are not required, but they are encouraged.
-ATMA/GoMule is allowed.
-Any player setting allowed. No p1 killing, p8 chest popping of course.
-Version 1.10/1.11(b) only.

Tourney Rules
- All characters allowed.
- Pick 1 resistancetype. As mentioned in idea,that resistance can NEVER
gain any + to it.
- If you chose cold, thawing potions are not allowed. Neither is the Half Freeze duration or Cannot be Frozen mod.
- If you chose poison, antidotes are not allowed. The poison length reduced mod is also not allowed in that case.
- A shrine that grants resistance to your lethal weakness is not allowed.
- Mala's scroll cannot be used.
- The mod Magic Damage Reduction is not allowed.
- Any mod that grants + to all resistance types is not allowed.
- The lethal weakness resistance may not be absorbed either.
- All mercenaries are allowed. Mercenaries are excempt from your weakness.

Skill rules
- No summons allowed. This means the necromancer cannot use his summoning skills, the amazon can't use valkyrie or Decoy, the assassin can't use the master or the warrior, the Druid can't use the wolves and the grizzly. The druid may summon a spirit or one of the passive vines(the life and mana regenerating ones). He may also use ravens.
- Any skill that grants a + to your lethal weakness is not allowed.
To sum them up: The barbarian cannot use Natural Resistance. The assassin cannot use Fade, the Paladin cannot use his resist aura of the lethal weakness (the others ARE allowed, however). Nor can he use Salvation unless he has chosen poison. The Druids can't use Cyclone Armor, unless they chose poison as their lethal weakness.
- The Paladin may not use Cleansing if he has chosen poison.

Scoring and winning
I think this tournament is quite hard, and I would like the scores to be properly impressive to reflect this.
- +1 per level.
- +1 per waypoint
- +2 per Quest solved.
- +5 per Act in Normal, +10 in Nightmare, +20 in Hell.
- +50 for making Destroyer, +100 for making Conqueror, and +200 for making Guardian. This is in addition to the added points for completing act V.
- The Cow level is optional and does not 'belong' to any given act. Remember to save Wirt's leg if you wish to clear it!

Good luck to all participants! I have a feeling you might need it!

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score

[Jcakes]

Just a note its Salvation that increases all Elemental Resistances (not poison) I assume this would be ok if poison was the weakness. Conviction is the aura that reduces elemental resistances.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Thanks! I made the corresponding change.

[Jason Maher]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2


I'll be the first to dip my toe in. Because it's late and I'm feeling mad, I'm going to attempt to pull off a character with no resists, but should I chicken out at some point, I'll nominate Lightning as my weakness. My aim is to dish it out faster and harder than I take it in - hence wolf + fury, with fire claws and rabies as support skills. (Note: I'm assuming the Rogue camp waypoint and level 1 count for scoring purposes, correct me if I'm wrong.)

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Glad to see you enter Jason :P Sounds like a fun build, but a problematic one... Wish you the best though!

[Oneofakind]

Please welcome "toast", the bone necro vulnerable to fire. I predict death to normal Diablo, if I get by the act 3 shaman.




Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 1 Rogue Camp 2

[Jason Maher]

You know, I did toss up the idea of a Bone Necro, and I also tossed up the name "Toast". As they say, great minds think like mine... ;)

[huangfusong]

Sure, why not



Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 1 Rogue Camp 2
Huangfusong Itburns frenzy barb Fire 1 Rogue Camp 2

[huangfusong]

This might seem like a dumb question, but how do you handle logoff/logon for this type of tournament given the other rules are so strict?

I mean, say I play from start through screen 2. Now, I can either play and clean screen 2, then tap Stony fields waypoint without killing anything, or play normally and "guesstimate" how many mons I should kill in Stony Fields next login...

[bladejj]

Usually most people just clear an entire area and just run through it at players 1 at the start of the next game killing as little as possible. But, if you do get in a jam then of course fight your out; the experience gained from killing thing at players 1 is minimal and of course don't pick anything up.

Interesting idea for a tourney, I would consider joining but the heptad tournament is taking up all my d2 time.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

First off, welcome to both huangfusong and one of a kind :grin:

A bone necro actually should be doing reasonably ok, allthough you chose a dreadful weakness :P I'd not just worry about diablo. I'd be careful around the council in act 3, and the durance lvl 3 as well... Those blood lords hurt even WITH fire resistance! :P

Huangfusong, A frenzy babr might also do fine for a while. Melee builds have problems of course, but the Battle orders should be extremely useful. As for your other question, what bladejj says is a fair solution. Plan which waypoint you intend to reach, clean out the entire area and tag it, then quit. When you next logon, just make a dash for the dungeon (if it's there and not cleaned out yet) or the exit of the level.

[huangfusong]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 1 Rogue Camp 2
Huangfusong Itburns 2xSwing barb Fire 10 Stony Fields 16
[/QUOTE]

Not sure how often I should update, but every 10 levels seems about right.

Got my first rare from the Den of Evil superunique, a decent sash. Had trouble with the 2nd floor boss archer of the cave - not used to hardcore! Luckily I had enough potions.

Blood Raven dropped some sweet rare gloves, but they had fire resist, so Gheed is wearing them now :(

Since I already have a frezny barb, and it was no point loss to switch now, I'm probably going to stick with double swing as my main attack to mix it up. I'll think about that magic-damage (berzerk?) skill for P-immunes later on, if I get that far.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 1 Rogue Camp 2
Huangfusong Itburns 2xSwing barb Fire 10 Stony Fields 16
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 1 Rogue Camp 2


So, added myself for when I enter, but for now, she'll stay in the rogue camp. Been a while since I used a sorc, and I never made a pure cold one, and it should be fun for the whole of two acts, because I'm sure Duriel on p8 is going to toast... well, wrong choice of words.. to ice her. :grin:

[huangfusong]

Oh, so we can't change difficulty between areas? I know the part about not using p8 to pop chests, but I figured I could play on 8 except for bosses (as much as that would pass up an opportunity for great items)

[huangfusong]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 1 Rogue Camp 2
Huangfusong Itburns 2xSwing barb Fire 21 Stony Fields 47
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 1 Rogue Camp 2


Going smoother now that I have 2 plain life-leech magic maces. I found artic binding, first s/u item. And then crushflange shortly after, which was perfect for my mace build, but it has FR :(

Andariel was no match for me, she's toast. Didn't cough up anything useful but some rare boots tainted by FR.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Oh, sure you can change difficulties. It's just that I'm too pigheaded to even consider it usually. The ONLY place in normal I change difficulty to p1 is when I enter lvl 5 of the tower. All other areas I run at p8. But this doesn't mean you, or any other more sensbile guy, can't change player settings when you want to.

[Docturnal]

I like the idea of this tourney, but I dont have enough time to enter. I do have one tip for the guys with fire weakness: Find an andariels visage. This allows you to wear that godly item that happens to have resist fire or resist all.
Its easy... I have found 3 in the last week. (meph running 2-5hrs a day)

[bladejj]

I like the idea of this tourney, but I dont have enough time to enter. I do have one tip for the guys with fire weakness: Find an andariels visage. This allows you to wear that godly item that happens to have resist fire or resist all.
Its easy... I have found 3 in the last week. (meph running 2-5hrs a day)

lol good idea. Although with this tourney being a single passed and untwinked I highly doubt anyone will find one.

[rickcarson]

The ONLY place in normal I change difficulty to p1 is when I enter lvl 5 of the tower.

Isn't that pointless in a single pass tournie?
If you were allowed to farm the countess their might be a point, but isn't her first drop 'special'?

[bladejj]

Isn't that pointless in a single pass tournie?
If you were allowed to farm the countess their might be a point, but isn't her first drop 'special'?

The point of moving it down to players 1 is that she has a lower chance to drop items, which in turns, raises the chance that she will drop runes.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Not as far as I know no. The countess doesn't have a 'quest' drop, but the chest behind her does. She drops according to her own rules, which gives you inadvertently more chance to get runes at p1 then at p8. And with the amount of runes dropping everywhere, I often find I can cube up to an Amn or so come A1 NM, which is always useful for strength or some such.

[iomanip]

OT: it won't matter anyway. I got a single El from Hell countess yesterday in Merlins tournament...

[Oneofakind]

^^Ouch! My worse Countess run ever was double El...still garbage, but twice as good as that!

OMG, I'm thinking like Jason? Time to wash my brain out with soap! :whistling:


Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 28?
Huangfusong Itburns 2xSwing barb Fire 21 Stony Fields 47
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 1 Rogue Camp 2


Cain is safe, once more, and was immediately put to work. Only notable find so far is Hsaru's shield, with the +10 str allowing me to wear a decent studded leather rare armor. +1 to teeth head is used to spam teeth until mana is gone (not long!), then switch to scepter with + to lightning damage to pick up the stragglers, with amp on right click. My plan is the opposite of Coldylocks--to never use fire as a source of damage (he said, then trying to remember if CE has a fire component?). I skipped the caves for now, since Cold Crow is scary at low levels and I wanted Dim Vision and a decent level of teeth first--I assume there is no trouble with going back, subject to trying not to kill anything outside the dungy? From the rules, it looks like we can save the imbue...is there a time limit--must be used before moving to next difficulty, for example?

Only one item was sold instead of used due to having FR...well, very nearly two, as I almost automatically socketed a shield with a chipped diamond! Sorry for your bad luck, Huang...doh! Just looked closely at your post and I think you updated level but not waypoint...if you got to level 21 by the stoney fields in a one pass tourney you have figured out how to play at players 30!

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Corpse explosion DOES 50% Fire damage though ONe :P So if you want some means of corpse disposal, use poison explosion... Or let them lie there :P

No, I won't set any other limits. In principle, it's preferred that you clean out all sub-dungeons when they appear, but it's certainly not required. And you are perfectly free to save the imbue/socket quests until hell, if you want. I think Huang just forgot to update the table :P If I were you, I'd most certainly keep CE... it's a quite powerful weapon. Allthough a fully synergized bone spear is nothing to sneeze at either...

Don't be feeling TOO sorry for poor iomanip though... he didn't mention the Um that dropped from NM forge, and the duress his mercenary wears, and the DOUBLE duriel Shell he has found, not to mention the gheeds... I'm still drooling :P

Besides... I've had NO runes drop from the countess on several occasions.

[iomanip]

hehe, only one duriels shell though, and Hell hellforge gave me fal this evening... :P Oh, i found another gheeds as well. If you'd been in the game i could have given it to you merlin... It was left on the ground, unfortunatly..

edit: allright, sorry for OT. I'll be quiet :shhh:..

[iomanip]

Allright guys!
Since finishing Merlin's 'Make no bones' tournament, I'll be joining this one. Meet tailwind, the wind druid with a weakness to poison (felt like making it a little bit easier), but i think the in-built -30 resist all (anya quest x 3) will make this hard anyway. Don't think i'll have time to play that much, work is going to be overwhelming, but i added myself to, as well as cleaning up, the table.



Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Huangfusong Itburns 2xSwing barb Fire 21 Stony Fields 47
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 28?
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 1 Rogue Camp 2
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2

[Oneofakind]

All quests and all waypoints must be completed/tagged in each act.

Not an issue yet, but this means that if you are stuck with something like a stair trap you have to get through or die trying? Since stair traps, particularly featuring your weakness, are just bad luck, would you consider a penalty (in addition to losing the quest points) instead?

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Well, there are only a few stairtraps in optionable quests. From the top of my head, there's the countess, Lam Esen's Tome and Nihlatak is optional (There can be stairtraps here, but they are very rare).

OK, if you feel that you want to opt out of what you fear might be a deathtrap in one of the above mentioned quests, here's the rule.
1 quest skipped : -50. 2 quests skipped : -200, 3 quests skipped: -500. More then three quests can't be skipped, sorry.

Similarly, if you wish to skip the Halls of the Dead/ Halls of Vaught waypoint in Nightmare/hell, you can skip 1 WP with -25 points and 2 with -100, 3 with -250 and 4 with -500. I don't think there are more Waypoints in the game that can be skipped for fear of stairtraps.

It's harsh, but it's certainly not something I wish to encourage.

[bladejj]

Allright guys! Meet tailwind, the wind druid with a weakness to poison (felt like making it a little bit easier), but i think the in-built -30 resist all (anya quest x 3) will make this hard anyway.

Sorry but no can do....


- Mala's scroll cannot be used.

EDIT: Oops nevermind sorry iomanip. After a closer read of your post I realized that you were saying *because* you can't use Mala's scrolls the game will be tougher.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Thanks Blade... I never even saw it! Ok boys and girls, remember, the keyword is NEVER. Most of the other rules pretty much follow out of that one...

[Oneofakind]

Thanks, Merlin. I like the idea of an increasing penalty. I was specifically thinking of the tome, with some evel FE, extra strong, extra fast fire-using critter waiting at the bottom for me...

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Huangfusong Itburns 2xSwing barb Fire 21 Stony Fields 47
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 15 Dark Woods 25
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


After I managed to kill my necromancer in a thoroughly humiliating way... AGAIN, I thought it was high time to lead a sorceress to her untimely demise. And Coldylocks is the unsuspecting victim to be.
So at start I pretty much decided to go with the first decent rare weapon I found. Turned out to be a nice little shortbow with some +elemental damage and +1 max. It's crap, but the merc still uses it. As for Coldylocks, she merrily shot about 2000 arrows or so, killing everything in the den of evil, the blood moor, the stony field and Blood ravens hideout. She was annoying by the way, but nothing a steady slew of arrows couldn't solve. I first entered the crypt, and immediately found Bonebreaker, who died shortly thereafter and dropped the rare light crossbow I still use. From then on, it's all pretty straightforward... The most problematic part was when I left the Underground passage only to find two Brutes and a superunique Treefist waiting at the entrance, along with a bunch of skellie archers. Took a bit of running and a fair bit of crappy tanking by the rogue before that group was dead. But other then that episode, nothing fanciful happened. Have filled my own equipment with chipped topazzes, 5 total dropped. About 13 amethysts dropped, 1 emmy, 2 rubies and 2 sapphires, and 3 diamonds or so... it's been decidedly slanted towards purple, let me tell you!

Only one item I can't use so far, a rare amulet with +7 CR and some +life and +FR. It's been sold for 2000 coins though, that was a nice boost. Since my one gambling round netted me no MF (but I did score a pair of boots with CtC Frost Nova, always nice), it's currently at 57%

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Well, a minor update, but I made some decisions about her future (provided she makes it that far), so perhaps good to mention it.

I gambled a rare crossbow with crapstats, but I still use it. It was a hassle getting my dex right though, lucky enough, I found a large charm with +3 dex on the second floor of the countess tower. Coupled with the +2dex from gloves and +3 dex from boots, just enough to equip the thing. So I said to myself. 'You know, you never really made a Xbow only char did ya?' Checked up the arreat summit for Xbows, and I found that the sorceress has decent attack speed with them as well.
So, experiment 1. From now on, she will only equip Xbows for melee damage.
That immediately raised another issue... AR. She aint gonna get much huh? Well, that helped me solve ANOTHER upcoming issue... the moron. Act 2 offensive. Blessed Aim, here I come!
And then I started to think about even other problems. Such as cold immunes. Because cold immunes likely deal cold damage, which coldylocks can't really handle. So I need a way to dis out some damage at a distance. That rules out static field. So, since this experimenting and all, I opted for ANOTHER skill I never use.. FireWall.

Well, other then that, little to tell. I used the xbow to dish out damage when needed, but let the merc clean up most (gambled a magic short battle bow with +1 cold damage on it, crap, but it works). I usually tank so she stops bloody moving around. I dont like tanking with a sorceress however! :P
No problems in the tower(AGreen Buckler dropped, and the countess(on p8... need XP) dropped a tir rune) or in the hole or in the black marsh or in the Tamoe highlands or in the pit (well.... 1 extra fast shaman hero coupled with some archer heroes (one of which was CE)) made for an interesting session)). My hardest fight was the CE Night Clan boss who greeted me at the entrance to the Barracks. I couldnt tank those, and my mercenary decided it was much more fun playing tag with the goatmen rather then shooting them. Problem was, they tagged right back. And when she is blue and slow, she is real easy to tag....

But finally, after four or five TP and a lot of shooting, they started to drop. A few chance Static fields when the boss was concentrating on the merc wittled most of their health down, and then I just duked it out. Phew. The Smith was real easylike though. I ported into his room, drew out the baddies (some normal goatmen and the always present shaman), killed the lot, ran up to the smith, static fielded his hiney off and let the merc kill him while I took the malus. Cost me about half a minute. :P
I have just cleaned out JAil lvl 1. In two more gambling sessions I had to get rid of a very nice pair of boots with +20FR, +16 PR, +15 MF, 10% Faster run walk... and Half freeze duration. Sigh. But I got some decent MF gloves, and some lower MF substitutes in my stash with +29 LR on them (NICE!) I also have some other boots with Fire and poison resist and CtC lvl 3 nova, but no MF this time around.

I'm lvl 18 now, and about 4000 XP away from lvl 19. I am finally in a position to start pumping a skill (Glacial spike), so I will for the next 5 lvls. Unless I die in the meantime of course... I have 50 vit now, but y'all know how little vit a sorceress gets... Even with some +life charms, I'm still shy of 200 HP. But the +3 to frozen armor orb I found is a major help, I use it to give my defense a boost...

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 21 A2 Rada dead 51
Huangfusong Itburns 2xSwing barb Fire 21 Stony Fields 47
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


In another gambling session, coldylocks landed a much better rare crossbow, with 62% enh. dam, 1-4 fire dam, 21 poison dam over 4 sec, +5 max dam, +24 AR and +1 mana per kill. I am using that for now...
With the help of that crossbow and my merc, I pretty much blazed through all areas. The first chest in jail lvl 2 dropped a unique ring... A Nagel! Too bad I can't use it eh? Sigh. A rare amulet that dropped had good resistances on it, too bad it had all 4 resistances on it. I sold it at the start of A2.
Just before andy a flawed topaz dropped, and andy herself dropped crap and a topaz. When I found another flawed topaz in the sewers, and I found a 3os breastplate at charsi, i took that as a sign and made myself a new armor.
Well, Radament took care of my merc, but not before my merc poked him to death.
I shopped a +3 Glacial spike/+1 shiver armor staff, which is useful. My glacial spike is +6 now and easily owns the mobs so far. I rarely use it though, I want the merc to get the kill!

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 25 A2 Palace 56
Huangfusong Itburns 2xSwing barb Fire 21 Stony Fields 47
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


I'm putting her through her paces... it's been a breeze (but a slow one, doing full clears). No NDE's to report. The hardest part was the Viper temple level 2, since Fangskin, social little snkae that he is, had invited a bunch of greater mummies and several claw vipers and salamanders down there. I made several kills down there, allthough I really didn't want to... But those vipers and salamanders with their colddamage really tear into my health, so I had little choice. Of course, three blizzards took care of the lot of them, and the moron nailed fangskinnnie. He might have prepared a warm welcome for me, but he couldn't cope with my frosty disposition. :P

Drops? Well, I'm not sure if I mentioned the ethereal crushflange allready, but I now also have a normal one alongside it :P. And, the gods of diablo had been watching my game.And when they saw me grab that nagelring, lok at it and then not wear it, they said: "Geez, he must want a better one!"And so theygave one, not 17% MF, but 22%. Sigh. So two double uniques now (also my only uniques :P) Apart from that, a cathan's mesh dropped from a claw viper hero.

I managed to buy some useful stuff though, for example, my nice new heavy gloves from Charis with FR 20 and MF 21. I also have heavy boots with some LR on them as well as MF. Two rings dropped with 10+ MF (I believe 11 and 15), and one of the amulets came with a hefty 17% or so. Of course, it also came with MD reduction of 2... I think my new ammy has some 21% or so.
I've decided to shop for a nice breastplate and shove some rubies in it (normal, if I can find enough chippies, currently enough for 1 of them and 3 quarters on the way to another) That's of course to provide a bit of a health buffer at duriel.

[Severoth]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 25 A2 Palace 56
Huangfusong Itburns 2xSwing barb Fire 21 Stony Fields 47
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


Hey All,

Have been realizing how much I missed Diablo, and with the whole possibility that Diablo 3 might (we can hope!) come out soon, I thought I'd start a character. A little thought of what to do ended up with me browsing the forums, and saw this Tourney.

With the perfect way to rejoin, I start up Cindy, a Firewall Frozen Orb sorc.

Nice to see you all again,

Sev

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Welcome Severoth! Hope you have fun here... A word to the wise though, this tourney might be a bit tough if you just restarted... So be careful out htere!

Also makes me wonder what the rest are up to...

[Severoth]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 25 A2 Palace 56
Huangfusong Itburns 2xSwing barb Fire 21 Stony Fields 47
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


Started the run today, players 8 all waypoints, full clears up until the monastery. Level 18, 6 waypoints (including the town) and 4 quests done.

Hopefully hit Act 2 in a day or two RL time permitting.

[huangfusong]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Huangfusong Itburns DlbSwing barb Fire 27 Kurast 68
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 25 A2 Palace 56
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


Finally slogged through all the tombs. It was worth it. Got lots of low runes, including two tir+els. Been looking for a 2-socket flail the whole act, then while healing against Duriel get two of them at the shop back to back. Now wielding double Steel.

Other eq not so good. Have plain MF gloves and boots, still using hsarus' belt, and a rare jawbone cap with mace mastery. Armor is bleh rare.

Uniques I picked up were berzerker's hauberk (useless with mdef) and another arctic binding. Non-fire resists are doing very well with all the charms I've found

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 28 Kurast 69
Huangfusong Itburns DlbSwing barb Fire 27 Kurast 68
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


I too managed to make it to the kurast docks, but I am sure my duriel experience was a much more intense one then yours, huang :P

First of, the finds : Angelic Sickle dropped on me in the Palace cellars,
I found a twitchthroe in the Arcane Sanctuary, and in the canyon an arctic binding dropped on me. No luck in the tmbs, but duriel gave me a threads of chton and isenharts case.

Most of the journey was fairly uneventful, if long (VERY LONG... I pretty mch visited Dorgan and Fala twice every time I jumped back to town, with a small shop refresh in between.) The powershopping was effective, since I managed to get me a +3 Fire wall staff with 2 sockets... It's going to be 'leaf'ed for some nice amped fire wall damage.

The false tombs were fairly uneventful, allthough a bosspack of GoreBellys was too hard for my merc to handle, requiring me to spawn some globs of icy death at them. Unravellers were easy enough. I froze the pack of skeletons the moron was working on with glacial spike, he shattered the lot of them, rinse, repeat until almost all were dead, then into the room itself to deal with unravellers.

Oh yeah, forgot another not nice surprise, the very first false tomb I visited had two bosspacks guarding the sparkly chest. Both ES, one ghoul lord, the other a scarab. That croaked the merc right quick, but i was fairly safe. He croaked again, but by then he had killed the scarabs and killed one or two of the ghoul lord minions. The rest was easy.

I had only 1 defence against the big slug for my own, and that was: Collect as much life as possible. To that effect, I started to cube up rubies, and toss them in a 3os superior breastplate falah offered. I finally came 1 chipped ruby short of getting 3 rubies, so I made do with 2 rubies in the armor and a nice +30 life ammy I found along the way. Fed the merc (waseen) three thawing potions and REALLY spammed Static Field at his scaly butt. He didnt like that, turned around and tore half my health away, but as soon as I ran away, he focused on the merc again. No problems from then on.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Another little session cleaned out the spider forest and the great marsh.

Initially i decided i just wanted to do the spider forest, but then, a golden pair of chain gloves dropped! As I was still ogling them, a golden hand axe dropped as well. Well, that settled that. I just had to see what other items i would find!

Too bad that the chance guards are ethereal, luckily enough, the sorc is a ranged attacker, so they should be good for quite some time. 200% extra gold and 33% MF. Not bad. I shopped a bit for a +3 blizzard staff, found one on my very first visit with ormus! Too bad it also had +3 teleport and 10% Faster cast rate, the thing cost me 600K... And my max with gold and stash was 430K :P So that ws a no no. Lucky enough, the run I made the 280K coin limit was the run I found a +3blizzard and +1 other crap skill staff for a measly 390K gold! All of a sudden, my gold had vanished...

Spider forest isn't too hard, and this time proved no exception. I kept using the glacial spike because I didn't want to kill with my skills, just help my merc by freezing his opponents... Cleaned out the whole lot and the two dungeons without a hitch, oneboss in the Arachnid lair dropped green chain boots.
Into the great marsh, where I faced those red frogs, fetish shaman and their minions and gloams. Mweh. The gloams was nice though, allthough I had to be careful and dodge as much as possible to minimize hits and possible durability loss on the chance guards (lots of darters...) A whole lotta rares fell, plenty of which had staff mods on them (paladin shields, wands, staffs, druid pelts, barbarian helms, and even one amazon bow). With the 200% gold find I had a very good cash flow, and now I am almost at max again! :P

The reason gloams were nice was because of the runes and gems and jewels and stuff... I was expecially glad that i finally got a rune higher then tir... and that turned into 2 nef and 1 eth rune in total. Also found a few flawed rubies, so I now have a nice red breastplate with 3 rubies in it for unexpected serious cold threats... (perhaps mephy, but I doubt it)

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Hit the LK waypoint (no kills there yet too... it was the very first thing i found!) And good thing at that, because my stash is full, and my cube is full, and my inventory is full, and I had an item on the mousepointer when quitting... :P I needed ATMA!
It went easy enough at first, and, for my 3rd HC char in a row, a Maelstrom dropped. not perfect, but not bad either, 2 skills at +2 (Iron maiden and Ampd dam), the others at +3.

It continued to be easy right up till the end. Both dungeons were very doable. No good drops anymore, but the two gambling sessions were ok. Got some good MF gear now, close to 220% total. My Blizzard now does more then 200 damage (with the +3 from staff). I used it once, to own Stormtree a bit.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 35 Harrogath 128
Huangfusong Itburns DlbSwing barb Fire 27 Kurast 68
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


Kurast took a fair bit, but no problems. No good drops either. Last gold/green item that dropped was a bloodthief from one of the Hierophants. Sad news was that a stairtrap on the Kurast causeway left temple of flesharchers and fiends i htink (the red bat demons) cost me a durability on the chance guards. Sigh. Have only 8 of 9 remaining.
Mephy dropped crap.

Act IV proved more difficult, but an early gold Hard Leather armor gave hopes for good finds. That was not the case though. I have 7 merc deaths under my belt for this act alone. 2 of which in the plains of despair, against what I later found out were two hero packs of burning souls... One cursed, the other with some paladin aura I forgot (think holy shock).
Izual dropped a gold crossbow, which replaced my other crossbow. Does less damage, but at a faster shoot rate. River of flame was cleared easy ebough as well (one near fatality for the moron against a bosspack of abyss knights was all) The gods of diablo saw my desperate grabbing of low level runes, and they figured... 'She must want low level runes!' Probably the same genius twit who dropped two nagelrings in a row in the early game.
Anyhoo, the Hf scored me an awesome tir rune. A perfect amethyst and a flawless emerald and a skull were pretty useless, but the flawless ruby made up a bit for it.

So coldylocks sincerely prayed to the gods of diablo to stop messing with her drops, and lo adnd behold, 2 consecutive ort drops in the chaos sanctuary. that made up a bit for it. A notable find has been an ethereal orb with +2 to GS and +1 to shiver armor on it. I might equip it once I find a decent shield to go along with it.
Switched over to my blizz staff for the fight against the Venom lord unique (the grand inquisitor), two was enough to sliver him down and waste his entire pack (minus a few stragglers). The moron managed to make the final blow on all uniques. The OK's managed to off him 3 times with iron maiden, and diablo pretty much cooked him from the getgo, without me getting a single static field in. So ress the merc again, and this time, I managed to bring his health half down while he cooked the merc again. Next I simply threw about 10 blizzards on his scaly butt while running around (280 life, 6 lightning resist and 62 FR isn't conducive for going toe to toe with D. Especially since I have no cold resist and he sports a cold melee attack.) With his life slivered down, I switched back to the Glacial spike staff, ressed the merc again, and let him fight D. while beltfeeding him reds and tossing GS at diablos way.
He dropped crap and a green mask btw.

[iomanip]

good work Merlin! I'll try to get back to this as soon as I can. I started a necro on bnet three days ago, and currently he's taking a lot of my D2 time.

/io

[Merlin The Wizzard]

[QUOTE=Merlin The Wizzard;6564875]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 48 NM Rogues 227
Huangfusong Itburns DlbSwing barb Fire 27 Kurast 68
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


Destroyer Coldylocks

Larzuk gave me a quest, and out onto the mountain I went. It's here that my highest rune dropped... A thul rune. My rune drops have been really crappy, can you tell?

Well, I could give a long story, but fact of the matter is that Glacial spike pwns as a backup skill (please hold still while my mercenary pokes you a couple of holes...), and a lvl 23 blizzard pwns everything on normal. So with the glacial spike increasing in freeze length every blizzard lvl, all I did was freeze and let the moron kill, and so on and so on... That was a royal pain on the outdoor maps too! Lousy imps...

Cleared out area after area. Nihlatak died easy enough, too bad he kept porting each time i wanted to drop a blizzard on his ***, but my mercenary managed him just fine anyways. Used the blizzard on a few annoying champion packs of minotaurs (and one evil urn boss). The area before the ancients held those annoying scourges, who dont freeze fully from glacial spike. That made some battles tougher, especially since there was moonlord backup there. Still cleaned the room out.

It was in that session I found out that /players8 works just as well as /players 8, which saves me a ton of screenshots to discard! :P

The ancients were pathetically easy. About 3 blizzards was all it took to kill two, and one more was enough to off madawc. WSK went smoothly as well, last levels held the deathlords. I used Blizzard here on packs of those. Also in the lvl 4 area. Once that was clean, on to baal. Glacial spike The warped shaman to death, then switched to blizzard and dropped two on the whole lot of unravellers and skeletons. That resulted in one unraveller and Ahmed standing, who then ressed the entire gang of skellies. So I spiked them and let the merc shatter them, no sweat. Wave three was done with glacial spike, wave four was immediately greeted with a blizzard, which killed the lot of em I think (xcept for the hero). But wave 5 took a bit of work, I wound up shooting crossbow bolts alongside my merc while using glacial spike to keep the minions frozen.

Next stop baal. through the portal, teleport to his section, 20 Static fields, drink mana potion, try to port away, find out that it is a bad idea to drink mana potions while he uses his mana burn ray, drink another mana potion, this time do port away, toss a fewblizzards his way, and then try to let the merc score the kill. That last sliver of health cost me two merc resses. But the merc DID get to kill him, and Baal dropped a Swordback Hold and a Rogue Bow unique in response.

Those are probable the best drops in the entire act as well. I also scored another cathan seal, a crushflange, an angelic raiment, a Kinamil's Awl and I completed Hsaru's set by finding the belt.

wow.

You can tell how wildly impressed I was with the drops...

Gambling gave me decent rares... (Especially my one gambling session with Nihlatak gave me lots of great rares! Too bad that 90% of em had either cold resist or half freeze duraiton on them...)


Weather predictions say that a cold front is rapidly approaching the moomoo farm...

[Merlin The Wizzard]

the entire moo moo farm perished. Probably from the sniffles caused by all those blizzards. Ah well.

In full accordance with my expectations, the drops can be summed up in the famous words : crapperdycrapcrap. Only 1 rune. Tal.
1 gold item : The diggler. 1 green item (from the cow king) - The angelic Sickle (which is a double for me). The VERY last moo moo er dropped me a flawless topaz though, so i guess it was a good thing I cleaned it out COMPLETELY :grin:

That begged another question : Would things change in Nightmare? High time to find out... So in quick succession cleaned out the moor and the den (and lost my crappy merc about 4 times or so, mainly to zombie/hungry dead boss packs). A few topazzes dropped, enough at least to cube up to a perfect topazz and complete my artisans Great helm. And then I found a gem shrine in the den of evil. Sigh. Ok, time to quest for another flawless topazz. So I cleaned out the den, and I cleaned out the Cold plains. Nothing dropped. Then I went on to the Burial grounds. Cleaned out the outside area first, a unique breastplate dropped. Nice. Blood raven was annoying (predictably so) since I can only cast 4 or so blizzards on my meagre mana pool, and she kept running out from underneath them. Eventually, I just went over to the crossbow and started riddling her with bolts. That worked dandily enough after a while. She dropped four rares. Into the mausoleum we went, and that was a fruitful decision. In there, three noteworthy drops : 1 a Hel rune. 2 a Venomgrip unique gloves, 3 an isenharts parry. The crypt gave me no such luck (just some low level runes), but a flawless topazz did drop here. So I now have another perfect topazz in my stash. One more, And I'll let my merc equip his artisan helm (with 5% chance to cast frost nova as well.. .can be useful)

[bladejj]

Good find with the hel rune, on the bright side your drops seem to be getting alot better as you start NM.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Well, it's about my last find... once again, I manage to kill off a HC char at a far too early date! Well, when you have 350 health, and -20LR and -40 CR, it doesn't do to reload a page in Firefox and meanwhile merrily cope with the lag, with an LE Treewood IronFist and a CE Vile Lancer boss also extra fast, around you. There's little to say. 1 blow by a brute minion, one stab by a Dark Archer hero, and one charged bolt from a Treehead in succession were enough to make Coldylocks look for better pastures...

RIP. Not in the mood to calculate the score, I ddied at lvl 49 and had the Dark Wood waypoint Tagged.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

So, on for my next char. I am going melee this time around. Rolled a druid you see, and since my last three druid have all been elementalists, and I can't go with summons (Actually, I think I had a summoner in there as well). So, a Weredruid it's going to be. I randomly rolled three skills, 1 became werebear, one werewolf, one rabies. So with a predominant werewolf skillset, it's going to be a wolf.

I will use a spirit for this, not sure whether I am going with oak or with heart of the wolverine. I am currently inclined for the latter.

[huangfusong]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 48 NM Rogues 227
Huangfusong Itburns DblSwing barb Fire 34 Harrogath 126
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


Alas, Coldylocks, you went before your time :( I'll make sure to kick Treehead's *** extra hard when I pass him.

Got Isenhart's case for the merc early in act 3. He was using a life leech bandistock for awile but finally traded it for something normal speed but with a lot more damage. I thought for sure I'd get something nice between Lower Kurast and the Durance from all the chests, but not one unique or set. Mephisto didn't drop anything useful :( He was real easy colded, though. Just took time.

Early in act 4 I got a +1 combat skills magic helm, first skill item. Have a +warcries amulet but don't use it, would rather have 19% MF. Steadily saving up topazes (got 2 perfects thanks to gem shines) for MF armor, if I don't find a 4os one I'll use larzuk for it.

Rune drops have been steady but all in the 1-10 range, I made a TalEth for the merc late in act 4 and found sparkling mail near the hellforge. Diablo dropped razortine, which went right to my merc. Slow should make bosses much easier, especially baal. Diablo was tough with my fire weakness, but I had enough hp from shouting to survive a bit of the flame attack. Just had to watch the hose.

[huangfusong]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Huangfusong Itburns DblSwing barb Fire 34 Harrogath 215
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 48 NM Rogues 227
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


Itburns is now a destroyer! I've gotten alot further than I thought I would considering this is my first HC char. Only 2 bad scrapes in act 5, and it was when I panicked and stopped swinging that I dipped really low. Leap isn't reliable enough, I have 10% life leech total and should trust it.

Uniques really started dropping now, though most are useless. Brainhew, my first exceptional, was found shortly before Dac Farren. No help to a double swing barb. I found Milebrega's Orb in the second area, been using it on switch with MF rings for all superuniques.

Found bloodrise in the third screen, nice little mace. Then found a 2 socket rune scepter. Exceptional, so made Strength in it with one of my amns. Hopefully I'll get a 4os mace for king's grace. Retired my faithful Steels to the vault.

Finally started getting +warcries stuff from Larzuk, up to +3 between a resonant war axe and wailing crystal sword. It's a noticeable difference as I haven't been pumping my warcries, just damage skills.

When I cubed up 2 perfect topazes, I waited for a decent armor to drop (full plate mail), socketed it, and wearing that now. Durga's got my sparkling mail, a rare eth helmet, and uses a rare normal speed polearm with over 50 avg damage.

Slow going most of the way, I hate those screens with teleporting imps. Can't damage you, don't drop anything, but clog everything up. Tunnels were slow because I don't have can't be frozen, but with my life leech rings I really don't need to use potions.

Turned off /players 8 for the ancients, no reason to make it harder :)

Took minions slow and careful. Lister pack was the toughest, had to get them in bunches of 2 or 3 so they wouldn't overwhelm the merc. Thank god I'm still carrying around my grand charm with all of 3 poison damage, they'd be impossible otherwise.

Razortine made baal a breeze. It's no kelpie snare, but he never summoned his clone and alot of attacks still missed. Dropped bloodfeast, but I'll keep my merc's pike as the damage is so much bigger.

Nightmare, here I come!

[Oneofakind]

Just to let people know I'm still playing. Countess dropped Ith+El+Tir (steel or 2/3 of Malice?), tagged the OC waypoint, reached level 16. Teeth doing OK, but looking forward to bone spear. More to come.

[huangfusong]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Huangfusong Itburns DblSwing barb Fire 34 NM Dark Wood 240
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 48 NM Rogues 227
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


I think one of us counted wrong, since I should only be 2 points ahead of Coldylocks (having beaten one more quest). Merlin, can you check our scores?

Anyway, cows took forever, though it was profitable. About a half dozen uniques/sets, though all were useless.

Been shopping at Gheed and Charsi for the latest mods. Found 20% IAS gloves and +2 barb skills mace quick, but not much since.

Found a 4os war scepter early in Act 2, made Holy Thunder in it for the high %ED compared to other easy runewords. Still using Strength for my primary hand with it's crushing blow.

Gorefoot dropped in Stony Fields. Not much, but I have been dropping my MF eq for combat items and this fit the bill. When I get a superunique low, I teleport out and switch all my equipment from stash.

Biggest find was Hwain's Justice from a random unique monster at tristram. He should really start tearing things up now.

I'll pause for now and let the other participants catch up -- no sense in being mean!

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Good job Huang! And thanks for kicking Treefists arse for me :grin:

Your score should be
50 (destroyer)
25 (5 completed acts in normal)
54 (27 completed quests in normal)
39 (Total number of waypoints in normal)

4 (4 waypoints in Nightmare)
6 (3 quests solved in nightmare)
-----------------------------------------
178 + your level, it should be around 50-ish.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Huangfusong Itburns DblSwing barb Fire 34 NM Dark Wood 240
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 48 NM Rogues 227 RIP
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Merlin Mashya Fury Wolf Fire 6 Cold Plains 9
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


Well, like I said I would, I started my new character up last night. Cleaned out the Moors and the den, predictably enough, with an Oak Sage and 2 points in lycantrophy, I have not had any serious issues.

My first drop was a GC with 6 poison damage, that helped me a bit seeing as how the druid is stuck with the crappiest starting weapon in the game. But I shopped a deadly mace of shock shortly after, so I am well equipped for the next few areas.

Progress is going to be very slow though, seeing as how I have two other characters in other tournaments as well

[Merlin The Wizzard]

So I did a bit of work, and as a result, Mashya has the ... Cold Plains as a way point. Yes, yes, I know, but now he can immediately run to the stony fields, he finished everything off here.

Got a surprising amount of charms, several of which were useable too. So far I have seen a : LR 6% SC, a 1-2 Fire damage/PR 7% SC, a 6 PD over 3 seconds/PR 7% SC, a 1-3 Lightning damage SC, a +7 AR LC, a 6 PD over 2 sec GC, a +9 Life +15 stam GC. And I forgot the stats on another LC. Quite a lot huh?
Also have 4 chipped topazzes so far, which means I have my armor filled up and need just 1 more for my helm.
I sank almost all of my points in lycantrophy and werewolf. WereBear, Mauil and Feral Rage all have the 1 point Prereq status, and Oak Sage also has just 1 point.

He kills ok I guess. Toughest battles :
1) Blood Raven. A lot of hit points here. Once I killed all the hungry dead, I simply recast my Were wolf, and then left cliked her. I drank potions when needed, and kept my mouse depressed. I had about 20 life and no potions left when she died.
2) Cold Crow. Naturally, she is quite tough for melee characters. But it wasn't an insurmountable hurdle.
3) Cave lvl 2, where 2 Archer bosspacks greeted me, one multishot, one with holy fire. Not fun. But, here too, all has died.
I made lvl 13 before Cold crow, on account of one fortunate XP shrine and a lot of boss packs in the cave. I gambled only 1 item with MF on it, Leather gloves with PR 20 and MF 10.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Another smallish update. Mashya has just freed the little human birdie from his impromptu cage in Tristram. A nice drop was the Arctic Furs from some random mob in the Stony Field, too bad I can't use it on account of the all resist modifier on it.
It was interesting when I entered the stony field, because I managed to find a champion pack of corrupted rogue archers, a fire enchanted corrupted archer hero and Rakanishu all bunched together. Mashya said: 'Eeep!' MY rogue said: 'wimper' my oak spirit said nothing, on account of him being mute and on account of him being dead almost immediately. But it turned out I was more then up to the task of tanking such arrows that came my way, and I simply swatted the lot of them into submission.

I am very partial to my twohanded sword, one with +1mana after each kill and CtC Amp damage. The amp is nice when it kicks in, and my kill speed in wolf form is high enough that I can minimize the amount of hits. Nevertheless, my offhand weapon is now a rare spiked club with some poison and lightning damage.

I am ready to enter the black marsh now. Once I hit lvl 17, I'll do another gambling spree

[Merlin The Wizzard]

And the Black marsh + the cave and the countess tower done. it's interesting, swapping between different characters. There's a vast difference in play style between the wolf here and the bone necro in Wayne's tourney, and the assassin in the Emperor's clothes.
But I am kinda taken all over again by the wolf. He's just so.. fast.

Nothing to mention really. I found a gem shrine, but alas, no chipped topazz, so I upgraded a ruby. I might need some massive +life provided I manage to put some distance on this character. The cave was easy enough, and so was the countess tower. An extra fast ghost bosspack welcomed me at the Countess tower lvl 3, but they were no match for the werewolf's claws.
The countess had a very nice surprise for me, in the form of a Tal rune, a Tir rune and a Cleglaw's claw small shield. And a rare trident, but I don't want slow weapons now, so it was sold (not that good anyways, even for this part of the game). I am very close to lvl 17, will gamble once I hit the outer cloister waypoint next session.

[Thomh]

If Merlin plays, I`ll play:nod:. I think I can keep a reasonable progress with 3 tournaments at once, and this one also seems interesting. Unforunately I rolled a druid again, summons are not allowed, I played elemental in Wayne`s tournament and there are two wolves here already. Guess I`ll be playing a bear then.

Introducing Vinnie the Fire Claw bear with a weakness against poison.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Hehehehe.. lots of druids :P Welcome Thomh! Hope you have a blast!

[Merlin The Wizzard]

I took Mashya another waypoint further. An update a waypoint is really too much, but this time, my inventory was filled to the roof, forcing me to quit and siphon it all off. I was already foreseeing I needed some heftier damage, so I focused my gambling on two handed weapons, such as claymores and giant swords. I am currently using a rare claymore with several damage modifiers. It's a bit slower then a twohanded sword, but has more impact on the monsters. I also gambled a poleaxe, it has crappy modifiers, but will do nicely for a starter merc weapon if I make it to act two.
But.. .wait... a maul? Allready? Oh, bless my weary heart! Awesome, I love druids wielding mauls! And.. what modifier does it have? What glorious damage can I do with it? Ehm... NOOOOO. the one modifier is: Fire resist 6%. Well, so long glorious maul damage.
I did gamble another rare Claymore with IAS but with lower damage output. Currently use the one with most damage.

Next the most boring part... The monastery inner levels.

[Thomh]

Vinnie has been brought to the outer cloister, and amusingly enough I have been gambling for the same thing as Merlin. Well, almost the same thing. Leveled up to 18 by clearing the area around the waypoint, so I went to Gheed trying to gamble a weapon with ML and somewhat decent damage. Scored a broad axe after a while with some extra damage too. Not the fastest weapon, but ML is good. I`ll probably keep it until level 24 where I will try to get a really fast weapon.

So far nothing really exciting has happened. Gambled a couple of MF gloves and boots early (14 and 8), Countess dropped a Ral, found a small charm of frost, a Lapiz Lazuli Jewel of Envy and a Biggin`s Bonnet dropped out of a chest in Tamoe Highlands. Decent mods on that one, but I think I`ll keep my MF. So far Vinnie has just been running around like a wolf and using feral rage. I think he will continue to do that until hunger and Shock wave becomes available. Then the LL from Feral Rage becomes obsolete.

And I agree with Merlin: The monastery is really boring.

edit: forgot to mention that my skill points so far is pretty standard. Around 10 to Lyc, one in every prereq to Fire Claw and one in firestorm and molten boulder. One point saved.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Huangfusong Itburns DblSwing barb Fire 34 NM Dark Wood 240
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 48 NM Rogues 227 RIP
Merlin Mashya Fury Wolf Fire 20 In. Cloister 38
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Thomh Vinnie Werebear Poison Outer Cloister ??
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


Since I had gotten to the outer cloister, I decided to do a bit more work, at least enough to get him past the always annoying pitspawn and before the final challenge: The catacombs.
A steady flow of topazzes was enough to fill all of our combined MF slots, and I have 2 in my stash for now.

The main problem with a Werewolf is the lack of crowd control IMHO. That is normally alleviated to an extent by the use of summons, but those are forbidden. I'll just have to make do till I die or the NM Act 2 HF merc comes along.

Anyways, a few tough spots were encountered along the way. 1 was an annoying two bosspack of Death Clanners, 1 Extra Strong, the other Mana burn. Still those two were not nearly as annoying as the extra strong wraith boss waiting for me in the Jail lvl 2. Honestly, ghosts and wraiths are amongst my most feared enemies in act 1(the most feared is probably the misshapen... their final incarnation this act, the afflicted, can do hefty damage, especially bosspacks) The ghosts are resisant to physical damage, they are ethereal and fly right throguh prison doors, and they stack together... Plus they have decent hitpoints, and mana drain. Lucky enough, they aren't exactly fast attackers.

Still the most dangerous hurdle was of course Pitspawn fouldog. But I was lucky, which made this fight even easy. While almost all of the pack decided to swat at my Heart of the wolverine spirit, Pitspawn and one other focused on me. With the pack neatly split up, and the merc helping me, pitspawn died swiftly, and the rest of the pack didn't take too long to follow.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Just before going into the inner cathedral, I did another gambling session. I was lucky to land a pair of 22% MF boots with half freeze duration and 10% FHR on them. No resists, which perhaps was good, because with my luck it would have turned into FR.
One of last pairs of gloves I gambled became a rare one with +14PR +11LR half freeze duration, which is going to be backup for magainst both andariel and the beetles.
The other gloves were plain 21%MF. Those I wore (duh). I found an amulet with 6% MF, and for lack of anything better, I use it. Also gambled a better poleaxe for the merc and a couple of usable, but not great mauls. Anyways, as it turned out I didn't have the strength for mauls yet, this was remedied with my level up in the catacombs (but I had atma'd the mauls, so I couldn't swap weapons).
No good drops, no big troubles either. One extra fast afflicted pack in the catacombs lvl 3 was my most worrysome opponent, because I was busy wading through a bunch of dark ones at the time.
Andariel was quite easy. Drank a couple of antidotes, and then simply swatted her into submission. The merc didn't die once, and my heart of the wolverine just twice (the last time when andy died) She dropped useless blues and yellows and an emerald. And a chipped topazz, but who cares. Just one green item in this act, and one I can;t use (Arctic Furs). Lets hope act II is more kind.
One ring just before andy turned into a 10%MF one, the other is still a 34%GF, 29AR one.

EDIT: Come to think of it, one scare. A LE ghoul boss I had not seen. But I did accidently click it with my health bar only hafl full. Two swats later i made a panicky retreat, since I had about 30 of my 200+ life points left.. those CB's hurt! The merc finished the ghoul off.
EDIT2: The way I see it, if I can get past the flayer shaman etc, my first Major obstacle is going to be the Grand inquisitor. By that time I hope to have found a semi- useful druid pelt with 2 sockets, so I can make Nadir in it. Otherwise, it's going to be a shopped helm with high defense, but I need the CoS from that helm to survive that pack with no fire resist. does anyone have a better tip?

[Thomh]

@Merlin: Maybe you can shop a wand with attract charges and try to single out the Vizier himself while his minions are acting stupid. Don`t know if it`s going to work as I haven`t tried it myself.

Vinne went through the Jail, inner cloister and catacombs without too many scares. Of course Fouldog was a struggle, since frozen wolf\bear is slooooow with just a fast weapon. Luckily nearly 400 HP doesn`t really make NDE`s plausible so early if I`m a little careful. Andariel was very easy even though I could not use antidotes. Feral rage nearly kept up with her attacks and I just had to pot once in a while. She dropped an Umbral shield which was equipped alongside a rare scimitar with some ED and AR. Other than that an Arctic mitts dropped in the catacombs bringing Vinnie`s CR up to 45, all other resistances are 0 so far.

I kind of enjoy playing a standard cookie-cutter build again(if FC bear really is that with all the FIs we are bound to encounter after a while), with no great restrictions until NM.

I`ll post a more to-the-point update with table somewhere in act 2.

[Thomh]

@Merlin: Wow, I`m dumb. Of course you are not scared of the Vizier of Chaos. Don`t know why my mind read that. Anyways, won`t a wand with lifetap charges bail you out. Not exactly easy to "micro" that thing.



Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Huangfusong Itburns DblSwing barb Fire 34 NM Dark Wood 240
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 48 NM Rogues 227 RIP
Thomh Vinnie Werebear Poison 23 Far Oasis 54
Merlin Mashya Fury Wolf Fire 20 In. Cloister 38
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2


A chest in the dry hills gave me this:
Skull Gyre
Ring
Required Level: 11
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 15
Fingerprint: 0xfbc5dd05
+3 to Minimum Damage
Damage Reduced by 1
Fire Resist +5%
Cold Resist +15%
39% Extra Gold from Monsters
8% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

would have been better in Midas, but I`ll take it:)

Other than that absolutely nothing of importance has happened. Cubed all my diamonds away with nothing to show. My merc is just using a standard brandistock with some enhanced damage. I will start gambling for weapons next session. So far Fire Claws is doing its thing, the killing speed is not spectacular so far, but FC ramps up pretty quickly and a better weapon will make the bear really fast. I do have some small issues though. What kind of merc is best for a FC bear. So far I have the prayer, but I`m starting to think blessed aim is much better after a while.

I am really looking forward to facing diablo himself (if I get that far), can`t imagine how I`m supposed to kill that thing without a ton of FRW.

edit: Of course I forgot the real purpose of posting now. Is the damage reduced by 1 mod allowed? I have not used that ring so far in fear of the TOs wrath:)

[Merlin The Wizzard]

@thomh - Reduce damage as much as you want. It's the magic damage reduction that's frowned upon, since it's another 'form' of resist all. (A way to reduce damage from the elemental attacks). Nice ring by the way. Good thing it dropped for you, not me! I'd hate to have to part with that beauty...
EDIt: Arctic mitts? Aren't those light gauntlets? Mightly lucky then, if those drop in the catacombs!

[Thomh]

EDIt: Arctic mitts? Aren't those light gauntlets? Mightly lucky then, if those drop in the catacombs!

That should be Arctinc Binding, I`m not that lucky :)

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Well, just finished a little foray into Lut Gholein. Well, before I start on the difficulty of it, look at the last item I gambled (http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/3403/screenshot063fs2.jpg). Then look again. Then just picture how easy everything was.

Little fled. One gentle swipe with that maul was enough to send almost every skeleton in the sewers to skeleton heaven (come to think if it, I doubt there is one really... Too much traffic of stuff going in and out in that place). Radament and his merry group of animated bones didn't quite prove up to the task of providing an adequate obstacle to Mashya.

After that amusing little foray into the stinky place of Lut Gholein, Mashya opted for fresh air, leapers and cats and all sorts of other outdoor entertainment. They weren't very good sports though... Most of them decided to call it a day after my maul landed ever so gently on their heads just one time. Bah. Sore losers.

One of the skeletons in the stony tomb held a nice green sash. That one might be useful down the road, CBF is an awesome mod.
A bit later, for like the seventh char on a row, Gorefeet dropped. I guess it's a unique, so I suppose I should be glad for it. Let me try and drudge the dark, swampy bottom of my soul if I can find some Gorefeet happiness. Nope, sorry, nothing there but dirty feet.
Anyhoo, just before the maggot lair, I had to cube up three rings because my stash was filling up in an alarming rate. I'd say I hit the jackpot with this little beauty -
Fortuituous amulet of regrowth - 13% MF, replenish life +10.
Couple that with my LS on the maul, and the 3 points in Feral Rage, I get an impressive amount of life regeneration going on the moent I swing that maul. Let's just say it took plenty of spitter action to put a dent in that red globe...
In the maggot lair, a civerbs cudgel and a arctic bindings dropped as well. Now my stash was full and my inventory as well... Time to split and make an update.

EDIT: Can you believe I forgot an item? And a pretty useful one at that! Another drop in the maggot lair (the bugs were good to me) A blood crescent. Now that is going to be a terribly useful addition for the A3 cold merc I plan to hire next act. I do enough killing myself, I just need some form of crowd control, and I hope he can provide it. And this little scimitar will make him ever so much more durable...
Still no luck with finding a druid pelt with 2os and a useful skill on it. But there's plenty of time left...

EDIT2: Forgot ANOTHER find... a rare ring called Entropy master with the following mods:
+44 to Attack Rating
Lightning Resist +12%
3% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +4
Poison Length Reduced by 25%

I am not using it yet because it doesn;t have MF on it, but the other mods are pretty sweet, making the life gain capabilites of Mashya truly impressive!

[Merlin The Wizzard]

One more update for MAshya. I have just tagged the Arcane Sanctuary waypoint, and things are looking good.

Only one set item dropped so far, in the claw viper temple I found Hsaru's Booties. Can't use them, but I always considered them one of the better set items out there...
Stashed and moved on. I had no problems disposing of all the big bad meanies along the way, But my werewolf is really shaping up. 9 points in lycanthropy, 4 in werewolf and 3 in Feral Rage make for a sturdy fella. His heart of the Wolverine makes him hit even harder.

A foray into the lost city suddenly turned everything dark. How anyoing. I was greeted at the entrance by Dark Elder and his festering minions. Of course, those ugly zombie heads just begged to be bashed in by a solid maul, and MAshya was very obliging. raged through the city and through the tunnels below, and the claw vipers also had problems dealing with the wolfman. I guess wolf trumps snake huh?

The palace cellars were, as usual, stuffed to the rafters with nasty mobs, but my werewolf made short work of them. tagged arcane sanctuary. Time to clean out my stash, swap in a circlet, and get to gambling. And a gambling we went, blew all my money on a mad circlet spree. No rares, but I DID gamble a Fortuituous Circlet of Luck...

Ding ding, MF jackpot!
Well, ok, only 41% MF, but certainly not anything to sneeze at for now. Sold my wolf head with 2 chippies in it.

I never cubed up chippies, since I am going to ditch my defiance merc next act anyways. The Summoner is coming up, and apart from Duriel he is the one superunique I fear most in this act, seeing as how he can dish out some serious fire damage...

[Merlin The Wizzard]

It turned out the Summoner was in the last arm of sanctuary that I checked out, the one with all the portals. So I first killed all the mobs, then charged up there. Only to find a couple of apparitions and 2 ghoul lords as well! As predicted, I took a savage beating from Fire, but my life points made all the difference here. 1 Swat and I went away to let my merc finish it off. Next, Canyon of the magi.

Nothing terribly important here as well. As usual, the lightning bolts from the Scarabs took serious chunks of life away from both me and the merc, but nothing too worrysome.
A Ral rune dropped outside of the tombs as well, a nice find.
Next up, three of the false tombs. The second one turned out to be Kaa's hideout.

The merc died once against Kaa, more due to me not paying attention. Second time around he finished Kaa off, but the poison was rapidly draining his life points. Luckily enough, I still had a antidote potion one of the skelton minions dropped closeby, and I managed to donate it to the merc before he dierd.
But his life was of a short nature, because in the next tomb I encountered two bosspacks next to each other, one extra fast, the other cursed, both gorebellies. As it turned out, both of the bossess managed to land hits on the morons head, not a situation very amenable to a long life.
Once again, I visited the captain of the guard to get my moron back. Oh well.
Next round, the rest of the packs died, and I cleaned out the tomb. As it turned out, that about maxed my gold, so it was gambling time again. End result: Nothing. Well, got a plated belt with 17% FHR and LR 20, which is nice. And I gambled a rare circlet with a +1 to a druid skill tree as well, too bad it was summoning and thusly quite useless...
Besides, it had MD reduction on it :grin:
Well, the situation is I have no money, 3 false tombs left and am fairly close to lvl 28. Now, its time for my other tourney cahrs to party for a bit.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Woowoowoo! Listen to my terrible impression at a wolf howling at the full moon!
Well, after I send Yenali off to a better world, I decided it was time for the wolf boy to wreak some havoc.
At the last check, I had no money and three tombs left. So, time to change that to having money and no tombs left. Predictably enough, with a little gentle prodding by the merc and not so gently maul swatting by the wolf, I managed both things.
Three interesting finds. Well, lets reprhase that. 1 absolutely great find, 1 curious find, and 1 well... potentially useful find.
From least to best:
3) A rare hard leather armor with 3 resist on it, Both Fire and Cold close to 30 and lightning at 9. Also the Ctc chance to cast nova, and a repair durability mod. I cant use it, obviously, but it might be nice for a merc facing off against Diablo. Or something
2) A druid pelt with 2 sockets and... +3 to rabies. That got me to thinking. I decided not to go with it, but it's stashed of course. It'll be upgraded if I won't find a better one, but... It might be helpful in some areas...
1) Ah.. a rare amulet. a rare amulet with 32% MF on it, can you imagine?
Stats - 32% MF, +5 strength, 9%Damage goes to mana, Replenish life +4.
I have impressive MF now : 41 from the Circlet, 32 from the amulet, 27 from my ringmail, 14 from one ring, 15 from the other, 23% from the gloves and 22 from the boots. That makes for a cool 174 MF by myself, and another 45 from the merc makes for 225.. Provided the merc gets the kill!

Well, armed like this, I went into the last tomb, and cleaned it out. Nothing too burdensome, allthough I had the unraveller/Aparition combo in there that I really hate. The other mob was the scarab, which wasn't exactly helpful, but nothing could stand up against our combined might...

Until Duriel that is. Wisely enough, I decided to do some gambling before facing D, and also to save enough for a few resurrection batches.
Well, the result from gambling qas quite poor... 4 or 5 circlets, all high single resists, were sold. One was kept, it had 20% FRW, but I only keep it becuase it's worht more then 10K :P
Maulwise, I was more lucky, in so far that I managed to land a maul with a bit more damage and IAS on it, but no life leech there... I decided to stick with my current maul, allthough the gambled one is stashed.
And I went in to fight Duriel. And I found out he was quite annoying. Not horribly dangerous by any stretch,m but annoying. I decided to forego the use of thawing pots, and that cost me my merc, but I decided in my pigehadedness to stick it out. And, with 10K in gold (Good for one more merc resurrect) left, the maggot was poked to death and dropped my best normal Duriel drop ever (http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/2880/screenshot081jc3.jpg) Well, in green/gold item count.
Of course, I couldn't be happier with another blood crescent, so I can wield one in tandem with my new best fried. And the Threads will be useful when I go against Diablo, I figure FRW is my bestest friend in that fight. The pooncers? Well, they too migbt be of use against D... If I can't find gloves that speed me up, gloves that slow him down will do in a pinch...

I am seriosuly scared of fighting that ugly lizard with no Fire resist though... Of course, I still have to survive all sorts of fire menaces, but... well, you understand me.

[bladejj]

Merlin are you considering making a runeword in that nice pelt? Btw, nice ammy, that damage goes to mana is icing on the cake. My last berserker would have loved that.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

@bladejj - Yes, actually, I am. I know I am going to need a Nadir helmet against the Inquisitor, or it is the end of my journey right then and there....
And as for that amulet... It is treasured. I have a lot of replenish life items allready, couple that with the life leech on my maul and the feral rage i use, nad that red bulb flies upward :P Such a sweet sight, usually it goes the other way around :P

[Thomh]

Wow@ammy, Merlin. Great find!

Since my bomber in Midas is resting in Kurast, I figured it was time for Vinnie to rise and shine. Haven`t played him for a while and I have to say it`s a welcome change of pace. "Right click- hold down until monsters are dead, If mana runs low-left click until refilled". Cleaned out everything so far except the true tomb. The summoner actually gave me quite a scare, Vinnie got mobbed by his minions and he put a firewall beneath him. Ouch!

The equipment so far has been a sad, sad story. After a pretty decent start the MFstuff just won`t come to me anymore. Well, he does have around 110, so it`s not that bad. The weapon is the real issue. It just sucks......But he is a bear, he`ll manage fine with whatever he gets.

Next stop is Duriel. Hopefully that thing is in a nice mood and dies gracefully with tons of loot. I am a little bit scared of him, I have to say, but not enough to lower player settings.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Mashya came into Act III, and once again, I creully betrayed the trust of my former mercenary. Enter Haphet, a nice cold mage. Shoved one of the blood crescents into his hands, and went outside. As it turned out, the fetid jungle climate keyed the animals paranoia to a fevered picthc, because they attacked en masse the moment the cute little doggy.. .err, the nasty big werewolf, as he passed by. But the wolf bites back... with Feral Rage :P
Kill maim. Pick up another threads of Chton along the way, great, enter the Spider Cavern. Enter what is probably my greatest SU challenge in this act apart from Mephisto and Geleb Flamefingers... Szaark the Burning. And he was as difficult as I imagined. His bite was MUCH worse then my bark, but luckily enough, the red spider was mightily attracted to my red spirit. Giving me time to regroup. And to reattack, with much more succes.

Well, the Spider forest ended in the Great Marsh, so I trudged through it. Turned out there were frog demons there as well, and what do you know, I found out without them showing themselves! (http://img161.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot001lx8.jpg) Thats one frog who'll never be able to ambush his opponents!
Also, I found out first hand that selling stuff can be (t)axing business! (http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot002ig6.jpg) Other then that, all that was memorable from this place was the way the air cleared up once I entered the flayer jungle. And there were so many cute little children who liked me so much that they came running up all the time! So sweet!
Needless to say, I gently patted their heads. Of course, wielding a maul during the patting may not have been what they had hoped for, but being the beast that I am, I persevered mightily.
And they literally popped out of nowhere! Even when i tagged altars, they would suddenly surround me. And having been touched by (un)holy fire made my bodyhair singe and curl up in a very unattractive fashion, so I took care of business the wolf way. Ormus was so thankful he gave me a crap ring which was sold immmediately. Witchddoctor Endigu, another fight I was not looking forward to, proved very easy.
I had more problems with a 4 pack of dark shapes, 2 champion, 1 fanatic 1 possessed...

That left me with only 1 hurdle before Kurast. Stormtree was quite difficult. Mostly on account of my maul not doing damage enough to deal with 2 minions and stormtree at once. But after a while, I managed to kill one minion, and then it went quickly. Allthough killing stormtree was a tad perillous.

Next up a dash into Lower kurast, tag the waypoint when I find it and quit... and update of course.

Also found a green mask. And a druid helm(white) with +3 Feral Rage and +1 Lycanthrophy (and +1 Fissure) Who knows, perhaps good Socket quest material.
But Nothing terribly useful all in all, hope kurast and upcoming areas will do better.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

@Thomh... Hope you get past little D and have some more luck in Act III

As for Mashya, he is currently poised to run into Travincail. The journey has been interesting. Lower Kurast was predictably uneventful. With no dangerous enemies, and little chance to pop good items, despite the numerous chests, it was basically a romp through and colelct the gems/runes kind of journey. I entered the Bazaar, and was lucky enough to find the waypoint very close to the entrance, before finding one single mob. Quit, empty stash, reload.

I had meanwhile found another flawed topaz (and had a normal topaz thanks to my second gem shrine in the game, which I found in the swampy pit). So I took 3 flawed topazzes, grabbed a 3os BP from my stash, and gave my merc some more Def and Magic find.
The Kurast Bazaar started off in a similar manner. The very first building I encountered, however, was the Home of the Ruined Temple.
Inside was Battlemaid Sarina, no surprise. And she was as annoying as usual, also no surprise. The surprise came from the pretty damaging meteors launched by the nightlords. I ran all around the tiny temple, trying to isolate one group from the others, but to no avail. Finally, I made my stand in front of the tome. I immediately tried to kill the night lords, and I succeeded with one, the other fled. Meanwhile, two recasts of my HoW were necessary, Sarina and her pack quickly killed it off. My mercenary wasn't the main target, which dramatically increased his survivability.
Once I entered the fray, the flesh hunters started dying left and right, and finally, so did Sarina. She dropped a useless rare and the Chieftain. Too bad the resist all on it makes it useless. I can;t remember the Disused Fane, which means it probably wasn't worth remembering. My stash was already pretty full, but I decided to do the sewers as well.
In the sewers I found two bosspacks of exploding dolls. Normal mobs were Horadrim Ancients, Mosquitos and Gloombats. The Ancients were very manegable, if time consuming, with the cold merc. One of the horrors here dropped a green ring, Cathan's Seal. There was a little island with an Horadric ancient and 4 horrors on it, but no potentially good drops. Phew, because I couldn't enter it.
Downstairs was surprisingly empty. I found a few normal dollies guarding the sparkly chest. Only blue items from the chests, nothing yellow or better. Ah well.
Since not only my stash, but also the cube and half of my inventory was crammed full with stuff, I decided to quit, empty stash, reload and dash into Upper Kurast...

Oi oi oi... This was NOT my smartest move...

With a boatload of angry insects and fanatics trailing me, I entered Upper Kurast and ran straight in the middle of a bosspack of a Stone Skinned Thrasher hero. And that meant a Terribly long fight. A terribly dangerous one as well. Turned out mauls dont really impress these trees a lot. Their branches however did a fair number on me and my merc. After killing off all the stuff trailing me, and dodging the boss a bit, I decided to make a stand and finish one off. I managed to do that at the same time the merc died. High time to TP out of there, and ress Haphet. Next run I was again cornered. The problem was, I couldn't get the fury to work properly, he was continually being interrupted by the thrashers. Still, My impressive life leech from the Feral Rage helped to battle the hard hits they delivered, and with my loyal companion spreading his chills around, eventually, they one after one succumbed. I think it took me a full 10 minutes or so!

I was convinced that was the worst of it. And indeed, I found little trouble outside. somewhere a nice rare chainmail dropped. I think it's quite goood actually, but I am not an expert on these things, so what do you guys think?



Glyph Cloak
Chain Mail
Defense: 101
Durability: 45 of 45
Required Strength: 48
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 26
Fingerprint: 0x79f2a4ae
+15 to Life
+34% Enhanced Defense
Cold Resist +12%
24% Faster Hit Recovery
5% Chance to cast Level 3 Frost Nova when struck
Socketed (2: 0 used)


Granted, it has only one of the three resists, and not at a high lvl at that, but 24% FHR is good, the Frost nova is always useful, +15 life is a nice bonus and the 2 open sockets make this a winner in my book...

Anyhoo, back to the story at hand. Having handily disposed of all the bullies outside, Mashya decided it was time to do the same with those two temples. Heh. I think those two temples acoounted for half a lvl in experience and a LOT of headaches, since both were packed to the rafters with nasty opponents. The first was the worst, I think it was the Forgotten Temple. I was greeted by a bunch of Flesh hunters or archers, no sweat, easily disposed off. But my first large chamber held at least 6 normal nightlords, 10 or so normal Wailing Beasts, and an FE bosspack of Nightlords. And from somewhere, some Spider magi champions came bugging me as well. Ouch, ouch uch ouch ouch.
I think it took em over half a town portal book and more then two semifrantic TP escapes before I got rid of the wailing beasts and a couple of those night lords. The magi champions I managed to ditch on one side of the room. Good. I tackled the night lords one by one. The boss himself escaped twice, but the third time there were no more melee mobs to keep me company, so I finished him off. Something Rare dropped. Evidently, not something useful.
The other large room was also packed full with monsters, but no night lords and no heroes so it was basically kill what walks by. An Angelic Halo dropped here.

The other temple was equally naughty. No night lords with fire damage, but the flesh archers and the serpent magi and the Bone Scarabs more then made up for it. one boss archer with Spectral hit, but lots of regular mobs still made it fairly slow going, since I wanted my mercenary to kill as much as possible (I think he gets about 65% of the kills or so).

I am now fairly close to lvl 32, and fairly close to my first after 31 gambling session, which is no doubt going to be blown on mauls/great mauls/Giant axes/ Circlets/Shields (need a good one for Haphet) and gloves.

[Charlo]

If its not too late i'd like to sign up.

Goin with fire....so those coldy's dont last long enough to do the damage



Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Huangfusong Itburns DblSwing barb Fire 34 NM Dark Wood 240
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 48 NM Rogues 227 RIP
Thomh Vinnie Werebear Poison 23 Far Oasis 54
Merlin Mashya Fury Wolf Fire 20 In. Cloister 38
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2
Charlo ColdAsIce Fire druid Cold 1 Rogue Camp 0

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Heh. Another druid! Well, welcome to the tournament Charlo. Hope you have fun!

As for Mashya, I tagged the durance of hate waypoint. Had to quit then, because my stash was full. Three uniques dropped for me in Travincail, and only 1 by a council member.
First of, the causeway. No mobs there, xcept for a couple of hierophants. Then the temples. Compared to those mob infested pits in upper kurast, these were smooth sailing. The toughest one had a stairtrap of an FE bat, but he was easily dealt with.

Travincail had numerous mobs, a lot on that outer rim. I cleaned them all out (One, a night lord behind the Travincail tample unreachable for loot, but not for iceblasts :P) One of the mobs here dropped an unique scalemail. That will be useful if I decide to go toe to toe with the big D. And Baal. And certainly duriel.
A bit further, while cleaning the inner areas, (these weren't as busy, luckily enough) a unique ring mail dropped. Quite useless... Finally, after killing everything, the council. They weren't any problem, allthough it took a fair bit to kill Toorq (seeing as how he was resistant to both my and the mercs damage). Geleb was no issue.

Ismael Vilehand dropped Khalims flail and a bloodthief.

[Charlo]

Yup..the fire druid is coming along nicely. Havin fun torching everything in sight :D My FireStorm just runs through monsters and combined with fissure, destroys crowds in seconds.

No good finds as of yet. Got 3 runes off the countess after playing her on p1(i read earlier) and only a few rares so far. Ran around the black marsh collecting groups of those female dark rogues (must of had abt 30 at one stage) paused for a moment, then set the floor on fire with fissure and firestorm....it was like justice at its best ;)

..the hunter became the hunted hehe

lvl 17 x 1 = 17
wp 6 x 1 = 6
Q 4 x 2 = 8
---------------
total = 31


Forum name Char. name Char. type Weakness lvl Waypoint Score
Huangfusong Itburns DblSwing barb Fire 34 NM Dark Wood 240
Merlin Coldylocks Blizzsorc Cold 48 NM Rogues 227 RIP
Thomh Vinnie Werebear Poison 23 Far Oasis 54
Merlin Mashya Fury Wolf Fire 20 In. Cloister 38
Severoth Cindy FW/FO Sorc Poison 18 Rogue Camp 32
Charlo ColdAsIce Fire druid Cold 17 Outer Cloister 31
Oneofakind Toast bone necro Fire 14 Dark Woods 24
Jason Maher Drauin Fury wolf Lightning 1 Rogue Camp 2
Iomanip Tailwind Wind druid Poison 1 Rogue Camp 2

[Merlin The Wizzard]

Fissure rocks so much...

Well, at times it was by the skin of my teeth, but I pulled through. And the result of my troubles, was crap and a green double axe :P
Oh well, Mashya is up for entertaining times, going to hell while being petrified of even the smallest fire :P

[Thomh]

Vinnie finally decided to come out of hibernation and fight the Big wurm in the small cave today. As I said earlier Duriel scares me a little bit. It could have been interesting, but Duriel decided to attack my merc instead. This means my bear doesn`t have to go into hit recovery, great success. Because of this that battle was remarkably short. The drop sucked of course, except for some nice rare boots with MF, +to life, LR and......Poison resist. Doh. Kurast has been steady going and nothing noteworthy has happened. Upped my MF armor to a 3 topaz Breast plate in Lower kurast, and that`s it. The bear needs to rest now, so I`ll let him sleep for a couple of days in Kurast.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

It's the end of the journey for Mashya, but he had fun along the way. 't was the red lizard that did him under.

For the rest, the act was rather uneventful. Izual was just an extended slugfest. At the endtrance of the River of Flame, a bosspack of Grotesque's was most annoying. Blessed aim made their aim, and that of the little ones, quite accurate, which meant frequent disruption of my attacks.
Besides, they were quite resistant to my damage output. I lost my merc a couple of times and had to TP back some more, before I did the pack under.
The Chaos sanctuary proved easy enough, at least until the Grand Inquisitor. The cloak of shadows proved useful enough, since I was trapped by the pack. The CoS from Nadir helped me get out. After that, I spread the group all over the map, then cast my spirit as diversion from the big bad boss while I ran back and starting mopping up the stragglers.

I was illprepared for diablo. Nadir was useless of course, and my non existant fire resistance meant I had to run around. Which meant charging up my Feral Rage. Which meant meleeing D, sometimes when chilled. This proved ultimately fatal, even with 500 HP. Truth to tell, I should have tuned down the difficulty to like p3 or somesuch, but there is some sort of my receptor in my brain that prevents me to do so...

[Thomh]

I`ll make a short update.

Vinnie and his fiery claws destroyed everything in sight in act 3 and 4, until I decided to talk to my GF while playing in the Chaos Sanctuary. I looked back at the screen and my bear will forever be remembered. That has to be my most stupid deeds ever. I don`t think I will enter with another char, at least not yet.

[Merlin The Wizzard]

And the Chaos sanctuary claims yet another victim :( Too bad about the deeds Thomh, but you have a very good tourney contestant in the Midas one, so not too much harm done eh?

[Thomh]

I`m not very upset, the one in Midas is so strong and I feel pretty confident in that one so far. This just means that I can focus on your other tourney:) Good luck to the other contestants!