'Three Way Dance II' - H.C 1.10 Tournament

[erimatbrad]

Unfortunately, I blew my first try to get the correct number of sockets in my intended end-game weapon (1/3 chance that it would happen).
Furthermore, I had sold two Crude such weapons (the raw material I use) earlier, because I was so confident in my luck.

Ouch. I've been exceptionally lucky with all my cubing endeavors. Everything I've socketed via the recipe has come up with the sockets I've wanted (twice with ghost armors, once with a dusk shroud).

I'm missing D2 -- I've got the CD in my pocket, so unless I leave my pants at work, I'll reinstall Windows today, and hopefully be playing again in high style this weekend.

Mephisto dropped Blackleach Blade (unique Bill). It had an interesting 8% life steal and did decent damage, but...too damn slow!

I found one of those a while back -- gave it to Liselle's merc, but also found it too slow to be of any practical use. He's packing an AmnAmn Bonehew now, though. He still dies a bit too much for my liking.

Even with all the free time I've had, I haven't thought of a good plan for taking on the Ancients. My previous attempt got me about a half of the way through them, but wasn't quite enough to get me through. I was stocking up on Matriarchial Javs before the computer went boom...

As of now, I've got my normal set of crafted javs with +2 spear skills and replenish (and a few other mods), and I've got another set of +3 spear replenishing magical javs to throw in to the mix. I'm hoping that between those two I'll have enough to use a bit of fury, a bit of poisoning, and will have room for a bit of sheer luck.

Expect a post or two worth of update sometime this weekend -- even if it's just to say "Ran Shenk/Pindle/Elditch over and over again..."

[steelsixtyIV]

Team Steel (steelsixtyIV) - 156 points
Destroyer Steel_Sword - (Barb – Warcries/Com.Skills) - lvl 64 - Act V NM
Destroyer Steel_Poison - (Necro - P&B/Curse) - lvl 59 - Act IV NM
Destroyer Steel_Magic - (Sorc - Fire/Light.) - lvl 66- Act V NM

Sword and Magic have moved up to Act V and are waiting for Poison to finish Act IV. I had to take the player setting down to 1 for Poison, but Magic and Sword are still holding at /players 4. I had a fantastic map for running mephy with Sword and found some good endgame items for Magic: Frostburns, Vipermagi (29%), and a Volcanic Orb (+3 Fire).

Helforge droped me a Lum and Dol. I just need an Io now :drool:

Take care and watch your red

steel

[whomhead]

just a quick update... i haven't played any of my chars in quite a while. i took the death of my Palladin pretty hard, so i've been playing some really stupid SC chars for a while, jut to boost up my spirits.

once my newest project - a titan barb - is all through, i'm gonna come back and get myself a couple of Conquerors... and eventually guardians.

gratz to erimatbrad for getting the first guardian of the tourney! that's awesome! good luck to everyone else. have fun and be careful!

[Gouda]

Hi everyone,

Played the Merovingian a bit further last night. Still waaaay too easy, with my army of skeletons obliterating everything in my path. He gained another two levels in his short trip from the highlands to frozen Anya, without even trying very hard. Anya gave me a piece of crap as thanks, but the extra resist were offcourse welcome. No good finds, but that doesn't matter.
I am now aiming for level 51 before moving into Nightmare, because by then i will have maxed skeleton mastery as well as raise skellie.

Also a quick correction: I overestimated Morpheus lvl. By one.

Team the Matrix II (Gouda) – 61 points
Morpheus - (Barb – Warcries/Com.Skills) – lvl 28 – Act IV Nml
Merovingian - (Necro - Summon/Curse) – lvl 41 – Act V Nml
Persephone - (Sorc Fire/Cold) – lvl 27 – Act IV Nml

Have fun, don't die

Gouda

[erimatbrad]

Team Eddings (erimatbrad) - 311 points
Guardian Polgara - (Sorc - Light./Cold) - lvl 82 - Finished
Conqueror Liselle - (Amazon - Jav./Passive) - lvl 80 - Act V Hell
Guardian Zedar - (Necro – P&B/Curse) - lvl 80 - Finished

I realized I've been calling Zedar a Conquerer when he's actually a Guardian. Whoops.

I actually fixed my computer! And I spent the evening doing a few Elditch/Pindle runs with Liselle and some Mephisto runs with Polgara. I gave up after Mephisto dropped me Raven Claw (long bow) and the gloves from Death's set. Boo, low level S/U's!

Pindle wasn't much kinder to Liselle, but she did gain a level. I might level her up a bit more before hurling myself on the Ancients. Hopefully some fun new weapons will fall my way, although that's not looking too likely...

[XorceR]

Hi guys!

I've been kinda absent for a long while thanks too NWN, school and other things. Today I played a little bit of DII, I killed the High Council with my druid and gained a level. He's now 63. I got down to Durance 2 but I had to quit so I didn't get the WP. So after all this time I finally got a "big" DII session in :lol: . Anyway, I'll hopefully start progressing again slooowly but surely.
This is such a nice tournament that it would be a shame to drop out.

[XorceR]

I played a bit again with my druid, I brought him to ActIV and earned some points.

Team Magick_XR 149 pts

Destroyer WindFury_XR - Wind/Summon - lvl63 - ActIV NM - 49 pts
Finds: Hellcast, Arctic Binding, Sigon's Guard
Destroyer Suzy_XR - Cold/Lightning - lvl66 - ActIV NM - 51 pts
Finds:
Destroyer DarkMage_XR - Bone/Curses - lvl63 - ActIV NM - 49 pts
Finds:

[erimatbrad]

Team Eddings (erimatbrad)- 311 points
Guardian Polgara - (Sorc - Light./Cold) - lvl 82 - Finished
Conqueror Liselle - (Amazon - Jav./Passive) - lvl 81 - Act V Hell
Guardian Zedar - (Necro – P&B/Curse) - lvl 80 - Finished


At almost 3 million exp for a p5 Elditch run, it's pretty fast to level Liselle, still. She's not found anything new or exciting, unfortunately, but she is building up an exciting bankroll. So far, I haven't gambled anything new, but that can change at a moment's notice...

[jiansonz]

Conqueror Liselle - (Amazon - Jav./Passive) - lvl 81 - Act V Hell

Tsk, erimatbrad the Area & Monster Skipper.

My characters are level 82 when the enter act 5 Hell, and that is if they have been on /players 1 the whole way...


Just kidding. I am really just jealous of your excellent progress and I admire your ability to decide where to play, where to hunt and what to skip. I could never do that.

[erimatbrad]

Tsk, erimatbrad the Area & Monster Skipper.

That should have been what I called my team.

Just kidding. I am really just jealous of your excellent progress and I admire your ability to decide where to play, where to hunt and what to skip. I could never do that.

It's a matter of enjoyment, really. I like some areas more than others. I'm honestly not enjoying the mindless leveling I'm doing now, but it's more fun than it would have been to, say, clear the false tombs. (This, of course, is just my opinion. Some people LOVE the tombs. LOVE!).

Basically, it's a cost-benefit analysis. Where can I run the fastest, for the best EXP or equipment? With Liselle, she can WP over to Elditch, throw a Valk at him, get his pack to attack her, and then throw furies until they die.

Pick up equipment, stop, and then start all over, selling off gear and replenishing Javelins (it takes 10-20 to clear out Elditch, depending...), and I can do a run in less than a minute.

I'm hoping that a level or two more will be all I need to handle the Ancients. Baal isn't at all scary to me, in theory.

In practice? Who knows...