The "When It Rains, It Pours" Tournament

[skunkbelly]

SHHHH! Jiansonz, don't give away 1337 s3cr3tz to the n00blarz! :cool:

I kept wishing I could use the recipe to make a savage polearm for my merc, but never found a diamond. And now, boo-hoo, it's too late.

[jiansonz]

I kept wishing I could use the recipe to make a savage polearm for my merc, but never found a diamond. And now, boo-hoo, it's too late.

My problem is that I have the Kris, the diamond and the belt (my broken Crude Sash, remember?) but have not seen a staff that I have been willing to use yet (i.e. one worth less than 10k).

[Greyeagle]

Forum Name    Character   Char Name     LVL   ACT        WP         Score                              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
dune6836      Necro        Rainy_Day    43     A5     finished        50
Horobi        Necro         Rathma      44     A1NM   Rogue Camp      47
Sint          Assassin       Pia        35     A5     Harrogath       39
newco         Druid       Haleakala     32     A4     River of Flame  36  RIP
jiansonz      Druid         Vince       36     A5     Harrogath       35
Greyeagle     Amazon       Osprey       33     A4     Fortress        29 
SuperSavage   Amazon       MaryJane     29     A3     Kurast Bazaar   25  RIP
skunkbelly    Barb       ThunderSkunk   25     A3     Flayer Jungle   23  RIP
AlterEgo      Assassin    DoWithout     22     A3     Kurast Docks    19
D.Master      Amazon      Cassandra     18     A2        Canyon       18  RIP
Billybgame    Sorceress    Willow       21     A2     Canyon of Magi   8  RIP
Docturnal     Sorc.    FrozenTearsOBHF  22     A2     Lost city        7  RIP
Wolron        Paladin    FeastRFamine   17     A1     Cats Lvl2        3  RIP
Syzerian      Paladin       Siege       14     A1     Inner Cloister   2
LynKyle       Necro           ?          1     A1     Rogue Camp       0
OpethAZ       Assay      Thunderstorm    1     A1     Rogue Camp       0
Cattleya      Barb          Henry       11     A1     Dark Woods      -1  
EJB           Pally        Hawkeye      21     A1     Cats Lvl2       -4  RIP

Time for another update. Osprey finished Act III on players 8. The Valkyrie handled all situations easily and it only took three light mana potions to take out Mephy on P8.

Finds weren't that great. A couple magical breastplates allowed me to ditch the slower armor I was wearing. Also, a rare longbow that is only worth keeping because I've had horrible gambling luck on bows.

Osprey - Level 33

Str/Eng/Dex/Vit
60/15/70/100

Life/Mana
378/63

Gold: 39261

Skills:
13 Magic Arrow
3 Critical Strike
1 Inner Sight
1 Dodge
1 Slow Missiles
2 Avoid
1 Penetrate
2 Evade
5 Decoy
1 Valkyrie
1 Pierce

Score:
34 quests
28 wps
-33 level
===
29 total

Worn Equipment:

Full Helm
Breast Plate LR +10%, 17% FHR
Belt FR +8%, LR +27%, 71% Gold, 17% FHR, Self Repair
Light Plated Boots +26 Stamina, Half Freeze Duration
Light Gauntlets +5% AR
Ring +1 Life, +115 AR, MDR 2, CR +27%, 7% Magic, 10% FCR
Ring PR +13%, 4% LL
Amulet +3 Life

Weapon: Long War Bow +1 Max

Switch :
Pilum +27% ED, +1 Min, +1 Max, FR +8%, Self Repair
Kite Shield +5 Life, CR +10%, PR +18%

13 TPs, 20 IDs, 1553 Arrows, 17 mana pots, 24 heal pots, 3 rejuvs, 8 chippies, 3 flawed, 1 regular gem, 11 Keys, 4 antidotes

Cold rogue merc w/

Breast Plate CR +20%, Poison Length Reduced by 50%
Gemmed Full Helm (Etheral + Flawed Topaz) +13% MF
Long Bow +12% ED, +12 AR, +2 Max, FR +5%, LR +7%, 4% LL

Killing speed is very slow on P8. I need a bow upgrade badly, or a circlet w/ elemental dmg. I switch my helm out for the eth topazed merc helm when I'm in an item area. Since it gets little use I wasn't worried about durability loss.

[jiansonz]

Forum Name    Character   Char Name     LVL   ACT        WP         Score                              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
dune6836      Necro        Rainy_Day    43     A5     finished        50
Horobi        Necro         Rathma      44     A1NM   Rogue Camp      47
jiansonz      Druid         Vince       49     A5     finished        40
Sint          Assassin       Pia        35     A5     Harrogath       39
newco         Druid       Haleakala     32     A4     River of Flame  36  RIP
Greyeagle     Amazon       Osprey       33     A4     Fortress        29 
SuperSavage   Amazon       MaryJane     29     A3     Kurast Bazaar   25  RIP
skunkbelly    Barb       ThunderSkunk   25     A3     Flayer Jungle   23  RIP
AlterEgo      Assassin    DoWithout     22     A3     Kurast Docks    19
D.Master      Amazon      Cassandra     18     A2     Canyon of Magi  18  RIP
Billybgame    Sorceress    Willow       21     A2     Canyon of Magi   8  RIP
Docturnal     Sorc.    FrozenTearsOBHF  22     A2     Lost city        7  RIP
Wolron        Paladin    FeastRFamine   17     A1     Cats Lvl2        3  RIP
Syzerian      Paladin       Siege       14     A1     Inner Cloister   2
LynKyle       Necro           ?          1     A1     Rogue Camp       0
OpethAZ       Assay      Thunderstorm    1     A1     Rogue Camp       0
Cattleya      Barb          Henry       11     A1     Dark Woods      -1  
EJB           Pally        Hawkeye      21     A1     Cats Lvl2       -4  RIP

Vince is now a Destroyer. Yay!

No major stumbles. Lister was tough but manageable thanks to the poison circlet the merc has (and the bear that took the most of the heat off the merc). Vince was not as powerful as he would like most of the time, because mana was scarce, so he could only use Volcano and Fissure now and then. I only had two middle-sized Mana Potions left for the Throne level. I used one on this level.

I was worried that Baal would be a problem with so little mana. I didn´t want to use up too many of my 15 TP scrolls either. I decided to take him at /p3, so Bonesnap would be more effective.

I arrived to the Worldstone Chamber with four large healing potions. Won the fight and only needed three of them, and no mana potion! Baal summoned the dupe twice. When that happened, I ran to a distant corner and waited a couple of minutes so it would disappear (regenerating mana and letting the merc heal the bear in the process).

Whenever I managed to get the bear next to Baal, the LoD ignored me and Waheed, letting us go to work. Bonesnap was pretty effective, and it also has big bonuses to the relevant resists in this battle: cold and fire.
Baal scared me once, when his melee attack took away about half my life (I hadn´t bothered to recast the Oak Sage since it died all the time. Vince still has 450 life without it) but that was the only trouble in this fight. Waheed made it through the entire act 5 without dying!

I had to use a TP scroll to get all of Baal´s treasure. He dropped a magical expensive (>25k gold) staff and five rares. One useful item: a ring with AR, good cold resist and +30 mana.


skunkbelly, I would like to rerun a random area for loot. I also like to know if I need to use up my imbue reward now of if I can wait until after I have seen what the bonus area gives me. Also, what about the socket reward? I find no mention of it in the rules, so I assume I can save that reward for NM or Hell, right?

[skunkbelly]

@ jiansonz:

Your random area of the game is Catacombs level 1.

You can wait to use your imbue until after you do your loot run, if you wish.

You can save your socketing reward.

[skunkbelly]

@ Dune: I'm sorry, somehow I missed your post... your randomly determined area is the Arachnid Lair.

@ Harobi: I didn't notice if you wished to re-run an area as your reward for completing normal. Let me know if that is your wish.

[azn_apocalypse]

Argh! Must...join...tourney...

Honestly, I haven't played D2 since my TWD III Amazon, Lytyle, bit the dust. But this tourney looks too interesting to pass up.

Expect me to enter later tonight with some sort of Paladin. I think a pally would be good for this tourney, plus I have only once ever played a pally in a tourney (and he, as well as the tourney, died early).

[azn_apocalypse]

RainDancer the Paladin started his journey tonight.

I turned on players 8 and immediately headed for the Den of Evil. No problems killing stuff there, but nothing great dropped either. The best drops were a set of normal throwing knives and a magical javelin with +1 to min dmg. These became my primary weapons. I sold everything else, and once I purchased my tomes the net take came to less than 4000 gold. Oy.

I decided to pass on gambling, and went out to hunt down Blood Raven. I underestimated how hard she would be and decided to take her on at players 8. Bad mistake. Because of her high HP, I kept running out of knives and javelins to throw at her and had to TP back to town to get more. Eventually she fell, but it cost me TWO town portal scrolls (and I had just begun to realize how valuable those things will be in this tourney). This left me with only three scrolls remaining.

I received my merc and entered the Underground Passage cautiously. I was still on /players 8, and I really should have taken it down some because I soon found it was impossible to kill anything. I used another TP scroll early in the Passage (to resurrect my merc) to take my total down to 2, and since I did not want to use another one, it was not long before I reverted to running through the passage frantically, with dozens of /players 8 rogues and carvers chasing me, hoping to find the Dark Wood exit. I got lucky because the exit soon appeared in front of me. And somehow my merc managed to stay alive while I was running through all those enemies too! Whew!

At this point I wisely switched the players to 1, and things went much easier after that. My merc was actually able to kill stuff! (With one shot, even!) Eventually I reached the Black Marsh WP, and assigned my 10 skill points as follows:

1 Sacrifice
5 Holy Bolt
1 Might/Holy Fire/Thorns
1 Prayer

This allowed me to start using my throwing weapons with Holy Fire, and I went back to players 8, killing effectively. My plan is have some sort of Convicted Avenger with FoH and Holy Bolt thrown in for backup. But who knows, I might not live long enough to see any of those skills. :wink3:

I stopped when I reached the Outer Cloister WP. I am Level 13 and have 1875 gold left (3 skill points saved).

[Immortal_Slayer]

Grr you and your darn attractive tournie ideas Skunkbelly!!

It's been around 2 months since I've even touched D2, so I'm going to hope the noob luck will be with me.

I've decided to enter with an amazon named TreasuredLuck.

[jiansonz]

Treasure hunt in Catacombs 1, then. Not much of use, but I did build up with a few TP scrolls, rejuves and light mana potions. I was hoping for a Wolf Head to imbue. Found two Fanged Helms and two Zombie Heads but nothing druidic. I found a Cracked Long Staff with pretty cheap staffmods, so it was only worth 600 gold. Time to go cube a Savage polearm!

Result: Savage Lochaber Axe of Carnage. Not bad. This weapon would not stay on for long, though. After my treasure hunt was over, I decided to imbue the Pike I found in Abaddon. Clvl 49 is just enough for a shot at Ferocious on a Pike...

I got...no ED at all. But it still turned out somewhat interesting:

Stone Nails
Pike
Two-Hand Damage: 14 to 63
Durability: 22 of 25
Required Dexterity: 45
Required Strength: 60
Required Level: 27
Spear Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Level: 53
+11 to Mana
+71 to Attack Rating
Adds 1-178 lightning damage
Adds 1-2 cold damage over 2 seconds
5% Mana stolen per hit
30% Increased Attack Speed

Lots of lightning and fast attack. And cold damage as icing. This will be used for now.

BTW, the PSkull-socketed Consecrated Pike was worth 30k.

I found a nice Scintillating Amulet in the Den of Evil.
After the Den, I gambled three circlets. Finally got some resists on one: Scintillating here too.

Fire resist was still low, so I used up my perfect ruby (upgraded by gem shrine in the Blood Moor) to cube myself a Garnet Ring. Minimum result: 21% fire resistance and no suffix. Blah! I will still use it (most of the time). What good is a Fortuitous Ring of Chance in non-treasure areas anyway?

Destroyer Vince, Fire/Summoner Druid
Level: 49
Next area: Cold Plains, NM
Score: 46 pts.