Tournament: Envious of the Green and Gold

[jdkerr]

Here is the part where I embarrass myself once again by entering a tournament with full intention to see it through and then abandon it long before Nightmare.

My assassin is named Phusis and she intends to be a Phoenix Striker later in life (frozzzen and nagi keep talking about them, and Jian keeps extolling them at high decibels, and so fourth). At the moment, I am pumping the charged bolt sentry as a leveling strategy, but it is not high enough to be of any real help.

I have found two S/U items -- but neither from monsters! The first was the Pelta Lunata, which dropped from the chest in the Mausoleum/Crypt. The second was Bloodfist gloves, which was exactly the fourth item this character gambled. I was, needless to say, rather shocked.

I am wearing 4x chipped topazes; my merc is doing likewise.

Phusis the Assassin, level 16, 2 S/U items equipped, Outer Cloister next

[Tox FTW]

Name          Character    Class         Area               Level    S/U's Equipped
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jiansonz      Martina      Amazon        Frigid Highlands    36          12
felixbavaria  Bruno        Druid         City of the Damned  33          9
Archone       Chicken      Necromancer   Kurast Docks        29          5
Kitteh        Briony       Assassin      Arcane Sanctuary    25          7
Glenstorm     Irene        Assassin      Lut Gholein         20          1
CDM           BK           Druid         Black Marsh         16          1
Jason         Qirana       Amazon        Stony Field         13          1
Morathi       TBA          TBA           Act 1  Normal        1          0
djmbbandie    Cassie       Amazon        Rogue Camp           1          0
Grisu         Meronym      Assassin      Rogue Camp           1          0
RIP           Thor         Paladin       Rogue camp           1          0
Tox FTW       Oatmeal      Druid         Rogue Camp           1          0

I managed to deed Tipsey in the Chaos Sanctuary with an errant D flight right on top of Infector of Souls and his pack. It was swift and most likely very painful. She was lvl 32 and had 3 S/Us. Though the Arctic Belt was really hurting me since it had no decent mods and only 2 rows of potion slots. Before my screw up, she was rolling along quite well.

Restarting with Oatmeal the Elemental Druid.

Oatmeal the Druid, Lvl 1, 0 S/Us equipped, Rogue Camp

[Archone]

Name          Character    Class         Area               Level    S/U's Equipped
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archone       Chicken      Necromancer   A5/Cow lvl Normal   42          8
jiansonz      Martina      Amazon        Frigid Highlands    36          12
felixbavaria  Bruno        Druid         City of the Damned  33          9
Kitteh        Briony       Assassin      Arcane Sanctuary    25          7
Glenstorm     Irene        Assassin      Lut Gholein         20          1
CDM           BK           Druid         Black Marsh         16          1
Jason         Qirana       Amazon        Stony Field         13          1
Morathi       TBA          TBA           Act 1  Normal        1          0
djmbbandie    Cassie       Amazon        Rogue Camp           1          0
Grisu         Meronym      Assassin      Rogue Camp           1          0
RIP           Thor         Paladin       Rogue camp           1          0
Tox FTW       Oatmeal      Druid         Rogue Camp           1          0

Update on my own progress!

I just killed Baal on nrml difficulty, he dropped Arctic Bow and another Tancred Military Pick. Both which I disregarded, since I got my 3 weapon slots filled with better or equal items.

Im now lvl 42, and will rinse the Cowlvl before I go NM.

[jiansonz]

Axe Amazon (not by choice, but by necessity) Martina is slowly progressing in Act V. She has found a slightly better axe than Bladebone, namely Skull Splitter Military Pick. Skull Splitter has OW and Hit Blinds Target (or rather, it's 'HBT +2', does that mean it casts Dim Vision two levels higher than the standard (whatever that is)? It does have a decent duration here in Normal). Skull Splitter also has a pretty high ED for a normal unique (so it's a better upgrade prospect than Bladebone) and despite no IAS on it, it's reasonably fast due to the fast base weapon type. Working together with the OW, I have added a 50 over 6 damage Grand Charm of Anthrax.

Cathan's Visage dropped; that reduced my MF to 65. I didn't lose the whole 48% from my topazed Crown because Cathan's ammy gets 25% MF in a 3-combo. The general bonus for 3 Cathan's pieces is 25% lightning resist, which is nice. I needed a boost there.
Soon after this, I found a Gem Shrine, upgraded a topaz to perfect, had Larzuk make a hole in Arctic Furs and stuffed the topaz there. So up to 89% MF now.

Going to hire a temporary merc now (probably a lightning mage) and stash my cold damage charm. Can't go around doing cold damage to shambling undead, you know...


Martina the Amazon and Telash the Cold Mage, level 40, 13 S/U items equipped, Frozen River next

[Pyrotechnician]

From the Arreat Summit:

Hit Blinds Target
Decreases radius of awareness similar to the Necromancer Curse:
Dim Vision.

The formula is as follows:

Chance = 50 + (Attacker Level + (Bonus * 4) - Defender Level) * 5

Where the bonus is how many items of hit blinds target the character has -1.
Some items have something like hit blinds target +2, which means they count as 2
items for the bonus calculation. Missile Attacks are at 1/3 this chance.
The level of Dim Vision that's cast on the target is equal to (Chance -
Roll)/5+1, max of 20.

[RIP]

Name          Character    Class         Area               Level    S/U's Equipped
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archone       Chicken      Necromancer   A5/Cow lvl Normal   42          8
jiansonz      Martina      Amazon        Frozen River        40          13
felixbavaria  Bruno        Druid         City of the Damned  33          9
Kitteh        Briony       Assassin      Arcane Sanctuary    25          7
RIP           Thor         Paladin       Dry hills           23          2
Glenstorm     Irene        Assassin      Lut Gholein         20          1
CDM           BK           Druid         Black Marsh         16          1
Jason         Qirana       Amazon        Stony Field         13          1
Morathi       TBA          TBA           Act 1  Normal        1          0
djmbbandie    Cassie       Amazon        Rogue Camp           1          0
Grisu         Meronym      Assassin      Rogue Camp           1          0
Tox FTW       Oatmeal      Druid         Rogue Camp           1          0

I had not enough time to make real progress, but still, Thor killed Countess, cleared the Pit and is waiting for battle against Smith...Only one interesting item dropped -The Hand of Broc gloves, with nice mana/life leech bonuses, + some more mana will be usefull too...

I'm doing p8 full clears btw, so it will take lots of time to finish just Normal difficulty, but extra skill points will be usefull in NM, if Thor will ever get there...

GL to all


Edit: Today Thor finished Act 1 Normal, and also killed Radament and cleared many areas including Rocky waste, Dry hills and Halls of the dead...Unforunatelly, Andariel droped only rares, so Thor has to wait for his third S/U little bit longer...Also, Fire rogue has been sent back to her camp, she never died, but Thor needs better tank, therefore Desert warrior (combat) replaced her...

The biggest problem so far is lack of lightning resist, Rakanishu nearly killed my hero, and getting Resist lightning skill helped just partially, so i have to be more carefull in Beetle plagued areas...I will post screens next time

[felixbavaria]

Bruno has defeated Diablo and Shenk the Overseer. After Milabrega's Shield dropped in the CS, Bruno has been wielding the Berserker's Axe. Thanks to Sander's gloves (courtesy of some random rogues in Act III) it strikes at lightning fast speed (23 fpa).

The Diablo fight was rather easy (at /p1), despite having only 36 lightning resist with Stormguild on switch. It was a matter of creating enough distractions (bear, vine, spirit) and then landing a few hits, rinse and repeat.

Unfortunately, since early Act V the days of the topazed armors are gone, but at least the replacement is very useful (Hawkmail). Furthermore, the Berserker's Helm dropped in the Bloody Foothills, giving a huge boost to Bruno's AR and nearly maxing his fire resist. If only the weapon and armour in the set were not completely useless for him ...

Gameplay has been very safe but slightly boring. You know, there are more exciting things than using frozen and stunlocked crowds of monsters as punching bags for a 23 fpa single target attack. If Bruno did not shift to human form every 80 seconds, I would probably have fallen asleep in the last session.

Bruno the Werebear and Haphet the Cold Mage, level 36, 10 S/Us, Frigid Highlands next

[Immortal_Slayer]

Hi all!
Thought this tourney would be a lot of fun to get back into DII. Have never been any good with hardcore characters (case in point, I killed my HS/HF paladin before I even had a chance to post an update at level 17...), but would like to rejoin with another Paladin, GreenGoldieII. Am undecided yet as to try again as a teslafroster, or whether to try a hammerdin. Got a long time to think before either option is available I guess!

GreenGoldieII the Paladin, level 1, 0 S/Us, Rogue Encampment

[crawlingdeadman]

Found Hotspur so now I'm rocking 2 uniques.

Name          Character    Class         Area               Level    S/U's Equipped
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archone       Chicken      Necromancer   A5/Cow lvl Normal   42           8
jiansonz      Martina      Amazon        Frozen River        40          13
felixbavaria  Bruno        Druid         City of the Damned  33           9
Kitteh        Briony       Assassin      Arcane Sanctuary    25           7
RIP           Thor         Paladin       Dry hills           23           2
Glenstorm     Irene        Assassin      Lut Gholein         20           1
CDM           BK           Druid         Outer Cloister      17           2
Jason         Qirana       Amazon        Stony Field         13           1
Morathi       TBA          TBA           Act 1  Normal        1           0
djmbbandie    Cassie       Amazon        Rogue Camp           1           0
Grisu         Meronym      Assassin      Rogue Camp           1           0
Tox FTW       Oatmeal      Druid         Rogue Camp           1           0

Everything's going smooth, I decided to put a point in oak and treat it like decoy, casting it to get killed.

[Kitteh]

Found Hotspur so now I'm rocking 2 uniques.

Name          Character    Class         Area               Level    S/U's Equipped
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archone       Chicken      Necromancer   A5/Cow lvl Normal   42           8
jiansonz      Martina      Amazon        Frozen River        40          13
felixbavaria  Bruno        Druid         City of the Damned  33           9
Kitteh        Briony       Assassin      Arcane Sanctuary    25           7
RIP           Thor         Paladin       Dry hills           23           2
Glenstorm     Irene        Assassin      Lut Gholein         20           1
CDM           BK           Druid         Outer Cloister      17           2
Jason         Qirana       Amazon        Stony Field         13           1
Morathi       TBA          TBA           Act 1  Normal        1           0
djmbbandie    Cassie       Amazon        Rogue Camp           1           0
Grisu         Meronym      Assassin      Rogue Camp           1           0
Tox FTW       Oatmeal      Druid         Rogue Camp           1           0

Everything's going smooth, I decided to put a point in oak and treat it like decoy, casting it to get killed.

Hotspur is -in my opinion- one of the best early uniques you could get, useful pretty much forever.