Proceed, Heroes, Into Terror's Lair! Diablo II Freestyle Group Slamdance Thread!

I would like to get some trades done today if possible, but timezone differences do make that tricky. Ossobucco, your Bartuc's is still available, as is the Homunculus for Feynman. I was going to trade for the Magnus' Skin that someone had but I lucked out and found my own (I actually have the full set now, but I'm using Sanctuary shield since it serves me better than the complete set bonuses).

If all those runes are going spare, I'll gladly take them Spoony. Probably the only way I am getting Chains of Honor is to upgrade shedloads of runes to get the Ber and Ist, although it depends how generous Countess decides to be in reducing the number of runes I need overall.

EDIT: Whoops, didn't see that Toothache already claimed 'em! Neeeeever mind.

Tooth, I can hop online whenever it's a decent time for you (you're running on GMT, right?). Heck, I can hop online right now if you're able to do so.

I'm available now to do that. Talkingtime/Tyrant for the room.

Any of you folks still around? I need to do some transferring myself before I start building my gold back up.

Welp, Diablo is dead for the third time, all that's left now is Act V.

If one thing is apparent about Frrrt's current set-up, is that he often has FAR more trouble with some of the potential uniques in Hell difficulty than the act bosses. I died multiple times running through the Chaos Sanctuary, but against Big D? Not even once.

The Infector of Souls was the most problematic out of the three guardians, he was physical immune, and its high HP meant I pretty much had to keep my bear alive and kicking while Frrrt hung around just out of melee range to gradually wear it down with Hurricane. The Grand Vizier of Chaos was also physical immune, but died much more quickly.

Oh, and Feynman, Diablo dropped something you might like, the Razortail belt. Can't say I understand anything about the build you're going for, so it seems like an odd belt for a Sorc, but I'm sure you'll enlighten us!

I've actually been keeping my merc dead lately. Frrrt no longer really needs the Insight mana battery and, hell, it costs at least 48k a pop to revive him each time.

Awesome. I will most definitely take that off your hands.

The build it's used for is really off the wall, and I don't want to reveal exactly what it is just yet, but all will be revealed once my section of the LP reaches the end of the main story.

New stuff to give away! Picked up boots from Natalya's set, and Magefist gloves, for anyone who wants them.

So I decided to look over my banks and make a list of all the stuff they have. If anyone wants any of this jank then just let me know:

SET ITEMS

Sigon's Shelter
Sigon's Sabat
Sigon's Visor
Sigon's Wrap
Isenhart's Case
Isenhart's Horns
Cathan's Visage
Iratha's Cord
Iratha's Cowl
Arcanna's Head
Vidala's Fetlock
Death's Touch
M'avina's Tenant
Hwanin's Blessing
Hwanin's Justice
Angelic Mantle
Naj's Circlet
Griswold's Valor (claimed?)
Milabrega's Orb
Milabrega's Robe (NEW)
Iratha's Cuff
Haemosu's Adament
Rite of Passage (NEW)
Natalya's Shadow (NEW)

UNIQUE ITEMS

The Tannr Gorerod
Ribcracker
Bonesnap
Ripsaw
Crainite Vomir
Headstriker
Warlord's Trust
Ironstone
Goblin Toe
Wizendraw
The Dragon Chang
Gleamscythe
Cloudcrack
Blinkbat's Form
Soulflay
Lacerator
Razortail (claimed)
The Minotaur
The Scalper
Athena's Wrath
Infernostride
Widowmaker
Frostburn
Nokozan Relic
Howltusk
Gimmershred
Magefist
Felloak
Guardian Naga
Heart Carver
Bloodtree Stump
Hellslayer (NEW)
Bonehew (NEW)
Spirit Ward (NEW)

OTHER

Crafted Caster Amulet with +1 Sorc Fire Skills
Crafted Caster Amulet with +2 Sorc Fire Skills
Rare amulet with +2 Shadow Disciplines
Rhyme Runeword Shield (Defender)
Grand Charm of +1 Jav and Spear skills
Rare Yew Wand (req lvl 66) with +2 Necro skills, +1 Attract, +1 Iron Maiden, and a socket
Rare Amulet (req lvl 63) with +1 Offensive Auras, +24 strength, All Resist +9
Rare Demon Heart with +2 Fire Skills, +1 Meteor

Currently Frrrt is about half-way through Act V Hell, having just saved Anya and pondering whether or not I even want to go after Nihlathak. It's still so easy to get blindsided by the wrong kind of Unique and die horribly, but on the other hand I've gotten a lot better at, as Brickroad calls it, Operation: Be More Careful.

I have all the runes I need to make a Spirit Runeword for a weapon, but I still need to find a four-socketed sword, preferably a Broad Sword for the low dex requirement.

EDIT: ****! That was some BS. I reach the Halls of Pain in Nihlathak's temple and get swarmed by a group of Infidels with a unique aura-enchanted which tear Frrrt apart, and then stick around the entrance to the floor. I die three more times without even reaching my body, busting me down to 300k gold and losing ALL of my LV81 exp before I'm just forced to quit the game and regain my body that way, losing the Full Rejuv potions that dropped on the ground. It's the first time ever for Frrrt that I've had to quit to recover the corpse. ARRRGH.

EDIT2: Pushed ahead to the Ancient's Way Waypoint, couldn't beat the Ancients, now broke and out of Full Rejuvs. Siiiiiiigh.

Ooooookay, things have gotten slightly better for Frrrt, and then again not so much. Basically, I managed to recover quite a bit of gold and my Full Rejuvs doing Pit Runs, and things were looking up!

And then I get slaughtered, in The Black Marsh, on the way to the forgotten tower, by a pair of unique gargantuan beasts and their packs (Extra fast extra strong lightning and aura enchanted, one was physical and cold immune) who proceed to kill Frrrt six more times with him just trying to get his body back.

So yeah, it's very hit or miss. Frrrt's killing power is high as long as a mob isn't physical immune, but his defenses are crap.

He's able to clear The Pit fairly reliably, though, so I guess I'll stick with that for now. His killing power jumped up again when a Broad Sword dropped. It didn't have sockets, but it WAS a Broad Sword dropped in hell, meaning I spent my second Larzuk turn-in to give it 4 sockets and to turn it into a Spirit Runeword weapon, adding another +2 to all skills. Right now I have an extra +7 across all skills, and with the synergies Tornado alone can hit about 3k damage. It's pretty sweet. Hell, right now my Grizzly comes with 2k HP and that's now almost doubled since Oak Sage adds an extra +95% life.

But right now Frrrt NEEDS better defenses. While the Rain Runeword is good for the +skills it grants, it doesn't really help Frrrt survive. I'd really, REALLY love to get Chains of Honor. It also has +2 skills so it won't help Frrrt do more damage, but it provides a downright silly boost to resistances, and if I can get it on the right piece of Elite Armor I'd be set. But I still need an Ist Rune, and a good four socket armor. So Frrrt is at the mercy of the RNG right now, and that kinda bites.

Anyway.

It's been awhile since my last screenshot-laden update, so it's once again time for

The Adventures of FRRRT! the Windy Druid, part the Eleventh? Twelvth? I forget. Anyway, ALL OF NIGHTMARE

Yup. I'ma blitz all of Nightmare here. Why? Because Nightmare was a speedbump, with one exception. Normal was a slow slog for the first half or so, and Hell has been, well, Hell. But Nightmare? I barely even remember most of it. Here are the highlights!


Andariel is BLUE!

That's all I got. See, here's the problem with me playing well beyond my screenshotted updates, I forget a lot. Normal was easy enough to remember since I was doing it all for the first time, but Nightmare? Hell, I barely remembered to take screenshots most of the time, remembering what happened through most of it is another thing entirely.

So yeah, blue Andariel is blue! How about that!


She also dropped this!

Hooray.png

Just in time for it to no longer be useful to my Act I Merc.

Haroo.png


Because I swapped her out for a bright shiny new Act II Nightmare merc and its defensive aura. Hurricane already does cold damage, but this has the benefit of slowing down enemies far enough out of my reach to make em easier targets for Tornado.


Also in Act II Nightmare I throw this together, which is a decent-enough armor to last for the rest of the difficulty.

Doooooesn't quite cut the mustard in Hell, though, but I'll get to that.


Speaking of gear, I also make the Rhyme Runeword at around the same time, which is a pretty decent shield for the resists and magic find.

I later make the exact same runeword since Shael and Eths are common and I found a two-socketed Luna.


HEY GUYS MORE RUNEWORDZ

But this one is significant, as it is still on my Merc. Ok, lately I've kept my Merc dead since his contribution is seriously low right now and it costs a cool 48k to revive him, but for the rest of nightmare and half of Hell this runeword is tops for a lot of mana-oriented buildsn. See, the Meditation Aura is, essentially, a mana battery. You'll be hard pressed to run out of mana while that thing is active, no matter what you're doing. I did not have to worry about Mana at all while it was going. Plus, for the rest of nightmare, my Merc was doing fairly decent damage! Added bonus!


Anyway, back to the monsters, here we're jumping ahead to Duriel because the entiretly of Act II was just as dull and boring and sandy and tomby and sacrophogasy as we all remember.

Duriel, if you'll remember, was the most gruelling fight I had in Normal. I had no tornado, no hurricane, and no way to really damage him quickly before needing to evacuate. It took forever to whittle down his health.

In Nightmare Duriel was dead under ten seconds.

He dropped an incredibly awesome item too (Chromatic Ire) which I handed off to Bean. Dunno if he's still using it at this point, but I'm sure it was useful considering the absolutely silly amount of +skills it had.


And here we have Mephisto, because nothing interesting happened in Act III.

"Hey Spoony, what about all that kvetching you did about the undead flayers?"

NOTHING. INTERESTING. HAPPENED.


...



Ok fine, I died about three hundred thousand times in the second level of the Durnace of Hate. Happy? We've talked about the undead flayers before, they're total bastards in Nightmare and Hell, where they're only just kind of dickish jerks in Normal. When they die they explode in a point blank AoE of pain and damage. Usually melee classes would take the brunt of it (and USUALLY melee classes have the defenses to mitigate most of it) and casters have the sense to stop attacking and run away and kill them at range.

But Frrrt has hurricane. And the undead flayers still have low enough HP to die in one hit from it. And they're fast enough to run through its area of effect and reach Frrrt's ankles before dying. And they pretty much make a bee-line to him as soon as they appear.

So when I used Hurricane the undead flayers killed me and killed me and killed me. When I didn't use Hurricane I got overwhelmed by all the other adds since Tornado alone wasn't quite beefy enough to do the job itself at that point.

I hated the Durnace of Hate Lv2.


So here's Nightmare Hell. And Hephasto. He managed to hit Frrrt once or twice for about 75% of his health, fortunately those hits were spaced out enough for a potion to restore him. He otherwise died easily, and Mephisto's soulstone once again failed to drop anything interesting.


Nightmare Diablo is yellow/brown/goldish in color. Doesn't look nearly as striking as his red Normal counterpart or his SPOILER Hell counterpart.

He dropped nothing of interest. On to Harrogath!


The Ancients were the only fight in Act V Nightmare that gave me some trouble, as they are wont to do. But by this point I had hit enough Level Ups and maxed out many of my elemental skills so Tornado was doing sicknasty amounts of damage, so they still went down.


This time I DON'T stand in the middle of the Minions of Destruction when they spawn and kill them off quickly.


And Baal goes down without much fuss too.

So, like I said, Nightmare was (mostly) a speedbump! Dunno if they designed it that way or not, but most characters would have their full aresenal at their disposal when starting the difficulty, instead of building it up throughout Normal, and while the difficulty is higher it's not a ridiculous level of difficulty like Hell.

How ridiculous are we talking? Well...


Frrrt's first Hell death is against this guy.

It's all downhill from there.

TO BE CONTINUED

If you're after a good defensive armour while waiting for CoH, try the Prudence runeword. Muntak used it for a while, and now it sits on my merc and he doesn't die very often. Only need a 2 socket armour for it too, but if you can get that in an elite armour then you'll be sorted for defences for a good while.

Hmm, an interesting idea. Though I'd need a Mal rune, and I'd lose the +2 Druid Skills Rain provides (and CoH will provide), though I just gained +2 skills through the Spirit sword so I guess I won't feel the loss too harshly.

If a Mal Rune and a good two socket armor drops before an Ist Rune and a good four socket armor, I'll give it a shot.

EDIT: And as soon as I post this I get a good four socket armor. Now I'm just waiting on an Ist rune...

Hmm, seems like I'd be able to transmute an Ist rune from two Mal runes and an Amethyst. If anyone could help me with my rune troubles I'd really appreciate it.

I just found a second pair of Gore Rider boots, which are now up for grabs.

On my quest for Chains of Honour, I found an Ist rune of my own, which I'm saving until I can upgrade far enough for a Ber. I seem to have better luck finding mid level runes from item drops rather than The Countess, and according to one piece of research I read, the best place for this kind of runedrop is the item boxes and places in Act 3 Lower/Upper Kurast area (stuff like Hollow Logs, Skeletons etc). I may have to start there and see what comes up. I've been sticking with Act 1 for a long time, but Act 3 can get a higher level rune, and Ber is the highest that can drop in fact.

I got my sole Ber from a mook in Act III, in fact.

I wonder which of us will manage to get CoH first.

Looking at some data on the Countess, the Ist Rune is the highest rune she'll drop, out of her rune drops, anyway. She can potentially drop one of the higher runes out of her item drops. Unless I'm mistaken.

Though the Ist Rune only has something like a 0.09% chance of dropping, which isn't very encouraging. I don't know if I'm better off running the Countess (which is hit or miss since I need to spend time finding the tower in the Marsh, risk running into the wrong combination of enemies in the meantime, and have to contend with all the adds in the tower itself to get to her) or doing item runs in The Pit, and hitting Pindleskin, Shenk, and that one other dude at the start of the second area of Act V.

So yeah, I haven't updated this week yet! I adopted a new cat on Monday, and my other two cats despise him because he is different. Most of my free time has been spent playing mediator and acclimating the Old Cats to New Cat. Things are finally settling down, and I'll be on this evening (around 8 PST) to grab that belt from you if possible, Spoony. I should also have my weekly update ready to go tomorrow.

8 Pacific? That ain't gonna happen (12:30 my time), unless I can hand it off to someone else who will be on around then.

Ah, you're on EST? Friday or Saturday at whatever time is best for you would be a better day to make the trade then.

Newfoundland (an hour and a half ahead of EST) but yeah, tis late.

But we'll get to make the trade at some point.

No worries. I'm in no hurry, so whenever it's most convenient for you is fine with me.

Found a Monarch with 4 sockets, 140 Defence, for you Spirit fans. I have no use for it, so it is also up for grabs.

Act 3 Lower to Upper Kurast area has netted me 3 runes within two full runs of the place. Unfortunately, all three of those have been Tal, but there is some merit in what I read. I'll keep trying though, and keep visiting the Countess in the meanwhile.

....ya need those Tal Runes? Because they can be transmuted into a Ral rune, which I've been using up to keep rolling Caster amulets with the dim hope of getting one with +Elemental skills.

I found a Mal Rune last night, which means if I find another one and an Amethyst I have my Ist Rune.

...OR I could hold onto the Mal Rune and wait to find an Ist Rune, and if I do I can use that Mal Rune to make a Prudence Runeword for my Merc, which would be an improvement.

I always upgrade my runes in the almost vain hope I can get a decent one out of them. So far, just grabbing basic runes has allowed me to upgrade all the way to Io, which helped me with the runes I found, upgrading further in order to get the Sanctuary runes. The national shortage of Chipped Topaz at high levels is an issue though, since I end up with piles of Thul and no way to upgrade them, although I discovered the best place is Normal Act 1 Tower and Jail for those.

I pretty much only upgrade runes if I know I want one that's no more than two ranks higher, because it can get pretty crazy hording so many runes you don't need.

Interestingly, if my calculations are correct it would take 14'281'868'906'496 El runes to transmute into one Zod rune. Not counting all the gems you would need, of course.

Though it's possible I miscalculated somewhere. Still, while gems only have five levels to transmute, hoping to reach really high levels of runes through transmuting is damn crazy.

Owfirehot has recuperated from dealing with three stubborn cats her ordeal in the Maggot Lair, and today she moves onwards, towards glorious victory! Surely things can only get better from here.



Or not. As soon as she steps foot into the Lost City, the sky goes pitch black. That can't be good.



Apparently this mystic eclipse is being caused by... wait. Claw Vipers? Seriously? That is the most ridiculous goddamn thing I have ever heard of. I think this guy needs to lay off the spirits. Since the only meteorologist in town is a few cards short of a deck, I guess Owfirehot will just have to handle this herself.



Back to the action! These are Night Slingers, an upgrade of the Spear Cats we fought earlier. Instead of throwing explosives, they toss vials that leave clouds of poison behind.



After a great deal of searching in utter darkness, Owfirehot finally stumbles upon the Claw Viper Temple, which must be named after some kind of mythological, nonexistent being, because nothing as stupid and illogical as a Claw Viper could actually exist.



SON OF A BITCH. Okay, so that corpse there is a Claw Viper. They are exactly as stupid as they sound, being essentially snakes with arms and claws. They have a fairly dangerous charge attack that has a slowing effect attached to it, allowing them to reach melee range from a distance and begin landing powerful blows. This is one of the few melee enemies that poses any sort of threat to a sorceress.



One floor down, we find palette-swapped Claw Vipers, called Salamanders. I really hate this level. The entire thing is just so damn stupid.



Finally, the end! Time to vandalize this dark altar in the name of justice! Doing so both ends the eclipse and grants the Viper Amulet, which when combined in the Horadric Cube with the Staff of Kings we found in the Maggot Lair gives us...



A Horadric Staff! No more tracking own plot items! Glee! Well, time to go back to town and sell my loot, maybe see if I can find any new leads.



Blah blah blah demons have taken over my palace because my military is incompetent blah blah blah.



Because Owfirehot has nothing better to do she agrees to help out and loot everything in the palace that isn't nailed down kill all the demons that have invaded the palace.



A couple floors down, we run into another new enemy. Dune beasts are completely unremarkable "tank" type foes with lots of HP that try to hit you in the face.



Skeletons blow up pretty good!



This is a super unique monster that guards the entrance to a portal in the palace cellars. He's a total pushover.



A total pushover who dropped a great item! This is an extremely good find, and will be part of my equipment setup all the way through Nightmare difficulty. Only one stat is worth caring about as a sorc, namely the +1 to all skills bonus. Still +1 to skills is a big deal, and we won't be finding anything better for a long time.



Through the portal is one of the coolest looking areas in the game, the Arcane Sanctuary, a pocket dimension created by Tal Rasha himself. As you can see on the minimap, the Arcane Sanctuary has four different paths. Each path is separate from the others, and three lead to dead-end treasure rooms. Only one leads to the our target. There's no way to know which is the right path, so this area can take a long time if you get unlucky and take the three false paths before finding the proper route.

So how can this area be cleared more quickly? Teleport! As cool as it looks, fighting through the Arcane Sanctuary is a huge slog, so I like to hold down the teleport button and zoom through the area as quickly as possible. There aren't any new foes here to show off, so you aren't missing anything.

This is a super unique monster who guards an ancient tome we need to read. He lobs cold attacks, which I sidestep before setting his face on fire.




Ugh, now it looks like I have to play a game of "find the real tomb." Well, best get started!




The quest log keeps track of the symbol used for the real tomb, which simplifies matters.



This looks like the place! Time to do.. whatever it is we're doing here. I forget.



Tal Rasha's tomb is more or less the Halls of the Dead version 2, with fewer zombies and more Ghoul Lords.



At last, the orifice into which the Horadric Staff will be inserted. Feel free to insert the joke of your choice here.




Placing the staff busts a hole in the wall, allowing entry into Tal Rasha's resting place. Maybe this will be the place where we finally catch up to Diablo?



Maybe we'll have to fight a giant insect demon! Normal mode Duriel is probably the hardest boss for a sorceress to deal with outside of the optional uber bosses. He has a slowing aura, he moves quickly, and he hits HARD, easily capable of taking out a sorc in only a couple hits. The ideal strategy for my build is to run to one side of the room, throw Fire Balls at Duriel, then teleport away and run to the opposite side when he gets close, repeating the process.

This fight is long, but not complicated. However, when playing online, lag can cause problems with teleport timing and cause the occasional death. I actually died once here when I mistimed a teleport and let him get close enough to land a blow, which stunlocked me long enough for Duriel to finish me off. Ouch!



Eventually he falls, dropping absolutely nothing of interest. Lame.



Diablo may not be here, but we found an angel! Tyreal here thanks us for freeing him, then clues us in to Diablo's next destination: Kurast, the jungle city.



For our help dealing with the demon threat, the sultan asks Meshif to take us across the sea to Kurast. I would rather not visit Kurast if at all possible, but alas, the game will not progress otherwise.

Next time: The most miserable part of the game!

Nope, I'm pretty sure the Arcane Sanctuary was created by Horazon, a scholar with interests in the magic of demons, as I recall, which is why he happened to store so many in his silly sanctuary -_-. To be fair, though, Horazon is an easy name to forget, especially in a game where everyone and their mother happens to have something or need something involved with the Horadrim, and the first halves of both words sound similar enough for the word "Horazon" to completely evade the notice of one's ears.

It's been so long since I've actually paid any attention to what the people in that game say that I have no recollection of anybody named Horazon at all. Mostly I just assumed that since it acts as a gateway to the area containing Tal Rasha's tomb, that Tal Rasha would have some kind of involvement with it.

Nah, Horazon was just old enough that he was around when this happened, and he apparently kept notes. For that matter, you would think at least one of the Horadrim assembled there would have made a note of where the tomb was or which tomb it was or something, it just seems like sloppy planning if you let a demon specialist figure out your secret but a few generations later none of the Horadrim know it.

In my opinion, Duriel is the hardest of the lot because of 1. tight quarters and 2. being the only boss on the immediate other side of a zone portal which tends to lag the hell out of you, getting him a free hit.

Welp, it took every Full Rejuv I had, but Frrrt has finally triumphed over the Ancients, at Lv83, which bumped him to Lv84. (two of them were both Stone Skin and Immune to Cold, hahahahahaha FML)

And now I have to go restock on purple pots before I tackle the Worldstone Keep. Thank god you only have to topple the Ancients once. I tried to rush my way to the Waypoint at the second level, but uh, got overwhelmed since Super Healing potions were just too slow at restoring life.

Still! The end is in sight!

Also, my list earlier in the thread with all the items I have stockpiled so far has been updated with a few more.

I'm still no closer to Chains of Honor, though. I just need a Mal Rune or an Ist Rune to drop.

Welp, it's done. I got a bit waylaid by the Ancients, and I never did get my Chains of Honor, but Frrrt is now known as Patriarch Frrrt!

As for Baal, well, he dropped....



ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

(Gee thanks for that Cleglaw's Pincers, that'll sure come in handy!)

Aside from Moo Moo take three, there's nothing else for Frrrt to do now but the Pandemonium event, and I dunno if I have it in me for that. What do the rest of ya'll think? Maybe those of us who have toppled Baal could make a group effort, perhaps? I really don't know a thing about the event, so I got no idea what we'd be getting ourselves into.

Oh right, here are Frrrt's endgame stats:



That's without the Oak Sage buff, with it his HP is 1967.

By far his most difficult fight was the Ancients. Two of them spawned Cold Immune AND Stone Skin, but thankfully none were Cold and Physical Immune. It was still a brutal fight. Baal took a few full rejuvs to conquer, but nowhere near as many as the Ancients did.