First task for Act IV - freeing Izual's spirit by destroing demonic body it is trapped with. Nothing much to say here. Izual doesn't have much offensive abillity. He is pretty tanky though. Also, Wawrzyniec had more problems with first boss pack he encountered as soon as he exited the Panemonium Fortress. Alas, I have only screenshot for Izual.
This thing looks not much, but behind those gates (and around it) were 2 or 3 boss packs. Wawrzyneic ended up relying on strategic retrat to take them one by one. And had his mana drained constantly.
While traveling through the River of Flames, Wawrzyniec started to invest into Leap, Leap Attack and finally reaching Whirlwind. And at first it proved to be not so great help, due to small damage and attack rating, but just like Leap Attack it enabled the Barbarian to outmanevour demonic legions (consisted of, for example, oversized bugs commonly found on Aranoch deserts. Lolwut?)
Hephasto was just like Duriel, if Duriel was less dangerous and rolled a teleport affix:
One destroyed soulstone later and Wawrzyniec got Fal Rune (by the way, I think I could wear +20% magic find shield there. Now that I mention it, I recall Andy dropped it as well).
The Chaos Sanctuary required some caution to get throught, due to Wawrzyniec being hardcore. Amplify Damage + Knights + mana-draining Stranglers meant trouble for unwary traveler. But Wawrzyniec did well, until he met Infector of Souls and his minions. No screenshots were taken, as my I focused solely on beating the pack. Infector had Conviction aura, that combined with Inferno attacks meant enourmous ammount of damage. I think Wawrzyniec's merc died once or twice. Infector provided the Barbarian with rare plate belt - +54 to life, +strength +fire and cold resistances.
Now, Diablo himself. To be honest, it was a dissapointment since in Nightmare nad Hell difficulties his Lightning Breath does not work on meele range, making Wawrzyniec's task simpler than in normal difficulty. Why Blizzard made this decision, I am not sure.
A loot worthy of first kill of titular character of the game on nightmare difficulty. No doubt about that.
First thing to do in Act V: do first 3 quests so that I could have access to Pindleskin. Second: GRIND Thrid: beat Act V And finally: GRIND
So, Frozenstein is down. His mana burn always irritated me. But since I made a rhyme runeword in my shield, cold effect was not affecting my Barbarian, making the fight little easier.
As for first phase of grinding, it consisted of Shenk, Eldritch, Pindleskin, Mephisto and Chaos Sanctuary runs. As for results, I won't lie, I got some uniques but majority of those were not useful for Wawrzyniec. What I found useful were set items: Hwanin's Justice , Tal Rahsa's Horadric Crest and Guillaume's Face . The Guillaume's Face and Hwanin's Justice were given to the mercenary, while Wawrzyniec found Tal Rasha's set piece very useful.
After which, Wawrzyniec decided to clear the rest of Act V.
Nihlahtak. Thanks to Shaftstop and about ~2000 life Wawrzyniec was not afraid of corpse explosion, but still decided to largery ignore the minions in order to swiftly bring down the traitor.
The traitor was...... .... .... shattered when confronted with Wawrzyniec's wrath.
Skipping ahead to the Ancient's Way. I had a problem with boss packs that appeared very close to the area entrance. The problem was mostly due to rogues and ammount of damage they could do in a large group, Skeletal mages and fallen only made things more complicated. The battle was won but required caution. Unfortunately, I have only 1 screenshot of it, when I was relatively safe.
The next battle were the Ancient Ones and I had to reset them once, due to Madawc possesing amplify damage curse. But then things become much more managable.
Time to end Nightmare difficulty. Surprisingly, I didn't take any screenshots from battles against Baal's waves of minions. Though I think wave 2 and 5 were the only troublesome ones. Second wave due to the poison and raising skeletons, the fifth wave was usually more troublesome than Baal.
My battle of relatively not agressive Lord of Destrucion:
The amulet was, once again from Baal, from Angel's set. Seriously, that't the most common one. More importantly:
Conqueror Wawrzyniec / Conqueror Lawrence. That sounds badass.
Next time: grinding-before-Hell results and Hell difficulty.
As a way to prepare for Hell difficulty I made Wawrzyniec go throught Eldritch and Shenk runs, as well as Baalruns. What results were rare boots with +20% faster run/walk and bonus to fire, cold and poison resistances, all in ranges of 20-35. Once Ball awarded Wawrzyniec with another Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest and also with a Lava Gout. In addition, Eldritch provided the Barbarian with Bloodtree Stump which was a jackpot! Bonus to Masteries (which means, higher resistances among other things), +20 resist all, crushing blow and huge damage. Yes. Just yes.
I have no memory of charms or other notable parts of loot I got. I guess I should go to Hell now...
But before that, I made Wawrzyniec respec. It turned out Whirlwind was not quite effective in my current build. Mainly because of attack rating and my weapon speed, both of which were not enough to use the skill effectively. I think Whirlwind would have more sense when specialized in it and using weapons like swords, which are faster and actually require dexterity to wear (and dex = attack rating). So, skills invested in Whirlwind actually got into Concentration, maxing it out.
Act I Hell difficulty part 1
The Hell difficulty started out not too bad. Wawrzyniec needed more time than Zaraki to defeat his foes, since Berserk was not Wawrzyniec's main attack, but still, it was good. The Barbarian get throught quest one just fine, invsting a skill point into Berserk, with a plan to get it to slv 10. The reason was simple - to better deal with physical damage immunities.
Oh, I recalled I should provide some stats. Here it is:
Dealing with Blood Raven. It took more than I have anticipated.
Treehead Woodfist:
He was troublesome. He always is extra strong and extra fast. But now he also had Fanatis Aura, which spelled a lot of trouble. Lucky me that Concentration doesn't allow Wawrzyniec's enemies to interrupt his attacks, otherwise he would be in serious troubles.
Griswold ened up having spectral hit and lightning enchanted affixes, but overall he was not quite as dangerous as Treehead Woodfist.
The Countess left me Io, Shael and Tir runes. Nothing too mind blowing there
And like that, I eventually got access to Outer Cloister which is what I planned. Now I can begin Area 85 runs!
With about 140-150% increase chance for finding magic items, it was time to do area 85 runs. Mausoleum, then The Pit. Here are first results:
Naj's Puzzler
+1 to all skills +30% faster cast rate +150% enhanced damage Adds 6-45 lightning damage +35 to energy +70 to mana Level 11 teleport charges
Firelizard's Talons
+2 to Martial Arts +15% faster attack speed +259% enhanced damage Adds 237-480 fire damage +2 to Wake of Inferno +2 to Wake of Fire Fire resist +69% (oh yeah)
Ribcracker (dps wise, better than my current weapon. It does not have resistances, however)
I wonder if enchant sorceress could have a good use from that weapon. I might try it in the future.
Pompeii' Wrath
4% chance to cast 8 lvl Vulcano on striking +147$ enhanced damage Adds +35-150 fire damage Slows target by 50% Knockback
Stormstrike
25% chances to cast lvl 3 Charged Bolt on being struck +150% enhanced damage Adds 1-120 lightning damage Resist lightning +82% (depends on character's level) Attacker takes 20 lightning damage
M'avina's Embrace
10% chance to cast 3lvl Glacial Spike on being struck +2 to passive and magic skills +328 defense (based on character level) +350 defense Magic damage reduced by 11 Requirements -30%
My mercenary likes very much.
Stormrider
15% chance to cast lvl 5 Charged Bolt on being struck 5% chance to cast lvl 10 Chaing Lightning on attacking 10% chance to cast lvl 20 Charged Bolt on attacking +100% enhanced damage Adds 35-75 damage Adds 1-200 lightning dmage Attacker takes 15 lightning dmage
Cool idea for a weapon, but not very useful one.
Some additional notes: Wawrzyniec made Black runeword (Thul + Io + Nef) in Tyrant Club, improving his damage and chance for crushing blow. Wawrzyniec also have Rhyme runeword in Grim Shield (+25% magic find, cannot be frozen, enhanced chance of blocking, +25% to resistances) and also wore Spritit Forge (+life, lighting resist, 2 Perfect Topazes socketed for magic find).
Baal dropped some rares. A useful armor went to the merc,
and there was a belt with some nice +life and resistances, but i decided that it worths not the trouble upping it, i planned to craft a caster belt soon. Blood Moor dropped a Hel,
then a Io came soon after that in the Den of Evil.
Also a Thul from Corpsfire's bunch.
Stony Field waypoint,
Underground passage,
and Dark Wood waypoint.
From there i returned to the Cairn Stones with the Scroll of the Infuss and rescued Cain from Tristram. After that i could finally complete my rune collection by the Countess. Augustus reached level 36,
maxed out Bone Spear
and made a new bow for Paige
till he found the needed Dol he missed for his eagerly waited White wand.
He still needed a perfect Amethyst for the socketing process, but with the help of a gem shrine that was covered too.
Fortunately the socketing process went smoothly at first try, so we did not need the spare bone wand.
+8 to Bone Spear and other juicy affixes, that's hard to compete with.
Further visits were made to Countess for levelling purposes, Nightmare felt still squishy at higher player settings and the Countess was a good source of treasure on P1 too. Found a Totem with useful bonuses, so decided to socket it to make a better shield for Augustus.
for now a Rhyme,
and i hope Augustus will find a better base for a Splendor shield later. Now the statistics have looked better.
I still missed a Sol rune for an essential Lore helm, so Augustus annoyed the Countess some more. In the end A. had to cube three Amn for the Sol.
There was time for some questing at last. Augustus stopped by the Smith for Charsi's hammer,
then delved deep to reach Andariel. Found Hwanin's mail in the Jail
and the Silks of the Victor on the second Catacomb level. Neither is too useful for Augustus, but the Hwanin mail made us think about using a melee mercenary with it, i would like to try out how useful that Static Field attribute is. But first Andariel was dealt with.
She dropped nothing spectacular first, but i hoped that it will change later.
So Augustus started to complete his 1000 visit by Andariel.
The layout of the catacombs was almost ideal, so i decided to go with Paige till an acceptable weapon drops for a Barbarian or Town Guard mercenary. Soon a caster belt was crafted, as was planned,
and the Stealth mail was upgraded too.
Andariel gave me a new pair of boots,
a bunch of rare/set/unique amulets and rings, but nothing spectacular so far. A Lum dropped from one of the Devilkins in Andy's lair.
A pair of useful caster boots was made.
After some uneventful visists i found a Bloodletter, so i decided to try out that Hwanin mail, returned to Harrogath and hired Khan.
The change was not truly wort it, it took some time till i rolled another decent map to reach level 4 and Khan died constantly from Andy's poison spray. The Static Field triggers were not acceptable. After some time the Bloodletter was changed for a Hexfire.
A Nagelring with good magic find, from the several others.
A Crow Caw, my first decent find, which displaced the disappointing Hwanin mail.
A caster amulet with plus curses was made.
A nice maul for a whirlwind barb.
And socket this with a Zod, up it two times and you got a very big hitting club.
Ginther's Rift changes Hexfire.
Frostburn. They're good gloves, but i search for a Magefist, or a Trang's Claw, and prefer magic find till that.
Chance Guards. It's ethereal, but i can use this with August for some time.
A rare ring with stylish name.
Got a Ko.
Gambled Coronet, goes for the merc.
Sigon's guard made me remember, that i should use that Lum rune and make a Splendor Shield.
Blood amulet with +70 life.
Rare jewel with +all resistance.
Augustus reached the necessary level to try his hand with imbuing at Charsi, it's possible to get the Necromancer prefix on a Shrunken head with the proper item level. Tried to imbue an eth unravaller head.
After around 200 visit i decided to do some questing for a change of scenery, and the experience flow slowed too. So Augustus peeked into Tal Rasha's Tomb. It was a little crowded,
but Augustus reached Duriel without much effort.
Augustus hasted through Umpa-land too in breaks beetween Andy visits.
It was time for gambling, and Augustus managed to grab this plain venomous amulet.
The first Magefist for Augustus came not from Andariel, but from a Devilkin pack near the Catacomb waypoint.
Andy tried to compensate shortly thereafter.
Sorry Andy, now you can satisfy us with the Trang's gloves only! Skiller grand charm indicates, that Augustus breaked into level 50+ areas.
Augustus entered Travincal,
Durance of Hate,
and throwed a party with good old Mephisto.
From there Izual and the two free skillpoint coming with him were too close to stop.
I didn't stopped neither there of course, must have seen, what Hephasto's hammer provide at Hellforge.
Lum is a useful rune at least. Back to Andy. And something useful at last!
Not with the best Magic Find roll, but still useful. With some levelling by Hephasto inbetween Andy runs Augustus decided to face Diablo and enter Act V.
By the Barbarians Augustus disposed Shenk,
reached the Frigid Highland waypoint and Eldritch.
Here Augustus stopped again to gather some more experience. The drill was Catacombs and Andy, then Frigid Highland with Eldritch. There was a sparkling chest nearby too.
And on the Frigid Highlands I met with the real Shank cameo too!
Augustus freed the slaved barbarians
and crafted some useful safety boots.
Lightning resistance is not ideal with them however,
so he keep wearing his magical boots with +40% faster run/walk and +40 lightning resistance. Also a Fal dropped.
Headstriker from Andy,
i would have like that, if it would have dropped while i used the barbarian merc. However, now i'm satisfied with Durga and his might aura. Here's a helm for a barb too.
A Magus Circlet.
I could reach the 125% FCR breakpoints with that and keep the White wand equipped. Tried, but did not feel real difference between 75 and 125. At least not enough to sacrafice the +1 to all skills mod for it. It seems i have to wait for a Necromancer Circlet of the Magus Not Stone of Jordan, but good still.
And here, a Kelpie Snare, which changes Durga's Woestave.
Again, it was not dropped by Andy, but by some monster pack. However Andy extenuate it this time by dropping another with better ED not much later.
Chance Guards starts to wear away.
With this cracked Demon Head
i returned to Normal Charsi to imbue it. Nothing useful, sadly.
Previously Augustus activated the Arreat Plateau waypoint on the start of the map, and the waypoint was generated on the end of the map this time. Not much, but it makes me feel satisfied. Tresh Socket was composted too.
This time i choosed to max out Skeleton Warriors first instead of Bone Wall (for Bone Spear sinergy), or Skeleton Mastery. It proved to be a good decision, they are much sturdier, and can deal out some noticable damage themselves with Durga's might aura. I could raise my Bone Spear damage around 1,5x with those skill points, but the safety and the damage of the skeleton warriors make that up easily. At least for now on Nightmare. Here they are, tanking a Frozen Creeper bosspack happily.
And a Pul drop not afar from there.
Frozen Creeper,
Frozen River,
Frozen Stein,
Frozen Anya,
Frozen Heart Augustus went onward some more, till he reached the Ancients' Way.
There he started to visit the Icy cellars after Andy, to gather some experience. I would like to grind till level 75 before visiting Anya to gain the reward. Level 75 is needed for a Hierophant Trophy to be capable to be generated with Necromancer prefix. Chances are not too high, but whatever. Anyway, Augustus performs good in the Icy Cellars on P7 setting, despite it's inhabited with Frozen Creepers, Gloams, bazooka umpas, Pit Vipers and other nasty monsters. Sometimes with all at once.
Gold was aplenty, so had to gamble it away again. Mentionable items were this rare Tiara,
Circlet for a cold sorc.
, this magical circlet,
and this rare one.
The latter one went to the merc, and the rare Tiara gave me an idea. If i up it once, i got a rare diadem, which i can reroll with the 6 p.skull recipe for possible Necromancer prefix, or other useful affixes. Peasant Crown. It's almost good enough to keep it.
A Lum at Icy Cellars.
That was my fourth one, so i cubed three to a Ko to free up space.
Skin of the Flayed One.
I seek a Vipermagi instead. Andariel gave a Ko to Augustus. ( )
Another unique Fuscina. Not ethereal, and the high roll ED on the current one is hard to beat, so meh.
At this point Augustus reached level 74, so i've decided it was time to go to visit the Ancients. Faced them on P8 to give them some chance. They managed to deplete my mana potion stack and kill one skelly wizard.
1000. screenshot hype.
Ok, here's that.
Up it, and you got an indestructible Ginther's rift for... don't know who.
And here comes my rare Diadem. It will totally not worth the rescources most likely, but there's always some chance.
Yeah, time to gather some more perfect skulls. What do this Boneweave do here?
Checked, Boneweave is level 62, lowest from the unique armors. Weird, but ok. More gloams at the Throne entrance, fortunately i'm not playing with a lightning amazon.
Did the waves on P7. Augustus feel like a bit overlevelled for Nightmare difiiculty at this point. It's a good feeling however.
Got the necessary 75 level to visit Anya.
No shrunken head with +2 necro skill, 2 open socket, +3 to Bone spear, and bonuses to all resistance. Oh, well i must live with that. Baal was helpless against my undead army, and dropped nothing useful.
And with this Augustus will hencforth be known as Victor Augustus.
Time to enter Hell. to start some serious grinding.
@lolien That's hell of a update. Nice and congrats
Wawrzyniec Hell difficulty part 2 and moar grinding
Wawrzyniec decided that in order to grind effectively it would be good idea to kill Andy and then count her in each run too.
So, the Smith was Cursed and Fire Enchanted in addition to being Extra Strong. But it didn't matter much, since he didn't hit Wawrzyniec once:
He dropped something good for Sorceresses, though:
Spire of Lazarus
+1 to Sorceress skills level Adds 1-28 lightning damage +1 to Chain lightning +2 to Lightning +3 to Static Field +15 to energy +43% mana regeneration Lightning resist +75% Damage reduced by 5
Andy: ]
Not very encouraging drop.
But from now, we can focus on more Area 85 runs + Andy runs. Let's see what Wawrzyniec got (non Exceptional or Elite uniques not included):
Coldsteel Eye
+20% increased attack speed +238% enhanced damage 6% mana steal 50% deadly strike Blinds target Slows target by 30%
Could be nice after upgrading to Elite version.
Griswold's Heart
+2 to Defensive Auras for Pallys +500 defense +20 to strength Requirements -40% Socketed (3)
Added two (and later, three) Perfect Topazes for magic find. Shaftstop ended up in stash until I decide to beat act 2 and beyond.
Wizardspike
Indestructible +50% faster cast rate Increase maximum mana by 15% +168 to mana Recovers mana +15% All resistances +75%
I am curious about using this dagger as a caster. Are resistances and FCR alone worth using it?
Wisp Projector 10% chance to cast 18 lvl Lightning on striking Lightning absorbtion 13% +20% magic find Level 7 Spirit of Barbs charges Level 5 Heart of Wolvering charges Level 2 Oak Sage charges
Yay, magic find. Also, would be useful against Burning Souls due to lightning absorbtion.
Lysander's Flank
+2 to Javeiln and Spear skills +2 to Amazon's skills levels +30% attack speed +197% enhanced damage Adds 25-50 damage 5% life steal +20% defense +20 strength +20 dexterity
Good for bowazons, obviously. Especially after upgrading to Elite version.
Windhammer
33% chance to cast lvl 22 Twister on striking +60% attack speed +193% enhanced damage 50% chance for crushing blow +50% damage vs undead
Really nice! It doesn't provide resistances just like my previous Mace, but it is more powerful DPS wise, has huge crushing blow change and casts TWister on striking, which proved quite good at interrupting enemies' attacks due to short stun.
Credendum
+50 defense +10 strength +10 dexterity All resistances +15%
Hello, new belt.
I just realized that for some reason I don't have screenshot of Baranar's Star. It is Warzyniec's main 1-hand weapon.
Demon Limb
+208% enhanced damage +123% damage vs demons Adds 222-333 fire damage 13% life steal Fire resist +18% Level 23 Enchant charges Restores 1 durbality every 20 seconds
Hmmm.... I see potential for this mace but unfortunately, fire immunities are most common on Hell difficulty.
There is some potential for this item. But Wawrzyniec is using helm from Tal Rasha's set and hopes to find Arreat's Face.
Atma's Wail
+30% faster hit recovery +140% enhanced defense +170 to defense depending on character's level +15 to dexterity Regenerate life +10 +15% maximum mana +20% chance for magic find
Not better than Shaftstop. Not going to have mercenary for magic find, so he won't use this. It has less magic find than Griswold's. Not useful for Wawrzyniec.
This is seriously a strange axe. Many of its statistics are made for caster, despite the fact there are much better items out there for casters. The only useful things I see there is Decrepify and Teleport charges, but even these are situational.
Spineripper
+1 to Necromancer skills level +15% attack speed +240% enhanced damage Adds 15-27 damage Ignores target's defense 8% life steal Prevents monsters from healing +10 to dexterity Ethearal item
Good for Poison Dagger Necro, I guess.
Rainbow Facet
100% chance of casting lvl 29 Blaze when leveling up Adds 17-45 fire damage -4% enemy's fire resistance +5% fire damage for skills
Definitely not for Barbarian.
Gheed's Fortune
129% additional gold from monsters 28% higher chance of finding magic items Vendors' wares are cheaper by 13%
5% chance of casting lvl 5 Poision Nova on being struck +20% faster block rate +20% chance to block +80 poision damage through 4 seconds +183% enhanced defense Poison resist +75% Lvl 6 Poison Explosion charges
There is definitely a theme there and poison resist it relly good there. Still not going to use it, though.
Immortal King's Stone Crusher
Indestructible +40% faster attack speed +200% enhanced damage +200% damage vs demons +250% damage vs undead 36% chance of crushing blow Socketed (2)
YES! This is going to be excellent weapon after socketing it with Shael runes and/or Jewels. It will also get more powerful if Wawrzyniec will wind other parts of the set. Belts, Gloves and Boots and Helmet aren't that rare to find... The armor is highly unilkely, though. It would be cool if I managed to find the entire set. That would be badass.
M'avina's Tenet
+20% faster walk/run +5% mana steal +50 defense +5 to light radius
Not for Barbarians, definitely. Faster walk/run in belts of all things is actually interesting.
Baezil's Vortex
5% chance of casting lvl 8 Nova on attacking +20% faster attack speed +195% enhanced damage Adds 1-150 lightning damage +100 to mana Lightning resit +25% Level 15 Nova charges +50% damage vs undead
I see some potential for this item, but it cannot compare to Baranar's Star.
Radament's Sphere (again!)
5% chance of casting lvl 5 Poision Nova on being struck +20% faster block rate +20% chance to block +80 poision damage through 4 seconds +192% enhanced defense Poison resist +75% Lvl 6 Poison Explosion charges
Dark Clan Crusher
+2 to Druid's skills level +195% enhanced dmage 20% to attack rating +200% damage vs demons +200 to attack rating vs demons +15 to life after killing a demon +50% damage vs demons
Useful for Druids, especially after ugrading to elite version.
Immortal King's Forge
12% chance of casting lvl 4 Charged Bolt on being struck +65 defense +20 do strength +20 to dexterity
Yes, Immortal King's set piece. On its own it is not that notable, but it still offers okay defense and good boost for strength and dexterity. It will also make Immortal King's Stone Crusher stronger.
Demon's Arch
+30% increased attack speed +193% enhanced damage Adds 232-323 fire damage Adds 23-333 lightning damage 6% life steal Replenishes quantity
My mercenary has a new toy, as his previous one was kinda weak already.
Heart Carver
+205% enhanced damage Adds 15-35 dmage Igneres target's defense 35% chance to deadly strike +4 to Grim Totem +4 to Find Item +4 to Find Potion
Useful item for swap. Chance of getting loot once again from champions and rare monsters is always welcome.
So i was at around 350 Andy run at the time Augustus killed Baal first. Useful drops were Magefist (multiple times), Kelpie Snare (two or three times) and the Crow Caw mail. Some magic find items (Tarnhelm and Chance Guards) too. No really exceptional from the rarer drops however.
But there was 650 more possible good drop to examine, so i did not worry, and there were other useful things like charms with +resists, useful jewels, gems and runes for crafting.
Now, that i had access to Pindleskin i included him into the runs. First interesting drop was Rattlecage.
I decided to keep Crow Caw, the merc needed some crushing blow badly, but Rattlecage don't give much more than that, and in fact, the 40% monster flee mod is annoying for me. With more free space i could just keep it and equip it with Durga against bosses, but unmodded i have to consider what to take or sell out. An Eye of Etlich.
The +life steal is useless for Augustus, and i prefer my current Venomous amulet over the +1 skills. Some more useless but interesting items.
The Meat Scraper.
It's somewhat on equal level of usefulness as the Kel-pie, but i decided to keep the fuscina. Tried to craft a more useful belt than the current one, it's only upside is the 10 % FCR. For the first try got one with +10 FCR and FHR, +2 Str and some lightning resistance, so i accepted it as a deal.
Got the necessary components to socket that Boneweave armor.
4 socket is better than one, but i can't use it currently. I will regret it, when i will searching for a base for that Stone armor, but i sell it for now. The next intersting drop came from the devilkins again, instead of Andy.
Again, Andy was just a bit late with this.
That's some solid rare ring. It's a shame Augustus has no use of those life leech and attack rating.
Plain lightning res grand charm, it's a keeper.
Also got the components for upgrading Goldwrap.
Found another Chance Guards (again, by the Devilkins), a non-ethereal this time to make up for my worn-out ethereal one.
I search one like this one, just with +3 not +1...
This is the third or fourth* Goblin Toe by Andy. I assume if i would play with a melee character it would drop harder.
*Fifth.
Let's see what the 12. "unique" ring will be. (10 came from Andy)
Jackpot! And that was around 430 run. And the goodies keep falling. Skin of the Vipermagi.
With a lowish roll on +resistances, so i don't socket it yet. I would like to customize my gear to be able to equip SoJ alonside with my +27% MF Nagel. For that i have to sacrafice an FCR ring. To maintain the +75 FCR for the breakpoint i would need an amulet with +15 FCR instead of my current +10 one. That i can reach with any crafted amulet with Apprentice suffix.
First try was a success. Lightning resistance is a bonus. So let's see what else has Andy for us.
Now, that's some crazy luck in motion there. Also, it's just 4% short from the perfect +res %, so i won't really waste anything with socketing this by Larzuk. I can compensate that with this shimmering large charm, for example.
Gold is overflowing again, so it's time to gamble some circlets.
Well, that's may be the luckiest roll on a magical Circlet at this level. I can imagine a better rare circlet, but this can be a solid choice if i don't get better helm, even on Hell. Now look at this one.
After taunting with uncounted rare tulwars, Andy dropped a unique one at last. Also a Spirit Forge laying beside that Ali-Baba blade.
Decided to switch the Crow Caw for the boosted Spirit Forge on Durga.
At this point running Nightmare Andy lost it's magic for me somewhat. I felt that Augustus is well prepared for a best opponent. Could not end the 500 run even, i left at 466. (I use teleport charges to count my runs, one charge on every run, the staff has 33.) First i tried to go on Nightmare Baal runs, but -despite i managed to roll a decent map arrangement on the second try- beating the waves was a chore. Reaching Baal is so slow after those good paced Andariel visits.
At least i could try my new blade. As i experienced Augustus could kill relatively fast even without his White wand, wearing Ali-Baba blade instead. Decent gold drops there.
But gold is not enough. Stats in Nightmare,
stats in Hell.
Went to socket the Vipermagi armor by Larzuk.
With that and some other optimalizations i managed to reach acceptable resistances on Hell.
Augustus cleared the Den of Evil to gather that +skillpoint by Akara.
Made a duty call at Blood Raven and Mausoleum too.
Did not contemplated much at there however, went on to grab the Scroll of Inifuss
and freed Cain.
Smited the Smith
and made another roll on my rare diadem.
No good luck there. Found a good small charm in the Catacomb's however.
Shank as a vampire lord.
And here comes Hell Andariel. Captured two runs, because i forgot to show statistics first. https://youtu.be/Yxe5lUVIpHI
+216% enhanced damage +123% damage vs demons Adds 222-333 fire damage 11% life stolen per hit Fire resistance +16% Level 23 Enchant charges Restores 1 durbality for every 20 seconds +50% damage vs undead
Nice. But unfortunately, immunity to fire is most common one on hell difficulty. Additional attack rating from Enchant could be really good, though.
Headstriker
+150% enhanced damage +86 to max damage (depending on the clvl) 129% chance for deadly strike (depending on the clvl) Prevents monsters from healing +15 strength
Zaraki used that one. Not only it can be upgraded to elite version, 129% chance for deadly strike effectively means double physical damage every hit.
Got a Mal rune!
I actually have two or three Ko runes right now, so if I end up finding a good Elite shield with 3 sockets, I would go for Ko + Ko + Mal combination. To create Sanctuary runeword
Gambled a rare amulet (Death Beads)
+1 to lightning spells +20% cold resist +58% lightning resist +20% fire resist +20% poison resist Magic damage reduced by 3
Skill bonus is useless, but resistances are really good, definitely keeping that one.
Immortal King's Stone Crusher (2nd)
Yay. This one is better, as it has more crushing blow chance. I decided to add Shael rune and +10 to all resist jewel into it.
The Impaler
+20% increased attack speed +147% enhanced damage Ignores target's defense +150 to attack rating 40% chance to open wound +5 to Impale +3 to Power Strike Prevents monsters from healing
It could be good for physical meele amazons, if physical meele amazons were as good as Barbarians or favoured Paladins.
Immortal King's Stone Crusher (3rd)
Seriously, its thrid one already!
Naj's Puzzler (2nd)
+1 to all skills +30% faster cast rate +150% enhanced damage Adds 6-45 lightning damage +35 to energy +70 to mana Level 11 teleport charges +50% damage against undead
Crescent Moon
11% mana steal 5% life steal +45 to mana Magic damage reduced by 10 10% damage goes to mana -2 to light radius
Shadow Killer
Indestructible 33% chance on casting lvl 3 Frost Nova on striking +202% enhanced damage Freezes target +2 +12 to mana for each killed enemy Etheral
Quite good weapon for Assasins.
Darksight Helm
6% chance of casting 3 lvl Dim Vision on being struck 5% mana steal +174 defense (depends on clvl) Fire resist +40% Cannot be frozen -4 to light radius Level 5 Cloack of Shadows charges
Could be useful, but not on this char. I want to have Arreat's Face, or at least stay in my Tal Rasha's helmet if I won't find Arreat's.
Kuko Shakaku
+3 to Bow and Crossbow skills Fires exploding arrows and bolts Piercing attack +163% enhanced damage Adds 40-180 fire damage +2 to Immolation Arrow
Nice choice for fire-based bowazons, I guess. After upgrading to elite version.
Hellmouth
4% chance of casting lvl 12 Firestorm on striking 2% chance of casting 4 lvl Meteor on striking Adds 15-72 fire damage +189% enhanced defence +18 fire absorb
Nothing too good, to be honest.
Dangoon's Teaching
10% chane of casting 3 lvl Frost Nova on attacking +40% faster attack speed +130 to maximum damage (depends on clvl) Adds 20-30 fire damage +50% damage against undead
Bloodmooon
+227% enhanced damage 15% life steal 50% chance to open wound +13 life for each kill Level 15 Blood Golem charges
It is quite nice weapon, actually. Damage could be better, but it has huge life steal, open wound chance. Blood Golem charges are also interesting. But not for this character.
Gut Siphon
Piercing attack +169% enhanced damage 16% life steal 33% chance to open wounds Slows target by 25%
It appears to be useless for Elite unique, but I see that attack speed of this crossbow is huge in comparison to rest of those weapons. It might be worth it? I don't know.
+64 to attack rating Magic damage reduced by 3 Attacker takes 3 damage 27% magic find
Ring for magic find, obviously.
Mor Bite (rare Hyperion Spear)
+266% enhanced damage +43 to maximum damage (depends on clvl) +1435 to attack rating (depends on clvl) Adds 9-13 fire damage +7 poison damage over 3 seconds
Hello weapon for my merc! 123-478 damage and huge bonus to attack rating cannot be ignored . Sadly, fire and poison damage and nearly non existent.
5% mana steal +148% enhanced defense +15 to vitality Increase maximum mana by 15% Regenerates mana 15% -3 to light radius
Another Neagelring, this time with 17 MF.
Gravepalm
+105% damage vs undead +127 attack rating vs undead +175% enhanced defense +10 to strength +10 to energy
Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye
+20% faster cast rate +2 to Cold Mastery +2 to Lightning Mastery +1 to Fire Mastery +10 to energy +57 to life +77 to mana
A sorceress would be very glad.
Look what I managed to gamble out of Gheed...
Raven Frost!
+230 to attack rating Adds 15-45 cold damage +17 to dexterity +40 to many Cold absorbtion 20% Cannot be frozen
Jackpot!
Snowclash
5% chance of casting lvl 13 Blizzard on being struck Adds 13-21 cold damage +2 to Shivering Armor +2 to Blizzard +3 to Glacial Spike +153% enhanced defense +15% to maximum cold resistance +15 cold absorbtion
Coldkill
10% chance to cast lvl 5 Frost Nova on striking 10% chance to cast 10 lvl Ice Blast on attacking +30% increased attack speed +166% enhanced damage +40 cold damage +15% maximum cold resistance Cold resistance +15%
It is time, I think, for me to go throught the plot. I am still hoping to find some good shield with 3 socket to make Sanctuary Runeword. I think I will make some magic find runs, but only after I got access to Pindleskin.
Wawrzynie switched to his "game-beating" gear and his stats (unbuffed) are as following:
His skills:
It is time to start Act II. First, some boss packs in the sewers:
Aura Enhanced, Teleport, Magic resistance. Aura could be dangerous.
Radament:
Extra fast, Magic resistance, lightning enchanted. HE died pretty quickly and the skill point from the quest went into Shout.
Afyer this, Wawrzyniec left Lut Gholein and directed himself immediately to the far Oasis, finding some bosspacks and items on his way.
Aura enchanted, cursed, stone skin (and immune to physical due to that)
Cursed, extra strong, fire enchanted. Good combination.
Natalya's Soul
+40% faster walk/run +83 to defense Resteres stamina +22% (depends on clvl) Cold resist: +16% Lightning resist: +20%
Wawrzyniec found Far Oasis, its waypoint and the maggot's lair.
Magic resistance, extra strong, spectral hit
Magic resist, lightning enchanted, cold enchanted
Fire enchanted, cursed, extra fast
These folks have exactly the same name. Twins?
Extra fast, extra strong and cursed Teleport, stone skin (immune to physical as result) and cold enchanted.
Poor Coldworm the Burrower:
Cold enchanted, magic resistance, cursed, aura enchanted. Its aura was holy freeze, so it was a Duriel wannabe, the main difference lied in Coldworm not bieng able to attack on its own. Details, details.
After Wawrzyniec picked the first part of the staff, he directed himself to the lost city. 3 things to do here: finding a waypoint, locating the ancient tunels and finding valley of snakes.
Nice battle vs 2 boss packs at once:
Teleport, cursed, spectral hit Cursed, extra strong, cold enchanted
Ancient tunnels entrance localized:
And so is Claw Viper's temple:
Inside, I found Monarch with 3 sockets. I squealed with glee, as it meant Sanctuary runeword!
+20% faster hit recovery +20% faster block rate +20% increased block rate +144% enhanced defense +250 defense vs missiles +20 to dexterity All resistances +58% Magic damage reduced by 7 Level 12 Slow missiles charges
The resistance bonus was less than avarage from this items, but I can't be chooser, I guess. This is the first time I managed to make this runeword in single player, after all.
Found Rite of Passage:
+30% faster run/walk +25 defense +24 to max stamina Freeze length reduced by half
Nothing too crazy.
Here's a screenshot of Wawrzyniec's battle against Guardians champions pack + Guardian boss pack at once. It was very dangerous and I made a screenshot only when 1 champion was left.
Reached level 2 of the temple. An now look at this:
Fangskin, aside from being lightning enchanted and extra fast, as usual, has extra strong and spectral hit. Meaning he, and his minions would be very devastating with their charge attack. And now, icing on the cake: A Guardian boss with mana burn, spectral hit and... cursed. Meaning Fangskin and his minions will do even more dmage. And note their positioning, it will be fun.
And it was fun, albeit dangerous. I used all my healing potions and some rejuvs as well. But Horadric staff is now in Wawrzyniec's hands... or rather, cube.
After this, Wawrzyniec swiftly made his way to the Arcane Sanctuary and started searching for the summoner. Bad news: there were a lot of mana-draining physical immune ghost that ignored Wawrzyniec's merc and attacked the barbarian alone. Good news: at least Wawrzyniec found the summoner on the first try. A champion pack behind him was more dangerous than him.
Stroll throught Canyon of the Magi:
Extra strong, fire enchanted, magic resistance
It was now time to face Duriel:
Nothing much to say. While being buffed and using Concentration, Barbarian had only about 15% chance to be hit by Duriel, and Duriel relies on physical attacks. And such, was easy to beat, Wawrzyniec didn't even had to use any potion at all. The loot was weak as well: Sigon's Gloves and Berserker's Helm. Meh.
And like that, Wawrzyniec reached act III Hell. Will he succeed where Zaraki failed?
Looking for Khalim's organs. Sszark the Burning was extra strong, cursed, mana burn and extra fast. Potentially very dangerous.
Found the Gidbinn (Ormus decided to not give me anything good for it) and then explored the Flyer Dungeons to find Khalim's brain.
In Lower Kurast, the waypoint was quite near two notablo houses with high lvl chests in it. Will be useful during magic find runs.
In Kurast Bazaar, the swarms of insect were immune to physical damage, but surprisingly defeating them quite swiftly didn't require using Berserk. Swarms are very fragile to elemental damage, and Baranar's Star provided elemenetal damage from fire, cold and lightning.
The waypoint was near both the Forgotten Temple and Sewers. Quite nice. Speaking of the Temple, Wawrzyniec's battle against Sarina's pack and random unique pack:
Stat points from Lan Esen's tome went into vitality. Then, Wawrzyniec went to the sewers ready to face his biggest (or smallest, depends on how you look at it) fans, but fortunately found entrance to level 2 pretty quick, facing Icehawk in the process.
It is worth noticing that lvl 2 of Sewers is level 85 area. It usually has only 1-2 unique/champion packs, but it has multiple chests, some of the high drop-rate ones. Since the entrance to lvl 2 is quite close, I think it is worth to include it in my future MF runs.
But it turned out, Khalim's heart truly belonged to our Barbarian. The next important step in Wawrzyniec's journey was to go straight to Travincal and take out the council members. Overall, they required caution, but they are fair challenge and potentially rewarding too. Wawrzyniec will definitely include them in future MF runs. The way to Zaraki's doom was now open.
Ismail was extra fast, cursed, spectral hit and magic resistant Geleb was extra strong, fire enchanted, spectral hit and stone skinned Toorc was cold enchanted, stone skin, cursed and teleport
Durance of Hate. Try to explode in my face now, you bastards.
After Wawrzyniec reached level 2, I fought an urge to squee. I just beat my personal record in terms of playing hardcore. Ufnortunately, level 2 also spawned groups of #nopes so I made Wawrzyniec focus on fidning a waypoint and then level 3 as fast as possible, using the ancient art of survival known as running the f... away. I would need to run throught the enitre level anyways for MFing. Anyways, level 3.
This here is fought against a boss pack and first council members pack. I have no idea what modifiers the council member had, but here the boss is fire enchanted, magic resistand and cold enchanted. The battle was hard fought, but won.
Mafeer was extra strong, extra fast, magic resistant and mana burn.
Wyand was mana burn, teleport, fire enchanted and extra fast
He was also accompanied by lightning enchanted, magic resistant and fire enchanted mini boss.
The battle against uncle Mephisto went quickly and smoothly. Good thing it was the case, as I will visit the uncle multiple times in near future.
Already in Pandemonium Fortress, I identified unique mace the Uncle left for me:
Fleshrender
+2 to shape shifting skills +1 to druid skills level +158% enhanced damage 20% chance for crushing blow 20% chance for deadly strike 25% chanse of opening wounds Prevent monsters from healing +50% damage vs undead
Would be really good for shapeshiting druid, especially after upgrading to elite version.
@O_Bruce Since you’re in Concentrate barb business, I have a question for you. I like the idea of the Concentrate barb, but always wondered how much of a fast killer he is. Can he clear hell areas fast enough ? Also, I like the idea of using a shield with a Conbarb. Is it worth it in your opinion ? Would spending points in dex lower his killing speed even more ?
@Arctodus Depends what you mean by "fast enough". I guess the main ptoblem with killing rate in that build is that you do only single-target damage. Frenzy Barb or WW is genrerally better for damage dealing due to abillity to attack multiple targets. Also, Berserk barb surprasses Concentrate in pure dps (not to mention many enemies utterly lack resistance to magic damage Berserk deals).
That being said, wielding Immortal King's Stone Crusher or similar tier two-handed mace I had no problems with DPS. 1-h weapon + shield is a powerful defensive combo, but damage wasn't as impressive. For many Battle.net players with thier fancy runewords, it might even look slow. The build certainly is viable, but the question is whether it is your cup of tea.
One more thing. With doing concentrate barb, either use 2h weapons or 1-hand + shield. Never go to dual wielding, it serves no purpose. Doesn't provide additional dps (since you use only 1 hand when attacking with concentrate) and it usually doesn't offer any protection.
Edit: Spending points in dexterity wouldn't affect your DPS very much. Strength isn't provide much damage boost, if you consider all +enhanced% damage on your items, skills, passives etc.
First thing I want to say is that on Plains of Despair, there were burning souls there, so Wawrzyniec equipped Wisp Projector to deal with them (it provides lightning absorb) Worked very well.
Izual didn't last long despite masive life pool. Crushing blow is just that good.
Wawrzyniec kept the ring on even in City of the Damned.
When Wawrzyniec entered the River of Flames, it occured to me that this area and Chaos Sancturay are level 85 areas, and so I modified my gear. I used Baranar's Star + Sanctuary combo and with some other changes of my gear, Wawrzyniec had 205% magic find, while still having good stats:
The most difficult encounter was with two boss packs at once:
I have screencaped only one of them. Cold enchanted, aura enchanted, teleport.
There were moments Wawrzyniec wished he was WW or Frenzy barb.
Hephasto (spectral strike, aura enchanted, lightning enchanted, mana burn) was a joke in comparison to those previous boss packs. I got Io rune for my troubles.
Chaos Sanctuary time! Infector of Souls was the most difficult of all superuniques.
Extra fast, spectral strike, extra strong, lightning enchanted
Lord de Seis was extra strong, aura enchanted, magic resistant and multiple shot
Grand Vizier of Chaos was extra strong, fire enchanted, magic resistant and extra fast
Diablo went down rather quickly, but dropped something nice. For Necromancers, but still!
Trang-Oul's Scales
+2 to summoning skills +40% faster run/walk +150% enhanced defense +100 damage vs missiles Poison resist: +40% Requirements: -40%
Act V, part 1 Hell difficulty
First of all, I decided to upgrade Goldwrap to Exceptional version:
I decided to use it. Now I have 235% magic find, while still being quite powerful.
Shenk's drops were nothing special, to say it lightly
Time to rescue barbarians and beat down some monsters.
Extra fast, extra strong, fire enchanted
Found Magnus' Skin
+20% increased attack speed +100 to attack rating +50% enhanced defense Fire resistance +15% +3 to light radius/div>
When Wawrzyniec got into Crystalline Passage, something very interesting happened. It has ghost spawned, so they were immune to physical damage. Not too much of a big deal, mana burn will be just annoying. But then I saw this:
Blood lords. Immune to physical damage.
Well, one or two are not a big deal! Right? That was all well and good, until Wawrzyniec encountered first boss packs on those.
Cursed, spectral hit, lightning enchanted
The battle that ensured was much more epic than battle against Diablo himself. Wawrzyniec had to kite the demons so that he could eliminate the minions one at a time. And that took some time, and returning to town. Also, Wawrzyniec couldn't use Berserk if he didn't want to have his arse handled to him. He even started wearing Shaftstop once again.
The champion pack was actually easier. Due to the fact their pathfinding left much to be desired:
Luckily, Wawrzyniec managed to find waypoint and entrance to Frozen River rather quickly. But monster spawns in there was also interesting. Sirens, Succubi and Corrupted Rouges with spears. It was a fun to be cursed with Amplify Damage, while avoiding bullet (or rather, Blood Star) hell. Seriously, I had fun. I was actually laughing and making jokes to myself. Some boss packs:
Cold enchanted, extra fast, mana burn Extra strong, cursed, fire enchanted
Frozenstein and his minions were of no concern to Concentrate barb. They are relying on physical damage, but Wawrzyniec's defense was too good for them.
Wawrzyniec freed Anya, get additional resistances from Malah and now... was in perfect position to find pre-finishing act V magic find runs. Multiple level 85 areas, some superuniques that are easily accessable... Let's see how Wawrzyniec will fare.
https://youtu.be/YwVaqS_bd-8 Aside from some PR talk, I am glad that Diablo will get some announcements later this year. Which makes me think of Blizzcon.
As usuall, I will be only presenting exceptional and elite finds (when talking about unique items).
Wawrzyniec's stats:
Rainbow Facet
100% chance of casting level 37 Blizzard when you die Adds 23-38 cold damage +3% cold skills damage -3% enemy's cold resistance
Boneshade
+2 to necromancer skills level +25% faster cast rate +1 to Bone Spirit +3 to Bone Spear +2 to Bone Wall +5 to Bone Armor +5 to Teeth +50% damage vs undead
The Scalper
+20% increased attack speed +150% enhanced damage +25% increased attack rating +5% life steal 33% chance to open wounds +4 many for each killed enemy Replenishes charges
Storm Heart (rare jewel)
+29% enhanced damage +8 to maximum damage Fire resist +28%
M'avina's Icy Clutch
Adds 6-18 cold damage +45 to defense +10 to strength +15 to dexterity Freeze length reduced by half +56% additional gold from monsters
Rainbow Facet:
100% chance of casting 41 lvl Nova when you level up Adds 1-74 lightning damage -5% enemy's lightning resistance +3% lightning damage from skills
+20% faster hit recovery +20% increased chance of blocking +175% enhanced damage +440 defense (depends on character's level) +200 defense in meele +100 defense vs missiles All resistances +15% 30% damage goes to mana Requirements -50%
This sword is clearly designed for Barbarians and to wear it in one hand and having shield in the other. The damage is quite Meh one-handed, but I think it can be okay after upgrading to Elite version. Maybe one day I'll make barbarian to use this item.
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
10% mana steal 10% life steal +40 defense +60 to life +30 to mana All resistances +15
Better base defense than my current one, so its an upgrade
Ist rune, found on my way to Chaos Sanctuary. I wonder what surprises the game still has for me?
Its this.
Wawrzyniec's journey reached its end. One moment of being unware, mixed with wrong reaction (trying to retreat instead of hitting full rejuvenation potion) resulted in character's death. Despite this, I am pretty satisfied with this character. It is huge improvement from Zaraki.
I'll make myself a break from this game for some time, since I play too much lately. Good luck to, hopefully, future Guardian Augustus!
It's much unfortunate @O_Bruce . I really trusted in the success of the concentrate barbarian. At least, dying in Hell Chaos Sanctuary is not so frustrating (maybe) than before Act 4 Hell.
@lolien I think the issue was my skills rather than build itself. And for the record, I made to the half of Act V, so I consider myself nearly reaching the goal
Hi. Since there is no updates or no another Guardian yet I decided to act. I'm presenting you Sanyah, a multi-element sorceress much like Sora was. She will be using Lightning, Hydra nad Frozen Orb as main attacks and use Chilling Armor and Energy Shield as a defensive meassures.
As you can see, I decided to switch to english version of the game, just so that making updates was easier for me. I wouldn't need to translate things.
The goal is simply to beat the game hardcore on Hell difficulty by any means necessary. Plus, in order to not feel like I'm just speedrunning between grinding, I decided a sidequest for myself: to find and open every special chest in side dungeons. But, let's start the playthgrough.
Sanyah part 1
First quest went smoothly, as usual. Nothning really to report there. In the Cold Plains, Sanyah got herself a short bow. It will be useful thing to have for now, particularly against Coldcrow
Look, a Bishibosh!
At first, Sanyah's mana reserves aren't going to be big, so she needed something to stab monsters with.
Visiting the Cave, Sanyah encountered the Coldcrow. Tried using her bow, but the corrupted rouge archer was just better at it. Made Sanyah spam firebolt instead and after Coldcrow fell, the sorceress found herself a nice cap.
First pair of magical rings in Mausoleum
Sanyah bought herself a magic scimitar:
She also encountered Bonebreaker and broke its bones.
Sanyah bought sash of the fox:
Facing Blood Raven. Small trivia: her weapon is randomnized, meaning it can have various properties. In this case, she had a chance to cast amplify damage. Level 1 curse doesn't last long, though.
Finding the stone circle:
Visiting second level of the underground passage:
In the dark woods, Sanyah found first topaz to inser into her armor:
Facing Treehead Woodfist's minions:
Let's have a stroll throught Tristram and recuing Decard Cain
Got a ring from Akara. It is kinda useful for this part of the game.
While on the Black Marsh and in side-dungeon, Sanyah found another topaz for her armor. She has 18% magic find now.
Facing the Countess
After which, Sanyah planned to keep visiting the Countess until the sorceress was level 15. First things first, she bought herself a staff from Akara:
Some finds during the runs:
Don't have screenshots from the Pit or from battling the Smith. But at least I have a result from imbuling a item using the Hoardric Mallus:
Next is Andarel. Sanyah vs Maiden of Anguish:
The loot:
Sanyah's stats:
Some Andy runs will follow. First, Sanyah will need some more magic find:
After the first run, Sanyah realized that buying staff +2 to Blaze for this purpose (and later against Duriel) was a good thing to do. Some run results:
Sanyah also changed her armor for something better:
"En Immortui, rerum dominos, gentemque contegossa."
And so, the grind at Andariel continues in Hell. Pierre Tombale, not bad for a partizan.
Carin Shard.
Those life and mana boost is priceless. But my white wand is still rule supreme. And finally some really interesting.
Let's check the roll.
Woah, not perfect, but close enough for me. Also this is my first Gheed's Fortune, so yeah. Another jewel to pump up the magic find of Ali-blade.
It's a shame orbs are just for the sorcerers. I could use that spare shield slot.
What is a unique tyrant club?
Oh, it's Demon Limb!
I can imagine using this to boost Durga's attack a bit. It has two problems however. My wepon switch is occupied with the teleporting staff, and my strength is way inadequate for swinging that club. With some strenght enhancing items i tried out to use it in the camp, and it's enchanting effect last surprisingly long. Guess i could use this before major fights. An enchanted necro skeleton army sounds good too, so i store this for later experiments. Also i used to plan to raise Augustus' strenght to 125 for wearing war boots for some time now. Like this boots named after the great BG character Shank.
Another elite unique,
Bloodmoon
This shrine spawns on some occasions in Andy's lair.
Oh, that's some goodie there!
Trang's gloves,
it has those +30 cold resist over Magefist, when we treat the +1 to corpse explosion vs +2 to curses as equals (which we do not of curse). Goldstrike Arch.
It's almost good enough bow for changing Durga for a rogue mercenary. But almost means not. You think that two twisted essence of suffering from Andariel is much?
Than beat this!
Immortal King's boots
with the belt it would be well enough, but sadly i can't store it because of tight stash. Swordguard from a devilkin pack.
Hellmouth.
And Black Hades from a casket. I wondered if i should give this to my merc, or keep the Spirit Forge. Aside from the +1 socket and the higher AC, Spirit Forge is the winner, but i kept Black Hades in the end. For... don't know why. I plan to find a better armor for my merc anyway Laying of Hands.
Dream gloves. For a melee character. A set grand crown.
Nothing too exciting for us. Djinn Slayer with one socket and low rolls.
And another item from the Trang set!
I think the splendor shield is still better, but it's good to have nonetheless. Pelta Lunata!
Well, it's nothing to be excited about, but it's a good rare drop from Hell Andy And look at this sexy blue leather gloves too
A good summoning grand charm!
Sadly it's for druids Don't expect a unique battle scythe.
it's mods are not overly exciting, but being ethereal it will be better for the merc, than the current Kelpie. It hits bigger and faster for sure, and that's always good. A shimmering jewel,
goes into Durga's mail. Jade Talon.
Not useful for Augustus, but i think i never seen a unique assasin weapon before. A slightly better Black Hades from Andy, but now that i put that shimmering jewel in it, i keep the current one.
A big hammer.
My new magic finder amulet.
Bloodmoon and Darksight Helm, side by side.
Excepted better for a unique basinet. Lance Guard.
Another shimmering large charm, this time with +life.
A note to self: playing HC with remote control is a bad idea.
On another note, Augustus completed 100 visit by Andy, so for a change of scenery he went to the Countess to gather two Shaels in Durga's armor. An Um for Crescent Moon pole (and another one for a Duress armor) would be good too... For this Augustus had not needed the magic find gear, so he equipped for questing.
Still not perfect resistances, but it starts looking good.
Augustus' new strenght boosting amulet.
One Shael.
My second Jade Talon.
And the second Shael came not much later.
Around 10 Forgotten Tower visit was completed. Other notable finds were a Lum and a Fal. Back to Andy she greeted us with a colorful drop.
The Minotaur.
It's a well-rounded axe. And here comes another Trang gloves with another Demon Limb and...
a shrunken head with +2 necro skills! On second glance however, after some headache, i decided to sell it. There must be more goodies to depart from my splendor shield, than the +1 skills. The Trang gloves have 5 more AC than the previous one however, so i changed that. Another Gheed's Fortune. Checked if i miss something really good, but my current one is way better.
Tri-res boots with faster run/walk. My current crafted one is better.
Another Basinet, a green one this time.
Still not good enough for Durga to drop his current circlet with life leech. Good old Kelpie with a Crescent Moon amulet and a green Grim Helm.
Not the best rolls on Natalya's Totem, still i gave that to the Merc. That +strenght and dexterity will come in handy if i manage to find an elite pole for my merc. It has better defense and +resistances too, which may compensate the lack of life steal, or so i hope. Gambled some circlets from the hoarded gold, coronets and tiaras can come with necromancer prefix now. Nothing exciting came, aside from this plain venomous tiara.
Another unique ring from Andy.
It can be potentially good.
And it is! Raven frost is not essential for Augustus, but still good to have it in his collection. Next interesting thing is...
Trang's armor!
To tell the truth, it's not that overly exciting for me. I don't see much chance to complete the Trang set, i got all the pieces Andy could drop, the others can be acquired with good drop chances only by Diablo and Baal. Monsters from high level areas can drop them too, but with much lower chance. So it's one more item gathering dust in my stash. Or it's not, because i run out of space, so i have to say goodby to my mers's Black Hades and give him the Trang armor to carry it. It gives him some Defense at least. Third Trang gloves with +1 more defense...
And here it was time to advance the plot. I would like to open up new areas, especially the Maggots Lair, that i may visit in future runs, for example when i search for the missing Trang Oul's items.
Maggot Lair was fairly easy on P1 settings and with adventuring gear.
Magic immune enemies in the Lost City were not problem at all with the help of my minions and corpse explosion. That's some big damage bonus against undead.
After hitting the Lost City waypoint Augustus advaced to the viper's temple. Nothing nasty surprise by Fangskin.
Augustus rushed through the palace harem, and found the Summoner on first try in Arcane Sanctuary. I was quick enough to take a selfie before the Summoner fell.
And from then Duriel's lair was just a short stroll.
Duriel dropped a Demon's Arch, which switched the ethereal Athena's wrath.
Back on his way to Andy, Augustus found the necessary flawed ruby to cube a Lem rune.
Augustus visited then The Countess some times in hope of some good runes, and for some generic runes for crafting. Crafting did not provided anything mentionable, but Augustus found this in an armor rack:
After that Augustus visited Radament for the +1 skillpoint,
and entered to Kurast and ActIII.
Augustus gathered Khalim's eye,
then found a lucky route, where he didn't have to track through Great Marsh.
Found the entrance to the Gidbinn on first try too, but collected a Pul rune on the way to it.
, opened a portal before the Flayer dungeon
entrance and went on to hit Lower Kurast waypoint.
Went back to collect the brain too,
Found a Duriel's Shell at the Cold Plains by accident.
From there things got fast, and i had to remind myself time to time to adventure on a safe pace, instead of rushing forward to Baal.
Collected the Tome at Ruined temple, Khalim's ear, or finger or something in the sewers, and disposed the Council.
After some tedious maze exploring Augustus could finally face Mephisto. https://youtu.be/PGxoDgj3Wjo He dropped Aldur's boots,
which has less resistance bonus, than my current crafted one, but have superior run/walk and a huge life boost too, so i kept that.
And now, Augustus is on his way to Diablo.
Hephasto gave me a Pul,
Which i used to cube an Um,
and make Crescent Moon in that long carried ethereal Colossus Voulge.
Some decent damage there. After some testing it was obvious, that those static field strikes works like a charm too. Durga deals with champions and pack bosses rather fast, even on higher difficulty settings. Still there are times he is swarmed and get killed faster, than he could kill his enemies. So i looked at my Lem rune and thought that i'm just some low quality runes away from a decent Treachary armor with Fade and +45% fast attack. For the Lem first i visited the Countess, but then i moved to Lower Kurast. It may takes some more to find a Lem there, but there are some odds to find something better too, and it's much faster and somewhat safer, than the Forgotten Tower.
From lower Kurast the first interesting item i can mention is a small charm,
second is a jewel.
After that, lo and behold:
Being Um the highest rune i ever found, this Lo is an upgrade, i think. Don't know what to do with it however, aside from cube with another Lo, or maybe a Fortitude armor for my merc (but i fear chilling armor would disturb my corpse using skills). Must add, that it was less than 50 run.
I continued to visit LK to gather my needed runes for Trachery, and they dropped not much later.
Treachery replaces Duriel's shell.
Third Black Hades.
Second Trang wing from Andy.
Now, that i don't need it Andy drops that unique Yari too.
Lot of green items, useless at this point.
Crown of thieves from a casket. As it turned out for me my merc can't use this sadly. He needs the plus strenght from his current helm for wielding the Colossus Voulge, and i don't want to use a socket quest on the grand crown for this. The problem is, Durga still dying frequently by Andariel, and sometimes from other nasty monster packs too (however with Treachery this got better apparently).
Nevertheless, i decided it was time to enter Chaos Sanctuary and face Diablo. There came my second Trang armor, and with some free space i could store it this time.
Infector's army did not have a chance against Durga Crescent Moon pole and Augustus corpse explosions.
I forgot to mention that since level 12, all of skill points Anyah got went into Lightning and it will continue that way until level 26 (minus all pre-requires she needs and energy shield).
Anyway, Sanyah defeated Radament quite easily:
After heading out to the desert, Sanyah visited Stony Tomb for a specail chest. Here's the Creeping Feature:
While searching for Horadric Cube, Sanyah found a nice ring:
Recieving the Cube:
While strolling through the Far Oasis, Sanyah managed to make Stealth runeword in boob breast plate.
Cooldworm the Burrower was fried by lightning. Sanyah got the first part of the Horadric Staff.
Ancient tunnels entrance. Nothing interesting was inside to report, though.
Despite being lightning enchanted, Fangskin died pretty quickly. Horadric Staff was made whole shortly after.
Speaking of staves, Sanyah bought herself a really nice one.
Sanyah got into Arcane Sanctuary, found some items and faced the Summoner.
This screenshot just about sums up Sanyah's "battle" against Duriel:
At the beginning of act 3, Sanyah bought herself better magic find boots
Found a jade statue, made the Golden Bird quest. Also, getting first of Khalim's organs:
Gidbinn and the reward for retrieving it:
Witch Doctor Endugu and Khalim's Brain
Hello, Swampy Pit. You look like a nice place.
Lam Esen's tome. The quest reward points went into vitality.
And Khalim's Heart, found in the sewers. As usual, I wonder how it managed to stay preserved in conditions like this.
Now, Sanyah needed just to rush to Travincal, face the High Council and the destroy the Orb of whatever it was called.
Facing Uncle Mephisto like a badass. Or maybe not quite.
Unfortunately, +1 to Cold Skills doesn't do much for me. 20% of additional magic find can come in handy, though.
Without using static field, Izual lasted a while, which resulted in a very boring battle for Sanyah.
Now, it was time to destroy Uncle's soulstone. Entering the River of Flames, battling Hephasto and crushing the stone.
Time for killing Diablo, also known as the Lord of Terror, one of the Prime Evils, The Dark Lord, Dialon, The Dark Wanderer, al'Diabalos, Destroyer of Tristram and wrecker of people's arses with his Lightning Breath.
Unfortunately for him, Diablo, the Lord of Terror, one of the Prime Evils, The Dark Lord, Dialon, The Dark Wanderer, al'Diabalos, Destroyer of Tristram and wrecker of people's arses with his Lightning Breath has perished in battle. Yes for magic find
Already in act V, Shenk met Diablo's fate much faster and much easier.
Time to do some grinding. That staff is nice, especially when Sanyah will have access to Frozen Orb and Hydra
Pretty good bone helm:
Better base armor for Stealth:
I like resistances on this one.
Freeing the Barbarians, then freeing Anya
She was kinda grateful for a change:
Some results of bothering uncle Pindleskin:
Finding the Circlet with sockets and the Sol rune enabled me to create the Lore runeword:
Bye bye, Nihlahtak:
Before reaching Arreat's summit, Sanyah visited some side areas in search for special chests:
Sanyah's battle against the Ancients:
And finally, Baal's minons and Baal himself:
Sanyah stats:
Finishing the post, I mentioned Sanyah's progress being huge, but I'll be frank - there is still much to describe. But that I will left for later.
So Augustus arrived to the land of barbarians. First he visited Shenk,
then he freed the barbarian slaves.
A four socketed Spirit base to make me remember i'm on non-ladder.
Tresh Socket greeted us at the Crystalline Passage entrance,
where we searched for the Frozen River. There Augustus found Frozentstein guarding frozen Anya.
Gambling gave some success too to Augustus finally.
With rescuing Anya the Portal to Pindlegarten was open, and Augustus got some cheap raising material for his undead army. The Drill was Pindlegarten, Lower Kurast and most times Andy. Shank's boots from Pindle:
New Splendor trophy with life tap, to help the merc staying alive against Andy.
A late Hone Sundan from Andy.
Gambling goodies again:
And after less than 50 run Pindle surprised me with this.
OK, i did not mean the Wire Fleece, but sadly it was as much useful for Augustus as the other armor. From which i forgot to take a screenshot A Lem from Pindlegarten
and after so much Andy run Tal's mask from Pindle too.
Djinn Slayer from a weapon rack.
A nice blue amulet.
And some comfirmation that my Lower Kurast runs are still not in vain.
Look at this well rounded coronet.
It's a shame Augustus is not a druid. Umbral Disk.
It's a refreshing sight at Hell Lower Kurast after those many high TC Uniques and high end runewords :P The Oculus.
And Boom.
Honestly, it was not entirely out of the blue. My merc kept on dying from time to time, and sometimes those nasty defiled warriors cleared Augustus flank and managed to score a charged strike. This time i helped them even more, because after my merc felled from Pindle i teleported back to town to resurrect him. After that, rater than starting a new game, i went back to the battlefield. This flawed tactic was succesful several times, but not this time.
These are old stories now, but i had to get a break, before writing from it
We know what many of you are hoping for and we can only say that “good things come to those who wait,” but evil things often take longer. We appreciate your patience as our teams work tirelessly to create nightmarish experiences worthy of the Lord of Terror.
While we won’t be ready to announce all of our projects, we do intend to share some Diablo-related news with you at the show.
What I understand by this, is the following: Diablo IV is in the production, but we won't announce it on the Blizzcon this year.
I am not mad, angry or even disappointed. If Blizzard indeed have multiple Diablo-related projects in work, the biggest and most significant one would naturally need more time. That's just my take on it.
Ironlad: Paladin with charged strike as main attack. Got Ribcracker from normal Nihlathak and a good Steeldriver from normal Baal. With those weapons he shared big pounches to his enemies, but some umpa-lumpas overwhelmed him at the barracks on his way to nightmare Andariel.
Vashlaczi: Same class and skills as Ironlad, but i tried to focus more on defense this time. He reached Nightmare Act4, but felled at Durance level 2 while running Meph by some dolls killing him angry bird style.
Alma: Amazon with javelin skills. Used charged strike and lightning fury as main attack, Freezing arrow against lightning immunes. She provided a very enjoyable play, even found my highest ever rune with her.
She was killed by some extreme nasty arachnid pack on the way to hell Andariel. (I must add, that i forget to tone down difficulty from P7 to P1.)
Rose: Assassin with traps as her main skills. Progressed very nice till late hell. She lost her edge in the Durance of hatred, where some lightning immune Blunderbore packs killed her shadow and merc much faster than she could eliminate them with fire blast. She felled there at the Durance of hatred entrance, when i went back to farm Lower Kurast i realized that it's not enough to break the Compelling Orb for the Zealots to run from you, you have to kill all the Council members. I left Geleb beforehand because of his lightning and fire immunity,
so Rose went back to get rid with the Council again, and failed this time. Was a frustrating death.
Suzy: Assassin like Rose, felled at normal Act 1, Tamao Highland entrance by some skelly mages. I may went too bold with this one...
Since I am pretty sure that I'll never do proper updates on my playthroughts (maybe doing threads like this is just not my cup of tea), at least I can do a summary.
Sanyah completed Nightmare difficulty, reached the end of Act II hell. Among the items she managed to gather was Several SOJs, Vipermagis, Tal Rasha's Horadric rests, Lidless Eyes and one Fine-Spun Cloth. All of those but the last one found on Andy nightmare.
Since my mercenary keept dying rapidly in Tal Rasha's tombs, I made a decision to farm some level 85 areas. It was also good, since I was looking for full Tal Rasha's set. Unfortunately, during like 100th run or so I was stupid enough to make Sanyah teleport in the middle of boss pack in mausoleum. Cursed, might aura etc. She died stunlocked, full rejuvs didn't help much.
Irek was a bone necromancer. I was thinking - mostly, I die when I'm farming. So I wanted to make a character to find out, how long can I make a character progress without farming. Turns out, Irek died in act II hell to Beetleburst. My mistake was approaching to closely and as result its charged bolts provided deadly.
As you can see above, I still have one character alive. Bart the frenzy barbarian. To be honest, I only made this character because it has been literally years since I made a frenzy barb. Feels kinda nostalgic to me. I have no hopes of beating hell with him, though.
Possibly beating hell hardcore is just not for me. And that's ok.
Comments
Act IV
Nightmare difficulty
First task for Act IV - freeing Izual's spirit by destroing demonic body it is trapped with. Nothing much to say here. Izual doesn't have much offensive abillity. He is pretty tanky though. Also, Wawrzyniec had more problems with first boss pack he encountered as soon as he exited the Panemonium Fortress. Alas, I have only screenshot for Izual.
This thing looks not much, but behind those gates (and around it) were 2 or 3 boss packs. Wawrzyneic ended up relying on strategic retrat to take them one by one. And had his mana drained constantly.
While traveling through the River of Flames, Wawrzyniec started to invest into Leap, Leap Attack and finally reaching Whirlwind. And at first it proved to be not so great help, due to small damage and attack rating, but just like Leap Attack it enabled the Barbarian to outmanevour demonic legions (consisted of, for example, oversized bugs commonly found on Aranoch deserts. Lolwut?)
Hephasto was just like Duriel, if Duriel was less dangerous and rolled a teleport affix:
One destroyed soulstone later and Wawrzyniec got Fal Rune (by the way, I think I could wear +20% magic find shield there. Now that I mention it, I recall Andy dropped it as well).
The Chaos Sanctuary required some caution to get throught, due to Wawrzyniec being hardcore. Amplify Damage + Knights + mana-draining Stranglers meant trouble for unwary traveler. But Wawrzyniec did well, until he met Infector of Souls and his minions. No screenshots were taken, as my I focused solely on beating the pack. Infector had Conviction aura, that combined with Inferno attacks meant enourmous ammount of damage. I think Wawrzyniec's merc died once or twice. Infector provided the Barbarian with rare plate belt - +54 to life, +strength +fire and cold resistances.
Now, Diablo himself. To be honest, it was a dissapointment since in Nightmare nad Hell difficulties his Lightning Breath does not work on meele range, making Wawrzyniec's task simpler than in normal difficulty. Why Blizzard made this decision, I am not sure.
A loot worthy of first kill of titular character of the game on nightmare difficulty. No doubt about that.
Act V
Nightmare difficulty
First thing to do in Act V: do first 3 quests so that I could have access to Pindleskin.
Second: GRIND
Thrid: beat Act V
And finally: GRIND
So, Frozenstein is down. His mana burn always irritated me. But since I made a rhyme runeword in my shield, cold effect was not affecting my Barbarian, making the fight little easier.
As for first phase of grinding, it consisted of Shenk, Eldritch, Pindleskin, Mephisto and Chaos Sanctuary runs. As for results, I won't lie, I got some uniques but majority of those were not useful for Wawrzyniec. What I found useful were set items: Hwanin's Justice , Tal Rahsa's Horadric Crest and Guillaume's Face . The Guillaume's Face and Hwanin's Justice were given to the mercenary, while Wawrzyniec found Tal Rasha's set piece very useful.
After which, Wawrzyniec decided to clear the rest of Act V.
Nihlahtak. Thanks to Shaftstop and about ~2000 life Wawrzyniec was not afraid of corpse explosion, but still decided to largery ignore the minions in order to swiftly bring down the traitor.
The traitor was......
....
....
shattered when confronted with Wawrzyniec's wrath.
Skipping ahead to the Ancient's Way. I had a problem with boss packs that appeared very close to the area entrance. The problem was mostly due to rogues and ammount of damage they could do in a large group, Skeletal mages and fallen only made things more complicated. The battle was won but required caution. Unfortunately, I have only 1 screenshot of it, when I was relatively safe.
The next battle were the Ancient Ones and I had to reset them once, due to Madawc possesing amplify damage curse. But then things become much more managable.
Time to end Nightmare difficulty. Surprisingly, I didn't take any screenshots from battles against Baal's waves of minions. Though I think wave 2 and 5 were the only troublesome ones. Second wave due to the poison and raising skeletons, the fifth wave was usually more troublesome than Baal.
My battle of relatively not agressive Lord of Destrucion:
The amulet was, once again from Baal, from Angel's set. Seriously, that't the most common one. More importantly:
Conqueror Wawrzyniec / Conqueror Lawrence. That sounds badass.
Next time: grinding-before-Hell results and Hell difficulty.
As a way to prepare for Hell difficulty I made Wawrzyniec go throught Eldritch and Shenk runs, as well as Baalruns. What results were rare boots with +20% faster run/walk and bonus to fire, cold and poison resistances, all in ranges of 20-35. Once Ball awarded Wawrzyniec with another Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest and also with a Lava Gout. In addition, Eldritch provided the Barbarian with Bloodtree Stump which was a jackpot! Bonus to Masteries (which means, higher resistances among other things), +20 resist all, crushing blow and huge damage. Yes. Just yes.
I have no memory of charms or other notable parts of loot I got. I guess I should go to Hell now...
But before that, I made Wawrzyniec respec. It turned out Whirlwind was not quite effective in my current build. Mainly because of attack rating and my weapon speed, both of which were not enough to use the skill effectively. I think Whirlwind would have more sense when specialized in it and using weapons like swords, which are faster and actually require dexterity to wear (and dex = attack rating). So, skills invested in Whirlwind actually got into Concentration, maxing it out.
Hell difficulty part 1
The Hell difficulty started out not too bad. Wawrzyniec needed more time than Zaraki to defeat his foes, since Berserk was not Wawrzyniec's main attack, but still, it was good. The Barbarian get throught quest one just fine, invsting a skill point into Berserk, with a plan to get it to slv 10. The reason was simple - to better deal with physical damage immunities.
Oh, I recalled I should provide some stats. Here it is:
Dealing with Blood Raven. It took more than I have anticipated.
Treehead Woodfist:
He was troublesome. He always is extra strong and extra fast. But now he also had Fanatis Aura, which spelled a lot of trouble. Lucky me that Concentration doesn't allow Wawrzyniec's enemies to interrupt his attacks, otherwise he would be in serious troubles.
Griswold ened up having spectral hit and lightning enchanted affixes, but overall he was not quite as dangerous as Treehead Woodfist.
The Countess left me Io, Shael and Tir runes. Nothing too mind blowing there
And like that, I eventually got access to Outer Cloister which is what I planned. Now I can begin Area 85 runs!
Hell Magic Find Runs part 1
With about 140-150% increase chance for finding magic items, it was time to do area 85 runs. Mausoleum, then The Pit. Here are first results:
Naj's Puzzler
+1 to all skills
+30% faster cast rate
+150% enhanced damage
Adds 6-45 lightning damage
+35 to energy
+70 to mana
Level 11 teleport charges
Firelizard's Talons
+2 to Martial Arts
+15% faster attack speed
+259% enhanced damage
Adds 237-480 fire damage
+2 to Wake of Inferno
+2 to Wake of Fire
Fire resist +69% (oh yeah)
Ribcracker (dps wise, better than my current weapon. It does not have resistances, however)
+50% increased attack speed
+50% faster hit recovery
+241% enhanced damage
Adds 30-65 damage
50% crushing blow
+100% enhanced defense
+100 defense
+18 to dexterity
I wonder if enchant sorceress could have a good use from that weapon. I might try it in the future.
Pompeii' Wrath
4% chance to cast 8 lvl Vulcano on striking
+147$ enhanced damage
Adds +35-150 fire damage
Slows target by 50%
Knockback
Stormstrike
25% chances to cast lvl 3 Charged Bolt on being struck
+150% enhanced damage
Adds 1-120 lightning damage
Resist lightning +82% (depends on character's level)
Attacker takes 20 lightning damage
M'avina's Embrace
10% chance to cast 3lvl Glacial Spike on being struck
+2 to passive and magic skills
+328 defense (based on character level)
+350 defense
Magic damage reduced by 11
Requirements -30%
My mercenary likes very much.
Stormrider
15% chance to cast lvl 5 Charged Bolt on being struck
5% chance to cast lvl 10 Chaing Lightning on attacking
10% chance to cast lvl 20 Charged Bolt on attacking
+100% enhanced damage
Adds 35-75 damage
Adds 1-200 lightning dmage
Attacker takes 15 lightning dmage
Cool idea for a weapon, but not very useful one.
Some additional notes: Wawrzyniec made Black runeword (Thul + Io + Nef) in Tyrant Club, improving his damage and chance for crushing blow. Wawrzyniec also have Rhyme runeword in Grim Shield (+25% magic find, cannot be frozen, enhanced chance of blocking, +25% to resistances) and also wore Spritit Forge (+life, lighting resist, 2 Perfect Topazes socketed for magic find).
Vastator Augustus
"Festina lente."Baal dropped some rares. A useful armor went to the merc,
and there was a belt with some nice +life and resistances, but i decided that it worths not the trouble upping it, i planned to craft a caster belt soon.
Blood Moor dropped a Hel,
Stony Field waypoint,
Augustus reached level 36,
Fortunately the socketing process went smoothly at first try, so we did not need the spare bone wand.
+8 to Bone Spear and other juicy affixes, that's hard to compete with.
Further visits were made to Countess for levelling purposes, Nightmare felt still squishy at higher player settings and the Countess was a good source of treasure on P1 too. Found a Totem with useful bonuses, so decided to socket it to make a better shield for Augustus.
Now the statistics have looked better.
There was time for some questing at last. Augustus stopped by the Smith for Charsi's hammer,
So Augustus started to complete his 1000 visit by Andariel.
The layout of the catacombs was almost ideal, so i decided to go with Paige till an acceptable weapon drops for a Barbarian or Town Guard mercenary.
Soon a caster belt was crafted, as was planned,
Andariel gave me a new pair of boots,
a bunch of rare/set/unique amulets and rings, but nothing spectacular so far.
A Lum dropped from one of the Devilkins in Andy's lair.
A pair of useful caster boots was made.
After some uneventful visists i found a Bloodletter, so i decided to try out that Hwanin mail, returned to Harrogath and hired Khan.
After some time the Bloodletter was changed for a Hexfire.
A Nagelring with good magic find, from the several others.
A Crow Caw, my first decent find, which displaced the disappointing Hwanin mail.
A caster amulet with plus curses was made.
A nice maul for a whirlwind barb.
And socket this with a Zod, up it two times and you got a very big hitting club.
Ginther's Rift changes Hexfire.
Frostburn. They're good gloves, but i search for a Magefist, or a Trang's Claw, and prefer magic find till that.
Chance Guards. It's ethereal, but i can use this with August for some time.
A rare ring with stylish name.
Got a Ko.
Gambled Coronet, goes for the merc.
Sigon's guard made me remember, that i should use that Lum rune and make a Splendor Shield.
Rare jewel with +all resistance.
Augustus reached the necessary level to try his hand with imbuing at Charsi, it's possible to get the Necromancer prefix on a Shrunken head with the proper item level.
Tried to imbue an eth unravaller head.
After around 200 visit i decided to do some questing for a change of scenery, and the experience flow slowed too.
So Augustus peeked into Tal Rasha's Tomb. It was a little crowded,
Augustus hasted through Umpa-land too in breaks beetween Andy visits.
It was time for gambling, and Augustus managed to grab this plain venomous amulet.
The first Magefist for Augustus came not from Andariel, but from a Devilkin pack near the Catacomb waypoint.
Skiller grand charm indicates, that Augustus breaked into level 50+ areas.
Augustus entered Travincal,
and throwed a party with good old Mephisto.
From there Izual and the two free skillpoint coming with him were too close to stop.
Back to Andy. And something useful at last!
By the Barbarians Augustus disposed Shenk,
And on the Frigid Highlands I met with the real Shank cameo too!
Augustus freed the slaved barbarians
Headstriker from Andy,
Not Stone of Jordan, but good still.
And here, a Kelpie Snare, which changes Durga's Woestave.
Chance Guards starts to wear away.
With this cracked Demon Head
Previously Augustus activated the Arreat Plateau waypoint on the start of the map, and the waypoint was generated on the end of the map this time. Not much, but it makes me feel satisfied. Tresh Socket was composted too.
This time i choosed to max out Skeleton Warriors first instead of Bone Wall (for Bone Spear sinergy), or Skeleton Mastery. It proved to be a good decision, they are much sturdier, and can deal out some noticable damage themselves with Durga's might aura. I could raise my Bone Spear damage around 1,5x with those skill points, but the safety and the damage of the skeleton warriors make that up easily. At least for now on Nightmare. Here they are, tanking a Frozen Creeper bosspack happily.
And a Pul drop not afar from there.
Frozen Creeper,
Frozen HeartAugustus went onward some more, till he reached the Ancients' Way.
There he started to visit the Icy cellars after Andy, to gather some experience. I would like to grind till level 75 before visiting Anya to gain the reward. Level 75 is needed for a Hierophant Trophy to be capable to be generated with Necromancer prefix. Chances are not too high, but whatever.
Anyway, Augustus performs good in the Icy Cellars on P7 setting, despite it's inhabited with Frozen Creepers, Gloams, bazooka umpas, Pit Vipers and other nasty monsters. Sometimes with all at once.
Gold was aplenty, so had to gamble it away again. Mentionable items were this rare Tiara,
Peasant Crown. It's almost good enough to keep it.
A Lum at Icy Cellars.
Skin of the Flayed One.
Andariel gave a Ko to Augustus. (
Another unique Fuscina. Not ethereal, and the high roll ED on the current one is hard to beat, so meh.
At this point Augustus reached level 74, so i've decided it was time to go to visit the Ancients. Faced them on P8 to give them some chance. They managed to deplete my mana potion stack and kill one skelly wizard.
1000. screenshot hype.
And here comes my rare Diadem. It will totally not worth the rescources most likely, but there's always some chance.
What do this Boneweave do here?
More gloams at the Throne entrance, fortunately i'm not playing with a lightning amazon.
Did the waves on P7. Augustus feel like a bit overlevelled for Nightmare difiiculty at this point. It's a good feeling however.
Got the necessary 75 level to visit Anya.
No shrunken head with +2 necro skill, 2 open socket, +3 to Bone spear, and bonuses to all resistance. Oh, well i must live with that.
Baal was helpless against my undead army, and dropped nothing useful.
And with this Augustus will hencforth be known as Victor Augustus.
Time
to enter Hell.to start some serious grinding.Hell difficulty part 2 and moar grinding
Wawrzyniec decided that in order to grind effectively it would be good idea to kill Andy and then count her in each run too.
So, the Smith was Cursed and Fire Enchanted in addition to being Extra Strong. But it didn't matter much, since he didn't hit Wawrzyniec once:
He dropped something good for Sorceresses, though:
+1 to Sorceress skills level
Adds 1-28 lightning damage
+1 to Chain lightning
+2 to Lightning
+3 to Static Field
+15 to energy
+43% mana regeneration
Lightning resist +75%
Damage reduced by 5
Andy:
]
Not very encouraging drop.
But from now, we can focus on more Area 85 runs + Andy runs. Let's see what Wawrzyniec got (non Exceptional or Elite uniques not included):
Coldsteel Eye
+20% increased attack speed
+238% enhanced damage
6% mana steal
50% deadly strike
Blinds target
Slows target by 30%
Could be nice after upgrading to Elite version.
Griswold's Heart
+2 to Defensive Auras for Pallys
+500 defense
+20 to strength
Requirements -40%
Socketed (3)
Added two (and later, three) Perfect Topazes for magic find. Shaftstop ended up in stash until I decide to beat act 2 and beyond.
Wizardspike
Indestructible
+50% faster cast rate
Increase maximum mana by 15%
+168 to mana
Recovers mana +15%
All resistances +75%
I am curious about using this dagger as a caster. Are resistances and FCR alone worth using it?
Wisp Projector
10% chance to cast 18 lvl Lightning on striking
Lightning absorbtion 13%
+20% magic find
Level 7 Spirit of Barbs charges
Level 5 Heart of Wolvering charges
Level 2 Oak Sage charges
Yay, magic find. Also, would be useful against Burning Souls due to lightning absorbtion.
Lysander's Flank
+2 to Javeiln and Spear skills
+2 to Amazon's skills levels
+30% attack speed
+197% enhanced damage
Adds 25-50 damage
5% life steal
+20% defense
+20 strength
+20 dexterity
Good for bowazons, obviously. Especially after upgrading to Elite version.
Windhammer
33% chance to cast lvl 22 Twister on striking
+60% attack speed
+193% enhanced damage
50% chance for crushing blow
+50% damage vs undead
Really nice! It doesn't provide resistances just like my previous Mace, but it is more powerful DPS wise, has huge crushing blow change and casts TWister on striking, which proved quite good at interrupting enemies' attacks due to short stun.
Credendum
+50 defense
+10 strength
+10 dexterity
All resistances +15%
Hello, new belt.
I just realized that for some reason I don't have screenshot of Baranar's Star. It is Warzyniec's main 1-hand weapon.
Demon Limb
+208% enhanced damage
+123% damage vs demons
Adds 222-333 fire damage
13% life steal
Fire resist +18%
Level 23 Enchant charges
Restores 1 durbality every 20 seconds
Hmmm.... I see potential for this mace but unfortunately, fire immunities are most common on Hell difficulty.
Giantskull
10% chance for crushing blow
Knockback
+270 defense
+30 strength
Socketed (2)
There is some potential for this item. But Wawrzyniec is using helm from Tal Rasha's set and hopes to find Arreat's Face.
Atma's Wail
+30% faster hit recovery
+140% enhanced defense
+170 to defense depending on character's level
+15 to dexterity
Regenerate life +10
+15% maximum mana
+20% chance for magic find
Not better than Shaftstop. Not going to have mercenary for magic find, so he won't use this. It has less magic find than Griswold's. Not useful for Wawrzyniec.
To be continued.
Magic finding continues
Spellsteal
10% faster cast rate
+165% increased damage
Regenerate mana +25%
Magic damage decreased by 14
Level 12 Firestorm charges
Level 10 Holy Bolt charges
Level 3 Decrepify charges
Level 1 Teleport Charges
Requirements -60%
This is seriously a strange axe. Many of its statistics are made for caster, despite the fact there are much better items out there for casters. The only useful things I see there is Decrepify and Teleport charges, but even these are situational.
Spineripper
+1 to Necromancer skills level
+15% attack speed
+240% enhanced damage
Adds 15-27 damage
Ignores target's defense
8% life steal
Prevents monsters from healing
+10 to dexterity
Ethearal item
Good for Poison Dagger Necro, I guess.
Rainbow Facet
100% chance of casting lvl 29 Blaze when leveling up
Adds 17-45 fire damage
-4% enemy's fire resistance
+5% fire damage for skills
Definitely not for Barbarian.
Gheed's Fortune
129% additional gold from monsters
28% higher chance of finding magic items
Vendors' wares are cheaper by 13%
Yay! Gheed's Fortune is always a good find!
Bing Sz Wang
5% chance of casting 3 lvl Frozen Orb on striking
+152@ enhanced damage
Adds 50-140 cold damage
Freezes target +2
+20 strength
Requirements -30%
Radament's Sphere
5% chance of casting lvl 5 Poision Nova on being struck
+20% faster block rate
+20% chance to block
+80 poision damage through 4 seconds
+183% enhanced defense
Poison resist +75%
Lvl 6 Poison Explosion charges
There is definitely a theme there and poison resist it relly good there. Still not going to use it, though.
Immortal King's Stone Crusher
Indestructible
+40% faster attack speed
+200% enhanced damage
+200% damage vs demons
+250% damage vs undead
36% chance of crushing blow
Socketed (2)
YES! This is going to be excellent weapon after socketing it with Shael runes and/or Jewels. It will also get more powerful if Wawrzyniec will wind other parts of the set. Belts, Gloves and Boots and Helmet aren't that rare to find... The armor is highly unilkely, though. It would be cool if I managed to find the entire set. That would be badass.
M'avina's Tenet
+20% faster walk/run
+5% mana steal
+50 defense
+5 to light radius
Not for Barbarians, definitely. Faster walk/run in belts of all things is actually interesting.
Baezil's Vortex
5% chance of casting lvl 8 Nova on attacking
+20% faster attack speed
+195% enhanced damage
Adds 1-150 lightning damage
+100 to mana
Lightning resit +25%
Level 15 Nova charges
+50% damage vs undead
I see some potential for this item, but it cannot compare to Baranar's Star.
Radament's Sphere (again!)
5% chance of casting lvl 5 Poision Nova on being struck
+20% faster block rate
+20% chance to block
+80 poision damage through 4 seconds
+192% enhanced defense
Poison resist +75%
Lvl 6 Poison Explosion charges
Dark Clan Crusher
+2 to Druid's skills level
+195% enhanced dmage
20% to attack rating
+200% damage vs demons
+200 to attack rating vs demons
+15 to life after killing a demon
+50% damage vs demons
Useful for Druids, especially after ugrading to elite version.
Immortal King's Forge
12% chance of casting lvl 4 Charged Bolt on being struck
+65 defense
+20 do strength
+20 to dexterity
Yes, Immortal King's set piece. On its own it is not that notable, but it still offers okay defense and good boost for strength and dexterity. It will also make Immortal King's Stone Crusher stronger.
Demon's Arch
+30% increased attack speed
+193% enhanced damage
Adds 232-323 fire damage
Adds 23-333 lightning damage
6% life steal
Replenishes quantity
My mercenary has a new toy, as his previous one was kinda weak already.
Heart Carver
+205% enhanced damage
Adds 15-35 dmage
Igneres target's defense
35% chance to deadly strike
+4 to Grim Totem
+4 to Find Item
+4 to Find Potion
Useful item for swap. Chance of getting loot once again from champions and rare monsters is always welcome.
More updates tommorow!
Victor Augustus
"Regem sevoluisse ait videre,nonmortuos."So i was at around 350 Andy run at the time Augustus killed Baal first. Useful drops were Magefist (multiple times), Kelpie Snare (two or three times) and the Crow Caw mail. Some magic find items (Tarnhelm and Chance Guards) too. No really exceptional from the rarer drops however.
But there was 650 more possible good drop to examine, so i did not worry, and there were other useful things like charms with +resists, useful jewels, gems and runes for crafting.
Now, that i had access to Pindleskin i included him into the runs.
First interesting drop was Rattlecage.
An Eye of Etlich.
Some more useless but interesting items.
The Meat Scraper.
Tried to craft a more useful belt than the current one, it's only upside is the 10 % FCR. For the first try got one with +10 FCR and FHR, +2 Str and some lightning resistance, so i accepted it as a deal.
Got the necessary components to socket that Boneweave armor.
The next intersting drop came from the devilkins again, instead of Andy.
Again, Andy was just a bit late with this.
That's some solid rare ring. It's a shame Augustus has no use of those life leech and attack rating.
Plain lightning res grand charm, it's a keeper.
I search one like this one, just with +3 not +1...
*Fifth.
Let's see what the 12. "unique" ring will be. (10 came from Andy)
And the goodies keep falling.
Skin of the Vipermagi.
I would like to customize my gear to be able to equip SoJ alonside with my +27% MF Nagel. For that i have to sacrafice an FCR ring. To maintain the +75 FCR for the breakpoint i would need an amulet with +15 FCR instead of my current +10 one. That i can reach with any crafted amulet with Apprentice suffix.
So let's see what else has Andy for us.
I can compensate that with this shimmering large charm, for example.
Gold is overflowing again, so it's time to gamble some circlets.
Now look at this one.
Decided to switch the Crow Caw for the boosted Spirit Forge on Durga.
At this point running Nightmare Andy lost it's magic for me somewhat. I felt that Augustus is well prepared for a best opponent. Could not end the 500 run even, i left at 466. (I use teleport charges to count my runs, one charge on every run, the staff has 33.)
First i tried to go on Nightmare Baal runs, but -despite i managed to roll a decent map arrangement on the second try- beating the waves was a chore. Reaching Baal is so slow after those good paced Andariel visits.
At least i could try my new blade. As i experienced Augustus could kill relatively fast even without his White wand, wearing Ali-Baba blade instead. Decent gold drops there.
But gold is not enough.
Stats in Nightmare,
Went to socket the Vipermagi armor by Larzuk.
With that and some other optimalizations i managed to reach acceptable resistances on Hell.
Augustus cleared the Den of Evil to gather that +skillpoint by Akara.
Made a duty call at Blood Raven and Mausoleum too.
Did not contemplated much at there however, went on to grab the Scroll of Inifuss
Smited the Smith
Found a good small charm in the Catacomb's however.
Shank as a vampire lord.
And here comes Hell Andariel. Captured two runs, because i forgot to show statistics first.
Magic find runs continue
Demon Limb
+216% enhanced damage
+123% damage vs demons
Adds 222-333 fire damage
11% life stolen per hit
Fire resistance +16%
Level 23 Enchant charges
Restores 1 durbality for every 20 seconds
+50% damage vs undead
Nice. But unfortunately, immunity to fire is most common one on hell difficulty. Additional attack rating from Enchant could be really good, though.
Headstriker
+150% enhanced damage
+86 to max damage (depending on the clvl)
129% chance for deadly strike (depending on the clvl)
Prevents monsters from healing
+15 strength
Zaraki used that one. Not only it can be upgraded to elite version, 129% chance for deadly strike effectively means double physical damage every hit.
Got a Mal rune!
I actually have two or three Ko runes right now, so if I end up finding a good Elite shield with 3 sockets, I would go for Ko + Ko + Mal combination. To create Sanctuary runeword
Gambled a rare amulet (Death Beads)
+1 to lightning spells
+20% cold resist
+58% lightning resist
+20% fire resist
+20% poison resist
Magic damage reduced by 3
Skill bonus is useless, but resistances are really good, definitely keeping that one.
Immortal King's Stone Crusher (2nd)
Yay. This one is better, as it has more crushing blow chance. I decided to add Shael rune and +10 to all resist jewel into it.
The Impaler
+20% increased attack speed
+147% enhanced damage
Ignores target's defense
+150 to attack rating
40% chance to open wound
+5 to Impale
+3 to Power Strike
Prevents monsters from healing
It could be good for physical meele amazons, if physical meele amazons were as good as Barbarians or favoured Paladins.
Immortal King's Stone Crusher (3rd)
Seriously, its thrid one already!
Naj's Puzzler (2nd)
+1 to all skills
+30% faster cast rate
+150% enhanced damage
Adds 6-45 lightning damage
+35 to energy
+70 to mana
Level 11 teleport charges
+50% damage against undead
Crescent Moon
11% mana steal
5% life steal
+45 to mana
Magic damage reduced by 10
10% damage goes to mana
-2 to light radius
Shadow Killer
Indestructible
33% chance on casting lvl 3 Frost Nova on striking
+202% enhanced damage
Freezes target +2
+12 to mana for each killed enemy
Etheral
Quite good weapon for Assasins.
Darksight Helm
6% chance of casting 3 lvl Dim Vision on being struck
5% mana steal
+174 defense (depends on clvl)
Fire resist +40%
Cannot be frozen
-4 to light radius
Level 5 Cloack of Shadows charges
Could be useful, but not on this char. I want to have Arreat's Face, or at least stay in my Tal Rasha's helmet if I won't find Arreat's.
Kuko Shakaku
+3 to Bow and Crossbow skills
Fires exploding arrows and bolts
Piercing attack
+163% enhanced damage
Adds 40-180 fire damage
+2 to Immolation Arrow
Nice choice for fire-based bowazons, I guess. After upgrading to elite version.
Hellmouth
4% chance of casting lvl 12 Firestorm on striking
2% chance of casting 4 lvl Meteor on striking
Adds 15-72 fire damage
+189% enhanced defence
+18 fire absorb
Nothing too good, to be honest.
Dangoon's Teaching
10% chane of casting 3 lvl Frost Nova on attacking
+40% faster attack speed
+130 to maximum damage (depends on clvl)
Adds 20-30 fire damage
+50% damage against undead
Bloodmooon
+227% enhanced damage
15% life steal
50% chance to open wound
+13 life for each kill
Level 15 Blood Golem charges
It is quite nice weapon, actually. Damage could be better, but it has huge life steal, open wound chance. Blood Golem charges are also interesting. But not for this character.
Gut Siphon
Piercing attack
+169% enhanced damage
16% life steal
33% chance to open wounds
Slows target by 25%
It appears to be useless for Elite unique, but I see that attack speed of this crossbow is huge in comparison to rest of those weapons. It might be worth it? I don't know.
Magic find continues
Sureshill Frost
+151% enhanced damage
Adds 5-10 damage
Adds 63-112 cold damage
Freezes target +3
Cannot be frozen
Level 9 Frozen Orb charges
+50% dmage vs undead
Hello
darknessmy old friendLeviatan
Indestructible
+179% enhanced defense
+132 defense
+47 strength
Damage reduced by 25%
Hello armor for my merc!
Neagelring
+64 to attack rating
Magic damage reduced by 3
Attacker takes 3 damage
27% magic find
Ring for magic find, obviously.
Mor Bite (rare Hyperion Spear)
+266% enhanced damage
+43 to maximum damage (depends on clvl)
+1435 to attack rating (depends on clvl)
Adds 9-13 fire damage
+7 poison damage over 3 seconds
Hello weapon for my merc! 123-478 damage and huge bonus to attack rating cannot be ignored
Blackhorn's Face
Prevents monster from healing
Slows target by 20%
+182% enhanced defense
Lightning resist +15%
+20 lightning absorb
Attacker takes 25 lightning damage
Gloom's Trap
5% mana steal
+148% enhanced defense
+15 to vitality
Increase maximum mana by 15%
Regenerates mana 15%
-3 to light radius
Another Neagelring, this time with 17 MF.
Gravepalm
+105% damage vs undead
+127 attack rating vs undead
+175% enhanced defense
+10 to strength
+10 to energy
Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye
+20% faster cast rate
+2 to Cold Mastery
+2 to Lightning Mastery
+1 to Fire Mastery
+10 to energy
+57 to life
+77 to mana
A sorceress would be very glad.
Look what I managed to gamble out of Gheed...
Raven Frost!
+230 to attack rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage
+17 to dexterity
+40 to many
Cold absorbtion 20%
Cannot be frozen
Jackpot!
Snowclash
Adds 13-21 cold damage
+2 to Shivering Armor
+2 to Blizzard
+3 to Glacial Spike
+153% enhanced defense
+15% to maximum cold resistance
+15 cold absorbtion
Coldkill
10% chance to cast lvl 5 Frost Nova on striking
10% chance to cast 10 lvl Ice Blast on attacking
+30% increased attack speed
+166% enhanced damage
+40 cold damage
+15% maximum cold resistance
Cold resistance +15%
Goldwrap
+10% faster attack speed
+47% enhanced defense
+25 defense
53% additional gold from onsters
30% magic find
+2 to light radius
Magic find belt. Nothing more, nothing less.
Viscerautant
+1 to Sorceress skills level
+20% faster block rate
+30% increased block rate
+105% enhanced defense
Attacker takes 10 lightning damage
It is time, I think, for me to go throught the plot. I am still hoping to find some good shield with 3 socket to make Sanctuary Runeword. I think I will make some magic find runs, but only after I got access to Pindleskin.
Act II Hell difficulty
Wawrzynie switched to his "game-beating" gear and his stats (unbuffed) are as following:
His skills:
It is time to start Act II. First, some boss packs in the sewers:
Aura Enhanced, Teleport, Magic resistance. Aura could be dangerous.
Radament:
Afyer this, Wawrzyniec left Lut Gholein and directed himself immediately to the far Oasis, finding some bosspacks and items on his way.
Aura enchanted, cursed, stone skin (and immune to physical due to that)
Cursed, extra strong, fire enchanted. Good combination.
Natalya's Soul
+40% faster walk/run
+83 to defense
Resteres stamina +22% (depends on clvl)
Cold resist: +16%
Lightning resist: +20%
Wawrzyniec found Far Oasis, its waypoint and the maggot's lair.
Magic resist, lightning enchanted, cold enchanted
Fire enchanted, cursed, extra fast
These folks have exactly the same name. Twins?
Extra fast, extra strong and cursed
Teleport, stone skin (immune to physical as result) and cold enchanted.
Poor Coldworm the Burrower:
Cold enchanted, magic resistance, cursed, aura enchanted. Its aura was holy freeze, so it was a Duriel wannabe, the main difference lied in Coldworm not bieng able to attack on its own. Details, details.
After Wawrzyniec picked the first part of the staff, he directed himself to the lost city. 3 things to do here: finding a waypoint, locating the ancient tunels and finding valley of snakes.
Nice battle vs 2 boss packs at once:
Cursed, extra strong, cold enchanted
Ancient tunnels entrance localized:
And so is Claw Viper's temple:
Inside, I found Monarch with 3 sockets. I squealed with glee, as it meant Sanctuary runeword!
+20% faster hit recovery
+20% faster block rate
+20% increased block rate
+144% enhanced defense
+250 defense vs missiles
+20 to dexterity
All resistances +58%
Magic damage reduced by 7
Level 12 Slow missiles charges
The resistance bonus was less than avarage from this items, but I can't be chooser, I guess. This is the first time I managed to make this runeword in single player, after all.
Found Rite of Passage:
+30% faster run/walk
+25 defense
+24 to max stamina
Freeze length reduced by half
Nothing too crazy.
Here's a screenshot of Wawrzyniec's battle against Guardians champions pack + Guardian boss pack at once. It was very dangerous and I made a screenshot only when 1 champion was left.
Reached level 2 of the temple. An now look at this:
Fangskin, aside from being lightning enchanted and extra fast, as usual, has extra strong and spectral hit. Meaning he, and his minions would be very devastating with their charge attack. And now, icing on the cake:
A Guardian boss with mana burn, spectral hit and... cursed. Meaning Fangskin and his minions will do even more dmage. And note their positioning, it will be fun.
And it was fun, albeit dangerous. I used all my healing potions and some rejuvs as well. But Horadric staff is now in Wawrzyniec's hands... or rather, cube.
After this, Wawrzyniec swiftly made his way to the Arcane Sanctuary and started searching for the summoner. Bad news: there were a lot of mana-draining physical immune ghost that ignored Wawrzyniec's merc and attacked the barbarian alone. Good news: at least Wawrzyniec found the summoner on the first try. A champion pack behind him was more dangerous than him.
Stroll throught Canyon of the Magi:
Extra strong, fire enchanted, magic resistance
It was now time to face Duriel:
Nothing much to say. While being buffed and using Concentration, Barbarian had only about 15% chance to be hit by Duriel, and Duriel relies on physical attacks. And such, was easy to beat, Wawrzyniec didn't even had to use any potion at all. The loot was weak as well: Sigon's Gloves and Berserker's Helm. Meh.
And like that, Wawrzyniec reached act III Hell. Will he succeed where Zaraki failed?
Have to fought the temptation to put up a contest, who reach guardianship first, but i fight the urge and keep on playing patiently
Thanks... I also think that playing patiently and carefully, especially since I never beat hell difficulty on Hardcore before, is necessary.
Hell difficulty, act III
Let's start from the battle against two boss packs, from which I got the jade figurine, needed to complete the Golden Bird quest:
Lightning enchanted, fire enchanted, aura enchanted. Pretty enchanting fellow.
Cursed, cold enchanted, teleport
Looking for Khalim's organs. Sszark the Burning was extra strong, cursed, mana burn and extra fast. Potentially very dangerous.
Found the Gidbinn (Ormus decided to not give me anything good for it) and then explored the Flyer Dungeons to find Khalim's brain.
In Lower Kurast, the waypoint was quite near two notablo houses with high lvl chests in it. Will be useful during magic find runs.
In Kurast Bazaar, the swarms of insect were immune to physical damage, but surprisingly defeating them quite swiftly didn't require using Berserk. Swarms are very fragile to elemental damage, and Baranar's Star provided elemenetal damage from fire, cold and lightning.
The waypoint was near both the Forgotten Temple and Sewers. Quite nice. Speaking of the Temple, Wawrzyniec's battle against Sarina's pack and random unique pack:
Stat points from Lan Esen's tome went into vitality. Then, Wawrzyniec went to the sewers ready to face his biggest (or smallest, depends on how you look at it) fans, but fortunately found entrance to level 2 pretty quick, facing Icehawk in the process.
Cold enchanted, teleport, extra fast, mana burn
Sewers level 2, Wawrzyniec faced undead soul killers champions. #Nope
It is worth noticing that lvl 2 of Sewers is level 85 area. It usually has only 1-2 unique/champion packs, but it has multiple chests, some of the high drop-rate ones. Since the entrance to lvl 2 is quite close, I think it is worth to include it in my future MF runs.
But it turned out, Khalim's heart truly belonged to our Barbarian. The next important step in Wawrzyniec's journey was to go straight to Travincal and take out the council members. Overall, they required caution, but they are fair challenge and potentially rewarding too. Wawrzyniec will definitely include them in future MF runs. The way to Zaraki's doom was now open.
Geleb was extra strong, fire enchanted, spectral hit and stone skinned
Toorc was cold enchanted, stone skin, cursed and teleport
Durance of Hate. Try to explode in my face now, you bastards.
After Wawrzyniec reached level 2, I fought an urge to squee. I just beat my personal record in terms of playing hardcore. Ufnortunately, level 2 also spawned groups of #nopes so I made Wawrzyniec focus on fidning a waypoint and then level 3 as fast as possible, using the ancient art of survival known as running the f... away. I would need to run throught the enitre level anyways for MFing. Anyways, level 3.
Mafeer was extra strong, extra fast, magic resistant and mana burn.
Wyand was mana burn, teleport, fire enchanted and extra fast
He was also accompanied by lightning enchanted, magic resistant and fire enchanted mini boss.
The battle against uncle Mephisto went quickly and smoothly. Good thing it was the case, as I will visit the uncle multiple times in near future.
Already in Pandemonium Fortress, I identified unique mace the Uncle left for me:
Fleshrender
+2 to shape shifting skills
+1 to druid skills level
+158% enhanced damage
20% chance for crushing blow
20% chance for deadly strike
25% chanse of opening wounds
Prevent monsters from healing
+50% damage vs undead
Would be really good for shapeshiting druid, especially after upgrading to elite version.
Depends what you mean by "fast enough". I guess the main ptoblem with killing rate in that build is that you do only single-target damage. Frenzy Barb or WW is genrerally better for damage dealing due to abillity to attack multiple targets. Also, Berserk barb surprasses Concentrate in pure dps (not to mention many enemies utterly lack resistance to magic damage Berserk deals).
That being said, wielding Immortal King's Stone Crusher or similar tier two-handed mace I had no problems with DPS. 1-h weapon + shield is a powerful defensive combo, but damage wasn't as impressive. For many Battle.net players with thier fancy runewords, it might even look slow. The build certainly is viable, but the question is whether it is your cup of tea.
One more thing. With doing concentrate barb, either use 2h weapons or 1-hand + shield. Never go to dual wielding, it serves no purpose. Doesn't provide additional dps (since you use only 1 hand when attacking with concentrate) and it usually doesn't offer any protection.
Edit:
Spending points in dexterity wouldn't affect your DPS very much. Strength isn't provide much damage boost, if you consider all +enhanced% damage on your items, skills, passives etc.
Act IV
Hell difficulty
First thing I want to say is that on Plains of Despair, there were burning souls there, so Wawrzyniec equipped Wisp Projector to deal with them (it provides lightning absorb) Worked very well.
Izual didn't last long despite masive life pool. Crushing blow is just that good.
Wawrzyniec kept the ring on even in City of the Damned.
When Wawrzyniec entered the River of Flames, it occured to me that this area and Chaos Sancturay are level 85 areas, and so I modified my gear. I used Baranar's Star + Sanctuary combo and with some other changes of my gear, Wawrzyniec had 205% magic find, while still having good stats:
The most difficult encounter was with two boss packs at once:
I have screencaped only one of them. Cold enchanted, aura enchanted, teleport.
There were moments Wawrzyniec wished he was WW or Frenzy barb.
Hephasto (spectral strike, aura enchanted, lightning enchanted, mana burn) was a joke in comparison to those previous boss packs. I got Io rune for my troubles.
Chaos Sanctuary time! Infector of Souls was the most difficult of all superuniques.
Extra fast, spectral strike, extra strong, lightning enchanted
Lord de Seis was extra strong, aura enchanted, magic resistant and multiple shot
Grand Vizier of Chaos was extra strong, fire enchanted, magic resistant and extra fast
Diablo went down rather quickly, but dropped something nice. For Necromancers, but still!
Trang-Oul's Scales
+2 to summoning skills
+40% faster run/walk
+150% enhanced defense
+100 damage vs missiles
Poison resist: +40%
Requirements: -40%
Hell difficulty
First of all, I decided to upgrade Goldwrap to Exceptional version:
I decided to use it. Now I have 235% magic find, while still being quite powerful.
Shenk's drops were nothing special, to say it lightly
Time to rescue barbarians and beat down some monsters.
Extra fast, extra strong, fire enchanted
Found Magnus' Skin
+100 to attack rating
+50% enhanced defense
Fire resistance +15%
+3 to light radius/div>
When Wawrzyniec got into Crystalline Passage, something very interesting happened. It has ghost spawned, so they were immune to physical damage. Not too much of a big deal, mana burn will be just annoying. But then I saw this:
Well, one or two are not a big deal! Right? That was all well and good, until Wawrzyniec encountered first boss packs on those.
The battle that ensured was much more epic than battle against Diablo himself. Wawrzyniec had to kite the demons so that he could eliminate the minions one at a time. And that took some time, and returning to town. Also, Wawrzyniec couldn't use Berserk if he didn't want to have his arse handled to him. He even started wearing Shaftstop once again.
The champion pack was actually easier. Due to the fact their pathfinding left much to be desired:
Luckily, Wawrzyniec managed to find waypoint and entrance to Frozen River rather quickly. But monster spawns in there was also interesting. Sirens, Succubi and Corrupted Rouges with spears. It was a fun to be cursed with Amplify Damage, while avoiding bullet (or rather, Blood Star) hell. Seriously, I had fun. I was actually laughing and making jokes to myself. Some boss packs:
Extra strong, cursed, fire enchanted
Frozenstein and his minions were of no concern to Concentrate barb. They are relying on physical damage, but Wawrzyniec's defense was too good for them.
Wawrzyniec freed Anya, get additional resistances from Malah and now... was in perfect position to find pre-finishing act V magic find runs. Multiple level 85 areas, some superuniques that are easily accessable... Let's see how Wawrzyniec will fare.
Aside from some PR talk, I am glad that Diablo will get some announcements later this year. Which makes me think of Blizzcon.
This franchise needs more love.
Another magic find runs
As usuall, I will be only presenting exceptional and elite finds (when talking about unique items).
Wawrzyniec's stats:
Rainbow Facet
100% chance of casting level 37 Blizzard when you die
Adds 23-38 cold damage
+3% cold skills damage
-3% enemy's cold resistance
Boneshade
+2 to necromancer skills level
+25% faster cast rate
+1 to Bone Spirit
+3 to Bone Spear
+2 to Bone Wall
+5 to Bone Armor
+5 to Teeth
+50% damage vs undead
The Scalper
+20% increased attack speed
+150% enhanced damage
+25% increased attack rating
+5% life steal
33% chance to open wounds
+4 many for each killed enemy
Replenishes charges
Storm Heart (rare jewel)
+29% enhanced damage
+8 to maximum damage
Fire resist +28%
M'avina's Icy Clutch
Adds 6-18 cold damage
+45 to defense
+10 to strength
+15 to dexterity
Freeze length reduced by half
+56% additional gold from monsters
Rainbow Facet:
100% chance of casting 41 lvl Nova when you level up
Adds 1-74 lightning damage
-5% enemy's lightning resistance
+3% lightning damage from skills
Razor's Edge:
+40% increased attack speed
+201% enhanced damage
-33% enemy's defense
50% deadly strike
50% chance of opening wounds
Swordguard
+20% faster hit recovery
+20% increased chance of blocking
+175% enhanced damage
+440 defense (depends on character's level)
+200 defense in meele
+100 defense vs missiles
All resistances +15%
30% damage goes to mana
Requirements -50%
This sword is clearly designed for Barbarians and to wear it in one hand and having shield in the other. The damage is quite Meh one-handed, but I think it can be okay after upgrading to Elite version. Maybe one day I'll make barbarian to use this item.
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
10% mana steal
10% life steal
+40 defense
+60 to life
+30 to mana
All resistances +15
Better base defense than my current one, so its an upgrade
Ist rune, found on my way to Chaos Sanctuary. I wonder what surprises the game still has for me?
Its this.
I'll make myself a break from this game for some time, since I play too much lately. Good luck to, hopefully, future Guardian Augustus!
As you can see, I decided to switch to english version of the game, just so that making updates was easier for me. I wouldn't need to translate things.
The goal is simply to beat the game hardcore on Hell difficulty by any means necessary. Plus, in order to not feel like I'm just speedrunning between grinding, I decided a sidequest for myself: to find and open every special chest in side dungeons. But, let's start the playthgrough.
Sanyah part 1
First quest went smoothly, as usual. Nothning really to report there. In the Cold Plains, Sanyah got herself a short bow. It will be useful thing to have for now, particularly against Coldcrow
Look, a Bishibosh!
At first, Sanyah's mana reserves aren't going to be big, so she needed something to stab monsters with.
Visiting the Cave, Sanyah encountered the Coldcrow. Tried using her bow, but the corrupted rouge archer was just better at it. Made Sanyah spam firebolt instead and after Coldcrow fell, the sorceress found herself a nice cap.
First pair of magical rings in Mausoleum
Sanyah bought herself a magic scimitar:
She also encountered Bonebreaker and broke its bones.
Sanyah bought sash of the fox:
Facing Blood Raven. Small trivia: her weapon is randomnized, meaning it can have various properties. In this case, she had a chance to cast amplify damage. Level 1 curse doesn't last long, though.
Finding the stone circle:
Visiting second level of the underground passage:
In the dark woods, Sanyah found first topaz to inser into her armor:
Facing Treehead Woodfist's minions:
Let's have a stroll throught Tristram and recuing Decard Cain
Got a ring from Akara. It is kinda useful for this part of the game.
While on the Black Marsh and in side-dungeon, Sanyah found another topaz for her armor. She has 18% magic find now.
Facing the Countess
After which, Sanyah planned to keep visiting the Countess until the sorceress was level 15. First things first, she bought herself a staff from Akara:
Some finds during the runs:
Don't have screenshots from the Pit or from battling the Smith. But at least I have a result from imbuling a item using the Hoardric Mallus:
Next is Andarel. Sanyah vs Maiden of Anguish:
The loot:
Sanyah's stats:
Some Andy runs will follow. First, Sanyah will need some more magic find:
After the first run, Sanyah realized that buying staff +2 to Blaze for this purpose (and later against Duriel) was a good thing to do. Some run results:
Sanyah also changed her armor for something better:
To be continued...
Victor Augustus
"En Immortui, rerum dominos, gentemque contegossa."And so, the grind at Andariel continues in Hell.
Pierre Tombale, not bad for a partizan.
Carin Shard.
And finally some really interesting.
Let's check the roll.
Another jewel to pump up the magic find of Ali-blade.
What is a unique tyrant club?
Like this boots named after the great BG character Shank.
Another elite unique,
This shrine spawns on some occasions in Andy's lair.
Oh, that's some goodie there!
Goldstrike Arch.
You think that two twisted essence of suffering from Andariel is much?
Immortal King's boots
Swordguard from a devilkin pack.
Hellmouth.
And Black Hades from a casket. I wondered if i should give this to my merc, or keep the Spirit Forge. Aside from the +1 socket and the higher AC, Spirit Forge is the winner, but i kept Black Hades in the end. For... don't know why. I plan to find a better armor for my merc anyway
Laying of Hands.
A set grand crown.
Djinn Slayer with one socket and low rolls.
And another item from the Trang set!
I think the splendor shield is still better, but it's good to have nonetheless.
Pelta Lunata!
And look at this sexy blue leather gloves too
A good summoning grand charm!
Don't expect a unique battle scythe.
A shimmering jewel,
Jade Talon.
A slightly better Black Hades from Andy, but now that i put that shimmering jewel in it, i keep the current one.
A big hammer.
My new magic finder amulet.
Bloodmoon and Darksight Helm, side by side.
Lance Guard.
Another shimmering large charm, this time with +life.
A note to self: playing HC with remote control is a bad idea.
On another note, Augustus completed 100 visit by Andy, so for a change of scenery he went to the Countess to gather two Shaels in Durga's armor. An Um for Crescent Moon pole (and another one for a Duress armor) would be good too...
For this Augustus had not needed the magic find gear, so he equipped for questing.
Augustus' new strenght boosting amulet.
One Shael.
My second Jade Talon.
And the second Shael came not much later.
Back to Andy she greeted us with a colorful drop.
The Minotaur.
And here comes another Trang gloves with another Demon Limb and...
Another Gheed's Fortune. Checked if i miss something really good, but my current one is way better.
Tri-res boots with faster run/walk. My current crafted one is better.
Another Basinet, a green one this time.
Still not good enough for Durga to drop his current circlet with life leech.
Good old Kelpie with a Crescent Moon amulet and a green Grim Helm.
Not the best rolls on Natalya's Totem, still i gave that to the Merc. That +strenght and dexterity will come in handy if i manage to find an elite pole for my merc. It has better defense and +resistances too, which may compensate the lack of life steal, or so i hope.
Gambled some circlets from the hoarded gold, coronets and tiaras can come with necromancer prefix now.
Nothing exciting came, aside from this plain venomous tiara.
Another unique ring from Andy.
It can be potentially good.
Next interesting thing is...
Third Trang gloves with +1 more defense...
And here it was time to advance the plot. I would like to open up new areas, especially the Maggots Lair, that i may visit in future runs, for example when i search for the missing Trang Oul's items.
Maggot Lair was fairly easy on P1 settings and with adventuring gear.
Magic immune enemies in the Lost City were not problem at all with the help of my minions and corpse explosion.
That's some big damage bonus against undead.
After hitting the Lost City waypoint Augustus advaced to the viper's temple. Nothing nasty surprise by Fangskin.
Augustus rushed through the palace harem, and found the Summoner on first try in Arcane Sanctuary. I was quick enough to take a selfie before the Summoner fell.
And from then Duriel's lair was just a short stroll.
Duriel dropped a Demon's Arch, which switched the ethereal Athena's wrath.
Augustus visited then The Countess some times in hope of some good runes, and for some generic runes for crafting. Crafting did not provided anything mentionable, but Augustus found this in an armor rack:
After that Augustus visited Radament for the +1 skillpoint,
Augustus gathered Khalim's eye,
then found a lucky route, where he didn't have to track through Great Marsh.
, opened a portal before the Flayer dungeon
entrance and went on to hit Lower Kurast waypoint.
Went back to collect the brain too,
Found a Duriel's Shell at the Cold Plains by accident.
From there things got fast, and i had to remind myself time to time to adventure on a safe pace, instead of rushing forward to Baal.
Collected the Tome at Ruined temple, Khalim's ear, or finger or something in the sewers, and disposed the Council.
After some tedious maze exploring Augustus could finally face Mephisto.
He dropped Aldur's boots,
which has less resistance bonus, than my current crafted one, but have superior run/walk and a huge life boost too, so i kept that.
And now, Augustus is on his way to Diablo.
Hephasto gave me a Pul,
Which i used to cube an Um,
Some decent damage there.
After some testing it was obvious, that those static field strikes works like a charm too. Durga deals with champions and pack bosses rather fast, even on higher difficulty settings. Still there are times he is swarmed and get killed faster, than he could kill his enemies.
So i looked at my Lem rune and thought that i'm just some low quality runes away from a decent Treachary
armor with Fade and +45% fast attack.
For the Lem first i visited the Countess, but then i moved to Lower Kurast. It may takes some more to find a Lem there, but there are some odds to find something better too, and it's much faster and somewhat safer, than the Forgotten Tower.
From lower Kurast the first interesting item i can mention is a small charm,
After that, lo and behold:
I continued to visit LK to gather my needed runes for Trachery, and they dropped not much later.
Treachery replaces Duriel's shell.
Third Black Hades.
Second Trang wing from Andy.
Now, that i don't need it Andy drops that unique Yari too.
Lot of green items, useless at this point.
Crown of thieves from a casket. As it turned out for me my merc can't use this sadly. He needs the plus strenght from his current helm for wielding the Colossus Voulge, and i don't want to use a socket quest on the grand crown for this. The problem is, Durga still dying frequently by Andariel, and sometimes from other nasty monster packs too (however with Treachery this got better apparently).
Nevertheless, i decided it was time to enter Chaos Sanctuary and face Diablo.
There came my second Trang armor, and with some free space i could store it this time.
Infector's army did not have a chance against Durga Crescent Moon pole and Augustus corpse explosions.
Fight with Diablo.
As you see there were some hot moments. Diablo put up a surprisingly good fight at P3. Still, it was not as dangerous as at Normal sometimes.
Now the way to the final Act is clear!
I forgot to mention that since level 12, all of skill points Anyah got went into Lightning and it will continue that way until level 26 (minus all pre-requires she needs and energy shield).
Anyway, Sanyah defeated Radament quite easily:
After heading out to the desert, Sanyah visited Stony Tomb for a specail chest. Here's the Creeping Feature:
While searching for Horadric Cube, Sanyah found a nice ring:
Recieving the Cube:
While strolling through the Far Oasis, Sanyah managed to make Stealth runeword in
boobbreast plate.Cooldworm the Burrower was fried by lightning. Sanyah got the first part of the Horadric Staff.
Ancient tunnels entrance. Nothing interesting was inside to report, though.
Despite being lightning enchanted, Fangskin died pretty quickly. Horadric Staff was made whole shortly after.
Speaking of staves, Sanyah bought herself a really nice one.
Sanyah got into Arcane Sanctuary, found some items and faced the Summoner.
This screenshot just about sums up Sanyah's "battle" against Duriel:
At the beginning of act 3, Sanyah bought herself better magic find boots
Found a jade statue, made the Golden Bird quest. Also, getting first of Khalim's organs:
Gidbinn and the reward for retrieving it:
Witch Doctor Endugu and Khalim's Brain
Hello, Swampy Pit. You look like a nice place.
Lam Esen's tome. The quest reward points went into vitality.
And Khalim's Heart, found in the sewers. As usual, I wonder how it managed to stay preserved in conditions like this.
Now, Sanyah needed just to rush to Travincal, face the High Council and the destroy the Orb of whatever it was called.
Facing Uncle Mephisto like a badass. Or maybe not quite.
Unfortunately, +1 to Cold Skills doesn't do much for me.
20% of additional magic find can come in handy, though.
Without using static field, Izual lasted a while, which resulted in a very boring battle for Sanyah.
Now, it was time to destroy Uncle's soulstone. Entering the River of Flames, battling Hephasto and crushing the stone.
Time for killing Diablo, also known as the Lord of Terror, one of the Prime Evils, The Dark Lord, Dialon, The Dark Wanderer, al'Diabalos, Destroyer of Tristram and wrecker of people's arses with his Lightning Breath.
Unfortunately for him, Diablo, the Lord of Terror, one of the Prime Evils, The Dark Lord, Dialon, The Dark Wanderer, al'Diabalos, Destroyer of Tristram and wrecker of people's arses with his Lightning Breath has perished in battle.
Yes for magic find
Already in act V, Shenk met Diablo's fate much faster and much easier.
Time to do some grinding. That staff is nice, especially when Sanyah will have access to Frozen Orb and Hydra
Pretty good bone helm:
Better base armor for Stealth:
I like resistances on this one.
Freeing the Barbarians, then freeing Anya
She was kinda grateful for a change:
Some results of bothering uncle Pindleskin:
Finding the Circlet with sockets and the Sol rune enabled me to create the Lore runeword:
Bye bye, Nihlahtak:
Before reaching Arreat's summit, Sanyah visited some side areas in search for special chests:
Sanyah's battle against the Ancients:
And finally, Baal's minons and Baal himself:
Sanyah stats:
Finishing the post, I mentioned Sanyah's progress being huge, but I'll be frank - there is still much to describe. But that I will left for later.
Victor Augustus
"Nihlathak, legiones redde!"So Augustus arrived to the land of barbarians.
First he visited Shenk,
A four socketed Spirit base to make me remember i'm on non-ladder.
Tresh Socket greeted us at the Crystalline Passage entrance,
Gambling gave some success too to Augustus finally.
With rescuing Anya the Portal to Pindlegarten was open, and Augustus got some cheap raising material for his undead army. The Drill was Pindlegarten, Lower Kurast and most times Andy.
Shank's boots from Pindle:
Gambling goodies again:
And after less than 50 run Pindle surprised me with this.
OK, i did not mean the Wire Fleece, but sadly it was as much useful for Augustus as the other armor. From which i forgot to take a screenshot
A Lem from Pindlegarten
Djinn Slayer from a weapon rack.
A nice blue amulet.
And some comfirmation that my Lower Kurast runs are still not in vain.
Look at this well rounded coronet.
Umbral Disk.
The Oculus.
And Boom.
Honestly, it was not entirely out of the blue. My merc kept on dying from time to time, and sometimes those nasty defiled warriors cleared Augustus flank and managed to score a charged strike. This time i helped them even more, because after my merc felled from Pindle i teleported back to town to resurrect him. After that, rater than starting a new game, i went back to the battlefield. This flawed tactic was succesful several times, but not this time.
These are old stories now, but i had to get a break, before writing from it
https://eu.diablo3.com/en/blog/22549433/diablo-at-blizzcon-2018-17-10-2018
For me, the following thing is most interesting:
While we won’t be ready to announce all of our projects, we do intend to share some Diablo-related news with you at the show.
What I understand by this, is the following: Diablo IV is in the production, but we won't announce it on the Blizzcon this year.
I am not mad, angry or even disappointed. If Blizzard indeed have multiple Diablo-related projects in work, the biggest and most significant one would naturally need more time. That's just my take on it.
Any thoughts?
Ironlad: Paladin with charged strike as main attack. Got Ribcracker from normal Nihlathak and a good Steeldriver from normal Baal. With those weapons he shared big pounches to his enemies, but some umpa-lumpas overwhelmed him at the barracks on his way to nightmare Andariel.
Vashlaczi: Same class and skills as Ironlad, but i tried to focus more on defense this time. He reached Nightmare Act4, but felled at Durance level 2 while running Meph by some dolls killing him angry bird style.
Alma: Amazon with javelin skills. Used charged strike and lightning fury as main attack, Freezing arrow against lightning immunes. She provided a very enjoyable play, even found my highest ever rune with her.
Rose: Assassin with traps as her main skills. Progressed very nice till late hell. She lost her edge in the Durance of hatred, where some lightning immune Blunderbore packs killed her shadow and merc much faster than she could eliminate them with fire blast. She felled there at the Durance of hatred entrance, when i went back to farm Lower Kurast i realized that it's not enough to break the Compelling Orb for the Zealots to run from you, you have to kill all the Council members. I left Geleb beforehand because of his lightning and fire immunity,
Suzy: Assassin like Rose, felled at normal Act 1, Tamao Highland entrance by some skelly mages. I may went too bold with this one...
Since I am pretty sure that I'll never do proper updates on my playthroughts (maybe doing threads like this is just not my cup of tea), at least I can do a summary.
Sanyah completed Nightmare difficulty, reached the end of Act II hell. Among the items she managed to gather was Several SOJs, Vipermagis, Tal Rasha's Horadric rests, Lidless Eyes and one Fine-Spun Cloth. All of those but the last one found on Andy nightmare.
Since my mercenary keept dying rapidly in Tal Rasha's tombs, I made a decision to farm some level 85 areas. It was also good, since I was looking for full Tal Rasha's set. Unfortunately, during like 100th run or so I was stupid enough to make Sanyah teleport in the middle of boss pack in mausoleum. Cursed, might aura etc. She died stunlocked, full rejuvs didn't help much.
Irek was a bone necromancer. I was thinking - mostly, I die when I'm farming. So I wanted to make a character to find out, how long can I make a character progress without farming. Turns out, Irek died in act II hell to Beetleburst. My mistake was approaching to closely and as result its charged bolts provided deadly.
As you can see above, I still have one character alive. Bart the frenzy barbarian. To be honest, I only made this character because it has been literally years since I made a frenzy barb. Feels kinda nostalgic to me. I have no hopes of beating hell with him, though.
Possibly beating hell hardcore is just not for me. And that's ok.