An assassinous hardcore journey [win NL prizes]

TheDoo wrote: 8 months ago

Once you finish Ubers as well Mr. not-so-Shadow but-very-much-Heart, do you plan to retire completely from the HC and thus save a tiny bit of sanity or will you continue your adventures on this sweaty and edgy mode for the sake of even bigger Honor and glory?

Also, come on!!! You can do it!

This is still just a side-project to me, and if I do complete this I will probably take a break from D2R until the next ladder, and start that on SCL as usual. But we'll see what happens, I guess There may be more hardcour journeys in the future either way

Didn't you say something to that extent last time, only to then start this run like 2 days later?

Schnorki wrote: 8 months ago

Didn't you say something to that extent last time, only to then start this run like 2 days later?

Weeeell... not quite I think there was at least 2 weeks between the Death of my sorc and the birth of my necro, but that was because I was still waiting for the next ladder season and I wanted revenge And then I played this ladder season on SCL exclusively for 1.5 months before the birth of the assassin

It's been a good while since I posted in here, you might even have forgot this was a thing

Anyway, I have been quietly farming for gear and runes, and have been making some progress, but I'm not sure I'm ready yet to make an attempt at the ubers.

I made a Wealth and then my MF snowballed (quickly found a

Tarnhelm, then

War Traveler, and

Chance Guards - my MF with all of that plus 2 x

Nagelring and charms combined is now 346, I think). I also made it all the way to level 91, so my merc can now use an Ethereal

Colossus Voulge Insight (I found that base weeks ago while progressing through Hell normally, didn't think I'd actually get to ever use it).

So far I've found the following (only mentioning things that are sorta relevant);

• 2 x
  Pul (plus cubed one more
  Pul from 3 x
  Lem - still gave 3 x
  Lem)
• 2 x
  Um (and I finally made a
  Crescent Moon - I'm still a trapsin)
• 2 x
  Mal total
• 4 x
  Ist total (I've since cubed 2 of them into a
  Gul, since I have yet to actually find a
  Gul - can make another
  Gul if I want)
• Goblin Toe
• War Traveler
• Tarnhelm
• Chance Guards
• Thundergod's Vigor
• String of Ears (Perfect)
• Ethereal
  Duriel's Shell (Perfect)
• Angelic Wings +
  Angelic Halo
• Crack of the Heavens (-74 lightning res)
• Entrapping Grand Charm (+1 to traps)
• Shimmering Grand Charm of Life (+15 all res)
• Scintillating Jewel (15 all res)
• Assorted small/grand charms with life and/or resistances
• Assorted decent rare gloves/boots/jewelry with resistances
• A 2os
  Archon Plate (in case I want to make a Smoke)
• 2 x 3os
  Greater Talons (in case I go to the Mosaic route)
• A 3os
  Troll Nest (in case I want to make a Sanctuary)
• A 4os
  Phase Blade (in case I want to make a Kingslayer)

I still feel like I'm missing one or more of the following pieces (don't necessarily need all of them):

• Guillaume's Face
• Raven Frost
• Dracul's Grasp (given up on finding this - been mostly farming on Nightmare lately)

I'm going to pause this for now though, because the new ladder begins tonight and I plan to focus on that for the next while. I'll return to the HC SSF farming eventually though.

I'm also not sure if I should just try it as is with the stuff I've already found - I'm basically considering two approarches;
- Mosaic
- Kicksin/Trapsin hybrid (wouldn't use charges, just

Dragon Talon for quick application of Crushing Blow vs bosses, with LS/DS as a side gig)

My main worry about Mosaic is if I'll be able to stack enough resistances to survive. I won't have a shield. It'll be very hard to reach max res vs

Mephisto's

Conviction aura. Not sure I have enough stuff, I need to run some numbers (been focused on farming).

If I go the other route I can use a Sanctuary shield which makes resistance stacking so much easier. But with what I have now I'd then only have around 60% CB. If I had

Guillaume's Face I'd be up at 100 or close to it. Without Drac's I'd need to rely on a

Life Tap

Wand. And with only 60% CB I'm pretty much guaranteed to need to re-cast

Life Tap mid-fight vs each uber & mini. That's dangerous. I'm also lacking CBF (no

Raven Frost yet), unless I equip the Ethereal

Duriel's Shell myself (and socket it with +res). I could do that I suppose. Would it be good enough? Not sure.

Well, it's a decision that's going to have to wait a bit while I focus on the new ladder...

If you use

Fade in addition to the standard 75 all res + a few other things like charms, you should not be too far from the max res needed for Uber Meph ?

For having tried Ubers with a trapsin... I failed. Just not enough dps to hurt them strongly enough (especially with no sunder... but sunder hurts res !). i'd favour the Mosaic path + lots of other res (Smoke?).

Necrarch wrote: 8 months ago

If you use

Fade in addition to the standard 75 all res + a few other things like charms, you should not be too far from the max res needed for Uber Meph ?

For having tried Ubers with a trapsin... I failed. Just not enough dps to hurt them strongly enough (especially with no sunder... but sunder hurts res !). i'd favour the Mosaic path + lots of other res (Smoke?).

I have no idea what you mean by “standard 75 all res”.

Assuming I have Smoke (50),

Fade (60),

Anya (30),

Annihilus (10), that leaves me at 150. Half of the target 300. With Sanctuary shield (prevents using Mosaic) that’s another 50-70. I could try to stack only lightning res and have negative other resistances, but I worry I would get melted by the

Skeleton Mage adds. I don’t any all res small charms (at all). I have one all res grand charm. And a couple of single res charms. I don’t want to leave anything to chance if I can avoid it. I have one shot at this.

I wouldn’t use traps vs Ubers if I go that route. I’d be kicking. Traps are for adds and for getting to the minis. It’s a hybrid. Kicksin needs only 20

Dragon Talon as a base, that’s all. The rest is whatever you want really. A kicksin’s damage comes from Crushing Blow, like a Smiter. It’s always been one of the top tier Uber builds, even before Mosaic existed.

A kira's could also be good source of cnbf and res (esp if you go Mosaic route), but it also only drops on hell.

Yeah, I can farm on hell (just need to remove some mf gear for survivability). We’ll see what I do. Kira’s could be nice for sure. Just no guarantees when it comes to SSF