Level 99 experience

My first level 99 character in 20 years javazon.

Since patch 3.2, the shards are abundant. This opens up the possibility that we may terrorize good xp farming areas with the hope of earn the shards back along the way. It works. My Act 2 shards started at around 30, and end up around 50 when I finish.

Goal: Reach level 99 (starting from 98). Meanwhile farm sunder charms.

Timeline: Roughly 80 hours (SCNL, always solo game) from level 98 to 99. To me this is roughly two weeks of rather intensive play. Needless to say, this is probably the LEAST efficient way of leveling. My eyes and fingers hurt (I am not young any more...)

Strategy: Terrorize Acts 2, 4, and 5, farm only Canyon/Tomb, CS, WSK level 2, 3, Throne (including bosses). Sometime when other interesting area are terrorized, I will do it also for a small excursion.

Drops: I got 15 sunder charms. My estimate is roughly 5 hours of play will bring one charm. On average I got a little more than one charm each day. Among these charms, 5 cold, 3 poison, 3 fire, 2 lightning, 2 magic, no physical. One dropped from Lord of Seis, one from tz Mephesto. Others are all Heralds. Other drops are modest: 1

Jah from Cow, 1

Lo from CS, a couple of

Pul,

Um,

Mal,

Ist,

Gul along the road, 1 Mang Song, 1

Sling, 1 BK ring. There are many other uniques but they are not very interesting (I got a lot of shakos...). I got many gems along the way, and luckily crafted a 2/20 warlock amulet.

Heralds: By terrorizing Act2 and farm canyon/tomb, I on average roughly got 1

Herald per tomb, plus 1 in the canyon. Usually I also get one from CS and one from WSK or Throne, so one run gives roughly 9-10 heralds, which means reliably 4 to 5 tier 5 heralds. It turns out this is a efficient way of farming sunders. Warning: Tier 5 heralds can be pretty nasty. I got one group with

Fanaticism and

Concentration auras, cursed,

Stun, extra strong, lightning immune affixes, which make it almost unbeatable. Merc does not have a single chance of survive. I kited it for a while and kill it from a distance. It feels like an ancient fight.

Gears: I have almost BiS gears. Griffon, Enigma,

Thunderstroke, Phoenix, Thundergods, ravenfrost + wisp ring, highlord amulet, 2/20 glove, some sk gc. I stack some mf just make the process a little rewarding so I use

War Traveler and

Gheed charm, the total mf is about 260. Merc as Infinity,

Andariel, and CoH (maybe Fortitude is better but it doesn't seem to matter).

Conclusion: with the raining of shards after the patch, leveling to 99 in SCNL 1p is certainly something doable. However it does take a lot of patience (and eye/finger health), and the drops are not amazing at all.