An adventure in Uber Tristram (single player)

So I've been looking for a torch for my SP barbarian for some time. I have found torches for paladin, sorceress, druid, necro and assassin, but no barb torch. Tonight I'd managed to farm another set of keys, so I grabbed my smiter to go do ubers. I'm not the most experienced uber runner (I usually just trade for torches online) and my paladin is a bit undergeared perhaps, but I've been able to kill the ubers without any major issues before.

Okay, so the mini ubers went down fine, no problems. But once I entered Uber Tristram things quickly went sideways in the worst way possible. I always try to pull Meph back from the other two and kill him first near the top left house. But as I attempt do this he one-shots me. I'm thinking, "it should be fine, my corpse is pretty far away from the center and only Meph is near it".

But it's not fine. As I enter the portal, Meph has for some reason moved inside the house right next to it and kills me instantly (during the friggin load screen!).

This keeps happening every single time I try to enter the portal, even if I bring my merc as a meat shield. I'm dead before I even gain control as Meph is effectively camping the portal. The paladin corpses just keep piling up on the Ground. As I'm on SP, there is no way to get help. It's just me and my own devices.

Before taking the L and saying goodbye to the torch, I decide to put everything I have into one last attempt. I go though my stashes, gathering all the resistance gear I have. I find a pair of Tearhaunch I was using long ago and haven't gotten rid of for some reason. I put on a Saracen's Chance, a Wisp Projector and an old Akaran Targe Spirit. I Revive my merc, cast Holy Shield, put on Salvation aura and click the portal one last time. It's now or never.

As the loading screen appears I start mashing the Charge hotkey and clicking frenetically on the top end of the screen. When the game is done loading, the first thing I see is my health plummeting while my paladin starts to Charge away from the portal, mages bombarding him with all kinds of damage, ghosts on his tail.

I get away with about 50 life left, run to a corner of the map, heal up, throw the temporary gear on the Ground and finally retrieve my real stuff.

And from then on everything went fine. Meph went down, and Diablo and Baal didn't put up much of a fight. Smooth sailing.

The torch?

It was a 19/18 barbarian torch. I couldn't make this stuff up.

Wow, that's when this game is worth playing. I don't imagine how you felt at the end ! Kind of relief + Pride, right ?

Congrats !

Necrarch wrote: 4 years ago

Wow, that's when this game is worth playing. I don't imagine how you felt at the end ! Kind of relief + Pride, right ?

Congrats !

Thanks! It was a good feeling for sure, probably one of my best d2 moments ever.

What a story! Good job, man!

That was risky, because in the case your temporary gear is worth more Gold than your primary gear and you exit the game, you would end up with the corpse that had your temp gear on it (it's picked by Gold value of equipment).

I got cold sweats just reading that.

Good Job! Uber Mephisto Conviction aura is very strong. When i go in Uber Tristram i preffer to use Lightsabre / Phase Blade/. It gives 25% Lightning Absorb. In combination with Wisp Projector i can kill Mephisto very easly. When Mephisto was down i switch to Grief and then kill DIablo and Baal.

First of all congrats! This is how I exactly learned to prepare for Uber Tristram. Lucky I was playing online and got some help.

louner wrote: 4 years ago

That was risky, because in the case your temporary gear is worth more Gold than your primary gear and you exit the game, you would end up with the corpse that had your temp gear on it (it's picked by Gold value of equipment).

Wow, really? Never knew it worked that way! I guess I haven't found myself in a similar situation before. I actually thought I would get all of it back if I quit. Anyway, the only things I had on as temp gear was Boots shield amu and rings, so it shouldn't have been worth more than my real setup, but still.

Conspirator wrote: 4 years ago

Good Job! Uber Mephisto Conviction aura is very strong. When i go in Uber Tristram i preffer to use Lightsabre / Phase Blade/. It gives 25% Lightning Absorb. In combination with Wisp Projector i can kill Mephisto very easly. When Mephisto was down i switch to Grief and then kill DIablo and Baal.

Yeah, I will definitely use Wisp Projector by default from now on. I thought it would be enough to prebuff with Fade from Treachery as it has worked for me before, but apparently it's not always enough. I have a Lightsabre somewhere also, thanks for the tip!

Engelmark wrote: 4 years ago

louner wrote: 4 years ago

That was risky, because in the case your temporary gear is worth more Gold than your primary gear and you exit the game, you would end up with the corpse that had your temp gear on it (it's picked by Gold value of equipment).

Wow, really? Never knew it worked that way! I guess I haven't found myself in a similar situation before. I actually thought I would get all of it back if I quit. Anyway, the only things I had on as temp gear was Boots shield amu and rings, so it shouldn't have been worth more than my real setup, but still.

Conspirator wrote: 4 years ago

Good Job! Uber Mephisto Conviction aura is very strong. When i go in Uber Tristram i preffer to use Lightsabre / Phase Blade/. It gives 25% Lightning Absorb. In combination with Wisp Projector i can kill Mephisto very easly. When Mephisto was down i switch to Grief and then kill DIablo and Baal.

Yeah, I will definitely use Wisp Projector by default from now on. I thought it would be enough to prebuff with Fade from Treachery as it has worked for me before, but apparently it's not always enough. I have a Lightsabre somewhere also, thanks for the tip!

I think all in all the goal is to be at 300% light res to fight Über Meph to negate his Conviction.
So if you gave 60-ish from Salvation + the standard 175 from usual gear, you need 65 more to find through gear changes, swappable charms...

Necrarch wrote: 4 years ago

I think all in all the goal is to be at 300% light res to fight Über Meph to negate his Conviction.
So if you gave 60-ish from Salvation + the standard 175 from usual gear, you need 65 more to find through gear changes, swappable charms...

Oh, do you mean that I would use Salvation while actually fighting Meph? (I usually switch to Fanaticism once I'm in melee range for attack speed and greater chance of proccing Life Tap from Dracul's.) In that case I could just as well use Resist Lightning, I was using Salvation to survive entering the portal mostly because I was taking all kinds of damage (cold from blizzard, fire from mages, etc.).

I would tend to keep Salvation on until Meph is dead, as his Conviction aura does something like -125 all res.

It's well explained in the Uber Mephisto page actually :

"300% resistance is needed to neutralize Über Mephisto's level 20 Conviction aura.
270% counting the Prison of Ice act 5 quest. 75% max resistance. 100% for the Hell difficulty penalty. and 125% for Über Mephisto's Conviction aura. "

If you can do it with Salvation instead of Lightning Resist you also gain Fire and Cold resists which will also be way lowered by Conviction, even if these are less critical for this purpose, so it's normally better to have Salvation on (even if you less need 300% for the others, damn those gloams !)

Well, I say that but never did über Tristram myself, just preparing for it.

I usually aim for 220 - 240 resistances (except for poison, which I put around 200-210) and after that proc Fade from Treachery. Don't use Thundergods or Lightsabre, didn't find a need for them (I prefer verdungo for Belt). With this setup after Conviction from Meph I have 55 to 75 res to all (35-45 for poison) switch to Fanaticism and Smite with dracs. When ubers get separated properly with this setup, don't have problems.