Matriarch Teebling

So I finally beat the game on hell difficulty Wanted to post about my experience here briefly as I've seen people do before.
My playthrough was pretty typical - early game I went for a

Fireball Sorceress with Leaf Stealth and Lore equipped.

Fireball was disgustingly fun and efficient up to about level 50 for me, which is when the immunes started appearing a lot.


Bricktop describing the effects of

Fireball in Normal and Nightmare modes ^

At this point my progress slowed to a stop. Me and the homeboy Mizan kept on dying over and over again, struggling to

Teleport away from packs of fire immunes in Nightmare Act IV.

I was level 50 but my gear hadn't changed much - still with Leaf and the starter runewords. Tragic tbh. Managed to shop some maxroll MF

Boots (35%) from

Fara, and some 27% MF gloves from

Elzix. Other stuff was just MF rings/ammies, nothing good dropped at all for me at the start.
Things were looking pretty bleak for

Fireball, a skill I'd really grown to enjoy using, and for my motivation to play tbh. Since I was still 20 levels away from being able to use

Flame Rift (70), I knew I'd have to do something else.

I respecced to try the classic Blizzard/

Meteor build with just a few points in synergising skills like

Glacial Spike,

Cold Mastery,

Fireball,

Fire Mastery. Even with the new push-hotkeys for spells, I found it hard to time

Meteor attacks... so I used my second respec and modified the build to max

Fireball damage, whilst still being able to use

Meteor.

This was the perfect balance for me as I got used to using mainly Blizzard and

Fireball (with

Meteor for big slow crowds/when I knew I could land a shot easily) and it felt a lot more fluid and fun to kill again. I beat Nightmare

Baal and entered Hell difficulty for the first time since LoD v1.14.
Then... I remembered that I built a trading site for diablo 2 so I started using it to get access to some free listings, and managed to exchange my collection of

Perfect Gems for various low level but useful items, including a

Duriel's Shell and Insight for my mercenary, as well as a

Skin of the Vipermagi and two 29% MF

Nagelring. I also spent a while trying to roll a nice Spirit

Crystal Sword by using

Recipe: Remove All Items from Sockets - highest FCR I got was 31.

One day everything changed in a second. On my very first run of Hell

Tower Cellar Level 5 either

The Countess or one of her minions dropped a

Ber rune which was totally unexpected (and very welcome! ) I exchanged it for 15

Ist soon after - I know they are worth a bit more than this - I just needed the Ists for liquidity asap.
With some of the Ists I managed to buy up a number of really good items.

The Oculus, 4/5 Tal Rasha's Wrappings, and

Chance Guards were mine. I also bought

Gheed's Fortune 31 MF, a bunch of MF charms, and some kind soul gave me an

Annihilus. I was level 70 at this point and already feeling like a fucking Beast.
Last problem I had to hurdle was the homeboy dying all the time again, over and over and over again, to the point of gold depletion. I had to do something about him and quick, if I was going to continue. This was Act 3-4 Hell sort of time. I met @Queegon for an amulet trade I think and he gave me a free Fortitude for my guy when I started moaning about Mizan dying. Thank you Queegon.

With Mizan back in the game, wading into hordes of demons without a scratch on him, I did eventually become unstoppable and made it all the way to

Baal, beating the game at level 80. I could have switched to a cold sunder build earlier at 70 in hindsight, but glad I stuck with the cold/fire thing as it felt more 'D2 Classic' for me personally.
My final loadout was:

Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest

Tal Rasha's Adjudication

Tal Rasha's Guardianship

Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth

The Oculus + Rhyme in

Gothic Shield

Gull +

Milabrega's Orb (on swap)

Chance Guards

Light Plated Boots of Luck
2x

Nagelring

Annihilus

Gheed's Fortune

Total possible MF with merc last hitting: 580 (!!)

Mizad:

Griswold's Valor with 2

Perfect Topaz
Insight

Partizan (wow so much mana, loved it)
Fortitude in

Great Hauberk

Skills (base points only) at level 80:

Blizzard 20

Glacial Spike 15

Cold Mastery 9

Fireball 20

Meteor 11

Fire Mastery 4
The rest were just 1 pointers like

Teleport or prerequisites.

So yeah, that was my journey. Nothing special and entirely ordinary but enjoyed it immensely all the same. Now the question is what's next? Shall I try and farm for a

Griffon's Eye, Lightning Sunder, Infinity etc. and go for full Lightning power onwards to 95?

I guess some people will see this post and think 'lol noob with noob gear', which is true lol, it's just that I hadn't really played the game since starting the site so this felt like an achievement for me. Also, think we need a real-time chat feature for trading on the site (wow the in-game chat is dreadful), and a Purchase History section/line on graph... and a shorcut button to see watched listings on one's own stash. Interesting what you find when you take your own medicine!

Nice story, I had a similar experience with my hammerdin, what a struggle and then holy cow a

Ber drops in front of you. Small change it and now you are fully geared to be a Beast. Congrats!

Congratulations, and a great story. We've all been there and when things finally break in your favor it feels pretty darn good.

mhlg wrote: 1 year ago

Congratulations, and a great story. We've al been there and when things finally break in your favor it feels pretty darn good.

Thanks dude, and thanks for donating the Annni! Legend

Congrats Teebling, welcome to the pantheon!

With how amazing the site is and all the work you've done, I don't think any could hold it against you for joining the party a bit late. Congrats on beating hell and looking forward to seeing what new ideas come from your experience!

Well written! And congrats! The first time defeating hell ancients with a sorc is a show of someone’s focus and discipline!

Great website btw!

Then... I remembered that I built a trading site for diablo 2 so I started using it

Hahaha, I chuckled while reading this =)

Well done, Teeb!!! ^0^

Good job and what a nice read! Loved it.

It is much more rewarding if you manage to do it in your own than to get boosted and rushed through all three playthroughs.

Offtopic: Please, allow me to thank you for your hard work on this website. I visit it multiple times each day and it has greatly enhanced my D2R experience. Thank you!

Ber from countess mobs... man gg on beating the game and all but that drop is where it's at lol. Well done!

GG

You know Teebling. I've been in a position like yours before where you are so close to something (D2 in this instance), but you're not actually participating in it. And you see people using and enjoying what you're using and its really nice to get to actually participate again. But when you said "noob using noob gear", it's true. People expect "oh you live in D2 therefore you must know everything." but all your time is spent on running something, that you never get to participate, so you're a "noob".

Anyways, just glad you had fun!

Congrats, very nicely done, Teebs!

My first

Ber in D2R also came from mobs in the Tower, GG

Bisu wrote: 1 year ago

Then... I remembered that I built a trading site for diablo 2 so I started using it

Hahaha, I chuckled while reading this =)

Well done, Teeb!!! ^0^

It made me chuckle too

Teebling wrote: 1 year ago

wow the in-game chat is dreadful

Yes..... yes, it is

Teebling wrote: 1 year ago

wow the in-game chat is dreadful

It is, when it works, which is half of the time for me One would think they would have fixed it by now.

Congratulations on your achievement! The story behind it was entertaining as well

Congrats on your achievement! I was actually surprised that you got a

Ber on Tower. Best I ever got from that damned tower was an

Um and it never happened again.

Also, thank you for providing us with a medium to interact with other players outside the game for trading and stuff. I really appreciate that

Well, without any kind of originality, I'll congratulate you !

Very surprising to see indeed that you have been out of the actual game for so long.

You have found one more

Ber than I ever did ^^

Some ideas for next steps that I would see as priority changes, in order :
- 1- Get a torch ! That's the single biggest up you can get by now. EDIT : check Discord, I think someone has one for you ^^ (not me)

- 2 - Get a better

Helm.

Tal

Helm is really bad and makes sense only when you use the full set, as now you have

The Oculus no need to keep that. A nice 2/20

Circlet can be quite cheap.
=> The

Tal

Mask can go on Mizan's Face then.

- 3 - Replace Rhyme by Spirit

Monarch. You'll need 156 STR though

- 4 - Replace the

Partizan Insight with an

Eth Elite version, still with Insight (later you wanna go Infinity, but that's a wayyyy longer road).

5- Btw, how much is your faster cast rate ? A

Key goal should be to be at 105.

If you miss 20 (after having put the

Circlet and Spirit 35 on !), replace Chance by

Magefist. If you miss 10, replace one of the rings.

- 6 - Better

Boots would be nice to. Ideally War Travs, but those are quite expensive.

Aldur's Advance is cheap.

That's what I'd see as top priority changes for you now.

But overall : whatever works ! Have fun !

Ah, and if you wanna play in a group from time to time, contact your mods, it's Shadowheart who is the admin for the D2io group split mf.

Very well written story
Congratulations !

lol noob with noob gear!

On a more serious note:
Grats!
As for your next challenge/goal, especially considering that you already touched upon "felt more fun", I wouldn't just blindly say go for lightning and deck that out. Seeing how you're on a sorc, you're in that comfortable position of having a char that actually offers 3 distinct perfectly viable skill trees (shoutout to sunders for finally making fire a thing!), each of which then still includes multiple perfectly end-game viable, distinctly different builds and playstyles even within that tree. Thanks to that, you can really just go "what's the most fun build/playstyle for me?" (I myself for example have always rather disliked the lightning playstyle) and find a challenge in content, rather than build gearing, using the build that is most fun to you.

For example..go get a torch! But not "go earn enough to trade for a torch"...rather, "go actually kill ubers to earn your own torch". It is entirely possible but in terms of "challenge in PvM content" probably the hardest thing you can ask yourself to achieve on a sorc.

Told you people would go crazy seeing you actually playing and, more importantly, that the guy who created our beloved site is a D2R virgin.

Well done! Now some TZ runs for more levels.