The Nudist Gazette

[CelticHound]

You might noticed the belt is still being broken in. For style points, a Cracked Sash is of course the ultimate. But I upgraded it to a Cracked Plated Belt and it still have 2-3 dur left. A Cracked Sash having only 8 slots would make the game a tad more challenging. IMTG would have died if she was still using the Cracked Sash. I am new to capturing game video and am often distracted by it which leads to sloppier plays. You know, instead of concentrating on the game, I am worry if I've set everything right, if it's getting too long, how should I end the vid, yada yada..

What if you start with a cracked sash and use the cube recipe to upgrade it - how would that be for style points?

[KingOfPain]

Unfortunately you can't do that with white/grey items... as if the devs had the foresight to keep elite rune word bases worth their weight in high runes.

[T-hawk]

He didn't mean literally upgrade by a cube recipe - just meant swapping in a 4-row belt instead of a 2-row.

You can find a Cracked Demonhide Sash if that's what you want (only find it, there's no way to make or buy one), although it's a lot scarcer than a cracked regular sash that drops from every third monster on the blood moor.

[KingOfPain]

Fire Engine Red & Foul Mouth Alice

Fire Engine Red, aka, FER. Naked All Passive Zon - The Ultimate Tank
Dressed to kill in high fashion



Foul Mouth Alice, named after Alice Cooper, Naked Curse Necro - The Ultimate Traffic Controller
The Casual Hipster look


That leaves 3 more classes to go butt naked.

Sorceress - would be too easy. What would make it more challenging? Not exactly looking for skill restrictions rather than more of a niche build such as Thunderstorm and skills that suck. Maybe a GGG build instead

Pally - The new Fist of the Heavens, too easy?

Baba - Maybe a slight variation of a Cry Baba with more emphasis on traffic control - more points in Howl, Taunt, Grim Ward
Might have mana issues but don't want to use an Act 2 merc with Insight. Rogue with Insight, maybe. Playing the role of a merc to the Act 5 Frenzy Barb might be interesting.

Comments are welcomed

[T-hawk]

I missed that when you posted it somehow, just saw it now.

Sorceress - if you want a challenge, disallow Teleport. But yeah, every offensive skill works pretty much the same naked or not. Maybe punching with Enchant might be interesting.

Paladin - same deal, the caster skills all work fine (Holy Bolt, BH, FOH) so naked isn't much different. Naked punching with Holy Shock might be interesting.

Barb - well, War Cry is the only way he can deal any damage without a weapon. So it's pretty much that, and you can decide how to split points between synergy to it or support skills like BO/Shout/Battle Cry.

[KingOfPain]

Naked punching would be brutal, but, should be doable to NM end and won't be much fun after that. I had a naked KickSin with Fade for damage reduction, CoS for crowd control, some way to leech life and AoE attacks from kicking...

Scratching the surface...

Sorcy has
Energy Shield for some damage reduction.
Cold armor for some protection - Problem with % base bonus, but some chill effect would be welcomed
Teleport would be good for crowd control
Enchant to possibly aid ToHit, and iffy on damage output - problem with % base bonuses, 200% of nothing is still very little. Will have to strip HotBowBabe to see
Loophole - can run Thunder Storm and or Blaze and call them pre-buffs

Pally has:
Replenish life and mana
Resistances
Better punching damage than Sorcy
Melee skills
Auras 

Baba has:
Some resistance
Many usable buffs.
AoE stun
Should make a decent traffic controller even naked.
Might even want to restrict his merc to a rogue or Ironwolf for more traffic control madness

And if you guys think these are hard, try coming up with names for the toons

[T-hawk]

Enchant does a ton of damage even naked - it adds fire damage, it's not a multiplier on the weapon. With level 20 Enchant/Warmth/Fire Mastery, it's around 1000 including the double application of Fire Mastery's multiplier for melee. Goes up quite a bit with more skill levels if you allow +fire skill charms (or even a skill shrine.)

Thunder Storm is an interesting option, though you won't quite get to max that and Lightning Mastery if you do it alongside the Enchant package.

Paladin doesn't inherently do better punching damage than sorcy, all classes are the same. He would get punching (and pulse) damage from Holy Shock or Freeze, plus can deliver it fast with Zeal. Although naked AR is a problem.

Actually the barb can do a tiny bit of punching damage, with Bash that adds up to +20 base. Might be enough to finish normal difficulty. War Cry is by far the easier route though. Or if you really do want punching, add min/max and elemental damage charms.

[KingOfPain]

Pally and Baba are better punchers because they have melee skills.
Paladin is a better puncher because he is faster than the sorceress, slightly from the inherent class speed advantage, and significantly with the skill such as Zeal.

I still have to explore the mercs and their gears. I think they will be the main factor in the determining the challenge/fun viability of the builds. Sure am not going to throw a Causal Pair Of Grief and Fortitude on a Frenzy merc and call it done. For example, if Enchant Sorc, then a Cold Rogue with Kuko is helpful and yet a very modest pairing.

[KingOfPain]

Ethel and Jeremiah

The idea behind these two noods is to encourage different play styles. Style, not just playing slowly and carefully because they are naked, but play entirely different than any other characters.

These two comes with their theme songs and where they get their names. Nothing much to report just yet but I thought I would commit them.

---

Oh, yes, they call him the Streak
Ethel! Where you goin'?
(Boogity, boogity)
Ethel, you shameless hussy!
He likes to show off his physique
Say it isn't so, Ethel!
(Boogity, boogity)
If there's an audience to be found
He'll be streakin' around
Invitin' public critique
Ethelllllll!

Ethel comes from the song "The Streak" many Beyond Naked players are familiar with because BNs have to do the Streak. (Links to both songs on youtube for the music lovers)


Ethel is hot if I have to say so myself. At level 12 she's already running lvl8 Warmth, and is going to be max'd.
She's got one point in Charged Bolt and Telekinesis, prereq for Energy Shield.
One point in Frozen Armor prereq for Shiva Armor. The cold armors are not so much for defence bonus or damage, rather, to slow down attackers. So probably stays at slvl 1.

Frozen Armor allow her to go melee with a little safety. Levelling up to lvl 6 came quickly in a solo multiplayer game. The Rogue merc with a triple gemmed Hunter bow is uber in Act 1 and should be good enough all the way to Andy. Lvl 6 brought in Inferno. It was surprisingly useful with lvl 8 Warmth. 30-61/sec! All that was well, until she hit clvl12. She realized she was doing it all wrong.

She should not stand still to get hit. Fire should come out from her behind. She should be Streaking!

Lvl 1 Blaze with 8 Warmth is half decent at 27-55/sec. It is going to take her a life time to master the tactics using the skill.

I have to keep in mind that not all variants are created to "beat" the game. I am well aware of the difficulties she will face in Hell with all too many Fire Immunes. Blazing naked vs range attackers would be most dangerous, and futile to those monsters who don't chase. The journey would be fun.

---

When I was thinking of a Traffic Control Baba with Leap, the game Frogger came to mind What was the name of the frog? I bet its name is Jeremiah - because the song said so.

Jeremiah was a bullfrog
Was a good friend of mine
I never understood a single word he said
But I helped him a-drink his wine
And he always had some mighty fine wine

He is a little bit more planned out than Ethel. We willl get a nice surprise from him later on.  Lvl 12 atm. Not much to say, it's a Baba, what do you expect? Could have gone hardcore punching his way here. I took the advice of mainstream build guides to put only enough Str to wear broken items and dump all points in Vit.


Although he gets his main skill among many skills from the Warcries tree, Jeremiah is not going to be your run of the mill Singer Baba.
Howl gets a point more as a prereq
Taunt would most likely stay at lvl 1.- will see how many monster can actually get through.
Battle Cry - prereq for War Cry
War Cry - auxiliary skill to Leap. Have to play it by the ear if it warrant extra points
Leap - Lvl 9 before diminishing return sets in.
Shout is useless. 1000% of nothing is still less than zero.
BO is going Max'd
Increase Speed gets a point
Iron Skin will stay paper skin
Natural Resist will be Max'd. That would give him -33% res all in Hell minus Anya rewards
Find Potion - prereq for Grim Ward.

[Kylearan]

Both sound interesting, will follow along! Naked blaze sound incredibly hard though, with no real CC.
Merc or no merc?