GoGoGadgetz / GoGoGadgets / GoGoGadgetx

[KingOfPain]

GoGoGadgets & NatureCalls @ Hell Duriel

So, to make the game look a little more difficult-
NatureCalls is going without his Might merc with Reapers Toll (Decrep)
GoGoGadgets is going to lose his Baba's dual wielding advantage, and use his lowly Harmony war bow from his early NM days - Playing the roles of 4 classes:
Amazon
Druid
Necro
Baba

Clvl 74 @ Hell Duriel





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[KingOfPain]

GoGoGadgets & NatureCalls Does Hell Meph

NatureCalls has been without merc since Hell Act 2. It happened quite by accident, when I finally noticed his merc was dead somewhere along the journey, I didn't bother to town and resurrect it; and decided maybe I should just carry on without. I fully intend to resurrect him (and I did) to start Act 4. I plan to have the team at Clvl81 and do a last dress rehearsal before entering Chaos Sanctuary. Yes, this will make the game easier than my usual runs. Sometimes it is just as important to have a good balance of challenge vs fun. Have a team of Naked, Base Vit, Neg 80 Res All, with a No Skills Baba Summoner playing 4 classes at once is challenging enough - even if they sometimes steamroll the monsters. Try telling that to someone outside of RB this happens


Notes:

GGGs playing a multi classes Variant using a Harmony means his summons are weaker. His Valk and Clay Golly are taking a beating and need some pampering.

While the Wolves make a lot of noise, they are not doing significant damage.

In order to let GGGs use his Grim Ward more effectively, GGGs and NC are both bounded to use Poison Creeper Vines so they don't consume corpse that GGGs needs

As for Dire Wolves, well, we just have to live with them. It'll be a hinder when GGGs want to utilize Revives more often.

You will notice neither GGGs nor the mercs are using Best In Slot gear. If they are good enough to carry on, so why bother. I am too lazy to optimize.



Clvl 76 @ Hell Meph with some captions, and character Stats at the end









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[KingOfPain]

GoGoGadgets Made Quick Work Of Hell Hephasto
Don't blink, you will miss it.

All through their adventures, each toon from the teams takes turns going soloing once in a while, to prove they are solo worthy. It is the same thing I do when we (Variants) used to play together on Bnet; I would redo the game solo. I take it as a compliment when people have a measure of disbelieve. It means I am doing something out of the ordinary....

The Hell Forge quest makes for a good opportunity to show how GGGs and NC go about it solo since they have to each grab the rewards anyway.

GGGs now Clvl81 with Metal Grid. That means he can now have an Iron Golly that will stay from weapon swaps. I am still undecided whether a spammable Clay Golly might be a better choice now that I kind of got used to it. Iron Golly means I can add another aura, and attribute(s), and it should work nicely with Spirit Of Barbs, Iron Maiden (that comes with Metal Grid) plus its own Thorns. Having Metal Grid also mean I can switch the Stone armor (which grants the Clay Golly) to maybe a Corpse Mourn for some low lvl Corpse Explosion. We will see if I am good to keep an Iron Golly alive....



Coming Up - NatureCalls VS Hell Hephasto




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[KingOfPain]

GoGoGadgets & NatureCalls Does Hell Baal



Reported By NatureCalls Here








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[KingOfPain]

GoGoGadgets & NatureCalls Does Hall Baal

Link to be edit in.

Reported By NatureCalls Here



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[KingOfPain]

GoGoGadgetX (NSSI) The Pally

The point of the Gadgets No Skills Variants is to counter my saying, "Items Are For Wimps". The nerf of not using Skill Points, and yet, (trying to) adhering to a theme (play style) stacks up the challenges. Further challenges come from level requirements (not by the Skills but by the items itself) which limits what they can use at certain stages of their journey. Not using Skill Points mostly means there are no synergy bonuses and that Skills are at a low levels. And, every time a new Skill comes into play means giving up another Skill or more. Most characters coming out of Normal Diff would be more powerful than an end game GGG, Skills-wise.

These are the most Twinked characters, not necessary what they equip but that they can have anything from the Mule Train of the KoP Pony Express (and that's an expansive entity); so much so that the whole RBD community was contributing to the cost with their Ring Of Fire Bolt, Sureshrill Frost, Moonfall, Amulet Of Frost Nova and what not. "Skills Are For Wimps" are expensive to play, low level skills take a lot of Charges to do anything half meaningful, even semi useful Charges on expensive items can take over 100K a pop to repair. GGGs the Baba Summoner could have easily spent over 10 Mil on Hell runs alone. I wasn't keeping count, but I remember his rich aunt McTyraelGirl had to refill the 2.5 mil stash a few times.

GoGoGadgetX (NSSI), The Nonsuicidal Self-Injury Pally
That is going to be quite a combo of restrictions. I frankly have no solid idea how he would play out, and, I am willing to give him an exemption if the need comes up. More on that later.
- His main attack will be Sacrifice. For Example - If he gets Charge somehow, he can use it for escape but not as an attack.
- He should always have some form damage return to enemies on himself or from the merc. Iron Golem does not count since its Thorns only apply to itself.

Admittedly, there are mainstream builds based on Sacrifice or Thorns but I don’t think people would be crazy enough to feature both of these self inflicting skills together. Certainly not when the player character is the one doing self-inflicted injuries and begging to be hit to feed Thorns. The 2 Skills means GGGX would have to mix it up with monsters in melee range to soak up damages however weak he may be. Maybe "soak up damages" is wrong choice of words, Damage Reduction on self mean Damage Reduction on monsters. Damage Reduction gear is a no no. GGGX would have to be weak in the DR and Dex department, wearing low Defence Rating items and curbing Dex to avoid Blocking.... means he would also have ToHit problems.

These 2 Skills can make viable niche builds providing they are free to max out the Skills and synergies as well as other helper Skills; and a shopping list. The best GGGX can hope for is a ~10 Sacrifice if he only wear items to pump +Skills. Shopping for stix with +Sacrifice means the best damage he can hope for is something people would ditch after Act 2 Normal. Even an extreme lucky (Sacrifice being a lvl 1 Skill and all) find of an elite sceptre with +Sacrifice is worthless in the damage department. There is so much working against this build.

On one hand, GGGX is on to a good start since stix with both Skills can be bought from Adria, although Thorns won't come on until Clvl 6. Together with a Fire Rogue with a 3 rubies Hunters bow should make Act 1 a cake walk.

There is a plan to upgrade a couple of these stix to Strength at Clvl 25. I have not mentioned Bloodrise, a better weapon in every other way, because I am sticking to having some form of DTA whenever possible. Bloodrise will finally be used when the Rogue can equip an Edge bow. On a positive note, Bloodrise, unlike the store bought stix, can be upgraded to a Devil Star. The Edge bow will be available for the Rogue @ 25 so GGG can have a decent Thorns going - just not comfortable being the only bait. He can still choose to run Thorns himself and hire a desert merc. A Thorns desert merc would have to wait until NM2.

There is still hope to shop for a Grand Sceptre (3 holes) to make higher Runewords such as Lawbringer, King's Grace and Fury. I doubt even these can make a 8 to 18 (13 Avg Dmg) stix usable by itself. Requiring the use of Sacrifice as the main attack is one huge nerf for a No Skills Pally, maybe too much. And because of this, I might make an exemption for GGGX. I am reserving the option of changing his build to a One Point Wonder. A true one point wonder, and allow him one point in one Skill - Sacrifice. 







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[T-hawk]

There's one tricky way to get an elite scepter with a high damage affix but a low-level skill mod like Sacrifice.

You need a rare Caduceus base item, which is a high qlvl so it will always have a high enough affix level for all the damage prefixes, with a low item level low enough to have Sacrifice. Two ways to get that: imbue with a low level character, or reroll it repeatedly with 6 perfect skulls also with a low level character. Combining both methods is best, it will be level 12 from the imbue (with the lowest allowed character of level 8) and then the first skull reroll will drop it below 12 for the highest chance of getting first-tier skill mods.

This affix calculator shows it, pick Caduceus with an ilvl of 1 and you see its affix level is 71 for all the damage prefixes but Sacrifice is available as a skill mod. https://tools.harrogath.com/affixcalc.html

Same trick works for any other class item, you can get all the damage and skill affixes with first-tier skills, like a claw with Tiger Strike or Dragon Talon, druid pelt with Lycanthropy or Firestorm, barb helm with weapon masteries, necro head with Raise Skeleton / Skel Mastery (or Teeth if you're crazy).

[KingOfPain]

I guess it doesn't hurt to get some elite trash scepters the imbue. I have a lot of clvl1 Forge mules with unused rewards anyway. If only PSkulls, they would go for 15-20 for an Ist. No wonder I get my riches from selling gems

Still the chances of getting something useful is pretty slim, eh. Let me do some quick math....
Mighty Scepter Dmg = 46 Avg, Seraph Rod = 49.5, and Caduceus = 40. Average of the three ~= 45. If we roll a Perfect King's, that would = 90 Avg.
Bloodrise upgraded to Devil Star = 48 Avg, x 120% ED ~= 105 Avg, plus +3 Sacrifice and other bonuses. Bloodrise is still a better choice unless we are looking to get a white one or a grey one with the right amount of sockets.


On another note. It's just as well GGGX is stuck with Kyoto. Sir WiffALot is grateful for Kyoto's help with Inner Sight.



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[T-hawk]

Wow, I had no idea there was a Sacrifice skillmod on a unique mace. Yeah, Bloodrise upgraded is the easy route, you'd need a really great imbue result to beat that.

For the imbue, you specifically want a Caduceus base item since that can qualify for Cruel and Master's at a low ilvl; the others can't. It's also faster than the other types.

[KingOfPain]

GoGoGadgetX Feeling The Pain VS Duriel

While Act 1 went well, GGGX is feeling a little behind the curve in Act 2. His low damage from his 1-8 Dmg stix while tolerable his low ToiHit% just makes it even more painfully slow to play. He is otherwise okay as far as a low power Variant is concerned. Duriel, however, thought different and treated him like a ragdoll. You will see him desperately looking in his stash to make himself more durable.

GGGX hopes reach Clvl25 and power up before facing off with the Councils. And, hopefully more options to let him start to develop his own unique style of play.





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