I'm playing this game yet again

[T-hawk]

Another mini update.  I happened to read this article about sparkly chests, info that I never knew before.  Short version: certain sparkly chests have a high chance to drop one or more unique (2%) or set (5%) items.  These are NOT the chests where you find quest items, these are only in optional areas.  This includes Stony Tomb and Ancient Tunnels in act 2, so I decided to take a shot at them with several of the characters before anyone started act 3.  (This is skirting the no-twink idea that items only travel forward through the game - I'm using items found later to clear areas earlier in the same act - but it does comply with the original specification.)

Anyway, I never hit the set/unique jackpot from the chests... but something interesting did drop: a second Bloodletter sword, same unique as the barb already has and can be dual-wielded.  I'm tempted to upgrade both to elite if the runes cooperate and hope it's enough for endgame usage.  Man the game just keeps making the barb's weapon and respec situation more complicated.

Besides that, more minor equipment notes.  I swapped the Sigon's gloves + belt combo from the javazon to the barbarian, because someone found gloves with jav skills for her, and because the barbarian needs the 10% life leech.  The javazon also got a Peace runeword armor for +2 skills and CTC high level Valkyrie.  The hammerdin took the Goldwrap belt, not that he uses the IAS, but he can play with the gold and magic find because he has resistances covered elsewhere (same as for his Chance Guards), and can live with a 3-row belt thanks to the Redemption aura saving on potions.  He also shopped a +2 paladin skills scepter.  Also found a rare club with +1 druid skills, though I'm not sure that's better than his fast-cast wand.  In other news, the sorceress reached a good FCR breakpoint between all her good stuff (Vipermagi, Eyeless, 20% rare orb, one FCR ring), and had the second ring slot open for a Great Wyrm's ring of +88 mana, really helps supply her consumption.  And finally, I switched the trapsin to a claw/claw setup (instead of a diamond shield), by shopping two +2 trap skills claws from Asheara.  Usually you do this from Anya in act 5, but I didn't want to wait 2½ more acts.  I wanted +2 assassin skills, but the +trap claws came up soon enough to just go with them for now until reaching Anya for faster shopping and when +3 trap skills should also be possible.

The most glaring thing missing is any good weapon for the javazon, currently she's still using a simple maiden javelin with +1 jav skills.  She'll try imbuing some eventually, once I know she's high enough level for all the good affixes.  I think everyone wants to imbue class-specific items (scepter for the paladin, head for the necro), except maybe the barbarian if I decide not to respec so he'll want to keep trying for sword weapons.

BTW, one more thing to note: I'm doing this without any mods or stash extenders or mule characters.  The characters only keep what each of them can carry.  I'm using the Atma program to swap items around, but no more than that, no offline stash file.  I have to hold the line there; any permissiveness at all quickly turns into pathological packratting and saving absolutely everything.  The things you own end up owning you.

[T-hawk]

Lo, the legend of the sparkly chest is true.

   

Not that they're good uniques - well, both of those are serviceable mercenary weapons with an exceptional upgrade, but all on this team already have something better.

That's in one of the false Tal Rasha tombs, still in Nightmare.  That happened because all this week I was getting home late and didn't want to plunge into a new act but just wanted to mess around, and hunting sparkly chests in the false tombs with each character was a good way to do that.  It's surprising how fast they can go - the chest is often in a room right adjacent to the entrance, and following the left-hand-wall rule can bring you there right away.  Also surprising how much experience everyone kept gaining, mostly two more full levels through all the tombs; there's a lot of boss packs that spawn densely in the small areas.

Also turned up yet two more Io runes through all that. And a +2 skills javelin for the amazon finally.

[KingOfPain]

... quickly turns into pathological packratting and saving absolutely everything.  The things you own end up owning you.

Ouch, that is so true!  

But sometimes it feels so good to be owned. It's a "bad" habit the lot of us variant players have. Need a Cracked Sash, just ask any one of those variant scums. Need a ring with + mana AND Slvl 1 Ice Blast charges, so and so probably has one. It's crazy.

[T-hawk]

That's not my line, it's a quote from Fight Club.  Anyway, another week, another act completed with everyone, nightmare act 3.  I'm having way too much fun with this, all the arranging of items.  It's actually more like playing 49 games at the same time, since items found by any of the seven can combo with anything else among the seven.

No great jackpots in items this act, so first I'll talk about some older ones.  I swapped the Skin of the Vipermagi from the sorceress to the hammerdin.  These two characters are similar - they literally live by their fast-cast rate, their defense is offense, they depend on killing monsters faster than they get surrounded.  Of the two, the sorceress can more easily get FCR in other slots (orb and shield) so it's more valuable in the armor slot on the hammerdin.  Following from this, I switched their helms too, Tarnhelm to the hammerdin and Rockstopper to the sorceress, because Rockstopper's elemental resists were way oversubscribed on the hammerdin.

And I decided to remove all Stealth armors now.  Stealth doesn't really do anything besides the FCR, which is fun early on but now I'm more worried about survivability.  In particular the hammerdin and sorceress have had the most problems with close calls going down to low health, getting hit too much at close range with no monster crowd control, same fate as my two previous dead hardcore hammerdin attempts long ago.  You'd think the wind druid would be the same, casting at close range too, but he feels much safer; the grizzly plus the cold slowing from Hurricane do a ton to keep monsters off him.

The hammerdin and sorceress always feel fragile and hungry for more life.  I arranged everything regarding resistances in order to free up their belt slots, so I shopped belts of the Whale for 90+ life for each of them and also the trapsin.  Plus also Whale armors for the sorceress and necromancer.

And the trapsin took off her Stealth for a Smoke runeword armor, Nef-Lum.  I just keep finding Io runes endlessly, now a total of ten of those and only the one Fal above that.  Io doesn't do much beyond White and I can easily spare three into a Lum for Smoke now.  Smoke is 50% resist all, which is great on the trapsin since she's going claw/claw for skills instead of a shield for resists.  And I decided not to wait for an elite base armor for it after something fun happened to drop, a 2-socket ethereal cuirass.  Making a runeword in an ethereal armor is cheeky, but on a long-range trapsin actually stands a pretty good chance of lasting all the way through the game, or if not I can remake another Smoke or something else.

The best new item was a Lidless Wall shield.  That would be a straight upgrade from the sorceress's Eyeless -- but it's going on the wind druid for now, he gets more out of the +1 all skills to help his summon tree too.  But for hell difficulty I expect to switch the Lidless back to the sorceress and the druid back to a three-diamond shield.

And the druid found an Earthshaker unique hammer, +3 to druid elemental skills.  Perfect, well, sort of.  It requires 100 strength which is fairly high, I don't want to spend 40 more points there instead of vitality.  But... enter Lionheart!  +25 strength on the runeword armor plus a couple charms is enough and now he's proudly wielding that.  Also Lionheart's 30 resist all is enough that he can pick up the Lidless Wall now, although he'll have to replace that shield with resists once into hell difficulty.

   

And another good item with a challenge in usability.  Moser's Blessed Circle is strictly better than a 3-diamond shield, with higher resists and blocking.  But this one is ethereal.  Well, it's still worth using until it breaks -- actually going by the original intent of ethereal items for temporary use, rather than exploiting some way to circumvent the temporaryness.  In fact 33 durability might even last all the way to the end of the game.  It's going to the javazon, she doesn't get hit all that much, and also she's the only one with any amount of dexterity to get some use out of the block chance.

Aldur's set boots, 47% fire resist is great.  The 95 strength requirement means the barbarian and druid are the only ones interested.  It goes to the barbarian because of one of those other properties, 10% damage taken goes to mana -- that's very important to deal with mana-burn boss packs which are otherwise a huge pain for Whirlwind.  I also found a Nightsmoke belt (50% damage-to-mana), will keep that and might decide to use it later if the 10% isn't enough.

Also Infernostride boots, 10% to max fire resistance.  Definitely going on the hammerdin, he's by far the most likely to get pasted by a Fire Enchanted explosion, he's the only one that must kill a FEB at close range with no meat shield or teleport to keep it away.

   

Mercenary gear: Also rigged this fun piece, an ethereal lance with 4 Amn runes socketed for 28% life steal.  That goes to the barbarian's hireling, since he is the least able to support his merc (can't feed potions or run him away during Whirlwind), and also his Might aura multiplies the life steal.  More mercenary gear besides that: a Duskdeep helm with 15% all resists, and a Rockfleece armor which is a decent 500+ defense after exceptional upgrade, plus 10% physical resist.

And act 3 nightmare is where +skill grand charms can first appear... and I found my first one, except it's for someone who's not on this team, sorceress fire skills.  The second one was barbarian combat masteries, not the greatest but he'll take it, plus the charm came with a lightning damage suffix too.

Speaking of the barbarian: He tried out the Ribcracker, with one point in Mace Mastery.  It wasn't better than the Bloodletter swords; about the same damage, but I missed the life steal more than Ribcracker's crushing blow helped.  Ribcracker is monstrous only after elite upgrading, the possibility of which will depend on the Hellforge runes coming soon.

   

But at least the barb did get a modest weapon upgrade.  His own Mephisto drop was this rare, which I upgraded to exceptional.  A little more damage than the Bloodletters, but most importantly that 40% IAS reaches the fastest Whirlwind speed breakpoint, that's supremely important, 50% more attacks.  Also 147 lightning damage is fun.

Also the javazon tried her first two imbue quests, on maiden javelins.  Got one with +2 jav skills and 10% IAS, good enough for now.  Everyone else is waiting a little longer on the imbues, to get a better chance of higher skill mods on a class-specific item, but amazon items don't have that so now was fine.

   

Finally, the top prize of the act was a Lem rune, found in the Great Marsh by my bonemancer who was the last character to play.  Could be a Treachery assassin armor, or maybe a Passion weapon for the barbarian if I decide not to go with Ribcracker.  (No, not doing a Wealth armor.)  I'll decide more regarding runes after the Hellforge, coming up sometime next week.

[T-hawk]

Here we go with the most anticipated episode of the project, Nightmare act four.  Act 4 is my favorite place in the game.  Finally no interminable fetch quests or twisty mazes or side errands, just sheer intense combat the whole way through.  And Nightmare is the most important iteration of the act, with the single most important reward point of the game, the Hellforge runes.  The Hell hellforge goes higher, but the Nightmare ones are more important with an entire difficulty remaining to use them rather than just one last act.

The Hellforge collection came out great, as well as I could have expected: Um, Pul, Lem, Fal, Lum, Shael, Sol.  I had to run the math on how likely that was.  

At least one Um in 7 tries: 1 - (10/11)^7 = 48.7%
At least one Pul or greater in the remaining 6 trials: 1 - (9/11)^6 = 70%
At least one Lem or greater in the remaining 5 trials: 1 - (8/11)^5 = 79.7%
At least one Fal or greater in the remaining 4 trials: 1 - (7/11)^4 = 83.6%
At least one Lum or greater in the remaining 3 trials: 1 - (5/11)^3 = 90.6%
At least one Shael or greater in the remaining 2 trials: 1 - (1/11)^2 = 99.2%

Multiplying out all those percentages comes to a chance of 20.3% of doing this well or better.  So this was in the 80th percentile of possible outcomes.

 Also two more Lum and a Lem from random drops elsewhere in the act.

The two biggest prizes there are both going to the barbarian's benefit, the Um for a Duress armor and the Pul to upgrade his Ribcracker.  I think I have to take that bird in hand rather than hoping he'll get a sword upgrade that may never come.  Pul doesn't have any other compelling use; the other option is an Enlightenment sorceress armor, but the rune package also came out nicely to another Lionheart that I think I'd rather have on her for the life and resists.  Um does have many uses, most notably a Crescent Moon weapon; but with the barb's weapon slot covered then a Duress for him does seem to be the best use of it.  Um and Pul together can make a Stone or Gloom, but it's better to get both the weapon and an armor.

A Lem goes into a Treachery for the trapsin.  I was debating whether that was worthwhile enough over Smoke or Lionheart or a Whale suffix, but I'll say it is, the trapsin isn't desperate for life and could really use the +2 skills plus the other goodies too (although now she really needs resists everywhere else with none on her armor or hand slots.)  Finally, I want to put another Lem into upgrading the hammerdin's Vipermagi to elite; he does care about defense, with some points going into Holy Shield.  (But that upgrade formula also needs a Ko which is the one I never hit on yet.  I had three cubeable Lums but one went into the second Lionheart.)

Anyway, besides the runes, there was zilch all else for interesting items from the act.  Diablo's quest drops were all garbage, the best were a second Rockfleece armor and Undead Crown for merc use.  And a Haemosu's Adamant set cuirass also dropped, 700 defense and 75 life, which the barbarian can use for a bit until I find an elite base for his Duress, but then that's also merc offal.

So I'll use this space to talk a bit more about the character builds now, and some slight adjustments to them.

First off, I've decided that I'm not going to respec the barbarian, or anyone at all.  As I said, respecs eliminate any distinction between builds.  I want to prove that the skills they finish with are the skills they started with.  So no respecs for this project.

And I've been rethinking some details of the skill builds.  I started this project intending to take the strongest version of each class for the best chance at reaching Guardian, but now I've rethought that a bit.  Mostly I'm trying to differentiate them at least a little from previous characters I've done before.

Necromancer: 20 Bone Spear/Bone Spirit/Bone Wall but then going with Corpse Explosion.  Twice previously I did the standard build of max bone synergy with Prison, on both my own Guardian and the bonemancer on the elemental strike team.  I need to change that up somewhere.  But he doesn't really need anything in summoning or any of the curses like Dim Vision or Decrepify, with bone walls to lock down monsters.  So I'll go with Corpse Explosion and a bit of Amplify to match the radiuses.  I've never liked Corpse Explosion because it's literally win-more, it only works if you already have corpses hitting the floor, which means you don't need it.  But I've never gone with high CE before, and just bonemancy all the time is a bit boring, so let's do it.  Finally, the pieces do fit in that he's not using a Holy Freeze or cold rogue merc, so no corpses shatter, so at least CE does get its maximum ammo.

Assassin: 20 Lightning Sentry/Death Sentry/Fire Blast then Shock Web for max trap synergy.  My previous trapsin Guardian did the first three of those but then max Shadow Warrior instead.  So I'll change it up this time by leaving SW at 1 point and going for max trap damage instead.  Which means she definitely wants +assassin skills on equipment like Treachery to boost SW, rather than +trap skills which is already high enough.

Amazon: 20 Lightning Fury/Charged Strike/Plague Javelin/Poison Javelin.  Unfortunately that's almost the exact build that I Guardianed before, and there's really no room to deviate, you need both types of javelin damage maxed and synergized.  At least my old javazon was a little different - she never finished the Poison Jav synergy, instead she was a slight hybrid into bow skills with 1 point up to Guided Arrow and some in Pierce.  So this javazon will differentiate by skipping those to finish the Poison Jav synergy.

Barbarian: 20 Whirlwind/Battle Orders/Sword Mastery but then Mace Mastery.  I originally intended the fourth skill here to be Berserk.  But my old barbarian Guardian was exactly that same build.  So skipping Berserk answers two different problems: how to distinguish this barb from my previous, and how to free up skill points to max Mace Mastery for the Ribcracker without respeccing.  The old barb was built to be a Travincal gold runner, where Berserk is best against the council's low magic resistance, but this barb has no goal other than reaching Guardianship so can live with 1 point in Berserk.

Druid: 20 Hurricane/Twister/Tornado/Oak Sage.  Standard build, but I never Guardianed a wind druid so this is fine.

Sorceress: 20 Lightning/Charged Bolt/Lightning Mastery then Blizzard.  I previously Guardianed the same lightning build, using Frozen Orb for cold backup, so now simply changing that out for Blizzard instead.  It's a little less optimal without much synergy to Blizzard (Orb doesn't need synergy), but it's the one way I can do something different, and I've actually never played a Blizzard sorceress before.

Paladin: 20 Blessed Hammer/Concentration/Vigor then Holy Shield.  Both for the defense and for Smite damage as the obvious backup plan to deal with magic immunes.  My earlier thoughts about diverting into Holy Bolt for that were silly, there's a much more straightforward solution, including that he's already got a Black runeword flail for the crushing blow.  Smite also means he will try his imbues on elite paladin shields rather than scepters which was something else I'd been debating.

[T-hawk]

Seven heroes enter the nightmare of Mount Arreat, and seven Conquerors leave.

Every act I decide I'm going to tighten up the reporting, then end up writing a giant stream of consciousness anyway.  Anyway, this episode took longer in real time, since I went to fully clear most of acts 4 and 5 with most of the characters.  This is the sweet spot of finding useful mid-level uniques and runes, against monsters of no more than medium threat level in nightmare before they really ramp up in hell.  Like this one:

   

That was the biggest prize, a Guardian Angel armor.  I'd forgotten it existed and didn't even know what it was when the base item dropped.  But it made me rebuild the hammerdin's entire equipment loadout around it.  I always need to put more defensive capability on him, he still tends to take a pounding from every monster pack at close range.  Defense rating doesn't do everything, but can help with Holy Shield, but his Skin of the Vipermagi wasn't enough, and I was really trying to figure out how to improve his resilience.  So Guardian Angel is excellent for both physical defense and the max elemental resists.

The challenging point is the strength requirement of 118; he like most casters had stopped at 60 for plated belts and gloves.  First I spent a socket quest and a Jewel of Freedom (with a useful lightning resist prefix as well) on the Angel to bring that down.  Then I shopped a belt and gloves with strength, which plus some charms added up to wearing the Angel.  But the downside was losing his belt of the Whale, a big cost to his life total.  But... with max fire resistance on the Angel, now he doesn't need the Infernostride boots... and now higher on strength, he can take the Aldur's set boots found earlier with +50 life.  He also took back the Rockstopper helm, now more in need of its physical resistance with a lower life total, and able to use its elemental resistances too with the extra-high max from Angel.  I also shopped a Rose Branded Scepter of the Apprentice to make up some of Vipermagi's lost FCR, and finally loaded him up with the best +life charms from everyone.

The one unresolved piece of the hammerdin's loadout is the shield.  He's currently using a 4-diamond with 110 resist all.  That's fine but overkill on the resists and I do want something more versatile for skills or blocking.  He's going to imbue Sacred Targe shields when the base item comes up, since that's the highest blocking and smite damage and good defense for a reachable strength requirement.

Disposing of the stuff the hammerdin gave up: the Vipermagi goes over to the bonemancer, because the sorceress is more desperate for the life of Lionheart instead, and she has FCR in the shield slot which the necro doesn't.  The Chance Guards also find a home on the bonemancer who doesn't have any important need in that slot.  Infernostride went to the sorceress, who has the lowest life total to want the extra max fire resist, and she can live with only 20% FRW thanks to Teleport.  Tarnhelm gets retired, everyone has a better circlet or Lore now.

And this:

   

Tal Rasha's set helm, with 10% dual leech, 60 life, 15 resist all.  It's often merc gear, but here it's going on the barbarian, I'll trade off Lore for all that stuff.  Because it lets me improve his amulet slot too, which had been used for mana steal but now the helm covers that.

   

And while we're on the barb, here's the Ribcracker now at full power, elite upgraded plus a socketed Shael to reach maximum Whirlwind speed.  This did indeed perform as advertised, clobbering down monsters on players-7 in typically two Whirlwind passes.  I had thought the short range would be a downside, but it's really not, in fact it can even be better to focus on and kill monsters at the center of the WW path rather than spreading out the damage.  But what really surprised me was the effectiveness of life stealing.  I've been diligent about packing life steal equipment on the barb (both rings, Blood crafted gloves/belt/boots), but it didn't add up to all that much with the earlier weapons... but wow, Ribcracker's damage can refill almost his entire 2000 life ball in a single Whirlwind pass.  I've always known "leech is life" is the mantra for meleers, but it's startling to see it demonstrated so drastically, even if it will decline in hell with the additional penalty and physical resistance.  In fact, I'd restate it this way: melee doesn't come with the downside of needing to use life leech equipment, but rather the upside of getting to use life leech equipment.

   

The other best find: a Hone Sundan spear, a spectacular merc weapon.  It goes to the hammerdin's merc, since he's the one most important for tanking with no summon or teleport.  This triggered a chain of passing down each next-best merc weapon to the next-most-important merc: the Meat Scraper from there to the sorceress's and an upgraded eth Battlebranch from there to the javazon's.  (The druid's merc has a different function, a rare with CTC Amp, since that helps Tornado, and he doesn't really need to tank with the grizzly on hand.)

Runes worth noting (above Io): Pul and Fal, both found in the nightmare cow level actually.  Pul has no particular high-priority use; the only runeword it would make is an Enlightenment sorcie armor, but she'll stick with Lionheart instead, needs both the resists and life.  So I put the Pul to use in upgrading that Hone Sundan.  I really like how the closed environment of this team encourages decisions like this, commit something like this Pul for whatever use it can be right away, even if it's unspectacular, instead of saving it forever for some undefined future character that may never happen.

The Fal could be a third Lionheart, but actually I don't have anyone else who really wants it after the druid and sorceress.  The hammerdin has Guardian Angel, the amazon Peace (the CTC high level Valk being the most important feature), the barb Duress, and the bonemancer Vipermagi.  The trapsin was my toughest choice, but in the end I decided to keep her Treachery over a Lionheart: traps really need the +skills pushed as high as you can go, and the IAS also matters a lot because the claws she's using aren't all that fast (one is a rare of 0 base speed because it has +2 assassin skills and a cold resist prefix.)  She's not desperate for the life of Lionheart, she's a long-range attacker and does have a Whale belt, plus Fade means she's not desperate for resists either.

Some minor useful finds: Natalya's set boots for the trapsin, Laying of Hands set gloves for the barb, Crown of Thieves for the hammerdin's merc (+25 dexterity too which is critically important for the upgraded Hone Sundan's dex requirement.)  Bartuc's Cut-Throat claw, awesome for a fighter assassin, not really for a trapsin, but she'll keep it on switch anyway just because it's too cool to toss.  Blastbark bow to upgrade for the trapsin's rogue merc, although that was then superseded by a rare with more damage.  And an ethereal 5-socket Zweihander sword for an Honor runeword for the necro's barb merc.  Some miscellaneous shopped items too: Lancer's gloves of Alacrity and Spearmaiden's Throwing Spear of Quickness for the javazon, dual Echoing weapons on switch for the barb, an assortment of Cunning and Shadow and Witch-hunter's claws for the trapsin.  Finally, also the usual flood of low-level set and unique items, not worth noting, except for the curious case of another ethereal Twitchthroe, and a gambled Naj's circlet.

Updates on older items: The sorceress socketed the Lidless Wall with a diamond and intends to keep it to endgame; not just for the FCR, but actually the 300 physical defense with a low-level cold armor skill actually does take a little sting out of small groups of monsters.   The trapsin built her Treachery in a mage plate, giving up her Smoke armor for it, which ends up on her merc.  The barb hasn't built his Duress yet, that is worth waiting for a good elite base.  The javazon still has the ethereal Moser's shield, which still has 30/33 durability remaining after two acts of use so far.

Finally, skill charms.  One of the high points of this project was supposed to be those, since there's 49 different combinations of someone to find one and the proper someone to use it.  But I keep finding mediocre ones, this time druid summoning and barbarian warcries.  Still usable, but where are the trap or bone or lightning skillers...

I also finally went for a project I'd been avoiding before but now was the right time to do it: completely reallocated everyone's equipment from the ground up.  I put everything that wasn't tied to a specific character into a common pool, then reassigned it all from there (particularly FCR rings and belts, then charms) to balance all the resistances.  I resisted the urge to do that at previous act breakpoints but now is the most important time, upon entering the hell difficulty resistance penalty.  All that analysis took way longer than I was expecting; it was worthwhile once but I'm not putting four hours into that again.  The biggest payoff was balancing all the FCR equipment (including the Caster crafted belts and amulets where FCR varies in single-digit increments) precisely, getting the sorc and bonemancer and wind druid each to one better breakpoint.

[Boro]

The board is set, the pieces are in place, and the game is about to begin

[T-hawk]

Posting out of turn before finishing hell act 1 because enough exciting stuff happened anyway:

   

Gheed's Fortune charm from Andariel!  Coolest part is it can be used for the gamble discount for everyone's gold after each act.  Less cool part is deciding who of the seven gets to hold it for adventuring.  (But that's exactly the sort of decision the team structure is supposed to force me to make, instead of just passing it around all the time to everyone.)  Any suggestions?

   

Um rune from the Countess!  Remember I'm not rerunning areas, each character only takes one shot at it.  I took the sorceress here hoping for a Thul rune for the armor-socket cube recipe, and got that instead!  Um is the king of mid-level runes, but I don't know what to do with it.  Nobody besides the barb needs a Duress armor, and no one needs a Crescent Moon weapon.  I would do a Stone armor for someone (probably the sorcie) if I also had a Pul but I spent that.  Best thought I have is a Duress for a merc (probably the sorcie's), although I'm already backlogged on finding 3-socket elite armors (so far three attempts at the cube recipe all failed to give 3 sockets.)

   

The paladin imbued this neat little piece.  Seems like just enough to be worth using over the 4-diamond shield, although it's going to require his other socket quest for a diamond, and I'll have to make up 60 resist all elsewhere in his equipment.  Will figure this out after everyone finishes the act.

   

Oh yeah, that's hardcore, baby.

   

And finally here come the good skill charms.

[T-hawk]

Act 1 Hell report.  First, a note on the order that I played the characters, which actually mattered this time.  It was to go in the order of specificity of their item needs.  The paladin went first, since he needed three Sacred Targe shields for imbues, so then I would know how many of those the other characters would need to look for and save.  Then the barb and sorceress, looking for elite armor for their Duress and Lionheart.  Then the javazon, looking for amazon javelins for both imbue and Safety crafting (though then that became moot, read on.)  Then the trapsin, looking specifically for a Greater Talon to imbue.  Last the bonemancer and wind druid, with no particular need, just any pelt and head for their last imbues.

This act again took a lot of real time because I continued to full-clear most of it with each character as well.  Particularly the level-85 areas, Mausoleum and Pit, for an early shot at high-level uniques.  (Didn't get anything.  I'd hoped Rainbow Facets in particular might be within reasonable possibility, but no luck.  I do know that good stuff comes from doing 700 Pit runs, not 7.)  I was surprised that the characters kept gaining substantial levels, from 73-74 at the start of the act to 80 by the end; I had remembered leveling to be slower in hell difficulty.  It did help that everyone could still handle a player count of 5 or 7 through most of the act, dropping to 3 in areas problematic with immunities.

First item to report, woo-hoo-hooo-hoo-hooooo!

   

Funny thing was that then Andariel dropped a rare Ceremonial Javelin in the same game.  No way of telling if that could have been another Titan's that failed for already having spawned.

Anyway, this needs some rework to the javazon's equipment, she wasn't built with the dexterity for it, she has only 50 base plus 15 from Razortail.  The best solution is to give her a Lionheart, swapping out the Peace.  And she can use Lionheart's resists too, with the gloves and belt slots given to offense (skills/pierce) instead.  Also the strength from Lionheart means she can take and use a second Aldur's set boot that dropped, for fire res and 50 more life.  Which in turn covers even more resistances to free up a ring slot for mana (she always needs tons) with a Bahamut's Ring of Sorcery.

Loading up dexterity to use Titan's also means more shield blocking.  I haven't talked about that so I will now.  I generally don't ever raise dexterity for the purpose of only blocking.  Most character guides demand dex for max blocking, but I don't agree, particularly in hardcore.  You can never rely on blocking.  If you are ever in a situation where shield blocking saves you... you made a mistake by being in that situation in the first place to stake your life on a dice roll.  More vitality instead always works in all situations, and that's what you need to survive everything and win hardcore.  So everyone in this group has been running with minimal blocking all along.  Only the javazon has more than single digit, around 25% originally from the dex needed to use basic javelins and now 37% with 110 to use Titan's.

And here's the other character-defining item from the act:

   

I'd never heard of this helm, but check it out.  I keep going on about the hammerdin's lack of crowd control, and about Cloak of Shadows being the best crowd control in the game... so let's give him 30 charges of it!  CTC Dim Vision should help too particularly against archers.  Darksight Helm also comes with a package of fire resist and good physical defense, plus I socketed it for lightning resist too as you see here.  This was a great find, I'm really hoping this can serve as the defensive capability that my previous hardcore hammerdins always sorely lacked.

More notes on the hammerdin's loadout.  His Rockstopper helm now passes down to one of the mercs.  He's keeping the 4-diamond shield, not going with the imbued rare shown earlier.  He's not built with dex to use the higher blocking, and it's not enough resists without a diamond via socket quest, which I spent on the Darksight instead.  I decided that shield wasn't good enough for a socket quest, primarily because a Rhyme would be better across the board.  I kinda forgot about Rhyme until this point, hope I didn't pass up any good 2-socket base for it somewhere along the way.  For strength to support the Guardian Angel, I went to shop a belt of Atlas... and then I realized it's actually better to shop a Whale belt (100 life) instead of 30 strength (90 life worth of vitality), so he just spent regular points on strength.  Finally, I also found a Waterwalk unique boot for him too, more life than the Aldur's boot plus 15 dex for a little blocking too.  (He'll need the Aldur's boot back for the fire resist if I ever do change out the 4-diamond shield.)

Besides those two, the story of the act items was armors.

   

Got a Duriel's Shell armor.  This is very similar to Lionheart for resists/life/stats... but it also has big defense too that Lionheart lacks.  Who wants the Lionheart package but also has a defense multiplier skill?  That would be the sorceress.  I upgraded Duriel's to elite for 1300 defense, and between that and Lidless Wall and a low-level Shiver Armor skill, the sorcie actually gets to 3000 defense for a get-hit chance of around 50%.  Not impenetrable by any means, but definitely useful against small groups of monsters.  Like the paladin's Guardian Angel, I handled the strength requirement by socketing Duriel's with a jewel of Freedom plus a resist prefix.  Finally, the Lionheart that was made for the sorceress still went to use with the javazon inheriting it instead.

   

And here's an oddity, an ethereal Que-Hegan's Wisdom armor.  I decided to upgrade that to elite and put it on a merc (the hammerdin's, since he needs the merc to tank but not for physical damage.)  Not particularly spectacular as a merc armor, but it was the highest defense armor I had any access to, so go with it.

The one thing that went wrong with armors in the act was that I never got any 3-socket elite base armor for the barbarian's Duress.  About eight attempts at the cube recipe all failed to give 3 sockets.  I know of the trick to fix a low-quality item with the cube recipe, which sets a low ilvl to limit it to 3 sockets max.  I only got one low-quality dusk shroud in the act, but then it got lost somehow, I think I left it in town and then either it timed out or the program crashed.  The barb just has to hope he can find a good Duress base for himself soon.

However, the cube recipe did hit on 3 sockets once, on an ethereal base:

   

That's the lucky Um drop the sorcie got from the Countess.  I wasn't sure if it was worth a merc Duress, but there wasn't any other compelling use of it, and having a beautiful 3-socket cube-eth-bugged (applies the 50% for ethereality a second time) base clinched that decision.  Check out that defense number.  It goes on the sorc's merc because she needs the physical CB/OW against elemental immunes, unlike the hammerdin who has his own Smite.

Also found a Black Hades armor, socket with rubies for life and it's good enough for the javazon's merc.  Unfortunately upgrading that isn't feasible because the strength requirement goes to an insane 232.  Also I already burned all my runes (Lem + Ko) on the other armor upgrades.

   

The legend of the sparkly chest strikes again!  And check out that Face of Horror.  I found one earlier but didn't think much of it - but I didn't think of a rogue merc before.  The trapsin put it on her rogue here just for laughs (and the 10 resist all)... and found myself loving it.  Monster-flee is usually super annoying, but for this trapsin-rogue pair it's amazing.  She'll take anything to help disperse crowds, and the monster fleeing isn't a problem as the traps and the rogue herself just keep shooting it down.

Skill charms: now finding a steady stream, got paladin offensive auras, druid elemental, and a second barb warcries.  Also speaking of grand charms, about the Gheed's Fortune.  Despite my indecision earlier on who should carry it for adventuring, there is an obvious right answer: the barb, because of Find Item.  Which I also belatedly realized gets boosted by his Echoing weapons on switch.

Runes: the Um as shown before, also an extra Fal (don't need any more Lionhearts so it's unused for the moment), finally one Ko dropped plus one cubed that went into the armor upgrades.

And here's another interesting plan I carried out: Gamble for +2 skill affixes on coronets.  I got one character as high as I could (level 82) by full-clearing everything on p8 (the barb, because I was confident he could handle it.)  +2 skills come at affix level 90.  There is a special property that coronets have of +8 to affix level, bingo.  (Circlets have it at +3, which can work later, but only coronets at the moment.)  So upon finishing act 1, everyone gave their gold to the barbarian (also holding Gheed's Fortune of course) to gamble it all on coronets.  This turned up +2 skill coronets for the assassin and amazon, plus also a really nice rare for the druid although it's just slightly not better than the Lore pelt he has.

But finally now the sad news.  The bonemancer died.

   

In the Pit, which he went back to run after having finished the act boss.  (Thank god he at least traded away the Titan's first.)  This was a stair trap, with an Extra Fast and Might-enchanted boss pack just offscreen from the entrance that swarmed me a few steps in.  I got bone walls down in front of the pack, but that attracted a second extra fast boss pack from the opposite direction.  I started running in the small gap between, around a corner, and tried to pop out a portal, but just before I could click on it or hit save+exit, all the monsters landed enough hits to kill me from full health in an instant.  He died with the Chance Guards and Vipermagi, and lost a Fal rune in stash and a druid elemental grand charm that had just dropped.  Regrettable but no really significant losses.

I decided that I don't want to replace him.  The team will carry on with six instead of seven.  I don't want to spend two weeks catching back up, and I don't really want to play a summonmancer, and I don't want to mess with the symmetry of the seven by adding an eighth character, which I'm now realizing would actually be a backdoor way to get extra runs and areas to clear, particularly act-boss quest drops.  He was actually getting to be my least favorite character of the group and quite monotonous to play, particularly considering bonemancer is a build I've played many times before, and that diversion into Corpse Explosion really didn't help, it was more clunky than fun.  I can live without the bonemancer, so may his Deeds rest in peace.

It really hit me when playing the next character, when I realized I now have no reason to pick up and look at necro heads or wands.  Anyway, his loss was a valuable lesson: the druid also ran into a similar stair trap in the Forgotten Tower, but that time I was smart enough to nope out to a new game instead of doing anything recklessly stupid.

[superdeath]

NOOOOO not the necro!