Cool video! Some near death experiences!! Please farm enough levels & gear before going to Hell. Use density farming. Frost Nova is perfect for that. Bases, runes, gems and charms don’t benefit from MF. Use 0 MF and prioritize damage. For XP & Loot farm nightmare terror zones in act 1 where monsters have relatively low HP and are easy to kill. – Farm for a 3-socket helm to make Jemali Bulwark now that you have that io rune. – Farm for an exceptional base for Jemali’s insight: more physical damage means killing enemies faster AND more life leach (from Bulwark) for increased survivability. Farm non-terrorized Nightmare Flayer Jungle / Great marsh for grand charms. Those can roll skillers with up to 30 life! They have sufficient item level 50+ while not being able to roll some higher level affixes => best chance for skillers. It helps that there are MANY small mobs with relatively little life. Reroll using 3 perfect gems. In hell, teleport to Crypt (83) and Mausoleum (85). There are no cold immune monsters there (except Bonebreaker when he’s cold enchanted). There are no ranged monsters there. So it’s very safe. Here you are looking for XP, elite bases (Monarch, polearms, armors, helms), runes and gems. Hell countess and her minions are all cold immune, so Jemali needs to be VERY strong to take them on. That means high level and good gear. Use the doors so he doesn’t get surrounded. If there’s a firewall right at the door, pull them back to the previous door. Consider using a defiance aura to get his defense higher. In my book, any elemental build should start using lower resist wand on bosses as soon as it’s available, that is at level 36. You can buy it from NM Akara / Drognan after you’re level 30. It’s fastest to buy it before you reach level 36, because then you can only look at wands with a red background.
Author: jordan
JavaCraft
Hardcore, PX, can only used crafted items, no charms. Runewords must be from cubed runes and crafted bases.
Challenge one: Kill Andariel with your bare hands
Solution: Start game on P8. Level up until level 6. Find Skill shrine, kill Blood Raven on P1, use Inner Sight to lower her defense, so we can hit her. Reward: Act 1 mercenary. Start with cold (more damage, crowd control) then once Amazon is level 13, switch to fire, so the Rogue can use Explosive Arrow.
Level up to 14 for Amazon / 13 for Rogue. Put all points into vitality since you’ll mostly tank.
Andariel fight was a piece of cake, with the Rogue positioned in my “shadow”, so the poison can’t hit her.
The Keymaker – part 1: The hunt for the white wand
I did everything by the book, level 17, and found this anti-perfect wand. Not only does it have useless skills and stats that increase the cost by a whooping 290,340 gold, but it also has 1 socket, instead of the 2 or 0 needed.
No extra skills/stats, bu once again the wrong number of sockets!
Finally I found one:
Price was higher due to the extra confuse skill.
Skin of the Vipermagi
I found my first Skin of the Vipermagi during my playthrough with Wizendraw, my Holy Freeze bow paladin, in Nightmare, Durance of Hate level 2.
I had 99% magic find. It rolled perfect (13) on the Magic damage reduced 9-13 and a respectable 32 (20-35) on the All resistances. I added a perfect topaz for 24% magic find.
The search for Hotspur
I wanted Hotspur for my Hardcore Berserk Barbarian, who was my Key of Destruction farmer.
Their +15% max fire resist and +45% fire resist where great at reducing Nihlatak‘s Corpse Explosion fire damage, while their lack of Faster run/walk was offset by the Leap Attack skill and the Increased speed passive.
So I target-farmed Coldcrow on Normal with one of my sorceresses with like 500 Magic Find. When they finally dropped, they were … Ethereal (a 1 in 10 chance). But I really wanted torches, so I started using them. I wasn’t getting hit much, as I would Howl away the little mobs. So despite having only 7 durability, I started wearing them. I soon found non-ethereal ones from a random monster on one of my other characters. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The saga of Ragnar and Lagertha (part 1)
a D2R challenge story
She was a sorc,
he was a merc,
can I make it
any more obvious.
Background story
Over on YouTube, RNGesus made a video called “Can I Beat D2R Using Only the Act 5 Mercenary?“. In that video, he uses a character editor to send his character to Act 5, hire an Barbarian Frenzy mercenary and then go back to act 1 to start completing the game. With the restriction that his character can’t kill any monster – the mercenary needs to to do all the killing
Mephisto
118% Magic find and then he drops me a Ral and Amn.
Hell forge
I was very lucky and got a Perfect Diamond, a Flawless Diamond and a Diamond! and a Thul rune.
Weaken wand
Level 20 at Andariel
Level 24 at Duriel
Level 31 at Diablo
Amn rune from a sparkling chest in Frigid Highlands, second Strength for Baal.
Level 36 at Ancients
Shael rune in Worldstone keep 2
Level 39/38 at Baal
Sol rune from Tower level 1 => Upgrade Griswold’s Edge
Physical immune in Normal?!
Many people know that Bishibosh (in Cold plains) is immune to fire even on Normal difficulty.
Similarly, Bone Ash (in Cathedral) is immune to cold. So is Coldworm the Burrower in Maggot Lair 3.
But did you know that bosses can be immune to Physical as early as Act 3 Normal?
I just encountered a “Dark Lord” (a type of Vampire) in Durance of Hate lvl 1, and they had the “Stone Skin” modifier which increased their physical resistance from the base of 50% to 100% making them immune to physical damage.
Other super uniques who are immune are
- Witch Doctor Endugu in Flayer Dungeon lvl 3 (fire)
- Grand Vizier of Chaos – the left “seal boss” in Chaos Sanctuary (fire)
- Frozenstein in Frozen River (cold)
- Snapchip Shatter (cold)
- Colenzo the Annihilator (fire)
- Achmel the Cursed (poison)
Honorary mentions:
- Lister the Tormentor 95% resist to poison
- Infector of Souls 90% resist to fire
Congratulations on the level up!
Congratulations on reaching level 30!!!☺️ 🎉
Now that you have access to the most advanced skills across all skill trees, it might be a good time to “Respec yourself” and switch to a different build, one that is more suited to the challenges ahead.
People will tell you to become more serious.
Fuck those people.
Just be yourself.
Keep putting points into kindness.
Strength is important, but mental strength is even more important.
Discover your own personal ways of improving that and practice them daily.
Meditation, journaling, Tai Chi, therapy, etc. or all of the above.
Think outside the box that is consumerism and hyper-individualism.
I don’t know what lies ahead, but I know this:
🎶 Your destiny will lead you,
to where the people need you!
Though danger may have found you,
You have your friends around you!
Now! Now! Now! 🎵
Universal Self-care Day
Today is Universal Self-care Day.
Celebrate by taking care of yourself, by getting enough sleep, by taking frequent breaks, by eating healthy food, by drinking lots of water, by moving your body in the ways it wants to be moved. By recharging your physical, mental and emotional batteries.
Do a thing that you’ve been putting off.
Stop a bad habit. Just for today.
So that you can live your life to the fullest, create and help others.
What other purpose could there possibly be for us being here?
I realize all that might sound extremely privileged.
Chances are you are too overworked, poor and/or sick.
Hang in there. A global change is coming.
Hundred of millions have been lifted out of poverty.
Millions more are fighting for their freedom and rights.
When the time comes, be ready to join them.
But don’t believe false prophets who promise easy solutions.
Especially if those easy solutions involve harming others.
And hey, if for whatever reason you didn’t celebrate Universal Self-care Day today,
don’t worry – it’s Universal Self-care Day tomorrow too.
The “Untouchable” Defiance Paladin
I love making [off-meta] characters / builds based around an interesting item.
I found this War Scepter:
The idea is to put all points into the Defiance aura, then in Holy Shield (for which Defiance is a synergy granting an additional 20 x 15% = 300% defense).
Pair that with a 75% chance to block, and the Paladin should not be getting hit that often by melee attacks and ranged attacks (as opposed to spells which always hit?)