NatNit's HC Untwinked Sept (in progress)

I figured it might be nice to have a place to jot down my progress in my quest to complete my HC untwinked sept. At the very least, it will make writing my (inevitable) Guardian threads easier.


Code:

Name             Class        Build        Level  Progress  Completed
----             -----        -----        -----  --------  ---------
Tomburego        Necromancer  Fishymancer  85     Guardian  2011.03.06
MarieCordona     Assassin     Light Traps  84     Guardian  2011.03.18
Bovice           Paladin      Hammerdin    27     Norm A3
Agnil            Amazon       Fishyzon     26     Norm A3
OvernightCeleb   Druid        Windy        19     Norm A2
KillingMeSoftly  Barbarian    Singer       16     Norm A1
Hatsue           Sorceress    Meteorb      83     Dead

Rules

• All characters are 1.13c, Hardcore, Single Player, Untwinked.


• No multiplayer interaction of any kind.


• RWM and GoMule are allowed.


• Rerunning of areas is allowed.


• Players settings may be changed at any time.


• Respecs are allowed, but must follow the "spirit" of the build. For example, no leveling a Hammerdin as Holy Fire to speed up normal difficulty.

Deeds

• Hatsue (2011.08.08)

|||Best of luck on your challenging Sept...already 28.5714% there!! I look forward to reading about your progress . Quick question - any particular reason you opted for Berserk for the Barb?

-PP|||Quote:








Best of luck on your challenging Sept...already 28.5714% there!! I look forward to reading about your progress . Quick question - any particular reason you opted for Berserk for the Barb?

-PP




Thanks for the well wishes! As to the Berserker question, I was mostly swayed by Nightfish's excellent guide to the Berserker/Howl/War Cry barbarian as posted here. I'm a huge fan of Nightfish's analysis and write-ups, so that's always a plus. There's a bunch of other barbs I want to play eventually: singers, dual throwers, WWers, frenziers. But those can wait for future attempts. |||Good stuff. Are you going to replay any characters that bite it?|||Quote:








Good stuff. Are you going to replay any characters that bite it?




That's a bit of a glass half-empty question, isn't it? :P|||Yeah, the goal is to avoid losing any chars. But if/when I do see the deeds screen, I will indeed try again, perhaps more slowly. When the edit functionality is returned, I'll add a deeds section to my first post.

I took Hatsue out for a spin tonight. Wanted to upgrade her gear with some runewords, and through a combination of the Countess and Normal Cows, the merc is now wearing an Insight War Scythe. Furthermore, Hatsue herself is wearing Spirit/Rhyme/Lore/Stealth...runewords galore. The remaining slots are filled with only MF, with an upgraded Goldwrap in the belt slot. At some point I should gamble some decent resists, since bad guys are starting to pack a punch.

I just completed Act 1, and am sitting at L52. Frozen orb tears through everything! I've been running a Prayer merc, but don't know what I should upgrade to. Defiance and Holy Freeze are both nifty options; does anyone know if Holy Freeze slow stacks with regular cold damage?|||Quote:








That's a bit of a glass half-empty question, isn't it? :P




It's based on my personal experience with hardcore.|||Quote:








I just completed Act 1, and am sitting at L52. Frozen orb tears through everything! I've been running a Prayer merc, but don't know what I should upgrade to. Defiance and Holy Freeze are both nifty options; does anyone know if Holy Freeze slow stacks with regular cold damage?




I'm not sure, but if I were you, I would go with the Might merc instead. Might will allow your merc to do more damage, and will also increase the amount they leech back... it will improve their survivability more than the other two options (especially untwinked). HF would be my second choice, Defiance third (this last option seems more viable if you're twinking and have access to both a very strong weapon and very, very high defense armor... no guarantee of finding that untwinked).|||I went with skunkbelly's suggestions, and have a Might merc. So far so good. I'm in a bit of a pickle, since the merc's leech is coming from his armor.

Hatsue quested up through NM A5, Frozen River. I ran meph for a bit, but the only thing really relevant to me or my merc was a Twitchthroe, which helped me with my lagging dex. I decided not to burn a respec, and just worked up from base dex for now. I found a perfect Que-Hegan's Wisdom in the Frozen River, which is very nice, and has replaced the Twitch for now. For what it's worth, I really would've rathered a Vipermagi, but oh well.

I've decided to retire my Barb choice, and go with a Singer instead. I want to keep a Berserker open since it fits more thematically with my next project. And besides, with a singer on board, it makes this an all-caster sept! Hooray for themes! Can't wait for editing to be reinstated so I can update my progress table.|||Nice going NitNat. Keep up the progress reports.