What should I use for CtA?

Post by Someone
I have a 5os Ettin Axe that dropped today, and was going to make CtA with
my Ohm and last Ist rune, but I was wondering if that was one of the best
items. I also have a 5os PB on hand, and I have a 'Zerker I could try to
get 5 holes in with the cube, but that might not happen. I could also wait
for a Scourge, which would get 5 from Larzuk. The dex req is high on a PB,
so I'm leery of that, but the rest of them fall well under the stats I'd
have any sorc using (given that she needs 156 STR for her shield). I can't
see it actually being *used* as a weapon, but I'd hate to make such a nice
runeword in something non-elite.

Pretty much NOBODY makes CtA in elite weapons. Make it in a flail, or a
crystal sword. I have, dead serious, 30+ CtAs on my characters and on my
mules, and another 15+ on friends characters. Of those, all but 1 are in
flails or crystal swords(one is in a PB, I didn't make it but since it was a
perfect BO/BC one, I just put it on a character who was gonna be using a PB
anyways).

Someone

2010-07-24 01:50:47 UTC

"Shiflet" wrote...

Post by Someone
I have a 5os Ettin Axe that dropped today, and was going to make CtA with
my Ohm and last Ist rune, but I was wondering if that was one of the best
items. I also have a 5os PB on hand, and I have a 'Zerker I could try to
get 5 holes in with the cube, but that might not happen. I could also
wait for a Scourge, which would get 5 from Larzuk. The dex req is high on
a PB, so I'm leery of that, but the rest of them fall well under the stats
I'd have any sorc using (given that she needs 156 STR for her shield). I
can't see it actually being *used* as a weapon, but I'd hate to make such
a nice runeword in something non-elite.

Pretty much NOBODY makes CtA in elite weapons. Make it in a flail, or a
crystal sword. I have, dead serious, 30+ CtAs on my characters and on my
mules, and another 15+ on friends characters. Of those, all but 1 are in
flails or crystal swords(one is in a PB, I didn't make it but since it was
a perfect BO/BC one, I just put it on a character who was gonna be using a
PB anyways).

Daaammmmnnn.... It just seems... Augh!

Thanks, tho.

Shiflet

2010-07-24 03:08:37 UTC

Post by Someone
Daaammmmnnn.... It just seems... Augh!
Thanks, tho.

Well, you can make it in whatever, but if you ever think you might wanna
trade it(or use it on a character with lower strength), you'll really want
it in something with low requirements.

Someone

2010-07-24 04:45:50 UTC

"Shiflet" wrote...

Post by Shiflet
Well, you can make it in whatever, but if you ever think you might wanna
trade it(or use it on a character with lower strength), you'll really want
it in something with low requirements.

I made it in a Crystal Sword.

+2 Command, +4 Orders, +2 Cry

~misfit~

2010-07-24 06:38:20 UTC

Post by Someone
"Shiflet" wrote...

Post by Shiflet
Well, you can make it in whatever, but if you ever think you might
wanna trade it(or use it on a character with lower strength), you'll
really want it in something with low requirements.

I made it in a Crystal Sword.
+2 Command, +4 Orders, +2 Cry

Ehh, not so bad. Pair it with a spirit shield (I used to have an eth one
that had lower strength req) and that's lvl 7 BO right there without taking
into acount any other +skills you might have. BO is the one that I find most
important and the higher it is the longer it lasts. Level 7 is 95 seconds of
53% more life, plenty of time to complete UT. <g>

The last one I made was only +1 BO but with a Shako, Mara's, Spirit etc it
was enough to do UT with one shout in the corner of UT.

--
Shaun.

"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.

Someone

2010-07-24 13:30:12 UTC

"~misfit~" wrote...

Post by Someone
"Shiflet" wrote...

Post by Shiflet
Well, you can make it in whatever, but if you ever think you might
wanna trade it(or use it on a character with lower strength), you'll
really want it in something with low requirements.

I made it in a Crystal Sword.
+2 Command, +4 Orders, +2 Cry

Ehh, not so bad. Pair it with a spirit shield (I used to have an eth one
that had lower strength req) and that's lvl 7 BO right there without
taking into acount any other +skills you might have. BO is the one that I
find most important and the higher it is the longer it lasts. Level 7 is
95 seconds of 53% more life, plenty of time to complete UT. <g>
The last one I made was only +1 BO but with a Shako, Mara's, Spirit etc it
was enough to do UT with one shout in the corner of UT.

I transferred it over to the pally for a UT run last night, used it for the
minis, but then just left it on a mule for the Ubers. With his absorbs and
such, I wanted to try waltzing right into the middle and spawning all three,
like I'd seen on YouTube videos. Pretty much a cake walk, but still no sorc
or pally torch, dammit.

Next time I run, I'll give you guys a shout.

~misfit~

2010-07-25 00:27:35 UTC

Post by Someone
"~misfit~" wrote...

Post by Someone
"Shiflet" wrote...

Post by Shiflet
Well, you can make it in whatever, but if you ever think you might
wanna trade it(or use it on a character with lower strength),
you'll really want it in something with low requirements.

I made it in a Crystal Sword.
+2 Command, +4 Orders, +2 Cry

Ehh, not so bad. Pair it with a spirit shield (I used to have an eth
one that had lower strength req) and that's lvl 7 BO right there
without taking into acount any other +skills you might have. BO is
the one that I find most important and the higher it is the longer
it lasts. Level 7 is 95 seconds of 53% more life, plenty of time to
complete UT. <g> The last one I made was only +1 BO but with a Shako,
Mara's, Spirit
etc it was enough to do UT with one shout in the corner of UT.

I transferred it over to the pally for a UT run last night, used it
for the minis, but then just left it on a mule for the Ubers.

Ohhh! The bravery! ;-)

Post by Someone
With
his absorbs and such, I wanted to try waltzing right into the middle
and spawning all three, like I'd seen on YouTube videos.

Youtube? Bloody Youtube? I've done so many runs of all types that I can
replay almost any possible situation in my head without the need of a
broadband connection!

The type of UT run to which you are referring is commonly known as a
"cluster/fudge/" and I've had my share of those. Usually not planned
although once or twice it was, usually to show someone *in game* (not on
bloody Youtube!) how nasty it can get.

Did you ever read the account of the first ever AGD UT run? It was within 24
hours of the patch being released, long before there were guides or even
*any* info available (other than Blizz's cryptic description) on teh
intarwebs? It's a good job the server was stable. Apparently everyone had
chipped in and got the keys, then met up for the ubers. That 'run' went on
for about eight hours and there must have been 15 or so people who visited
the game just to die, repeatedly. <g>

Shady and I didn't find out about it until very late, what with time-zones
and all that. If it weren't for ~Demigoddess~ holding the game open long
after everyone else had retired, experience bars at the far left, we
wouldn't have had a crack at it. (The minis were long done and the UT portal
had been open all day.)

Bruce was running your generic fana zealot, I had a freezealot and Shady had
a frog. (Well, I called it a frog but it was really a frenzy barb wearing
Levi and using BK swords.) Bruce wanted to retire as it was past midnite for
him and he'd been in the game since early afternoon his time. However I
begged and cajoled him into staying. I had the feeling that his fana aura
was going to be a make-or-break asset.

Long story short; Bruce would go down the portal and isolate the ubers in a
corner one at a time, mainly Meph as he was the most mobile, and bravely die
(then quit and rejoin). He agreed to do this as his experience bar was
already at minimum. It took a lot of experimentation to work out what was
going on. (The place was chock-ful of minions too BTW.) You know how
Stinky's conviction aura isn't actually visible? Well, it took quite a while
before I had the idea of opening the LCS to look for clues and noticed that
resists were dropping 125% when he was nearby.

Luckilly I had points in Salvation. Not enough to make up for all 125% but I
think 109% if memory serves. Once we had that sorted we were able to
dispatch Meph. Not easilly as I don't think anyone was wearing Dracs and
nobody thought to use Smite. There was much coming and going with my other
comps, stripping toons of their fat purps.

Once U-Meph was dead the rest was just damn hard work but we did it! (I
don't like to give up.) At the end of the run we'd all suffered enough
deaths so that are experience bars were bottomed out. But we did it, and
were able to post valuable info back to the group that made consequtive runs
a lot easier. Of course, within days guides started popping up all over teh
webs as well....

I collected a keyset over the next couple of days, traded for some Dracs (or
rather a friend did for me, have I mentioned that I *detest* trading?) and
did a solo run with my freezealot. My first torch? A 20/20 pally torch,
AFAIK the first on bnet. (I still have it, thank the gods I muled it off the
account that Blizz decided didn't exist). I was offered mules full of high
runes for it but it wasn't for sale. :-)

Post by Someone
Pretty much
a cake walk, but still no sorc or pally torch, dammit.

:-( Oh well, they will come. It'll give you more incentive to keep
key-farming and running UT. By which time you should have a lovely
collection of druid torches. <g>

Post by Someone
Next time I run, I'll give you guys a shout.

Yep, if you desire company I'm always up for a UT run. I got my FIRST Key of
Destruction last night, after perhaps 35 - 40 runs. I get the feeling that
it's going to be a long time before I can 'finance' a UT run. Oh well, it'll
give me plenty of time to find my own Dracs. ;-)

--
Cheers,
Shaun.

"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.

ImperiusDamian

2010-07-25 00:36:38 UTC

Post by ~misfit~
Yep, if you desire company I'm always up for a UT run. I got my FIRST Key of
Destruction last night, after perhaps 35 - 40 runs. I get the feeling that
it's going to be a long time before I can 'finance' a UT run. Oh well, it'll
give me plenty of time to find my own Dracs. ;-)

IIRC, SSG went to UT precisely *once*, as part of an AGD run. I forget
what the torch was. Probably a low-end druid one. LOL

Shiflet

2010-07-25 04:40:27 UTC

Post by ~misfit~
The type of UT run to which you are referring is commonly known as a
"cluster/fudge/" and I've had my share of those. Usually not planned
although once or twice it was, usually to show someone *in game* (not on
bloody Youtube!) how nasty it can get.

Most of my runs go like the one he mentioned, but then, that's cause I don't
bother to isolate the ubers, I just run in and go for em. It's nice to be
unkillable XD

Marcel Overweel

2010-07-25 22:31:26 UTC

Most of my runs go like the one he mentioned, but then, that's cause I
don't bother to isolate the ubers, I just run in and go for em. It's nice
to be unkillable XD

How do you achieve this?
Lots of absorbs like dwarf star, snow clash and such?

Although do-able, my shocking pally has a hard time fighting meph with
all those skelly mages. If I drop the Salvation, he's dead in seconds.
I can't imagine going in and take them all at once, yet. :)
Currently, he's only having cold absorb from the raven frost and some
magic absorb from a spirit shield and a crescen moon phase blade.
(finally got a 3 socket phase blade, it took weeks to find/cube one)

Is *magic* absorb actually worth anything in ut runs?
Am I correct in thinking it doesn't absorb any *elemental* damage at all?

regards,
Marcel

Someone

2010-07-25 23:15:03 UTC

"Marcel Overweel" wrote...

Most of my runs go like the one he mentioned, but then, that's cause I
don't bother to isolate the ubers, I just run in and go for em. It's nice
to be unkillable XD

How do you achieve this?
Lots of absorbs like dwarf star, snow clash and such?

I'm sure Shiflet has the best possible gear for it, but the gear I'm using
on mine is Rising Sun ammy (fire), Ravenfrost ring (cold) and Thundergod'
vigor (lightning). I haven't tried switching out Guillame's Face (no
absorb) and T-god's (lightning) for Blackhorn's Face (lightning) and String
of Ears (no absorb, but high DR and more leech).

Post by Marcel Overweel
Although do-able, my shocking pally has a hard time fighting meph with
all those skelly mages. If I drop the Salvation, he's dead in seconds.
I can't imagine going in and take them all at once, yet. :)
Currently, he's only having cold absorb from the raven frost and some
magic absorb from a spirit shield and a crescen moon phase blade.
(finally got a 3 socket phase blade, it took weeks to find/cube one)

I think the Rising Sun is key to this, because the Balrog-types deliver a
huge amount of fire damage that can get converted to life. Before I even
had his resists up (I think it was around high 30's), he was gaining life
from even the common types like in the WSK. This last UT run I did, FR was
the only one not maxed, and it was like 62 or thereabouts.

Post by Marcel Overweel
Is *magic* absorb actually worth anything in ut runs?
Am I correct in thinking it doesn't absorb any *elemental* damage at all?

I don't know how magic absorb works. You can't have resistances to magic
damage, as far as I know, and as far as I understand it, it's the
combination of absorbs plus resists that converts the absorbed damage to
life, which is what the pont of this is in UT. I can imagine that with
these absorbs "maxed out" (meaning having the maximum amout that will be
converted to life), it may not even be necessary to have Life Tap, in which
case I could try to find another pair of Soul Drainers gloves for him, which
has some pretty nice mods, too. (I just realized looking them up again that
I traded a perfect pair of those for my Drac's. Hmmm....)

Marcel Overweel

2010-07-26 00:37:45 UTC

Post by Someone
"Marcel Overweel" wrote...

Most of my runs go like the one he mentioned, but then, that's cause I
don't bother to isolate the ubers, I just run in and go for em. It's
nice to be unkillable XD

How do you achieve this?
Lots of absorbs like dwarf star, snow clash and such?

I'm sure Shiflet has the best possible gear for it, but the gear I'm using
on mine is Rising Sun ammy (fire), Ravenfrost ring (cold) and Thundergod'
vigor (lightning). I haven't tried switching out Guillame's Face (no
absorb) and T-god's (lightning) for Blackhorn's Face (lightning) and
String of Ears (no absorb, but high DR and more leech).

I'm using string of ears but i can't say how good it works.
Don't dare to take it off while fighting over there,
I'm afraid my pants will fall off :)

Seriously, I think absorb is much better than reduction.
Will give it a try when I've found more of those absorbers.

I think the Rising Sun is key to this, because the Balrog-types deliver a
huge amount of fire damage that can get converted to life. Before I even
had his resists up (I think it was around high 30's), he was gaining life
from even the common types like in the WSK. This last UT run I did, FR
was the only one not maxed, and it was like 62 or thereabouts.

Strange this is that although i don't have any fire absorb, those balrogs
aren't much of a problem. Maybe the dr from the string is working good here.
That fire hose probably doesn't have that much damage per frame and dr
works on a per frame basis.

Post by Marcel Overweel
Is *magic* absorb actually worth anything in ut runs?
Am I correct in thinking it doesn't absorb any *elemental* damage at all?

I don't know how magic absorb works. You can't have resistances to magic
damage, as far as I know, and as far as I understand it, it's the
combination of absorbs plus resists that converts the absorbed damage to
life, which is what the pont of this is in UT. I can imagine that with
these absorbs "maxed out" (meaning having the maximum amout that will be
converted to life), it may not even be necessary to have Life Tap, in
which case I could try to find another pair of Soul Drainers gloves for
him, which has some pretty nice mods, too. (I just realized looking them
up again that I traded a perfect pair of those for my Drac's. Hmmm....)

I've cubed a nice +9 life leach blood ring with some other minor mods.
That with the 6 ll from the string helps a lot when using zeal. Too bad
those ubers are so hard to hit.
I've tried using only zeal on baal, i think it's possible but it was taking
so very long, I stopped trying .
Maybe with a few more dex/ar charms... maybe... nah, maybe not.

A paladin torch would probably help. So far i've found a barb, assassin
and a necro torch. It figures, since i planned to play paladin, sorc and
druid first. lol. Got the barb torch on the pally since that one has the
best
stats. And when a torch drops, I bring in a sorc mule with teleport and
quickly grab the torch.

Now if that damn dclone will show up for the first time somewhere in the
near future, the pally would have some more hit power, resists and AR.

Marcel

Someone

2010-07-26 01:01:10 UTC

"Marcel Overweel" wrote...

Post by Someone
"Marcel Overweel" wrote...

Most of my runs go like the one he mentioned, but then, that's cause I
don't bother to isolate the ubers, I just run in and go for em. It's
nice to be unkillable XD

How do you achieve this?
Lots of absorbs like dwarf star, snow clash and such?

I'm sure Shiflet has the best possible gear for it, but the gear I'm
using on mine is Rising Sun ammy (fire), Ravenfrost ring (cold) and
Thundergod' vigor (lightning). I haven't tried switching out Guillame's
Face (no absorb) and T-god's (lightning) for Blackhorn's Face (lightning)
and String of Ears (no absorb, but high DR and more leech).

I'm using string of ears but i can't say how good it works.
Don't dare to take it off while fighting over there,
I'm afraid my pants will fall off :)

I use the SoE on him in other runs, excepting only WSK when there are Souls
present, then I put back on the T-gods.

Post by Marcel Overweel
Seriously, I think absorb is much better than reduction.
Will give it a try when I've found more of those absorbers.

I'm impressed with it.

I think the Rising Sun is key to this, because the Balrog-types deliver a
huge amount of fire damage that can get converted to life. Before I even
had his resists up (I think it was around high 30's), he was gaining life
from even the common types like in the WSK. This last UT run I did, FR
was the only one not maxed, and it was like 62 or thereabouts.

I think I started reading about it here:
http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Absorb

Post by Marcel Overweel
Is *magic* absorb actually worth anything in ut runs?
Am I correct in thinking it doesn't absorb any *elemental* damage at all?

I don't know how magic absorb works. You can't have resistances to magic
damage, as far as I know, and as far as I understand it, it's the
combination of absorbs plus resists that converts the absorbed damage to
life, which is what the pont of this is in UT. I can imagine that with
these absorbs "maxed out" (meaning having the maximum amout that will be
converted to life), it may not even be necessary to have Life Tap, in
which case I could try to find another pair of Soul Drainers gloves for
him, which has some pretty nice mods, too. (I just realized looking them
up again that I traded a perfect pair of those for my Drac's. Hmmm....)

I don't try to Zeal the Ubers. I use 1-point Smite, with Salvation active
during Meph, and Fana afterward. I Zeal up the minions when the Torch
drops.

Post by Marcel Overweel
A paladin torch would probably help. So far i've found a barb, assassin
and a necro torch. It figures, since i planned to play paladin, sorc and
druid first. lol. Got the barb torch on the pally since that one has the
best
stats. And when a torch drops, I bring in a sorc mule with teleport and
quickly grab the torch.

I don't bring him into UT with a torch. Even though the CTC Firestorm was
nerfed, I don't want to take any chances.

Post by Marcel Overweel
Now if that damn dclone will show up for the first time somewhere in the
near future, the pally would have some more hit power, resists and AR.

Clone's been scarce on my side, too. Been a while, and I only got the Anni
the one time, which my sorc uses. But Shaun gave me a spare low one from
one of his clonesits, so I do have that on him.

Shiflet

2010-07-26 05:11:48 UTC

Post by Marcel Overweel
Strange this is that although i don't have any fire absorb, those balrogs
aren't much of a problem. Maybe the dr from the string is working good here.
That fire hose probably doesn't have that much damage per frame and dr
works on a per frame basis.

DR only applies to physical damage though, the balrog's fire breath is pure
fire.

Post by Marcel Overweel
A paladin torch would probably help.

Fighting in uber-trist with a torch on is just asking for your game to be
dropped. NOT recommended. It might not happen, but there's a good chance it
will.

Marcel Overweel

2010-07-26 11:32:08 UTC

DR only applies to physical damage though, the balrog's fire breath is
pure fire.

Ah, I ofcourse ment the magic damage reduction of the string.

Post by Marcel Overweel
A paladin torch would probably help.

Fighting in uber-trist with a torch on is just asking for your game to be
dropped. NOT recommended. It might not happen, but there's a good chance
it will.

I've installed that glide wrapper thing people talk about.
Some say it will not only smooth gameplay (which seems to be true)
and also helps in avoiding problems with firestorm, meteor and such.

Anyway, to be sure, I first do a key run or whatever for at least
five minutes so the games stays open and have another computer
standing by to join the game in case of problems.

Regards,
Marcel

Patrick Vervoorn

2010-07-26 13:15:33 UTC

Post by Marcel Overweel
I've installed that glide wrapper thing people talk about.
Some say it will not only smooth gameplay (which seems to be true)
and also helps in avoiding problems with firestorm, meteor and such.

It will lessen the problems you have at the client-side with
graphics-intensive effects, most notably for instance Shenk's Death
animation, but perhaps also slowdown due to Torches, etc.

However, the dropped games happen because the server-side is overloaded
(with calculating and sending out the Torch-spawned Firestorm effects)
and the Glide Wrapper will do nothing to fix that.

Additionally, the game looks a lot prettier in Glide vs for instance
Direct3D mode.

Regards,

Patrick.

Marcel Overweel

2010-07-26 23:07:35 UTC

It will lessen the problems you have at the client-side with
graphics-intensive effects, most notably for instance Shenk's Death
animation, but perhaps also slowdown due to Torches, etc.

In the previous season, once in a while I had problems even in single
player when holding a torch. Especially in act 4 river of flame with
lots of those baby bugs.
Somewhere at the end of that season (or was it when 1.13 stared?
I don't know anymore) I decided to install glide and give it a go.
Haven't seen that problem since.

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
However, the dropped games happen because the server-side is overloaded
(with calculating and sending out the Torch-spawned Firestorm effects)
and the Glide Wrapper will do nothing to fix that.

Hmm, are they still using those same budget celerons? ;)

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
Additionally, the game looks a lot prettier in Glide vs for instance
Direct3D mode.

That's a fact. It's much more bright, or vibrant.

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
Regards,
Patrick.

Cheers!
Marcel

~misfit~

2010-07-27 01:48:08 UTC

It will lessen the problems you have at the client-side with
graphics-intensive effects, most notably for instance Shenk's Death
animation, but perhaps also slowdown due to Torches, etc.

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
However, the dropped games happen because the server-side is
overloaded (with calculating and sending out the Torch-spawned
Firestorm effects) and the Glide Wrapper will do nothing to fix that.

Hmm, are they still using those same budget celerons? ;)

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
Additionally, the game looks a lot prettier in Glide vs for instance
Direct3D mode.

That's a fact. It's much more bright, or vibrant.

I agree. It's just a shame that, if I wander off to make a coffee or
something the game minimises when the screensaver kicks in. It doesn't kick
in with Direct3D. Also sometimes I have to adjust gamma when starting a game
with the glide wrapper. It seems to 'forget' the settings.

--
Shaun.

"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.

Someone

2010-07-30 15:52:13 UTC

"~misfit~" wrote...

"Patrick Vervoorn" schreef...

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
Additionally, the game looks a lot prettier in Glide vs for instance
Direct3D mode.

That's a fact. It's much more bright, or vibrant.

I agree. It's just a shame that, if I wander off to make a coffee or
something the game minimises when the screensaver kicks in. It doesn't
kick in with Direct3D. Also sometimes I have to adjust gamma when starting
a game with the glide wrapper. It seems to 'forget' the settings.

Well, based on the above discussion, and having known about it for years
without ever having tried it, I decided to download Sven's wrapper again and
this time actually install it. I'll let you know if I share your
experiences with it.

Someone

2010-07-30 16:02:53 UTC

I wrote...

Post by Someone
"~misfit~" wrote...

"Patrick Vervoorn" schreef...

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
Additionally, the game looks a lot prettier in Glide vs for instance
Direct3D mode.

That's a fact. It's much more bright, or vibrant.

I agree. It's just a shame that, if I wander off to make a coffee or
something the game minimises when the screensaver kicks in. It doesn't
kick in with Direct3D. Also sometimes I have to adjust gamma when
starting a game with the glide wrapper. It seems to 'forget' the
settings.

Well, based on the above discussion, and having known about it for years
without ever having tried it, I decided to download Sven's wrapper again
and this time actually install it. I'll let you know if I share your
experiences with it.

Well, considering I cannot get a startup screen to be visible once the
wrapper is correctly installed, but knowing the game is open with all other
functionality by the menu escape sound when I leave, and given that my
Windows screen then gets restored properly, I cannot imagine what needs to
be done to correct the problem (having not seen anything related in the
downloaded materials), so I'll have to remain in 2D for now.

Patrick Vervoorn

2010-07-30 16:41:59 UTC

Post by Someone
I wrote...

Post by Someone
Well, based on the above discussion, and having known about it for years
without ever having tried it, I decided to download Sven's wrapper again
and this time actually install it. I'll let you know if I share your
experiences with it.

What version of Windows are you using? There is a settings app included,
sometimes playing around with it helps.

Regards,

Patrick.

Someone

2010-07-30 17:33:07 UTC

"Patrick Vervoorn" wrote...

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
What version of Windows are you using? There is a settings app included,
sometimes playing around with it helps.

I'm using Windows XP. I looked at the settings app, and all appeared to be
configured correctly for the default settings. I don't play in windowed
mode, and I also noticed that running the Glide test using the app (to get
the "infos") crashed the app horribly (invoking Dr. Watson three consecutive
times before it goes away). This was just downloaded today, the last stable
release, 1.4d. I also have the 1.4c version ZIP file that I downloaded last
year. Do you think I'll have better luck with that one?

Patrick Vervoorn

2010-07-30 19:19:12 UTC

Post by Someone
"Patrick Vervoorn" wrote...

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
What version of Windows are you using? There is a settings app included,
sometimes playing around with it helps.

It's hard to see which version I'm using, but perhaps the filesize help:

The glide3x.dll which I'm using in my WinXP machine is 123.932 bytes in
size. Version when asked via Windows' properties is 1.4.0.4.

Looking at Sven's (new) page, this does not match any of the versions
he's offering for download. :S

The built-in test should not crash. If that works, D2 should also work.

The last one I downloaded is the 1.4c version, I didn't know there's a
1.4d version. Downloading now. I'm not sure I'm going to use it though,
I know I spent quite some time quite a while ago, getting this stuff to
run again. It's (sometimes) tricky.

Regards,

Patrick.

Someone

2010-07-30 19:56:06 UTC

"Patrick Vervoorn" wrote...

Post by Someone
"Patrick Vervoorn" wrote...

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
What version of Windows are you using? There is a settings app included,
sometimes playing around with it helps.

The glide3x.dll which I'm using in my WinXP machine is 123.932 bytes in
size. Version when asked via Windows' properties is 1.4.0.4.
Looking at Sven's (new) page, this does not match any of the versions
he's offering for download. :S
The built-in test should not crash. If that works, D2 should also work.
The last one I downloaded is the 1.4c version, I didn't know there's a
1.4d version. Downloading now. I'm not sure I'm going to use it though,
I know I spent quite some time quite a while ago, getting this stuff to
run again. It's (sometimes) tricky.

Hmmm... well, I tried using the 1.4c version (glide3x.dll version 1.4.3.3,
file size 132,096 bytes). At least this one didn't crash when I queried
OpenGL, and after doing so the program reported:

"Doesn't look good. Far too low on texture memory."

So I guess that settles that. (It's reporting 0 bytes texture memory, and
I'm not about to upgrade my hardware for this.)

I have an NVidia GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU, which evidently sounds a lot
better than it actually is. :-)

Marcel Overweel

2010-08-01 20:27:05 UTC

Post by Someone
"Patrick Vervoorn" wrote...

Post by Someone
"Patrick Vervoorn" wrote...

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
What version of Windows are you using? There is a settings app included,
sometimes playing around with it helps.

Hmmm... well, I tried using the 1.4c version (glide3x.dll version
1.4.3.3, file size 132,096 bytes). At least this one didn't crash when I
"Doesn't look good. Far too low on texture memory."
So I guess that settles that. (It's reporting 0 bytes texture memory, and
I'm not about to upgrade my hardware for this.)
I have an NVidia GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU, which evidently sounds a lot
better than it actually is. :-)

I'm also using the 1.4.4.1 version of glide3d.dll.
Having two pc's (one mostly for muling), I've tried to set it up on both of
them.

The 'game' pc has a nvidia gtx 280, driver version 180.48.
On that pc, the glide wrapper worked without problems.
If I open the glide-init.exe, on the renderer page there is a setting
with texture memory set to 64 MB and buffer-texture-size
is set to 1024x1024. The only two checkboxes enabled are:
'texture for video' and 'shader-gamma'.
On the extensions page, all checkboxes are checked except the
last one called 'WGL_ARB_render_texture'.

The 'muling' pc has an ati card, can't get the wrapper working on it.
Same as you, just a black screen.

Marcel

Someone

2010-08-01 21:09:55 UTC

"Marcel Overweel" wrote...

Post by Someone
"Patrick Vervoorn" wrote...

Post by Someone
"Patrick Vervoorn" wrote...

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
What version of Windows are you using? There is a settings app included,
sometimes playing around with it helps.

Hmmm... well, I tried using the 1.4c version (glide3x.dll version
1.4.3.3, file size 132,096 bytes). At least this one didn't crash when I
"Doesn't look good. Far too low on texture memory."
So I guess that settles that. (It's reporting 0 bytes texture memory,
and I'm not about to upgrade my hardware for this.)
I have an NVidia GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU, which evidently sounds a lot
better than it actually is. :-)

I'm also using the 1.4.4.1 version of glide3d.dll.
Having two pc's (one mostly for muling), I've tried to set it up on both
of them.
The 'game' pc has a nvidia gtx 280, driver version 180.48.
On that pc, the glide wrapper worked without problems.
If I open the glide-init.exe, on the renderer page there is a setting
with texture memory set to 64 MB and buffer-texture-size
'texture for video' and 'shader-gamma'.
On the extensions page, all checkboxes are checked except the
last one called 'WGL_ARB_render_texture'.
The 'muling' pc has an ati card, can't get the wrapper working on it.
Same as you, just a black screen.

Thanks for testing it. I only wanted to try it to see if it would help with
the latency I experience sometimes with my Paladin in the middle of battle.
I know it's probably the Fort armor, because the Shiver Armor spikes begin
to create a solid line of white that blocks out all screen rendering and
turns everything into slow motion, sometimes getting him killed. There's a
lot of CTC going on when he fights, and it seems to trigger the most when
there are tons of cold archers, witches, or hydras around as he zeals a huge
mob simultaneously. Doesn't seem to happen with souls or vipers. It may
well be that the Glide wrapper wouldn't have helped me anyway.

Marcel Overweel

2010-08-01 21:35:10 UTC

Post by Someone
"Marcel Overweel" wrote...

Post by Someone
"Patrick Vervoorn" wrote...

Post by Someone
"Patrick Vervoorn" wrote...

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
What version of Windows are you using? There is a settings app included,
sometimes playing around with it helps.

Hmmm... well, I tried using the 1.4c version (glide3x.dll version
1.4.3.3, file size 132,096 bytes). At least this one didn't crash when
"Doesn't look good. Far too low on texture memory."
So I guess that settles that. (It's reporting 0 bytes texture memory,
and I'm not about to upgrade my hardware for this.)
I have an NVidia GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU, which evidently sounds a
lot better than it actually is. :-)

I'm also using the 1.4.4.1 version of glide3d.dll.
Having two pc's (one mostly for muling), I've tried to set it up on both
of them.
The 'game' pc has a nvidia gtx 280, driver version 180.48.
On that pc, the glide wrapper worked without problems.
If I open the glide-init.exe, on the renderer page there is a setting
with texture memory set to 64 MB and buffer-texture-size
'texture for video' and 'shader-gamma'.
On the extensions page, all checkboxes are checked except the
last one called 'WGL_ARB_render_texture'.
The 'muling' pc has an ati card, can't get the wrapper working on it.
Same as you, just a black screen.

Thanks for testing it. I only wanted to try it to see if it would help
with the latency I experience sometimes with my Paladin in the middle of
battle. I know it's probably the Fort armor, because the Shiver Armor
spikes begin to create a solid line of white that blocks out all screen
rendering and turns everything into slow motion, sometimes getting him
killed. There's a lot of CTC going on when he fights, and it seems to
trigger the most when there are tons of cold archers, witches, or hydras
around as he zeals a huge mob simultaneously. Doesn't seem to happen with
souls or vipers. It may well be that the Glide wrapper wouldn't have
helped me anyway.

I've also a fort on my pally and I know what you mean with the
archers. I've never tried it without glide, but here, this situation isn't
much of a problem.

The game slows down a little bit but not much.

Other areas that did give problems like shenks death and that place
where you meet tyrael for the first time, in d3d it would feel like
the graphics are being dragged through a mudpool.
With glide it isn't any problem at all.

Marcel

Marcel Overweel

2010-08-01 20:37:25 UTC

It will lessen the problems you have at the client-side with
graphics-intensive effects, most notably for instance Shenk's Death
animation, but perhaps also slowdown due to Torches, etc.

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
However, the dropped games happen because the server-side is
overloaded (with calculating and sending out the Torch-spawned
Firestorm effects) and the Glide Wrapper will do nothing to fix that.

Hmm, are they still using those same budget celerons? ;)

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
Additionally, the game looks a lot prettier in Glide vs for instance
Direct3D mode.

That's a fact. It's much more bright, or vibrant.

I agree. It's just a shame that, if I wander off to make a coffee or
something the game minimises when the screensaver kicks in. It doesn't
kick in with Direct3D. Also sometimes I have to adjust gamma when starting
a game with the glide wrapper. It seems to 'forget' the settings.
--
Shaun.
"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.

It seems to require some bit of luck.
I'm using the 1.4d version of (version 1.4.4.1 of glide3d.dll) and that
one works perfectly on one pc and not at all on the other.

Haven't tried any of the other versions since it's just the 'muling' pc
which is failing.

The screensaver is one of the first things I turn off when (re)installing
windows, I'll turn it on and let you know what happens.

"Let food be fat and juicy" Marcel

~misfit~

2010-08-02 06:27:46 UTC

Post by ~misfit~
I agree. It's just a shame that, if I wander off to make a coffee or
something the game minimises when the screensaver kicks in. It
doesn't kick in with Direct3D. Also sometimes I have to adjust gamma
when starting a game with the glide wrapper. It seems to 'forget'
the settings. --
Shaun.
"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.

It seems to require some bit of luck.
I'm using the 1.4d version of (version 1.4.4.1 of glide3d.dll) and
that one works perfectly on one pc and not at all on the other.

I've attempted to set it up on maybe 12 machines over the last few years and
have succeeded with perhaps three.

Post by Marcel Overweel
Haven't tried any of the other versions since it's just the 'muling'
pc which is failing.
The screensaver is one of the first things I turn off when
(re)installing windows, I'll turn it on and let you know what happens.
"Let food be fat and juicy" Marcel

Heh! Cheers.

--
Shaun.

"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.

Marcel Overweel

2010-08-01 20:51:04 UTC

It will lessen the problems you have at the client-side with
graphics-intensive effects, most notably for instance Shenk's Death
animation, but perhaps also slowdown due to Torches, etc.

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
However, the dropped games happen because the server-side is
overloaded (with calculating and sending out the Torch-spawned
Firestorm effects) and the Glide Wrapper will do nothing to fix that.

Hmm, are they still using those same budget celerons? ;)

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
Additionally, the game looks a lot prettier in Glide vs for instance
Direct3D mode.

That's a fact. It's much more bright, or vibrant.

I agree. It's just a shame that, if I wander off to make a coffee or
something the game minimises when the screensaver kicks in. It doesn't
kick in with Direct3D. Also sometimes I have to adjust gamma when starting
a game with the glide wrapper. It seems to 'forget' the settings.
--
Shaun.
"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.

Yep, screensaver kicks in when using glide.
Why not disable it, it doesn't help much in saving your screen unless
you have some very ancient crt monitor.

Marcel

~misfit~

2010-08-02 06:26:18 UTC

It will lessen the problems you have at the client-side with
graphics-intensive effects, most notably for instance Shenk's Death
animation, but perhaps also slowdown due to Torches, etc.

In the previous season, once in a while I had problems even in
single player when holding a torch. Especially in act 4 river of
flame with lots of those baby bugs.
Somewhere at the end of that season (or was it when 1.13 stared?
I don't know anymore) I decided to install glide and give it a go.
Haven't seen that problem since.

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
However, the dropped games happen because the server-side is
overloaded (with calculating and sending out the Torch-spawned
Firestorm effects) and the Glide Wrapper will do nothing to fix that.

Hmm, are they still using those same budget celerons? ;)

Post by Patrick Vervoorn
Additionally, the game looks a lot prettier in Glide vs for
instance Direct3D mode.

That's a fact. It's much more bright, or vibrant.

I agree. It's just a shame that, if I wander off to make a coffee or
something the game minimises when the screensaver kicks in. It
doesn't kick in with Direct3D. Also sometimes I have to adjust gamma
when starting a game with the glide wrapper. It seems to 'forget'
the settings. --

Yep, screensaver kicks in when using glide.
Why not disable it, it doesn't help much in saving your screen unless
you have some very ancient crt monitor.

Hi Marcel. I have a rather rare and expensive IPS LCD panel which would be
really difficult to replace so I try not to leave it running when I'm not in
front of it. I use the screensaver to warn me that the power saving is going
to turn the monitor off in 2 minutes. (8 minutes to screensaver, 10 minutes
to power down screen.)

--
Cheers,
Shaun.

"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.

Shiflet

2010-07-26 05:12:44 UTC

Post by Someone
I don't know how magic absorb works. You can't have resistances to magic
damage, as far as I know, and as far as I understand it, it's the
combination of absorbs plus resists that converts the absorbed damage to
life, which is what the pont of this is in UT. I can imagine that with
these absorbs "maxed out" (meaning having the maximum amout that will be
converted to life), it may not even be necessary to have Life Tap, in
which case I could try to find another pair of Soul Drainers gloves for
him, which has some pretty nice mods, too. (I just realized looking them
up again that I traded a perfect pair of those for my Drac's. Hmmm....)

Even if you don't need tap, Dracs>Souldrainers.

Shiflet

2010-07-26 05:09:07 UTC

Post by Marcel Overweel
How do you achieve this?
Lots of absorbs like dwarf star, snow clash and such?

No, it's just a standard Dreamer auradin. The problem with a Dreamer is,
they're expensive to make...there is no "cheap" version of an auradin as the
build itself requires the aura granting runewords. But, they're also totally
unkillable in PvE, literally nothing is a threat to them. They have immense
offensive power coupled with incredible defense.

I've mentioned his gear/stats in other threads before, but here goes:
Dream bone visage
Fortitude AP
Beast caduceus(warspike would also work, I prefer the caddy though)
Dream sacred targe(made in a 45 base res shield)
CtA/Spirit on swap
Highlords
Ravenfrost
Rare ring with dual leech and resists
TGods
Dracs
Goreriders
Anni(I have a torch on him, but I remove it before fighting ubers)
rest of inventory is a mix of life and max damage(and maybe a couple of res)
charms.

Skills:Max Conviction, Resist Lighting, Salvation, Holy Shield, 1 in Vigor
and all pre-reqs, rest mostly in Sacrifice with a few in Zeal.

He has max res(with 95 lightning resist), hits the 48 FHR breakpoint, max
block, 20k defense with the Chilling Armor from Fort up, CBF, 3.5k life with
BO up, Lifetap from Dracs, 16% or so regular leech(and 6% mana leech), 35%
CB, 35% OW, 48% DS, lvl 25 Conviction reducing enemies resists by 150, max
zeal and smite speed, and high physical and massive lightning damage. And
because of the way the game works, you can only have 1 Conviction aura on
you at a time-either your own active one, or an enemies, and you will only
be affected by whichever aura is higher. And since my auradin's Conviction
is lvl 25, uber-Meph's is 21, Meph's Conviction doesn't affect me.

He can, and has, faced all 3 ubers at once in an 8 player game, I've fought
Fana minotaur and Conviction gloam boss packs at the same time, I can
destroy the ancients no matter what mods they spawn, you name it, he can
kill it.

Having access to all gear makes it much easier. I've never even used
Salvation in an Uber run with any of my characters.

Post by Marcel Overweel
Is *magic* absorb actually worth anything in ut runs?
Am I correct in thinking it doesn't absorb any *elemental* damage at all?

Actually, it absorbs all magical(non physical) damage, including elemental.
It just doesn't absorb MUCH of it, in most cases.

Marcel Overweel

2010-07-26 11:57:53 UTC

Post by Marcel Overweel
How do you achieve this?
Lots of absorbs like dwarf star, snow clash and such?

No, it's just a standard Dreamer auradin. The problem with a Dreamer is,
they're expensive to make...there is no "cheap" version of an auradin as
the build itself requires the aura granting runewords. But, they're also
totally unkillable in PvE, literally nothing is a threat to them. They
have immense offensive power coupled with incredible defense.
Dream bone visage
Fortitude AP
Beast caduceus(warspike would also work, I prefer the caddy though)
Dream sacred targe(made in a 45 base res shield)
CtA/Spirit on swap
Highlords
Ravenfrost
Rare ring with dual leech and resists
TGods
Dracs
Goreriders
Anni(I have a torch on him, but I remove it before fighting ubers)
rest of inventory is a mix of life and max damage(and maybe a couple of
res) charms.
Skills:Max Conviction, Resist Lighting, Salvation, Holy Shield, 1 in Vigor
and all pre-reqs, rest mostly in Sacrifice with a few in Zeal.
He has max res(with 95 lightning resist), hits the 48 FHR breakpoint, max
block, 20k defense with the Chilling Armor from Fort up, CBF, 3.5k life
with BO up, Lifetap from Dracs, 16% or so regular leech(and 6% mana
leech), 35% CB, 35% OW, 48% DS, lvl 25 Conviction reducing enemies resists
by 150, max zeal and smite speed, and high physical and massive lightning
damage. And because of the way the game works, you can only have 1
Conviction aura on you at a time-either your own active one, or an
enemies, and you will only be affected by whichever aura is higher. And
since my auradin's Conviction is lvl 25, uber-Meph's is 21, Meph's
Conviction doesn't affect me.
He can, and has, faced all 3 ubers at once in an 8 player game, I've
fought Fana minotaur and Conviction gloam boss packs at the same time,

Heh, yeah that's really awesome.
Currently, one of those packs alone can already give me a hell of a time.

Post by Shiflet
I can destroy the ancients no matter what mods they spawn, you name it, he
can kill it.

Having access to all gear makes it much easier. I've never even used
Salvation in an Uber run with any of my characters.

Post by Marcel Overweel
Is *magic* absorb actually worth anything in ut runs?
Am I correct in thinking it doesn't absorb any *elemental* damage at all?

Actually, it absorbs all magical(non physical) damage, including
elemental. It just doesn't absorb MUCH of it, in most cases.

Well, I've written down your setup for when I get rich :)

For now, I'll try some more torch runs and hope to find one for the sorc.
She will be my main mf-er for the time being.

Regards,
Marcel

~misfit~

2010-07-25 23:23:08 UTC

Most of my runs go like the one he mentioned, but then, that's cause
I don't bother to isolate the ubers, I just run in and go for em.
It's nice to be unkillable XD

Yep, if I were to use a non-ladder character with basically unlimited gear
it would be the quickest way for me too.

However, as I've also done it for a few ladders with barely adequate gear
I've become the master of the surgical strike, taking out each uber alone,
with the minimum of fuss (mostly).

--
Shaun.

"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.

Someone

2010-07-25 04:57:08 UTC

Post by Someone
"~misfit~" wrote...

Post by Someone
"Shiflet" wrote...

Post by Shiflet
Well, you can make it in whatever, but if you ever think you might
wanna trade it(or use it on a character with lower strength),
you'll really want it in something with low requirements.

I made it in a Crystal Sword.
+2 Command, +4 Orders, +2 Cry

Ehh, not so bad. Pair it with a spirit shield (I used to have an eth
one that had lower strength req) and that's lvl 7 BO right there
without taking into acount any other +skills you might have. BO is
the one that I find most important and the higher it is the longer
it lasts. Level 7 is 95 seconds of 53% more life, plenty of time to
complete UT. <g> The last one I made was only +1 BO but with a Shako,
Mara's, Spirit
etc it was enough to do UT with one shout in the corner of UT.

I transferred it over to the pally for a UT run last night, used it
for the minis, but then just left it on a mule for the Ubers.

Ohhh! The bravery! ;-)

Well, not really. I just wouldn't have room or time to swap it out after
using the Life Tap dagger on switch for the initial Tap and switch on Meph.

Post by Someone
With
his absorbs and such, I wanted to try waltzing right into the middle
and spawning all three, like I'd seen on YouTube videos.

Youtube? Bloody Youtube? I've done so many runs of all types that I can
replay almost any possible situation in my head without the need of a
broadband connection!

Well, I've only watched two. One was a paladin going in solo, directly to
the three right in the middle, standing there swatting them down with his
life ball barely moving, and, when the three were dead, picking up the
torch, standing there for a minute in the middle of all the remaining minons
without taking any damage, and finally typing "Move over noobs" as he left
for the red portal. LOL The second one I watched was a European HC team
doing UT naked, with toons they leveled together from the start, and if one
died before getting to the UT run part, they all started over again. They
ran UT *naked*. In *hardcore*.

So those were the two I've seen, and I wanted to emulate the former.
Indeed, he can just stand there and let minions surround him all day long.
Their (elemental) attacks just replenish his life. Good to have them around
battling the Ubers, in fact. The more the merrier. :-)

I've seen my own clusters, and they ain't pretty. Hehe

Post by ~misfit~
Did you ever read the account of the first ever AGD UT run? It was within
24 hours of the patch being released, long before there were guides or
even *any* info available (other than Blizz's cryptic description) on teh
intarwebs? It's a good job the server was stable. Apparently everyone had
chipped in and got the keys, then met up for the ubers. That 'run' went on
for about eight hours and there must have been 15 or so people who visited
the game just to die, repeatedly. <g>
Shady and I didn't find out about it until very late, what with time-zones
and all that. If it weren't for ~Demigoddess~ holding the game open long
after everyone else had retired, experience bars at the far left, we
wouldn't have had a crack at it. (The minis were long done and the UT
portal had been open all day.)
Bruce was running your generic fana zealot, I had a freezealot and Shady
had a frog. (Well, I called it a frog but it was really a frenzy barb
wearing Levi and using BK swords.) Bruce wanted to retire as it was past
midnite for him and he'd been in the game since early afternoon his time.
However I begged and cajoled him into staying. I had the feeling that his
fana aura was going to be a make-or-break asset.
Long story short; Bruce would go down the portal and isolate the ubers in
a corner one at a time, mainly Meph as he was the most mobile, and bravely
die (then quit and rejoin). He agreed to do this as his experience bar was
already at minimum. It took a lot of experimentation to work out what was
going on. (The place was chock-ful of minions too BTW.) You know how
Stinky's conviction aura isn't actually visible? Well, it took quite a
while before I had the idea of opening the LCS to look for clues and
noticed that resists were dropping 125% when he was nearby.
Luckilly I had points in Salvation. Not enough to make up for all 125% but
I think 109% if memory serves. Once we had that sorted we were able to
dispatch Meph. Not easilly as I don't think anyone was wearing Dracs and
nobody thought to use Smite. There was much coming and going with my other
comps, stripping toons of their fat purps.
Once U-Meph was dead the rest was just damn hard work but we did it! (I
don't like to give up.) At the end of the run we'd all suffered enough
deaths so that are experience bars were bottomed out. But we did it, and
were able to post valuable info back to the group that made consequtive
runs a lot easier. Of course, within days guides started popping up all
over teh webs as well....
I collected a keyset over the next couple of days, traded for some Dracs
(or rather a friend did for me, have I mentioned that I *detest* trading?)
and did a solo run with my freezealot. My first torch? A 20/20 pally
torch, AFAIK the first on bnet. (I still have it, thank the gods I muled
it off the account that Blizz decided didn't exist). I was offered mules
full of high runes for it but it wasn't for sale. :-)

That's an entertaining story, and, no, I hadn't read it before, at least not
that I remember. So even if I did, it's still a good story. :-) That was
a pretty amazing payoff for your own effort to follow, too.

Post by Someone
Pretty much
a cake walk, but still no sorc or pally torch, dammit.

:-( Oh well, they will come. It'll give you more incentive to keep
key-farming and running UT. By which time you should have a lovely
collection of druid torches. <g>

Ha! Yours is the only one of the four I've netted so far, so I'm feeling
lucky in that way. LOL I have two barb's and one assassin's.

Post by Someone
Next time I run, I'll give you guys a shout.

Yep, if you desire company I'm always up for a UT run. I got my FIRST Key
of Destruction last night, after perhaps 35 - 40 runs. I get the feeling
that it's going to be a long time before I can 'finance' a UT run. Oh
well, it'll give me plenty of time to find my own Dracs. ;-)

And me plenty of time to farm more keys. And maybe find even more gear for
him to use.

~misfit~

2010-07-26 00:00:33 UTC

[snip]

Post by Someone
I transferred it over to the pally for a UT run last night, used it
for the minis, but then just left it on a mule for the Ubers.

Ohhh! The bravery! ;-)

Well, not really. I just wouldn't have room or time to swap it out
after using the Life Tap dagger on switch for the initial Tap and
switch on Meph.

S'funny you do that. Well, sorry, not 'funny' per se. It's just that, when
I've had Dracs (or Last Wish[1]) I've never used a life-tap weapon on
switch[2], at the most I've had to gulp a purp, max two before LT kicks in
and I'm not usually running fana. Still, better safe than sorry I guess.

[1] I'm saving up for Last Wish. All I need now are SUR, BER and three JAHs.
I have the MAL and the 6OS PB. ;-)

[2] When not using a Life Tap source on switch I usually use whatever else I
have to pre-buff; CtA, Demonlimb or even something like a Spellsteel or
Naj's Puzzler to tele around if I need / want to.

Post by ~misfit~
Youtube? Bloody Youtube? I've done so many runs of all types that I
can replay almost any possible situation in my head without the need
of a broadband connection!

Now that second one sounds interesting. I can do the first one anytime I
want to jigger around with my non-ladder characters. In fact Mickey and I
often did the 'talk above head' thing in UT. I've done similar to that first
one myself only teleing straight into the middle of trist and killing the
stooges before they even have much time to spawn minions.

Post by Someone
So those were the two I've seen, and I wanted to emulate the former.
Indeed, he can just stand there and let minions surround him all day
long. Their (elemental) attacks just replenish his life. Good to
have them around battling the Ubers, in fact. The more the merrier. :-)

I've never actually tried the absorb route. Heard of it of course but find
it easy enough to clean house without it. I might try it one day, now that
my MF necro can run hell Ball (albeit slowly) I'm finding better / higher
level gear.

I've seen my own clusters, and they ain't pretty. Hehe

Didn't we have two of them at once on one of the runs we did early on?
You're right, they ain't pretty when you're less-than-optimally equipped.

[snip most of epic tale]

Post by ~misfit~
Once U-Meph was dead the rest was just damn hard work but we did it!
(I don't like to give up.) At the end of the run we'd all suffered
enough deaths so that are experience bars were bottomed out. But we
did it, and were able to post valuable info back to the group that
made consequtive runs a lot easier. Of course, within days guides
started popping up all over teh webs as well....
I collected a keyset over the next couple of days, traded for some
Dracs (or rather a friend did for me, have I mentioned that I
*detest* trading?) and did a solo run with my freezealot. My first
torch? A 20/20 pally torch, AFAIK the first on bnet. (I still have
it, thank the gods I muled it off the account that Blizz decided
didn't exist). I was offered mules full of high runes for it but it
wasn't for sale. :-)

That's an entertaining story, and, no, I hadn't read it before, at
least not that I remember. So even if I did, it's still a good
story. :-) That was a pretty amazing payoff for your own effort to
follow, too.

Yeah, it was freaking awesome. I didn't actually realise *HOW* awesome for
quite a while. It was months later that Mickey boasted to me that he'd
finally got a 20/20 pally torch and about the same time that the first
appeared on trading forums.

Post by Someone
Pretty much
a cake walk, but still no sorc or pally torch, dammit.

:-( Oh well, they will come. It'll give you more incentive to keep
key-farming and running UT. By which time you should have a lovely
collection of druid torches. <g>

Ha! Yours is the only one of the four I've netted so far, so I'm
feeling lucky in that way. LOL I have two barb's and one assassin's.

That druid one you gave me has allowed my strafer to drop some resist charms
in favour of MF and swap a (mainly resist oriented) rare ring for a Wisp
Projector (another 20% MF). Her lightning resist is still a bit low
considering that she's my "rescue character" but the Li absorb on the Wisp
seems to make up for it to an extent.

Post by Someone
Next time I run, I'll give you guys a shout.

Yep, if you desire company I'm always up for a UT run. I got my
FIRST Key of Destruction last night, after perhaps 35 - 40 runs. I
get the feeling that it's going to be a long time before I can
'finance' a UT run. Oh well, it'll give me plenty of time to find my
own Dracs. ;-)

And me plenty of time to farm more keys. And maybe find even more
gear for him to use.

Indeed. There are still items that I'd like to find myself as well as the
Drac's so hopefully I'll get enough playing time (and luck) to find some of
them meantime. :-)

All the best,

--
Shaun.

"Let food be thy medicine" Hippocrates.

Someone

2010-07-26 00:40:13 UTC

"~misfit~" wrote...

Post by Someone
"~misfit~" wrote...

[snip]

Post by Someone
I transferred it over to the pally for a UT run last night, used it
for the minis, but then just left it on a mule for the Ubers.

Ohhh! The bravery! ;-)

Well, not really. I just wouldn't have room or time to swap it out
after using the Life Tap dagger on switch for the initial Tap and
switch on Meph.

Or maybe I'm just slow. Heh. I'm not really sure what I'm doing half the
time.

Post by ~misfit~
[1] I'm saving up for Last Wish. All I need now are SUR, BER and three
JAHs. I have the MAL and the 6OS PB. ;-)

What a coincidence, I have the exact same pieces already for *my* Last Wish!
:-)

Post by ~misfit~
[2] When not using a Life Tap source on switch I usually use whatever else
I have to pre-buff; CtA, Demonlimb or even something like a Spellsteel or
Naj's Puzzler to tele around if I need / want to.

Post by ~misfit~
Youtube? Bloody Youtube? I've done so many runs of all types that I
can replay almost any possible situation in my head without the need
of a broadband connection!

Now that second one sounds interesting.

I heard about it on the Blizz forums last year.

Here's their report, there:

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=18696990205&sid=3000

And here's a pretty thorough treatment of it on another forum, also with
participants in on the conversation:

http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/naked-ironman-hardcore-uber-tristram/P20/

Post by ~misfit~
I can do the first one anytime I want to jigger around with my non-ladder
characters. In fact Mickey and I often did the 'talk above head' thing in
UT. I've done similar to that first one myself only teleing straight into
the middle of trist and killing the stooges before they even have much
time to spawn minions.

I just decided to try it on Nilly runs after I found the ammy, and it was
pretty amazing. I never thought it would actually work so well in UT. I
figured I'd create a clustermug and then have to painstakingly "clean up"
afterward.

I've seen my own clusters, and they ain't pretty. Hehe

Didn't we have two of them at once on one of the runs we did early on?
You're right, they ain't pretty when you're less-than-optimally equipped.

Like I was last ladder. The two or three runs I managed to do were pretty
painful.

Post by ~misfit~
[snip most of epic tale]

... of epic epicness...

... and [snip] the rest of it's epictudinosity.

Post by ~misfit~
:-( Oh well, they will come. It'll give you more incentive to keep
key-farming and running UT. By which time you should have a lovely
collection of druid torches. <g>

Ha! Yours is the only one of the four I've netted so far, so I'm
feeling lucky in that way. LOL I have two barb's and one assassin's.

That druid one you gave me has allowed my strafer to drop some resist
charms in favour of MF and swap a (mainly resist oriented) rare ring for a
Wisp Projector (another 20% MF). Her lightning resist is still a bit low
considering that she's my "rescue character" but the Li absorb on the Wisp
seems to make up for it to an extent.

Excellent that it's getting good use rather than sitting on a mule, useless.

Post by Someone
Next time I run, I'll give you guys a shout.

Yep, if you desire company I'm always up for a UT run. I got my
FIRST Key of Destruction last night, after perhaps 35 - 40 runs. I
get the feeling that it's going to be a long time before I can
'finance' a UT run. Oh well, it'll give me plenty of time to find my
own Dracs. ;-)

And me plenty of time to farm more keys. And maybe find even more
gear for him to use.

Indeed. There are still items that I'd like to find myself as well as the
Drac's so hopefully I'll get enough playing time (and luck) to find some
of them meantime. :-)
All the best,

Same to you, mate.

Shiflet

2010-07-24 06:46:48 UTC

Post by Someone
+2 Command, +4 Orders, +2 Cry

Upper-mid level BO, nice. 4+ BO ones are ones I don't reroll.

Someone

2010-07-24 13:21:48 UTC

Post by Someone
+2 Command, +4 Orders, +2 Cry

Upper-mid level BO, nice. 4+ BO ones are ones I don't reroll.

Rerolling with Ohm runes.... I cannot even imagine. LOL

Shiflet

2010-07-24 20:57:27 UTC

Post by Someone
Rerolling with Ohm runes.... I cannot even imagine. LOL

I don't like it. Luckily, I've had pretty good luck with my rolls so don't
need to reroll it too often.

~misfit~

2010-07-24 05:50:01 UTC

Post by Someone
"Shiflet" wrote...