The ChuckNoris Challenge

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ChuckNoRis
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Dominusignis wrote:I got a bit lucky with my kabraxis charm. Image
Overall the experience with character no. 5 (Rollo) is great. There are only 6 ubers left (Triune, Uldy, Zorun Tzin, Atanna Khan, Laz, The Void).
Gearwise i've managed to get my first xis rune and crafted the buff weapon and the second xis is in progress. For the rest i dont seem to get lucky, not a single SU dropped for my list, but it seems for most of the content the midgame gear is good enough. Sig farming is almost over as well (450/500)
that's quite nice , you did great so far .

regarding the SU's you will require a lot of farming or maby you will have better luck trading with the other guys in the challenge .

good luck for the other charms !
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Solfege
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ChuckNoRis wrote:the only usefull tip/note is that the builds were not ment to be played as strict as for this challenge , so if the progress is being harder than usual is not my fault . your main issues comes from the fact that you are not leveled and geared as intended for certain parts of the game .

normaly you hit 90 in early act 3 (lc2) in SP (quite very easy) , so from that point untill you got to act 5 (the spot where you got to 90 in MP) is a big gap where you could not access the uberskill and lifeshield , things that could make your life easier while progressing trough the game .

again , leveling from 90 to 120 gets a lot faster in SP , which allows farming terror ubers a lot sooner .

also , since you are behind schedule regarding the XP (and gear i suppose) , you must still keep more points into Circle of Life for now . you don't need to rush to the mid game skillplan and respec to 1-pointer just because you can access the uberskill . Again , the challenge is too strict and it is now how it is intended to be played . it's just making the builds harder to play , but then it's suppose to be a challenge after all . meh . with a higher defence your lack of regeneration will not be felt as bad as it does now . i've put 1-pointer pagan rites to help you a bit here.

in therms of better tanking all you can do for now is grind for better gear - mid gear- (much better base defence -> a lot more total character defence) and do the BRC after that.

i'd grind in k3kba for shrines as it's the most doable spot for now . are you using a merc ?

about the Feral Strike you may think of it as you would use Solar Flare for a holy build . it's not nice doing it every few seconds , but you have to in order to boost the build .

good luck !


Well, I'm not saying it's your fault and I'm not saying the build is bad. That wouldn't be fair b/c these builds aren't being played the way they're meant to be played. I'm just posting my experience with this build based on the restrictions imposed by this challenge.

Just to clarify, I wasn't that far behind in leveling. I did LC2 at clvl 85 and hit clvl 90 in A3 (Upper Kurast, I think). But even with Lifeshield, I can't do K3K effectively atm. Maybe I'm still confused about the leveling process for these builds. If I were playing SP, and I was clvl 104, what would I be doing right now? What gear would I be using (early or mid game), and what skillplan would I be using (early or mid game)? Also, what type of base Axe should I use for
Instinct



Instinct
One-Handed Axes

'IgnGurTyrZod'
Runeword Level: 115
+6 to Druid Skill Levels
+(48 to 60)% Bonus Damage to Mark of the Wild
+(18 to 20)% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
110% Attack Speed
(150 to 250)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(45 to 55)% to Fire Spell Damage
-50% to Enemy Fire Resistance
Physical Resist (10 to 15)%
+(215 to 265) Life after each Kill
? I do think things will be easier with better gear. I'm just trying to figure out how to get that better gear.

And I'm fine with the concept of Feral Strike, I just don't like how it's activated. That's not the build's fault. As I said, if the devs could make it activate the way Moonstrike does, it would be a huge help for this build. Same with Ravage's CtH. It's definitely not 95% CtH per swing per Ravage. Again, not the build's fault.

As for mercs, I'm not using one b/c the rules of the challenge won't let me yet. (I miss my Rogue. My sweet, sweet, stupid Rogue... :sadface: ) I disagree with this rule b/c the beginning of the Compilation clearly implies mercs are acceptable to use for all builds. But that's life...
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Crash
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Ravage works like Massacre and Zeal in vanilla. If you miss the first hit, the all the other x in that skill use will miss.

I think (could be wrong), that if you miss any hit in the sequence, anything following in the remainder of that sequence will miss also.

I believe the rule was confirmed that mercs are allowed as long as they aren't playing the game for you. You should be the main DPS and sustain.
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I've been playing #35 Ragnar summoner barb, reached a5 destruction and have a total of 19 charms. K3k has been my primary farming spot for shrines and rare jewelry. I have crafted all mid-game gear pieces and have about half the crafted jewels socketed. The rest are ist crafts without an additional minion life/damage rolls. I've traded for several shines as well as acs. This build is not suited for farming arcane crystals or signets. With most builds I'd typically do Mephisto and Nihlathak runs but I get one-shot frequently. Mephisto takes a long time to kill and requires re-summoning of spirits. Most of the enemies Mephiso summons himself are a pain in the ass. The journey from the Halls of Pain to Nihlathak is pretty difficult. Its filled lots of rare mobs that deal high damage/stun etc. Its miserable to farm either one, though the act 5 merc does make things easier. Having to cough up 50k after every death is annoying though. This build does okay in terror Fauztinville and can farm the teganze, slowly. K3k on destruction is slow and noticeably less enjoyable without the merc.

I haven't done a play-through before as a summoner barb so this has been a learning experience. I could probably farm a few more charms but dying repeatedly isn't enjoyable. This build offers very little defense for the player. Besides the summons and 1 point in immortal, it has basically nothing.

About the gearing


Early game:

There aren't many options for summoners in early game so most of the gear is fine. Using stampede is more work that whats its worth. Having to blink on switch to move summons frequently (due to cd of spirit walk) makes it just another thing to micro-manage. Using another tu bronze sword would be much more beneficial. Making and upgrading rockshatter felt like a waste of crystals.

Death's Fury Totems from
Fauztin's Visage
Fauztin's Visage
Field Plate (4)

Defense: 268 to 540
Required Level: 11
Required Strength: 32
Item Level: 19
+(11 to 20)% to Summoned Minion Life
+(6 to 10)% to Summoned Minion Resistances
+50% Enhanced Defense
+250 Defense vs. Melee
+50 to Life
Poison Length Reduced by (21 to 25)%
Physical Resist 1%
Socketed (2)
Defense: 890 to 1668
Required Level: 37
Required Strength: 63
Item Level: 36
+(21 to 30)% to Summoned Minion Life
+(11 to 15)% to Summoned Minion Resistances
+100% Enhanced Defense
+500 Defense vs. Melee
+100 to Life
Poison Length Reduced by (31 to 35)%
Physical Resist 2%
Socketed (4)
Defense: 2232 to 4107
Required Level: 61
Required Strength: 219
Item Level: 59
+(31 to 40)% to Summoned Minion Life
+(16 to 20)% to Summoned Minion Resistances
+150% Enhanced Defense
+750 Defense vs. Melee
+175 to Life
Poison Length Reduced by (41 to 45)%
Physical Resist 3%
Socketed (5)
Defense: 3642 to 6678
Required Level: 75
Required Strength: 438
Item Level: 85
+(41 to 50)% to Summoned Minion Life
+(21 to 25)% to Summoned Minion Resistances
+200% Enhanced Defense
+1000 Defense vs. Melee
+250 to Life
Poison Length Reduced by (46 to 50)%
Physical Resist 5%
Socketed (6)
add very little damage. I think at t6 it adds +6 to 8 per element. Its not worth trying to re-cast these as they get destroyed easily. Again more micro-management for little gain.

The jewelry suggestion is good but trying to find it in even by mid-game is pretty difficult. Ive found a couple hundred rings and only 1 has had +1sk and a minion affix. I also tried trading for these but no one else found them. The right jewels are also hard to find and crafting takes a back seat to gear uptiering.

Mid-game:

Crafts are clearly the way to go, as suggested. Trying to farm/trade to get the correct shrines is very time consuming. I used a lot of shrines and went through several good rolls on crafts, trying to hit good bonuses on shrine blessings. I think my gear is pretty decent.

Kraken stance on the helm is mostly useless, except for bosses..maybe. The damage from summons is almost even when compared to wolf stance. I think bear would be better here but between kraken and wolf I'd go with wolf. I recently found out about
Morthwyrtha
Morthwyrtha
Barbarian Helms

'IoSur'
Runeword Level: 75
+(3 to 4) to Barbarian Skill Levels
+1 to Maximum Barbarian Minions
+3 to Banish
+(16 to 20)% to Summoned Minion Damage
+(50 to 75)% to Summoned Minion Attack Rating
Regenerate Mana +(6 to 10)%
from the new barb summon guide, it looks way better than anything that can be crafted. I don't understand why it isn't at least an option. Kraken is garbage for this build.

I don't care for the totems from Huracan. Again this is another chore to keep them up. Mine have 11k life atm and die almost instantly. Maybe if the build had more summons it would be different. Another crafted axe or the tu bronze sword would be nice for offhand. I do like the resists the shield offers though.

Skill plan:

Wolf stance isn't appropriate as a primary stance for mid-game. Ancient blood has 4 points in it but none of the mid-game skills are maxed and the max life % bonus doesn't do much when nothing is invested in life. Shamanic trance only has 14 points. It should have at least 21 and could have 28 for the additional summons each 7 points gives. Mid-game could potentially have 24 summons with the runeword helm, but instead it has 15.



My biggest issue with mid-game gear is that it offers nothing in terms of defense. Literally nothing. I have 46k defense, 4% dr and 8k life. This amount of life is so low that many normal (white) enemies can trigger hit recovery with their attacks. Nearly all rare mobs kill in 1-2 hits. Once hit recovery happens I have a very low chance of surviving. I farmed tran for the sunstone very slowly but getting the trophy for extra dr% isn't feasible. Not that it would make much of a difference anyways. I wanna keep playing but jewels on average take way to many crystals to roll and I know that improving minion stats isn't enough on its own to make progression any easier. This build needs a better skill plan and more appropriate gear for mid-game.


Sorry for the wall of text.
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ChuckNoRis
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Solfege wrote:If I were playing SP, and I was clvl 104, what would I be doing right now? What gear would I be using (early or mid game), and what skillplan would I be using (early or mid game)? Also, what type of base Axe should I use for
Instinct



Instinct
One-Handed Axes

'IgnGurTyrZod'
Runeword Level: 115
+6 to Druid Skill Levels
+(48 to 60)% Bonus Damage to Mark of the Wild
+(18 to 20)% Bonus Elemental Damage to Mark of the Wild
110% Attack Speed
(150 to 250)% Bonus to Attack Rating
+(45 to 55)% to Fire Spell Damage
-50% to Enemy Fire Resistance
Physical Resist (10 to 15)%
+(215 to 265) Life after each Kill
? I do think things will be easier with better gear. I'm just trying to figure out how to get that better gear.


regarding the skillplan you need to move towards the one for mid-game, but since your max skill level is not increased too much for now (just what you got from the class charm), you can keep more than just 1 point into Circle of life (split the leftovers here and to Mythal according to your needs) .

regarding the Axe for Instinct RW , since you need it mostly for buffing with MOTW and dealing more fire damage , the base item is not important ( you only need it to have 6 sockets ) . Any axe would fit since the physical damage is not important when attacking with it . It is not mandatory to go for the war axe

if doing terror k3kba seams hard for the moment , advance trough the regular game untill you hit 120 . Then , when your main skills got more points invested go back and try it again , as that spot is the best you can access for now in search of shrines .

get the crafted weapon first as that way you will also be able to equip a shield , which will boost your total character defence , then go for the body armor . The body armor normaly takes a lot of shrines (or luck) to roll untill it spawns with Javelin Nova proc , so untill you can access a lot of shrines your main goal for it is just to have good stats and enhanced defence . the proc can come later so you should not focus on that on the first rolls .

i hope this helps .

good luck !

L H wrote:Ravage works like Massacre and Zeal in vanilla. If you miss the first hit, the all the other x in that skill use will miss.
I believe the rule was confirmed that mercs are allowed as long as they aren't playing the game for you. You should be the main DPS and sustain.
yes , that was my impression too . if the first hit misses , then the others miss too , that's why having 95% chance to hit is important . Some opponents got a chance to avoid/dodge , reason why applying the first hit of Ravage can be difficult .

regarding the merc , you can use any ranged merc (act 1 or act 3) you want . i tought this was clear before the challenge started , mentioned in the first post of this thread among the other rules .




Edit about the summon barb :

i've seen the feedback regarding the lack of character defence coming from both the players of this challenge , but if this wasn't so strict they could use the 1-pointer Bear Stance whenever needed as the soft points are boosting the %TCD good enough in mid/end game in order to feel less squishy (adds around 200% tcd in mid game and around 300% tcd in end game)- it wasn't me who made the rules for the challenge , as i would have never agreed for it to be so absurd . if you got points into some skills i believe you should be allowed to use them if the situation requires , even if the miniguides does not mention them .

i know that the character is not much of a tank by himself but the catch here is to jump with spirit walk then tslam asap , then step back from the danger and let your summons deal the damage (physical damage with Wolf Stance on/elemental damage with Kraken on , depending on what enemies you are fighting against) , while you are behind them dodging hits and re-summoning them as they die / use another t-slam if it's safe enough to approach the battle at every few seconds . Wolf stance provides FRW and IAS besides CB , meaning that the summons are doing a lot more hits / minute compared to any other stance .

Lightning Arena is also great to have , along the other periodical stuns of Thundergod .

regarding the gearing and skillplan , i have found stampede very usefull in the early game when your summons are not so strong/so many . the damage it deals is decent while boosted by Shamanic trance , so you can do some nice damage yourself from behind your army while it does the tanking , without needing to go head-first into fights . if the build was not full str and using just minion based gear , stampede could do good in the mid game too , but at that point you no longer need it as the summons do fine by themselves + you are not tanky enough to stay in fights by yourself , so you just have to focus on taking care of the summons and let them fight for you .reason why you just resume to t-slam from time to time

the elemental totems do a great job amplifying (up to around 200% ) both the elemental damage coming from Kraken stance and the Nephalem spirit . the build uses a lot of elemental damage to weapon , so if it comes from more than one source it is very welcomed . Kraken suits fine here . why stop at 2k per element when you can have 3.5k per element if going for both sources ? (elemental totem boost was not included here , so you can actualy deal a lot more per element) it does great in many spots and i would not switch to Morthwyrtha for anything in the world . that helm suits other builds , but not this one .

regarding the extra points into shamanic trance i don't believe that are worth the trouble after you acces Colliding Fury , as that would mean removing points from other spots just to max this skill while the army is big enough already . if you want to dump more points there in the mid game , feel free to do so , i have chosen not to .

good luck !




Somnus wrote:I believe you were in the stream when I was feedbacking about it. But ''you have to write the feedback in the forum'', so here it is.
yes , i know rebounding is hard and most of the times cannot be used efficiently , reason why stampede needs to be used in those spots where rebound is useless . i have experienced the same thing myself and also seen most of your stream . but i also seen you a lot of times going head first into battle instead of throwing the skills (be it rebound or stampede ) from a safer distance . you had more of a melee-ish approach , going too close to your enemies instead of a hit and run approach . both skills hit from a big distance so i would play it a bit more safe if i were you . that would reduce with about 50% the total deaths . i don't want to say that you are playing it bad , this is not about that , you are doing fine . Just that the tactics should be a bit different in order to feel less pain .


apply the poison damage and slow target -> get a few steps back -> apply again -> few steps back -> spam your skill -> if they are not already dead , get a few more steps back and spam it again untill the screen is clear . that slows target works wonders , also if your crafted weapon is rolled with more of it . going a few steps back every few seconds after applying the slows target allows you to keep a safe distance between you and your opponents most of the time .

i know that it can be harder the first time until you get the hang of it , but i'm sure that if you would ever play it the second time you would do better .

regarding the damage , yes it is a bit low and the weapon damage modifier should be at least 100% up from 75% . still , there is 255% ED (15% x 17 points) coming from shamanic trance + around 200% from spirit guide in early game , so the poison immunes should not be such a pain to kill if your weapon is constantly upgraded . Later on Kraken does it's job adding some k elemental damage to use vs those poison immunes , being boosted by the hard points into the other stances .

but , you said it yourself , you are a bit underleveled and under geared , so some of your issues are here .

rebound indeed needs some boost / the walls need to be fixed for it to work better. the seek range is good enough so you can start the fight from offscreen , but without good walls to rebound from it's hard to be efficient.

about "why rebound" i've put my answer on the top of page 17 of this thread.

your feedback is very welcomed , hoping that the admins will take note of it and decide to really make rebound great again , as those issues are the same since many patches ago
Edited by ChuckNoRis 6 years.
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Somnus
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Rebound feedback (W.I.P):


Playing this build untwinked is a bit of a pain in the ass, but we tried.

Hatred:
Starting with 1dogo and 1summon is the fastest to level up/go until you can get stampede&snakestance. Then you just rush with 0 problems to boxes.
Make 200 games to get your belt/weapon/helmet cause rng is shit or go through the act. I chose to do 50/50 of both. You have no problems if using stampede+snake stance (and your summons for andy or rekt places ahemInnerCloisterahem. Act 2 is amazing, you can basically 1 shot everything at this point with snake stance/stampede with rock shatter (but overall your merc carries you). Moving on, you go through the act, poison immunes take years to kill, since we have only poison damage(almost tons of damage) and a max source of damage of ''100'', which is low. Then you get to duriel, ez kill cause summons, merc, doggos and poison rebound stampede. In act 3, you are scared shitless cause u have like no defense, no damage, so you gotta go around, like a toddler in a pedo van, hoping that no onyx/tree of life come your way (obviously you get like 30 of them per yard, and yes, it happened to me). Then you get to that place in act 3, where there are tons of mobs with tons of random damages, and lets not forget, CNC is an acronym for ''No Resistances Challenge'' (they didnt included ''no defense/damage'' in there, cause it wouldnt sound so cool).
No, but seriously, you get rekt here, so you gotta rush the portals etc. With some luck, you'll get to mephisto, which will take a long time to kill and your portals will run out so fast you'll have no money to keep that up.
Once you are able to kill mephisto, you start trying to up your items, so you go andy/charsi's hammer cause mephisto takes years. Once you have your basic TU's, you can start farming mephisto, faster now, but still 1 shot.
You get to act 4, and you cant rebound (and your 1 point into stampede is garbo). So it takes long years to go through here, and ofc, despair plains are a pain, since they deactivate your ranged skills (dam you cats).
Once you get to diablo, it will take a long time to kill his 3 mini-bossess. R.I.P diablo, cause he's paper in comparison.
I found act 5 fun with rebound 1pt stampede, for real, i had less problems here (died a couple of times) but the density and laek made it amazing. Everything was poisoned and dying. The arreat summit was ez pz with summons/doggo.
Getting into baal room was amazing with no-rebound/stampede, i even made a ''AnimeMusicVideo'' but with diablo gameplay, >here. Baal was easy, since you have summons/doggo and stampede.

Terror:
Damage was low af, underleveled, undergeared and everything basically one shots you (well, everything has been 1shitting you since act 3, but lets go with this).
Cog were pains, innercloister was a pain/suffering. Andy was easy (summons, merc, doggo + body recovery).
Act 2 was fun, sewers. Leveled up a bit there, slow but surely.
I think I got up to Duriel, but it was so painful to rebound or play 1pt stampede/snake stance that I simply lost interest and will to live.

How to fix this?
Skill wise: Wait till rebound/walls are reworked, it has average damage, its hard to hit some places and you cant use it on open places (which is most of the game/farming places).
I would swap it to stampede/overkill with wolf stance.

Item wise: Early game items are ok, i would add the basic runewords in case people cant(or doesnt want to run 1000 boxes) find the items, so they dont go naked. I havent reach mid game, so I cant opinion about that.



PS: This is not a troll feedback, I wrote this in this ''format/way'' because I believe you were in the stream when I was feedbacking about it. But ''you have to write the feedback in the forum'', so here it is.

Ps2: for the luls, im gonna leave the first feedback i made bellow:

TL:DR
This build is bad rebound, and its bug, cause walls are like not walls so your rebound cant rebound like rebound should rebound.
Luckily you have stamped (1pt), which can carry you up to act3-3.5, after that, you are just getting rekt by anything. You try to use rebound? Sry no walls, open space. You try to rebound? Sorry, enemies behind walls so no axe from rebound come out. You try to rebound? Sorry, wall is bug, rebound ''missess''. You try to rebound? Finally, you can rebound, but your rebound has no rebound damage and it takes a year to kill mobs. So, you use stampede, which is faster, easier, better.

Feedback: Why rebound?


PS: It's wip, but i made a quick sketch of what the feedback will look, @hohohaha is lazy, so i believe he's gonna use my feedback copy pasted.
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Solfege
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ChuckNoRis wrote:regarding the skillplan you need to move towards the one for mid-game, but since your max skill level is not increased too much for now (just what you got from the class charm), you can keep more than just 1 point into Circle of life (split the leftovers here and to Mythal according to your needs) .

regarding the Axe for Instinct RW , since you need it mostly for buffing with MOTW and dealing more fire damage , the base item is not important ( you only need it to have 6 sockets ) . Any axe would fit since the physical damage is not important when attacking with it . It is not mandatory to go for the war axe

if doing terror k3kba seams hard for the moment , advance trough the regular game untill you hit 120 . Then , when your main skills got more points invested go back and try it again , as that spot is the best you can access for now in search of shrines .

get the crafted weapon first as that way you will also be able to equip a shield , which will boost your total character defence , then go for the body armor . The body armor normaly takes a lot of shrines (or luck) to roll untill it spawns with Javelin Nova proc , so untill you can access a lot of shrines your main goal for it is just to have good stats and enhanced defence . the proc can come later so you should not focus on that on the first rolls .

i hope this helps .

good luck !

----------

regarding the merc , you can use any ranged merc (act 1 or act 3) you want . i tought this was clear before the challenge started , mentioned in the first post of this thread among the other rules .


Yes. This helps a lot. Thank you.

As far as mercs, this was the last rule I read on the subject:
Chuck does mention in the beginning of his guide to get a merc opposite of your char (ranged char should get melee merc, etc), but doesn't list any gear for the merc. In this case, unless the guide says explicitly to get a specific merc (one of the assassin guides says to get an a2 then a5 merc), mercs will not be allowed until you begin your heavy farming.* He cannot join in to help you get charms or clear bosses unless a merc is mentioned in that miniguide.

*Emphasis mine.

I havn't read the main post since the challenge began. Good to know this isn't the case anymore. Abhaya, grab your bow. We have work to do.
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Mikebringer
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Hey, #45 Poison Ivy here.

I'm giving up. The biggest reason is that I can't kill terror ancients in early game gear excluding empyrean bands, due to no meatshields and not enough DEF and DR combined with basically non existant boss damage on moving targets. Second reason is I don't see this build getting some of the charms, excluding the ones you need special gear for, which are invalid for the challenge. Granted I'm not the best player and I think another guy tried the same build and got further.

I've never tried the poison tree before,so the skills were new to me. The combination of miasma, carpet of spiders and flamestrike was fun to play and proved good enough for hatred. With the flamedance buff I felt like I was killing bosses at a decent speed as well.

The struggles came in terror. Damage started dropping off, and by a4 I was crawling through. At the time I was ~64 lvl and with T4 gear + the honorifics. It was finally time to grind crystals and gold to finish my early game gear. Did that, progressed to ancients and I hit a brick wall.

I'm quitting at lvl 94 because I don't feel I can reliably (aka without dying infinite amount of times) farm anything relevant in terror to get out of the swamp I'm in. And even if I put my will to it I don't think I'll be able to keep my sanity while trying T Baal.

I propose swapping pax mystica for a kabbalah orb at 78, because the 3 second teleport can really help with general mobility and survival in my opinion.

All in all I had fun. Thanks for organising!
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ChuckNoRis
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your issues are mainly regarding the fact that you were way undergeared and underleveled judging by your post above . Also , your merc could have tanked all 3 ancients by himself if proper geared .

anyhow , i'm glad it was (at least part of it) a good experience for you .
Freykin
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A small update:

I’m now level 120, in Act 2 Destruction. I managed to get the charm from The Butcher, but have put the Infernal
Machine on hold as it was getting frustrating. I’ve now got my full mid game set together! Looking forward to reaching Teganzhe and seeing how tough it is to start rying to farm all these xis runes, along with taking on more challenges.