2020 Spring RFL Sign-Up and Running Thread: 1st Round

[ffs]

Nova damage numbers are after Conviction and with -ELR from gear in each case. CM setup takes cows to (or at least very near to) -100 with Griffon's and facets, so Infinity doesn't offer an improvement offensively. Regarding cows/min I'm currently at ~170 based on rune drops, but only kept track for ~80 runs so far. Currently using this:

Spoiler

faceted Griffon's Eye
3/10 FCR amulet
CM
Arkaine's with 3 MPK/-req jewel
35 Spirit
Magefist
Arach
2x SoJ
Silkweave

Swapped Nova Ormus and gloves out include Arkaine's, I really like it for Nova/ES Sorc. Gets me to the 86 FHR breakpoint with Spirit and SC, iDR pairs well with ES, and higher BO/life/mana is always nice to have. Some ~200 lower dmg than previous setup with Nova Ormus, but on P5 again it doesn't matter – same "max 5 casts after 2x Static" breakpoint.. if you want to call that a breakpoint.

Overall I'm 4 hours in with Nova Sorc, with first 1.5-2 hours mostly experimenting with gear and rolling maps several times. Think I got her setup and map now and will at least play her for half the set, then maybe another char for second half.

 

[Hutton]

Running a very similar setup to @ffs

Griffon (Facet), CM, Spirit, Viper (PRuby, didn't have another facet around), Mara, 2 x SoJ, Arach, TO gloves, Silkweave, 7 skillers.

Standard Merc setup but with Holy Freeze.

As predicted dropping to p3 had almost no effect on runtimes (maybe 20s at most) but it does feel significantly smoother. I think this is just down to being able to effectively stunlock cows by putting them in to hit recovery- while I still can't teleport on top of Minion cows unless I'm certain they don't have Mana Burn, it does mean you can teleport near them and not have to worry about them making it into hit you, whereas on p5 you still need to "keep an eye on them".

 

[ffs]

@Hutton Think you can drop the TO gloves since you're at the 105 FCR breakpoint regardless – e.g. for Frostburn or MPK gloves? If FCR is needed on gloves it's normally better to go Magefist with her, for the mana regen and +1 Warmth.

Also I'd give Defiance Merc a shot really. HF Merc = slower cows = slower runs. Defiance is a massive defensive boost. In my case it decreases cows CtH from 51% to 29% (with Arkaine's and Frozen Armor).

 

[Hutton]

@Hutton Think you can drop the TO gloves since you're at the 105 FCR breakpoint regardless – e.g. for Frostburn or MPK gloves? If FCR is needed on gloves it's normally better to go Magefist with her, for the mana regen and +1 Warmth.

Also I'd give Defiance Merc a shot really. HF Merc = slower cows = slower runs. Defiance is a massive defensive boost. In my case it decreases cows CtH from 51% to 29% (with Arkaine's and Frozen Armor).

Yeah, it's just for the cold res (a hangover from when I was Lightning, it's definitely not needed now with ES). Perhaps Bloodfists?

Agree that Defiance is best, 100%. Holy Freeze is purely down to playing on HC (for safety elsewhere, again as Lightning), but I'm considering just leaving her as a dedicated cow runner in which case maybe I will grab a Defiance boi.

 

[art_vandelay]

@ffs Is that 29% CtH on p3 or p5? I'm only reaching 31% with fire sorc here on p5 although she has lvl 12 Chilling Armor, lvl 16 Defiance Merc (from Hell, normal gets lvl 18 base) and wears Arkaine's as well (total 10203 def with Andi's on merc).

Since flame carpet for Meteor is pointless (everything dies after static+meteor) I'm thinking about investing the rest of my points in Chilling Armor and to give merc CoH instead of Fortitude so I get to 29% CtH. Beyond that l can only try to add life/def SCs and maybe rerolling map for normal defiance merc. (that would push it to 28%)

Fire sorc is very enjoyable to play, she can stand safely in a pack of cows while everything dies around her And she's faster than Blizzard! (at least for me)

 

[maxicek]

Just over the 5h mark. Need to put some effort in or I won't finish. Nothing interesting to report, I could really use a decent drop to give me some motivation.

 

[Luhkoh]

Finished the set. Not my favorite, but a few decent drops made it better that terrible anyways. Don't think I'm doing a second one. After making that post about my efficiency 12 hours in (~82 p5 cows per min), it at least got better. For those last 8 hours, the rune drops showed just under 100 p5 cows per min. So still not great, but at least better. Heres some stats for the set:

runes           439
jewels          168
sc's            172
skillers        8
flawless ameth  103
total flawless  519

runes/hour      21.95
p5 cows/min     89.4

est runtime     2.8 min (p3)
est runs        428
est cows/run    311

3 hooves 3 hides 1 horn

So now I geared up my trav sorc, just using the vmagi setup atm. Rerolled maps maybe 20 times total. Got this bad boy. Keeper?

Spoiler: new trav map

Goal for round 2 is sub 24s run avg. This seems easily achievable. Current setup has only 1 point in static and in cold mastery because I'm scared to commit points yet. Other goals for round 2 are poison and cold die facets for grail, and bk and wisp rings for grail, so I want at least some appreciable mf.

Gear is 14% nwv with a +5/-3 facet, ptopaz [email protected] vmagi, 30maras, [email protected], spirit, hellmouth, soj, nagel, snowclash, war travs. Have gheeds and 5sk in the inventory with two shimmering scs of vita and 4x mf scs. Has just over 150 mf and max blizz dmg is 8100. I probably need to clear more inventory space, but looking good so far. Tough to see how much I need in static.

 

[ffs]

@art_vandelay CtH numbers were just LCS actually I think they're correct for P1. On P5 it should be 34% with Defiance (9.2k def) and 56% without it.

Managed to hit the 10h mark with second set this weekend. Nova Sorc data so far:

Runs tracked: 214
Runes found: 336
Avg run time (s): 132
Avg runes per run: 1.57
Avg runes per min: 0.71
P5 cows/min: 174.49

Above numbers include runs on previous mediocre maps and less optimized setups. The last 58 runs were done with above Arkaine's setup and on a better map, numbers there are better: 1.67 runes/run with 129s runs, i.e. ~189 cows/minute. Pretty good numbers, but based on just a low number of runs. I'd estimate real long-term average is around ~180, I think @Gripphon said the same for her. Great runner with very fun gameplay.

With new setup and after ~10 hours of running with her, runs look like this:

Spoiler

Timer wasn't running when I recorded, so that Gul drop doesn't count...

Things got smoother with above setup and some practice. Amp and Mana Burn are rarely dangerous, she didn't die since switching to the Arkaine's setup. Also after killing a wave of cows, I learned it's often a good idea to teleport in place, cast SF or even just wait. That way it's faster to kill the "second wave" that's coming in, instead of attacking (and stunning) just the first row of them while the ones behind don't walk into the Nova radius.

Non-qualifiers from first half of the second set included SoJ, Bow and P&B skillers with life, 19 FR RJoF, [email protected] IAS jewel.

Spoiler

 

[Gripphon]

I did comparison of drops and xp method for p5 and p3. I have never had similarity between the two yet, xp method gives worse results than drop method. Either reducing 50 cows from the total is still too much or drops are continuously on a lucky side.
Either way I don't really see how can we get more precise. I dislike xp method because it largely depends on a running style. If I hoard more, then I naturally kill more minions. If I try to run faster, then I kill less minions. I also kill more cows on p3 than on p5, both regular and minions. But how much, I can just blindly guess some random number that seems nice to me.

Either way, p5 is barely better than p3 while at ~ 2 min running time, so I guess p3 might be simply superior for any runner that is above 2.5 mins mark.
I would guess precision of these methods is somewhere around the +-5% from a given result. Or it could be as bad as +-10%. It could be 215 or it could be 185 cows per minute. Of course mathematically difference between the two is significant, but there is nothing we can do about that sadly.

 

[Pb_pal]

Klaus is about halfway done his set, like max I'm gonna have to dial it up a bit to finish. I can report though that he is still, in fact, alive. So far so good!

 

[art_vandelay]

I hate this game. 16 hours into the second set and I have to switch characters again

Setup for my firesorc was:

42% fhr, 105% fcr
HotO
1.07 Arkaine's 'PRuby'
Phoenix
Griffon's 'Cham'
Mara's
Magefist
2xSoJ
Arach
Waterwalk
3-4 x Fire Skiller
12% FHR/100 Def GC
life/def SCs

If I manage to craft a +2 Fire/Sorc amulet with +15% (or higher) faster cast I will switch HotO for Fortitude. The reasoning here is that I calculated the damage FB and Meteor do and compared it to cow life after static and Meteor is a one hit kill whereas FB does it in two hits. So I can drop HotO and Mara's with Fortitude and 2/15 craft to gain a huge def boost while not loosing killing speed. In fact I might even keep the same damage numbers if I switch the two SoJ's for beta BKWB's (assuming I'll have them by then).

I calculated that I could drop my chance to be hit from 28% to 23% and potentially lower if I replace skillers with defense GCs. Those can have more life as well and together with Fortitude, a potential Ber in Arkaine's and beta CtA I might be able to never go into hit recovery from regular cows while staying close to 20% chance to be hit overall.

I died quite a few times with her so defense is worthwile. At least if I want to keep up my reckless playstyle of standing inside cow packs

 

[Gripphon]

My take on fireball sorc for cows, p5. Gear is a secret of course, but I can be persuaded to reveal it.

I hit 86 fhr too. Playing can be improved, there are more combinations Meteor + Fireball can be used in. In either case she is not entirely terrible cow runner.

EDIT

Tried p7. Speed with this playing style is the same. Easy 200+ p5 cows per minute

EDIT 2
20 runs xp runs testing, I deducted 50 cows as usual from total, but I do think 40 better approximation. Anyway, got 195 p5 cows per minute. I can't tell if this is maintainable since I didn't really play fire sorc, but it is definitely comparable to necro. If anything sorc can be only improved now.

So, conclusion I have is to go p7 with fire sorc, collect bunch of cows and blast them with meteors and fireballs to finish off. I got 345 p7 cows per run killed with this method which sounds reasonable.

 

[Locohead]

I hate this game. 16 hours into the second set and I have to switch characters again

People take it too seriously, methinks. As long as your runs are in the ballpark of fast, it's going to mostly come down to luck. I'm sticking with my cowzon, just trying to find the motivation to run (only managed 70 minutes so far, not looking good lol.)

 

[CaseyJones]

I'm thinking he killed the king....again.

 

[ffs]

@Gripphon very nice gameplay (and very nice map). I literally prepared a Fire Sorc yersterday because I was leaning towards finishing the 2nd set with a fire character. So far I focused more on Fire Ball, not even used Static much (just herding with Teleport) because on P5 it's always 2-shot FB and 1-shot Meteor. But your approach with Static and Meteor seems better, also P7 makes sense given it leads to the same 2-shot/1-shot scenario when using Static.

I also gave Fissure a serious try for the first time – better than I thought, there are some tricks and techniques with him that aren't really explored yet IMO.

 

[art_vandelay]

Good to see that fire sorc lives on Also slightly jealous at those three FHR skillers @Gripphon

I'll be finishing the rest of the set with Javazon, can't go wrong there.

@Locohead Drops are just fine, what's not fine is clicking on the transmute button one run and the portal not opening up. Turns out I must have killed CK without realizing... Just very frustrating to have to leave a perfectly fine character by the wayside for nothing basically

 

[Gripphon]

@ffs
Gogogogo. He is a solid character to run with.

@art_vandelay
One fhr skiller, all small charms have fhr/mana. Griffon's is with lightning facet while Eschuta's is with fire facet. But, facets aren't really important for Meteor and Fireball while they do offer something for Static.

 

[ffs]

I also equipped Griffon's on Fire Sorc, but just because 25 FCR from headpiece is very convenient for this build, namely to reach 105 with Phoenix and + skill rings, as well as no FCR needs from amulet. As far as I could tell -ELR amount is not relevant, because in any case FB 2-shots and Meteor 1-shots, irrespective of exact Static damage.

For reference, I currently have her set like this:

Spoiler

faceted Eschuta's
Phoenix
Enigma
Griffon's 'Shael'
Mara's
2x BKWB
Arach
Magefist
eth Treks

Enigma and Mara's just for higher life basically. Arkaine's, CoH, +3 Fire etc. are options of course. Also not sure about Shael in Griffon's (maybe rather Ruby, Cham, Ber etc.).

With above setup, 5 skillers in inventory guarantee 1-shot Meteor after 2x Static (and 2-shot FB of course), leaving a lot of inventory space to adjust FHR, life or whatever. Not sure yet how much Fire Sorc really profits from FHR. That was a priority for Nova, but with Fire Sorc it depends on playstyle...

With potential 190+ cows/min floating around I think I'll have to test her some more as well. Maybe will split my remaining ~8 hours between her and Fissure.

EDIT: Ran with Meteor focused Fire Sorc style for a bit. Really no issue going P7, so far averaging just under 2 min runs on a "pretty good but not super great" map. Definitely feels like same league as Necro/Java/Trapper. 60 FHR breakpoint seems perfectly fine, running that with 3k life with the above setup – basically just changed the playstyle to what @Gripphon showed above. She has more leftovers than the other builds, so run times alone don't give the full picture. But the potential is very clear indeed. Don't want to ruin the score for my second set, so I think I'll run with her till the end and collect data along the way to see how she compares. Fissure Druid has to wait for some later testing... or a third set.

Also, finally what seems to be a real top tier build that I can use my best skiller collection with.

Spoiler

Burning Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0xfa20d672
Item Level: 95
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)
+45 to Life

Burning Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0xdb7f0dd4
Item Level: 95
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)
+33 to Life

Burning Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0xecc8059
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)
+24 to Life

Burning Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0xb19c187a
Item Level: 81
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)
+28 to Life

Burning Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0x5460e075
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)
+25 to Life

 

[Gripphon]

Today has been a terrible day. No qualifier dropped in 1 hour of playing. It is hard to explain this amount of bad luck.

 

[Locohead]

Today has been a terrible day. No qualifier dropped in 1 hour of playing. It is hard to explain this amount of bad luck.

Lolwut? I got no quals so far in more than an hour, and that seems normal to me. (but then I guess I'm only about half the speed of ffs )

Drops are just fine, what's not fine is clicking on the transmute button one run and the portal not opening up. Turns out I must have killed CK without realizing... Just very frustrating to have to leave a perfectly fine character by the wayside for nothing basically

Ugh. My condolences. See that's why I don't really get all these ice and fire sorcs out there. Killing CK has to be a real danger. I'm happy with my enigma'ed (she barely ever teleports) cowzon because I won't have to face that.