No problem, Dahkar. I was just questioning whether you were still alive......it would have been a shame if not. I have a lot of time on my hands, which explains why I made it so far, so quickly, and a little wait isn't going to kill me. It's worth it for the MP games: much more fun :thumbsup: .
In any case, I'm thinking about HF as well, because between my base vit and ravens, I don't have much going on for me in terms of tanking. Once I start furying exclusively, I will see how it goes, but the only merc I am thinking of is an a2 HF merc. You, on the other hand, should consider defiance because of duriel. A sorc with base vit, by my experiences with my (now dead) enchantress will find duriel very very hard without a tank. I got lucky enough to find a wand with weaken charges, and a lot of +life gear to allow me to static, but even then, I went through 3 full juvs, and came close to death many times. Chances are, nightmare is not going to be any easier, and the +life gear simply won't cut it for survival, and casters will need a tank. The 40 points to make up for the merc penalty won't be too much of a hindrance in the long run. If you can get to nm A1 instead of dying to duriel, you have probably already made up the difference, as well as having a much safer path through nightmare (and possibly hell). If I was hell-bent on winning this tourney instead of just having some fun, I would take a fishymancer and accept the penalties for a merc, golem, and skellies, and just trudge on and become guardian.
On a side note,I also found a biginn's bonnet (spelling?) off Blood Raven in both this tournament and the Survivor Tourney (that one was an ethreal one, though), which helped immensely (in both cases) with life and supplied a healthy defense and AR. Such an awesome item. I would trade the one I had this tournament, but it is on the rotting carcass of my enchantress, and Cattleya might have a thing or two to say about trading items from dead chars.