Zenigma
Diabloii.Net Member
Please welcome my first single player Druid Patriarch: Patriarch Giggles
Thoughts going in: Fire Claws is a cool skill, and it goes fast. Really fast, like a... fast thing... (yay)
So... why Giggles? Let me tell you why. Because the thought of killing everything with Fire Claws makes me chortle with delight. Also, all the other names I could think to give him made me throw up dead kittens and friendship on the inside.
Level at crowning achievement: 80 (under 10 million exp until 81)
Stats at crowning achievement:
Strength: 65 (103)
Dexterity: 120 (156)
Vitality: 285 (285)
Energy: 15 (39)
Life: (Werebear) 2143
Mana: 217
Skills at crowning achievement:
Shape-shifting
Werewolf: 1
Lycanthropy: 1
Werebear: 1
Feral Rage: 1
Maul: 1
Fire Claws: 20
Shockwave: 1
Summoning
Poison Creeper: 1
Carrion Vine: 1
Elemental
Firestorm: 20
Molten Boulder: 20
Fissure: 3
Volcano: 20
I maxed Molten Boulder, the Volcano, then Firestorm. Why's that? Because I wanted to have a physical damage skill in case of fire-immunes. Wasn't necessary though. Any order would work fine, but I felt Fissure would be redundant, because I can already do some gnarly amounts of fire damage. I did use Molten Boulder on occasion, but in each situation, it did no more good than shockwave/maul/fire claws would have done.
Going to max out that Fissure next for that nice fire Damage, and if I go to 99 (not gonna happen) the last two points will go into... probably getting Heart of Wolverine. (hopefully with some prebuff, I can get a nice AR boost that doesn't die immediately)
Gear
Weapon: Gemmed Phaseblade 'ShaelShaelShaelShaelShaelShael' (only way to go, short of a 4 Shael with two 15/15s)
Shield: Whitstan's Guard
Switch Weapon: Spirit Crystal Sword
Switch Shield: Sigon
Helm: Guillame's Face
Armor: Smoke Archon Plate (before that, Smoke Mage Plate; before that, Smoke Light Plate; before that, whatever)
Belt: one of my random String of Ears
Gloves: blood crafted dual leech 8 cb 2 dex sharkskin gloves (I had low standards; what can I say?)
Boots: Switched between Sanders and the Waterwalks I found on him
Amulet: Angelic (used The Eye of Etlich for most of the game)
Ring 1: Angelic (for most of the game, I used a 115 ar, 4 str, 8 dex, 3 ll, poison/light res craft)
Ring 2: rare (95 ar, 18 str, 12 dex, 9 nrg, 11 stamina, 5 all res) (this ring is pretty sweet, right? not too shabby for some self-found nonsense on my other characters)
Charms: couple of SS gcs, found a 3 max dam, 18 ar, 13 life sc and a 3 max dam, 13 ar, 1-2 cold dam sc, some life scs, a frw/max dam/ar gc, more frw, more ar were the goals, some dex as well (though it was definitely unnecessary)
I aimed to change out the Whitstan's Guard with a Sanctuary Shield (found a 3os Trolololol Nest while doing hell cows on another char), but I never fully felt comfortable dropping my only (at the time, only) mal on a runeword I couldn't guarantee would see any use on another character, also have 75% chance to block is nice, probably saved my life a few times at that... anyways, I had crappy resists at the end, which wouldn't have been such a great problem with that alternate shield. I definitely could have gotten away with less dex and maintained max block with the Whitstan.
So when I finished Baal in Hell, I was doing 4357-4656 without any Maul charges. 9500+ Fire Claws AR without Blessed Aim, 16k+ with.
Simpleton:
Act 2 Normal Offensive Desert Jackass
Cryptic Axe Insight
Duriel's Shell (found somewhere in nightmare)
Rare 8 life leech circlet with 22 str and some cold and poison resists
How it went:
Nicely.
How it went... in depth:
Very nicely.
How I dealt with fire immunes:
Crushing blow at 43% will do wonders when you hit over 80% of the time, attacking at 4 fpa (on /players 1, which is how I did most of Hell) In packs, I just spammed Shockwave, but when there were only 1 to 3 enemies, I used Maul and Fire Claws (for that nice AR boost). By the by, Maul builds up really quickly when you attack so much, so... yeah. You can build up a little bit of physical damage, which never really hurts.
Normal: played on /p8
Nightmare: played on /p8 (the chaos sanctuary was annoying, because I was dealing with fire immunes, but I had a mercenary with a strong enough weapon, and I finally put a point into shockwave at the end of act 3 (thankfully))
Hell: played mostly on /p1, except I put all of the act bosses on /p8, which was totally worth it, because it was fun, but it was also totally not worth it, because I hardly got any good drops (save for Wizzy from Duriel, which I brutally needed for another character in progress)
Ancients... I rerolled them a couple times, but I actually ended up finishing them with Talic and Korlic being fire-immune, so balls to conventional thinking...
Finds:
Wizardspike from Duriel (finally)
Mal Rune in act 3 lower kurast (third high(-ish?) rune I've gotten from act 3 while questing on through on my characters, which is pretty cool)
15 ias/11 ed jewel, I'll find a use for that
Shape-Shifting GC (really nice, considering it fits this character perfectly)
End thoughts: Some of the best fun I've had yet. It's a cheap build to make, and it's hella worth it for teh gigglez, and if you find a place without fire immunes, play it on /p8 (i did that where I could, like maggot lair--so much fun)
Plans for el futuro:
I'm thinkin' this guy will be able to do cows, Pindle, and chicken-sitting in act 1.
Also, now Pindleskin too, I've never done runs of him before, but two runs in and I found a 23 life necro summon gc, so I'm digging the prospect of getting more like it.
I will add more junk as I can think of it.
Junk added.
More Junk added.
It's not particularly fast, but cows is definitely the thing to do with this guy. He can face-tank while the carrion vine replenishes life for him. It's a good match. Possibly gonna make a duress armor for him if I find a suitable base. Don't even need to bother resurrecting the simpleton.
Thoughts going in: Fire Claws is a cool skill, and it goes fast. Really fast, like a... fast thing... (yay)
So... why Giggles? Let me tell you why. Because the thought of killing everything with Fire Claws makes me chortle with delight. Also, all the other names I could think to give him made me throw up dead kittens and friendship on the inside.
Level at crowning achievement: 80 (under 10 million exp until 81)
Stats at crowning achievement:
Strength: 65 (103)
Dexterity: 120 (156)
Vitality: 285 (285)
Energy: 15 (39)
Life: (Werebear) 2143
Mana: 217
Skills at crowning achievement:
Shape-shifting
Werewolf: 1
Lycanthropy: 1
Werebear: 1
Feral Rage: 1
Maul: 1
Fire Claws: 20
Shockwave: 1
Summoning
Poison Creeper: 1
Carrion Vine: 1
Elemental
Firestorm: 20
Molten Boulder: 20
Fissure: 3
Volcano: 20
I maxed Molten Boulder, the Volcano, then Firestorm. Why's that? Because I wanted to have a physical damage skill in case of fire-immunes. Wasn't necessary though. Any order would work fine, but I felt Fissure would be redundant, because I can already do some gnarly amounts of fire damage. I did use Molten Boulder on occasion, but in each situation, it did no more good than shockwave/maul/fire claws would have done.
Going to max out that Fissure next for that nice fire Damage, and if I go to 99 (not gonna happen) the last two points will go into... probably getting Heart of Wolverine. (hopefully with some prebuff, I can get a nice AR boost that doesn't die immediately)
Gear
Weapon: Gemmed Phaseblade 'ShaelShaelShaelShaelShaelShael' (only way to go, short of a 4 Shael with two 15/15s)
Shield: Whitstan's Guard
Switch Weapon: Spirit Crystal Sword
Switch Shield: Sigon
Helm: Guillame's Face
Armor: Smoke Archon Plate (before that, Smoke Mage Plate; before that, Smoke Light Plate; before that, whatever)
Belt: one of my random String of Ears
Gloves: blood crafted dual leech 8 cb 2 dex sharkskin gloves (I had low standards; what can I say?)
Boots: Switched between Sanders and the Waterwalks I found on him
Amulet: Angelic (used The Eye of Etlich for most of the game)
Ring 1: Angelic (for most of the game, I used a 115 ar, 4 str, 8 dex, 3 ll, poison/light res craft)
Ring 2: rare (95 ar, 18 str, 12 dex, 9 nrg, 11 stamina, 5 all res) (this ring is pretty sweet, right? not too shabby for some self-found nonsense on my other characters)
Charms: couple of SS gcs, found a 3 max dam, 18 ar, 13 life sc and a 3 max dam, 13 ar, 1-2 cold dam sc, some life scs, a frw/max dam/ar gc, more frw, more ar were the goals, some dex as well (though it was definitely unnecessary)
I aimed to change out the Whitstan's Guard with a Sanctuary Shield (found a 3os Trolololol Nest while doing hell cows on another char), but I never fully felt comfortable dropping my only (at the time, only) mal on a runeword I couldn't guarantee would see any use on another character, also have 75% chance to block is nice, probably saved my life a few times at that... anyways, I had crappy resists at the end, which wouldn't have been such a great problem with that alternate shield. I definitely could have gotten away with less dex and maintained max block with the Whitstan.
So when I finished Baal in Hell, I was doing 4357-4656 without any Maul charges. 9500+ Fire Claws AR without Blessed Aim, 16k+ with.
Simpleton:
Act 2 Normal Offensive Desert Jackass
Cryptic Axe Insight
Duriel's Shell (found somewhere in nightmare)
Rare 8 life leech circlet with 22 str and some cold and poison resists
How it went:
Nicely.
How it went... in depth:
Very nicely.
How I dealt with fire immunes:
Crushing blow at 43% will do wonders when you hit over 80% of the time, attacking at 4 fpa (on /players 1, which is how I did most of Hell) In packs, I just spammed Shockwave, but when there were only 1 to 3 enemies, I used Maul and Fire Claws (for that nice AR boost). By the by, Maul builds up really quickly when you attack so much, so... yeah. You can build up a little bit of physical damage, which never really hurts.
Normal: played on /p8
Nightmare: played on /p8 (the chaos sanctuary was annoying, because I was dealing with fire immunes, but I had a mercenary with a strong enough weapon, and I finally put a point into shockwave at the end of act 3 (thankfully))
Hell: played mostly on /p1, except I put all of the act bosses on /p8, which was totally worth it, because it was fun, but it was also totally not worth it, because I hardly got any good drops (save for Wizzy from Duriel, which I brutally needed for another character in progress)
Ancients... I rerolled them a couple times, but I actually ended up finishing them with Talic and Korlic being fire-immune, so balls to conventional thinking...
Finds:
Wizardspike from Duriel (finally)
Mal Rune in act 3 lower kurast (third high(-ish?) rune I've gotten from act 3 while questing on through on my characters, which is pretty cool)
15 ias/11 ed jewel, I'll find a use for that
Shape-Shifting GC (really nice, considering it fits this character perfectly)
End thoughts: Some of the best fun I've had yet. It's a cheap build to make, and it's hella worth it for teh gigglez, and if you find a place without fire immunes, play it on /p8 (i did that where I could, like maggot lair--so much fun)
Plans for el futuro:
I'm thinkin' this guy will be able to do cows, Pindle, and chicken-sitting in act 1.
Also, now Pindleskin too, I've never done runs of him before, but two runs in and I found a 23 life necro summon gc, so I'm digging the prospect of getting more like it.
I will add more junk as I can think of it.
Junk added.
More Junk added.
It's not particularly fast, but cows is definitely the thing to do with this guy. He can face-tank while the carrion vine replenishes life for him. It's a good match. Possibly gonna make a duress armor for him if I find a suitable base. Don't even need to bother resurrecting the simpleton.
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