KTA 2.0 ... A few close calls

KTA 2.0 ... A few close calls

Hi All,

A real adventure last night.

We started in Act 1 Nightmare in order for KTA-Minx to get the last quest and reach Act 2 where the others were up to. We were 6 to start with, although our 7th, the Barb was in channel prior to the start of this evening adventures, but disappeared when we began Act 2.

The missing barb and his missing BO made quite a difference as we were soon to find out. While going overland through Dry Hills I was fighting off to one side, when I saw our Necro's icon at the top of the screen just about completely empty of life. I think it was a monsters death explosion ... but whatever it was, a rather shaken necro staggered out from a pile of corspes. I too had a couple of instances were a combination of being poisoned and lightening damage from those scarabs, bought me down to less than 1/4 life.

Thanksfully we still had Oak from our Druid, otherwise things could have been alot harder for us. To a certain degree our team has been pampered with extra high life thanks to Oak and BO ... that to suddenly lose 1 of them, dramatically changes the amount of care that is needed in playing.

It was our Sorc's turn to have abit of close call while journeying down through the Palace, and I think this was probably my fault. I was first to find the next set of stairs down, so I type a message "here" ... and the other moved in my directions, which I think left our Sorc alone amougst a bunch of archers who plucked her life down to 1/2 before she could get away. Sorry about that KillThemAll.

Later on while clearing out the tomb where Duriel was hiding out, our conviction Pally got caught on the wrong side of a doorway, and the rest of us couldn't immediately get through to help, I saw Chillers life take a hammering. Before it got dangerously low, she drank a rejurv, I put up a decoy and our Druid (wolfie) broke though the doorway to relieve the pressure.

Well, we continued on all the way to the entrance to Duriel Chamber, when our Charge Paladin got dumped out of the game. Since we didn't really want to complete Act 2 without him, we then cleaned out the other false tombs
in order to give him time to get back in. After 15-20 minutes, and still no Chargedin, we decided to slap Duriel around and move onto Act 3 ... which is where we stopped for the night.

KTA is still pretty fast at killing monsters, but without BO, and some crappy resists, some of us have to be on the ball, ready to quickly drink health / rejvs in order to stay alive.

My character the Spearzon, with her -9 / 25 / 49 / -5 resists, and no shield particulaly has to take care. A few times I had to back off while trying to read boss mods, only to find that by the time I had read them, the boss had since been wasted by the rest of the team.

Well I for one wanted more of a challenge, and I think I have it. My character needs careful handling otherwise I will see "the deeds screen". Hell is really going to be Hell ... for me

Big thanks to Chiller, normally our conviction Paly, who also used her lightening resist aura when we were surrounded by those lightening scarabs. Certainly helped me to handle these encounters with abit more confidence.

Last night was abit of a wake up call for us all. We are not the uber cookie cutter builds of KTA 1.0 and it is showing. We need to be alot more careful if we are to reach guardian status.

As usual people, it was a a great deal of fun last night with the added spice of some near death experiences. What a game !

See you all on Wednesday.

Regards Syxx / KTA-Minx

(PS ... and good finds worth mentioning ?)

 

It was fun as far i was in the game....sadly my modem went down again when i was at the (you know). After about 1000 bad words, some smashing on the modem, a kick on the screen and a call to Telia (supply me with DSL) i finelly gave up. It was a error again from there side. Have been this alot this winter. But i hope its better on wednesday so i can get the missing quests.

CU on wednesday!

//Tloopz

PS. Need to slow down, that way if im at front i can switch to salvation if i find nasty elemental monsters. Act2 have alot so i used it almost all the time..But i like to use fana more when ppl get better resistance. Or to use it in special places or monsterpacks. Ohh but i dont want to lead cuz im fluxxing from left to right and take a look at the back....

 

Hi all!
Thx for Syxx for your story about last night, was a fun read

And it looks like the somewhat boring time some of us experienced finishing normal and Act1 NM have passed. Act2 was without a doubt a greater challenge, and we had several close calls.

As for my incident, I just took one step further to check out a room before I went back to you guys. In that room it turned out a bunch of archers was waiting for me, boom-boom, almost dead, but I got away thx to juv and tele

Our barb was missed alot, I hope Vect can join us on wednesday.

I forgot to upload the pics from last nights rumble, but I will add the links to those when I get home later today... don't miss the "Balcony scene" :lol:

C U /Magnus (KillThemAll - Meleesorc)

edit: our res needs to be fixed soon, I vote for a mule game at the start of wednesday, so that we can unload some stuff and get gems and runes to boost our res (maybe even a runeword or two)

 

Yeah, it was real fun and after all you guys left, Row returned and with her Vectom. Divine_Wrath and Blutmond prceeded to relieve Radament of a swollen head full of poison but Solid wanted a go at the critters in act 2 on his own. Don't die out there, boy...but at least you have BO and WP's now.

Blutmond really saving up points now, mostly in stats. The occasional point goes into life, str and dex only to wear the equipment I need. Having learned a lesson about 8 ppl play, I think it would not be a good idea to try and build a second kind of trap, like fire if it needs another 40 pts to be helpful.

Also I feel fire traps have 2 disadvantages: WoF pushes monsters back, I think..away from our melees and WoI is kind of slow and might lack accuracy, spread out as we often are. At lv 5, my SM seems to die less often than the Valkyre, but Valk also seems to be closer to the front...so I am for now not going to invest here.

Points in Death sentry are an option, but whenever I had some of them out, it just so happens that Imperator can CE much faster and paints a room red, before my traps even go off. However, putting points here can work, as it will also boost LS damage.

How do you feel about fighting under a Cloak of Shadow? It would lower enemies defense enormously (up to -70%) and raise ours (up to 67%)

So, you see I am a little bit undecided about this build further on - in a way that I am undecided about my place in the team. As a ranged attacker, I can throw my traps far up front, so a position in the second or third row is fine - but since I seem to be the one with full resists in NM, I feel I should be further up and take more elemental heat.

Sticking with Tund frrom act 5 for now. Everybody else sorted their mercs out?

 

Excellent post Syxx! A really fun read.

And thanks all for a really fun game last night. The challenge really made a difference in enjoyment. Its been a long time since I’ve been playing with my fingers on the pots. Drank loads of red ones and quite a fiue pinks to last night. I experienced the same trill doing some Andy runs on my own in hell before we started. Really makes the game more fun when your heart is pumping and your hands are sweating just a little bit.

I desided to Take a Holyfreeze merc from act 2. The defense merc from act 1 was still lvl 11 and I don’t have the stamina to lvl him up on my own. Using Fury and a two-handed weapon my resist will be a big problem and it will become a really big issue in hell, I will have loads of life to help out, but gig damage and lots of LL will also be important, its like deal out lots of damage, leach life back or die…

Well concerning finds we found a Bloodletter that our Barb might like, Solid? And The Salamander unique staff (+2 to fireskills) do you need it Magnus?

Silvervixen (KTA-VixVenom the cute little dogi druid)

 

Oh, by the way...I gambled for something like 200 000 gold yesterday....and got a 12 slot belt with tripple resists (in the 14 - 20+ range IIRC) and +45 life. I noticed that we leave a lot of gold lying around and don't sell stuff so often (wands and staffs, even white ones have a potential value of 30 000 gold, as we all know )

Ammys cost 62 000 now to gamble, but can spawn with great resists as well. From act 5 NM on they become more affordable than circlets however (who also can be fantastic). In KTA and out of KTA I gambled so much nice stuff with 4 resists, dual leech, + skills (though not necessarily on 1 item, hehe) and other helpful mods like massive str increase and so on.

So, pick up those items and gamble away.

@Magnus: Did you get both Romeo pictures? The one with just Blutmond and Runner and also the one where KillThemAll joins and says "Cheater" :lol:

 

You're not taking the Fire Blast route, then? Some time ago, I read that FB is a decent backup skill because of its two-way synergies. You may want to read up on it here, or at the Amazon Basin.

Haven't you tried CoS yet? It's an uber-skill in 1.10! Not because of the Def/AR effect, but because it takes ranged attackers completely out of the picture! Try it -- you will love it!
(Caveat: don't put more than 1 point in it. Its range is limited to about 15'; it will not 'move' with you, nor can you refresh it until the current cloaking has expired. In other words, you want a short duration so you can re-cast it often.)

Cheers,
Mal

 

Think I only got the cheater one, will check later today.

If any of you have (KTA)-pic's you want to share with us, but don't have a server to upload them to, save them in a somewhat limited size (170-200) kB and send them to me and I'll host them.

Can you believe that kta was taken!!!

/Magnus

 

I can use the staff on switch to pre-buff enchant

 

I am aware that FB is a (low) synergie for both, the lightning and Fire traps, BUT, I feel that I should rather have 1 fully synergized (read powerful) elemental trap that can kill in an 8 ppl game than 2 weak kinds of trap.

I noticed that already yesterday some Urdars (Bloodbellies) took quite some shots before dying.

Well, I tried CoS a few times..its more a question wether the PARTY does not mind if it gets dark

 

My suggestion is to go all out Lightning Sentry (I think the name is) and DeathSentry (the exploding one) for the bonuses and make one powerful trap. You will mostly use LS, but DS can be used when the Necro is not near you.

Two very good skills that will make your char playable even after KTA[2.0]

What you can do is read up on what level your SM will start to use the next lvl of items. I think lvl 17 is a magic number where he uses the elite version of what you are wearing or something like that. Should be a lvl where he starts to use the exceptional version instead of the normal one too.

edit: I can't remember the other synergies for DS/LS and if any of them are useful on its own, or just to boost dmg.

 

Yeah, the traps "above" (on the skill chart) grant additional damage and/or additional bolts/shots.

The trap that shoots charged bolts is annoying for the party, as you think a LE monster is around, but it is very powerful against Big monsters and huge bosses, as all the sparks hit and each spark has loads of damage. Should be an instant Duriel/Diablo/Lister/Baal Killer.

If Valkyrie stats are anything to go by, then SM get exeptional claws at lv 17

 

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

HAM, you are scaring me... those little laughing heads are about all you post these days. Are you finally loosing it? Can we help you? :lol:

 

I couldnt resist it sorry :lol:
PS Working hard ic :lol:

 

Hehe, when we're talking about working hard. Just 10 min ago I got informed that we got a deal with a MAJOR grossery(food) retailer/seller in Sweden (and present in the Baltic countries and Norway). They want to buy the solution for inspections of stores using a handheld computer I've been working with the last six months. From the beginning it was for other customers, but now we have managed to sell the product to this company too

Im very happy about this as it means more work for me with handhelds, adding new features as capability to use cameras (photos), recordings et.c. to document an inspection. In a way it's also a new territory for our company and can bring future deals

And all this mostly thanks too me :lol:

/Magnus

 

GZ magnus. It's nice when you get the feeling to have contributed greatly to your companies success (and maybe made yourself a bit more invaluable).

As for me, well...like I said before . PC is in the room where I work and I am always online. D2.net is always up and I frequently check the forums. Working currently on a storyboard, so the time at the PC is good for clearing my head and working camera angles and pacing out.

Meanwhile I have not only finished my work, but also memorized my very first little guitar "song" (well, it's "Merryly we roll along" and only has E,D,C notes in it...but I only had 2 lessons so far and 2 weeks ago I would not have recognized those notes if I was peeing on them :lol: - so I currently feel like Mr. Eric Clapton himself :lol: ).

To round the day of, I also jogged 8 km just now..as I want to run my first Marathon at the end of April. You can see I turned 40..thats when those crazy ideas are kicking in. Of course my wife is worried that I will soon start chasing the skirts of young women :lol:

Gosh...I bet now you know more about me than you ever cared to know.

 

Dont you mean ...has only the chords E,D and C in it?

 

yeah, I guess chords might be the proper word for it.

 

Thank you!

Hehe, nice to hear your exploring new territory and taking care of yourself!

You never get too old to be curious and wanting to learn new things... What marathon are you aiming for?

KTA-action-wise I have some new pics for you:

Our own ladies man:
http://www.hemsida.net/mnswe/Diablo2/KTATeam2/NM/KTA-2_Ohhh_Julia.jpg

What a mess:
http://www.hemsida.net/mnswe/Diablo2/KTATeam2/NM/KTA-2_What_A_Mess.jpg

It would be really interesting to know the answer of that, don't you think Vix
http://www.hemsida.net/mnswe/Diablo2/KTATeam2/NM/KTA-2_Broken_Weapon.jpg

This jewel gave us a good laugh, and we had to teach our youngster a bit about life :lol:
http://www.hemsida.net/mnswe/Diablo2/KTATeam2/NM/KTA-2_Jewel.jpg

C U wednesday /Magnus I hope to see Vectom then too!