I haven't gotten a lot of playtime in, but Hak is 92 and progressing to 93.
She ran p5 CS, some p8 pindle, and p8 pits. Pindle is still the fastest experience, I think but it's also the scariest.
Some nice drops:
Trying to tempt me into a kick respect down the line.
Much nicer than the 12th green breast plate
I did some more LK runs and dropped a 3rd Ohm. I'm definitely running above average on rune drops, just not the ones I need.
Up next is more LK and Pits. I've been planning a bit on what the build should be once I get Enigma - I'll probably make a standalone post for that soon.
LK phase completed, we did 2780 runs and got Sur, Lo, 4xOhm, Vex (endless number of Mal, Um and Puls) and some other cool stuff.
With the Jah that we got from the previous Travincal runs we could now make Enigma.
I made it in Sharktooth armor because I really wanted that "tin can" look Oh well, I will probably regret that later
Still level 94 because you do not get any experience doing LK chest runs...
Now I am gonna equip him and run some "areas" to get to level 97 (Ancient Tunnels probably since I think it is a nice and easy area for zealots).
The long-term goal is to get to 97 around the time when the Rune Finding Leauge (RFL) starts, so I will take it kinda slow now and play some other chars a bit more (like my untwinked summon necro etc.)
After 97, I will either just go straight into Nila running as a smiter (I have made pretty many testruns with another paladin of mine and I am quite happy with the results even though @ffs said it will sub-par). OR I will do Baal runs to 98 and then do Nila. I have to make some test runs with another paladin first and see if Baal runs are worth it though time wise Though this is pretty far in the future...
Inside the "spoiler" you can see some drop pics from the LK session
another racked unique shako
I would like to wish everyone happy holidays and happy grinding!
Amazing job @ffs and really smooth and quick progress for Lucid. And very cool that he found a Snout Tail; I was worried he might miss out
I think this write up will be a good road map for quickest path to 99 for paladins, so I'm definitely looking forward to it. And now the pressure is on me to finish Quinta up for THREE untwinked 99ers for the SPF this month!
@PhineasB Quickest “for Paladins”? This is the quickest I’ve heard of period. I’m still convinced Sorc can beat it by quite a bit (sub 200 even potentially) but this is damnnnnn fast. Grats!
I'm looking into some builds that I might seriously consider taking to 99. The one I'm really thinking about right now would be a singer Barb. Given that it can compete (although a bit slower) with zerkers gives me hope that maybe a singer could area run and do Nihlithak with reasonable speed. I did some searching and I saw recommendations for conc to run Nih, but no recent discussion about how a singer might go. Has anyone thought about it? What would I need to take into account?
For lower levels, insight and a pair of spirit swords are good enough to start with, I'd think.
EDIT FOR CLARITY: Compete for mf boss kills, that is,
@testyfish I think the challenge with a Singer is XP at later levels. That generally means p8 area runs, and I think the Singer would have limitations there. Definitely a super fun MF build, but I think the damage will become limited for fast clears on p8. That said @Kitteh was moving one along before a very unfortunate beetle incident ended his journey. So maybe he has some input to offer.
I think part of it for me is a great desire to be a superbuff barbarian and to not have to hide behind glass cannon-ing my way through or hiding behind a merc. I could see conc, zerk, or war cry all three fitting that bill...even if zerk survives by scaring the crap out of everyone and making them run in fear.
UPDATE: Barb is level 12, going to play as a 2h conc for now, will probably go zerk or singer later. We'll see what happens.
I can tweak my (twinked as f**k) singer for damage/survival and do / record some Nila runs if you are interested. I think Nila will be "fine", slowish but fine. The main-problem imo is, as has been mentioned, the slow exp gain between level ~85 - 97. Like what are you gonna do? Players 8 pits 4-5min runs? You will also need to chug mana potions like candy since I think you want Reapers on the merc for dealing with stone skin / immunes (wearing insight yourself will lower your damage and casting speed compared to dual hoto's). Might be some tweaks one can do but I do not think it will be a pleasant experience (no pun intended).
I never found mana pots to be a problem, although I was somewhat twinked, but not exactly fully kitted out. My main advice would be to not telebomb packs of beetles. I've never actually tried a singer for real end game running though
Consensus is definitely that it wouldn't be anywhere near optional then. I'd like to think that Nihlithak might be ok, but maybe this is better done as a conc/WW/berserk? I'll keep an eye out for singer gear.
Singer is fun and should work very well for the initial playthrough since he doesn't depend on gear that much. But as others mentioned, it's not at all suited for higher player settings, which quickly becomes essential to gain XP. Not sure if there's any other way than WW for Barb pre-98, it's the only scalable AoE skill. Don't think Singer can run Nihl quickly either, especially in comparison to Conc Barb which is one of the very best builds to run Nihl.
It's always fun to think about doing things differently, despite not taking the most efficient route. However, things quickly change if you're serious about 99 – once you realize the "fun" route means an additional 500 hours of playing or so. Same with farming Enigma etc., none of those entries here that intended to go all the way without Enigma ever made it to 99. In fact I had a similar goal/idea (melee-only Paladin to 99) that I quickly moved away from because I figured I wouldn't be able to invest the necessary time to follow through.
That being said, IMO there's nothing wrong with just get going with the build you want to play, and of course "being serious about 99" is not a precondition to enter into this fun challenge here. So for example when you've played through the game as Singer and decide to take him to 99, you can always change the build later on. Especially since Barb is best off running Baal until 98, there's no reason to worry about respecs.
In fact I had a similar goal/idea (melee-only Paladin to 99) that I quickly moved away from because I figured I wouldn't be able to invest the necessary time to follow through.
@testyfish you can always run Baal/CS to 97/98 with WW and then do Nila as singer. Let me know if you want me to do some nila runs with my singer for some benchmark set-ups and run times.
I'd be really interested in seeing that. Not a huge fan of weapon switches, so I think that's one of my primary considerations for taking a long look at WC Barb.
Ultimately you should play what you enjoy Personally I would feel weird doing a 99er using multiple builds as I haven’t then actually 99’d whatever the final build is, but that’s a personal thing. It’s probably going to be your most efficient alternative