I'm talking to myself here as much as Herman Gigglethorpe is over in the gaming table forum, but so be it, I like the sound of my own writing.
I'll lead off the act 2 hell report with the hammerdin. I don't use this word lightly, or ever, but Cloak of Shadows charges for him is fucking amazeballs. In fact I think Cloak works even better for the paladin than for a trapsin. With the crowd blinded, he can focus on and pick off the nasty boss -- that's something traps don't do. The 2k recharge cost per Cloak way more than pays for itself in saved merc resurrections. Also this act was the hammerdin's first time up against magic-immune mummies. Turns out that Smite and the merc are indeed enough to kill them, not fast and have to take it easy on the player count, but does get the job done, with Cloak still helping immensely.
The saga of the act was trying to find a 3-socket elite armor for the barb's Duress. At least the barb himself found a Naj's Light Plate to use as yet another stopgap beforehand, a nice package of skill/life/resists there. But I kept pounding the cube-socket recipe on every elite armor that dropped without hitting on 3 sockets. I even got one low-quality dusk shroud, which the El+chipped recipe fixes to a low ilvl and max of 3 sockets, but then the socket recipe missed its 4-in-6 chance at that. Then the javazon found a naturally 3-socketed dusk shroud... with only 370 defense, almost at the bottom end possible. Then I got a beautiful naturally 3-socketed superior Boneweave with a splendid 576 defense... but a strength requirement of 158 which is just high enough to be problematic. I spent every last Thul rune on that socketing cube recipe with no payoff...
until finally, the wind druid playing last cubed three Orts into a Thul in desperation and the cube finally hit on the jackpot of 3 sockets in a nice 460 defense dusk shroud, so here we go. (Lousy roll on the enhanced defense though, oh well.)
The character that kept surprising me with her performance was the trapper assassin. I remembered my old trapsin as slowing down a lot in hell difficulty, effective but plodding or constrained to low player counts... but not this one. She's a different build, 20 points in more trap synergy instead of Shadow Warrior, and that makes a substantial difference. Also a higher level thanks to more full-clearing and on higher player counts, 84 in mid hell rather than ~78. She pushed through most areas of act two on p5 and some on p7, including tearing through a full-clear of Arcane Sanctuary (no lightning immunes) as fast as anyone ever has. And good thing she did, because this struck from the void:
ARREAT'S FACE! The best-in-slot helm for barbarians. I'll miss the 10% dual leech of Tal's mask (and the socket quest spent on it), but Arreat's whole package is unbeatable, makes for nearly a quarter more damage overall between the skills and attack rating. And the resists here free up the amulet slot from needing resists in favor of one with skills and mana steal, and the Tal's mask will still go to good use on a merc. (This makes three of the iconic class-specific uniques for this team, along with Titan's and [an unused] Bartuc's claw. But I won't dare to ask for a Jalal's or Zak shield next, since then instead I'd get a Homunculus for the late bonemancer. Actually I did get a Trang-Oul's set head that he would have used too.)
If the trapsin impresses me the most, the character who least does is the sorceress. She's OK, but struggles to stand up to any more than about four monsters at once. I'm constantly teleporting away every two seconds, feels like I'm dancing with the devil risking death with any momentary slip. Really her problem is that she's underpowered on skill equipment, only +4 in all, one each from orb/helm/amulet/shield. High skills are essential for sorceress attacks because they all scale quadratically thanks to the mastery, or even cubically for Charged Bolt where number of bolts is a third multiplier. So let's fix that:
After the act, I went gambling for skill coronets again, and turned up that beauty of skills, resists, strength, and even those Attract charges could be significantly useful. And that rare orb dropped, which really rockets up Lightning's damage, went from 4500 to 6000! And finally she also took the Naj's Light Plate: yet again similar to Lionheart and Duriel's Shell with resists and life, but this also has +1 skills. (And her Duriel's Shell now passes down to a merc where it should be.) All this boosted the sorceress from level 24 lightning skills to level 28, should help a lot. She did drop down one breakpoint without FCR on the new orb, but it'll be worthwhile.
In other news, the javazon will need a new shield, her ethereal Moser's will run out, it dropped to 13 durability remaining. Fortunately, I found both a Whitstan's Guard and Sigon's Guard (surprising it took this long) this act. I'm not sure yet which to use once the Moser's dies, but either way it will be socketed with a diamond, which makes its resistances almost the same as a Rhyme. (The javazon has socket quests to spare, she hasn't used any and can't even use all three, because javs can't get socketed and her armor is already a runeword.)
Merc weapons: got 5-socket thresher and mancatcher bases, and made an Honor in each for two of the mercs. Also found a Viperfork elite unique spear, which I'd never heard of; good damage and really fast, but not really the best choice to use without life steal. And a Grim's Burning Dead which is cool but not really good enough to use.
Runes: I've never been so happy to not find the exit from Arcane Sanctuary: superchest dropped an Ist! (Of course I had to read it like six times before it sank in as Ist and not Ith.) Although then I realized Ist doesn't really do much by itself, it's mostly a component of higher runewords. The only thing it does without something higher is Delirium, which might be fun for whoever lacks a +2 skills circlet, but that also takes a Lem and I spent all of those at the moment.
No skiller grand charms from the whole act, oh well.
I was still full-clearing most areas of act 2 (even the maggot lair and palace cellar levels with most characters, plus Arcane Sanctuary, though skipped Halls of the Dead), but this is the last time I'll do that. Everyone should have sufficient gear by now to make it to endgame with no glaring deficiencies, and sufficient experience since leveling starts to fall off a lot past 85. From here onwards, it's mostly going to be straight through with minimal fighting and clearing, eyes on the prize of Guardianship now.
I'll lead off the act 2 hell report with the hammerdin. I don't use this word lightly, or ever, but Cloak of Shadows charges for him is fucking amazeballs. In fact I think Cloak works even better for the paladin than for a trapsin. With the crowd blinded, he can focus on and pick off the nasty boss -- that's something traps don't do. The 2k recharge cost per Cloak way more than pays for itself in saved merc resurrections. Also this act was the hammerdin's first time up against magic-immune mummies. Turns out that Smite and the merc are indeed enough to kill them, not fast and have to take it easy on the player count, but does get the job done, with Cloak still helping immensely.
The saga of the act was trying to find a 3-socket elite armor for the barb's Duress. At least the barb himself found a Naj's Light Plate to use as yet another stopgap beforehand, a nice package of skill/life/resists there. But I kept pounding the cube-socket recipe on every elite armor that dropped without hitting on 3 sockets. I even got one low-quality dusk shroud, which the El+chipped recipe fixes to a low ilvl and max of 3 sockets, but then the socket recipe missed its 4-in-6 chance at that. Then the javazon found a naturally 3-socketed dusk shroud... with only 370 defense, almost at the bottom end possible. Then I got a beautiful naturally 3-socketed superior Boneweave with a splendid 576 defense... but a strength requirement of 158 which is just high enough to be problematic. I spent every last Thul rune on that socketing cube recipe with no payoff...
until finally, the wind druid playing last cubed three Orts into a Thul in desperation and the cube finally hit on the jackpot of 3 sockets in a nice 460 defense dusk shroud, so here we go. (Lousy roll on the enhanced defense though, oh well.)
The character that kept surprising me with her performance was the trapper assassin. I remembered my old trapsin as slowing down a lot in hell difficulty, effective but plodding or constrained to low player counts... but not this one. She's a different build, 20 points in more trap synergy instead of Shadow Warrior, and that makes a substantial difference. Also a higher level thanks to more full-clearing and on higher player counts, 84 in mid hell rather than ~78. She pushed through most areas of act two on p5 and some on p7, including tearing through a full-clear of Arcane Sanctuary (no lightning immunes) as fast as anyone ever has. And good thing she did, because this struck from the void:
ARREAT'S FACE! The best-in-slot helm for barbarians. I'll miss the 10% dual leech of Tal's mask (and the socket quest spent on it), but Arreat's whole package is unbeatable, makes for nearly a quarter more damage overall between the skills and attack rating. And the resists here free up the amulet slot from needing resists in favor of one with skills and mana steal, and the Tal's mask will still go to good use on a merc. (This makes three of the iconic class-specific uniques for this team, along with Titan's and [an unused] Bartuc's claw. But I won't dare to ask for a Jalal's or Zak shield next, since then instead I'd get a Homunculus for the late bonemancer. Actually I did get a Trang-Oul's set head that he would have used too.)
If the trapsin impresses me the most, the character who least does is the sorceress. She's OK, but struggles to stand up to any more than about four monsters at once. I'm constantly teleporting away every two seconds, feels like I'm dancing with the devil risking death with any momentary slip. Really her problem is that she's underpowered on skill equipment, only +4 in all, one each from orb/helm/amulet/shield. High skills are essential for sorceress attacks because they all scale quadratically thanks to the mastery, or even cubically for Charged Bolt where number of bolts is a third multiplier. So let's fix that:
After the act, I went gambling for skill coronets again, and turned up that beauty of skills, resists, strength, and even those Attract charges could be significantly useful. And that rare orb dropped, which really rockets up Lightning's damage, went from 4500 to 6000! And finally she also took the Naj's Light Plate: yet again similar to Lionheart and Duriel's Shell with resists and life, but this also has +1 skills. (And her Duriel's Shell now passes down to a merc where it should be.) All this boosted the sorceress from level 24 lightning skills to level 28, should help a lot. She did drop down one breakpoint without FCR on the new orb, but it'll be worthwhile.
In other news, the javazon will need a new shield, her ethereal Moser's will run out, it dropped to 13 durability remaining. Fortunately, I found both a Whitstan's Guard and Sigon's Guard (surprising it took this long) this act. I'm not sure yet which to use once the Moser's dies, but either way it will be socketed with a diamond, which makes its resistances almost the same as a Rhyme. (The javazon has socket quests to spare, she hasn't used any and can't even use all three, because javs can't get socketed and her armor is already a runeword.)
Merc weapons: got 5-socket thresher and mancatcher bases, and made an Honor in each for two of the mercs. Also found a Viperfork elite unique spear, which I'd never heard of; good damage and really fast, but not really the best choice to use without life steal. And a Grim's Burning Dead which is cool but not really good enough to use.
Runes: I've never been so happy to not find the exit from Arcane Sanctuary: superchest dropped an Ist! (Of course I had to read it like six times before it sank in as Ist and not Ith.) Although then I realized Ist doesn't really do much by itself, it's mostly a component of higher runewords. The only thing it does without something higher is Delirium, which might be fun for whoever lacks a +2 skills circlet, but that also takes a Lem and I spent all of those at the moment.
No skiller grand charms from the whole act, oh well.
I was still full-clearing most areas of act 2 (even the maggot lair and palace cellar levels with most characters, plus Arcane Sanctuary, though skipped Halls of the Dead), but this is the last time I'll do that. Everyone should have sufficient gear by now to make it to endgame with no glaring deficiencies, and sufficient experience since leveling starts to fall off a lot past 85. From here onwards, it's mostly going to be straight through with minimal fighting and clearing, eyes on the prize of Guardianship now.
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In this game that's going to help us because he's going to go to the negotiating table with twitchy eyes and slightly too wide a grin and terrify the neighbors into favorable border agreements, one-sided tech deals and staggered NAPs."
