That's incredible. What setting did you kill him at?

I went at players 1 since I want to do the runs faster.

Last night I did the same runs and did quite well for the Zy's only one run no Zy's.

I think I will try players 8 and see how fast it is compared to players 1.

Some noisy neighbours just woke me up at 4:20am and I can't get back to sleep so I thought I would pop in here to see what is new since I last posted.

Hans, use the same strategy I do. I make no apologies for using it as it is tough enough farming for the gear we need. I set Players 1 at the start of my runs, tele to a safe place (kill a few monsters if I have to) and as soon as I spawn Mephisto, I set Players 127 and let my Fire Golem and merc kill him in a couple of hits. I stand well back and just wait for the drops. It doesn't always work as I have had drops with just Elixers and Tir/El/Eld runes but it does work well most of the time. Using this method I can do a full run and collect the drops in well under a minute depending on the monster densities and configurations.

You could easily do the same, letting your wolves do the killing.

Meph felt sorry for me and he dropped scroll fragment #6 and is now getting a little bit better with the Zy's.

I made a Requiem and gave it to Blaise. I think I will do Meph runs at players 127 for the experience and make a few Word/Oath of Druid runewords and then do Act 4. After Act 4 is done then I will do some more farming of Meph.

I also made a crafted ctc decrepify ring for my merc.

I still need to attach skills to my crafted ring. I am also making a second one for my merc.

I am aiming towards 10% chance for Static Field/Corpse Explosion on striking. Since the former is like splash crushing blow except on Immune to Lightning and the former is damage based on HP (extra levels just add larger splash).

The only problem is that the corpses might all be used up before I get to revive anything.

I may swap out the Decrepify ring later on the merc with CE/Static or swap through the three depending on her gear.

I started with my merc having a Hydra + Static combo but the Hydra became too laggy so I changed it to another Static and at times whole groups of monsters just melt without me doing a thing.

As for Corpse Explosion why would you put that on a merc as a necro when you have it yourself? Mine has 1 point invested in it but it is level 90 with all my +skills gear.

[EDIT] I haven't made an update for a while so here is my latest. Not many levels gained as I have been concentrating on Players 1 Meph runs and crafting but I did finally get 3 sets for my third multiplier. The sets are Death's, Cathan's and Hsaru's. Adds a bit to the team score. I'm off to do more Meph runs:

Flywheel did the NM SSC and entered Hell. Cain is rescued.

Nothing special happened during the SSC. Flywheel and his companions were vastly superior. I made some equipment changes: removed Leather of Luck, Autocylus' Belt/Boots and the Royalty Helm for a pair of Annihilation Gloves, a Belt with BO charges (no resistances, but +life and a Clay Golem... it feels a little out of place ), Hermes' Gift (gambled and personalized) and a Radiance Helm (HiKaRu). GF is much lower than before (only 881%), but MF is still pretty good (751%, Radiance gives 150%). That doesn't matter, in Hell difficulty MF is more important than GF.

Venturing into Hell was a good decision. Vlad Tepe's Sustenance dropped in the Underground Passage. Yay, that was nice! And a few minutes later the Nature's Rule Set Staff dropped in the Dark Wood.

Here's an overview about the SMs:
- Cookbook, Ethereal Rare Elite item and lvl75 Class Jewelry are done
- full Druid Elite Set: only Nature's Rule is possible, I have the Mystic Staff, need Archmage Plate and Royal Guards. Trivial task with gambling/chitting
- Unique Druid Pelts: need only 4 Elite, also trivial
- Unique Charms: need Something Wicked and the Unknown Hero
- Unique Jewels: have 6/10
- Ancient Scrolls: have 1-32, 34
- Exceptional and Elite LoD Class Unique. No luck yet.


Oh, btw. Nice score boost for me and the team.

It was an option I was considering. It's also a worthwhile option for someone who doesn't have it as a usual casting spell.

I don't need the curses because I can cast them myself with 100% succession and I do not want my merc to be dead weight.

Yeah, we are fortunate that most of the CtC spells are inherently ours. In the past I have tried just about every combination of rings on both myself and my merc but this is the first time I have tried 2 x Static on a merc with a necro and I suggest you try it. I think you will like the results. The other non-necro CtC skills I find don't really do much damage or just lag too much like Hydra and Fist of The Heavens (FoH can sometimes crash the game).

For most other characters apart from a Sorc, Static + Hydra is good for a while until you level, Static + Decrepify, Static + Lower Resist, Static + Life Tap, Static + Confuse are all viable. For a Sorc, as she has Static she can use any other combo. The damage (except Hydra) CtC rings I would not bother with, like I said, they just don't do enough damage and some don't appear to do the listed levels of damage like Frozen Orb, Poison Nova and Chain Lightning.

I digress....this thread is for the tournament....

Very nice indeed. Looks like you might finish before us Zy-El players start Nightmare.

As for me, I have finished my first crafted jewel with 30000 to life and Increase Max life 1050%. I stopped taking a tally of how many Meph runs I was doing but just for that jewel, it was 5 megaload applications of the +life and 7 megaload applications of the %life, or in other words between 250 and 290 runs to collect enough Zy runes to make all the Zy-El scrolls etc. Now I am off to do another 250 - 290 runs to make a second jewel . I need one each for my merc and I. After that I will probably level for a while and attempt The Matrix and Killing Grounds.

Happy Zy-Elling/ESing

[EDIT] I did around 40-50 meph runs last night but instead of working on my second crafted jewel I chose to make a Zy-El's Anthem narrow charm which I socketed then added a "Shard of Mentat" jewel and another I forget which. I also did a bit of levelling by doing Players 8 Baal runs. The drops were good there and I now have my first Album Poster. Got a demon box that said "A Minor Surprise" and boy was I surprised when the output wasn't a thumbnailed Minor Poster but a thumbnailed "Alanis Morisette, Jagged Little Pill". I have swapped this for the Pikachu poster I had (sorry stingray).

I'll start working on my 2nd crafted jewel tonight after work. Tons of meph runs and then some more Players 8 Baal runs before tackling The Matrix and Killing Grounds, probably sometime at the weekend.

I have made a few Oath and Word of Druid runewords for most slots except for the shield and belt. I made a crafted Pavis shield and added gold find to it. Most of the oath/word runewords will be replaced by other items later but I wanted the mods that the words offer.

Next time I play I will be going into Act 4.

Nice update Hans. That has boosted our team average considerably . My next update probably won't be until after I have done The Matrix and Killing Grounds so that should help also. I am still working on the crafted jewel for my necro. Once that is done I will give those 2 areas a go. I will probably be "overprepared" for them but rather that than go in and fail miserably.

I will likely focus more on the crafted shield due to the GF. If I can create a cube lock with each Meph run than I can apply approx 200% to GF. Too bad druids do not have a class shield.

It's funny how GF is more important than MF for this tournament but that's one of the things I like about Zy-El, it's diferent. That and the fact that you can craft just about anything you like makes MF just about irrelevant.

This has just given me another idea for a tournament I have been thinking about. Thanks Hans

Diablo is dead

Great job Hans .

Last night I finished off with only 2 more megaload applications of the increase max life% to do on my jewel. An hour or two this morning should get me the 50 Zy runes I will need for that and see me ready for The Matrix and Killing Grounds. I'll post an update after those areas are done.

[EDIT]

The Matrix and Killing Grounds are done. I started at 8am and finished at 12:30pm...phew, what a slog....4 1/2 hours . It wasn't all that difficult and neither my merc or I were in any danger of dying as I have over 500K life and my merc has over 370K but the monster densities in those areas make it slow going Anyway, here's the update:



Notes for the Zy-El team: The Matrix isn't difficult but the "Mind Maw The Slasher's" (there are loads of them), cast corpse explosion and I had to resummon my minions very often. Just be sure to be ready to recast constantly there. Hopefully Druids won't have as much of a problem but certainly Hellwolf_36 and anyone else who may join with a necro will have to be wary of this.

The Killing Grounds are actually easier in many ways, for a necro anyway, as there are no CE monsters apart from "The Mervingian" himself (sort that by teleing straight on top of him and bam he's dead in an instant). The main annoyance in Killing Grounds are the Ryokin as they have high hit points and keep teleing away. Solution....same as with the Mervingian...tele on top of them and they go down a lot faster. If you don't have charges of teleport already, get them before going in those areas.

I'm going to take a break for a couple of hours as that was so intense. When I start again it will be more meph runs to prepare for the "real" insanity levels - Cows, SS, Woe and OtO.

My highest skill is now 205 as I got a secret cube scroll "Key to cube lock" and applied the crafted recipe for another 6 skills to my belt. Also had a +2 & +3 to all skills any item uncommon scrolls which I also added to the belt so it now has +17 all skills. For my "Dead Time" shield I applied a "2 to Nec" skills cube scroll so it now has +14 to necro skills. I am getting very close to the 250 skills limit and I will make a few more Artifacts to help achieve this. But that's later...for now I need a rest.

Happy Zy-Elling

----

[EDIT] Copied from the Eastern Sun thread for wildkarrde26726......

I'm aware of the no returning to earlier difficulties rule, but I just thought of one big advantage that ESers have over Zy-Elers and that's the ability to reroll maps at will. This is especially advantageous when seeking hundreds of dragon stones and rolling a good HOD map to save time. If Zy-Elers could be allowed to at least start a NM game and immediately return to Normal (not actually doing anything in NM) to have the chance of rolling a good DOH map (lvl 2 waypoint close to lvl 3 stairs) that would save us gobs of time. Does anyone have a problem with this single exception?

I couldn't get to sleep so I thought I'd check the forum quickly before trying to get my head down again.

I have no problem with this Metro and there is another way you could do it. Set AlwaysRegenMapInSP=1 in the PlugY.ini file and keep reloading your character until you get a map you want, exit the game completely and set AlwaysRegenMapInSP=0 and you will be good to go. That way you don't need to go to NM at all and it should be quicker than loading, normal/NM/normal/NM.....

I got lucky with my map. I am 3 x teles to get to the L3 stairs from the waypoint. I can tele to where I want to be in L3 in 26 teleports meaning I can comfortably do 3 runs before I need to repair.

Okay, I'm off to see if I can get to sleep this time.

Happy Zy-Elling

Thanks for that tip, Al. I did end up rolling a good Normal DOH map with only 5 switches of difficulties, so it didn't take long. So, I'll keep it for now.

It's great to be back in the saddle again after 8 solid days of Sims 3 tourney action. My goal tonight was to make a Zy-El's Anthem Narrow Charm. I accomplished my goal. Wow. What a lot of work that was. The Mephisto runs took about an hour and a half, but getting the Crafted Narrow Charm from constantly downgrading to smaller charms took forever. I need the charm for its strength boost because that's the simplest way that I'm going to be able to wear Zy-El's Stride Mirrored Boots (STR requirement of 195). Most of the mods on those boots are junk, but the 99 Teleport charges and huge FRW is what I'm after. So, now I can wear them and that's tomorrow's goal — to make them. I already have a magic pair of Mirrored Boots, so using the Demon recipe to get a crafted pair will be a snap. It's just a question of getting the scroll from Mephisto runs and 3 more Unique jewels from various scrolls. Once I'm wearing those Artifact boots things should really pick up for Wolfram and his merc and army. Mephisto runs will be significantly faster and I should be able to assemble a couple Artifacts in a day's work instead of just one.

Welcome back to the fray. It's a good motivator for me to know that both you and Hans are still not far behind me.

Don't waste your valuable Zy runes on the Stride boots. Make a pair of crafted ones instead like I did:

Crafted boots + Perfect Amethyst + Uni Ring + Uni Amy + key

This will give you x/96 charges of Level 31 Teleport and maybe a couple of other low mods. I did this and removed the useless mods but have been throwing cube scrolls at them and eventually gave them 4 sockets and added Unique jewels - 1 Dogs Ear, 2 x Mouse Tail, 1 Flea Bite and they now have much more useful mods than Stride for my purposes. The defence is a bit low but that's because I used Greaves. Your mirrored boots will give you much better def:

[EDIT] Another tip, for your narrow charms this time. As long as you have one plain narrow charm and a cube scroll "Any charm to Magic charm" you are laughing. Just make sure to place the narrow charm as the last charm when upgrading to rare then crafted. A good place to get narrow charms before you do the Matrix and Killing Grounds is The Ancients Way and Baalruns. I got quite a lot of drops there. I think Baalruns were the most fruitful. Occasionally you should get them on meph runs. They are usually plain in those areas but occasionally you will get a magic one. Plain and magic ones drop lots in Killing Grounds.

Matrix and the Killing Grounds are done at players 8.

I also have completed 3 sets (Arctic Gear, Cleglaw's Brace, and Infernal Tools)

Nice one Hans

I have taken a half-day off work so I should be able to get my merc's Lament amulet in the first 3 or so meph runs (didn't have time last night). Next I was going to start on a crafted jewel for her bow but I will first make a crafted jewel with Gold Find for my necro as I suspect if I don't, as you have already done this, you will catch me and overtake me as you are able to buy a few Zy runes in addition to the drops you get.

Can't have that now can we

Please Moonie

I did manage to buy enough Zy's during the Matrix and Killing Grounds to make a scroll and to make Decorum armor for the merc. She was happy.