The Great Race; a proposal for "Khalim" awards

[Crystalion]

So, not counting the twink xfer time and game start time, I have ~5 hours to make level 24. The only location rush I did was after I killed the Council, I quickly made a game to be given the Durance 2 waypoint (and then returned to SP Players 1).

That was for a twinked (probably not strictly necessary for the build, if you pump BoS and drink lots of mana pots) WoF Assassin. This report is for a run using a completely different set of (race) criteria.

v1.10s, Great Race to be 20+ and do Ancients plus kill Baal (I'll benchmark the nm rush to hellforge later, separately). I stopped the clock when I took breaks, but otherwise timed including overheads (game creation/joining, WinXP user switching). The overall time to nail Baal and make nm was 2:41, with the character almost level 22 after the kill.

Concept: players 2 (Win XP user switching), Enchantress in game to give high level enchant (1400+ fire damage) and to give waypoint/location rushes when desired. For convenience, she was used to kill the Grand Vizier of Chaos, who is a Fire Immune required kill from the left seal in Diablo's lair. Due to the nature of the location rush (aka Tyriel sleaze) she also killed Duriel (though this wasn't necessary actually). The enchantress was not on hand for combats (i.e. though partied, the rusher and rushee we never "played" at the same time, nor in combat together) as my constraint is to play only one character at a time (unlike, say, a Static Field assist).

I also initially transfered misc. useful twink gear (because this is not meant to be a purely skill-based "challenging" rush--although the gear is also not meant to be uber/impossible-to-acquire, just very helpful). An Amazon was picked for the following useful skills to go with enchantment: Poison Javelin, Lightning Javelin (for when you want to deliver non-fire damage); Multishot (for efficiency in wiping out crowds, pre-clvl 15); Guided Arrow (for the occasional safety around-the-corner-or-through-the-door killing). Since she was a zon and I needed only 5 skill points in Multishot I also threw one point into each of the passives (which has not been significant/used thus far).

My subjective opinion is that the concept is successful, but that perhaps spliting out the location rushing and the leveling up would be more efficient (location rushing first--remember I can rush to act 5 in under half an hour). The only speed bumps for this build are Talic and the Grand Vizier (my character, named "HotStuff", did Talic by herself with no special preparation, which was a mistake, as I used up all my nice Javelins completely and drank all my belt potions such that I actually had to play keep-away to regen some mana to finish him off).

The key concepts for the twink gear: Exploding Arrow bow and 85% resist all from clvl 15 on. This means, of course, Ravenclaw and Iratha's set (plus some additional resist gear to max out--Arctic body armor and clvl 1 req resist charms). I did not socket the unique weapon, set helm or set armor I used, although putting a Tir or two (assuming the v1.10beta bug is fixed) would be an alternate to the two rings of +1 mana/kill that I did use (I know this is probably giving me +4 mana/kill due to the bug, but, as I am pointing out, that is in range with what the build permits, sans bug).

Once I got to act 5 I discarded my level 7 rogue hireling and hired a level 19 act 3 cold sorc. I had previously gotten a Blood Crescent (+15% resist all) sword as a drop during the rush, so I gave him that. Baal dropped an Arcanna's light plate, so he's now wearing that. He is still hatless. The build concept doesn't really care what the hirelings wear. While I did not die once, the hirelings croak quite often, but this really isn't a problem (and so special gear for the hireling's is not needed to remedy it).

I'm not sure, at this point, for the post-nm-hellforge rush, getting to clvl 40, if I want a nm act 2 HF merc, or my current act 3 cold sorc (I'll be playing in normal, so no reduced chill duration factor to fret over).

When the character is older an upgrade to Sander's boots and the Kuko bow (25 and 33, iirc) will be in order. For now I'm still using Hsarus boots, even though Vidalas or Cthon or CowKing boots would be better.

The first couple of levels I just tossed my Javelin to kill things (I was immediately location rushed to the Burial Grounds and waited to kill Blood Raven until after I'd made clvl 3 on her groupies). This gave me a rogue hireling (enchanted) very quickly and we both used bows from that moment on. I rather suspect that Zofox's right-mouse-action-button-to-move-and-auto-attack is more efficient through at least clvl 7.

I'm afraid that once I made clvl 12 I decided to wait until clvl 15 for Exploding Arrow (from the bow, instead of using two points for the skill). This was probably a mistake, as EA turned out to generally be far more effective than MS in practice (which means, of course, that I don't think my particular times here are significantly better than you could achieve with a non-amazon Ravenclaw enchanted build with any other class).

Here's a breakdown of the 2 hours and 41 minutes (times, rounded, are listed for completion of tasks noted)...

00:00:30 new amazon created and game hosted

00:03:00 Enchantress joins, invites, drops twink gear

00:05:30 (twinkee/rushee) "HotStuff" collects and stows gear, accepts invite, stands near town exit

00:08:00 Enc travels to Burial Grounds, TPs back and enchants HotStuff (has to stand outside town to do so fyi)

00:12:30 HotStuff uses TP, kills undead to make clvl 3, equips some twink gear, kills Blood Raven and claims hireling

unknown:Enc enchants HotStuff and hireling, makes TP at Stony Field waypoint

unknown:HotStuff takes the TP/wp and travels about SF and underground passage leveling up

00:20:00 HotStuff make clvl 6, rehires a clvl 6 rogue, dists her first skill points, dist stat points, dons gear

unknown:Enc enchants HotStuff and hireling, makes TP at Outer Cloister waypoint

00:28:30 HotStuff bumps Multishot each level up (Tamoe Highlands mostly), making clvl 9

unknown:Enc makes a TP at the Catacombs 2 waypoint, and re-enchants

00:35:00 Hotstuff, using that TP, makes way down to Andarial, killing her and making act 2

00:44:00 HotStuff makes clvl 13 and finishes Radament/Atma quest

00:49:00 Enc zips to Claw Viper Temple basement, wipes out the room and TPs; HotStuff lifts darkness, talks Drog & Jer

01:00:00 HotStuff clvl 15 (from killing in Lost City zone by granted wp), dists stats and equips Ravenclaw and Iratha's set

01:07:00 Enc makes TP near Summoner; HotStuff kills Summoner, takes Canyon of Magi waypoint

01:21:00 HotStuff makes clvl 18 by doing Canyon and true tomb leveling; exits game

unknown:"Duriel" mule makes pre-staffed game; Enc enters and kills Duriel; makes TP; parties HotStuff

01:28:00 HotStuff talks Tyriel, Jeryn, Meshif and makes act 3; exits game

unknown:new game; Travincal waypoint granted; Council broken; Durance waypoint granted; TP to stairs to D3 made

01:43:00 HotStuff wipes Durance 3 incl. Meph, making act 4

01:56:00 HotStuff finds and dusts Izual; now clvl 19

unknown:Enc grants RoF waypoint; is called in when HotStuff has cleared to left Seal in order to kill Grand Vizier

02:15:00 HotStuff kills Diablo; is a ways into clvl 20 iirc

unknown:Frigid Highlands, Ancient's Way, Worldstone waypoints given as part of Ancients/Baal location rush

02:41:00 Hotstuff kills monsters and minion waves in Throne; kills Baal; exits as Slayer, nearly clvl 22.

The level up times would be much much better if I were allowing Players 8 (and the enchantment is way overkill in one shot vs. anything that isn't nearly fire immune). This stongly suggests playing in public games, which hopefully will be safe enough on the new v1.10 Ladder.