Completed the obligatory Cow king kill, it was even terrorized when I logged in.

I've been messing around a little bit more in Nightmare just to see if I find something useful. I actually found a vipermagi, which I'm not currently using because my resists are fine, I don't need FCR and my current armor has more +skills. I stashed it though. Also found a nice little fr/mf small charm.

Now that I have reached level 75, I can put enough points on the demon mastery that I can keep my Hephasto with conviction and consume a Tainted for the extra stats. I needed to put enough points that I can switch from my spirit sword to the telestaff and still not go under lvl 10 for 2 demons.

I should be ready for hell now.

Starting hell with the stats/skills/gear below. I still haven't found any runes higher than Io, but I think both the warlock, the demon and the mercenary are in a good spot gear-wise, should be able to progress. Started with 48% FCR & 86% FHR.

Den of evil wasn't hard, the fallens were just slow to kill. Conviction actually broke their fire immunity, but it still took 5 to 6 apocalypses for a fallen to die. Corpsefire was immune too, but the crew could beat him anyway.

I spent my extra skill point from Den of evil on another level on demon mastery, because I switched to vipermagi instead (so I needed +1 skill to retain lvl 10 on telestaff-switch). The resists are a bit more balanced this way, and I'm progressing with 75% FCR and 86% FHR breakpoints. Quick sigils and ring of fire spams help keep the fire immune swarm further away. The theme of this act isn't that I'd be short on damage, it's that most things are immune... Whatever isn't immune still melts really quickly on P8.

Blood raven was easy.

I cleaned the Mausoleum and I might return here later on. No immunes and it's a 85 zone, so practically anything could drop and the xp was fine.
Found a Thresher but unfortunately it rolled 1 socket. I will need some more damage on my mercenary eventually.

Cain was saved, Dark wood / Black marsh / Tamoe highlands were a pain with all the fire immune rogues chasing me. Navigating through the barracks/jail also was pretty tough, but most immunities could be broken still.
I rolled a great countess map, getting to level 5 should be easy there. For some reason I remembered the rogues being fire immune there, but thankfully they were only cold immune, and even Countess' fire immunity was broken with conviction. This might be another spot where I return to farm some runes once I'm in need of them.

Andariel herself wasn't hard, my damage could defeat her in P8, however the dark ones were fire immune from the cathedral to catacombs, and their immunities weren't broken with conviction anymore, so I had to run around them.
The guaranteed dark one pack at lvl 4 were pre-cleared by the crew, then we just ran around with Andariel in the fire damage for a minute.

I'm not exactly sure what should be the way to proceed. I can't really pinpoint any upgrades that would help my build tremendously, the main issue is with the fire immunes. I have reliable resists, high frw/fcr/fhr, an okay mercenary, holy freeze, conviction, sigil of lethargy etc. I'll have to see how the rest of the acts go and if there's anything blocking me from proceeding with fire. Maybe it's time soon for an eldritch or magic build.

Act 2 sewers were fine, immunities could be broken, Radament was easy. Progressed through to pick up Halls lvl 2 waypoint and it suddenly reminded me that D2R changed Stony tombs to a lvl 85 area, and there are no fire immunes at all.

So I backtracked to Stony and I've been there ever since. Nice xp and the potential to drop more or less anything. The levels will give only minor boost to my damage (leveling consume increases the fire damage/-res from Tainted), but it also increases my max life, putting more points to vitality, and with higher character level, mobs are less likely to hit if I remember correctly. Leveling up will also help the mercenary a lot to be stronger, maybe even find some ethereal elite bases for him.

Natalya weapon and some levels.

Still haven't found any runes higher than Io. Found a 4 sock CV, and I was surprised that the strength requirement was reduced, I always remembered it to be 210. Then I realized this is a warlock trait and the mercenary won't be able to carry this one for a while.