Truly sorry if I scared anyone away with these power updates.
There was just way too much to upload and I really wanted this thing to be caught up to where I am.
I can assure you, you won't miss out on any further progress

Here's the run down:
I farmed NM Baal from 75-78 then decided to try Hell. Den of Evil took about 30 minutes roughly. Blood Raven wasn't really too much.
I decided I would try to farm a bit of the Mausoleum being it's the first level 85 area you come across, so some real potential there. Every run was at least 30 minutes and I nearly died a handful of times.
So basically I'm at the early Hell slump. I've gone back to NM to farm better equipment and a bit of levels. So far everything has gone pretty good, found some real quality drops but not quite enough to feel comfortable to progress.

Here's a list of what I want to accomplish before proceeding. Items marked by an "X" have been obtained:



So I'm still looking to upgrade my Gloves, Boots, Belt, Rings, and Helmet or Mercenary Helmet.
I'd like to make a Treachery for my Mercenary as well before progressing, he dies a LOT in Hell. I'd also like to stock 2 sets of Spirit runes for rolling a Monarch (have the runes now actually), 2 sets of Insight runes for rolling a Thresher / Giant Thresher, and an extra set of Treachery runes for when I can get lucky ethereal-bugging a base.
This isn't necessarily a set in stone list. I'll more than likely move forward long before I've acquired everything I wanted to. I'm very anxious to get to Act 3.

This post was edited by young2093 on Feb 3 2014 09:49pm

Here's a MS Paint image of a collaboration of what I have. I included images of the 3 different weapons I'm using currently.
This build gets the 68% FCR breakpoint for casting (10 FCR / 15 All Resistances Amulet) while reaching 161% MF (35 Tarnhelm, 25 Rhyme, 32 Chance Guards, 26 and 22 Nagelring, and 21 from my Rare Boots)

Spirit Broad Sword - This is my primary weapon. This is without a doubt the BEST weapon you can get for this build until HotO. I was using a Blade of Ali Baba for a bit, but the sacrifice in kill speed isn't worth and you have to invest Dexterity to use it if you aren't block.
Life Tap Wand - This is mainly for progression, but I still use it during farming for wave 2-5 + Baal. In Hell, you'll be using it a hell of a lot more (lol) to keep your Mercenary alive. Proper use of Bear and keeping Oak Sage uptime as close to 100% as possible helps a ton as well.
Teleport Staff - I would highly advise against using this at all for progression. If your Oak dies, you're a 1-2 shot under some very common circumstances. Teleporting, especially into areas you haven't discovered yet, in Hell is a great way to kill yourself. I use this very specifically as the repair cost is ridiculous (about 100k for a full repair) and it's very dangerous. I only use to teleport to NM Andariel and NM Chaos Sanctuary.

I'm currently running NM Andariel @ P3 (I know it's against my original rules, but you gain no drop benefits after P3 on bosses and the experience is practically nothing), CS @ P8, Diablo @ P3, WSK 2/3/4 @ P8, Wave 1-5 @ P8, and Baal @ P3.
I'll amend my original rule to allow only rerunning Act Bosses @ P3. The first kill still has to be P8, and everything else will always be P8 besides Countess reruns, which will be P1.

Keep it p8 for andy and all reruns except countless!

Time is part of the challenge too!
Time can make you bored or lose focus inevitably killing you on a dumb mistake- its all part of the experience!

Its no different than running Countess on P1.
I will say that I don't plan on running Hell act bosses on anything other than P8; the experience is actually worthwhile there.

Hell The Search for Cain





Decided to do a little progression today.
Particularly nasty mix of uniques (Griswold + 3 others) in Tristram.

Hell The Forgotten Tower







Crap drop from the quest. Will definitely be rerunning this, still need 2x Lem (or 1x Fal and 1x Lem) and 2x Sol.
Rerolled the map, and got this beauty with The Pits very near by. This will be my new farming spots, I felt "somewhat" comfortable so far. Cursed, Extra Strong, Archers, and physical damage in general is very dangerous for me ATM, though.

The only two decent drops today. Didn't farm much at all, was a bit busy.
Ethereal Kelpie Snare dropped before I decided to progress, off NM Eldritch. Very interesting weapon but due to practically zero space left, I sold it.

Level 81



Leveled on the way to Countess. 11 frame casting (99% FCR) with Lidless. Sucks to lose 25 All Resistance / CBF from Rhyme, but I'll be stumbling upon a Monarch sooner or later anyway.

Level 82



Level 83



Level 84



Just been farming P1 Countess and P8 Mausoleum / Pits. Really, ALL I want is a Lem for Treachery and and 4 socket Thresher for an Insight upgrade and then I will move on.
Archers are really fucking dangerous, I've been dropped to ~10% multiple times. It's only a matter of time before I slip up and get caught in a bad situation where Oak is dead and something happens too fast to react to.
I'm very tempted to just progress before I deed trying to farming improvements..