With my lucky Stony field map I cheesed P8 Rakanishu for a while before the TZ timer ran out. Very solid XP, mercenary didn't die, vendored all the trash items and raked in approx 2M gold and many full rejuvs.
Found a Nokozan which I equipped, a Manald which I vendored, and later an interesting summoner amulet from cows that I stashed for the future when/if I respec.

Mercenary is still very weak, I was hoping for an elite weapon base. Found a non-eth CV which I will attempt to cube-socket once I can boost him with enough strength.
Eventually he will need some lifesteal too, but I still didn't find even a 3 socket helmet base for Bulwark, yet alone talmask/vgaze.

I might be farming some more night cows in hopes of finding a Lum rune (for Smoke), some resist/life charms or anything that helps the Mercenary stay alive.
Might even start Hell instead and try my luck there, we'll see if I have to respec from Bone eventually. If I could farm hell countess with Bone spec, that would also be great.







This post was edited by Klontar on Apr 28 2025 12:14pm

Nec was my first character. Always loved them for nostalgic purposes!

Nice walkthrough mate!

Hey Ben, long time no see, glad you're still around! Make sure you hit the notification bell, like, subscribe, support me on Patreon and buy my nostalgy-necro-walkthrough merch.


Normal-nightmare completed, all quests done and all waypoints collected. Still have all my respecs/imbues/sockets/personalizations saved for the endgame.
Decided to start hell with the following stats and gear, not great, not terrible, let's say there's room for improvement. I'll probably have to stay between P1-P3 for now.

My plan is to progress through the first half of Act 1 and farm Countess until about level 80. Key and rune drops will be welcome, still need to find a Lum rune to create Smoke and patchwerk some extra resists on hell. I will miss having 75% FCR and the FRW boost of Stealth, but the extra 50@ should be worth running slower and casting with 50 FCR breakpoint. Hopefully picking up some gear and runeword bases for the mercenary to survive without chugging full rejuvs. I haven't found a single 3 socket helm yet through the first 76 levels for the Mercenary to equip a Bulwark or a Cure, might have to cube socket one.

Not bad so far, I'll have to pay attention to cold enchanted mobs because frost novas sometimes take me down from full hp to 20%ish. Let's hope Smoke will fix that.

I considered rerolling the map to find a better waypoint-tower route, but I don't mind killing the packs on the way there.
Time to run Countess and reach atleast level 80 or find all my necessary upgrades, whichever comes first.

Reached level 80 on the 33rd Countess run and found some sweet upgrades - including a 3 socket helm, finally... - keys and lots of runes that I'll probably eventually cube into something useful for crafting and rerolls (Rals, Hels, etc.). I stashed the summoner skiller for later, currently it doesn't make sense to waste inventory space for a few additional clay golem healthpoints.

I have started putting the rest of my skillpoints into corpse explosion, as CE is doing the heavy lifting currently. Resists are a bit better now with Smoke equipped. I will consolidate my loot and gear up the mercenary too, then it's time to progress further in Hell - maybe farm Andariel a bit before moving on?

Pictures are a bit crowded, but I didn't want to spread this into several posts.

Smoke is a huge boost, cold enchanted mobs still hurt, but not as much anymore. Tried my luck socketing the white CV too, luckily it received 4 sockets and even the insight roll is nice. I would have made Hustle runeword in it if it had rolled 3 sockets, giving up on some meditation quality of life for the sake of the mercenary surviving. It's easier to drink mana potions than clutch rejuv him all the time. 1 or 2 sockets would have been trash, but I got tons of Rals and Amns currently, it's the amethysts that bottleneck me.

I was also pondering whether to make a Cure or a Bulwark helm for the mercenary. Cure would be a really nice regen with prayer and meditation, also helping in cleansing the curses and random poisons bringing me down to 1 hp all the time. Maybe I should try to look for a poison length reduce item in some slot to help with that. Decided to go with Bulwark in the end, because he needs the lifesteal a lot, plus the damage reduction might also help a bit.

I also did some math - my mercenary had exactly 185 strength without the helm and the armor - so instead of Treachery, I opted for a Lionheart with +25 strength boost, so he should be able to carry the non-eth CV insight...
... except I forgot that his currently equipped Insight also gave him +5 all attributes, so he will still need about 3 more levels to be able to equip the new one... All in all, nice upgrades.

I also have a 5 socket mancatcher stashed, maybe I'll make an Obedience to improve the mercenary, but not a big fan of it due to the cold damage popping corpses now and then.

Next goal is finishing act 1 and reaching lvl 82 with both the character and the mercenary to upgrade the Insight. Maybe rerun Andariel a couple of times. Still looking for all the longterm upgrades like shako, vipermagi, homunculus, trang gloves, etc.

Finishing act 1, quests/waypoints completed. Did about 5-10 more Andariel runs but haven't even seen a single unique drop, so I continued with act 2.

The sewers and rocky waste map exploration describes my luck with the rest of act 2 too.