Nice!




Here we go - stats heading into ancients. This is FOH swap. No convict still (seriously I could have bought 10+ scepters of every aura except convict).



And charge.

Bam! took 4 mins to kill all 3, not too bad. Although I am lvl 43 lol. And no ding unfortunately




Did some meph runs. No convict still.
I did buy a +2 FOH blue scepter shortly after this (previously wasn't buying cause I wanted to make sure I would have enough gold when I did find convict). Should still have enough now.

Somehow I also missed grabbing a screen of steelclash which was a definite upgrade. Still holding onto my 78 res ancients in case I need in NM.





Nice meph drop!

Ok, I'll try that! I'm still ahead on game vs screen uploads but will try it out for future for sure.

Gonna leave it at that for a bit.


Where we stand (in screens, game ahead a bit):
- Just killed ancients
- Lvl 43, decent FOH dmg but no convict. 1k charge w/ malice pike. Struggling to find convict stick to hold me over until I have enough extra skill points for pre-reqs to get there.
Gear:
FOH swap: +1xx mana wand, steelclash
Charge swap: malice pike (I have runes for upgrade options e.g. Honor but no base yet)
Helm: Lore bone helm
Arm: 2os yellow armor w/ FHR, ort and yellow jewel w/ fire/light res
Belt: Sigs
Gloves: Sigs
Rings: +1max/113ar/3%LL/40mana/18psn/26%GF and swap between nagel and 90ar/11mana/half freeze duration
Amy: +1pcomb 25% psn length reduce
Inventory: Mostly assortment of + individual res charms, a couple are low life+res


Immediate goals:
Conviction! Need to finally find stick or just go ahead and skill into the prereqs (obviously I'll have to do this eventually, but was thinking lvl 3-4 convict w/ gear would be plenty for end of norm and first part of NM, with more +skill going into FOH being more useful)
Charge weapon upgrade. Malice pike = yuck but still best so far. I have the runes for honor (Have had pretty good rune drops so far) but need a 5os base which has been tough so far in norm. Only so many options (WSK lvl 3+ is high enough alvl for a fair number of weps to be 5-6, and there are some axe/maul options that could drop earlier in A5 w/ possibility of getting 5os). Just gotta find the right base in the right area - or even better, for a 5os to drop on its own! Would also take a solid rare 2h wep

Pretty awesome so far - love the challenging restrictions. Tracking and good luck!

Bit of an odd combo of skills, charge with conviction doesn’t make much sense. You can scroll down a bit and see if my FOH wt inspires you gl

Thanks! It has been an incredibly fun WT so far. The no-respec part makes it especially fun for some reason, both the added challenge but also you just feel like you're building towards something the whole time (instead of laying waste to everything with holy fire in norm).




I have actually seen your WT previously! Super cool.
I don't plan on charging w/ convict, convict will just be for FOH, will charge with might for now and then decide based on skill pts/AR/DMG if and when I spec into Fanat. On the one hand, might has the benefit of +20% charge synergy, req's less skill points, and I don't need the IAS from Fanat; on the other hand fanat is def more dmg, +AR, and way more helpful to merc. I'll have to run the numbers and decide later on.

Charge + FOH is definitely super weird - I chose it primarily because I thought 1) I want to do FOH on vanilla and 2) charge is incredibly fun skill to me and can be powerful without a ton of skill points. This way I figured I would have good options for taking down both light and physical immunes, and basically sacrifice mob kill speed for a unique style of high single-target dmg. It is definitely NOT efficient lol. I see the long term goal as being an expert at taking out uniques and super-uniques (especially undead ones), doing AT runs, pindle, and other easily accessible super uniques.

Heading back to WSK. This drop is cool but as it stands right now it doesn't help me enough over pike. I could up it and it would def be better but I wouldn't be able to use yet even w/ my 30 unused stat points (could get enough str if upped but not enough dex, or vice-versa). I'll hold onto it for now though, might be great to up it as next option if I haven't found something else or made e.g. honor in a good base by then.




Sorry for no screen of stats but I ran WSK and throne several more times to get to lvl 48 (and conviction). No useful drops really from WSK/throne other than the sword above.
Ended up finally getting a +2 convict stick but I was almost skilled to convict by then, so I only used it for one level then got convict by skill points and swapped back to my +2 foh scepter. Surprisingly, FOH was more useful in killing baal than charge was. The mana leach is just too strong on baal for me to charge in/out, worked better to stay away from him and chip him down with FOH (still required an extraordinary amount of mana pots but at least I didn't go to 0 mana every time I charged and got breathed on).




Let's GO! Cool quest drop on top, rest not super useful.

Bad ED and LL but 14% DR. Fun to have an upgrade drop from quest baal!




Always loved this bow. Just so cool looking, I used to up it for bowas early when walking them.




NM here I come. Very underprepared.

Aaaand we are off to a great start with our first drop of NM!




Not too much later, den with the sol as well. My overall drops haven't been amazing but for the lvls I have been at my rune drops have been super solid.

Den done, no problem, off to cold plains now.



Got run up on by this group of extra fast + cursed soon after grabbing WP. Fortunately was able to hit S/E for my second S/E of this WT (first in arcane, close call vs. diablo, this would be #2).






.....




And then, RIP. I can't even believe it. I was playing with laptop on my lap and mouse on table next to me. I hit s/e and grabbed screen to show my weakness.

I knew I still had 3 rejuvs in belt plus the healing pots, so I didn't S/E all the way yet, just left it paused and was going to take a minute to decide if I thought I could try to resume, hit rejuvs and run away with vigor to get merc back/FOH from afar.

Decided to take a break before deciding, and somehow in the process of moving my laptop off my lap to get up and collect myself, I somehow resumed on accident. Heard 2-3 hits land, tried to esc, was already dead.

On the one hand it's a frustrating way to die. On the other hand, this is exactly why I love diablo 2 HC P8. Does this make me want to go back and play a super safe char now since I got obliterated with my silly rules? Absolutely not! This was honestly one of the most fun times I've had playing D2 in a while even though it was just to NM A1, I think because of the weird set-up. So I have already started on my next challenge WT! I will post it when I make a bit more progress (maybe start posting screens from start when my char is actually like NM A3 or something).

Next challenge WT is def different style and different class but again weird restrictions, vanilla, and no-respec. I am actually planning to come back to retry this FOH/Charge hybrid again too, thought about just re-starting now but already wanted to do my other challenge walk char


Well, sorry for the very short/basically norm only WT... I guess shit happens in HC P8 with weak builds I feel bad for the like 3x amn, sol, and shael I found early but never used lol. I feel like so many WTs end up with GG end gear and 10000s of LK runs, so this can balance things out a bit with a WT starting to get fun and then unexpectedly cut short for a silly reason. It's like a GoT walkthrough: Starting to like the char? Well, now he's dead, and his death was basically meaningless.

RIP screen.