Shael Rune and a New Belt

I played my PackMule barbarian character while waiting for Alice to join the game. His quest was to free the lost barbarians in the Frigid Highlands and he found the portal to Abaddon. The sparkly chest had a Shael Rune in it. Yay!

When Alice joined the game I handed it to her via the trade screen since I didn't want to take any chance of dropping it on the ground and having b-net crash before she could pick it up. We got to play for about 45 minutes before she had to go to bed. After she left I did a lot of housekeeping and got my three mule character's inventories organized.

Since I was in the Rogue Camp to do the item shuffling, I then went over to Gheed to shop for a new belt.

Here I am wearing the new Platted Belt I finally found. With it's +24% faster hit recovery, the +25% from my Stealth armor, and +12% from a grand charm, I'm now at +61% and that gives me an 8 frame recovery rate. The next breakpoint (for 7 frames) takes 86 FHR and is the last realistic goal since 6 frames takes 142. As an Amazon, Alice has it much easier with 7 frames at 32, 6 frames at 52, and 5 frames at 86.

This picture shows my current stats while using level 13 Enchant, level 13 Glacial Spike, and level 2 Frozen Armor. Notice my attack damage is up to 344 to 503. Each time I level up, I'm putting the points into Enchant so that damage range will be increasing.

This last screenshot shows my stash and backpack. The 12 free squares in my backpack and the 6 used by the tomes of identities, town portals, keys, and the gem will be replaced with charms from my stash when we are ready to dance with the ancients. That will give me an additional 62 to life and 1 to 29 lightning damage.  You might notice in the above picture that I have 34 unused stat points and they will most likely all go into vitality to increase my life bubble even more.

So, from my shoes up to my invisible hat, I'm set to go clothingwise. Now all I need is a better weapon. I do have a normal, non-socketed War Scepter which I found a day or three ago. I can either have PackMule use his socket quest reward to punch the holes in it or I can do it myself in the cube by putting it along with a Ral, an Amn, and a perfect Amethyst and transmuting. The only drawback to this method is that the sockets it will get is random. I might not get the 3 I want.

Thul Rune

Alice and I went adventuring again. We are, of course, still looking for a Shael Rune so she can make the Peace Runeword armor. In this picture we are near the Pit of Acheron and there was quite a crowd trying to stop us.

B-Net was being a bit difficult during our game and we lost it a couple of times. In this picture I had gone back to the Rogue Camp to hand off a few gems to one of my other characters. When I couldn't click on anything I realized the game was lagging so I ran to the bridge leading out of town and sure enough, the rest of the world had disappeared.

Later in the game Alice cubed up some Tal Runes to make Rals and then Rals to Orts and then 3 Orts to make the Thul she will need. She already has the Amn and we did find another Amn which means we either need two more Amns to make another Sol which would give us 3 to make the Shael or find another Sol or just find the Shael.

I went back to check Silospen's Drop Calculator and this time instead of looking at just the normal monster's odds, I put the monster type as SuperUnique. This shot shows the settings I used.

Here's the results sorted with the best odds at the top of the list. I've added a red dot by the one's who are easiest to get to.

So, I now think we should run these monsters in the following order based on how easy they are to find:

1. Pindleskin in Nihlathak's Temple
2. Eldritch the Rectifier in the Frigid Highlands
3. Shenk the Overseer in the Bloody Foothills
4. Hephasto the Armorer in the River of Flame
5. Bonesaw Breaker in the Glacial Trail
6. Thresh Socket in the Arreat Plateau
7. Frozenstein in the Frozen River

I'm going to load the game in a few minutes after I post this blog entry and hope Alice comes in to join me. It's now about 8:25 pm her time.

Two Thirds of a Shael

Alice and I played our game a little bit this evening. We did the Pit of Acheron first and then went to the Frozen River. We had two objectives here. First, it's a place where the Shael Rune we are looking for could drop and second, PackMule needed to rescue Anya and that would open her portal to Nihlie's temple.

In this picture we are fighting Frozenstein and he wasn't nearly as much trouble as the first time we visited him. Alice decided to poke him with a big pointy stick instead of using her bow.

Alice stopped to have breakfast and PackMule came in an thawed Anya. After he chatted with her, she opened the portal. When Alice got back we did another Pindle run.

One of the Defiled Warriors dropped a Sol Rune. That is one third of a Shael and as you can see in this picture, I already have 3 Amn Runes in my stash which will make a another Sol and that gets us closer to making the Peace Runeword for Alice's armor.

These next two shots are the backpacks of our Gem and Rune mule and our Rejuv Potion mule. I've set the chipped amethyst and sapphire over with the runes since the Cube recipe for the Sol is 3 Amns + 1 chipped amethyst and for the Shael, it's 3 Sols + 1 chipped sapphire.

And backing up in the story, while Alice was having breakfast I went shopping at Anya's gambling store and finally found a nice pair of shoes. You might remember that I've been wearing the boots Alice gave me a long time ago. They had the +20% Faster Run/Walk and Fire Resist +25%. I wanted to still have those mods as well as Cold Resist. These Imp Slippers Light Plated Boots are perfect and allowed me to remove a Cold Resist +17% Grand Charm from my backpack. That gives me more room to pick up loot.

So now we are much closer to having the runes to make Alice's armor and then battling the Ancient Barbarians. She will need to be on the lookout for a good 3 socket armor to drop while I continue searching for a 3 socket War Scepter. (Or if a good normal armor drops, she can use her socket reward from Larzuk like I did for mine.)

PackMule Finds the Frozen River

Although Alice was sick with a cold and couldn't go adventuring tonight, Annor was feeling quite well and accompanied PackMule. In this picture they are in the Pit of Acheron. Certain death awaits them if they aren't careful. On the right side of the picture is a group of Champion and Possessed Hell Lords. They pack quite a punch and take a bit of time to kill. PackMule stands safely rooted in place on this side of the lava pit while Annor picks them off one by one.

In this shot she is plucking away at the last of them.

Here they are in the Crystalline Passage battling a couple of Champion Snow Drifters. Annor is behind the one on the left and all you can see of her is her ponytail.

Now you can see her as they finish off the other monster.

PackMule found the Frozen River and would have gone in to rescue Anya, but B-Net decided it was time for me to quit playing by losing the connection.
 

For the 4 hours or so I played, PackMule searched the bodies of the dead monsters and found about 30 full rejuv potions for Alice and I to use when we face those nasty barbarians on top of the mountain.

New Clothes

Alice went to bed late last night around 2:00 am after we played our game for a while. I did my chores and took an evening nap starting at 7:00 pm. (That's one hour later due to the time zones.) I woke up and created our game about 12:30 am and Alice awoke and joined about 9:00 am. (Half hour later for those who get confused by the time difference.)

There are two things we are looking for now. A Shael Rune for Alice so she can make the Peace Rune Word armor and a 2 socket Ghost Armor for me. I'll make Stealth in it just like I have in my Studded Leather, but with more defense. (Yes, I know there are other armors I could use which would have even more defense, but it's a fashion thing for me.)

We ran Pindleskin and Eldritch and neither happened to have the Shael. We then went into the Pit of Acheron looking for my armor and there is the possibility of Shael dropping here.  In this picture I am slowly killing the monsters on the other side of the molten lava pit. Alice snuck around behind them while I kept them distracted.

A little closer to the sparkly chest, Alice lost her connection.

I went ahead and cleared the rest of the area while waiting for her to come back into the game. Ah, look, here she is now.

By now it was breakfast time for Alice. She left the game so I could re-create it and when she got back we did Pindle again and then Eldritch.

From there we went to the Arreat Plateau and some random monster dropped a crude, non-socketed version of the armor I wanted. Being the brilliant Sorceress I am, I plopped it into my Horadric Cube along with an El Rune and a Chipped Gem.

After transmuting, it's a normal Ghost Armor with 115 defense. (The possible defense range is 102 to 117, so it's nearly perfect.)

I need sockets in it to make the Stealth Rune Word, so I visited Larzuk and called in a favor he owed me. Here I've put the armor in the thing-a-ma-jig for him to punch a couple of holes in it.

And now I have a holey, normal grade Ghost Armor.

I then dropped in the Tal and Eth Runes and it became Stealth. My base defense was 156 with the old armor and is now 230 with this one. (That's not counting the bonus I get when I use my Frozen Armor aura.)

This next picture shows me wearing my old Studded Leather Stealth. Notice the arm coverings and the silver lace trim.

And here I am wearing the new Ghost Armor Stealth. The only visible difference between it and naked (gamewise) is the shoulder pads.

Alice approved of my new, nude look and then we ventured into the Temple to hunt down an evil necromancer. In this picture we've found the stairs.

Here we have found Nihlathak himself. We took him down quickly.

He dropped some nice gloves for Alice. The +20% Increased Attack Speed lets her promptly pluck her bow quite quicklier now.

Ok. That last sentence was a bit silly. I guess I'm more tired than I thought. I'm going to bed now.

Arreat Summit

Alice and I started playing our game about 10:30 pm my time yesterday and we played for about 6 hours. We took the Arreat Plateau waypoint and quickly found the Crystalline Passage. Here we are using applied psychology on some Champion Snow Drifters.

We also found some frozen creepers there.

In this screenshot we are in the Frozen River and there was a large welcoming committee as soon as we arrived.

Still in the Frozen River area, we used some good strategy to kill Dragon Grumble The Hungry and his minions by staying on one side of the river where they couldn't get to us.

In this shot we've awoken Frozenstein and his hoard. I was able to keep the lead minion frozen for a while and that blocked the others from getting to us, but once Frozenstein (who I can't totally freeze) got thru we had to lead them around and try to separate them cause they hit rather hard.

Unfortunately Alice's connection got buggy at this point and I finished him off before she could get back into the battle.

She lost her connection again, so in this picture I am patiently waiting for her to return. Anya shivers while we wait. When Alice got back, she went to town and got a thawing potion from Malah and then released Anya.

Anya then opened a red portal leading to Nihlathak's Temple. After we cleared the outer area, Alice ran in and led Pindleskin and his group out so we could teach them a lesson. I'm using my Glacial Spike to keep him chilled while Alice uses her big fire blaze thingy. She let me know as a BTW, that it's called Immolation Arrow. Thanks dear. :)

We ventured into the Halls of Anquish and cleared most of it. We found the entrance to the next level right when Alice's connection dropped her again.

When she got back this time, I remembered she hadn't tagged the Crystalline Passage waypoint, so I went there and opened a portal for her. We continued on to the Frozen Tundra, then thru the Ancient's Way and found the Arreat Summit atop the mountain. We did not release the Ancient Barbarians since I want to be much better prepared for them.

We discussed other armor Rune Words and decided it would be very good if we could find a Shael Rune so Alice could make Peace in a 3 socket armor. We already have enough Orts to transmute into the Thul and I had two Amns and gave her one. This screenshot is borrowed from the Diablo Wiki and shows the mods Peace will have.

From Silospen's Drop Calculator , it looks like about anywhere in Act 5 can drop the Shael Rune with equal probability but the odds aren't too good for finding it from them. (Like 1 in 30,000 for any of the normal monster's which can drop it.) The odds get better from Champions, Unique monsters and Super Uniques. Eldritch the Rectifier and Pindleskin show the best odds and have the added benefit of being super easy to get to. (We won't be tagging the waypoint in the Halls of Pain when we find it, so Anya's portal to Nihlathak's Temple will stay open and give us quick access to Pindleskin.)

It's now about 9:40 pm for Alice and I don't know when she will be able to play again. I'm going to create a game in a few minutes and see if she pops in.

Storm Brogues Greaves

Alice finally got her DSL fixed. We got to play our game for a couple of hours before she had to get ready for school. I took the Arreat Plateau waypoint and opened a portal so she could tag it too. Here we are finishing off a Champion Lasher. Right beside Alice is Sigon's Tower Sheild. I don't know if she kept it or not.

We found Thresh Socket a short while later and he was no match for us.

After killing off Thresh Socket, we jumped into the Crystalline Passage and ran into some Moon Lords. Since they weren't Champions, I could freeze them in their tracks and Alice and the girls killed them off.

Soon after that, things got a bit wiggy. Alice had run around to the right hand passage and found Bile Hawk The Slayer and his minions while other monsters started pouring out of the left hand passage. As a group, they were a wee bit difficult to handle.

Somewhere along the way, we found the rare Storm Brogues Greaves.  I'd dearly like to change my shoes for them, but they require 70 strength to wear and I'm only at 60. I do have 5 stat points saved up, but that still wouldn't get me there. Alice's strength is at 67, so she is much closer to being able to wear them and she put them in her stash for later.

By this time it was 5:45 am on her side of the world. We chatted till 6:00 and then she had to go get ready for school.