Ok, thanks. So we've gone back to Sunday?
--
~misfit~

I'm really keen to play but there was talk of disruptions over the 'holiday
period' so I just figured play-times would be posted here in advance.

So it's back to Sunday permanently now?

Thank you. The last thing I did was run to the Lost City WP and pop a TP so
we'd have it for the next game. What WP are you guys at and what clvl? Shady
and I are capable of catching up on our own, both questing and leveling. We
both do lots of damage. I guess we'll just have to drink a few more pots
than we would if we had a medic in attendance.
--
~misfit~

Ok, thanks Stephen. I was online, playing with Kaytie, Frank and Tae amongst
others. Doing hell runs and helping with a NM run, just killing time really.

Damn Bnet!!!
--
~misfit~

Understood. Thanks for the run-down Doc.

Shock_alot and Chill-Bill went ahead and completed Act II last night as it's
rumoured the rest of the team is in Act III. We went form the Lost City WP
and adopted a scorched-earth policy after deciding we needed all the
experience we could muster, it only being a players 2 game. We cleared the
Lost City, snakes and Arcane Sanctuary with little incident. However we both
died later at different times, when clearing all the tombs. Got a few runes
in the Arcane Sanctuary, found a bit of interesting stuff actually but there
is only so much stash space available!! I had to sell an ethereal Kelpie
Snare as I'd already found a Battlebranch for my merc and Shady's has a rare
with life-leech. Kelpie's nice but without leech elsewhere not viable.
Unfortunately stash-space prevented me from keeping it to offer the team.

Ptopaz'ed Tarnhelm as my twink item and have the "durability" to be able to
fit in other MF here and there without compromising survivability *too*
much. (Shady couldn't understand why I gave her some rare gloves I found
with 60 def and 20% IAS and several other mods on them when mine only have
12 def and no IAS. It's because mine have 24% MF. Chances are, I wouldn't
have had the good gloves to give her if I didn't have the MF gloves on
myself)

I very nearly died at one stage, in fact I said to Shady repeatedly "I'm
dead, I'm dead". She had wisely decided not to charge into the room in the
tomb with me. There were a boss pack of electric beetles and *three*, count
'em, *three* unique unravellers!! Obviously there was also around 40-50
skellies (not leechable :-( ) I don't know how, maybe it was an act of god,
but somehow, when the bones had stopped flying, I was still alive, with
about 10% life left and a completely empty belt. The exercise was worth it
however as, there on the ground was a grey dimensional blade. Mumbling "Four
sockets, four sockets" under my breath I checked it out and it did indeed
possess the desired four sockets. I'd previously found two others, one with
one socket and one with three. Some frantic rune swapping and cubing
followed and I was able to swap my Spirit crystal sword for a Spirit
dimensional blade. About double the physical damage on the weapon but,
sadly, only the same durability. I have to repair often. I don't think
zealot's are supposed to use crystal swords and their ilk, they're way too
fragile. It's a shme I didn't find a four socket long sword or broadsword or
something other than a dimensional.

Here's something interesting: I've been looking for a four socketed pally
shield to make Spirit in, hopefully with inherant resists (as Spirit doesn't
give resist fire). The only one I found worthy of note (read: More than 25
defence) is an Akaran Targe, defence 101 with four sockets. No resists on
the shield but here's the interesting bit: It has 34% enhanced damage (and
+73 to attack rating) on it! I don't think I've seen that on a shield
before, enhanced damage. Great, I thought, 34%! That's a big damage boost
and may be worth sacrificing resists for. However, when I equip it my listed
damage only goes up fractionally, from 628-781 to 631-793. That's a bit sad
don't you think? Seems it just adds 34% of the weapon's physical damage, not
my final damage. A dissapointment there. I also found a blue prismatic ammy,
res all +17. I'm not sure wether to sacrifice my MF one for it, probably
not. However, it doesn't take up much space so has been retained. I've also
kept a lowly Rondache in case anyone else wants it for Spirit. It has a
pathetic defence rating of 16 but has the required four sockets and resist
all +19.

As we don't know much about the progress of the rest of the team other than
they are in Act III so decided to get to the Kurast docks and leave it at
that for now. (Might have to do a few countess runs though, need runes!!).
Duriel wasn't that much of a challenge but here's where it gets interesting.
Chill-Bill is clvl 56 and Shock_alot is a little lower I believe. Upon dying
Duriel coughed up a Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest! It has a 66 level
requirement so I'm unable to contemplate using it or giving it to my merc
yet. I found this a bit strange, the only times I've found items with higher
clvl req's than the char before is when the char is *way* above the lvl of
the area. (Like, during mule rushes or when rushing a char through to Act II
to get teh good merc). Now, I'm not complaining, a Tal's hat in an untwinked
game is a real bonus with it's 10% dual leech. I just thought it unusual to
get an item 10 lvls higher than the character who found it. <shrug> Maybe
I've just lead a sheltered life.

So, all-in-all, not a bad run. I managed to improve my equipment a bit (as
did Shady) and we got to Act III so we're (hopefully) around the same place
as the rest of the team. Did you guys venture out from the docks yet? What
is the average clvl of the team? I noticed during game-play earlier that I
seemed to always be a couple of levels higher than others. I'm thinking
that, as we missed out on The Countess/Andy runs that you guys did we may
try a couple of those sometime. I need runes and one two-hour session at
players 2 probably doesn't bring us close to you guys.

Cheers,
--
~misfit~