[VH-HC] Ironman Contest

[Bruutus]

ok quick question here.

I started this VHHC Ironman challenge with a vanquisher, going steady, havind a easy run up till now.

dual weilding ofcourse but..., can i use traps? they seem very usefull but i don't really find any rules about using traps with the vanq?

bruutus

[Bruutus]

Hey guys,

Ironisch going well, vanquisher clvl 10 atm. main dmg comes from firetraps and dual wield. heading to the ruins now, got a good stack of potions but im a little wurried my dmg will be sufficient enough.. as i have no real melee skills, only the leap attack one, which will eventually get me instagibbed :/

my char:


8% exp gain atm. hoping to get that to like 15 or maybe 20%.
5 golden rifle drops so far and no melee weapons

bruutus

Edit:
well that was lots of fun.. entered the portal to the first glyph, 2 tree bosses 4 normal trees, 15 pigmy's and 3 spiders webbing me.. got instagibbed right away nothing i could do there
gotta love stairs down deaths

[Bourrpif]

Hi, I'm trying a new Ironman challenge dive!(if you've already finished the game)
Someone gave me the idea on the single player discution: I've tried to ironman dive straight into the shadow vault.
It's interesting. Yet another way to play this challange, easier in the begining (I've been lvl5 on floor 2) then even harder
since you don't have the boss to give you unique drops. You can face any mob at anytime and it gets really hard after floor 5 (my first char died on dlvl7).
I'll maybe create a new topic if some of you are interested in this one. May you give this a shot then tell me what you think about it!
Here is my new char, now floor 5 Clvl 8:


[Edit: It died too on Dlvl7 , had to face a hard phase portal with just two heal pots...

[phool]

I've got a VHHC ironman SV only side-project going on as well, I'm using a no-summoning alchemist but haven't decided on build - I was going melee only but I can't actually tell what skills are melee or not from the descriptions and if there aren't any melee skills which use at least 50% weapon damage then it's not going to be an end game solution. Initially I was going to do a melee vanq but deleted on floor 4 for this reason.

I prefer SV for this in some senses - I find the enemy selection more interesting, areas a bit less predictable, and no bosses like Ordrak which are simply straight up impossible for some less optimal builds so this should open the challenge up a bit to other setups.

[nermind]

So how are you guys doing, anyone close to be the second beating Ordrak (if I didn't miss someone)?

I've spent quite some time playing Iron Man(s) lately and on my 6th attempt I've finally made it past lvl 15 - the last 3 died @lvl 14 just before getting frost shield (what a curse!). Now that I have it I really feel much more safe.

This one hasn't been as lucky with drops as some of the previous ones (I got Identify spell on floor 2 on previous attempt! That alone was pretty amazing.), but thanks to my skills (hopefully) improving has been doing pretty well with almost no near-deaths, even survived 3(!) phase portals so far.

So here are my Hero's stats&journal upon entering prison (it says 3 portals used although I've only accidentally made one - I seem to remember someone reporting the same glitch in this thread):

[Bourrpif]

entering prison

Well done! Be sure you ALWAYS have frost shield up from now. The prison seems less dangerous than the previous lvl but it's not, in fact all my ironmans died on this tilestet exept 1. I've made a 4th ironmanu who just got killed by archers...my mistake was to rush...BOUM! Should have tried to lure them instead
The main point here is to take your time to kill these troll juggernaut bosses. There are some tricky after-animation-hits (even more if you freeze it) when it shocks its mace on the floor and every crit is a near-death...at best. Lost one ironman and one VHHC no iron destroyer like that
Anyway, good luck to you.

[nermind]

Made it past the prison - it really seemed easier as there are very few charging monsters and as long as you keep an eye on those exploding arrows and don't rush giant trolls (1000+ crits ) its pretty easy.
Enough for today - one of the reasons why my previous Ironmans died were the long playing sessions, which made it hard to pay enough attention.

Bourrpif, what do you think is the best end-game killing-skill for an Ironman, I haven't played a twinked Destroyer so I haven't experimented with the skills, so far Slash seems to do the job perfectly - for no skill-point investment I get an excellent AoE skill that uses both weapons and with ~30 knockback on gear I feel extremely safe with it as well. But are there any alternatives I should consider?

[Bourrpif]

Bourrpif, what do you think is the best end-game killing-skill for an Ironman, I haven't played a twinked Destroyer so I haven't experimented with the skills, so far Slash seems to do the job perfectly - for no skill-point investment I get an excellent AoE skill that uses both weapons and with ~30 knockback on gear I feel extremely safe with it as well. But are there any alternatives I should consider?

Yes I recomend you opt for Spectral Echoe, pump it as soon as possible and switch it to be your main attack. At first it seems to be an underpowered skill but it's in fact one of the most powerful on Ironman (with Frost shield); almost can't survive in black palace without it.
The main point is that it has a 30s duration BUT a 10s cooldown so that you can cast it three times before it ends.
If you do so, weapons DPS, critical stikes and effects like knockback will triple. So that at skill lvl 1: 3x30% weapon damage,
3x your critical strikes % etc. When pumped off you reach an enormous 70%x3 weapons damage that allowed me to go to SV lvl20 with Ironmanu III while having some lvl 12 armor still...
A skill to use with the shift key as Slash, safer and Very effective, I would recommand to every Ironman even if it's somewhat weak in the begining.
When reach the Black palace you may want to go with a shield if you've found one with % reflect missile so that Dark Zealots won't one-shoot you. (keep dual if you've already more than say 60/70% missile reflect on gear or enormous elemental protection which is not very probable!)
If you make it to lvl 25 take a devastate and a spectral decay point. Don't know if Ordrak is possible using any other skill combination on Ironman. Use Dervish spell to down bosses, Zealots and Ice elementals as fast as possible (if you've found it).
Well done, and good luck to you

[Venom]

Sigh...

I finally made it down to Dlevel 9, and I had awesome, and I mean AWESOME gear. I had 4 uniques, and two weapons well over 100 DPS, 2 rings with a combined total of +5% to exp, boots with faster movement, and heal self II, and haste II. I was ready to go! I came upon a phase portal and got overwhelmed almost immediately. I was positive I was going to get to Ordrak on this dude, but died to one of those wight bosses, I was swarmed by zombies and skeletal archers, so I had nowhere to go when the wight teleported to me and melted my face.

Oh well...back in I go...

And, a bit of a noob question, I'd like to post some screenshots at some point, maybe write a bit of a story to go with it, as these Ironman dives are really fun and entertaining, but I have no idea how to get a screenshot, and once I've done that, I don't know where to find it. Can someone let me know how to do that?

[Voj]

I'd like to post some screenshots at some point, maybe write a bit of a story to go with it, as these Ironman dives are really fun and entertaining, but I have no idea how to get a screenshot, and once I've done that, I don't know where to find it. Can someone let me know how to do that?

Hold shift and F9 and you will have a screenshot in the Application Data\runic games\torchlight\screenshots folder. This method only works if you're playing the game; it doesn't work in the main menu or character select screens. I prefer to take screenshots by pressing Print Screen and going to an image editing program such as paint, pressing paste (ctrl-v), editing the dimensions of the image as it can be cut off in the forums if it's too wide, and saving it as a jpeg image.

[Bourrpif]

Hi all, Back again with an unprobable build...work well so far; entering Molten Prison at Clvl17.
Quite happy I survived a Black Palace phase portal at Clvl 9 (cost half my pots but, better than a char's life )
here are the pics:

I have a very cool overall +28% faster cast speed and two fastest weapons which allowed me a quite easy swift run, heal self III (loads of pots stocked up), and my beloved dervish spell. The bad thing is I didn't find ANY drop with % reflect missile so opted for shadow bowman skill to have at least some few. Might have to try max it before the palace but would sacrifice the dps skill scale... i'll do that if find good weapons.

Have to survive the Prison now, must be cautious since the tileset tricked 3 of my 5 ironmen.
Good game @ all

[Edit]: Entering the Black Palace... with loads of pots, and 2 lvls more than Ironmanu III (maxed Adventurer on lvl20 and cleaned 7 phase portals!) My weapons are obsolete but I'm kite confident with a 109% reflect missile on gear(51% on shield, 30% on boots and 26% Shadow bowman). Think i'll reach the boss again but might consider another skill combination for the fight since my DPS and crit rates are much lower.

[Bourrpif]

Well,well,well...I'll so face Ordrak a second time! The funny part is that my char is really stronger than Ironmanu III!
No less than 3 lvls more and near 100 heal pots to down the beast. Must say a +14% MF (+8% since lvl9 and +14% since lvl 18) helped to keep gear updated and had the luck to find an epic unique sword in the 33th floor !
Here is the picture: journal, build and stuff i'll face Ordrak with.

Look at the very polished damage output number! I'm a bit superstitious so hope and think it's a good sign!
Anyway i'll go to it tomorrow, i've had a real geeky-torchlight day and am too tired to launch the epic combat tonight.
Notice too that I'm on my way to down the run-time since i'll be around 2 hours better if I make it again
I'll make a vid as the previous time.
Cheers

[Bourrpif]

Hi, Ordrak is down again
I did take a video but don't know if i'll post it since the combat was quite the same, easier thanks to a better build/lvl/no pots limit etc...as said before. Here's my journal after the fight:

I'll stop this char here and maybe heiroom an item. Going to give a try to hardcore-insane difficulty mod.
Good luck to all and have fun with Ironman challenge

[Sc0pe]

Hey Bourrpif,

looking at your current Ironman's build, I see you have taken 5 levels of Shadow Bowman, which fells in the category of summon spells? Did Ironmanu III use shadow bowman as well? I believe Ironmanu III made it without this spell?

[nermind]

Although looking at Bourrpif it almost seems like there's nothing special about about beating Ordrak with Ironman, I still can't believe I just did it - great feeling, especially because I thought I had no chance because I would die due to running out of potions as I only had ~ 30 of them (having only Heal Self I made it hard to save more of them), but it turned out I only needed 20 as the fight wasn't as long as I had expected - using all the critical hit/faster cast equipment I had paid off

Bourrpif, thanks for tips about engame skills (and congrats once again! nice bunch of potions - hope it wasn't hard to carry them all the time ) - spectral echo (no wonder I hear about it so often on HC forums) helped a lot through the castle and 1pt Devastate killed Ordrak unbelievably quickly, and I only now realised that I forgot to recast Spectral Decay 98% of the fight (did it just once - haven't used to this skill yet *doh*), so it could have been even faster
Still quite a few close calls through the Castle, so I feel lucky

Might take him into the SV one day (I want to work on other projects for some time) - he might have decent chances not to die very soon as I can reach exactly 100% reflect missiles even without shield and have a couple decent items (although some are terrible), especially if I get a decent and fast weapon. Maxed Shaodw Armor and lvl 9 frost shield should help with that too

Couple extra pictures:
-Before facing Ordrak:


-The action:


-Journal at the end of this journey:


Best of luck to you, Ironmans

[Bourrpif]

Big gratz to you Nermind
Happy some of my advices could help! It's a real accomplishment, not that it's been so easy for me, just a bit easier.
In fact wanted to know if I could redo it, optimise things, etc...

@ScOpe: haha yes in fact when I posted about that, I believed that it summoned a real bowman (as the archer spell) and never had used the skill (should shut my mouth sometimes). Yes this skill is useful, yes you can (and should) use it if some +reflect you need just don't pop in your gear. So to sleep less idiot, tried to use it (thank to you btw) and it's cool, not a real damage dealer by itself . I'd say it's more useful than Shadow armor. Ironmanu III didn't use it but should have for his survival would have been less of a hastle in the Palace...

[Ninjasassin]

Hi, I just tried this challenge today and after a bit of playing got my character, lvl 10, to the ruins. Unfortunately, he suffered a slow death from a potion shortage and was eventually finished off by a unique tree-type monster. I was just wondering if any of you experts had any advice to give to me about my build...

I ended up with about 2 slash, 2 armor mastery, 4 shadow armor (which proved far less useful after level 5 or so), 3 dual wield and 1 stampede (which could have been more useful with more points, but used way too much mp for me) and at about 104-208 damage or so and about 80-160 damage absorbtion from my armor.

I was able to mow down most uniques and the two bosses before the ruins with relative ease using shadow armor, slash and dervish, but my build lost quite a bit of effectiveness later on. Is this just due to the difficulty, or is my current build not efficient enough?

[phool]

You may just have been unlucky in terms of drops. Otherwise it may be a question of switching gameplay to avoid being hit by hit+running more, putting the pet on aggro only when facing a boss you can't hit+run from, luring more, and so on.

My barb's just entering dark palace now at level 23 or so, I'll post pics soon.

[Bourrpif]

I ended up with about 2 slash, 2 armor mastery, 4 shadow armor (which proved far less useful after level 5 or so), 3 dual wield and 1 stampede (which could have been more useful with more points, but used way too much mp for me) and at about 104-208 damage or so and about 80-160 damage absorbtion from my armor.

You missed the most critical point in your build: 1 Point in Entropic aura at Clvl5. So it's a LOT easier to kite and run with slash when EA up. Don't put more than one point in Shadow armor except if you choose to have Doomquake as your main attack, and go for one-hand+shield (in this case you'll have a lot of kite-and run all over the game). Should try to max out as possible +faster cast rate on your gear and +Reflect missile on the ruins tileset.

With my last Ironman at lvl 10 I had:

Slash:3
Entropic Aura:1
Shadow Armor:1
Dual wield:1
Soul rend:1 (the onely reason is that I found a unique polearm on floor3 and spamed this skill to down Brink and other boss out of harm range early on)
Weapon Mastery:3
Armor Expertise:1
Adventurer:1

Worked well for me. Good luck with the next one

[Ninjasassin]

I actually forgot to mention that I did have Entropic Aura, so it may have just been that I used up 3 extra points in Shadow armor ( I guess I was trying to minimize the damage I took while dual wielding). Okay, Im going to try again, this was way more do-able than I originally thought it would be once I got to about lvl 5. Thanks for the help, I will be back with my progress if its notable.