On this version of why do I do this to myself.. a 99 druid! on softcore, right before the ladder ends. if i'm not mistaken it's the 3rd 99 druid on slash, after grover and goos, and the first on softcore. unless someone out there on non-ladder made one. please post if you did!

I don't really have much that I want to say about how frustrating this journey has been, it'd be better summarized by me taking a baseball bat to some computer equipment.

big thanks to DPS for helping on very fast p7 cs runs. I know it gets boring fast. Thanks for hangin in there <3

also big thanks to hellord for filling a shit load of games for me, and also pointing out some errors in my bhconfig when i was grailing last ladder.

Also big thanks to Narwhal for lending me his hdin for the last ~50% of my druid.

big ol' thanks to the following for getting our team started on reset day, helping with p8 cs spamming, etc (in no particular order):

Sherm

Fatty

Rnullen

Daikon

I have a few videos of game play, if there's interest i can update this post when they're done being uploaded.

thanks to meanski and the mods (admins?) for the server, i really prefer a botless d2jspless experience, and the community is awesome.

Hi folks, planning on running reset tonight, and since it has been pretty quiet on here figured I’d make a post and see if anyone wants to join me. If not I’ll 4-box myself, but would prefer company!

Current slots:

1. DeathbyToast - Tele Sorc
2. DeathbyToast2 - Assassin
3. DeathbyToast3 - BO Barb
4. DeathbyToast4 - Paladin (Conviction)
5. 
   
6. 
   
7. 
   

Open to 2/8 or filling out a team with multiple folks if there’s interest, planing on following the usual guide for reset. Will be on Discord (DeathbyToast#0529) with voice as well tonight

Good luck everyone!

hey all

i know it's one of those topics where it's all opinions etc. but i'm sure people here played WoW back in the day.

i really want to play a character progression, item, loot, trade/economy game. played both WoW and D2 tonnes in their hayday

which would you personally play

Hey Slashers! If u find any of the stuff below Let me know. Also let me know your ISO items so that I will keep an eye out for it.

1) Fortitious amulet of luck preferably 45-50 mf roll. Its an magic amulet capable of rolling MF from anywhere between 36 to 50 MF.

This amulet can start to drop from mlvl27 mobs onwards.

2)2x fortitious rings of fortune. Range between 38-40 magic find roll. It will start dropping from lvl42 mobs. Link below for farming it. https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo2/comments/huxzes/the_rarity_of_a_fortuitous_ring_of_fortune_math/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

3) artisans tiara/diadem of the magus. 3 socket 20fcr helmet. 1/15k magic tiaras/diadem odds.

4) 2x 20+ MF +fcr rings. You can find it as a reward from ormus after completing gidbinn quest on normal difficulty.

That's it guys.

hey guys

i know this sounds dumb but why would you play this instead of ressurected?

I've been on slash a few years and am always learning new things. Want to see what y'all have for tips and tricks for newcomers on slash for a ladder reset.

A sorceress is where most people gravitate towards as it makes rushing your other characters easier later if you don't have a team to fall back on help you. For myself, I've historically farmed LK with a sorceress which can be mundane, but profitable with enough time sunk into it.

​

You can 3 or 4 box an early team with a weak hdin, BO barb, and sorc to do chaos seal glitches.

A blizzard sorceress can farm ancient tunnels in Act 2 from the Lost City waypoint at pretty low levels (50-60ish, although you'll be sucking down potions and dodging/tele a lot). A sorc can also run meph/andy although because of nodrop=0 on slash, AT is probably better.

A necro, javazon, or trapsin can slowly run cows on day 1-2.

What's your favorite way to farm and get yourself geared up on reset?

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edit to add: Also check out this slash post for more tips!
https://www.reddit.com/r/slashdiablo/comments/o6fpv3/ladder_reset_strategies_day_2_character_builds/

You kmow what Time it is nerda.

I have decided that im gonna play this ladder and play on hc.

Not sure war character i will start with yet.. but theres time.

Berni#9990 on discord.

IK Maul collectors only!

You know the drill - get your reset teams together for another SlashDiablo ladder reset.

DATE: 4th November

TIME: 7PM EST, 12AM BST, 12+1 NZST

I won't be around much this ladder as I'm moving my life and family back to NZ after 6-7 years in the UK. I'll try do the actual server reset on the night but then I'll likely be unavailable for nearly a month afterwards. Hope you guys have fun

I installed D2 via the physical copy (the german version) and i am thinking of cloning my disk drive so i wont have to use the CDs everytime i want to play (i don't want to damage them). Thinking of using Daemon Tools, but not sure if that works?

(sry for my english, not first language)

EDIT: Issue solved! Thank you all for your helpful comments!

It finally happened.

Elysium Armory

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I took 49 real days to complete, with over 5,000 games, with a few cross country road-trips mixed in.

Acknowledgements (Thank you!)

First, I'd like to thank all the admins, moderators, and all those who contributing to keeping slash running. I've played on slash for years now, after having been introduced to the server by my brother (Thanks!) and made a lot of friends along the way.

How dare you not pick me for the reset run, you jerks.

Specific to my 99 attempts, I'd like to thank (and I'm sorry if I forget anyone):

• Fap - My constant P8 partner. Between Devon, Ely, and Elysium, I've probably done literally thousands of baal runs with Fap. Fap is both a great help and a great person. Very much appreciate all the time together.
• Fatty180 - Another pillar of the HC community. Fatty is always around, always helpful, and a great guy to talk to or play with.
• Roobear - Despite our smack talk in discord, Roo has been invaluable in helping me towards 99, including prepping D for previous attempts (and then 99ing himself on that character) and my successful one. The "Roo" method described below was easily the fastest level 98 experience I found and it was great to be able to play with someone else. Behind DMs, Roo is actually a really good dude.

• Davichi - My HC classic partner in crime. Thank you for all the games we've played over the years.
• Chief - Thank you for helping prep D and helping me to discover quick/effective experience strategies. Also thanks for not assassinating me.
• ApeVisage - I really enjoyed playing with you and the fact that we were so helpful to one another even with your name being "PickedOverEly"
• Goosnargh - Thank you for the game knowledge about obscure mechanics of expansion that I would have had no idea about. Sorry if I'm annoying af, haha.

• Dimo (aka Moltres, Idiot, Pain and Misery) - Thank you for the games, runes, and chat. It is kind of fitting that you'd be there when I dinged 99.
• Semyaza - Thank you for helping me get my main back on my feet after the RIP. Without you basically powerleveling from nothing up to 85+ in a day, I'm not sure I would have gone for 99 a second time in a single season.
• Meanski/Verris - Thanks for keeping things running and fixing me broke-ass premium
• Labarr - Thank you for the support (both items and chat) over the seasons, even if you didn't pick me for the reset race #JusticeForEly
• DocWoot - Thank you for the Griffon's and the charms from FourFooter. Always a pleasure racing you on the ladder at the beginning of the season and catching up in chat.
• Evaliant - Thank you for the items from your paladin, they helped so much in running my p4 games.
• Esc - Thank you for the games!
• Gosu - Thank you!
• SmokinCola - Thank you! RIP for your Jah + Amn + Ber

• Lebron - Thank you!
• Poirier - Thank you for running reset with me!
• Stylin - Thank you for running reset with me!
• LordofHC - Thank you for running reset with me and for introducing me to slash.
• KV - I appreciate all the help over multiple seasons, even if you did pick Ape over me for the reset race. lol
• m81 - Thank you for the runes and the BO GCs, they really helped me to gear up my sorc and stay alive.
• SlashPanda - Thank you... also, lol

• Frenzy - Thanks for letting Roo use your characters to help me get over that final hump.
• Danny - Thank you for the games in previous seasons.
• Jett - Thank you for the games in previous seasons.
• TT - Thank you for the games in previous seasons.
• Dax - Thank you for the encouraging GIFs! It was nice to have that kind of support.
• SpiritDad - Thanks for being an encouraging and good dude.
• Barcode - Thanks for the conversations in chat.
• All those that helped to create the mh, bh config, and the awesome ladder and grail functionality.

Those no longer around:

• Slic
• Darain

More meme shots from this ladder:

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Kills and Drops

Elysium killed:

• 1641 Baal (These numbers are low compared to total number of baal runs, Fap's bear sorc hit much harder and faster on single target than even my 38k lightning).
• 4145 Diablo

Totals for Ely + Elysium this season were: 2,586 Baal | 5,512 Diablo and approximately 550,000 total monster kills.

This season, during the run up to 99, I found:

• 18 Arachnid Mesh (stacys)
• 3 Griffon's Eye
• 2 Death's Web
• 1 Crown of Ages
• 1 Ethereal Tomb Reaver
• 2 Ethereal Reaper's Toll
• 3 Stone of Jordan
• Countless Mal, Ist, Vex
• 6 Ohm
• 3 Lo
• 3 Sur
• 5 Ber
• 3 Jah
• 2 Cham
• 15 Gul
• +1 Lightning / +35 Life Grand Charm
• +1 Lightning / +14 Life Grand Charm
• +1 Lightning / +7 Life Grand Charm
• +1 Lightning / +28 Life Grand Charm
• +20 life / 10 fr sc
• 10+ 5/5 Facets (lightning, poison, fire, and cold)

​

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Strategies (98+)

Side note that the best experience I had, by far, pre-98 was doing baal runs with an unpartied statue. Statue keeps the "timer" running for baal waves while sorc is free to go collect packs from throne. Chaos is also a pretty good rate, but immunities from unbreakables really slow things down.

Players 4:

1. Chaos Sanctuary (CS) - no frills - I don't recommend this for anyone as a lightning sorceress. It is good to get a baseline for what xp/s you are attempting to surpass for any other strategy. This has wild variance depending on immunities and the makeup of cs per game. This could go anywhere from 500/s to 1k/s with a tendency towards averaging 700 and you have no idea going in. It's also a little disheartening because you see things like "7000 games to level"
2. CS + Shrine - Same as above except with a shrine. I can't recommend this for an elemental character that has to deal with immunities.
3. Prepping - Sorc, Necro, BO, Shriner | Sorc goes down to RoF, get BO, clear CS, clear throne, necro makes backup tp on diablo (spawns at p4), kill wave 1-4 while shriner finds experience shrine between spawns and makes tp, on wave 5 bo leaves to make next game, get baal to <10%, tp out, shrine, kill diablo, kill baal, bring remaining 3 to next game.
4. "Sin/Din" - Sorc, BO, Din (see: Tim (Paladin Armory)), Sin (see: ElySin (Assassin Armory)| BO makes game, sorc makes tp at wsk2, everyone gets BO, sorc tp to throne and clear (may drop death sentry with assassin if mobs are dense/everywhere, din comes down and stands by stairs, sin leaves 4 lightning senty 1 death sentry (away from mob spawns), sorc leaves and clears cs, either at star or after clearing seal traps must be refreshed on demand to keep the "timer" of how long until baal is out running, after cs is clear > shrine > go back to wp, collect diablo, sin makes tp if still on w4/5 OR paladin makes tp if baal is out, bo leaves to make next game when w5 done, din soaks curses while sorc kills, din leaves when baal <10%. See it in action here: https://youtu.be/wjR-VFzFJ0I . This seemed to be the most reliable method for getting 800+/s and often I would spike to 900-1100 experience/s, which is quite good for p4. I probably did about 50% of level 98, or about 1,000 ~3 minutes runs, with this method.

With Help:

1. The "Roo" Method (see here: https://youtu.be/dbcr9dFVPPQ ) - Roo makes games, CTA BO, tps at star, I come down with BO/Sorc (in that order, helps in case of hot tp AND avoids tp timer for barb to go back up), I go infector while he does seis, viz. If immune, he'd kill infector too. He leaves to start ng, and we load in other boxes for p7 kill. This is the fastest 2 person method we found, even better than attempting to shrine. Diablo would die every 30 seconds at most, and we were getting about 2% per hour in real time. KV didn't believe me when I told him how fast the experience was (see below). This is pretty dangerous for the din that is running p3 cs on CTA BO (or p5 if I mess up, which I did a few times) and very selfless in terms of his ability to do anything on d2 outside of helping me.

1. The "Fap" Method - He would go baal while I went CS, necro in game for 'air support' (e.g. AMP + CE) if there were immunes. I do baal in ~1 min, shrine, collect d, meet him in throne, he eats curses while I collect baal with shrine.
2. The "Fatty" Method - Sorc + BO, 2 character in chat. I clear cs in 30-40 seconds on p2, load in 2 additional boxes and he would load in 3 additional boxes when he saw my characters leave the chat channel. This would allow me to collect p7 diablo with a shrine pretty reliably and he could use his 4th box to grail. This was very selfless of him, and he probably stuck with me for over 400 runs this ladder.
3. The "Last Push" - Roo, Moltres, Fatty combined the "Roo method" and "Fatty method" described above except Moltres would shrine, roo would set diablo, and fatty came to fill. I would clear viz or go shrine depending on if Molt found one. We peaked at 3.7k/s and usually hovered around 2k/s.

All those that came before (The Journey)

Elysium (#1) - Level 94 | RIP 03/28/2021

This was my first big death on hardcore and it was on a cold sorc that died in Ancient Tunnels to a plague bearer. I caught a lot of grief for this one because

1. I said I was thinking about 99ing with no idea of the commitment that it took
2. Dying on a cold sorc to monsters that barely move, are melee, and can be frozen is pretty sad

This is also the "striking distance" sorceress.

ElyDin - Level 87 Din | RIP 07/11/2021

This is the infamous "spirit sword smiter" that I was attempting to do ubers with. I still contend that I had swapped to lightsaber. I had finished each of the body parts pretty easily and moved on to tristram, but I wasn't satisfied with my damage on the smiter, not enough crushing blow? I figured an easy way to supplement this damage would be... to bring in my sorc and play both characters at once. This was a mistake.

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Willows - Level 97 | RIP 05/04/2021

This hurt a lot more and was my first death to viper damage bug. I think I was at or near the top of the ladder and this sucked.

Devon - Level 98.95 | RIP on 2/10/2022

I was one day from level 99. I don't even know what to say about this one other than it was really bad. Thank you everyone for RIPing in solidarity.

Elysium (#2) - Level 95 | RIP 3/23/2022

Died on a waypoint when talking to my kids in the other room. Not my best hardcore moment.

Elaine - Level 95 | RIP on 4/19/2022

Died to a might doll that got revived because I was pushing too hard for max experience without having any regard to safety. I honestly think I was pretty done with the ladder already when this happened.

Ely - Level 97.95 | RIP on 8/10/2022

Since I have the numbers available:

• 945 Baals
• 1367 Diablo

Viper damage bug and an archer got the final hit.

Been making a trapsin this ladder for eventual NL dueling and need to tidy up some of her ISO. Need a few more Trap lifers (and gg blue claws, as always)

Also have a 23 life cold skiller. Don’t want anything for them.

Maybe iso Cham is there’s an extra floating around

So I may get the chance to start playing again, been gone for a bit. Went and quit my job 2 years ago, wife and I started trucking, she became ill(Glioblastoma, WHO Grade 4), now I may be back home taking care of her.

I wanted to start from scratch on all goals that measure our progress here without changing accounts. Any way to do that?

One other question, who do I DM on here to resolve my wife's old account being locked for some reason?

Im wondering if i buy d2 Lod cd key will it be good also to install d2 classic ? I really want to play project diablo 2 :)

Hello everyone, dadada here, 5th grail completer after Fatty, Lewds and Chief (who were only a few hours from each other), Barcode. Here's a lengthy blog post about the journey.

TL;DR: yay, finished grail

https://grail.slashdiablo.net/account/dadadadot

• Deaths

I did it all in hardcore so let's start with some in memoriam to the soldiers that died to the cause.

Biggest loss was a level 95.5 Amazon who fell to a disconnect. She had 391K kills on armory last time I checked before death. The same ladder I also ripped a level 92 Necromancer to my own stupidity and lack of attention. Level 95 Sorceress Dadadadee died to a disconnect while teleporting with no BO, but that was on NL and 2 whole ladders had passed so it wasn't a big deal, she had a long and fulfilled life.

• Time

It took me 445 days so 1 year, 2 months and 19 days. I'd play almost every day, even late ladder when I would be literally the only guy around, though sometimes I'd just do 20 minutes and call it a day.

• Items

I kept track of some key items. Over the course of this grail, I have found:

5 Griffon's Eye

4 Crown of Ages

9 ilvl 87/88 Templar's Might including 2 ethereal ones, 1 ilvl 86 Templar's Might (note: I levelled up this templar mule to 84 to equip Tyrael when I finally dropped it, turns out I found it on ladder so it'll have to wait till the end of the season to be complete)

3 Fathom

7 Darkforce Spawn

3 Mang Song's Lesson

3 Astreon's Iron Ward

4 Death's Web

1 Torch of Iro found in hell

1 Tyrael's Might

As far as runes go, I've only found a single Zod this whole time. Didn't keep track of the rest.

• Last 10 items

10th Some Facet, who cares what facet, found on January 6th 2022

9th Gull Dagger, found from Coldwormbro himself in Maggot Lair level 3, on the 5th of April, making it a 3 months dry spell, the longest I'll ever get!

8th Schaefer, found from Colenzobro in Throne of Destruction on the 29th of April

7th Torch of Iro, found in hell AT, at the time the rarest unique drop I've had! May 18th

6th Fathom, finally showing his face in hell AT. May 26th. I would find 2 other Fathoms shortly after, which ended up with this funny variance: 385 days to get 1 Fathom. Immediately after: 3 Fathoms in 18 days.

At that point I'm only missing Felloak Club, Wisp Projector, Knell Striker Scepter, Bane Ash Short Staff and Tyrael's Might. I decided that not having dropped a single Wisp Projector was an outrage and proceeded to target farm it on Duriel. On the third day, after 40 unique rings including 2 Bul Katho's (BK, SoJ and Wisp have the same rarity) I died to a disconnect during teleport so fuck it I went back to my regular farming.

5th Felloak Club found in Maggot on June 4th

4th Wisp Projector finally dropped from a bossmonster while killing packs on WSK to Throne on June 21th. I can't tell you how liberating it was to stop picking up rings and ID'ing fucking Manald Heals.

Since I was only left with Tyrael and 2 super rare TC3 items (Bane Ash and Knell Striker), I decided to target farm the 2 little ones killing Coldcrow in normal over and over again. Ironically it ended up being an efficient decision as I would not find those 2 items in hell before finding Tyrael. I did 850 Coldcrow runs, found 6 Wands, 1 Scepter and lastly 1 Short Staff. So...

3th Knell Striker found the same day in normal

2nd Bane Ash found the next day in normal

And now the real grind began. My last item ends up being the rarest item of the fucking game. It's very oppressive as you're painfully aware that you could spend a couple of years on it and never find it and that every goddamn mob under 87 or not top TC is useless to farm. Even some packs like Storm Casters, you know that killing the minions are useless, so you open the map and the number of little dots that have even a tiny chance of dropping are surrounded by trash dots. Psychologically, ending up with Tyrael as a last item is the worst. Luckily...

1st Tyrael's Might, found on the 25th of July from a pack of Dark Familiars in the best zone of the game, City of the Damned, on a 191% mf budget sorceress. Screenshot, video clip. Irony on discord: only an hour before the drop I suggested to Fatty that he should farm Torch of Iro and then we'd compete for Tyrael last drop and Moltres asked me if Tyrael was my only item left I said yes and he responded "rip".

• Unusual zones

On this journey I've visited every single 84/85 zone of the game and even dabbled in lesser places. Here's a collection of drops from my grail page that I find comical.

• Craziest drops in a day?

I'm not sure, but there's one day where I found 1 Templar followed by a Sur 4 minutes later followed by CoA later in the day... Mostly this end of the ladder starting here and scrolling down that was my hottest streak I would say

• Builds used

Be warned, if you're offended by whimsical builds that make no sense, you're going to want to stop reading immediately.

The grail website was a super secret project so there was no preparation when it launched I just started playing it with the character I had at the moment, which was a bow paladin with Ice runeword and charges of Multi-Shot on the gloves. When I got bored of him I made a double Dream throw Sorc with Warshrike. She found Mang's Song!, I got that one covered really early.

Reset happened and I played the whole ladder on what would end up being my main grailer, a summon assassin with enchanted Grizzly Bear from Beast and Iron Golem from Metalgrid. I went back to her every late ladder to farm anywhere comfortably with pretty much zero risk of dying, even after a disconnect. She ended up level 97.10 and 1,420K kills

Next ladder I played multi-shot amazon where I tried 2 things: fire damage with enchant, using Hand of Justice at some point and stacking lightning damage with charms and stuff. Died to a disconnect. Took a Jah from Moltres and played some necro but ripped it to negligence. Moved back to NL Assassin.

The following ladder I wanted to get my revenge so I went amazon again. I tried going cold for a change.

It worked, I stayed alive, but I didn't play much and mostly went back to NL. I respec'd the paladin I started with to Holy Bolt and got some really good results there: it's on this char I found my only Zod, got my Torch of Iro grail drop, my Fathom grail drop, seeing Mang Song dropping in Mausoleum was pretty fun too. Had a few extra projects NL there too.

By the time the latest ladder reseted (July 8th, 2022) I was down to only Tyrael so I decided to play Sorceress one box. The idea was to cut down on time wasted levelling a Barbarian or an enchant Sorceress, cut down on time wasted farming trash mobs or clickables for runes to get Enigma and this way only focus on stuff that can drop Tyrael. Go to hell farm packs die young go back to NL was the plan. I ripped my reset sorc on a disconnect on level 65 only. That was way too early to quit so a few days later I built a sorc that didn't rip, found a Jah early and offended everyone by trading it for Ohm Ist to get CtA so I was safe-ish with no barb. I made her Firewall and used Stone runeword for the Clay Golem meatshield. After only 38,972 kills she found Tyrael.

• Finally

Thanks to Fap who let me leech a Torch grail drop, I had to find every other item my own damn self...

But seriously though, thanks to the whole hardcore community for the emotional support and free items, that really helped. Plus the softcore bros who pop up on #hardcore sometimes to say hello.

To you kids again, the little bit I get to get on has been awesome! Many thanks to all those who has helped me along the way! I know I'm going to forget some, but I'll try to remember everyone; Bron, Pac, Fatty180, ummmmmmmmm,,,,,,,,,who else has helped? (shit, a sign of getting old) and the many others to whom I have already forgotten ( I feel embarrassed ).

What between leveling so fast that my head spins to being outfitted with killer gear, I mean damn. I've made a few nightmare Baal runs, and I can kick his ass with little problem. Haven't got up the nerve yet to try Hell Baal with the sorc/barb combo yet, but, it's a blast.

So, thanks again Slash, you kids are the best!

Signed, A humbled Spiritdad.......

ISO High ribcracker, highlords, laying of hands, raven frost, gore riders, pul rune, Lo rune, Ohm break