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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 5, 2017 22:17:59 GMT
Yeah, I always toss a potion his way.
Route test just now was a decent success although I had a few hiccups from poor execution and bad luck. The Oltum died when I first dominated him because I forgot he had to waste his spells and foolishly tried to off the Chief right away. Waited for his respawn which turns out to be 20-25 minutes, but apparently he won't respawn if any players are in the Crossroads map.
A badly executed grind at the East Road, where I didn't quite kill everything and died near the end, still gave me enough experience to make the ground floor of the Farm House faster, since I now had Mestil's Acid Sheath early. It also caused me to hit level 12 with less quests, meaning I can save some of those for later.
One thing I do need to consider before grabbing the Oltum is reaching level 5 through town quests. This will give me access to Extended Invisibility, which will make the East Road a lot safer. Invis running out was the reason I died.
At 12 I went and tested the Plains of War full clear, and was able to do it with no problems, rather quickly and safely. I need to go through my logs and find the touch AC of each enemy so I know the chances and whether I need to further buff my AB for that, like with Bull's Strength. Tenser's was plenty for the Sentinels and Elites, and I can fit enough casts of it to last for the full clear.
So my next task is to work out predictable, safe, fast clearing routes for both the East Road and POW, and then do another offline test to update my notes on when levels will be gained. Once I know that, I can tidy up the quest turn-ins to save as many as possible for later on, and then I can finally do another streamed demonstration with a fully functional 1-18 route. Because the Zhent experience is so powerful, the goal will be to get close enough with grinding and tag hunting to be able to drop all my quests at once and land almost exactly at level 18. Now that I have a solid POW method, area respawn downtime will be less of an issue. POW is short and effective with heal rings, much faster than the farm.
One issue I do need to resolve is money. I got poor luck on the initial looting trip this time, and only earned about 1.6 million gold, and my first shopping trip wasn't able to buy all the items I had planned. I've been piling more and more items in that shopping trip; so at this point I either need to save some purchases for later, or see if I can extend the looting trip to include the Guardians' cave or the Drow Tunnels, or pick up more loot spots in the East Road or Fox Trail / Ridge.
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Post by hackenslay on Jan 5, 2017 22:29:06 GMT
Sorcerer can Gate for Lolth, but not between areas as it can't specialize. I was led to believe Sorcerers can specialize now. |
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 7, 2017 6:55:35 GMT
Found a way to pick up another million gold in the initial looting circuit from guaranteed drops. I've also got a bunch of items I can cut from the first shopping trip:
- Can do with 30-40 speed packs instead of 50, that's 48-96k.
- Can do with 20-30 clarity packs instead of 50 for the kids, that's 78-117k.
- Cutting the Cloak of Premonition, as it was only used for the Ice Kobold archers, which I no longer fight. Saved 68k.
- Definitely cutting 100 heal packs down to 50. I haven't even consumed half a stack in all my tests so far, that saves 102k. I also need to test the range on Cure Crit Packs and see if they're any good, and then test them with Heal ranks - they're a fraction of the price and if I can use them in the Farm House, I should.
- I was safe enough in the Farm House without either CON item, I can see the Boots of Striding +4 being useful for a bit longer, but I only use the Amulet of Vitality +4 for that one spot, so I can cut it and save 42k.
- The very last two items I have in my notes to equip before the Ogre Lord is two Rings of Wizards, which together cost 220k. I could put this off until I need them, but the INT gain is nice for COD/Phant at Ogres, so pretty sure I'm keeping them. They're strong enough to useful for a while, if not both of them I'm sure I'll find a reason to equip one.
Everything else is way too cheap to be worth skipping. The extra items added to the loot trip more than doubled my gold, now I get just over two million guaranteed, and am planning to spend just under a million and a half. I do buy a full bag - that's 35 - of teleport gems in the first trip, totaling 189k, but I will have to buy that many eventually, and it's more convenient to just put them in the bag all at the same time, so I probably won't cut any of those unless I have to.
Still only have 2x Invisibility during the starting loot trip. Going to have to budget a couple more speed potions for this, I think. Here's how it goes now:
- Invis through the East Road, looting the spot at the end on the left with chain shirt (82k) and cloak (39k).
- Invis to POW, sneak along left side, then move across the large bone and get the spot behind the barricade with the bracers (46k) and shortsword (303k).
- Make a long loop around the end of POW and come back to the spot among the boulders for hide armor (82k) and bard horn (25k).
- Loot the first spot in Fox Trail for splint mail (219k), belt (46k), and amulet (46k), then rest.
- Invis past beetles to Fox Ridge, hug left side and pick up the spot with Metallica (391k) and ranger boots (51k).
- Invis back through Fox Ridge to Dark Glade, then rest.
- Pick up left two spots, first one has a cloak (54k) and bard ring (34k).
- Invis and run to the boulder near Guardian cave entrance, which has cleric ring (keep this) and cloak (82k).
- Run to a safe spot in Dark Glade to rest.
- Invis to Drow Tunnels, run to the very end of the path on the south side. Use a Summon Creature I to decoy the Drow around the corner, then grab that spot in the dead end with a longsword (my biggest find, 500k). May be practical to loot this without a summon decoy.
So the way money will work from here going forward is that I will keep packing as much as I can into the first shopping trip, and when I hit a saturation point where I can't farm enough gold anymore and all the gold is spoken for with initial purchases, I'll move on and see where it makes sense to put a second shopping trip. By then I should have a bankroll from plenty of quests, and I can also sneak another looting trip in around a POW or Zhent grind if I want - by which point I will have much more casts of Invis and possibly even GS. I was unable to sneak any items out of the Guardian cave as those enemies have True Seeing.
I've also mapped out POW spawns and I can't really come up with a good route that doubles up with the Oltum like I mentioned. However, the Sentinels do respawn faster than anything else, so I get more mileage out of a POW trip if I kill them earlier in the map to give them time to come back. So I think my traditional "up the left side" method is still going to work best in the long run.
Still need to get a solid test of the East Road spawning. Spawn triggers seem to be all over the place and I've even seen some difference in spawn composition, just need to sit down for an hour or two and brute force that place to death. It's made more complicated by the fact that I'm having to run through the map to get the Oltum; I need to find ways to avoid spawning as much as possible on the way to the bird.
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Post by hackenslay on Jan 7, 2017 13:07:09 GMT
I always loot the entire POW map without spawning anything , although it is more time-consuming.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 7, 2017 19:31:18 GMT
Yeah, I only mentioned the guaranteed loot - I'm also sweeping all the random loot spots I can get on the way. But I don't want to be planning a money route around random things unless I have to.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 8, 2017 4:20:20 GMT
Here's roughly what I've got so far for the west half of the East Road spawn triggers.  It looks very much like these five spawns were designed intentionally to ambush any player that tries to engage the first spawn on the map directly. Which would make sense for a bunch of bandits, of course. I have not yet succeeded at setting off only the blue spawn trigger, I'm not sure it's possible to get between the green and red, or even the orange and purple, I think they may overlap a little at their points near the bridge. The best strategy I've been able to come up with so far for the run TO the Oltum would be to run around the blue and through the green and orange. Then, on the way back, stick to the north and take the Oltum through the two northern rogue groups, then have him stand ground, run up to where the tower is, and direct him onto the orange group. Then move back, clean up the group to the east of purple (not shown) and then if the green spawn hadn't been killed during the fight with the orange, try to keep them at arm's length during the purple spawn... etc etc etc. Spent a few hours testing spawn triggers and I'm a little drained at the moment so I'll do more tomorrow. |
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 9, 2017 1:05:39 GMT
I've got the East Road consistent enough and run a test of experience and reworked my notes up through level 12 tonight. There is a few thousand experience to spare at the level 12 breakpoint, and I need less quest turn-ins than ever. After the Rat King and Ice Kobold King trips, I will be holding onto the full 10 quest items, and can burst about 40,000 XP to hit level 18 from two and a half levels away.
This means the first POW trip, the Rat/Ice Kob kings, and the Ogre/staff assembly trip, plus any grind detours I do, need to bring me from just over level 12 to halfway through level 15. A revisit to POW is easy enough, and I worked out that each POW trip will take about three rings, or 60k gold, which I more than make back by looting the place. Might still do Beholder Prison early since I have to eventually anyway, maybe level 14 I can do that, since I'll have two racks of CODs then.
Level 1-12 route is now extremely solid and consistent. I haven't timed it yet, tonight I was playing slowly and carefully, and working on my notes a lot. Pretty soon I should be able to have a good idea of how long it will take to get to level 18.
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Post by condude on Jan 9, 2017 3:46:54 GMT
I've got the East Road consistent enough and run a test of experience and reworked my notes up through level 12 tonight. There is a few thousand experience to spare at the level 12 breakpoint, and I need less quest turn-ins than ever. After the Rat King and Ice Kobold King trips, I will be holding onto the full 10 quest items, and can burst about 40,000 XP to hit level 18 from two and a half levels away. This means the first POW trip, the Rat/Ice Kob kings, and the Ogre/staff assembly trip, plus any grind detours I do, need to bring me from just over level 12 to halfway through level 15. A revisit to POW is easy enough, and I worked out that each POW trip will take about three rings, or 60k gold, which I more than make back by looting the place. Might still do Beholder Prison early since I have to eventually anyway, maybe level 14 I can do that, since I'll have two racks of CODs then. Level 1-12 route is now extremely solid and consistent. I haven't timed it yet, tonight I was playing slowly and carefully, and working on my notes a lot. Pretty soon I should be able to have a good idea of how long it will take to get to level 18. As a note, when cashing in quests, for maximum xp, do it piecemeal, leveling up in between. The quests max at 1/4 of a level, which means that you get more xp for cashing in the quest at level 17 than 16. |
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 9, 2017 5:34:15 GMT
In my experience, quests give xp based on what level you could be, not what level you are. For example, if you are level 4 but have enough xp for level 5, a quest capped at or above level 5 will give you xp as if you were level 5. But I'll double check just to make sure.
I now have the route solidified up to level 15. The plan here is to clear the Beholder Prison for both xp and killcount that will matter later on when the kill xp is near zero; do the Ogre Lord and staff assembly arc in conjunction with the quests around the kobold camp; then while holding at level 15, kill the Crypt Thing. Take level 16 including Greater Sanctuary, rest on the spot if possible, nab the Fingerbone, then blast the quests to 18 and hit up Zhent.
I've been assembling things in little pieces for so long for a reason - now I have an extremely solid, optimized route nearly up through the biggest early game breakpoint, which means I can very quickly get to that breakpoint with accurate xp and gold totals, which gives me a much better idea of how I should do things from then onward. I know I was working on endgame stuff, making sure Lolth and Immo runs could be done, but I mostly did that except for the bosses, and I'm confident enough I can take them on. Without a marathon submission deadline looming, my focus has shifted away from desperately making the run winnable quickly, to making the run more consistent and well-planned from the ground up.
Really hoping I can do another 1-20 test very soon. We've come a long way from the old days of Rift Canyon, Umber Maze, and Beholder grinding over and over. These grinds are sleek and quick, and aside from POW which is very short, not really repeating any areas.
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Post by condude on Jan 9, 2017 5:53:16 GMT
Oh, cool, I don't think I ever did a test, so I'd say that you're probably right about that.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 11, 2017 0:36:37 GMT
Just found a really cool strategy!
COD was performing poorly in the Beholder Prison due to hit dice limit, so I thought to myself, "I wonder how well maxed Ice Storm would work?"
The highest HP enemy in the Prison is a Gauth with 81 HP, found that by using Harm a few times, it dealt 77-80 damage. Max Ice Storm at my normal 29 Lore (17 ranks + 12 from INT) dealt 63 damage. So I started trying to pump my Lore as much as possible, calculated the lore required to deal 81 damage as 79 points.
As it turns out, I can reach that much skill - just barely. Have to wear two +5 Lore rings, use Legend Lore, Identify, and Empowered Fox's Cunning to make up the INT lost from rings. That deals exactly 81 damage with Ice Storm, killing a Gauth with zero damage left over!
- 17 ranks (actually 18, forgot to take one in test build)
- 12 from INT
- 17 from Legend Lore @cl14
- 10 from Rings of Insight
- 24 from Identify @cl14 (actually 23 since I run into +50 cap)
= 79 skill
Max Ice Storm @cl14 =
(CL / 3) * 6 bludgeoning damage = 24
(2 + (CL / 3)) * 6 cold damage = 36, modified by Lore:
((79 - 20) / 100) * 36 = 21.24 bonus damage for 57 cold damage
57 + 24 = 81 total damage.
So that's my strategy now for Prison. Keep some CODs around for the groups of just eyeballs, otherwise Max Ice Storm is 100% consistent, nothing can survive.
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Post by condude on Jan 11, 2017 1:05:55 GMT
Very cool!
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 12, 2017 10:43:22 GMT
Condude, you were right - the quests give xp based on your level, NOT how much xp you already have. Did a test, and at level 16 with enough xp for level 17, Sirina's minkberries quest gave me 4000, not 4250.
The route is complete to level 18 now. It takes all ten quests exactly after the Ogre Lord, staff assembly, and Crypt Thing, to launch from 16 to 18, and now the Zhent grind is available. This is the completion of the first major phase of the speedrun, here's a simple breakdown:
1. Level 1-18 - East Road with Oltum, Abandoned Farm with Oltum, Farm House and basement with damage shields, Plains of War with Nine Lives rings and Tenser's, Beholder Prison with Maxed Ice Storm, and early quests
2. Level 18-31 - Zhentarim with Timestop and Weird, Plains of War with Nine Lives and Tenser's, and eventually Sunburst, plenty of midgame quests, and two Librams of Golden Conjuration
3. Level 31-38 - Tag boss rush
5. Level 40 - Final gear setup assembly and endgame
Phase one is in completed form now; phase 2 begins. This is going to be a bit tricky to time the Gate revisits to Zhent grinding properly, the rest should be straightforward.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 13, 2017 0:45:32 GMT
Just ran a test of level 1-18 route including all tags up through level 18 and staff assembly. I had conflicts with other players several times - had to wait on Ice Kobold King respawn and hop servers for the Beholder Prison (no quests down there the first time through), then hop back. Also accidentally lost the Oltum and had to wait for his respawn once.
I deducted the time for those conflicts and the Oltum despawn, reaching a final time of 2 hours and 45 minutes. There were other small mistakes as well - for example, I hadn't written in Lore ranks in my notes, so I didn't have full Lore skill for the Beholder Prison and it took a little longer than it should have. I think 2 hours and 30 minutes is realistic for this phase of the run.
Earlier in this thread, fallenwizard said he did a test of 1-26 in about 5 hours 30 minutes of active play. I doubt it'll take me three more hours to get that far, so it looks like I'm saving a large amount of time!
Adding in 2 hours for the next two phases each and 3 hours 30 minutes for the Lolth and Immortal runs, that's 10 hours total for the run! I think under 12 hours might be realistic.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 16, 2017 4:56:49 GMT
Demo video of level 1-18 route. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GYAf8V6qPITook 3 hours flat this time, due to some mistakes and bad luck. I recorded this offline just in case I would run into other players and have to start the recording over. |
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