[1.A9] Fury of the Storm

Original post by Conquest on the old forums (forumer).
Most formatting is lost.
-WolfieeifloW


The name is an Dragonforce song

OK, this is going to be short informative guide. No fancy lights, no 's, just solid knoweledge and advice.

Current progress: 88%. Still to do uberlevle and make it more eye friendly.

Table of contents:
1. About the Dragon Zon
2. Stat & skill distribution
3. Item section
4. Uberlevel section
5. Others

About the Dragon Zon
Like the guide says, this build revolves around level 24 bow skill. We will use it throughout entire career as it starts as pwn skill and ends even more pwn skill. Simply said, it's a very powerful build capable of doing most uberquests with mediocre gear. Ideal for untwinked newcomers.

Strenghts:
-Massive broadside-like spam without any timers et. al. and next-to-nothing mana cost.
-Ability to cheese most ubers from off-screen
-Extreme killing speed
-Solid defense

Weaknesses:
-Low hitpoints
-Lack of solid life leech
-Enemies die offscreen. No opportunity to appreciate Laz's awesome work on monsters

2. Stat and skill distribution

A. Stats
Since the ACs are gone we can freely distribute our stats throughout leveling. Depending if you're twinked or not stats should look something like that
Str: 0-100
Dex: As much as you can get
Vit: 0
Ene: 0

That means if you twink heavily or play the AC-style you can put 100% or almost 100% stats into dex. Dex is important for the damage, if we're talking about Dragonforce every little bit helps. There IS a difference in killspeed when you have high damage, even at 100% CB.

B. Skills
Neutral tree:
-Defensive Harmony 1
-Blood Elementals 1
-Balance 1-xx. Max this as the last skill.
-Pact of Blood 5+
-Wings of Wrath 10

Bow tree:
Ghost Arrow 20
Barrage 1
Phalanx 1
Trinity supermax (25?)
Dragonforce smax (24?)

Other tree:
Any uberskill you deem viable (0+)
War Spirit S-MAX (13)
Leadership 0

From charms:
Moon Warrior
Bloodlust
+Balance

Commentary:
10 pts in WoW gives us considerable speed boost, absolute necessary for this zon. 20 in Ghost Arrow gives 3 arrows and greatly increases DF range. DF itself...increments number of targets pwned at one time. Use even numbers. This char is can go very well without ANY uberskill so stop this curare rant. Pick up whatever you like. Curare helps finishing off monsters after 50x crushing blow been applied to them, SoV protect your ass with reanims and adds little dmg, Paragon adds vit. Or be a real man and don't pick any uberskill, doh! War spirit - no questions asked here, great crushing blow bonus, a killer on DF zon. In this guide we spent 111 pts out of 131. I suggest pumping the last 20 into Balance - the more points you put into it the better it gets. Defense is always helpful.

3. Item section
A. Early game
The most vital part of eq is a weapon. The TU reflex bow is unequaled and it will guide your path from getting T1 version to final blow on dest baal (T6 version). As you collect the crystals make following uniques:
-TU reflex bow (!!!)
-Albrecht Revenage TU chain mail
-Wildhunt einherjahr helm
-Rabbit foot TU boots
-Deadfall heavy belt
-Featherclaw or Tooric Gift gloves
-Whatever amulet you deem useful. Look for GF and MF.
-Same with rings. 2x 200+ GF is the killer, baby!
-Locust Hive quiver, or rare with huge GF.

This will suffice to the end of destruction, you can do (and farm) easier ubers like Island of Sunless Sea or Akarat with these. Uptier your eq gradually as you collect dumpster uniques and melt them to crystals while weapon >> armor > helm > the rest. Socket everything but weapon with lums and resist-boosting runes, the weapon - 6x p. rainbow stone (cb) We have solid chance to reanimate something, good weapon, 10% ctc arrow on striking, 800+ GF, 400+ MF and bunch of CB. And above all this - 100% uninterruptable attack. Our resists do suck however, fix that using resist runes (pul, mal etc.)

B. End game
The gear doesn't differ very much from earlygame. Char is already very strong decked in TU's but it always can go better, wee?
Weapon: Three great options here. And we'll use all of them. Typhaon. Hand of Karechus. Demonstorm. All of them are procing machines, all of them are pulverizing anything within a flash.
Armor: Scales or Dragonheart RW in good sacred ancient armor. I got one with almost 21K defense Albrecht could be good but these reanimates would lag you to death.
Helm: stays the same. No questions asked. 6% runemaster and 15% reanim as spirit wolf. Those wolves use blink to stun mobs. In cow level though use something different, without any reanimates. Titan's burden if you can afford so much str (Typhaon gives +200)
Gloves: Drekavac for the +1 max thingy, Hammerfist for the rest. The curse will lower the life of affected by ~45%.
Boots: Everchase or Nephilim. Just don't pick anything with reanimates.
Belt: Deadfall is still good choice. CB and good defense. If you want even more defense go for Truce.
Amulet: if you're lucky - +4 skill 15%ctc lev 44 doom on kill. If not - tengaze pendant. Always you can use Klaatu.
Rings: Seal of Nephilim Kings would be ideal choice, hard to get two of them though. Assur's bane is close second. If not then standard empyrian band.
Quiver: Locust Hive. Yeah, the level 1 quiver. 5% ctc arrow on striking gives us a grand total of 65% ctc SELFPROCING 1/1 arrow.

C. Mercenary
R.I.P. Hazade
Born: Jan 6, 2009, 8:09:07 AM
Died: Jan 6, 2009, 8:09:55 AM

Maybe that's little too much, in fact he survives almost all time...because we kill mobs before he can even get close to them!!! Not to mention 40% total chance to reanimate something.

D. Socketing, MO'ing, upgrading...ie. pimpin'
Our main goal is as many Runes as we can afford to. On farming purposes use Lum, resist runes to fill gaps in your resists, in the very late game you can slap On to everything (5% tcd). Using On and other level 100 runes limits your MO space though. You will likely be using two Tiered Uniques and two Crafts which have huuuuuge room to MO them. In RW's use jewels while fhr >> max dmg > ias > other s.hit. If you're lucky owner of LH cornerstone, then slap it onto some switch weapon, there clod mentality returns ie. +SKILLS > everything else. As for the pimpin' only Typhaon is important - do it in sacred reflex bow with close to 100 ED, 10x ED MO'em and hope for good roll. Close to 600% ED'er is a killa. Do so with Dragonheart RW too to get your def through the ceiling

Challenges
AC's are gone now. Spend your stats freely, Annual Set Farming Festival is over. There's still Ennead Challenge and BRC.

EC: 2/10
You don't really need the EC skill but you do need 15% max life, +2 skills and 33% psn redux. Go there at level 60 something and run to unshielded necro. When your resist equals 75% skellys shouldn't be a threat. Spam dragonforce until he dies and pick up your Sunstone.

BRC: 7/10
It's 7/10 difficult only because of Tran Athulua part which is very hard to do with this AoE pwnerer. Oh, and heroic level before faust may give some heat but if you care about resists and play wisely (shooting them off-screen) The fauzt is described in Uberlevels section, with the difference in difficulty level. The hard part is Tran Athulua. In preistess rooms refrain from usage of DF at all costs, clean them with Ghost Arrow. Three arrows per shot isn't bad at all. It's slow but it's only way to keep these preistesses alive for long enough. Or if you're talented speedrunist, then go postal. But that's next to impossible, it's only 30s to kill'em and cube the charm.


Uberlevel section

/! ATTENTION! ACHTUNG! UWAGA!
You are NOT tank character. Your defense is a fair 6-digiter but your HP isn't. It already is sucky 4-digiter. So always play defensively, spam Dragonforce and see if it's shooting orange bolts. If it does, then continue shooting until it stops sending spines. Then walk 20 yards and collect your loot. This is standard uberquest solving procedure for this char.

A. Uberlevels

Kurast 3000 BA: 4/10
The easiest uberlevel is one of...the hardest for our zon. Because Dragonforce is homing and it's not willing to target those f.ucking totems when we want to. A simple solution is 3/2 damage Ghost Arrow + Curare. Poison it and wait...wait...wait...meh, too long. It's better to lure large packs near entrace, kill them and then spam DF on totem surrounded by few and i mean FEW skellys. Stand next to the totem and shoot DF's at skellys. The totem will eat 100 arrows going off your Typhaon and will explode.

Island of the Sunless Sea: 1/10
With 800% extra gold from monsters you will find this your haven. 2M gold per run is not unheard of, plus clearing this at /players 8 takes one and a half minutes. How to? Mindless DF spam, you will see only hundreds of arrows procing off your Typhaon. Lucion dies in seconds, just lure him to you, kill it and kill everyone around it! Just don't let it hit you. Malic is the same, you need to watch only for Pwnishers, apparently Malic researched a new technology that allows him to cast it without spell timer. He sucks however, bcoz he doesn't supermaxed Slayer so it's only 1 bolt per cast. Noob.

Khalimgrad: 2/10
Standard fighting procedure. When taking out Avatar, keep one ethernal near you then kill it. 1-1.8s is necessary to kill an Avatar, the life expantacy of Ethernals is measurable in Planck time uni...err...Frames. Which are the same thing in diablo anyway.

Tran Athulua: 2/10
You know the drill. Off-screen for the win! (it sounds funnier than it looks) Just don't find yourself inside big pack, your HP sucks a big one. Defense helps here a lot when you're ambushed by swarm of zons.

Fauztinville: 6/10
Listed 6 because of this **** large heroic s.hit before Fauzt itself. Load up on resistance and pray for good old Quov not to spawn on our path. Fauzt itself - well, you know the drill. Proceed slowly, don't be a hero (even if you ARE a hero in fact) take them from off-screen. On players 8 there's a chance that some survivors reach you and will try to eat you. Then use your speed from WoW and ru...walk away. It would be wonderful if you'd end in safe zone, not in another pack. It's better to use Demonstorm here, the damage on Fire Cannonade is substantially higher than lowly Trinity damage on arrow procs. Otherwise those Necrobots will take some time to bring down.

Duncraig: 4/10
Taking out first section is childish easy - standard fighting procedure. The tricky parts start when you have to teleport - right into pack of zombies willing to greet you with their 100K poison damage livestock and some fancy fireworks! There comes your second ace - SPEED. Yes, zons are pro at clearing this level. You can outrun instakills easily, continously spamming DragonPwnforce. Through the fire and flames (at the entrace). If you die - S&E. Body recovery here is almost impossible because teleport will always trigger "warm greeting" button in zombies' brains. Don't do it while drunk or w/e - it's one of the few things in D2 that requires good hand-eye coordination to complete.

Vizjun: 4/10
Crushing blow. And their high HP's are worth nothing in there. You can still die easily there but the only way to beat this is to be faster than them. DF kills fast enough so you can actually farm up a little bit instead of just rushing the MCS. It may be little tricky to aim Purify with your 200 MPH walk speed but you'll succed at some try.

Ureh: 9/10
Yeah, whatever. No block, crappy hp BUT great speed and decent defense. Chances are getting up if you use LH corner or something else to push your def even higher. You can even go for bow set and wolf stance for even bigger lighting bolt speeds. It also provides FHR and FBR. Your best bet here is...Enfilade + Triune, the jav skill you can find on charm and it doesn't improve much with investment. That means you can use...woot! A shield! And since you'd invested close to 100% in dexterity you should have not bad chance to block. Good luck on this one.

Bremmtown: 10/10
Ugh...more whatever this time. Our 300k defense sadly is not enough for swarm of howling spirits teleporting right over your beautiful head. Standard fighting procedure won't work here, the spirits will remain hidden until you flush them out by getting closer. That means if you'd got into bigger pack - you're dead. You can succesfully escape with your 200 MPH speed if several howlings materialize on you, but not if several dozen. The 3 minute limit doesn't make it better. If you're extremely lucky you could try it with Edyrem, these guys are more useful than any other minions since they trigger invinciblity shields. Oh, don't forget to take a truck of adrenaline pots with you. 10s teleport is not very helpful, albeit Pact of Blood is. Now its duration increases hardpoint only so it could be extremely hard to bring the duration to reasonable value using only buff/debuff... maybe swap 5 tcd runes for 10 b/db ones?

B. Dungeon uberquests

Creature of Flame: 1/10
Doh. Well, the familiar doesn't fit to Standard Uberquest Procedure (SUP) but anyway it dies within few frames. After familiar - SUP, you know the drill.

Infernal Machine: 1/10
SUP. Nothing else needs to be said here. Like "beta47" invented by NeXX.

Death projector: 2/10
Beam rotates now in oppsite direction so veteran players would propably get pwned by it at 1st try. Aside of that it's easy - spam dragonlolrce until it dies in fire and flames. Don't get hit by mechanic, they know some scytche wielding basics and can hit you right into face sending into fhr animation.

Azmodan: 8+/10
Now that one is difficult, seriously. Cramped space, immunity shield and a hundred of kickass elites...ready to kick your ass out of its place. The main problem is abundance of enemies so Dragonforce won't focus on Azmodan but will fire at immune elites, doing nothing. Dust off Ghost Arrows and sign the Pact of Blood? Getting light spawn near azm is crucial anyway.

Rathma Square: 5/10
Only hard thing about it is dangerous hitlock. If one bolt hits you, it sends you into recovery animation, allowing other 100 to hit you in rapid succesion. Sign another Pact and proceed quickly toward Primus.

Cathedral of Vanity: 9/10
No cheesing Inarius this time, Laz was clever enough to dump all resist piercer skills before I could write another imba char guide. Ghost Arrow can help you a lot in killing the most dangerous thing - the Crystal Ball. When it's down you can sign a Pact of Blood again and spam dragonforce until everyone in the chamber lies horizontally.

CoV summonable: 1/10
Summon, getaway, spam dragons. Pick up the loot. That's it, a summonable in such a fabulous place is 1/10.

Toraja: 6/10
Let the edyrem remove immunity shield, then shoot dragons to the limit. It's pretty hard because rogues do hit pretty hard, so does Morlu. Off screen cheese won't work here too well. It's not the greatest farmer of all times, at least not in this level. Completing this for charm is perfectly doable however.

C. Summonables

Butcher: 10/10
This is the ultimate uberquest. Forget all hope, you're doomed anyway. Don't waste your time on your vain efforts to beat The Butcher and seize mighty Butcher's Tooth! Mwahahaha!

Binding of Tal Rasha: 2/10
Standard tactics works there perfectly well. Just don't get hit by those spells because apparently your FHR sucks incredibly while in Baal form. I dunno how many frames is this, 20? 25?

Shaman King Koth: 3/10
Little place to manouver and again stupid morph that puts your fhr below the Challenger Deep. Certainly not hard but it can be tricky if you get hit by fortress or step on a mine while it's barely visible on snow. Spam df and avoid them, hide behind the entrace, escape via TP if there are too many towers around.

Akarat: 1/10
Back to 2008, eh? With 22 yard seek range Dragonforce you are well beyond of Hammertime's range. Be sure to clear neighboring area from annoying monsters. You don't want to be stopped while being pursued by miraculous survivor of the Kurast Storm who decides to lauch the hammertime.

Lord Aldric Jitan: 5/10
First relatively hard summonable. While SUP tactic can work there, it can go hairy when they decide to set a lot of Towers which turn our fragile beauty queen into a strainer. Also, don't step into big black holes, that's pretty obvious.

Legacy of Blood: 8/10
Now we are talking. Set up Edyrem or whatever summons you have to distract golems. When Bartuc looses immunity DF should make things clear in seconds. Or Ghost arrow tag, Curare will do its job. Even if you die Bartuc is curared, so you could just wait dead until poison wears off (propably killing him) Pact of blood makes this 3/10 if you got decent duration on it.

Judgement Day: 4/10
1st part: buy a MO with lolsummon, minimize your +skills to keep mana cost low. Cast lolsummons (or FE) constantly until avatar appears. It should be over before you even notice the appearance of Avatar.
2nd part: Clear Cathedral. Lure Uldyssian to the end of it. Summon 1st avatar and memorize its name. Get the hell out of there (with Uldyssian) and summon 2nd one near wp. If the other - kill it and rush the 2nd one you've just parked. If not - just kill it and continue spamming edyrem. One thing there is extremely infuriating - Tremors which will keep your bulb dangerously low and you have to drink healpots like a drunkard.

Heroic and others:

Cow lvl: 2/10
LAGZORZ! Any reanimate over 10% will make this a true road through Hell. 5% from bpr (non laggy one) is maximum we can stand. Just spam df's until cows lie horizontally. The time to do so is very short, yet the true time can elongate by our 5 FPS instead of 25.

Belial: 8/10
It's not that hard, it's just tiresome and not funny at all, as any heroic s.hit which is virtually invincible. Stuff this overgrown rat with some nasty rat poison (from offscreen ofcorse) This level is small, unlike other heroics so avoiding him can get tricky.

BPR: 4/10
Dragonforce him to death. When you see a "spark" flying to the west, get the hell out of there because a 100K dmg cow bombs are about to march. He'll blink at you, just watch for that stupid cow march spell.

Quov Tsin: 10/10
Extremely hard because you have to squish resistances from almost everything you can. When you get to 95 and about 540 stack then you can tank him to the eternity. Spam the df's till it dies. Did I mentioned how big and hard this stupid stony tomb is? So better clear everything before attempting him. This fight is going to last for an hour for sure because he blinks away every time he gets hit.

Astrogha: 10.5 Apocalypse
So there he is. The ultimate test for character imbaness. And our ama fails badly to him because she don't have any ultra strong single target attack. Any AoE will make our live even worse. I didn't even tried it. The level however is much smaller than Stoney Tomb.

Brother Laz: 11/10 This one is Eleven
No way. His QQ groupies can be taken but not him. He blinks on you and kills you.