(June 23/24) Hardcore Ladder Race

lesson learned: never do hardcore prison with a party of 4, too many lightning skeletons, yellow bosses and necros. died at level 9 and quit. better next week.

Had some difficulties with rubberbanding/lag this time, I dont know if it came from the server.
Died twice, once to 5 blue hellions after brutus and once to chatters who decided to hit me from almost a full screen distance, obviously freezing me for long enough to catch up and finish me :-).

Still managed to get to 19 in 1 2/3 hour with my bow shadow, drops got better with every try so I was able to get 2nd place of my class.

Rangeds seem to have an edge over melees at the moment, except for 2hand mace marauders, still would have liked to keep one of my melee shadows 'til the end :/

Gear in spoilers,bow is adorable.

Uhhhh! much slower than expected, not much luck with drops (most rare of lowish/no use for my build, very minor currency drops at all) - but alive and at least reached level 15 in the middle cavern

and... I got a unique right on the way to hillock with my race char o_O :-D



and... even with that low result, I made it to #4 of templars, so not the badest decision ;)

add: needed 3 instances from the waypoint to reach the exit of lower prison, but only nearly died.

I started as a Ranger, killed Hillock, got lightning arrow reward, threw it in stash and started over as a Templar (both created ahead of time). That way I got Lightning Arrow and Burning Arrow and could use Templar's Weapon Elemental damage nodes to his fullest while still using a bow.

Didn't get a good bow, or any other good gear for that matter, but I finished in first (among Templars) after the Templar just ahead of me died with 30 minutes or so left. I'm pretty sure I would have caught him anyway, as I was building a head of steam, but I'll take it either way. Couldn't even use my support gem (no proper link colors even with a couple of chromatics and a jeweler's) until about 15 minutes left.

I wasted way too long in upper prison to find the exit (I still believe that there was no exit but as I know how the map generation works I know it better.. ;S) and then had to reset the map. Somehow the whole first act was a nightmare for me. I never struggled that much with my build before. Anways, well played ladies and gents!

Was a fun race, even without phase run my movespeed was increased by 26% =P. Its fun moving that fast and keeping up with the party even when they are using phase run.

O and thanks dime, those boots actually own! look at that armour mod..

First time I have finished a race :)

I love the ideas about clearing areas, or looting for prizes that way I might have a little chance ;)

Marauder gear, not the luckiest this race.. Metronomy you only got those boots because I badly needed a red gem link ;)

Lollllll So glad IJustPooped got ranked.

Race stats are up:

http://www.templeofexiles.com/ladder-race

Bit more info now and change of format. Click the big red link for the graph making page.

Top 10

Also for good measure, top 10 with me before I died :(