Countess runes & making runewords

[Crystalion]

it was in 1.10, not 1.10s (should i bother downloading 1.10s? is there anything different other than rust storm?).

Well, if you're happy as is, you might as well wait--having all your v1.10beta1 stuff go away isn't too fun. Still, there were a number of bug fixes in v1.10s (and more needed/coming soon, I hope).

it's still hard to get the few times that I covered every inch of the Marsh before finding the castle out of my head. It can be a real @!#@# to find sometimes. Following paths helps

Ah yes, the paths. I wonder if anyone bothered to mention that in the "hidden" features thread. Follow the yellow brick road.

in the castle. Usually you just take the first left relative to the direction the path begins heading in

Interesting. I'll have to pay attention the next few times to see if left hand rule is a layout bias.

My merc had to do all the work, except for static. The new Thresher made it pretty easy for him. Most of the time I could just teleport behind the countess and run between her and her minions, then static her and tank the minions while my merc finished her off in about 5 thrusts. If she got tangled up with her minions I had to kill them all since mercs won't target superuniques until nothing else is in range.

I just posted yesterday on the v1.10s power of teleporting Necros (focus the might of all minions from a single point on adjacent target) so I am delighted to see your clever application of merc focusing--I didn't realize their AI was SU-phobic.

I can't even imagine how much longer these runs would take without teleport.

IIRC you have to be level 48 to use an amulet with teleport charges. Of course you can get the charges by staff or unique, but amulets are terribly convenient. "Don't leave home without it".

1:45-2:00 on average

Ah... get in fast, assassinate special SU, watch death cloud kill locals (Countess is like Blood Raven etc. etc. that way, I'm assuming from your procedure--I usually have everything else dead so I'm not likely to notice). So you're taking an hour or so, average, per worthwhile rune, assuming realm/ladder new map. That's good to know. A nm Hellforge rush is probably faster than that if the 6x or 7x trick is used, but likely slower if that trick is eliminated for v1.10 release by, e.g., limiting Baal kill credit to level 20x characters.

I have done a bunch of nm Countess runs, and those seem pretty good for runes. As my Assassin (v1.10beta1 then naked v1.10s notwink) is only level 71 I've not yet been brave enough to try a Countess "run" in hell. My build is a bit of a glass cannon, so the thought of abandoning crowd control and teleporting into danger seems very iffy. I suppose, as beta must be nearing its end, that I should make (edit or something) some higher level characters of different classes/builds to play with. (so far I never manufacture a test char above the level 33 that -act 5 makes).

Thanks for the info and good luck getting lucky rune drops.