Chipadin build/strategy/tactics?

[ryan4nayr]

Thanks to each of you for the fascinating insights! :)

Cold Iron Wolf with a Trapper?  Don't ask...

I put the first skill point in Might, of course, and subsequent points into Resist Fire until level 6; after that, it was Holy Fire all the way.  Bishibosh dropped Death's Hand-- awright!

ZCF had remarkably good luck finding chips in the early going; he had 20 by level 12.  Pure coincidence, of course.

Conveniently, Elly, the faithful Fire Arrow Rogue, anounced "I feel much stronger now" for the third time (level 8) just as ZCF dinged 12.

Not only was ZCF s-l-o-w, but he had an amazing craving for Stamina Potions!  When he reached 14, I gave him Vidala's Fetlock, solving both problems to my satisfaction.

Strangeness in the Flayer Jungle:  I found the Gidbinn, but the dagger never dropped.

ZCF dinged 23 about the time he and Elly dispatched Stormtree.  After finding the Lower Kurast WP, I equipped him with Kinemil's Awl and-- since he was losing the +1 skills from the partial Angelic set anyway-- a Captain's Amulet of the Tiger (+1 Offensive Auras, +23 Life).  This gave him slvl 25 Holy Fire (with 5 points in the Resist Fire synergy).  The LCS showed his Attack damage as 372-485, with a Holy Fire aura doing 55-58 damage.  I then started a new game and took the Stony Field WP.

MFing success for this project was so-so:

ZyrChipFinder's future is unclear

I'm deeply grateful for all the feedback, insights, and suggestions-- please keep them coming! :)

Ultimately, the point of any build/variant is the fun factor. It sounds like you are having a blast, & I'm glad somebody else has discovered the fun in HFire-adins, just as I had back in 1.09.

Now that you have a stockpile of chippy's, the next logical step would be building characters that take advantage of those socketed cruel weapons you are cubing. *sigh* I remember my cookie cutter WWing barb, back in the day...

Anyway, you only really need the merc for leveling, don't be too attached to them. With the ltng hose bug gone, I (personally) wouldn't go for Rogues, but it don't sound like you're gonna push him into Hell, so I'm sure she'll provide companionship quite nicely.

I'm a bit biased, but I believe HShock is a nice complementary skill for you, esp. for anti-FI. However, HFreeze also does the trick quite well also. So it ultimately depends on whether you want sparkly smudges on the monsters, or blue monsters :D

Yeah, that's the main reason I'd lvl a chipadin... for the skill pts., & more importantly, the stamina. I actually prefer a slow run when farming, so I can catch the text label on the screen as I Alt+run.

I'm not surprised your trapper went for the Cold Iron Wolf merc, btw, I'm thinking about the same thing!

Odd about that Gidbinn. When you touch the totem, it spawns new monsters, only these new monsters can drop it. Very odd indeed.