Curses, Thrill, and Bounty Farming

Idling in Tristram on Seasonal Barbarian in Diablo 3 Season 21

Yesterday morning was a bit rough due to the hosting issues, and as a result I got my normal post out significantly later in the day. If you are on a cycle of only reading my blog in the morning then I would greatly appreciate you giving that mid day post a read as well, because I am curious about folks thoughts. In other business I still need about 11 bloggers to volunteer for Blaugust Promptapalooza so please check that post out as well if you are so inclined. Now that the business is out of the way I have been spending most of my time working on the Season 21 journey in Diablo 3. Here is a rundown of the progress made since I last wrote about it.

I tweaked my “No Set” build quite a bit, switching it from an earthquake based build to one that uses Hammer of the Ancients or “HOTA” in D3 parlance. I started with this build as a template and then tweaked it with the items that I actually had access to, namely I still have not gotten fart pants or illusionary boots. I also swapped the Esoteric Alteration gem for a Legacy of Dreams which makes the whole no-set thing significantly easier. I managed to do the 45 with plenty of time to spare and quite honestly Legacy of Dreams just made it a cake walk considering I went in with a 55 gem. The one gotcha is that I took this conquest to mean “no set bonuses active” but what it actually means is no set pieces at all equipped. I ran it once with a pair of ancient legendary set pants and didn’t get the conquest until I went back in and ran with a random legendary pants equipped.

The other conquest that I have knocked out is curses. The easiest way to make this one happen is to keep recreating your adventure mode game until you see the “Cursed Peat” bounty up in Act V Paths of the Drowned. This guarantees that the cursed chest is up, and that particular event spawns a ton of little boglings which help you add up the numbers needed. Two nights ago I was on fairly late and I saw it was up and tried to solo it… and I only hit 311, so just a bit shy of the 350 needed. Last night however Grace and I popped in and out of games until we found the right bounty and managed to beat the 350 needed by about 20. I wish we could have connected with Thalen, because I am certain he will need the conquest as well at some point this season.

That leaves me with only the very time consuming conquest left… Avarice. I’ve written about this before but effectively on T16 I am going to need to run 7 rounds of bounties or a total of 31 bounty caches. I realize I just linked to the post that has all of this information but for the sake of anyone with fresh eyes I am going to repost the cache related information here.

A T13 bounty cache contains 1,190,000 gold.
43 T13 caches contain enough gold to achieve the conquest.

A T14 bounty cache contains 1,440,000 gold.
35 T14 caches contain enough gold to achieve the conquest.

A T15 bounty cache contains 1,540,000 gold.
33 T15 caches contain enough gold to achieve the conquest.

A T16 bounty cache contains 1,640,000 gold.
31 T16 caches contain enough gold to achieve the conquest.

I could in theory do them on T13 and effectively knock the bounties out quicker… but I am not sure if the difference in speed would be worth two full more rounds of bounties. I always do more than the strict amount because I am constantly afraid of having to repeat the entire process again. So in theory were I doing T13 I would collect at least 45 chests (9 rounds), and on T16 I would collect at least 35 chests (7 rounds). I am limited in part due to my movement speed and less on the actual killing speed… so in theory there isn’t that big of a difference in the time it takes me to clear T13 as to T16.

Once I have finished my 3rd conquest I will have one last thing to finish, and I have been collecting a vault full of legendaries to knock it out. Essentially I have to use the cube to extract 40 powers, and doing all of these bounties are going to give me plenty of materials to be able to complete this easily. I will be swimming in them, and hopefully can use the excess to begin rerolling the various items I have equipped and hopefully get everything to ancient, and maybe a few to primal. The weirdest part about the season for me is that the roles have been reversed. I am the one carrying others and not the one being carried, which is kind fun for a change. If you need help knocking out any seasonal stuff let me know and I can hopefully arrange a time to assist.