The challenge has been completed using a Dervish and fully classless. The challenge: Complete the entire game SSF (not Hardcore, I prefer my sanity intact) until Ultimate Log without using a single active skill or attacking any monster (walls and crates are fine, Aether Clusters are not).
What is a Passivist?
Not to be confused with a pacifist, this remains an ARPG after all, the passivist is someone that only uses passive abilities. This is not limited to directly offensive abilities or attacks! You are not allowed to use:- Attack and Pet Attack.
- Offensive abilities from masteries or items.
- Abilities that are self-buffs with a duration (such as Blood of Dreeg or Ascension).
- Active abilities that target enemies but donât deal damage (such as War Cry or Curse of Frailty).
- Pets that do not fit the âeternalâ AND âimmortalâ categories (though a case could be made for Wind Devils with the Codex of Eternal Storms).
You can use:
- Pets that are âeternalâ AND âimmortalâ, like Blade Spirit or Guardians of Empyrion, because they are only enabled once and never again afterwards (just as toggled skills used to be before 1.2).
- Evade.
- Healing and Energy potions (though we will never use the latter).
In short: If you would have to keep using it throughout the session, itâs out. I allowed myself the use of Evade and healing potions, as I donât really see them as abilities. Feel free to deprive yourself from those as well!
Note: A true Passivist does not use any class skills or non-passive abilities granted by items.
So how DO we deal damage if we can't attack?
Well, there are a couple of auraâs we could use, a few immortal and eternal pets, and for the rest we will have to rely on retaliation damage and devotion procs off our passives!
Which masteries to play?
Soldier has good defensive passives, but only one way to deal damage built in: Counter Strike. Finally Menhir's Bulwark increases retaliation damage, should you have it.
Demolitionist comes with the early Vindictive Flame as a way to deal damage, and Blast Shield as a circuit breaker that deals some retaliation damage, but offers little else of value to us.
Occultist offers us no way to deal damage, because Blood of Dreeg is an active skill and neither of the two passives have retaliation or auto-damage.
Nightblade is solid because not only we get access to Veil of Shadow, which is an auto-damage aura, we also get Blade Spirits. Sadly, apart from Phantasmal Armor there is nothing else that makes us more survivable, because Pneumatic Burst is an active ability. Merciless Repertoire increases retaliation damage though.
Arcanist offers us a defensive passive in the form of Maivenâs, and has some fire retaliation on Reckless Power. Other than a boatload of OA (which is nice) and energy (which we donât use), thatâs it.
Shaman offers us no way to deal damage, unless you count Codex of Eternal Storms at lvl 90. We hope to have beaten the game by then.
Inquisitor I want to love, but cannot. The strongest damaging aura in the game in the form of Aura of Censure, but all its other skills are active and thus useless for us, and the Aura only comes online after maxing the mastery bar.
Necromancer is comparable to Demolitionist. It gives us Spectral Binding as a way to deal damage, but nothing else that we can meaningfully use.
Oathkeeper finally is more in line with Nightblade. It gives us the earliest way to deal damage with Presence of Virtue, and later the Guardians of Empyrion.
Starting with Oathkeeper is by far the least tedious, as PoV comes online as early as lvl 3. Vindictive flame comes as early as lvl 5, and Nightblade and Necromancer at lvl 7. Inquisitor comes online at level 17, but it will be a painful grind.
But if we cannot deal damage, how do we even get to those skills?
There are several options to gain enough XP to get to one of the damaging skills in a mastery, provided your selected mastery for this challenge has one, but even without an early damaging passive (looking at you, Inquisitor), it is possible to gain XP.
First option: You are running around the first few maps and are lucky to loot a magic item with the âof Thornsâ suffix somewhere. Congratulations, you can now kill melee enemies by facetanking them.
Option two: You loot EVERY SINGLE lore note that you can find, rescue Faldis, Luther Graves and the Rovers in the passage, find Isaac and his stash (another retaliation item btw, but requires lvl 7), then find out that that will only carry you to level 6 and a half, while you are hard-blocked by the Flooded Passage with no way to defeat the Ancient Shambler, then you grind money and scrap by running and dodge-rolling to avoid getting swarmed, you repair the Wightmire bridge for the first time in your life, find more lore notes, give the hammer to Angrim and tell Ulgrim about the prison. Congratulations, you are now level 7. This should be more than enough to get your first damaging skill, and if you chose to suffer and level a mastery without an early damage skill, you should now have a guaranteed retaliation item in the form of Isaacâs Spaulders.
Donât celebrate too early, this is where the real game starts.
Diary of my Passivist Dervish challenge [completed in 16 hours]
Level 1 - 8: Getting to the point where I can deal damage
I did not realize that PoV has retaliation damage, and I wanted to make sure that any class could attempt this challenge, so I leveled to 7 using the above method, even though I got some 'of Thorns' yellows. I decided on the class afterwards. The grind for 3 scrap and 5k bits didn't even take as long as I had feared. I found out that if you stand on top of an Aether Cluster, its attacks will cause retaliation to go off, giving you a way to get Aether Crystals. This allowed me to finally get my first devotion point in the Burial Cave after killing the Reanimator. Or to be more precise: Waiting until it had killed itself. Completing the quest got me to level 8. There is still no way to kill gazer enemies.
Level 8 - 15: Waiting for enemies to kill themselves in Act 1
Killing Farros the Rotted took 4 minutes. Neegan was far more cooperative. My first totem rolled two caster sliths, which I have no way of killing yet. I was lucky the Wightmire rift was completable, though I had unlocked rifts further into Act 1 already in my farming for lore notes. After not being able to kill anything, having monsters kill themselves on your retaliation feels very satisfying. I was lucky to roll only Dermapteran enemies in the Devil's Aquifer totem, which brought me to level 10. Here my journey into Nightblade starts. I immediatly tp back to Devil's Crossing to take 6 points out of PoV so I can get a level into Night's Chill. In retrospect, I should have started Nightblade instead of OK, because I had already taken the time to get to lvl 7, but oh well. Viloth died to my newly acquired aura and I made sure to grab the Slithtongue for free poison procs. I killed Jillius and Milton Heart, who I had decided would take too long to facetank before, and went to face the Ancient Shambler. With Night's Chill maxed and the Wraith devotion completed, I was breezing through Burrwitch compared to my initial struggles, especially since Night's Chill procs 'on attack' affixes. I reached the Warden's Cellar at lvl 15 after 1 hour and 40 minutes of game time.
Level 15 - 23: Killing Krieg and Cronley and finally getting the Guardians of Empyrion
I epuipped the Marrow Band that I was lucky to find (grants a pet sometimes when you get hit). The marrow band in boss fights was not a great idea. It takes aggro off of me, so my retaliation will not work, but in the rest of the campaign it is ok. Both stages of Krieg were slow but very doable with some healing potions though, and his chest dropped a Razorback Spine Mantle, which is about the best blue I could have hoped for (though it is not that uncommon and I have had more blues drop that were absolutely useless, so I consider it somewhat fair). Apart from a few points into Veil of Shadow for convenience (makes the aura larger), all points went into OK mastery. Content was pretty breezy, but we start to need more defense. In Spined Cove we get our first MI upgrade in the form of Wradlith's Bulwark; which doubles the damage of Veil of Shadow. We found the Elder and gave the amulet to the Rovers because I will never need energy regen in my life. We got Turtle to the Turtle Shell node for defense, Darius Cronley went down unceremoniously, I reached level 23, took all but 1 point out of Presence of Virtue and used the points to get 5 points into Guardians of Empyrion. Summoning them was the first time I used energy on the character at 2 hours and 44 minutes of game time. On towards Homestead!
Level 23 - 30: Getting to Homestead and facetanking the Amalgamation
Guardians of Empyrion slaughter everything. Found my second Attuned Lodestone in the Arkovian Undercity (I only noticed I had two when I looted one from a chest). Investing more points into the Guardians is the priority now, as well as getting the Imp devotion for them. Kilrian is NOT someone to facetank, so I was glad I had a bit more points into Veil of Shadows for the radius and decently high-level Guardians of Empyrion at this point. I went to the Hidden Path to get a sweet set of leggings from Dreeg's pet rat, and tried my luck at Baros Wradlith in the hopes of getting a better Wradlith's Bulwark. He dropped an 'of Shattering' one, which gives a whopping +5 to Night's Chill. I did part 2 of the Hidden path for good measure. I crafted Gluttony for some more sustain and got a pretty underwhelming Ikrix Scale that I am too low level to equip anyway. I reached Homestead without issues. With the Devotion Shrine in Den of the Lost I completed Imp. Ravna drops an MI with acid retaliation that we will use for now. I have my eyes set on another MI for later though. The Amalgamation falls at level 30, after 4 hours of game time.
Level 30 - 36: Getting to Fort Ikon and preparing for Loghorrean
We join Kymon's Chosen because I like siding with the bad guys (also because they have retaliation faction gear that I might want to use later). We also start with the Messenger of War devotion. Skillwise we work towards Celestial Presence for that sweet Elemental resist reduction. Running through Darkvale Gate with less than 30% vit and chaos res is stupid, and we cannot facetank the first phase of Karroz, but we live. I cannot be blamed for his death, after all: I did not do anything. I did steal his tome though. Bolvar's Pendant is the best we have for now. I completed the hidden path by cuddling Bysmiel's dog to death. I tried Mad Queen for fun, but I absolutely lack the damage to do that. And so, after spitting on Mogdrogen's Shrine (nothing he can do about it), I leave the Asterkarn Road behind and enter Fort Ikon. Before completing the rest of the main campaign I went to check Ikrix, Baros Wradlith and Guardian of Dreeg one final time for an upgrade, and headed to the Temple of the Three. Clearing the Celestial Totem was not even that hard! I just had to run and wait for potion cooldown a few times. We kill Ravok and Malkadarr for Kymon, equip Death's Whisper Hood (65% uptime on Resilience!) and return to Fort Ikon for the final stretch. We are lvl 36, after 5 and a half hours of game time.
Level 36 - 42: AFK-ing Log and reaching the Coven
Lucius *almost* deals more damage to himself than to us, as long as we dodge the flamethrower and meteors a bit. Plains of strife is annoying with the mines, but we reach the Necropolis quickly. In the Black Sepulcher we finish the Messenger of War devotion, and soon after we start with Behemoth. I wanted a bit more of Behemoth done before challenging Loghorrean, so I went into SoT and East Marsh to get two more devotion points. Build-wise we put some one-pointers into OK skills, then get on with maxing the Nightblade mastery bar. I decided to be sensible and finally use some components to patch my resistances, most notably Pierce, Chaos and Bleed before entering the Tomb of the Watchers. Log was defeated at level 39 by standing still in his face for the entire fight, and not a single health potion was used. Had not thought it would be that easy to be honest. I had forgotten about the Pine Barrens, so I am clearing them now. Mostly for the devotion points and the reputation. Behemoth was completed right before Tyrant's Hold, so next we start working towards the Boar of Autumn. We quickly run through Ugdenbog to get to the Coven so we can start getting reputation for them. One more thing we need to do before we head into Forgotten Gods, and that is killing Janaxia for an Ugdenbog Chillstrife. I got one on the second try. Time to head into the desert! We are level 42, after 7 hours of game time. The build feels pretty strong now.
Level 42 - 50: Delaying the trip to the Desert
I changed my mind and went into Elite first in the hopes of getting Devil's Crossing rep to Honored so I could finally get Ellena's Necklace. Homestead and the Coven were absolutely thrilled about me slaying the Ancient Shambler in a cave half the map away, for some reason. Wait untill they hear about me slaying dinosaurs on another continent! I speedrun Act 1 and complete the Boar of Autumn. I start with Solemn Watcher next. Finishing Act 1 does not get met to Honored with DC, so I start speedrunning Act 1 on Ultimate for the remaining ~700 rep. It didn't bother me, Act 1 is stacked with devotion shrines, allowing me to quickly complete Solemn Watcher. I reach Honored at the same time I reach lvl 50, which means we now have 2 more damage dealers in the form of Blade Spirits. I quickly switch to Veteran difficulty to face Ellena, and get a lvl 55 version of her necklace. With some switching around of gear, I decide that I might as well do Forgotten Gods on Elite, my resistances can take it and the loot and xp will be better. Time to head to the desert for real this time! We are level 50, after 8 hours and 40 minutes of game time.
Level 50 - 53: Getting a tan and helping a worm
I know, I promised we would go to the desert, but I first cleared Spined Cove a final time for one more devotion point (which we put into Rhowan's Crown) and a higher level Wradlith's Bulwark. It was worth it too, because the one-shot chest dropped a Dawnshard Hauberk that we equip immediatly. The Bulwark was nothing special, so we will check later. We join Bysmiel's Cult because it doesn't matter and I dislike the other two more. We will not be using any movement runes anyways. Riggs gives us trash but we accept because we want to do his quest asap. We put the third point into Rhowan's Crown and bind Elemental Storm to Blade Spirit, then continue with Lizard for even more health regeneration. Along the way to the Korvan Sands rift we pick up the Second Seal of Morgoneth. I always found it strange that you come across the second seal before the first one. We facetank the Titanovore without healing potions, but stay far away from Callagadra's Altar. I have way more respect for her than for Mogdrogen. She ended my Hardcore character once when the expansion had just come out and at that point I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Anyways, we stop by the not-Sandworm of not-Arrakis and take the Elite Fettan Mask. We rid the poor beast of its maggot infestation, and get the First Seal of Morgoneth as thanks. We return Anorak's brothers, reach the Cairan Docks, and sort out loot once more. Resistances are pretty much capped now, except for fire and vitality. We made a good chunk of progress into the expansion, but did not gain a whole lot of levels. We are level 53 now, after 9 hours and 50 minutes of game time.
Level 53 - 58: Completing Act 7 and the Tomb of Morgoneth
We get lucky and drop a Moltenclaw Slicer from one of the elite in the Korvan Oasis. This MI is half of the reason we went to this place, as it increases the damage of Veil of Shadow, and adds a nice -10% fire resistance to it. Around this time we complete Lizard and move on to our penultimate constellation: Wolverine. We reach the Vanguard of the Three, having found the Third Seal of Morgoneth in the Basalt Crags, of course. We reach lvl 55 not long after, so we finally equip Ellena's Necklace and the Moltenclaw Slicer we found earlier. We work our way towards Korvan City, but take a hard right before we reach it. We don't really care about the whole Eldritch threat, we are here for a fancy hat! We use the seals of Morgoneth and enter his summer home. I don't really like Morgoneth, but I have to admit, the dude has style! I laid his valet to rest and opened the fancy door, following the smell of powerful hat ever deeper into the tomb. The mages were by far the strongest things I have yet faced. They are casters and thus take no retaliation damage. Also they are pretty strong, so facetanking is out. I ran circles around the arena for 7 minutes before they dropped their delicious hats, and this is why we went to this place: The Magi Visage. It adds a third Guardian of Empyrion, increasing our damage by quite a bit. Did you know that if you run Morgoneth exactly 93 times around his crystal in clockwise direction he dies? No? Well, I have no other explanation for me winning the fight... We move to complete Act 7 afterwards, which allow us to complete Wolverine and start our final constellation: Vire, the Stone Matron. We kill Father Kymon, our former employer, and banish Korvaak. In the fight he asks us "is that all you can do?" which is super ironic because indeed, running around like a chicken *is* all we can do. We return to the Conclave to hand in our quests, tell Riggs we already have his trinket, and leave the desert for now. We reached level 58, after 12 hours and 20 minutes of game time.
Level 58 - 61: Preparing for Ultimate
We start by adding Vengeful Wraiths into our rings. Should have done that ages ago, but better late than never. Then we continue the main quest in Elite up until Homestead. We acquire a higher level Wradlith's Bulwark finally. The goal is to reach level 60 around the time that we have Vire completed, because we need a new aura to bind it to. Skills-wise we have maxed our Guardians and Blade Spirits, so we start improving our auras and passives. At level 60 we equip the Citadel relic, likely the last one we will craft for this character. We complete the devotion tree shortly after in the Barren Highlands. After reaching Homestead I stopped by the Astral Fields in the hope of getting a Gargoyle Girdle, but no luck. We swap some gear around, and should now be relatively prepared for the final part of the journey: Ultimate. We reached level 61, after 13 hours and 40 minutes of game time.
Level 61 - 67: First death and the march to Homestead
Since the first few quests of Act 1 were already completed beforehand, reaching Krieg should not take too long. With him having only a 73% chance to hit me, the fight was a cakewalk. We skip the desert for now and focus first on completing the main campaign. We pay our friend in the Spined Cove a visit, as is our habit, and then move towards Cronley. Cronley was pretty easy, I just had to sidestep the aetherfire ground effects sometimes. I don't think he used his shield, maybe a by-product of me not attacking him. My first death was to a totem near the Arkovian Undercity. Entrapment effects with nullify killed me because I still hadn't fixed my vitality resistance. I reached Homestead after getting a lvl 70 Ikrix Scale. We reached lvl 67, after 15 hours of game time.
Level 67 - 72: Challenge completed
From Homestead we move west to kill Ravna and the Amalgamation. Ravna was easily facetanked, on the Amalgamation I repositioned sometimes because my Aether resistance is only 49%. Skillwise we complete the entire Presence of Virtue line. Level 70 will be a nice milestone because it allows a higher level of MI to be equipped. Running the entirety of Darkvale with -13 Vit resist is madness, but I did and lived to tell the tale. Came close to death once though. I kept north in the Plains of Strife, because I respect Loxmere. Log was killed while staring at him in defiance, and 100% afk. We reached level 72, after 16 hours of game time.
Diary of my Passivist Classless challenge [completed in 25 hours]
Level 1 - 10: Getting to the point where I can deal damage, again...
This will be a true passivist challenge, not even class skills will be used and no points will be put into an mastery bar: True Classless. Which also means that the early game will be really tough and totally dependant on gear. I found an 'of thorns' pants at lvl 5, which means I now have a way to deal damage to enemies. The lack of stats will mean that most likely retaliation damage is going to be our best bet for the forseeable future. With a combination of the 'Option 2' route and our 'of Thorns' pants, we get to level 7 and equip Isaac's Spaulders, more than doubling our damage output. Kyzogg sadly remains impossible to kill for now, he regens too quickly for our damage output to wear him down, and he doesn't attack often enough. But now that we can kill Aether Crystals, we unlock the first few devotion shrines. This route will go for Rat first. Since I could not kill the Reanimator yet, and the Foggy Bank shrine spawned a caster slith, getting devotion points proved to be somewhat difficult at first. Ultimately we would get lucky and drop a green item with a defensive proc, but so far no luck. We finally kill Kyzogg at level 10, after 1 hour of game time.
Level 10 - 16: Challenging Krieg
It took until lvl 11 to find a defensive affix (Thunderstruck) in a shop, and it cost all our iron to get it, but finally we have something to kill ranged units! I was looking for this when I could not clear the totem in Devil's Aquifer. Clearing the totem promply gained us a level and several good greens, among them an 'of Balanced Steel', for our second defensive proc. Viloth was still a snorefest. Finally we clear the Foggy Bank shrine that has been taunting us, and complete Rat. Clearing trash is now comparatively fast, but slow-attacking single targets are painfully slow. At least we can guarantee we can clear shrines and totems now. It took 6 minutes for Krieg to keel over twice. We reached level 16, after 2 hours and 20 minutes of game time.
Level 16 - 22: Targo's Hammer vs. Darius Cronley
We take a quick stop at the Conclave of the Three for some more experience. There is no real reason to stay though, so we pay Cronley's bandits a visit. Edmund "Shanks" Doyle is normally not worthy of mention, but it took some time to kill him. Luckily he attacks relatively often. Spined Cove is once again a place I visited extensively, this time for the Spectral Bulwark. We get one, and move on, slowly inching closer to level 20, which will be a magical level because it allows us to equip some good blues, but more importantly: Get components with passive auras to bind 'chance when hit' and 'chance on block' devotions to. We return the amulet to the Rovers because we are a good person, and also because energy is meaningless to us. Finally after entering Cronley's Hideout we reach lvl 20. Because we suck at clearing enemies, the best way to level is through devotion shrines and quests. We remove Rat and complete Anvil, binding Targo's Hammer to the Aether Ward passive from Purifying Salt. With our strength greater than ever before we beat Cronley into submission, reaching level 22 from completing all the quests, clocking in at 3 hours and 50 minutes.
Level 22 - 29: Reaching Homestead
Now that I finally have a decent way of dealing damage, I spent some more time thoroughly clearing the Arkovian Undercity. Kilrian was very doable, just slow. Reaching level 24 I added Vengeful Wraiths to my rings for more damage, as well as completing Wolverine. I went into the Steps of Torment purely for the devotion shrine, I had no intention of trying to beat a slightly overtuned caster boss with low elemental resistance. Speaking of devotions, since there is a lack of things to bind devotion procs to, I have to be very conservative with which I select. I opt to go triple tier 3 devotions with Obelisk of Menhir, Tree of Life and Vire the Stone Matron for a mix of defense, regeneration and retaliation. Staying alive is of utmost importance since the damage we deal will be only from getting hit and subsequent procs. Anvil is here only for the early game. Hence, we continue with a couple of good blue devotions, Lizard being the first for some extra regeneration and movement speed. In the Mountain Deeps we meet our fried Ikrix and take its scale. We unlock the Pine Barrens rift for convenience, and head to Homestead. We run the Pine Barrens for good quest XP and for the two devotion points, and at level 27 add a Mark of the Myrmidon to our shield. We craft the Corruption relic for another defensive proc, and call it a day. We reached level 29 after 5 hours and 40 minutes of game time.
Level 29 - 34: Developing a hate for crystals and reaching Fort Ikon
Dermapterans might be my favourite enemies in this challenge. They come in swarms and make quick melee attacks, meaning they die easily to retaliation. Taking out the hive was easy. The Queen was however way more dangerous then any other time I met her. Low-ish Acid res was likely to blame for that. The Amalgamation, in contrast, was very easy. Going through Blood Grove, completing some easy, on the way quests, and soon we reach the gates of Darkvale. Zaria is an abolute menace to something that cannot deal with crystals. If both get to fire, I die. So each time they get spawned, I must run and draw her away from them. Karroz was relatively easy in comparison, stage 2 sucked a bit because of - you guessed it - crystals. The trek to Fort Ikon was relatively uninspiring as always. Devotion wise we have almost completed Scarab. Afterwards we need Stag and Solemn Watcher, and then finally we can build towards Vire's proc. We reached level 34, after 7 hours and 20 minutes of game time.
Level 34 - 38: Preparing for Loghorrean
We want to unlock a couple more devotion shrines before heading further into the final act. In order to not have to run areas twice, we first kill Noveria Stormfire for the Order. I admit to avoiding her before, because my Aether resist is trash and she is a spellcaster. Also: Stonerend Quarry is one of my least favourite areas to path to. Don't know what I was afraid of, fight was a snorefest. So for the sake of efficiency we wasted 5 minutes. We enter the Tomb of Archon Barthollem to get the Ashes for the Order, and to get another devotion point. We head right to kill Nacrathan the Timeless, and restore the shrine. We then run into East Marsh, all the way to Kalis Ka for the devotion shrine. At level 35 we equip the sweet double rare Gollus ring he dropped and which instantly turns us invisible increases our health significantly. We return to Fort Ikon and visit Commander Lucius. Blowing up the barricade, we make a run for the Necropolis and restore the two shrines there. Because we have trouble getting enough Physique, we put a first point into Solemn Watcher before finishing Stag. We then restore the shrine in Bastion of Chaos for good measure, but leave immediatly afterwards. We now have a choice to make. Inside the Tomb of the Watchers is one more devotion shrine, getting us to 27 points. We would need 35 to unlock Vire's proc. We could decide to leave act 5 for now and head into the Forgotten Gods expansion for the remainder of the points. I decided to try Log once. Turns out that Bloodlord Thalonis is the real final boss. Log was very safe compared to him. Still took almost 10 minutes though. We reached level 38 after 9 hours of game time.
Level 38 - 40: Unlocking the Coven and the hunt for Devotion Shrines in the desert
We first run into act 6 to unlock the Coven for early reputation gain. Don't know if we will need it, but better safe than sorry. Avris turned out to be immortal with this "build", so we ran. We find the conclave, tell them it is urgent that we get Ulgrim back, and then make a 180 and go to the desert. Ugrim is a strong boy, he can take care of himself. We immediately receive word from the Coven that they absolutely hate Sandclaws, and the more we kill the better. Homestead also callst to tell us they respect us now. The Korvan Docks shrine was impossible to complete first try because of a supporter elite that kept healing itself. We got it on the second try though. With this shrine we complete Solemn Watcher, so now we can finally start with Vire. We also hit level 40 here. We also equip our Bane'Garoth shield that we got back in the Plains of Strife chaos portal. We also have three pieces of the Perdition set, sadly diplicate helms, but as soon as we can transmute those we will. A short run this time. We reached level 40 after 10 hours and 10 minutes of game time.
Level 40 - 44: The start of Elite
Though our resistances are not up to OSHA standards, we head into Elite for a couple of easy devotion points. Elite is very tough to run with this character at this point. We cannot kill Milton Hart because his healing has low enough cooldown. So the game is kind of rough at the moment. Luckily, we will complete the important part of Vire before we have to deal with the warden. Luckily the Shambler was doable this time around. We turn in some quests and pay Viloth a visit. After getting our faces stomped in by Viloth we take the devotion shrine and run for our lives. The good news, after getting the devotion shrine in the Burial Cave near the Burrwitch Outskirts, we finally get Vire's proc. Who better to test it on than Milton Hart? He died before he could get off another cycle, which is good news. Now we need to patch our Acid res and we might be good to go for another section of Elite. We get to the last rift of the Warden's Cellar, switch some gear around for more acid resistance and finally kill Viloth. We complete some more quests, and return to normal mode Act 7. We get two more devotion shrines, completing Empty Throne and removing Anvil. We also drop a fourth (!) piece of the Perdition set. We put a couple of points into Shieldmaiden, and call it a day after swapping some gear around and juggling our attributes. We reach level 44, after 12 hours and 10 minutes.
Level 44 - 49: The hunt for more Devotion Shrines
We enter Ultimate difficulty. This is likely going to be a terrible idea because of our low resistances here, but we want to get more devotions. Kyzogg was not nearly as bad as I had feared. We inch ever closer to our complete devotion setup, and also to level 50 which will allow us to equip legendary items. I have one item in particular that could be a gamechanger, but I will keep that a secret for now. We run our standard route thorugh Wightmire, to Burrwitch, and complete the convenient quests. We let Viloth live for now, I don't want to attempt him with 4% Acid res. We complete Tree of Life with the Act 1 devotions from Ultimate. We return to Normal difficulty with the goal of completing the Forgotten Gods content for a couple more devotion points, which we will put into our last constellation: The Obelisk of Menhir. We finally free Anorak's last brother and kill Navan the Usurper. We reach the Vanguard of the Three and unlock the nearby devotion shrine. We reach level 49, after 13 hours and 40 minutes of game time.
Level 49 - 51: Manifestation of the Eldritch Sun vs. one spikey boi
We move to complete the rest of the Forgotten Gods in Normal. We casually stroll towards the Korvan City; we have nothing else we can do. We deliver a message to The Messenger, namely that with 75% overcapped fire resist we can stand in this volcano all day. Good thing too, because it took several minutes of AFK-ing. Fun tip: Most of his attacks do not land between his feet so we were very safe actually. Dravis was not much different. And neither was The Sentinel. I am getting a feeling that I am not going to like Ultimate as much ^^" But there is still another devotion shrine in the Tomb of the Eldritch Sun, so we might as well try Flame Daddy Kymon and Korvaak. The Tomb had an unbeatable totem with three hero casters that kept healing eachother, so I just walked away. Magma Dadbod Kymon took some healing potions to survive, but was absolutely facetanked. It was thankfully quicker than Dravis. We shouldn't have come a moment later, because Korvaak was able to break his chains the moment we walked in! Facetanking the purple meteors is risky and sometimes takes us to 25% HP, but other than that, no real problems. It was indeed "all we can do." Apart from one potion in the beginning, we didn't even move. The fight still took 10 minutes. Funny how the one thing we had trouble with was that random totem. We finally reach lvl 50, which allows us to equip the Rune Armor of Ignaffar. A passive damage dealing aura that we can bind (defensive) devotions to! It also procs 'on attack' procs from items. Balancing Physique and Spirit without class levels is hell, but we finally got something to work. We continue the long slog towards Barrowholm to start gaining their reputation as well. We already have a nice pair of 'of the Wolf' shoes that we can't wait to equip. We took a quick stop at Kra'Vall (or Boghorrean, as we like to call him) to see if he could be killed with our now less-than-optimal cold resistance. Spoiler: Lol no. We complete all the Barrowholm quests, get lvl 51, put another point in Physique and swap our Gollus Ring back on. Boghorrean round 2, this time with capped resistances. Spoiler: Very doable with some positioning. We reorganize our inventory and call it a day. Clearing trash is now far less painful! We reached level 51 after 15 hours and 45 minutes of game time.
Level 51 - 58: Return to Elite
We return to Elite, in order to shore up our gear and get better quest XP. We absolutely lack the resistances to facetank Ultimate, and most of our damage comes from facetanking. We had previously already completed Elite up to the Warden's Laboratory, so now it is time to fight Elite Krieg. Our aether resistance is capped, so we have no fear. With the Rune Armor of Ignaffar proccing Dawnshard Pauldrons very often in larger groups, we do gain XP quite a bit faster than before. Krieg was easy. Completing Act 1 lifts our DC reputation to Honored, meaning we can add Slith's Venom augment to our rings and amulet, for more poison/acid and bleeding res, and a nice boost to our retaliation damage. After Krieg we briefly dip into the Forgotten Gods expansion for the quests in the Conclave, but head towards Act 2 afterwards. The Coven respects me now after killing a random wasp in the Stirring Hive. In Cronley's Hideout we complete our devotion page. Some things have changed from the post, since I think it is more beneficial to have 4 points into Messenger of War, but I will only put the fourth point in at lvl 65, when I can equip the Citadel relic. Regenerator heroes have a chance of being absolutely immortal and I hate them with a passion, this build just cannot kill them if they don't use melee attacks. We kill Ikrix a couple of times until we get a scale that we like, and continue to Homestead. We drop another Dawnshard Pauldron from a totem in the Rotting Croplands, but we sadly can't equip more than one. We complete the area west of Homestead and call it a day. Our resistances are slowly getting to the point where we can survive Ultimate, and I plan on swapping to that as soon as we can so we can work towards completing this challenge. We reach level 57 after 18 hours and 40 minutes of game time.
Level 58 - 60: Fort Ikon and the choice of Mythical Relic
We continue our way from Homestead. I walked to Bolvar and after seeing that he was no threat but would take a while, I walked away from my PC and started putting ingredients for tomorrow's bread into my bread maker. When I was done, Bolvar had just died. Zaria is another problem altogether. She dies about the same speed as Bolvar, but her crystals are super dangerous. So we just skip her instead of kiting her around for 10 minutes. Speaking of 10 minutes, that is the time it took to kill Karroz. We trek to Fort Ikon and pay Commander Lucius a visit. We run to the Necropolis and secure a riftgate within. We then reach level 60. I had thought throughout this journey that Citadel would be the relic of choice, because it allows another devotion to be bound to its aura and it gives a lot of physical retaliation. But seeing how much trouble we have with anything that does not directly hit us, I decided to go with Avenger instead. We have the Rune Armor of Ignaffar that allows us to bind a third devotion, and Messenger of War's proc is not that important in my opinion. When looking through my devotions for this, I also saw that I had not bound Vire's proc to anything when I swapped a piece of gear around, so that explains the painfully slow fights. Oops. We came this far, might as well try Elite Loghorrean. Although I am more afraid of Elite Bloodlord Thalonis... I shouldn't have. With some potions the fight was quite easy. We move through the portal to fight the penultimate form of Loghorrean, and facetank him. We drink some health potions for safety, but the fight was won comfortably. Apart from vitality and pierce, all our resistances are overcapped enough. Next stop: Ultimate. We reached level 60 after 21 hours of game time.
Level 60 - 65: First part of Ultimate
Other than progress in Ultimate being needed for reaching the final goal of this challenge, there is another advantage here: Everything gives a lot more XP. We start completing the quests that we were unable to complete earlier when we were hunting for devotion shrines. After Krieg we try to complete the quest in the Conclave, but a healer champion spawned duringthe Eldritch Trials, so we leave. We log in again, and same thing. Guess we will not complete the Forgotten Gods anytime soon. That is fine of course, our goal is to kill Log after all. We rush to Cronley and then through the Arkovian Undercity. Totems in Ultimate sometimes become a bit scary, but our death counter remains relatively low, at 21 at the moment, which I think is not bad for a build that ignores masteries altogether. Voldrak was a bit scary because our physical resistance is low, but we managed to kill him without dying. The shrine in the Mountain Deeps had - of course - a healer champion, so we run to our friend Ikrix to see what he has to offer us. Shrewd of Caged Souls is not amazing, but oh well. We get a lucky drop in the for of Dawnshard Grips, another nice offensive proc for us. We finish the trek to Homestead, teleport our buddy Ulgrim over, and call it a day. We reach level 65 after 23 hours of game time.
Level 65 - 67: Dermapterans and the Amalgamation
We try our luck at Ikrix once more, and then move on to the area west of Homestead. The new Ikrux scale is better, but we need the 50+ spirit we get from our current one. We still wear that amazing double rare Gollus ring we got in Normal, so we pay him a visit as well (no luck). The shrine next to him turned out to be immortal when a regenerator champion spawned. We clear out the rest of the hive and take on the Amalgamation. A short episode today, because I had little time to play today. We reach level 67 after 23 and a half hours of game time.
Level 67 - 69: Ultimate Karroz and reaching Fort Ikon
The trek towards Darkvale starts with utmost dread, because I remember how I fared in Elite. As if the game wants to comfort me, it drops the Empowered Perdition shield from a totem within a few minutes after starting. We equip it immediatly, and don't forget to rebind Vire's proc to the aura this time. I made a mistake with changing some items and components around, and now our elemental resistance is not up to standard anymore. We'll just hope we can weather it until we equip better gear at level 70. Bolvar was easier this time, and relatively quick. Zarria was not as lethal as last time, but I was not confident in my patience against a full spellcaster with crystals. Karroz was dealt with, though we had to move around quite a bit to dodge the damage pools and crystals. Not a terrible fight all in all. We hand in all the quests, and get close to level 69, which is nice and all, but we slowly approach the point where leveling up is no longer beneficial for us. Our only ways of getting stronger are gear and devotions. Since we already maxed out on devotions, that leaves gear. Stronger gear is great, but high level gear has a non-trivial stat requirement. And because we do not get stats from our mastery bar as a classless passivist, it becomes harder and harder to keep up with the requirements. Meanwhile, our enemies get stronger either way. Still, we do want to get to level 70, as it unlocks some more items for us. It is for this reason we rush to Fort Ikon, not stopping to kill monsters along the way. And so, reaching level 69, we end this part in Fort Ikon. We reach level 69 after 24 hours and 14 minutes of game time.
Level 69 - 70: Challenge completed
We kill Commander Lucius, which is not that hard, and take a stroll though the Plains of Strife and the Necropolis. We avoid Loxmere like the plague, as is tradition at this point. After we unlock the riftgate before Tomb of the Watchers, we reach level 70. We swap some of our gear around to get Elemental resists closer to 80. We destroy the blood wagons for the final time, and head down into the Tomb of the Watchers. Now the goal is of course to kill Ultimate Loghorrean, but from previous experience I know that the real final boss will probably be Bloodlord Thalonis. We can only hope he doesn't roll some wicked double-rare affixed on his MI. This time, we have one big advantage, and that is the combination of the Rune Armor of Ignaffar and the Thorn Girdle of the Misty Glade. Together, these proc the two Dawnshard items a LOT. Which is nice, because Thalonis never hits me himself (like the coward he is), and we have an absolutely pathetic 1276 OA. I died a couple of times, and everytime I did, he regenerates 50% of his health. His instakill attack in which he spews a couple of meatballs is well telegraphed, but against the background of black, red and dark grey the projectiles are very hard to see with all the other stuff going on. He does this attack roughly every 5 seconds and if you ever get hit by two of them, you're dead. I know you're not supposed to beat or even play the game like this, but if he was anything other than the penultimate boss, I would probably have declared this challenge attempt a failure. I finally beat him by running around him in large circles, but including the deaths it took well over half an hour. The final installment of Loghorrean was clearly tougher than the ones that came before, but we kill him first try. Stage 3 was a bit more intense and I had to run around quite a bit between the sunder attacks, but we beat the blood octopus, and with that, the challenge. We reached level 70, after 25 hours and 42 minutes of game time.
At least it did some decent damage on bigger bosses like Lucius and Loghorrean. But Iâm gonna replace the helmet with something better asap.
Looking forward to finishing my Dervish, and then I am probably going to try it classless.