Uber Tristram Guide

With the introduction of patch 1.11, Blizzard added a new "secret" Hell level quest into D2:LOD. This quest is rather involved. The first part requires you to gather keys from the Countess, Summoner, and Nihlathak.

The second part requires you to cube the keys and get three body parts from Lilith, UberDuriel, and UberIzual.

The third and final part, is to cube the three body parts which will allow you to enter Tristam at which point you have to defeat UberMephisto, UberDiablo, UberBaal, and their constantly summoning minions. Once the three Ubers are killed, a Hellfire Torch Large Charm will drop along with enough Standard of Heroes (victory medals) for each in the winning party member.

Details of the Keys:

You need to collect a total of nine keys, three of each from the following:
Key of Terror (1 in 14 solo runs) -- Countess
Key of Hate (1 in 11 solo runs) -- Summoner
Key of Destruction (1 in 12 solo runs) -- Nihlathak

Notes:

• it is possible for multiple keys (up to 5) to drop on a kill.
• you can hold multiple keys of the same type at the same time.
• they are more likely to drop with 3 or more players in game.

The best build for key farming is without a doubt a Lightning sorc with an Infinity polearm merc. Unfortunately, most of us will never ever see the runes to make this beast of a weapon. A fully synergied sorc with conviction is a site to behold. The next best runner in my opinion is your basic run of the mill sorc wearing Nature's Peace. After that it is really your choice, any of your high level elemental characters should be able to run the Tower, Arcane, and the Halls with few problems. If you are without elementals, any build will do.

To find the countess, go to the Black Marsh and find the tower. On each level of the tower, the quickest way to find the next level down is to following the lefthand wall. The Countess is fire and cold immune. To find the Summoner, just choose a direction and go. I seem to have the best luck going southwest, southeast, northwest, and finally northeast. The Summoner isn't immune to anything. To find Nihlathak, take the portal the the Halls of Anguish and then check out this excellent post. Nilathak occasionally spawns with immunities.

Of these three levels, Halls is easily the most dangerous run. The two potential, bang your dead, problems are the Vipers whose poison clouds are _still_ bugged and Nihlathak's CE. With Nature's Peace, there will be no corpses to explode... unless your merc gets a kill in or two. If you are without a NP (like I am) lure the monsters out one side and kill them from afar, then approach Nihl from the other side ignoring the stragglers until he is dead.

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Details of the Body Parts:

Once you have collected one of each key, i.e. a Terror, Hate and Destruction, go to Harrogath and transmute them in the cube. This will open randomly open one of three red portals to the new levels:

Matron's Den

-- Lilith spawns here. It looks alot like one of tower levels. When she is defeated, you will receive Diablo's Horn as reward. Be wary of her poison, and she hits hard.

Forgotten Sands

-- UberDuriel spawns here and will drop Baal's Eye when defeated. This area looks like Canyon of the Magi (the WP does not work). We had a good group, so he went down fast.

Furnace of Pain

-- UberIzual spawns here and will drop Mephisto's Brain when defeated. The graphics here are similar to places such as Abaddon found in the Frigid Highlands. Izzy himself isn't to tough, but there are two things to be wary of. One is that Oblivian Knights can spawn here!!! You have been WARNED of the possibility of IM. The second being that the megadaemons are immune to everything except physical damage.

Due to the random nature of which level spawns, it is best to collect three of each key, and spawn all three levels in the same game. If you don't do them all in the same game you risk the chance that you will respawn the same level as you just defeated in a new game, causing you to most likely farm more keys. All the red portals for the HT quest behave exactly like the cow portal, once the game expires, the portal will no longer exist. Be sure to stand in different spots when creating the portals, least you create a portal behind another and then you will not be able to get to -- if you exit and reenter you might be able to have the other portal come to the front (this may need to be done numerous times..).

Tristam:

Note: Much of the game play and strategy for dealing with the Ubers in Tristam is above in the story of my first conquering of Tristam. This section will be a drop zone for tidbits of info I didn't explain well the first time.

In addition to what I've gleaned from all the sources and thread I can read and my first hand knowledge is that there are three big and nasty bosses here: UberD, UberBaal, and UberMeph. To get there, defeat the three lesser UberEvils, and cube the three body parts in Harrogath to spawn the red portal to Tristam.

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Notes:

o PMH does not work on any Uber.
o The Uber's start spawning minions from the ground as soon as you are detected. UberD spawns the same Pit Lords from the Furnace. UberBaal spawns ghosts and Dark Lords, and UberMeph spawns skeleton, skeleton archers, and skeleton magi.
o Meph has level 20 conviction, i.e. -125% resistances.
o They can all teleport and move quicker than there normal versions.
o You can NOT cast a town portal.
o The red portal spawns in the same spot each time. On the right middle side of the two buildings on the right. (sic) Depending on the speed at which the level loads, it may seem that the portal is spawned on top of UberMeph. I believe that you game loads slow and the AI for Meph kicked in early. Similar to the Duriel problem a few patches ago.
o From my group it was agreed upon that the three Ubers start in the center of town in a triangle. UberD to the upper left, UberMeph to the upper right,and UberBaal to the lower left.
o Spawn the level with only one character in the game. I don't know if the Ubers spawn when the portal is created, or when you first wake them up -- if it is like everything else in the game, it's when they wake up -- so at this point it is just wishing.
o SAFETY TIP: a summoner should enter the portal first. A short second later everyone else follows. As soon as you get to Tristam run directly to the upper right hand corner. Circle around counterclockwise and go to the bottom left corner. From there lure out one boss at a time.
o you should have at least have a salvation pally, a summoner, and a smiter; all BO'd.
o Even if a paladin runs with a higher conviction level than UberMeph's, only he will benefit and none of his party will, i.e. UberMeph's conviction will still affect them.
o ideally, the necro casts only lifetap, but in our case decrep was sufficient. Dim vision on the minions is helpful.
o a link to d2.net about the big three and their minions.

With a well rounded party, this area isn't too bad. The minions are annoying and UberMeph can lay a nasty elemental whooping that could potentially 1-hit you. If you happen to get the portal swarmed its over, especially in HC.

Once you have defeated the three bosses, you will receive a Hellfire Torch Large Charm and enough Standard of Heroes for the victors.The Standard isn't anything other than a victory flag to show you've been to Tristam and lived. The LC is a bit more interesting.

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Hellfire Torch Large Charm

+3 all skills to a random character class
+10-20 Attributes
+10-20 Resist all
+8 Light Radius
25% chance of casting Slvl 10 Diablo Fire Storm on striking
10 charges of Slvl 30 Hydra

Very good guide!! Thanks!