As one can imagine the item restrictions was both entertaining and extremely frustrating, as more often than not a normal monster would drop needed equipment while SUs dropped Isenhart cases. Case in point not a single gear upgrade was made from the SU drops in Hell, which the switch shield fell from Normal Bloodraven. Thankfully there was a provision that allowed the personalization quest to make a normal drop wearable. This lead to an uber shield from Act V Normal until endgame being wearable.
Skills
Holy Freeze - 20(24)
Holy Shock - 20(24)
Resist Cold - 20(24)
Resist Lightning - 16(20)
Zeal - 4(8)
Holy Shield - 5(9)
Stats
Level - 82
Strength - 77(83)
Dexterity - 163(182)
Vitality - 250(272)
Energy - 15(23)
Life - 952(1075)
Mana - 136(258)
Resist Fire - 75
Resist Lightning - 83
Resist Cold - 85
Resist Poison - 75
Equipment
Helm - Tarnhelm
Armor - Goldskin
Shield - Spirit (in 32% resist all Targe)
Weapon - War scepter, +1 paladin skills, 20% IAS, +AR/Max dmg per char lvl
Belt - 16% FR, 11% PR
Boots - Hsarus' Iron Heel
Gloves - 8% FR, +5 light radius, 5% AR
Amulet - 2 strength, 13 dex, 27% FR, 19% CR, 3% LR, 3% PR
Ring 1 - 12% LR
Ring 2 - 27% CR, 10% MF
Switch:
Weapon - Battle dart, 22-57 cold dmg, +AR/Max dmg per char lvl
Shield - 19% LR, 17% FR, 9% CR, 9% PR
Mercenary:
Helm - Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Armor - Heavenly Garb (ethereal)
Weapon - Partizan, 123% ED, 183 AR, 7% LL, +Max dmg per char lvl
Since this was a single pass tournament and only drops from SUs counted I found myself going into areas I normally just skip, for example the Cave and Cold Crow. As it was I didn't actually fully clear the entire game, I simply walked until I found all the SUs and Waypoints then moved on. I did not however skip anyone on purpose other than a single boss monster in the WSK Hell level.
Enkidu's journey started off utilizing a one point Holy Fire until Holy Freeze became available. This made progress through Normal and the early part of Nightmare manageable, not fast by any means but not slow either. A typical battle scene for Enkidu had his mercenary tanking the entire pack while Enkidu worked on the outside concentrating on one or two monsters at a time. For the most part this was OK as long as the mercenary was sent a steady supply of health potions. Granted such tactics couldn't be used against the monsters that cause melee builds the most problems, Dolls. Against these migit minions Enkidu switched to his alternate weapon and went ranged, still allowing the merc to tank of course. Same tactic was used in the Chaos Sanctuary and anywhere else Oblivion Knights appeared.
Things started to slow down a bit mid Nightmare as Holy Freeze was maxed out and it's synergy while the monsters kept getting more and more hit points. Also started to run into Cold Immunes and the few points in Holy Shock I had at that point really made dealing with them a chore. Still, plugged through and as Holy Shock was increased the killing speed started to progress again. However I did use Holy Freeze as the main aura. It worked well to slow down any packs so I could see what I was dealing with before engaging. Then they stayed slow during the fight. However I would switch to Holy Shock if the group was CI or highly cold resistant.Still, in Act IV of NM I ran into a brick wall. Progress slowed drastically from that point onward and instead of fighting mobs straight on I had to being to split them up to deal with them. This lead to much running away to string out the monsters, especially when cursed or might enhanced bosses were around (which happened often). This continued all the way through the end of Hell. Only difference between the end of NM and Hell was the number of NDEs and the fact that the mercenary had to be resurrected on a regular basis. My last tournament character had trouble with gold so from the beginning of Hell I started to pick up every piece of equipment that would catch a good price with Charsi. This ended up working out as by the time Baal fell I had enough money to resurrect the mercenary about a dozen times or so.
One thing I probably would have changed would be to hire a Blessed Aim mercenary rather than the Defiance one I had. Enkidu has real trouble hitting the Ancients and all Hell act bosses. The +AR per character level mod on both his main and switch weapons was extremely helpful in that regard, but still didn't make up for the fact that he wasn't only hitting them one-fifth of the time at best. Regular monster packs didn't have the same issue, nor bosses, so regular questing the Defiance aura was more helpful in allowing the mercenary to tank a bit longer.
One odd thing I noticed is that the mercenary, while having trouble with normal monster packs, was a champ when it came to the act bosses. He survived NM Baal onward, except for Hell Mephisto, without the need for many health potions (not a single one for Hell Baal/Diablo).
Overall I'd say this character was a lot of fun to play, and not too underpowered being untwinkled with item restrictions. Although I think my definition of decent killing speed may be not quite as high as a lot of other people, as I think my Strafazon without Fortitude/Windforce has decent killing speed too. Overall very durable character and I'd be interested to see what a twinkled version could do, perhaps a project for another time. Enkidu becomes the third of my tournament guardian sept, with both Necromancer and Amazon being previously completed.
For such a small amount of MF this character did fairly well in the item finding department. Some notable drops:
Cerebus' Bite
Griswold's Redemption
Stoneraven
Tal's Mask x2
Eye of Etlich
Mahim-Oak Curio
Oculus
Thundergod's Vigor
As for runes, I can't recall what the NM hellforge was but in Hell a Hel fell, fittingly. Other finds were 3 Dols, 1 Shael and a Ko.
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