Nice run Bote 

Acts II & III


It looks like Strombolitta will be an hybrid char: a mixed between str and int and remaining attributes points go on health.

Finally, i leveled an evoker, which is close to the stonespeaker in the playstyle except that Psionic touch will take the place of Rune weapon.
This should allow Strombolitta to level at a safer distance with a staff instead of short ranged weapon.

The ideal weapon would be the MI prospector rod, easy to farm but it's a long way to go up to act 5.

Here is the progress for Act I


No farm session except for specific charms (in caves) to achieve the artifact.

Edit:
No problem Bote, take care of you.

I didn't know about sieg hart, but a quick search on the net gave me the answer. It seems that it fits well with an elementalist !

On the other side, Strombolitto died unexpectandly at lvl 18.
I'll think about a new toon, not sure that it will be a stonespeaker though.
Anyhow, having less time available  now, the toon will evolve slowly.

Oh, i am in ! it's time to test a class i wouldn't take in xmax challenge: the stonespeaker.

The stonespeaker should be a little less squishy than its alterego the thunderer thanks to its shield ability, we shall see 
I especially hope that rune weapon and earth enchantment will synergize well.

Edit: its name Strombolitto.

1] It's often requested because it makes the game "harder". But does it? You arm enemies better, but you also arm yourself better with all the extra levels.

I agree those extra levels help up to mid-end epic. Afterwards, the build is finished with or w/o xmax, and therefore more monsters make the game harder on legendary.

2] SC already greatly increased the drop rates of MIs, and I know most people use Xmax-like mods to make farming less time-consuming. Not to mention that SC also speeds up the farming by other means.
3] Xmax would trivialize the farming of the new MUs. This would, from my point of view, defeat their purpose of being extra rare, almost trophy items.

Ok never mind. A good balance of drop rates is, as you said,  an important feature and i guess difficult to achieve.

4] Lots of enemies (bosses mostly) have been improved overall. It will mostly show on someone's first self-found playthrough.

It was a good surprise to find quest bosses harder than TQ Vanilla.

Up to now, i am only experiencing various masteries on normal mode. About lifegiving, the archangel ability Blessing seems erratic, the CD is 8s but does not trigger at will when the archangel or the toon are injured. On the other hand, Transcendence and Set ablaze abilities trigger well.

Edit: From time to time, for some reason, the guardian angel buff disappears whereas the archangel is still there. I can't reproduce this anomaly at will though. When i log out and reenter the game, the guardian angel buff appears as soon as the archangel is summoned.