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Mar 24 2007 05:26pm
The Area Level 85 Magic Finding Guide

This guide will take you from having absolutely nothing, to all of the items you could b possibly dream of having. This guide will give you a solid character that you can take to any of the area level 85 (alvl85) areas and clear them with ease. This guide will give you a step-by-step process to take for each and every level of your character. This guide will also help you choose what equipment to utilize on your character. This guide will also help dispel the magic find (mf) myths that exist. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

So you just got the Diablo 2 battle chest and started to play the game. But what character to play? What style of play should you go for? And most importantly, where can I find those awesome items that everyone else seems to have? In short, the answers to these questions are:

1. You should play an Amazon.
2. The style of play should be a bow wielding, ranged strafeazon.
3. Every single item available in the game can be had in the alvl85 areas.

PART I. The Amazon

The Amazon class is one of the most versatile types of characters in the game. She has the ability to switch from melee to ranged mode without suffering from a drop in damage. She has the ability to completely dodge an enemy’s attack. She has the ability to summon a valkyrie to fight by her side. She can do just about anything in any area.

Melee vs. Ranged

The safest way through the game is with a ranged attack. This seems like a silly thought, however, you can’t die if the monsters don’t get close enough to hit you. If you keep pushing them back, then you should never get hit and thus never die. With a melee attack, you will do more damage. However, you will be in harms way. With a minor tweak to your gear, you can melee away and have no fear of being in harms way, because you will not be.

The Ranged Attack

For the ranged attack, you will be using a bow and arrows. The bow does not have to be the world’s best bow. The damage will come from how fast and accurate you are with that bow. The best possible skill to use with a bow is Strafe. Strafe is the king of bow skills because every arrow counts for something. The next delay you have heard of with strafe has been tested to not exist. The good guys at Amazon Basin have tested this and with either a 9/3 or 9/2 strafe, all of your arrows hit multiple targets. Obviously, you would not want to use strafe against a single target, say an act boss. Single, large enemies are for melee attacks. Depending on what bow you choose to use, hitting the 9/3 strafe speed should be fairly easy. Hitting the 9/2 strafe speed will take some effort. Achieving the 8/2 speed is a fleeting dream.

Strafe
There are 2 schools of thought on the skill Strafe. One thought is to get enough points in it that with + to bow & crossbow skills (+b&c) to achieve 10 arrows and put the remaining points in other skills. Another school of thought is to max the skill and allow the +b&c points to further enhance the damage. One of the main draw backs to strafe is the ¾ weapon damage. Some people will tell you there is a magic skill level (slvl) of strafe that will even out the damage penalty. Well that is a farce. The damage penalty and then the subsequent enhanced damage (ED) perform as follows:

1. Base bow damage.
2. Add on-bow ED. (jewels, runes, runewords, ect.)
3. Add on-bow elemental damage. (gems, runes, runewords, ect.)
4. Add off-bow ED. (auras, jewels in armor, mercenary [merc] auras, ect.) If all this extra damage does not come to more than 150% ED, then at slvl 27 you will be close to base bow damage before the penalty. Most decent bows have more than 150% ED built in. Add in your merc’s aura and you will never achieve the magic level to balance out the penalty.
5. Take the ¾ penalty and subtract the damage.
6. Add on the slvl ED. This is the final damage.

This is the same process for the skill multishot. Now I would like to take the time to discuss Strafe vs. Multishot. With multishot, it is only the middle 2 arrows that carry the procs (chance to cast [ctc], mana leech [ml], life leech [ll], ect.). The rest of the arrows only carry the damage on them. Using multishot, you must make sure that the middle 2 arrows hit a non physical immune (pi) monster in order to leech life and mana. The speed of multishot is too slow, and can cause mistakes due to aiming the shots. The closer to your character you click, the wider the disbursement of arrows. The farther away from your character you click, the tighter the grouping of arrows. With strafe, all of your arrows carry your procs. There is no aiming involved. All you have to do is click anywhere on the screen and you will be auto-aimed to hit the nearest monsters. Even if you do not see any monsters on the screen, you can click and the strafe skill will seek out any monsters in range and fire arrows at them. The ability to kill monsters without aiming is absolutely invaluable. This is why most people choose to play a Frozen Orb sorceress. Without aiming, all you have to do is be sure to click your mouse every once in a while. So, for a ranged skill, choose strafe for the no aim, all arrows carrying your procs, and speed.

The Melee Attack

For the melee attack, I would suggest using charged strike. A maxed slvl charged strike will do some serious damage to a single target. There is not a specific weapon you have to use to utilize this skill. Either a spear or a set of javelins will work just fine. Charged strike will work against all monsters except for lightning immune (li) monsters. I don’t really use charged strike on my strafeazon due to the fact my valkyrie and merc can kill what I cannot. I would only suggest this skill if you plan on running area’s that have an act boss at the end.

Setting up your character and starting out.

Starting a strafeazon is kind of hard as you start out with a javelin and a shield. So for the first 10 to 20 kills, you will be stabbing things with your javelin. Once you gain a level, go back to town and purchase a bow. Place the 5 stat points you received into dexterity (dex) and the one skill point into magic arrow. Go back out and clear the blood moor completely. Make sure to open all chests and kill all monsters. You should level up around 2 to 3 times once you are done clearing the moor. For level 3, again place all of your stat points into dex and the lone skill point into critical strike. For level 4, again all of your stat points into dex and the lone skill point into inner sight. At this point you should be ready to tackle the den of evil. Once you clear out the den of evil you should head off to the cold plains. Before you head out, return to town and purchase some gear. Get the best armor you can equip and look for a bow with sockets in it. It will not matter what the base damage is as we are going to modify this bow a little. If you have acquired a bow with 3 open sockets (3os) stuff chipped rubies in there for the damage bonus. This will help you kill all the monsters you will face in act 1. It will also help you kill Andy during your mf runs. Every time you come back to town, continue to look for open socket bows to buy from Charsi. Once in the cold plains, make a few runs to kill Bishibosh, the super unique boss next to the carvers. He can drop some pretty basic gear that can help you out. Just run him like 3 times. If you do not get what you are after, continue on and make your way to the stoney fields. You should have leveled up to around 6 or 7 after all of this, so it is now time to distribute your points. For level 5, place your stat points into vitality (vit) or dex, whatever your choice is. Be aware that before you face Andarial (andy) you will want to have placed at least 5 stat points into vit. Your skill point for level 5 can be saved. For level 6, place all of your stat points into dex and place one point into cold arrow as a prerequisite and one into multishot. For level 7 place your stat points into dex and place your skill point into dodge. From here find the scroll and then come back and save Cain. At this point you are ready for trist runs. I would suggest to trist until you reach level 12 or 13. Place your stat points into dex or strength (str). For your skill points, place one each into slow missiles, avoid, jab, power strike, and poison javelin. Only place the points into the javelin & spear (j&s) skills if you plan on running the alvl85 areas that end with an act boss.

Early game MFing

At this point you can either walk to Andy, or get a rush. Once you kill Andy for the first time, you must exit Catacombs 4 properly. See below on how to do this. Either way, get familiar with Andy. You will run Andy until you get 1 special item. This item is a Nagelring ring. Why should you run Andy until you get this item? Because Andy’s quest drop can be bugged and every time you kill her, you can get a quest drop minus all the gems that drop. To bug Andy, kill her obviously. Wait until the automatic town portal (tp) opens up. Once the tp opens, walk through and talk to Cain, Akara, and then Warriv. Once done talking to everyone, ask Warriv to take you west. Once you get to act2, save and exit (s&e) the game. This will bug Andy. If you create a tp and take that back to the rogue’s camp after you kill Andy, she will not be bugged. Even if you have 0% mf on, you still have a good chance at getting one of these rings to drop from a bugged Andy drop. Below are the odds of it dropping:

1 : 132 Andariel ~ 1st kill Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 12}

Keep in mind that this is with 0%MF. If you found some chipped topaz or some sort of mf gear, obviously that can increase. So, theoretically you found some things to wear and you have 50%MF on. Here would be the improved odds:

1 : 93 Andariel ~ 1st kill Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 12}

While you are looking for one of these 2 rings, you should also be able to upgrade your bow. One of the unique bows that can drop from Andy with 0% mf is as follows:

1 : 1413 Andariel ~ 1st kill Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 12} Pluckeye
1 : 1002 Pluckeye - {qlvl 10} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 12} with 50%MF

You should run Andy until you get some decent gear. Since you are starting out from scratch, at least run her until you have one of those rings, decent armor, and decent boots. At this point you can either get a rush through to the end of normal or go it alone. You can usually find normal rush games and join them for nothing. Then again, you can make a game called “rush me free plz” and some nice person will come in and do it for you. While you level up, place your stat points where needed following this basic rule, str should be just enough for gear. On a bowazon, the more dex you have, the more damage you will do. However, no one said having extra life was all that bad, so placing points into vit will not hurt. For your skill points, continue to place points in the prerequisite skills. Once you get to level 24, you can finally place points into strafe. Also at level 24, you can get your ancients quest and then begin Baal running for experience. I suggest to normal Baal run until you are level 45. This will allow you to max out strafe and have a decent amount of points placed into valkyrie.

Nightmare is a complete breeze. You should be able to do all of NM without breaking a sweat. Once you have a maxed valk, you have to decide on how many points you will need in the passive skills. This obviously will depend on your equipment. Since we are at the equipment point of this guide, let’s delve deeper into that.

--continued--
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Equipment

Your equipment is very important to your ability to kill and successfully MF. There are only certain modifications (mods) that are absolutely necessary to have. These mods are ll, ml, and knockback. Any and all other mods are completely gravy. Remember how you were supposed to MF normal andy until you found some rings? Well this is where it will pay off. If you were fortunate enough to find both rings, you have 2 spots already filled with the important mods of MF and ML. The Nagelring has mf and the manald has ML. To get LL you can either craft some blood gloves, belts, or amulets. There are a few ways to get knockback. The easiest would be to acquire clegaws gloves ( odds for dropping from normal andy :

1 : 105 Andariel ~ 1st kill Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 12} )

The other way would be to craft some safety gloves. Remember, these three mods are the only ones that are vital to your survival. Now let’s get into the specifics of your gear starting with your hat.

Helms

Well, if you are lucky enough to find one, a good starter’s hat would be the unique Tarnhelm. Odds for it dropping are as follows:

1 : 212 The Cow King The Secret Cow Level - {mlvl 31}
1 : 933 Mephisto ~ 1st kill Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 26}

It has loads of MF on it as well as +1 to all skills. This can be socketed for further enhancement but I would not recommend it. Next up is the unique Peasant Crown. Odds of it dropping are as follows:

1 : 710 Baal ~ 1st kill The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 60}
1 : 1073 Baal The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 60}

This hat is relatively easy to find from normal Baal. Most people call it “shako lite.” The added life and mana it gives is nice as well as the +1 to all skills. If this hat had MF on it, we would be close to end game gear. The above hats can usually be had for pgems, or free. Just ask around or visit the many free games. The next possible choice depends on what you need. If you need resistances, you can go with a rock stopper. It has good resistances as well as some other decent mods. If you need some ll, there is a good choice in Crown of Thieves. It has excellent ll on it as well as some other decent mods. The next choice would be Harlequin Crest. While this hat does seem awesome at first, there is one hat that would be better for you. The harley does have +2 to all skills, 5 to all attributes, and built in MF. It can be socketed for further modification and this would not be a bad choice to socket. The king of all hats would be a Delirium RW hat. This hat takes the cake as it has +2 to all skills, MF, gold find, and my favorite proc in the world. The CtC confuse on striking is absolutely awesome. Having this hat will make you near invincible. The idea behind this is to strafe until the curse is cast, usually one volley. Once the curse is cast, you can pretty much do whatever as your merc and valk will kill anything they run into. I would suggest that you make this RW in a hat that has high defense (def) and yet a low enough str requirement. Sure this RW is kind of expensive, Lem + Ist + Io, but if there is one piece of equipment you absolutely must have after the first 3 mods, it is this hat. There is no better hat to wear than Delirium for a strafeazon.

Armors

This can be a subjective area. When first starting out, just look for something that has a pretty high def while offering the basic mods. The basics that you should be looking for are + to life, + resistances (res), and + to str. The first unique that you should look for is a Twitchthroe. The odds of it dropping are as follows:

1 : 408 Mephisto ~ 1st kill Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 26}
1 : 445 Diablo ~ 1st kill The Chaos Sanctuary - {mlvl 40}

The added increased attack speed (ias) will help tremendously. Some people would say that this armor is worth the upgrade. I say that if you have the runes and gem floating around, do it as it will most certainly help you. Twitchthroe can be socketed and if you spent the funds to up it, you might as well socket it. If you do, stick in a ptopaz since you are going around looking for cool items. The next armor that comes to mind is Vipermagi. Odds for it dropping are as follows:

1 : 714 Baal ~ 1st kill The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 60}
1 : 1079 Baal The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 60}

While it is considered to be a caster armor, we can take full advantage of the mods it has to offer. The +1 to all skills is nice, the res can be nice, and there is some damage reduction. While the Vipermagi can be socketed, I would recommend against it. The above armors can be had for pgems or free. Same tactics apply, ask around or hang out in free games. The ideal unique armor to get would be Skullder's Ire. The scaling MF is just awesome and it does have +1 to all skills on it. If you find it, pray for the eth version as the str req will be lower and the armor has the built in repair mod! The odds for it dropping are as follows:

1 : 2232 Baal ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 75}
1 : 2281 Diablo ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) The Chaos Sanctuary - {mlvl 62}

If you find this ethereal armor, socket it and stick in your best ias jewel. As far as runewords go, if you happen to find a Lum or got one at a hellforge, you can make a smoke. Do not discount the value of res. The added def is nice if put into a high def armor. If you are moderately rich, you can get a treachery. This armor is intended for assassins, however the mods on it are too good to pass up. Ias, def, fhr, and so much more. If you are really rich, and have a Lo, you should absolutely make a Fortitude. The 200%ED will help you beyond words. The enhanced def is rather nice as well. This also adds life per level as well as res.

Gloves

The gloves you should be looking for from the beginning are Clegaw’s gloves. These things have built in knockback and are really easy to find. From there, only consider upgrading your gloves if you find a rare set that has ias on them. Do not worry about finding +1 or 2 to b&c skills. From there, you can craft a set of safety gloves. As part of the crafting process, all safety gloves will come with knockback. The mods you are looking for are ias and + to b&c skills. When crafting gloves, try to keep the final item level (ilvl) of the gloves at 71. Any higher and you get into some nasty mods that will only add to the character level (clvl) requirement as you will never use the charges. The best gloves to use are chain gloves as their affix level (alvl) is rather low and this makes it easier to get the Ias and + to b&c skills. Do not try to use vambraces as their alvl is too high to generate the mods of ias as well as + to b&c skills. If you are looking for a high def crafted set of gloves, do NM cows until they drop a pair of heavy bracers. These gloves will work out well in the crafting process as their ilvl is around 74. The crafting formula is as follows:

iLvL=(Ilvl/2)+(cLvL/2) where iLvL=end result item level, ( )=rounded down, Ilvl=initial item level, cLvL=character level.

Belts

Belts are a special piece of equipment. The first unique belt you should look for is Goldwrap. Odds of it dropping are as follows:

1 : 395 Diablo ~ 1st kill The Chaos Sanctuary - {mlvl 40}
1 : 424 Baal ~ 1st kill The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 60}

Sure it has gold find as well as magic find on it, but did you know it also has ias? This belt is worth the upgrade to gain an extra row of pots. If you get lucky and find some awesome bow, then this becomes end game material. However, finding that awesome bow is not that easy and we should look into alternatives. The next best belt would be Razortail. Odds of it dropping are as follows:

1 : 2072 Baal ~ 1st kill The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 60}
1 : 3133 Baal The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 60}

This belt has pierce built in. The pierce is 33% so now you only need enough points into pierce to have your slvl be 66%. With a slvl of 66% pierce and a razortail equipped, every single arrow you fire will pierce the target and hit the monster behind it. If you are lacking in the ll department or the ias department, the only real upgrade from the previous belts would be nosferatu’s coil. It has a good amount of ll on it as well as ias. Of all these belts, only razortail can be had for a few measly pgems or free. Goldwrap and Nos coil are saught after items and will fetch a pretty penny. There really are not many other choices in unique belts other than Thundergod’s vigor, but that belt is hard to find and if you do, you would probably want to sell it to acquire a more vital piece of gear.

Boots

Since you are just starting out, you will not have much of a choice when it comes to boots. I suggest that you obtain clvl of 20 and then gamble your gold looking for a nice rare set with resistances as well as GF or MF. In this process, you will get magical boots with MF on them. Don’t sell them back unless you have higher MF on the boots you are currently wearing. I do not recommend gambling for anything else this early in the game. There is not a unique or set item that stands out that can be had in normal mode. Nats boots are a good set to have if you cannot find the end game boots. End game gear would be a set of War Travelers. Drop odds for War Travs are as follows:

1 : 2232 Baal ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 75}
1 : 2281 Diablo ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) The Chaos Sanctuary - {mlvl 62}

Rings

Best choice would be a high mf Nagelring as well as a high stat ravenfrost. There really isn’t any other choice as these 2 rings give you all that you could hope for from your ring positions. If you cannot find a Ravenfrost, a good LL or ring will suffice. Keep in mind that Manald ring has ML on it. Some rare rings will have both LL and ML. As long as the ring also has some other desirable stat on it, sell it for some other equipment upgrade.

Amulets

Well, there is something to be said for cat’s eye. It is THE bowazon amulet. Dex, attack rating (ar) ias, what more could you ask for? Oh yea, res. You should be able to find a rare ammy with res as well as + to b&c skills. You would also want high res on that ammy. Be looking for a +3 to passive & magic ammy for prebuffing your valk. Once you get to clvl65, you can gamble these ammys. If you have wealth coming out of your ears, you could either go for a highlords, +1 to all and ias, or go with a mara’s, +2 all skills and big res as well as 5 to attributes. If AR and life are a problem for you, you can take advantage of the angelic jewelry. Wearing the ammy and 2 rings gives you monster AR as well as some life. Most players use this for PvP purposes but it does have its place in PvM. Odds for these items dropping are as follows:

Angelic Halo
1 : 198 Duriel ~ 1st kill Tal Rasha's Chamber - {mlvl 22}
1 : 308 Baal ~ 1st kill The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 60}

Angelic Wings
1 : 613 Duriel ~ 1st kill Tal Rasha's Chamber - {mlvl 22}
1 : 1190 Baal ~ 1st kill The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 60}

Cats Eye
1 : 4364 Mephisto ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 3099 Andariel ~ 1st kill - [Hell] Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 75}

Highlord’s Wrath
1 : 3099 Andariel ~ 1st kill - [Hell] Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 75}
1 : 3508 Duriel ~ 1st kill - [Hell] Tal Rasha's Chamber - {mlvl 88}

Mara’s Kalidescope
1 : 3508 Duriel ~ 1st kill - [Hell] Tal Rasha's Chamber - {mlvl 88}
1 : 5781 Baal ~ 1st kill - [Hell] The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 99}

--continued--

This post was edited by The_Morpheus on Mar 24 2007 05:27pm
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Mar 24 2007 05:28pm
Bows

This is the most important piece of gear as this is how you are going to deal damage obviously. For just starting out, you will have a hard time finding a bow that will deal more damage than a bow socketed with 3 chipped gems. Keep going back to town looking for bows that have open sockets. Once you kill andy for the first time, hopefully she will drop a nice ruby or sapphire. You can then put that gem into your clean bow for more damage in act 2. Once you get to act 3 and beyond, there will be some rare bows that will rival your damage. Very few unique bows that drop in normal mode are worth equipping due to the extra damage found from rare and gemmed bows. Rougue’s Bow is one of those bows. Odds for this bow to drop are as follows:

1 : 292 Diablo ~ 1st kill The Chaos Sanctuary - {mlvl 40}
1 : 313 Baal ~ 1st kill The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 60}

A very nice bow that can be had fairly easily is Lycanders Aim. It’s a amazon specific bow that will grant 2 to all skills as well as 2 to b&c skills. Odds for it to drop are as follows:

1 : 1876 Diablo ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) The Chaos Sanctuary - {mlvl 62}
1 : 1895 Mephisto ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}

One of the nice things about this bow is that once you find a better one, you can keep it around for prebuffing your valk.

From here, we will start to look at end game bows. Pending on your wealth, which bow you choose will vary. We will start with the cheapest to afford to the most expensive to buy.

First up is one of my favorite bows, the Whichwild String. This bow has just about all the mods that you need as well as 2 open sockets for customization. It’s a very fast bow that can get faster from 2 shaels, or if you have decent IAS jewels. It has a great CtC on it of amplify damage. Once you up this bow to its elite version, be careful of stat requirements, you will be able to kill just about anything. Since this bow fires magic arrows using the normal attack, if you ever run out of arrows, you can just switch to normal attack until you find some arrows. This bow is so versatile that just about all classes of characters have a build based on this bow. Do not discredit this bow due to its low damage output. Once Amp Damage triggers, your arrows will do 2x damage. On a critical strike hit under amp damage, the arrows will do 4x damage. And since you are strafing, with 100% pierce, each arrow that has the amp, critical strike procs, will pass through all the monsters behind them and continue to do 4x damage. With a might merc, this damage begins to get ridiculous. So sure, the LCS says you are doing a pitiful amount of damage. The thing to be watching is how fast you kill monsters. Odds of this wonderful bow dropping are as follows:

1 : 997 Mephisto ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 1042 Diablo ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) The Chaos Sanctuary - {mlvl 62}

The next bow to consider is Windforce. This bow is rather hard to find and should cost you more than pgems to acquire. That is, unless you find a moron to trade with and you can get it for a few pgems. This bow has everything you need right on the bow. Knockback, ML, scaling damage that grows as you do, speed, and so much more. Do not worry about the high dex requirement as the more dex you have, the more damage you will do. The str requirement can be had with usually some rings, charms, and other gear. I use this bow on my strafeazon and do incredible damage. I am able to solo hell cows without any problems at all. Because WF has knockback on it, you do not have to have knockback on your gloves. This opens up the glove spot for whatever you choose. You can go with Lava Gout for the fire damage and IAS, Chance guards for MF and GF, to even Laying of Hands, for the boss killing damage. Of course, if you come across some awesome rare that has +2 to b&c skills with IAS, then do not pass them up. Any mods beyond the IAS and b&c skills would be pure gravy. Also because WF has ML on it, this will free up a ring spot for that Ravenfrost or some other awesome ring. And because the WF has scaling damage, as you level up, you will do more damage. This could allow you to pass up the Fortitude armor for some other MF gear. All in all, this bow has it all. Odds for the items discussed to be dropped are as follows:

Windforce
1 : 24638 Baal ~ 1st kill - [Hell] The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 99}
1 : 102831 Bone Warrior - [Hell] Pit Level 1 - {mlvl 88} this is a unique in the pits. The odds would be the same for any unique type of monster in any alvl85 area as long as that monster is a boss or a minion of a boss in the alvl85 area.

Lava Gout
1 : 2232 Baal ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 75}
1 : 2281 Diablo ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) The Chaos Sanctuary - {mlvl 62}

Chance Guards
1 : 431 Mephisto ~ 1st kill Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 26}
1 : 471 Diablo ~ 1st kill The Chaos Sanctuary - {mlvl 40}

Laying of Hands
1 : 426 Baal ~ 1st kill - (Nightmare) The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 75}
1 : 629 Baal - (Nightmare) The WorldStone Chamber - {mlvl 75}

Runeword Bows

Again, we will start with the cheapest and work our way up. First bow to make once the runes are available would be an Edge bow. You are not making this bow for actual use killing monsters. This bow is being made solely for the purpose of gambling. Since a Gheeds Charm is dropping everywhere you look, you need some way to gamble items cheaply. Since the Edge bow offers a -15% to vendor prices, you might as well take advantage of it. Make it in the lowest req 3os bow you can find. This will allow you to transfer it to other characters for their gambling purposes.

The first bow to think of making for damage purposes is a Harmony bow. It has decent elemental damage on it. Vigor aura for moving around faster. And it has revive charges on it. I would place this bow above Lycanders aim and below the WWS. Since this can be made in a zon specific bow, you can get some skills on it. However, I suggest against that. Pending your merc, if you choose an act 1 merc for whatever reason, you can give her the bow for the vigor aura.

The next bow to think of is Wrath. I would only use this bow if you plan on making a chaos runner of this zon. While she could do it with any other bow, this bow’s one mod of +375%damage to daemons makes it shine here. Add on the laying of hands gloves and you are doing 725% damage to daemons. Since that is all that is in the chaos sanctuary, this makes perfect sense. While Wrath shines in chaos, it is lacking everywhere else.

The next bow to think about is a Breath of the Dying hydra bow. Just don’t. It’s not worth it and the Hrs spent on making the bow could have bought you a WF and had some change coming back.

Next up is a Faith bow. It is a good bow for lots of people who have runes galore. Since this guide is written from the stance that you don’t have runes galore, just think of this as something that would be nice to have, but not needed. Most people put faith into a grand matron bow that already has +3 b&c skills. That’s a fine choice, and has its merits. I think that it would be better suited in a normal bow so that you can again transfer it to another characters merc.

Last choice is an Ice bow. I would not recommend this bow unless you plan on running the ancient tunnels and mausoleum areas alone. Almost all of the alvl85 have cold immunes in them and this would make using this bow rather troublesome. So if those are the 2 areas you want to run with your zon, then that would be fine with an ice bow. However, these areas would be better to be run with a pure blizz sorc, more on that later.

So that is the gear choices for you. I will list a general progression for you for each slot.

Helm – Cap, Tarnhelm, Pheasant Crown, Rockstopper, Crown of Thieves, Harlequin Crest, Delirium

Armor – Quilted Armor, Twitchthroe, Vipermagi, Skullder’s Ire, Fortitude

Gloves – Leather Gloves, Clegaws, Safety crafted, (once you have knockback on something else) chance guards, Laying of hands for Chaos games or boss killing areas.

Belt – Sash, Goldwrap, razortail, nosferatu’s coil

Boots – Some decent MF magical, decent rare with MF and res, war travelers

Rings – Nagelring or angelic's, rare with ML and LL and res, Ravenfrost

Amulet – Angelic’s, Magical with + to b&c, cats eye, highlords, mara’s

Bow – Socketed with gems, decent rare with good mods, Rogues, Lycanders, WWS, Harmony, Wrath, Ice, Faith, WF.

--continued--
Member
Posts: 7,093
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Mar 24 2007 05:29pm
Merc Choice

For this build as well as all other builds that utilize physical damage, get an act 2 might merc. His gear should focus on 2 things. + to all skills gear to get an increased level of might aura. Life leach to keep him alive is the other one. Easy way of doing this is to give him Tal Rasha’s hat and a simple spirit shroud armor. Some good weapons to give him would be anything that deals elemental damage if you are afraid of PIs. If that is not a factor, and money is not an object, give him a pride pole. If you cannot give him a pride, what about Arioc's needle? It has +2 to 4 to all skills and will raise his level of might thus increasing your damage. That might be a hard item to find as it is an elite unique. But since no one uses this weapon, you should be able to get it cheaply.

Middle game MFing

As you can see most of the basic gear can be had from normal Mephisto. He is an easy target to get to and to kill. With the amazon, you will not have to worry about dolls as you should have your clegaws on and should be either 1 hit killing them off screen or at the very least, knocking them back. I would suggest running normal Meph until you got gear that you feel satisfied with having. Some of the items you can run him for are as follows:

1 : 652 Chance Guards - {qlvl 20} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 26}
1 : 1410 Tarnhelm - {qlvl 20} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 26}
1 : 276 Cleglaw's Pincers - {qlvl 6} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 26}
1 : 729 Angelic Halo - {qlvl 17} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 26}
1 : 2313 Angelic Wings - {qlvl 17} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 26}
1 : 16192 Tal Rasha's Adjudication - {qlvl 26} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 26} ( yes it can be had from normal Meph with 0%MF.)

Once you feel satisfied with your gear, move along to normal D. From there complete normal mode and now we get to focus on NM andy. Again, since her drop can be bugged so that you always get the quest drop, we should run her until we get some more decent gear. Here are the odds of some interesting things that she can drop.

1 : 254 Manald Heal - {qlvl 20} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 254 Nagelring - {qlvl 10} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 514 Frostburn - {qlvl 39} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49} ( if you are having mana issues. Plus these can be sold for lots to the right buyer)
1 : 519 Rogue's Bow - {qlvl 27} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 573 Wizendraw - {qlvl 35} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 704 Goldwrap - {qlvl 36} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 704 Magefist - {qlvl 31} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 793 Twitchthroe - {qlvl 22} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 839 Chance Guards - {qlvl 20} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 897 Kuko Shakaku - {qlvl 41} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49} (good bow to use through nightmare)
1 : 1041 Peasant Crown - {qlvl 36} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 1041 The Spirit Shroud - {qlvl 36} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 1047 Skin of the Vipermagi - {qlvl 37} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 1769 Rockstopper - {qlvl 39} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 1778 Razortail - {qlvl 39} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49}
1 : 3813 The Stone of Jordan - {qlvl 39} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49} (best odds in the game for this item )
1 : 8248 Witchwild String - {qlvl 47} Catacombs Level 4 - {mlvl 49} (yes, one of our end game bows can be had this early. But you can see that you will get 2 SOJs before one of these drop here according to the odds. So if you get one, consider yourself lucky.)

From here, move along to NM Meph. Just like before, you should run him until you get what you are looking for. Usually most of the sought after items can be found from him. HOZ, Occy, ect. can all be had here. Some interesting drop odds for items here are below:

1 : 993 Kelpie Snare - {qlvl 41} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59} (good merc weapon. Stick an amn in it and he will live for quite a while.)
1 : 1151 Duriel's Shell - {qlvl 49} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}(good armor for you or your merc.)
1 : 1508 Witchwild String - {qlvl 47} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 1681 Raven Frost - {qlvl 53} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 2405 Shaftstop - {qlvl 46} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 2864 Lycander's Aim - {qlvl 50} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 3894 The Oculus - {qlvl 50} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 4642 Skullder's Ire - {qlvl 50} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 4642 War Traveler - {qlvl 50} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 6594 The Cat's Eye - {qlvl 58} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 8500 Herald of Zakarum - {qlvl 50} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 14171 Gore Rider - {qlvl 55} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}
1 : 14171 Thundergod's Vigor - {qlvl 55} Durance of Hate Level 3 - {mlvl 59}

Just like normal, after you are satisfied with what you have gotten from NM Meph, move along and finish NM. Once in hell, we can finally begin to work on getting things from alvl85 areas.

Why run the ALVL85 areas?

Quite simply, these areas are the only areas in the game where every single item available in the game can drop. The drops are based on a complex formula that has some basic facts:

1. The highest and most difficult items to find in the game are from Treasure Class 87 (tc87)
2. TC87 items can be dropped in the alvl85 areas from either champ packs, or boss packs and their minions.
3. The game takes the area level and uses that for determining the monster level.
4. Pending the monster level, the game calculates what items can be dropped.
5. The game randomly picks a TC to drop from as low as 3 to as high as 87. Of course, it could always to pick the junkTC and give you gold, arrows, pots, ect.
6. Once a TC is chosen, a specific item is selected from that TC. ( this is why MF does not help runes dropping)
7. From here the game takes the odds of the monster to drop a specific quality of item ( magical, rare, set, and unique ) and factors in your MF.
a. For example you kill a champion monster in the pits. His mlvl will be 87 so all of the TCs will be available to you.
b. The game drops 2 pots from the junk TC as champs always drop 2 pots and another item.
c. The game picks a TC to drop from. If it chooses the rune or gem TC, then the MF calculations are skipped.
d. Since Champs always drop at least a magical item, the odds for a magical drop would be close to 100%. However we have to account for rares, sets and unique +items. So more realistically we are looking at odds like this:
i. Unique=1%, Set=3%, Rare=5%, Magical=91%
e. Those numbers are not accurate but we can use them for examples. So if for example you had on 100MF and you killed this champion monster, your odds of any unique dropping would be 1.71%. How is this? The game takes your MF and multiplies it by the percent the monster has for dropping that type of item. Below is a table that will list the MF levels and their effective MF for sets, uniques and rares.
i. 50% MF = 50% magical, 46% rare, 45% set, and 41% unique
ii. 100%MF = 100% magical, 85% rare, 83% set, and 71% unique
iii. 150%MF = 150% magical, 120% rare, 115% set, and 93% unique
iv. 200%MF = 200% magical, 150% rare, 142% set, and 111% unique my recommendation for best kill speed and amount of MF.
v. 250%MF = 250% magical, 176% rare, 166% set, and 125% unique
vi. 300%MF = 300% magical, 200% rare, 187% set, and 136% unique
vii. 350%MF = 350% magical, 221% rare, 205% set, and 145% unique
viii. 400%MF = 400% magical, 240% rare, 222% set, and 153% unique
ix. 500%MF = 500% magical, 272% rare, 250% set, and 166% unique
x. 600%MF = 600% magical, 300% rare, 272% set, and 176% unique
xi. 700%MF = 700% magical, 323% rare, 291% set, and 184% unique
xii. 800%MF = 800% magical, 342% rare, 307% set, and 190% unique
xiii. 900%MF = 900% magical, 360% rare, 321% set, and 195% unique
xiv. 1000%MF = 1000% magical, 375% rare, 333% set, and 200% unique
f. So as you can see, to change the drop percentage to 3% of a unique item from a champ boss, you would need 1000%MF on. This is not realistic to achieve in game without cracking the game or its items. I can attest to this as I have a single player character that runs the pits and she has fudged gear to have well over 2000% MF and she gets just about as many uniques from the pits as I do with my strafeazon on b.net.

ALVL85 running

Now that you have arrived in hell, greater than level 74 for the chance to hit formula, we can begin working on obtaining items from alvl85 areas. The first area that you can work on clearing is the Mausoleum. This is the dungeon found to the right of Blood Raven. This area is full of lightning immune monsters. There is not a single cold immune in the place so feel free to stock up on those cold damage charms. There will be between 3-6 boss packs in here. There will not be any ranged attackers in the place so there should be no fear of death in here. This area is full of undead so you will have a problem if you rely on leaching for mana. Bring some blue pots with you. You don’t even have to ask for a wp to get to this place as it is right past the cold plains area. The best plan for this area is to kill all the monsters you find. It is a relatively small area to run and there are goodies inside the barrels. The sparkly chest at the end will not drop anything special but it could contain some surprises.

After you make it to the outer cloister, turn around and go locate the Pits. The pits can be found by heading southwest from the outer cloister waypoint. Just follow the road and you will either come to the black marsh or the pits. Once inside the pits you will find 6-8 boss packs. Usually there are 4-5 on level 1 and 2-3 on level 2. One of these boss packs can be replaced with a champion style pack, and this is what we hope for as this means more chances at the elusive TC87 category. Usually there will be 2 champs, 1 ghostly, and 1 possessed. There is also a sparkly chest on lvl 2 that is like the one in the mausoleum. It can’t drop well, but it can contain some surprises. Be very careful of the ranged attackers. These will be lightning immune archers. If they spawn as a boss pack, it is usually a cursed, auraed combination. When that happens, do your best to kill the boss first. If you see your valk or merc go down really fast to them, it is time to S&E and start a new game. This makes the pits one of the most dangerous areas to MF, but the rewards can be soo good. Just take your time, walk and don’t run as these archers can spring out of nowhere. The best practice is to use your decoy as a scout. Cast a decoy at the edge of the screen where you are headed and your decoy will call out the monsters there. You will be able to see what kind of foes you are up against as they beat on your decoy as opposed to you. Using these basic tactics, I have yet to die in the pits with my zon. I will post screenies of what she wears and her stats at the end.

Next up after the pits would be the ancient tunnels in act 2. There are other area 85 areas, however no one really wants to run them. Such as maggot lair level 3, eew, and 3 temples in kurast, double eew. The ancient tunnels are exactly like the mausoleum. Full of undead, with a few leachables, and all lightning immune. I would not recommend this area for your zon as this area is better suited for a cold sorc. More on that later.

The next place to go is the river of flame / chaos sanctuary. You will want to get the City of the Damned wp so that you can start at the beginning of the river of flame. This is a rather difficult area to clear as there usually all types of resistant monsters here. There are also unique monsters that spawn for the shocker type of monster that get the nasty mod of physical immune. But, since you already have 1 point in magic arrow and have a few + to skills on, this should be enough to take down the PIs. If you have javelins on switch, feel free to use them as well. I would also recommend swapping out your gloves for Laying of Hands for the +350% damage to daemons in this area. Just about all monsters you will run into from here to killing Diablo will be daemons and this added damage is greatly appreciated. The only ranged attackers here are the pesky Abyssal Knights with their elemental damage spells. If you feel like tackling him, Hephasito is here at the forge. You can try to take him down, however he usually spawns with some pretty nasty mods. He drops like a super unique in that he has 2 item drops. Once inside the chaos sanctuary, all you really need to watch for is the Obvlion Knights and their pesky habit of casting IM on you or your merc. If you get hit with this curse, keep shooting arrows. This will not faze you one bit. However, if your merc or your valk get this curse, be sure to pull them back. It is not absolutely necessary to go to town to remove the curse, but you can if you would like. When I run chaos, I just let my merc die as me and my Valk can pretty much take care of everything that comes our way. Of the 3 seal bosses, the only one to be weary of is Lord de Seis. He will always have fanaticism aura and he is one of those pesky OKs that cast IM. I usually put up a decoy above where they spawn so that if they get the mod of extra fast, they go for the decoy and not me. And then there is Diablo. He is a good boss to kill as he can drop some really good stuff. Be sure to look for grand charms from him as these can get that elusive +41 to 45 life affix on it. If you do plan on running chaos with this zon, be sure to place some points in the javelin skills and get a decent javelin or spear to use to kill him. Pending on what you find will determine if you go Lightning strike / Lightning Fury OR jab. If you find a decent set of javelins ( lots of + to skills ) then go the lightning route. If you find a spear with lots of damage and life leach on it, then go the jab route. Be sure to be wearing your laying of hands gloves. I cannot stress how much faster this whole area clears wearing these gloves. If you have to sacrifice your knockback to get these gloves on, then that’s fine. But do not get rid of knockback and life leach and resistances ( fire and lit ) to put these gloves on.

The last area to run us World Stone Keep (WSK). All 3 levels are alvl85 and have loads of boss packs and champ packs. You also have the opportunity to run into souls as well as exploding dolls. HOWEVER, this is where delirium shines. Once the confuse curse is cast, all of the monsters are focused on attacking the other monsters instead of you. Swapping out the belt to put on Thundergod’s gets you lighting absorb. Of course you could also put on some wisp rings for the lit absorb. This is one area where knockback is a must. If you do not have knockback on your bow, leave the laying of hand in the stash until you get to the waves in the throne room. The confuse curse works on all the monsters except for the champs and unique bosses. And well, it also does not work on lister or his pack. This makes lister a very hard kill. I usually stand next to Baal for all the waves as only 1 or 2 monsters can come up the stairs. This also keeps my merc and valk close to me for protection. I usually cast a TP behind me after the first wave to get cured of the poison from the second wave. I also recast the tp so that if waves 3, 4, or 5 are particularly nasty, I have an escape route. Running the WSK is the most dangerous alvl85 to run. IT is not due to Baal at the end, he is a piece of cake with the laying of hands on. It is due to the possible nastiness that can spawn on the way there. Usually there will be a level with souls on it, if not 2. And sometimes it can be downright nasty with souls, dolls, and OKs. I have made a few runs with my zon, but my time is better spent in the pits as I can do 2 or 3 clears of the pits in the same time it takes me to do WSK2, 3, and throne room. WSK is, I hate to say it, better suited for a h-din.

--continued--
Member
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Joined: Feb 5 2007
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Mar 24 2007 05:30pm
The Drops

Ok, ok, ok. Now that I have read all that, what can I expect to get for my time? Well, that is the thing aint it? You have to remember that this is not going to be a fast track to getting rich. There will be many disappointing runs before you get that one really freaking awesome run. To keep yourself from getting discouraged, do not count how many great items you find. Just keep track of how many sets, uniques, failed sets, and failed uniques you do find. What’s that? You have no idea what a failed set or unique is? A failed set is a magical (blue) item that has 2x durability. Such as a legendary mallet. There is no set item for a legendary mallet. IF the game chose to drop a set legendary mallet, it would fail and drop a 2x durability magical item. Same goes with uniques. Only there will be more of these that you think. In one game, I had a failed great haubrik fall twice. Imagine, 2 unique great haubriks were picked to fall in the same game. These armors turned out to be great $ as neither had any special mods on them and I could always use the 35K gold. Just how hard is it to get a unique from TC 87 to drop? Glad you asked. Here are some formulae:

Let’s take an example. Say you kill non-boss Devilkin in The Pit level 1 in Hell in /players8 mode (or in the full game in Battle.net). It has Mlvl=85. In monstats.txt file Devilkin is figured under "fallen3" name. Non-unique fallen3 drop items from "Act 1 (H) H2H B" TC in Hell difficulty.
In TreasureClassEx.txt file "Act 1 (H) H2H B" TC has group=7 and level=66. Because Mlvl=85 the TC is upgraded to "Act 5 (H) H2H C" TC, which has level=85 (less or equal to mlvl).
So Devilkins in The Pit drop items from "Act 5 (H) H2H C" TC.
It has 1 pick from following possibilities:
* NoDrop (100);
* gld (21);
* Act 5 (H) Equip C (16);
* Act 1 (H) Junk (21);
* Act 5 (H) Good (2).
The numbers in parentheses are probabilities.
Let’s calculate NewNoDrop:
ProbSum=21+16+21+2=60.
NoDrop=100.
N=4.
NewNoDrop=int( 60/(1/((100/(100+60))^4)-1) )=11.

So The Pit Devilkin has fallowing chances:
* 11/71 for not dropping at all;
* 21/71 for dropping gold;
* 16/71 for dropping from Act 5 (H) Equip C;
* 21/71 for dropping from Act 1 (H) Junk;
* 2/71 for dropping from Act 5 (H) Good.

Lets assume, that the game decided to drop from "Act 5 (H) Equip C" TC. Here it is: Picks=1, NoDrop=0, Item1="weap81", Prob1=2, Item2="armo81", Prob2=1, Item3="weap84", Prob3=6, Item4="armo84", Prob4=3, Item5="weap87", Prob5=14, Item6="armo87", Prob6=7, Item7="weap87", Prob7=1, Item8="armo87", Prob8=1, Item9="Act 5 (H) Equip B", Prob9=1530. Note, that weap87 and armo87 TCs are mentioned twice, it is not an error.

So this TC has fallowing chances:
* 2/1565 for dropping from weap81;
* 1/1565 for dropping from armo81;
* 6/1565 for dropping from weap84;
* 3/1565 for dropping from armo84;
* 15/1565 for dropping from weap87;
* 8/1565 for dropping from armo87;
* 1530/1565 for dropping from "Act 5 (H) Equip B".

Let’s assume, that the game decided to drop from armo87. This TC has picks=1, NoDrop=0, Item1="Diadem", Prob1=3, Item2="Corona", Prob2=3, Item3="Sacred Armor", Prob3=3, Item4="Ogre Gauntlets", Prob4=3, Item5="Myrmidon Greaves", Prob5=3, Item6="Colossus Girdle", Prob6=3, Item7="Dream Spirit", Prob7=1, Item8="Guardian Crown", Prob8=1, Item9="Vortex Shield", Prob9=1, Item10="Bloodlord Skull", Prob10=1.
So armo87 has fallowing chances:
* 3/22 for Diadem;
* 3/22 for Corona;
* 3/22 for Sacred Armor;
* 3/22 for Ogre Gauntlets;
* 3/22 for Myrmidon Greaves;
* 3/22 for Colossus Girdle;
* 1/22 for Dream Spirit;
* 1/22 for Guardian Crown;
* 1/22 for Vortex Shield;
* 1/22 for Bloodlord Skull.

That is just to get a TC87 item to drop. Now here is how much further we have to go to make this damn thing unique:

Here is quality check algorithm:

1) Find proper line in itemratio.txt.
2) Chance = (BaseChance - ((ilvl-qlvl)/Divisor)) * 128
3) if (we check for unique, set or rare quality) EffectiveMF=MF*Factor/(MF+Factor)
else EffectiveMF=MF
4) Chance= Chance* 100/(100+ EffectiveMF).
5) if (Chance 6) FinalChance=Chance-(Chance*QualityFactor/1024)
7) If (RND[ FinalChance ]<128) return Success
else return Fail

BaseChance — The value from Unique, Rare, Set, Magic, HiQuality and Normal fields of itemratio.txt.
ilvl — Item Level, usually ilvl=mlvl.
qlvl — quality level of item type.
Divisor — The value from UniqueDivisor, RareDivisor, SetDivisor, MagicDivisor, HiQualityDivisor and NormalDivisor fields of itemratio.txt.
MinChance — The value from UniqueMin, RareMin, SetMin, MagicMin fields of itemratio.txt. For high quality and Normal items MinChance=0.
QualityFactor — The value from Unique, Set, Rare, Magic fields of TreasureClassEx.txt file for TC of the monster, that dropped this item.

Let’s look at it more attentively.

At the first step the game finds suitable line in itemratio.txt. As you know, there are separate lines for Classic/LoD games, class specific/non-class specific items and normal/exceptional and elite items.
After finding proper line it has all values, which it needs for calculations: item level, quality level, base quality chance, quality divisor, minimum quality chance, MF%, MF diminishing returns factor and monster quality factor.
Let’s repeat again where the game takes them.
Item level is just equal to monster level. Quality level is the level of item type. MF% is taken from player’s equipment. MF diminishing returns factor is 250 for unique, 500 for set and 600 for rare qualities. All other values are taken from itemratio.txt file, except monster quality factor. The last is maximum value from Unique, Set, Rare, Magic fields of TreasureClassEx.txt file for all TCs, that the game have scanned, searching for this item type.
At the last step we just have 128/FinalChance chance to get Success.

Let’s take an example.

Say Hell Baal is dropping Unearthed Wand with 200% MF.
The check for unique:
1) Use line #5, "Uber".
2) ilvl=99 (from monstats.txt), qlvl=86 (from weapons.txt), BaseChance=400 (for unique from itemratio.txt), Divisor=1.
Chance = (BaseChance - ((ilvl-qlvl)/Divisor)) * 128=49536.
3) Factor=250 for unique quality.
EffectiveMF=MF*Factor/(MF+Factor)=111.
4) Chance= Chance* 100/(100+ EffectiveMF)=23476
5) Chance< MinChance (false, because 23476>6400).
6) QualityFactor=983 for Hell Baal (from TreasureClassEx.txt).
FinalChance=Chance-(Chance*QualityFactor/1024)=939.

If the game generates random number in 0-(FinalChance-1) range (rnd[FinalChance] function), that will be less then 128, it will generate unique Unearthed Wand. So you have 128:939 chance per Unearthed Wand pick to get unique.
If the game failed to generate unique Unearthed Wand it will try to generate set, then rare and so on.

For some item types and if the monster level is less than quality level of unique or set item, the game will generate high durability item.

So if you find Bramble Mitts, the game will check to see if they are Unique (whether or not there is a Unique of a given item type doesn't matter at this point), if that fails then Set, if that fails then Rare, and so on. If the roll for Unique or Set succeeds and there is not one of that base item (which happens quite often with Elite Uniques, and can happen with Elite, Excep, or normal sets) a lower quality item with bonus durability will be generated. Details:

* If you roll a Unique when one of that type does not exist or from a monster not high enough to drop it, you'll get a Rare of that type item with 3x the normal durability.
* If you roll a Set when one of that type does not exist or from a monster not high enough to drop it, you'll get a Magical of that type item with 2x the normal durability.
* Both of these can also happen when monsters aren't high enough to drop the given set or unique.
* This also happens with Uniques, if the same one is selected to drop more than once in a game. Since it can only drop once, the 2nd, 3rd, etc times it will drop to a 3x durability Rare.

So now that I have bored you to sleep with all that, what does it all mean? To put it simply, it takes and awful lot of luck to get any unique item in the game, let alone a high TC item. Basically, do many runs and count the greens and golds you find. If you feel you are not getting enough greens and golds, then raise your MF by adding charms. No need to swap gear around. Mf charms are all over the place and can be had as early as act 1 normal.

--continued--
Member
Posts: 7,093
Joined: Feb 5 2007
Gold: 50.00
Mar 24 2007 05:31pm
My opinions on Pit Running

I have run the pit with 3 different characters. A summon necro, a Lit/FO sorc, and a strafezon. Of them all, the strafezon did the best job at clearing the pit quickly. The Sorc was second due to switching skills for killing things. The summoner took to long to get the first body down to CE the rest. All three had different levels of MF on them. The summoner was pure MF from head to toe. Sure the skellies were prebuffed, but once raised, it was MF gear the entire way. The sorc was a mixture of survival and MF. She did a decent job, but again, due to switching skills, took a while. The sorc was better suited for ancient tunnels and mausoleum runs than pit runs. The zon was pure damage. She currently has 25 MF on and that is it. She has found things like Griz shield and the Windforce she is using. She has had a run with only 1 set dropping and then the next run with 4 uniques dropping with 2 failed uniques. This is the best example that it is all about luck and nothing to do with MF. Sure, more MF you have on, the more likely the next drop will be unique. However, you have to get that special magic number rolled by the game for that to happen. So do this, run the pit for 25 times. Count how many greens and golds you come across, include the failed items as well. If that number is not as high as you would like, then run a boss for quantity over quality.

The Blizz sorc and her duties

The only other character I would suggest for alvl85 running is a blizz sorc. She can easily clear out the mausoleum, ancient tunnels, and do Meph for a finisher. Since these 2 alvl85 areas have no natural cold immunes, she will get the full extent of her CM skill combined with a maxed blizzard. I would suggest loading her up with MF gear as casting a few blizzards and waiting for the blue orb to fill will not be a problem. In these 2 areas there are no dangerous ranged attackers. You can always moat Meph to deal with his spells. Since the sorc comes with tele naturally, she would be the best choice for a Meph run as well as ancient tunnels as neither of these end destinations are in the same location.

Meph Runs

Start in town in act 4. Select the wp and go to durance 2. Prebuff all your defensive spells and cast enchant on your merc. Tele in a clockwise fashion around durance 2 and you will come to durance 3 90% first before you get to durance 1. If that makes no sense, do this. Take your characters left shoulder and place it against an outside wall. Follow that wall clockwise and you will eventually come to the stairs to durance 3 90% of the time before you come to durance 1 stairs. From there its tele to Meph, blizz, blizz, tele to reposition merc, blizz blizz and collect loot.

Ancient tunnels

Get the lost city wp and tele around until you find the ruins of the lost city. Next to the ruins you will find a trap door, much like the one inside lut gholein. Take the trap door down and kill everything inside. There are no ranged attackers and make sure your poison resistance is close to max. It would not hurt to also have some poison length reduced gear on as well.

Mausoleum

Take the cold plains wp and tele to the burial grounds. Go into the dungeon to the right of Blood Raven and kill all that is inside. There are no ranged attackers and no one has a natural elemental attack. Kick the barrels and pop that chest.

The end

That’s the guide. If you feel that there is something included here in error, let me know so that I can fix it. If you have any questions, post them here. Opinions are welcome too. If you are a seasoned Pit runner, post your experiences. All of the newbie players to this game need to get a grasp of how many runs must be done in order to obtain some of the awesome gear. I suggest starting with 25 and if you’re not happy, switch to a boss to run. If you are satisfied, then continue on to 100 runs. After this time you will have a good idea of what is going to drop, the patterns of the maps, and should have gained quite a few levels. Good Luck all and may all your drops be green and gold!

Morpheus of The Endless

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Screenies of my character are in the next post.......
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Mar 24 2007 05:40pm
gg read
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Mar 25 2007 02:08am
great read

how would the strafezon fare in hc? the only bit i skipped was the technical parts on drops probabilities...otherwise no flaws noticed:)
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Mar 25 2007 05:21am
Nice guide, GJ smile.gif
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