Hello and welcome to another (mini) project of mine: how quickly can I farm Arachnid Mesh from Mephisto (/players 5) on my Sorceress? The answer is 931 (also got some lucky drops from these runs )

If you just prefer to see the highlights from this project go to the section called "The Gameplay".

Table of Content
i. The Reason
ii. The Basics
iii. The Gear (Blizzard)
iiii. The Gear (Fire)
iiiii. The Gameplay
iiiiii. What's Next

The Reason

I decided to run Mephisto because I have yet to drop an Arachnid Mesh and I really wanted this belt for a few different builds on my single player journey. I also wanted to document my efficiency in terms of:
Average run time (Blizzard): 24:942 seconds

Decided to try out fire after The Oculus dropped:
Average run time (Fire): 20:847 seconds

It appears to me that when better gear options become available Fire will beat Ice. I have not tested Lightning because I have yet to find Griffon's Eye. I believe lightning will be the fastest but by the time Griffon's drops, you probably wont need to do Mephisto anymore

The Basics

I spent only 10 minutes rerolling maps to find the one I use in my video (see section "The Gameplay"). If you are planning to run Mephisto over and over I suggest you roll a map similar to mine. Or just ask for my map seed?

There is a few I would like to cover before we continue on to the gear. First thing is why I chose to run Mephisto on /players 5. Mephisto TC weights on Hell looks like this:



This means there is not difference between running Mephisto on /players 5 vs /players 7 except for the experience gained (I did not need experience, I need to Arachnid the fastest possible).

What is the probability for Mephisto to drop 6 items on the different player settings?



And this information does not matter without the following relative yields for different player settings:



What does this mean? The reason this is important is to understand how your average times on different player settings affect your efficiency. An example of how to understand this:

If I am doing my runs more than 3,2% slower on players 5 then on players 3, then the most efficient setting for me to run is /players 3.

Obviously this does not matter when you have gear equal to mine but when you are first starting out on single player just consider this: Is /players 1 actually better for me? The answer is most likely yes!

The Gear (Blizzard)

Phaseblade - IstIstIstIstIst (still missing one)
Shako - Ptopaz
Tal Rasha's Amulet
Spirit - 35%FCR
Engima
Cow King's Hooves
Snowclash
BKWB
Rare ring - 10%FCR, 14STR, 39LIFE + adds
Trang Oul's gloves

Inventory: Gheed's, MF SCS

Total MF: 511%MF

The Gear (Fire)

The Oculus
Shako - Ptopaz
Magic amulet - 1 Sorc skills, 30%MF
Spirit - 35%FCR
Enigma
Cow King's Hooves
Goldwrap
2 x BKWB
Chanceguards - 40%MF

Inventory: Gheed's, MF SCS

Total MF: 511%MF

The Gameplay

Below is the a video recording containing the following:
1) How an average run looked
2) When Spirit Keeper dropped
3) When a Ber rune dropped
4) When Arachnid Mesh dropped (at run 931)



What's Next?

The next project for me is a 200%FCR Sorceress farming Lower Kurast. I need a few midrunes, 1 Vex and 1 Sur to make both Beast and Phoenix. My current rune stash looks like this:



So it should not take long. Until then take care!

This post was edited by JDRUKA on Apr 1 2020 12:22pm

Is there any interest in a complete list of items I saved during this project?

Sure. Would like to c what elite items had dropped

I'd be interested, just as a comparison to what kind of things I found on my recent Meph grind in search of Reaper's.

I'm not sure how many runs I did exactly but it was somewhere in the realm of 1600 before Reaper's actually dropped! This was all on/p3, with MF varying between 200 and 250. The odd thing was that I got far rarer drops more than once (including two Mara's Kaleidoscope, two Wisp Projectors, a number of Redeemer/Heaven's Light, and three Kira's Guardian)!

Just curious if my experience was anomalous I've never had such an extended grind for what is ultimately not a very rare item!

This post was edited by Mukhalif on Apr 1 2020 02:18pm

Will upload it later. Can tell you I found 2 Reaper's Toll but I already found so many of them so I did not save them

Absolutely. I’ll take any quality post I can get to help pass the time during this quarantine.

Roger that. Actually just put all of the items on the same page:

• 2 x Harlequin Crest - 134def & 138def
  
• 2 x Skin of The Vipermagi - 24/10 & 33/12
  
• Shaftstop
  
• Bane Ash - actually very rare (picked up for my grail)
  
• The Redeemer - 254%ed, 89damage, 205%damage to demons, 4 redemption, 4 holy bolt
  
• Herald of Zakarum - 154%def
  
• Nagelring - 30%mf, 74ar (really nice for a Barbarian)
  
• Rainbow Facet - 3%pd, -5%epr
  
• Highlord's Wrath
  
• Mara's Kaleidoscope - 23 all resistances
  
• Lenymo - also very rare (picked up for my grail)
  
• Hone Sundan - 177%ed
  
• 3 x Andariel's Visage - 10%ll/27str, 9%ll/26str, 9%ll/27str
  
• String of Ears - 8%ll, 153%ed, 15%damage reduce, 15mdr
  
• Verdungo's Hearthy Cord - 40vita, 12%damage reduce
  
• Havoc Cowl - 2necro, 20%fcr, 24life
  
• Spirit Keeper - 1druid, 182%ed, 40fr, 10lightning absorb, 15%cold absorb
  
• Arachnid Mesh - 113%ed
  
• Homunculus - 193%ed
  
• 2 x Dracul's Grasp - 9%ll/10str, 10%ll/13str (ethereal)
  
• Hsarus' Iron Fist - also a rare (picked up for my grail)
  
• Gore Rider - 170%ed
  
• Suicide Branch
  
• 2 x Wolfhowl - shitty rolls
  
• Thunderstroke - 4java, 192%ed
  
• The Gladiator's Bane - shitty rolls
  
• The Oculus (forgot to include in picture)
  

Really love your how to meph tutorial :). I have never focused myself on get good roll of meph map

Thank you! Rolling a good map can save you a lot of time in the long haul

On meteor teh dmg was nice.