What's the maths like on level 14 find item Vs level 33?

I tried to hold back points from find item at 66/67% (the point where adding skills stops increasing %) and dump more into howl and sword mastery for a stronger zero to clear more than just trav and hork heralds but I'm feeling like I may have gimped the gold find part too much for not much of a stronger zero?

Is the difference between 66% and 75/76% chance really as big as it seems?

The math is that because p1 Find Item gives you p7 drops (=p8 drops), going 33-38 Find Item is basically a cheat code into broken drop rates. Prior to Find Potion synergy (+1% per point) we ran even lower numbers, but it was still broken. It just gets more and more broken every % you get.

imo 29 or 33 are easy, 38 is a bit of a push, and 45 is a pure Find Item focus build. I usually aim for 33.

I had no idea that subsequent % increases were so impactful, I guess i'll be aiming for 38 then.

I've dusted off my old HCSSF trav zerker a bit since ROTW - he can now comfortably clear P3 in safety/speed with new gheeds belt, 1x sling ring, magic guardian jewel (sockets into the helmet, cham moves to the shield) and magic sunder with -magres; keep using 2 dwarf stars if you're sticking to p1 goldfind.

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Does anyone know how much more damage gore riders do over war travelers? Maxroll doesn't seem to be calculating it correctly, they show WT as higher DPS. This would be with a 385DMG grief equipped and 68 effective crit without the gores (20 grief/34highlord/31 blade mastery)

On a Zerker probably not much help. On WW/Frenzy Gore is probably more impactful.

Is the damage % from berserk additive with offhand sources of ED or an independent multiplier?

I'm trying to figure out the best allocation for extra points into either berserk synergy (howl) and sword mastery after maxing out battle orders.

Berserk’s listed +% Damage is additive with the normal off-weapon ED pool, not a separate independent multiplier. Skill bonus, non-weapon enhanced damage, auras, and Str/Dex bonus are added together first and then applied once.

But like I alluded to a little earlier in this thread, with this character built properly, you only need 1 point in BO/shout so you can min/max elsewhere. I'm not exaggerating when I say neither I nor my merc has died in ~2 years doing that using the occasional juv for myself when there's a really bad aura combo spawn (that's at lvl 95-96 during that period, p1'ing trav in regular + lvl96 TZs).

And even if you die occasionally because you're lower lvl or don't have GG gear yet, those 20 extra points going elsewhere is going to net you more gold/minute.

I play HC so I feel a little more conflicted about ditching BO, but 1-pt shout for sure is enough.

I have 20 hard points into the following : berserk, find potion, find item, battle orders and the rest get dumped into weapon mastery & the usual 1 pointers. What would you consider a better way to spend the points?

I'm running p3 trav right now on HCSSF, it takes me on average 10 extra seconds per run compared to P1. If you have any suggestions for maxing out damage/efficiency i'd love to hear them, i'm running the following :

Grief Phase
Stormshield (cham)
Highlords
Lay of Hands
Shako (new -magres jewel)
Dwarf Star / Sling Ring
Enigma
Gheeds belt

77% find item / 273 MF / 752 GF including inventory

Merc's using Eth Infinity, CoH & a G-face with a -phys res protectors stone. I've never dropped an eth ariocs and I don't have a ZOD for EBOTD, so I think the Infinity's the best setup?

This post was edited by filmd2 on Mar 27 2026 05:24pm

I started hell trav at 78 with a grief and am at 91 now of only running trav.

I could not make the a2 Merc live and didn't want to spend the runes for CoH or Fort. Switched to the A5 frenzy Merc with Hustle for a helm/weapon and unbending will for the other weapon. I don't have to feed him potions and he moves so fast that one tele is all it takes to get him in front of me to soak hydras and council.

He can't kill anything though. I tried giving him my grief for a handful of runs and I didn't notice his damage change at all.

I just swapped to grief MH and runemaster in the offhand with 5 lem runes and dual babas with lem for hork. I was running max block storm shield (play hardcore) but wanted to try something different. Gold is averaging around 430k in a 40-50 second game.

Edit swapped trang belt for runemaster for CBF after I found a very nice gold find belt

This post was edited by treehead01 on Mar 30 2026 07:03am

Your problem is not using A2 Merc with CoH or Fort. A5 Merc is just dogshit. CoH is pretty cheap on HCNL, but I can understand on HCL trying alternatives. For sure it's expensive on Ladder, especially early on.
If Cham rune is the problem, then Runemaster offhand is fine. Otherwise I'd recommend just using 6os Phase Blade since it increases Zerk attack speed compared to Runemaster.

I play HC as well and you definitely do not need Stormshield. It's completely unnecessary.

This post was edited by Exokek on Mar 30 2026 07:32am