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Posts: 351
Joined: Jul 15 2020
Gold: 3.00
Jul 23 2020 04:41pm
Hi guys,

As the title says I set off on the ultimate Diablo 2 quest yesterday evening.

I've been playing this game since it came out and have never set out to accomplish this before

I wanted to see what would drop, and go to areas I've never been to before, and just flat out challenge myself on Hardcore Ladder!

I had always wondered what it would be like to clear an entire difficulty, EVERY AREA in HELL.

I'm talking, I went into every red portal in A5, every spider cave in A3, every nook and cranny in the crystalline passage EVERY HOLE IN THE DAMN GAME!!

I will add I did NOT kill EVERY SINGLE minion, I would say I killed about 95% of every monster in the game, as I didnt waste time chasing down 1 singleton that was running/teleporting away etc...

So some up front info:

I used a level 90 fishymancer

I do have enigma, but I did not tele past any areas, simply used it to shallow tele for defense/restacking summons.

Gear is great but not super godly (i kept as much MF on that I could safely clear everything and do it quick enough)

-P topaz shako
-P diamond homunc
-Enigma (dusk shroud)
-1 skiller GC , gheeds and various MF/Life/Res charms
-2 nagelrings, one 30 one 27
-goldwrap
-chance guards
-Hoto (35res)
-triple res 30 FRW 20MF boots
-Necro torch (19 res 11 to attr)
-No anni
-No CTA

Merc:

-Partizan Insight (lvl 16 medi)
-Vamp Gaze
-Eth Great Hauberk Treachery

With the above gear I have max res, 70% chance to block 1200 hp and just over 350 MF,

For act bosses, I weapon switched to a double isted Ali Baba.

I found lots of neat things, but the stuff worth mentioning for those interested:

-4os superior monarch
-lidless
-10fcr 10all res ring (with other not so great modifiers in addition)
-2x tal mask
-HOZ
-Perfect gheeds (on mf not vendor reduction)
-Sandstorm Trek scarabshell boots
-4 to nado helm (2 to dru skills, 2 to nado, with 3 to Armageddon, + life per level, + mana per level)

The highest rune I found was a Lum (sorta disappointed with this one, high runes always seem to evade me :( ).

Some observations -

Doing a run like this really made me appreciate the game for what it is,
I came back to D2 about a month ago for the 20th anniversary and I can say it truly is a masterpiece, the gothic feel and artwork of the play dough like world is just mesmerizing.

This is quite the way to break up your typical MF routine, as you explore areas you most likely have never been to before! (I found many areas I had never explored/seen/knew existed).

My drops started to get SIGNIFICANTLY better upon reaching act 2, and most of the noteworthy drops above came from act 3 and on (the HOZ fell from a monster in tombs a2).

None of the drops mentioned above came from act bosses, everything was dropped by either a unique/normal monster.

I popped poppables that were convenient (not far off the path I was moving through) or when they were clustered in big formations,
I personally believe after doing this excercise that poppables are NOT WORTH your time, I found absolutely nothing worth keeping in hundereds of chests, crates, pots etc...

Act 4 is definitely my favorite act after doing this, talk about needing to be engaged, especially in HELL HC, I love how different creatures require different approaches i.e lord de sais pack you want to tele to an edge and get one down to pop with CE,
Whereas a pack of souls you need more of a finesse approach, tele-ing around until you find the perfect angle where they cant all shoot you at one time.

After going through this, Act 4 truly feels like you are in the land of the lost, crawling your way through hell and back, its amazing how the creators at blizzard were able to create something so dark and spooky, the things of nightmares truly....

I never got red-bar'd but I got insta 50% multiple times in A4 and 5, you really do have to be locked into the game to accomplish this quest especially in these acts...

Overall it took me about 10-11 hours over the course of 2 days, I would always be sure to stop at an Act boss or waypoint in order to pick up right where I left off.

I gained approximately 1/4th of a level at level 90.

All in all, I wasn't really that impressed with the drops... I would imagine if you put in 10 hours to the regular routine MF bosses/spots you would probably come out with much stronger loot, but it wasnt horrible findings.

I was really bummed I didnt come across at least 1 high rune in my quest, but that just shows how rare it actually is to find them, and why they are so desired.

Well, if you read this far thank you so much and I hope you enjoyed reading through my journey!~

Happy hunting.





Member
Posts: 334
Joined: May 20 2017
Gold: 209.00
Jul 30 2020 08:06pm
The more mf you have on = less rune drop.
If I’m farming for runes and sockets I take off mf.
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