Running the Act1 Pit is better than Running Mephy

[Nolomite]

By a wide margine. The pit is in the Tamoe Highlands - it's easy to get to from the Outer Cloister waypoint & go backwards a bit.

The monsters from from a maximum treasure class (TC) of 85, as opposed to a Durance drop maxxing out at 83 - only a slight advantage there, but then again any advantage is worth exploiting. Best of all, there are LOTS of Unique monsters there to give you drops - and with a MF of only 70, I've been getting great items.

In less than 20 runs:

Stonecrusher - Elite Unique Legendary Mallet
Cerebus Bite - Elite Unique Blood Spirit (Druid)
Husoldal Evo - Exceptional Unique Bec de Corbin
Lycander's Flank - Exceptional Unique Ceremonial Pike (Amazon)
Tomb Reaver - Elite Unique Cryptic Axe
Black Hades - Exceptional Unique Chaos Armor



A handfull of mid-level Set Items, from sets such as :

M'avina's
Orphan's Call
Heaven's Brethren

Blue, White, and Socketed elite weapons and armor all over the place - a couple fall per run. I pick up enough to pay for my Freeze Merc's resurrection - the dolt!

Best of all, it's easier to run and survive than levels 2 & 3 of the Durance - no cases of 15 blood lords spamming Meteors and Firewall before you can even find the unique monsters.

Lastly, between the couple of encounters in the Cloister, the few on the way to the Pit, the medium sized first level and the small second level of the Pit itself, you rack up enough experience to keep advancing your level.



The only drawback is that the Pit - at least the map I've spawned - is a bit rough on the merc. He's got an annoying habit of standing & watching archers he can't reach plug him with arrows until he's dead. There's plenty of stuff I don't need to sell & pay for his resurrection, but it does slow things down.

[Chaplain]

Ah, can't wait until my MFing skelliemancer reaches hell. :)

[Nolomite]

I was in the middle of act III when I read about the Pit, and started running after I wasted Mephy. I ran the Pit for a few days and scored bigtime - I run Mephy about once a day, to break things up a bit, but the Pit is far safer for me (lvl 80 Avenger). When I get to lvl 84 my merc can use that cool Cryptic Axe - then I'll go finish Act 4. Right now he just dies all the time in crowds - the Act 2 merc's AI is far too agressive for their killing power. The big-time weapon will help immediately - but I'm in no hurry to leave the Pit runs right now.

[theBlackKnight]

Haha ahahaha n00b I r runned 15 mepy runz when you dun wit level 2 pit

I personally just like seing a unique everytime I visit mephy, in fact, if I remember correctly, he _hasn't_ dropped a piece of isenharts for me yet all ladder season, with lwell over 200 runs on him already. Time to go make pindle drop more crap rares for me, since I dont want to find every item in the game :lol:

[Dodgydave]

The Pit certainly has the potential to drop a lot better (read higher TC) items than Meph, however, Meph is certainly more likely to drop Green and Gold items. So it depends on what you are looking for, if you want to find the top quality elites then the Pit is for you, if you want to fill out a nice collection of exceptional and some lower TC elites then Meph is probably the place to go.

Congrats on the Stone Crusher and especially the Tomb Reaver Nolomite.

(And TC class wise both the Durance 2 and 3 and Pit are TC 87 areas, that is level 85, the Pit just has a higher concentration of Boss monsters than the Durance therefore making it more desirable to run.)

[Nolomite]

Haha ahahaha n00b I r runned 15 mepy runz when you dun wit level 2 pit : lol: Yes, that's about right!!

I personally just like seing a unique everytime I visit mephy, in fact, if I remember correctly, he _hasn't_ dropped a piece of isenharts for me yet all ladder season, with lwell over 200 runs on him already. Time to go make pindle drop more crap rares for me, since I dont want to find every item in the game :lol:


My MF isn't high enough to assure greens and golds from Mephy - if I can keep edging the resists up, I can start to put some MF gear back on. And once I hit lvl 84, my merc can use the Tomb Reaver, which should help the efforts significantly.

I seem to be destined to get Skullsplitters from Mephy, along with Isenhart's Case of course.

[theBlackKnight]

My MF isn't high enough to assure greens and golds from Mephy - if I can keep edging the resists up, I can start to put some MF gear back on. And once I hit lvl 84, my merc can use the Tomb Reaver, which should help the efforts significantly.

I seem to be destined to get Skullsplitters from Mephy, along with Isenhart's Case of course.
Well, I guess meph just likes me then ^_^

[Dodgydave]

My MF isn't high enough to assure greens and golds from Mephy - if I can keep edging the resists up, I can start to put some MF gear back on. And once I hit lvl 84, my merc can use the Tomb Reaver, which should help the efforts significantly.

I seem to be destined to get Skullsplitters from Mephy, along with Isenhart's Case of course.

Well evryone sees too much of Isenharts Case! :lol: but seriously you don't need great MF to run Meph and I'd think if you had lowish MF you'd be better running a boss since they tend to drop a lot higher quality (green/gold) than normal monsters to begin with. I've not found it unusual to run the pit half a dozen times with 600+ mf and come up with no greens or gold at the end of it!

[Gorny]

My MF isn't high enough to assure greens and golds from Mephy -


Your MF does not have to be at a higher level to ensure green and gold drops. You just get a higher chance of a drop, with diminishing returns with the higher % you go.

You can still get sets and uniques with zero MF.

[super_gray]

My barb can clear the pits now easily, but he has no MF gear on, if i remove my Arreats Helm, my resistances shoot down to like -30, which aint good :/

[Nolomite]

Your MF does not have to be at a higher level to ensure green and gold drops. You just get a higher chance of a drop, with diminishing returns with the higher % you go.

Then Meph must have something against me - after making that last post I ran them once each: Mephy dropped me a Dragon Chang Normal Unique Spear and some blue junk; The Pit dropped a Naj's Circlet :lol: and a Toothrow Exceptional Unique Sharktooth Armor.


In the Durance I end up standing in firewalls to do my fighting - "ooo! ahhh! ohhh!" the whole time I'm on L3.


I'll keep gutting-out some Mephy runs, but the Pit is much, much kinder to me.

[Gorny]

Luck is involved in it as well.

[Cooked]

Well evryone sees too much of Isenharts Case!

Cube 3 Isenharts' cases and you get one flawed ruby don't you?

Sorry... I am really tired.

I'm off to ...... well, do something important....I think.


I think the Pit run is good because it is usually easier than Mephy for me but, Mephy has his uses too.

[xOSERx]

Ah, can't wait until my MFing skelliemancer reaches hell. :)

Woo! Cheers to the mf skellimancer! =)

-Oser

[Nolomite]

While I was composing a note about how the great drops had halted, the Pit yielded a few more Unique weapons (the best of which was a Swordguard, not great but not shabby) and some nice runes - it's been dropping a rune of at least Shael-level about every 10 runs or so.

The Pit did cool down, and it's much harder to level now at 82 than when I was at 78-79 : I have to set players = 4.

I still don't get squat from Mephy, and I have to revive my merc 3 or 4 times. Too many firewalls and meteors there for the lousy drops I've been getting.

[Bizkit]

Man, I can't wait until I get to hell. Only have normal and nightmare to go!