Best place to find a Memoryable +3 ES staff?

[soulesschild]

Would it be norm cows or nm cows for a 4 socketable +3 ES staff?

[essojay]

I'm not even sure if four-socket staves drop in normal cows. I'd say nightmare.

[realjeep]

I wish I knew the answer to this question... I think in the energy shield sorc build guide he mentions doing normal baal runs, but who knows. It is more likely that you can find a plain white staff that you can use larzuk to put the sockets in.

As with anything, you might get lucky, but I have been checking every dropped eligible staff for at least 2 months and the closest I have found was a plain +2 e.s. and a 3 socket +3 e.s. This includes just about all areas, as I have been running characters through acts lvling up and mfing around in hell.

realjeep

[Thrugg]

A 4 socket staff can not drop in normal. That is a cap that the game imposes and even if an item is otherwise eligible to have more sockets, it will not spawn (either from a monster or in the shops) with more than 3.

However it is possible to get a plain item from normal and have Larzuk stick more than 3 sockets in it.

OK, ES is a level 24 skill. That means it can spawn on as low as an ilvl 25 staff, but is most common on ilvl 37+ staves. The ilvl 25 requirement means shopping is out. If an item is ilvl 25 or more in the shops it will always be magical so no good for Memory.

Next, type of staff. Your best bets are the Gnarled/Cedar/Elder or Battle/Gothic/Shillelagh types. They always have 4 sockets as their max so Larzuk will always give you 4 in them, or you have a 1/2 chance with the cube. Lower staves can't get 4 sockets at all and the War/Rune/Archon types can get 5 or 6 so less chance of 4.

I'd rule out normal cows (a) because 4s staves can't drop there naturally and (b) white staves that drop there will be ilvl 28 which is considerably less likely to have a level 24 skill on it like ES.

However there really isn't anywhere in NM that particularly stands out as best. Anywhere past the NM Stony Field will be dropping items of high enough level to give you the best chance possible of ES spawning, and any white staff of the two types I recommed will get 4 sockets from Larzuk. You can go all the way up to NM cows if you want but you don't need to. Just anywhere you can make a lot of kills quickly (and probably best to have not much MF on) in NM is good.

[Rekk_Dalton]

if uswest look me up some time and i'll dig one out for you
acct *cygni or *rekk_dalton