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View Full Version : Hell Andy Runs :: Where's the Drops!?!


MalVeauX
26-01-2006, 02:41
Heya Gents,

Well, after creating a rather quick and solid Hell-Andy Fireball/Meteor/Orb sorc, I've found it quite an easy run, and I do it in public games from time to time, sometimes in private games. Anyhow, the process is good; I teleport very quickly and I make it down to her pretty fast and without a scratch. My mercenary follows with his nearly 900 damage inight staff giving me endless mana. However, now that all is complete and the runs work (I have zero problem crushing Andy with fast fireballs), I've discovered a problem and have a few questions:

1 - Andy does'nt drop much at all. Sometimes, it's a single rare item or a low level set item and a Gem, or a Portal scroll. 2 total items in many drops! I've had a few times, when there were 2 items, sometimes 3 tops, including portals and gold or a gem, somethings only 1 real item drops. What gives? Some kind of ultra-nerf? Or is it my rotten luck of the same thing for days now, every day?

Note: I have 100% MF as I run; when I'm about to kill I switch to Gull, for a total of 200% MF. It's not a lot at all; so I shouldn't be having these really strange drops of zero items all the time, right?

2 - I have lower end MF going on, with only 100% up to 200% for kills. I shouldn't be spawning so many uniques as to disrupt drops. So I'm not sure what's causing the dismal success in Hell. Funnily, I do a Nightmare run sometimes to test it, and I seem to get more items (total items, not quality) from her in Nightmare than Hell. However, I notice the same thing happening with NM Mephy and NM Ball too. They drop sometimes only 1 or 2 items tops! And this is both in private and public games.

Other than this weird string of unfortunate luck or ignorance on my part, there's only one more thing:

3 - My merc does great damage, and has good defense and leech. Andy still owns him hard sometimes in a single hit (he's level 86). I have no idea why and he has full 75% poison resistance. It's a physical hit that just slams him dead (and he's not amped). This happens every now and then. I have to sometimes teleport back and forth to keep him alive while I spam fireballs. It works but it's annoying; I'd rather let him just tank, but he can't seem to tank Andy for the life of me. Is there an easy way to do this or suggestions that don't involve ultra-high runes? (ie: is it better to focus on might, or defiance?)

Cheers!

ConF
26-01-2006, 03:19
1+2: Andy usually drops at least 1 gem (kind of quest-drop, like duriel always dropping at least 1 tp-scroll). Apart from that her drop is random like any other act-boss. They can drop up to 6 items (including the gem/tp-scroll or crap like potions/gold piles) but don't have to. Very rarely you may even get no drop at all (except from andy/duriel -> gem/tp). Totally random and not at all affected by your mf.

I'm not sure what you're saying with mf 'disrupting' your drops. MF doesn't affect what items will drop, only their quality. The game checks which items will drop first (for example: 1x gold, 1x normal emerald, 1x breast plate, 1x mesh armor and 1x ring - 5 items total) your gold-find will affect how much gold would drop and your magic find would turn that shiny breast plate to a precious venom ward, while the mesh armor turns into a useless rare and the ring goes magic: Ring of Light, 968 gold from Gheed, hurray!

3: Mercs and other minions (valkyries, illusional friends and other creeps running around you) have some huge penalties against act-bosses. I'm not quite sure what the penalties are, but the idea is that they shouldn't stand a chance, unless you watch them very carefully and equip them with the best of the best stuff. I noticed physical damage reduction gear works much better against mephisto (hell) than maxed resists on my merc. Teleport him away from Andy when his life drops too much... keep some antidiote in your belt for emergencies (you should have on every character anyway... except fade-sins).

AnimeCraze
26-01-2006, 05:40
Rumour has it that using the imbue quest screws the quest drop bug that andy has.

melianor
26-01-2006, 09:15
3: Andy has some nasty nasty poison attacks and will usually rip any merc apart undless watched with health pots.

Drops are always pretty random and you can get good drops from Andy. It all just takes thousands of runs to get anythign really useful, like with any of the other bosses.

jackthelad
26-01-2006, 12:10
Hell Andy can drop some pretty good stuff: check this (http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/6426/screenshot0025fn.jpg) out!
That is with ~450mf tho :wink3:

Hrus
26-01-2006, 12:27
Number of items dropped does not depend on MF or on difficulty, only on players in the game. In full game, you will get much more items than in solo game. Andariel has higher no-drop chance than Mephy or Baal, so you gel less items per kill average. Then there is a Andariel bug which cause her to make a quest drop allways - she doesn't drop junk (arrows,scrolls etc.) and gold. Thus the chance for other items is higher (but also the chance for no-drop).
However I don't know for sure, if this bug wasn't fixed on BNet, but it's easy to check - if she drops gold, no quest drop. If there is a blue item of the type, for which exists a set - no quest drop.

Check the average number of items dropped by bosses in this post: http://forums.diabloii.net/showpost.php?p=4035474&postcount=3

ThePanzyLord
29-01-2006, 22:48
Hell Andy can drop some pretty good stuff: check this (http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/6426/screenshot0025fn.jpg) out!
That is with ~450mf tho :wink3:

Aww, I want a shako too.