a few questions for you guys.

[tartanasia]

recently I switched from Sp Lod Sc to Lod hc and now onto classic hc. So far Ive got a lvl 61 fishymancer act 1 hell a dead lvl 34 lancer ww barb and Im starting work on a FA/straffe zon, vengenace pally and sorb/fwall or fball sorc. My first question is:

1. Whats a good start for starting an army with a skelly fishy 20/20/14 skell mast/skellys/Ce

2. Whats the deal with socketed armours? I cant shop/find any and I swear you used to be able to topaz armour or was imagining that?

3. I checked Atma for normal rakinishu drops and I was wandering if his drops are the same as Lod? eg. peta luna, biggins, gull, knell etc

4. Weres a good place to gamble for tarn helm, is it a bit of a wasted cause?

5. any tips for self found, self leveling?

Cheers john

[forumfreak]

you need to socket armor. socketed armor cant be found.

and im not sure if its different with hc n non hc but in non hc you can mf tarn helms from cow king in norm. and i think mephy also.

[WarlockCC]

1. your army doesn't come with you trough the acts, so you'll want to harvest minions in the easiest parts of each act.

2. Like Forumfreak typed. The only way to get any socket in a armor in classic is to take a rare armor and cube it with 3 PS and a SoJ. This will burn the SoJ and the PSs. Needless to say, this is only done to 'worthy' armors, since SoJs are not cheap.

3. Yes, they have the same drop-class afaik.

4. Gambling for uniques is a wasted cause.

5. I don't quite understand the question(s).

---===---
To add to the confusion, I will now answer the post after this one, since I could still edit.

Socketed armour recipe in classic? News to me...
So how many sockets? Does it vary? Like a 4-socket high-level rare would be insane!
Allways only 1 socket. This cube recipe will work on rare armors, rare helms, rare weapons and rare shields as listed here :

http://www.diabloii.net/items/horadric-d2.shtml

Please do not make the mistake of putting only 1 PS in your cube, that will reset all the mods. Somebody I met on B.net did that once with his +2 zon 40ias 33x damage lance. (the 1PS recipe will also burn your SoJ and probably also burn all the good mods off your item)

[Fists of War]

2. Like Forumfreak typed. The only way to get any socket in a armor in classic is to take a rare armor and cube it with 3 PS and a SoJ. This will burn the SoJ and the PSs. Needless to say, this is only done to 'worthy' armors, since SoJs are not cheap.


Socketed armour recipe in classic? News to me...
So how many sockets? Does it vary? Like a 4-socket high-level rare would be insane!

[tartanasia]

nah the soj socketing does one socket. Msot people use it on there ggs on realm.

#5. means im playing single player so all my items are self found and I dont play in teams...

[Fists of War]

So that's why gems have the 'in armour: +38 life etc' thing, I thought that was just something that got added to LOD for the socketed armour there, and just got carried over to classic but not supported...damn warlock you make it sound like that horadric cube is gonna burst into flame and scorch your hard won items lol....:)

[WarlockCC]

you make it sound like that horadric cube is gonna burst into flame and scorch your hard won items lol....:)

It does that as well, after it sets fire to your favorite seat on the sofa, nothing else, just that seat.

That 1PS recipe will strip all the mods off an item and roll some new ones, almost always making a item worse then what you had and costing a SoJ in the process. Don't use it unless you really know what you are doing and have hundreds of SoJs to burn.

[Fists of War]

Lol!!! but not as bad as the 3 gem > higher gem recipe...who in their right mind wastes 3 shiny gemsss for only 1!!!

But who has 100+ soj's other than hackers :(. Isnt there a cube recipe that guarantees higher mods than the ones you already have? 6 pgem (skulls?) or something like that...

[fledgeling]

5 - dont start with necro as an MF char in classic
if you plan to MF normal make a holy shock zealot/charger or something
you can RUN diablo

[goomba]

Lol!!! but not as bad as the 3 gem > higher gem recipe...who in their right mind wastes 3 shiny gemsss for only 1!!!

But who has 100+ soj's other than hackers :(. Isnt there a cube recipe that guarantees higher mods than the ones you already have? 6 pgem (skulls?) or something like that...

6 pskulls can, if I recall correctly be used to 're-roll' an item. however, it most definately does NOT guarantee a result with higher/better mods.

[purplelocust]

6 pskulls can, if I recall correctly be used to 're-roll' an item. however, it most definately does NOT guarantee a result with higher/better mods.

Here are the three relevant cube recipes from the Arreat Summit:


3 Perfect Skulls + 1 Rare Item + Stone of Jordan = Add 1 Socket To a Rare Item:
Rare Items can only have one socket. You cannot add sockets to items that don't normally have sockets. You can not use this on a Rare with one socket. You can only add one socket to a zero socket Rare Item.


As mentioned above, that one is most often used to socket an already great rare. For example, a 24FHR mage plate with strong resists may be worth socketing with a PRuby, or a great +2 Pally shield may be worth socketing with a PDiamond.


1 Perfect Skull + 1 Rare Item + Stone of Jordan = 1 High Quality New Rare Item of the same type
This formula has the possibility of creating a higher quality Rare Item than the following formula. ilvl = int(.66 * clvl) + int(.66 * ilvl) That is, the ilvl will be equal to .66 times your clvl (rounded down) plus .66 times the input item's ilvl (also rounded down).


This is the one WarlockCC is warning about- it erases the existing mods and generates a new rare. An expensive way of getting a potentially useful rare, but also an expensive way of getting a totally useless rare.


6 Perfect Skulls + 1 Rare Item = 1 Random Low Quality Rare Item of the same type
You can use this formula to get another chance at a Rare Item of the same type. ilvl = int(.4 * clvl) + int(.4 * ilvl) Player level matters. This formula will not work on items larger than 3x2.

This recipe is much more commonly used since PSkulls are so much less than SoJs. If you keep using it, the ilvl will typically go down for a while before stabilizing at a level that depends upon the character level. Solving the equation ignoring rounding we get ilvl = .4 * clvl + .4 *ilvl which means the ilvl will stabilize at about 2/3 of the clvl of the character rerolling it. So an amulet dropped by Diablo starts out at ilvl 90, and it it were rerolled with the 6 PSkull recipe by a character of level 96 (yeah, right, like we all have lvl 96 characters), the first time it would be ilvl = .4 * 90 + .4 * 96 which is ilvl 74, the next time ilvl would be 67, then 64, then 63, then it would stay 63, one less than 2/3 of 96. Since you need ilvl 90+ to get a +2 skills amulet, gambling makes way more sense than rerolling with PSkulls for amulets- this is just a hypothetical example.