NM Meph vs. hellpits

[Oldini]

I've got this badly equipped fishy that I've been playing occasionally. I don't like trading much mostly because I always feel I get ripped off, I'm not a good trader.

At the moment he's quite stuck on hell act4 being unable to get through plains of despair since it always seems to spawn with burning souls. Which pretty much ends up in poor Samuli getting oneshotted by 4-5 souls. So I have a feeling I should just stop trying to advance for a while and do some MF runs. The eq I'm using gets my MF up to around 400% so which do you people suggest. Nightmare mephisto would be a walk in the park and is the place where it's usually suggested you start your mfing. The other option would be to do hell pits runs which are slightly more taxing on my minions (lvl25ish I think with my gear), but still easily doable without risk. Which do you more experienced people suggest I should do?

[yuqing]

nm andy runs has the highest chance to drop SoJs if i remember correctly, try that.

[Oldini]

Why would I need SoJs?

[Sepdick]

Sellin' SoJs will make you a rich man.

[kingdryland]

Hell pits all the way. You may end up getting somthing like a death's fathom,a coa or another top uniquem, that will single handedly solve your ingame financial problems. And it offers nice experience too.

[yuqing]

he did say that he has a bit of difficulty with hell pits. NM andys would be alot easier and therefore capable of more runs, if you hit the max 20 limit with your runs then i think you'll be able to run hell pits. It also depends if you have enigma or not, enigma makes boss runs so much easier but doesnt really affect pits all that much.

[kingdryland]

he did say that he has a bit of difficulty with hell pits. NM andys would be alot easier and therefore capable of more runs, if you hit the max 20 limit with your runs then i think you'll be able to run hell pits. It also depends if you have enigma or not, enigma makes boss runs so much easier but doesnt really affect pits all that much.

He says "easily doable without risk". I personally consider even hell mephi a waste of time when compared to time spent killing in the pit levels. The chance to get top elite uniques and superb socketables there (like hydra bows and berserker axes) just can't be ignored.

[Eilo Rytyj]

I also see your problem, you've built your character with 400% MF, but only slvl 25 minions.

That's the most common mistake people make when building a MF character. They think that you need to load up on MF-heavy gear and you'll be set. That's not the case at all. The most successful MF characters are those built with the mindset of optimising killing power, not total MF%.

My suggestion? Being a Fishymancer, try and get a hold of gear with as many +skills as possible. Ditch all the MF junk for now. A minimum safe target for minions by the end of Hell is slvl 30 RS/SM. Higher than that and things start becoming a cakewalk and runs get faster and easier. But that's around about the point where things start to get easy for you.

Many of thestuff is shoppable/gamble-able, such as +Summon Skills Wands, Amulets and Circlets, the Splendor RW in a 2 socket head with +RS/+SM staffmods (can find in Normal difficulty), even Rare/Magic Necro Heads with +skills on them aren't too hard to come across. Basically anything that increases your Summoning skills levels.

Be sure your own character level is above 85 (to ensure higher chance to hit/lower chance to be hit of minions), then start clearing the Pits and Hell Meph. A little more work and you'll be able to safely and quickly run the WSK+Baal for item finding purposes.

[Oldini]

he did say that he has a bit of difficulty with hell pits. NM andys would be alot easier and therefore capable of more runs, if you hit the max 20 limit with your runs then i think you'll be able to run hell pits. It also depends if you have enigma or not, enigma makes boss runs so much easier but doesnt really affect pits all that much.

what is the max 20 limit?

[Oldini]

Many of thestuff is shoppable/gamble-able, such as +Summon Skills Wands, Amulets and Circlets, the Splendor RW in a 2 socket head with +RS/+SM staffmods (can find in Normal difficulty), even Rare/Magic Necro Heads with +skills on them aren't too hard to come across. Basically anything that increases your Summoning skills levels.


Well my current +skills equipment consists of +2necro skills magic wand, +2necro skills mafic head, skullder's ire, and a +1necro skills rare amulet(no other mods worthy of mention, sadly). Total skilllevels are 26, so dumping the wand in favor of a +3 summoning skills one(should I look for +RS here too?) would be a good move. Those necroheads never seem to have any good mods when they drop for me. That +2 skills one was the first one that gave more than the sigon's shield that I was using before, and it dropped yesterday(yes I check every head I see). So in which acts is it possible, and easiest to find these +3 summoning skill wands? I'm guessing I should make NM games and check every vendor?

[yuqing]

what is the max 20 limit?

you're allowed a max of 20 runs in an hour.