Ex-D2 player returning (MF questions)

[Fgsd]

I haven't played D2 since the day 1.10 was released. I used to do a lot of MF'ing with my forb/nova Sorc, but my build was rendered useless in 1.10 and most of my gear vanished (full disclosure: lots of hacked items). I reinstalled D2 three days ago and made a Barb. It's level 80 now, but I have realized the gear I want will not be cheap to get. I need a new MF character.

Questions:
1) What is a good build that doesn't require even moderately expensive equipment? I have literally nothing good to trade. I'll be running Hell Meph and whatever else has good drops now.

2) What's a good amount of MF to have? Back in 1.09d, it was "the most you can afford," since there were several items which made you invulnerable. Browsing a few threads, I saw 300-500% recommended. Is this a good number?

3) Prior to 1.10 being released, there was a lot of talk about the quality of drops diminishing the more you killed a boss. The first time you'd get better than normal drops, and after that you'd get worse and worse. Is this the case? (Note: I know increasing MF yields diminishing returns, but this was always the case.)

[Robobaby]

1) What is a good build that doesn't require even moderately expensive equipment? I have literally nothing good to trade. I'll be running Hell Meph and whatever else has good drops now.

For meph/andy running, straight frozen orb sorc is pretty damn decent.


2) What's a good amount of MF to have? Back in 1.09d, it was "the most you can afford," since there were several items which made you invulnerable. Browsing a few threads, I saw 300-500% recommended. Is this a good number?

Same logic applies then as does now. MF is a secondary consideration to safe, fast running. If you can run andy/meph safe and fast then start piling on as much MF as you can afford without it extending the length of your run to the point where you are better off with less MF.


3) Prior to 1.10 being released, there was a lot of talk about the quality of drops diminishing the more you killed a boss. The first time you'd get better than normal drops, and after that you'd get worse and worse. Is this the case? (Note: I know increasing MF yields diminishing returns, but this was always the case.)

First boss kill is always a quest drop. After that its normal droprates. Most desirable items have very low chance to drop but if you know what items you want and you play the right boss at the right difficulty then you can improve those odds. For instance, if you want to find Sojs then you are better off running nightmare andy than hell andy. Its still something like 1 in a 1000 odds per unique ring drop so I still wouldn't hold your breath. But its better than the 1 in a million chance of trying to gamble a soj or MF a boss that doesn't drop very many rings.

[sirpoopsalot]

1) pure blizzard. I prefer Frozen Orb for most things, but for starting from scratch with no gear, pure blizzard simply can't be beat.... Mephisto & Ancient Tunnels can drop virtually every item in the game, and blizzsorcs own those two - better than anything else that's comparable in cost & investment.


2) # of kills / time > MF.

To say it again: killing more monsters more quickly will maximize your returns (over time). ~300 MF is a nice amount because it's roughly as high as you can feasibly attain without sacrificing your killspeed (*caveats ignored - I'm not going into a full-MF-breakdown for maxing skills, speed & MF).


3) As Robobaby explained, first time you kill certain monsters, you get better drops (50% better odds over "normal" drops, to be exact), and after that it stays the same. I don't think killing bosses multiple times after collecting the quest has ever decresed the odds - I think that's simply a myth.

[Fgsd]

Sounds good. So I max Blizzard and its 3 synergies, plus Cold Mastery? (1 point in Teleport, obviously.)

[sirpoopsalot]

Put ~10 in Cold Mastery before tackling IceBolt - it'll help your meph runs more than synergies, and it'll help quite a bit in Ancient Tunnels too.

[Fgsd]

It's been about 3 weeks since I posted. I'm level 85 now, using the build Sirpoopsalot suggested. The build is solid, and I can kill stuff well now that I've mastered the use of Blizzard. I've killed hell Meph a couple of times, but it's difficult. I use my merc (A2 normal/defensive) for tanking, but he gets 3-4 shotted by Meph's melee attacks (unless I feed him Full Rejuvs, which I don't think is really a long term solution), usually once or twice a run. It's inefficient to say the least, especially given that Meph needs to be run as fast as possible to make up for lousy drops. I can do it without my merc, but that's way slower because I obviously can't keep Meph still without being the punching bag, but if I'm teleporting around, he's going to be constantly moving away from my Blizzards. I've heard of the moat trick, but I can't get it to work reliably. That still requires me to take hits, since even when I can get Meph to stay in the Blizzards' AoE, he's still shooting crap at me (I can dodge the Lightning and Cold Orbs, but the Charged Bolt is so big that I'd risk running into the Council).

So I think I need to get better gear, which will allow me to take hits better (which means I could use the moat tick), and do more damage (which could allow my merc to live while tanking, since Meph would die faster).

My current gear is, by my standards, terrible. Half of it I got off people who took pity on me, and the other half I found/gambled.

Here's my setup, and my merc's setup:
http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5692/mygearuf7.jpg

I'm happy with my shield, since it gives me a massive bonus to my resists (enough so that I have positive lightning resistance in hell, and don't get 1 shotted by packs of Burning Souls in Baal Runs). I am also happy with my merc's gear, which I think is good for my D2 economic status. The only thing really missing is PDR, which would probably solve the Meph tanking problem. More life leech would probably be beneficial too - Um'ed Vamp Gaze would be awesome.

As for the rest of my gear, as I said, it's garbage. The helm and armor are the biggest problems IMO. I am going to try and get a Skin of the Vipermagi, which would be a pure upgrade, since it has everything the Mage Plate has, and then some.

For trade, basically everything I am wearing, plus what's in the following collage, is available. Given that roughly half of it was given to me for free, I doubt it's worth much. I also have around a dozen pgems and various low level runes.
http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/7371/diablo2junkao5.jpg


I can rush people through normal and nightmare no problem, but that's a lot of effort for just a chance at a good nightmare forge drop. But if that's necessary, I'll do it.




So, the questions.

1) What gear should I aim for?
2) What do I have that's worth currency? Ideally I'd like to turn it into gems/runes instead of trading gear for gear, unless I can get a deal that way.
3) How much of said currency (be it high runes, gems, whatever) do I need for the items in 1)?
4) With better gear, will my boss killing problems go away?


Thanks so much for any help you can give.:)

[kidsmokin]

I'm building a Blizz sorc myself, starting after a little more than a year break, and I think your problems are probably just with resists, and possibly your merc level. If your merc is more than 3-4 levels below Mephisto's, Mephisto will unload all sorts of hurt and death upon him. In addition, if you have to engage closely, always use Static Field first, and then back up and Blizz away, because Static will take a load of health off.

Here's what I have planned for MFing, with not too expensive gears:

Harlequin Crest (~25 pgems, I only have 1pgem =p, but it's not too expensive nowadays)
Tal Rasha's Adjudication (about ~25 pgems to a Pul, any decent ammy will work here, just a top line choice)
Wizardspike (you can get this for a couple PGems, this is possibly one of the best weapons ever)
'Spirit' Monarch (great resists, skills, FHR)
Skin of the Vipermagi (for maybe 10 pgems for a pretty good one)
2x Nagelring (cheap to expensive if you want pNagels, but ok ones are for pgems)
Goldwrap (cheap)
Chance Guards (cheap to expensive, similar to Nagels)
War Traveler (the only other moderately expensive piece, though a cheap pair shouldn't be really bad)

And in terms of stuff you have of value, that Elemental skiller will get you some good value, so will the unid Blood Spirit (Cerebrus' Bite?), the Dragonscale, and perhaps the Guardian Angel. It's enough to get you started, I think. Just keep running Ancient Tunnels, and if Meph is too much of an issue run a bit of Andy first, they drop near the same, if I remember correctly.

[Dusty]

You are already chilling meph with your blizzard, so I think you would probably be better off with a might or defiance merc, than with the holy freeze merc.

[Crying Freeman]

snip kidsmokin

Good advice. And there´s also The Oculus Swirling Crystal, which is a pretty decent weapon for a mf sorc. Should go for pgems depending in the realm. Some kids may try to squeeze a Pul for it, but be on the lookout for deals. Their price dropped a lot lately.

For your merc, I would take off that Bonehew, although I admit, it is a decent weapon, but you´re better off with an Insight, with will basically give you infinite mana. I would also trade your merc for a normal difficulty combat merc. He will have Prayer as latent aura + Meditation from Insight, which will make him a walking shrine. Insight is cheap(Ral+Tir+Tal+Sol) so you can make it as soon as you find any 4os Thresher or Cryptic Axe. Look out for ethereal ones, as you can socket them with the socketing recipe just as well.

The defiance merc won´t help you greatly because neither you or your merc(with your current setup) will have good enough defense anyway, so forget defense. You probably noticed that the Blizz sorc usually kills anything that´s non-immune in seconds so def isn´t a big deal, even for your merc.
That Face of Horror won´t help him against bosses, and people will complain when you play pubs because of terror, so you´re better off with a Tal Rasha´s mask which will boost his resistances a bit and give him 10% life leech.

[rynke]

you can have worse gear then that and still do meph, ill suggest getting kelpies snare, woestave or reapers toll, most expensive of them would be reapers toll.

But any of them will save your merc, especially when u have face of horror too.

[sirpoopsalot]

I'm not sure if you're doing the moat trick right if you're waking up the Council. You should be able to get far enough away that Meph can't/won't attack without waking up the council. I usually stand about here (http://www.freewebs.com/sirpoopsalot77/Screenshot014.jpg) (and that map is worse than most, since the council often spawns far enough to the right that they don't even cast Hydras at me).

I find it easier to just let the merc die and use the moat trick for Meph runs.

[Fgsd]

Yeah I've been doing the moat trick wrong. You're saying that, when done right, Meph won't attack YOU, or he won't attack and activate the Council?

Anyway, I got myself a cheap Vipermagi. It's low, but with Wizardspike, I'll have 75 resistance to everything.



Thanks for all the help, everyone.

[sirpoopsalot]

Yeah, like in the screenshot I posted, Meph should be just on the edge of your screen - and far enough away that he won't attack you (he'll just run back & forth in front of the moat). As long as I don't go too far down-left or down-right, then 99% of the time the council or random monsters are also far enough away that they don't attack.