Area farming using skellimancer

[Mikey Two Guns]

In singleplayer, I have been playing around with my lvl 60 skellimancer in Nightmare difficulty with the players 8 setting. I have noticed that I have had plenty of time to break open nearby pots and chests before my army kills an enemy group(even while using Amp and an occasional CE). After my army finishes an enemy group, I usually have all nearby pots and chests checked and am ready to move on. I have already found a few uniques and good rings from the pots and chests.

Under players 1, I do not have this time to break open pots and chests; unless I am mistaken, when area farming, a player should always prioritize engaging the enemy over scavenging through pots/chests/bodies.

My question: In terms of getting the best item output in area farming, is it advantageous to use a higher /players x setting to give myself some more time to break open chests and pots for items while my army hacks away against strengthened enemies? You have to consider that I will be getting more items per monster killed with the higher players setting, and I will be using my curses still. In other words, would the increased item drops per monster and increased downtime for me to open chests, pots, and bodies be superior despite the longer time needed for my army to kill the enemy?

Or am I better off sticking with a low /players x setting (1-3) in which I can speedily CE the crap out of the enemies for greater item collection?

Maybe a better question is whether or not chests/pots/bodies are worth sweating about to begin with. What are your thoughts and knowledge about this issue?

[shuy]

Chest are worth to be opened in few areas of Hell
http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=551#Chest%20drops%20in%20alvl%2085%20a reas
I think nice area to farming items with summoner is Hell cow level.

[stillman]

I see it a bit differently:

With players 8, your skellies are wearing stuff down slowly, so it is taking way longer for you to kill a group and move on. Now if you were using players 1, you would kill way more stuff per unit time and thus have more stuff drop. You are worried about the tiny amount of time being lost with your skellies idling (not fighting), when players 8 would waste far more time.

I'm not sure, but I find most chests are only equivalent to a monster getting killed. Barrels are aweful because you can open 10 of them and not a sinlge thing drops. Pots and urns are pretty bad too. Locked hcests have a chance for double drop, but you need to take time out to pick up or buy keys. I think it's important to break all this stuff if you're into mfing, but maybe don't fret over it. The monster kills are going to be your main source of loot, no?

Then again, monsters themselves have a chance to roll a no-drop option and players 8 lessens their no-drop so you get more per kill. I would try finding that perfect players setting so that you still kill fast. For example: let's say your skellies are making like 1 hit kills with players 1. Trying players 2, you find they are still making one hit kills. Players 3, same. Then you try players 4 and find they still kill fast, but it takes a few hits. Go with players 4, because anything less is wasting your skellies power needlessly, and anything more is going to take longer to mow stuff down.

Normally I'd say it won't hurt to increse your run speed because it will get you from mob to the next mob fast. But skellies can be annoying if you're too fast.

[billking]

Let's assume you're only going against Devilkin from The Pit (Hell). Kind of arbitrary, but whatever. Let's also say they are always Amp'd.

CHANCE TO DROP NON-GOLD, NON-JUNK
/players 1-2: 0.1125
/players 3-4: 0.18282
/players 5-6: 0.226758
/players 7-8: 0.25422

First off, as far as item find goes, you get NO benefit from going to an even number of players from an odd number. So we'll want an odd number of players.

Increasing players rapidly decreases the probability of a no-drop, but for the most part that just means you'll be getting lots of gold, potions, scrolls, and other crap you don't care about. The chance of a monster dropping something crappy does NOT scale down as players increase; the only thing that scales down is the chance of a monster dropping nothing at all. This is important.

Now Hell Devilkin are Immune to Fire, and their normal Physical Resistance is 15. This means you deal 55-92% of the life of the corpse with each CE. We'll just say the average of those numbers is 75%. Not quite, but close enough.

CORPSE EXPLOSIONS TO TAKE DOWN A MOB (ASSUMING 75%)
/players 1: 2 explosions
/players 3: 3 explosions
/players 5: 4 explosions
/players 7: 6 explosions

CHANCE TO DROP PER EXPLOSION (ASSUMING 75% CE)
/players 1: 0.05625
/players 3: 0.06094
/players 5: 0.0566895
/players 7: 0.04237

So in order of goodness:
#1. /players 3
#2. /players 5 (Due to travel time between mobs, maybe preferred over /players 3. This is a personal opinion thing. My opinion: not as good as /players 3.)
#3. /players 1
#4. /players 7
#worst. /players (anything even) The odd-numbered choices are strictly superior.

[Mikey Two Guns]

Thanks for the info billking! That really makes the decision much easier.


First off, as far as item find goes, you get NO benefit from going to an even number of players from an odd number. So we'll want an odd number of players.

Just recently, I read the MF guide here : http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=412453 and it states more or less the same thing. I will definitely take that into consideration in the future.

CHANCE TO DROP PER EXPLOSION (ASSUMING 75% CE)
/players 1: 0.05625
/players 3: 0.06094
/players 5: 0.0566895
/players 7: 0.04237

I am guessing that when against enemies that are not immune to fire or physical damage, the difference between the chance values of /players 3, 5, and 7 would be even greater.

So in order of goodness:
#1. /players 3
#2. /players 5 (Due to travel time between mobs, maybe preferred over /players 3. This is a personal opinion thing. My opinion: not as good as /players 3.)
#3. /players 1
#4. /players 7
#worst. /players (anything even) The odd-numbered choices are strictly superior.

I can understand why you chose /players 3 as the optimal choice, but I might use /players 5 instead, or at least sometimes. I believe that CE is an overpowered PvM skill, and I enjoy it being less influential in skellimancer gameplay (which is partly why I was using /players 8 in the first place). In any case, the mobs are getting tougher and tougher now, and I need to lower myself from /players 7-8.

[sequoia]

I love it when people crunch D2 numbers. :)