1.07, HoZ and the ATMA drop calculator

[Ragnarod]

I was inclined to post this in the ATMA thread, but since I've got more questions than just the one related to the drop calculator, I figured I might aswell make a separate thread about it, hope you can help me

1. The 1.07 guide by Repusz states that the Herald of Zakarum is a Gilded Shield , yet in the ATMA files for 1.07 it states it's an Aerin Shield. Given I'd like to rack for one, the base item class is significant, can anyone please confirm it?

2. Using the 1.07 ATMA calculator to get the chances of an HoZ dropping, I get that the best target to run for one would be Mephisto in NM, followed by Duriel in NM, and then Diablo in Hell. Now, there might be something that I don't know, but didn't the MF formula for 1.07 include a multiplier based in difficulty (x4 in NM and x9 in Hell, right?) that made MF useless until you got to Hell? And weren't act bosses bugged, so they could only drop from the same TC as their normal equivalents? That probably means I won't be seeing any HoZ dropping from them in the future, if that is indeed the case, where should I be looking for them besides racks?

Anyways, if I could get some confirmation on these things, it would be great. And if I could get Hakai to work into fixing the calculator (what's the chance of that, even less than the chance of finding the HoZ? ), that would truly rock, I'll keep my fingers crossed

[Thrugg]

The important bit in the UniqueItems.txt file is actually the "code" column, not the "type" column. HoZ is correctly listed as pa9 which is Gilded Shield, not pa4 which would be Aerin Shield (you can check armor.txt to see the item code defs). The "type" column is just there for the coder's benefit, so it is a harmless bug that it is wrong.

The calc, hmm, that is certainly not right. We didn't really test the 1.07 calc to its limits. The Doc can tell you if he is likely to have time to work on that in the near future - I will certainly be here to help if he wants to.

You are right, you won't get a HoZ form an Act boss. Your best bet would be Hell Superuniques, they drop uniques at a tolerable rate and can drop TC42 where Gilded Shields are in 1.07.

However, for a class-spec item I'd definitely try for racks. "Only" 500 runs on average for those. Hooray.

[Hakai_no_Tenshi]

1) HoZ is indeed a Gilded Shield in 1.07 ... not quite sure where you saw that it's an Aerin Shield. For any of the monsters that can drop it, if you check the item class to be Exceptional, it shows up confirming that it's a Gilded Shield (Aerin is normal). Also, ATMA shows that the item code for the base type is pa9 which is Gilded Shield (which you can confirm in armor.txt)

2) The code that controls drop probablities does include those multipliers as you mentioned which makes it better for you to wait till Hell mode for better quality drops. I have Repusz's old 1.07 guide here with me and I'll post what he said about boss drops here

A) Unique/set items

You may have already heard about that in v1.07 no items from over TC 66 can drop. Unfortunatelly, this is true: Bliz simply haven't finished the TC system for v1.07 and stopped somewhere near qlvl 66-67 items. They probably spent that evening in a local bar drinking beer instead of working - what wouldn't be a problem: after all beer is good - but you will see later that the 1.07 players really suffer from this "little" neglection... So, you can hope for only the lower level unique/set items from monsters including Shakos, Devil Stars and all the interesting exceptional uniques and M'avina's belt. Unfortunatelly, Bramble Mitts are qlvl 69 - who knows why... - just like Balrog Skins and so on. And even TC 66 seems to be available mainly on the Hell cow level. You will see later how to "beat the system" and still be able to get nearly all the items...
Finally, chests drop very high ilvl items - equal to the are level, just like racks - but they use the TC system of the nearby monsters. They are good at dropping misc items and runes, but nothing else.

Q: Is this true that MF is nerfed?

No, despite of what we thought before it works well. As King's Specter explains in his guide:

When a drop occurs, the game checks for the quality of the item by rolling for unique, rare (yes, rare first in 1.07), set, magic, in that order. The base “Chance” value for each quality is listed below:

Unique: 1000
Rare: 200
Set: 125
Magic: 30

Class specific items have roughly half these values. The odds for any given quality are 1/Chance, or 1/1000 in the case of uniques. This is for a normal monster or rack, and is unmodified by MF. There is also a modifier for item qlvl vs. mlvl, but it has very little effect and I have dropped it for now.

The final equation adjusted for boss/champion and mf bonuses looks like this:

Final Modified Chance = (128*Chance - (128*Cx*Chance/1024 ) - X*MF)/128

Cx is a bonus factor that bosses and champions get, it’s 983 for Act Bosses and 800 for uniques and champs. The X factor is a MF bonus, 4 for NM and 9 for Hell.

And what role do all these calculations play here? With high enough MF%, you can make bosses drop nothing but uniques all the time!!! Gargamella created a nice calculator for v1.07 that is located here: http://digilander.libero.it/heroes3dl/dropcalc.zip

So what does this mean? Let's say you have 374% MF and kill the Hell Council: you have 93.75% chance of getting a set item from them!
And with more than 556% MF, any act bosses in hell will drop unique items only...
It sounds unbelievable, isn't it? Well, it is nearly useless because of two facts:

1, The previously mentioned "no items from over TC 66" problem
2, Act bosses seem to be nerfed. It is unknown whether it is a bug or a feauture, but one thing is sure: they never drop from over TC 40. Too bad...

But then how to benefit from this? First of all, the popular v1.07 Visceratuant (Defender) could be found easily this way, from Hell Andariel. You could also get unique amuletts this trick, so the key to the v1.07 Saracen's Chance could be this. Finally, if you would like a M'avina's True Sight (Diadem). Diadems have a qlvl of 60, so the Hell Council uniques can drop them, and with ~374-400% MF you would score a set one from 90% of the drops.

Q: So how to get the uber set/unique items then?

You would have never expected the answer: from weapon and armor racks! Prepare yourselves: this will be long...

The base idea is that v1.07 racks (and v1.08 ones as well... but that's another story) can drop any qlvl item types that are available for them. The only acceptable reason for this is probably that they do not use the TC system for determining which item(s) they drop, they roll randomly from all the item types. The next important info about them is that while in v1.09 they are capped at TC 75, as I mentioned before, there is no such like TCs for racks in v1.07. So, they can drop even those items that are in TC 87 or 90 in v1.09: Caduceii, Sacred Armors, Vortex Shields... And finally: the ilvl of the items dropped by racks is equal to the area level where the racks are, so the last racks in Nihlathak's temple generate ilvl 99 items - high enough to get a Cranium Basher off them ^^
However, all this would mean nothing without the most important custom of the racks: they like to stick with one item type that they drop on a constant basis, so with some patience, sooner or later they reward you.

Important note: Racks of any versions cannot drop wands, staves, bows or xbows! This leads to the fact that in v1.07 it is IMPOSSIBLE by ANY means to get a Hydra Bow, Grand Matorn Bow or Archon Staff drop! Bye bye v1.07 Wf & Stormspire...

--T

edit: Looks like I'll have to cast Slow3 on Thrugg next time so I can answer in time Kinda sucks that bosses drop from their normal equivalents but that shouldn't be too difficult to fix if/when I get the time.

[Thrugg]

Yep, just to be clear, the problem is not the bonuses, it is that the bosses are listed as dropping that item at all.

Doc, most likely the problem is the same one Blizzard made - the bosses are actually unique versions of themselves, so they drop from the third column in each difficulty's group of drop TCs, not the first one (which is the only one they added the required (N) and (H) to).

[Hakai_no_Tenshi]

Doc, most likely the problem is the same one Blizzard made - the bosses are actually unique versions of themselves, so they drop from the third column in each difficulty's group of drop TCs, not the first one (which is the only one they added the required (N) and (H) to).

That's hilarious ... I was just looking at the unique columns for bosses and I see what you mean. They would drop just like their normal counterparts if Blizzard considered them to be unique versions of themselves. I originally wrote the DropCalc for 1.09 and adapted it for the other versions so I did not spot this inconsistency in the game files although I do see now how Blizzard fixed it in later versions by populating the columns with the same value for bosses. That's a pretty simple fix which will have to be made for all versions .. should only functionally affect 1.07 and 1.08 though.

--T

[Shagsbeard]

So... wait a minute... is this 1.10 too? I can't get a HoZ from Mephy? I've been running that bastard for weeks hoping for one. I've got the one I've traded for (Thanks a mil, mil) but I really really want to find my own. So... in 1.10, can hell meph drop a HoZ?

To that end... am I beating a dead... well... what ever meph is... if I'm trying for the gloves to the IK set?

[necrolemming]

You can get HoZ from Hell Meph in 1.10.