1.09 Roll Call - Goals, Progress, Finds

[ioupainmax]

There was bug in 1.09, although I believe it has since been fixed. It involved, I believe the correct term would be super unique, class enemies. Basically, if you spawned a super unique, but then you retreated for a bit, and then you went back to kill the monster you just spawned, their item drop will mimic that of Coldcrow from the caves in Act I.

Coldcrow always drops 4 potions and 2 items, and b/c of the game's monsterstats.txt or whatever file she will always drop from Treasure Class 3 (tc3). However, her mlvl is so low that she can only drop ilvl 7 items, meaning there are only so many sets and uniques that she can drop. But the 3 nub nub's in the Durance of Hate - Bremmington Spankfist, Wyand Voidthenoid, and Maffer Itstimetoslaythedragonhand - they will drop ilvl 28 itams. Since ALL TC3 set and uniques will have a qlvl less than or equal to 27 (Sanders Paragon), this means that the 3 super uniques in the Durance level 3 have the ability to drop ANY tc3 set or unique in the game.

Of course, the 'rare' tc3's, i.e. Sanders Paragon, Knell Striker, Torch of Iro, etc. are still going to be rare, but if you consistently activate the bug the 'common' tc3's are going to start dropping on a very regular basis.

I believe that the bug will only work in Normal difficulty, but I've been able to activate it on a very regular basis. I recorded a video of a Durance run long time ago, but IIRC it was in half screen so the quality isn't so good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX8Mp6UOGA8

Apparently YouTube doesn't play nice with this video, so you may have to let it finish loading (and then hit replay) in order to watch it. IIRC, I got 2x Death's Guard on that one run alone.

Thanks that is really helpful - so if I go and teleport and spawn/alert the lot of them, then go back down to Durance 2 and back up to Durance 3 will that be sufficient or should I stay on the same level of durance and just move back a bit??

[NakedAssassin]

I shopped two 3os Long Bows for me and my A1 merc and put chips in them. We own even in players 8 setting. BUT it got me to thinking, what if I run some gem shrines and make a twinking bow with flawed/normal gems? It would own even more. Right after that I noticed three shrines right next to black marsh WP. I "ran it" a couple of times and got one gem shrine. I don't know the odds though. What are the odds of a shrine being a gem shrine? Has anyone tried gem shrine running seriously (for perfect gems, for example)?

I just thought of doing this last night, and it works. I had a bunch of flawless that I wanted to up, but didn't want to burn them by cubing 3. Instead, I remembered that my particular map had 5 shrines in the first square right outside of Act1.

So, I would run those 5, over and over, for about 20 games. One of the shrines, I would call location #4, was always a health well so I stopped checking it. So if you take the other 4 locations x 20 games = 80, I found about 6 Gem Shrines = 7.5% in my small sample.

I would run the shrines, and if it was mana regen shrine (I figure exp shrine is worthless with p8 setting available), then I would take the mana regen and run River of Flame for exp while it lasted. Then, I would end the game and start all over again. I packed on levels from 28-31 this way, and got 6 perfect gems from my 6 flawless (instead of just 2 from cube). I went 4 ptopaz, a pSkull, and a pEmerald.

It is slow, but it works if you have the right map and something else you are working on at the same time. It seemed faster than running Act 4 normally and cubing gem drops.

[zemaj]

<snip>I figure exp shrine is worthless with p8 setting available.

to the contrary, it's worth is increased by higher player settings

[TheNix]

is there a place where u can find stats on 1.09 uniques?

If you can lay your hands on Diablo II Encyclopedia by Raymond Kleefstra that'd me a good resource, I still use it for certain things. It use to be hosted here, but since all the dicking around with that stupid Wiki it seems to have been lost.

[NakedAssassin]

to the contrary, it's worth is increased by higher player settings

I should have clarified. For my character, the mana is much more important. If you wanted to measure something like exp/min, mana shrine > exp shrine for me entirely due to the lack of gear.

I can use playersX to up the exp, there is no manaregenX setting. Once I get the items w/ per hit, then the exp shrine wins.

I use Arreat Summit still for gear lookup. Not sure how accurate everything is, but it is easy to navigate. I assume things that don't have any label like 'only found in 1.10 or higher' to mean 1.09.

[Steven Q Urkel]

@Steven Q Urkel: Wow - I knew about the drop reset bug, but I never thought to use that to farm TC3s from the Council. That, my friend, is some good thinking.

I wouldn't say I'd call it 'thinking' per se. I actually made the discovery by accident . After I had created a topic about it here at the forum, I learned that it was a known bug in v1.09.

However, if I recall right, the drop that the SU reverts to is actually Bishibosh (at the same difficulty you are playing, so in Hell, they get Hell Bish's drop), not Coldcrow.

Yeah, that sounds about right. I think that Bishibosh has the exact same drop as Coldcrow though - 4 pots and 2 'items.' So officially, the game is mimicing Bishibosh's drop due to the bug, but essentially it is mimicing Coldcrow as well.

But getting a high mlvl to drop a TC3 is an absolutely brilliant way to get those Hobnails and that Paragon. I might give that a try with my Nova Sorc. Thanks for sharing that idea!

Pro Tip: I hope you've built up a significant tolerance for Infernal Craniums. :rolleyes: So far I've only gotten 1x Sanders Paragon from Durance Runs. But Tancreds Hobnails, you should have no problem finding any of those, unless D2 absolutely hates you. At last count I think I had 14x 1.09 Tancreds Boots, and only one of them had an ilvl that wasn't 28. This leads me to believe that 92% of them were the direct result of Durance running.

Thanks that is really helpful - so if I go and teleport and spawn/alert the lot of them, then go back down to Durance 2 and back up to Durance 3 will that be sufficient or should I stay on the same level of durance and just move back a bit??

To be honest, I've never tried backtracking down to Durance 2 and then coming back up. Here is the method that I use:

1. Take the waypoint to Durance 2, then teleport/run to Durance 3 intrance.
2. Once inside, run through the center 'doorway', and turn left.
3. Run all the way to the wall. Be sure not to go too far up towards Maffer Dragonhand. We don't want him to chase us.
4. After you hit the wall, turn back right, run back towards the center 'doorway,' and go back through.
5. Run down to the bottom left until you hit the wall again.
6. Now run back up to the 'doorway,' run through and go left again, this time towards Maffer's room.
7. I use a sorc, so I always just teleport in and attack. Kill Maffer Dragonhand.
8. In my experience, I don't believe that killing Mephisto will affect the drops of the remaining two council members. And since 1.09 Meph can drop 1.09 Raven Claws, I go ahead and kill him, LoL.
9. As you make you way across the room, try to stay to the North of the 'columns' near the moat. I think this may have an affect on Wyand, but I haven't tested it enough to confirm or deny.
10. When you reach Wyand's 'room,' try not to enter. You wan't him to 'attack' you, so you can kill him outside of his 'room.' Occasionally, he won't attack, and you'll have to enter the 'room.' Whenever this happens I enter the room, and slowly run away so that he will follow me. It seems like if you kill him outside of the 'room' then most of the time the bug will still be applied.
11. Nothing special needed for Bremm Sparkfist. Just walk through Wyand's room and kill him.

When you are searching for a good Durance map, try to get one with 1) a waypoint close to Durance 3 entrance, and 2) you want Bremm to spawn off to the right side of the moat across from the 'doorway'. I've found that if he spawns next to the doorway, sometimes the bug won't activate for him. But Maffer, the method I use is nearly 100% success rate for him. Wyand is hit or miss sometimes, but still greater than 75% I'd say. And Bremm is like Maffer, if you get his original spawn in the right place you'll have a nearly 100% success rate with him too.

I know this may seem confusing, so I'll try to put up some visual aids later today to help you 'see' what I was trying to say.

EDIT:

Here's a .jpg diagram: PICS. NAO.

Apologies for the poor quality on that picture, it looked just fine in Paint but Imageshack must have uber compressed it. >_<

And here is a YouTube video that shows the path I took: Durance run

Just a few runs before I recorded that one, Looky what I found: Hobbed Nails are Hobbed

One last thing, since this is only Normal difficulty, go ahead and hire an Act II merc, and give him a 3 Perfect Topaz helm (or Perfect Topaz Shako if you have it) and a 4 Perfect Topaz Armour (Full Plate Mail and Gothic Plate can both get 4 sockets if the ilvl is high enough).

[mouseman]

I just thought of doing this last night, and it works. I had a bunch of flawless that I wanted to up, but didn't want to burn them by cubing 3. Instead, I remembered that my particular map had 5 shrines in the first square right outside of Act1.

So, I would run those 5, over and over, for about 20 games. One of the shrines, I would call location #4, was always a health well so I stopped checking it. So if you take the other 4 locations x 20 games = 80, I found about 6 Gem Shrines = 7.5% in my small sample.

....

It is slow, but it works if you have the right map and something else you are working on at the same time. It seemed faster than running Act 4 normally and cubing gem drops.

I tried this, too. It took me about 10-12 runs (three shrines each run) to get a gem shrine on average. That was about three minutes without FRW equipment or teleport with a WP right next to three shrines. I read somewhere that there is 19 different shrines in the game so that would mean ~5,2% chance of getting a gem shrine each shrine IF each shrine spawns equally as much. Which I doubt. I think some shrines are more rare (monster, portal, gem etc) than others.

It's not a bad strategy, given the right map, and I got a nice bow with 3 normal gems in it (lvl req 12) which I wouldn't have gotten any other way. The bow really helped me in late Act 1 and I figure I will use it for some time in Act 2, until my A1 merc will use it. I'm going p8, if you were wondering.

EDIT: I've got some problems with RRM in 1.09. I posted more about it in this thread.

[NakedAssassin]

Well, for me, the magic number for normal Diablo was 33. The only difference between 33 and 28 were the 3 points put into Valk (which didn't help in the fight, she gets 1-hit) and the bow. I went from 3soc Short Battle Bow with PE PE Nef to 3soc Reflex Bow with PE PE PE and +1 bow skills. It took me about 5 minutes to kill him with "your chance to hit Diablo 73%" and the poison sticking less often than that. Just ran around the star with GA and used potions.

New goals are:
1) quest in 5 and level along the way
2) ancients
3) baal
4) nm andy
5) nm act 2 might merc
6) farm nm countess
7) normal cows

[mouseman]

A little bit of progress report. Things are a bit though with players 8, or slow more so. I'm now level 20 and going for the horadric cube. I've got some mana issues (can't buy mana pots) and I'm quite fragile with my sorceress without any nice gear. I can't find a way around it. The only spell that does something significant is firewall and I can't tank so it doesn't work so well. I pretty much just static and use my bow (I'm still grateful for my 3x normal gem bow). I've got 5 points in warmth, do you think I need more for untwinked?

[RobbyD]

Well, for me, the magic number for normal Diablo was 33. The only difference between 33 and 28 were the 3 points put into Valk (which didn't help in the fight, she gets 1-hit) and the bow. I went from 3soc Short Battle Bow with PE PE Nef to 3soc Reflex Bow with PE PE PE and +1 bow skills. It took me about 5 minutes to kill him with "your chance to hit Diablo 73%" and the poison sticking less often than that. Just ran around the star with GA and used potions.

New goals are:
1) quest in 5 and level along the way
2) ancients
3) baal
4) nm andy
5) nm act 2 might merc
6) farm nm countess
7) normal cows

Congrats on taking down Big D! You can look forward to some power leveling in Act 5 - Bloody Foothill runs are legendary for XP. Plus, as you progress in Act 5, the XP gets significantly higher. I like your goals - getting to and farming NM Countess is an effective way to get into some good gear. I'm not absolutely positive you can get a 5os Battle Scythe for Honor (I DO know NM Countess will provide the runes), but at the very least she can drop a Meat Scraper or something that will skyrocket the merc's effectiveness.

A little bit of progress report. Things are a bit though with players 8, or slow more so. I'm now level 20 and going for the horadric cube. I've got some mana issues (can't buy mana pots) and I'm quite fragile with my sorceress without any nice gear. I can't find a way around it. The only spell that does something significant is firewall and I can't tank so it doesn't work so well. I pretty much just static and use my bow (I'm still grateful for my 3x normal gem bow). I've got 5 points in warmth, do you think I need more for untwinked?

Sounds like you are doing well on your leveling. Might I suggest the Savage Polearm recipe for a starting weapon for your merc? I found that, apart from a Necro, a Sorc is more dependent on a merc than other characters, so paying attention to his longevity will ease your progress. I forget what your planned skills are, but if you are planning on FO, I'd suggest trying out some of the cold prereqs (and picking up all Orbs to see if any provide some useful staffmods) to let your merc have some room to work. At level 24, Meteor becomes available, which works very well with a tank-capable merc - let him engage a group, and start dropping meteors.

I would not pump Warmth too much more - even untwinked, you should be able to find some things that give you a nice bump to mana (Orbs, Ammys, Rings, Charms), so focusing on getting your merc durable will provide better dividends.