Why do you want to use vambraces? And is it really worth it?
the normal way people - I anyway - craft gloves is by shopping them at one of the vendors at lvl 69-ish and craft with that characters.
Vambraces are rare if they are even sold. And that little bit of extra defence isn't worth it.
because it's more interesting to have knowledge about the ilvl. And when you shop, you know the ilvl exactly.
It's not that big a deal, though it's easier. Else you need to have a high character or a only search high alvl places. Not that big a deal though I find shopping easier.
And when you shop them, you can buy them in large quantities. You buy them when you have found the runes. No need to hunt the gloves too.
Forinstance, you can trade rals for orts. And perfect saphires for other gems. etc.
It's more convenient and you really don't need the extra defence on the gloves.
The reason my hit power gloves I just crafted with 20% IAS and 3% Mana leech had a required level of 94 was because they also had Poison Nova charges. And the reason they had Poison Nova charges was because I crafted them with level 90+ chain gloves on a level 93 char.... right?
Or maybe I am way too tired to make sense of all this....:scratchchin:
IMO clvl 71 seems to be the ideal level to do the actual crafting with since A) it's the minimum lvl to guarantee 4 affixed and B) you minimize the chances of crafting items with ridiculous requirements by limiting the affix pool. As for the OP the quality of the input item doesn't exactly matter for the defense difference, what's important is knowing the ilvl of the item so you know which mods can spawn using the formula (0.5clvl+0.5ilvl = craft lvl)..
Often the work of a forum-goer is to answer questions beginning with 'What'. But occasionally a question beginning with 'Why' springs up and these questions can, and often do, lead to many threads in far away, dark and ominous places. However, every once in a while we stumble on a thread that, like a fine French wine, is a blend of many generations of information and summarizes into one exquisite bottle what came from many threads...
Well after several hours of reading, re-reading and analysis, I'd like to share my findings to those who would prefer avoiding a similar time commitment...thus I provide the spoilers for the quick answers. But if you're interested in the process by all means, read on.
The subject: *Crafting gosu Hit Power Gloves*
The Questions: 1. What type of gloves to use
Vambraces!
2. What level to buy them
Don't buy them, kill Mephisto!
3. What level to craft them
56
First off I have to say, like most of the best things in D2, the odds of the best mods all spawning together are extremely minimal. But with some research we can tweak our methods to make ever so slight adjustments in our favor.
Additionally, words like gosu/best/leet are all subjective so I have to say that my definition represents my opinion and I make no implications for others. Use my findings if you agree with my opinion :whistling:
In that respect I believe the top 7 mods available on Hit Power gloves to be:
(in no particular order)
1. 20 IAS
2. +2 to Ama Skill Tree (hopefully Passive)
3. 3% Life Leech
4. 3% Mana Leech
5. +Dex *(9 Max)
6. +Str *(5 Max)
7. MF (25 Max)
And these 7 come from a pool totaling 83 mods (Post #32). *More Str and Dex is possible on gloves but will decrease our overall odds for the best possible gloves - read on for explanation.
Now for the variables we can influence/control:
Variable ------------------------------------------------------------------ Definition
I. Character Level -------------------------------------------------------- What Level are you?
II. Base Item Level of magic to-be-crafted gloves -------------------------- Where did you get your gloves? Monster/Vendor/Gamble
III. Modified Item Level of gloves ------------------------------------------ See formula below
IV. Quality Level of magic to-be-crafted gloves ---------------------------- One of 3 fixed numbers
V. Max Affix level --------------------------------------------------------- What mods can appear on the gloves
Unfortunately, the variables all influence each other, so even minute changes add lots of recalculations.
Lets go from easy to complex:
I. Character Level
Doesn't get any simpler than this. Your level is a whole number and is divisible by other whole numbers. Keep this in mind :nod:
II. Base Item Level of magic to-be-crafted gloves
Gloves can come from 3 sources:
1. A Monster
2. A Vendor
3. Gambling (also a vendor)
If you get your gloves from a monster you need to know what the monster's level was. You determine this by the area that the monster spawns in i.e. the Pits/Worldstone Keep. Champions, minions, superuniques and Act Bosses all have monster levels. Probably the best source for gloves from monsters is a superunique or act boss. These monsters are always found in the same place and so you don't have to worry about the area and you can simply memorize their level. Example: Hell Mephisto is monster level 87 so if he drops a pair of chain gloves their Item level will be 87.
Buying gloves from a vendor is a much better option. Anything gloves you buy from a vendor will have an item level that is your character level + 5 Example: Your level 69 Character buys a pair of chain gloves from Nightmare or Hell Charsi. The chain gloves' Item level is 74. However, Normal difficulty games limit this formula such that items you buy will have item levels capped at
Gambling is not recommended. The reason is because the item levels that spawn on items you can gamble have a range from 5 levels below your character's level to 4 levels above it. So when you gamble a pair of chain gloves with a level 69 character, the chain gloves' item level will be anywhere from 64 to 73. Gambling introduces unwanted variance to our already complicated scenario.
III. Modified Item Level of gloves
Variables I and II combine to give us Variable III, the Modified Item Level
Your Character Level divided by 2 and rounded down
+
Base Item Level of magic to-be-crafted gloves divided by 2 and rounded down
=
Modified Item Level
Example: A level 69 character buys some chain gloves
Character Level = 69
Base Item Level = 74
69/2 = 34.5 --> Round down = 34
74/2 = 37
34 + 37 = 71
Modified Item Level also plays one more major role in crafting. It -determines- how many mods your Hit Power Gloves will have. If the Modified Item Level is 71 or higher, your Hit Power Gloves will have *4 mods. *(In addition to the ones which come with the recipe = Chance to cast Frost Nova, Knockback and Attacker Takes Damage of 3-7)
In my opinion, 71 is the absolute minimum to shoot for when crafting hit power gloves. Otherwise your gloves will likely only have 3 mods and that equates to less chances for the mods you want to spawn.
Our level 69 character from the examples above turns out to be perfect because it meets our criteria for Modified Item Level = 71 or higher. I chose level 69 as the example to answer the question: Why do I craft Hit Power Gloves at level 69? The short answer is so that you have 4 mods on your Hit Power Gloves.
The Alternative: You can craft gloves before level 69 and they will still have a chance to have 4 mods but not every time. More importantly you will change the mods available to you because of the effect of Modified Item Level on Max Affix Level, which we have yet to discuss. :crazyeyes:
So, on the surface, the answers to the questions appear to be:
2. What level to buy them ----> 69
3. What level to craft them[/B] ----> 69
But we still have lots more to discover as well as the primary question:
1. What type of gloves to use
But first, IV. Quality of magic to-be-crafted gloves
All items in the game have a Quality Level. This number cannot be modified by anything. Think of it as the Ravenfrost of Hit Power Crafting...ok bad CBF joke. But seriously, since the recipe for Hit Power gloves requires either Chain Gloves Heavy Bracers or Vambraces, there are only 3 possibilities.
An affix is a prefix or a suffix. And a prefix or a suffix is what Diablo 2 uses to give items properties like + to skills or 20% Increased Attack Speed. For example a pair of gloves that give you 20% Increased Attack Speed give you 20% Increased Attack Speed because they were created with the suffix "of Alacrity." So we can say that any item which has the suffix 'of Alacrity' will grant the wearer 20% Increased Attack Speed.
Consequently, the Max Affix Level sets the limit on how many mods from the total pool of 83 are possibilities when you hit the transmute button. The higher this number is, up to a *maximum of 94, the more mods from the pool of 83 become available. For example if our Max Affix Level is 43, then any affix up to level 43 can spawn but nothing after that. *Affix level can actually be higher than 94 but there are no mods from the pool of 83 for Hit Power Gloves whose Affix Level is greater than 94
So since we have a maximum of 94, none of the mods whose Affix level is between 44 and 94 will be available. And so our total number of choices for crafted gloves is substantially modified.
***This is the best piece of information we have to maximize the possibility of the mods we want!***
The trick is to find the range of all the Affixes you want on an item. More specifically what is the highest Affix Level of all the prefixes or suffixes you want to see on an item. Let's revisit my list of the 7 best mods...
Mod ------------------------------------------Affix Level
1. 20 IAS --------------------------------------43
2. +2 to Ama Skill Tree (hopefully Passive) -------40
3. 3% Life Leech --------------------------------34
4. 3% Mana Leech ------------------------------35
5. +Dex (9 Max) --------------------------------33
6. +Str (5 Max) ---------------------------------39
7. MF (25 Max) ---------------------------------16
Now we see that the highest affix level in my list is 43. If you remember all the previous variables and how they are calculated we can move on to (queue music):
The formula that determines Max Affix Level.
The formula depends on
1. The type of gloves you choose - Variable IV
2. The gloves' Modified Item Level - Variable III (which we calculated from Variables I and II)
For Chain Gloves with a:
Modified Item Level of 12 - 93: Max Affix Level = Modified Item Level - 6
Modified Item Level of 94 - 99: Max Affix Level = 2 * Modified Item Level - 99
For Heavy Bracers with a:
Modified Item Level of 43 - 78: Max Affix Level = Modified Item Level - 21
Modified Item Level of 79 - 99: Max Affix Level = 2 * Modified Item Level - 99
For any Vambraces
Max Affix Level = 2 * Modified Item Level - 99
Because both Chain Gloves and Heavy Bracers have 2 possible formulas the type of gloves you choose determines what level you should buy and craft them at.
Now for some goods news. In the pool of 83 mods available to Hit Power Gloves, 20 of them consist of the ever-annoying Chance to cast/Charges. But many of these mods have Affix Levels which are higher than what we determined is the Maximum we want (43). It turns out we can eliminate almost half of them which, over the span of many crafted gloves, gives us ^substantially better odds at getting 1 or more of the mods we do want. Now that we know the Max Affix Level we want on our Hit Power Gloves, let's do some reverse engineering to answer our original questions. Remember them?
1. What type of gloves to use
2. What level to buy them ------> 69
3. What level to craft ----------> 69
We determined that with a level 69 character who buys and crafts Hit Power Gloves, the Modified Item Level (Variable III) will be 71. Which also guarantees us that our list of 7 best mods each have 4 chances to appear.
To see the effect that glove type has on crafting, substitute 71 for Modified Item Level in our formulas for Max Affix Level and solve. Note that we only need to do one calculation for each glove type because we know which formula will apply to our glove type with Modified Item Level of 71. Remember we want a Max Affix Level as close as possible to 43, but not under.
V. Max Affix Level
For Chain Gloves with a:
Modified Item Level of 12 - 93: Max Affix Level = 71 - 6 = 65
[Modified Item Level of 94 - 99: Max Affix Level = 2 * Modified Item Level - 99] - No need to calculate
For Heavy Bracers with a:
Modified Item Level of 43 - 78: Max Affix Level = 71 - 21 = 51
[Modified Item Level of 79 - 99: 43 = 2 * Modified Item Level - 99] - No need to calculate
For Vambraces
Max Affix Level = 2 * 71 - 99 = 43 <-----Bingo!!
But!!! Of course there's a but.
Vambraces don't grow on trees!
...Especially Item Level 74 (or 75 because we round down), Magic Vambraces. :crazyeyes:
In fact, the rarity of this level Vambraces causes us to change the question
#2. What level to buy them >>>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>> Who do we kill to get them?
And if we change that question then we also have to change our answer of '69' for #3. What level to craft
Fortunately Mfing is my hobby...
Best Option = Good 'ole Hell Mephisto with about 1:300 odds if you trust ATMA. (0 MF)
Hell Mephisto's Vambraces will always be Base Item Level 87 which, if we plug into our formula for Modified Item Level, means you must craft at level 56.
The Alternative - for MF lovers
1. Bane Ash (lvl 74) - Superunique really close to Outer Cloister WP <--- Easy target!
2. Pitspawn Fouldog (lvl 74) - Superunique in the Jail level 2 <--- Not so tempting
3. Andariel (lvl 75) - Hmmm shaping up to be a nice MF run.
4. Any unique monster in the Jail levels 1, 2 or 3 will be level 74
Unfortunately I would wager you will definetly level up before you find a pair. So don't do it on your zon.
The Alternatives:
You can craft Heavy Bracers at level 69. (Of course you still have the problem of finding them with an item level of 74). And in doing so you add 4 mods whose affixes are within the range of 43 - 51. 2 are garbage Charge mods but 1 is the potential for a little more + Str (6 - 9 rather than 3 - 5) and the last is the prefix Godly for +% to Defense.
If you craft Chain Gloves at 69 you add 5 more mods to the list. 2 Charges, a higher tier of + mana and the possibility of up to +15 Str and +15 Dex. Some might argue these are great, but to me they are not worth the extra attempts spent crafting despite the fact that Chain gloves can easily be bought.
Anyways so much for the siesta I was planning.... Good luck and God speed Editing to follow
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