Tyrael's Mighty Breakdown - Item Find Thread September 2015

@DaveW

Good questions. First of all muling is only done with tcp icp muling (the old fashioned way, like everything of all). If people are intrested in here I could upload way more 1.00 Chaos sanctuary gameplay and some 1.00 mfing and how it is done.

About my attraction to 1.00 expect a wall of text. (yes this is a bit a battle of patches post)

Most notable features of 1.00 and 1.06b to other classic versions
- Gold is very important, we have fixed gamble prices at our disposal with a 10% rare ratio (if the unique is in your stash). Unlike 1.07+ gold is something that makes or breaks your character.
- No immunities what so ever, meaning you can play every build you dream of.
- Drop rates are more or less fixed, prelod patches dont use tc tiered drops at all!
- Uniques don't have a level requirement.

And now to actual personal preference

1.00 vs 1.13c lod
1.13 is always played the simmilar way: we grind our hrs from Lower Kurast or trav. Get our Enigma, our Cheat to Arms, if we are playing a sorc we grind our cheatfinity. After that we run meph about 500 times to get our Shako, Arrach, mara. And guess what, it works on every character. If we decide lets do something challenging and lets do a melee build it ends with Grief (371 min dmg on lowest possible pb roll). Hunting hrs and expecially tc87 uniques takes some time so thats the funboat of 1.13c, but it pretty much a one trick pony patch where 90% of the itemdatabase and rares are useless. (Also the playing untweaked challenge got kinda ruined with Spirit and Insight.)

1.00 vs 1.11 lod.
Same boat but our hrs are much more rare meaning there is a bit more challenge getting em.

1.00 vs 1.09 lod
1.09 lod is hands down te most balanced lod patch (funwise 1.07 beats it because we love bugs). 1.09 offers a decent xp scaling and where in 1.13c 90% of the itembase is useless on 1.09 this percentage drops to 70% (class sets are actually usefull!). Part of rares are great, unfortunially 1.09 rares are generally worse as the ones in 1.13c. Still the meph running concern stays, but the whole game is less the one trick pony as 1.13.

1.00 vs 1.07 lod
Unfair to compare these two. ATM I am playing 1.00 because I am not in the mood of rackrunning. Funwise 1.07 might even beat 1.00. Rares play an important part of the 1.07 gameplay (counting crafts as rare items). 1.07 is a challenge on its own.

1.00 vs 1.06b classic
1.06b is aigain the more balanced classic patch over 1.00. 1.06b supports more builds that wheren't possible due to 1.00 bugs. 1.00 is kinda the 1.07 of classic. If you want a bugfree classic patch you really should play 1.06b. Getting rares on 1.00 is much easier due Cow King running and leveling on 1.00 till level 83 is a bit less grindy due to maggots that give more xp than they should.

Personally I am playing 1.00 because its a challenge on its own as 1.07 is a challenge on its own on lod.
The general theme of all classic patches are: how good can you get. 60-70% of the itemdatabase could be usefull (even staves!!!) if its a rare. The only real useless itemclass is any normal non unique weapon. 1.00 is also quite challenging to play because the gear limitations there is always something lacking (skills or fhr or cast or resist). The fact your character never gets perfect makes this patch perfect for my playstyle though it gets repetive sometimes.
 
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I get what you are saying about the older versions of the game. Many moons ago when I bought D2 at launch I remember things being tougher, but I was not the best gamer back then either(still ain't really!!!) The only Biggin's Bonnet I've ever found was after my first play through of the game on Normal back then when I beat Big D for the first time. I felt so accomplished but got wrecked after that.

I don't consider certain items to be mandatory in 1.13d. Of course those items you mentioned are nice to have, and are powerful, but there are plenty of builds I've played that didn't make use of them. In all actuality, unless you are a really good player those items aren't being used to their full potential. At /players1 just about anything will work, it's pushing that /players8 that you benefit from the GG gear of course.

One of the things I always hear is how Enigma ruined the game. If you remember it was the players griping about how the only class with mobility was the Sorc and it was the quickest to MF with. The devs obliged with giving every class the possibillity to have Teleport. In D3 they neutered Teleport and every class has a mobility skill included in every build. Enigma is not mandatory unless you just can't stand to be without it. I played a Frenzy Barb a lot and never needed it, and he was pretty badass.
 
I think all the time traveling is quite neat. I only have fleeting memories of some versions of D2 so I've been considering playing some older versions just to get acquainted with the differences myself. Seeing the posters doing as much certainly helps to fill in the knowledge gap in any case. But there's much to do in recent versions still that it'll probably remain on the backburner, even if some items are enticing.

As far as more recent versions are concerned, I've been playing D2 for who knows how long and I haven't even seen a Jah or Ber (or has that changed with RFL? Dun dun dun... no) let alone an Enigma-- or an Infinity, Call to Arms, HotO, Grief... I digress. The only extremely high end item I remember making was a BotD using someone else's Zod and base in MP, which arguably wasn't even the best item for the character(s) I used it on (Zealot and Fury Wolf). So the argument towards the high runewords being the be all end all, or requiring all the shiny tc87s is really only applicable for the upper echelons of play. It's certainly not needed to Pat/Mat/Guardian so it depends on what you consider being the benchmark for viable/competitive/complete as far as builds or characters are concerned.

I mean what sort of weirdos would try to get to 99 in this game anyways, right? :rolleyes:
 
Here is some more nostalgic gameplay. I present you a 4 player mf flayer and rof run on 1.00. As a mather of fact I am still unsure if investing in mf on 1.00 is really worth it. Watch me getting nearly wrecked by flayers.

Setup 143 mf
Level 65 barb with a 164 max damage pike (because no grief here).

 
Wow that looks really different I must say. Are Pikes always that long? Plus is that a Conc barb? Why no juvies? When you BO the bulbs stay at their pre_BO level lol. Just wow. I like the animation of him jiggling through the Flayers. I'm gonna throw a Pike on one of my barbs and see if it looks the same.
 
@DaveW

Eh I kinda forget to mention but rejuvs are actually quite rare in 1.00. Roughly 1 in 100 pots dropped is a full rejuv. They don't get autobelted like mp and hp ones and are too rare to be actually usefull. I use conc (at skill level 1) because it hits more reliable as bash, Berserk is useless as it hits for physical damage instead of magic damage. Yes when bo'ing the bulbs always stay at their standard level (thats why 12% lifeleach is so important on hell!) What makes mathers more difficult is your ww actually can be stopped when triggering after you get hit for more than 1/12 of your total hp. You can see that situation at 1:30 where I nearly died. Eh and I believe pikes have always been that long (from 1.00 to 1.14c).
 
@Treeharl interesting comparison of the patches. They all have their pros and cons to them. The correct option is to play ALL of the patches that are fun to YOU.

EG I love the quirks of 1.09, that you can get to 99 much easier than 1.1X, however you still really have to put in quite a bit of work. I only know of two people who managed a 7x99.

I love the number of character builds available in 1.1X Synergies, oskills, the new RW options. Instead of all paladins having max conviction and max fanaticism you have to basically pick one or the other. It really blew my mind the possibilities.

I also play classic (1.06b and 1.02). I'm not too far in yet, I appreciate how different it is to LoD and the charm of it (minus charms in inventory). I also play classic 1.14d. Why? Synergies.

I love the great things available in 1.07, but the investment in effort and patience to get them balances that out.

I'm not sure why you are so bitter about the later LoD patches. Those items are optional. If you are pure min/max player then you might well aim to get them, but you can sure play or have fun without any of those things.
 
@Timinator allow me to elaborate with an example.

What if Diablo 2 was a trading card game?

We add two paramaters to our created game:
1 hitpoints
2 damage

On (all) classic versions our cards are or random mixture between hitpoint and damage (rare items) or a fixed damage hitpoint card (unique items). If we get extremely lucky we get from our booster pack a random very rare card with high hp and high damage. When we bring such card in to play it will beat any fixed card in the game, but does it beat other random cards? The answer to that question is your card might be good at situation A but your opponents card (other player that is also playing classic) might be better because that card resists your damage by 10%.

Now lets move to LoD versions 1.07 and 1.09. We add more fixed cards to the game but since we see random cards could be quite decent (lets assume 20 hp and 20 damage max) we make fixed cards that have 18 hp and 18 damage each. Since the card is fixed everybody who is playing our card game gets eventually the same card (mfing) but some players buy more boosterpacks as others (doing more meph runs). Since our cards are at 18-18 already it is becomming a bit more hasstle of getting decent random cards. We still identify them because they MIGHT be 20-20 but the chances are rather slim. Luckely due to a new method we could add a new attack to our random cards (Crafting) so these cars might even become 25-25 ones.

Now we move to 1.13c we add a card that we call Call to Arms. It is a card that has 100 hitpoints and deals 70 damage. The card has no penalty of being played, no retreat cost and no disadvantage what so ever. If it was a fake card everybody playing our game would laugh and judge that card is a cheat. Now this card has been officially added by Blizzard in our game, its legimately obtainable. The only factor is it requires you to buy alot of booster packs (lower kurast runs for our Ohm). Every player in the entire game will eventually buy enough booster packs to play the Call to Arms card. Playing without the Call to Arms card aigainst any opponent makes us instantly lose the game. The fact our random cards increase from 20-20 max to 23-23 max is completely irrelevant. The next step is called powercreep, since Call to Arms deals only 40% of the damage and has only 40% of the hitpoints when used by a melee player (as in a Barb) we add a new fixed card that is specifically usefull for him and we call it Grief.

End of example.

Yes it is possible (and also what I am currently doing, playing the patches I like). The fact is as veteran d2 player I really can't justify the existence of CTA, Grief and Infinity in the current meta. Even if the Constriction ring was available it has more drawbacks as using a Grief or CTA. Enigma is a whole different cup of tea because the concept is actually well made (@darkstarhub explains in the post above why). Sadly the execution of the concept ends in a vastly overpowered item because the devs thought it would be a good idea to also add 70 strength at level 90 2 to all skills and 45 frw. Due to this the item jumped from a funny armor with a niche that gives players acces to teleport to the best item on any character in the game (even on sorcs on my opinion).

Synergies are a different cup of tea. Personally I am ambivalent on that one as I'd like playing both with and without em.

Edit: typo
 
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Ok, just so you know I don't play any trading card games. I think I get the gist behind what you are saying. You do bring up a few common things though. Over time in any economy people will get the Best In Slot gear, some people will spend time in the diminishing returns to maximise that gear. That happens in any patch. Different people burn out, or get bored at different times. We are quite a diverse lot here, and there is no "right" way or cheating way to play. Cheesy things sure, but this is the SPF, most activity only affects the individual apart from when you share information. If one person has a 10/10, and the other has a 25/25 it doesn't mean the higher number person will "win" here. Just it means if they play, they are stronger. Normally it means they have less to gain and closer to stop posting here.

Just so you know, I'm yet to make a Call to Arms. Mostly as I'm going to make a beta version one as its superior, but harder to acquire. I could have made a lesser one but chose not to. Not having one all these years doesn't mean I'm having any less fun. When I do get it, I don't think it will break my fun for me. It will just be another option I have.

PVP would be very different where it really matters what the other guy has. The only other time it matters might be a competiton like a MFO. If someone has much much better gear, they could be a lot more efficient and all other things being equal could get better results.

I'd say D3 is more broken with power creep, they don't know how to do things, so they just announced a new tier "primal ancients" which are even rarer and even more powerful. All the min/maxers will need to put in more effort to get back to the top tier again.

I remember back in the 1.09 days people swore off the Buriza. It was relatively easy to find and "broke the game" compared to most other bows. A bunch of people didn't use it. That's fine and their choice. A bunch of others did use it and enjoyed it. That's also fine. The whole thing is subjective. If to you it breaks the meta, that's all good.

When you have 500 uniques + 70 RWs, and who knows how many combinations of rare items, trying to balance them knowing some nerd will come up with a "you must use this gear" list is a challenge.

Just so you know for me personally, as a grailer the gold items are one of the main reasons I'm still in this game. I may pick up yellows sometimes if I can be bothered. I know I might get a 450% ed rare, but if I leave it unknown on the ground I'm not going to lose sleep over it myself.
 
@Timinator first of all the reason why you like grailers is one of the few sellingpoints of 1.13c lod. Getting a chance on a very rare (Fixed) item is always fun to some extend no mather what. I completely agree with that stance and that would be the reason why I still could play 1.13c.

Second part in my post above I described that Call to Arms is a cheat item, that is officially been implimented by Blizzard. Does that mean a player who is using CTA is a cheater? No ofcourse not, he is using an (opinion here) unfair item legimate to the best of its uses. Designwise the item is a cheat in essence but since the player can legimately obtain it, it means he is using the best item possible nothing more and nothing less.

The difference between an overpowered item and a cheat item is a subtile one. On 1.09 buriza was the best low level bow till level 70. After level 70 there are some other alternatives like mav bow, eaglehorn, Hellrack and Windforce (or a 1.07 craft with 3 sockets). Buriza is imo a bit too good but nothing more. Call to Arms is a pure cheat item because on every character you put it the oskill battle orders work (even barbs get 3 bo skills + 1 skill for using a cta 3 bo). Since the weapon can also be switched out (yay balance!!!) and the O skill bo stays it means the item has no drawbacks what so ever. Enigma has drawbacks (no allresist or fhr) and the fact when you unequip it you can no longer teleport. Thats why CTA is a cheat item and Enigma an overpowered item.

The fact you aren't picking up rares on 1.13c is completely justified unfortuniatly. Even if RNG provides you with a 2 socket 450 ed rare Grief will always be better (yay balance!!!). Your playstile suits one of imo the key aspects why I dislike 1.13c. Rebalancing would be a pretty hard thing to do (I did try it myself). Grailers are really nice to find, exept when you find 3x durability Vortex Shields ( @Burgomaster3 ) or Collossus Girdles.

Before somebody asks why I think grief is unfair lets rewrite the stats of a 390 damage one(disclaimer I don't own this Grief).
View attachment 4655
 
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Comparing +dmg with %ed on a weapon with low base damage is comparing apples with oranges, of course. You could as well say that an ethereal BotD GPA is like having one with +400 dmg, together with massive IAS, dual leech and stats bonuses.

Grief is meant for weapons with low base damage, but I agree that it has has too much +dmg.
 
While CtA kind of broke the gameplay from "let's make this game challenge" point of view, it actually brought some balance in between builds from "tournament" point of view, and especially PvP. Remove CtA and you have absolutely unchallenged farming machine in a form of a barb. He can have 3k life AND has item find unlike other builds who would struggle to get past 1.5k life and don't have item find. CtA made it possible that you can also play sorc, necro and other builds to challenge barbs authority and not to die all the time while trying to kill stuff as fast as possible (mind you, I'm talking about efficiency farming now, not some single pass challenges). Okay, I doubt that barb can possibly be the best rune farmer in areas even if he plays against squishy sorcs and necros, but still... In Travincal and MF farming he would be the freaking king of the heaven by having tons of advantage over other builds. Okay, we could argue that pitzerker now has huge advantage over AT sorc, but it is not as decisive as it could have been if sorc had to play more cautiously killing stuff while losing precious time on it.

Maybe better solution would be to remove BO from the game to not make barb OP in comparison to all the other characters. Even if you remove Grief, you just make BotD and have unchallenged farming machine. But, removing BO would completely broke PvP and turn it into 1 hit kill fest.

For mentioned reasons I think CtA is really good item to have in this game, it brings more balance in between builds.

Whoever wants to have a challenging gameplay, he can choose not to use any OP items like Enigma, CtA and Grief. Now things are balanced for everyone's taste pretty much. Okay, Grief is still powerhouse weapon, but even that doesn't make barb an ultimate king of everything, so... I don't really mind.
 
Treeharl: I agree certain items are OP, however in 1.09 you had different imbalances. For instance a Burrizon could use guided arrow with pierce and one shot just about any target. Multishot was full damage etc.
The OP items in 1.13 require runes that are hard to find. Remember at this point Blizzard first and foremost thought about Battle.net where you cannot just find a good Lower Kurast map and rerun. You cannot even rerun LK period or you will get banned for making to many games in a short amount of time.

In SP it's a little different since you can exploit maps and player settings, on the other hand there will be no dupes or Anni, Torches etc.
 
Following a balance idea like this to its end would eventually give every character class access to every skill... Let me see some items please =)
 
I've killed Meph about 670 now, and it is starting to suck really bad. Besides the freak incident of dropping a Jah, all i have got to show for it is Vipers, Occulus and a Shako. And Grisvolds armor. And Stormsheild. And 3xTitans. And Jalas.

Have dropps changed since 1.11? I remember it always was fun to run him because of the steady flow of interesting items.
 
helvete said:
Following a balance idea like this to its end would eventually give every character class access to every skill... Let me see some items please =)
Click to expand...

No, it would not. For example give item-find oskill and no one will ever bother to play anything but a sorc who will squash the competition in farming big time. Best LK runner, best trav runner, best MF farmer, best goldfinder... Hey, 1 character game!

My point is some items balanced the playing field a bit. Doesn't mean every single oskill would do the same.
 
NamelessPenguin said:
I've killed Meph about 670 now, and it is starting to suck really bad. Besides the freak incident of dropping a Jah, all i have got to show for it is Vipers, Occulus and a Shako. And Grisvolds armor. And Stormsheild. And 3xTitans. And Jalas.

Have dropps changed since 1.11? I remember it always was fun to run him because of the steady flow of interesting items.
Click to expand...
You get essences, now, but that shouldn't have a huge impact. Just need a few hundred more runs :)
 
Rune drops have increased since then.

NamelessPenguin said:
I've killed Meph about 670 now, and it is starting to suck really bad. Besides the freak incident of dropping a Jah, all i have got to show for it is Vipers, Occulus and a Shako. And Grisvolds armor. And Stormsheild. And 3xTitans. And Jalas.
Click to expand...

That sounds rather solid. Congrats, seriously and without any irony!

Equip your sorc with Viper, Occy, Shako, drop 3 IAS jewels into Gris armor and give it to your merc. You probably have a few Tal's helms as well, that also goes to the merc. Add Insight in the best 4 socket polearm (preferably ethereal) and off you go to the Tunnels with her, Pits or so, assuming it's a cold or fire/cold sorc.


Have dropps changed since 1.11? I remember it always was fun to run him because of the steady flow of interesting items.
Click to expand...
The old times were always better in our memories.

IIRC, his shako drop rate is 1 in 700-800 or so with 300%MF and less than 1 in 1000 for an Occy, so you were a pretty lucky basterd :).
 
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