1.00 News, Info and Gossip

I'd only keep the map if it's really great (short distance to tristram and short distance to king). Else, keep doing the multi games. Before long, you'll have one of each unique he can drop (even war staff, great axe, etc). When he then tries to drop those uniques again, he'll fail, produce a 5x dura rare, and try up to four more times, resulting in 5 rares every 3-4 runs. Which can produce a LOT of rare plated belts, pikes, light plates, bone helms, greaves and the like. You should be able to get close to end game gear this way.

If you do find a great map, and the king regularly produces a pattern which goes something like "pike pike ring plated belt greaves", then by all means, run that map dry. Probably the most effective way of farming SoJs too.
 
Yeah, that's his rare drop. He always tries to force a quality for his entire drop except the one blue. I don't know the exact figures, but it's something like 30/10/60 unique/set/rare.

Forcing a rare is easy, and only fails in NM or Hell where he can drop a Great Pilum, the only possible base he can drop which can't be rare, only superior at best.

If he forces set, then that rarely fails either, as only a few of his drops would fail in Normal. Pikes and Great axes come to mind as having no set version. However, as sets aren't limited to one each game, a set drop failing on all five tries would be extremely unlikely in Normal.

Forcing unique is the key exploit. Items worn on character and items in inventory/cube/stash *at the time of item generation, which in this case is when the king dies* will flag as already dropped. So if you have them all, or all except for SoJ, then his drop will fail five times, resulting in five rares, or it will fail until one of his five attemts result in a SoJ. This happens approximately 30% of the time. You'll really want that 5x durability on your weapon when you start WWing a lot.
 
The uniques can be anywhere in game I assume? So if I bring the mules in, do I need to party them?
 
Thanks BKC. I have a few uniques now, starting to mount up.

Are FCR & FHR breakpoints the same as in LoD? I know the items do not list numbers, but I assume Apprentice = 10FCR, Magus = 20 FCR still.
 
At least when you gamble, you need to have uniques on or in gambler's stash/inventory. I was thinking it was the same when killing Cow King.

Besides, you are killing them in single player games with the desired map anyway. They will actually soon take most of your stash/inventory space. I think @helvete recommended earlier to wear most of them by yourself -- barb will kill just fine that way.

I suppose the Apprentice and Magus would mean the same, but I recall the breakpoints being somehow different?
 
Breakpoints are different, yes. Uniques can't be *anywhere*, they need to be in someones inventory. NOT on the ground, and if you bring in a mule, then exit it again, then its items will NOT count as spawned.
 
Hit 30 on the barb and with the pike i already found earlier i am whirling like a little baby through the cows. Nothing worth mentioning other then repairing an ancient armor hurts the gold pool!!!
 
When away from a week so much is missed. @BKC and Maxi, great work getting through to 30s. @maxicek , that rare +mana and leech ring is end game worthly. So much easier to get them to high 30s killing in MP games . The cow king is very good but some end of game come running the Normal CS like this

View attachment 5387

So not as much time for DII last over the last 2 weeks as I would like but enough time to finally use the finished 24 imbue quests i collected. I also have a mule just collecting grim wands from Normal act 4 running for the purpose . The prize is to find a stick with 2 or more of following mods, +2 Necro skills, 20 FCR, +mana or +res. For this you need to have toons over lvl 40 but less than lvl 70 when you imbue so you don't get the replenish life mod. I had levelled many of mine up to 60 and got carried away a bit

3rd run up - this was close

View attachment 5388

just missing FCR

2nd runner up, splitting hairs really, one better away from winner, one of sorcs is using that now

View attachment 5389

1st runner up - again very good - looks good on the Necro. Nice stick actually and awesome name too

View attachment 5390

winner 3 categories covered - but not as useful currently as Havoc Smasher for the Necro currently

View attachment 5391

These were the only 4 worth keeping. The rest of the wands were Charsied. It was totally worth spending time collecting the quests and wands. I think my imbues were on the lucky side though. May be the 1.00 veterans may have some thoughts on this. Now I really don't need to hunt Ume's at all

My necro now has +3 skills which is very good in 1.00 for hell. That allows the Necro to mule around a respectable 163MF for area clears on his other gear and save from pts on the curses.

I still have 6 imbue quests from chars lvls 31 and 33 on the gambling mules which I still save for a sharkskin belts and demonhide sashes.

Next continue to level all of the original 8 to 70+ in the Hell RoF and find those belts
 
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Yep, those are pretty good. 10% more FHR than in LoD, and you can see the potential for 49% single resists. The life could in theory be up to 19 str as well, or even 119% goldfind, but GL finding boots this good in LoD.
 
Got my first SoJ from the Cow King last night. Uniques are slowly filling up, I'm still looking for the Pike though.

Item spam is really annoying, so much junk gets dropped.

Is there a full list of Normal Cow King unique drops? Just curious how many I need to find.

Edit: Found it in the image in Treeharl's guide. Shame it is not as text.
 
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@BKC those boots are amazing. Best FHR/FRW combo I have found so far is FHR, Faster RW (20%), FR 25, CR 16, + 1 Dex and I have gambled hundreds of boots, and ran the normal CK lots

@helvete, the competition is often Nat's boots, or Treks in the latter patches. So any boots do need those stats, fhr, 30 FRW, and Res to beat those

@maxicek, once you have most of the CK uniques, sometimes the Cow level can drop the occasional useful unique. Curious if you have found Iceblink or Twitchthroe yet, as I did find these as well. These don't drop from the CK but found from normal Cows with some MF and luck

My last week of 1.00 action played on and off was spent leveling 5 Sorcs in the RoF from between 63 to 74. Got 3 them at lvl 71 one at 72 and one at 73. Started on the lvl 63 one, then partied her once she got to 67 with her to catch up with the others. In a 8 player game maggot farming it is taking about an hour to level all them one level currently when partied. Some of the builds are more difficult to lvl. eg Hydra, Enchant build 1.00 build and nova, SF build are just leeching XP in Hell. Just using the blizz/orb/SF builds and twink on as much FCR,+skills and mana as I fit with gear. I have low and negative resistances while maggot farming

Current setup
Rare Wand, 20 FCR, +21 Mana, 21 PoiRes
Tarnhelm (+1 Skills)
Rare Ammy, +1 Sorc, +1 Ama, +36 life, +12 FR, Replenish Life +5, +51 GF
SoJ
Rare ring +36 Mana,+25 Life, 36 CR, +1, Dex, 12 MF
Sigon's Shield
Rare field plate , PLR 75%, 23 CR, 22 FR, 17 LR, +53 Life
rare Belt +99 GF, FR 19, PoiR 13, +5 life, Attacker dam of 2
Tearhanch
Frostburns

Probably could squeeze another SoJ on this setup but not sure if it will add to much to kill power/speed if the increased mana pool

In each game, the necro clears Act 4 to the RoF, then a Barb clears non Maggot adults and the first small section part of the CS and the the maggot farming can start so the 2 Barb and Necro are gaining lvls also.
 
So I've decided to quit putting it off and finally do a 1.00 playthrough. But there's a twist: the game is set (modded) to players 8 and is unchangeable. So if it gets too hard, then there won't be anything to do about it! Getting through hell is going to be a helluva challenge. I went with a sorceress, in order to make use of Static Field. I might go Hydra/Orb since there ain't a delay. I've managed to get to the stony field so far. Blood Raven wasn't that bad, but the Rashankshu pack nearly had me. I had to use all my rejuvs. Wow, this brings back some memories, I haven't touched CD2 since 2005ish.

The game has glitchy colors and I have to run it in Direct2D (and kill explorer.exe) anyone else have this issue??

Blood Raven was recruited by her own army...
Screenshot1.jpg
 
@BKC Duriel and Hephasto are going to be pals ;)

Ok I figured out why the game won't run in Direct3D. This issue affects versions 1.00-1.02. From the 1.03 patch notes:
Code: 
- In 3dfx/Glide mode, colors are not as washed out and cinematics
  look better.

This can be fixed by using the D2Direct3D.dll from 1.03 (and 1.03 only). The game will now run on modern computers. As usual, here is the essential fixer pack (No-CD, CPU bug fix, multiple windows). I've included the D2Direct3D.dll from 1.03 as well, if you can't get the game to run. Click
 
I'll do the right up later, but for now here is some interesting tidbits regarding broken drops in 1.00:
So I was looking at the code in 1.06 to see what all was changed. Along with maggot young XP getting nerfed, the "upgrade" types for some base items were fixed. You can get a Lance drop in 1.00, however, it will "fail" and change into a different item. Unlike in LoD, exceptional items are not in the TC but rather a % chance that a normal drop will be upgraded. There is a 25% chance an item will upgrade to it's exceptional version, but due to typos some items are given the wrong code. This was fixed in 1.04 to allow some items to drop.

The following base types are upgraded incorrectly. So if you get a great pilum drop, there is a 50% chance it was supposed to be a lance.
Bone Helm -> Winged Helm (instead of Grim Helm)
Grand Scepter -> Tusk Sword (instead of Holy Water Sprinkler)
Maul -> Flanged Mace (instead of War Club)
Pike -> Great Pilum (instead of Lance)
Blade -> Not specified in TC table at all
 
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