1.00 News, Info and Gossip

[Fruit]

Given the number of bugs in 1.00 I expect Skeleton mastery to not even work on mages elemental damage though.

It does, but very minimally. I grabbed this hardcoded table when I was going through that function:

  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 < Skeleton Mastery level
0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 2
1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 3
2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1
3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1
6 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 2 2
7 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2
8 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 4

Rows #1 and #8 are only used for the melee skeletons, the rest was shared iirc. Row #1 is block chance, so that caps out at 3% (lol). Can't remember what each of the other rows were used for, but one of them was bonus damage I believe. I think for melee skeletons, it was simply added to their base damage, while for mages it was used as a bonus to the level of their missiles.

As you can see, the columns just stop at 10. Doesn't mean that skeletons don't benefit at all from more levels in SM, but they barely keep improving after that. Well, even up to 10 they don't improve all that much. I don't remember the function too well, so I can't say exactly what the default improvement of SM was for mages, but I think only some extra hitpoints.

Well, sorry if that's a bit vague, I didn't try very hard to get a good picture of these summons, because it quickly became clear that they're not worth the skill points.

This is fixed in later versions correct?

I assume so, since the Basin wiki mentions nothing about it. The bug is still there in 1.07, though. No clue when it was fixed (assuming it was).

Be aware that the interaction between blood golem and iron maiden was reported as being fixed in 1.07.

It wasn't until 1.10 that this was "fixed", RobbyD mentions it in his 1.09 guide as well:

Iron Maiden + Blood Gloem treats returned damage as damage dealt for the purpose of IG's impact on a Necro's hitpoints.

It was a popular build on bnet when 1.09 was live. People with this build were upset about it when 1.10 changed it. Maybe that the patch notes meant another bug? Or maybe they just forgot to fix it, but still added it to the patch notes.

Edit: He can expect it to be less powerful in 1.09 though, as the leech is calculated differently in 1.00, based on the current hitpoints of the monster, rather than any damage dealt to it. Therefore the leech scales with player number, and is just generally overpowered. There's even an overflow that can happen where you and your Golem get "healed" for a huge negative number (dozens of thousands). In this case, negative health won't kill you because the game of course assumes positive healing, and thus never checks if it kills you. But if you take any damage while your hitpoints are in the minus, you'll die. If you keep taking these negative heals, eventually the game crashes because of another overflow. If I remember correctly, only Full Rejuvenation Potions will fix the negative hitpoints.

seems at odds with the fact that the 'official strategy guide' on Battle.net encouraged its use

Classic Blizzard.

 

[Barl1]

Ah. I don't have much experience (I did once convert a 1.00 bloodmancer to 1.14 just to see what would happen (it's real bad lemme tell you)) with 1.07-1.09 so, I guess I just trusted that when they said a bug was fixed..--

--...ahahaha

Does this mean that a bloodomancer would work in 1.07? I would definitely try that.

 

[Fruit]

@Barl
Haha, yeah, Diablo patch notes are hit-or-miss. Not as bad as the character screen though, I think.

Does this mean that a bloodomancer would work in 1.07?

I still had it somewhere in my old notes, yes the Golem and Necromancer leech from damage returned by the Golem when he's hit in 1.07. It also works with Thorns and Spirit of Barbs. (Though my notes say nothing about how it's calculated.)

I wonder if 1.07 has anything else to offer for the Necromancer. His skeletons are probably still terrible. Revives could be pretty cool, since you can get items with Teleport charges in 1.07 to take the revives along with you, and their health still scales with player number. Amplify Damage, Decrepify and Lower Resist work at 100% effectiveness against monsters with immunities (in stead of at 20% like in later patches), and LR still lowers magic resistance to increase the damage of Bone spells. Iron Golem doesn't save yet with the player, so he's no good. Clay Golem doesn't slow yet, so he's no good. Attract had no limit yet on how many monsters can be affected. Am I missing anything relevant?

 

[Fugu]

I played a necromancer when 1.09 was live. Not only does it work, but it actually works better - in 1.00 for whatever reason the leech is often insufficient to keep the blood golem alive (ie blood golem will survive against an entire boss pack but will die to just the minions). As mentioned, blood golem got a boost to the amount of leech they got and I think that's why.

 

[Fruit]

As mentioned, blood golem got a boost to the amount of leech they got and I think that's why.

That definitely helps, but the more important factor is the way it's calculated. In 1.00 it's the monster's health, so if monsters are low on health then your golem will leech only little, while those monsters still do respectable damage to it. So in those cases, the damage can overshoot the leech by a lot, and your golem will just get destroyed. In 1.09 it's easy for the leech from the returned IM damage to exceed the damage that the golem received, so it's almost impossible for the golem to die against physical (melee) damage.

 

[maxicek]

Finally got my team to the Hell River of Flame waypoint. Time for some maggot farming now.

I’m mainly after nice boots, so I think I will level a bit then get a Cow King map that drops an appropriate base. Is that the best way for getting rares? I can gamble too, but that seems to be less efficient to me.

Any reason to run Hell Cows over NM? Any drops I should be looking for?

Edit: Re-read Treeharl’s guide and it looks like Normal runs for Greaves is the best bet. The bit about seeds & writing down the drops & stuff still confuses the hell out of me though.

 

[Barl1]

I got bored in other versions so I'm starting 1.00 again with all new characters. Probably going to try to stream a decent portion of it too (with grinding done off-camera in between streams). twitch.tv/harddorothy usually around 6-7pm EST if you want to see playing a blood golem/iron maiden/CE necro from scratch

 

[Fugu]

That definitely helps, but the more important factor is the way it's calculated. In 1.00 it's the monster's health, so if monsters are low on health then your golem will leech only little, while those monsters still do respectable damage to it. So in those cases, the damage can overshoot the leech by a lot, and your golem will just get destroyed. In 1.09 it's easy for the leech from the returned IM damage to exceed the damage that the golem received, so it's almost impossible for the golem to die against physical (melee) damage.

Oh that makes a lot of sense. Thanks. I was very confused about the circumstances that caused my golem to die.

 

[Fruit]

Any reason to run Hell Cows over NM? Any drops I should be looking for?

More rares from King, higher chance that items are upgraded to Exceptional, and higher level affixes. Other than that I can't think of anything. He might also have slightly different drop tables on NM & Hell (compared to Normal), but I don't have my notes on his drops anymore. Not everything in Treeharl's guide is quite right, but I guess none of it really matters enough for me to be annoying about it.

As far as King runs go, I'd just check which items he can drop on NM / Hell, and how your kill speed fares on those difficulties. Because even if your main aim is boots, he can possibly drop Exceptionals that you're interested in. Not sure if there are any nice boots-affixes that can't spawn on Normal, but if there are, then that would be another motivation to farm NM/Hell in stead of Normal.

And to clarify the "more rares", not sure if Treeharl's guide mentions this specifically (I may have skimmed over it), but if an item base is upgraded to Exceptional and then rolls for unique quality, then of course the item doesn't exist, so he'll drop a 5x durability rare in stead and then tries again to drop a unique. In line with these "patterns" that Treeharl's guide talks about, this effectively increases the amount of rares that King drops, kind of similar to holding unique items in your stash/inv/body to force certain bases to drop as rare quality in stead.

 

[helvete1]

Easier kill on normal and NM. Allows you to use patriarch and the ward instead of pike, which could save inventory space. Aim to use as many of the unique items he can drop as possible to force rares.

 

[maxicek]

Great tips, thanks @helvete and @Fruit - I will get back to this between RFL rounds.

Better get that second Barb levelled up for the sword and board variant.

 

[maxicek]

I have been hitting the RoF Maggots the last couple of days. Levelling of the mules seemed very slow at first, but now they are at 36 and my Barb has hit 72.

How far did you guys level this way? What is reasonable?

If I want to run Normal Cow King with my Sword & Board barb (one of the mules), I think a few more levels are still needed.

Edit:
Is the Necro Build just 20 in CE, IM and Blood Golem? What about Golem Mastery & Summon Resist?

 

[helvete1]

Should be reasonable to get the mules to the 70's, however, as the killing character level rises, exp drops off for the mules as well because of how exp is handled. The workaround is to simply switch to one of the mules for killing. A lvl 75 killer will provide good exp, but a lvl 90 will provide almost none.

Been a while since I did this, so there is a chance my memory is wrong. My mules were about lvl 76 before I had to give up because main char was way too high lvl.

 

[maxicek]

Thanks Helvete. I have a third barb in the mules, so swapping the gear over should be easy.

 

[Eriklop]

hi all, i restarted 1.00. i was wondering is it legit to get javelins from amazons and stack them using multiplayer muling?

Thx in advance,

 

[Eriklop]

hi all, i restarted 1.00. i was wondering is it legit to get javelins from amazons and stack them using multiplayer muling?

Thx in advance,

 

[maxicek]

Don’t really understand what you mean- Are you talking about making multiple new character Amazons just for the Javelins?

 

[Eriklop]

ehm ill try again. I want to mule javelins and tps to a character to make life easier starting out. Is this something that is considered legit in spf?

 

[maxicek]

As long as they are from 1.00, yes. I’m just not clear where the items are coming from if you are restarting?

 

[helvete1]

Default equip from amazon characters are buckler, stack of javelins, one tp and one id scroll. He's asking if he can make like 8 zons, and mule all the starting gear over to one for QOL purposes.

Kinda cheesy, but I don't see how it's any different from twinking on uniques from lvl 1.