Act 5 (super/sparkly)chests questions

[rafquad]

Hey, all!

I recently stumbled upon a very heated up thread in the old place, about someone doing Abaddon/Infernal Pit (mostly IP) chest runs to some pretty amazing results, claim-and-screenshot wise.

To avoid the boredom of doing all the same tried and true places (and to have a small break form Travincal before I get burned out by it) I decided to pursue this "off the beaten path" running. I rolled a Frigid Highlands map that has:

- Eldritch
- Sharptooth Slayer just a few teleports behind Eld
- Frigid superchest (plus a Well nearby which is great for curse-clearing!)
- Abaddon Portal

My questions are, basically

1. All act5 poppables can drop Zod, right? I'm clicking on everything I see along the way.
2. Compared to, say, Pindle, what are the items that Eldritch and Sharptooth cannot drop? As far as the odds of the item being green/gold, I'm assuming it's the same. Is it?
3. What are the differences between the frigid super chest and the abaddon sparkly one? Is it just that sparkly chests can drop sets and uniques?
4. What /players setting should I be doing these in? I have been doing them at p7. Would be glad if I could scale back to p5 with minimal loss, as Abaddon has some very dangerous mobs at times
5. What are the "usual" act5 superchests people run, if it's not what I'm doing?
6. Has anyone here done this before and can share some particular advice or info that I have not touched in the above questions?

Thanks in advance

 

[Trim]

First off, I'll admit straight away that I don't know much about this. But I can answer --

1. Yes, Hell Act V poppables can potentially drop Zod runes.
2. Eldritch is mlvl84 and drops up to TC84. He has the potential to drop quite a bit, but all TC87's are off the table -- things like Griffons, Windforce, Steelrend, Death's Web, and even the lowly Templar's Might. Not a great target and drop odds for a lot of desirable stuff is poor, but it IS easily accessible. Sharptooth is mlvl84 and drops up to TC87, though, so he's able to go a bit higher. Drop odds for a lot is pretty bad in comparison to usual targets, and high-end stuff is not good: at 500 MF, a D-Web from Pindle is around 1:58,000; an AT unique is around 1:116,000; Sharptooth is around 1:500,000. Odds of a Zod? 1:5,950,000. Same as Pindle, and twice as good as from a unique from AT, so at least that's a tick in the pro column.

Forgive me if I miss out on / incorrectly tag anything, but it looks like the only stuff Sharptooth can't drop is (poorly sorted, sorry; I'm manually digging through a TC/qlvl list):

Spoiler

-Arioc's Needle
-Wolfhowl
-Alma Negra
-Kira's
-Glad's Bane
-Andy's Visage
-Shadow Killer
-Arkaine's Valor
-Halaberd's Reign
-Stormlash
-Tomb Reaver
-Arachnid Mesh
-Azurewrath
-CoA
-Tyrael's
-Mang Song's
-The Grandfather
-The Cranium Basher

Regardless, the best of luck if you endeavor on this quest! Certainly something different than the norm, and everyone loves a natural Zod screenshot!

Edit: Huh. I never knew that Snapchip Shatter & Frozenstein have the same item drop potential as Pindle. Learn something new every day! So if your runs get you anywhere near those monsters, might as well smash 'em.
Never mind. Thanks for the correction, @art_vandelay. That explaination is slightly above my comprehension level (and well laid out, to boot), though I do get the gist of it. That's what I get for assuming monsters with the same mlvl & TC function similarly.

 

[art_vandelay]

The superchests are different from the sparkly chests but it's not exactly easy to describe the difference, so I made this thread:

[Guide] Regular, Special and Sparkly Chests

[Guide] The Super- and Sparkly Chest Reference (1.07-1.14d) Welcome to what will hopefully be the definite resource on regular, special and sparkly chests! Some of the information here has been known for a long time whereas some is brand new (at least I could not find it elsewhere). The first...

www.purediablo.com

There's a section listing all the chests in act 5 so you will know exactly what kind of chest you're opening.

If you just care about Zod then these are the chances for act 5 from sparkly, super and regular chests:

Spoiler: Zod patterns

Regular Chests: 1 Zod pattern at p1 with 0 MF (Note: Since act 5 regular chest objects are never locker there will always be a 25% chance to drop nothing, so chances for that Zod would be (1/4)*(1/65534) per chest)
Superchests: 1 Zod pattern at p7
Sparkly Chests: '0,62 Zod patterns' at p3, '0,2 Zod patterns' at p5, 1 Zod pattern at p7; each of those with 0 MF.

There might be additional patterns with different amounts of MF (or less) but nobody has the time to check all of those currently

If you really want to run chests in act 5 then Frigid Superchest followed by the red portal sparkly chest (both p7) is just fine. Another option would be to run the Glacial Trail by getting a map that has the superchest on the way to the Drifter cavern entrance. Yet another way is to run the Halls of Pain with the Waypoint in the east since there you have a superchest plus 4 regular chests (tombs) to the south. Most other poppables that can spawn there also have the drop patterns of these tombs so that might be the highest chance of Zod you might get.

@Trim Snipsnap and Frozenstein don't drop like Pindle

How the 1.10 Pindleskin "nerf" failed and Snapchip suffered

A while back I heard on dbrunski125's stream a claim that that Snapchip was bugged and dropped poorly. Since I had recently seen the tournament on here that included snapchip and @ffs 's theory crafting for fire sorc snapchip runs, I thought I would investigate this further. It turns out...

www.purediablo.com

Also just to note it: Drifter Cavern sparkly chest is superior to Icy Cellar sparkly chest not just because you get a superchest in Glacial Trail but also because Drifter Cavern does not spawn Souls and Dolls whereas Icy Cellar does.

 

[rafquad]

Thanks Trim and art_vandelay for your responses!

@Trim ouch, Eldritch and Sharptooth are not really good, then. I'll keep bashing them since it's on the way to the chests anyway, but it's good to know that I can't really expect Pindleskin-level quality from them.

@art_vandelay I'm reading through your thread, thanks for linking to it! Your information about the Zod patterns isn't there, though (unless I terribly missed it). Do you have the chances/patterns for the other high runes in each players setting, too? If p7 is the "correct" setting for Zod but is not the optimal for "anything Vex and above", then I might switch to a different setting.