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snickersnack said:
Keep an eye out for good bases and I think you can maybe get more damage output from White. I have a poisonmancer parked in act 1 of Hell. He's holding this:

White
Tomb Wand
DolIo
One Hand Damage: 10 - 22
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 35
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0x3e39eaf6
Item Level: 84
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Bone Spear (Necromancer Only)
+4 to Skeleton Mastery (Necromancer Only)
+3 to Bone Armor (Necromancer Only)
+3 to Revive (Necromancer Only)
+3 to Poison Nova (Necromancer Only)
+2 to Poison Explosion (Necromancer Only)
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 25%
+10 to Vitality
+13 to Mana
Magic Damage Reduced by 4

I'm pretty sure that I had blackbog's and HotO at the time, so I'm guessing that I didn't need the fcr or all res from HotO. I think he was using full trang's set, so that may have had something to do with it.

Irrelevant fact: I made that runeword over 13 years ago. It's now old enough to make an account and post here. :LOL: I've since made an Enigma, so if I were to regear him and finish questing, I'd have a pretty good pitmancer. :unsure:

Changing topics, I've been levelling a new paladin, as suggested by @little birdy, to respec into a 'mercadin.' I started him in LoD, as I usually do, and he's now level 46. I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep him in LoD before moving him to D2R, but when I do, I'll have the opportunity to move some items with him. Currently, I don't have Arreat's Face in D2R, but I have three in LoD. One of them has 5% ll and hadn't been used at all, so I'm okay with moving it forward. (I'm trying to keep forwarding to a minimum, and mostly just duplicates.)

Is Arreat's Face likely the best helm for an act 5 merc? Or is there some better option? In D2R, I have Andariel's Visage, Demonhorn's Edge, Crown of Thieves, Vampire Gaze, and Guillame's Face.
Click to expand...
That's a pretty sweet looking wand! I always pick up wands trying to find good 'White' bases, or just to sell them for easy gold. I still haven't found my ideal 'White' base for the Poison Necro, but I agree that I could probably do better than Blackbog's Sharp if/when I find the right base. It's out there somewhere!!
 
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Maybe you all could advise: I'm wanting to take a crack at the MFO for the first time and trying to decide on which division to enter.

I think I can run the following with decent speed and MF%:
-Pindle+... Pindleskin with my Blizzard Sorc and Shenk/Eldritch with Furyzon
-A85 - Ancient Tunnels with Blizzard Sorc
-Baal - Furyzon

Which area is best to farm for someone who still needs some pretty general items? I've farmed NM and Hell Andy and Meph quite a bit, but still lack things that are commonly used like Mara's and Dracul's (have an eth pair).

I'm leaning toward Pindle + and Ancient Tunnels because I think I'll get more free time to do repetitive, shorter runs. Baal runs are more involved and take more focus.

Out of Pindle+ and Ancient Tunnels, Pindle seems to drop the least for me, but I know he can drop really high-level stuff and I don't have to worry about things like resists. Shenk and Eldritch seem to drop more often than Pindle when I've tried farming them. Ancient Tunnels is fine, but takes a tad longer to run that those single farming targets and I'm not sure I can do it with nearly as much MF%.
 
BBS_Agonistes said:
Maybe you all could advise: I'm wanting to take a crack at the MFO for the first time and trying to decide on which division to enter.

I think I can run the following with decent speed and MF%:
-Pindle+... Pindleskin with my Blizzard Sorc and Shenk/Eldritch with Furyzon
-A85 - Ancient Tunnels with Blizzard Sorc
-Baal - Furyzon

Which area is best to farm for someone who still needs some pretty general items? I've farmed NM and Hell Andy and Meph quite a bit, but still lack things that are commonly used like Mara's and Dracul's (have an eth pair).

I'm leaning toward Pindle + and Ancient Tunnels because I think I'll get more free time to do repetitive, shorter runs. Baal runs are more involved and take more focus.

Out of Pindle+ and Ancient Tunnels, Pindle seems to drop the least for me, but I know he can drop really high-level stuff and I don't have to worry about things like resists. Shenk and Eldritch seem to drop more often than Pindle when I've tried farming them. Ancient Tunnels is fine, but takes a tad longer to run that those single farming targets and I'm not sure I can do it with nearly as much MF%.
Click to expand...
I briefly considered running Baal. It would have been nice to load up on Festering Essences of Destruction as a by-product of running Baal, because that's the essence I always run out of first and I want to cube up some more Tokens... but, like you say, Baal is more involved and fewer of my characters are really set up well for it. I have several characters that can run various alvl 85 areas with OK speed, so that will allow for more variety and keep me engaged without each run being too time consuming. Pindle+ would be too repetitive for me, but if I could commit to running Pindle and Shenk over and over then I think it would be very rewarding. It's just not as enjoyable for me. You seem to have done very well in all your LK runs, which share some of that short and repetitive nature that Pindle+ would entail, so maybe that's a good choice for you? Unless you feel burnt out after all those LK runs, in which case alvl 85 areas might offer a nice change of scenery!
 
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That's kind of what I was thinking, @little birdy--leaning toward Pindle+. I enjoy more involved runs like Baal, but I think I'll be able to fit in a lot more time with the really short, repetitive runs. It's so much easier to have the freedom to basically stop at any time.

EDIT: What players setting do folks usually recommend for Pindle? I know it doesn't affect his drop, but could affect minions and give some XP? Or best just to stick with P1?
 
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Oblivious said:
Hi there !
I am struggling in Hell Act 1 with my untwinked single pass Avenger, mainly due to lack of good weapon drops and the moron dying too often.
I was reading around how others deal with that issue, and while I did not craft an upgrade exactly, I messed around with the 3 chippie reroll recipe. HC Gunter and jiasonz recommend rerolling till you get a cruel affix, but the recipe itself sets the ilvl to 25. I am kinda confused as to how that is possible. I rerolled a cryptic axe a couple of times and voila:

Cruel Cryptic Axe of Maiming
Cryptic Axe
Two Hand Damage: 110 - 506
Durability: 57 of 65
Required Level: 59
Required Strength: 165
Required Dexterity: 103
Fingerprint: 0xccd9f6f3
Item Level: 25
Version: Resurrected
235% Enhanced Damage
+4 to Maximum Damage
1 Sockets (0 used)


Anyone got a clue ? Sorry if this is really a known thing :p
Click to expand...
As a followup I tried to roll a cruel small crescent. I burnt about 150 chippies to no avail. Maybe someone can enlighten me as to which items have a high enough qlvl that they may roll the cruel affix ? Thanks :)
 
Oblivious said:
As a followup I tried to roll a cruel small crescent. I burnt about 150 chippies to no avail. Maybe someone can enlighten me as to which items have a high enough qlvl that they may roll the cruel affix ? Thanks :)
Click to expand...
Okay I went and checked the Item gen guide.

So, for 3 chipped gems recipe this applies "if (qlvl>ilvl) then {ilvl=qlvl}". Items with high qlvl and low ilvl, qlvl becomes the ilvl for the purposes of calculating the alvl.
You need to calculate the alvl to know what available affixes there are:

{
if (ilvl<(99-qlvl/2))
then {alvl=ilvl-qlvl/2}
else {alvl=2*ilvl-99}
}
Click to expand...

Cruel has an alvl of 56. You can check qlvls here.

Small crescent is qlvl 61, which results in an alvl of 30 ({alvl=ilvl-qlvl/2} == 61-61/2=30.5). Ergo not possible to roll cruel with chipped gems on Small crescent.

You need a qlvl of at least 67 ( ilvl<(99-qlvl/2) -> 67 < (99-67/2) -> 67 < 65) to get to the else calculation
{alvl=2*ilvl-99} -> 2 * 67 -99 = 35.
But still not enough to roll cruel.

For that you need a qlvl of at least 78 (2*78-99=57, which is larger than 56).
qlvl 78 and above weapons:

Conquest Sword
Grand Matron Bow
Feral Claws

Colossus Sword
Cryptic Axe
Ghost Glaive
Matriarchal Pike
Runic Talons
Ward Bow
War Spike
Winged Axe

Champion Axe
Cryptic Sword
Demon Crossbow
Fanged Knife
Ghost Spear
Great Poleaxe
Legendary Mallet
Shillelagh
Vortex Orb

Archon Staff
Berserker Axe
Caduceus
Colossus Blade
Dimensional Shard
Giant Thresher
Glorious Axe
Hydra Bow
Legend Spike
Mythical Sword
Scissors Suwayyah
Thundermaul
Unearthed Wand
War Pike
Winged Harpoon

Source
 
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lizard said:
Okay I went and checked the Item gen guide.

So, for 3 chipped gems recipe this applies "if (qlvl>ilvl) then {ilvl=qlvl}". Items with high qlvl and low ilvl, qlvl becomes the ilvl for the purposes of calculating the alvl.
You need to calculate the alvl to know what available affixes there are:



Cruel has an alvl of 56. You can check qlvls here.

Small crescent is qlvl 61, which results in an alvl of 30 ({alvl=ilvl-qlvl/2} == 61-61/2=30.5). Ergo not possible to roll cruel with chipped gems on Small crescent.

You need a qlvl of at least 67 ( ilvl<(99-qlvl/2) -> 67 < (99-67/2) -> 67 < 65) to get to the else calculation
{alvl=2*ilvl-99} -> 2 * 67 -99 = 35.
But still not enough to roll cruel.

For that you need a qlvl of at least 78 (2*78-99=57, which is larger than 56).
qlvl 78 and above weapons:

Conquest Sword
Grand Matron Bow
Feral Claws

Colossus Sword
Cryptic Axe
Ghost Glaive
Matriarchal Pike
Runic Talons
Ward Bow
War Spike
Winged Axe

Champion Axe
Cryptic Sword
Demon Crossbow
Fanged Knife
Ghost Spear
Great Poleaxe
Legendary Mallet
Shillelagh
Vortex Orb

Archon Staff
Berserker Axe
Caduceus
Colossus Blade
Dimensional Shard
Giant Thresher
Glorious Axe
Hydra Bow
Legend Spike
Mythical Sword
Scissors Suwayyah
Thundermaul
Unearthed Wand
War Pike
Winged Harpoon

Source
Click to expand...
Thank you for taking the time to read and write-up the reply. This clarifies it quite a bit. Cheers :D
 
Triple Helix said:
@BBS_Agonistes this may not be the best answer, but I run him at /p8 if my character is strong and can kill him quickly. Just for the XP. If it takes too long on another character I'll drop to /p5, etc.
Click to expand...
Thanks! That's the tack I took and already leveled sorc up from 88-90 dialing in my gear, so it's nice to see the XP bar move after doing LK a lot.
 
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lizard said:
Okay I went and checked the Item gen guide.

So, for 3 chipped gems recipe this applies "if (qlvl>ilvl) then {ilvl=qlvl}". Items with high qlvl and low ilvl, qlvl becomes the ilvl for the purposes of calculating the alvl.
You need to calculate the alvl to know what available affixes there are:



Cruel has an alvl of 56. You can check qlvls here.

Small crescent is qlvl 61, which results in an alvl of 30 ({alvl=ilvl-qlvl/2} == 61-61/2=30.5). Ergo not possible to roll cruel with chipped gems on Small crescent.

You need a qlvl of at least 67 ( ilvl<(99-qlvl/2) -> 67 < (99-67/2) -> 67 < 65) to get to the else calculation
{alvl=2*ilvl-99} -> 2 * 67 -99 = 35.
But still not enough to roll cruel.

For that you need a qlvl of at least 78 (2*78-99=57, which is larger than 56).
qlvl 78 and above weapons:

Conquest Sword
Grand Matron Bow
Feral Claws

Colossus Sword
Cryptic Axe
Ghost Glaive
Matriarchal Pike
Runic Talons
Ward Bow
War Spike
Winged Axe

Champion Axe
Cryptic Sword
Demon Crossbow
Fanged Knife
Ghost Spear
Great Poleaxe
Legendary Mallet
Shillelagh
Vortex Orb

Archon Staff
Berserker Axe
Caduceus
Colossus Blade
Dimensional Shard
Giant Thresher
Glorious Axe
Hydra Bow
Legend Spike
Mythical Sword
Scissors Suwayyah
Thundermaul
Unearthed Wand
War Pike
Winged Harpoon

Source
Click to expand...
Thanks for writing this up! I had never realized the potential of this recipe for untwinked players. When you consider you can buy a lot of these bases from Hell vendors, that's a pretty good reason to save chipped gems. Just for fun I tried for fun and the best I got was a Knight's Colossus Sword, but I'm sure given a bigger pile of chipped gems you could roll something really nice!
 
BBS_Agonistes said:
Thanks for writing this up! I had never realized the potential of this recipe for untwinked players. When you consider you can buy a lot of these bases from Hell vendors, that's a pretty good reason to save chipped gems. Just for fun I tried for fun and the best I got was a Knight's Colossus Sword, but I'm sure given a bigger pile of chipped gems you could roll something really nice!
Click to expand...
So… I see a use for my 3k worth of gems all of a sudden
 
A little update on my mercadin experiment...

mercadin01.png

It's ... interesting. :) The build is very likely not as strong as a pure FoH build, but it isn't weak either. I was a bit shocked when I started out Hell on /p7 and iced mobs pretty readily. The main problem was that my resists are hot garbage with both hands on the main switch holding Infinity. I think that the -50% enemy light resist is doing its job, though. He's level 75 right now.

Current skills:
20 FoH
17 Holy Shock <-- I started maxing this first.
12 Holy Bolt <-- Maybe I should have started maxing this first. :unsure:
20 Concentration <-- Once I pat this guy, I might respec to Fanaticism to see how well that works.
1 Prayer <-- After others are maxed, further points will go here.
1 Cleansing
1 Vigor
1 Redemption <-- Quite important since I don't have Insight.

Current gear:
main: Infinity, eth GPA
switch: CTA, Spirit
head: shako, ptopaz <-- I might switch to another shako with Um for resists.
body: vipermagi, unsocketed <-- I might put an Um here, but it's not a well rolled vipermagi.
gloves: magefist
belt: tgod's <-- I'll switch to arach's eventually.
boots: silkweave <-- I might switch to resist boots.
ammy: seraph's hymn <-- I don't have mara's in D2R.
rings: BK, ravenfrost <-- I might swap out the Ravenfrost if I really need resists.
17/15 torch <-- No anni yet. Sigh... I might have to farm some more torches.

Merc:
Grief PB / Lawbringer PB <-- I haven't tried out Crescent Moon yet as LB is doing just fine.
Treachery, eth great hauberek <-- I don't have Fortitude in D2R. I might try out The Gladgiator's Bane if he starts dying.
Arreat's Face, pemerald <-- He needed dex for phaseblades. I might put in an ias jewel since he doesn't need it anymore.

Gameplay:
Well, it's kind of what I thought it would be. I can just stand around doing nothing most of the time. The merc has not died so far, which is weird since he's always in the fray (except for when he gets caught on terrain). Once, I had to spam Holy Bolt on him and then run away to make him disengage, but I haven't had to rez him yet. I don't know what his damage output is since I haven't really tried to calculate it. I looked for merc damage calculators, but I didn't find anything that seems to work for D2R. I'm considering trying out other offhand weapons. I have a Crescent Moon PB. Headstriker might bring up his average damage. I've also considered Gull as an offhand for him. I plan on making a 6 ist PB at some point for my berserker, so that'd be an option as well. If barb mercs could use daggers, I'd put a Fleshripper on him. I also found out that Frenzy mercs can't wield two-handed swords.

Large groups of Demons and Undead clear very fast if I spam FoH a bit. I'm genuinely not sure if running maxed Conviction with HotO/Spirit gets more dps than Infinity with its -enemy light resist. Infinity breaks most light immunes and then the -enemy light res works at 100% effectiveness, but HotO*/Spirit shows superior damage numbers. Hmmmm. :unsure:

* I don't have HotO in D2R yet, so this is a guess.
 
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snickersnack said:
A little update on my mercadin experiment...

View attachment 82581

It's ... interesting. :) The build is very likely not as strong as a pure FoH build, but it isn't weak either. I was a bit shocked when I started out Hell on /p7 and iced mobs pretty readily. The main problem was that my resists are hot garbage with both hands on the main switch holding Infinity. I think that the -50% enemy light resist is doing its job, though. He's level 75 right now.

Current skills:
20 FoH
17 Holy Shock <-- I started maxing this first.
12 Holy Bolt <-- Maybe I should have started maxing this first. :unsure:
20 Concentration <-- Once I pat this guy, I might respec to Fanaticism to see how well that works.
1 Prayer <-- After others are maxed, further points will go here.
1 Cleansing
1 Vigor
1 Redemption <-- Quite important since I don't have Insight.

Current gear:
main: Infinity, eth GPA
switch: CTA, Spirit
head: shako, ptopaz <-- I might switch to another shako with Um for resists.
body: vipermagi, unsocketed <-- I might put an Um here, but it's not a well rolled vipermagi.
gloves: magefist
belt: tgod's <-- I'll switch to arach's eventually.
boots: silkweave <-- I might switch to resist boots.
ammy: seraph's hymn <-- I don't have mara's in D2R.
rings: BK, ravenfrost <-- I might swap out the Ravenfrost if I really need resists.
17/15 torch <-- No anni yet. Sigh... I might have to farm some more torches.

Merc:
Grief PB / Lawbringer PB <-- I haven't tried out Crescent Moon yet as LB is doing just fine.
Treachery, eth great hauberek <-- I don't have Fortitude in D2R. I might try out The Gladgiator's Bane if he starts dying.
Arreat's Face, pemerald <-- He needed dex for phaseblades. I might put in an ias jewel since he doesn't need it anymore.

Gameplay:
Well, it's kind of what I thought it would be. I can just stand around doing nothing most of the time. The merc has not died so far, which is weird since he's always in the fray (except for when he gets caught on terrain). Once, I had to spam Holy Bolt on him and then run away to make him disengage, but I haven't had to rez him yet. I don't know what his damage output is since I haven't really tried to calculate it. I looked for merc damage calculators, but I didn't find anything that seems to work for D2R. I'm considering trying out other offhand weapons. I have a Crescent Moon PB. Headstriker might bring up his average damage. I've also considered Gull as an offhand for him. I plan on making a 6 ist PB at some point for my berserker, so that'd be an option as well. If barb mercs could use daggers, I'd put a Fleshripper on him. I also found out that Frenzy mercs can't wield two-handed swords.

Large groups of Demons and Undead clear very fast if I spam FoH a bit. I'm genuinely not sure if running maxed Conviction with HotO/Spirit gets more dps than Infinity with its -enemy light resist. Infinity breaks most light immunes and then the -enemy light res works at 100% effectiveness, but HotO*/Spirit shows superior damage numbers. Hmmmm. :unsure:

* I don't have HotO in D2R yet, so this is a guess.
Click to expand...
Cool stuff! I think you might have benefited from maxing Holy Bolt prior to investing points into Holy Shock… but if you’re already doing fine against Demons and Undead even with fewer points in HB then perhaps pumping points into Holy Shock was the right way to do it, as that extra lightning damage should help FoH take down Animal type monsters faster.
 
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little birdy said:
Cool stuff! I think you might have benefited from maxing Holy Bolt prior to investing points into Holy Shock… but if you’re already doing fine against Demons and Undead even with fewer points in HB then perhaps pumping points into Holy Shock was the right way to do it, as that extra lightning damage should help FoH take down Animal type monsters faster.
Click to expand...
Yep, that is the exact dilemma. Maybe it doesn't matter too much and just levelling them side-by-side is ideal. 🤷‍♂️

Edit: I just 2-shot an elite mob in the Black Marsh (fire, cold immune) on /p7, so I think that the -elr is working as intended. :)
 
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snickersnack said:
Yep, that is the exact dilemma. Maybe it doesn't matter too much and just levelling them side-by-side is ideal. 🤷‍♂️

Edit: I just 2-shot an elite mob in the Black Marsh (fire, cold immune) on /p7, so I think that the -elr is working as intended. :)
Click to expand...
Very cool stuff!! Who needs an army of minions when you have a merc who's basically an army of one. :)
 
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Didn’t have too much time to play today so I did a Baal run with Roland to keep the MFO spirit alive.
Then played a bit with Cahir, went through the underground passage, found the tree and the wooly bugger guarding it. Rather uneventful again actually

edit: ran Roland a couple more times to see what he does when I swap some items for others with more MF. Not too bad... found a M'avina's Embrace and a Wizardspike on the same run
 
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Hi. Been a while since I came around this community. I was wondering what an average (12-14%) Nightwing's Veil is worth. Tired running pits with my horker. Got 3 Griffons and still no Nightwing's Veil. : <
 
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