you hit the big points, but the main things to look for will be:
- proximity to WP (obviously)
- least amount of backtracking possible (linear Pit 1)
- monster density (get a map with 2 fallen nests)
The reason for the first two points is that You'll probably be running 75% fcr, so you want to spend the least amount of time teleporting around without killing things. Venomancers are very good at getting a huge quantity of kills with CE, so getting 2 nests is a good idea. It's not as crucial as you might think though, as in my experience often one of the nests is not nearly as full as the other.
Basically you want a linear map with little backtracking, lots of bosspacks along the way and preferably 2 fallen nests on your route. You can get greedy from here and try to roll the densest lvl 2 as possible, as
@ffs showed (i think last year) that there can be quite a discrepancy in how many packs show up down there.
here is a video of my map, gameplay from last year. It's sloppy as I recorded it before I had really gotten used to it. A few things to note:
1. This map may not be ideal for kills/time, but I have 2 shrines along the path to the Pits and 1 or 2 regular-ish shrine spawns inside. I'm working on leveling my necro, so that is important to me for the XP shrine regularity. The two wells just inside the entrance make it so I never have to see Akara, which saves time over the long haul.
2. I don't cast LR anymore. Just amp, Nova, CE. It's more straightforward for extended gameplay, and probably a little faster to get the first corpse from the merc, which helps CE chains. My runtimes have improved since that video too, now reliably in the 1-1:30 range, partly due to that adjustment and partly due to simply practicing.
Gear is at the end of the video, but is pretty standard stuff. Might merc with Infinity/CoH/Steelshade.
