[Battle.net play / multiplayer]Small Guide to The "Budget Meph Quest Blizz Sorc"
Hi all. I usually don't post in the char class forums, but I did a small search here, and I don't know how well this is known. If you want TC 78 (and down) unique/set/rares you may want to read on.
This is not in any way meant to be a guide I want to take credit for, because it really is merely a summary of parts of other guides, and I have forgotten where I first read them anyway (so if anyone know, let me know so I can add credits)
This guide is all about one single target (well, maybe three or four if you extend your games a little) - Hell Mephisto. Hell mephisto can drop items up to TC 78 (Balrog skin and the like) and he's mlvl 87, which gives him the ability to drop else uncommon stuff, like Arachnid Mesh, Azurewrath and circlets with +2 class skills. He can also drop any unique ring or amuet, and he has a habit of dropping facets.
Now, if you have run mephisto a while, either on battle.net or in single player, you should be real real tired of drops like 1 quiver of bolts, and 2-3 piles of less than 10k gold. Now, in single player, there's no way around that... but on glorious battle.net it is!
The feature 1st kill drop, AKA quest drop (not entirely correct, but since it's so common to mix them up, I'll just use the term quest drop) was introduced in patch 1.10. It was a change to what act bosses dropped when you killed them for completing the quest. If you kill an act boss when you are supposed to do that quest, the drop will have a minimum quality of rare, and no "junk" misc items (arrows, bolts, potions, gold, keys) will drop either. The only blue items that can possibly drop are "failed sets", which are items which have no set version (eg. a Tiara) and these will have 2x normal durability when they drop (if they can have durability). Besides that, the base chance for unique is a whopping 10% (meaning with 0% MF every 10th amu will be unique) and set is even higher.
As an example, the odds for finding a Rainbow Facet (any) from Hell Meph in a 1 player game, with 0% MF is 1:1211. On a quest drop, that chance is improved to 1:801 - Improvement of 33.9% in chance. That same improvement goes for all uniques.
As a second example, the odds for finding a Tal Rasha's Adjudication amulet from Hell Meph in that same 1 player game, with 0% MF is 1:11033. On a quest drop, that chance is improved to 1:7515.
But can't you only get the quest drop once? When you actually do the quest? Or can you kill meph in games where the quest hasn't been done, to "get the quest of that game" so that someone have to create NG to get act 3 done? - All wrong. Quest drops happen when:
"A character who does NOT already have completed the last quest in the act gets the killing blow on that acts act boss." However, it is irrelevant if the quest can be completed or not!! This is the only thing you'll find in bold in this post, and it's the only thing that matter. All you need to do is make a sorc, and FOR THE LOVE OF YOUR MAKER, DON'T FINISH QUEST 6 IN ACT 3: THE GUARDIAN!!!! If you do, that character will never again recieve a quest drop from meph.
Basically, all you need to do to improve your base MF is to only kill meph in games where the quest log says "You cannot complete...." and thus never go to act 4 or 5 in hell.
Not going to act 4 and 5 isn't that bad. You lose out on the best way of rushing (grush with leveling in hell Chaos Sanctuary) so you have to do it the old fashioned way. No biggie. You also lose out on the fat quest rewards in acts 4 and 5 hell. Hellforge rune (which could be a Hel for all you know), 2 skill points you don't really need, 10% resists you don't really need, Tal+Ral+Ort runes, the ultra lame naming thing, the socket quest (which is easier obtained by getting a rush to act5 normal with a mule) and the fat exp from the Ancients and Baalruns.
Well, getting down to the build itself. It doesn't have to be strong, since you of course use The moat trick. [EDIT: Picture links in that guide seems to be broken] You have probably seen the build before:
Pure blizz sorc (even ditching static and cold armor)
20 ice bolt
20 ice blast
20 glacial spike
20 blizzard
1 frost nova
1 warmth
1 telekinesis
1 teleport
X* cold mastery (When you have -175 enemy cold (with facets) additional points here are wasted)
No energy.
No dex.
Str for War travelers (95) but subtract 2 for Shako and 20 for Torch, and you're at 73 base str. (53 if you have an expensive Anni)
Rest in vita.
Spare points can be used:
1 static field (for killing cold immunes in the Ancient tunnels 50%faster with merc)
1 Cold armor
more in warmth (for drinking less potions)
*cold mastery depends a LOT on gear, goal is to get -175 to enemy cold resist, no more, no less.
As for gear, my suggested (low budget gear) goes like this
74% Shako PTopaz (screw defense, get a cheap one)
65% Tal Rasha's Adjudication (I listed the 3piece set bonus here)
112% Tal Rasha's Guardianship PTopaz
15% Tal Rasha's Fine Spun Cloth
(irrelevant) The Oculus as main switch (buy a Death's Fathom when you get rich)
(irrelevant) Lidless Wall (5/-5 cold facet when you find one)
100%+Gull dagger (Get a 2ist ali baba when you feel you can afford it)
25%Rhyme shield (any) or some socketed shield with MF jewel(s). Keep it cheap
60%2x Nagel (you will find these, so no rush paying good for 2x 30% ones)
40%Chance Guards (start with low ones, replace as you find)
50%War Traveller (you don't need 50% to start with, get 30% for pgems)
------
40%Gheeds (you will find this too, no rush)
20/xx sorc torch - Get a cheap 10/xx torch ASAP, and then upgrade later. Keep 2x +5str Large Charms as replacement until you can afford a better torch.
(Anni - this is overkill, but having a xx/yy/z anni of course lessens the need for str another xx points, gets another point in cold mastery and makes killing a little faster)
4x cold skillers, pref with 7% faster run/walk <-- No rush getting these. They speed up your killing, and saves 4 points of cold mastery
Suggested gear makes for +15 cold skills (with no anni; 6k blizzard), 70%FCR for "almost-safe" teleporting, and 500-650% MF, 1200ish life and decent mana and resists in the zero-range. More MF is possible by sacrificing skills/life/mana/FCR/resists (get skullder+50%amu+goldwrap instead of tals, or get 7%mfscs instead of cold skillers) but with 500+ MF this gains only a tiny tiny bit of "actual MF towards uniques". And it's more expensive.
And as a final note: Should you screw up, and get credit for the meph quest (happened to me twice; I'm a retard) don't delete that char yet. You can still use the same trick on Baal (or Diablo). It just requires a good merc and that you don't get quest credit for killing Baal (or Diablo).
Other nice places to run:
Andariel (quest drops no matter what)
Summoner (keys keys keys)
Ancient Tunnels (lvl85 area, no natural cold immunes)
Well... Happy hunting. Gimme a little feedback and suggestions too, if you try this.
Hi all. I usually don't post in the char class forums, but I did a small search here, and I don't know how well this is known. If you want TC 78 (and down) unique/set/rares you may want to read on.
This is not in any way meant to be a guide I want to take credit for, because it really is merely a summary of parts of other guides, and I have forgotten where I first read them anyway (so if anyone know, let me know so I can add credits)
This guide is all about one single target (well, maybe three or four if you extend your games a little) - Hell Mephisto. Hell mephisto can drop items up to TC 78 (Balrog skin and the like) and he's mlvl 87, which gives him the ability to drop else uncommon stuff, like Arachnid Mesh, Azurewrath and circlets with +2 class skills. He can also drop any unique ring or amuet, and he has a habit of dropping facets.
Now, if you have run mephisto a while, either on battle.net or in single player, you should be real real tired of drops like 1 quiver of bolts, and 2-3 piles of less than 10k gold. Now, in single player, there's no way around that... but on glorious battle.net it is!
The feature 1st kill drop, AKA quest drop (not entirely correct, but since it's so common to mix them up, I'll just use the term quest drop) was introduced in patch 1.10. It was a change to what act bosses dropped when you killed them for completing the quest. If you kill an act boss when you are supposed to do that quest, the drop will have a minimum quality of rare, and no "junk" misc items (arrows, bolts, potions, gold, keys) will drop either. The only blue items that can possibly drop are "failed sets", which are items which have no set version (eg. a Tiara) and these will have 2x normal durability when they drop (if they can have durability). Besides that, the base chance for unique is a whopping 10% (meaning with 0% MF every 10th amu will be unique) and set is even higher.
As an example, the odds for finding a Rainbow Facet (any) from Hell Meph in a 1 player game, with 0% MF is 1:1211. On a quest drop, that chance is improved to 1:801 - Improvement of 33.9% in chance. That same improvement goes for all uniques.
As a second example, the odds for finding a Tal Rasha's Adjudication amulet from Hell Meph in that same 1 player game, with 0% MF is 1:11033. On a quest drop, that chance is improved to 1:7515.
But can't you only get the quest drop once? When you actually do the quest? Or can you kill meph in games where the quest hasn't been done, to "get the quest of that game" so that someone have to create NG to get act 3 done? - All wrong. Quest drops happen when:
"A character who does NOT already have completed the last quest in the act gets the killing blow on that acts act boss." However, it is irrelevant if the quest can be completed or not!! This is the only thing you'll find in bold in this post, and it's the only thing that matter. All you need to do is make a sorc, and FOR THE LOVE OF YOUR MAKER, DON'T FINISH QUEST 6 IN ACT 3: THE GUARDIAN!!!! If you do, that character will never again recieve a quest drop from meph.
Basically, all you need to do to improve your base MF is to only kill meph in games where the quest log says "You cannot complete...." and thus never go to act 4 or 5 in hell.
Not going to act 4 and 5 isn't that bad. You lose out on the best way of rushing (grush with leveling in hell Chaos Sanctuary) so you have to do it the old fashioned way. No biggie. You also lose out on the fat quest rewards in acts 4 and 5 hell. Hellforge rune (which could be a Hel for all you know), 2 skill points you don't really need, 10% resists you don't really need, Tal+Ral+Ort runes, the ultra lame naming thing, the socket quest (which is easier obtained by getting a rush to act5 normal with a mule) and the fat exp from the Ancients and Baalruns.
Well, getting down to the build itself. It doesn't have to be strong, since you of course use The moat trick. [EDIT: Picture links in that guide seems to be broken] You have probably seen the build before:
Pure blizz sorc (even ditching static and cold armor)
20 ice bolt
20 ice blast
20 glacial spike
20 blizzard
1 frost nova
1 warmth
1 telekinesis
1 teleport
X* cold mastery (When you have -175 enemy cold (with facets) additional points here are wasted)
No energy.
No dex.
Str for War travelers (95) but subtract 2 for Shako and 20 for Torch, and you're at 73 base str. (53 if you have an expensive Anni)
Rest in vita.
Spare points can be used:
1 static field (for killing cold immunes in the Ancient tunnels 50%faster with merc)
1 Cold armor
more in warmth (for drinking less potions)
*cold mastery depends a LOT on gear, goal is to get -175 to enemy cold resist, no more, no less.
As for gear, my suggested (low budget gear) goes like this
74% Shako PTopaz (screw defense, get a cheap one)
65% Tal Rasha's Adjudication (I listed the 3piece set bonus here)
112% Tal Rasha's Guardianship PTopaz
15% Tal Rasha's Fine Spun Cloth
(irrelevant) The Oculus as main switch (buy a Death's Fathom when you get rich)
(irrelevant) Lidless Wall (5/-5 cold facet when you find one)
100%+Gull dagger (Get a 2ist ali baba when you feel you can afford it)
25%Rhyme shield (any) or some socketed shield with MF jewel(s). Keep it cheap
60%2x Nagel (you will find these, so no rush paying good for 2x 30% ones)
40%Chance Guards (start with low ones, replace as you find)
50%War Traveller (you don't need 50% to start with, get 30% for pgems)
------
40%Gheeds (you will find this too, no rush)
20/xx sorc torch - Get a cheap 10/xx torch ASAP, and then upgrade later. Keep 2x +5str Large Charms as replacement until you can afford a better torch.
(Anni - this is overkill, but having a xx/yy/z anni of course lessens the need for str another xx points, gets another point in cold mastery and makes killing a little faster)
4x cold skillers, pref with 7% faster run/walk <-- No rush getting these. They speed up your killing, and saves 4 points of cold mastery
Suggested gear makes for +15 cold skills (with no anni; 6k blizzard), 70%FCR for "almost-safe" teleporting, and 500-650% MF, 1200ish life and decent mana and resists in the zero-range. More MF is possible by sacrificing skills/life/mana/FCR/resists (get skullder+50%amu+goldwrap instead of tals, or get 7%mfscs instead of cold skillers) but with 500+ MF this gains only a tiny tiny bit of "actual MF towards uniques". And it's more expensive.
And as a final note: Should you screw up, and get credit for the meph quest (happened to me twice; I'm a retard) don't delete that char yet. You can still use the same trick on Baal (or Diablo). It just requires a good merc and that you don't get quest credit for killing Baal (or Diablo).
Other nice places to run:
Andariel (quest drops no matter what)
Summoner (keys keys keys)
Ancient Tunnels (lvl85 area, no natural cold immunes)
Well... Happy hunting. Gimme a little feedback and suggestions too, if you try this.
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