Beyond Infinity... To the Item Find Thread

[BBS_Agonistes]

No big runes in LK today, but rolled another map, and a few runs in, I realize it has a stable Sacred Targe rack! Third drop from the rack:


Had a few more good drops and a Jav skiller:

Spoiler

Still looking for that Eth 45 res all to be a perfect base for Exile, but a 45 res all 3os is perfect for a Sanctuary.

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

Did some more runs tonight. I've been running LK trying to put together Grief, Exile, and CtA. Going better than usual to say the last.

 

[Pancakes]

Send over some of the luck, please. A few dozen runs tonight netted me exactly nothing save for a decent but not great gc. Crafting for a bit was similarly fruitless, and left me wishing this was +2 instead of +1 necro skills.

Spoiler

 

[little birdy]

You guys are killing me with all these high rune finds in LK I think I’m going to re-tool my Trapsin for a serious attempt at running LK…

 

[Flan]

Got a Hand of the Blessed Light and Cerebus' Bite from racks with LK, along with a couple mor of these.

 

[Coyote_Sly]

I've saved up a few screenshots of the real highlights from my first couple weeks of LK runs...






















Those two Surs and the one I found in cows get me 3/4 of the way to Infinity which is closer than I've ever been. And with that Vex, I've got juuuuuuuuuuuuuust enough to roll up the Grief, Exile, and HoTo I've been running for to build my FOH Smiter and get into uber farming. It'll use up most of my runes Mal-Ohm to do it, though. Unfortunately, the best Exile bases I've got at the moment are these two:

Kurast Shield
Defense: 232
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 28 of 28
Required Level: 55
Required Strength: 114
Fingerprint: 0x93180cfb
Item Level: 84
Version: Resurrected
All Resistances +33
Ethereal
4 Sockets (0 used)

Sacred Targe
Defense: 220
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 23 of 23
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 76
Fingerprint: 0xb2617d7a
Item Level: 84
Version: Resurrected
All Resistances +34
Ethereal

 

[Coyote_Sly]

Couldn't wait, rolled the Grief.



Pretty average rolls, which I will absolutely take since I was holding my breathe waiting for them to be awful.

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

Lots of pretty rune shots these days! I like!

I don't think I ever had a good Grief roll back in the day, at least on damage. 377 is definitely higher than I ever managed IIRC! Such a beautiful RW.

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

Was running LK because I wanted to put together Grief + CtA + Exile to make a Smiter to run Ubers. I had a Vex, and needed Lo x1 and Ohm x2, and a base for Exile. Got an Ohm and Lo yesterday and today:


So a total of 321 runs in LK with a Sacred Targe rack and what dropped was:
First 230 runs:
-Ohm
-Lo
last 90 runs:
-+45 res all Sacred Targe
-Ohm

Don't know if I should test the RNG and try to get an eth +45 to drop... probably pushing it.

Possibly the best RNG results I've ever had on D2, and it was after quitting playing for a few days because I was bummed about drops and somehow lost my LK map. Rerolled a worse map, but it had a Sacred Targe rack on it, which was super helpful because I'd forgotten just how rarely elite Auric Shields drop.

 

[Excalibur]

Speaking of Grief Rolls.

I created 4 Griefs in total and I think I never had a bad roll on these.

 

[little birdy]

Was running LK because I wanted to put together Grief + CtA + Exile to make a Smiter to run Ubers. I had a Vex, and needed Lo x1 and Ohm x2, and a base for Exile. Got an Ohm and Lo yesterday and today:
View attachment 82054View attachment 82055

So a total of 321 runs in LK with a Sacred Targe rack and what dropped was:
First 230 runs:
-Ohm
-Lo
last 90 runs:
-+45 res all Sacred Targe
-Ohm

Don't know if I should test the RNG and try to get an eth +45 to drop... probably pushing it.

Possibly the best RNG results I've ever had on D2, and it was after quitting playing for a few days because I was bummed about drops and somehow lost my LK map. Rerolled a worse map, but it had a Sacred Targe rack on it, which was super helpful because I'd forgotten just how rarely elite Auric Shields drop.

Please send some of your good luck my way!

I moved around some gear on my Trapsin and had a crack at LK last night. She was previously setup for MF and +skills for quick kills / area running. I switched it up to prioritize resistances and faster run/walk. I also had some spare skills points that allowed me to get one point into Mind Blast and Shadow Master to help with crowd control. Factoring in +skills gear, that gets me to a modest level 8 on both Mind Blast and Shadow Master. My A5 merc and the Shadow Master already do a very good job of distracting monsters, and Mind Blast gets used on any stray monsters that happen to get in my way. And between Burst of Speed and FRW gear (M'avina's belt, Nat's boots, Peasant Crown, and a few charms) I think I'm somewhere in the ballpark of 130% FRW, so getting around is quick and easy. Running LK now feels more doable. I guess now I just need to reset the map until I find something optimal.

 

[Coyote_Sly]

I would really recommend tele and TK for running lower kurast, personally. Any sorc will do, but being able to essentially ignore the monster spawns and blocked chest/entrances/pathways is such a big deal.

 

[Arjan]

I would really recommend tele and TK for running lower kurast, personally. Any sorc will do, but being able to essentially ignore the monster spawns and blocked chest/entrances/pathways is such a big deal.

I agree! But you need to get the hang of it. I’ve run twice with my sorc and first time I died a bit more then I feel comfortable with. 2nd run was better with just one deed because of being swarmed by manaburn zakarumies. You just don’t port out of that.

Still need to learn how to escape more often

 

[little birdy]

I've not really encountered any problems with blocked chests/entrances with my Trapsin setup. Merc and Shadow Master take most of the heat from monster spawns, Mind Blast sorts out the stragglers. BoS + FRW gear makes it a pretty quick and tidy business. Loading seems to be worse when switching acts via waypoints, so I'm starting each run in Act 3, running to WP to go to LK, popping the chests and other things along the way, and then immediately exiting. Rinse, lather, repeat. Any of my Sorcs would be slower running across town, and with a WP right beside the campfire, the ability to Teleport wouldn't be that much of a time saver, at least I don't think so. There is still some fine-tuning to be done here, but as it stands right now, I prefer doing this run with my Trapsin. The runs are quick.

 

[ffs]

Is Assassin faster than say a Druid walking around with neither Harmony nor FRW gear? Of course. But can she pop 6 chests in under 20 seconds like a 200 FCR Sorc? Nope. Fastest casting, Telekinesis for both WP and chest opening... outside of special situations (like making an untwinked 99er or so), there's basically no objective reason not to use a Sorc.

LK is a great target for both early farming as well as absolute end game. But it's not quite action-packed and you're barely using (any classes') skills. Running it is all about being quick and getting the runs done. If you do it in 20 seconds instead of 30 seconds, odds are you will Enigma in 20 hours rather than 30 hours. So these differences in run times do add up for sure. Not only for time spent in the game, but also psychologically "shortening" those frustrating dry spells in between the juicy drops.

 

[PhineasB]

Totally agree @ffs but D2R load times are tough, and I'm not sure whether that alters assessment for the D2R crew. I abandoned D2R due to load times, so I have no perspective on this. But it sounds the walk through Docks versus load time in A4 is a real thing in D2R. I suspect teleport gain will still override downsides to load times, but I'm not sure. And I doubt I'd ever run LK in D2R, assuming I ever pick that playthrough back up

 

[little birdy]

Load times are indeed more problematic in D2:R. I'm also playing on console (Switch) if that makes any difference re: load times. I've never tried other versions of D2:R. Can't help but wonder if playing instead on a decent spec PC would perform a bit better (not that I have a PC to test that idea out with!)

I appreciate your input @ffs . I don't necessarily have the lofty goal of 'Enigma' so I'm not necessarily trying to go nuts optimizing the LK run with the intention of spending that many hours doing it. I suspect that after a few days a new distraction will catch my eye, a different farming area or questing a new character, and I will once again forget about LK runs But it has my interest for the moment so I figured I'd give it a try in the way I thought would be more enjoyable.

Based on your suggestion, though, I took my Charged Bolt Sorc for a spin in LK last night as well. I don't have gear to hit 200 FCR but I can at least achieve the 105 FCR breakpoint. It was a pleasant surprise that the CB Sorc's LK map had two campfires on the first try. They're a bit far from each other but Teleport makes that fairly trivial. Without a mouse, using Telekinesis is kind of fiddly, but I got into a rhythm eventually. Going back to using the Assassin will definitely require resetting the map until I get something really good, whereas having Teleport with the Sorc is a bit more forgiving in that regard.

I came away last night with a Lem, a Bonehew, and a couple small charms worthy of keeping. No high runes, but it was still worth the relatively small amount of time I put into it

 

[ffs]

I don't necessarily have the lofty goal of 'Enigma' so I'm not necessarily trying to go nuts optimizing the LK run with the intention of spending that many hours doing it.

Depends on what you define as "many". Enigma in LK can be farmed within 20-30 hours of in-game time. It sounds like a lot perhaps, but it's light years faster than any other target in the game... certainly when running other targets without things like Enigma/Infinity.

LK is IMO the best target to run in the entire game if you fall within any of these categories:

(1) Early on when you're not that wealthy yet, to get the gamechangers as quickly as the game can offer. Meaning things like Enigma, Infinity as well as to a lesser extent (because they're relatively easily farmed otherwise) CtA and Hoto. This is a grind and dry spells can be frustrating, but it pays off for sure.

(2) Once you have all the S&Us and runewords you can wish for, it's LK time yet again. Crafts, charms, jewels, specific runeword bases from armor/weapon racks etc., again there's no better target in the game. This kind of farming is rather casual and actually quite reliable, with added benefits of occasional drune drops.

I fall into category (2), don't care much about rune drops. And I still am surprised as to how good LK is for runes. Just one recent example: Last week I found Ber + Sur within literally 3 minutes, less than 10 runs apart. Of course I've often had 10+ hours of no high runes at all so it all tends to even out long term., but hey: That's 50% of Enigma in 3 minutes, so...

 

[little birdy]

Depends on what you define as "many". Enigma in LK can be farmed within 20-30 hours of in-game time. It sounds like a lot perhaps, but it's light years faster than any other target in the game... certainly when running other targets without things like Enigma/Infinity.

LK is IMO the best target to run in the entire game if you fall within any of these categories:

(1) Early on when you're not that wealthy yet, to get the gamechangers as quickly as the game can offer. Meaning things like Enigma, Infinity as well as to a lesser extent (because they're relatively easily farmed otherwise) CtA and Hoto. This is a grind and dry spells can be frustrating, but it pays off for sure.

(2) Once you have all the S&Us and runewords you can wish for, it's LK time yet again. Crafts, charms, jewels, specific runeword bases from armor/weapon racks etc., again there's no better target in the game. This kind of farming is rather casual and actually quite reliable, with added benefits of occasional drune drops.

I fall into category (2), don't care much about rune drops. And I still am surprised as to how good LK is for runes. Just one recent example: Last week I found Ber + Sur within literally 3 minutes, less than 10 runs apart. Of course I've often had 10+ hours of no high runes at all so it all tends to even out long term., but hey: That's 50% of Enigma in 3 minutes, so...

I suppose I fall more into the first category, but it's also not a matter of doing it until I can make 'Enigma' and/or 'Infinity', for example. I'll be happy with whatever I find after however long I keep doing the runs I guess I don't have very clearly defined goals... though I will be very happy if I come across a Vex sometime soon because one of my characters would love a HotO.

I can definitely also see the value in the items in the 2nd category you described. I've already grabbed several charms and can see the potential for farming crafting materials and runeword bases.

Today at lunch I decided to do 30 minutes in the LK, 12:30 until 1:00, that's it. The first 26 minutes or so were pretty quiet aside from a few Lum runes and an interesting-ish rare Druid helm, but then with 4 minutes left on the clock I popped a Sur. A bit of good luck like that every now and again will keep me coming back for more!

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

(2) Once you have all the S&Us and runewords you can wish for, it's LK time yet again. Crafts, charms, jewels, specific runeword bases from armor/weapon racks etc., again there's no better target in the game. This kind of farming is rather casual and actually quite reliable, with added benefits of occasional drune drops.

As an untwinked player, I find #2 to actually be more important the first time I hit LK, especially because of the charms. My charms are usually quite rubbish when I first get there, but it's amazing how quickly my Life increases by 200-300 just by upgrading those rubbish charms. I find that finding skillers is not very reliable because I'm looking for one or two specific kinds for that particular class, but I can assuredly plan on a noticeable improvement in life/mana/resistances after 500 LK runs, which is massive when moving on to Acts IV and V.