Lower Kurast Runs

[helvete1]

Tell me more

LK runs in single player, short and simple:

1 - get a fast character, preferrably a sorc with good FRW and FCR
2 - get to Hell difficulty, act 3, and aquire the LK waypoint.
3 - Uncover all of LK, check if there are two bonfires
4 - If there's only one bonfire, it's not a good map, so create a game on normal or nightmare to reset the map on hell.
5 - repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have a map where there are two bonfires fairly close to the WP.
6 - Do /players8 command and start running like this:

A - You start in act 3, which is a long run, so put on all your FRW
B - Run to the WP (you can grab it with telekinesis if you're a sorc) and goto LK
C - Run/Tele to the two houses by the first bonfire. Pop all three chests inside them. There is a weapon rack inside the small house, and an armor rack just north of the larger house. Depending on the route you take to them, these may or may not drop the same base item fairly steadily.
D - Repeat step C for the second bonfire. When the last chest is popped, save and exit.

Tips:
- MF has no effect on superchests and racks, so lose it and get FCR/FRW gear instead.
- Don't bother killing monsters. Lose all your damage/+skills for more FCR and FRW (and survivability gear if that's an issue).
- A merc with "hit causes monster to flee" gear can be great, if a nasty boss pack is camping the house where you just popped a nice rune from a chest. Necros and barbs can use terror/howl for the same effect.
- Don't pop objects other than the superchests. Only exception is the occational rack which could lock onto a nice base item (Dusk Shroud, Colossus Voulge, etc).
- Don't give up rerolling your map if it's not good. Those 5 seconds extra each run quickly adds up if you're doing a decent amount of runs (decent amount being a few thousand runs).

 

[muzzz]

Nitpick: /players7 will give the same drops, but will be slightly faster if you have to kill something to reach your new Ber.

Tip: Depending on your map and character, you might be able to lower your run-to-run time by starting and ending in A4.

 

[helvete1]

Nitpick: /players7 will give the same drops, but will be slightly faster if you have to kill something to reach your new Ber.

Tip: Depending on your map and character, you might be able to lower your run-to-run time by starting and ending in A4.

Good points. Especially players with fast computers (and thus fast load times) might save several seconds by starting/ending in act4. However, if the LK maps makes you run/tele further and further away from the WP, it might not be worth it. A sorc with very low FRW would be better off starting/ending in act4, by teleing back to the WP after the last chest.

Tip: It's really worthwhile to install the RRM (Red Rune Mod) for LK runs, as the superchest drops can be very messy with items and gold everywhere, and you don't want to overlook that Ber or Sur rune amongst tons of white items.

Tip2: The highest runes always drop with the same other items. A Ber rune seems to always drop together with an Arbalest, Vambraces, Gothic Plate and something else I don't quite remember. Ohm, Lo and Gul runes seem to be undroppable on /players7+ but possible on lower settings. There's a (long) detailed thread about it in the single player forum.

 

[Saint Anger]

I'd recommend not immediately overlooking other 'poppables' besides the superchests, as long as they aren't too far out of your way and popping them doesn't drastically lengthen your run time.

I've found nice charms, gems, jewels, several grailers and a Pul rune by popping random skeletons/logs/corpses, so as long as it doesn't take you twice as long to make your runs, why not? I guess it's a matter of personal preference, though.

Kind regards,

St. Anger

 

[muzzz]

I guess it's a matter of personal preference, though.

QFT. There are many good reasons to pop more than just the superchests. But it's like higher /players settings with MF: getting items quicker is not one of those reasons.

 

[helvete1]

For the other "poppables" as objects were referred to earlier, MF does matter. So if you're loaded with MF anyway (Tal's sorcs come to mind) then go right ahead. However, popping EVERYTHING in the entire LK is a waste of time.

 

[pancakeman]

If you are going for quick runs it is.

I have actually found a Gul, several EUs and other things by popping everything, but it takes quite some time, so if you want that Ber than I advise against it.

 

[thalidamide]

I've not found a high rune there yet but some other (endgame) items do pop out from time to time.
I use a high lvl singer barbarian - very high frw, and an obscenely high lvl howl make it pretty easy.

 

[BgJordan]

what does the fact that the chests are immune to everything have to do with anything

giggle giggle but u know wat i mean right??

 

[helvete1]

I know

I just love to nitpick. It's just me.

 

[gando]

Lo rune from LK chests tonite in...get this...a 2 player game.

 

[ProfessionalBerg]

All right, since I am now a BNet player mostly, thanks to the new CD-key, I may as well write a mini (micro) guide on LK for BNet players.

I've taken interest in this type of runs, since Mephisto already sits pretty far down my throat. I wanted some alternative, and suddenly found this thread. This lead to a pair dozen runs so far, and a few GC's, an Ort and some Elds (left on ground), as well as one white monarch from an armor rack (I've taken some fancy in white Monarch's, ever since I rolled a 35 FCR spirit in one).

Anyway, what I am interested in is not in talking about my successes, but rather in writing down a small guide in effectively looting the superchests in LK. So, without further ado, I start.

What you need:

- A teleporting character (Sorceress or Enigma preferred, you'll never get enough money/runes to repair charges), or alternatively, a fast-running character.
- Keys. In 20-25% of cases, the superchests are locked.
- A Lower Kurast waypoint, obviously.

Superchest finding strategy:

I assume that most of the BattleNet players use the minimap much more often to teleport/MF than their regular map. Therefore, searching for bonfires in LK, around which the superchests are concentrated can be rather difficult. However, it is quite easily done once you learn reading the minimap in search for that particular pattern. I have taken a screenshot of LK, partly uncovered and with certain pattern elements highlighted:

Areas of interest:

Red: This is the bonfire area. As you can see on the minimap, it is pretty easy to see it since it has 2 wall chunks near it, always in the displayed fashion. If you teleport north and find this pattern, know that the shacks with the superchests are right to the northwest(-east) of it.

Green: These are the actual shacks. The western one always holds 2 superchests, 1 in the top left corner, one more in the middle. The eastern one always holds one superchest in the middle and 1 weapon (armor?) rack in the top left corner. It's easy to recognize these buildings if you teleport from north, east or west. The reason is that these buildings are the only ones stretched in the NW-SE direction. There are big houses, complex houses, 1-room shacks, NE-SW streched houses. But only these houses are stretched in this direction. Pretty easy to find.

Blue: Another bonfire. As far as my testing shows, there is at least one and at most 2 bonfires in LK for every single map seed. If you've found one, do not hesitate to uncover more of the map in hopes of finding another one. Once you found and popped both, S&E immediately. Nothing more interesting.

Side note: You may want to pop some armor/weapon racks on your way through LK. It can drop some pretty decent base items, in all kinds of flavors. Like I said, I found a white monarch there a few runs ago.

Good luck!

UPDATE: I found one more interesting pattern:

Notice the armor rack. It appears north of each bonfire 100%. No exceptions. So while you're warming your luck by the bonfire, why not take a small detour and check that rack? Something useful just might pop up there.

 

[Doppel]

Nice miniguide for b-net players ProfessionalBerg.

 

[hypper]

ProfessionalBerg, I'll go back to my LK runs because of your mini guide, its very good, thanks.

 

[VoX Dei]

After first reading this post i've been running LK aswell because i'm a bit tired of running meph, pits etc. I am specifically after that elusive Ber rune.

Best finds so far were Ko rune, ama passive skiller with 5 str, rare ring with fcr, 10 @ res, big strength boost, and assorted crafting suplies.

 

[helvete1]

LK is the best place for charms/gems/runes/jewels/magicandrarerings IMHO. Unless you need ilvl 81+ or a lot lower (LLD jewels come to mind).

It's just so quickly done, and the chests have such a high chance of TC misc - good.

 

[64jcl]

Re: Lower Kurast Runs

Is the chance of TC misc always high on all super chests, like the ones in Arcane Sanctuary? (but those drop lower ilvl I guess?) And these super chests, can they drop uniques as well? Since MF doesnt affect it, I guess that chance is very low anyway.

Has anyone done an analysis on drop chances off different "poppables"? I know that when I do Countess runs I always pop the tombs since they often drop flawless gems.

 

[ProfessionalBerg]

Re: Lower Kurast Runs

LK is the best place for charms/gems/runes/jewels/magicandrarerings IMHO. Unless you need ilvl 81+ or a lot lower (LLD jewels come to mind).

It's just so quickly done, and the chests have such a high chance of TC misc - good.

On all my "all-out" runs (MF and such spots in most of Hell, except for Diablo), I ALWAYS drop by LK to pop a chest or 2. No good runes so far, but I do get some sellables and I've got 2 of my 3 monarchs there.

 

[64jcl]

Re: Lower Kurast Runs

As a sidenote on the high rune drops on that other thread, it sure looks like a gamblers paradox - but its clear that the selection going on in the d2 item drop code has certain patterns. Its just the initial random selection that is... well... random. Since all computers are finite state machines and "random" is a mathematical function, its possible that certain functions can create uneven distributions. This depends a lot on the coding inside, and if selection is analyzed as being truly 100% random with even distribution or if a "bug" has snuck in there somewhere making the selection uneven. If the latter is the case, either intentional or as a bug, then there will be certain things that can be done to affect the randomization. For example, if the current millisecond readout from the computer is used directly (and solely) in the generator, then adjusting the date of the computer to exact same time just before e.g a chest is popped - you could produce equal drops if the same millisecond was passed. Similarly, a range of milliseconds might have better drops than other ranges. But chances are that its based on an initial seed when the game is started, which again can be influenced by setting the same time on the computer as the game starts up. And again certain ranges of seeds can generate better drops than others. Its just that if the generator is shared with the rest of the code, there will be just too many other "getRandomNumber" calls to it before you are able to pop that chest... hence never being able to really get the same number generated.

However a number generator based on seeds has uneven distribution over a short range. For example if you select 10 numbers from 1-100 using the same start seed, you will always get the same 10 numbers. These numbers might not be evenly distributed, simply because a random generator needs large number output in order to get an even distribution. Shorter selections are always uneven... so that the first 10 numbers you select from a seed might all have e.g. 3 equal numbers. Its then interesting to note that if your generators has been used/called by other functions some times before you can get an overlap selection, meaning that you e.g. get the last 5 numbers of the first 10, and 5 new ones. Chances are then high that some of those 10 numbers are one of the 3 equal ones in the first 10. This is a way you can take advantage of a seed that is based on the computer clock.

But the conspiracy theory is of course that someone at Blizzard thought that they would add a fun little twist to the random number generator where the time of day, day of month, minutes within an hour affects the quality of the drops. Its very easy to do this kind of thing and would probably be hard to detect unless someone tried out repetitive poppings of the same chest under the same map seed over and over again.... naturally impossible under b.net which btw most probably has a totally different generator than the one in single player games (chances are its been hotfixed a number of times as well... for what we know it can still be hotfixed by Blizzard as we speak). Its rather intriguing to think that perhaps some emplyee in Blizzard HQ has this control panel where he can adjust the drop generator dynamically as people are playing. So if he has a good day, we get good drops on B.Net... If he logs someone scamming another player he can make his life miserably by setting that players drop function to only drop low quality stuff... :grin:

 

[muzzz]

Re: Lower Kurast Runs

Is the chance of TC misc always high on all super chests, like the ones in Arcane Sanctuary? (but those drop lower ilvl I guess?) And these super chests, can they drop uniques as well? Since MF doesnt affect it, I guess that chance is very low anyway.

I'm not sure what you mean by "TC misc". Superchests, like those in LK, cannot spawn set or unique items. Sparkly chests are slightly different, and have a very small chance to try and spawn unique or set items.

Has anyone done an analysis on drop chances off different "poppables"? I know that when I do Countess runs I always pop the tombs since they often drop flawless gems.

All objects (the technical term for "poppables") drop from chest TC's. The amount of picks they make is different, as is the desired quality, but the ratios at which they drop various item types is exactly the same for objects in the same area.

EDIT Re. RNG: the game does not use entropy. What is used as the initial seed is unknown, AFAIK, but even if it was a timestamp you would not be able get any specific time in there without haxing system libraries.