How come Tamoe Highlands is a good place? Why not just do the Bloodmore and maybe the Cold Plains?
Non-magical Preserved Heads don't drop in the Blood Moor or the Cold Plains. I looked up the math in order to explain it better. Basically, when a shrunken head is generated with an item level of 1-11, it has an 80% chance to possess tier 1 skills, which include Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery (as well as Amplify Damage, Teeth, and Bone Armor), and a 20% chance of possessing tier 2 skills such as Clay Golem.
In order to maximize our chances of finding a non-magical Preserved Head with the desirable mods, we need to look for regular monsters between levels 1-11 that have that item in their treasure class. Here are some of the best choices:
Code:
Area Monster Probability
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Black Marsh Brute 1:162
Black Marsh Night Clan 1:162
Black Marsh Returned 1:162
Black Marsh Blood Hawk Nest 1:173
Black Marsh Carver Shaman 1:173
Black Marsh Vile Archer 1:199
Dark Wood Carver 1:162
Dark Wood Vile Hunter 1:162
Dark Wood Vile Lancer 1:162
Dark Wood Skeleton Archer 1:199
Hole Brute 1:162
Hole Carver 1:162
Hole Misshapen 1:173
Hole Vile Archer 1:199
Monastery Gate Disfigured 1:173
Monastery Gate Returned Mage 1:173
Monastery Gate Returned Archer 1:199
Monastery Gate Dark Stalker 1:682
Pit Bone Warrior 1:162
Pit Devilkin 1:162
Pit Dark Archer 1:199
Pit Dark Stalker 1:682
Tamoe Highland Dark Lancer 1:162
Tamoe Highland Returned Mage 1:173
Tamoe Highland Returned Archer 1:199
Tamoe Highland Dark Stalker 1:682
Tower Cellar Blood Clan 1:162
Tower Cellar Devilkin 1:162
Tower Cellar Dark Archer 1:199
Tristram Night Clan 1:162
Tristram Returned 1:162
Tristram Carver Shaman 1:173
Tristram Skeleton Archer 1:199
Underground Passage Carver 1:162
Underground Passage Vile Hunter 1:162
Underground Passage Misshapen 1:173
Underground Passage Skeleton Archer 1:199
This was calculated for a full game of eight players to minimize the chance of no drop occuring. The probability is expressed as a ratio and means that on average it will drop once ever
X number of kills. Any typos are mine.
The Black Marsh seems like the best place to look for this specific shrunken head, since all of the regular monsters there have a good chance of dropping one.
There is a 30% chance for a shrunken head to have at least two +skill mods, and a 10% chance for
each of these to have +3 to that skill (calculated separately). The next table is just the math, feel free to skip:
Code:
Chance for a monster in Black Marsh to drop a Preserved Head: approximately 0.58%. This is the average of the six different regular monster types' chances.
Chance per monster to drop a Preserved Head 0.5797101449275362318840 5797101449275362318840...%
Chance to be non-magical 79.09%
Chance to be non-ethereal 0.97%
Chance to have either 0 or 2 sockets 94.4 4...%
Chance for both RS and SM 15%
Chance for both to be +3 1%
Approximately 1:158,718.
So, to get a perfect +3/+3 shrunken head with RS/SM is a 1 in 158,719 chance per regular monster in Black Marsh, and on average you would have to kill about 158,719 monsters and inspect about 728 shrunken heads to find a perfect one.
There's another option. If you
only care about finding a +3 Raise Skeleton shrunken head to make Splendor in, and forget about finding a perfect +3/+3 head, then you'll find one on average after only killing about 11,022 monsters and inspecting about 51 heads. Perfectly reasonable for only having to kill level 5-11 monsters.
Either way, it's a matter of several hours to do. For the moment I'm just going to stick with my +3 RS/+1 SM Splendor.
Holy Shield is a forbidden staffmod, so if its id is selected the staffmod will reroll. However, if it is selected seven consecutive times it will stay. The odds of a staffmod roll hitting Holy Shield seven consecutive times on any scepter of ilvl 37 or more are 1 to 223213.285714 285714..., or about one in a quarter-million.
Sources:
One. Two. Three.
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Google