MFO Summer 2019 Signups and Progress [by PhineasB]

[Pb_pal]

@art_vandelay I think 1.07 blood ammy FRW is bugged. Set to just 1, iirc.

Huh, got all runes for infi on my untwinked nec now but NOT A SINGLE ETH ELITE POLEARM ):
1 sur yesterday 1 ber today and 1 sur dropped in pits 1 day before mfo started^^

@art_vandelay i suppose 1.08 Highlord’s could be an option on amulet slot, keeping the FRW and gaining +1 skill/LR.

Disgustingly good drop/4 free days for you means I’m probably ****ed for Pindle lmao

@Yng That's an option indeed and a great way to use it since for every other character that likes HLW it's kinda worthless because they either need IAS or DS.

I'm going to run a bit into the night and then send my update (that seems to be fine by PhineasB's post...) . I hope to find other such treasures

Spoiler

On a side note: There should be points for right amount of sockets/right ethereality status!

Ahh, there’s hope after all. Your spoiler there went too far.

1.08 Blood amulets should be able to get the full 15%FRW, but lose the chance at +3skilltab. Also, 1.08 HLW still has the FRW of 1.07, but also has the scaling DS of 1.09+. And you just thought it was all the rare jewels...
/shamelesstimetravelplug


In MFO-related news: lvl85 runners have good reason to be afraid... after the 1337 drops I have collected this week, I'm essentially guaranteed a spot in the top 18. Its friggin epic...

@art_vandelay Your Pindle run times are just crazy !!!

Results sent to @DiabloTwoinDC. Let me know if they must sent elsewhere due to your keyboard issues.

I tried to switch the 6 Ist weapon for Oculus again.

By doing so I lost 100MF (but gained some through level ups) which leaves me with 564MF. Then adjeff is 2,295. A 0.005 increase

I generally try to be more careful picking stuff when I time my runs and sometimes I S&E on stuff like a Battle Sword and I always regret it... so when some Sharkskin Boots dropped during this set I naturally picked them up!

Waterwalk
Sharkskin Boots
Defense: 186
Durability: 8 of 8
Required Level: 32
Required Strength: 37
Fingerprint: 0x31d3dcdd
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+210% Enhanced Defense
+100 Defense vs. Missile
+15 to Dexterity
+54 to Life
+40 Maximum Stamina
Heal Stamina Plus 50%
+5% to Maximum Fire Resist
Ethereal

That's some rare timeloss right there...

@Yng Oh you're talking about those? Nah, they're not ethereal

@Albatross In the Hall of Records Thread you mentioned a 'display bug in GoMule' regarding MF, can you explain what happens there?

@art_vandelay i'm sure albatross will confirm or correct, but I think its that gomule doesn't display partial set bonuses to mf, most obviously relevant is the 65mf from 3 pieces of tal rasha's. But afaik the mf amount gomule displays can be taken as correct if you dont have multiple pieces from the same set on.

@EatSleepDiablov2 I’m handling the updates, so please send it my way.

Thanks to everyone else who has sent one so far

@art_vandelay like @Luhkoh said, GoMule has a bug with MF granted by set bonuses. Haven't tested if only "gold" bonuses are bugged or green ones, too. Should be easy to check with partial Tancred's.

I just couldn't understand how people racked up so much MF on their sorcs, until I figured it out when I started using spreadsheets to calculate my MF.

Also congrats on the new record, I presume you'll be updating the HoR after the MFO?

I'll have an official go on my new AT map, too. Should be able to get the average down to 31ish and if I luck out on spawn density it's possible to go sub 1.7 adjeff. Still not enough to beat Gripphon's new barb record, but it's a good improvement on my last entry.

Had some time off today and used most of it to grind, but still counting on the weekend to get to at least 3k.

The 12s "fastest" run happens when you get your sorc killed early

Update (belatedly) sent...sorry for the delay, work has been pretty brutal this week, and free time has been scarce... looking great for the weekend, though, so maybe I can work my way up from the back of the pack

WoRG

I had a lucky day 1 (though with nothing too too crazy) and since then things have felt uneventful, despite decent finds, because they didn't improve my score. Lol shouldn't have found so much stuff right away

But anyways i did 350 runs fri - sun. And 225 more (so up to 575 total) through yesterday. If I only do my planned 20 hours it will be like a total of ~725 runs. 1000 sounds so much better. Lol we'll see.

I’ll be hard pressed to reach 20 hours. :/
~13 as of now.

@Yng no relief on the weekend? I think I just wormed my way out of coming into the office tomorrow morning

@Luhkoh I’m actually off tonight and Sunday but my girl works too and I have a 2 year old monster so he dictates when I get to play.

E: I’m actually leaving work soon, so I’m gonna do the thing where I pray to 128 different gods that he hadn’t napped yet today so I can squeeze in an hour or two before dinner etc. This little guy has no chill, his average time going to bed I’d say is like 1 in the morning the last month or two LOL.

I haven't found anything that improves my score since that fateful drop on wednesday and now it finally happened again
And in a strange turn of events I found the perfect weapon to go with this piece of armor and they both rolled exactly right for something I wanted to try for a while...

@Luhkoh You work in an office? What the hell is your excuse for not playing D2 for 8 hours a day?

@Albatross I will sure update the HoR at some point but I might try to revisit some other runs first. That timesave from removing -direct -txt seems to affect every run after all.
Did you try that as well and did it have a noticeable effect on your run times when you did?

First Seven Days Update -- A85, Pindle+ and Baal Categories
I've received all but one update (and still no word from two others) for A85, all but one for Pindle, and all but one for Baal. Thanks to everyone who sent their updates!

Things are interesting in all categories, with a tight race up top across the board and any drops over the last weekend being potentially decisive. Feel free to send updates if you haven't and I can update this update

A85
There was movement up top, with some nice drops coming in. It's still close between the two new leaders, and then an absolute jumble with after that, with even an incremental improvement potentially shifting the final results. I remain excited to see how this category unfolds! Current rankings (without information about point totals) are in the spoiler.

Spoiler: A85 Rankings

1. Albatross
2. CaseyJones
3. ziambe
4. Burgomaster3
5. D2DC
6. NanoMist
7. Luhkoh
8. Bewitch
9. ESD2
10. zemaj
11. mir (no update)
12. WoRG
13. ffs
14. Gynli
15. phar
T72on1 (withdrawn)
Joosh, Grape (no updates)

Pindle+
Things have tightened up at the top, and a big drop could definitely swing the final results. Current rankings (without information about point totals) are in the spoiler.

Spoiler: Pindle+ Rankings

1. maxicek
2. art_vandelay
3. Babyhell (no update)
4. Yng
5. Dagaz
6. Darkoooo

Baal
As with Pindle+, things have gotten tighter at the top of the leader board, and the winner of this category is definitely in doubt. Current rankings (without information about point totals) are in the spoiler.

Spoiler: Baal Rankings

1. PhineasB
2. Vildecor
3. Pb_pal
4. jjscud
5. Jamie (no update)

Teams
The Afterthoughts retain their early lead, but there's plenty of room for Kittens! and Heroes of Find and Magic to improve their scores and close the gap.

* * *

Good luck over the last three days, everyone! Please remember to include readouts of your top 5 for the final update, and please send as soon as you finish running on Sunday (or let me know as early as possible if you don't have an improvement). I'd like to get the results up Monday am before I head into work, but no later than that evening (I'm US West Coast), so please don't forget to send your update or a quick note if there's no improvement or you didn't run at all.

@Yng ah gotcha. yeah that'll do it, but priorities and all that. Enjoy the time and play when convenient! Maybe you'll pop 2 dwebs and beat art

@art_vandelay haha because i wanna keep working in it .

 

[Pb_pal]

@Luhkoh You know that feeling when you jokingly suggest that somebody should play 8 hours a day, but then you multiply 2000 by 15 and divide it by 3600, at which point you decide it would be best to go to bed and not play D2 for a month?

Curious how many hours/runs the other Pindle runners have accumulated so far?

@art_vandelay me play d2 way too much and wonder if I should take a month off? No never. Of course not.

@art_vandelay yup, I've had these tips in the AT guide since the first iteration

1. Improving Save and Load Times

Having a modern computer with an SSD will definitely improve these. There are a few more tricks though, which I'll separate into:

a) definitive
use Sven's glide wrapper, tweak the settings and check how they effect the game, rinse and repeat until satisfied
if you think you and your eyes can handle it, play in native windowed mode, there's nothing faster than this
use the -ns (no sound) command in the shortcut, playing without sound makes the game load faster
take advantage of keyboard shortcuts for confirming character selection (Enter) and selecting the difficulty (H for Hell)
screen rendering has a delay and you can "blindly" interact with the interface saving miliseconds
.map and .ma0,1,2 files grow large, they can also cause slowdowns, these are safe to delete (but backup first, please) and only effect the character's minimap
b) speculative
giving the d2.exe process a higher priority in the task manager, also assigning only one core might also make a difference, but it's unlikely
I've seen reports of RWM causing slow saves, try removing -direct and -txt from the shortcut when you don't need RWM
having a ton of characters on the starting screen can slow the game down, try moving them to a separate folder during intense running sessions, also useful to prevent accidentally entering the game with the wrong character

It looks like I can move the RWM thing under a) in the next update. I'm currently experimenting with Glide's v-sync and FPS limit options, but haven't drawn any conclusions yet.

Saturday's up and it looks like I've got 8 hours to burn

Little man is down for the night but The International upper bracket finals are live and dear god are the games good. It’s a repeat of last year’s grand finals match, I’m so torn trying to run and pause to look over at the big team fights with the crowd roaring. My avatar team was eliminated tonight. :/

I'd just like to state that I'm highly surprised I'm not last
Couldn't put as many hours into Pindle as I hoped.

As for the Pindle p1 vs p8 ... I played on p1 for about 200 runs. The drops were horrible and whole thing seemed way too easy, so I went back to p8.

@Albatross I also deleted the GoMule Backups in my character folder (what's the point of saving the backup where the orginal files are stored???) but I don't know if that helped.
I once put a pretty big .mkv file in the save folder to see wether I could trick the game into long load times but to no avail... Maybe D2 automatically checks extensions and only attempts to read those that deal with characters. In that case the Gomule backups can't have an effect since they have different extensions.

On the -direct -txt thing: Why does my Infinity still work? I guess you could as well ask why the game doesn't turn a 1.10s CtA into a 1.10 final CtA when you forward it...

@Yng When I started my Sorc was two thirds of the way from 87 to ** and now she's 75% of the way from 92 to 93. Together with those miserable barb runs and the p8 assassin runs this should put me at about 6,5k Pindle runs, 6k of which are with my sorc.

You can make that up with Barb if you run 16 hours straight! We can't let maxicek win with the items he found in his first three days

Spoiler

And if your team was eliminated, then where is Emilia?

Hi guys, i'm suffering severe ip ban bug, using a proxy right now to give some news. I had two upgrades, so that's pretty cool. I hope I can provide final score on Sunday night, tomorrow night for me.

That's why I made no update lately

Some non qualifiers stuff then!

Spoiler: Angelic set

Angelic Halo
Ring
Required Level: 12
Fingerprint: 0x5c955a04
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+20 to Life
Replenish Life +6
Set (2 items): +24 to Attack Rating (Based on Character Level)
Set (3 items): 50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items


Angelic Mantle
Ring Mail
Defense: 68
Durability: 24 of 26
Required Level: 12
Required Strength: 36
Fingerprint: 0xb34ba23
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+40% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 3
Set (2 items): +150 Defense
Set (3 items): Fire Resist +50%


Angelic Sickle
Sabre
One Hand Damage: 3 - 8
Durability: 23 of 32
Required Level: 12
Required Strength: 25
Required Dexterity: 25
Fingerprint: 0x964526f9
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+75 to Attack Rating
+250% Damage to Undead
Set (2 items): 75% Enhanced Damage
Set (3 items): +30% Increased Attack Speed


Angelic Wings
Amulet
Required Level: 12
Fingerprint: 0x89f73440
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
20% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+3 to Light Radius
Set (2 items): +75 to Life
Set (3 items): +1 to All Skills

Razortail
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 96
Durability: 10 of 14
Required Level: 32
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x742f68ea
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
Piercing Attack
+10 to Maximum Damage
+120% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
+15 to Dexterity
Attacker Takes Damage of (Based on Character Level) 75

and a grailer:

Pierre Tombale Couant
Partizan
Two Hand Damage: 154 - 332
Durability: 33 of 33
Required Level: 43
Required Strength: 103
Required Dexterity: 57
Fingerprint: 0x5c24e1d5
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+3 to Barbarian Skill Levels
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
179% Enhanced Damage
Adds 12 - 20 Damage
+120 to Attack Rating
6% Mana stolen per hit
55% Deadly Strike
Ethereal

Spoiler: Bunch of rares

Grim Tread
Greaves
Defense: 19
Durability: 23 of 24
Required Level: 52
Required Strength: 70
Fingerprint: 0xb8ca9511
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+19% Enhanced Defense
+4 to Dexterity
Replenish Life +3
Cold Resist +22%
Poison Resist +18%

Corpse Blazer
Scarabshell Boots
Defense: 62
Durability: 9 of 14
Required Level: 49
Required Strength: 91
Fingerprint: 0xecedd706
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+20% Faster Run/Walk
Lightning Resist +20%
Fire Resist +31%
Poison Resist +39%
21% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Death Visage
Guardian Crown
Defense: 204
Durability: 144 of 165
Required Level: 65
Required Strength: 196
Fingerprint: 0xd62e9f6a
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+3 to War Cry (Barbarian Only)
+2 to Battle Orders (Barbarian Only)
+1 to Shout (Barbarian Only)
+21% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Energy
+15 to Life
Lightning Resist +7%

Skull Visage
Diadem
Defense: 52
Durability: 15 of 20
Required Level: 67
Fingerprint: 0x3dea57e1
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+2 to Druid Skill Levels
+** to Attack Rating
8% Mana stolen per hit
+40 to Life

Corpse Grasp
Vampirebone Gloves
Defense: 114
Durability: 13 of 14
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0xcac78d6c
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+73% Enhanced Defense
+9 to Strength
Fire Resist +17%
Poison Resist +15%
Level 4 Cold Arrow (27/30 Charges)

Dread Touch
War Gauntlets
Defense: 68
Durability: 12 of 24
Required Level: 35
Required Strength: 110
Fingerprint: 0x3ee02e6
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
10% Chance to cast level 3 Charged Bolt when struck
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+26% Enhanced Defense
Replenish Life +3
Cold Resist +14%
Fire Resist +16%

Eagle Cord
Vampirefang Belt
Defense: 122
Durability: 11 of 14
Required Level: 51
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0xe786e522
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+17% Faster Hit Recovery
+91% Enhanced Defense
+24 to Life
Fire Resist +19%
Poison Resist +8%
Poison Length Reduced by 25%

Ghoul Emblem
Monarch
Defense: 359
Chance to Block: 42
Durability: 82 of 86
Required Level: 54
Required Strength: 156
Fingerprint: 0x1d2ea290
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+30% Faster Block Rate
20% Increased Chance of Blocking
+141% Enhanced Defense
+14 to Mana
Fire Resist +23%
Damage Reduced by 4

The two new skillers #LightningDamage:

Lion Branded Grand Charm of Storms
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0x9c406a6f
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Combat Skills (Paladin Only)
Adds 1 - 29 Lightning Damage

Shogukusha's Grand Charm of Shock
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0xd38687a4
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Martial Art Skills (Assassin Only)
Adds 1 - 2 Lightning Damage

Trying to give update on Sunday night, GL all, and go go Heroes!

Finally found a base for infi, yes its a cv but who cares, its 325% !

Saturday's up and it looks like I've got 8 hours to burn

Sounds like the perfect time to start a new character project

On the -direct -txt thing: Why does my Infinity still work? I guess you could as well ask why the game doesn't turn a 1.10s CtA into a 1.10 final CtA when you forward it...

It gets even weirder... if you make a ladder runeword while RWM is turned off, you get a gemmed item, but if you keep it, exit the game, turn RWM back on and open the char, it's that runeword.

Finally found a base for infi, yes its a cv but who cares, its 325% !

Lol... I had actually thought to myself "I see a CV 'Infinity' in your future," when you posted about having the runes but not the ethereal base...

Well I’m done running, so Pindle is there for the taking.

Go Afterthoughts!

Pindle and Baal are interesting, but A85 has a clear winner already. Those ranking updates are cute, but future A85 winner is not even in the top 10 on last update. Hype!

Uh oh, did @Gripphon secretly enter MFO in A85 category?

Hoping for some luck and a couple hours Sunday evening to improve my score a bit. Been busy the last couple days
Family functions...

This tourney has done wonders for my set/unique grail at least

Well, Pindle ****ing did it. I'm never going to run him again after this...

Good drops in the pit this morning:

Spoiler

Spoiler

Well, Pindle ****ing did it. I'm never going to run him again after this...

You dropped your 5 20+ points set? I saw you overtook me if not, you should keep pushing - just saying

Good drops in the pit this morning:

You jumped the Mal rune? Um--Ist-Gul... i guess you'll be getting a Vex or Ohm soon

40.5 hours in. I may not win the Baal category, but I only have 25mil left to level 97.

I've been running an AT map I rolled on day 1 of MFO. It doesn't look like a great map, but most of the boss packs appear on 6 of 11 map tiles, so at least the route is short. Runs were initially 35 seconds on average, but I've been slowly working that run counter average time down to 32 seconds as I got use to running AT sorc. With the -ns tweak, I can push the time down a little further, but it's getting hard to budge an average time with 2k run sample size. I didn't do an actual count of the bosses, but going by feeling, I'd guess 5.5? I might do a count after MFO with a new run counter profile.

This Sorc was level 89 at the start of MFO and is now level 93.5, hoping to get to level 94 with a strong push on the last day. I made this Sorc initially to test Snapchip before the TC upgrade bug was discovered. Now she's got a new home in some dirty tunnels..

 

[Pb_pal]

@Babyhell Pindle did something unforgivable...


I'm going all in today, I deserve a second shot. In the meantime:

Lycander's Aim
Ceremonial Bow
Two Hand Damage: 81 - 171
Durability: 27 of 55
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 73
Required Dexterity: 110
Fingerprint: 0x7ea8d438
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Unidentified
+2 to Bow and Crossbow Skills (Amazon Only)
+2 to Amazon Skill Levels
+20% Increased Attack Speed
196% Enhanced Damage
Adds 25 - 50 Damage
8% Mana stolen per hit
+20% Enhanced Defense
+20 to Dexterity
+20 to Energy

Final score sent. Other Pindle runners may as well give up, you are just fighting for second.

When you're watching grand finals of TI and one team is going ****ing off with your favorite hero on second monitor:

~3600 runs prior to this without a death...

E: nearly 6 in the morning with this damn China schedule, couldn't bring myself to miss the last series lmao.

@Yng I'm quite pleasantly surprised that there's still a high number of viewers on twitch and irl. Last dota games I watched were like TI4 or 5 (Seattle)... I guess i'll tune in to the last couple of games while grinding for MFO!

Results will be sent in a couple of hours.

E: Results sent! /E

@art_vandelay eth griffons? Truly a nightmare. Though I suppose you do have a zod sitting around.

Ugh, I've done exactly zero runs since last Saturday :/ sorry all, didn't really find the time and motivation this time around.

GL to those still pushing!

@Luhkoh I'm going to put it this way: Each and every piece of headgear, I could actually use, that Pindle dropped me these last ten days is on a sliding scale of horrible to simply poor stats to fixed stats (can't go wrong on Shako...). In contrast I got a ton of great rolls for all other items. I know it's merely coincidence but that fourth botched helm broke my heart.

@art_vandelay I had assumed you found a yellow, triple-durability Sacred Armor, which would, I think, be worse. So, silver linings and all that . . .

Last day, so best of luck to everyone who's getting runs in over the last stretch! Please send your final results, with top-5 readout, as soon as you're finished for the day so that I can get results up Monday am before I leave for work. Otherwise, it likely won't be until late Monday night.

@PhineasB In that case I would have gotten a Templar's in the same session, just saying

There is a much better silver lining and while all those items are botched I'm at grail -17 after finding 7 grailers so far

@art_vandelay no you wouldn't have. Finding 1 unique in a session does not affect the odds of finding another, at least in modern patches. Ie if you find templars, then clear all alvl85s and find a "unique" sacred armor, it's 8/9 probability it will be a triple dura rare. So I'm fairly certain pindle can indeed drop you a failed tyraels without dropping templars first. Also I might be incorrectly reading between the lines here, but I would be stoked if an anti perfect griffons drops for me in the ~100 runs I have left to do today

@Luhkoh You're completely right on the chances not going up but I was refering to Pindle specifically and there simply is no choice when he rolls a unique SA. This section of the item generation tutorial (at least in my reading) prohibits Pindle from even thinking of giving you a failed Tyrael's. Whenever a unique SA is chosen he can only pick Templar's because the list contains Templar's and nothing else. Then after the second Templar's it has to become a failed one.

There was a thread about it a while back which I'm too lazy to look for. The consensus was that the only verifiable failed Tyreal's is a triple dura SA from a Tyrael's capable monster that dropped after a Tyrael's had already dropped in the same session.



btw I never said it was a Gripphon's and neither did I say that it was near perfect. It doesn't matter anyway for my score

@art_vandelay hmm fair enough on all accounts. And great stuff. I do remember the thread you're mentioning, and I had learned this "2 unique sacred armors doesn't guarantee tyraels" some time after I had read that thread. So I guess my thinking had changed, but you're also right of course that those aren't exactly the same mechanisms. Very interesting stuff. Would love to explore it more at some point.

There. Final results sent. I'm done with Pindle for a week or so

Just to be clear: no result from me.

Results sent. 6k.

If i'm still there for another MFO, i'll go for another category!

Sent my results in. no more pitzerker for me for a while. He's tiring

Ah almost forgot to send text dump of top 5.

Results sent. Doing some XP math I can see that I did at least 9500 runs with my Fire Sorc which at roughly 15s per run should make about 39,5 hours of Pindle with her. I did at least 300 on my Barb and I leveled my Assa a fair bit on Pindle so I can now say for sure that I did 40 hours of Pindle in 10 days and killed him over 10.000 times

Results sent!

According to the run calc I've managed 3463 AT runs with a total run time of 32h and 50m. This map's density is around 6.5 which means some 22682 bosses were killed

I also deleted the GoMule Backups in my character folder (what's the point of saving the backup where the orginal files are stored???) but I don't know if that helped.
I once put a pretty big .mkv file in the save folder to see wether I could trick the game into long load times but to no avail... Maybe D2 automatically checks extensions and only attempts to read those that deal with characters. In that case the Gomule backups can't have an effect since they have different extensions.

On the -direct -txt thing: Why does my Infinity still work? I guess you could as well ask why the game doesn't turn a 1.10s CtA into a 1.10 final CtA when you forward it...

It's a shame there's no option to choose another location, but I don't think having those there is an issue. The game only looks in the first directory, otherwise it would have picked up my other chars which are in a sub folder when I'm running with the sorc. It would be strange if it tried reading anything not character related and this is most likely handled on OS level so you wouldn't expect a slowdown unless you had thousand of files there.

What's more likely is that there some time spent rendering the characters in the selection menu, with all their meta data, gear, etc.

I've no idea how exactly the RWM works. I think I've read somewhere those RW exist in the game, just aren't enabled for SP. I guess that just means you can't create them without the mod.

I just had something happen to me for the first time in my D2 career... I went to pick up a qualifier, and to my annoyance it flipped up in the air rather than quietly disappearing into the depths of my inventory. Opening up said inventory, imagine my surprise when, rather than the arrows or potions I expected to be clogging up my tetris-mojo, I find a Gul rune...

I realize that at this point a Gul rune isn't really a bug deal, most people don't even screenshot them, but I still think of them as being a HR... kinda disconcerting that my D2-running-lizard-brain has moved past the point my concious self is at, apparently...

Expect a report sometime in the 12:15am CDT timeframe here (-05:45:28.08, as of this post, minus formatting)

I’ve got a few hours of availability tonight to try to coax something decent out of this decrepit asshole, will send results at the deadline.

 

[Pb_pal]

I just got a nice present.



Still running until deadline to see what kind of score I can rack up.

@Gynli Is this the DOTA that stems back to the custom game made on Warcraft 3? I used to play that like crazy, but it was pretty early on. Back when just three lanes, not too many heroes to chose from. Clinx, the small blue invisible guy, Skeleton King, the meraid girl who could multiply and shoot a net, the archer girl, demon hunter.. those were the pretty popular ones. Lots of people went for boots of speed first, butterfly was popular... good times. This was like 2003-2007 era DOTA.

I am sure Dota is so different now. From my understanding, DOTA is essentially a new game on its own completely?

Results sent. Doing some XP math I can see that I did at least 9500 runs with my Fire Sorc which at roughly 15s per run should make about 39,5 hours of Pindle with her. I did at least 300 on my Barb and I leveled my Assa a fair bit on Pindle so I can now say for sure that I did 40 hours of Pindle in 10 days and killed him over 10.000 times

Holy... your victory is well deserved, congrats!

Nothing but a Lo for all the MFO, then the Jah an hour ago. Now this:

@Jamie Yes. From what I understand League of Legends and Dota 2 are both essentially sequels to Dota 1. Of the two, Dota 2 is a lot more similar to the original but there have been heroes/items added over time.

Wanted to see if I could beat @Fabian's pindle record (although, technically @art_vandelay now has the record but I don't see Barb competing with Sorc in this regard) with this shiny new no delay. This was with 63 FCR swap and Grief side hork. Think I could get it below 14s average with some setup swaps and better play, the grief side hork suffers so much if your landing is off because the merc kills the minions and then you're horking multiple corpses with 0 FCR hork.. I'm sure staying up until 8 in the morning and then sleeping for 3 hours didnt help much either but TI is TI! Long story short, no delay is ****ing amazing.

E: Just to clarify I don't think I could do much lower than 15.5s average for extended running, it's too painful to run like this lmao.

Spoiler

Results sent in at the 50 hour mark. Don't know if I managed to increase my score enough to clinch the top spot, but I'm quite happy with my results. Now only another 225+ hours to level 99.

Results sent.

Pleased with a couple drops, not so much my final set but then untwinked Nova running AT might not have been my best decision ever

Avg 115 second runs with 7 boss pack average. Somewhere around 970 total runs so 6500ish boss pack pinatas.

Also only managed approximately 3 hours since the last update...family stuff all weekend

Runes were not so good...Pul, Um, Ist

Now sitting at 91.75 and time to officially move the char into the untwinked 99er challenge!

My results are in.

This may have been my rarest drop. (Don't get too excited, or scared, I'm winging it here, I would have to check the drop calculator to say that for certain. I also picked up the gold before I thought to take a screen shot.)



Other than that, it was oddly raining Ums for me.

Other than that, it was oddly raining Ums for me.

Me too!

Around 35 hours in the pits netted me:

Um.
Um..
Um...
UM....
Pul
Pul
Ist!

Time's up on US West Coast!

My Untwinked zon hit level 98, with quality drops along the way. Mainly, getting a Pul at the end, to allow cubing up to the Ist that will become a Deliirum. Runes were Ber, Vex, Mal, Pul, and quite a few Lem/Fal/Ko. She also picked up a Nature's Peace, which she hadn't found yet, plus a 28@ Mara's. Despite picking up all flawless and rerolling as she went, not good skillers except a +6 life trap skiller that actually dropped from a random monster.

Thanks to everyone who sent results. We're actually complete on Pindle+ and Baal (assuming entrants who hadn't sent updates didn't run), but still missing a few for A85. @Burgomaster3 @NanoMist @EatSleepDiablov2 @zemaj @mir @WoRG please send results if you can so I can post results (my) tomorrow am

Update sent. Didn't really have time to run this last weekend, so the promising start kinda faded away. It was nice to run after a while though.

I mostly played with PitZerker, with couple of runs with AT Sorc here and there. No statistics of runs really, I'm not even sure how many hours I got in. Over 10 I guess, but nowhere close to 20.

Didn't get many interesting non-qualifiers (highers rune was Pul, lol), but this is always nice to come by:

The Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
Fingerprint: 0xee13b3b0
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
Adds 1 - 12 Lightning Damage
+20 to Mana
Increase Maximum Mana 25%

Hope some of ya'll got more productive weekend than I did. Can't wait to see them drops!

@art_vandelay youre a machine. I thought my ~23 hour effort was tough.
@Albatross you as well. That is some serious inspiration!
@Yng whats your mf? You should def make a hall of records entry. Sorc cant touch barb on the efficiency but I'm amazed by both your and art's runtimes.
@Vildecor sick runes!
@CaseyJones Would love to see a video of your AT map. 7 boss average is absolutely crazy! Also don't think I've seen a nova sorc running the area, so would be really fun

Results sent.

1,000+- p1 AT runs
MF: 597 for first 700+- runs; increased to 620 to hit breakpoint
152 runes (17 Rals; 12 Tals)
Top three: Jah (from chest), Ist, Ist
136 perfect gems (48 amethysts)
61 jewels (7 rare)

Facets: 1 (-4/+5 Cold)
TC3s: None
Set Amulets: 5
Unique Amulets: 3 (Rising Sun)
Unique Rings: 4 (Carrion Wind)
Gheeds: 2 (both @ 28%MF)
Grand Charms: 1 Skiller (Jav) with poor second mod

Rare/Magic of Note: None

Qualifiers: 45

Thoughts:

* I did not know that a Jah could drop from AT chest. Highest ever I realized was Ohm.

* I am not sure how many boss packs I averaged, but my map regularly spawns 8. After watching @Albatross' video in the Hall of Records. however, I am not sure how long I'll keep the map. Waypoint in Act 1 is out of the way, 3 tele's to trap door, and map sprawls a bit. My times improved by 10-15 secs by employing certain strategies, but my first boss pack is 20-22 seconds in.

Good luck all...

Results sent...tried to send them last night, but was having problems with the website again...

Ran pits with my new singer...MUCH more relaxed than pitzerker!

Decent drops, but I just couldn't put in the time I wanted to...

No high runes at all, I guess I used up my rune luck during RFL

WoRG

@Luhkoh 743 with Ghoulhide using Grief side hork and 63 FCR swap. I’d prefer to do swap some things around but once the tournament started I just spammed runs whenever I got a chance to play.

@Babyhell I didn't win yet. I have no clue what maxicek found in the beginning to make his score skyrocket like that

@Yng Now you only need to calculate your adfjeff and you might get first place in the p1 Pindle category

I've no idea how exactly the RWM works. I think I've read somewhere those RW exist in the game, just aren't enabled for SP. I guess that just means you can't create them without the mod.

In the game files there is a .txt with a list of all current runewords (and some more...) which is formatted like a table. Each row corresponds to a runeword and the columns control its properties. There is one column 'Server' which if you set a 0 in it for a given RW it will be Ladder only and if you set 1 it will be available everywhere (SP, OpenBnet, non-Ladder,...). The creator of RWM copied that file, set this entry to 1 for all Ladder-RWs and told the game to look in the modified .txt instead of the original when you're attempting to make a RW. (the 'told the game'-part is what the -direct -txt is for)

* I did not know that a Jah could drop from AT chest. Highest ever I realized was Ohm.

That should not be possible. Highest runes you can get from Act 2 chests are Ohm and Lo. Are you sure it was from the chest? Also, @Fruit , because why not go full overkill

Results sent...

Ended up passing out in the zero-hour... so no last-minute upset from me, lol.

@EatSleepDiablov2 if you decide to reroll, here's the tldr; what to look for:

You don't necessarily want the chest room to be at the end of the run, but you certainly don't want it to spawn early. Try to find a path which will spawn at least 4-5 rooms before the chest room is in range. During focused runs, you can count the number of packs you kill and see if you reach the maximum or maximum -1 your map can spawn by clearing only 2-4 segments, then save and exit immediately. This way no time is wasted teleporting through empty rooms just to reach the chest pack.

Here's a quick summary of what to look for:
best Rogue camp layout, 1-2 TPs from act II WP to entrance
10 rooms*
the chest room is not adjacent to the entry point room
the layout allows not spawning the chest room early in the run
4 minimum spawns
9 spawns are possible
full clear density is >6
(almost) no double backing
1-2 shrines, both on route**
the first boss is only 2-3 TPs from entrance
the chest room is not the final room you visit

* not as important, but should be slightly better than 11 or 12
** shrines are currently under suspicion of being counterproductive, still investigating

@CaseyJones also interested in the map. I've had one come close to 7 average, but it was huge (12 rooms) with spawns spread out everywhere.

@art_vandelay. Appearance of the Jah was instantaneous with the chest pop, and appeared to be among the loot. That said, my merc may have killed a monster at the same time. Regardless of source, I have no complaints.

@Albatross. Congrats on your efficiency BTW. Elite times and methods. After watching, I was regularly running sub-60 second times, but not with 8 boss packs or cold immunes. There is simply no way to push 6+- second averages with my map under those circumstances (frankly 8 sec boss kill averages would make me happy).

Gearing has something to do with it. I am using Occy with three skillers because my DF roll is pretty horrible. Still, I would probably realize a bump with any amount of cold damage/-CR.

@EatSleepDiablov2 just wanted to say I love how you make your summaries of the runs like above. really nice way to look at the data.

I'll also throw my hat in and say I too would be happy with 8s/boss on AT. Idk how the efficient people do it. In general it is much much harder than i expected to get "decent" efficiency. With regard to tunnels sorc, I thought after ~1k runs for practice with decent gear that sub 40s on like a 5.5 boss map would not be too much to ask for. I was wrong lol. And from that experience I knew to adjust my expectations with pitzerker, but same deal with him. Heck, I can't even get decent exp/hr with my 99er sorc compared to most of the runners. Anyways the journey/effort for efficiency is MUCH steeper than I had thought. No worries it's fun regardless. But I thought after a year of play with an eye towards efficiency that my times would be "kinda respectable" but instead they are "kinda embarrassing"

 

[Pb_pal]

Results thread is posted here, and Meet the Olympians thread is here. Have a great week, everyone!

@art_vandelay his adjusted efficiency is higher for sure, I’m 53% FI/743 MF.

@art_vandelay just to follow up, one the guys I know from discord tested the failed tyraels thing at pindle, and you are indeed correct that he cannot drop it unless templars has dropped in the same game. I know that's been consensus anyways for a while, but with not a ton of people knowing about the "2 "unique" SA's in same game doesn't guarantee tyraels", i wanted to confirm it. So finding a unique does NOT force another to drop, however monsters wont try and fail to drop a unique that they cannot drop, as long as there is one available that they can drop.

@Luhkoh, @Albatross : I will try to get a video up in a day or so here, prob tomorrow morning.
I just downloaded OBS and recorded a 3 run video without sound this morning to test it out and in that one the boss pack count was 9,6,8 but the run efficiency was dismal


I imagine the map falls into being less dense and so less efficient than a tightly packed lower boss count one and isn't ideal but I didn't spend a lot of time analyzing it, just could tell it was on the high end for boss packs.

Also, geared as I am, it isn't an efficient setup for AT. Too high light res on most mobs means the merc does a lot of the heavy lifting. I don't have a good combo of -LR and +skills for solid nova damage. Just happy the Great RNG smiled upon me.

After reading the results there's one question for me: Why are items not worth the same when they drop from differenz locations? e.g. griffons is less worth when dropping from pindle than from baal (according to the lists in the first post).

After reading the results there's one question for me: Why are items not worth the same when they drop from differenz locations? e.g. griffons is less worth when dropping from pindle than from baal (according to the lists in the first post).

The point totals are based off of the item's drop chances for that particular target. Baal has different drop chances for Griffon's than Pindle does.

@EatSleepDiablov2 you should time your runs with Fathom, I really dislike the random TP on Occy and it easily added 5s to my runs before I could finally switch. What's your MF? Once you've reached 500+ you will benefit much more from faster runs than additional MF. For example, a 275 MF 40s run is more efficient than a 750 MF 50s run.

@Luhkoh it's steep indeed. When I first saw the HoR numbers I couldn't believe it. I've already been running AT for years and I though my 45s runs were super fast. I started with me giving it my best on a new map and entering my name into the table. It wasn't an impressive score, but that's what made me want to improve.

I kept trying but couldn't touch the top AT runners. I wasn't sure if I was doing something wrong or had reached my limit, but I persisted and rolled more maps... wrote the guide to help me understand all of it more. It's easy for me though, since my primary goal is to complete the grail, I can just focus on AT and nothing else.

@Albatross Great stuff I love to hear your thoughts and your journey. I like to switch characters too much to be able to really dig in and focus like you did on the sorc. But I'm definitely still improving a lot, so maybe the longer path to reaching decent times just means more total d2 enjoyment There's is a lot more to learn and practice than I thought for sure. I thought a year of play would get me most of the way there, but much more practice and playing is ahead