MFO Winter 2013 Results [by Fabian]

Gripphon said:
Yes, I'm interested in your Ormus, so if you don't need it, I would really like to have it. Got like 12 Ormuses in Travincal and none with Blizzard skill. I'll pm-u after seeing other readouts ;)
Sure thing. I'm on act 2 with BaronScarpia, the necroarcher. If you gonna pick it, let me know if you want it personalized or not (I kind need the Larzuk quest reward today, or I'll be unable to sleep).
 
frozzzen said:
So you who defeated me just dare to show in pvp game and I'll make sure my barb takes piece of revenge :]
Poisonmancer is waiting for ya, go ahead. With Web this time :p
After reading this sentence, it is clear to me you really like barbarians. My pic is true after all. 👍
Nice Nightwing.

I'll take Ormus from Baron and Nightwing from Frozzzen.
Scrcrw, can I have eth Reaper's Tool from you?


About personalizing, you all may or may not personalize items, your choice, I don't care really. I'm fine with personalizing to know what I got from who so perhaps that is better 👍
 
Congratulations to all the winners.

I ran for about two hours with a paladin that took four or five minutes to run Baal with ~250 MF. My initial goal was 10 hours in AT, but that changed at the last minute to Baal for team reasons, then the team situation fell through, then for some reason I went with Baal anyways, then I hated the character with a passion, so my goal was five qualifiers, but I could not bring myself to run for the fifth. Oh well.

A hat-tipping to all of the impressive performances.
 
This MFO has been a long time in the making for me. Those who know me and my history on the forum know that what I've always liked about Diablo II is character optimization, and competition. Pretty much the only goals I've had in this game is to make characters that are as good as possible at what they do, which pretty much always means running a target (be it Pit or Pindle with MF, Travincal with GF, or Baal with Speed) as efficiently as possible. Having and making the very best MF character I can has been the top priority for me as long as I can remember, and doing everything I can to do as well as possible in an MFO with an insanely strong character has been my end-game goal in this game for a long time.

I was planning on making last summer's MFO that time where I went all-out for 10 days to get the best result I possibly could in an MFO, but as it turns out the MFO collided with a trip abroad. Sometimes real life is more important I guess. I was very lucky in the 4 days I did run though, but it wasn't the 100% effort I knew I wanted to do.

Which brings me to this MFO.

I had two goals coming into this week. The first, and more concrete, was to beat the old MFO record for time spent playing, which (as far as I know anyway) was set by my dear teammate LiquidClear in the 2011 Winter MFO, at 104 hours. The second goal was to get the very best haul pic I could, which in my book means a great top end as well as great quantity. I consider 9.3+ qualifiers to be "haul pic worthy", and so I kept track of these items from the start.

My plan was to play at least 10 hours in every 24 hour block, and a bit more on some days. I managed this perfectly, except for hitting 30 hours at 15 minutes past midnight on Monday morning. Having small goals along the way (9.3+ drops, getting 10 hours a day) was completely necessary for me. Every single day was a huge huge struggle for the last 5 hours or so, but every morning I woke up with renewed motivation, which lasted for a while. Having such an insanely efficient character was very helpful too, as I rarely had very long streaks without haul pic worthy items at all, and since I was of the mentality that every 9.3 pointer counted, seeing one drop turned into something positive which gave me a motivational boost every time, even though they of course quickly turned irrelevant as far as the score goes.

The above was perhaps especially important for the first 5 days or so, when I got a steady stream of haul pic items, but none of the top end items I knew I wanted to get a great score/haul pic. When I sent the first update to Cyrax around noon on Monday, I had played 39 hours and had found 26 9.3+ qualifiers, only 1 of which was above 11.6 points (a Spirit Keeper). I whined a bit about my bad luck, and also included this pic in the email:

Noon on Monday, 39h

That's not to say I didn't have fun things happen. In 4½ hours, between 3am and 7.30am on Monday, I had three Griffon's drop. When I finally got my first 14.6, a Dragonscale, I took a breakfast break, and when I continued half an hour later, another Dragonscale dropped within 5 runs. I got a Thunder Maul and a Berserker Axe on the same run. Then, late on Wednesday, after roughly 59 hours, my first high scorer finally dropped. I was super worn down at that point, and it helped raise my spirits significantly. Looking at my screenshots, it seems it was my 38th haul pic qualifier.

When I sent my second update, at 3pm on Friday, my score hadn't improved, and I was really frustrated. I posted in the thread saying "if I send an update now, it means I'll improve my score immediately, right?" Well, I had to send a new update an hour later or something, to include this drop. When Cyrax posted the update, it seems like it was very close between me and zgpmf, and I'm guessing that 4.7 point improvement was the difference between first and second at that point. Very shortly after that Darkforce, I had my first of this drop, which was a very scary/exciting few minutes.

Somewhere right around here, the pace at which I found haul pic qualifiers started slowing down, but I did get a second of these on Saturday, which again made me very happy.

Then Sunday happened. I woke up having played 93 hours, knowing I needed to play more than on previous days to meet my goal of 105 hours, and was ready for a long painful grind. After less than an hour, I had another one of these these. I was very happy to see that all the effort I had put in previously that week wasn't completely wasted, as I now had a respectable number of high scorers. Quote from the AOYUT team channel at this point (note the time stamps):

[08:04:00] <Fabian_> if I find a Caduceus or an Archon Staff, I'll have 100.0 points
[08:04:04] <Fabian_> just sayin...
[09:50:33] <Fabian_> lol
[09:51:21] <Fabian_> http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/4198/screenshot069zh.jpg

That was the highlight of the MFO for me. I had been extremely frustrated over the huge amount of Archon Staff/Caduceus/Unearthed Wand base items I had seen, knowing that roughly 1 in 30 should be a 27.x pointer, on average. This drop made 95 hours of frustration melt away in an instant. I kept playing pretty much all day, and at 9pm, well, it was a pretty good day. I played for another three hours after that, but didn't find any more haul pic items. I didn't mind.

Throughout the week I had some pretty severe hardware/lag problems, which caused me to abandon the run counter after 76½ hours. At that point, it looked like this:

runcounter.png

I kept track with an online stopwatch after that, and added the times up manually. I did 106 hours and 2 minutes, in the end. Throughout the week I took many many short breaks, mostly to stretch my legs and get something from the fridge, or to talk to the IRC crowd and whine a bit. Whenever I tabbed out of d2 I paused the counter though, so there's no dead time in there.

Thanks to all the IRC people for talking and listen to me whine when necessary. Thanks Nagisa and everyone else for the encouragement, even if I didn't always appreciate the method :) Special huge thanks to AOYUT teammate LiquidClear, who got to read updates pretty much every time I found a haul pic item, all day long, all week long. Seeing that 9.3+ counter slowly increase whenever I looked at IRC helped a lot with motivation.

I'm super proud of myself for this week's efforts. It was complete murder, and I honestly can't believe I didn't quit any number of times. I met both my goals, and I'm very happy I did it, but I also know (hope?) I'm never doing it again.

I made you wait until the end for the haul pics. Only fair right, it took a lot of effort to get these for you to see after all.

Primary haul pic:
1596286318754.png

Secondary haul pic:
1596286366610.png

Crap haul pic:
1596286411776.png

Really crap haul pic:
1596286463864.png

I found 66 qualifiers worth 9.3 points or more, 36 of which was 10.4+ and 30 which was 9.3. Note that I would have liked to fit the 10.4 Conqueror Crowns in the primary haul pic, but 32 is the limit of items which can be displayed at once, so I had to demote them to the secondary haul pic. That meant that two 9.3 items wouldn't fit in the secondary haul pic, so I included them in the crap pic. Sorry War Pikes. An Azurewrath, which used to be primary haul pic material, also made an appearance there. Also, I forgot to include two Hand Axes in the crap pic, but didn't care enough to re-take it when I noticed.

Thanks a lot for reading.
 
Last edited:
Sent Ormus to Gripphon.

Please, take good care of Ormus!

Readout:

Code:
Ormus' Robes
Dusk Shroud
Defense: 431
Durability: 13 of 20
Required Level: 75
Required Strength: 77
Fingerprint: 0x812e61bf
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+12% to Cold Skill Damage
+13% to Lightning Skill Damage
+11% to Fire Skill Damage
+3 to Blizzard (Sorceress Only)
+14 Defense
Regenerate Mana 14%

@Fabian: Congrats man, very nice post + pics + runes + determination!
 
Nothing spectacular here:
Code:
Shadow Dancer
Myrmidon Greaves
Defense: 126
Durability: 12 of 24
Kick Damage: 83 to 149
Required Strength: 166
Required Level: 71
Unidentified
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: **
Fingerprint: 0xaf1ecdca
+21 to Dexterity
+76% Enhanced Defense
Requirements -20%
30% Faster Run/Walk
30% Faster Hit Recovery
+2 to Shadow Discipline Skills (Assassin Only)
 
@ Baron
Don't worry, I have plan for it and I hope I'll put it into good use. ;)

@ Fabian
You have deep bow from me. 100+ hours is mad! I wonder how you managed to do it. 66 9.3+ items is also madness. Too bad you didn't get that Tyrael, putting so much effort definitely deserved that golden drop. That is very detailed and interesting post to read.
 
I don't think I said congrats, yet, so congrats to everyone! Especially so for the winners, ofc :)

Fab, have you done any calculations on chance to find Tyrael's after that effort?

Are you anywhere near another mf bp that some better charms could help with? Not that I have any, but something to think about.

Do you plan to beat this effort in the next MFO, too? I think you can do it, and depending on timing, I might even try to give it 100 hours, too.
 
pharphis,

tyraels.png

I think in reality it's slightly higher, as I believe I kill more monsters on this map than I did on my old map, which is where the "monsters killed" estimates are coming from. Regardless, it's somewhere around 17-21%. My secret dream was, of course, to hit that 1/50 time where I find more than 1 Tyrael's, but needless to say that's kinda tough :)

Only readouts from this MFO please, those are the ones I may or may not steal :) Not really interested in eth Steelrends specifically, but some other items I might be (Fathom, for instance).

I don't blame you for missing it since my post is so long, but I do mention that I'm never doing this again :)

The next MF breakpoint is at 828, I currently wear 810. That number could be 818 if I used all 7% charms, but I added in some Fine of GL 6%ers and the like, since anything above 810 is useless until you get to 828. Getting to 828 is possible but extremely difficult. I have no more MF to gain from Enigma (level 99), and I have only 3% to gain from Rings (38% and 39%). I have a Cham which could in theory be switched for an Ist which would of course easily get me there, but that would be extremely inefficient as CBF is very important. The place where it is possible to add MF in a practical way is the Amulet though; if you craft a caster amulet with 2 Barb, 10 FCR, MF prefix and MF affix, do shoot me PM! Needless to say this amulet, while theoretically possible, is pretty much unattainable. My current amulet is 2/15/21, so if that turned into a 2/15/31, I could reach the next breakpoint if I switched back to an all 7% charmset. It should be noted that gaining an MF breakpoint at this stage is an extremely minor improvement.
 
@Fabian
For instance, going from 447% MF to 810% MF gives you only 1% more chance of getting DW per Unearthed Wand drop. Don't you think that you'd be better off with trying to increase the quantity instead of quality of drops at some point (EDIT: in given time)?

Edit: I'll try to break your record in time spent and hopefully overall score this summer.;)
 
I did read your whole post. I don't know how I missed it :p

Are you going to compete in the next one with half the effort, then? :p

Also, I'm surprised at your rings. You've never found or traded for any better? They don't seem that rare, but I guess they are if you don't have them.
 
It just so happens that my Pitbarb rings are literally my two favorite items I own. Sometimes sacrificing MF for other things is ok ;) I'll let you decide if they're good or not:

Code:
Rune Turn 
Ring 
Required Level: 53 
Fingerprint: 0x26165820 
Item Level: 63 
Version: Expansion 
+98 to Attack Rating 
3% Life stolen per hit 
+14 to Strength 
+24 to Life 
Magic Damage Reduced by 2 
39% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items 


Chaos Whorl 
Ring 
Required Level: 50 
Fingerprint: 0x75054aa 
Item Level: 63 
Version: Expansion 
+119 to Attack Rating 
6% Life stolen per hit 
+15 to Strength 
+23 to Life 
38% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

zgpmf, I do hate to say this, but yes lowering MF in exchange for other things is pretty much certainly correct. That's nice in the sense that my Barb can likely be improved still, but also sucks in the sense that lowering MF on purpose is worse than poison and death. Your numbers aren't correct though (at least for Bosses), it's more like 10% for those amounts
 
Congrats to all the winners (namely Fabian. AOYUT rules, obviously).

As for my effort, I played about 48 1/2 hours, a lot more than the 20 or so I figured I'd put in since this would be my first MFO while working a real, full time job. I ran the first 12 hours with an untwinked sorc I had been playing. She started with ~200 mf and worked her way up to 300 by the end, but was INCREDIBLY slow... (I mean, her runs were slow and she ran slow in terms of FRW) She found one 9.3 pointer and that was it. At that point I saw how hard Fabian was running and decided the least I could do for the team was use a character that wasn't completely awful, so I switched to a Barb.

I did a few hours as a whirler, but it was slow and I have a tendency to kill everything instead of just pindle... and I'm not a very good whirler. Respec'd to zerker and was still a slow runner (gear's not 100% optimized) but 19 seconds was a lot better than the 24 my sorc had.

Anyways, found a couple of nice items (Stormlash, D-Web which was crap roll) but was disappointed in the depth of my finds. Of the 4 potential grailers Pindle could drop for me, I got zero. (Schaefers, Fathom, Darkforce, Astreons) Oh well. Next time I'm definitely moving to a85 since I've only run Baal and pindle in MFOs so far. Maybe I'll have a haul pic worthy of posting then!

Gripphon, here's the readouts on the items you requested. The rolls are pretty crap, but if by chance you do want any of them, feel free to claim them. I won't be using any items that I found during the MFO anyways, so if you think of anything else let me know.

Code:
Nightwing's Veil 
Spired Helm 
Defense: 342 
Durability: 34 of 40 
Required Level: 67 
Required Strength: 96 
Fingerprint: 0x91419434 
Item Level: 86 
Version: Expansion 1.10+ 
Unidentified 
+2 to All Skills 
+9% to Cold Skill Damage 
+114% Enhanced Defense 
+13 to Dexterity 
+7 Cold Absorb 
Half Freeze Duration 
Requirements -50%

Verdungo's Hearty Cord 
Mithril Coil 
Defense: 154 
Durability: 11 of 16 
Required Level: 63 
Required Strength: 106 
Fingerprint: 0x9e1f875 
Item Level: 86 
Version: Expansion 1.10+ 
Unidentified 
+10% Faster Hit Recovery 
+134% Enhanced Defense 
+30 to Vitality 
Replenish Life +12 
+120 Maximum Stamina 
Damage Reduced by 12%

Verdungo's Hearty Cord 
Mithril Coil 
Defense: 132 
Durability: 15 of 16 
Required Level: 63 
Required Strength: 106 
Fingerprint: 0xe96ac3d9 
Item Level: 86 
Version: Expansion 1.10+ 
Unidentified 
+10% Faster Hit Recovery 
+101% Enhanced Defense 
+37 to Vitality 
Replenish Life +11 
+102 Maximum Stamina 
Damage Reduced by 12% 

Wolfhowl 
Fury Visor 
Defense: 336 
Durability: 18 of 35 
Required Level: 79 
Required Strength: 129 
Fingerprint: 0x6fc07f56 
Item Level: 86 
Version: Expansion 1.10+ 
Unidentified 
+2 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Only) 
+4 to Feral Rage 
+5 to Lycanthropy 
+6 to Werewolf 
+123% Enhanced Defense 
+15 to Strength 
+14 to Dexterity 
+11 to Vitality 
Level 15 Summon Dire Wolf (4/18 Charges)

Ormus' Robes 
Dusk Shroud 
Defense: 412 
Durability: 14 of 20 
Required Level: 75 
Required Strength: 77 
Fingerprint: 0x7baeb394 
Item Level: 86 
Version: Expansion 1.10+ 
Unidentified 
+20% Faster Cast Rate 
+10% to Cold Skill Damage 
+11% to Lightning Skill Damage 
+15% to Fire Skill Damage 
+3 to Warmth (Sorceress Only) 
+16 Defense 
Regenerate Mana 12%

Ormus' Robes 
Dusk Shroud 
Defense: 385 
Durability: 12 of 20 
Required Level: 75 
Required Strength: 77 
Fingerprint: 0x19fdf11e 
Item Level: 86 
Version: Expansion 1.10+ 
Unidentified 
+20% Faster Cast Rate 
+12% to Cold Skill Damage 
+11% to Lightning Skill Damage 
+10% to Fire Skill Damage 
+3 to Ice Bolt (Sorceress Only) 
+16 Defense 
Regenerate Mana 10%

Ormus' Robes 
Dusk Shroud 
Defense: 482 
Durability: 10 of 20 
Required Level: 75 
Required Strength: 77 
Fingerprint: 0x83a9fbd8 
Item Level: 86 
Version: Expansion 1.10+ 
Unidentified 
+20% Faster Cast Rate 
+11% to Cold Skill Damage 
+15% to Lightning Skill Damage 
+13% to Fire Skill Damage 
+3 to Inferno (Sorceress Only) 
+18 Defense 
Regenerate Mana 12%
 
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