New 1.07/1.08 Magic Find Meta?

Wow! I am amazed that this secret was discovered after so many years! Thanks to all the people who contributed some info to this thread.

Can one of you experts give me a bit of more specific advice?

You see, it's always been a D2 dream of mine to wield a Windforce on a 1.09 Bowazon... But I never managed to find one in that version...
So if I were to create a new, totally untwinked character in patch 1.08, with the sole purpose of using the Souls Ritual to find a Windforce (that I can then transfer to 1.09), what would be the absolute best character and build to use?
 
In order to survive the Souls, you will need a lot of DR, maxed LR, and some Replenish Life. If you want to go afk while they do their rituals, your gear also needs to not break due to durability issues. This is pretty specific gear that's not too easy to come across, but if you manage to get it, it probably doesn't matter much which character you use. A Barbarian might have a slight advantage because of Natural Resistance I guess.

If you're willing to babysit your character through the rituals, having great survival gear probably matters a lot less, but it sounds pretty excruciating to sit there and manage the character for ~2 hours (the time it takes to force all monsters to drop uniques, not just bosses). The time it takes to force bosses only to drop uniques is shorter (like a third of the time? Not sure on that), and is maybe more reasonable.

As for the actual killing, froz, ziambe and I have been using WW Barbarians while I think SIlvio has tried some dual tree Sorc. Those of us who are using Barbarians also have a sorc in the game that teleports around and drops town portals though. If you were going with one character only, I suspect some Sorceress would be faster than a Barb, but don't take my word for it. The monsters generally feel pretty easy to kill, though I say that having been gifted pretty strong starter gear from froz (2x Grandfather, Gladiator's Bane, Gore Foot, Highlord's, Arreat's Face) so an untwinked character might disagree.

I would suggest one of two approaches:

1. Some sort of Sorceress build who does both the rituals and the killing, on p1. Maybe you afk during the rituals if you have the gear for it, or if you want to get started on runs quicker, maybe you would have to babysit her. Focusing on shorter rituals (to force bosses to drop uniques) and then tele around and kill a bunch of boss packs.

2. A Barb who does the rituals (the longer version, 2h of afk time) and the killing, but with a secondary Sorc character the pre-teles to the areas that will be run in order to freeze them on p1 in terms of monster strength, then drops TPs for the Barb to those areas, and also 6 mules to join them in each area to make sure you get p8 drops.

I suspect that for a TC87 like Hydra Bow, it makes sense to go with option 1, but for a TC90 like Archon Staff, it makes sense to go with option 2. Bosses that can drop TC90s are so rare, but for a Hydra Bow I would assume there are a lot more areas/bosses available (without having looked into it specifically).

I know jimsfriend has just started up an untwinked 1.08 character from scratch with the goal of getting a Stormspire. I think regardless of which approach you choose, it's a bit of a project. I got up and running quite fast doing these things because I had high level characters (including mules) in 1.07 already, as well as some quite good 1.07 gear and a friend who gifted me 1.08 killing gear. An untwinked project might prove to be a bigger headache, but I wish you the best of luck!
 
Ive been trying to think of the best way to reply and im still not sure :P but a few things come to mind-

Even though I/we are not setting a good example, i would strongly recommend against ever playing with the goal of finding only -one- item (ie looking only for tyrael's or only for a 1.08/9 windforce)

Indeed the gear I use/recommend (which is discussed in this thread) in 1.08 is in large part made possible by having played years of 1.07 before the wisp easter egg was found, especially the weapon crafts. If I were to farm all this again, it could very well take just as long as it might take...

...to just farm pindle in 1.09. I dont know as much about 1.09 but i thought that was his best patch? If you farmed him in 1.09 you could potentially find lots of other nice things too, even a tyrael's.
 
Yeah, I've tried to answer this question two-three times and ended up deleting my post every single time. Getting wealth from scratch in old patches and equipping characters seems to be function of exponential growth.

Just making 11 Sol worth equipment for afk pdr in planes of despair and some crafts might take unreasonable amount of time, especially when you consider I've had more than double Windforces found in 1.08 than Sol runes, just to point out absurdity. For example first Wizardspike is such game changer that gives you capped resistances, 50 fcr and infinite mana. I have probably 100+ of those by now but first one was important because it allowed me to farm additional targets with better drops. There's definite progression in terms of what you can do and farm based on gear that you have, and initial gear is very obnoxious to get.

Starting char for 1.07 that's usually recommended is SF/Blizzard sorc because she has access to teleport and can fit in many roles and functions (racks, staples, rushing other characters, LK in general...). So yeah, this is what I'd start with, but we are talking many hours (probably hundreds) to get to the point where WF is a possibility, and will likely end up not being the char you first started with.
 
Many thanks for your replies! And to Fabian for his detailed advice!

You're right Ziambe, it might be just as quick or at least easier to farm Pindle in 1.09... But I've already done that quite a bit in my D2 "career", so I think I'll still try to play 1.08 and use the souls ritual, if only because it's something different.

BTW, I said that my 1.08 char would be untwinked because I have this self-imposed rule that I can only twink a character once it has beaten Hell Baal. But assuming that I can do that with a sorc or barb (as Fabian suggested), I wouldn't mind twinking him/her a little bit to help me survive the souls. I do have a 1.07 FO/SF sorc that can rack efficiently in LK, and I'm currently farming an LK map with a Balrog Skin rack so it's possible that I'll have an Arkaine's Valor to gift to my 1.08 character. And I checked my 1.07 stashes and I already have 3 sol runes and a ton of jewels and Ort runes to do Safety crafts, so it's a start!

But yeah, I realize that I've got a long way to go!
 
Those old patches, especially at the start are quite slow. You need to be quite a bit more patient, but the rewards are possible. Sometimes you need something else to do to get past the mindless parts. I know a lot of people rewatch old tv shows they like. Sometimes focussing on those next landmarks, the next level up, the next waypoint to lock in some progress. Any RNG things you have to balance like anything else. Celebrate those successes, get inspired by the close misses.
 
Yeah, I started time-travelling because I saw a Reddit thread where someone posted their crazy 1.07 items.

So I made my 1.07 FO/SF sorc with big hopes and dreams, but it is WAY more slow-going than I thought... And racking is less rewarding than I expected. It was quite a shock to realize that that person on Reddit had probably spent 100+ hours to just get the 1.07 AV, Shako, LoH, Grandfather, etc. from 1.07 racks. And even more time to get all the insane crafts he posted.

I'd like to get the Wizardspike that frozzzen mentions to accelerate the process with that nice FCR boost. But that would mean finding a Bone Knife rack and loading that map maybe thousands of time. So right now I'm at the point where I'll just be happy if I find an Arkaine's Valor on my current map and then I'll stop racking.

But to return to the subject of the souls ritual in 1.08... It is a much more attractive proposition to me than racking or farming Pindle because I'd actually get to play the game the way I like : travelling through different areas and killing groups of enemies. Not the same area/monster over and over again.
 
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You can get many (but not all, arkaine is an exception for example) of the interesting uniques in 1.07 by doing the rituals, and it requires fare fewer of them than 1.08 does.
 
It takes a mere four rituals to force uniques from all enemies in 1.07 Hell, you can babysit your sorc through that (basically just running/teleporting around between the souls), TPing home and restocking on potions as needed.
Roll a multiplayer map with souls in the plains of despair, teleport with your sorc through all the areas you want to clear, do the ritual four times, invite seven other chars, and then clear all the mobs in thew areas you've visited.
 
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One thing I found back in 2003 while taking a break from 1.09 and before 1.10 came out, a map in 1.07 for racks is what you make it. It can be easy to just look at one area. I had a solid map that would eventually drop me an arkaines, in the mean time while bored I looked over the rest of hell and managed to get a few of the rare gris items that was quite shocking for me back then. Of course getting a green from a rack was nothing compared to getting a TC90 to drop in 1.09.

Also spending some time working out which racks were stable, or how you can try to force them to do things. I remember seeing those cool base items, then the buzz of trying to replicate it!

And as boring as some of those racking and things could be, I'd rather do that then any "season pass" or live service title that is at the mercy of being shutdown by an accountant for not bringing in enough revenue
 
Oops. I was so hyper-focused on using the ritual to find a Windforce in 1.08 that I had overlooked the fact I could also use it to acquire other useful uniques in 1.07 (even though I had indeed seen that info at the beginning of this thread). So thank you for reminding me of this jimsfriend! That is what I'm gonna do as soon as I rack my Arkaine's Valor.

And thank you Derklord! I looked through your signature and found your 1.07 grail sheet, which was (and will remain) really useful to determine all the useful uniques I should hunt after completing those 4 rituals. Looks like I won't have to rack that Wizardspike after all! Or a pair of decent weapons for the Frenzy barb I want to make. I feel a bit relieved!
 
Do not make a frenzy barb!! Absolute trash in 1.07 and 1.08. I used one of my level 99 afk barbs from moo moo to try it out and even with great weapon crafts its garbage compared to ww. Now that barb is just a glorified trophy...
 
ziambe said:
Do not make a frenzy barb!! Absolute trash in 1.07 and 1.08. I used one of my level 99 afk barbs from moo moo to try it out and even with great weapon crafts its garbage compared to ww. Now that barb is just a glorified trophy...
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That bad, huh? I have lowkey entertained the idea of trying one out, but never got around to it (still haven't my plan to solo clear the game with every class at /players8, as 'sin and Necro just suck).
Guess it's probably as good as my 1.07 Nova sorc (which never made it past level 66 and got turned into a rack runner)...
 
QuestingBeast said:
Oops. I was so hyper-focused on using the ritual to find a Windforce in 1.08 that I had overlooked the fact I could also use it to acquire other useful uniques in 1.07 (even though I had indeed seen that info at the beginning of this thread). So thank you for reminding me of this jimsfriend! That is what I'm gonna do as soon as I rack my Arkaine's Valor.

And thank you Derklord! I looked through your signature and found your 1.07 grail sheet, which was (and will remain) really useful to determine all the useful uniques I should hunt after completing those 4 rituals. Looks like I won't have to rack that Wizardspike after all! Or a pair of decent weapons for the Frenzy barb I want to make. I feel a bit relieved!
Click to expand...
This is what I've been doing for the past few days in 1.07. Even though I have a perfect LK shako rack on one of my sorcs, I thought it'd make more sense to do the ritual four times and pve away. You get all kinds of gear AND exp? Sweet! I've found plenty of interesting stuff: valkys, vamp gazes, skullders, bk ring, highlord, bartuc, arreats, eth ginther, buriza, etc... But I still haven't found a unique Shako or Bone Knife.

I know they drop, I've seen them drop before, but the chances aren't thaat great by the looks of it. Nonetheless, I've managed to gear up my five naked sorc rackers, these items drop all the time:

Valkyrie Wing / Peasant Crown
Razorswitch / Suicide Branch + Wall of the Eyeless
Skin of the Vipermagi
Magefist
String of Ears
Infernostride
 
I'm still plugging away every once in a while, I haven't counted my runs but I've done maybe 8-10 runs in January if I had to guess. Not finding much, still at 2 TC90s (and a white Legend Spike from a rack which I don't count) which has been the case since around christmas.

I had a funny thing happen tonight though, a TC87 dropped in WSK. Since I try to take screenshots of all TC87 and TC90 drops, I took a screenshot of my Ogre Gauntlets. Right after I had done that though, I saw there was also a Hydra Bow lying there, so I took a second screenshot to make sure both were visible in the screenshot. Turns out the Hydra Bow was already there for the first screenshot too, so they must have dropped within a couple of seconds of each other. I don't feel like I'm having a lot of luck in the high TC drops department, but when it rains it pours I guess.

Screenshot013.jpg

My first Windforce, too. Probably the only 1.08 Windforce that has been accidentally screenshotted.
 
Fabian said:
I'm still plugging away every once in a while, I haven't counted my runs but I've done maybe 8-10 runs in January if I had to guess. Not finding much, still at 2 TC90s (and a white Legend Spike from a rack which I don't count) which has been the case since around christmas.

I had a funny thing happen tonight though, a TC87 dropped in WSK. Since I try to take screenshots of all TC87 and TC90 drops, I took a screenshot of my Ogre Gauntlets. Right after I had done that though, I saw there was also a Hydra Bow lying there, so I took a second screenshot to make sure both were visible in the screenshot. Turns out the Hydra Bow was already there for the first screenshot too, so they must have dropped within a couple of seconds of each other. I don't feel like I'm having a lot of luck in the high TC drops department, but when it rains it pours I guess.

View attachment 91730

My first Windforce, too. Probably the only 1.08 Windforce that has been accidentally screenshotted.
Click to expand...
Congrats on the WF find! I'm jealous.
 
It shows that it's possible without playing an ungodly amount. Like, getting to the point where you can do rituals is the hard part. Playing through a couple dozen clears to get one Hydra Bow to drop is the easy part, even if it takes a little bit.
 
I made a calculator to estimate how long you have to play to get an Archon Staff to drop:

1738325831081.png

In order to know that, you have to know how many TC90 eligible monsters you kill per run, so I've been counting that for the past three days. It's pretty boring, slow and tedious, so I think 6 runs is about the maximum I can muster. Doing more would give you a better long-term average and thus a better estimate, but I think this will give a good enough idea for now. If anyone else does count, or have some other way of knowing how many monsters are in these areas, do let me know.

Hopefully I got the drop chances and everything like that right, if not it's frozzen's fault as I got all the info from him.

As for the result, it's.. kinda discouraging, kinda not too bad. 220ish runs with full hork is a lot, but it's not so much that you'd expect it to never happen. I would imagine froz has done nearly that amount (he has 16 TC90s iirc, and 1 in 18 will be an Archon Staff), and I think it will drop eventually.

One thing looking at these numbers told me is that regular monsters account for 95%+ of your drops. If you reduce bosses and champions killed down to 0 in this screenshot, you have to do 231 runs instead of 221.

I'll be looking into optimizing my runs a bit though, as I feel like I'm very slow, and every minute helps if you expect to do this thing 300 times. I might make a separate post on equipment/strategy/etc some time.

Anyway, thought people would be interested in the result.

Edit: Forgot to mention that you expect a TC90 weapon to drop every 12.3 runs with this data. I'm running significantly below expectation there, so I'm hoping my luck will change with a shiny Archon Staff next run.
 
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