Re: Stone of Jordan
SOJ (a unique ring) and MF'ing Guide
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key:
01. norm: normal difficulty
02. nm: nightmare difficulty
03. hell: hell difficulty
04. mlvl: monster level
05. jewelry: amulet and rings
06. andy: andarial act 1 boss
07. soj: stone of jordan unique ring
08. classic: non-LOD (non-xpac) d2
09. LOD: lord of destruction (xpac) d2
10. xpac: expansion pack for d2
11. d2: diablo 2
12. mf: magic find
13. clvl: character level
14. slvl: skill level
15. tc: treasure class
16. alvl: affix level
17. ilvl: item level
18. qlvl: quality level
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1. i don't know if this is actually true, but it's a well established rumor that andarial has the highest chance for dropping jewelry (amulets and rings)
2. andarial can be "glitched" (being able to do quest drops repeated) 2 ways. the normal way is to not complete the quest (this works for any quest that requires you to kill a monster, i think? at least it works for all the act bosses) (but your character is stuck at that spot since to advance further in the game u have to complete quest). the other way that is special to/for ONLY andarial is to kill andarial, get andarial quest completed, go to act 2, than exit game (do NOT exit game before u go to act 2). your character is now permamently andarial glitched. everytime you do that (difficulty) andarial with that character with NO mf u get nearly all rare drops. with more higher mf you have more chance of nearly all unique drops. (this special method allows for your character to advance further in the game since this special "glitch" ONLY for andarial requires you to complete the quest anyways)
3. normal drop vs quest drop. hopefully i dont have to explain this. hopefully u know what a quest drop is and how it is better than a normal drop. (see #2 above for application of using quest drop)
4. classic d2. in classsic d2 (which i play) nm andarial's mlvl is NOT high enough to drop a soj. the champions? (at +3 mlvls) ARE high enough to drop sojs in nm catacombs 4. So, in classic, hell andarial is best source for soj farming. but u CAN get a soj from the +3 mlvl (champions?) monsters in nm catacombs 4 (just NOT andy herself).
5. LOD (lord of destruction. xpac) d2. In LOD, nm andarial's mlvl IS high enough to drop sojs. So, in LOD, nm andy is best for soj farming.
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a loose explanation of drops (from classic d2 perspective as that is ONLY what i play):
1. you kill a monster. the number of items dropped is effected by # of players in game. more players means more items dropped. read some other post about how that 1-2 players is same # of items dropped, 3-4 players is same # of items dropped, 5-6 players is same # of items dropped, 7-8 players is same # of drops. the game then decides what item type (gold, pots, short sword, hand axe, dagger, mage plate, ornate plate, bh, lance, mart, rings, amulets, bone shield, grim shield, kite shield, etc..) it drops from its possible choices based on the mlvl? and it's TC's. the item type is completely random. than it chooses what item quality (normal, socket, set, rare, unique). the item quality is "rolled" for in this order: unique than rare than set than socket? than? normal. item quality IS effected my your character's mf amount (your character has to make the kill of course, any skill u use to make the kill counts, including a barb's find item skill comonly known as "popping" or "hork"). it does this process for each item that the monster drops.
2. for classic, soj's are much more common. this is because there are ONLY 3 unique rings in classic. so once you lucky enough to have a ring (item type) choosen and than get a successful "roll" for unique (item quality) (these 2 requirements is what makes mf'ing still so un-productive and frustrating, and much more based on sheer luck), THAN u got a 1/3 chance of it being a soj because classic only has 3 unique rings to choose from.
3. also, remember this phenominon: when you are specifically and intenionally looking-trying to find a certain item, you never find it (usually, at least for me). Many times you accidentally find the item when you aren't trying to like when doing quest running or lvl'ing up.
4. u can use atma and look at the statistic odds for a certain item for the best monster and its odds for dropping that item to generally know how likely it is to get that item dropped. HOWEVER, statistics is not a science (don't wanna get into a debate, so just don't take this statement seriously
). what i mean is this. even if lets say the odds of hell andarial dropping a soj at 500 mf is 1/1,000 chance (*pretended* atma's drop calc data. too lazy to actually get what it really would show). despite the statistic saying that in 1,000 "runs" or tries you'll get 1 soj, it's still based on or overrided by LUCK. you could get lucky and get a soj on the first "run" or try. or you could get a soj on the last 1,000 th "run" or try. or you "could" get 1,000 sojs in 1,000 "runs" or tries (actually NOT possible, lol). or you could get NO sojs in 1,000 "runs" or tries (unfortunately, this IS possible). this is why i made the statement that statistics is NOT science (but remember, please don't take it seriously) due to or because of this.
5. about mlvls. the higher a mlvl the better (higher) items the monster can drop. unfortunately, at the same time, it also means it can drop many more different items. so, in CLASSIC diablo has the highest mlvl, this means he can drop the best items with the best mods (affixes= prefixes and suffixes) but it also means he can drop every item in the game. this means he's the most diluted, it's very unlikely he'll drop what you want since he can drop everything. he has the entire selection to choose from. having a big selection is bad. so if u want that soj, (in classic) hell diablo would be a bad choose. you want a monster who's just high enough to drop a soj, but no more items that are above the soj. you want as small a small selection as possible. in LOD, i think nm andy is nearly perfect. he's just high enough for sojs. compared to classic, where hell andy is suppose to be best but unfortunately hell andy is quite a few levels well over the level for a soj, meaning much more items to interferw with trying to get a sojs choosen.
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