~The Strafezon Pit-Runner Thread ~

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Pri]M[aL

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~The Strafezon Pit-Runner Thread ~

Greetings! :howdy:
First of all, my apologies for creating the 2343243# strafer-mf-pit topic, but I rather create one thread to ask all the questions, than to answer several old threads that no one cares about.

After my Norton Anti-Virus killed my MF-Trapsin :hanky: , I decided to create a Pit-Strafer for magic find purposes.
I already spent several hours reading various topics/posts collecting important data regarding the character and the area, but most of my questions weren´t really answered.

Note: Please remember that this is for Hardcore Ladder (Europe realm for those who are interested), and for MF'ing the Pit only!

So here are the questions:

1. Which setup should I pick?
a) Max Strafe/Max Freezing Arrow/Max Cold Arrow/Lvl.17-Max Valkyrie and low level Passives;
b) Max Strafe/Lvl.17-Max Valkyrie/Lvl.1 Freezing Arrow and high level Passives;
c) Max Strafe/Lvl.17-Max Valkyrie/Max Penetrate or Guided Arrow and low level Passives;
d) Other...

2. Statistic Points

a) Strenght/Dexterity enough for equipment and rest on Vitality;
b) Strenght enough for equipment, 50~100 Vitality, rest on Dexterity;
c) How much life? ~800 hitpoints enough? Or need 1200++?

3. Equipment
a) Post your equipment of your Pit MF'er. :uhhuh:
b) Mid-game weapon - Buriza or Goldstrike Arch?
b.1) When the Poison Nova is triggered (BotD bow), where does it spawn? From you or from the monster?
c) End-game weapon - BotD Crusader or Windforce? (Sorry! :drool: )

4. Several Stuff
a.) How much resists I MUST have at least so I can run the pits without any "real" danger? (aka one hit kill..)
b) Weapons on switch - What to put?
c) Best mercenary aura - Blessing Aim or Might?
d) How much IAS should I have on my gear? Presuming I´m holding a Windforce?
e) High passives are a good idea? They will benefit more the Valkyrie since I´m gonna spam strafe behind her, the decoy and the mercenary.
f) Way of dealing with end-act bosses - Need another skill or strafe can kill them easily?

Thanks in advance!
 
well many of us play sc so that might be the case.


even though i dont play hc i think this is the best to do.

1 go with b a high level valk can safe your char and so can the higher passives, the level 1 FA can be pumped by using some cold small charms(increase the duration but i bet you arledy knew that)

2 i think a would be good if you have a slow connection or if you think you can kill well enough with low dex. otherwise i would go for b but a higher amount of points spent in vitality.

3 a i dont mf there i runehunt therfor i use a windforce, CoH, kiras guardian sockeded with a um, razortail, raven frost, natures peace, atmas scarab, gore raiders and a inv filled with fine small charms.

as you can see my equipment is made to kill and not for mf still i have found things like firelizards and other quite nice things even though my char only have 25% mf

for a mf zon i would go with perfect stealskull sockeded with a ptopaz(same mf amount as shako) skullders, goldwrap, wrar travlers and as many mf charms you can pack.

b myself i think the buriza is to slow so i would go for goldie

b1 cant answer

c really depends on what you need on the char i think the BoTD would help a hc char more then wf as the BoTD covers all the leech you should need and also gives alot of other good bonuses to your char like the stats bonus.

4 a hard to say the only think that get elemntar attacks down in the pit is the devilkin shamans and various bosses. atleast positive i would recommend 50% as a minimum.

b perhaps a slower wepon like the buriza for act bosses to counter for the next delay

c that depends on your chance to hit and what damage you do. as far as i know its better for you to hit and survive then kill faster and then die

d well if you use a windforce the think you should aim for if you feel the need for speed is either 120ias or 147 i would myself go for 120 as that is enough of a sacrifying thing to do. (personal opinion)

e high passives is generaly good but beware that the nice evade bug can get your char killed. classic example zon stands in diablos fire attack and cannot move thanks to the fact that the evade is in effect. very dangerous.

f strafe should work a 1 point pre req GA should work too and is safer against diablo.

so now i have tried to help you
 
If you ask me, I think making your own character the best it can be is of vital importance. I'd go max freezing arrow, max cold arrow, max strafe, 10 in critical strike and 10 in penetrate and maybe 1 point valk. I say make a godly merc instead of wasting valuable skill points.

I'd go 100-120 in vit, enough strength to barely use gear (botd crusader bow makes this very low) and put the rest in dex. Dex will make your botd attacks much stronger and will allow you to reach max breakpoint on strafe a little easier.

You want that much cold damage from both freezing arrow and cold arrow because there really isn't another way kill physical immunes quickly, it works wonders on packs and bosses. Also, botd bow, leech rings and ammy will allow you to keep using it forever, so why not do the most damage you can?
 
As for resists, Using chains of honor and kiras will take care of most of them for you. You can survive with that much. I find that the resists from chains along puts most of skills either a little below or above 0 with my gear. I have high lightning res without kiras though (50 or so). Most of them are at 65-75 with the kiras. You really want to max them all because elemental skeleton mages and archers will kill you pretty fast without resists, even at a distance.
 
yO pRiMaL!
finally signed up on the forums eheh...
Resists aren´t that "important" cuz in the pit there aren´t a lot of elemental attackers, and your merc plus the valk will kill them easily.
I have 700 hp and I haven´t any probs, and have shacko\skullder´s\nagel&raven\wf with AMN (need leech)\crappy rare amu\goldwrap\rare boots\chancies.
 
Thx for the input guys!
Hey Lynx!
700 HP for me is too low since I don´t have that kind of gear yet. I´m making a 4-PTopaz armor and a 3-PTopaz helm, while using a Buriza (Nef) and a Goldstrike Arch (Nef) to do my bidding. I use some random boots with Magic find on them, a Goldwrap and the rest of my equipment is crap.
I´m 72 on Nightmare by the way. Don´t know if I should go after Mephisto or keep doing Act5 Super Unique´s (Eldritch and Shenk).
 
I don't play hc myself but I do do a lot of softcore pit runs. I've found that the biggest risks are:

1. Demon Archer: By far and away the biggest risk, mostly because my merc isn't intelegent enough to avoid the arrows and gets toasted pretty quick. These are the only guys who should hit you and the only reason why you need 'cannot be frozen' somewhere. Casting slow missiles on them helps a lot, as does knockback. I still don't have a definitive solution to these tho.

2. Lightning enchanted bosses. My lightning resist is low, if I was hc I'd definitely be packing a few lightning resist charms, and some serious lightning resist for my merc too.

3. Getting there. If like me you're lazy and you try and leg it from the cloister to the pit without killing stuff on the way. I've found that clearing the cloister slowly but legging the rest is safer. In harcore I'd probably have to clear it all the way.

4. Pit level 2. This can be clostraphobic if you don't have a good bow, looks like you do though. Decoy helps immensely here for luring out the monsters.

As for skills, you're not going to be using anything other than strafe / valk. Passive for the rest (especially penetrate).
 
Thx for the reply Gaff.
For the Burning Arches, I usually cast Decoy and/or Valkyrie and let them take the heat or I just use the Freezing arrow (since I don´t have a good gear nor great resistances).
LE bosses aren´t a big problem in my case,since I have at my disposal Decoy/Slow Missiles/Mercenary/Valkyrie, they go down fast. Gloams are the ones that really scare me.
My Might mercenary is currently level 47, and I don´t know where I should go to level him up, any suggestions?
 
Hmmm, you´re high level enough, stick with some nightmare cows, it shouldn´t be a problem for you´re merc since you have freezing arrow and knockback.
 
Yes, I´m going well there, but I tried to do some Hell Pit runs with my Strafezon (level 75 with Buriza/Goldstrike Arch/Stealskull/208 life armor..) and it was damn hard, the mercenary died pretty fast, and the Valkyrie would meet the same fate if she engaged a small boss pack with some nasty aura. Although I have more than 1k life, each time I get hit, I lose more than 100 hitpoints...
Not sure what I´m going to do, perhaps quit playing her for a while and create a MF Sorceress to do Nightmare Mephisto runs so I can get better equipment...
 
Pri]M[aL said:
Yes, I´m going well there, but I tried to do some Hell Pit runs with my Strafezon (level 75 with Buriza/Goldstrike Arch/Stealskull/208 life armor..) and it was damn hard, the mercenary died pretty fast, and the Valkyrie would meet the same fate if she engaged a small boss pack with some nasty aura. Although I have more than 1k life, each time I get hit, I lose more than 100 hitpoints...
Not sure what I´m going to do, perhaps quit playing her for a while and create a MF Sorceress to do Nightmare Mephisto runs so I can get better equipment...
Click to expand...

Lvl75 is too low lvl to venture in the pit. You get stiff lvl penalty to you to-hit hence the problem. I would recommend you lvl a little or get the Demon limb to cast enchant before you go hunting :creep:

Also the pit is where to go when you want to find high lvl items, but for lower lvl but useful items, NM and Hell Meph definately better. Just my 2cent.
 
hey i'm going to make a strafzon cause i found a wf today mfing, anyways anyone wana tell me that main skill points to max, and wut about magic arrow or cold cause their are some cold imune bosses in pits, should i max magic arrow or not enough magic damage to be sufficent?
 
Demon limb is a good option, but you should level up more a bit. And try to uprade your bow, since in Hell he does low damage. Also, if you have the patient level up your mercenary and give him a Bonehew..
 
Yes, I found one yesterday, that level 14 Enchant is really gonna help, but I´m gonna make a new amazon, a hybridzon with Lightning Fury/Charged Strike, good passives and Multishot. The Valkyrie will probably be at level 1... although she is a great meat shield, her AI is a little dumb. Decoy is much better option imo. I can save those 16 points on better passives and/or attack skills.
But probably I´m gonna quit Diablo II, since World of Warcraft has finally arrived! :)
 
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