True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide? ifra

Nightheron

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Aug 22, 2007
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True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

Hello,

Please excuse me if this has been covered. I was wondering if there are any guides to magic finding in a truly single player game (no bnet). Obviously Im not going to have any set gear or anything since I will be just starting out. So just aim for magic gear with mf and socket as many topazes I can get my hands on. Is there any type of build this will work best for? My ultimate goal is to use this mf character to build up items using atma and then move on to just having fun building all sorts of different characters.

Thanks in advance for any knowledge you can share!
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

This is a good guide that was suggested to me:

http://www.purediablo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=620901

It covers it from the perspective of single-pass, but since you're not confined to that set of rules, it should be even more effective.

Have fun !

:alright:

Cool! Thanks for that! The only thing I am wondering now is which character is best for this? Hammerdin? Blizz Sorc? Barb? Necro? Any? Thanks again!


 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

I was after the same information a couple of days ago, lol.

One of the MF marathons I read up on covered the expanse of Baal runs, The Pits, and The Ancient Tunnels. After 2500, 1000 & 1000 runs respectively, The Ancient Tunnels yielded the most substantial haul, as well as the most drops for TC87 (highest elite unique item treasure class ?) There are no cold immune base mobs in this magic finding area, so a blizzard sorceress would be your best bet for steamrolling, as they also rely less on items, and therefore can stack more MF.

Again, I'm slightly new to these details myself, but I'm a bit of a knowledge whore, so I'm confident this is a good overview.
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

I was after the same information a couple of days ago, lol.

One of the MF marathons I read up on covered the expanse of Baal runs, The Pits, and The Ancient Tunnels. After 2500, 1000 & 1000 runs respectively, The Ancient Tunnels yielded the most substantial haul, as well as the most drops for TC87 (highest elite unique item treasure class ?) There are no cold immune base mobs in this magic finding area, so a blizzard sorceress would be your best bet for steamrolling, as they also rely less on items, and therefore can stack more MF.

Again, I'm slightly new to these details myself, but I'm a bit of a knowledge whore, so I'm confident this is a good overview.

Sounds good to me! Will definitely look at untwinked blizz sorc guides.


 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

You better start with running meph before going into the ancient tunnels. He is the best target to start building up some wealth. But you can do both with your blizzard sorc :)
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

What Canadian said is true that arreat tunnels (AT) gives the best result for high treasure class items but i advice not to start your item hunting from there. You won't see as many unique drops as with Hell Mephisto there. Meph is very safe and fast with Blizz sorcs too. Once you have most of the useful exceptionals/lower class elites, then you can move to AT running but you will most likely have good enough gear to twink your other builds from mephisto only.

I don't remember reading a blizz guide but they are very straightforward. Just one point in teleport and then max blizzard, two synergies, cold mastery and then other synergy in that order. Puting a couple points in cold mastery around character level 30 is useful too. Choose either glacial spike or ice blast as your first synergy to max and use it early game. Both are powerful, i prefer glacial for area effect, others choose ice blast for higher damage. Also a single point in static will make early game easier also it will be your only attack aganist cold immunes in hell difficulty. Once you reach hell and face cold immunes you need to kill, try to utilize telekinesis (for knockback) to help your merc kill stuff. You won't want to kill everything anyway so just teleport by cold immunes if you can.

EDIT: Found a guide in the wiki.
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

What Canadian said is true that arreat tunnels (AT) gives the best result for high treasure class items but i advice not to start your item hunting from there. You won't see as many unique drops as with Hell Mephisto there. Meph is very safe and fast with Blizz sorcs too. Once you have most of the useful exceptionals/lower class elites, then you can move to AT running but you will most likely have good enough gear to twink your other builds from mephisto only.

I don't remember reading a blizz guide but they are very straightforward. Just one point in teleport and then max blizzard, two synergies, cold mastery and then other synergy in that order. Puting a couple points in cold mastery around character level 30 is useful too. Choose either glacial spike or ice blast as your first synergy to max and use it early game. Both are powerful, i prefer glacial for area effect, others choose ice blast for higher damage. Also a single point in static will make early game easier also it will be your only attack aganist cold immunes in hell difficulty. Once you reach hell and face cold immunes you need to kill, try to utilize telekinesis (for knockback) to help your merc kill stuff. You won't want to kill everything anyway so just teleport by cold immunes if you can.

EDIT: Found a guide in the wiki.

Thanks very much!


 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

Just to correct on what NacRuno said so there's no confusion for you. The Arreat Tunnels, as far as I'm aware, do not exist. The Ancient Tunnels are located beneath the trap door in Act 2 Lost City. Therefore, you'll be able to try your hand at them before you tackle Mephisto and perhaps, MF & RNG pending, land yourself some helpful pieces for later on.

Other than that, you have all the information you need now to make an effective first character. Good luck !

:alright:
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

Well I kind of hit the wall here! Between my merc and myself we have a combined 120 mf so far. The problem I am facing is that I am at the start of the barraks and getting my *** handed to me by all these unique monsters. We simply do not have the killing power to go on. I am level 17 right now and following that blizz build to the tee. Basically I just have no killing power right now. Should I farm bishibosh or coldcrow for a while in an attempt to get some early rare, unique, set items? Should I maybe do countess runs for early runes and do some early runeword. I am playing on players 8 setting as recommended. So any ideas? Thanks!
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

Drop down the player settings until you get to act2. Then hire a merc there and up the player settings again:)
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

It really depends on what you are after, if you want an interesting, single pass experience than that guide is good to follow.

If you want to build up wealth to trade or twink other chars then drop the MF and go purely after kill power. The earliest MF'ing spot would be NM Meph, then on to Hell Meph, Pindle and a lvl85 areas. When you are not killing any of those targets, your only goal is to get to one of the targets as quickly as possible.
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

Yeah, leveling with a sorc is a test of patience. I'd recommend dropping to at least around players 4 (maybe even less), because even though that leveling might take a bit longer, it will be more fun, because nothing is more mind numbing that looking your merc hitting 1 monster for 30 seconds in order to kill it.
Also, since you don't have any offensive spells yet, I'd recommend that you equip the biggest hurty stick you can find and help your merc smacking down those beasts.
And you're quite a high level for Act 1, and there is exp penalty for high levels, so I'd recommend going to Act 2 asap.
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

It really depends on what you are after, if you want an interesting, single pass experience than that guide is good to follow.

If you want to build up wealth to trade or twink other chars then drop the MF and go purely after kill power. The earliest MF'ing spot would be NM Meph, then on to Hell Meph, Pindle and a lvl85 areas. When you are not killing any of those targets, your only goal is to get to one of the targets as quickly as possible.

Sounds good thanks!


 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

Okay using your advice I have just defeated NM baal. I was wondering if I should just do some NM meph runs using the moat trick. Also once I get to Meph each run, should I switch to players 8 or keep it at players 1? My blizz sorc is lvl 57. Obviously she will be raped in hell. I understand that a blizz sorc must rely on her merc in hell. So what items should I be looking to get for my merc? It is a normal defense merc. Right now he is using meat scraper a 3 sock linked mail with 2 fl top, 1 top, a skull cap with 2 fl topaz. Anyway your advice is greatly appreciated!
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

I would check out this link for all of your magic finding questions.
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

Okay so now my problem is that my merc is pretty ineffectual. I have been able to amas some wealth (moat trick in hell meph). The merc has shaftstop, a 13% LL reapers toll, duskdeep is the best healm I have found.

Anyway since I am a blizz sorc the merc is kind of my only line of defense vs all the cold immunes, however he is getting killed pretty rapidly in hell. I would like to get to baal in order to do some hell baal runs, however my merc can't tank at all. The merc is level 75 defense merc from normal. Any advice here? Thanks!
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

As you go later in the game, you'll come across monsters in the high 80s for level. This means they are just about always hitting your mercenary and he is almost never hitting them at level 75, meaning he's not leeching.

My best recommendation would be to gain some levels. An excellent place is the Ancient Tunnels (search the forum if you need information on it's location) or Pindle (if you've gotten that far). You'll gain levels quickly in the AT, it's a great place to MF, and you might even be able to keep your mercenary alive.

You can also level yourself doing some more Meph runs and hire a new mercenary. He'll be within a few levels of you, and that might be simpler than leveling him yourself.
 
Re: True Single Player Poor man's just starting MF guide?

I second mattinm's advice on Ancient Tunnels. They are a good experience and item source and most importantly there are no cold immune monsters there (other than some champions). So you will have your cold skills as defence to your merc.

In hell, the best thing you can do to keep your merc alive is to level him up. Your items seems to be good. If you overlooked it, Tal Rasha's helm is also great for the merc. Also if you have tal rasha's helm, you might want to switch to act 2 offensive merc from nightmare difficulty. They have might aura and with high LL they can be very sturdy. He will also be more of an help to you aganist cold immunes.
 
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