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Addendum to the Diablo 2 1.07 guide

Guide by: yiuman -

Addendum to the Diablo 2 1.07 guideAfter conversations in with the community, I’ve decided to put into action a thought I’ve had for a while and write an addenda/errata sheet for the excellent 1.07 guide. Those of us that play 1.07 all know and love that guide, but are sadly aware that there are things in there that could do with being clarified and useful information added.

This is in no way designed to replace the guide but to be used alongside it. If it is deemed good enough I’d like it to be added to the stickies next to or under the guide.

Enough of this. Onto the info

Whilst Repuz’s guide is great there are several things that need clearing up/adding to.

In no particular order:

1) Installing 1.07 and modified .dll
2) Equipment and the Horadric cube
3) Gameplay

Installing 1.07 and the modified .dll file

First off, the easiest way to install 1.07 is to use Trenshadow’s version switcher. This can be found here

Secondly, as there is no /players X command the only way to simulate this on one computer is to use the modified d2gfx.dll file or fast user switching. Using the modified .dll file with Trenshadow’s version switcher is slightly more complicated. Here is what he has to say about it:

Note: Whilst bumping up the players setting does give you more exp per monster, be aware that due to the usually low damage of 1.07 characters you may find this method slows your progress through the game significantly.

Equipment

Equipment in 1.07 falls into 3 categories: Items that pwn their 1.10+ counterparts, items that are the same and items that make you want to cry with how much better the 1.10+ ones are (although some are still useful).

Horadric Cube

The guide mentions crafting items but doesn’t really go into detail about the best ones. It also doesn’t mention some of the other funky things you can do with the cube. I’ll divide this section into 2, crafting and cube recipes.

Cube recipes

You can use these cube recipes to make set and unique rings with a hidden resistance mod (single res for the rings, prismatic for amulets). However not all rings/amulets are available using this method as the game uses the formual ilvl(of the created item)=0.66*clvl

1 magical ring + 1 emerald* + 1 Antidote Potion = 1 ring 6-36% poison res
1 magical ring + 1 ruby* + 1 exploding potion** = 1 ring with 6-36% fire res
1 magical ring + 1 sapphire* + 1 thawing potion = 1 ring with 6-36% cold res
1 magical ring + 2 topaz* = 1 ring with 6-36% lightning res
6 Pgems (one of each variety except skulls) + magical amulet = prismatic amulet with 6-36% to fire, lightning and cold resists, and 12-72% poison resist

* any quality gem will do
** make sure you keep every exploding potion you find as you level as this is the only ‘extra’ ingredient that you can’t buy.

This means that the highest ilvl you can craft is 65 at level 99 and I think that the ilvl for a set/unique has to be 1 higher than the qlvl of the desired set/unique meaning that Maras, Highlords and BKWB are all too high of a qlvl to be got this way.

It is also very unlikely that you’ll get a useful unique (sets are a much better proposition) as the chances of getting a unique is 1:1000 (sets are 1:125 and rares are 1:200). Even then the relative rarities of nagel, manald and SoJ is 80, 40 and 1 respectively. So don’t hold your breath.

So, what does this mean to us? The table below shows what level a character would need to be in order to create some of the more popular jewelry with the hidden resistance mod.

Code:
Item			clvl needed
Tal’s ammy		41
Telling of Beads	61
SoJ			61
Ravenfrost		82
Dwarf Star		82
Saracens Chance         85
Cats Eye		89
Crescent Moon           89
Atma’s Scarab           93

Crafting

The interesting thing about crafting in 1.07 is that you can get magical only affixes (+3skill tree gloves anyone?). This is countered by the fact that these affixes are ridiculously hard to get. You need to invest some serious time in leveling to get high enough to craft the best items. You’ll probably want to craft at clvl 78 (which is no mean feat in 1.07) and above regardless of what you are crafting to make sure you get at least 3 affixes (level 47 or above to make sure you get at least 2 affixes).

There is some debate about how crafting works. My own experiments indicate that input ilvl has nothing to do with it. It is unclear exactly what effect qlvl has on the possible affixes (it has some effect for sure as I have personally crafted an ilvl1 colossus blade with the cruel prefix using a lvl1 character) and even if the alvls of affixes are the same as in later versions (it will take someone far cleverer than I to dip into the code and check that).

The rest of this section is based on the assumption that the ilvl (of the crafted item) = 0.66*clvl and then the availability of affixes is the same as for magic items in 1.09 with that ilvl. I think that the alvls of 1.07 prefixes might be slightly different from later patches as items have been reported to have affixes that shouldn’t be available at their ilvl (eg a rare Ancient axe getting 40%IAS at ilvl=70 when it shouldn’t be available until ilvl=71). Therefore it may be better to have a couple of levels spare if possible. I have no idea how to find out if they have changed – if anyone does, please let me know.

You can only craft items up to an ilvl of 65 as the crafting formula follows the ilvl(of crafted item) = 0.66*clvl and as the maximum for these are 99, 0.66*99 = 65 (rounded down).).

The good news is that with the right items we can still get nearly all the affixes we are after this way. Note: You can never craft the popular 1.10 +2skills amulet in 1.07 because the ilvl is too high, however you can get +3 to a specific skill tree which may be more useful.

The most desirable magic only affixes that I can see are +3 to skill trees on amulets, Grandmasters on weapons and +3 to jav/bow/MA trees on gloves.

The good news is that all the highest elite weapons (except amazon class specific) have a high enough qlvl to get cruel and grandmasters at any ilvl. GG crafting hydra bows! The only useful affixes unavailable are the highest lightning, fire and min damage affixes. The maximum damage you can get is 580%ED with a perfect cruel, grandmasters and greater craft automod and up to 3 sockets from Larzuk/jewelers prefix.

The bad news is that you can’t greater craft gloves with the most desirable mods (+2, +3 skills, 20IAS are all not available at the ilvls that are available to us), however you can lesser craft heavy gloves from clvl (good luck!) 96 and above with +3skills and 20IAS. Of course you can craft +2 skill gloves much earlier, but as you can get them in later patches much more easily…… why bother? (unless of course you want to actually use them in 1.07.

The most desirable mods on amulets (IMHO) are in the table below with the clvl you need to get them. Please note though, that the FCR automod on a caster amulet and the FR/W on a blood amulet is 1% not 5-10% as it is in later versions. Even if you get a bugged version with stacked FCR, this would only give you ~7%FCR so the popular 20FCR amulets are impossible.

desired affix                   clvl required for this affix to spawn on a craft

10% FCR                         8
40% single res                  38
of luck (35%MF)*                40
bahamuts (+120 mana)            69
Teleport charges                73
of the whale (+100 life)        76
25% all res                     84
+3 skill tree                   91

You can also craft rings, and whislt you can get higher %MF and res affixes, you lose the best life leach affix and all mana leach affixes that you can get in later versions. Personally I’d craft other things ahead of rings, but you can get a great ring this way and if it gets bugged it can have 20%+ life leach. Not bad.

Here is a quote from Dnacra with all the recipies/auto stats for crafting in 1.07

Enabled crafting recipes

hitpower weapon -> Weapon + Jewel + Ort + sap			SKILL_ON_GETHIT(Frost Nova) 5-8		ATTACKERTAKES_DAMAGE 5-10	WEAPONDAMAGE_PERCENT 34-67	
blood boots -> Light Plate Boots + Jewel + Eld + rub		LIFESTEAL 1-4				MAXHP  10-20			HITPOINTS_DELTA 5-10	
blood gloves -> Heavy Gloves + Jewel + Tir + rub		LIFESTEAL 1-4				MAXHP  10-20			CRUSHINGBLOW 5-10	
blood belt -> Belt(M) + Jewel + Nef + rub			LIFESTEAL 1-4				MAXHP  10-20			OPENWOUNDS 5-10	
blood weapon -> Weapon + Jewel + Ort + rub			LIFESTEAL 1-4				MAXHP  10-20			WEAPONDAMAGE_PERCENT 34-67	
caster boots -> Leather Boots + Jewel + Eld + ame		REGENMANA_PERCENT 4-12			MAXMANA  10-20			MAXMANA_PERCENT  5-10	
caster gloves -> Bracers(M) + Jewel + Tir + ame			REGENMANA_PERCENT 4-12			MAXMANA  10-20			MANAAFTERKILL 1-3	
caster body -> Plate Mail + Jewel + Ith + ame			REGENMANA_PERCENT 4-12			MAXMANA  10-20			MANAAFTERKILL 1-3	
safety body -> Breast Plate + Jewel + Ith + eme			NORMAL_DAMAGE_REDUCTION 3-9		MAGIC_DAMAGE_REDUCTION 2-5	HALFFREEZEDURATION 1-1		ARMOR_PERCENT 10-33
safety weapon -> Weapon + Jewel + Ort + eme			NORMAL_DAMAGE_REDUCTION 3-9		MAGIC_DAMAGE_REDUCTION 2-5	WEAPONDAMAGE_PERCENT 34-67	
hitpower belt -> Vampirefang Belt + Jewel + Dol + sap		SKILL_ON_GETHIT(Frost Nova) 7-12	ATTACKERTAKES_DAMAGE 8-20	DAMAGETOMANA 20-35	
hitpower weapon -> Weapon + Jewel + Fal + sap			SKILL_ON_GETHIT(Frost Nova) 7-12	ATTACKERTAKES_DAMAGE 8-20	WEAPONDAMAGE_PERCENT 40-80	
blood boots -> Mirrored Boots + Jewel + Sol + rub		LIFESTEAL 2-6				MAXHP  15-25			HITPOINTS_DELTA 8-15	
blood gloves -> Vampirebone Gloves + Jewel + Shael + rub	LIFESTEAL 2-6				MAXHP  15-25			CRUSHINGBLOW 8-15	
blood belt -> Mithril Coil + Jewel + Dol + rub			LIFESTEAL 2-6				MAXHP  15-25			OPENWOUNDS 8-15	
blood shield -> Aegis + Jewel + Hel + rub			LIFESTEAL 2-6				MAXHP  15-25			ATTACKERTAKES_DAMAGE 8-15	
blood body -> Kraken Shell + Jewel + Io + rub			LIFESTEAL 2-6				MAXHP  15-25			HEALAFTERDEMONKILL 1-3	
blood amulet -> amulet + Jewel + Lum + rub			LIFESTEAL 2-6				MAXHP  15-25			FASTMOVEVELOCITY 1-1	
blood ring -> ring + Jewel + Ko + rub				LIFESTEAL 2-6				MAXHP  15-25			STRENGTH 8-15	
blood weapon -> Weapon + Jewel + Fal + rub			LIFESTEAL 2-6				MAXHP  15-25			WEAPONDAMAGE_PERCENT 40-80	
caster boots -> Wyrmhide Boots + Jewel + Sol + ame		REGENMANA_PERCENT 7-21			MAXMANA  15-25			MAXMANA_PERCENT  8-15	
caster gloves -> Vambraces + Jewel + Shael + ame		REGENMANA_PERCENT 7-21			MAXMANA  15-25			MANAAFTERKILL 2-5	
caster belt -> Troll Belt + Jewel + Dol + ame			REGENMANA_PERCENT 7-21			MAXMANA  15-25			FASTCASTRATE 1-1	
caster shield -> Luna + Jewel + Hel + ame			REGENMANA_PERCENT 7-21			MAXMANA  15-25			TOBLOCK 8-15	
caster body -> Hellforged Plate + Jewel + Io + ame		REGENMANA_PERCENT 7-21			MAXMANA  15-25			MANAAFTERKILL 2-5	
caster amulet -> amulet + Jewel + Lum + ame			REGENMANA_PERCENT 7-21			MAXMANA  15-25			FASTCASTRATE 1-1	
caster ring -> ring + Jewel + Ko + ame				REGENMANA_PERCENT 7-21			MAXMANA  15-25			ENERGY 8-15	
caster weapon -> Weapon + Jewel + Fal + ame			REGENMANA_PERCENT 7-21			MAXMANA  15-25			WEAPONDAMAGE_PERCENT 40-80	
safety body -> Great Hauberk + Jewel + Io + eme			NORMAL_DAMAGE_REDUCTION 6-15		MAGIC_DAMAGE_REDUCTION 3-10	HALFFREEZEDURATION 1-1		ARMOR_PERCENT 20-50
safety weapon -> Weapon + Jewel + Fal + eme			NORMAL_DAMAGE_REDUCTION 6-15		MAGIC_DAMAGE_REDUCTION 3-10	WEAPONDAMAGE_PERCENT 4

 

Uniques

Most of the great unique items are listed in the 1.07 guide, but some notable additions are:

Coldsteel Eye unique cutlass – has 50% Crushing Blow instead of Deadly strike
Jalal’s Mane unique totemic helm – has 25% Crushing Blow
Kelpie Snare unique Fuscina – slows target by 100% (not sure what this does but it sounds cool)
Pierre Tombale Couant unique partisan has +2necro skills instead of +3 barb
Dark Clan Crusher unique cudgel – has +1 barb skills instead of +2 druid
The Fetid Sprikler unique Holy Water Sprinkler – 3%ctc up to a lvl 10 decrepify*
Heart Carver unique rondel – no +skills, but +150%AR, fixed 200%ED

*increased levels of decrepify only add to the duration

Items that are great in 1.10+ but make you cry in 1.07 are

Skin of the Vipermagi unique serpentskin armor – no +skill (more MDR though)
Gull unique dagger – only 50%MF (still useful though)
Blade of Ali Baba unique Tulwar – only 35%MF (still useful though – can also be given to an Act2 merc)
Civerbs Cudgel – no Crushing Blow
The unique amazon weapons pretty much all suck.
Lidless Wall unique grim shield – no +skill or FCR
Thundergods unique War Belt – no +zon skills or lit absorb
Gore Rider unique war boots – no OW or CB
The class specific sets with funky partial bonuses although mavs belt is better and the gris shield can get automods.

Charms

A little more information on +damage charms from RTB

Ethereal weapons

Here is a table with how much damage 1.07 eth elite weapons would do in later patches together with speed, range and max number of sockets. Note: I’ve not included weapons that are not so useful for runewords. It is interesting to see that the ever popular zerker axe doesn’t have that much more average damage than a scourge which is a faster weapon.

1 handed

Axes
               min  max   avg   speed  range  soc
Small Crescent 57   135    96     10     2     4
Ettin          49   148    98.5   10     2     5
Warspike       45   108    76.5  -10     2     6
Beserker       36   159    97.5    0     3     6

Maces
Tyrant         48   130    89      0     2     3
Devil          64   119    91.5   10     2     3
Scourge         4   180    92    -10     3     5
Legendary      75   137   106     20     1     4

Swords
conquest       55   119    87      0     1     4
Cryptic         7   173    90    -10     2     4
mythical       60   112    86      0     2     3
Legend         30   126    78    -15     3     3
highland       33   139    86     -5     3     4
Balrog         22   168    95      0     3     4
Champ          36   121    78.5  -10     3     4
Cols           39   157    98     10     3     5
colB           37   146    91.5    5     3     6
Code:
2-handed

Swords
               min  max   avg   speed  range  soc
Legend         75   211   143    -15     3    3
Highland      100   216   158     -5     3    4
Balrog         82   265   173.5    0     3    4
ChampionS     106   186   146    -10     3    4
ColossusS      91   282   186.5   10     3    5
ColossusB      87   258   172.5    5     3    6

Axes
Feral          37   276   156.5  -15     3    4
Silver-Edged   93   247   170      0     3    5
Decap          73   308   190.5   10     3    5
ChampionA      **   211   149.5  -10     3    6
Glorious       90   279   184.5   10     4    6

Mauls
OgreM          115  238   176.5   10     2    6
Thunder        49   405   227     20     3    6

Polearms
OgreA          42   326   184      0     3    3
ColossusV      25   371   198     10     3    4
Thresher       18   317   167.5  -10     2    5
CrypticA       49   337   193     10     4    5
GPA            69   285   177      0     5    6
Gthresher      60   256   158    -10     5    6

Spears
Hyperion       52   267   159.5  -10     4    3
Stygian        43   324   183.5    0     4    4
Mancatcher     63   207   135    -20     5    5
Ghost          27   348   187.5    0     5    6
Warpike        49   400   224.5   20     5    6

Normal items

Some of the best (most sought after) items in 1.10+ aren’t as good in 1.07.
Monarch shields (popular for the Spirit runeword) can only get 3 sockets in 1.07. Circlet type helms can only get 1 socket – even if they have the jewelers prefix – so make sure you don’t socket your hard found Rose branded Diadem of Life everlasting, etc until you bring it forward for the chance for 2 sockets.
Paladin shields in 1.07 have a much lower base defense and unlike weapons their stats aren’t improved by bringing them forward to later patches, this makes 1.07 not such a good place to find paladin shields for 1.10+runewords. You’d be much better looking for these shields in 1.08 where they have their proper defensive values.

On the plus side, magic items can get up to 4 sockets from Larzuk, and crafted up to 3. I’m hoping for a Cruel Giant Thresher of Quickness with 4 sockets for an FC titan bear.

Also, 1.07 is a good place to get ilvl 99 charms for rerolling and amulets for crafting in later patches as any that pop from Nili’s temple or the throneroom will have an ilvl of 99.

Gameplay

I don’t have much to add to the gameplay section, a little bit of hard info on Hell Baal, and starting off in classic (which I personally didn’t do, but think may be a good idea) and a bit of information on rack running and other viable builds.

Quoting RTB

Quote:
Some tidbits on the very dangerous Baal Mana Drain attack:
Deals 512 – 544 magical damage per hit, 5% chance to be doubled.
Hits once per 5 frames
Can knock a character/minion into hit recovery (characters with a hit recovery animation of more than 4 frames get automatically killed when hit with this attack)
1.10 length: 20 frames.

So basically, make sure you have at least 1100 life and a 4-frame recovery rate (if you are HC) before taking on Hell Baal, or just take your chances 😀

Classic

It may be a good idea to start off in classic to get/gamble some items there, gull daggers and tarnhelm skull caps (for MF) and the ever useful SoJs as well as some useful sets/partial sets such as the angelic jewelry, the complete deaths set, tancreds boots and amulet (MF). Assuming (I know *** out of u and me) that the ilvls haven’t changed and my understanding of gambling works, your charcter should be able to gamble all these items (the highest is the SoJ) at level 36(although you’ll want to hold off till 45 to make sure all the rings you gamble have a chance to be SoJs). In case you don’t already know, the rings spawn in a set order in classic pre-1.07, so when you get the nagel ring/manald heal keep hold of it! And when you get the SoJ you’ll need to mule it off before you can gamble another one. Same with the unique amulets, although you’ll need to be an even higher level for them and you may want to be racking items in 1.07 by the time you get there.

FR/W whilst racking

You may think that loading up on FR/W is a good idea whilst racking and 99% of the time it is. Do note however, that time is one of the factors in setting the seed and deciding what any given rack will drop, so by lowering your R/W speed a little you may get a different drop, which could be better or worse than the one your already getting.

Minion rack running

A useful piece of information is that an amazon casting valk or decoy next to a rack forces it to ‘cycle’ to its next drop (this also works for other characters with minions – druids/necros etc). This effectively gives these characters a chance to get a more useful drop from a good map. For example, if there is a rack right next to the WP dropping a useless small shield this obviously doesn’t help us, however if we then cast decoy next to the rack it will drop something else which may be a balrog skin – or something else much more useful.

You can also cast a minion multiple times to force different drops. For example a rack may drop a knout normally, a kris after gumby is cast next to it once, a champion sword after gumby is cast next to it twice, a legendary mallet if gumby is cast next to it three times and so on. How many times you think it is worth casting to get a good drop depends on your FCR, mana, how good your map is and patience before you re-roll for a better map. My rule of thumb is that if its taking me much longer than 30s each run its time for a new map. I’ll add a bit if I’m popping chests as well.

I hope that makes sense.

Other workable characters

The fastest character for rack running is without doubt a sorc due to teleport, although you may save time in re-rolling maps using the above minion method. If like me, you don’t really enjoy playing sorcs that much, other characters are also viable. Other than the characters mentioned in the guide:

Frenzy barbs work well. Personally I prefer frenzy barbs to their WW counterparts – not being able to drink a potion whilst whirling scares me slightly (I play HC). Plus the increased R/W speed is awesome.

The guide mentions WW barbs, that ctc works with WW and that WW doesn’t alternate weapons when dual wielding. To elaborate on this ctc with a WW barb is a bad thing as it brings you out of your whirl somewhere you probably don’t want to be. When using two weapons, the offhand weapon isn’t used (the one on the right of the character screen). Therefore only passive bonuses such as +skills or +str are useful, AR and ED are worthless.

LF zons work well too. There is an interesting bug in that the physical damage of the javelin gets added to each lightning bolt making the bolts much more powerful than they should be. Jab or GA with CB works well as a backup skill. Due to the lack of synergies you can max a number of skills. I’ve not tried it, but I’ve been told that valk is weak in 1.07.

Its hard to find a decent bow in 1.07, but if you do, strafers work great – especially as CB works at full effectiveness with bows in 1.07. Skystrike and Riphook could work as endgame bows and are droppable by Hell Meph, Diablo and Baal which could both work, otherwise a crafted hydra bow, or a cruel elite bow of XXX could deliver the goods. Some great +damage charms could take the place of an uber-bow though.

Zealots work pretty good. Vigor (1pt initially, more after your other needed skills are sorted) makes rack running faster. Note: that zeal in 1.07 doesn’t give a damage boost and holy shield only multiplies the defense of the shield making fanaticism your main source of damage. It’s also worth noting that you can ‘flash’ auras such as holy shock and conviction as they last for ~3sec.

Wereform Druids could work nicely too. Shockwave is one of the best skills in the game IMHO. Note: Oak and HoW are capped at lvl 20 (after +skills) in 1.07 so don’t put more in these than you need.

Credits

Firstly, thanks for reading this far, I hope its been useful.

Thanks also to Repusz for his great 1.07 guide, RTB for all his knowledge, Dnacra for the bits from the cubemain file, Hakai_no_Tenshi for ATMA, Trenshadow for his version switcher, xDuckster for tidying up my tables, The CowKing and Nex for some useful info, ItAllGoesWhite, AlienBoyz and all the people I’ve had 1.07 discussions with and who’ve given me information, diabloii.net and the SPF for being great, www.diabloii.nu/affixcalc (WAYBACK ARCHIVE HERE, d2data.net (sadly missed – yay for Way Back When archives) WAYBACK ARCHIVE HERE and lastly Blizzard for a great game that has kept me playing for many years. Sorry if I’ve missed anyone.

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