General Questions Thread

[un86Rn]

Hi guys, I have a few questions and maybe a thread where you could ask a question, get an answer can do.

First question: Can a rare weapon roll both King's and Merciless? Can it have both damage modifiers? That would be old school and make sense, I think, but maybe it's too hard to balance.

Second question: When I fight Diablo in the Terror Domain, does he get progressively stronger and stronger with each moon phase, or is it just two states, the default and the buffed one? Is there a wicked rush to slay him within the first minutes?

[DacianDraco]

1st: Don't know if those affixes specifically but i see i have a sword that goes over 300% ED so it may spawn:


2nd: I noticed just the 2 states, and the discrepancy is big, don't think there is anything in between them.

[ROLpogo]

My rare high damage maul and sword:

[un86Rn]

Another day, another disembowelment; I mean, question.
When starting a new difficulty, the anvil is unavailable for a half of the game. And I've been having sort of hard times with gambling (what do you guys usually gamble for? any specific favorite?) and I don't want to sell my loot, I want to salvage it. And since there is a vast Stash for me to use, is there any point in saving all the hell drops in my stash to salvage them later? Is that approach any good?

[un86Rn]

Is it a good idea to gamble for Long War Bows in the hopes of finding some rare that can later be uptiered? Will Long War Bows spawn with a sufficient enough ilvl to contain good enough levels of king's/merciless prefixes?
Because I just made 500k out of 3 pages of items from hell/dungeon and that would barely be enough to craft 2 bows while the same sum buys me whole 5 bows from Gheed.

[ROLpogo]

Bow without "ignore target defence" not bow, but just a simple stick. Seek Bow of the Dead and then Heartseeker.

[un86Rn]

Uhh is there a First Visit drop procedure? Meaning some chests or mobs will drop a huge choice of epic quality items when you first kill them, but the next time you revisit them they drop a couple of blues and that's it? Just been to the Chamber of Bone on Hell, barely the 2 lever chests dropped like 2 sets and 2 uniques, I wonder if I come back will I get the same.

[andronnik]

I think you were just lucky. Sometimes you get shitty items, sometimes a set item, sometimes even more set items like you had. It seems to be always random.

[DacianDraco]

My characters with 100 something magic find in Torment difficulty gathered for 2 full level clears (plus any special area in between the 2 levels) around 7-10 pages of magic and above quality items that can be salvaged. And i saved the game and salvaged them in another difficulty where i had the anvil. I did this since i go from waypoint to waypoint, and next time i play i take the last waypoint and use Warp to get to the stairs down (if i get other stairs i restart game), so i don't have to replay at all and just progress. Lower difficulties may give less items per 2 levels but i don't remember how many pages. Anyway it's always best to salvage items then to sell them, and gold from a Torment level is 700k-1mil per level so more then enough.

And from my experience with rares/crafts the Hunter/Razor bow is best bow because of the speed, and then Composite/Ward or Short Battle/Short Siege or Short War/Rune bows have progressively better dmg but you need a speed affix on them to get around 300 attack time and top the Hunter/Razor bow, other bow types lack the innate speed and the dmg boost is not significant even with a speed affix, i mean not enough to even equal the other types. Anyway there are good uniq/sets you can use so after all i say there is no need to gamble bows. I personally gamble only jewelry, since from what i noticed the better affixes the items has the better the materials received from salvaging, and jewelry have affixes better then anything else.

Also chest drops are always random, your character level and magic find (and RNG) is taken into account when opening them. And chests are not affected by $player command since that works only on monsters. One time specific drops only come from Slain Hero (dlvl 9) and breaking Fleshdoom on the HellForge, and special rewards from quest bosses if you have the quest active.

[un86Rn]

Uhh I've been doing something quite weird, just buying straight Hunter's Bows from Gheed; so it is my understanding that +%damage isn't even necessary at all D: and you should focus on leech, IAS, +res all, +all stats and hit ratio.

Here, this is to illustrate that with patience, even an uber Long War Bow can be obtained from Gheed:

But right now it's taking me longer to spend money than to make it. At 9992 gold a piece, with a 1-2k buyback, it took me ages to spend that mil.

[DacianDraco]

I doubt any Long War bow can be uber, and that Hunter bow you show is maybe ok for now but really sub par imo, for the req lvl it should at least be tier 2 (upgrade it) and have crit chance or dmg, flat physical dmg, % ed (even better if tier 2 and with flat phys dmg), % speed, % leech and then maybe something else, + Attributes can come from other items but the affixes (except leech) i enumerated can't, so better get them on the bow. And you don't need % To Hit at all, you are a Rogue with pts in DEX that give more then enough % To Hit.

And don't take this wrong, but you are wasting time with gambling bows, (even selling them back is a bad idea, just salvage them cause you'll need the materials). You'll eventually get Heartseeker uniq bow and never need anything else, seriously Heartseeker breaks the game, for a req lvl 37 it tops anything else.

[andronnik]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
This

Heartseeker is the one and only.
Still, Magewrath is not bad too (lvl req. 33), before you get Heartseeker.
Check this list out: http://diablo1.ovh.org/hd/?unique-bows
Other, non unique bows are pretty useless on hell and torment. You'll see the difference once you get Heartseeker

[andronnik]

A question from me. What do the different prefixes on bosses mean? (Like "Haste", "Behemoth", "Fire Enchanted" and so on)

[un86Rn]

Does the Heartseeker drop either in Hell Chamber of Boner or in the Lost Treasure chests? Where's the best place to farm for it? Maybe NM Terror Domain?

[DacianDraco]

I've personally see it drop earliest in Hell difficulty Terror's Domain, don't know if it can drop sooner then that. This guy found it at Lost Treasure chests but it's not clear if Hell or Torment difficulty, since he said his Sorcerer is in Torment but can't progress, so maybe he farmed Hell difficulty http://awake.diablo1.eu.org/post10132.html#10132 You can try asking in his thread and hopefully he'll respond to clear it out.

As for uniq monsters modifiers we can only observe and guess what they do, no specific value anyway.

Arcane Enchanted: +% Magic Resistance (probably +100% cause they always turn immune) Flash when hit (maybe does Magic dmg too with melee/ranged hits)
Fire Enchanted: +% Fire Resistance (probably +100% cause they always turn immune) + 9 square Fire Explosion when killed (maybe does Fire dmg too with melee/ranged hits)
Cold Enchanted: +% Cold Resistance (probably +100% cause they always turn immune) Circle of Ice when killed + surely does Cold dmg since he freezes you even with melee hits
Lightening Enchanted: +% Lightening Resistance (probably +100% cause they always turn immune) Charged Bold when hit (maybe does Lightning dmg too with melee/ranged hits)
Poison Enchanted: Poison Spit when hit + 9 square Poison Explosion when killed
Bloodlust: takes more dmg as his hp gets lower (maybe does more dmg as hp gets lower too)
Behemoth: a ton more AC and hp (feels like at least double)
Extra Strong: ??? (maybe does more dmg or maybe is more resilient to dmg taken or both, cant' really tell)
Mastery: more physical dmg and better hit chance (probably like Shrine does for player)
Hasted: higher move/attack/cast/recovery speed (probably like Light Shrine does for player)
Vampiric: leeches (Leoric and Zhar the Mad always have it, don't remember if any others have it)