Diablo II 1.10 Beta Test begins

[Ruvanal]

There is a column in the armour.txt called Absorb which has some (low) values in it for some of the top end armour. What exactly does that column do? Is it elemental absorb?

The column has been there and is unused since v1.00.

Looks to me like Ferocious now spawns on rares

It seemed a logical step

(Newbie MPQ reader but it has a "1" in the rare column like all the lesser affixes and Cruel has a blank there. I'm guessing one = available)

Master's too but not Grandmaster's

So a rare with both would get 202-350% ed

You missed the extra "cruel" prefix that was added at the bottom of the list with a freq=1, for rares. So a rare could at the extreme get up to 450% damage. Many of the affixes that were limit to magic only have been opened up to appearing on rares now.

There are also some extra affixes that have been added like the ones that allow mana leech on rings and life leech on amulets. These are at higher spawning and req levels than their counterparts, but they at least are there.

Aurikan and Dragoon, you both missed what may be the two horror cube formulas (or blessings in some players opinion).
3 standard gems + 1 socketed weapon -> magic, socketable weapon
3 flawless gems + 1 magic weapon -> socketed, magic weapon

The first requires only that the weapon be socketed, but it can be of any quality. The second only requires that the weapon be magical, with or without sockets. The output of both is the same and can be recycled back into either formula. The ilvl=30 on both which will allow cruel to appear with any weapon that has a qlvl of 75+. AND they each give a random 1 to 6 sockets, but the ilvl will only limit most of the weapon types to 4 sockets. This makes these two formula more "powerful" than the old and the socketing quest not a good choice for magic items.
socket limit for item types at ilvl=30
5 Scepter
2 Wand
6 Staff
4 Bow
5 Axe
4 Club
4 Sword
4 Hammer
3 Knife
4 Spear
4 Polearm
4 Crossbow
4 Mace
3 Assassin Claws
3 Orb
4 Amazon Bow
4 Amazon Spear

From some of the descriptions so far though, this type of item may be what is required to survive in hell.

Dragoon, the tempered formula that you listed are not enabled to work. Besides that they are incomplete except for the last one and it requires an item (tempered) that will not exist without the other formula be fleshed out and enabled.

For those that want to see part of the hit on getting experience at higher levels open the experience.txt file and not the new column that is for downgrading the experience at certain levels. The 'ding' starts at level 70 and down grades steadily from there to about 0.5% of earned amount at the end. I am not sure how they have modified the experience per kill from before, but if things like the *mlvl/clvl factor are still used, then there does not appear to be that many monsters that are over level 85 compared to the plethora of level 90 monsters that are in v1.09. We will need to learn the intricacies of the new file changes t be sure though.