Finding Royal Circlet...

[Mick]

Where would I be most likely to find a Royal Circlet? While you're there - if you'll be patient enough to indulge me pushing my luck - how about Stormshield?

(I've been trying to get Jarulf's Guide downloaded for an hour and a half, with no result. I'm using a Mac and a 28K modem, with System 8.6 and buggarall understanding of how any of them work. One and a half hours of concentrating on trying to figure it all out is as much as I can handle.)

In more general terms, is there a better chance of better item drops in Nightmare/Hell over Normal/Hell? Laz runs in Normal give me almost no experience points so I'd prefer to do them in Nightmare on that score - but in Normal I can do four or five in an hour compared to two in Nightmare so if chances for best equipment is no different perhaps I'm best to stick with Normal.

And in even more general terms, I've just got up to clvl38. I haven't yet killed Diablo in Nightmare so that's coming up on the agenda, but I'm wondering what you do with a character from this sort of level. I mean, obviously I'll want to go on and knock off Diablo in Hell. Got that in my sights. But it's now 25,000,000 points until another clvl and (from what I remember) it'll soon be 50,000,000. Jeepers.

And... What improves with clvl after your stats are maxed? I know you get two points for Life and Mana, but does anything else go up?

TIA to anyone willing to spend time on these. I'm sure the answers are available on the site but I'm at the end of my tether with searching for things and trying to make things work.

Maybe I should write the guide for a new variant - Clumsy Impatient Brain-Fogged Rogue...

Mick.

[Jane]

On your first question there is no conclusive answer as far as I know.
there is no real best place to find an item, as it depends on the quality lvl (qlvl)
a royal circlet has qlvl 27,a stormshield has qlvl 24.
A lot of monsters can drop those items. statisically the chance of finding a SS is bigger than the chance of finding a RC.
Don't ask me how small the chances are though, I'm not a math wiz ;-)

as for what changes with leveling:
you also gain a few points in your base damage.

[LennyLen]

Where would I be most likely to find a Royal Circlet? While you're there - if you'll be patient enough to indulge me pushing my luck - how about Stormshield?

Your best bet for finding both of these is doing Laz runs.

(I've been trying to get Jarulf's Guide downloaded for an hour and a half, with no result. I'm using a Mac and a 28K modem, with System 8.6 and buggarall understanding of how any of them work. One and a half hours of concentrating on trying to figure it all out is as much as I can handle.)

You can always try using BigD's online version: http://members.core.com/~dfrease/JGFrame.html

In more general terms, is there a better chance of better item drops in Nightmare/Hell over Normal/Hell? Laz runs in Normal give me almost no experience points so I'd prefer to do them in Nightmare on that score - but in Normal I can do four or five in an hour compared to two in Nightmare so if chances for best equipment is no different perhaps I'm best to stick with Normal.

The chance of better affixes/unique items does not change at all with difficulty. Although Base Item drops are aaffected by difficulty level, you won't notice this effect in the Hell dlvl's as all base items can be generated in Normal/Hell already.

And... What improves with clvl after your stats are maxed? I know you get two points for Life and Mana, but does anything else go up?

There are various other values that are calculated based on your clvl. These include to-hit, damage-done, blocking-ability and more.

[LennyLen]

there is no real best place to find an item, as it depends on the quality lvl (qlvl)
a royal circlet has qlvl 27,a stormshield has qlvl 24.

In order to be able to drop a Unique Item, a monsters Mlvl must be at least equivalent to the Qlvl of the Unique Item modifier (inclusive of the +4 modifier that Unique Monsters get). In the RC's case, this can ONLY be dropped in Hell... I'm fairly certain that a SS can drop on dlvl 12, but I'd have to go look at some numbers to be sure.

The other factor in deciding where to go looking for items is the fact that Unique Monsters have a higher chance of dropping Unique Items, and cannot drop cursed items... and when you're looking for Unique Monsters in hell, the best place to go is Laz & Co.

[Selby]

When I look for items I use my best character and do normal hell runs because it is quick and easy and the items don't get any better with higher difficulty. When I get to level 13, if there are Blood Knights there I clear the level. On 14 I clear the level. When I get to level 15 I always clear the level. Same with 16. My reasoning is this: I've never gotten a good drop from Laz and Co. My good stuff has always come from normal monsters. So I clear them all out. Soul Burners, Advocates, and Blood Knights are all level 30 monsters and can drop the best items in the game. Chances of dropping a unique by them I believe is like 1% when the math is worked out. With unique monsters the chance of dropping a unique item is something like 15%. Much more regular monsters than uniques, so much more chances for items.

Also the dungeon drops from chests, barrels, and dead bodies is 2*dlvl. So level 14 can drop up to level 28 items and level 15 can drop level 30 items (no chests, barrels, etc on 16). Albeit this occurs rather rarely and you mostly get gold and potions, but I've had magical items sprout from a decapitated body before.

So people who do just Laz runs tend to shortchange themselves with the items they can get.

Selby

[Yogi_Baar]

Disclaimer: Jane already mentioned a few things, so I might be repeating them here.

I think you're most likely to get the RC off the bosses in any hell (dlvls 13-16), difficulty doesn't matter, so if you go about killing all bosses you're off to a good start. Dlvl 15 is probably the best place, since you get 3 bosses in one room, they're always there, plus you might find Bloodlust on your way there. Stormshield follows the same rules, but it can drop earlier and more frequently.

Most people tend to do Laz runs in normal, as it's the fastest way.

Levelling up, in addition to getting minimal amounts of life and mana, affects quite a few things. Your maximum effective AC and To Hit become lower (read: you need less and less über items), you do more damage (physical and magical), you need less Dex for perfect block, all sorts of things. When you do get a copy of JG (it's available online as well) and start looking at formulas, you'll see where clvl comes into account.

Good luck.

EDIT: (comment) OK, so much for a useful post... <_<

[DeeBye]

In the RC's case, this can ONLY be dropped in Hell

I've found RC in Caves before.


-DeeBye

[LennyLen]

've found RC in Caves before.

Yeah... after I posted I checked that. Viletouch, Viperflame, Windspawn, Witchfire the Unholy and Lionskull the Bent, all of whom appear on dlvl 12 can generate ilvls of 27+.

[evasion]

Lazarus dropped me a RC tonight in normal. I know that doesn't really help you, but I just thought I'd share that with you :) .

[the Langolier]

So people who do just Laz runs tend to shortchange themselves with the items they can get.

Not exactly. Normal monsters only have a 10.7% chance to drop an item, a minimum of a 36% chance for that item to be magical, and a 2% chance for that item to become unique. Unique monsters, OTOH, will always drop an item which will be magical, and that item will have a 16% chance to be unique. They also have fewer base items they can drop.

For normal monsters to drop the RC (who are also able to) there is a 1/114 chance for the item to be a crown, rendering 1/114 * .107 * .36 * .02, or ~0.000675% chance to drop the RC.
For unique monsters we have: 1/76 * 1.00 * .16 = 0.211% chance to drop the RC.

Assuming 185 monsters on a level and every one of those is able to drop the RC, we get a 0.125% chance to drop the RC. This can't compare to just one unique monster, and on level 15 there are always at least 4 of them.

Of course, killing all the monsters on a level significantly improves your chance to find any item you may be searching for, but Laz runs are definitely the fastest way to find the Royal Circlet.

[Selby]

But in all honesty, how often have you really gotten nice items from Laz and groupies? ;-)

I just stated what I did and why, whether or not the math works out in my favor or not doesn't really matter so long as I find what I am looking for =)

Selby

[Mick]

Hi Selby,

I understand your approach. If I'm just generally trying to find better items of any and all sorts I prefer to clear Hell altogether, except maybe Diablo's room. Unless I have truly woeful luck that'll give me 15-20 magic items and 2-5 pieces of jewelry, and maybe more. It also gives me a couple of hundred thousand gold pieces to crank Griswold and Wirt, through both collecting gold drops and selling items. But it takes me 50 minutes to an hour.

I used to always do this if looking for anything special too, but then I realised a bit more about the potential for higher level items from the unique monsters. I still get the feeling of, "But what if it's *that* anonymous Soul Burner I just ignored who's carrying an Obs/Zod?" but I've learned to cope with it :)

If I'm set on one particular very high level item or unique then Laz runs seem more sensible - three guaranteed unique nasties, four if I go and find Bloodlust (which isn't difficult given the simplicity of the dlvl15 layouts), maybe five or six if I'm lucky on the way through dlvls 13 and 14, maybe another one if dlvl15 has those magistrate-types (the charged bolt ones, I think their boss is always with them). And another if I choose to go and check dlvlv16 for Sir Gorash. So maybe eight unique nasties plus a few dozen other monsters killed on the way. That'll take me about 15-20 minutes.

So, four Laz runs will give me almost the same number of items for a few more minutes spent but there's a better chance of those items being the highest quality. The gold isn't going to buy me an RC, a Stormshield or jewelry anyway so I just hang on to enough that I can restock potions before starting over. Usually a Laz run will be one trip down without coming up for air or potions, and no selling/buying/cranking is obviously saving a lot of time.

So when it's highest quality instead of good qulity in highest number, I go with Laz runs. But... Last night Laz gave me a Book of Holy Bolt... and when I was about clvl27 or 28 with this character I got an Obsidian Ring of Perfection from a headless corpse, so I know what you mean :)

Mick.

[Mick]

Thanks Jane, LennyLen and Yogi Baar.

Looks like it's best to stick with Laz runs. Thanks very much for the link to JG online, much easier for me. I'll have to look up the info on stat increases when levelling up, I didn't realise clvl would improve so many things. Although I had noticed that Nightmare/Hell was a lot easier now than around clvl32/33...

Mick.

[Mick]

Thanks for the maths, Lang. So... if I kill five unique monsters in a Laz run that's a better than 1% chance of finding an RC? Sounds good to me.

Mick.