Unique Item Hunting

[LennyLen]

I'm about to write a short guide for some of the posters at the GFaqs Diablo board about how to use JG to calculate when specific Unique Items can drop, and I thought I'd add some general theories about hunting for them.

I've never done any item hunting myself, but it seems to me that the best place to look for a specific unique item would be the first dlvl where most of the normal monsters are capable of dropping it. My reasoning is thus - it's probably not worth taking unique monsters into account, as though all their item drops will be magical, and these will have eight times the chance of being uniques than magical items dropped from normal monsters, there are a heck of a lot more normal monsters than unique ones. I also think that looking on the earliest possible dlvl will be a good idea as it increases the chance that, should a uniqe item drop, it will be the one you want, since the higher the mlvl of the monster, the more unique items it can drop.

I guess an exception would be if it is a high qlvl unique modifier and the character is sufficiently high enough to perform Laz runs quickly. Then this would be the best solution.

Any thoughts?

[Jarulf]

In general, I would say that if the item can be droped by Lazaruz and his gang, that is the best shot, especially if you add in jumping arround a bit for other bosses as well on that level. Just due to the ammount of bosses they outperform most other levels since bosses drops uniques so much more. Some exceptions are a bunch of low level ones were you end up having another unique of a bit higher level, they will then stop droping. For those, the first levels of church is the way to go, look for bosses there. I think that this is a quick but efficient way to do it. Or was you asking for something else?

[LennyLen]

That is pretty much what I was asking, yes. But what I'm curious about, is how much of an effect the fact that higher mlvl monsters/bosses have a wider range of base item drops has in practice. Laz and co, for example, can drop every single base item, which increases the range of unique items they can drop. a lower mlvl source however, has a smaller range of base items, and thus a smaller range of unique items. Does the increased chance of getting uniques from Laz runs make up for the fact that should a unique drop, it's less likely to be the specific one you're looking for?

[Nystul]

There are typically two scenarios for unique item hunting. One is the Laz run. The other is the low level boss run (difficulty level is determined by the base item). The odds for normal monsters just aren't good enough in most cases... you have to jump through so many hoops just to get a magical item of the desired base type, and then there is only a 2% chance of it being unique. The exceptions would be if the item has such a low qlvl that no boss can drop it, or maybe if the desired item is a ring (since jewelry is 100% magical even from normal monsters).

Dlvl 2 can actually have quite a number of unique monsters compared to almost any level except 15. There are 9 of them to pick from, and obviously one of those is guaranteed to appear and very hard to miss. So there is a pretty good chance that you can kill 3 or 4 bosses on level 2 any time you look. The only problem is, it's not like level 15 where they all shack up in the same bed. So it is a bit of a pain telporting around the level finding bosses.

Laz runs for Dreamflange, Stormshield, Naj's, RC, Windforce, etc. Level 2 boss runs on normal are good for Civerb's Cudgel, and Thinking Cap (although most people probably get Thinking Cap while they are doing Laz runs for the high end stuff). Level 2 boss runs on nightmare for Helm of Sprits.

[LennyLen]

So it is a bit of a pain telporting around the level finding bosses.

Perhaps I should have also clarified that I'm also writing this for people who are not of sufficient clvl to be able to teleport willy-nilly finding things (in which case Laz runs are obviously out of the question), but who are still progressing and need to know at about what levels they should be searching in each game. Though I will include a section for people who are using high clvl characters for hunting.

Thanks for the advice though.