The drop rate of uniques

[[wcip]Angel]

It's been "a while" (see thread title) since I last played Diablo, and my initial presumptions on the drop-rate of uniques have been severely affected by only 11 levels of playing. (that's character-levels; I still haven't passed through the Halls of the Blind.)

I didn't even know there were that many uniques to begin with. I always thought D2 had 10-20 times more uniques than its predecessor. The reason for this erroneous presumption is that I never got more than 1-2 uniques that weren't quest related back in '97. I seem to remember the Needler often showing up when I played my warrior.

Anywho... fast forward 8 years and 11 levels of sorcerory goodness, and I am 1 unique armor plus 1 constricting ring richer. Having played Diablo2 to death, I know full well the history of the Constricting Ring in Diablo2. I had no idea there was one in D1. (By the by: both items were found on the "big nasties" during the Ogden's sign quest.)

(Oh and btw, I play off-line single player, if that's important in any way.)

So, I have 3 questions:

1. Has the drop rate of uniques increased that significantly since 1997?
2. Were there that many uniques to begin with or did they add new ones in patches?
3. Is the ring any good? Are resistances as useful in Diablo1 as they are in D2? Also, is there an item which can counter the "always drain health"-property of the Constricting Ring? I'm awfully constricted (sorry, I had to...:P) as to whether I should wield this ring in my questings. Obviously, when fighting the Man himself, fire resistance would do me well, but I'm not sure I want to go around having my health drained all the time, especially when I'm a sorceror whose primary attribute is *not* vitality.

Thanks for your help!

- [wcip]Angel

[Nystul]

1. Has the drop rate of uniques increased that significantly since 1997?
2. Were there that many uniques to begin with or did they add new ones in patches?
3. Is the ring any good? Are resistances as useful in Diablo1 as they are in D2? Also, is there an item which can counter the "always drain health"-property of the Constricting Ring? I'm awfully constricted (sorry, I had to...:P) as to whether I should wield this ring in my questings. Obviously, when fighting the Man himself, fire resistance would do me well, but I'm not sure I want to go around having my health drained all the time, especially when I'm a sorceror whose primary attribute is *not* vitality.
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1) No. The item creation routines of Diablo have never changed at all. Needless to say, one game is a small sample size... you may find 0 uniques in one game (not counting quest items in SP) and 10 in another.

2) See answer #1.

3) Resistances are very important in the later parts of the game (although they are useless against Diablo himself). Maximum resistances would be quite useful at times, at least for the Unholy Alter and the advocates on 16. That doesn't mean you should wear the CR at all times... it means you should save it and put it on when you see spellcasters on a given level. When you use mana shield, the CR will drain mana instead of life.

[[vL]Kp]

Nystul is completely correct, but I want to expand on his comment about sample size. Recall that all item generation is controlled by a very poorly utilized pRNG, so although the code/data hasn't changed since release, it's theoretically possible that games started today have a better chance of getting a seed which causes a pRNG performance that produces many uniques. It's known that games started after the end of time (Tue Jan 19 02:14:07 2038) have a seed which produces a very undesirable performance (many black deaths, but also vit elixirs -- chance, or intentional irony? ;))

[duner]

cool! great info

[jrdgames]

Anywho... fast forward 8 years and 11 levels of sorcerory goodness, and I am 1 unique armor plus 1 constricting ring richer. Having played Diablo2 to death, I know full well the history of the Constricting Ring in Diablo2. I had no idea there was one in D1. (By the by: both items were found on the "big nasties" during the Ogden's sign quest.)

I think your pretty lucky to have found the constricting ring and a unique armor on snottspill and his minions ive started a mage and just got the constricting ring lastnight on lvl 9 or 10 and i was lvl 19.

[Toverkol]

for the constricting ring there's a nice article about it somewhere on the site.

Finding it around snotspill on normal isnt weird, it is even the most common dropping level on normal if i remember correctly, somewhat lower in the dungeon you will get Engagement rings instead.

As for my opinion on the CR, i consider it very useful especially on rogues, who have a rather hard time equipping full resistance, you should indeed keep it in your inventory usually, except when faced with a mixed form of magical attacks, like witches and mages or balrogs and maelstroms. In cases of only one magical attack type, you're usually better off just maxing out that one.
When facing such a situation though, the small loss in mana (assuming you use MS) definitely is better than the damage you'd get with lower resistances. (with some discussion when you wear a shield and have 0% resistance, which gives you a chance of fully blocking certain magical attacks)
On top of that it is also a good stash of gold, if you really dont like it, it's still worth 15k in one inventory space.