Charm Cubeing

[shavenlunatic]

OK, it recently came to my attention that Charm + 3 Perf Gems / Cube = New charm of same ilvl.

All sounds spiffing as I could hammer through piles of useless Perfs trying to get some half decent charms. Only problem being is how do you aim for specific charms?

How do you know

a ) What ilvl the charm is that you are going to cube
b ) What ilvl the charm is that you are going to aim to create
c ) If you have the correct size of charm for what youre aiming for (therea list of charms and their sizes anywhere?)



Also, is there any way of "Upgrading" your charms also? (although i expect this takes a soj or 2, which I'm not rich enough to have..lol)




EDIT: Sorry, I think I posted this in the wrong forum

[adeyke]

The ilvl of a charm depends on the mlvl of the monster that dropped it. In nightmare and hell, this is usually based on the level of the area in which the monster spawned.

You can find a list of affixes and a list of what affixes are possible for a given ilvl here.

There's no way to "upgrade" a charm.

[Obi2Kenobi]

Baal is the only monster to be able to drop a charm of a high enough level (when grand) to get the max elemental damage affixes. :) So keep any and all charms dropped from him, as he has the highest monster level in the game (except DXP, but he doesn't count).

[Ruvanal]

Baal is the only monster to be able to drop a charm of a high enough level (when grand) to get the max elemental damage affixes. :) So keep any and all charms dropped from him, as he has the highest monster level in the game (except DXP, but he doesn't count).

The only high level affix on the Grand Charms is suf=339 'of Vita' for +(41 to 45) life and it only requires alvl 91. For a Grand Charm this is met at ilvl 91+ and can be dropped be hell Nihilthak (mlvl=92+3=95), Diablo (mlvl=94) and Baal (mlvl=99). The next higher 'of Vita' suffix requires an ilvl of 110+ and there are no monsters that drop Grand Charms of that ilvl (diabloclone only will drop the Annihilus in hell).

It is the highest elemental damage prefixes for Small Charms that requires that the ilvl of the charms be 95+ to spawn. This means that only hell Nihilthak and Baal can drop them.

[Obi2Kenobi]

Thanks for the correction. I wasn't sure if Nihilthak was affected by the area level nerf/boost (in his case, a nerf).

[Jeger]

The ilvl of a charm depends on the mlvl of the monster that dropped it. In nightmare and hell, this is usually based on the level of the area in which the monster spawned.

Let's say the mlvl is 84, so the charm spawns at ilvl 84 (as I understand.) However, luck is against me and the highest affix/suffix that the charm gets is level 32. Is the charm still ilvl 84, or is it now ilvl 32?

[adeyke]

The ilvl would be 84. All items dropped by a mlvl 84 monster have ilvl 84, regardless of what stats they have.

[shavenlunatic]

The ilvl of a charm depends on the mlvl of the monster that dropped it.  In nightmare and hell, this is usually based on the level of the area in which the monster spawned.

ok, so if we don't know / can't remember / didn't notice who dropped it (and/or where it was dropped) there is no way of knowing the ilvl?



p.s. sorry for my over-use of forward slashes in this post, but I needed and/or wanted to ;)

[Obi2Kenobi]

ok, so if we don't know / can't remember / didn't notice who dropped it (and/or where it was dropped) there is no way of knowing the ilvl?

Exactly. Just like determining if some sets are 1.10 or 1.09.

[adeyke]

While the ilvl does not depend on the attributes an item has, the attributes do depend on the ilvl. So it's possible to use the attributes to determine a range of possible ilvls the item could have. The precision possible with this approach depends on just what attributes you have to work with. For the best case, you could pinpoint the ilvl exactly. In the worst case, you'd end up with a range of ilvls 1-99. Generally, you do end up with a quite large range.

So the short answer is that no, there's no way to know the ilvl if you can't remember where it's from

[Crystalion]

you'd end up with a range of ilvls 1-99.

v1.10 release:

ilvl 1..99 for non-DXXP™ drops (who only drops anni)

ilvl 1..103 for gambles

ilvl 1..104 for shop purchases

when applicable, offer void where prohibited by law, ymmv, etc.

(not to mention Jarulf's recent mysterious mention that he believes ilvl 0 is possible in some case(s))

For the v1.10 ability of shop bought items to exceed 99 you can look up old posts by Ruvanal (or my discovery of this, by way of noticing the slvls on charges of firestorm items being 11 instead of the expected 10 in testing).

AFAIK this is only relevant to those of very high clvl seeking slvl/#charges at max or craft fodder (maybe... haven't looked at whether this would actually ever matter, though I suspect it might, for amulet crafts or some such).

edit:

So the short answer is that no, there's no way to know the ilvl if you can't remember where it's from

Although in SP you could use ATMA. On bnet you merely have to find a cheater using maphack and put the item in the trade window (as I discovered to my chagrin the other day).

[adeyke]

Interesting.

ilvl 1..104 for shop purchases

This does seem to be true.

ilvl 1..103 for gambles

This doesn't.

I was wondering if the possibility of ilvls above 99 would mean that I'd have to modify my calculators. Certain uniques have CTC effects whose slvl depends on the ilvl of the item. If one were to gamble such an item with a sufficiently high-level character (being very, very lucky), an ilvl above 99 would also mean a higher slvl than I calculated.

For example, the Rising Sun has up to a slvl 19 meteor CTC effect. An ilvl of 100+ would yield slvl 20 instead.

So I modded the game to make every amulet gamble a Rising Sun and brought in a level 99 character to gamble away.

Out of an entire inventory, there wasn't a single slvl 20 meteor. The chances of that just being bad luck are .6^40, or about 1/750,000,000. I conclude that it wasn't possible to get a slvl 20 meteor Rising Sun from gambling.

Furthermore, while the gambling screen will show qlvl 99 items, it won't show qlvl 100 items, since these apparently violate the ilvl >= qlvl restriction. The qlvl 100 items do show up in stores, though, where such a restriction also applies.

I think it's safe to conclude that gambling does still have a cap of 99.

This means that the only way to get an ilvl 100+ item is from the clone (and only Annihilus there) or from shops (magic items only). So I don't have to change my calculators.

Although in SP you could use ATMA. On bnet you merely have to find a cheater using maphack and put the item in the trade window (as I discovered to my chagrin the other day).

IMHO, though, since the game doesn't tell you the ilvl and there's no way to figure it out with perfect precision (unless you remember where it came from), it's not something you're meant to know. So I don't like that ATMA gives that information to players. It's certainly useful for testing things, but I keep testing and playing completely separate. Certainly, actively benefitting from someone else's MH (I'm not talking about your case) isn't morally superior to using MH yourself.

BTW, ATMA does have a bug in regards to the ilvl; it caps them at 99 even though we know better.

[Nightwind]

v1.10 release:

ilvl 1..99 for non-DXXP™ drops (who only drops anni)

ilvl 1..103 for gambles

ilvl 1..104 for shop purchases

I saw a post somewhere, where sombody claimed to have recived the higher vita afix (the one requiring 110) from an overstuffed chest.

The story claimed that it was from behind hell mephisto.

[Crystalion]

I think it's safe to conclude that gambling does still have a cap of 99.

Yes, I knew that, statistically, it has just been so long since beta that I temporarily forgot that gambles never showed the higher slvl charges. Sorry about that.

re MH: I was actually extremely annoyed for hours over this incident. In the end I decided it was both pointless to report the person and pointless to be upset.

I wasn't, however, upset that the game is imperfect or allows one to cheat (I'm not against cheating in games, per se)... I was upset at "cheating" in the old style definition of "rules" being that which players expect each other to adhere to, in interactions with each other (I really could not care less if someone uses ATMA or cubemod or whatever in their own private play). This guy scanned my trade window item (a grand charm I erroriously thought dropped from Diablo in hell, but was instead only ilvl 85... it had clvl req 69, so I knew it was a pretty high drop) without asking my permission, and it bugged me.

A much thornier issue about "cheating" in mmorpg and IRL concerns the distribution of "wealth". My personal feeling about wealth in games is that they are imaginary playgrounds, and to take commerce/value in them too seriously is a very bad idea, completely apart from any messiness with translations to IRL wealth (ebay being the example everyone thinks about, but player's time can be perceived as having lost relative value, to their emotional detriment, when they discover others have "easily" "mis"-procured fruits that they labored long and hard for).

This latter issue is very thorny, in that I both, as a D2 "expert" have an advantage over "ordinary" players, as well as knowledge of "protomatter" shortcuts to accomplishing certain things in game, that are more greyhat. For example, because the problem interested me, I've learned far more about rushing on ladder since v1.10 release than my meager speculations here prior. Yet I continue to believe Blizzard "should" be anti-rushing (yet "should" be rewarding players with high-end goodies... the two views are somewhat in opposition). My "solution" to this "ethical quandry" has been to defer publication of rushing refinements until there isn't any question of "polluting" the pristine early ladder and the enjoyment thereof by purists (I'd say the economy is old enough, and dupe polluted enough, at this point, that I don't need to remain quiet any longer).

All in all, while advocating not getting too worked up over "just a game", I'd have to say that D2 is an interesting microcosm of real life socio-economic and ethical issues. Very educational ("Hey kids! Now you can get *college credit* for all those hours of video game play your moms' said were a waste of time! Just send $19.99 to Video University, P.O. 666, Diablo, CA, USA by midnight yesterday... if you sent your money by last week, we'll include an inflatable Succubus, completely free of charge!")

[bigeyedbug]

IMHO, though, since the game doesn't tell you the ilvl and there's no way to figure it out with perfect precision (unless you remember where it came from), it's not something you're meant to know.  So I don't like that ATMA gives that information to players.  It's certainly useful for testing things, but I keep testing and playing completely separate.

This seems like an odd view coming from you. It seems like much of what you do (and what these sites do generally) is impart knoledge "not meant for mortal man." Sure, some of it is used for testing (and testing for what ultimate purpose one might ask)--but most of it is not. What do you think of something like st0rmie's treatise on charm cubing? I suppose a distinction might be drawn between pure information in that case, and an application like Atma. If so, what about your own calculator?

I'm just curious to hear more about your perspective on this. Would you care to elaborate?

PS. This is especially ironic to me since I owe much of my rudimentary knowledge of the more technical aspects of the game to your patient answers. :)

[adeyke]

The difference is that one type of knowledge is about the game in general and the theories behind things. The other type of knowledge is about the specific hidden details of a specific item.

I'll give some examples. Note that not all of the cheating examples may actually be possible at present.
- Learning how the ilvl is calculated is fair. Using a program to find out the ilvl of an item you already have isn't.
- Learning the rules of map generation in order to better predict where the stairs will be is fair. Using a program to reveal the map for you isn't.
- Learning the ilvl and base item for valk equipment at different slvls is fair. Using a program to find out what your specific valkyrie is wearing at the moment isn't.
- Knowing what items are possible to gamble at a certain clvl is fair. Using a program to find out what the specific items in your gamble screen are isn't.
- Knowing what your opponent in PvP is likely to wear and recognizing visible equipment is fair. Using a program to find out exactly what all his equipment is isn't.

And so on. I don't think I'm being too inconsistent in my standards.

With my technical knowledge and experience with testing mods, I think I could make a client-side mod that imparts some forbidden knowledge. It's trivial to make hidden attributes like pierce percentages, cold duration, etc. show on items in a SP environment. It's also possible to recolour affixes so they're more recognizable. Note that I've never actually tried to use such a mod on the realms, and I won't. Doing anything of the sort would make me an evil hacker. When I make mods, it's only for testing and for gaining knowledge and understanding, never to get an advantage while actually playing. Once I'm in the game, I see only what the game tells me.

And in regards to the specific ilvl issue... If there was a program that let you input the exact stats of an item and then calculated the potential ilvl range, I'd see nothing wrong with it. It would be a lot of work to make the program and would probably not be too useful, in part because of the imprecision, but I wouldn't see its use as unethical. OTOH, a program that looks at the actual hidden stats of an item and gives the ilvl with more precision than could be done by hand, would be cheating.

ATMA is SP-only. However, it does make an effort to be legit. You can't dupe things, edit items or edit characters with it. You're just supposed to use it to move around items (let's not argue about how legit muling is). However, the forbidden knowledge (both the ilvl and the complete stats of unidentified items) mean that it can be used for non-legit things as well. And the use thereof means you're no longer playing D2. You're playing D2 with ATMA. And if you ever bring your character to a MP game or boast about your SP accomplishments, you'd have to mention the ATMA.

[Nightwind]

A single set of input afixes wouldn't lock it in.
but what if the program let you input 1-25 rerolls of a charm,
that could give you a very exact ilvl

[bigeyedbug]

The difference is that one type of knowledge is about the game in general and the theories behind things.  The other type of knowledge is about the specific hidden details of a specific item.

Thank you for elaborating. While I do still believe there is an inconsistency here, I do not believe that consistency in matters like these is that important. I myself, draw a line more geological than geometric when it comes to playing the game "as it was meant to be played." Actually, what struck me as odd in what you originally articulated about ATMA was less an inconsistency, and more what I would call "a distinction without a difference." Your emphasis on specificity doesn't (to me, at a gut level) seem relevant. Is it merely the added step of extrapolation that distinguishes general hidden information from specific? A post, a list, a calulator, and an elaborate 3rd party program all seem to me to be merely different vehicles for transmitting information--much of which concerns details hidden in-game. My view would be that if the information itself is not unethical to transport, then it scarcely matters what kind of buggy it arrives in.


My chief distinction-without-a-difference would, I think, be the rickety fence I've built between intra-game and extra-game. There are all sorts of gaps there for a fox with a logical bent to shimmy through. ATMA is okay but Maphack is not? I'm alright with muling, but leery of editing? Not much consistency to boast of there.

I feel a little guilty about hijacking this thread, although the attitude towards hijacks seems to be pretty loose here. If you want to discuss it more and you feel a PM would be more appropriate, feel free to do so.

In any case I am grateful that you have made your particular ethical judgement in regard to sharing information, as it has benefited me a great deal.

[adeyke]

I still hold that there's a fundamental difference between general information and specific information.

I think I'm somewhat knowledgeable about D2, but when comparing my own knowledge to the absolute total knowledge about the game, it's nothing.

Now, suppose someone did know everything about the game, having spent enough time to test every possibility, memorize the entire contents of the MPQs, etc. He would then be able to answer any general question about the game. For example, if you asked him to make a list of all possible items for Hell Baal to drop, he could do that (given unbounded time to write the list and unbounded paper to write it on).

However, even the theoretical total of all D2 knowledge wouldn't help in pinpointing the ilvl of an item. If you gave him the exact stats of the item, he still couldn't necessarily find the ilvl. The best he could do is examine the base item, the affixes, the automods, the staffmods, the charges, etc. and give a range of possible ilvls for the item. As stated in this thread, though, these factors may not be enough to narrow it down to a single number, and the range of possible ilvls may potentially be huge.

So that's the difference between the two kinds of knowledge. Given unbounded time and unbounded memory (or unbounded paper for notes) (and unbounded patience ;)), you could learn everything there is to know about D2, but all this knowledge wouldn't help you at all for the specific knowledge given in my examples. The only way to learn that knowledge is through the use of a 3rd party program.

As for ATMA... I myself never used it for muling. I'd already gone to only playing on b.net before I downloaded it, and I only downloaded it because someone had asked me questions about it. That said, I personally don't have a problem with its use for muling. Originally, when I did do my muling, it was done with a second D2 game, elsewhere. I would join it, drop items, join with the other character and pick them up. So the program doesn't enable something that's otherwise impossible; it just means you can mule with your non-realms character without having to ask someone else for help (or having a second D2 computer). I admit, though, that even if I was still playing off the realms, I'd be quite hesitant to use ATMA for muling, both because it is a 3rd party program and because it does give forbidden knowledge.

[DukeTrout]

I think I might be able to sum up adeyke's point about ethics with a metaphor.

It is ethical in the real world to set up experiments and do calculations to figure out the way the world works. This is the study of physics and is analogous to play testing in D2.

It is ethical to set up a simulation experiment and perhaps even repeat it thousands of times in order to help your study of physics. It is ok, as part of your laboratory setup, to use an MRI or fluoroscope or to see things that are going on in your experiment that the naked eye can not usually see. This is analogous to modding/using ATMA, etc.

It is unethical to usa a portable MRI/fluoroscope/other sensor to go around the parking lot at the mall to try and find the car that has a 357 Magnum and $25000 cash under the seat, then using your strontium laser to open up the car and take it. That is analogous to Maphack, cheats, dupes, etc.

We transfer money and goods all over the place in the real world. We trade stocks, sell used cars, etc., all ethical. Analogous to muling/trading.

It is unethical to manipulate the wire transfer system/stock market/etc. in the real world. This is analogous to duping or sniffing in D2, and is just as unethical.