Yeah, I’ve gotten two consecutive Ists from Hellforge - the first time with 8 players in the game (mule rush) and the second with 3 players.
Today (well, yesterday) was the first go with the enchantzon (note to the possibly otherwise confused: an amazon who gets a sorc to cast enchant on her). It went decently, though I didn’t have half the gear I had wanted. I’d still really like the following to make it work better:
Cathan’s amulet
Vid’s boots (though I now have gorefoot, so I don’t know if that will be better or worse)
Pluckeye U short bow, or a decent one. I have an Arctic bow, but it’s not so stellar.
Death’s Hand.
I’d also like to try to make this girl viable without enchant, so any decently low level (i.e. under 15 if possible) elemental charms anyone otherwise felt like throwing away, or finds from here on out, I’d love to have. Grand charms of pestilence or venom would be lovely, as would foul or septic GCs.
This must be a B.net thing; in SP, I’ve had the maximum possible rune from both NM and Hell Forges on two occasions (albeit with separate characters). I don’t have all that many Champions, and only one Matriarch.
I’m not sure what you mean, or more specifically, how it differs from what i said. Are you saying that in SP the rune drops are better overall?
Oh, Lord no - I’ve lost count of the number of times NM Countess has dropped El - but it does seem that there’s some kind of weighting in SP that makes it easier to find higher level stuff. I’ve found all kinds of things, and from what I’ve pieced together from B.netters their total scarcity outweighs my total playing time. The discrepancy seems greatest in the area of runes, where I’ve found every rune except Sur, Cham and Zod and I’ve found some of the mid-20s (including Ist) more than once.
Now maybe I’m just lucky in my rune drops, and there’s no real way to quantify it, but the imbalance does at least appear to be there.
As for the high runes, the only high runes that I’ve actually found were cham and vex. The next highest, I believe was a pul (amazingly enough, I found this one in the Act4 river enroute to do the forge quest… the pul was better than the quest rune).
As for the Hellforge quest. I’ve gotten more guls from the hell level forge than I have any 2 other runes. Out of about 15 forge quests that I’ve done, I think I’ve gotten 5 guls (3 in East, 2 West). My nightmare forges aren’t nearly as good, but I got an um the last time I did one.
I found a Gul in NM w2 or w3, a Pul running nm or hell shenk, an Ohm running hell Meph, an Um cleaning up a Hell cow run, a Sur cleaning up another and an ist in a chest in dur2. All but Gul were NL.
We have another lvl 20+ with staff for a mule rush. Larz and I got her to high 25 last night.
I’ve lost track of the runes i’ve gotten, but i don’t think i have Who’s luck. I’m sure i’ve done more than 15 forge quests, and i doubt i’ve gotten 5 guls out of them. I have gotten a fair amount of ists though. I’ve often wondered whether i should just complete the quest with both mules at the same time to increase my odds.
I have a lvl 40 for the nm quest. We’ll try and start the mule rush around 9pm EDT tonight i guess.
I once got a Gul from a random chest in nm tower I think and a pul from Shenk at one point, but both of those were on the East server and I havnen’t found anything really good on West.
Starting last night I started having really horrible lag. Not a delay in movement so much as stuff’s just moving really slowly. I get a frame rate of 1 at best and a skip of 4. This could mean one or more of a few things:
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There’s some server-side installation of new information such that it’s affecting my gameplay. I don’t mind that at all, since it means New Ladder will be here sooner.
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The Gods of Battle.net have sniffed me out and declared me still cursed.
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DSL and/or this machine is/are being wonky.
You know, I think they may be installing something or else the activity has just increased a lot because I was having the same sort of thing this morning. I had a ping of 2400 for almost a minute and then things would be normal. My ping was up a a lot of other times as well because my traps weren’t being placed where my curser was. Very annoying, but the new ladder could happen soon. I wish those Blizz bastards would give us a time line!
Thanks, MDSL, I’m … comforted (sure as hell not glad it was going so damn slow) to know it’s not just me.
Just for reference, the last time I was so horribly lagged like that, a few days later a massive duping/hacking effort was revealed on d2.net, so I’m thinking this bit is also affecting folks as a whole, not just me:)
BTW, I wouldn’t be clammering for a time line. Before 1.10 was released, some Blizz folks said that the patch would be out before E3. Well, E3 was in May, and the patch was released in August or so. Larger effort? Oh, of course. I’d rather they inform us, however, when they’re done, not when they’re close. Never know what stuff can come up at the end.
I’d just like to reiterate what i’ve said on irc before. The ladder reset is not a patch. The fact that 1.10 was delayed had more to do with coding bugs and anti-hacking efforts than anything else. This is not the case with a ladder reset, which is a fairly simple process (at least to coordinate). They don’t need to do any major restructuring to any code, and all of the reset mechanisms have been in place since the first ladder season was started.
Basically all they have to do is set all ladder characters to nonladder (probably via some flag in the character file on their server), which is admittedly no small operation. It probably only involves changing a few bytes… in each character file on the server. Any changes they make to the game will be entirely server-side, which they have claimed in the past is relatively easy to do. Overall, the reset will probably result in a few hours of b.net downtime.
But don’t be expecting a several month delay between the announcement and the reset. I’d say at most it will be a week or two, perhaps if they’re doing some last-minute anti-hacking measures.
In other news, mule rush tonight at 9.
And i have not noticed any serious lag, other than that my laptop needs a reboot.
Well, from reading the various announcements from Blizzard employees on the reset, there were a couple of things that caught my eye.
These two things. What I believe is that they will keep a better eye on the ladder characters. The thing we may notice is that we may be able to log on and give a command to find out where we stand on the ladder. But I think that may not be the only thing this update will do. I think that activity indicating that a player may be botting will send a flag up in the system and that we’ll be seeing a lot more accounts being banned once it’s determined that’s what is happening. The same maybe with dupers.
I may be optimistic, but I can hope. I do know that Blizzard knows of the problem and wants to do something about it.
I’ve gotten a few mals and ums at the Hellforge quests, but I found an ist under a rock in the cow level once (hence I am always hitting every chest, rock, rat nest, etc. I see), got a fal rune just goofing off in the pit.
I’m bummed that I missed last night’s run on account of eating dinner, but I was rewarded last night by finding Lycanders Aim (which punoqllads is very happy to have), gimmershred (probably the best weapon a throw barb can have), and war travelers…if only I had this stuff earlier in the season… :smack:
Any plans for a rush tonight?
no, i wasn’t planning on it. I probably will be on in a few minutes to play though.
Hell level sucks! Everyone is immune to everything. :mad:
Unless things improve (I checked a few times today) wrt framerate/ability not to get killed by fallens in NM, I doubt very much that I will be playing Ladder Season 2. There’s just no point; unless I built a pure vit barb, I would get wasted in A1 norm. It’s incredibly frustrating, but the battle.net gods seem not to want me back.
Almost everything is immune to something, but it’s not possible for a single monster to have more than two immunities. There are three things you can do about this: First, develop another attack form. Very rarely will a monster be immune to both of your attacks. Second, party with other folks with different attacks. And third, learn which areas don’t have anything immune to your main attack. I mostly use methods 2 and 3: Cows aren’t immune to anything, and the Burial Grounds, Crypt, Mausoleum, Maggot Lair, and usually most of the outdoor areas in act 2 are all flammable, so my fire sorc doesn’t have to worry about immunities there. What’s your character, again? I’m sure we can find some good areas for you.