Diablo heads! Little help? Magic Item question

In My Humble Opinion
1

Technically, this is a GQ, but I suspect it’s degenerate into a Diablo discussion (which is fine :D)

So I got Lord of Darkness and I’m switching off between a Druid and an Assassin. But something weird is going on:

The Druid, despite having two items each of which adds about a 15% chance of getting magic items from monsters isn’t getting any magic items. I’m up to the third act and I’ve yet to find a unique or rare item, and I’ve only found about 20 regular magic items (the vast majority of which are crap: ring of +1 life, etc). I’ve scoured every dungeon and opened every chest. Even killing a “named” monster doesn’t necessarily generate magic items (I thought you ALWAYS got a magic item from named monsters). Plus those I’ve found are completely non-useful for a druid (y’know those nifty “Bear helmet” or “Wolf helmets” ? I’ve yet to find one with my druid. But I’ve found about 6 etherial heraldic shields and 4 or 5 “orbs” :rolleyes:)

I’ve taken my assassin through the middle of the second act (she’s just about to the Arcane Sanctuary) and I’m starting to get bored schlepping extra magic items back to town to sell 'em. She’s found 3-4 unique (yellow) items, and two set items. She’s also finding a wider variety of items.

I even created a second druid and took him about half-way through the first act and in that short amount of space found more useful magic items than my first druid.

Do characters, somewhere in the code, have a “chance to find useful magic items” stat? There was a character editor for Diablo 2 that changed your chance for getting items to 100% (and it made the game DULL).

Anyway, any suggestions? Preferably non-cheating suggestions if possible, but if not-gimme the cheat. Something’s wrong with this character.

Fenris

2

[internal debate] Should I jump in and support Rush Limbaugh and his followers, risking a body slam by Fenris’ superior wit?[/internal debate]

Oh. You said Diablo heads

3

Your Druid sucks.

Just kidding. It’s all random. I’ve had amazons get to act III before finding anything like a decent bow, or anything with life/mana steal. Some characters just take longer getting up to speed. You might want to reload Diablo, LOD, and the 1.08 patch, though, because that business of no magic items from special dudes looks off. I’ve seen that happen a few times, but not EVERY time.

4

Weird.

My buddy and I did a three-day Diablofest (that’s how I spend my vacations - can you spell G-E-E-K?) with the new lOD pack. He played the Assassin; I played the Druid.

He got so many magical items, gems, and jewels he didn’t know what to do with them all. I got virtually nothing. He collected enough gems to fill his stash; I had, at the end of three acts, exactly 4 gems. We looted the same amount so it wasn’t opportunity.

Maybe it’s a bug.

I DID manage to find a few useful bear and falcon helmets, but that’s about it.

5

It is pretty random. For example I remember getting 4 rares all on the same screen once. (150% combined magic find might have helped that a little)

Magic find only works with normal attacks. No magical attacks work with magic find. Your druid benifits only when he actually physically attacks.

6

Haven’t had any problems getting good items from uniques, unfortunately most if it is unusable by whatever class I’m playing. My Assassin even accumulated so much stuff, her stash was nearly full of unidentified items until she rescued Cain.

7

I noticed a few named monsters failing to drop magic items, but so far they’ve all dropped gems instead–maybe as part of Blizzard’s approach to improving gems and making it easier to get perfect ones. (I’m still running 1.07, BTW–it’s a pain to transfer patches to my laptop.)

I generally find plenty of items with my necro, but I seem to get a disproportionate number of assassin weapons, barb headgear, and orbs. Good necro items don’t drop often–I gambled for most of my gear.

<obligatory hijack>
How do you folks like the changes in the hirelings? I kind of like my sorcerer flunky–he’s at level 27 and does most of the work on looting runs now. A continuous flow of charged bolts and lightning is a handy resource.
</obligatory hijack>

8

I’m not even getting many gems with my druid :frowning:

Fenris, who sounds like Charlie Brown “I got a rock.”

9

I have the same problem. LoD raised the level requirement of some unique items. My necro had a couple of these equipped and had to gamble on some items to use as replecements until he’s experienced enough. Good thing he had a ton of gold on hand!

<continued hijack>
Love to equip my hirelings and have 'em level up. Also like being able to click on gamble until I see something worth spending my money on.
</continued hijack>

10

Check this site out: http://www.lurkerlounge.com/index.shtml. They mention a bug that was in the expansion beta test where if your sidekick helps kill a major boss at all, the boss won’t drop any good stuff.

Personally, I think the new sidekicks are neat, but they kind of take the fun out of killing stuff yourself. Now, charms, those suckers totally rock.

11

the magic finding is, as said above, completley random. the “drop magic item” is not an assured on uniques- they just have a higher item rate, and therefore a greater chance of getting something good.

the only thing assured of dropping anything magical are superuniques, like bloodraven and the Smith, or even coldcrow. and that is only because they have a really high itemdrop rate, and will probably drop at least one magical- the chance for all five items to be normals is astronomical, but, i suppose, it IS there.

act end bosses are supposed to always drop a unique or rare when you kill them the first time, but if a hireling kills them, than they treat it as if you had killed them before- that’s the root of the bug.

P.S. I love the new merc setup. my act two merc was the equal of my spearazon until act V, when he started dying too much for me to afford. i had to replace him with a barbarian merc, and i was actually sad to see him go… they weren’t lying when they said the mercs would be more like co-adventurers than just mercenaries.

P.P.S.[sub]i actually noticed incredibly boosted item drops. i found enough spare set and uniques for my merc to be decked out with the spares. he had a Bloodthief unique brandistock, 9% lifesteal, +13-21 poison over one second, and +5 resist all. I was using a Lance Of Yaggai spetum with +1-50 lightning damage adds, +15 resist all, and attacker takes damage of 12, plus twice the natural damage of the Bloodthief.[/sub]

12

As an aside, whatever variable controls the magic item occurance seems to be modified by your flunky. I got rid of a bowwoman that I’d had since the beginning and got a mage in act 3 and suddenly started getting magic items. This isn’t proof, but the coincidence is interesting.

Another question: Having a bad-guy frozen and killed by “shattering” decreases dramatically the chance of getting any treasure: true or false?

Fenris

13

Come to think of it, my Paladin was in Act IV normal and shattered quite a few monsters. I don’t recall any of them dropping items.

14

Characters do not have a base “chance to find magic items.” However, monsters do have a “chance to drop magic items.” If you have equipment which gives you an extra “% to find magic items”, what you are really modifying is the monster’s chance to drop an item.

Say, for example, that Monster X has a 2% chance of dropping a magic item. When you kill that monster, the % is checked, and, if it passes, a magic item is dropped. If, however, you were equipped with, say “100% to find magic items” stuff, when you kill Monster X, there is now a 4% chance he will drop a magic item.

Also, “magic” includes everything from class-specific items (which, in my experience, you tend to find everything except those items useful to whatever class you are playing at the time) to gems, jewelry, runes, superior quality items (yes, they count as magical), as well as normal magic (ethereal items are included here as well), rare, set and unique items. So, you could be finding more “magic” than you think, even if most of it is crap :slight_smile:

Further, any modifications to the chance to find magic items only work when the character specifically scores the killing blow. Minions, summons, hirelings, co-adventurers and such do not get the modification. This could explain why your assassin scores more magic, because she does more of the killing personally.

15

Finally went back to D2. My Assassin is now one level above Andariel and has found her first rare item, a nice cap with 25% poison length reduction and enhanced defence, among other things. She’s also found a magic wrist blade, a class-specific item she can actually use (and does)!

16

I think that since the expansion your chances of finding magic items was doubled.

Uniques before had 100% chance of finding a magic item, and normal creatures had a 2%.

17

Duriel…nightmare mode…dropped nothing…I repeat…nothing at all.

What the hell is up with that??

I am now now in Act v in Nightmare mode, and have done many levels over and over in vain attempts to find some decent stuff, but my resistance is crap and though I’m currently doing 244-868 damage per hit, my defense is a lowly 325. Death comes quickly for whoever strikes the first blow.

And yes, the sidekicks NPC’s are much better this time around. I still have my Amazon picked up from Blood Raven in Act I, Normal mode, and she is currently level 47 and doing 160-325 damage per cold arrow! Nice!!

18

Amazon is now in Act II and just got the Horadic Cube. Used it to clear out about half her stash, much of which were jewels. Sure get more jewels with the expansion! She had 6 chipped rubies, 1 flawed ruby, 6 chipped topazes, 1 flawed topaz, 4 chipped sapphires, 4 chipped emeralds, 1 chipped diamond, 3 chipped skulls, one skull, a bunch of rings and a few amulets. There’s also one hell of a grand scepter in the stash which will stay there until it can be sold for full value.

19

With my amazon in Act II, I decided to get my druid on his way there as well. Druid found a rare bow which, after identification, he gave to his companion. He also found two magic wolf heads, sold one and is wearing the other. While on the Cold Plains, saw of the new shirnes: portal. Creates a permanent town portal by the shrine.

20

You guys are missing the IMPORTANT information… what server are you on and what’s your character name? Me, I have a sorceress named Jokirin, level 45, Act IV Nightmare, on the USWest server.

And, yeah, sometimes I get a deluge of nifty-poo items, sometimes all I find is crap. Here’s a tip, though… the farther you get into an act, the better the items get. Until you get to the next act, where it starts all over again. So whenever you get close to the end of an act, it’s a good idea to wait around for a while if you want some good items.