Colossus Voulge has a strength requirement of 210. Being ethereal, it reduces it to 200, which is still pretty high.
Yes blowing a socket quest on a plain eth CV is a quick way to get an elite 4 socket polearm with high damage. Just make sure your merc has at least 200 str to equip it.
The cube recipe has a 50% chance of it rolling 4 sockets on the CV though.
An A2 merc can hold eth CV at level 93 with no help whatsoever. With a Lionheart or some other str gear they could hold it at mid 70s.
But it is a good point.
I think you value socket quest more than I do though. I play several characters so I have about 6 of them stacked up.
True
However, my luck decided that it should be different 
I find 3 4os Polearms in a single NM rune run when I am farming the rune for Lore, Insight and Splendor*
I was playing Fury Druid as my opening character, so I didnât tele through the tower. I smashed through the tower.
*note: NM Countess doesnât drop Lum but 3 Io make 1 Lum.
Same thing Normal Countess doesnât drop Ort rune.
But by Act2 I have run Countess enough to get 3 Ral runes that cubed = Ort.
Before I leave Act2 Normal I have an Ancients Pledge Shield runeword at lvl 21!
Having 75+ AR from late act2 Normal through Normal Chaos & Baal is important for HC.
I just find my 4os Exceptional Partizan while try to find another 3 Io for Smoke.
Did not have good luck on the rune drop but I am happy about the 4os Exceptional Partizan
At this point, I would say doing the rune run is the best place to find the 4 os Polearms. (at least for me that is.)
I got pretty lucky with my first polearm base in nightmare.
Ethereal Partizan. Threw it in the cube hoping for 5 sockets to make an Obedience since I was playing phys bowzon and mana leech was more than enough mana.
Got 4 sockets. At least I will have a pretty good insight for my sorc when I get around to playing one.
Found it in the same place, NM countess. Iâve been doing hell countess as phys bowzon and honestly it is slow going, but I have picked up 3 Um runes so far so itâs not all bad. I need a Ko and a fal rune for obedience still though⌠Might trade one of the Ums down for it.
Hi
What I did was running a few of these high level areaâs in act1 hell with low or none mf. Pit, Mausoleum and Crypt are all very good places. Donât forget to kick all barrels, dig up those graves etc. Also donât forget when a broken one drops you can repair them to normal quality and then use the socket cube recipe.
Go check it out. Those places can set you up with all kinds of very good bases for hell runewords and are pretty easy to run.
Cheers!
you cannot do this, it sets the ilvl to 1, which is a max of 3 sockets - according to my information.
Be very careful with this. That recipe makes the resulting normal quality item have an ilvl of 1, which may prevent it getting the number of sockets you want from Larzuk depending on the item itself. If you want 4 OS Cryptic Axe, Colossus Voulge or Great Poleaxe, for instance, they all get 3 OS from ilvl 1 - 25, so using Larzuk quest on an item that was originally low quality and made ânormalâ with the cube recipe would result in 3 OS.
If you want a 3OS base then it would be a great way to go though.
I looked into it a lot since I wanted a Partizan and found a âdamagedâ one and a âcrackedâ one before finding a ânormalâ one. I wanted 4 OS so the damaged and cracked wouldnât do.
Is the only benefit to an Ethereal base is that it has a higher damage range? And if so, is it a noteworthy difference?
Socket quests are a dime a dozen. No need to save em. Get what you need. Getting to level 25 and act 5 normal isnât exactly a challenge or too time consuming.
Pretty much anything 4 socket will do early on. Exceptional bases are fine too since you canât use insight until 27 anyway and it is 25 for exceptional bases. Partizan is a great one. I donât think it will socket 5 until later nightmare so normal cows or act 1 bases will work well. Halberd and such is fine too.
For Elite endgame base start with pretty much any 4 socket elite you find first. CV wonât work until like 85+ though keep in mind. 210 strength required on the merc which is a hard mark to reach below that. Eth Thresher or Giant thresher are the GG bases. Cryptic axe is a good option too.
The runes are dirt cheap so cram them in whenever you find a better polearm. You will probably need to make several for alts and to get a perfect one anyway. No reason to save up cheap runes like that.
I would say cows but four socket bases are pretty hard to come by in normal and even nightmare really. They drop like confetti in hell though.
I always make my insight by going to cows and getting a white base, and using the socket quest. Just read up on the socket quest and how it works because you donât want the wrong number of sockets to be installed.
It has higher damage (and thus, better merc survivability due to leech) and lower reqs. The lower reqs really come into play for Eth CV. 200 STR is not bad to get. 220 is much harder.
This is the link to the Larzuk socket chart with item levels and the maximum number of sockets. You can look up the item level of the area you found it and it will tell you how many sockets Larzuk will put into it. Get rid of the spaces in the link.
diablo2. diablowiki. net/ Sockets
Found first 4 socket polearm in nightmare act 1 forgotten tower quest in the tower cellar level 1 - tried farming in normal cow level and normal act 5 for weeks and no 4 socket polearms dropped. At least if you farm the forgotten tower in nightmare you will be getting runes as well !
Hope this works for you.
i found a nice eth 4 os CV but my merc still cant equip it @92 - gonna need 93 lol
17insight with 744 max damage, looks nice.
i refuse to socket his helm with +str as its wasted once he manages to wear it naturally.
im using an eth tresher until he can sport the CV.
*for bases the answer is mostly always cows.
You could put a str gem in it for now, then when he can wear it naturally use unsocket recipe (hel rune + scroll of townportal) to remove the amethyst and put something else in it.
Thatâs because no item can drop with 4 sockets in normal difficulty.
That said, if you get an item with the appropriate ilvl, then you can get 4 sockets from Larzuk quest (which always returns max) or from the Horodric Cube recipe (which may return fewer sockets than the max the item has, itâs random chance between all the socket numbers that item is able to have up to)
I typically consult here: Area Level - Diablo Wiki to determine the ilvl of the item based on where it dropped, then cross reference with this page Sockets - Diablo Wiki to determine what the item at the ilvl can have for sockets.
Pretty sure Iâve found a couple 4os Cryptic Axes in The Pit in Hell Difficulty
Sucks that superior items cant be socketed.
Also, cows, frigid highlands, AC (Arcane Sanctuary), CS (Chaos Sanctuary), WorldStone has all been the best possible places for me.
I was also recently informed that ideal magic find for uniques to drop is about 150 to 200, anything more than that will decrease your chances for uniques significantly.
Highest rune i have found during my few weeks back after taking a 16 year hiatus, is Sur atm. That was found in Cows.
I use a Hammerdin who pushes between 12k to 15k dmg output. My merc does about 12k. Thats more than enough for any place in hell, as long as your dmg output can help you survive in hell, i would attempt it or start looking for survivable gears to use.