In Offline Normal I have an excess of gold - 2.5 million in each shared stash and most characters’ personal stashes stuffed.
I have many partial set items - but not complete sets. Most everyone seems to advise to wait to farm Cows/NM/etc. but then I’ll not get to actually use the lower level uniques/sets to play when they’re supposed to be useful (unless upgraded via. cube much later).
I dumped about 1.5 million gambling an appropriately leveled character (based upon unique/set item level) the other day and finally got not only Vidala’s Ambush I was searching forever for - but also landed a unique Blinkbat’s Form!
It probably only took about 15-20 minutes gambling instead of trying to farm Pickleskin. Farming super unique monsters aren’t necessarily so close to a waypoint so it takes much longer. A teleport staff helps but is Very pricey to replenish charges instead of just dumping gold directly on the gambling vendors. Took me less time gambling away excess millions for pieces than hitting bosses/super uniques in Normal.
Seems like the amount of time invested for direct RNG roulette via. the gambling vendors is better - and MF doesn’t matter, only character level and ample gold.
** After looking at my set items wishlist I discovered many of them are not included in the gambling vendors’ wares, such as Infernal Torch, Civerb’s Cudgel, Milabrega’s Rod, and Arcanna’s Deathwand because gambling vendors do not stock any wands, staves, or scepters whatsoever. Furthermore, expensive items like Sigon’s Shelter (Gothic Plate), Tancred’s Spine (Full Plate Mail), and the various set item amulets make gambling less worthwhile than farming super uniques even with an Edge bow & appropriate character level vs item level for gambling.
So I guess I need to amend my gambling pursuits for set and unique items and farm like a hayseed for the missing pieces. 