I am farming NM Andariel in pursuit of the elusive Stone of Jordan. I noticed that whenever a character switches levels (N to NM or H), the map reconfigures. The NM map I am playing now takes around 2 minutes to navigate, is this typical, or is it possible to have a quicker route? With a SOJ drop rate of 1 in 2000, I think that corresponds to a theoretical 67 hrs of play time. Ouch
Yes going from Normal, Nightmare or Hell will refresh the maps. People do do that to farm faster as you mentioned. Lk being a popular choice
I never refresh the map for Andariel or target farm her in NM. So I can’t say how fast it takes to teleport down.
There are lot of map variations, only changes when you switch difficulty as Callisto said. If you want a good layout keep changing difficulty until you get one in NM that suits. I usually do this for LK or whenever I need quick exit next to entry…
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The layout I have now I think is pretty good, I was just curious if there was any expectation that it could be better. The risk is if I change difficulty I could end up with one that is not as good. Since I am in NM, I am not concerned with any drops other than the SOJ. To expidite things, I have loaded my inventory with Faster Run/Walk Charms to get to Andariel as quickly as possible, with only one available slot reserved for the SOJ. One suggestion was to use Teleport, but I am playing a Level 90 Hammerdin and Teleport is a Sorceress skill. Is there any way for a Hammerdin to acquire Teleport?
Sure, can get teleport “charges affix” on Circlet, Amulet or you can buy a Staff with Teleport CHARGES not point to skill. Ormus ACT3 or Drognan ACT2 in NM are best vendors in town. Beware: 33 charges on a teleport staff is about 60K repair cost (like recharge) so it is expensive.
I wish you all the best but honestly, you are making it hard for yourself. Even with Sorc, NM Andy for SOJ is hard grind without any sense of accomplishment along the way, you will burn out fast if you don’t get lucky. 90Pally smashes Travincal if your build is standard, map is static so no worries on resets, need no teleport and 1 run is < a minute.
I am starting to feel the burnout, but this is what is discouraging me. Two different drop calculators give 1 in 103K odds for a SOJ drop in Travincal per councilman. With 3 councilmen per run, the odds are 1 in 33K per run of a drop, that is still pretty bad odds.
Forget drop calculators… Maxroll one is far from reality, Silospen better but is just another “chance” calculator. Not one calculation was right, at least it is my experience. Ravenfrost, Shako, Hoz, Gull dagger, Magefist, Viper just to name a few. As said, I started my journey about 2 months ago, still have not found an eth elite polarm but yesterday, TZ Trav dropped me Crown of Ages. I mean wtf… one socket only but it is still CoA. Trav drops SoJ, BK and other jewellery too, even if it takes you long time to get SoJ from Trav, you get so much value out of it, I cannot burn out of it. Few days ago, I found a small charm 6MF+4all res, 20Life+11cold res, these make my day.
I personally consider it for the home of the Hdin, not Chaos. Actually… I don’t like Chaos, constantly cursed, zillions of oblivion nights, long runs and I never find anything there. In the last 8 months, I think found 2 MALs, 2 ISTs and 1 VEX, that is it. I only run it in TZ mode but the drops are trash, happy when Diablo drops me an essence.
I understand that we all have different experience but everywhere I look recently, Trav is constantly praised and feels like underrated in Hdin land.
I am 2 months into my reunion tour with Diablo 2. I played Diablo 2 from its original release in 2000 until the release Diablo 3. One of the biggest changes from that time is the availability of extensive on line sources of information and help today. Back then, I would create a character, play it through Hell, then go on to another character. I had no idea of the concept of farming, and as such, I think it took me 7 years before I got my first SOJ. I did take your advice and started some Trav runs, the issue I am running into is keeping my merc alive which I need for mana regeneration. My guess is that I may need an extensive stockpile of regeneration potions.
I see… Trav is hard on Merc for sure. Before, I had my usual Holy Freeze dude with just Crown of Thieves/Tals helm (found nothing better yet) Insight and Duriels shell for CBF. When they Amp damage curse you or conviction aura is active on one of them, that is the only time he struggled, otherwise it is fine. You should be able to kill them faster. If you are lvl90, merc should be 89, I assume his res maxed out, if so you should be good to go.
I recently switched to Iron Skin Frenzy barb and it is much better. It was a bit weird to get used to not getting mana regen but it is fine, runs are short and fast. Around 500 mana, Magefist’s 20% regen mostly enough. I carry 8 full rejuvs, 4 health and 4 mana potions and I never run out, only have to pop 1 each and rejuv when curses cause trouble. It is doable. So if your merc dies often try without him… not hard.
One tip though: I think the map matters. While it is static, if you change difficulty you get the same map with different spawn locations. I don’t like when most span inside and just Toorc outside. The best in my opinion is when 5 span right at the entrance (stairs) 5 on the left of the entrance and Toorc inside. I usually just charge up to the edge of the stairs and start spanning hammers. By the time the other 3 from the left join the party, they walk into the spiral of hammers. Toorc often just stays inside so after that, walk in and complete. For Trav, there is one thing you must have for efficiency = 125FCR. You need to get the hammers out as fast as possible, it is the key.
BTW, my gear is not that endgame. I have 35spirit in 44res Akaran Targe, Wizpike for huge FCR+RES, Shako with a topaz, Tals belt, Magefist, War Trav boots, Skullders armour, 2 FCR rings with res, mana, etc and a Teleport amulet. On swap, I have CTA though, probably the most expensive part. My hammers are about 6K damage at the moment, no torch, no anni yet. Mostly, I have MF charms, 2 combat skillers and gheeds.
I currently have 80% FCR from gear, is the difference between that and 125FCR that significant? A chart I found shows 10 frames at 75%, 9 at 125%, but I don’t known what that really means.
I personally don’t care about the frame maths, I found my kill speed much better on 125 then on 75. It may not seem much but the council member constantly heal each other especially when they are in small packs, faster you kill them better it is. For general thrash mobs it does not matter much. I have HOTO and some other powerful items but I prefer the extra FCR and res with wizspike, I feel the build more stable and efficient this way.
With higher breakpoint. Your hammers spawns faster. Hammers stun enemy’s so they dont hit you as often.
So yes last breakpoint is very important. Thats why people reroll spirit to get 35 on weapon and shield. If you add trangs or magefist gloves plus 2 rings. That’s set you at 110.
Best part of d2r is itemization. Gl with your soj
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Exactly. I re-rolled my spirit shield number of times to get 35FCR on it. With the 2 rings, Magefist I am at 75 and this is where wizspike comes it with the 50 making my build exactly 125. Since then I found Arachs belt and a 3 combat 20FCR magic circlet, thanks to Trav but I have not changed my build, the power is enough, I would lose some res and I prefer my Tals belt for the extra magic+dex (max block) and shako for DR.
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The is what I love about D2R, tweaks to strategy, making trade offs, etc. I have never rerolled a unique, I am going to have to look into that. My strategy is to make as powerful a Hammerdin as possible, and to do that requires getting +Skills gear. I am currently on +8 Paladin skills, so with auras and synergy, my Blessed Hammer damage is 8219. Each +Skill increases damage exponentially, so I am looking to ultimately pickup a SOJ, Wedding band, Mara, and Annihilus. In pursuit of unique items my tradeoff is with the armor I am using, one has +112 MF with 75% max resistance, the other results in 90% max resistance, but no MF.
Just watch somebody stream. He was using blizz sorc. Running tz 94 Andy. Took him from Catacomb lvl 2 to killing her was 10 seconds.
Just as an aside, target farming is not good for the mind. I just restarted D2R on PS4 a couple weeks ago after playing many years on pc, and I managed to find an soj while running through kurast on my way to Meph in NM. Couldn’t tell you what actually dropped it. And less than 100 MF to boot. RNG sucks until it doesn’t…I also dropped a shake from chaos TZ in NM yesterday. Just play and you’ll be rewarded better.
After all the discussion on farming, I am convinced that D2R farmers are like fishermen, they all have their favorite hole that invariably other players think is terrible. With a pedestrian 240% MF, I almost never get a unique drop in Travincal, for other players it is their go to spot e.g. In pursuit of the SOJ I got an unexpected boon last night, Terrorized Andariel dropped a Mara’s (woo hoo). I also never had an appreciation of how beneficial a favorable map could be, so thanks to all who pointed that out.
You are correct, we all have our fav spots but you have hammerdin without engima, so when it comes to efficiency and invested effort, Andy is not S-tier farming location for you. You are limited to CS+Trav really hence suggested. Since you set your mind on SOJ, you are better off building a Fireball Sorc and target TZ Andy, that is the best if you want unique drops but it won’t be easy on SOJ. On console you cannot reset clock manually but on PC you can and that way, TZ can lasts as long as you want, just keep winding the hour back.
Surprise! I don’t get many uniques from Trav either, hardly any. But when I get, it is usually good like CoA the other day. I am farming it for JAH, missing piece for my engima. Yesterday, I got my first ever CHAM, not what I wanted. Am I happy? Hell no, cannot split it but it is what it is, still better than getting hundreds of garbage from NM Andy so it is at the end of day, mindset as VoltDog said. GD luck
I have seen the light , I’m officially off the NM Andy bandwagon. I know to take the drop calculators with a grain of salt, but I think Cow runs should be viable for high rune farming. Assuming a drop rate of 1 in 400,000 per Hell Bovine, and an average 400 Bovines per level, my math implies that the drop rate for a high rune is 1 in 1000. Whether this number is extremely accurate or not doesn’t matter, but it should be in the realm of doable.
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