I am in T1 but also already unlocked T3 and I am having a hard time finding Captain Cireska in Zarbinzet to start the Infernal Hordes line… no Keys dropping, and I am very frustated.
Could anyone help me? Thanks in advance
I have skipped the campaign and went straight into the WITCH SEASON
Compasses should drop freely now. I think I get most of mine from Whisper Caches. I’ve only received maybe 8 though, they seem rarer as compared to Rootholds.
Correct, there is no need to find anyone or do anything to start. Just game and you’ll eventually get compasses as drop or from whisper chests.
its very rare. im actually struggle to get masterwork mats this season because lack of compass. they need to unnerf masterwork mat drops from pit
You are supposed to get Masterwork materials from nightmare dungeons now.
Once again, the original elder of the great Horadrim is correct as always with his identification. The best place to get them is speed running NMDs. They drop in smaller amounts and you can gather them in larger numbers with the season boons.
I can show anyone how to get almost 1k aether nearly every 10 round key t4 pit run which if you dump all that into crafting chests gets you a ton, yet, NMDs are also a great option for anyone who doesn’t know the secret of 2n+a! yet and how it applies to the math in Hordes… but there’s also NMDs for those who don’t get it
As far as I remember there´s a quest que gives a Horde key
Went back and did some runs to check the math on Obducite drop rates, here are the details:
Ran 1 Horde using my 2n+a! optimization method. Achieved about 800 Aether and 4480 Obducite taking only the materials chest. Took 13 minutes total exactly. While this is maybe a low average score from Hordes, using my method, I can almost guarantee 1k and more with every run. Sure I picked a bad option by mistake for a round bonus, however, 800/4480 is a fair average to use for this measurement.
Running NMDs for the exact same time (with the same 3-man team) and clearing every mob, event, and chest within that time limit, as well as us staying together, I acquired about 4000 total. Also used only gold find NMDs incase of any hidden drop rate boost for items (Does not look like there is one and there should be. It’s always been a part of Diablo that there was a boost to magic find. we need that back and I think NMDs are the way to go)
Now, this is just one test and one small sample. There are many factors to go through here. Is staying together and clearing to gather all obducite drops the right method? Is there a specific NMD to do back to back that would actually be higher than a single 13 minute horde? Plus, with the right 3 or 4 man group in horde, I can gaher 1500-1700 k aether every time. If the ratio from Aether to Obducite is static here (probably not) then that much Aether means closer to about 9k Obducite from those runs in Hordes.
Hence, unless there is a specific method designed for farming NMDs back to back to opimize Obducite gathering, Infernal Hordes with my 2n+a! farming method is still the best way to earn Obducite at End-game level content.
While farming Obducite through NMDs is a great viable option and probably better up until end-game and being able to effectively crush a t4 10 key… Infernal Hordes farming though my methodology is better by far for farming Obducite still given the time and effort involved.
Could you explain the 2n+a! Method please?
Sure. Without giving away all the secrets, (2n+a! method is just what I call it)…
2n+a! is a logarithmic function. It’s used for all sorts of things in C suite programming. When you break down the math of the function, it’s two parts. (2n) and (+a!). Both parts are multiplicative, were 2n = 2x in any sort of algebraic sense. In C programming, you use n to stand for the number of your input but that’s not important. The second half, +a! is the interesting part. Without going too in depth into the mathematics, that part is how you expand the function and why it’s so important for programming. Essentially, you expand it by intervals. The same way each round of a 10 round horde is a new interval with new picks to add to the overall machine and the horde itself is an engine to produce aether spawns and aether. You create the function by the choices you make in every round of hordes that equate to the output of aether at the end. The more you kill, the faster you spawn aether events so bbviously you want to pick the options for adding aether above all else to get the most aether overall.
Basically, when you compute +a! you do it in intervals adding +1 to each interval and redoing the same inputs but in math with the ! function, it is factorial multiplying by each interval raising the number of the factorial by 1 each time. 4! = 1x2x3x4 and 5! = 1x2x3x4x5 and so on.
Okay… that’s all for that math part. Do not worry if it’s over your head at all. The only reason I mention that is so it’s easier to put into a spread sheet and compute the numbers possible per each round and to show the numbers in that way. I do not feel like writing it up atm and am planning to do it in a upcoming video on my youtube page. Anyone who sees this who understands the math, can easily do the same pretty easily as a mock up for each round in Hordes.
In Hordes, both part of that equation are represented by the Surging options, the surging elites( 2n) and the surging hellborne (+a!). They are your best possible options to pick in hordes with the Surging HB as the slightly better choice. Surging elites give you 2x elites spawns and, in case you didn’t already know, hellborne are elites. Surging elites also gives you +2 aether to Fiends when they spawn which are also elites. It seems you can only pick this option 1 time in any horde run so it’s a good idea to grab it when you can.
The other half of the equation, +a! is surging hellborne where you get +1 hellborne and +1 aether. Those two parts combined are what give you the biggest multipliers in hordes and why it is almost always best to grab any other elite bonus or hb bonus drops. The weight of the equation is higher on the HB end. Every time you add bonus’ to HB, you expand the iterations of the +a! side of the equation exponentially. You get +1 aether, and you can grab surging HB multiple times to add +1 to the spawns and +1 to aether drops.
Adding those two surging options together in hordes, and grabbing just elite and hb options is mostly all you need. The rest is about the RNG of it all and knowing how to pick the best of the worst possible options when you have to. If you grab 1 Aether rush option, this helps them spawn faster and the faster you kill them, the faster you get more aether events per round. The more little weak mobs you kill faster, you get the most aether for your buck. Other than the one aether rush, invigorating HB isn’t bad to pick in addition because it increases attack speed and cooldown reduction enabling you to kill much faster but a second aether rush option is not a bad idea either if you don’t get invigorating and you never need more than 2 aether rush picks. Taking more lessens the multipliers you can add to the HB/Elites so you have a huge opportunity loss if you take aether rush too much. If you can get just those picks with a 3 or 4 man crew and have good gear with high dps, you will get 1500-1700 aether every 10 rounds. That seems to be the range of the max possible ceiling of aether per 10 round key.
Once you get multiplying with bonus’ to elites and HB, avoid Aether lord spawns at all cost. They are a red herring option designed to hamstring your runs. They are mini bosses who are large bullet sponges and you want to kill more mobs and faster so don’t take Lords. Also, they have no additive or multiplicative bonus’ so if you add aether lord spawns (other than from teeming masses) they spawn in place of those other events and replace what would have otherwise been 5 or 6 HB for 8 or 10 aether a piece. If you do Lords, you only get 3. The reason why teeming masses is fine is because randomly you will get an aether mass anyway and if you spawn a lord from killing a mass, that’s a free spawn of 3 aether that does not take up one of you spawns of HB or elites that give you the most aether for all the bonus’ you have added to it. Adding bursting masses in addition to teeming masses is good because they are both free spawns and add additional aether from the mass and the lord kill.
Those are the major most highlights and the best picks. As for the rest, you’ll have to join me in game and take my master class to go through the rest of the options to know how to determine the best of the worst options. Make sense?
Btw, any fellow code monkeys out there, if you can explain the 2n+a! function, you can pretty much get any job in coding. It is the number 1 question asked in any interview for any programming job these days because it’s that important.