Holy Grail Berserker

[Mest666]

Hi.
I had a topic on d2jsp (mf barbarian challenge) which was closed due to dumm moderators, they literally closed it because people spammed there (2 people and 1 stopped like week ago). Idiot who is spamming some jokes about Shako and how I couldn't get 6 perfect gems in Act1 normal is more important than 150 pages of updates.

First I did "get unique from every superunique & boss" challenge, so I don't have to find any bullshit items like Knell Striker, later I found Enigma runes (that took 150 hours...) and now I'm doing Holy Grail, 10 items left (actually 9, but the new item hasn't been posted yet.) I'm uploading most important things on my channel - latest upload -

Most of it was done on hardcore players8, except Travincal & Countess (for runes only). Now I switched to players1 to finish it faster (It took 81 hours from item -12 to -11). Killspeed went up from 170 bosses/champions per hour to, let's say, 275. 360 hours (+ 20 hours of cows) passed since item number -100, equivalent of ~8500 Pit runs.

Items left/ chance to find from unique monster/ chance of already having

Barb has 687 mf, pretty standard setup, what is unusual is amulet (Highlord's Wrath), since I needed damage for players8 game, without it I would have low light res too and I doubt I'll craft 2barb, fcr light res mf amulet, so I'm not gonna change it.

Zod rune/ 1/2,9 m/hard to say
Tyrael's Might/ /1/ 377k/ 22%
Stormlash/ 1/133k/ 51%
Wisp Projector/ 1/120k/ 54%
Schaefer's Hammer/ 1/91k/ 64/%
The Cranium Basher/ 1/73k/ 73%
Spirit Keeper/ 1/56k/ 82%
Skull Collector/ 1/47k/ 86%
Steelrend/ 1/43k/ 90%
Steel Pillar/ 1/36k/ 93%

 

[sir_cyclops]

I loved your post on jsp and told a friend about it so he could follow it! You’re so hard core to commit to that initially. It’s impressive you stuck with farming p8 for so long also. Good luck! Welcome to the best d2 community

 

[Jamie]

Jsp is toxic on all levels. I occasionally go over there to check out what's happening currently on b.net, but it's generally forums of unhelpful, childish, trolls who think they are better than everyone else.

They condone botting and I have had many arguments with them about how botting, dulling and hacks in general, are toxic to the game and ruin Diablo 2. They think the game is better being cheated to death, when the game could be absolutely perfect and amazing with a large legit community(like here!). Except online with a bigger community. But finding this community changed me forever .

Even the single player people use fishy programs, that are escaping my name right now. The one that gives huge stashes, diablo clones, ubers and adds a lot of things.

Part of me has felt that implementing a proper way to fight DClones (selling a SoJ or set amount in a game, as they are rare in legit play) and possibly doing ubers would be cool and possible. But I don't know how everyone else feels about it, and I am 100% happy with this community of people who love the game for how it is, without having to do things to get the upper hand over fair players.

I remembered the SP mod thing I was thinking of. Not approved here, but jspers almost all use them during their SP endeavors and walkthroughs. My edit removed the name of it, because it came to me at the end of this original posting and I used its name, which is a no no I hear.

Thank you @T72on1

 

[T72on1]

Better remove that mention of a forbidden mod ...

 

[Mest666]

I loved your post on jsp and told a friend about it so he could follow it! You’re so hard core to commit to that initially. It’s impressive you stuck with farming p8 for so long also. Good luck! Welcome to the best d2 community

Thx for nice welcome, bro

Jsp is toxic on all levels. I occasionally go over there to check out what's happening currently on b.net, but it's generally forums of unhelpful, childish, trolls who think they are better than everyone else.
@T72on1

Yeah, from now I'll only visit it around ladder reset

Posting 40 hours of updates, so total 400 hours (since 100 items left), almost 10 000 Pit runs.
I found 2 new items which is great, also few epic drops that dropped before.
For the first time I found extra strong fanaticism multishot archer with unique devilkin which had might aura (not sure since merc killed him in 1 second). That could have been epic fight on /players8 with amp dmg.
I changed merc's armor to wealth, and helm to Stealskull, got 850 mf on merc kill.
I don't think I can post screenshots so let's just write what other items I found/crafted (except those in video):

13 Not-Wisp-Projectors
Demon's Arch #5
Maavina's Caster #5
Jalal's Mane #4
Kira's Guardian #3
Soul Drainer #4 & #5
Doombringer #2
BlackOak Shield #4
Naj's Puzzler #5
Nosferatu's Coil #4
Gargoyle's Bite #3
Immortal King's Soul Cage #5
Head Hunter's Glory #5
5fhr 17mana sc
2 nec 16fcr 14 fire res amulet
Steel Shade #5
The Oculus #5
Stoneraven #3
Wolfhowl #4
Ormus' Robes #4
Ondal's Wisdom #4
Gladiator's Bane #3
Executioner's Justice #5
5-5 Light RBF

Summary picture and probabilities near the end of the video (5:58)

Edit: got item number #8! and it's eth, epic find
I'm afraid Tyrael's Might (or Zod) will be last item to find. If you know what is the probability for this, let me know (it's hard maths)

 

[Mest666]

New Pit map with marked monster density - every circle is 1 boss/champion pack during 50 runs.
Average number of bosspacks on level 2 is 2,5. I think I'll stay here for a while. Doing one hour test runs to estimate mf speed.
Meh, only 285 packs per hour, 7,5 bosses per run, only dense areas.
(oh, I can add images now)

 

[Luhkoh]

nice I love the hand drawn map!

 

[Jocular]

According to silospens drop calc you're looking at pretty long odds. 1:380000 for tyreals might given your mf%.

And zod I believe is around 1:5000 or so, but that isn't taking into account the rune drop rate, which is 1:200 I think?

Someone more knowledgeable should come by shortly.

edit: OH, you mean in relation to the other items in your grail duh

 

[Gripphon1]

That's the coolest boss tracking method I've seen. Also very practical.

There are few little things about establishing good teleporting path on a map

1. Ignoring locations which are isolated and spawn bosses rarely (once per 5 runs or so)
2. Testing the map density again with established teleporting path

Second is important because I've seen that teleporting path actually influences where bosses will spawn SOMETIMES. Most obvious example was one CS map with one location where boss spawned pretty much all the time. Unless I visited one platform two screens away from it, then bosspack never spawned there, ever. On my current AT map I've also seen the same behavior of the map - when I checked whole map for bosses, occasionally they spawned in one hall, sometimes even 3-4 at once. However, once I decided to check other teleporting path ignoring that part of the map, they pretty much never spawn there. Upon finishing run I returned to that hall to check and there's nothing there. I ended up having 6.2+ bosspack map by ignoring area where I've seen multiple bosses spawn. Crazy, right.

While my observations aren't scientifically verified by doing a lot of data, I tend to believe teleporting path could influence where bosspacks will spawn. CS example was super obvious and I kept getting same result over and over again upon trying and concluded if I don't visit that questionable platform, I'll see bosspack two screens away from it. As incredible as it sounds.

So, this is why I think map should be first checked when it is rolled for density, and then again to establish ideal teleporting path in case it really influences the bosspack spawn locations. With the same logic it might be worth checking promising map by changing teleporting path to see will bosspack density actually change.

EDIT

Rare spawning locations might be worth visiting if map density for that run is low. Then the chances are good to find bosses at those rare locations. On my AT map if I don't find any boss in the first two rooms (super rare), I'll check that hall I talk about and it will have bosses. On my Pit map I have small area I tend to ignore unless map density is low, then I do two extra teleports to check is boss there since chance is higher to find him there then. Or so I observed for my map.

EDIT 2

Another obvious and proven observation across thousands of runs. If on my pitmap I find two champion packs in the first room (only them, not any bosspack), first level will never have more than 4 bosses, most commonly it has only 3. No matter where I check bosspacks simply don't exist then. Maps have their behavior which can be explored.


Of course of all that talking I forgot the proof anyone can see for themselves, the "magical line" in Travincal which de facto influences spawn location of minions. I tend to believe same applies for bosspack spawning on the map according to our teleporting path - to be proven in the distant future.

 

[ffs]

On my Pit Berserker map I observed a similar pattern as you described – if there is no boss spawning in my initial spawning locations, I often find them spawning in another part of the map that normally doesn't spawn any packs. I made similar observations on other maps.

But I could never pinpoint this to any behaviour on my part. I've tried teleporting very differently on purpose, hoping to find something like the Travincal paths on Pit maps, but always concluded it's not related to teleporting. At least I couldn't see any kind of pattern. (Then in some cases it can be ruled out for sure, for example boss packs that spawn very close to the entrance – meaning they have spawned before even the first teleport and cannot be affected by it.)

Now what you describe on your CS map is interesting because it's just that kind of pattern. I never found anything like that.

Could be that teleport path does matter, but maybe similar to racks that are further away from a WP. Slight deviations in teleport path can mean they drop very differently, so maybe similar to that bosses spawn differently with only minor differences between teleport paths. Either way I'd assume it's near impossible to reliably control spawning locations that way... But definitely this is an interesting topic.

 

[Fruit]

@Mest666
The on-paper drawn map is possibly the best Diablo II related thing I've ever seen.

@Gripphon
Si, route matters; max_segments and spawned_segments are factors in deciding whether or not a group should be upgraded from regular to unique. It calculates (spawned_segments * 100 / max_segments) and evaluated the result against the result of a random roll of 100 (seeded by the segment). If the result of the random roll is less, then the group is upgraded to unique. If the result of the random roll is greater or equal, then it will do another random roll of 100 (again using the segment's seed), and if the result is below 6, the group is upgraded to unique.

Once MonUMin (from levels.txt) has been reached, it will skip the first random roll, so it no longer uses max_segments and segments_spawned, but in stead only does the 6% chance per group to be upgraded to unique. Once MonUMax has been reached, it will no longer upgrade any monster to unique. (These counters do not include hardcoded packs or super uniques.)

If a group has been upgraded to unique, only then will it do a random roll of 100, and if the result is below 20 then the unique group is "upgraded" to champion.

As for this "max_segments"; based on the map seed, the game already knows how many segments each area consists of at the start of a game, and this number is stored in the struct of any area. This struct also stores how many random unique packs have spawned thus far, so whenever a monster group is spawned, this number will be checked, and whenever a group is upgraded, this number will be incremented.



So basically, the more you have explored of an area, the higher the chance per group is to be upgraded to unique. So generally speaking you should see less packs at the start of an area, and then it quickly ramps up as you move/teleport around. Though once MonUMin has been reached, it becomes a simple, steady 6% chance per group until MonUMax has been reached.

That would also explain why a different route affects unique spawns, because the segments_spawned will be different by the time that segment/group is spawned, which will affect the chance for the group to be upgraded to unique.

And based on the size of an area, its hardcoded density, RNG, and the way this MonUMin calculation works, sometimes areas end up having less packs than MonUMin.



Edit: These deviations that you see are fault of the "game seed"; this can be considered the master seed, and is responsible for fueling the spawns and seeds of the vast majority of units, either directly or indirectly. There is no way around this randomness, as this game seed is very random, and can not be influenced by us as players. It is generated each time you start a game, and among things uses "low-level" timers (like the time elapsed since booting your system). So even though this "magic line" is real, there are also things beyond your control.

In earlier patches, some things were not seeded by this game seed, but in stead by the map seed, thus the game was much less random in a lot of places, even allowing duplicate items, as pre-expansion time travelers know. Later patches however appropriately made some changes in this area, increasing randomness.

 

[sir_cyclops]

@Fruit, is there a neat takeaway here that: if you know the density of a tile is on one side, you want to explore the other side first so as to increase the odds of upgrades to uniques?

 

[Luhkoh]

@Mest666 Also meant to say sick finds on the last video and the second eth templars was hilarious. Keep up the good work! If you're interested in doing so, I think you should write a spf-style "patmat thread" for your barb where you tell about the superunique project you did and post it here. I think that would be a big hit. It was a lot of fun reading through it in your wt.

@Fruit excellent work!! I think people have been wondering about the intricacies of the boss spawns for a long time. Or if it's been known, it's not been communicated often. I know @Albatross was wondering about some of this stuff in his excellent guide.

 

[Albatross]

Indeed I have. Several other people have figured out something interesting is going on regarding TP path/spawns. I was never able to verify or disprove this though, so I decided to keep speculation out of the guide.

Luckily for us, @Fruit seems to be on a code digging spree I'll revisit this info when I get back into the hunt for Tyrael's.

Since I'm dropping in your thread like this.. @Mest666, welcome aboard and good luck in completing the grail!

 

[ffs]

So basically, the more you have explored of an area, the higher the chance per group is to be upgraded to unique. So generally speaking you should see less packs at the start of an area, and then it quickly ramps up as you move/teleport around. Though once MonUMin has been reached, it becomes a simple, steady 6% chance per group until MonUMax has been reached.

Indeed that is quite the crucial piece of information IMO. I'm not sure how I can use it to improve Pit runs on my map at least, but currently I'm running CS for RFL and I'm almost positive it makes quite a difference. I'm doing "Gripphon runs" for max XP (2 seal P8 runs, using extended teleport to CS center), and the more boss packs I get apart from Vizier + Infector the better.

More testing needs to be done, but I am pretty sure I get more extra boss packs when I zig-zag to the first seal, instead of teleporting a straight line as I always used to. Surely it's related to the map seed as well, but I am sold on the general "exploring results in higher chance of bosses" notion. Thanks for sharing this @Fruit.

Sorry to derail the thread @Mest666.

 

[T72on1]

Very interesting !!! We need a Fruit knowledge database stickied here somewhere. With a TL;DR section for lazy people like me .

 

[Mest666]

As a noob I won't comment advanced D2 knowledge above.
Meanwhile I lost my map (this is why I'll never roll map for hours), but got another one, which is good (about 290x1,54 drops per hour)

Map & 3rd rune drop for RFL.

I also stopped identifying unique rings (have 5 atm), will do it after 50 hours of item finding.
BTW, is there any limit of pictures per post?

nice stuff! i think limit is 10 pics per post. Youre supposed to keep RFL findings secret till the round ends. Dont want that sick rune you found to spur someone onto a second set That stash is lookin godly

thx for info
It looks like I'll get 0,1 points less for 2nd 20 hours than I got for the first.

 

[Luhkoh]

nice stuff! i think limit is 10 pics per post. Youre supposed to keep RFL findings secret till the round ends. Dont want that sick rune you found to spur someone onto a second set That stash is lookin godly

 

[Maltatai]

There's a limit of 20 pictures per post (forum smileys don't count as pictures) if they are hosted on another site at least. I think 10 is the limit for those hosted on the forum itself.

The thread is an interesting read by the way, even though I never engage in the kind of dedicated item-hunting. Agree so much on the opinion of the other forum too.

 

[Mest666]

Time for updates, 50 hours, only 1 new item that dropped like 45 hours ago.
1 epic find. Finally Legendary Mallets started dropping again, so now I have 3 Stone Crushers.

Garbage/boring items:

Gladiator's Bane #4
WolfHowl #5 - not posting again since it's 5th
Wraith Flight #4 & #5
Spike Thorn #4 and #5
Blackoak Shield #5
Ondal's Wisdom #5
Cranebeak #4
Warshrike #2 (lol)

Nice items:

Spirit Ward #3 and #4
Medusa's Gaze #4
Rixot's Keen #2
Stone Crusher #2 & #3
Eth Scalper & Eth Deathbit
Felloak #3 & #4
The Gnasher #3
Carin Shard #3 & #4
Boneflame #3 & #4
7mf sc #22
18l 8lr sc
Jalal's Mane #5
4 tornado 39life helm
Veil of Steel #3?
Gargoyle's Bite #4 & #5
Trang Oul's Wing #4 & #5
Ribcracker #5
Thundergod's Vigor #5
Griswold's Redemption #4
Griswold's Honor #3
Darkforce Spawn #2
Halaberd's Reign #5

Very nice items:

Windforce #2

Epic items: -> video