diablo 2 ancient tunnels vs the pit


Magical amulet with mana/life leech and/or magic find. Act 1, Burial Grounds - Off a path beside the Cold Plains The pit, although having each regular monster immune to a single element (save poison) is often preferred. Mastery - Enhances the damage and your chance to hit while using a certain weapon class. Trying to find Deaths Fathom or Griffons but no luck. Failed sets are not an issue in hell, as every monster has a high enough qLvl. Also on right click should be the secondary spells, such as your valk. It protects you from elemental damage, absorbing huge amounts of lightning, cold and fire damage sent at you by enemies. Of course, charms or any items you find whilst MFing can dramatically improve that. 6. First note that your character level (cLvl) has no effect on any monster drops. It does pierce enemies so can disperse of packs. When shopping for charms, look for combat or offensive skills, and life.

Lycander's Aim and Goldstrike are both viable, although the best bow for this build would be a very fast, cruel bow with either +damage or +IAS as a second mod. Cyclone Armour - A synergy for Tornado, but also a useful skill on it's own.

Strafe is usually the easiest way to get rid of rangers, as they run all over and strafe ensures a quick, direct hit. While standing, take a shot with strafe. This list is in no particular order of speed or quality. The same unique cannot be dropped twice in the same game. There is a formula we use to give a prop a level. IAS will be tougher to find, so it's probably wise to socket your bow with a shael rune, if you find that it is too slow. By maxing tornado and it's synergies, the druid is left with some nice maxed skills. As has been said, the strategy when it comes to our WW barb is simple and easy.

We don't need to worry about super uniques as there are none in the pit. We know that all monsters in the pit can drop from the highest TC. Upon reaching your destination, and coming across your first group of monsters, prepare yourself. Main mods to look for in equipment are MF, DR, enhanced blocking, skills, life, and fcr. When you arrive out of town, make your Warcries. And The Pit has to archers packs that can explode you before you can even press Esc to save and exit. Magical boots with magic find mod. The following (may) run into problems with immunities of normal monsters*.

Lastly, a mercenary may be someone to help you out. Generally try and aim for the monster in the middle of the pack. There are several strategies the strafezon can use. 3. I myself run the pits with a Hammerdin carrying 500% MF, and I love him. First off, some builds are more expensive than others. Although not necessary, I take these for the cast rate breakpoint I hit, and the extra skill is nice. Once you come across a pack of baddies, simply unleash a few tornadoes. The upside is that you may end up having more skills, and most definitely more resists. While arrows are shooting you are in "Strafe-Lock" while in this lock, you cannot do anything except watch, so be sure you are always at a safe distance before you begin strafing. 6. Look for MF in weapons. (Death's Fathom, Eschuta's Temper, Rare/Magic orbs), Ist'd Stormshield because of MF, DR and it's CTB.

His playing style is not restricted just to The Pit, but to most areas in the game. An excellent Hammerdin is not an cheap build - but a Hammerdin of average quality, can play through, especially in the pits. Upgrading is not particularly expensive, so making this build is not as expensive as some of the others. Look for that. Oak Sage - This skill summons a sage who can really boost your life at high levels. /players 3, pits full clear at around 2-3minutesish. You need not be partied or within a certain radius of the other 7 players, so you can solo the pit in, let's say, a Baal run.

Know that fireball and meteor are the most damaging skills in your arsenal, if you aren't up against fire immunes, only use orb as help to slow enemies, use the fire skills to damage. This also applies to rares and uniques, but not magicals. There is only a single unique monster that spawns with an immunity to his hammers, and chances are you will rarely, if ever pass by him. While wearing helm, armour, and belt, we lose some MF, but get a lot of other really nice mods - leeches, dexterity and life are only some. Approach a pack of enemies, static and let loose an orb. All MF mods from equipment, or other items are added to our base of 100 MF, and then are further calculated to fit the quality of the item. Look for these mods in other helms. Which factors other than MF affect my ability to find uber-leet items? Though if a pack begins to rush you, cast a decoy, fire a freezing arrow into the pack, and run behind your mercenary and valk, in order to let them take hits. Don't even care tho, I have an insane AT map so I can go to Lost City, tp once and enter AT, clear in a circle and bsck to the gateway, and go clear Pit.

One of these areas is The Pit. Act 2 Nightmare offensive mercenary (Might), (Unique: Tarnhelm socketed with a perfect topaz), Weapon with + to your skills (wands, scepters, orbs), Shield with good chance to block. Magic find affects the quality of the items dropped by different monsters. 1. When shopping for charms, look for any barb skill and life. Holy Shield - This is one of the better skills.

Always be sure that the equipment you choose meets your stats, try not to have it the other way around.

Shout - Gives a boost to your defence, making it harder for monsters to hit you. The only time you should be forced to take hits is when your sage is in trouble. 3. I have had a few experiences first hand with using different builds, but I have also grown accustomed to what others use just by browsing the forums. 3. Because we are already looking at the cheapest build around, I won't include much optional equipment.

Undead means no leeching for physical damage builds, which automatically voids several characters.

Most every piece of gear can be substituted for something else. Look for leeches in an amulet as one ring and this amulet may be all you have if you decide against stealskull. Those are all the common ones that come to mind. Most Bowazons get a Valkyrie and mercenary. If we sacrifice speed for MF, we lose efficiency. By maxing strafe, freezing arrow and its damage synergy, this is fast becoming one of the better Bowazons. If you are ever in a fix, use vigor to kick up some dust and get out. Try for wizspike and lidless wall, they should speed up your teleports.

The best idea is to try and fabricate one character that can run all three of these areas in one go. You should have fairly high resists, but even so, resists are hardly a worry in the pit. With both these tanks you should seldom get hit. Any non-lit/physical builds listed in build section, The Ancient Tunnels So you can see, more MF equals better chance that the item is rare, unique or set. On level 2 of the pits there is an uber chest (Chest that appears on the mini-map and drops many items). Not only is the pit a hot spot for MF, but it also provides excellent XP. This is just a simplified version of the full area level list that has been posted dozens of times. That comes out to around 250MF with the lowest items listed and above 300MF with the higher items. Preferably a good rare that can be later upgraded. Look for leeches in a second ring.

I had a Ber rune drop from the pits the other day. Put a treachery or fort on him, they shouldn't be much of an issue. Look for that. I generally find the Pit a little less boring than AT.

Strafe ~Physical Damage - One of the two main attacks. Decoy - Creates a stand-still duplicate of yourself, another tank to take hits. can usually hit around 600mf no problem, /p1 you only want the unique monster. IAS any place other than the weapon is almost useless to a WWer, so keep in mind only weapon IAS affects WW speed. iLvl is important because it can affect modifiers that spawn on that item (such as enhanced damage or increased attack speed).

Both will require some amount of leech to replenish their mana/life stocks.

The whirlwind barb - the cookie-cutter build of 1.09 still has some ability to kill in 1.10. TC selections for props are hardcoded into the game. Pit runs can provide quick levels, so they are best started as soon as you reach hell and have sufficient equipment to withstand the run.

Most place tornado on left click and all secondary spells on right click. Upgraded Goldwrap, because of affordability, max slots and MF. This is a series of guides, for those who need a slim basis, a starting place, for pit builds. When I'm not pit running, I try my best to find other places that take a while to move through - usually the other level 85 areas. Because caster characters do not attack anything physically, they can concentrate purely on MF. Though Buriza is slow, strafe greatly helps it there.

MF and mana in the rings is your best bet. Runes are purely your own luck in the pit, or anywhere else where monsters have not been given enhanced rune drops (The Countess for example has those enhanced rune drops). Any dual element chars listed in the build section. The formula we use to assign an iLvl to an item is very simple. The downfall to this skill is that it takes time to learn precision. This way has proven to be faster and easier than the Black Marsh route.

5. High defense shield with good chance to block. In the case of the pit, because our area_Lvl is 85, the prop level of the chest on level 2 is 85. Click your whirlwind past the last enemy in the pack you wish to whirlwind through. The only true immunity problems she runs into are when she is faced with a random unique monster that spawned with an immunity to both cold and fire. Cannot be frozen is quite critical here, unless you are teleporting. Precasts are very important here, be sure to recast them if they run out. Tornadoes are almost random in their movements, but after shooting a few, you get used to the different ways they shoot out and can aim properly. Don't take to much worry to ranged elementalists, as your cyclone armour should protect you.

Everything else is just luck. Meteor and frozen orb however are both timered spells, and therefore not as mana dependant and will be much easier to use. The only way to learn to aim is to try it out yourself.

Probably not a required skill as you will be pumping dex, but just in case, here it is. Hope for annihilus and Gheed's as well. Though much slower attack speed, freezing arrow does high damage, and has a splash effect. If you can get pierce in equipment, that is preferred, if not, this skill exists for a reason. p1 584 mf, as fast as possible. Strafe-lock is problematic when dealing with those large crowds, and unless your mercenary and valk are properly placed, strafe can be deadly. The pits, officially "The Pit", is located in act 1. Read through the below Appendices, some of them may be extremely useful to you. Armour - P'Topazed Skullders There is one monster in act 3 that is immune to the hammers, chances are you won't see much of them, if any at all. Pits, poisonmancer, 250mf (350 if I use Ali baba instead of death web), players 3 or 5, full clear in about 2-3 min, no clue how many runs I've done. All undead (no leech for melee), fewer packs I have found that instead of Goldwrap, I can equip arachnid mesh and a 10%Fcr ring. Our MF does not change which item he will drop, it changes the quality of it. If you are looking for all area levels for all difficulties, just search, it should not be that hard to find it. Because uniques and sets, even the lowest level normal ones, are sometimes hard to find on single-player, I will include optionals for them. More items will drop in an 8-player game than in a solo game. Our barbarian has a unique skill, allowing him to loot a monster's corpse with an added MF bonus. Few immunes, all undead (for those clerics), uber chest, no ranged

Sadly, the exceptional to elite recipe is only available to ladder characters. WW is safer in regard to defense and leech, as it allows high numbers of both. He will drop sacred armour whether our MF is 1 or 400. Thanks to farting bob, Stormie, LordChaos, Saiyanora, ChronoBartuc, Wang123, DeamonMonkey, aragorn_elessar, Shade, th5418, Frenzied Bovine, Voice, Sir Charles, DrizzitT, Thanatosia, Reggitsan, Dredd, m0nk and all others who posted help and suggestions for the guide. IstIst Ali Baba, for it's MF, and dexterity. Look for skills in the amulet as a second mod. Several formulas exist relating area_Lvl to the mLvl of different monster types and to different props. Act 2 Hell Offensive Mercenary (Blessed Aim) - Only if you are absolutely desperate for AR (You shouldn't be), Dexterity - Enough for 75CTB with your shield, Energy - Nothing (if lack of mana is killing you, help yourself to some energy, you should have tons of life), [?1] Summon Grizzly (if you need a tank, warning prerequisites), Rhyme Troll Nest, for it's cannot be frozen, blocking enhancements, MF and resists. The strategy with the wind druid is not particularly hard to learn. This ensures that when the orb explodes, the most spikes hit the enemies and the highest possible damage is inflicted on that pack. If melee monsters being to rush you, again, dont panic. Monsters in the pit have high mLvls because of their area level. Battle Command - Temporarily gives you +1 to all skills. This is where her mercenary comes into play. I like blizzard sorc or wind Druid in AT, and hammerdin and wind Druid in Pit. He only has trouble in very enclosed spaces, such as the Maggot Lair. MF in the jewellery is very nice. This speeds the runs up, and I believe it to be more efficient. You can also cast decoys near the edges of your screen to try and lure enemies there to serve them quick justice. This is an option if you find that trouble meets you in the pits. Shop the stores. Once you get used to whirlwinding back and forth between groups, you no longer need to be lined up horizontally, but rather can attack from any angle. Not a timered spell, very mana dependant (especially with faster cast gear). Another passive skill, so nothing to worry about. Ist'd Oculus because of MF, skills, fcr, life, and resists.

Hope for annihilus and Gheed's as well.

Cast rate dependant, this skill creates tornadoes and flings them at enemies. I added a strategy section to each build guide, hopefully that will help out those in need.

This is one of the more useful skills of the barb. I include p8 AT in my exp runs with blizz sorc for 97-98. I included a couple helpful tidbits/tools below. Lastly, several mercenary choices are available to a sorceress, depending on how she is doing. I will include normal uniques, sets or low runewords where they will help. 2. 6. While might is probably the most popular, there are other options. Sacred armour is in armor87, because of this, only monsters that can drop from armor87 can drop sacred armour. Unfortunately I cant edit. MF in the jewellery is very nice. Most equipment can be switched around, especially with the mercenaries. Single element cold sorceress. Really just prerequisites, but they provide minimal aid. Full clear, /players 3, 2-3 minutes a run. Yes the patch may have destroyed these places, but at the same time, it gave birth to a selection of new magic-finding areas in hell.

The strategy with the strafezon is as straight forward as melee/ranged attacks get. The aim with these characters is to take as few hits as possible, while maintaining good damage.

Hammers pierce, and kill multiple enemies. Most questions on item generation are answered in the below sections. Huge list in the build section, The Mausoleum The Worldstone Keep, The Mausoleum and The Ancient Tunnels all share this area_Lvl of 85, along with a few select others. The caster type and the ranged/melee type. Holy Freeze is the most popular for our Hammerdin, as he slows enemies down as they walk into our hammers.

Plenty of keys drop on the way to level 2, so picking one up shouldn't be too much of a hassle. It should taken to note that in regard to rune drops, MF has no effect. After being disheartened having multiple 85+ characters 19 Rares and 1 Failed Set Later - Grail Complete. Act 2 Nightmare Defensive Mercenary (Holy Freeze), Act 2 Nightmare Offensive Mercenary (Might), Act 2 Hell Defensive Mercenary (Defiance), Act 5 Hell Mercenary (Less useful in the pits), Weapon - Reapers Toll, Bonehew, Upgraded Meat Scraper, Dexterity - ~135 (Enough for 75CTB with shield), [1] Meditation (for teleporting with enigma - not necessary), Enigma, for it's MF, skills, teleport, and all it's other great mods. The valk gets a weapon upgrade at level 17, so that's as far as I take her level (with +skills). Note if you decide on this combo, wear both the belt and ring, as both are needed to get the fcr breakpoint. (Nagelrings, Rare/Magic amulet/ring of luck). It's usually good to whirlwind through a pack of enemies, and plan to end up on the other side of them.

Nothing else resists our barbs power. For some of the popular areas, side notes have been made. When looking for MF magical items, try to find ones with extra mods of + to resistances, skills, life or mana. Believe it or not, the pits are not one of a kind - so to speak, and this guide can be adapted to any of The Big Three. When shopping for charms, look for elemental or summoning skills, life, and mana. The Pit is the first Level 85 area found in the game, and the one with the easiest monsters. To get even more picky, set and uniques have quality levels (qLvl). You need usable corpses for this to work, that means no corpse explosion, revive, or RIP spell can have been used on a corpse you wish to redeem. Especially if you're clearing fast. Have whirlwind on your right click, along with all your Warcries, and your physical immune killing berserk on left click. A mercenary is the last thing here.

If you manage to have those extra sockets try throw in some Ist runes. Look for the same in others. Again we can see Tal's partial set is an option. Skullders, for it's MF, and skills.

Blessed Aim - This would be useless if it wasn't a synergy. I know it may seem that way to some reading this, but remember everything in moderation. If a monster wants to have any hope of dropping a unique sacred armour, they must be able to drop from armor87, and have an mLvl equal to or greater than the qLvl of unique sacred armour. (Look to diamonds for reists). If the sacred armour normally has a 5% chance to be set (Immortal King Armour), and we have 100% MF in our equipment or 200% total MF, the chance that the sacred armour will be IK armour as opposed to just plain old sacred armour, has increased to 14.15%. prop level = area_Lvl. The TC that props are able to drop from are not affected by area_Lvl. Upgraded War Travs and Chance Guards simply because of the defence MF and Frw. If you chose not to spend a single point in mana, fireball will not be the easiest skill to use, as it is quite mana dependant. These other areas are listed in Appendix A, and some are covered with slight depth. Twister - Just a synergy really, you most likely won't be using this, as you have the more damaging tornado as a main skill. An added bonus, a collection of five popular pit runner guides have been included in this guide - Meteorb, Hammerdin, Strafezon, Wind Druid, WW Barb. Shael'd Tomb Reaver Cryptic Axe! MF in the jewellery is very nice. Level 1 -- 6-8 packs Level 2 -- 2-3 packs In nightmare and normal, the area_Lvl of the pit is too low to hope for many good drops. When your mana is running low, or if corpses are making it hard to see, switch to this aura, it changes corpses to mana and life, which you receive. This appendix (lowercase 'c') is really just a sub-section of the above (Appendix C: MFing in the Pits (The Guides)). Always remember that sometimes it's good to get out, go elsewhere, so life isn't always ~The Pits~. Full tals, 117fcr setup, 380mf. Keeping that summon alive is among your highest priorities, as in turn, that summon keeps you alive. The other info has been placed into the 3 appendices - one for the character guides, one for the list of level 85 areas, and one containing the popular level 85 areas from that list with some more detail. The mLvl of this normal monster, according to the area_Lvl of the pits must be 85. If monsters remain standing, repeat this in the opposite direction. In the pit, the most prominent props are the dead rogues that scatter the floors and the uber chest on level 2. And although TC66 may not sound like the greatest, keep in mind that runes up to vex can drop, along with shakos, oculuses, and a handful of other uniques. We have a normal Dark Archer in the pits.

also just looking for a griff, have found 3 magic diadems and 1 rare. The MeteOrb sorc is one who uses two element trees - cold and fire.

Full tall bliz in at>full tal light in pits.

This means that the chest will drop items of iLvl 85. Even two element casters will not defeat these foes without another means. Act 2 Hell defensive mercenary (Defiance), [1] Find Item (more than one is unnecessary), [+?] The ancient tunnels I havent had such luck. Main mods to look for in equipment are MF, defence (ladder upgrading comes in here), and mana and life leech. When you do run into the odd physical immune, simply have your berserk skill on left click, and repeatedly click until the monster dies.

Tals belt may be taken instead of Goldwrap, without the rest of the set. Hop back up to the belt for an instant. The chances are increased because more items are dropping, and more quality level rolls are being made to see if the dropped items will be set or unique. Plenty of regular monsters drop good stuff in lvl85 areas. The Big Three, in my mind, are The Pit (both levels), The Mausoleum, and the Ancient Tunnels. Then again, I wrote this immense guide, so my opinion just may be biased. c) It's noticeably harder than the other areas in that list. Cannot be frozen is usually not an issue with sorceresses, as it does not affect cast rate. Inc build, mf, /player count, est. This subreddit is for people who want to discuss Diablo 2 and Diablo II Resurrected. 2. His playing style is not restricted just to The Pit, but equipment changes should be made if you venture elsewhere. You can find the other high level areas listed in Appendix A. There is no real rank that should be assigned. This champion decides he will drop sacred armour.

6. For amulets look for MF and mana or skills second mods. This more or less rolls a monster's drop again, with a slight added MF bonus from the skill itself. Btw I run The Pits with a 380mf, 117fcr light sorc. Increased speed should help you on your way, to wherever you may be headed.

Other more "pure" pit-only builds exist, but keep in mind - pit only. Hope for annihilus and Gheed's as well. If they spread out, or if only a few remain, use strafe to clean them up. When you are up against physical immunes, you're toast without another means. Main mods to look for in equipment are MF, enhanced blocking, skills, and life. I would reduce to p1/p3 before losing any mf with a blizzard sorc.

Taking an example. Because the wind Druid does not attack with his weapon, damage is insignificant, and allows for a lot of MF.

Strength - 100-150 (Only enough for gear), Vitality - ~60 (don't spend more than 50 points here), [5] Penetrate (only if desperate for AR, you shouldn't be), [5] Pierce (use elsewhere if pierce is in equip). You may see that berserk appears to be the faster killer, but remember your defence is reduced to nothing, you cannot leech and the attack speed is much slower than your WW. Try for wizspike and lidless wall, they should speed up your teleports. 4. Upgraded stealskull is the best here, for it's MF and dual leech. Strafe has built in speed, and you shoot ridiculously quickly when strafing. These links will be up as long as geocities' bandwith limits permit them. No normal monster in the pit spawns with a physical or poison immunity. This page was last edited on 14 August 2021, at 09:28. The more MF we get, the less we gain in our chance to find a set item.

Killing a pack with this technique should not take long. Advantages I have covered all questions that have been asked in the 3 previous postings of this guide, along with some ideas that came to me along the way. If you aren't up against lightning immunes use this skill on packs before you initiate an orb or fireball attack. Grizzly Summon - Just a synergy, it is of no real use when we have freezing arrow instead. If you can't find anything that fits your playing style try to make your own builds - this is only the beginning of 1.10, experiment, have fun with your own creations, you may like what you discover. This polearm brings the entire build together. Weapon with a high damage. Look for skills or fcr as second mods.

If you choose to only run one of these areas, pick the one that will be easiest for your build. Wrapping up.

10%fcr rings can spawn with MF, so if you are lucky enough to get one, this combo may be for you.

Super Uniques (SU) are monsters that have a set spawning place and their own drop tables (Pindleskin). The downfall of these areas is that they are filled with undead. Look for MF and skills in other armours. For instance, if a normal monster wanted to drop unique sacred armour, but could not because it's mLvl was not as high as the qLvl of the item, a rare sacred armour with triple durability would drop instead. This guide can also be applied to most of the other new patch areas found through acts 1-3. less mob density than pit but elites are closer to each other and better map layouts/closer to wp. Shako, for it's MF, skills and life. If you can do the pit as easily as the other two, I highly recommend it. The pit is not the only popular location to MF in. The pit has become what it has because several of the popular .09 hotspots have been nerfed, also because the game cannot be played the way it used to in the high acts of hell.

Keep in mind that no other parts of the guide have been edited to follow the same suit as this section, so don't be surprised if you never hear the other two of The Big Three spoken of again.

The uber-chest and it's numerous packs of uniques/champions are other reasons it is preferred, and regarded as the new MF hot spot. Whirlwind ~Physical Damage - Your main attack, the barb will furiously spin about hitting enemies within range. runs/time.

The most prominent being the necromancer or the sorceress.

You clear everything on /p7. Note With this build I like to shoot for really high defence. An exception to this is that, luck permitting, a single monster drops two of the same unique. Look for the same in others. if you go away from lite you should add mausoleum. Learning to aim is like riding a bike, you won't forget.