Grailing / Farming for uniques

[BuFa]

Hey there fellow D addicts :)

I just dusted off D1 from the shelves to prepare for the arrival of D3, and was wondering... What is the most effective manner to actually pursue a grail in Diablo 1?

I read some of Jarulf's guide but it seems some uniques are unattainable (marked as impossible in the tables). Also noticed that the drop chance for uniques is about 8 or 16 times bigger coming from a unique monster (reading Jarulf and making sequence and class diagrams proved to be very confusing).

The thing is, what is the most effective way to grail in D1? IIRC when you kill Diablo the game's over, so no drops from him. As I remember, most bosses or uniques like Gharbad, and Leoric are spawned randomly, on a per-character basis.

Could anyone enlighten me and give me a few tips to work this out?

[ashbourn]

There are a few useful uniques. Many people just do hell runs in the highest diff they can handle. Each lvl will have a few random uniques creatures plus on lvl 15 three Laz and a few other unique creatures around him so that lvl tends to have 6 or more of them. Unique drops are rare and a good unique is even rarer.

Joe
*ashbourn

[Lanthanide]

I don't know what you'd do in single player, but in MP the best run is to Lazarus. You get Laz + his 2 boss witches, and Bloodlust is always on the level somewhere as well (because Red Vex counts as a Hellspawn so Bloodlust will always spawn), then go down to dlvl 16 and find Gorash. Quit and start a new game. That's 5 bosses killed pretty quickly, and Gorash and Laz have the highest mlvl in the game so have the ability to drop the very best items.

[mouseman]

I read somewhere that the difficulty doesn't factor as much as the level you are in. So farming normal hell can be rewarding as well, because it's so fast. Anyone know more about this?

[BuFa]

From what I've gathered reading Jarulf's guide (page 38), item finding for normal monsters should use normal difficulty mlvl always.

Uniques on the other hand, use the corresponding difficulty level.

Thanks for all the great locations for bosses as well everyone! I didn't have time to make a playthrough yet, and I can only anticipate the hours of fun *drools* xD

[Kunzaito]

I read some of Jarulf's guide but it seems some uniques are unattainable (marked as impossible in the tables). Also noticed that the drop chance for uniques is about 8 or 16 times bigger coming from a unique monster (reading Jarulf and making sequence and class diagrams proved to be very confusing).


All uniques are attainable in single player, but some of them are astoundingly difficult because they require you to find two uniques of the same item type (and probably qlvl?) in the same game, during the same play session. Since MP doesn't track what items are owned or generated in each game, if an item with multiple uniques of the same quality is rolled, the first one in the table will always drop.

Something like that, anyway. Jarulf explains it in detail.

Basically, with that and the unique quest items, the only way to truly grail is SP.

[Lanthanide]

I read somewhere that the difficulty doesn't factor as much as the level you are in. So farming normal hell can be rewarding as well, because it's so fast. Anyone know more about this?
For finding unique items, yes, that is correct.

As I put in my post above, the highest mlvl bosses in the game are Gorash and Lazarus, at mlvl 30. The regular monsters that are mlvl 30 are Advocates, Blood Knights, Soul Burners and something else (Balrogs?). Cabalists are mlvl 29.

In NM and Hell, the mlvls are increased by 15 and 30 for combat, as well as for finding magic affixes. I believe most magic affixes cap out at around qlvl 30 anyway, except for some of the very high-end ones like Holy and Emerald which are qlvl 60, and other ones are even higher (like Godly is 75 or something, so will never actually drop in the dungeon).

So farming uniques in Normal/Hell should be good enough, but if you want to find the really good magic items (and make sure to look up Jarulf's to see if you're wasting your time or not), you'll need to farm Hell/Hell.

[weakwarrior]

For finding unique items, yes, that is correct.

As I put in my post above, the highest mlvl bosses in the game are Gorash and Lazarus, at mlvl 30. The regular monsters that are mlvl 30 are Advocates, Blood Knights, Soul Burners and something else (Balrogs?). Cabalists are mlvl 29.

In NM and Hell, the mlvls are increased by 15 and 30 for combat, as well as for finding magic affixes. I believe most magic affixes cap out at around qlvl 30 anyway, except for some of the very high-end ones like Holy and Emerald which are qlvl 60, and other ones are even higher (like Godly is 75 or something, so will never actually drop in the dungeon).

So farming uniques in Normal/Hell should be good enough, but if you want to find the really good magic items (and make sure to look up Jarulf's to see if you're wasting your time or not), you'll need to farm Hell/Hell.

Incorrect. The items get the boost of 15 in nm and 30 in hell, but the prefixes and suffixes stay the same. The only time this comes into play is if you are looking for something with a low prefix on a high base item - people looking for cursed items sometimes want a rusted full plate or the like. For useful items it is irrelevant. The only exception is with a handful of low level, but sometimes useful, uniques, but even they can be found on nm difficulty more easily than on hell difficulty.