Changes

Item Generation Tutorial

40,008 bytes added, 14:22, 12 May 2008

→‎Magical

Magical Items:

1. # Find them2. # Use quest3. # Reroll (replace the affixes of the item, using a cube recipe)

Using the quest on magical items will give that item 1-2 sockets, with equal chance of getting 1 or 2 sockets. This method can be used when desired affixes appear on magical items. Some affixes only appear on magical items and socketing such items will allow them to get more affixes from runes, gems, jewels. One such prefix is the +3 skill tree affixes.

Rerolling is like getting another item with completely different affixes, but it shares the same item type and quality. The magical rerolling recipes are kind of interesting and can be used creatively.

You may socket originally unsocketed unique and set items using Socketing Quests. It always adds just one socket.

=Affix selection=

Magic, rare and crafted items have randomly generated affixes. At the beginning of affix generation process the game must decide how many affixes will have the given item.

When Magic Items are created the chances are:

* Both Prefix and Suffix: 25%

* Only a Prefix: 25%

* Only a Suffix: 50%.

Rare Items are really just Magic Items with more than two Magical Prefix/Suffix with a special name. The names of Rare Items are not connected to their stats, so their name is not helpful in describing what stats might be on a Rare Item. The names are randomly generated, however, some names will not appear with some prefixes and suffixes. Rare Items have 3 to 6 magical properties or Magic Prefixes or Magic Suffixes. There is 1/4 chance for every affix number to be generated.

Each magical property picked will have a 1/2 chance of being a Prefix or a Suffix, but there will never be more than 3 Prefixes or 3 Suffixes on the same Rare Item. A Prefix or Suffix will never be picked more than once. Only one Prefix or Suffix will be picked per Prefix or Suffix group. This means for example, if the Prefix Wyrm (+41-60 Mana) is chosen, Dragon's (+31-40 Mana) will not also be chosen since it belongs to the same Prefix +Mana group. Prefixes and Suffixes of the same types (such as Magic Find, Light Radius, Attack Rating) can be chosen. Only members of the same group cannot be chosen.

Crafted Items have 1-4 Random Magical Prefixes/Suffixes

On top of those fixed properties, a Crafted Item can have from 1-4 standard Rare and Magic Prefix and Suffixes. These are generated pretty much the same way as a Rare item.

* At ilvls 1-30, there's a 40% chance of 1 affix and a 20% chance each of 2, 3 or 4 affixes.

* At ilvls 31-50, there's a 60% chance of 2 affixes and a 20% chance each of 3 or 4 affixes.

* At ilvls 51-70, there's an 80% chance of 3 affixes and a 20% chance of 4 affixes.

* At ilvls 71+, there's a 100% chance of 4 affixes.

When an item is generated that has prefixes the alvl is calculated* from ilvl and qlvl as follows:

If (ilvl>99) then {ilvl=99}

if (qlvl>ilvl) then {ilvl=qlvl} ;** see note below

if (magic_lvl>0) then {alvl=ilvl+magic_lvl}

else

{

if (ilvl<(99-qlvl/2))

then {alvl=ilvl-qlvl/2}

else {alvl=2*ilvl-99}

}

If (alvl>99) then {alvl=99}

* <nowiki>*all calculations use integers so there are no fractions at any step.</nowiki>

* <nowiki>** this new ilvl value is only used for the duration of this calculation. The ilvl value that is stored in the items data file will remain unchanged.</nowiki>

Now that the game has decided which prefixes are available for allocation, they will have to select their prefix from the multiple choices in the given group. These are done by the frequency column.

Frequency determines the probability that an prefix is selected, a higher frequency = a greater probability.

Assuming: Mod1freq=5, Mod2freq=3, Mod3freq=2, Mod4freq=1

and you can get only Mod1 & Mod2, then your probabilities would be:

* chance to get Mod1 = 5 / (5+3) = 5/8 = 62.5%

* chance to get Mod2 = 3 / (5+3) = 3/8 = 37.5%

and if you could get all four,

* chance to get Mod1 = 5 / (5+3+2+1) = 5/11 = 45.5%

* chance to get Mod2 = 3 / (5+3+2+1) = 3/11 = 27.3%

* chance to get Mod3 = 2 / (5+3+2+1) = 2/11 = 18.2%

* chance to get Mod4 = 1 / (5+3+2+1) = 1/11 = 9.1%

You can also use maxlevel to filter out the 'lower quality' prefixes at the higher level. By setting the maxlevel so that there is an overlap, you will always have that type of prefix available at all levels, while effectively keeping the prefix pool powerful.

For example, imagine that Normal difficulty Pindleskin has dropped Small Charm with a suffix only. What probabilities of what suffixes you have?

Set Ilvl=45 /* (Normal Pindleskin) */

Set Qlvl=28 /* (Small Charm) */

/*

Ilvl>Qlvl

Ilvl<99-Qlvl/2 (45<85)

*/

Alvl=Ilvl-Qlvl/2 /* Alvl=31 */

Select * from MagicSuffix.txt where itype1=scha, spawnable=1, level<=31

Here is the query result list (number in brackets is frequency):

of Dexterity (4),

of Greed (4),

of Fortune (3),

of Life (4),

of Substinence (4),

of Strength (4),

of Blight (2),

of Venom (1),

of Frost (2),

of the Icicle (1),

of Flame (2),

of Fire (1),

of Shock (2),

of Lightning (1).

There is two entries "of Dexterity" because they are different suffixes with the same name. One of them is "+1 dexterity", another -- "+2 dexterity". "of Strength" suffixes have the same particularity.

Total frequency is 43. It means that our charm has 4/43 chance to have "of Dexterity +1" suffix and 1/43 -- "of Venom".

Another interesting properties of items that gives you bonuses to a skill or even to a skill tree is called "Staffmods". They are neither prefixes no suffixes. They are basic item properties like durability.

Claws with staffmods are (itemtype=h2h2)

* Hand Scythe

* Greater Claws

* Greater Talons

* Scissors Quhab

* Suwayyah

* Wrist Sword

* War Fist

* Battle Cestus

* Feral Claws

* Runic Talons

* Scissors Suwayyah

1st tier skills

* Fire Trauma (read fire blast: Uzziah)

* Claw Mastery

* Psychic Hammer

* Tiger Strike

* Dragon Talon

2nd tier skills

* Shock Field (shockweb)

* Blade Sentinel

* Quickness (Boost of Speed)

* Fists of Fire

* Dragon Claw

3rd tier skills

* Charged Bolt Sentry

* Wake of Fire Sentry

* Weapon Block

* Cloak of Shadows

* Cobra Strike

4th tier skills

* Blade Fury

* Fade

* Shadow Warrior

* Claws of Thunder

* Dragon Tail

5th tier skills

* Lightning Sentry

* Inferno Sentry

* Mind Blast

* Blades of Ice

* Dragon Flight

6th tier skills

* Death Sentry

* Blade Shield

* Venom

* Shadow Master

* Royal Strike (read Pheonix Strike: Uzziah)

Base tier to use for an item is determined by the ilvl as tier: ilvl range

* 1: 1-11

* 2: 12-18

* 3: 19-24

* 4: 25-36

* 5: 37+

then there is a random adjustment made for which tier to actually use when selecting the actual skill:

* 20% chance to add 1

* 50% chance to stay unmodified

* 20% chance to subtract 1

* 10% chance to subtract 2

Low quality items have their max tier capped at 4.

The game will then randomly select among the 5 skills at that tier.

The +X bonus is set by a RND[100] (this will give a range of values from 0 to 99) and if the item is an imbue it will add ilvl/2 (drop fractions).

If 90 or above, +3

Between 60 and 89: +2

Lower than 60: +1

The total skills on the item will have been set by a RND[100] and if an imbue add ilvl to that random number.

If 91 or above: 3 skills

Between 71 and 90: 2 skills

70 or lower: 1 skill

Staffmods are broken into tiers. Each tier is typically all skills available at a given level.

All staffmods are randomly created by a function of RND[100]. Basically a number is generated between 0-99, and certain rules apply to determine if and when +skills are given. Then another RND[100] is run to determine the magnitude of the +skills given. Imbuing increases the RND[100] number so you have a better chance of getting the +3, 3 different skills.

The following item types can get staffmods:

* wands

* scepters

* staves

* claws (only as listed above, lower claws can not have staffmods)

* class-specific items (claws separated because not all of them can have staffmods)

Of these items all but druid pelts, barb helms, paladin shields, necro heads appear on weapons. This will intuitively make one think I can reroll using the chippy and such recipes. You can and it will set your ilvl to 25 or 30 respectively that means a base tier of 4. This means that the item could only have tier 2 staffmods from the subtract 2 clause. But what about the tier 1 staffmods like tiger strike?

Before I mentioned that some staffmods are extremely hard to get. Low level assassin staffmods are the prime example. You can not get a low ilvl/qlvl claw to drop with low level staffmods, you also can not drop the ilvl low enough with magical rerolls. But you can get the rare reroll to drop your item down to ilvl 1 using a character level 1 muling character.

Note this means that you can not get these staffmods as an untwinked character.

=Item Generation at Shops=

Almost all trading information are stored in weapons.txt and armor.txt files. Remember the long chapter 4 in the beginning of the guide? It is there for a reason!

All items at shops have ilvl=clvl+5. In normal difficulty there is ilvl caps for every Act:

* 12 for act 1

* 20 for act 2

* 28 for act 3

* 36 for act 4

* 45 for act 5.

In Nightmare and Hell item levels are not capped.

After the game has calculated ilvl it selects item types to spawn using fallowing algorithm. All ilvl>=25 items will spawn with magic quality.

Normal difficulty:

# Create item type list with all normal items, that have positive number in *Max field or in *MagicMax field of respective vendor in wepons.txt, armor.txt and misc.txt files (e.c. CharsiMax, GheedMax, CharsiMagicMax), except items, that have qlvl higher than ilvl.

# Exclude all magic items, that have ilvl<*MagicLvl (e.c. CharsiMagicLvl).

Nightmare difficulty:

# Create item type list with all normal items, that have positive number in *Max field or in *MagicMax field of respective vendor and NightmareUpgrade="xxx", except items, that have qlvl higher than ilvl.

# For all items, that have positive number in *Max field or in *MagicMax field and NightmareUpgrade="xxx", there is (ilvl*64+4000)/100000 chance to be upgraded to exceptional and be added to the list.

# For all normal items, that have positive number in *Max field or in *MagicMax field of respective vendor, add to the list items, whose codes are in NightmareUpgrade field, except those with NightmareUpgrade="xxx".

# Exclude all magic items, that have ilvl<*MagicLvl (e.c. CharsiMagicLvl).

Hell difficulty:

# Create item type list with all normal items, that have positive number in *Max field or in *MagicMax field of respective vendor and HellUpgrade="xxx", except items, that have qlvl higher than ilvl.

# For all items, that have positive number in *Max field or in *MagicMax field and HellUpgrade="xxx", there is (ilvl*128+5000)/100000 chance to be upgraded to exceptional and be added to the list.

# For all items, that have positive number in *Max field or in *MagicMax field and HellUpgrade="xxx", there is (ilvl*16+1000)/100000 chance to be upgraded to elite and be added to the list.

# For all normal items, that have positive number in *Max field or in *MagicMax field of respective vendor, add to the list items, whose codes are in HellUpgrade field, except those with HellUpgrade="xxx".

# Exclude all magic items, that have ilvl<*MagicLvl (e.c. CharsiMagicLvl).

The game will not spawn exceptional or elite items if clvl<25.

* Note 1. In nightmare and hell you will not see items, that have item type code in NightmareUpgrade and HellUpgrade fields, e.c. Large Axe, Club, Wand.

* Note 2. After clvl>=20 all items will spawn with with magic quality. However most vendors have MagicLvl=255 for many items. So that items will not be spawned.

Here is nice algorithm of game's mechanic:

Pseudocode for determining whether a vendor/item combination is available:

__if vendorMax > 0 and qlvl <= 24 and ilvl_cap >= qlvl

____Normal range = qlvl -> 24

__if (vendorMax > 0 or vendorMagicMax > 0) and vendorMagicLvl is not 255

____if vendorMagicMax > 0

______Magic range = max(qlvl,vendorMagicLvl) -> 99

____else

______Magic range = max(qlvl,vendorMagicLvl,25) -> 99

__if normal range and magic range both exist

____if ilvl is in either range

______item is available

____else

______item not available because we're too low level, highlight it

__if only a normal range exists

____if ilvl is in range

______item is available

____else

______item not available, maybe because we're too low level, maybe because we're too high level, highlight it appropriately

__if only a magic range exists

____if ilvl is in either range

______item is available

____else

______item not available because we're too low level, highlight it

__if neither range exists

____item not available, don't even list it

The calculation of magic affixes in shops is the same as when an item is dropped by monster. Look at previous chapter.

=Gambling=

Item types that are available for gambling are determined by a character's level. See the [[Base Item Levels]] here.

Item levels are determined by an equation:

ilvl = clvl + rnd[10] - 5

(i.e. from clvl-5 to clvl+4)

The chances for every quality are:

* Unique: 1/2000

* Set: 1/1000

* Rare: 1/10

* Magical: 1797/2000

Here are the equations used to determine whether or not the item will become exceptional or elite:

* exceptional = 1 + (ilvl - excep qlvl) * 90 / 100

* elite = 1 + (ilvl - elite qlvl) * 33 / 100

Magic Find in no way affects gambling.

Affixes are generated as always. See chapter 11 for details.

=Ethereal Items=

This is quite simple. Armor or weapons have 5% chance to be ethereal. Indestructible items (bows, xbows, phase blades) cannot spawn ethereal. The exception to this rule is an ethereal item socketed by a Zod rune, or some unique items that are always ethereal and indestructible.

Set items cannot be ethereal. Shopped, imbued and cubed items cannot be ethereal either.

=Runes and charms generation=

These items are covered here since they are much asked about. They are not special in their properties or creation though, and follow the same rules explained elsewhere. All information about their odds are stored in our favorite TreasureClassEx.txt file.

The reason of the fact that jewelry, runes and gems are a bit "special" is that all that items usually combined together into one treasure class, for example Hell Baal drops all his rings, amulets, jewels, runes, charms and gems from "Act 5 (H) Good" TC.

This chapter is organized into several examples about rune, charm and gem generation.

==Hell Mephisto.==

He seldom drops jewelry, runes, or gems, but when he does they're very good. Here's why:

As we see in TreasureClassEx.txt Hell Mephisto makes 7 picks from "Mephisto (H)" TC. For every pick he has 3/80 chance (~3.75%) to drop from "Act 4 (H) Good" TC, that contains all runes, charms and gems, that he can drop.

"Act 4 (H) Good" TC has 1 pick from following TCs:

* 60/130 chance to drop from "Jewelry C" TC,

* 4/130 - from "Chipped Gem" TC,

* 10/130 - "Flawed Gem",

* 14/130 - "Normal Gem",

* 28/130 - "Flawless Gem",

* 14/130 - "Runes 16".

"Runes 16" TC has 2/47274 chance to drop r32 item (Cham Rune), 3/47274 chance to drop r31 item (Jah Rune) and 47269/47274 chance to drop from "Runes 15" TC (other runes).

Got it? I'll summarize the chances for better understanding.

The chance that Mephisto will drop at least one Cham in p1 game is

1-(1-((3/80)*(14/130)*(2/47274)))^7= ~0.0001196%

(Actually this calculation is a bit simplified and a bit incorrect, because Mephisto may have 6 picks, last seventh pick will be skipped if he will generate 6 items for 6 picks.)

==Hell Cow==

Normal Hell Bovine has Mlvl=81 at Hell difficulty and drops from "Cow (H)" TC. "Cow (H)" TC contains 1 pick from "Act 5 (H) Good" TC with 3/160 chance in players1 mode (~1.88%). "Act 5 (H) Good" TC has 1 pick from following TCs with following chances:

* 60/130 - "Jewelry C" TC,

* 4/130 - "Chipped Gem" TC,

* 10/130 - "Flawed Gem",

* 14/130 - "Normal Gem",

* 28/130 - "Flawless Gem",

* 14/130 - "Runes 17".

Accordingly, Hell Cow has around 0.87% (it is (3/160)*(60/130)) chance to drop Jewelry (a ring, an amulet, a jewel or a charm), 0.4% to drop flawless gem and 0.2% to drop a rune.

==Specter in Hell Worldstone Keep Level 3==

Wraith type monster drop more jewelry, gems and runes then any other monster. Specter in Hell Worldstone Keep Level 3 has Mlvl=85 and drops from "Act 1 (H) Wraith B", which is upgraded to "Act 5 (H) Wraith C" TC. "Act 5 (H) Wraith C" TC has 1 pick from "Act 5 (H) Good" TC with 4/104 chance (~3.85%). The contents of this TC you may see in previous example.

==Death Lord in Hell Worldstone Keep Level 3.==

Death Lords do not drop runes at a higher rate; it's just included here to compare his drops with Cow's and Wraith's ones. Death Lord in Hell Worldstone Keep Level 3 (bloodlord5) has Mlvl=85 and drops from "Act 5 (H) H2H C" TC. It has 1 pick from the same TC as in previous examples, "Act 5 (H) Good", but only with 2/160 chance (~1.25%). As you see, it is much lower.

I could include here description of other popular sources of runes, gems and miscellaneous jewelry, but the goal of this guide is not to describe all of them, but to show how you may calculate the drop chances by yourself.

=Quest drops and Andariel Bug=

If you'll look into monstats.txt file attentively, you'll find that for every monster there are four TC columns for every difficulty of the game. For Hell they are TreasureClass1(H), TreasureClass2(H), TreasureClass3(H) and TreasureClass4(H). It is so because normal monsters, champions, uniques and Act Bosses drop from different TC. For example Dark Stalkers in The Pit level 1 at Hell difficulty have "Act 1 (H) H2H C" base TC when they are normal, "Act 1 (H) Champ C" when they are champions and "Act 1 (H) Unique C" when they are unique (don't forget that the TCs are upgraded according to their Mlvl).

TreasureClass4(*) column is filled only for Act Bosses. When you kill them, completing their quest, it means at very first time at this difficulty, they drop from TreasureClass4(*) TC. After that they drop from TreasureClass3(*) TC, that usually has slightly worse chances of good items.

In patch 1.10 there is interesting bug. After you kill Andariel and talk to any NPC (as most players do), she begins to drop items from her quest TC after every following kill. The bug was fixed on the realms, but persists in single player.

=Object Drops=

From what TC do objects drop items? In TreasureClassEx.txt file there is a group 6, that stores all information about object drops. The name of that TCs is like "Act 5 (H) Chest C".

The TC of the objects, presented in given area, is calculated using Area Id. Please don't confuse this number with Alvl, - it is different value. Area Id is also stored in Levels.txt file, though.

Chest drops don't get TC upgrades.

This is the table used to get highest/lowest id for acts:

* 2 = act 1 (low)

* 37 = act 1 (high), actual highest is 39

* 41 = act 2 (low)

* 73 = act 2 (high), actual highest is 74

* 76 = act 3 (low)

* 102 = act 3 (high)

* 104 = act 4 (low)

* 108 = act 4 (high)

* 109 = act 5 (low)

* 132 = act 5 (high)

Then it uses this formula to determine the A/B/C class for the tc:

value = (highest - lowest + 1) / 3

if levelid is < lowest+value, A

if levelid is < lowest+(value*2), B

else C

For example, The Pit level 2 has AreaId=16, value=(37-2+1)/3=12, AreaId is not < lowest+value (16<2+12 isn't true), AreaId is < lowest+(value*2) (16<2+24). Pit's chest at level 2 drops from "Act 1 (H) Chest B" TC.

Each chest has (monlvl1/2 + 8)/100 chance to have a lock. It is important, because locked chests usually drop more items (monlvl1 is a field from levels.txt file).

Chests drop items exactly like monsters, except they don't have 6 items cap and they drop from their own TCs. Items quality calculation is also the same with monsters, except special chests that have fixed bonuses for dropping unique, set, rare and magic items.

Sparkling chests have the most complicated drops. You may recognize them in the game by quite a large quantity of items that they drop. Some sparkling chests are sparkling, like the chest in The Pit Level 2, but some sparkling chests are normal looking.

As Jarulf found, sparkling chests have six options with the fallowing chances:

* 2% chance of option #1

* 4% chance of option #2

* 6% chance of option #3

* 20% chance of option #4

* 30% chance of option #5

* 38% chance of option #6

At option #1 it will do a drop from the respective chest TC trying to generate unique item. However many items, like keys, arrows, gems, runes may only be normal quality. If the game didn't generate at least magic quality item, it will make second drop from the respective chest TC trying to generate unique item. If it didn't generate at least magic item it will go to option #6 process.

At option #2 it will do a drop from the respective chest TC trying to generate set item. If the game didn't generate at least magic quality item, it will make second drop from the respective chest TC trying to generate set item. If it will not generate at least magic item it will go to option #6 process.

At option #3 it will do a drop from the respective chest TC trying to generate rare item. If the game didn't generate at least magic quality item, it will make second drop from the respective chest TC trying to generate rare item. If it will not generate at least magic item it will go to option #6 process.

At option #4 it will do a drop from the respective chest TC trying to generate magic item. It will repeat chest TC drop until 3 magic items will be generated or it will have 10 drop tries.

At option #5 it will do a drop from the respective chest TC trying to generate magic item. It will repeat chest TC drop until 2 magic items will be generated or it will have 10 drop tries.

At option #6 it will do a drop from the respective chest TC trying to generate magic item. It will repeat chest TC drop until 1 magic item will be generated or it will have 10 drop tries. Then it will make up to 4 drops from chest TC with no desired quality, so using normal quality selection algorithm (it means that it uses MF).

That is how sparkling chests generate items. As you see your MF is almost not working at all.

Now we will look at other chests, those that are normal. If a chest is locked it will drop two times, if not — just one time. Note, that a chest TC has 4 picks and 100/142 chance for NoDrop.

For normal chests the game uses normal quality selection method.

Before NoDrop test the game will test the chest for dropping from its TC at all. There is 25% chance for every chest to drop from its TC. Locked chest always drop from their TC (although they still have NoDrop, so they still may don't drop any item).

After that tests it will make two drops from chest TC for locked chests or one for non-locked. If it did't generate at least magic item it will repeat the drops up to 10 times until it will generate at least magic item.

Crates, corpses, jugs, logs, boulders, stashes, cocoons, goo piles, dead guards, caskets, beds and sarcophaguses always drop from chest TC.

Urns, rock piles, baskets, jars, barrels have 21% chance to drop from chest TC.

Also in the game there is one more type of chests, special chests. They looks like normal, but usually drop more items. For example the special chests are located at the ends of Arcane Sanctuary. Such objects have fixed qualities. 95% of special chests drop magic items only, 5% of them drop only rare items. Of cause this is applied only to items with variable quality, not potions and scrolls.

=The Countess=

There is no need to explain her drops in separate chapter, she isn't special. However people usually accent their attention on her, because she is excellent source of middle level runes.

The Countess has the most complicated TC by far. You'll note she has a -2 in her TC row; that means she gets 2 drops but that they are not random, she drops left to right across her TC until she reaches 2. Since her TC contains only Countess Item 1 and Countess Rune 1, it means she drops once from each of those TCs.

Countess Item has 5 drops as you saw. It is otherwise not much different than the other special monster TCs. She has a no-drop of 19 (very important) and gold, equip, junk, good. She will do all 5 of these drop attempts first.

After the Item drop she moves on to the Countess Rune TC. This has 3 drop chances with a simple 5/20 no-drop and 15/20 direct from a Rune TC for those yummy runes. However, remember the 6 drop limit. This isn't a limit on drop chances, just on total drops. If she drops 5 items in her Item drop, she can only drop one more from the Rune (although she still gets 3 chances to do so). Best for us is if she drops less than 5 items from the Item drop so there is room for all 3 Rune drops. Complicated. Only monster where it is actually better to kill her on players 1, so nodrop is higher, so Item drops are less etc.

Let me look at her drops more closer. She drops from her own TC, "Countess" in Normal, "Countess (N)" in Nightmare and "Countess (H)" in Hell. I'll look at most interesting TC, "Countess (H)", others are just similar.

* "Countess (H)" ALWAYS do one drop from "Countess Item (H)" TC and another drop from "Countess Rune (H)" TC.

* "Countess Item (H)" TC may do 5 picks from "Act 2 (H) Good" TC with 3/67 chance of each in /players1 mode.

* "Act 2 (H) Good" TC may do one pick from "Runes 14" TC with 14/130 chance.

* "Countess Rune (H)" TC may do 3 picks from "Runes 12" TC with 15/20 chance of each in /players1 mode.

* "Runes 14" TC contains all runes up to Lo.

* "Runes 12" TC contains all runes up to Ist.

So, Hell Countess has 1-(1-(3/67)*(14/130))^5=2.39% chance to drop at least one rune from El-Lo range, and (1-(5/20)^3)=98% to drop at least one rune from El-Ist range. That is why she is so popular.

=Crafting=

Crafted items are always created it the cube using Rune+Jewel+Gem+Item recipe.

==Common Mistakes==

Using the wrong recipe - often people can not get the recipe for the item type correct. Make sure that you look up or memorizes recipes before you use them. The crafting recipes always follow this form: 1 Pgem, 1 Jewel, 1 rune, 1 magical item.

Using an item type other than magical - I see this all the time "why won't this rare chain glove work in this recipe?" You need to use blue items known as magical items when crafting that is a specific factor in crafting.

Using the wrong character to craft and getting upset at the results - In crafting character level is important as it gives the affix levels (alvl) possible with that craft. Using the character level you can control crafts to give a specific required level or less, chance at specific affixes, and # of affixes on the craft.

Expecting a craft to retain affixes - simply put some people expect a craft to just gain affixes. Like a reroll (see later section) crafts get rid of the affixes on an item and roll new affixes, a craft is specific in that it contains certain affixes and adds additional ones.

Looking for Ethereal crafted items - Many as of late have been asking about getting Ethereal crafted items. As I have been informed they do not exist. If you use an ethereal item in a craft it loses its etherealness.

==Character Level and affixes dealing with crafts. ==

Clvl effect how many affixes can spawn with a craft. This chart explains what chance you have of getting what number of affixes:

* At ilvls 1-30, there's a 40% chance of 1 affix and a 20% chance each of 2, 3 or 4 affixes.

* At ilvls 31-50, there's a 60% chance of 2 affixes and a 20% chance each of 3 or 4 affixes.

* At ilvls 51-70, there's an 80% chance of 3 affixes and a 20% chance of 4 affixes.

* At ilvls 71+, there's a 100% chance of 4 affixes.

clvl and ilvl control alvl of crafts by controlling the final ilvl that the craft receives. It follows this formula. ilvl = int(.5 * clvl) + int(.5 * ilvl). The int() means that you round down before plugging through the equation. Affixes control the required level of the craft. The formula is rlvl = rlvl(of highest affix) +10 +3x (#of other affixes). So if you have a craft with 3 affixes and the highest affix has a required level (rlvl) of 12 your required level for that craft is 12 + 10 + 3*2 = 28. Since character level controls affix level and the # of affixes that can spawn it also controls the rlvl of the craft.

==Summary==

With crafts you want to have a range of characters at different levels in order to control affixes. Work out what rlvl and affixes you would like and use an appropriate level character to craft your items. Gambling or buying items guarantees initial ilvl (within reason) so it is usually the best way to get your base item. Otherwise check ilvl with ATMA or any other method before crafting it. Doing this can save you some heart ache (crafted chain gloves with a rlvl of 80?). Crafts can not be rerolled and are pretty much an end result. They are treated as rares by the socketing quest. On a further note they can not be upgraded; at this time, perhaps in some future patch it will be possible, I speculate that if they become upgradeable they will use the rare upgrade recipe.

Again, see chapter 11 for algorithm of affix selection.

=Imbuing=

Imbuing is the act 1 quest reward that Charsi gives. It takes a normal quality item and makes it a rare quality item. The imbue quest can not be used by a char with a level lower than 8. The imbue quest sets the ilvl to character level plus four. In equation form: clvl + 4 = ilvl

Once you get your item level you are not quite done. The alvl needs to be determined so that you can get your affixes. See chapter 11 about it.

Should the Imbue be used right away, or saved for later? There are pros and cons to both.

Using it right away guarantees you a rare of your choice of item. This can be beneficial when playing untwinked. However, that item will be based on your current character level and thus the affixes allowed will be lower than they could be.

Saving the imbue quest for later allows you to get better affixes at the character level you desire. However, often people forget about the quest or they already found rare/unique/set items that can be greater then the imbue so they feel it's a waste to get the imbue.

=Cubing=

Cubing is a process of creating items by player in The Horadric Cube.

==Magical item rerolling recipes==

* 3 chipped gems, 1 magical weapon = 1 magical weapon with 1-2 sockets; ilvl 25

* 3 regular gems, 1 socketed weapon = 1 magical weapon with 1-2 sockets; ilvl 30

* 3 flawless gems, 1 magical weapon = 1 magical weapon with 1-2 sockets; ilvl 30

* 3 Perfect gems, 1 magical item = 1 magical item; ilvl=ilvl (here the item level won't change.)

One look at the above list should be raising red flags in everyone's mind. What weapons only, does that mean that other magical items can not be rerolled? No it means that only weapons can be rerolled and have their item levels controlled by the reroll recipe. The perfect gem recipe is dependent on the initial ilvl. It is important to remember that 3 pgems is the only way to reroll magical items other than weapons and that the ilvl does not change. Since the ilvl and item type do not change the item will be able to get the affixes that it could get before the reroll only.

If one uses the 3 chippy recipe then the 3 pgem recipe they end up with a magical item with 0 sockets and an ilvl of 30. Yes the 3 pgem recipe does not carry over the sockets from the other recipes, that is why one should keep with the chippy recipe when rerolling weapons. That recipe always has 1-2 sockets in it, with a 50% chance of 1 or 2 sockets. The extra sockets can be filled with jewels in order to make the magical item a custom rare item.

Please notice that the regular gem recipe uses socketed weapons. It doesn't matter what type of weapon it is as long as it has sockets from any method of socketing. Even uniques and sets with sockets will be rerolled as base items with this recipe.

Grand charms often rerolled using the 3pgem recipe. The grand charms are typically rerolled to gain the +skill tree prefix. Since that prefix occurs when grand charms have an ilvl of 50 or more one should make sure that the grand charm they are rerolling has an ilvl of 50 or more. (ilvl=50+ grand charm has 1/28 chance to have +skills prefix as I practically tested, WoL)

Small charms are rerolled for all kinds of prefixes and suffixes, +life, +resist, MF, whatever is desired. One should check the prefix/suffix required ilvl and make sure the small charm is that ilvl or greater. On a further note the qlvl of small charms is 28 which by the equations above that in general ilvl has to be 14 greater then alvl desired.

In general use the pgem recipe to reroll magical items and you get an item with the same ilvl. With the alvl you are able to spawn any affix that has an equal or lower alvl. Only those affixes will be able to spawn on your newly rerolled item. Using pskulls for this recipe is wasteful since pskulls are a required gem type in other recipes like the reroll for rare items.

A trick, you can use the chippy recipe with high qlvl items and still get alvl's in the 60 range for the +skill trees, cruel prefix, and other higher level affixes. Also with a set lower ilvl you can get low tier staffmods. With this information you can make some really powerful weapons for 4 out of 7 character classes, for the other 3 classes of characters you can use this to manufacture rares to your taste.

The reason this trick works is that when qlvl > ilvl the qlvl controls the equation. From the above equation set: "if (qlvl>ilvl) then {ilvl=qlvl}" this says that if the qlvl is greater then the ilvl used in the equation will be the qlvl. This is the whole reason your able to find small charms of life in the blood moor. The small charms have a qlvl of 28 thus even with an ilvl of 1 they have an alvl of 14 after following the algorithm (see Chapter 11).

WARNING. A reroll recipe gets rid of all affixes on an item, this includes staffmods, placed gems, placed runes, and place jewels. Better be careful not to place your uberly manufactured rare (adjusted magical reroll with jewels) in with 3 gems of any type. The results can really make one upset.

==Rare item rerolling recipes.==

There are 2 recipes for rerolling rares.

* 1 pskull, 1 SOJ, 1 rare item = 1 rare item; ilvl = 0.6 ilvl + 0.6 clvl

* 6 pskulls, 1 rare item = 1 rare item; ilvl = 0.4ilvl +0.4clvl

These recipes have there limits. The 6 pskull recipe after about 5 iterations will take the ilvl to 0.66 of your character's level, rounded down.

This can be used in your favor. Say you wish to have an ilvl of 1 you can mule the pskulls, the item you wish to be at ilvl and a cube to a newly made character. Within 30 pskulls you have a ilvl 1 item.

On the other hand the 1 skull 1 SOJ recipe will not always increase the ilvl of the item. In fact the function is quite odd. Take for example a ilvl 20 rare, if you have a clvl of 13 or less you end up lowering the ilvl of the rare. If you have a clvl of 60 your ilvl will max out at ilvl=90. So one general rule, the recipe will max out at 1.5 times the clvl value. This means constant rerolling with the pskull, SOJ recipe should be done with a character that is 2/3 the level of the desired ilvl range.

Again knowing how this formula works can control what ilvl the rare you create will be.

Over all rerolling rares can be expensive, so much so that most beginner players don't consider doing it. Even experienced players avoid relying on it. It can be the only way to get certain combinations of affixes and staffmods though which makes for an ideal use of this type of reroll. Like drops however, it is all a matter of luck. A simple equation for estimating amount of gems needed to reroll a specific affix is 3 * (the denominator of the chance to spawn a specific affix) = #of gems provided that the alvl will be high enough for that affix.

=Circlets and Magic Level=

Chapter 11 lists the algorithm of affix selection.

When an item is generated that has prefixes the alvl is calculated* from ilvl and qlvl as follows

If (ilvl>99) then {ilvl=99}

if (qlvl>ilvl) then {ilvl=qlvl} ;** see note below

if (magic_lvl>0) then {alvl=ilvl+magic_lvl}

else

{

if (ilvl<(99-qlvl/2))

then {alvl=ilvl-qlvl/2}

else {alvl=2*ilvl-99}

}

If (alvl>99) then {alvl=99}

<nowiki>*all calculations use integers so there are no fractions at any step.

** this new ilvl value is only used for the duration of this calculation. The ilvl value that is stored in the items data file will remain unchanged.</nowiki>

Notice lines number 2 and 3. They means that 1) Ilvl for affixes cannot be lower than qlvl of given item, 2) if the item has magic lvl, than it receives much higher alvl.

What is magic_lvl? It is Magic level, special bonus for special items. It could be found in weapon.txt and armor.txt files. All Wands, Staffs and Orbs have magic_lvl=1. Circlets have magic_lvl=3, Coronets have magic_lvl=8, Tiaras have magic_lvl=13, Diadems have magic_lvl=18. Other items don't have it.

Look at Diadems. They have Qlvl=85 and magic_lvl=18. This means that they ALWAYS have Alvl=99. Refer to above algorithm for details.

Look at Tiaras too. They have Qlvl=70 and magic_lvl=13. So Tiaras always have Alvl=83+.

=Rune making in Hell Forge=

The Hellforge is the second quest in Act IV. In Normal difficulty this quest rewards you with a rune from El-Amn range, in Nightmare - Sol-Um, in Hell - Hel-Gul. The chance for every rune to be dropped is 1/11.

Hellforge runs is popular in multiplayer games, where fast teleporting character can level new character to Hell Hellforge in very shot period of time.

=Magic Finding=

[[Magic Find]]ing (MF) deserves special chapter, because all you can do to increase your chances to find good items from certain monster in players1 mode is only to increase your MF.

What is MF? It is "+% Better Chance of Getting Magic Item" property, that can be found on many items in the game, topazes are most popular of them.

What MF do? It increases your chances at magic, rare, set and unique items. 100% MF doesn't means that all items, that you find will be magic. It means, that the chance of item to be magic will be doubled. MF have diminishing returns for finding rare, set and unique items.

What is MF diminishing returns? Effective MF=(MF*Factor)/(MF+Factor), where Factor=250 for unique items, 500 for set items and 600 for rare items.

Is there a cap on MF? Yes, implicitly. When you stack up your MF your increase your chance to find unique, set, rare and magic items. There is a cap on this chances. For example the cap in unique item chances for Act bosses is 50% (calculates from itemratio.txt as 128/(6400-(6400*983/1024))). Practically you'll never reach this cap, so don't afraid to increase your MF.

Will MF work on Runes? No. MF works only when item type is already selected. So with more MF you will NOT get more weapons and armors and less runes.

Will MF help getting better Items from Gambling? No.

Will MF work with Minions and Hirelings? Yes. When you make a kill, you get the MF% of yourself only. When a Hireling gets a kill, it uses the combined MF of the Hireling and you.

Does number of players in the game increase the chances for an item to be unique? No, it just increases number of dropped items and thus the number of unique items found. Only MF increases the chances for an item to be unique.

Does MF work on chests? Yes, MF DOES work on every objects: chests, rocks, dead bodies, urns, etc. See chapter 17 for exact description of object drops. Special chest have fixed quality chances, though.

How exactly MF works? It increases the chances for item to be unique/set/rare/magic by EffectiveMF/100 times. For example, Baal dropping an Unearthed Wand has 128/1984 chance to generate unique when you have 0% MF and 128/992 chance, when you have 167% MF.

=1.11 Drop Changes=

As you know this patch didn’t change much. Most updated was dedicated to new Uber bosses.

So the only thins that changed in the game is:

* Fangskin no more drop items in Hell

* Countess, Summoner and Nihlathak drop keys, that slightly reduce there other drop chances.

=Credits=

Warrior of Light is chiefly reponsible for this tutorial. Thanks also go to Hammerman, Ruvanal, St0rmie, and Uzziah for major portions.

=Thanks=

Wowcool

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