Guide:Level 85 Magic Find Areas v1.10

Level 85 areas are the levels in D2X, v1.10+, in which the highest level items can be found from every boss monster. Both levels of The Pit, located below the Tamoe Highlands, is the best known and most popular of these, due to its convenient location and generally weak monsters.

The following is excerpted from the Magic Find Guide by Hrus.

Diablo II Strategy Guide Info:

[edit]

Patch: v1.10
Gametype: PvE/PvM
Guide Topic: Magic Find
Class: Amazon, Assassin, Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, Paladin, Sorceress
Author: Unknown

lvl 85 Areas[edit]

Lvl 85 Areas and number of boss packs:

Level	Min Boss Packs	Max Boss Packs
Mausoleum	4	5
Pit Level 1	6	8
Pit Level 2	2	3
Maggot Lair 3	4	5
Ancient Tunnels	6	8
Forgotten Temple	2	2
Ruined Fane	2	2
Disused Reliquary	2	2
River of Flame	6	7
Chaos Sanctuary	6	7
Worldstone Keep 1	6	8
Worldstone Keep 2	6	8
Worldstone Keep 3	6	8
Throneroom	4	5

In these areas, you will not get more uniques and sets than in other areas, but you can get any uniques and sets here. It's because TC of monsters are upgraded with the monster level to the highest possible TC, so monsters here drop from TC87 with high chance. The drop distribution for Devilikin in the Pit is the same as for Death Lord in Throne of destruction.

Here are the list of different TCs for monsters in these areas:

Regular melee monsters:

"Act 5 (H) H2H C": picks 1, NoDrop 100, gld 21, "Act 5 (H) Equip C" 16, "Act 1 (H) Junk" 21, "Act 5 (H) Good" 2

Bow using regular monsters (like Dk.Archer in Pit or Flesh Archer in Act3 Temples):

"Act 5 (H) Miss C": picks 1, NoDrop 100, gld 18, "Act 5 (H) Equip C" 13, "Act 1 (H) Junk" 18, "Act 5 (H) Good" 2, "Act 5 (H) Bow B" 6, Ammo 3

Regular Caster monsters (like Dark Lords, Demon Sprites, Horror Mages, Grotesques, Hierpophants, Hell Witches, Shamans) :

"Act 5 (H) Cast C": picks 1, NoDrop 100, gld 18, "Act 5 (H) Equip C" 15, "Act 1 (H) Junk" 18, "Act 5 (H) Good" 2, "Act 5 (H) Magic B" 7

Regular Wraith - type monsters (like Wraith and Strangler)

"Act 5 (H) Wraith C": picks 1, NoDrop 75, "Act 5 (H) Good" 4, "Act 5 (H) Magic C" 25

Champions (no matter if it is a wraith or melee monster)

"Act 5 (H) Champ C": picks -2, "Act 5 (H) Citem C" 1, "Act 5 (H) Cpot C" 3.
"Act 5 (H) Citem C": picks 1, gld 60, "Act 5 (H) Equip C" 37, "Act 5 (H) Good C" 3
"Act 5 (H) Cpot C": 2 potions.

So champion always drop 2 potions and gold or item (gold with ratio 3:2).

Bosses (no matter if it is a wraith or melee monster)

"Act 5 (H) Unique C": picks -3, "Act 5 (H) Uitem C" 1, "Act 5 (H) Cpot C" 2
"Act 5 (H) Uitem C": picks 1, "Act 5 (H) Equip C" 58, "Act 5 (H) Good C" 4

So bosses always drop one item and 4 potions

Minions have the same TC as regular monsters, but their mlvl is higher by 3, in lower lvl areas, their TC would be probably upgraded, but being in lvl 85 areas, there are no higher TC. Though items they drop have slightly higher chance to be higher magic quality, because the algorithm is based on mlvl-qlvl.

Bow TC leads to special TC tree filled with bows only, ammo means arrows or bolts, Magic TC means scrolls and/or mana potions. Good TC means jewelry, gems and runes and Junk TC contains various potions, keys, ammo, scrolls etc. Equip TC contains of course armors and weapons.

Note about archers: Somebody might come with a "good idea" to hunt Pit archers for a Windforce (TC87), because they have higher chance to drop bows. That's actually not true (at least for Windforce). They drop from "Act 5 (H) Bow B" - that means TC87 bow with low chance. This TC actually lowers the chance of getting Hydra Bow from the main "Act 5 (H) Equip C" TC (TC87 high chance). So they drop less Hydra Bows than melee monsters.

The chance to get unique item differ slightly for different types of monsters according to their type (h2h/cast/miss). And of course champions and bosses have higher chance for unique/set items.

Now let's take our 400MF character and take a look on probability to get Death Cleaver again (ATMA):

Boss: -- 1:40,647 Champion: -- 1:103,028 P1 H2H: -- 1:1,751,293 P1 H2H minion: -- 1:1,738,139 P1 Miss: -- 1:2,155,438 P1 Miss minion: -- 1:2,139,248 P1 Cast: -- 1:1,868,046 P1 Cast minion: -- 1:1,858,631

P2 H2H: -- 1:1,072,667 P2 H2H minion: -- 1:1,064,610 P2 Miss: -- 1:1,320,206 P2 Miss minion: -- 1:1,310,289 P2 Cast: -- 1:1,144,178 P2 Cast minion: -- 1:1,135,584

P3 H2H: -- 1:864,701 P4 H2H: -- 1:766,190 P5 H2H: -- 1:722,408 P6 H2H: -- 1:689,571 P7 H2H: -- 1:678,626 P8 H2H: -- 1:667,680

Because bosses, champions, minions and regulars in lvl85 areas drop from the same "equip" TC (armors and weapons) that includes all other "equip" TC, the rate between number of unique items dropped by bosses/champs/regulars is allways around the same. The only varying thing is the mlvl-qlvl difference used as the base for unique check. Of course regular monsters are only lvl 85, so they can't drop some items.

If we ignore the small difference between H2H, missile and cast monsters and the difference between regulars and minions, we can bring this equation:

1 boss = 2.5 champions = 43 P1regulars = 26 P2regulars = 21 P3regulars = 19 P4regulars

Note: The rate is different for jewelry.
Note2: I didn't include higher than P4, because it's not accessible in SP, also it is the same player bonus when you clearing the Pit solo in full game. Higher player bonus also doesn't change the no-drop chance much.
Note3: Pindleskin drops as 2 alvl 85 bosses (alvl 83 bosses for precision) - he cannot drop the uqlvl87 uniques though.

Set items (MF400, chance for IKSC):

NBoss: -- 1:15,208
NChampion: -- 1:38,450
NP1 H2H: -- 1:639,273
NP2 H2H: -- 1:391,555
NP3 H2H: -- 1:315,641
NP4 H2H: -- 1:279,682

The rate is the same as for unique items (or almost the same).

So which player settings is the best for running lvl85 areas? With using the previous equation and counting average 150 regulars/minions, 8 bosses and 6 champions in the Pit:

PX -- boss+champ+regular -- drop ratio

NP1 -- 8+2.4+3.5 = 13.9 -- 1
NP2 --8+2.4+5.8 = 16.2 -- 1.16
NP3 -- 8+2.4+7.1 = 17.5 -- 1.26
NP4 -- 8+2.4+7.9 = 18.3 -- 1.32

So you have to clear P4 Pit in less than 1.32xP1 time to get the same number of unique/sets, and that is not really doable. The best player settings for getting uniques/sets is P1. However if you do these areas not only for u/s, but for all valuable items like runes, charms, socketables, it's probably good idea to increase the player settings little bit. I use the P2 bonus most of the time (/players 3 command).

When we are talking about socketables, we can show, how MF affects number of socketed items for runewords. For simplification, we will count only Berserker Axes from regular monsters in lvl85 areas (mlvl=qlvl, so we will work with the base chance)

Chance for higher magic quality:

Magic Find	Unique	Set	Magic	rest (%)
0%	1:400	1:160	1:100	1.34 ~95%
100%	1:234	1:87	1:54	1.17 ~91%
200%	1:190	1:66	1:40	1.11 ~87%
300%	1:169	1:56	1:33	1.80 ~82%
400%	1:158	1:50	1:29	1.70 ~79%

With 200 MF You get only 8% decrease in number of white (grey) items from regular monsters, while you have 2.11 x better chance for unique items (from all monsters)!

Regular monsters drop uniques with low probability and they can't drop uqlvl 86 and 87 items, so it is a good idea to skip killing them and focus only on bosspacks. Especially on SP, where you can learn where bosspacks spawn on your mapseed and you can make the runs faster when only killing bosspacks. Drop Ratio (for Pits) is 8+2.4=10.4/13.9, that is 0.75 (against P1 fullclear).

List of lvl85 areas and monsters there:[edit]

Mausoleum: Skeleton (LI), Hungry Dead (LI); contains lots of chests including some superchests and 1 sparkly chest. Also you can include killing Blood Raven, she has special drop (TC66 at maximum)

Pit: Devilkin (FI), Dark Archer (LI), Dark Stalker (CI), Bone Warrior (CI); 1 sparkly chest

Maggot Lair (lvl3): Black Locust (PI), Death Beetle (LI), Rock Worm (PoI), Sand Maggot (PoI), Scarab (LI); contains lots of superchests, and possibly 2 superuniques (Beetleburst in Far Oasis - max TC78, Coldworm the Burrower - max TC84). Lvl 1 and 2 of Maggot Lair are lvl84 areas, where also all uniques can be dropped.

Ancient Tunnels: Embalmed (PoI), Horror Mage (LI), Invader (FI), Plague Bearer (MI); 1 sparkly chest

Kurast Temples: Blood Diver (FI), Bone Scarab (LI), Flesh Archer (CI), Serpent Magus (CI)

River of Flame: Abyss Knight (LI), Blood Maggot (PoI), Grotesque (CI), Maw Fiend (PoI), Pit Lord (FI), Strangler (LI), Urdar (no), Venom Lord (FI); Hephasto the Armorer - special drop up to TC84

Chaos Sanctuary: Oblivion Knight (CI), Doom Knight (FI), Storm Caster (LI), Venom Lord (FI), 3 superuniques (up to TC84), Diablo (up to TC84)

WSK + Throne: a lot of various monsters with various resistances; Baal minions and Baal.

Which area to run[edit]

It depends on the build. Generally running in the Chaos Sanctuary and WSK is more rewarding because of the final boss, but the monsters there are tougher for most of the builds. The areas not worth to run are Kurast temples (too small) and River of Flame (Stranglers don't drop any equip items, Blood Maggot youngs and Grotesque dogs don't drop any items at all). Sewers lvl 2 is also lvl85 area, but has only 1 bosspack usually, so I didn't include it in the list.