Where should be the best place to look for a +3 nova orb?
Wish I could find something with +x Light Mastery, but that's not really important atm.

Just a tip, try picking up every orb u see drop. Demon heart is a big one. Everyone time i see a white or grey demon heart drop i take it, look at the stats quickly, and chuck it if its bad. Do this on every orb you see drop and you will eventually get the mods you want. Same goes for scepters, targes, and whtaever else.

If you plan for later in the now you will end up with the items you want.

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Been doing that for the last 96 levels, curse my luck lol.

Since Nova is a lvl 12 skill, your best bet would be mid-late act1 in normal. Loader up a game and clear darkwood - outer cloister and see what you find.

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I was never more at home than I was in battle. - Solomon Kane

Was hoping for one with +light mastery or ts as well, probably best if I just stuck myself into an a5 tundra run wouldn't it? ^^

wrong.

your best bet would be the level of the skill/skills that you want.

if you want nova only, you go to an area where monsters are around lvl 12-16.

if you want something with mastery on it, youll have to kill level 36 monsters...somewhere in mid to late act3 i think.

however, the higher the level of the item, the less of a chance you have at finding it. there are more item types, more uniques/sets/rares/blues at higher levels than at lower levels. like furycury said, getting a lvl 12 nova orb is pretty easy because you wont have to deal with any uniques (level 20 or lvl 40 sorc orbs), higher level item bases (exceptionals, higher end normal stuff like ancient armors and high damage weapons). I wouldnt worry about the mastery too much...it should already be maxed and with all the +skills, mastery damage, and %skill elemental damage, a couple of extra skills on mastery wont do shit. remember, the chance of you finding the orb you want (seems like a 3 nova, 3 tstorm, 3 mastery) is next to nothing on somewhere like bnet where a few thousand people play at a time. with even the 30-60 people here, something like that doesnt come around really at all. stick with looking in mid act 1 and youll find that a 3 nova orb is a lot easier than you think. tundra wont offer crap for you; you will just find a bunch of everything.

I'll spam a full game in a3 then, thanks much

*loads 8 loaders*

Having more people in the game would be counterproductive.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

How so? More item drops isn't it?

Not from random trash monsters - which are the ones likely to drop your orb. What you want is the fastest MKS (Monster Kills per Second) to get your white item.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

Strange, I always thought putting more people into the game increased the actual drop rate of any item from trash monsters.

I'll heed that advice.

+3 Static > +3 Light Mastery?

The short version is that adding people to the game reduces the chance that a monster will not drop anything. This is pretty irrelevant for white items though as the "nodrop" is really only more important for more rare items. So if you are farming a set/uniq or whatever you can reduce your nodrop chance with more players, but if you just want white stuff dont' bother as white stuff will drop with frequency anyways. In fact, you may want to keep the nodrop value high as that will result in fewer uniqs & sets.

The long version is here: http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Player_Settings

Items

As already stated, the player setting will not affect the item quality, but will affect the amount of items dropped.

So how does the player setting affect monster drops? First, we'll have to introduce a term called "nodrop". Every monster has a certain chance for this "nodrop", that is the chance to drop nothing at all. The greater this number, the greater the chance to drop nothing. This value is cut down with increasing player settings according to the following formula in V1.11 (for basics on item generation, nodrop an so on see the Item Generation Tutorial for Patch 1.11 on the DII Strategy Forum from Warrior of Light):


NewNoDrop=int( ProbSum/(1/((NoDrop/(NoDrop+ProbSum))^N)-1) ),
where N=int(1+AdditionalPlayers/2+ClosePartiedPlayers/2),
AdditionalPlayers — the number of all additional players in the game, where the monster is killed,
ClosePartiedPlayers — the number of players in your party near you (not far than two screens away),
ProbSum=Prob1+Prob2+Prob3+...+Prob10,
int — operation of truncating fractional part of a number.


This looks pretty complicated, so for the sake of comprehensibility let's just say:

* For normal monsters: The more players, the more drops.
* For Super Uniques (like Pindleskin), Uniques and Champions: player setting is irrelevant.
o Super Uniques will always drop two items.
o Uniques will always drop one item.
o Champions will always drop one item.
* Bosses: "nodrop" will be reduced to zero for 5 unpartied players or 3 near players in the same party. In Single Player the difference between the drops for 3 player setting and 5 player setting is only marginal though.

Note: The formula implies, that for unpartied players (and simulated players via the Players X Command) only every second additional players has impact on drop rates. So the steps for more drops are players 3, players 5 and players 7.
In other words: players 8 and players 7 have the same drop rates, players 6 and 5, players 4 and 3, and players 2 and 1. Note that the amount of Experience gained and monsters' Hit Points are nonetheless different for each player setting (as stated above).

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

Unless HU changed the drop mechanics from bnet, then having more players in the game will indeed increase the number of items dropped. The no-drop chance decreases with each additional player in the game. It's not a linear curve though, while the increase of hp on the mobs is, so using players 3-4 should be the fastest.

But I think you're misguiding him when you say "if you're hunting for white items (and not set/unique), don't bother with players amount". The quality of the items is totally irrelevant to the discussion since the type of item/if an item drops is decided before the quality of the item is decided.

And when mods on staves/scepters/orbs/wands are spawned, it's very unlikely that you get high-lvl spells + low-level spells on the same item. Like you will never (or very rarely) see +raise skeleton and +bonespear or whatever on a wand, since the two spells are so many levels apart.

If I were you I would look for high-lvl orbs with just +nova and hope for a good second mod (like +mana or whatever, since high-lvl orbs can spawn with alot more mana than lvl 10-20 orbs).

I'm a bnet player though and pretty new to HU, so if blue is correct then forgive me.

I don't think it has changed much, but I figure that:

1. I kill a monster
2. a "nodrop" calculation is done. For white items, they seem to always drop. For set, rare, magic, uniq - sometimes you will get a nodrop value and the item won't drop.
3. More players in the game = less chance of a nodrop occuring.

Since he is not looking for uniq, set, etc - it seems that you will want to keep your nodrop value high to prevent uniqs, sets, etc dropping compared to white items.

That is my rationale at least. Should be the same rationale on here and b.net as far as I know. I could very well be wrong though, seems like a good discussion

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

soft points dont add any damage as synergies.. everyone should know this.

I know, I was wondering if it was worth the trouble to get the light mastery to help nova or to get static to help with the tundra farming ><

Light Mastery's just that much harder to get though.

+3 Static will help a bit more than +3LMastery.

You should have a high LMastery already, so you've probably got at least +400% Lightning Skill damage. This doesn't consider facets or +%Dmg from other gear. Getting +3 to LMastery will only improve your mastery by 30%, going from about 400 to 430, which is about a 7% difference.

e.g. level 40 skills (all synergies maxed, avg dmg listed):
StaticField = 5416
Nova = 14371
LMastery = 420%

With +3 LMastery:
StaticField = 5729 (+300) (5% change)
Nova = 15200 (+900) (6% change)

With +3 StaticField:
StaticField = 6006 (+600) (10% change)

Considering the massive range of Static allows you to hit monsters several times more than you would if you used Nova, most trash-clearing lightning sorcs prefer to use StaticField. In that case, improving the damage by 10% is a noticeable improvement.

i mean i couldve told him that skills into static are going to increase his static damage more than light mastery would...that should be a no brainer.

to be honest sumimi, you need to really give us some more information as to what you want out of this orb. if you want nova, go with nova. if you want static, go with that. no need trying to get both on the same orb; but if thats what you really want (getting 2 skills on a white orb), go with a nova/mastery...it will increase your nova a lot AND increase static some. but for us to better help you out, we would have to know how much you use these skills or for what you are using them. its kind of confusing for you to ask about a nova orb and then ask about static. im just trying to figure out if you are using one, the other, or both, and how often you are using them.

personally, i think if you are a nova sorc, just use nova for trash clearing. besides, in my opinion the static skill in this mod is stupid... its a knock off of nova but with less damage and a bigger range... very uncreative and imo not very useful either unless your sorc's tanking ability is really shitty (which then i would question why go nova in the first place). i just think nova is a better move for what a radius AOE caster should be.

Sorry, but you're incorrect here. The no-drop is calculated when an item is supposed to be dropped initially. First it checks if it's a no-drop or drop. Once it has been determined that a drop should occur, only then is the quality (white, magic, rare, unique) of the item decided.

In which case it is entirely irrelevant then, because I haven't met a monster in HU that doesn't drop at least something.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

My favorite spot for hunting low level orbs was the catacombs. Hitting up all the tombs/chests in there, seemed to drop a lot of low quality orbs. Then you upgrade them for two skill rolls each.