TC3 hunting FAQ draft

TC3 hunting FAQ draft

The poll about TC3 items made me think that perhaps it would be good to have a TC3 FAQ. Here's my effort, comments, additions, etc. are welcome!


Hrus' MF Guide has a section on TC3 items, which is an excellent resource.


Q: What is so special about TC3 items?

A: The set and unique items from Treasure Class 3 (TC3) are often hard to find, particularly ones with a high ilvl. The lowest weapons and armor treasure classes are TC3. Monsters early in the game may drop from TC3 but may not be high enough monster level to drop the higher qlvl S/U items, and monsters late in the game are much more likely to drop from a higher treasure class. As a result, without some kind of dedicated MF effort, it is unlikely to find all the TC3 items.

Q: What are the TC3 items that are so hard to find?

A: Typically, the ones that have a high qlvl (meaning that low level monsters won't be able to drop them) and the class-specific type items that are less likely to drop.

The items Pelta Lunata, Rixot's Keen, Arctic Furs, Biggin's Bonnet, Felloak, Hsarus' Iron Fist, Gull, Hotspur, The Gnasher, and The Hand of Broc all have qlvl 7 or less, so targets like Coldcrow (who is mlvl 7), Rakanishu, Treehead and Griswold (all mlvl 8) are good for those and are generally not the hardest TC3s to find. The Death's Set items are qlvl 8, so though Coldcrow can't drop them, Rakanishu, Treehead and Griswold can.

The Knell Striker, Bane Ash and Torch of Iro are harder to find, not because those targets can't drop them, but because of their item type is only 1/3 as likely to drop as the other TC3 items.

As the ilvl increases, generally the items get more difficult to find. Lenymo, Greyform and Pluckeye (ilvl 10) won't drop from Treehead and company, but that can drop from Normal Andariel.

Things start getting more difficult about when the ilvls get to be greater than what Normal Andariel can drop (she drops items of qlvl 12 and less.) Blinkbat's Form (16), Vidala's Ambush (19), Sander's Paragon (20) and Tancred's Hobnails (27) can't be dropped by Andariel. Oddly, there is Bane Ash in A1 that can drop Blinkbat's.

For Sander's Paragon, it's worth mentioning that because there are two set caps (the other is Infernal Cranium) its chance of dropping from a high level monster is diminished by the chance that Infernal Cranium will get selected instead.

The recent poll indicated that the missing TC3 items are typically Bane Ash, Knell Striker and the Torch of Iro.

Q: What are some good targets for getting TC3 items?

A: It depends upon which ones you are aiming for and whether or not you MP.

Here are some options:

Coldcrow: dependable for TC3 drops, easy to find (she is at one of the extremities of the Cave Level 1 under the Cold Plains that does not have the stairs down to the second level of the Cave) but she can't drop Death's items and above. If you are interested in the Bane Ash/Knell Striker/Torch of Iro, she's a good target as she can drop those.

Bane Ash: easy to get to, but since the drops can come from higher TCs as well, doesn't have as many items from TC3 per run as Coldcrow. He can drop all the TC3 items except the Sander's, Vidala's and Tancred's items.

Andariel: with the "quest drop always" feature, she drops reliably and has some of the best chances for the items except the 4 she can't drop: Blinkbat's and Sander's, Vidala's and Tancred's items.

The normal Cow King: he can drop all the TC3 s/u items, but running him repeatedly requires MPing. A good method for that is described below.

Other typical MF targets (normal Meph, NM Meph, NM Andariel,...): These are good targets but they don't often drop from TC3. They do drop plenty of other useful items regularly so merely in the course of normal MFing you may run across some TC3 items, but they are not a dependable source.

As far as which to run, it depends upon what you want. If you want them all and you don't already have the Sander's, Vidala's and Tancred's items then you can't run something in A1 normal (except the Cow King)

Q: What is a good way of running Coldcrow/Rakanishu/Griswold/other normal A1 targets?

A: The nice thing about these targets is that you typically won't need gear for killing, so you can load up on MF gear to an absurd amount and still kill quickly. It becomes totally a matter of speed. Here are some choices:

1) Just about any Sorc with FCR and teleport: getting to the targets quickly is all that matters.

2) A Tesladin (Holy Shock paladin): everything nearby drops with one pulse for a synergized Holy Shock paladin. A level 40 Tesladin, carrying a Gull, the Angelic items except the sword, Chance Guards, a 3 PTopaz hat and other gear can easily get 300MF and kill lots of monsters quickly, just by walking around. Charge can help you move quickly (but you run out of mana, typically) or Vigor if you just want to race to Coldcrow, for example.

3) A Frenzy barb has great footspeed and can also use Find Item (hork) after killing, so a dual Ali Baba + MF gear barb may be a good choice.

4) Any other fast-travelling character who can kill carrying tons of MF gear, like a trapper with Burst of Speed.


Q: What about running the normal Cow King? I thought you could only kill him once.

A: I prefer the normal Cow King for finding TC3 items but there is some difficulty, because of the fact that a character who can make the cow portal loses that ability if that character is present in the Cow Level when a character who can make the cow portal kill the king (in that difficulty.) Playing alone, that means that you can only kill the Cow King once.

But with MP, you can kill the king repeatedly. There are a number of ways of managing to do this. Here is my preferred method, which uses two characters.

Have two characters, a maker (M) and a killer (K). The maker just has two tasks: get Wirt's Leg and open the portal. The killer enters the cow level and kills the king. Then repeat.

You can do this with a friend (who would probably get bored as maker) or do it yourself with two computers. Since only one character needs to be doing anything at any particular time, it's pretty easy to do. I've done this alot and in fact I used to do it on two computers which were separated by a flight of stairs, which was pretty silly and slow but manageable. Having the computers next to each other is definitely preferable...

A good choice for a maker is an enchantress. She can teleport quickly to get the leg, open the cow portal, and then enchant the killer. She remains in town to avoid the possibility of losing her ability to open the cow portal. In fact, she can enter the cow level anytime but the first time the killer kills the king and not lose the ability to make cows, but there isn't much point and she is likely to be too high level to get any benefit of being on the cow level anyway. It doesn't matter what she does after opening the portal and enchanting - she could stand around doing nothing, wander off somewhere else, or she could even leave the game if she isn't the one hosting. Despite the constant b.net pleas, partying is irrelevant as to losing the ability to make cows, though you will need to party to enchant.

A good choice for a killer is a frenzy barb, if partnered with an enchantress. Since you are MPing, the map gets redrawn each time, so you'll need for the killer to find the cow king's fort, and it is good to have a fast way of moving about. A frenzy barb can move quickly and doesn't need to worry about dying to a few cow hits, so he can charge up frenzy and then run around looking for the fort. Once the barb finds the king's fort and the king, he can kill the king, hork the corpse, and then you can start another game.

Since all you care about is killing the king, a barb can use warcries to make that go more quickly. Howl will scatter cows except for the King so it can isolate him and make it obvious which one he is. Furthermore, if you only kill the King, you don't have to waste time horking the corpses of the Cow King's minions and other cows, which can take a while and use up mana. Sometimes the "Howled" cows will bounce off of the walls of the fort and get in the way, but still it goes pretty quickly.

To summarize, here is my method:

Two characters- enchantress and frenzy barb with decent Find Item.

Enchantress gets the leg, makes the portal, enchants the barb.

The barb wields dual Ali Babas and wears lots of MF gear. He jumps through the red portal, whacks a few cows not to kill them nescessarily, but just to get FRW up and going so he can race around to find the Cow King fort.

One he finds the fort, he Howls to isolate the Cow King, kills the King, horks the corpse, and then it's time to start another game.


Q: What about the non-king cows on the Cow Level?

A: Those are reasonable sources of TC3 items, but not nearly as good as the King. Nevertheless, a good mass cow killer (LF Zon) can run /players 8 cows on her own, avoiding the King to preserve her ability to make cows, and may find some TC3 items that way.

Q: Are there any added bonuses about running the Cow King this way?

A: Yes, there is a decent chance you'll find the Cow King's Set items (except the hat, which can only drop in NM and Hell from the Cow King.) The Cow King set items are another common gap in item grails. You may want to run the NM Cow King for the Cow King's Horns hat, but you can get at least a couple of the set items in normal.

Q: Is it worth running targets just to get the TC3 items?

A: Honestly, probably not. If your goal is to find every TC3 item, then this is probably a good method to complete a TC3 grail. But if you are looking to complete a grail of all the S/U in the game, you'll have to do so many runs of Baal, Pindle, Meph, and area level 85 areas that you'll proabably find all the TC3 items several times over before you find some of the hardest TC87 items, like Asteron's or Tyrael's Might.

Q: What do I do with these items once I find them?

A: Mostly, just put them on a shelf and admire them. Sander's Paragon is part of one of the most useless sets. Knell Striker is not a bad twink weapon, but there are many better choices. The TC3 items that are actually useful are Gull for MF, Hsarus' full set is a good twink set, Hotspur has +max FR, the Gnasher is a good smiter weapon, Death's Set items are great twink items but the limited number of potions in the belt is an annoyance, and Tancred's Hobnails are possibly useful in conjunction with Tancred's amulet for some good MF at a low level.

Q: What about Classic? Does this all still apply?

A: Absolutely! I've actually done this more in Classic than LoD (using a Frenzy barb with dual Gulls instead of dual Ali Babas, for example) and it's a great source of TC3 items there. In Classic, Hotspur, Gull and other TC3 items are actually quite useful, and Gull is a unit of curreny on b.net.

 

Very good guide. I've been wondering why i haven't gotten gull yet. I'll definately start killing gris and raka everytime i do a rush.

 

Nice piece of writing! Very useful for grailers and other TC3 freaks.

In your list of targets, I'd include Treehead as an easy-to-find source of Death's Sash+gloves, which are two awesome twinking items. The dark woods WP may need a few rerolls for a good tree spawn. The lack of potion rows is less of a hassle than you think, because that partial set has a nice life leech bonus already.

I fully understand why you made that mistake, but the green skelly is called Bone ash. :wink3:
He dropped Blinkbat's Form for me.

Also, the nice thing about a holy[something] paladin is that you can also use him to farm low-level twinking jewels. I find that such a dual purpose eases the mental anguish of TC3 hunting. I mean, if you thought Pindle runs were boring, try running a target that can only drop a handful of interesting items.

 

Thanks for the comments! And I should have mentioned jewel hunting for twinking and LLD aficiandos, definitely. Back in 1.09, auradins were great for finding chipped gems in a similar way, but that is no longer a useful pursuit and with the coming 1.10 (and synergies) there was the sound of a thousand Kinemil's Awl's being hung up in stortage.

 

Nah, my Paladin, Chip, still runs around with Kinemil's. Mostly for nostalgia purposes, but I didn't get all those jewels of envy to materialize out of thin air, either!

Great little write-up on TC3s. I would definitely like to re-emphasize that full-grail runners should not bother with TC3 targets until they are -very- close to the end of the grail, or if you just need a change of pace very badly. I've got 7 TC3s to go to complete my grail, and all of the ones I have came from NM or Hell targets. I always get a kick out of Hotspur or Bane Ash from Hell AT, for example. Now that I'm really slowing down in how many new items I add to my grail in a given week/month, I'm thinking about running for Cow Items and TC3s.

 

I agree, and tried to make the point that it isn't really worth targeting TC3s if you are going for the full grail. I think Hrus' made that point a while ago in another thread- the chance that the TC3s will fall in level 85 areas, though tiny, is enough that you should have a full set of them long before you get a full set of TC87 uniuqes.

No matter what, though, the Cow King set items will take some targeting! And those seem to be a common gap in many people's grails.

 

I'm probably one of the few that has run the a1 SUs a lot, with a completed TC3 grail and several multiples of most TC3s. I stacked up on mf as much as possible on a sorc, while still maintaining the 63 FCR breakpoint, and also put as much mf as possible on the merc. You can go above 1000 mf if you have the items.

And TC3 is supposed to be more rare than TC87 in the area_lvl 85 levels.

 

My suggestion for getting greyform and lenymo is "The banished" uniques on lvl 3 Cats. I think at 254 MF it was 1:560 chance of them dropping one, and getting a map with 2 relatively close isnt too hard. I wouldnt suggest it without 200+ Mf though. Ive got 3 greyforms, 3 lenymos, 2 pluck eyes and quite a bit of other tc3's in about 400 runs.

 

This is nice, almost like the items.
However 2 runs on Andy (Normal), I got Gull Dagger and Hotspur Boots, isn't that cool?

 

While we're bringing this back up, let me toss in a point I don't remember hearing before. Rack running is not a bad idea for getting some of these. I suppose I wouldn't go out of my way to set up racks just for TC3s, but I have a hand axe rack on my LK map--so of course now I have 4 Gnashers. A "wand" or "scepter" rack would be a pearl of great price. I'd definitely be ok with a LK map that was a little slower but passed through rare TC3 racks on the default path.

Quick edit: Can racks drop wands? I suddenly can't remember if I've ever seen that...

 

Sorry for the ressurect but I think its worth doing for us grail hunters and perhaps even adding to the FAQ section.

I agree that you should target lvl87 items first and then see what is lacking. My questions revolve around how best to find the cowkings set, and how best to get tancreds hobnails.

I seem to recall that jiansonz said he had gambled several tancreds hobnails. How does that work? Do you need to be in a specific level range or is it the higher the better? I have gambled green items a few times and while its hard to get exceptional or elite greens the normal ones seem very possible.

To get the cow kings set: I only have one CD key and don't feel like running the king. How long would it take to complete the set running NM cows with a maxed MF LF zon for instance?

 

It´s best to be at least level 32, so you have a guaranteed minimum ilvl of 27 (which is the qlvl for Tancred´s set). Higher level character lets you mule in more gold betweeen gambling sessions, but it also means there is an increased risk that the base item (Boots) gets upgraded to exceptional. Demonhide Boots are qlvl 36, btw.


(Useless sidenote: the only Bane Ash I have seen was dropped by Bone Ash!)


To the OP: it could be good to mention that for the set Caps, the percentages are 70-30 in favour of Infernal Cranium (provided ilvl is at least 20, of course).

 

I thought the Cow King set items can only drop from... the cow king.
If these items can also drop from normal moo-moo's, I 'd seriously consider setting up an LF zon for cowrunning in NM, so I'd like to know pls. Also... Racks are bound to the same item? I always tag the Meph racks, and about 90% of the cases, I get an item from the same item class, but sometimes, it differs...

 

The Cow King set items can be dropped from ordinary Hell Bovines in normal, NM and Hell, so NM cows is a good source of the set items. Normal cows can actually drop all the items, but the hat is so rare there that I think it makes more sense to run NM cows.

Racks that are prone to dropping particular items could be useful for some TC3 items, perhaps racks in Lower Kurast or Meph runs, but I don't know how efficient a method those would be of getting some of the TC3 items.

Edit: to (kind of) answer Cius about how long it takes, a rough idea is that an LF zon with 500 MF on /players 7 on NM cows has a 1 in 51007 chance of dropping the hat. That seems low, but there are a lot of cows and they die very quickly.

 

I always wondered how many cows there are (on average), a rough guess says there are at least 200 per try. That would result in a chance of 1:255 per full clear...

I've done about 150 runs by now and found the hide (body armour), not the hat (yet).

 

More like 450 - 500 cows

 

Not bad odds at all then. So realy one should aim for your grail's 87's and then fill in the TC3's when you are done as you should find plenty of them while hunting the higher level items. Personally I am aiming for a self found grail -1 where the -1 is tyreals might. Guess I need to get my blizzard sorc to running pindle and AT. I will then build a LF zon as well to run hell cows for socketable stuff and NM cows for the cow kings set.

The thing is that I sell nice stuff while doing runs and gamble when the stash is getting full as a break from running. Other than gambling boots for tancreds hobnails which of the harder to get TC3 items are likely candidates for gambling?

 

Sander´s Paragon, Vidala´s Ambush.

 

As I remember correctly I found the entire Cow King's set running Nomal cows with Orb sorc. I've found it in about 200 runs.

Edit: Here is the readout of the hat

Cow King's Horns
War Hat
Defense: 126
Durability: 8 of 12
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 28
Fingerprint: 0xc1e7f946
+75 Defense
Attacker Takes Damage of 10
35% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
Half Freeze Duration

 

I already have vidala's ambush from normal questing so I guess imbetween gambling rings, ammy's, and circlets I can gamble any boots or caps that come up in the hope of getting tacreds hobnails or sanders paragon. Good to know anyways.