Baal Drops Bugged?

I've been running Hell

Baal quite a lot lately and I noticed extremely poor drops from both

Baal himself and his minions.

• Colenzo - Lister drop only gold and potions, occasionally a magic item.
• Baal drops 2 magic / rare items tops.

My Java has ~180 MF. I haven't been counting my runs but I'd say the last ~10 were like this. Also I can't even remember when I last saw a rare/unique/set/rune drop from the minion waves.

Anybody else noticed a similar trend or is this still within expected behavior and I'm just feeling entitled to have something drop on me?

Would tend to say you're not lucky, got 2 set pieces and 1 unique in my last 2

Baal runs. Well, not good ones, but they do fall occasionnally.

Yeah, that's most likely the case. Had him drop 1 unique on my last run but he's really reluctant to share some sets... Nevermind, back to the grind then.

unfortunately sometimes 'we' just have a period of bad luck

I assume good luck happens just as 'often' but good luck require more luck to notice than bad luck

I farm him only for XP and essence.
He and the 5 waves rarely drop valuable items.

I also rarely do

Baal for the drops. Especially in games with more players, I rather go for

Mephisto or

Andariel if want something green or gold to drop.

just luck, it fluctuates, most of time not so much drops, but when they come they come big time, I doubt the dev would fine tune the drop rate at all or its being bugged, I have a pretty decent gf/mf barb constantly farming trav, I know how it feels

His minions have same drop as regular mobs, I wish they had same drops as Diablo's minions, got my first and only

Mara's Kaleidoscope from

Grand Vizier of Chaos. And yes, he mostly drops garbage even with 400 MF

baals minion have a drop rate close to zero. eg hell lister most likely drop is

Venom Ward at 1 in 18,414. most drops are less than 1 in 100,000. with

Terror zones the only reason to run

Baal is the essence, and the wks mobs.

To be fair ten runs is nothing. According to drop calculators

Baal has high (or highest) rates for many desired GG items. It's just that you'd have to do thousands of runs in order to get proper comparative results. It's much easier to go pop TZ Andy or Meph without having to go through the minions.

RNG is RNG at the end of the day. Sometimes works for you and sometimes works against you.

Yeah,

Baal + minions are usually just the "cherry on top" of my TZ WSK al85 runs, so it's not really my goal to farm him for drops. I was just surprised by the quality (or lack thereof) of items you get from the ultimate boss challenge of the game. And I was wondering if you guys have the same experience - seems like you do.

Azmodai wrote: 10 months ago

I've been running Hell

Baal quite a lot lately and I noticed extremely poor drops from both

Baal himself and his minions.

• Colenzo - Lister drop only gold and potions, occasionally a magic item.
• Baal drops 2 magic / rare items tops.

My Java has ~180 MF. I haven't been counting my runs but I'd say the last ~10 were like this. Also I can't even remember when I last saw a rare/unique/set/rune drop from the minion waves.

Anybody else noticed a similar trend or is this still within expected behavior and I'm just feeling entitled to have something drop on me?

If you are going for exp, fair enough with

Baal. If you are farming for gear, do Meph and all the chest by him.
This season: 4 maras, 1 perfect. 3 Andy, 1

Eth. Countless Shakos. 4 or 5 Hoz. BK ring.

Arreat's Face 199%ed. 3 Arachnid. And much more.

No minions.....you can do Meph and open the boxes in about 60 secs. That is a lot of quick action and easy loot.

The only downside I would say is that there was only one HR..a

Vex. RNG

Meph farming has been a revelation for me this season.

I think Blizzard adjusts drop rates whenever they want. It doesn't require any extra coding for them to do it. It's just a matter of adding a few minor settings or replacing one saved settings file with another saved settings file. Remember the magic find weekend?

A common belief is that everything is decided by RNG, which is doubtful. While RNG is likely used, it isn't the sole factor in determining the quality of a specific drop, or magic find wouldn't work. Settings files are just text files given a proprietary name that agree with the software code. For instance this forum is mostly built using PHP which is entered into a series of text files and then the text settings file is renamed to something like config.php. So yes it's possible that

Baal drop rates have been altered.

mhlg wrote: 10 months ago

So yes it's possible that

Baal drop rates have been altered.

possible.. yes... but extremely unlikely unless they say it in patch notes (or a bonus week something where you get the info about it as well).

i remember reading back in the classic D2 days about a specific amount of magic find (like 314 mf not under not over, it wasnt 314 just an example) would always make all drops (that can be unique) unique, was ofcourse fixed fast.

lscottl wrote: 10 months ago

Meph farming has been a revelation for me this season

he is a good boss to farm for a sorc, but you can still be very unlucky with drops from him, season 2 i dont know how many runs i did on him.. it was alot, got absolutely nothing and had 300%+ mf, saw many items i wanted to be unique.. but my luck was against me.

lscottl wrote: 10 months ago

If you are going for exp, fair enough with

Baal. If you are farming for gear, do Meph and all the chest by him.
This season: 4 maras, 1 perfect. 3 Andy, 1

Eth. Countless Shakos. 4 or 5 Hoz. BK ring.

Arreat's Face 199%ed. 3 Arachnid. And much more.

No minions.....you can do Meph and open the boxes in about 60 secs. That is a lot of quick action and easy loot.

The only downside I would say is that there was only one HR..a

Vex. RNG

Meph farming has been a revelation for me this season.

I admit I've been sleeping on

Mephisto. Your MF value on those runs?

Illusions wrote: 10 months ago

mhlg wrote: 10 months ago

So yes it's possible that

Baal drop rates have been altered.

possible.. yes... but extremely unlikely unless they say it in patch notes (or a bonus week something where you get the info about it as well).

i remember reading back in the classic D2 days about a specific amount of magic find (like 314 mf not under not over, it wasnt 314 just an example) would always make all drops (that can be unique) unique, was ofcourse fixed fast.

lscottl wrote: 10 months ago

Meph farming has been a revelation for me this season

he is a good boss to farm for a sorc, but you can still be very unlucky with drops from him, season 2 i dont know how many runs i did on him.. it was alot, got absolutely nothing and had 300%+ mf, saw many items i wanted to be unique.. but my luck was against me.

Everyday, when I commence my few hours of D2R(sometimes 8 hrs), I wonder and ask myself....'self, is this the day that Meph tightens up his generosity toward me?' And to my surprise, he does not. Unfortunately, there are not as many people playing that want to trade for the items that I find that I know everyone uses/wants. Throwing away Shakos 10 years ago would have been unthinkable, yet that is what I do. No point keeping one's inventory stocked with items no one wants.

I keep reading persistent rumors/posts on the interwebs, that Blizz has altered drop rates and the RNG to make people get bored of D2R faster so they stop playing and buy one of their newer games. My only argument with that is, why have they not altered the HR drop rate? The hundreds of hours of playing this season, and just a

Vex as my only high rune? I can't see it.

Or maybe my days as a lovable loser are finally over? Just kidding, no one loves a loser.

Anyway, I'm off to invest in a voluntary tax, I mean buy a lottery ticket.

Azmodai wrote: 10 months ago

lscottl wrote: 10 months ago

If you are going for exp, fair enough with

Baal. If you are farming for gear, do Meph and all the chest by him.
This season: 4 maras, 1 perfect. 3 Andy, 1

Eth. Countless Shakos. 4 or 5 Hoz. BK ring.

Arreat's Face 199%ed. 3 Arachnid. And much more.

No minions.....you can do Meph and open the boxes in about 60 secs. That is a lot of quick action and easy loot.

The only downside I would say is that there was only one HR..a

Vex. RNG

Meph farming has been a revelation for me this season.

I admit I've been sleeping on

Mephisto. Your MF value on those runs?

Only a paltry 108.

possible.. yes... but extremely unlikely unless they say it in patch notes (or a bonus week something where you get the info about it as well).

i remember reading back in the classic D2 days about a specific amount of magic find (like 314 mf not under not over, it wasnt 314 just an example) would always make all drops (that can be unique) unique, was ofcourse fixed fast.

Sometimes Blizzard will notify us when a change is made but there's no requirement that they do it and Blizzard doesn't have a history of being honest about the changes they make. Adjusting drop rates doesn't require a patch so there would be no reason for Blizzard to be compelled to mention an adjustment. All that's needed is a simple change of a few numbers inside a settings file, and it's more likely than not that they have backups they can swap in and out of the game in minutes. Diablo 2 isn't a very large game and as a result Blizzard's only means of making it bigger is to find ways to slow player progress through it. A way to slow progress is to limit movement by occasionally adjusting drop rates. In my view this is why the game is filled with "busy work" such as keys for locked chests and repairing weapons, that really don't add a thing to game play, but will slow player progress.

Increasing magic find after 200% gives diminishing returns. MF only affects the probability of a roll but does nothing to influence the rate of the type of item that drops. So if you want to increase the drop rate for a specific item you're going to have to do more runs. If an item has a 10% chance of being Magic, then 100% MF will make it 20% on that item. To the point, your chance of finding a specific item will be better if you do two runs with no magic find than to do one run with magic find, and better if you have both. The setback here is that magic find items often reduce the survivability of a build and that affects its farming speed. The OP has 180 MF which if it doesn't affect his farming speed is more than enough to increase his odds of finding unique items. My magic find is usually less than 120% and I've found multiples of every desirable item in the game except a

Griffon's Eye. On the flip side because of my farming speed I've found numerous bases, and valuable items such as a 451 Poison (traded for 15

Ber) small charm, and more

Cham,

Jah,

Ber,

Lo, and other runes than I can remember. Enough to buy anything I haven't found.

lscottl wrote: 10 months ago

Illusions wrote: 10 months ago

mhlg wrote: 10 months ago

So yes it's possible that

Baal drop rates have been altered.

possible.. yes... but extremely unlikely unless they say it in patch notes (or a bonus week something where you get the info about it as well).

i remember reading back in the classic D2 days about a specific amount of magic find (like 314 mf not under not over, it wasnt 314 just an example) would always make all drops (that can be unique) unique, was ofcourse fixed fast.

lscottl wrote: 10 months ago

Meph farming has been a revelation for me this season

he is a good boss to farm for a sorc, but you can still be very unlucky with drops from him, season 2 i dont know how many runs i did on him.. it was alot, got absolutely nothing and had 300%+ mf, saw many items i wanted to be unique.. but my luck was against me.

Everyday, when I commence my few hours of D2R(sometimes 8 hrs), I wonder and ask myself....'self, is this the day that Meph tightens up his generosity toward me?' And to my surprise, he does not. Unfortunately, there are not as many people playing that want to trade for the items that I find that I know everyone uses/wants. Throwing away Shakos 10 years ago would have been unthinkable, yet that is what I do. No point keeping one's inventory stocked with items no one wants.

I keep reading persistent rumors/posts on the interwebs, that Blizz has altered drop rates and the RNG to make people get bored of D2R faster so they stop playing and buy one of their newer games. My only argument with that is, why have they not altered the HR drop rate? The hundreds of hours of playing this season, and just a

Vex as my only high rune? I can't see it.

Or maybe my days as a lovable loser are finally over? Just kidding, no one loves a loser.

Anyway, I'm off to invest in a voluntary tax, I mean buy a lottery ticket.

I'd like to add an addendum:

After 10 meph runs just now, he dropped a

Shako and a

Ber dropped from one of his chests. Incredible.

Sometimes RNG is a d*ck. Going for like 400-500 LK Runs, I found some

Ort,

Tir or stuff like that, but a high rune? Ha, one

Gul at the beginning, that's it.
Today, I got a bit time to kill, so I visit Chenk - drops an

Ist. Yeah, I didn't even know he can drop runes at all ^^ Feels odd.