My Quest

Here is a little short story I want to share with someone about my D2R drops / finds.

During S4, I started to seek the grail SSF more seriously.
Also, after S4 I kept using the same char in NL in order to keep going the quest.
I also make a minimal record of findings, so I can bring data like:

Items Left (4)
-

Stormlash
-

The Cranium Basher
-

Death's Fathom
-

Zod

Items I've found only once:
-

Tyrael's Might
-

Shadow Dancer
-

Mang Song's Lesson
-

Death's Web
-

Ber (yes)
-

Trang-Oul's Wing
-

Azurewrath
- Edit:

Lenymo
- Edit:

Halaberd's Reign

Honorable mentions:
-

Metalgrid: 2 or 3, I think
-

Wisp Projector: 2
-

Torch of Iro (my precious): 2
- SoJ: many
- Mara's: 2 or 3, one of them is perfect
- BK: 2
-

Jah: 7
- Other TC87 items not mentioned above: found them a considerably amount of times.

How many 'new' items were found time to time?

September 23 and before: many items, including

Death's Web (2023/09/26)
October 23: 29 items <- Here I found

Ber, Tyraels,

Earth Shifter and

Shadow Dancer. A good period.
November 23: 20 items <- Found first

Torch of Iro,

Azurewrath
December 23: 9 items <- Nothing special, even with many terrorized events. Found

The Hand of Broc.
Entire 2024: 7 items <- Best drops:

Cham, Mangs and

Wisp Projector

The 2024 period has been hard. Very few drops, since the rarest are being left to be found the last.
I did not play more or less than last year, I keep the same pace and same TC87-capable areas.
Oddly, I still have a feeling based on impression that when I was mid 90-93 level things were more likely to drop
(see October 2023 period).

That's weird.

About the remaining items, those who found them have a tip / recommendation on how / where to grind?

play multiplayer

doGBone wrote: 4 weeks ago

play multiplayer

This comment doesn't add value to the conversation.

ghostpos wrote: 4 weeks ago

doGBone wrote: 4 weeks ago

play multiplayer

This comment doesn't add value to the conversation.

take a break and play multiplayer

The fewer items there are left, the less likely it is that you will find them, no? The probability to find missing items decreases exponentionally. You will go crazy when there's only one left.

But 7x

Jah and 1x

Ber shows - it's all luck and luck can be crazy after all.

YugoHell wrote: 4 weeks ago

Oddly, I still have a feeling based on impression that when I was mid 90-93 level things were more likely to drop
(see October 2023 period).

This is the exact feeling I have too.

Wish I'd kept track of the grail list sooner. I joined a random Cow's game ages ago and the

Torch of Iro dropped, I actually missed it but another player chucked it so counting that as found... Definitely hard to find in my experience.

Keep it up though you are so close now, good luck.

YugoHell wrote: 4 weeks ago

[..]
-

Zod
[..]

I'm curious..for those of you who actually take grailing serious:
Do you require that each specific item actually drops? Or do you merely require that each specific item is obtained as part of natural playing/farming without outside interference?

I.e. does a

Zod have to drop as a

Zod? Or would you count it if you found say a 2nd and 3rd

Cham to cube up to it without touching the initial grail-

Cham?

For me, that

Zod has to drop. No cubing, no trading.

My grail needs:

Zod (saw it drop once, but didn't get it)

Death's Web

Death's Fathom

Tyrael's Might

Stone of Jordan

Torch of Iro

Griswold's Redemption

Stormlash

Schaefer's Hammer

No progress for weeks now...

i have found about 6 or 7 unique sacred armors and so far all have been templars crap.. im sure i found all other items in game including the runes up to

Zod.

Tyrael's Might got to be the most difficult item to find.

Schnorki wrote: 4 weeks ago

Do you require that each specific item actually drops?

In my self-inflicted challenge yes, I am expecting to have an actual

Zod drop.

Illusions wrote: 4 weeks ago

i have found about 6 or 7 unique sacred armors and so far all have been templars crap.. im sure i found all other items in game including the runes up to

Zod.

Tyrael's Might got to be the most difficult item to find.

Funny thing is: Right after getting

Tyrael's Might last year, I thought "Ok, one or two more months and It's done"
Of course I underestimated RNG's powers.

What setups are you using?

I'm sure you know that the fastest is running tz andy over and over. That's how I finally finished my grail. Some consider it cheating

Second fastest is probably high efficiency horking, like a pitzerker. I ran

Whirlwind in the pits for much of my grail, and I switched it up to threshsocket and pindle sometimes. Luckily pindle can drop all the items you need

Third fastest is maybe running tz with an s-tier build. I don't have much experience with this. Fourth fastest is efficient farming of lvl85 areas with specialized builds, like fire sorc in the stony tombs for example

marl71 wrote: 4 weeks ago

What setups are you using?

I have a hammerdin with high MF. He's capable of doing any TC85 area and any TZ.
Just keep playing over and over until I get bored of an area and go somewhere else. And return.

I did Pindle many times, and tbh I am very unlucky with him. Gosh, it sucks dropping in my games.

Of course , for HR searching I am aware that the more kills the better. So I prefer more crowded areas in A5 and other high level areas.

marl71 wrote: 4 weeks ago

What setups are you using?

Nothing special in particular. If you asked me for my main hero, I would name the Javazon, because she is the highest level, but I have a dozen of heroes and I play all of them regularly, even my Summoner Druid, which is the weakest by far.

Grail is kind of a "side-quest" for me. I just play the game, swap between my heroes, do some TZs if the good ones are happening, help players leveling, do some open runs. There is no "I need this or that item and the drop-calculator told me to do area XY over and over again". I would get bored by this.

RNG is a bitch anyway!
For example, my first Arach has been dropped by

Duriel, helping players rush their heroes.

Duriel isn't known for good drops. My first

Sur and

Cham dropped in a solo cowrun. The mentioned

Zod dropped in an open Baalrun, and someone else grabbed it. Bad luck, happens.

Windforce dropped by a trash mob as I was roaming in Act 4, watching Netflix.

YugoHell wrote: 4 weeks ago

marl71 wrote: 4 weeks ago

What setups are you using?

I have a hammerdin with high MF

If you are looking for a change of pace, target farming with a horker is more efficient for finding uniques. That's why all the content creators run a pitzerker for finishing holy grails. Otherwise, you have the most broken build in the game running the most broken mode in the game, so that's about as good as it gets for drops outside of horking