Herald Spawn Q (Meh aspect of it)

Crimmy wrote: 1 day ago

[..] It would be nice if there was an explanation to my bad luck other than bad luck on ladder. Heh. I'm probably quitting areas too early with bad luck and perhaps missing pockets of monsters which is easier to do in Act 1

1) The more time you spend in town, the less time you spend killing, the less heralds you will get compared to your actively killing friend, simply because you don't kill as much (=reduced number of

Herald trigger opportunities) within the same period of time.

2) You're a blizz sorc. You'll never keep up with your warlock buddy (assuming he isn't just bad), simply because you are far more limited by a comparatively small AoE with a solid cast delay (=slower overall clear speed -> same issue as the point above).

3) If you quit areas "too early" then yes, you are lowering your chances. The higher your clear percentage within a spawn zone past the minimum %, the higher the odds of each further kill in the zone still triggering a

Herald (albeit with diminishing returns). Either quit right after a

Herald spawn when you're near the end of the zone anyways (i.e. very low odds of managing to get another one in that same zone) or keep going with ever-increasing odds to still get one if you're already near or past the minimum threshold and still have mobs left.

4) Certain zones are just bad for heralds as they combine into a massive single spawn zone, meaning you need to kill a ton more individual mobs to get your clear percentage up. Leaving out the weighting for a second,

Burial Grounds,

Crypt and

Mausoleum are all one big zone, as are

Cathedral, all of catacombs and

Inner Cloister. A1 only has 17 total spawn zones, one of which is cows so not reliably part of a sharded game. A2 by comparison is split into 23 of them, giving you a decent advantage there. All in all, on average, you'd expect ~4.23 more heralds in an A2 clear than in an A1 clear. (Disclaimer: Trusting Pavke on that part, I'd recommend reading his

Herald spawn breakdown for more details - the 4.23 difference is assuming I didn't just make a mistake speed-summing up those numbers per zone. )

5+) ... probably a few other points adding into it that I'm not including off the top of my head here or that can't really be judged from the outside without further info.

I try to not overthink it. I pop a shard and then rapidly clear as much as I can until there is nothing left to clear. I only return to town for new scrolls, mercenary revival, and a restroom break. Last week I decided it was time to try a terrorized act 1 with a plan. To give it direction I decided to call it the Super Unique and underground run. On Monday, I started by clearing the

Blood Moor, and killing

Corpsefire, and then do the same with every area and Super unique all they way to

Andariel.

On my first run on Monday, to keep with my plan, I killed Bloodraven, but skipped the

Crypt and

Mausoleum, then killed

Bishibosh, cleared the area and cave and by the time I entered the Stony Plain, I had already killed a

Herald of Horror. To shorten the post, I cleared everything in the game all the way to

Andariel, and by the end of the run I had 7 Heralds of

Terror. I did it again on Tuesday and spawned 9

Herald's of

Terror, another 8 on Wednesday, 11 on Thursday (I skipped nothing), and then yesterday on Friday, I spawned 16 Heralds of

Terror, and I skipped Jail 1-3, and catacombs 1. Over the 4 days I had 3 Renewed Sunders drop, nothing brag worthy but it could've been.


An aside, this morning I popped an act 4 shard, and by the time I finished Diablo, my highest

Herald Spawn was a

Herald of Horror. Act 1 can feel like a painfully long run but It has a well defined path from start to finish, a high rate of uniques, champions, and super uniques.

A bit of advice. Don't pop a shard until you see what the current TZ enchantment is, because your shard will take on that enchantment, but it also means you can change enchantments by exiting and making a new game until you get an enchantment you're comfortable with. My preference is to choose an elemental enchantment with my favorite being Fire Enchantment, and my least favorites are cursed, Stone skin, extra strong, extra fast.