what lvl is good for crafting i am 91 do i need lvl more or what

I know this is hosted on that forbidden site, but this is the best crafting guide out there. As the title says, read it in its entirety or die alone
https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=30598890

Teebling wrote: 1 year ago

Knappogue wrote: 1 year ago

I know this is hosted on that forbidden site, but this is the best crafting guide out there. As the title says, read it in its entirety or die alone
https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=30598890

Just want to re-iterate that there's nothing forbidden about linking useful resources from d2jsp here - just no FG offers on trades here.

JSP has a 20+ year forum legacy and lots of really valuable info. Happy to see an example of that being shared here that will for sure help future readers.

Thank you for sharing your stance on d2jsp I got a different vibe from this community on their jsp thoughts, so I felt a bit awkward linking to it here but did it anyways since that crafting guide is such a great reference. Next time I won't hesitate to share a link from there.

Avoozl wrote: 1 year ago

I've always heard that 93 was the best minimum. I already struggle enough to level past 86-88, couldn't imagine getting to 93.

That was before

Terror Zones changed everything. Now you can start at level 90, assuming you only use items dropped from

Terror Zones. You can technically start even sooner, but you would have to join games hosted by higher level characters.

When crafting an amulet, you typically want it to have +2 to class skill levels, and that requires the crafted item to have an affix level of 90 or higher (because +2 class skill levels is a level 90 affix). Crafted items get their affix level based on your own character level and the input item's ilvl - half your character's level plus half the item's ilvl (both values are rounded down before adding them together).

At character level 86 you'd need an ilvl 94 amulet to have a chance at +2 class skill levels.
At character level 87 you'd need an ilvl 94 amulet to have a chance at +2 class skill levels.
At character level 88 you'd need an ilvl 92 amulet to have a chance at +2 class skill levels.
At character level 89 you'd need an ilvl 92 amulet to have a chance at +2 class skill levels.
At character level 90 you'd need an ilvl 90 amulet to have a chance at +2 class skill levels.
At character level 91 you'd need an ilvl 90 amulet to have a chance at +2 class skill levels.
At character level 92 you'd need an ilvl 88 amulet to have a chance at +2 class skill levels.
At character level 93 you'd need an ilvl 88 amulet to have a chance at +2 class skill levels.
At character level 94 you'd need an ilvl 86 amulet to have a chance at +2 class skill levels.

You can either gamble the amulet or use one dropped from a monster. When dropped from a monster, the item's ilvl is based on the monster that dropped it. Before

Terror Zones, the highest regular monster level in the game was 88, unique monsters in the area level 85 areas (like The Pit), normal monsters in those areas were still 85. The only monsters higher than 88 were Diablo (94),

Nihlathak (95) and

Baal (99). With

Terror Zones, you can easily find monsters higher than level 88, since

Terror Zone base monster level is your own level +2. In the past, without

Terror Zones, it wasn't really feasile to farm these 3 bosses specifically for amulets to use for crafting, it just takes too long. So most people gambled the amulets instead, and that's where the whole level 93 thing comes in. The ilvl of the gambled items will be random in the range [-5, +4] (based on your character level), so at character level 93 the minimum ilvl the amulet can be is 88. Since you can't tell what ilvl a gambled item got, you have to assume that it was the lowest possible, i.e. -5, and at character level 93 that would be 88. And if you look above, that's exactly the minimum required input ilvl to craft affix level 90 items when at character level 93. On the other hand, if you were character level 92, the lowest possible gambled ilvl would be 87, but at level 92 you'd still need ilvl 88 input items to craft affix level 90 items, so some of the gambled amulets wouldn't have a chance to get the +2 class skill levels affix.

Now, with

Terror Zones, you have better control over your input ilvls. At character level 90, all

Terror Zones will be at level 92, so the ilvl of any dropped items will be 92 or higher, meaning that if you use any items dropped from a TZ when you're level 90 or higher, you will have a crafted item affix level of 90 or higher. I.e., enough to have a chance at the +2 class skill levels. On the other hand, if you're character level 89, you'd still need to craft using input items with an ilvl of 92 and that's above your own

Terror Zone level (at 89 your

Terror Zones would be at 91), so you'd need to join games of others that are higher level. The lower your own level, the higher the level of the host needs to be.