While playing on the newly-reset ladder of Diablo II, it was not long before the Hellforge was upon me. From my childhood, I distinctly remembered unfounded superstitions surrounding the drops, things like: "Repair the hammer! Repair the hammer!" and "Kill some more monsters first!" Knowing better now that I'm past those years, I gathered concrete absolution about myself and whacked Mephisto's soulstone into oblivion.
Or was it? My superstitious notions of gameplay quickly returned when I got a Thul rune.
Not surprisingly, such irrationality continues to this very day, nearly ten years since the game's launch. Repair-the-hammer is a common, but needless, practice whenever I'm involved in a forge-paid rush, but it is by no means the last. In this article, I will lay out a few that seem most popular to me, and some famous ones that are now in the past.
It might be good to start with one of the most bizarre features of Diablo II and work outward from there. With that in mind, the journey for shibboleth starts in the Moo Moo Farm (or Secret Cow Level, whichever you prefer).
Experience, drops, insane cattle swinging monstrous poles tipped with blades bigger than a human head- it's little wonder the sideshow has remained popular even to this day, and if there is a way to produce more of these kooky cows, all the better.
The legend is that manipulating pieces of the Horadric Cube formula to open the mystic gateway to cow country, which includes Wirt's Leg and a tome of Town Portal scrolls, can cause more cows to spawn and better drops to ensue. The main three ways of doing this are:
Filling the sockets of a socketed Wirt's Leg with desirable gems or other socketables.
In addition, it is rumored that the Chat Gem can affect cow quantities and riches, as per a response from the server when the button is mashed enough times, responding back with a nice long "Moo[insert o's here]!" To date, I have not been able to replicate a successful response of this kind since 1.10.
It's common knowledge that many of the most powerful items in the game, runewords, can also be incredibly expensive to make; just look at Infinity- that's four high runes! Each time you make a runeword, you take a gamble: either you spend expensive and rare runes and end up with optimal attributes, or you end up with very, very terrible ones, a disquieting and disheartening result.
When the stakes are high, players want to be sure they have the best odds. Sometimes, that can translate into an interesting urban legend.
The idea is that in order to have the highest chances of getting the best randomized attributes for a runeword, a player must complete the runeword in the most extreme areas of the game, namely Hell mode and usually in Act V. Some have argued that areas with high iLevels, such as the Worldstone Keep or various other dungeons in various acts (like the Pit in Act I), can affect runewords.
It's "working as intended," they say. It's featured on the official Diablo III website. It's settled itself cozily between the chat and game list areas in Diablo II's GUI for nearly a decade. But what does it do?
The lack of a known purpose has led to, among some, a religious fanaticism for a number of things:
Getting the Perfect Gem Activated state improves gem drops.
Getting the Perfect Gem Activated state improves chances of finding a Gem Shrine.
Activating the Mooooo! state increases the number of Hell Bovines or the drops of monsters in the Secret Cow Level.
Garners better drops from bosses when the Perfect Gem Activated state occurs.
Numerous Diablo fansites have done excellent studies of the chat gem, including statistical analysis of the various rumors when states are activated, and even to this day, questions and rumors abound. For more, see Chat Gem Through the Ages.
And those are just a few of the crazy ideas floating around teh internets and Battle.net. Have any interesting ones of your own? Do any of these seem plausible? Are they possible? As is the saying, there's a bit of truth in everything, even legends.
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
Also I remember that while doing MF boss runs I wouldn't let my merc do the final blow because I feared that the MF bonus wouldn't apply in that case. That can't be really be called a superstition though because we know from facts that your MF does apply for merc kills too. Or am I wrong?
Actually, if a merc makes the kill, he gets your mf plus his. So it's actually a little better to let him make the kill
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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretzky"
so you know the aniilarious can only be dropped by ilevel 121 monsters?
so if you chase the chicken out from act 1 in hell to the burial grounds and kill it via killing blood raven it will drop the charm that way.
this is a joke
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A hundred thousand worlds, ten hundred thousand wars. There is no respite, there is nowhere to hide. Across the galaxy there is only war.
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Getting the chickens to go where you want is quite difficult. My friends and I used to race them. No one ever won. Also, I've never heard of the Moo state from the gem. Interesting.
For a better cow moo expirience it is bette to try and make the No name level. You do this bye making the cow portal on the edge of the gate where blood moor and the camp connect. If you get the portal exactly on the line you will make the No name level and the cows reward much more expirience and I belive theres more of them.
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www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
so you know the aniilarious can only be dropped by ilevel 121 monsters?
so if you chase the chicken out from act 1 in hell to the burial grounds and kill it via killing blood raven it will drop the charm that way.
this is a joke
Yeah, I saw that one, too Crazy stuff out there...
Lol. Yeah, exactly the same here! I'd also sometimes sidetrack and kill a mob of enemies thinking it would somehow boost my chances of better boss drops. Some times it paid off- in the Sanc, to date, I've found 14 Tal's Plates since 2001.
When doing Countess or other bosses or semi bosses it varies for me whether I choose to either kill all monsters protecting the boss OR simply go straight to the boss and don't kill any of the protecting monsters.
In countess runs, once in the 5th floor, I always go to the left instead of right to get get to her. I gets better runes that way.
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Lots of people insist that making the Cow portal either next to Akara or next to the Stash yields the most cows. They even get violent about it if you make it somewhere else.
Did you know that if you spawn the cow portal inside the cow portal there are 2x as many cows and 2x the amount of drops. I have never tried the portal inside a portal inside a portal however.
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Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
While playing on the newly-reset ladder of Diablo II, it was not long before the Hellforge was upon me. From my childhood, I distinctly remembered unfounded superstitions surrounding the drops, things like: "Repair the hammer! Repair the hammer!" and "Kill some more monsters first!" Knowing better now that I'm past those years, I gathered concrete absolution about myself and whacked Mephisto's soulstone into oblivion.
Or was it? My superstitious notions of gameplay quickly returned when I got a Thul rune.
Not surprisingly, such irrationality continues to this very day, nearly ten years since the game's launch. Repair-the-hammer is a common, but needless, practice whenever I'm involved in a forge-paid rush, but it is by no means the last. In this article, I will lay out a few that seem most popular to me, and some famous ones that are now in the past.
Moar Cows!
Experience, drops, insane cattle swinging monstrous poles tipped with blades bigger than a human head- it's little wonder the sideshow has remained popular even to this day, and if there is a way to produce more of these kooky cows, all the better.
The legend is that manipulating pieces of the Horadric Cube formula to open the mystic gateway to cow country, which includes Wirt's Leg and a tome of Town Portal scrolls, can cause more cows to spawn and better drops to ensue. The main three ways of doing this are:
In addition, it is rumored that the Chat Gem can affect cow quantities and riches, as per a response from the server when the button is mashed enough times, responding back with a nice long "Moo[insert o's here]!" To date, I have not been able to replicate a successful response of this kind since 1.10.
Make it Where?
When the stakes are high, players want to be sure they have the best odds. Sometimes, that can translate into an interesting urban legend.
The idea is that in order to have the highest chances of getting the best randomized attributes for a runeword, a player must complete the runeword in the most extreme areas of the game, namely Hell mode and usually in Act V. Some have argued that areas with high iLevels, such as the Worldstone Keep or various other dungeons in various acts (like the Pit in Act I), can affect runewords.
Just Click it One More Time...
The lack of a known purpose has led to, among some, a religious fanaticism for a number of things:
Numerous Diablo fansites have done excellent studies of the chat gem, including statistical analysis of the various rumors when states are activated, and even to this day, questions and rumors abound. For more, see Chat Gem Through the Ages.
And those are just a few of the crazy ideas floating around teh internets and Battle.net. Have any interesting ones of your own? Do any of these seem plausible? Are they possible? As is the saying, there's a bit of truth in everything, even legends.
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
It does.
Diablo III Analyst
SC2Mapster
Well like I said earlier, I seem to remember the part about "number of scolls in Tp = stronger monsters" being part of a mod, but I could be wrong.
Other than that, eh, no?
Actually, if a merc makes the kill, he gets your mf plus his. So it's actually a little better to let him make the kill
you don't take - Wayne Gretzky"
- Michael Scott
so you know the aniilarious can only be dropped by ilevel 121 monsters?
so if you chase the chicken out from act 1 in hell to the burial grounds and kill it via killing blood raven it will drop the charm that way.
this is a joke
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
its a old joke i know of.
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
Yeah, I saw that one, too Crazy stuff out there...
In countess runs, once in the 5th floor, I always go to the left instead of right to get get to her. I gets better runes that way.
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team