by Magistrate - 3 years ago     show comments

One of my favorite things about Diablo II  (and Diablo II: Resurrected) is that there are so many ways to get what you need. Most discussion around “getting rich” in this game relies on magic find–where to farm, how much MF is enough, what is most efficient in terms of build and stats. But, for those of us who don’t see many uniques or runes, there is a whole world of farming that exists independently from this architecture.

Below, we look at one of my favorite farming grinds–rerolling grand charms for skill attributes.

Terminology

• gc = grand charm,
• skill/skiller gc = a gc that has +1 to skill tree-specific skills (such as Assassin Traps)
• rerolls = using a Horadric Cube recipe to reroll a gc’s randomized stats
• pgems = perfect gems
• plain/straight skill gc = a skill gc with no secondary attribute

Before we get into the how’s and what’s, you may be wondering why this is even a good approach to getting rich. My thoughts:

1. Gems are one of the most common drops in the game–you can amass these passively through your existing farming activities, whether that’s farming keys, uniques, runes, or whites/socketed gear, or even rushing.
2. Your odds of getting something worth trading are actually not that bad assuming a certain amount of gems used.
3. Anyone can do this with any gear–magic find doesn’t affect gems. This is a great activity for a budget!
4. Skill GCs are always in demand.

So, whether you specifically have your eyes on some high-end runewords that you can’t afford or you just feel bad ignoring all those sparkling gems between the rivers of lava, blood, and limbs, gc rerolls are for everyone!

I. Requirements

The Horadric Cube formula for rerolling a gc is 1 gc + 3 pgems. We break these requirements down with other considerations and tips below.

1. One grand charm of appropriate item level (ilvl)

ilvl is hidden in Diablo II and in the remaster, so you will only know if you have a gc with the correct ilvl if you personally saw it drop from the right source or (to the discerning eye) if it has an attribute that can only come from certain ilvl tiers.

If you just want a plain skiller–that is a gc which only has a single attribute and that attribute is +1 to all skills of a specific tree–then you will need at minimum an ilvl 50 gc. In general, it is statistically more likely you will get a skiller if you use an ilvl 50 gc as more modifiers are possible at higher ilvls, thus diluting your chance at a skiller.

In general, ilvl 50 starts dropping in Nightmare Act III Great Marsh. However, some bosses/mobs from earlier than this can drop ilvl 50 gcs:

1. Normal Baal and Lister the Tormentor + mob (this is the fifth and final wave of monsters Baal summons before you go in to fight him)
2. Nightmare Act II bosses Radament, Duriel, Fire Eye, and some others

If you want a skiller with a secondary modifier, which is more valuable and useful, then you will want the highest ilvl you can get. The modifier most sought is +1 to a tree and +41-45 life. This requires ilvl 91+. Ilvl 91+ can only be founded in the following sources:

1. Hell Diablo (ilvl 94)
2. Hell Nihlathak (ilvl 95)
3. Hell Baal (ilvl 99)

Players may refer to gcs from any of the above three sources as ilvl 99, but technically they will be of their respective boss’s caps. Regardless, the 41-45 lifer attribute can generate on any of these, so any of them is a safe bet.

2. 3 Perfect Gems

You only need 3 pgems to reroll your gc once, but you will likely need to reroll it a dozen or more times to get a skiller, and then possibly even more to get a valuable skill tree. For this reason, it is important to save gems as you find them.

However, if you want a more target approach to amassing gems, some good places to look include:

1. Saving gems from Hellforges, either from your main and alt characters, or from charging for rushing services in the three difficulties. Honestly, when I charge for rushes, I’m more excited about the promise of gems than the rune reward because of how low the chances are for a good rune, even on Hell difficulty.
2. Farming from a good zone, such as Hell Cows or Hell Chaos Sanctuary–really anywhere with high mob density in Hell mode.
3. Farming chests and quickly remaking games — Lower Kurast (and the others, honestly) as well as Travincal have a lot of chest in relatively small, predictably generated zones. You can run/Teleport around quickly, pop them all, and remake games pretty quickly.
4. Farm for efficiency — flawless gems are usually all I bother with, though there are people who save all their gems. Regardless, flawless gems start dropping in Nightmare mode, which is easier than Hell and has virtually no immune monsters. Therefore, you could in theory just farm high density mob areas in Nightmare for gems, although you miss out on possible MF returns you can only get from higher ilvl areas.
5. Trade for batches of pgems — you can generally trade for an entire set of 40 random pgems for roughly 1 MR (mid rune) — most traders will ask for a Pul or Um, but you can sometimes go lower. While you might not want to lose your Um that took three weeks for RNG to grant you, keep in mind a good skiller (especially with a life modifier) can net you a lower HR easily, such as Mal, Ist, or Sur.

Some other things to consider:

1. Don’t use Amethysts if you are also crafting blood gear to trade, as you will need your perfect Amethysts for that activity. I am hoping to talk about this crafting process in a future post, but it is a little new to me.
2. Your magic find doesn’t affect whether you find gems to the best of my knowledge. Magic find only affects the quality of dropped items, not the base items RNG has selected on monster kill or chest opening. Magic find also doesn’t, to my knowledge, affect the gem quality dropped. So, feel free to stack MF if you want some chances at gear while you farm, or gear purely for speed/power to quickly kill more monsters and get more flawless gems.
3. Keep in mind that the highest quality of gem that will ever drop is flawless (which is basically all that Hell will drop, although you will occasionally see some lower tiers). The ONLY exception is from Hellforges.

3. Rerolling your GCs

Aside from the above, there’s no magic method to actually rerolling you GCs. To dispell some myths (and please feel free to comment or message me on Twitter (@Seth_Harkins) if I’m wrong with your research):

1. Difficulty mode where you reroll doesn’t matter.
2. Your character’s level (clvl) doesn’t matter, even for the secondary affix. Clvl DOES affect true crafting, which I will hopefully discuss in another post. You could literally just keep a level one mule with a Horadric Cube, all your pgems, and an ilvl 99 gc and reroll with that character, if you chose.
3. The stats of the starting gc don’t matter — as long as you definitely have an ilvl 50+ gc, it can roll a skill bonus. And as long as you have an ilvl 94+ gc, it can roll a good secondary bonus like 41+ life.

II. Valuable Skill GCs

So, Diablo II: Resurrected‘s economy is still pretty fresh, so most people are looking to get all their main gear and things like Torches, Annis, et cetera. My opinion is that skill GCs will mildly increase in value as demand shifts from primary gear to supplementary power sources like these. Also, keep in mind that prices will fluctuate with new ladder seasons, with ladder gear flushing into nonladder pools, and so on.

That said, the more valuable rolls include:

1. Possibility of mid to high HR
   1. Pcomb/Paladin Combat tree w/ 41+ life
   2. Lite/Sorceress Lightning tree w/ 41+ life
2. Low HR-level (Ist, Gul, Mal)
   1. Plain pcomb/Paladin Combat tree
   2. Plain lite/Sorceress Lightning tree
   3. Druid Elemental spells w/ 41+ life
   4. Necromancer Poison and Bone Spells w/ 41+ life
   5. Trapsin/Assassin Traps tree w/ 41+ life
   6. Amazon Javelin and Spear abilities w/ 41+ life
3. High MR-level (Pul, Um)
   1. Plain cold/Sorceress Cold tree
   2. Plain fire/Sorceress Fire tree
   3. Plain trapsin/Assassin Traps tree
   4. Plain ele/ Druid Elemental spells
   5. Druid Shapeshifting skills w/ secondary attribute
   6. Necromancer Poison and Bone Spells, esp. w/ secondary attribute
   7. Necromancer Summoning Skills, esp. w/ secondary attribute
   8. Barbarian Combat Skills, esp. w/ secondary attribute
4. Possibility of a Pul, Lem or lower for most other trees
5. Mostly not worth trading and I would just reroll: Barbarian Warcries, Druid Summoning, Necromancer Curses, Amazon Passive and Magic Skills, Assassin Shadow Disciplines, Assassin Martial Arts (unless it has a good modifier), Paladin Auras (Defensive/Offensive), others

There are several paths to endgame gearing in Diablo II: Resurrected, and gc rerolling can help you get there. I think it’s a fun side hustle to add to any existing farming runs, and it has a very low bar for entry. Whether you’re min-maxing enthusiast, an obsessive-compulsive hoarder, or just want to spice up that magic find grind while you zone out after work, gc rerolling is a great addition to your routine and has the possibility of enormous rewards.