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Pindle item drops explained - please sticky
For those of you who have been wondering why you have not been getting the items you want, even with more magic find, heres why:
When at item drops, it calculates what TC (Treasure Class) that monster can drop from. There are 60 TC's in the game, 30 from armor, and 30 from weapons. Weapon TC's are 3,6,9,12 .... 90 and the same applies for armor. Items are assigned to TC's by their Ilvl (Item Level).
For example: Ilvl's of 1,2 and 3 are assigned to TC 3, for weapon or armor, depending on what item type it is. Items within their TC have exactly the same drop rate, regardless of whether for example the Ilvl is 1 or 3, because they are still both in the same TC. Armor TC's are twice as rare as weapon TC's because there are fewer armor classes in the game.
For general interest Mephisto drops up to weapon/armor 78 (hense items such as Valor, Eaglehorn and Doombringer can be dropped from hell Mephisto). Pindleskin can drop from all TC's, including weapon/armor 90.
Here are the odds of Pindleskin dropping from certain TC's:
REMEMBER THAT MAGIC FIND HAS NO EFFECT ON TC SELECTION
Weapons
90 - 1234 to 1
87 - 154 to 1
84 - 111 to 1
81 - 109 to 1
78 - 145 to 1 (no mistake, this is an obscure TC for pindleskin)
75 - 70 to 1
72 - 67 to 1
Armor
90 - 2467 to 1
87 - 308 to 1
84 - 221 to 1
81 - 218 to 1
78 - 290 to 1 (no mistake, this is an obscure TC for pindleskin)
75 - 140 to 1
72 - 135 to 1
Ok now it has selected one of those TC's. It now looks at the items within that TC. Most TC's for both weapon and armor have 6-10 items in them.
Assume that a TC has 5 items in it So each item in that TC has a drop rate of 1/5. However, class specific items (including scepters and wands) have a 1/3 drop rate and assassin claws have a 2/3 drop rate within their TC. So if this class had 1 class specific item, and 1 assassin claw in in it, Then the odds would be 1/15 and 2/15 respectively (and the other 3 items would have drop rates of 3/12 each). TC's with alot of items in them that are class specific are extremely rare because of such low odds.
Ok so now it has selected an item, that item will drop regardless of what magic find you have. But now magic find comes into it, it will determine the chance of the item being Unique/Set/Rare/Magical/Superior/Normal/Damaged (Pindleskin cannot drop superior, normal or damaged so rule out them). However some items cannot spawn as Unique or Set because not every item type has one. BUT, unique or set can still be selected.
If for example it selects a Set Shako (sounds weird doesn't it), thats not possible, so it downgrades the item to magical, and gives the magical shako 3 times the normal durability. And if for example a unique Ward is selected, also not possible, it will downgrade it to rare with 3 times the normal durability.
As you can see so far, you magic find does NOT have much impact on what items you find, but the type of item that is selected.
Now this is where another factor comes into it with magic find, which is Qlvl (Quality level). Its surprising to see the different quality levels of items. But basically the set or unique your looking for is more likely to drop if the quality level is much lower. If a monster's level is lower than the quality level of an item then that set or unique cannot drop.
For example:
You can find boots at the very start of act1 normal. But the set boots (Tancreds Hobnails) have a Qlvl of 27, which means that these boots cannot be found until normal Mephisto or there abouts. This is why some of the early items are so rare.
The Cranium Basher (Unique Thuner Maul) has a Qlvl of 91 (which means that no normal monster in the game can drop it because no normal monsters exceed level 90). Because of the very high item level, the chances of a Thunder Maul being unique is extremely low.
For Sacred Armor (IK Soul Cage is the Set piece), the Qlvl is only 37, making the chances of Sacred Armor being set very high (but good luck on getting Sacred Armor to drop with a 9047 to 1 odds)
I should point out that the chance of getting a unique from pindle can never be above 5%, even with 99999 magic find. But 800 or so magic find will give around a 4% chance of uniques for a Qlvl of 1, which is pretty decent. However for Cranium the chances of a Thunder Maul being unique would be around 3% for 800 magic find. Even if u dedicate your sorc to more mf, the overall % chance of getting uniques might increase from 3.5% to 3.6% for most items, so its generally not worth the time lost for each run.
For general interest the chances of getting a set item is around 11-13% (give or take depending of magic find and Qlvl of the item).
Well this was a mission to write up, but i hope you all gain a better understanding on how items drop and about magic find calculations. This is basically how the entire game works, but i did not get into other monsters and how their drops rates compare. If you have any questions feel free to ask and i will reply. I can also tell you which monster in the game drops the most of a specific item and things like that, thanks for reading
For those of you who have been wondering why you have not been getting the items you want, even with more magic find, heres why:
When at item drops, it calculates what TC (Treasure Class) that monster can drop from. There are 60 TC's in the game, 30 from armor, and 30 from weapons. Weapon TC's are 3,6,9,12 .... 90 and the same applies for armor. Items are assigned to TC's by their Ilvl (Item Level).
For example: Ilvl's of 1,2 and 3 are assigned to TC 3, for weapon or armor, depending on what item type it is. Items within their TC have exactly the same drop rate, regardless of whether for example the Ilvl is 1 or 3, because they are still both in the same TC. Armor TC's are twice as rare as weapon TC's because there are fewer armor classes in the game.
For general interest Mephisto drops up to weapon/armor 78 (hense items such as Valor, Eaglehorn and Doombringer can be dropped from hell Mephisto). Pindleskin can drop from all TC's, including weapon/armor 90.
Here are the odds of Pindleskin dropping from certain TC's:
REMEMBER THAT MAGIC FIND HAS NO EFFECT ON TC SELECTION
Weapons
90 - 1234 to 1
87 - 154 to 1
84 - 111 to 1
81 - 109 to 1
78 - 145 to 1 (no mistake, this is an obscure TC for pindleskin)
75 - 70 to 1
72 - 67 to 1
Armor
90 - 2467 to 1
87 - 308 to 1
84 - 221 to 1
81 - 218 to 1
78 - 290 to 1 (no mistake, this is an obscure TC for pindleskin)
75 - 140 to 1
72 - 135 to 1
Ok now it has selected one of those TC's. It now looks at the items within that TC. Most TC's for both weapon and armor have 6-10 items in them.
Assume that a TC has 5 items in it So each item in that TC has a drop rate of 1/5. However, class specific items (including scepters and wands) have a 1/3 drop rate and assassin claws have a 2/3 drop rate within their TC. So if this class had 1 class specific item, and 1 assassin claw in in it, Then the odds would be 1/15 and 2/15 respectively (and the other 3 items would have drop rates of 3/12 each). TC's with alot of items in them that are class specific are extremely rare because of such low odds.
Ok so now it has selected an item, that item will drop regardless of what magic find you have. But now magic find comes into it, it will determine the chance of the item being Unique/Set/Rare/Magical/Superior/Normal/Damaged (Pindleskin cannot drop superior, normal or damaged so rule out them). However some items cannot spawn as Unique or Set because not every item type has one. BUT, unique or set can still be selected.
If for example it selects a Set Shako (sounds weird doesn't it), thats not possible, so it downgrades the item to magical, and gives the magical shako 3 times the normal durability. And if for example a unique Ward is selected, also not possible, it will downgrade it to rare with 3 times the normal durability.
As you can see so far, you magic find does NOT have much impact on what items you find, but the type of item that is selected.
Now this is where another factor comes into it with magic find, which is Qlvl (Quality level). Its surprising to see the different quality levels of items. But basically the set or unique your looking for is more likely to drop if the quality level is much lower. If a monster's level is lower than the quality level of an item then that set or unique cannot drop.
For example:
You can find boots at the very start of act1 normal. But the set boots (Tancreds Hobnails) have a Qlvl of 27, which means that these boots cannot be found until normal Mephisto or there abouts. This is why some of the early items are so rare.
The Cranium Basher (Unique Thuner Maul) has a Qlvl of 91 (which means that no normal monster in the game can drop it because no normal monsters exceed level 90). Because of the very high item level, the chances of a Thunder Maul being unique is extremely low.
For Sacred Armor (IK Soul Cage is the Set piece), the Qlvl is only 37, making the chances of Sacred Armor being set very high (but good luck on getting Sacred Armor to drop with a 9047 to 1 odds)
I should point out that the chance of getting a unique from pindle can never be above 5%, even with 99999 magic find. But 800 or so magic find will give around a 4% chance of uniques for a Qlvl of 1, which is pretty decent. However for Cranium the chances of a Thunder Maul being unique would be around 3% for 800 magic find. Even if u dedicate your sorc to more mf, the overall % chance of getting uniques might increase from 3.5% to 3.6% for most items, so its generally not worth the time lost for each run.
For general interest the chances of getting a set item is around 11-13% (give or take depending of magic find and Qlvl of the item).
Well this was a mission to write up, but i hope you all gain a better understanding on how items drop and about magic find calculations. This is basically how the entire game works, but i did not get into other monsters and how their drops rates compare. If you have any questions feel free to ask and i will reply. I can also tell you which monster in the game drops the most of a specific item and things like that, thanks for reading
