Question on unique item spawning

[Sirrocco]

So, I'm playing through on an oozemaster, and for some reason, I've grown irrationally attached to the idea of getting Spellhunt Remnants for this guy, and I'm willing to do silly amounts of grinding to get it. (The oozemaster-unlock dungeon currently has no walls on its bottom floor, and has run through more than half of the walls on its middle floor. I have over 1000 fortress energy now, I'm sure to get a fair bit more before I'm done, and I'm not afraid to use it. Etc.) My rough idea was that I'd just grind for the uniques in random drops until I ran out of ability to grind. I might get lucky, and if I didn't get lucky, maybe I'd have cleaned out the pool of available uniques enough that I'd get it off a boss drop later. I'm realizing, though, that I'm not seeing any tier 1 uniques anymore (or, indeed, tier 1 anything) and I'm wondering if the plan is even still possible. Are the remnants (and tier 1 artifacts in general) something that you get while within the appropriate level bracket or not at all? Does anyone know how this part of the item drop code works?

[Hachem_Muche]

I'm afraid you're not likely to see them. They have a level range of 1 - 25, and material level 1. This means that they become increasingly more rare after the level of the dungeons exceeds 25, and the material level means that they cannot drop at all in most of the later zones which have a minimum material level 3+.

[Sirrocco]

Got it. Thanks. I suppose I'll stop with the ridiculous grinding, then.

[Sirrocco]

Further question: suppose that someone managed a truly ridiculous amount of grinding and fully exhausted the uniques of some level or other. What would happen if you killed a boss monster scripted to autodrop a unique of that level?

[phantomglider]

All the items that are guaranteed dropped by a monster can't spawn anywhere else. In the case that a boss would drop some other item that has already been spawned, it just drops some other artifact instead; often a fixedart, but sometimes a randart.

[Sedrahl]

I have a somewhat related question.

Suppose I'm grinding farportals for randarts, however there are also some uniques I want to get now. Is it a bad idea to dive for the portal boss without clearing entire maps? If an artifact I want is generated on a map floor or in a monster's inventory, and I leave without actually finding it, will ir never be generated again?

[Hachem_Muche]

Fixed (unique) artifacts are marked as encountered as soon as they're generated. So if you enter a level where one is generated, the game adds it to an internal list so that it can't be generated again. Diving to the bottom of a farportal zone therefore carries the risk that you will not be able to get certain artifacts in that play through.

Note, however, there is a bug that occasionally causes some unique items to be generated more than once.

[darkgod]

Wrong, maps that are not persistant free their uniques on despawning

[Hachem_Muche]

Hah! I stand corrected!

[Sirrocco]

Okay, so I can't get Spellhunt Remnants via mid-to-late-game grinding, but I'm feeling obsessive enough about getting them on a character to do some moderately silly things. So with a material level of 1 and a level range of 1-25, the following seems to be true (please correct any inaccuracies)....

- There are some dungeons that might spawn the remnants if I get to them at low enough level, but leveling up too much will make them no longer capable of spawning. I want to get to those as early as I can. This also suggests playing races that level slowly, so I can get as many of these in as I can before I level out of them. Additionally, I want to make each of these dungeons as low level as I can (ie, hit them just as my own level is just about to start pushing the dungeon level up), both to limit the incoming exp per dungeon, and to limit the pool of available uniques that is being rolled from to the lower-level ones. If I want to get *particularly* intense about it, ti may be worth going in, grabbing everything off the floor and killing what random monsters I must, but not killing the guardian until later - once he's spawned, his level (and that of his dropped gear) should be set.

- There are some dungeons (I think just the starter dungeons) that will drop things in that level range with those material numbers no matter what I do. Thus, it's good to grab someone who gets a few extra starter dungeons, both for the general gear generation and for the extra low-tier uniques from those end bosses (like dwarves). Optimally, I should save these dungeons until after leveling high enough that the dungeons from the previous set can no longer provide the remnants, or, alternately, after causing all of the guardians from the previous set to generate.

- There are some dungeons that do not spawn material level 1 gear, and should be avoided entirely until there are no remaining unspawned potential remnants.

- There are a few ways to grind indefinitely (primarily adventurer parties and farportals). Adventurer parties only rarely spawn gloves, I'm not sure they even *can* spawn uniques, and they push exp to you pretty quickly. Farportals seem like you'd have to get down there *very* early to run at an appropriate level at all, and would likely then level you out too fast (though do correct me if I'm wrong)

Is all of this more or less right? If so, how do I know which dungeons can spawn the remnants, and which cannot (and when)? Is there anything in particular I can do to make it more likely that they will spawn (as opposed to any other unique out there?

[AlexanderR]

Is all of this more or less right? If so, how do I know which dungeons can spawn the remnants, and which cannot (and when)? Is there anything in particular I can do to make it more likely that they will spawn (as opposed to any other unique out there?

This wiki page lists pretty much all zones with their levels. See pages of individual zones for material levels. Take dwarf (to get 2 1-tier artifacts) or Thalore (for the slowest leveling). And make sure to check all shop inventories and misc zones (lumberjack village etc.), as they sometimes produce artifacts as well.

[Earwicker]

Adventurer parties only rarely spawn gloves, I'm not sure they even *can* spawn uniques,

They can (at least they could in 1.0.1, and I assume it's still the same in 1.0.4.)

how do I know which dungeons can spawn the remnants, and which cannot (and when)?

Town stores (not Zigur, though - which is weird) before Ambush, Tier 1 & 2, Assassin Lord, slavers compound, adventurers parties and zigur patrols and (maybe) farportal farming before hitting level 26 - I think that's all, or close.

[Mewtarthio]

Adventurer parties only rarely spawn gloves, I'm not sure they even *can* spawn uniques,

Adventurers have store-quality loot, meaning that 0.5% of their loot is unique. Gauntlets are especially rare, since Brawlers are the only Adventurers guaranteed to carry them. You can get the Remnants from Adventuring parties, but it's not very likely.

As for Farportals, those stop giving you tier 1 loot when you hit level 21.

[Jager]

Why not donate some money to Darkgod, start another character, get the gloves by doing the appropriate dungeons then store the gloves in your shared bank?

Much easier and more fun than grinding.

Good luck.

[Sirrocco]

passing gear between characters just isn't the same.