TWSK Episode 9 – It’s Izual not Izual

Dave: before lod

Dave: came out

Dave: there was a 3% chance that any item you gamble would come out as the unique version of that class of item

Dave: there were no exceptional uniques and elite items did not exist yet

Dave: a popular item to gamble would be tarnhelm

Dave: +1 skills and like 25-50% magic find bonus

Dave: for casters namely

Dave: now for rings and amulets

Dave: if you gambled a unique, it would give them in the order of there level

Dave: for example, Nagelring you would get first

Dave: but if you had a nagelring in your inventory/stash

Dave: you could only gamble the next one in line

Dave: Manald Heal

Dave: and if you had that as well

Dave: then you could only get Stone of Jordan

Dave: now SoJ was very popular

Dave: because it gave +1 skill and 25% of your base mana bonus to total mana

Dave: which on sorceress, necros, etc. was quite solid

Dave: especially energy shield sorceress

Dave: which was the only kind really 😀

Dave: and

Dave: since uniques originally had no required level

Dave: and rings had no stats requirements

Dave: you could put 2 SoJs on a low level character

Dave: for the flat + % mana bonuses

Dave: and +2 skills

Dave: = GODLY LEVELING BUFF

Dave: making them useful to everyone

Dave: esp casters

Dave: because back then there were no synergies

Dave: you would NEVER want to put an extra point into say, Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, Glacial Spike, and blizzard sucked, so 1 point too

Dave: all to get frozen orb, on sorceress for an example

Dave: so SoJ + Tarn was the difference

Dave: between casting level 1 ice bolt until you got iceblast

Dave: and level 4 icebolt

Dave: and when you got iceblast, glacial, blizzard, etc., there’s +3 skills off the bat

Dave: to help you level

Dave: so SoJ for the twinking and sorceress builds was crazy popular

Dave: and even popular to noobs on some builds they shouldn’t go on

Dave: so they held great value

Dave: esp since they were pretty rare value

Dave: thus the great gamble fest began

Dave: people would get themself a manald heal and nagelring on a mule character

Dave: have their farmer/magic finder farm up like 1mill gold

Dave: then dump it on that mule and gamble rings like crazy

Dave: and usually get a SOJ or Two

Dave: then mule that onto a trading character

Dave: soon

Dave: godly items

Dave: became exclusively for trade for SOJs

Dave: godly rare bows for amazongs

Dave: in the 150 dmg + ias, etc. state range

Dave: rare executioner swords for S+Shield barbs

Dave: rare lances for magic find barbs

Dave: godly sorc mage plates

Dave: etc.

Dave: and since noobs wanted them badly, they would gladly trade a manald+nagel ring to get one (allowing others who knew how to play the game to gamble more sojs), and also some solid rare items for SOJ(s)

Dave: so SOJs became the main currency

Dave: even if duping wasn’t around

Dave: the gambling made it so

Dave: once lod came out however, with the advent of rust storm

Dave: and blizzard realizing ppl would still spam SOJs and other uniques of worth with gambling

Dave: and the fact that they added exceptional and elite uniques

Dave: blizzard nerfed the gambling of uniques hard

Dave: first off in that not all unique items had the exact same chance to be gambled

Dave: and general unique chance was super low

Dave: down from 3% to maybe 0.02ish %

Dave: so 1/5000 chance or so

Dave: could be wrong

Dave: look it up

Dave: in addition

Dave: they made it to where you no longer gambled only uniques you didn’t have or in any order

Dave: so you could gamble 20 nagel rings

Dave: and never get that SOJ or Manald, or other godly unique rings

Dave: (which were added post LoD)

Dave: also

Dave: ppl on ladder and such

Dave: would gamble rings and amulets like mad

Dave: when the seperate ladder season thing started late in LoD

Dave: because there were no duplicate godly rare rings/amulets left over for ladder players

Dave: so gambling was and is a great way to find new gosu rare jewelry

Dave: esp

Dave: 10% faster cast, all resist, stat rings

Dave: +2 skill 10% faster cast, resist, stat, etc. amulets

Dave: (+2 <class> skill, not all skills)

Dave: like +2 Sorc, +2 Necro, etc.

Dave: however

Dave: non-ladder

Dave: primary most desired amulet/ring is either existing dupes, or more so

Dave: crafted amulets for casters

Dave: because you can get the same stats

Dave: +2 to that char skill tree, 10% FCR, resists, stats, etc.

Dave: but

Dave: the “caster” amulet, for example, made a random rare amulet + added mana and 5-10% faster cast rate

Dave: so you could potentially

Dave: make a

Dave: +2 Sorceress/Necro/Druid (or +3 Sorc Cold/Druid Elemental/Necro Bone+Poison, etc.) skill level, 20% faster cast, other stats amulet

Dave: since all characters had specific faster cast rate breakpoints

Dave: like say sorc was maybe 65 , 105, 200 FCR to get to the next speed (1 less frame of casting animation)

Dave: if that amulet had 20% faster cast rate and the +2 class skills, or +3 tree skills: GOOD GAME

Dave: you could then maybe say, use a Stone of Jordan on your crazy e-shield sorc

Dave: instead of the +10% fcr ring and 10% fcr amulet

Dave: just Soj + 20% FCR amulet

Dave: that being said

Dave: most ppl still used gambled or duped rare amulets

Dave: cause the crafted 20% would be ungodly rare and expensive to trade for