My approach to building a soceress in AR has been a bit kitchen-sink-ish. Okay, a whole lot kitchen-sink-ish. What else do you call putting a point in every skill? But with SoJ's on demand, not to mention Tarns, and an early drop of an orb with +1 to sorcie skills, this has meant that I could try all the skills at at least level 5, which really gives one a better feel for what it will do than level 1. Much experimentation has settled on her using Shiver Armour, Energy Field, Thunderstorm, Glacial Spike (left button) and Hydra, for the most part.
One early evening's playtime found me determinedly and sleepily plugging away at the levels below the Crypt. I wanted the Cats 2 waypoint before I went to bed, I couldn't remember why, but I did, so there she was, scorching and chilling boss packs of Minions of Destruction while trying to stay out of stun range of their charges. She levelled a hell of a lot before finally stepping on that waypoint, enough to wear the Smoked spint mail she'd had in reserve.
Some few days later, she went down and down and down the Swampy Pit, and ended up static-ing Enraged Diablos into nothingness. (It's really weird, the "diablo death" music starts up each time one of them dies, only to be cut off when she attacks the next one.)
In between all this questy stuff, she made a lot of rune runs. The sequence I've eventually worked out is:
(stop and cube the boots and the Treads, see if Horse Boots better than pair on feet; put away SoJ and rune.)
The above is fast, and nets at least seven runes of all rarities. Checking the Tarns each time got her a 50% one eventually, and while most of the unique ring/amulet cubings have been busts, she did luck out and get Rising Sun, Mara's Kaleidoscope, and Atma's Scarab.
One of the Diablos dropped rare gauntlets, and so with some determined rune running, she managed to get the TalRalOrtEl combo to turn them into Frostburns. They'd also dropped a rare edge bow, and while she didn't use a rogue merc, her Druid buddy did. So her to-do list now included a TalRalOrtEl set to make a Skystrike for his merc.
But that's back-burner stuff. She and the Druid had just killed Mephisto, so they were in Hell and gunning for Izual, who drops, when prompted often enough, Hwanin's Majesty. When cubed, it's one of the sets that creates truly cheesy armour, a tigulated mail: +2 to skills, 30% resist all, 30% faster run/walk, +500 to defence and 20% (!) life steal.
Izual drops a Bill, a Grand Crown, a Belt, a Tigulated Mail and an amulet. Every time. They may or may not be rare, or unique, or set or any combination thereof. If they're set, they may or may not be Hwanin's. Getting the full set, then, is an exercise in persistence.
Getting the full set three times is an exercise in madness.
Why three? My sorcie wanted a set. The Druid wanted a set. My sorc wanted a set for her merc. The rogue merc probably wants a set, but there's a limit to what I'll endure for another character's merc. I'd commited to getting her a Skystrike—she could jolly well commit to not getting hit.
My Izual runs over the last three days have been many. I have tried them with no magic find and with all the magic find I could pull together. No magic find resulted in one run where the Bill, the Grand Crown, the Tig Mail and the amulet were all unique, so I gave that up in a hurry and went back to my standard equipment.
I found in total some five Crowns of Thieves, one of which was ethereal, three Blackleach Blades, three Crow Caws and four Nightsmokes. Of Hwanin's things, at least five Crowns, six or seven Tiggies, four Belts and three Bills. The rest were no-account rares, or low-level set pieces from the wrong set.
It's the Bills that don't want to drop. The rest are quite cooperative, but the Bills like to go rare, if they can, and if they can't, unique. Only when absolutely pushed do they turn green.
Gunning for Izual, she managed to pick up the last half of the level from 44 to 45, so it wasn't all purely for ITAM. She also practised using Teleport, and dealing with being surrounded and mobbed as a result of practising Teleport. She replaced her ethereal Nightsmoke with a regular one that had better stats. Her merc sports the ethereal Crown of Thieves, a Crow Caw and a Blackleach Blade, a very nice setup for an A2 merc. Halbu is up to his ears in rare tiggies from all the ones she sold him, and Jamella's Gambling Emporium became a regular stop due to all the extra gold from selling off rare tigs.
The first green Bill dropped yesterday and the other two this morning. I think the third dropping so quickly was a fluke, since it wasn't due for a month of Iz runs. With three nice tiggies all cubed, one on her person and two set aside, she went back to rune runs. Three hours later, she had a set of TalRalOrtEl, and cubed the Skystrike.
So that's all the Christmas shopping done, and I do believe that she can, in good conscience, wander off to Harrogath to hassle Imps and Overlords.