So I was having trouble getting past Bastille 3 (the 2 bosses together with their pets) and went back to Bastille 2 to level up some. Noticed that Grippywor popped up a LOT, and dropped almost all unique and set items. So figured I'd start a thread for unique farming.

Zone / Mob Name / Approx. level you'll be when you get there first time (and item level for those that go back to farm for alts)

Braxxen's Bastille 2 zone - Grippywor - level 25 +/- first time and level 17+ loot

I'll edit this post if anyone adds more zones in their replies.

Lvl and zone don't really factor in, it's about mob type, chain lenght, horde bonus (how many mobs you're fighting at the same time) and your MF bonus. If you haven't already, check the wiki - magic find mechanics - to see how it works.

I guess you're past Braxxen and her friend by now, but if you're still having trouble, there's a way to fight them one by one ( worked almost every time for me), msg me and I'll let u know how...

I'll check the wiki, thanks. I just know that anytime I go back to Braxxen's Bastille 2 and hit "D" a few times he shows up. To me that means he's on the mob table there. has nothing to do with levels, that was so people had an idea of what level THEY would be when encountering him, as well as a round about level of gear he drops. Even without magic find, he drops uniques all day long.

^oh sorry I misunderstood a bit...
And yes, all named (non-boss) uniques are tied to a particular zone, and they all have great drop rates!

A lot of newer players I've chatted with in game weren't aware of the loot filter. Setting proper loot filter settings when you're farming is the 1st thing you do. If you don't do that you'll continuously get flooded with junk, have to stop and manage your inventory, and rarely find anything good.

There is some confusion for new players as to how the filter works, so I'll explain it.

All = no filters for that specific type.
None = You get none of that specific type.
Normal = You will get exceptional and elite tier of that type.
Exceptional = You will only get elite tier items of that type.

Someone starting out in normal mode might want their filters to look like this:

Normal => none
Magical => none
Rare => All (if you desperately need gear, or set to none)
Unique => All
Set => All

For Nightmare:

Normal => none
Magical => none
Rare => normal (if you desperately need gear, or set to none)
Unique => normal
Set => normal

For Hell:

Normal => none
Magical => none
Rare => exceptional (if you desperately need gear, or set to none)
Unique => exceptional
Set => exceptional

Something else to note is that rare rings and amulets only seem to drop if you have the loot filter set to "all" on rares. Setting the loot filter for rare items to "exceptional" when farming hell mode never got me a single ring or amulet drop. You can get some nicely rolled rings and amulets, and best of all they can be used at any level. Its possible to roll very good mods like life leech and all stats that could make rare rings/amulets superior to anything you can equip in those slots until you start getting elite tier set rings/amulets. 2 rings + amulet with 5-7 life leech could give you over 20 life leech on a level 1 character, which will make you much harder to kill. My "leveling" sets which consist of elite tier rares + rings + amulets gives me a healthy amount of stat boosts, life leech and +% exp gain. So don't completely overlook rare items, they have their uses.

Also, I got to a point where I no longer saw the need to continue farming for unique items, due to having all the ones that were worth keeping. Even though there are a couple uniques I wouldn't mind having extra copies of like Staff of Sentoth, the odds of me getting one are extremely low. I'd be farming for a needle in a haystack, when nearly every unique drop is junk, or I don't need it. BiS for end game consists mostly of set items, and there is a greater range of items from the set drop pool that I might find useful. So I prioritized my farming as such. That's why I got 8 characters completely geared out, and enough gear in storage to do at least 2-3 more.

^The loot filter is a great tool, a little confusing at first maybe but really nice to have. Your explanation about it is helpful and wise; another thing to add that maybe new players ignore is where the different tiers of gear can drop. Iirc here's how it works:
-Normal gear : from ActI normal up until the end of Hell ( so yes, everywhere)
-Exceptional gear: from ActIV normal ( only from rare/boss type mobs I think) and further on; it's a rarer drop than normal tier.
-Elite gear: from ActIV Nightmare ( again, only rare/boss type mobs I think) and further on; it's rarer than exceptional tier.

Back to the loot filter, imho everyone should quite easily understand how it works and how to set it at best for their needs ( e.g. if you are a new player and have no levelling gear, at first is better to allow also magic items to drop in order to start gearing up your char faster, than as you advance ingame you can replace those blue items with better rares/uniques and turn on the filter...)

Lastly, I've never noticed the rare ring and amulet "bug" you mentioned, I could be wrong but I recall they did drop for me when I had the loot filter on exceptional, they just were a rarer drop than the other slots. Maybe Mael could check on this...

I farmed nightmare nimgall for a couple hours one time specifically looking for elite tier leveling gear, I found some useful stuff, but not a single ring or amulet. I turned the rare filter to include all rare drops, and it started raining rings and amulets. And they had good mods on them. I found quite a few really nice rings/amulets as soon as I turned the filter down to include all rare drops. The odds of that just being a freak occurrence or coincidence are extremely unlikely IMO. I've played enough loot farming games to know how RNG functions in a game.

If you can get 25+ life leech and +40-50% exp gain on a level 1 character, and a good damage weapon, that's HUGE. And its not too hard to get that. I equip gear at level 1, and don't touch my gear until level 68 when I can throw on all the highest level gear.

Something else I noticed after farming (enough to gear out 8+ characters end game) is that drops of the staff category are exceptionally rare. I'm not talking just staff of sentoth and archmage's staff. But ANY elite tier staff drops. Luckily the archmage's set is garbage (except for the shoulder) compared to the much more commonly dropped sorcerer's set which has really great set bonuses for casters. Which I have multiple full set copies of. I've noticed more than a few people on here talk about how rare of a drop the staff of sentoth is, so I know its not just me. Hallowed Gavel of Pharmakos is arguably stronger than the Staff of Sentoth, and its a little more common due to being 2h mace category, and not staff. I have 3 of those.

I suspect certain enemy types are weighted in favor of dropping certain item types, but I don't have any evidence to support it. Very likely its just a coincidence, but maybe its not. More testing will have to be done. Some "groups" in nimgall seemed to give me more weapon drops, while others gave almost no weapon drops. If this turns out to be true, it might explain why staff of sentoth is extremely rare. If you're not even chaining mobs where its on their drop pools.....I got more weapon drops when I fought the group with chaos enforcers. The staff of sentoth that dropped, I got it when fighting chaos enforcers. That's also one of the tougher groups to farm due to mobs in that grouping having harm touch and can wreck you quickly. Trying to 5 pull those is borderline nutty unless you're uber geared and playing one of the tankier classes. In hardcore, I wouldn't risk it. If you clear nimgall and farm afterwards, the enemies that spawn can be from any one of the previous groups, I tried this thinking I might get a more diverse range of drops. Turns out I did. Again, it could just be a coincidence. The only one who knows for sure is Maelfyn.