Best area to farm for runes?

[Will]

What area(s) do you guys find best to search for high level runes? Im thinking Arcane Sanctuary and Flayer Jungle as two possible destinations, anyone else?

[cougar]

I do lots of Countess runs.

In nightmare i've gotten a good number of Io's, shael's, sol's, and amn's.

I think about 4 total Io's. Not sure if that's the highest that nightmare Countess can drop, but it's an easy run, and there are alot of unique monsters on the way that can drop some pretty decent mid level uniques. I got suicide branch from a unique Fallen Shaman on the way down.

[Mcsaladshaker]

Hell countess can drop up to Lo

Someone once told me that Hephasto has the best chance to drop Zod

That same person also told me that the council members before meph also drop good

[Omikron8]

Hell Flayer Jungle all the way. Last season i found a ber, pul, lem, ko and some other runes while running with my strafezon. A decent damage bow and laying of hands are all you need.

[ConnerMacleod]

Highest odds of High Rune drops are going to be from two of the nastiest places you can go:

1) Hephasto the Armorer - Up to Zod, Highest odds of high runes overall
2) Bremm Sparkfist, Geleb, Toorc, and friends, Up to Cham

Heph ain't so bad if you just get to know him
But those Council guys can spawn about any mod you can think of, and since there are 3 of them at Travincal you are talking a long fight. Bremm is usually always LEB or immune to the one thing you can kill him with.

EDIT: And McSalad, I think that person was me? lol

[Mcsaladshaker]

who else would know that crap? ^.^

[probowl278]

Last season I did 200+ trav runs with my ik barb and there were no signs of any runes, but hell countess did drop 2 mal runes in 10 runs, so imo hell countess is the best area, also monsters on the way down drop good.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Pretty sure Hell Nithalak has the same odds as heph, if you want to venture on down there...

[cougar]

hehe too bad you'd die like every 5 runs or so unless you had a char specially built for him.

Man that guy's mean.

[ConnerMacleod]

Pretty sure Hell Nithalak has the same odds as heph, if you want to venture on down there...

There's a Nihlathak in Hell now? When did this happen?


Seriously tho, yes, he does have the same odds, but outside of Softcore I wouldn't go trying to find him anytime soon.

[Phantom_Man]

There's a Nihlathak in Hell now? When did this happen?


Seriously tho, yes, he does have the same odds, but outside of Softcore I wouldn't go trying to find him anytime soon.

I'm in the process of making a Nihlathak runner right now. He's pretty easy if you have the right gear and know how to beat him.

Phantom- :drink:

[Hells]

Killing flayers in the flayer dungeon is your best bet..

Baal (first kill): 0.00000033476347% chance for zod
Diablo (first kill): 0.00000033476347% chance for zod
Heph: 0.00000032546449% chance for zod
Nilli: 0.00000032546449% chance for zod
Flayer (flayer dungeon): 0.00000003254645% chance for Zod

I'm too lazy, someone turn them into fractions :D

[ConnerMacleod]

Just 1/x them. Those will be your odds.

[cougar]

I remember the old school way of takin out Nihlatek was to get a bow with knockback to keep all his little minions away from you.

Dunno how they do it now tho.

[Omikron8]

hehe too bad you'd die like every 5 runs or so unless you had a char specially built for him.

Man that guy's mean.

Nihlathak is nothing compared to the bugged tomb vipers down there in Halls of Vaught. They stack their physical damage on top of every frame of their poison missile attack, resulting in thousands of points of quick damage.

[Phantom_Man]

Baal (first kill): 2987183.7569373982173144519024134
Diablo (first kill): 2987183.7569373982173144519024134
Heph: 3072531.8144538594671265058747269
Nilli: 3072531.8144538594671265058747269
Flayer (flayer dungeon): 30725317.200493448594239924784423

I have no idea what those mean, but I was bored.

Phantom- :drink:

[Phantom_Man]

Nihlathak is nothing compared to the bugged tomb vipers down there in Halls of Vaught. They stack their physical damage on top of every frame of their poison missile attack, resulting in thousands of points of quick damage.

I know this all too well. My javazon almost tanked it in Nm so many times to those guys.

Howl and Grim Ward have their uses though.

Phantom- :drink:

[cougar]

*stays away from halls of vaught*



i forgot what the quest reward for nihlatek was...

[Phantom_Man]

Personalized item.

Phantom- :drink:

[cougar]

ooooo yeah.

That makes all the danger completely worth it :rolleyes:

[Randal.Flag]

I got cham and a gul in two days from counsils (last season), but I did them a lot then. Don't get fooled though, I was really lucky and must also warn you that you can make houndreds of runs and get nothing, at least no high runes. High dmg barb can do them fast and has no problem with immunities.

[stevethatsmyname]

is there a difference between the council in durance vs. council in travincal?

I have an easy way to take out the council in durance (i.e. bliz + moat trick) but i dunno if they have better or worse chance than travincal?

Allz i really need is a rising sun to negate their hydras and i will be immune to em pretty much.

[ConnerMacleod]

Baal (first kill): 2987183.7569373982173144519024134
Diablo (first kill): 2987183.7569373982173144519024134
Heph: 3072531.8144538594671265058747269
Nilli: 3072531.8144538594671265058747269
Flayer (flayer dungeon): 30725317.200493448594239924784423

I have no idea what those mean, but I was bored.

Phantom- :drink:

Ok, here's how you read that Phantom...

x = the number you calculated
Therefore, 1 in x are your odds of a drop. So if you kill around 3.07 x 10^7 Flayers, then you gets a high chance of da runez ta drop! Or for those math declined, 1 out of every 30,725,317 dead flayers has a shot of dropping you that Cham! Also, if you kill Nihlithak around 3 million times, you have a guaranteed shot of that Zod dropping! Kinda puts it all in perspective. Get crackin', we'll see you here when you are about to collect Social Security LOL

And Steve, no difference at all between them.

[Mad Merlin]

Hell countess can drop up to Lo

Countess only gets enhanced odds up to Ist rune though, otherwise she drops runes like a normal monster.

[ConnerMacleod]

Yeah, anything above Ist drops from her Normal drop, Ist and below drop from the rune check.

[_OrpheusPrime_]

Easiest way to get high runes is to get 2 keys and farm the nm and hell hellforge quests with a good overall rush char (sorc, hammerdin preferably). You can cube up runes once you get two or more (in the higher rune numbers).

Odds are waaaya better of getting good runes by doing this, its just 1) a huge pain in the butt to create all the dury key chars that make this time-efficient, 2) a huge pain in the butt to give full hell rushes over and over, 3) Pretty dangerous unless you are a necro with minions (in wich case it will take you forver to get the rush done)

So, if you have the resources (2 keys) and preferrably 2 computers, a godly sorc or hammerdin, then go ahead and make duriel key chars for all 3 difficulties and start hell hellforge rushing. :drool:

[Mad Merlin]

Easiest way to get high runes is to get 2 keys and farm the nm and hell hellforge quests with a good overall rush char (sorc, hammerdin preferably). You can cube up runes once you get two or more (in the higher rune numbers).

Odds are waaaya better of getting good runes by doing this, its just 1) a huge pain in the butt to create all the dury key chars that make this time-efficient, 2) a huge pain in the butt to give full hell rushes over and over, 3) Pretty dangerous unless you are a necro with minions (in wich case it will take you forver to get the rush done)

So, if you have the resources (2 keys) and preferrably 2 computers, a godly sorc or hammerdin, then go ahead and make duriel key chars for all 3 difficulties and start hell hellforge rushing. :drool:

In a way this is true, but generally the hardest/longest part of doing this is leeching the normal and nightmare baal quests, other than that bo and 105+ fcr sorc teleporting should not have any problems, scariest part is usually the pit viper temple. But even looking at best case scenario each time (Gul from hell), you still need to do almost 100 forge runs to cube your own legit Enigma (not counting the ith rune of course, only dupers have those), and in worst case scenario (Hel from hell) you're looking at well over 100,000 runs for the same result. I'd say hellforge runs are the fastest way to get yourself runes up to Ohm or perhaps Lo, but drops off after that.

[stevethatsmyname]

thats why you get 8 keys, 4 computers, and get 7 baal quests at the same time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (never done this before :) )

But gee would that be efficient. I think 2 godly characters could probably rush 6 characters, so you could, teaming up with a friend, rush for 6 forges simultaneously, and only have to level one of em from 1-40. (That coudl be a real character that you want leveled)

[ZounceHC]

thats why you get 8 keys, 4 computers, and get 7 baal quests at the same time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (never done this before :) )

But gee would that be efficient. I think 2 godly characters could probably rush 6 characters, so you could, teaming up with a friend, rush for 6 forges simultaneously, and only have to level one of em from 1-40. (That coudl be a real character that you want leveled)

You don't have to level any of the chars. I did this yesterday with 2 chars. Um and Hel from Hell Hellforge :(

Once I was in Act5 I made a game with the lvl 1 called Baal for Q. Joined with my sorc partied up my lvl 1 and began to kill the minions. Ppl entered I ppd them and we killed baal. My lvl 1 gets the Q and can go on to NM. Do the same thing in NM.

[Mad Merlin]

thats why you get 8 keys, 4 computers, and get 7 baal quests at the same time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (never done this before :) )

But gee would that be efficient. I think 2 godly characters could probably rush 6 characters, so you could, teaming up with a friend, rush for 6 forges simultaneously, and only have to level one of em from 1-40. (That coudl be a real character that you want leveled)

Best would be to level 8 chars up to 40 at the same time, then you could do 8 forge runs in a row without having to level anybody up, on average you should be able to get a gul rune about once every hour and a half or so (assuming roughly an hour to do a full run), then it'd only take you about 96*1.5 hours or 6 days straight to get your own legit enigma! Get cracking people!

[ElPatron]

Best would be to level 8 chars up to 40 at the same time, then you could do 8 forge runs in a row without having to level anybody up, on average you should be able to get a gul rune about once every hour and a half or so (assuming roughly an hour to do a full run), then it'd only take you about 96*1.5 hours or 6 days straight to get your own legit enigma! Get cracking people!

That actually isn't a terribly difficult thing to do if you have the resources. Probably would take around a month/2 months...

And you don't have to level 8 chars up to 40...maybe 1 and maybe 0, depends on if you can get your char leeched through baal.

[Mad Merlin]

And you don't have to level 8 chars up to 40...maybe 1 and maybe 0, depends on if you can get your char leeched through baal.

I'm aware of the quest leeching method, but I think you'll find it exceptionally difficult to do with 7 or 8 level 1 characters, finding someone willing to do their baal quest at any given time isn't really an easy task when looking around in pubbies. If you've got a reliable source of leeching the quest, that's another matter, but I don't have such a resource.

[0takuPryd3]

All you have to do is offer rush for forge... I've done six so far with a pure cold sorc, and I got Gul, Gul, Hel, Lem, the guy left, the guy left. Takes about half an hour to rush someone, and for me personally (I know I got lucky) the returns were better than mfing.

[Will]

All you have to do is offer rush for forge... I've done six so far with a pure cold sorc, and I got Gul, Gul, Hel, Lem, the guy left, the guy left. Takes about half an hour to rush someone, and for me personally (I know I got lucky) the returns were better than mfing.

Lucky for what runes dropped or lucky only two guys left? :lol:

[stevethatsmyname]

I think one of the biggest problems with rushing 6 level 1's through hell is travincal. I still havent figured out how to pass travincal without taking the risk of being targeted by hydras. Thats why i find it much easier with at least 1 high-ish level character with maxed resists who is the designated person to go down portals and get quest for everyone!

[ZounceHC]

I think one of the biggest problems with rushing 6 level 1's through hell is travincal. I still havent figured out how to pass travincal without taking the risk of being targeted by hydras. Thats why i find it much easier with at least 1 high-ish level character with maxed resists who is the designated person to go down portals and get quest for everyone!

Yea, this was the hardest bit for me. Had to do it twice as I was too far away the first time. Second time I set the tp out front behind my necs summons. I'm still deciding if it's actually worth the effort to farm runes this way as it's pretty disappointing to rush a char up to Act4 Hell to get a Hel Rune.

[lusse]

Well, I'vent got really high runes but lem and lum drop rather often for me doing hell pindle. I use to take eld/shenk/pindle with my trapsin and it all goes really smooth .Its nothing in comperation with meph runs, but I get some dcent drops

[Nerf-Herder]

i thought you couldnt clear normal until lev 20?

am i missing something?

[cougar]

you can get rushed through normal at lvl 1 if you want.

[Mad Merlin]

I think one of the biggest problems with rushing 6 level 1's through hell is travincal. I still havent figured out how to pass travincal without taking the risk of being targeted by hydras. Thats why i find it much easier with at least 1 high-ish level character with maxed resists who is the designated person to go down portals and get quest for everyone!

You only need to take one of the mules down to trav (of course), just hide behind a gob of necro skeletons/summons and you should be good to go. I usually find that wandering zealots are more of a danger than hydras, because they're so fast.

On top of that, a morphed druid of any level can take a bit of beating, as I'm relatively sure they can't be 1 hit killed this way.

[Will]

On top of that, a morphed druid of any level can take a bit of beating, as I'm relatively sure they can't be 1 hit killed this way.

Hm, yeah, thats what I was thinking, a druid level 12+ wearing angelic set(except for sickle) and a hellforge with all into vit/os might be able to take a shot or two of hydra.

[Cleglaw_Himself]

I think one of the biggest problems with rushing 6 level 1's through hell is travincal. I still havent figured out how to pass travincal without taking the risk of being targeted by hydras. Thats why i find it much easier with at least 1 high-ish level character with maxed resists who is the designated person to go down portals and get quest for everyone!
Best way I've found is to use a sorc, teleport around to the back of the council chamber, without letting them see you. Make sure all nearby zealots are dead, otherwise your poor lvl 1 will be 1 hit ko'd by them. Then lvl 1 comes down. Then sorc tele's in to chamber and kills. If hydra appears on 2nd comp, get mule to town.

@Nerf-Herder - lvl 1 gets to Act 5. Baal quest gets done and someone who needs it is down there (over lvl 20 char in normal, 40 in nm). Lvl 1 gets quest too and skips off to nightmare.

[Vectom]

thats why you get 8 keys, 4 computers, and get 7 baal quests at the same time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (never done this before :) )
Hmm, 8 keys ... 4 computers ... 7 baal quests. Is there a legit way to run 2 dias on one comp or I just don't get this?



I think one of the biggest problems with rushing 6 level 1's through hell is travincal. I still havent figured out how to pass travincal without taking the risk of being targeted by hydras.
Clear the place right behind the wall of the building council members lurk in and set a tp there. I do it while rushing friends and never got a hydra there.

[WingBlade]

I've done Norm and NM self-PA's and I've found the using the small island to the left of the council is a decent safe pt... u just have 2 clear the area... make a tp and be far enuf from council to not setup a hydra... using a sorc for the PA's, tele down 2 the front of the council so there attn is to you.

Haven't tried in Hell yet so that maybe a bit tougher...

[Mephistho]

I'm in the process of making a Nihlathak runner right now. He's pretty easy if you have the right gear and know how to beat him.

Phantom- :drink:

in other words: you are trying to trade for a nature's peace?

[HelzCaretaker]

or make a summon nec, before he corpse explodes you explode em or summon a new skele. Bonespirit nec can do it with ease too, use bonewall/prison to get the minions attacking something then target nihli and he dies minions don't explode. Then again natures peace allows any character class the ability to do it.

[Love Hina]

Are you guys BSing? I've tried this and I can't complete ancients with a level 1 character, so how do all of you guys get all the way to hell act 4?

[hc_ugajeremy]

Are you guys BSing? I've tried this and I can't complete ancients with a level 1 character, so how do all of you guys get all the way to hell act 4?

You have to leech it.

Say you have your rusher and your level 1 in a game called "Baal for quest" .. a lvl 40ish comes through wanting to go to NM. Party up and your level 1 will also leech it.

[Phantom_Man]

in other words: you are trying to trade for a nature's peace?

You don't need that type of gear. It's called Howl, then Zerk.

So a few days ago (i've been on vacation), Tecira and I did a Hell Flayer run. Now, she put in 2 extra comps, which helps the normal monsters drop items. I'm really not sure how many we killed, but with all of those dead guys, and horks from all of them, we ended up with an Ort and a Tir!

Gogo Flayers.

Phantom- :drink:

[stevethatsmyname]

the "Best chances at high runes" is still extremely crappy chances.

Ima try do a few 8-player council runs, and ill list the results.

[HelzCaretaker]

council is a great place to run if you have a good character that can kill them easily in 4 ppl + games. Basically they will drop good uniques, lots of charms and jewels and decent runes. Keep pgems and use them to x-mute charms. From like 100 runs taking about 3-4 hours you will have hordes of treasures with decent mf. since you know basically what you're going up against a good character can take them on quite easily and reap the rewards. Finding charms is really good here (last season a +10 max 35 life charm dropped from there ;))

[stevethatsmyname]

yeah, they are dropping charms and gold like maniacs. Not quite so much uniques as boss runs though. Here is my 5 minute run sequence.

Drop down to catacombs 2. Recieve BO from my barb on other user. Teleport to cata 4 and kill andariel.

Go to travincal, kill council using blizzard from outside the walls (cheap... very cheap ;) ) except the 1 or 2 unique who are immune to cold.... with battle orders i can take a few hits so i just teleport in and pick up treasure after everything else is dead.

Go to durance 3 and kill meph, and bremm sparkfist + company (the other council members are usually near nasty ghoul packs, i dont even bother.

[kurg]

You can get a lvl 1 to nm and hell by being in act5 partied with someone who is down in worldstone chamber getting the baal quest when he dies.

I'm going to have a lvl 1 guardian with 0 experience soon. All I have to do is clear ancients with one of my other characters (highest is still only lvl 83) so I can get to Baal for the kill. :)

I have a friend who plays too much (even more than myself) and together we have 6 keys. So last season (and starting to do it this season) we did 5-mule rushes for hellforge. A telesorc is the key to fast rushes, and it helps that one of us can steer a mule to avoid pesky hydras/etc. Also, with enchant I was able to get to lvl 15 while my friend tele'd to all of the act2 places. By lvl 15, enough good resist items can be worn to prevent certain death-by-hydra as well as having enough life. As we also dabbled with playing various builds, we always had a lvl 20 and lvl 40 character available to get normal and NM baal quests. One nice side-benefit to this: You NEVER worry about wasting a socket quest on something. You'll have socket quests coming out your ears (even more if you do diablo in hell to get your lvl 1 mules to act5 hell).

Also, don't forget to consider that NM hellforge yields some nice runes, often better than hell hellforge (they overlap from Um to Hel I think).

Last season between both of us doing about 10 mule rushes and 10 regular characters total as well, and my friend who had some amazing luck with countess, we got to where we could have cubed an Ohm by the end of the season (we didn't bother though as Ist runes are far more useful). If a clan was dedicated, they could certainly cube up to obtain an enigma, although it would take the effort of probably 10 people a couple of weeks, and then they'd only have ONE enigma between all of them.

My conclusion: Anyone who trades for an enigma, you're dealing in duped items. If you can cube one yourself, then consider yourself very lucky or very dedicated.

Running hellforge mules on multiple computers is possible, and does net nice runes, but it takes about 1 hour in normal (teleporting, typing to get the routine down with friend, walking to new acts, etc), 1.5 hours in NM, and probably about 1.5 or 2 hours in hell (solo-6 takes a while in NM even with an orb sorc, and even longer in hell when I usually would join with my javazon to speed things up). Then add 10 minutes per mule to actually do the quests in nm and hell. So it does take time, and lots of CD keys. Did I mention its boring as hell?! Except for the part where Ist and Gul drop of course. Note: We don't use maphack, and I had to severely scold my friend when he downloaded it the other day to try it out.

Lastly, if you want to run council for gold (not for runes), the best thing to do is kill council in nightmare. Last season I had a goldfind javazon (about 1300% gold find) who could take hell council solo in 4+ player games, but it just seemed to take forever, whereas in nm they all die in one or two lightning fury throws (I also run them with 2000+ dmg enchant active although most of the bosses are fire-immune). I would net about 100k gold in about 10 seconds in NM, versus about 150-200k gold in about 3-5 minutes in hell. NM was far more profitable in terms of gold/time.

[Mad Merlin]

Running hellforge mules on multiple computers is possible, and does net nice runes, but it takes about 1 hour in normal (teleporting, typing to get the routine down with friend, walking to new acts, etc), 1.5 hours in NM, and probably about 1.5 or 2 hours in hell (solo-6 takes a while in NM even with an orb sorc, and even longer in hell when I usually would join with my javazon to speed things up).

This part I'd have to disagree with, an hour for normal? Are you teleporting with -200% fcr? I've done a number of hellforge rushes with friend(s) (plus my second computer, so 2 or 3 mules each time) and more than once I've had the mule still expiring in 10 days (ie, played less than 2 hours). Not including getting the baal quests, (which generally take more than half the total time, but this can vary wildly) I'd say you can get a full rush to a4 hell done in about an hour. I don't use maphack of course, though more than once I've been called one of the best imitation maphackers around (compliment? I'm not sure either).

[det]

@ Vec...

You can run multiple copies of D2 (each with its own CD key of course) on a Mac. Apparently without trouble. And it would be legit as long as you have 8 copies and 8 keys..no?

[stevethatsmyname]

@Vec #2 (didnt see that post upon first inspection)

Check a thread floating around 1st or 2nd page created by me.

There are 2 methods for running more than 1 copy that i have tried and both have worked. 1st: multiple users. 2nd: modified .dll file. Although the second method involves modifying blizzard script, i have no moral qualms with using this method.

[Vectom]

@det: didn't know that about Macs. Thx for the info.

@steve: omg, I never thought switching users would do it, nice idea. I know about the .dll adjusting but in my case, it's on the 'not to do' list :)

[CreLuSioN]

Countess sux for good runes best i find of her is amn,sol and io runes and i done like 50 runs so i quitted countess runs

[kurg]

This part I'd have to disagree with, an hour for normal? Are you teleporting with -200% fcr?

No, 70% fcr. But act2 takes a while, esp if you haven't muled a staff to a character and cant find the damn hole in the ground, and guess wrong on summoner direction 3 times, and explore all of duriels tomb before finding the pedestal. Also, getting set-up for trav (so the mule doesn't bite it) takes a couple of minutes, clearing chaos safely for mule, checking to see if he's parked safely takes a while. We usually do anya and shenk quests, and lastly baals minions always take a few minutes. Then we usually have a lvl 20 something to kill baal with enchant and battle orders, so we have to first weaken him, then bring in the new char, BO + enchant, and spend 5 minutes with a lvl 20 char trying to kill baal. :) We bring the cubes to town for mules too in trav act3 - and do the jade figurine quest if the council drops it. Remember walking 6 mules around town and to NPC's for quests takes twice as long as 3 mules too.

Meanwhile we use Battleorders (for more teleport mana) so swapping him in and out takes a couple of more minutes.

Its not that any particular part takes that long, its the summation of lots of areas that take 5 minutes which lead to a 1-hour normal run. I think the fastest we did it was about 35 minutes. Usually there's bickering between us as well about how to do it best which costs a few minutes. Not to mention invariably the phone will ring 5 times in that run usually at the worst possible time (while being hydra'd in act3) . :)

I almost forgot, getting jehryn to talk to you frequently screws up everything to the point where some of the mules have to leave the game, make a new one, talk to him, come back, re-party, etc. :( I've tried duriel mules, but now in 1.10 if the staff is used, the char quits and makes a new game, the door is NOT open in the new game, requiring obtaining an entirely new staff (unless someone knows a way around this) essentially making duriel-door mules basically worthless now.

[Mad Merlin]

I almost forgot, getting jehryn to talk to you frequently screws up everything to the point where some of the mules have to leave the game, make a new one, talk to him, come back, re-party, etc. :( I've tried duriel mules, but now in 1.10 if the staff is used, the char quits and makes a new game, the door is NOT open in the new game, requiring obtaining an entirely new staff (unless someone knows a way around this) essentially making duriel-door mules basically worthless now.

To solve the problem with "shy Jehryn", just have the rusher open a tp at harem 1, then the mules can walk up a floor and talk to him. With regards to dury mules in 1.10, I had the full complement of them last ladder, but haven't bothered with them (yet) this ladder. They always worked just fine for me, but I'd have to get viper and summoner quests for the mules before they could take the relevant tp. On a side note, if anybody cares, it's possible to just walk all the way to the tomb with the mule and walk into dury's chamber if it's already open, but you won't even be able to take your own tps, I did this once out of curiosity, stamina potions are godsends for this.

[Raestlin]

I like:

Countess
Trav Council
Meph Council
Hephasto
Act5 Super Uniques

Sometimes Cows