Cubing Runes

[ShadeNL]

Hi, I am new here but i can say i am an fairly experienced D2 player.

I stopped for a year and a half and picked the game up again after the reset.
Now, I've got a question which I find really hard to find a good answer for so maybe people here can help me. :grin:

Runes are IMO nearly everything now. It sets the worth of an item/charm/other rune so everyone wants to get as many HR.
I used to pick up every el and eld so i could cube them. But after some calculating, I noticed that you have to get 14.281.868.906.496 El runes (that's still without all the gems) to get zod. So since then i stopped collecting them and started only collecting thul and higher. I have no problem cubing the most but now as I'm starting to get um and higher i find it hard to decide wether i should cube them or not.

My question: To what rune do you think it would be wise to cube them. For example I think you can get more for 2 ber than 1 jah.

Share your opinion and help me out :cool:

[JME]

I stop at lem (if I need them to up things) or pul. Once you get around pul, um, mal, ist, etc the runes start to hold value on their own. 2 mal > ist in trading value. Since pul to ist are good runes for trading for a lot of gear, I find that cubing them would be a waste. The only one I think I would cube would be two gul runes.

[donce]

I collect all the runes and cube them till AMN, then I use them for crafting.

[NinjaToss]

i dont cube runes, i save\sell them, i usually sell low runes for pgs and get pul for 30 pgs or something (well when i was poor).

now i pretty much save everything, cuz i know i might need it for RWs, buy items etc...

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

I generally don't cube them. For low runes, I just save one copy of each for potential future use in runewords. For mid-runes, they are usually dedicated for upping rare/uniques from normal to exceptional or exceptional to elite. The other problem is I usually don't hold on to chippy gems after a while, and because chippy gems don't drop frequently in hell difficulty, that is usually the limiting factor in my cubing ability. HRs, as already have been said, have value on their own.

[BobTheWarrior]

I keep and cube all runes. My strategy is to hold not more than 4 of the lower runes (up to Thul) at a time. Once I've collected the 4th, I cube 3 of them, that way I always have at least one of each rune in my inventory. Once I get to Amn's, it depends on my capacity. If I've collected four or five Amn and don't feel like finding a trade, I'll cube it up.

Regarding chippies and flaweds, I pick up every one of them whenever I start a new character and transfer them to my rune mule, trying to keep at least 4 chippies of each kind available on that mule.

Also, until I have more than one hell-level mule, I'll use the five minutes you need to perm a game to run certain areas for gems with my high-level character. Typically I do Pindle/Shenk/Eldrich/Trav Council. If I have a fast run/no luck I'll go into the chaos sanctuary for a few minutes until I hit the five minute mark.

[ShadeNL]

Thanks for everyone's opinion. Especially JME's comment helped me out. But why Gul? Can you tell me that? I know they arent wanted that much but is vex > 2 gul ?

For myself, I keep one copy from the runes to thul in case I need them for RW or trading. Some people give lem for a thul and a ral and I'm not going to slip a bargain like that.

The chipped/flawed problem isn't such a big deal for me. It takes me a small five minutes to do a Normal Cow level and they drop chipped/flawed constantly. But cubing runes lower than thul isnt worth the effort IMO. I wouldn't cube thul too but since amn is very tradeble i cube them too.

Thanks for your help everyone.

[JME]

Thanks for everyone's opinion. Especially JME's comment helped me out. But why Gul? Can you tell me that? I know they arent wanted that much but is vex > 2 gul ?

For myself, I keep one copy from the runes to thul in case I need them for RW or trading. Some people give lem for a thul and a ral and I'm not going to slip a bargain like that.

The chipped/flawed problem isn't such a big deal for me. It takes me a small five minutes to do a Normal Cow level and they drop chipped/flawed constantly. But cubing runes lower than thul isnt worth the effort IMO. I wouldn't cube thul too but since amn is very tradeble i cube them too.

Thanks for your help everyone.

Because no one actually want's guls since they are involved in very few desirable runewords. As far as I'm concerend, 2guls=vex. That's pretty much why a gul rune is considered the exception. They don't hold the same trade value because they simply aren't as useful as many other pul+ runes. However, a vex is very useful so a gul can never be worth less than 1/2 a HR.

I honestly think cubing very low runes is a waste as well. I told you where I stopped cubing, but I didn't tell you where I started. After I stockpile enough rals, tals, thuls, orts, and amns for trading, that's usually where I start cubing from using the excess runes. I've gotten quite a few puls that way. You can also trade off the rals to crafters and the tals, thuls, orts, and amns to people rolling spirits.

[stfrn]

I cube all el, eld, tirs I find, just because I like doing it :) nef+ are usefull in bulk for crafting. Of course, you never know when you might need an eld.

Of course, 2 minutes after typing that, I find out I need a few tir runes. D'oh!