Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2) de

[Borg1982]

Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

What is the best way to get runes such as IST all the way to ZOD in this game?

What kind of 'runs' do people to do try and find those as quickly as they can?
What is the popular thing to do besides cheating now?

 

[Tarantella]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

The diablo wiki has a section on this subject. :thumbsup:


Running hell countess very quickly is a good way of getting lum-ist and keys can always be traded for runes. Blitzing the fallen camps on the way to the tower with chain lightning helps too.

 

[sparklingwater]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

Hunting and selling anni has made me over 100hrs.

 

[nurman]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

HF rushes if you own multiple cd-keys.

 

[zarniwoop]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

Unless you have access to tons of duped soj's on NL chars or you enjoy camping diablo clone hunters on IRC for tons of hours per week, the best legit way to get high runes is to learn to be an effective magic finder, play in games with mutliple other people, and kill the big bosses with high magic find gear.

However, since very few people on bnet are trustworthy, a second legit CD key can be extremely important. But, now that the ladders are only 6 months long, only the botters and those that play D2 in a very devoted fashion will ever become what I call rich before the entire thing resets again.

You can however, set up a couple characters in decent gear in a ladder playing with what I call casual hours.

 

[Jednowlosy]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

the best legit way to get high runes is to learn to be an effective magic finder, play in games with mutliple other people, and kill the big bosses with high magic find gear.

You mean "the worst", right?

It's time consuming and the odds are completely against you. A 1:100 chance for shako that's worth less then pul after 2 months isn't very encouraging.


The best way to get rich in diablo - and world - is to use intelligence instead of doing mindless labor with stable, yet low rewards. In Diablo 2, that can be accomplished by trade. My friend is the best example - once he gets a simple pul or um, he starts trading and he's already at 3-4 ist mark at the end of the day. He knows what to buy and what to sell. What he does is 100% legit, no botting, no hacking, no duping - just wisdom and intelligence. He moves to HRs quickly and in much shorter and arguably less boring way than MFing.

I consider MFing the worst part of the game: most boring, most useless, and with low profit-to-effort ratio. Mathematically, it's a waste of time! Sure, you can get lucky, you can find a JMoD in the first run or so, but... yeah. People that MF don't really depend on luck that much - they do hundreds of runs every day that averages out to slightly above nothing per run.

In the end, when my friend finishes expensive auradins in the middle of LD, MF people still run around with their lame MFsorc trying to sell their mf-ed shakos for pul.

Long story short: wanna get rich? Don't MF. There are other ways. Trading, rushing yourself, anni hunting if you're dedicated, torch runs early in the season... MF is the worst, and most boring one.

 

[Black Lotus]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

Magic finding is worth doing only in very, VERY early stages of ladder. Otherwise, plain area cleaning pays off much better. Useful unique is worth pul unless it has very good rolls (like 15/40 verdungo, 8/15 string etc), so do socketables (4-5s swords/flails/monarch and ebug armors) but drop much frequently, not speaking of running speed (500mf-loaded guys clean areas slower) to affect charms/runes drop. I used to be 400+mf runner in 2 previous seasons (havent played since 1.09 and thought mfing was still good when returned), now I switched to 90+mf (enigma) area running and I get much more valuable results. Also to mention, I had only 1 valuable unique in my life (sold for 2 jahs) and I got it on 90mf run.
Trading on bnet isnt much funny way too, you have to deal with mostly morons (which are totally excused when pay you big money for junk or sell stuff for lowballs), this might very profitable to buy things there are resell on forums, and probably better than mfing, but still not the best way to acquire wealth.

 

[Jednowlosy]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

this might very profitable to buy things there are resell on forums, and probably better than mfing, but still not the best way to acquire wealth.

I beg to differ It's THE best way, excluding illegal/hacks. There is simply no way MF or area cleaning will net you 2-4 ists per day like trading does (stable) unless you're super lucky, but luck runs out and morons never do.

 

[Black Lotus]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

Hm 1 keyset->torch run is 1-2 ist profit and takes ~10 minutes. I believe you can have much more than 2-4 ists per day this way

 

[DemonicInstinct]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

You mean "the worst", right?

This, I cannot agree with.
Sure, magic finding may be boring, and it may seem pointless, for just one reason; bots. But that's why you're a member of these forums, correct? Because you don't support botting?

Like I've said before, I believe most Diablo 2 players are spoiled. The simple reason that the shako the legit mfer finds ends up being worth less than a Pul is because of how people find it easier to trade for one which 9/10 of the time was probably found on a bot.

I personally find that magic finding is what keeps me playing Diablo 2. It may be tedious when you aren't showing much progress in finding anything, but the feeling you get when you find a good unique like a CoA or a high rune like a Jah or Ber can never be compared to trading; It's a sense of self satisfaction which sadly many players rarely or never get to experience.

I have a friend, who like you, also hates magic finding. So despite having a well geared level 88 hammerdin, he spends most his time on Diablo 2 sitting in a chat channel or on some other Diablo 2 trading site.

Let's also not forget that everyone needs to start somewhere. Let's face it, if you've recently just started playing, unless you rely on friends to give you gear, you'll still have to magic find for those items to trade.

As for the original question about high runes, I've found that personally killing a lot of monsters (and even more importantly, killing a lot of monsters in a place where the rune you want can drop) is the best way to do it. In my time playing, I've had the most luck doing hell cow and chaos games, solo (I once found a Lo then a Ber rune within two games of each other, last ladder.) Bosses will also drop nice runes, but it's rare. Hell travincial council is also a good place to mf because they have some good drops possible.

 

[mackscynox]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

unfortunately botting. in legit way? i dont know, maybe cows.

 

[pcguy]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

I agree with whoever mentioned key-running. I made an Assassin specifically for running Nihlathak and it allowed me to get Destruction keys. Destruction keys can be traded for the other two keys because they are the most difficult to acquire. The resulting keysets can be traded for high runes quite easily.

 

[zarniwoop]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

You mean "the worst", right?

It's time consuming and the odds are completely against you. A 1:100 chance for shako that's worth less then pul after 2 months isn't very encouraging.


The best way to get rich in diablo - and world - is to use intelligence instead of doing mindless labor with stable, yet low rewards. In Diablo 2, that can be accomplished by trade. My friend is the best example - once he gets a simple pul or um, he starts trading and he's already at 3-4 ist mark at the end of the day. He knows what to buy and what to sell. What he does is 100% legit, no botting, no hacking, no duping - just wisdom and intelligence. He moves to HRs quickly and in much shorter and arguably less boring way than MFing.

I consider MFing the worst part of the game: most boring, most useless, and with low profit-to-effort ratio. Mathematically, it's a waste of time! Sure, you can get lucky, you can find a JMoD in the first run or so, but... yeah. People that MF don't really depend on luck that much - they do hundreds of runs every day that averages out to slightly above nothing per run.

In the end, when my friend finishes expensive auradins in the middle of LD, MF people still run around with their lame MFsorc trying to sell their mf-ed shakos for pul.

Long story short: wanna get rich? Don't MF. There are other ways. Trading, rushing yourself, anni hunting if you're dedicated, torch runs early in the season... MF is the worst, and most boring one.

If you know how to trade, mf is entirely valid and I can keep pace with just about anyone but a botter given equivalent time over the course of the ladder.

I don't disagree with the torch running idea EARLY in the season. And I agree that if you have no idea of values or how to trade effectively, mf would be pretty bad.

 

[AnniHunting]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

Only Run Trav. Multi Box with 8 different CD-keys so you don't get temp banned.

In 1 hour, I can do about 50xTrav run. I usually get about 1 hr for everyone 2-3 hours of magic hunting this way.

 

[Jednowlosy]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

This, I cannot agree with.
Sure, magic finding may be boring, and it may seem pointless, for just one reason; bots. But that's why you're a member of these forums, correct? Because you don't support botting?

Yes, I don't support botting. however, bots are as "obvious" part of the picture as the fact that this game is poorly balanced and thought at some parts.

For instance: you may argue that if the botters weren't here, MF would be the prime way, but you cannot forget that without botters, a lot less people would enjoy the game since the general difficulty of hellmode was shifted to provide a challenge for decently equipped chars. By making a "nontwinked" legit character without a way to murder immunes effectively (say Javazon) you will insanely struggle to get through 1st act without botted gear bought for hellforge drops.

If bots weren't here, the difficulty of Hellmode should be lowered to compensate - unless D2 would be meant for skelemancers/hammerdins that can do well gearless ONLY (and dedicated players/challenge likers/masochists that don't mind crawling through a dungeon for 20 mins and dying 10 times along the way). Which wouldn't be fun at all. Forcing people to party also isn't a solution (this game has single player mode).

Also, nobody would EVER see an Anni with such a ridiculous spawning method if there were no botters and hackers.

So, for a different realm, bot/dupe free, the situation would differ so much that it's rather pointless to assume that removing bots would just make people play legit and/or MF.

Let's also not forget that everyone needs to start somewhere. Let's face it, if you've recently just started playing, unless you rely on friends to give you gear, you'll still have to magic find for those items to trade.

Which is exactly what I mean by "bad design". This is built around bots/hackers, not vice versa... The need to MF to be able to actually enjoy this game (unless you're hard core) is a bad decision by devs. Unless you find enjoyment in dealing 1/20 of monster's hp bar each fireball and dying to 1 hit. I think the game's difficulty is wayy to frustrating on hellmode when undergeared, and completely trivial once you have those enigmas and infinities. The problem is the jump from one to another. A typical legit player will struggle for a long time with his crappy gear because the speed of magic finding without enigma (and good damage) is horribly low. But once he has enigma, he speeds up so fast that the game moves from hard to ubereasy within few days, assuming he's not unlucky. Those "few days" are in fact the most interesting part of ladder to me. Or rather, were, since I no longer play. That's how I picture the ideal bot-free world of D2: difficult, but not frustrating. No stupid 1-hit-deaths and monsters that just refuse_to_die.

 

[zarniwoop]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

Totally overstated.

Without any botted gear, I have no issues with getting a strong magic find character up and running.

Then you can gear anything you want. No reason at all to lower hell difficulty with or without bots.

I agree with you regarding dclone.

The only bad design centers around the massive numbers of light immune mobs early in hell mode. That makes it really hard for a small subset of players.

 

[Rice_Farmer3]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

The general progression I like to follow is:
1. Make a Meteorb
2. Run NM Meph for gear, so I can go on to Hell.
3. Run Hell Meph for gear, so I can get my sorc set up with "standard" gear (Occy, Shako, etc). Shouldn't really take more than 10 hours total to get to this point, if you know what you're doing.
4. Run Hell Meph with enhanced efficiency to fund another character.
5. Here, if you've been doing very well, make a Hammerdin with Enigma. Do key runs and other stuff with your Hdin.
5b. OR, if you're not as rich, respec your Meteorb into a light sorc for keyrunning, using more or less the same gear (which, in my case, is usually Shako, Occy, Tal armor, Tal ammy, Tal belt, Magefist, Wartravs, etc.).
6. Trade keys for Ists and/or HR's
7. Win.

IMHO, the transition from MF to key running should be made ASAP because, as was discussed, useful uniques stop being very efficient really soon. For example, it would take at least several runs before Meph drops a unique/set/etc item that easily sells for pul-ist, whereas 10 minutes of keyrunning should probably net you at least a keyset, which is more valuable and sells MUCH more easily.
***All the while look out for Pgems (Pams especially because they're valuable), valuable low runes (rals), and good trading opportunities. Pgems are a TREMEMDOUS early boost for you to afford early essentials, like Occy and Shako.

This has worked for me in multiple ladder seasons, and I'm thinking about starting a semi-guide/thread detailing a "cookie cutter" way (MY way) of accumulating wealth.

 

[Jednowlosy]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

And don't you think it's ridiculous that the game pretty much ASKS us for making a meteorb NM mephrunner (or to struggle to kill a fallen one on hell blood moor)?

I'd say it's horrible design.

Besides, 10 hours of MFing the same boss? Jesus... you got nerves of steel I'd die out of boredom after 10 minutes.

@Zarniwoop

I guess you're 20x better player than me or something, I struggle with everything on hellmode if it's not a skelemancer or hammerdin. But how do you kill immunes? Even if you're a brilliant player, you will still do nothing to them and we all know mercs die in few seconds without botted gear or lucky drops like shaftstop, crown of thieves and such.

Do you play in a huge party or something?

When I played untwinked chars, hellmode was very frustrating, because I couldn't kill anything immune, everythin 2-3 hitted me and my merc died over and over. Where's the fun in that...

(yeah, some builds are better for it, but restricting untwinked play to a couple of "working" builds is also bad design.)

 

[Rice_Farmer3]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

But you're missing the point of the game! The point of D2, as any other videogame, is to have fun.
Meteorb is far from being the only viable option for soloing Hell. Fishymancer could do it easily, if not more easily. I've even solo'd Hell (with little problem) in the past with an untwinked Hammerdin, but I really want teleport on my MF character, so I usually make a meteorb.
The NM Meph runs are a part of my routine only so I can get MF gear for running Hell Meph. I can go straight to Hell (lol) without doing any preparatory MF'ing, so it's not like I need to do hours of NM Meph just to be able to kill a Fallen in Hell. If I weren't a perfectionist that refuses to even face Hell Meph without decent gear, I could just as easily go straight to Hell Meph with P-topazed armor, etc.
The way I see it D2 difficulty levels are designed for the following:
Normal - designed to provide mild challenge for new players, so do not yet know how the game works.
Nightmare - designed to provide mild challenge for players who have (obviously) gone through Normal and know enough to enjoy the increased difficulty.
Hell - designed to provide medium challenge for players who are starting to really understand the ins and outs of Diablo 2.

The bottom line is, Hell difficulty shouldn't be living Hell (sorry I can't stop) for you if you took your time to play through the previous difficulties and learned the game, instead of just focusing on ways to get rich fast. Hours of Meph runs can be fun, if you've learned to enjoy the anticipation of killing the guy and hoping for good drops. Plus, it's not like I run Meph for hours like a machine. I hop over to Pit or something to break the monotony, and to simply enjoy killing stuff, which is what the game is for: slaying waves upon waves of Diablo's minions. The way it works is that the players who are daunted by the prospect of seriously playing the game, the MF part and all, will beat Normal and Nightmare a few times, then move onto other videogames, where as the players who have really immersed themselves in the lore, MF'ing process, economy, etc of D2 will no doubt become longtime fans, like many members of this forum.

If you're frustrated because you believe that only a few builds are capable of solo'ing, here are some suggestions that you probably did not know could solo untwinked with relative ease (I can vouch for them from personal experience):

Meteorb or any other Dual-Tree Sorc
Fishymancer
Hammerdin
Wnd Druid
Frost Zealot (I guess this one DID put up some challenges)
Trapsin
Those are the builds I can remember off the top of my head that I have personal experience with. I also hear that LF Javazons can easily solo Hell as well.

The kicker is, by "untwinked" I meant Single Player level of untwinked. If you trade with even 10 pgems worth of currency (which you should definitely have by the time you've finished NM), it can go A LONG way into making the above characters from "can get through Hell" into outright killing machines. Plus, if you have a few dozen pgems worth of currency (again, not that hard to amass if you focus on Pams and Ral runes, etc) your list of viable builds doubles and triples.

In conclusion, Diablo 2 is not unreasonable. It's designed and tweaked to provide just the right amount of challenge for players who care enough to really get into it.

 

[zarniwoop]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

And don't you think it's ridiculous that the game pretty much ASKS us for making a meteorb NM mephrunner (or to struggle to kill a fallen one on hell blood moor)?

I'd say it's horrible design.

Besides, 10 hours of MFing the same boss? Jesus... you got nerves of steel I'd die out of boredom after 10 minutes.

@Zarniwoop

I guess you're 20x better player than me or something, I struggle with everything on hellmode if it's not a skelemancer or hammerdin. But how do you kill immunes? Even if you're a brilliant player, you will still do nothing to them and we all know mercs die in few seconds without botted gear or lucky drops like shaftstop, crown of thieves and such.

Do you play in a huge party or something?

When I played untwinked chars, hellmode was very frustrating, because I couldn't kill anything immune, everythin 2-3 hitted me and my merc died over and over. Where's the fun in that...

(yeah, some builds are better for it, but restricting untwinked play to a couple of "working" builds is also bad design.)

No, I agree with you on some builds. Lightning focused builds, for example, are a nightmare, as you stated. But, I have no issues getting a meteorb or a CL/FO to hell meph typically.

I agree that its somewhat bad design that it makes life a lot easier to make either a sorc or a necro to start a new ladder. But, you can also succeed quite well with a variety of other chars. You may occasionally struggle, but sometimes all it takes is a reload of the game to get a better "roll" on an otherwise tough area.

I think the truth is that its definitely not balanced between the classes, but you can struggle through with most.