Best Place to Find High Runes
- Thread starter NecaboTe
- Start date
There's no real best place. Finding runes is purley good luck. If you really really want to find them you should try to kill in a very monster dence area in an 8 player game. Hell of course.
Go here to check if the monsters you're fighting can drop the runes you want: http://www.d2data.net/monster/monster_idx.html
Go here to check if the monsters you're fighting can drop the runes you want: http://www.d2data.net/monster/monster_idx.html
NecaboTe said:
I think thats like asking best numbers for the lotto.
Its 100% luck. I've heard people finding Vex's from nm chests in the bloodmoor. I've killed the council (for runes) and Pindle a good million times and havent seen anything better than a eld drop; while I've heard that he's dropped Ohms for people.
Its all about luck, no matter where. I suggest going to a play to MF and not count on runes. If one falls; thank you sir may I have another?
While an extraordinary amount of luck is certainly necessary to find high runes, you can still do things to improve your chances (unlike the lottery).
If possible, you should always hunt in areas that can drop Zod. The relative distribution of runes is always the same everywhere (except the Hellforge) - it's not like you increase your chance of Ber by giving up Zod - so long term you're best off shooting for the moon.
Certain monsters drop a higher percentage of runes than others. It is therefore a decent idea to hunt in places where they are. Unfortunately the best candidates are not exactly easy targets. All wraith-type monsters drop runes about twice as often as regular monsters. Wraith types are ghosts, gloams and finger-mages. The only one of that lot that are at all easy are the finger-mages (found in Act IV).
Next best are Cows. Cows drop runes about 50% more often than regular monsters. And Hell cows can drop Zod. But, you have to finish the game to get there and not every build can kill cows quickly.
The other "monster" that is good for runes is chests. Proportionally, they drop about 50% more runes than regular monsters too, although chest drops are a bit more complicated than monster drops. Plus they don't need to be killed
Another thing to bear in mind is that boss monsters don't actually give up that many runes. It's the little guys that your runes will probably come from. A side-effect of this is that it is better to kill in full games than solo, if your build can do that. Doesn't affect the boss drops but it means a lot more drops from the normal monsters.
Last of all, the rate at which you kill is about the most important factor really. The number of runes you get per hour is roughly (kills per hour) * (runes per kill). The advice above is all about improving the second factor, but you can probably make as much of a difference to the first factor. It's no good killing the best monsters (cows, wraiths) if it takes you forever to kill them. So finding a place that your char can really slaughter lots of regular monsters quickly is also good.
Anyway, that's the basics. Some possible locations are Hell Cows (Zod, lots of monsters, good rune rate); RoF/CS (Zod, good rune rate); Pit (Zod, easy monsters); Lower Kurast (only Ber, but lots and lots of chests).
If possible, you should always hunt in areas that can drop Zod. The relative distribution of runes is always the same everywhere (except the Hellforge) - it's not like you increase your chance of Ber by giving up Zod - so long term you're best off shooting for the moon.
Certain monsters drop a higher percentage of runes than others. It is therefore a decent idea to hunt in places where they are. Unfortunately the best candidates are not exactly easy targets. All wraith-type monsters drop runes about twice as often as regular monsters. Wraith types are ghosts, gloams and finger-mages. The only one of that lot that are at all easy are the finger-mages (found in Act IV).
Next best are Cows. Cows drop runes about 50% more often than regular monsters. And Hell cows can drop Zod. But, you have to finish the game to get there and not every build can kill cows quickly.
The other "monster" that is good for runes is chests. Proportionally, they drop about 50% more runes than regular monsters too, although chest drops are a bit more complicated than monster drops. Plus they don't need to be killed
Another thing to bear in mind is that boss monsters don't actually give up that many runes. It's the little guys that your runes will probably come from. A side-effect of this is that it is better to kill in full games than solo, if your build can do that. Doesn't affect the boss drops but it means a lot more drops from the normal monsters.
Last of all, the rate at which you kill is about the most important factor really. The number of runes you get per hour is roughly (kills per hour) * (runes per kill). The advice above is all about improving the second factor, but you can probably make as much of a difference to the first factor. It's no good killing the best monsters (cows, wraiths) if it takes you forever to kill them. So finding a place that your char can really slaughter lots of regular monsters quickly is also good.
Anyway, that's the basics. Some possible locations are Hell Cows (Zod, lots of monsters, good rune rate); RoF/CS (Zod, good rune rate); Pit (Zod, easy monsters); Lower Kurast (only Ber, but lots and lots of chests).
ArchDemonHunter
New member
Thrugg said:
What are ghosts, gloams and finger-mages?
Ghosts are ghosts, they're called Wraiths in the instruction book I think. A good example is Secters in the Arcane Sanc.
Gloams are souls, the annoying, dissapearing, mana draining, lightning shooting things that kick your *** on the way to Baal.
Finger Mages are those floating black things with a certian colour arround then. They shoot out red stuff that follows you and steals your mana. There's alot in Act 4.
Gloams are souls, the annoying, dissapearing, mana draining, lightning shooting things that kick your *** on the way to Baal.
Finger Mages are those floating black things with a certian colour arround then. They shoot out red stuff that follows you and steals your mana. There's alot in Act 4.
I found a ber rune in hell chaos sanctuary a week ago. Just doing some magic finding with my wife in a 2 player game. Forget who dropped it tho... maybe an oblivion knight. But yeah, runes seem to drop from normal and not boss monsters more often than not.
It's sort of freaky because high lvl runes drop when you're really not expecting it. I'm wondering if I might've missed a few runes since they don't have a special color to mark them when you scan for items. That's one thing i'd like to see fixed if they ever do another patch.
It's sort of freaky because high lvl runes drop when you're really not expecting it. I'm wondering if I might've missed a few runes since they don't have a special color to mark them when you scan for items. That's one thing i'd like to see fixed if they ever do another patch.
PelletBomber
New member
My attitude toward high rune is since they are so rarely drop, I don't run specifically for them. I see it as a by product of my mf run or rush. My only high rune ( I mean runes that you cannot get from forge) is a vex about 7 months ago in place like black marsh/forest in act1 hell from a regular monster I think. But if you decided to do rune hunting, there are place where any single tree elemental / psn attacker may find effective, e.g. in pit there is not poison immune monsters, and there are huge amount of regulars, wish you luck.
grogthecaveman
New member
so about how many days/hours does it take people to get through the 3 forge quests with a new character? I got a summon necro with max CE to the hell hellforge in 3 days, but i skipped all the unnecessary quests. can other builds do it faster, asssuming you can twink them some decent gear?
HCmasterjay
New member
Re: Best Place to Find High Runes
Hmm my advice on finding high runes from monster drops.
Think of it like trying to find babies in bins... Search from the east coast of the usa to the west coast and try and find a baby in a bin? You wont..
Run act 1-5 in hell and try and find a Lo-Zod. You wont lol!
just be happy if you do EVER find a Lo-Zod. Cause i sure havnt and never will
Hmm my advice on finding high runes from monster drops.
Think of it like trying to find babies in bins... Search from the east coast of the usa to the west coast and try and find a baby in a bin? You wont..
Run act 1-5 in hell and try and find a Lo-Zod. You wont lol!
just be happy if you do EVER find a Lo-Zod. Cause i sure havnt and never will
Xdeathfire
New member
Re: Best Place to Find High Runes
Hellforge rushing is probably the most reliable, but Lower Kurast has these special chests that in a full game, have a very high chance of dropping high runes since they're bugged. Instead of having these insanely low odds, Bers drop 1 in 5000 times or something and you can often find 4 of these chests in LK.
Furthermore, they drop alot of flawless gems, charms, and jewels, all of which are very useful and can be worth alot.
Hellforge rushing is probably the most reliable, but Lower Kurast has these special chests that in a full game, have a very high chance of dropping high runes since they're bugged. Instead of having these insanely low odds, Bers drop 1 in 5000 times or something and you can often find 4 of these chests in LK.
Furthermore, they drop alot of flawless gems, charms, and jewels, all of which are very useful and can be worth alot.
Re: Best Place to Find High Runes
Zod: 512 ists/256 guls
Cham: 256 ists/128 guls
Jah: 128 ists/64 guls
Ber: 64 ists/32 guls
Sur: 32 ists/16 guls
Lo: 16 ists/8 guls
Ohm: 8 ists/4 guls
Vex: 4 ists/2 guls
Conclusion: HR sellers(stores) run forge till they get all the guls/ists, then they cube one, dupe the rest.
Zod: 512 ists/256 guls
Cham: 256 ists/128 guls
Jah: 128 ists/64 guls
Ber: 64 ists/32 guls
Sur: 32 ists/16 guls
Lo: 16 ists/8 guls
Ohm: 8 ists/4 guls
Vex: 4 ists/2 guls
Conclusion: HR sellers(stores) run forge till they get all the guls/ists, then they cube one, dupe the rest.
sirpoopsalot
New member
Re: Best Place to Find High Runes
I take it you're not an LK runner...
The odds are more like 1 Ber in 10500 runs. That's with a map that has the maximum of 6 superchests (maps will either have 3 or 6 superchests - never anything different than that).
<--- However, LK-runs are really only feasible in single-player. Not having your map seed change every game is important to minimizing your run time. And, likewise, there's no limit on the number of games you can spawn in an hour in SP, but on BNet if you exceed 12 (quantity ???) games per hour your CD-key gets temp-banned. (or something like that... I play SP, obviously).
As for finding the highest runes efficiently, I think others have accurately summarized that luck is a very, very big factor. However, the most definitive answer I know would be in Urlik's Rune Finder's Guide.
As for the other rune-hunting resources that I know of, they're listed in this post.
I take it you're not an LK runner...
The odds are more like 1 Ber in 10500 runs. That's with a map that has the maximum of 6 superchests (maps will either have 3 or 6 superchests - never anything different than that).
<--- However, LK-runs are really only feasible in single-player. Not having your map seed change every game is important to minimizing your run time. And, likewise, there's no limit on the number of games you can spawn in an hour in SP, but on BNet if you exceed 12 (quantity ???) games per hour your CD-key gets temp-banned. (or something like that... I play SP, obviously).
As for finding the highest runes efficiently, I think others have accurately summarized that luck is a very, very big factor. However, the most definitive answer I know would be in Urlik's Rune Finder's Guide.
As for the other rune-hunting resources that I know of, they're listed in this post.
Re: Best Place to Find High Runes
You know, this aspect of D2 duping really burns me out of playing. All the gear on my characters are self-found, but with most uniques I'm not that opposed to trading for them since they're relatively easy to find and I can believe lots of them being traded. But the prospect of spending months and years to "self-find" the runes needed for an Enigma, a HOTO, or an Infinity, only to see the same thing being duped and traded en masse on sites like you-know-where just makes me think wth is the point.
It takes all the joy out of it. High runes (esp. Vex+) are supposed to be very special. They're not like vipermagis which anybody can pick up after MFing for a couple of days. They require real dedication to find legit and are supposed to set apart the people who find them. But these days duping is so wide-spread that many builds take Enigmas HOTOs, etc. for granted and if you don't have them, people raise their eye brows and think you're just being lazy. It really makes you not want to play the game as it was meant to be played, when you're looking at the one in a couple million chances of finding a sur+ and then see all the HRs exchanging hands on certain trade forums.
You know, this aspect of D2 duping really burns me out of playing. All the gear on my characters are self-found, but with most uniques I'm not that opposed to trading for them since they're relatively easy to find and I can believe lots of them being traded. But the prospect of spending months and years to "self-find" the runes needed for an Enigma, a HOTO, or an Infinity, only to see the same thing being duped and traded en masse on sites like you-know-where just makes me think wth is the point.
It takes all the joy out of it. High runes (esp. Vex+) are supposed to be very special. They're not like vipermagis which anybody can pick up after MFing for a couple of days. They require real dedication to find legit and are supposed to set apart the people who find them. But these days duping is so wide-spread that many builds take Enigmas HOTOs, etc. for granted and if you don't have them, people raise their eye brows and think you're just being lazy. It really makes you not want to play the game as it was meant to be played, when you're looking at the one in a couple million chances of finding a sur+ and then see all the HRs exchanging hands on certain trade forums.
Re: Best Place to Find High Runes
Travincal is a good place to find runes, atleast it has been for me.
I have found 4 out of 5 highrunes in travincal.
Season 3: Ohm dropped by Council Member
Season 4: Nothing
Season 5: Lo dropped by Andariel
Lo from chest in Travincal
Cham dropped by Council Member
Vex dropped by Council Member
Travincal is a good place to find runes, atleast it has been for me.
I have found 4 out of 5 highrunes in travincal.
Season 3: Ohm dropped by Council Member
Season 4: Nothing
Season 5: Lo dropped by Andariel
Lo from chest in Travincal
Cham dropped by Council Member
Vex dropped by Council Member
purplelocust
New member
Re: Best Place to Find High Runes
In my experience, the higher drop chances of ghosts is often cancelled out by the fact that they float across empty space and may not have a drop at all if they are killed there. For example, on the River of Flame there are the flame regions that you can't visit, but the ghosts can, and with an area-of-effect attacker there is a good chance the drop will fall into the hot lava, never to be seen.
In my experience, the higher drop chances of ghosts is often cancelled out by the fact that they float across empty space and may not have a drop at all if they are killed there. For example, on the River of Flame there are the flame regions that you can't visit, but the ghosts can, and with an area-of-effect attacker there is a good chance the drop will fall into the hot lava, never to be seen.
Re: Best Place to Find High Runes
I found my ohm and Lo runes within a day of one another on ladder, closed bnet. Both came from a unique monster while traveling to the countess. I found an Um rune 5 minutes after the ohm rune another few levels down in the tower, so my luck was running good that day Plus, countess has a chance at dropping something decent as well, so if you're going to go anywhere, I'd go there.
I found my ohm and Lo runes within a day of one another on ladder, closed bnet. Both came from a unique monster while traveling to the countess. I found an Um rune 5 minutes after the ohm rune another few levels down in the tower, so my luck was running good that day
Plus, countess has a chance at dropping something decent as well, so if you're going to go anywhere, I'd go there.
