[Guide] Gripphon's LK vs Travincal vs Cows - runefinding guide

Extracted from Rune Finding League 2017: Final Results

NanoMist:

Completed all 20 hours with ES nova sorc. Fun build to play with, especially getting surrounded by large herds and mowing them down. In my opinion, ES is essential for comfortable running, given the close proximity needed for nova to do its work. Nova has no synergies, so there's plenty of points to spare in ES and TK. I found the best balance was to have around 2k mana to run comfortably, and putting the remainder into vitality to escape mana burn pack. Died a few times during the 20 hours, mostly to high damage boss packs.

Gear wise, it's a 105 FCR variant with self-wielded Infinity, which allows my combat merc to use Insight for the great mana and life replenish. Meditation to sustain mana pool for both ES and nova spam. I only had enough +skills to reach level 38 ES, which is 93% absorb. Life pool stayed topped off with Meditation/Prayer combo, so a lower level ES is viable, no need to reach level 40 ES.

The consequence of the 2 second aura check the game performs is that sometimes I'll static with conviction and sometimes without. In any scenario, 2 statics will drop cows to below 50% life with the massive -ELR from Infinity, then follow up with nova. Best is with conviction, with cow life dropping to almost 1/3 health in 2 statics.

Being able to put cows into hit recovery is also a crucial defensive measure along with ES. Nova, like most spells in the game, uses the 16th divisor for hit recovery calculations. At P5, my nova does enough damage to reliably inflict between 1/16 and 1/8 of max cow HP, which provides a 37.5% chance to put a cow into hit recovery every 8 frames during nova spam. At P7, with greater cow HP, my nova does not reliably reach 1/16 max cow HP, and consequently cows are able to freely swing at my sorc. This was very noticeable during P7 testing, my mana pool was taking a much bigger beating, and my equipment would need to be repaired every 3 runs or so from being hit so often. This resulted in extra time loss and is the main reason for choosing P5 setting. Could be possible to make it work in P7 with items like nova ormus, 2/20 ammy, and beta bkwb, but I don't have any of those.

As far as numbers go, I did a short 10 run sample using the exp. method to measure number of cows killed. Given the non-aim radial mechanics of SF and nova, I was able to count the actual number of boss packs and champion groups killed as I went along. This was important since I tended to skip those groups that had might/fanaticism that would kill my merc, or would just be stragglers left over due to having higher life.

At level 94, averaged 52999 exp per run with 11.8 minions and 1.8 champions killed per run. Regular cow provides 108 exp, so all this works out to 440 cows per run, or 147 cows per minute. The number of cows per run is on the high end, but I believe it since I clear Cow King's pen + I hardly skip any of the regular cow clusters.
 
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Extracted from 2017 Winter RFL Signup and Running Thread: Grande Finale

Gripphon:

Now I figured out I forgot to list equipment. Everything is pretty standard except with a few minor changes to make vita version work comfortably.

First what you need is good mpk, I'm using 1.07 ring and Silkweave boots which makes mana immortal until you get mana burned.
Second what I wanted is to solve life problem since this sorc does get hit and it would be annoying to constantly drink potions. So, lpk is incredibly useful thing since it practically makes my sorc constantly have full life. LPK comes from Enigma (14) and Dracul Grasp gloves (10) for a total of 24. Combination of mpk and lpk makes me pretty much ignore cows completely.
There is also possibility of Phoenix switch backup, but honestly in 20 or whatever runs I didn't use it even once, so I don't think it is needed. It doesn't solve mana problems any more than mpk does and it doesn't make you not use rejuvs to solve life problems since with this kind of lpk, your only concern is teleporting into cows and get hammered down.

@GalaXyHaXz
Perhaps stun mechanics got changed. Now Nova sorc has 37.5% chance to put cows into hit recovery and only if they are under conviction. So, 1/3 casts will do it. It still prevents cows from ever reaching you unless they are already on top of you.

@NanoMist
High level static is cool, but there is now one problem I'm facing which I didn't have with any other sorc. This sorc has over 28 static range while other sorcs had 24. As a consequence, this sorc draws attention from a very far, but also splits distant packs and makes things messy. Other sorcs didn't do that, it seems 28 range is a bit too high and makes distant packs to split apart making them harder to herd while 24 hits whole screen on the diagonal and considerably off screen up and down which is pretty much enough. I think I'm gonna reduce that static level to see will I have this splitting cows problem again.

I'll also restat sorc to have maxed Thunder Storm. It will do like 3k damage once per second, kinda good since it will kill cows while I pick stuff up. There is another variant of sorc with Fathom and using Blizzard pumped to some degree. Basically, sorc would have same Nova damage, but add 4.2k blizzard on top of that and it should be powerhouse killing machine. Only problem is Warmth would be level 1 and not 20, and I have no idea could that mean anything. Only problem is Blizzard would prevent cows from gathering faster since it slows down, but if I throw it in a clever way, it should make sorc nearly twice as fast killer... who knows. Just an idea that needs to be tested.
 
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Extracted from 2017 Winter RFL Signup and Running Thread: Grande Finale

Gripphon:

Depending on a situation, but I usually herd some cows, get in the middle, cast 2-3 static, throw 1 meteor where I won't spam fireballs and then 1 shot fireball everything with usually few cows leftover. If I herd big group of cows, then I throw meteor - herd - static - meteor - herd, fireball.

As for gear, I went this approach:

Griffons (lite facet)
3 fire skills amulet
1.07 Ark (allres cuz I don't have another Ark, otherwise facet)
Eschutas + fire facet
Phoenix
Arach
2x beta BKWB
Magefist
Silkweave

Skills:
20 all Fireball-relevant skills
20 Static (for huge range)
1 Warmth
1 Cold armor
1 Teleport

Griffons gives fcr and makes your static powerful so you can drop cows life down to 50% after 3 casts. With my approach, I have enough fireball damage to cast 2 static fields and then can 1 shot 90% cows on screen with fireball. You could use fire facet in Griffons, but one way or another, I'd recommend Griffons as helm because your static will have like 25 yards range, so don't count Infinity aura to help you with that much.

Sometimes I skip some lonely herds, but usually I just fireball them to death.

@Pb_pal
Interesting idea, seems good to me.
 
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Extracted from 2019 Spring RFL Sign-Up and Running Thread: 1st Round

NanoMist:
Final assassin demonstration video, I promise!
Here's the Fire Blast + Death Sentry only play style:


It takes 5 FB to kill P5 Cows, which is about 2 seconds long, so it's consistently fast to get a bunch of corpses. Stack DS nearby to focus damage. I carry Phoenix on main switch (it's a trend) for the -28 EFR and also to avoid waiting for the aura pulse if I were to carry it on CTA switch instead. At least with trapper I can carry Hoto and maintain 102% FCR breakpoint. Having Redemption always active doesn't slow down DS at all given the amount of corpses FB can generate. My Phoenix rolled lvl 11 Redemption, so the low roll might actually help in that regard.

The reason I stayed with Defiance Merc is that trapper doesn't depend on Merc for corpses. FB damage is just so much faster. I rather have the ability to herd more aggressively and stand next to Cows for instant FB damage, as opposed to tossing FB from afar. I can let those large groups of Cows surround my Sin and just toss FB at her feet. Sin may not have revives like Necro, but she's tankier and can flat out stunlock Cows with FB.

I'd say this is a better trapper video demo for @Gripphon 's rune finding guide as it actually demonstrates more FB usage as written in the guide.
 
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Extracted from 2017 Winter RFL Signup and Running Thread: Grande Finale

Pb_pal:

I respec'd my Windy and did some testing to see if a Fire Druid would be viable for cows. Worth to note that I've never played a fire druid before, so my skills have tons of room for improvement. Also, he's not geared out fully optimally as 1) I don't have Ravenlore, and 2) I was too lazy to do too much min/maxing on him.

Quick rundown:

Gear:
+2 druid/20FCR/other mods Circlet, Enigma, Hoto, Phoenix, +2 druid caster ammy, Magefist, Soj/random FCR ring, Arac, Aldur's boots, 5 Elemental Skillers (all I have).

He hits the 99% FCR breakpoint. Even though the spells are timered I wouldn't want to go lower than this as I use tele alot to reposition. (He's actually quite a bit over as my Windy was setup for 163% and I was too lazy to switch other stuff out, so better gear can be swapped in without much issue).

Skills:
20 Firestorm/Volcano/Fissure/Bouler/Oak
rest unassigned so far

~3.5k Fissure
4k life with Oak/BO


Merc(might):
Infinity/Fort/Delerium

Playstyle is quite straightforward; herd a big group of cows and fissure the hell out of them. Confuse from delerium keeps them running back and forth over the fissures, and you can tele around the pack to "guide" them through the hotspots. Phoenix again keeps the life and mana full, so no need to worry about pots. He doesn't kill as "completely" as say an LF zon or a CE necro, but not too many stragglers are left behind.

My runtimes with a pretty lackluster map are still hovering around 4 minutes on /p5, so somebody with better gear/playstyle/map (or just more practice) I think could easily get below 4 minutes, maybe into the 3:30 range. Like I said, he won't be a top-tier runner like the sins/necros, but still a definitely viable option and I might run him a bit during the RFL to keep things fresh.
 
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you can hold alt before pressing a chest (or at least i TK my chests with alt already pressed)

edit: Very usefull information this made me smile this morning!
Great overview, very nice to have all the relevant information in one place for people getting into this, as well as for experienced players looking to refresh some knowledge on the topic. And of course thanks for the reference regarding java, I'm both flattered and slightly embarrassed by the screw ups, she deserves better. ;)
Long overdue, amazing work Gripp! Maybe @Thyiad could stick this one into the FAQ somewhere.
This is some awesome work, @Gripphon . As someone that is relatively poor (I've come closer to seeing a real bear than I have a Ber), this is great info for me. Thanks!
Good stuff, @Gripphon. This is a thoughtful, well-researched guide with a lot of good links to boot.

This is definitely FAQ-worthy.
Thumbs up. Been running Trav on P3 as of late. And while i didnt have much luck with HRs, i find it more enjoyable and faster then p7. Found a Bulkathos ring so yey.
Very nice guide! I would like to suggest adding info based on @Treeharl and my finds in RoF superchests. On players 7/8 there are 12 ohm patterns and 3 Lo. This would be faster for getting a Lo. You also have 1 Jah/Cham, making it quickest way to cube a Zod. At work so I can't crunch the numbers, but would be a nice addition.
Second post is updated and with it comparison between areas is finished. I might add some more comparisons like the one suggested from @GalaXyHaXz there.
In the first post I updated info on cow trapper, cow nova sorc ES variant, added merc info for all builds in Travincal and Cow sections and solving clutter problem with Travbarb.

I'm happy to hear players find this guide useful for their needs. I might add more info whenever, so you could also give some suggestions or link to great posts about the matter. Feel free to point out any mistakes I have made.
You crazy mf! This is amazing. Although I never aim at top end efficiency for the simple fact that I can't run something more than 5 times without doing something else (smoking, checking facebook, picking proper songs on youtube and whatnot).

Big ups, your dedication to D2 farming is epic.
Thanks for all those kind words, everyone :D

Yes, I'm really dedicated farmer and still have a reason to be. There are few potential goals I'd like to fulfill yet apart from testing game limitations. I'd like to possibly complete second grail for which I miss caddy and Zod. I can't seem to get that Zod, while caddy will be problem of its own since I'd need to MF for it, and I'm kinda less interested to MF lately. Even third grail might be possible - if I find 2 caddys, 2 Zods, mang and stormlash. That is too far away though.

Another goal I'd like to fulfill is to have 10+ of each rune in my stashes (with exception of Zod lol). That is pretty much reachable, but since not too long ago I used 4 Chams for ATMA bugging claws, now I have some work to do to farm those Chams back... So, I have a reason to nail cows and travincal more for future tournaments. :D

I even thought about going for 99 (honestly, it just slightly crossed my mind), but only characters I might have use from to be level 99 are travincal sorc and pitbarb. And their maps are set in stone... So, that plan finished quickly. Not to mention I don't wanna hit Baal or Nihl for 100-150 hours, no damn thank you. That is 100-150 hours I'm not running Travincal or Cows or Pit!

Another juicy plan might be to try to level sorc to level 96 in Travincal. That could be the first character leveled to that level by only Travincal running. I think I'm like 26k runs away from doing that assuming I don't die. Death would be painful. And they say I don't play HC... But, if I managed to level pitbarb to level 96 by p1 running, I don't see a problem to do this also!

Okay, I didn't mean to share my diablo plans now in such detail, but couldn't stop writing. Bad habit of mine on this forum.

EDIT
Kinda forgot I also lack Stormlash for the potential third grail.
This is incredibly useful to me. It's almost as if you read my mind, in fact, because for the past week or so I have been wondering about some of this specifically. Good job on this one! Quality work.
Great!

That's a really helpful guide, even long-time players will find a few reminders about improving on a couple of things. For example, I'm not using TK in LK often enough. My blizz sorc is usually just using it to pin cold immunes to a wall.

A few comments:

1. I think pretty much any melee barb with maxed resists is good for Travincal.For example, I'm using a conc barb. I recommend a weapon+shield build. Being hit only 25% of the time in comparison to a shieldless barb greatly reduces the chance of dying from a streak of bad luck. A shield is also a carrier of magical effects which cannot be offered by weapons. For example, I'm using Rhyme in a hyperion which offers CBF, blocking bonuses, allres and even a bit MF... and it's dirt cheap. Unfortunately, I don't have enough resources for Enigma on that character yet, so I'm using Skullder's.

2.



I would never cube up a Bar or Jah rune because there are so many, many runewords involving them. Beyond HF runes, I only upgrade Vex runes. If I had two Cham runes, I would turn them into Zod on the spot. I'm just not sure whether to make BotD in a CB or in a GPA.

3.
It's campfire, not campire!!11! Yes, that's a smartass comment, but it hurts my eyes :).
@krischan
I have no idea how I managed to misspell campfire 6 times in a row lol. Thank you for telling me this. Corrected.
Added a comment about other barb variations, though I won't make a new section about those since they are really unpopular.
As for cubing runes to Zod all the way from Sur, calculations are made mostly for fun to also include LK into equation. I also wouldn't cube Jahs just to make Zod (perhaps only for Cham), but as I've seen people do it, I kinda included Jah also as a cubing material for Zod.
I'm having a hard time finding a map where all the Trav mobs are clumped up outside on that little tight spot to the left as u showed it on those videos. Gona keep trying. The best ones i found always had Tooric inside derping alone. Gahhh!
Yes, that definitely happens a lot. Keep on trying, you'll find it eventually. Although, even then, when they all spawn outside, there's still quite some difference possible. It will certainly enable you to do fast runs. But a good map will allow just that, fast runs, while a very good map will have you shave off even 2 - 3 seconds of that fast runs. At least that's how I explained my fast but not lightning fast runs at RFL 2 ;).
Great guide! If you ever plan on expanding into RoF let me know. I'm hoping to optimize my runs once I finish my Sept Sorc (she's using a bunch of my runners gear ATM).

Also curious if you CS strangler running might get updated at some point.

I think by people you mean Grape. Maybe zticazzy for his non-extended stash dual eBotD barb
Superb stuff, thanks for the guide! My own experiences correspond with most of the numbers (except my game seems to think Pits are the best source for Ists, go figure).

My only criticism is that this guide is ~4 years too late for me :D But it's great to have the relevant info "under the same roof", and I'll most likely return to this from time to time even though I've memorized most of the stuff. In fact, this guide kinda made me want to hit LK/Travincal, even though I don't actually need any runes after the RFL. Definitely vote for sticky/FAQ-inclusion, this has some invaluable stuff for newcomers and anyone without much experience with rune hunting.

If I would add something, it would probably be at least a small section about RoF. It wont compete much with the three top places I think, but it can be combined with LK or CS running, and can be interesting for those who want a bit of variation once in a while.
 
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Such an excellent work Grip!

This will come very handy as a reference in the future.

LK for Zod? Sounds like project. :D
Since you mention going to act 4 after an lk run, I think it would be cool to see a hybrid run. First do lk, then do ROF chests. The extra 4 seconds to go to act
4 could be replaced with ROF chests instead, as they only take 4 to 5 seconds. This could possibly be the best way to farm any rune.
I did that a LOT in 1.07 and some have done it a decent amount in 1.10.. I think jjscud even has a youtube video showing his map for those kinds of runs
I edited that section about map rerolling in Travincal to contain more precise details and I tried to explain what kind of maps are keepers so you don't waste too much time trying to roll that perfect map because it might take too much time. Also added technique of "2 character rolling maps" to continuously upgrade your maps without ever losing good map for the worse one. In case you have 2 characters for the task ofc.



I will add RoF part too these days, so whenever you do some optimizing, just post info in this thread and I will add it to the guide.
Since I saw people tend to have pretty decent Travincal maps, I would advise for everyone to reread map rolling section of Travincal (what kind of map do you want) about "2 characters rolling technique" even though I think everyone knows about this, but just in case. I know some of you might seek perfect Travincal or ANY map really since same principle is valid for any map rolling anywhere. All you need is characters which is the only problematic part of it.

With time I will upgrade guide bit by bit adding new stuff I forgot to mention or some fine details, but I'll report all changes in here.
Not sure if I'm not understanding properly, but the time you're spending to go back to A4 would be used no matter what regardless of if you're headed to the fortress or the RoF, so the RoF runs will always be additional time on top of whatever you had before.

It would take a bit of re-rolling to get an ideal LK map with a RoF map too, but definitely doable (and I think a couple guys in the RoF superchest thread mentioned having one just by fluke. My gut told me this wouldn't be worth it to tack on, but I ran some numbers and I'll let them do the talking. I'm going to assume a 25s LK run time and 5s for the additional RoF portion.

I did 6.5k runs of the RoF on /p7 and got 2 Sur, 5 Ohm and a pile of lesser runes. *IF* the runs add an extra 5 seconds, you could use that time instead to do additional 1300 LK runs (at 25s/run). According to the averages you'd get 1 Sur and probably 2/3 Vex+ runes in that time. This seems shows that it IS worth it to add on the RoF, at least if you use my personal running numbers in terms of strictly time spent.

I think this is misleading though. In my experience, the RoF is much more fickle than LK and inconsistent with it's Sur+ payout. For example, my summary of my /p7 runs has over 6k runs in between getting a Sur. This means the chances (again, as per my numbers) of getting a Sur are only 1 in 3k or so. So do you do 1000 LK/Rof runs, or so 1200 LK runs in the same amount of time?

I'd say those extra 200 LK runs will almost always have a higher payout on average. Even moreso if you count gems/charms/etc etc.

Of course there is always the chance you land a Jah/Cham from RoF, in which case it would more than make up the difference. Whether or not the very small chance of hitting Jah/Cham offsets the generally more plentiful drops from LK is something that I think only testing can really reveal. But hey, if it's something you like doing and it makes the runs more enjoyable, then go for it. I would probably add it on if my map happened to spawn with both options, but I don't know that I'd go looking specifically for that kind of a map.
There are few things to consider and few information I'd need to even start any sort of calculation.

1. How hard it is to roll a map where LK is circular and great AND you also have act 4 superchests nearby?
- if I have to talk from my experience rolling both type of maps, someone could easily spend hours and hours of map rolling to have anything close to that, correct me if I'm wrong. By hours I mean you will roll maps for so long you might go crazy from it. Practicality issue?

2. Even if someone rolls such maps, what are the odds LK map will be as good as it could be? Perhaps he rolled slightly suboptimal LK map with optimal RoF map, and question is wouldn't it be simply better to roll as perfect LK map as possible regardless of RoF? Rolling both maps "perfect" seems like an awfully impractical thing to do.

3. How much time does RoF part actually add to running? Since we completely skip that startup from town, we kinda save at least 2 seconds by doing RoF after LK instead only doing RoF running. Also, s/e time was problematic when I did only RoF running but it might not be problematic if everything is done after LK run. So, time added is...?

4. Mathematically it is possible to calculate outcome of such running, but it is mathematically impossible to calculate how much better it is to have possibility of farming also Jah and Cham instead of having higher chance of scoring more Sur and other runes what LK provides in masses. This would be very individual component of evaluating of the profit for such running, rather than objective one. For the info part, however, is perfectly fine.
If it takes 4 seconds to get to act 4, then I estimate it would only add 2 to 3 seconds to instead take RoF and pop 2 chests.

RoF maps don't vary as much as lk. You either have 2 chests below the waypoint or you don't. The goal is to roll a map with that, and 2 huts in LK. The huts don't have to be perfect, just feasible to get cast a tp or use waypoint IF your lucky.

RoF will give a steady supply of Ohms, just as useful as other runes since you want to roll a 6bo CTA or nice exile.

Once I get my characters leveled, I'll do some runs and see how hard it is to roll a map. From the stress testing I did, I found 6 Jah and 2 Cham after about 80k runs. This means you can score one every 10k runs or so. The big appeal is cubing a Cham or Zod without having to waste ber runes.
Going back to the issue of finding a good Trav map, even if u find a good map where they are clumped up together like i just did, it could happen that lets say 1 time out of 8 they spawn in a different formation, spread out all around and/or half inside and half outside...its realy tedious and timeconsuming. Sticking with this for now and might just skip that 1 untill i get myself to find a better map. Current one is kind of a 3ish, they are all on the balcony but not at the dead end of the balcony.
Nice Grip, although your run times make me somewhat nauseous.

/nopickup on the Barb so you don't get stuck between horks.
You are going to Act 4 regardless of whether you are going to town or the RoF WP. The extra time it takes to go from the WP to popping the chests is what you need to know. I'd guess it's anywhere from 5-7 seconds for the average player.



The problem here is with sacrificing LK efficiency to get an RoF map. Losing a few seconds in LK over thousands of runs would, in my opinion, negate any efficiency you may gain from adding RoF. Of course if you get very lucky and score some Jah/Chams that goes out the window, but in terms of likeliness I don't think that's high.

Another problem with this is that RoF monster densities can be a real pain. If you get a map where the bosspack densities tend to be a bit high in the superchest area, you're either skipping a chest or aborting fully on a semi-regular basis. Again, it's doable to get a fairly efficient map for both areas, but you have to compare it to having an ideal LK map since that is the alternative.



Not having to waste Ber runes is a huge benefit, and that would be the kicker here for making this a good alternative for those looking to cube a Cham/Zod. Maybe for those niche runners that are looking to cube that high this could challenge cows/Trav but I'm skeptical of that as well. Well, let's see.

Let's assume you get lucky and get a Cham after 10k runs. For posterity's sake let's assume you have a damn good map/char, are focusing on runes almost exclusively and can do these runs in 30s (25s LK/5s RoF)

10k LK runs gets you 10 Surs and 2 Bers according to the averages. That's 3 Jah's, or 1 Cham 1 Jah
The RoF portion would get you (let's assume the high end) 1 Cham, 1 Ber, 3 Surs (this is mostly a guess, I could be way off)

Total with all cubed: 1 Zod 1 Cham in 83.33 hours.

We can look at it another way too, how many runs would you need to get a Cham in at RoF to compete with just LK? Meaning, how quickly can you cube a Cham from LK alone? well you'd need 4 Ber's total.

6k runs gets you 6 Sur 1 Ber which gets you there, and has a bit of room for bad luck Ber-wise.

6k runs at 25s = 41.6 hours

Do that twice and you have a Zod at 83.2 hours. This is higher than Gripps calculation above because I'm assuming that you either get a Ber or you don't after the ~3600 runs, instead of counting "half-Bers". Not sure which method would be more reliable, math and I don't mix very well.

Here's the kicker though, if you focus on LK you can get an even better map and run at 20s. This would net you a Zod in 60-65 hours. Add in another 20 hours or so and you'd have yourself another Jah rune.

So that would leave the comparison at 80 hours ran, generally:
LK only: 1 Zod 1 Jah
LK/RoF: 1 Zod 1 Cham

So did I just prove myself wrong? It depends. Basically what happened here is that it's no faster to find a Zod through RoF running unless you get lucky and drop a Cham/Jah before the 10k mark, since you'd get a Zod from LK by then anyways. Keep in mind this is considering you get a damn good LK/RoF map combo, which who knows how much work that will take. It's also assuming you pop a Cham after 10k, which is on the lucky side IMO.

So it goes back to the age-old question. Is it worth it for you personally to try for the lucky drop, or to take the more consistent method of LK? My take is that if you're running *ONLY* for runes and that's all you're picking up, add in RoF and hope for the best. If you're charm/jewel hunting too, straight LK is probably the best method.

All that said, I really enjoy RoF running and hope people actually put this to the test (I might do some myself too). It would be really cool to have concrete numbers here and see how much we could improve it.

My calculations are strictly mathematical without any assumption whether or not something drops, but rather everything drops at average expected rate. Later I'm planning to do calculation about that RoF thing taking into consideration whole known simulated droptable and with some assumptions. But, I could say right away that adding RoF to LK will mean slightly faster Ohm/Lo farming, slightly slower Sur/Ber farming and addition of Jah or Cham which would drop once every ~16k runs if that is worth something (if I estimate ALL LK running I've ever done in my career and assuming I also did RoF at the same time, by now I'd be richer by 1 Jah and 1 Cham by expectations). So, 10k runs Cham is incredibly optimistic since it drops once in 32k runs at average assuming 2 chest map which I will assume since I've never seen 3 chest map for myself so I won't count it as doable to have along with good LK map, odds are astronomical.

EDIT
I also have to mention my calculations completely exclude any luck factor since it is impossible to calculate anything with luck. If someone is feeling lucky, he should definitely run RoF since he might find a Cham or two in 10 runs he will do.

Another simple way to simulate more realistic luck-free drops is not to assume 10k runs, but instead assume someone did 100 million runs and then calculate expected averages of drops. In general the more runs you do, the more they will show average expected drops of items. This is why even if we take all runs ever done in Travincal/LK etc from all players who ever played, we might get something close to expected values, though it would still be slightly off. I calculate stuff as if someone did infinite number of runs and everything is strictly average.

Another fun fact: remember that insane 292 RFO score I had? If I take into consideration ALL RFO sets I did on tournaments, my average score is only ~2% off expected average. Just math things.
Exactly, the other way to look at it (if these numbers hold) is that it's not drastically less efficient to add in RoF, runewise. This is good news for those of us who like to have some variety in our runs as you're not crippling yourself by doing so, especially if you're hunting for Ohm/Lo.
3 Tyrael's in your stashes? :eek:
One minor caveat to the LK drop odds, I'm almost certain that they do not account for locked chest variations. This should on average overestimate runes by ~1/8th or perhaps more? 1/8th of patterns may be locked only. Additionally, if people aren't careful, there is a 1/8th chance that a pattern is repeated as its locked variant. If we assume both of these errors occur, then it's actually higher than 1/8. Unfortunately almost all of the old screenies are dead, so it's really impossible to figure this out. But I would likely factor in an across the board 1/8th drop in calculations if I were getting very nitty gritty with the numbers here.
Question was whether or not adding 2 RoF chests could be worth it at the end of LK running. Here is simple math everyone can get the answer for themselves for their own assumptions of runtimes for both LK and RoF.

X = runtimes for LK only
Y = runtimes for both LK and RoF together

In general, Y = X + z + RoF
where:
X = runtimes for LK
z = additional runtimes assuming less perfect LK map combined with RoF together instead of rolling just perfect LK map alone (most probable outcome)
RoF = additional RoF time added on top of LK running, I see value of 5 seconds is discussed for this

If you want to assume perfect Lk map accompanied with RoF map, then z value is zero and Y = X + RoF

For this calculations I assumed player is opening 6 LK and 2 RoF chests without skipping runs (more probable for RoF part of map) for a total of 8 chests per run. I also calculated value of rune patterns for both LK and for combination of LK + RoF (where average number of patterns is used). For patterns I also assumed cubing runes so that you are not incredibly confused by values I used.


Farming Lo runes

I start here because I just don't see a reason why would someone farm Ohm specifically, chances are he found enough of them by farming his first Enigma. On the other hand Lo is valuable for Grief rolling and even 20 might not be enough.

Cubed to Lo: Ohm

LK Lo patterns: 4.5 @ 6 chests
Lk + RoF Lo patterns: 5.375 @ 8 chests

If Y/X < 1.5925, then RoF speeds Lo farming process.
Assumption: RoF part adds 5 seconds, z = 0 (pretty much perfect conditions for RoF running!)
Conclusion: if LK > 8.44 s, then RoF part does speed up Lo farming process.

More realistic assumption: RoF adds 5 seconds, z = 3 seconds (lets assume this)
Conclusion: if LK > 13.5 s, RoF speeds up farming process of Lo runes. So, always.

Concrete estimations: LK = 22 s, LK + RoF = 30 s (due to z = 3 s for more realistic scenario)
Time to farm Lo only by LK: ~14.8 h
Time to farm Lo with LK + RoF: ~12.7 h
Time saved: ~2.1 h


Farming Ber runes

Cubed to Ber: Sur


LK Ber patterns: 8.5 @ 6 chests
Lk + RoF Ber patterns: 7.625 @ 8 chests

If Y/X < 1.1961, then RoF speeds Ber farming process.
Assumption: RoF part adds 5 seconds, z = 0 (pretty much perfect conditions for RoF running!)
Conclusion: if LK > 25.5 s, then RoF part does speed up Ber farming process. Decent players have sub 25 s no problem, some players even run Lk at sub 20s pace, so I guess this just depends on a player, but LK obviously has higher potential for Ber farming than adding RoF to it.

More realistic assumption: RoF adds 5 seconds, z = 3 seconds (lets assume this)
Conclusion: if LK > 40.8 s, RoF speeds up farming process of Ber runes. So, in a more realistic scenario never and not even close.

Concrete estimations: LK = 22 s, LK + RoF = 30 s (due to z = 3 s for more realistic scenario)
Time to farm Ber only by LK: ~7.9 h
Time to farm Ber with LK + RoF: ~9 h
Time wasted: ~1.1 h


Farming Jah runes

Cubed to Jah: Sur and Ber


LK Jah patterns: 4.25 @ 6 chests
Lk + RoF Jah patterns: 4.0625 @ 8 chests

If Y/X < 1.275, then RoF speeds Jah farming process.
Assumption: RoF part adds 5 seconds, z = 0 (pretty much perfect conditions for RoF running!)
Conclusion: if LK > 18.2 s, then RoF part does speed up Jah farming process. So, pretty much for everyone except fastest LK runners.

More realistic assumption: RoF adds 5 seconds, z = 3 seconds (lets assume this)
Conclusion: if LK > 29 s, RoF speeds up farming process of Jah runes. So, most players farm Jah runes faster by running LK and not bothering with RoF at all.

Concrete estimations: LK = 22 s, LK + RoF = 30 s (due to z = 3 s for more realistic scenario)
Time to farm Jah only by LK: ~15.7 h
Time to farm Jah with LK + RoF: ~16.8 h
Time wasted: ~1.1 h


Farming Cham runes

Cubed to Cham: Sur, Ber and Jah

- if not assuming this, then there is no point at comparing LK vs LK + RoF at all since LK then can never score Cham.

LK Cham patterns: 2.125 @ 6 chests
Lk + RoF Jah patterns: 2.28125 @ 8 chests

If Y/X < 1.431, then RoF speeds Cham farming process.
Assumption: RoF part adds 5 seconds, z = 0 (pretty much perfect conditions for RoF running!)
Conclusion: if LK > 11.6 s, then RoF part does speed up Cham farming process. So, always.

More realistic assumption: RoF adds 5 seconds, z = 3 seconds (lets assume this)
Conclusion: if LK > 18.6 s, RoF speeds up farming process of Cham runes. So,everyone except fastest LK runners would profit from adding RoF to their running.

Concrete estimations: LK = 22 s, LK + RoF = 30 s (due to z = 3 s for more realistic scenario)
Time to farm Cham only by LK: ~31.4 h
Time to farm Cham with LK + RoF: ~29.9 h
Time saved: ~1.5 h


Conclusion:

I don't know how precise I could be, but adding RoF on top of LK is not harmful, nearly not at all (if we assume we always open all chests in RoF). However, for sub 20s LK runners I'd still stick only to LK regardless of RoF map. For 22+s LK runners RoF could be nice addition just to break some routine.
Click

Not only that, but in time I found 3rd one I found more Tyrael's than Templar's in areas. Now I'm at 3/3 on those. And 2 extra from Pindle which I don't count since those can't turn Tyrael's anyway.

@Brak

Might be true, but there is no way to be sure. Also, if 1/8 of chests are locked, this might also mean 1/8 of patterns could belong to locked patterns? I'm not sure I understand that issue with locked chests and patterns.
Locked chests cause two problems

1) If the reported pattern only appears when the chest is locked due to the extended drop, it will only appear once in 65,000 x 8 chests, thus the odds of this locked chest specific pattern are closer to once in 500,000 chests.
2) If the reported pattern looks like a new pattern because it has added items to the 'fingerprint' of the drop, it actually doesn't exist as a unique pattern and the drop odds should be downgraded according to that lost unique drop.
Good to see some math done. Only time will tell when people actually start doing it. A couple notes:

- while I get that you may have a bunch of ohm runes while farming for others, I find them very useful in rolling ctas. They are almost as useful as Lo.

- you didn't mention Zod, but either way adding RoF would definitely be quicker. As expected sur/ber is better with lk only. But if you score a Cham in RoF, your halfway there!

- in order to accurately calculate the RoF runtime, we need to replace the time it takes to go to act 4. What I'm saying is, if it takes 5 seconds after lk chests to cast to and go-to wp, it would take 2 to 3 seconds to click RoF instead of the fortress, then 2 seconds to tele down to the chests. But if you don't get a good lk map, it would add 3 to 4 seconds.
@Brak very interesting theory. This would mean, in essence we have 128k patterns.
65k locked, 65k unlocked
This would explain why some patterns spawn more or less often, such as the Cham in rof. The locked chests added no drop is almost like a player setting. Players 7 locked chest is actually players 7.5. As treeharl found out in 1.09b, the nodrop maxes out around players 20. So we need to do thorough testing to see if we indeed have 2x65k patterns. I guess it's time to pop in, hack the game, and find the answer xD
 
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One of the problems with locked patterns is that if the HR is behind the locked pattern and not the unlocked one, then not only is it much more comparable to normal drop rates (I don't actually know, but my guess is LK is 10x better than monsters for some HRs, and definitely so in older versions when a pattern exists) but it also is extremely difficult to root out those patterns. What it requires is very careful monitoring of the sub-pattern excluding the HR... which is unlikely because no one looks closely at patterns unless there is an HR :p

Alternatively, we could collectively comb through item find thread/LK thread for pattern confirmation rate. Those that come up unusually little may require further scrutiny and focus. Probably at least one HR falls into this category
no it doesn't work that way
The locked chest patterns get tacked onto the existing 65k pattern. They just add one fixed drop cycle to the already documented pattern. So the number of locked 'extended' patterns would roughly equal the number of patterns from normal chests (which are funnily enough just truncated versions of the superchest patterns).

tldr; its turtles all the way down
That would make sense, but it still means we have 65k drop patterns with 65k additional items per locked chest. Some runes might pop up upon the locked chest only, which is why some might be a PITA to find. I don't feel like testing anymore, but Its good to keep an eye out in the future. I would guess a locked chest is going to have more runes.
is this only chests, or other objects too btw?

I vaguely remembered this being discussed, maybe in the RoF thread last year, and it got me wondering as I found couple of Act5 Zod drops:



both should be P8.

Does that indicate that A5 superchests have a Zod pattern? Now someone remind me, where were those located? :p
A5 superchests aren't "sueprchests" in that they would have 65k patterns, to the best of my knowledge. They aren't the same object type as earlier acts.

They more likely have 4 billion patterns like most other objects... in which case, of course they have many zod patterns.
What pharphis said is right, unfortunately act 5 has no 16 bit chests. The chest object -580 spawns in act 1-4, and always has the "magic" flag set. Chances are if it did spawn in act 5, there might be one (1) Zod pattern. Your finds were sheer luck, and congrats. I've seen every rune drop on my toons except Cham/Zod >:eek:

Edit: if you want to talk about winning the lottery, this guy takes the cake. Note this was pre-1.13 when runes were 10-15x more rare.
Screenshot009.jpg
Great guide and awesome information guys. I love statistics, but those are some long odds when you aren't the fastest of runners. The one thing that saves me is luck I guess. When I read about somebody running a series of a couple thousand LK runs and not finding more than a Mal I think to myself, there is no way I would keep doing runs the same way if that's all I found. I realize statistically over time odds will usually even out, but extremely bad stretches of luck are tough to deal with.

I compare hitting LK chests only to running Pindle. It doesn't take me long to feel like my pinky finger is getting sawed off with a butter knife. That's why I like to throw in a little side action on the runs, whether it be hitting certain poppables or killing a monster pack. If my luck is poop just hitting the chests I usually do a few runs of chests and just about every poppable along with most of the monster packs and most of the time I get something. The usual sets go about 30 runs chests, 30 runs hitting some extra stuff, repeat a few times, and if nothing decent drops do a few longer clears.

Will I do better over time statiscally by changing things around? Probably not, and I know it's not as efficient, but my skill as a D2 player does not come close to my love for the game. Some of you guys are a cut above and are pure min/maxers so I have to rely on luck to even get anywhere close!
Bravo! Well researched and detailed. Time to re-install D2. Found Jah in Travincal many moons ago off some lowly caster.
This is fantastic, and it confirms why I'll never enter the untwinked 99'er thread - too much time to spend finding Bers for an Infinity, a runeword I don't need two of (same re: Enigma; CtA (mine is +6 BO)).
Can anyone tell me how I recognize the River of Flame superchests? :confused:
Take a look here for explanations and even a nice picture of the formation you'll want to look for. Unlike LK, it's either there or it's not, which makes it easier to look for in that respect.
So I decided to go back and look at the Sur p78 LK patterns in more detail. I am about 95% sure that at least one pattern represents a locked version of another pattern. Unfortunately there are no screenshot records for 5 of the 11 patterns.

But if we look at the reported pattern for #7 it is
Amulet, Pike, Ware Axe and 2 others
Furthermore pattern #7 is only reported once, whereas most other range from 2-5 confirmations.

Now pattern #11 was found twice and has a cleaned screenshot that includes
Lochaber Axe, Pike and War Axe
I would posit this is the unlocked version of #7

The only other one that stood out was pattern #5 that was reported even without a screenshot and only once. It is Martel de Fer, Swirling Crystal. Given only two items, it is a bit less likely to exist as a locked only variant, though.

But I would then downgrade LK to 10 Sur patterns instead of the accepted 11. Though this doesn't really change a whole lot.
Very nice. This will be very helpful for me!

Though one...math issue...sorry. :cool: I think I encountered a similar issue in another game.

I'm almost certain the run average for pul+/vex+ is way too high to be true for the LK runes. It looks like you got those numbers from (65536/(82*6), but that can't be right. This equation assumes something like where a particular pattern seed is removed from the pool after it appears until all 65536 patterns are generated.

The calculation and workup I found is below and I *think*/hope it's right as algebra was a long time ago. :p Had to use a spreadsheet as it had two variables.

65536 total patterns
82 patterns for pul+
27 patterns for vex+
6 chests per run

We want to calculate the probability for at least (ONE) pul+ over an unknown number of runs. It's easiest to setup equation to find the probability for no pul+ drop per chest/run first.

No pul+ per chest = [(65536-82)/65536]
No Pul+ per map/run = [(65536-82)/65536]^6 = 0.992516119939662 (So 1-0.992516119939662 gives probability of pul+ find in one run which logically seems to check out. It should be very low.)

x= # of runs
p=probability of at LEAST one pul or better rune over x runs
p = 1-(0.992516119939662)^x

This took me a LONG time til I realized what I needed to do. Take the probibilty of NO pul and raise it to the power x(runs) to give the probability of no pul (or better runes) over the course of all runs. Then just minus it out of 1 and you get the probability of at LEAST one pul or better rune in the course of ALL those runs.

50% probability of pul+ = 93 runs
95% probability of pul+ = 399 runs

For vex+ (27 patterns) numbers. The equation is
p=1-(0.997530620776834)^x
50% probability of vex+ = 281
95% probability of vex+ = 1212

Numbers look somewhat in line with my experiences. It does get ridiculous if you consider specific high runs.

For ber ONLY (3 patterns)
50% probability of ber (at least one) = 2524 runs
edit: 95% probabiltity of ber = 10907 runs !!! (well it's what my numbers said but ahm yeah seems insane here)

Yep 2500+ runs for a 50% chance to get ber. I never got one from LK but maybe others can share anacdotal info?

One problem (big or not I'm not sure) even assuming everything above is correct. The problem with above setup is that it also assumes that each of the 6 chests on a map can generate ANY of the 65536 patterns and I'm not sure if that's actually the case. Anyone know if the same (chest pattern) seed can spawn multiple times on the same map/run?

Edit: Oh, I used 50% to estimate "average" run number needed and 95% to give an approximate value for runs needed to have *almost* guarantee chance of target rune(s). Was gonna use 99% but the run number gets ridiculous.

Edit2: Just realized the numbers I crunched indicate a faster/better return than yours Gripphon, which is opposite of what I thought...well at least the 50% run number is way lower. Wow...whoops. I'll have to recheck my work after some sleep or maybe someone else can do it for me?

Edit3: Wow, I think I confused myself. My average SHOULD be lower than what you had Gripphon, but the high probability run calculation (for 95% chance of find) should be much higher.
@downding

I used mean of binomial distribution to calculate expected value of positive outcomes. We know what is the probability per opened chest and then we can simply know how many chests should we open at average to see some rune. Same method is used to calculate expected number of heads after X coin tosses.

Your way is good for calculating the odds of something to happen, but 50% chance is not connected with expected value as you have put it. To demonstrate this I'll use simple coin toss twice in a row. Let's see what are the odds to get at least one head in 2 coin tosses:

0.5^2 = 0.25
Chance to get at least one head: 1-0.25 = 0.75 = 75%
What is the expected number of heads we could see in 2 coin tosses if we do the experiment infinite number of times? 2 tries * 0.5 probability = 1. Kinda expected. Or ,we are expected to find one head in 2 coin tosses where we also have 75% chance to find at least one head.

If we assume Vex+ does drop once in 405 runs aka once in 405*6 = 2430 chests when finding Vex+ has probability of 27/65536 per chest?
1 - [(65536-27)/65536]^2430 = 0.6326
Or, we have 63.6% chance to find Vex+ in 2430 opened chests while Vex+ at average drops once in 2430 opened chests as per mean of binomial distribution. It doesn't exclude the fact pattern could repeat itself.

This is interesting thing about probabilities, when doing such calculation, odds of successful outcome when we do number of tries equal to expected value, then odds are closing on to ~63% probability to succeed, not ~50%. With coin toss value is at 75% instead, but the more tries we do, the more it closes up to 63%. Why is that, I don't know. At first I also thought 50% chance could be used to determine expected number of tries if we multiply number of runs by 2 same as we do with coin tosses, but it doesn't work that way for some reason.

As for personal experience on such odds, that is pretty inaccurate because odds are way too big for our personal experience to be much of use in that sense, only as some general guideline. We need someone do a lot of running for results to have any value of comparison. For example, I did total of 140 hours of Travincal running on tournaments, and my total runefinds look like this:

Cham: 5
Jah: 8
Ber: 1
Sur: 4
Lo: 6
Ohm: 13
Vex: 10
Gul: 20
Ist: 19
Mal: 17
Um: 18

Ber+ count: 14
Vex+ count: 47
Um-Gul count: 74
Um+ count: 135

While it is obvious that some runes are easier to find than the others, it is still not precise to calculate anything. We know drop odds of runes individually and we could calculate some expectations. For this purpose I will use my presented numbers for Travincal p3 and will have to estimate average runtime since I also ran with barb some runs, but I know his numbers and could translate it to sorceress runs. In those 140 hours I in total did ~27465 runs (LOL) with sorceress on p3 with average time ~18.35 seconds. Expected number of finds should be this:

Um-Cham: ~ 237 runs
Vex-Cham: ~ 572 runs
Ber-Cham: ~ 1934 runs
(these values are from binomial distribution same I calculated for LK)

My runs suggest this

Um-Cham: ~ 203 runs
Vex-Cham: ~ 584 runs
Ber-Cham: ~ 1962 runs

Reasonably close, but still not perfect obviously. If I go to compare into lower odds, then results don't make sense anymore. My results suggest that Cham is 5 times easier to find than Ber. In fact Jah is almost as easy to find as Vex. Gul is easiest to find of them all... Normally, when we go into too low odds, then we get such ridiculous results. Vex+ and such values are much higher odds so they actually make sense.

Even my 140 hours is probably not good enough, but I will do more runs in the future and could provide even more precise data on everything, or at least I expect I won't have periods of mad luck or poor luck in front of me. Values should become closer and closer to expected values I presented.
Just wanted to expand on this, since I find this interesting. If a drop has a 1 in N chance of occurring and is attempted N times, the chances of it not dropping would be (1-1/N)^N. As N approaches infinity, that expression rapidly converges to 1/e, where e is the natural number (2.71828...etc). So the chances of the drop occurring at least once approaches 1 - 1/e, or 63.2%, as N increases.

Anyways, I agree with the use of expected values as Gripphon presented, rather than trying to find the probability of at least 1 pattern or not finding a pattern. The latter approach can give deceiving numbers, such as:



The more accurate statement would be 2500+ runs for a 50% chance to get at least one ber (pattern). Or 95% chance for at least one ber in 10907 runs (expected number of ber patterns is almost 3 for this many runs). This doesn't account for the chance of multiple ber rune drops. I feel this approach is more suitable for something that is only needed to occur once, like a lottery for example. If you can profit from multiple drops, expected value approach gives a better representation.



Binomial distribution uses statistically independent events, so nothing is removed from the pool.
Gripphon and Nanomist. Thanks! That was exactly what I got wrong. It's not 50% but 63% probability I should be using to calculate for the expected run number. In that case, I get the exact same result as Gripphon had originally.

p (probability for pul+) = 1-(0.992516119939662)^x

x (runs) probability
132 0.629012634993
133 0.631789059936 ~ 0.632
134 0.634544706449

I guess my followup question is what sort of error calculation could be used to guage the variability from that expected number? Would there be an "easy" way to do that like a standard deviation or some other function? Like for example say I ran 1000 LK without a vex+ when I could have expected at least one vex or better in around 400 runs. How should I be interpreting my result...etc.

Welp, time to farm some trav in 1.13 then. I'll hit LK again in a bit once I take some break. Running racks from 1.07 is absolutely brutal.
I don't think you need any special variability, you can only get headache from it. I think things even out nicely in diablo after good amount of running (5k+ probably) while variability on only 1k runs is too high.
Hey i've got 2 questions if anyone is still there by any chance

How do you borrow a map from another character ? Just copy the .map file from save folder or anything else ?
What are these 30+ max dmg gcs and 10 max dmg scs youre using ? 1.07 patch huh ?
@abxl Borrowing maps from other characters is against forum rules. A few changes to SPF rules are currently being discussed including this issue, but the vast majority of users so far reject any substantial change to this particular rule. You can find some information on that in the discussion threads linked in the survey thread if you want to know anyway.

Just to clarify: The use of another character's map by @Gripphon for the purposes of this guide was purely for testing reasons to find out how different builds compare running Travincal under ideal (i.e. "perfect map") circumstances. Any progress, including, XP gained and runes and any other items found in such runs, was subsequently reversed/deleted.

And yes those charms are from 1.07 or 1.08 AFAIK. :)
i'm not really taking part in any tournaments, i'm just playing single player using <removed> for my own joy and the purpose of saving a map is mostly because it happened to me in the past that I accidently missclicked and changed my difficulty so the map was lost forever ^^ if you don't want to share the information about that, it's ok I guess, i'll do my best to search the mentioned threads out, thanks for the reply though ^^
 
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@abxl it's more that I haven't done it, so I can't give specific instructions anyway :) but they're easy to find. However, note that you can easily avoid losing a map when accidentally switching difficulty -- just don't save and exit when that happens, but instead force-quit the game (via terminal command or task manager) and you will have your previous map still intact.
Welcome here :).

As @ffs mentions, it's not allowed, and a misclick can be countered through force-quitting the game.

Note that <removed> also isn't allowed here.
Ye I respect that you guys got some sort of rules that you stick to but well imo as long as theres no competition between players anyone can play however he wants, for example if anyone else were straightly cheating and enjoying that I wouldn't really mind because it has totally no impact on me.

I'm just a random guy who came to ask for advice and I thought that even though <removed> or saving map seeds isn't allowed, it shouldn't be forbidden for you guys to talk about it
@abxl You're totally right, it's just that whenever things that are against SPF rules are discussed, people here tend to clarify that rather one time too often than not often enough. No offense meant by that, of course you can play the game in whatever way you wish, as long as your participation here (posting, tournaments, trading etc.) is in accordance with the rules. :)
Then we'll get dozens of one-off "members" joining simply to ask for advice on hacking/cheating, and then only return to ask about more cheating advice. That's what google is for, not us. There are (/were?) other forums that advocate cheating: check with them as well. Read the rules in the stickies: those, we can help with.
[/grumpypants]
@Drystan - I don't understand why would you be coming here with such negative attitude. If you don't want to help, just skip that thread, you're not really needed here as @ffs turned out to be helpful enough. I understand your point of one-off "members" but it's a common "issue" with other forums as well, especially for someone who only waits for an opportunity to be rude towards random people at the forum. The way life works, sometimes you give an advice and sometimes someone else gives you an advice, if you don't want to participate, then don't.
If you don't want to follow the rules here, just don't come here. Advice there too.
Also, you're not needed here, as in your 4 posts, you have discussed ways to cheat and a program considered a hack here, clearly described by the stickies and rules. Contribute something that follows the rules, and then I might be more polite.
1. The fact that a group of few people considers something a hack, doesn't make it a hack, <removed> is a mod that doesn't really give anyone any advantage.
2. Didn't really know that talking about mods is forbidden here. That's called a censure. If there's a rule about that, my bad. Other than that I fully follow the rules.
3. Even though my D2 knowledge might not be good enough yet to be helpful for people that play the game for years, I do try to help everyone who asks me for advice, whenever my knowledge is sufficient. That's mostly not connected with D2 as I'm basically a new player that is trying to gain knowledge to be able to share with people in the future.
4. No one is forcing you to help me, @ffs answered my questions and i'm happy with that and thankful. Your participation in this threat is only just some insults that i'm an ugly cheater and that's it.
This isn't democracy here. The mods (moderators) make/alter/remove rules that help the community run smoothly. The mods decide based on how much controversy and difficulty this creates for them to moderate, and also take into consideration the users feedback - but ultimately, the mods/admins here decide.
The stance within the forum rules is that <removed> does go beyond what we consider legit, and is classed by these forums at this stage as a hack. You say no? The forum mods have said yes, and most of the forum have accepted that. If you join a community, group or forum, you join their system; you don't go in and tell people how it should be run, or go against their rules. Until you know enough about the group to begin with, and know the people well enough to know how they work.

I have used several mods/hacks(<removed>), but only on characters that have no interaction with this forum (they are tainted by other non-spf approved mods to begin with.) I do this because I know what the rules are, and keep everything separate. I do not ask about it, I do not post about it, I do not mention their drops, and I have a naming system that identifies which of my characters are tainted by the hacks - they are completely separate. But then, I have posted about most of my chars I've made by forum rules, items I've found, items (HC) I've given away, tournaments, D2-game based questions, etc over 12 years or so since joining.
Advantages of <removed>: Infinite stash, infinite respecs at will, fake ubers/DClone events (easy torch/anni farming.) No advantage, let alone the easy access to the unique charms?




Ignorance [of the rules] is no excuse [to break the rules.] They are clearly stated in the stickies. Read them. Do not claim to me that you "fully follow the rules" when you have not read them, nor follow them by asking for something the rules specifically state is not allowed.

Edit: I'm done here. Back to LK vs Trav Vs Cows and runefinding. Apologies for the derailment.
If you want to quote me, at least add a full quote

<removed> doesn't give you advantage compared to what you're having on battle.net, that's what I meant, infinite respecs are just for testing purposes.

Also asked about borrowing a map from another character because that's what is mentioned in the videos posted in the first post. How do you assume that I wouldn't use it for testing as well ? How come no one is offended by a thread author using maps from other characters and everyone is offended by some1 asking about that ?

None of my characters are connected with the forum, i'm not taking part in any tournaments, i'm not posting anything about my characters nor items I found just because as you said my characters are "tainted". There's nothing to be jealous about.

I'm extremely happy for you to be here spending 12 years or even 30 but I just found a guide interesting and I had some questions and that's it.
@abxl I agree @Drystan's responses may have been somewhat harsh and that you only asked questions. But you have to understand it gets annoying to explain why <removed> isn't allowed over and over again -- in particular if you've been here for more than a decade. So please just accept and respect the fact that <removed> is not discussed here. That includes personal opinions on whether or not it gives you advantages. Your questions are answered, so I hope that concludes this and we can move on now. :)
Ye I'm done as well, thanks for help and understanding @ffs once again, we can move on now indeed
I have done simulations of rune drops using random number generators and what not, in Octave - a computing software. I have mostly studied Travincal (players 3) and the LK chests on players 7/8

I have obtained probability distribution functions (histograms) and some 90-95% probability limits for certain things.

In this video, some of the results are shown


If anyone might be interested, I can make a write-up here and add more results and also publish the programs and raw data.

Also, if there is anything else that might be worth to investigate, please let me know.
I updated the guide with small details. I updated these two parts:

How many cows are there on Cow Level?

Good question. All the test we have done suggest number varies anywhere between 350 and 500, so you could aim to kill like 400 cows per run if you do have some leftovers, but still pay attention to herd them right and kill them. Overall there is no reliable way to determine how many cows do you really kill because it depends on character, on your playing style and possibly map (not confirmed!). Real number of killed cows can be slightly below 400 or even like 450. I can share a methods how to estimate number of cows.

Basically, there is no reliable way of determining number of cows, we can only estimate number of them.

What characters to use for Cow running?

Recent tests showed there are plenty of characters you could use, you just have to pick:
Javazon, Nova necro, Summoner necro, Blizzard sorc, Lightning sorc, Nova sorc, Fireball sorc, Fissure druid, Hammerdin, Trapper...

To read more about my tests check this post. In general I recommend whole thread for reading since it is full of great info. There are more tests done by other members as well. Here is some idea what to expect:

Potentially best runners: Javazon, PN/Nova necro, Summon necro
Great runners: Nova sorc, Blizzard sorc, Trapper, Fireball sorc
Could be very good: Fissure druid

Some characters are not yet tested like Lightning sorc, but I'll update this table with time. Idea is to present some numbers character can achieve. As you can see, you have plenty of characters to choose from. Which one is the best? Depends on your own playing style! Best results I know of come from p7 Javazon which means she could be the queen of cows. However same is not true for my own playing style, I achieved by best results with PN/Nova necro instead. So, depends on your playing style and your gear. For some best is Javazon, for some necro and for you might be Nova sorc. Who knows! I'd say most important factor for running cows is to be comfortable running and enjoying the experience to keep going.

At first I presented my tests giving some "ranking" to characters. Now I removed that and instead presented characters in other way. Idea is for every player to see for himself what is to his liking when running cows or any other area.
The one and only Gripphon !!! Do you plan to play some D2 again?
Great Read. It was very informative seeing all those numbers and comparisons.
However the only place I'm missing in here is CS seal glitch Rune Farming.

Before I tried it out i was also a huge supporter of LK chest runs and Trav. But then i tried out CS seal farming and saw a lot of rune drops which also resulted in many HR drops. I finished my enigma there within a few days. I dont have any empirical numbers but fast runs take about 70-80 seconds and the return seems to be about 2-3 runes per run. Sometimes you get 0 runes, another time 5.

It's also very good to farm base items since all kills are with 0 mf. I would say i got a HR about every 2-2,5 hours atleast. I got 3 sur 1 Lo and 6 Ohm after 4 days with about 4-5 hours played per day. My runs were even slow at that time cause i did it with a blizz sorc (takes about 2 - 2,5 min). Now with an enigma i do it with a hammerdin in about 70-75s + 10s itemscanning. I can imagine a full geared lightning sorc can do it even faster.
Maybe someone from the SPF can share their opinion on this compared to lk/trav.
@Carny. Your post is pretty coincidental. I planned to post a screenshot tonight on my HR results from running a Hammerdin in CS (P7) from Lvl 87+- to Lvl 96. My MF is higher (about 325), and the runes come from all sources, not just the seal glitch. Zod, 3 Chams, 2 Jahs, 1 Ber, 1 Sur, etc. etc.

Before tripping the last seal, I tele to the entrance and agro as many monsters as possible. Nothing crazier than picking up Jahs lying in a corner...
CS is a good rune farming area especially when focusing on finger mages (and only Vizier seal) which have a 3.59x higher rune drop rate than other A85 monsters. So yes with a lucky streak it can deliver a lot. Generally however, LK, Trav, Cows and also Arcane Sanctuary are much more efficient (when only going for runes and disregarding things like MF and XP). AS is not included in the guide because it was only truly tested last RFL (when @Gripphon was not playing). There is some info on it here. /plug ;)
I did some theorycrafting about CS running somewhere and concluded it is inferior to 3 areas mentioned in here, however not by much, It might be worth going back to the subject to explore more about it. Killing ghosts along the way and focusing Vizier seal is ideal for it. Blizzard sorceress is the fastest CS killer for the job, although hammerdin is generally decent choice as well. I believe numbers to reach are around 30 seconds, but I can't remember the figures now. I know sorceress does 2 seal running plus bosspacks in ~45 to 50 seconds.

As for Sanctuary running I'll leave the topic to someone else to explore more about it, write thread about it and I can then link it up in here.
Gripphon said:
I did some theorycrafting about CS running somewhere and concluded it is inferior to 3 areas mentioned in here, however not by much, It might be worth going back to the subject to explore more about it. Killing ghosts along the way and focusing Vizier seal is ideal for it. Blizzard sorceress is the fastest CS killer for the job, although hammerdin is generally decent choice as well. I believe numbers to reach are around 30 seconds, but I can't remember the figures now. I know sorceress does 2 seal running plus bosspacks in ~45 to 50 seconds.
When you're talking about those numbers I assume it's on p1 or? Seal glitch farming is normally done at p7 for max droprates and clears about 80% of CS in 70-80s. Blizz sorc loses time in this tactic due to de seis always being cold and infector being cold immune every few games.
 
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I had in mind p7 focusing only Vizier seal with maybe adding Infector seal though that's questionable. Overall not touching De Seis nor doing this seal killing thing. Hammer can try the seal tactics however sorc could do only Vizier plus few ghost packs.

Comparison is one ghost killed on p7 is roughly as killing 2.7 cows on p5. Good characters can aim to kill 2.5 cows per second average which would mean sorc should kill ~1 ghosts per second to be comparable. Each ghost counts as 3.56 other creep types in sanctuary. Whether or not is this possible should be tested. Hammer can do seal trick.
Sorry for the delay in posting this...

In terms of runs, I collected 112 of diablo's essences. A drop rate of 1: 10 (@ P7) would indicate 1,120 runs, but that factor is just a guess. As indicated previously, leveling was from 87-ish to 96.

I typically clear out all three seal bosses and any boss packs around the pentagram during my initial battle orders. I then teleport from Infector's seal, to the entrance, to Visers seal. Only monsters aggo'd from the entrance to Viser's seal drop and any misclicks can impact the total significantly. If I were to guess, total drops, including gold, potions, etc. number at least 100. At least two boss packs are caught up in the glitch.

HRs collected with seal glitch: 2 Jahs, Ber, Sur, 1 Ohm, at least one Gul and Um, and a bunch of Mals/Puls. TC87s include Gargoyle's Bite, Gris Redemption, BK CB, and Nats Mark. Notable socketables include two +3 grand matron bows, several eth sacred armors (to be socketed), and a bunch of class specific items.
I've started running CS again in the last few weeks and documented it and I have to say so far the Runes keep dropping. So far I have done exactly 675 runs and I got 6 HR and 10 Mid Runes out of it, which is 1 HR every 112,5 runs in average. Drop Order was:

15 Pul
167 Sur
235 Pul
293 Ist
299 Cham
302 Lo

403 Mal
405 Um
412 Mal
552 Ber
576 Pul
600 Ist
617 Pul
641 Cham
661 Pul
673 Jah


As you can see sometimes I had periods where I got nothing for 150 runs and other times I got 2HR within 3 runs or 3 Mid Runes within 9 runs. Runs were about ~2:20 - 2:30 on P7 and I killed all bosspacks in CS and RoF manually and also finished off Diablo at the end for xp. In these 675 runs I also got 3 TC87 unique items (Crown of Ages, Templar's Might and Ghostflame). Set Items I don't keep track, since I got them all already. If i only went for Runes, runtime would be halved to 1:20 - 1:30 due to sealglitch farming. 675 is ofc not a huge number so I will definitely do atleast 2-3k runs over the next weeks/months to see how the numbers change.
Whoever wants to finish first in the RF marathon thats coming soon, should definitely consider CS.

Edit: Edited according to progress
In this video, I show how to properly calculate probability for finding "effective" runes - for instance Cubing up Ber from Surs + straight drop of Ber.

In particular, I review and give improved statistics for LK p7: Effective Ber, effective Infinity, effective Enigma, effective Infinity + Enigma (that is mentioned in this guide).

Enjoy and become enlighten


* NOTE : I use the LK rune patterns mentioned in the OP guide, just for the sake of comparison.

You guys started to talk about averages and expected values...

Here is an explanation:

E(x) = Integral over the entire space x * p(x) dx ( http://mathb.in/34183 )

where p(x) is the probability mass density

(the definition of E(x) is the continuous variant of the "sum of all values" divided by "number of trials/players")

What I have in my graphs are the cumulative probability distribution which is the integral of p(x).

Due to the fundamental theorem of calculus, we obtain p(x) when we take the derivative of the cumulative distribution.

Here are the results (if you guys want expected value, which have no / weak statistical interpretation)

1 Ber or 2 Surs : 1393 runs

"Infinity" : 2683 runs

"Enigma" : 3969 runs

"Infinity" & "Enigma" : 6539 runs

All of these values are very close to the numbers given in the OP guide.
Still it does not help just to improve these numbers, we need to give people a better statistical interpretation.
@drmalawi amazing video! Happy to see you.
Great !!! Can you also just give us the numbers, so @Gripphon can add it to this guide?
It all depends what confidence level you want. The last quarter of the video has the run count for 3 different confidence levels for different gear (enigma, infinity, and both I believe).
Hmm, that is chinese to me. So there isn't a simple answer as to what is the expected value?
I’m no expert either, but I’ve always viewed confidence level as “the chance you will have it.” So if it’s the count of runs for 95% confidence level, it means you have a 95% chance of obtaining the items with that run count. So in my mind, the number that jumps out that you want is 50%. (Edit: accidentally hit reply.) But @Luhkoh normally uses 65% for the confidence level when making a general statement about average number of runs to obtain an item. @drmalawi uses 63 point something in the video so maybe that’s the best number. Probability is hard haha. The conclusion is that the way everyone normally calculates the chance is less accurate than the real chances, and the graphs at the end depict it best. I bet if you watch the video, it would make more sense :p
@drmalawi I very much appreciate those videos. I should know better but I have used the expected value as a measure for comparing probabilities way too often myself!


I think there is yet another flaw with the numbers used in the guide. The pattern thread doesn't distinguish locked and unlocked patterns. So if for example there are 4 locked and 4 unlocked patterns for rune X and the first three locked and unlocked ones agree whereas the last two do not then to us it will look as if there are five X patterns, i.e. we would think the chance to get X out of a chest is 5/65536 when in reality it actually is 4/65536.

One example are Sur patterns with ID 144 and 314 in the pattern thread where the second one looks like the locked version of the first. Sadly it is impossible for us to tell from a screenshot wether a pattern is locked or unlocked. One would have to simulate all the patterns and count the ones containing HRs both in the locked and the unlocked case.


@sir_cyclops and anyone else who is interested in this stuff: The 'naive' approach is in fact entirely wrong if you are after the actual probability. The formula for it is basically just the definition of the expected value in this particular case.

Slightly more technical: The model underlying that formula is that there is a random variable X which has X(rune)=0 if the rune is less than Sur and X(Sur)=1/2 as well as X(Ber)=1. Then the expected value (per definition) of X is:

ExpectedValue(X)=Prob(El)*X(El)+...+Prob(Lo)*X(Lo)+Prob(Sur)*X(Sur)+Prob(Ber)*X(Ber)=0+...+0+Prob(Sur)*(1/2)+Prob(Ber)

So really the naive approach is just a mislabeling, we have sucessfully calculated the expected number of cubed Bers but it is not a probability.


I think it is easy to confuse the expected value and the probability because our random numbers here do not have a dimension and are between 0 and 1. So since the thing we calculate in the 'naive' approach is the expected value of cubed Bers in 1 run it should be called 1285th of a cubed Ber.
For slightly more accurate results you'll want to use 65534, not 65536. Also, I believe the well-used lists have mistakes, for example I believe p7 LK has only 2 Ber patterns and 9 Sur patterns. @art_vandelay also has a point, though specifically for p7 Hell Lower Kurast I think locked and non-locked have the same amount of high rune patterns. Though for other effective player numbers, locked versus non-locked would have an impact.
@Fruit What makes you think the Ber/Sur patterns are not correct, and which ones?
@Fruit been waiting for fruit to drop this info :)
@ffs

From the pattern list here on diabloii, incorrectly under p7:


Output from my generator thingy, including an in-game screenshot that shows the player number (3):
Code:
----------start_seed: 43640
Gold
Gold
Gold
Rondel
Super Mana Potion
Arrows
Great Sword
Bolts
Scroll of Town Portal
Brandistock
Light Belt
Gold
Two-Handed Sword
Ber Rune
Scroll of Town Portal
Arrows
Gold
Stamina Potion
Gold
Gold
Voulge
Gold
Key

4PBquGs.jpg


From that same list, Sur #5 is a p5 pattern, and Sur #7 is just the locked version of Sur #11. You could argue that #7 and #11 are not really the same patterns, but now the list makes it seem like there is a 11/66534 chance for Sur, but it's really only 9/65534.
@Fruit you’re doing god’s work
So much stuff to comment on here.

@drmalawi I'm glad to see you rejoined! Hope you stick around. Already told you on discord that I loved the video, but I hope work that into my runefinding sheet at some point in the future (not feeling motivated on it now).

@sir_cyclops So 63.2% confidence level (CL) is the average of a binomial distribution, which is what we have in diablo 2 for single drops. This is not a binomial distribution anymore, so if we wanted to find the "average" we would have to take the derivative of his graph and find the geometric centroid. Better thing to do would just be decide on what confidence level you want and pull the number off his graph.

@T72on1 So what that means is you decide "what chance do I want to find this item?" (I like to use 75%), and then you pull the total runs needed off of his graph. Usually (but not necessarily in this case) the average is 63.2% chance, and that's why drmalawi includes that number in his video, to compare with the old, supposed, average. Another way you can use the graphs is if you say "I've done 8000 runs and still dont have infinity", you can see how unlucky you are.

@Fruit so glad you commented on the numbers of LK patterns :)

@ffs I actually got this info from fruit's generator a while back and did some looking into it, as well as some calculating on discord with @drmalawi. On p7 there are 2/9 ber/sur and 2/5 Lo/ohm. On p5 there are 4/5(7) for ber/sur (with the number in parentheses being sur patterns for locked chests) and 4/2 for Lo/ohm. In LK fruit let me know there is a 19% chance for a chest to be locked. To me this meant that maybe everyone should be doing p5 runs for runes rather than p7. However drmalawi generated CL graphs for both and they are extremely similar. With p5 being better at lower CL's and p7 being better at high CL's. So not as huge a revelation as i thought. But new takeaways would be:

1. p5 is pretty much as good as p7 for runes (maybe relevant for HC players)
2. p5 is better IF you want to see a direct ber/Lo drop for some reason

@art_vandelay when the locked and unlocked pattern high rune counts are equal, we don't need to distinguish them. P7 LK for example, the locked are the same counts as unlocked. P5 though, there are 2 extra sur patterns in locked variants. I THINK we could say there are "effectively" 5(1-0.19)+7*0.19 = 5.38 sur patterns on P5. (19% chance for chest to be locked in LK specifically, its different based on area) But I still want to do some thinking to see if this is accurate since these linear approximations are how we approached rune cubing incorrectly.
@Luhkoh It's still a binomial distribution if you look at a series of drops. The problem is that using this exact model is very cumbersome because of numerical reasons. drmalawi circumvents those by using the Poisson distribution as an approximation which is much easier to deal with and less prone to numerical errors. (It's almost like he's an expert :D)

On the matter of patterns: There are less Gul patterns on p5 than on p7 (5 vs. 11) and the same amount of Vex patterns for both settings so it takes longer to farm HotO on average.

Also much more important: I would assume that there are fewer drops per p5 chest as well, so less charms, jewels, gems on average? (Is that actually true @Fruit ?)

I doubt p5 wins against p7, if anything it might be a little bit below it because runes are only one aspect of LK in 1.13.
Fruit said:
For slightly more accurate results you'll want to use 65534, not 65536. Also, I believe the well-used lists have mistakes, for example I believe p7 LK has only 2 Ber patterns and 9 Sur patterns. @art_vandelay also has a point, though specifically for p7 Hell Lower Kurast I think locked and non-locked have the same amount of high rune patterns. Though for other effective player numbers, locked versus non-locked would have an impact.

That will not even be visible/noticeable due to rounding in the calculations and the width of the graph ;)

The point was not to discuss what patterns there are, but simply to provide a more accurate and useful description of what some of the things do claim.

T72on1 said:
Hmm, that is chinese to me. So there isn't a simple answer as to what is the expected value?

As I claim in the video, expected value is not sensible / useful (even in the limit of infinitely many runs there will be a huge spread so it will still not help anyone). I do tell in the video what the graphs mean (the guide in OP do not state what is meant by "expected" either... to me, it just seems a bit "hand-waving")

If there is any interest, I can make a text and picture version of it.

I can of course also recommend my "mathematical magic find" videos.

art_vandelay said:
@Luhkoh It's still a binomial distribution if you look at a series of drops. The problem is that using this exact model is very cumbersome because of numerical reasons. drmalawi circumvents those by using the Poisson distribution as an approximation which is much easier to deal with and less prone to numerical errors. (It's almost like he's an expert :D)

I have phd in theoretical particle physics and probability, statistics and computations is second nature to me. I am also high school teacher in maths so I hope I can be considered "an expert".

But yes, Poisson is easier to implement, it has nice algebraic properties and in addition have less numerical / rounding errors. We are dealing with such small probabilities here that Binomial and Poisson is indistinguishable (I made a video about that too...)

However, the resulting distribution from cubings is NOT a Binomial distribution.
Perhaps we all should join forces?

All I need is number of patterns (i.e. drop chance per chest) of various runes, what runes can/should be cubed, what runeword should be made etc. and I am "happy" about doing CL graphs and tables etc.
@art_vandelay I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the resulting probability distribution from including cubing is no longer a plain binomial distribution (OR a high number/low probability poisson distribution that is essentially the same thing). Been discussing this with malawi on discord a while now. If it's indeed a different shape, it's not a given that 63.2% CL is the average. Would have to derive and find the centroid like i mentioned.

It was also my assumption that charms and gems would be fewer on p5, and that's why I said p5 is approximately as good for runes specifically. That being said, if you set out to farm enigma and infinity from LK,and if p5 was substantially better for ber, then you might be satisfied with your chances at hoto and your charms/jewel count at that number of runs. But like I said it's NOT really better than p7 for ber or Lo, so P7 should still be the gold standard except in those two cases i mentioned.
 
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Luhkoh said:
@T72on1 So what that means is you decide "what chance do I want to find this item?" (I like to use 75%), and then you pull the total runs needed off of his graph. Usually (but not necessarily in this case) the average is 63.2% chance, and that's why drmalawi includes that number in his video, to compare with the old, supposed, average. Another way you can use the graphs is if you say "I've done 8000 runs and still dont have infinity", you can see how unlucky you are.
The point I wanted to make, was to compare how a Binomial/Poisson distribution would look like using the "naive average" given in the guide in the OP compared to the "real deal".

In other words, can we treat 1 Sur as 0.5 Ber? (which is implied in the OP guide)

Answer is: no.

Luhkoh said:
@art_vandelay I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the resulting probability distribution from including cubing is no longer a plain binomial distribution (OR a high number/low probability poisson distribution that is essentially the same thing). Been discussing this with malawi on discord a while now. If it's indeed a different shape, it's not a given that 63.2% CL is the average. Would have to derive and find the centroid like i mentioned.

Exactly, the resulting distribution of including cubing is not a Binomial/Poisson.
@drmalawi That sounds good, and your point was made convincingly IMO. I was simply providing more instruction on how to read the graphs. What numbers do you think would be best presented in a summary/guide? I think if you could post your graphs, as well as a table of your runs at the 3 CL benchmarks you listed in your video, it could be helpful as a reference in addition to demonstrating the inaccuracies of previous methods.
Luhkoh said:
@drmalawi That sounds good, and your point was made convincingly IMO. I was simply providing more instruction on how to read the graphs. What numbers do you think would be best presented in a summary/guide? I think if you could post your graphs, as well as a table of your runs at the 3 CL benchmarks you listed in your video, it could be helpful as a reference in addition to demonstrating the inaccuracies of previous methods.

A graph say more than 1000 words, and since the difference is biggest at low and high CL, a table should include those cases as well.

25, 50, 65, 75, 85, 90 and 95% could be worth it I guess.

(and have graphs as pictures in spoiler boxes)
@drmalawi @Luhkoh Sorry, I meant the distribution for a series of drops, not for cubing. The underlying probability space is still the same, we're just looking at different variables and their (different) distributions. My background in this stuff is purely theoretical, I never actually used it before I started playing Diablo, so forgive me when I confuse things like this ;)

I don't know which patterns fruit gave you already (I assume all?) but I think RoF could be much more interesting than LK in terms of 'upsets' to runefinding. A while back people seemed to really be interested in finding Cham and Jah in RoF. And after Griffon brought up the idea of RoF running in a tournament setting recently I think this is the best set of chests to analyze.
I gave a little explanation of what expected value means in the same post where I put the video. Have fun with that
@art_vandelay yes @Fruit quantified the number of gul+ patterns for all the superchests in the game. I don't want to steal his thunder posting it, and it probably doesn't belong in this thread, but I'd be happy to post a summary of the findings if he wants me to, but I figured he'd like to at some point.
@drmalawi Great, now I understand it better. Note that I definitely didn't say 'completely' there, as that still is a long way off. Awesome work, thanks a lot !!!

From a perspective of people like me (noobs at statistics), I think we are mainly interested in 'what player setting should I run to get item X from scratch'. With item X mainly being Infinity and Enigma I guess, and to a lesser extent CtA, HotO and maybe Grief.

As someone else noted though, runes aren't the entire story for LK runs, certainly not when doing them with an untwinked character. In that case charms, jewelry, jewels, gems, rares, ... all matter too, and I think you get more of those on /p7 compared to /p5. That needs verification too though.
@ffs @art_vandelay
Perhaps this isn't the place, but since it was brought up here:

P5:
Code:
NONLOCKED:

Patterns containing Jewels: 1373
         Total Jewel count: 1388

Patterns containing Charms: 4175
         Total Charm count: 4299


LOCKED:

Patterns containing Jewels: 1474
         Total Jewel count: 1489

Patterns containing Charms: 4512
         Total Charm count: 4658

P7:
Code:
NONLOCKED:

Patterns containing Jewels: 1625
         Total Jewel count: 1649

Patterns containing Charms: 4696
         Total Charm count: 4853


LOCKED:

Patterns containing Jewels: 1760
         Total Jewel count: 1785

Patterns containing Charms: 5050
         Total Charm count: 5226


Note that the fact that "total" is more is because a bunch of patterns have multiple Jewels or Charms. (The counters for Charms include all 3 kinds.)
Definitely not an insignificant difference, I'd say!
@Fruit nice! And the distribution nonlocked-locked is ~ 4:1 (i.e. 80% nonlocked 20% locked)?
To be precise for Lower Kurast there's a 19% chance to be locked.

Here's a full list for anyone interested (just ignore the areas that can't spawn chests):
Code:
  8% Rogue Encampment
  8% Blood Moor
  9% Cold Plains
10% Stony Field
10% Dark Wood
11% Black Marsh
12% Tamoe Highland
  8% Den of Evil
  9% Cave Level 1
10% Underground Passage Level 1
10% Hole Level 1
11% Pit Level 1
  9% Cave Level 2
10% Underground Passage Level 2
10% Hole Level 2
11% Pit Level 2
  9% Burial Grounds
  9% Crypt
  9% Mausoleum
11% Forgotten Tower
11% Tower Cellar Level 1
11% Tower Cellar Level 2
11% Tower Cellar Level 3
11% Tower Cellar Level 4
11% Tower Cellar Level 5
12% Monastery Gate
12% Outer Cloister
12% Barracks
13% Jail Level 1
13% Jail Level 2
13% Jail Level 3
13% Inner Cloister
13% Cathedral
13% Catacombs Level 1
13% Catacombs Level 2
14% Catacombs Level 3
14% Catacombs Level 4
11% Tristram
22% The Secret Cow Level
  8% Lut Gholein
15% Rocky Waste
15% Dry Hills
16% Far Oasis
16% Lost City
17% Valley of Snakes
16% Canyon of the Magi
14% Sewers Level 1
14% Sewers Level 2
15% Sewers Level 3
  8% Harem Level 1
14% Harem Level 2
14% Palace Cellar Level 1
14% Palace Cellar Level 2
14% Palace Cellar Level 3
14% Stony Tomb Level 1
14% Halls of the Dead Level 1
14% Halls of the Dead Level 2
15% Claw Viper Temple Level 1
14% Stony Tomb Level 2
14% Halls of the Dead Level 3
15% Claw Viper Temple Level 2
16% Maggot Lair Level 1
16% Maggot Lair Level 2
16% Maggot Lair Level 3
16% Ancient Tunnels
16% Tal Rasha's Tomb
16% Tal Rasha's Tomb
16% Tal Rasha's Tomb
16% Tal Rasha's Tomb
16% Tal Rasha's Tomb
16% Tal Rasha's Tomb
16% Tal Rasha's Tomb
16% Tal Rasha's Chamber
15% Arcane Sanctuary
  8% Kurast Docks
18% Spider Forest
18% Great Marsh
19% Flayer Jungle
19% Lower Kurast
19% Kurast Bazaar
19% Upper Kurast
20% Kurast Causeway
20% Travincal
18% Arachnid Lair
18% Spider Cavern
18% Swampy Pit Level 1
18% Swampy Pit Level 2
19% Flayer Dungeon Level 1
19% Flayer Dungeon Level 2
18% Swampy Pit Level 3
19% Flayer Dungeon Level 3
19% Sewers Level 1
20% Sewers Level 2
19% Ruined Temple
19% Disused Fane
19% Forgotten Reliquary
20% Forgotten Temple
20% Ruined Fane
20% Disused Reliquary
20% Durance of Hate Level 1
20% Durance of Hate Level 2
20% Durance of Hate Level 3
  8% The Pandemonium Fortress
21% Outer Steppes
21% Plains of Despair
21% City of the Damned
21% River of Flame
22% The Chaos Sanctuary
  8% Harrogath
20% Bloody Foothills
20% Frigid Highlands
21% Arreat Plateau
22% Crystalline Passage
22% Frozen River
22% Glacial Trail
22% Drifter Cavern
21% Frozen Tundra
22% The Ancients' Way
22% Icy Cellar
21% Arreat Summit
24% Nihlathak's Temple
24% Halls of Anguish
25% Halls of Pain
26% Halls of Vaught
27% Abaddon
27% Pit of Acheron
27% Infernal Pit
27% Worldstone Keep Level 1
28% Worldstone Keep Level 2
29% Worldstone Keep Level 3
29% Throne of Destruction
  8% The Worldstone Chamber
33% Matron's Den
33% Forgotten Sands
33% Furnace of Pain
33% Tristram

Note that the chances are the same across difficulties.
Using the table of #Jewels & #Charms by Fruit, and the ratio of locked vs nonlocked chests (19% vs 81%)

#Jewels p7: 1675
#Jewels p5: 1407
19% more on p7

#Charms p7 : 4924
#Charms p5 : 4367
12.7% more on p7
@Fruit great work. I couldn't find the Ber pattern you mentioned in my screenshots either. The patterns I personally saw were ID 150 and 151 – does this check out with your data?

@drmalawi nice job providing more accurate numbers, certainly interesting how the confidence levels change over the course of many runs. I mean it doesn't change anything in terms of which targets to run for which goal, and the ballbark remains similar... but something to keep in mind for complaining rights. :p
ffs said:
@drmalawi nice job providing more accurate numbers, certainly interesting how the confidence levels change over the course of many runs. I mean it doesn't change anything in terms of which targets to run for which goal, and the ballbark remains similar... but something to keep in mind for complaining rights. :p

The ballpark is not similar for low and high CL's. Especially for more than 1 effective Ber.

It is also quite nice to know different CL's in case one get's discouraged after say 2k runs.
"Why haven't I got xyz yet?"
Well, then you check what CL you have so far.
So yeah, complaining rights - and we all know that "complaining helps" ;)

The "you can get it in less or fewer runs" hand-waving about probability in the guide is what my results are supposed to improve.

When I get the correct data for LK chest patterns, I will do CL graphs for basically everything in the guide, like Jah from LK vs. Trav (from my earlier simulations, there is a break-even CL at around 45% and 2k runs of each (under the assumption that one p3 Trav run is more or less identical time as one full LK run).
Yeah I understand that, what I'm saying is that if I want to farm Enigma in LK (e.g. untwinked), I will just run it until I have it. Whether I have a X% CL after Y or Z runs will merely dictate the point in time when I'll drop by to complain, if I'm on the wrong side of that number. :D But from what I understand it doesn't have an impact on the decision whether to run LK or another target.

Not to take anything away from your thorough work though. Always cool to see improvements on such theoretical aspects of the game.
ffs said:
Yeah I understand that, what I'm saying is that if I want to farm Enigma in LK (e.g. untwinked), I will just run it until I have it. Whether I have a X% CL after Y or Z runs will merely dictate the point in time when I'll drop by to complain, if I'm on the wrong side of that number. :D But from what I understand it doesn't have an impact on the decision whether to run LK or another target.

Not to take anything away from your thorough work though. Always cool to see improvements on such theoretical aspects of the game.

There are more applications than untwinked 99ers etc, people play and farm for different reasons and use this guide as a primarily resource.

It's like saying that the actual drop chance for item X does not matter at all (the only thing that matters is what source have the best chance/time to drop it), since someone who really really wants that item will farm it until they have it anyway.

Well, in the case of Jah - if you can run p3 trav just as fast as an LK run, I would do around 2k trav runs first (or at least prepare doing so) until I switch for LK since the travCL(Jah) > LKCL(Jah) for runs < 2k. But more precise numbers will come when I have the correct LK patterns (and one should study this in two-dimensions, where the max CL contour lines are in the Trav-run, Lk-run space)
ffs said:
@Fruit great work. I couldn't find the Ber pattern you mentioned in my screenshots either. The patterns I personally saw were ID 150 and 151 – does this check out with your data?

Danke, danke. :D

And si, this the the only output when searching for Ber patterns for P7 (not printing junk):
Code:
----------start_seed:  4468
Ber Rune
Wrist Spike
Crossbow
Chain Gloves
Blade Bow
Heavy Crossbow
Antlers
Small Shield
Stygian Pike


----------start_seed: 47052
War Sword
Ber Rune
Ring
Wyrmhide Boots
drmalawi said:
When I get the correct data for LK chest patterns

Is something like this what you meant?
Code:
Lower Kurast
Kurast Bazaar
Upper Kurast
Sewers Level 1
Sewers Level 2
Durance of Hate Level 3


---------------------------------------------

                              /players 1 & 2

 non-locked chests:

   18 hi patterns

 Patterns with   Ber:   1
                 Sur:   2
                  Lo:   3
                 Ohm:   4
                 Vex:   2
                 Gul:   6


 locked chests:

   19 hi patterns

 Patterns with   Ber:   1
                 Sur:   3
                  Lo:   3
                 Ohm:   4
                 Vex:   2
                 Gul:   6


---------------------------------------------

                              /players 3 & 4

 non-locked chests:

   19 hi patterns

 Patterns with   Ber:   2
                 Sur:   4
                  Lo:   4
                 Ohm:   2
                 Vex:   3
                 Gul:   4


 locked chests:

   22 hi patterns

 Patterns with   Ber:   2
                 Sur:   5
                  Lo:   4
                 Ohm:   2
                 Vex:   3
                 Gul:   6


---------------------------------------------

                              /players 5 & 6

 non-locked chests:

   26 hi patterns

 Patterns with   Ber:   4
                 Sur:   5
                  Lo:   4
                 Ohm:   2
                 Vex:   6
                 Gul:   5


 locked chests:

   28 hi patterns

 Patterns with   Ber:   4
                 Sur:   7
                  Lo:   4
                 Ohm:   2
                 Vex:   6
                 Gul:   5


---------------------------------------------

                              /players 7 & 8

 non-locked chests:

   35 hi patterns

 Patterns with   Ber:   2
                 Sur:   9
                  Lo:   2
                 Ohm:   5
                 Vex:   6
                 Gul:  11


 locked chests:

   35 hi patterns

 Patterns with   Ber:   2
                 Sur:   9
                  Lo:   2
                 Ohm:   5
                 Vex:   6
                 Gul:  11
@Fruit exactly, I will start calculating stuff tomorrow or something. Will definitely have some results to publish next week!
@drmalawi
Thanks for lending us your math skills! Exciting to see this kind of perspective. :)
Good job everyone. I'll include all the improved calculations into the guide and graphs and whatever else is presented once it comes. Goal is to compare LK with Travincal and cows.
 
Last edited:
@Gripphon Hi Grip, I think I completed the move. The only slight point I would see would be the moving of available posts at the following of the guide posts, before the extracts from other threads.

I let you tell me if you see something to correct, then I'll consider my work complete :)
 
Contrary to popular belief, in 1.13+ LK at p5 is actually better than p7 if you're interested in Lo and Ber runes mainly. At p7 there are 2/9/2 Ber/Sur/Lo patterns while at p5 it's 4/5(7)/4. So in terms of Ber/Sur, they're roughly equivalent, with slight advantage to p5 because of 2 extra Surs in locked chests, but p5 also has twice the odds for Ber and Lo to drop directly. P7 is only better if you're specifically interested in Sur / Ohm runes, for some reason. Just thought it'd be interesting for others to know. :)
 
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@BeefJerky Welcome to the forum! This isn't really the case for p5 vs p7. We made some confidence level graphs a while back checking whether it was better for "cubed bers" to have 2/9 or 4/5(7), and they were almost exactly equal. Same thing for the Lo's. So at best I would say p5 is as good as p7 for bers and Lo's, unless you're really wanting a direct drop specifically rather than cubing up. However p7 is substantially better for charms and gems (as well as gul and ohm), so it's still the clear winner.
 
This entire thread is amazing, wow. Thanks so much for compiling all of this, I've learned a lot.

Seeing how Chaos Sanctuary (CS) and Arcane Sanctuary (AS) weren't even mentioned, is it safe to assume that AS runs or seal glitched CS runs are nowhere near as good as LK / Cows / Travincal?
 
@BeefJerky Welcome to the forum! This isn't really the case for p5 vs p7. We made some confidence level graphs a while back checking whether it was better for "cubed bers" to have 2/9 or 4/5(7), and they were almost exactly equal. Same thing for the Lo's. So at best I would say p5 is as good as p7 for bers and Lo's, unless you're really wanting a direct drop specifically rather than cubing up. However p7 is substantially better for charms and gems (as well as gul and ohm), so it's still the clear winner.
Hi. Sorry for taking so long to respond! It's true that when you consider cubing value from gul up, if you add up the "gul value" of all the runes gul+ you get from p7 vs p5, p7 comes out slightly ahead, with 267 guls vs 265 guls, just for the unlocked chests case. Maybe the 2 extra surs in the locked chests of p5 (20% chance of spawn), which are worth 32 guls, could put p5 ahead? Not sure how to do the math on that one, or at least my brain right now doesn't want to bother. :) All i can say is that after testing p5 for quite a while now, my stash has way more equal ratios of ber / sur / lo / ohm than when i was running p7 (in that ber and lo have gone up, and have caught up to sur and ohm), which just feels nicer to me than having to cube up surs / ohms all the time :)
I agree that if you want gems, jewels and charms, p7 is the right setting. :)

@BullHorn Hey, i'm sure some of the forum experts will come along shortly to give you raw numbers, but here's my opinion as someone who basically has all the runewords and uniques etc. and has run all those areas extensively with optimized gear. :) Problem with AS is that the area is too low level so it generally doesn't drop anything too enticing other than the usual gems/charms/jewelry/runes, no facets, only up to cham. Basically you would only do AS if you want an alternative, fun way, to find runes, when you get bored of the usual ones. It competes poorly with Trav running, which can be run super fast with a good Blizz sorc on a perfect map (16 seconds or so) or with Grief WW Barb (time varies but 26 average can be achieved with GODLY time traveled charms and atma-bugged gear), and also offers cham, but gives facets and you can score some cool uniques there as well, like an eth Reaper's Toll or perfect Kira's Guardian and so on :)
CS i think as a way to find runes is for people who just like to be on their toes all the time :) It's a way too stressful area, and at p7 only hammerdin truly can do it mostly stress-free. It's been touted by some as a good way to combine rune finding and magic finding, but after doing it for a while you realize it's sort of jack of all trades, master of none. Even including the infamous glitch, and getting some truly undeserved rewards from it, i feel lukewarm about it. IMO, if you want runes it's better to focus on the traditional areas, and if you want high-end uniques, it's way better to hit the pit or pindle with a pitzerker. But if you want diversity, sure, it's the coolest place to get a zod drop from! :)
 
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@BullHorn AS has the additional problem, that if you kill those ghosts while they hover over the abyss, they drop absolutely nothing... Plus the lower monster density as compared to cows offsets the better drop rate. So it is usually not worth it in my opinion.
 
Yeah this guide was written before AS was even on the minds of anyone for rune finding. It was the "areas" format/round during RFL tournaments, where you're not allowed to run either cows or Travincal, that initially pushed people to test and run AS.

Personally I haven't run AS much outside of RFL, because yes indeed cows or Travincal do the same with some added benefits, they're just slightly better targets overall. In particular when looking for Zod (cows) or facets (Trav). But I wouldn't say AS compares poorly, in terms of rune finding efficiency up to Cham, it's pretty close to cows and Travincal. It's also much faster and easier to run, allows more build variety than Trav/Cows, no leg grabbing detours (cows) or map rolling headaches (Travincal) etc… Just overall an efficient and easy area with more leeway in how you build the character you run it with.

CS was previously considered the best RF area outside LK/Trav/Cows, but that was when purely focusing on Finger Mages, so not really making use of the fact that it’s a lvl 85 area. For RF purposes, there’s indeed a considerable gap to the other areas mentioned. I do think for simultaneous MF/RF purposes it’s one of the best areas though (when including boss packs) and clearly #1 when looking for XP as well.
 
I found a spreadsheet by DarkHumility where he catalogued all the drops from 5000 /p7 Arcane Sanctuary runs:

 
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