High runes- how many have you found, and where are you getting them?

I thought it would be fun and informative to discuss where our high runes are coming from. So, how many have you found, and where? I consider "high runes" to be all runes starting at Vex and up, but if you have a different definition, that's fine! I'll start:

All high runes
Zod runes found: 1
1st Zod: Battlenet players 1, Secret Cow Level, normal Hell Bovine

Cham runes found: 0

Jah runes found: 3
1st Jah: Battlenet players 1, the Pit Level 2, normal Fallen
2nd Jah: Battlenet players 1, The Secret Cow Level, normal Hell Bovine
3rd Jah: Battlenet players 1, the Chaos Sanctuary, normal Venom Lord

Ber runes found: 1
1st Ber: Battlenet players 1, the Ancient Tunnels, normal Zombie

Sur runes found: 3
1st Sur: Battlenet players 1, Travincal high council (initial drop, not horked)
2nd Sur: Battlenet players 1, Travincal high council (initial drop, not horked)
3nd Sur: Battlenet players 1, Travincal high council (initial drop, not horked)

Lo runes found: 0

Ohm runes found: 4
1st Ohm: Battlenet players 1, Arcane Sanctuary, super chest
2nd Ohm: Battlenet players 1, The Secret Cow Level, named unique Hell Bovine
3rd Ohm: Battlenet players 1, Tristram, normal Fallen (one of the ones guarding Wirt's Leg)
4th Ohm: Battlenet players 1, Travincal high council (initial drop, not horked)

Vex runes found: 2
1st Vex: Battlenet players 1, The Secret Cow Level, normal Hell Bovine
2nd Vex: Battlenet players 1, Travincal high council (horked)

So one thing I'm noticing from my own admittedly small and biased dataset is that that of the 14 high runes I've gotten, 8 have been off of normal monsters. Excluding the five HRs I've gotten off the Travincal High Council, only one HR has come from a champion/unique/boss- and I've done my share of Chaos, Baal, and Mephisto runs. For this reason, I have no desire to ever run something like a Pitzerker (which skips normal monsters)- unless maybe I was trying to complete a Holy Grail or something and I needed to find something like a Griffon's Eye.

Another thing I'd like to note: maybe The Arcane Sanctuary is good if you're on players 8 single player, always running the straight route, but in my experience, in players 1 Battlenet, the place is AWFUL. The ghosts are easily disturbed over the Void where they drop nothing, and if you wait for them to get back to where they can drop loot, you might as well just be somewhere else killing 5 or 6 non-ghost mobs for better overall HR drop chances. AVOID THIS PLACE. In hundreds of runs of The Arcane Sanctuary players 1, the best rune ever dropped by a ghost has been an Um rune. ONE time. So, I'd say ignore those people who say Arcane Sanctuary is good for HR farming; maybe it's good in players 8 offline with a static map where you can farm the straight route over and over again, but it's just plain terrible on Battlenet under realistic (players 1) conditions.

Nice post, thanks for sharing

There was another topic specifically about solo play finds which you can read here - it reached 4 pages.

My cold/fire sorc found Vex, 2x Ohm and Sur (94,5lvls). Second (light 94lvl so far) - Vex, 2x Lo and Ber. And my druid shifter (93 lvl) got Gul, Ohm and Ber. Everything else (much more of value) was from many, many trades.

Appreciate the effort you've put in, tatarjj!

I've found a Zod off a White mob in the Pit, a Ber off a ghost in Chaos Sanctuary, three Sur (one in Travincal, one off a chest in the Plains of Despair and one in the Pit off something, probably a regular monster). Lo and Ohm aplenty off White mobs and Travincal.
...Oh, yeah! I always forget that I got a Jah and a Ber within like two weeks of the game's launch from Council Members in Durance Level 3. Everything I mentioned above was afterward.

I'd say: don't look down on the Zerker. While Travincal is statistically the best place to farm, farming just one place is also statistically the easiest way to quit the game. I love switching it up with my Zerker doing the Pit, Chaos, Pindleskin, Nihlatak, Izual and a few other places.

Killing lots of monsters is obviously great, but there are two methods of combination farming that people often overlook because they haven't played enough Berserk barb. Chaos Sanctuary is an obvious one: you rush the seals bosses, hork them, target-kill bosses that you won't cover with the rush from the entrance to the final pop, hork those, then do the rush-pop, hork large piles of corpses, which is really fast with 105% FCR and finish off with Diablo. Super fast and offers lots of variety.

The other one is Izual: there are tons of boss packs on your way from the City of the Damned WP to Izzy. It varies from run to run, but I typically kill and hork 4-5 on average from the two areas. Then there's Izzy who shares the mob-instakilling wave with Diablo. Only his is smaller. Plains of Despair always have either Finger Mages, or Gloams, or both. Kill Izzy, circle around to check for immediate drops, hork.

Given that Diablo 2 is life and variety is the spice of life, variety is the spice of D2. Don't sleep on the Zerker!

all on bnet p1, during 3 months of time I've found:
Sur: durance lvl 3 by a high council
Vex: cow
Ohm: durance lvl 2 by some random mobs
Sur: Arreat Plateau by trash mob

there are some guls or lower but never Lo or higher than Sur my luck isn't with rune dropping even though I'm decked out with Enigma and all that I need...

never found and never will want to. if you need them, just buy for real money)

Until two days ago only found a Vex ( Travincal), but then in one night found Lo and Cham (again in Travincal). This is all for me currently

Jah and Vex both from Travincal bnet players 1.

5 Vex
- Trash mob around Shenk
- Chest in Arcane Sanctuary
- Trash mob around Countess
- Cow
- Trash mob in Tristram

3 Ohm
- Countess
- Trash mob in Chaos (x2)

2 Lo
- Random trash mob in A5 (during my quests)
- Chest in Arcane Sanctuary

2 Sur
- Cow
- Trash mob in Chaos

1 Cham
- Trash mob in Arcane Sanctuary

Also found Ohm, Lo, Sur while playing with a friend, but I didn't note where these came from.
I also found a Zod back then in the original game, which means the only runes I never found are Jah and Ber. Just my luck, right?
I started running Travical lately, but so far it's been terrible (Best find = Um).

Ha, just got my first horked high rune, a Vex off the Travincal High Council, of course. To put this into context, after starting to run Travincal on my WW barb about a week and a half ago, I've found five high runes. In the previous five months, I had found 9 high runes total.

Interesting topic.

I started playing on day 1, I am not a regular though. Average of 1 hour per day, sometimes I go several days withouth logging.

I have to say it does happen when I log in after several days I get a good drop. For instance i dropped an Arachnid Mesh on my first Baal run after days of inactivity.

Back to the runes:

All solo running - Blizzard+Firball Sorceress

1 Ber - from a jar in the Ancient Tunnels
2 Ohm(s) - in the Chaos Sanctuary
2 Mal(s) - in the Chaos Sanctuary
2 Um(s) - farming keys from Nihlatak

BaldurGK wrote: 4 years ago

Interesting topic.

I started playing on day 1, I am not a regular though. Average of 1 hour per day, sometimes I go several days withouth logging.

I have to say it does happen when I log in after several days I get a good drop. For instance i dropped an Arachnid Mesh on my first Baal run after days of inactivity.

Back to the runes:

All solo running - Blizzard+Firball Sorceress

1 Ber - from a jar in the Ancient Tunnels
2 Ohm(s) - in the Chaos Sanctuary
2 Mal(s) - in the Chaos Sanctuary
2 Um(s) - farming keys from Nihlatak

Can anyone else confirm this is their experience? Regarding getting better drops after days of inactivity? I played D2R a little bit when it first released, but I had gotten so sick of never finding anything that I just quit. When I got back into it finally, (about the same time I joined diablo2.io), suddenly I got a Gul Rune and a Sur Rune on the same day. Encouraging, so I've been playing a lot lately, but haven't found anything.

I had become so convinced that I would simply never see a HR, ever, that I blinked several times when the Sur rune dropped off of a weapon rack out of nowhere in the Mauseleoum.

Being somewhat serious here, could there be a hidden algorithim we don't know about that "tweaks" the odds after a certain period of inactivity - in an attempt to bring players back into the game? (it worked for me, that drop was encouraging enough to result in tons of playtime since then).

Edit: So in total, for me, I have found 1 Sur rune, from weapon rack, mauseleum.

Playing since 1 day too - on average over this time I´d say one hour per day.

HRs found so far:
1 Ber in CS (2 Player Game; shared profit with my friend)
1 Ber in Travincal
1 Sur in Pit from White Monster
1 Lo in WSK 2 from White Monster
1 Cham from White Monster around Eldritch

All Runes except the first Ber in 1 Player B.Net games

Apart from that i found several Vex, Ist, Mals etc. but not considering them as HRs ofc

2 Ohm Arcane Sanctuary super chest
1 Lo Arcane Sanctuary super chest
1 Sur 1 Ber 1 Jah farming ghosts in Arcane Sanctuary
1 Sur pits solo
1 Lo Nihla while cow game filled
1 Sur Chaos Sanctuary seal popping
1 Ohm seal popping
1 Zod 1 Sur from schenk

2 Cham 2 Ber 1 Sur 2 Lo 5 Ohm Only 1 I really can pinpoint was a Ber rune I found in the very first basket I kicked after entering the sewer in kurast bazar. I was almost leaving it because it wae such a casual / surreal drop..

Cham in The Pit

Jah x3: 2chaos, 1trav
Lo x3: 1WSK, 1chaos, 1cows
Vex x1: Halls of Anguish

Ber: P1 Cows
Vex x2: 1 in the Pit Level 2 Sparkly Chest, 1 in Cows

Jah P1 trav
Sur P8 trav
Ohm P1 trav, P1 Chaos
Gul Hellforge quest x2

All with a WW barb at the time (now zerker), except Ohm from P1 Chaos with Poison Nova necro off a White ghost mob