RNG is RNG but how am I supposed to find HR then?

This pic is a summary of my last 2 months. I'm constantly farming CS and

Travincal online but what I got highest as rune is a

Vex! Without trade my Sorc would be almost naked. I've never had the chance to get one Andy's for example.

No runes, no good drops so what's as an incentive for me to continue then besides countless

Ort rune drops? RNG is RNG but this is too much and I'm of course losing motivation. At least for rune farming, I'm open to tips.

As someone that doesn't trade, I'm in a similar position of being at the mercy of the RNG gods. I was lucky enough to get a

Vex from Andy and a

Pul from a corpse near her throne. Aside from that, I only managed to get some mid tier runes from the wraiths in WSK 3.

The only advice I can offer is what anyone else would tell you: cows. High density killing is your best option to hopefully score a decent rune with fewer runs.

Yeah, my average is maybe 1 HR / 300 cow runs. It takes a huge amount of time

For a long time I focused on farming after work. When my job required me to be in a lot of dumb useless corporate meetings with my video on (so I couldn't be obviously gaming) and I couldn't really focus on real work either, I started trading. I made much more per hour than I ever did farming.

It's not for everyone and you need to have knowledge of the game, but there are profits to be made. Moreover, those profits compound.

I literally started with

Perfect Gems, buying 35-40 for

Pul, selling the amethysts and rubies in crafter packs and making a little profit. Sometimes I crafted or rolled things I found, but my luck was crap, so I really mostly focused on trading. I did this for a few weeks a few hours per day and now have plenty of Wealth to gear up at least one character in a few high runes worth of gear.

It's tedious and takes time, but if you find a niche, with fast turnover and a decent margin you can make profits, without ever ripping anyone off.

The thing with farming is your Wealth never compounds. No matter how wealthy you are, your gains are always linear. Yeah you could get faster or more MF, but your gear doesn't make money on its own.

It's similar to real life. If you don't invest, your stuck with your wages since you don't get any returns on capital.

Rng is indeed a cruel mistress, but as others have said before me, I believe building yourself a nice trading network is

Key with d2 and probably one of the reason this grindy gambling of a game stayed popular for so long. When i was playing a long time ago in my youth, I was poor and relied mostly on the generosity of others to get some decent gear but i never got anywhere really (still had a lot of fun mind you). With d2r I've a new outlook and my approach is quite more focused and the result shows. I'm not wealthy by any means but i have a steady income. Found myself a satisfying "run" consisting of arcane, countess,

Ancient Tunnels(when i feel like it), Chaos, worldstone and cows. I run those while listening to audiobooks, gathering keys,

Tal,

Thul,

Ort,

Amn,

Hel, flawless gems and anything else that could be valuable to a certain extent either to others or me. Found myself on top of that some nice people that buy those no question asked. It allowed me to enjoy the game, while feeling a sense of market camaradery. I'm starting to understand my buyers need, will go out of my way to ressuply them if they are running low, switch their highrunes for my mid runes to allow them to keep buying from others etc etc. And doing that i sometimes get that odd rare coveted HR or gg unique wich gives me a great rush of endorphine and motivation to keep going.

Tldr
I suggest finding a product you can get a steady stream of while doing stuff you enjoy in the game and build a network of traders that required that product regularly. Not as fast as having that lucky break, but steady income that keeps you motivated to eventually get the lucky break.

pinkeh-_- wrote: 2 years ago

Rng is indeed a cruel mistress, but as others have said before me, I believe building yourself a nice trading network is

Key with d2 and probably one of the reason this grindy gambling of a game stayed popular for so long. When i was playing a long time ago in my youth, I was poor and relied mostly on the generosity of others to get some decent gear but i never got anywhere really (still had a lot of fun mind you). With d2r I've a new outlook and my approach is quite more focused and the result shows. I'm not wealthy by any means but i have a steady income. Found myself a satisfying "run" consisting of arcane, countess,

Ancient Tunnels(when i feel like it), Chaos, worldstone and cows. I run those while listening to audiobooks, gathering keys,

Tal,

Thul,

Ort,

Amn,

Hel, flawless gems and anything else that could be valuable to a certain extent either to others or me. Found myself on top of that some nice people that buy those no question asked. It allowed me to enjoy the game, while feeling a sense of market camaradery. I'm starting to understand my buyers need, will go out of my way to ressuply them if they are running low, switch their highrunes for my mid runes to allow them to keep buying from others etc etc. And doing that i sometimes get that odd rare coveted HR or gg unique wich gives me a great rush of endorphine and motivation to keep going.

Tldr
I suggest finding a product you can get a steady stream of while doing stuff you enjoy in the game and build a network of traders that required that product regularly. Not as fast as having that lucky break, but steady income that keeps you motivated to eventually get the lucky break.

It's just like pinkeh says. My network consisted of a list of players that would give me 35 gems for a

Pul rune, who were happy to have someone to come to to clear their stashes and a second list of players that would give me an

Ist rune for 25 crafter packs (25 perfect amethysts, 25 rals, 25

Junk Jewels). The second group was happy to pay, because it was convenient.

An

Ist is worth 6-7

Pul runes and on average there were 5 amethysts in a group of

Perfect Gems. The rest is arithmetic.

One other tip I can share:

I like to make games like 'O

Tal

Helm N 10PG', farm what I want and the next game is called 'O

Tal

Helm N 9PG'. Eventually I get a deal and it doesn't slow down my farming much.

I'm still sitting on hundreds of untraded

Perfect Gems.

no need to particularly aim at hr, just play the game, find the items and trade from there, I've never found hr higher than

Sur, only found my first

Lo at lk yesterday yet I've got my Enigma and all that I wanted, I trade gems, keys and tokens they can be quite lucrative.

Just know that finding a HR really is very, very difficult. I've seen someone on this forum claim they played for D2 since vanilla, for 20 years, and never seen

Ber on the Ground once. Then just today someone posted a screenshot of

Ber drop after killing hell Diablo for the first time in a /players 1 game. It's a lottery mate!

Like the others have already pointed out, using diablo2.io or other sites like Traderie (or both!) is a good way to compound your 'capital' and maybe reach the runes you want one day.

I feel yan dry runs suck! Do you know how many runs you've done of each?

One option motivation wise is to just commit to doing a set amount of runs- e.g. commit to 500 cow runs. Put 50 tombs of town portal in your stash- and just do cow run after cow run until you've done 10 sets- 500 runs. At P1 this on average net you 3

Sur's (1.5

Ber's) in runes plus heaps of good tradables - good charms and bases everywhere. Probably 2

Ber + in total value which would get you Infinity or Enigma...

Id say your odds of not getting at least a

Ber worth of runes in all that farming are pretty low. I got to 280 runs with highest rune a

Gul. Then just promised myself that if I got to 500 without anything decent I'd just paypal myself a

Ber since "I'd earned it". Then on run 281, a cow dropped a

Ber.

Takes a while but you would get Wealth eventually that way... just takes time. Get a crappy show on Netflix and watch while you farm...

Also just remember the fun part about D2 is the journey/ struggle to get the Wealth. When you actually get everything you ever wanted, thats actually the end of the line- game gets boring till you find something else you want to achieve...

Would also recommend levelling a paladin and building a budget uber smiter. Lookup guides online you can gear a smiter for less than one

Ist. This allows you to farm torches. I think you can earn on average about a

Mal per torch. Which with a really budget smiter can do runs in 15 mins. Though you have to wait for trades etc. This will allow you a gradual steady low variance income to complement high variance magfind/ runehunting.

Good luck anyway!

RNG seems to come in bursts for myself. Longggg dry spells followed by 4-5 HRs in a week or so. Just gotta be persistent! And switch up the farming and gear a bit to keep things fresh.

I feel like some people don't understand how many runs it really takes to find good stuff in Diablo 2. For example, in

Travincal, according to the silospen drop calculator (plus some spreadsheet calculations of mine), running a non-barbarian through

Travincal, it's going to take you (on average) something like 853 runs to find a single rune in the range of

Vex through

Jah. If you're a Barbarian using

Find Item, these chances increase to something like one in 568. Assuming it takes you 90 seconds to do a

Travincal run (this seems long but it includes the time it takes to do the run plus mess with your inventory), then you can expect to find a rune in the range of

Vex through

Jah once every ~21 hours of gameplay or once every 14 hours if you're a Barbarian.

In my 6 months of playing D2R, I'd say I've maybe done 1.5 hours of magic finding a day on average, and I have found 14 high runes, so I've found a high rune about once every 19 or 20 hours, if I had to take a guess.

Of course, high runes only make up a fraction of the valuable items that drop; I'd say something like 60%-70% of my own Wealth comes from items other than runes. Good charms, good uniques, good runeword bases, a lucky

Uber Tristram that drops a decent Storch, even good rares- that kind of thing is where most of my personal diablo 2 Wealth comes from.

I had a couple good friends of mine who complained they never found anything in Diablo 2 and eventually quit. Whenever I'd check on what they were doing, they were almost invariably standing around in town, leveling up new characters, or just not online.

Diablo 2 rewards time spent magic finding, and it rewards knowing which items that drop are actually worth something. Some people don't know to pick up a grey

Zakarum Shield that drops to check if it has all resist, is ethereal, etc., or they don't know to pick up blue Monarchs or blue Dusk Shrouds or blue Tiaras, for example.

I have diablo 2 and diablo 3. I love Diablo 2 much more than diablo 3. Why? In diablo 3, rare items fall too often, I don't remember having trouble finding anything. Since its release, I have only played occasionally at the beginning of a season. Diablo is, not least, a hidden object game. Diablo 2 gives me the joy of getting something with a low chance (it's like a lottery or a casino game)... another run, perhaps, another and another and another... Sometimes nothing of value falls to me in a week. But, this is an incentive to move on just. For example, a few days ago I found my first

Shako since the release of the game. I was happy as a child who was given a long-awaited toy. What else can give such joy at the age of 45? Also, the fall of a rare rune. I haven't seen the fall of rune

Ber and some others yet, and this gives me an incentive to run the game again and again. I often change locations so that the game is also interesting. No one can guarantee that the object will fall in the travincale. Last week, in one evening (I usually play 1 or 2 hours a day), 2

Mal runes fell - one on the way to

The Countess, the other on the way to

Andariel. Before that, in 4 months, 0

Mal fell to me. That's the value of Diablo 2 - you never know what and where you'll get. You can get something very valuable for the first time, or you may never see it. All this is just my opinion about this game.

Moondew wrote: 2 years ago

I have diablo 2 and diablo 3. I love Diablo 2 much more than diablo 3. Why? In diablo 3, rare items fall too often, I don't remember having trouble finding anything. Since its release, I have only played occasionally at the beginning of a season. Diablo is, not least, a hidden object game. Diablo 2 gives me the joy of getting something with a low chance (it's like a lottery or a casino game)... another run, perhaps, another and another and another... Sometimes nothing of value falls to me in a week. But, this is an incentive to move on just. For example, a few days ago I found my first

Shako since the release of the game. I was happy as a child who was given a long-awaited toy. What else can give such joy at the age of 45? Also, the fall of a rare rune. I haven't seen the fall of rune

Ber and some others yet, and this gives me an incentive to run the game again and again. I often change locations so that the game is also interesting. No one can guarantee that the object will fall in the travincale. Last week, in one evening (I usually play 1 or 2 hours a day), 2

Mal runes fell - one on the way to

The Countess, the other on the way to

Andariel. Before that, in 4 months, 0

Mal fell to me. That's the value of Diablo 2 - you never know what and where you'll get. You can get something very valuable for the first time, or you may never see it. All this is just my opinion about this game.

I have high hopes for Diablo 4 bringing back the best ideas like runes from D2, and pulling in some of the best ideas from other games with similar gameplay elements. Many hours will be lost when that comes out indeed...

Tey_Rossa wrote: 2 years ago

Moondew wrote: 2 years ago

I have diablo 2 and diablo 3. I love Diablo 2 much more than diablo 3. Why? In diablo 3, rare items fall too often, I don't remember having trouble finding anything. Since its release, I have only played occasionally at the beginning of a season. Diablo is, not least, a hidden object game. Diablo 2 gives me the joy of getting something with a low chance (it's like a lottery or a casino game)... another run, perhaps, another and another and another... Sometimes nothing of value falls to me in a week. But, this is an incentive to move on just. For example, a few days ago I found my first

Shako since the release of the game. I was happy as a child who was given a long-awaited toy. What else can give such joy at the age of 45? Also, the fall of a rare rune. I haven't seen the fall of rune

Ber and some others yet, and this gives me an incentive to run the game again and again. I often change locations so that the game is also interesting. No one can guarantee that the object will fall in the travincale. Last week, in one evening (I usually play 1 or 2 hours a day), 2

Mal runes fell - one on the way to

The Countess, the other on the way to

Andariel. Before that, in 4 months, 0

Mal fell to me. That's the value of Diablo 2 - you never know what and where you'll get. You can get something very valuable for the first time, or you may never see it. All this is just my opinion about this game.

I have high hopes for Diablo 4 bringing back the best ideas like runes from D2, and pulling in some of the best ideas from other games with similar gameplay elements. Many hours will be lost when that comes out indeed...

I am also waiting for Diablo 4, and hope it will be a game for the next few years of fun for me. Anyway, I'm already waiting to make a reservation. If the developers listen to the players, take into account their opinion, then it will have a good chance of success. I want it to be more similar to Diablo 2, but with + new ideas. I want it to keep the atmosphere of diablo 2, and not be like a cartoon (like diablo 3). I like the save cabinet in diablo 3, and I like the difficulty portals with rewards at the end - to test the character.

Zero187 wrote: 2 years ago

RNG seems to come in bursts for myself. Longggg dry spells followed by 4-5 HRs in a week or so. Just gotta be persistent! And switch up the farming and gear a bit to keep things fresh.

This is my experience as well. Farming trav I got an

Eth reaper's pretty quick and decided to keep at it as I never got a HR to drop before. 2-3 weeks of nothing and then all of a sudden got a

Sur

Jah and

Ohm within a week. Another 2 weeks of nothing then 2

Gul in one day, then horked a

Ber the next day!

I enjoy farming with my poison necro if I get bored of trav too.

basicnecromancy wrote: 2 years ago

This pic is a summary of my last 2 months. I'm constantly farming CS and

Travincal online but what I got highest as rune is a

Vex! Without trade my Sorc would be almost naked. I've never had the chance to get one Andy's for example.

No runes, no good drops so what's as an incentive for me to continue then besides countless

Ort rune drops? RNG is RNG but this is too much and I'm of course losing motivation. At least for rune farming, I'm open to tips.

I was having a miserable time with my Sorc even with decent gear running Trav. Switching to a horking Barbarian made the difference for me and was a lot more fun play style, at least for me. Got to be more reckless running into mobs, bashing things to bits, etc. Opened up more areas to easier farming. Fire immune? Cold Immune? No problem!

Bash with weapon repeatedly. Some cheap throwables that have silly properties like

Lacerator to help break physical immune before you gear up.

Most of my high runes I've got recently have been from horking out good gear to trade or high runes themselves. I horked a

Sur from Trav counsel corpse one day, and a

Jah the next out of a single cow corpse that was left over after a cow run.

Side note:

Ort runes are super useful for repairing your expensive to repair weapons in the cube

I'm really grateful that I discovered this community. Great insights guys, thank you so much! I'm growing up my Necro and preparing for the übers. Maybe this may change my perspective a little bit by focusing on something else rather than HRs.

SN:

Ort Rain continues!:)

When I was playing sorc i had some high runes but had to make hundreds of runs, now when I play as paladin again ever since he got in to lvl 91 he's getting consistant high/mid runes drops, last week I was getting high or mid rune or both every single day for farming travi and pits for like 4-5 hrs. Cows was always slow and disapointing dont like to run them with any char really. Sorc best option is Chaos with seal poping, mele dog should just do travi and pits those are best from my experiance. Ohh forgot to mention always try to kill fev White mobs bc they tend to drop best runs literary every high rune from travi came from White trash mobs like vampires or those escaping guys with halberds, council only drops some

Mal runes so far

And finally today in CS I found a

Sur. Hope bad luck is broken. Thank you all for the insights again!

basicnecromancy wrote: 2 years ago

And finally today in CS I found a

Sur. Hope bad luck is broken. Thank you all for the insights again!

The RNG Gods work in mysterious ways. Best not to spend too much time thinking about why things drop the way they do!