100 Hell Countess Runs

1000 Hell Countess Runs


1. Rune drops (ranked after character level requirement)

El: 50

Eld: 38

Nef: 75

Tir: 118

Eth: 162

Ith: 103

Tal: 214

Ral: 159

Ort: 218

Thul: 153

Amn: 147

Sol: 97

Shael: 106

Dol: 65 (almost 22

Hel)

Hel: 62

Io: 44

Lum: 28

Ko: 19

Fal: 24

Lem: 12

Pul: 12

Um: 13

Mal: 6

Ist: 6

Gul,

Vex,

Ohm,

Lo: 0
(

Sur: 1, dropped from a champion or unique in Tower level 4, not from

The Countess herself)



2. Rune drops (ranked after drops)

Ort: 218 (more than 1

Tal in 5 runs)

Tal: 214 (more than 1

Ort in 5 runs)

Eth: 162 (roughly 1

Eth in 6 runs)

Ral: 159 (more than 1

Ral in 7 runs)

Thul: 153 (2

Thul in 15 runs)

Amn: 147 (2

Amn in 15 runs)

Tir: 118 (1

Tir in 9 runs)

Shael: 106 (1

Shael in less than 10 runs)

Ith: 103 (1

Ith in less than 10 runs)

Sol: 97 (1 Soll in a little over 10 runs)

Nef: 75 (1

Nef in about 13 runs)

Dol: 65 (1

Dol in about 15 runs)

Hel: 62 (1

Hel in about 16 runs)

El: 50 (1

El in 20 runs)

Io: 44 (1

Io in about 23 runs)

Eld: 38 (1

Eld in about 26 runs)

Lum: 28 (1

Lum in about 36 runs)

Fal: 24 (1

Fal in about 42 runs)

Um: 13 (1

Um in 77 runs)

Lem: 12 (1

Lem in about 83 runs)

Pul: 12 (1

Pul in about 83 runs)

Mal: 6 (1

Mal in about 167 runs)

Ist: 6 (1

Ist in about 167 runs)
(

Sur: 1)

Gul,

Vex,

Ohm,

Lo: 0



3. Keys:

- 78 in total (7.8% chance to drop a

Key per run, 1

Key in 12.8 runs, slightly better than the given chance of 7.4%, 1

Key in 13.6 runs)

- only one double

Key drop, no triple

Key drop

- Luckiest

Key streak: 4 keys in just 7 runs.

- Luckiest 20 runs: 5 keys

- Unluckiest

Key streak: 86 runs without any

Key (run 866 – run 952)



4. Ten takeaways (numbered but in no specific order)

1. The most common runes are not the lowest runes (

El,

Eld,

Nef, whoever claims that is just a noob) but the “middle low” runes

Ort,

Tal,

Ral,

Thul,

Amn and the “low low” rune

Tir. This corresponds to the normal drop rates of these runes in the other areas of the game, I guess.

2. It is very fast to farm all runes until

Hel/

Io from

The Countess.

3. The distribution of the

Key drop is total RNG. I once had 86 runs without a

Key (There is only a 0.14% chance of getting such an unlucky streak. But I once also got 4 keys in 7 runs. That’s a chance of 0.0103%! If I look at my luckiest 20 runs, I got 5 keys (0.096%). I expected the keys to be more “evenly” distributed but over 1000 runs, the

Key drops even out and are pretty close to the given average that has been known for many years (7.4 % per run).

4. I did not get anything higher than

Ist from

The Countess or her minions but I got a very lucky

Sur drop on the way to

The Countess. Because of this single experience, you might say that killing at least the unique and champion packs that pass your way makes sense. I have killed a lot of them, but not all of them, by far and I would not make detours for killing them. That being said, Hell Countess is NOT a good spot to farm high runes, especially if you tele directly to her and do not kill anything along the way and if the

Sur drop had not happened, I might advise to just ignore everything apart from

The Countess. So, the two goals of Hell Countess runs are: Getting 1. lots of runes (low and mid) and 2. keys.

5. When I did most of the runs,

Hel runes were quite valuable. I got 62 of them and 65

Dol (almost 22

Hel after cubing). Back then, you could sell 35

Hel for 1

Jah. So, the higher the

Hel (and

Ral,

Sol,

Nef,

El,

Eld) value is, the more lucrative it is to farm Hell Countess.

6. More than 95% of the runs were done online. When farming Hell Countess online, the map is hidden, so you might have to tele around a bit until you find the Tower.

Black Marsh is full of shrines. I encountered lots of Gem Shrines, so you should always have lots of

Flawless Amethyst at hand.

7. Most runs were done with Sorcs of level 90+. If the Tower is not terrorized, there is hardly any experience to be gained there for a 90+ char. So don’t do these runs for the experience (5 min of TZ farming will give you more EXP than 1 hour of Hell Countess farming).

8. I do not remember any truly good drops apart from the runes. Obviously, lots of flawless gems, charms etc. but nothing was godly. However, maybe there were some items in the range of

Pul-

Ist, but I did not keep track of them since I was focused on the runes and keys.

9. When you do the runs online, you must

Teleport A LOT. So a Sorc or Barb with the highest or second-highest FCR-breakpoint is highly recommended, even if you

Sacrifice kill-speed a bit, because the monsters are fairly weak and you do not kill a lot apart from champion/unique packs and

The Countess and her minions, of course. One run took me 2 mins on average, that’s about 33 hours in total.

10. RotW has introduced rune stash tabs. This has both positive and negative consequences for Hell Countess runs. Positive, obviously, is that you now have much more space to store away all these runes. And storing them can be done with just only shift-click. Negative is that the value of basically all low runes has dropped because many more of them get picked up and stored away (and eventually sold). I made many, many

Ist runes selling all these

El,

Eld,

Nef,

Tal,

Ral,

Sol, but these times are gone now.

I guess, I found out nothing new, but it was fun (and also a little bit tedious) and maybe my data and interpretations help somebody.