Ist - do The Countess farm worth?

Hi

I want some

Ist (for trades...).

Theorically

The Countess has the higher chance to drop

Ist... (~ 1/287 x 1/10039 for the second place

Andariel - https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2-drop-calculator#item=base,r24 )

But this farm doesn't give much more than

The Countess runes, and in practice the chance to drop

Ist seems still very low (I already farmed her a lot - mainly for other runes - and only drop 1

Ist on my whole life, while droped 3

Ist while randomly farming

Terror Zones / Chaos /

Travincal / Cows)

I think farming

The Countess is a nice starting point when you reach hell, you get many mid-low runes that can be useful for crafting, some keys you can then trade, but don t count on her to get some

Ist, chances are too low, if you can stick to

Terror zones

You can farm countess for low runes which are worth something:

Ral,

Sol,

Hel which can be traded for

Ist (don't know current prices by c.a 20

Ral is

Ist and c.a. 6

Hel is

Ist)
You can also check price for

Thul,

Amn and

Ort

This is much quicker to get

Ist than farming something exactly for

Ist

Szambodiver wrote: 5 months ago

You can farm countess for low runes which are worth something:

Ral,

Sol,

Hel which can be traded for

Ist (don't know current prices by c.a 20

Ral is

Ist and c.a. 6

Hel is

Ist)
You can also check price for

Thul,

Amn and

Ort

This is much quicker to get

Ist than farming something exactly for

Ist

Thinking in getting things to trade for

Ist,

Wouldn't it be better to farm Cows?

(It's very common to end up each run with 1-3 low runes, some gems and bases - I actually already traded some of those bases for

Pul+)

If you have 2 copies of the game then

Larzuk Socket rush.
Took ~15 minutes, each Instant

Larzuk Socket is now at 3

Ist.

fredkid wrote: 5 months ago

Szambodiver wrote: 5 months ago

You can farm countess for low runes which are worth something:

Ral,

Sol,

Hel which can be traded for

Ist (don't know current prices by c.a 20

Ral is

Ist and c.a. 6

Hel is

Ist)
You can also check price for

Thul,

Amn and

Ort

This is much quicker to get

Ist than farming something exactly for

Ist

Thinking in getting things to trade for

Ist,

Wouldn't it be better to farm Cows?

(It's very common to end up each run with 1-3 low runes, some gems and bases - I actually already traded some of those bases for

Pul+)

Countess is faster than cows + trading items is also time consuming:)

mockingbirdreal wrote: 5 months ago

If you have 2 copies of the game then

Larzuk Socket rush.
Took ~15 minutes, each Instant

Larzuk Socket is now at 3

Ist.

Why do I need two copies of the game for that?
(Do I need to give other people access to one of my accounts to "sell"

Larzuk quest?)

fredkid wrote: 5 months ago

Why do I need two copies of the game for that?
(Do I need to give other people access to one of my accounts to "sell"

Larzuk quest?)

2 copies so that you can use 1 high level char to rush your lvl 1 char really quick.
If you have only 1 copy, you can ask your friend to rush you to

Larzuk.

To sell your socket quest, people usually give you the item. You socket it then give it back to them.
People may ask you to give them rune that has the same value as the item just in case you leave the game without giving the item back.

fredkid wrote: 5 months ago

mockingbirdreal wrote: 5 months ago

If you have 2 copies of the game then

Larzuk Socket rush.
Took ~15 minutes, each Instant

Larzuk Socket is now at 3

Ist.

Why do I need two copies of the game for that?
(Do I need to give other people access to one of my accounts to "sell"

Larzuk quest?)

He meant so you can rush yourself very fast... You do need to make a workaround for that tho, to be able to run 2 instances of D2R at the same time (you can Google it for more info if you really care to know more about).

No you don't need to give other people account. You just get into same game, they give you item they want to socket, you go to

Larzuk, socket it and give them back for agreed price. If you don't want to rush yourself with 2 accounts, you can always do a normal rush on a temp character yourself (it's easier to run along ppl in public games who are already doing rushes 4 free), get

Larzuk quest done (kill Shenk in Act 5), sell your socket (or use it yourself) to someone else, delete character, make a new temp one, rinse and repeat. If you think you can make a business out of it (like I thought I could) go for it. It does get pretty tedious and boring after some time lemme tell ya (but hey, if you are trying out some off-meta builds why not profit from some extra Ists here and there, right?) but ye that's pretty much it. Other possibility is to find someone else and make a deal with them to do rush-4-rush which can speed things up significantly but it's rare to find people who are willing to do that (continuously and constantly).

P.S. You might find this short video interesting (if you decide to farm Countess for some time):

Szambodiver wrote: 5 months ago

fredkid wrote: 5 months ago

Szambodiver wrote: 5 months ago

You can farm countess for low runes which are worth something:

Ral,

Sol,

Hel which can be traded for

Ist (don't know current prices by c.a 20

Ral is

Ist and c.a. 6

Hel is

Ist)
You can also check price for

Thul,

Amn and

Ort

This is much quicker to get

Ist than farming something exactly for

Ist

Thinking in getting things to trade for

Ist,

Wouldn't it be better to farm Cows?

(It's very common to end up each run with 1-3 low runes, some gems and bases - I actually already traded some of those bases for

Pul+)

Countess is faster than cows + trading items is also time consuming:)

Didn't do a lot of tests yet, but for what I tested so far farm "things to trade for

Ist" on Cows seems way better (and fun ) than on

The Countess.

Many players accept a mix of gems and low runes for

Ist, and Cows drop a considerable amount of them.
And the bases can really make a difference (I trade an

Eth armor for 7

Hel - many players trade

Ist for 8

Hel - and another one for a

Ist itself) and you can do most of the "trade work" on moments you are not able to play anyway (like going to work )
Not to mention that you get sporadic Charms and Set/Uniques (far from a Boss farm but way more than

The Countess).

Just to inform:

I end up opting for the "cows farm" to get things to trade for an

Ist on my "

Ist search".

I think I don't play a lot (less than 11h per week), I'm not 100% focused on the "

Ist search" (I do some Chaos,

Andariel and TZ for "fun") and surely I'm not super efficient on my farms

That being said, I got 16

Ist since 2023-10-21 (1 month) with trades .

fredkid wrote: 5 months ago

Just to inform:

I end up opting for the "cows farm" to get things to trade for an

Ist on my "

Ist search".

I think I don't play a lot (less than 11h per week), I'm not 100% focused on the "

Ist search" (I do some Chaos,

Andariel and TZ for "fun") and surely I'm not super efficient on my farms

That being said, I got 16

Ist since 2023-10-21 (1 month) with trades .

You can run

The Countess for T-keys, which are trading 3 for

Ist, or run

The Summoner for H-Keys which are in high demand.

trade/key-of-terror-t1445062.html

As others have said, best way to get

Ist to trade for them. Try to learn what is valuable, then just grind out the runs. In my experience most your real money makers will be socketables/magic items (charms, jewels).

When I started my first character I found a 36/15 jewel early on which I traded for a

Jah, the

Jah for 9

Ist, and was able to basically build out the whole character from that alone.

I'm a little unluck with the Keys...
I did

The Countess A LOT when I was searching for runes below

Ist for runewords
But I found only 4 Keys on all my life (and two of them in the same run...)

The Summoner and

Nihlathak I didn't do much, but got only 1

Key of each (and both recently)

To compare

Andariel (which I normally farmed after

The Countess at that time), give me almost 30 essences...

TerminusEst wrote: 5 months ago

As others have said, best way to get

Ist to trade for them. Try to learn what is valuable, then just grind out the runs. In my experience most your real money makers will be socketables/magic items (charms, jewels).

When I started my first character I found a 36/15 jewel early on which I traded for a

Jah, the

Jah for 9

Ist, and was able to basically build out the whole character from that alone.

That's what I'm doing now.
Farming cows for gems / low-mid runes / bases and trading
(eventually charms and unique/set, but gems, low runes and some elite base is almost guaranteed on each run)

trading is the best way to earn those ists or farm pits and trav for me

In my experience, Hell Cows are much better for

Ist or any decent runes rather than

The Countess.

The Countess is easy, fast and consistently gives you low-mid runes, but that's about it. Just now in my own private game of Hell Cows, I got an

Ist,

Pul,

Sol, and many gems. I've probably run

The Countess 100x in the last month or so and not gotten a single high rune.