Farming for a better life on D2R

Hello,

My current farming sequence is (A1)Tower, The Pit, Andy,(A2)Stoney Tomb, Ancient Tunnel, then Meph, Diablo(and all the River), and Baal.

Takes just over an hour.

I use an ORB/ Hydra sorc, lvl 91, full Tal Rasha set. Merc is a dog(Insight, Duriel's Shell and Vamp. Gaze) . Farming for a Lo for better armor for him, the dying &#@tard.

Highlight finds over close to 80 hours: 3 Tal Rasha armor, a Gul, an Ist and an Ohm. Plus 3 x 175 poison LC.

My question to the experts is this; should I be farming as I am or should I pick one of these (eg The Pit) and do it over and over, repeat ad nauseam?

(If I have broken any rules with this post, please remove forthwith.)

Realistically, the answer - as so often - is "depends". Though it can be broken into multiple bits.

Tower can yield some decent runes on average but primarily, I for one would only add that to the cycle if you're including summoner and nihl as well and are building up Key sets.

Similarly, I would only include meph and andy if you actually need something off of them (say you're still farming for a Shako).

Beyond that, all of the 85 areas don't really differ in terms of possible loot, minus the part where dia and Baal throw in some extra drops for CS and keep respectively. As a result, for these, it boils down to time over anything else (time to clear, compared to # of boss packs per clear). If you can clear CS in a couple minutes but need 20 minutes for Baal, don't bother with Baal. If you can do pits in a few minutes but need 15 minutes for tunnels, don't include tunnels and so on and so forth. It is a matter of optimizing time for those. And frankly, considering that it takes you an hour to do that cycle, you are most certainly losing (a lot) of time somewhere along the way. Given, you may be a bit slower across the board (lack of gear? lack of practice/optimization? who knows) but you may also already be in a situation where you're quite quick in 1 or 2 areas but just unnecessarily slow in others. That's tough to tell from the outside but that's what you should be focusing on optimizing.

Unless you actually need something with a higher chance off of andy/meph, just pick your favorite (fastest) 85 areas and stick with that imo.

Just my initial thoughts.

With sorc I like to use Act 1 merc with Insight bow. Sorc teleports a lot and Act 2 merc has rarely even a chance to hit anything. I am using a cold sorc with fire Act 1 merc and when I really want to finish off some cold immune monster I can even kite it back and forth and Act 1 merc shoots while I Teleport. She is a lot easier to keep alive while farming that way, because she can stay with you out of danger (and for her Duriel's Shell is more than enough, you can also use Treachery - it's really good because of IAS and much cheaper than Fortitude). Unless you want to use Infinity I'd go for Act 1 merc for that reason

If you are in single player then this will be an uphill battle for you no matter what you choose. I would go just for Pindleskin or Mephisto to get some items. If you play online then it's a lot easier because you can trade your items up - unless you really want to have a solo self found character, I'd suggest that you should go online then farm one good spot. The game was designed with trade in mind because of how low the drop rates are for certain items. After you make some runes you can also make more by just trading (buying lower, selling higher ) if you are into that, and not just farming

Your drop rates are kind of below average for 80 hours I think. If you were farming Travincal for 80 hours I am pretty sure you would end up with more high runes (if you are targeting that).

I think you should farm all spots, but not in one route. Farm tower for a while, then switch to something else and farm that etc. Tower for keys and runes over and over, Mephi or Pindle for items, Baal for xp, Travincal for runes etc. It's just faster, because you have a one route and do not travel that much between different places and lose time on that. Or you can plan some good route, like Mephisto -> Teleport to act 4 -> Teleport to act 5 -> sell some Mephisto stuff to Larzuk for Gold -> Pindleskin -> repeat. Different farming spots have better drop rates for specific items or runes

You can also make characters that are best to farm specific areas if you want to minmax. For example cold sorc for Ancient Tunnels, horker barb for Trav, Javazon or foh/Hammerdin for Baal etc and use them just for those areas. Generalist character will always be slower than something targeted.

If farming takes you a lot time you can take a look at this: https://d2.maxroll.gg/resources/map-reading
Maps are not 100% random, there are general directions you can expect map exits to be.

I've been doing endless Baal runs for several months now trying to hit 96 on my Barb so he can equip a crafted ring I made. Seems like that's the only decent way to get XP for me. And some good loot along the way (found a couple Jahs and Bers in WSK). Less than 2 bars from 96 right now!

I'm sure once I hit 96, I'll be switching it up to more Trav and Key farming though.

And another potentially good place is Swampy Pit (new 85 area). Might just be dumb luck, but I've gotten the best drop:run ratio from that dungeon. Only ran it a couple dozen times and have gotten Griffons, Arachnids, Ohm, and a beautiful 3OS / 44 All Res Vortex Shield base which sold for Jah + Ber.

Thank you for the responses.

I prefer farming a single / a few zones myself. On my Sorceress I'm doing Travincal + Chaos + Baal + Cows and on my Barbarian - Travincal alone. Whenever I get bored, I farm other areas like The Pit / WSK / Icy Cellar / Pindle, etc.

I've finished hell with orb/ Hydra.
She is fun but too slow for farming.

A pure Hydra could make the different but I don't recommend this hybrid for farming.

Blizz or Nova sorc is much faster.

In my experience, do what gives you the most fun (it's a game), while balancing difficulty and efficiency.

With a sorceress, however, there are indeed zones that lend themselves very well to your build, like stoney tombs, while other zones are micro intensive.

Do a couple of them, and do them efficiently. This game rewards relentless repetition.

i prefer to run one area for a while. at the moment i do pits. than after a while i will start farming cs with my lightning sorc. when it becomes boring i switch to my java for cow-runs. and than it could happen that i want to farm keys for uber runs with my pala

I usually just set off BoS on my MA sin and speed to countess, then head to pindle, afterwards I randomly choose where to farm from this wheel thing I made, https://wheelofnames.com/j47-m38

Farming the same thing over and over again gets me into a funk, idk how people can do it.