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Terror Zones

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Rune Farming

Lower Kurast Rune Farming

Lower Kurast Rune Farming

Lower Kurast (LK for short) is a great place to farm high runes in Single Player, Hell difficulty. There are 3 or 6 super chests and each of them has only 65534 combinations (2^16 - 2). Some of these combinations contain high runes. You can roll a decent map and have 30-60 second runs where you check all 6 chests. On multiplayer, maps are rerolled every time, so this is not a viable strategy - you can still check the chests, but it will not be such a power method for farming high runes.

LK runs are also good for farming charms, jewels and gems as they appear very often in the chests.

This short guide includes everything you need to know about LK farming.

Runes

As mentioned above, there are 65534 combinations and some of them contain high runes. The type of high runes available in those chests depends on the player setting (e.g. type '/player 7' command in chat or go to settings) and whether the chest is locked or unlocked. Your chance of getting runes does NOT depend on MF.

The table below shows the number of combinations (out of 65534 total combinations) that contain runes, for each player setting, along with some probabilities when farming all 6 chests.

Note that there is a 19% chance that a chest is locked and 81% chance that it is unlocked. There are slightly different rune combinations for both cases, so they have been averaged out.

/p 1-2
9
8
9
4.2
6
2
4
3
2.2
1
/p 3-4
12.4
7.4
12
8.4
4.4
3
2
4
4.2
2
/p 5-6
16.4
11
10
5.2
5
6
2
4
5.4
4
/p 7-8
16
10.2
14.2
5.4
11
6
5
2
9
2

From the table, we can see that is best to farm the chests on players 7-8, unless you are farming specifically for Lo rune, which is slightly better farmed on player 3-6.

Let us now take a look at some probabilities. Probability is defined as P, we assume 6 chests are farmed at 30 seconds per run.

For players 7-8:

  • P(getting at least one Pul+ rune) = 0.00737 or expected 1 rune every 136 runs, appr. 1.1 hours.
  • P(getting at least one Ist+ rune) = 0.00369 or expected 1 rune every 271 runs, appr. 2.3 hours.
  • P(getting at least one Sur or Ber) = 0.00101 or expected 1 rune every 990 runs, appr. 8.3 hours.

Runes Probability Calculator

You can input the players setting and your desired runes to get a probability calculation for your selection.

Players Setting

'toggle-arrow'1-2'toggle-arrow'
  • P(at least one from 6.2 selected runes) = 0.00057 or expected 1 rune every 1754 runs, appr. 14.6 hours.

Finding Super Chests

In Lower Kurast you are looking for a campfire. There are two huts, one is to the left, the other is on top. The first contains 2 super chests, the second - 1 super chest. This is illustrated in the image below:

Lower Kurast Campfire

A Perfect Map

Lower Kurast maps can spawn 2 campfires for a total of 6 super chests. In a perfect map, you will have the waypoint and the two campfires very close to it.

Start from the waypoint, go through the chests and come back to the waypoint. Teleport to Act 4, save and exit and repeat.

Take your time to find a good map, because a few seconds save over thousands of runs could mean hours. An example of a good (not perfect) map is given below:

Lower Kurast good map

Reference here.

Countess Farming

Countess Farming

The Countess is a superunique monster found in the Forgotten Tower, Black Marsh area. She is essential to farming runes for early and mid-game for runewords. This article will provide a small summary of the rune drops per difficulty, how to find her and a rune drop calculator per X runs.

Rune Drops

The Countess has a special rune drop table that guarantees rune drops from her kills.
Always farm at players 1! The tables below show the drop rates for each rune per difficulty level. Each cell shows the probability as "1 in X" where X is the number of runs needed on average.

NL
NM
Hell
1:9.5
1:21.7
1:23.18
1:14.3
1:32.6
1:34.78
1:4.2
1:8.7
1:13.9
1:6.3
1:13
1:9.27
1:3
1:6.2
1:6.62
1:4.6
1:9.3
1:9.94
1:2.2
1:4.4
1:4.64
1:3.2
1:6.5
1:6.96
NM
Hell
1:4.5
1:4.64
1:6.5
1:6.96
1:5.6
1:6
1:8.4
1:9
1:9.4
1:10
1:14
1:15
1:17
1:18
1:25.3
1:27
Hell
1:34
1:51
1:66
1:100
1:131
1:196
1:193
1:289

Note: Hell Countess can also drop higher runes from her normal monster drop table - Gul, Vex,Ohm and Lo. These however have a very small chance to drop (1 in several tens of thousands), thus not listed explicitly here.

Rune Calculator

Enter the number of runs you plan to do and select the difficulty to see the expected rune drops. The calculator uses the drop rates from the tables above to estimate how many of each rune you can expect.

Expected Rune Drops:

IstruneIst0.35
MalruneMal0.52
UmruneUm0.51
PulrunePul0.76
FalruneFal1.52
KoruneKo1.96
LumruneLum2.94
IoruneIo3.7
HelruneHel5.56
DolruneDol6.67
SolruneSol11.11
AmnruneAmn16.67
ThulruneThul14.37
OrtruneOrt21.55
RalruneRal14.37
TalruneTal21.55
IthruneIth10.06
EthruneEth15.11
NefruneNef10.79
TirruneTir7.19
EldruneEld2.88
ElruneEl4.31

Desired Runewords

Normal

There are two runewords that are essential to many builds, that people usually farm The Countess for in Normal.

  • Stealth in a 2 socketed armor provides +25% FCR and +25% FHR, which is useful both for casters and non-caster.
  • Leaf in a 2 socketed staff gives +3 Fire Skills, among other bonuses, which is useful for all characters with Fire Skills, like Druid, Assassin, Sorceress or even Paladin, if you decide to start with Holy Fire.
#
RunewordRunes
Type
LVL
1
Stealth Body Armor
17
2
Leaf Staves (Not Orbs/Wands)
19

Nightmare

Nightmare is where you get some really overpowered runewords. With those, you can really breeze through Nightmare and prepare for Hell difficulty

  • Spirit is perhaps the most broken runeword in Diablo 2. In Nightmare, you can make it in Broad/Long/Crystal Sword with 4 sockets. For Paladin, you can make in a Pally Shield. With the increased FCR, Mana, Vitality and +2 Skills it is an essential piece of almost every hero build out there and renders most unique items useless. For Paladins, especially, getting double Spirits, could even get you to the endgame.
  • Lore is another strong runewords for a 2-socketed Helm. With +1 Skills, Energy and Lightning Resist it ads nice bonuses to your hero, which are rarely found in a helm before Hell.
  • Finally, we have 2 runewords, which are very useful for your Act II mercenary - namely, Insight and in some cases Cure. For Insight, you need a 4-socketed polearm to boost the mana regeneration due to the Meditation aura.
    Additionally, if you opt for a Prayer Act II mercenary, you can make Cure for Cleansing Aura. This aura stacks with Meditation and Prayer to provide insane health and mana regeneration - you would rarely need potions.
#
RunewordRunes
Type
LVL
1
Spirit Swords/Shields
25
2
Lore Helms
27
3
Insight Polearms/Staves/Bows/Crossbows
27

Hell

In Hell, you mainly farm for mid runes for trading and Keys of Terror. However, there are still some useful runewords you can make. We list the most common here.

#
RunewordRunes
Type
LVL
2
Crescent Moon Axes/Swords/Polearms
47
3
Duress Body Armor
47

Key of Terror Drops

Hell Countess has should be farmed at players 8 for key drops. She will drop a key approximately 1 in 10.64 runs

Location

Act I field maps are usually a square, with some elements cut out from the edges or in the middle. Use your waypoint to Black Marsh.
There are several rules for generating the location of the Forgotten Tower:
  • The game tries spawn the tower near the outer border of the square.
    Pro tip: When traversing an open map, do not hug the wall! Instead, try to go slightly diagonally and if you see an edge - change the direction to go away from it.
  • Black Marsh Regular Path
  • If it cannot spawn near the outer border (due to cutouts or other objects), it will spawn near another map object (waypoint, camp, The Hole, etc ...).
  • You can get a very short map
  • On river maps, it will usually spawn on the opposite side of the waypoint.
  • River map

Navigating The Forgotten Tower

The entrance tile for each level defines three directions - left, straight and right.
Progressing to the next level - always go left.
River map
Keep in mind that three rights, make a left (i.e. exit tile direction is still left). These kinds of maps are rare in the tower, though.
River map
A complete mapping guide is in the works.

References: Reddit - Countess Drop Rates, D2 Rune Wizard - Countess Mechanics.