Rune Race plan sketch

[BardGeek]

Here are my first results:

Hammerdin; Hell; The Pit (both levels); Players 8; Full Clear; 50 Runs

El: 12
Eld: 3
Tir: 7
Nef: 2
Eth: 5
Ith: 2
Tal: 2
Ral: 0
Ort: 2
Thul: 1
Amn: 1
Sol: 1
Shael: 1

That's 39 runes in 50 runs, with an average rune quality of 4.15 everytime a rune drops. I also calculate the equivalent of 802,927 Els.

Definitely on the low end of the scale, although on the bright side I did find my second Corona :clap:

Next Stop: Durance Level 2 + Mephisto on Players 3

 

[Uncle_Mike]

OK everyone!
There you go SP Forum! Official results of 50 Lower Kurast runs. Hell difficulty, players 4, meteorb sorc, full-clear mode!


run 1: Sol
run 2: nothing
run3: Thul, El
run 4: El
run 5: zilch
run 6: nada
run 7: Tir
run 8: nothing
run 9: Tir, Eld
run 10: Amn, eld, Eld, Ort
run 11: Eld, Ith, Amn
run 12: Ral
run 13: El
run 14: Tal
run 15: nothing
run 16: Ith
run 17: zilch
run 18: Nef
run 19: El, Thul
run 20: El, Eld
run 21: Nada
run 22: KO
run 23: Ort, Sol, Ral
run 24: Nothing
run 25: Amn, El
run 26: Eld
run 27: El
run 28: El
run 29: Eth, Thul, Ort
run 30: nothing
run 31: Sol, Nef
run 32: Tal, Tal
run 33: El, Tir
run 34: El, Eth
run 35: Eth, Eld, Thul, Eld
run 36: Nef, El, Thul
run 37: Ral, Eth, Sol
run 38: Ral
run 39: nothing
run 40: Tal, Thul, Sol
run 41: Eld
run 42: Eld
run 43: nothing
run 44: F A L !!
run 45: Amn
run 46: El
run 47: El
run 48: nothing
run 49: Nef, Tal, Tir
run 50: amn, Eth, Eld

That’s all folks!!!

And now the summary:
El: 13
Eld: 9
Tir: 4
Nef: 4
Eth: 5
Ith: 2
Tal: 5
Ral: 4
Ort: 3
Thul: 6
Amn: 4
Sol: 5
…
Ko: 1
Fal: 1

Total runes: 66

Notable finds (not too many):
run 3: Djinn Slayer
run 9: IK Crusher
run 10: Widowmaker
run 25: Arm of King Leoric

summary: If it were not for the runerace I would have probably quit because the runs were boring. It was my mistake to do it players 4 – players 8 seems to be more appropriate although it would make things even more boring. There was no thrill to these runs, I never really was in danger, players 8 would make it longer, but not more exciting. As far as the drops are concerned I am quite happy since it is my first fal, widowmaker, djinn slayer and the IK Crusher. Yet, I’d still prefer 50 mephruns if it were for items.
Things would have been much nicer if it were not the full-clear option. This is a quite big area, everything looks the same and it took me up to 2-3 mins just to make sure that the clear was actually full. It was difficult not to miss any chests or sheds.

Uzziah, would you please be so kind and tell me how I did?? I am not very good with numbers.

Anyway, the above are my runerace 2 cents.

Regards,

The one and only Uncle Mike

 

[Uzziah]

Strijdje is at 7.8 rune average with a 460642965851 el count
Urlik is at 6.2333 rune average with a 39119236 el count
Uncle Mike is at 5.924 rune average with a 517833832 el count
Dave in the basement is at 5.5922 rune average with a 3547544737 el count
Fafner is at 5 rune average with a 26414832 el count *sorry missed a 2 before
BardGeek is at 4.15 rune average with a 802929 el count (your numbers were off a wee bit, 2 el count)
Dokhogg is at 3.7118 rune average with a 20043033 el count (includes run penalty)
Uzziah is at 3 rune average with a 10462 el count (includes run penalty)

As a little note I decided to push forward to get into nightmare. I am finally there so I will start doing Countess in nightmare within this week. I will be attempting to run players 8 tower lvl 1-4 and players 1 on lvl 5.

@Uncle Mike you did quite well your right in the top 3 overall but you also have the 3rd place for the highest # of runes found.

@All Urlik is in second based on Urlik's rune average however this average is only higher because the distrubution of runes was more grouped in the mid range. It has been interesting to look at the distrubution of the Runes, though I have not graphed them you can get a sense of what they would look like when you put them into a spread sheet. 2 things have happened for the top places in the race. First there is the pole effect many runes on oppisite side of the spectum and then theres the grouped effect shown by Urlik. Personally I would rather have the grouped effect where I have a better idea of what I will get, then the pole effect where I get tons of lower runes for that 1 or 2 higher runes.

Lower Kurast, Abaddon, The Pit, Countess, Flayer Jungle, RoF, and Ancient Tunnels have been ran.

The Statistics have been ran but are a bit skewed as they should with so few entrants and so diverse players settings but with the little info gathered we have found that.

Abaddon and The Pit are not good rune hunting areas,
Countess is consistant for low and mid runes: Countess is better for runes as you increase difficulty but well worth running for runes if you are not up to that difficulty yet.
RoF has a good drop rate for runes though not as many nor as consistant as the Countess
Lower Kurast is worth rune hunting in.
Ancient Tunnels is worth runehunting in, (I would have never thought of there before) and a more mid range group of runes drop then in the countess area.
As for the countess she drops the majority of the runes for her area and thus it may be worth rushing through her area instead of clearing it where as clearing the RoF, Ancient Tunnels or Lower Kurast is necessary.

I probably wont be on too much this week and I dont know how much d2 playing I will get done either so good hunting everyone.

 

[usamahanas]

I'm running the countess all the time, each run takes 45-60 sec, I do that for about 3-4 hours so how many runs I've mad. I don't know exactly, and writting down the numbers will slow me down, and the results of those runs,
1 Um
3 Pul
4 Lem
3 fal
5 Ko
12 Lum
14 Io
8 Hel
12 Dol
12 shael
and lots more of the lowering runes, I have made those runs about 5 times in the last two week. As you see, if you could manage to do the run very fast, then you'll be a very rich guy in mid-runes, and it don't take a lot of time. Also if you make the runs with some mf (me about 100%) it's worth, I've found the following from countess:
Zakarum's Hand
Onal's Almighty
Silkweave
Riphook
Pus Spitter
Lava Gout

and also some other uniques, I cann't remember which anymore. And also she droped some nice rare gloves and boots, I have a boot with 20 FR/w, 10 FHR 35% Light resist, 20 cold resist.

My Conclusion, if you r looking for MANY med-lvl run then countess is your choice.

 

[BardGeek]

Without a doubt, the Countess is where it's at for mid-level runes, and I think everyone agrees with that. But the problem with the Countess is that there's a ceiling in what is possible...ie, you're simply not going to get a Ber from her. Sort of like how Mephisto is by far the best place to beef up on a bunch of nice items very quickly, but if you want the best stuff then you're going to have to move on to the more tedious and/or difficult bosses.

I think the point of this exercise is to identify other areas that are still decent sources for mid-level runes, and also have a non-zero chance of dropping the uber-rare runes that we all covet. The results so far have been quite interesting.

 

[SincereX13]

I just did 50 Hephasto runs and I don't recommend it...

Best rune dropped from him personally was a Tir, other than that he dropped one Eld and that was it in 50 runs... I did manage to find a Dol and a Mal though from monsters on the way to him.

 

[Fafner]

Without a doubt, the Countess is where it's at for mid-level runes, and I think everyone agrees with that. But the problem with the Countess is that there's a ceiling in what is possible...ie, you're simply not going to get a Ber from her. Sort of like how Mephisto is by far the best place to beef up on a bunch of nice items very quickly, but if you want the best stuff then you're going to have to move on to the more tedious and/or difficult bosses.

I think the point of this exercise is to identify other areas that are still decent sources for mid-level runes, and also have a non-zero chance of dropping the uber-rare runes that we all covet. The results so far have been quite interesting.

This is exactly the point. Find the mythical land of Ber and Cham.

I was amazed by the countess runs...3 Puls?!? WTF. I've never gotten more than a Hel from that skank.

I also like the MF data, since none of us have it, and we still are getting nice elite items. It makes the game less repetitive, and nice surprises. So I'm still toying with RoF, Chaos Sanctuary, and Flayer Jungle, Spider Forest and Great Marsh.

I wonder if Durance 1 and 2 with all their chests might be good. Sometimes I think those chests are nerfed since they seem to not drop as well as other ones in the game (although I did get a Heaven's Light from one).

 

[Sagittarius]

I suspect the first area or two outside of lut gullein may be good. I ran a druid through in normal and nightmare (p8) a month ago and found 3-4 runes at each difficulty. More recently I've been competing in the skillz tourney and have run a barbarian through in normal (p4). I found 2 more. The rune quality maxed at ral or shael in the nightmare run. If anyone wants to try 50 hell difficulty full clears in one of these areas, you may be pleasantly surprised.

I'd do this myself but I'm concentrating on the skillz tourney.

Good luck!

 

[usamahanas]

Without a doubt, the Countess is where it's at for mid-level runes, and I think everyone agrees with that. But the problem with the Countess is that there's a ceiling in what is possible...ie, you're simply not going to get a Ber from her. Sort of like how Mephisto is by far the best place to beef up on a bunch of nice items very quickly, but if you want the best stuff then you're going to have to move on to the more tedious and/or difficult bosses.

I think the point of this exercise is to identify other areas that are still decent sources for mid-level runes, and also have a non-zero chance of dropping the uber-rare runes that we all covet. The results so far have been quite interesting.

that's right countess is very good for mid lvl rune and her chance to drop above Ist is very very small, but also going to hunt those high end rune is somehow a matter of luck AND experience, for example the I won't run durance 1 & 2 for Ber, I can get from there Ko with ease. And as stated from other members, there's good places for hunting high end runes like RoF, Flayer Jungle...etc.
Also I like to say something more, rune hunting=having a killing machine characters is a must! for a lot of ppl they say,that they get bored because they don't have those runes, but I think we should also state here which charcter build for which area is the best, for example:
I've runed the countess with my fischymancer and teleport charges, I made the rune in about 4 minutes and was happy but with the time and the low chances for drops I got bored, then decieded to make a new charcter Anti-countess and made a pure lightning sorc, the time droped for the runs to 45-60 sec with ease and more fun in the run. I also have tested the venomancer for flayer jungle and it's :drool: those demons have low PR and Pnova will hite everything.
For other areas, I think hammerdine is the best running areas with undead, so what do you think about that?

 

[dokhogg]

My final 50 NM Countess

Ok, I finished my 50 Countess runs.

NM Countess, full clear, players1/8* with my slow moving first character a Melee Barb.

*I ran players8 through level 4, for MF purposes, then switched to players1 for level 5 since I seem to remember reading somewhere that she drops better with lower player numbers. :scratch: (CAN YOU SAY NOOB?)

Notably, I averaged over 1 set/unique item each run so for the person just getting started and thinking of grailing, it might not be a bad place to start. Most notable run was number 50:

Shael, Ort, Ichorsting, Brainhew, Hawkmail, Bverritt Keep, Arctic Binding, Tancred's Crowbill

Also, she dropped only about half of the mid-level runes, the rest were from other levels, and even an Io and Shael from barrels.

So here is the final count:

Amn: 3
El: 25
Eld: 25
Eth: 9
Hel: 1
Io: 3
Ith: 5
Nef: 7
Ort: 10
Ral: 4
Shael: 4
Sol: 4
Thul: 5
Tir: 20

All in all, 125 runes. My math sucks, so I have no idea what the el count is. But as far as MFing and rune running for low-mid level characters in NM, Countess is definately a good place to go.

dokhogg

 

[LprMan]

At last, my 50 runs are done. Original plan was to make them in Tal's Tomb but I changed my mind because they were very slow to make, even the 50 runs I did in Flayer Jungle took forever

Sniperzon; Hell; Flayer Jungle; Players 8; Full Clear; 50 Runs

El: 25
Eld: 9
Tir: 5
Nef: 10
Eth: 14
Ith: 4
Tal: 4
Ral: 12
Ort: 5
Amn: 3
Sol: 5
Shael: 2
Lum: 1

Thats it. 50 runs is not much if you are looking for high-end runes but after all im quite disappointed

When I was making the last 5 runs I got an idea, now I will start running a place no-one has chosen yet imo. It can be a really disappointing too but few facts about rune drops make this place sound very good It is also very fast to run and not dangerous, so 150 runs is fast to do, especially with good map

 

[Uzziah]

Sorry gang, I caught a flu of sorts and had to take a few days off of work. So I wont be able to sum up the runes until I get back to work may be as late as monday April 5th.

Glad to see such interest finally in the rune race. Did anyone read the thread about the "el race"? Sounds like an elaboration on the rune race but I don't know how it will pan out. I think most people would like to keep the runes they find since it took such hard work and time to find them. I know I will not be send runes towards that goal. I know how easy it is to dupe runes and I am in search of a set of legit runes at the moment so duping them just does not make sense.

 

[Urlik_Skarsol]

I put my rune racing on hold for a bit since I wanted to do some testing and calculations...

almost done :flip:

One thing folks should realize is that for every rune dropped by a monster able to drop up to Zod, there is a 47.89% chance that that rune will be Tir thru El. There is a 10.38% chance it will be Amn thru Zod. And there is only a piddly 0.39% chance that it will be Pul thru Zod.

where do we find mass quantities of monsters of the same type who can drop up to Zod?

that's right... The Moo Moo Farm.


According to my tests I get an average of 480 cows per full clear. This is like running the same monster 480 times in a row. Also, this does Not include the 6-10 champions+uniques... They'll just improve your overall "mean" drops ever so slightly.

Killing 480 cows per full clear earns you a mean of 1.963 runes at Players 3, besting Hell Countess's mean of 1.8777 (for a single kill at Players 1). If you manage to clear the Moo Moo Farm at Players 8, you earn a mean of 2.542 runes. I suspect that any other single area of the game won't be able to beat that. However, I have extended my definition of "River of Flame" to include the docks after the wp that lead up to the Chaos Sanctuary and I will be testing this area this weekend.

Another area that is ripe with a high rune mean quantity is the Council in Travincal. Council members drop from the same bucket, the named Superuniques plus their lesser buddies. I get an average of 10 Councilmen in Travincal. As a group, at Players 4, they will drop a mean of .2692 runes. Run them 10 times (at P4) and you are up to 2.692 runes (on average).

I think this is probably easier and faster than Hell Cows at P8. The only downside is that they can't drop Zod... only up to Cham.


Here's another tidbit for ya. In an average of 896 runs of Hell Countess (at P1), you'll be able to cube up an Ist with your findings --- assuming you also have the gems needed to do so.


Urlik

 

[SincereX13]

I put my rune racing on hold for a bit since I wanted to do some testing and calculations...

almost done :flip:

One thing folks should realize is that for every rune dropped by a monster able to drop up to Zod, there is a 47.89% chance that that rune will be Tir thru El. There is a 10.38% chance it will be Amn thru Zod. And there is only a piddly 0.39% chance that it will be Pul thru Zod.

where do we find mass quantities of monsters of the same type who can drop up to Zod?

that's right... The Moo Moo Farm.


According to my tests I get an average of 480 cows per full clear. This is like running the same monster 480 times in a row. Also, this does Not include the 6-10 champions+uniques... They'll just improve your overall "mean" drops ever so slightly.

Killing 480 cows per full clear earns you a mean of 1.963 runes at Players 3, besting Hell Countess's mean of 1.8777 (for a single kill at Players 1). If you manage to clear the Moo Moo Farm at Players 8, you earn a mean of 2.542 runes. I suspect that any other single area of the game won't be able to beat that. However, I have extended my definition of "River of Flame" to include the docks after the wp that lead up to the Chaos Sanctuary and I will be testing this area this weekend.

Another area that is ripe with a high rune mean quantity is the Council in Travincal. Council members drop from the same bucket, the named Superuniques plus their lesser buddies. I get an average of 10 Councilmen in Travincal. As a group, at Players 4, they will drop a mean of .2692 runes. Run them 10 times (at P4) and you are up to 2.692 runes (on average).

I think this is probably easier and faster than Hell Cows at P8. The only downside is that they can't drop Zod... only up to Cham.


Here's another tidbit for ya. In an average of 896 runs of Hell Countess (at P1), you'll be able to cube up an Ist with your findings --- assuming you also have the gems needed to do so.


Urlik

Ok, I was thinking the same thing about the cows being the bestest place to run for runes, but their are a couple of things you much consider when comparing them to countess runs.

First a Hell Cow run is going to take a whole heck of a lot longer than a Countess run. I did 10 Hell Cow runs at players 4 w/ my 13K Hammerdin and in the time it took me to do those I could have done probably 50 - 75 Hell Countess runs (just a guess). In those 10 runs (full clear ) I came up w/ 3 Amns and nothing esle even of note.

I still am not giving up on Cows, but I do have some opinions. If you are after a mid level rune say up to Vex, you will on average get their much much faster by doing countess runs. However if you are looking for anything over Vex in the long run Cow runs may get you their faster as you are bound to get lucky eventually always killing in mass quantities monsters that have a chance to drop every rune in the game (luck plays the biggest factor).

Still the biggest problem is doing Cow runs efficiently, even w/ a 13K Hammerdin, Cow runs on P8 are pretty much to slow to be worth it. Players 3 or 4 is much more efficient but cuts down on the odds runes will drop from a normal cow.

Much work still needs to be done to find the best place to find runes, remember Hephasto has some of the best odds to drop the highest level runes, but now after 100 runs (varying from P4-P8) the best rune he has dropped for me so far is a Tir.

 

[Uzziah]

Strijdje is at 7.8 rune average with a 460642965851 el count
Urlik is at 6.2333 rune average with a 39119236 el count
Uncle Mike is at 5.924 rune average with a 517833832 el count
Dave in the basement is at 5.5922 rune average with a 3547544737 el count
LprMan is at 5.02 rune average with a 45236923 el count
Fafner is at 5 rune average with a 26414832 el count
dokhogg is at 4.848 rune average with a 51016375 el count
BardGeek is at 4.15 rune average with a 802929 el count
Dokhogg is at 3.7118 rune average with a 20043033 el count (includes run penalty)
Uzziah is at 3 rune average with a 10462 el count (includes run penalty)

I put the new entries in YELLOW so that they could be easily seen.

 

[LprMan]

The idea I mentioned in my last post was to run the chests in Sewers lvl 2 under the Kurast Bazaar/Upper Kurast. So many people have said chests are good when it comes to dropping runes, it is lvl 85 area and there quite seldom monsters spawn there which makes it safe/fast. Just teleport to Sewers, open chests, pick up interesting drops and exit. I got bored pretty soon but if someone wants to try this "good" idea of mine, feel free to do so. Maybe I will do the runs there later, it would be nice to get good rune even once

But I have even done something, how surprising is that :surprise:

May I introduce, 100 Countess runs!

Im not sure how good these results will be for Rune Race because on every run I killed Countess and her pack only (some random mobs in Countess' room too but I didn't count the few runes they dropped) but if you find this useful...

Here are the results in chunks of 50 runs:

Runs 1-50

El: 26
Eld: 15
Tir: 7
Nef: 12
Eth: 8
Ith: 1
Tal: 8
Ort: 1
Thul: 4
Amn: 2
Shael: 4
Hel: 2
Io: 1
Lum: 1
Lem: 1

Runs 51-100

El: 32
Eld: 12
Tir: 12
Nef: 14
Eth: 6
Ith: 2
Tal: 11
Ral: 1
Ort: 5
Thul: 6
Amn: 2
Sol: 2
Shael: 2
Lum: 1
Fal: 1

Quite nice results imo, runs took about 2 hours to do :buddies:

 

[Uzziah]

nice runs Lprman however they dont beat your last rune average of 5.02

The first 50 was 4.6559 the second was 4.477

Whats really nice about your runs is that they have much higher el counts then your first 1231559369 and 432165119 respectfully.

So that leaves the current standings at

Strijdje is at 7.8 rune average with a 460642965851 el count
Urlik is at 6.2333 rune average with a 39119236 el count
Uncle Mike is at 5.924 rune average with a 517833832 el count
Dave in the basement is at 5.5922 rune average with a 3547544737 el count
LprMan is at 5.02 rune average with a 45236923 el count
Fafner is at 5 rune average with a 26414832 el count
dokhogg is at 4.848 rune average with a 51016375 el count
BardGeek is at 4.15 rune average with a 802929 el count
Dokhogg is at 3.7118 rune average with a 20043033 el count (includes run penalty)
Uzziah is at 3 rune average with a 10462 el count (includes run penalty)

 

[Buck Bilbo]

I play multiplayer but i've been monitering this thread since it started because the info generated has been really cool. This was on multiplayer but a devilkin/archer (not sure which) in the pit dropped me an ohm rune! Just thought people might think it was some interesting info.