Ok so I played both beta weekends and have been playing on classic a little to get my feet wet with the game (again).
One of the things I wanted to ask about was early merc runewords. Made a NADIR helm and a malice weapon for my a2 normal merc to help keep him up. Are their other easy runewords, particularly armor worth trying to make early?
Insight early, insight endgame
A1merc with Harmony for vigor
A2 with insight for meditation
A5 with lawbringer for decrep
People underestimate treachery
45ias, for fade and venom
Lvl15fade is 15dr, 60res, 80% curse reduction, not nothing
Trechery is great for a merc, cheap too:
3 Socket Body Armor
Shael + Thul + Lem
5% Chance To Cast Level 15 Fade When Struck
25% Chance To Cast level 15 Venom On Striking
+2 To Assassin Skills
+45% Increased Attack Speed
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold From Monsters
Duress runeword is also good:
3 Socket Body Armor
Shael + Um + Thul
+40% Faster Hit Recovery
+10-20% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Adds 37-133 Cold Damage 2 sec. Duration (Normal)
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
33% Chance of Open Wounds
+150-200% Enhanced Defense (varies)
-20% Slower Stamina Drain
Cold Resist +45%
Lightning Resist +15%
Fire Resist +15%
Poison Resist +15%
First viable runeword armour would be smoke i suppose, obedience as a weapon requires fairly low runes, but requires a 5 socket polearm though.
Insight obviously is a good option for many classes, but requires a 4 socket polearm, obtainable in normal cows.
Treachery
3 Socket Body Armor
[Shael] [Thul] [Lem]
Level Requirement: 435% Chance To Cast Level 15 Fade When Struck
25% Chance To Cast Level 15 Venom On Striking
+2 To Assassin Skills
+45% Increased Attack Speed
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold From Monsters
Obedience
5 Socket Polearms
[Hel][Ko][Thul][Eth][Fal]
Level Requirement: 4130% Chance To Cast Level 21 Enchant When You Kill An Enemy
40% Faster Hit Recovery
+370% Enhanced Damage
-25% Target Defense
Adds 3-14 Cold Damage - 3 Second Duration
-25% To Enemy Fire Resistance
40% Chance of Crushing Blow
+200-300 Defense (varies)
+10 To Strength
+10 To Dexterity
All Resistances +20-30 (varies)
Requirements -20%
Insight
4 Socket Polearms/Staves
[Ral][Tir][Tal][Sol]
Level Requirement: 27
Level 12-17 Meditation Aura When Equipped (varies)
+35% Faster Cast Rate
+200-260% Enhanced Damage (varies)
+9 To Minimum Damage
180-250% Bonus to Attack Rating (varies)
Adds 5-30 Fire Damage
+75 Poison Damage Over 5 Seconds
+1-6 To Critical Strike (varies)
+5 To All Attributes
+2 To Mana After Each Kill
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Smoke
2 Socket Body Armor
[Nef][Lum]
Level Requirement: 37+75% Enhanced Defense
+280 Defense vs. Missiles
All Resistances +50
20% Faster Hit Recovery
Level 6 Weaken (18 Charges)
+10 To Energy
-1 To Light Radius
How early can one expect to make an insight, I saw llama do it with quite a bit of work needed in beta but realistically like come nightmare or more like act 5 normal?
You can realistically create an insight once beating baal on normal, or if you find a cow run game and find a 4s polearm. Your merc would need to be 27 to use it though.
Well and from what I gather getting sol seems to come most likely from NM and above unless you made one from cube recipe?
You can find a sol rune from the cows aswell. I usually farm some cows before moving on to nightmare to get a spirit sword, rhyme, stealth, lore and mabye an insight. Once you have that as a sorc, you are pretty set untill hell.
Also a good option, for getting the runes you need for said runewords.
i would just go nm kill countess and farm the runes you are going to want an nm act 2 merc anyway
In Nightmare, Countess can drop up to Ko, though runes above Io are very rare.
Remind me again, you cannot make cows until Baal has been killed right? But you can join them? On my recently made classic sorc I was entering cow with the enchant no problem but couldn’t make my own.
correct though you can only enter through the red portal no party tps
It used to be more handy because you could do cows without killing baal and then move on to baal runs now that you can see normal games even after killing baal i think going and killing andy in nm might be superior to get an a2 merc and have countess for farming then go back to baal for xp
Correct. You must do the baal quest to be able to open the portal to the cow level. It is a great place to farm low runeword bases in my opinion. But you can also progress in nightmare and farm some countess, you could get a 4 socket polearm there aswell as an easier time finding specific runes.
And, what makes Cows more awesome now is that we can kill the Cow King over, and over, and still be able to create the Cow Level! 
It’s about time! MoooOooOooOOooOO!!!
Poor cows!
How TF did llama make an insight during beta? It’s a 4 socket runeword and beta ended on act 2 normal. It should be impossible to obtain a 4 socket item…
The base came from a mob group Ilvl 23 unique for +3 level and Ilvl 26 then used cube recipes to roll sockets on it for the 4 sockets. Sol he created by combing runes and gems I think until he had enough to make the sol. The video posted below explains, def not worth the time to do in launch