Hey, after getting news about ladder we will have to wait another month + so i was thinking what to do. And i came up with interesting challenge.
There is currently many debates about item drop being terrible and people advocating for increased rune drop so i was curious what is reality from perspective of someone who know the game well. Yeah thats me, 
if you didnt get that.
So what I will be doing? I think we should have good data on this topic not just stories snd unbiased opinions. So i will be playing for a month or more trying to find as much as I can and build up few characters also in one month time period.
I am starting today from having nothing on hardcore offline. I will be documenting all my time spend in game and all unique, set, decent rare/magic items and also all runes i will find in all that time. I will also try to write down info about number of certain zone or boss runs I made.
Plan is to have 3 core characters. I will be starting with Sorceress and leveling up barbarian as soon as i find some decent equip for him. My third character will be probably smiter so i can have torches. I might level up more characters eventualy too and i am curious how many of them i will manage to level up and equip in the time i have.
I can play pretty much 4+ hours per day, sometimes more. I would guess that my total time will be around 120-210 hours. I will be playing on PTR patch.
If anyone would like to join and do the same it will be great. Softcore or hardcore it doesnt matter. It would help to get more data on for the topic of increasing drops. But you have to collect data on every rune, unique and set item like me and keep writing time of playing also. Let me know if anyone would like to join.
Also I think it would be interesting to hear your predictions guys so feel free to do some guessing for mychallenge before ladder launch. I will be posting results shirty before ladder release.
1 - How many character i will level up to 80+?
2 - How many higher runes i will find ( Ist+)?
3 - How many elite unique items I will find?
4 - Which high end runewords i will be able to make?
5 - How close I will make it to complete holy grail? (finding all unique and set items and all runes)
EDIT: if i die with character, time spend on character still counts towards final time.
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I reserve this post for results…
Fun fact, I already started yesterday but i was rushing it too fast and died at diablo normal like a noob with my sorc and i also forget to count time so i wasnt sure how long i played so will start today with clean new start.
13 higher runes? Damn you are generous, based in what i sometimes read on forum about runes not dropping, it would be guess like 0-1 :
Ill save you the trouble. I leveled the entire 94-half 96 in about 100 hours.
This was solo running players 1 hell mode, seal popping chaos sanctuary. Runs were 2-3 minutes each, roughly 20-30 runs an hour. I averaged 1 high rune every 10 hours of this hardcore structure. That was a high rune everyday to every second day. My longest stretch between high runes was 12 hours, my shortest stretch between zod and jah was 1 game.
Most of the high runes fell around that 10 hour mark. Once I got my jah I stopped doing this. I have every high rune in the game and multiples of some from doing this and only this. if I decide I want more high runes, I’ll go back to doing this as it is the most precise and obvious way for me to get high runes guaranteed.
I will say that casual players will never do this strategy even though it guarantees high runes. This is an extreme way to play and a lot of people want the runes but don’t want to put in the time or effort to get them.
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Hey i really appretiate your feedback. Its not like i am doing it and not liking it so you are not saving me from suffering 
I love item finding so i will enjoy it.
So averaging 1 HR per 10 hours, thats interesting. I am curious which result i will have and if i will match that with different methods as i will probably not do chaos runs.
It literally comes down to the monster level you are killing and how many monsters per hour you are killing. Doing all areas is slower then focusing 1 area over and over. If the goal is strictly high runes, seal pop chaos is the go to. If the goal is to have fun and play everywhere, you’ll probably get a high rune I’m guessing every 20-40 hours.
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I can give you on reference based on myself L0L have roughly 130 hrs game time since early Dec. playing almost exclusively single player online
Chars— Lv 87Bowazon, 76Furyzon, 77Sumoner Nec (first time to play Nec). 58Hammerdin, (first ham).
Runes – 1 Ist, 1 Gul
Uniques – Between 4 chars using total of 11 unique items, lots of multiple garbage about 50 green rings L0L
Highest useable runewords Treachery, Harmony and Duress.
NOT EVEN close L0L
It does look to me that you dont have good MF/rune find character. You could definitely find more in that time. What you can find basicly depends on your character decisions and invested time.
How do you MF/rune find with your bowazon? Where for example? And how long the run take to finish?
I run slow, do not have uber gear. Did actually find a windforce so that was a great upgrade from harmony. Countess, pits, act2 tunnels, LK, Trav/Meph, Chaos, Cows as a rule. LI/PI’s take a while. Think I am running about 65 mf. To give you an idea on my luck, I got 4 town portal scrolls, 1 ID scroll and blue gloves lv 21 for killing Duriel in hell. How is that for a bad RNG roll?
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Hey, I have first update. Yesterday I finished normal difficulty as sorceress. I am playing hardcore so I took it very slow and I like to clear whole game completely on normal so I did that. It definitely cost me more time but I prefer to be over leveled to have more skills, attributes and loot to have better odds of surviving. I cleared ACT I and II on /players 8 setting but lowered it down to /players 3 for rest of normal. I will be speedrunning it more from now one so I can get to farming phase as soon as possible. And I wont clear whole game with other characters anymore as with my sorc to save time. I just wanted to do it on first playthrough.
Whole normal took 19 hours and 20 minutes to complete and here is all I have found so far:
RUNES
El - 5x
Eld - 5x
Tir - 8x
Nef - 7x
Eth - 9x
Ith - 1x
Tal - 9x
Ral - 6x
Ort - 9x
Thul - 1x
Shael - 4x
UNIQUE WEAPONS
Rogue’s Bow(2X)
Stoutnail[eTH]
Ironstone
Griswold’s Edge
Hellplague
UNIQUE ARMOR
Gorefoot
Duskdeep
Swordback Hold
SETS
Cathan’s Rule (weapon)
Cathan’s Seal (ring)
Civerb’s Ward (shield)
Cleglaw’s Pincers (gloves)
Death’s Touch (weapon)
Hsarus’ Iron Fist (shield)
Hsarus’ Iron Stay (belt) (2x)
Hsarus’ Iron Heel (boots)
Isenhart’s Horns (helm)
Isenhart’s Case (armor)
Sigon’s Visor (helm)
Tancred’s Hobnails (boots)
I have another update. My total time is now 28 hours and 30 Minutes. When I was continuing with Nightmare on my sorc I stoppe dfor a while at Mephisto Nightmare to find some items and here are results:
Then I continued to ACT V and started doing baalruns NM. I had some good finds like 35% viper, skullders and Raven frost with 20 dexterity. Sadly luck was not on my side. When I was documenting my runs I was missing to more runs to finish 30 Baalruns so I decided to do two more instead of going on Hell already. Well that didnt end well at all as I did critical mistake and was reckless. I basicly teleported in middle of elite oblivion mage pack with doom knights without Frozen armor and Energy shield and they had couple of critical hits on me. It happened so fast I didnt have time to do anything, drink potion or even save and exit. RIP, its kind of funny because i was fighting packs of souels just fine.
Here are results from NM Baalruns:
I am thinking what to do next decing between making same sorc again or actualy start with Barbarian, He was supposed to be my second character when I will have some items and actualy I already have few items usable for him like Raven Frost Ring for example.
Here below is list of items I have found so far:
RUNES
RUNES
El - 5x
Eld - 6x
Tir - 9x
Nef - 9x
Eth - 10x
Ith - 3x
Tal - 9x
Ral - 11x
Ort - 8x
Thul - 3x
Shael - 6x
UNIQUE WEAPONS
UNIQUE WEAPONS
Bing Sz Wang
Blacktongue
Bloodthief
Bloodtree Stump
Coldsteel Eye
Crainte Vomir
Dark Clan Crusher
Deathspade (2x)
Demon Machine
Ginther’s Rift
Goreshovel
Griswold’s Edge
Hellcast
Hellplague
Ironstone
Kuko Shakaku
Lance of Yaggai
Maelstrom
Pierre Tombale Couant
Rakescar
Rogue’s Bow (2x)
Serpent Lord
Skewer of Krintiz
Skull Splitter
Soul Harvest
Spire of Lazarus
Steelgoad
Stormrider
Stormstrike (2x)
Stoutnail
The Iron Jang Bo ng
The Patriarch
UNIQUE ARMOR
UNIQUE ARMOR
Bladebuckle (2x)
Bverrit Keep
Coif of Glory
Darksight Helm
Duskdeep (2x)
Goblin Toe
Gorefoot
Hawkmail
Heavenly Garb
Howltusk
Chance Guards
Lance Guard
Magefist
Nagelring
Nokozan Relic
Pelta Lunata
Rattlecage (2x)
Raven Frost
Shaftstop (2x)
Skin of the Vipermagi 35% all res
Skullder’s Ire
Swordback Hold
The Face of Horror
Treads of Cthon
Umbral Disk
Venom Ward
SETS
SETS
Angelic Sickle (weapon)
Angelic Halo (ring) (2x)
Arctic Binding (belt) (3x)
Arctic Mitts (gloves)
Arctic Horn (weapon) (2x)
Berserker’s Hauberk (armor)
Berserker’s Hatchet (weapon)
Cathan’s Visage (helm) (3x)
Cathan’s Mesh (armor)
Cathan’s Rule (weapon) (2x)
Cathan’s Seal (ring) (2x)
Civerb’s Cudgel (weapon) (2x)
Civerb’s Ward (shield) (4x)
Cleglaw’s Tooth (weapon)
Cleglaw’s Pincers (gloves)
Cleglaw’s Claw (shield) (2x)
Death’s Touch (weapon)
Hsarus’ Iron Fist (shield)
Hsarus’ Iron Stay (belt) (2x)
Hsarus’ Iron Heel (boots)
Infernal Cranium (helm)
Infernal Torch (weapon)
Iratha’s Coil (helm)
Iratha’s Collar (amulet)
Isenhart’s Horns (helm) (2x)
Isenhart’s Case (armor) (4x)
Isenhart’s Parry (shield)
Milabrega’s Robe (armor)
Milabrega’s Rod (weapon)
Sigon’s Visor (helm)
Sigon’s Sabot (boots) (4x)
Sigon’s Gage (gloves)
Tancred’s Skull (helm)
Tancred’s Hobnails (boots)
Vidala’s Barb (weapon) (3x)
Vidala’s Fetlock (boots)
Vidala’s Snare (amulet)
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Thank you for the update, funny, less than 1/2 the hrs and you have found a couple items I still can’t find. RNG
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I started a hardcore character for the first time ever with a buddy and we are playing through right now. We stopped during PTR to play that, but are back in these characters (Assassin and Barb, I am the barb).
I will let you know what we are able to find until ladder, but currently nothing crazy, since we are only just starting Hell. We are running NM cows now to help buff us for starting Hell. Regardless, we made it this far, found some decent items, but mostly are smart about what we buy/grind/create. Hardcore makes you think a little harder about your setup and search for those lower runewords/nice vendor magic items/gambled goods.
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Hell mode chaos runs with which build? Hammerdin?
And I honestly wasted so much time by clearing whole normal, I could have done it in a lot less hours.
Btw I started barbarian after that unfortunate sorc death 
The runs were pure blizzard sorce. Merc took care of the immune seal bosses.
As i said, i decided to start with barbarian and trying thrower playthrough for the first time in 2.4 and so far its great, act 2 normal.
I beat Hell hardcore with my barb (and Assassin partner), though I didn’t do much further once beating Hell, so I cannot comment too much on my item finding situation. Stopped due to them being busy and for the sake of us starting ladder after a little break, though if ladder takes much longer, I may not be able to wait until then haha.
As for what we found up til then…
Most of Sigon’s
Some solid magic items/rares
Some solid charms
Many normal tier uniques/set items
A few high damage jewels
Created low/mid runewords
Ginther’s Rift
Warlord’s Trust
Plague Bearer
SkyStrike
The Scalper
Rite of Passage
Aldur’s Rhythm
Natalya’s Totem
Rattlecage
Gladiator’s Bane
Tal Rasha’s Horadric Crest
Whitstan’s Guard
Trang Oul’s Scales
Ethereal Head Hunter’s Glory
Ghoulhide
Ethereal Arm of King Leoric
Key of Hate
Wraith Flight
Fal rune
Lem rune
lots of other runes/P gems
That is just the list of most of what is on my character. My buddy had a bunch of other stuff as well.
We did grind a little bit earlier on, mostly normal countess for early runewords, but more or less this is a single playthrough of the game. I would say that is not a bad haul for not really trying that hard to grind items. Yet people complain. Plus I will note that despite only having mid level runewords at best and almost no elite unique/set items, we still beat Hell relatively easily. People keep acting like you need god tier gear or you cannot play the game. You just have to have solid gear and a decent build.
Currently taking a break and playing Tainted Grail, but stoked for ladder to come.
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