Why can't I find runes?

hell countess can drop as high as Lo, although it’s a miniscule chance. you can easily get ist-gul from her with enough time. it takes patience, but you can farm her for mid runes to cube up to high ones. i would just add her to whatever your farming rotation is, and kill everything in the tower on the way down to her. i find more runes on my way through than i get from killing the countess.

Kill the ghosts more than anything, they have a higher rune drop. I have several HR’s just from the ghosts en route to the Countess.

NO! THIS IS TRAP ADVICE!

what nobody ever includes in it is that if the ghost dies off the walking path part of the arcane sanctuary, there is no loot. every time i see this advice given it makes me SO MAD. the ghosts are weak to every element except physical, so even your merc’s aura can kill them because they move so slow it’ll tick three or four times before they get over the path.

this is BS advice and i’m sick and tired of seeing people give it.

I was lucky enough to get Reaper’s toll for my merc. Are there any unique weapons that cast decrepify or amp damage. It’s a waiting game trying to get my merc into position to kill the physical immunes.

No, you trolling kid, Ghosts have a higher rune drop rate, that is fact, ergo, its good advice and you need to take your toxic BS elsewhere.

Were talking TOWER, no risk of that… But yeah, if you have played this game, you know Ghosts dont drop any thing in voids, thats why you line them up on the arcane pathway before you kill them

Its not BS, its what players who know the game, do.

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i’m not contesting the drop rate, i’m contesting the advice that farming them in arcane sanctuary is better. it’s only better if you do no ranged damage or want to take the time to be careful not to kill them until you get them over a platform.

both of which are suboptimal for most classes

i kill far more ghosts over time running countess’ tower and tombs. if you’re going to arcane sanctuary to farm runes instead of trying to get keys from the summoner, it’s just more of a pain. it’s a good place to farm, if you aren’t specifically lookin for runes, but every time i see a splat of bones floating in space i just think of all the loot that could have been

Fine, no problem, however nowhere in my post did I mention arcane and you decided to slam my advice bringing non relevant information in…

Any decent d2 player knows not to kill ghosts in space.

I have found a single hi rune, a Ber. Good find but to be honstest something feels offf, I have two folks around 90 and my pally does at least 20 baal walks a day, hits about 50 travs, and walks the new areas 85 non stop. It feels to me like the old school drop rate for runes. Though I have great items farmed up and traded for the runes I needed anyway, still. Where the hell are they? I used to find at least 1-3 a week before ladder. No one can get the sample number of runs to say for sure but it seems off to me. So here is me contesting drop rate. :stuck_out_tongue: Got all the runes I need but I am not use to trading for all of them. During walks even the amount of low runs seems off.

I swear by Halls of Pain, found Sur Gul Cham today in roughly 3 hours.

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Keep farming, also try trading

HOP is my go to also but not this season. I found a ber in arachnid cave and that was it so far. I think I bad luck this season but with the caveats that what I am finding are funding my builds anyway. First Andy kill in the first 3 days of ladder and a SOJ, my first walk got a perfect anni. My first 3 torches were all high rolled sorc. Just not much runes. Like a mix of good luck on items and bad luck on runes.

A lot of the gear most folk would consider “necessary” for a build to work, is gated behind insanely lucky drops. For someone who prefers solo self found, it’s no easy task to gear up even a “budget” build. I’ve been playing D2 casually for years, and never saw runes like Ber, Cham or Zod drop.

If you like single player, I highly suggest one of the rune drop mods. It’s nice to actually see some of the high end runes drop in your lifetime.

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Its all luck man. Just take a peak at drop calculators if you want to see the reality of HR drop rates. The only way to guarantee runes over time is to brute force it over literally thousands of runs of certain popular spots combined with certain builds that maximize kill speed.

What is your equip worsaw? Everything.

About the runes, you wont kill a lot of monsters fast as fury druid in full games so i suggest joining full games and running lower and upper kurast and click all objects. You can find some runes like this and not just that, occasionaly good jewel or charm and a lot if gems. Use gems for cubing grand charms, sell stuff you find, upgrade gear.

Its hard to tell what you need without knowing what you already have, and what is your strstegy against Lilith?

Life tap items were always my goto for Lilith, but poison absorb would be a good bet too. As a druid that would be limited though. As druid your limited to life tap on gloves. So life drain and drink a ton of antidotes before you hit her portal. You can increase max poison res with them and if you stack them they last for a long time.

Does anything even have poison absorb? Isn’t there just cold/fire/lightning absorb?

I am not sure anymore, I may have misspoke but I seem to remember it at one point perhaps, but if not PLR helps. It is found on a few items. I swear at one point I remember PA on some boots in game at one point. The interwebs tell me nope though. Must be the Mandela Effect on that one.

As far as farming Arcane Sanctuary, it’s relatively easy with a Nova Sorc. (Running Nova+Hydra) Zap a crowd with Static a few times, then teleport ahead of them, static the next wave, nova both crowds to death as they come towards you. Move forward, rinse and repeat. The shorter range of Nova makes it easier to crowd the ghosts over the platforms.

So far I’ve bagged a Gul, Um, some other lower runes, and plenty of charms/rings/amulets (most junk so far), and I’ve only been doing runs casually (~1 hour a night) for about a week now with her. Still no keys from the Summoner though, he’s being stingy.

Running dual spirits + Skullders Ire, 3 ptopaz helm, upped Goldwrap, Frostburns, other random rare/magic gear to boost fire/light/cold resistances… All resistances except poison are ~50ish.

Hell Arcane Sanctuary can drop up to Cham.

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I was so burnt out from the grind when I got into Lillith’s area that i abandoned hope. I’m kind of a Shape/Summon hybrid. Only one point into feral rage. All those points are in Dire Wolves and one into Grizzly. That’s my werewolve’s defense.
Im decently geared. An Obedience Cryptic Axe is my main weapon, Resist capped, Arioc’s needle swap weapon (to buff myself/minions), laying off hands, Maras, Jalal’s Mane, Some rare resist rings, Trang-Oul’s belt for cannot be frozen, Rain Body armor to buff minions and myself. I think that’s about it.
I think I have plus 9 to all skills so my minions are a pretty good wall of defense when needed. Don’t use them for damage, even though they do kill things occasionally lol. Heart of Wolverine and Merc’s Might aura helps them a bit. Wish HoW wasn’t a squishy turd though.
Question, If i get a group to do Ubers, does only one torch drop for the entire group?

Yes only one. About druid, you need different equip , you need a lot of cfushing blow and cast life tap on uber bosses. You need to stop their regeneration with open wounds. You will also need a lot of resist against uber mephisto. Watch some videos first how to do it one by one.

Definitely switch jalal to guilames faces. Gore riders or goblin toe boots… I suggest to watch dbrunski as he has video on youtube doing it with druid.

You didnt say what is your main attack, is fury leveled up? If you are some kind of hybrid, i doubt you can do it. Unless you are dedicated summoner, your summons will do nothing there.