2022 Spring RFL Sign-Up and Running Thread: Round 1 (Moo Moo Farm)

[Babyhell]

30 minutes finished, I therefore declare victory of this first round. You should all just give up.

I guess I can: your minutes are not mine.

 

[Excalibur]

I was quite innactive for three days. Hopefully i will get back on track soon to upgrade my qualifiers.

 

[LouB]

5 hours and zero qualifers, but that's alright as the 5 Zods will come in the last hour.

 

[Gripphon]

Wow managed to cross one hour of playing. ~133 seconds p5 cownec. Moo moo

 

[ffs]

7 hours here, 5 qualifiers. Not exactly top-tier quality. Useful non-qualifiers though:

Spoiler

Very busy days at work this week and next week as well it seems, but should be able to finish one set at least.

 

[HanShotFirst]

20 hours have been completed!
(Yes, I guess now we know who has the most free time.)

Runs were done with my D2R would-be-UT99er Lightning Sorceress!

I had five qualifiers. They came at:

2 hours and 54 minutes
6 hours and 50 minutes
7 hours and 13 minutes <-- I was feeling pretty good at this point
and then ...
......
.........
16 hours and 12 minutes
19 hours and 53 minutes!!!

The buzzer beater at 19 hours and 53 minutes came at the very end of my last full run. The last cow had just been defeated (this time around it was the Cow King), I then hit the last three pop-ables in the stockade, and to my great surprise, scored! I don't have an amazing bunch of runes, but given that I had been resigned to turning in only four ... I'm quite pleased to get to turn in a complete set!

The last ten hours did not produce the Cow King's Horns, or any other set/uniques that I was really excited about. But, I did find a couple of jewels that I really liked:

Ruby Jewel of Fervor
Jewel
Required Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0xece71bbe
Item Level: 81
Version: Resurrected
+15% Increased Attack Speed
38% Enhanced Damage

Realgar Jewel of Bliss
Jewel
Required Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0x15700e83
Item Level: 81
Version: Resurrected
30% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage

The Realgar Jewel of Bliss would look pretty great in a mid-game twinking weapon. The RJoF is a nice enough roll that it'll require some serious consideration before socketing ...

Anyhow, given the amount time left in Round 1, I think I'll go for a second batch. After all, I've still got to find the Cow King's Horns . Batch 1 was all done at players 5. For Batch 2 I think I'll go all players 7 ... just for the sake of comparison. In the little bit of testing that I did before the start of the round, I felt that players 5 was more efficient ... mostly because I was spending a lot of time searching through all the drops that come with players 7 ... but maybe that's wrong thinking ... maybe I can will myself not to pick up so much stuff ... but I rather doubt it ...

Hey! Do you guys want to see my collection of near perfect defense white and grey armors that I picked up while running Batch 1?! ... Oh, I see ... Okay, I'll come back when I've got more runes!

 

[art_vandelay]

The buzzer beater at 19 hours and 53 minutes came at the very end of my last full run. The last cow had just been defeated (this time around it was the Cow King), I then hit the last three pop-ables in the stockade, and to my great surprise, scored! I don't have an amazing bunch of runes, but given that I had been resigned to turning in only four ... I'm quite pleased to get to turn in a complete set!

I am not entirely sure if runes from poppables actually count as qualifiers I was sure this was somewhere in the rules but I can not find it now... In any case poppables in cows are a rather inefficent way of getting runes and slow you down if you pop them regularly. (which is maybe why they are not forbidden in the rules)

Anyway, congratulations on the RJoF, which is more valuable than most runes you can get in this game

 

[Swamigoon]

@HanShotFirst, a similar find happened for me last year. I got an Um rune from a chest pop, but I posted its screencap, assuming (as queried by @art_vandelay above) that it would be a non-qualifier. Within hours, others told me "no, it qualifies for score!" and I deleted the screencap from the running thread. A few posts later, PhineasB confirmed that popped runes qualify in the Moo Moo farm.

 

[maxicek]

Just over five hours in, no qualifiers, nothing interesting at all in fact.

 

[Gripphon]

@HanShotFirst
Nice jewel there! Good luck in your second running batch.

I just completed 100 runs, total playing time of 3 hours 38 mins 45 seconds
Not picking much, just small charms, rare jewels and superior useful bases if I see some. And unique useful stuff. Overall playing to finish the set with as little item distractions as possible. Inspiration for playing is generally low, gaming years seems to be done for me with casual PvP being all I need, but I'm gonna finish this set properly.

EDIT
Here is the new gear I'm using now which sped me up more, necro

1.07 Valk (Ber)
2/10 amulet
Enigma
Spirit
Web (facet)
Arach
Trang gloves
10/36 mpk ring
beta BKWB
Dancer boots

Inventory: 4x skillers, 4x SC, cube

Merc:
Infinity, Fortitude, Andariel's

Overall 125 FCR with 152 FHR and 105 FRW
Going with higher FHR breakpoint seems to be worth it with rather minimal drawbacks of going for it. Normally 1.07 Valk provides crazy bonuses for these kind of things, without it fcr circlet with Shael. Poison damage is not so important, Web alone offers enough damage so facets are mostly just a bonus, but going with FHR is better.

 

[Kstil3227]

Set completed. Never had another qualifier drop after the first 2 did in the first 6 hours. It was a long 14 hour stretch of nothing. It was hard to keep going each passing hour with nothing dropping. I hope others had better luck on there runs. I averaged around 6-7 minute runs while picking up jewels, charms, and uniques/sets that I felt were worth the time. No speed records there. I think I had around 180 runs or so. I felt like I should have had at least 4 qualifiers drop in that amount of runs, but RnG didn't want that to happen.

Back to my tournament of tournaments entry and see if I can guardian that Druid. Then the plan is to move that character forward for a Untwinked 99 push.

Good luck to the rest of the runners.

 

[art_vandelay]

Okay, I definitely have to do a 1.14d set now, absolutely no qualifiers in 1.09b

I started the set with a Javazon at level ~90,2 and 14 hours and 38 minutes on p9 later I was level 99 with the 95 to 99 stretch taking just shy of 10 hours, half of what my WW barb had... absolutely insane leveling pace and probably still beatable if I had actually used teleport on switch. (Also I had a shrine next to Stony WP which got me an XP bonus many times)

The setup was 20 into Lightning Fury, a point into Valkyrie (which I never used but implies Decoy, Avoid, Evade and Dodge) and a bunch into Pierce to reach 100% with Razortail. I also had some bow skills but they were never used for this set. Gear was as follows:

1.09 Valkyrie Wing (+2 Ama/+4 MPK) with an IAS/ +1 MPK jewel
Titan's Revenge
Wyrmhide "ShaelShael" with 2x plain IAS jewels
Moser's "Shael" with plain IAS jewel
1.09 LoH
Razortail
Natalya's Soul
Raven Frost
1.07 35 MPK ring
The Cat's Eye
15x 5% FRW SC
34 Mana/7% FRW GC

Naj's Puzzler on switch (unused)

No mercenary

That makes for a total of 197% FRW, which is no Enigma but allowed for runtimes in the 4:15 area for the last ~10 hours, the first "half" of which was on p9 while the second "half" was on p7.

I reached 3 frame blocking (at 32% FBR), 6 frame hit recovery (at 52% FHR) as well as 10 frame throwing (at 89% IAS). A major improvement would be 3/10 Java gloves and a 1.07-1.08 Valkyrie Wing instead of the 1.09 version. I would gain one extra skill and could omit an IAS jewel in the body armor or helm. I would gain 15% FRW, 10% FHR and with the free socket and a Shael could then reach the 5 frame hit recovery (at 86% FHR).

Another possible improvment is having enough gold to teleport on switch with Naj's which would be tolerable with the old Valkyrie Wing. There I could switch out the MPK ring for a better one with FCR and the Raven Frost for another FCR ring to reach either 15 frame casting (at 32% FCR) or 14 frame casting (at 48% FCR).

Finally I used max block involuntarily because this character was supposed to be a Burizon once upon a time. I believe it saved my life many times so in retrospect I think it was well worth it. having between 1000 and 1100 life was not that bad. There were no deaths in this set.

 

[ffs]

Anyone of the D2L runners using Oskros' run counter?

Ever since I got a new laptop for D2R I haven't used it, but maybe it's time to settle the long-standing questions of actual kill numbers for cow running. And IIRC that run counter makes that pretty easy.

With various "manual" methods we've arrived at anything from ~160 to ~200 cows per minutes on the top builds in recent years based on estimations from drops or XP counts. I suspect those are mostly wrong and too much on the high end, including some of my own results I got based on drop method which seemed too high. I'd wager it's more like 160-170 tops for the very best builds tbh, long term performance at least.

Think I'll get some numbers with Nova and Javazon, those are my only good cow runners which are moer or less ready to go. Necro and Assassin are possible #1 contenders as well, but none of mine are ready for cow action... :/ Given lack of time atm I don't think I'll get around to respec'ing and rollings maps with those.

 

[Gripphon]

I don't know much about that run counter, but sounds good. I won't use it though because it will just "inspire" me to hunt for the most efficient running method possible and it will turn my relaxed running into that

I believe I did rune counting method for few hundreds runs which does provide somewhat good estimation of kills. I don't remember when did I do that, have to find it. For now I'm more than happy if it is in reality "only" 160 cows per minute!

Here it is, rune counting method of comparison
Now whoever wants to use runcounter we can compare and conclude how precise these estimations are.

 

[art_vandelay]

Anyone of the D2L runners using Oskros' run counter?

I did that last year, but only for Fissure druid. Here are the numbers:

2021 Spring RFL Sign-Up and Running Thread: Round 1 (Moo Moo Farm)

@saracen85 lol wow, thats intense. 4+ sets incoming? Just over 3 hours in for the first day. Hoping to get 2-3 in today too. Efficiency has remained pretty stable at just under 140 p5 cows/min and just over 350 cows per run. I'll try and remember to record a video later so @ffs can tell me if i...

www.purediablo.com

I assume with more practive and better gear 130 Cows/min might be in the cards for that build, but he definitely is behind the top contenders. Looking forward to some of your numbers!

 

[Gripphon]

If Fissure druid is at over 350 cows, which is what I expect him to be, then by some logic necro and javazon should easily be in 400+ area unless many cows are skipped. Somehow I don't believe I was incredibly lucky with rune counting method in hundreds of runs to get significant overestimation in kills. It does come down to playing style as well as map layout.

I'm still confident that our estimations with crude methods are reasonably precise, it would be troublesome to explain how all methods used (jewel count, xp method, rune count...) were giving overestimations in numbers. That being said, let's see what actual data will show for @ffs and then we will be cleverererer

 

[ffs]

Thanks for sharing @art_vandelay.

I think it's largely down to the map as well and not just build or map layout. Looking at your data a run can vary between <250 and >450 kills, and I had similar variance on some random maps where I briefly used the run counter. But on other maps the variance was not as huge. I can't back it up with anything, but personally I'm convinced that some maps have better density than others. And by "better" I don't mean "more cows" (although that could be the case as well) but specifically "better distribution" over the map.

In a nutshell: Having 40 packs of 10 cows scattered all over the map is of course much worse for efficiency than having 10 packs of 40 cows. The latter will result in much faster runs and thus better efficiency, irrespective of class, gear or build.

Usually we just look for a good cow map layout and reasonable stony field map, but I have a feeling the the "big cluster" distribution is really a key factor of what makes for a good or bad cow map. Anyway, guess what I'm saying is even with precise kill numbers it's still hard to compare builds across several maps because of that.

 

[Gripphon]

It is true that map design is very important. Lightning builds care a bit less, but for necro specifically any map where packs and cows spawn along with Cow King may take plenty of cows from his kills if player want's to ensure King isn't killed.

I'd say any map layout is okay, but what we truly want to find is red portal spawning in King's castle, that isolates him from other cows meaning more kills for us with less risk of killing the king. Such scenario is better even with less optimal Stony Field map which I'd argue isn't of much issue if it is within like 5 teleports, maybe even more. I'd rather need 6/7 teleports to Rakinishu and have red portal in King's house than have 1 teleport Rakinishu and have cows all over his castle.

That alone may add variance of 50 cows killed per run, probably. My necro has such ideal portal and I can kill every single cow on map since Cow King is very isolated in his house, almost no chance of killing him.

 

[D2DC]

100 runs down. A Fal, a Lem and TWO Lum!! That should put me atop the leader board, right?

Most of my good drops have been trolls to boot..

Spoiler

 

[Gripphon]

Seems like bad luck is dominant among runners. Sorry to hear that. I'll share something more positive. 6 hours in here, 8 qualifiers so far.

Two runs demonstration. I decide to leave lonely packs, although can't say strategy is actually good or better than going for them.