Anything Goes D2 Lounge!

[art_vandelay]

@d2lover Why don't you hold alt while killing?

***

Saw this yesterday and from an SPF perspective it's a really funny video:

Apart from the weird statement that his Blizzard sorceress is not a "trav killing character" I find the list a bit strange for various reasons. If you don't want to watch the 28 minute video here is the list:

1. LK
2. Hell Forge rushes
3. Travincal
4. CS (with seal trick)
5. Arcane/Cows
6. Countess
7. CS (without seal trick)

Now the common SPF wisdom for 1.14d LoD rune hunting is something like this:

1. p3 Travincal (p5 if you are Gripphon)
2. p5/p7 Cows
3. p7 Arcane
4. p7 CS (only Fingermages + Vizier)
5. p7 CS
6. p7 Areas

Obviously LK is really strong when starting out, but I don't think it is a stretch to say that it is outclassed by Travincal once you have a character that can run it. I did not add it to the list because I don't think we know where it stands compared to Arcane and CS, whereas the rest of the ranking is something I am more sure of. (I obviously left out Countess/HF rushes because they can only give you Ist/Gul at best, barring any drops on the way and this is about high runes)
And finally we don't know where seal trick really stands and if it can compete with other rune finding methods, especially regular CS.

Now the question would be, what is the actual ranking of rune finding areas in D2R as opposed to LoD? Some points to consider:

• The longer the run already is the less affected it is by the long loads, so Cow level should suffer less than e.g. a 20s Travincal run.
• Staying with load times: Gripphon's tremendous feat of beating any other Travincal character with a p5 Blizzard sorc should not be reproducible in a world with these long load times. In fact Blizzard should lose out against Barbarian, but would remain the best character other than him nevertheless.
• You can now kill the cow king without losing access, so finding a good cow map becomes easier and you can potentially kill one big pack of cows more per run (assuming non-lightning character), a good Travincal map stays roughly the same in terms of difficulty.
• Swampy Pit (soon to be alvl 85) has gloams which could make it a lucrative rune/mf target that people run like they do CS. Of course getting past those dolls is a major challenge. That being said: CS used to be a challenge too, then people found ways to beat it.

I'd be interested to hear other's opinions on this!

 

[d2lover]

@art_vandelay because I hold shift to stand still and not run randomly

it's one of the only builds that doesn't switch skills on the mainswitch

 

[ffs]

Content creators be content creators, always to be taken with a grain of salt. These guys play and create content for their viewers, whose gear/experience/skill level on average is very different from more "serious" players. You'll find the odd "dubious" statement frequently (which may even be consciously so to generate views etc.).

Among the streaming/YT community there are very good players when talking about things like speedrunning or PvP. The skill level around here is not impressive in comparison. Although we're trying to catch up in PvP.

Kinda the opposite is true when it comes to any kind of serious farming, be it S&Us or runes. The level of play among streamers/content creators is generally rather low by SPF standards. Not to say they're bad players, they certainly aren't. But they don't farm things in the most efficient or "robotic" way, perhaps because they prioritize entertaining their viewers/subscribers and consider this kind of mechanical gameplay to be less entertaining. In any case, most of them aren't trying to go for the crazy opimization that some people around here tend to go for.

I've seen MrLlama do things like 1 minute AT runs with Blizzy that used Ali baba MF kill switch, or Dbrunski theorycrafting 98-99 routes based on Nihlathak runs taking 1 minute. Things like that.

As for rune finding in single player: Fully agree with impact of D2R loading times. It favors longer runs, certainly possible that cows is way to go in D2R apart from LK or when looking for Jah-Zod.

Also Travincal Barb is significantly stronger in comparison to Sorc than in D2L. Not only suffers he less from the loading times, but auto gold pickup rectifies his biggest weakness, namely item cluttering. IIRC Gripphon even outperformed his best Sorc runs with Barb, but in the end those cluttering issues just ruin Barbs' days in D2L Travincal. In D2R that's no longer the case.

However, IMO there can be no doubt that LK tops the list for sure in both D2L and D2R, unless specifically looking for Jah+ runes. No target beats LK for Bers, which is the most useful rune overall. Plus it delivers the highest amount of charms, jewels and crafting materials, making it perhaps the best overall target when hoping to find things for end-game optimization. Nowadays LK is my absolute go-to target when just "generally looking for upgrades".

 

[d2lover]

Somehow my drop calculator in gomule is broken (R0.43)

it doesn't account for players count on the minions of council super uniques.

 

[d2lover]

Btw:

 

[art_vandelay]

Content creators be content creators, always to be taken with a grain of salt. These guys play and create content for their viewers, whose gear/experience/skill level on average is very different from more "serious" players. You'll find the odd "dubious" statement frequently (which may even be consciously so to generate views etc.).

The problem is that a lot of content creators basically improvise and create content on the spot, no matter if it is right or wrong. A lot of Llama explanation videos are just him reading some wiki or guide (even one of mine once ) and trying to "react" to it on the spot. In one video he is basically reading the basin wiki on monster enchantments and then proceeds to theorize about how dual enchants really work, when the answer is clearly right in front of him.

That's why I value Coooley's videos highly, he actually goes the distance to do research and edits his videos properly. Just feels like he cares a whole lot more about being accurate and actually delivering quality content to his audience. That's how it should be in my mind.

I've seen MrLlama do things like 1 minute AT runs with Blizzy that used Ali baba MF kill switch, or Dbrunski theorycrafting 98-99 routes based on Nihlathak runs taking 1 minute. Things like that.

Yeah, there is a lot of ridiculous advice floating around. The HF rush advice in the video above was particularly weird, as you need 96 Guls for an Enigma and that takes hundreds of HF runs.

Still, watching Llama can be very rewarding, after all he is a very good speedrunner and mastered all kinds of challenge runs. In general I would just wish that people in a position of influence would just say "I don't know" instead of improvising an answer whenever they are confronted with something outside of their area.

However, IMO there can be no doubt that LK tops the list for sure in both D2L and D2R, unless specifically looking for Jah+ runes. No target beats LK for Bers, which is the most useful rune overall. Plus it delivers the highest amount of charms, jewels and crafting materials, making it perhaps the best overall target when hoping to find things for end-game optimization. Nowadays LK is my absolute go-to target when just "generally looking for upgrades".

That is certainly a good argument, I guess it is mostly about "seasons" of rune finding. You start out with LK until you can do Trav and once you have all runewords you need, you either stay for the facets and potentially whisps or you go back to LK for more volume of "good" items.

It might be different for people who have insane facet needs or simply don't PvP and thus don't need Ber. But like most groups on this forum that is a minority.

The best might be to just farm everything in legacy and then forward to "enjoy" the new builds (and potential new content, who knows). Even you are a time traveler now

 

[ffs]

Agreed. Perhaps another way to put it is that (in my opinion) LK is the best first target and the best last target to farm. Obviously after getting the first key runewords, there are better things to do, get S&Us and higher runes, with Travincal offering a wider range of interesting drops indeed. But after getting all those coveted uniques and runes, what is there to improve and aim for? It circles back to those rather basic items again. Charms, crafting materials, jewels... Sure I'll take Bers in LK, but really I'm looking for those baisc items.

I'd say in principle that applies not just to PvP, it's just that in PvM the differences are less felt. Whether you have full skiller inventory with 3k life or with 4k life doesn't matter, because 3k is more than enough for anything in PvM.

Even you are a time traveler now

Haha, although I'd even argue that it's kinda "almost" a clean slate, I basically only play D2R in HC and rather casually. Only SC things I forwarded were an Uber Smiter and a Bear Sorc to have some fun with. Haven't really forwarded or played anything else in general in D2R. But now I'm facing peer pressure to properly time travel in D2L for PvP.

Speaking of which, when are you going to join us?! Having those old patch items, you'll surely have a smoother start than me.

 

[d2lover]

How much elemental damage is Bremm Sparkfist doin when enchanted? (always light enchanted, but what about fire/cold?)

 

[NorthDakota]

You guys have covered it already, but I wanted to chime in and express my general disdain for MrLlama's videos. 10 minutes of unscripted incorrect information, looking at chat for things he's saying wrong.

I watched this video this morning and was just blown away by how rambly and unhelpful it was. Why rank arcane and cows on the same number in a list of arbitrarily 7? Why list CS twice? It might as well have just been in any order because his orderings weren't backed up by any useful or objective information at all.

The answer is different in MP and SP though, which is another problem with MrLlama's videos, he's sort of split between the two, and so information is sort of just general, and not really correct for either.

At any rate, the correct answer to what's most efficient depends on which rune exactly you're looking for, what game mode you're playing in, and what builds you have available to you. Rune farming for the sake of finding a lot of runes without a purpose serves no purpose, of course. If you need ber, and are in single player, the answer is LK. If you need cham, and you're in MP, the answer is complex but likely farming in a variety of efficient areas on a strong multi-purpose farmer like hammerdin, and trading for it.

The real rune question in single player IMO is, if you need JAH CHAM ZOD and you have a variety of strong characters to choose from, what's the most efficient way to get those?

 

[art_vandelay]

But now I'm facing peer pressure to properly time travel in D2L for PvP.

If you decide to go through with it you should give our overview post a read, it contains most of the wisdom of the time traveling community:

SPF Community & Links

Welcome to The SPF The Stickies Single Player Rules The SP(T)F is based on trust so, before you go any further, please re-read the rules. If in doubt, contact the Moderator. You need to understand the implication of what you are doing before you start, it makes it easier going forward. SPF...

www.purediablo.com

It is really rewarding to play these older patches, they offer different challenges and different rewards. And of course there is tons of new stuff to learn, which I consider one of the main selling points as well.

Speaking of which, when are you going to join us?! Having those old patch items, you'll surely have a smoother start than me.

Right now I don't have a whole lot of time but once RFL rolls around I should get something going. Don't know about smooth start though, Gripphon seems to be going crazy with builds in the PvP thread, kinda scary

How much elemental damage is Bremm Sparkfist doin when enchanted? (always light enchanted, but what about fire/cold?)

See here for the enchantments:

https://www.theamazonbasin.com/wiki/index.php?title=Unique_(monster)

If I am not mistaken his cold nova does about 300 damage at 0% cold resistance, which you also get whenever he gets put into hit recovery (seeing as he is always LE)

You guys have covered it already, but I wanted to chime in and express my general disdain for MrLlama's videos. 10 minutes of unscripted incorrect information, looking at chat for things he's saying wrong.

May I interest you in his 1.00 playthroughs where he takes cues from people in the chat quoting Brady's guide?

I watched this video this morning and was just blown away by how rambly and unhelpful it was. Why rank arcane and cows on the same number in a list of arbitrarily 7? Why list CS twice? It might as well have just been in any order because his orderings weren't backed up by any useful or objective information at all.

The quality of these videos is definitely low and the reason is not some lack of competency (nobody can deny that he is smart) but rather his audience that settles for the bare minimum. And there is no real competition, so where else are they going to go?

We might have some of the best guides and theorycrafting when it comes to MF and RF but it is not in easily digestible 10 minute video form and some random theorycraft post by ffs/Nano/Gripphon/whoever from the 2018 RFL will never be the first thing you see on google when you search for "how to find runes in D2?".

Ultimately we should stop whining, get with the times and just make an SPF Youtube channel

At any rate, the correct answer to what's most efficient depends on which rune exactly you're looking for, what game mode you're playing in, and what builds you have available to you. Rune farming for the sake of finding a lot of runes without a purpose serves no purpose, of course. If you need ber, and are in single player, the answer is LK. If you need cham, and you're in MP, the answer is complex but likely farming in a variety of efficient areas on a strong multi-purpose farmer like hammerdin, and trading for it.

This. The richest people in SP farm the best targets, the richest people on battle.net know how to trade.

 

[d2lover]

@art_vandelay ah ok, so mdr is not really helpful vs him

 

[ffs]

The real rune question in single player IMO is, if you need JAH CHAM ZOD and you have a variety of strong characters to choose from, what's the most efficient way to get those?

Easiest way to answer that is to just time a bunch of runs and enter the run times into this rune finding calculator by Luhkoh.

Spoiler

Last time I entered some numbers in my copy it spit out the below are average hours. That is with cubing, and solely based on in-game run times when going fast and picking up runes only or at least very little else. So in a realistic scenario everything takes longer. Outside of a rune finding tournament I tend to pick up a bunch of goodies as well. It's also purely based on average times when running like that, meaning excluding breaks, ID'ing, muling etc...

Zod:
Cows 27.9h
Trav 30h

Cham:
Trav 14.4h
Cows 17.7h
LK 24.3h

Jah:
LK 11.4h
Trav 11.4h
Cows 14.1h

For everything else LK is better, and way ahead for Sur/Ber of course.

In D2R things may swing towards Cows for Cham, and at least closer to Trav for Jah.

As for which characters to go with, plenty of options, but the top contenders should all be covered here.

We might have some of the best guides and theorycrafting when it comes to MF and RF but it is not in easily digestible 10 minute video form and some random theorycraft post by ffs/Nano/Gripphon/whoever from the 2018 RFL will never be the first thing you see on google when you search for "how to find runes in D2?".

Probably not individual posts/threads, but bigger guides that bundle a lot of useful information are being found (and read) for sure. I've seen video guides on D2 topics where it was very obvious that a lot of information was taken from around here. Which is a good thing IMO, information is there to be shared. There just isn't a lot of overlap in terms of people being active both around here and on other platforms such as Twitch or YouTube.

But funny you mentioned Nano because he's an exception. He often plays with MrLlama and other streamers. We played a bit together on bnet when D2R came out, and at least back then he was pretty involved in activities with these guys (speedruns mostly I think).

 

[Arjan]

Well... this dropped and now it's taking almost all my willpower do not make a Grief out of it. Would be rather usefull on my act V merc with my sorc and later on with my barb.

I should probably focus more on LK runs with the Amazon, but with the Paladin in act V hell going steady on and on it's hard to not play him most of the time. Really want that first character of my sept done

 

[Nano]

Probably not individual posts/threads, but bigger guides that bundle a lot of useful information are being found (and read) for sure. I've seen video guides on D2 topics where it was very obvious that a lot of information was taken from around here. Which is a good thing IMO, information is there to be shared. There just isn't a lot of overlap in terms of people being active both around here and on other platforms such as Twitch or YouTube.

But funny you mentioned Nano because he's an exception. He often plays with MrLlama and other streamers. We played a bit together on bnet when D2R came out, and at least back then he was pretty involved in activities with these guys (speedruns mostly I think).

I'm still involved in the group speedruns and our discourse revolves mainly around that (and also impact of D2R changes). Our discussion topics don't go toward the type of content that creators release for the general D2 audience, they do that on their own.

I watched that "Best High Rune Farming" video and echo the same thoughts in this thread about it as well. Like NorthDakota mentioned, it's split between MP (Bnet) and SP, and I'm not sure how much is from intuition vs any sort of metrics. These are the general rankings and rule of thumb the average D2 player/viewer are looking for on their do-it-all hammerdins.

 

[snickersnack]

Ultimately we should stop whining, get with the times and just make an SPF Youtube channel

There are a few people here who put videos on youtube. The most I've done is just a short recording of IDing torches, mainly because I don't have the time to plan/script/record/edit for a hobby when I could be doing more runs or leveling a new character.

I'm also not nearly an expert on much of anything in D2 (not compared to the likes of onderduiker and jiansonz), so I don't feel qualified to make a guide, though maybe I will start making mat/pat videos instead of mat/pat writeups. Hmmmmmm. I have some experience with adobe premier, so that's something I could do.

 

[Excalibur]

However, IMO there can be no doubt that LK tops the list for sure in both D2L and D2R, unless specifically looking for Jah+ runes. No target beats LK for Bers, which is the most useful rune overall. Plus it delivers the highest amount of charms, jewels and crafting materials, making it perhaps the best overall target when hoping to find things for end-game optimization. Nowadays LK is my absolute go-to target when just "generally looking for upgrades".

I am so against LK but all those Ber screenshots and posts rooting for LK motivate me to try it.

 

[maxicek]

@Excalibur Don’t believe the LK hype. 7 Sur / 16000+ runs.

 

[Skezla]

... after getting all those coveted uniques and runes, what is there to improve and aim for? ....

This is my core issue.

I started out at 8 years old 'playing' who knows what and getting nowhere. By 10 I had internet that allowed me to try Open Bnet (because I could keep my SP characters), had some fun on there. Around 12 I decided to really try understanding the game and played on Closed Bnet having the 'traditional' experience for a while. Then I moved to SP after discovering the Single Player forum of a different site (now defunct) and seeing how much fun they were having... Mat/Pated my first characters solo. It was glorious. Then it got routine, so I started HC. Then that lost its buzz so I started no extended stash, then single pass, and most recently rare-only/walk only on most playthroughs. And on and on it goes.

Some people can aim for that grail, or a collection of perfect characters/gear, etc. For me, at this stage, it is all about the journey.

And every time I transition to a new 'stage' of my decades-long D2 journey, I always wonder why I didn't start X thing sooner, but really I think i just had to enjoy those other things before I could learn to enjoy what I do now.

About the only motivation I have for any sort of serious grind is the 99er... I've never completed one.
But I don't know if the journey will continue after that. I don't know how many more restrictions I can add/challenges I can employ that will make it fun.

Side-rant only tangentially related to the idea of grinding for runes or LK, but still. Felt like sharing because this sentiment really struck a cord with me.

 

[Miron]

@Skezla join us (pvp), suddenly you will find that Travincal need just few more runs before it's done .

 

[Arjan]

Well... this dropped and now it's taking almost all my willpower do not make a Grief out of it. Would be rather usefull on my act V merc with my sorc and later on with my barb.

I should probably focus more on LK runs with the Amazon, but with the Paladin in act V hell going steady on and on it's hard to not play him most of the time. Really want that first character of my sept done
View attachment 77413

Second rune drop of the day was a Sur so that will get me focused on that Enigma for a while now first
Allready made one yesterday so that’ll be my first Ber.

De pally went to the frozen tundra waypoint and will be parked there for a bit now while I’ll level the sorceress and take her through nightmare