When Diablo II came out in the summer of 2000 – the world was taken by storm. The second installation of the now iconic game was completely different from the first one, but the player base soon fell in love with D2, making it one of the most popular games of the 2000s.
Years went on, and Diablo III didn’t really live up to the fame of its predecessor, so Blizzard decided to do something about it. So, in the fall of 2024, the world was greeted by the redesigned iteration of the legendary hack-and-slash – Diablo II: Resurrected.
Now, we won’t get too much into whether this was the right move for the Diablo series or not because, quite frankly, some fans absolutely loved D2R, while the others despised it from the bottom of their hearts.
The thing we want to talk to you about today is how you can get better at Diablo II: Resurrected, or more precisely, how you can get high runes in R2D and upgrade your character so you can slash as many monsters as you want, as easy as possible. Let’s begin!
What Are Runes And How You Can Use Them?
We’ll keep this brief because you probably already know enough about them. Runes are power-up items that can level up the items you own to a level that is not possible to achieve without them.
You can find runes in certain places around the map while playing Diablo 2: Resurrected and insert them into different sockets for each of your gear pieces. Loosely translated, you can insert a rune into a slot to level up your head and chest armor, weapons, and shields.
Now that we’ve established what these do let’s find out how you can find and farm them.
How And Where To Farm Runes In D2R?
There are several places within a game where you can find farm runes and high runes. Some of these places will be great for getting a lot of runes, while the others will help you get some high-quality, rare ones. So, buckle up, and let’s take a look where you can find and farm Mal, Um, Lem, Ohm, Ber, Jah, and other runes – act by act.
But, before we move on, you should know that playing on higher difficulty will increase your chances of getting high-quality runes. So, complete the game on Normal, or at least up to Act-5, and then start over on Nightmare. Once you complete it again – try it again on Hell. When on Hell, you’ll get the best runes.
And, oh, if grinding isn’t your thing, and you’d much rather spend your time hacking through some other monsters in some other locations – click here. This should help.
Black Marsh Rune – Act-1
It is great that there is a place early in the game where you can farm runes. This should help you progress faster and should help all the new players get familiar with the way this game works.
So, when in Act-1, locate the Towers in the Black Marsh area. That is where you’ll find a lot of runes. Naturally, as you up the difficulty, the runes will be better. So, if you’re just starting, don’t expect to get a lot of the good ones. However, if you’re playing on Hell difficulty, you should get some good ones.
So, what do you do? You enter the tower, and you go all the way to level 5. As you get there, you’ll enter the room next to the level 5 entrance, kill a few monsters on the way, and approach the Countess. Kill her, and depending on how fortunate you are – you’ll get 1 to 6 runes.
The Hellforge – Act-4
To get runes in Act-4, you have to get to the Hellforge and break the Mephisto’s Soulstone. Now, doing this for the first time will not only get you runes, but you’ll also complete the quest, so there’s that.
Basically, you’ll have to kill the Hephasto, the guard that keeps the Hellforge safe. Once you’re done with him, you’ll get a Hellforge hammer – the item that will allow you to smash the Mephisto’s Soulstone to get a few gems and a rune.
Mount Arreat – Act-5
Mount Arreat is a place where you’re guaranteed to get runes. However, they won’t be of the best quality. However, as you probably know, you can use these low-level runes to craft the high runes using the Horadric Cube later on.
Essentially, the only thing you’ll have to do is free 15 Barbarian Warriors, and that’s it. That will have complete the Mount Arreat quest, and you’ll get three runes each time you do this.
Now, if this is not fun enough for you – Diablo II: Resurrected hides a few rune-farming gems that are a bit more fun.
Cow Level
If there was ever a place in D2 for rune farming – it’s this one. Entering the Cow Level will require you to kill the final boss on the difficulty you’re playing at. Once you do that, you’ll be able to create a portal to the Cow Level by combining a Wirt’s Leg and a Tome of Town Portal in the Horadic Cube.
Once the red portal opens up, you just hop on in, and you begin slashing upright cows left and right. The cows will spawn at an incredibly high rate, so you’ll have a great chance of scoring some high runes.
Travincal
Travincal is similar to the Cow Level in the sense that you just slash a great number of enemies that keep spawning in front of you until you get enough runes. Just like a Cow Level, Travincal also has a very high drop rate, so your chances of obtaining a high rune are pretty good.
Chaos
Chaos is the gold mine for high runes in D2R. It’s similar to both Cow and Travincal, in the sense that you’ll be surrounded with countless enemies that you’ll keep on killing until you’re met with a rune that you want. Pretty easy, right?
Arcane Sanctuary
Arcane Sanctuary is also a good place to farm runes in R2D. Unlike the previous spots, Arcane requires a bit of patience. Don’t just slash and kill everything in your way. Wait until the ghosts are on the path and kill them then.
That way, you’ll be met with an increased chance for high runes. And oh, make sure to check the end of the paths for chests. These chests are also known to hide some high runes.
Conclusion
There you have it. As you can see, it’s all about being in the right place at the right time and doing it over and over again. Sure, it might get boring and repetitive sometimes, but for some, that’s the beauty of this game.
Hopefully, you’ve learned something new. Take care.
