The Diablo 2 Resurrected Ladder will be resetting on Thursday 16th February as we leave Season 2 behind and commence Season 3. Season 3 will bring in new Runewords for us all to try (that we have covered in a previous post) and the thrill of starting from scratch with a new character and no items! If you are still trying to decide what character to play for the next season, or how to start your new journey and build up some currency, we have described 4 tried and tested farming methods to get rich quickly and purchase all of your dream gear!
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Farming Keys (Terror, Hate and Destruction) is one of the most consistent forms of building currency, especially early in a ladder season when everyone is still trying to get their first Hellfire Torch. Keys can either be farmed individually or in sets (3x3) to allow Torch farmers to go straight into Tristram and build up their own currency. The most efficient character to farm keys on is a Sorceress due to her easy access to the Teleport skill, focusing on the Lightning build so that you do not run into immune monsters. The early season Lightning Sorceress is generally not very strong, however the damage is enough to take down The Countess, The Summoner and Nihlathak with relative ease (other areas will be much harder to farm on budget gear). Nihlathak can sometimes be Immune to Lightning, however it is less likely than Cold and Fire.
If you want to go further with this method you can build a budget Uber Smiter and use your keys to farm torches. Some of the gear (even though it is quite common) can be a little expensive at the start of ladder, however it is possible to build a Smiter for very little currency that can take on Uber Tristram very easily and allow you to boost your profits further with this method.
Providing in game services is another consistent way to gain currency early in a Ladder, in particular rushing other people through the game. To maximise how much currency you make from this method you will need to invest a lot of time into the first 2 days of the Ladder to build a character strong enough to provide the service. It is possible to gain currency from this method throughout a Ladder season, however demand will be highest in the first 2 weeks.
The Sorceress is the only viable character to do this with during the early season as the Teleport skill is fundamental. If you play on expansion you will be limited to rushing individual difficulties, unless you can find a bumper (a level 40 character in Normal that has not killed Baal) to allow you to do a “Grush”. My preferred method is to build a Sorceress in “Classic” mode which means you can rush people straight through to Hell difficulty without relying on bumpers – this is known as a “Crush” or “Classic Rush”. During Ladder Season 2 I built a Classic Sorceress on Day 1, and was providing a Classic Rush service on Day 2. Within 1 week I had built up enough currency to build a full end-game character and begin my Ladder grind properly.
Magic Finding is the most popular form of generating currency at any point in a Ladder season, and the reason why we see so many Sorceresses in the early days! There are many builds you can use to put together a magic finding sorceress, by far the most popular is the Blizzard sorceress who can comfortably farm the most lucrative bosses in the game. There are certain items which provide the most efficient balance between magic finding and damage and these can be found in our guides section. Once you have farmed enough to purchase an “Enigma” it is often more efficient to switch from Sorceress to Paladin and run a Hammerdin build to allow farming of more areas.
The two primary areas you will focus your farming on will be Andariel and Mephisto on Hell difficulty. Both of these bosses are quick to find and drop lots of unique items which can be sold for in-game currency. This can become quite boring, however the process of grinding these two bosses has been part of the game for a long long time and seasoned Diablo 2 players will be very familiar with this grind in particular! It is a tried and tested method and the majority of players will opt for this at the start of a Ladder season.
D2R Runes farming relies on a different game mechanic to magic finding, in that you do not want to concentrate on single bosses to drop items / runes but high density areas where there is potential for lots of things to drop. The Secret Cow Level and The Chaos Sanctuary are very popular areas given their high density (The Chaos Sanctuary also has good drop rates for very rare uniques!), and also the Council Members in Travincal who have the highest chance of dropping high runes. The Chaos Sanctuary and Travincal can be difficult to clear efficiently early in a season, particularly on higher player counts or Hardcore mode where you need to play safer. For this reason, a lot of players tend to farm The Secret Cow level early on. If possible (and you are strong enough to do so) you should farm the area with as many players in the game as possible, this increases the % chance for each monster to drop something – therefore increasing your chance of finding runes!
There are plenty of builds that are effective at farming cows, the top 3 for early in a Ladder season would be: