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Diablo 2: Resurrected player completes 20,000 rare map runs

One Diablo 2: Resurrected player completes 20,000 runs of an extremely rare River of Flame map to farm high runes as a solo player in the Blizzard fantasy RPG

Diablo 2 Resurrected rune farm - a Sorceress wearing green in a rocky environment surrounded by rivers of lava

One rather dedicated Diablo 2: Resurrected player has been keeping themselves very busy, completing 20,000 runs (yes, twenty thousand) of an extremely rare River of Flame map in one of the best classic RPG games. They say the project, which took them around two months to complete, was a test to try and hunt for high runes on their solo self-found character in an attempt to perfect their Diablo 2: Resurrected Sorceress build.

Pavke, the individual in question, had initially planned to do 30,000 River of Flame super chest runs in search of a Cham rune, one of the game’s rarest drops. However, right before they kicked off their grind, they got a lucky streak and found two of the runes “within an hour of each other and lost all motivation to complete the project.”

However, another lucky break caused them to pick the idea back up. A River of Flame map rolled containing three super chests – a specific type of chest notable by its more pronounced loot explosion. Super chests tend to offer more items, as they spawn four things at a time and will continue to drop additional batches if the first item in a given drop is not a magic or rare item. This means that you can get a lot out of them, including the best chance for the ultra-rare high runes (we’re talking items with individual drop rates as low as 0.0001%).

Pavke notes that this map is extremely rare for single player characters, claiming that only two publicly available records of the particular seed exist. They say they believe the map “is the first Diablo 2: Resurrected River of Flame map with three super chests.” Because of the extra chest, Pavke decided that they would tone their goal back to a much more reasonable 20,000 runs.

They explain that the River of Flame runs are much faster to complete than Lower Kurast, another popular rune farming map that can offer as many as six super chests. Pavke estimates that their 200 combat rating Lightning Sorceress was able to average “around twelve seconds per run with more relaxed play.” Therefore, approximately 70 hours later (across a two month period) they were able to complete their project.

So, what does 20,000 River of Flame runs net you? Pavke points out that the rarest of the high runes, Zod, isn’t available in River of Flame (because it’s an act four map), but that they weren’t looking for these. What they did come away with, however, is the following: two Cham, one Jah, eight Ber, five Sur, one Lo, thirteen Ohm, six Vex, thirteen Gul, nine Ist, seven Mal, three Um, and eight Pul – a total of 76 runes, of which 36 (all those listed up to and including Vex) are the ones Pavke was hunting for.

That’s an estimate of one desired drop every two hours of play – in addition, Pavke says they found a couple of other super rare items that they were looking for in the process. That might sound like quite the grind, but such is the life of a hardcore Diablo 2 player. For Pavke’s part, they say that they are “pretty happy with the results.”

If those terrifying odds haven’t put you off playing, check out all the details on Diablo 2: Resurrected sunder charms, introduced as part of a Diablo 2: Resurrected 2.5 update introducing a new feature called Terror Zones for ladder season two. Meanwhile, the community is pointing the finger at Diablo 2: Resurrected forum trading for decisions made by Blizzard while designing Diablo 4. Speaking of which, our Diablo 4 release date guide has everything you need to know as the next game gets ever nearer.