Increasing the number of players in your game can significantly increase the odds of dropping runes, because the more players in your game, the lesser chance you have of getting "no drop" for a monster's item roll. Important Note: All tables in this section are for a game with just one player. So, what do those odds look like when everything is accounted for? Rune Odds Tables At the end of the day, maximizing the odds of rolling on the A5G Treasure Class is the best way to get high runes. The odds of rolling A5G vary from between 1:150 to 1:5, depending on the monster and how many players are in the game. If A5G is rolled, the odds of Runes 17 are 14/130, or just over 10%. All monsters and chests in Level 85 Areas (as well as Nihlathak) have the ability to roll on this Treasure Class. The only way to roll on Runes 17 is to drop it from a higher treasure class, Act 5 (H) Good (hereafter referred to as "A5G").
So, it is not necessarily a wise idea to turn 2 Ber into a Jah in the Horadric Cube (unless of course you are playing on Single Player and don't have the ability to trade with other players).Īnyway, those odds sound pretty good, right? Well, unfortunately, rolling on Runes 17 isn't all that common. For example, Ber is actually slightly more rare than Jah, even though it's lower on the chart. One interesting thing to note is that the odds do not strictly go down as the rune level goes down. Given that Runes 17 is rolled, the odds of each high rune are as follows: Rune If neither of those runes drop, then the game rolls on Runes 15, and it continues down all the way to Runes 1, which is guaranteed to be an El or Eld. Runes 16 has a 2:3962 chance for a Cham, and a 3:3962 chance for a Jah. If a Zod does not drop, then the game rolls on Runes 16. If Runes 17 is rolled on an item drop, there is a 1:5171 chance that Zod will drop. Runes 17 is the TC that we will be concerned with today, because it is the only Treasure Class that has a chance to drop Zod, the highest rune in the game.
Every monster has its own Treasure Class, which determines both the odds of what items drop and the quality of those items.
Whenever a monster dies in Diablo 2, the game "rolls" to see what items are dropped. I get into the details a little bit here for those that are interested, but for those that are not, feel free to skip to the next section. With this information, I will try to figure out the most efficient way to search for high runes. Seeing all of the posts hit /r/diablo2 lately of people finding high runes has really kicked me into overdrive, and sent me on a quest to find out just how likely it is that runes will drop from given monsters. Like many of you, I have been obsessed recently with trying to obtain high runes.