My Annoying Start Farming Those Darn Charms
Okay, look. I jumped back into D2 lately, right? Trying to gear up a new Hammerdin. Felt weak. Real weak. Everyone online yapping about these super important charms you NEED. Kept seeing “Top Charms You Must Farm!” stuff. Felt like I was missing something huge. Figured, gotta get serious about finding these things myself. Needed proof, not just hype.
Started simple. Just playing through Hell difficulty, killing stuff. Thought charms would just, y’know, drop. Maybe sometimes they do, but mostly? Trash. Found tons of Tiny Charms of Greed (whoopee, 5-10 gold!) or junk Grand Charms giving +1-2 max damage. Wasted hours. Got frustrated seeing other players with their sweet +skill charms. Needed a plan.
Dug around a bit online (won’t say where, promise!), saw lists. Everyone agreed on some key ones being absolute game-changers. Made a mental hit list:
- Torch Charm: Big boost to skills and stats? Yes please!
- Anni Charm: Huge XP bonus? Needed that so bad.
- Skill Grand Charms: Specifically +1 to specific skills for my build.
- Resistance Small Charms: Especially lightning, that stuff hurts.
- Life Small Charms: Just extra HP to survive mess-ups.
Knew this wasn’t gonna be quick. This was farming, pure and simple.
The Real Grind, and Finding Spots That Work
First target? Skill Grand Charms. Needed +1 Paladin Combat Skills for my hammers. Heard the Pit in Tamoe Highland (Hell) was decent. Loaded up MF gear, ran in. Took maybe, I dunno, 30 runs? Maybe more? Killed the unique monsters, cleared big packs. Finally, bam! A plain white Grand Charm dropped. No mods. Just… white. But I knew the drill. Picked it up, put it in my cube with three Perfect Gems. Re-rolled it once. Trash. Twice. Trash. Felt brutal. Third time? Jackpot! +1 Paladin Combat Skills. Yes! Finally got lucky. Key takeaway? Re-rolling plain charms IS worth it, but damn it eats gems.
Next, tackled the Resistance Charms. Needed those badly for Meph runs. Those lightning blasts? Ouch. Targeted Andariel (Hell). She’s quick and drops jewels/charms sometimes. Also did Countess runs looking for runes anyway. Got lucky after maybe a dozen Andy runs? Found a Small Charm with +8% Lightning Resist and +10 Life. Perfect! Found another decent one in the Ancient Tunnels later, solid poison resist. These made surviving SO much easier instantly. Less panic gulping potions.
For plain Life Small Charms, just hoarded every one I found that had over +15 life. Simple, but effective. Found most while just clearing Chaos Sanctuary for XP. No specific spot, just played normally and kept ’em.
Now, the big boys: Torch and Anni. Knew I needed help. My guy wasn’t strong enough solo. Key Point: Found a decent trading community. Farmed up stacks of Perfect Gems and some low/mid runes from Countess/Lower Kurast runs. Took days! Then traded hard. Found someone selling a mid-roll Sorc Torch for my stash of PGs and some runes. Got it! Stats weren’t amazing, but the +skills felt HUGE. For the Anni? Pure luck. Got tipped off that a “Diablo Walks the Earth” spawned in a Baal game. Everyone rushed. We killed his little minion buddies, then took down Uber Diablo himself. BOOM. Annihilus dropped. I didn’t get it personally (someone else clicked faster!), but the game host was cool. Saw I really needed it, traded it to me for a Gul rune I had. Seriously lucky break. Felt awesome finally equipping it.
It Was All Worth The Pain
So yeah, this whole charm farming thing? It’s a total chore sometimes. Feels like you’re running for hours just for one dumb charm. But honestly, now that I got even these starter-level good charms? The difference is crazy. My character hits harder, takes less damage, levels way faster. Bosses like Mephisto become way less scary. That feeling when you finally equip that skill charm you re-rolled like 20 times? Or see your health jump with the Anni? Totally worth the grind pain.
Would I say you MUST farm these exact five? Maybe. Seems like Skillers, Torch, Anni, Res/Life charms cover the essentials for almost any build. Where to get ’em? Low level areas suck. Stick to higher level Hell zones or bosses. Trade for the Uber stuff unless you got an absolute beast character. Just don’t expect ’em quick! Pack some patience, grab some gems for re-rolling, and just keep smashing monsters. It pays off eventually.