Alright folks, grabbed my coffee, fired up the old D2 client today. Felt like hunting for those sweet bases for shield runewords. You know the ones – Spirit, Sanctuary, that kinda thing. Wanted to get my hands dirty, see what dropped.
Started off kinda lazy, just popped into the Normal Cow Level real quick. Cleared the whole moo-moo paradise. Dropped a grand total of… like… two cracked bucklers. Absolute junk. Durability was already flashing red. Not even Charsi would want that garbage. Pretty useless. Moral of the start? Don’t waste time Normal farming for high tier bases. Moved on, fast.
Right, needed better odds. Kicked it up to Nightmare difficulty. Figured Meph runs were the play – dude usually coughs up something decent, right? Did maybe fifteen, twenty runs. Picked up the usual trash rares, maybe a low-level unique dagger. Shields? Mostly Grim Shields, Kite Shields – basic stuff. Found exactly one Monarch base. That’s it! One! And it rolled ethereal. Stupid ethereal garbage. Like, thanks for nothing, Meph. Felt like a total grind for zero payoff.
Where Things Actually Started Dropping
Sighed, rubbed my eyes. Needed to hit the high-level zones, obviously. Headed straight to Hell difficulty. Forget Normal and Nightmare for Monarchs.
- Ancient Tunnels (Lost City): Good ol’ AT. First few runs? Nada. Zip. Zilch. Tons of blues, some gems. Pushed through the frustration. Run number eight? Boom! A normal Monarch just sitting there. Plain white! Grabbed it so fast.
- Chaos Sanctuary: Went straight for the big doggie himself – Diablo. Cleared the path, killed everything. Pack after pack of Doom Knights. Dropped me another Monarch! This one had zero sockets though. Larzuk can fix that. Nice.
- Worldstone Keep & Throne of Destruction: Figured might as well push further. Baal waves are messy, but dense. Level 85 area, good stuff drops. During the second wave run, got another white Monarch. Almost missed it amongst the mess. Also snagged an Aegis and a decent Ward shield for potential other runewords. Baal himself? Only dropped junk gems. Typical.
- The Pits (Tamoe Highland): Threw in a few runs here too. Level 85 goodness. Found mostly armor bases initially, but near the end, got another plain Monarch to drop. Felt consistent.
Seriously, Monarchs suddenly felt almost common in these spots. Like the game finally remembered I existed. Stacking Magic Find? Doesn’t matter jack for white bases. Zero, nada, zilch MF gear equipped the whole time. Didn’t want more magic items cluttering the drops. Was specifically hunting for those plain white or gray socketables.
After maybe three hours total? Stash was looking much better. Ended up with like five Monarchs (two socketed already!), two good Wards, and that Aegis. Feeling pretty chuffed about that haul. Was definitely worth slogging through the Hell zones.
Quick Things I Noticed
- Be patient. Monsters drop what they drop. Run density is king. More kills = more chances.
- Those high-level Act IV and Act V areas delivered way, way more consistently for Monarchs.
- Zero Magic Find is the way to go. Keep it simple.
- Just keep plugging away. It feels hopeless until suddenly it isn’t. Now I’ve got bases. Time to hunt runes!