D2R Cow Level Rune Drop Rates (P1 & P8), Pros & Cons To Farm Cow for High Runes in Diablo 2 Resurrected

D2R Cow Level Rune Drop Rates (P1 & P8), Pros & Cons To Farm Cow for High Runes in Diablo 2 Resurrected

1/18/2023 6:48:42 PM

Each and every one of you have heard this statement before: Cows is a great place to find High runes in Diablo 2, but is it really? Here we bring you the facts you need to know to decide if is this really true or not, by breaking down the cons and pros of farming the Cow Level, as well as going over the D2R Cow Level Rune Drop Odds.

Pros & Cons To Farm High Rune in Cow Level in Diablo 2 Resurrected

People have been running the cow level in Diablo 2 for literally decades at this point, so people have found a ton of good items even set items out there and a ton of D2R high runes, but we really need to look at the pros and the cons to really decide is this really going to be a great option for you to run to find those High runes.

Pros - Why Farm High Runes in Cow Level?

First of all, let's go over the pros of farming Cow Level that's why people think Cow Level is one of the best places to find good Diablo 2 items, especially high runes:

1 - No Immunities in Cow Level Areas

You probably have noticed everyone's touched the cows before out there there are no immunities. With the exception of the Cow King and the unique cows out there in the Moo Moo farm, it doesn't really matter what character you have if you're dealing enough damage you can go ahead and slap these cows right down. So that does give it one advantage over most other places in the game, that's a big reason why people are out there running it all the time.

2 - Large Monster Density in Cow Level Areas

Another big Pro for the cow level is the amount of density that can be out there. It is not uncommon to see these packs of cows up to like 30 or 40 cows, plus you can run around and lure even larger packs together, and then go ahead and slaughter them down with the likes of the Hammerdin the Nova Sorcerers, or the Lightning Fury Javasan. So far that's already two really good Pros for running the cow level but we're not going to stop there.

3 - Higher Rune Drop Rate in Cow Level Areas

There's actually another big Pro for running the cow level as far as getting high runes and that is cows actually have a higher Rune drop rate than most other monsters in the game.

3.1 - D2R Cow Level Rune Drop Odds for P1 Solo (Players 1)

This lists rune drops for The Secret Cow Level, 1 player, Hell Difficulty, Normal cows:

Rune	Chance per Cow	Chance per Game	Rune+ Chance per Cow	Rune+ Chance per Game
El Rune	1:21479	1:61
Eld Rune	1:32219	1:92
Tir Rune	1:8592	1:24.5
Nef Rune	1:12887	1:37
Eth Rune	1:6137	1:17.5
Ith Rune	1:9205	1:26.3
Tal Rune	1:4296	1:12.3
Ral Rune	1:6444	1:18.4
Ort Rune	1:4296	1:12.3
Thul Rune	1:6444	1:18.4
Amn Rune	1:5559	1:15.9
Sol Rune	1:8339	1:23.8
Shael Rune	1:9265	1:26.5
Dol Rune	1:13898	1:39.7
Hel Rune	1:16678	1:47.7
Io Rune	1:25017	1:71.5	1:24548	1:70
Lum Rune	1:31600	1:90.5	1:27435	1:78.4
Ko Rune	1:47400	1:135.5	1:30848	1:88
Fal Rune	1:61492	1:176	1:34887	1:99.7
Lem Rune	1:92238	1:263.5	1:39735	1:113.5
Pul Rune	1:121300	1:346.5	1:45537	1:130
Um Rune	1:181950	1:520	1:52601	1:150
Mal Rune	1:178352	1:509.5	1:61096	1:174.5
Ist Rune	1:267529	1:764.5	1:77186	1:220.5
Gul Rune	1:252957	1:723	1:85762	1:245
Vex Rune	1:379436	1:1084	1:104590	1:299
Ohm Rune	1:360182	1:1029	1:128864	1:368
Lo Rune	1:540273	1:1543.5	1:165393	1:472.5
Sur Rune	1:487033	1:1391.5	1:216555	1:619
Ber Rune	1:730549	1:2087.5	1:307928	1:880
Jah Rune	1:654171	1:1869	1:466253	1:1332
Cham Rune	1:981256	1:2803.5	1:885533	1:2530
Zod Rune	1:2560876	1:7317

3.2 - D2R Cow Level Rune Drop Odds for P8 (Players 8)

Here are the drop rates for High runes for P8 cows, ~400 cows per run avg if you leave some stragglers:

Ohm Rune 0.0006346% 1:157580 = 1:394 runs on average to find this rune
Vex Rune 0.0006024% 1:166003 = 1:415 runs
Sur Rune 0.0004693% 1:213077 = 1:533 runs
Lo Rune 0.0004231% 1:236370 = 1:591 runs
Jah Rune 0.0003494% 1:286200 = 1:716 runs
Ber Rune 0.0003129% 1:319615 = 1:799 runs
Cham Rune 0.0002329% 1:429300 = 1:1073 runs
Zod Rune 0.0000893% 1:1120383 = 1:2801 runs

3.3 - P1-P8 High Rune Drop Chance Compare from Hell Cows

This table is showing the comparison of the high rune drop chance for different player count (Players 1 to Players 8) from Hell Bovine (Per million):

D2R P1-P8 High Rune Drop Chance Compare from Hell Cows

3.4 - Cows Have 1.5 Better Chance To Find High Runes Than the Fallen in Act 1

On just Players 1 difficulty, so you're in the game this is just for example purposes to find a Vex Rune from a cow, it's 1 in 379,436 cow kills, now that seems like a large number but you do get to imagine it is pretty rare to find high rune just in general in Diablo 2 Resurrected and the amount of density (the amount of killing) you do so that is the odds of finding a Vex Rune from a Hell Cow level.

26-Vex

Vex(Number 26)
Clvl Required 55
Weapon: 7% Mana Leech
Armor/Helm/Shield: +5 to Max Fire Resist

Now to go ahead and compare this we're going to take a look at the drop odds from a Vex Rune from a Fallen one of the Monsters Just in Act 1 and also just on Players 1 difficulty. Now to find that Vex Rune, it is 1 in 566,057 kills of a Fallen. Now you have a round a one-and-a-half times better chance of finding that Vex Rune from a cow than you do from one of those Fallen in Act 1.

4 - Good Place To Farm Runeword Bases

The very last Pro is it kind of piggybacks off of the same reason that people argue that the cows are a good place to find High runes, and that is cows have kind of been known as a good place to find D2R Runeword bases. So if you're both going to be hunting High runes and hopefully finding them, and also finding the Runeword bases along the way, poof there you go a great place for cows for hunting those runes.

Cons - Is Cow Level Really Good For You To Farm High Runes in Diablo 2 Resurrected?

Now we're going to talk about the cons here a very important part when coming to the decision on whether you should run cows or not. Now there are not as many cons as there are Pros, but depending on how heavily these are going to weigh on your performance in the game that's what's going to determine whether running cows is going to be good or not.

1 - Easy To Die With Low Gear

The first Con up is these cows hit freaking hard. Now if you don't have really great gear in the game you could easily get one shot or maybe if you got a little bit better gear more life two or three hit by these cows, but because there's so much density if you get caught in the wrong spot getting hit by 3 or 4 cows at the exact same instance is not uncommon, then also because they hit so hard say goodbye to Emilio because he's going to get chopped down Mega fast charging headlong right into those herds of cows. So because they can be so dangerous you kind of get to play it safe in a lot of instances. If you're playing it even safer you're not running in dealing out as much damage as fast as possible, this can really slow down your kill speed. So even though they do have a higher chance of dropping High runes per each individual kill if you're not killing them as fast, because you're afraid of dying all the time that's going to really limit the number of high runes you pull from cows.

2 - Constantly Dying Effect Your Farming Efficiency

Also in that same vein, if you're constantly dying, having to save and exit get your body back, or run around trying to eventually pick up your body out in cows, that's going to really cut into your farming time as well. So how hard these hit, and how dangerous these cows are are very important factors.

3 - High Life Pool Slow Your Farming Speed If You Don't Have High End-Game Gear

This is going to really affect how fast you can kill these cows and that is the size of their life pool. For example, that's going to be Players 1 cow but the total life pool that each individual cow has now a standard Players 1 cow has 9442 Health. Now to a lot of people that might not mean a ton, because in Diablo 2 you don't have numbers flying all over the screen every time you hit something maybe you don't really realize exactly how much life that is.

So we'll go ahead and put it once again in context to an Act 1 Fallen: Now those Fallen actually only have 771 life, so with some really quick math, actually the cows have 12 times the amount of Life as a Fallen from Act 1. If you're dealing around that 700 maybe 1,000 damage each hit, it's literally taking you 12 times as long to kill each individual cow.

Now we understand in a lot of cases that's not going to be how it goes, you're actually going to be dealing out five six seven eight thousand damage, but as you get into higher players counts the cow's life goes up even higher. So that is a very important con if you don't have great End Game Gear, if you're just right at the beginning of Ladder and you're not dealing out a ton of damage, it's really going to be hard for you to kill cows at any fish in speed. So even though they have a higher Rune drop chance, you actually are kind of falling behind just killing every random everyday monster.

How To Determine Weather The Cow Level Is Good For You To Farm High Runes?

So from the above information so far, we really can conclude that cows are a great place to farm High runes but it's not going to be for everybody. The below information right now on how to determine whether it's going to be right for you and your character.

First up, you need to decide "do I really put out enough damage to kill these cows fast enough in order to make it better than just farming any monster in the entire game?" Essentially from the difference in Rune drop odds between cows and like the Fallen, this number is pretty much standard across most monsters in the entire game with the exception of ghosts having that better Rune drop chance. So if you can kill Fallen in Act 1 twice as fast as you can kill cows, then cows are not going to be a good option for you to go farm High runes, you might as well just run out in Act 1 and go ahead and Slaughter all those incredibly weak monsters. On top of that, if you're ever dying or you get to play it too safe in order to kill the cows so you don't die, then cows are not going to be a good option for you also, once again you're going to be better off just slapping monsters down in act one or maybe farm and go most either on your way down to the Countess or out in the Arcane Sanctuary.

The one reason why people will always kind of gravitate to doing things like cows and stuff in order to find High runes is it really does seem more glamorous. Now how crazy is it you just go out in Act 1 someplace you've been running so many times it's out of control, but with cows you've actually had to beat the game, you've had to accomplish something in order to get to it. So just by human nature, it seems like cows should automatically be better, but not in every instance.