In this article, I’ll show you how to get rich in D2R Ladder Season 3 and this is my preferred method. And I’ll tell you how I collect High Runes and get a lot of wealth solo.

Now, there are many ways to get rich in this game by farming Terror Zones. The first thing I do with a new season is to make a Blizzard Sorceress and then I farm Hell Mephisto. The reason I farm Hell Mephisto so much is that he’s an act boss that is very easy to get to and quick to kill.

Mephisto helps me save a lot of time and he basically drops almost every superb unique item and set items in the game that you need, such as Shako and many other Bul-Kathos’ Wedding Band Rings, basically any unique item that you would need for your build. You cannot get those really high-end items, such as Griffins or something like that from Mephisto.

I just farm Mephisto over and over at the very beginning to really get my gear up and get some good D2R Ladder Items. And then what I do is to farm for Keys. After that, I farm Nihlathak, collect a bunch of keys and I trade the Keys of Destruction for the Terror Keys and Keys of Hate (1 Key of Destruction= 2 Hate/Terror Keys).

I do not farm The Countess, and I do not farm The Summoner. That’s usually because I can get two keys at least for a Destruction Key and this just makes the process a lot faster.

Once I really get some keys going and get some good D2R Ladder Items from Mephisto, then I make a Smiter Paladin. I level him up and then once I get the keys, I start to do Über Tristram.

Über Tristram is where you’re going to find most of your wealth when building your characters in the new ladder reset season. This is because the Hellfire Torches are in outrageous demand. Every single character needs a Hellfire Torch. What I do is to keep farming this repeatedly. I just do my Mephisto runs and I kill Nihlathak and I do Über Tristram.

Now, what I do with the Hellfire Torches is to identify all of them. I do not keep any unidentified and sell them. Usually, what I do is to keep doing these runs repeatedly until I get Sorceress Torches and Paladin Torches and these are the two torches that are really going to get you some really nice high D2R Ladder Runes.

Killing Mephisto is very easy and you just get a ton of unique items and set items and you really just get a lot of wealth quickly where if you’re doing something like Terror Zones or something like that.

When you’re killing Mephisto, it’s random and based more on luck. It’s almost every time you kill him, you’re going to get a unique, or a set item if you have some decent Magic Find also this manipulates the laws of the random number generator in the game.

So, when playing, obviously the itemizations and the loot that you get from the game are very random. When you’re farming Nihlathak over and over, he’s always eventually going to drop a Destruction Key, for example. It’s not like he always has a chance to drop a Jah Rune, so this basically just gives you a way to manipulate that system in Diablo 2.

Another thing that I do is to find all the extra items along my journey of killing Mephisto and Nihlathak and basically, I trade everything for keys. I might trade for D2R Ladder Runes if I need them.

However, the focus here is trying to get as many keys as possible, because eventually all these keys are going to lead you to getting a Sorceress Torch or a Paladin Torch, which in exchange, you’re getting high D2R Ladder Runes for all the items that I get from a Fisto.

I can eventually use and keep and use those items to create my Smiter Paladin and you can do this very cheap. You don’t need any crazy gear. This also manipulates the trading system to some extent. You’re not spending as much time trying to negotiate with people to find someone that needs an item that you found. This is because every single build needs a Hellfire Torch.

So, the system is is really well designed here to just make everything much smoother and straightforward when getting your wealth. Basically, I just farm helmet Fisto and then once I get the Hellfire Torches, I trade those for high D2R Ladder Runes I need.

This is just the best way in my opinion to get rich in D2R Ladder Season 3.

D2R Ladder Season 3 is now officially released and everyone knows what you should start with. But I’m not here to talk about any of that. Instead, here are the five builds that you should absolutely not choose as your first character into the realms of a new season. Keep in mind that this is my opinion based on my personal experience, so it may differ from what others suggest.

All Necros are a brilliant choice. One of the most powerful builds in the entire game is an absolute savage of a monster and player killer. Everyone should carefully deal with this build. What you should start with is a Fury Droid that is wearing full IK set.

Barbarian

So, my first on my list of builds that you don’t want to start with is the Barbarian unless, of course, you can correct the game’s code and somehow guarantee yourself a long run drop early on.

I would absolutely advise against starting season 3 as a Barb. You see all those powerful Find item builds that excel at solo farming Travincal Pindleskin or The Pit. But until you get your green, which requires you to have D2R Ladder Items to make it. You will only have a fraction of a bill’s efficiency and it can become frustrating.

And as for Whip, it you also need Enigma to be efficient. So, when you can actually afford your Grief and Enigma, it becomes pound or pound to the best solo farming character in the entire game. But until then, you won’t enjoy playing it as much. With that said, the Barb as a starting character is a no for me.

Amazon

Next, on my list is the Physical Bowazon. Although I might just go for it myself to spice things up, that is not something that I would recommend to start with if you want to be efficient about it.

Even though we got some new toys to play with in the form of Hustle Runeword and some bug fixes, like the Attack Rating on Strafe, it still doesn’t change the fact that you need a lot of expensive gear pieces to make rebuild work.

So, unless you are fine with the struggles of getting all of that expensive gear and want to sort of challenge yourself, I would stay away from starting as a Physical Bowazon. Instead, you can choose a much cheaper and effective alternative and roll called with your Freezing Arrow Bowazon. With it, you can start farming where the Stony Tombs with just your play through gear on day one.

Necromancer

The third build that made it on my list is the Bone Necromancer. You have a date with death. The nature of its damage being Magic and is being only a handful of magic immune. Creatures in the game make him a great playthrough character, but that’s about it.

He’s terrible at boss farming and below average at farming Elite/Champion Packs. One thing here in excels at is PVP, that’s the Spirit but for that, you also need a lot of gear and there are many builds that will get you that gear much faster.

Additionally, I hope at the new Metamorphosis reward won’t make you start a druid as your first character. So, it begins. I would advise again starting with any melee character if you want to be as efficient as possible.

Druid

In fact, starting with any Druid is also a no for me. Let’s face a little of facts here. If you just want to set things on fire, there are safer and mobile options to do, such as the Fire Ball Hydra Sorceress, which also has teleport or a Wake of Fire Assassin, which now has its minus RS from gear.

Sorceress

Now, let’s go off a bit with a Frost Nova Sorceress since that is my fifth build that I don’t recommend you start your D2R Ladder Season 3 journey.

This was perhaps my mostly played character in season 2, but what I was mainly doing with it is farming The Stony Tomb with all the squishy maps on players 1. And even on players 1, it’s still difficult to be effective at farming something like cows or Chaos Sanctuary. You had to sacrifice quite some Magic Find percentages in favor of clear speed.

Now, with a nerfed Cold Mastery that comes with Patch 2.6, while they obviously aim to reduce the amount of Blizzard Sorceress. It also basically kills the Frost Nova, anyway.

These are five characters that I don’t recommend you to start.

I haven't played D2R in a few months, but I'm excited to play season three on February 16th. For the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking about what I want to achieve this season. So, below I'll expain what my plan is.

Back in D2R Ladder Season 1, I decided to start with a Frenzy Barbarian, which I eventually respect to Berserk Find item, Horker Barb. This is the best build for triathlon thing I've ever played. I did over a thousand travels by the end of the season and some of my best items included a perfect marriage, a Jawbone Visor, a Baron and a imposter Jmod. I was also able to gamble over 1 000 circlets, one of which turned out to be ridiculously good .

Necro Coronet, which I was able to trade it for multiple BER Runes. However, before I eventually traded, I made a Corpse Explosion ( a Necromancer skill), which is great for farming Runewords. Finally, I capped off season one.

D2R Ladder Season 2 introduced Sunder Charms, so I decided to go back to my roots and make a Frozen Orb Sorceress again. It was very forming different areas. And the Terror Zones added a nice break from the hundreds of Mephisto runs I was doing. So many people made Blizzard Sorceress, which drove the prices of Cold Sorceress up. And I think actually for the first time in Diablo 2 history, Paladin Combat and Lightning Skillers are actually cheaper than Cold Skillers because of this change.

However, in D2R Ladder Season 3, Cold Mastery is now applied at one-fifth of the effectiveness after immunity is broken, so the price is probably going to come back to kind of what they were. And I think Sunder Charms are actually going to be a little bit more because there was some drop glitch where everyone was.

I don't exactly know how it was happening, but there was more in the economy than there should have been. Even so, I will be attempting to make a Lightning Sorceress in D2R Ladder Season 3. All 20 years of playing Diablo, I've actually never made a lightning source as Frozen Orb was usually in my my go-to.

I think this is just because the lightning gear was so much more expensive and I never played enough to actually get it before the end of the season. But that's the plan this time. So, before I play on the 16th, I'm gonna clear out all my mules to start. I usually like to accumulate D2R Ladder Items, unique gems and then trade them in bulk to improve my gear. So, I'll probably delete those and then create new ones for season two or for season three.

Once season three arrives, I'll play solo as usual and make my way to Hell, putting all points into lightning and its synergies. And I also put one point into static for the bosses and teleport of course. However, I'm not going to get Energy Shield and just make a Pure Life build instead, so resistance has become that much more important.

Once I reach Hell, I will farm campus to try and get my Spirit Runewords for the plus skills in Fcr, which is kind of difficult on the Frozen Orb Sorceress because I believe she's cold immune. This should be more fun.

And then, I'll trade any extra D2R Ladder Runes for a Spirit Packs and Key of Terror in hopes of trading up for maybe a Skin of the Vipermagi. If I don't find one or eventually Shako and things like that, I could also do Arcane Summoner runs, which would be really fun. I will kill all the Specters on my way, which actually have a higher potential D2R Ladder Runes drop chance. This was viable with my Cold Sorceress but the way lightning is cast in a straight line, it fits perfectly with the Arcane Sanctuary map layout and then depending on my lock.

I'll continue trading any runes and high value items. I don't need to eventually get hot endgame gear, such as Torch, Anni and a Griffon's Eye. As I mentioned, I never had enough high end gear like a Griffon's Eye before, so this should be a good challenge for me for this season and that's basically how I want to plan out my my D2R Ladder season 3 to start.