In this article, we are going to cover a popular strategy of finding magic items in Diablo 2: Resurrected: running specific areas and clearing groups of monsters, instead of targeting only Bosses. These runs are mainly targeting level 85 areas, but there are a few exceptions that we’re going to look into as well.

    Level 85 Areas

In D2:R, area level directly determines the level of the monsters located in it, with the exception of Super Uniques, that are of a predetermined level. Because the monster level then determines the pool of items that a monster can drop, running the highest possible area levels is usually very lucrative. Level 85 area means that the champion and unique monsters are level 87-88, which means that they can drop every single item in the game, including the rarest uniques and High Runes (HRs). While non-boss monsters do not have the increased chance of dropping unique and set items, the fact that runners kill multiples of them in the same area almost makes up for this.
Moreover, it is a viable strategy to also run level 85 areas with a low amount of Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (MF%). Runes, for example, aren’t affected by the MF% on the character killing the monsters, and with the (relatively) increased drop chance, it is not an absolute miracle anymore to see a HR drop here and there.

Another consideration is item bases. These can be just as important for putting together runewords than the runes themselves, and some of the best bases are fairly rare 
In a lot of cases, finding just one base item isn’t enough, as socketing them is a complete gamble as well: most notably ethereal Threshers, Great Poleaxes, Cryptic Axes, Giant Threshers, Berserker Axes and Colossus Blades. All of these items are most desirable with fewer sockets than their maximum, therefore they can’t simply be socketed at Larzuk.
Running L85 areas or the Cow Level with little to no MF% is a great way of acquiring these items.

The best places to farm in this category are determined by a few factors, mainly monster pool (with special attention to immunities) and location. 
Immunities are completely prohibitive to certain builds, so finding an area with no immune mobs has obvious advantages for characters with no access to an Infinity. 
One such area is the Ancient Tunnels in Act 2, where nothing is immune to cold damage, so it’s great hunting grounds for Blizzard Sorceresses whenever they get bored of bullying Andariel and Mephisto.
The Pit in Act 1 is another hot spot, but mostly because it is very easily located. Taking the Waypoint to the Outer Cloister, one just has to run back out to the Tamoe Highlands, following the road. This is more advantageous for online players, since their map is randomized in every game, but the Pit is still easy to find this way. 
Additionally, there are times when this area spawns no lightning immune monsters, although this is completely random. However, even if they do spawn, they are usually fairly squishy and not too dangerous, so a decently geared Mercenary can deal with them.
Chaos Sanctuary (CS) is worth a mention as well, which is probably the most popular place to farm for well-geared characters that have no issues with immunities. Hammerdins, casters with Infinity, Summoner Necromancers, and Javazons can handle this place fairly easily.
The most obvious advantage of CS is that Diablo is also located here, who has an increased chance of dropping uniques and sets, and drops Grand Charms that can be rolled into Skillers with +45 to Life as well.

    Lower Level Areas

There are two notable areas that are very popular and lucrative, yet aren’t level 85.
The obvious downside of these places is that it isn’t possible to get the rarest items in the game, but they both feature something to make up for it.
The first one is the Secret Cow Level (The Moo Moo Farm), with its level of 81. Even though this place has been nerfed in patch 1.10, it’s still probably the best place for farming runeword bases, and great for HRs as well.
The reason for this is the sheer amount and density of mobs in the zone, which is a lot higher than any other area. Moreover, it’s exclusively populated by Hell Bovines: slow-moving melee monsters with low resistances. This makes them very easy to kill en masse, especially for characters with good AoE skills – Javazons, Necromancers with Corpse Explosion, and Trapsins especially.
The only real downside of the Cow Level has also been completely removed in D2:R, namely that killing the Cow King used to make it impossible to open the portal there again, which was fairly easy to do accidentally.

The other notable non-85 area we’d like to highlight is Travincal.
Travincal is somewhat special in that it is not worth to clear the whole zone, only the High Council. 
They are a mix of Super Unique and normal monsters, located just a few screens away from the Waypoint. Similarly to CS, Travincal also has a fixed layout, so online characters can reach them just as quickly as their offline counterparts.
The Council Members have a fairly high drop rate of High Runes, but more importantly, they also drop a lot of gold. This makes them especially popular among Gold Find Barbarians, who stack Extra Gold from Monsters stats on their gear. They can even double-dip from this bonus by killing them, then using Find Item on their corpse, to rack up hundreds of thousands in a single run.
Since the Council Members almost exclusively deal fire damage in small burst via Hydra, they can be completely countered by wearing a Rising Sun amulet. This also makes Travi a good farming spot for characters with relatively bad gear as well.

All in all, area running is a popular endgame activity for a lot of players. For some, it just complements bossing, because they can get items this way that they can’t from bosses.
For others, however, it’s the only means of efficiently farming in solo, due to the lack of Teleport. Regardless, becoming familiar with these zones can only be advantageous for any PvE player.