D2R Best Map Reading: Farm Andriels, Countess, Mephisto, Baal, Pindleskin Faster in Diablo 2 Resurrected

Do you ever hear veterans talk about how they can do the magic find runs in just a couple of minutes and you wonder how they find the right location in the right direction to go all the time, or you watch a streamer and they come to a point where they need to go right or left and they always seem to pick the correct way, but you don't really know how? Well in this guide, we are going to let you in the secret and know exactly how to map read specific areas that you need to know, in order to make your magic finding runs more efficient. If they're that much more efficient, you're going to find even more godly gear!

Diablo 2 Resurrected Best Map Reading To Farm Faster & More Efficiently

Let's just picture town as a map tile and if you didn't know the maps are made up of different random tiles that are pre-generated but they piece them together randomly, so you don't know exactly which tile is coming next. But in certain areas you can, because let's say this is a map tile the town and this going out across the bridge is the exit. And sometimes depending on where, you are you can tell by the way that you're exiting that tile which direction you need to go, you just need to memorize them but they're not particularly difficult, it's actually incredibly easy.

Catacombs (Andariel) Map Reading

When you enter the Andariel, you can see the initial tile, we will just reveal it real quick when looking at the mini-map right here, and we're exiting in this direction that's the way we got to go. 

For the first time coming from the waypoint Catacombs level 2, just turn right that's the direction that you're going to need to go to find your way down to the next level, it could be directly right mega quick or it could be really far out to the right. This one is kind of so in the middle, but it is directly to the right and it will almost always be to the right, nine out of ten times minimum occasionally there is the dreaded triple left as it's something you're just going to have to deal with, but almost all the time if there are these rules where you neither either need to turn right or need to turn left, they're going to be right like 9 out of 10 times.

Unfortunately when you jump down to the next level, it's just completely guessing and checking to find your way down to Andariel, but at least you have that first level that you can zip right through almost instantly 

Forgotten Tower (Countess) Map Reading

Another place in Act 1 that is incredibly common for people to farm for keys and for different types of runes is the countess at the Forgotten Tower. In this area, there is an incredibly easy trick as well, once you come down the ENTERING THE TOWER CELLULAR LEVEL 1, you can see here's the tile and we're looking at the little mini-map, all you need to do is turn left - for every single level of the tower, just keep turning left and you'll find your way down to the next level. This works on every single difficulty, you would have spent all your time running around way over here, just wasting time unless you're out here farming and we guess it's not wasting time but you can spend a ton of time looking around for not the place you want to go. 

So just come out and you just keep turning left, not particularly exactly left for this one, sometimes it can be shorter or sometimes it can be farther, but here it is. 

Lord of Hatred (Mephisto) Map Reading

We're jumping Act 3 here and this is going after Mephisto, this isn't as perfect as the turn left for the countess or the tower. But for Mephisto, the way down to Mephisto is generally on the left half of the map, so we always stick to the left unfortunately sometimes it could be literally right here which is one of those sick crazy maps and this could be a very large map they made it way bigger back in the day when they found out that everyone was farming Mephisto over and over again. So just sticking to the left is generally the fastest way in order to find it, if you went out to the right it could take you forever because this map is huge.

Throne of Destruction (Baal) Map Reading

We're here in act five and this is if you're going down to kill Baal, you can actually find a quicker way. For this first particular level similar to how it was for Andariel, from the waypoint you are going to want to turn right, and actually, this is the fastest possible map you can really get - it is directly to the right but this is once again one of those nine out of ten approximately. If you just turn right from the waypoint, you'll find your way down to the world, so keep next level. 

Unfortunately, when you're down to this level, you're just going to have to teleport around and randomly hope you find it because there is no good way, but at least you can zip right through the first level with no problem, it can save you a ton of time staying away from a bunch of disaster monsters.

Obviously, the bottom level is all going to look exactly the same so you don't need to worry about that, you can definitely save yourself a ton of time doing those Baal run.

Arreat Plateau (Thresh Socket) Map Reading

It's not really the absolute best place to magic find in the game but you can switch it up do something a little bit different, this is running Thresh Socket here at the Arreat Plateau waypoint. To get the Thresh Socket, he can drop almost everything that Pindleskin can except for like two Diablo 2  items. 

So all you need to do is go up to the left or up to the right, if you see any stairs, you want to go in the direction that the stairs are facing or, if you run into the wall you want to go in the opposite direction.

Halls of Pain (Pindleskin) Map Reading

Almost as good as Pindleskin, Halls of Pain in ACT 5 can be a little bit more difficult, there's actually only a set number of maps here it seems like they really mailed in ACT 5 when they came out the expansion, but there's only a set number of maps here when you come to the Halls of Pain waypoint. If you're going to be running this, it's not as easy as just left and right, you need to memorize those few ones. 

But Nihlathak's Secret in D2R has been discovered: His location can be determined as soon as you walk through the door; no need to check the four walls for eye markings. This is a micro-optimization that could help shave off a couple of seconds for Nihl runners with some practice.

1. The torch. There's a torch to the left and the Ground around it could be cluttered or clean.

Clean Ground = lower paths

Messy Ground = upper paths

Remember that this as "clean torch, clean run" because you will have better luck fighting him when he's in a lower chamber.

2. New eyes. Immediately to the right of the door there is a wall that might have eyes on it. From what I can tell, these were not there in classic D2. Follow these new eyes to have a chat with Nihl.

New eyes = SE

No new eyes + clean torch = SW

Follow the new eyes

3. Bone snapper. If the torch is cluttered, things are going to get messy. This one is hard to see, especially if there is any glare on your screen. There's a wall around the corner to the right that has two versions. The normal version has three prominent, mostly intact skeletons. The other version has scattered bones embedded in the wall.

Scattered bones = NW

Whole skeletons + messy torch = NE

"Run away from bone snapper"