Your wedding day, the birth of a child: life is full of precious moments, but let’s be real, nothing compares to the narcotic thrill of trolling a helpless audience. No one knows that better than Kano, a Diablo 2 Resurrected speedrunner who recently subjected his viewers to emotional whiplash so severe it was probably illegal.
Spotted by GamesRadar, Kano was undertaking a world record “1 to ubers” Diablo 2 Resurrected speedrun attempt when—at around eight hours into his stream—a defeated enemy spat out a Zod rune. The chat immediately lost its mind: The Zod rune is the absolute rarest of Diablo 2’s droppable runes. So rare, in fact, that some viewers shouted that they had never seen one in all their years playing. “That’s easily the rarest thing ever dropped in a speedrun,” said one viewer, while over on YouTube a member of the chat sighed “20 years I’ve been waiting ;'(, still no Zod for me.” Kano himself said it was his first time ever seeing the rune.
So he immediately sold it to an NPC vendor. He made 35,000 gold.
The chat went ape. What had been a chorus of whoops and cheers when Kano found the Zod instantly transformed into sheer horror. “OMFG HE VENDORED IT,” shouted one viewer. “Never seen one of those drop before… and he sells it LOL,” wrote another.
In case you’re wondering, the Zod can be used to craft some cool runewords, but it’s usually slotted into items to make them indestructible. Ethereal items are usually prime candidates, as they’re ultra-effective but—without a Zod—also ultra-breakable. Naturally, plenty of Kano’s audience immediately began wishing a deluge of hyper-desirable ethereal items on him to make him regret his choice to flog the Zod.
“What, dude? It’s 35K! It’s good. It’s good money,” explained Kano, chuckling, which didn’t do much to dampen the stunned rage of his fans. And who can blame them? The D2 Rune Wizard pegs the best odds of a Zod rune at 1:2,987,183, although others note that, once D2 has decided a level 81 or above enemy will drop a rune, the odds of that rune being a Zod are 1:5171. Either way, it’s a rune that plenty of diehard fans go their whole lives without seeing, and Kano did the equivalent of breezily eBaying it. You almost have to salute him.
As if that wasn’t enough, barely 20 minutes later he stumbled on a Wisp Projector, the rarest ring in the game (it technically has the same drop rate as some other rings, but requires a higher level to encounter). He didn’t sell that one, though he didn’t meet the level requirement to use it. Some people have all the luck.