Diablo II: Resurrected

There Is No Cow Level (Except There Totally Is)

The Secret Cow Level — officially called the Moo Moo Farm — is the most iconic farming zone in all of Diablo II: Resurrected. A hidden dimension packed wall-to-wall with Hell Bovines: enormous, polearm-wielding, deeply unhappy cows who will absolutely murder you if you let them herd you instead of the other way around.

Why farm here? Simple: density. There is no zone in D2R that puts more monsters in your face per square foot. Hell Bovines are level 81 in Hell difficulty, meaning every TC87 item in the game is eligible to drop. Combine that with the sheer volume of kills you can stack and you've got one of the best rune-hunting and base-farming zones in the game. No complicated layouts, no immunities for most top builds, no boss phases — just thousands of cows and your AoE of choice.

The blizzard team clearly knew what they were doing when they hid this place. And yes, Blizzard — the company — put a hidden cow level in their game and then spent years insisting "there is no cow level." The audacity. We respect it.

How to Open the Cow Level Portal

Opening the portal takes two items and one Horadric Cube. Here's the exact process:

1. Kill Baal in the appropriate difficulty. You must have completed the game on the difficulty you want to farm. No shortcuts.
2. Get Wirt's Leg — Go to the Act 1 town portal to Tristram (the one you opened to rescue Deckard Cain). Wirt's corpse is in the lower-left area of Tristram. Click it. You'll get Wirt's Leg and a pile of gold. The gold is a nice bonus. The leg is what matters.
3. Get a Tome of Town Portal — Buy one from Akara in the Act 1 Rogue Encampment. Doesn't need to be full.
4. Open your Horadric Cube while in the Act 1 Rogue Encampment. Put Wirt's Leg + Tome of Town Portal inside and hit Transmute.
5. A red portal opens. Step through. Try not to immediately die to 400 cows.

Requirements by Difficulty

The cow level scales with difficulty. You can only open the version you've cleared:

Hell is the only difficulty worth farming once your character can handle it. Monster level 81 means the full TC87 drop table is active — that's where the Griffon's Eyes, Windforce bows, and high runes live.

The Cow King

The Cow King is a Super Unique boss lurking somewhere in the Moo Moo Farm. He's Lightning Enchanted (because of course he is), hits harder than his bovine brethren, and drops the Cow King's Leathers set — a three-piece set that includes the Cow King's Horns helm, Cow King's Hide armor, and Cow King's Hooves boots.

In original Diablo II / Lord of Destruction, killing the Cow King was the cardinal sin of cow farming. If you killed him in a game you created, you permanently lost the ability to open the portal again on that character in that difficulty. The key detail: it only applied to the game creator. If someone else opened the portal, you could kill the King safely. Entire communities of players lived in fear of accidentally clicking the wrong cow.

In Diablo II: Resurrected, this restriction was removed at launch (September 2021). Kill him. Don't kill him. Kill him every run. It doesn't matter. The portal opens regardless. This is one of the best quality-of-life changes Blizzard made in D2R.

Best Builds for Cow Farming

Not all builds are created equal when it comes to herding and deleting entire screens of cows. Here's the tier list:

What Drops in the Cow Level

Hell Bovines in Hell difficulty are monster level 81, which means TC87 items are in play. That's the highest treasure class in the game — the same table that produces items like Tyrael's Might, Griffon's Eye, and Windforce.

The cow level is excellent for:

• Runes — Up to Ber (Rune #30) can drop. High monster density = more rune drops per hour than almost anywhere else.
• Bases — Monarchs (4-socket shields for Spirit), ethereal elite weapons, and other crafting bases drop constantly.
• Charms & Jewels — Grand Charms, Annihilus candidates, jewels for runewords. Excellent.
• Gems — You'll be swimming in them. Cube them up for crafting.
• Cow King's Leathers — The Cow King's Leathers set pieces drop from the Cow King himself.

The cow level is NOT great for:

• Unique item hunting — There's no boss drop bonus here. If you want specific uniques, boss runs (Mephisto, Andariel, Diablo) are more efficient.
• Set item target farming — Same reason. Pure density runs favor breadth over targeting.

Farming Tips & Strategy

• Herd before you nuke. Run through the map and pull large groups together before unleashing your AoE. A Lightning Fury Amazon hitting 50 cows instead of 5 is the difference between a mediocre run and a great one.
• Players X is your friend. Higher player count = better drops per monster. Solo players can set /players 8 in single-player. In online games, fill the lobby or use public cow games.
• Magic Find matters less here. Unlike boss runs, you're farming for runes, bases, and charms — none of which are affected by MF. Prioritize damage and kill speed over MF gear.
• Full clear vs. King kill. In D2R, killing the Cow King is no longer a risk — do it for the loot and the satisfaction. Full clearing the map maximizes total drops per run.
• Watch the edges. Cows spawn in dense packs near the map borders. Don't skip the corners — that's where you'll find the biggest herds.
• Portal discipline. You can only have one cow portal open per game. Make a new game for each run. Don't waste time trying to reopen in the same game.
• Know your exits. The cow level can be disorienting. Keep a Town Portal handy — getting surrounded by 200 cows with no escape plan is a humbling experience.

FAQ