Cows have 33%mr, it's rough in starter gear. It's better suited for chaos and trav.

tz yes, although i dont know why you would run tz on a budget when you can run chaos
never tried cows - why even run cows any more?

runes and bases really

chaos and tz has those
and gear that will make you stronger/sellable gear if you dont need it

This post was edited by ahyp on Jul 16 2026 11:43am

Generally the amount of runes, charms and bases is significantly higher in time spent for cows over chaos, but the xp is nonexistant and sets/uniques extremely low.

yep
and if you are wearing budget gear (lore spirit stealth rhyme) chaos is gonna get you geared the fastest (if you can do it quickly)
still noticing abyss p1 chaos is the best, tried a lancer/defiler build and it was slower
55-85/7ish im for sure running p8 stony tombs its cracked with 3x tainted. i did a test run, took like 20 runs, and i got a few mid runes and a full cure merc setup (skin of the flayed one +um rune, cure, insight eth thresh) and a monarch

then ill run chaos to like 90 or so, or until i am rich enough for enigma
then its off to p8 tz hex bane bow lock

This post was edited by ahyp on Jul 16 2026 12:08pm

Chaos is vastly more suitable for early ladder builds that can do it simply for the fact of the limited number of teleports needed before you can start walking, making it work for telestaff setups
Without MH (or even with it, and bad spawns) just teleporting wirts leg can use up an entire staff and more
I did that with a blood boil warlock the first season and had no problem carrying 8 player games, before taintlock was a thing

Taintlock really shines at TZ96 sweeping full games once you have an enigma setup, and you can easily cheap out on the non-enigma/infinity slots and don't need to get the full obsession / cham shako / etc icing on the cake. I did it with insight staff, crap torch, plain skillers, plain +3 prebuff ammy/circlet, etc up to level 98 and 98-99 with a real setup. But the need for enigma and infinity puts a high minimum on the value needed.

I personally prefer the bow lock or demon defiler lock. Both need to prebuff, bow lock is nicer for quick games and targeted zone farming. Demon lock is nice for full game clears. Neither has issues with immunes, which was my one gripe with taint lock.