New D3 patch 1.0.3 gives better farming with higher drop rates

Patch 1.0.3 is set to hit later this month. It’s not a character patch, but more of a loot patch. There are a few main points, that are very interesting when it comes to finding the best to farm gold and the best place to farm items.

D3 Loot drop rates increased

Blizzard have acknowledged that the current loot drop philosophy has some issues and needs to be tweaked. To that end they have increased the drop rates on the lower difficulties, so people actually can upgrade in the game and not have to use the auction house all the time.

The new drop rates mean, that the highest iLVL weapons and gear can actually drop from Act 1 Inferno, instead of only from the later acts. This is great news, since it allows you to actually be rewarded for playing the game at the lower difficulties, and not having to continually push push push.

The new drop rates for patch 1.0.3 are:

Diablo 3 patch 1.0.3 introduces higher drop rates for better item farming

Well done, Blizzard! Props for actually going transparent and buffing loot!

The most interesting thing are of course the iLvl 63 items. They drop at Act 1 Inferno at 2%, at Act 3 Inferno at 4% and at Act 3/act 4 at 8%. For our farming purposes there really isn’t any reason to go beyond act 3. That is quite interesting IMO. Now you just need to find that sweet spot for the best farming: Can you kill 4 times as many mobs in Act 1 as in Act 3 in the span of time? If you are struggling in Act 3, you could seriously benefit from dropping down to Act 1 and going easy mode for a while. Not only will you die less, you will probably kill things twice as fast as in Act 2, so you get more chances at iLvl 63 items.

Nephalem Valor stack drop rates change as well

You are now no longer guaranteed 2 rare drop from bosses with a full Nephalem Valor buff stack. Now it is only 1 item guaranteed with a high chance of another rare item.

However, champion and rare packs now have a guaranteed drop of a rare with a full Nephalem stack.

Again, Blizzard are trying to get people to actually play Diablo 3 instead of just running bosses. A change well worth it in my opinion.

D3 difficulty changes down in Inferno Act 2, 3 and 4

People have rightly complained about the huge jump in difficulty from Act 1 Inferno to Act 2 Inferno. The D3 devs like the difficulty curve of Act 1 Inferno, so intend to keep it. They will tweak the remaining acts and lower the difficulty a bit.

They are working from a design viewpoint, that if you can run an act on full offense, you should be able to run the next act defensive and slowly work your way to full offensive (and farm status).

D3 jeweler could actually make you money in the next patch

The crafting costs for the jeweler are lowered substantially. Blizzard’s thought is that combining lower levels of gems could be a viable method of getting gems above flawless square.

Diablo 3 patch 1.0.3 introduces lower costs for jeweler crafting

I have written about making money with your D3 jeweler, and at that point in time, anything below flawless square gems was a huge waste of time and money. After release of the arcticle, there was a preview of patch 1.0.3 with talk of reducing the gems needed for combining from three to two. This would have been useless without lowering or removing the crafting costs as well.

Luckily Blizzard did just that…..but I doubt it will make the lower level gems a viable means of making real money. Diablo 3 is coming of age and more and more people are starting to farm Inferno. The ratio of players in Inferno will only increase compared to the rest of the chapters and this means the D3 AH will be flooded with flawless square gems. In an other article, I talked about making money in D3 by combining gems, and although we will see a lot of flawless square gems, you can find a hole in the market with the lower level gems, with all the focus being on flawless square gems. Only time will tell, but be sure to keep an eye on the gem market when the commodity market opens again.

There are other things in the patch as well, but these were the most interesting from a farming point of view. Grouping is set to be more viable, attack speed is getting fixed, repair costs are increased by 4-6 times. Check out the full patch 1.0.3 notes.

I look forward to the patch and hopefully we will soon see the gem market and real money auction house open so we can start making some real money!

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