The best farmplaces post-patch. Pretty similar to before, just more loot!
Previously I talked about the changes to iLvl 63 loot in patch 1.0.3b, which was hotfixed and the drop rate sfor iLVl 63 gear doubled or more. That is great news for farming act 1 and that is also why we revisit this act for the shot at some sweet, sweet loot.
As you may recall, I drew out a farming run to some of the best spots for act 1 farming. This run still works, although your mileage may vary. The watch tower at the beginning of the run has not not spawned for some and it might be nerfed. So this is an update or alternative to the previous act 1 run.
30-35 elites, 250k gold per hour and lots of iLvl 63 gear
These farm places should net you around 200-250k per hour in money and vendor thrash alone. On top of this you get gems, essences and iLvl 63 gear, so the gold per hour is pretty good!
As always the more GF and MF you have, the better it is. This is more of an item farming run, so if you have to choose between GF and MF on an item, go for the MF to improve your chances of getting yellows. MF won’t give you more items, it will however, give you better items in that drop-slot. Imagine you have a 5% base chance to get rares when ever an item drops. With 200% MF you have a 15% chance to get an yellow instead of a normal blue.
If you prefer gold instead, I suggest using the D3 gold farming guide I released a few weeks ago, where you run Arreat craters on NM. You don’t need that great gear and you can just mow mobs down. Easy-mode gold. But if it is iLvl gear you want, running act 1 is an option worth considering.
The act 1 goldfarming route
The run starts off with “the imprisoned angel” like a normal Warden/Butcher run. While we won’t kill the Warden and the Butcher at first, we will revisit them, when we have a full NV stack.
Start your farming run in Act 1 “The Imprisoned Angel”, then go places!
You start in Tristram and you need to move the west gate and head out towards “The Weeping Hollow” just outside the gates. Clear this entire area, where you can find 1-3 packs of elites.
Then head to the “Cemetery of the Forsaken”, where there might be an elite on the cemetery grounds where you spawn in. Then head to the three crypts and clear these and will encounter anything from 3-10 elite packs all in all.
After the cemetery, WP to the “Old Ruins” and check for a dark cellar to south west in the ruined town. The Dark cellar spawns similar to the Sarkoth Dank Cellar about 50%.
The Dark Cellar in the Old Ruins can contain elites, chests and treasure goblins
Be aware that the Dark Cellar is not very big, so you can’t kite in it as a ranged class. However, if you are there you might as well check the cellar for chests and to see if there is a treasure goblin in there. And while you are at it, run a bit north and check to see if the Dank Cellar has spawned for a chance to farm Sarkoth for easy iLvl 63 gear. You should have a full NV stack here, so you should get decent drops from Sarkoth.
Then head to the “Festering Woods”, where there is a chance for 1-4 elite packs and an event. There is also 2-3 dungeons with 1-2 elite packs in each and a chance at resplendent chests. While chests have been nerfed and are no longer affected by magic find, you do get a decent amount of gold from them and that’s always nice!
After “Festering Woods” head to “Highland crossing” and move across the map up to the WP for Northern Highlands”. There are spawn points for elites on the map itself and also for several caves. If a cave contain two levels, there is always a resplendent chest on level 2. So find that chest and show it who is boss! Clear both zones and then TP and WP to Leoric’s Courtyard.
In Leoric’s Manor there is always a unique mob in the courtyard, so kill this and TP back to town and WP to Leoric’s Manor. This saves you clearing the mobs inside the manor and now it is just a question of running a normal Warden/Butcher run. After you kill the Butcher, head back to town and enjoy your ill-gotten gains!
A quick rundown of the farm route
This route makes your around 200k per hour in pure gold. You also get a good amount of gems, which are starting to be worth something on the AH now. With a good set of MF gear, you get a fair amount of rares. Anything but iLvl 63 gear is just vendored and sucky iLvl 63 gear can be salvaged for essences, which are also selling pretty well. Great iLvl 63 gear should be AHed. Do a price check for the stats and set a competitive price to get a quick sale. You don’t want to end up locking in your auction slots too much!
The below video gives a rundown of the method. It even has a monk in it!:
It is a very good farming run and it is a bit more fun than running Dank Cellar over and over. If you aren’t geared enough to do a fast enough run to make this worthwhile, use the gold guide and farm arreat craters and gear up a bit. Then run act 1.
Don’t forget to head over to Facebook and join the Diablo 3 Farming party to get videos and other cool stuff, that isn’t quite big enough to warrrant a full article on the main site.
Now get farming, ya lazy bum!
You should add in the quick elite at the beginning of Cathedral Level 3
I’m not understanding the farming… even with this method if you can get your production rate up to 250k/hr… you can buy 1 million gold for like $1.80 US online. That means your time is worth 45 cents an hour US?!
I’ll pass. Maybe it makes sense if you could have a bot do it or something… I miss the point.
Different people, different tastes. Some people have a lot of free time, so don’t mind grinding. Some people work full time and have a family, and do mind grinding, so for them it would make sense to buy the gold instead of grinding it, since they save time and can do what do like in the game.
Gotcha, that makes sense.
This is a good guide. Keep up the nice work, and thanks!
@DG: You forgot one thing – Hardcore players cannot buy gold. We need more guides like this to support hardcore players.
@Admin: That gold farming guide is good idea for HC because it is a low risk option with decent payout. I have not tried it yet because I have to build another lvl 60 again. Would be good if there are more guides focused for hardcore players please.
This is a valid method to earn 1-2M per hour. However, I’m speaking on behalf of farming act 2 in a similar way. Act 1 may net you 500K – 1M per hour (maybe?)
Since the introduction of showing item levels prior to identification, players are willing to pay a pretty penny for unidentified rare ilevel 62/63 , you no longer need gold find to make tons of gold per hour.
Go ahead and identify your level 61 and 62 weapons because they don’t sell very well,
but all ilevel 62 and and 63 armors are easily sold to gamblers in the trade channel.
i level 61/62 jewelry is also easily sellable
and of course all ilevel 63 weapons and shields(depending on block rate) are easily sold
I know it’s tempting to identify because you may get lucky, but I personally believe the odds are against you.
at 500K (minimum) for weapons, 200K-400K for armors, you can make a pretty penny just selling unidentified. With more MF gear, you increase the yield of which you get the high level unidentified items.
Although act 3provides better drop rate than act 2, act 2 is more efficient in regards to time per run and your gear can be more focused on MF instead of dps/survivability.
And remember, when trading with players there is no gold tax. I’ve had one person offer me 2M for 5 unidentified items. i get about 8-10 per run which takes me about 1.5 hours.
Now this gold is obviously coming from people purchasing from gold farmers because there is no in game method to make that kind of gold per hour, but hey, these are the times we live in!
if your finding that your gold is too high and y ou need a hard asset that basically is tied to the value of gold, buy firey brimstones !
“lots of iLvl 63 gear” -> Thats strange. I measured the drops post patch with a quite similar farming run.
I got this in 1 hour (only the number of rares, blues doesnt worth much, except high damage weapons):
13 ilvl60, 8 ilvl61, 8ilvl62, 1ilvl63
That 1 ilvl63 was bad of course..
I had 300 MF with 5 stacks and killed the elites quite fast with DH.
Same here, i do these runs since 1.0.3 patch with 320 MF gear on full valor, and its pretty random how many ilvl63 i will have at the end .. from 1 to 3-4 almost 99% of them crap … i got few legendaries droped from regular mobs, and now i clean almost all teritories, i like act 1 its fun and relaxing to do it, and im not int competition with time
Just also a few tips..
1. Start the normal Warden/Butcher quest.
2. Waypoint to Northern Highlands and run West (left) to the cliff, run up and down the cliff till you see the WatchTower Level 1. If you dont see it, leave and come back till you see it.
3. Go to WP Cemetary of the Forsaken and run the dungeons to stack up some Valor and an event with some nice loot.
4. Go to WP Festering Woods and run west/east to find the 2x dungeons each with an elite and a chest.
5. Go to WP Leorics Manor and clear all the rooms and a possible elite then run outside and there are other possible 1-3 elites/rare packs outside just to the bridge, no need to go farther.
6. You should definately be at 5x stack right now lol.
7. Go back to Northern Highlands and to that Watchtower level 1, FULLY clear both levels which you will encounter 3-7 elites/rares in this dungeon and a resplendant chest.
8. Kill warden/butcher, clear all along the way.
9. Rinse and repeat, tweak which way you like, overall run takes 40 minutes.
I usually walk away with 35-50 rares (no joke) all ranging from iLvL 50-63 and 200-300k gold each run. Yes this is PER run.
I also add in the occasional Dark Cellar runs within
Mhmmm, I make more gold by farming Sarkoth over and over again with my 329% gold find gear XD