Farming Inferno prior to 1.0.3 patch

I've been pleased to have few individuals contacted me with a question: "Why there are no updates on the blog? What are you up to?" Well friends, I've been farming:

Farming in my terms is when you repeatedly do some action to get profit and find/purchase better gear. Legitimate farming is a big part of Diablo 3 end game and it basically means you (re)start your favorite quest, go hunt champ/elite packs to stack nephalem buff and then have epic battle with Act boss to get guaranteed yellow items. With proper magic find on your gear it works even better as you constantly getting yellows from every elite demon you kill.

That said, there is also "cheesy" farming. This is usually exploiting some easy way to get profit avoiding fair battles in open ground. A lot of people are doing cheesy farming nowadays because Inferno Act II and further is quite tough and farming Act I could get boring due to low level drops. Here are few cheesy farming techniques I'm aware about.

Act 2 - Goblin runs

There are some specific places with high probability of goblin spawn. All you need to do is login, check the "sweet spot", if goblin not there logout and repeat. In full MF (magic find) gear single goblin can drop up to 4 yellows, a bunch of flawless gems and secret tomes. This farm works extremely well in coop mode: several people are looking for goblins simultaneously and once found all jump in to each other to loot it.

Act 2 - 1 min champ pack farm

There is a sweet spot where you can continuously kill with relatively low effort (<3 Archon) a champion pack really close to checkpoint. Usually it takes less than 30 seconds for a single run, so you can get full of yellows really quick (screenshot above was made after about 30 mins of this farm). It gets boring though, mostly cause its solo. It's possible to do coop here, but you rather slowed down than getting more profit.

Act 3 - Chest runs

There are few places where resplendent chest spawns very often, so it's similar to goblin runs. The main difference is that this is act 3 so there are chances for better items. The disadvantage is that you often getting killed by random soul reapers demons guarding the chest. Good for coop runs as well.

Act 3 - Trebuchet runs

There is an elite guy sitting behind gates at the trebuchet on "Kill balistae" quest. Once get there, range classes can kill him almost without any effort since he only get out of the gate if you come closer. It could be tough to get there though as this zone full of demons and often there are champs on the way. We've been doing it with my friends though and its a lot of fun cause you have to fight your way rather then just come and get loot for free (goblins/chests).

Act 4 - Iskatu farm

This is the first boss in Act 4 and its super easy to kill him as wizard if you have 50K+ dps (with buffs). Simply get Arcane Dynamo up and fire Archon - the guy will melt in no time. He doesn't drop yellows (well he did few times out of a hundred), but drops high level blues. For example, I got a 999 dps blue weapon out of him which I was using until recently (and it sold quick for 2 million after I got a better replacement for 700K - remind me to write about weapons). Possible to do coop.

Act 4 - Jars kicking

If you wear high MF gear, even simple jars in Act 4 will start dropping items better than those elite champs in Act 2. I was even getting more yellows from jars then from Iskatu! Disadvantage: it feels dumb to come to burning heavens just to kick jars :)

Act 4 - Ghosts farm

There is a place where random ghost appears when you walk in and after quick dialog it converts into elite demon for you to kill. Same idea as with Iskatu - you getting easy kills often, but only blue gears. I only tried it few times, cause Iskatu feels more fun.

AH deals farm

It started with me looking for a ring with MF and IAS and seeing good ones starting from 1M+. Suddenly someone posted a 3M worth ring for 500K - well, I happily snatched it and wear up. After some monitoring I start seeing more of those rings coming out for cheap and realized that they are only 54 level. My guess is people who level up don't realize true value of those items and post them heavily underpriced. So far I was able to get about 5M profit just from reselling jewelry and I have more items still to be sold. Farming AH is tricky but also fun and rewarding.

So what's going to change in patch 1.0.3? I feel like a lot. Check out the official post about upcoming design changes, to name a few: Inferno Act 2+ nerf, drop tables update, IAS nerf, repair costs change, coop nerf and more. Also I expect some of those cheesy farms to be fixed (just because they are so dumb and popular), so the end game and market is going to change for sure. Catch the train and do pre-1.0.3 farm while you can! :)