Hell Rift Farming T6 - Gold & XP

This short guide provide all necessary informations about one of the best possibilities to farm Gold & XP.

We are doing the Act IV Bounty "Clear the Hell Rift" and therefore this run is called Hell Rift Farming.

Maybe this bounty will get nerfed soon.

This can be done on a moderate geared range class on Torment VI. (or you do it on Torment V if you don't feel confident). If you do it in a group and you are more efficient.

You open a game until you get this bounty. If you do this in a group, everyone open a game for themselves and the player who find the bounty first, invites the other one.

Take the WP to Hell Rift level 1, ignore all monsters and run straight to the portal to level 2. You can use teleport as wizard or vault or smoke screen as demon hunter. Illusory Boots (act2 bounty reward) can also help to run through monsters. They have the bonus "You may move unhindered through enemies".

After you arrive in Hell Rift level 2 you kill all monsters. There are no elites, but sometimes there spawn a rare monster, but with some kiting and practice they are no problems.

You reward for completing these fast bounty you get

421.770 gold and 65.569.000 XP

Additional Reward - Cursed Chest

Sometimes you will find a cursed chest. My suggestion is to open these after you complete the bounty. If you are lucky, you must only kill some normal monsters, if not you must kill an elite group. Then I would run away and port to town. For the cursed chest you get an additional reward.

200.770 gold and 24.650.000 XP

Last tip:
Try to do it in a group, you are more efficient in searching for the bounty and kill monsters faster. Only take range classes. Their gear must not be very good, if they optimize their skills for this short run. If they people, don't know how to run, then you can link them to this guide.


Soon I will provide a further short guide who to skill and equip a demon hunter to do this run.

DH Gold Find Guide Part VI - My GF Demon Hunter

This post is about my female Demon Hunter "May" in her gold find gear. It's all dyed with Purity Dye (color = white).

261% gf from gear

Helm	17
Gem	23
Shoulder	25
Chest	18
Gloves	23
Bracers	20
Belt	17
Pants	14
Boots	16
Quiver	18
Amulet	40
Ring 1	16
Ring 2	14
Total	261
.
Follower	15
Ferret Companion	10
Total	286
.
Nephalem Valor Buff	75
Total	361

I try to upgrade my pieces to get 300% gf, but only if I find some cheap and good items and furthermore I need one more item with gold pickup radius.

In following pic I missed my belt.

DH Gold Find Guide - Introduction

DH Gold Find Guide Part V - Farming Area II

Dank Cellar - Sarkoth



By now this farming spot is very popular, but I want tell you again about it. As a ranged class you can do this runs with maximum gold find on Inferno difficult without stacking Nephalem Valor Buff before.




Get Checkpoint

1. Choose Quest - Act I Quest 2 - The Legacy of Cain - Explore Cellar - Inferno Difficulty
2. Take waypoint - The Old Ruins
3. Run to the west until you reach the Checkpoint

Start doing runs

1. Resume Game
2. Go to the West until the you reach the house
3. If the dank cellar is closed port back to town, leave and resume game.
4. If the dank cellar is opened, enter it and kill Sarkoth and his minions from range. Sarkoth won't attack you.
5. Pick up gold, magic/rare items and gems.
6. Port to town, leave and resume game.

3. Closed Dank Cellar

4. Opened Dank Cellar

next Part VI - My GF Demon Hunter
DH Gold Find Guide - Introduction

DH Gold Find Guide Part IV - Farming Area

One of the best farming areas for gold is act III, because of many big group of monsters, some very straight forward areas, some special caves with extra treasury goblins or resplendent chests.

We are doing our runs in Nightmare act III. There are 2 possibilities.
The long run (~1h 15min) starting quest: The Breaches Keep or the shorter one (~30min) starting quest: Siegebreaker. Both runs lasts until killing Azmodan.
In comparison of gold per hour they are very close, but the shorter seems to be better. I don't have enough time to make enough accurate tests.


A) starting quest: The Breaches Keep

I try to explore the hole map and killing as much monsters as possible. Sometimes you must travel a very long way back to explore all areas, but as a Demon Hunter with following skills we should not loose too much time. (Vault with Tumble, Preparation and Tactical Advantage)

If you explore all areas, then you will need about 1h 15 minutes.
With this gear (175% gf without Follower, Ferret Companion and Nephalem Valor Buff), 200.000 gold per hour is possible.

My current tracked record is 262.000 g / h with total 323% gf and 108% mf (224% gf and 33% mf on my own items). This run last 1 hour and 6 minutes.

I'm still working on improve my runs and many runs I don't track, because of this learning and improving process.
Theses gold values are from picked up gold + quest gold + gold from vendor for sold items.
Not including items, which are sold in the auction house. All items with no value for the auction house should be sold at the vendor.



B) starting quest: Siegebreaker

During your farm runs you come into the are Bridge of Korsik, there you can find the caverns of frost. Inside this cavern lev 2  there could be a named mob Chiltara. If you kill him, you will get the Gibbering Gemstone, which you need for crafting the Staff of Herding for the secret level.

next Part V - Farming Area II
DH Gold Find Guide - Introduction

New Demon Hunter build for nightmare farming (lev60)

After some more hours of gold farming in nightmare this is my updated Demon Hunter build (lev 60) for my
DH gold find guide.

Hungering Arrow - Devouring Arrow
for bosses

Chakram - Shuriken Cloud
for objects and also useful against last remaining enemys in melee range

Multishot - Fire at Will
for every group of monsters

Vault - Tumble
low costs for faster traveling

Preperation - Back up Plan
more Discipline for more traveling

Companion - Ferret
10% gf


Passive

Tactical Advantage
Faster Traveling

Vengeance
Hatred and Diszipline regeneration

Archery
more damage


Skill Calculator

Old Post - DH Gold Find Guide Part I - Skills
Next Part II - Equipment
DH Gold Find Guide - Introduction

DH Gold Find Guide Part III - Follower

We have the desicion between 3 Followers.
The main purpose for our follower is the gf.
You get 20% of your follower's mf and gf.

Templar
+ 4-5% more gf because he can wear a shield with gf
+ heal and steady hp regeneration
+ help in emergency or hatred regeneration

Scoundrel+ 3% crit

Enchantress+ 3% attack speed

I prefer the Templar, because of the gf and he is the best help in emergency situations.
3% crit or 3% attack speed isn't enough for me to take another follower for gf runs.

Follower Equipment
Amulet 18% gf
Ring1 12% gf
Ring2 12% gf
Shield 18% gf
=> 60% gf => 12% gf for you!

My templar has 71% gf, this makes 14% gf for me.
(Not really worth to buy expensive equipment for your follower!)

Weapon (One hand Axes, Daggers, Maces, Spears and Swords)
dps doesn't matter
give him any weapon you can find

Templar Relics
No gf or mf is available on this item slot, so equip anything you find on your way.

Follower Skills
Choose the skills you like. Under following link you find my preferences.

Follower Skill Calculator

Next Part IV - Farming Area
DH Gold Find Guide - Introduction

DH Gold Find Guide Part II - Equipment

We search for a very cheap gf gear for nightmare, hell is another topic.
For nightmare it's very easy, only gf matters on the items.

In higher difficulty, damage and life is more important to kill as fast as possible and not to die.
I must do myself some more testing in hell to have more detailed data.

stats:
gold find (gf) values are minimum requirements, which can be bought very cheap in the ah
increase gold and health globe pick up radius some more yards are useful, even if we have our ferrets

Weapon
The most important item in our gf gear is the item without gf, our weapon.
only dps matter
bow or crossbow prefered, due to higher burst damage
for 30.000 gold you will get a bow with 600 - 700 dps (Server Europe, 24.5.2012)

Helm
10% gf
1 Socket
(difficult to find the right item in the ah, because also helms without gf and an emerald will show up)
We put an Flawless Square Emerald into the helm. This gives us 19% gf.
You must pay ~70.000 for a Perfect Square Emerald, which is only 2% more gf then the Flawless Square Emerald.

Boots
12% gf
Boots should also have movement speed. 12% preferred
(If you search in the ah don't put in a value for movement speed, it don't work or I'm doing it wrong.)

Helm	10%
Shoulder	13%
Chest	14%
Gloves	12%
Belt	13%
Wrists	12%
Pants	14%
Boots	12%
Amulet	18%
Ring1	12%
Ring2	12%
Quiver	14%
Flawless Square Emerald	19%
total	175%

I have 216% gf now from my gear, my next investment will be a better helm and better gem.


How does gf work?
If you would collect 50.000 gold with 0% gf,
you would collect 100.000 gold with 100% gf or
137.500 gold with 175% gf.

Formula
base gold amount x (1 + gf / 100)

Example
50.000 x (1 + 100 / 100) =
50.000 x (1+ 1) =
50.000 x 2 = 100.00


How much is an increase of 1% gf worth if I have already 175% gf?
It depends how often and how long you farm.
The better question is how long must I farm to get an investmen for 1% more gf back?

This question is difficult to answer, because I don't have exact data.
We need the base gold amount for 1 hour farming with 0% gf, (also no nephalem valor buff).
I didn't have the time to test this, but my mathematical calculation leads to 50.000 - 70.000 base gold amount for 1 hour farming in nightmare. The highter the base gold amount, the better for us.

Example I
base gold amount: 50.000
investment 100.000
+ 1% gf

=> + 500 g / hour
=> 200 hours farming to get investment back

Example II (Radiant Square Emerald)
base gold amount: 50.000
investment 190.000 (if you craft it yourself)
+ 4% gf

=> + 2.000 g / hour
=> 95 hours farming to get investment back

Example III (realistic for starters)
base gold amount 50.000
investment 50.000
+ 5 gf

=>+ 2.500 g / hour
=> 20 hours farming to get investment back



Next Part III - Follower
DH Gold Find Guide - Introduction

DH Gold Find Guide Part I - Skills

Updated build.

In our skill selection we focus on aoe damage, mobility and hatred generation.
This following skill selection is for an easy area like nightmare act 3, 4 or hell act 1, 2.
For later difficulties like hell act 3,4 we need better gear and more damage and fight controling skills.

1 Hungering Arrow 

Only for hatred regeneration

If we only use Multishot as hatred spender, then we choose Puncturing Arrow (pierce 50%) for most single target damage against bosses.
Otherwise you should take Shatter Shot (split into 3 arrows) or Spray of Teeth (crit aoe explode)

2 Multishot

Our main skill. I use it against every group, also against elite packs.

Rune choice depends on your damage. If you can oneshot most groups, then take Fire at Will (reduce cost) otherwise Full Broadside (increase damage). A further option is to take Suppression Fire (hit grants 1 discipline), but then you can't use a second hatred spender and use Preparation instead.

3 Impale or Preparation

Now we have an option between an strong single target hatred spender or more hatred generation.

Impale with Impact (Stun) is very useful against elite packs or bosses if you are too weak like in hell act 3 or 4.  If you farm in nightmare Impale with Grievous Wounds (100% crit damage) is the better choice.

If you won't use a second hatred spender, because Multishot for normal monsters and elite packs and Hungering Arrow against bosses is enough you should take Preparation with Punishment (restore all hatred for 25 discipline).

4 Vault

Vault is very important to travel fast and on higher difficulty to kite. Tumble for lower costs or Rattling Roll (knockback and stun) as defensive ability.

5 Caltrops

In nightmare you don't need Caltrops for slowing and kiting, but with the rune Bait the Trap (10% crit) it's a very good damage increase against bosses. In hell you need Caltrops for kiting with Hooked Spines (80% movement speed) or Torturous Ground (immobilized 2 sec).

6 Companion

Last but not least our Ferret Companion (10% gf). Free and easy gf. Must have.


Passive Skills

For Nightmare I suggest following Passive Skills.
Tactical Advantage  faster traveling
Vengeance Hatred and Discipline regeneration
Archery more damage

In Hell I would change Vengeance against Sharpshooter for more burst damage. Tactical Advantage is important for kiting now and Archery increases damage.

Skill Calculator - Nightmare build with Impale
Skill Calculator - Nightmare build with Preparation
Skill Calculator - Hell build


Next Part II - Equipment
DH Gold Find Guide - Introduction

DH Gold Find Guide - Introduction

This Gold Find (gf) Guide is concerned with solo farming  in lower level areas like nightmare act 3 or easy spots in hell or inferno with a lev 60 Demon Hunter. The areas must be tested intensely to give a good comparison.

The goal is to get a very constant gold per hour ratio with gold find. This can be done as soon as you reach lev 60 with a very cheap item set. Sure you can also farm in hell, but for a fast and safe run you need much better items. If killing many monsters easily and farming for a longer period of time are fun for you, gold find runs are the right activity for you. I like it.

The strategy is to wear as much gold find as possible, find very fast 5 elite packs to stack the Nephalem Valor Buff to 75% gf and mf, and then kill many monsters for gold, elite packs and bosses for rare or better items. These items are not as valuable if you would do the same in hell or inferno, but in these areas you can wear more and cheaper gold find gear. Sometimes you will also find worthwile items for the auction house. All other items can be sold or salvaged.

One exception is an easy spot in inferno, there you don't stack any nephalem valor buff before. You will find it under part V of my guide.

In the following days I'm writing more parts of the guide.

DH Gold Find Guide Part I - Skills
DH Gold Find Guide Part I - Skills updated 
DH Gold Find Guide Part II - Equipment
DH Gold Find Guide Part III - Follower
DH Gold Find Guide Part IV - Farming Area
DH Gold Find Guide Part V - Farming Area II
DH Gold Find Guide Part VI - My GF Demon Hunter

Nephalem Valor Buff

With lev 60 after defeating a champions group or a rare monster you get the Nephalem Valor Buff.

The buff increase your magic find and gold find for 15%.
The buff stacks 5 times, this means 75% magic find and 75% gold find.
The buff lasts 30 minutes.
The duration resets to 30 minutes with each kill of an elite pack.
The buff ends if you change skills.
You get the buff in all difficulties, also normal and nightmare.
With this buff you get additional item drops if you kill a boss like skeleton king. (This is not 100% confirmed now!) 

There are many possibilities with this buff, which must be discovered now.

Gold per Hour

I analyse the factors of influence to maximise gold per hour with gold find runs.

In the first part I derive the formula for gold per hour with all factors. Then I try to analysis the impact of all different factors, which are important for gold find builds.


Gold per Hour = Gold / Time


Gold = gold from monsters + gold from objects - repair costs

Gold from monsters = base gold drop * (1+gf / 100) * monsters who drop gold
Monsters who drop gold = killed monsters * A
A ... If every monster drop gold => A=1, if only 50% monsters drop gold A = 0,5

Gold from objects = base gold drop * (1+gf / 100) * objects who drop gold
Objects who drop gold = destroyed objects * B
B ... number of gold drops per object

Repair Costs = normal repair costs + exceptional repair costs for death



Time = monster time + object time + travel time + gold time + wasted time

monster time - time to kill a group of monsters

object time - time to destroy (open) objects

travel time - time to travel to a group of monsters or to objects
travel time = travel length / travel speed

gold time - time to pick up gold

wasted time = time for standing still (breaks) + death time + time to visit town



base gold drop
The base gold drop is dependant on monster level (mlvl), but we don't know the ratio between base gold drop and monster level, but this is very important.

killspeed for monsters
The killspeed for monsters is dependant of the mlvl, damage output of your charakter (offensive item stats), used skills and size of the monster group.

gf = gold find %
gf is a stat on your items and also some skills provide additional gf like the ferret companion for the demon hunter.

destroy (open) objects
How fast you can destroy objects is dependant of your skills. If you must aim every object manually you are slower else if you can destroy them with aoe skills (area of effects), like strafe for the demon hunter or ground stomp for the barbarian. This have a small impact on your time, but could be bothersome to destroy all objects manually.

death
It's very important to avoid every death, because you loose time to kill more monsters and money for repair costs. You can increase your survivability by wearing items with defensive stats and using defensive skills.

travel length
The travel lenght is determined by your farming route. It's essential to avoid dead end streets and run the same way twice. A straight forward area like first area in diablo2 act 5 or an area where you can farm in a circle are to prefer.

travel speed
Travel speed is influenced by your items (boots), which increase movement speed and skills which increase movement speed (like sprint for barbarian, tactical advantage for demon hunter) or which let you travel faster (like teleport for wizard, vault for demon hunter, leap attack for barbarian, tempest rush for monk).

time to pick up gold
The time to pick up gold can be reduced by items with gold pick up radius or as a demon hunter with  ferrets companion, which pick up the gold for you.


conclusion
As you see all these factors are dependant to each other.
You must find a perfect farm location with less travel lenght and enough monsters.
Then you must decide on which difficult it's best to farm. Is it inferno, hell or nightmare?
If you farm inferno you need more defensive and offensive stats to kill the monsters fast enough and you can wear less gf and there is a risk to die, but if the base gold drop is high enough it could be the best solution. Or farming an area in nightmare with very high gf and only offensive stats and skills is maybe the better solution to get the most gold per hour.

Furthermore there must be calculated that the monsters also can drop valuable items on higher difficult, also if you have 0% mf.

If you farm solo, you have a reliable follower, if you want farm in a group, it must be organised to have advantages.

What do you think?

Opportunities for easy multiboxing

With todays point of view multiboxing in d3 is not as simple as in wow, but with the change of mf, gf and +xp bonuses are shared across the group multiboxing for farming advantages can be possible.

With every new player in the game, the game gets more difficult.
But what if you are overpowered, and you can kill fast enough without any help, also if there is a 2nd player in the game, who stays all time in town?

The 2nd player in town is your 2nd charakter on the same computer or on a laptop beside you.

If you are doing gf or mf runs, then your 2nd charakter wears full gf or mf gear. No other stats are important this time.

You get 50% of the mf and gf from this charakter and 50% from your own gear. So you can focus more on damage. If you play solo you would get 25% from your follower and 100% of your own gear. The 2nd charakter has more slots then a follower. In comparison you can get more mf and gf with a 2nd charakter staying in town, but your killspeed alone against stronger mobs must be in range of the killspeed with a follower against weaker mobs.

gold find runs
If you are doing this at nightmare or at beginning of hell it could be possible to achive a killspeed to get a better gold / hour ratio.

magic find runs
Every time you meet a unique / boss monster you can teleport the 2nd charakter by klicking on the banner, so you can double the loot from the mob. From this follows that we must not be as fast as alone with a follower, because of the 2nd drop.
In inferno I think it would be impossible, but in hell maybe it's possible.

+xp runs / leveling a new charakter
With a good prepared item set for the leveling charakter, I think it should easily possible to rush trough normal and nightmare easily, while a 2nd charakter with max +xp items staying in town.
If selling charakters will be a profitable business, maybe this is the way to go to level your charakter as fast as possible.

I don't know if this can work or my idea has any error.

MF, GF and +XP bonuses are shared across the group

Source

How does this funciton?
All mf, gf, and + xp bonuses from every player are added  together and divided by the number of players.

for example:
Player A has 100 mf, 60 gf, 0 +xp.
Player B has 0 mf, 0 gf, 300 +xp.
Player C has 800 mf, 0 gf, 0 +xp.

The group sum mf, gf, xp is 900 mf, 60 gf, 300 +xp, divided by 3.
300 mf, 20 gf, 100 +xp for player A, B and C.

If we play solo with a follower you get 20% of the followers mf, gf and +xp. More basic about followers, you can find here.


What does this mean for us?
 I see positiv opportunities in this change.

• Leeching isn't anymore possible. All player in the group have the same amount of mf, gf and xp. So everyone won't neglect their own killing power. If you don't have the best or any mf or gf gear, public games are a good chance to do farm runs.
• If you have very good mf / gf gear (gear with a high amount of mf / gf and also offensive and defensive affixes), solo farm runs are more profitable then public games or you find other players with equal gear and group together for better farm runs.
• New opportunities for easy multiboxing in d3. See this post.