What is the most profitable farm spot or area in Inferno?

Question

Requirements:

• Do you need a certain quest?
• Do you need a high amount of magic find, defense or damage?
• Do you need a group to maximize profit or is it soloable?

Execution:

• How to get there, how random is the spawn (if any)?
• How do you deal with the monsters at that place?
• Are there situations where you cancel that run?
• Any tips on how to make the most out of that run?

Results:

• What is the loot quality, quantity and expected profit?

I am aware that there are multiple answers on this question depending on your gear progress and capabilities. That is why your answer should include those requirements. This question is intended as a reference of community wiki style answers.

Before you downvote or close, because you think this question is too subjective or too broad, please just try to be pragmatic.

Answer 1

Replenished Chest in Act III - The Keep Depths Level 1 (Nerfed)

This spot no longer exists as of June 9 2012, its a normal chest now.

Requirements:

You will need a high amount of magic find, and gear to kill at least normal monsters in Act III. Doing it as group (parallel searching) will increase profit dramatically because you will find the spot much faster.

Execution:

Set your checkpoint at The Keep Depth Level 2 entrance and go back to level 1. Run straight south east until you reach the chest above the first lava ground. The chance to get a chest is at about 20%, I guess. You will detect, that all other dungeon setups except that with the chest spawn can be skipped immediately. If you find elite mobs, kite them into that door in the north, and call your group in after securing the area. There are some strong spawns, like those dogs monsters (Soul Ripper) which have crazy speed, range and damage output, you might want to skip those. After you opened the chest, there will spawn monsters. Use area stuns to loot and run away with your full magic find gear.

Results:

With 200% magic find I get about one rare drop per chest with high (Act III) item level. Profit is really dependent on your luck with item stats.

Answer 2

The Warden / Butcher in Act I - Halls of Agony Level 1-3

Requirements:

You do not need especially high amount of magic find, but a good amount of damage output (about 15k) to beat the enrage timer. If you are not able to kill Butcher solo you might want to do this with a group.

When it comes to magic find: Magic find always helps, so get as much of it as you can. But do not let it interfere with the strength of your character. If you sacrifice too much stats to get high magic find, you won't gain anything, because you will have too much troubles clearing champion packs. It's better to make yourself stronger and enable you to kill the enemies faster then.

Execution:

If you start from the beginning of quest 9 (The Imprisoned Angel, and the Leoric's Manor waypoint) and work your way down the Halls of Agony, you will usually have 5 Nephalem Valor stacks before you get to the Warden. (If not, go to the Cemetery of the Forsaken and build up the 5 stacks before facing the Warden). After the Warden, go on to the Butcher. Doing this gives you two bosses with Nephalem Valor boosted loot quite close to each other.

If you are having big problems with Act I. I suggest you go back to Act III Hell and do a couple of runs there. Remember that equipment with a level requirement of 50-55 is generally worth much more than level 60 items even if the level 60 items have quite significantly better stats.

Results:

You will never be able to find any weapons which can sell on the auction house in Act I (maybe you could get the best of the best weapons sold for like 3k-5k, but it's not worth the auction house slots), but if you are lucky you can find some quite decent armor pieces.

Answer 3

Killing elites from distance (inferno), tower of the cursed level 2, with a demon hunter

This technique is explained in those videos:

Technique:

Tips and tricks:

Requirements:

• Do you need a certain quest? You need access to tower of the cursed level 2 (act3)
• Do you need a high amount of magic find, defense or damage? high MF
• Do you need a group to maximize profit or is it soloable? better solo

Execution:

• How to get there, how random is the spawn (if any)? Ask a friend to give you the siegebreaker quest
• How do you deal with the monsters at that place? Kill the normal mobs, lure/kill from distance elites
• Are there situations where you cancel that run? Restart untill you spawn in tower of the cursed level 2 (you can spawn in town)
• Any tips on how to make the most out of that run? Invest a lot in MF gear

Results:

• What is the loot quality, quantity and expected profit? So far, I made 27M gold with about 12 hours of farming, spread out over 3 days.

I got lucky and found a legendary that sold 19M as well as a rare item that sold 4M. But this is act3 inferno, and with the amount of rare items that you find you eventually will get lucky. I estimate that I find 1 rare every 4 minutes of farm (MF switch: 230%), and that you will make between .5 and 2.5M gold per hour, depending on your luck.

Edit: After 1.0.3, inferno has been nerfed to the ground, and the items have gotten cheaper. So inferno is way easier and you don't have to use these kind of techniques anymore. (But for the sake of remembering how difficult inferno was in the early days of d3, I'll let the content above).

Answer 4

Siegebreaker runs as a barbarian - act III

Requirements:

Do you need a certain quest?

Yes: kill the siegebreaker

Do you need a high amount of magic find, defense or damage?

It it better if you have a magic find set that you can switch when killing elites / boss, but it is not required.

The highest requirement is the gear, as a barbarian, you will have to spend ~5M of gear. The most importants stats, in decreasing order, are:

• all resist
• vitality
• armor
• reduced damage from elite/melee
• physical resist
• Life on hit (not required, but helpful)

Specific items to look for: helm of command with all resist, justice lantern, string of ears with high melee reduction. Stormshield is overpriced, get a 28% blocking/all resist shield for much cheaper. It will also have a much better block amount.

It is in fact possible with 1M worth of gear, but painfull. Shopping here.

Do you need a group to maximize profit or is it soloable?

Easier to do solo.

Execution:

Go to the quest waypoint to pickup tyrael. Then clear up the path to the boss, sometime you will find an elite. Also if the underbridge spawned, do it (~20% resplendissnet + 1 elite pack). Then go to keep deaths level 1 and 3 to complete you 5 stacks nephalem valor. Some other areas might be good as well, but generaly at this point I have my 5 stacks. Then go back to the quest waypoint and kill the siegebreaker.

Personally, I use this build and alternate kitting phases with sprint and tanking phases with ignore pain. It is the Zrave build where you change leap to sprint. Sprint offers good survavibility: it is a lot easier to avoid getting hit when running faster, it heals you quite a but if you have life on hit, and you deal damage as well.

How to get there, how random is the spawn (if any)?

You need to unlock the quest. Ask a friend to create a game on the quest to unlock it. It is hard to unlock by yourself, but doable. (I did it myself, but asked for someone to kill ghom for me, because it is hard as a barbarian)

How do you deal with the monsters at that place?

You tank them, and let your enchantress and Tyrael do the damage.

Are there situations where you cancel that run?

Personally, I restart the run id I don't find an elite on the way to the path of the boss, the under-bridge has not spawned, and there is no elite in the beginning of the keep deaths level 1. Sometimes you stumble against very hard elites, such as invulnerable minion, or molten/fire-chains soul reapers. In my current setup, I can kill about ~90% of the elites without dying.

Any tips on how to make the most out of that run? Magic find switch for every elites helps a lot. You also have to underprice your items in order to sell everything.

Results:

What is the loot quality, quantity and expected profit?

I take between 30 and 50 minutes to complete one run. The gold that I find is negligible. The loot sell value goes from 100k to 1M, with an average of 400k.

Edit

Now that Tyrael has been nerfed, this strategy is way more difficult that it used to be.

2nd Edit

After 1.0.3 Inferno is very easy, and you don't need Tyrael to help you out. After the patch, the most efficient item finding techniques consist of making long elites run (since their loot is almost as good as bosses loot).

Usefull links for barbs:

• Kripparian channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Kripparrian/videos

Full of good advice about game mechanics and barbarian playstyle.

• Zrave channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ZraveX/videos

Advice for barbarians, shopping, and inferno runs.