First some tips:
1) Get some MF gear and use it.
Obviously having +20% MF on every piece of gear you wear and fight with would be great, but the chances of it having great combat stats aren't exactly high. Instead make sure you have in your inventory at all times a helmet with +MF and a socket in it with a +MF gem, I have a perfect square, and along with that a 1 space item with +MF (amulet, belt, ring), I picked up a +23% MF amulet for 16k on the AH.
I have this in a nice little square with my potions and wearing them adds +60MF for 3 inventory slots, put them on when you get the elite mob or boss to low health for profit. If you can keep a full set of MF gear in your stash back home that's an extra bonus.
With 5 stacks of neph and the full gear I easily smash 200MF. MF on followers is nice but since any MF on them only transfers 20% of that total to you, probably better to give them stats that make them somewhat useful, not that I find any of them to be particularly stunning. PS: I'm sure + Gold is great also but it's more a nice to have thing than anything else I'd say.
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I have this in a nice little square with my potions and wearing them adds +60MF for 3 inventory slots, put them on when you get the elite mob or boss to low health for profit. If you can keep a full set of MF gear in your stash back home that's an extra bonus.
With 5 stacks of neph and the full gear I easily smash 200MF. MF on followers is nice but since any MF on them only transfers 20% of that total to you, probably better to give them stats that make them somewhat useful, not that I find any of them to be particularly stunning. PS: I'm sure + Gold is great also but it's more a nice to have thing than anything else I'd say.
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2) There's no point killing just bosses without Neph stacks.
Killing any boss with 5 Neph stacks generally nets you 2-3 rares. Killing them with 0 nets you 0, so far for me at least. I've never tried to specifically kill one boss and have my full +MF gear in inventory to swap on when they get low but I'm sure that's not a way to cheat the system. Kill bosses as part or at the end of a farming run.
3) Found a Goblin / Jar of Souls style event and aren't on 5 stacks? Then don't do it, yet.
Instead just TP and go farm up some more stacks then use waypoints and the portal to get back to that event with the ability to farm it for what it's really worth. Also for goblins don't attack them when you can't kill them fast enough. As a barb this for me means not attacking them when wrath of the berserker is down. Sure I can sometimes smash one down without it but after having lost 4 I don't like to take that chance.
It's also the reason why I took stunning charge off my templar follower, he's far less likely to pull mobs or start a goblin running from ridiculous range when you don't take that ability. As an additional tip for golbins and all mobs that try to keep range on you, they are not smart and will pretty much just move directly away for you. If you can use dash / jump / teleport skills to put the goblin or mob between yourself and a wall there is a good chance they will run directly away from you and in to a wall making it a far easier kill.
It's also the reason why I took stunning charge off my templar follower, he's far less likely to pull mobs or start a goblin running from ridiculous range when you don't take that ability. As an additional tip for golbins and all mobs that try to keep range on you, they are not smart and will pretty much just move directly away for you. If you can use dash / jump / teleport skills to put the goblin or mob between yourself and a wall there is a good chance they will run directly away from you and in to a wall making it a far easier kill.
Right, after getting the probably quite obvious points out of the way here's on to my "farming runs". I haven't mastered the ones in Act 2 yet and the one in Act 1 was completely sub par compared to some of the ones posted above, however be warned, if you're anything like me you'll be stuck farming Act 1 for a LONG time so this farming run may just make it more interesting. As an additional note the quality of the loot you find in Act 1 isn't REALLY long term stuff, sure you can find some good stuff but I'd actually advise that you simply just aim to get gold and grab stuff off the AH, aside from farming you do get decent gold from completing mini events and quests.
Act 1 run: Skeleton King
Start at the cathedral leoric's passage part, keep heading down killing the decent mobs and stop before getting to the king, head to the cemetery, clear all three crypts there and then go kill skelly with your stacks.
From here you can just rinse/repeat or continue to the next stage as the sword sections are relatively easy, the second stage of this has two guaranteed yellow/blue packs and likely a third and possibly fourth very close by in the forest along with the king of the hill or whatever event for a mini boss and some more cash.
The section after the second sword piece to Araneae is rather barren but getting to Araneae will give you the easiest of the three "big boss" battles in Act I in my opinion and a load more rares to boot. The section from Araneae to the Warden is really not worth doing IMO, six big areas, of which four require you to search around on means I definitely wouldn't keep going through this bit.
The section after the second sword piece to Araneae is rather barren but getting to Araneae will give you the easiest of the three "big boss" battles in Act I in my opinion and a load more rares to boot. The section from Araneae to the Warden is really not worth doing IMO, six big areas, of which four require you to search around on means I definitely wouldn't keep going through this bit.
Run 2: Warden/Butcher.
Start on the trapped prisoners quest (9.5 in log) and clear that level, then go and clear the good old cemetery again before coming back to finish off the Warden. From here just keep on trucking and kill Butcher.
ACT II: Maghda Farm
Start at City of Blood part II. (3.2 in log). Clear the town which should net you two stacks. Then clear the area around Black Canyon Bridge to get up to 5, there's also one really easy event that can appear in the area before the Bridge with a Resplendent Chest reward, Crazed Miner is relevant NPC. Then just head back to Maghda and down her, this shouldn't be TOO hard. Her "swarm" attack is easy to dodge when you aren't fighting her directly and so long as you dodge the very obvious and slow "power attacks" from the Maghda's thrall minions you shouldn't die.
From here you can keep on going as far as you like up until Zoltun Kulle or repeat. Although the Oasis got horribly nerfed when it comes to chests (Resplendent removed from both Ransacked Cellar and Waterwheel w/ Mundunogo) the area itself is filled with events/dungeons and elite packs. The sewers and all quest dungeons to do with the various Zoltun Kulle body parts are also filled with boss packs as well.
When you reach Zoltun Kulle though you hit a complete brick wall. This guy is 100% unkillable without using one specific build that is based entirely around ranged fury generation and spamming weapon throw, if you get in to melee range of his golems you'll get hit at least twice for around 20% of your health each time with only a 50% chance to activate revenge. The build required to safely kill Kulle is terrible for farming and the whole things reeks of terrible game design. Kill him if you want but you'll have to lose all stacks to do it and it'll be slow as hell.
Belial Farm.
I haven't ACTUALLY tried this yet so what follows is theory crafting. Personally I don't find any of Belials attacks TOO tricky to deal with. So long as you dodge the circles as they appear and don't get unlucky with the posion meteor shower style attack you shouldn't die to him. There is one elite mob just outside him and the additional stacks shouldn't be too hard to grab from Alcarnus / Bridge areas. Feedback would be appreciated.
BONUS: This is again untested but there appear to be TWO events in Desolate Sands that can give Resplendent Chests without a fight to reach them, neither are guaranteed to appear on map generation. I don't know the names of either but one is noticeable by a spiral formed from a dead worm, at the centre of the spiral is the chest, upon activating it mobs will spawn so you can either try to grab stuff ASAP and get out, grab stuff and just die or be a man and fight your way out.
The other is involved with an NPC called Lyndo who says there is a portal who killed his brother but made him rich. You activate this by using the nearby "ancient device". I've only done this event once and it just threw a Resplendent Chest out at me. A quick bit of googling suggest this chest isn't 100% though. You may just get mobs to appear or some gold.
Also check out the Farming Routes page and the Inferno Gearing Guide
