Hello. I wanted to share my gold farming guide for anyone stuck around Act 1 Inferno, specifically monks.
Introduction
There is a small dungeon called the "Dank Cellar" which is located in Act 1 near Old Tristram. Within the cellar there are several mobs including a unique mob, Sarkoth.
They are relatively weak and drop a lot of gold in addition to rare/magical items and gems. This location is easily farmable and I have been able to make about 350-400k gold/hour. Below I will detail the steps, gear needed, and my current Monk setup for this run.
They are relatively weak and drop a lot of gold in addition to rare/magical items and gems. This location is easily farmable and I have been able to make about 350-400k gold/hour. Below I will detail the steps, gear needed, and my current Monk setup for this run.
Steps
- Pick "Sword of the Stranger" or "Legacy of Cain-Explore the Cellar" Quest (Act 1 Inferno)
- Start Game
- Take WP to "Old Ruins"
- Run west until you get the Checkpoint (It's just about where the entrance to Old Tristram is located) This is the checkpoint where the run will start each run
- Continue west and check if "Dank Cellar" spawned. If the dungeon did not spawn, TP, leave game and repeat Step 5
- Enter dungeon and kill the four mobs
- TP and leave game
- Repeat Steps 5-8
- Note: Going near the WP in town will reset your checkpoint. If you need to vendor then use the merchant to the west (The one that sells dye)
- If your checkpoint gets reset, change your quest to something else, start game, and leave game. Then Repeat Step 1
Gear
It's preferred to have at least 200% Gold Find. Try to find good gear for yourself and your follower. Templar may be best since you can equip them with a shield which has gold find. I believe the perfect/ideal gold find for the templar:
Amulet: 40% Shield: 25% Ring: 20% Ring: 20% Total: 105%
The Gold Find/MF on followers is scaled by 1/5 so if your Templar has 105% GF it actually means an additional 21% GF for yourself. It's really expensive on the auction house to find perfect GF gear, but a good start would be 13-16% for each piece of gear. Weapons can't have gold find but I believe some legendaries can.
Also, I think having about 8-12 Pickup radius is good enough. For ranged classes, you can stand at the doorway and shoot the quill beasts without aggro. For melee classes, you should be able to specialize your build in order to kill them. Detailed in the next section is my current gold farmer, a Monk.
Monk Build
Currently at 228% Gold find gear, 14% of that is from my templar. The run is doable with HP of 10k and DPS of around 7000 but the run can possibly be achieved with lower stats.
In this picture, my current Monk build is shown. I've optimized it as much as possible. In the sections below I will detail the reasoning behind why each skill and passive was picked.
Fists of Thunder
With the Bounding Light rune for the extra AOEish damage. The Quill fiends don't have much HP so just focusing on Sarkoth will work.
Tempest Rush
With the Tailwind rune, you can move quickly to the cellar and runs become much faster. Once in the cellar, use this to get in the middle of the pack and burn all your other skills. Currently, my runs take about 20-30 seconds when the cellar spawns and about 10 seconds when the cellar does not spawn.
Seven-Sided Strike
With the Several-Sided Strike rune, this acts as a sort of "finisher" once your other +dmg% bonuses are up. After using this nothing should be alive.
Blinding Flash
With the Faith in the Light rune, the monsters take increased damage in addition to not attacking you for 3 seconds. This serves as an opener once tempest rushing into the middle of the pack.
Serenity
With the Reap What Is Sown rune, it serves as extra damage in addition to shielding you from harm. I pop this skill immediately upon entering the cellar and the damage is done once my mantra and blind are on.
Mantra of Conviction
The Overawe rune seems to be the best since monsters suffer additional damage from your attacks. Use the mantra as soon as you are in the middle of the pack to get the 3second bonus upon activation.
Fleet Footed
Extra move speed so runs are faster.
Exalted Soul
Extra spirit so you are able to pop all of your skills in succession. Useful also since Tempest Rush drains a bit of spirit.
Combination Strike
A little extra damage after using Fists of Thunder a few times. Can swap for something like Near Death Experience if undergeared.
Skill Order
With this build, the runs are fairly simple. Tempest Rush to the cellar from the checkpoint. Upon entering, use Serenity and Tempest Rush to the middle of the quill fiends. Once there, use Mantra of Conviction followed by Blinding Flash. Focus your primary attack (Fists of Thunder) on Sarkoth and once Seven-Sided Strike is up, use that to finish them off. Grab your loot, town portal/leave, rinse, and repeat.
Results
I've posted some videos on http://www.twitch.tv/cro_t. Quality is bad but should get the general gist of it.
Below is a graph where I recorded my total gold after each run. I recorded the data for roughly an hour. In general the cellar did not spawn about 50% of the time. From the graph we can see that I net about 387k gold in about an hour.
Closing Statements
Hopefully this guide helps you a bit in getting some fast gold. The runs can become boring due to the monotony of it, but you have to find some way to entertain yourself while doing it. I enjoy trying to make the run as efficient as possible.
