Any reason to farm act 3 inferno? Ever? Discussion!

[windstriker]

Hey guys!

Been farming act 2 inferno now for a while with my monk. I never die, and I can go with 130 mf unbuffed without switching and around 240 with switching. It goes really fast, I have high DPS and can play with 21% moving speed. (Im not one of the 16k DPS monks....)

If I switch to act 3 things change completely. There I do sometimes die, my MF goes down to 80 unbuffed. But the big difference, mobs die much less quickly because their high hp. Not sure, but might very well take twice the time to kill them there.

Let's say I would be able to farm in act 3 with the same amount of MF as in act 2, and that that amount would be 200 mf with neph valor. Then all that is important would be elite mobs killed per hour and droprates of high ilvl items. Atm, Im pretty much only put value on Ilvl 61-63 items. In act 2 the total droprate of these is 51,2% and in act 3 is 65,1%. This means that 27% (65,1/52,2) more high ilvl items drop in act 3.

This is all well and good, but considering I kill stuff twice and fast and can move faster in act 2 I do get a lot more of these items in act 2. And to be able to always survive and not lose speed, I will most likely end up with less MF in act 3 which means less 5-6 affix items.

Eventually, I guess I will be able to reach such high DPS in act 3 that the most important factor wont be the killing speed of elites, but rather the time it takes to run between two packs. This is how it is in act 2 atm. But to reach such DPS with high MF gear would mean some insane equipment that I can't really see when that would happen.


So, do anyone here see any real reason to farm act 3 inferno atm? Because, I really do not!

[kestegs]

At your current gear level, no. Eventually it will make sense though.

However, I disagree with your evaluation of useful drops. You have double the chance to get a 63 in act 3, the rest is just okay auction house fodder, I personally only consider my chance to get a 63 as a factor. There is also the fact that the high level plans only drop in act 3/4.

[windstriker]

No no no, the droprate for ilvl 63 items in act 3 is 16,3% and in act 2 is 9,3%, so it's more like 75%. And idd, the ilvl 63 is the absolutely most important as selling those items are a lot more lucrative. Will take quite some time before I reach a gear lvl when act 3 will be worth it anyway, but maybe eventually.

[InsaneAction]

Farming Act3 may take you longer but overall it's payout is greater... Provided you don't die a lot and have to pay the outrageous repair cost...

I've found 3, 6 prop plans and several 5 prop plans in Act3. I've never found anything past a 4 prop plan in Act1 and 2. On Average I'll get 1 or 2 900+ DPS 1h weapon in a Act3 run.

Heck, just the other day I found a 1109 DPS Spear with STR, Crit Damage and and Open Socket... Sold for 48mil in about an hour...

I too can plow through Act2 without dieing once and get A stash page + Inv full of Rares and High ilvl stuff... But I might only get 1 maybe 2 items worth anything. I run Act2 to get Crafting Mats mostly.


So yes, Act3 is worth it.

[windstriker]

So, you say the chances of getting items with more affixes is greater in act 3 than 2? Or might it just be that you have had some more luck in act 3?
I found a helm last week that sold for 50 mill in act 2, so it sure as hell is possible to find those items there also!

[InsaneAction]

Oh by all means there is good stuff that drops in Act2... But for me Farming Act2 is a numb feeling... There's no challenge. I Farm Act2 while I'm watching TV or watching Youtube Vids. Act3 I have to try, I'll run into a Mob that I get excited about because it's such a B!*@# to kill...

I guess what i'm getting at is I have found better stuff in Act3 than in Act2. Not to say I haven't found any good things in Act2.

[magicrectangle]

When should you farm a3? When you can do it quickly, of course.

I'm to the point now with my critical mass wizard where I can easily and safely skip trash. Killing elites may take twice as long in a3 as in a2, but travel time in getting from elite pack to elite pack is the same, and is the lion's share of time spent anyway. I can do a cydea + azmodan run in 10 minutes (~7-8 elites, 2 bosses). That's a pretty good run if I'm pressed for time. If I have more time I clear zones of elites, generally getting about 1 elite per minute, not counting time spent dicking around in town.

A3 is absolutely worth it if you have the gear to do it effectively. If you die a lot, or if you are unable to skip trash, or your dps just can't cut it, then obviously you should stick with a1/2.

I'm with kestegs on the useful drops, I only really care about ilvl 63. Some ilvl 62 stuff is alright, like wizard hats and sources, and other things that can't spawn as ilvl 63, but most of my really big ticket drops have been ilvl 63 (including two different 100m sets of ilvl 63 monk pants). Ilvl 61 stuff is almost never worth much, except for rings and amulets. I pick it up and identify it on the off chance that the stats will be perfect, but I'm almost guaranteed to be vendoring it, or bro-pricing it to sell it within 5 minutes for 50k or something so it doesn't eat up my auction slot.

[windstriker]

A factor that you guys dont really mention is the amount of MF. If I wasn't able to reach a lot higher MF in act 2, act 3 might be better for me also. But atm, I canr reach a lot higher MF in act 2 if I want to and keep my high killing speed, whereas in act 3 I will lose DPS or survivability in a way that it will affect my speed.
Do you guys play with MF gear, and if so how much, when you play in act 3?

Btw, 1 elite/min seems quite insane in act 3. Might be easier to reach that killing speed for a wizz than for a monk, I can't really see many monks doing that atm as it would mean killing a boss pack in maybe 30 sec because there sure as hell will be around 30 sec of travel time even when skipping normal mobs!

[magicrectangle]

Yeah critical mass lets you almost spam wormhole. A monk can dashing strike to (and through) trash, but that's nothing like wormhole spam. You can get the 10% runspeed passive to help a bit too, but you're still definitely going to take longer to move from pack to pack than a wizard or barb, especially outdoors.

I don't run with much MF, I think I have 150 with valor. With guaranteed rares from elites I'm just not sure it is worth the lost killing speed (and added deaths) to up my MF a lot. I still get 2 rares from most packs, with 3 being about as common as 1, so average 2.

[windstriker]

I've upgraded my eq somewhat during the week as I had a few millions to play around with, and it actually seems that I've pretty much reached the breakpoint for when it might be better farming act 3. I now have gear so that I have 195 MF unbuffed in act 2 and in act 3 I reach about 100 mf unbuffed. I do kill fast in both, have a bit more than 30k DPS and playing with overpower even in MF gear. The result is that I get a little bit less than twice as many rares in act 2 than in act 3, but ofc in act 3 it's more common with high ilvl. So in the end I get almost as many ilvl 63 in act 3 as act 2 in about the same time played. Might be that this will shift when I get even more familiar with act 3, as I then can do things faster, and act 3 should then be the better choice idd.

However, if I find as many ilvl 63 rares in act 2 as in act 3, shouldn't the ones in act 2 then be better overall because of my higher MF and so higher chance of getting 5-6 affixes in act 2? Not sure if this is exactly how things work, perhaps you have a higher chance of getting more affixes in act 3 from the beginning so that this wont really be comparable? I guess only Blizzard knows for sure, and perhaps not even them