Vault of the Assassin runs

[zerth]

Anybody doing these?

It is by far the closest thing to d2 single player pit/at runs that I have seen in d3.

Been doing these with a WW/Rend 5 piece IK/Skorn barb consistently in 4- minutes. About 8 elites per run.

Note that the checkpoint allows for not losing any time transitioning apart from the 4sec tp at the end of the run so that you can leave game. Also the map is practically static and there is minimal back tracking.

[InteNuIgen]

I do these on key runs.

Only disadvantage is that you spend the majority of the time running with less than 5 stacks

[Helx]

I run VOTA more than any place, because A) of the density of elites, and B) it's probably my favorite place in D3. I've found most of my best stuff there, and as long as you run it on at least MP1 you can get drops as good as if they were from Act 3.

[zerth]

Yes, forgot to mention MP1.

Sure, there is the downside of the NV decrease, but killing 8-9 elites is equivalent to killing each one with 3+ NV. Each NV is 15%MF so, on average, we are missing less than 30 MF on each kill, which is not much considering most high paragon players run around with 400MF on MP1.

Unless I am missing something else about having 5NV stacks.

So, is there really any good reason not to run VotA exclusively d2spf style?

[SnickerSnack]

As InteNuIgen said, the only reason is that running only VotA will mean that most of your elite kills will be without 5 stacks. There really is no reason to do that since stacks give both XP% and mf%.

When I do mf/xp runs, I do VotA and then the Dahlgur Oasis. I get a decent amount of elites, decent variety, and a shot at a key. I would like to hit other areas, but I haven't bothered to find areas without checkpoints.

Though, the Desolate Wastes is my favorite place in the game. I could probably hit the VotA, and then sweep the Desolate Sands, hmmmm.