Making real money playing Diablo 3

How to Price Items to Sell!

2013-02-08T21:50:00.000-08:00

Marko's "Nothings Sells and Nobody Buys Anything" article got my attention, and I realised I hadn't posted here in months. So here is my 2 cents worth on how I price my farmed, and not very good, items to sell. Turnover is key to making gold in Diablo 3, not that single big ticket item you dream of finding while doing runs or flipping. This is the way to make gold while just playing the game with no real market knowledge required or niche markets to try and corner!

While doing runs the majority of what you find is frankly garbage - case in point the boots I did a search similar for in the AH:

They have all the key ingredients for a pair of non-set Monk or Demon Hunter boots, but obviously don't even come closeto the Billion+ ramges we see with an unfiltered Search.

My potential buyer is a newly dinged Monk that is probably someones alt. They aren't going to be spending 1,000,000,000 per item gearing this new character, they just want the basics to make a start on Inferno. Dex, Vit, All Res, and Movement Speed. Anyone who has played a Monk or Demon Hunter should understand the basic stat requirements for each class, without having to get into the depth of IAS or crit benchmarks and which is better Acrhon or CM Wizards for example, or whether a piece without IAS will be potentially better for certain popular Witch Doctor builds.

None of the are stats are particularly high for this item, but they are at least all there, so I expect to do significantly better than vendor or salvage, if I can get it sold FAST. So my price needs to be bottom dollar to sell quickly and not sit for a day and a half clogging up one of my 10 slots just to return to my stash.

Lets see what our buyer can get in the 1,000,000 and below price range:

Note I've sorted by Dexterity as this is the main factor I belive will affect my potential buyers choice of footwear in a given price range. Only include those stats that your potential buyer (the newly dinged monk whats/needs to enter inferno and maybe enable mp1-mp3. He is not looking for life regen, exp, gold/magic find, thorns etc. and all the other junk stats which while nice won't help him past the difficulty barriers ahead.

Ok, we are getting closer with all those 160ish dex boots, but mine are only 154 so let's try 500,000:

Ok, now we are in the ball bark, however there are 2 things to note here:
1: Our items stats are the minimum for the search so lets consider our search parameters, I'm lowering dex to 100 (30% lower) for the next search to see what I'm competing with while keeping the remaining stats the same.
2: I want to sell fast, so I need to significantly undercut the competition, which here 300,000 will get my buyer better boots all around.

So after all of about 1min I have my final search. I'm seeing boots with less Dex but the same or more Vit, AR, and Movement speed for 100,000g, 150,000g and 2 at 200,000g so I listed mine at 150,000g

I listed these right after logging in my newly freed up slots and they sold within the 2 hours I was playing and gathering more similar items that I used the same methods to list at the end of my play session.

I play on average 2 hours a night or less, about 3-4 nights a week, have not parted with any of my own money on the RMAH, although have turned over my battle net balance a couple times in gold and gear buying and selling to kit out my characters.

Feel free to contact me in game on Kurllkrum#1929. I am currently focusing on Hardcore leveling all five classes by "leapfrogging" which I intend to share with my readers in a subsequent post. Currently lvl 35-40 on each class with 2 tragic deaths of Demon Hunters!

Auction House Farming

2012-06-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

Today I'm sharing a method of making a steady income of gold that can be used by anyone that has unlocked the Blacksmith. This should be well known to any WoW players using Enchanting and trawling the AH for Items to Disenchant however works slightly differently on Diablo, and is made fractionally more complex by the lack of addons such as Auctioneer and therefore the mass buyout options available in WoW. It doesn't need any spreadsheets and constant tracking for market fluctuations but this would help to maximize profits if you have the time and patience to follow your market in depth.

First we need to select a market. There are 4 tiers of crafting materials to cover. I recommend picking the one that is within your means to play with. The lowest end is going to be Subtle Essences (20-35g each) and the highest end Fiery Brimstone (100-150k each). In this example I'm picking Subtle Essences, obtainable 100% of the time from Blues in the 1-29 range, along side Fallen Teeth 100% of the time from Rares in the same 1-29 range, and noting that Blues also drop a Fallen Tooth 15% of the time.

I will caveat the following by stating it is an example and I am using round numbers to make the math easier to follow. Lets assume that Subtle Essences are selling for 100g (I know they aren't right now, although they could be going up due to 1.0.3 and people crafting for alts, but last check 30g was the nominal value give or take weekend and peak times market fluctuations. I'm also assuming that Fallen Teeth are selling for 100g each, also not a real figure.

Now we need to acknowledge the 15% Auction house Fee. 100% - 15% is 85%. So we multiply the price we will sell our materials by 0.85 to find the amount we will actually receive on completion of our sale.

So selling my disenchanted Subtle Essences for 100g each gets me 85g in my balance on completion. This is my Magic Number!

Take the market price of our Subtle Essence (100g). You may want adjust for anticipated fluctuations between buying you items and being able to sell the materials if you want additional safety margin or if you are willing to gamble a bit. Multiply by 0.85 to get your Magic Number 85g and start searching for ALL rarities of item on the AH. Lets start with level 1-29 Swords. Look for items you can bid on for under your 85g. I tend to find 1-3 per page in any given market sector and price bracket. If you set a max buyout you will be looking at 46 pages of items from your figure down to wherever 46 pages gets you to. It is unlikely you will get all the way to the bottom provided you start at a high enough buyout figure! There are simply that many auctions! The buyout figure and the starting bid aren't linked so I regularly see silly numbers like 40million buyout, with 100g starting bid. People do this for several reasons, for example to entice bidders by having a buyout price that puts their item on the first page. You will notice that if looking for low starting bids you will tend to find more per page in low buyout ranges, but you will also find more competition trawling for these same deals in those lower ranges.

I like to keep 100 active WINNING auctions at all times in my chosen sector. If you can't find 100 to bid on note the lowest buyout figure on the last page and rerun you search, lets assume is was 54,000, search again from 54k and you'll be looking at 46pages of items with buyouts from 54,000 on down. By narrowing your search to a range of buyouts you also dodge the other people searching just the Bids without Buyouts, or people going for the 9999999999 and down bracket. Remember you will get your money back if out bid so find every item you can bid on for 85g, be they magic, rare, or even ledgendaries. Now note the bracket you ended on, so when you log in the morning before work you can grab your "out bids" and rebid on either a lower bracket in the same sector (1H weapons for barbarians), or move on to 2H weapons for Wizards. Keep it up over a period of days. It takes 10 mins before leaving for work, during a lunch break, before you log for an evening play session or after a play session. Cut and Paste your Bid amount so you are hitting CTRL+V on each bid pane rather than typing 85 or whatever your "Magic Number" is for your materials. The seconds saved really add up when you get into the brackets with values in the tens of thousands.

At some point you will be ready for a salvaging session. With 100 auctions won and more coming in every hour or so your stash will fill up rapidly so make sure you have at least a full page clear for this so you can send a decent amount from the AH completed tab to stash to salvage at least a page full at a time!

Your going to spend a few minuets salvaging your mix of blues, rares, and maybe even a legendary if some one let one go for 85g in this case...lol. You might even spot an item that you can flip, which is always a bonus, but lets just assume it is all going to be salvaged.

Every item you got for under 85g the difference was refunded and you will make at least that in profit from your Subtle Essence. You saw it at 30g start bid, you bid and won it at 30g, you get 55g and the item so salvage, and get 85g from the sale of the subtle essence.

Every Blue gets your Subtle Essence so that is at least a break even.

15% of your Blues drop a Fallen Tooth so all those teeth are profit (you could vendor them and it would still be profit, but AH will of course get you more).

In the level 60 blues and rares bracket you have a 0.1% or 1% (I forget actual drop rates) chance of Fiery Brimstone. More bonus profit if you get lucky!

Every Rare you found you get a Fallen Tooth and a Subtle Essence, since the Subtle Essence was your break even your Fallen Teeth are pure profit.

Cancel the stacks of Essences and Teeth you currently have up, relist with the additional ones you just salvaged and get ready to hear that ITEM SOLD ding while you play or see the big chunk of change in you completed tab next time you log!

A WORD OF WARNING!

IF YOU ARE BUYING 20,000,000g items for you main there is no way to keep them separate from the junk you are planning to salvage SO DON'T GET TOO CLICK HAPPY OR YOU WILL BE A VERY SAD PANDA!!!!!!

One nice thing to note about the AH system is you don't have to worry about a competitor out bidding you by 1g in the final minutes of an auction. The minimum threshold for new bids will probably put him above his break even number, unless it is vastly different to yours, in which case one of you has gotten their math wrong. Alternatively he knows something you don't, i.e. he is going to use, flip, or if he is planning on disenchanting he is speculating on a price rise or using knowledge of market peaks to raise his "magic number". I get out bid on at least 50% of auctions I bid on. I simply take that money and keep bidding. Being out bid costs you nothing, unless it is happening all the time in which case your time becomes a factor.

Tools you will need for the Gem Market

2012-06-08T01:58:00.000-07:00

Hello again all!

Today I'd like to discuss the Jewel Crafter and his wares!

We all know him from his aperrance in Act 2 Sewers, his name of course is Covetous Sheen.

What you may not know is the upcoming changes to Gem combining costs both in terms of Gold and Materials and what this will mean, pending the reintroduction of the Commodities Auction House, for those planing to craft gems.

We already know the costs of crafting Gems and have access to the Gem Calculator produced by Diablo 3 Artisans. The Changes can be found in the 1.0.3 design changes blog here.

Blizzards design philosy has always been to use the jeweler as a Gem Sink, evidenced by the need to use 3 of each previous tier to make the next. his is down to 2 for the earlier gems. As it stood you would have needed a whopping 1,594,323 CHIPPED GEMS to MAKE 1 RADIANT STAR GEM, 3x3x3x3.....x3x3 (or 3^13). With the changes that is down to 62208, (3^5 x 2^8)

But we won't be buying Chipped Rubies in stacks of 62208 to craft our Radiant Stars so why does that affect us? Well it doesn't in those terms, but understanding the maths behind it brings me to my next point.

To profit from the gem market we need to know and understand 3 things.

Firstly the crafting costs. What you pay the Jewler to make a gem. Cumulatively these mount up, prior to the patch they cost so much more that since chipped and flawed rubies dropped relatively fequently at low levels there was a glut on the AH and none actually went into the sink. Blizzard clearly hopes to change this. Now to craft at that low level will cost only 10 gold, so when you have 2 in your bags you are much more likely to upgrade, if not for any reason other than to save inventory space.

Secondly the material costs. How much do the gems, and pages, or tomes, cost to buy from the AH.

And thirdly the AH costs. The 15% fee for selling anything is one that frequntly gets over looked. If I determine it cost me 100 gold to make an item in Diablo 3 I need to sell it for 100/(1-0.15). where 0.15 is the 15% fee. Giving me 100/0.85 = 117.6 or 118gold JUST TO BREAK EVEN!

In the absence of real data from the comodities AH which is offline I've used a chipped ruby purchase price of 1 gold, pages and tomes at vendor prices of 34, 54 and 64(the lowest we can ever expect to see). And from combining he crafting costs, material costs at the 1.0.3 levels we get a cost for a Radiant Star from Chipped Rubies of 44,804,331, meaning we have to sell it for 52,710,977 to break even! Thats without buying the plans required for the higher value end game gems!

I sincerley doubt we will ever see gems, even the first on the realms going or anything close to these values. So how can we possibly make gold from what is (over the lifespan of a gem a MASSIVE GOLD SINK!)

Simple: I would recomend creating a simple spreadsheet in which you can enter the values of each of the 3 levels of Tomes, and each of the 14 levels of gems and watch! I made this one which reverses the process, calculating in much the same way as done of my tips for flips post the top buyout price of the previous tier in order to sell for a profit the next tier having taken the crafting prices into account.

So we see that given that Radiant Stars are selling for 1,200,000 gold I need to scoop up the Perfect Stars on the AH under 206,000. As we know how to play the "snatching" game on the commodities AH (search till you find your chosen amount in the price range you want and press buyout repeatedly until you get a failed message telling you you have exhausted the supply...then collect your failed "bid", items, and refunds if there were any posted lower while you were spamming the buyout button).

Now with the prices we see here of 400,000 for Flawless wouldn't it be better to just flip? Well not really...people won't be buying Perfect Stars with Radiants Stars on the AH, knowing they can keep them forever with the ability to remove at will. How many Chipped Rubies did anyone sucessfully flip once the player base was into Normal/Flawless/Square ranges of the game?

Patch day update!

2012-06-06T08:13:00.001-07:00

So here we are a couple weeks in and currently patching 1.0.2b.

Where are we with the game?

Well a week or so ago Blizzard posted some info about 1.9% of the population being in Inferno, but th majority of characters still between levels 1-30. More people are hitting Inferno and that is where th money is right now from what I can tell.

How is the AH looking?

The majority of people have been having few problems with Normal, you can roll any clas and /faceroll though to level 30. Nightmare and Hell begin to bring challenges, but most classes can simply plough on though, perhaps buying a new weapon to enable the obliteration of even the most stubborn champion packs in seconds with little regard to anything other than damage and occasionally getting out of the way of something like a Mortar if Ranged, or Desececrate as Melee. Certain combinations start to cuase problems, but at this stage High Damage Output overides the mechanics. The abiity to kill stuff before it even get on the screen or bosses before they can use certain abilities is being heavily abused. In short we aren't selling much to the level 1-55 crowd.

So Inferno is where the money is at?

Right now people seem to be getting stuck in Act 1 Inferno. Some (including myself) have Butcher on farm to to point of it geting boring. So what are those people looking for? DPS stat, Vitality and resist all are the go to stats for every class. Find an item with all 3 in high amounts and you have a million gold item or more. But will people buy it? I'm finding there are 2 factors influencing sales. Firstly the average player is making maybe 100k per hour. If we consider the average gamer only plays 2 to 3 hours a day we are talking at least 3 to 4 days to be able to buy a million gold item, assuming they didn't manage to sell one themselves during the process. So there is limited upgrading of gear. The Million gold items are not simply flying off the shelves. If you wantitems to fly of the shlves we have to be pretty reasonable with our prices, with only 10 slots and the need to sell quickly to maintain any kind of volume I've been pricing stuff below the 100-250k mark. ie.1-2 hours worth of farming for that average player. Alernatively they are buyng gold from 3rd party sites, at the risk of losing all their gold and items which will be put back into circulation when they find themselves hacked!

So what are people buying?

Wheter farming Warden and Butcher with 5 stacks of Nephelem Valor or your favorite Chest, Tresure Goblin, or just Act 3 Hell people need Gold and Magic Find to up their totals for each run, without losing too much of their DPS stat, Vitality and Resistances. So I have been trawling the bottom of the AH for the 50 to 100k items with a Primary stat, Vitality, Resist all, Gold Find and Magic Find. Since I can only search for 3 stats I choose GF, Vit and Resist with a buyout cap. This gets me items I can quickly flip for decent profits during a 2-3 hour gaming session, and ready to restock at the end of the same session for sales while offline.

Hope this is useful to you all in the interim while we wait for RMAH to make gold buying safe and legit, and the long awaited flipping of commodities to resume!

Farming Guide

2012-05-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

So I promised at the end of yesterdays post to elaborate on farming strategies I have been using since the comodities AH is down and I lost that income, my characer is kind of stuck at the start of Act 2, even getting to Magda I take a beating and have to skip elites and make clever use of doorways to grab closer resurection points etc. just making it not worth the effort.

So I'm looking right now to make some gold to stockpile or invest in RMAH items and gold selling.

Basic principles:

1) There are no loot tables, any mob can drop any piece of gear upto the mLvl (monster Level) of that mob/or area in the case of barels, weapon racks and the like. You won't be searching for Fallen Lunatics becuase they are the only mob to drop a legendary weapon of a certain type. Everything has the same drop chance from every mob, be that a barrel all the way up to Diablo in Inferno. This means any area can be your farming spot of choice.

2) Magic Find will increase the chances to drop blue/yellow/orange gear. If you pick up everything on the floor bags will be full in under a minuet. With only 10 Auction House slots and salvaged components going for vendor sale value it's just not fun or efficient spending half your farming time in town, casting teleport, or standing at the vendor/blacksmith/stash to sell/salvage/store items from Hell or lower difficulty.

3) Gold Find and Gold pick up radius will have Nightmare mobs dropping Hell amounts of Gold pe either bygold r kill, and hell mobs dropping Inferno amounts of Gold, the difference being you are AoEing the mobs down in record time and with some gold pick up radius it is in your bags before it hits the floor! This leads me to sway since level 60 towards Gold Find. It's not about gold/loot per kill. It's about maximising gold/loot PER HOUR!

4) Liberal use of ALT and CTRL. The ALT key turns on or off the visibility of drops on the floor text. In options this can be set to always on for farming, and most people are aware of this. CTRL allows you to mouse over the item to see the full tooltip. If you know your items and affixes which you need to by this point you can quickly tell if the item is worth a bag slot and potental early return to town either from stats for an Auction Sale or gold vendor value.

5) Nephalem Valor stacks should ideally be up prior to hitting the highest density mobs of the level. This is straightforward in Act 1 where starting at Leorics Crown will get you to the Old Ruins Cellar for +1 to stacks, the Cemetary for another +1 stack, and a quick backwards check outside the gates for possible rare packs before entering the first crypt where you will find alot of mobs, and normally 1 or 2 rare packs per run. So most of the defiled crypts are run starting at 3 stacks, and quickly up to 5 stacks. After killing the Chancellor grab the couple rares, go back to clear out remaining unexplored crypts and then proceed to the Cathedral for the highest density of Mobs. These tricks can help massively in both gold and in shortening boss farming runs!

6) High Density Areas I farm:

Act 1

Start quest Chamber of Suffering, then visit 3 Defiled Crypts, Cathedral levels, Halls of Agony, Cursed Hold, and finish with Butcher.

Act 2

Start quest to kill Magda, work backwards to get stacks to 5, then forwards through to the boss. There is alot of desert and this isn't the greatest if you end up back tracking trying to find exits, but also some good caves, but I tend to avoid Act 2.

Act 3

This is where it is at inmy opinion, just start from the begining and clear to Azmodan, start closer to the end depending on how much time you have, but mob density, stack building and completon time are ideal for me.

Act 4
You kill bosses right of the bat with no stacks and then spend alot of time running around killing corruptions until getting across the great span and heading for Diablo where you will have rares and mobs to kill but it took me some searching just to get 5 stacks before Diablo unless I started at the begining, which just entails alot of running.

7) Always hug the LEFT or RIGHT of a map!

Your biggest lost in time is walking past the turn off you needed to get to the exit and having to turn around to retrace steps over areas already uncovered! Always taking LEFT or RIGHT turns enables you to clear the whole area and never have to back track. On finding the exit to the next area it's a judgement call as to wether it's worth back tracking to uncovered areas. In an open field hugging the edge revels the edge, then you can zig zag through the middle to clear the area.

Which follower do you use?

2012-05-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

On an earlier post I wrote about my build as I was nearing level 30 and Nightmare. 12 Hours Played Build and Progress. I updated my Build in Hell and this has been holding steady through Act 1 and I'm now at Act 2 Chapter 6 Inferno. I also posted A Barbarian Build that works!

Solo Inferno Butcher is on farm in my main build with 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor. Act 2 has been rushed to Chapter 6 sipping everything possible as looking at the sun in that desert will kill you without resistances! I'm looking forward to going back with more gear to kill Magdha again, ideally with 5 stacks and some friends to help on the control side of mob killing and kiting which is becoming more necessary in Inferno.

To that end I want to answer a question I had from Pitlord "Which Follower do you Use?"

In Solo play followers can be both a major asset and a total liability. I am currently using the Enchantress in Inferno butcher farming runs. Templar for Magic/Gold Find to keep down time to a minimum and GF/MF maxed out. The Scoundrel comes out for boss fights where I'm likely pushing the enrage due to build

Here are the builds I use for each and my reasoning behind each, and when I choose to use each.

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/follower#0100!1000!0000

The Enchantress is who I'm using right now, whinny voice, kinda annoying ditsy blond chick. But she has some nice utility:

Charm. The charmed enemy is attack able by both you and it's buddies, and attacks it's buddies. It's not doing any damage to me and it's keeping it's buddies from wailing on me. It can equate to 100% damage reduction for 4 seconds which is an eternity in this game. The alternative knock back from Forceful Push messes with my Barb that needs to be in melee range to do damage and self heal. It is too unpredictable when she will use it to help with kiting.

Powered Armor, as with all armor in this game beats the Reflect Missiles due simply to Armor in Diablo 3 reduces ALL types of damage.

Disorientate is 2 secs for an entire group that are now not wailing on me. While I'd like the 15% damage taken pool of Erosion Diablo 3 require intensive movement to avoid hits and damage from the environment so keeping champions and rares that would really benefit from being nuked with an extra 15% DPS in the pool becomes a dangerous proposition.

Focused Mind seemingly goes against my previous choices of control, but the 60sec Cd on Mass Control, and the ditsy blond way she will use all controls on Cd, can't be controlled by the player, and we have no tracking of her internal Cool downs short of a stopwatch makes it unreliable at best. While Focused Mind with my Smite runed Frenzy benefits more from 3% attack speed.

The Templar is my first choice for any farmable content below Inferno. The reason being his shields gives me an extra magic/gold find slot over the other 2 followers:

Heal vs Taunt. I'm the tank. If you taunt and die who is going to heal me. If I get below 50% you can bet I have a revenge ready, I don't need you taunting mobs away so they are out of range. I need more revenge procs to farm this content faster!

Intimidate relies on enemies hitting the Templar, so fail for me. Life Regen is always nice. I have pitifully low values of Life per sec on gear so it takes forever to heal out of combat, so Loyalty is the only choice here.

Charge and Onslaught. Don't get any ideas about your follower doing a ton of DPS and finishing off that rare pack while you go for a coffee. 200% of naff all is still naff all! I'll take the stun. If I'm in trouble I can open some distance, pot, wait on Cd's before jumping back in.

Guardian vs Inspire. The saddest thing for me in the Barbarian gameplay is the lack of fury spending we are seeing due to the fury generators simply being better than the spenders. I'm not going to rant about class design, but Inspire..lol. Guardian saved my life a few times in Hell, but I also found that a healing build Templar can be a liability against Vampiric + pool of bad stuff mobs. He will stand in the pool healing himself, which translates to healing the mob that dropped it!

The scoundrel is one I'm yet to find any real use for on my Barbarian other than damage dealing, but hres my take on him:

I could see myself bringing him along to a boss fight like the Butcher were I'm pushing the enrage timer if he hides in a fire area and I can't get decent uptime on him. However Follower DPS is lack lustre at best, so not used this guy much.

Crippling Shot vs. Poision Bolts is simply slows vs DPS. I don't rate slows as highly as I maybe would as something other than a Barbarian, but I'm not a kiter. Stuns do helpout, but unless someone is going to inform me that it also slows mob attack speed I'll take the DPS and just burn the bad guys down.

Dirty Fighting is the clear winner for me here. If my follower needs to Vanish to self heal it's becuase the AI fails and he stood in bad stuff. Either way he will self resurect in a matter of seconds so I'm not going to go to any lenghts to keep him alive, including talenting. Dirty Fighting however has potential to keep me alive, and that much more important!

Multishot vs Powered Snot, yes I called it powered snot due to the whopping 25% weapon damage it does. Most boss fights do have some adds making Multishot work for me, and although I'm a lover of stuns against Rare/Champions were mechanics just don't exist if you are relying on stun locks to kill bosses you are failing at mechanics becuase nearly everything is avoidable to the extent that they have "check me out I did it naked achievements".

Anatomy and Hysteria are simply a question of how much crit do you already have. I have next to zero so 3% extra is going to be more benefit than a proc that relies on something that has next to zero chance of happening. Can I rely on a crit every 6seconds to keep the Hysteria buff up at it's max uptime of 50% for 10% increased damage, or is 3% crit with 100% the better choice.

Hope my explaination of what I use and why helps you make your own descisions about your followers. See you in game and Good Luck!

A Barbarian Build that works!

2012-05-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

There has been alot on the forums about how gimped the Barbarian class is but having gotten to 60 I wanted to share my build which I used for solo play through Hell and into Inferno.

Frenzy increases attack speed and is a very good DPS tool. Triumph can be uses for more self healing from 22 to 59 when you get Maniac. Since the DPS from Rend whih will follow 5 stacks of Manic it boosts Rends Blood lust healing. In Inferno control becomes more important so Smite has been my rune of choice.
Rend takes Blood Lust for a sustained self heal during combat, while also doing some of the highest weapon damage, albiet over time of any secondary skill.
Ignore Pain is in there for those "oh &%$#" moments when that arcane vortex molten waller combo pulls you into stuff you can't immediately get out of! I previously had Weapon Throw in here which worked well chasing down casters, but with the combos in later difficulty I feel the cooldown is needed, And Contempt for Weakness does a ton of damage alongside the Enchantresses Reflect Spells ability softening up weaker casters during the big pulls.
Revenge is your main big heal, 5% per mob hit and I find I want it up as often as possible. In a heavy fight (10+ mobs) with Provocation it can and does proc back to back making it my biggest DPS and Heal skill and second only to keeping frenzy up.
War Cry with Invigorate boosts your HP and provides health regen and fury at the start of the fight so you have something gong in.
Wrath of the Berserker is to do as much damage to something as fast a possible to start the health globes dropping, boost you heals from Rend, or break snares!

Defensive passives are kind of overlooked at lower difficulties, but really make or break your build a the higher difficulties in solo play. I have alot of Vitality on gear, and still take massive damage from 10+ mobs in melee combat. The armor from Nerves of Steel is paramount to reducing that damage while I get the Self Heals rolling.
Superstition is an anti-Caster and Anti-Arcane, Molten, Plagued, Waller (or similar get stuck in bad stuff on the floor...it will happen!)
Relentless is the most awesome passive in the game. It has kept me alive for the next Revenge proc, Potion CD, Health Orb drop, Ignore Pain CD, next Wrath of the Berserker or just waiting for the chance to move and kite for a bit so many times. A really life saving passive!
*Edit I have since changed Relentless to Nerves of Steal. Add Armor Value equal to 100% of Vitality. This actually doubles my armor value through the vitality on gear and my damage reduction, effectively getting me 50% reduced damage without the need for being low HP!
So from this I get a rotation of sorts/priority for abilities.
Start pull with War Cry up, then Rend to get Self heals rolling, get frenzy stacked to 5 and by then Revenge will have procs and melee mobs will have closed in for the Revenge heal. Waiting for revenge I was probably under 20% HP and being kept alive by Relentless. Now I'm back to full HP. Use Revenge every proc while not letting Frenzy or Rend fall off your targets and you are good to go. Use Ignore Pain and Wrath against Rare and Champion packs.

Auction Tips for Flips

2012-05-18T16:33:00.001-07:00

Put together a short little guide to how I'm playing the gold AH while I amass a fortune in gold for whenever the RMAH actually gets to us!

The beauty of this is it works for any commoditity be it Essences, Rare Crafting Mats (Illustration is with Fallen Teeth), Any level of gems, Black Smith or Jewlery Pages, Tomes etc etc.

The principle works on the basis that whatever the average price has been in the previous 24hour hours it will get back there again within the duration of your auction, ie. at peak times when demand outstrips supply.

Image 1

The AH kindly gives us the info we need..the previous 24hours price, the stable price at which we are relying on remaining constant.

Now you see the price for 10 right now is 29 gold...with some spamming of the search button we finally find a price at or below our threshold of 22g.

Image 2

Boom! Click Buyout!

Now for the fun bit that most people may not know!

Image 3

After you click the following Buyout Confirm pop up (Below) you will be returned to the search you just did with the 22gold per unit price. So without spamming for more under 22g fallen teeth you can click buyout again (Image 2) and it will continue to buyout any Fallen Teeth at or under 22g per unit until there are none left, at which point you get an auction not found error message, but no problem, just keep clicking, if anyone posts more at your threshold you will snap them up!

To Salvage or Not to Salvage...

2012-05-18T09:18:00.003-07:00

That is the question, Whether tis nobler in the mind to take the slings and arows dropped by mobs and salvage them or, by vendoring get more gold from them!

The answer is relatively simple.

A blue of a specific level has a 100% chance to produce an Essence, and a 15% chance of producing a Fallen Tooth.

So for normal mode blue items

(100% x price of Subtle Essence + 15% x price of Fallen Tooth) x 85% (due to auction fees) = Value

Lets see a real world senario:

A blue item that vendors for 98gold while subtle essences are going for 30 gold and a fallen tooth for 150 gold.

(1 x 30 + .15x150) x 0.85 = 45g (44.625 rounded)

since 45<98 Vendor the item

For Normal mode Rares it is 100% chace for Fallen Tooth, 100% chance for Subtle Essence

(100% x price of Subtle Essence + 100% x price of Fallen Tooth) x 85% (AH fees) = Value

(1 x 30 + 1 x 150) x 0.85 = 153g

so if the vendor value of the rare is less than 153g you should salvage.

As far as I can tell so far the formulas are the same for all difficulty levels of mats. So all we need do is know the value of essences and rare mats that we will be salvaging into and we can keep this in mind as we visit the vendor/blacksmith when our bags get full.

I'll also reiterate that we need to be following trends in the market. If the price of Essences is currently down in the 15g area, but we know that at a weeekend it is likely to bounce back to 30g or more we need to be using the 30g figure, and not the 15g figure. Auction Sucess: It's all about timing!

And off course if the item is maxed out stats you could also sell it on the AH, but that should go without saying!

12 hours played build and progress

2012-05-17T08:41:00.002-07:00

So the strategy so far has been conservative leveling. I have a real life (son to look after during the day, girl to cook dinner for and cuddle at night etc etc.) So I'm not doing a D3 Marathon trying to crank out to Inferno in the first week.

Remember my conservative leveling and gold farming strategy? So I have been playing through quests, Getting to the end boss, and then leaving game to check the AH prices of crafting mats etc. to flip, and checking public games interface for my restart point and going back in solo again. So right now I'm going back in having gotten 2 quests into Act 3 at level 26 Iwill be starting over from 2 quests short of the end of act 2, killing Belial again, and thus out leveling the content even more before continuing on.

Barbarian Gear:
I'm running with a self healing focused build, so I'm looking for weapons with the Vampiric affix (heals you for x.xx% of the damage done. Gear is predominantly Strenght, and Magic Find. However Experience, Gold Find is on a few pieces simply because I'm dealing with random allocation within my own drops. And with damage done converting to heals I'm not shying away from DPS stats if the overall benefit is there.
Note: Don't trust the numbers in your inventory when switching between Dual wield, 2H, and Sword and Board. (+/- x.x damage and protection, or even the DPS number on the weapon), Equip the items and check your stats Damage number. I have been having some surprising results. The calculation system just doesn't work well switching between weapon types.

Barbarian Build:
No buff to worry about losing yet, so no penalties for switching builds about at this stage, but mostly I've been running, currently at level 26:

1) Leap with Impact (+Armor on landing) - Jump in and be able to take the beating!
2) Revenge with Vengeance (+Fury and Heal on hit) - this is like having a health globe on demand!
3) Battle Rage (+30% damage) - stacks with the damage done = heals so keeping this up at all times!
4) Call of the Ancients (3 npcs help for 15secs) - had trouble getting mobs to stand in Earthquake!
L) Cleave with Rupture/Reaping or Frenzy with Triumph - 2H/1H playing about with these
R) Rend with Blood lust (Heals for 9% damage done) - most of the self healing
Passives: Blood thirst and either Weapons Master or Ruthlessness depending on weapons.

Mobs to watch out for:
So glad I wasn't playing Hardcore. First encounter with Stinger packs in Act2 lead to my first death. They "cast" small wasps which getting hit by can be fatal if it's a pincer of 3-4 streams and you, as in my case are spamming rend expecting these "adds" to die. They are not target able adds they are projectiles!

Fallen Maniacs in Act 3. Indoors these things come running at you around corners so you may or may not see them coming. They explode on contact with you or your follower. I've taken to jumping out of the way and letting my Templar take the beating.

Hungering Pestilence in Act 3. I've seen these in the outside areas and the answer is like with Belial to just keep moving so you are never standing in stuff that spawns under your feet.

Just Getting Started

2012-05-15T11:08:00.001-07:00

So my run though began at 01:30 PDT after the login issues that affected so many of us. I played for a couple hours and then went to bed to be ready for an early-ish start at 07:00. Again played for a couple hours before running a few errands, and came back to the server maintainence which is ongoing as I write.

Playing my clearance strategy with Magic Find seems to be paying off, I have about 15% MF and 5%GF from items quired in the game, no money spent yet on the AH. I have a stock of 70+ Subtle Essences and 20+ Fallen Teeth, and 20k gold.

Currently I'm just watching the markets at approximately 3 hour intervals, 6,9,12,3,6,9 and so far the prices have fallen from around 30g at 6am to 30g at 9am, with the miday inspection to follow the writing of this post. This downwad trend is not unexpected.as I imagine most people are busy playing and throwing a few subtle essences at the AH undercutting whatever is there while few people are buying to craft anything. Unlike Beta no-one is going to be making big bucks from crafting level 1 to 13 gear. So I'm revising my strategy to biding my time to craft when I have the blacksmith ready for Normal-Nighmare transition gear, so magic items and rares in the 25-30 bracket.

What I have done is list a few of the better items I have found with +main stats, + magic find, +gold find and +exp in 7 of my 10 slots, including the 2 rares that dropped from my first SK kill. Although neither are boasting top end DPS or stats I kept the price low for quick sales, banking on the vanityappeal of being in all rares and having the character sheet tinged with yellow which there are sure to be ignorant players willing to part with gold for! I was also somewhat lucky in getting a 3rd Rare which was a mid range DPS bow for my Scoundrel who has joined me for the remainder of Act 1.

Meanwhile in other news of note I found a quest in the Lost Mine which is a dungeon in the Fields of Misery area you are sent to after killing the Skeleton King. The quest giver is our old friend Tashun, the first Vendor we met in Tristram. Completeing his quest involves exploring the mine which for me was loaded with rare and champion packs, and the reward is 50% off his items, making finding him a real bonus in that we are able to re-sell those items on the AH. I was yet to have a shoulder set and he convieniently provided a +11 strenght (max affix) with 2yrd+range on pickup (Weak), so I am using one pair and flipping the other on the AH.

I also found Scouting Rings of Wounding (3% MF which is mid range for the item level) which should have reasnable resale value when I upgrade, more than vendor price at least, and Adventuring Rings of Wounding (6% Exp which is top of the range for item level) which will fetch an even better return, again following an upgrade.

A note on switching companions though. Make sure you take your rings/amulet from your old companion before asking a new companion to join, or it's a trip back to Tristram to retrieve them!

Artwork!

2012-05-15T02:08:00.000-07:00

Bored while waiting to get on!

The servers are busy at this time. Please try again later (Error 37)

2012-05-15T00:20:00.004-07:00

Happy Launch Day everyone, did we expect anything less?

I think I may have said in a previous post that I probably wouldn't bother staying up to log on as soon as servers went live...well curiosity got the better of me! Now this isn't going to be some long winded rant about "How fail Blizzard can be", after all, tonight is probably going to be the biggest server load in the games lifespan. How many thousands of people are trying to log on at this moment? During the course of the game these kinds of peaks simply won't exist, but it demonstrates two things.

Firstly the popularity of the game, plenty of customers who will want goods from both Auction Houses,

Secondly the predictability of the masses, sense tells you not to bother because of the server load, but desire overwhelms sense.

So actually 3 things: I am susceptible to that desire, in this case to get on and play at the moment of launch.

So a warning to all would be auctioneers. Don't fall prey to that desire when you see that item on the AH for more than you can afford. The desire to max out your toon will be your downfall when it comes to making gold. Sinking your profit into items that don't meet your end goals of making gold will be your, and most players gold sinks! Consider the initial cost minus the resale value and fees when you out level it/find something better and factor in how much gold over how much time that item for your character make you. If the numbers don;t add up don't let vanity and desire over ride sense!

Launch Day Preparation Guide

2012-05-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

As we near Diablo III’s long-awaited May 15 launch date, we have some additional details to share on what to expect, how to prepare, and when you’ll be able to begin installing and playing.

Purchase the Game
If you haven’t already purchased Diablo III you can acquire it directly from Blizzard through the digital presale. You can also preorder the game at most major retailers and fine purveyors of high-quality gaming products worldwide. If you’re interested in the Diablo® III Collector’s Edition, please be aware that this physical retail-only edition is printed in limited quantities and has already sold out in most places that take preorders on games. We recommend calling around and checking if your local retailers will have the Collector’s Edition available.

Create Your BattleTag™
We expect that on launch night both the game service and website will be under very heavy strain due to the immense number of people excited to be among the first playing Diablo III. With that in mind, we highly recommend you create your BattleTag now, as it’s required to play Diablo III. Please keep in mind that this non-unique nickname is a permanent choice, and will display both in-game and on the website, so be sure to choose one you like! (What is a BattleTag?)

Regional Launch Times
As previously mentioned in the announcement of our midnight launch events, the launch time of the game is broken down by region.

The Americas (U.S., Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia) servers open at: 12:01 a.m. PDT, May 15

Digital Presale Download
If you’ve purchased a digital copy you can begin downloading your client right now, and we highly encourage you to do so. We also have a Diablo III presale visual guide available that may be helpful. As it may take you some time to download the full game, it’s best that you begin early. This may afford you additional time to troubleshoot any downloader or installer issues you may encounter.

Early Install
We will be unlocking the game's installer at 8:01 a.m. PDT on May 14. This will allow you to begin installing the game, troubleshoot any issues you run into, download and install the launch day 1.0.1 patch, and be ready to play as soon as the servers come online.

Global Play Launch Time
We’ll be turning on Global Play when the game has launched in all regions. This means that you will not be able to play in a region outside your home region until after the Americas’ midnight launch at 12:01 a.m. PDT on May 15. We’ll provide an update once Global Play is enabled, and you’ll then be able to change the region you connect to through the game’s options. Please note that characters, items, and friends lists do not transfer across regions and players who use Global Play to connect outside of their home region will only be able to access the gold-based auction house. More information can be found in our Global Play introduction article.

Launch Night Login
As we’ve unlocked the Diablo III installer early, many people will be ready to log in right when the servers go live at midnight, so we’re going to be closely monitoring the impact on the service. It’s possible we’ll need to adjust the rate at which we’re logging people in to ensure a stable experience, and if we do you may see a delay when attempting to login. Please be aware that a delay of up to 40 seconds is possible while the game attempts to connect you. If your connection doesn’t succeed in 40 seconds, you’ll be presented with an Error 37 message and asked to try again. If you see this error it does in fact mean that you should try again. We’ll be working around the clock to keep you informed of any issues that are occurring through the in-game breaking news window, as well as the official forums.

Auction Sucess: It's all about timing!

2012-05-05T15:26:00.000-07:00

Lets consider for a moment the typical cycles of the playerbase:

Log on, check thir auctions, send gold to stash and decide to spend that gold to upgrade something or craft a piece of gear, then they farm a few dungeons for gold and maybe materials, before they log off for the night they will list farmed mats and gear on the AH. Am I somewhere close? I think so.

So when will people be logging on?
I imagine the majority will be between 5 and 7pm, with time differences in the americas region of 3 hrs between East and West coast that makes our window for logging on between 2pm PCT and 7pm PCT.

So when will they be buying from the AH?
I'd imagine this will be within an hour of logging on, so 5-8pm in the relevant time zone, so highest prices I'd expect to be between 2pm and 8pm PCT, as the previous nights farmed materials and gear supplies dry up.

So after playing a while they post all their farmed/crafted gear and materials. When is this likely to be?
I'd imagine anywhere between 10 and midnight. Lets face it that most people have "Real Lives" that involve school or work. So between 7 and Midnight we will begin to see the number of active auctions increasing, and consquently prices falling.

How do I beat ths as an Auctioneer?

Well for a start I need to be aware of these time periods, and buck the trends.

Buying
In my case playing from the west coast. I'll want to be buying at or around midnight. I can stay up late to hit the AH at midnight or later, this would mean 3am if you are trading from the East Coast, or get up early at 5 or 6am before my normal day begins to grab the deals, the downside for me with the latter is that anyone playing from the east coast will have had a 3 hour head start on me clearing out the best deals. If I stay up late I beat them by a couple hours.

Selling
I want my auctions to stand out as the best deal to that player who just logged on at 6pm, so I need to be monitoring and keeping my comoddities auctions below the competition from 3pm until 6pm to catch the East Coast trade. For Item auctions all I can do is post and ensure they up during this time and reasonable enough to attract bids during the peaks. I could shoot for auctions to end a few hours after this time, which would mean posting at 6pm consistently. This means that an East coast player will know he will get his new badass weapon or piece of gear before he is done playing that night, while the West coast player will have it almost imeadiatly.

Weekend Trade
What happens at the weekend? While the evening play cycle continues to be in effect, the time spent increases to encompass the afternoon, so while more players are online the trends become a little harder to predict. There will be morning players, afternoon players, evening players, all day players, and some that stay up until the small hours. Couple this with the 3 hour time differnce from East to West and you have a full 24hours. What can be counter on though is one thing. Prices will be highest due to the sheer number of these weekend warriors! So I'll be making sure my best items are up for sale at this time. I will possibly consider reducing the commodities I list to make way for 48hrs of these higher value items in the slots.

Conservative Leveling and Gold Farming Strategy

2012-05-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

With the changes to the RMAH release I thought I would outline my personal revised gold plan.

Using the Public Games interface to determine level requirements.

On opening the public games interface you will notice that in this pane the quests are sorted by level, in the Beta the only games you could join as a lvl 13 character were Reign of the Black King, 4-13. Using this as a base line will be my starting point. So every level after my first kill of the Skeleton King I will finish my current quest and then log out.

Why will I be doing this? Well in the first instance this will allow me to check the public games pane and choose the lowest restart point for my character. Similar to WoW these will essentially be the equivalent of "Green" Quests in the quest log. Anything below this would be Grey and therefore, whilst Diablo quests still grant xp, the gains will be lower than if I choose the lowest public game as a start point (Green/Yellow) and the dropped items will have a higher level.

In the second instance it will allow for a quick check of the state of the AH. Crafting materials prices, Gems, and the bidding on a few Auctions, which will be forming a substantial portion of my gold farming, scooping up deals I can later resell as is of after savagling/combining.

So I will be leveling while farming easy content, steadily progressing, but not at the rate of the rat race, and not exposing myself to deaths.

My mantra will be to play like I'm playing Hardcore! DO NOT DIE!

Cash flow predictions...

I'm predicting a modest income of 10,000 gold per hour from playing and replaying the initial 13 levels, based on the beta, this is expected to increase as I progress though the remainder of the game in Normal, Acts 2 through 4 should provide higher drop rates of gold based on previous Blizzard Games.

Stash costs, are illustrated below, so first hour played I should have Stash Tab 1 unlocked. I don;t propose to open up additional tabs until at least week 2 as I don;t view it as necessary with the ability to mule items on alternate characters. The sash will primarily be used for collecting AH items for resale or salvaging.

Tab	Tab Cost	Upgrade Cost	Total Cost
Tab 1	0	2,500	10,000
Tab 2	10,000	2,500	20,000
Tab 3	50,000	2,500	60,000
Total Cost	60,000	30,000	90,000

Blacksmith leveling

Starting to Apprentice Blacksmith 8000
Apprentice to Journeyman 18000
Journeyman to Adept 28000
Adept to Master 34000
Master to Grandmaster 67,000 gold and 5 Pages

Based on my previous estimation of gold per hour it will take about 16hrs to raise the gold purely by leveling until hitting the point that pages are required. This will be a choke point depending on the frequency of drops and availability and price on the AH. A choice to be made here will be to horde for own leveling, or sell what is not immediately needed to generate more income. I don't tend to horde items like this beyond overcoming a temporary slump in the market. I expect these to go for a premium early on, so I will be focusing on selling until I actually need these. Same applies to tomes.

Jeweler Leveling

Starting to Apprentice Jeweler 5000
Apprentice to Journeyman 5000
Journeyman to Adept 10000 gold and 5 Pages

So while being cheaper the pages kick in earlier in the progression, with only 2 hrs gold to level yto this point. Gemming would not be much of a priority until well beyond normal, however with the ability to add sockets and remove old gems to replace with new, some players will be seeking to gain an edge though gemming with the highest end gems they can get, without the drawbacks (of wow for example) of losing valuable gems in the twinking of a lower level piece of gear. Overlapping with crafting the saleability of an item could be improved by selling already socketed, increasing the items value to players. What about if you dropped a socket, or 3, onto your skeleton king first kill rare drop? How much would it be worth now to those power levelers with 3 red +experience gems available?

So thats my first 20hrs of play gold generation, while anything I make selling gear or materials on the AH just gravy. In reality it should be less playtime as I will be contiuing to level and get more gold per hour in the later acts.

What just happend?

2012-05-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

So I took a few days off from playing the beta towards the end, feeling I had things pretty well planned out for release..and whammo! I check my reading list this morning and find the RMAH release has been postponed to a week after the game release and transaction and listing fees have been radically altered.

No matter. Part of the game is dealing with Blizzard changing the goal posts, so how will I be going about my business taking these changes into account?

Leveling up in the first week.
I don't intend to race to 60. This I foresee as being disastrous from a gold making point of view. The long standing threat of "YOU WILL DIE" hangs over us along with the repair bills, one of the biggest gold sinks in the game. One we as potential gold sellers need to avoid like the plague! SO what is the plan? Play though on normal, acquire gear, ideally with some magic find and main stat (Strenght since I'll be playing Barbarian). Then on completion of normal TURN AROUND and run through again!

Multiple Magic Find runs in Normal.
The chances of playing though Normal mode once and picking up a decent set of main stat and Magic Find gear in the first run are limited, however a second run though with the newly acquired set will be faster and yield more drops. This in turn allows for 2 things. Firstly a better set of stats prior to entry to Nightmare, and a large quantity of Subtle Essences from the stuff not worth anything to you or others. These can be used for crafting or selling directly on the gold AH to enable stockpiling of gold prior to the RMAH release. Rinse and repeat for Nightmare-Hell, and Hell-Inferno.

Farming the AH for salvageable items and gems.
With the stockpile of gold from re-runs I should be getting my artisans up to a level that corresponds to my characters. This will enable both salvaging and gem combining. Unlike WoW, where a single AH search with Auctioneer will allow you to gobble up every crafting item under a certain price threshold, AH farming in Diablo 3 will require more time investment to search multiple pages for salvageable items to bid, at the same time it is unlikely any one, or even combination of players will find and bid on every item, so there will always be items you can grab for a low cost, provided you are patient and set realistic thresholds. So before and after logging for the evening, or during breaks where you want to just grab a soda or a bite to eat browse and bid on everything you can salvage or gems you can combine. With luck you will also find an under priced item you can flip.

Crafting.
It is likely many players will be trying to craft something, sink a ton of gold into it, and be largely unimpressed with the resulting imperfect gear. Crafting is going to require investment of the gold, essences and teeth that have been farmed from multiple runs. A perfect or near perfect high DPS weapon or main stat + experience/magic/gold is going to be highly sought by those trying to win the 1-60 rat race, but I'll most likely wait to see what stats are selling. It doesn't have to be prefect, you can break even with 50% of the max stats available coming up on maybe 1 in 3 or 4 pieces as people will buy any improvement, but remember, without the ability to buy gold no-one will have the 500,000 gold you need to sell that prefect piece of armor for after it took 50 tries to get it.

After the first week:
Arbitrage
I'll have to rework my percentages somewhat, however come the end of that first week and the release of the RMAH there will be a turbulent time while the gold and item values stabilise.

Selling Gold
Once the RMAH is released we will see thousands of players who have horded 100's of thousands if not millions of gold with which to flood the AH almost instantly. Some players will be desperate at this point, knowing the RMAH is coming and those pants in the gold AH are 500,000 and they will be ready to buy some of that gold. But the long and short of it is that initial supply will outstrip demand so although prices will start high, maybe the $10 per thousand that has been steady on Beta, the undercutting will be intense, and within minutes the price could well be rock bottom, at a point where people stop listing. After a time though the bonce back and settle at a going rate. So there may be a chance to make a few bucks if you can determine the low point in that initial slump before the market recovers, and don't mind investing real money to buy that cheap gold.

Flipping between Aution Houses and Transaction Fees expalined

2012-04-29T14:20:00.002-07:00

I've been playing around in beta trying to get a routine going with regards to flipping items.

The strategy is simple, buy something for 100g, sell it for 110g, profit...or is it? Those of you that know the system will immediately see the flaw in the above statement. To quote Rolf Harris"Gee...can you tell what it is yet?"....

So what I want to post today is some simple, yet very necessary information for would be flippers of mats/items on the Gold and Real Money AH.

At the time of writing the transaction fees on Beta are as follows:

Commodities/Gold on both AH's is a 15% fee paid by the Seller.
Items on RMAH $1:25 per item
Items on Gold AH 15%

What does this mean for those planning to play the flipping/salvaging game?

For every 100g you spend on an item you need to be selling for MINIMUM 115g just to break even. So bidding on items to Salvage to Subtle Essence at 150g requires you sell the resulting Essences for 173g. So if the going rate is any less than 180g it's probably just not worth the investment.

Now we also need to bear in mind that since we are likely to be bidding on these items the sales won;t complete for up to 24hours. We tie up our 150g bid in the system until we are out bid, or win at the end of the auction time period. So the price of essences now is irrelevant. We are banking on the price of Subtle Essences being greater than 180g in 24 hours or mores time.

True Flipping is can happen somewhat quicker of course, buying 100 subtle essences for 100g, to sell at a minimum of 100 x 1.15 to break even can be done in a matter of seconds, assuming the market is rising, but as Marko has shown the market is anything but stable, so the real game is going to be guessing when the best time to sell will be. Is it the second after the stack gets into your stash or at sometime down the road (eg. 6pm on a Friday evening when server populations are logging on to play and craft, rather than 2am on Saturday morning when the player base has dumped 200,000 Essences on the AH after a full evening of playing and farming.)

Flipping between the RMAH and Gold AH is going to be even riskier. The margins a lot tighter and transaction fees potentially crippling. When I buy an item or commodity from the RMAH I need to sell it for 1.15 times what I paid for it, and for 1.15times the amount of gold that I can sell for the amount I paid, plus 1.0329 times the amount paid to cover Paypal to cash out. Some may not be following me at this point so I'll explain this again: I will be paying transaction fee of 15% on selling the item on the Gold AH, another transaction fee of 15% selling the gold on the RMAH, and a further transaction fee for cashing out to Paypal of 2.9% plus 0.3%. So that $1.50 item needs to generate $2.05 (1.5x1.15x1.15x1.032) worth of gold. So if gold is worth $1 per 1000 I need to sell for at least 2050 gold, and to sell the gold for at least $1 per thousand to break even. If gold is like Beta and worth closer to $10 per Thousand the item needs to sell for 205 gold to break even. Subtle Essences are a good example of where this is currently workable in Beta. It is possible to buy Subtle Essences on Beta AH for under $1 each, making your threshold value to sell on gold AH 137gold, assuming a 10 to 1000 ratio, however as this drops on release to closer to $1 per thousand or lower we would need to be either buying our Essences for 10c each, or selling for 1370g each to profit from this revenue stream.

Difficulty and Tiers for Cratfed/Farmed Item Stats (post 2)

2012-04-25T15:58:00.002-07:00

This is the second of 2 articles discussing my thoughts on playing the crafting aspect of Diablo 3. I previously discussed stats on items, crafting and selling items based on what players will want at certain transition points in the game. http://www.diablo3artisans.com/ have a Barbarian build page, which also discusses the levels at which we will see these choke points. Whilst I have little information to go on I thought I would share what I have, and some assumptions I am making at this early stage of the game. Marcko had something to say on item crafting and wanted stats back in March.

Level 1 to 30 is going to be in Normal.

Desirable stats will be those that increase DPS (Strenght / Dexterity / Intelligence and +damage / Attack speed, Magic Find and Gold Find. Experience will always be a bonus to those wishing to level faster.

Weapons with high DPS will always be desirable, with those at the top 1-2% of the range accompanied by relevant stats selling for a premium.

Level 30 to 45 players will be venturing into Nightmare difficulty.

The same main stats will apply here for increasing DPS as will the desirability of high DPS weapons. What will likely change is the desirability of Vitality and Orb Health bonuses. I don't predict Nightmare as having much in the way of resistance based fights. This is mainly due to Resistances on gear affixes coming in at level 31, 38 and 45, making for a total of 3 possible affixes for each resistance, vs 10 for levels 45-60. If resistance only appears in Nightmare it can't be deamed nessescary for Nightmare (you would have to complete the game to gear for it...dosen't work.

Along with the desire for Vitality I would also expect to see self healing abilities on gear really rocket in value. Those High DPS weapons we saw in Normal sellling for a premium will now be worth considerably more with the Vampiric affix. 1 to 3% of damage done converted to life.

Level 45 to 60 players will be venturing into Hell difficulty.

This is where I expect to see more emphasis on resistances coming in, with a view to end game level 60s in Inferno. These are the levels where players will farm/craft/buy the gear that will keep them alive in the first runs though Inferno. If all you stack at this point is vitality the chances are you will feel very squishy, the 20-30% resitance and damage reduction items you were able to aquire in Nightmare now come into play, as you progress these go up to 60% by the time you are ready for inferno. I for see people having to carry a piece or each resistance either in bags or in the bank ready to equip when mobs known to do that kind of damage come into view. Beware the unwary adventurer that jumps into the fray with the fire breathing skelltons of the deeps (made this up!)without equipping his fire res piece (or whatever is the appropriate piece). It also prompts the question as to how the resistances will work. Can I get to 100%? Then again would I want to..as I would be gimped on everything else? If I have 100% fire res the mobs will still deal a mixture including physical? Are there Diminishing returns? I don;t see anything such as "unique equipped" preventing stacking the heck out of a resistance, but for the above reasons I can't imagine peopl wanting/needed more than one or 2 peices of each equipped at one time, given top end is 60%, so 2 pieces neting 120% reduction.

Level 60 Inferno End Game

Experience on a piece of gear at this level will be have become completely worthless, fortunately we won't see that after level 55 items. What this means is players seeking to replace all those pieces they bought from us previously that had it. Woot! The other thing we notice is a number of stats with multiple lvl 60+ item affixes. What this means for us as crafters will be a larger range of stats from which people will be choosing, Affixes exist for item levels 60, 61,62 and 63, which is likely to relate to mob levels. Bosses being level 63 will presumably be the only mobs capable of dropping the level 63 affixes, rare spawns 62, and trash mobs 61. There are also a number of level 70, these could be for Legendary items or possibly just place holders for future expansions? The other question is what will end game crafting entail?

My views on Crafting

WoW is a good example (feel free to argue) of a redundant end game crafting system. The cost to craft end game epics is such that only the very first few created are profitable, the only time I see these done are within guilds to improve the overall raid group performance. To buy Essence of Destruction and all the other mats required to craft a BoE Dragon Soul level epic costs more than all but a select few are willing to pay for the Item (End game raiding guilds pushing for server firsts are your liekly buyers with gold from guild banks). With multiple other items to fill the availible slots, and the price astronomical, they barely make the crafting cost on the open market, let alone a decent level of profit. If someone has money to burn gearing an alt that isn't raiding you might get a sale to help them bump their iLvl, but thats about it. The real money I see in WoW is in high turnover items...enchants/gems/consumables...where one can make a good 50 to 100% profit margin, vs making a Mekineers chopper or a curent raid tier belt for 16000 and selling it for 16500 on AH. In Diablo 3 the system is such that crafting materials will be consumed in massive numbers creating junk items, and this will set the price of the prefect items in the AH. I craft 100 pieces of armor costing 3000 gold each making the one perfect one cost 300000, so I'll sell it for 600000, and becuase it is the best one on the AH and there aren't 100 exactly the same going for 3000g each I'll hopefully make a profit.

Beta 18 Run throughs

2012-04-25T12:09:00.001-07:00

To test the Diablo 3 gold farming strategies I suggested I did another few runs through to gather some actual figures to enable comparisions between the strategies. It's a small sample size, a little over 1 hour played per strategy, but revealing.

Full Run Through Act 1.

Character : 45dps Lvl 13 Barbarian,
Time Taken: 1hr 10mins
Gold Looted/Quest Rewards: 14514               Gold Find: 8%
Magic Items Looted: 36                                   Magic Find: 6%

Magic Items base (not attributable to gold find) (36/1.06):34, 29.1 per hour unbuffed.
Gold Base (not attributable to Gold Find) (14514/1.08):13438, 11520 per hour unbuffed.

Run Through "Reign of the Black King" questline.

Character : 45dps Lvl 13 Barbarian,
Time Taken: 1hr 5mins, 2 runs completed
Gold Looted/Quest Rewards: 11513               Gold Find: 8%
Magic Items Looted: 28                                   Magic Find: 6%

Magic Items base (not attributable to gold find) (23/1.06):22, 20 per hour unbuffed.
Gold Base (not attributable to Gold Find) (11513/1.08):10660, 9840 per hour unbuffed.

So for Act 1 at least farming the complete stroyline is about 17% more productive than farming just the final quest area. I am quite suprised by this finding, although with hindsight I see the difference is going to be in both the quest rewards and the large number of cellars/rare mobs in the external areas versus the final dungeon. It seems true what Blizzard intended that exploring should yield better rewards than boss runs.

Farming Cemetary and Dark Cellar Rares.

tbc.

Farming and Crafting ideas (Post 1)

2012-04-25T09:47:00.001-07:00

A wealth of information is out there now regarding these 2 key areas for making gold early on at release. The advantage anyone who has played the beta has now is, or should be a pretty thorough knowledge of the first 13 levels on normal mode, and what stats will ultimately prove most desirable during peoples initial play though.

Marko has been analyzing various crafting gears and stats, while others have been touting the multiple farming strategies available.

For me I want to cover both over the next couple days in articles starting with Farming:

There are multiple ways to profit from farming, some with a group, or accomplice, others solo. Some are based around stacking Magic or Gold Find, others simply on killing quickly.

Strategy 1 : Simply run through the Act 1 game (beta levels) on normal repeatedly building up a damage/gold/magic find set. This sounds simple, and is. Each run through takes under an hour, even being thorough and when I say thorough I mean breaking every barrel, turning over every corpse, exploring every dead end, searching every book shelf.

What are the benefits of this strat? Well death remains a near impossibility. You will kill quickly, have high magic/gold find. I tend to get over 10k per run and near 40 salvageable blues, at beta prices these mats go for 120-150g each. Total 15-16k per hour.

Downside? Once players are though this content, unlike WoW where you have to level by crafting items, they will not need these mats as they won't be crafting normal level gear. Farming this section will cease to be profitable compared to farming other areas and difficulties where players do need the gear/mats. My thoughts would be the best place to do this after release will be an area at the transition between 2 difficulty levels, initially between normal and nightmare, then nightmare and hell, and finally hell and inferno. Here the gold/drops should be the best, and the demand for those drops the highest as players try to gear though the transition.

Strategy1b:
As above but limit your runs to a quest/quests within the act, the later quests are likley to be more profitable, for example Reign of the Black King.
Strategy 2: Locate farmable packs/areas. These include my favorite run which involves getting to the Cemetery of the Forsaken Checkpoint. From here run a lap of the graveyard to find the rare spawn (may or may not be here), kill and loot that, then go to the Waypoint, hit Old Ruins. Run a lap of the Old Ruins looking for the entrance to the Dark Cellar (random spawn so may or may not be here). Kill/loot whatever is inside (treasure pygmy, rare mob/pack, chest). Then use town portal (T) and log out. When you resume game you are back at the Cemetery. Rinse and repeat.

Benefits? These rare packs have increased chances to drop Magic Items, and Gold. The strategy holds true for any phase of the game where checkpoints and waypoint placement allows, including Manglemaw where from the checkpoint after you kill him you can log out and back in to do a 180 though the door and kill him again.

Downsides? Blizzard could easily nerfbat these strategies into the ground, move the checkpoints away, fix the door on Manglemaw. (Link to an article on Diablo Fans and video). However I actually doubt it, and the reason I doubt it is that it isn't actually all that profitable compared to Strategy 1. Smashing these couple mini bosses/rares and re logging gives comparable gold/magic items per hour from what I've seen so far to running the whole act. Simply put instead of spending 1 to 2 minutes simply running to find the are mobs in strategy 1 you are on a constant roll of kills. Once release hits and we are into harder content this may change. Farming a pack of rares for rare/legendary items worth 100's of thousands to the right bidder may tip the scales, but since any item can drop from any mob I'll probably be sticking to my first Strat.

Strategy 3: Working together to take advantage of increased first kill drop rates. This I have seen touted on various sites, and there are youtube videos showing the details of how they work, are based on the first boss kill by a character granting additional rares. So how does it work? As with strat 2 you are farming a boss repeatedly, eg. The Skeleton King. You and your buddy get to the checkpoint and both of you are saved to it on your mains. One of you drops group and brings a newly created character that hides in a corner while you kill the boss, then he loots the rares that drop because it was his first time and hands them over to you. He then deletes that character and logs on to his main, starting back at the checkpoint you saved at, you log your main to get saved to the checkpoint again, and then drop group and bring your newly created character.

Benefits? If it works at higher difficulty levels I can see those dong it able to make considerable sums in a very short period of time. However I personally hope it doesn't work because it's so broken, which brings me to the downsides.

Downsides? The first time though thing works fine in Normal against the Skeleton King. He is very straight forward to solo with any reasonably geared level 13, with a level 60 it will probably be a one shot. The question mark is going to be over how profitable this becomes. Will a level 1 be able to get Nightmare/Hell/Inferno rares from a first kill by being carried by a geared 60? The SK rares, frankly, are for the most part pretty worthless. Stats wise I see much better blue items regularly on the AH. Is anyone going to be buying these outside of the Beta?

Further more I'd be concerned if this could be considered an exploit. You would be utilising a feature of the game in a way that was not intended. Blizzard did not intend for people to be logging in and out to get saved to checkpoints so they could create level 1 characters to stand in corners and not take part in kills and then scoop up rare and potentially valuable items. It would be similar if someone in WoW found a way to abuse the raid lockout system to reset raid bosses enabling a guild to kill them an infinite number of times a week.

Strategy 4: Farm the Auction House, where some say the "Real PvP is at". Yes, if that's what floats your boat go for it. I won't be one to sit for hours refreshing the screen looking for the nubbins that just posted a legendary sabre for 100gold, or 100 subtle essences for the default 14g vendor price. It works, it's great, but simply not my cup of tea.

On the other hand there is no reason not to, in the course of your normal logging in and out have a look at prices and take advantage of price fluctuations, bid on low priced items you can flip, as that only takes 5 minutes of your time, and you might get uber lucky finding something like I suggested above.

There is also high potential for arbitrage between the auction houses, buy something on RMAH for $1, sell it on Gold AH for 2000 gold, sell the gold on RMAH for $2. Since we don't know yet what the prices will look like for gold/items in RMAH or Gold it's hard to say how much profit may lie in doing this, and early in the game as Marko points out in his guide players won't have the large gold stockpiles to make large gold purchases, so this one will be further down the line from release.

So there you have it, my summary of farming ideas from both my personal beta experiences and gathered from the far corners of the interweb! Links on the side bar to some of my sources. Please check those guys out too!

Excel Spreadsheet to show item max and min item affixes

2012-04-21T11:47:00.001-07:00

I created this excel spreadsheet based on the beta data from www.d3inferno.com/ to help me analyse Items in D3. Having the Max and Min Stats for any given item level will enable me to quickly reference the item I just picked up, crafted or am looking at in the AH to see if it is maxed out for it's Item Level. I will state that I omitted the class specific abilities as simply too numerous to put together, so this is somewhat incomplete as is.

Key dates and times

2012-04-20T12:45:00.001-07:00

Open Beta testing:

Friday, April 20 at 12:01 p.m. PDT (noon), and Monday, April 23 at 10:00 a.m. PDT.

Beta Closes

May 1st 11:59 p.m PDT (midnight).

Game Launch

May 15th 12:00 a.m PDT (midnight).

A blue post that caught my eye

2012-04-20T12:34:00.001-07:00

To be clear: On your first kill of a boss in normal difficulty, you are guaranteed a random rare and a class rare, as well as some blues and other stuff. All other kills on all difficulties result in standard drop probabilities. You have a decent chance of getting a rare or two every time you kill a boss.

So will it still be worthwhile running though multiple times? I think not, the gold drops and value of the low end items reachable will be negated by the higher value drops of later levels. The excessive farming of the Skeleton King in beta was also achieved by a waypoint co-op "exploit" which is likely to be fixed rapidly if not already, and even if it is not it is unlikely to be advantageous at higher levels than Act 1 Normal.

For more blue posts about DIablo 3 check out the blues tracker at http://www.diablofans.com/

Beta 17 run through

2012-04-19T11:05:00.001-07:00

I ran though Beta 17 having previously completed the Betamaxed and Overachiever in Beta 16. My run though Beta 17 has been with a view to forming strats for gold, item and real money farming and I'd like to share those findings with you.

I chose a Barbarian as they have a good level of survivability combined with melee range AoE attacks, namely the spammable Cleave and Hammer for fury dump. By remaining in melee range I am closer to the gold and items as they drop thus making for more efficient farming than a Wizard or Demon Hunter which tends to leave dead mobs, and therefore gold, spread further away due to kiting and atacking from range, which will become more so in higher difficulty levels. The Witch Doctor's pets in Beta 16 I found to be an annoyance due to attacking mobs around corners etc. which again leaves loot spread far and wide. The Monk would also be viable, however are squishier that the Barbarian. Whilst the other classes also have mobility and control the Barbarian's Leap and Ground Stomp at the low levels seem ideally suited to my needs.

I aimed to cover the whole map on the run, which took 1.5 hours hours, including back tacking when I found the exit but had left areas uncleared (particualry Defiled Crypt levels and Cathedral. This run finished with me at level 10 on the Skeleton King, and a total of 13,000 gold. For a comparison I re ran the level this time going as fast as possible to the end, this left me at level 8 on the skeleton king which made for a longer and harder solo fight, less gear, and neted a lttle over 6k gold after 45mins. Needless to say mathematically both runs result in a gold farm rate of 8k per hour. Assuming I can get $1 per thousand gold on live servers this is $8 per hour, a california minimum wage before selling additional items!

In Beta the prices of gold are somewhat inflated due to the $50 beta bucks everyone gets, however prices last night were in the $9 to $14 per thousand range. This may actually not be far off the levels on live servers in the first week or so of launch as people will not have gold to level atrisans, stashes, and buy crafting mats and gear and demand will be highest. As dificulties increase the amount of gold dropped from mobs in game will also increase, however so will the average players repair bills and gear expenses, those wanting to level to 60 and inferno the fastest will be those paying a premium for gold in the forst weeks of launch. I think some site talks of $20 per thousand to be over exagerated but for me anything over $1 a thousand would be good, and I can see this balancing out over the course of the game on the gold per hour farmed to $ per hour on RMAH ratios.

I also collected a number of magic items, and the obligatory rare from the first kill of the Skeleton King. BEaring in mind that no-one on live servers will likely have the 10's or even 100's of thousands of gold to spend on rares in early weeks after the games release, short of buying it from the RMAH, my thought process is to sell the rares on RMAH, along with any good magic items I can get.

By "good" when refering to magic items I'm refering to those with large quantities of desirable stats. Namely:

Strenght
Dexterity
Inteligence
Gold Find
Magic FInd
Additional Damage
Experience Gain
High DPS weapons
Vampiric/of the Leech weapons

Other stats I don't expect people to pay for at the low levels being:

Vitality (more HP is nice but hardly needed in normal)
Orb/Gold Radius (this just takes up space that could have something else, and wouldn't you rather control your health orbs though the fight than pick up while still on full HP? As for the gold it's going to be faster yes, but so is killing faster. There are (I know of at least one WD spell) that works off this attribute so maybe later in game).

Keeping track of and learning to judge what is a good value and what is a low value for DPS on a weapon at each level, and stats will be a big factor in my sucess. Of the magical properites availible is +1 strenght and 3% magic find of any use to anyone next to the +5 strenght + 8% gold find...probably not. So its not going to get one of my AH slots.

Now for the remainder of the items, the blacksmith comes into play. Salvage. Salvaging unwanted magic items in the first run got me 30+ essences, and over 10 teeth. On live servers these I do expect to see going for gold on the action house, and will most likely be selling as fast as they can be posted to people playing the crafting game. But remeber, no-one will have the gold to pay for big money crafted gear, so why bother gold sinking into leveling the artisans in the first week? I'll be aiming to make the gold from these to RMAH it.

This won't be hard, as the first wekend will be on us soon enough, and with it an influx of players wanting mats. With subtle essences taking little space to stockpile this will be the best time to sell.

By the end of the month of May I'd hope to be seeing some levelof income, all while staying at home watching the baby with a few hours play time while he is napping!