Act 1 Inferno gear farming guide

Inferno Act 1 farming is great, both to upgrade your gear for Act 2, but also in order to get some high end items to sell for gold or if you are lucky real money. The monsters are relatively easy so you wont die as much as you might if you try to farm Act 2 and with the changes in patch 1.03 you now have a chance to get some item level 63 gear. 

To help you maximize the time vs gain from farming Act 1 Inferno I will share the best places to grind gear and gold.

It is important when sitting down for a farming run, that you understand the basics of getting optimal loot drops. In D2, boss runs were the bees knees, but in Diablo 3 it is all about the champion/rare packs. As such the main focus for grinding gear should be to get as many champion monsters killed in as short a time as possible.

The other thing to keep in mind is the Nephalim Buff.
Not only does it up your magic find percentage, it also ensures yellow drops when it is stacked to 5. This means that before you can do any real meaningful farming you should look at getting the Nephalim Buff to 5.

If you have all the time in the world you can of course just clear Act 1 from one end to another, however if you like me often don't have more than 1 hour to spare, that is not very efficient.

Fear not though. The farming run I am about to share can be cleared in between 45-60 minutes and will yield you at least 6 guarenteed yellows in the worst case scenario and usually much more.

To start off the run we want to build Nephalim Buff stacks ASAP. To do this go to your Cemetary of the Forsaken waypoint. This is a great place to build stacks for several reasons. First of all there is usually an elite skeleton spawning in the graveyard itself. Skeletons are generally easy to kill so 5 out of 6 times you will get your first Nephalim stack very easily.

After you killed the elite, you have the 3 crypts to explore. Each of these has at least 1 champion or elite pack and very often you will find 2 in one or more of the crypts. It is a fast clear, generally I can finish all three within 20-25 minutes.

Once you are done in the Cemetary of the Forsaken you should have 5 stacks of the Nephalim buff. If you were really unlucky, you may just be at 4, but fear not you will get the last stack quickly.

Go back to town, empty your bags and take the waypoint to Festering Woods.This is one of the quickest places to grind in Diablo 3. Circle the waypoint a bit and you will find the entrace to a very small dungeon. In here you will find a couple of packs of monsters, one of them will be a champion or elite pack. Kill it go back up and circle the other way around the waypoint to find the other small dungeon in the area. Rinse and repeat.

After this explore the rest of the Festering Woods. You will usually find 1-4 more packs of champion and elite monsters to kill and loot.

If you have more time after this, then take the waypoint to Leorics Manor. Go back through the building where you will often find 1 champion/elite pack. Leave the manor and in the courtyard there will be another pack to kill for (hopefully) some awesome drops.

In my last 40 min playthroug of this farm route I got around 50k gold and a couple of items to sell on the Auction House. 1 of which sold for a couple of euros in the RMAH. You can get items of level 51-63 from killing the monsters you encounter from following this guide, so if your luck is good, you could walk away with some very powerful upgrades and items.

Please feel free to share any route you use to farm Inferno Act 1.