Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls Loot, Gold, & XP Farms

Warning, some or all of these farms have been nerfed as a result of Blizzard’s drive to force players to play through the content instead of farming loot.

Act I Cathedral: Start a Torment VI campaign mode game at the Sword of the Stranger start. Waypoint to the Cathedral Gardens. ~50% of the time there is a chest just above the waypoint. Next waypoint to cathedral level 3. ~50% of the time there’s a chest next to this waypoint. ~10% of the time there are 2 chests. Then waypoint to the Royal Crypts. You can run through smashing all pots, ignore any skeletons that may pop up. ~20% of the time a chest spawns in this area; however, the pots have a chance to drop items and gold so they are worth smashing. Once you get to where the Mad King yells at you for bringing the warmth of life into his tomb you can quit out and do it all over again.

Act I Defiled Crypts: Start a Torment VI Adventure mode game. Waypoint to the Forsaken Cemetery. Since this is Torment VI make sure you’re spec’d for survivability and movement skills so you can quickly run through these tombs and not die. Each tomb has 1-3 chests in it and one tomb will have the Jars of Souls or Matriarch’s Bones events. These events can easily be initiated and then you run and hide until they are over and then grab your loot that spawns when they end. The events also give decent gold/xp per run.

Act III Heart of Sin & Core of Arreat: This used to be lucrative when running through and opening all chests on Torment VI. However, the drop rate of these chests was greatly reduced and it’s far more rewarding to clear these areas by killing all mobs. There are several elite packs and the chance of cursed chests and treasure goblins. At the very least try clearing these maps on Torment I or II.

Act V Abandoned Siege Camp: Start a Torment VI campaign mode game and choose the Siege Runes subquest under the Battlefields of Eternity main quest. This area has virtually no enemies and 2-4 guaranteed chests, plus corpses, and destructible vases. Make sure to clear it all the way from the Abandoned Siege Camp waypoint back to the long staircase into the camp. Rinse and repeat.

Act V Pandemonium Level 2: This is a little more difficult to do on T6 with the narrow pathways, the stunning gates, and mobs everywhere that can 1-2 shot you. However, it seems that the drop rate in this area is the best in the game as I’ve gotten multiple really good legendaries and crafting materials from vases and chests here. If you can’t survive on T6 then drop to T1. The drop rate is only slightly reduced. I even received a legendary wizard source on Normal in this area.

Rift Farms: Blizzard claims they increased rift drop rates. However, it seems that elite packs only seem to drop 1 rare each time I kill them. I typically get 1 legendary per rift run no matter if it’s on normal or T1. The difference is the rift guardian drops more blood shards on higher difficulties and blood shards can be used to gamble on gear back in camp. Therefore, tearing through rifts quickly on Normal/Hard/Expert for the blood shards is far more rewarding in my opinion.

Power Leveling: The best and easiest way to power level requires one good dps character to carry you through. The lower level character must create a Torment VI Adventure mode game and do all the bounties. The lvl 70 character can then one shot everything up until you reach level 50 which will take less than an hour. This is when things start getting harder. I recommend going down to Torment V around lvl 50-55 to make it go quickly. Around lvl 60 you’ll need to drop to Torment II or III depending on your DPS. The last 5 levels are the hardest to get. I typically get about a level worth of xp per each Act of bounties cleared on Torment I.

Event Farms for Gold/XP: If you need to level on your own then there are some events in higher torments that will give decent XP and gold rewards.

Spyglass: The easiest one is the Spyglass event at Rakkis Crossing in Act 3. Simply start an Adventure Mode game and port to Rakkis Crossing. 25% of the time there will be a guy at the bottom of the stairs just NE of the waypoint. You click him, run up the tower and click the commander, then quit before you die. Most lvl 60 and above characters have the skills necessary to do this event without dying.

Clear the Hellrift: If you have a lot of DPS then there is a bounty that spawns 25% of the time in Act 3 where you need to clear the hell rift. If you get the kill Sledge or Hammermash bounties then it’s not worth doing as killing either one of these in T5-T6 takes too long. Simply waypoint to the first rift. Run through to the rift level 2 and make sure you have the DPS to clear about 50 white mobs. There are also chests in this area and the chance for a cursed chest event. If the event spawns the hammer fists then run away. They have too much health to kill in 30 seconds. However, sometimes the event spawns 10 white weak mobs who you can easily kill for the bonus xp. I only recommend this run for lvl 70 chars who are geared and are simply seeking quick gold.

For me the most fun and decent rewards come with doing Adventure Mode on Torment I. It can go reasonably fast with a geared character and still drops pretty decent loot. You can probably get 2-3 legendaries per hour without much effort and you’ll get decent gold/xp. There are also special legendaries that are tied to each specific Act’s Horadric Cache that you receive as a reward for completing all bounties in an Act. Act IV appears to have most of these legendaries tied to it so it is the Act worth farming the most for bounties.