While people are debating whether the new LOD gem should be a guaranteed early drop, I’d like to revisit the Hellfire Amulet.
This is another one of the frustrating parts of the game for me. Yeah, yeah, I know; the three most important words in Diablo are RNG, RNG, RNG.
But still, of the many passives that each class has (and the number varies depending on class), there are only a few that I use regularly. The chance of getting a viable passive on a decent amulet is pretty slim. Sure, I could try a different build, based on the amulet I get. But that’s another layer of RNG and farming. I’m usually pretty set on a particular build by the time I get around to forging my first amulet. And depending on the free set, I’m even more locked in.
Why can’t we have more control over the passive skill we get?
- Ideally, we could pick the specific passive. But that does run counter to the RNG nature of the game, I guess.
- So we should be able to reroll the passive. Nothing is worse than getting a nice amulet with a passive that is either useless, or worse, runs counter to your build (E.G. Strength of Heaven on a 1H build).
- And to that point, it would be nice to be able to cube the amulet. But know that’s a lot of weird code. Probably why we can’t cube Halcyon’s amulet or the Ashbringer.
In a perfect world, the passives would be reexamined and rebalanced. For example, why do some classes have a single passive that provide different benefits based on the type of weapon equipped, yet crusaders have two that should really be combined into a single passive (Fervor and Heavenly Strength)?
If every passive felt worthwhile, within reason based on build, then getting a less-then-ideal skill on the HF amulet wouldn’t feel so bad. But every season, I have to go through several amulets to get one that has a passive that is useful.
/rant.
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D3 is a farming game. You just need to be patient and craft enough of them to get the right one. It goes quite fast in T16. In 1 hour I usually make between 50 and 100 amulets depending on how focused I am. And it is faster in a group.
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How does playing in a group make farming for these mats faster?
Diablo 3 needs to delete 90% of the RNG.
Everyone gets machines off the keywardens, not just you. So its 4x less farming for them.
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I get Diablo is a farming game. But this just shows the issue with most of the passives. You’re probably top tier or near that, as a player. How many of the passives do you consider useful? When you have a pool of passives where most of them are not desired, adding RNG to the mix means that you’re unlikely to get a good amulet with something useful, without crafting 100+ amulets.
Does that seem reasonable? I’m not arguing with you. I seriously want to know. As a “filthy casual”, I play seasons for the cosmetics and the novelty of starting over fresh. So the idea that crafting 100+ amulets to find a useful one seems unrealistic to me.
I crafted well over 1k HF amulets to get the one I use on my UE. During that process I crafted several primal’s with off passives. So I built builds around those passives. Came up with a couple great ZDH options. Most of the passives are useful for something, maybe not the build you are working on, but for someone else’s.
Now that they have upgraded Squirts, maybe you can find a nice use for that instead.
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But you have to physically go and pick the machines up anyway, no? It’s not like bounties which anyone can finish and the chest just lands in your inventory. Or am I misunderstanding something?
That’s not in a season is it? Still that’s impressive for NS. Astonishing if you did that in a season.
I think a rework of the passives would make even the “undesired” rolls better. As you said, a primal with an unexpected passive can yield some new builds. I feel that the passives need a look.
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Disclaimer
I am not agreeing or disagreeing with anything that has been said in this conversation. Just some “food for thought”.
- Every Class has 19 Passive Skills to choose from. Every Character can choose 4 of those Passive Skills at Character Level 70. A Hellfire Amulet only has to roll with a 5th Passive Skill that is beneficial to your Class build. Or, it can roll with 1 of the 4 Passive Skills you would normally assign and then you can pick a 5th Passive of your choice.
- Each Hellfire Amulet costs 1 of each Hellfire Mat + 10 Forgotten Souls + 50,000 Gold. Therefore, 100 Hellfire Amulets cost 100 of each Hellfire Mat + 1,000 Forgotten Souls + 5,000,000 Gold.
- Farming Infernal Machines is faster in groups. Preferably, an organized group. That’s because you can farm at higher Difficulties, kill Keywardens quicker, and get more Machines per drop.
- Farming Hellfire Mats is faster in groups because you can farm the Realms at higher Difficulties, kill Uber Bosses quicker, and get more Mats per drop.
Personally, I only craft a Hellfire Amulet for a 5th Passive Skill. Mainstat is guaranteed and I can enchant 1 of the Properties to something useful if I’m not lucky enough to get the Properties I want. And if I get an Ancient Hellfire Amulet, that’s even better, because it means I can augment it later on.
Bragging Rights
I got lucky in Season 16 with my Normal Seasonal Demon Hunter on the Europe Region. Shen was very generous and gave her a Primal Hellfire Amulet with Archery on it. I normally don’t pick the Archery Passive Skill. But, it can be a nice supplement to Steady Aim.
My Normal non-Season Demon Hunter, Fai, currently has it equipped.
From personal experience, when I farmed Hellfire Mats in groups with members of my Community and/or Clan, we rarely farmed for Machines. One of us might have 50 each. One of us might have 20 each. One might have 10 each and one might not have any at all. The one with the least would use theirs first. Or, sometimes the one with the most would use theirs so the rest of us could hang on to whatever we had. But, in any case, it allowed us to just go straight for the Mats, saving a lot of time.
These days I do them Solo. I run Keywardens until I have a minimum of 10 of each Machine. This will get me 20 to 30 of each Mat. At this point, I go back to my usual Seasonal routine: Rifts, GRifts and, if needed, Bounties. I salvage Legendary items until I have 100 to 300 Forgotten Souls. I usually craft 10 Hellfire Amulets at a time. If I don’t get a useful Passive Skill, I’ll craft 10 more.
Whatever works best for you, I wish you the best of luck and good hunting! 
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Correct, but everyone gets their own machines, so 3 or 4 sets of 4 portals each.
A solo player gets 3-4 rounds of ubers from farming 1 set of Keywarden kills.
A group will get 12-16 rounds of ubers from 1 set of Keywarden runs.
So solo: 9-16 Hellfire attempts
Groups: 36-64 Hellfire attempts.
All from farming one set of Kewardens.
Just saves a lot of time running around chasing after wardens.
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Thanks. Yes, that was NS. Heck of a lot of work, and the reason I stick with the first half decent HF I get in season nowadays.
Very nice explanation @Perusoe. Like you mentioned, a group can come up with more machines and it’s a lot more fun doing this with friends.
I started out running Ubers until I got enough to craft 10 amulets, then 15, then 36, then 50 at a time.
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I did something similar on my Seasonal WD,crafting 10-25 hellfire amus at a time.
After around ~150 salvaged ones I decided to craft an entire inventory of them,thinking that should be enough for sure to get at least 1 okay enough to augment. ‘wasn’t even lookit at BiS rolls at this point’
Well nope,straight out salvaged all of them again,had only 1 somewhat useable and I was really tempted to just go with it.
A few days later decided to craft for the last time and thats when I got the one I’m currently using on that char,still not the best but its better than what I had. ‘~250 crafts in total’
That piece of gear gave me the biggest trouble on that entire char I think.
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