Conservative Leveling and Gold Farming Strategy

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.