Bear in mind, my 70+ mill vid is with Leoric's, Hellfire on me, and Hellfire on follower which adds up significantly. An 11 min run is not bad -- if you are clearing the masses of mobs and you have good MF, you will accomplish your item goal. Once you have some items going, you can sell them to buy a reasonable Leoric's if you want to speed your XP as well. Hellfire ring, you should be able to solo with a defensive build at some reasonable MP level. I did ubers when the patch first hit with something like 65k dps in a very defensive setup at MP5. Eventually bumped it to MP7 at around 80k dps and very defensive build. It's not 100% but so you farm a few more keys/machines -- you don't need a perfect ring -- the XP boost is the main thing for farming.
EDIT: also, if you go back a month or so, I was at ~50 mil, you go back to when I first started Alk runs, it was lower than that. It takes a bit to get familiar with what works and what doesn't, learning not to follow a route that will cause you to backtrack, not looping back for 1 or 2 mobs, picking up only high value yellows (learning to recognize which yellow weaps are worth picking up by name so you don't ctrl over them or waste time IDing), etc., etc. Getting better with each run and tweaking spec or gear or whatever to be more efficient can become the game within the game for a bit.
Now, admittedly once you get very efficient about it, it can get somewhat repetitive (to say the least) so I've usually broken it up with some spec changes or other variations but, long and short, if you put some focus on it you should get a sequence going that kills lots of mobs very quickly and efficiently. If you do that at 375% MF (max 5 stack NV MF value at MP0), law of averages will start to translate what appears to be bad RNG now into fairly consistent worthwhile item finds.
If you are grinding paragon and items, very fast, low MP Alk runs using max MF and max XP gear are extremely effective. Get max movement speed and use a build that focuses speed for your class -- Tempest Rush build I believe for monks.
When you say more kills = more chances at loot you are on the correct path. But let's add some logic to that, if an Alk run is gaining you more xp per hour, it's also because you are getting more kills per hour, which is also, as you note, giving you more chances at loot per hour. To your other question, no you don't just kill elites. Most legendaries come from trash packs -- not because they have a better chance to drop legendaries but rather because we kill so many of them (again more chances outweighs greater percentange chance of fewer elites).
I have sample runs in my channel below of a fast 70+ mil/xp hour Alk run -- you do this repeatedly at max MF with a Tempest Rush build and you should see legendaries and sets dropping far more frequently -- I can't promise you they'll be good legendaries but you will see them.
EDIT: last note to restress max MF and XP -- having a hellfire ring on you and follower, as well as a Leoric's at least on you make a huge increase to XP gain. If you are farming MP0-1 runs, having XP there far outweighs any damage benefit to the speed of your levelling. And max MF -- just get it done -- it's a bit of a pain when you are low paragon but it gets better and you can drop pieces out as you gain levels and more base MF. If you are farming Paragon without Max MF and high XP %, you are really wasting alot of opportunity and time.
Sounds like a long list but 90+% of stuff gets left on ground and, even with that initial filter, still another 95+% of what I do pickup gets vendored/salvaged. Hooray Diablo.
Yes, that chart -- note the small increase to XP and MF as compared to the large increase in Monster Health. This is especially true if we consider we should enter the equation at max MF 300% and that much of our runs are done at 5 stacks 375%. At that point, and extra 25% MF isn't that substantial when compared to the amount of extra time it takes to work through the increased Health. If we play it out and extrapolate what those numbers mean on a macro scale instead of taking a very small sample size of our own individual experience to date (whatever that experience is), we will see the odds are not in our favor for higher MPs working out better in the long run.
This will hold true at least until either:
a ) Blizzard adjusts the values shown in this chart
b ) Gear inflation gets to a point that we are one-shotting all white mobs and killing elite packs in 2-3 seconds even at MP10
Neither of those circumstances look to be on the near horizon.
Fun is a whole different question and can't really be argued. I do agree with you though that for me higher MPs can be more challenging and thus more engaging and thus more fun. However, Blizz didn't do a very good job on their first swing of scaling mob HP, XP gain, and MF gain per MP level to make the reward system encourage us to play the game in an engaging way. Instead they scaled HP at a much more exponential rate and the other two in a far more linear rate thus creating a reward system that encourages the populace to play in a non-engaging, mindless way. I'd like to hope they fix it at some point but only time will tell. Until then, I've been farming MP0-1 were it has definitely been more productive and efficient.
All of that said, both the whole low MP topic versus high MP topic has been done backward and forward and usually turns a thread non-productive very quickly. I'm going to exit stage left before all this starts:
Low MP farming (MP0-1) is outstanding for both loot and xp but you are doing something wrong somewhere. I can't say for sure what because you haven't provided enough detail but something is sketchy. Especially if you are only paragon 25 farming 7-8 hours a day. First 25 levels of paragon can come in about 10-12 hours if you are farming efficiently. Paragon has been out since I think August/September or so? If you are only 25, however much time you have spent, you haven't spent it very efficiently or wisely.
EDIT: lest the above sound elitist or dismissive, not my intention. I'm just saying there are low budget ways to get yourself farming fast in MP0 whatever the class. Tempest Rush I believe would be the Monk way though I'm not an expert in the class by any stretch. Keys to be effective for any class though are fast movement, high MF and high XP. There are guides out there - find them and absorb. Any class in even low budget gear should be killing enough mobs in speed MP0-1 runs to get 50 mill xp or so per hour at a minimum -- which also as an offshoot has you killing enough mobs to put the odds of getting good drop(s) in your favor. Unless you are crazy lucky, it takes quantity of kills to consistently find something of quality to sell. That said, if you have even 2-4 hours a day (all I usually can fit in and I just hit paragon 93), you can translate effective farming into gear and gold progression. 8 hours or more, you should be killing it if you are using that time effectively.
Compass Rose is good to look at but it's hard to fit in when you are farming paragon levels as you have Hellfire and Leoric's taking up both ring slots. Other people are tied to Zuni ring. I'm not saying it's not good as it can be a very nice ring when it rolls well . . . I'm just saying RPG games need to start recognizing we have more than 2 fingers. More ring real estate please!
Yeah, that's the way the Final Gift rune on Zombie Dogs functions wihen it interacts with the Circle of Life passive. I don't know if it's intended or not but it definitely works that way.
Whatever the effect, it needs to be very visual -- similar to the near-death red or attaining a paragon level or somesuch. On any given night, music blaring, at who know what level of sobriety, that legendary has a high chance of being missed unless the alert is completely in my face - especially if it drops from trash -- which have been a surprising source of many of my legendary drops.
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EDIT: also, if you go back a month or so, I was at ~50 mil, you go back to when I first started Alk runs, it was lower than that. It takes a bit to get familiar with what works and what doesn't, learning not to follow a route that will cause you to backtrack, not looping back for 1 or 2 mobs, picking up only high value yellows (learning to recognize which yellow weaps are worth picking up by name so you don't ctrl over them or waste time IDing), etc., etc. Getting better with each run and tweaking spec or gear or whatever to be more efficient can become the game within the game for a bit.
Now, admittedly once you get very efficient about it, it can get somewhat repetitive (to say the least) so I've usually broken it up with some spec changes or other variations but, long and short, if you put some focus on it you should get a sequence going that kills lots of mobs very quickly and efficiently. If you do that at 375% MF (max 5 stack NV MF value at MP0), law of averages will start to translate what appears to be bad RNG now into fairly consistent worthwhile item finds.
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When you say more kills = more chances at loot you are on the correct path. But let's add some logic to that, if an Alk run is gaining you more xp per hour, it's also because you are getting more kills per hour, which is also, as you note, giving you more chances at loot per hour. To your other question, no you don't just kill elites. Most legendaries come from trash packs -- not because they have a better chance to drop legendaries but rather because we kill so many of them (again more chances outweighs greater percentange chance of fewer elites).
I have sample runs in my channel below of a fast 70+ mil/xp hour Alk run -- you do this repeatedly at max MF with a Tempest Rush build and you should see legendaries and sets dropping far more frequently -- I can't promise you they'll be good legendaries but you will see them.
EDIT: last note to restress max MF and XP -- having a hellfire ring on you and follower, as well as a Leoric's at least on you make a huge increase to XP gain. If you are farming MP0-1 runs, having XP there far outweighs any damage benefit to the speed of your levelling. And max MF -- just get it done -- it's a bit of a pain when you are low paragon but it gets better and you can drop pieces out as you gain levels and more base MF. If you are farming Paragon without Max MF and high XP %, you are really wasting alot of opportunity and time.
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Demolisher, Centurion Spear, Darkblade, Veil Piercer, Arch Axe, Rune Sword, Heaven Hand, Desolator Wand
Sounds like a long list but 90+% of stuff gets left on ground and, even with that initial filter, still another 95+% of what I do pickup gets vendored/salvaged. Hooray Diablo.
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Also, like the new JW photo in the sig
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This will hold true at least until either:
a ) Blizzard adjusts the values shown in this chart
b ) Gear inflation gets to a point that we are one-shotting all white mobs and killing elite packs in 2-3 seconds even at MP10
Neither of those circumstances look to be on the near horizon.
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All of that said, both the whole low MP topic versus high MP topic has been done backward and forward and usually turns a thread non-productive very quickly. I'm going to exit stage left before all this starts:
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EDIT: lest the above sound elitist or dismissive, not my intention. I'm just saying there are low budget ways to get yourself farming fast in MP0 whatever the class. Tempest Rush I believe would be the Monk way though I'm not an expert in the class by any stretch. Keys to be effective for any class though are fast movement, high MF and high XP. There are guides out there - find them and absorb. Any class in even low budget gear should be killing enough mobs in speed MP0-1 runs to get 50 mill xp or so per hour at a minimum -- which also as an offshoot has you killing enough mobs to put the odds of getting good drop(s) in your favor. Unless you are crazy lucky, it takes quantity of kills to consistently find something of quality to sell. That said, if you have even 2-4 hours a day (all I usually can fit in and I just hit paragon 93), you can translate effective farming into gear and gold progression. 8 hours or more, you should be killing it if you are using that time effectively.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7YWpzPRBpE
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue0XFwWZpLc
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also, cracks me up because: