Today I went out to find the fastest way to farm Subtle Essence and to make the most gold per hour possible in beta. I did my research and wasn’t impressed with what people were already doing. Instead, I wanted to find the quickest path to a boss to collect magic items and then repeat. I tested all 4 available quests, the only ones that came close were The Legacy of Cain and The Skeleton Key. Many players have recommended using The Skeleton Key and heading into the crypts to find rare mobs who drop magic items to salvage. The variance is too high in that method and, frankly, it’s just too slow (more about this soon). You don’t make nearly as much as what I was able to make doing The Legacy of Cain.

Okay so what’s the trick? Just load up a new game on The Legacy of Cain and race to Captain Daltyn. He drops a magic item every time which salvages into 1 Subtle Essence and 0.20 Fallen Teeth. It takes 45-50 seconds if you do it right so you can farm up to 80 Subtle Essence and 16 Fallen Teeth in an hour. At the current beta auction house prices that will put you ahead 8,000-10,000 gold for the Subtle Essence and 3,200-4,800 gold for the Fallen Teeth. If you’re careful you can also nab 65 gold from Leah before you leave the game, this will add another 5,200 gold which makes a total of 20,000 gold in an hour.

Now, I’m not saying that gold is really worth anything in the beta but it’s pretty cool that I can make that much. I’m not even saying there is a big enough market to sell all that stuff before prices drop (Update: everything sold within 12 hours). However, being able to farm this much Subtle Essence is pretty powerful considering the same trick will work on all 4 difficulties as long as your character is powerful enough to solo Captain Daltyn. That means we can farm Shimmering Essence, Wishful Essence and Exquisite Essence depending on how powerful our character is. We’ll also get a good deal of Fallen Teeth, Lizard Eyes, Encrusted Hoofs and Iridescent Tears.

To get all the farming tricks and routes out there, I’ve put together Diablo 3 Farming. Which will act as a repository for all the best farming strategies I can develop and test, like farming Subtle Essence. While I build that site up, I’ll be keeping you updated here with all the best ways to make gold and real money in D3. Stay tuned for some really good stuff coming later this week!

Important: Many of the strategies and tips I share here were originally inspired by the people at the Diablo 3 Gold Secrets Forum. If you're serious about making the big bucks in Diablo 3, or just being the best players, you need to signup ASAP.