Tomorrow brings Diablo 3's fist major Patch, 1.0.3. Along with it comes a rather large nerf to Attack Speed, I am just posting this in hopes people realize not to buy Attack Speed items from the auction house. Your items will be nerfed tomorrow!

There is no cow level

Whimsyshire is a Diablo 3 secret level that provides a change of scenery from the usual areas you encounter in the game, here's a quick few things to know about the area before we begin the guide.

• It's best to search for the required items to enter the level on Normal difficulty
• Cupcakes act as Health orbs
• Clouds are chests
• Resplendent Chests are now Pinatas
• None of the monsters have ranged attacks (Other than the Champions/Elites)
• Only one member of a multiplayer game needs the staff

So how do I enter Whimsyshire?

We need a Staff of Herding, which can be acquired by giving your Blacksmith 5 rare items along with the staff plans.

Plan: Staff of Herding

The plan is a rare drop from the boss Izual at "The Great Span" in Act 4. It is highly recommended that you fight this boss on Normal difficulty, although the plan can drop on any difficulty. After you have the plan it's time to search the world of Diablo 3 for the other 5 rare items we need.

Black Mushroom

The first item on our list is found in Act 1, on any floor of the Cathedral. It is recommended that you search only Cathedral Level 1 as it has the greatest chance for the Black Mushroom to spawn. The mushroom can spawn in any room. For an example of the Black Mushroom looks like, check the photo. Like all the other items, the Black Mushroom is not guaranteed to spawn in your game, meaning you will have to keep remaking games a few times until you find it.

Leoric's Shinbone

This item is a random spawn in Leoric's Manor in Act 1. The fastest route to getting this item is by starting a new game on the quest "The Imprisoned Angel" and then taking the waypoint to Leoric's Manor. Unlike the Black Mushroom, Leoric's Shinbone always spawns in the same room making it much easier to find. If the fireplace has burnt logs in it, simply click them and you will find the shinbone. If no logs are present, it's time to make a new game and try again.

Wirt's Bell

Wirt's Bell can be bought for the low price of 100,000 gold in Caldeum Bazaar in Act 2 from everyone's favorite vendor, Squirt the Peddler.

Liquid Rainbow

The Liquid Rainbow is found in Act 2 in a Mysterious Cave that can only be opened by a rare spawn merchant, who you must save from ghosts. After killing the ghosts and speaking to him, he will open the cave allowing you access. Once inside the cave you need to look for a Mysterious Chest that can only spawn on the first floor of the cave. Unfortunately even if the cave spawns in your game, there is a chance the Mysterious Chest will not. This is perhaps the hardest of all the items to get. The quickest way to find the merchant and his cave is to start a new game with any quest in Act 2 past the "Blood and Sand" and then take the waypoint, "Path to the Oasis". From there run to the right and follow the bottom edge of the map until you find a little path that leads to the cave.

Gibbering Gemstone

The final item drops from a rare spawn monster named Chiltara in the Caverns of Frost level 2, which is found in the Fields of Slaughter in Act 3. Both the Caverns of Frost and the monster Chiltara are rare spawns, making this a very time consuming item to find. Start a new game on the quest "Machines of War" at the second part of the quest - "Destroy Ballistae" and then take your waypoint to the Bridge of Korsikk and head northwest exploring the area until you find the cave.

Note: Two caves can spawn in this area, Icefall Caves is not the right one, Chiltara can only spawn in Caverns of the Frost, level 2.

Finding the entrance

Once you have collected all the pieces its just a matter of crafting the Staff at the Blacksmith. Then head to Old Tristram Road at the start of Act 1. As long as you have the staff in your inventory the cow king will appear and have a brief conversation before opening the level. Note when entering the secret level it may be full of monsters near the entrance so be careful, especially on hardcore.

Upgrading your Staff of Herding

• Upgraded versions of the plan are bought in Act 4 from Gorell the Quartermaster, who is found in town near your followers. You must be on the quest "Prime Evil" for the vendor to have the upgraded plans.
• It requires the previous version of the staff to craft the next one.
• Nightmare upgrade costs 200,000 gold
• Hell upgrade costs 500,000 gold
• Inferno upgrade costs 1,000,000 gold
• Higher versions of the staff open all previous difficulties also

Have fun!

Champions and Rares are monsters with blue or yellow names, any normal monster can spawn as one. They are much more powerful than regular monsters and travel in groups. They have the possibility of dropping the best items in the game. In addition they have abilities called affixes, which grant special them special properties such as being able to create walls out of thin air or even make clones of themselves. The affixes that can spawn on a monster are completely random.

At level 60 every Champion or Elite you kill will grant you a spell buff called "Nephalem Valor" but that is a topic for another guide.

Champions

• They come in packs of 3 to 4 monsters.
• Champions can spawn with any affix other than - Minions, Horde and Missile Dampening.
• High quality loot will drop only after all Champions have been defeated.
• On Normal difficulty they have 1 affix.
• On Nightmare they have 2 affixes.
• On Hell they have 3 affixes.
• On Inferno they have 4 affixes.

Rares

• Rare monsters are much stronger than a single champion and are followed by three to four minions who are weaker than the rare itself.
• Rares can spawn with any affix other than - Fire Chains, Health Link and Avenger.
• Minions can not have the affixes - Horde, Missile Dampening
• Only the leader drops high quality loot.
• On Normal difficulty they only have 1 affixes.
• On Nightmare they have 2 affixes.
• On Hell they have 3 affixes.
• On Inferno they have 4 affixes.

Some combinations of Champions and Rares can be fairly easy, but don't let that fool you some combinations are absolutely deadly such as a Mortar, Fire chains and Molten pack. This guide goes over every possible affix.

Vortex

This ability pulls the player to the monster that casted the spell, but causes no damage. A monster requires line of sight to see you, meaning they can not pull you from behind walls or around corners. By itself vortex is not particular dangerous for a melee as they are already up next to the monster, but combined with other affixes such as Arcane Enchanted, Molten, Desecrator - getting pulled into any of those can be certain death.

Health Link

This affix is only possible on Champion monsters and only if more than one is alive. Health Link gives all the champions one large health pool, and the damage you deal to one applies to all of them as long as they are nearby.

Jailer

Jailer gives monsters the ability to trap a player in a prison for a few seconds. Like Vortex, this is not dangerous by itself, but being jailed while a beam of arcane comes towards you is a heart pounding moment. Jailer is worst for any class or player that kills by kiting, being stopped dead in your tracks makes getting away tough. Luckily a few classes have skills to deal with Jailer, for example monks can use Dashing strike to move but it does not free Here is a quick list of all skills that can free you from Jailer

• Witch Doctors - Spirit Walk.
• Monks - Serenity, Seven Sided Strikes,
• Wizards - Teleport
• Demon Hunter - Smoke Screen

Arcane Enchanted

This affix gives a monster the ability to summon a deadly force of arcane magic, a small circle is placed on the ground and a few seconds later a beam shoots out of from it traveling in a random circular direction. Do not get caught in this! It is one of the most deadly affixes.

Extra Health

Any monster with this affix has extra health, making even weaker packs of Champions/Elites take a while to kill.

Horde

Only rare monsters can have this affix. It increases the amount of minions a monster has by 2-3x

Avenger

Only Champion monsters can spawn with the Avenger affix. When a monster that belongs to a Champion group with the Avenger affix dies, the rest of the pack gains in size and strength. This can make an already difficulty pack even harder as each monster dies.

Desecrator

Desecrator is a targeted spell that creates an area of death on the ground. It takes 1 second for a newly formed Desecrator circle to begin doing damage, get out of these as quick as you can.

Electrified

Lighting shoots out at every direction whenever the monster attacks, or is attacked.

Reflect Damage

Everytime you hit a Champion or Rare with the Reflect Damage affix you take a portion of the damage you dealt back at yourself.

Fast

Every thing the monster does is done much quicker.

Molten

While a molten monster moves it leaves behind a trail of lava that does considerable damage to anyone standing in it. When a molten monster dies it leaves behind a bomb that explodes after a few seconds dealing a large amount of damage to anyone nearby

Fire Chains

Only champions can spawn with this Fire Chains affix, it creates a chain of fire between itself and the other champion monsters in its pack. If you happen to get caught between two monsters, expect to take a lot of damage. Monster AI is also changed to try and trap the player between the chains.

Teleporter

Allows a monster to teleport at will, away from battle or into battle.

Frozen

Frozen monsters do cold damage with every attack, they also possess the ability to summon frozen balls that over a few seconds explode freezing any player caught in its radius.

Illusionist

Illusionist allows a monster to create clones of it self that are much weaker and have less total health, they do however spawn with the same percent of health as the monster they were cloned from.

Knockback

Every hit from a Knockback monster has a chance to knock back the player and slow them for a few seconds

Waller

Waller allows monsters to create walls out of thin air, these walls can trap a player allowing them not to run away. A lot of spells can not pass through Waller either, providing the monster a moment of protection.

Missile Dampening

A faint circle in a large area appears around the monster, any projectile that enters the sphere is slowed considerable. It is very similar to the Wizard Spell, Slow Time.

Mortar

Mortar allows a monster to hurl firebombs at the player, they only hit players out of melee range but if they do hit you, they do a considerable amount of damage.

Nightmarish

Nightmare has a chance to be inflicted on a player everytime they are hit by a monster imbued with the Nightmarish ability, they will flee from battle for a seconds while they player is unable to control the character.

Vampiric

A percent of damage the monster causes to you, heals the monster.

Plagued

Plagued monsters leave a large area of poison on the ground that deals damage to any player standing on it, unlike Desecrator and Molten, Plagued does not disappear until the monster that casted it dies.

Shielding

The monster creates a shield around itself making itself invincible to all forms of damage for a few seconds.

A collection of tips to make your travels in the world of Diablo that much easier. Let's get started!

Item tooltips on the ground

If you hold down the CTRL key while mousing over an item on the ground, it will show you the items stats. I use this all the time to quickly scan random items on the ground. It is much easier to just quickly glance over items before picking them up than having to open my inventory and search for them in there. An extra tip, if you have your inventory open while holding CTRL over an item on the ground, it will compare it to your currently equipped item

Elective Mode

Elective Mode improves the game so substantially that it completely baffles me why Blizzard decided to hide this option in the menus. Basically Diablo 3 skills are broken down into 7 categories such as Primary and Defensive. By default you are only allowed to pick one skill from each category at a time, but if you turn on elective mode you can pick as many skills from any category as you would like. For example a Monk could choose Serenity (An invincability shield) and Breath of Heaven (A healing spell) two defensive skills at once. Many of my friends hit level 60 without ever knowing this option existed, I really hope Blizzard makes elective mode the default in the future. Until then you can find Elective Mode under the interface heading in Gamepay options.

Advanced Tooltips

Another option Blizzard oddly decided to hide in the menus, you can turn it on by finding it under the interface heading in Gamepay options.

As you can clearly see with Advanced Tooltips turned on you are presented with much more information to help you decide what skill is the best for you. No longer will you have to guess at what skill does more damage.

Comparing second ring or weapon

When you mouse over for example a helm, the game compares it to your currently equipped helm, however for rings it only compares the stats to one of your rings. But if you hold down the ALT key it will compare it to your second ring, or offhand if you are comparing weapons

Note - this also works in the auction house.

Quickly skipping conversations

There is no point in reading dialog for a quest you have already completed, by simply pressing the ESC key you will instantly finish any conversation.

But wait that's not all! For ingame events that have a NPC talking before doing a certain action you can simply press space to skip ahead in the conversation. Normally it takes about 30 seconds for the Cow King to open the secret level, but you can skip through it all by just pressing space a few times.

Stop people from joining your game

Want to play by yourself without having your friends randomly joining your game? Simply go to your options and under the Social tab turn off "Allow Quick Join" and people will no longer be able to disturb your solo play. Turn it back on whenever you are feeling social again.

Force move - Stop accidentally clicking monsters

Have you ever needed to run away from a monster but accidentally clicked and attacked the monster you are running from? Well I sure have, this can be fixed by keybinding the "Move" button in the Diablo 3 options. You can keybind move to any button you want, I personally made mine the F key as I can easily press it in the heat of the moment. Pressing the move key will walk your character to wherever your mouse cursor currently is, ignoring all monsters in the way.

Linking items

If you ever played World of Warcraft than you should already know how to do this, have your chat open to talk in party or to whoever you wish and then shift click any item to link the item into chat. A easy and simple way to show off your items to your friends.

Attack and cast spells without moving

Holding down the shift key while attacking will basically "plant" your feet in place making you not move. This is useful as a melee class when you are on the edge of molten or desecrator and dont want to walk into it (Because fire hurts!). It's very useful for ranged classes who wish to sit back and spam spells without accidentally moving.

Quick chat commands

Pressing any numpad key from 0-9 will make your character say in game phrases that appear in the chat but also can be heard by all other players near you. It's way faster to press 7 on the numpad to tell everyone to run away, than to actually type it out.

Quick fire tips!

• Right clicking a spell buff removes it.
• You gain 20% of your Followers Magic and Gold Find.
• Dual-wielding grants a 15% bonus to your attack speed.
• Hitting "g" will drop your banner wherever your mouse currently is.
• Turn on friendly player health bars with the D key.
• Turn on enemy health bars with the V key.
• Pressing "alt" will display all item names on the ground. However in the options you can turn on item names to show permanently.
• Get a zoomed in view of your character by pressing Z.
• Hardcore mode is unlocked at level 10.
• Magic and Gold find are averaged between your group. For example if you have 3 people in your group and everyone's magic find added up equals 90, every member will have 30 magic find.
• When you are in town clicking another players portal will teleport you to them, you can even teleport to a dead player.
• If a champion or elite pack has a skull over them, you need to run away as the monster enraged and will kill you much faster. This can be reset by simply going back to town for 2-3 seconds.
• Every random spawn dungeon that has 2 floors will always have a Resplendent Chest on the second floor.

The first day had prices all over the place with people trying to unload all their extra useless items for $1.25. However that did not last long and quickly even sub-par gear was going for over $100! Not to mention all the $250 sales. Unfortunately due to the random range of prices I was not able to get a good idea of how much I should of listed my items for and I am currently stuck with no available auction slots for another 6 hours, which means I won't be selling anything today. Oh well the first day was pretty fun and I made over $300. For a full history of every item I sold go here here

Until the market settles it's possible to make a fair amount of money by utilizing both the gold and real money auction house to your advantage. For example the string of ears I sold was bought from the gold auction house for 1 million gold and in-turn got me $128 in profit. Until Blizzard brings up commodity auctions in the real money auction house, expect gold to be undervalued allowing you to buy cheap items for gold and sell for real profit at a hugely inflated price. My current feeling on why this is happening is due to the fact a lot of players were not able to farm act 2 and later items to sell for gold since the launch of Diablo 3 and thus were stuck with 300-500k total gold and the inability to buy anything on the gold auction house for weeks. But now the real money auction house allows them to bypass that hurdle of needing gold. I am quite sure once gold is able to bought, people will be much more likely to buy gold and then use that gold for items. Making right now the best time to sell your items before commodities sales start.

On the topic of D3RMT and the "Auction House Price" tracking section, we are waiting until the market has settled down a bit before we start tracking. Expect price tracking to start sometime around the start of July.

Other than that I have finally cleared all of Inferno on my monk about a week ago after getting a much needed life on hit weapon upgrade. I am currently spending most of my time farming Act 3 & 4 for items to sell on the auction house.

Click the images if you want to see my base stats and the weapon I used to clear all of Inferno.