Why Farm Whimsyshire?



Diablo is a loot based game. The entire goal of the game, and half of the enjoyment, comes from getting good loot to drop from monsters.

Considering that a large part of the game is farming items to upgrade your characters, shouldn’t you be playing in an area where all good items can drop? (Save for low level items, such as Leoric's Signet. That's for another guide.) Whimsyshire is the only area with that distinction.

I submit that Whimsyshire runs are currently the most effective for both, since you can find any legendary in the game here, including the only two specifically farmable items in the game. Those two items are the Spectrum and the Horadric Hamburger.

But why do I want Hamburgers and Spectrums?

Hamburgers and Spectrums are both formidable and breathtaking! In addition to slaying the fallen hordes with a rainbow sword or a nutritious and delicious ground round, they have a level requirement of 30, and DPS of 700+. This makes these weapons hands down the best weapon in the game for any level 30 character, assuming you rolled high DPS.

The Spectrum only has one random affix roll, the Hamburger has two. One could correctly argue that the meatier of the two is best in slot. A high DPS Hamburger with a socket is the best roll you can get.


A decently rolled Spectrum.

I’m convinced, help me find them!

The drop rates are roughly a 5% chance from a Pinata (Hamburger) and a 10% chance for a Spectrum from any unique (read: purple named) mob. It can be a long time before you find one, but certainly can be rewarding.



Here are a few helpful hints.

The Spectrum will NOT drop from any other mob in Whimsyshire other than the ones named below.




Creampuff
Killaire (Team Unicorn)
Maisie the Daisy
Maulin Sorely (Team Unicorn)
Midnight Sparkle
Miss Hell (Team Unicorn)
Nightmarity
R'Lyeh (Team Unicorn)
Tubbers

The Hamburger will ONLY drop from the Pinata.

You can get them from anywhere from 0-5 stacks. The Magic Find from Nephalem Valor is sure to increase your chances, but is not necessary.

My personal preference, with no hard data to back it up, is that the bonus drop from a higher Monster Power level is the biggest factor that affects your drops. However, I have found 5 Spectrums off of an MP0 Team Unicorn, so don’t feel like playing higher Monster Power levels is required.

Whatever key you have bound to close all windows is the quickest way to pass the dialog from the Ghost of Cow King. Spam it until you’re in!

I believe those who find the most Spectrums and Hamburgers are those who see the most purple mobs and piñatas, regardless of stacks and MP levels. Tempest Rush Monks and WW Barbs tend to be the quickest in terms of runs. WW Barbs tend to be more efficient killing on the way through at higher MP levels.

My average run is about 4 minutes, and that should be your benchmark. Run on a MP that lets you do this.

Where

Whimsyshire, between New Tristram and the Old Ruins Waypoint

Method

I'm running through with my WW Barb at MP7, killing all trash mobs, skipping most Champion packs, and killing rare packs. Rare packs take about 10-15 seconds to kill, Champions closer to 30-40 seconds. I like to keep my runs under 5 minutes.

With uptime of Sprint and Wrath of the Berserker nearly unlimited, it makes for a quick run.

The play goes like this: Run. Stop in big group. Rend. Run again. Kill blue elites, kill pinata, try to find the purple unqiues.

Start run over.

What You Need:

Create the Staff of Herding. More in depth guide here.
Use:
Plan: Staff of Herding - Drops randomly off Izual in Normal Difficulty
50,000 gold
Wirt's Bell – Purchase from Squirt the Peddler in Act 2 for 100,000 gold.
Liquid Rainbow – Found in Dahlgur Oasis in the dungeon Mysterious Cave Level 1 out of the Mysterious Chest
Gibbering Gemstone – Found in Fields of Slaughter from the dungeon Caverns of Frost, Chiltara drops it on Level 2
Leoric's Shinbone – Found in the fireplace in Leoric's Manor
Black Mushroom – Found on the floor in Cathedral Level 1

Once you’ve assembled it, go to the last quest in Act 4 on Nightmare, Hell and Inferno to buy the plans for each difficulty. He spawns to the right of the blacksmith. Then upgrade to the Infernal staff, so you can run Whimsyshire in Inferno, where the high DPS Spectrums drop.

Bonus: If you are farming by yourself, I'll pay 5m if you invite me to your game. Add Pauper#1231 to your friends list, or stop by the stream to add an extra 5m each time you find one in inferno!

I also keep a list of others who want to pay for Whimsy, so send me a twitch message and I'll add you.

Are you sure about the 5% for Hamburger? I have added whimsy to my run when I was Plvl 75ish. I'm now Plvl 96, i have opened many many pinatas and I have yet to see a hamburger drop.


Also, nice guide. :)

that's pretty cool

Thank you for the guide, @Nuhertz; looking forward to doing some more Whimsyshire runs in the near future. Just added you, in case you're online when I'm doing one. ;-) Never gotten a Hamburger before, though I have gotten one Spectrum...

Not a problem! I've gotten about 40 or 50 Spectrums in the last week after paying 5m per purple, and only 1 hamburger. They are extremely rare.

So according to your own maths you should have 20-25 hamburgers in the time you got 40-50 spectrums (assuming you see roughly the same number as Pinata as purple mob)

It would be true if I actually ran Whimsy. I don't, I just join games with purples, so I don't see the pinatas. Just an occasional one when it's close by.

aaah, ok. Just wondered because I can't find the stupid hamburger.

It's equal to the chance for a key to drop on mp0 from a keywarden, although no stacks required. If you've done those runs, you'll understand the odds..... :)

Although the pinata isn't always there.

I've finally found a "da hambuurger"(in the Steve Martin voice, from Pink Panther) only rolled 151.1 but still at least i got one.
And I've finally also sold my first item on rmah. a 541 dps spectrum for $6.00. so yay
Special thank to @Nuhertz for helping me pricing the spectrum

@Berzerkerxx Grats! Glad to have helped.

Hey @Nuhertz

How many runs do you usually end up doing before getting a hamburger or spectrum? I've been hitting Whimseyshire at the end of my runs for about 2 weeks and haven't had one drop. I've hit quite a few purple mobs and pinatas and nothing.

Is it that rare or have I just been unlucky lately?

It's rare. I kill 20+ mobs daily with 3 accounts, to average maybe 10-20 spectrums. Sometimes 3 will drop from 1 purple, sometimes 0 on 7 runs in a row.

RNG man.

Time for math! Every mob is an independent event from every other mob. 10% chance is a lot smaller than it seems. The probabilty of not seeing a Spectrum in 2 straight mobs is 0.9 * 0.9 = 0.81. 81% of the time, you'll miss on two straight mobs. If we bump that all the way up to 10 purple mobs, we now have (0.9)^10 = 0.35. That means there's a 35% chance you'll miss on 10 consecutive mobs. That's a pretty high chance to miss on a lot of purple mobs! For perspective, it's about the same chance as finding all 3 organs from an MP7 Ubers run.

If we bump that up to 20 consecutive purple mobs, we still get a 12% chance of missing on all 20. That's about 1 in 8 or the same probability of flipping 3 "heads" in a row on a coin. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

You also get some nice symmetry running 20 mobs. You have about the same chance of finding a Spectrum in your first mob of the day as you do in missing entirely on all 20. Whee RNG!

You can dramatically speed up the searching process by running three accounts like nuhertz which is exactly the same as if you hit each mob individually. Missing with 3 accounts in 7 runs in a row is the same as missing on 21 runs in a row with 1 account (11% of the time).

This doesn't scale linearly, though, so with Pinatas only having a 5% chance, you have a different set of probabilities. The chance of missing on 10 straight pinatas is (0.95)^10 = 60%. Since there's always a pinata, that means in 10 full clears, you still have a 60% chance of seeing no hamburgers. On 20 clears you have a 36% chance of missing a hamburger. In fact, you need to plan to clear Whimsyshire 45 times to have a 90% chance of finding at least one Hamburger. Ouch.

It also helps that nuhertz doesn't advocate full clears, because that takes a lot of time. If you're really focused on Spectrums and Hamburgers, your goal is solely to find a purple mob and a pinata and skip most everything else.

And once they drop, you still need to roll the elemental or minmax damage mods. Then you have to roll a high affix level and then you need a good roll within that. Don't run Whimsyshire expecting to get rich.

Finally, Spectrums and Hamburgers are all but guaranteed to soar to the moon in value as the expansion approaches and everyone wants to level their Crusaders to 70 asap. I still also hold that Blizzard will fix the bug with a future patch, possibly Loot 2.0, which will mean there won't be any more Spectrums dropping at all!

Posted by ecocd at 09/11/2013 12:18 PM

Time for math!

LOL - who else would begin with these words :)

So if I happen to be running in Whimsey and see a purp, invite you and you'll pay me 5mil for the chance?

@psycho6886 You got it. I usually only take them when I'm streaming. Hope to see you there soon!

Posted by ecocd at 09/11/2013 12:18 PM

This doesn't scale linearly, though, so with Pinatas only having a 5% chance, you have a different set of probabilities. The chance of missing on 10 straight pinatas is (0.95)^10 = 60%. Since there's always a pinata, that means in 10 full clears, you still have a 60% chance of seeing no hamburgers. On 20 clears you have a 36% chance of missing a hamburger. In fact, you need to plan to clear Whimsyshire 45 times to have a 90% chance of finding at least one Hamburger. Ouch.

"Since there's always a pinata..." I could've sworn I've done some Whimsyshire runs where no pinata appeared...or perhaps I didn't look hard enough...? Are you sure pinatas are always guaranteed to appear?

Aside from that question, love the math (though I hated probability when I was in college...) :-)

for me piñatas only appear about 1 out of every 4 runs.

@pyromashall this is more in line in what I see too. I see them about 1/3 of the time, but definitely not 100%.
Still, pinata is there much more than unique

Posted by Bort at 10/01/2013 12:30 AM

@pyromashall this is more in line in what I see too. I see them about 1/3 of the time, but definitely not 100%.
Still, pinata is there much more than unique

Same observation here though I didn't farm Whimsy for a while now.

I'll echo these comments as well. 1/3 or 1/4 sounds about right.

Hmmm, I must have been thinking about it previously. When Whimsy was first implemented there were 2 guaranteed Pinatas which they nerfed almost immediately as part of the goldbot breakable nerf, I think. They're just elite chests which are guaranteed to appear at the end of many dungeons in D3. It's pretty strange that there would be such a low probability of seeing one in Whimsy, but there are a lot of things that don't make sense in Whimsy. That makes finding Hamburgers far more unlikely.

My exact stats for the last couple of days, running 4 accounts.


20 Whimsyshire runs in total. (8 MP1, 9 MP2, 2 MP4, 1 MP6)
9 Pinata
3 Uniques (One was team unicorn, so this scews my stats a lot)

2 Hamburgers
2 Spectrum

Chance of Pinata 45%
Chance of Unique 15%

Drop % of hamburger 5.6% (So 2.5% in total, after taking into account the chance of pinata to appear)
Drop % of spectrum 16.7% (If counting team unicorn as 1, 8.3% if counting team unicorn as 4)

@ecocd damn.... 2 guaranteed pinatas would have covered the world in hamburgers.