Efficient farming of Dominus

Apologies if I'm repeating something that's probably already been addressed, but try as I might I've yet to find anything on the matter at hand after 30 minutes of searching.

I'm curious to know how different people approach farming Dominus from the perspective of maximizing returns on time invested. I've been farming him non-stop of late, and in the midst of the tedium and of watching countless trash uniques drop, pondered if there's actually an ideal method for disposing of the loot gained from the exercise.

In the past I've tended to ID everything magic and rare when farming, but the cost is that you burn through scrolls pretty quickly. I used to save myself the trouble of farming for more scrolls by buying them, and figured for the cost I was making 4 - 5 times as much back again and using the time in more productive ways. But finding people who regularly sell scrolls is tough, so I had to go back to farming for scrolls fairly often to keep up.

Over the last week I've tried a different approach, which is to only ID the rares (other than those I use for chaos recipes) and simply trade in the blues for the appropriate shards. I'm running with 260IIR and 70IIQ, which means that I usually end up with a ton of rares from the Dominus kill and almost as many in blues from eliminating his lesser help. So by and large I almost get enough transmutations in return to be able to keep up with demand, helped along by the fact I've also started trading in whetstones and armorers scraps as I find them for scrolls, given that I already have enough stashed aside for my needs. In something like 20 - 30 hours of playtime my stack of scrolls has only gone down by about 100, from the 600 I had set aside for this experiment. At this rate I could probably keep on doing Dominus runs for another few weeks before I might need to go out and farm for a new batch of scrolls.

At this point it really seems like the most efficient way to go about it, but I'd be interested to read what kind of approach others take to the matter. Obviously there's a difference in terms of lost currency by not IDing the magic items before vendoring, but what would be the difference with actual time lost in having to farm for scrolls more regularly?

On another point, I have also heard of some people who ONLY farm Dominus for uniques, thus making their runs much more frequent - you could easily do 3 times as many runs this way I'd guess. The uniques I've found to date would almost be worth the currency I've made along the way, but I really wonder how worthwhile it would be to just devote yourself exclusively to chasing uniques, especially when most of them are trash.

I personally don't pick up blues when I run dominus because it's only a few transmute shards and usually I never run out of transmute or can find anyone who sells transmutes.

As for running dominus only for uniques, i wouldn't recommend it except maybe if you're in a group, but even then it'd be more profitable if you just pick up the rares and throw them in your stash and id them later.

I prefer for new leagues - pick up rares. After market is saturated with OK items - pick up Jewelled Foils (or other 1,7 sword/or w/e build is in trend) and Chaos recipe + uniques.

Also picking up Hallowed flasks/Resistance Flasks can be a good idea.

basically what I've been doing since dom entered the game.

Pick up and ID rares. Turn in magics unid for transmute shards. Sell transmutes for scrolls.

Chaos recipe for rares.

Way I do it to keep track is: I have one tab top two rows upper left corner are rings, next row ammy, next row belts, next 2 2H weapons (just seems more space efficient generally). Upper right is helms 4-5 helms. Then some belts, then 5 chests, then 5 gloves, then 5 boots. Once there's no space for rings and/or amulets I begin vendoring (4 chaos).

rings and mostly amulets are the limiting factor. The rest is easy to fill once filled everything (not rings or amulets) goes to vendor. Unless something stands out of course.

Uniques I save too many. I tell myself I'll do the chance recipe but then forget about it.

Portal up right before Upper Sceptre of God.

Rush Dominus as fast as possible only killing enemies in way or to recharge flasks.

Kill Dominus and hope a good unique drops. If one doesn't I pick up the valuable base items that do drop from the fight and fit in the inventory. I ID in town and either vendor right away or put into the tabs I have set aside for chaos recipes.

Take portal to USoG again, set new instance and rinse/repeat for however long I feel like farming.

I used to be in the habit of picking up EVERY single rare item when doing runs and portal in/out to sell. Now I just focus on the good base items and leave everything else alone.

Interesting to note so far that there really is no set way of approaching the issue - everyone seems to have their own path to dealing with the loot. It does get really tedious going backwards and forwards with all of it (on average I figure I do 3 - 4 trips for the blues, another 3 - 4 for the rares, and 1 to change my gear around again) but I just stick with it for now because it does really seem to balance out the need to a) make currency on a regular hourly basis b) keep the stash of scrolls going for a long period of time without the need to replenish and c) keep me hanging in there waiting for the 'big one' to drop!

@Madcow. Sounds like you pretty well do the same as me. Definitely the limiting factor is the amulets in my experience, less so the rings, after that the belts. I used to keep 2 - 3 sets of everything else, waiting for the amulet to complete them, but now I just set up one. On the rare chance I pick up two amulets in one run it takes zero time to get the rest of the gear. Others may disagree, but I seem to get an amulet dropping on average about every 5 - 7 runs or so, so it can be pretty limiting. Then again, it really wouldn't be fair if you could basically make a couple of chaos every run from the recipe, would it?

I've thought about some of the other recipes, such as the full sets and so on, but who the hell can keep track of all that without some kind of spreadsheet - and a lot of room! I currently have 40 stash tabs - which is probably average compared to some - and boy can you fill them up quickly. I'm actually thinking of vendoring a lot of the lesser uniques in my stash, because you practically can't give them away, let alone sell them, and they start taking up a lot of room for no good reason.

@GodTheUndead - you must have better sources - or luck - where buying transmutes are concerned! I've tried sourcing both types, and they're hard to come by on a regular basis.

Make a second account. Level a culler. Use your other character full dps.

Each run took about 5-8 minutes with identifying all rares and doing any corrupted zones I found. (avg: 33 scrolls of wisdoms used per run, 46 IIQ 431 IIR).

When running Dom I only bother to pick up items for chaos recipe. I usually stack up on rings, amys and belts. When I have enough I pick up the rest. I rarely bother to ID rares for shards.

If I have an alt account to cull, it's usually because I'm looking for those 1337 drops so I don't even both picking up rares. I just run Dom as fast and as many times as possible.

Ok the best way to do it if in party of Solo is this.

run to dom ( yha lots of people know how to do this now pretty easy )


kill him ( durp )


ok now the loot.

What we do is fill 1 pack that's it leave evreything elce , so what do you pick up ?

So first things u grab are the " posibley good " rares. So these are items with a high base type so for eg. a astral plate or vaal regal , titan gloves , ect . after time u will learn the names but to give u a qlue to start look at the requierd stats ( u can see this before identifiying ) for eg. a wand that has 210 base int requierd is a high level wand grab that , 1 with 94 int requiered is crap it almost CAN'T roll good. If your lucky this will fill your bag up , grab any and all rings and ammys .

Now most the time this will not fill your pack ( i find even with a massive MF culler "good rares" ( worth i.d.'ing ) are ususaly half a pack full .


Now u grab items for the unidentified chaos recipy , same thing as before but with items that basicaly Can't roll good so the low atribute items , boots with 44 / 50 they are crap no need to identify, only grab the items u need for the set leave evreything elce.

Now do not use a portal , go in the portal that the bitch opens for yha ( it spawns u closer to vendors , pro tip of the day )

you only need 1 stash tab to do this any more are just luxtury ( and TBH make it more a pain stick to 1 tab ) on the top of the tab have gear for the identified chaos recipy on the bottom of the tab the unidentified , in the middile keep all your rings and ammy ( mabey a few belts to ) ID rigns that have good base implicit mods do not id ones that have bad implicits , this is a bit odd since ANY ring in the game can roll god like if lucky and diffrent builds value diffrent stats. What i do is call things that I want on my characters " good " and thing's i don't want "bad" so for me all coarl rings get ID'ed while all mana rings do not . Some player however will want the mana rings and care not for life rings so u have to make the call of what you do hear.

Over some time u will get so good at picking out the good rares off dom that u will be half way back to dom on the secound run by the time your old style was still sorting out crap garbage loot , this incresses your chance for the "gold drop " alot as many more dead doms will happen.

Some buds of mine any myself have been doing this to great succses for a long time now . also it's important to note that we have massive cull ( offten the loot drop dose not fit on 1 screen ) and we play free for all loot . So picking up the "good" rares very fast is important.




P.S. running dom on FFA loot mode is just a ton of fun , guy you owe it to yourself to at least try it. I know people are scared of FFA loot however once u get good and fast it's tons of fun and the FFA loot makes u play better and wakes you up . Remember you do not own it till it's in your pack.

I find 3 accounts are good for farming Dominus. I have dual monitors on my desk so 2 clients (MF char and runner char) get windowed there. I also have my laptop on my desk and the 3rd client (curse char) is on that.

CHARACTERS:
My runner char is a scion (doesn't matter which really) with as much move speed items using leapslam. Other items are BrightBeak and Prismatic Edge for turbo leapslam. Having Cast on Death paired with Portal gem helps lots incase you die on the way from desynch or get mobbed too badly.

My MF char is another scion using incinerate. Many people laugh at incinerate for a MF char but hey, it's all I got and it can tank everything at the top of the sceptre so yeah. Once Dominus (2nd form) is down low I switch in a tabula rasa containing my Culling Strike, Item Rarity, and Item Quantity gems.

The 3rd char is just a templar who had a free respec from a previous patch. His job is to curse Dominus 2nd form to make it easier for the MF char to melt him. He has an extra curse from skill tree and the skill that gives permanent curses. He wears Windcsream boots and 2 Dodere's rings for an additional 3 curses, so 5 curses in all. These are setup in a tabula rasa (such a handy item) linked with cast on death. The curses I currently use are Temp Chains, Enfeeble, Projectile Weakness, Elemental Weakness, and Flammability, as these seem to be the best for my MF char.

HOWTO:
1. Clear from Scepter of god wp to stairs to Upper Scepter using MF char. Drop a portal there.
2. Enter runner char who makes a new instance of Upper Scepter and leapslams as fast as possibe to the top. Once at top pop a portal.
3. Curser and MF char now portal to top.
4. Run curser over to Dominus's buddies and then run the MF char over.
5. Curser will die very quickly and the 3 mini bosses and their helpers all get 5 curses. Use MF char to melt everything.
6. Once Dominus is ready for his 2nd form resurrect the curser and portal him back to the top. Run him to where dominus 2nd form spawns and then bring the MF char over.
7. The curser again will die very quickly and Dominus then gets 5 curses. Melt Dominus with MF char until his health is very low. Now switch in item for Culling and MF.

LOOT:
- I have a stash tab for chaos recipe. 4 sets fits pretty well in the tab page. I find when vendoring the chaos recipe, goto act1 because you don't have to run very far (between stash and vendor) compared to act3.
- Personally I don't collect chance recipe items, I just vendor crap uniques for alch shards/orbs.
- Don't underestimate the mini bosses before Dominus, I got my Shav's Armour from one of them, and numerous other nice items.

NOTES:
-Each run takes between 5 and 8 minutes depending on the complexity of the Upper Scepter.
- I prefer Dominus over Piety as he doesn't move about as much as she does (she is annoying like that). However Piety drops loads more unique maps than Dominus.
- MF could be better, currently I have 109% IIQ and 158% IIR.
- I also have a high level Arc witch. I do Piety runs with just her wearing 2 Pendarus rings to generate the masses of wisdom scrolls required for the Dominus runs.
- Used to be able to do all of this on one PC until GGG limited the number of clients per machine to 2 :(