… is still the fastest way to farm for legendary items. This does not apply to class specific set items (like Inna’s, Tal Rasha, Zunimassa, Immortal King, Natalya’s) as those plus the new level 70 ones, will only drop if playing in Torment. A quick background first.
For myself, I basically took my newest character (geared from the start with loot 2.0), and used that character to play through the Act V campaign in order to unlock Adventure Mode. I did most of it on Torment I until level 68 where my eHP wasn’t the problem; my damage output was just being outscaled at that point. From a full AP pool, I can fire off 9 Frozen Orbs in a row (not using my other AP spender which is Comet); it basically took 10 Orbs to take down most trash mobs at this level.
The scaling of monster health pools was making playing at this setting, tedious. The only reason I did this was to give me a general idea of what my character’s gear can handle, and whether anything has changed since beta. This was important since it gives me a baseline for playing my hardcore characters. Anyway, I ended up bringing the difficulty down to Master once I hit level 70 (part of the way through Act V).
Once I completed Act V and had Adventure Mode unlocked, I basically ran a few bounties on T1. Currently, only a few slots have level 70 items in them (rest are a mixture of pre/post RoS; but all loot 2.0). After that, I went to leveling my other characters; there is actually a method to my madness of having 3 softcore wizards now though (one is my original main, the second was a backup mule to wear my previous items, the third was created in patch 2.0).
My actual main is still going to be my original (I’m just going about gearing up, a little differently); I leveled this one to 70 as well but primarily doing bounty runs on T1 using mostly legacy gear; only a few slots have been replaced with level 61+ items (and only my weapon thus far, is a level 70 item). This character has enough eDPS to manage. Anyway, this is why legacy enchanting was removed from the game (legacy gear is mostly sheet damage focused).
But once I have all 3 at level 70, I’ll basically be playing all of them as a means to increase my chances of getting different drops. The drop system does interact a bit differently when playing with legacy items that are on the above average side – which mine is. Some slots will never see an actual level 70 upgrade; so I’m getting those drops by playing my loot 2.0 geared wizards.
I also decided to unlock Adventure Mode in hardcore (I originally was not going to touch hardcore until later, but since I was doing the above testing the limits, decided I might as well level them up as well).
Anyway, why is farming on Normal, the most efficient means of farming for legendary items? Because it’s about clearing bounties as fast as possible (more kills also translates into more drops) to garner more bounty bags (Horadric Caches) really quickly as those also have a chance to drop legendaries. This also kills another bird with one stone; decent starter level 70 gear for doing low level Torment efficiently.
Also, split farming bounties was an issue during beta (mainly because of the XP and gold rewards), but it seems this is still the most efficient way to do bounties as well as a means to complete bounties much faster (a group splits up and does 1 bounty a piece; whomever completes their bounty first can then tackle the final one and/or a group effort). Once all bounties are completed by the group, everyone gets their Horadric Cache that much faster. Sure, there are trade offs like less experience, Rift key fragments, and Blood Shards. Shards are an alternative way to get starter level 70 gear (just gamble them away for possible slot upgrades initially).
I’m personally not focusing on end game at the moment because the first major content patch which will include stuff like Seasons and competitive ladders within it, probably is at least 6 months away. Thus I see no reason for rushing straight ahead into doing Nephalem Rifts (I’ve done only one) as I don’t believe that running them, is very efficient for farming for items at the moment; I view them as interim end game stuff to do once I hit the gear upgrade wall. I also don’t plan on enchanting a lot of stuff until I’ve collected enough legendary and set items. But this is just how I prefer playing as I see no reason for rushing with stuff like Rifts. Level 70 ubers is not something I plan on doing much of either because the RNG there is ridiculous, for the chance at getting a mostly poorly rolled ring (it’s something I’ll do one day just to get the achievement).
