Hellfire Amulets: Detailed Guide to Crafting

FOREWORD
Starting with Patch 2.1, a craftable gamechanger will take the amulet slot by storm. Giving purpose to the nigh-forgotten Uber fights and offering the amazing utility of a fifth passive, the new Hellfire Amulets are a source of power (and frustration, and prayers to RNGsus) to be reckoned with.

THE RECIPES

• First of all, you will need the recipe for a Hellfire Amulet, which you can purchase from Squirt the Peddler – the little girl vendor in Act 2 – for the hefty sum of 5 million gold. Once you have it, teach it to Covetous Shen and you’re good to go. You’ll notice in your recipe list that you now have the option to craft a Hellfire Amulet with a mainstat of your choice. The requirements to craft one are 50 thousand gold, 10 forgotten souls and – of course – one of each unique material from the uber bosses, including the Uber Diablo fight introduced in Reaper of Souls. If you haven’t done ubers yet, or you haven’t visited them since the old Hellfire rings, allow me to remind you how to find them.
• To get to the Uber Bosses, you need an Infernal Machine item that opens the portal to their respective dimension. For example, you’ll need an Infernal Machine of Evil to get to Uber Diablo and obtain his crafting material. Crafting an Infernal Machine costs four keys – one of each type: a Key of Bones, a Key of Gluttony, a Key of War, and a Key of Evil.

THE KEYS

Each key drops off of a different Keywarden from the four acts of the original Diablo 3.

• Odeg the Keywarden is a large, purple Goatman found in the Fields of Misery in Act 1. He has the Jailer, Molten and Knockback affixes and is prone to running away from you and right into packs of additional monsters, which forces you to chase him into unfavorable fights. This keywarden can be a bit of a pain for characters with lower toughness, so try not to chase into the molten trail that he leaves behind. When you defeat him, you can get the Key of Bones.
• Sokahr the Keywarden is an enormous Dune Dervish type monster found in the Dahlgur Oasis in Act 2. His affixes include Missile Dampening, Vortex and Mortar, the latter of which can be particularly deadly if you don’t keep an eye out for it – so be prepared to move away the moment you see the canon shots in the air. When you defeat Sokahr, you can get a Key of Gluttony.
• Xah’Rith the Keywarden is similar to the Morlu Incinerator mobs, but has cold theme to him instead of fire, and resides in Stonefort in Act 3. He was once the hardest of the Keywardens, but had his difficulty reduced significantly. Now, he uses a simple Blizzard-like spell to slow you down and harm you. He’s also capable of teleporting around, but with simple avoidance of his area of effect he’s rather easy to take down. Upon death, he has a chance drop a Key of War.
• Finally, we have Nekarat the Keywarden, who is the big brother of the Terror Demons that infest theSilver Spire level 1. He possesses the Jailer and Knockback affixes, and a powerful melee attack that applies the same debuff as his smaller relatives, greatly reducing the effectiveness of any healing you may have. Keeping your distance from him is not really an option, since he’s quite agile and will catch up to you pretty quickly. Nekarat has a chance to drop a Key of Evil.

 I should note that there is a small chance that each Keywarden can drop a second key of any type in addition to his regular key. So sometimes, you will get two for the price of one ;)

THE UBERS
Once you’re armed with all four keys, it’s time to craft yourself an Infernal Machine and fight the Uber Bosses. There are four variations of the fight; I’ll go over them one by one.

• The Infernal Machine of Bones opens a portal to the Realm of Discord, where you fight the Uber clones of the Skeleton King and Maghda for a chance to get the crafting material Leoric’s Regret. Strategy-wise I usually focus down the Skeleton King first – he tends to stand around in close melee range, taunting you with laughter and summoning harmless skeletons; you only need to watch out for the whirlwind attack. Once you’re done with Leoric, Maghda will be easier to dispatch; she’ll still annoy you with her temporary shield and the Arcane beams she sometimes spawns right underneath you, so watch out and don’t underestimate her.
• The Infernal Machine of War opens a portal to the Realm of Turmoil, where you fight the Uber clones of the Siegebreaker and Zoltun Kulle for a chance to get the crafting material Idol of Terror. For this fight, my general strategy is to dispose of the Siegebreaker first, kiting him from a distance and trying my best to avoid his grab attack. If he lands one, it will deal a lot of damage and sets up an easy second attack from Zoltun Kulle which can kill you on T6 if you get the unlucky chain attack. Once Siegebreaker is down, Kulle is a lot easier to deal with – just don’t stand in his tornados and keep an eye out for his Ceiling Collapse attack (which you can recognize by the evil laughter right before he does it).
• The Infernal Machine of Gluttony opens a portal to the Realm of Chaos, where you fight the Uber clones of Ghom and Rakanoth for a chance to get the crafting material Vial of Putridness. This is an easier fight – both Ghom and Rakanoth are sustained damage bosses, with barely any burst to surprise you and throw you off your game. Their tendency to clump up favors the use of Area of Effect damage, so try to burst them down as quickly as possible and you should be fine.
• The Infernal Machine of Evil opens a portal to the Realm of Fright, where you fight the Uber clone ofDiablo along with whatever random bosses he decides to summon, for a chance to get the crafting material Heart of Evil. Tactics here will vary depending on the random spawns, but Diablo himself isn’t the hardest Uber boss – he’s prone to standing around in one spot for a long time, making AOE spells very effective; just watch out for the Bone Prison attack and he’ll fall relatively quickly.

Please note that the entire event is Torment-only AND neither the keys from the Keywardens, nor the crafting materials from Uber Bosses are guaranteed drops. You can improve your chances by increasing your difficulty settings, but even on the highest difficulty (Torment 6) the chance is just 50%. The odds may be improved by Blizzard in the future; but for now keep in mind you might have to repeat the Keywardens and the Ubers a couple of times before you get the necessary materials.

THE CRAFT

With 50 thousand gold, 10 forgotten souls and all four crafting materials you’ll be ready to craft your Hellfire Amulet. Light all your candles to RNGsus, sacrifice a level 1 hardcore character to appease the server, and cross your keyboard-hardened fingers – ‘cause you’ll need it.

The only random element you can eliminate is the mainstat roll. Getting the correct elemental bonus for your build and the two ideal offensive stats for an amulet – crit chance and crit damage - is hard enough already, even with the added benefit of rerolling one stat with the mystic. But there is an added layer of randomness on top, which is getting the correct, desired passive out of 18 possibilities. Since the passive you get cannot be rerolled, you can imagine it might take a while.

You’ll have an easier time, of course, if you can distinguish a passive from your passive pool that applies to the majority of your builds.

A CRUSADER’S PERSPECTIVE
For Crusaders in particular, one such passive is Finery. There’s barely a build that doesn’t utilize this passive as a damage and toughness boost already; and considering the upcoming introduction of Legendary Gems for your jewelry, the number of mandatory sockets across your gear will increase, and so will the usefulness of Finery.

Other good options would be getting either Heavenly Strength or Fervor Hellfire Amulets, but that would restrict you to particular weapon categories and you’ll be less flexible whenever you want to switch around builds.

Of course, singular build Hellfire amulets – like one with Towering Shield for example, or with Blunt like the one I got on my first attempt – should be saved (especially early on) and can be put to good use, but those I feel will be stepping stones until you get Hellfires with all-around passives, rather than the specialized ones.

FINAL WORDS
That just about covers it for the new hellfire amulets. They are a bit of a hassle to obtain right now, requiring you to restart games quite a bit until you get the keys and the organs. The good news is, you can start stocking up on organs on the live servers, since an official post from Blizzard did confirm that the crafting recipe will remain identical to the one we have on the PTR right now. I’m pretty certain that once the playerbase as a whole realizes the enormous benefit of having a free fifth passive, communities based around Hellfire farming will quickly arise and the process will become smoother. Maybe even with a bit of a helpful push on Blizzard’s part with the droprates! ;)

That’s all from me – I hope that I was useful to you in your upcoming adventures of obtaining a Hellfire Amulet for your class. Good luck!

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