diablo-3
At 500,000 gold for the Hell staff—and reportedly 1,000,000 for the Inferno staff—it seems like this is an upgrade that needs to be thought through, so I was looking for solid data from people who have made a considerable number of Whimsyshire runs.
Start to finish—and not counting Auction House sales of rare items—how much gold do you typically make doing a Whimsyshire run on either Hell or Inferno difficulty?
I think this post need an update for anyone looking for up-to-date information. With the patch 1.0.3, the upgrading cost of the Blacksmith as been greatly reduced. That said, the Blacksmith tier unlock costs break down like this, still actual for 1.0.7 and 1.0.8:
Normals tiers
Nightmare tiers
Hell tiers
Inferno tiers
This puts maxing the blacksmith at a total of 173,000 gold and some cheap books. Since there is not modification for the jeweler, to maximize both artisans, you need:
One of the folks over at the Diablo 3 Database Forums has provided a google doc for just this purpose!
And from that data, we get this nifty chart:
That big spike is at Level 50, just before Hell difficulty starts.
Best Answer
I was doing hell whimsy shire two days ago with a buddy after helping him pay for it. We were hoping for drops that would be comparable to inferno act 1, but the highest level that drops for items is for level 59 characters. The gold drops were more than a little disappointing when compared to act 1 inferno. We didn't get 5 stacks before doing it, but we would wait for 5 stacks before opening the clouds and pots of gold... Overall we were all making right around 20-22k a run, and a run taking about 15-20 minutes.
Needless to say after being forced to tank for 2 runs I finally left my group and went back to farming inferno act 1, lots more gold, items to sell on AH, and maybe even an upgrade o.0!
Inferno, should be worth it though, but I wouldn't worry about that till you can clear act 3 inferno...