The Hellfire Amulet: A Crafting Guide

The Hellfire Amulet . . . a sought after Legendary which can potentially be a best-in-slot item for nearly any build. What makes the Hellfire Amulet so special is its unique secondary stat which gives you a random passive appropriate for your class.

Depending on how you roll this – the Hellfire Amulet can be a game-changer.

Oh, Oh! I wants one!

If you decide you must have one of these shiny orange amulets – prepare to put in the time. Gathering the materials for a Hellfire Amulet is a multi-step process – and if you’re unable to charge through the farming on Torment VI – then it’s also an exercise in patience and determination. 21 drops are needed in order to craft the Legendary amulet, and even on Torment VI, some of the mats are not guaranteed drops.

The entire process requires multiple battles with RNG – including the crafting of the amulet itself.

…and it’s expensive.

A Hellfire Amulet is going to set you back nearly 5.5M gold, PLUS 10 Forgotten Souls. Also, keep in mind that RNG may not be your friend when it comes crating time. So . . . given the time investment, cost of crafting the item, and the possibility of less than favorable stats or a poopy passive . . . setting out to craft a Hellfire Amulet is probably something you’ll want to bundle in with your normal play. In other words, rather than set aside an evening or two (or three, or four…) to gather the mats, your best bet would be to casually farm the necessary mats while you’re out doing bounties or questing.

So . . . How do you craft a Hellfire Amulet?

Alright…so despite the forewarning, you’re still bound and determined to add this amulet to your gear set. I commend you on your focused determination and desire to be the best, or something like that.

Okay, so here’s what you’re going to need for crafting the Hellfire Amulet:

Hellfire Amulet Recipe

Squirt the Peddler will gladly sell you this recipe in exchange for 5,000,000 gold. If you don’t have 5M gold, don’t worry. You can put this off until after you’ve gathered the necessary mats, because chances are you’ll acquire at least a few million gold while on your journey to acquiring all of the mats.

Squirt the Peddler is located in Act II, Hidden Camp.

Infernal Machine Recipe

The Hellfire Amulet is crafted from demon organs which you’ll obtain after defeating a series of uber bosses; however, before you can do battle with the uber bosses, you need to craft portal devices in order to reach them. The portal devices – called The Infernal Machine(s) – are needed for transporting you (and your party) to the places where you’ll fight the ubers.

Four sets of ubers must be defeated, which means you need to craft at least 4 portals – each one being unique.

The Four Infernal Machines are:

• Infernal Machine of Bones: Opens portal to Realm of Discord (Leoric and Maghda).
• Infernal Machine of Gluttony: Opens portal to Realm of Chaos (Ghom and Rakanoth).
• Infernal Machine of War: Opens portal to Realm of Turmoil (Siegebreaker and Zoltun Kulle).
• Infernal Machine of Evil: Opens portal to Realm of Fright (Diablo and 2 random ubers).

The recipe for the Infernal Machines drops off of any of the 4 Keywardens. The recipe seems like a guaranteed drop if you haven’t yet taught it to your Blacksmith. If it’s not a 100% drop-rate, then it’s really close. Regardless, it’s not something you’ll need to farm specifically for. If you don’t already have the Infernal Machine recipe, you will once you start farming the keys.

16 Uber Keys

4 Uber Keys are needed for crafting each of the Infernal Machines.

• Key of Bones: Drops from Odeg the Keywarden (Act I, Fields of Misery)
• Key of Gluttony: Drops from Sokahr the Keywarden (Act II, Dahlgur Oasis)
• Key of War: Drops from Xah’Rith the Keywarden (Act III, Stonefort)
• Key of Evil: Drops from Nekarat the Keywarden (Act IV, Silver Spire – Level 1)

Farming the Uber Keys

The keys needed for crafting the Infernal Machines drop from four separate Keywardens located in Acts I, II, III and IV. The Keywardens should be farmed in Adventure Mode to allow quick access to the waypoints.

Note: In order to kill the Keywardens, you must be in Torment I difficulty or higher. The Wardens of the Keys do not bother spawning in Normal through Master difficulty levels. Pre-RoS they would spawn, even though they wouldn’t drop any keys, but in RoS they won’t even bother. In short, you must farm the keys in Torment difficulty.

The keys themselves are not guaranteed drops, which totally blows, but raising the Torment difficulty level will increase the drop rates.

The drop rates for the Uber Keys in Reaper of Souls are…

I’m going to quote some blue here for proof; however, ignore the bit in there about the organ drop rate — that’s been buffed since this blue post, but the key drop rates are still the same.

I farmed the keys solo in Torment II difficulty. Based on my real-world testing, the drop rate I experienced was a flat 25%, which is pretty close to the stated 28% – allowing a little wiggle room for RNG.

Note: Although I did not see this happen one time during my 64 Keywarden kills, it’s been stated that each Keywarden has a small chance to drop a different key, or an additional random key. In my case, each of the 16 keys I obtained was from its respective Keywarden and never once did I see an additional key, even though that would have been nice!

Also be aware that Magic Find does not affect the drop chances for the keys – only your Torment level will affect the drop rate.

Where to Farm the Uber Keys

As I’d mentioned, each of the Infernal Machines requires 4 unique keys. Since you’ll need to craft 4 machines, you’ll need 4 of each key.

Here are the locations and names of the bad guys you’ll need to kill for the keys. Keep in mind that the Keywardens will spawn in random locations in these zones, which means you must hunt for them. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and they’ll spawn right near the waypoint, but other times you’ll be forced to comb every square inch of the map until they’ve been found.

Act I, Fields of Misery: Odeg the Keywarden (Unique Moon Clan Impaler)

Drops: Key of Bones

Abilities: Spear Attack – 3 Fireballs – Jailer – Molten

Odeg’s main attacks can be pretty easily avoided unless he CC’s you. He has a tendency to run away and lead you into other packs of mobs, leaving a trail of fire as he kites you. If you can avoid his 3 fireball frontal cone attack and not get overwhelmed by adds, then he’s not terribly difficult.

The Fields of Misery is a pretty expansive map, so the approach I used here was to first run a wide circle around the waypoint just to make sure he wasn’t close by, then I’d set off in one direction until I hit the edge of the map. From that point I’d traverse the map side-to-side in one direction until I found him. If he didn’t show up before I reached the edge, I’d open my map and port back to the waypoint, then set off traversing the map in the other direction.

*In Torment II it took me 10 runs to get 4 keys from Odeg the Keywarden (40% drop rate).

Act II, Dahlgur Oasis: Sokahr the Keywarden (Unique Dune Dervish)

Drops: Key of Gluttony

Abilities: Spin (deflects attacks) – Mortar – Vortex – Electrified

The things to watch out for with Sokhar are his Spin – which deflects all incoming damage – and his Mortar attack. Apart from that, he has the Electrified affix which can sting a little bit, but if you can avoid the Mortars and watch your DPS when he spins – you should be fine. He can be annoying, especially if you’re a ranged class, but he’s not too hard to take down.

I used the same approach for locating Sokahr as I did with Odeg. Dahlgur Oasis is probably the worst of the three maps since the area is massive, plus it has a ton of terrain issues, and lots of nooks and crannies where Sokahr can be lurking.

*In Torment II it took me 18 runs to get 4 keys from Sokhar the Keywarden (22% drop rate).

Act III, Stonefort: Xah’Rith the Keywarden (Unique Morlu Incinerator)

Drops: Key of War

Abilities: Teleport – Frozen Avalanche – Illusionist

Now just a shadow of his former more difficult self, Xah’rith isn’t terribly hard if you can avoid the rain of frozen corpses he throws down at you. The corpse avalanche will damage and slow you, but like Sokhar’s Mortar, it’s visible on the ground beforehand so you can avoid it without much trouble.

Like the other Keywardens, Xah’Rith can be found anywhere on the map. This map; however, is more linear and a little less annoying than Fields of Misery or Dahlgur Oasis. 3 of the 13 times I killed Xah’Rith he was very close to the waypoint. Once he was just up the steps, and 2 other times I found him just past the bridge that’s guarded by Dragus.

*In Torment II it took me 13 runs to get 4 keys from Xah’Rith the Keywarden (31% drop rate).

Act IV, Silver Spire level 1: Nekarat the Keywarden (Unique Terror Demon)

Drops: Key of Evil

Abilities: Claw Attack – Jailer – Healing Debuff – Knockback

Nekarat will attack you with a powerful melee Claw ability and he’ll also hit you with a healing debuff that will reduce all healing effects by 75%. His Jailer and Knockback affixes can also be a problem, plus he can have a tendency to lead you into, or launch you toward, other mobs. If possible, try to eliminate any adds around him and lead him into a previously cleared area so you don’t have to struggle with additional mobs while dealing with him.

This map is probably the easiest one to crawl, but it seems rife with mobs – especially uniques, rares and elite packs – which can slow you down some. When you do encounter Nekarat, just be careful you don’t overwhelm yourself too much. I would typically focus down all elite packs, uniques and rares when I encountered them – not just on this map, but all of them.

I have not seen anything to confirm this suspicion, but it seems universally agreed upon by most who have farmed the Keywardens that the Key of Evil has the lowest drop rate. This was definitely true in my case as it took me 23 runs to get the 4 keys, where as the other wardens dropped their goods within 10-18 runs.

*In Torment II it took me 23 runs to get 4 keys from Nekarat the Keywarden (17% drop rate).

Tips for Farming the Uber Keys

When I decided to go for this amulet I figured I’d solo it. I mean, how difficult or time-consuming could it be, right..?!

My first run-through, each Keywarden dropped his key. I went 4 for 4 and thought, man, this is going to be a breeze!

RNG trolled me hardcore. The next 8 kills I saw one key, but by that point I figured my luck had to turn around. Needless to say, it took me 64 kills to get all 16 keys needed for the 4 Infernal Machines, with each run averaging about 5 minutes. I could have shaved some time off of that mark by going out of my way to avoid mobs, but even still, you’re probably looking at 3-4 minutes per Keywarden run. With the amount of keys needed for obtaining the Hellfire Amulet, this can be quite a time-sink.

Here are some tips I can offer to expedite the key-farming process…

1. Group up. Spreading out and hunting the Keywardens in a group is much more efficient, plus each player has a chance to get the drop. Although the keys cannot be traded, farming them in a group will speed up the chances of someone obtaining all 4 keys for a machine*.
2. Stack movement speed gear. No need to explain why. Faster is better.
3. Tweak your build to implement any and all movement speed boosts. Same reason as #2.
4. Avoid mobs. I was downing all of the uniques, rares and elite packs I encountered, as well as going for Massacre bonuses, but if you want to cut down the time, just juke past all of those unnecessary mobs.
5. Farm the Keywardens at the highest difficulty you can while still being able to kill things within a reasonable amount of time. Although the drop rate increases with difficulty, there’s still no guarantee. Even at Torment VI the best odds you have are 50/50. That being said, it’s better to farm the Keywardens at a comfortable enough level so that you can get more attempts in, rather than struggling to kill them on a setting that’s beyond your limits.

* In Patch 2.1.1, Blizzard changed the way keys drop in group play…

Now to Craft the Infernal Machines

Once you get all 16 keys, it’s time to craft the Infernal Machines. Pay your ol’ buddy Haedrig Eamon a visit and ask him to build you one each of the four Portal Devices.

Once you have in your possession the: Infernal Machine of Bones, Infernal Machine of Gluttony, Infernal Machine of War, and the Infernal Machine of Fright, it’s now time to head over to New Tristram. Once there, you’re going to kick in the door that’s just behind Brother Malachi the Healer. You’ll now be able to enter the Heretic’s Abode.

Inside this room (which looks like it was inspired by a SLAYER album cover) you’re going to activate the portal devices by right-clicking on them in your inventory.

It does not matter which order you activate the portals, or in which order you battle the ubers – you just need to defeat the bosses in each realm in order to obtain all four necessary drops for the crafting of the amulet.

Battling the Uber Bosses

In order to get all 4 mats for the amulet you’ll need to defeat the bosses in all 4 portals; however, unless you tackle the ubers in Torment VI difficulty, there is no guarantee you’ll get the necessary drops. In typical Blizzard fashion, they have not fully disclosed the drop rates for the various Torment levels – only that Torment VI is guaranteed to drop an organ.

It’s my assumption that the drop rates probably look like this:

• Torment I: 50%
• Torment II: 60%
• Torment III: 70%
• Torment IV: 80%
• Torment V: 90%
• Torment VI: 100%

I may be off here, but my guess is they took the previous 25-50% drop rate and doubled it – in much the same way Jay Wilson would have done it. 😉

Considering what a grind it is to gather all of the mats needed for crafting the Infernal Machines, it’s strongly encouraged that you take on these bosses at the highest level you can handle so that your chances of getting the drop are as high as possible. Unlike the Keywardens, re-attempting the ubers is not nearly as easy given the amount of work required just to reach them.

It’s also important to note that only one portal device is necessary for any and all players to enter, thus it’s a good idea to get some help when doing these battles – not only to try and ensure success, but also to share in the wealth.

In my case, I had a couple of players accompany me into the portals – neither of whom had farmed even one key. It was their lucky night!

Alright, so the strategy for battling the ubers was to hit the portals in this order:

• Realm of Discord: Skeleton King & Maghda
• Realm of Chaos: Ghom and Rakanoth
• Realm of Turmoil: Siegebreaker & Zoltun Kulle
• Realm of Fright: Diablo + 2 random ubers

Like I said, the order is not important, but I figured it’d be best to hit them in order of how difficult I thought they’d be.

Here’s how it went down…

One of the players in my group (P85 Barbarian) was a friend I’d normally run T3 rifts with, but the other player in our party was pretty squishy (P47 Wizard) and under-geared, so we elected to start out on Torment II to to test the waters.

Now I don’t want to mislead anyone who hasn’t tried this yet into becoming overly confident – thinking they can roflstomp these bosses – but they’re not quite as uber as I’d expected. Granted we did most of them on T4, and Diablo on T3, still…I was expecting quite a struggle if we attempted them in our normal difficulty setting. Not the case.

Don’t get me wrong…it is a challenge, for sure, but these boss fights are nothing like the Uber Tristram or Diablo Clone events from D2.

That said, here’s a description of the encounters:

Skeleton King & Maghda

Based on what I’d gleaned from other guides and forum posts, the plan here was to kill Leoric first. Maghda spawns Berserker adds and then shields herself for every 25% of her HPs you take off, so it’s best to tackle her once you’ve dispatched with the Skeleton King. If you don’t kill Leoric’s doppelganger first you’ll be overrun by evil minions and the fight will become pretty chaotic.

The Skeleton King is pretty easy to deal with. The main thing to watch out for when fighting him is to avoid Maghda’s Arcane Sentries and to move away from her Purple Swarm, which is a slow-moving cloud of bugs which will do decent damage if it reaches you. Other than that, if you’re ranged, be careful to move away if he should teleport on top of you, as he will hit you pretty hard if he gets the chance. He will Teleport to a ranged attacker right after he raises his hammer.

Once Leoric is down, focus on Mags. As mentioned, she will summon adds and shield herself at 75%, 50% and 25% health. You must burn down the adds to remove her shield and start damaging her again. Avoid her Locust Swarm and Arcane Sentries and you’re home free.

After defeating The Skeleton King and Maghda, the last one standing should hopefully drop a Leoric’s Regret.

Ghom & Rakanoth

This was one of the easier fights, I thought, since neither of the two bosses have any huge burst damage attacks. We focused Ghom down first, but I don’t know that it really matters. Rakanoth is probably more of a threat due to his Teleport / melee attack, and his frontal cone AoE spell, but we focused Ghom first to rid ourselves of his stank. Ghom is not much of a threat, but our squishy Wizard with low passive health regen was having issues due to Ghom’s cropdusting DoT. Ghom will also spawn adds, but they are little more than a nuisance. Trying to avoid Ghom’s gas cloud is tough since it is everywhere, so the main thing with this fight is to watch out for Rakanoth.

Rakanoth will occasionally Teleport to attackers outside of melee range and use his melee swing, which is signaled by him lowering his blades. This is probably his deadliest attack, but unless you’re very poorly geared, it shouldn’t be a one-shot. If he raises his blades then it means he’s about to use his Blade Cleave ability. If he raises up off the ground and crosses his blades then he’s preparing to unleash his frontal cone AoE.

Try your best to stay behind Rakanoth whenever possible, avoid his attacks that I mentioned, and this fight isn’t so bad.

Downing Ghom and Rakanoth should earn you a Vial of Putridness.

Siegebreaker & Zoltun Kulle

To me, this seemed like the toughest of the four uber boss battles. Since we ran it on T4 and Uber Diablo on T3, it’s tough to make a direct comparison, but this battle was an edge-of-your-seat thriller. Siegebreaker is brutal with his melee attacks and CC, then on top of that you have Zoltun Kulle floating around casting his tornadoes, slowing you and flinging fireballs, plus collapsing the roof on on top of your head. It’s a very busy fight with a lot to watch out for.

With Siegebreaker you want to try and stay behind him as much as possible. If he manages to grab you it can be deadly. His grab attack does a lot of damage and renders you useless during its duration. At the end of the attack he slams you down, which can, if you’re not careful, allow Zoltun Kulle to land a Slow Time + Fireball on you – finishing you off.

In all honesty, we didn’t have much of a strat here beyond staying alive. We did try to focus Siegebreaker down first since his grab attack is such a problem, but the general approach was survival.

Zoltun Kulle is pesky as hell, so you need to be mindful of a few things during this fight, but if you know what to watch for it will help tremendously. First off, he will try to place Slow Time bubbles over you which will slow you by 80%, quickly followed by a Fireball. If you get covered in one of his bubbles, try moving out of it as quickly as possible.

Second, he will cause a cave-in which does a lot of physical damage if you get caught in it. He signals the cave-in with his mad scientist laughter, so when you hear that move from the area where you’re standing and you should be safe.

He also sends tornadoes swirling about which are fairly slow and easy to avoid, but with all that’s going on in this fight, be on the lookout and avoid those as best you can.

Were I to attempt this fight again I think I would focus Zoltun Kulle down first, while trying to stay as far away from Siegebreaker as possible. Kulle provides the knockout blow of the two, plus he’s harder to avoid due to his Teleport ability. As long as you can avoid Siege’s grab attack, keeping him kited and slowed while handling Kulle is probably the best plan with this pair.

Killing Siegebreaker and Zoltun Kulle will hopefully grant you an Idol of Terror.

Diablo + 2 Random Ubers

For Uber Diablo we dialed things down to Torment III, but I’m pretty sure we could have handled T4. Diablo does a lot of damage, but as long as you approach the fight properly, you can avoid enough of his damage to emerge victorious.

Uber Diablo has a few attacks you need to avoid, the most significant being his energy beam, which is the channeled breath attack that he casts. If you see this being cast, run away. If you get caught in it you’ll get fried.

The other attack to look out for is the ring of fire that he casts on the ground by raising up and throwing a fireball down at his target location. If you see this spell being cast, quickly move from where you are standing.

He’ll also cast a 360º fireball attack which you can dodge, although it’s harder the closer you are to him. This attack is not as deadly as the other two, but be mindful of it.

Lastly, he will try at times to cast Bone Prison on you, which can cause serious problems if followed up with another attack while you’re not at full health. Keep an eye out for the black spots that appear on the ground. If you see one beneath you move away from it as quickly as possible. The black spot will show up a second before the Bone Prison.

At 75% health Uber Diablo (aka The Soul of Evil) will summon a random uber boss to come aid him. Fortunately for us, these versions of the uber bosses are watered down and have a lot less health than their previous versions. When he summons a random add quickly focus it down, then switch back to Diablo.

At 50% health he will summon another random uber boss, so it’s important that you switch DPS from Diablo while the first add is up. If you don’t down the first add before Diablo reaches 50% then you’ll be dealing with the abilities of 3 uber bosses all at once and you won’t want that.

At 25% Diablo will summon a clone of himself, making this final phase the toughest part of the fight. Watch for the ring of fire and energy beam attacks, avoid the bone prisons as best you can, and blow any big cooldown abilities you have at this point. You’re nearly home free!

Upon killing The Soul of Evil you will hopefully be rewarded with a Heart of Evil.

Damn! I’m not able to do these fights on Torment VI and I didn’t get some of the drops!

If you don’t get all of the organs it’s not the end of the world, but I do recommend you do your key farming in a group. Soloing the Keywardens, although I did it myself, is not something I recommend. For one, you can cover a lot more ground and get to the Keywardens faster if multiple party members are searching, plus, unlike the organs which either drop for all party members or not at all (apart from T6), the keys have a chance to drop for each player. (this was changed in Patch 2.1.1. — keys are now a ‘group drop’)

In our case, we got 3 out of the 4 organs, so we needed to craft another machine. With all of us scouting for the wardens, the farming process was much, much quicker. We had our 4 keys within about 25 minutes.

If you missed them, please see the Uber Key Farming Tips further up in this post.

Crafting the Hellfire Amulet

Provided your efforts were successful and you received all 4 organ drops from the uber bosses, you’re just about ready to craft your amulet. If you haven’t yet purchased the Hellfire Amulet recipe from Squirt the Peddler in the Hidden Camp of Act II, then now is the time to do so. 5,000,000 gold and it is all yours.

With your jeweler all trained up with the recipe, your 4 organs in hand, plus a cool 50,000 gold for the crafting fee, the only other things you’ll need are 10 Forgotten Souls.

10 Forgotten Souls..?! Yikes!

While this seems like a lot, and is in fact pretty costly compared to other crafted items, we are talking about a godly Hellfire Amulet. Furthermore, it’s a good time to audit your stash and purge the lesser oranges. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to gather up 10 Legendaries I could salvage, but after some close evaluation I was able to weed out about a dozen oranges that I could burn down for souls.

Okay, so now came the moment I’d been waiting for. After sacrificing 10 legendaries I’d been storing for the alts I was going to roll someday, and with my 50K gold and 4 organs, it was now time to visit Shen and pray that the RNG gods would look upon me favorably this day.

In Closing…

Well, I hope this guide helps those of you looking to set out on your own quest to obtain this sexy little amulet. I doubt I’ll be planning to farm for another anytime soon, but it was a fun experience!

If you have any additional questions or tips of your own to share, please do so in the comments below!

I’m also curious to hear how lucky some of you have gotten, so if you’ve been fortunate enough to have been gifted by the gods of RNG, please share your good fortune in the comments.

Cheers!