Season 11 has a funny way of making you feel “rich” in everything except Obducite. You’ll be cruising through builds, swapping aspects, stacking damage, and then Masterworking hits you like a brick. If you’re trying to keep up with the late-game pace while still farming Diablo 4 gold on the side, you quickly learn Obducite is the real bottleneck now, not the flashy stuff.

Obducite just doesn’t rain from routine clears anymore. Run a Nightmare Dungeon “normally” and the payout can feel kind of sad. The upside is the devs didn’t leave the costs untouched. Masterworking isn’t as ridiculously expensive as it used to be, so you don’t need mountains of the material to finish a piece. What you do need is a plan. If you’re still upgrading every decent drop “just to see,” you’ll stay broke and annoyed.

Nightmare Dungeons are still the core loop, but the real story is Horadric Strongrooms. When one pops, the difference is night and day. You can go from pocket change to a haul that actually moves your Masterworking forward. People have basically turned it into a fishing game: enter, rush the Strongroom, fill that progress bar like your life depends on it, crack the final chest on higher difficulty, then bail. Yeah, it feels a bit scummy to skip the rest, but the math doesn’t lie. Save your Sigil Powder, roll for the right rooms, and stop pretending the completion reward is the main prize.

If dungeon resets start to melt your brain, Infernal Hordes are a solid change of pace. They’re not a jackpot, but they’re steady, and “steady” matters this season. Aim for the Spoils of Materials at the end and you’ll walk out with enough Obducite to feel like the run mattered. Kurast Undercity sits in that same lane. Pick refinement-leaning Tributes, keep your rhythm, and you’ll stack several hundred at a time without the constant Strongroom gambling.

The biggest quality-of-life upgrade isn’t a farm route, it’s restraint. Start with the weapon that actually carries your damage, then the armor slots that hit your defensive breakpoints. Don’t Masterwork “maybe” items. Don’t chase perfect rolls on every slot right away. If you focus your upgrades and lean on Strongrooms for big spikes, you’ll stay ahead of the curve and still have room to buy Diablo 4 gold when you’d rather be playing than scraping materials.