Activated late last week, Diablo Patch 1.0.5 has doubled the drop rates for Legendary and set items, making them quite lucrative again for d3 gold farmers.

The massive drop rate boost came as players complained that the Legendary and set items, some of which go for tens of millions of Diablo 3 Gold at the auction house, were too difficult to obtain.

Post-patch 1.0.5 though players like Forzi at the EU Diablo 3 forums are reporting a shocking windfall of the once super-elusive gear:

"Before the patch I could find Legendary items very rarely, and I have never gotten a set item," said Forzi. After patch in the first days I got a few, like 5-6 legendary items and till now I have found one set item, which I sold for 30 million at a bid, but that was partly because I played more hours after patch and because drop rates for legends/sets have been doubled."

This has triggered renewed interest in Diablo 3 farming, observed the owner of the Diablo3farming
.com, who reported increased visits to his website and Facebook group after Blizzard issued the patch and made "legendaries drop like candy".

Tips for Post-Patch 1.0.5 Farmers
The Diablo3farming.com owner also warned that with the deluge of Legendary items, prices are headed for a nosedive. Farmers looking to lock in the best profit should observe a few rules that will help them beat the price inflation.

Get to know your niche in depth, buy quality bargains and flip fast unless you get a really good deal on a BIS item.
CM/WW wizards are pretty much dead. Wizards now need more standard DPS gear, since they can't rely on stunlocking anymore.
Gems will be popular, since people will have easy access to gear upgrades and can now spend more time and money on gem upgrades. The price of DEX gems have exploded these last few days, so keep an eye on that.

He also recommended studying the newly implemented Monster Power system, which also went live in Patch 1.0.5, and has incredible synergy with the doubled Legendary drop rates.

Monster Power is a new system which allows players to increase the health and damage of monsters to receive scaling bonuses on experience, Magic Find and Gold, the latter two of which can stack above the normal 300% cap. (Read the Monster Power info page for a complete guide on how to get it set up.)

Given this system, farmers can set up the Monster Power system to ramp up their Magic Find bonuses which will be amplified further by the doubled Legendary drop rate. Here's a more extensive explanation of the amplification effect:

"If the old legendary drop rate was 1% (it wasn't) and you had a Magic Find of 200%, your effective legendary drop rate was 3% and you walked away with 3 legendaries from 300 kills on average," said the Diablo3farming.com owner.

"Now the legendary drop rate is 2%, your MF is 400% and you get twice as many rolls, you end up with an effective legendary drop rate of 10% and you get 200 rolls in 100 runs, meaning you walk away with 20 legendaries in 300 kills. Of course, these numbers are just for mathing. In the game, you might have a legendary drop rate of 1 in 1.000, instead of 1 in 100, so you would walk away with 2 legendaries in 300 kills."