Welcome to our Neverwinter Astral Diamond Farming guide, updated for mod 18, Infernal Descent!

In this guide, we will go over all the possible ways of making AD in Neverwinter. From the basics to investing in the auction house to good old Astral Diamond farming!

Since mod 14, Ravenloft limited the max rough AD you can refine to 100.000AD per account. In this guide, we will go over how to hit that cap and how to make even more AD per day.

The Basics of Astral Diamond Making

VIP

First of all, if you are serious about making AD, you will want to invest in VIP. VIP will give you numerous benefits when making AD, and it basically pays for itself through the keys you get every day. The advantages of VIP are:

Rank 1

Daily keys that on average should net you around 20-60k AD per day. With the chance at getting rare items like mounts, worth millions of AD.

1 reward reroll token

15% bonus AD from Dungeons and Skirmishes

Rank 4

Travel Signpost, time is money and you will save time with this,

1 extra Reward Reroll Token

Rank 5

10% Bonus AD from Invoking

Rank 6

Summon Mailbox, save more time.

1 extra Reward Reroll Token

Rank 7

15% bonus rough AD

Rank 8

No Auction House Fees

Getting to VIP rank 8, for the no auction house fee bonus is vital if you want to make money by re-selling on the auction house, but there is little benefit of going past rank 8. See more about investing on AH further down.

You can save some money or Astral Diamonds by using the “20% off any item” voucher or by getting VIP during Zen sales.

Enchantments & Mounts

Be sure to use your utility enchantments and Wanderer’s Fortune to make RP. The more RP you make yourself, the less Astral Diamonds you have to spend on it. You can also use that RP to refine enchantments that you can sell. See our Refinement Guide for more info on refinement.

I currently use x2 Dragon’s Hoard, x2 Quartermaster’s and x1 Fey’s Blessing, along with a mount with Wanderer’s Fortune.

If you are not hitting your rough AD cap from other means, you can also cosider getting the Traveler’s Treasures Insignia Bonus that will give you a small amount of AD from killing mobs.

Events

Pay attention to the calendar. Although there are no longer many 2x AD events, there are other events that you can profit from. The events are as follows:

If you plan on spending cash on the game, you can make a lot more Astral Diamonds if you wait for sales like the Black Friday sale and get Zen or items at a huge discount.

2x Refining Stones: Use these events to open up all your Abandoned Gear and Spoils of War from your Quartermaster’s Enchantment.

2x Profession XP and Resources: Use to level your Professions on your alts. And most importantly to farm items from the Explorer’s Charts, see below for more info.

2x Influence: Use to farm guild marks, see the section about Explorer’s Chart Farming below for info on how to make money of guild marks.

Trade Bar Discount: Use to purchase various items to resell on the Tarmalune Trade Bar store.

Zen Sale: Buy Zen = Profit

Bonus RP: Use to farm RP for yourself or to refine enchantments

Some seasonal events can reward you with some valuable items but they usually are not worth farming for AD purposes.

Zen

If you have the cash to spend, you can buy Zen to convert to AD or items that you can sell for AD. To get the most value for your money when doing this, I recommend that you wait for a Zen sale and/or use the discount vouchers that you get from Invoking.

You can also spend your Zen on Enchanted Keys and open lockboxes but unless you get lucky and use discounts, just converting the Zen to AD might be smarter.

Rough Astral Diamonds and Refining

Refining Rough Astral Diamonds is the meat and potatoes of AD farming, and you should aim to hit the cap as often as you can, preferably every day.

As of Mod 14, Ravenloft, the cap for Rough Astral Diamonds is 100k for the entire account, as opposed to the previous cap of 36k for each character.

Tip: Remember to Invoke when you can. Invoking will give you a Rough Astral Diamonds bonus. You can get Coalescent Wards from invoking which can make you 500k AD, read more about that below in the Converting Currencies section of the guide.

The in-game queue system used to make rough Astral Diamonds.

To reach the cap, play through all the queues you have available to you. More queues unlock as you progress through campaigns.

Leveling Queue: 9200 AD – 60 Seals of the Brave – Repeat Bonus: 1150 AD

Intermediate Queue: 13800 AD – 100 Seals of the Brave – Repeat Bonus: 2300 AD

Advanced Queue: 17250 AD – 120 Seals of the Brave – Repeat Bonus: 3450 AD

Expert Queue: 23000 AD – 20 Seals of the Crown

Queues also sometimes reward extra AD for Healers or Tanks.

Having alts makes it easier to reach the cap as you can run more queues, even if it’s only the leveling queue.

After doing your queues, you might still need some rough AD to reach the cap, so here is where salvaging comes into play.

Farming for Rough Astral Diamonds

Farming Master Expeditions

Doing Master Expeditions in the Yawning Portal is a good source of Astral Diamonds. First, you need to complete the Undermountain campaign to unlock Master Expeditions or ME’s.

You can do these solo if you are strong enough or in a group. They are pretty easy in a group so any player can do it.

To make Astral Diamonds you have to go to any of the Undermountain zones and do the Runic Corruption events. The crystalized resonance from these events can be used in the ME’s to earn various rewards by making them a bit harder.

The Chaos Resonance stone rewards 3000 extra AD for the first one and 1000 more for additional ones.

You will also be rewarded with Rune Etchings after an ME that you can spend at the goblin under the stairs in the Yawning Portal named Zok for 5500 rough Astral Diamonds and also Artifact equipment that you can sell.

Farming Dungeons, Trials, and Skirmishes

Salvaging has been removed from the game as of mod 15, instead, you get some rough AD from the chests at the end of dungeons. The Reward Reroll Tokens also made it easier to get valuable items from chests that you can sell for AD.

Kessel’s Retreat and Shores of Tuern are both very easy and fast. It only takes about 5 minutes to complete, and depending on how many keys you have, you get one or two chests. Some semi-valuable companions, mounts and other misc. items has a chance to drop from these chests.

Demogorgon. Spend all your leftover Faerzress on keys for the chests here.

Weekly Quests for Rough Astral Diamonds

And at last there are a few weekly quests that can be completed that reward you with 4500 AD each, these quests are pretty quick, but the AD gain isn’t massive.

The Ballad of Baphomet from Bruenor in Underdark

Storming the Castle from your Guild Stronghold

Arcane Reservoir from Sharandar

The Red Wizards in Dread Ring

Protecting the Portal from Harper Boward in PE

Reclaiming the Hoard in Well of Dragons

Biggrin’s Tomb in Icewind Dale

Other Sources of Rough Astrald Diamonds

Juma’s Surprise Bag – Farming Chaotic Writings in Avernus and turning them in to Juma can reward you with powerful items and RAD.

Overflow XP can reward you with some RAD

Different Campaign currencies can be converted into RAD

Converting Currencies to Astral Diamonds

Most of the currencies in the game can be used to make AD, although some are better than others.

Gold

Gold can be made into Astral Diamonds by buying Gold Bars from a Vendor and selling them on the Auction House.

Guild Marks -Explorer’s Chart Farming:

For most players, Masterwork Professions (see further down), is just too much work and too expensive. But you can still make a profit from farming and selling the resources needed by the Masterwork recipes. The profitability of this varies a lot as the prices of the different resources change. As of mod 14, the prices are down, at least on PC, so waiting for further updates might be best.

Explorer’s Charts are bought from the Generalist in your guild stronghold.

Before you start farming, check which resources fetch high prices and farm accordingly.

To really take advantage of Explorer’s Chart farming, you should also use events to your advantage. Donate to your guild during 2x Guild Mark events, and save up the Explorer’s Charts for the 2x Profession resources events. After a 2x Profession event, wait a while before selling the resources, as the prices will likely drop during the event.

Celestial Coins:

You get Celestial coins the first time you invoke each day on each character. Once you have 11 Celestial coins, you can spend them on coffers that can reward a Coalescent Ward. RNG is a big factor here so you won’t be getting these a lot, but the more characters you have, the better your chances are, so remember to invoke at least once on all your characters. To make money from these Coalescent Wards, you will want to Armor or Weapon Enchantment shards. These only cost a few hundred. Find out what enchantment currently sells for the most, buy a shard, then use your Coalescent ward to upgrade it, and profit.

Misc. Currencies:

Seals: Quickly stacks up from doing dungeons and events.

Gold: Make into AD by buying from vendors and selling on AH. Injury Kits, Mounts and Companions work best.

Seal of the Adventurer: Can be traded for rough AD.

Tarmalune Trade Bars: Use during discount events to buy Mounts or Companions to sell.

Most of the campaigns have some sort of currency that you can make Astral Diamonds with but its generally not worth farming these.

Farming Astral Diamonds

The efficiency of farming Astral Diamonds changes a lot from module to module. During Storm King’s Thunder, you could make a ton of AD by farming Lanolin. When new modules are released, be sure to look out for all sorts of items and currencies that can be farmed for AD.

Runic Corruption Farming

Right now prices for some of the uncommon mount insignias are really high due to the fact that you need them to upgrade insignias to legendary quality.

You can get them by just farming regular content but you have to be very lucky to get the right ones.

The best places I have found to farm these are the Runic Corruption events in Undermountain zones.

Here you will also get the resonance stones that you need for your Master Expeditions and a lot of Refinement, so they are well worth doing.

Dungeons, Skirmishes, and Trials

The different dungeons, skirmishes and trials can be farmed for valuable items and AD.

Tower of the Mad Mage: This is a tough dungeon but you can get valuable drops here so if you have an efficient group you can make a lot of AD here.

Epic Dungeons: The other Epic Dungeons are not as profitable but you can get some valuable items from running these.

Cradle of the Death God: Is a good source of Enchanting Stone Rank 6, which is pretty valuable.

Shores of Tuern: Is a very quick skirmish and can provide some semi-valuable items from the chest.

Other

Farming campaign items and currencies can be a great source of income, but mostly at the start of new modules, when the prices are high. Currently, at mod 18, profitability is low.

Dread Ring daily lair quests: After completing the Dread Ring campaign and getting your Adamantine Gauntlet, go back to Dread Ring every day to get the daily lair quest from Sergeant Knox for a chance at a GMOP or SMOP, along with a good chunk of RP. Only 5 minutes of work. More keys can be bought from the Dread Ring Store for Vanguard Scrips which are rewarded from quests or bought from the Bounty Master for Onyx Fragments (that can be bought from the Auction House).

Professions

What is the best profession for making Astral Diamonds in Neverwinter? Well, that’s a tough question, and the answer will vary depending on which items are in demand. Professions can be a bit of a pain in Neverwinter, so the easy choice is leadership, although you can technically make more with other Masterwork professions.

A simple way to make Astral Diamonds from professions is to make items to sell for gold that you buy Gold Bars with at a Vendor, that you again sell for Astral Diamonds.

Investing and Re-selling on the Auction House

Investing your Astral Diamonds in the Auction House is one of the best ways to make more AD. Do this right and it can mean hundreds of thousands or even millions of AD per day.

This can be daunting at first, but once you get the hang of it, it really isn’t very hard. To do this with max profitability, I recommend that you have VIP of at least rank 8, to avoid the posting fee.

You will still need to pay the 10% auction house cut, so keep in mind when buying items that you will at the very least be able to sell the item you are buying for 10% more than you bought it for.

You most likely won’t be making a profit of every item you buy, unless you have very good control of the market, but this is ok as long as you are making a profit on a whole.

Some items that look like a great deal maybe it isn’t, and you will have to sell at a loss. The more you learn the market, the fewer mistakes you will make.

There are a ton of ways to look for deals on the auction house and a ton of ways to invest. The most important thing is just to learn how the AH works. Below we will look at the main ways I use to look at deals for reselling.

Tip: Save up some AD before you start getting serious about reselling. Having a few million AD to start with works best as you can afford to buy more items and not tie up all you AD in just one or two items.

Looking for Low Buyouts

This is perhaps my favorite way of making AD. Basically, you are looking for items that someone has priced cheaper than everyone else. This happens more often than you might think.

Sometimes people just want to sell an item quickly, other times people just make a mistake and set the price to low. Either way, there are huge profits to be made.

You can look for deals like this in any category on the AH, but if you are going to look through all of it just takes to long to do every day.

Usually, I limit myself to just look at the categories I have found to be the most profitable, which are Epic and Rare, Companions, Mounts, and Artifacts.

Open up the Auction House Set the filters, for example only Epic Companions Click “Name” to sort all the results by name. This way you will get all the same items next to each other with the cheapest option up top. If the cheapest one is much cheaper, like in the examples below, it is likely a good deal.

A Cavalry Tyrannosaur at half the market price.

Add the 10% Trade House Cut and there is still about 20k to be made off this Black Ice Beholder.

A good deal on a Fey Panther.

You can also try to sort by buyout in the results and see if there are anything that is priced low that shows up in the search.

Looking for Low Starting Bids

Another way to find deals is to look for items with low starting bids. This is relatively quick to do, and you can do it with any type of item.

However, the lower the starting bid, the more other buyers the auction will attract, so getting the item for a good price won’t work all of the time. Actually, it will most not work. But if you get your bids in on a lot of auctions, chances are you are going to get a few deals.

Another way is to look for starting bids that aren’t super cheap, but at least 10% cheaper than the average buyout of that item. That way, you can still make some AD and the auction won’t attract tons of other bargain hunters.

To find low starting bids, set your filters, then sort by buyout to see if any good deals show up at the top of the search.

Both the top two items here look like quite good deals if you can get them around the bid price

The Staldorf, Redcap Powrie, and Watler are all very good deals at the bid price.

Long Term Investing and Buying and Selling During Events

Long term investing is the practice of foreseeing the market and buying low, waiting for the market to go up, then selling. This can be done with any type of item, but it requires you to think ahead and to have enough AD to afford to buy items then letting it sit in the bank for a while.

Prices go up and down for a ton of different reasons but two good way to invest is, during the event and as lockboxes change.

During events, prices for items related to the events will go down, because everyone is farming those items and flooding the market. This is a good time to buy items, then sell them a few weeks or months later when prices recover.

2x Refining Stones: Buy enchantment and refining stones during the event, sell after.

2x Profession XP and Resources: Buy profession assets before the event, sell during since everyone needs them to level. Buy resources during the event, and sell after.

Trade Bar Discount: Buy items on the AH that are on sale in the Trade Bar store. Items like the Eye of the Giant will go down during the event, and up after a while.

Most other events can usually also be used in a similar way to make AD, just think about what items flood the market during the event.

Summary

In the end, making a lot of Astral Diamonds is easier than people think. Using the methods above, I make well over a million AD a day.

If you can make 100k from your daily cap, 200k from farming and 200k from working the auction house, you are already hitting the 500k mark, or 15m a month.

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If you have any questions about Astral Diamond farming, let me know and I will help you out!