Staff of Herding

[cuchulann]

First you must collect the following items in the game.

Black Mushroom: Act 1, Randomly spawns in a corner room on any level of Tristram Cathedral (Thanks 420 & Throbblefoot)

Leoric's Shinbone: Act 1, Leoric's Manor Fireplace.

Wirt's Bell: Act 2, Can only be purchased from the merchant "Squirt the Peddler" for 100,000 gold.  (You do get an achievement for it.)

Liquid Rainbow: Act 2, Dahlgur Oasis, Mysterious Cave dungeon. Search East side for one of the South facing inlets.  You will find the Alchemist (full name?) being attacked by ghosts. He opens the door to the dungeon. Find the "Mysterious Chest" in that dungeon. Both the alchemist / dungeon are a random spawn and the chest inside is also a random spawn.

Gibbering Gemstone: Act 3, Fields of Slaughter, Cavern of Frost dungeon.  Dropped by a randomly spawned Vile Frost Stalker boss named "Chiltara" (purple name) (Thanks 420 & Throbblefoot)  Dungeon and boss are both random spawns and item is a random chance at a drop from the boss.

Plan: Staff of Herding: Act 4, random chance to drop from Izual.

Once you have the plan, use it on the blacksmith to make the formula. If you have the five pieces then you can make the staff for 50,000 gold. Then once you have the staff, just put it in your inventory, and walk up the road from New Tristram to the ruins of Old Tristram. Along the way you will meet an old friend who will open the way to sunshine, cupcakes, teddy bears, and everything sweet and wonderful, which wants to kick your ass.

The staff may be used and swapped across any hero in your account but not across regular to hardcore and vice versa. Hardcore heroes will need their own staff.

You must use a hero who has killed Diablo to enter the area. Like the D2 Cow level: Kill Diablo in normal - opens secret level in normal from Act1 area. Kill Diablo in Nightmare - opens secret level in nightmare in Act 1 area, etc.

(I have heard that the staff must also be upgraded to be used in nightmare and higher difficulties. To be edited when the method(s) for doing so is(are) known or  disproven.)

So If you want to go to that magical, scary, place and don't have the staff to do it, and you see me on, I can take you there in normal so far.

-Cuchulann -aka in D3- Fogtreadder.

[420]

Black Mushroom: Act 1 (area and random instance not recalled. Change this post as needed)

I found the mushroom patch in a random room on one of the levels of the cathedral. During the beta both Throbble and I found the black mushroom patch in the basement of Adria's hut.

Gibbering Gemstone: Act 3, Fields of Slaughter, Cavern of Frost dungeon. Drops from a  Lacuni Huntress boss (name?). Dungeon and boss are both random spawns and item is a random chance at a drop from the boss.

Damnit! I found the Cavern of Frost yesterday but thought I needed the Frostfell Caves so I didn't go in.

Anyway, thanks for the details Cuch!

-420

[420]

More info:

Spawning Required Items
The randomly spawned materials and plan (ie everything but Wirt's Bell, which is always available) required to craft the Staff of Herding will spawn for players who already have the items. So, you can help your friends search for the items even if you already have them.


Black Mushroom
Randomly spawns in a corner room on any level of Tristram Cathedral (Act 1).



Leoric's Shinbone
This is probably the easiest item to get as it spawns in a specific location near Leoric's Manor waypoint.





Gibbering Gemstone
Dropped by a randomly spawned Vile Frost Stalker boss named "Chiltara" (purple name) in the randomly spawned dungeon Caverns of Frost (level 2 only?) located in the Fields of Slaughter (Act 3, The Bridge of Korsikk waypoint). This was the hardest item for me to find. While the Caverns of Frost spawn fairly regularly, Chiltara, on the other hand, rarely spawns.



Finding Whimsyshire
With the crafted staff in your inventory*, look for some old cow bones along the side of the road connecting New and Old Tristram.

*As Cuchulann pointed out, you must have beaten the difficulty level of the location where you want to open the portal.



Item Level Drops
The drops in Whimsyshire are at a higher difficulty level than the difficulty in which the portal was open. So, if you open a portal to Whimsyshire in Normal difficulty, the item drops will be of Nightmare difficulty level (ie Flawless Gems and Pages of Jewelcrafting/Blacksmithing will drop).

Throbblefoot got this out of the first cloud (chest) she opened after crafting the Staff of Herding.
DISCLAIMER: Remember that item drops are random so this particular drop example isn't indicative of a normal drop in Whimsyshire!


-420

[cuchulann]

And watch out for this one.

[420]

And watch out for this one.

She is a pretty fucking princess damnit and you better not tell her otherwise!

-420

[420]

Throbble, Mo, and I found another Whimsyshire-only boss over the weekend.

Meet Tubbers The Lost One:

[420]

Upgrading the Staff of Herding
To open a portal to Whimsyshire in higher difficulties you must "upgrade" the Staff of Herding. (All examples shown are for Nightmare difficulty.)

Note: An upgraded Staff of Herding can still be used to open a portal in lower difficulties.

Step 1: Beat the appropriate difficulty level, make a game in Act 4 of that difficulty level, and buy a plan from Gorell the Quartermaster.






Step 2: Teach the plan to Haedrig the blacksmith and, with the old staff in your inventory, craft the new staff.

[cuchulann]

Here's a couple more Whimsyshire bosses: