Looking to get into Diablo 4‘s latest Season but don’t want to make too many rookie mistakes? Look no further! These tips will help you get your characters to level 100 in no time, while also maximizing your loot acquisition in the new game mode.
Leveling strategy
Choose your preferred class and go straight into World Tier 2. Skip the campaign since it’s better to experience it when not in a rush (and if you are looking at leveling tips, I presume you want to make things as speedy as possible). Progress the seasonal questline and use Helltides as your main leveling grounds. This activity will not only get you a very juicy amount of experience, but you’ll also meet tons of elites that will help you gain reputation for the seasonal vendor, and in turn, get past certain level requirements there. I’d also recommend doing the fast Battle Pass objectives (stuff like doing a Stronghold, etc) since you end up getting fairly useful aspects from the reward caches. Once you get to the point where you unlock your class specialization, go and do it because it’s worth doing early, even if it takes a bit of time out of your leveling grind.
Once you get to around level 35-40 consider doing the first Capstone Dungeon (the Cathedral of Light in Kyovashad, with level 50 enemies). This will let you unlock World Tier 3, which gives access to Sacred quality items, which should be a big upgrade over whatever you are running. A fairly easy way to get some guaranteed Sacreds the second you arrive at WT 3 is to go gamble Obols at the Curiosities Trader. At this point you will also probably want to start hunting for whichever important aspects you need for your leveling build. If they come from dungeons, you can easily focus those and get some experience along the way. If you need Gold, the easiest way to get your hands on a fairly nice amount for these early levels is to go do Whispers for the Tree. Those got buffed quite a lot in recent patches and you now get a very meaty amount of currency from them.
Continue farming Helltides and progressing the seasonal questline until you unlock the ability to go into the new mode (the titular Infernal Horde) though the acquisition of a Compass. This is essentially an item very similar to the ones you use to access Nightmare Dungeons (it goes in your consumable bag, and right clicking it if you are using mouse and keyboard will prompt you to activate it). As soon as you get a Compass, use it and go do the activity, the rewards are more than worth it, and it’s a very quick way to gain levels without needing to put too much effort into it. At later levels there are some strategies you’ll want to deploy to get the most out of the Infernal Hordes mode, but we’ll get to that later in this guide.
Once you hit level 55-60 and you are mostly comfortable with your build, head over to the second Capstone Dungeon (the Fallen Temple at the Dry Steppes, with level 70 enemies). Completing this dungeon will unlock World Tier 4, which grants us access to Ancestral quality items, an even bigger upgrade to our gear when compared to the Sacreds we’ve been running until now. If you’ve been following a build guide from somewhere like D4Builds this is a good time to start checking whether you want to invest further down that path or if it’s a build you can already transition into its endgame variant, as you’ll have banked a fair amount of Paragon points already. Gambling Obols at the Curiosities Trader is once again a fairly easy way to get Ancestral gear and you should have a nice cushion of that currency stashed away if you’ve done a bunch of Helltides recently.
Now comes the boring part of the grind sadly. While Diablo 4‘s endgame is no longer confined to endlessly running Nightmare Dungeons, if we want to get the most out of our Paragon Board (and we do) we have to run a bunch of these to get our Glyphs leveled up to 15 at least. That’s why it’s important to already know which build we’ll be playing for the endgame, since leveling the wrong Glyphs means we’ll have to do even more Nightmare Dungeons, and while it’s not the worst activity in the world, it’s also not the best way to spend your time when you could be running Helltides or an Infernal Hordes Compass. Craft a few Nightmare Dungeon Sigils, but always be mindful to not get too greedy as we want to go higher than what our level currently is, but not high enough that a dungeon takes too long to run. If you get lucky and get dungeons with increased Glyph XP affixes, do these first, as they’ll grant you 20% more experience. Also, remember to check your Battle Pass tab, as there’s boosts you can choose from, and it might be worth investing into more Glyph XP instead of normal XP if you can’t yet max both of these.
Once you get to the point where you can do a Tier 46 or higher Nightmare Dungeon, it’s not a bad idea to unlock the Pit of the Artificer in Corrigar and run a few of those to get materials for the Tempering and Masterworking systems at the Blacksmith. I wouldn’t recommend wasting materials on gear you know you’ll be growing out of soon, but if you are already decked in pretty good Ancestrals that work for your build, it’s not a bad idea to at least the the first few enhancement levels on.
Another excellent source of endgame experience points is to use Profane Mindcages at the Helltide. These will boost enemy levels by 10 over your character, which means you should only do it if your build can take it, but if that’s the case, you are looking at fairly juiced Aberrant Cinder drops and generous amounts of experience. The best way of capitalizing on this is to gather Baneful Hearts and go to the Tree objective that asks you to kill a Blood Maiden, where you can use three of these hearts to summon a fairly chonky boss who’ll gradually spawn minibosses until you finally kill her. Both the pre-boss phase and the boss fight itself also spawn hordes of enemies who will reward you handsomely with experience, while the boss will drop a very nice amount of legendary items for you to keep, vendor or dismantle.
By this point you’ll probably be at around level 80-85 and from then onwards it’s all about doing Mindcage boosted Helltides or Tier 3+ Infernal Hordes up to Level 100. If you played at launch or during Season 1 you’ll probably quickly notice that the grind is far tamer this time around, as Blizzard has actually listened to their community on most fronts, something I applaud them for.
Infernal Hordes Best Rewards
Got your character to level 100 or near and want to maximize your loot acquisition from the Infernal Hordes mode? Stay a while and listen!
The main objective of this activity is to gather Burning Aether which we’ll then use to open the reward chests at the end. However, this currency doesn’t just drop from any defeated monster, instead coming from specific sources that act as mini “events” within the activity and will appear once we’ve killed enough enemies to trigger them. Off the top of my head, these events include Soulspires (stay inside a circle and kill enemies to fill a progress bar, once the Spire disappears it’ll drop Aether), Aether Fiends (Elite level enemies that spawn from marked spots on the ground), Aetheric Masses (stationary objects with a health bar that can be destroyed either in melee or from a distance, and will shoot back from time to time), Hellborne (yet another Elite type enemy with higher health than normal and with fairly aggressive moves, will chase you around the map once you get near), Aether Lords (Boss level enemies that have a stagger meter and powerful moves, but sadly take a fair amount of time to kill for most builds) and finally, Infernal Demons who are none other than our good friend the Butcher, only this time around he’s on fire, and will grant us 25 Aether once we down him (though he can only spawn once per wave and has a specific trigger condition).
Some of these events are clearly better than others when it comes to getting Burning Aether quickly from them. The way the game mode works, beating a wave presents us with three choices, which are random options that can either upgrade a specific event type or even unlock another. Hellborne come from upgrades such as these, and so do Aether Lords. Choosing an upgrade will often mean that we’ll get more options targeting that specific event type in the future (though sadly it’s not always the case) so it’s important to think before clicking anything in this step. If I were to rank the events by how quickly we can get Aether from them, I’d put the Hellborne first, followed by the Aetheric Masses, with Aether Fiends just behind them. Soulspires take too long to complete and force us to stay within their spawn circle, Aether Lords take too long to kill, and Infernal Demons are too rare to be something we want to focus on.
This means that our upgrade acquisition process should follow the same priorities. If there’s an option to spawn Hellborne, we take it. If instead we are offered to increase the base enemy damage in exchange for quicker event spawns, we also take it, and lastly, if we get the option to spawn Hellfire, we should also consider it, as it can open up the way for Hellborne with a later upgrade. Anything that increases our Movement Speed is also good, and any upgrades that buff Aether Fiends or Aetheric Masses will also be good gets, though if we are doing a higher tier Infernal Hordes Compass (say 6 or higher) we should always consider whether we have the defenses to tank increased Elite damage or not before we go for two or three 25% damage increases in a row (it might seem like small numbers but trust me, it adds up to fairly beefy enemies in the long run). Stay away from Soulspire upgrades or Aether Lords, as those will slow you down massively. Also don’t pick the upgrade that makes Aetheric Masses slow your character, it’s most definitely there as bait.
If you follow these steps, you should always come to the rewards screen with a fair amount of Burning Aether banked. Where to spend it? If you are doing a T3 or higher Compass, you’ll have the option to open a one time chest that has guaranteed Greater Affix rewards, and three other chests, one with equipment, one with materials and one which exchanges all your Aether for Gold. If you need equipment, that chest will get you a fair amount of gear and there’s a chance you’ll get one of the new Uniques, so if your build would benefit from them, that’s a good idea. The Materials chest is extremely rewarding at higher tiers, as you’ll get plenty of crafting and Masterworking materials, in amounts that make the Pit of the Artificer pale in comparison with it (please Blizzard, buff Pit drops massively, I beg you!). The Gold chest, while seemingly a bait chest at the beginning when compared to Tree rewards, it’s actually well worth the investment if you need a few million quickly. Also, doing Tier 7+ Compasses will also randomly reward Stygian Stones which are required to summon Tormented Uber bosses (and can be sold for a very good chunk of gold to other players, too).
And so we’ve arrived at the end of this guide. If you have any tips we might have missed, feel free to comment or shoot us an email!