Diablo 4 Season 14 Leveling Strategy
Leveling Build Guides
1) Start on Normal Difficulty: Highly Recommended. If you are a returning player, Hard will offer more experience as well as increased monster difficulty. (Normal is still recommended)
Alternate Leveling Route
A) Players who have access to the new expansion campaign. This may not be the most efficient way to level, but it will be a once in a life time event to watch it with the rest of the world. Once you’ve completed this steps continue to the Helltide strategy.
————————————— If you do not have access to Lord of Hatred——————————————
B) If you have access to the Vessel of Hatred campaign, this can be the fastest leveling, if you know how to use it for leveling. Not recommended for most players.
C) Whisper Caches, Helltides and Dungeons will be your starting sources of leveling this Season. Just complete all the other whispers, then move onto a new zone with new Whispers. If you start to get Nightmare Dungeon keys, this should be something you look for to also have Whispers attached to it. You can continue with this method until level 60.
D) Nightmare dungeons will be a great way to level as well, if you get lucky early on. The nightmare dungeon sigil that includes the Forgotten Wisdom in the name is what you’re aiming for. This affix makes monsters you kill drop experience globes for massive gains in levels during single nightmare dungeons. There is no way to guarantee you get the Forgotten Wisdom sigil so you’ll need to rely on Whisper caches and Sigil crafting to get obtain one.
Helltide Strategy
2) Make sure to unlock your pet, put on your cosmetics for you and your mount now!
3) Obtain your Mercenaries (Returning DLC Players). Complete Mercenary quests. It appears very early in the campaign. (New DLC Players)
4) Start with the Campaign. You will need to complete the campaign at least once to be able to skip it on your next character.
5) Progress your way to crafting/obtaining your first Nightmare Dungeon Sigil. Forgotten Wisdom Sigils are a great way to add extra experience to everything you do.
Seasonal Mechanic
Season 14 will have Rifts spawning throughout Sanctuary. You will stand inside of a circle and close tears. As these close they expand the Rift circle keeping it open longer for more monsters and rewards.
Capstone Dungeons
Capstone Dungeons have been reintroduced in Season 11, and they are here to stay. These are pinnacle dungeons with unique twists. There are five of them, and they have static monster levels. This means that no matter what level your character is, the monster levels inside the dungeons never change. You can enter them completely underleveled to test your character’s strength and see how strong you truly are, or you can go in overleveled and completely obliterate the dungeons.
What’s the benefit of completing these dungeons? The first time you clear each one per season, you earn 2 skill points per dungeon. (Will update Capstone levels post launch)
Capstone Dungeon #1 – Torrid Menagerie - Level 30 - Hard Difficulty
Capstone Dungeon #2 – Hellish Descent - Level 50 - Penitent Difficulty
Capstone Dungeon #3 – Unseen Awakening - Level 60 - Torment 1 Difficulty
Capstone Dungeon #4 – Tempest Oasis - Level 60 - Torment 2 Difficulty
Capstone Dungeon #5 – Breach of Sin - Level 60 - Torment 3 Difficulty
Gearing Choices
During leveling on all classes, there are certain affixes (stats on gear) that will always make your journey a smooth one.
Main Resource Regeneration i.e. Fury, Mana, or Spirit. This affix can be found on Helmets, Chest Pieces, Pants and Boots.
Lucky Hit: Chance to Restore Primary Resources. This affix can be found on Weapons, Gloves and Jewelry Tempers.
Resource Cost Reduction. This affix can be found on Weapons, Gloves and Jewelry Tempers.
Movement Speed. This affix can be found on Boots, Amulets and Tempers for both.
Weapons. These will be the items you will need to change the most. In almost all cases, it will be worth taking increased damage per second on a weapon even over an Aspect. This only matters on the Weapon your skill is currently using. If it’s a weapon slot you are not currently using for Barbarian or Rogue, then aspects will be more important.
Defenses. The best thing you can do during the leveling process is add Maximum Life to any piece of gear to help with Survivability. If you have something like Armor, or Damage Reduction they are great supplements but Maximum Life will out pace everything.
No longer works. Experience was removed from the Helltides chests. It is a great source of materials, Grim Favor and high monster density.
Level 10
6) Tempering Unlocks at level 10. Elemental Surge for Weapon Tempers is very strong, even at a basic Temper and these show up as Lucky Hit: Chance to deal Elemental Type of damage. It will provide a huge amount of extra damage from the start. We will have to wait until we are in game, with the changes to early game drops to see how much material gains will come in the early stages.
Level 15
7) **CONDITIONAL**
If this is your first time playing this character, complete your Class Quest.
If you have completed in previous Seasons, either skip, or complete for the new Archetype caches which comes with Tempering manuals and Legendary gear.
Level 30 - 40
9) Complete first Capstone Dungeon on Hard difficulty
10) Continue in to level in Helltides, Whisper Caches and Nightmare Dungeons (Returning Players). Complete Campaign (New Players)
11) Use nightmare dungeons to gain materials
Level 45
12) If you want to mix it up a bit, you can swap to doing Strongholds. They are good experience and a nice change of pace, but if you are running the Lord of Hatred, not the best option. If you are running the Lord of Hatred stick to one of those leveling methods. See here for Lord of Hatred leveling strategies.
Level 60 - 70
13) Torment 1 preparations
Change to Expert or Penitent Difficulty
Farm Nightmare Dungeons for Aspects, (post 70) Masterworking Materials and Glyphs
Farm Pits for Aspects Glyphs and to level Glyphs
Update Gems / Runes
14) Clear Capstone Dungeon #2 on Penitent difficulty
15) Clear Pit 10 to unlock Torment 1
16) Swap to Torment 1
Start farming ancestrals from Hordes (when keys drop)
Continue Nightmare Dungeons, Pits and Whisper chests.
Farm boss mats
17)Target farm Uniques to complete build
***Key Notes:
The Goblins play a huge role in gearing and materials during leveling. Make this your priority when you're leveling
Complete Guide for Level 70!
Diablo 4 Ultimate Level 70 Endgame Guide! - YouTube
Complete Unique Target Farming Table from Mobalytics:
Unique Target Farming Guide
8) Switch to Hard difficulty at level 15 if comfortable
Gear check up to level 35 complete these every 10 levels.
After level 35 switch to every 5 for progressions. Depending on the build you may not even need to this often.