For serious Diablo 4 players, including streamers, YouTubers, and build writers, the first two days since Lord of Hatred launched have been a marathon. During this time, these trailblazers have been busy figuring out how to get the most out of all the new features, systems and mechanics. The question they’ve been asked the most, however, is what’s the best way to level up fast?
The answer to that question is starting to take shape. There are a number of conflicting opinions, and a perfectly optimized, fully tested solution will take time to solidify, but 48 hours after launch, this is what we know so far.
Finish the Campaign
This will be obvious to most, but not to all players. If your goal is to level fast, you must focus on completing the main story first. Don’t run Helltides, don’t do side quests, and don’t spend too much time messing around with your gear. Just set the difficulty level to Normal and get busy finishing your fight against Mephisto.
War Plans
The main reason for finishing the campaign as soon as possible is that it unlocks War Plans. Once available, this new endgame system is categorically the best way to continue leveling all the way to Paragon 300. For each activity you do, you will now gain XP not just from the activity itself — like Helltides, the Pit or The Undercity — but from completing your list of activities, and the XP from completing a War Plan is massive!
The simple suggestion of, “do War Plans…then do more War Plans,” is probably sufficient for most players, but for those seeking to level as efficiently as possible, there are a number of further choices and systems to consider.
Choosing the Best Activities
When starting a fresh War Plan, you’ll be given a random set of activities to choose from. You can just select your path through that tree and go on your way, but you can also choose to reject that plan and have another one presented to you. You may wish to do this if your focus is XP, because the selection of activities you have in your War Plan is one of the most important factors to consider for the powerleveling player.
Choosing a new plan costs one Mark of El’druin. You have a limit of three of this new currency, but you earn a new one every time you complete a War Plan, so don’t be afraid to reroll your plans in search of optimal activities.
The best activity for leveling is Helltides.
Among the Diablo community, there are currently conflicting views on what the next best activities are, but Helltides is the unanimous front-runner when it comes to leveling.
Why?
You kill lots of monsters — you get XP.
You open the chests — you get XP.
You almost certainly earn some Grim Favors and progress toward earning a Whisper Cache — which gives you XP.
You progress toward completing your War Plan — which gives XP.
This is all great, but it’s when you begin leveling up your Helltide Activity Tree that things can start getting really out of hand…in a good way.
There are three modifiers you should select first, if speedy leveling is your aim:
Hellmouth will cause Hellwyrms to spew out Chaos Rifts, Maggots or Bloodseekers. What you want is Maggots — which burst out Experience Orbs when slain.
Writhe and Rot further upgrades Hellmouth, ensuring you always get those juicy Maggots!
Wretched Vermin is on another branch of the tree, but it’s worth picking up early because the Demonic Rats it causes to frequently attack you will drop a lot of Aberrant Cinders, which will allow you to finish your Helltide quickly, so you can move on to your next activity, which will hopefully also be Helltides.
Obviously, you won’t always get an ideal War Plan playlist. When choosing between all the other activities, the next best option is The Undercity. This is a good option because you can target farm useful items such as charms and seals for your talisman, but mostly, because it’s fast.
If you’re only interested in XP, The Undercity can be very fast. Just run through each level, kill the boss at the end, and you’re done. This will progress your War Plan and your Undercity modifier tree and shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes. No explosion of loot at the end, but efficient for leveling.
Next of note is The Tree of Whispers. You only need two points invested in its activity tree to grab the Wisdom of Whispers modifier. This will give you 50% more experience orbs in every single Whisper Cache you open.
In terms of XP, none of the other activities really stand out at this point. As such, if you have no other choice, pick the one you can complete the fastest, so you can get back to Helltides, The Undercity or farming Grim Favors for The Tree of Whispers.
Other Considerations
If efficient leveling is the name of your game, here’s what you want to do:
Move Fast.
Temper movement speed onto your boots and even your amulet if necessary. Imprint a movement speed aspect on your boots. Try to hit the 200% movement speed cap. No one ever jogged their way to Paragon 300. Get zooming.
Kill Fast.
If you enjoy the challenge and thrill of being in a Torment Tier that really pushes your build and your skills to the limit, that’s fine, but to level fast, there’s no shame in tearing through demons like they’re tissue paper so you can get your War Plans completed quickly. Nothing slows progress like losing half your cinders, or failing an Undercity run. Which leads to the third golden rule…
Don’t Die.
We get it, offense is flashy, fun and satisfying. Do you know what’s not? Being dead.
Use a Defensive Skill or two. Imprint Defensive Aspects. Consider your armor and resistances.
Don’t die.
Season 13 is young. Further leveling tips and efficiencies may yet be discovered. If they are, you can be sure they’ll be covered alongside all other Lord of Hatred news in our Diablo 4 News Hub.
