Over on Reddit, I found a post where a new player, who completed the Campaign mode for the first time, was struggling with Adventure Mode as a Crusader on Hard and Normal mode on Season 23. As someone who has participated in many Diablo 3 seasons in always leveling from the start a fresh toon and generally going solo, I felt that some of the advice people were giving him was bad because he was used to the Necromancer game play and had the story mode hand holding him, which made leveling a Crusader a far more difficult experience. In turn, I decided to dig up an old post I wrote and add to it since most of the advice there is still valid but feel now with the various game updates, I should take the time to address additional tips. You can read the old post here but I will augment more in this newer post.
One of the biggest additions to the game that’s a huge bolster to a seasonal start are Challenge Rifts. Challenge Rifts are great for a new season because completing one allows you to reap the rewards of crafting materials, including 10 Death Breaths. Because they change on a weekly basis, I cannot provide a concrete guide on doing them but you can find other content creators who make videos of them on YouTube. The main piece of advice I have for people intending to try a new season is to avoid doing the Challenge Rift until the new season starts because you can only get the reward once a week.
That said, not all Challenge Rifts are people’s cup of tea (like my own) and for those who just want to turn off your brain, I want to talk about casual leveling. The idea here is to avoid the advice of more season veterans who might attempt to start the season with a full group of 4 (all veterans), do Challenge Rifts then immediately go into Expert mode and start rifting. Unless you really know what you’re doing here and have a clear cut plan laid out, this guide really isn’t for you.
For Season 24 in particular, I wrote up another guide on my thoughts for how the upcoming Haedrig Gift sets as well as starting characters. You can find that guide here. In general though, you want to pick a class that’s suited to you and hopefully has a good starting set each season. Since sets are on a rotation, you can see which ones will become available for a new season even if they are not yet officially announced by checking out this page.
While a starting set may set the tone for a season early on, getting to that point might not necessarily be the best for everyone. So choosing a class that has an easy leveling experience and knowing which ones can fly through the acts or level smoother is key. Some general guidelines for me are:
- Pets – Pets (AI) based builds and abilities tend to do quite well because they can make up the difference in a player’s ability and handle stray monsters when the player cannot see them.
- AoE – AoE is important for clearing massive mobs. Early on especially this can make a huge difference for getting those kill bonuses in adventure mode.
- Single Target Damage (Bosses) – Sometimes having good AoE means your single target damage will suffer. Some abilities like DoTs (damage over time) may be a poor choice to use against a boss. Early on this might not be huge but you need to think about this especially in thinking about how later levels and sets may impact your ability to handle harder difficulties (e.g. Exploding Palm)
- Defenses – Generally, I wouldn’t worry about defense early on because monsters do not output enough damage compared to how they’re scaled in higher difficulties. But I would want to think how a starter set might be problematic in a GR20 since that along with the T4 versions of the Keywardens might be the gate keepers to the 6 piece gift set.
- Speed – Making sure I can move around efficiently is critical. Some builds and classes have horribly long cooldowns (e.g. Teleport) which makes doing bounties inefficient and painfully long.
For myself, I’ve found that Witch Doctors and Demon Hunters are two of the easiest to level. Witch Doctors are my favorite to level just because of the massive number of pets that they have and good AoE early on. Their main weakness at the start is a lack of an early movement modifier. Also, Spirit Walk has a (stupid) double cooldown. And until you can find something like an Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, you have to wait for Grave Injustice at level 50 before you can get a solid method to improve the speed of Spirit Walk.
Demon Hunters are excellent just because of their ranged attacks, a decent movement skill, AoE at higher levels, reasonable single target and Sentries that can handle stray monsters. Ranged becomes important mostly for handle goblins and wasps which can be very annoying.
I still maintain that Barbarians and Crusaders are two of the worst leveling classes in the game. Melee just has too much of a hard time with other fast, ranged enemies. With Barbarians, they suffer because their AoE abilities are resource intensive and they just are too slow for my taste. Leveling doesn’t become a thing for them until they can obtain Whirlwind and even then it feels painful until you have a reliable way of building up Rage.
Monks and Wizards are the middle of the road for me. I’ve gotten used to Wizards but teleport just sucks without a way to zip around a map. Even with Illusionist, Teleport sucks because it involves taking heavy amounts of damage to activate it and that can get sketchy. Monks aren’t bad but I just feel are better off as a secondary leveling character once you get a starter.
I have yet to level up a fresh Necromancer. I’ve heard good things but Necromancers have yet to make a huge impact on my game play just yet. Generally, Necromancers are top builds so they have more reliability and are good pet classes to boot.
For leveling itself, most of the tips from my other guide still apply. I think the biggest alteration here is that your Follower now can equip more gear. This is absolutely critical because there’s quite a few useful leveling uniques that you can house on your Follower during the leveling process such as a Broken Crown, Goldwrap, Nemesis Bracers, Rakoff’s Glass of Life, Avarice Band (if you can get one from Bounties) and Homing Pads.
Once you hit 70 though, you should make it a priority to craft the Sage’s Set. Hopefully, you can obtain a Ring of the Royal Grandeur along the way (which is why I suggest doing bounties once reaching level 10). But the Sage’s Set should be the 3rd priority in your list of things to use Death Breaths once you hit level 70. The other two priorities is upgrading your Blacksmith and Jeweler and then attempting to craft a good legendary weapon in Kanai’s Cube.
But the Sage’s Set makes a monstrous difference early on and you should continue doing bounties upon hitting level 70 as you will want plenty of crafting materials for not just the Sage’s Set, but Cain’s Destiny and eventually the Captain’s Crimson Trimmings (which is highly sought after for many builds these days). Also, doing bounties is for farming more plans both for your Jeweler and Blacksmith.
In addition, you should complete a few Greater Rifts to start farming for early Legendary Gems. If you are having problems getting gear from Rifts, etc., one thing that you can do is aim for a Legacy of Dreams (LoD) gem. If you’ve been saving your legendaries from leveling, you can still use them with this gem. That should give you enough of a boost to be able to handle T2-3 without any special gear. From what I’ve been told, the LoD gem drops off the 2nd Greater Rift so you’ll want to do at least two of these to start.
Another piece of advice I have is to not push yourself beyond what you feel you are capable of. As I mentioned at the start, not everyone needs to be doing Expert mode from level 1. Even Hard mode is something I advise against if you are not comfortable with mechanics.
The important aspect is having a smooth leveling experience. Normal is fine for the solo casual player right up to level 60+. Since I emphasize doing Bounties early on over Rifts, the idea is to get reliable gold, gear and bounty crafting mats along with the potential for scoring a bounty legendary like a Ring of the Royal Grandeur. Being able to circulate through Adventure Mode quickly as opposed to right clicking until your finger falls off is what I emphasize.
Another critical aspect that I find is helpful for the casual player is to NOT GO CRAZY. Meaning, don’t force yourself to be competitive like the high end players. You shouldn’t push yourself until you are mentally dead in leveling up to 70 in one setting. Give yourself a good pace you are comfortable with and do so to have fun. The high end players are those who want to score big on Twitch and try to impress a small audience. They aren’t around to have fun so there’s no need to try and emulate them.
Until you become very familiar with the game and know exactly what to do, there’s no reason to try and emulate another player’s style. The reason you’re reading a guide like this isn’t to become #1 on the leaderboards. But you are ready to take that next step in learning how to progress a little better and yet still feel like you’re not taking 100 years to get back to level 70.