fast connections
- Helltide and Legion events
Leveling up your character Diablo 4 is a fairly slow process. While leveling up through the campaign may seem pretty quick, the leveling process slows to a crawl once you reach level 50. Getting to level 70 and above can be a serious struggle for those with limited play time.
Fortunately, there are some strategies you can use to greatly increase your XP earnings while playing Diablo 4. This guide will cover four useful strategies for leveling up your character as quickly as possible. We’ll cover Quick Alternate Level Mode, a good way to level up in World Tier 3, and explain why some events are always worth doing.
Updated June 27, 2023 by Charles Burgar: The pre-season patch for Diablo 4 drastically increased the amount of XP for Nightmare Dungeons and Helltide. To ensure this article is as accurate as possible, we’ve updated the Nightmare Dungeon section to reflect recent XP and quality of life changes. We’ve also added a Whisper Tree leveling strategy that works great from level 1 to 50 and acts as a solo friendly alternative to power leveling.
Before using any strategy, remember to activate any elixir in the consumables tab. This grants a 5% XP boost while active and stacks with other XP modifiers. Group play also increases XP gain.
Equalization of power
This requires another person. Your character must also skip the campaign.
By far the fastest way to level up in Diablo 4 is to have another player level up. Power leveling is the process of gaining XP from a high level player, who usually stands at the entrance to the dungeon while the high level player or “carry” kills everyone. Since XP covers the entire dungeon, your character will quickly rise from the safety of the dungeon entrance, making this a viable strategy for both softcore and hardcore players.
The process itself is quite simple:
- Create a new character. Skip the campaign and choose World Tier 2.
- Invite a high level player to your party.
- Clear the Darkroom of the Cathedral of Light. Follow a high level player as he clears the dungeon.
- Activate world level 3.
- Clear the Fallen Temple dungeon. For this, stay at the dungeon entrance.
- Activate world level 4.
- Farm your favorite dungeon until you reach your desired level.
As far as farming dungeons go, there are some good ones Champion’s Demise, Iron Hold and Blind Burrows. These dungeons change over time, but you’re actually looking for dungeons with a high density of enemies and a safe entrance. Stick near the entrance, let your mount kill everyone, then disband and reform the party to reset the dungeon. Repeat as needed.
With optimal play, you can reach level 50 in less than an hour. Higher levels, however, begin to see diminishing returns, so it will take longer to reach levels beyond this point. We recommend reaching level 60 or 70 before stopping. Visit the vendors to pick up items each time the dungeon resets, as your character will not have any equipment. You can also complete the Tree of Whisper objectives on your main character and place these treasures in your inventory. Switch to your alt and open them up to get some starter gear. Farm Helltide when you hit level 60 and you’ll have a new character ready for the endgame with minimal playtime.
Whisper Tree
If you’re leveling up a new character and don’t want to power level, Tree of Whispers is your next best option. Assuming you skip the Diablo 4 campaign at character creation, you’ll have access to the Tree of Whispers from level one. You’ll want to complete ten Grim Favors, talk to the tree, and repeat until you unlock World Tier 3.
In general, the fastest way to earn Grim Favors is to complete dungeons marked by the Whispering Tree. These grant five Grim Favors each, providing a reward for saving every few dungeons. Along with the XP you gained from killing monsters in these dungeons, you should be able to level from 1 to 50 much faster than if you did the campaign. This doesn’t come close to the speed of power leveling, but it’s a great option for solo players or those creating characters at the start of a new season.
Farming normal dungeons
Once you reach level 60, XP slowly increases until you unlock world level 4. This is a great time to finish grinding your reputation, but if you just want to get through world level 3, we recommend high-density Elite farming dungeons. Nightmare Dungeons are also an option, but fairly inconsistent, mostly due to long travel times between dungeons and inconsistent dungeon layouts. Your other good XP options (Helltide and Legion Events) are limited in time, so elite farming is the next best thing.
You are looking for short dungeons with many elite monsters. Most Diablo 4 players farm Champion’s Demise as it spawns a ton of monsters, but this dungeon has been nerfed several times since launch. We recommend you try it Iron Hold in Hawezar, located right next to the ruins of Rakhat Keep. Ten elites appear after completing the first objective, and about ten appear a short distance away. Kill these enemies and reset the dungeon.
Consider this these dungeon recommendations are subject to change. Blizzard has aggressively nerfed common dungeons with high XP returns, so you’ll want to keep your eyes open for any dungeons with short layouts, high enemy density, and lots of elite monsters.
Nightmare Dungeons
Nightmare Dungeons serve as your main source of XP in later world levels. These dungeons award tons of XP, valuable Glyph XP needed to level Paragon Glyphs. Clearing Nightmare Dungeons also has a reasonable chance of dropping unique items, advancing your character on multiple fronts. You can also teleport to Nightmare Dungeons directly from your map, so there is virtually no pause between each dungeon.
Generally, you will want to a Nightmare Dungeons farm that is three levels above you. This grants the most bonus XP from enemy kills without greatly affecting your build’s survivability or damage output. At world level 3, the level of the monster in the dungeon is equal to the listed level plus 53. For example, dungeon T10 is level 63, making it the ideal level for a level 60 farm. World level 4 increases this to the listed level plus 54.
As for farming dungeons, you’re looking for anything that has tons of enemies with a short layout. Some of our favorites include Aldurwood, Maulwood, Guulrahn and Champion’s Demise channels. When clearing Nightmare Dungeons, also pay attention to dungeon additions. Avoid dungeons with Resource Burn and Cold Damage, as these significantly slow down your cleaning speed. Clear the dungeon completely, use your Glyph XP, then use another Nightmare Sigil.
Helltide and Legion events
Although you cannot farm these events because they are time sensitive, Helltide and Legion events are always worth doing for XP. Helltide will launch enemies two levels above you during the entire event, giving you even more XP on kills. Due to more frequent world events, the density of enemies also increases slightly in Helltide. Be sure to farm the world events in Helltide to earn as much XP and Obols as possible. You’ll also want to open all the mystery chests in each Helltide to stock up on Forgotten Souls, a valuable end-game currency you’ll need to upgrade and re-spin items.
An activity that many players forget about is Legion Events. These periodically appear on the map as a large circle icon that provides a five-minute countdown before the event begins. Legion events have incredible enemy density, lots of elites, and are fairly fast-paced. You’ll always want to participate in Legion events as they come up. Since the in-game notification for Legion events is so short, we highly recommend that you follow Legion events through a third-party website or the Diablo 4 Sanctuary Discord to be notified of when the event starts.