First off - fantastic guide! I like the hybrid strategy the best. I did a lot of PTR play and going straight Rift leveling felt a little slow given the propensity of crappy mob type/density. I think it ultimately feels faster to look for chests and bosses.
Speaking of bosses - for giggles - assuming the "easy" bosses are Butcher, The Power Ranger Moth Chick and Cydea? Can't see Azz, D or Malthy being considered easy?
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- Garfm
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Short and Sweet Guide to Season 5
This guide is intended to be a condensed version (for you last minute guys or the lazy readers) of everything you need to start the new season strong. Going over Pre-Season preparations, leveling 1-70, Gearing up, Augmenting, and my thoughts on the 4-man meta we will see early in the season. Like I said this is meant to be short if you are looking for a full super in depth guide I highly suggest checking out Drahque's Ultimate Guide
Pre-Season Preparations
Here are some things you will want to do before the season starts to make the first night smoother and save a bit of time.
Know what class you are going to play.
Know who you are going to play with.
Know what leveling strategy you are going to use.
Make a 1-70 cheatsheet or find someone elses. The cheatsheet should include every time you change skills. Listing the level you take the skill, and what key/skill it is replacing. You may also want to include an extra notes column for key objectives you want to do at certain levels.
Here is an example of my Demon Hunter cheatsheet
Leveling 1-70
1-70 and Pre-Season Preparation Video Guide
There are a handful of strategies you can use to level 1-70. I will be covering a strategy where you do a boss or cursed chest bounty early, clear Halls of Agony level 3 (HoA3), and move onto rifting. Other strategies include targeting only cursed chest bounties and repeating them, targeting high density floors such as HoA3 and repeating it, or full clearing bounties.
Level 1: Take your followers(Templar,Enchantress,Scoundrel) weapons. Clear a cursed chest or boss bounty. For resplendent chest or diabolic cache.
Levels 4-20: Clear Halls of Agony level 3 until you hit a dead end and then reset the game.
Level 7: Buy rings from Fence Merchants
Level 12: Buy amulets from Fence Merchants
Level 20: Kill Skeleton King in Campaign for Leoric's Crown drop. Make sure your entire party is at least lvl 20.
Level 23: Do an act bounty. It can be done before 23 but make sure you open the cache at lvl 23. If cain's or born's plan drop from the cache craft them.
Levels 23-70: Rifts! There is no reason to full clear since rifts are free to open so make sure to close the rift after killing the Rift Guardian. You should be on a difficulty where you 2-3 shot white mobs. If you are overkilling them raise the difficulty and if they take 5-6 shots lower the difficulty.
Level 45: Craft a level 60 weapon and look for reduced level requirement. It is easiest to re-roll for this stat if you KEEP a secondary CC and roll the other secondary to reduced level requirement.
Level 61: Craft a level 70 weapon and look for reduced level requirement. Use the same re-rolling strategy as above. This will take some deaths breaths to do so make sure you have a couple before trying to make the weapon.
Level 70 Gearing
Fast Gearing Video Guide
The fastest way to start farming is to pick up your free set from the season journey as fast as possible. You do not need to complete all of the chapters or even be on the chapter the objective is in just do these objectives.
Hit level 70! (Impossible to forget to do, but it gives the first 2 set pieces).
Kill Zoltun Kulle on Torment 2.
Complete a Greater Rift tier 20 solo.
Each objective mails a Haedrig's gift to you and each gift gives 2 peices of the set. These can be saved for other characters but if you are trying to start farming as fast as possible open them on your first character as soon as you receive them to help complete the next objectives. Once you finished the three objectives turn the torment up to a comfortable farming difficulty. Even if this isn't the set you want to use, it will be the fastest way to start farming for the set and other gear you actually want.
Augmenting Items
Augmenting and Empowered Rifts Video Guide
How Augmenting Works
There is a new Kanai's Cube recipe that allows you to augment your gear this patch. This recipe takes 3 of the same max level regular gems(Emerald, Topaz, Ruby, or Amethyst), an ancient item, and a legendary gem of minimum rank 30 for weapons, 40 for jewelry or 50 for armor. Once transmuted the 4 gems are consumed and for each level of the legendary gem applies 5 stat of Dex, Int, Str, or Vit according to the regular gems used.
Strategy for Augmenting
This is a very strong recipe and means you will want to farm legendary gems. Here is the strategy I would recommend for farming these gems. You will need 12-13 initially depending on if you use an offhand or not. I recommend picking a gem you wont confuse with the ones you don't want to augment so get 12-13 of something like Gem of Ease. Just make sure the gem you pick does not have a cap. Then work on getting those 12-13 gems to around 50-60 and once you have ancient gear you are comfortable farming in, augment the gems into your gear. This gear will help you farm higher greater rifts and faster torment rifts/bounties through out the season. Now get a second set of gems (or a set for each class you intend to push with) then spend the season leveling up these gems as high as possible. Save any gear upgrades in your stash. You dont want to waste gems augmenting every small upgrade you find (This is up to your discretion of course if you find an upgrade you feel will improve your farming significantly augment it and start using it). Once its the last 1-2 weeks of the season this is when you will want to augment your pushing gear.
Empowered Rifts
Keep in mind we also have empowered rifts this season. You can pay gold to empower a greater rift giving you one extra chance to upgrade your gem if you pass the greater rift. So running a boon of the hoarder while farming torment to pay for empowered rifts may help squeeze in some extra gem levels.
Predictions for Early Season 4-Man Meta
Theorycrafting Early Season 4-Man Meta Video
Tier List of the Classes I think are most likely to be in the "Best" 4-Man meta
Top Tier: Barbarian
Mid Tier: Demon Hunter, Wizard, and Witch Doctor
Low Tier: Crusader
Bottom Tier: Monk
The Tier list is based on my early impression of what each class can bring to the group. Barbarians are still going to be great supports with Ignore Pain buff and the ability to Group up mobs just 2 of many reasons they are great supports. Demon Hunters offer the very high single target damage with the new Shadows set. Wizards offer very high AoE damage with Delseres and other new and updated items. Witch Doctors can provide high DPS and while bringing big damage buffs to the group. Crusader have damage and supporting options with invokers and rolands but they are slightly behind what other classes can bring to support and or deal damage. Same goes for monks they can still offer damage or support to the group but seems to be the lowest in comparision to other classes. However this season a lot of the sets have been brought up to par with eachother meaning for a while atleast we will see a lot of different group compositions that can do well including compositions that have monks and crusaders in them.
Here are a just a few of many 4-man compositions that I think will be competitive this season.
Support Barb, Single Target DH, AoE Wizard, Hybrid WD
Support Barb, Single Target DH, AoE Wizard, Hybrid Crusader
Support Crusader, Single Target DH, AoE Wizard, Hybrid WD
Support Barb, DPS WD, AoE Wizard, Support WD
Thanks for reading everyone and that is about as short as I could make the guide while still explaining important points. Less than half the length of the guide I made last season so for me it is short. Good luck in Season 5 everyone!
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How to start a new season (season 4)
In this guide I will discuss every topic you could imagine for getting started and getting started FAST most importantly in a new season. I will be covering how to prepare for the season start, different strategies for leveling from 1-70 plus my own strategy for leveling, level 70 gearing strategies, and paragon farming.
TLDR/TLDW : Prepare by writing down skills for 1-70, Level by Cursed Chest bounties, Halls of Agony Level 3 and Rifts, collect Kanai’s cube mats while gearing to gear faster, gear pool to gear even faster(read the post if you wanna know what that means), 2-3 xp/leech builds most efficient for farming paragon levels.
Video Guide: https://youtu.be/HZuJ6OftFbU
Bounty Map: http://imgur.com/j08EaYG
Will also leave a link to the reddit post for those interested in the questions/discussion brought up there
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/3hnove/guide_how_to_start_a_new_season_fastest_170/
Links to 1- 70 skill order cheat sheets/notes for all classes below.
Demon Hunter notes and spread sheet version
Due to many requests for spreadsheets for other classes the following spreadsheets were created, the ones below are untested by me and are there just as a general idea for each class so use at your own discretion.
Barbarian Spreadsheet
Crusader Spreadsheet
Monk Spreadsheet
Wizard Spreadsheet
Witch Doctor Spreadsheet
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
Preparing for the Season
1-70 Leveling Strategies
Level 70 Gearing Strategies
Paragon Leveling Strategy
FAQ
Edits
Foreword
I realize many of you may have heard some of these tips before and while I will be combining ideas and information that has been spread out into one place. I will also be providing my own insight on existing ideas and providing to my knowledge "original" tips, tricks, and strategies or at least ones that have been kept somewhat secret. For those interested in reading something (I hope) you have read no where else before skip to Hybrid leveling strategy and gear pooling.
Preparing
Preparing for the season is mostly about cutting out the time you would normally spend in game wondering what to do next, you might think it is not important but that time will start to add up if you don’t prepare. So to prepare for the new season I suggest doing a few things. First of all knowing when the season will start. Season 4 starts Friday August 28th at 5:00 p.m. for North America. Europe and Asia start times can be find here: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/19842943/season-3-ending-soon-8-7-2015
. Next you will want to figure out what class you will be playing and who you will be grouping with whether it be friends, clanmates, or random players. I highly advise forming a 4 man group for fastest leveling (sorry solo players), because of the group xp buff. Knowing what class and who you will be partying with ahead of time will allow you to get started on your journey from 1 to 70 the second the season goes live, instead of fiddling around with that once it has already begun. Additionally you may want to form a party or pick your characters based around group synergy as well. Having a person dedicated to bunching up mobs will be nice, could be a monk, crusader, or witch doctor (however wd pull comes very late into leveling). Probably the most important thing you can do to prepare though is to write out a detailed list of what skills and keys tasks you will be doing and at the levels you need to assign those skills or do those tasks. This will help cut down a lot of time wasted checking your “new” skills every 5 levels and wasting time deciding what skills to change. You can check my DH notes/cheatsheet http://imgur.com/Zgjsv61. I list out every skill and rune I will take, what level I will take them at, and which key they will go on. I also have other key tasks in that list which I will discuss later. Two finals things to do for the season is to know what difficulty you should be playing on and what leveling strategy you want to do, doesn’t matter too much which strategy as long you know what you are going to do once you enter the game. As for the difficulty you should be on a difficulty where you 2-3 shot most white mobs and also note that expert is the least efficient difficulty so its advised to either bump it up one above or drop one below.
1 to 70 leveling strategies
There are 3 fairly well known strategies to level from 1-70 at the beginning of a season. I will explain all of the strategies and my own hybrid strategy that involves using all 3 of the strategies. I will also include the “Key tasks” that are on my list that I mentioned early when I explain my hybrid strategy.
Cursed Chests
Pros: High Density, Completion Reward(chest, handin xp & gold)
Cons: Inconsistent (don’t always spawn)
This method involves doing cursed chest bounties over and over until you reach level 70. The reasoning for this strategy is that the cursed chests you will be looking for provide a lot of easy to kill mobs and are generally harmless and you get the resplendent chest, and bounty xp and gold. The cursed chests you will be looking for include: Cursed Chapel act IV, Cursed Bellows act I, Cursed Cellar act I, Cursed Court act I, Cursed Grove act I, Cursed Hatchery act I, and one that most people don’t mention but I really like it Cursed Peat act V - Paths of the Drowned. All the waypoint locations can be seen in the Bounty Map http://imgur.com/j08EaYG. So you look for the corresponding bounty(ies) in each act (only one should spawn per act as a bounty). If they spawned go complete the bounty if not remake the game and look again. Repeat until level 70.
Halls of Agony
Pros: Consistent, High Density, Low threat
Cons: Boring, No guaranteed bonus rewards
This strategy is to go to Halls of Agony level 3 in act I and clear out the entire floor leave the game and repeat. This is claimed by many to be the fastest although I think it is very debatable I think all 3 strategies are nearly equal each having its pros and cons. Pros to this strategy is its consistency since it is always there and the high density low threat mobs that Halls of Agony level 3 provides. Its packed with mostly slow moving skeletons.The con to this strategy is that it becomes boring as hell when done repeatedly for hours. So once again you just clear the entire floor back out and remake. Some people choose to do Halls of Agony levels 1 and 2 as well but they tend to have lower density.
Rifts
Pros: Increased Legendary droprate, Bloodshards, Hand in Bonus
Cons: Random Density, Random Mobs
This strategy explains itself fairly well you just do rifts until you hit level 70. Since you no longer needs keys to enter rifts you can now just do rifts back to back until 70. Reason behind doing rifts is for the increased legendary drop rate in rifts so you can upgrade your gear faster than you normally would, which can make a big difference. If you have ever gone for a couple levels without finding any major upgrades you know that feeling of the monsters becoming increasingly difficult to kill. Doing rifts should help prevent that from happening. However the drawback to rifts is the random mob types and random density which can slow things down.
Hybrid Strategy
Pros: Somewhat Consistent, Bloodshards, Hand in Bonuses
Cons: A lot of teleporting around
Ok so I am going give a brief overview of the rotation and reasoning behind the strategy then go into detail of the exact plan and key points I’m going to hit while leveling from 1-70.
So the rotation will be go into a Rift and start clearing as normal. Once 1 or 2 people find big upgrade getting a big power spike we will then teleport back to town.From there we will look for the cursed bounties I listed in the cursed bounty strategy and clear any of them if any spawned, once we do that we will also go clear halls of agony level 3. Then we will head back into the rift finish it hand it in and reset the game. I’m sure someone will ask for me to define a “big upgrade/power spike” while it all depends on how you and your group feels so adjust the following example to something that feels right. Here is an example: If your progression is <25% look for 75% dmg increase combined among members (ie 3 people each find weapons increasing damage by 25%), progression <50% 50% dmg inc, <75% 30-40% dmg inc, <100% 20%dmg inc, if you find no dmg increase finish the rift then do the cursed chest bounties and halls of agony level 3, then reset and repeat.
Philosophy behind this strategy is that you gain the benefits of getting increased drop rates and once you hit a power spike you can take advantage of the guaranteed easy xp of Halls of Agony and easy xp and loot of potential cursed chest bounties. Only downsides are the extra time spent teleporting around and again the uncertainty of rift mobs and density. Here are the exact steps I will be doing while trying this strategy.
LVL 1: Steal Follower Weapons & Find Cursed Chest Bounty or Easy Boss Bounty
Why?: The chests rewarded at the end will provide initial blues/yellows to get you started
LVL 1-12: Do cursed chest bounties and halls of agony.
Why?: Guaranteed easy mobs to get through the first few levels
LVL 6-7: Check Fence Merchants in Act I and Act II for rings.
LVL 10-12: Check Fence Merchants in Act I and Act II for amulets
LVL 16-18: Switch to Campaign go through until you can kill Skeleton king.
LVL 18: Kill Skeleton KingLVL 20: Kill Skeleton King
Why?: First time killing SK guarantees a Leoric's Crown being lvl 20 ensures socket. Put ruby in the socket
LVL 20-70: Run Hybrid Strategy rotation.
LVL 45: Craft lvl 60 Weapon roll reduced lvl req on it
LVL 60: Craft lvl 70 Weapon roll reduced lvl req on it
General Tips for All Strategies
Keep an eye out for the following items
Leoric’s Signet: %xp roll
Puzzle Ring: save for lvl 70 put into cube for greed’s realm
Bovine Bardiche: save for lvl 70 cow level
Nagel Ring: Provide huge burst dmg while lvling
Craft lvl 60 Weapon roll reduced lvl req on it
Craft lvl 70 Weapon roll reduced lvl req on it
Craft and wear Cains if you find the recipe for %xp
Level 70 Gearing Strategies
Bounties First Strategy
So this first strategy for gearing up is definitely up for debate since I have not tested it. So once you have hit 70 spend your blood shards and go get Kanai’s cube. Use up your puzzle rings and Bovine Bardiches if you found any. The reason you may want to start bounties first depends on what items you found while leveling up 1-70. If you found something worth extracting right away you can start doing bounties otherwise doing rifts and greater rifts first will be the best to gear up. So do bounties until you have the item or items you want extracted early in the cube then switch over to rifts asap because they will give much more reward until you are ready to farm mats again at t6+.(Thank you to mhgd3 for replying and correcting me here).
Rifts First Strategy
Alternatively you could start doing rifts right away and start looking for a weapon and set pieces that way since there is the increased chance of finding legendaries in rifts and you get more blood shards. After obtaining sets and once you can do about t6 or higher you can start farming bounties for the mats to reroll legendaries and extract them.
Gear Pooling
This is a strategy that I almost never hear people talk about which surprises me because it is so strong. Maybe I am out of the loop or maybe people are just too greedy and that is why it has not caught on yet but here it is. Note that this strategy will work with either of the ones previously mentioned. So what you will do is get in a party with 2 or more players of the same class as you that you trust(clanmates or friends, usually best). Determine who is going to carry (I recommend whichever person will be playing the most) then everyone will pool all of their important set pieces to the carry. For example if it were DH’s the three people being carried would give the person who is carrying EVERY piece of Marauders, Natalya’s, and Unhallowed Essence. Pool set pieces into the carry until he has finished one then bump up the difficulty as high as you can, which will most likely be t6 to start and then ease your way up. The carry then carries (hence the name) the other 3 through t6 until they finish their sets. The carry should also be handing set pieces out to the group that he finds since he obviously already has a set. To restate the person carrying should be the one who plays the most incase people leave before they finish their sets the carry will hopefully be online when you regroup. This is a super effective method for gearing up fast if you have trustworthy people to do it with because even if just one person has a set finished it will be enough to crank up the difficulty and the entire party will find gear faster and level up faster.
Paragon Leveling Strategy
So as many of you may know %xp has changed from Season 3 to Season 4. The xp is now shared with the entire party instead of just the one person wearing xp gear. They also changed Greater Rift keys so you can no longer recycle keys. This means the paragon farming meta is going to shift. Now when you are running greater rifts you will want 2-3 people wearing “leech” setup even though now it would be more appropriate to call it xp build or something since they are no longer leeching but helping the entire party gain more xp. So the builds for an xp build will essentially be the same as they were last season give or take a few skills due to the cc changes. I have a feeling running 2 people with full xp gear and 2 dps (maybe with a few pieces of xp gear on them) will be the most efficient way to farm xp but it is still up in the air as things will shift once the season pans out. Also since keys were changed there will also need to be some experimenting with exactly which greater rift level will be the most efficient for most groups. Now that it takes longer to get greater rift keys, since you can’t recycle anymore, you have to find the sweet spot between doing grifts fast but also doing one of high enough level so you get the full value out of your greater rift keystone. I imagine having times between 7-10 minutes will end up being the sweet spot but it needs to be tested further.
That is all I have to offer for now guys, thanks for reading and or watching. I will do my best to provide updates when the meta changes. Let me know your questions, ideas, and comments on how to start next season.
FAQ
Q:Any advantage to doing the previously high exp bounties (ie. clear x lvl 2) or things of that nature? Or do crafting mats / cube mats only drop at lvl70?
A:You can get cube materials before level 70 and you will still get the cache and extra xp/gold for handing in all the bounties for an act however some bounties are not worth the time to complete all of an acts bounties. If you have something that you plan on cubing once hitting 70 you could collect them while leveling but it will most likely slow down your leveling. If the correct bounties spawn in act 1 it can be efficient to clear the act. Believe it was more thoroughly discussed here which bounties to look forhttps://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/3g81kb/updated_23_season_4_fastest_leveling_guide_full/
Q:You cant cube legendaries with a lvl below 70, right?
A:You can use any level item in the cube, unless it specifies otherwise in the recipe.
Q:Can I ask why have you not included the Cursed Chest events at Howling Plateau (The Cursed Outpost) and Archives of Zoltun Kulle (The Cursed Spire - Unknown Depths)?
A:I listed the ones that were proven to be best for seasons 2 and 3. I will definately check these two out though and add them if they seem worth it. If you like them though by all means do them when you level up.
Q: see everyone suggesting to hold on to the bovine bardiche to open the cow level, but what's good on that level at all? I know there's a greater spawn of resplandent chests, but is that it? or does it have any kind of increased xp/legendary drop chance?
A:Like you said there are a lot of resplendent chests. There are also high density easy mobs to clear out that give fairly high xp. So a fresh lvl 70 will get pretty good benefit out of opening a bunch of resplendent chests to start getting your lvl 70 items.
Q:Two questions to those who've played the past few seasons. 1. With the high traffic of a new season start, does entering and exiting games to get the right bounty result in queues? 2. If doing this method at an average pace, roughly how long would it take to get to 70, assuming you don't have optimal xp gear?
A:There have not been queues in the past. Their live servers are much larger than their ptr servers. 6-7 hours at an avg pace can be done in 5 hours at a fast pace or even less with an optimized strategy.
Q: for "LVL 45: Craft lvl 60 Weapon roll reduced lvl req on it". Blacksmith/Mystic level that is necessary?
A: Lvl 10 Blacksmith and lvl 2 or 3 mystic (either way mystic costs almost nothing compared to the gold you need for Blacksmith).
Q: Can you make skill layouts similar to your Demon Hunter notes for other classes?
A: I have a bit of free time before the season starts so I will do my best to create skill orders for all of the classes before the season starts and link them here. Of course I am more experience with DH than any other class so use them to your own discretion and feel free to modify any of the skill orders to your liking and leave feedback on them.
Edits
Edit 1: Revised statements under gearing section about doing bounties vs rifts
Edit 2: Added in edit section and link to reddit post.
Edit 3: Added FAQ
Edit 4: Updated FAQ
Edit 5: Reworded Hybrid strategy for further clarity.
Edit 6-10: Added Cheatsheets for all other classes
Edit 11: Updated for Leorics Crown changes
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Yea I will reword that part of the guide my apologies. If someone in your party finds a big damage upgrade go do the bounties / halls of Agony as soon as they find that big upgrade. If no one finds a big upgrade do the bounties/halls after finishing the rift. Once you finish bounties/halls reset the game