Season 33 Start 1-70 Leveling Guide

Leveling to 70 is one main milestone during the night of a season start and optimizing it can save you a lot of time on your way there. Top-end times with fresh characters can be as little as 30-45 minutes which is many times faster than what is otherwise achievable without these strategies.

Most people just want to rush to endgame to start building their character's gear and paragon levels. In some cases, like during season releases in January or March, there are special events available you can use to level in a different way (Diablo Anniversary Event / Kanai's Stomping Grounds) or certain seasons offer unique themes that also help you out (such as the Shadow Clones from Season 22 or the Ethereal Weapons from Season 24).

Season-specifc Specials

Some Seasons mix up the normal leveling process. Depending on which Season theme or what time of year the Season starts, you may benefit from the following bonuses.

Darkening of Tristram (Only during January)

You can acquire normal gems as early as level 1 by entering the Darkening of Tristram Event, pathing to level 5 and clicking on the "Magic Rock" (a glowing tile on the ground) that drops roughly a dozen gems regardless of character level which can be used to unlock Anointed node from the Altar of Rites. This event is only active during January.

Soul Shards

Soul Shards drop from Adventure Mode bosses and when salvaged provide either x3 Imperial Gems or x1 Flawless Royal Gem. This is an alternative way to acquire gems (and gold by selling them) early to unlock the Altar and speed up the leveling process if you get lucky.

Shades of the Nephalem

During the 4th Cube season, every shrine you click spawns a Shadow Clone to assist you for 1 minute. On lower levels and even up until mid-tier Greater Rifts, they are incredibly powerful and can destroy everything on their own. You can use this to your advantage to hunt for shrines in adventure mode, for example at spawn locations such as the Leoric's Manor Courtyard or Southern Highlands waypoints and simply follow your shadow along while dodging incoming attacks on Torment 6 for a fast leveling experience.

First Steps

Here are all the steps to take in the first minutes of a fresh season to ensure a good start:

1. Create/Rebirth Seasonal Character

After the first step is taken, you can now create your character and select the “seasonal” checkbox. You can also rebirth one of your old characters, which will send all of its items to your nonseasonal mail and give you a fresh level 1 character with that name and playtime history (keep that in mind in case you want to accurately track your seasonal playtime – you will have to do so through your seasonal profile page).

2. Complete Challenge Rift

You can start the Challenge Rift before the season begins, which will give you a Challenge Rift Reward Cache containing a good bunch of crafting materials, 475 Blood Shards and 5.1 millions Gold to kickstart your leveling process. You don't actually need to have a seasonal character to collect the rewards from a Challenge Rift there later. However, don't complete it (don't kill the Rift Guardian) before the Season Start notification has popped up. Seasons always begin on a Friday at 5PM server time (CET in EU, PST in NA) and you can prepare the run in a way that you have the rift guardian spawned and kill it immediately when the season begins.

There will be a system message displaying in chat, a pop-up notification on your screen and you can also check your friends list for seasonal heroes if you're unsure. Double-checking is recommended as the season start can sometimes be slightly delayed and not happen precisely down to the second. When you're done, just make sure to create/rebirth a seasonal character and log in there first, don't log into the game on Non-Season.

Keep in mind there are some risks involved here because if you accidentally complete it too early you will lose your chance to get the reward or you might run out of time and have to restart the run after the season has gone live. Best case, try to practice the run, learn how to reach the Rift Guardian quickly and then leave once you are confident you can replicate that easily. If you want to be safe and don't feel the need to squeeze out every second at the start, just wait until you have created your seasonal character.

Challenge Rifts rift always reset on Monday (for NA, 1PM PST) or Tuesday (for EU, 4AM CET) and season starts always happen on Friday, so during that week you have to wait with the rift. Be sure to check our Challenge Rift guides to be properly prepared and not potentially waste valuable leveling time when it might be a particularly difficult one on a season start.

3. Take Follower Weapon & Equip a Pet

Depending on your class, go to your follower and grab their weapon. They are straight upgrades in every single case and help you out for the first few levels. Give them your old gear as you replace it, especially items that emanate like Nemesis Bracers & The Flavor of Time or items that grant bonus experience such as Leoric's Crown with a Ruby in it. Also don’t forget to use a pet, it will pick up gold for you while you’re busy fighting enemies, which can help you out early on.

Leveling with the Altar of Rites

Doubled Massacre Streaks

When you start out in a newseason, you can salvage your Templar's Shield and Scoundrel's Bow to gain 10+ Reusable Parts. Use these to unlock the Gateway node on the Altar of Rites in New Tristram, behind the Slaughtered Calf Inn. This node makes Massacre leveling a breeze and way better than other strategies.

Sacrifice or Save - The Challenge Rift Cache Question

Depending on your playstyle, experience and time investment, you have an important decision to make before you start out. At step 15 when unlocking the Altar of Rites you have to sacrifice your Challenge Rift Cache. Using it speeds up your leveling process and gives you a few materials to get started at level 70, creating a gap of 30-60min versus not using the cache.

Our basic recommendation for casual players is to simply use the Challenge Rift Cache at level 1 to ensure a smooth start. However, if you are planning to play a lot during the opening weekend of the season, you are going to get stuck on the Altar and cannot proceed until the second Challenge Rift unlocks. It's worth mentioning that sacrificing the cache makes more sense for NA players who have to wait a total of 68 hours from season start while it's 83 hours for EU players. If you are planning to play less than 15-20 hours in the first few days (or more if you're not maximizing your efficiency at all times), it's recommended to simply open the cache for leveling, else save it. Keep in mind that getting stuck at step 15 in the Altar progression means that you are noticeably weaker than other players if you're planning to push the leaderboards during the early days of the season.

One other option is to use a second account, ask an inactive friend or do a challenge cache trade with someone from another region (people use Discord communities like the Maxroll, wudijo's or Raxxanterax's Discord servers to find a partner). Like this you can profit from the crafted level 70 items (more below) without wasting your Challenge Rift Cache. This is a common strategy for people who want to play a lot in the first days but still want to level as quickly as possible. Crafted rare items from the Blacksmith are tradeable.

The full breakdown, in short:

• The difference in 1 to 70 leveling is ~30-60min with/without cache
• NA has to wait 68, EU 83 hours until 2nd CR cache
• SAVE CACHE IF
  • You play at least ~15 hours (more if you're generally slow) until 2nd CR
  • You start the season late, just get boosted
  • You care about pushing leaderboards during first weekend
  • You do the challenge cache trade or use 2nd account
• USE CACHE IF
  • You play casually and don't care about your performance
  • You play less than ~15 hours (more if you're generally slow) until 2nd CR
  • You want to have the easiest leveling experience of your life
  • You are willing to get stuck at step 15 and pre-farm future seal unlocks for later

Items have no Level Requirements

No matter which path you choose, another perk that massively speeds up the leveling process with the Altar is Anointed. This allows you to potentially wear full level 70 gear at level 1 - given you have unlocked this node, which is the second choice on the Altar of Rites on the right path. In order to do so most efficiently, here are the steps:

Leveling to 70

At this point you are set up to blast your way to victory in no time. With the power of Gateway and Anointed you can reach level 70 extremely fast, even if you are not fully decked out in level 70 gear yet (crafted by the blacksmith) without opening the Challenge Rift Cache. If you don't have full high level gear, make sure to keep adding more as you go and craft 3 pieces of Sage's Journey for more Death's Breath later. If you haven't opened the Cache, you won't have enough Gold to upgrade your Blacksmith for now, so keep an eye out for when you have another ~150-200k Gold collected, then upgrade your weapon to a level 70 piece.

The best way to level up quickly is through Massacre bonuses in Temple of the Firstborn (Act 2). Simply start blasting and keep the streaks up as much as possible. Another option is to start with Bounties to work on the Season Journey objectives and unlock your Haedrig's Gift more quickly. The best way to do it is to complete them as early as possible on a high difficulty to get more Gold, Materials and maybe one of the Bounty-specific items like Ring of Royal Grandeur. Make sure to save at least one Bounty-cache turn-in for when you have already hit level 70 or else you don't get Jeweler recipes needed for the Journey. You need only one drop (which is guaranteed) and get 4 more by buying the lvl 60 Hellfire Ring Recipe from Squirt in Act II for 2 million Gold.

In groups, things get more complicated than usual. Because of the massive power of Massacre streaks with the Altar, it's unlikely that multiple players are going to remain on a similar level while playing together. The best option is usually to go with Cursed Chest farming (explained further below) or have one strong player blast to 70 on their own while the rest completes Bounties for the Season Journey and get carried later.

Gambling & Cubing Items

If you have opened the Challenge Rift Cache and unlocked the cube, go to the Blacksmith and craft one weapon for your class, then use the Upgrade Rare feature (3rd cube recipe). The chances are between 37%-100% to get a decent outcome depending on your class. By getting the right item here you can save up to half an hour on your journey to 70.

Upgrading

Find more details about this in our in-depth guide about Level 1 Cubing & Gambling!

Gambling

Whenever you have Blood Shards, you want to gamble early on at Kadala to get any item with a big multiplier (that ideally synergizes with your weapon). Typical gambling choices are Gloves, Bracers, Offhands, in some cases you also want to wait until a certain level. If you have opened the Challenge Rift Cache, you can benefit from a rather small pool of possible options at level 1 to almost guarantee a good result that can carry you all the way to 70. In some cases, better options unlock a little bit later so you should hold onto your shards until exactly the mentioned level. The chance to get any legendary at all from gambling 475 Blood Shards (19 attempts) on armor pieces is 86.5%.

• Barbarian: Bracers (Bracers of Destruction and Bracers of the First Men) or Rings (Band of Might)
• Crusader: Bracers (Gabriel's Vambraces) or Shields (Guard of Johanna and Denial)
• Demon Hunter: Bracers (Wraps of Clarity) or Helms (Leoric’s Crown) or Quivers at level 31 (Holy Point Shot, especially if you upgraded into Karlei's Point or at level 34 (The Ninth Cirri Satchel)
• Monk: Bracers (Gungdo Gear, Cesar's Memento and Pinto's Pride) or Boots (Rivera Dancers and The Crudest Boots)
• Necromancer: Gloves (Grasps of Essence) or Rings (Circle of Nailuj's Evol, especially if you upgraded into Reilena's Shadowhook)
• Witch Doctor: Mojos (Gazing Demise, especially if you upgraded into The Barber)
• Wizard: Offhands at level 1 (Winter Flurry) or at level 33 (Etched Sigil)

Alternatively every class is able to get Pox Faulds at level 1 as the only item in that pants-slot. This item alone can already provide a decent power boost for an easy start. Find more details about gambling in the in-depth post for Level 1 Cubing/Gambling.

Choose Your Leveling Strategy

1) Massacre Bonuses

In short: Preferred choice for solo players, especially good for pet classes (WD / Necro)
Benchmark times: 0:30-1:15h (solo & group)

Massacres are a bonus you can use to level experience quickly outside of Nephalem and Greater Rifts - where they are deactivated - by killing at least 15 enemies in quick succession without stopping to hit anything for more than a few seconds. Popular locations include Fields of Misery, Eternal Woods and Temple of the Firstborn. Especially the latter has gained a lot of popularity ever since it was implemented. Massacre bonuses are very fast when you can keep them up well, as you will get a multiplicative experience bonus at the end of your streak. This bonus keeps increasing the more enemies you have defeated and starts at 15 enemies slain all the way up to 500 in sequence (awarding a x4.5 multiplier at the end). Like this you will be able to jump multiple levels at a time at the end of your run, even all the way up to 70. In groups make sure to allow your party members to hit all/most enemies at least once, else it won't count for their streak.

2) Bounties

In short: Good choice if you save the Challenge Rift Cache to gain extra mats, gold and work on season objectives for Haedrig's Gift
Benchmark times: 1:15-1:45h (solo & group)

Instead of leveling up with massacre streaks only, you can also combine it with finishing season journey objectives as you go by simply completing all bounty acts once. With high level items equipped thanks to the Altar, you can easily clear Torment difficulty bounties and acquire blacksmith plans, blood shards, gold and items as you work your way towards 70 and the Haedrig's Gift objectives. Important to note here is that you should focus on one act at a time because you progressively become weaker as you level up and you should always do the boss bounty first as they are by far the biggest obstacles. It may be worth to adjust your build before a boss fight to include more single target damage, then switch to an AoE setup for the rest of the run.

3) Nephalem Rifts

In short: Slow, but easy
Benchmark times: 2:00-3:00h (solo & group)

By far the simplest strategy, you just chain rifts all the way to 70. Typically you can reach it by the 2.5 to 4 hour mark, which unfortunately is not very fast compared to other strategies. You have the very small advantage of accumulating a few materials and Bloodshards, which don’t outweigh the slower pace at all though. If you don’t care much about how slow it is and just want to have a bit of fun, this is the best way to go, as not much can go wrong. As a plus, you can get some cool legendary drops twice as often that could make it a bit exciting (as Nephalem Rifts have a 100% bonus to magic find). If you play in a group and find Conduit Pylons, be sure to spread out before clicking so that you can get most out of it, as they can give you a nice bonus and you will oneshot everything anyway. Stick to a difficulty that allows you to finish a run in 3-5min.

4) Halls of Agony Blades

In short: Annoying and needs lots of practice to be efficient enough
Benchmark times: 1:00-1:15h (solo & group)

Previously the fastest leveling strategy, it has lost some of its appeal with the Cursed Chests. With good execution, you can reach level 70 in little more than 1 hour. However, you will need to practice this first, as you will die oneshot to anything that hits you. Because of this, this strategy is strictly softcore-only.

If you decide to try it, go to Halls of Agony level 1 and search for the cleaving blades, they are always located near the exit of the map. Your objective is to kite enemies through them and have them killed by this environmental effect. Most trash monsters will get oneshot, if you have slows (e.g. Caltrops), it will make this strategy much easier. On the higher levels, beware of elites with dangerous affixes that could oneshot you, as you generally have no toughness to survive any hit at all. It could still be useful to try to buy items with resistances and Vitality from vendors whenever you enter town, as you could survive certain small elite effects like Plagued at least.

5) Cursed Chests

In short: Top strategy especially for groups with at least 1 Necromancer (due to Corpse Explosion with Grasps of Essence or Death Nova with Bloodtide Blade.
Benchmark times: 0:45h (group), 1:00-1:30h (solo)

Thanks to the power of the Necromancer’s Corpse Explosion, this has emerged as a great leveling strategy for groups. A single Necro is enough to carry a party into the lower Torments at least, and with some luck from cubing/crafting, can even go all the way until level 70 carrying on higher Torments. In such cases other players in the group should go for more supporting choices in their skill setup.

In order to find cursed chests fast and easily, every party member should leave the group after a completed run and search for a cursed chest bounty in their own game. They are quite common, so in many cases someone will be able to call out that they found one on the first or second try. These are the Cursed Chest events you are looking for:

• Act I
  • The Cursed Cellar - The Old Ruins (avoid this chest on hardcore)
  • The Cursed Court - Cathedral Level 2
  • The Cursed Bellows - Halls of Agony Level 3 (beware of fire on hardcore)
• Act II
  • The Cursed Pit - Archives of Zoltun Kulle
  • The Cursed Spire - Archives of Zoltun Kulle
  • The Cursed Moors - Shrouded Moors
  • The Cursed Temple - Temple of the Firstborn
• Act III
  • The Cursed Garrison - The Battlefields
  • The Cursed Bailey - The Ruins of Sescheron
• Act IV
  • None
• Act V
  • The Cursed Peat - Paths of the Drowned (beware of Tusked Bogan charges on Hardcore)

6) Darkening of Tristram Event

In short: Special Event only active during January
Benchmark times: 1:00-1:30h (solo & group)

In case the season starts during January, you will have the option to enter the Diablo 1 Anniversary Event through the portal in Old Tristram (Act 1). It’s essentially like a really long rift with some special enemies and drops and typically you get rather good experience, as you can build up massacre bonuses there. Comparable to regular massacre bonus leveling in efficiency.

Strong Leveling Skills

The following skills are great to use for 1-70 if you don't have any specific damage multipliers available. In case you got something from gambling/cubing or a good drop, rather play around that.

• Barbarian
  • Rend (5), then Ravage (18), then Bloodbath (56)
  • Furious Charge (21), then Merciless Assault (33)
  • Weapon Throw (17), then Ricochet (25) for keeping Massacre streaks
  • Add Battle Rage, Leap, Threatening Shout for extra mobility, damage, defense and resources
• Crusader
  • Sweep Attack (5), then Blazing Sweep (11)
  • Fist of the Heavens (26), then Divine Well (32), then Fissure (42)
  • Smite (11) for keeping Massacre streaks
  • Add Steed Charge, Iron Skin, Akarat's Champion, Laws for extra mobility, damage, defense and resources
• Demon Hunter
  • Bolas (11), then Volatile Explosives (14)
  • Chakram (12), then Twin Chakrams (18)
  • Spike Trap Echoing Blast (27)
  • Sentry Spitfire Turret (28)
  • Multishot Arsenal (55), together with Ballistics
  • Add Vault, Preparation, Companion for extra mobility, damage, defense and resources
• Monk
  • Exploding Palm (13), then Strong Spirit (25)
  • Mystic Ally Earth Ally (53) to pop Exploding Palm and delete big targets
  • Sweeping Wind (21), then Bladestorm(33) to keep up Massacre streaks and pop Exploding Palm
  • Add Dashing Strike, Generators, Blinding Flash, Serenity, Mantras for extra mobility, damage, defense and resources
• Necromancer
  • Corpse Explosion (4), then Bloody Mess (12)
  • Skeletal Mage (5), then Gift of Death (11)
  • Bone Spikes to keep up Massacre streaks
  • Add Bone Armor, Blood Rush, Command Skeletons, Command Golem for extra mobility, damage, defense and resources
• Witch Doctor
  • Corpse Spiders (3), then Leaping Spiders (9)
  • Haunt (12), then Lingering Spirit (35)
  • Locust Swarm (21), then Pestilence (27)
  • Add Soul Harvest, Spirit Walk, Horrify, Summon Zombie Dogs for extra mobility, damage, defense and resources
• Wizard
  • Disintegrate (21), then Convergence (26)
  • Hydra (21), then Frost Hydra (46)
  • Blizzard (27), then Snowbound (47)
  • Add Teleport, Ice Armor, Familiar, Electrocute, Magic Weapon, Diamond Skin for extra mobility, damage, defense and resources

Additional Leveling Tips

• Always choose a difficulty where you can both comfortably survive and kill most enemies within a few seconds, the Rift Guardian in max. 30 seconds.
• Check vendors in town for upgrades every few levels, even blue items can be valuable while leveling.
• Use bursts in character power to crank up the difficulty and increase your speed (e.g. a great legendary find, a reduced level requirement weapon, a new skill rune).
• Pick up all items from the ground, especially yellows.
• Decide quickly which items to keep and which to salvage (take a look at the overall stats or stat comparison and then equip or unequip).
• Make sure to leave the game at the same time when in a group, don't keep the other members waiting.
• Use Diamonds for defense and a Ruby in helmet and weapon.
• Use good map layouts to clean them up instead of going next rift/next game immediately.
• Use all your gold and mats to improve your speed - you can easily farm it back at 70.

Video Guide

Related Content and Videos

Make sure to check out some of these videos to see how it’s done:

• 1-70 Solo DH Practice ~1h 30min by wudijo
• 1-70 Group Leveling Practice ~54min by sVr
• 1-70 Agony Blades ~69min by Rob
• Experience Mechanics by Rob

Summary

In short, remember the steps at level 1 (Challenge Rift, follower Weapon, Kanai's Cube, craft, upgrade, gamble, ...). Choose the right leveling strategy (perhaps practice it once or twice if you haven't done it yet) and try to be efficient with your time. Check quickly for item upgrades and don't hesitate to create new games when your rifts or layouts are bad. And finally, choose the right difficulty, leveling should go smooth at all times!

I hope you took some things from this guide that will help you out with a better season start. Whenever a new season comes around, it will come in handy to learn these things once and keep improving on them.
Good luck!

Credits

Written and updated by wudijo