Diablo 3 is a great game, and I have spent a lot of time playing it lately. I have been playing Diablo 3 in Hardcore mode only. That means when you die, your character is dead forever. That normally isn’t a problem. However, upon receiving a death (especially at level 70) that means you lose your character, any gear (legendaries) and so forth. What happens when you lose a 70. You have to re-level them from the ground up. My thought process is this..the first time you level ANY class, you should level on your own. Get from 1, all the way to 70 on your on. Do it using the Campaign, adventure mode (bounties + Rifts) or whatever else. But do it on your own. Learn your character, and get use to the game. However, upon losing a 70.. no one wants to re-level the same character all over again.
Diablo 3 – Power Leveling 101
That is where this power leveling guide comes in. The process is very simple. We are going to be using the bounty system, to help you level from 1 to the early 60’s pretty easily, and very fast.
To start with, you need to join the proper community to make this easy and fast. Once your logged into the game.. hit “shift+o”. This will open the clan/community window. Go to Communities at the bottom. Then search for “hc level”. This will bring up the hardcore leveling community. Once there, double click on the community and join it. Close down the window. Then hit “Shift+o” again and you will see the community. It will say how many people are in chat. Click the chat icon, and join the chatroom. Once there, this is the chat you need to use while power leveling.
Now let me explain how this works. Groups of people comprised of 3 leeches and 1 clearer get together and complete bounties for experience. Currently, only two bounties are used for power leveling. The first bounty is “The Cursed Cellar” in act 1. The second bounty is “The Hell Rift” in act 4. These can be both done whenever they are available. You have two options. Finding the bounty on your map (when it’s available) or joining someone else’s party.
In Diablo 3, in order to start your own party you must first have the bounty. To do this load up the game and check act 1 and 4 to see if either of those bounties are available. If not, then leave the game and re-join. Once you find the bounty you just need to build your party. In the chat log you will then ask for party members. You will need 1 clearer (the level 70 needed to clear the bounty for you), and 2 leeches (two lower level players that will go into the party with you to get experience. The reason you normally want to get a full party (as described) is it gives you an experience bonus. However, sometimes if you have an impatient clearer you may have to start it sooner before you have an entire party. Your current level also determines how hard the enemies are, and thus what experience you get. The higher your level (or the level of the party leader) the more overall experience is obtained. In chat you can say things like.. “Level 25 HR (hell rift) LF 2 leech + 1 Clearer”. Then as people respond in chat, or whisper you just add them to the party. It’s easy. Once the party is built, then you complete the bounty and get experience. How to complete the bounty itself will be described shortly.
Another (easier) option is to also keep an eye out for people who already have the bounty that are looking for other leeches to finish the bounty. If you see an open party then whisper them for an invite. To make it fast as possible, you want to scan chat for people looking for leechers and be quick to respond, as well as keep looking for available bounties in your own game as well.
For the bounties themselves you will want to do Cursed Cellar and/or Hell Rift until about level 50-53. Then switch to do Hell Rift only so you get the most experience. Throughout the 50’s you can normally get 2 levels per Hell Rift completion.
Once the party is formed, the process is different depending on the bounty, as described above.
If it’s cursed cellar then the clearer will teleport down to the cellar and clear out the enemies. Then they will tell you to teleport down, most of the time they just use the word”Safe”. You then go to their banner and teleport down. Then you hide behind the wall near the door and wait. They go in and clear out the bounty, and once it’s done the bounty is complete. You get a lot of experience as they kill the enemies, as well from the bounty completion. Once complete, then you come out and get all of loot from the chest, and then normally leave party. Sometimes level 70’s will ask you to drop low level gems. It’s always polite to drop what you can, so they get something for helping you out. Though they don’t always ask.
The Hell Rift works almost the same way. Once the party is built they will go down and say to teleport to them or come down. You want to teleport down using their banner. Once it loads you want to immediately teleport back to town and then just wait. After awhile they will trigger the fight, complete the bounty and you get a giant experience boost. Normally 2-3 levels each time if your higher level.
Unfortunately it tapers off in the 60’s and you get less. When you get bored, or it slows to a crawl then just switch back to standard leveling. At that point I have been told that bounties are the fastest way to finish.
In Diablo 3 overall I have gotten a character from Level 1, to level 50 using the first bounty. Then to level 63 using the Hell Rift. It took me less than 3 hours to get to 63 using this method and this also involved several breaks, delays getting into parties, and other issues that arose. Overall if you had a really good run of luck, it is entirely possible to get from 1-63 using this method in just 90 minutes. It would require focus, speed, and good luck getting into parties.
Technically, in Diablo 3, if someone wanted to.. the ycould take every single class and get them all up to 63 easy. You could easily get 1 level 70 together in elss than 6 hours, even gaining the extra levels on your own. So all maxed out characters in less than 3-4 days, if not faster… then all that is left is to get geared.
Diablo 3 Note: Always try to do the runs in Torment 6. That gives you maximum experience. Some people do it at lower torment levels, but anytime you can is better. If your joining a new players game then sometimes they have not beaten the game and do not have Torment unlocked. This takes longer, but is still worth the experience generally.
A few things have changed with the most recent patches in Diablo 3. A few of the zones bounties had their experience reduced. From what I can tell, it still seems the current “Power levelers” still use the same two as described in this post.