Heading into Season 1, some Diablo 4 players were concerned by the fact that you need to start a new character every season in order to experience each season’s new content.

And since the 1.1.0 patch on July 18 with the associated damage, survivability, and XP gain nerfs, almost all players are now looking at their experience bar and wishing it would go up a bit faster.

We’ve done some testing and we’re here to help you quickly level up new characters through to level 50 both in the Eternal Realm and with new seasonal characters in Diablo 4.

Leveling Is Faster With Friends

We’ll be focusing on the solo leveling experience in this guide. But something to keep in mind is that leveling is faster with friends.

Standing near teammates gives you a passive XP generation boost. And the more people you have around you to help slay demons, the more they speed up any dungeons or strongholds that you might be tackling.

So, if you’ve got a crew that your dungeon crawling with, you’re already off to a great start. This guide will be helpful to all players, though, whether you’re playing with friends or by yourself.

Leveling Your First Character

The two main objectives that will help you the most when getting your account ready for leveling new characters are finishing the main campaign and finding all of the Altars of Lilith.

Completing the campaign is important not only because most seasonal activities are locked behind completion of the main campaign but also because creating new characters and getting them through the first 50 levels becomes much easier and much faster after this. This is because you unlock the skip campaign button from the character creation menu, which will allow new seasonal characters to jump straight to level for the new content.

Players starting their first character during the season can do this in the Seasonal Realm too, meaning your character can go straight to completing season objectives after the campaign.

If you want to get through the campaign as quickly as possible, make sure you select World Tier 1. Because these main story missions will take less time to complete and also grant you more efficient leveling progress than World Tier 2 would allow for.

We’ll revisit World Tier 2, leveling in just a minute for those of you who still want to give it a go.

While you’re completing the campaign, you will travel across most of the Sanctuary. So, use this opportunity to find all of the Altars of Lilith while you’re passing through most of these places already. These Altars give all of your characters permanent stat bonuses, which we’ll go into in just a second.

Once you beat the main campaign and find all the Altars, try to get to level 45 or 50 by completing strongholds, side quests, Tree of Whisper bounties, dungeons, and Legion Events in order to take on the World Tier 2 Capstone Dungeon.

Completing this challenging activity will reward you with access to World Tier 3, which is the start of what we’ll consider the post game leveling grind.

Leveling Your Second Character

If you’ve already finished the campaign with one character and you choose to skip the campaign, you will start at level 1 in Kyovashad with your Mount and Whisper Bounties already unlocked for you.

This character will start with any bonuses that your previous character received through Renown rewards, like these stat boosts from Altars of Lilith, as well as potion capacity upgrades and skill point bonuses from Renown.

This means that new characters can start with a maximum of 10 free skill points as well as 68 extra points that go into each of your character’s main stats being Strength, Intelligence, Willpower, and Dexterity, making your fresh character very powerful from level 1.

For each new season, only Altar and map discovery progress will carry forward from realm to realm, meaning you only need to do those activities once. But you won’t keep your Renown progress from dungeons, side quests, and strongholds.

Giving new characters access to all of these bonuses right from level 1 will be the most meaningful step that you can take to make sure that your second or third characters breeze through the first 50 levels.

They could be so strong that they’ll be wiping the floor with the first 25 levels in the game, and it becomes more efficient for them to play on World Tier 2 instead of World Tier 1. Because they defeat the more difficult enemies fast enough to enjoy the bonus experience that the higher difficulty rewards you with.

Fight Enemies Of A Higher Level

When playing a second character, you can choose whichever activity you would like to proceed with 4 leveling.

As speed is the name of the game here though, keep in mind that XP that you gain from killing enemies is increased if the enemies are a higher level than you.

In the Eternal Realm, areas have set levels. So, investigate the map and look for what level each area is set to as you’re progressing from Level 1 to 50 in order to keep earning XP efficiently.

Seasonal Realm characters regions are set to the same level. So, instead, we recommend you focus on strongholds.

Also Read: How To Calculate Damage Increases In Diablo 4? - Damage & Defense Mechanics Explained

How To Repeat Strongholds (Reset)?

Strongholds will always be at least two levels above your own. But they also have set level minimums. So, they could be 5, 10, 15, or 20 levels above you, depending on your current level.

Clearing strongholds will give you plenty of Renown, new towns and teleports to use and more. But if you complete a stronghold without bringing the final bell, you can actually reset them to repeat the stronghold and earn XP very efficiently due to strongholds having a lot of enemy density. You also mean that you can farm a lot of Diablo 4 Gold here.

Just go back to the character creation menu after you beat the boss of a stronghold to instantly reset the dungeon, allowing you to go again and again and again.

If you’re keen to get the most experience as possible and your build is up to the task, we recommend tackling strongholds that are five levels above your own and repeating them at least for two or three level gains. You should level up quickly and get plenty of decent gear.

And if you’ve reached the stronghold’s intended level gap of plus two levels above yours, you can then find another stronghold that’s set to a higher level and start repeating that one next.

General Tips For World Tier 3 & 4

Two of the strongholds we recommend prioritizing the most, considering how dense their enemy locations are, is The Onyx Watchtower in the Dry Steppes with a level minimum of 20 and the Temple of Rot with a level minimum of 30.

Once you hit World Tier 3 and 4, this method is no longer particularly efficient as the game introduces other high difficulty activities for you to tackle.

While this guide was originally made to include some tips for the post game leveling guide through World tiers 3 and 4, the game is in a constant state of flux at the moment with patches drastically changing leveling experience every few days. This means that whatever we publish for this purpose is likely to be made obsolete in a matter of hours. We can give you a couple of general tips, though, so you’re not completely in the dark.

A general rule of thumb is to try and clear Nightmare Dungeons at a high difficulty level that still allows you to finish them quickly for an efficient leveling loop.

Increasing their level too much will lead to slower dungeon clears, which is worse for efficient leveling. So, try to increase it to a point where you can still breeze through them.

Helltides are also good for resource gathering, enemy dense, Overworld activities, and targeted loot grinding.

Change Things Up If You’re Bored

Running the same dungeons and strongholds over and over and over can get a bit old. So, we do recommend changing up your routine if you find yourself getting bored.

Once you’re past level 50, Helltides are great for earning loot in the Overworld and completing at least one Cull The Wicked event will reward you with a grand cache of Diablo 4 Items and resources.

Fields of Hatred and Legion Events also pit you against stronger enemies, so your XP gains will be increased for these activities, too. Spice up your routine if you’re getting bored, because at the end of the day, Diablo is a game about having fun.