If you want to level up quickly in Diablo 4, you'll want to use the first few hours in the game wisely. While it isn't as crunchy as previous Diablo games, there are several ways to grind your way through and earn a bunch of XP to level up faster. Spoiler alert: this means avoiding the majority of the main campaign for the first few hours.
If this is your first foray into Diablo 4 or you're a veteran of the series, be sure to check out PC Gamer's ultimate guide to Diablo 4 to find mounts, gems and more. Otherwise, here are the best ways to farm XP and gold starting out.
1 - 50
How to farm XP from level 1 to 50
There are a number of ways to earn extra XP in Diablo 4, but if this is your first character, here are the most important:
- Play on higher difficulties
- Team up with other players
- Complete dungeons, events, and sidequests
- Craft and use elixirs
- Earn Renown rewards
If you choose Veteran difficulty at the start of the game, you get a 20% XP boost from all sources, and honestly, it isn't all that much harder than Adventurer. Another simple boost is to team up with other players, but that doesn't mean you necessarily have to be friends with them. If you find someone adventuring out in the world or solo, it's easy enough to go to the social section in the menu, cycle to "local" to find them, and see if they are already in a party. This will give you a further 10% increase to help you level fast.
You can also use elixirs since while they grant specific bonuses to your resist types, they also give you a flat 5% XP increase boost at their basic level. The Elixir of Cold Resistance is very easy to craft, so you may as well just always have one running when you're doing dungeons and events. Weirdly enough, cycling between public events and dungeons seems like a far better method to level than completing the main quests, likely due to the larger number of enemies you face.
The Anica's Claim dungeon is very good to farm due to the fact it's a series of loops containing a large number of powerful Animus Carrier enemies and elites that give decent XP and drop lots of loot. Once the dungeon is done, the reset will only take a minute or so, but if you don't get to the final boss you can warp out, wait a little while, and then return to fight the enemies again. This is quite handy since you'll also accumulate a lot of gear to sell, stash, or salvage, and heading back to any city will let you do that. Remember that you can warp back to a town or city at any time by pressing T and returning through the same portal, though this disappears if you leave that settlement on foot or horseback.
To unlock Anica's Claim you'll first have to complete the Malnok Stronghold east of Kyovashad in the Fractured Peaks.
If you do opt for the dungeon farming method, don't forget that certain activities such as Whispers of the Dead or mounts are tied to the main story, so you need to complete the campaign at least once to unlock these for subsequent characters. It's also worth noting that Blizzard has nerfed the spawn rate of elites in some dungeons. Currently, Anica's Claim seems unaffected, partly because of the objective, but it's worth keeping in mind in case of other changes.
Level 50+
How to farm XP from level 50 and up
Leveling slows down drastically once you hit level 50. After you finish the campaign and the Cathedral of Light Capstone Dungeon you can also change your world tier even higher to Nightmare and Torment difficulties, which give a massive XP bonus, though are significantly harder.
The best options for XP gain, once you reach level 50, are:
- Helltides
- Legion events
- Nightmare Dungeons
- Whispers of the Dead
Helltides and Legion events are going to give you decent XP from level 50 onwards, though these appear on a timer so you won't be able to farm them endlessly. Nightmare Dungeons currently don't give much XP—though they will be buffed soon—but they're still worth doing for the Glyph XP and the chance at unique items.
Likewise, the Whispers of the Dead hand-in doesn't offer a staggering amount of XP at higher levels, but you'll still be running through areas that are densely populated with enemies. It's surprising how much you'll gain by just carrying out the objectives to obtain your ten Grim Favors, while also gaining some potentially decent loot if you're still looking to gear up your character.
1 - 50 (Power leveling)
How to power level a second character
If you've completed the campaign on one character and want to level another, there is another much faster option for getting to level 50 fast. The only caveat is that you'll need a well-geared, high-level pal to help you out. They don't need to be max level but they need to be able to easily clear the level 50 and level 70 capstone dungeons with you tagging along.
Here's what you need to do:
- Create your new character and choose to skip the campaign.
- Set the difficulty to World Tier 2 and log in.
- Invite your high-level friend to a group.
- Clear the Cathedral of Light capstone dungeon
- Set the difficulty to World Tier 3
- Clear the Fallen Temple capstone dungeon
- Set the difficulty to World Tier 4
- Farm normal dungeons of your choice until you hit level 50.
It's important that you invite your friend to your group, not the other way around. You need the game world to be set to your progression, not your friend's.
It should also be pointed out that your friend will be doing all the work while you sit inside the various dungeon entrances and wait for them to clear them. You'll be getting loads of XP from the enemies killed as long as you're inside the dungeon, and attempting to follow your pal around and help will get you killed—even if you're only down for a few seconds before respawning, you don't get XP when you're dead. Both capstone dungeons need to be completed to unlock the higher World Tiers, meaning higher XP gains from the dungeon(s) you mean to farm to get you to level 50.
The whole process should take no more than an hour or two and works similarly to the power leveling method in Diablo 3, taking the sting out of the need to roll a new character for each season.
How to farm gold
How to farm gold
While you'll naturally accumulate a fortune of gold by killing enemies, there are a couple of ways you can fast track the amount you earn, namely: selling spare armour and weapons that you don't need to dismantle and by using Greed Shrines. Like other shrines, these are completely random and you might find them out in the world or in a dungeon, marked with a little pile of coins above the shrine pillar. These will give you massively increased gold drops for a limited time, so get busy killing stuff to earn big bucks.
There are also Treasure Goblins you can hunt down, but these tend to drop more gear than they do gold, plus as with the shrines, they seem to appear randomly. As a general rule, the more enemies you kill, the more gold you'll get, so good XP farming methods will get you lots of gold, too.
