Vote: Season 3 Plans and Rushing Strategies

Diablo 3 Season Three begins tonight on the Americas server and is already underway in Asia and Europe. Are you guys jumping in and joining the (cooperative) race to 70? Here are the official start times:

Vote: Season 3 Plans:

Season One’s rush to 70 was broken by exp-exploitable bounties (in softcore, at least), and with those fixed in S2, most players found the first night rush a lot of fun. It helped (IMHO) that the level 70 conquest was removed after S1, so there wasn’t such a pressure to get to max level.

That said, everyone wants to level up fast, and with two seasons of practice the best methods have been pretty well determined. There are two fastest ways to gain, from 1-70, and both assume you are playing in a four player game and working together as a team for the fastest possible leveling:

1. Halls of Agony level 3. High density of slow moving enemies, in a fairly large area. If you’re after speed, don’t bother with the Butcher, even if he’s a quest.
2. Cursed chest quests. All of them in all acts are worth a ton of exp from the huge monster spawns.

Thus the fastest way to level to 70 is for your four-person party to keep creating new games, always doing the Halls of Agony 3 and taking a quick scan for any Cursed Chest or Shrine events in A1-A4. Always completing the content together, co-op on killing and exploring, to save time and share the big exp.

Should you play that way? Sure… if your only goal is to reach 70 ASAP.

Personally, I find it useful (and a lot more fun) to do more Bounties and Rifts on the way. Rifts give more exp per kill, and good density in a Rift will give faster exp than Halls 3, plus you’ll find more legs to improve your killing speed, and you’ll earn Shards from the Guardian. Doing Rifts from 61-70 is a real benefit since finding level 61 legs can really boost your performance, and the Shard drops from Guardians at that stage are adequate. This way when you hit 70, you’ve got a stack of Rift Keys and several hundred Shards, for instant gear upgrading.

Click through for more essential tips, Artisan upgrading advice, and more.

Play on Normal or Hard all the way to 70. The exp gain from higher difficulty is not worth the slower killing time for un-twinked chars.

Avoid dead time! Plan your crafting times in advance, never waste time standing around in town, enter/leave games without delay, etc. All those little 5 and 10s pauses add up considerably over 5-7 hours of rush leveling play time.

Work together. Everyone in the same dungeon, coordinating your skills. Spread out to quickly find the Cursed event. Etc.

Gold is scarce, so only upgrade the Blacksmith. The Jeweler and Enchantress aren’t really needed on the way up, and Enchanting is very expensive, especially as you’ll outgrow everything you find in 15 or 20 minutes.

Weapon crafting with the Smith has huge potential. The spot of real note is Clvl 42, since a level 9 Smith can make level 60 weapons with up to -18 level req. This is worth spending all your mats on, since the DPS jump can be enormous.

Any fast leveling advice you guys would care to share? Ideal party composition theories? And has everyone planned out their runs already, with caffeine and snacks and friends lined up for your party?

Update: Results from a similar vote we ran back in February, the day before Season 2 got underway. Compare and contrast!

Will you take part in Season Two?

3) I’ll probably play some S2, but not full time. (33%, 540 Votes)

1) Yes right from the start and I’ll play only Season Two until it ends. (28%, 466 Votes)

5) No chance I’ll play any S2. (15%, 250 Votes)

4) I am unlikely to play any S2. (12%, 201 Votes)

2) I will rush on Day One, but not sure about after that. (9%, 144 Votes)

6) Not sure / no opinion. (3%, 44 Votes)

Total Voters: 1,645