Hey guys, it’s Librarian Husky here. Diablo 4 is almost here so it’s time we talk about the best ways to make the most out of it, get your first character up and running, and get the perfect start ahead of the true end game.
I got a chance to play through all of it before launch so keep in mind that this is all based on my experience during it. You’re free to play the game at your own pace. This guide is aimed at those who want to be a bit more efficient, so you can always come back later to this.
Focus on the main story
Probably the best thing you can do after just starting up is to focus on the main story, and at most only complete the sidequests which are already on the main path. That’s because once you roll the credits, you unlock one of the first game activities that you’ll want to jump into right away, which is the Tree of Whispers. This is by default a solid game loot farm that will get you ready for the other stuff later on. The main campaign is also really good on its own to bring you fairly close to level 50.
Unlock mounts
The final reason is that eventually you also unlock mounts which are needed to faster navigate the huge map, but you also need to progress quite far into the main campaign to get it and that’s why I recommend trying to get there soon. And once you do it, your alts can also benefit from this so it makes their leveling even faster as a result.
As for the side missions, the biggest reason you’ll ever want to complete them in the first place is obviously just regional progress. That’s it. More often than not the XP and the rewards given were not worth it for the time spent that I could just use for a main mission and get a lot more out of it if you still want to give them a try. However you are free to do so, in that case, I recommend just grabbing all of them once you hit new zones, but only completing the ones on the main path of the main story.
Unlock Codex of Power
Now the second thing you’ll want to do right after the beginning is to pay attention and complete the dungeons, containing relevant legendary aspects for your own build and class. Pretty much all the strongest builds especially in the leveling stages can eventually be achieved almost entirely by getting the Codex of Power unlocks from the dungeons that open up in new zones that the story brings you to.
Most of the build-defining ones like the Blade Dancer aspect, the Edge Master aspect, the Splintering aspect and so on, become accessible by the time you get into Chapter 3. You can easily track these from the Codex of Power by just clicking on them to pin them to your map so that you can easily follow to your destination now.
Salvage First
After you got some levels and probably a lot of items to shift through as well, here’s an important thing that I wanted to consider. The number of mats needed to upgrade stuff will grow exponentially and so will the cost. However, there’s no point in having a lot of gold sitting by just yet if you lack the mats.
So constantly salvage the rares that you get as you level up. As you’ll burn through Veiled Crystals like mad you can sell the blue ones if you need some extra gold for now. But having like a hundred Veiled Crystals at level 50 will help a lot to get a few useful items and just progress a bit easier.
Salvage the legendaries
You can also salvage the legendaries, especially the ones that you already got the aspects out of either via extraction or from the Codex of Power. So as for duplicates you can just go ahead and salvage them because you will eventually need the Baleful Fragments, the Coiling Wards and the other high-end materials for crafting. Once you get the level 50, you can of course start selling the items for cash.
You will have stuff that sells for tens of thousands of gold per piece, so it’s much easier to farm a million gold in the end game rather than focusing on gold early on. Plus just following the main story like I told you, should give you at least 800k by the time you’re done with it.
Avoid This Gear Upgrade Mistake
Once you got the aspects, needed mats, and a bit of gold – this is the time to get a few of your items imbued with the legendary aspects. My biggest recommendation is to focus applying these on gear that you are not going to switch too often. Stuff like amulets, rings even offhand weapons, and some of the pieces of armor.
The reason you don’t want to upgrade something like your main attack weapon is because you will switch them literally every other level if not even more often, especially below level 50 and even sometimes after that. By the time you think you can do something with your new perfect low-level weapon that you just slapped a legendary aspect to, the game drops 5 more rares that all deal significantly higher damage.
Main weapons upgraded
So early on my recommendation is to keep your main weapons upgraded, because eventually, you are going to get replacements for them. Also, early on what matters most is the raw damage value of the weapon, so you don’t want to waste unnecessary resources when you can just save them for the end-game content.
Upgrade Your Health Potions
As you progress further there and unlock stuff, another thing to not lose track of is upgrading your health potions, which you can do in pretty much all major towns especially back in Kyovashad. It sounds trivial but it’s literally one minute of your life to make them a lot more efficient and heal you for a much higher amount of HP.
The biggest obstacle you might find will probably be around level 30 when you can – and should! – upgrade to Light Healing Potions. This requires you to have Gallowvines (x20), Biteberry (x10), and Crushed Beast Bones (x5). The first two items are easy to come by, and the Crushed Beast Bones can be farmed by killing the charging boar beasts in Kehjistan.
Complete Your Class Questline
After hitting level 50 make sure you complete your class quest. You will get a notification when they become available. Completing it will give you powerful buffs, which include the Rogue specialization, the Mage enchantment slots, Druid spirit animals, and the Barbarian additional technique slot.
Some classes get their quests earlier, in the Fractured Peak zone, while others like Druids and Barbarians need to wait until later zones such as Coastland or the Dry Steppes in Chapter 2 and 3 respectively. All in all, completing them will further improve your builds and make your characters significantly stronger.
Complete Regional Quests
The next thing you’re going to want to focus on is regional progress. Each of the five zones has its own regional progress tracks. Advancing in it will yield you extra skill points, extra potion capacity, Paragon points as well as some XP and gold. So in the long term, you are going to aim for 100% completion of every zone. It’s worth mentioning, that you’ll get more XP if you complete these quests later, so it’s best to save them until you hit 50 level.
Conquer Strongholds
Strongholds are an important part of the game that you’ll want to eventually jump into. So, you should unlock strongholds – which means clearing and conquering them – in every zone. This will not only boost your regional progress but give you access to one or two unique dungeons. Plus you’ll get tons of loot and gold, and open additional teleport points.
Unlock Nightmare Difficulty
Once you reach lvl 50 one of your main goals will be to push to the next difficulty level which is the Nightmare difficulty. To get there you will use the Tree of Whispers to run dungeons and open world events to farm Grim Favors. For every 10 of them, you will be able to choose one of the three loot caches from the Tree of Whispers, containing powerful items to help you to prepare for end-game content.
End Game Farms
Once you unlock the Nightmare difficulty you will be able to farm the Nightmare dungeons and HellTide events for a high-tier loot. The items dropped will be of much higher quality than their normal variants.
To explain in a few words, Hell Tides are another kind of open-world activity, which allows you to have fun with friends and farm some unique resources and crafting mats. It’s an event that spawns in a random zone and lasts for 1 hour.
See the world map
All players get a notification when it starts, and you will see if there is one on the world map. This zone-wide event spawns much more powerful enemies, including bosses, whose level is always two above your toon level.
Killing enemies and looting chests has a chance to give you Aberrant Cinders – a unique resource, that allows you to access special loot caches, named Tortured Gifts. Those contain Legendary/Unique gear and useful crafting materials, such as Fiend Rose or Forgotten Soul. This pretty much sums up all the activities you can get engaged in your first days (or weeks) in Diablo 4.
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