How do you people play the seasons?

General Discussion
1

So im just returned from the time when seasons still werent a thing and im trying to understand how to deal with them.

From what i see, all the builds are made for crazy high power toons and seems people get there easily…
dunno how, cause at the time i was playing the drop chances to get what i wanted were quite bad. It was auction house time, so maybe the % are changed? Only thing i saw about that are the smart drops that should help ge tthe right class of drops.

This plus the fact that we have to start from lvl 1 “naked” chars, and this confuse me still more.

Iv seen some YT video about powerlevelling a toon in a few min to 70 but that is still a naked ton with all the skils opened. The step from there to high torment seems loooong…Plus this need a friend who can deal with high difficulty contents, and this take time for them too to be there…more tim eto add to the thing…

Im sure im mising someting…

PS : is the game easier now? im building a crusader and a DH from scrap without sharing items but they seems to go way better then what it was at the time i played.

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A large reason seasons exist is starting over fresh. Seasons are a community “event” that keeps the game interesting.

If there were no seasons, we’d all be plastered on the wall of awesomeness glittered with all of the GG gears… There’d be nothing to do anymore, and we’d all eventually get bored and leave.

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The season journey is easy. It’s a way to get a pick 6pc set bonus so you can farm higher torment levels and get MUCH better drop rates… so you can get the sets you want, assuming the season gift wasn’t the one you wanted.

Starting from level 1 is fun for many. If you have people powerleveling you, it’s really a non-issue.

The game isn’t so much easier as it is more accessible to everyone, including newcomers and returning players with some of the QoL changes.

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The process from level 1 to 70 can take a while and be cumbersome (do it in adventure mode). There are some “tricks” to speed up the process by getting the challenge rift cache and spend its content the best way and also running maps where you can get kill streaks. Getting loot from visions of enmities can also help. Maxroll.gg and other places have guides for leveling (also youtube).

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That’s the part of the game I enjoy the most, the season start, where everybody is Level 1, and no one can power level you.

And I enjoy it over speed running. Speed running, you can attempt things over and over again until you get that perfect run to post to YouTube.

With the Season Start, you have one shot. You whiff on your gamble, you make a mistake in your strategy, etc. I’ve been focusing on the Season Start since Season 14, and Season 29 was the first season I’ve had without a major mistake.

You go onto YouTube, you’ll see things like how a person leveled 1-70 in 30 minutes. But when the season starts, you’ll notice maybe a handful of people at best even break an hour. There are just tons of intangibles that people don’t take into account.

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I enjoy it too. Gives me a chance to use some abilities that never get used, which is a shame, but it is what it is.

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You have to pay attention to one thing : that it is not done in PTR, otherwise there are very good videos/guides

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Very true. Because effectively all power comes from gear and paragon, having a soft reset every now and then is a necessity. The largest leaps in power happen in the early stages of gearing at low paragon anyway. Once your character is well geared and has high paragon, every increase in power becomes effectively smaller and smaller and smaller, to a point where it’s near impossible to see any differences.

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9

So, this is where it gets tricky. Because those guides seem helpful, but at the same time, they’ll actually slow you down if efficiency is your goal. The Paradox of Leveling Guides. (Though it’s not really a paradox. Not sure what the correct word is here.)

If you view things as a 1-Haedrig’s instead of a 1-70, you’ll want to level via bounties. And you’ll keep the Visions down to 1 Greater Rift key before you bail on them and avoid them.

Bounties will get you to 70 slower, but you have to do them, so you might as well incorporate that 30+ minutes into your leveling experience, rather than your post 70 leveling experience where you’ll only gain a couple paragon, which can be acquired in a matter of a minute or two later. You’ll hit 70 slower, but you’ll hit Haedrig’s Gift faster.

Visions are just time consuming. You can easily spend 10+ minutes in them while leveling 1-70 for just a couple levels. They’re horrible for experience per minute. But that Greater Rift Key is what’s important for the post 70, getting to Haedrig’s Gift, where Rifts can take 10+ minutes at the beginning of the season.

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When I level up, I usually do a bit of all the activities (except visions for the next seasons which take too much time at low level like you said).

I love “exploding” when you are level 70 and you have everything :stuck_out_tongue:

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11

I find it helpful to practice the start in non season by creating a lvl 1 character, assign no paragon points and use nothing from your stash. Only use materials that would be available from a naked start along with challenge cache.

I simulate running to get the cube (yes in off season you likely already have it, but you can pretend just to simulate doing it in a fresh start. For DH starts with challenge cache you can upgrade one max level yellow dagger in the cube to a legendary, there are only 2 available options both giving a good damage bonus. You extract that dagger power and cube it and use that skill against difficult enemies.

After you have the cube and cubed a dagger power (if doing DH) you then can move on to levelling via kill streaks or bounties. Both are viable options.

Additionally, this coming season we will have the altar which offers several useful levelling options such as the first node which extends kill streak duration and bonus. For the second node you will need a lvl 2 diamond to unlock (need to be lvl 18 to get) The best option is to reduce level req of items to 1.

Once you have that done you can craft lvl 70 yellow weapons and armor and speed through content on up to T6 difficulty. Completing the tasks of the first chapters of the season journey will provide 3 haedrig gift bags which contains a full 6 part set which is different each season. Once you have the full set on you can move up even higher in difficulty to around 10-12 depending on what other legendaries you have.

From there it’s a matter of fine tuning the build and going after what you want to play most.

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I do the following:

  1. Do the challenge rift after season start.

  2. Utilize all the tricks involving the cache (follow maxroll.gg guide) and level 1-70 by massacre farming the ActII map Temple of the the first born. It takes me between 60 and 90 minutes and is a fun mini-game where I am trying to get super high massacres (800+)

  3. Complete the season journey to the point where you get a 6 piece set. Use that set to farm your optimal speed build (GR90s and the like). Optimally, the 6 piece you get is already the best speed build but won’t be the case for me next season for example. No big issue.

  4. Now, you’re set and chasing many goals at the same time which makes for a very fun experience:
    a) upgrade speed build to ancient/primal
    b) farm gear for pushing build
    c) farm gear for non-GR build (visions, bounties)
    d) level up gems
    e) collect petrified screams for augments
    f) level paragon
    g) farm follower gear

  5. Now, I push 150s

  6. Onto levelling gems to 150 for main class and alt if I plan on making one.

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A lot of people like the fresh start. It is cool because everyone starts at the same time with nothing as if the game just launched. Some people level in groups, some go alone. The nice part is everything rolls over to non-season after the season concludes. This way, you do not lose anything after the season ends.

Some players are up in running T16 in an hour or 2, some take 6-8 hours. I usually hit it in the 2-4 hour mark. Go at the pace that is fun for you.

This season start leveling should be real easy now that the Altar has returned. The second node you should unlock is “Anointed”. It will make all items usable at level 1, including level 70 items. Simply get to level 18, then farm some bosses until you get 2 diamonds, then upgrade them to flawless at the jeweler.

Once you have a full set of level 70 gear, ez breezy to level 70. After that do the Seasonal Journey (hit “shift J” in game) requirements to get through Chapter 4, then get the free set from Haedrig’s gift for your class. That alone should get you to T6-10. At that point, gear starts raining from the sky, so getting the rest of the build is pretty easy.

Everyone does 70 their own way. Some are more efficient than others. I always suggest to do it the way that is fun for you. Here is how I am going to do my season start, not the most efficient, but should be 70 in less than 2 hours and have my Haedrig’s set by 2.5 hours. This is how I did it:

Do challenge rift for mats
Always play adventure mode, not Campaign
Set difficulty to normal or hard
Level up merchants
Craft yellow weapons up to level 18
spend shards to get a legendary with a good
Run to get cube stringing a few kill streaks on the way (usually level 10 by this time)
Do massacre bonus’s in some highly dense areas to get to level 18
Farm easy bosses that are bounties to get quick gems (you need to diamonds)
Unlock nodes 1 and 2, make sure to choose “Anointed” for all items level 70
craft level 70 gear starting with weapon, offhand, and jewelry, then make the rest
Turn up to T6, and do bounties for the Haedrig’s gift (In S28, think I was almost 70 by this point and about 1.5 hours in)
Finish the rest of the Chapter 1-4 requirements
Farm remaining build pieces on the highest difficulty you can kill fast to get rest of your build by doing some visions.

As for using mats at level 70, I use shards for armor and offhand, upgrade rares in the cube for weapons and jewelry.

If you decide to play seasons, good luck, and have fun

14

Getting Powerleveled to 70 is useful in some circumstances, such as creating an Alt or recovering from Death in HC where you already have items in Stash.
It is not a good idea for the first Hero in Season because, as you have noted, you are stuck with a level 70 and no gear, making even Normal level impossible to survive.
One major change from the Early Days is that monsters scale with you from 1-70. You cannot kill a level 70 monster or survive attacks with gear that is not, at least, level 60.

15

You can unlock node 1 from the very beginning by salvaging the other follower’s white weapons (or if you used the challenge cache you have plenty of that mat). This will give you the first node (bonus kill streaks) and make levelling to 18 faster.

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16

With the upcoming seasons, it will be possible to unlock 3 nodes (outside of a lucky cube upgrade).

I’d actually take the +10% move speed node as the third node, as perma xp pools won’t really save you much time at this point.

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Not neccesarily. With visions, you have GR keys first thing you hit 70 is do GR for LoD gem. You don’t bother with bounties or haedrigs. Slap on anything you find. Time taken to unlock haedrigs will set you up to t13/14 already and if you are lucky: T16. I haven’t been clamiming haedrigs for a while now, this season only use it on 6th set on 2nd toon for years of war conquests.

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With the Altar coming back, I strongly recommend NOT to use the Challenge rift cache for leveling up to 70. You would quickly get stuck afterwards in unlocking the Altar (for which a cache is needed) and would have to wait until Monday or Tuesday for the next Challenge rift (depending on where you are from). Furthermore, the mats in the cache do not help as much as they used to in the level up, as the first nodes of the Altar (massacres and use of level 70 items) are enough to get you quickly to level 70.

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I play my seasons with mouse and keyboard. :slight_smile:

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While true, without the cache you don’t really have the mats to take advantage of the no level req on items.