Diablo 4 Items

Diablo 4 Season 11 made changes to many fundamental mechanics, such as equipment drops, skills, and monster AI. These changes have increased the difficulty of leveling in the early game.

So, did leveling speed slow down in Season 11? Actually, no. According to player testing, leveling speed in Season 11 was not only not slower, but even faster, provided you knew which enemies and events to focus on.

Diablo 4 Season 11 Changes

Season Rank And Reputation

First, the new Season Rank system completely replaces the old reputation system. Players no longer need to grind reputation by region. Characters will gain skill points at Season Ranks 1, 2, and 3, and Paragon Points at Season Ranks 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Lilith Shrines no longer grant permanent stat bonuses. Instead, they drop XP,  gold, Murmuring Obols, and gem shards, making them less essential.

Capstone Dungeons

Capstone Dungeons are no longer optional; they must be challenged to increase your World Tiers. You must complete them in order and at the specified levels and difficulties to access higher difficulties:

• Torrid Menagerie (Level 30): Hard
• Hellish Descent (Level 50): Penitent
• Unseen Awakening: (Level 60, Pit 15): Torment 1
• Tempest Oasis (Level 60, Pit 30): Torment 2
• Sins of the Many (Level 60, Pit 35): Torment 3

Item System

Rare Diablo 4 items drop less frequently before level 30, and unique items before level 40. Originally, the level cap was 25, forcing players to use magic and rare items early on. For new players, the lack of powerful equipment in the early game slows down leveling and makes dungeon runs riskier.

However, the corresponding Tempering system is completely free from level 1. Players can freely choose and apply desired tempering effects at the blacksmith, without randomness or the need for reforging. If used effectively, it can slightly increase early-game leveling speed.

How To Level Up Fast?

Helltides And Duriel

In Season 11's Helltides, Blood Maiden was removed from it and replaced by Duriel. When Helltides progress bar is full, Hellborns no longer appear; instead, illusions of Duriel appear. Defeating them drops Baneful. Hearts, when collected in sufficient quantities, can summon the true Duriel.

An XP bug appeared in Helltides on the PTR. Due to various events (which spawn large swarms of maggots), and Heavenly Sigil obtained after killing Duriel, which can be interacted with by finding an angel in town, equipping a Divine Gift in Corruption Slot will cause the killed maggots to drop pure experience orbs.

A 30-second fire circle event can level you from level 55 to 59, and by chaining these events, it's theoretically possible to level from 1 to 60 in 2 hours. This bug may be fixed in the live server, but even if it is, it remains the fastest way to level up in the early game under normal circumstances.

Infernal Hordes

Infernal Hordes have also received a significant buff, basically granting 120 million XP per participation, with high-health monsters like Aether Lords providing particularly high amounts of experience.

World Bosses And Wilderness Bosses

Based on PTR 2.5.0 patch that the official update has increased the XP players gain from various events in Overworld, especially from boss battles. This makes defeating bosses the most efficient way to level up in the mid-to-late game of Season 11.

Azmodan, The Lord Of Sin

Azmodan, the Lord of Sin, is a new world boss in Season 11. Each kill grants approximately 70 million XP. In addition to experience, it drops a large amount of loot, including Runes, Essence of Sin, and Essence of Hellfire.

Even The Pit 150, which is theoretically impossible to complete at the moment, only provides 15 million XP per run. Defeating Azmodan is equivalent to completing nearly five Pit 150 runs.

It is the simplest, but not the most efficient, leveling goal, as players can easily defeat it in a group, and some can even participate semi-AFK. Furthermore, no specific materials are required to challenge it, and the treasure chest items are immediately available after the kill. Other world bosses provide significantly more XP. Both are relatively good farming targets.

Lair Bosses

Lair Bosses like Duriel and Andariel provide 25 to 30 million XP. Challenging lair bosses doesn't require materials; they're only needed when opening treasure chests. This means that if you just want to level up, you can summon them immediately after defeating them.

Of all Lair bosses, Urivar is the fastest and most efficient for XP gain because it's extremely fast to kill. If your build is good enough, you can basically kill it in 20 seconds. Farming Urivar can yield approximately 4.5 billion XP per hour.

Defeating Lilith grants a whopping 73 million XP, currently the highest known source of experience per kill. However, she doesn't drop loot and is quite difficult, making it less efficient.

Leveling Tips

Players can gather at boss spawn points, taking turns or fighting bosses together. Experience is shared, and there's an XP bonus for team play. For bosses like Lilith and Urivar, located in dungeons, you can quickly reset the boss and skip the waiting time by using the “escape dungeon hotkey” or leaving the game and creating a new one after defeating it.

This is the fastest way to level up in Season 11. If you can efficiently utilize boss farming for leveling, you can reach paragon level 300 in about 12-13 hours, although this might shorten your game lifespan. However, this method of gaining XP is too fast obviously and may be nerfed.

Diablo fans, with the 2.5.0 PTR concluded, the release of Season 11 is drawing ever closer, and it's time to prepare.

Through the 2.5.0 PTR, we learned about some potential changes in Diablo 4. While the core gameplay remains the same, many important gear mechanics have been completely overhauled, such as Tempering and Masterworking, the new Tower event, a brand-new season system, and a series of class balance adjustments.

Here, we review and summarize the changes that occurred during the PTR, especially the performance of each class in Season 11, and rank the relative strength of the current strongest builds.

However, we must make a disclaimer: the above content is based on PTR, meaning that many things are likely to change or be adjusted before the official release. Nevertheless, this will still give you a general understanding of the powerful builds the developers plan to create and the high-level gameplay that will emerge in the new season.

Furthermore, since The Tower replaced The Pits as a new endgame event in Season 11, the new standard for measuring strength in this class tier list will no longer be The Pits, but The Tower.

The Tower operates very similarly to The Pit, even sharing the same difficulty level, and it comes with its own complete leaderboard system. This means we can at least see the specific strength of different classes through data.

6. Rogue

First, let's start with the lowest completion record on the Tower leaderboard, which belongs to Rogue.

Rogue is currently in a very awkward position. Frankly, I think Rogue is the class most likely to receive significant changes after the release of Season 11, because in the early PTR, Dance of Knives build was too powerful, almost breaking the game balance and completely crushing the top events of The Pits and The Tower.

And this powerful force stemmed from the new legendary item centered around Dance of Knives, Death's Pavane. However, the official patch fixed this issue, which is why Dance of Knives build performed poorly in most subsequent dungeon events.

In the PTR, the strongest Rogue build is Death Trap Rogue, with the highest clear count on The Tower Leaderboard being 94 floors. The Trap Rogue build has held the top spot for several seasons, so seeing it replace Dance of Knives' dominance is truly regrettable.

That said, I've seen some top players experiment with various skill combinations, such as Heartseeker and even Twisting Blades. Therefore, Rogue still has a chance to avoid being forever stuck in Death Trap.

5. Sorcerer

Next, let's talk about Sorcerer class, currently the most efficient tower clearer, with a clear level of 103. However, Sorcerer is also in a somewhat awkward position now. Teleport Enchantment mechanism has been completely nerfed, so you can no longer have the super-fast teleportation ability as before.

In addition, Sorcerer's actual damage output was significantly inflated by Chaos Perks last season. Now that Chaos Powers have been removed, Sorcerer's strength has dropped considerably.

However, on the other hand, we've gained a brand new and unique piece of equipment for Sorcerer: Orsivane. This equipment is incredibly powerful, granting any defensive skill not on the skill bar a corresponding enchantment effect.

Furthermore, these off-skill defensive skills also receive a damage bonus, allowing Sorcerers to reduce reliance on actual defensive skills on the skill bar and enabling some very interesting playstyles through enchantments.

But these benefits cannot compensate for the loss of Chaos Perks, nor can they undo the overpowered Teleport Enchantment. Therefore, compared to before, Sorcerer is currently in a more difficult position.

Currently, the best-performing Sorcerer build on Tower Leaderboard is Crackling Energy & Lightning Spear. This is a classic Sorcerer build, featuring numerous lightning bolts streaking across the screen, piercing enemies, and significantly boosting Crackling Energy damage with Esadora's Overflowing Cameo enchantment. Combined with Galvanic Azurite Unique Ring, it generates even more energy, further enhancing its damage.

In addition, Frozen Orb build also looks competitive, and with the rework of Sorcerer's exclusive Diablo 4 items, the potential damage of Frozen Orb can be greatly increased.

Also Read: Diablo 4 Season 10 Compass To Carnage Event And Patch 2.4.3 Delayed | New Dates, Details And Player Reactions

4. Necromancer

Next in fourth place is Necromancer, whose highest clear time is also a level 103 tower, but about 7 seconds faster than Sorcerer's record. Therefore, currently, these two classes are very close in strength.

Last season, Necromancer's Blood Wave build performed exceptionally well, mainly due to its exclusive Chaos Perks, which allowed its ultimate ability to be converted into a core ability. However, with the removal of these Chaos Perks, the relative strength of Blood Wave build has decreased.

Currently, Necromancer build, centered around Shadowblight passive ability, dominates the leaderboard and has maintained considerable strength for several seasons.

However, a new build is emerging: Golem Necromancer. This build utilizes Necromancer's new and unique item - Gravebloom - which replaces your single Golem with three smaller Golems. These smaller Golems deal up to 60% more damage and have a 30% bonus attack speed. Furthermore, it speeds up Golem respawns.

But frankly, the most crucial element is that one of the affixes grants Golems a chance to attack twice, which is vital for boosting the build's damage output; combined with two Golem Mastery points, this build has received a significant boost in Diablo 4 Season 11.

3. Druid

Next up is third place today, Druid build that cleared 105 floors of the tower.

For Druid builds, Cataclysm has been consistently strong over the past few seasons, sometimes even ranking among the best builds in its class. Its core gameplay revolves around the concept of Snapshotting.

Snapshotting involves pre-preparing and activating a series of buffs that increase the damage of your next skill, then waiting a specific time to apply these buffs to a long-duration skill, repeating this process over and over. Therefore, you can permanently activate all buffs to enhance a single skill.

The main reason Cataclysm builds consistently rank among the top Druid builds is the rework of Melted Heart of Selig. It now provides a 3% bonus to maximum resources based on your primary attribute. This synergizes with Druid's Ancestral Guidance Paragon Node, allowing you to increase damage after expending resources. More importantly, when casting an ultimate skill, each Spirit you possess increases ultimate skill damage by 1%.

With the new Melted Heart of Selig and its mechanics, you can easily acquire approximately 10,000 resources. Combining these two points, it's easy to understand why this build is so powerful.

2. Spiritborn

Next is Spiritborn, whose highest clear record on the leaderboard is 109 floors, achieved using Evade Eagle Spiritborn build.

This Evade Eagle build has consistently been among the top builds in Spiritborn class since its inception. However, it excels more at fast farming than high-intensity endgame activities, as it progresses extremely quickly throughout the overall game content.

Regardless, its damage output is the highest of all builds in the class. This is partly because it's the only top-tier Spiritborn build that can effectively utilize Aspect of Unyielding Hits. This aspect provides a weapon damage bonus based on your total armor value. Furthermore, due to the redesigned armor system, this build easily achieves extremely high armor values ​​in the late game.

1. Barbarian

Finally, currently ranked number one is Barbarian. But before delving deeper into this section, we must state that the current Barbarian build will not be released in PTR for the live version.

Barbarian is the only class to have cleared more than 109 floors on the Tower Leaderboard, with a current highest clear count of 124 floors. The main reason for this is similar to the Druid situation we discussed earlier.

Barbarian benefits immensely from the reworked Melted Heart of Selig. Furthermore, the class's biggest advantage is that each point in primary attribute translates into an additional 3% of maximum resource value. Since Barbarian has four weapon slots, two of which are two-handed weapons, it can achieve the highest primary attribute damage of any class.

In addition, it has two sources of damage bonuses that are not capped. The first bonus applies to most Barbarian builds: Ramaladni's Magnum Opus, a unique one-handed sword that grants a damage bonus based on current resource value when using abilities. From a few hundred resources to tens of thousands from Melted Heart of Selig, this significantly increases the damage bonus.

The other key bonus is Hammer of the Ancients ability itself, which is why HOTA Barbarian build far surpasses other builds on PTR. This skill provides additional critical strike damage and critical strike chance for every 10 resources you have at the time of casting, currently with no cap. This means thousands of resources can flood into this enhancement, and it can be amplified to an astonishing degree.

It is this combination that allows the Hammer of the Ancients build to easily reach T124. While this build won't be as dominant as before after the official release of Season 11, it will probably remain a mainstream build.

In any case, the above is a summary of the performance of each class in PTR, ranked according to their leaderboard results in Tower endgame event. But will their performance in Diablo 4 Season 11 be the same? Only time will tell!