I played through Diablo 4 and was even invited into the closed beta, so I’m going to share some of the things I’d wish I’d known sooner before playing the game. So, you can hopefully have a more enjoyable experience with a little less confusion.
12. World Restrictions In Diablo 4
Let’s go over world restrictions first because it will be tempting to right away just start exploring The World of Sanctuary and doing side quests, dungeons and world events. But it’s actually not in your best interest to do that because the main story quest line will actually unlock features of the world. That’ll make your gameplay much better.
For example, the quest Donan’s Favor in Act 2 unlocks your ability to purchase and ride a mount. Since Diablo 4 features the largest playable area out of any of the previous games, traversing the world will take more time and mounts will make that exploration much easier.
You also need to be at least level 36 for this quest, so make sure you’re actually destroying monsters and not just running by to complete your quests.
11. Utilize Bonus Experience (XP) Gains In Diablo 4
We’re on the topic of leveling. Here are some tips to level faster. Always, use an elect mixer for five percent bonus XP. Some of these are going to speed up your leveling by buffing you to deal 20% increased damage against Demons or a flat Critical Strike Chance increase, which can be quite helpful.
There’s a lot more than this, but these are just some examples. Also, make sure to choose World Tier 2 when you start because you get an increased 20 percent XP. You’ve also got 15 percent more Diablo 4 Gold at the cost of enemies being more challenging.
It’s absolutely worth it to go straight to World Tier 2. The difference in difficulty is really like choosing easy or normal. And I would wager anyone can handle World Tier 2 from the start and if for some reason, you want to change to World Tier 1 because it’s too hard, or you accidentally chose World Tier 1 and want World Tier 2, you can change World Tier anytime at Kyovashad’s World Tier Statue, which is Northeast from the Waypoint.
Another way to level faster is to play with friends. You get an added bonus XP per person at your party. With one party member, it’s a five percent increase. Two is eight percent and three is eleven percent and the max party size is four players. So, there is no further bonus after that.
And not only do you get to keep that XP bonus, but monsters die faster when more players are attacking them, of course. If we add all three of the past three leveling tips together, that’s a combined 36% increased XP gain from all sources. So, if you want to maximize your experience gains, this is the way.
When it comes to which activities provide the most XP, make sure to clear strongholds, dungeons and quests as well as world events for bonus XP upon completion. And don’t forget to view your region progress and claim your bonus XP, Diablo 4 Gold and skill points. To advance your region progress, you can discover areas, complete side quests and other activities.
10. Salvage For Transmog, Sell For Gold In Diablo 4
Moving on to gear. Make sure to salvage your non-legendary items that you want to transmog at the Blacksmith and make sure not to sell them. If you sell items, you won’t be able to transmog them in the future and you also miss out on the salvaging materials you could have gotten.
Diablo 4 Gold can be easily acquired through world events, dungeons and advancing through region progress, you’ll need the salvaged materials to upgrade and imprint your items in the future. But if you’re running low on gold, it’s absolutely fine to sell items to just be aware that you won’t get the transmog for that item that you sold.
What’s more, make sure you don’t sell or salvage your Legendaries. You want to extract their affixes at the Occultist in order to save the Aspects for later. You never know when you’ll want to try a different build and when you do. You’ll be glad you extracted that Legendary affix in the form of an Aspect rather than selling it.
Speaking of Legendary Aspects, they can only be imprinted once. Once you imprint an Aspect on an item, you can’t extract it again and imprint it on another item. So, be careful when you decide to imprint a powerful Aspect on an item. It will be the only time you can do that and then you’ll need to find an item with that affix again or get it added to your codex of power.
9. How To Double Legendary Aspect Power In Diablo 4?
This is a really important tip here: Aspects imprinted on weapons will have double their value compared to other item slots and amulets will have an extra 50 percent compared to other item slots. So, make sure the best Aspect you have for your build goes into one of those two item slots.
For example, the Pulverized Werebear build relies on Shockwave Aspect, which causes Pulverize to create a Shockwave that travels forward, dealing 90 to 130 percent of its damage to targets in the path.
If you look at this tool tip that Aspect is on an amulet and it’s getting that 50% extra value, making the affix deal 135 to 195% damage instead. It’s an important one to remember, and it’s a big reason why Barbarians are so strong late game. They get four weapons that are all getting double value from Legendary affixes.
8. How To Determine Item Upgrades In Diablo 4?
While we’re on the topic of gear, I would recommend to avoid just equipping any item that shows a green number.
Now, just because an item shows that it gives you more armor doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an upgrade. If you’re accustomed to Diablo 3 telling you your damage toughness and recovery increase in decreases, this can kind of trick you because by default Diablo 4 only shows how much armor you’re gaining on gear or how much more damage a weapon is dealing.
But the affixes on items can be much more powerful than just armor or damage. Make sure you’re getting your primary stat, increase damage based on being close range or distant and plus, skill ranks depending on your build.
In the options menu, you’ll need to enable Advanced Tooltip Compare and Advanced Tooltip Information so that you can more easily compare items and see the whole picture. With this enabled, you’ll get a summary of properties you’re gaining and losing if you switch items, which is very helpful in determining if an item is an upgrade.
7. Know How Stats Affect Your Class In Diablo 4
Next up, you need to know what your class’s primary stat is.
Depending on your class, your primary stat will give you increased ability damage, which is really important and a certain stat will provide absolutely no primary benefit for you. Strength is the Barbarian’s primary stat, Dexterity for the Rogue, Intelligence for both the Sorcerer and Necromancer and Willpower for the Druid. Strength provides no bonus for Sorcerer nor Intelligence, any primary bonus for Barbarian.
There are also secondary bonuses which all stats provide, which are the same for all classes. Strength increases Armor. Intelligence increases Elemental Resistances. Willpower increases Resource Generation and Dexterity increases Dodge Chance.
6. Altar Of Lilith Bonuses In Diablo 4
You can also increase all your stats permanently by finding Altars of Lilith. Each one increases a stat by two and increases your maximum health or max Obols.
Fractured Peaks has a total of 28 of these Altars of Lilith, which adds up to a meaningful amount of stat increases, which also apply to all characters you make in the future. So, it’s worth seeking them out, especially if you plan on making future characters. They’re going to be much stronger earlier on now.
5. Concentrate Your Skill Point Allocation In Diablo 4
When it comes to choosing skills, it’s easy to want to just try them all out. But there are only six skill slots total, unlike in Diablo 2 where you could hotkey as many as you want.
So, you’ll want to focus on putting your skill points into synergies and skill upgrades more than choosing as many skills possible. I found that it was almost always better to put a single point into a skill and then go straight for that skill upgrade rather than putting a second point into that same skill, which only makes it modestly stronger. Keep that in mind when choosing where to put your skill points.
4. Before Deciding On A Build, Use Keyword Search In Diablo 4
Now, before deciding on a build, the Keyword Search tool is super helpful to easily identify which skills go together.
For example, if you’re making a poison build, you can search by poison to see which skills go together or by the overpower Keyword. You can also search by fire, cold and so on and your options for search are going to change, depending on what class you play.
3. Travel Faster with Pins In Diablo 4
When it comes to getting around in Diablo 4, you can click anywhere on the map to place a pin and a red path will lead you to that destination.
This is helpful for guiding yourself to a specific quest you’re interested in, or perhaps a specific point on a map, and it’s very easy to just place that pin and be on your way.
2. Mark As Junk For Faster Salvage/Sell In Diablo 4
Also, when you hover over an item in your inventory, it’s very easy to mark it as junk. Next time at a Blacksmith or a vendor, you can select salvage or sell all junk to get rid of those items with just a single click.
1. Leave A Dungeon Almost Instantly In Diablo 4
And finally, on our last tip, you can click the entrance of a dungeon and some instances to be teleported back outside to the entrance of the dungeon.
You can also select this action on your emote wheel to teleport out even faster. This is helpful if you don’t want to go back to town with the town portal, but instead either run the dungeon again or be back in the wilderness near where the dungeon is located.