The Season of the Infernal Hordes is now underway in Diablo 4, which means you get to start from scratch all over again and go through that sweet loot grind. For newcomers or lapsed players who haven’t touched the game in a while, here’s everything you need to know about progressing through Diablo 4 Season 5.
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Diablo 4 Season 5 Progression Overview
As always, if you’ve already played through the base game of Diablo 4, then you’ll want to skip the campaign when starting your new seasonal character for Season 5. There’s no reason to go through the campaign again, so feel free to skip it.
You’ll also want to start at World Tier 2. While enemies are a little bit tougher, you’ll also gain gold and experience at a faster rate, allowing you to keep pace with them. This allows you to level up much faster. Once you’ve done these two things, it becomes a matter of leveling up as fast as possible to hit max level and start getting all those new Uber Uniques. We’ll go over the exact process down below.
Start the Seasonal Questline
First things first. As soon as you create your new seasonal character for Diablo 4 Season 5, start the seasonal questline. Check your map and look for the little green leaf icon to point you in the right direction. This quest will get you acquainted with Mother’s Gifts, which are the new reputation resource you need to farm up to unlock new tiers and rewards.
One important thing to note about Mother’s Gifts is that you should go claim and use your rewards as soon as you unlock them. They don’t scale with your level, so you don’t want to be in a position where you’re outleveling the usefulness of the rewards.
From this point on, your goal is to level up and do activities that reward you with Mother’s Gifts so you can keep getting these rewards.
Farm Helltides
Helltides will be your first port of call in Diablo 4 Season 5. Check your map for the Helltide icon, then head to that area to start killing enemies and collecting Aberrant Cinders. Keep in mind that Helltides are active for 55 minutes, down for five minutes, then back up again.
As you collect Cinders, you’ll also want to hold off on opening the Cinder chests for as long as possible, as those chests scale with your level. It’s more optimal to wait till the end of the Helltide to open the chests for the best rewards.
While you’re doing Helltides, you’ll gain a ton of experience, while also fighting elite enemies that can drop Mother’s Gifts.
Do Your Class Quest
After reaching level 25, check your map for the white colored icon to do your class-specific quest. This will unlock more features and utility for your class, and it won’t take long at all. After doing that, go back to farming your Helltides until you reach level 35.
Go to World Tier 3 at Level 35
Upon reaching level 35, you’ll want to start thinking about progressing up to World Tier 3 in Diablo 4 Season 5. This requires you to clear the Cathedral of Light Capstone Dungeon, which has a recommended level of 50. That being said, if you have good Legendary gear on, along with proper affixes, Tempering, and Aspects, you should be able to clear Cathedral of Light with minimal issues even at level 35.
If you’re still feeling a bit weak, there’s no harm in waiting a little longer before attempting the dungeon either.
That said, you do want to go to World Tier 3 as soon as you can. This is how you unlock Nightmare Dungeons, which will become your next port of call for leveling up once you hit 50, and you’ll also start seeing better loot drops.
Go to World Tier 4 at Level 45
After progressing up to level 45, you’ll then want to think about going up to World Tier 4. Similar situation here: you need to clear the Fallen Temple Capstone Dungeon in order to unlock it. The level recommendation here is 70, but again, with the right gear and affixes, it’s possible to clear it even at level 45 to 50.
The goal here is to get to World Tier 4 as soon as you can, so you can start getting possible Ancestral drops. Not only that, but gear affixes have a chance to be Greater, which means more bang for your buck essentially.
Unlock Aspects and Do Nightmare Dungeons
Once you hit level 50, start clearing dungeons to get Aspects that you need for your class. The reason why you should wait to do these is primarily because there’s little point in imprinting Aspects if you’re constantly switching out gear in the early levels. At level 50, this is a good time to start putting your build together.
At the same time, this is also when you should start focusing on clearing Nightmare Dungeons. At 50, you’ll start getting Glyph experience, which makes Nightmare Dungeon farming more time-efficient.
Infernal Hordes
Infernal Hordes are the new game mode that’s been added in Diablo 4 Season 5. This is kinda like a roguelike mode where you’ll defeat enemies for Aether, then reach a checkpoint where you can choose either a boon or a bane for the rest of the run which also affects how much Aether you gain. The goal here is to get as much Aether as possible so that you can open a better chest at the end of the run, which is your best way of getting the new Unique items.
You’ll want to start doing Infernal Hordes at World Tier 3, then slowly up the difficulty as you approach World Tier 4. These are also a great way to level up alongside doing your Nightmare Dungeon clears.
Pits
Finally, Pits are the endgame mode you’ll want to start tackling at around level 100 or so, when you want to farm Masterworking materials to complete your build. You do also get mats from Infernal Hordes, so it does ultimately come down to personal preference for which you want to focus on.
Other Things to Note
As you’re leveling up, don’t forget to progress through the seasonal questline whenever you have enough Mother’s Gifts to turn in. This is important for story progression, and also building up your reputation tiers to keep getting rewards.
In addition to that, if you played Diablo 4 Season 4 and you have a ton of Tempering recipes, you can actually use these very early on in Season 5 to give yourself a huge boost while power leveling. This is actually a bug and will be removed next Season, but it’s a nice thing to keep in mind.
And that does it for our Diablo 4 Season 5 progression guide.
Published: Aug 9, 2024 12:26 am