Diablo IV Season 15 Fresh Start Guide: Level to 70, Unlock Torment, and Gear Up Faster Than Ever

If you're rolling a brand new seasonal character, you picked the right season. Patch 3.2.1 made leveling faster, crafting cheaper and loot friendlier than any season before it. This is the path from level 1 to real endgame, step by step.

Before you start

Expert and Penitent now unlock after the Prologue. You don't have to finish the whole campaign on an alt first. That alone saves new players hours.

Rebirth is an option. If you have an Eternal character you love, Rebirth converts it into a seasonal character. It resets to level 1 but keeps your class, name, look and Hardcore status. Empty your inventory and gear first.

War Plans reputation is shared. It now carries across your alts in the same realm (Seasonal, Eternal, Hardcore and Softcore, and Solo Self-Found are each tracked separately), so a second character doesn't start from scratch.

Levels 1 to 30

Start on Normal or Hard and bump it up as soon as packs start melting. Run Helltides and the Whispers around them, and turn in 10 Grim Favors at the Tree of Whispers. Pick up the seasonal questline from Deckard Cain early. It walks you into your first Waking Nightmare and gets you a Splinter of Evil.

Which Splinter? Guide sites agree Destruction (Baal) is the strongest all-round leveling pick. You can swap later, but it costs time, so don't overthink it.

At level 30 on Expert, Halls of the Blind gates Season Rank II.

Levels 30 to 60

Add Nightmare Dungeons and run your first Capstone around level 30 to 40. From level 25 on, the Undercity becomes the go-to leveling route once it's in your War Plans. Helltide is the backup.

At level 60 on Penitent, Den of Evil gates Season Rank III.

Levels 60 to 70 and your first Torment

Run the Hellish Descent on Penitent to unlock The Pit. At level 70, swap into 850 Item Power gear, temper it, and clear Pit Tier 10 to unlock Torment I.

From there the Season Journey keeps pulling you up:

• Scouring of Caldeum at Torment I (Rank IV)
• Horadric Library at Torment II (Rank V)
• Nightmare Capstones at Torment IV, VI and VIII (Ranks VI to VIII)
  Finishing the Season Journey pays out up to 14 Skill Points, 42 Paragon points, 10 Resplendent Sparks, 5 Mythic Unique Caches and the Dark Wanderbear pet.

Crafting got a lot cheaper

• Royal Gem: 30 Forgotten Souls down to 10
• Grand Gem: 300 down to 50
• Enchanting Ancestral gear: 25 down to 10
• Magic Tribute: 200 Sigil Powder down to 100
• Infernal Horde Compass: 666 down to 500
  Enchanting now works on Uniques and Mythics too. The Horadric Cube also has two new rerolls, Affix Value Reroll and Horadric Reroll, and both protect your Greater affixes.

Loot changes you'll notice right away

• Every Unique can drop from level 1 on any difficulty.
• Legendary drop rates are up on Torment I through V.
• Echo of Mephisto now guarantees a Mythic. Lair Bosses and Belial got better Mythic odds too.
• Single Resistance affixes are now worth 7 times an All Resistance affix, so stop panicking about resistances.
  One honest caveat: d4guides dug into the files and found that random Mythic drops now scale with Torment level instead of a flat rate. That means random Mythic drops are actually a bit less likely at low Torment than last season, and better from around Torment IX up. Farm the guaranteed sources early.

The top end pays now

• Torment XII bonus XP went from 1400% to 1700%.
• Pit 150 bonus XP went from 1800% to 2700%.
• Torment XII Whispers now pay about 100 million gold, up from about 35 million.

Soul Splinters in 60 seconds

These are new gems for your jewelry: one amulet and two rings, three sockets total, one of each type. Every one has a big upside and a real drawback. A few examples:

• Anguish: up to 20% attack speed and crit, but resource costs go up 30%.
• Sin: up to 50% max life, but 30% less max resource.
• Pain: up to 25% damage reduction, but 30% less movement speed.
• Lies: up to 100% more gold, materials and XP, but you're always Weakened and Vulnerable. Great for farming, terrible for pushing.
  Upgrade them in the Horadric Cube.

The Reliquary (battle pass)

You earn Favor Tokens by playing and spend them on the rewards you pick. The free track includes the Eidolon mount, three weapon transmogs and 200 Platinum, which is exactly enough to buy the Weapons reliquary.

The premium tracks are Weapons (200 Platinum), Beasts (500) and Armor (800), or all three for 1,000 Platinum, about $9.99. The Armor track has the headline cosmetic this season: a unique set for every class, each a tribute to a classic Diablo hero, like Pride of Harrogath for Barbarian and Cerements of Xul for Necromancer. Deluxe is 2,800 Platinum, about $24.99.

None of it affects power. Buy it if you like the look.

When does it end?

Blizzard hasn't announced an end date. Seasons usually run about three months, so expect mid-December. Season 16 is confirmed.

Don't do it solo

Everything in this guide goes faster with a group. Post on the ops board if you're starting fresh, and somebody in the crew will help you through the Capstones and your first Pit runs.

By CNC Gaming

Sources: Blizzard Season 15 announcement; AllThings.How: patch 3.2.1; Timesaver: patch 3.2.1 notes; Icy Veins: Season 15 item updates; d4guides: Mythic drop chance scaling; d4guides leveling guide; ConsolePulse leveling guide; d4guides: Soul Splinters; Icy Veins: Reliquaries guide; Blizzard Watch: Season 16 confirmed.