There was a philosophy about Diablo 3 back in the day, that the real game didn’t start until max level, which was 60, then raised to 70 after its first expansion.
Diablo 4 now takes that to a cap of 100, and while that may be a long term goal for some players, before you set that firmly in your mind as something you want to hit you may want to know this next part.
Diablo 4 is going old-school MMO/ARPG with the way XP scaling works as you get into higher levels. What that means in practice is that:
- The time and XP it takes to get to level 85 is half the time and XP it takes to get from level 85 to level 100.
- And it ramps up further. Level 92 is halfway to level 99 by the same metrics.
This is why out of millions of players there are more like thousands that have hit level 100, and why it took hardcore players forever to get even 1,000 total players to hit level 100 (I’m not even sure a full thousand have).
So, you can do it certainly, but at a certain point, you may want to hit pause of maybe head over to a new class at around 85 or so when this really, really starts ramping up. Sure, those paragon points are nice, but the gear you get at nearly any level in World Tier 4 can theoretically be the same gear you’re using at level 100, so you’re really just grinding for nothing but min-maxing those last 15 levels, and the vast majority of your build is likely set by then. Sure, 60 more paragon points are great, but again, 85 may be enough for some people, given the time investment it will take to crawl those last 15 levels.
If you do want to hit 100, you may want to wait until an upcoming update that is going to increase the XP given out for Nightmare Dungeons specifically, as Blizzard knows they are not exactly the most efficient source of XP, which is not good considering how essential to the endgame they are supposed to be. In addition to a new system that will let you teleport directly to a Nightmare Dungeon instead of having to run all the way there, increasing efficiency, actual XP per monster is being increased inside those dungeons as well. I can’t remember if that’s happening in a pre-season 1 patch or during season 1 patch, but it’s soon.
As for me, I have gone through a bit of ADHD in terms of focusing just on one character. My Barbarian is 72, my Rogue is 56 and my Druid is 32. I keep swapping around to diversify gameplay, so 85 much less 100, is probably a year-long project at least for these guys. But I may continue to just work on them instead of seasonal characters, which doesn’t really appeal to me. But do what you will with your own leveling time.
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