Summary
- Season 8 of Diablo 4 has new seasonal events and boss powers, requiring a focus on Lair Bosses for efficient late-game farming.
- Apparition Incursions offer early leveling opportunities with decent experience gain and access to new boss powers in Season 8.
- To level up fast in Season 8, players should engage in Helltides, Undercity events, and Strongholds while focusing on targeted farming in Kurast Undercity.
Diablo 4's eighth season is underway, and as well as the new seasonal activities and boss powers, Season 8 comes with a rebalancing of the game's higher difficulties, especially where endgame bosses are concerned. New seasonal events mean new ways to gain experience and gear, and the new boss powers present players with a new way to customize their builds, in a similar vein to Season 7's witchcraft powers.
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With the release of Vessel of Hatred, Diablo 4's classes have each gotten a rework, which has significantly shifted the meta of endgame builds.
The difficulty rebalance and the new focus on Lair Bosses, however, mean that there are some changes to late-game farming and what the most efficient methods to progress are. On top of that, while the 0-60 leveling curve remains mostly the same, the push through Torment 1-4 is now more elongated, requiring a longer grind to get full unique and ancestral equipment loadouts. With all the changes and new events, these are the best tips for leveling and farming in Diablo 4 Season 8.
7 Apparition Incursions
Seasonal Event
Best Rewards
- Boss Powers
- Spectral Ash
Apparition Incursions are Season 8's new seasonal event. They're not the most involved event Diablo 4 has seen, with players basically rushing to kill mini-bosses and elites in a designated area until a final boss spawns, followed by a spectral version of Belial. Players should use these events as their early way of leveling, though, as they'll receive decent experience and also get access to some of the early boss powers available in Season 8.
These boss powers can be a big power boost if players select the right synergies for their build, and some of the main powers are enough to carry early-game damage on their own. Players can equip one main power and three support powers at a time, and they should make sure to collect and equip these as soon as possible. Players will also get Spectral Ash from these events to advance their seasonal reputation, but that's just one of the many ways to get seasonal rep in Season 8.
6 Getting To Level 60 Fast
Helltides, Undercity, And Nahantu Strongholds
Best Rewards
- Skill Points
- Legendary Gear
- Materials
Once players have a few boss powers and early levels available, the best way to progress quickly is to do the Helltide events that spawn regularly across the map and unlock the Kurast Undercity as soon as possible (if available). If players have the Vessel of Hatred expansion, then once they hit level 50, they can complete all the Strongholds in Nahantu, and this should take them up to max level 60.
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Following this leveling strategy can take players from a fresh character to max level in a few hours, and it should also get them the basic legendary gear and aspects they need to build a functional character for the first Torment difficulty level.
5 Helltides And Infernal Hordes
Still Good For Gear And Materials
Best Rewards
- Gem Fragments/Obducite
- Legendary Gear
- Experience
Helltides are still a good way for players to level quickly and gear up, as they have been in previous seasons. Once players get to the first level of Torment difficulty, they can start using the Infernal Horde Compasses that occasionally drop from Helltides and the Blood Maiden.
These are even more rewarding and are still among the best sources of Obducite for masterworking gear, as well as gem fragments. Slaying the hordes of enemies and completing the Helltide will reward a decent amount of Paragon experience, too.
4 Kurast Undercity
Target Farming With Tributes
Best Rewards
- Lair Boss Keys
- Obducite
- Runes
- Potential Mythic Uniques
The Kurast Undercity is a timed trial run available in Kurast, where players burn tributes to guarantee a chance at specific rewards upon completion. These dungeon runs are only available to players with the Vessel of Hatred DLC, but they're one of the best ways to farm Lair Boss Keys this Season, along with some other useful rewards.
Rewards are dependent on the Tribute that players use to access the Undercity. A Tribute of Titans, for example, will result in Lair Boss Keys dropping on completion of a run. There are Tributes that guarantee Rune drops (though legendary runes are still very hard to obtain), there are Tributes that guarantee Obducite for masterworking, and there are Unique Tributes that can give players a chance at unique and even mythic unique items as potential rewards.
3 Push The Pit
Paragon Experience Farming
Best Rewards
- Unlock Torment Difficulties
- Paragon Experience
- Glyph Upgrades
The Pit of the Artificer in Cerrigar is still central to progressing through Diablo 4's Torment difficulty levels in Season 8. Players will need to complete Pit level 10 before they can access Torment 1 and start farming endgame activities and items. The Pit isn't just a grind to increase difficulty, though.
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As players need to progress through runs quickly and get kills to advance, they'll accumulate a lot of experience by pushing higher pit tiers. This makes the Pit one of the most efficient experience grinds, even at higher Paragon levels. Completing Pit runs within the time limit is also the only way players can upgrade Glyphs to socket into their Paragon Boards, which offer crucial power boosts for higher tier characters.
2 Tackling The Boss Ladder
Reworked Reward System And Harder Bosses
Best Rewards
- Unique/Ancestral/Mythic gear
- Boss Powers
- Higher Tier Lair Boss Keys
Some of the biggest changes in Season 8 are the rework of the Torment difficulty tiers, the resulting changes to the balancing of the Lair Boss fights, and the changes to how farming these bosses actually works. Unlike previous seasons, players can summon and fight these bosses without a cost. However, beating the bosses themselves only unlocks their associated boss power (in Torment 1 or higher). Players now need keys to open a Lair Boss Hoard that spawns once the boss is dead in order to get their associated unique items and other rewards.
If players fight the lower-tier bosses, The Beast in the Ice, Varshan, Grigoire, or Urivar (Vessel of Hatred only), then the Hoards will also drop Keys for the higher-tier boss hoards of Andariel, Duriel, and The Harbinger of Hatred (Vessel of Hatred only). Belial is at the top of the boss ladder, but the keys for his hoard only drop from the random encounter with Belial that can happen after beating another Lair Boss. As well as farming the Lair Bosses themselves for uniques and boss keys, players should make use of the Tribute of Titans in the Kurast Undercity to generate a lot of boss keys for repeated farming.
1 Additional Tips For Getting Mythic Uniques
Top Tier Items
Best Rewards
- Resplendent Spark
For players who want to farm for Mythic Uniques in Season 8, beating the higher-tier Lair Bosses in the highest Torment tier possible and opening Hoards is the best strategy. There are also Unique Tributes that can rarely drop from sources like world bosses that give players a chance of getting Mythic Uniques at the end of an Undercity run. On top of this, there are two ways players can get Resplendent Sparks (which are needed to craft Mythic Uniques) without increasing the Torment difficulty above level 1.
The first way is to beat Lilith in Torment 1 or higher. While Lilith is counted in the boss ladder, as she has her own boss power to unlock, she isn't included in the key rotation like the other bosses. Instead, the reward for beating Lilith is a Resplendent Spark, but her redesigned fight is now even tougher. Players can also get a Resplendent Spark from completing their seasonal reputation levels by earning enough Spectral Ash, which will happen relatively quickly with enough Lair Boss Farming.
Diablo 4
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 88 /100 Critics Rec: 93%
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Proprietary Engine
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Hack and Slash
