Diablo 4 is almost here and I’ve been non-stop absorbing every piece of content imaginable. With so much info to learn, I decided to put together five of my best tips for launch to ensure you’re not making some of the most costly mistakes and ultimately have the smoothest launch experience.

1. Must Do Content

For tip number one, don’t sleep on world content.

The world content available in the game is very important and all offer their own unique value for completion. Some of the most important World Content that you’re going to want to make sure is doing aside from main quests include Altars of Lilith, dungeons, events, and side quests.

The 160 Altars of Lilith provide you with XP, meaningful stat increases, and count for zone completion. Zone completion is required to level up your Renown for each zone and gain some of the most important benefits, which include two Skill Points, one potion charge, 80 max Obols and four Paragon Points for each of the five zones you complete.

When you finish leveling your Renown in each of the five zones, you’ll end with 10 extra Skill Points, 5 additional potion charges, 400 extra max Obols and 20 Paragon Points, which are going to be incredibly important.

As you can also see on this screenshot of the Renown page, dungeons, side quests, waypoints, area exploration, and strongholds, all additionally go towards completing your Renown in each zone.

Events, on the other hand, are important for their own reason. Not only are they a great source of consistent experience as you’re doing other content, but they also give you Obols, which are used for legendary gambling. This world content is going to be essential to ensure your character is strong enough to compete in some of the hardest endgame content, including World Tier 4 and World Tier 5 Capstone Dungeons and fighting the hardest difficulties of Nightmare Dungeons.

So, in my opinion, it’ll be best to make sure you get these things knocked out early. Because when you’re finally at the endgame in Diablo 4, you won’t want to have to circle back and do some of the more mundane and simple content.

Also Read: Diablo 4 Cold Assassin Rogue Build: A Level 50 Guide

2. Most Common Noobtrap

For tip number two, I want to touch briefly on World Tier difficulty.

World Tier difficulty has been a conversation point for almost everybody in the Diablo 4 Community. Generally, the consensus is that you should start on World Tier 1 to clear through their main story quickly.

The main difference between World Tier 1 and World Tier 2 is the fact that World Tier 2 makes enemies more difficult to kill, but only provides 15% more Diablo 4 Gold, which in the early game is really insignificant and 20% more XP for my monster kills.

On paper, that might sound good. But considering that World Tier 1 and World Tier 2 are only for levels 1 to 50 where we’re going to get World Tier 3, you should get through 1 to 50 as quickly as possible. So, considering that World Tier 2 makes content significantly more difficult but doesn’t provide additional XP for anything outside of monster kills is not worth doing if you’re looking for the fastest way to endgame.

But again, I do want to mention here not everyone is playing Diablo 4 to blast through the game and get to the endgame. So, feel free to play the game at your own pace. Everyone is different, and this game is magnificent no matter how you experience it. And while admittingly I’m not a huge lore or story guy, even I have to admit the cinematics in Diablo 4 are Immaculate and the raw production value of this game is very impressive.

3. Aspect Imprinting Tips

With that out of the way, let’s move into tip 3, talking about aspects.

As you’re navigating your way through content, you should be getting the aspects that are required for your build. Honestly, in my opinion, you should be getting any for your class or any classes you’ll be playing. Because the builds are strong on launch will not be the end-all beal.

So, preparing yourself for the inevitable balance patches is a wise idea. Anyway, with that mention out of the way, the most important thing pertaining to aspects in relation to Diablo 4’s launch is to know you shouldn’t be worried about having all the aspects for your build as you’re leveling. Let me explain that a little.

Let’s say you’re playing a Barbarian at level 15 and you find a nice sword. For the sake of keeping numbers simple, let’s say that sword has a raw DPS of a hundred. You hurry over to town and imprint your aspect on the sword. Now, from level 15 to maybe 18 or 19, you’re owning. But, at level 20, you find an even better sword that has a raw DPS of 200. Now, you have to imprint your legendary aspect again and each time you’re imprinting, that’s going to cost you gold and additional reagents to upgrade it. Now your weapon is going to be the biggest deal while you’re leveling. Because the damage increases from level to level will be substantial to your overall ability to clear content. And from my memory, it also costs more to imprint weapons as well.

But anyway, let me sum up my two cents about aspects. First, don’t worry about imprinting aspects on your weapon every time you get a new upgrade. You’ll waste a ton of materials and ultimately, it’s just going to cost you in the long run. You can imprint on armor, rings, and amulets. But again, don’t worry about imprinting on every upgrade you’re getting from 1 to 50.

Gear power rise is quite steady from 1 to 50, so you’ll only want to start worrying about imprints as you less frequently replacing your gear later on. And if you’re following the strategy that I’m going to be following on launch, you’re not going to need best in slot gear to clear content on World Tier 1, anyway.

4. Leveling Approach

For tip number four, plan out your build.

As you’re going through the campaign for your first time, you don’t want to worry about respecting and re-gearing. Because you’re constantly flip-flopping builds.

In my opinion, you should stick with one or two builds for launch and go with them until you’re facing more difficult content in my case. When it comes to choosing a build, I recommend bookmarking d4gold.com. On this site, you can not only find various build guides but also buy large quantities of Diablo 4 Gold directly here.

For my Rogue class, I’m going to play a Flurry build for the early game and swap to TB (Twisting Blade) around level 25. Now, this isn’t at all for optimized clear speed. It’s actually because I really just enjoy the Flurry build. But I do know from number testing that the Twisting Blade build is going to be more consistent DPS. So, by having these two builds to run on launch, I’m going to set myself up with a very clear path to progress through the story and only reset my build page one time.

In my opinion, you don’t need to play the most meta build at all. With Diablo 4 still a few days away, you can just theory craft your own builds. Because you can use this time to think about what type of build you want to make, list what you need to get done, and figure out how to fill in what you’re currently missing.

But to wrap up this tip and keep it really simple, you should have a plan coming into launch, stick to it, and don’t worry too much about having a hundred percent optimal builds while you’re leveling. As long as you have somewhat of a decent build and some decent gear, you’re not going to struggle to clear content up until World Tier 3.

5. Maximize Your Enjoyment

And tip number five is having fun.

I want to stress this point for Diablo 4’s server launch. Because ultimately, with the launch of Diablo 4, you should be looking to have fun and learn as much as possible.

The launch of the game is going to be at least for myself a big testing period before Season 1. If you’ve played Diablo 3, this game is going to operate similar in relation to seasons. In each season, your non-seasonal characters won’t transfer their level and power into the season. So, don’t feel too bad if you’re not able to grind the game or stay up to date with the best gear outside of season time.

The launch is going to allow us to learn what Diablo 4 has to offer and find the best ways to level fast, gear optimally, and most importantly, allow us to get good at our classes. The only things you need to have done by the time season releases here is make sure you’ve completed the main story, understand your class, experience the Paragon Boards, and most importantly, max out your Renown for each zone.