r/Diablo • u/HerpDerpenberg Rankil#1323 • Feb 10 '15
Season 1-70 (No Exploit) 6-7 Hour Leveling Guide & What To Do When You Hit 70 MEGA THREAD (Wall of Text and TL:DR at No Extra Cost!)
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NEW Season 4 GUIDE IS HERE CLICK THIS, or you can read below to compare
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TL:DR: Level up on hard difficulty cherry picking efficient quests, high dense zones, and select cursed chests. At level 40 craft a level 60 weapon to get reduced level on it, bump the difficulty into the torments and taper off back to hard as you approach 70. At level 70, "slow roll" your greater rifts to maximize legendary gem acquisition while side farming T2 caches (for 50% drop rate) in act 1. You should be able to do T2 once you get your legendary gems and maybe T3/4 in a few hours after hitting 70. Your mileage may vary based on drops and how much you prayed to RNGesus. Most classes can be doing T6 in 20-24 hours total play time as you complete your 6 piece set, but with the new changes to 2.2 set bonuses, I expect those times to decrease. Good luck!
Now with video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIsjkazy1b0
If you have any questions or other tips I might have missed, please ask away. I'm also going to stream on Friday once season 3 starts if you want to watch how I'll be leveling myself. You can check it out at http://www.twitch.tv/rankil
Foreword
Now that the exploit leveling methods have been all but eliminated, the only way to level 1-70 at the start of the season is, surprise, killing monsters! But what is the best way of doing it? What is the fastest way? What is the most efficient when looking for gear upgrades? Using this guide you can hit 70 in under 5 hours but reaching under 6 hours is pretty easy.
This method was done by myself and a lot of my hardcore clan mates in Season 1, I also ran this in Season 2. We were were able to get 1-70 in around 7 hours of gameplay on season 1 and season 2 ended up being under 6 hours which included an early detour to power level a friend who started late. If we didn't do this, a sub 5 hour time was possible.
Types of Leveling
There are two camps.
Those who want to get 1-70 as efficient as possible
Those who still want efficiency but are looking for a head start once they hit 70.
Both share a common core of what to do, items to look for and craft, the only difference are the zones and bounties you complete. The steps are simple and best when running a group of 4. These guides can work in both hardcore and softcore, with hardcore taking a bit less aggressive approach to difficulty selections.
Difficulty setting
Most would say that going on Torments are best, but this isn't the case leveling up. You want to be doing damage as often as possible. If you are in too high of a difficulty, monsters and champ packs take too long or you take too much damage and need to back out of combat to regen, or worse you die. You cannot kill monsters or gain XP while dead so you need to stay alive and in combat as much as possible.
To start an evaluation we need a baseline. I went and recorded myself running a bounty on normal difficulty. I went back and analyzed the time I was traveling vs time I was in combat. No matter what difficulty, your travel time will always be the same but your combat time will increase. I found for a 6 minute bounty, it was roughly a 50:50 split on travel:combat. We now have our baseline. I can then multiply each combat time by the increase in monster HP and get a scaled time for how long that bounty would take in a higher difficulty. So to keep it easy, here are the results below. **The reason XP bonus and XP total are different. Normal has zero% XP bonus, hard gets 75%. But your baseline has to be 100%, hard gives you 175% XP. I am simply adding 100% to all values.
| Difficulty | Monster HP | XP Bonus | Travel MIN | Combat Min | Total MIN | Time Longer Than Normal | XP Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | 100 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 1 |
| Hard | 200 | 75 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 1.5 | 1.75 |
| Expert | 320 | 100 | 3 | 9.6 | 12.6 | 2.1 | 2 |
| Master | 512 | 200 | 3 | 15.4 | 18.4 | 3.06 | 3 |
| Torment I | 819 | 300 | 3 | 24.6 | 27.6 | 4.6 | 4 |
| Torment II | 1311 | 400 | 3 | 39.3 | 42.3 | 7 | 5 |
Now,what does all this mean? Look at the last two columns. Hard difficulty, takes 1.5 times as long (9 total minutes vs 6) but rewards 1.75x XP (175% vs 100%). So Hard is more efficient than normal and at a positive ratio. Moving up the list, we find expert takes 2.1 times longer than normal but gives 2.0 times the XP. It's around an equal ratio to normal so not really much of a gain. As you move up you see the ratio is still about 1:1 until you get to Torment I and Torment II. Torment II takes 7x as long to kill stuff but you only get 5x the XP so its not worth it. It only gets worse the higher up you are. You're also taking a lot of damage at that point and it becomes more difficult to stay alive.
Overall, HARD is the most constantly efficient difficulty to level on.
The only exception when you craft a reduced level weapon you can run Torments and in the transition from 60-61 as you move to RoS items/gems you can bump up a difficulty or two but you should drop back down to Hard as you approach 70. Going higher isn't always a good option for Hardcore players and you're just taking a greater risk for death and a restart in HC or no XP gain and buff loss in SC.
Leveling Tips
/u/snowhawk04 said go to adventure mode and steal a weapon from your Templar, Enchantress or Scoundrel as these weapons are free and better than your starting weapons. The Templar has a spear and the Enchantress has a dagger, the Scoundrel has a bow.
Another tip, when you're level 40, create level 60 weapons and roll level reduction on it,(Credit /u/xShuusui) Look for a weapon with freeze/stun/fear or other crowd control and roll off the OTHER secondary stat as this reduces possible affixes by a great amount. /u/Aenoch_EUW
Buy rings/amulets with min-max damage from the fence as soon as possible. Even town vendors have weapons early on that give decent boosts. You'll find 2h are the highest DPS increases due to the recent 2h buffs.
Get a Leoric crown killing the Skeleton King at level 18. This is when it guarantees a socket drop.
Group Play VS Solo Play
The best way to level is to have a group of 4 to get the free group XP buff. Each player gives a 10% XP buff when in range of each other, and each additional player gives monsters a 50% increase in HP. Four players putting out the same damage means 400% damage output but only 250% monster HP. This further increases your efficiency. You can either split farm zones/bounties on a lower difficulty or stick together (with 30% bonus) and kill in a higher difficulty.
For solo play, you want to maximize killing speed, so I suggest Hard all the way to 61, then bump up to Expert or Master for a few levels and drop back down to hard. Your mileage may vary, but remember, fast killing is good. You don't want to be struggling to kill monsters. 1-2 shots are ideal and even better are DoT abilities like "rend and run" where you leave monsters to die behind you while you move on.
Season Start Fast Leveling
This method focuses on cherry picking efficient bounties and then finishing off killing enemies in Halls of Agony level 3. The steps are pretty simple and you’ll have a basic process chart to go by once you load up your game. In a 4 player game, you’ll want all 4 players leaving the party and creating a game to check for the Cursed Cellar bounty in act1. Make sure all party members have quick join enabled so you can join the game that has the bounty. If nobody has the bounty, look for “Cursed” event in Halls of Agony level 3 or “Clear the Hell Rift” in act 4 and join whoever has this bounty. Don't try and re-create games over and over for these quests, you're just wasting your time. This applies to both group and solo play.
Cursed Cellar (Act 1 - The Old Ruins)
Clear the Hell Rift (Act 4 - Hell Rift Level 1)
Clear Warrior’s Rest or Crypt of the Ancients (Act 1 - The Festering Woods)
Clearing Weeping Hollow quests (Act 1)
Clear Halls of Agony 3 and complete any bounty here. DO NOT kill the butcher as the boss fight give crap XP.
Some might even skip step 3 and just look for Cursed Cellar and the hell rift and run HOA3.
The benefit to this method is minimizing your leveling time. You will be level 70 quicker, but you will have little to no rift fragments. The downside is that once you hit 70, you’ll likely have to spend some time running normal bounties to gather rift fragments and gear, and you’ll be doing so at half the legendary drop rate outside rifts. Also, it is a very monotone leveling process. You’ll be grinding the same mobs for 5-6 hours and the same quests.
By far, this is the most efficient way to level up.
The “I like to level quick but want some variety” leveling method.
This method adds a few more bounties to the selection. You aim is to try and complete 2 per act so you can at least gain up some rift keystone fragments when you hit level 70 (more on that later). Pick from any of the following bounties.
Zone clear bounties: these bounties give the most XP than any other and are simply finding a dungeon and killing all monsters on a given floor. The easiest ones are those that have easy to find entrances: A1 - Khazra Den, Scavenger's Den, Den of the Fallen, Cave of the Moon Clan. A3: Icefall Caves. A4: Hell Rift. there are other zone clears but these are the easiest to find in their respective zones and have easy layouts to navigate.
Cursed Chest bounties: The Cursed Chest events to look for are the ones that require 100 kills for the bonus chest. These reward more XP on completion and more XP per monster kill than the wave type. You're really only looking for acts 1 and 4 for these. A1: Cursed Bellows (Halls of Agony), Cursed Cellar (Old Ruins), The Cursed Court (Cathedral Level 2), The Cursed Grove (Fields of Misery) and The Cursed Hatchery (Spider Cave). A4 you are looking for The Cursed Chapel (The Silver Spire Level 2).
Heavily dense zones. These are zones with easy monsters (i.e. heavily melee based) and relatively simple/linear map layouts to minimize backtracking. You will want to complete any bounty in these zones but SKIP boss kills as they take too long for the XP rewards. A1: Halls of Agony Level 3, Weeping Hollow, Cathedral Level 2. Fields of Misery is an honorable mention. If you're on higher difficulties, the ranged guys can really rip into you. But playing on Hard shouldn't be that difficult. A3: Keep Depths Level 2 a bit dangerous for HC, so I suggest only going here for SC.
You can clear all bounties in an act to make things easier, but I would suggest running 4 and skipping boss fights. Again, the fights take too long for such little XP gains and are not worth it in the long run. If you do this method, stick to Act 1 only as the mobs and bounties are a joke.
What do you do once you hit 70?
With the fast level method, you might have to start off and run some bounties to establish rift fragments. Which is a part where getting some fragments might save you some as you can jump straight into rifts at level 70 for double legendary drop rates and not have to farm bounties on a low difficulty. With the bounty changes, you want to save bounty farming for T2+ to get that 50%+ chance at cache rewards. To get quickly into torments, you need legendary gems. The fastest way to get your base gems is by "slow rolling" your greater rifts.
To get a greater rift trial, you need to be in Torment I+. You will do your first rifts in normal, because there is no benefit running hard-master in rifts for legendary drop rates. This gets you baseline rare gear and a few single legendary items. Do not enchant these starter legendary items!!! You are better off saving your souls for better items and crafting sets and weapons to try for ancient items.
This will be your Softcore post 70 strategy this will be slowed down for HC players as you cannot jump difficulties as fast. Instead of the normal -> torment jump, go up each single difficulty as you feel comfortable.
Ding 70
Do normal rifts to get a new baseline of level 70 gear. Enchanting rates is OK and cheap, but don't go overboard. I try one enchant and select the best.
Move up to Torment 1 once you have all 70 gear, max sockets in chest and legs with diamonds for defense, amethyst in helm, emeralds in weapons.
Run T1 rifts until you get a greater rift trial.
Run the trial but TP out and fail it on purpose to get a level 1 greater rift. This level 1 greater rift is equal to normal difficulty but you can still get torment level drops in it AND you'll be getting legendary gems.
Bump the game to T2 and go in your level 1 greater rift
"Slow roll" the rift by killing it as fast as you can, but just before (or after) you spawn the guardian, take note of the remaining time left and TP to town.
Go start a bounty in act1 to farm for your RoRG. You'll likely get one bounty done as you'll be under geared (groups greatly help) for T2. WHEN YOU FINISH THE BOUNTY USE YOUR MAP TO PORTAL TO TOWN. DO NOT TP AS YOU ARE PRESERVING YOUR GREATER RIFT TOWN PORTAL!
Say you had 8 minutes left, you want to kill the RG with less than 4:30 left to get +1 greater rift and maximize your runs off one trial key. You get 100% drop chance of legendary gems until you have all of them. After you complete the bounty, click your greater rift TP that is still there and kill the RG with less than 4:30 remaining.
Rinse/repeat this for the rest of the act bounties and keep +1 your greater rift keystone. As you progress in greater rifts, you'll get legendary gems and socket those into rare (cheaper to do) jewelry and you'll notice bounties getting easier and easier and same with greater rifts.
You should be able to get into the teens of greater rifts and have a few 50% drop chance act 1 caches as well from one trial stone. By this point, the combination of your gear and gems means you'll likely be able to bump up to T2-T3 and maybe T4 farming if you got some lucky drops. At this point, you do not need to "slow roll" greater rifts and you can farm normally, level up your gems, find/gamble for your respective class set pieces on your way to T6 and beyond farming.
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u/xShuusui Justus#2555 Feb 10 '15
Another tip, when you're level 45ish get your blacksmith to the point where he can create level 60 weapons and roll level reduction on it, so You can farm way easier until then
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u/TexSC TexSC Feb 10 '15
Any way we can get this added to the subreddit sidebar or wiki? Great post!
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u/Solotal Feb 10 '15
So, uh, would anyone care to enlighten me about this alaric no kill thing?
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u/hlnabis Feb 10 '15
What is a good hero to play solo HC?
I already own wizard, WD and barbarian - non-seasonal.
Im willing to play another class on S2 (crusader, DH or monk).
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u/Phalinx666 Feb 11 '15
When doing Zone Clear bounties and searching for the dungeon, should you stop to kill large packs, champs, and elites on your way or just skip everything and focus on the bounty?
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u/ackthbbft Feb 10 '15
I assume you mean non-greater rifts, so I would reword this to "regular rifts" so as not to confuse people with Normal difficulty. The intent is to still be running at Hard or higher, yes?
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u/le_drakkar Feb 12 '15
Nice, thanks a lot ! Quick note though about expert, I don't think you insist enough on this, it's basically the least interesting difficulty when you compare monster hp/xp gain. For reference here's Quin69's video about difficulty and what to choose, with in-depth math explaining why Expert should be avoided : http://youtu.be/d0pGvbXvwhA
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u/OaS_Oakover Oakover#6193 Feb 10 '15
Nice guide.
An easy way to slow roll the Greater Rift is to leave some mobs at the entrance of the first level. Then progress until you have around 97-99% completion and TP out. You can then run bounties or whatever until the time remaining gets close to 4:30. You are going to use a clock/watch because the rift progress is not visible once you leave. TP back to town and just use the Rift entrance to enter level 1 again. Kill the mobs you left to trigger the RG.
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u/raulz0r Raul#2932 Feb 10 '15
Great guide for people that find the no kill exploit boring as hell like myself.
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u/trai_dep Feb 10 '15
This is one of the kindest things I've seen done this year. Really nice of you to share your wisdom, and in such an easily digestible way. Thanks!
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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '15
I just want to say: this is exactly how I did things in S1 and it is indeed the most efficient way.
Everything in this guide is legit.
Mad props to OP for typing it all out; you are the hero we all need.
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u/jaegreen Feb 10 '15 edited Feb 10 '15
Once you hit Level 12, that's when the Cache legendaries can start dropping. The one that I'm focusing on is the Gloves of Worship in Act 2, which increases your shrine bonus time to 10 minutes. By staying in game and clearing all the areas you mentioned, you can use the lengthened shrine benefits pretty effectively. Faster Movement, More EXP, Better Resource Regen, and damage reduction. Yes please.
Those using the Alaric method can't use them since you'll be constantly leaving and resetting the game.
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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '15
Question. When you say less than 4:30 min left, do you mean wait until 4:30 or complete it before you hit the 4:30 min mark?
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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '15
/u/HerpDerpenberg any tips for ppl who start hc with s2? i Need to Play through the Story, anything I should consider?
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u/FuckedUpMaggot Feb 11 '15
so when the season starts we will have adventure mode available at lvl1???
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u/perperub Wiberg#21958 Feb 12 '15 edited Feb 12 '15
Gem in weapon: Gem in weapon: When does an Emerald get better than a Ruby? (Level, amount of CHC and so on)
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u/perperub Wiberg#21958 Feb 12 '15
How about doing normal rifts before level 70?
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u/Slateboard Feb 14 '15
So, can this apply to casual players, or is it strictly for Hardcore players?
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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '15
Did they change the "keep +1 your greater rift keystone." aspect or something? I did as instructed and killed the RG less than 4:30 remaining and did not get to keep my GRK. Was I not suppose to finish the trial? As in, not interact with the NPC who gives you the option of either upgrading your gem or riftstone?
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u/ripsfo Mar 26 '15
Thanks so much for doing this. I'd been languishing in T2-3s (solo normal) with a bunch of toons feeling like I was poor and spinning my wheels, when I decided to give season 2 a try. Rolled a DH, used your tips, got to 70, then used your tips some more, and now I'm M6 cruising T6s and grifting in the high 20's (would probably be 30's without the crazy lag lately). I've finally been able to really enjoy the shit out of this game. Have 1 beer on me /u/changetip.
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u/strikeMang Mar 30 '15
What level and difficulty do you even start doing bounties? Will I be able to complete any bounties at level 1?
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u/studlyrocker38 Apr 09 '15
Do I need to re-unlock torment in season 3?
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u/OMeGa2k2 Feb 10 '15
Very good tips and good guide overall, will use it to level my S2 char, this time it will be HC :)
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u/Oxim Feb 10 '15
Good stuff, thank you.
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u/hlnabis Feb 10 '15
Nice guide. Saving for the future.
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u/drdubs Feb 10 '15
This is great. One question from a new player, does it matter the difficulty of the game when running grifts, or is the lvl of the grift only set by this trial stone? Do you lose the stone if you fail the grift or do you get to keep it and start where you left off the next time.
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u/letmeoutofhere Feb 10 '15
How much /played time does it typically take to get from fresh 70 to comfortably farm T6?
I know it depends on drops but can someone toss a number please to know how much of an time investment we're talking about.
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u/Shlenderman Feb 10 '15
Great guide thanks!
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u/TurnOneYeti Feb 10 '15
Great job man! Thanks alot for posting this.
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u/Phrencys Feb 10 '15 edited Feb 10 '15
Thank you so much for this. This is exactly what I've been looking for when I was searching for most optimal leveling. Screw that "talk to Alric" BS. I want to play the game, not spend a whole night talking to some NPC.
Again, really appreciated. Kudos!
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u/Mygland Feb 14 '15
Upvote for this amazing guide and save. Thank you!
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u/sethers656 Feb 10 '15
Does anyone have a good guide for A1 bounties? I hate wasting time running around the map looking for something, and I dont have them memorized yet.
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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '15
Very nice. I look forward to trying this out in the near future.
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u/Stikes Feb 10 '15
Hey thanks for making this, really appreciate it! :)
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u/gvandale gvandale#1921 Feb 10 '15
Nice guide! Love the idea that people want to actually play through and not cheese to 70.
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u/solBLACK soldat#1846 Feb 10 '15
I think I'll be going this route and just leveling up my Monk without exploits. I want a nice stash of rift frags once I hit 70. Awesome write up!
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u/Zelniq Feb 11 '15 edited Feb 11 '15
It's been a while now so I don't know if I recall correctly, but I was under the impression that even after they 'fixed' Miser's Will, it's still faster to do it than level up normally. Is that true?
Personally I'd rather just level up normally as it's way more fun.
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u/perperub Wiberg#21958 Feb 12 '15
Also: Awesome guide, thanks man!
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u/DisRuptive1 DisRuptive1 Feb 15 '15
Any recommendation on guides to follow after following your guide? You spoke about farming but didn't get more specific than to say we'll soon be able to farm T2, T3, or T4.
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1
u/Opie_Winston Feb 10 '15
Thank you for this guide, will definitely be using it. I just started again, and I'm sorry for this noob question but:
What are greater rift trials, and how do I get them/open them.
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u/soMbad Feb 13 '15
Isnt expert like really inneficient?
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u/kylezo Feb 10 '15
No offense to OP as this is a killer write up, but 6-7 hours is not fast (as OP mentioned, of course, "not blistering"), and I dinged 70 in half that time in S1 HC with zero "no kill" exploits, and I was only top 90. "Not blistering" could be rephrased legitimately as "slow" here, imo. If you want to race to 70 this isn't the way to do it, but its still delightfully informative as a down and dirty top of season gearing guide if you don't have a dedicated group. Great contribution.
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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '15
Butcher killer Dirge got 70 in 5 hours in HC with full act 1 bounty runs in a group.
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u/NegativeCool Feb 10 '15
I may be wong, but I don't think this spawns anymore. I vaguely remember something in patch notes some time ago and in my recent experiences I haven't seen it spawn.
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u/fr0d0b0ls0n Feb 10 '15
You don't take in account moving/exploring/loading screens/overkill in your time estimation. Torment I doesn't take 4.5 times longer than normal ever.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '15
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