Diablo 4 Season 6 progression cheat sheet: How will leveling and endgame work?

Diablo 4 Season 6 is making some major changes to leveling and endgame, and that may leave players unclear on what’s going on. After all, there’s no more leveling from 1-100, with the new level cap of 60, and the stat squish. Between this, the difficulty changes, and the endgame activities, it can be incredibly confusing, even for players who have been tackling seasonal content since launch.

That said, if you’re curious to know what kind of changes are coming in Diablo 4 Season 6 with the 2.0 patch, we’re here to help with leveling and endgame activities. If you’re worried about what to do, we’re here to help you get ready for the next season.

How does leveling work in Diablo 4 Season 6?

You'll start off with four difficulty options, each one with better rewards and exp (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

It appears that leveling from 1-60 will be relatively quick for Diablo 4 players. It’s being said that roughly 3-10 hours, depending on your skill level with the game, will be required to hit level 60. From there, players will be leveling up further, to receive Paragon Points - this will have a cap of 300, at least, at launch. This could change in future seasons/patches, but this is what we know right now.

We’ll have access to four difficulty levels to choose from: Normal, Hard, Expert, and Penitent. If you’re looking to level as fast as possible, take Expert, and swap to Penitent at level 50 when it unlocks. It’s the hardest difficulty for leveling up, but it does give you the most when it comes to exp bonuses. With knowledge of the game and your build, you could easily hit level 60 in a couple of hours.

If you’re a casual player and are in no particular rush to get anywhere, just play on Normal or Hard, and grind your way to 60 by just playing the game. Once you hit level 60, you immediately are in the endgame! No more hoops to jump through - you’ve arrived.

If you have purchased the Vessel of Hatred expansion, you’ll also have Mercenaries that will join you permanently. This is a great feature, and can certainly help you enhance your build by covering up for your weaknesses.

What can you expect to do in the Diablo 4 Season 6 endgame?

Next goal: Torment difficulty! (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

When you’ve hit level 60 in Diablo 4, your next goal, to begin endgame content, is to get to Torment 1 difficulty. This is done by clearing The Pit levels until you beat level 20. That will give you access to Torment 1 - Uniques, Mythic Uniques, and Ancestral gear. That all begins to drop here. This is the first major milestone. Almost everything here can be done without owning the expansion, as well.

This should be possible right as you hit level 60 - you don’t have to go grinding for better endgame gear in Diablo 4. Technically speaking, all of the best gear you can hunt down can drop in Torment 1 - it just drops with less frequency. If you want the best possible gear and want it faster, you need to grind through the Torment difficulties - 1 through 4. You need to complete the following stages for all of the Torment levels:

The Pit Level 20: Torment 1
The Pit Level 35: Torment 2
The Pit Level 50: Torment 3
The Pit Level 65: Torment 4

Obviously, you can’t dive straight into these higher levels of Torment difficulty right away. You’ll need to grind up some Paragon Points, as you can get up to 300 of these for your Paragon Boards. Every activity you’re completing in-game will give you exp towards these. Be it the new raid, Helltides, The Pit, or everything else.

It’s worth noting that the first 200 points will be pretty easy to get. Each time you level up, it’ll cost a bit more exp each time. The last 100 are where the grind begins. It will likely take up to 200 hours to get all 300 Paragon Points - though that could definitely change once Diablo 4 Season 6 starts. Players may find an easier way to grind up exp, that shortens this time.

It’s not necessary to get all 300, though - you’ll likely start seeing diminishing returns around the 230 mark. It’s useful to have them all, but you can defeat The Pit level 100 at around 200-220 points. One thing I like about this is no matter what I’m doing in the game, regardless of how I play the game, I’m getting more exp towards Paragon Points. No matter your skill level in the game, you can get all the Paragon Points.

You don't need to get all 300 Paragon Points to be successful (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

As you start pushing into Torment 1 and beyond, you’ve got plenty of new content to take part in, too. Nightmare Dungeons have been reworked, and are important to clear. Everything in these can drop Masterwork Materials for your gear, so this is one of the major things to do in the endgame of Diablo 4. Of course, the higher the difficulty tier you’re in, the better your rewards are. But you don’t have to push into Torment 4.

It’s also worth it to farm through The Pit levels and progress to higher tiers. This is to keep upgrading the Paragon Glyphs and to push toward higher game difficulty if you want. However, if the Pit Level is 20+ levels higher than the Glyph Level, you upgrade it faster. +40 Levels higher, you get a +3 upgrade for a Glyph right away upon completing The Pit instance. This means you can get your Glyphs pretty fast, and makes it worth doing.

Since you can turn your Glyphs into Legendary Glyphs, with a cap of Level 46, there is some incredible power behind these. It’s definitely worth it to get the Legendary Glyphs powered up. Since there are only 5 Paragon Boards, you only need up to 5 Legendary Glyphs, which makes things a bit faster. If you want to know the ultimate endgame goals, here they are:

Nightmare Dungeons (Upgrade materials)
The Pit Level 100
Infernal Hordes
Uber Lilith on any Torment difficulty
Tormented Bosses/Boss Ladder

It’s being said that Tormented bosses drop 1 Unique on Tier 1, and up to five of them on Tier 4. Of course, these are easily the hardest bosses in the game, so this might be a real challenge.

It looks like we’re still doing Infernal Hordes, but not as frequently as we did in the past. There are 6, 8, and 10 Wave Infernal Hordes, with the difficulty being based on what Torment level you’re on in Diablo 4. As you can see, there are plenty of things you can do in the endgame. This doesn’t even count the other stuff you can do, like World Bosses, and other content.

That said, there is endgame content for just players who own Vessel of Hatred. The Dark Citadel, the first raid, is expansion-only. This is two-to-four-player content, and it scales to four players. Dark Citadel is also available in all Torment difficulties.

Players have The Undercity, which is a new Time Trial Dungeon. There isn’t much known about this right now, but leaks suggest you may be able to target farm specific uniques here. This can also be done on Torment 1-4.

Check out our other Diablo 4 content

Edited by Ritoban "Veloxi" Paul