I was saying that I never play softcore again except AH flippings.

Unfortunate deaths to my two hardcore toons in the same night due to disconnection, has sent me back to softcore lol. Afterall, I have only 3 60s at softcore and why not let me level up my two remaining intellect classes: WD and Wiz.

So, my new project is to level up WD and Wiz in the shortest time possible, using solo mode (i.e. no help to skip quests or power-grind in group). I am starting with a new WD. My experience of leveling WD at hardcore MP10 has given me a huge insight of what to do with leveling WD at softcore, and also how to tackle MP10. Note also I am willing to spend a lot of golds for the appropriate gears. I have sufficient softcore gold reserve from flipping while I was playing hardcore.

Objective:

To Solo Level from 1-60 in the shortest game time possible.

How to achieve (three main points in my opinion):

1. High Experience Bonus

- Choose MP10 (+100%)
- Hellfire Rings starting level 1 (+37%), give an additional one to follower when available
- Leoric Signets starting level 14 (+29%), give an additional one to follower when available
- Ruby in Helm (+27%) starting level 10 (an open socket Split Tusk for WD)
- Born's Set at level 21 (+20 XP)
- Cain's Set at level 23 (+30%)
- Some other XP gears are icing on the cake

The following screenshot is my total XP bonus (+332%, +111 XP) at level 23.



2. High DPS - to down mobs quickly at MP10

- If you have a Hellfire ring with decent average damage, you are set starting level 1.
- And a level 9 Genzaniku with socketed ruby, made quick work of the Normal bosses. I one shotted The Butcher with a right click of Spirit Barrage. Poor Skeleton King only managed to have time to stand up from his throne (hence I earned the achievement Short Reign - killing SK below 20 sec).
- At level 42, reduced level weapons are available.

A screenshots of my Hellfire rings and Genzaniku:




3. Movement Speed - you want to travel fast from act to act, given that this is a solo power levelling without friends unlocking quests for you.

- Boots with movement speed
- legendaries with movement speed (Slave Bond bracer at level 33, Hammer Jammers pants at level 41)
- skills with buff to movement speed

My WD's is now at level23 with play time 1 hour 40 min. Will update this post if anything interesting happens.

Interesting, level 23 in less than 2 hours. Curious to see how fast it can be done if the current XP bonuses for the 1.07 PTR translate to the actual patch release (MP10: 160% now to 510% on 1.07 PTR!)

And, I had no idea the Hellfire Ring can be used at level 1 (I don't have one yet). Awesome!

@douvinsky: Sorry to hear about the loss of your two HC characters, especially the manner in which they died (I read the thread about your customer service complaint to Blizzard...). Your experience definitely reaffirmed my decision to not try out HC, that's for sure.

Good luck w/ this new quest on going from 1-60 in SC as quickly as possible. Though given the huge exp bonuses to MP in the upcoming 1.07 patch (which @theoryzero mentioned as well), wouldn't it make more sense to perform this task after the patch? (I guess since you've already started w/ your WD, you could wait to do your Wiz after the patch & compare just how much faster it'll go the second time around...?)

I thought I read that the change in XP vs MP level was limited to Inferno, but I am not 100% sure without re-digging the related posts.

@douvinsky

Yep, you are right, my bad! Says so right in the caption for that section.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/8414560/

Oops, guess I also missed the fine print on that...! :-0 Good to know...

@eastdragon42 I never regret playing hardcore. At any stage when you are bored of softcore, give hardcore a try.

@douvinsky: I imagine my Internet connection here is worse than yours. But even then, investing so much time & energy into something that could simply disappear through no fault of one's own would probably be unbearable for me.

In any event, I doubt I'll ever get bored w/ softcore. Even if I did, I'd probably just go back to playing StarCraft 2, especially since HOTS is coming out soon. I actually prefer RTS games to RPG anyway... :-D

I have the achievement for 10 lvl 60s... and I must say I'm sad I did it when I did.
Since most of them were done before MP, and all before Hellfire ring.

It seems so rediculously easy now to get 1-60.

Even my HC chars, where I play very carefully, only dare MP10 at certain times, don't have a Hellfire ring and don't even have a gem better than a Perfect Square I can average lvl 1-32 in about 10 hours.
And my last char died at lvl 59 (and about 90% to 60) with less than 20 hours of play.

But it should still be interesting to see just how quick you can do it.

Don't forget to pick up a high dps Spectrum for Level 30+. Even a moderate damage one will keep you slicing through monsters like butter until you hit the clvl 42-43 weapons from 17-18 Reduced Level ilvl 63 items. If you can win one on bid, you might even be able to flip it to make your money back at the end.

I'm considering doing something similar, albeit with a lower budget, for a Monk. I know good Dex gear when I see it from playing my DH and I can either shop or farm for some myself. Keep us posted on the time!

Are you considering dropping MP levels if you ever get to the point when you're not one-shotting everything?

Posted by ecocd at 01/29/2013 06:55 AM

Don't forget to pick up a high dps Spectrum for Level 30+. Even a moderate damage one will keep you slicing through monsters like butter until you hit the clvl 42-43 weapons from 17-18 Reduced Level ilvl 63 items. If you can win one on bid, you might even be able to flip it to make your money back at the end.

I'm considering doing something similar, albeit with a lower budget, for a Monk. I know good Dex gear when I see it from playing my DH and I can either shop or farm for some myself. Keep us posted on the time!

Are you considering dropping MP levels if you ever get to the point when you're not one-shotting everything?

Oh, thanks for the tip. I wasn't aware of the Spectrum! Picked one 469 DPS at 25m.

Regarding MP levels, I don't think I will drop it. It enables me to outlevel the monsters at a faster pace and kill them faster, when I am geared. At Hardcore my WD still pretty much own Hell Act 1 at level 56.

Updates:

1. Hit level 34.5 at 3 hours 32 minutes. Miss @ecocd's message about Spectrum at level 30 >-<, could have save me a few more minutes.
2. One hit ZK in Act II lol. Probably the Hellfire ring's proc killed him most.
3. Completed Act III under 1 hour (see screen shot).
4. Another screen shot of lvl23 Odyn Son in action. IMO this is a very good mace for leveling. The Chain Lightning is auto-seek, auto-kill. Mine has 40% proc chance.

The quickest was 9 hours to 60 for me on my 2nd SC wiz. I used a Born's set with sockets in the chest up to a certain point to get the extra XP per kill. I'll try and beat your time with a new SC barb. Lets go!

So are you guys wearing Cain's Set and Born's set simultaneously? Like Born's Shoulders and Born's Sword with Cain's armor?

I typically wear both when leveling with a hellfire and leorics.

Levels 30-50 are typically the quickest for me because of the xp you get at those levels in act3 nm.

I can get 3-4 levels in one clear of the keeps at 30-40.

Posted by Khan at 01/29/2013 07:47 AM

The quickest was 9 hours to 60 for me on my 2nd SC wiz. I used a Born's set with sockets in the chest up to a certain point to get the extra XP per kill. I'll try and beat your time with a new SC barb. Lets go!

SC Barb with the frog leap and marathon sprint!

Now I am using only Spirit Walk on my WD, not sure of other WD's skills which can help move faster except the one which reduces cooldown. I discovered this 'trick' a bit late in the levels though, should have utilised it earlier.

For the MP levels, I think I am going to stick to MP10 throughout. There could be a point which lower MPs could be more efficient, but I want to beat it on MP10. My HC WD nearly beat it before he die to disconnect at 56, so I want to continue his mission at softcore, althought with a different focus (rushing instead of surviving to 60).

After I finish with my WD, I need to ask you things about wiz, my next toon to be leveled up. You can consider me having zero knowledge of wiz. I would need some leveling build advice later.

Posted by ecocd at 01/29/2013 09:00 AM

So are you guys wearing Cain's Set and Born's set simultaneously? Like Born's Shoulders and Born's Sword with Cain's armor?

Born's shoulder and Born's chest.
Cain's Helm, Gloves, Pants. [now looking back, I should replace pants with sandals, since I need to slot in a Hammer Jammers pants at 41 for the movement speed]

Posted by douvinsky at 01/29/2013 04:52 PM

Posted by ecocd at 01/29/2013 09:00 AM

So are you guys wearing Cain's Set and Born's set simultaneously? Like Born's Shoulders and Born's Sword with Cain's armor?

Born's shoulder and Born's chest.
Cain's Helm, Gloves, Pants. [now looking back, I should replace pants with sandals, since I need to slot in a Hammer Jammers pants at 41 for the movement speed]

For me:
Born's shoulders, chest (with 2 sockets), and weapon.
Cain's helm, glove, and boots.

Posted by douvinsky at 01/29/2013 04:30 PM

Now I am using only Spirit Walk on my WD, not sure of other WD's skills which can help move faster except the one which reduces cooldown. I discovered this 'trick' a bit late in the levels though, should have utilised it earlier.

Use Grave Injustice passive, which reduces cooldown's the more you kill within your pickup radius. Then spirit walk/jaunt & horrify/stalker. You can get 90& MS with those two skills active, and with Grave Injustice you can reduce the cooldowns in no time. Works really well with Thing of the Deep cause it has 20 pickup radius, which you won't have.. so just get pickup radius on your gear.

You run like the wind, i use it on my low MP WD speedfarmer :)

@ninjax

Damn. Thanks! Time to walk like the wind!

@ninjax @ecocd

Great advices guys!!

I gave a try on spirit walk/ jaunt & horrify/ stalker, with the 469 DPS Spectrum.

Completed Act IV in 20 minutes !!! Woot!! I am going to Nightmare Act 1 now, I hope to complete it under 1 hour. Sometimes it depends on luck to find the quest objectives e.g. the development hall, karza den, karza staff......but with better mobility now I hope I can at least cut the walking time.

Completed Normal and landed at level35, 3 hours 52 minutes. Act IV was ridiculously fast in 20 minutes.

What could be done better:
1. Use horrify/ stalker at level21 for movement speed (instead of realising this at level34)
2. Use high DPS Spectrum at level30, (instead of realising this at level34)
3. Better luck in Act 1 and Act 3 on locating the quest objectives

I am going to continue to Nightmare tomorrow. Any new tips :) ?

Yup. Buy a reduced level Thing of the Deep as soon as you can to boost pickup radius.

I got the build from this vid.

I have a sexay spectrum for sale. It's the highest black damage one avail on the RMAH for the low, low price of $68.95 .... but for you, i'll lower that price to ......

$69.95 ..... errr $67.95

@baccarat0809 I'd be interested to know if that sells. I've had luck at $15 with the spectrum, but haven't anything quite that nice.