The Team leveling/Rushing Guide for Diablo 1.10
Keep in mind that the leveling areas are based on the assumption that you are partied with a group of bow-using, 1000+ fire damage enchanted low level characters. Open areas with easy to kill, non-range attacking opponents are preferred.
Also remember that this guide is designed for team cooperative play, and assumes that one person is performing assistance the entire time, and the other (1-7) players are simply leeching.
Rusher / Quester
Blessed Hammer Paladin
(Shako, Enigma Breastplate, 2 sojs, Hoto(40%), Mage/Death's Gloves, War Travelers, Life/mana SCs
Um Hoz, +2 10% amulet, Verdugos
Cow Leveler
Nova Sorceress/Trap Assassin/any other fast elemental/range character
(Use for clearing normal cows to level a character from level 20-25, before starting Baal runs)
(Optionally NM cows and Hell cows can substitute for higher level baal runs)
Self-Leveling Assistance
Enchant/Static field Sorceress (as much +fire skill gear as possible)
Enchant Leveling: Party, enchant all low level members and their act 1 mercs, then unparty
Static Leveling: Unparty but follow the team around, constantly casting static field
Tank leveling: Stand in an area where monsters spawn (Baal's Throne Room) and sit there so
minions don't attack the low levels (unpartied)
Rushing/Leveling Methods
Cow method (requires leeching from a very fast cow-killer)
Leeching must take place within two screens, so a group must follow the cow-killer around
1 Rush to Act 5
1-20 Enchant self-leveling
20 Normal Ancients
21-37 Normal cows
37-45 Normal Baal runs
45 Rush to Act 5 NM
46-55 Nightmare Baal runs
56-72 Nmare cows
72 Rush to Act 5 Hell
73-89 Hell cows
90+ Hell Baal runs
Baal method
1 Rush to Act 5
1-20 Enchant self-leveling
20 Normal Ancients
21-25 Leeching in normal cows
25-48 Leeching in normal Baal Runs
48 Rush to Act 5 NM
49-71 Leeching in NM Baal Runs
71 Rush to Act 5 Hell
72+ Leeching in Hell Baal Runs
Chaos Sanctuary Method
(This method works for a group, but one member of the group must be level 40+
and not yet received credit for killing Baal in normal)
1-1 Rush to Act 4 Hell
1-20 Act 4 Hell Chaos Sanctuary
20 Normal Ancients
21+ (follow the Baal or cow leveling paths)
Enchant Self-Leveling (Enchant sorc on friends list)
Initial Weapon: Any purchased normal bow
(Lev 15): Raven Claw (explosive damage spreads enchant fire damage, speeds leveling up to 5 times)
(Lev 3): Hsaru's Boots + Belt (20% r/w, 25% fire resist, +20 life, 20% cold resist)
(Lev 6): Death Hand/Belt (can't be frozen/8% lifeleech/30% ias, 15% all res, 50% poison res, no str req)
(Lev 12): Angelic Amulet + 2 Rings + Armor (+115 Life, 12 replenish life, + AR. AR not needed for Raven Claw)
Leveling can be done in any of these areas without penalties.
Unique-Leveling
Khalim's Flail (muled)
Hellforge Hammer (muled)
Leveling Areas
With an enchanted character, you want to clear wide areas with large groups of monsters. Remember that although you may kill anything in one hit, you're still as fragile as before, hense the recommendation to stay in areas with few ranged or elemental attackers.
Act 1:
Blood Moor/Den: clvl 1-6
Cold Plains: clvl 1-7
Stony Field: clvl 1-9
Dark Wood: clvl 1-10
Black Marsh: clvl 1-11
Tamoe Highland: clvl 3-13
Normal Cow Level: clvl 20-33
Act 2:
Sewers1-2: clvl 8-18
Sewers3: clvl 9-19
Rocky Waste: clvl 9-19
Dry Hills: clvl 10-20
Far Oasis: clvl 11-21
Canyon/Magi: clvl 11-21
Lost City: clvl 12-22
Act 3:
Lower Kurast: 17-27
Kurast Bazaar: 17-27
Upper Kurast: 18-28
Travincal: 19-29
Act 5:
Bloody Foothills: 19-29
Rushing Quests (optional quests are listed with a *)</U>
(resists and hitpoints represent Hell difficulty)
If your "rushee" must stay in an area, and he/she dies, as long as they stay dead they'll receive credit for the quest.
Act 1:
* Den of Evil (reward: +1 skill point)
Kill all monsters. Someone who needs the quest must kill at least one of the monsters themselves in the den for the quest to work.
As with all quests, if one person who needs the quest receives the quest, all other party members who need the quest will also get credit for it.
* Rescuing Cain (reward: free identification)
Treehead Woodfist: Primary attack: physical, Cold resist:50%
Rakanishu: Primary attack: LE bolts, HP: 608-1608, Fire: 50% Lightning: 75%
This is an important quest to give people if they want to create cow games or want to have Deckard Can easily available to ID items. Give them the Dark Woods waypoint, have them stand there while you kill Treehead Woodfist (often cold immune) Give them the WP to grab the scroll, then the Cold Plaines WP, and then another at the stones.
Act 1 End Boss
Andariel: Primary attack: poison, Fire/Cold/Lightning/Poison Resist:50%
Very simple quest. Send a waypoint at level 4 of the Catacombs in the room where the stairs are, teleport over the wall to Andariel and kill her with any of your spells. Andariel is a great source of unique rings, so remember to weapon switch to magic-find equipment if you have it. Death Hand gloves for cutting poison damage by 3/4ths are nice here, but not necessary.
*Act 2 Radament/Sewer Quest (reward: +1 skill point)
Someone who needs the quest must be in the area when Radament is killed. Typically send a TP
in one of the side "tunnels" or just let them stand in an area a bit back from Radament's undead.
Act 2 Maggot Lair/Staff Quest
Optionally this quest can be bypassed with a 1.09 Duriel mule, but only this quest. It is far simpler now just to do this quest and move on. Clear the area, kill the boss, then send a TP. Your rushee does not need to be in the area for the kill to get credit.
Act 2 Tainted Sun/Amulet Quest
Same as the Staff quest, the area can be cleared completely before sending a TP for the rushee.
Act 2 Summoner
The rushee must first talk to Deckard Cain before being allowed to walk through a portal to this area. The summoner MUST be killed with the rushee present, in order to get credit for this quest. You must talk to someone about the summoner before you can enter any town portal in the area of Tal Rasha's Tomb.
Act 2 End Boss
Duriel: Primary attack: knockback physical, Cold Immune, Fire/Lightning/Poison Res: 50%
Give your cube to one of your rushees for this quest. You'll get it back later.
You do NOT need to send a TP for your "rushee" until after Duriel is dead, since talking to Teriel afterwords resets the quest (very valuable for hardcore rushing). To fight Duriel, simply teleport against a wall. He stops using his Charge and Smite attacks and focuses on Jab (an attack that does only 1/4th to 1/2th as much damage)
Afterwards, send a town portal for your rushee - he will have to talk to Tyreal, Jerhyn, and Meshif in order to get to Act 3.
*Act 3 Lam Esen Quest (reward: +5 stat points)
Sarina the Battlemaid (Extra Fast) Primary attack: physical, Cold Immune, Fire/Lighting/Poison Res: 20%)
Jump to the Kurast Bazaar to complete this quest, then teleport into the Ruined Temple. You'll meet either Sarina with her group alone, or occasionally with a fire-immune Spider boss. Either way this is a great quest to collect mana + rejuv potions, and it gives you something to do while waiting for the rushee to do all the running around in Act 2. Town portal out once the area is clear, jump down to Durance Act 3 and wait for them to complete this quest before sending another portal.
Act 3 Travincal
Kill the high counsel with your rushee present. Either put him behind the wall, where hydras can sometimes spawn (but relatively safe otherwise) or in a different area. Horodric Cubes are generated by killing the counsel, so make sure everyone grabs one (including you)
Act 3 End Boss
Mephisto: Primary attack: thrown cold/physical skull orb or lightning, Cold: 25%, Fire/Lightning/Poison: 50%)
After talking to Deckard Cain and killing the counsil, your rushee can enter this area. Kill Mephisto while your rusher waits on the platform to go to Act 4.
*Act 4 The Fallen Angel (reward: +2 skill points)
Izual is difficult to find, but fairly easy to kill as long as you have the patience. Teleport first to the City of the Damned and work your way around the edge to get to the Plains of Despair. Beware in Hell difficulty due to the likelyhood of Glooms in this area.
*Act 4 Hell's Forge (reward: rune and gems)
Normal: El(1) - Amn(11)
NMare: Sol(12) - Um(22)
Hell: Hel(15) - Gul(25)
Do NOT do this quest if more then one "rushee" is present, as only one set of gems & runes will drop. Typically the "payoff" for many public rushing games, as in Hell difficulty several valuable runes have the possibility of dropping.
Act 4 End Boss
Diablo: Primary Attack: Fire (Lightning is affected by the IAS bug/very low damage) Fire/Light/Cold/Pois: 50%)
Grand Vizier of Chaos: Mana drain/Physical (Lightning, often Lightning/Fire immune)
Lord DeSeis: Elemental ranged attacks (Cold, sometimes both Cold/Fire or Cold/Lightning immune)
Infector of Souls: Physical + "Inferno-like" fire attack (Fire immune)
Diablo himself is a relative pushover compared to the three "seal minions", who were greatly beefed up in the expansion. There are many, many ways to do Act 4 hell, but this is my primary method now:
First, place on any piece of poison absorb you have, either death hand gloves, or an amulet with 75% poison length reduce, use a wizardspike and try to get your resistances boosted at least 50% over those you need to keep 75% resistances in hell. This in combination with some optional absorb or +max resist gear prevents oblivion knights from tearing you up with elemental attacks.
Teleport into the Chaos Sanctuary completely ignoring all the monsters in the center, and go for the left most seal, first kill any oblivion knights in the immediate area, then flipping both switches, releasing the stormcaster boss (the Grand Vizier)
Then teleport up to the top seal, again ignoring the monsters in the center, and clear out the immediate seal area completely of all monsters then flip the switch. Aura-Enhanced DeSeis will appear, so take his group of minions out cautiously.
Finally, teleport up to the last two seals, flipping them to release the Venom Lord boss, the Infector of Souls. His group is killed very quickly when compared to the previous two bosses, but occasionally his fire damage is extremely powerful. When he is killed, or when the last seal is flipped, all the other monsters in the Chaos Sanctuary will die instantly. When this happens, teleport to the center of the map to where Diablo will appear and send a town portal for your rushee.
To get credit for Diablo, at least one of the rushees has to be within a certain radius of Diablo when he dies. If he stays within the central star area where he spans, then a popular tactic is to hide around the "corner spikes" of the walls closest to the star. This allows a level 1 character to stay alive from the deadly "fire nova" Diablo releases from time to time. A simpler method is for the rushee to allow his character to die on the star itself, waiting for Diablo to die before resurrecting.
On Diablo, stand right against him ignoring his infrequent physical attacks. Max fire resistance is a must here, but most of his other attacks will do very little damage.
*Act 5 Siege (reward: Socket Quest)
Very simple, first go to the Frigid Highlands portal but come back to get a bit closer to the Bloody Foothills before sending a town portal. (typically using one of the small "canyons" indented into the wall) and send a TP for your leecher to wait. Target and kill Shenk and all the monsters surounding him will die.
*Act 5 Anya (reward: Malal's 10% resist scroll)
Frozenstein Primary attack: physical, Cold Immune
For this quest and for Baal himself, the only serious threat is the mana curse, which causes your life to be used in place of you mana pool when casting spells. There are two counters for this, the first being to get your level of life higher then your level of mana. For casters, stop using wizardspike, swap frostburn for magefist, and two sojs for two Bul Kathos' wedding bands, and replace any mana charms with 20-life small charms until you life is just slightly higher then your mana. Clear out Frozenstein and the rest of the area and send a TP.
Act 5 Ancients
This quest must be completed by a level 20/40/60+ character respectfully before you can get into the worldstone keep. However if you plan to do cow runs to level, and if you party with a level 20+ character who is in the worldstone keep and who needs the End Boss quest, then you can skip this one completely. Of course if you plan to level up in normal/nightmare/hell baal runs, it's necessary to wait till you are the proper level before doing these last two quests.
If someone dies, stay dead - if the rest of the group is capable of killing the ancients, you will be automatically resurrected after the ancients are taken care of.
Act 5 End Boss
Room: Death Lords (fire immune) Stygian Fury (physical immune)
Wave 1: Colenzo the Annihilator (fire immune)
Wave 2: Achmel the Cursed (immune to poison)
Wave 3: Bartuc the Bloody
Wave 4: Ventar the Unholy (immune to poison)
Wave 5: Lister the Tormentor (immune to fire)
Baal: Primary attack: varying types of elemental waves
As his minions are highly elementally resistant, sorceresses have a bit more trouble then other characters clearing them. During the entire time in the "Throne" room, drop meteors or blizzards on the area where minions appear, creating a central burning area of incredible damage. This greatly speeds up the entire process with the exception of the first wave, and the last wave. Make sure you stay close to Baal's throne, as he will "cure" you of any curse aura nearly instantly, replacing it with the laughable "slow" curse.
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