June 6, 2016 - diablo 3, season 6

Tips for Starting Season 6

Diablo 3 launched a new season on April 29th, so it's time to boot it back up for a while. Unlike previous seasons, not too much has changed this time around. Blizzard took the time to address balance issues, improved the game's quality of life, and added quite a bit of new transmogs.

One of the most important quality of life changes (or bug fix depending on how you look at it) is how bounty completion works. You no longer have to worry about completing Act III and Act IV bounties out of order and missing the bonus cache.

As an additional reward for this season, completing the Conquerer season journey gets you another stash tab.

Focus on one class and one (or two) builds.

Seasons are short enough that you'll want to play one character, especially early on in the season. This allows you to level up 3 legendary gems quickly and make your character strong enough to effectively farm higher level greater rifts and Torment X (T10).

While Haedrig's Gift gets you a free set extremely early in the season (more on that next), it shouldn't determine what class you play. That being said, it will make the early paragon levels easier.

Demon Hunters and monks are going to have the easiest time getting going with Haedrig's Gift this season, their sets are slightly stronger for farming higher torment levels early on (not necessarily speed farming, but they are strong and safe). The sets given to barbarians and wizards are better for pushing greater rifts. Crusaders and witch doctors have the weakest sets this season.

Wizards appear to the be the strongest class again this season. Barbarians are in a good place for both solo and group play this season. Monks and witch doctors are solid for supporting groups, but appear to be a little weak on the solo side of things. Demon Hunters are going to struggle in groups, will do alright for solo play.

Get your set pieces as quickly as possible.

Like the previous season, you'll have access to a full set of gear relatively quickly after hitting level 70. You'll need to complete the following three quests to get your Haedrig's Gift pieces:

All three of these are pretty easy, most two-piece bonuses will get you into Torment 2 (T2) and a four piece bonus should make level 20 greater rifts (GR20) a breeze.

Farm Greater Rifts until Paragon 250.

First off, Paragon 250 allows you to join public games at Torment 10 (T10) difficulty. Second, greater rifts are the best way to get experience.

Once you hit paragon 250, your strategy should be the following:

  1. Farm the highest level greater rift your character can do without failing the boss (ideally in slightly less than 10 minutes); you can do this solo, with a few friends, or in a group (I personally don't like doing greater rifts in public games, but other people might have different opinions).
  2. Farm bounties in public games for crafting materials (on T10); try to farm the keywarden in each act while doing bounties if keywardens aren't completely out of the way (or wait until after all the bounties are done).
  3. Farm T10 rifts in public games for greater rift keys.

Note: Whenever you open a private game, do a quick key run before starting solo greater rifts.

Run bounties. Run lots and lots of bounties.

The majority of end game contnet revolves around the stuff that comes from bounties. In addition to the act bounty crafting materials, it's the best source for Reusable Parts and Arcane Dust. Killing elite packs in the process will get you a reasonable amount of Death's Breath too.

Outside of that, bounties help take the repetitive nature of running rifts out the game. It's a great way to change up what you do while playing the game.

Keep an eye out for key items for your Horadric Cube.

Certain gear is great to have on your build somewhere while farming T10 rifts or farming mid-to-high level greater rifts. The following items are always good to have:

Note: Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan are the best legendary pants in the game, but not necessarily good for the cube for that reason (there's no competition in that slot).

I left out class-specific or build-specific gear because you'll know what you're looking for when you look up builds. The list above is meant to be general purpose.