SC naked hellfire lvl 60 rush in around ~4 hours, 99% solo

[Draba]

I got some time to play in the weekend, didn't want to grind paragons so I thought I'll just check how fast I can get the missing dh lvl 60 achievement. Didn't find any recent guides here on how to level most efficiently, so here is what I did for what it's worth.

The basics are:
- Hellfire ring has no level requirement and the proc does around 20K damage, 1 hit ko's almost everything on mp10 until hell.
- You can unlock every difficulty by having someone create a game in act4 and kill diablo for you. If you don't have a friend online for a few 100Ks people will fall head over heels to help you, if you are willing to wait a few minutes there are plenty of nice people around who will do it for free( just use general chat ).

How it goes:
Normal:
- Start a new char, equip hellfire ring on it. Rings with vit, socket, attack speed are preferable(but no way mandatory), if you have one of those you can tank a few hits even on mp10, otherwise you'll have to dodge everything manually.
- Ask someone to get scoundrel/enchantress + kill normal diablo for you, and then drop you off on an act3 quest after ghom(takes around 10 min total). Equip the fastest weapon available on both you and enchantress and start killing mp10 keep2(or the area of your choice) with hellfire blast procs. Get a socketed helm+ruby when you hit 15, all other slots are optional as you could do well totally naked with just the 2 hellfire rings on you and follower. Attack speed is a great bonus to have so it's a good idea to grab some. When you hit 25 go nightmare.

Nightmare:
- Same as normal, have someone kill diablo and drop you off in act3(3 mins tops without follower).
- Grind up to 50 using hellfire blasts. You can do totally fine naked, though depending on class reflect will murder you dead quite a few times. You can get cheap socketed things and put vita in them so you can tank if you want.
- CC skills are your best friends(especially if you do it mostly naked like I did), they trigger hellfire just as the rest and not doing any damage is not a problem since everything comes from blasts.

Hell:
- Have someone drop you off in act3.
- You can go for mp5- with the naked approach, dual hellfire + cc skills.
- If you are willing to spend a bit of money at 50 reduced lvl req items are pretty cheap as you don't have to go for the 15-18 ones. In this case you could get some pieces with mainstat and maybe vita + ms boots for 5-50K each. A decent weapon with 40-90% the maximum possible dps and nothing else will cost around 100K-5M, an 500K one is plenty good. This way you can do mp10, that speeds things up a bit.


I got the dh up to 60 in 5 hours, that includes 30 mins of dicking around in act1 and throwing in a round of clothes to wash. A focused guy could do it in around 3.5 hours depending on class. Don't know how old news this method is, I for one was pretty surprised when it actually worked out as well as I hoped it would. Only had a vita hellfire lying around, two attackspeed ones would've sped up things even more.
It goes without saying that this is a softcore method, having 0 ehp and a binary allkill/worthless attack doesn't mix well with not dying

[Flux]

I haven't used a Hellfire ring, so surprised to hear it works that well on a new char. I thought the damage from the fireball was scaled to your weapon damage in some way, and not just X huge damage? Apparently not, from your report.

[Draba]

It's a fixed ~22K damage(that gets boosted by your crits but not mainstat, as far as I can tell).
I didn't know it either since the fireball damage isn't that noticeable on inferno.

My original plan was to normally level with a dex/vita/avg damage hellfire, only switched to the mp10 rush when I noticed it nukes everything superdead with the proc

[NightCraweler]

good idea...also Cain's set with a ruby in the hat will speed things up further after 23

[PhoeniX Skye]

I'm doing this for a barb right now... some notes:

-You can just go straight to Diablo on normal, don't need someone to get the followers for you. Also, why do you suggest enchantress over templar? The latter uses faster weapons. For the 3% attack speed and cc?
-I noticed that I died a lot when I'm at the earlier levels for the required difficulty (especially from those Fallen Maniacs). It gets annoying! Sometimes I just set it to mp1 and have an easier time until I levelled up a bit. I surprised you can do this naked.
-I did this using 29% ruby and Cain's set. ~6 hours to get the barb to 55 now. Once you can get the Level Reduced items it's much easier than hoping for Hellfire procs.

[PearlJamaholic]

maybe im misunderstanding something here but how does having someone kill diablo and drop you in act 3 count as 99% solo? sounds like the whole plan is based on others helping, their help is key to rushing to lvl 60... so maybe 50% solo??

[Draba]

Also, why do you suggest enchantress over templar? The latter uses faster weapons. For the 3% attack speed and cc?

The enchantress is ranged so she spends more time attacking and much less on her knees Also, she can equip daggers despite what the tooltips tell you. The cc is nice in theory but dh doesn't need it, thrill of the hunt+multishot or ball lightning gives a nice 100% long ranged mass disable with 7 sec cd. Barbs have a tougher time so it may count.

-I did this using 29% ruby and Cain's set. ~6 hours to get the barb to 55 now. Once you can get the Level Reduced items it's much easier than hoping for Hellfire procs.

Yep, I went for the reduced level req, too. It's just possible to do with naked hellfire if you feel like it.

maybe im misunderstanding something here but how does having someone kill diablo and drop you in act 3 count as 99% solo? sounds like the whole plan is based on others helping, their help is key to rushing to lvl 60... so maybe 50% solo??

The main thing about this method is that you do the lvl req grinding to 25/50/60 on mp10 without a high lvl around. For high paragons it's a chore to spend hours rushing a new char, without a very patient irl friend it'll cost you a few mils. A single diablo kill+a3 wp takes 3 minutes, that's around 10 for all 3 low difficulties. It's easy to find people who will do it for free, and in the end it comes to around 10 minutes spent in a party, 200 alone.

[Eric Xanthu]

Leveling from 1 solo takes barely any longer than this guide's method. Use the same ideas, just do it yourself. It's comically fast. I guess this method would be superior if you were rushing HC, but if you're doing that I'm not sure why you are into HC.

[BrianLeichty]

Where in the world of Sanctuary are you getting Hellfire Rings from?

[Draba]

Where in the world of Sanctuary are you getting Hellfire Rings from?

By killing ubers, of course
There is no gold/xp in higher mps so I don't bother with them anymore, had quite a few junk ones laying around for paragoning.