Should you start leveling on Diablo IV World Tier 1 Adventurer or Tier 2 Veteran? In this guide, we want to talk about choosing the right difficulty when you're starting out in Diablo 4. 

World Tier 1 Adventurer or World Tier 2 Veteran, Which Difficulty To Start On in Diablo 4?

As you may know from playing the open Beta or the server slam, you can actually choose between two different difficulties when you make a first character. Now this is going to change later in the game when there are Nightmare and Torment difficulties unlocking basically at certain levels and recommended for certain levels. But at least for the 1 to 50 leveling experience, you have the choice between Adventurer and Veteran that both go exactly in that same range and that Veteran does not actually increase anything all that much. So the question arises - Do you actually want to play on Veteran at all? If it's about efficiency and not just about having more fun with a more challenging game.

Diablo IV World Tiers & Differences

Diablo IV offers you different difficulty levels to test yourself. Whether you're new to the world of Sanctuary or a seasoned veteran, you'll easily find a challenge that's right for you. Will you be able to face the most powerful forces of Hell? Only time will allow you to answer this question...

Here are the current difficulty levels in Diablo IV. This can be changed on the character selection screen or at the statue north of Kyovashad.

Tier 1 - Adventurer 

Recommended for:

People who are new to Diablo or those who want a more affordable level of play.

Level 1-50

Enemy Details:

Enemies are easy to defeat.

Tier 2 - Veteran 

Recommended for:

People who want a higher challenge.

Levels 1-50

Enemy Details:

Enemies are more challenging

Monsters give 20% more Experience

Monsters drop 15% more Gold

Tier 3 - Nightmare

Unlocked by completing the campaign and the Cathedral of Light boundary stone dungeon located in Kyovashad, World Tier 2: Expertise.

Recommended for:

Levels 50-70

New Drops:

Sacred and unique items may spawn

Nightmare Sigils that can be used to access Nightmare dungeons may appear

Helltides events can appear in Sanctuary

Champion monsters with damage resistance auras can spawn

Enemy details:

Enemies are more formidable

Monsters give 100% more experience

Monsters drop 15% more gold

Monsters ignore 20% of your resistances

Tier 4 - Torment

Unlocked by completing the Temple of the Fallen boundary stone dungeon located northeast of the Arid Steppes in World Level 3: Nightmare.

Recommended for:

Levels 70 and above

New Drops:

Ancestral items and other high-tier unique items may appear

Enemy details:

Monsters are more dangerous

Monsters grant 200% more experience

Monsters drop 15% more gold

Monsters ignore 40% of your resistance

Difficulties of Diablo 4 World Tier 1 & Tier 2

So when we played in server slam and in the open Beta weekends, we were almost exclusively playing on Veteran. But a lot of people didn't and a lot of people also kept discussing this like is it actually reasonable to do that, it doesn't actually make sense, especially classes a bit weaker early on in order, for example, Druid need some time to pick up the pace and the barbs as well, they're not really that fast in the early game leveling most of the time, compared to something like for example Sorcerers or Rogues that just are relatively powerful from the start with high damage output.

Now we don't know the exact details of what changing the difficulty actually does, like we know that monsters become faster, smarter, they aim better, the elite affixes become more powerful, and they may spawn more often or they hit the wider area. So this is what these enemies are more challenging means so it's not just like a number scaling, but these difficulties actually like changing the game, so that's actually a very good design. This is going to increase later on as well when you go to Nightmare and the torment of killing this. 

Diablo 4 World Tier 1 vs Tier 2 Compare - Benefits of Starting on Higher Difficulty

But to stick to the topic of Adventure versus Veteran, the only real benefit they gain here is 20% more experience from monsters.

Gold Is Irrelevant in the Early Game

The Diablo 4 gold we can say is irrelevant at this point because low-level items are just worth a lot less than high-level items. Basically, all the gold that you're going to make in the lifetime of your character is going to be towards the end of it and not at a start, so gold is irrelevant basically at early levels because also respecting doesn't cost anything.

Tier 1 and Tier 2 Seem to Have the Same Drops

We are also not even sure if the drops are increased, it doesn't seem so, it also doesn't say anything, so it might just be the same drops that you get on Veteran and Adventurer as well. At least when we did a quarter ground farm in the server slam, basically everyone was just doing it on world tier one because it was easier monsters were just like you know easier to maneuver around, they just didn't hit you that much and they were able to survive easier and you still seem to get like a good amount of drops there all the time. So we also didn't really notice much of a difference.

Tier 2 with More Challenges Might Slow Your Speed

Bosses seem to have significantly less HP on Adventure difficulty, there's also supported by the fact that the Developers, for example, suggested to people to actually play an Adventurer to defeat Ashava and it also seemed to us that on world tier 1, Ashava was a bit easier than on world tier 2. So there might be a certain HP and or damage scaling involved at least for bosses and maybe Elites that just slows you down even if you have no trouble surviving. 

20% Bonus XP is The Only Sweet Spot for Tier 2 but Not Enough

And in consequence, if you want to play Veteran you need to find a sweet spot where this 20% experience is more gain than the time that you lose by progressing more slowly through killing those bosses more slowly or through you know trying to play more defensively with your setup - you have to maybe include another defensive skill or you might have to include defensive passes to stay alive because you play on veteran and there's generally a higher incoming damage amount.

And the thing is that 20% experience is actually not really that much of a bonus, especially because if you're playing the campaign, you don't actually get more XP from the quests, and Santos pain quests actually give you a significant boost in XP when you complete them, and those do not seem to be Amplified by this because it only talks about the monster experience and also from the testing that we've seen it does not increase. 

So there's 20% bonus XP is actually not exactly 20% bonus XP because of the quest that you complete so it may end up being something like 15 bonus XP or something like that maybe even less, we don't know exactly what is the distribution between monster XP and Quest XP, but it will probably be somewhere around that number. 

Start Diablo 4 on Tier 1 Adventurer Could Be the Better

In that case, we are actually not really gaining all that much, and not everyone is going to play a class or a build that will just be like an easy peasy blast through Veteran from the start.  It seems like Adventurer is actually going to be the choice for very much everyone, you will also do Adventure just to like to fly for your campaign a little bit faster.

Now there is something to consider here which is that you do get a total less XP, so even though you are faster may be going through the campaign doing those campaign quests, you are going to end up with less XP total than if you had done it on Veteran, this might mean that you actually end up under-leveled if you just rush through the campaign, so there might be a bit of like a bigger reason to do side content while doing the campaign, for example getting like a renowned skill point here. This is generally going to be a good strategy to, at least pick up the first skill point in each of the regions as you progress through the campaign and you're probably going to stay kind of on track with the recommended level that it should be for the zones that you're going to because the Zone levels increase over time. But in general, we think that we're going to see most people actually play an Adventurer even though Veteran is not exactly hard, but it's slower basically in most cases. 

Diablo 4 World Tier 2 Veteran Could Be Better For Power Spike Farming

So the only time when Veteran is going to be useful is when you are getting a huge Power Spike:

Farming Strategies for Different Builds

For example on the Rogue, at level 15 you get a class Quest and comma points, and then at level 20 you get Inner side. So you have a really huge power Spike at both these levels depending on your build. This can be similar for other classes when you unlock your class specializations, for example on the socks you have the enchantment slot at level 15 and then another one at 30. These are huge power spikes and those might actually be those moments where it won't really matter if monsters are a bit more challenging, if bosses are a little bit more tanky, and maybe you actually want to switch to Veteran for a while, and then go back to Adventurer.

But maybe start on Adventure, go until you feel Veteran overpowered then switch. Maybe you're also going to get a big legendary drop or you might find like a really huge weapon for your main skill, and suddenly you do like twice the damage or something. So those are definitely those moments, where we will consider going to Veteran and then just blasting through it with higher XP gained. But for the most part, it's probably the safest bet to just start on Adventurer. This will also ensure that when you're playing through the campaign for the first time, you're going to have an easy time defeating all those bosses because you don't know the mechanics, you don't know the fights, so it's generally harder than doing it the second or the third time or something like that because of the unknown factor. So this is another reason to go Adventurer.

Later on, you won't really have that luxury of choice anymore so you have to go Nightmare, you guess the only option that you have here is deciding on when to go there. Once your level at 50, around that time you know maybe plus or minus a few levels, you want to complete that Capstone dungeon to unlock nightmare difficulty and then you see here recommended for 50 to 70. On Veteran & Adventurer, the monsters will probably just like stop scaling at a little 50, you also cannot find those sacred items but you find unique Diablo 4 items. And if those monsters don't scale up anymore after level 50 and it's just capped in that range similar to the 50 to 70 from Nightmare, you are forced to move on to the next difficulty, at the very least around that level. And the same with torment as well, so if you go here it says level 70 plus, it will have this level floor at 70 and then from there the monsters scan up all the way to 100. At least for the early levels, you can definitely optimize around those two difficulties.  

Diablo 4 World Tier 2 Veteran Could Be Better For Alt/Twink Leveling

There's one last thing to consider here and that is that especially when you are not doing the campaign for example in your second character, Veteran difficulty might generally be the better option actually because you don't really have to fight those campaign bosses anymore, that will massively slow you down when they have higher HP and you can just grind and you don't have to do quests anymore. 

So for example what people were doing to try to speedrun 1 to 20 or 1 to 25 in their betas was that they were just grinding the same dungeon over and over and over, which you can still do when you're in a party or you have like a strategy that I also previewed for the server slam with like do dungeons and events, or you just go around the areas to complete dungeon by dungeon for grinding your way through and completing Renown objectives. 

In those cases, the monster HP scaling of bosses doesn't matter at all because you're not really fighting any real bosses most of the time and you also don't need complete quests that do not gain the 20% bonus XP. So then you have pretty much a flat bonus of 20% XP for the most part. So if you're doing any kind of grinding to a level 50 strategy outside of doing the campaign, then this is definitely the way to go. This is also what we have seen from some testing.

For example, gymnasium has done some speed running tests - he's like one of the big Diablo two speed runners in the world right now, and he actually was significantly faster playing on Veteran. In the open Beta up to level 25, he benchmarked his times from 1 to 25, and on world tier one he took roughly two hours and on-road tier 2 it took 1 hour 40 minutes. And of course, there's a bit of RNG with you know what kind of drops you're getting when you get like a big weapon upgrade, but you can definitely see that at this point that we just mentioned, definitely holds up because you get more XP and this XP carries you to the high levels faster. But you can definitely see that this point that we just mentioned holds up where if you mainly grind, and you don't really have to deal with bosses, you don't have to deal with quests, then the veteran is a good choice.

Tier 1 or Tier 2, Which Difficult To Start on in Diablo 4? 

So in the end, our recommendation for everyone is:

• When it comes to speedrunning and learning the game, Adventurer is probably the way to go. 

• When it comes to a bit more challenging and power spike, and if you don't care about your actual efficiency, then Veteran is definitely more fun. 

Then maybe you can try to solve it around sometimes just going to the Statue and killing our shot, you can switch it to Veteran maybe after a huge upgrade as we mentioned like your class specialization like a huge legendary weapon or something like that.