Another new season for Diablo 4 means a fresh set of seasonal characters to gear and level up. With the Lord of Hatred expansion, you have many ways of leveling up quickly so you don’t get too bored grinding one activity. Grim Whispers still remains the best system for leveling, and Pit runs can bump your level up to max in just a few hours. This guide will take you through the best leveling methods for Season 14.

Penitent Difficulty Farming

Before you start leveling your seasonal characters, make sure to turn up the World Tier from Normal to Penitent, as this gets you a bonus 175% XP bonus for all sources, not just monster kills. This will accelerate your leveling process and is still easy enough to clear as long as you use a good starter build.

Grim Favors XP Rewards Method

XP orbs near the endgame fall off in usefulness, but the amount of XP they can provide is scaled high enough that it can instantly bump you up several levels in the early game. 

To get the highest XP rewards, you must first log in to the game with your endgame character at the highest Torment tier possible. Then, complete a Grim Favor and select any Whisper Cache. If a Greater Whisper Cache is available, prioritize it as they drop significantly more XP orbs than its standard version and has a chance for a Mythic Unique to drop.

Once you collect enough Whisper Caches, place them in your shared stash and return to your level 1 character. Since the rewards inside the cache scale to their difficulty, this means you can essentially get XP meant for level 70 characters with Torment scaling. With these caches, you will also get Ancestral gear, Tempering recipes, and Legendary Aspects to unlock for that character.

The Pit Boosting Method

Another reliable way to reach 1 to 70 quickly is to join a party doing high-tier Pit runs or ask a friend to boost you. Since monsters in The Pit have XP rewards that scale to the current tier, you can do these runs immediately and get the levels you need. You must join a party of fully geared endgame players, as they will kill the monsters for you while giving you the full XP reward. When doing The Pit, you cannot be the party leader since Pit tiers will be locked when you start fresh.

The Pit remains the best way to passively get enough XP and reach max level quickly without needing to prepare Whisper Caches, and the loot you get with this method is also shared, so you will get your own rewards, including the new Horadric Charms, Talismans, crafting items, and other rare items. You will also get free glyph upgrades once the party defeats the Pit boss.

Paragon Leveling Methods

If you need to level your Paragon board, the new War Plans system can boost your XP gains even further. While staying on the hardest Torment tier is the best way to level your Paragon board, there are skill nodes for the War Plans that grant bonus XP, like the Wisdom of Whispers passive and +1 Monster Power passives that increase their experience reward on kill.