Diablo 3 Witch Doctor Leveling Tips

The Witch Doctor has a pretty easy time leveling up in Diablo 3 if you follow the tips outlined in this D3 Witch Doctor leveling guide. These tips will give you the strategies you need in order to leverage the Witch Doctor’s strengths to level up quickly.

The first tip is to use Soul Harvest. This is a really good skill but a lot of players skip it since it does not actually deal damage directly. What this does is drain a lot of intelligence from up to 5 nearby enemies and gives you a buff for 30 seconds. This is a huge buff so you definitely want to use it. The amount of damage you get from this buff is actually quite absurd; it can literally double your damage so equipping it will definitely speed up your leveling.

The next thing you want to do is use your pets like the Zombie Dog and the Gargantuan in order to tank for you. These are powerful Witch Doctor pets that will free you up to focus on damage. While these pets do not deal that much damage themselves, they will offer you some freedom to stand there and deal damage. If you are always running away from your enemies you will not be doing damage so pets are great because they let you stand there and blast away with your regular attacks.

In addition to using Soul Harvest and pets, be sure to equip the Poison Dart skill with the Splinters rune. This ability does a lot of damage for a skill that costs virtually no mana and it can take out practically any enemy in the game that you want it to. With Soul Harvest running it is just as strong as a full mana cost skill and yet it is free to use so there is no reason not to use this powerful ability.

I really like Grasp of the Dead as well when leveling up as a Witch Doctor in D3. A lot of people laugh at this skill because they think the % weapon damage is low, but really it is the snare that makes this skill good. The snare helps keep enemies in place so your pets can attack them while you hit them from a safe spot. It also does a decent amount of damage and when combined with your pet and your pet’s runes this actually can add up to a lot of damage without you even using a skill on offense.

Take these Diablo 3 Witch Doctor leveling tips to heart – remember this guide’s recommendation to use pets, Soul Harvest, and Poison Dart with Splinters. This makes leveling up in D3 a fast and easy experience.

Diablo 3 Gems List

In Diablo 3, gems are items that can be placed into slots (called sockets) on your equipment for extra stat bonuses. These are a lot like gems from Diablo 2 but in D3 gems have many more grades and are a lot more powerful.

If you did not play Diablo 2 or want to know more about Diablo 3 gems here is how they work:

- Gems are found as drops from enemies and jars just like any other item in D3.

- Gems come in different types (ruby, amethyst, topaz, emerald) and different grades (chipped, flawed, etc).

- Gems of the same type have the same stats but in larger quantities as the grade improves. For example, all Topaz offers +magic find, but chipped Topaz offer less magic find than regular Topaz.

- Gems of the same type and grade can be combined and upgraded through the Jeweler, provided you have the prerequisite training. It requires 3 grades of one gem of the same grade and type to produce 1 gem 1 grade higher than the combined gems.

- For example, for a fee the Jeweler will convert 3 chipped Topaz (grade 1) will be converted into 1 flawed Topaz.

Gem Levels

There are 14 levels of gems, but even in Inferno mode you only find gems that are level 6-8. This means you can only get level 9-14 gems through Jeweler upgrades.

If we actually look at the math, you need 3 level 8s to get 1 level 9, 9 level 8s to get 1 level 10, 27 for 11, 81 for 12, 243 for level 13, and 700+ just to make a level 14 gem. When you consider level 8s are not common drops and the upgrading process costs a lot of gold at the Jeweler and that these gems have to be the same type, you can expect level 14 gems to be very valuable.

The first set of level 14 gems will definitely sell for at least $100 on the real money auction house. Gems will definitely become more valuable for a few months in D3 as more gold and cash enter the system, but will lose value after about a year as gem quantity exceeds demand.

Since upgrading your gems is not free, the first few grades of gems will become worthless pretty quickly. Level 4+ gems however should hold value for awhile though, particularly if you combine them to level 6 or so before you sell.

Here is a list of the 14 grades of gems:

• Rank 1 – Chipped
  
• Rank 2 – Flawed
  
• Rank 3 – Regular
  
• Rank 4 – Flawless
  
• Rank 5 – Perfect
  
• Rank 6 – Radiant
  
• Rank 7 – Square
• Rank 8 – Flawless Square
  
• Rank 9 – Perfect Square
  
• Rank 10 – Radiant Square
  
• Rank 11 - Star
  
• Rank 12 – Flawless Star
  
• Rank 13 – Perfect Star
  
• Rank 14 – Radiant Star
  

Diablo 3 Gem Types

For the final portion of our D3 gems guide, we will go over just exactly what each gems does:

• Amethyst: Helm: +5% Life for Grade 1, increasing 1% per grade until +18% at Rank 14. Weapon: +2 Life per hit, increasing up to +600 Life per hit at rank 14.
• Emerald: Helm: +5% Gold Find for Grade 1, increasing 2% per grade until +31% at Rank 14. Weapon: Increases your critical damage percent chance
• Ruby: Helm: +5% Experience Points earned for Grade 1, increasing 2% per grade until 31% at Rank 14. Weapon: +Weapon Damage, increasing from 2-4 damage at rank 1 to 20-40 damage at Rank 2.
• Topaz: Helm: +5% Magic Find for Grade 1, increasing 2% per grade until +31% at Rank 14. Weapon: Melee attackers take damage when striking you, starting at 2 at rank 1 and increasing up to 1800 at rank 14.

Diablo 3 Wizard Leveling Tips

The Wizard is definitely one of the most popular classes in Diablo 3, which is given when you consider how popular the Sorceress was in Diablo 2. By using the tips found in this guide to leveling with Wizard, you will find that this class is quite easy to level up in Diablo 3.

The first thing you should know about the Wizard is that it is really good at dealing AoE damage but definitely a little lacking against single targets. For this reason, you should consider clearing packs of junk weak enemies for the bulk of your experience points outside of questing.

When killing hordes of weak demons in Diablo 3, you should maximize the bonus experience points on monster kill stat. Since weaker enemies have a big number but low experience points per kill, you can literally double or triple your experience points earned. This of course works best if you can use the highest level gear with +exp on it.

For skills, Arcane Orb is definitely your best bet for AoE damage. I recommend using the rune that increases the range of the explosion since this increases the spells area of effect by 4 (doubling the radius increases area by 4 times). This is a really good skill for fighting large quantities of enemies. Another good Wizard leveling tip is to use Wave of Force. It is good for AoE damage and will protect you at the same time.

You also need to load up on defense if you are going to be really aggressive against packs of enemies. Spells like Teleport and Diamond Skin are essential as they will keep you alive and let you group up monsters so you can blast them with your powerful AoE attacks.

As a final guide, as a Wizard you will need good gear to level with. Some of the best equipment you can get as a Wizard is the gear which maxes out your Intelligence and Vitality. Intelligence will increase your damage dealt while Vitality will give you more health. Extra health is key to surviving as you reach higher difficulty levels so it is not something that you should skimp on as a Wizard.

Additionally, be sure not to forget the tip regarding the usage of bonus experience points per kill with your Wizard. Using this gear will let you gain a lot of extra experience points when facing challenging enemies.

Diablo 3 Barbarian Leveling Tips

The Barbarian is one of the best classes in Diablo 3 if you really know how it works. These Diablo 3 leveling tips will be your guide to leveling up quickly and easily as a Barbarian.

The first thing you need to know about the Barbarian is that you should not get sucked into weak Fury spenders. A lot of the Barbarian’s Fury spenders are hard to use and barely do any more damage than your regular attacks. It can be a lot more efficient to simply use your basic attacks like Cleave, Bash, and Frenzy and pair those with the 25% damage talent for having a full Fury bar.

Once you have a full Fury bar with this talent, your skills like Cleave will be more effective than any of your other AoE attacks, but Cleave will also be free to use and furthermore hit multiple targets. There is no reason you should not go this route.

When you go for a Fury-free build, this leaves up slots on your skill bar that do not actually use Fury, such as Leap (which helps with mobility), your buff skill (which gives you extra damage and crit), and a shout, which gives you more armor and health regeneration. Why would you want to use Fury spenders when they barely deal any more damage than Fury generators and avoiding them will allow you to get a lot of great self buffs and skills.

The trick to the Barbarian is to fit everything on your skill bar and excluding Fury spending abilities is a good way to to this!

Once you have your build down pat another good leveling tip for the Barbarian is to do boss fights. You always get a lot of experience points for taking out bosses so this is a good plan. You can also get a lot of experience points on the Barbarian by killing large quantities of enemies in the open field because the Barbarian does a lot of damage, so this is always an option too.

Finally, you should consider the myriad of ways the Barbarian can go for equipment. More than any of the other classes I think the Barbarian is particularly suited for critical-hit oriented builds, so you should seek out gear with critical hit on it. You should also think about maxing out your strength and getting a lot of Vitality as the Barbarian needs these to survive.

To summarize my Diablo 3 Barbarian leveling tips, consider using a fury-free build as this will allow you to fit shouts, leap, and your two damage/crit self-buffs on your hotbar without really losing any damage. Additionally, this guide does not depend on boss fights or open fighting as the Barbarian is good at them all. Finally, you will want to have your Barbarian get good critical hit, strength, and vitality gear so it can stay alive.

Diablo 3 Monk Leveling Tips

The Monk is a cool Diablo 3 class but it gets even better when you use these tips to improve your skills. In this guide to the Monk, you will find out some great strategies for leveling quick as a Monk.

The first tip you should know about with the Monk is that you need to use primarily your AoE abilities against regular enemies in order to level up quickly. Skills like Crippling Wave and Lashing Tail Kick should be your main offensive abilities. Your single-target skills just do not kill quick enough to be even worth it in most situations.

Once you start using your AoE skills effectively, you need to worry about maximizing your mobility. For this, I think Dashing Strike is really great. When you pair this skill with the rune that reduces its cost to only 10 Spirit you can dash around all over the map for pretty much nothing. This allows you to skip ahead and saves tons of time for the Monk. Being able to move faster in this fashion is one of the best leveling tips you can use; the faster you can move the faster you can fight and complete quests in D3.

After that, you should think about what the best ways to get experience points are. One leveling tip for the Monk that I can give you is to just repeat boss quests over and over. Killing easy bosses gives you a lot of experience points and it is actually usually faster to do this solo than it is to get into a group. Monks are very survivable so killing bosses is very easy for this class.

Speaking of survivability, all Monks should use the Breath of Heaven skill. Having some self-healing is great and no other class gets a heal quite this strong. With this skill the Monk should never die and instead is able to solo basically everything in the game without too much difficulty.

Finally, you need to make sure your gear is up to par when you are playing as a Monk. This means maxing out your Dexterity so you can deal a lot of damage and your Vitality so you can stay healthy even during big battles. Having good gear is one of the easiest ways you can level your Monk faster so do not skimp on this aspect of the class. Do not worry so much about finding gear but rather craft it for yourself at the Blacksmith.

Diablo 3 Shrines List

Shrines can be found throughout the game world and offer a variety of buffs and bonuses for your character. In this D3 Shrines guide, you will find a list of all the shrines you will find in Diablo as well as strategies for using them to their fullest.

By using the Shrines below (click on them to use), you gain a buff which lasts for two minutes:

• Desecrated Enlightened Shrine. Increase the amount of experience points you earn by 25%. This does not seem to effect quests. In order to get the most use out of this, you should try to find monster rich areas to use this in. For example, if you find this near a boss, it is probably a waste to use it here. You could kill the boss, grab the Shrine, teleport back to town, and use a Waypoint that leads to a monster rich area to get the most value for your experience points.

• Desecrated Fortune Shrine. Increases magic find and gold find by 25%. This is just additive on top of your regular gold find. What I mean by this is that if you have 200% gold find and magic find and get this shrine, you will only go up to 225% magic find and gold find. While this is a nice bonus when you get it, it really is not worth going out of your way to use it on bosses once you get magic find and gold find gear since the overall bonus is not very big.

• Desecrated Frenzy Shrine. This increases your attack speed by 25%. This is actually a better “boost” to your ability to find items than the Fortune shrine is you already have a lot of MF/GF from gear. Being able to do extra damage means more kills which means more loot and experience points. This is probably the best shrine you can get for this reason.

• Blessed Desecrated Shrine. This reduces the amount of damage you take by 25%. This is a huge amount of defense and it can definitely help against tough bosses or Champion packs. One way to use this would be in Inferno mode when you get stuck against a Champion Pack that you just cannot beat. Rather than pick up the Shrine when you first see it, you can wait and save it for later. When you run into a difficult pack, you can go back and then use it.

In addition to shrines, you can also find a “Well of Healing” which restores your character’s health to full. If you are already at full health and playing in a difficult game mode you should save these as you can always fall back to them when kiting a tough pack of enemies – being able to get a full heal mid-fight can definitely turn the tide of battle.

Best Diablo 3 Scoundrel Builds and Skills Guide

The Scoundrel is the second Follower you will get in Diablo 3. Unlike the other two Followers, the Scoundrel is the one most capable of dealing damage and its abilities tend to lean towards contributing to DPS or disabling enemies rather than offering buffs.

You will note that the Scoundrel has 3 skills which can be used to disable the opponent. In our D3 Scoundrel guide, you will find out which skills are the best ones to pick and for what classes you might use the Scoundrel.

• Level 5: Crippling Shot. Crippling Shot is actually really good as whenever you are fighting single targets (i.e. bosses you want to kite), this skill will keep them snared by 60% and is active half of the time (3 second duration on a 6 second cooldown). This makes kiting enemies a breeze. The other shot does deal a solid amount of damage but really even with great gear a Follower will only do so much damage.

• Level 10: Dirty Fighting. Who cares if the Scoundrel dies, as he is not a tanking class and will just reappear anyway in about 20 seconds or so. I would rather have the blinding effect. Even though it is not up that often it basically takes out nearby enemies 10% of the fight, which is better than nothing. Blinds are also a lot less annoying than the Enchantress’s charm effects.

• Level 15: Powered Shot. An AoE stun on a 20 second cooldown is not bad at all. While it does not go off that much, it is better than nothing and when you add it onto Crippling Shot and Dirty Fighting it is a decent amount of damage mitigation that the Scoundrel can scrap together.

• Level 20: Anatomy. While the 10% damage buff looks interesting, it only has 50% up-time at most (5% enhanced damage) and in normal situations that will be even less. If you have any bonus critical damage gear on, Anatomy will be much better off for your DPS. I suppose if you have no damage bonus for your critical hits you could roll with Hysteria.

Diablo 3 Scoundrel Gear Guide

The equipment for your Scoundrel is pretty simple: get them a lot of magic find and gold find. While this class gets bonus damage from Dexterity, this class is not going to be doing that much damage anyway. You can get them dex gear as you see it but I would rather have more magic find and gold find.

You seem to get 20% of the magic find and gold find your Follower has, so if you have 100% gold find on your Follower, you wind up getting an extra 20% more gold from enemies. I think this is a much easier way to min/max your Follower than worrying about boosting up their naturally pathetic damage. After all, Scoundrels like gold and magic items!

Best Diablo 3 Enchantress Builds and Skills Guide

The Enchantress is the last Follower you will pick up in Diablo 3 and is the one with the highest level skills. The Enchantress seems to be a solid mix between the other two followers, offering both offensive and defensive buffs as well as having a decent amount of firepower.

You can train your skills with your Enchantress by pressing the “f” key to bring up the Follower menu. You can change these skills at any time by right clicking on the Enchantress’s icon and then selecting the retrain skills option. This will reset her abilities and you can learn new ones so you do not have to worry about getting locked out.

The Enchantress has a variety of buffs, but also can charm and disorient enemies and can even reflect projectiles. However, due to the random nature of these skills and the fact that you cannot control them, I tend to lean towards the reliable buffs and skills as you will see with my choices below:

• Level 15: Forceful Push. This does a solid amount of damage and only has a 10 second cooldown. I find the Charm skill annoying to deal with because the enemy you charm will turn on you after a few seconds. Then again, many melee classes may find the knockback offered by the Enchantress to be a bit obnoxious as then you have to move again to chase down the enemies she knocks back.
• Level 20: Powered Armor. While reflecting projectiles sounds cool, I definitely want to take a 15% upgrade in armor instead. The armor is a reliable buff and affects all incoming damage, so I would rather have that. Powered Armor works even better if you use a shield as your armor total will already be higher.
• Level 25: Erosion. This is about the equivalent of a 3% DPS bonus for both you and your follower, or even more if you time it out so that when Erosion is up you use your most powerful skills.
• Level 30: Focused Mind. When combined with the other buffs you get access to, the Enchantress just might be the best buffing Follower there is.

Enchantress Gear Guide

The Enchantress really does not deal that much damage – just 1 attack that deals 100% weapon damage on a 10 second cooldown. As a result you really do not need to worry about DPS with this character. Instead, I would try to max out her health so she is survivable as well as max out her magic find and gold find.

You seem to gain 20% of your Follower’s Magic Find and Gold Find, so you might as well max this out. Make sure you do get enough health though that she survives. You are not really using this follower for damage and instead just want her for her buffs.

• Level 30:

Best Diablo 3 Templar Builds – Our Strategy Guide

The Templar is one of the new Followers in Diablo 3 and the first one you get access to. You will first encounter this Follower in Act 1 on your way to battle the Skeleton King in the Cathedral. You cannot miss this companion as your Followers are part of the storyline.

After you battle Jondar, the Templar may ask to join your group. If you are playing in Co-Op mode with other players, the Templar will be unable to join, but you can always get him during single player mode by going to New Tristram and talking to him in town and clicking the “Hire” option. Although it says hire, this does not actually cost gold.

Diablo 3 Templar Skills

When you have your Templar active in a single player game, you can press the “f” key to bring up the follower menu. You will notice that the Templar has access to 8 total skills, 2 in 4 separate pairings. You unlock the first set of skills at level 5, the second set at level 10, the third set at level 15, and the 4th set at level 20.

You can train your Templar at any time through this interface, but you can only pick 1 skill from each category. I recommend the following build:

• Level 5: Heal. This is definitely way better than Intervene as your Followers do not have much survivability as it is. If the Templar taunts off you with Intervene he will just end up getting himself KO’d pretty quickly.
• Level 10: Loyalty. This is needed to keep the Templar alive. Before you get this skill, your Templar will die very easily. Between Loyalty and Heal, your Templar will stay alive most of the time. Intimidate is an interesting effect but I prefer to actually keep the Templar alive.
• Level 15: Charge. Really you can pick whatever you want here, but I think Charge is a lot better since it includes a small AoE stun. Even with a good spear, 200% of weapon damage for the Templar is actually not that much. You can get their damage rating up to a decent level if you find a weapon and shield with a lot of +Str, but really 200% of weapon damage is the Templar’s weapon damage, which is not like your weapon damage.
• Level 20: Inspire. This increases your damage by a nice amount. Though, if I was playing in Hardcore mode, I would pick Guardian for the extra survivability. You may choose Guardian instead of Inspire and use your Enchantress (another Follower) when you want to be offensive.

Diablo 3 Templar Gear Guide

Overall, the Templar is a solid hero and his abilities are definitely defensively oriented. As such, you want to focus on maxing out his health and vitality over his damage. Find a shield with a lot of Vitality and try to get jewelry as well that will boost up his health. I am sure there will be a tanking-oriented spear – this will likely be the best bet for your Templar so you can keep him alive. With this Diablo 3 Templar builds guide, you should now have know problems figuring out what works good for your Templar.

Diablo 3 Jeweler Guide

The Jeweler is one of the Artisans in Diablo 3 that you can use to create powerful items for use in your quest. While the Jeweler does not craft equipment like the Blacksmith, the Jeweler is able to upgrade gems, add sockets to equipment, and remove gems from old pieces of equipment.

Given that gems can be time-consuming to collect and offer incredible bonuses for your equipment, gems are quite valuable. As such, if you ignore the Jeweler, you will be cutting yourself out of a lot of potential income. While you can always sell the gems without upgrading them on the auction house, this will fill up your limit of 10 auction slots pretty quickly. By upgrading your gems before selling them, it will take up less slots on the Auction House.

In the next part of this Diablo 3 Jeweler guide, we will be go over exactly what it is that the Jeweler produces and then follow it up with the Jeweler’s progression.

D3 Jeweler Guide – Types of Gems

There are four types of gems available to the Jeweler: Ruby, Topaz, Emerald, and Amethyst. Each gem has its own specific stat bonuses, and each slot has its own effect. For example, a Ruby will have different effects depending  Here are the stats associated with each gem:

• Ruby: Helm: Increases experience points per kill (percentage based); Weapon: Increases Damage.
• Amethyst: Helm: Increases your total life (percentage based); Weapon: Gain Life per Hit
• Emerald: Helm: Extra gold dropped from monsters; Weapon: Gain bonus damage on critical hits.
• Topaz: Helm: Increases magic find; Weapon: Melee attackers take damage on hit.

Diablo 3 Jeweler Guide – Grades of Gems

In addition to the 4 different types of gems, each gem has 14 quality grades. In order, these are Chipped, Flawed, Regular, Flawless, Perfect, Radiant, Square, Flawless Square, Perfect Square, Radiant Square, Star, Flawless Star, Perfect Star, and Radiant Star.

Each grade of gem does not change the type of stats each gem provides but rather increases the benefit. For example, a Chipped (level 1) Ruby adds 2-4 weapon damage, a Square (level 7) Ruby adds 13-26 damage, and a Radiant Star (level 14) Ruby adds 20-40 damage. The other grades of gems fall anywhere in between on the scale.

Gems can be upgraded from one grade to the next through the Jeweler. This is the Jeweler’s primary function in the game. When you collect 3 gems of the same grade and type, the Jeweler can upgrade these a single grade of the next quality gem for a small fee. For example, three Chipped Amethyst will turn into 1 Flawed Amethyst.

You can find various grades of gems throughout the game, and the harder the enemies and more difficult the game mode, the better the quality of gems you will find. However, you will not find higher than grade 8 gems even in Inferno mode. In order to get rank 14 gems, you will have to gather literally thousands of lower ranked gems and combine them at the Jeweler. You can save time by buying higher grade gems off the Auction House.

D3 Jeweler Guide – Removing Gems and Adding Sockets

The other two Jeweler skills of note are removing gems and adding sockets. Since high level gems are valuable, you will not want them to go to waste when you upgrade your gear. Your Jeweler (for a fee) can remove gems from your old gear so that you can keep them.

Additionally, the Jeweler is able to add a socket to your Helmet, Torso, Wrists, Waist, Shields, and Amulet slots. Weapons are also able to have sockets, but these are a weapon attribute and cannot be added through the Jeweler. What I mean by this is that if you craft a weapon with “5 random attributes”, one of those attributes might just be a socket instead of stats.

Training Your Jeweler

Now that you know how the Jeweler works, you should know that you have to train your Jeweler in order for them to craft new grades of gems for you. The Jewelcrafter’s progression is simple:

• Level 1-3 require 5000 gold each to move each level;
• Level 4-5 require 10000 gold and 10x Page of Jewelcrafting to move each level
• Level 6-7 require 10000 gold and 10x Tome of Jewelcrafting to move each level
• Level 8 requires 20000 gold and 10x Tome of Secrets to reach this level
• Level 9 requires 30000 gold and 20x Tome of Secrets to reach this level
• Level 10 requires 40000 gold and 30x Tome of Secrets to reach this level

Pages come from Nightmare mode, Tomes of Jewelcrafting from Hell mode, and Tome of Secrets from Inferno mode. This means you will not have a level 10 Jeweler until your each Inferno mode yourself (or buy them off the AH).

As a side note, your Jeweler will not learn recipes for Grade 13 and 14 gems through training. If you want your Jeweler to craft these gems, you have to find or buy the Designs first. I think it is safe to assume these will only drop in Inferno mode.

Diablo 3 Jeweler Guide

Upgrading your gems, adding sockets, and removing gems from pieces of gear you have outgrown are functions that all belong to the Jeweler. The Jeweler is fairly inexpensive to train, so there is no reason not to get it to the max level.