In Season 19 of Diablo 3, there is a significant difference compared to other seasons. Leveling is fun again, our author Patrick finds.
What’s happening in Diablo 3? On Friday, November 22, Season 19 started in Diablo 3. With this new chapter came a new seasonal theme. These are mottos that support players during exactly one season with specific buffs.
In Season 19, you are rewarded for maintaining killstreaks. And that is really enjoyable for me. Because the tedious leveling from level 1 to level 70 each season is slowly getting on my nerves.
Why is leveling fun? The seasonal buff of S19 is Pandemonium. It’s all about maintaining a streak through kills. The more kills you get, the more stacks you accumulate, and the more powerful the rewards become. If you don’t attack any enemies for a few seconds, all stacks drop, and you have to start gathering again.
Each stack brings additional damage and movement speed. After a certain number of kills, you run quickly across the battlefields and also deal significant damage, even though your gear didn’t need to improve for that. A handy addition that already makes leveling tremendously easier.
For me, the fun particularly stems from certain killstreak milestones that provide additional bonuses. I was quite surprised when a huge Frostnova suddenly froze a large part of the map. I, in my role as a Barbarian, who doesn’t control such a spell, was totally surprised and asked myself: “Where did that come from?!” It took a few moments before I realized that the seasonal theme is active.
For your reference: Here are the bonuses:
30 enemies killed: A large area Frostnova freezes enemies.
50 enemies killed: It rains corpses from the sky.
100 enemies killed: Five massive energy vortices are unleashed.
150 enemies killed: Dark geysers form under the enemies.
200 enemies killed: Treasure chests fall from the sky.
300 enemies killed: A ring of fire consumes everything.
400 enemies killed: Meteors crash from the sky.
500 enemies killed: Angels descend onto the battlefield and join you.
1,000 enemies killed: ??? (it has now been revealed what happens in Diablo 3 when 1000 enemies are killed)
A short time after my first solo steps in the season, a friend joined my game and we ventured through Nephalem portals together. Even in the first of these rifts, you could almost hear the grinning in our voices on Teamspeak. “Hey man, these energy vortices are shredding everything. This is super strong! Let’s find even more enemies. THIS MUST NOT RUN OUT,” I urged excitedly in voice.
This tension to maintain the stacks to benefit from the next bonuses made leveling much more entertaining than what one has known from Diablo 3 before.
So, we had a lot of fun as a duo and swept much more easily through the levels, as we kept receiving help from treasure chests, exploding chickens, or even mighty meteors. Again and again, with the realization “Wow, this is really strong. The bosses are simply blown away!”
Conclusion: For me, the seasonal theme of Season 19 in Diablo 3 hits the mark perfectly. Whether solo or in a group with friends, you now have different objectives in mind that distract from the monotonous XP grinding. Rather, you seek out many groups of enemies to keep the buff active. This makes the leveling process feel shorter while providing more fun.
I’m already looking forward to utilizing the buffs in the Greater Nephalem Portal.
If you’re still unsure about trying Season 19, you should definitely take a look at this bonus and test it. We have a leveling guide for you that brings even more fun into the dreary leveling process.
