Mechanics

Diablo 4 does not explain its systems so much as release them. A vendor appears on the map at a certain level, a quest turns up in the journal at another, a whole tier of loot stays invisible until a capstone dungeon is beaten. Our 77 mechanics pages describe those systems one at a time; this guide puts them in the order the game lets you touch them, from the handful you have in the prologue to the ones that only exist on World Tier 4.

The ladder has fewer rungs than it looks. Our pages name level 5, 7, 8, 10, 15, 16, 20, 25 and 50, Act 4, the end of the campaign, and the two World Tiers behind the capstones. Everything else, and it is most of the list, is switched on from the first minute and simply never announced.

Levels 5 to 8: the first things the game takes back

The earliest gates are small. A Barbarian's Arsenal selection tab appears at level 5, letting one or two-handed weapons be tied to individual skills, with expertise following at 15 and the Technique Slot at 16. The skill bar fills its six slots by level 7. And level 8 is the first thing the game stops giving away: our respec page says refunds are free until then and priced in gold afterwards, climbing to 96,195 gold for a full refund at level 49. The 58 skill points that page and the XP farming guide both quote come from 48 levels and ten Renown rewards.

Level 10: the Blacksmith and the Alchemist

Level 10 is when gear starts to be something you maintain. Our durability page sends you to a Fractured Peaks quest that unlocks the first Blacksmith, after which repairs, salvaging and upgrades are available in every town, and the crafting overview makes the point that no recipe in this game runs from your own inventory: every one of them belongs to a vendor. The same level opens the Alchemist and the potion upgrade ladder, whose ingredients come from the five material categories: herbs, monster parts, ores, skins and salvaged parts. A further potion charge is bought with Renown, at the 300-point tier of a region.

Salvage also feeds transmog: every look you break down lands in the wardrobe, and our transmog presets page builds Conan, He-Man and Kratos out of salvaged gear. The wardrobe is also where you hide a helmet.

Levels 15 to 25: class quests, the Jeweler and the Occultist

The class priority quests land at 15 for three classes and 25 for the Necromancer, whose Book of the Dead unlocks at level 1 but adds Skeletal Mages at 15 and the Golem at 25. Level 20 brings the two vendors that turn gear into a build: the Jeweler, after a Priority Quest, for socketing, unsocketing and combining gems, and the Occultist, who arrives at 20 or the moment you clear your first dungeon, for imprinting the aspects the items guide covers. One rule of imprinting has a page of its own: aspects do not stack, and a second copy is greyed out.

Act 4 and the end of the story

The mount is gated by story rather than level: Donan's Favor in Act 4 hands it over. Finishing the campaign opens more than anything else on this ladder. Our what to do after the campaign page lists the capstones, the Tree of Whispers with its Grim Favors, ten of which buy a cache, Nightmare dungeons, world bosses, Helltides, the Gathering Legions and full map completion. It also unlocks the two things our alts page and Season 1 page care about: any later character can skip the campaign, and the seasonal realm will not open at all until the story is finished once on the account. The power levelling guide is built on that skip.

Level 50: Paragon and the first capstone

At 50 the skill tree stops and the Paragon Board starts: six node types, Gates that connect boards and Glyph sockets, with our class boards page putting the total at 220 points, 200 from levels 50 to 100 and 20 from Renown. The same level unlocks the Cathedral of Light, the first of two capstone dungeons, and our World Tier page explains what it guards: Adventurer and Veteran are open from the start, Nightmare needs the campaign, level 50 and the capstone, and Torment needs the Fallen Temple at 70. Level scaling keeps most of the map at your level throughout, with a few late regions and dungeons that never scale down.

World Tier 3 and 4: the endgame proper

Nearly everything our pages call endgame is locked to the third tier. Nightmare Dungeons need a Nightmare Sigil from the Tree of Whispers or crafted from Sigil Powder, carry affixes that an Occultist can swap, hide Mutterlock Chests whose Latin clues come from Whispering Stones, and are the fastest route to glyph XP, which our farming guide says to run three levels above your own. Helltides appear on the map only from Tier 3, and their Tortured Gifts are one of the three ways our unique farming page lists for finding uniques, which do not drop before that tier either.

Gear changes with the tier too. Sacred items begin at Tier 3 and Ancestral at Tier 4, and the item power and breakpoint pages explain the six power tiers and why an upgrade that crosses one rerolls the stats. Our legendary farming page mixes both worlds, a Kyovashad cellar loop you can run early and Helltide zones you cannot.

Always on: the systems with no gate

More than half of our mechanics pages describe things that are true from the moment you leave Nevesk. The combat rules first: Vulnerable adds 20 percent to damage taken, Injured begins below 35 percent health, Fortify is a second health layer that trims damage by 10 percent, Overpower fires on a 3 percent chance scaled by life and Fortify, Berserking gives a Barbarian 25 percent damage and 30 percent speed, and the game counts eleven crowd control effects that Unstoppable clears. Barrier, Thorns, Lucky Hit, Crackling Energy, the five non-physical damage types, the full status effect list, elite affixes and the stat screen each have a page.

The gear rules are the next group: five rarities, the affixes that roll on them, the ten slots plus the extra weapons Barbarians and Rogues carry, and the four currencies. The world rules follow: orange-circle events, Treasure Goblins, the rare monsters with fixed high-power drops, cellars worth farming, the dungeon reset trick, the Fields of Hatred and their Red Dust, and the death penalty, ten durability points in Normal and the character itself in Hardcore.

And the interface: Evade and its charges, the 14 default emotes that also solve statue riddles, four ways to leave a dungeon, how auto-save works and what leaving a dungeon early costs, skipping cutscenes, highlighting objects, screenshots without a photo mode, the Journal's answer to completed quests, titles earned by challenge, crossplay and cross-progression, staying alive, and the one question that comes before all of it, which class to start.

What carries over, and what does not

The ladder is climbed once per character, but not everything on it resets. Our alts page lists Renown, Codex aspects, materials, currencies, mounts, the stash and transmogs as shared across the account, and Paragon points, map progress, strongholds and the campaign itself as things each character does again. That split is the organising idea of the Diablo 4 hub, and it is why the Renown from the altars and strongholds is worth collecting before a second character exists.

Frequently asked questions

When does Paragon unlock in Diablo 4?

At level 50, per our Paragon Board pages. From there to 100 you earn 200 Paragon points, and Renown adds 20 more for 220 in total.

How do I unlock World Tier 3?

Finish the campaign, reach level 50 and clear the Cathedral of Light capstone in Kyovashad. World Tier 4 needs the Fallen Temple in the Dry Steppes at level 70. Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, Sacred gear and uniques all wait behind the first of those.

Is respeccing free?

Only until level 8. After that each refund costs gold, and our respec page puts a full refund at level 49 at 96,195 gold.