XP - best approach to leveling in Nightmare before starting Hell

Hi

I'm finishing Nightmare with my current Character, and pretend to leveling a little (up to L72-75) before starting Hell.

With my last Character, I've done exclusively

Terror Zones until reach L72 (as L71 is the TZ

Cap) and then started Hell.

But as some dense/good areas on Nightmare have high level, in special:

Worldstone Keep Level 3 (L66)

Secret Cow Level (L64)

Chaos Sanctuary (L58)

Is seems like, depending on my level and considering only XP gain, it would be better to do some of those areas than to do a "crap TZ" (even when TZ has a higher level)

For Hell, on
forums/xp-terror-zones-x-chaos-sanctuary-t1468011.html
there is a video where the guy calculated that from L94 and beyond, even a "crap TZ" is better than dense L85 normal area for XP.
Considering this "+9 level limit", the "best approach", at first, seems something like:
A - Worldstone Keep until reach L65
B - Worldstone Keep or "good TZ" from L65 until reach 74 (TZ start to have L67+)
C - "any TZ" from L74+

(on "A" in fact can be any good area with level equal or higher than your current TZ)

OBS: anticipating some comments about this, yes I intended to do the 1st quest in Hell for the extra Skill Point before start to leveling in Nightmare

Is there a particular reason for you wanting to hit the mid 70s before moving into hell?

If you're online, just team-play (or get rushed) through hell to hit A4/5 asap and join CS/

Baal runs for XP.
If solo, mid 70s tends to still be overkill for hell for most builds and you could clear through it about just as fast way earlier.

Actively leveling in NM beyond what you get by just playing through has - in my experience - always been a bit of a waste of time as compared to just moving on and then lvling in late hell.

If you really want to lvl in NM though,

Baal runs tend to always be a solid option, especially with pubs. If solo, it boils down to what areas you can actually clear how well/how fast.

I'm not considering team-play (my schedule is pretty crazy )

So leveling a little before staring Hell enable me to start with some better equipment (or at least being closer to be able to use them), in special: Sunder Charms and Infinity to deal with Immunes...

Form what I remembering do not take much time (nor seemed like a boring task) leveling on Nightmare with my last Character before going to Hell.

OBS: I'm not on "turbo mode" to pass Normal/Nightmare (so ended Normal ~L31 and will probably end Nightmare ~L58)

fredkid wrote: 9 months ago

[..]
and Infinity to deal with Immunes...
[..]

Well, if you plan to lvl in NM until you get an Infinity out of it, you'll be long capped on NM XP anyways no matter where you do it.

(Just to be clear I already have the high level equipment on my mules )

70s to start Hell huh? I don't think I ever done that and I usually play alone. xd

People tend to ignore outer town areas but also dens/pits/tombs, a lot for some reason, and they are usually quite decent for exp since they can have several champion groups.

As long as you are having fun there's no need to change anything. But I would say the best 'solution' or at least 'a solution' if you are playing online would be some middle-Ground I do -- between being rushed (aka 'cheat' your way to later areas before your time) and doing everything solo on p1... And that is go into games with more people, usually ones where people are rushing each others or giving free stuff and then just go through the game by yourself. That way you are still doing everything solo like exploring maps, discovering/getting wps, killing mobs, but on higher players count => so more exp for you. When get to the point you have to pass acts, just go out, make your own private game, finish that quest, and then either re-join old party game or find a new one.
Good games where you can do this strategy are:

Runs (Tombs, Cows, 3 Boss)
Walks (Pit, Tombs,

Baal)
Rushes (multi acts)
Free 4 U (free loot sharing)

I personally usually go to Hell somewhat earlier than expected if I'm running a build that can clear okay-ishly fast and by that I mean I don't need to spend multiple minutes to kill 1 random guy (which I also done in past).
The benefit of this is that you will actually level up pretty quickly through Hell just by playing through normally which then makes you hit those most important lvl breakpoints approx. when you need them the most and that's sooo...darn...satisfying! At least for me, not saying that is the "proper way of doing". If you are having fun in some other way, you do you. Hehe

I think my problem was that I was a little traumatized by my old Blizzard Sorceress

She was my first, and only, Ladder char (so no "mule equipment"), and my first "single damage type" build, so I had some trouble with immunes on Hell at first, and ended up, against my will, respecing to Blizzard +

Meteor... (later I respeced back to Blizzard after buying a

Cold Rupture - one of my first trades on the site )

That's why on my next char I ended up leveling on Nightmare before going to Hell...

But, with my current char, I decided to follow yours advise and go directly to Hell
Thanks to my "mule equipment" and the fact that Amazon

Lightning Fury is kinda a hybrid build (I was able to handle the Lightning immunes with my 1 point

Jab), I had no problema until now (currently on

Inner Cloister L65).

OBS: And If imunes would be annoying me, I could change some of my Merc's equip for +STR equip and use my Ethereal

Stygian Pike Infinity since L63, but I'm waiting patiently for him to reach L67 (where he could naturally equip my Infinity)