The first big Diablo 4 DLC is set to launch on October 8, and alongside Vessel of Hatred we're also getting a massive revamp to progression. For the most hardcore Diablo 4 players, that change can't come soon enough, as evidenced by an absurd level 1 to 100 grind from streamer Wudijo using nothing but gear equipped at level 1.
"So I managed to level 1-100 and complete a T100 Nightmare Dungeon on Hardcore using only items I equipped at lvl 1 and never changed," Wudijo says on Twitter. "Difficulty & itemization rework in #VesselOfHatred was overdue I'd say." That gear was, of course, upgraded through imprinting and tempering, but this does all very much prove that early gear is still viable for the endgame.
"I found a set of gear in like 15 minutes on a Rogue, opened some caches in Helltide, put it in the stash, tempered it, and now we have these random level 200 items," Wudijo explains in the video above. "I was like 'okay, let's do Capstone, and then do the other Capstone.' I uploaded that to YouTube, actually. I entered World Tier 4 at like level 20 after 15 minutes, doing Capstone and the other Capstone." The ultimate grind to level 100 took under 10 hours, but that's not including the ultimate Nightmare Dungeon challenge.
Exactly how the new, post-Vessel of Hatred leveling curve will work in practice remains to be seen, but given the squish down to level 60 with the update, it looks like Blizzard intends those changes to be major. As Wudijo puts it in the description of that video: "Yeah, rescaling in Vessel Of Hatred seems like a good idea."
