I have now had my first character at level 40 for a while and have started playing another, new, character.
The problem is that progress feels awfully slow, and my "overall progress" (for the whole account) has come to a halt, since I'm not finding any more pages of training anymore. I spent nearly 25 hours on my first playthrough (I was very thorough), and don't want to do the same again, and I'm certain many others feel the same way.
So;
- Are there ways to level up more quickly?
- Are there certain regions in each Act that the player should go to to farm XP?
- Is it worth skipping content (running past monsters, etc.) to do quests only for their quest XP?
- Are there any other tricks to level up more quickly?
Best Answer
Quest XP isn't all that awesome compared to killing monsters, honestly. You can kill many monsters in the time it takes to complete one quest stage, and the rewards for quests are considerably less than those for monsters.
As far as regions go, I would suggest just clearing everything and moving on ASAP - generally the content is balanced so that you're gaining levels at around the rate you're clearing areas. Generally the next place you should go to advance the plot is the best place for your character to be gaining levels.
If you've already made pretty good progress on at least one character, chances are you're sitting on a pile of gold. You can use this gold and the auction house in a couple of beneficial ways:
Buy rare items!
Not just ones with bonus XP, but look for rares that are around your level for all your slots. Being able to one-shot enemies due to powerful rare equipment makes killing (and therefore leveling) much quicker. If you can find some steals at the Auction House, you can be crazy, stupid overpowered for the area you're in. Class specific rares in particular are generally super cheap!
Buy socketed helmets and a good ruby!
As was noted in this question, there's no level limit for using gems, and it's almost intended that you'll use gems to level up new characters.
A square ruby, for instance, can be socketed into a helmet for a 17% experience boost, and set me back about 10k gold at the auction house. 17% more XP is generally going to do more for you in the long run than ~10-20 XP per kill, especially in Act 2 and beyond. If you can find a rare socketed helmet with +XP per kill, and you add a good quality ruby, you'll be gaining XP like crazy.
The ruby's recyclable, so you can invest in the best quality one you can find and just keep changing the helmet it's in depending on your level or the character you're currently playing.
Each upgrade in gem quality adds 2% to the XP bonus, so keep that in mind when shopping. The price will change over time, so which is the "best" to buy is going to vary depending on market conditions. Look for price breaks - 10k gold for a 6% improvement might make sense, but another 10k to gain 2% probably doesn't. Of course, if you're sitting on a pile of gold and your time's worth more than draining your bank account, your economics might be different.