Diablo 3's Season 22 theme is Shadow Clones, which you can use to quickly farm your seasonal character from level 1-70. Heres' how:
What is Shadow Clone farming?
Season 22's unique theme means that every time you activate a pylon (power, shield, etc.) you are given a 1 minute shadow clone that can easily kill Torment VI level mobs. So instead of starting your character on normal or hard diffiulty, you can choose to jump right in to T6 at level 1 and let your shadow clones power level you.
The clone only lasts for a minute, so you have a minute of extra-speedy farming.
How fast will I hit level 70?
This is a beginner's guide to the farming method, so we're not covering more advanced techniques to this speed farm. Advanced players who know dozens of tips and tricks can hit level 70 in an hour or less, but for the rest of us, plan to set aside a couple of hours to go from 1-70 with this basic method.
Shadow clone farming is faster than playing normally, but of course much slower than simply being powerleveled/sherpa'd in a matter of minutes by someone who is already fully leveled/geared...but where's the fun in that?
Notes:
- You can do this solo, but it is faster with a group thanks to the group XP bonus (and having 4 clones instead of 1)
- Depending on your speed, skill, and a bit of luck, you can hit level 70 in about 1 hour with this method, although less advanced players (like myself), it might take closer to 2 hours.
Step 1: Create your seasonal character
You can rebirth an existing non-seasonal character for the season, or create a new one. Make sure not to create a hardcore character, as you will by dying using this farming method.
Step 2: Complete the challenge rift
In "Game Settings", choose "Challenge rifts". Season 22's challenge rift is significantly easier than usual thanks to the Barbarian's simple Wrath of the Wastes set. You just need to hold right click to spin and kill everything around you, and optionally use your 4 skills when you encounter elite packs.
Once you complete the challenge rift, you'll be awared with a cache for your seasonal character that contains:
475 Blood Shards
4.6M Gold
35 Death's Breath
100 Veiled Crystals
300 Reusable Parts
300 Arcane Dust
15 Khanduran Rune
15 Caldeum Nightshade
15 Arreat War Tapestry
15 Corrupted Angel Flesh
15 Westmarch Holy Water
Step 3: Farm adventure mode
Start a game on Torment 6 difficulty, and open your challenge rift cache rewards. Don't worry too much about these mats for now unless you're familiar with what to craft for level farming. The gold will be nice to have for quick repairs, and you can instantly upgrade your jeweler and blacksmith to max with it.
Advanced players will use blood shards and the blacksmith to quickly craft very specific items. As a beginner, your main goal is to find as many pylons as possible and utilize your 1 minute of shadow clones to farm the mobs around the pylons.
Where to find pylons quickly
You can search for pylons wherever you'd like in adventure mode, but it's faster to jump directly to these specific locations and search in the immediate area for a pylon. If you don't see one quickly, die and return to town, and/or TP to the next point on the list.
Don't spend too much time in town; just repair your gear, grab a quick skill, salvage your full inventory, and get right back to the search for pylons.
When you find a pylon, your main goal is to stay alive and let your shadow clone murder everything on the screen for the next minute.
Act 1
Leoric's Manor Courtyard
Leoric's Hunting Grounds
Southern Highlands
Cemetery of the Forsaken (Fields or Weeping Hollow)
The Royal Crypts
Act 2
Road to Alcarnus
Howling Plateau
Road to Alcarnus
Act 3
Bridge of Korsikk
Rakkis Crossing
Tower of the Cursed
Tower of the Damned
Act 4
Gardens of Hope 3rd Tier
Realm of Fractured Fate
Lower Realm of Infernal Fate
Gardens of Hope 1st Tier
Once you have hit all of these locations for pylons, leave the game and restart it to reset the pylon spawns. Rinse and repeat until you hit level 70.
- At this difficulty level, you can't do any damage or survive any hits, so treat Torment 6 as a bullet hell and just run
- Don't worry about gear much (unless you're an advanced player). The only gear that is good to upgrade is your weapon, since your clone's damage will scale with it
- For skills, quickly grab anything to help you stay mobile and alive, but don't spend too much time deciding on skills
- Shadow clones do stack if you find an additional pylon while your shadow clones are active
- Mid-way through your farming, it's a good idea to unlock Kanai's Cube so you can quickly cube some legendaries
Additional shadow clone tips
- The player that clicks the pylon needs to stay alive, or the shadow clones disappear
- We found that it's best to stay together in search of mobs when the clones are active, as they tend to bug out and stick to one player
- The clones don't enter new rooms/levels with you, so don't go through any door portals
- The clones can easily kill T6 mobs, but their damage scales with yours, so make sure to keep the best weapon you have on hand equipped
- Even past level 70, the shadow clones will continue to do big damage and help you out a lot!
After you hit 70
The shadow clones will continue to help you after 70, but the speed farming method described above is just to help you hit 70.
Once your character hits level 70, we recommend that you drop the difficulty back down to ~hard and play the season normally. Start working on your seasonal journey (Shift+J in game) to get your first set items, farm bounties, complete normal and greater rifts, and start climbing back up the difficulty levels.