This is a Battle.Net and Lord of Destruction guide. That said, much of the advice given in this guide may not be helpful or advisable for Single Player or Non-Expansion. I chose to write this guide, because leveling up fast is the first thing on just about every new players mind.



  The first question one might need an answer to is "What is a rush in Diablo II?".

  The primary goal of getting a rush is to level up as fast as possible, however, the method of doing so is to advance through the quests, acts, and difficulties faster with the help of other players.

  That is because some of the later quests and difficulties offer far more experience gain. This is actually not the case in most instances, but rather particular areas. Most of the game is designed to punish your experience gain from getting too far ahead, but for whatever reason, some exceptions were made. So the goal of the rush is to get you to those particular exceptional areas.

Players rush by doing quests for you, while in your party, to advance you through the acts. These players are referred to as rushers.

  Not all quests will advance you through the acts, however. It's the job of a rusher to only do the quests for you that will advance you to the next acts. So most rushers will not do optional quests for you, even the ones that give bonus skill points and the like.



The second question some may have is "Why get a rush? Why not just play the game?"

  If you're reading this guide, I assume that you have all of the "dilly dally & willy nilly" playing out of your system and want to be serious. If you still want to relax and take your time playing, may I suggest saving this guide for a later date?

If, on the other hand, you're ready to compete with other players and want to do whatever it takes to be better and more efficient, then understand that rushes are a necessity.



 There are three methods of efficient leveling
(Technically a 4th called "Crush", but I have reasons for not including it)

-Grush
-Chant
-Manual

A Grush is the best and fastest, but is also harder to get for newer players.

Chant leveling gets you to level 40 twice as fast as manual leveling and how easy it is to get depends on the number of players on your server willing to provide it. Some servers (Server, as in USEast, Asia, USWest, Europe, etc) are better about having them than others.

Manual leveling is the slowest form of leveling (Outside of inefficient playing), but it's not something you need the help of another player to do.

So whichever leveling method you do will mostly depend on whether you can find players who can and will provide these services.



So what exactly is a Grush?

A Grush, as far as results go, is a rush from Act 5 Normal difficulty all the way to Act 5 Hell difficulty. Sometimes a Grush will include a rush from Act 1 to Act 5 in Normal difficulty, but it all depends on the rusher.

Grush stands for "Glitch Rush" and some might also refer to it as a "Bug Rush". It's called this, because (In the expansion) it requires an exploit to get you past the last two quests of the last act (Act 5).

This is because, normally, in Normal difficulty for example, the game requires you to be level 20 or higher to do the "Ancients" quest, which blocks you from fighting Baal to finish the act if you aren't.

  A Grush has a method of bypassing this requirement so that any character under level 20 can finish the act. Yes, even a level 1.

This is done by having a member of the party that IS already the required level and has the quest open. That player/character is referred to as a "Bumper".

For example, you have a level 12 Paladin in Act 5 Normal Difficulty. You encounter a player, Bob, with a level 83 Paladin who offers to Grush you. He tells you to make a game in Normal Difficulty. Bob contacts another player, Josh, to be bumper. Josh joins the game with a level 40 Sorceress and joins the party with you and Bob. While you sit in Harrogath on your level 12, Bob kills Baal for the quest and since the level 40 Sorceress got the quest, you do too, which "bumps" you to Nightmare Difficulty.

This means that a Grush will always consist of at least three characters. The "Rusher", the "Bumper", and the character/s being Grushed.

Because of this, Grush providers usually try to rush as many people in one rush as possible to get the most out of it, ESPECIALLY if they're getting paid for each spot by the other players.

The Ancients quest in Nightmare difficulty requires level 40, and so Bumpers are leveled to 40 so as to get you into Hell difficulty in one rush.



There are three reliable ways to get a Grush.

-Have a friend that can do it
-Pay someone (Runes or Forum Gold) to to do it
-Make your character a (Level 40 and not in Nightmare yet) Bumper and offer it to a Grusher for a free Grush

If you have a friend that can Grush you, that's great, but if you're new to the game, chances will be that you don't.

Your second option then is to "buy" one, assuming you have a high rune or any Forum Gold to offer. Chances are that if you're new to the game, you probably wont have a high rune to offer.



-About D2jsp
So I've mentioned Forum Gold at this point, but I haven't explained it.

D2jsp is a trading website for Diablo II where you trade items and services using a currency called Forum Gold.
If you want to know more about it, click the button on the home page for an in depth explanation.

That said, if you don't have a friend to Grush you and no one immediately offers you one in-game (Sometimes people do), you can request a Grush on D2jsp (You'll have to get some Forum Gold first, of course). It usually costs 10-20 Forum Gold. To put that in perspective, 300 Forum Gold is $10.

Rushers aren't always available, however. So sometimes, when it takes a long time to get a response, you have to decide whether you want to wait it out or just start manually leveling.

Keep in mind that if you're in a fresh ladder season, rushers may be in short supply. In the first week of a new ladder, there will be virtually no rushers at all, because everyone is starting from scratch. So knowing how to manually level is still desirable.



How manual leveling goes depends on if you can find a "Chant" game. Chant leveling will make you level twice as fast and the areas you farm when you do are different than the ones you would otherwise.

Well, the first question is "What IS a Chant Level?".

It's called Chant as it's short for "Enchant". Enchant is a Sorceress skill that allows her to buff another players character with lots of fire damage. A decked-out level 85+ Chanter Sorceress can buff other players for over 7,000 damage! Yes, even a level 1 new character.

However, 800-2000 damage is what you'll encounter most of the time, because more than 800 is kind of redundant in Normal difficulty.



Once your new level 1 character gets buffed, equip a bow and arrows (At Charsie. Dying a lot wastes valuable time. Using a bow is most efficient) and farm the following areas corresponding to your level (This can sometimes be difficult to follow if your character doesn't have the waypoints needed, so just try your best to make a bee-line for these areas)

Levels 1-4: Stony Field

Levels 5-15: Tristram when available

Levels 5-8: Dark Wood

Levels 9-15: Catacombs

Levels 15-21: Tal-Rashas Tomb

Levels 21-25: Secret Cow Level (But ONLY if you or someone else uses a Ravenclaw bow. Otherwise, try to find Baal runs)

Levels 21-40: Normal Baal Runs

How fast this gets you to 21 depends on how much of Tristram you get to farm, how many other people are in the game, and how many people are leveling beside you.

While more people in a game increases your experience gain, people leveling beside you actually hurt your overall experience gain (By leeching it) unless they're killing enemies VERY fast. So, as selfish as it sounds, try to chant level solo to level up faster.

If someone has Ravenclaw bow, follow them however. Ravenclaw is a level 15 Long Bow that fires explosive arrows. The explosive AoE arrows will take on the Enchant damage and kill everything around you in the blink of an eye. Tal-Rashas Tombs will level you from 15 to 21 in under 5 minutes this way. Getting your hands on this bow is very ideal.

Under ideal circumstances, a Chant Level can get you from 1 to 21 in about 15 minutes. However, I'd say on average, it ends up taking 35 minutes.



Then you have your last-resort option. Manual leveling without Enchant.

Well, first I should explain what a "Run" is in Diablo II. This is when you create a series of sequential games with the sole purpose of farming the same area or boss over and over. For instance, "Chaos Runs" are when you clear out the Chaos Sanctuary and kill Diablo, then start a new game and do it again and again.



For levels 1-15, you want to start or follow "Trist Runs". Trist runs are when you clear out Tristram. If you can't find a Trist run to follow, you can start one if you have already saved Deckard Cain. When you have, there will always be an open portal to Tristram in the Stony Field.

The process would go

-Create a game with a name like "Trist-Runs 1"

-Run to the Tristram portal in the Stony Field and go in it

-Wait for players to join so that you can get more experience

-Open up a Town Portal once inside, so everyone can join in and help

-Wait for the other players to jump in

-Clear out Tristram together for lots of experience.

-Leave the game

-Create a new game called "Trist-Runs 2" and often the people who joined the last game will join it too. They fully expect a "Trist-Runs 3",
"Trist-Runs 4" and so on and will keep joining.

It's always good manners to give a heads up when you're about to stop doing the runs. Otherwise, they will sit in the lobby waiting for the next run and be annoyed when it never comes up.



From 15-21, you should do "Tomb Runs". This is when you simply clear out enemies in the seven Tal-Rashas Tombs. Typically, (Because there are seven tombs and one of them is huge) you shouldn't need more than two runs at most. Sometimes one run is enough.

From 21 to 40 you just finish off with Normal Baal Runs.

Once you are at level 40 and as long as you don't get the Baal quest, your character is officially a Bumper. As mentioned earlier, Grushers need Bumpers to Grush, so your character is now a bargaining chip to get it a free Grush. In fact, many rushers on D2jsp will PAY you 10-20 Forum Gold to be their Bumper.

I do NOT recommend continuing to Nightmare to level. You can easily get stuck there as it's a ghost town of a difficulty that everyone skips over. Just be patient and wait for a Grush. I assure you, it will take FAR longer to crawl through Nightmare difficulty than to find a Grush.



Now it's finally time to talk about what you do once a Grush has gotten you to Act 5 in Hell difficulty. This is where the leveling really begins.

Unfortunately, you can't just jump right into Hell Baal Runs unless you're already level 60.

That said, regardless of whether you're level 1 or 59, you will follow Hell Chaos Runs from this point.



Experience rates will fluctuate at certain points, as the experience caps for each level in this area are not completely linear. Look at it as the game putting a bottle-neck on your experience gain at certain level ranges.

So at certain points you'll gain a level every 5 seconds and at other points, every 60 seconds.

You'll see your experience slow down dramatically during the 20-25 level range and pick up again to go from 26-40 very quickly.

After level 45, it should start to slow down little by little until it takes more than one run to level after 55.

Overall, 1-60 in Hell Chaos Runs shouldn't take much more than 45 minutes. Making it, by a large margin, the fastest way to get there.



After level 60, you still can't Baal Run QUITE yet. There is still that pesky Ancients quest to get through. Unless you already have decent gear stashed for level 60, you'll probably need help getting it done. People in the lobby chat or in a game are usually quick to help. Everyone playing in Hell difficulty knows what it's like to be stuck there, so it's only natural that many are willing to help. If you can't get help in a reasonable time and you're stuck there, you could resort to requesting help on D2jsp, but don't be too shocked if someone wants payment.

Once that is done, it's Baal, Baal, Baal until at least level 75. After that, some players start following Chaos Baals AKA CBaals (Where they do both Chaos and Baal every run) as the difference in experience between the two runs starts to become negligible.

60 to 80 this way probably takes about an hour or so.

That said, if you get Grushed at level 1, including the 45 minutes the Grush takes, it can take as little as two & a half hours to get a character from 1-80.



After level 80, just keep Baaling or Chaos Baaling, of course. 80-85 takes another 3 hours and 85-90 takes about 12 more hours after that. Every subsequent level after 90 takes dramatically more time to reach. 98 to 99 is said to be a 300 hour grind when playing solo. Some people organize 8 player teams to run with each other to maximize experience and apparently that can make 98 to 99 as short as 100 hours.

Now get to the grind... noob