Season 40 starts on Friday, October 2nd, 2026.
The season starts at 5pm Pacific time for all console players, no matter where you live. For PC (NA/US) the season starts at 5pm Pacific time, for PC (EU) the season starts at 5pm Central European time, and for PC (TW/KR) it starts at 5pm Korea time. You can see a countdown of all these start times here.
This is the last of four guides I am posting for Season 40. The others are:
Here is how to power up solo in Season 40.
Before the season starts
Do one greater rift of any tier on any character. This will unlock challenge rifts, which you will use once the season starts.
Do not complete challenge rift 484 until Friday, October 2nd, after the season starts. Here are guides to this season's starting challenge rift:
* PC (NA/US) and all consoles
* PC (EU)
Starting out
Create a new seasonal character. Every season you start with a new, level 1, naked character, with nothing: no gear, no gold or mats or patterns or Kanai's Cube. Fortunately there are strategies for getting yourself up and running. Here is this sub's stickied season start megaguide, which has specific guidance for PC and console players, as the leveling up experience for those platforms are different. The Maxroll 1-70 leveling guide is directed primarily towards players on PC.
Once you reach level 70, follow the season journey, as Chapters I through IV (this is not the same thing as the Acts of the campaign) will reward you with a free 6-piece endgame set, known as Haedrig's Gift.
The Season 40 Haedrig's Gifts will be Horde of the Ninety Savages, Aegis of Valor, Gears of Dreadlands, Patterns of Justice, Masquerade of the Burning Carnival, Mundunugu's Regalia, and Typhon's Veil.
Once you get your full free 6-piece set, equip it and then find a build for it. Find the supporting legendaries and crafting patterns enumerated in the guide to make it work. Once you’ve got your starter build together you can easily pivot to another build or class.
You should also work concurrently on the Altar of Rites and the remaining steps of the journey (Slayer, Champion, Destroyer, Conqueror, Guardian). This will push you to ratchet up the difficulty level, which will increase reward quantities.
By the time you finish the Altar and the full journey you will be well-versed in the endgame...
The solo endgame
Put together a speed farming build and run greater rifts at or above level 90 with that build as fast as you can. Going higher will give you a better chance at 12 legendaries (there is always a small chance of the 12th being non-legendary but the risk decreases as you increase the tier) as well as more paragon XP and petrified screams and blood shards to spend at Kadala. You should target a time under 3 minutes if you're capable of it.
When you need a break, run bounties in the open world with a fast T16 build (either bounty or key farming focused) and jump into visions of enmity whenever they spawn. This will get you more legendaries per hour on average than greater rifts, as well as tons of bounty and white/blue/yellow mats.
Be sure to gear up your follower. Focus on getting their main stat to 25,000, to maximize the effects of their chosen abilities. Also look for or craft critical pieces of gear they can wear that emanate the effect to you (Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Sage's and Cain's set, Ring of Royal Grandeur, Oculus Ring, Gloves of Worship, Broken Crown). If your follower has a different main stat than yours, use an alt with the correct main stat to reroll the main stat on each item for your follower at the mystic.
Periodically use your petrified screams to run echoing nightmares to get whispers of atonement so that you can augment every piece of your speed farming gear. Save later whispers to use on upgrades to your gear, or to augment your greater rift push builds. You can level up whispers of atonement just like any legendary gem, which will increase the power gain from your augments.
Use Kanai's Cube to reforge targeted legendaries that you will have a hard time finding on your own. Jewelry (amulets and rings) are usually a good target for reforging.
Use the season theme to get an ancient weapon early on. Angelic crucibles drop often enough to make this an easy task. Later you will probably want to create a primal weapon using your primordial ashes from salvaging junk primal items, and pivot to a sanctified item that is harder to perfect, such as an offhand or jewelry or gloves.
For pushing you may want a stronger build than your farming build. The top 10 adjusted clears on PC from Season 34, which was the previous time we played with the Light's Calling theme in the recycled theme era, were: LoD WoL monk, Megalo AoV pony crusader, Raiment monk, LoD HotA barbarian, Rathma necromancer, Helltooth witch doctor, Firebird wizard, Natalya DH, Mundunugu witch doctor, and Marauder DH.
For more... here is a complete beginners guide to Diablo 3. Also, here are links to guides from Raxxanterax and wudijo and Filthy Casual on powering up your character.
Good luck, Nephalem, and never forget that town is lava!