If you kill Diablo pre-60 on hell, and need the levels...

[Deleted]

...then Iskatu farm is still good. Or at least it was, pre 1.0.3. I was 58 on my monk when I killed Diablo on hell, and still needed to grind something to open up inferno. I went to test out several zones of act 3, Azmodan too, and then ended up doing Iskatu in act 4. Noticed the XP he still gives from the quest is pretty insane for the time it takes to kill him. As a comparison, the Rakanoth quest gives like a third of what this quest gives.

The quest (Fall of High Heavens) gives you 60000xp, Iskatu himself gives you 17825xp (plus any +exp after kill and helmet gem), for a total of 77825xp (before modifiers). The quest also gives you 1280g and Iskatu himself drops around 200-800 gold (0% gold find), as well as 2-3 magical items, for a nice 1500-3000g per kill.

It took my monk some 60-70 seconds to do one run; select the quest, start game, run to Tyrael, TP then port back (to skip dialogue), talk to Tyrael, Esc twice to skip dialogue, enter portal, Esc Enter to skip the cutscene, kill kill kill, grab stuff, TP, leave game.

59 to 60 takes 2250000xp, so if you do the entire level using this method, it'll take you a total of 29 runs, which will take you a bit over half an hour. This will also net you a cool 60K in gold as well as some crafting materials and potions.

I know this may come as no surprise to most of you people, and is old information. In fact I think there may have been a thread from a while back, but I couldn't find it, and since bumping old threads isn't allowed I thought I'd make a new one. I mean, this was my fourth 60 and I still made the mistake of going out to the zones myself, so I thought I'd save someone else a bit of time by pointing out how good this guy is still for exp. The difference between doing Iskatu runs and killing throngs of monsters in act 3 was huge. Although, I only had like +11xp per kill at this point, so that might make a difference. By doing these runs you don't have to waste any time looking for monsters, though.

As I said earlier, this was done before the nerf patch, and the servers just went down here in Europe, so I don't know if this will change.

This is a solo method without any "join a game and get a quest without doing anything" -tricks. You start a quest, and kill an opponent with at least some difficulty, for lower geared people anyway, so I for one think it's a very good and legit way of getting fast XP.

Oh and also, I know about the "too many instances" -limit they're imposing, but you can just play up until that limit then, and go do public games after that.

In any case, I hope this thread helps someone.

[nightshark]

The level requirements are set incorrectly IMO. I completed nightmare mode at level 46 with ease, yet you can't progress until 50. Iskatu runs took less than an hour to 50, but for those who don't use this it would be a lot of time killing boring ass mobs. God forbid the exp from this quest is nerfed.

[Stormgnoef]

I find pony lvl alot better for farming.2 clear in whimsyshire and i got from 59-60.

[Deleted]

I find pony lvl alot better for farming.2 clear in whimsyshire and i got from 59-60.

How long did it take?

[Ferocity]

The level requirements are set incorrectly IMO. I completed nightmare mode at level 46 with ease, yet you can't progress until 50. Iskatu runs took less than an hour to 50, but for those who don't use this it would be a lot of time killing boring ass mobs. God forbid the exp from this quest is nerfed.

It is not about incorrect level requirements. Exp from quests was constantly nerfed. If on release it was enough just to do thorough exploration of locations and quests to reach level reqs for next difficulty, now mobs in location outside of questgiver actually give more exp than quests.

And yeah - exp from this quest will be nerfed. Nothing fun stays up for long in D3.

[Eon Drache]

The level requirements are set incorrectly IMO. I completed nightmare mode at level 46 with ease, yet you can't progress until 50. Iskatu runs took less than an hour to 50, but for those who don't use this it would be a lot of time killing boring ass mobs. God forbid the exp from this quest is nerfed.

This. I was 47 and severely undergeared going in as barb solo and killed Diablo on Nightmare. Haven't even worked up the stomach to farm more for the same story. Just so boring.

[Stormgnoef]

How long did it take?

5 min since i had 750 dps lvl 47 2h wep on my barb.

[Deleted]

5 min

You're telling us that you got a full 2,25 million experience points in hell Whimsyshire in two five minute runs, totaling ten minutes? I didn't know Whimsyshire was that small, nor that it gave like 10x the experience of act 4. I guess it's an awesome place to farm for experience then.

[Stormgnoef]

You're telling us that you got a full 2,25 million experience points in hell Whimsyshire in two five minute runs, totaling ten minutes? I didn't know Whimsyshire was that small, nor that it gave like 10x the experience of act 4. I guess it's an awesome place to farm for experience then.

2 Runs for half lvl.Each run around 4-5 min

[nightshark]

It is not about incorrect level requirements. Exp from quests was constantly nerfed. If on release it was enough just to do thorough exploration of locations and quests to reach level reqs for next difficulty, now mobs in location outside of questgiver actually give more exp than quests.

And yeah - exp from this quest will be nerfed. Nothing fun stays up for long in D3.

You're correct, I didn't think about the fact that exp from quests being nerfed were the reason for completing NM at 46 the 2nd time around.

Why Blizzard didn't use a diminishing returns system on exp from quests is beyond me.