Adventure Mode And You: Getting The Most Out Of Reaper of Souls

Diablo III’s Reaper of Souls expansion brings a lot to the table with Adventure mode, bounties, and Rifts. Here are some tips to get started on the road to level 70 and beyond.

Building a New Character

If you’re starting a new character, it might be best to complete act 5 first on an old one if you have it. This will allow you to go directly to Adventure mode on your new character and start earning blood shards and Rift keys, which you can store safely to use at max level. It will also let you grab a level 60+ red gem for your new character’s helmet, which will give you a significant experience boost during the leveling process. Regardless of your current access to high level gems, make sure you’re moving through the leveling process with a red gem in your helmet as soon as you can.

Blood Shards and Bounties

Blood shards are a new currency that you’ll receive for completing bounties and from Rift bosses. Currently the only thing these can be used for is gambling with Kadala. While your chances of getting a legendary via this method are slim, it can happen. Think of them as free shots at gear and not a real way to gain loot. Up to 500 can be stored at a time.

Have friends? You may want to get some! Bounties are a perfectly fine way to progress solo, but taking a group of friends into a game on Normal difficulty and splitting up across acts will currently allow you to collect bounty loot bags and completions faster. Send one friend to act 1, one to act 2, one to act 3 and you’ll all get the associated cache at the end of each clear. While the enemies will be tougher because of the additional players in the game, you’re playing on Normal to handle that.

Here’s something you may not know - There are specific legendary items tied to the bounty bags in each act, so if you’re looking for something specific you can focus your farming efforts. There’s a handy list here http://www.diablohub.com/database/sorting/bounty-bags

Rifts, Crafting, and More

So what’s the deal with Rifts? They may feel a little sluggish for a solo player because there are tons of enemies in each to work through, but they shine in a group setting. If you’re grouping you’ll get a lot more efficiency from your entry fees, and additional magic find. Round up and slaughter massive amounts of elite packs and bosses, you’ll end up with tons of crafting materials, gems, and loot. Completing Rifts used to award players with a big bag of loot – These have simply been baked into the final boss now, so be sure to grab all the goodies. 

Here’s another incentive to hit up Adventures, even if you don’t plan on doing bounties. Adventure mode allows you to teleport to any zone without waypoints, so it’s an excellent way to get to and farm specific enemies and bosses. Why would you want to do this? Legendary recipes in Reaper of Souls require components that only drop off certain enemies. For example, Maghda’s Tortured Soul only drops off Maghda, so if you’re looking to make the Cain’s Destiny set you’ll need to do some Maghda farming. The Mystic is a great addition to the NPC roster and will allow you to reroll various stats on items to make them perfect for your build. Be aware that this process is quite expensive on level 70 legendary gear, so make sure you have an item you’ll be sticking with for a while before proceeding.

Have fun and look great doing it – You can now transmogrify at the Mystic in town so you’ll be able to use the graphics from your coolest legendary finds forever.