Looking for tips

What is the best place to grind levels in a race?

I'm new to the game so I won't be a greedy racer, I'd be happy just reaching level 6 for the single point.

Heh, i guess grinding Tidal Island to 6 would be easiest. Big packs and relatively easy enemies.

Where you farm will depend on how long the race is and how comfortably you can get to certain points in the game within that time. The main point is that you really don't want to stop in any zone too long to farm early in the race, only in the last few minutes will you want to chill somewhere and farm. I just started racing in early August, and I don't have a ton of time to get really good at racing, so what I did is timed myself with a new character at a pretty brisk, but comfortable, pace to see how far I could get in an hour.

I ended up just barely making it into the vaal ruins. Now, in order to maximize xp, I wanted to pick a point that would be good to farm a few minutes before the vaal ruins; I decided on Chamer of Sin level 1, because it is a good zone to farm and I was passing through there at about 48 minutes into the practice race.

The reason Chamber of Sin is a good zone to farm is because it's got fairly easy mob types (zombies, spiders, skeletons, etc.) and it has 2 guaranteed magic monster packs, and they are guaranteed to be at the two locations that could have a staircase down to Chamber level 2, but don't. So now, instead of progressing past chamber level 1 in a real race, I stay in chamber 1 and keep resetting the instance, clearing large packs of the easy to kill zombies, skeletons, and spiders, as i make my way to each of the 2 guaranteed blue mob spawn locations, while avoiding the middle area the the nasty boss spider, Black Death (it'll kill ya, avoid it!).

This pace worked well for me, I was able to maintain it even in the ridiculous Emberwake race last season, and I very rarely died. Now I'm a little faster, and so I picked a point a little higher level and further on in the game; The Crypt. last season the crypt was pretty cool because level 2 always had a speed shrine in the fixed seed Emberwake race. Not sure about this season, but the reason I farm Crypt now is because it's a little bit higher level mobs, so I don't suffer an xp penalty if I farm them for 10 minutes, where as if i stayed in chamber of sin 1 at my new pace, i'd get more than 3 levels above the mobs and start losing xp.

If I get a bit faster at killing fidelitas and the spider, I might try to progress through vaal ruins and farm the Northern Forest, which I've heard is pretty good too, then faster still, City of Sarn is another good spot, and beyond that you're at the highest level of play, farming up in the Marketplace and the Docks in those 1 hour races! This works both ways too; if you want to take it really, really slow, you can farm Southern Forest (the area right after Mervael), or a zone in act 1 that is good to farm, sorry I don't know of any good farming zones in act 1 aside from ledge.

So yeah, this is the thought process and method I used to get into racing over the past month, and I started consistently finishing right around 100th and top 5-10 in class towards the end of the month. My method might work for you or it might not, if you want to get super hardcore and min/maxy about it then I'm sure there's others out there with way more experience who could help you push those top 20 finishes, but this method worked for being a bit more casual player like we both seem to be. I play Ranger exclusively, which I guess, generally, isn't as powerful as other classes in terms of racing, so your mileage might vary if you try my pace with another class.

If you really just want to get 6 for the easy 1 point, then i'd say just play at a normal pace, man. I'm sure you can get level 6 in an hour even if you full-clear every zone, do every side quest, and generally take it pretty chill. If you get 6 and you've got time left, keep going and try to get to the 2-point cutoff: Like I said in my first paragraph, just load up a new vanilla league hardcore character and time yourself to see how far you can get at a casual pace in an hour, then build off of that. :)


Either way good luck man! Racing is great fun!

Thanks for the tips!

Yeah, I'm only racing casually, to try it out and get the unique items, but I haven't even finished the game for the first time so I won't be focusing on races too much. I'll try to get at least 40 points for the Crimson Jewel.

I did the 50 minute Blood Grip, played very safe and managed to get to level 7 and stopped right before the Brutus fight, I figured I'd practice the Brutus kill but the race ended before I could get in. I think I can make it to level 9 in 50 minutes so that should speed up my point acquisition rate a bit.

What are some good classes and skills to use in this bloodgrip season?

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acemcgeezseries wrote:

What are some good classes and skills to use in this bloodgrip season?

Templar, Shadow, Witch; any class that uses spells that rely on gem level and not the physical damage of your weapon are performing better currently, especially in the Endless Ledge. Duelist does pretty well, because there are quite a few good guides out there for duelist, and my man twitch.tv/helmannn is a great one to watch for duelist tips.

The class I play, Ranger, is generally considered weaker, which is good for me because my 100-200th place finishes usually still get me in top 10 for the class. If you're interested in ranger, twitch.tv/nugiyen is a great one to watch. It's up to you, if you don't care about getting top 20 in class, then the casters are a very easy way to get the boss kills/level pts. Otherwise, the less powerful classes can still net a lot of points because fewer people play them, so you can do a bit worse and still get top 20, if that makes sense.

Good luck!