You can clear the first Diablo 4 capstone dungeon at level 1 (in theory)

First of all, a disclaimer: we’re not saying that just anyone could clear the first Capstone Dungeon in Diablo 4 at such a low level. Lots of people have been able to do it legitimately at around level 30 — some even as early as 25. But doing it at level 1 requires some special setup and pro player skills. It’s not something that’s meant for any old character with random pieces of gear to do. What we have here is an impressive display of clever usage of game mechanics, rather than “the game is too easy now.”

Nevertheless, the deed was done by Raxxanterax, a pro player who writes build guides for D4. The star of the show is the Elemental Surge affix for Sorcerers, which can be tempered into weapons, and has the following effect:

• Lucky Hit: Up to a 40% Chance to Deal +[2,000 – 4,000] [type] Damage

This means that even though a level 1 character isn’t really doing any “natural” damage to level 50 enemies, every single hit they land still has a chance to proc this effect — and end up dealing quite a lot of damage to them anyway, regardless of their level. And that’s one of the keys to this whole endeavor.

The other key is the usage of the correct defensive skills and, more importantly, defensive legendary powers, such as Protecting Aspect — the famous “bubble” that lots of players use, and you can see at several points of his video. Basically, Raxxanterax made sure to avoid things and just not die, in general, while hitting enemies as much as demonically possible in order for his Elemental Surge to get as many procs as needed.

He did enter the Capstone Dungeon at level 1, but he came prepared with gear that he had obtained before: he went to Helltide on a different level 1 Sorcerer character, picked up yellow (Rare) items that could be equipped at level 1 (except for the helm, which required level 2) and slapped the right Legendary Powers and Affixes onto them. His character that did the actual run put on that gear as soon as he entered the dungeon.

Although he started at level 1 with that gear, he ended up at level 11 by the end of his journey from naturally killing monsters to progress. Still, just walking up to that first set of level 50 enemies as a level 1 character, challenging them to a fight, and coming out alive was definitely impressive; to say nothing of killing all the elites and bosses — especially the Curator in the end, with his multitude of special attacks that would have been insta-kill for such a frail character. Congrats to Raxxanterax!