How to level your seasonal characters like the wind (or a pro) with the Mother’s Blessing buff — returning this week!

It’s Diablo 4 Season 5, and Blizzard is kicking off Mother’s Blessing a little early — likely to account for the short 2-month season. This seasonal event brings a weeklong multiplicative buff to experience and gold for Seasonal and Eternal players, with +35% experience and +50% gold for the duration. Basically, Mother’s Blessing is an absolute rocket boost to the leveling process.

During Diablo 4 Season 5, the Mother’s Blessing buff is available from August 21 to August 28 at 10:00 am pacific, giving a full week to take advantage of these buffs and rocket through the season with a new level 100 character. So, if you’re looking to level, here are some tips to get the most out of this powerful leveling buff for your characters in Diablo 4 so you, too, can blast a new character to 100 like a professional speedrunner.

Tips for leveling with Mother’s Blessing

Sadly, Blizzard caught onto our shenanigans with the Elixir of Antivenin — previously, it was an exclusive elixir that you could use with any other elixir at a given time, giving you an additional source of XP increase, but apparently this wasn’t by design, and no longer stacks. However, this elixir opens up the 8% XP buff 15 levels before it would otherwise be available by crafting Advanced Elixirs, so still complete the Pinch of Poison quest from Gea Kul to earn the recipe prior to level 35, giving you a little extra XP.

Now you want to stack every buff you can get. Yes, Mother’s Blessing is an incredible 35% boost, but it still combines with your other bonuses — and because it’s multiplicative with other bonuses, stacking buffs really adds up. Make sure to allocate your Smoldering Ashes from the Battle Pass to the Urn of Aggression Seasonal Blessing first for +5% (level 45) to +20% (level 65) XP — yes, the other tracks are also helpful, but this is extremely useful as you progress to 100.

Otherwise, start using the following consumables as soon as you hit their level requirements:

• Level 10 — Basic Elixirs (5% bonus XP), starting with Elixir of Precision, Destruction, or Advantage
• Level 35 — Crafted Elixir of Antivenin (8% bonus XP) in place of Basic Elixirs
• Level 45 — Type 1 incense (5% bonus XP)
• Level 50 — Advanced Elixir (8% bonus XP) in place of Elixir of Antivenin

These are all additive bonuses, so consumables plus a max Urn will result in up to an extra 33% of experience by level 65. If you’re doing Legion events, don’t sleep on the campfire bonus — that’s another 15% accrued XP buff!

The best activities to complete during Mother’s Blessing

Next, stick to high mob density activities. You want to constantly be killing. Helltides, events (both Legion and World), Infernal Hordes, and certain nightmare dungeon keys are your targets here. Save whatever side quests you accrue for after the event.

Spend as little time in towns as possible. To paraphrase content creator Raxxanterax — “town is an XP loss, treat it like lava.” How do you best apply this?

• Learn your Tempering manuals as they drop — they take up valuable bag space!
• Batch activities when you are in a main city — salvage gear, stick items in the stash, craft elixirs, and zoom back out into the world.
• Don’t detour much to pick up items in Nightmare dungeons — up to 10 legendary items will get sent to your stash, which is more than enough wiggle room for what will drop from normal mobs. This doesn’t work as well for Helltide because you have a much higher drop density, though; instead, prioritize legendaries over lower items, and remember they now break down for lower-tier components as well at the Blacksmith!

Which difficulty should I play on during Mother’s Blessing?

Finally, remember that high risk means high reward, but only when you survive it. Advance your world tier when you’re ready. Farm higher level mobs in Helltide using the Profane Mindcage if it doesn’t impact your speed — that 15% bonus for killing a monster 10 levels above you is zero help if it takes you five times longer to kill.

Above all — have fun. If blasting levels brings you joy, use this guide freely. If you want to savor the experience of Sanctuary in all its open world glory, do that instead! We’ll see you in Sanctuary.

Originally published June 7, 2024; updated August 21, 2024.