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Experience (XP) in all games of the Diablo series is a numerical value that is used to determine when you reach the next character level, also known as "leveling up".

Every newly created character starts at level 1 with no experience. Each time you, or a member of your party (whether it be your hireling, your minion(s), pets, followers or another player) kills a monster, you gain a certain number of experience points.

The higher is your level, the more experience you will need to advance to the next level. In turn, more challenging enemies and quests award more experience, but generally, you will need to spend more time on each level to get the next character level.

There are two places where you can view your current amount of experience. One place is at the top of the Character Screen. In Diablo II and Diablo III, the other place is the Experience Bar found on the user interface at the bottom of the screen (see image below).

When your character reaches the amount of experience needed for the next level, he/she will "level up." The moment this happens, you will hear a special sound, and in Diablo III, you will also see a message, accompanies by graphics. In addition, the moment you level up, you gain full Life and Mana (or any other resources).

With each level up, heroes in Diablo I and Diablo II gain 5 stat points that can be allocated to attributes. Diablo II characters also gain 1 skill point that you can use to acquire a new skill or upgrade a skill they already have (the gray cross buttons on the user interface will become red. Notification ). In Diablo III, heroes will automatically gain 3 of their primary stat, 2 Vitality and 1 in other stats, and unlock one or more of their skills (or runes for existing skills).

Paragon experience in Diablo III is slightly different (and is of blue color), but otherwise follows the same rules, awarding one Paragon point instead of normal stat bonus.

Stat, Paragon and skill points earned can be allocated by opening your Character Screen. Paragon points are allocated through the menu accessible via the blue button atop of character stats.

ExperienceBar

The Experience Bar (highlighted) shows your progress to reaching the next character level.

In Diablo II, your mercenary/hireling will gain experience as well, though only in the expansion can you see the actual experience of a hireling. They can not, however, increase their experience if they are the same level as you. Furthermore, they only gain experince from monsters you or your minions kill, and of course monsters they kill themselves. A bonus applies if the hireling does the kill.

From version 1.10 and ahead there's a penalty to your experience gain from level 70 and up, where you from level 95 gain less than 10% of the actual experience. This was implented to make it more challenging to reach the maximum level 99.

In Diablo III, followers do not need to earn experience: they level up automatically the moment the character that leads them gains a new level. All three followers level up simultaneously.

Interesting facts and metrics[]

In Diablo II, when playing single player game with /players 8 command, having +10% XP Annihilus and +5% XP Ondal's Wisdom from lowest possible levels, efficiently using expericence shrines, clearing all the dungeons, visiting all the locations in natural/quest order (including Cow Level but not including Diablo Clone and Pandemonium Event) and killing absolutely every monster in the game only once will give you approximate of:

Similarly, in Diablo III, each new difficulty increases the experience gain multiplicatively to all other modifiers. In addition, one may equip items that award either bonus experience gain rate, or just add more experience per kill:

  • Leoric's Signet (20-30%)
  • Hellfire Ring (35% legacy version, 45% level 70 version)
  • Ruby gem in the head item socket (up to 41% depending on quality)
  • Born's Defiance set (2 items) (20%)
  • Born's Command set (3 items) (20%)
  • Cain's Fate set (3 items) (50%)
  • Cain's Destiny set (3 items) (50%)
  • Any item in any slot can have up to +200 (on level 70) experience per kill as a secondary stat. This bonus is multiplied by game difficulty level.
  • Gem of Ease offers +500 experience per kill, increased by another +50 per Rank, multiplied by difficulty.

Either experience bonus on a follower transfers 1/5 (20%) of this amount or percentage to the character. At level 70 (maximum), all +% bonuses for experience are reduced to 1/10 (10%) of efficiency. The only exceptions are Action Combat modifiers and Shrine of Enlightenment.

In a group, experience gained is averaged evenly among all characters in the party that can gain it.

reduced XP from NPC kills[]

In the first battle of Diablo 3 (killing risen to enter town) you get more XP (reaching level 2 is guaranteed) if you kill the enemies, as compared to standing around and letting the guards do the killing. Some XP is still attained, but a reduced amount, so the character may enter town at level 1.

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