Diablo Immortal Beginner's Progression Guide

Now that I've spent more than enough time in Diablo Immortal to find a purpose in it and also render an opinion on it, I wanted to share some thoughts on how others can join in on a similar journey and get to the fun stuff in the game a little faster.

When I started playing the game, I was flying completely blind and found myself getting bored mostly because I wasn't advancing as quickly as I wanted to and was unclear on how to even figure out what I was supposed to do or what I was even chasing. With that in mind, I've laid out a progression guide here that is focused on helping other hapless players find their way a little easier.

There's too much to do
If you focus on maximizing your progression in Diablo Immortal, you will be playing it constantly forever. There are just too many things to do to incrementally improve your character, gear, gems, and so on. And, unlike a lot of other free-to-play games, Diablo Immortal never reaches a point where you're fully cut off from performing tasks that can make you more powerful.

To be clear, some events are time-gated on a daily or weekly schedule, and these tend to be some of the most dependable and impactful ways to raise your power ceiling, but even after doing those you can get a new legendary drop, find ambient events out in the world, and run repeatable dungeons to your heart's content to make sure you're never not progressing.

Join all the social ranks
If you disagree that there's a lot to do in Diablo Immortal, it might be because you aren't part of all of the inner circles you need to join to see what there is to do. Like many social rpgs, Diablo Immortal has clans, but it also has server factions (Shadows/Immortals) and warbands. It may take some time, but worming your way into these groups is ultimately the way to gain access to some of the most useful and bountiful progression content in Diablo Immortal.

Even if you aren't a particularly social player, this is worth doing. There are plenty of players who are going through Diablo Immortal casually and just want access to these kinds of missions to do. If you're on the opposite end of the spectrum, there are definitely groups of dedicated and chatty players who are probably interested in finding more of their own kind for their own ranks as well.

Let the codex be your guide
To help you balance and keep track of everything you can do in Diablo Immortal, the game has a handy menu interface known as the Codex. This menu should be your guide for just about anything you do in the game, as it contains not just lists of what is doable, but also gives suggestions on what you should do at any given time, some information as to why you might want to do it, and even directions on how to get certain kinds of items or gear if you've set goals yourself but aren't sure about how to achieve them.

The codex is more than a battle pass or daily quest tracker. It fulfills those duties but also gives you insight into how your character's progression is going and what you might want to invest more time into powering up at any given time. It also has an achievement list that can direct you to fun additional things you can do in zones outside of running dungeons, completing events, or playing out their story in the main campaign.

What to ignore
With the dizzying and nearly endless amount of things you can pursue, the best way to keep moving forward swiftly is to focus. Depending on what you're chasing, you may want to pursue different things in your codex, but there are absolutely two things in general you should avoid at all costs. These are Diablo Immortal's PvP battleground mode and in-game store. They are, no question, the ugliest parts of the game but (thankfully) are incredibly easy to just ignore.

In all my hours and hours of play, I have completed Diablo Immortal's story, ascended difficulty to Hell I, completed the Issal raid multiple times, and have a full set of legendary gear for my character. Through all of that, I have played exactly one PvP match (which wasn't very enjoyable) and I still don't even really know what is available in the store to buy. The flow of gear and advancement materials from regular PvE play is swift enough that I've never felt the need to check.

General daily guidance
Depending on how often or how much time you want to put into Diablo Immortal, you may want to keep up with your own progression without having to think too much or make a deep dive into the game every time you fire it up. For anyone this applies to, here are my recommendations for things to pursue in order of importance:

• Main Story - Whenever possible, complete main story missions, the faster you get through it, the faster you are gaining access to some of the deeper and more rewarding progression-focused content in Diablo Immortal.
• Bounties - Bounties are the daily quests of Diablo Immortal. Once you are done with the game's story, these should be a baseline thing to complete whenever you play. They don't take a lot of time and net lots of great rewards.
• Contracts - Once you join the Shadows faction, contracts are quests you can complete daily much in the same way as bounties. They are a bit more involved, but there are also only a couple offered per day and they have greater rewards.
• Raids - Raids are the ultimate test of cooperative PvE content in Diablo Immortal and as such they grant some incredible rewards. Raids only grant their rewards once per week though and require players to reach certain combat levels before even being able to attempt them. If you get access, they are absolutely worth doing, but doing everything else above them on this list helps get you the gear and power you need to do them.
• Collect Daily Handouts - There are a few goodies Diablo Immortal drip feeds players for essentially just firing up the game daily. The first is the free store bundle, which provides some scrap materials for upgrading gear. Another freebie comes in the form of a Rare Crest from the Elder Rift, a sort of repeatable dungeon you can grind for loot drops (Crests allow for modifiers and bigger rewards to drop from the Elder Rift dungeon). And finally is the daily first kill reward, which actually requires you to go out anywhere in the game and kill something to redeem. The rewards for your first kill change every day and then reset after you've done a week's worth of them. All of these are worth doing and dead simple to achieve.
• Everything else - Anything between filling out the Bestiary to Adventure quests, or running random dungeons to achievement hunting, or even elder rift runs can all be secondary, as none of those have particular time limits or offer rewards deemed so valuable that they take priority over the routine progression tasks listed above.

As with all Diablo games, the grind is a marathon and not a sprint. Don't try to force progression faster than it will come, and don't even feel the need to hold yourself to anything laid out in this list. If you find a groove of things you like doing in the game that are different, then just go do those. The boogieman people have made of Diablo Immortal's store assumes everyone playing inevitably develops an unhealthy obsession with maximizing their characters' potential when that is 100% not necessary to do all of the best and most satisfying things in the game. Hopefully this guide helps you do that.