Diablo 4 is a bit opaque. Players roaming the wilderness of Sanctuary often ask, "Why is that guy so big?" Where do you get your pants?"" What do the rats know?" and other questions such as, "What the hell?" Where do you get pants?" And "What do rats know?" And so on. But the question most people ask themselves, almost to the point of obsession, is "How can I get to the next level faster?" That is. Let me console myself, traveler. For some absolute legend has figured it out through nothing more than scientific method and a superhuman level of dedication.

The hero in question is a player named Drybear, who, with the goal of creating "a resource that the Diablo IV community can use to determine the best experience sources at any given level," "manually tested every permanent dungeon and stronghold in the game tested by hand and compared the speed of clearing, the density of mobs, and the value of time per second spent on that encounter". The culmination of his efforts was, among other things, a spreadsheet of great and terrible power.

Drybear went to great lengths to ensure that his findings were as accurate as possible. To account for differences in monster levels, i.e., the fact that a dungeon run at a lower player level would spit out different XP than a dungeon run at a higher player level, he "manually counted every mob in the dungeon" and then "compared the mob density in all dungeons This was a laborious task. While this is a daunting task, and I imagine the data probably has some flaws, the lengths Drybear went to are both impressive and a bit frightening.

The full results can be found on Drybear's publicly available Google Sheets page, which shows how fast each of the 130 dungeons can be cleared, how much XP they spit out to solo and group players, the "farm lanes" (which are strategized in Diablo 4 as too deep for me to parse), and a variety of other information. In short, it's comprehensive, and anyone who seeks efficiency in any aspect of the game should be able to assemble a clever, custom-made plan to always maximize returns.

For the rest of us, Dry Bear has put together a one-page summary that tells you just where to go based on whether you are playing solo or in a party. It even describes the best routes. There is also a video version. Because science these days has to be multimedia to get the public's attention.

Of course, there is an elephant in the room: Blizzard is scheduled to launch season 1 of Diablo 4 this Thursday, a major change that could invalidate much of Drybear's findings. If that happens, it will only be a matter of time before he, or someone like him, repeats this process again to keep the spreadsheets up to date... God bless you, Diablo 4 community, and God bless the Diablo 4 community.