Diablo 4 Boosting

Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred expansion completely overhauls the endgame, and the addition of War Plans system in particular makes every activity feel far more rewarding. You can customize War Plans nodes to boost the yield of specific types of loot.

When it comes to farming gear, the most efficient approach at the moment remains tackling Lair Bosses in the endgame, and Lord of Hatred expansion introduces a brand-new Lair Boss: Mephisto. Let's take a look at what else has changed for Lair Boss farming in Season 13.

How to Challenge a Lair Boss?

As the pinnacle endgame challenge, Lair Bosses demand a certain level of character strength. You must first clear Pit Tier 10 and unlock Torment 1 difficulty before you can take them on.

Lair Bosses received a full rework in Season 8. Previously, nearly every boss had its own dedicated material (Lair Boss keys). The developers have since streamlined the system, grouping Lair Bosses into three tiers. All bosses within the same tier now share the same type of Lair Boss key, greatly simplifying the boss farming process.

Initiate Lair Bosses:

• Grigoire
• Beast in The Ice
• Varshan
• Lord Zir
• Urivar (Vessel of Hatred)

Greater Lair Bosses:

• Duriel
• Andariel
• Harbinger of Hatred (Vessel of Hatred)
• Bloody Butcher

Exalted Lair Bosses:

• Belial 
• Mephisto (Lord of Hatred)

How to Obtain Lair Boss Keys?

After Lair Boss rework in Season 8, you no longer need keys to challenge them - only to claim the rewards. Essentially every Lair Boss has its own dedicated loot pool, and more demanding bosses like Duriel and Andariel carry a higher chance to drop Mythic Uniques.

Lair Boss keys are divided into types corresponding to the different boss tiers. The most common Lair Boss keys can drop from virtually any activity, whereas keys for Greater Lair Bosses can only be earned from the loot drops of Initiate Lair Bosses.

• Varshan: Requires 1 Lair Key, drops 1 Greater Lair Key
• Grigoire: Requires 1 Lair Key, drops 1 Greater Lair Key
• Beast in the Ice: Requires 1 Lair Key, drops 1 Greater Lair Key
• Lord Zir: Requires 1 Lair Key, drops 1 Greater Lair Key
• Urivar: Requires 1 Lair Key, drops 1 Greater Lair Key
• Duriel: Requires 1 Greater Lair Key
• Andariel: Requires 1 Greater Lair Key
• Harbinger of Hatred: Requires 1 Greater Lair Key
• Bloody Butcher: Requires 1 Greater Lair Key
• Belial: Requires 2 Betrayer's Husk
• Mephisto: Requires 1 Crux of the False Prophet

If you're looking to farm Lair Bosses, your first step is stockpiling Diablo 4 Lair Boss Keys. These drop across a wide range of endgame mechanics, and in Season 13 the developers have increased the stack cap, so you'll never have to worry about them eating up your inventory space again.

Lair Key Drop Sources:

• War Plans
• Helltide
• World Bosses
• Legion Events
• Tree of Whisper Cache

You may have noticed that the materials needed for Belial and Mephisto are somewhat unique. They don't drop from Greater Lair Bosses; instead, they have their own distinct drop sources. For instance, Betrayer's Husk only drops after you defeat a Belial's Ambush encounter.

Given how scarce Exalted Lair Boss keys are, if you plan to farm Lair Bosses consistently, it's best to focus on Greater Lair Bosses.

War Plans

War Plans feature introduced in Lord of Hatred is well worth diving into. Lair Boss section of the tree offers nodes that alter or enhance the rewards you receive after defeating a boss, allowing you to gain more gold and more Runes.

Additionally, a series of nodes can trigger Boss Rush. After you defeat a Lair Boss and open its cache, there's a chance a portal will open leading to an even stronger boss - sometimes more than one. And after you emerge victorious, there's a further chance another portal will appear, this time to a boss on the same level as Belial or Mephisto.

• Nemesis Lair Boss
• Greater Nemesis Lair Bosses
• Ultimate Nemesis Lair Bosses

Keep in mind that once you defeat these bosses, the rewards drop directly onto the ground - you won't need additional Boss keys to open any caches. However, since each stage is chance-based, even if you're capable of taking down Ultimate Nemesis Lair Bosses, you won't encounter them every run. These nodes really prove their value over long boss farming sessions.

But what if boss farming isn't your thing, and you still want the rewards from Lair Bosses? Is that even possible? Certain nodes on War Plans tree allow exactly that.

Within Lair Boss War Plans Trees, some nodes give you a chance to trigger Lair Boss encounters during other endgame activities, such as Nightmare Dungeons or Helltides. When you defeat them, their loot drops right on the spot - no Lair Boss keys required at all.

For example, while fighting in a Nightmare Dungeon, Beast in the Ice may suddenly ambush you. Normally a Lair Boss, it can now appear out of nowhere inside your dungeon and will drop its exclusive loot. If you're specifically chasing a particular Unique tied to a certain boss, these cross-activity triggers can dramatically boost your efficiency.

In short, how you allocate your War Plans points will directly influence your Lair Boss key drops and the way you farm Lair Bosses. It's highly recommended to prioritize upgrading your War Plans once you reach the endgame - they'll significantly enhance your overall rewards.

Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred expanded upon this by introducing new and unique items for each class, while Mythic items also received some adjustments.

During developer livestreams and season previews, the team mentioned that players can obtain up to 14 Resplendent Sparks solely through seasonal rank rewards. This means that in the later stages, players can reliably craft a number of Mythic items. So which items are more valuable? Let's take a look at their adjustments.

Tier S

El'druin, Sword of Justice

El'druin, Sword of Justice is a brand-new Mythic one-handed sword. It provides a substantial amount of Life, All Stats, and a powerful damage multiplier affix.

Its effect allows your cooldown reduction to cover almost all skills seamlessly, enabling uninterrupted chains of mobility skills, war cries, and auras. When cooldown reduction is high enough, skills become limited only by the global cooldown. This item will undoubtedly dominate endgame speed farming.

Heir of Perdition

Heir of Perdition's damage bonus has been increased from 60% to 80%, though its critical strike chance has been slightly reduced. It remains the best choice for most endgame builds that do not rely on a specific helmet, offering a simple, no-extra-input 80% damage bonus that easily outshines Andariel's Visage.

Ring of Starless Skies

Ring of Starless Skies boasts exceptional versatility. Resource generation has become more difficult in the current season, which further highlights its core value. The reduced benefit from Core Skill ranks affects it, but conversely, if you consume resources with non-core skills, the downside becomes smaller. Still, whenever resource management is a consideration, this ring is the irreplaceable BiSoption for endgame.

Tier A

The Grandfather

The Grandfather's core mechanics remain unchanged. Its primary stats are All Stats, Life, Resource, and Damage. The legendary affix "Critical Strike Damage increased by 150%" has received a numerical buff.

Because future Paragon boards and glyphs will provide significantly less additive damage, most endgame builds will land in the range of 1000%–1500% Overpower damage. Under high Masterworking, The Grandfather can deliver up to 600% multiplicative damage, translating to a real increase of roughly 40%–60%.

Nesēkēm, the Herald

Nesēkēm, the Herald's effect has been changed to mark a random enemy every 2 seconds. Attacks against that target always apply Vulnerable and are always critical hits, and the mark disappears after 10 hits. The weapon also provides a large amount of All Stats, a large amount of Life, and Overpower damage.

Since Overpower damage will become scarce, these stats alone – with Masterworking – can nearly double total damage output.

Shattered Vow

This is a polearm usable only by Spiritborn, Druid, and Barbarian. With the removal of fixed affixes, Overpower affixes, and Masterworking adjustments, you can obtain up to 200% increased damage over time duration, and it also directly executes low-health enemies. For bleed-based Barbarians, as well as Druids and Spiritborn relying on poison damage, this is an excellent weapon.

Tier B

Melted Heart of Selig

Melted Heart of Selig's resource generation has been reduced from 50% to 20% of its base value. However, if you can stack enough resource generation in your build, you can still achieve extremely high damage reduction, effectively becoming unkillable.

The problem is that once you actively consume a large amount of resource, you might die instantly. Typically, only Barbarians or classes that can stack maximum resource very high are suited to build around it.

Shroud of False Death

Shroud of False Death's improvements are not huge. It now provides more All Stats and Life. It is more valuable in Hardcore mode; in Softcore, most builds prefer class-specific chest armors or legendary chests for their aspects.

Tier C

Harlequin Crest

Harlequin Crest has changed relatively little. Its base stats still include Maximum Resource, Armor, Maximum Life, and Cooldown Reduction. Its legendary effect remains unchanged: 20% damage reduction and +4 ranks to all skills.

However, Cooldown Reduction has been severely weakened. Even with a Greater Affix and full Masterworking, it only reaches about 20% CDR, whereas a single piece could previously reach around 55%. For classes that rely heavily on CDR to maintain skill rotations and defensive coverage, this is a heavy blow.

Moreover, while the +4 ranks to all skills is unchanged, it is indirectly nerfed because the new base cap for skill ranks is 15 instead of 5. The relative value per skill rank has dropped significantly.

Overall, Harlequin Crest has become more of a defensive helmet providing high Life and 20% damage reduction. Its advantages are far inferior to some class-specific helmets, and its status in endgame builds will be greatly diminished.

Doombringer

Doombringer is a defensive one-handed sword. It once found use due to its strong survival stats and extremely high Maximum Life bonus. But now, not only has the maximum life bonus been cut to 15%, but the values of its Greater Affixes have also been reduced, and Masterworking no longer multiplies them as dramatically as before.

More importantly, El'druin, Sword of Justice makes Doombringer look weak by comparison, relegating it to a very niche transitional piece.

Tier D

Ahavarion Spear of Lycander

The developers have barely given it any meaningful update. Its only somewhat interesting affix is "Lucky Hit: up to a chance to restore resource" – a rare percentage-based resource recovery effect in the game, since resource generation tempering on Diablo 4 items has been nerfed to flat values.

Resource management may be a challenge for some builds, but sacrificing a two-handed weapon slot for this resource recovery, while gaining almost no offensive benefit and only random shrine effects, is hardly worthwhile. Therefore, this item will likely remain unpopular.

Andariel's Visage

Mechanically, Andariel's Visage has a 20% Lucky Hit chance to deal 40% poison damage, but the damage takes 5 seconds to fully apply. The problem is that this damage delay prevents it from benefiting twice from other damage multipliers, making its numbers too low.

It also heavily relies on skills with high per-hit Lucky Hit chance. Most skills that deal many hits have low per-hit Lucky Hit chance and low per-hit damage, making it difficult to use the effect effectively.

Since few skills across classes synergize with it, and every class has far superior options for the helmet slot, Andariel's Visage is unlikely to become very popular.

Tyrael's Might

Tyrael's Might has seen almost no change – in fact, one could say it has been indirectly nerfed. Its Life bonus is now even lower than that of Shroud of False Death. For most classes, its defensive value is only slightly above that of a legendary chest with a defensive aspect. Meanwhile, Shroud of False Death at least offers reliable death prevention and high All Stats.

The adjustments to some Mythic items are regrettable. Many formerly core pieces have been significantly weakened, while others have never received proper buffs. Nevertheless, this does break the monopoly of Mythic items, allowing players to focus on other equipment.