Diablo 4 Will Let You Target-Farm For The Perfect Item

Diablo IV's endgame Helltides will allow for target-farming of specific item slots, giving players more control over their progression.

In Blizzard's most-recent Diablo IV livestream, the developer offered more details on the upcoming ARPG's various endgame systems, one of which is Helltides. Certain areas of Diablo IV's world will be temporarily afflicted by these hellish storms, where the sky turns red and more challenging enemies spawn.

Players will be able to seek out loot caches within these Helltide areas, with each cache corresponding to a specific item slot. Killing monsters in Helltides will earn players Cinders, which are used to unlock the caches. The cost of a specific cache will vary depending on the item slot it offers. For example, a weapon cache will be more costly than a cache for boots. As long as a player has the required amount of Cinders, they can open multiple caches over the duration of the event. For those who are looking for specific legendary or unique items to complete their builds, Helltides seem like a great way to grind for them.

Helltides only afflict a given area for roughly an hour, according to Blizzard, so players will need to quickly decide on which caches they want to go for and farm Cinders appropriately. However, there is a risk to being greedy and attempting to unlock as many caches as possible. Cinders disappear at the end of a Helltide or after leaving the afflicted area, and dying in a Helltide will cause players to lose about half of their collected Cinders. Players will need to make good use of their time, avoid dying, and plan accordingly in order to make optimal use of the event.

Even if a player isn't able to open as many caches as they wanted, Helltides will still be valuable. Defeating more-challenging monsters will reward better loot than standard enemies, and high-level crafting materials needed to upgrade gear can also be found within Helltides.

How Diablo IV's Helltides will work was just one aspect of the endgame Blizzard discussed during its livestream. The team also dove into more details about Nightmare dungeons, which players will want to run to acquire gear and upgrade their glyphs, and further elaborated on feedback in regards to dungeon design and class-balance received from the game's recent open beta. Blizzard additionally announced there will be a free Diablo IV "server slam" test on May 12-14 for those interested in taking the game for another spin ahead of its official release. Progress won't carry over to the full game, but hitting certain milestones in the server slam (much like in the beta) will grant rewards at launch.

Diablo IV will release on June 6 and is slated to receive new seasonal content every three months. Seasons will introduce new story content and gameplay features alongside a battle pass, which Blizzard estimates will take roughly 80 hours to complete.