Diablo 4 fans from around the world first learned of this new Extreme Late Endgame content, Abattoir of Zir, when it was announced a couple of weekends ago at BlizzCon 2023. Members of the development team, including Associate Game Director Brent Gibson, Production Director Tiffany Wat, Lead Game Producer Kalyeigh Calder, Game Director Joe Shely, and Associate Director of Community Adam Fletcher shared some of the details during their Campfire Chat on day two of the event.
Release
This new content will be featured in only Season 2 and will be added to the game as part of Patch 1.2.3, which is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, December 5th at 10:00 a.m. PST. The event will continue through nearly the end of the Season, giving players almost seven weeks to take their best shot at conquering this challenge as well as luxuriating in its lavish rewards. Joe Shelley also mentioned that, depending on its reception and success, the Abattoir of Zir may pave the way for more “Greater Rift” style activities in future Seasons.
Overview
Game Director Joe Shelley described the event as “A very, very difficult area.” Players will not only need to bring all of their best skills and abilities, but will also need to bring their very best builds because not all builds will be capable of participating in it.
In fact, the most OP builds currently in the game are not actually expected to be able to clear a Tier 25 Abattoir of Zir dungeon, thus providing gamers with essentially infinite replayability while spending many hours grinding out more and more Glyph XP as they attempt to conquer the next highest tier.
This content is intended to be the next challenge for players who have successfully completed all of the currently available late endgame content in Season 2, including target farming some powerful Unique Items from Duriel (you’re going to straight up need that Shako), as well as defeating the Echo of Lilith. Taking down the daughter of Mephisto will seem like a silly little joke after players get their first taste of the Abattoir.
The Abattoir of Zir is a progressive event consisting of twenty-five increasingly difficult dungeons that will afford the player ten minutes to defeat enough enemies to spawn a random Boss. Successfully defeating the Boss before the time runs out will grant the player with access to the next level of difficulty.
Getting ready for Abattoir of Zir
The prerequisites for participating in this challenge are as follows:
- Complete the Season 2 questline.
- Complete all seven chapters of the Season Journey, which will unlock the Tier 1 Bloodforged Sigil recipe at the Occultist.
- Start beefing up the Armor on your best builds as much as possible.
- The amount of Gold and Sigil Power material and that will drop during an Abattoir dungeon is unknown at this point.
- It looks like players will always have to craft the next highest Sigil as they level up, rather than one dropping during the rift.
- Hopefully the Sigils that do drop can be salvaged for a large amount of Sigil Powder.
- Nevertheless, it’s recommended for players to accumulate as much Gold and Sigil Powder material as possible, just in case.
- Crafting a Tier 1 Bloodforged Sigil will cost 60,000 Gold and 800 Sigil Powder material, according to the preview image.
- Players will need to run the Abattoir dungeons a countless number times in order to upgrade the Tears of Blood Unqiue Glyph.
- Consequently, the cumulative crafting cost might end up being several million Gold along with perhaps tens of thousands of Sigil Powder material by the time a player has unlocked the Tier 25 Sigil recipe (assuming that it’s even possible to do so).
- Craft a Tier 1 Bloodforged Sigil at the Occultist, which will require 800 Sigil Powder.
- Activate the Bloodforged Sigil, which will open a blood portal in Ked Bardu, through which the player will travel to the Abattoir dungeon.
Progression
The Abattoir of Zir was described by Joe Shelley as Post-Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeon content (enemy health will scale up well above level 154), which may mean that the difficulty level of a Tier 1 Abattoir dungeon could turn out to be comparable to, or even greater than, a Tier 90+ Nightmare Dungeon .
The difficulty level of each successive dungeon scales up really fast, so the next tier of the Abattoir will be far more difficult than the previous one. This could mean that, despite the Abattoir dungeons having only 25 tiers, the overall increase in difficulty will likely prove to be even greater than what would be experienced over the course of progressing from a Tier 1 Nightmare Dungeon up to a Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeon.
Every time a player successfully completes a dungeon, the next highest tier Bloodforged Sigil recipe will unlock, which can then be crafted at the Occultist.
Rewards
Running the Abattoir of Zir dungeon will shower players with the customary assortment of loot, gold, and materials as can currently be obtained in high tier Nightmare Dungeons.
The Tears of Blood Unique Glyph will be awarded upon successfully completing the first Tier 1 Abattoir dungeon and will persist throughout the event.
The Abattoir dungeons will reward a massive amount of Glyph XP, which players can then use to level up the Tears of Blood Unique Glyph, thus helping them to progress through the tougher tiers of the dungeon.
- Can be upgraded 200 times, compared to Rare Glyphs, which have a max level of 21.
- Starts at Radius 4 when it drops, compared to Rare Glyphs, which start at Radius 3.
- Will upgrade to Radius 5 at Level 50.
- Grants a 50% bonus to all Rare nodes within its radius, which increases by 10% every 10 levels.
Disclaimer on Content Speculation
We would love to hear your opinions on the matter, so please sound off in the comments section below. Also, keep an eye on the news feed here at PureDiablo so you’ll have all the up-to-date info you need to get the most out of your game.
If you believe that any of the information shared above is inaccurate in any way, please let us know, along with a reference for the correct information, so we can update this document accordingly. All of this is, of course, still speculation right now based on the information shared thus far by the developers and anything could be changed or scrapped between now and the release.
Cheers,
Gazerrick