Difficulties determine how challenging the game is from monster level and intelligence to the quality of items that can drop as loot or are rewarded for completing tasks. These replace World Tiers. These difficulties will apply to Diablo 4 with or without Vessel of Hatred.
There are two tiers of difficulty, Standard Difficulties where the character leveling up happens, and Torment Difficulties when you venture into the much more challenging endgame activities. Rising through the ranks of difficulty will reward you with more gold and experience and the higher you progress through the Torment difficulties the better your chances of getting Ancestral item drops.
Standard Difficulties
- Normal - Slower-paced for those looking for a lighter challenge.
- Hard - Increased challenge and pace which is unlocked by default.
- Expert - Increased challenge and pace, unlocked after completing Diablo IV's prologue.
- Penitent - Much more difficult and only unlocks when reaching character level 50.
Torment Difficulties
Torment difficulties are endgame difficulties and the rise through them is tied to The Pit and require that you venture down through their levels. You need to be level 60 (max level) before you can enter The Pit to begin with.
- Torment 1 - Requires that you beat a Tier 20 Pit and be level 60.
- The handicap of T1 is -250 Armor and -25% to all your resistances.
- Ancestral items can now drop.
- Torment 2 - Requires that you beat a Tier 35 Pit.
- The handicap of T2 is -500 Armor and -50% to all your resistances.
- Torment 3 - Requires that you beat a Tier 50 Pit.
- The handicap of T3 is -750 Armor and -75% to all your resistances.
- Torment 4 - Requires that you beat a Tier 65 Pit.
- The handicap of T4 is -1000 Armor and -100% to all your resistances.
Difficulty progression is tied to The Pit to standardize difficulty throughout the game. So for example, if you are playing in Torment 1 difficulty, The Pit, Infernal Hordes, Boss Ladder, Whispers, Helltides, Dark Citadel will feel a uniform difficulty and therefore open up the options for challenging gameplay. Once you reach max level (60) you have an entire smorgasbord of viable activities where the monster health, damage, intensity*, and rewards feel more consistent.
- Intensity determines monster:
- Aggressiveness - Faster attacking, shorter cooldowns, and moving faster.
- Intelligence - Predicts your movement more, faces you more, and tracks you with their attacks more accurately.
Monster level will no longer be displayed as now their difficulty scales with the difficulty level that you are playing on.
Smart keys (Infernal Hordes Compasses and Nightmare Dungeon Sigil) follow the current difficulty you are on. So, using a Compass whilst on Torment 3 will take you to a Torment 3 Infernal Horde arena.
No activity should feel like the poor man's version of endgame gameplay.
Changes to Difficulties
Patch 2.0, October 7, 2024
- Difficulties replaced World Tiers in Season 6.
Archive Difficulties
Sweeping changes to the difficulty system were made in Season 6. Before that we had World Tiers and all that old information is in the drop down below.
| + Expand to see the Archive of Difficulties. |
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World Tiers are levels of game difficulty. Their are four Tiers. When You StartWhen you load the game for the first time, it will prompt you to chose Adventurer or Veteran. If you are new to the game and have no idea about Diablo then take the easy route and pick Adventurer. Pick Veteran if you have played a Diablo game before. Diablo 4 World Tiers (Difficulty Levels)Torment levels detailed below are correct as of the Diablo 4 Beta test.  World Tier 1: AdventurerRecommended for new players to Diablo or want a light challenge
 World Tier 2: VeteranRecommended for Diablo veterans who want to be tested
 World Tier 3: NightmareFor players who desire more challenge.
 World Tier 4: TormentEven stronger challenges await in the dark.
When can you access a new World Tier?Players have to complete and end-cap dungeon to progress to a new World Tier. These dungeons are larger and more deadly than other dungeons on the game and will prove a real challenge. How do you select World Tiers?In the centre of Kyovashad there is a World Tier statue which if you click will pop up this interface. Changing your World Tier terminates all active portals and resets all incomplete Whisper progress. Players will need to be on the same World Tier to form a party. How will the game become more challenging?Higher World Tiers will be more challenging with monsters being tougher and new monster mechanics come into play. Changes to World TiersBlizzard had changed the difficulty levels by the time the the beta launched. Previously there had been five levels with Hell being the fourth level and Torment the fifth. The Hell naming was removed and changed to Torment making only four World Tiers as of the Diablo 4 Beta. World Tier 4: HellEven stronger challenges await in the dark.
 World Tier 5: TormentFight the strongest, most fierce demons in all of Sanctuary.
Previous Diablo GamesDiablo 1 / Diablo 2Diablo1 and Diablo 2 gave players the options of Normal, Nightmare and Hell. Diablo 1Hellfire supported Nightmare and Hell difficulty for single player characters, this is not a feature in the regular Diablo. In regular D1, you can only play NM and Hell with multiplayer characters. (You must be level 20+ to create a Nightmare game, or level 30+ to create a hell game. Nightmare and Hell can be enabled for single player characters with this trick .
Multilayer monsters will now have have double the hit points and other elements of the game are increased in difficulty as well. Diablo 2Normal, Nightmare and Hell returned in Diablo 2. See Diablo 2 Difficulties page for full details on how they differ from each other. Diablo 3Diablo 3 changed the difficulty settings from the previous two games. Monsters changed in the following ways[1]:
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