When you reach World Tier 3: Nightmare, a new setting with foes of a far higher difficulty than what you’ve encountered before, the combat in Diablo 4 becomes considerably more challenging. Your character can advance to new levels of incredible power with the next step available in this World Tier. You have the opportunity to become stronger than ever before thanks to more difficult dungeons, fiercer opponents, and rarer loot.
You must defeat Diablo 4’s main story with at least one character on the game’s initial difficulty settings before you may consider World Tier 3. The challenges you will encounter are determined by your choice between World Tier 1 (Adventurer) and World Tier 2 (Veteran). The adversaries in Tier 2 are just marginally more difficult, but it’s important to remember that each of these realms uses the same loot pool.
How to Unlock World Tier 3: Nightmare Mode in Diablo 4

Diablo 4’s World Tier 3: Nightmare is unlocked by your character finishing a Capstone dungeon that can be found at Kyovashad’s Cathedral of Light. A new Primary Quest that indicates the location of the Capstone dungeon appears on your map when you complete the game’s story’s last events. Veterans are the target audience for this task, and characters with levels 50–70 have the best chance of succeeding.
Tip – Nightmare’s Capstone Dungeon is only available on World Tier 2 difficulty. Your character cannot find it when exploring World Tier 1.
In Diablo 4, each Capstone dungeon corresponds to the suggested level; for example, the World Tier 3 dungeon has several bosses and Elite foes that are at least level 50. To get ready for the dungeon, gather as many Legendary items and equipment as you can if you’re going with a group. You might be able to go beyond this obstacle by equipping your character with strong Legendary Aspects according to their class.
How to Change Difficulty Levels in Diablo 4 Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred Expansion

You can alter your World Tier whenever you want by interacting with the Inarius statue in Kyovashad. Enemies will change to levels 50–70 when you switch between Tiers, changing their loot and the amount of experience points you get from defeating them. World Tier 3 monsters grant 100% more experience and 15% more Gold, enabling you to level up new characters more quickly and have more money for other Sanctuary duties.
Even simple adversaries become much more deadly in World Tier 3 thanks to a special perk that gives them the ability to pierce through 20% of a character’s resistances.
The possibility to acquire Unique and Sacred gear items that are a level above Legendary in Diablo 4 is one of the most significant enhancements to World Tier 3. These goods are dropped by champion foes that now show up in this difficulty, giving your character access to even more obscene strength. This Tier also sees the emergence of exclusive world events known as Helltides, which increase your chances of receiving these insane item drops.
In this Tier, you can also gather Nightmare Sigils, which will turn ordinary dungeons on your map into Nightmare Dungeons. You can also get rarer items and more experience points for your character in these improved dungeons. You can advance in the game until you choose to take on the much more difficult tasks of World Tier 4 by choosing to unlock World Tier 3: Nightmare.
Torment Tiers Explained: Rewards and Challenges in Diablo 4’s Latest Update
You can no longer unlock World Tiers 1-4 with any character in Diablo 4 as of Season 6. Rather, there are four main challenges that you can choose from at any time while playing, and they are named:
- Normal – standard settings
- Hard – 75% more XP and Gold
- Expert – 125% more XP and Gold
- Penitent – 175% more XP and Gold
You can select any of these difficulties when you launch a new game. Unlike World Tiers 1 and 2, which were previously represented, you are not restricted to just Normal or Hard. This time, you can switch up the level at any moment by visiting a shrine in each large city you unlock. This reduces time-consuming journey time because you don’t always need to use the Shrine of Inarius in Kyovashad.
Tip – Higher difficulties make your adventure more challenging by increasing enemy aggression, health, and damage, much how World Tiers altered gameplay elements.
Levels of The Pit, a re-appearing mega-dungeon from the series, can be cleared to unlock more challenges beyond Penitent, known as Torment difficulties. When one of your characters hits Level 60, the highest level cap that can be achieved for any build, the Pit becomes accessible. The Artificer’s Obelisk leads to the Pit in Cerrigar, where you can choose the level of difficulty you choose to use to confront particular dungeon layers.
You can unlock four different Torment Tiers, each of which has reward boosts that correspond to the escalating base difficulties. The higher Tiers are locked behind more difficult layers of The Pit, and you must clear specific Levels of the Pit before you can access them. Here are all the Torment Tiers, along with their loot rewards and how to unlock them:
Torment Tier | Gameplay Changes | How To Unlock |
---|---|---|
Torment | 300% more XP300% more Gold Increased change of finding Legendary items Increased chance of finding Mythics and Uniques in Diablo 4 Armor reduced by 250 Resistance reduced by 25% | Clear Pit Level 20 |
Torment 2 | 400% more XP400% more Gold Increased chance of finding Legendary items Increased chance of finding Mythics and Uniques Armor reduced by 500 Resistance reduced by 50% | Clear Pit Level 35 |
Torment 3 | 500% more XP 500% more Gold Increased chance of finding Legendary items Increased chance of finding Mythics and Uniques Armor reduced by 750 Resistance reduced by 75% | Clear Pit Level 50 |
Torment 4 | 600% more XP 600% more Gold Increased chance of finding Legendary items Increased chance of finding Mythics and Uniques Armor reduced by 1000 Resistance reduced by 100% | Clear Pit Level 65 |
As you can see, as you go through the Torment tiers, the rewards increase significantly, but your character’s defenses are also significantly weakened. You must play carefully on these higher levels because this challenge makes it more difficult to withstand enemy engagements. Even though World Tier 3: Nightmare is no longer available in Diablo 4, these Torment settings will still put your skills to the test.