Blizzard has posted an official preview of the mid-season update which sheds more light on the trials that await us starting March 5.
UNDYING GLORY AWAITS IN TRIALS
The Trials call you forth, wanderer. Fight to earn your place on the Leaderboards when they arrive on March 5. Each week you can master a new Gauntlet: a fixed non-linear Dungeon that will have you fighting to earn the mightiest score. Who will fight to dominate the competition, earn coveted Seals, and carve their place on the Leaderboards. Do you have what it takes to become undeniable?
With the upcoming midseason patch, there will be impactful class balance changes and Seneschal Companion updates coming in the patch that introduces this challenge dungeon, so we will be actively monitoring feedback to make tweaks with the Gauntlet in mind. To read more on the upcoming changes, please read our Diablo IV Patch notes.
Codex
Test Your Prowess in The Gauntlet
Leaderboards & Hall of the Ancients
Test Your Prowess in The Gauntlet
This adrenaline-fueled challenge is available to all classes in the Seasonal Realm, whether they’re normal or Hardcore. Once you’ve gained access to World Tier IV, travel to the southwestern port in Gea Kul. At the end of their longest dock sits the formidable Horn of Trials, activate it to access the Gauntlet. Even though the Gauntlet is accessible to you upon reaching World Tier IV, Monster levels will be beyond level 100, so characters that have hit Level 100 will be most likely to triumph in the carnage ahead.
The Gauntlet is a fixed layout, non-linear dungeon that changes weekly. It’s an endgame dungeon where mastery, cunning, and skill will achieve the highest score. Your score is based on how many Proofs of Might you can earn from killing Monsters and opening chests within the 8-minute time limit. Each time you enter the Gauntlet during the week, it will be identical so you can devise your most efficient mode of slaughter and let the corpses mark your progress.
The Gauntlet concludes each week on Tuesday, 8 a.m. PST with the next completely different Gauntlet emerging at 10:15 a.m. PST. Strive for your personal best and fight to the bitter end each week before the next Gauntlet begins anew.
Prove Your Might
Proving your might is the name of the game. Proofs of Might—which dictate your overall score—can be earned by killing endless hordes of monsters and opening chests. Pillars can increase the number of Proofs you earn, either through score multipliers or respawning the monsters you just killed. While score-based Pillars increase your Proofs of Might, power-based Shrines can also spawn in the Gauntlet. After killing a boss within the dungeon, a shrine will appear where they have been slain. Activate the Shrine to receive one of the various shrine effects available, which will be identical each time the same boss is killed within the Gauntlet.
Ferocity, efficiency, and strategy will lead you to eternal success in the Gauntlet. Considering this is a fixed-layout dungeon, each time you enter for the week, the dungeon layout will be identical. Attempting different routes and adjusting your build will be paramount to mastering each week’s layout.
You will be able to respawn upon death in the Gauntlet, but you will lose a third of your score each time you perish. However, you or your teammate can recover all your lost Proofs of Might at the place of your last death upon returning to the dungeon.
Seal your Legend
As your score increases, so does your rank within Trials. Your final score can earn you Seals—the mark of your prowess in the Gauntlet for that week. Earning Seals proves your mastery to fellow wanderers. There are four ranks of Seals to earn:
- Seal of the Blooded
- Seal of the Steadfast
- Seal of the Iron-Willed
- Seal of the Worthy
The Seal of the Blooded is what most of you will strive to earn first, while the Seal of the Worthy will only be granted to those who have dedicated themselves to absolute bloodlust in the Gauntlet. The score needed to earn each Seal will vary week by week, depending on the layout of the Gauntlet and the class you’re playing. These scores scale with Party size: larger groups will have an easier time earning a higher score than solo players and will be tracked in a separate Ladder Leaderboard.
It will take some sweat to reach the highest Seals—do not expect a feeble showing to rank you among the greats.
Caches to Plunder
Earning Proofs of Might is your sole priority within the viscera-strewn passageways of the Gauntlet, so Loot will be rewarded upon completion. Regardless of whether you’ve earned a Seal, if you participate in The Gauntlet, you’ll still obtain a minor cache after each run.
Upon the weekly reset of the Gauntlet and depending on your best score, you’ll earn Caches of Trials. The higher the score, the better the Cache you’ll earn for that week. Earning a Cache of Trials guarantees one Ancestral Legendary, and scales in rank with the Cache awarded. Earning the Seal of the Worthy will grant the most coveted treasures as they are guaranteed to drop items with level 925 power.
Earning a Seal of a higher rank will still grant you the rewards of a lower Seal, with the Seal of the Worthy granting you all Seal Caches available for that week. You can also earn multiple Seals for the multiple Gauntlet ladders that are available.
Leaderboards & Hall of the Ancients
Leaderboards are separated by Ladders for Class, Party size, Normal and Hardcore.
They can also be filtered by Friends and by Clan to see how you measure up against your closest allies. For those of you who want friendlier competition, apply these filters to individual Ladders to see whom among your friends is the deadliest of all.
Class specific Ladders will only be designated for those playing Solo. This means there are 16 possible weekly Ladders to ascend in total. Your best score across all Classes, Characters, and platforms are the ones that will mark your tenuous spot amongst the Great. You do not need to have cross-play enabled to have your score rank on the Leaderboards, but you do need to enable cross-play to view that leaderboard in-game.
Note that while the Ladders for each weekly Leaderboard will be active once the Gauntlet arrives on March 5, we will be waiting to launch our Gauntlet contest until we have been able to balance it around your skills and abilities. Considering this midseason update introduces class balance updates and changes to the Seneschal Companion, we want to ensure we can monitor your feedback and make updates as needed. More details for the Gauntlet contest will be revealed soon!
If you manage to secure your place in the Top 100 of any Ladder, you will also earn a Conqueror’s Crest Mount Trophy.
If you can manage to become the greatest among us and place in the Top 10 on any of the Leaderboards, you will have your name and character immortalized in the permanent Hall of the Ancients, allowing future legions of wanderers to gaze upon your coveted performance.
Best the Trials and master the Gauntlet when it goes live on March 5.