Diablo 4 has been pushed back but Blizzard Entertainment still continues to support Diablo 3. Season 26: The Fall of the Nephalem goes live on April 15th and offers new features like the Echoing Nightmare. Update 2.7.3 is currently live to download and along with these changes, it also brings true 4K to the game when it runs on Xbox Series X.
Previously, it was locked to 1080p resolution on Xbox Series X, which was strange considering that the Xbox One X could upscale to 4K. The issue is now fixed so it’s possible to enjoy defeating the demons of Hell in glorious 4K.
As for Season 26’s content, it involves collecting Petrified Screams upon defeating Greater Rift Guardians. It provides entry into the Echoing Nightmare which becomes progressively more difficult as more enemies are defeated. You’ll gain a number of rewards though from EXP and Legendaries to Blood Shards and Gems including the new Legendary Gem, Whisper of Atonement.
Check out some of the patch notes below. Diablo 3 is currently available for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch.
Season 26 | The Fall of the Nephalem | Patch 2.7.3
Seasons
Season 26 introduces the Echoing Nightmare, an optional and rewarding end-game challenge where players fight within the memories of Nephalem who fell in a Greater Rift. Today’s Nephalem must stand their ground until they are inevitably Overwhelmed or defeated. Players must collect a Petrified Scream from defeated Greater Rift Guardians to gain entry to the Echoing Nightmare. Transmuting a Petrified Scream in Kanai’s Cube summons a portal that players can enter to face the horrors of the Nephalem’s past.
Season Theme Details:
- Petrified Screams and the Echoing Nightmare can only be accessed with seasonal characters.
- Only one player is required to transmute a Petrified Scream to open an Echoing Nightmare in a multiplayer game.
- Similar to a boss encounter, all players in a multiplayer game must accept a prompt to enter.
- While within an Echoing Nightmare, the difficulty scales as players progress in the encounter. Players can progress faster by defeating monsters quickly.
- Players receive the following rewards upon completing an Echoing Nightmare: EXP, Legendary Items, Blood Shards, Gems, and a new Legendary Gem, Whisper of Atonement.
- The Whisper of Atonement is a Legendary Gem used exclusively for Augmenting Ancient Legendary items. It drops pre-ranked based upon the player’s performance in the Echoing Nightmare.
- Rare monsters now spawn within an Echoing Nightmare.
- Meteors now fall from the sky.
- Hellish Machinations now appear, which spawn streams of Exploding Lunatics.
- Rift Guardians now spawn.
- Increased the frequency of which monsters spawn.
- Updated the Shadow Clone explosion to better reflect the area of effect.
- The exit timer has been increased to 60 seconds.
- Increased the possible rank a Whisper of Atonement can drop to 125 based on the Tier completed.
- Monsters in Echoing Nightmares can no longer be Frozen, Stunned, Rooted or Knocked Back.
- Fixed a bug that caused Conduit Shrines to deal less damage than intended.
New Updates (Post-PTR)
- Monsters from the Echoing Nightmares no longer drop gold, items or health globes.
- Adjusted the damage done by Exploding Lunatics and Meteors to be more deadly.
- Adjusted the difficulty of Tiers 100+.
- Replaced the Shield Pylon with a Speed Pylon.
- Adjusted the EXP rewarded by Echoing Nightmares to be aligned with Greater Rift turn-in rewards.
- Reduced the Echoing Nightmare closing timer to 30 seconds.
- Prevented Echoing Nightmares from being opened in games lower than level 70.
- Adjusted the drop rate of Petrified Screams from Greater Rift Guardians.
Greater Rift Updates
We wanted to improve the Greater Rift experience through quality of life updates, balance changes and addressing community feedback. We reviewed all of the maps and monsters that appear in Greater Rifts and reworked the probabilities overall to make sure players spend more time with the content they enjoy. Less spaghetti and more chickens!
- Orek’s Dream: Greater Rifts have a small chance to roll as Orek’s Dream. These dreamlike rifts have a curated list of maps and monster compositions.
- 3 maps have been added and 2 maps have been removed from the Greater Rift pool.
- Added: Fields of Misery, Desolate Sands and Briarthorn Cemetery
- Removed: Sewers of Caldeum, and Hidden Aqueducts
- The probability of Greater Rift maps has been adjusted.
- The probability of monster groups has been adjusted.
- The following monsters have been adjusted to grant more progression and EXP within Greater Rifts.
– Blazing Guardians
– Smoldering Guardians
– Frost Guardian
– Noxious Guardian
– Shock Guardian
– Blood Clan Spearman
– Dark Moon Clan Impaler
– Moon Clan Impaler
– Blood Clan Impaler
– Ice Clan Impaler
– Hell Witch
– Vile Temptress - Players can speak to Orek to close an active Greater Rift. This option is only available when in a single player game.
- Further increased the progression granted by some monsters in Greater Rifts.
- Updated visual effects upon entering an Orek’s Dream.
- Updated the Orek’s Dream vignette to be more pronounced.