Diablo 4 Gauntlet Guide: Fundamentals To Improve Your Ranking

Tips and Tricks That Work For Any Week’s Gauntlet

Today, like a lot of people I jumped onto Gauntlet and blasted it, working out the best routes and tactics, really dialing in my attempts, and as of writing this article, I’m currently sitting at rank 6 in the world.

Now, I want to share with you the fundamentals and general guidelines I apply to get the most out of every run. The best part?

These tips will apply to all Gauntlet trials, for more specific articles on specific dungeons for the current week check here.

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Prepping and Routes

Kicking things off, I think it’s important to know what kind of pre-game prep you’ll want to be doing.

The first thing would be your gear, though Gauntlet trial enemies are doormats, there are still some specific gear requirements you’ll want to hit.

Namely, Shrine Duration on your boots and amulets as these increase the duration of the Glory pillars which will substantially increase your score, and then movement speed, lots of it, all the way to 200% (the cap) if possible, but don’t forget to account for movement-increasing effects like Ghostwalk or Berserking.

To prepare even better, do not forget to check out popular and powerful Diablo 4 builds in the current meta.

Next, you’ll want to consider the consumables you’ll want to be using and stockpile those, did you drop a resistance to get shrine duration? Ok then you may need resistance potions, does your build scale with attack speed? Ok, then this is the direction we go in, typically though, most classes benefit best from raw damage increases.

You also don’t need to pop consumables every run, It’s best to have a large stockpile available for when you have planned out your strategy and are ready to start to push ranks.

Next is what I call “discovery runs”. The first 5-10 attempts won’t be for rank, but to explore the layout with no concern for completion time, memorize where the elites are, the bosses, and most importantly the Pillars.

You’ll need this information to start planning out your routes to make the most of your time in the trial.

This may seem like a lot to do before you even start pushing for rank, and it kind of is, however, this will lay the groundwork for you to hit high ranks in the trails.

Now you have all of your prep work done though, what are the best practices for when you’re actually in the trial?

Drills

First is drilling your route, you’ll need to learn this off by heart, the trials are fairly large dungeons with lots of crossroads and corridors and one wrong turn can cost you a solid run.

So first would be getting used to your planned route. While you’re drilling your runs, you’ll also want to be taking note of how long your shrines of glory are lasting.

Is your current route optimized for this? Are you hitting as many bosses as possible, or would a slight deviation allow you to kill one more boss from a certain pillar?

The goal with these pillars is to kill as many high-value enemies as you can, prioritizing first bosses, then elites, and finally everything else.

But especially bosses as these are worth enough points to trigger a horde of elites to spawn near you, doubling the potential gain.

So ensure you update your route to include as many priority kills as possible. Oh, and don’t be like me and forget to collect the shrines that the bosses drop, they’re powerful lol.

Shrines and Pillars

Speaking of shrines (the ones dropped by bosses, not the pillars) it’s first important to take note of which boss drops which shrine.

For example, if a boss drops a channeling shrine this is very high value as it will increase your clear speed substantially, much more so than say a lethal shrine in most cases.

So it’s important to consider the timing of when to get this shrine as it could be the difference between hitting an extra boss or elite back with your pillar of glory active, leading to a much higher score.

Next, if an artillery shrine is in play then it will be very important to have a build with an ability that creates the AoE effect from this power. For example, Whirlwind for the Barbarian or Blood Surge for the Necromancer.

With an artillery shrine, these skills become INSANE map cleaners dramatically increasing your score per minute during the duration. In general, it is best to take note of which shrine is where and to leverage it in the best way for your class.

When it comes to using your pillars, you want to typically use them both at the same time where possible (Proving & Glory) so that all the possible enemies/bosses are available to kill. You also want to aim to finish your route around the map at the next shrine to allow you to continue the momentum for the duration of the trial.

Now it is important to mention here that you DO NOT have to clear the entire map every day.

Currently, the best method is to rotate the more densely packed areas of the map, using the pillars as effectively as possible and then clearing the whole map once all the pillars are spent.

On smaller maps, you may need to do this full clear once and at the beginning too so that you’re not in a position where you have killed all the enemies and have no more pillars of proving.

Finally and most importantly, keep iterating. Don’t be afraid to try new routes and tactics, and experiment with the ordering of pillars, bosses, and so on, this is how the best strategies are created after all.

Chests

Next, a small thing you will want to look out for is the best opportunities to open chests, for the big ones you want to look to get these in a way that requires the least deviation from your main course, in other words as you would naturally pass it or at the end of a run when there are no more enemies left.

For the small chests, I would recommend ignoring these entirely unless in the edge case, one is located near a proving shrine and you need to kill 1 second before the enemies start to crawl out of the ground, or again if you’re at the end of the run with nothing left to kill.

Don’t forget you need to kill the enemy marked on the minimap to grab a key to open a chest.

Understand Enemy Priority

As we mentioned before, your priority targets are the bosses, elites, and then everything else, but there are some broader guidelines to follow when moving around the map.

While moving from point to point you do always want to be killing, every time you see a juicy pack do your best to stomp it, but do not hang around for that one or two last skeletons it’s better to keep moving onto the next pack.

Enemy champions (the purple aura dudes) are a priority target too, not only do they make everything around them impossible to kill, but they are also treated as elites and drop more points and for some builds proc aspect effects that require an elite kill, so make sure to light these enemies up when you see them.

It is much easier to kill your priority target if you’re using a meta build. Check out our Diablo 4 tier list in order to discover the best builds in the current season.

Be Aware of “Wall Hacks”

Another useful thing to keep an eye out for is to test which walls, corners, doors, etc you can use traversal skills to pass through.

For example, the Barbarian Leap can often go right through walls or cut corners saving a lot of time running around the map.

In Conclusion

Now get out there and get stuck in! Best of luck with your climb and don’t forget to check Mobalytics for builds for the weekly Gauntlets.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below, thanks for reading.