How to Gear Your Character

On the surface, gearing your characters in Diablo 4 seems easy: kill monsters and get loot. But given how vast, complex, and varied the game is—especially for new players—this is only scratching the surface.

We're going to cover everything from difficulty settings and types of gear to the wide range of activities available for farming. What’s effective, what’s efficient, and where the best loot drops.

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This guide was written by Cliptis.

The best place to start is with your difficulty levels. When you first create your character, you're presented with four difficulty settings as you level: Normal, Hard, Expert, and Penitent. In all four stages, drop quality remains the same. The gear you obtain during leveling is tied to your character's level, not the difficulty.

Once you reach level 60, you’ll unlock Torment 1 after completing The Artificer’s Pit Level 10. From there, you can unlock up to Torment 4.

Each increase in difficulty offers greater rewards—more experience, more gold, and more loot. While higher Torment tiers don’t increase your chance of receiving higher-quality gear per drop, they do increase the amount of loot dropped. More loot means a higher probability of finding something valuable.

Once you've reached the highest Torment level your character can handle, where should you go to get better gear? Here are your main options:

• Helltides
• Regular Dungeons
• Nightmare Dungeons
• The Infernal Hordes
• The Artificer Pits
• Lair Bosses
• Whisper Caches
• Purveyor of Curiosity
• Seasonal Questline
• With the Vessel of Hatred Expansion:
• The Kurast Undercity
• The Dark Citadel

Upon completing the Seasonal questline, you'll unlock the ability to collect caches for access reputation. These caches offer guaranteed greater affixes of both legendary and unique gear. This makes it the largest and fastest way to gain Ancestral gear but this is only a seasonal mechanic and may not be an option after Season 8.

These work similarly: kill monsters, complete events, open chests, and earn rewards upon completion. While not the most efficient loot source, Nightmare Dungeons are critical for acquiring upgrade materials you’ll need in the late game.

Helltides offer a unique loot path. As you kill monsters, they drop Cinders in addition to gear, gold, and materials. Cinders can be spent to open specialized chests scattered throughout the map—divided into Armor, Weapon, and Jewelry categories. It’s a great way to target specific gear slots.

During Helltides, you'll also encounter events that reward Grim Favor. Collecting 10 Grim Favor lets you trade them at the Tree of Whispers for Whisper Caches—which provide gear, materials, and gold. Occasionally, you’ll find a Great Ancestral Cache, which always contains Ancestral Legendary gear.

Similar to dungeons but with a twist: you don’t receive loot until you defeat the final boss. While not the best place for gear, the Pits offer a high amount of Obols, an important currency.

Obols can be spent at the Purveyor of Curiosities to roll for gear. This method has been revamped and is now an excellent way to fill gear gaps and begin collecting Ancestral Legendaries. However, Ancestral Uniques are rare through this method.

Looking for Uniques? Head to Lair Bosses, which drop only unique gear. Each boss has its own loot pool and shares a general pool with others. The best source for Ancestral Uniques is Belial, who always drops two of them at Torment 4. These bosses also drop Mythic Uniques and high-quality Runes, though Mythics are extremely rare and may require many kills.

This wave-based dungeon mode rewards Aether as you complete challenges. You can use Aether to open post-boss chests. Avoid the gold chest—the other two are more valuable. Always prioritize the equipment chest (200 Aether), which guarantees Ancestral gear and two Scrolls of Restoration. Then use remaining Aether on the materials chest.

Requires a minimum of two players. Each of the three wings can be completed separately. Completing a wing saves your progress and when all three wins are complete you are rewarded with a weekly cache that usually includes Ancestral gear with two or more Greater Affixes. Best of all, the bonus applies per character—so run it on multiple toons!

This is the best farming spot in the game. After completing the Deeds of a Champion questline, you'll unlock tributes, which alter your end-of-dungeon rewards. Tributes can include guaranteed boss materials, runes, guaranteed drops of Ancestral legendaries, even Mythic Uniques (With somewhere over 50% drop rates) This makes the Undercity your best shot at powerful gear.

Diablo 4 offers a wide variety of systems to improve and acquire gear. This flexibility supports many playstyles, letting you find the most fun and effective route for your journey. Keep in mind that ARPGs are fundamentally RNG-driven—so finding that perfect piece might take hours, days, or even weeks. But that’s what makes the moment you do find it feel so rewarding.