Diablo 4 Season 9 Endgame Pit Push Strategies
High-level pit pushes are a common sight across YouTube, but replicating these achievements can be challenging. This guide provides every tip, trick, and secret necessary to push a character to the highest level. A complete written guide is available and includes all how-tos and farming tips accumulated over the years.
Essential Materials and Farming Methods
Materials are the cornerstone of endgame progression. Salvaging gear early is critical, as hundreds of thousands of veiled crystals, thousands of forgotten souls, and large amounts of optite are required.
Forgotten Souls
Obtained from legion events, tortured gifts in hell tides, caches from the tree of whispers, infernal hordes, under city karass, dark citadel, or bartering from the mercenary den.
Obtained from legion events, tortured gifts in hell tides, caches from the tree of whispers, infernal hordes, under city karass, dark citadel, or bartering from the mercenary den.
Legion events offer up to 200 forgotten souls every 20 minutes. Opening chests at the end of legion events is highly efficient.
Nightmare Dungeons & Strong Rooms
Nightmare dungeons now feature Herodric material reserves, offering up to 25 forgotten souls per chest. Strong rooms within nightmare dungeons are the best optite farm, granting thousands per clear. Nightmare dungeon sigils can be crafted and salvaged for more runs.
Nightmare dungeons now feature Herodric material reserves, offering up to 25 forgotten souls per chest. Strong rooms within nightmare dungeons are the best optite farm, granting thousands per clear. Nightmare dungeon sigils can be crafted and salvaged for more runs.
Veiled crystals are farmed from salvaging rare, legendary, unique, and mythic gear. Tree of whisper caches, legion events, infernal hordes, and elite monsters also provide these. Salvaging ancestral unique gear gives the most veiled crystals.
| Gear Type | Veiled Crystals Received |
|---|---|
| Rare | 2 |
| Legendary (non-ancestral) | 1 |
| Ancestral | 10 |
| Unique | 3 |
| Ancestral Unique | 30 |
Bundled herbs are gathered from the map, sellers, tortured gifts, hell tides, and especially whisper caches earned from grim favors.
Maximizing Elixirs and Incense
Running an elixir at all times is essential. Use incense from all three categories: core, defense, and resistance, based on character needs. For example, resourcefulness elixirs provide a substantial damage boost for barbarians. Using three different incense at once can provide critical stat boosts.
There is no universal best elixir or incense—choose based on your build and needs. Craft in bulk for long sessions.
Selecting and Building Your Character
Following a build guide is highly recommended for identifying the best skills and stat priorities. The strongest builds focus all gear, aspects, and paragon boards on one main skill.
Build Example
Building around lunging strike has proven both fast and effective for barbarians this season.
Building around lunging strike has proven both fast and effective for barbarians this season.
Build guides also reveal important details, like broken items (e.g., ugly bastard helmet currently not functioning as intended), ensuring efficient builds and avoiding wasted effort.
Understanding Multiplicative vs Additive Damage
Multiplicative damage (e.g.,
x modifiers) offers exponential increases compared to additive bonuses (+). For example, a 120% multiplicative boost far outweighs a 159% additive increase. Gear and tempers should prioritize stacking multipliers for the largest gains.| Scenario | Result |
|---|---|
| 1000% base + 100% additive | 1100% |
| 1000% base × 25% multiplicative | 1250% |
| 1000% base × 120% multiplicative | 2200% |
Focus on adding as many multipliers as possible to gear, while additive bonuses accrue naturally.
Optimizing Gear and GA (Greater Affix) Choices
Perfect gear is not mandatory for pit progression. Single GA gear can clear high-level content. Emphasize stats that actually boost performance, such as ranks to pit fighter or critical strike chance. For pain gorgers, focus on ranks to basic skills.
Many top clearers use only basic GA gear and minimal masterwork, relying on smart stat choices and build synergy.
Tempering, Enchanting, and Masterworking
Tempering comes first. Choose tempers that multiply damage or provide essential survival stats. Apply multiplicative tempers primarily to the correct weapon type, and avoid redundancy.
Enchanting allows targeting the most frequently active additive stat. For example, if critical strike chance is high, prioritize critical strike damage. Rerolling affixes can be expensive, so ensure materials are stockpiled before heavy enchanting.
Masterworking requires two tempers. Non-ancestral gear caps at rank 8, ancestral at 12. Always upgrade all gear to 4, then 8, then 12. Salvaging masterworked gear returns all optite. The goal is to double-roll stats across gear, then aim for rare triple rolls for even higher performance.
Start by getting all doubles before chasing triples. Stronger gear makes farming materials for further upgrades much easier.
Pit Pushing and Map Fishing
Success in high-level pits depends heavily on the map and boss combinations. Fishing for the right dungeon layout and enemy types is vital. The canyon map is highly favored for its open layout. Knowing when to quit and start a new run can save time and resources.
Glyph Leveling
Run dungeons that can be cleared in about five minutes for efficient glyph upgrades. Avoid high-death runs to maximize upgrade chances.
Run dungeons that can be cleared in about five minutes for efficient glyph upgrades. Avoid high-death runs to maximize upgrade chances.
Boss Selection
The ideal boss depends on the build—sometimes a single-target boss is needed, other times a boss with adds for AoE builds. Continue fishing until both the map and boss are favorable.
The ideal boss depends on the build—sometimes a single-target boss is needed, other times a boss with adds for AoE builds. Continue fishing until both the map and boss are favorable.
Community and Resources
Join the Discord Server!
The community is active, helpful, and provides resources for trading, grouping, and boss fights. Group play saves materials and time. Access the Discord from eclipseus.com for a hub of how-to videos and endgame tips, including masterworking, leveling, and gear optimization.
The community is active, helpful, and provides resources for trading, grouping, and boss fights. Group play saves materials and time. Access the Discord from eclipseus.com for a hub of how-to videos and endgame tips, including masterworking, leveling, and gear optimization.
For more quality-of-life tips and endgame strategies, visit the game how-to section on the website. Ignore gear attack power and focus on what truly matters for pit pushing. Share this resource with friends, and join nightly live sessions for theorycrafting and discussion.