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Completing the campaign isn’t the end of yourDiablo 4playthrough. Finishing every Act will unlock Diablo 4’s extensive range of endgame activities and harder World Tier difficulties to further push your build. The Helltide is one such activity, pitting your character against the forces of Hell to earn slot-specific rewards and Forgotten Souls.
Compared to most endgame activities, the Helltide is an accessible source of powerful items for virtually all builds. Nearly any character can participate in this unique world event and get something useful. This guide will cover what the Helltide is, how it works, and the rewards you can expect from participating.
Updated July 02, 2025, by Charles Burgar:Season of Loot Reborn has overhauled how Helltides work in Diablo 4. There is now a threat level system, significantly increased enemy density, new Tortured Gifts to find, and even an optional boss fight that players can summon. We’ve updated this guide to include all of these reworked features and additions.
What Is The Helltide?
The Helltide is a unique world event that lasts for one hour, morphing a region of Sanctuary into a hellish landscape.Zones affected by the Helltide feature demonic enemies, spawn meteors as environmental hazards, and increase the monster level of everything in the zone by three above your character’s level. For example, if your character is level 50, every monster in the Helltide will be at least level 53.
Defeating monsters within the Helltide will grantAberrant Cinders, a unique currency that’s only obtainable and usable during a Helltide event. These cinders can be spent to openTortured Chestsscattered across the Helltide region, guaranteeing items of a certain slot type. A Tortured Amulet chest will always drop an amulet, Tortured Weapons chests always drop weapons, etc.
Aberrant Cinders expire once the Helltide ends, so be sure to spend all of your hard-earned currency before the Helltide subsides.
Defeating enemies and opening chests during a Helltide also has a high chance of droppingForgotten Souls, an endgame currency used to improve Sacred and Ancestral items. You’ll need dozens of Forgotten Souls to fully upgrade your character’s items, so it’s important that you farm the Helltide whenever it appears.
Participating In The Helltide
Season of Loot Reborn (S4) has completely changed how the Helltide works.All World Tiersare now affected by the Helltide, not just WT3 and 4. Upon finishing the campaign, you’ll receive a side quest in Kyovashad that explains how the Helltide works.
Helltides will be marked with a dark red outline on your map, similar to how PvP zones are displayed.A Helltide lasts for 60 minutes before it relocates.A Helltide is always active in Sanctuary, so if you happen to miss one, simply wait a few minutes for the next one to spawn. The Helltide’s current timer can also be viewed on your map by hovering over the Helltide’s unique event icon (shown above).
Collecting Aberrant Cinders
The top-right corner of your HUD shows how many Aberrant Cinders you’re currently holding. You lose half of your currently-held cinders if you die at any point during the Helltide.
Demons slain in the Helltide have a fairly high chance of dropping anAberrant Cinder.This acts as a unique currency item you can use to unlockTortured Chestsscattered across the map. Chests take anywhere from 75 to 250 Aberrant Cinders to open. Each chest may be opened once per Helltide, but doing so will require thousands of Aberrant Cinders.
That is why we recommend youfarm world eventswhile in a Helltide. Events still spawn inside a Helltide and tend to have high enemy density, allowing you to collect massive sums of Aberrant Cinders just by killing monsters. Some other good sources include Accursed Ritual fights, Ravenous Soulspires or Hellspires found in the Helltide, and generating Threat.
Helltide Threat
Near the top-right of your screen is a pentagram with three distinct segments. This is called theThreat Meter.Every action in the Helltide will draw Hell’s attention, spawning ambush groups of demons that get progressively larger in size.Slaying monsters, opening Tortured Gifts, and completing Accursed Rituals all generate threat.
For each segment of threat you fill, a demonic ambush will appear right next to your character, including a handful of Elite monsters. This is a great way to get Aberrant Cinders if you can handle the difficulty. The second bar summons a slightly tougher pack.Filling the meter will spawn a torrent of demons over the next 20 seconds, followed by the summoning of a Hell’s Champion.
Hell’s Champion
Once you reach max threat and the meter decays to zero,a Hellborne monster will spawn next to you.This is a tough Elite foe with an absurdly large health pool. They also deal an immense amount of damage, capable of one-hitting you if you haven’t invested in any defensive layers. Be careful.
Should you kill the Hellborne,it will drop a Profane Mindcage.This is a consumable that increases the level of all Helltide monsters by +10 while also increasing Aberrant Cinder drops and threat generation. You can consume this item before the start of a Helltide to increase the chances of earning Item Power 925 gear from monsters, and it makes it easier to open every Tortured Gift in a single Helltide.
Opening Tortured Chests
Once you’ve acquired 75 or more Aberrant Cinders, it’s time to open a Tortured Chest.Unopened Tortured Chests are marked on your mapwhile in the Helltide. The name of the chest denotes what kind of items it will drop. For example, a Tortured Gift of Amulets chest is guaranteed to drop at least one amulet. World Tier 3 chests always drop Sacred gear, and World Tier 4 always drops Ancestral items.
Tortured Chests have a fairly high chance of dropping Legendary items, making this a fantastic way of earning Sacred and Ancestral Legendaries for virtually all builds. In general,it’s best to farm the Helltide when you need slot-specific upgrades.If your build needs a full set of new gear, Nightmare Dungeons are generally better since they drop far more items. But if you are looking for a specific slot upgrade, you can’t beat Tortured Chests.
Baneful Hearts drop from these chests as well,so be sure to spend all of your Aberrant Cinders before the Helltide ends. You’ll want these hearts to start the Accursed Ritual.
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Best Tortured Chest To Open
One of the most efficient ways to spend your Aberrant Cinders is to open theTortured Gift Of Mysteries- this costs 250 Cinders which makes it the most expensive chest. These aremarked with an orange icon on your map, and they are usually guarded by Elite monsters.
Only one Tortured Gift of Mysteries chest spawns per Helltide, but there’s a second chest called theTortured Gift of Living Steelthat also costs 250 Cinders. This awards a ton of endgame currencies items, notably Living Steel. You can use Living Steel to summon an endgame boss in the Dry Steppes.
Accursed Ritual
Every Helltide has anAccursed Ritualwithin one of the subregions, shifting partway during the event. The ritual site is marked on your map.Once at the site, you must provide three Baneful Hearts to start the ritual.This will spawn a stream of demonic forces until you slay enough enemies, at which point a demonic imp will spawn. This imp is absurdly tanky and is effectively a Helltide world boss.
All players that help kill the boss will be rewarded, but those who used Baneful Hearts to start the ritual will receive additional items.
Lowering the boss' HP will spawn additional adds in the arena and increase your overall threat, so be ready for a ton of enemies. If you can defeat the imp and complete the ritual, you’ll be showered with Legendary items, with a high chance of greater affixes if you used a Baneful Heart. There’s no limit to how many times you can fight this boss in the Helltide. Farm Aberrant Cinders, open chests, and use Baneful Hearts to spawn a difficult boss.
