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Farming endgame content is a core part of any ARPG,Diablo 4being no exception. Completing the campaign is only the start of your character’s power climb. In Diablo 4, most of your endgame gear will come from Nightmare Dungeons, dungeons mutated with affixes that provide powerful boons and negative modifiers.
Related:Diablo 4: Complete Beginner Guide
Once you get your hands on some Nightmare Sigils, it’s time to start farming for some major gear upgrades. This guide will cover everything you need to know about Diablo 4’s Nightmare Dungeon, including where you can find Nightmare Sigils, how dungeon tiers work, and the rewards you can expect from each Nightmare Dungeon run.
Updated June 20, 2025, by Charles Burgar:Blizzard has greatly increased the XP rates of Nightmare Dungeons and added some quality-of-life changes to Sigils, making this the new best endgame source of XP for most builds. We’ve updated this guide to explain how to teleport to Nightmare Dungeons. Additionally, we’ve also added a tips section that covers optimal XP strategies and which affixes you’ll want to avoid.
How To Get Nightmare Sigils
You must be onWorld Tier 3: Nightmareor higher for Nightmare Sigils to drop.
Creating a Nightmare Dungeon will require the use of aNightmare Sigil, found in the consumables tab of your inventory. Nightmare Sigils can drop from theTree of Whisper’s reward caches, world bosses like Ashava, and rarely from slain monsters. Nightmare Sigils may also be crafted through the Occultist.
After completing the campaign, we highly recommend you farm the Tree of Whispers to gain enough XP and gear to beat theCathedral of Light capstone dungeonin Kyovashad. This dungeon allows you to access World Tier 3. Switch to this difficulty and continue farming Whispers until you obtain a Nightmare Sigil from a reward cache.
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Completing A Nightmare Dungeon
Once you’ve obtained a Nightmare Sigil, head to the consumables tab of your inventory and activate the Sigil. The dungeon listed on the Nightmare Sigil will now be marked on your map with a unique icon.Click on the map icon to teleport to the dungeon’s entrance.You can also physically travel to the dungeon entrance if you prefer.
Only one Nightmare Dungeon may be active at a time. Using a new Sigil will override your currently active Nightmare Dungeon.
Nightmare Dungeons feature the same objectives and tileset layout as the non-corrupted dungeon.The only major difference is the existence ofNightmare Dungeon affixes,modifiers that adjust the dungeon’s difficulty. For example, a dungeon might have the Lightning Storm modifier that causes lightning strikes to periodically target the player. Not all modifiers are bad, however. Some affixes can increase your damage, upgrade your evade ability, or increase how much loot monsters drop.
Successful Nightmare Dungeon completions will award bonus Gold and high-rarity gear. This gear tends to be of Legendary rarity, although there is a moderate chance you’ll receive a Unique instead. Additionally, each Nightmare Dungeon will awardGlyph XPwhich can be used to upgrade your Paragon Board’s Glyph passives. Glyph XP can be allocated at the end of every Nightmare Dungeon through a unique altar, spawning beside your character when the dungeon’s core objectives are completed.
Related:Diablo 4: Murmuring Obols Guide
Nightmare Sigil Tiers And Affixes
Every Nightmare Sigil in Diablo 4 comes with a few modifiers:
The Nightmare’s Sigil’s name discloses the dungeon it’s augmenting. Sigils can only select from a small pool of dungeons curated by Blizzard each season. For example, Season 1 might have Dead Man’s Dredge as a potential Nightmare Dungeon while Season 2 might not. It’s also worth noting thatNightmare Sigils can pick dungeons locked behind strongholds. If you can’t activate your Sigil, it’s likely augmenting a dungeon that’s locked behind a specific stronghold.
Nightmare Sigil Affixes
Arguably the most impactful part of any Nightmare Sigil is its affixes. These are the modifiers that appear on the bottom of the item card.Every Nightmare Sigil rolls with one positive affix and multiple negative affixes.Positive affixes are always listed first. For the Nightmare Sigil showcased above, this dungeon buffs our Evade skill with a knockback effect. As for downsides, volcanic geysers occasionally spawn in this dungeon, and all monsters attack 20% faster.
Showcase Affix Descriptions
You can display the descriptions of each affix by enabling the “Advanced Tooltip Information” option in the Diablo 4 options menu, found under the “Gameplay” tab.
The number of affixes on a Sigil is determined by its tier. The higher the tier, the more modifiers a Sigil contains. Focus on running Nightmare Dungeons with negative affixes that your build can handle.
Nightmare Sigil Tiers
Nightmare Sigils are divided intotiers, dictating the dungeon’s level and overall difficulty. A T1 dungeon starts at level 54, T2 is level 55, and T10 is level 63. A tier’s monster level is calculated by adding the dungeon’s base difficulty (50) with your World Tier (WT3 or 4) and the dungeon’s listed tier. The highest dungeon tier is T100 at level 154.
These 100 tiers are then subdivided into two groups: Sacred and Ancestral.Sacred Sigils refer to tiers 1-20, and Ancestral is for tiers 21-100.Sacred Sigils must be used while on World Tier 3, and Ancestral Sigils may only be used while on World Tier 4.
The higher the dungeon tier, the more difficult yet rewarding it becomes.Higher dungeon tiers award more Glyph XP—a system tied tothe Paragon Board—and award higher-level items. Conversely,tiers also impact the number of affixes and revives a Sigil rolls with. Higher-tiered Sigils generally roll with more negative affixes and fewer revives. Exact breakpoints for these changes can be found in the table below.
Glyph XP earnings appear to scale linearly with every tier increase. Because of this, we highly recommend farming Ancestral Dungeons if you’re looking to farm Glyph XP.
1-10
54-63
11-20
64-73
21-100
75-154
5 Affixes
4 Revives Allowed
To recap,a dungeon’s tier impacts the level of monsters you’ll fight, the level of items that can drop, Glyph XP earnings, how many affixes will impact your dungeon run, and how many revives you’re allowed.Monster level can far exceed your character if you attempt a dungeon too hard, so be careful about which Sigils you use. Hardcore characters that die in a Nightmare Dungeon are lost forever, regardless of revive count.
Nightmare Dungeon Rewards
A successful clear of a Nightmare Dungeon will always grant bonus Gold, items, and Glyph XP for your character.The Gold received is fairly small, but the items you receive tend to be of Legendary rarity. Unique items can also drop from the end of Nightmare Dungeons as a rare reward. This makes Nightmare Dungeons fantastic for gearing your character and farming Legendary affixes.
Unique to Nightmare Dungeons,Glyph XPallows you to upgrade the Glyph passives socketed into your Paragon Board, Diablo 4’s endgame passive tree. The harder the Nightmare Dungeon, the more Glyph XP you’ll receive. Each Nightmare Dungeon clear will spawn an altar beside your character that can be used to allocate this XP.
It’s also worth noting thatNightmare Dungeons have high enemy density.Builds that can clear enemy packs quickly can farm tons of XP and monster drops from Nightmare Dungeons, including additional Nightmare Sigils. Kill all the monsters in a given dungeon, keep an eye out for Magic Find affixes, and you should have no issue keeping a surplus of Sigils.
Crafting Sigils
In the event that your consumables inventory is filled with Sigils, you canvisit an Occultistand dismantle all unwanted Sigils.Salvaged Nightmare Sigils will be turned intoSigil Powder, a crafting currency used in the creation of new Nightmare Sigils. Higher tiers of Sigils provide more Sigil Powder when salvaged.
Forging your own Sigils can also be done at the Occultist. You’ll be able to choose the tier bracket of the Sigil before crafting it, but the Sigil’s chosen dungeon and affixes will be completely random. This is a great way to skip multiple Nightmare Dungeon tiers at once if your build can handle it.
Nightmare Dungeon Tips
While playing any Nightmare Dungeon is a great way to level your character and Glyphs, not every dungeon is created equal. Some dungeon strategies can greatly increase your XP gains, while some affixes are so detrimental that you’ll want to avoid them entirely.
Dungeons Affixes To Avoid
Lightning Storm Hardcore Bug
The Lightning Storm Affix can kill your character if you get stuck in a loading screen. Do not run this modifier in Hardcore until this bug gets fixed.
