Hello, Librarian Husky here! Today, we’re talking about the new Target bosses that we have in season 3. I say new bosses because, while yes, we only have the one new boss in the Echo of Malthus, we also have updates to the season 2 picks. Like the Beast in the Ice and some critical changes with that, like it no longer being a pain to even reach the guy, as well as the new item pool of drops.

We have an alternative option for 925 drops instead of just Durial, though let’s be honest; all paths will lead back to Durial eventually. This is a quick guide to farming the bosses, what matters most, why the main details, and what’s changed.

Let’s get started with the most important thing to know before you farm any bosses, and that’s your blessings. These are gained by completing your free battle pass, and as we get these smoldering ashes, you can spend them on these upgrades. Three of these matter, the Urn of Hell Tides, Urn of Tuning, and Urn of Whispers, for what we’re talking about today. If you are farming Gar, that means you will be doing Hell Tides, so I recommend you max out your Urn of Hell Tides. If you’re farming Vashan, you’re doing Whispers, so it’s great to have this maxed out instead for the new unique stones we’re getting by beating the Echo of Malthus and opening the chest at the end.

The big ones: you want the Urn of Tuning maxed out because you might get additional Tuning Stone drops, and that could be the new unique Stones if you’re lucky. If you’re doing one of these types of content, you take something out, put it in something else, and it’s not that expensive to do, at least that’s before we’ve maxed out the battle pass, and that’ll happen long term.

Malus, the New Challenge

Malfas is the boss we’re starting with, found in the world tier 4 version of The Vault of L Loom, which you find in the new hub, Gate Hall. You’ll head in and progress to The Vault, finding the Echo of Malus at the end. Before this new patch, Malus was surprisingly weak and has been buffed up. So, instead of being level 85, he’s level 100 and a lot stronger. Also, previously, you’d have to spend Pearls at the start to generate Stacks as usual. These Stacks will be spent on the chest inside, just like a regular Vault, except there are more minor chests here than usual; there are eight total. On the other hand, you’d also have to spend pearls even to enter this unique Vault. Ten pearls and 250 shattered Stones would open the door.

Now, it costs a new resource entirely called Ignus cause you’ll need seven of these, and you’ll find them in the same tab as your sigils. For some reason, they don’t go into the currency infinite storage thing; they’re now taking up a slot.

In any case, we can get these cars as a chance drop from Vault Heralds, and they also always drop from the son of Malfus enemies. You find these in World Tier 4; it’s a mini-boss that can spawn in the Vault sometimes, comparable to the Butcher, but you also see them in the open world, which happened to me today when farming these braziers. The consistent method is Vault Herald farming, though; it’ll give you a ton of Pearls of warding while you’re doing it, and it will massively level your construct companion Stones, too, because they buff that. You can find any volcanic braer in the open world.

Elemental Calls and Shattered Stones

You spend Elemental Calls and Shattered Stones to summon some of these Heralds, picking up those Calls from the Obelisks in the same area. With this being brand new and everyone needing these new items, the braziers are constantly active in the open world. This is the time to do this farming. In this new patch, things changed because players were not using the pearls in standard vaults, only in this unique Vault of Loom. You do the standard vaults once and the unique Vault or the Loom once, and you go, “Well, why would I ever spend pearls anywhere but the special Loom?” To me, anyone who plays the game would work this out. So that’s the new way we’re going to be entering this torment version of The Vault of the Loom, AKA The Uber Vault. Why are we doing this? Well, it’s to kill Malus and open his chest to get the unique stones for your construct companion of Evanite and Genesis.

Evanite provides +4 to all skills when the skill supporting is used for two seconds, and Genesis increases the effectiveness of the supportive skill by 150%. It is best used with Flash of Adrenaline here, improving the damage bonus significantly. I recommend you run that on Flash of Adrenaline, while whatever offensive you’re using should have Everite supporting it. Incredibly these were ultra rare. They revealed the odds of getting one of these Stones per Malus kill was an incredible 0.25%. Essentially, these were not going to drop.

The new number is 0.5%, which is double but still tiny. Fortunately, they’ve also made the chests after the boss has a 3% chance to drop the stones, costing you 10 and four War stacks for the large and medium ones, so 14 to open both at the end.

Improving Odds for Unique Stones

This is written as now has a 3% chance, which does imply that these chests did not drop the unique Stones before, which is incredibly dumb. So, hopefully, that’s different from how it was. We put them in the game; they’re a new thing; they will be gone after the season’s done, and they made it so rare they don’t exist. That comedy aside, now we have a much better chance to get them on the boss kill and a solid reason to open the final chest after you do kill this Echo of Malus. The way it’s written implies either chest might drop the stones, so opening them both should be a 3% roll twice. That’s going to be very worth it.

We also have great news about Malus 2; since he’s been raised in level and given a 30% health increase, he’s going to be dropping 925 items in this Echo version, making him a relevant fight long-term for drops. In my experience, they are not all 925 items, just a chance to be, which is something. But to be honest, if Durial is guaranteeing doing it, why is Malus not only dropping 925s? But for now, you have to do the mechanics, which is fun. Taking out the conduits to put him into different modes is the key. The longer he’s in one element, the more those mechanics get dangerous, but, say, leaving him in the electric mode most accessible because those mechanics are easy to avoid.

The Beast in the Ice: Season 3 Updates

Also, you’ll now get more Waring stacks for spending pearls at the start. We got three stacks per Pearl before; now we’re getting 10 per Pearl, which is much better. They’ve even increased the grace period after a trap hits you, and they’ve even nerfed the size and speed of various traps, too. Overall, this is an excellent update to what was a very strangely designed and poorly balanced system. Next up, the most changed of the target bosses is the Beast in the Ice. A pretty cool fellow, pun intended, and is much less annoying to interact with this season than season 2.

Beast in the Ice: Accessibility and Loot Update

Before, you’d have to clear out an entire nightmare dungeon’s worth of enemies and travel a significant distance actually to reach this boss. But now, we have a much shorter precise, comparable to the entrance section of a vault before the actual Vault, at which point you fight the classic Beast in the Ice, which is mechanically unchanged. As usual, I recommend max C resistance if you’re under-leveled for this, but I’m sure you’ll be fine in the long term.

The Beast does have a new loot pool since we have new items this season. He’ll now drop the Beastfall Boots for Rogues, the Mutilator Plate for Necromancers, the St. All Coronette for Sorcerers, the Ring of the Ravenous for Barbarians, and The Unsung Aesthetics for Druids, as well as the new Universal, the Pain Gorgeous Gauntlets. This is all on top of his regular loot pool that the Beast previously had.

To fight the Beast in the Ice, you will need these items: Distilled Fear. You’ll need nine of them in total. When you’ve got nine or more, you can go to any Occultist and go to the Craft Sigils tab under Ancestral. At the top here, we have the Glacial Fissure Tier 31 Nightmare Dungeon. This will generate the sigil that leads you to the Beast in the Ice, and as you can see, it costs nine Distilled Fear and 250 Cidal Powder. This will lead to one kill of the Beast in the Ice, but you can join other people’s sigils, so again, best done in a group.

Gregor the Big Steel Unit: Hell Tides and Lightning Element Fight

Next, we have Gregor, the big steel unit tied to Hell Tides, the lightning element fight. This was thankfully improved after some changes back in season 2. You will now get the summon item, this Living Steel, much more commonly. You can fight Gregor in World Tier 3 if you want, where the Living Steel cost is only two, but more importantly, the torment version will cost you five Living Steel per summon. You get these from the Tortured Chest in the Hell Tides, previously only in the Living Steel Chests, which cost 300 Cinders to open back in season 2. Now they cost slightly less, 275 per, and again drop the Living Steel in more significant numbers.

The Hell Tides had a significant change too; they happen for 55 minutes every hour now, with only a 5-minute gap between them, so they are so much more consistent, which is another change in season 2. Once you have your Living Steel ready to do some summons, you will need to go to his specific dungeon, which is this one, the Hall of the Penitent, which is just south of Ked Badu. By working your way through the dungeon entrance, which is pretty short, you’ll find a summon pedestal, which costs the Living Steel to summon him. He’ll spawn in, you kill him, and you get your rewards. Significantly, in World Tier 4, he’ll also drop Shards of Agony items. These are required to summon Durial, the most crucial boss. You’ll need two of these to summon one Durial, though.

Vashan: The Original Target Boss

But there’s another item you’ll need, the Mucus Slick Eggs, which comes from Vashan. So let’s talk about him. Vashan was our first Target Boss introduced in season 1; he’s back in the same form as his season 2 version. The entrance to his dungeon is found to the east by The Whisper Tree in this malignant barrow. To summon him, you will need four items: a Trembling Hand, a Gurgling Head, a Malignant Heart, and a Blackened Femur.

In World Tier 4, you only need one of each, and you can get these from a couple of sources. The main one is that by completing the Tree of Whisper challenges and handing those in, you’ll get the rewards as usual, but also one of these items, or maybe multiple of them. The other way to get them is by going to an Alchemist and the Refine Resources tab.

Vashan and His New Challenges

You’ve got these summon items here, and you can spend resources to RNG a different body part to get whatever you’re missing, or be more specific and spend malignant hearts to get the other parts specifically. When you’re ready, though, you can go into the tunnel, go to the end, and summon Varan and defeat him. Just be aware that he had a new loot pool as of midseason 2, the malignant rings. These are a way to get some of the better powers found in season 1 on a ring item, and they can be perfect, depending on your class.

Other than that, his drop pool is the same, and as he’s only level 75, he shouldn’t be too hard of a fight, just like the others. Just be aware that you want to kill the ads he spawns in so he can’t get their powers, and try to avoid his auto attacks, which can silence you, which is annoying. Now, after killing Vashan in World Tier 4, you’ll get one of these, the mucus-slick eggs, and you’ll need two to summon Durial and the shards of agony I mentioned.

Durial: The Ultimate Target

So, let’s talk about Durial. All paths lead back to Durial because he consistently drops 925-level items. This is a significant detail because that will lead to the highest rate of items you can get. This will be vital for you to farm ASAP when you hit World Tier 4, as soon as possible, or get some friends to carry you.

The 925 items also mean the highest roles for aspects and even uniques affected by item level, such as XFS, a significant issue with Diablo 4‘s item design, which we hope to see improved in season 4. Thankfully, though, 925 items can be gained somewhere else this season, in Nightmare Dungeons and vaults at high tiers, so at least there’s now an alternative.

However, with Durial being the source of Uber’s unique farming, you’re probably better off farming Durial, which is a problem. To summon Durial, then, we’re going to need to go to the southwest of the map to the Gaping Crass, just east of Gaia Co., with two Shards of Agony and two Mucus Slick Eggs per summon from Gregori and Vasan, as explained. You can summon Durial, who’s at level 100 compared to the other bosses and poison-based, so definitely max your resistance for that.

Lord Zir: The New Challenge of Season 2

The last boss to mention is the new boss of season 2, Lord Zir. To find Lord Zir, you’ll need to come to KY Shad; just to the southeast is the Darkened Way. Heading through there, you’ll find another summon pedestal, but this one requires a different resource: Exquisite Blood, and you’ll need nine of them per one summon of Zia. These are gained by completing open-world Legion Events and World Bosses, making them even more worthwhile. Early Z drops are the same as before; his primary damage type is Shadow.

He only has one scary attack, that enormous cleave that’ll prep in front of himself sometimes after teleporting. But since it’s a very easy enemy, we should be able to crush him very quickly in the end-game either way. But that’s everything you need to know about these Target bosses in season 3. The relevant details and the essential changes.

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