Diablo 4 Season 3: Everything You Need to Know

Season 3 Updates

There is a lot to look forward to in Season 3 of Diablo 4! From quality-of-life improvements like W-A-S-D movement to the long-awaited introduction of the Gauntlet (Learderboards), Nightmare Dungeon Item Power scaling, an extra stash tab, and hourly Helltides – the list goes on!

In this hub, we will provide a comprehensive summary of all the information you need to know about Diablo 4 Season 3, including the new mechanics, storyline, and bosses, the changes in the Season Journey, and more.

Season 3 Start Date

Season 3 started on January 23rd, 2024!
Explore our Season Checklist for interesting tips and tricks on how to tackle the Season of the Construct:

What are Seasons?

If you are stepping into the vast realm of Diablo for the first time, you might be wondering, “What exactly is a Season in Diablo 4?” Well, a Season in Diablo 4 is a chance for all players to begin from scratch and embark on a new adventure, immersing themselves in a new content or interesting theme that lasts for about three months.

Seasons in the Diablo universe serve to breathe new life into the existing gaming loop experience. At the start of a season, you will create a brand-new seasonal character who, as the season wraps up, seamlessly transitions into a non-seasonal character. Here is the exciting part: if you have completed the campaign at least once with any character, whether seasonal or non-seasonal, you are free to skip the campaign and plunge straight into the season grind.

Seasons not only offer a great opportunity to experiment with new characters and builds that have captured your interest but also bring an element of anticipation. The potential of interesting balance changes and new items or gameplay mechanics added to the game keeps things lively. Furthermore, these adjustments shake up the established meta, adding a breath of fresh air into the gameplay, especially after the initial launch period.

Speaking of intriguing builds and established metas, you might want to check out our class build tier lists:

Seasonal Characters

How do Seasonal Characters work?

• Once you have completed the story of Diablo 4, you can create a seasonal character, allowing you to skip the campaign right from the start.
• Additionally, any mounts unlocked on previous characters will be available from the get-go.
• All Altars of Lilith and previously discovered areas will be unlocked, and you will receive the Renown for them if you have successfully unlocked them in the past (on any other character).

As the season concludes, your seasonal characters and the contents of your seasonal stash seamlessly transfer to the Eternal Realm. This is the realm where all your non-seasonal characters currently reside.

Season Start

We recommend completing the main campaign, exploring the map, discovering all Altars of Lilith, and maxing your renown before the season begins. However, this only applies if you have not played any previous seasons or have not discovered all Altars, etc.

If you have finished the campaign and choose to skip it at the start of the season (which we strongly recommend), you will begin in Kyovashad at Level 1. From there, you can immediately dive into the season story.

By following our suggestions, you will kick off the season with enough Renown to start with 4 extra points and 4 additional skill points.

Remember, your existing characters will remain in the Eternal Realm. You can still play them, benefiting from class updates and exploring the new Uniques and Legendary aspects. However, access to season-specific content will be restricted for these characters.

Season 3

Season 3 is called Season of the Construct and will bring a new story quest, new challenges, and more.

Seasonal Questline

Season 3 will have you venture beneath Kehjistan, where you will discover the Gatehall: a new player hub and headquarters for the Season of the Construct. The Gatehall will contain a waypoint, as well as access to the Vaults.

It is through the Vaults, dangerous Dungeons filled with traps and other hazards, that you will encounter the elemental mechanical constructs that are safeguarding the Loom. Inside the Vault, you will also uncover Malpha’s sinister plot of using the Loom to devastate the world. Your mission is to stop Malphas, disarming his traps, hazards, and constructs.

Seasonal Mechanics

Seneschal Construct

The Seneschal Construct is a mechanical ally that will transform your gameplay:

• You will obtain the Seneschal companion through the Seasonal questline involving the mysterious Loom, granted by Zoltun Kulle.
• The companion will assist in combat, exploration, and looting.
• The Seneschal can be customized with two Governing Stones and six Tuning Stones, which do not occupy inventory space.
• Seneschal scales with your character’s stats but does not trigger legendary or paragon effects.
• Stones can be obtained through Vaults, Arcane Tremors, Journey rewards, or crafting.
• You can adjust Governing and Tuning Stones at any time, outside of combat.

To learn more about the Seneschal Companion, you can read our guide below.

Governing and Tuning Stones

During the Season of the Construct, you can discover a total of 12 Governing Stones and 27 Tuning Stones for your Seneschal companion. Equip your Seneschal with two Governing Stones, and customize each one with three Tuning Stones to boost their powers. This allows you to experiment with new combinations, and adapt to various fights as you prefer.

The Vault

The Vault, a new dungeon in Season 3, offers four different types accessible through the Gatehall hub. You must navigate hazards, traps, and constructs, and aim to reach the loot room while maintaining Zoltun’s Warding stacks, acquired by interacting with the Statue of Zoltun Kulle at the beginning of a Vault run. Using Pearls of Warding boosts rewards, with one Pearl providing three stacks of the Zoltun’s Warding buff. Vault completion yields legendary items, Tuning Stones, and other rewards. Furthermore, the more stacks of Warding you have left upon finishing a Vault run, the more chances you have to receive better loot at the end.

Pearls of Warding are obtained by defeating Elite Constructs or Herald Constructs during the world event Arcane Tremors, which includes objectives, Arcane cores, and a boss battle.

If you want to learn more about the Vault and Arcane Tremors, check out our guide here:

Season 3 Endgame Boss

Season 3 will introduce one new endgame boss: Malphas, Keeper of the Vaults, who has taken over Zoltun Kulle’s laboratory, and is using the Loom to control powerful constructs and terrorize the people of Sanctuary.

Malphas will first appear throughout the season questline, however there will also be an uber version of this boss. For additional information about Malphas, including boss mechanics and rewards, see our guide:

The Gauntlet (Leaderboards)

Another new challenge will arrive later in Season of the Construct: The Gauntlet! A weekly rotating fixed dungeon that pits you against others for the top spot on the leaderboards. Only the strongest will secure a spot on the weekly leaderboards, with top scores earning a permanent place in the Hall of the Ancients. Players that have reached World Tier 4 can enter the Gauntlet. You will have 8 minutes to gain as many points as possible by killing enemies, opening chests, and using the new shrines in order to rank first on the Leaderboard.

For further information, check out our Gauntlet guide below.

Seasonal Rewards

New Uniques and Aspects

There will be six new Uniques and seven new Legendary Aspects are coming with the launch of Season 3.

New Uniques

• Paingorger’s Gauntlets (All Classes)
  • Damaging enemies with a cast Non-Basic Skill marks them for 3 seconds.
  • When a Basic Skill first hits a marked enemy, the Basic Skill’s damage is echoed to all marked enemies, dealing {#}%[x] increased damage.
• Ring of the Ravenous (Barbarian)
  • Rend duration increased by {#} seconds.
  • Damaging enemies with Brawling Skills applies 2 Stacks of Rend’s Bleed.
  • The effect can only occur once every 4 seconds per enemy.
• Unsung Ascetic’s Wraps (Druid)
  • Lightning Storm gains 1 additional strike each time it grows.
  • Lighting Storm Critical Strikes cause lightning to strike twice, dealing {#}% increased damage.
• Mutilator Plate (Necromancer)
  • You are Blood Lanced, and when Blood Lance would deal damage to you it instead Fortifies you for {#}% of your Maximum Life and has a {#}% chance to form a Blood Orb.
  • Blood Lance deals {#}%[x] increased damage.
• Beastfall Boots (Rogue)
  • When you cast an Ultimate skill, your next Core skill consumes all of your Energy and deals {#}% increased damage per Energy consumed.
  • Using a Cooldown restores {#} Energy.
• Starfall Coronet (Sorcerer)
  • Meteor now has 2 charges and a {#} second Charge Cooldown instead of a Mana cost and drops 3 additional meteors around the target.
  • Meteor’s Enchantment effect and Enhanced Meteor drop 1 additional meteor.

New Legendary Aspects

• Aspect of Adaptability (All Classes)
  • When cast below 50% Maximum Resource, Basic Skills generate 3 of your Primary Resource, once per cast.
  • When cast at or above 50% Maximum Resource, Basic Skills deal 40-80% increased damage.
• Juggernaut’s Aspect (All Classes)
  • Gain 0.75-1.25 Armor, but your Evade has 100% increased Cooldown.
• Aspect of Sundered Ground (Barbarian)
  • Every 25 seconds, Upheaval is guaranteed to Overpower and deals 10-20% increased damage.
  • This timer is reduced by 4 seconds when ‍Upheaval Overpowers a Boss or an Elite enemy.
• Virulent Aspect (Druid)
  • When Rabies infects an enemy, reduce its cooldown by 0.3-0.6 seconds. This cooldown reduction is tripled when infecting Elites.
• Shattered Spirit’s Aspect (Necromancer)
  • Casting Bone Spirit also launches 18 Bone Splinters in all directions, dealing 200-400%[x] increased damage and generating 6 Essence per enemy hit.
• Resistant Assailant’s Aspect (Rogue)
  • Breaking Concealment grants +10% Resistance and Maximum Resist to all elements for 4 seconds. Killing an Elite enemy reduces ‍Concealment’s cooldown by 6-10 seconds.
• Aspect of Shredding Blades (Sorcerer)
  • Ice Blades chance to apply Vulnerable is increased by 20%[+] and the Vulnerable duration is increased by 4 seconds.
  • You gain 15-25%[x] Vulnerable Damage.

For an in-depth look and some opinions from our writers on the new Uniques and Aspects, check out our guide here:

Additionally, for more information on how to farm Uniques from bosses, check out our guide below.

Season 3 Battle Pass

Some of the rewards you can get from the free battle pass are:

• 20x Smoldering Ashes (used to acquire and upgrade Season Blessings)
• 5x Armor Basics (role-play clothing cosmetics)
• 5x Weapons Transmogs
• 1x Mount Trophy
• 1x Title(s) (prefix and suffix)
• 1x Town Portal

Each season will introduce three tiers of the battle pass: a free tier, a premium tier (priced at around $9.99 USD), and an accelerated premium battle pass (approximately $24.99 USD) with an exclusive cosmetic. For those opting not to purchase the battle pass, the free track provides gameplay-related benefits, while the premium tiers focus solely on cosmetic rewards.

Season 3’s Battle Pass will feature construct-themed cosmetic rewards.

Smoldering Ashes

A major reward from the free battle pass is Smoldering Ashes, a special currency used to unlock and boost Season Blessings. Furthermore, these blessings remain active for all your characters throughout the whole season. While the Season Blessings are shown below, you can have a more in-depth look at our comprehensive guide for more insights on Season Blessings by clicking on the following link:

Season Journey

Just like in Diablo 3 and other similar ARPGs, seasons in Diablo 4 follow a familiar structure. Progress through chapters, fulfill various objectives, and unlock rewards to advance the season story. The ultimate aim is to complete all 7 chapters to unlock every reward. For guidance on which objectives to prioritize in order to successfully complete the Season Journey, check out our recommendations by clicking the link below!

Seasonal Tips & Tricks

Diablo 4’s Season 3, the Season of the Construct, introduces a new dungeon, a construct-themed companion, and a fresh set of seasonal objectives. Whether you are a seasoned veteran or a newcomer to the game, here are a few tips and tricks to help you make the most of this season.

• Farm Arcane Tremors for fast XP: Go to any active Arcane Tremor zone and find the Voltaic Brazier and Voltaid Obelisks. Farm the obelisks for cores, then use them on the brazier. This will spawn plenty of mobs, as well as a boss at the end. If there are a lot of players at the same location, it is one of the best methods to gain a significant amount of experience points in a short period of time.
  • Additionally, farming Arcane Tremors can yield Pearls of Warding, as you are going to kill a lot of constructs. Pearls of Warding are very useful for Vault runs!
• Try to use multiple Pearls at once for your Vault run, in order to have the maximum amount of Zoltun’s Warding stacks! This way, ending the run with a few stacks left will be easier so you can get better rewards. Once you are more familiar with the Vaults you can try to run with fewer buffs.
• Avoid Traps! Fallen constructs can also leave behind traps, so be mindful of your surroundings and avoid triggering hazards.
• Manage your Seneschal Companion’s equipment if you feel the need to experiment or improve as you go along. Stones can be adjusted/exchanged anywhere, as long as you are not in combat.
• As with previous seasons, it is likely that several builds will emerge as strong contenders for Season 3, each excelling in specific areas. We will update this list with a few recommendations as the season progresses.
  • Barbarian: Shout Hammer of the Ancients
  • Druid: Lightning Storm Werewolf
  • Necromancer: Bone Spear
  • Rogue: Dual Core Penetrating Shot Rapid Fire
  • Sorcerer: Firewall Meteor Hybrid