Greater Rifts are the major part of the endgame content in Diablo 3 – they are randomized dungeons in which you will have to fill a progression bar to summon the Rift Guardian.
Defeating the Rift Guardian will grant you loot and experience, with the prizes increasing the more difficult the Rift is. This is the only way to obtain and upgrade Legendary Gems (with the Boon of the Hoarder being the only exception).
Unlocking and Entering Greater Rifts
- To gain access to Greater Rifts, you simply need to hit level 70.
- Afterwards, you will have to do Nephalem Rifts first in order to gain a Greater Rift Keystone.
- The higher the difficulty of the Nephalem Rift, the more Keystones you will get.
- If you want to farm for Greater Rift Keystones, the best way is to continuously clear the highest Level Nephalem Rift you can.
- Use the Greater Rift Keystone on the Pylon in any Town, and choose which Level you want to enter (the higher the rank, the more difficult the Rift).
- Keep in mind that if you’re in a group, every party member will need their own Greater Rift Keystone to enter.
Completing Greater Rifts
- Once you enter the Greater Rift, you will see a progress bar with a timer on the right side of the screen. The goal is to fill the bar and kill the Rift Guardian before the timer runs out.
- The progress bar is filled as you kill enemies within the Rift.
- Elites will drop purple orbs that will further fill the bar, making them the top priority to target.
- Once completed, you may speak to Urshi to upgrade your Legendary Gems. The Rift portal will close shortly after.
Levels
- Greater Rift’s level determines how difficult it will be, as well as the quality of the loot when completed.
- These levels range from 1 to 150.
- Completing Greater Rifts will unlock higher levels.
- The more time you had left after completing the Rift, the higher the level you unlock is.
- Levels unlocked are shared across all characters of the same game mode (Normal, Seasonal, and Hardcore).
- Level 75 is the equivalent to the Torment XVI difficulty.
Rewards
- Upon completing a Greater Rift, you will be given all of the loot from the Rift.
- This will also include one Legendary Gem.
- The dropped Gem will be a random Legendary Gem that you do not yet have either in your stash or your current character’s inventory.
- If you have them all, no Legendary Gems will drop.
- You will also gain a permanent increase to your character’s Blood Shard capacity. The increase rate is 10 per new Level cleared.
- This capacity increase is shared across all characters of the same game mode (Normal, Seasonal, and Hardcore).
- Additionally, if you complete the Greater Rift within the time limit, you will be able to increase the rank of any Legendary Gem in your stash or inventory, up to 3 times.
- You will be able to do a 4th upgrade if you complete the Rift without dying.
- Upgrading a Gem does not always guarantee increasing its Rank. The success rate depends on the difference between Gem Rank and Rift Level.
Empowered Rift
- When activating a Greater Rift, you can choose to Empower it.
- Empowering a Greater Rift will allow you one extra chance at upgrading a Legendary Gem once it’s completed (giving you a maximum of 5 chances).
- Empowering costs gold. Higher levels get extremely expensive, and can cost millions.
