Altar of Rites Mechanics (2024)

Last updated on Jan 08, 2024 at 09:00by Deadset

Season 30 restored and transformed the Altar of Rites from a one-timeto a permanent seasonal mechanic for character progression. Home to powerthought to be extinct from Sanctuary, the Altar of Rites will bestow powersupon worthy Nephalem... after a sacrifice is offered.

Starting from Season 30, every Diablo season going forward will feature theformerly S28-exclusive character progression mechanic, Altar of Rites.When you interact with the Altar, you will see an interconnected web of 26powers called Seals, culminating in three Legendary Potion Powers. These powerswill be gradually unlocked throughout the Season in an order of your ownchoosing.

The Rites of Sanctuary theme has the following traits:

• The Altar is accessible from level 1.
• To unlock a Seal or a Potion, you must gather the materials listed in theAltar of Rites menu and sacrifice them. Note that, in order to unlock a Seal,the Seal preceding it must first be unlocked. Also note that going backwards upa branch is not possible if you don't have the "parent" (preceding) nodeunlocked. The exceptions to this rule are the "+5% Damage" Seal, the "CrowdControl Immunity" Seal, and the "Gain Passability" Seal, because of how they’repositioned within the Altar (they have both preceding and lateral powersconnected to them, and any one of them will suffice).
• Unlocking a power (both Seals and Legendary Potion Powers) is a permanent,non-reversible choice.
• While your choices are permanent, over time you will be able to unlock allof the Altar's powers and won't be locked off from any potential upgrades. Theywill simply cost more.
• Once unlocked, the Altar's powers are shared between all the characters youcreate in the Season.

The Altar of Rites is found in Act I, in New Tristram. From the townwaypoint, head left near Tyrael, follow the road down past Arghus theCollector, and you will run into the Altar right before you descend to thelower area where Radek the Fence is. The Altar's location is also marked on theminimap with a massive, golden circular icon.

There are many viable paths through the Altar of Rites tree; and while yourchoices on the tree are permanent and irreversible, you will eventuallyobtain all the nodes — and the costs for upgrading are not especiallycumbersome.

The path below is merely a suggestion that is optimizes for the needs ofmost players, especially if you plan on opening your Challenge Rift cache atthe Season start (more on that below). If you save your CR Cache for an earlyunlock of your 15th Seal, go for the Permanent XP pools first, and then head tothe "Items have no level requirement" power (swap No2 and No3, basically).

The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, thenamplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge caseutility nodes. Depending on the resource needs of your build, you can considerthe "Critical hits grant resource" node slightly earlier than suggestedhere.

Unlocking a Legendary Potion Power requires that you unlock one of the Sealsdirectly preceding it. Note however that the cost of unlocking a PotionLegendary Power is different from the cost of unlocking Seals. Potions unlockindependently, with a resource called Primordial Ashes - obtained fromsalvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Primalquality items start dropping once you finish a level 70 solo Greater Rift. Wesuggest you unlock potion powers in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Ritesplanner), from strongest to weakest effect.

In the paragraphs below, we will go over the particular effects of the Sealsand Legendary Potion Powers, with some additional commentary on particularlyinteresting or effective tiers.

• A: "Your Kill Streak timer duration and reward bonus aredoubled." — This bonus is the (mandatory) first one and is quiteself-explanatory. The doubled rewards and duration of Kill Streaks will be amassive boon throughout your 1-70 leveling process.
• B: "Pools of Reflection last for the entire Season and are notremoved by death." — This bonus makes the increased Experience gaingranted by Pools of Reflection (the golden wells you will randomly find duringfarming) effectively infinite, as it refreshes their duration whenever theircountdown reaches zero. Pools of Reflection effectively grant +41% experiencegain while active, and not the 25% stated in the tooltip, since the bonusdouble-dips (due to a bug, but still).
• C: "Items have no level requirement." — This bonusremoves the level requirement of items you find. In an optimized levelingstrategy, you won't make use of this power on your "main" (the first characteryou level in a Season), but you can make great use of it on your alts -equipping endgame items for the duration of your leveling journey.
• D: "+100 Damage." — This bonus is applied in the sameway as rolling average damage values on your weapon, offhand, or jewelry. Itadds a considerable amount of flat damage to your overall damage calculation.
• E: "+5% Missile Damage Reduction." — The damage youtake from attacks dealt by ranged monsters is reduced by this considerable,percentage-based amount.
• F: "+10% Movement Speed (Uncapped)." — This bonus isadded to your total Movement Speed bonus and, as noted, will not be affected bythe base 25% additional Movement Speed cap that limits items and Paragonpoints.
• G: "Increase damage against elites by 5%." — Thisbonus functions identically to Elite Damage Increase stats obtainable on gear,such as The Furnace or Unity. It will stack additively withother sources of the same stat.
• H: "Picking up Health Globes grants a shield for 5% of yourmaximum health for 7 seconds. Max stacks 5." — This bonus is a niftyboon for speed farming, allowing glass cannon builds to snowball their defensesearly in a run (especially group speeds with 'Rat' Necro and zDPS Necrosetups), where Support characters greatly assist with Health Globe generationand Pickup Radius).
• I: "+5% Melee Damage Reduction." — The damage youtake from attacks dealt by melee monsters is reduced by this considerable,percentage-based amount.
• J: "Increases your highest elemental skill damage bonus by5%." — Straightforward damage multiplication bonus to your overallelemental damage stat.
• K: "Increase damage against elites by 5%." — Thisbonus functions identically to Elite Damage Increase stats obtainable on gear,such as The Furnace or Unity. It will stack additively withother sources of the same stat.
• L: "+5% Damage." — Straightforward damagemultiplication bonus to your overall DPS calculation.
• M: "Double the amount of Death's Breaths that drop."— This bonus all but eliminates the need to incorporate the craftableSage's set in Nephalem Rift farming builds, unless you are hard pressed forDBs.
• N: "Critical hits grant resource: Mana: 15, Hatred: 5, Wrath: 5,Arcane Power: 3, Fury: 3, Spirit: 5, Essence: 5". — This bonusfunctions identically to the Arcane Power on Crit stat on Wizard gear, and willscale their effect off the proc coefficient of the skill you use. (In general,the more AoE-oriented a skill is, the lower its proc coefficient, andvice-versa.)
• O: "Double the amount of Bounty Caches that drop from completingbounties." — Incredible utility bonus for crafting throughout aSeason, and one of the nodes you pick up as early as possible.
• P: "Progress orbs from Nephalem and Greater Rifts are picked upautomatically." — This bonus functions like a second, massive layerof Increased Pickup Radius. It is, however, restricted to progression orbs, andcannot be abused for other Radius-reliant mechanics, i.e. Grave Injustice.
• Q: "Reduces the damage taken from elites by 5%." —The damage you take from attacks dealt by Elite monsters is reduced by thisconsiderable, percentage-based amount. Note that this bonus applies to alltheir attacks, including the (considerably harder hitting) elemental attacksfrom their affixes.
• R: "+5% Damage." — Straightforward damagemultiplication bonus to your overall DPS calculation.
• S: "Gain immunity to crowd-controlling effects." —Very straightforward, this bonus will disable the effects of stuns, slows, anddisplacement of any kind on your character. This bonus is incredibly useful forclasses without easily accessible CC immunity skills, such as Witch Doctors andWizards.
• T: "Gain passability." — This bonus functionsidentically to Illusory Boots, allowing you to move unhindered throughenemies.
• U: "Pets pick up Death's Breath." — Quality-of-lifefiller bonus, only really useful for dedicated, Season-long farmers.
• V: "Elite packs drop one additional progress orb." —The progress spawn on a per-player basis, and drop next to the character oncethe elite is slain (and not from the pack itself, like the default progressionorbs).
• W: "Increase damage done to Bosses by 5%." — Thishefty bonus stacks on top of Elite damage bonuses and results in very efficientGreater Rift Guardian takedowns.
• X: "Pets pick up and salvage common, magic, and rareitems." — Quality-of-life filler bonus, only really useful fordedicated, Season-long farmers.
• Y: "Increase your chance to Dodge by 5%." — Decentsurvivability buff, albeit RNG-based.
• Z: "Double the chance to find a legendary item purchased fromKadala." — For reference, the base chance to gamble a legendary itemfrom Kadala is 10%.
• Potion AA: "When you drink your health potion, you manifest oneof three runic circles on the ground that grant increased damage, increasedcooldown reduction, or increased resource cost reduction." — Thisbonus is identical to the Season 18 theme from a few years ago. When you drinkthe potion, one of three possible circles spawns on the ground near you(similarly to how Oculus Ring functions). The purple ring grants thedamage increase, the orange ring grants cooldown reduction, and the teal ringgrants resource cost reduction. You will (usually) have to reposition in orderto make use of it.
• Potion AB: "When you drink your health potion, all enemieswithin 25 yards deal 25% less damage." — This bonus manifests itselfas a white "splash" around your character, allowing you to gauge the extent ofaffected enemies. The damage you take from attacks dealt by all affectedmonsters is reduced by this considerable, percentage-based amount.
• Potion AC: "When you drink your health potion, gain a randomshrine effect." — The consumption of this potion power will net youa helpful Shrine effect: either the increased attack speed of Frenzied, thedamage reduction of Blessed, the increased movement speed and pickup radius ofFleeting, or the increased experience from monster kills of Enlightened. Notethat unlike the Altar's introduction in Season 28, this power cannotyield the damage multiplication from a Power pylon, or the halved cooldowns anddoubled resource gain of the Empowered shrine. The Shrine powers spawned bythis potion are still affected by Gloves of Worship. Note that Shrineeffects are applied to your whole party. Shrine effects do not carry oversuccessive Greater Rift floors.
• Effect AD: "When a primal item drops, a second random primalitem drops as well." — This power unlocks on its own once you fillthe entire Altar of Rites. Note that the additional primal drop is not aduplicate (neither in stats, nor item type); it's an entirely differentitem.

In the paragraphs below, we will explore the costs of unlocking eachsuccessive Seal or Legendary Potion Power, with advice on obtaining thetrickier resources needed for some of the tiers.

• 1: "10 Reusable Partss" — These resources comefrom salvaging Normal (grey-colored) items at the Blacksmith. A shortcut togain these materials is to take your follower's starter weapons and salvagethem!
• 2: "1 Flawless Diamond (or greater), 15 Arcane Dust, 20 Reusable Partss" — Flawless is thesecond lowest form of regular gems, and with the recipe's added leeway ofaccepting any higher tiered gems, this requirement is quite trivial. The othertwo resources come from salvaging Magic (blue-colored) and Rare(yellow-colored) items at the Blacksmith. A shortcut to gain these materials isto do 1-2 Boss bounties in any Act at level 18.
• 3: "1 Greater Rift Key, 10 Death's Breaths" —Greater Rift Keys start dropping from Standard (Nephalem) Rift Guardians whenyou reach level 70. Death's Breaths start dropping from Elite enemies when youreach level 61+.
• 4: "Any Class-Specific Set Helm" — To ease thecompletion of this tier, keep in mind the "Skill of Nilfur" (Set ItemConversion) recipe in Kanai's Cube. At the cost of 10 Death's Breath and10 Forgotten Souls, you can turn any set item into a random piece fromthe same set, which should yield a set helm fairly quickly.
• 5: "20 Forgotten Souls, 10 Khanduran Rune, 10 Caldeum Nightshade, 10 Arreat War Tapestry, 10 Corrupted Angel Flesh, 10 Westmarch Holy Water" — Allthese materials drop from the Horadric Caches rewarded upon completion of allbounties in a given Act. To get this objective done faster, do the bounties onthe highest difficulty you can handle, as the number of resources scales withdifficulty. As a reference point, you get 3 materials in Normal-Master, 6 matsin Torments I-VI, 8 in Torments VII-IX, 10 in Torment X, and scale by 2 foreach successive difficulty.
• 6: "1 Leoric's Regret, 1 Vial of Putridness, 1 Idol of Terror, 1 Heart of Fright" — These items dropfrom Uber Bosses (for more detail, refer to our handy Hellfire Amulet Crafting Guide.Dropping at least one of each material is guaranteed at Torment I difficulty.You cannot initiate Uber fights in lower difficulties.
• 7: " Reaper's Wraps" — These bracers arecraftable at the Blacksmith. The recipe for their creation is obtained from theAct V final boss, Malthael, on any difficulty.
• 8: "30 Forgotten Souls" — These materials areobtained from salvaging Legendary (orange-colored) items at the Blacksmith.
• 9: "1,100 BloodShards" — These resources areobtained from killing Rift Guardians in Normal (Nephalem) and Greater Rifts, aswell as Horadric Caches from completing bounties in a given act.
• 10: "1 Flawless Royal Ruby, 20 Death's Breaths, Ring of Royal Grandeur" — Flawless Royal gems are the highesttier of normal gems in the game, and require finding a recipe for theJewelcrafter (found randomly, but quite easily, while farming) before theircrafting is unlocked. The Ring of Royal Grandeur is found in HoradricCaches from Act I bounties specifically.
• 11: "1 Flawless Royal Emerald, 30 Khanduran Rune,30 Caldeum Nightshade, 30 Arreat War Tapestry, 30 Corrupted Angel Flesh, 30 Westmarch Holy Water" — Sameas previous tiers; the gem requires a recipe to be found (as well as a modestinvestment of Gold and Death's Breaths in the actual crafting of thegem). The materials come from bounty completion.
• 12: "20 Greater Rift Keys, 1 Ramaladni's Gift"— The latter is a legendary consumable item that is found randomly fromfarming. You cannot influence its drop outside of farming on the highestdifficulties you can handle quickly and efficiently.
• 13: "1,300 BloodShards" — Same as Tier9.
• 14: "Petrified Scream" — These are legendaryconsumable items that are found randomly from killing Greater Rift Guardians,with a drop rate of ~5%.
• 15: "Challenge Rift Cache" — IMPORTANT! Youcan only get one Challenge Rift Cache per week, and a very dedicated, hardcoreplayer can reach this Altar tier within the first weekend of gameplay (orindeed, the first day). If you play extensive hours in the Season launchweekend and are very experienced with Diablo 3 and its metagame, you can savethe Challenge Rift Cache on the weekend of the Season's start, and not open itat the start of the Season as usual! For an experienced player, this is asimple setback for your 1-70 leveling process in the grand scheme of things,and the alternative might slow down your Altar progression by 1-2 days. For thevast majority of players however, and especially if prefer more relaxed,non-tryhard gameplay and are fine with waiting on the Monday reset of theChallenge Rift cache, you can open your first weekend Cache as usual and enjoya tremendous leveling boost.
• 16: "250 Forgotten Souls" — Same as Tier8.
• 17: "1,400 BloodShards" — Same as Tier9.
• 18: "Ancient Hellfire Amulet of Strength" — Notjust any Hellfire Amulet will do! It needs to be of Ancient quality (strongerversion of the base item, golden border around its tooltip). Obtaining thisitem will likely require multiple Uber runs.
• 19: "4 Set Dungeon Pages" — For this requirement,you need 4 classic 6-piece sets for a particular class (which exclude the exactsets in S28's Haedrig's Gift). While wearing one of these sets (even a 5-piecewill do, coupled with Ring of Royal Grandeur!), go to Act I, Leoric'sManor, and interact with the Tome in the southern chamber. Repeat this process4 times for each of the sets/pages, and you will be done with thisrequirement.
• 20: "Ancient Puzzle Ring, 50 Khanduran Rune, 50 Caldeum Nightshade, 50 Arreat War Tapestry, 50 Corrupted Angel Flesh, 50 Westmarch Holy Water" — Justlike tier 18, the tricky part is the requirement for an Ancient quality item. Puzzle Rings are found randomly through farming, and can be upgradedinto with the "Hope of Cain" (Upgrade Rare) recipe. If worst comes to worst,you can reroll a standard Puzzle Ring with the "Law of Kulle" (ReforgeLegendary) recipe, which can yield an Ancient version of the same item at ahefty bounty material cost. For more detail on Kanai's Cube recipes, refer toour handy Kanai's Cube Guide.
• 21: "500 Death's Breaths, 300 Forgotten Souls" — Obtained through straightforward farmingand salvaging of items.
• 22: "1,500 BloodShards" — Same as Tier9.
• 23: "Whisper of Atonement Rank 125" —Whisper of Atonement legendary gems drop from the completion of EchoingNightmare events (opened by transmuting the aforementioned Petrified Screams atKanai's Cube). You get one Whisper of Atonement per completed Echoing Nightmareevent. The gem's level equals the maximum wave you reached, up to a maximum ofLevel 125 (coincidentally, this tier's requirement).
• 24: "Any Augmented Weapon" — Weapons are augmentedat Kanai's Cube, using "Caldesann's Despair" recipe. Note that only Ancient orPrimal quality weapons can be augmented, and they will consume a level 30+legendary gem in the process. For more detail on Kanai's Cube recipes, refer toour handy Kanai's Cube Guide.
• 25: " Staff of Herding" — This item is quitetricky to obtain, mostly because it requires the farming of several mid-to-lowdrop chance crafting materials. Wirt's Bell is sold by Squirt thePeddler, a vendor in the Act II Hidden Camp town. The Black Mushroom is pickedoff the ground in a specific room in Act I, Cathedral lvl 1. Leoric's Shinboneis found in the fireplace of a chamber in Leoric's Manor accessed via Act I,Leoric's Manor Courtyard waypoint. The Liquid Rainbow is found in aMysterious Chest in The Mysterious Cave found in Act II, the Dahlgur Oasis. Andthe worst is the Gibbering Gemstone, which is looted from the monsterChiltara in the Caverns of Frost level 2 in Act III, the Fields of Slaughter.(Starting from Season 30, Chiltara's previously abysmal drop rate has beenincreased to 20%.) You also need to farm the Act IV boss Izual, who has achance to drop the crafting plan for the staff, to be taught at the Blacksmith.For more detail on crafting this elusive item, refer to our handy Staff of Herding Guide.
• 26: "1,600 BloodShards" — Same as Tier9.
• Potion 1: "55 Primordial Ashes" — Items of Primalquality (red border) now salvage into 55 of the Primordial Ashes resource. Notethat besides this tier, Primordial Ashes can also be used for a crafting recipein Kanai's Cube.
• Potion 2: "110 Primordial Ashes" — Same as Potion 1,just more expensive.
• Potion 3: "165 Primordial Ashes" — Same as Potion 1,just more expensive.