Rift Guardian

Rift Guardians are Boss creatures found in Nephalem Rifts.

In-game

Rift Guardians appear once the player's progress bar has reached 100%. The Guardian is chosen randomly, regardless of the map's type or enemies encountered during the Rift. Each Guardian has 35% life above an average Act Boss, greatly increased damage, and all abilities for their normal monster type, as well as few new ones (including spawning several minions every few seconds, minions often have unusual abilities too). Some Guardians are the empowered versions of actual bosses of the game, also with new abilities added.

When killed, Rift Guardians award:

• 40-60 Blood Shards (increases by 5-10 for each level of difficulty beyond Torment I)

• A complete first-kill Act Boss reward (a minimum of 3 Rare items, with a chance of a Legendary)

• A portion of gems

• Crafting materials (including 0-1 Forgotten Soul)

• Gold and experience reward from Orek (receiving it closes the Rift after 30 seconds, so picking up all other loot is advised first)

Note that as soon as a Rift Guardian is spawned, monster density in all unexplored areas of the Rift decreases, so farming the Rift after the Guardian's death is an activity of arguable efficiency.

In Greater Rifts, the reward for killing a Rift Guardian is greatly increased with every rank of the Rift itself (so that the amount of Legendary / Set items per killing is roughly equal to the amount obtained by clearing the regular Rift on the corresponding difficulty). The amount of Blood Shards scales differently, but the general rule is, on average, 2.5 x Rift Rank per kill. This actually brings the Greater Rifts below the normal ones in turn of Blood Shard farming: for instance, rank 25 rifts (rough equivalent of Torment VI) award on average 65 Shards per run, whereas Torment VI normal rifts award on average 100 per run. 

Known Rift Guardians

• Agnidox (empowered Demonic Hellflyer)
• Blighter (empowered Herald of Pestilence)
• Bloodmaw (empowered Executioner)
• Bone Warlock (empowered Skeletal Summoner)
• Cold Snap (empowered Izual)
• Crusader King (empowered Skeleton King)
• Ember (empowered Morlu Caster)
• Erethon (empowered Corrupted Angel)
• Eskandiel (empowered Corpse Raiser)
• Infernal Maiden (empowered Fire Maiden)
• Lord of Bells (easter egg, a reference to the Cow King, only appears in the end of the rift named Infernal Bovine)
• Man Carver (empowered Butcher)
• Orlash (empowered Terror Demon)
• Perdition (empowered Rakanoth)
• Perendi (empowered Mallet Lord)
• Raiziel (empowered Exarch)
• Rime (empowered Xah'Rith the Keywarden)
• Sand Shaper (empowered Zoltun Kulle)
• Saxtris (empowered Deceiver)
• Stonesinger (empowered Sand Dweller)
• Tethrys (empowered Succubus)
• The Binder (empowered Cydaea)
• The Choker (empowered Barbed Lurker)
• Voracity (empowered Ghom)

Removed Rift Guardians

• Death Minder

• The Cow Princess (replaced by Lord of Bells)
• Trongon

Media

Rift Guardian