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 for the corresponding difficulty, greatly increased damage, most (if not all) abilities for their normal monster type, as well as few new ones (sometimes 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. They all count as Bosses, and therefore most forms of Crowd Control have no effect on them, especially Knockback and Fear.

When killed, Rift Guardians award:

• Blood Shards (amount increases 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).

• Guaranteed Legendary items (number grows with rift rank) (in Greater Rifts only)

• A portion of gems

• Crafting materials (including 0-2 Forgotten Soul; guaranteed one at Torment VII and higher)

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

• A chance for Greater Rift Keystone (in Nephalem Rifts only)

The Guardians also have some limitations: for example, most of their ranged attacks cannot be used in melee range. They always aim their abilities at players as a priority target. None of their abilities have range to fire off-screen, but they will also take no damage if too far (>100 yards) from players. Guardians that can charge target random players (not the closest ones).

In Greater Rifts, the reward for killing a Rift Guardian is greatly increased with every rank of the Rift itself. The amount of Blood Shards scales differently, and greatly grows above rank 42. This actually brings the Greater Rifts at the slightly higher level above the normal ones in terms of Blood Shard farming. As of 2.6.5, when a boss is killed in a Nephalem Rift, a permanent ping will mark the location of the boss’ death until the Rift is closed.

As of patch 2.4, if a Rift Guardian is too far away from player (but still in combat), or does not have a direct path to them, they may teleport to their target's vicinity.

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)
• Hamelin (empowered Rat King)
• Infernal Maiden (empowered Fire Maiden)
• Josh Mosqueira (empowered Punisher)
• 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)
• The Cow Princess (variant of the Lord of Bells)
• Vesalius (empowered Vidian)
• Voracity (empowered Ghom)

Removed Rift Guardians

• Death Minder
• Trongon