Rift Guardians are creatures found in Nephalem Rifts.
In-game
Rift Guardians appear once the player's progress bar has reached 100%.[1] The Guardian is chosen randomly, regardless of the map's type or enemies encountered during the Rift. Each Guardian has a full Act Boss-level life, 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.
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)
Development
Rift Guardians will receive development to scale the length of their fight to that of the time of Tiered Rifts.[2]
Media
References
- ↑ 2013-11-23, Diablo III: Reaper of Souls – Nephalem Rift on Crusader lvl 26. Blizzplanet, accessed on 2014-01-01
- ↑ 2014-05-19, More Info From The Anniversary Dev Stream. Diablo Fans.com, accessed on 2014-05-20