What to do before Vessel of Hatred: Mounts, Renown, and more
As Vessel of Hatred draws near, many players are wondering what they can do before it completely wraps up. If you’re one of those people, welcome to our guide!
Table of Contents
The Vessel of Hatred expansion is almost here, so here’s what to do before returning to the Sanctuary with a new character. While some players might jump straight into Season 6, others prefer to prepare for a smoother experience. Either way, if you’ve played before, you won’t be starting from zero, but a little preparation can make a big difference! Here is a checklist of optional tasks to complete before Diablo 4 Season 6 kicks off and why they’re helpful. Don’t worry if you skip a few — these are just suggestions!
Seven things to do before Diablo 4 Season 6
Find all the Altars of Lilith
Altars of Lilith are special statues that give a permanent boost to your character’s stats, leading to noticeable power gains. They can be found all over the Sanctuary — some are easy to find, while others are hidden and easy to miss. The locations are similar in Softcore and Hardcore modes, but you must collect bonuses separately.
Once you find an Altar, it gets marked on the map, but this mark is specific to that character and isn’t shared with others. Discovering the same Altar with different characters in the same mode won’t give extra rewards.
Each Altar grants 10 Renown for the region it’s located in, along with experience for the character that collects it. Also, Altar’s bonuses are fixed and permanent, applying to all characters on your account. These bonuses include:
- +2 Dexterity
- +2 Strength
- +2 Intelligence
- +2 Willpower
- +5 Murmuring Obols capacity
- +1 Paragon Point
When you collect all 160 Altars of Lilith, your characters receive the following bonuses:
- Strength: 68
- Intelligence: 68
- Willpower: 68
- Dexterity: 68
- Murmuring Obol Capacity: 100
- Paragon Points: 4
Every zone has a specific number of Altars, accumulating to a sizable number of bonuses:
- Dry Steppes: 33
- Fractured Peaks: 28
- Hawezar: 34
- Kehjistan: 31
- Scosglen: 34
We recommend you refer to this interactive map to find all the Altars throughout the Sanctuary. You can zoom in and out to understand which spot it is and mark which Altars you’ve already collected rather than just looking at the picture.
Complete the Season Battle Pass
While the existence of the Season Battle Pass remains controversial, it’s an essential part of the game for players who enjoy cosmetic rewards. Even if you don’t buy it, the free version gives you a total of the following 28 rewards: 20x Smoldering Ashes, 5x weapon cosmetics, 1x set of roleplay clothing per class, 1x town portal, 1x mount trophy, and 1x title.
If you go for the paid version, you’ll get even more goodies like 2x sets of armor cosmetics per class, 19x weapon cosmetics, 5x mount trophies, 4x headstones, 3x emblems, 2x mounts, 2x mount armors, 2x town portals, and titles, 1x emote per class and 700x Platinum currency.
Since these skins are usually exclusive and won’t return soon, we recommend finishing the Battle Pass as quickly as possible. Plus, all Wardrobe skins carry over to the next season, and Vessel of Hatred allows easier access to the Wardrobe from the Character menu despite the town Wardrobes staying the same, which is a fantastic piece of news for all transmog collectors.
Get a mount
It might seem trivial, but having access to mounts will make your existence in Diablo 4 million times better. Beyond just the “Horse go fast” thing, mounts make exploring the vast open world, reaching world bosses, dungeons, strongholds, or other activities much easier. Plus, you can quickly bypass local demons without getting stuck in unnecessary fights. On top of that, mounts have special class-exclusive Dismount abilities, allowing you to attack nearby enemies as you jump off:
| Class | Mount skill | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Necromancer | Bone Spike | Impale your enemies, dealing damage and stunning them. |
| Barbarian | Bounding Slam | Jump off your mount, strike the ground twice, and stun nearby enemies. |
| Sorcerer | Freezing Wake | Harness the power of ice, swiftly gliding forward and freezing enemies in your way. |
| Druid | Pummel | Smash your enemies as you dismount, transforming into a Werebear and knocking them down. |
| Rogue | Volley | Leap off your mount and dive back into battle, unleashing a deadly barrage of arrows across the battlefield. |
Note that you won’t have access to mounts from scratch; they’ll unlock as you progress through the main campaign. To get your first mount, you’ll need to complete the “Donan’s Favor” quest, which becomes available after finishing Acts 2 and 3 (Scosglen and Dry Steppes). This means you’ll first need to complete the campaign quests in the Fractured Peaks, Dry Steppes, and Scosglen locations.
After a quick chat, Donan realizes you’ve been traveling across the continent on foot. To help, he calls in a favor with the Stable Master in Kyovashad. By talking to them, you’ll receive your first mount, the Reins of the Old Nell Steed, for free. From this day forward, all mounts become account-wide, meaning all your characters, including new ones, can use them across Eternal, Seasonal, and Hardcore realms.
You can visit the Stable Master anytime to customize or switch mounts or buy mount-related items. Stables are located in various towns across the Sanctuary, marked by a horse symbol on the map.
Find a reliable group for endgame content
Although most Diablo 4 players game on their own, ensure you have an active guild or a friend with whom you can run the new endgame content, specifically the first Dark Citadel raid, coming with Vessel of Hatred.
While you can tackle other endgame activities like Nightmare dungeons, Helltides, or Infernal Hordes solo, the first D4 raid can be finished with at least two players, with a full team of four being ideal. The difficulty remains the same regardless of team size, and many challenges require strong coordination and teamwork from all four players.
Even though you can certainly use the incoming Party Finder feature to team up with random players or connect through official Blizzard forums and special Discord servers, having a constant, reliable group will make progressing through the raid and planning strategies much easier and more fun. Note that a Season 6 feature, Mercenaries, doesn’t count toward the player total, but they can help you along the way.
Of course, the Dark Citadel raid isn’t required, but it’s a great way to earn a Weekly Reward Cache by completing it once a week. These Caches may contain rare, raid-exclusive items, including cosmetics and materials. Rewards for the Dark Citadel are updated weekly, incentivizing you to complete this co-op endgame activity regularly.
As you progress, you’ll collect Citadel Coins, a valuable, non-tradeable currency dropped by from almost any enemy inside the raid, which can be used to unlock elixirs, incenses, scrolls, cosmetics, and more from the Citadel Vendor. Also, Khazra Horns, another new raid-exclusive currency, can be used to transmute high-level boss materials at the Alchemist.
Why the Dark Citadel is important is a new item called the Scroll of Retempering, which resets an item’s Tempering Durability. These single-use scrolls can also drop outside the raid, though it’s very rare.
As you can see, the Vessel of Hatred expansion brings some cooperation elements similar to those in other Blizzard games, such as WoW. Participation in these activities is optional but highly rewarding if you want to soar to new heights in Season 6.
Choose a character class
Participating in each season of Diablo 4 is a great way to explore different builds and mechanics by playing various classes. While some players prefer sticking to the same class every season because it’s their favorite, once the season ends, those characters move to the Eternal Realm, creating a clunky duplicate army in your main menu.
What makes the game diverse and fun, even if you participate in the same endgame activities over and over, is discovering a class you have never played before. Might it be the perfect time to break the monotony and try a new one in Season 6, like the Spiritborn, to experience something different?
Anyway, if you prefer sticking to one class but want a fresh experience, you can always reset your talents and try something new. But as we’ve said, the real fun of Diablo 4’s seasons comes from experimenting with different classes, each with its unique mechanics, which is what keeps the game exciting and fresh.
Earn Renown by unlocking the whole map
Renown is an important part of character progression in Diablo 4, allowing you to track your reputation in different zones, each with its own Renown counter. The points you earn carry over to future seasons, and as you collect them, you unlock rewards at certain milestones.
There are five reward stages, including account-wide and character-specific bonuses. Each stage requires a set amount of Renown points, and every character begins at 0 in all zones. You can reach these stages without completing every objective in a zone:
- Stage 1: 200 points
- Stage 2: 300 points (500 total)
- Stage 3: 350 points (850 total)
- Stage 4: 400 points (1250 total)
- Stage 5: 450 points (1700 total)
To unlock the last two stages, you must reach level 60. You can earn Renown by completing the following activities:
| Activity | Fractured Peaks | Scosglen | Dry Steppes | Kehjistan | Hawezar |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waypoints | 7 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 6 |
| Strongholds | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Side quests | 38 | 47 | 39 | 44 | 50 |
| Areas discovered | 75 | 70 | 51 | 54 | 56 |
| Side dungeons | 23 | 25 | 21 | 23 | 23 |
Here are some tips:
- Focus on completing stages 1-4 early, as they’re quick and provide a strong power boost.
- Plan routes that combine multiple objectives to save time and maximize efficiency.
- Prioritize dungeons that grant Aspects for the Codex of Power to strengthen your character.
- Clear all three Strongholds in each zone.
- Finish short side quests, and if a dungeon is tied to a side quest, complete it for extra points.
- Don’t forget to collect all the Altars of Lilith.
- You can skip Events and Cellars as they don’t contribute to Renown.
Catch up on Diablo 4 story and lore
If you haven’t played Diablo 4’s main campaign yet, we highly recommend it. Along with the lore, engaging story, and stunning cutscenes, it’s important to know that completing the campaign (or at least the prologue if you’re not interested in the story) is required to unlock the endgame content. If you’d rather not play through it, you can watch a recap of the main story on Diablo’s official YouTube channel or read summaries online. Still, understanding the original story can enhance your experience, especially if you’re diving into the Vessel of Hatred content without playing the base campaign.
Final words
We hope this guide has helped you prepare for the upcoming Season 6. If you have any thoughts, for instance, what you do yourself to prepare for the first Diablo 4 expansion, be sure to share them with us in the comments below!
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