Diablo Immortal Challenge Rifts Explained

In their essence, Challenge Rifts are a character progression measuring stick — providing a fixed difficulty counterpart to the Elder Rifts' scaling challenge. Challenge Rift completion is tracked on a Leaderboard, and it serves as a semi-competitive PvE activity. Challenge Rifts allow you to push your character to their absolute limits, both stat- and skill-wise, and reward you with valuable crafting materials in return.

Challenge Rifts are unlocked during the Westmarch questline very early on in the campaign, as you acquaint yourself with the various activities in the main town hub of Diablo Immortal. Once you have access to the Challenge Rift Entrance in Westmarch, you can revisit this activity anytime and test your character as much as you want.

Challenge Rifts are randomized dungeons, with varying layouts, monster composition, and final boss contained within. While on a surface level they seem different from dungeon to dungeon, Challenge Rifts share the following common traits:

• Challenge Rifts are completed by killing regular monsters and picking up the Progress Orbs from slain Elite enemies. Your progress is tracked by a bar in the upper right corner; once full, all regular and Elite monsters disappear and a Rift Guardian spawns.
• While there is an Experience reward upon successful completion of a previously uncleared Challenge Rift, monsters slain within the rift do not reward experience or loot — making this activity a poor source of both.
• In order to succeed in the Challenge Rift attempt, you need to finish off the monsters and the Rift Guardian within 10 minutes. If you do not manage to clear the Rift in time, you can safely exit through a conveniently spawned exit portal. Finishing the boss after the timer runs out yields no rewards.
• Challenge Rifts can be attempted on your own or in a group, with separate Leaderboards for each soloing class and for parties (2-, 3- and 4-player).
• There are 200 Challenge Rift levels in the game. Their difficulty starts at 350 Combat Rating for Challenge Rift Level 1 and increases in 30 Combat Rating increments. You will be evenly matched with Challenge Rifts equal to your Combat Rating, will slowly overpower Challenge Rifts below your Combat Rating, and will be heavily penalized for attempting Challenge Rifts above your Combat Rating.
• The first clear on a server (class-agnostic) of Challenge Rift level increments of 10 are given out additional honor and are marked prominently on the leaderboard.
• Reaching certain Paragon levels and clearing specific Challenge Rift tiers (marked by a skull icon in the Challenge Rift interface) improves the quality of the overall loot you will find in the game. Examples of these milestones are Paragon 1/Challenge Rift 12 for Hell I loot, Paragon 30/Challenge Rift 30 for Hell 2 loot, etc.

The rift layout and monster composition of a Challenge Rift can greatly influence your chances of clearing a tier, especially when you are pushing against the upper limits of your current gear. This is commonly referred to as "fishing". Common elements of Rift "fishing" include:

• Looking for specific layouts: More open spaces lend themselves better to luring and dragging monsters around, having more room to maneuver and survive difficult affixes and monsters, etc. Conversely, tight spaces and winding corridors and caves make all these tasks harder.
• Gauging monster compositions: Slow-moving, melee-oriented, and lower health enemies are preferable to any other alternatives. Naturally, some rifts will spawn with more favorable monsters than others.
• Engaging or skipping Elites: Understanding which Elites to engage and which ones to skip comes from understanding their Elite Affixes. Some of them will be naturally easier (Molten, Teleporter, Harsh Winds, etc.) than others (Laser, Serpent Totem, Berserking, etc.) Difficulty will also depend on your build.
• Favoring certain Rift Guardians: This is among the most influential RNG elements of Challenge Rift pushes, as spawning certain Rift Guardians can make or break an attempt. Sadly, there isn't much you can do here (except pray).
• Abusing Pylons: Influencing the spawn of Pylons is definitely part of fishing (more on that below). The proper use of Pylons, especially potent ones like Conduit, Frenzied, or Empowered, can vastly improve your chances of clearing a Challenge Rift.

Unless you are interested in being "competitive", stop pushing Challenge Rift tiers when the game starts giving you the "High Monster Difficulty" warning, and come back when you have upgraded your Combat Rating. There is no sense in bashing your head against the gear wall, as the game heavily penalizes you for being under the monster's CR. The only sensible exception is if you're trying to get to a higher reward tier for the week before the Leaderboard reset (see 'Rewards' section below).

The following class-specific builds have been designed specifically to tackle the progressively harsher environments of Challenge Rift pushes:

Pylons are pillars of stored energy that appear as you reach milestones in the Challenge Rift progress bar. Pylons temporarily empower your character when used. The deliberate and timely use of Pylons can be decisive for a successful Challenge Rift clear.

To make the most of them, you should take mental notes of Rift layouts, as well as Pylon spawn locations in Elder and Challenge Rifts as you get more and more acquainted with Diablo Immortal. With smart play in Challenge Rift pushes, you can influence the chances of Pylons appearing — by recognizing the rift layout and revealing Pylon-capable locations in the rift at progress bar thresholds.

The Pylon types in Diablo Immortal are:

• Alchemical Pylon: Your attacks will Freeze enemies. This is a very strong defensive Pylon, ideally taken after you have formed a pull. Its powerful crowd control will hold your enemies helplessly in place as you cut them down. Conversely, it is not the best Pylon to take when you are trying to clump smaller packs of enemies together — it constantly disrupts their movement and dilutes the pull.
• Conduit Pylon: Lightning strikes emit from your character, inflicting heavy damage to a limited number of randomly selected enemies in your vicinity. The best case use of this Pylon is after you finish off trash enemies, and have 1+ high health, dangerous Elites left standing. A properly used Conduit Pylon can make short work of them and net you great progress.
• Empowered Pylon: Cooldown reduction and Attack Speed increase. This is an all-around useful Pylon, as it can be used for both offensive (hit faster and spam nukes) and defensive (refresh your movement and protective cooldowns) purposes.
• Fleeting Pylon: Increases your Movement Speed. This is a very situationally useful pylon. Its best case scenario is to skip a sparsely populated part of the rift and get to enemies faster. Note that it might disrupt your pulls, as you outrun your enemies.
• Frenzied Pylon: Your chance to inflict critical hits is greatly improved. There is no case when this is a bad pickup, but its benefits will scale to the value of the enemies you are currently fighting. Ideally, you will have one at the Rift Guardian, or a massive Elites + trash pull.

Challenge Rifts reward you depending on several factors: first server clear, first time individual clear, soloing or grouping, and timing (daily/weekly/monthly challenges).

• First-Time Server Clear: Any player that reaches a Challenge Rift server milestone (increments of 10) rewards all players on the server with 1,000 Gold and 50 Hilts. The reward is claimable at the Challenge Rift Entrance obelisk.
• First-Time Completion Reward: Your first-time clear of every subsequent Challenge Rift level will reward you with Scrap Materials, Enchanted Dust, Enigmatic Crystals, Experience, as well as runes and items of varying quality. Level increments of 5 are more rewarding than others.
• Daily Challenge Rewards: Completing a Challenge Rift equal to or above your previously highest clear rewards you with daily Gold. The amount of Gold you get scales according to the Challenge Rift level bracket you complete, starting at 500 Gold for levels 1-10 and growing in 250 Gold increments.
• Weekly Leaderboard (Solo): Completing a Challenge Rift on your own puts you on a class-specific Leaderboard for the server. This Leaderboard resets on a weekly basis (Mondays, 3 AM server time). The top 1,000 players receive a reward scaling to their performance, starting at 50k Gold and 200 Hilts for placements between 701-1,000 and growing in 10k Gold/50 Hilts increments for every bracket of 200 players. The reward is more granular at the top, rewarding 80k/350 Hilts for ranks 101-300, 90k/400 Hilts for ranks 11-100, and 100k/500 Hilts for ranks 1-10.
• Monthly Leaderboard (Group): Completing a Challenge Rift in a group puts you on a 2-, 3-, or 4-player Leaderboard for the server. This Leaderboard resets on a monthly basis (first day of the month, 3 AM server time). You can compete in multiple categories (and will be rewarded individually for each) and with multiple groups within a single category (and will be rewarded only for your highest clear). Multiplayer rewards are much higher than Solo rewards, rewarding with a scaling amount of Legendary Crests and Hilts, as well as Legendary Gems for the top 5 teams.

Challenge Rifts offer plentiful and valuable rewards — especially the vital Enigmatic Crystals, which make them a necessary part of your character progression. There is also the adrenaline aspect of pushing your character to their limit, which can be quite fun in itself. Do keep in mind however that the top of the Leaderboards will be populated by the most dedicated and wealthy players, and do not grind yourself against a gear wall that cannot be overcome without spending.