How to start Escalating Nightmares in Diablo 4 Season 9

Wondering how to start Escalating Nightmares in Diablo 4? You’re in the right place! Escalating Nightmares is a new permanent endgame activity introduced in Season 9: Sins of the Horadrim. It lets you tackle three Nightmare dungeons back-to-back, which ramps up the difficulty and the number of affixes with every subsequent encounter. 

Naturally, it’s a high-stakes, high-reward activity with some of the best loot drops in Diablo 4 Season 9. However, starting your first run of Escalating Nightmares could be tricky, whether you’re a new or a veteran player.

You can start Escalating Nightmares in Diablo 4 by consuming an Escalating Sigil. It works similarly to how you begin Nightmare Dungeons. Simply scroll through your inventory and consume an Escalation Sigil. But how do you get an abundance of Escalation Sigils?

The best way to farm Escalation Sigils is by completing Horadric Strongholds. These mini-dungeons spawn within Nightmare Dungeons. Unlike before, you can access Nightmare Dungeons from the moment you create your character and complete the first step of the seasonal questline. That said, don’t forget to check our guide on how to level up fast in Diablo 4 Season 9, so you don’t tire yourself before devouring the endgame stuff. 

The Grand Horadric Cache you get from completing Horadric Strongholds isn’t the only way to obtain Escalation Sigils. Increasing your Horadric Knowledge will unlock new tier rewards at the Horadric Focus, which includes Currency Cache. These have a high chance of dropping Escalating Sigils, even on lower levels at normal difficulty.

Astaroth, whom you may recall facing alongside the three-headed fiery demon Amalgam in Diablo 4’s base campaign, is the final boss of the third dungeon in Escalating Nightmares. It’s not a simple encounter, featuring three phases with unique attack patterns, any of which could take you down with ease if you’re not careful. 

As you would expect, Astaroth deals a ton of fire damage. Hence, it’s best to buff up your fire resistance. You can also use the Elixir of Fire Resistance to significantly boost fire resistance for a short time. 

All three phases are vastly different and require different strategies to overcome. For instance, during the first phase, Astaroth mounts Amalgam and unleashes fire beams and large-scale sweeping attacks. Likewise, during the second phase, you only face Astaroth, who now conjures fire pools in the arena and inflicts charge attacks. 

In the third phase, you face both Astaroth and Amalgam, both of which can unleash deadly attacks that you are now familiar with. To finish this fight,  you have to slay both Astaroth and Amalgam at the same time. 

Thankfully, Astaroth doesn’t appear in Escalating Nightmares until you reach Torment 1 difficulty. By then, you should have a decent build setup to overcome this encounter. If not, why not check out our Diablo 4 Season 9 best build guide for some aid?

For more on Diablo 4, stick to esports.gg.