The new Season 3 has brought the Vaults in Diablo 4, and different strategies are needed there than just particularly strong meta builds. For this, you can expect some really good loot at the end.
Why don’t Oneshot builds help here? In the Vaults, you will encounter many monster mobs, but no strong end boss. Additionally, you will find traps in many rooms, corners, and chests that you must dodge in order to actually collect the loot at the end.
In some other activities, it often revolves around defeating strong bosses. An expert defeated one of the toughest bosses in one hit, because he was wearing the right pants. However, a strong Oneshot build won’t help you in the Vaults, as this requires rather attention and preparation. Being able to defeat strong enemies particularly quickly won’t necessarily lead you to your goal here.
More protection stacks = more loot at the end of the Vault
How do I prepare? In the Vaults, you can exchange so-called protection pearls for protection stacks. You get the pearls from the “Herald of Malphas”, which you summon during the Arcane Tremors and for completing a Vault. When you exchange them, you receive protection stacks that you lose once you are hit by a trap.
This doesn’t sound so bad at first, however, at the end of the Vault, there are chests that you can only open if you have enough protection stacks left. You will also receive a chest for completing the trap room and one for completing the Vault, but the chests you get for the protection stacks contain better loot.
The following chests await you at World Tier 4 at the end:
- “free” chest for completing the last trap room
- “free” chest for completing the Vault
- small chest for 1 protection stack
- medium chest for 4 protection stacks from World Tier 3
- large chest (far left in the image) for 10 protection stacks from World Tier 4
- so you need a total of 15 protection stacks at the end of the Vault to open all chests
Regarding the loot, you will receive gold, equipment items, nightmare sigils, protection pearls, crafting materials, and stones for your Seneschal companion. In the screenshots, you can see examples from the “Vault of Ink” in the nightmare version (level 21):
Better to accept a death than lose protection
How do the Vaults work? At the beginning, you run through a small dungeon area where you only encounter enemies, but no traps yet. At the end, you enter the Vault through a portal. Once there, you will find a pillar where you can exchange your pearls. Since Patch 1.3.0a, you receive 10 protection stacks per pearl.
In the Vault, you will encounter many traps. If you are after a lot of loot: it’s better to accept a death than to get hit by the traps too often – especially when you encounter the Butcher, who tries to push you into the traps. This can quickly lead to a lack of protection for the large chests. This only applies if you are not playing Hardcore, of course.
In some Vaults, you need to collect an item to open doors. If you have fought your way through the Vault, you will finally enter a large room full of traps. An event will be triggered there where mobs will continuously spawn. You need to eliminate these while also paying attention to the traps. Upon completion of the event, a chest will spawn in the room.
After that, the run is complete and depending on how many protection stacks you have left, you can open either just one or several chests in the adjacent room. Note that the stacks expire once you leave the Vault. So teleport to the city first, around to empty your inventory, once the chests are opened.
Behind some chests in Vaults, you may find a small fortune, while behind others a nasty surprise:
Nightmare Vaults are even more rewarding
How do I get to the Vault? You can simply enter the Vaults through the archway or the map when you go to the entrance. However, it is more rewarding if you turn them into Nightmare Vaults, as this allows you to level your glyphs.
For this, you need sigils, which you craft beforehand with sigil powder, shattered stone, and gold, find in Vaults, or receive from the Whispering Tree. Then you can teleport directly there, as you would normally do with the Nightmare Dungeons.
The Vaults could thus particularly appeal to players who want to try out different builds without focusing on the meta. Also, for those who are looking for a change from the regular (Nightmare) dungeons, the Vaults could be an option.
MyMMO editor Benedict Grothaus believes the new Vaults are really good content and says he hasn’t had this much fun in a long time. You can read more about it here: Diablo 4: The feature that annoys everyone in Season 3 makes me really happy
