In Diablo 4 Season 3 of the Construct, players can experience the Gauntlet: a dynamic and strategic dungeon challenge designed for speed and cunning. With leaderboards spanning all game modes and various group dynamics, each class competes against itself to claim a coveted spot in the Top 10 ranks, earning a permanent place in the Hall of the Ancients.
Here, I offer a brief overview of what to expect in the Gauntlet, along with a detailed exploration of the intricate mechanics crucial for climbing the ranks, aiming for the prestigious Top 1,000 and, ideally, breaking into the Top 10.
However, the Gauntlet offers more than just recognition. Participants can anticipate cash rewards akin to those found in Nightmare Dungeons. Additionally, your performance each week determines the rewards you'll receive, such as different types of Diablo 4 Items, etc., culminating in the prestigious Seal of the Worthy for top achievers.
What Are Seals?
Let's delve into the process of advancing through the Seals, offering insight into the rewards that await you.
Advancing through the Seals is contingent upon achieving scores across various tiers. These Seals can be proudly displayed on your player-character banner, signaling your prowess in the Trials. Simply for attempting the Gauntlet, you'll earn the Seal of the Blooded. Mastering the fundamentals of the Gauntlet and its mechanics earns you the Seal of the Steadfast, indicating rapid progression through the ranks.
Players who attain high scores will be honored with the Seal of the Iron-Willed, one step closer to proving themselves as the pinnacle. Finally, there's the Seal of the Worthy. Reaching this pinnacle ensures you receive all rewards from preceding Seals, maximizing the power and quality of gear obtained from caches each week.
For dedicated players who excel in their class and build, there's an even loftier goal: securing a place within the Top 1,000 scores globally.
Top 5 Tips For Achieving Leaderboard Success
While individuals with a basic grasp of their build and the Gauntlet's mechanics can ascend to the highest Seal, achieving a ranking within the Top 1,000, and potentially cracking the Top 10, requires a deeper understanding to maximize your overall score.
Therefore, I'll provide five tips aimed at elevating your performance to reach the upper tiers of the leaderboard, offering you a genuine opportunity to compete amongst the elite.
Tip 1: Grasp The Essence Of The Gauntlet
Tip #1 revolves around understanding the Gauntlet itself, your primary adversary in this endeavor.
Upon repeated runs of the Gauntlet, you'll discern its fixed layout. This intentional design fosters fair competition and favors those with a speedrunning mindset, enabling them to strategize effectively.
Examining the map, several critical aspects merit attention. Foremost among them are the bosses, consistently spawning in predetermined locations or tiles. These bosses yield substantial scores, especially when encountered alongside score-multiplying Pillars, a point we'll explore shortly. Each boss always drops specific Shrines, such as Blast Wave, Channeling, and Artillery, offering potent enhancements for bolstering damage and efficiency within a build.
At the very least, these Shrines significantly augment Movement Speed, potentially pushing you to the Movement Speed cap—an aspect we'll delve into later.
In between boss encounters, you'll confront various combinations of trash monsters, Elite monsters, and key-bearing monsters, all of which yield valuable score increments. Ensuring thorough elimination of these monster packs prevents wasted time traversing unproductive terrain.
Tip 2: Strategize Your Approach To Pillars
Simply defeating these bosses once won't significantly boost your maximum score. This leads us to Tip #2: strategize your approach to Pillars.
In the Gauntlet, there are 2 distinct Shrines known as Pillars. One resurrects all previously defeated monsters, while the other provides a substantial multiplier to your total score. With each chest opened or monster slain, the multiplier increases.
These Pillars are consistently located in specific areas of the map. Planning how many monsters to defeat before activating the resurrection Pillar, and efficiently navigating between monster packs to maximize your time under the score-multiplying Pillar, is crucial for edging ahead of your competition.
Tip 3: Prioritize Vital Stats
Tip #3 emphasizes prioritizing stats that may not have been a focus during your time playing Diablo IV Season 3.
There are 3 crucial stats that should be maximized on every piece of gear whenever possible: Movement Speed, Increased Attack Speed, and Shrine Buff Duration.
Starting with Movement Speed, it's straightforward—there's a cap of 200%. Every character begins at a base of 100%, with potential movement speed affixes on amulets and boots. Additional affixes such as "After killing an Elite, gain additional Movement Speed" can further augment your mobility. While reaching the maximum cap isn't necessary, the inclusion of Shrines' Movement Speed bonuses and those gained after killing Elites allows for strategic Shrine activation and ensures constant movement at maximum speed.
Increased Attack Speed is the next vital stat. Many players are unaware that Diablo IV's animations operate on breakpoints, meaning specific thresholds of Increased Attack Speed enable faster damage output and enhanced movement speed. Simply relying on skill spamming until enemies are vanquished won't suffice. Instead, weaving in movement inputs between skill casts ensures continuous movement, optimizing combat efficiency.
The final crucial stat is Shrine Buff Duration, which can be found on both boots and amulets. This not only extends the duration of beneficial Shrines dropped by bosses and crucial Movement Speed boosts but also prolongs the multiplier effect of Pillars on your total score.
Maximizing these stats across gear pieces enables efficient cycling between boss and Elite packs, ensuring maximum score accumulation at all times.
Tip 4: Find Ways To Automate Your Gauntlet Build
Tip #4 for the Gauntlet involves implementing automation into different components of your build, allowing it to handle the majority of tasks efficiently.
Here is an example: the synergy between Black River and Sacrilegious Ring for the Necromancer. The Sacrilegious Ring autonomously triggers Corpse Explosion every second when placed on the skill bar, while Black River enables casting five Corpse Explosions for the price of one, contingent upon sufficient Corpses on the ground. This setup allows for effortless dispatching of monsters as you move through the Gauntlet. While my expertise lies with the Necromancer, every class offers avenues for incorporating automation, ensuring continuous movement while monsters are efficiently eliminated behind you.
It's important to note that you don't need to manually collect the score—it automatically accrues to you, even from a considerable distance.
Tip 5: Optimize!
And Tip #5 may appear obvious at first glance, but it's crucial to emphasize: optimize, optimize, optimize.
Unlike the Abattoir of Zir, where survivability and stacking multipliers are paramount, the Gauntlet presents a different challenge. Its monsters are only Level 124, akin to those found in a Nightmare Dungeon set at Level 70. Consequently, there may be areas in your build where you've overly prioritized damage or multipliers that could be reallocated to utility, as discussed in the preceding tips. For instance, you might regain Movement Speed by replacing a damage-focused aspect on your amulet with a mobility one.
Even a seemingly minor adjustment, such as switching from a slower-based weapon to a faster one—like transitioning from a Scythe with 0.90 Attacks per Second to a Wand with 1.2 Attacks per Second—can yield significant benefits. It's essential to remember that overkilling a monster doesn't increase your score. Instead, delivering the minimum required damage at the fastest rate possible is what propels your build to the top of the charts.
Conclusion
Every week, the Gauntlet presents a fresh challenge, requiring a new round of theory-crafting, strategizing, and route planning. Depending on the Gauntlet's composition, the emphasis on slaying bosses versus tackling Elites may vary significantly.
It wouldn't be surprising to find myself swapping out one or two gear pieces each week, experimenting with different optimization strategies for my build. In just the initial hours of the Gauntlet's release, we've witnessed remarkable shifts in high scores, particularly among Necromancer players, soaring from 300,000 to nearly 700,000. This demonstrates the community's dedication to pushing the meta and redefining what constitutes the ideal build for this challenging content.
