A Detailed Guide To Infernal Hordes Mode In Diablo 4 Season 5 PTR – Mechanics Explained, Tips, Rewards, And More

Through the recent Diablo 4 Season 5 PTR, we learned a lot about the upcoming changes and additions, with a new terrifying endgame mode in the depths of Hell getting the spotlight: Infernal Hordes.

This guide is all about Infernal Hordes Mode, and we’ll tell you how to unlock Infernal Hordes, where to farm Infernal Hordes Compasses, how to get Abyssal Scrolls, what Burning Aether is, and more. With this guide, you’ll be able to get an early grasp of it in the upcoming Diablo 4 Season 5.

How Does It Work?

Infernal Hordes is a new game mode that will be introduced in Season 5. It’s a limited-time horde game mode that revolves around selecting positive buffs, which are similar to the downsides of traditional roguelikes or gauntlet survival games.

Like most mechanics in Diablo 4, Infernal Hordes will not be a strictly endgame focused mechanic. You will be able to participate in Infernal Hordes as early as World Tier 3. Once you reach World Tier 3, Infernal Compasses begin to drop, which acts similarly to Nightmare Sigils. They will open a dungeon that you can enter to start Infernal Hordes.

How To Unlock Infernal Hordes?

Before entering Infernal Hordes, you will first need to complete the newly added quest line for World Tier 3, Eyes of the Enemy. This quest can be found in the town of Zarbinzet in Hawezar. To complete it, you simply follow NPC and the quest pointer.

Completing this quest will also give you a free Infernal Compass for entering Infernal Hordes, which has levels, with higher levels offering more rewards and stronger monsters.

Infernal Compass

Infernal Compass can currently be found in a number of ways, including completing Nightmare Dungeons, opening Helltide Chests, and opening Whisper Caches. Right now in PTR you are guaranteed to get an Infernal Compass for trying out the game mode, but this may not be a guaranteed drop when Season 5 launches.

Like I said before, this new Diablo 4 item works similarly to Nightmare Dungeon Sigils, because it opens a portal for you directly into Infernal Hordes. It starts at level 1, 2, or 3, and can be upgraded with Abyssal Scrolls up to level 8.

Abyssal Scrolls

Abyssal Scrolls drop from Spoils of Material chests in Infernal Hordes, but with a slight chance. You can also salvage Infernal Compass to get an Abyssal Scroll. Among them, recycling a Tier 1-3 Infernal Compass will get you one Abyssal Scroll, while recycling Tier 4 and above will get you 1 additional Abyssal Scroll per level. For example, recycling a Tier 8 Compass will get you 6 Abyssal Scrolls in total.

Besides this, each Infernal Compass Tier will increase the number of waves in Infernal Horde. Tiers 1 to 3 will contain 5 waves, and each level after that will add one wave, up to 10 waves by Tier 8.

How To Complete Infernal Horde?

To start Infernal Horde, just right-click on Compass and jump into it. Infernal Horde has limited-time waves, each lasting 90 seconds.

After killing the remaining enemies within the allotted time, you will be able to choose between three Infernal Offers. These Offers will grant a Boon and a Bane. These will increase the difficulty of your run, but increase the rewards, and these will stack throughout the run, so be sure to make the right choice!

As you tackle these waves in Infernal Horde, you’ll collect Burning Aether by killing Aether Fiends, Aether Lords, Aetheric Masses, and Soulspires.

This is a new currency added in Season 5 PTR that can be used in Infernal Horde, and it works similarly to Aberrant Cinders. You can use it after successfully completing a round and defeating Fell Council at the end of Infernal Horde. Collect as much Burning Aether as you can during your run, which will net you an unexpected D4 Gold bonus!

Once you survive the battle, you’ll encounter Fell Council. There are five members of Fell Council, each with their own unique abilities, so each one is different. Each time you reach Fell Council, you’ll fight three of them at random. This means you’ll have a total of ten different encounters.

Once you’ve done enough damage to Fell Council, their attacks will become more frenzied, greatly increasing the difficulty of the fight. Once they’re defeated, you can finally redeem your Burning Aether for some Infernal loot.

Rewards

There will be four different chests to choose from here, and you have complete freedom to choose which one to open, depending on what you think you need.

• Spoils of Equipment: It will drop random equipment.
• Spoils of Materials: It will drop random materials and has a chance to drop Abyssal Scrolls.
• Spoils of Greater Equipment: It will guarantee to drop items with Greater Affix for you. This chest is a must if you have enough Burning Aether.
• Spoils of Gold: Open this chest last, as it will exchange any remaining Burning Aether you have for Diablo 4 Gold for sale.

Final Thoughts

All in all, I’m really excited about this new game mode. It’s actually pretty fun. Unfortunately, it’s not rewarding right now, and it takes a little too long to finish running. And it has to be said that for the total time invested running Infernal Horde, you could collect better Diablo 4 items by farming Blood Maiden or running Pit of Artificers.

Anyway, everything is still in testing, and hopefully they’ll be able to tweak it and make it better, more challenging, and more rewarding. I hope this complete guide gives you guys a better understanding of this new Infernal Hordes game mode, and I wish you all the best, and happy hunting and farming!