The most important end-game activity for payers in Diablo 4 is the Nightmare Dungeon. In a nutshell, players get to play the same dungeons of the game, but with difficulty scaled up exponentially and better rewards.
Players can level up their characters faster and earn XP to level up their Glyphs through Nightmare Dungeons. Let’s delve deep into these Nightmare Dungeons in Diablo 4, how to unlock them, and what rewards they offer.
- What are Nightmare Dungeons
- How to unlock and enter Nightmare Dungeons
- Nightmare Dungeon Tier Levels
- Nightmare Dungeon XP Breakdown
What are Nightmare Dungeons in Diablo 4
As said, Nightmare Dungeons are end-game activities. The activity takes any random dungeon on the map that you may or may not have completed and turns it into its Nightmare version. For this, the dungeon gets new affixes and modifiers, and the difficulty of the dungeon is raised.
As such, everything you do in the Nightmare Dungeon yields better high-level rewards. All the enemies are more potent and drop higher XP and Gold, which are much needed for pushing your build to the Level 100 cap.
How to unlock Nightmare Dungeons in Diablo 4
As we said, Nightmare Dungeons are end-game activities found after you finish the game’s main campaign. After completing the main campaign, players must complete the Capstone Dungeon before they are given the option to unlock Nightmare Dungeons.
Players must upgrade their world tier difficulty to World Tier 3. Nightmare Dungeons are not available in any world tier under World Tier 3.
Players must use Nightmare Sigil to turn the game’s dungeons into Nightmare Dungeons. Nightmare Sigils are all bound to certain dungeons, and the Sigil will turn a bounded dungeon into a Nightmare Dungeon.
Along with converting the dungeon into its nightmare version, the Nightmare Sigil in D4 will determine what affixes players get on their Nightmare Dungeon.
Players must complete the Grim Favors for The Tree of Whispers to get their first Nightmare Sigil for free. Once you have collected 10 Grim Favors, you can head to The Tree of Whispers and redeem your reward. From the chest you get from The Tree of Whispers, you either get a Nightmare Sigil directly or the ingredients you need to craft a Nightmare Sigil.
You can head to the Occultist and craft your first Nightmare Sigil. You can also purchase any Nightmare Sigil from the Occultist in Diablo 4.
In your inventory, hover on the Sigil to see their Affixes and what dungeon it is for. Once you use your Nightmare Sigil, the game automatically opens the map and marks the location of the Nightmare Dungeon, so set up a waypoint and get to it to start through the dungeon.
Nightmare Dungeon Tier Levels
Nightmare Dungeons in Diablo 4 can vary from Tier 1 to Tier 100. These are then divided into the Sacred Tiers and the Ancestral Tiers.
The Sacred Nightmare Sigils cover Nightmare Dungeons from Tier 1 to Tier 20, and the Ancestral Nightmare Sigils cover the Nightmare Dungeon Tiers 21 to Tier 100. As the Tier of your Nightmare Sigil rises, so does the difficulty level of your Nightmare Dungeon, the enemies that the dungeon spawns, and the rewards you get for the dungeon.
Sacred Nightmare Dungeons can be farmed to get Sacred Legendary gear, whereas the Ancestral Nightmare Dungeons can be used to get Ancestral Legendary gear in Diablo 4. These gears offer better affixes, which can be transferred to other gear, making them valuable resources.
Talking about the Affixes offered or enforced upon you; these are randomly generated. You cannot control what affixes you get at all.
For Scared Nightmare Sigils, there are three Affixes. One of these is always positive, providing you with a random buff, while the other two are negative affixes, there to turn the odds against you.
For Ancestral Nightmare Dungeons, you get five affixes. The same setup, one positive affix, and four negative affixes. Of course, since the difficulty tier is higher, the affixes you get are also better and stronger.
If you don’t like the affixes you get, you can salvage the Nightmare Sigil in Diablo 4 and try to forge a new one. This will reroll the affixes, and you can keep on trying until you get the affixes best suited to your build.
XP gain in Nightmare Dungeon
At the end of every Nightmare Dungeon, you get XP that you can use to level up any of your Glyphs in the Paragon Board. Glyphs, as you might already know, are used to make your builds stronger.
The Glyphs you have equipped appear in red, whereas the Glyphs you don’t have equipped appear in yellow, allowing you to easily distinguish between the Glyphs you want to upgrade and the Glyphs you don’t want to upgrade.
The Tier level of the nightmare dungeon determines the XP you get at the end of the dungeon, so the higher tier dungeon you complete, the more XP you get as a reward for completing the Nightmare Dungeon.
Nightmare Dungeon Tier XP Breakdown
Players generally get an additional 2 XP per Tier level raise in Diablo 4. Fortunately, Glyphs don’t require too much XP to level up, but you’d still need to grind a lot to level up your Glyphs.
| Nighmare Dungeon Tier Level | Glyph Experience Reward |
| 1 | 4 |
| 2 | 6 |
| 3 | 8 |
| 4 | 10 |
| 5 | 12 |
| 6 | 14 |
| 7 | 16 |
| 8 | 18 |
| 9 | 20 |
| 10 | 22 |
| 11 | 24 |
| 12 | 26 |
| 13 | 28 |
| 14 | 30 |
| 15 | 32 |
| 16 | 34 |
| 17 | 36 |
| 18 | 38 |
| 19 | 40 |
| 20 | 42 |
| 21 | 44 |
| 22 | 46 |
| 23 | 48 |
| 24 | 50 |
| 25 | 52 |
| 26 | 54 |
| 27 | 56 |
| 28 | 58 |
| 29 | 60 |
| 30 | 62 |
| 31 | 64 |
| 32 | 66 |
| 33 | 68 |
| 34 | 70 |
| 35 | 72 |
| 36 | 74 |
| 37 | 76 |
| 38 | 78 |
| 39 | 80 |
| 40 | 82 |
| 41 | 84 |
| 42 | 86 |
| 43 | 88 |
| 44 | 90 |
| 45 | 92 |
| 46 | 94 |
| 47 | 96 |
| 48 | 98 |
| 49 | 100 |
| 50 | 102 |
| 51 | 104 |
| 52 | 106 |
| 53 | 108 |
| 54 | 110 |
| 55 | 112 |
| 56 | 114 |
| 57 | 116 |
| 58 | 118 |
| 59 | 120 |
| 60 | 122 |
| 61 | 124 |
| 62 | 126 |
| 63 | 128 |
| 64 | 130 |
| 65 | 132 |
| 66 | 134 |
| 67 | 136 |
| 68 | 138 |
| 69 | 140 |
| 70 | 142 |
| 71 | 144 |
| 72 | 146 |
| 73 | 148 |
| 74 | 150 |
| 75 | 152 |
| 76 | 154 |
| 77 | 156 |
| 78 | 158 |
| 79 | 160 |
| 80 | 162 |
| 81 | 164 |
| 82 | 166 |
| 83 | 168 |
| 84 | 170 |
| 85 | 172 |
| 86 | 174 |
| 87 | 176 |
| 88 | 178 |
| 89 | 180 |
| 90 | 182 |
| 91 | 184 |
| 92 | 186 |
| 93 | 188 |
| 94 | 190 |
| 95 | 192 |
| 96 | 194 |
| 97 | 196 |
| 98 | 198 |
| 99 | 200 |
| 100 | 202 |
Required XP to level up Glyphs
Now that we know how much XP we get for every Tier of Nightmare Dungeons, it is only fitting that we also see how much XP is required to level up your Glyphs in Diablo 4 using the XP you get from Nightmare Dungeons.
The max level a Glyph can be upgraded to in Diablo 4 is level 21. This requires 3002 XP to reach glyph level 21 so be prepared to grind a lot of Nightmare Dungeons.
| Glyph Level | Experience From Previous Level | Total Experience Required |
| 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 8 | 8 |
| 3 | 15 | 23 |
| 4 | 24 | 47 |
| 5 | 35 | 82 |
| 6 | 46 | 128 |
| 7 | 59 | 187 |
| 8 | 72 | 259 |
| 9 | 87 | 346 |
| 10 | 104 | 450 |
| 11 | 121 | 571 |
| 12 | 140 | 711 |
| 13 | 159 | 870 |
| 14 | 180 | 1050 |
| 15 | 203 | 1253 |
| 16 | 226 | 1479 |
| 17 | 251 | 1730 |
| 18 | 276 | 2006 |
| 19 | 303 | 2309 |
| 20 | 332 | 2641 |
| 21 | 361 | 3002 |
