Characters earn the right to enter higher level Greater Rifts by completing Rifts within fifteen minutes - faster clears will allow players to select a Grift of more than one level higher. Greater Rifts do not use the standard Diablo 3 difficulty system and the difficulty of a game has no effect on the difficulty of the Grift. Greater Rifts are found only in Adventure Mode and as such are only in Reaper of Souls or the console Ultimate Evil Edition.Įnter the Realm of Trials to earn higher level GRKs.(In early PTR testing players could return to town and change gear, but this is no longer permitted.) Respecs and gear changes are not permitted during a Grift, though Paragon Points can be reallocated.Monster exp also increases with the GRift, and farming high level grifts is worth vastly more experience than playing on even Torment 10. There is no maximum level Grift, as the monster hit points, damage, etc, scale up infinitely with higher GRs.No loot or gold drops in Grifts, and there are no chests and very few destructibles.(Early on the PTR they were present, and would drop Progress Orbs when killed.)
Legendary Gems are only dropped by Greater Rift Guardians, and can only be upgraded via Urshi when a Grift is finished in under 15 minutes.Greater Rifts require Rift Keys to enter, which can only be dropped by Guardians in regular Rifts.
While Greater Rifts maxed out at 100 in their initial patch testing, there is no upper limit since GRs scale up infinitely, and parties of players were first able to exceed GR100 in Patch 2.5. Torment 1 = GR10, Torment 6 = GR25, and Torment 10 = GR45. Greater Rifts start at Rank 1, equivalent to Easy mode, and increase infinitely, with the monster hit points, damage, experience value, etc, scaling up by a set amount per GR level. Greater Rifts offer far more incremental difficulty levels than the normal game. This is helpful for players trying to finish the Grift quickly for a record time, but can be deadly for players who are low on health and need some space for safety. Patch 2.5 made it so Guardians will teleport to the player if they move more than 2 or 3 screens out of sight. At that point all other monsters vanish from the level. All the item rewards come from the Greater Rift Guardian who spawns once players kill enough enemies to reach 100% completion. Elite enemies do not drop items, but do drop several purple Progress Orbs, which are worth about 1% completion when picked up. Greater Rifts are all about killing speed and tactics, without item drops or gold to distract players.
Grifts however have higher monster density, and there are no item or gold drops, no chests, and very few destructibles. Like normal Nephalem Rifts, Greater Rifts have randomly generated tilesets, layouts, and monsters. They are Diablo 3's ladder challenge, with Realm-wide rankings recording the best times for every class and 2-4 player parties.
Grifts are designed to provide an end game play mode with progressively increasing difficultly, plus rewards to match. Greater Rifts (GRs or GRifts), initially known as Tiered Rifts are a special timed type of Nephalem Rift, added in Patch 2.1 and modified repeatedly since then.