Echoing Nightmare

The Echoing Nightmare is an endgame gameplay challenge in Diablo III, introduced in Season 26. It provides an opportunity to quickly obtain high level Whisper of Atonement gems for augmenting items by completing the Waking at Midnight event, an intense fight against constant waves of increasingly tough monsters. The feature was quickly made available year-round for all characters.

Gameplay[]

The Echoing Nightmare is an endgame activity, where players fight within the memories of Nephalem who fell in a Greater Rift. The player must stand their ground until they are overwhelmed or killed.^[1] A progress bar shows how close the monsters are to overwhelming the player; if it fills completely, the Nightmare ends immediately, even if the player is not dead. The progress bar is not cumulative; killing most of the monsters present will move the bar back toward the beginning. The combat is wave-based, and the difficulty scales as additional monster waves are spawned. The faster monsters are killed, the quicker the player's tier level increases.^[2]

To unlock the Nightmare, players must collect a Petrified Scream from defeated Greater Rift Guardians. Transmuting a Petrified Scream in Kanai's Cube summons a portal that players can enter to face the horrors of a Nephalem's past.

Petrified Screams and the Echoing Nightmare can only be accessed at level 70. Only one player is required to transmute a Petrified Scream to open an Echoing Nightmare in a multiplayer game. Similar to a boss encounter, all players in a multiplayer game must accept a prompt to enter. While within an Echoing Nightmare, the difficulty scales as players progress in the encounter. Players can progress faster by defeating monsters quickly. The monsters inside a Nightmare don't drop gold, items, or health globes.

Once a Nightmare is complete, players receive experience, and a chest appears containing Legendary Items, Blood Shards, Gems, and a special Legendary Gem, the Whisper of Atonement.^[1] The Whisper of Atonement will already have a level up to 125 corresponding to the number of waves defeated during the Echoing Nightmare. Unlike other gems, the Whisper has no direct effect and cannot be socketed into items, but it can be used for other Kanai's Cube recipes, and is meant for augmentation.

Challenge details[]

The Echoing Nightmare is also the name of the zone in which the challenge takes place, which can have one of a handful of relatively small layouts. Each layout has four Pylons around the perimeter: Speed, Conduit, Channeling, and Power. The The Flavor of Time works normally to extend Pylon duration here. Shrines obtained before the event starts also remain in effect.

As more waves are cleared, many monsters begin to be Molten, and periodically green meteors fall from the sky, forcing the player to keep moving. While in the Nightmare, Molten explosions deal Physical rather than Fire damage, so they cannot be bypassed with The Star of Azkaranth. Rift Guardians spawn periodically as well.

The challenge can continue past wave 125, but there is little to no benefit to continuing further, since the maximum level the Whisper of Atonement reward can drop with is 125. For maximum reward, the Nephalem must clear wave 125, so they will be on wave 126 or above.

The Nephalem can die in the Echoing Nightmare, which ends the event immediately, even if they resurrect right away. This death is "real" for Hardcore characters. The entry portal disappears and Town Portal cannot be used during the event, but simply ceasing attacks will quickly cause the Overwhelmed bar to fill up, at which point all remaining monsters die immediately. The Nephalem can still die from explosions just after being Overwhelmed.

Objectives:

• Event Begins in 10 Seconds
• Kill as many enemies as possible before you are Overwhelmed
  • Current Tier: 1-125+
  • Overwhelmed bar: 0-100%
• Claim your Reward

Opening the reward chest grants experience and drops substantial loot, and the event closes 30 seconds afterward. The amount of loot is well above most chests or even Greater Rift guardians, so a large amount of free inventory space is recommended. The entry portal reappears once the fighting is done, and can be used without starting the ending timer, before opening the reward chest.

Tips[]

It is best to use the Pylons on later waves when the player is under the most pressure. The Flavor of Time is highly recommended to extend their effect. To maximize success chance, the player may even seek out shrines beforehand, using the Gloves of Worship to receive their benefits during the entire event.

Nemesis Bracers also have their normal effect, so removing them beforehand may be preferred. However, the resulting Rare Monster pack is unlikely to be more overwhelming than the waves already attacking, and they will drop their normal loot, which can be retrieved after the event is over. (Their power scaling may be based on the current Difficulty setting rather than the current Nightmare Tier/wave.)

Equipment and skills can be swapped out while in the Nightmare, although of course it is safer to activate the desired build ahead of time.

Development[]

Inspiration for the Echoing Nightmare came from Orek's words regarding Nephalem Rifts: "many Nephalem have stood where you are now, but few succeeded in overcoming the trials." The Nightmare explores what happened to the Nephalem that did not succeed.^[1] The event bears a resemblance to the design of the Realm of Trials, which was formerly required to unlock Greater Rifts: Both challenged players to defeat rapid waves of monsters, with the level of the reward increasing with the waves defeated.

The Echoing Nightmare was initially launched in April 2022 as a season-specific gameplay element for Season 26, "The Fall of the Nephalem". Midway through the season in May 2022, it was announced that Echoing Nightmares would be a permanent feature of the game available year-round.^[3]

References[]