Welcome yet again to Sanctuary, Nephalem. Diablo 3‘s 28th Ladder Season is just around the corner, kicking things off with the usual PTR rounds. The public test realm will be updated to game version 2.7.5 on January 31st. The biggest change is the addition of the Rites of Sanctuary meta-progression system.

Let’s take a look at how exactly this system works, what it brings to the table, and why it should matter.

Deep within the Festering Woods, the hapless citizens of Sanctuary have discovered a magical (and highly likely demonic) altar. Due to the obviously corrupting and eldritch influence that said altar might hold, it is thus up to the Nephalem to discover its secrets.

The Altar of Rites is the game’s new meta-progression system. It will grant great boons for players, at the cost of great sacrifices. The altar will be similar to an actual skill tree in Diablo III, though only limited to powerful passive effects.

Activating the Altar of Rites in Diablo III will reveal the 29 nodes related to the update. These will be split into two groups: 26 icons locked behind Seals, and 3 icons representing Legendary Potion Powers, further divided into various tiers. The Diablo III team has created a nice infographic that shows off each pathway, as well as a letter to make describing each power much easier.

The Altar of Rites will be 10 levels deep with a different amount of nodes per level. Passives granted start out relatively small, but ramp up in terms of bonuses quite quickly.

For example, one of the earlier nodes simply increases your Kill Streak timer duration as well as bonus XP from these. While not game-changing, this will make progression a bit faster even by a bit, making the grind cost a few less moments of your time. You can also get things that add a flat +200 damage to your attacks, nothing game-breaking.

However, you have access to extremely powerful nodes in Diablo III’s Altar of Rites. One early node makes it so that all items will not have a level requirement. This essentially makes it so that you can make use of endgame weapons even on lower-leveled characters, propelling their progression forward at an unprecedented pace compared to before. Even further down the line, you get passives that increase damage by percentages which will multiplicatively stack with all your other powers and bonuses.

Other very notable powers are those that make you gain “passability” (which probably means you have zero collision and can walk through monsters). The final, bottom node makes it so that a second Primal Item drops any time that a primal item does. These are the highest tier of gear in Diablo III, so getting double the chance of a good roll is astronomically good.

Players can choose whichever path to go down through when traversing the Altar of Rite’s nodes. Aside from the first node, which will always come first, it will be up to the player to choose the boons that complement their playstyles. Before you go down a tier, players need to unlock the node prior, just like any skill tree. You can choose whether to do a beeline to the bottom-most node in the fastest time possible or choose many of the lower ones instead.

In order to unlock a node, players must make a sacrifice to the altar. Regardless of how deep a node is, each sacrifice will make the next one more expensive. Diablo III players’ sacrifices will start out with mere junk such as reusable parts, or some gems. Eventually, you will need to sacrifice more and more items, some even harder to acquire.

There will be no limit to how many seals players can unlock, provided they are able to acquire all of the required sacrifices. You can also backtrack through nodes, and unlock anything in any order, provided that a parent node has already been activated.

The most dedicated Nephalem in Diablo III who unlock all of the Altar’s rites will receive an exclusive cosmetic, the Wings of Terror. These are inspired by Diablo’s very own demonic appendages, perfect to inspire terror into the hearts of your enemies.

A complete list of powers granted by Diablo III’s Altar of Rites can be seen below:

• Seal – Power
• A Your Kill Streak timer duration and reward bonus are doubled.
• B Pools of Reflection last for the entire Season and are not removed by death.
• C Items have no level requirement.
• D +200 Damage
• E +25% Missile Damage Reduction
• F +25% Movement Speed (Uncapped)
• G Increase damage against elites by 15%.
• H Picking up Health Globes grants a shield for 5% of your maximum health for 7 seconds. Max stacks 5.
• I +25% Melee Damage Reduction.
• J Increases your highest elemental skill damage bonus by 10%.
• K Increase damage against elites by 20%.
• L +10% Damage
• M Double the amount of Death’s Breaths that drop.
• N Critical hits grant resource: Mana: 15, Hatred: 5, Wrath: 5, Arcane Power: 3, Fury: 3, Spirit: 5, Essence: 5.
• O Double the amount of Bounty Caches that drop from completing bounties.
• P Progress orbs from Nephalem and Greater Rifts are picked up automatically.
• Q Reduces the damage taken from elites by 25%.
• R +15% Damage
• S Gain immunity to crowd-controlling effects.
• T Gain passability.
• U Pets pick up Death’s Breath.
• V Elite packs drop one additional progress orb.
• W Increase damage done to Bosses by 25%.
• X Pets pick up and salvage common, magic, and rare items.
• Y Increase your chance to Dodge by 15%.
• Z Double the chance to find a legendary item purchased from Kadala.
• Potion AA When you drink your health potion, you manifest one of three runic circles on the ground that grant increased damage, increased cooldown reduction, or increased resource cost reduction.
• Potion AB When you drink your health potion, all enemies within 25 yards deal 25% less damage.
• Potion AC When you drink your health potion, gain a random shrine or pylon effect.
• AD When a primal item drops, a second random primal item drops as well.

Below is also a list of all the required items to level up your Altar of Rites entirely:

The new Primordial Ashes resource will be extremely valuable and quite covered. Aside from being used to unlock the Potion Upgrades in the Altar of Rites, they can be used to upgrade existing (non-crafted) Legendary Items into their Primal variant.

Acquiring them will be just as difficult. Diablo III players will need to salvage a primal item to gain 55 Primordial Ashes. That means to unlock all options for the Legendary Potion upgrades, you will need to salvage 6 extremely rare Primal Items for 330 Primordial Ashes. The upgrade from Legendary to Primal will also cost a massive 100 ashes.

We last took a look at Sanctuary and its unlucky denizens back in Season 28, where a New Endgame mode was added, the Echoing Nightmare. Aside from the new and fancy meta progression system, the 2.7.5 update will also bring with it tons of class and item balancing changes. Since the changes are just about to go live on the PTR, we don’t have the finalized version just yet.

For more news, check out Redfall Gameplay Deep Dive Shows off the World, Characters, and More! and Redemption Reapers Trailer Showcases the Ashen Hawks Members.