Diablo 4 Baal Guide: Worldstone Keep, Fight and Loot

Baal is back in Season 15. The Echo of Baal, Lord of Destruction waits at the end of Worldstone Keep, a Waking Nightmare that rebuilds the last stretch of Diablo II: up Mount Arreat, past the three Ancients and into the Worldstone Chamber. You meet him first in Deckard Cain's season questline, and after that you can come back as often as you like. This guide shows how to get in, how the run plays out, what Baal drops and how he ties into Uber Tristram.

Farming Baal for his Splinter on the way to the Hellfire Torch? You can also get the Torch with the set you need from our shop. If you're here for Baal himself, everything you need is below.

Which Baal fight is this guide about?

Baal turns up in four places this season, which is why so much advice online doesn't match what you see on screen. This guide is about Worldstone Keep, the dungeon you can run again and again. The other three work differently:

• The questline fight. In The Horadrim's Fate you beat Baal once for the story, and he gives you your first Splinter of Destruction.
• Prime Evil ambushes. While you carry a Splinter, finished Whispers in the open world can break an Echo of Baal loose right next to you. The game warns you first with "The Echo of Baal will soon emerge!"
• Echo of Tristram. Better known as Uber Tristram, this is the fight where Baal stands next to Diablo and Mephisto, with its own way in. More on that further down.

Where is Worldstone Keep and how do you unlock Baal?

Worldstone Keep opens through the season questline on a seasonal character, and Baal's part of it comes first, before Mephisto and Diablo. The steps look like this:

1. Start the questline with Refuge from the Memories in Kuhuthi's Tavern, then follow Deckard Cain to the Imperial Library in Caldeum, where you get The Horadrim's Fate.
2. Find Tal Rasha in the Fractured Peaks, beat him and talk to him. His nightmare is your way into Worldstone Keep.
3. Walk the Ancients' Way up to Arreat Summit, activate the Altar of the Heavens and defeat Korlic, Talic and Madawc.
4. Fight through the Keep to the Throne of Destruction, clear the waves and follow Baal through his portal.
5. Kill the Echo of Baal in the Worldstone Chamber, take the Splinter of Destruction, speak to Tal Rasha and bring the Splinter back to Deckard's Table.

Hold on to that Splinter until the whole questline is done. Using one early used to lock characters out of the Prime Evil Powers. Patch 3.2.3 now blocks it, but it doesn't repair a character that's already stuck, so Blizzard's advice for those is to finish the questline on another character in the same mode, which unlocks the Powers for both.

Nightmare or Hell: which Worldstone Keep should you run?

Once the story part is behind you, the map shows Worldstone Keep in two versions. They're separate dungeons with fixed difficulties, so changing your Torment level doesn't change them.

The most common forum question about Baal is why the Keep keeps throwing people back to Torment IV after they switched to Torment X. That's simply the Nightmare version, so for the hard fight pick the entry labelled Hell. Players say the Hell version hits harder than its Torment number suggests, because it adds extra monster power on top. A build that only just gets by on Torment X can have a rough time there, so warm up in the Nightmare version first.

Your first Nightmare clear is worth it for another reason too: Season Rank V is also where the Liquid Rainbow comes from, your ticket to Whimsyshire, the secret pony level. Our Whimsyshire guide explains that part.

How to beat Baal: the run stage by stage

Worldstone Keep is much longer than a normal Waking Nightmare. You don't have to clear every pack, though, because only three spots matter, and the rest of the time you're just looking for the next exit.

Stage 1: the Ancients on Arreat Summit

Activate the Altar of the Heavens and the three barbarian statues wake up: Korlic, Talic and Madawc. They fight you together, so pick one, bring him down and keep moving so the other two can't pin you against a wall. When they're dead, pick up everything, because the Ancients drop a surprising amount of loot, gems included.

Stage 2: the waves on the Throne of Destruction

Inside the Keep you reach the Throne of Destruction, where Baal stands at the top of the stairs. You can't damage him here, so don't waste a single cooldown on him. Instead he calls in wave after wave of his minions, and on the way you'll also run into Lister the Tormentor, an old face from Diablo II. Clear the waves with your area damage while you keep your big single-target skills for later. When the last wave falls, Baal opens a portal and leaves through it, and you follow him.

Stage 3: Echo of Baal in the Worldstone Chamber

Baal meets you on the bridge in the Worldstone Chamber, and this is the actual boss fight. Hit him whenever you have a clean window, and step away the moment the ground around you turns dangerous. Keep your Evade or dash free for exactly that.

His key move is the Festering Appendages: tentacles that grow out of the floor and fill the arena bit by bit. They're easy to kill, but if you ignore them they box you in until you can't dodge anymore. So whenever a few of them show up, turn around, clear them and then go back to Baal. In a group, let one player take care of the tentacles while the others stay on the boss.

Some players report that a second Baal joins the fight. Nobody has pinned down when exactly that happens, so if you suddenly see two of him, treat the extra one like a dangerous elite: get some distance, clear the tentacles and keep hitting the Baal you were already damaging.

Why Baal runs go wrong

Most failed runs come down to one of these mistakes:

1. Burning cooldowns on the throne. Baal is immune during the waves, so anything you throw at him there is wasted and missing in the real fight.
2. Letting the tentacles pile up. One or two appendages are harmless, but a floor full of them leaves you nowhere to dodge.
3. Jumping into Hell too early. The Hell version is the pinnacle fight, so a build that barely holds on in Torment X will feel it here first.
4. Carrying Baal's own Splinter. Blizzard says the Splinter you carry makes you more vulnerable to its Prime Evil. Blizzard doesn't say how much, but if you keep dying in Hell with Destruction active, it's part of the reason.

Baal's loot and the Splinter of Destruction

Blizzard says the pinnacle versions of these fights give bigger rewards, and ties Baal to the Splinter of Destruction. What it doesn't publish is a loot table for Baal, and unlike Echo of Mephisto he has no guaranteed Mythic on Blizzard's list. So every drop list you find online shows what players happened to get.

Here's what players report from their runs:

• The Ancients: a big pile of items and gems before you even reach the Keep.
• Lister the Tormentor: runes, and now and then a normal chest piece that players keep as a base for the Enigma runeword.
• Echo of Baal: Uniques, sometimes a Mythic Unique or a Resplendent Spark, and a chance at the Splinter of Destruction. The Splinter doesn't drop on every kill, and nobody knows the exact chance.

Players often search for a "Splinter of Baal", but the item is called the Splinter of Destruction. Using it replaces your current Splinter with Baal's, which makes Destruction your active Prime Evil Power, and that power boosts the Kurast Undercity and Lair Bosses. You can only have one power active at a time, but since patch 3.2.4 of October 28 you can carry up to 99 Splinters of each type, so you can stop throwing spares away.

Spare Splinters have a second use. One Splinter of Terror, one of Destruction and one of Hatred in the Horadric Cube make Wirt's Lucky Coins, your ticket to Uber Tristram. Keep in mind that a Splinter you use to switch your power is gone, so it can't go into a coin anymore.

If Baal's loot sometimes seemed impossible to pick up, that was a bug: Tyrael stood right on top of it after the fight. Patch 3.2.3 fixed it. Players also talk about Baal's drops being nerfed, but Blizzard hasn't announced anything like that and nobody has shown a before and after.

Farming Baal: the Hell route players use

Baal needs no key and no Crux, so you can run him as often as your patience allows. After each kill, collect the loot, choose Leave Dungeon and make sure everyone in your group has left. Then open the map, press Reset Dungeons and go back in for a fresh run.

Players who farm the Hell version have boiled the run down to its three stops:

• Skip the packs. Run from exit to exit and only stop for the Ancients, the waves and Baal. Everything else costs time and gives little.
• Fast movement. Strong farmers report runs of under three minutes with a fast movement setup such as Enigma. Their builds are comfortable in Pit 120 and Torment XII, so expect slower runs while your build is still growing.
• Gems from the Ancients. Some players kill the Ancients, step back through the fog wall and repeat for more gems. Nobody has confirmed that this still works after the latest patches, so try it before you plan around it.

If you'd rather mix things up, there's a second way to get at Baal. With a Splinter active, Helltide Whispers can call up Prime Evil ambushes, and those drop Splinters too, while you farm reputation on the side. Which way pays more per hour nobody has measured. Our Helltide reputation guide covers that route.

Baal in Uber Tristram

The Echo of Tristram is the hardest place to meet Baal this season, because there you face Diablo, Baal and Mephisto at the same time. To get in, collect ten of Deckard's Journals to open Deckard's Memory and Old Tristram, then use Wirt's Lucky Coin at the fountain. The prize everyone is after is the Hellfire Torch.

That's where your Baal runs pay off a second time, because every Splinter of Destruction you farm in the Keep is one third of a coin. The Torch itself doesn't come from Worldstone Keep. How to get the other two Splinters and how the Tristram fight works is in our Hellfire Torch guide.

What happens to Baal in Season 16?

Blizzard has said that some features of Season 15 will stay after the season ends, and promised more details. By November 2 Blizzard had not published that list, so nobody knows for sure whether Worldstone Keep and the Echo of Baal stay in the game.

Data miners have found a hint in the files of the 3.3.0 test server, though: Uber Tristram could become a regular boss with an Altar of the Prime Evils and a Prime Evils' Hoard that you open with Wirt's Lucky Coins. Blizzard hasn't confirmed any of this, and things often change between the test server and launch. We'll update this guide once the list is out. Until then, our Season 16 guide collects everything that's already confirmed.

Summary

You can farm Baal on your own with the route above. If his Splinters are only a step toward the Torch, pick a Hellfire Torch with the set you need and run Baal just for his loot.

Everything else about the current season is in our Season 15 guide. If the Lord of Hatred pinnacle boss is next on your list, our Mephisto guide takes you through that fight.

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