So this guide is specifically about the S28 mechanic, the Altar of Rites. Even more specifically, how I recommend the order you unlock nodes to get maximum value of the heavenly value. Naturally there are notes and choices further down, as well as all the basic node info there in the middle. NOTE: They’re officially called “seals”, but… man…
to open the Altar of Rites:
Go to ACT I: then follow the left path slightly past Arghus the Collector
S28 Altar of Rites – Order of what to get
This specific setup is “good enough” for the vast majority of players – the focus is to get the farming, QoL, and speedy nodes first, then filling the rest with the best to worst nodes. There are a few nuances and notes down there in case you want to get certain things in your Altar of Rites first or whatever. A very important note is how the altar of rites makes leveling in S28 much easier.
Notably there are a couple notes on Node C down there, specifically how to get Node C with or without the cache.
Confused? The next segment is the Altar of Rites Nodes, Effects, and Unlocking
| # | Node | Effect (shortened) | Note |
| 1 | A | Double massacre time & bonus. | First node, forced to take it. |
| 2 | C* | No level req on items. | Leveling naturally? TAKE. Boosted? Skip. See notes. |
| 3 | B | Pools of Relfection = FOREVER | Helps you not only level up to 70, but gain paragon. |
| 4 | D | 200 Base DMG up | More powerful than it seems, increases your base damage! |
| 5 | F* | Movespeed +25% | Needs no explanation, great early on. |
| 6 | H | Health Globes give shields. | Forced to take this. Decent, helps Squirts Necklace. |
| 7 | J | Highest elemental dmg +10% | Not great, but we need it to get to the next nodes… |
| 8 | O | DOUBLE BOUNTY CACHES | Amazing time-saving and farmy node. This is it. |
| 9 | S | Permanent CC Immunity. | Incredibly powerful defensive effect for any build. |
| 10 | X | Pets get/salvage white/blue/yellows | Oh boy. Happiness can’t be mathed out. |
| 11 | R | 15% Damage | Generic offensive boost, again, just passing by… |
| 12 | U | Pets pick up Death’s Breath. | Speaks for itself… Reduce thoughts, reduce hand movement… |
| 13 | I | 25% Melee Damage Reduction | A generic defensive bonus, but mostly we just wanna pass by here… |
| 14 | M | 2x Death’s Breaths that drop. | Auto Sage Set effect. Better in the early game. |
| !!! | !!! | Used Challenge Rift Cache? | To unlock node C asap? Gotta wait for next weeks challenge cache. |
| 15 | T* | Gain passability. | Free Illusory Boots is not an intangible bonus! (Need this for Z) |
| 16 | Z* | 2x Legendary Kadala chances | Get it while it’s early on. Feel free to push down this pair. |
| 17 | N* | Critical hits generate a little resource. | Vuild NEEDS this? Get it sooner. Don’t? Ignore for now. |
| 18 | K | Damage against elites by +20%. | A powerful effect, but we just need this to unlock… |
| 19 | P | Progress orbs are auto picked up. | I personally would take pair a little higher, before Kadala. |
| 20 | V | Elite packs drop +1 progress orb. | Auto pickup is more important for me than extra orbs… |
| !!! | !!! | Quality of life upgrades are done… | … just wrapping up combat stats by order of “value”. |
| 21 | W | Damage done to Bosses +25%. | The best of the leftover nodes. It’s on a unique damage modifier. |
| 22 | Y | Dodge +15%. | Most classes don’t have innate dodge, so this is really good. |
| 23 | Q | Reduces damage from elites by 25%. | It’s actually a pretty huge reduction. |
| 24 | E | 25% Missile Damage Reduction | Anything that helps vs goats, ghosts, and other ranged annoyances. |
| 25 | G | Damage against elites +15%. | Can’t get enough of these, but the other nodes are just better. |
| 26 | L | 10% Damage | Pretty terribly actually, this is so diluted it may as well be 2%. |
| !!! | !!! | !!! Potions are a “separate” unlock | !!! —————————————– |
| 27 | AA | Potion: variable buffing ground effect. | Get it whenever you want. See notes for potions |
| 28 | AB | Potion: enemies deal -25% damage. | Get it whenever you want. See notes for potions |
| 29 | AC | Potion: shrine or power effect | Get it whenever you want. See notes for potions |
| !!! | !!! | !!! and the final unlock… | !!! —————————————– |
| 30 | AD | Primals Ancients now drop in pairs. | Good luck getting here, friends! |
Again, the purpose of this ordering is to “reduce as much stress”, and “make life as easy as possible”. This is obviously not a one size fits all. Feel free to change things up, and two sections down there detail the major choices I think which are important.
S28 Altar of Rites Nodes, Effects, and Unlocking
Simply a rundown of the Altar of Rites to help you understand the context of this guide. The tabs include a visualization of which nodes are which letter, the node effects, and the required items to unlock Altar of Rites nodes.
Altar of Rites – Node Visualization
This “lettering” is from the official patch notes…
Altar of Rites – Node Effects
| 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. |
Officially, they’re called seals…
Altar of Rites – Unlock Requirements
The only worrisome ones are:
15 – Challenge Rift Cache – you only get these once a week.
25 – Staff of Herding – see the process here.
| # | Cost |
| 1 | 10 Reusable Parts |
| 2 | 1 Flawless Diamond (or greater), 15 Arcane Dust, 20 Resuable Parts |
| 3 | 1 Greater Rift Key, 10 Death’s Breaths |
| 4 | Any Class Specific Set Helm |
| 5 | 20 Forgotten Souls, 10 Khanduran Runes, 10 Caldeum Nightshade, 10 Arreat War Tapestry, 10 Corrupted Angel Flesh, 10 Westmarch Holy Water |
| 6 | 1 Leoric’s Regret, 1 Vial of Putridness, 1 Idol of Terror, 1 Heart of Fright |
| 7 | Reaper’s Wraps |
| 8 | 30 Forgotten Souls |
| 9 | 1,100 Bloodshards |
| 10 | 1 Flawless Royal Ruby, 20 Death’s Breaths, Ring of Royal Grandeur |
| 11 | 1 Flawless Royal Emerald, 30 Khanduran Runes, 30 Caldeum Nightshade, 30 Arreat War Tapestry, 30 Corrupted Angel Flesh, 30 Westmarch Holy Water |
| 12 | 20 Greater Rift Keys, 1 Ramaladni’s Gift |
| 13 | 1,300 Bloodshards |
| 14 | Petrified Scream |
| 15 | Challenge Rift Cache |
| 16 | 250 Forgotten Souls |
| 17 | 1,400 Bloodshards |
| 18 | Ancient Hellfire Amulet |
| 19 | Never Ending Questions |
| 20 | Ancient Puzzle Ring, 50 Khanduran Runes, 50 Caldeum Nightshade, 50 Arreat War Tapestry, 50 Corrupted Angel Flesh, 50 Westmarch Holy Water |
| 21 | 500 Death’s Breaths, 300 Forgotten Souls |
| 22 | 1,500 Bloodshards |
| 23 | Whisper of Atonement Rank 125 |
| 24 | Any Augmented Weapon |
| 25 | Staff of Herding |
| 26 | 1,600 Bloodshards |
| Potion 1 | 55 Primordial Ashes |
| Potion 2 | 110 Primordial Ashes |
| Potion 3 | 165 Primordial Ashes |
S28 Altar of Rites Node Order: Notes and choices
To Cache or Not to Cache
Opening your Challenge Rift Cache helps you out greatly in the early game. Obviously if you want to level up a little easier, open the Challenge Rift Cache and do the usual tricks with it.
Doing this locks you out of getting any more nodes after your 15th one, since the 15th unlock needs a Challenge Rift cache (You’ll have to wait for a “the upcoming monday”).
If you’re planning to chill and level up naturally, and want to level up fast, while also thinking getting all nodes in 1 week isn’t that realistic or important for you – go ahead and open your cache.
If you’re planning to tryhard and put your nose to the grindstone from very beginning (or plan to get boosted by friends), then go ahead and save your cache.
One thing people forget is opening the cache gives you a pretty huge advantage once you’re at L70 as well, since you’re “guaranteed” some decent legendaries to start off with.
HOW TO GET NODE C WITH OR WITHOUT THE CACHE
Unlocking Node A is a node-brainer. Node C needs a Flawless Diamond, and 1 Deaths Breath (to maximize),
Getting a Flawless Diamond: The fastest way is waiting until you’re level 18 and doing some boss bounties (reload until you get Zoltun Kulle or Maghda). The chest should contain DIAMONDS. Get two of these, then upgrade it using the Level 2 Jeweler into a Flawless Diamond. You need to do this wether you open or not.
Getting 1 Deaths Breath from the get-go: Either you:
- go easy mode and open the challenge rift cache, or…
- you get A SINGLE TORMENT 1 BOUNTY CACHE. This is best done (or only practically possible solo) at LEVEL 1. Enter all the maps of the act you choose to complete while you’re level 1 to SNAPSHOT the mobs to level 1. Then finish up the bounty after that.
Obviously spending the cache is a lot less of a hassle. You need the DEATHS BREATH to upgrade your blacksmith, in order to create a L70 item you can then equip.
Node F: 25% Movespeed
Experienced players will know this is a godlike speed buff, especially early on. And the fact this goes over the base movespeed “cap” is super welcome. The problem? You need Node C which you may or may not opt into as we talked about earlier.
I take this really early if you’re taking the C path. If you’re not about the C life, then feel free to take this pair anytime later, maybe even towards the bottom.
Even if you took C, some people might not like this too much or have a build with godlike movespeed – in which case you want to push this down.
Nodes T & Z: Passability and Kadala Chances
While passability is great for a lot of builds (and useless for others), I opted to place this around the middle of the ordering because that’s when people will be Kadalaing for important key upgrades the most. You can even choose to get this sooner, if you like (13/14) – before the “15 node lock”, but I value the double DB’s a little more.
Node N: On-crit Resource gain
This is great for some builds, potentially freeing up a passive or an item, or a single reroll. I mean, it’s pretty useful for most builds, right? Of course, some builds might need this more than others, and maybe downright useless for some. This is a judgment call, take it earlier or later depending on your needs.
Which potion to go for first?
Well, it really depends, so I’ll try to give you some guidance here…
Potion AA – oculus style ground buffing effect: Is probably best if you’re in the business of doing higher GR’s. Pretty useless for farming nephs or bounties.
Potion AB – enemies deal less damage: great for dedicated support players. Overall probably the worst as you’ll only really want this effect in very challenging content.
Potion AC – Shrinelike effects: he best generic one IMO. Useful for all types of content, and you’ll be happy with any sort of boost more often than not. Some builds might want AA more than AC for high-tier GR, but ANY BUILD can benefit from this in all content types, up to the high-end. So this is the best for me.
My final recommendation?
AC (Shrine or Power effect) > AA (Buffing ground effect) > AB (Make enemies weaker)
Summary and Outro
There are a few ways to go about traversing the Altar of Rites, but I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting these godlike “quality of life” and “speedy” nodes first, just to make farming smoother and faster earlier on.
Logically, saving the combat and progress related ones for later, when you’re actually doing that kind of content. Again, check the notes to see the nodes wherein I feel might be most moved around by most people.
Good luck out there in S28, this is gonna be a banger. Check our our D3 Leveling, D3 Fresh 70 guides, or our D3 Guide Directory.
