Hero SiegeGuide
Hero Siege difficulties: how to unlock Hell and Inferno
Season 10 replaced the old Hell tiers with four difficulties. What unlocks each, what to farm there and when you are ready to move up.
Season 10 replaced Hero Siege's old Hell 1 to 5 with four difficulties: Normal, Nightmare, Hell and Inferno. You unlock each by beating the act bosses on the one before. Nightmare is roughly the old Hell 1 and Hell roughly the old Hell 4.5, so older guides need translating.
The short version
- Normal: play the campaign once, through all nine acts, ending with Cthulhu.
- Nightmare unlocks when you finish Normal. Hell unlocks when you kill the act bosses on Nightmare. Inferno unlocks when you kill them on Hell.
- Higher difficulties have more Abyssal Chests and more experience: 22, 28 and 34 percent chest spawn chance and 10, 15 and 20 percent experience bonus on Nightmare, Hell and Inferno.
- Move up once packs die before they reach you.
The difficulty ladder
| Difficulty | Unlock | Abyssal Chest | XP bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | Start | ||
| Nightmare | Finish Normal, ending with Cthulhu in Act 9 | 22% | 10% |
| Hell | Kill the act bosses on Nightmare | 28% | 15% |
| Inferno | Kill the act bosses on Hell | 34% | 20% |
Details are from Metaroad's Season 10 endgame roadmap. Waypoints carry over to Nightmare, and from Nightmare on the Valkyrie gate in Act 8 opens automatically.
Normal
You play Normal once. Clear side zones for experience and waypoints and push through all nine acts. Act 9, Ebontharn, opens after you beat Odin and ends with the quest Abyssal Terror Awakened, where you kill Cthulhu. Our leveling guide covers the fastest way through.
Nightmare
Farm satanic Eternity Codex zones, Chaos Pillars, mining and Abyssal Chests. Nightmare has eight main quests, one per act. Highland Graveyard is a good bridge to Hell: the gear it drops sells to players making the same jump. Since patch 7.0.13, Chase Heroics can drop on Nightmare.
Hell
Hell adds Ether quests, the boss quests for Damien, Shadow Reaper and Sung Lee, and the WANTED chain towards the 5th relic slot. Packs are one size larger. Chaos Pillars, Challenge Dungeons and Unstable Rifts pay well here, and the Ether Tree starts to matter. See the Ether Tree guide.
Inferno
Inferno is the endgame: codex zones, Abyssal Chests, the Chaos Tower up to King Rakhul, the Shadow Realm and Eternal Battlefield, timed wormholes and the three new Uber bosses. Its two quest lines are The Fall of Darkness and The Light of Dawn, which unlocks the final charm slot.
When to move up
Nobody has published a gear or level requirement. The rule of thumb is to move up once packs die before they reach you, and to drop back and farm more if you keep dying. On softcore, dying no longer costs experience this season. On hardcore it still costs the character.
Common questions
How do you unlock Hell in Hero Siege?
Kill the act bosses on Nightmare.
How do you unlock Inferno?
Kill the act bosses on Hell.
What happened to Hell 1 to 5?
Season 10 replaced them with Nightmare, Hell and Inferno. Nightmare is roughly the old Hell 1 and Hell roughly the old Hell 4.5.
