With the launch of Season 25 of Diablo 3, there’s a complex new system to learn. Soul Shards in Season 25 are that new thing. There is a lot of depth to this new seasonal content, and there are some secret ways to get much more powerful. Shards are a bit of a grind to figure out, here’s what the new and old player needs to know. Make sure to use this guide to figure out what each rank is going to do. Soul Shards should be pushed to max rank ASAP, as you can get to a pretty powerful set of build upgrades.
What are Soul Shards?
Soul Shards are a new augment system that will be added for Season 25 that will apply unique buffs to the player. You will need to farm the augments from the bosses they’re attached to get them. As Blizzard describes it, the system is designed around a set of new items that offer players unique buffs. Season 25 will also allow them to be upgraded with a special resource. They come in two varieties, Prime Evil and Lesser-Evil—with players being able to use one of each kind at a time. 12 different combinations of Prime and Lesser Evil Shards are available.
Salvaging them grants you some Imperial Gems and more rarely a Flawless Royal Gem. Soul Shards drops at Rank 0 and can be upgraded up to 3 Ranks. Each one, depending on whether it’s a Prime Evil or Lesser gem. The upgrades for each Rank rely on a new currency. You need to find the Legendary Hellforge Ember in Greater Rifts. Unlike other currencies like Blood Shards, there’s a chance to get them anywhere. Ramaladni’s Gift might also be helpful here. The overall idea is that you can put one Gem in the Helm, and one in a weapon. Whenever you’re playing the game, the Hellforge Ember is about as rare as the Gift. So it’s going to be pretty hard to get them reliably.
So let’s go over what kind of upgrades and powers you can get. Use the overview below to pick up the gems you want. Soul Shards in Season 25 are a great way to help with both speedfarming and bossing. Greater Rifts played by elite players will find options for both supports and solo play that will help you clear GRs faster.
Soul Shards can also be used as the replacement of the Legendary Gem in the recipe for Augments. In Kanai’s Cube, the final recipe is called Caldesann’s Despair which applies an augment to an item. It requires the following materials:
- An Ancient (or Primal) version of the item you want to augment
- A leveled up Legendary Gem (or Soul Shard)
- 3x of whichever gem you’d like to augment
- Flawless Royal Amethysts augment Vitality
- Flawless Royal Emeralds augment Dexterity
- Flawless Royal Rubys augment Strength
- Flawless Royal Topazes augment Intelligence
- Flawless Royal Diamonds cannot be augmented
The rank of the Soul Shards will determine what level of the Augment you get. A Rank 0 Soul Shard gives you a level 50 Augment. You can get a rank 125 Augment by using up a Rank 3 Shard. This basically means you can easily print Augments at Rank 50 by farming bosses.
Prime Evil Soul Shards in Season 25
Fragment of Destruction — An Act 3 drop from all act bosses. The debuff this applies can reduce your skill cooldowns per enemy you kill. You move unhindered through enemies. Each enemy you pass through receives the Mark of Destruction for 7 seconds. Each marked enemy that dies removes 1 second from one of your skills on cooldown.
- Rank 0: You move unhindered through enemies. Each enemy you pass through will be marked by destruction for 7 seconds. Each marked enemy that dies removes 1 second from one of your skills on cooldown. If the Mark of Destruction expires before the enemy dies, you lose 2% of your maximum health as damage. Marks are not applied if you are below 35% health.
- Rank 3 pool:
- You have a 25% chance to restore 5% health when an enemy dies with Mark of Destruction active.
- When you apply Mark of Destruction to an enemy, you increase your movement speed by 5% for 7 seconds. Max 10 stacks.
- You now leave a trail of fire in your wake that slays enemies with the Mark of Destruction who are below 10% health.
Shard of Hatred — An Act 5 drop from all act bosses. Scales for more DPS when you have more enemies around you. You deal 15% reduced damage while you have 3 or fewer enemies within 25 yards.
- Rank 0: You deal 15% reduced damage while you have 3 or fewer enemies within 25 yards. If more than 3 enemies are within the same distance, you deal 10% increased damage per enemy.
- Rank 3 pool:
- Killing an elite enemy pulls all enemies within 40 yards to where the elite died.
- Your Movement speed is increased by 50%. Each enemy within 25 yards reduces your movement speed by 10% up to 70%.
- You now deal 10% increased damage for every enemy instead of 5% (to a maximum of 100%).
Sliver of Terror – An Act 4 drop from all act bosses. Your cooldowns are increased by 25%. For every skill on cooldown, you take 12.5% reduced damage and deal 12.5% increased damage.
- Rank 0: Your cooldowns are increased by 25%. For every skill on cooldown, you take 12.5% reduced damage and deal 75% increased damage.
- Rank 3 pool:
- Your attack speed and critical hit chance are increased by 5% for each skill on cooldown.
- You cast a devastating Ring of Fire after killing 100 enemies.
- If three or more skills are on cooldown, your lightning and fire skill damage are increased by 50%.
Lesser Evil Soul Shards in Season 25
Act 1 bosses drop Andariel’s Essence of Anguish. The Essence shard boosts specific stats when you deal out poison damage.
Essence of Anguish — An Act 1 drop from all bosses. Gives you a great cooldown reduction and Movement speed buff while increasing the damage you take. Every time you deal poison damage to an enemy you increase your Cooldown Reduction and Movement Speed by 2.5% while your damage received is increased by 5% for 10 seconds. Max 10 stacks.
- Rank 0: Every time you deal poison damage to an enemy you increase your cooldown reduction, movement speed, and damage received by 5% for 10 seconds. Max 10 stacks.
- Rank 3 pool:
- Your movement speed and cooldown reduction can be increased up to 15 times by dealing poison damage to an enemy.
- When you deal poison damage to an enemy they receive 50% increased poison damage from all sources for 10 seconds.
- Killing an enemy deals the damage done by the death blow to all enemies within 25 yards.
Stain of Sin — This drop from Act 3 bosses is a reduction to the base damage of your attacks, but killing an elite will give you a buff to DPS on non-Elite enemies. You deal 25% less damage. When you kill 50 enemies, you spawn a pool of blood that increases the damage done to Elite enemies by 150% and lasts 15 seconds.
- Rank 0: You deal 25% less damage. When you kill an Elite enemy, you spawn a pool of blood that increases the damage non-elite enemies receive by 250% and lasts 7 seconds.
- Rank 3 pool:
- The pool of blood now negates Elite affixes within its area.
- You gain an additional Rift Progress Orb when you kill an elite pack.
- The pool of blood now collects Rift Progress Orbs.
Dregs of Lies — An Act 2 drop from all Act bosses. Gives you a buff to minion damage, reduces direct attack DPS. You deal 25% less damage. Your Pets deal 25% increased damage.
- Rank 0: Reduce the damage of enemies hit by 33% for 5 seconds. Damage you deal is reduced by 50%.
- Rank 3 pool:
- Killing an elite enemy reduces all your active cooldowns by 5 seconds.
- On receiving fatal damage, spawn a shadow that prevents your death, restores your health to 35%, and grants +225 All Resist to all party members while it is active. The shadow lasts 15 seconds.
- Each time your pet hits an enemy, your damage is increased by 0.5% for 5 seconds. This stacks up to 100 times. When you reach 100 stacks, stacks quickly reset to 0.
Remnant of Pain — This is another Act 4 drop and it reduces your overall crit chance. You can get automatic crit against stunned, frozen, blind or feared enemies. Your Critical Hit Chance is reduced by 15%. Attacks against Incapacitated enemies are automatically critical hits.
- Rank 0: Your Critical Hit Chance is reduced by 15%. Attacks against incapacitated enemies are automatically critical hits.
- Rank 3 pool:
- Hitting enemies with cold damage has a 50% chance to freeze them. Cold skill damage is increased to frozen targets by 20%.
- Gain passability while your movement speed bonus is over 50%. When you move through enemies you knock them back and stun them for 2 seconds.
- When you critically hit an enemy you increase the attack speed all players by 5% for 5 seconds. Max 10 stacks.