Normal → Nightmare → Hell → Torment

Why difficulty matters

All 30 of an act's stages exist at 4 separate difficulties: Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Torment. Monster stats scale; reward tier scales; and the drop pool shifts toward higher-tier materials at the top difficulties.

The switch-up rule

A clean heuristic: don't move up a difficulty until you clear the current one's hardest stage in under 60 seconds per wave. Pushing too early just wastes time on stages that take 3× longer for marginally better drops.

What changes at each tier

• Normal — the base experience. Stat baselines as designed.
• Nightmare — meaningful HP/damage bumps; first place you'll really need party synergy.
• Hell — large material upgrade tier shift. Worth the push as soon as you can clear it.
• Torment — the top tier. Best Cube material drops, hardest bosses, deepest grind.