Echoing Hatred: Complete Guide to Diablo 4’s New Endgame Activity

Introduction

This guide covers the rewards, key acquisition method, activity mechanics, and suggested improvements for Echoing Hatred in Diablo 4.

Rewards

Understanding the rewards helps determine whether pursuing this activity provides sufficient value.

Primary Reward: Goblin Plunder Bags

The primary power-based reward is a collection of goblin plunder bags at the activity’s conclusion. Basic loot comes from the chest itself, but each goblin killed during the event provides one bag. These bags contain dungeon keys, seals, and charms, including mythic seals. Obtaining a mythic seal from this activity is possible, making Echoing Hatred an effective farming method for these items when accessible.

Secondary Reward: Crab with a Knife Pet

Reaching tier 60 during an Echoing Hatred run unlocks an achievement that rewards a pet crab holding a knife. This crustacean periodically juggles the knife from one claw to the other. This pet is among the highest quality pets created and serves as a free in-game achievement reward.

Secondary Reward: Howling Mouth of Madness Portal

A unique portal appearance is available as a hidden reward. The portal displays as stark black with white highlights and emits a smoky substance. To unlock this portal, players must interact with four specific shrines during specific difficulty tier brackets within Echoing Hatred. Shrine locations are random, but shrine types are consistent across all runs.

Shrine Usage Requirements:

The protection shrine (shield icon) must be used at some point during tiers 1 through 9.

The artillery shrine (bow and arrow icon) must be used between tier 10 and tier 14.

The lethal shrine (crossed swords icon) must be used between tier 15 and tier 19.

The channeling shrine (goblet icon) must be used between tier 20 and tier 24.

Upon successful completion, an achievement notification appears confirming the reward.

Warning for High-Damage Builds: Characters with automatic area damage may advance through tiers too quickly to use shrines at the correct times. Using a build where damage requires intentional button presses is recommended for this unlock. Avoiding excessive monster elimination early in the run is advised.

Key Acquisition: Trace of Echoes

The Trace of Echoes material grants access to Echoing Hatred. Based on testing and footage review, the only confirmed drop source is reward chests at the end of Corrupted Undercity activity runs.

One Trace dropped from a mythic unique tribute, which aligns with that tribute’s highest item rarity. However, every other Trace obtained came from completing a greater tribute of refinement while pursuing Undercity war plan experience.

Refinement tributes primarily reward Obsecite, a material players do not struggle to obtain in the current economy. Consequently, most players have not been running refinement tributes frequently. Players who have run them extensively for war plan experience appear to receive the most Trace drops.

Greater refinement Undercity tributes appear to have a reliable drop rate for the Echoing Hatred entry key.

Increasing Drop Chances

The Portal Prankster war plan base node for Undercity (located on the left side) provides a chance to summon portal pranksters. Interacting with each beacon and killing each portal prankster adds another reward chest at the conclusion. Each chest provides an additional chance to obtain a key, increasing overall effectiveness.

Key Storage Limitation

The Echoing Hatred key is unusual. It does not appear in the inventory and functions differently from standard currency. Instead, obtaining a Trace of Echoes initiates a priority quest in Temenos. Completing the activity finishes the quest.

Critical Restriction: Multiple keys cannot be held simultaneously. If one Echoing Hatred run is already available, farming another Trace of Echoes provides no benefit. Therefore, any entry key should be used immediately rather than saved for higher power levels. The key should be used immediately, rewards collected, and additional refinement tributes run later when stronger to obtain another key.

Activity Mechanics

Echoing Hatred functions as a wave-clearing activity where difficulty progresses with each wave. Difficulty uses the same tier system as the Pit and the Tower, indicating when difficulty thresholds (Normal, Hard, Torment levels) are crossed based on equivalent Pit tier reached.

Failure Conditions

A red bar on the right side of the screen fills as monsters spawn. Killing monsters depletes the bar. If the bar fills completely, the activity ends early. This creates a speed and damage requirement. Death also ends the activity instantly. In group play, players can revive each other, but the time spent with multiple players down often causes the damage check to fail.

Enemy Types and Positioning

Monsters spawn in all directions from the player. Large area-of-effect damage is highly effective. Pulling effects, such as the Wild Bolt legendary aspect, provide utility for builds lacking native pull abilities.

Single-target damage cannot be ignored, as bosses spawn regularly throughout the activity. Smaller enemies always spawn around these bosses. Builds that convert area damage into single-target damage against bosses while smaller enemies are present perform ideally. Otherwise, a balanced split between area and single-target damage is required for deep progression.

Priority Targets

Red Portals: Large threatening portals appear as red symbols on the minimap. These portals spawn monsters faster than the normal timer would allow, filling the red bar more quickly and increasing the risk of failure. Killing these portals should be the highest priority, especially at higher tiers, as they act as an escalating difficulty modifier while active.

Treasure Goblins: These spawn regularly as tiers progress. Each goblin provides one plunder bag at the activity’s conclusion. Confirming these kills secures the primary reward source.

Bosses, Elites, and General Enemies: These must also be addressed but are secondary to portals and goblins.

Shrines as Push Tools

The same four shrines always appear. These provide options to extend beyond a build’s normal limits:

Protection shrine: Full immunity to damage while active

Artillery shrine: Increased attack speed with bolts fired on each skill use

Lethal shrine: Guaranteed critical hits on all damage

Channeling shrine: Reduced cooldown timers and resource costs

Depending on the build, all four shrines may provide advantage. Saving shrines for appropriate timing can extend a run by several tiers near the limit. However, this cannot be done on the same run used to unlock the portal achievement, as that requires using shrines early.

A method to skip early tiers or adjust the activity for higher consistent difficulty with proportionally greater rewards would improve the experience, as farming Diablo 4 Gold and other resources becomes far more efficient when challenging content is not locked behind tedious low-tier waves. For reliable services, I recommend MMOEXP.

Suggested Improvements

Key Availability

Keys should be more plentiful at higher torment tiers than currently observed. Even with knowledge of higher drop rates from refinement tributes, frequency feels insufficient. The rewards from Echoing Hatred are good but not exceptional (no guaranteed mythic unique per run). Either access should be more frequent, or rewards should be substantially higher.

The Season 14 PTR patch notes indicate that Trace of Echoes drop rates from elites have been increased. However, no Trace drops from elites have been observed previously, so the long-term impact remains unknown.

Early Tier Tedium

Builds capable of torment 12 difficulty must slowly progress through approximately nine minutes of gameplay with no threat of death, no risk of missing the timer, and no meaningful challenge. The first completion provides an interesting reflection on character progression. By the third, fourth, or fifth completion, the process becomes tedious.

Summary Checklist

To maximize Echoing Hatred access and rewards:

Run greater refinement Undercity tributes while using the Portal Prankster war plan node.

Use any Trace of Echoes key immediately upon acquisition.

For the portal unlock, use a build with intentional damage inputs and use shrines at the specified tier brackets.

During Echoing Hatred runs, prioritize red portals first, then treasure goblins.

Save shrines for pushing higher tiers unless attempting the portal unlock.