Diablo 4: Best places to farm each boss lair key

Diablo 4’s updated boss ladder system means you’ll want to farm boss lair keys in Season 9. Season 8 significantly improved this system, allowing gamers to group up for boss fights again. If someone joins your group and doesn't have a boss lair key, they can’t get any loot, so it doesn’t matter if they show up to the party or not. It’s a much better system, but there’s a new question.

To farm boss lair keys in Diablo 4, you want to do it efficiently. In this guide, we look at the best places to farm ingredients. However, if you prefer taking on specific types of content, do so, just as long as it drops the ingredients you need.

Where to farm for each boss lair key in Diablo 4

Each boss in Diablo 4 needs specific materials to make boss lair keys, and so, they have activities you can farm to get what you need. The material costs, for the most part, are much lower, though you won’t be doing this until you’ve reached Torment difficulty.

Knowing which events to complete and which bosses to farm is important in D4 (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Let's look at how many of the items you need and the activities you should be completing to farm the boss lair key in Diablo 4. This can take some time, so I recommend a powerful class, or at least something you’re comfortable with. Also, note that the Seasonal Journey chests can often give you tons of boss lair key materials.

Varshan (12x Malignant Heart): Tree of Whispers Bounties
Grigoire (12x Living Steel): Take part in Helltides and open Tortured Gifts throughout the zones
Lord Zir (12x Exquisite Blood): Farm Blood Maiden in Helltides
The Beast in the Ice (12x Distilled Fear): Complete Nightmare Dungeons
Urivar (12x Judicator’s Mask): Farm Undercity
Duriel (3x Shards of Agony): Farm Varshan and Grigoire
Andariel (3x Pincushioned Doll): Farm The Beast in the Ice and Lord Zir
Harbinger of Hatred (3x Abhorrent Heart): Farm Urivar
Belial (2x Betrayer’s Husk): Farm Belial’s Ambush after opening the boss lair chests.

Belial is an interesting one, though. Out of all the boss lair keys to farm, his is the most frustrating. You need to farm Belial’s Ambushes. Occasionally, after opening a boss lair chest, Belial will show up and ambush you/your group. Defeating this has a chance to give you Betrayer’s Husks.

The Initiate Tier (Varshan, Grigoire, Zir, Beast in the Ice, Urivar) can now also drop Stygian Stones. You can break these down at the Alchemist to make them into Greater Lair Boss materials (Duriel, Andariel, Harbinger). This can help make farming much easier in the long run.

Again, you can only farm these on Torment or higher, so take note before you start the journey. Bosses also have their own Unique loot tables that are updated every season with the new uniques that get added to the game.

Check out our other Diablo 4 guides and features:

About the author

Jason is an Esports and Gaming journalist at Sportskeeda holding an amazing 11 years of experience under his belt. Having put out 4000-plus articles and amassing over 12 million reads for Sportskeeda, he is among the company’s most experienced writers. Jason holds a Bachelor's degree in English from UNC Pembroke and was inspired to become a gaming journalist very early on in life after reading Nintendo Power.

Jason is a jack of all trades when it comes to gaming journalism. He’s a key writer in Sportskeeda's MMO department, but he also likes to help out in other categories, like streamers, RPG, card games, and whatever else is needed. A solo gamer at heart, Jason's favorite titles include Earthbound and Dragon Warrior.

Jason places high value on accuracy and relevance in his write-ups. He achieves this with thorough research to sift facts from rumors. One of the biggest highlights of his career is his interview with Canadian pro wrestler Kenny Omega about his inclusion in the Like a Dragon game series. He is also good friends with journalist Kazumo Hashimoto, who he admires for the kind of stories he works on and his deep ethics.

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Edited by Jason Parker