Defeating Lair Bosses is a part of any season’s endgame activities as this allows you to obtain a lot of loot to make your characters stronger.
Before Season 8 arrived, Boss Summoning Items were required to spawn bosses in their respective lairs, and this required you to farm ahead of time.
Things have changed in Season 8 as these Summoning Items have been changed to Lair Boss Keys, which provide you with a way to obtain rewards from defeating bosses.
How To Get Lair Boss Keys?
Boss Lair Keys are obtained similarly to how you would obtain the Boss Summoning items but along the way, new methods were also added.
Some methods give you a chance to obtain Lair Boss Keys while others are more likely to have them drop depending on what activities you decide to do.
The first thing you should keep in mind though is that bosses will only be available on Torment I or higher, making it best to start farming the Boss Lair Keys from there.
How To Use Lair Boss Keys?
A change that was made in Season 8 is that you no longer need to have Boss Summoning items to fight a boss once you reach Torment I or higher.
The thing is, they won’t drop as much loot as before but once they are defeated, their Hoard Chest will appear and may be opened to obtain loot from their drop table.
To open these Hoard Chests, you will need to have the required Lair Boss Keys of the specific boss and a certain amount.
Initiate Hoard Chests require 12 Lair Boss Keys while Greater Hoard Chests require 3 Lair Boss Keys and when opening an Exalted Hoard Chest, you will need 2.
To know more about the Lair Boss rework read the below:
Initiate Lair Boss Keys
Below is a list of the Lair Boss Keys used to open Hoard Chests that appear after defeating Initiate Lair Bosses.
Distilled Fear (Beast in the Ice)
- Nightmare Dungeons
- Undercity of Kurast (Tribute of Titans)
- Tree of Whispers
- World Bosses
- Mercenary Bartering
- Transmutation (Alchemist)
Living Steel (Grigoire)
- Helltide
- Undercity of Kurast (Tribute of Titans)
- Tree of Whispers
- World Bosses
- Mercenary Bartering
- Transmutation (Alchemist)
Exquisite Blood (Lord Zir)
- World Bosses
- Legion Events
- Blood Maiden (Helltide)
- Undercity of Kurast (Tribute of Titans)
- Mercenary Bartering
- Transmutation (Alchemist)
Malignant Heart (Varshan)
- Tree of Whispers
- Undercity of Kurast (Tribute of Titans)
- World Bosses
- Mercenary Bartering
- Transmutation (Alchemist)
Judicator’s Mask (Urivar)
- Tree of Whispers
- World Bosses
- Mercenary Bartering
- Transmutation (Alchemist)
Greater Lair Boss Keys
Pincushioned Doll (Andariel)
- Glacial Fissure
- Ancient’s Seat
- World Bosses
- Undercity of Kurast (Tribute of Titans)
Shard of Agony (Duriel)
- Hall of Penitent
- Malignant Burrow
- World Bosses
- Undercity of Kurast (Tribute of Titans)
Abhorrent Heart (Harbinger of Hatred)
- Fields of Judgement
- World Bosses
- Undercity of Kurast
Exalted Lair Boss Keys
Betrayer’s Husk (Belial, Lord of Lies)
- Defeat Belial (Lair Boss Ambush)
Tribute of Titans
The Tribute of Titans is a type of tribute that can be offered to the Spirit Brazier to alter the rewards from the Undercity of Kurast activity.
This provides you with an easy way to farm a larger number of Boss Lair Keys that can be used to start with farming Hoard Chests.
Almost all boss keys (as shown in the list above) have a chance to drop from the Tribute of Titans modified Kurast Undercity activity.
Verdict
While fighting bosses can be done without Boss Lair Keys, it is recommended to gather some first if you want to get endgame rewards from them.
Farming the Boss Lair Keys in advance is a good way to spam runs of a certain boss but this may take some time before you can get a lot.
Some bosses drop Boss Lair Keys for other bosses, making this a ladder type of progression that eventually leads to more powerful bosses.
