Questing for the Tree of Whispers at endgame in Diablo 4

After completing the Campaign and Epilogue in Diablo 4 you’ll be directed to several quests in order to open up endgame activities even if you’ve yet to reach level 50. The first destination will be the Tree of Whispers — which you encountered earlier in Act 5 — who will help you unlock the Whispers of the Dead system, D4‘s version of the open world Adventure Mode from Diablo 3. By completing events you’ll receive Grim Favors that you can turn in to the Tree for rewards, including Legendary items.

The introduction to the Whispers system has you head to Caldeum where there will be several vignettes in rotation. The goal is to collect ten Grim Favors by completing multiple events in the zone, with the amount of Grim Favors rewarded based on the difficulty of the eligible activity:

• One Grim Favor is rewarded for clearing out a cellar, culling a specific type of creature (for example, kill 30 spiders), or defeating an Elite that spawns from a corpse
• Three Grim Favors are gained for “harvesting” a number of drops from an enemy and then bringing to an altar where you kill the summoned Elites, by activating ritual sites on the map, and by completing Legion Events
• Five Grim Favors are earned for completing a dungeon or killing a world boss

Note that for the events to count they’ll have to be designated as Whispers eligible (they’ll show on your map as such). You can’t do just any random dungeon and expect to be rewarded Grim Favors. After you’ve collected your first ten, return to the Tree of Whispers for a choice of rewards. Note that once your reach ten Grim Favors you’ll be required to turn them in before you can gather more — don’t worry, progress won’t be reset until the event timer expires, and overflow (i.e. having nine Grim Favors and earning three more) won’t be lost.

When turning in your Grim Favors you’ll be given a selection of three Collections that grant loot similar to a chest — a mix of gold, potions, mats and equipment with the potential of one or more Legendary items dropping as well. The Collections will be labeled by the slot guaranteed to be present (for example, Regular Collection of Helms) when opened, so if you’re looking to upgrade a specific armor slot or weapon select the appropriate one. There is also a “chaos” Collection that doesn’t guarantee a specific slot, although it’s unknown whether that means additional loot if selected. Finally there is also a Greater Collection option, which simply means that at least one Legendary is guaranteed for the designated slot. Turning in the associated quest will also give roughly 20% of a level’s worth of experience.

Whispers everywhere you turn for everybody

Once you turn in your first batch of Grim Favors from earning them in Caldeum you’ll unlock Whispers for the entire map. At any given point there will be four or five subzones with active Grim Favor events to complete on a 90-minute timer before it moves to different areas, meaning you can endlessly farm them if you so desire. For those who enjoy PVP, Grim Favors are also available via a smaller number of events in the Fields of Hatred, also on a 90-minute rotation.

Unlocking the Whispers of the Dead by one character unlocks it — as well as the waypoint for the Tree — for every character on your account, and alts can participate at level one if they choose not to do the campaign. It’s more limited for lower level characters as many of the zones will be too high level (and thus dangerous) for them to participate in, but Whispers are a good supplement to the leveling experience and a handy way to make sure your gear remains level-appropriate.

While just one of several endgame activities available for players, Whispers of the Dead are an excellent way to help target gear upgrades as well as gain experience and loot while adventuring in the open world.