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Diablo 3 Essence of Anguish: How To Get, Powers & Upgrade

We explain how you can get the Essence of Anguish in Diablo 3 Season 30, alongside its powers and how you can upgrade this Lesser Evil Soul Shard.
By Wessel Minnie | 
First Published January 10, 2024, 08:34
Diablo 3 Essence of Anguish: How To Get, Powers & Upgrade
Blizzard

If you want to channel your inner Maiden of Anguish, then the Lesser Evil Soul Shard called Essence of Anguish in Diablo 3 Season 30 (The Lords of Hell) should be a perfect fit.

Join us, Nephalem, as we explain how you can easily get the Essence of Anguish in Diablo 3, its strong powers and stats, alongside how you can upgrade it.

How To Get Essence of Anguish in Diablo 3

Diablo 3 Essence of Anguish how to get farm Soul Shard bosses stats powers
The Essence of Anguish provides powerful effects, and is especially strong on Witch Doctors. (Picture: Blizzard)

To get the Essence of Anguish in Diablo 3 Season 30, the best way is to farm Act I bosses (Skeleton King and The Butcher) on the highest Torment difficulty level you can easily kill them on. 

Alternatively, you can run Greater Rifts, as Rift Guardians have a chance of dropping any of the Soul Shards. However, if you go down this farming routine, you can't target-farm specifically for the Essence of Anguish. At Greater Rift Tier 75 and above, the chances of getting Soul Shards to drop become much higher.

Once you get an Essence of Anguish, you can add it to an open gem slot on a weapon only, as with other Lesser Evil Soul Shards.

Please note: Soul Shards are only available on Seasonal realms and do not form part of the Eternal Realm loot table. You can get Soul Shard drops below level 70, in case you were wondering.

Diablo 3 Essence of Anguish Powers & Stats

Below, you'll find the Essence of Anguish powers and their stats in Diablo 3 Season 30 as revealed by Blizzard.

  • Base Power: Every time you deal poison damage to an enemy you increase your cooldown reduction and movement speed by 2.5% while your damage received is increased by 5% for 10 seconds. Max 10 stacks.
  • Additional Powers:
    • Your movement speed and cooldown reduction can be increased up to 15 times by dealing poison damage to an enemy.
    • When you deal poison damage to an enemy they receive 50% increased poison damage from all sources for 10 seconds.
    • Killing an enemy deals the damage done by the death blow to all enemies within 25 yards.

The Essence of Anguish is clearly meant for Witch Doctors who can deal a lot of poison damage, and I can't wait to test out a build I'm currently theory-crafting.

How To Upgrade Soul Shards in Diablo 3 Season 30

Diablo 3 Essence of Anguish how to get farm Soul Shard bosses stats powers
There are seven Soul Shards to farm in Diablo 3 Season 30, three Prime Evil and four Lesser Evil. (Picture: Blizzard)

You can upgrade all Soul Shards, including Essense of Anguish, from Rank 0 to Rank 3 in Diablo 3 Season 30. To upgrade a Soul Shard, you must use the seasonal consumable Hellforge Embers.

Check out our guide to farming Hellforge Embers in Diablo 3 Season 30. Good luck, Nephalem, you might need it! 

Wessel Minnie

Written by Wessel Minnie

Wessel is a former member of Bravado Gaming, a top South African esports organization, and a former editor at GLITCHED.online. He can also be found on HLTV discussing everything CS esports.  When he's not writing or editing, Wessel is clicking heads in Counter-Strike 2, pondering over the best Diablo 4 builds for each class, or venturing into the Lands Between of Elden Ring for the umpteenth time. He loves ARPGs and any SoulsBorne title he can get his mitts on, but feel free to email or drop him a message on social media with any interesting gaming-related topics you think he might enjoy.