Diablo Immortal crests: how to get the best gems in the game

Have you come across mentions of Diablo Immortal crests while fighting the minions of hell?

Crests are one of the weirder additions in Diablo Immortal, since you can't wear them, you can't spend them as currency, and you can't smack the legions of demons and undead with them. 

They're not terribly common either. You may find yourself rummaging through the remains of the countless dungeons, ruined churches, and creepy forests, not finding a single one. In fact, you won't even hear about them until you're a decent way into the story of Diablo Immortal. Deckard Cain eventually puts you onto them when he talks about gems, but until then, you'll be in the dark.

But you've got a ton of gold that would make even Smaug envious, piles of platinum, and even oodles of orbs – why should you care about these crests? What does a bodybuilder who never skips leg day like the Barbarian need with them? Diablo Immortal gives a very brief rundown that's easy to gloss over, but crests are actually the key to success with powering up your character. 

Diablo Immortal crests

Diablo Immortal crests: What are crests?

In a practical sense, crests are the key to Diablo Immortal's playable lootboxes, which are called Elder Rifts.

The Elder Rift is an instanced random-dungeon mode, where you clear out a small dungeon and beat a boss for rewards. The quality of the rewards scales based on the crest(s) you used when you entered, with Legendary crests being the best – as they guarantee you at least one Legendary gem. Rare crests are still useful though, as they make the Elder Rift reward Runes and add a very small chance of a Legendary gem reward.

Each crest you plug in will not only upgrade your rewards but also add random positive or negative modifiers to your run. You won't know what the modifiers are until you load into the Elder Rift. Fortunately, if they're too difficult or annoying, you can immediately leave – and as long as you haven't attacked anything you'll get to keep your crests to try again.

Legendary crests add two modifiers, generally one positive and one negative, where Rare crests only add a single one at random.

You'll find the stone that lets you enter Elder Rifts in the city of Westmarch once you get far enough along in Diablo Immortal's story. The contents of the dungeon – layout, enemies, and boss – are randomized, and the faster you clear the dungeon out and kill the boss, the better your bonus rewards. 

You can take on an Elder Rift alone, or with a group of up to four players, each of which can apply their own crests. But no matter how you set it up, it will scale according to the highest combat rating, so don't try to jump into a group far above your own, since you probably won't survive the attempt.

Diablo Immortal crests: Where do you get crests?

This is where we come to the bad news for players in search of Diablo Immortal crests: the Legendary ones are pretty tough to get without spending real money.

There are a few ways to acquire free new Rare crests, detailed here:

• Daily – Simply interact with the Elder Rift in Westmarch, you can get a free Rare crest every day. Furthermore, if you really want more, crests are account wide, but the Elder Rift's free daily reward is per character. So, you can log in with each character you have every day to get one.
• Daily – You can visit the Hilt Merchant in Westmarch to buy Rare crests for 300 Hilts (a crafting item you can earn a variety of ways, from Bounties to Codex entries). You can buy two Rare crests per day, and then an additional two using the Limited Time tab to purchase them – you'll just have to come back for the second one after the merchant resets.
• Varies – The free battle pass rewards you with a variety of crests. Specifically, you'll get Rare crests: three at Rank 5, one each at Ranks 12, 18, 22, 25, 28, 32, 35, and 38. You'll also get a bunch of Hilts, which will help keep up with buying new Rare crests from the Hilt Merchant.

But if you want Legendary crests without paying real money, you're going to have a hard time:

• Monthly – Yes, you read that correctly, monthly. Once per month you can trade 1,600 hilts to the Hilt Merchant in Westmarch for a Legendary crest. Ain't capitalism grand?
• Varies – The free version of the battle pass will reward a paltry one Legendary crest at Rank 20. That's it, no other ranks of the free version reward any Legendary crests.

What about spending money for crests?

Buying Legendary crests straight up for Eternal Orbs from the shop is always an option – they run about $2.50 each – but it's not a very good deal. That's a fairly outrageous price for a single key to the Elder Rift lootbox, where you only have a chance at what you want.

On the other hand, the Battle Pass is just $5 for the paid version, and rewards an additional 12 Rare crests and 2 Legendary crests, plus a whole bunch of crafting materials, a few specific Legendary gems, and cosmetics. Picking up the paid Battle Pass isn't a bad deal for what it gives back, so if you only make one purchase in Diablo Immortal, this should be your pick.

Completing chapters in Diablo Immortal will also give you one-time purchases that allow you to grab bundles of both Rare and Legendary crests at a significant discount. Every one of these is a better deal than just buying Legendary crests normally, so consider it if you are willing to take the gamble on better gems.

• Crests got you angry? Take a look at the Diablo Immortal Barbarian, who really understands your rage.