Season 10 has shifted the flow of Diablo 4’s endgame, and the Shard of Agony has become one of the most important materials for players aiming to tackle the toughest bosses. Because this shard determines how often you can challenge high-value encounters like Torment Duriel, your build strategy should revolve not only around combat power but also around how efficiently you can earn, use, and cycle through these shards. Approaching your build with this mindset gives you a major advantage in pacing and overall progression.
A strong strategy begins with choosing a build that excels in single-target damage. Boss fights in Season 10 are tightly tuned around durability and sustained pressure, and the faster you can eliminate a boss, the more valuable each Shard of Agony becomes. Whether you use a damage-over-time setup like a Poison Rogue, a burst setup like a Fireball Sorcerer, or a high-pressure melee option such as a Thorns Barbarian, the key is reliability. Shards are too valuable to waste on slow or inconsistent runs. The faster you kill Varshan or Torment Duriel, the more efficient your entire endgame loop becomes.
Another key strategy focuses on speed farming the activities that lead to shard acquisition. Because Shards of Agony come from Varshan, your build should excel at rapidly clearing Whispers, moving between objectives, and generating summoning materials. Mobility, cooldown reduction, and strong area damage become essential in this phase of the loop. Season 10’s updated Chaos system provides extra bonuses that can accelerate these objectives even further. Building around fast movement and instant clearing allows you to gather enough materials for multiple Varshan fights in a single play session, which in turn produces more shards.
Players who want maximum efficiency often adopt a hybrid approach by creating a build that can both farm materials and defeat bosses without major setup changes. This strategy benefits anyone who prefers uninterrupted gameplay rather than switching gear or aspects frequently. The hybrid approach works best with builds that naturally scale well in both areas, such as Pulverize Druid, Bone Spear Necromancer, or Barrage Rogue. These builds provide fast open-world clears while still maintaining the precision and power needed for Varshan and Duriel encounters.
Group coordination also plays a major role in shard-centered build strategies. In Season 10, teams can rotate who provides boss materials, allowing everyone to fight Duriel more often without individually grinding every shard. For group play, it’s highly valuable to specialize your build: one player may run a speed-farming build while another focuses on single-target burst. This division of roles makes the shard acquisition loop dramatically faster, enabling more boss attempts in less time.
Season 10 rewards players who approach progression with intention. The Shard of Agony isn’t just a boss key it’s the core of an efficient endgame strategy. By crafting your build around fast material farming, high boss damage, or both, you can convert every shard into meaningful power upgrades. When you understand how your build interacts with this loop, you’ll find yourself summoning Torment Duriel more often, earning better loot, and advancing through the endgame at a far faster pace.