How the War Plans system works in Diablo 4

The War Plan system in Diablo 4 is your best friend in Sanctuary when it comes to venturing into the endgame portion of Blizzard’s action RPG.

After having completed the campaign, it’s time to focus on improving your build and climbing the Torment ladders. The journey up to Torment XII is long and it requires a strong character. To farm better gear and level up your Paragon level, your only option is to grind endgame activities like Helltides, the Pit, and Nightmare Dungeons.

If you want to streamline the grind and ensure you receive good loot after all the work, then you need to create a war plan. Below, you find a complete rundown on how to unlock the War Plan in Diablo 4 and how it works.

How to unlock the War Plan in Diablo 4

There are two prerequisites for unlocking the War Plan system in Diablo 4: you must own the Lord of Hatred DLC and must complete its campaign. The system becomes available as soon as you finish watching the final cutscene and return to Temis.

To access the War Plan, go to Temis in Skovos and interact with the command table beside Tyrael. You can’t access the menu from other locations, so you have to teleport to this city to organize a war plan. You can use the “Visit Tyrael” button in the bottom-left corner of the map to quickly reach Temis.

How War Plan works in Diablo 4

Think of the War Plan as a playlist system that allows you to customize your endgame experience. With this system, you select a set number of activities from a pre-generated list. It encompasses all seven types of endgame content currently available in Diablo 4: Tree of Whispers, Nightmare Dungeons, Helltide, The Undercity, Lair Bosses, Internal Hordes, and the Pit.

Image: Blizzard

The list is designed like a web where each node represents one activity. One node can branch into other two nodes, which may later converge into a single path. Because the War Plan system follows this structure, the playlists you create tend to be a mix of your favorite activities, along with a few exceptions that you’re forced to take. You might start by choosing a Nightmare Dungeon node because you like clearing them, but it might inevitably force you to select a Helltide node next.

The routes and personal preferences aren’t the only factors determining your choices when creating a plan. When you complete a war plan, you receive rewards such as activity experience and items. However, some nodes will offer extra rewards. A Nightmare Dungeon might add a large amount of armor pieces as part of the final batch of prizes, for example. You can only obtain the rewards after completing the full war plan.

Once you have finished selecting your activities, you must confirm that you want to start that war plan. You then need to complete the activities in the order you selected them. If you choose a Pit node first and an Undercity node afterward, the system won’t count your progress if you complete the latter before the former.

You don’t need to memorize the order, though. In the Map menu, you find your war plan in the bottom-left corner, along with a button that will teleport you to the next activity you need to complete.

Image: Blizzard via Polygon

If you didn’t like the initial options you got when creating a war plan or want to change the activities you selected, you can create a new plan on the command table. However, rerolling or resetting a war plan cost one Mark of El’Druin. This unique currency is obtained by completing war plans.

As you complete activities, you level up their correspondent categories. Each one of these has a unique skill tree that modifies the activities by adding more enemies and rewards. By spending skill points in these trees, the command table rank increases, unlocking longer war plans and allowing you to select a greater number of them when creating a war plan.