The next Diablo 3 season will have its public test realm servers up for two weeks, starting in a few days.

The Season 26 PTR will start on 10 March and will feature the Echoing Nightmare, an optional end-game challenge where players fight within the memories of Nephalem who fell in a Greater Rift. It’s essentially a D3 take on Horde Mode, complete with bosses and uber enemies to fight.

Here is the breakdown of Season 26(via Blizzard):

• Petrified Screams and the Echoing Nightmare can only be accessed with seasonal characters.
• Only one player is required to transmute a Petrified Scream to open an Echoing Nightmare in a multiplayer game.
• Similar to a boss encounter, all players in a multiplayer game must accept a prompt to enter.
• While within an Echoing Nightmare, the difficulty scales as players progress in the encounter. Players can progress faster by defeating monsters quickly.
• Players receive the following rewards upon completing an Echoing Nightmare: EXP, Legendary Items, Blood Shards, Gems, and a new Legendary Gem, Whisper of Atonement.
• The Whisper of Atonement is a Legendary Gem used exclusively for Augmenting Ancient Legendary items. It drops pre-ranked based upon player’s performance in the Echoing Nightmare.

In addition, Greater Rifts will have a small chance to roll an Orek’s Dream portal that brings you to new dungeons and areas for loot-hunting and mob-killing. In addition, the PTR will also feature new class and balance changes, including armor set buffs/nerfs.

Long story short: Fire Ally-focused Inna Monks are not going to be pleased. Here’s the list:

Barbarian

• Legacy of Raekor (4-piece Bonus): Furious Charge gains the effect of every rune and deals 1000% increased damage. For every 1% Life you are missing, the damage of your Ancient Spear is increased by 2%.
• Legacy of Raekor (6-piece Bonus): Hitting enemies with Furious Charge increases the damage of your next Ancient Spear by 5500% and causes it to release multiple spears from its target. This effect stacks and is consumed from each released spear. This can only consume a maximum of 5 stacks at a time.
• Arreat’s Law: Weapon Throw and Ancient Spear deal 150-200% increased damage.
  • Weapon Throw generates up to 25 additional Fury based on the distance of the enemy hit.
  • Ancient Spear refunds up to 25 Fury based on the distance of the enemy hit.
• The Three Hundredth Spear: Increase the damage of Weapon Throw and Ancient Spear by 150-200%.
• Skular’s Salvation: Increase the damage of Ancient Spear by 150-200%. If your Ancient Spear – Boulder Toss hits 5 or fewer enemies, the damage is increased by 100%.

Crusader

• Thorns of the Invoker: The attack speed of Punish and Slash are increased by 100% and deal 67,500% of your Thorns damage.
• Norvald’s Fervor: Gain 200% increased damage while using Steed Charge and for 5 seconds after it ends.

Monk

• Bindings of the Lesser Gods: Enemies hit by your Cyclone Strike take 150%-200% more damage from your Mystic Ally for 5 seconds.

How To Participate In Diablo 3 Season 26 PTR

Step 1: Restart the Battle.net desktop app.

Step 2: Navigate to the Diablo III tab on the left-hand menu.

Step 3: On the Diablo III screen, there is a drop-down menu right above the “Play” button (note that this may say “Install” if you do not have Diablo III currently installed). Select “PTR: Diablo III” from this drop-down menu before proceeding.

Step 4: Click Install to begin the installation process.