The Tree of Whispers is a system that promotes character growth and power within Diablo 4. This guide breaks down every detail of the system.
The Tree of Whispers requires debts to be repaid. Fortunately for us, it’s not our debt. Unfortunately for us, we’re the debt collectors and have to do the Tree of Whisper’s bidding.
What is the Tree of Whispers
The Tree of Whispers is an activity that has you completing tasks (Bounties) around Sanctuary to earn Grim Favor with the Tree of Whispers. Collect enough and the Tree of Whispers will reward you.
As of Update 2.2.1, A Raven of the Tree can be found in every Major City across Sanctuary, often not far from the Waypoint. This allows us to turn our Grim Favors in at most places we’d want to teleport, instead of always having to return to the Tee of Whispers to claim our cache.
When turning your Grim Favors, you’ll be given a selection of three Caches to choose from. These caches come in two forms, a regular Collection or a Greater Collection. Once reaching Torment Difficulties, a third cache type, Ancestral Collection, is added, which instead guarantees Ancestral Items with Greater Affixes.
The rewards vary from cache to cache but target a specific item type. What you get out of the caches depends on what cache you choose. Rarely, you’ll get items not corresponding with the cache type,
The regular Collections will often be mostly Rare or Legendary Items, depending on Level and Difficulty. The quantity of items scales with difficulty.
A Greater Collection guarantees we get several Legendary items, regardless of Level or difficulty, and has a higher chance of them being Ancestral Legendary Items in Torment Difficulties.
Ancestral Collections are only available in Torment Difficulties and contain one or more Ancestral Legendary items, with higher Torment Difficulties having a higher chance for additional Ancestral Items.
In addition to what the Whisper Cache states as a reward, all Whisper Caches are guaranteed to drop Ores, Rawhide, Gem Fragments, Gold, and a Nightmare Sigil.
In Torment Difficulties, caches will also contain Boss Lair Keys. They will also include Kurast Undercity Tributes if we own the Vessel of Hatred Expansion.
Below is a list of all Whisper Caches and their contents. Keep in mind that the quantity of all contained items is based on the difficulty the Whispers were completed.
| Cache Name | Contents |
|---|---|
| Collection of Boots | Rare and Legendary Boots |
| Collection of Gloves | Rare and Legendary Gloves |
| Collection of Chest Armor | Rare and Legendary Chest Armor |
| Ccollection of Leg Armor | Rare and Legendary Leg Armor |
| Collection of Helms | Rare and Legendary Helmets |
| Collection of Rings | Rare and Legendary Rings |
| Collection of Amulets | Rare and Legendary Amulets, |
| Collection of One Handed Weapons | Rare and Legendary One Handed weapons. |
| Collection of Two Handed Weapons | Rare and Legendary One Handed weapons. |
| Greater Collection of Gold | Provides additional gold beyond what is normally awarded from a cache. |
| Greater Collection of Gem Fragments | Provides additional Gem Fragments, beyond what is normally awarded. |
| Collection of Chaos | Chooses a Cache type at random and provides those rewards. |
| Greater Collection of Dungeon Keys | Provides additional Gem Fragments beyond what is normally awarded. |
| Gift of the Tree | A Collection of Chaos that is awarded through an event, most commonly Mother’s Blessing. |
How to Earn Grim Favors
As mentioned before, you will need to earn Grim Favors through missions. But what missions are there?
There are several missions where you can earn Grim to progress your bar and earn caches.
The table should make clear how you can earn Grim and the number of points you will receive upon completion.
| Objective | Grim points earned |
|---|---|
| Dungeons or Kurast Undercity | 5 Grim points |
| Blood Maiden, Ladder Boss, or World Boss Kill | 5 Grim points |
| Boss Kill (PVP) | 5 Grim points |
| Legion Events | 3 Grim points |
| Invoke Rituals | 3 Grim points |
| Extract Seeds of Hatred (PVP) | 3 Grim points |
| Harvest Enemy Essence | 3 Grim points |
| Events | 1 Grim point |
| Elite Assassination | 1 Grim point |
| Cellars | 1 Grim point |
| Defeat Enemies | 1 Grim point |
Once your bar is filled, you will need to travel back to the Tree of Whispers and choose your reward. When the bar is filled, you will not be able to continue to earn additional points. However, should you complete a task that grants more than what you need to hit 10, the remainder will carry over toward your next cache.
After you collect your cache, the bar will be empty (or lightly filled from any carry-over) and you will need to head out and do more missions that are tagged as Grim missions. You can recognize them on the map with a red outline or a pink outline.
How to Farm Grim Whisper Fast
When we look at the table, we see that you earn the most points by doing Dungeons or World Boss and Blood Maiden Kills. So if you want a faster cache then do those 3 when available and fill the remaining points with other nearby options.
The fastest set of Whispers Objectives that are available frequently are those from the Helltide. They’ll be condensed to the zone the Helltide is currently in and add an easy 10+ Grim Favor to the zone.
Doing this will require you to Defeat a Blood Maiden, Slay Demons, Slay Harbingers, and Open Tortured Gifts. Except for the Tortured Gifts, these can all be easily done during the Blood Maiden Encounter, making a Whisper cache take only a few minutes for quick rewards.
Outside of this, farming them efficiently highly depends on the Zones they’re currently in. Dungeons and the Kurast Undercity make for great ways to quickly complete whispers, especially with both being frequently available.
When choosing what to prioritize for Grim Favors, we typically will go for Dungeons first, particularly those that have a Nightmare Sigil currently. Following that it’s best to look for areas where World Events or Assassination Whispers overlap with Harvest Whispers, as both can dramatically speed up the rate we finish a Harvest mission.
Cellars are a very quick Grim Favor, if we happen to be just a single Grim Favor short, as we’re able to Teleport to any turn in location from the cellar. Otherwise, these are best skipped due to having to go outr of our way to reach them and having two loading screens on top of that.
For those that own the Vessel of Hatred Expansion, Kurast Undercity can also be a quick 5 Grim Favors as well. These often take less time than even a short Dungeon and can be made faster by simply rushing to the end if the whispers are all we’re after.
You can read more of our Beginner Guides. And if you want advice on a build, we’ve got leveling and endgame builds for all classes.
