Paragon Board System Explained

What is the Paragon Board?

The paragon board system in Diablo IV is a new end game system that will allow you to continue to progress your character’s power after you stop earning skill points at level 50. Once unlocked at level 50, you will receive 4 paragon points per level, up to level 100. You can also get paragon points from your map renown. In total, you will earn 225 total points to work at max level on each class. At first, the paragon board system may seem overwhelming, but this article should help simplify it for you. If you’d rather watch/listen to a guide, check out the video below.

First, let’s talk about the anatomy of the paragon board system. 

On the paragon board, you have normal nodes, which are +5 bonuses to a single stat, like intellect, willpower, dexterity or strength.

Magic nodes provide a +7 boost to these stats or a minor boost to a specific damage type or even damage reduction. In fact, there can be a lot of different types of magic nodes, so make sure to browse them on each class. Both of these nodes (normal and magic) will come in handy for unlocking rare nodes. 

Rare nodes provide a +10 stat boost, usually to your main skill damage stat, along with another bonus, either offensive or defensive.

Finally, each board has a legendary node – these are unique effects or bonuses specific to your class and the name of this node is used to name the board itself.

It’s important to note that you are not required to get these legendary nodes, or any of the specific rare, magic or normal nodes. You want to be efficient when you move through boards, but also grab all the important nodes and glyph slots.

Which brings us to the last part of the paragon board system – glyphs. You will discover these as you play end game activities like nightmare dungeons and the tree of whispers. They are different for every class with a few that overlap with minor differences. You will slot one glyph into each paragon board and then unlock stat nodes within its range to boost that glyph’s power. Glyphs will increase their range at level 15, so you want to focus on increasing your glyph XP through Nightmare Dungeons. This allows for more stat nodes in your glyph range, increasing its power.

Alright, here come the paragon board tips! Because I’ve respecced so many times to try out different builds, I’ve become very familiar with the paragon board and have developed a pretty good strategy for setting one up regardless of class.

Keep these 2 things in mind when you’re FIRST looking at your paragon boards:

The glyphs you slot into each board will have a minimum stat requirement to unlock the secondary effect. The main effect may also benefit from additional stat nodes. For example, the glyph Imbiber will give you 30% increased potion healing when you add 25 willpower stats from the nodes within the glyph’s range.

But keep in mind that some glyphs do not benefit from additional stat nodes. An example of this is the glyph Tactician – This glyph grants a percent bonus to all rare nodes within range. You need 25 dexterity points to unlock the secondary effect, but additional dexterity nodes will not increase the bonus to all rare nodes.

Speaking of a secondary effect, here’s your next tip – Rare nodes also have a minimum stat requirement to unlock a secondary bonus. For example, an extra 20% vulnerable damage if requirements are met. Glyphs like Tactician will even boost these secondary bonuses! You want to make sure you’re almost always hitting these requirements for the bonus on rare nodes. The really important tip to learn about these rare node secondary bonuses is that those requirements increase as you move to more paragon boards. To give you an example, a rare node on the starting board requires 170 dexterity, the second board requires 260, the third board requires 350 and so on. 

So the order in which you place your paragon boards is very important!

So, keeping that in mind, set up the order of your boards based on the number of rare nodes you want to reach. If you have a board chock full of really great rare nodes, consider putting it right after your starting board so it costs the least to unlock all the nodes. You can also look for nodes that require your primary skill damage stat and place those last, as you’ll likely have a lot already invested into that stat.

The other thing you want to look at is which legendary nodes you want to unlock because those will be a little out of the way. You can also make a u-turn and come back through a board if it makes sense!

I hope that gives you a better idea of how to create your paragon for your class. If you have any questions, come say hi on stream – twitch.tv/abbyhour