Diablo 4 has a second public beta this week featuring a much-hyped event in-game to kill a screen dominating World Boss. You won’t want to miss it, so learn everything you need to know about it here.

Diablo 4 Beta – What Is A World Boss Event?

The Ashava World Boss event is an optional quest in Diablo 4 with a fixed location and window for beginning and completing, that tasks you with slaying the monstrous Ashava, the Pestilent. First attaining the beta’s level cap of 25–the same as that of Ashava herself–would be ideal, but not mandatory. A group of up to 12 players total, of any level can band together to take her down. Couch co-op, online co-op, and shard (session/instance/zone) randoms in the arena can all combine forces to slay her, and lay claim to the sizable loot drop.

Diablo 4 Beta World Boss Event Times And Developments

The World Boss event will be available four times over the course of each beta, with the Public Open Beta spawns starting on March 25th at 10AM PDT, followed by 12PM PDT, then 10PM PDT, and finally at midnight PDT on March 26th.

In the Early Access Open Beta last week, the very first spawn event was delayed by an hour due to technical difficulties, leading to all subsequent events being set back by an hour as well. This may or may not hold true again for this week’s upcoming Public Open Beta.

Consult each of the official Twitter accounts for updates in the event of another delay in Ashava spawning:

• Diablo Official
• Blizzard Customer Support for The Americas
• Blizzard Customer Support for Europe in the English Language

Here are the localized times for major regions based on the original announcement:

Where Is Ashava Located?

The Crucible area in the Region of Fractured Peaks, far east of the settlement town of Kyovashad, close to the eastern shoreline of the continent. Once in-game, a map icon and countdown timer will appear 30 minutes prior to the beginning of the event. Potential rewards will also be displayed, specifically the Weekly Bonus Spoils, if applicable. Map location marked with a red hexagon in the image above.

How Co-op Works in Diablo 4 World Boss Events

Unlike the majority of co-operative content in the game, as many as 12 players can challenge Ashava in The Crucible. Once both friends and strangers are assembled at the spawn location, and the timer hits zero, the battle begins. Soloing is not recommended, and doesn’t appear to even be possible given the open world, drop in drop out design of Diablo 4 that forces players into shared shards. Leveraging and exploiting a Strict NAT might be possible, but there have not been any glitched solo lobby reports so far.

Ashava is level 25 herself, but her power scales to the number of players in the arena, regardless of their individual level. This also means that under-leveled allies can be a burden rather than a blessing, buffing her damage output, while failing to mete out significant damage themselves.

Couch Co-op

All consoles supporting couch co-op will allow one additional player to join in onscreen. The second player will simply have to establish a link between their Battle.net account and console account, if not already existing in Blizzard’s ecosystem. After that, just hop in by invitation of player one. The interface has been designed to accommodate the interfaces of both players being on screen simultaneously, as seen above. Bonus XP is granted for not being solo: 5% while near random players, and 10% near explicit party members. Couch co-op can be combined with online co-op to increase party size to a total stack of four players.

Online Co-op

This mode allows for up to four players to party up remotely in a single shard. On top of that, region-locking is absent in Diablo 4, and crossplay between all platforms is now possible, providing the opportunity for some really diverse team-ups, across territories and hardware. Bonus XP rates are the same: 5% from non-party members and up to 10% from proximity to sworn allies.

Still can’t take Ashava down? Check out how to beat Diablo 4 beta’s World Boss !

We\'re giving away 50 Hard Drive t-shirts and other merch items to Patrons this week.