How to defeat Echo of Varshan in Diablo 4 Season 2

One of the most anticipated features introduced in Season 2 of Diablo 4 is its new suite of endgame bosses. These give dedicated players an outlet to test their high-level builds against, as well as an efficient means of farming powerful Unique gear that was hard to come by previously.

The first of these fresh horrors that you’re likely to encounter is the Echo of Varshan, a new-and-improved form of the final boss of Season 1, the Season of the Malignant. While he’s easier than the other new endgame bosses, he’s still tougher than most of what you’ll face in regular play by a fair margin, so if you’re struggling then read on to learn how to defeat Echo of Varshan in Diablo 4 Season 2.

How to summon Echo of Varshan in Diablo 4 Season 2

Echo of Varshan takes the Ikea approach to boss design, in that you need to assemble him yourself. Before you can face him, you’ll need to collect all of his body parts and bring them together in a new cave underneath the Tree of Whispers. It’s worth noting that you’ll need to be on at least World Tier 3 before you can complete this process and challenge Echo of Varshan.

To find these body parts, you’ll need to complete Tree of Whispers quests out in the world. These are always active, and are clearly visible on your map due to their bright pink or red coloring. Generally, there will be a few of these active in the same area at a time, so once you’ve located them you can quickly get through a few in a row in the same zone. 

The objectives for these are very simple, and tend to involve killing a set number of enemies in an area, killing a set number of a specific type of enemy in an area, finding a corpse and defeating a mini-boss, or clearing out a Cellar or Dungeon. Completing these tasks will earn you points, which you can redeem for a reward at the Tree of Whispers once you accumulate 10 of them.

Your reward for redeeming 10 points this way is always a Cache stuffed with a particular type of gear, and in Season 2 those Caches also come with at least one Echo of Varshan body part as well. In addition to being available via these Caches, you also receive one guaranteed body part from Grotesque Debtors, mini-bosses that spawn in randomly after you finish a Tree of Whispers task out in the world.

The parts you’ll need are the Gurgling Head, Blackened Femur, and Trembling Hand. If you’re trying to summon Echo of Varshan in World Tier 4, you’ll also need a Malignant Heart, which is available through the same means. The parts you receive in each Cache and from each Grotesque Debtor are random, so you may well end up with three Heads before you get a Femur, for example. Extras can always be used in future summonings though, since this boss is incredibly farmable, as I’ll get to later.

Once you’ve collected at least one of each part you’ll need to head to the Malignant Burrow, a new cave located right next to the Tree of Whispers. Fight your way through a small tunnel full of enemies, and you’ll arrive at the Malignant Altar, where you can conduct the ritual that summons Echo of Varshan to fight.

How to bring down Echo of Varshan in Diablo 4 Season 2

Once you’ve summoned Echo of Varshan, it’s time to get down to business. He’s a fairly challenging fight, with a few moves that can easily wipe you out in seconds if you’re not careful. He has three main ‘states’ that he cycles through, and I’ll cover each in detail here.

The first of these is the ‘Triangle of Death’ state, in which Echo of Varshan creates triangle-shaped zones on the ground that deal huge damage to you if you’re caught in them. This is by far his most dangerous attack, and despite being telegraphed in advance by the shapes on the ground, it can still easily kill you from full health if you’re not ready to dodge when it starts. While you can use this attack as an opportunity to get some damage in if you’re lucky, it’s so dangerous that I’d recommend focusing purely on dodging this one, even moving out to the edge of the arena if you have to.

Echo of Varshan’s second state is his summoning state. Here, he summons three Elite enemies around him, then proceeds to drain them of their health to restore his own. You have two main options here: try and kill the Elites before Echo of Varshan drains them out, or ignore them and focus your attacks on the Echo himself. I’ve had a lot of success in this fight with the latter method, so I recommend you do so too, and treat this phase as your main opportunity for dealing damage to the boss. He doesn’t tend to attack much during this phase, and the damage the Elites can deal is negligible, so it’s a great window for unleashing all of your favorite Skills at once.

Finally, there’s Echo of Varshan’s melee attack state. In this one, he’ll use his tentacles to grapple his way around the arena, and perform melee attacks in front of him in between. These attacks are quite damaging, but unlike the Triangle of Death ones they’re unlikely to kill you quickly, and you have plenty of time to Evade away and heal in this phase. If you can stay behind Echo of Varshan consistently then you can get some extra damage in in this phase too, but for the most part I’d recommend playing it safe here and being evasive, letting your Skills cool down for a big push during the next summoning phase.

While it may be tempting to try and burst Echo of Varshan down from the start, it’s worth remembering that this is an endgame boss, and therefore a marathon, not a sprint. Take your time, make use of the tactics described above, top up your health whenever you need to, and he’ll go down before you know it.

Rewards – Echo of Varshan loot drops

After beating Echo of Varshan, you can claim your hard-earned rewards. In addition to dropping some very high-level Legendary items, he also drops specific Unique items at a much higher rate than you’d normally see them. The consensus online seems to be that you have a 50% chance for a Unique drop from this boss. In my 5 kills of him, I’ve received 2 Uniques, so that sounds about right. The following is a list of all the Uniques Echo of Varshan can drop, so if you need one for your build then get ready to farm him:

And there you have it: a full guide on how to defeat Echo of Varshan in Diablo 4 Season 2. He’s a great introduction to the world of endgame bosses and his pool of Uniques is actually quite good, making him well worth fighting for most players, particularly once they hit World Tier 4.