Bounties & Horadric Caches — Guide

Bounties are short, clearly defined objectives in Adventure Mode — and one of the most important farming activities in the entire endgame. They are the main source of the act materials that power Kanai's Cube and many Blacksmith recipes, and the only source of a handful of cache-only legendaries. If you want to optimize a build, fill the Cube, or land the Ring of Royal Grandeur, you simply cannot skip bounties.

This guide explains from the ground up how bounties work, how to unlock them, what's inside the caches, which items drop where, and how pros clear all 25 bounties in just a few minutes.

What Are Bounties?

A bounty is a contained task within an act that the game picks at random. When you start an Adventure Mode game, each of the five acts generates 5 random bounties — for 25 bounties total. Common bounty types include:

• Kill a boss or unique enemy (e.g. Queen Araneae the Spider Queen)
• Defeat a named elite pack in a specific area
• Clear a dungeon completely (kill every monster in a given dungeon)
• Complete an event (e.g. a cursed-event chain)
• Kill a set number of monsters in a zone

You can see the available bounties at any time on the world map (default PC key M): waypoints with nearby bounty objectives are marked with a yellow "!". Each individual completed bounty instantly grants gold and experience. The real incentive, though, is the cache you receive once all 5 bounties in an act are done.

Unlocking Adventure Mode

Bounties exist only in Adventure Mode, which has been available from the start for all accounts since patch 2.7.4:

• You no longer need to complete the Campaign — Adventure Mode is unlocked by default.
• It applies account-wide to all heroes.
• When creating a new game, choose "Adventure" at the top instead of "Campaign".
• In Adventure Mode, every waypoint across all five acts is unlocked immediately — you teleport freely around the world.

The Horadric Cache

Complete all 5 bounties in an act, then talk to Tyrael in town: he hands you that act's Horadric Cache, which goes straight into your inventory (if it's full, it drops at your feet). Click the cache to open it. Contents:

• A large chunk of gold
• Blood Shards (currency for Kadala's gambling)
• General crafting materials (Reusable Parts, Arcane Dust, Veiled Crystal, Death's Breath)
• The act-specific crafting material (see below)
• A chance at cache-only legendaries that exist nowhere else

The number of act materials per cache rises with difficulty: 3 on Normal to Master, 6 on Torment I–VI, 8 on Torment VII–IX, then two more per tier from Torment X up to 22 on Torment XVI. A Torment XVI cache also holds about 1.64 million gold, 135 Blood Shards, 6 Death's Breath, plenty of Reusable Parts, Arcane Dust and Veiled Crystals, plus gems and items.

Act-Specific Crafting Materials for Cubing

Each act yields its own material in its cache. These mats are the core of many Kanai's Cube recipes and are also needed for legendary crafting recipes:

• Act I — Khanduran Rune
• Act II — Caldeum Nightshade
• Act III — Arreat War Tapestry
• Act IV — Corrupted Angel Flesh
• Act V — Westmarch Holy Water

Two Cube recipes consume all five mats at once, plus additional materials like Death's Breath or Forgotten Souls; legendary Blacksmith recipes usually need two different act mats. The key recipes:

• Archive of Tal Rasha (Extract Legendary Power): costs 1 × each act mat plus 5 × Death's Breath.
• Law of Kulle (Reforge Legendary) — rerolls a legendary with fresh stats hoping for perfect rolls: consumes 5 × each act mat plus 50 × Forgotten Souls per attempt — extremely mat-intensive.
• Convert Set Item ("Skill of Nilfur", turn one set piece into another from the same set): 10 × Forgotten Soul + 10 × Death's Breath — no act mats.

Cache-Only Legendaries

These items are found only in Horadric Caches (Act IV caches can also contain items from the other acts) — monsters never drop them, and Kadala doesn't sell them either:

• Act I — Ring of Royal Grandeur: Reduces the number of items required for each set bonus by 1. One of the most powerful items in the game because it effectively frees up a gear slot. Also here: e.g. Golden Gorget of Leoric and Pauldrons of the Skeleton King.
• Act II — Illusory Boots: Let you walk through monsters — ideal for kiting and smooth navigation. Also here: e.g. Gloves of Worship and Cloak of Deception.
• Act III — Pride's Fall: A helm that sharply lowers resource costs as long as you take no damage. Also here: the Avarice Band.
• Act IV — no exclusive items: besides the act mat, the cache drops random cache legendaries from the other acts. (Nemesis Bracers are a normal drop; the Sage's Journey set is crafted by the Blacksmith.)
• Act V — e.g.: Death's Bargain, Helltrapper, Pandemonium Loop, Salvation and Soulsmasher.

Efficient Bounty Farming

Clicking through bounties solo is doable but slow. Pros maximize throughput like this:

• Split bounties in a 4-player group: Each player takes a different act simultaneously. All 25 bounties are done in a few minutes — roughly four times as fast as solo and by far the fastest mode.
• Prioritize cursed/event bounties: Bounties of the "Kill X monsters in Y seconds" type (cursed chests/shrines) deliver huge XP and drops — grab them first if XP is your goal.
• Tyrael tour: As soon as an act is finished, teleport to Tyrael in town and turn it in. Every player in the game receives their cache, so in a split group only one player per act needs to visit Tyrael.
• Fast over slow bounties: Boss bounties with long run-ups, or escort/event chains, eat time; in a group you deliberately spread the slow ones across players.
• Highest viable Torment tier: Play as high as bounties still fall quickly — every tier boosts cache output. In Season, an Altar of Rites seal also doubles the number of caches you receive.

Common Mistakes

• Raising the difficulty just to open caches: does nothing — the contents are fixed when you receive the cache. Pick the Torment tier for the bounties themselves as high as still runs smoothly.
• Farming only one act: You then collect just one mat and can never run the mat-hungry Cube recipes.
• Leaving before the final click: If you leave the game before the fifth bounty of an act is complete, you get no cache — an unfinished act's progress is lost.
• Solo instead of split: Anyone seriously farming mats wastes enormous time going alone versus a split group.
• Gambling every Blood Shard right away: In Season, the Altar of Rites demands several large Blood Shard sacrifices (1,100 to 1,600 per seal). If you want those seals, save up first.

Why Bounties Matter

No bounties, no full Kanai's Cube — and no Cube means no optimized builds.

Bounties are the foundation of endgame crafting. The five act mats unlock the Cube recipes you use to craft, convert and reforge legendaries. On top of that, caches deliver the Ring of Royal Grandeur (saves a set piece = a free slot for more power), the act mats for the Sage's Journey set (more Death's Breath = faster crafting), and a steady stream of Death's Breath. For anyone moving beyond the early endgame, regular bounty runs are mandatory — ideally in a split group, at the highest tier that still runs smoothly.