Originally appearing as a repeatable boss in Season 1, Varshan returns for Season 2… also as a repeatable boss. As an uber boss, the Echo of Varshan is very likely to drop a unique item when defeated as well as a Mucous-Slick Egg, which in turn is a material required to summon Duriel, Maggot King, a far more powerful and lucrative uber boss. This page will provide information on how to farm the malignant components required to summon the Echo of Varshan, tips for defeating the Echo of Varshan, and a list of the items that this uber boss can drop as of Season 2 in Diablo 4.

How to Summon the Echo of Varshan in Diablo 4¶

Summoning the Echo of Varshan might seem like a complicated affair, as there are four components you need to gather: Blackened Femurs, Gurgling Heads, Malignant Hearts, and Trembling Hands. When you consider that every other uber boss requires more materials (in terms of raw numbers, anyway, not different types), it’s a bit less unmanageable. To find these malignant appendages you’ll need to either complete Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers and open the caches you receive as a reward (any variant will work) or defeat Grotesque Debtors, both of which can yield these materials.

Once you have one of each, seek out the Malignant Burrow near the Tree of Whispers (the northeastern corner of The Whispering Mire, Hawezar), a mini-dungeon where you’ll have to dispatch a few enemies en route to the Malignant Altar. Offer up the malignant body parts (one of each) to summon the Echo of Varshan.

Where to Find Malignant Remains in Diablo 4¶

Malignant remains are somewhat tedious to find, inasmuch as they’re one of the few materials that can’t always be easily farmed. The most direct way of accumulating these body parts is to complete Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers - it doesn’t matter which ones you complete, as long as you fill-up the bar and return to the Tree of Whispers and collect any of its reward caches. Opening these up will give you random drops of these materials, along with the normal rewards. On the plus side, you can often work on this as you run Blood Harvest events, which always spawn with some Grim Favors that need doing, but you can also check the map for other content that strikes your fancy. Grim Favors in areas affected by the Helltide, Nightmare Dungeons you wish to complete, World Bosses, all of these can be tagged as the objective of a Grim Favor, and they’re a fine way of killing two birds with one stone.

Another source of these malignant remains is from Grotesque Debtors, unique enemies that will randomly appear during (usually just after) you complete other activities. We encountered them after events, Legion events, World Bosses, and yes, while completing Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers. When and where they spawn is otherwise random, making them a poor option for farming these materials, so you should view them as more of a supplemental source of malignant remains - a boon that’ll pop up and reward you every so often. It’s also a good idea to stay on your guard after completing events and not to depart too soon and get distracted fussing around in your inventory.

Unfortunately, since there are four different materials and their drops are all RNG, you’ll often end up with more of one than another. When one of these materials is proving to be a bottleneck, you can visit any alchemist and navigate to the “Refine Resources” tab, then select the “Summoning Item” option where you’ll find the following formulae:

Item	Material Cost
Malignant Body Cache	Gurgling Head x1, Abstruse Sigil x1, Veiled Crystal x5
Malignant Body Cache	Trembling Hand x1, Baleful Fragment x1, Veiled Crystal x5
Malignant Body Cache	Blackened Femur x1, Coiling Ward x1, Veiled Crystal x5
Blackened Femur	Malignant Heart x1, Coiling Ward x4, Veiled Crystal x15
Gurgling Head	Malignant Heart x1, Abstruse Sigil x4, Veiled Crystal x15
Trembling Hand	Malignant Heart x1, Baleful Fragment x4, Veiled Crystal x15

Echo of Varshan Boss Tips and Strategies¶

The Echo of Varshan hasn’t changed significantly from Season 1, in terms of combat. He doesn’t have a single element he focuses on, instead relying on physical damage in various forms. As a general rule, the Echo of Varshan’s attacks come in two forms - tentacle attacks (mostly used if you keep your distance, the Echo of Varshan will use the tentacles to strike then pull himself towards you) and bursts of corruption. The latter is the more dangerous, being AoE effects that mark the ground with pink before corruption bursts over the marked area. These will often happen in alternating patterns, requiring you to run around the battlefield, or away from then back towards the Echo of Varshan if you want to avoid damage. Keeping your potions and evasive skills ready for these attacks is ideal. On the plus side, it doesn’t leave any damage-over-time effect on the ground, and the Echo of Varshan has little in the way of area denial.

Aside from physical attacks, the Echo of Varshan has one trick in its playbook - it can summon adds. These generally appear in the form of three elites (albeit not terribly powerful ones) that serve one purpose - to annoy you while keeping the Echo of Varshan invulnerable. While the adds are alive, the Echo of Varshan can’t be harmed, and he doesn’t have the courtesy to refrain from attacking, so characters with potent AoEs will definitely have an easier time dealing with these phases.

Echo of Varshan Unique Drop Table¶

Although it can be tedious farming for the components required to summon the Echo of Varshan, they’re also materials you’ll tend to just… accumulate as you play the game. This makes it likely that after a while you’ll find yourself with enough materials to fight the Echo of Varshan many times. Although he’s one of the weaker uber bosses, capping out at Lv75, he’s the only source of the Mucous-Slick Egg material, which is required to summon Duriel, Maggot King. This only drops in World Tier IV, and you need two of them to summon Duriel. In addition, the Echo of Varshan can also drop some useful uniques, as follows:

Unique Drop	Classes
100,000 Steps	Barbarian
Airidah’s Inexorable Will	Druid
Bloodless Scream	Necromancer
Condemnation	Rogue
Deathless Visage	Necromancer
Deathspeaker’s Pendant	Necromancer
Esu’s Heirloom	Sorcerer
Eyes in the Dark	Rogue
Fields of Crimson	Barbarian
Frostburn	All
Gohr’s Devastating Grips	Barbarian
Greatstaff of the Crone	Druid
Mad Wolf’s Glee	Druid
Mother’s Embrace	All
Raiment of the Infinite	Sorcerer
Ring of Red Furor	Barbarian
Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul	Necromancer
Skyhunter	Rogue
Staff of Endless Rage	Sorcerer
Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop	Sorcerer
Vasily’s Prayer	Druid
Writhing Band of Trickery	Rogue