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Harder, not
higher level.

Difficulty does not make anything higher level. It makes mobs hit harder, resist more, notice you sooner, and run player-style class kits — and it decides what condition your loot arrives in. The con colour of a mob is the same at every tier, which is exactly why the setting catches people out.

5 tiersD4 is the maximum The zone line names yours

Where this comes from. The scaling work on this page is not ours. EQL Tools measured it T3 and, to their credit, labels every claim by how it is known — developer-confirmed, player-measured, or unpinned. Their figures are credited below and linked, never restated as though we found them, and where they say a thing is not pinned down, neither do we. The rest is measured in play TIER M: how the tier is written in the game, and one observation about class kits that goes a step further than the published claim. If you want the full scaling tables, read theirs — this page answers the question for a reader of this site and points you at them for the rest.
The tiers

Five settings

The names are the game’s own. EQL Tools lists them, and the game prints them on entry — two sources that did not derive from each other.

TierNameNoteMeasured
D0Normalthe open world, and any instance run at base. The zone line never names this tier; the instance invite does, and that is where the name comes fromM verified in play
D1Awakenedthe first instanced tierM verified in play
D2Adaptive—M verified in play
D3Fused—M verified in play
D4Refinedthe current maximumM verified in play
Reading it

The game tells you, twice

Zoning in prints the tier as a number and a name in the same line:

You have entered Befallen 1 (Awakened).
You have entered Blackburrow 2 (Adaptive).
You have entered Befallen 3 (Fused).
You have entered The City of Guk 4 (Refined).

A zone line with no number and no name is base difficulty — the open world, or an instance run at base. The number and the name have never disagreed where the line carried both TIER M. So you never have to remember which setting you picked.

Loot gives a third reading, and difficulty is a floor: your tier is the lowest +N you see, not the commonest. No upgradeable drop has been seen below the tier of the zone it dropped in TIER M, and about 12% roll above — so anything over the floor is luck, and three drops settle it. The floor names the tier where the commonest value does not always. Read the dropped value, not the created one: looted a Keg Mallet +2 … to create a Keg Mallet +4 is a +2, and a bare item is the +0.

What scales

What each tier actually does

All measured by EQL Tools T3, credited and linked, not re-measured by us.

  1. Levels do not move Con colours are identical at every tier. A tier is not a level range, and treating it as one is the mistake the setting invites.
  2. Nearly everything else does HP, damage, resists, armour class, mana, movement speed and aggro radius, roughly linearly per tier.
  3. Hit points, D1 and D2 ×1.15 and ×1.30 on multiplayer tuning, ×1.10 and ×1.20 solo. D3 and D4 run well above those and are not pinned — their words, and we are not going to invent a figure.
  4. Experience ×1.15 / ×1.30 / ×1.45 / ×1.60 across Awakened to Refined on multiplayer tuning; ×1.10 / ×1.20 / ×1.30 / ×1.40 solo. Whether the bonus is currently live is one of the things they mark unpinned.
  5. Loot is the same table The tier decides the condition, not what drops. A +4 is worth sixteen base copies of upgrade progress, so it decides how far a drop carries you — measured above.
  6. Every tier is its own lockout Loot lockouts track per difficulty, so the same named can be worth killing again on another setting.
Measured

The ramp, measured on one boss at all five tiers

Master Yael, in the group instance of The Hole, measured at every difficulty — same boss, same group, five settings, so the tier is the only thing that changed between the rows.

Damage to kill counts every attacker, so read these as what the fight costs a raid rather than what one party deals.

TierDamage to killFightSpells Self-healsWhat he cast
D0 M74,915–75,369179s7—Draught of Fire, Draught of Jiva, Elnerick's Entombment of Ice, Frozen Harpoon, Gravity Flux, Immobilize, Inferno of Al`Kabor
D1 M84,824–85,415181s6—Markar's Discord
D2 M139,117316s5—Bonds of Force, Ice Comet, Markar's Clash
D3 M225,552–227,690470s91Healing Light, Ignite Blood, Insidious Retrogression, Screaming Terror, Shadow Vortex, Wrath of Al`Kabor
D4 M234,249–242,060587s101–10Bond of Death, Sacred Echo

The same boss measured again at the same tiers does not reproduce: D1 -12%, D2 -9%, D4 +64% against the ramp above. Damage to kill is what a fight cost, not a constant — raid size, gear and misses all count towards it.

The kit broadens as the tier rises. From D0 to D4 he casts 5–10 distinct spells, and the heals, fear and damage over time appear in the upper half. TIER M

Self-healing is not gated behind a tier. This boss heals itself at D2, and Lady Vox at D0, the lowest there is. What the tier decides is how much of the kit turns up.

Read a self-heal count as events, not decisions. A run of them at the top tier is one effect ticking every six seconds for the same 22 hit points — the same shape Lady Vox shows at hers.

The other bosses

Same shape, different bosses. One row per boss per tier, taking the fullest view of each, so a range is how far two measurements of the same fight sat apart. Most were measured in a group instance rather than the open zone. A row marked floor was measured from part-way into the fight, so it is a lower bound rather than the cost of the fight.

BossTierDamage to killFight SpellsSelf-healsMelee
Ashenbone BroodmasterD3359,095–378,657 floor273s6—claws, strikes
Ashenbone BroodmasterD4180,749201s3—claws, strikes
Avatar of AbhorrenceD167,853125s0—pierces
Avatar of AbhorrenceD455,358 floor68s4—backstabs, cleaves, hits + pet
Bazzt ZzztD023,32146s1—bashes, cleaves, slashes, stings
BazzzazztD018,17131s1—bashes, cleaves, stings
BizazzztD09,91281s1—bashes, cleaves, stings
BzizzztD06143s0—stings
BzzazztD010,370–13,226130s20–2bashes, cleaves, slashes, stings
BzzztD010,596–17,09935–82s1—bashes, cleaves, stings
Cazic-Thulenot resolved — no numbered zone line, and nothing dropped carrying an independent tier166,694404s94bashes, cleaves, kicks, slashes
Cazic-ThuleD019,32194s71bashes, crushes, kicks
Cazic-ThuleD294,941–95,269530s716bashes, crushes, frenzies, kicks
Cazic-ThuleD3311,686–316,488343s63bashes, cleaves, crushes, kicks, slashes
Cazic-ThuleD4376,049–382,035302s73bashes, cleaves, kicks, slashes
Coercer T`valaD3397,790–398,179 floor292s7—crushes
Coercer T`valaD4431,769 floor433s11—crushes, hits
DreadD03,77861s1—bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks
DreadD245,155202s510bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks + pet
DreadD3152,730–154,069151s7—bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks + pet
DreadD4196,773229s91bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks + pet
Eye of Veeshannot resolved — no numbered zone line, and nothing dropped carrying an independent tier18,733165s1—bashes, claws, cleaves
Eye of VeeshanD018,91447s1—bashes, claws, cleaves, slashes
FrightD017,63774s1—bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks
FrightD243,610165s1—bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks
FrightD37,859–169,947 floor338s10—bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks + pet
FrightD4180,305–186,778274s91bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks + pet
GorgaloskD020,361159s1—bashes, claws, cleaves, kicks
Grandmaster R`talD158,146106s0—kicks, punches
Grandmaster R`talD3341,367–344,534 floor241s1—cleaves, kicks, punches
Grandmaster R`talD453,39872s6—kicks, punches + pet
High Priest M`kariD459,60982s7—crushes, kicks, punches
Innoruuk, the Prince of HateD151,112–51,823104s6—bashes, hits
Innoruuk, the Prince of HateD3333,054246s83bashes, hits
Innoruuk, the Prince of HateD4345,385329s101bashes, hits
Keeper of SoulsD022,32262s0—bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks
Lady VoxD058,497–60,139267s41bites
Lady VoxD125,698 floor311s3—crushes
Lady VoxD2124,646418s81bites
Lady VoxD3174,349–175,850817s1010pierces
Lord NagafenD174,583230s1—cleaves, pierces
Lord NagafenD2117,338–121,279492s8—bites, cleaves
Lord NagafenD3294,178–296,484360s5—cleaves, frenzies, pierces
Lord NagafenD4370,351–373,810351–354s6—cleaves, crushes, frenzies
Lord of IreD3162,159209s135hits, kicks
Lord of IreD4401,708 floor261s7—hits, kicks
Lord of LoathingD178,521–78,707139s6—kicks, slices
Lord of LoathingD3360,555249s9—kicks, slices
Lord of LoathingD470,115–194,751101–219s100–12crushes, kicks, slices
Maestro of RancorD174,715132s1—cleaves, crushes
Maestro of RancorD3366,149 floor236s4—cleaves, crushes, slashes
Maestro of RancorD4409,806 floor359s9—cleaves, crushes, hits, slashes
Magi P`tasaD180,887 floor122s4—crushes
Magi P`tasaD3178,815200s9—cleaves, crushes
Magi P`tasaD4400,151 floor221s7—cleaves, crushes, hits
Master of SpiteD4401,473 floor304s106cleaves, hits, kicks
Mistress of ScornD4381,449245s3—backstabs, cleaves, crushes, kicks, punches
Noble DojornD022,04150s2—cleaves, crushes, pierces, punches, slashes
Overseer of AirD016,27242s2—cleaves, pierces
Phinigel AutroposD4337,650251s8—backstabs, crushes
Protector of SkyD016,35024s1—backstabs, hits, slashes
Sister of the SpireD010,19737s1—bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks, slashes
TerrorD010,738115s1—bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks
TerrorD246,239258s69bashes, cleaves, hits, kicks + pet
TerrorD3155,576407s51bashes, cleaves, frenzies, hits, kicks + pet
TerrorD4209,160–209,879287s63bashes, cleaves, frenzies, hits, kicks + pet
The Spiroc LordD018,505–20,15547s5—hits, slashes
a dracolichenot resolved — no numbered zone line, and nothing dropped carrying an independent tier45,867109s3—crushes
a dracolicheD02,04927s5—pierces + pet
a dracolicheD285,671516s7—pierces + pet
a dracolicheD3285,202294s810crushes, slashes + pet
a dracolicheD4332,225–362,687401s1218–19slashes + pet
the Hand of VeeshanD021,97452s2—cleaves, pierces, punches, slashes
A spell list does not make a boss a caster. Backstab is a rogue ability, and Avatar of Abhorrence, Mistress of Scorn, Phinigel Autropos and Protector of Sky cast as well — two class kits in one fight, which is the triple-class claim showing up in a log. Every boss here melees; the column exists because a table of spells alone invites the opposite reading. + pet means it brought one, a class tell of its own.
Where the ranges come from. One view of a fight witnesses only part of it, so two records of the same kill differ by whatever each missed — between nothing and 98.4% here. That spread is the method’s error bar, measured rather than assumed, and it is why some counts print as a range. A thin view reads low, never high, which is why a floor row is a lower bound.

Damage to kill is not hit points. These bosses heal, so it is an upper bound carrying the raid’s gear and misses with it.
Measured

One measurement that goes further

The published claim is that named mobs are often multiclass from D2. It is on ordinary trash at D1. In Castle Mistmoore at Awakened, two trash types — an initiate familiar and a pledge familiar — backstab, and the same types cast Root, Screaming Terror, Shadow Vortex, Shock of Poison and Engulfing Darkness. TIER M

Backstab is the part that settles it. A spell list on its own proves little, because those spells could plausibly sit in one broad caster kit — but backstab is a rogue ability, and a mob type doing both is running two kits. At D1, on trash.

Its limit, stated: the measurement aggregates by mob type, so whether a single individual carries both kits cannot be told apart from two individuals carrying one each. It is one zone at one tier. It does not contradict the published claim about named mobs; it suggests the behaviour starts earlier and lower than the claim implies.

Measured before the 18 August 2026 revamp. The zone has changed since; the reading stands for the zone as it was.

Where a zone has a survey, its measured figures are under Measured in play. Not every zone measured this way has a survey here.

Sourcing

Where to read more

EQL Tools — Difficulty T3 Source of every scaling figure above. Current to the launch patch of 28 July 2026, and labelled by confidence throughout, which is rarer than it should be. Go and read it if you want the mote grades, the lockout timings and the full tables — this page deliberately does not reproduce them.
Measured in play TIER M Parsed from combat logs. Source of the zone-line reading, the loot-tier correspondence and the multiclass observation. A figure derived this way carries the tier M badge and names the zone and tier it was measured at; the play behind it is not published.