Why You Should (& Shouldn’t) Use 3 Incenses in Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred

There are good reasons you both should and shouldn’t use 3 Incenses at once in Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred:

YOU SHOULD USE 3 INCENSES…

To get the buffs from all three. Using 3 Incenses at once provides your character with significant boosts to power and survivability.

YOU SHOULDN’T USE 3 INCENSES…

To get extra XP. Only the first Incense you use gives you 5%+ XP — even though you can run three at once, the two additional Incenses DO NOT give you more XP!

THE DISPLAY IS A LIE

When you pull up your character sheet while you have 3 Incenses running, you’ll see a separate entry for each Incense under your active buffs. Each entry indicates that the associated Incense is adding 5% to your total Experience Bonus. Allowing your Incenses to run out and then re-adding them one-by-one, however, confirms the information you find in each Incense tooltip.

TRUST IN TOOLTIP

If you just looked at the character sheet, it would be easy to get confused about whether Incense XP buffs stack in Diablo 4. Checking the actual tooltip for each Incense, however, should clear things up.

In addition to indicating that only one of each type of Incense (Resistance, Defensive, & Core Stat) can be used at a time, each Incense tooltip also confirms that “Experience Bonus does not stack with other Incenses.”

There you have it. Whatever confusion might spew out of your character sheet, the incense tooltip doesn’t lie.

TEST FOR YOURSELF

It’s easy to confirm these results for yourself. Simply wait for all your active buffs to wear off, then add them again, one by one.

Start with your Elixir, and then add one Incense. Check your character sheet, then add another. Repeat. You’ll see that your Experience Bonus only goes up by 5% overall with the first incense you add. The others add their associated buffs, but no additional XP.