If you have been short on Forgotten Souls for weeks, you're not alone. A lot of players hit the same wall once they start pushing gear harder, and it gets annoying fast. I've been testing a different route lately, and it has made a bigger difference than I expected. While I was sorting through D4 items and tuning my stash, the real answer turned out to be a tighter Nightmare Dungeon loop, not more time in town.

The setup that actually matters

The key is to stop treating Nightmare Dungeons like a random clear and start building around the War Plan path in the Activities menu. The two nodes that stand out are Nemesis and Branching Pathways. Nemesis changes shrine moments in a way that feels a bit wild at first. You touch a shrine, and instead of a small buff, you can get jumped by a pack of Elites. That means more drops, more mats, and more chances for useful salvage. Branching Pathways is the other big one. Once you push into a Nightmare Escalation, it adds extra Horadric Portals, so you move into the better rooms quicker and spend less time in dead space.

Why the Escalation route feels better

The actual run is pretty simple. Craft Escalation Sigils at the Occultist, then chain high-tier dungeons without overthinking every side room. That's where the pace starts to pick up. You still run into the usual nonsense, like The Butcher showing up when you least want him to, or other nasty surprise bosses inside Strongrooms and Delves. But the reward spread is better than a plain dungeon sprint. A short run can still throw out a pile of souls, yet the longer Escalation version tends to feed you more Uniques and gives you a better shot at multiple boss drops in one go. It feels busier, sure, but busy is kind of the point here.

Keeping the mats flowing

What surprised me most was how quickly the rest of the materials stack up. Forgotten Souls are the headline, but they are not the only thing you end up farming. Rawhide, Iron Chunks, Veiled Crystals, Baleful Fragments, Obducite, Neathiron, and Sigil Powder all climb fast if you stay on the move and keep your clears clean. The trick is not to stand around sorting junk after every room. Pick a route, keep your eye on the drops, and get back into the next portal before the momentum dies. If you do that right, your inventory starts looking less like a problem and more like a supply line.

Don't slow yourself down in town

The last piece is discipline. If you want to keep that pace up, you need a simple loot filter and a clear rule for what stays and what goes. Hide the clutter. Highlight anything that can turn into a Codex upgrade or a real crafting win. That one habit saves more time than people think. It also means you can get in, clear fast, and get out without staring at your bags for five minutes. If you are trying to stay stocked for upgrades and farming cheap D4 items on the side, this kind of routine makes the whole grind feel a lot less painful.