Clearing Pit Tier 100 changes the Infernal Horde compass drops in a way that can feel like a wall: you start seeing far more Blood-Soaked compasses, and those runs can be dramatically harder than the earlier Blood-Stained versions. The good news is you can keep running the easier variant while still cashing in on the massive experience from Butcher spawns.

This guide breaks down (1) the simplest method to prevent Blood-Soaked compasses from ever entering your loot loop, (2) reliable stack-conversion tricks when you already have Blood-Soaked piles, and (3) how to tune difficulty so you consistently kill four Butchers per round for the best XP.

Why Pit 100 Changes Your Infernal Horde Compass Drops

After you’ve pushed beyond Pit Tier 100, the game begins feeding you the tougher Infernal Horde compass tier more often. The intent is straightforward: stronger characters get access to stronger content with stronger rewards. The problem is that “strong enough to pass Pit 100” doesn’t always mean “strong enough to comfortably clear Blood-Soaked Infernal Horde encounters,” especially when Butchers appear repeatedly and hit extremely hard.

Recent tuning made some Blood-Soaked boss encounters more manageable (notably lower health compared to earlier versions), but the Blood-Soaked Infernal Horde compasses themselves can still feel overtuned for many builds. If your goal is efficient Paragon progress, consistency matters more than theoretical maximum difficulty.

The Real Goal: Four Butchers Per Round (Not the Highest Torment)

In this seasonal setup, the XP spike comes from repeatedly killing The Butcher inside Infernal Hordes. The practical target is to average four Butchers per round. If moving down a Torment tier lets you hit that number reliably, you’ll often gain more experience than struggling in a higher Torment where you only manage one or two kills.

• Consistency beats difficulty. Choose the Torment where you can kill quickly and safely.
• Survivability matters. Butchers still hit hard even when their health is manageable.
• Execution matters. Learn the fight patterns if you can’t simply burst them down.

Best Fix: Keep One Blood-Stained Compass in Your Inventory

The easiest solution is also the most important: keep a Blood-Stained Infernal Horde compass in your inventory at all times, and do not use that “anchor” compass. When you have a Blood-Stained compass sitting in your bags, newly acquired compasses will stack into it and retain the Blood-Stained status rather than flipping to Blood-Soaked.

How the inventory “anchor” works

• If a Blood-Stained compass is in your inventory, new compass pickups will stack and stay Blood-Stained.
• If you remove all Blood-Stained compasses from your inventory after clearing Pit 100, you’ll start picking up Blood-Soaked compasses instead.
• If you have not cleared Pit 100 yet, this issue typically won’t affect you in the same way.

This method avoids the biggest headache: manual conversion. If you’re planning to push Pit 100 soon, prepare ahead of time by saving a single Blood-Stained compass to act as your permanent stack target.

If you already have a pile of Blood-Soaked compasses, you can still convert them back to Blood-Stained by exploiting how stacks merge and inherit the destination stack’s state. The exact inputs depend on whether you’re using mouse/keyboard or controller, but the underlying rule is the same: the stack you drop onto determines what the combined stack becomes.

Mouse and keyboard conversion (fastest)

With two stacks—one Blood-Stained and one Blood-Soaked—you can convert by carefully choosing which stack you place on top of the other.

• Dropping Blood-Stained onto Blood-Soaked can result in a Blood-Soaked stack.
• Dropping Blood-Soaked onto Blood-Stained can result in a Blood-Stained stack.

Because it’s easy to misclick and accidentally “flip” the wrong direction, work slowly until you’re confident. If you have a spare mouse available, this is also the easiest approach for players who normally use controller.

Controller conversion via stash stacking (safer, but easy to mess up)

You can also do the conversion using stash interactions, but you must be deliberate. The core idea is to place items into the stash so they stack into the version you want, then split stacks as needed.

• Use an empty stash tab (or at least one that doesn’t contain the “wrong” compass type) to avoid accidental stacking.
• Deposit a Blood-Stained compass first, then deposit Blood-Soaked compasses so they stack into the Blood-Stained pile.
• When splitting stacks, double-check the resulting type before withdrawing.

Common mistake: withdrawing or stacking in the wrong order can flip your newly converted compasses back into Blood-Soaked. If you find this process frustrating, rely on the inventory anchor method going forward so you rarely need to convert at all.

Take a look at: a deeper breakdown of clearing Butchered modifiers quickly

How to Avoid Picking Up Blood-Soaked Compasses Again

Once you’ve stabilized your supply, the long-term solution is simple: never let your inventory run out of Blood-Stained compasses. Keep one permanently in your bags and treat it like a “do not spend” reserve.

• Run your consumable Blood-Stained compasses from your stash.
• Keep the anchor compass in inventory at all times.
• If you must reorganize inventory, confirm the anchor is still present before looting more keys.

Important Limitation: Boss Layer Keys Don’t Convert

Not everything follows stack rules. Boss keys that do not stack cannot be converted using the same method. If you’ve been hoping for a quick “flip” trick here, there isn’t one—these are effectively permanent once acquired in that form.

While boss keys themselves don’t convert, you can still generate Blood-Stained versions of certain seasonal key rewards by opening the relevant caches on a fresh character.

Step-by-step cache workaround

• Acquire the seasonal cache reward (for example, the higher-tier “bloodied” cache from the seasonal track).
• Put the cache into your stash.
• Create a new level 1 character.
• On the new character, pull the cache from stash and open it.
• The sigils/keys from that cache will generate as Blood-Stained on the new character.

This is not the most elegant solution, but it can save time if your main character’s post–Pit 100 drop behavior is flooding you with the harder variant.

Keeping the gear value when opening caches on an alt

If you also care about gear drops from these openings, match the alt’s class to your main character’s class when possible. That way, any valuable drops are more likely to be usable, and you can stash them for your main to equip later.

Difficulty Tuning: When to Drop to Torment 3

If your Blood-Soaked attempts are failing because Butchers are taking too long or one-shotting you, dropping to Torment 3 can be the correct optimization. The best XP comes from killing more Butchers more often, not from proving you can survive the highest setting.

• Go down a tier if you can’t consistently reach four Butcher kills per round.
• Stay higher only when your kill speed and survival remain stable.
• Track your results over several runs; one lucky round isn’t a benchmark.

Take a look at: our full leveling and Paragon farming route guide

Fight Practicalities: Why Blood-Soaked Still Feels So Dangerous

Even after health reductions in some Blood-Soaked boss content, the damage profile remains punishing. If you’re not deleting Butchers instantly, you need enough defense to survive mistakes while you learn the mechanics and spacing.

• Prioritize defensive layers that reduce sudden spikes.
• Respect animations and avoid greedy damage windows.
• Build around repeatability: the best run is the one you can do 20 times in a row.

In-game season countdowns and separate expansion launch dates don’t always line up cleanly. If you’re scheduling time to play around a major content drop, verify the official date rather than relying only on the remaining-days display in seasonal menus.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to clear Pit Tier 100 for this to matter?

This issue primarily shows up after Pit Tier 100, when your compass drops skew toward the tougher Blood-Soaked variant. Before that, you generally won’t notice the same behavior.

What’s the simplest way to avoid Blood-Soaked Infernal Horde compasses?

Keep one Blood-Stained compass in your inventory permanently. New pickups will stack into it and keep the Blood-Stained state.

Why does dropping to a lower Torment increase my XP?

If it lets you kill four Butchers per round instead of one or two, your total experience per hour rises. Kill count and speed matter more than difficulty.

No. Boss keys don’t stack, so you can’t use the stack-inheritance trick. The practical workaround is opening certain seasonal caches on a fresh character to generate Blood-Stained keys.

Is the Butcher XP interaction a glitch?

It’s widely treated as an intended reward loop for pushing higher tiers: stronger characters unlock harder content with bigger rewards. The friction comes from the difficulty jump in Blood-Soaked Infernal Hordes for some builds.