Shrines (Diablo III)

Shrines are magical structures found scattered around Sanctuary in Diablo III, and each one is beneficial in some way. Before activating a shrine, the player can place their pointer over the shrine to see what type it is. Clicking on a shrine will activate it for the player and any allies within a certain distance of them. Shrines can only be activated once, and will go dim after activation to reflect this. Multiple shrine effects can be had at the same time, but the same shrine effect does not stack. Instead, if the player finds a shrine for an effect they already have activated, activating the second shrine will reset the timer for that effect. Equipping Nemesis Bracers will spawn a Champion Monster when the shrine is activated.

Shrines were created by the Horadrim.

Normal Shrines
All shrine effects normally last for two minutes, but equipping Gloves of Worship will make the effects last for 10 minutes instead. Shrine effects are lost upon death. The following shrines can be found:
 * Enlightened: You gain 25% increased experience from monster kills. This bonus is multiplicative with items giving a +% bonus to EXP
 * Frenzied: Your attack speed increases by 25%.
 * Blessed: You reduce all incoming damage by 25%.
 * Fortune: You gain 25% increased magic and gold find rate.
 * Empowered: You have 100% increased resource gain, and 50% reduced cooldown time.
 * Fleeting: You gain 25% increased movement speed and increase your pickup radius by 20 yards.
 * Bandit: Spawns 10-15 Treasure Goblins, one by one, in rapid succession (added in patch 2.3, very rare compared to other types). It is the only Shrine that has unique graphics (a miniature Goblin statue instead of crystal on top).

Cursed Shrines

 * Not to be confused with The Cursed Shrines 

A cursed shrine takes on the shape of a normal shrine, but has a red glimmer to it. Upon clicking it, an event will start.

This event will usually consist of 5 waves of monsters, growing in number and complexity as the hero(es) advance further without going over the time limit. Should all 5 waves be defeated all under the time limit, a Radiant Chest will accompany the newly cleansed shrine as a reward. Failure to do so will not cause the players to fail the event: they will just need to finish off the remaining monsters. Once the curse is lifted, the shrine becomes a normal one of a random type.

Alternatively, if the game is in Adventure Mode, the event may spawn a normal or Elite pack of zone-appropriate monsters, with a 30 seconds timer to defeat them. If not defeated on time, the monsters will not vanish (so the pack can be finished later for loot), but the event will be failed and the shrine will disappear.

On a very rare occasion, the event will summon a full-fledged Boss, except Act Bosses (known encounters are Rakanoth, Maghda, Ghom and others). They also need to be defeated in under 45 seconds, but will not call any assistant monsters they normally would. Again, failure to destroy the monster within the time given will cause the shrine to despawn, but the boss will remain, allowing players their chance for loot.

Pylons
In Nephalem Rifts and Greater Rifts, there exist more powerful effects from environmental objects known as Pylons. These effects are exclusive to the Nephalem Rifts, and usually last for only 30 seconds (Speed and Shielding last 60). The effects persist through death, but are inactive while dead. Gloves of Worship will not prolong the effect of Pylons (The Flavor of Time will do so instead), and Nemesis Bracers will summon Elites properly.

As of patch 2.4.2, each type has a unique map icon, so one can see in advance which type they are approaching to.

The following Pylons exist:
 * Conduit: You gain an aura of lightning that will make short work of anything nearby, be it an object or a monster. Each lightning bolt hits for roughly 4000% damage as Lightning, has access to the hero's full assortment of critical hit stats, but has a limit of how many targets it can strike at once, and only delivers one hit every 2 seconds to each. In Nephalem Rift or Greater Rift, it deals much less damage to Rift Guardians and bosses. In Greater Rifts, its damage scales with rift tier instead of regular 4000%.
 * Speed: Your attack speed is increased by 30% and movement speed is increased by 80%, ignoring the normal limits, for 60 seconds. While hastened, the character can move through enemies, damaging them and knocking them back, breaking any destructible objects in their path, and destroying Waller barriers.
 * Shielding: You gain a shield that makes you completely invulnerable to all forms of attacks, including control impairment effects, for 60 seconds.
 * Power: Your damage dealt is increased by 400%, multiplicative to other similar modifiers.
 * Channeling: All cooldowns in progress are immediately reset upon touching the shrine, and all cooldowns for skills activated while the shrine is in effect are reduced by 75%. In addition, the base resource cost (even Life, if any) of all skills is reduced to zero. Skills based on charges do not cost a charge while the shrine is in effect (for example, Sentry allows unlimited placement of sentries, subject to the normal limit, during the 30 seconds). However, skills that drain all remaining resources to increase damage (such as the Singularity Rune of the Necromancer's Skeletal Mage) will still do so; only the base cost of the skill itself will be nullified.