Usually, whether you judge by your own experience or read some Diablo 4 game guides in advance, you will know that it is better to complete some season-limited content first, because they are more fresh and may be more helpful for you to complete the season goals.

But it must be said that the fixed Diablo 4 mechanisms that have been retained since their appearance should not be ignored. Compared with seasonal content, both the challenge difficulty and the drop probability of the final Diablo 4 Gold reward will be more stable in the permanent mechanism, and your farming of different resources will be more guaranteed by them.

According to the content shown in the previous 2.2.0 PTR, it is expected that you will be able to earn gold or gear in Season 8 by equipping boss powers and exploring Apparition Incursions events, but at the same time, don’t forget to divide your energy to farm nightmare dungeons and The Pit of Artificers we are going to introduce to you this time.

What Is The Pit Of Artificers?

The Pit of Artificers, sometimes referred to as The Pit, debuted in Season 4 in April 2024 as an endgame dungeon. Unlike regular dungeons, The Pit has a lot of random changes inside it, resulting in different monsters and different dungeon layouts each time you run it.

The Pit has 150 unlockable levels, with higher levels offering more challenging and, of course, more rewarding levels. To complete a level, you must kill enough monsters and the level’s summoned boss before the 15-minute timer expires. If you’ve played Diablo 3 before, you will find The Pit works very similarly to Greater Rifts in Diablo 3.

After killing enough normal monsters to fill up the progress bar, a boss portal will spawn on you to summon the boss and start the final boss fight. It is worth noting that in addition to avoiding general attacks from bosses, you should also pay attention to attacks from minions that bosses may bring, as these attacks can sometimes be fatal.

How To Enter The Pit?

First of all, you can only unlock and enter The Pit by reaching level 60 as quickly as possible by earning enough XP in the early game. Once you meet this level requirement, go to Cerrigar in Scosglen and interact with the obelisk here, while consuming 3 Artificer’s Stones to start your first trip to The Pit - Artificer’s Stones are special items that can be obtained by completing any endgame event, such as Whispers, Helltide, or Nightmare dungeons.

It is worth noting that unlocked The Pit levels can even be shared between different characters as long as your Diablo 4 characters are in the same realm and game mode. As for how many levels you can unlock at one time, it depends on the remaining time at the end of the current level run:

• Completing the run with up to 4 minutes remaining time will unlock 1 level.
• Completing a run with 4-6 minutes remaining unlocks 2 levels.
• Completing a run with 6 minutes or more remaining unlocks 3 levels.

Possible Penalties And Rewards During The Pit Challenge

Sometimes you may be too confident in your character’s strength and challenge a level of The Pit that is beyond your ability, resulting in your character’s unfortunate death. If this really happens to you, the current timer will be increased by 30 seconds, and the second death will increase by 60 seconds. From the third time onwards, each death will increase by 90 seconds. If you enter The Pit as a group, this penalty will even affect the entire group, so please proceed with caution.

Of course, if you successfully complete the challenge, The Pit brings great rewards. In addition to the fixed gold, there may also be Legendaries, Uniques, Obols, and most importantly, Paragon glyphs. This item can be plugged into a special slot node on Paragon board to provide buffs to your Diablo 4 battles, and as long as you complete one tier of The Pit within the time limit, you will get 3 chances to upgrade Paragon glyph, and even a fourth upgrade opportunity if you can ensure that you can complete the run without dying.

The Pit In S8

Generally speaking, dungeons that are permanent in the game like The Pit will not receive any major changes due to the arrival of the new season, at least that’s what Season 8 looks like according to the PTR, so just grasp the information we provide for you to unlock and farm it smoothly. What really need to remind you is that the boss powers that will be available in Season 8 should be a great help in completing The Pit.

First, when you get the easier-to-obtain magic boss powers in the early stage, they should help you complete the low-level The Pit, and then when you get glyph upgrades through The Pit, you can further expand the role of the existing boss powers, to obtain rare or even legendary boss powers by defeating more difficult bosses!

In short, we provide you with this guide not only to help your D4S8 experience, but also to remind you not to just focus on playing seasonal content and ignore the permanent dungeons! Because old friends are always more trustworthy!

As early as the end of February this year, Diablo 4 began to reveal the news that Season 7 would be extended and Season 8 would be postponed. At that time, you might think that this was because Season 7 would bring more new events, or that Season 8 was particularly worth looking forward to, but when the time came to the beginning of April now, you will find that the reason seems to differ from what you think.

At present, it is basically certain that Season 8 will be launched on April 29, nearly half a month later than the original mid-April, and in the next less than a month, Season 7 should not release any new major events. Therefore, you will find that except for the previous March Of The Goblins, Season 7 does not provide any good gameplay outside of seasonal content.

Although according to the 2.2.0 PTR, the main seasonal mechanism of Season 8, Boss Power, performs well and is innovative in design, it does not seem so complicated that require more development time. And when you are waiting for Diablo 4 Season 8 to be released, you’ll find that some of Diablo 4’s competitors will be releasing various updates in the first half of April! Below, we will analyze the updates of these games and the performance of Diablo 4 Season 8 for you.

What Are The Highlights Of Diablo 4 Season 8?

When Season 7 was launched, the witchcraft power attracted a lot of attention - I have to say that although you may often complain about some problems of Diablo 4 with your friends, it always grabs your attention when a new season is released. Season 8 is no exception. The new boss power designed based on the villain is indeed very innovative and may even redefine the way you farm Diablo 4 Gold.

More importantly, Season 8 builds on the boss power and brings back Belial, who appeared in Diablo 3, as the ultimate boss of the season. It also adds seasonal events: Apparition Incursions and a new lair boss mechanism, as well as new unique items for different classes.

What Opponents Will Diablo 4 Face In April?

To be honest, there are only 12 months in a year, and most MMORPGs need to release several updates in these 12 months, so it is not surprising that they collide. The main opponents of Diablo 4 Season 8 are expected to be Path of Exile 2 and Last Epoch.

POE 2 Dawn Of The Hunt

Since its early access launch in December last year, the popularity of Path of Exile 2 has been rising, and the patch 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt, which will be launched on April 4, will bring many new content covering all aspects of the game, such as new classes, endgame content, and new items.

It can be predicted that if Dawn of the Hunt receives good feedback, Path of Exile 2 is likely to launch a formal version in a few months. As one of the old rivals of POE series, Diablo 4 is often compared with it, so it is normal to want to avoid its edge.

Last Epoch Season 2

Last Epoch is another popular MMORPG with a time travel theme and loot-based combat. Although it was only released last February and is not as mature as POE 2 or Diablo 4, it still has a unique charm and a group of loyal fans.

Last Epoch originally planned to release Season 2 on April 2, but in the end it also took into account the impact of POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt, so the release date was finally postponed to April 17. The season is called Tombs of the Erased and will not only introduce the new faction Woven and some new endgame content, but also a comprehensive overhaul of Sentinel class.

The “Crowded” April

Although it is common for updates from different games to “collide”, it is still surprising that three major ARPGs will release major updates within a few weeks. For you as a player, this is actually quite good, so your April will be full of freshness, with almost endless new content to play; but from the developer’s point of view, it is not necessarily a good thing, because this will undoubtedly divert the player’s group. After all, your energy is limited, and it is impossible to always play three ARPGs at the same time.

Faced with this situation, Diablo 4 Season 8 wants to stand out and avoid player loss as much as possible, and the pressure on it will be greater. At least according to various performances, the new content of POE 2 and Last Epoch is very attractive. If Diablo 4 Season 8 is launched as scheduled, this competition will become more intense because the time is further shortened.

Will This Competition Affect Diablo 4 Season 8?

It is definitely affected, but you must admit that Diablo 4 development team’s practice of delaying the launch of Season 8 can indeed minimize the negative effects caused by this influence. When Diablo 4 Season 8 is launched on April 29, the enthusiasm brought by both POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt and Last Epoch Season 2 should have subsided.

However, it must be said that the delay is just a delaying tactic. Diablo 4 can’t do this every time it encounters a similar situation, right? Therefore, seriously developing a new season and improving its own playability is the best solution to face this kind of competition.

Although Diablo 4 Season 8 has not been officially launched, you must be eagerly looking forward to its arrival through the 2.2.0 PTR and other related information! Fortunately, you are getting closer and closer to the release date of the season on April 29.

However, in order to gain an advantage in a short period quickly after the release of Season 8 and enable your new season character to obtain basic boss power as soon as possible, in addition to completing Season 7 battle pass or seasonal journey to obtain all Diablo 4 Gold or other rewards, you also need to understand some gameplay and strategies of Season 8 events in advance. Based on this, we will bring you an introduction to the core season event Apparition Incursions.

What Is Apparition Incursions Event?

Almost every Diablo 4 season has its own season theme, and in order to fully display this theme, sometimes related season powers and events are launched. For the eighth season, it is the boss power and Apparition Incursions event.

Among them, the boss power allows you to obtain their skills by killing 24 bosses of different levels and types provided by Season 8. Each boss can provide 1 main power and 1 modifier power, but you finally choose only one main power and three modifier powers to equip.

But it is worth noting that when you just enter a new season, your character will definitely not be strong enough to challenge those dangerous lair bosses directly. At this time, the 10 Apparition bosses from Apparition Incursions become your best choice to obtain the power of the first wave of bosses. They are:

• Allek’s Talons
• Beastmaster’s Training
• Blackmailer’s Sabotage
• Flesh Reaper’s Disruption
• Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste
• Kirma’s Sparks
• Outlaw Sharpshooter’s Eye
• Sinerat’s Flames
• Skerg’s Toxins
• Torusk’s Rage

These Apparition bosses are actually the minions of Belial, the ultimate boss of Season 8, who brought these dangerous followers into Sanctuary and started to create chaos. What you have to do is to drive them out and take away the power they provide.

How Does This Event Work?

Apparition Incursions will periodically spawn in the open world of Sanctuary. Once the event starts, large groups of enemies will appear around the area, and an event status bar with a timer will appear below the minimap. Killing these enemies will fill up the status bar, eventually prompting Apparition bosses to spawn at the designated Apparition Incursions icon location.

After you encounter the first Apparition boss and kill it, the event’s invasion icon will move to another location in the area, and a new timer status bar will appear - until you fill it up again by killing enough enemies, and the second Apparition boss will spawn. Killing the second Apparition boss will start a countdown until Belial’s secondary form is summoned. If you can kill Belial, the event will spawn a reward chest for you, which means you have completed an Apparition Incursion.

Best Battle Strategy

Since the timer is long enough and the difficulty of enemies other than the boss is low, you can easily fill up the status bar without a group, but just in case, you’ll want to equip some good Diablo 4 items before entering the event. You’ll also need to interact with Betraying Eye as part of the event, but they’re not hard to find.

The final boss of the event, Belial’s secondary form, is more difficult to defeat, but as long as you have good gear and pay attention to avoiding the obvious red void areas that appear on the ground, the V-shaped lines extending from Belial, and any poisonous ground effects during the battle, your chances of survival will be greatly improved.

Apparition Incursions Event Rewards

This should be the part you care about most! In addition to the various Apparition boss powers, you are expected to receive gold, and gear of varying rarities after completing the event. In addition, the reward chest obtained after killing Belial’s secondary form is expected to contain Obols that can be used to upgrade gear.

What Is Spectral Ash?

Obviously, one of the main purposes of participating in and completing Apparition Incursions event is to obtain the powers provided by the bosses in it, so how can you enhance them through upgrades after obtaining these powers? According to the content shown in the 2.2.0 PTR, you can upgrade the boss powers of your equipment with Spectral Ash, a special seasonal currency. And Spectral Ash can upgrade boss power from level 1 to level 20, but the amount consumed is also relatively large. For example, upgrading the power of an Apparition boss requires about 3225 Spectral Ash.

How To Get Spectral Ash?

It is expected that this special currency can only be obtained through Apparition Incursions event, and it may be concentrated through the final Belial battle. Although the first two Apparition bosses can provide boss powers for you, no matter what difficulty you kill them, Spectral Ash dropped is only a negligible 1-2.

Other ways to obtain Spectral Ash should also include killing wandering Apparitions (they appear as red skulls on the mini-map), as well as regular Diablo 4 welfare mechanisms, such as season blessings and seasonal journeys. Or completing seasonal quest lines may also reward you with some Spectral Ash. Although the PTR has not announced or explained this, it is indeed the case based on the performance of previous seasons.

The above is the information and help we can provide you with for playing Apparition Incursions event. I wish you outstanding performance in Diablo 4 Season 8!

It has to be said that as a new class that debuted in the first Diablo 4 DLC Vessel of Hatred last year, Spiritborn attracted the attention of most Diablo 4 players at that time, and also made them devote a long time to developing Spiritborn builds in DLC and Season 6.

Later, with the launch of Season 7, as the power of witchcraft became the core of the season, Spiritborn was also properly weakened because it was too powerful before (although this is normal), and the popularity of this class gradually declined. However, this does not mean that Spiritborn is not worth using. In fact, it and some related builds still have excellent performance even in the more difficult endgame stage.

Season 8 is expected to be released on April 29th. In order to ensure that you can get a wonderful experience by playing Spiritborn at that time, we will bring you an introduction to the idea of ​​using Rake Spiritborn Build in the endgame based on the actual test in the 2.2.0 PTR that ended not long ago.

Why Should You Try This Build?

As the name suggests, the main reason this build is effective and powerful is because of the core skill Rake. The strong damage value of this skill and Vigor consumed by each stack of Ferocity allow you to cast Rake freely through careful gear matching and using Duelist’s Aspect to form a powerful AOE effect in combat - this will be perfect for clearing out groups of enemies in Infernal Hordes or Pit and satisfying your need to get a lot of Diablo 4 Gold at one time, not to mention other more precious loot.

Of course, no build is truly perfect, and Rake Spiritborn Build has some shortcomings in terms of survivability. Fortunately, this can be solved by adjusting it according to the needs of specific Diablo 4 events, such as equipping legendary aspects and potions with better defense.

How To Allocate Skills?

Generally speaking, the ability point allocation of this skill just needs to follow the idea of ​​relying on Jaguar skills and passive skills, as follows:

Basic Node

Thrash is the basic ability in this build, but the appearance of Vigor generation will reduce its usage rate. Therefore, it is recommended that you put a point into the ability and then enhance Thrash to unlock the next skill node.

• Thash 1/5-Enhanced Thrash

Core Node

Rake is undoubtedly the real core.

• Rake 5/5-Enhanced Rake, Rampant Rake
• Vigorous 3/3
• Balanced Exertion 3/3
• Velocity 3/3

Focus Node

As the main skill of this part, Vortex will gather enemies, making them more vulnerable to Rake skills, and Ravager will further enhance Rake.

• Vortex 1/5-Enhanced Vortex, Replenishing Vortex
• Ravage 5/5-Enhanced Ravager, Replenishing Ravager
• Focal Point 1/3

Defensive Node

As the only defensive skill of Rake Spiritborn Build, Counter Attack can gain a stronger passive effect by stacking dodge chance.

• Counter Attack 5/5-Enhanced Counter Attack, Reinforced Counter Attack
• Endurance 3/3
• Perserverence 3/3
• Fueled 3/3

Potency Node

This build has no skills that apply to the potency node, but several passive skills in the cluster can increase the damage output of the build.

• Brilliance 3/3
• Acceleration 3/3
• Potent 3/3
• Furnace 3/3

Ultimate Node

• Hunter 5/5-Harmonious Hunter, Exhalted Hunter
• Resolution 1/3
• Spiritual Attunement 2/3
• Supremacy 3/3

Key Passive Node

For this build, the key passive choice depends on the mercenary you use. If using Aldkin, Vital Strikes would be a better choice, but if using Subo, Prodigy’s Tempo is the best choice.

Best Spirit Hall

Rake Spiritborn Builds are better with Eagle as the first Spirit Hall, as it increases your clearing speed with movement buffs, while allowing Jaguar skill to make all skills Eagle skills while benefiting from acceleration and brilliance passives. In fact, many Spiritborn builds are worth doing this.

As for the second slot, it is recommended that you choose Jaguar Spirit, so that you can not only stack Ferocity on kills but also increase the maximum stack Ferocity by 1, further improving the lethality of this build.

How To Choose Legendary Aspects & Unique Items?

If you want to make this build more indestructible, you must get as much suitable legendary aspects and unique items for it as possible.

Best Legendary Aspects

According to the way Rake Spiritborn Build works, in addition to the indispensable Duelist’s Aspect, you can further obtain and equip Aspect of the Crowded Sage and Aspect of Assimilation. These two aspects can make the build more tanky and provide benefits such as strengthening and healing while increasing the chance of dodge. If you want to further improve this build, the following aspects are also good:

• Wind Striker’s Aspect
• Aspect of Wild Claws
• Blood Boiling Aspect
• Aspect of Potent Exchange

Best Unique Items

The three recommended for general unique items are:

• Banished Lord’s Talisman: Grants levels to all core skills in the build and increases the damage of critical strike casts.
• Mother’s Embrace: Infinitely extends the uptime of Rake through resource return and grants it important stats, such as attack speed and critical strike chance.
• Peacemonger’s Signet: Causes you to gain Resolve every time you gain Ferocity (the only way to gain Resolve for this build) and makes it easier to survive in combat.

Also, while this build does not require Mythic Uniques to work, Nesekem the Herald, which can stack suppression and critical strike damage and provide movement speed bonus, is worth having.

Season 8 will add boss powers as new seasonal powers, and if you can combine them with Rake Spiritborn Build, I believe you will have the opportunity to get a better combat experience as a Spiritborn in the Season 8 endgame!