The next DLC for Diablo 4, Lord of Hatred, will bring numerous changes, including new classes and a reworked skill system.

Among these, Talismans system is particularly mysterious. While the trailer showcased some gameplay, the official information is limited, yet it could potentially revolutionize gameplay. Let's analyze the available information to speculate on its specific mechanics and uses.

Talismans in Other Games

Before discussing Diablo 4's Talismans system, similar systems in other ARPGs, as these systems may serve as design references for Talismans system.

The concept of a charm system has early roots in Diablo series. In Diablo II, charms provided attribute bonuses but occupied inventory space—a classic but somewhat outdated design.

In the early stages of Diablo III's development, a separate amulet interface was planned to embed Talismans, which provided effects. Its initial design leaned towards providing players with attribute bonuses, but it was ultimately abandoned in pursuit of system simplification.

Perhaps most similar to Diablo 4's Talismans is Last Epoch's Idol system, which features a separate UI and slots of varying shapes and sizes where players can insert Idols to gain additional affix bonuses.

Diablo 4's Talismans system took a completely different path, focusing on activating set bonuses and emphasizing gameplay changes. This was likely a decision made by the development team to avoid excessive numerical inflation while enriching gameplay.

Talismans System Interface

Talismans system will be the primary vehicle for introducing Set Bonuses in Diablo IV, but its design philosophy differs significantly from the traditional method of directly equipping sets. Based on the official game trailers, we can observe Talismans system's user interface design.

Talismans interface, likely located in the character menu or equipment bar, features a central circular area surrounded by 6 external slots. Players appear to need to collect a new type of item (perhaps called Talismans or Talismans Shards) and embed it into these slots.

Embedded external items infuse their power into the central area, which then activates set bonuses or special effects based on the combination of embedded items.

In the trailer, the central area is already functioning even with only five slots filled, suggesting that the effects may gradually unlock or strengthen with the number of embedded items. However, the exact number of embedded items required and whether specific combinations are necessary are unclear.

Class Related

Additionally, in the official trailer, you'll find Druid's class icon imprinted on the surface of these embedded items (on either side of the runes). This may indicate the existence of Talismans Shards designed for specific classes, used to activate set effects highly relevant to that class's skills or build.

Furthermore, considering that Diablo IV's loot system typically doesn't only drop Diablo 4 items specific to a particular class, the specific class icon likely indicates the existence of universal Talisman shards usable across all classes. These universal Talisman shards might offer more attribute-oriented bonuses or non-class-specific gameplay changes.

Talisman System Combinations

Additionally, the central symbol is noteworthy after activating these symbols. It appears to be a fusion of elements from all the surrounding Talisman shard symbols. This might suggest that Talisman system isn't simply about collecting a certain number of shards to activate fixed effects, but rather allows for more freedom in mixing and matching different shards to create diverse combo effects, perhaps similar to the Runeword system.

This would make the system more flexible, and different combinations of Talisman shards might produce different effects, and shards from the same set might provide different bonuses depending on how many of them are equipped. In other words, you could activate both 2-piece and 3-piece set effects simultaneously.

Talisman System Effects

After showcasing the charm interface, the trailer followed with a Druid gameplay clip, demonstrating skill combinations and effects not currently available or implemented in the game.

When Druid transforms into Dire Werebear using Grizzly Rage, he used the basic skill Storm Strike. In Season 11, Druids typically cannot use Storm Strike in this form. This likely demonstrates how charm set bonuses break skill form limitations and allow for entirely new builds.

Another skill worth noting is Druid's use of Trample, which produces a new rock animation different from the existing Landslide effects, ending with a circular ground explosion that knocks back enemies. This is clearly a new ability not currently available in the game, likely directly derived from charm set effects.

These demonstrations suggest that the core focus of the charm system is not simply providing numerical attribute bonuses, and its primary purpose is to introduce new effects and skill synergies that alter the core gameplay loop, thereby providing more build possibilities.

Talismans System in Endgame

Talismans are likely to become crucial endgame items in the game, requiring players to invest time in farming. Unlike Glyphs currently available on Paragon Board, which are almost all easily obtainable, Talismans may have rarities ranging from Rare to Legendary, and even Unique or higher.

Furthermore, activating higher-rarity shards will unlock more powerful set bonuses, making them highly attractive core objectives in endgame. If they can also be traded, the game's economy will be significantly impacted.

Talismans system may become a core source of power for some new builds, similar to Runeword system, and will undoubtedly further enhance player build strength. Players without DLC 2 will lag behind those with well-balanced Talismans builds in terms of damage output.

With Paladin's debut as a new class in Diablo 4, its most popular and widely used skill is Arbiter of Justice. This skill not only boasts powerful combat capabilities but also fully embodies Paladin class characteristics.

More specifically, Arbiter of Justice allows you to transform into Arbiter form, using wings and a spear to deal damage to enemies while moving. Its basic effect allows you to maintain this form for 20 seconds, dealing 600% damage upon landing on the battlefield.

More importantly, this skill can be upgraded with additional modifiers, triggering new automatic damage mechanisms, such as Wing Strikes.

This guide will detail how to craft a reliable Paladin build using Wing Strikes and the basic Arbiter of Justice effect.

How to unlock Wing Strikes?

Wing Strikes is essentially a powerful automatic attack skill triggered after using Arbiter of Justice to enter Arbiter form, allowing you to unleash energy in a radius, dealing damage to surrounding enemies.

Alternatively, you can unlock Arbiter form and Wing Strikes by using a Disciple skill with a cooldown, but only after reaching level 15 and unlocking Disciple Oath, one of Paladin's exclusive mechanics.

Once in Arbiter form, you will see a small blue orb below your resource bar, indicating the duration of Arbiter form. However, it's important to note that the duration does not stack.

This means that even if you cast multiple Disciple skills with cooldowns, the total duration of Arbiter form will not increase; you must wait for the current skill effect to end before casting a new one to extend the duration.

However, if you obtain Arbiter form through Arbiter of Justice, you can extend the duration by modifying the skill effect itself, such as equipping gear with excellent critical hit attributes.

The importance of maintaining Arbiter form is emphasized because the entire Wing Strikes mechanic and related builds are based on it; otherwise, you will be unable to deal effective damage.

What kind of damage does it deal?

Wing Strikes only deals Holy damage, so related builds focus on this damage type. By default, Wing Strikes is triggered approximately every two seconds in a three-hit combo.

On this foundation, you should invest in Enhanced Arbiter of Justice to reduce the cooldown of Wing Strikes to 0.5 seconds, allowing you to trigger this auto-attack more frequently.

Additionally, the key passive skill Exaltation directly increases your damage in Arbiter form and provides you with an extra Wing Strikes, and combined with Falling Star skill, each of your attacks will hit four times.

Falling Star is one of Disciple skills and also the main movement skill in this build. It resets quickly upon killing enemies, allowing you to continuously and efficiently traverse the battlefield.

This chain reaction is effective in many Paladin builds. For example, it can trigger additional Judgment effects for Judgment builds, resulting in higher damage.

It's worth noting that Wing Strikes doesn't benefit from attack speed bonuses, but this doesn't significantly impact its effectiveness, as it allows for faster casting of skills like Falling Star, making it easier to move around the map and maintain buffs.

Based on the above, if you want to further increase the damage and other attributes (such as resistance or health) of your Wing Strikes build, you can add the following skills:

• Fanaticism Aura
• Defiance Aura
• Consecration

Gear selection

If you can obtain enough Mythics, it is recommended that you prioritize adding Heir of Perdition to your Wing Strikes build, as it provides more damage and critical strike chance bonuses.

Shroud of False Death provides more Strength, which increases your skill damage and armor, and combined with other Paladin passive skills, provides further damage increases.

For other lower rarity gear options, you should focus on finding items with attack speed, critical strike chance, block chance, and stats that increase in Arbiter form, such as:

• Helm: Angelic Masterwork
• Chest Armor: Hale's Salve
• Gloves: Virtuous
• Pants: Indomitable
• Boots: Arbiter's Zephyr
• Amulet: Tyrael's Jurisdiction
• Ring: Celestial Strife

Of course, simply equipping gear is not enough; you also need to consume Diablo 4 gold and other necessary materials to Temper, Masterwork, and Sanctify your gear according to its rarity level.

However, considering the irreversible and random nature of Sanctification results, we recommend that you perform Sanctification on gear of higher rarity. This way, even if the results are not entirely satisfactory, it won't significantly impact your final build.

Which Legendary Aspects are better?

If you have enough gold and game time, we recommend imprinting Legendary Aspects onto your gear to enhance its affixes.

For the Wing Strikes build, the first recommended aspect is Aspect of Tyrael's Jurisdiction. It allows your wing strikes to track and attack nearby enemies, enabling you to continuously deal damage while moving around.

The second aspect worth imprinting is Aspect of Celestial Strife. It grants you a stacking vulnerability damage buff. As long as you kill many enemies while maintaining Arbiter form, these buffs will not reset.

Choosing Divine Gifts

As a seasonal power in Season 11, Divine Gifts, while not as popular as Sanctification, are still worth adding to most builds.

The main purpose of these gifts is to help you obtain more loot, so there are generally no specific options depending on the build. You can decide which ones to equip based on your personal needs.

Of course, if the corrupted state corresponding to certain gifts provides buffs to enemies that make the game too difficult for your character, you can also choose not to equip them. This will not affect the overall effectiveness of Wing Strikes build.

It must be said that thanks to its rich class-specific mechanics, Paladin's build possibilities are incredibly diverse, so much so that it may continue to be popular even after the second expansion introduces a new class.

That's all for this guide. If obtaining the recommended gear and Legendary Aspects isn't too difficult for you, try this build with your Paladin character!

Death Trap was the ultimate choice for Rogue players in the seasons preceding Diablo 4, and in Season 11, it remains at the top thanks to its high damage output, amazing mobility, and strong survivability.

So let's take a look at what gear and skills you need to make your build easily sweep through Helltides, Infernal Hordes, and bosses.

Pros And Cons

Death Trap pulls enemies together and deals massive damage. It's powerful and versatile, and its extremely high DPS allows you to instantly clear large groups of monsters and quickly melt bosses.

You can use Dash to quickly traverse the map and eliminate monsters with continuous Dash, making its leveling speed among the fastest of all builds.

At the same time, if your gear and stats are right, this build also boasts excellent survivability and resilience.

Of course, Rogues can't be as perfect as Paladins, and this powerful build comes with some drawbacks.

It has relatively high gear requirements, although these are lower than in previous seasons, but still require specific unique items, affixes, masterworks, and temperers.

Furthermore, it needs to meet several thresholds for energy, cooldown reduction, and attack speed. If these requirements aren't met, the gameplay won't be very smooth. In short, the more materials and Diablo 4 gold you invest, the better it will perform.

Death Trap Gear

• Helm: Harlequin Crest
• Chest armor: Scoundrel's Leathers
• Gloves: Vehement Brawler's Aspect
• Pants: Eyes in the Dark
• Boots: Beastfall Boots
• Amulet: Trickster's Aspect
• Ring 1: Opportunist's Aspect
• Ring 2: Aspect of Artful Initiative
• Dual wield weapon 1: Frostbitten Aspect
• Dual wield weapon 2: Aspect of Surprise
• Ranged weapon: Aspect of Apogeic Furor

The helmet is a replaceable piece. Until you obtain Mythic items, you can use Umbrous Aspect as a substitute. Harlequin Crest is not the only option, and if you want to increase your damage, you can replace it with Heir of Perdition.

Regarding unique items, you need certain unique items to grant Death Trap various bonuses.

• Scoundrel's Leathers: Allows Death Trap to be considered a core ability.
• Eyes in the Dark: Reduces trap deployment time, making Death Trap effective immediately.
• Beastfall Boots: Reduces the cooldown of Death Trap.

The core damage boost of this build comes from Trickster's Aspect, allowing Death Trap to benefit from other independent damage bonuses from Stun Grenades. These bonuses come from Aspect of Surprise, Aspect of Artful Initiative, and Opportunist's Aspect. The remaining Legendary Aspects primarily increase the damage of Death Trap.

Death Trap Rogue Skills

Active Skills

• Death Trap (Rank 5): Prime Death Trap And Supreme Death Trap
• Dark Shroud (Rank 5): Enhanced Dark Shroud
• Shadow Imbuement (Rank 1): Enhanced Shadow Imbuement
• Dash (Rank 1): No Enhanced
• Poison Trap (Rank 1): Enhanced Poison Trap and Subverting Poison Trap.
• Concealment (Rank 1):Enhanced Concealment And Subverting Concealment

Passive Skills

• Agile
• Alchemical Advantage
• Aftermath
• Balestra
• Concealment
• Consuming Shadows
• Deadeye
• Deadly Venom
• Exploit
• Exposure
• Frigid Finesse
• Haste
• Impetus
• Innervation
• Malice
• Mending Obscurity
• Mixed Shadow Imbuement
• Rugged
• Second Wind
• Shadow Imbuement Siphoning Strikes
• Sturdy
• Trick Attacks
• Unstable Elixirs
• Unto Dawn

In most cases, you'll handle monsters, bosses, and dungeons by holding down Dash and Death Trap. If you bind Dash to Shift key and hold down Shift and your Death Trap key, you'll automatically alternate between these two skills, creating a very smooth combo loop.

Your other skills are primarily used to provide various support or defensive buffs and can be used freely without interrupting the loop. However, Poison Trap will interrupt the loop and should only be used in boss fights.

In more difficult sections, such as The Pit, you can add Caltrops and Smoke Grenade for increased damage and replace Dash and Shadow Imbuement.

Death Trap Rogue Requirements

To achieve the full potential of this build, you must precisely meet the following thresholds:

Cooldown Reduction

Your goal is to reduce the cooldown of Death Trap to below 10 seconds, so you'll need Heir of Perdition or similar gear, plus the Great Affixes and tempering bonuses for Death Trap cooldown reduction.

Additionally, you'll need a total of 3 regular cooldown reduction affixes on your gloves and rings, and you'll also need to acquire Death Trap cooldown reduction from the skill tree and Paragon levels.

Death Trap Skill Levels

You'll need a total of 12 levels of Death Trap. The skill tree provides 5 levels, Vehement Brawler's Aspect provides 2 levels, and your helmet provides 4 levels. The remaining 1 level can be obtained from core skill level affixes on your gloves or Masterworking.

Attack Speed

To reach the dagger frame attack speed threshold, you need to reach 130% attack speed.

Paragon Board nodes provide 22.5% attack speed, and your rings and gloves also need attack speed affixes. Elixir of Advantage provides an additional 15% attack speed. You can gain the remaining attack speed passively after combat.

Energy Restoration

Choosing Preparation specialization reduces Death Trap's cooldown by 5 seconds for every 75 energy consumed. You need at least 150 maximum energy to keep Death Trap's cooldown below 10 seconds.

Your energy regeneration primarily comes from Beastfall Boots, Aftermath, and the ultimate ability's energy regeneration affix obtained through tempering.

This value is amplified by your Resource Generation attribute, eventually reaching approximately 150. Once you reach this threshold, you can run your skill rotation smoothly.

If you're willing to invest time collecting gear and power, then Death Trap Rogue offers unparalleled speed and strength. If you're still in the early stages of the game or playing casually, then this build might not be for you, as it's not easy to get started with.

Today, we want to share a powerful Druid class build that boasts immense damage potential, excellent crowd control, and high survivability, allowing you to easily become a mobile bulldozer, perfect for quickly clearing maps or tackling high-difficulty endgame content like The Pits. This is Boulder Druid build, and it's definitely one of the best setups that can rank among the top three builds during Diablo 4 Season 11! If you're interested, let's take a look!

Equipment

First, let's look at the unique equipment required for this build.

Dolmen Stone

The first item to mention is, of course, the core item that keeps the Boulder Druid running - Dolmen Stone Unique Amulet. It releases Boulders during Hurricane activation, causing them to rotate around you. For each Boulder rotating around you, damage is increased by up to 50%, stacking up to 10 Boulders.

So, the basic gameplay of this build is: cast Hurricane, and try to maintain Hurricane's duration at 100%, then frantically stack Boulders, constantly dealing damage to everything around you while they rotate.

It's worth noting that you can cast Boulder while moving, which makes this build very fun, as you can essentially become a bulldozer surrounded by Boulders.

Vasily's Prayer

Next is a unique helmet exclusive to Druid class: Vasily's Prayer. While wearing this helmet, your Earth skills also count as Werebear skills and provide you with Fortify based on a percentage of your maximum health. This not only significantly increases your survivability but also synergizes with other passive skills based on Fortify effects, greatly reducing damage, which is why it's a core piece of equipment for Boulder build.

Tibault's Will

Tibault's Will is also a good option; your damage is increased while in Unstoppable state and for 5 seconds afterward. More importantly, the all-attribute bonus of this item allows you to gain the secondary bonuses of all rare nodes in Paragon Board.

Ring of Starless Skies

The last unique item is Ring of Starless Skies. It significantly increases resource generation speed and damage output. This ring reduces skill cost and increases damage by 10% for every primary resource consumed, stacking up to 50%. In addition, it also provides excellent attribute bonuses such as Attack Speed, Critical Strike Chance, and Lucky Hit Chance, making it a highly sought-after piece of top-tier equipment.

Skill Tree

Next, let's look at the skill tree setup for Boulder Druid build. Here is our skill point distribution:

Core Skills

• Claw: 1
• Bulwark: 1
• Cyclone Armor: 1
• Hurricane: 1
• Boulder: 5
• Petrify: 1

Passive Skills

• Heart of the Wild: 1
• Wild Impulses: 3
• Backlash: 3
• Ancestral Fortitude: 3
• Vigilance: 3
• Feral Aptitude: 3
• Mending: 3
• Crushing Earth: 3
• Stone Guard: 3
• Safeguard: 1 (if you don't have Shroud of False Death)
• Defiance: 3
• Natural Disaster: 3
• Resonance: 3
• Catastrophe: 3
• Quickshift: 3
• Heightened Senses: 3
• Ursine Strength: 3
• Neurotoxin: 1
• Toxic Claws: 3
• Envenom: 3

These are some of the necessary skill point investments; you can choose the rest based on your play style.

Paragon Board

Now it's time to look at our Paragon Board.

Starting Board

On the starting board, we have Earth and Sky glyph, which provides bonuses to Magic nodes within its range. The secondary effect is Nature skills, dealing more damage to enemies under CC or Vulnerable status.

Survival Instincts Board

The second board is Survival Instincts, which allows you to deal more damage in bear form, and even more damage at full health. The glyph is Keeper/Abundance, which affects rare nodes within its range. The secondary skill is Companion, which deals higher non-physical damage. Almost all of our damage is converted to poison damage.

Earthen Devastation Board

The third board is Earthen Devastation, designed to make Earth skills deal higher critical strike damage. Its glyph is Dominate, used to increase overpower damage. Then there's the secondary skill: when you overpower enemies, they take more damage.

Heightened Malice Board

The fourth board is Heightened Malice. The more poisoned enemies near you, the higher the damage you deal, and this effect stacks. The illuminated glyph here is Spirit, which increases critical strike damage. The secondary skill is that when you critically strike an enemy, they take more damage from you, and this effect also stacks.

Constricting Tendrils Board

The last board is Constricting Tendricting Tendrils. The glyph we chose is Fang and Claw, which provides a bonus to all magic nodes in the area, dealing higher damage to close-range enemies.

Spirit Boons

Next are our Spirit Boons, powerful passive buffs belonging to Druid class.

• Deer (Utility/Defense): Wariness. Reduces damage taken from elite monsters.
• Eagle (Offense): Iron Feather & Avian Wrath. Increases maximum health and critical strike damage dealt.
• Wolf (Offense/Utility): Energize. Allows you to restore Spirit through damage taken, but you may not actually need this.
• Snake (Offense/Defense): Obsidian Slam. Every six attacks cause your next Earth Skill to trigger Overpower. So, you can easily clear maps by simply continuously casting Boulder.

Mercenaries

As for our mercenaries, here we chose Subo, mainly for his The Seeker skill. The skill selection for mercenaries actually depends on your needs. For example, since our equipment doesn't yet provide the highest movement speed, we chose Ready At Hand talent, which increases movement speed after dealing direct damage to elite enemies; we also activated Opening Fire, which allows you to deal higher critical strike damage to enemies affected by Cover Fire.

The final reinforcement is Varyana with Bloodthirst skill. When she casts this skill, we also gain increased attack speed, so use it on Boulder or any other skill you want.

Divine Gifts

Finally, let's look at Divine Gifts, which, as seasonal powers in D4S11, can often provide you with nice extra bonuses in the late game. Here's what we placed in each slot:

• Top: Essence of Lies, strengthens once per second.
• Right: Essence of Screams, increases resistance.
• Bottom: Essence of Sin, increases armor.
• Left: Essence of Pain, gain maximum barrier when you take damage, 20-second cooldown.

That's everything for this Boulder Druid build. This build is incredibly fun to play because you can constantly throw boulders around while zipping between enemies. Although the number of stackable boulders is limited each time, simply continuously casting Hurricane will trigger a series of other effects. Then you can petrify enemies to your heart's content!