Although some people always complain that Diablo 4’s seasonal content lacks creativity, for loyal players, it is also fun to repeatedly explore Sanctuary with the help of different seasonal powers.

In Season 9, you can get Diablo 4 gold and seasonal power Horadric Spells by working hard to clear new dungeons, and use them to strengthen yourself to deal with more difficult content. But this also requires you to invest a lot of time and experience.

In order to allow you to get more items through other easy ways while doing this more difficult Season 9 resource farming, Diablo 4 recently launched a new event Gift of the Tree based on Tree of Whispers.

So what benefits can this event bring, and how to participate? We will introduce it to you.

Basic Information About The Event

Gift of the Tree officially started around July 16 (the exact time varies depending on your time zone) and will last until 1pm on the 22nd, which is not a long time. So if you want to make full use of it, you must hurry up.

As a buff event, Gift of the Tree mainly allows you to get an extra Chaos Cache when you complete Tree of Whispers bounty task and hand in a group of ten Grim Favors to exchange for random cache rewards, so as to get more loot.

This buff effect not only looks sacred in appearance - a white tree, but also makes you feel “blessed by God” in practice, because Chaos Cache can open any type of item, whether it is ordinary gold or rare Ancestral items.

It is worth noting that there is a player achievement in Diablo 4 that can be completed, which is Chaotic Whispers achievement that can be unlocked by obtaining 10 Chaos Caches. If you haven’t got it yet, Gift of the Tree period is definitely the best time.

How To Participate In Gift Of The Tree?

In fact, the completion of this event is completely based on Tree of Whispers event, so your main task is to complete the bounty tasks issued by Tree of Whispers step by step, or Whispers.

When you complete the main campaign and interacting with Tree in Hawezar, you can unlock one of the endgame mechanisms, Tree of Whispers. After that, it will release a series of scattered Whispers through the map. The specific task types include:

• Participate in world events
• Clear the playable dungeons in the season
• Kill bosses
• Other specific quests

Generally speaking, the difficulty of these quests is not too high. You will get Grim Favors as a reward for each completed Whisper. When you collect 10, you can bring them back to Tree of Whispers or Raven of the Tree and choose one of the three caches as the final reward.

All Whispers are identified on the map by icons with pink, light pink, and red borders. The darker the color, the more Grim Favors you’ll get from completing that bounty (and the harder it will be, of course):

• Light pink icon: 1 Grim Favor
• Pink icon: 3 Grim Favors
• Red icon: 5 Grim Favors

Best Completion Strategy

Since Whispers are scattered all over the map, it’s likely that you’ll complete some of them while completing other quests or challenges, such as killing a certain number of enemies in a certain area.

After that, it’s best to group quests in the same area together as a whole, depending on the requirements of the remaining Whispers, and complete them in a specific time period to improve efficiency.

If your character is powerful enough that you decide to farm quests that provide more Grim Favors, you can complete Helltides directly. The area of this event is not only densely populated with enemies, but also has the best Whispers quest: Defeat Blood Maiden.

Gift Of The Tree Rewards

The three regular Tree of Whispers caches only give you specific types of gear rewards, but Chaos Cache provided by Gift of the Tree is universal, containing random items from other reward caches, and may even contain rare unique and mythic pieces of gear.

Also Read: Diablo 4 Season 9 Obducite Farming Guide: How To Get It Efficiently With An Unfixed Bug?

The Value Of Gift Of The Tree

The significance of this event is not only to bring new vitality and rewards to Season 9, but more importantly, to make the regular endgame event of Tree of Whispers attract your attention again, and to avoid the imbalance of participation in different game events as much as possible.

And if you want to focus on farming materials or unique items, Gift of the Tree also provides you with an easier way than clearing dungeons. Especially if you are a new player, you will have the opportunity to complete early resource accumulation faster.

The above is the main information about the participation of Gift of the Tree and the rewards you can get. If you don’t want to miss it, log in to the game and complete the task immediately!

Gold is the most basic and important currency resource in Diablo 4. Whether you are in the early game or the endgame stage, whether you want to exchange for other items or repair damaged gear, you can’t do without it.

Therefore, when you enter a new Diablo 4 season, in addition to getting familiar with the new content as soon as possible, another important task is to start farming Diablo 4 gold (and XP), and there is no upper limit, the more the better.

However, it is worth noting that although there are many ways to get gold, it has always been difficult to say which one is the best gold farming channel until Season 9 brings you Escalating Nightmares.

What Are Escalating Nightmares?

Escalating Nightmares, also known as Nightmare Dungeon Escalations, is an “upgraded version” of the traditional Nightmare Dungeon launched in Season 9 based on Diablo 4.

This dungeon is a combination of three normal Nightmare Dungeons. Although the overall combat mode is similar to the normal version, it brings a new boss, Astaroth, and it can only be unlocked by obtaining Escalation Sigils.

In addition, each of the three dungeons will have their own positive and negative affixes, just like the normal Nightmare Dungeons, but all affixes will stack as you progress. This means that you will carry the affixes of the previous dungeon into the next dungeon.

After defeating the boss of each Escalating Nightmares built-in dungeon, you will see a special pillar in the arena, which will teleport you to the next built-in dungeon and show you all the affixes that will work in the next dungeon.

Farming Gold In Escalating Nightmares

Of all Nightmare Dungeon affixes that can be unlocked, the most important one is of course Horadric Strongrooms, because carrying it into the dungeon will have a chance to farm the high-rarity Arcana in Season 9 seasonal power Horadric Spells.

But in fact, the appearance of more Horadric affixes is also the reason why Season 9 provides the best gold farming method, because the positive effect brought by Horadric Gold Reserve affix can make you get tons of Diablo 4 gold in a short time!

When you fight in Escalating Nightmares after obtaining this affix, it will generate more gold chests for you than fighting in regular Nightmare Dungeons to quickly complete gold farming while exploring new dungeons and farming Horadric Spells.

It is worth noting that Season 9 also added another regular affix, Gold Find, which works when you get or find gold in any way. The amount of gold you get in the end will increase by 30%. If the two affixes can be used together, the effect will definitely surprise you!

How To Complete Escalating Nightmares?

Of course, even with the help of affixes, in order to successfully take away all the gold you get, you must complete all Nightmare Dungeon Escalations. If you fail due to character death in the middle of the process, everything will become a waste of talk.

Most of the enemies in Escalating Nightmares are not difficult to deal with, as long as you make sure your abilities and gear strength are equal to the current game difficulty level. The real danger is the final boss Astaroth in Torment 1+.

In order to complete this difficult boss battle, in addition to equipping the best gear possible, you also need to pay attention to the following guidelines:

• In the first stage of the battle, the mounted Astaroth will dismount and fight in the middle of the battle. It is best to kill and merge as soon as possible, otherwise it will be more troublesome to wait for it to revive.
• If you find that the boss is breathing, it means that he is shooting fireballs. You can use this as a sign to move in advance to avoid this attack.
• When the boss is wielding fire and slashing at you, try to avoid it by going around behind him.
• Astaroth sometimes drops an expanding ring of fire in the center of the arena. Don’t stand in it.
• In the later stages of the battle, the boss will place meteorites outside the arena. Avoid being hit by them by moving flexibly.

Other Gold Farming Methods Available

While activating relevant affixes and clearing Escalating Nightmares should be your primary gold farming method in Season 9, other reliable sources should not be ignored. After all, the more gold, the better in the game.

• Trade with other players: If you get duplicate or unwanted items while completing quests, you can also get gold by selling them to other players who need them.
• Complete the main quests: Advance the story without missing any gold rewards.
• Complete as many side quests as possible: You may trigger new side quests at any time, and they will also reward you with small amounts of gold.
• Complete major challenges such as Whispers bounties or Infernal Hordes: These challenges are the core gameplay of Diablo 4 and the main source of various resources.
• Possible Treasure Goblins event: Diablo 4 will hold this event from time to time. Killing goblins with gold affixes in it can quickly obtain a large amount of gold. Although it is not clear whether it will be held in Season 9.

If you happen to be in urgent need of gold, just refresh and complete Nightmare Dungeon Escalations, and start farming after trying your best to get gold-related affixes! I wish you success!

Although Barbarian’s performance was average among all classes when Season 9 was first launched, after the exclusive enhancements brought by patch 2.3.1, Barbarian can now be one of the first choices for your class to create a new character in S9.

However, if you plan to play a new character at this time, you will have nearly half a month less time to upgrade and earn Diablo 4 gold than others, so it is best to choose a Barbarian leveling build that is reliable enough to pass the time before reaching level 60.

Based on this, we will recommend and introduce Upheaval Barbarian Build to help you complete the upgrade based on Barbarian’s performance after the release of patch 2.3.1.

Overview Of Upheaval Barbarian Build

Both Barbarian class itself and most of the builds related to it are good at creating chaos through brute force, thereby interrupting the enemy’s attack and hitting back.

As for Upheaval Barbarian Build, it mainly relies on the main skill Upheaval to output high AOE damage in combat to quickly kill groups of enemies, and does not rely on gear or legendary aspects, which is suitable for new Diablo 4 players.

In fact, you can continue to strengthen Upheaval skill to make the entire build stronger to cope with the difficulty of early Torment outside the upgrade process. And in Season 9, this build is very suitable for clearing Horadric Strongroom.

The Most Suitable Skills

Upheaval Barbarian Build mainly outputs damage through several key Barbarian active skills and allows you to switch core damage skills according to the enemy type and the situation.

Generally speaking, Upheaval is the main damage skill of this build. On this basis, using Frenzy and Death Blow as needed can further improve your combat damage output.

If you encounter a more difficult enemy and want to output higher damage to deal with the opponent as soon as possible, you can also consider using Ground Stomp skill after Tactical upgrade.

When using this build, you first need to try your best to gather enemies, then work hard to accumulate Fury, and cast Upheaval through 2H Bludgeoning weapons, causing initial large amounts of damage with the help of passive skills and attributes.

It is worth noting that 2H Slashing weapons are better when using Death Blow, or you can replace Death Blow with War Cry to get more damage gains, and Challenging Shout can improve your survivability.

Of course, in order to improve the effectiveness of these active skills, passive skills are also indispensable. For this, you need to pay attention to the distribution of passive skill points:

• Endless Fury (3/3)
• Belligerence (3/3)
• Swiftness (3/3)
• Booming Voice (3/3)
• Pit Fighter (3/3)
• No Mercy (3/3)
• Duelist (3/3)
• Heavy Handed (3/3)
• Wallop (3/3)

The combination of the above active and passive skills should maximize the damage output of the entire build and the generation of Fury you need.

In addition, Furious Impulse can increase Fury generation, Invigorating Fury can help you maintain a good health state, and skills such as Thick Skin and Defensive Stance can help improve your survivability.

Weapon Utilization Strategy

Besides the types of weapons that are suitable for different active skills mentioned above,2H Mace is actually one of the best weapons for this build. It can bring Arsenal Expertise bonus to maximize the generation of Fury required for Frenzy.

This way, when you use Unbridled Fury, you can accumulate as much Fury as possible when casting Upheaval to maximize its damage through passive skills and legendary aspects.

Or you can choose a two-handed axe as your primary weapon. On this basis, change Ground Stomp’s upgrade from Strategic to Tactical, and allocates some skill points of Wrath of the Berserker to Pressure Point to gain additional Vulnerable damage.

Suitable Horadric Spells

No matter which build you craft or utilize in any Diablo 4 season, you should try to integrate the season-specific power into it as much as possible to immerse yourself in the characteristics of the current season and get unique benefits.

Season 9’s seasonal power is Horadric Spells. For Upheaval Barbarian Build, the choice of Horadric Spells is divided into early and late stages.

The choice of spells in the early stage has little effect, but Thunderous Particle is better with Celestial Surge. This is because Celestial Surge can gather enemies together faster in battle so that you can quickly eliminate them with your main skill, Upheaval.

As for the late Horadric Spells combination, if you plan to use Barbarian build based on Upheaval for a long time, Catalyst and Infusion recommend Smoldering Ember and Astral Pillar, which can gather enemies and make them vulnerable.

As for the late Arcanas, the following three should be the best choices:

• Bottled Wind: Generate more barriers to improve survivability and defense.
• Reactive Ooze: Generates more Fury.
• Pressurized Steam: Allows Astral Pillar to stun enemies.

Unique Items And Legendary Aspects

While this build doesn’t rely too much on gear for damage, if you can farm the right items, you’ll be able to take the build to the next level. For example, the following legendary aspects will help maximize the build’s damage:

• Aspect of Sundered Ground
• Aspect Of Limitless Rage
• Aspect Of The Expectant
• Edgemaster’s Aspect
• Aspect Of Inner Calm
• Aspect of Adaptability

In addition, some special unique items can also provide additional bonuses to the build and related skills based on their own characteristics to improve combat efficiency:

• Battle Trance: You can deal more damage in Frenzy state.
• Ugly Bastard Helm: Converts normal damage to fire damage and brings additional fire damage when you activate Wrath of the Berserker.
• Hellhammer: Deals more damage to burning enemies while burning them through Upheaval.

The above is what we bring to you about the plan to upgrade as quickly as possible in Season 9 craft Upheaval Barbarian Build. If you plan to experience Barbarian, it should be helpful to you!

If you are a die-hard Diablo 4 player, you will know that there are a variety of items in the game that can benefit you in different ways. Some of them are gear that can be upgraded and utilized directly after obtaining, and some are more special items.

It is worth noting that when Diablo 4 is updated with a season, sometimes new buff items are added for the new season. In Season 9, this item is undoubtedly Horadric Jewels.

But it should be noted that Horadric Jewels cannot be obtained directly through combat drops like Diablo 4 gold or unique items. Instead, you need to farm Horadric Phials and gem fragments separately and craft them to obtain them.

Among them, Horadric Phials has been introduced to you in other guides and is also a seasonal item in Season 9, but gem fragments are a regular Diablo 4 material that has existed for a long time.

In fact, before Season 9, although gem fragments can also provide you with attribute bonuses by being processed into gems, they are not so eye-catching compared to the role of other powerful gear. Now the emergence of Horadric Jewels has obviously changed this situation.

Based on this, we will explain to you in detail why you should increase your efforts to farm gem fragments in Season 9, as well as the relevant farming methods.

Detailed Introduction Of Gem Fragments

Generally speaking, after finding a jeweler in Diablo 4, you can consume existing gem fragments to craft gems, and then embed them into gear according to the corresponding gear type of the gem to obtain benefits. And the higher the gem level, the better the benefit provided.

But the tricky thing is that if you want to craft the highest level of gems, you need to collect 100,000 fragments of a specific type! This is undoubtedly a long and torturous farming process.

Although low-level gems also have a certain role, if you want to unlock new levels for all low-level gems embedded in all gear later, you also need to consume a lot of materials and gold. Therefore, you will not choose gems or gem fragments as the first choice when looking for buff items.

In order to avoid gem fragments being ignored as much as possible, other seasonal jewelry that can be crafted and inlaid with gem fragments has been introduced in other seasons of Diablo 4, such as Occult Gems in S7, but it seems that none of them are as good as S9 Horadric Jewels.

Gem Fragments And Horadric Jewels

First, to unlock Horadric Jewels in Season 9, you need to complete Horadric Strongrooms in Torment 1+ difficulties to obtain Horadric Tomes, and then consume it at Wayfinders to learn the crafting method of Horadric Jewels.

Next, you need to get enough Horadric Phials as the first material for crafting Horadric Jewels through the following methods:

• Kill elite enemies in the open world.
• Completing Helltides.
• Completing Nightmare Dungeons and Horadric Strongrooms.
• Unlock rewards in related systems by obtaining Horadric Knowledge.

The second Horadric Jewels crafting material is gem fragments, and we will introduce you to its specific acquisition method later. Now you need to know that crafting a Horadric Jewel consumes 45,000 gem fragments and 3,000 Horadric Phials.

It is worth noting that these 45,000 gem fragments must come from three different fragment types, which means you need to collect 15,000 fragments of each type.

Why Is It Suitable To Farm Gem Fragments In S9?

Although it is also a lot of work to earn gem fragments for Horadric Jewels, it is at least easier than crafting grand-level gems, and the role that Horadric Jewels can play in Season 9 is no less than that of high-level gems.

In addition, in Season 9, the chance of you getting gem fragments is also improved, because in addition to the existing farming methods, this season brings more affixes to Nightmare Dungeon in the form of Escalating Nightmares.

When clearing Escalating Nightmares, you need to complete three built-in nightmare dungeons connected together, each with a corresponding affix effect, and can be carried over to the next dungeon.

Horadric Gem Reserve affix among these affixes allows you to get more gem fragments than usual when clearing dungeons, thus completing the accumulation of materials for Horadric Jewels crafting faster. This was not possible in other seasons before.

All Gem Fragment Acquisition Methods

In addition to Escalating Nightmare Dungeons and the utilize related affixes already introduced, you can also obtain gem fragments in the following ways:

• Whisper Caches: After completing ten Tree of Whispers’ bounty tasks, you can exchange for random Whisper Caches. If you get a cache of materials, there is a chance to spawn gem fragments.
• Helltides: Loot drops after directly killing enemies and Helltide chests may provide gem fragments.
• Infernal Hordes: After killing the boss, utilize Aether obtained during this event to open Materials chests to get fragments for each type of gem as well as a ton of Obducite.

The above is the information about farming and utilizing gem fragments in Season 9. I hope it’s helpful to you. I hope you can craft Horadric Jewels you want as soon as possible!