News Guides

Wanderers, Diablo 4 Season 11 is less than 1 months away! Are you ready? Because of significant changes to itemization, the addition of The Tower endgame mechanic, and a brand-new item upgrade system called Sanctification, you may not be able to gain an advantage with the same builds and playstyles as last season.

To get ahead in Season 11 and dominate the new Tower leaderboards faster, you need to prepare now. Here are a few things you can do now to help you transition smoothly to Season 11.

Complete The Campaign

First, completing the campaign before Season 11 begins is crucial, as this will unlock the ability to skip campaigns for all future season characters and give you a head start by automatically carrying over some progress. This includes your mount, all unlocked Altars of Lilith and their corresponding renown, and a fully unlocked map, allowing you to jump straight into the season content.

Once any character completes the campaign, all future season characters can skip the entire story. Your mount is immediately usable on your new season character, saving you time completing related quests.

Furthermore, progress on all discovered Altars of Lilith is retained. While these statues no longer provide permanent stat bonuses in Season 11, the extra experience and rewards gained from unlocking them are a significant part of significantly boosting your character's strength early in the season.

More importantly, if you complete the campaign, you don't need to start exploring the map from scratch, as the areas you've discovered will automatically unlock for your new season character. You can immediately skip the campaign and jump directly into season mode, allowing you to start farming the new The Tower endgame content much faster.

Find The Right Team On Discord

For the next tip, we recommend joining a Discord server, a great way to prepare for the new season. If you're used to playing solo and have sworn never to play with others again, joining a Discord server will definitely change your mind.

The changes to XP gain and monster difficulty in Season 11 make group farming much more advantageous, especially for Nightmare Dungeons and Helltides. Don't you envy other groups who always seem to work together to accumulate tons of XP and loot?

On Discord, you'll always find like-minded companions. Sign up in a group now and dominate Sanctuary with your new team at the start of the new season. You can share gear, experience, and learn about all the new mechanics coming in Season 11.

Choosing The Right Leveling Guide

Next, finding the right leveling guide is crucial to maximizing your leveling efficiency in Diablo 4 Season 11. These guides pre-plan your skill points, gear, and activity progression, minimizing wait times and confusion.

This is especially important with the new Season Rank system, which replaces Renown, requires players to focus on milestone missions, and skill points may change, slowing down initial leveling.

Choosing the right guides in advance can help you efficiently handle these changes and focus on the most effective character build and objectives from the start, allowing you to reach the late game faster. Following the guides minimizes waiting time caused by aimless wandering or repeatedly resetting skill points, allowing you to experience endgame content as soon as possible.

Transferring Your Seasonal Items

This tip is about what happens to your character when transitioning from Season 10 to Season 11. If you're new, this is your first season, and you create a seasonal character as soon as you join the game.

Diablo 4 is divided into two distinct realms: Seasonal Realm and Eternal Realm. Eternal Realm doesn't have any seasonal content; it's just the base game without the flashy Chaos Armor, Perks, endgame content, etc., but they are always present.

Several things happen when you first log in and transition from one season to the next. First and foremost, all your Diablo 4 items will not carry over to the next season, including your hard-earned gear, gold, materials, boss materials, armor, gems, and runes. However, everything will be transferred from your Seasonal server to your Eternal server. So, your gold will continue to accumulate over time.

But please note that all your gear from the current season will be transferred to a Withdraw Only tab. Once you retrieve these items or empty this inventory at the end of the season, this tab will disappear and be replaced by all new content.

Therefore, if you want to keep your gear, such as some Mythic items you acquired in Season 10, and keep them on your permanent character, you must log in to your character from the previous season and retrieve them from Withdraw Only tab.

Finally, we want to emphasize: enjoy the game! New seasons always generate a variety of discussions, both positive and negative. But regardless of the scale of the discussion, don't rush to make any definitive judgments. It's best to wait until the season officially begins before making any decisions. Because PTR doesn't fully reflect the actual situation of the season.

Therefore, make your own decisions, enjoy the game, and don't start with terrible expectations, lest you ruin your season experience from the outset. Have a great day!

Diablo 4 Season 11 PTR brought many changes, such as leveling, crafting, and new leaderboards, but the experience wasn't as good as Season 10.

However, Season 11 hasn't officially launched yet (its release date is December 9th), so there's still plenty of time to fine-tune it. In a recent developer interview, the developers discussed their plans for Season 11 and future updates, even hinting at the next expansion for Diablo 4.

Sanctification

Sanctification is one of the seasonal features of Season 11. Its operation is similar to Vaal Orb in Path of Exile. Using it on an item might give it better affixes or remove its useful affixes, rendering it worthless, and the item cannot be sanctified further. This feature is mainly for trying to upgrade items that are close to their endgame value; players can also choose not to use it.

The developers understand that players don't want to destroy valuable and unique gear and Mythic items, but they also feel that a completely risk-free experience would reduce player excitement. They believe that ideal sanctification should allow for an unlimited number of sanctifications of the same item, rather than a single, decisive result.

They plan to protect very high quality Diablo 4 items; for example, sanctifying Ancestral and Mythic items will not remove their affixes and will yield better results. Sanctifying rare items, however, still carries risks.

Masterworking

In PTR 2.5.0, Masterworking has been significantly modified. It now only increases the item's base stats, such as weapon damage, jewel resistances, and armor values. This prevents players from acquiring significant amounts of key modifiers like cooldown reduction, attack speed, crit, and skill levels through Masterworking, resulting in a substantial decrease in character strength.

The developers believe the current Masterworking system is similar to Blacksmith's Whetstone and Armourer's Scrap in Path of Exile; the gear-up process is monotonous and uninteresting, simply clicking to upgrade until the maximum level, failing to provide players with surprise and satisfaction.

They mentioned adding a new Masterworking bonus on top of the existing one, though they didn't specify what it would be. Any change, however, would be beneficial.

The Towers Rewards

The Towers is a new leaderboard system with more detailed rankings than The Pit, but it lacks rewards, resulting in a lack of player motivation. According to PTR data, even the strongest classic Barbarian builds are far from reaching floor 150 in The Towers, and after the new patch, even reaching floor 100 may be difficult.

The developers have reduced the HP of the Towers bosses and shortened the reward interval from every 10 floors to every 5 floors, up to floor 150. They believe that even with these changes, reaching floor 150 will still be extremely difficult. They speculate that players' progress in The Towers will typically be about 10 floors lower than in The Pit.

They plan to design The Towers as a more competitive endgame mode, differentiating it from the more diverse and fun-filled Pitfalls mode. This will involve optimized map generation rules, such as prioritizing upward routes, reducing unnecessary dead ends, and preventing important enemies from spawning in remote corners.

Finally, based on player feedback, they plan to offer rewards for players challenging The Towers. For individual players, rewards based on clearing specific floors will be introduced, such as gear and transmogs. Players who rank high on the leaderboard will receive functional rewards, prestige titles, and halos (cosmetics).

Finally, a Build Viewer will be added, making all builds on the leaderboard public and transparent, while also optimizing the leaderboard UI and notifications.

Future Update Plans

The development team stated that the future focus is on adding depth to existing content, rather than simply bloating the game with a large number of new events. They don't rule out adding new content but prefer to refine the existing systems.

Magic Item Upgrades

The developers mentioned considering giving magic items affixes and making them upgradable. This could make more types of items valuable in the endgame. This isn't without precedent; at least in Diablo II, magic items proved useful due to their potentially high specific skill bonuses.

However, to encourage players to forgo some legendary aspects in favor of magic items, their affix strength would need to be five to six times greater than it is now. This change is expected to be implemented as early as Season 12.

Chaos Uniques Items

Season 10 Chaos Unique items, including Chaos Perks and Chaos Rifts, are highly popular mechanics among players. The developers are happy to integrate them into the game, but they need to find a suitable way to avoid disrupting long-term balance and diversity. They mentioned that some Chaos Perks might return as Legendary Aspects.

Gold And Material

The developers' long-term goal is to ensure that gold primarily comes from killing monsters rather than selling items. They have already significantly increased the amount of gold piles dropped by monsters in Season 11.

They are also considering changing Boss Materials to a currency, so they don't take up inventory space, but the trade-off might be that they will become untradeable.

The Next Expansion

Finally, Zaven, the game's Associate Director of Expansion, hinted that all Diablo fans should pay attention to The Game Awards on December 11th. He strongly suggested that there would be an announcement about Diablo IV expansion pack, and perhaps we'll even see an exciting trailer.

That concludes the main content of this developer interview. Overall, the official team has listened to player and community feedback while also having its own update plans, and Season 11 experience should be better than the PTR.

Since its launch, Diablo 4 has released a new season every 2-3 months, accompanied by various updates and new seasonal content related to the season's theme, ensuring there's always something new to play and keeping the game fresh and dynamic.

However, besides this type of new content, sometimes the release of a new season brings long-term, historical changes that will have a profound impact on the future development of Diablo 4.

Take Season 11 as an example. Although it won't be available until December 9th, a month later, 2.5.0 PTR has already largely confirmed the new content it will bring, as well as the long-term updates we're talking about.

We've previously introduced the seasonal content of Season 11 in several articles; this time, we'll bring you the overall changes that will begin with the new season and analyze their impact.

Skip The Campaign, Unlock Waypoints Directly

If you choose to play the new season, you'll need to create a new character. This means that everything, from leveling up to farming available Diablo 4 items, will have to start from scratch.

Furthermore, at the start of each season, you had to traverse the map on horseback or on foot to clear the fog, unlocking corresponding areas and waypoints so you could teleport directly to specific locations later.

While this process wasn't difficult, repeating it every season was incredibly tedious and time-consuming, even if you knew the map and waypoints by heart.

Fortunately, after two years of this "torture," Diablo 4 finally decided to remove this mechanism starting with Season 11!

This means that once you've completed the campaign before, you can skip the process of unlocking basic waypoints to get them directly. At least in Season 11, you can immediately start farming XP and gold, reaching endgame faster.

As for the waypoints added in Vessel of Hatred DLC, once you've completed the campaign within it, you can also skip them and directly enjoy the full map and travel experience.

This way, veteran players no longer need to endure the pointless fog of war cleanup every season, while new players can still experience the campaign and gradually explore the game's areas.

More importantly, if you're a veteran player who has completed campaign at least one time, you'll be able to complete farming much faster in all new Diablo 4 seasons than before (before Season 11), allowing more time to enjoy the new season's exclusive gameplay.

Frankly, this change should have been implemented a long time ago, as the player community has been complaining about the repetitive fog of war cleanup for a long time. But regardless, it's finally here.

The Impact Of The New Mechanism On Eternal Realm

As you should know, the entire game is divided into the seasonal realm and Eternal Realm. The former is used to experience the new season, while the latter is a relatively stable realm storing all characters from previous seasons.

Generally, most players will prioritize experiencing the seasonal realm, but if you really like a character and their builds created in a particular season, or if you want to delve deeper into the game's fundamental mechanics and general events, Eternal Realm is a better choice.

Since seasonal content is not carried over to Eternal Realm, it's essentially unaffected by seasonal updates, except for character additions. However, Season 11's adjustments to the gear upgrade mechanism seem to change this.

First, Tempering and Masterworking mechanics have reformed the way affix upgrades affect gear, either by reducing the randomness of selected affixes or by directly influencing the upgrade's effect on the gear itself.

Second, Season 11 will add a new mechanic called Sanctification, allowing you to further enhance your gear after utilizing other mechanics. Once Sanctification is complete, your gear cannot be altered further.

Based on 2.5.0 PTR, these updates have received mixed reviews from players, and whether they are truly worthwhile remains to be seen after the new season launches. However, you'll find that they will definitely impact build usage in Eternal Realm.

Builds are essentially combinations of skills, gear, and other combat bonuses, such as Season 10 Chaos Perks, tailored to a specific class or combat scenario to maximize offensive/defensive damage.

Related: Diablo 4 Players Debate Chaos Armor Removal | Should This Mechanism From Season 10 Be Retained In Season 11?

Since Eternal Realm doesn't retain seasonal mechanics, builds are essentially the same regardless of which season's character you play, except for class differences.

However, Sanctification introduced in Season 11 means that the gear component of your builds will undergo a fundamental change. Previous gear will become obsolete due to the inability to obtain Sanctification.

This means that after Season 11 ends, if you want to play in Eternal Realm at your strongest, all the builds you crafted during Seasons 1-10 will be ineffective, as they cannot compare to builds affected by Sanctification and the updated Tempering and Masterworking.

Overall, this change won't negatively impact your Diablo 4 experience too much, as Eternal Realm's playability is inherently lower. However, this is a historic change for Diablo 4 itself.

Besides the confirmed changes Season 11 will bring to Diablo 4, the specific release date of the second DLC should also be revealed soon. Previously, it was only known to be in 2026.

Last year, the development team hoped to release the second DLC in 2025, but ultimately postponed this plan by a year when releasing the roadmap. With 2025 drawing to a close, players' curiosity is even stronger.

In short, Diablo 4's performance throughout 2025 has been relatively uneventful, but the changes brought by Season 11 may mean that the game will bring you new surprises in 2026. Let's look forward to it!

Diablo 4 Season 11 PTR has ended. Based on the official announcements, while the core gameplay remains unchanged, many key systems have been completely overhauled.

Current feedback suggests that Season 11 changes have slowed down the game's progression. The developers have adjusted monster difficulty and early gear drop rates. It's difficult to say whether these changes improve the experience, but they have certainly had a significant impact on every class.

Season 11 Changes

In addition to numerous class balance changes, Season 11 also introduced seasonal content, significantly revamped Tempering and Masterworking systems, and added Tower activity to replace The Pit.

This ranking uses the new Tower activity instead of The Pit as the benchmark. This is because Tower has a complete Leaderboard system, providing a reliable data source. All data is currently based on the PTR, so adjustments are likely to be made before release on live servers.

Class Rank

No.6 Rogue

• Highest Leaderboard Record: Tier 94 Tower clear.

Dance of Knives Rogue build was too powerful in the early PTR, so it was subsequently nerfed, resulting in mediocre performance in high-level content. Currently, the best performing build is Death Trap Rogue, a common top-tier build for several seasons. Other potential builds include Heartseeker Rogue and some other Basic Skill Rogues.

Melted Heart of Selig, after its rework, increases the main resource cap by 3% per point of primary attribute. When injured, resources are deducted first, then health, but maximum health is reduced by 75%. Recovering full resources within 3 seconds after 6 seconds of no damage is deducted.

This allows the resource cap to exceed 500, enabling Death Trap to receive its full damage boost after becoming a core skill with other Diablo 4 items. Beastfall Boots allow Rogue's next skill after using their ultimate to increase damage by consuming resources, thus utilizing the abundant resources provided by Melted Heart of Selig.

No.5 Sorcerer

• Highest Leaderboard Record: Tier 103 Tower clear.

Sorcerer is currently in a somewhat awkward position. Firstly, Teleport Enchantment has been nerfed, meaning its cooldown on the live server will be longer than on the PTR. Chaos Powers, such as Mana Shield, which were relied upon last season, have been removed, returning damage output to normal levels.

Sorcerer's new unique item in Season 11, Orsivane, allows defensive skills not on the skill bar to activate their enchantments and also provides increased damage. While this frees up skill bars, the benefits cannot fully compensate for the loss of Chaos Power and Teleport enchantments.

The another top Sorcerer build in PTR 2.5.0 is Crackling Energy. Esadora's Overflowing Cameo and Galvanic Azurite Ring can significantly increase the damage and generation of Crackling Energy.

Other promising builds include Hydra Sorcerer build and Frozen Orb Sorcerer, and these builds benefit from the reworked Banished Lord's Talisman.

No.4 Necromancer

• Highest Leaderboard Record: Tier 103 Tower clear, but slightly faster than Sorcerer.

Necromancer has consistently been in the upper-middle tier for several seasons, demonstrating remarkable stability. The current leaderboard is dominated by traditional builds built around Shadow Blight and its key passive, while Bloodwave Necromancer build, reliant on Chaos Perks, has weakened in Season 10.

Necromancer gains a new unique item in Season 11, Gravebloom, which replaces a single Golem with three smaller Golems, offering higher attack speed and a chance to deal double damage, significantly boosting golem damage. Therefore, Golem Summoner Necromancer build is a strong contender for the new season's S-tier build.

No.3 Druid

• Highest Leaderboard Record: Tier 105 Tower clear.

Cataclysm Druid Finally, it's back! This is the result of a combination of multiple mechanics and items. First and foremost is the effect of the reworked Melted Heart of Selig combined with Ancestral Guidance legendary Paragon Node.

Melted Heart of Selig allows Druids to easily acquire tens of thousands of Spirit resources, causing Cataclysm damage to inflate dramatically. Ancestral Guidance, based on the amount of Spirit resources available at the time of casting an ultimate ability, increases ultimate ability damage by 1% per point of Spirit.

Combined with the snapshot mechanic, if you pre-stack a large number of buffs before casting a long-duration ability, ensuring they take effect throughout their duration, Cataclysm damage will reach an incredibly high level.

Cataclysm Druid's current damage is too high, but the developers will probably, like with other similar combinations, set a cap on the buff resources from Ancestral Guidance to limit the build's strength.

No.2 Spiritborn

• Highest Leaderboard Record: Tier 109 Tower clear.

Evade Spiritborn, which performed exceptionally well in Season 10, remains very powerful in PTR 2.5.0. Thanks to the armor system changes, the late-game Evade Spiritborn build can easily achieve extremely high armor. Aspect of Unyielding Hits provides additional weapon damage based on total armor, easily maximizing the weapon's effectiveness and freeing up other equipment slots.

This build has a defensive bug in PTR 2.5.0, making the character nearly immortal. This is expected to be fixed before the live release, but even so, its damage remains top-tier across all classes.

Other classic builds such as Quill Volley Spiritborn, Crushing Hands Spiritborn, and Rake Spiritborn have good balance among their different playstyles.

No.1 Barbarian

• Highest Leaderboard Record: Tier 124 Tower clear.

The current top-tier build is Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian, thanks again to the reworked Melted Heart of Selig. Because Barbarians have four weapon slots, they can stack the highest primary stats of all classes, thus gaining an extremely high resource cap through Melted Heart of Selig.

Their damage primarily comes from one piece of equipment and one skill. Ramaladni's Magnum Opus one-handed hammer increases skill damage proportionally to the current resource amount. Furious Hammer of the Ancients provides critical hit chance and critical hit damage proportionally to the resource amount at the time of skill activation. The injection of thousands of resources into these two scaling sources results in an explosive increase in damage.

Barbarian's strength significantly surpasses other classes, making it highly unlikely that Barbarians in the PTR will survive to the live server. It is expected that the developers will also set the resource gain cap for these two scaling sources at 500 points.

Currently, the various classes shown in PTR 2.5.0 Their rankings may be adjusted on the live server, but overall their damage is far inferior to that of season 10, so players may need some time to adapt.

Diablo fans, are you ready for the ultimate test of courage and skill? Deep within Burning Hells, Warlord of Chaos stirs, inviting brave challengers to venture into the abyss and face their destiny!

Yes, Diablo 4 recently announced a new event, Compass to Carnage. During the event, Sanctuary will transform into a battlefield of chaos and opportunity, not for the faint of heart. More Chaos Waves will arrive in Infernal Hordes, and you'll have the chance to earn more Infernal Compasses and much more!

Event Time & Details

Compass to Carnage event will run from 10:00 AM PST on November 4th to 10:00 AM PST on November 11th.

Breaking news! Due to issues encountered by the developers in Diablo 4 patch 2.4.3, the update will be delayed until November 12th. The Compass to Carnage event, originally scheduled for November 4th, is also planned to be postponed to November 25th and will end on December 2nd.

So, what can you get in this event? The drop rate of Infernal Compasses has increased, Chaos Waves in Infernal Hordes are more frequent, and there's a chance to earn double rewards if you dare to challenge Fell Council. This is a key aspect that most players easily overlook during the event, as each Infernal Compasses you acquire grants you an additional Compass.

More importantly, Infernal Compasses are not just rewards; they are gateways to power. More Compasses also make reaching Fell Council easier than ever before. Imagine the immense chaos power awaiting you.

But don't think everything will be smooth sailing, because with each Chaos Wave in the challenge, Infernal Hordes becomes increasingly chaotic. Furthermore, sealing Chaos Rifts now yields a large amount of Aether, giving you even more reason to jump into the fray.

However, this has sparked controversy. Some players will be happy to use this opportunity to quickly improve their Viz-Jaq'taar Veneration reputation, while others believe the increased chaos is too challenging for casual players. What's your opinion? However, whether you're a seasoned veteran or a Sanctuary newcomer, Compass to Carnage event is an excellent opportunity to prove your skills.

How To Prepare For The Event?

To gain a significant advantage in Compass to Carnage event, advance preparation is essential.

During the event, the number of Chaos Waves in Infernal Hordes will increase dramatically, and Aether drop rate from Chaos Rifts will also be significantly boosted. It's also an excellent opportunity to complete Viz-Jaq'taar Veneration reputation board, so players should accumulate Infernal Compasses through seasonal reputation caches, Whispering Chests, and Nightmare Dungeons, and optimize their character builds for the upcoming challenges.

• Accumulate Compasses: Accumulate as many Infernal Compasses as possible to maximize your participation in Infernal Hordes event and challenge Fell Council to maximize the rewards you can obtain.
• Maximize Aether Drops: Due to increased Aether drops from Chaos Rifts during the event, be sure to actively close all rifts you see to obtain a large amount of Aether.
• Focus on Reputation: Take advantage of this event to increase your Viz-Jaq'taar Veneration reputation level, as the increased Aether and rewards will accelerate your reputation progress.
• Optimize Your Character Build: Before starting the event, select and optimize your build based on the increased number of Chaos Waves and the specific challenges of Infernal Hordes. Because of the increased enemy density during the event, it is recommended to prioritize builds with strong screen-clearing capabilities and AoE damage!

Best Event Build Recommendation

Ball Lightning Sorcerer

To improve your Infernal Hordes farming efficiency, Ball Lightning Sorcerer is a top choice. It's one of the fastest builds in Diablo 4, perfect for clearing Infernal Hordes and other events requiring speed runs.

Ball Lightning Sorcerer excels at farming Infernal Hordes because of its high speed, wide-area damage, and superior mobility, quickly and efficiently clearing large numbers of enemies. More importantly, it can cast Ball Lightning while moving to accelerate farming. Ball Lightning deals massive damage to large groups of enemies, making it perfect for dealing with the dense waves of enemies in Infernal Hordes during events.

While Ball Lightning consumes a significant amount of mana, this build can regenerate mana through synergy with skills like Invigorating Conduit and Crackling Energy, maintaining the high duration of its core abilities.

Furthermore, Sorcerer possesses exceptional mobility, primarily thanks to its Teleport ability, allowing for rapid movement and repositioning to maximize damage output and achieve quick clears.

Bone Spirit Necromancer

Bone Spirit Necromancer's main advantage in farming Infernal Hordes lies in its ability to quickly and efficiently clear large numbers of enemies, thanks to the synergy between Season 10's Chaos Perks mechanic and its powerful skill rotation.

The core strategy of this build is to first cast a Bone Spirit, which then splits into countless Bone Splinters, instantly covering the entire screen and dealing massive damage to all enemies. This build is designed for speed, and through combos and utilizing Alter the Balance, it can even clear an entire Chaos Wave and hordes of enemies in one go.

It's worth mentioning that this build not only excels at clearing mobs but also possesses astonishing single-target damage, capable of quickly eliminating elite enemies and Bartuc bosses in Infernal Hordes.

Death Trap Rogue

Finally, the build we'll mention will probably not be surprising: Death Trap Rogue. This build consistently ranks among the top in almost every seasonal endgame content.

Death Trap Rogue's extremely high speed, massive area-of-effect damage, and sustained skill uptime make it exceptionally effective in farming Infernal Hordes. This build excels at quickly clearing large groups of enemies, making it ideal for Helltides, Chaos Rifts, and other endgame events as well.

This build leverages Crazy Brew Chaos Perk to boost attack speed, and A Beast Cornered to significantly increase damage multipliers, further enhancing its combat effectiveness. Combined with the continuous Death Trap's massive damage to large groups of enemies, this makes it extremely efficient at clearing hordes of Infernal Hordes during Compass to Carnage event.

In any case, Compass to Carnage event is an excellent opportunity to acquire more Infernal Compasses and quickly increase your reputation. It's not just a chance to survive, but a chance to thrive in this hellish realm. Are you ready for the carnage?

It's been a month since Diablo 4 Season 10 launched, and players are already showing signs of fatigue with Season of Infernal Chaos. It's time for a new event to reignite player enthusiasm and help them smoothly navigate the long mid-season and complete their season journey.

With Halloween approaching, you've likely seen themed events in almost every RPG, enjoying the spooky yet fun holiday atmosphere in online games. Unfortunately, Diablo developers don't seem to want to join the holiday celebrations. However, this doesn't mean we get nothing; in fact, they've released two limited-time events: Mother's Blessing and Seasonal Splendor.

While the lack of a specific Halloween-themed event is a bit of a disappointment, the rewards from these limited-time events are enough to quickly reach the level cap and gather all the resources needed for a complete build.

Here, we'll discuss everything you need to know about Mother's Blessing and Seasonal Splendor events, and how to use them to maximize your gains.

Mother's Blessing

Mother's Blessing is a familiar event to all Diablo 4 fans, returning almost every season midway through. The current Mother's Blessing officially began on October 28th. As is customary, the event typically lasts only one to two weeks, which might be easily missed if you have a busy real life.

However, if you do see it, please participate actively, as the extra 35% XP boost and 50% Diablo 4 gold drop rate are the best way for new or returning players to catch up, especially those struggling to level up their characters to 60.

Even if you've already reached the level cap, we still recommend returning to season 10 during this event, as the high extra gold drop rate will help you quickly accumulate more resources for a greater advantage later in the season.

More importantly, this reward applies to all difficulties, whether you're playing an Eternal Realm or a seasonal character. In addition, any potions and modifiers that can increase XP and gold can stack with the event's buffs, which means that as long as you properly match consumables and equipment and specify an efficient farming route, you can achieve twice the result with half the effort.

Seasonal Splendor

Additionally, Seasonal Splendor event launches on October 28th alongside Mother's Blessing. Based on historical data, this event will probably only last for one week, until November 3rd, during which time players can enjoy all the reward bonuses.

Compared to the XP and gold boosts from Mother's Blessing, Seasonal Splendor primarily increases the Infernal Warp available to players. These Infernal Warp are the seasonal currency in Infernal Chaos, used to upgrade your Chaos Perks to maximize their damage output and utility. Therefore, more Warps are key to consistently dominating Season 10 endgame.

Any Diablo 4 fan looking to quickly level up their Chaos Perks will want to take full advantage of the increased Infernal Warp drops during Seasonal Splendor event. Even if your Chaos Powers are already maxed out, these Warp will still be incredibly useful. Besides upgrading your Chaos Perks, you can also use this seasonal currency to exchange for Warp Scrolls at Shyan at Yelesna, which provide a small amount of Viz Jaq'taar Veneration reputation. Note that you must complete Season Questline before you can find Shyan.

Clearly, the developers seem to want to make you overlook the lack of a Halloween-themed in-game celebration with these abundant Diablo 4 limited-time events. But if you're still really bothered by it, check out D4gold's current Halloween sale! As a thank you to our users, we're offering promo code "HW2025" during the event, giving you a 10% discount on Diablo 4 products and services here! Please note that this holiday event only lasts until November 5th, so don't miss out!

How To Take Advantage Of These Two Limited-time Events?

Since both Mother's Blessing and Seasonal Splendor have limited durations, it's crucial to focus on maximizing the rewards available during the events.

First, the biggest highlight of Mother's Blessing is its 35% XP boost and 50% Gold boost. This applies to all aspects of the game, from defeating regular enemies in Sanctuary open-world map to exploring Diablo 4 dungeons and Helltides.

During the event, there are no dedicated challenges to earn XP and Gold, so it's recommended to focus on existing high-difficulty dungeons or world events on the map.

Depending on the difficulty level you play, XP and Gold boosts from Mother's Blessing can stack with other buffs. For example, if your character drinks Elixir, which provides an XP boost, the effect of that potion will stack on top of the event's bonus.

Also Read: Diablo 4 Season 11 PTR Mechanics Overview: Divine Gifts, Ascend The Tower Mode, Leaderboards And More

For Seasonal Splendor, since the main effect of this event is to increase your Infernal Warp drops, it's best to focus on farming warp during the event. Running Nightmare Dungeons with Chaos Rifts affix is the best way to farm them, so drop everything and dive into these dungeons during Seasonal Splendor!

In short, maximize your bonuses by using various consumables during the event. Stock up on potions to boost XP and gold, upgrade your gear, refine your favorite character build, and schedule your activities around periods when you can focus on long play sessions. Dungeons like Nightmare Dungeons, Chaos Rifts, and Helltide are especially worthwhile during this time, as the rewards accumulate quickly.

In any case, Mother's Blessing and Seasonal Splendor events are short-lived, so participate promptly and experience the thrill of rapidly increasing your power! We look forward to seeing you in the game during Halloween!

For most ARPGs with a history measured in years, it's not uncommon for certain mechanics to appear, be removed, and then return. Even if a mechanic has shortcomings, it can continue to be beneficial after improvements.

For Diablo 4, the most representative of these mechanics, and perhaps the one that's recently received the most attention, is probably the leaderboard. It's a competitive ladder system designed to incentivize competition among players.

This feature first appeared in Diablo 4 Season 3, but was later removed due to poor performance caused by cheating and other issues. However, it recently returned in 2.5.0 PTR, along with new The Tower dungeon.

How effective is this return? Will the leaderboards be better than before, ensuring their inclusion in Season 11 and beyond? We'll evaluate and predict their performance on 2.5.0 PTR.

The Tower In Season 11

It's important to understand that the current leaderboards are integrated with The Tower and only reflect your performance within that dungeon, not your overall Diablo 4 progress or other events.

The Tower is essentially a multi-stage, timed dungeon, with 10 minutes to complete each round. It operates similarly to The Pit, but accessing The Tower requires you to first unlock The Pit, which is then activated through Obelisk in Cerrigar.

As you progress deeper, you unlock more floors within the tower - like climbing a building - each with a randomized tile set and monster family. To advance, you must kill these enemies while collecting orbs and XP.

When you destroy a tower on your current floor, Pylons appear. Four Pylons appear during the game. The first three appear in a random order, while the fourth is a random repeat of a previous temple. Pylons provide short-term buffs.

When you reach sufficient progress in a dungeon round, a random boss will spawn. Defeating this boss before the end of the round completes the game, and your ranking will be determined based on your performance.

Leaderboard Overview

Season 11 leaderboards are categorized by your class and party size when you complete The Tower, and include both hardcore and normal levels. The leaderboard displays the following real-time information:

• Character rank
• Character name
• Tower Tier completed
• Time taken to complete a round
• Date you listed on the leaderboard

How Is The Tower Performing On 2.5.0 PTR?

Overall, while the new content is noteworthy, once you understand the mechanics, you'll notice that The Tower still follows the traditional Diablo 4 dungeon formula: fight monsters, level up, then fight higher-level monsters, with the requisite rewards and buffs.

This isn't to say that The Tower isn't worth experiencing, but rather that it doesn't seem to offer enough new content to truly engage you, leaving it feeling like "old wine in new bottles."

The few novel experiences it offers are, on the one hand, the enemy types, which at least mean you can earn richer rewards for defeating them. On the other hand, they're reflected in the leaderboards.

Compared to the limited comparisons you had with friends while exploring The Pit, the return of the leaderboard system at least encourages competitive players to play The Tower more actively, generating a surge of community engagement in the short term.

So, if I were to rate The Tower based on its performance on 2.5.0 PTR, it's only passable. It doesn't have any fatal flaws, but it does lack the allure to keep you playing, unless you enjoy demonstrating your skills through leaderboards.

If the leaderboards don't suffer from the same issues that led to their removal, they might attract a wave of veteran Diablo 4 players who were interested in them. Ultimately, however, everyone will realize that the leaderboards could have been placed directly within The Pit.

The fact that The Tower's similarities mean it can not offer novelty and has the potential to make gameplay systems become redundant. While you can earn Diablo 4 gold by playing, the rewards can also be distributed through The Pit or other events.

How Can The Tower Be improved?

While 2.5.0 PTR hasn't yet revealed the rewards for achieving high rankings on the leaderboards, and you can currently only complete 20 floors at most, if The Tower is indeed implemented in Season 11, these rewards should be interesting enough.

In addition, it would be ideal to update the leaderboards not only with the change of seasons, but also regularly throughout the course of a single season, allowing more players to prove their prowess by earning rewards like special titles.

Tips For Completing The Tower

While The Tower isn't a particularly innovative Season 11 mechanic at this point, it is certainly a way to earn seasonal rewards, so it's still necessary to understand the relevant tips for participating.

To do this, you need to understand how it works, earn sufficient resources early in the season, and craft a build suitable for completing this endgame event. This way, you can quickly complete a dungeon run, earning rewards, and achieving a good leaderboard ranking.

In the end, while the new content is certainly exciting, The Tower lacks any truly outstanding innovations beyond the leaderboard system.

However, the development team also stated that they will continue to update the mechanism in the future. Let us look forward to it getting better!

Typically, the transition between seasons is the busiest time for Diablo 4 players, as you need to simultaneously experience the next season's PTR and wrap up the current one.

Thankfully, the two aren't mutually exclusive. The results of your efforts in the current season can be validated or carried forward in PTR or the new season, especially some new builds.

With this in mind, this time we'll introduce Lunging Strike Barbarian Build for Diablo 4 Season 10. Its strength lies in its simple control and powerful enough to decimate enemies and delve into dungeons in the endgame.

Assuming Barbarian isn't nerfed, this build is expected to remain available in 2.5.0 PTR and even Season 11. The difference lies in Chaos Perks being replaced by better new season mechanics.

Key Skills

As the name suggests, Lunging Strike is the core skill addition for this build. It generates Fury in addition to dealing physical damage, and attacks by dashing forward and attacking.

Later, you'll need to upgrade this skill to Combat Lunging Strike. This way, if you land a critical hit while using a skill, you'll enter a Berserking state, increasing your speed and damage output in combat.

All of these form the foundation for this build to work. Next, you'll need to unlock other skills with the primary goal of increasing damage reduction, distributing skill points evenly.

• Warpath: After gaining Overpowering effect, your damage output increases by 4% for 4 seconds.
• Endless Fury: All basic skills generate an additional 12% Fury, ensuring you always have enough Fury to consume.
• Imposing Presence: Grants you 5% additional maximum health.
• Martial Vigor: Increases damage reduction by 6% when encountering elite enemies.
• Belligerence: Attacking enemies with basic skills for 4 seconds deals additional damage.
• Outburst: Gain thorns and a maximum health increase. Tough as Nails: Increases the damage you deal to enemies with thorns and bleeding.

As you progress, you'll need to continually unlock more skills for this build, but your primary focus should be on increasing Fury generation or boosting damage and health.

It's worth noting that some gear, such as Shard of Verathiel or Hooves of the Mountain God, requires Fury consumption to achieve better combat effectiveness.

Hooves of the Mountain God, a Barbarian-exclusive piece of gear, not only generates additional Fury per second but also consumes Fury to deal with additional damage with basic skills.

While Masterworking in Season 10 didn't receive the same positive changes as in 2.5.0 PTR, it's still important to earn Diablo 4 gold and other materials to enhance gear through these mechanics to improve the overall effectiveness of your build.

How To Plan Your Paragon Board?

Paragon Board is the best way to continue improving your character after max level, so careful board planning can help you refine your build and further improve your overall combat effectiveness.

For Lunging Strike Barbarian Build, unlocking Paragon nodes remains crucial, focusing on consistently generating and utilizing Fury and managing it while Berserking for as long as possible to deal extra damage and maximize damage reduction.

• Wrath: Ensures you generate additional Fury when you land critical hits, and gains a critical hit damage bonus.
• Warbringer: For every 75 Fury you consume, you gain a 15% increase in maximum health.
• Blood Rage: Upon killing an enemy with bleeding damage, you have a 10% chance to enter Berserking for 5 seconds, increasing your damage by 45%.
• Challenger: Grants a 20% bonus to normal nodes within its radius.
• Carnage: If you land a critical hit while Berserking, your attack speed increases for 6 seconds.

You need to utilize all available Paragon Points to earn them. Just like unlocking skills, you should continue to develop your Paragon Board according to the core objectives we've outlined until you've used up all your points.

How To Choose Gear?

We actually recommended two suitable pieces of gear when we introduced skill builds. The advantage of Season 10 is that with the addition of Chaos Armor, you have more freedom when choosing your gear, without having to worry too much about slot placement.

So, while Ramaladni's Magnum Opus is a unique sword, you can obtain its Chaos Armor version and place it in any slot you want. This gear's primary purpose is to deal bonus damage by consuming Fury - a perfect fit for the crafting core of your build.

Other gear worth adding is Fists of Fate, which grants a chance to apply random crowd control effects and bonus damage, making enemies vulnerable and easier to eliminate.

It's important to note that Hooves of the Mountain God deals bonus damage by repeatedly casting basic skills until Fury is depleted, which then causes basic skills to deal with additional damage through slashing.

So, as you continue to add gear, you'll want to avoid weapons that prioritize consuming your Fury over Hooves of the Mountain God, otherwise they won't function properly and you'll waste a slot.

Season-Specific Chaos Perks

Every Season 10 build should include Chaos Perks. These seasonal mechanics are one of the easiest and most effective ways to gain additional boosts to your build, though there are limits on the number and types of perks you can carry.

For Lunging Strike Barbarian build, if you're too lazy to change your perks before each fight, we recommend prioritizing the following:

• A Beast Cornered: Increases your damage output by losing life.
• Raging Chaos: When you're at low health, you enter a Berserking state, and your core skills deal fire damage.
• Dual Threat: Casting a basic skill simultaneously grants you another basic skill on the target, dealing 50-80% more damage.
• Brown Over Brains: If you feel your character is too fragile and unsuitable for A Beast Cornered, you can opt for this perk instead.

You'll find that while the process of unlocking skills or Paragon nodes is lengthy, crafting and using the entire Lunging Strike Barbarian Build always maintains a clear core and purpose, preventing unnecessary frustration during gameplay.

We hope this introduction will enhance your Season 10 experience, and we wish you all the best in 2.5.0 PTR - which already started on October 21st!

On October 16th, Diablo 4 held its Sanctuary Sitdown preview for Season 11 and the associated 2.5.0 PTR, providing a preview of a host of new content and changes expected in the new season and PTR.

While Sanctuary Sitdown didn't include any further details about the second DLC and the 2026 plans as previously predicted, it's clear that Season 11 will feature significantly more changes than previous seasons.

Based on Sanctuary Sitdown and other official information, we'll provide a preview of 2.5.0 PTR content.

When Is 2.5.0 PTR Expected To Launch?

While the release date for Season 11 remains to be determined, we can confirm that 2.5.0 PTR will be available to all PC Battle.net users on October 21st. As is customary with Diablo 4, PTR typically lasts about a week, so it'll likely end around October 28th or 29th.

You can actually infer a possible release date for Season 11 from this, but honestly, that's not the main point right now. Understanding the content in 2.5.0 PTR will help you get started with the new season.

In general, 2.5.0 PTR consists of three main components: a major overhaul of existing core mechanics, the return of previously removed features, and new dungeons and bosses.

Interestingly, most of this content wasn't announced on 2025 content roadmap. Clearly, Diablo 4 intends to utilize Season 11, the season connecting 2025 and 2026, to deliver a surprise at the end of the year.

What Changes Will Be Included?

The changes primarily focus on item upgrades, Renown system, and reworks or optimizations to how potions work. We'll cover each of these.

Tempering And Masterworking

Once you've acquired your ideal gear in Diablo 4, as your abilities increase, you can enhance it to match your character's strength through the specialized systems. These systems are primarily Tempering and Masterworking.

Tempering allows you to add one affix to your gear, but each Tempering session can yield three possible affixes. Unlucky enough to randomly receive a poor affix can actually lower the value of your gear.

Similarly, the results of Masterworking are also tied to luck. This system requires you to consume Diablo 4 gold and other necessary materials to upgrade your gear's existing affixes, but if the desired effect isn't achieved, you need to reset.

This can easily lead to wasting time, effort, game materials, and gold on enhancing your gear, especially with Masterworking, as resetting only returns a small portion of the materials.

Also Read: Why Is Druid The Strongest Class In Diablo 4 Season 10?: A Comparison Of Spiritborn, Sorceress, And Druid Performance

However, in 2.5.0 PTR, both systems are undergoing changes, arguably with the sole purpose of improving your experience.

First, Tempering recipes allow you to directly select the specific affix you want, eliminating the need for randomized modifiers and allowing you to change them at will. However, to balance this change, gear can only receive one Tempering affix in total.

Masterworking, on the other hand, will now improve the overall quality of gear, up to level 20. After that, you can continue to roll for a Capstone bonus, upgrading a random non-premium affix to a premium affix.

Building on this, 2.5.0 PTR will also introduce Sanctification, allowing you to select another random buff for gear after completing Tempering and Masterworking. However, after Sanctification, the gear cannot be modified.

Changes To Healing And Defense Mechanics

The changes in defense mechanics are truly revolutionary. By making armor and resistances a rating system, Diablo 4's defensive potions are rendered useless.

In 2.5.0 PTR, equipped armor will reduce damage taken from all types, and the armor and resistance penalties associated with Torment difficulty will be removed. All your defensive attributes will be represented by the new Toughness metric.

Regarding healing, potions will now instantly restore 35% of your total health. This translates to a reduction in the amount of base potions you can carry, but they will recharge faster. Additionally, the stats of all health-boosting affixes will be increased.

Renown System Rework

In most previous Diablo seasons, you earned Renown points by progressing through the season, which in turn led to rewards for progressing through Renown system.

Starting with Season 11, while you will still be able to progress through Renown system in Eternal Realm, it will be merged with Season Journey into a new system, Season Rank, on seasonal servers.

In fact, the changes are minimal functionally, because you'll still need to complete various objectives to earn seasonal rewards, but the merger will clearly streamline these seasonal systems.

What's New Content?

New content expected to be exclusively part of Season 11 will primarily focus on the multi-level dungeon, The Tower, and the new world boss, Azmodan.

The Tower requires you to kill enough enemies within 10 minutes to summon a random boss. Defeating the boss ends the dungeon and stops the timer.

Notably, the leaderboard feature, previously removed from Diablo 4, returns with the release of The Tower. All your Tower dungeon battles will be ranked by class and number of players.

The development team stated that The Tower in Season 11 is more of a pilot, and they will continue to refine and expand the dungeon content based on actual player feedback.

Return Of Capstone Dungeons

In addition to the leaderboard system, Capstone dungeons will also return to Diablo 4 in 2.5.0 PTR. There are five returning dungeons, each with a different recommended challenge level and difficulty, allowing you to choose one based on your ability.

Above is a preview of 2.5.0 PTR highlights. Use this information to prepare for PTR over the next four days!

While efficiency has been improved, Masterworking gear still requires the consumption of specific materials. To reduce farming time and focus on PTR itself, it's best to get safe and cheap Diablo 4 items trading at D4GOLD!

If you've been playing Diablo 4 since at least the beginning of this year, you're probably aware that starting with Season 8, the game's most dangerous endgame bosses (also known as ladder bosses) have been fully upgraded to lair bosses.

This change isn't just in name; more importantly, the mechanics shift from gathering materials to summoning a boss to starting the fight, to allowing you to directly fight them, but you must first collect lair keys to unlock the boss's corresponding hoard upon victory.

To ensure you're getting the right lair keys, lair bosses are now divided into three different tiers: initiate, greater, and exalted. Higher-tier lair keys may require killing lower-tier lair bosses, while others can be obtained by completing regular Diablo 4 events.

The reason you should continue farming lair bosses in Season 10 is that they drop Unique or Mythic Uniques. While some may not be as powerful as Chaos Armor, the overall value is still worth the effort.

So how should you farm lair bosses in Season 10, and what tips should you keep in mind? We'll explain below.

Lair Bosses And Related Keys

There are nine lair bosses in Season 10, each with its own lair key and loot pool. While you can theoretically farm a specific set of lair bosses, you'll need to complete other gameplay or boss battles to obtain the keys needed to unlock their hoards.

One thing worth noting and encouraging is that after defeating an initiate lair boss, in addition to the higher-level lair keys, Stygian Stones will also drop. This item can be converted 1:1 into any desired greater lair key.

All lair bosses and the lair keys/Stygian Stone drops they can provide are as follows:

• Varshan (initiate): Required 12x Malignant Heart, drops Shard of Agony or Stygian Stone
• Grigoire (initiate): Required 12x Living Steel, drops Shard of Agony or Stygian Stone
• Beast in the Ice (initiate): Required 12x Distilled Fear, drops Pincushioned Doll or Stygian Stone
• Lord Zir (initiate): Required 12x Exquisite Blood, drops Pincushioned Doll or Stygian Stone
• Urivar (initiate): Required 12x Judicator's Mask, drops Abhorrent Heart or Stygian Stone
• Duriel (greater): Required 3x Shard of Agony
• Andariel (greater): Required 3x Pincushioned Doll
• Harbinger of Hatred (greater): Requires 3x Abhorrent Heart
• Belial (exalted): Requires 2x Betrayer's Husk

In addition to defeating low-level bosses, you can also earn specific lair keys by completing the following Diablo 4 events or gameplay:

• Malignant Heart: Whispers or Helltides
• Living Steel: Helltides Chests
• Distilled Fear: Nightmare Dungeons
• Exquisite Blood: Legion Events, Helltides, and World Bosses
• Judicator's Mask: Helltides, Whispers, and World Bosses
• Betrayer's Husk: Belial's Ambush

What Is Belial's Ambush?

Belial's Ambush is essentially an ambush that randomly triggers after defeating any initiate or greater boss, ensuring you have a chance to unlock Belial's hoard.

While this small Belial isn't as dangerous as a full-fledged boss, you must remain vigilant during the fight. During battle, it will attack you with a combination of blood and poison magic, requiring you to dodge quickly and carry gear with appropriate resistance.

How To Find Lair Bosses?

While you no longer need to collect summoning materials in advance, it's recommended to wait until your character level is high enough to handle endgame content before finding and challenging a Lair Boss.

You can find the corresponding lair boss on the map by its unique icon. Right-clicking it will teleport you to the boss and begin the fight. However, before doing so, you'll need to understand the boss's lair keys and drop information and find reliable allies.

Lair Boss Loot Patterns

First, all lair bosses have the potential to drop either Uniques or Mythic Uniques. These drops are categorized as general available to all classes, and gear specific to each class.

When you defeat a boss and receive your first Unique drop, it will be a class-exclusive item. If you obtain other Unique loot or defeat the boss later, your chances of receiving general or exclusive loot are equal.

In addition, it's recommended to complete the lair boss fight in a group, not only because it's more efficient, but also because each additional team member increases the boss's chance of dropping additional Unique loot by 33%.

Alternatively, you can increase the boss's loot drop rate by increasing the difficulty. Typically, at Torment 3 difficulty, the current lair boss will drop one additional Unique loot. At Torment 4 difficulty and with enough players, the boss may even drop seven.

Best Season 10 Lair Keys Farming Strategy

In addition to lair keys, you'll also need to complete other tasks to earn gold and other crafting materials. Therefore, it's not recommended to directly challenge initiate boss after entering the endgame. Instead, first obtain Undercity Tributes through Helltides.

To do this, you must first own Vessel of Hatred DLC, which qualifies you for entering and farming Kurast Undercity. You can then earn more Undercity Tributes by repeatedly defeating Blood Maidens in Helltides.

The more Tributes you use before entering Kurast Undercity, the greater the rewards you'll ultimately receive, significantly increasing your chances of obtaining lair keys by completing Kurast Undercity.

That's all you need to know before farming Diablo 4 lair bosses in Season 10. While you're doing the quests, don't forget to challenge the new boss Bartuc in Infernal Hordes to obtain Chaos Armor!

If defeating lair bosses to obtain Unique or Mythic Uniques on your own is too tedious or difficult, you can also trade safe Diablo 4 items at D4GOLD! Simply enter the name of the Unique item you want to instantly retrieve and buy it!