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Although 2.3.0 PTR has ended and Season 9 has not yet officially started, most of the new season content has been fully demonstrated through the PTR, and it also gives you the opportunity to test your commonly used class or build in advance.

If you are familiar with similar ARPGs or have been playing Diablo 4 for a long time, you should know that the change of seasons will bring a series of adjustments, so the builds suitable for different classes in the new season will also change.

So, according to the PTR test, which build is the most suitable for each of the 6 classes in the game to utilize in Season 9? We will introduce it to you in combination with the content changes in S9.

Overview Of Season 9 Changes

In summary, the most prominent changes in this season are the new dungeons Escalating Nightmares and Strongrooms, the new seasonal power Horadric Spells, and the new ultimate boss Astaroth.

Among them, the most closely related to the crafting of builds should be Horadric Spells and related Horadric Jewels. They are like the boss powers in Season 8, and can be combined with various new and old builds as seasonal elements.

Horadric Spells include Catalysts, Infusions, and Arcana, and each element includes multiple options. You can combine them as needed to create the most suitable spell for you and combine them with builds. Adding jewels can further enhance the effect of spells.

In other words, no matter what class you plan to play and what builds you utilize in Season 9, don’t ignore Horadric Spells. It can not only help you earn more Diablo 4 gold, but also improve your seasonal combat experience.

Necromancer

To be honest, this may be the most average class in Season 9. Although each class has received several new builds in the new season, Necromancer not only has an average performance in its inherent builds, but also has too fragile new builds.

As you know, this class often relies on the power of minions in combat, but the relevant AI in S9 is slow to react and is not friendly to this combat mechanism. If you really like the mage class, Sorcerer will be more suitable for you.

Sorcerer

The most suitable build for Sorcerer this season is undoubtedly Hydra Build. Although it is also a summoning skill, Hydra’s performance is much more reliable and interesting than Necromancer’s minions. It can summon a three-headed hydra in battle to deal fire damage to the enemy.

Builds centered on it can output more different types of damage to the enemy by combining skills such as Fire Bolt and Ice Shards, and attack the enemy from multiple angles. More importantly, the combat fun brought by Hydra Build is also very good.

It is worth noting that the above combat experience is based on PTR. It is difficult to say whether the game will weaken it in S9 because it thinks that this build is too powerful.

Druid

For Druid, in addition to Horadric Spells, the new content that should be added to related builds is the newly added unique item Rotting Lightbringer. The effect of this weapon is closely related to the skill Pulverize. In addition to its own damage ability, it can also increase the chance of the skill to hit twice, and increase the damage to enemies with poison damage.

Every 10 seconds in combat, Pulverize will form a puddle, causing poison damage equivalent to 200-400% of its damage in 6 seconds, and additional splash damage equivalent to 20-40% of the total damage of the puddle in and around it.

You can simply call this build Poison Pool Druid Build. Through the combination of new weapons and classic skills, it will make Druid show its prowess in Season 9.

Rogue

Due to the weakening of some mechanisms, the experience of Rogue in S9 may not be too good (but it should still be stronger than Necromancer). You can try new builds with the new unique item Deathmask of Nirmitruq helm, but this item will consume too many resources, so it is not really effective.

Based on this, if you still want to play Rogue, you can continue to utilize Death Trap Build. Although it lacks novelty, at least it won’t go wrong. However, this build is more gear-dependent, so please be sure to do the relevant farming in time.

Barbarian

The reliable build for Barbarian in Season 9 is also the old Whirlwind Build, which can still make you play most of your strength as a Barbarian on the basis of Gohr’s Devastating Grips brought by Season 8.

However, the reason why we recommend you to continue to choose this build is not entirely because it is reliable, but mainly because Whirlwind has been weakened less than other Barbarian skills or mechanisms.

Spiritborn

The build suitable for this class to utilize in the new season is still Quill Volley Build that has been well received since its launch. The difference is that Season 9 adds a unique item Balazan’s Maxtlatl pants to it, allowing you to output more thorn damage and poison damage.

Based on this, other Spiritborn Thorns builds are actually pretty good, and they become even more reliable when combined with rare gear. To be honest, Spiritborn and Sorcerer based on Hydra Build should be the most popular play styles in S9.

The above is just our classes and builds experience suggestions based on PTR experience. In fact, you can explore more play styles that suit you on Season 9! Have fun!

There is only about half a month left before the end of Diablo 4 Season 8, and you should be busy participating in the various events of the second anniversary celebration. In fact, if you have invested enough time before, the content of this season should have been almost completed.

But in addition, since Season 8 brings a lot of seasonal boss powers, and you can only equip 4 types in each battle, it is very likely that you have not had time to fully experience the power of all boss powers until now.

It is worth noting that in S8, these boss powers can be well integrated with your builds, or new builds can be crafted based on power, thereby improving your Diablo 4 gold farming efficiency, which will also help your anniversary event experience.

Based on this, this time we will take Druid class as a representative and introduce you to the build that is suitable for it with Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs as the core.

Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs Effects

As a rare boss power, Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs can only be obtained after you defeat Urivar on Torment difficulty. As for the specific effects, like all other boss powers, there are two types of modifier power and main power:

• Main power: After casting the ultimate skill, you can continue to throw 4 bombs, causing 2,800% fire damage to the enemy, and also gain 15% cooldown reduction.
• Modifier power: For each enemy killed, the utilize cooldown of the ultimate skill will be reduced by 0.58 seconds.

However, in order to obtain this power and loot such as gold or gear, you must also obtain 12 Judicator’s Masks as lair keys to open the boss hoard before starting the battle. The source of this item is Tree of Whispers, world bosses and mercenary bartering on Torment difficulty.

Other Boss Powers That Go With It

As you know, you can equip 4 boss powers in each battle in Season 8, so for this build, in addition to Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs (main power), the other three suitable modifier powers are:

• Avarice’s Explosive Ore: After activating the main boss power, consume all main resources, increasing the damage to the main power by 0.20% for every 1 resource consumption.
• Wandering Death’s Chest Beam: Causes the main boss power to instantly execute non-boss enemies with less than 25.0% health, and you will also gain 25 main resources after the execution.
• Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste: For every 1% bonus to Shadow Resistance gained, the critical strike chance will also increase by 5%, up to a maximum of 50.0%.

Related Druid Build Skills

Since Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs is the key to the entire build, the unlocking of skills and the utilization of skill points need to form good combat synergy with the boss’s power while playing their own role. Specifically include the following skills:

Basic Skills

• Earth Spike-Enhanced Earth Spike-Wild Earth Spike
• Storm Strike-Enhanced Storm Strike-Wild Storm Strike

Core Skills

• Heart of the Wild
• Abundance
• Wild Impulses
• Predatory Instinct
• Iron Fur
• Digitigrade Gait

Defensive Skills

• Earthen Bulwark-Enhanced Earthen Bulwark-Innate Earthen Bulwark
• Cyclone Armor-Enhanced Cyclone Armor-Preserving Cyclone Armor
• Vigilance
• Ancestral Fortitude
• Backlash

Companion Skills

• Feral Aptitude
• Call of the Wild
• Clarity
• Nature’s Reach
• Humanity

Wrath Skills

• Hurricane-Enhanced Hurricane-Savage Hurricane
• Rabies-Enhanced Rabies-Natural Rabies
• Endless Tempest
• Mending
• Provocation
• Envenom
• Neurotoxin

Ultimate Skills

• Petrify-Prime Petrify-Supreme Petrify
• Defensive Posture
• Catastrophe
• Quickshift
• Heightened Senses

Key Passive

• Nature’s Fury

Of course, after determining and unlocking all these skills, you still need to release them one by one in a fixed rotation order to truly play the role that all skills should play. Among them, active skills usually bear the responsibility of output damage, while passive skills can further increase the amount of damage or other support bonuses.

The uniqueness of this build is that it can fully utilize and show the role of boss power on the basis of this conventional builds operation form, making this build more reliable than ordinary Druid builds in S8.

What Are The Most Suitable Gear?

After determining the skills and all boss powers, the next thing to do is to match the gear for your Urivar Druid Build. Although many gears need to be farmed by bosses many times before they drop, as Season 8 is coming to an end, you as a Druid player should have obtained quite a few.

• Helm: Vasily’s Prayer
• Chest Armor: Shroud of False Death
• Totem: Virulent Totem
• Sword: Sword of Inner Calm
• Gloves: Vehement Brawler’s Gloves
• Pants: Stormshifter’s Pants
• Boots: Rakanoth’s Wake
• Amulet: Amulet of the Changeling’s Debt
• Ring: Airidah’s Inexorable Will & Mjölnic Ryng

With The Power Of Mercenaries

Since the mercenary mechanism was introduced in Diablo, it should have become your indispensable combat assistant. In fact, they can also be crafted as one of the elements in builds.

Among all the 4 mercenaries, the most suitable main mercenary for Urivar Druid is Varyana. Once you’ve chosen her, unlock her skill tree in the order of Cleave-Hysteria-Bloodthirst-Bloodlust. As for supporting mercenaries, Raheir’s skill Bastion can help.

Although this build is strictly for Season 8, its idea of ​​using boss power can actually be used as a reference for all subsequent Diablo 4 seasons. Taking Season 9 as an example, the appropriate Horadric Spells may also help you craft new and unique Druid builds!

Even the most experienced Diablo 4 players can hardly guarantee that they will not make any mistakes in the game since the first season - of course, this refers to mistakes that can be ignored, not the kind of behavior that is so obvious that it will ruin everything.

In a few weeks, Diablo 4 will officially launch Season 9 on July 1, which also marks the end of Season 8 and the two-year anniversary event. It’s too late to save your mediocre Season 8 from now, but for Season 9, everything has not yet begun.

Based on this, we will point out several wrong decisions that you may still make even in Season 9 to avoid wasting the gameplay value of the new gameplay provided by the new season.

Improper Difficulty Selection

As you know, Diablo 4 has a clearly graded difficulty system, including Standard difficulty and Torment difficulty. Both difficulties have 4 levels and different unlocking conditions. They are:

Standard Difficulty

• Normal: Unlocked by Default
• Hard: Unlocked by Default
• Expert: Complete the Prologue
• Penitent: Reach Level 50

Torment Difficulty

• Torment I: Complete Pit Tier 20 (-250 Armor and -25% All Resist)
• Torment II: Complete Pit Tier 35 (-500 Armor and -50% All Resist)
• Torment III: Complete Pit Tier 50 (-750 Armor and -75% All Resist)
• Torment IV: Complete Pit Tier 65 (-1000 Armor and -100% All Resist)

Not only do the difficulty levels increase in challenge in the order above, but the amount, chance, and rarity of Diablo 4 gold, XP, and gear you can get after completing battles of the corresponding difficulty will also increase.

As a result, you may rush to challenge the new difficulty level just after unlocking it because you are eager to accumulate loot. This may lead to two results:

• 1. The strength does not match the difficulty level and is killed by the enemy, resulting in losses.
• 2. The victory is achieved, but it takes too much time, and the overall efficiency is not as good as completing the level with lower difficulty.

Or there is another possibility, that is, you are too cautious after considering the above situation, and stay in the low difficulty for too long, which delays the character growth process and the opportunity to earn rare items faster.

Therefore, you need to arrange the timing of entering the next difficulty reasonably on the premise of fully understanding your own abilities and the conditions of each difficulty level.

Usually, you will reach level 50 after completing the campaign. At this time, don’t rush to enter Penitent, but fully farm all available resources at Expert difficulty to complete Penitent more safely, and this strategy also applies to the subsequent Torment difficulty.

Lack Of Flexibility In Skill Selection & Rotation

Admittedly, when dealing with those small soldiers or low-level bosses, you can directly turn on automatic combat or press a few keys corresponding to common skills to quickly complete the battle. But it’s hard to say whether this will make you dependent.

For example, Sorcerer may ignore Ice Armor because of Fireball, and overcasting Rapid Fire will cause Rogue to miss the combat effect of Rain of Vengeance - no single skill is always reliable.

In addition, automatic combat is not completely intelligent. At least from the perspective of boss mechanism, especially those high-level bosses, they require you to develop more flexible skill selection and rotation strategies on your own, and improvise in battle to be defeated.

In fact, flexible combat strategies can not only help you win faster and more safely, but also save lives and resources so that you can gain an advantage in long battles.

Improper Exploration Progress Of The Pit

The principle of this misunderstanding is actually the same as the difficulty selection. As a special Diablo 4 endgame dungeon, The Pit has a total of 150 levels, and the difficulty and loot quality are gradually increasing.

If you are a player who makes mistakes in choosing the game difficulty and no one corrects you, then you are likely to make the same mistakes when exploring The Pit.

In addition, based on properly arranging the exploration route of The Pit, to improve the efficiency of clearing, you can focus on concentrated enemy clusters and use glyph bonuses to increase combat speed or item drop probability.

Blindly Equip Rare Gear

Although in general, the higher the level or rarity of gear, the better, you cannot stack rare gear on your character indiscriminately. Each gear has its own characteristics, suitable for different classes, builds and combat styles, and some have significant resistance to specific bosses.

Therefore, the choice and equipment of gear requires you to make reasonable arrangements after fully considering the above factors. Sometimes it is more important to suit you than whether the gear is rare.

Ignore The Plot And Cutscenes

Perhaps you will choose to skip all narrative plots and Cutscenes when completing the prologue or campaign of Diablo 4 because you are eager to farm gold and XP, but to be honest, this has almost no benefit except saving time.

For any MMORPG with a complete story, the details and foreshadowing in the plot development are actually likely to have certain inspirations for you to complete the difficult content, which can improve your efficiency in completing related battles.

From a literary and aesthetic point of view, these plots also echo the aesthetic style of the game. Watching them will allow you to more personally experience the formation of the background and the changes in the character’s personality in Diablo 4, and even the stories of various regions.

Of course, it does not mean that avoiding the above misunderstandings will make your Diablo 4 Season 9 journey smooth, but it will definitely be better than not knowing this information! In any case, your core task after entering the new season is always to strengthen your character.

With the end of 2.3.0 PTR, it also means the end of Season 8 and the arrival of Season 9. In Diablo 4, the season change is always so fast, perhaps to avoid you getting bored after losing interest in the current season.

Of course, in the season change, Diablo 4 finally ushered in the second anniversary during Season 8. Most games will launch celebration events mainly to give back to players at this commemorative time, and Diablo 4 is no exception.

Based on this, we will introduce you to the main content of this anniversary celebration and give you some tips for a better gaming experience.

When Will The 2nd Anniversary Celebration Be Held?

The launch date of the game itself is June 1, 2023, but whether it is this year or last year, the celebration time is not completely fixed on June 1, but is held in a set interval within June.

This year’s commemorative event started at 10am PDT on June 3rd and will last until the 17th, about 2 weeks. Although the start time has been adjusted, the duration is basically the same as last year.

Last year’s first anniversary event was held together with the second anniversary of Diablo Immortal. The joint celebration of the two games made the atmosphere in the game more lively.

Although I don’t know why they were not promoted together this year, the time of the event overlaps. If you need it, you can also experience the limited-time new event in Immortal.

What Are The Content Of The 2nd Anniversary Celebration?

Last year’s Diablo 4 anniversary event included three parts, namely March of the Goblins (the celebration is also named after this), receiving gifts, and Mother’s Blessing. Although this year there are also three events, the content is different.

1. 2nd Anniversary Event Reliquary

As you know, the new content launched with Season 8 includes the new battle pass system Reliquary. Reliquary rewards set for special events usually require you to consume the relevant special currency to obtain them. For example, Behelits corresponding to Berserk crossover.

But the good news is that Reliquary rewards of this 2nd Anniversary can be directly redeemed by Diablo 4 gold! If you know enough about Diablo 4, you will know that this is indeed a big benefit. Because the drop rate of ordinary gold is much higher than that of special currency.

To show the grandeur of the celebration, 2nd Anniversary Event Reliquary provides many unique and beautiful cosmetics, including:

• Sunflame Lantern Mount Trophy
• Sunflame Sword Two-Handed Sword Cosmetic
• Sunraiser Sword Cosmetic
• Burning Dawn Banner Mount Trophy
• Burning Barbs Polearm Cosmetic
• Burning Dawn Bow Cosmetic

Until the end of the entire anniversary event, you can earn gold for reward redemption by completing seasonal tasks, clearing dungeons, or defeating bosses. It is worth mentioning that if you can collect all the above cosmetics within the specified time, you will also get The Burning Dawn Mount Armor.

2. Mother’s Blessing

In fact, this event is not limited to the anniversary celebration. Diablo 4 also holds it frequently, but this does not mean that it is useless. The loot bonus rate brought by Mother’s Blessing can have a great positive effect on your resource accumulation.

During this Mother’s Blessing, whether your character is a seasonal exclusive or in Eternal Realm, you will receive a 35% multiplier on XP and a 50% gold acquisition rate after the battle.

This will not only allow you to earn more gold in a short period, increasing the likelihood of earning all 2nd Anniversary Event Reliquary rewards, but also lay a solid resource foundation for the upcoming Season 9.

3. Gift Of The Tree Cache

As one of the main components of Diablo 4 endgame, Tree of Whispers will issue a series of bounty missions. These missions are spread across the game map, and you can complete them one by one within the specified time as needed.

After that, you will receive a special currency, Grim Favors, which can be exchanged for exclusive caches when you go to Tree of Whispers again. Open them and you may get rare gear!

In addition to the normal caches, the 2nd Anniversary will allow you to get an additional Gift of the Tree cache every time you exchange Grim Favors, which will appear when you open the normal caches!

Notes On Participating In The Celebration

To get enough Grim Favors to redeem more Gift of the Tree cache, you need to actively farm dungeons, bosses, and other daily events that are included in bounty quests. At the same time, these quests actually reward you with Diablo 4 gold, and the gold drop rate is increased due to Mother’s Blessing effect.

So you can focus on Tree of Whispers bounties and find the quests that drop more gold, so that you can fully utilize all the celebration events in a single battle!

Above is all about Diablo 4 2nd Anniversary. Please take the time to enjoy this celebration! Have fun!

Although 2.3.0 PTR has ended, it is certain that all the new content that will be launched in Diablo 4 Season 9 must include two new dungeons, namely Escalating Nightmares and Horadric Strongrooms.

Among them, Escalating Nightmares can be regarded as an upgraded version of Nightmare Dungeon, one of the inherent Diablo 4 dungeons, while Horadric Strongrooms is a seasonal dungeon launched specifically for Season 9, just like S7’s Rootholds.

However, although these two new dungeons do not completely belong to the same system, they can not only all bring you a lot of Diablo 4 gold to farm, but also have connections with each other. Next, we will introduce them to you one by one.

What Are Escalating Nightmares?

As a new endgame event, this new dungeon actually connects 3 separate traditional Nightmare Dungeons in series, providing you with the opportunity to get more rewards by expanding the difficulty and scope of exploration.

How To Enter?

To enter Escalating Nightmares, you first need to obtain Escalation Sigils that unlock the first dungeon, and the second two dungeons require you to carry the affix of the previous dungeon to enter.

After you obtain Escalation Sigils, it will tell you which Escalating Nightmares dungeon you should enter first, and show you all the negative and positive affixes you will encounter.

Because just like the normal Nightmare Dungeons, all three dungeons in Escalating Nightmares have their own positive and negative dungeon affixes, and the affixes you have will stack as you progress through the clearing process.

Later, when you defeat the final boss to complete the current dungeon, a special pillar will appear on the screen, which will teleport you to the next dungeon in Escalating Nightmares.

How To Complete?

As you know, Escalating Nightmares is actually a combined advanced version of the regular nightmare dungeons, so the specific gameplay differences are not very big.

In general, you will still trigger random events or encounter various bosses in Escalating Nightmares, and defeating them will get rewards, including gear of varying quality, gold, and Obols.

How To Get Escalation Sigils?

As the key item to unlock Escalating Nightmares, the acquisition of Escalation Sigils is actually related to another new dungeon in Season 9, Horadric Strongrooms.

In fact, this is why we say that there is a connection between Escalating Nightmares and Horadric Strongrooms. You can only get this item by completing Strongrooms in Torment difficulty and opening Horadric caches.

What Is Horadric Strongroom?

As a Season 9 limited dungeon, Horadric Strongrooms is actually a small treasure room hidden in Escalating Nightmares and ordinary nightmare dungeons, bringing you new rewards and fun with additional adventures.

How To Enter?

Since the entrances to Strongrooms are randomly hidden in Escalating Nightmares and normal Nightmares, and Strongrooms must be completed to open the former, the first thing you need to do is to collect Nightmare Sigils to enter Nightmare Dungeon.

You can then utilize Wayfinder to look out for unique sounds and flashes while exploring Nightmare Dungeon, and where they are located will be Horadric Gateways.

Although the appearance of gateways is random, you can increase the probability of them appearing in other ways, including:

• Choosing a higher difficulty: The higher the difficulty of your game, the greater the chance of encountering a gateway.
• Clearing the entire dungeon: You will always encounter several gateways after searching the entire Nightmare Dungeon.
• Upgrading Wayfinder: This can be done with Season 9 exclusive currency Horadric Phials. After upgrading, Wayfinder will locate the gateway faster and more accurately.
• Farm Nightmare Sigils with the “guaranteed Horadric Strongroom” affix: This affix guarantees that Strongrooms will appear in the corresponding location.

How To Play?

After activating the gateway, you will encounter a wave of ambushed enemies. Kill them to open the gateway and enter the dungeon. Next, you need to activate Horadric Artifact Pillar and kill the enemies that appear to complete the initial ritual. Then continue to interact with the pillar to change the conditions of the final rituals.

Next, please kill new enemies according to the requirements of these conditions to summon the final boss of the current Horadric Strongroom. After killing it and confirming that all enemies in the dungeon have been cleared, the new gateway will take you back to where you were before entering Strongroom.

It is worth noting that the higher the game difficulty when entering Strongroom, the more artifact pillars you need to choose. Some of these pillars will provide buffs, while others will increase rewards and bring additional dangers due to the corruption caused by the boss Astaroth.

What Rewards Are There?

After completing Horadric Strongrooms, the first thing you get is Horadric Attunement and a cache. You can think of the former as a kind of points, because the number of rewards you get after opening the cache depends on your Attunement.

In addition to regular rewards and Escalation Sigils, if your Attunement count exceeds 2000, you may also get a rare elixir through cache.

The above is the connection between the two new dungeons in Season 9 and their respective gameplay. I hope it will be helpful for your future battles in the new season!

Playing games seems to be just one of the simplest daily entertainments, but if you want to improve your gaming experience in all aspects, there are actually many related factors.

Take Diablo 4 as an example. From the game itself, the influencing factors include the richness and rationality of the playable content, whether the style and music are attractive enough; from other perspectives, it includes the configuration of devices and the operation settings.

Therefore, when you are looking for Diablo 4 game guides, in addition to teaching you how to craft builds or how to clear dungeons to earn more Diablo 4 gold, there will also be bloggers focusing on evaluating devices and different game settings.

Recently, Diablo 4 will usher in the 2nd anniversary celebration at the end of Season 8, and then Season 9 will be launched. Based on this, we will recommend you 6 new settings suitable for immediate application to help you improve the game’s operation smoothness from the end of Season 8.

1. Advanced Tooltip Compare

This setting compares the statistics of items side by side to highlight the differences in their attributes to help you determine which items are more suitable for your character. This is very necessary for you to improve your character’s strength efficiently.

Oddly, this setting and the next advanced tooltip information are turned off by default when you first enter the game. As a result, when you compare items, the tooltip only shows the main attributes, the equipment appearance, and the temper it may have.

But if you want to see advanced gear information such as attribute range or lucky hit rate, you must turn on the advanced tooltip compare setting. Since you need to change gear frequently during different battles, more gear information that can be directly seen and compared can help you understand your gains and losses when changing or upgrading gear.

2. Advanced Tooltip Information

You can think of this setting as a supplementary reference content for tooltip compare, because even if you know all the information about the corresponding gear through tooltip compare, you may not know how to upgrade the gear in a targeted manner next.

Based on this, this setting will utilize different colors to mark the specific circumstances in which your items may gain or lose properties and other modifiers. Although this function is not very meaningful after you enter the endgame, it is very useful when you are upgrading your character in the early stage.

3. Auto Pin New Quest

The function of this setting is that when you select a quest or a destination of a quest in the game log, the system will automatically place a map marker at the corresponding location, and then your mini-map will directly show you the route to the selected destination.

On this basis, it is recommended that you combine it with your HUD compass. This will cause an arrow to appear on the screen as a guide to move forward, so you don’t have to keep staring at the minimap. You can also further set the arrow to any color you think is eye-catching to make the guidance more clear.

After selecting a quest, the arrow will point toward the quest. All you have to do is open the quest menu and click on the corresponding quest. You will find a small arrow and a small line pointing to it, and follow the instructions to explore.

4. Player Highlights

When you enter a dungeon or other special area where enemies appear in groups or the surrounding environment is dark, you will find that you may not find your character! This is undoubtedly a big negative impact on your game experience.

The game takes this into account and launches player highlights and other related settings or features. Just turn on this setting and click Save Changes. When you return to the game, you will see a glow around your character, so that you will be able to easily see where your character is in any situation.

It is worth noting that the color of the character’s highlight light can be customized, so you can change it as needed, because the background color of different dungeons or scenes should also be different. In addition, the mouse can also be set to high-contrast highlights like the character. After all, when the battle is chaotic, it is less conspicuous than the character.

5. Screen Shake

When you encounter those enemies and bosses in Diablo 4 that are huge or good at utilizing explosive skills, or your builds have features such as super fast attack speed or super high attack power, then you may find that the screen will shake with certain effects during the battle.

This is actually because your screen shake setting is turned on. This special effect can provide a certain sense of reality in your battle. But to be honest, not every Diablo 4 player likes this, and sometimes it may cause additional lag, so you can turn it on or off according to your needs.

6. Force Move

This setting is more suitable for you to enable when you utilize PC to play Diablo 4, because under normal circumstances, when you control the character through PC, you always need to click different directions with the mouse, which is not troublesome, but it will make your hands tired.

After turning on the force move setting, no matter how you operate, even if you stay in the stopped position, you will still move. In this way, as long as you adapt to this function, both fighting in the game and daily exploration will become faster, and you will feel more comfortable physiologically.

There are many adjustable settings in Diablo 4, but the above 6 settings will have the most intuitive impact on changing your gaming experience, and they should still work in Season 9!

Unknowingly, Diablo 4 has accompanied you for two years through 8 seasons. Although it has not always performed well, at least it has brought you a good Sanctuary adventure time. Now the second anniversary will come with Season 9.

Diablo 4 officially launched on June 5, 2023, and the currently confirmed release time of Season 9 is July 1 this year (PTR will end on June 3). Therefore, the two-year anniversary celebration event should actually be held at the end of Season 8.

But to be honest, as the opening work of the third year, even if the ninth season cannot participate in the two-year anniversary celebration itself, it should launch more innovative gameplay besides the content shown in the PTR before the official launch to show that the game itself still has development potential.

Based on this, we will introduce you to the events that may be held on the second anniversary, and what additional content we hope Season 9 can bring.

Known 2nd Anniversary Celebration Content

In June 2024, to commemorate the first anniversary of the game, from June 6 to June 20, Diablo 4 brought a series of celebration events including Treasure Goblin, Mother’s Blessing and more. You can get free cosmetic props and Diablo 4 gold and XP bonus opportunities by playing these content.

Although the celebration method this year has not been fully announced and may change, one thing remains unchanged, that is, everything should be based on providing rewards for you! And this year’s reward method is likely to be Reliquary.

It is expected that this celebration event will provide you with a free Reliquary, which may be a combination of a large amount of gold, new cosmetics, new theme rewards, etc. - after all, the anniversary reward cannot be set too single and simple.

What Is Reliquary?

This mechanism is a new form of battle pass launched in Season 8, divided into battle pass Reliquaries and event Reliquaries. The former is related to the daily progress of the game, while the latter is set for special events, such as the upcoming two-year anniversary celebration.

Compared with the previous battle pass, the biggest advantage of Reliquary is that you can decide the priority of obtaining rewards according to your own wishes, rather than in a fixed order. In this way, you can arrange the game progress exploration by yourself.

To be honest, although the mechanism itself is very good, it was complained by players for being too scarce when it was applied in Season 8. It seems that Diablo 4 completely regards it as a profit tool rather than a welfare mechanism.

Based on this, Reliquary provided through the anniversary celebration this time should be the product of the game after learning lessons, so both the quantity and quality of rewards should be better.

What Other Celebration Events Should Be Brought?

Rewards are one aspect, and the way to provide rewards is actually very important! It is fun to get free rewards directly, but it will be more fulfilling to earn rewards through your own efforts. Therefore, in addition to Reliquary, adding new tasks and gameplay should also be good.

To this end, the game can learn from last year’s practice and re-launch the classic Diablo 4 event Treasure Goblin, and get corresponding rewards by hunting these special creatures. In fact, this event was also held in March this year, and the response was still good.

In the past two seasons, Diablo 4 has been considered lacking innovation. Even the highly anticipated Berserk cooperation event was ultimately just another inducement to consumption. Therefore, the game can completely utilize this celebration to combine rewards with new gameplay to change its reputation.

How Should Season 9 Perform?

Although the two-year anniversary celebration should end before the launch of the season, it would be a bit ridiculous if the celebration performed better than the new season.

According to 2.3.0 PTR, the known highlights of Season 9 include the new boss Astaroth, the new power Horadric Spells (and a series of related mechanisms), as well as the update of the nightmare dungeon and the addition of Horadric Strongrooms dungeon.

Among them, the new Escalating Nightmares, as a new endgame dungeon, is actually a chain dungeon consisting of three nightmare dungeons. Each individual dungeon has stackable affixes, and the difficulty of the dungeon will increase as you explore deeper.

New Skill Effects Worth Keeping

Season 9 seasonal power Horadric Spells actually allow you to combine Catalysts, Infusions, and Arcana, three abilities that each have multiple types of power, to craft the combat power that best suits you.

No matter what specific power is utilized, the ultimate goal is to kill or weaken the enemy, but in 2.3.0 PTR, you will find that if you utilize Propulsion as a Catalyst, the large-scale explosion effect it produces can be combined with Floaty Bobble Arcana to form a special teleportation effect in the arena.

On this basis, if you further combine it with Bloody Charm Arcana, you can also kill enemies with less than 20% health in the explosion and reset the skill. In other words, as long as there are enemies nearby that will be killed by the explosion, you can achieve permanent teleportation in this way!

In order to accumulate key resources such as gold and XP, you need to actively farm various dungeons after the start of Season 9, and the teleportation effect provided by this series of Horadric Spells will greatly improve your combat efficiency because your speed and accuracy have been improved.

Although Diablo 4 is always used to cancel or weaken such accidental events in the PTR in the official season, this function is completely worth retaining. Because it does not destroy the game balance too much, and also provides game fun for players.

In short, whether it is a new season or a new celebration, it is worth looking forward to. Fortunately, they are not far away!

Because of the mediocre performance of Diablo 4 in the past two seasons, which has caused complaints from players, the game has brought news of the new season faster than ever before, and opened 2.3.0 PTR on May 27.

Although this may divert your attention, no matter what, the work at hand still needs to be done! Even if you have lost interest and confidence in Season 8, completing the reward tasks will lay a solid foundation for you to enter Season 9.

In order to restore the reputation of the season as much as possible before the end, Diablo 4 Season 8 also released patch 2.2.2 on May 27. The patch does not contain many changes, but Masterworking craft-related ones should be the most concerned.

Based on this, we will focus on Masterworking and introduce you to the main content of patch 2.2.2, as well as other details worth paying attention to.

What Is Masterworking?

First of all, you need to be clear that Masterworking is actually an endgame system in the game. You can utilize it to increase the value of affixes for specific existing items to make them more powerful because the 8-12 separate upgrade levels Masterworking provides.

It should be noted that Masterworking must be performed at the blacksmith, and the relevant craft materials must be farmed in important dungeons such as Nightmare Dungeons, Infernal Hordes, and Kurast Undercity.

What Changes Have Been Made To Masterworking In Patch 2.2.2?

In recent seasons, I don’t know if you have found that even if you have enough Diablo 4 gold and Obducite, the craft materials consumed for a Masterworking are indeed too much. Many players in the game community have also reported this problem and said that it even makes them not want to utilize Masterworking anymore.

But to be honest, this system is really useful for improving your game battle win rate and experience, because the gear upgraded by Masterworking is much more powerful than before, which can effectively solve battles that you could not deal with before.

Perhaps because the players’ resentment accumulated by Season 8 could no longer be ignored, through patch 2.2.2, the game reduced the number of materials required for Masterworking (excluding gold and Obducite as supporting consumables).

This way, you can perform Masterworking more times than before, and the crafting efficiency and combat efficiency will be further improved. However, it should be noted that this “reduction” is only for the number of materials, and does not mean that the difficulty of farming them or the number of drops will change.

What Else Are Included In Patch 2.2.2?

Although you may hope that Season 8 will be more interesting with a new patch, unfortunately, apart from Masterworking changes, the other patch contents are mainly to fix bugs and improve the player experience.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed the screen reader not reading the decoration details in Reliquary menu.
• Fixed the screen reader repeating the classes supported by Reliquary decoration items.
• Fixed the screen reader reading the season journey goal as a score.
• Fixed the screen reader not working properly when viewing Steam friends.

Season 8 Content Adjustments (the following issues have been fixed):

• Progression could be blocked if you left the dungeon while Slay the Ghosts’ objective was active during Buried Hope quest.
• Stronghold shrine could become un-interactive when defeating Duz-Agur in Eriman’s Pyre using Avarice’s Explosive Ore, one of the main boss powers.
• Apparition of Kirma could shake during a jump attack, causing the boss’s attacks to malfunction.
• The teleport effect of Jah rune was not working when equipped with the main power Duriel’s Burrow.

Gameplay Adjustments (the following issues have been fixed):

• Grigoire’s Hoard Chest could sometimes be opened without defeating the boss.
• Captain Willcocks, a rare monster in Hawezar, could become invincible if damaged too quickly.
• Obducite could be accidentally dropped by a player and picked up by any other player.
• Raven of the Tree no longer interacts with you after closing reward selection without selecting a reward.
• In some cases, the lair boss chest does not open properly through interaction.

User Experience Improvements:

• Tree of Whispers icons for Ked Bardu on the map.
• Fixed an issue where the season journey objectives completed before unlocking the chapter were not displayed as completed.
• Fixed an issue where the game could freeze after double-clicking the create character option in the character selection menu.
• Fixed an issue where the attack wave counter in Infernal Hordes was not updated on time.
• Fixed an issue where Devout Champion achievement sometimes did not unlock properly.
• Now the party vote will no longer time out and fail if someone leaves the party during the vote.
• Other visual, performance, and audio fixes and improvements.

Finally, I want to mention that in fact, in addition to the gameplay itself, the performance of Berserk crossover event launched in Season 8 is far from what you expect.

Originally, crossover should be a win-win activity, but the excessive emphasis on crossover item trading and the lack of novel gameplay ultimately led to the low evaluation of Diablo 4 Berserk crossover.

Honestly, if Diablo 4 wants to reverse its evaluation and performance from S9, besides improving the quality and creativity of the season, it should change the purpose of development - don’t lose the trust of players for the sake of temporary benefits.

The above is the comprehensive patch 2.2.2 information brought to you. I hope it’s helpful to you and wish you a better experience in Season 8 and PTR!

2.3.0 PTR is in full swing! You can use it to experience and test all the new content you want to experience in the future Diablo 4 Season 9, including finding and utilizing more different builds for each class.

Normally, the strength of all Diablo 4 classes should not differ much to ensure the balance of the game, but due to changes in the mechanism, it is not ruled out that some classes are more suitable for utilizing the new power of the current season-then these classes become the first choice to experience the new season.

Judging from the performance in the current PTR, although Horadric Spells are not exactly the same as the witchcraft power of Season 7, all of them seem to be very suitable for Sorcerer. Going further, you will find that this kind of “mysterious” seasonal power is very compatible with Hydra skills of Sorcerer.

Based on this, we will introduce you how to craft Hydra-centric S9 builds so that you can complete more battles as a Sorcerer as soon as possible in the PTR and the official ninth season.

Hydra Skill Overview

To understand how Hydra builds work, you must first understand the key skill Hydra. In Sorcerer’s entire skill tree, Hydra is an active skill and part of the conjuration cluster. It can be upgraded to a maximum of 5 levels to deal more damage.

More specifically, this skill allows you to summon a three-headed Hydra in combat, which will damage enemies within range by breathing fire for the next 12 seconds. This attack feature makes this skill can help you to get more Diablo 4 gold drops in small dungeons at one time, but you can only summon one Hydra at a time.

In addition to upgrading, Hydra can also be further enhanced like most active skills. Its enhanced versions include:

• Enhanced Hydra
• Invoked Hydra
• Summoned Hydra

How Should Hydra Builds Be Crafted?

Usually, the first step in crafting new builds is to determine the other available skills besides the core skills. As you can see, in addition to the summoning characteristics, Hydra essentially outputs fire damage, so other active skills that match it are also mainly of this type.

Skill Selection

As one of the important active skills, Fire Bolt will automatically fire flaming arrows in battle to cause burning damage to the enemy. With Hydra, you will set off a fire war in Season 9! In addition, you can continue to stack Lightning Spear to output lightning damage at the same time.

On this basis, the passive skill selection recommends Devastation, which can provide you with damage reduction and barrier effects, allowing you to output stable damage while ensuring that your own health is less damaged.

The combination of the above skills will eventually bring you a lot of barrier and buff effects, as well as 60% summon damage, 60% movement speed and 120% mana recovery bonus - this is enough to solve most Diablo 4 Season 9 battles.

If you still have spare energy, you can continue to add Ice Shards to the build. Although it brings another type of damage, it can also effectively weaken the enemy and provide additional attack speed, allowing you to complete the battle faster.

Gear Selection

Good and appropriate gear can amplify the effect of your skills while ensuring your survivability. For Hydra builds, the preferred helm is Harlequin Crest or Heir of Perdition, which can bring you considerable damage bonus.

Since you can directly obtain all Mythic Uniques in the PTR to facilitate your testing of various gear and the effects of new powers, in order to maximize the strength of Hydra builds, you can give priority to gear that can increase your resource generation and resistance, movement speed, and defensive attributes.

In this way, after sufficient testing through the PTR, you can conduct unique item farming more targetedly when entering Season 9, to get ahead in the new season with higher efficiency.

What Needs To Be Added To Season 9 Hydra Builds?

In addition to other skills, Hydra can also work with new power Horadric Spells to further improve the efficiency of related builds, and the short cooldown of Hydra will play an important role.

Among all Horadric Spells, Reactive Ooze can provide you with reliable resource generation, allowing you to gain 5% of your maximum resource generation per second for the next 10 seconds, Frigid Heart can cause freeze damage to enemies, and then run Volatile Crystal to make your Catalyst Horadric Spells deal more damage.

It is worth noting that after completing Horadric Spells matching, you can also earn Horadric Jewels to attach to these seasonal powers to provide them with richer effects. However, please note that not all Horadric Jewels have positive effects.

But if you want to get these jewels, you need to obtain Horadric Tomes in Horadric Strongrooms in Torment 1+ difficulties in advance (teaching you how to make Horadric Jewels) and farm enough materials to craft them.

The above are the main ideas for craft Hydra builds in 2.3.0 PTR and later Season 9. I hope it helps improve your Diablo 4 experience!

2.3.0 PTR for pre-testing the main content of Season 9 has been officially launched on May 27. If you have almost completed the progress of Season 8, it is time to enter the PTR and experience the new dungeons and new power Horadric Spells for a week.

Although Diablo 4 has brought almost no fundamental innovations or changes in recent seasons, there are always slight differences between different seasons. On this basis, in order to ensure the balance of the game environment, all 6 classes also need to be adjusted regularly.

Take the latest class, Spiritborn, as an example. Because it was considered too powerful shortly after its launch, it was weakened in Season 7, while other classes were appropriately strengthened to maintain the balance of class strength.

As the game progresses to Season 9, the previous adjustments may no longer apply. Based on this, we will introduce you to the nerfs and changes to classes and other related mechanisms that will be brought about in Season 9 based on 2.3.0 PTR and other information.

Barbarian

Of course, the PTR doesn’t blindly nerf every skill, affix, or other aspect of the game class. After all, balance means adding and subtracting in moderation. But in general, there are some major ability nerfs that you need to pay attention to, because this is related to the efficiency of your Diablo 4 gold farming.

For Barbarian, the first brunt of the nerfs is the skill War Cry, which has been reduced from 100% to 65%, and the glyph that can be paired with it, Wrath, which has been reduced from 160% to the lesser. Since they are the core components of many Barbarian builds, these nerfs mean that you will need to adjust your available Barbarian builds in the PTR or Season 9.

In addition, the attack effect of Bash, one of the main damage skills of the class, has been reduced. Although old patches have buffed this skill in the past, nothing is permanent in the game.

Druid

As a special ranged governing stone, Lightning Bolt can cause lightning damage to enemies by firing a special arc. Although it is not a Druid-only item, it is very effective for Cataclysm Druid builds - unfortunately, the effect of Lightning Bolt will also be reduced from 200% to 100%.

In addition, as one of the classes that can utilize specific overpower skills, Druid can form overpower domination on enemies through Werebear forms, but it is expected that the effect will also be reduced by half.

Changes To Other Classes

Comparatively, Barbarian and Druid have more changes and are more noteworthy. Adjustments to other classes include an overall reduction in overpower effects and Tempered damage. However, it is worth noting that the changes in Tempered damage include both enhancements and reductions.

• Rogue: The reduction in health damage after Stealth has reduced the additional damage that can be formed.
• Sorcerer: Lightning Spear’s damage has been reduced by 40%, and the skill effects of Hydra and Shocking Impact have been weakened.
• General nerfs (for all classes): The reduction of some Tempered damage, reduction of critical damage, basic skills, core skills and ultimate damage.

Nerfs Of Unique Items

At present, the specific nerf values ​​of all unique items that will be weakened are not very clear, but it is certain which items will be weakened, including general unique items and those exclusive to each class.

General:

• Banished Lord’s Talisman
• Locran’s Talisman
• Paingorger’s Gauntlets
• Rakanoth’s Wake
• Shard of Verathiel
• Yen’s Blessing

Barbarian:

• Arreat’s Bearing
• Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus
• Twin Strikes
• Ugly Bastard Helm

Druid:

• Mjölnic Ryng

Necromancer:

• Bloodless Scream
• Deathless Visage
• Indira’s Memory

Rogue:

• Condemnation
• Eaglehorn
• Eyes in the Dark

Sorcerer:

• Axial Conduit
• Esu’s Heirloom
• Fractured Winterglass

Spiritborn:

• Sepazontec

Implicit Affixes Weakened

In Diablo In Diablo 4, affixes are special magical properties. Each gear will have several affixes, or you can add additional affixes to your gear to make them more powerful.

Generally speaking, affixes in Diablo 4 are divided into three categories: offensive, defensive, and utility, which can provide different types of gains for gear, but the implicit affixes that come with gear cannot be changed or removed. In Season 9, it is expected that the implicit affixes of many weapons will be weakened, such as bows, crossbows, and some other long-handled weapons.

The above content is only part of the weakening reflected in 2.3.0 PTR for your reference. However, I want to tell you that the weakening is actually a normal change when Diablo 4 changes seasons. Listing it for you is just to facilitate your adjustment of your new season and PTR arrangements. Normally, they will not cause too much damage to your gaming experience.

In contrast, if you really want to adapt to the new season rhythm as soon as possible after the arrival of Season 9, you should familiarize yourself with the new content through PTR, such as the new dungeons Strongrooms and Escalating Nightmares, as well as the new bosses and new season powers.

The above is all the content introduced to you this time, you can utilize this as a basis to start your PTR exploration. I wish you all the best!