In this guide, I’ll be showcasing another unique build we tested in Season 4 PTR, which is the powerful Frozen Orb Sorcerer with Fractured Winterglass unique Amulet at its core. This is an incredible endgame build that combines Frozen Orb with a spell, creating an effect that can easily reach high levels and permanently freeze enemies.

It’s no problem with Pit of Artificers endgame newly introduced in Season 4. Personally, Pit Tier 159 was the highest we could open with this build at the time. So, at least with the scaling we have on PTR, getting all the way to Pit Tier 200 is pretty easy. So it’s safe to say this is one of the best builds out there, especially for a Sorcerer.

How Does It Work?

How it works is that Fractured Winterglass gives it a chance to spawn any random Conjuration whenever you cast Frozen Orb. So Ice Blades, Lightning Spear or Hydra and those Conjurations will spawn and throw their own Frozen Orbs. These Orbs can move back and forth and explode around like you know.

Basically, you’ll see about 20 Frozen Orbs exploding all the time. What’s more, if you have Aspect of Frozen Orbit, it can also cause Frozen Orbs to explode three times.

What this means is that you actually have a lot of Lucky Hit triggers, you have a lot of opportunities to trigger those Conjurations summon spawns, and you have Lightning Spears flying around all the time to deal a lot of damage.

Additionally, Frozen Orb synergize well with Conjuration Mastery Passive, providing additional damage and mana regeneration. So the more Conjurations you have, the more these scales up, the more you can spam everything. So it all synergize with each other in a really crazy way, making this build powerful.

Fractured Winterglass

You might feel that with the build going roughly the way I’ve shown it, it might be a little weak. Since our goal in Season 4 is to get into Pit Tier 200, the bar is a little higher, but the unique Fractured Winterglass will definitely help you get there.

This is one of the new Diablo 4 items dropped by Lord Zir in World Tier 4. It gives you a 35-50% chance of generating random Conjuration when casting Frozen Orb Explosion. If Lucky Hits, your Conjurations have a whopping 70-100% chance of launching Frozen Orbs at nearby enemies. Before getting Fractured Winterglass, Frozen Orb Sorcerer dealt mediocre damage and struggled to maintain mana.

While this build will still work on the starting Sorcerer, we strongly recommend switching to Chain Lightning Sorcerer build before you get Fractured Winterglass. Because Frozen Orbs deplete resources quickly, starting at a whopping 40 mana, and requiring specific equipment to maintain mana to continuously cast Frozen Orbs.

Pros And Cons

They’ve buffed Frozen Orbs quite a bit since I played it in Season 1. As I mentioned, this is pretty good, especially for leveling. When you're not looking for truly high-end content, and you don't have to fight millions of monsters like a boss, Frozen Orb Sorcerer is always the best choice.

But like I mentioned before, Aspect of Frozen Orbit has great synergy with Frozen Orbs, so you have to find it at least once. This will change your settings for more Conjurations.

And in Season 4, you can now choose where to detonate Frozen Orbs. When you play the game using your mouse and keyboard, it moves to your cursor. I think when you play with the controller, it just goes to your target or, like, a random set distance.

So it’s not like there was always a fixed long range where you had to constantly reposition yourself to really cast accurately. If you want, you can even stand on top of your enemies and throw Frozen Orbs into their faces. This also makes using it easier and better. Because you are guaranteed to always explode on the target, and the radius is very large.

But I have to say, I think this build will last a long time against all of these bosses. Therefore, boss battles are definitely a weakness of Frozen Orbs. But don’t worry, you can increase boss damage by optimizing settings. Once you are fully equipped, you can enter Pit Tier 200 and even clear speed will be fast.

Paragon Board Explained

We can also take a quick look at Paragon Board. We have six boards, six glyphs, and one or two very influential legendary nodes.

First, Icefall causes you to deal extra damage to vulnerable enemies. Additionally, we have Frigid Fate here, which also deals extra damage to vulnerable targets based on your cold damage. This number may seem a bit low, but you can actually Temper the cold damage, or non-physical damage, to maximize the effect of this Frigid Fate board.

There are also Paragon nodes that are basically just for stacking a lot of defenses. So we have a lot of life and similar damage reduction here, such as Damage Reduction from Vulnerable, Damage Reduction from Burning, Damage Reduction from Chilled. Because we need to be as tanky as possible to ensure we can survive the high-end content in Pit and those Uber bosses.

The rest is just like you know, grab some really important stuff like damage modifiers like Winter Glyph, and Destruction Glyph which can crit scale. Additionally, there’s a Conjurer Glyph here that increases their duration, so you have a really nice damage bonus.

All in all, this Frozen Orb build is a powerful and fun build for Sorcerer in Diablo 4 Season 4. But anyway, we still need to wait for the final patch notes. Let’s wait and see!

Here, we’ll take a deep dive into the newly introduced endgame activity in Diablo 4 Season 4: Pit of Artificers. With this guide, you’ll learn the requirements for entering this new endgame, the mechanics of Pit, and what rewards you’ll receive for completing it.

From dungeon mechanics to Masterworking materials and Stygian Stones, we’ve broken down all the essentials to help you overcome this challenge. Don’t miss it if you like concise and informative guides. May your adventures in Pit of Artificers be both meaningful and enjoyable! Let’s start!

How To Unlock Pit Of Artificers?

Pit of Artificers is a new endgame activity in Diablo 4 Season 4. Before entering, you first need to be in World Tier 4, and then you must run Tier 46 Nightmare Dungeon to complete this Priority Quest.

Obelisk for entering Pit is located in Cerrigar next to Waypoint. But please note that every time you enter Pit, Runeshards are required to enter. Runeshards come from completing most endgame activities, such as Nightmare Dungeons, Helltide Chests, Legion Events, and Whisper Caches.

Mechanism Explanation

This Pit has a tier system like Nightmare Dungeon. The higher the dungeon tier you enter, the higher level enemies you will fight, and of course, the more Diablo 4 Gold and loot you will receive upon completion.

After entering Pit, a timer will start, and defeating enemies will fill up the progress bar. Your goal is to fill this progress bar before time runs out.

There are multiple tilesets in Pit containing different types of enemies connected through portals. But I must remind you, try to avoid dying in Pit of Artificers! Because this will reduce your remaining time depending on how many times you die.

Once you complete the progress bar, you’ll get a portal to the boss stage. Defeating the boss will stop the timer and complete your dungeon run. Depending on how much time you have left, this will determine how many additional levels you will unlock.

Rewards

After completing Pit of Artificers endgame, you will be able to obtain some equipment, but more importantly, some Masterworking materials and Stygian Stones.

For Masterworking materials, you have Obducites, Ingoliths, and Neathirons. The materials you get depend on the tier of Pit you run. You can use these Masterworking materials at Blacksmith to upgrade your gear, which replaces the old Blacksmith upgrade system.

You can masterwork your gear a total of 12 times. Every level up except every 4 will increase all your affixes by 5%, while levels up to 4, 8, and 12 will increase random affixes by 25%.

Neathirons and Ingoliths can be converted by Alchemist at a conversion rate of 1 to 5. This avoids the trouble of being unable to upgrade the gear because we cannot find suitable materials.

Stygian Stones can be used on any endgame boss to generate a level 200 version of that boss as well as summoning materials. These bosses have a much higher drop rate than the original version. In order to defeat these bosses, you need to be well geared or have extensive experience in mastering the boss mechanics.

Anyway, that’s it for this quick guide to Pit of Artificers. Let’s look forward to what other exciting new content there will be in Diablo 4 Season 4. Good luck and have fun!

With Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR over, I’m back with my brand new Firebolt Sorcerer. This is a new Firebolt build for Season 4 based on Flameweaver Unique Gloves. So in this guide, let’s talk about how this new build works and what the highlights are.

Why Is This Build Worth Trying In Season 4?

I believe many players know that the new season will introduce a new endgame system with 220 tiers, Pit of Artificers. Even though I haven’t fully unlocked all tiers in PTR, this build can be easily run and even go all the way through T200, at least on PTR.

I also don’t expect this build to be significantly nerfed compared to other builds that have performed so well. So I think this will be relatively close to what we see in the live patch.

Gameplay & Mechanics

The build centers on Flameweaver Gloves, which allow players to unleash devastating Firebolt attacks. This Diablo 4 items will split Firebolt into multiple projectiles when you fire it. These projectiles can also fire at the same target, so you can produce pretty crazy single target damage output.

Basically, you have these Unique Gloves and you know where to put Firebolt. It’s actually a positioning-like game where you have to try to place Flameweaver in the right spot, such as right in front of an enemy, and Firebolt will impale all enemies.

You can also choose to keep Firebolt away from AOE and knock down the entire pack with a single attack, or you can try to place it in front of the elite and then hit them with many projectiles.

All in all, this build has a very interesting new play style that differs completely from other builds I’ve played so far.

Build Setup

The way this build is setup is based on DoTs, as Firebolt actually attaches a sizeable portion of DoTs damage. You could also try to make it like a hit-crit build, but I think DoTs might be the more correct choice. Because it’s actually one of the few similar non-crit builds.

Since your burning effect stacks on enemies, you can burn monsters easily. Then you just watch them melt as you run away, dying in your wake. So that’s really fun.

But for a more precise setup, I guess we’ll have to wait for the final patch notes, as I expect there will be quite a few balance changes. There will be more of these builds as we progress and once we have the final patch notes.

Survivability

Beyond that, this build has incredible survivability. Because this is a basic attack build with a very high attack speed, you can have effects like starting a new life on your item with each click. But more importantly, you can also have other Legendary Powers, like Hectic.

Hectic is something very useful in building. Every time you attack five times with a basic skill, it reduces your cooldown. Since this is basically what you’re doing all the time, you can refresh your cooldown often. Especially useful for your Flame Shield.

Some players may be concerned that Flame Shield is at risk of being nerfed in the new season. But regardless, even if it is nerfed or even removed, you can still provide the benefits of this Hectic effect to all other skills here, such as Frost Nova, Teleport, and Inferno.

So you can do different combinations here. It will constantly reset your cooldown with this Hectic Power. In fact, you could even try putting it on an amulet if you want to reset your cooldown faster.

Excitingly, I also took down some level 200 Uber Bosses with this build. Because you only need to press more on your Flame Shield and Ice Armor to further increase the efficiency of your build. Even if you don’t play all the mechanics perfectly, it’s easy to survive these bosses.

Final Thoughts

Anyway, for now I just wanted to highlight how this new Flameweaver Firebolt Sorcerer build works. I think it’s pretty cool and definitely something to look forward to.

While Firebolt build isn’t expected to be the absolute best in Diablo 4 Season 4, it’s expected to be one of the best-performing Sorcerer builds. Overall, Season 4 promises to offer a wider range of viable Sorcerer builds for players to explore. Let’s wait and see!

As we all know, the gradual decline of Blizzard’s action role-playing game was reversed in 2014. In that year, Diablo 3 pre-Reaper of Souls expansion patch called 'loot 2.0' almost saved the company's decline in the ARPG field. Both game critics and ordinary players believe that it was undoubtedly a shot in the arm at the time, re-injecting strong vitality into Blizzard. But times have changed, and today, 10 years later, Diablo has once again become depressed. It is still unknown whether Diablo 4 Season 4, which is expected to be released on May 14, 2024, can continue its previous glory, but Blizzard seems to be very confident in this.

Blizzard's Diablo 4 Public Test Realm (PTR), launched from April 2 to April 9, showed players the comprehensive changes in the fourth season's project settings in advance. It has now received a lot of positive feedback in the market, such as "Diablo 4 is good now", "Diablo 4 should use Season 4 as the initial release content" and so on. After experiencing the first three Seasons, players' enthusiasm for Diablo 4 has actually declined significantly, as can be seen from the number of real-time online players and real in-game popularity. Based on people's current impressions of Season 4, it seems that the new season is likely to have a strong enough attraction to bring back those players who have lost it, and even bring in new players who are eager to try Diablo 4 but have never done so.

Diablo 4 boss Rod Fergusson also said in an interview with the famous game news site IGN that they have put a lot of effort into the development and maintenance of Diablo 4. I totally understand the entire Diablo IV development team. No matter which project it is, from launch to full display in front of players, and if it can receive a lot of praise from users, then this will undoubtedly be the greatest encouragement for every team member who works hard.

At the same time, they are also very willing to listen to players' opinions and are working hard to make the game content more challenging and playable every season. Therefore, they launched PTR during the current Season 3 period to collect feedback from players. This is a very good time, giving developers the opportunity to adjust the upcoming content in time before the release of Season 4. Keeping pace with the times and always focusing on user experience is the secret to maintaining a game's long-term excellent vitality.

In addition, Rod Fergusson also said that they have completely subverted the way loot works and what we call itemisation in Diablo 4 Season 4. It will allow more possibilities and also mobilize players’ enthusiasm for exploration, which is exciting. Everyone can take part in it and practice. We can see it from the player participation in PTR that some people who have never participated in a season before have also tried PTR this time. It shows that the measures taken by Blizzard this time are very wise and should have a huge positive effect on Diablo 4 to attract new players.

Season 4 has also added a lot of approachable changes, which is to allow more people to understand the working mechanism of various things in Diablo 4. You know, those different attributes and affixes can be really confusing, especially for people who have never played Diablo or even an ARPG. Even if this group of potential people wants to try Diablo 4, they don’t have enough energy and confidence to play it well. So in order to solve this embarrassing problem, devs makes various things in the game clearer and easier to understand. In this way, players can immediately know what they are when they see something unfamiliar. Use the tempering system and the Masterworking system. Is it useful to you, and what action should you take next? Open up more information and autonomy to players, so that more and more people can have their own ideas.

At the same time, Rod Fergusson is proud that many people have said that they are working hard to return to the game and wait for Season 4. This is a genuine compliment to all developers for their tireless efforts. They go to great lengths to test the limits of how things can develop. Taking what everyone really finds interesting and successfully implementing it in the game efficiently is what they will continue to research next.

Some players said that the changes presented in PTR this time are so significant that they are very similar to‘loot 2.0’ that appeared in Diablo 3 in the past, and are just like the core mechanism of Diablo 4. So they infer based on this that it will most likely be the core of Diablo 5 in the future. This speculation is not unreasonable. Rod Fergusson said that Diablo is originally a role-playing game with the core of obtaining loot. Kill monsters, get loot, become stronger, and then challenge more powerful monsters to get more valueable Diablo 4 items or other loot, and the cycle continues in this order.

But in this PTR, the changes shown differ completely from the game logic that has been solidified in the past. They hoped that the system would have a certain degree of depth and complexity, but realized that it exceeded the goal. This will be a scope for future updates, but what kind of experience upcoming Diablo 4 Season 4 and the more distant Diablo 5 will bring us depends on the next development and market feedback. Let us wait and see!

Those playing Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR will probably find that the developers have made massive changes to the core system, and on top of that, there’s also been a ton of additions to the endgame content. This includes some major changes to the endgame boss ladder.

In Season 4, we will have a new boss that can be used to farm Uber Uniques. This new boss is called Tormented Echoes. They spawn at level 200 and have a huge amount of life.

In this guide, we’ll detail everything you need to know about these Tormented Echoes. Let’s get straight to it!

New Uber: Andariel

First, they added a new member to Boss Ladder, Andariel. She will be in the same camp as Uber Duriel and share the same loot table.

So this just gives you another boss you can face without having to target farm Andariel. It gives you a chance to get more summoning materials to get Uber Uniques.

Looking past Andariel now, the developers have actually made a big addition to the boss slider, and Tormented Echoes will affect all boss ladders.

So with the addition of Andariel and these bosses, they’re all going to have Uber versions that are going to be very difficult and drop more gear. Therefore, it is crucial to create a build that is entirely focused on killing very difficult bosses before Diablo 4 Season 4 begins.

New Summoning Material: Stygian Stones

Season 4 will have six Torment bosses, each requiring a special material called Stygian Stones to summon them. You can get it by completing Pit.

You’ll first unlock Pit of Artificers dungeon in this Torment World tier via a priority quest, which will introduce you to Runeshard currency required to open it. You can obtain Runeshard from Whispers by opening Legion or Helltide chests, or completing Nightmare Dungeons.

To start, you’ll get one or two Stygian Stones per run, and you’ll need three in total to summon Tormented Echoes.

It’s also important to note that, like other boss materials, Stygian Stones can be traded between players. So when Season 4 arrives, you’ll be able to purchase them with Diablo 4 Gold. Remember, if you complete Pit of Artificers with a team, only the team leader will be rewarded with Stones.

But you’ll also need a lot of normal boss summoning materials, so you can go to Helltide or Nightmare Dungeons to defeat any of the other ladder bosses, and collect materials to face some of the more tough bosses.

Torment Bosses Have More Chance To Drop Uniques

It should be noted that these Torment bosses require more summoning materials than the normal version of the boss, but these bosses will also give you a lot of loot. No matter which level 200 Torment Boss you face, they will all drop 925 Item Power gear.

This change is important because if you face Beast in the Ice or Lord Zir, they are not guaranteed to drop level 925 gear on normal difficulty, like Duriel.

This means you have a better chance of getting your top unique items. And because these Torment bosses simply drop more unique items and loot, you’ll increase that chance exponentially, too.

And considering Season 4’s upcoming Greater Affixes system, where Legendaries and Uniques will drop Greater Affixes, increasing that affix’s stats by 1.5x.

This means that being able to farm many unique items is important to making your build incredibly powerful. Once your character is strong enough, you’ll be able to kill any of these level 200 bosses with ease.

Also Read: A Potential Top-Tier Build For The Bone Spear Necromancer In Diablo 4 Season 4 Revealed

How To Summon Tormented Echoes?

You can summon these Torment bosses in common lairs and altars in Torment World Tier. But like I said, each boss summons requires five times the materials. For example, to summon Torment Varshan, you need five of each Malignant Body Part instead of one. Thankfully, it’s now easier to get boss materials, as they drop more frequently.

Although Tormented Echoes don’t appear to have any new attacks, they will spawn at level 200, and any elites they summon in battle will also have a higher level, so before facing any of them, make sure your The characters are at their best.

Defeating these Torment bosses will net you better rewards than the regular version, including 925 Item Power gear, and a guaranteed Resplendent Spark on your first kill.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think one of the best things about Diablo 4 is that there are so many bosses and the range of different difficulties faced when challenging them. You can focus almost entirely on killing bosses to get almost all the loot you want.

So instead of having a good build to get into Nightmare Dungeons super fast, you can just make a boss-killer build and go face off against increasingly hard bosses. That’s all I wanted to discuss.

As an action RPG, Diablo 4 is set to undergo a significant metamorphosis. You may play this enormous update early through Blizzard’s “PTR,” or public test realm, which opens on April 2.

Players on PCs that use the Battle.net launcher (excluding Steam players) get the opportunity to test out Blizzard’s revamped loot progression from April 2 to April 9. This includes 2 new crafting systems that allow you to personalize your things.

While not all of the Diablo 4 Season 4 improvements, such as the exclusive seasonal mechanics, will be available on the PTR, there are new Diablo 4 Items, adjustments to the class balance, and a brand-new endgame dungeon to try out and give feedback on prior to the final update going live on May 14.

The PTR Release Dates For Diablo 4 Season 4 

Blizzard has provided the schedule for accessing the Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR, yet the precise launch time remains undisclosed. Based on past experiences, it is anticipated to become accessible for download and play at the following approximate times:

• 10 am PDT
• 1 pm EDT
• 7 pm CEST

It is not possible to preload the PTR before then at this time.

Instructions For Accessing And Participating In Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR

Season 4 PTR content is available for download and play for PC users who have purchased Diablo 4 on Battle.net or Game Pass. All you need to do is download the game and modify the version in the app.

To play and download Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR, follow these steps:

1. Launch the Battle.net app. For Game Pass users on Windows, access the Battle.net app through the Windows Xbox app.
2. Locate Diablo 4 in the list of available games within the Battle.net app.
3. Next to the “Play” button, you’ll see a dropdown menu labeled “Diablo IV.” Click on this dropdown menu.
4. From the dropdown menu, select the PTR (Public Test Realm) option.
5. Once you’ve selected the PTR option, the “Play” button will transform into an “Install” button. Click on “Install” to begin downloading the PTR client.
6. After the PTR client is successfully installed, click on the “Play” button to launch the game.
7. Upon launching the game, you’ll be prompted to select one of the available test servers. Choose the server you prefer, and then you can proceed to create characters and begin testing.

Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR Character Leveling Tips

The primary focus of the Season 4 PTR is to evaluate the acquisition and enhancement of loot at maximum level. To expedite testing, Blizzard offers the option to instantly elevate any character to level 100 through an NPC named “PTR boost” located in Kyovashad.

Initially, players must complete the game’s prologue and opt to bypass the campaign via the provided selection on the character select screen. Blizzard mentioned that this prerequisite might become unnecessary with an upcoming PTR update. Afterward, players should navigate to Kyovashad within the Fractured Peaks region and engage in dialogue with the PTR boost NPC. From there, they can choose the option to elevate their character to the maximum level.

Boosted characters on the PTR will receive a range of bonuses tailored to facilitate testing, such as:

• A sum of 100 million Diablo 4 Gold
• 1,000 Obols for loot gambling at Purveyor of Curiosities NPCs
• 2 random sets of Ancestral gear
• Enhanced potions and unlocked Paragon Glyphs
• Up to 10 Tempering Manuals for attribute application to items
• A designated quantity of consumable materials, excluding those used for Tempering, Masterworking, and accessing The Pit dungeons
• A fully revealed map

Additionally, Blizzard emphasizes the ability to create new characters continuously to accumulate these rewards on your PTR account.

All additional skill points, paragon points, or unlocked potions attained by completing the regional renown objectives in the regular game will transfer over to the PTR, along with your cosmetic unlocks. It’s important to note that nothing from the PTR will carry over to the live game.

Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR’s Most Significant Modifications 

The Diablo 4 Season 4 patch notes contain over 10,000 words, but as you delve into the game, you’re likely to discover even more changes. Altering the mechanics of loot in an action RPG inevitably impacts various aspects of the game. Consequently, your gear, class, and builds will undergo significant transformations compared to previous iterations, effectively marking the onset of Diablo 4’s 2.0 era.

In the upcoming Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR, players can anticipate significant changes:

Loot drops will be reduced, but individual items will be more potent, with Legendary drop rates doubled in the PTR.

Players will have the ability to trade Legendary and Unique items (excluding Ubers) with others.

The introduction of Tempering and Masterworking will enable players to customize and upgrade their items by applying stats.

The Codex of Power will serve as a repository for all discovered Legendary powers.

Helltide events will now occur in all world tiers, featuring increased enemy numbers and a new summonable boss.

The Pit, a new feature, will allow access to timed endgame dungeons with over 100 tiers of difficulty.

Andariel, a new boss, will offer loot similar to that of Duriel.

All bosses will have a level 200 "Tormented" variant, providing enhanced rewards.

Players will have the option to zoom the camera out further than before.

Barbarian nerfs are expected, while necromancer buffs will bolster minion builds.

The PTR is scheduled to conclude on Tuesday, April 9, followed by the transition from Season 3 to Season 4 on May 14. Details regarding unique aspects of the new season have not yet been disclosed by Blizzard but are anticipated to be revealed by the end of the month.

Recently, the developers announced the updates they plan to release in Diablo 4 Season 4. Because of the lackluster reception of Season 3 and the launch of other ARPG games, if Diablo 4 is to remain relevant in the genre, the developers will really have to strengthen their game with some updates.

By looking at the fundamental changes they’ve made to the game so far along with the introduction of multiple new systems, overhauls of major items, and more, it seems like they’re on the right path to making Diablo 4 a better game.

Season 4 Risks Becoming A Pay To Win Game

But now, I’m skeptical. The first is because we don’t actually have updates yet. Secondly, Diablo 4 developers are known for making terrible changes that no one asked for. Like nerfing all the good builds to the ground before Season 1 starts, or adding expensive cosmetics to the game.

Therefore, in this guide, we will focus primarily on the immense danger to the potential success of the upcoming Season 4: this is the risk of Diablo 4 becoming a pay-to-win. We’ll discuss the impact this change has on the game, and how it itself may cause carefully crafted updates in Season 4 to become wasted.

Players Can Buy Materials From Third Parties

The ability to pay real money for items and consumables is now in the game. Players can purchase items with Diablo 4 Gold or even with real money on some websites.

In particular, the demand for buying and selling Duriel materials was and is very high. Because Uber Unique items have ridiculously low drop rates and high-power levels, players are forced to run Duriel hundreds of times.

Granted, collecting the materials to summon Duriel isn’t difficult, but overall it’s time-consuming and troublesome, so it’s no surprise that many players choose the easy way out.

Of course, paying third parties for actual in-game services is against the game’s terms, but the chances of getting banned are low. They don’t really stop many players from using wallets to get the best items in the game faster.

Uniques & Legendaries Cannot Be Traded Between Players

To this day, only rare items can be traded between players, but trading of Uniques and Legendaries is not possible. This way, players can’t simply buy all the items they need. The downside to this is that group members cannot provide each other with items they find, which creates some frustration within the player base.

Possible Impacts Of Season 4 Update

Excitingly, this will all change in Season 4. Once the new update goes live, you will trade unmodified Legendary items and Uniques. But this has some huge implications.

First, players on the same side can now easily share loot, which is a positive thing, but at what cost? It is not difficult to predict that this change will result in an increase in the number of items sold for D4 Gold. On top of that, more and more items will be sold for real money, eventually and potentially making Diablo 4 a pay-to-win game.

Now, thankfully, modified items cannot be traded. So technically, you won’t be able to get the best items.

Issues With New Trading Options

But items with Greater Affixes can be traded. These are the base items that will be used to create the best items through Masterworking.

So, with these trading options, the question becomes: Will players in Diablo 4 feel forced to use real money to get really good items? If so, this would create a similar experience to the beginning of Diablo 3, where the auction house offered far better items than you could find while actually playing the game.

The major difference between them is that in Diablo 3, transactions are conducted through a controlled system, while in Diablo 4, funds will be processed through third-party websites.

The most important consequence is that the easiest way to obtain these top items is to buy them instead of playing the game. Then no matter how good the game is, no matter how many new systems are added, no matter how hard the developers try to fix the problems, players will spend money buying items instead of actually playing the game. This will simply overwrite all the good stuff in this patch.

Most players will complain about this situation. But if the developers don’t respond to that, they’ll quit and move on to one of the other A-RPGs in the market.

All in all, I firmly believe that this new update may push Diablo 4 further towards its demise. But what do you think? Is this new patch a step towards pay-to-win game for Diablo 4? Let me know what you think and I’ll see you next time.

I can’t wait to show you my Ice Shards Sorcerer build for Diablo 4 Season 3 today. It’s been a lot of fun to play with. However, it’s important to note that this build isn’t particularly optimized for the Gauntlet. If you’re looking to tackle the Gauntlet, you might want to consider a different build. Nevertheless, it performs admirably in other situations and gameplay scenarios.

Skills

Teleport: This serves as our source of Unstoppable and can transform into lighting.

Ice Armor: Provides a barrier for defense and utility. While active, 5% of damage dealt is added to the barrier. Attacking vulnerable enemies contributes 50% more to the ice armor’s barrier. While active, your mana regeneration is increased by 25%.

Flame Shield: Grants immunity to all damage for 2.5 seconds. Also provides a 25% movement speed and mana cost reduction.

Deep Freeze: Grants immunity for 4 seconds and resets the cooldown of all other abilities. Upon its end, gain a barrier equal to 10% of your base life for 6 seconds for each frozen enemy. It also damages all enemies around you.

Lightning Spear: Another source of vulnerability.

Ice Shards: Launches 5 shards that deal 25% increased damage to frozen enemies. They have a 40% chance to ricochet and always ricochet off of frozen enemies. Hitting an enemy with 5 shards makes them vulnerable for 2 seconds.

Fire Bolt: Causes all abilities to apply burning damage, which amplifies fire damage.

Gear & Aspects

For the helm, use Harlequin Crest. It’s not required, but if you don’t have this Uber Unique, I would suggest using the Everliving Aspect. You take 20 to 25% less damage from crowd controlled or vulnerable enemies.

For the chest, use the Aspect of Shared Misery. When you hit a crowd control enemy, there’s up to a 50% chance for that crowd control effect to spread to another unaffected enemy.

For the gloves, use Frostburn. This gives you a 25% chance to freeze enemies for 2 seconds. If you do not have Frostburn, you could use gloves with attack speed, critical strike chance, and plus skills to Ice Shards. For the aspect, I would use Accelerating or Aspect of Control. Which gives you 25% increased attack speed or you deal up to 35% more damage to immobilize, stunned, or frozen enemies.

For the pants, use Tibault’s Will. You deal up to 40% increased damage while Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after. You also gain 50% of your primary resource. So every time you use teleport, you’re going to increase your damage and gain mana.

For the boots, use Esu’s Heirloom. Your critical strike chance is increased by up to 30% of your movement speed.

For the main hand, use Aspect of Piercing Cold. Ice Shards Pierce up to 4 times dealing 20% less damage per subsequent enemy hit.

For the off-hand, use Storm Swell. You deal up to 30% increased damage to vulnerable enemies while you have a barrier. Another good option would be the Accelerating Aspect.

For the first ring, use X'Fal's Corroded Signet. Your damage overtime effects have up to a 50% chance to erupt, dealing up to 40,000 damage of the same type to nearby enemies. This is great for this build because with the Fire Bolt Enchantment, we will be applying burning damage to all enemies hit and Ice Shards ricochet toward other enemies.

For the next ring, use Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop. For each type of Elemental damage you deal, gain up to 15% increased damage for 4 seconds. Dealing Elemental damage refreshes all bonuses. This is going to essentially be a 45% increased damage buff at all times as long as you’re attacking something.

And for the amulet, use Ancient Flame. While both bonuses from the Esu’s Ferocity key passive are active, your attack speed is increased by up to 75%. Of course, you can also choose appropriate gear based on the amount of Diablo 4 Gold you have.

Skill Tree

For the skill tree, our basic attack is going to be Fire Bolt. For the core skills, I put 5 points in Ice Shards, 1 point in enhanced and Destructive Ice Shards, 1 point into Devastation, and 3 points into Elemental Dominance.

Defensive Skills: Put 1 point into Flame Shield, Enhanced and Mystical Flame Shield, 1 point into Teleport, Enhanced and Shimmering Teleport, 3 points into Glass Cannon, 1 point in Ice Armor, Enhanced and Mystical Ice Armor, 1 point in Elemental Attunement, 3 points into Precision Magic, 1 point in Align the Elements, 3 points into Mana Shield, and 3 points into Protection. 1 point of Inner Flames and 3 points in Devouring Blaze.

Ultimate Skills: We’re going to be putting 3 points in Permafrost or Frost and Icy Touch, and then 3 points in the Frigid Breeze. Full damage against vulnerable enemies has up to a 20% chance to generate 15 mana. For the Ultimate Deep Freeze, 1 point in the Prime and Supreme Deep Freeze, 1 point of Fiery Surge for extra mana regeneration.

Key Passive - Esu’s Ferocity. This is currently bugged where it will buff all your damage, not just fire. Ice Shards will receive 25% increased critical strike damage and 5% increased critical strike chance against enemies that have above 50% of life. When you kill an enemy with a critical strike or hit a boss, you will be granted both bonuses for 3 seconds, which will give us the 75% increased attack speed from the Ancient Flame aspect.

Seneschal Construct

For the construct, I recommend using Flash of Adrenaline and Tactical Support. Then comes Genesis. If you do not have Genesis, you can also use Safeguard. Next, use Tempest. Resource Support, Efficiency Support and Arcing Support. If you have Evernight, you would replace Arcing Support.

Paragon Boards

Winter: Whenever you chill or freeze an enemy, you deal 3% increased skull damage for 10 seconds, up to 15%. This effect stacks and refreshes, remaining active as long as you are attacking. It also buffs non-physical damage and resistances.

Burning Instinct: The legendary node is not taken. The glyph, Unleash, triggers after spending 50 mana, granting 7% increased damage and 7% mana regeneration. This is crucial for maintaining a steady flow of Mana between Ice Shards.

Enchantment Master: The glyph is Elementalist. Killing fire, cold or lightning damage to an enemy increases all damage you deal to them by 5% for 10 seconds, stacking once per element. This buff stacks up to 15% of increased damage and refreshes with continued attacks.

Frigid Fate: The legendary node is taken. You deal bonus damage to vulnerable enemies equal to 10% of the total amount of your bonus damage with cold, up to a maximum of 30%. The glyph, Flamefeeder, grants 10% increased direct damage to burning enemies.

Ice Fall: The legendary node is also taken here. Your Frost skills deal 15% increased damage to vulnerable enemies, doubled if the enemy is also Frozen. The glyph, Control, provides 10% increased damage to slow or chilled enemies, or 20% increased damage to stunned or frozen enemies.

Searing Heat: The glyph, Exploit, increases your damage by 1% for 6 seconds, stacking up to 10%, when dealing damage to a vulnerable enemy.

Ceaseless Conduit: The glyph, Destruction, increases all damage the enemy takes from you by 2% for 10 seconds, up to 12%, upon landing critical strikes. This effect stacks and refreshes.

The familiar Diablo 4 experience has undergone a radical transformation. Blizzard’s extensive list of upcoming changes, set to debut with its next season and persisting into the future, touches nearly every aspect of the game. It’s as if a new game has emerged, cloaked in the guise of the one released less than a year ago.

Whether you lost interest early on or remained dedicated until now, Diablo 4 Season 4—set to launch on May 14—will redefine the process of character creation and evolution into formidable demon slayers. While a comprehensive list of updates will be revealed in Blizzard’s forthcoming patch notes, some of these changes may appear deceptively modest at first glance.

Outlined below are the five most significant alterations that will fundamentally alter your Diablo 4 experience. These changes will be available for playtesting on a PTR starting April 2.

1. The Process Of Leveling Up Will Be Accelerated Even Further Than Its Current Pace

Reaching Level 50 signifies the commencement of Diablo 4’s endgame, as it’s when your gear and build should begin to coalesce.

At this stage, your aim is to conquer the Capstone Dungeon and vanquish its boss to ascend to the next World Tier, where greater XP and superior loot await. While it already takes only a few hours to reach this milestone, the upcoming season promises even swifter progression.

During the recent stream, Associate Game Director Joe Piepiora briefly outlined Blizzard’s plans to enhance XP gains across World Tier difficulties. In the upcoming season, the XP bonuses for each World Tier will be as follows:

• For World Tier 2, the bonus XP has been increased to 50% from its previous 25%.
• In World Tier 3, the bonus XP has been boosted to 150%, up from 100%.
• Finally, in World Tier 4, the bonus XP has seen an increase to 250% from its former 200%.

While one could calculate XP rates per hour, the specifics are less relevant: Blizzard is evidently intent on propelling players into higher World Tiers swiftly, facilitating earlier access to its new endgame crafting systems. This benefits players seeking more potent loot drops without the need for weeks of level grinding.

Also Read: Everything We Currently Know About Diablo 4 Season 4! - Anticipated Changes & Additions

2. There Is No Need To Keep Every Legendary Item You Encounter

The impactful effects found on Legendary items, known as aspects, such as the one that causes sorcerers’ Ball Lightning to orbit around them, can significantly shape a build.

In Diablo 4’s initial aspect system, players were compelled to store Legendary items or their extracted aspects in their stash in order to transfer them onto new gear. Thankfully, this cumbersome process is now a thing of the past.

In Season 4, not only will gear replacements occur less frequently, but Legendary aspects will now permanently reside within your Codex of Power menu, valid for the duration of the season. Most aspects can randomly generate numerical values that determine the potency of the bonus, such as “Basic Skills gain 15 to 30% Attack Speed.” As you discover Legendary items with higher rolls of the aspect, salvaging them at the blacksmith will permanently increase the corresponding number in your Codex of Power. This allows you to imprint that aspect onto other gear pieces as desired, without the need to retain anything in your stash.

The risk associated with using a perfectly rolled aspect on a mediocre item will be eliminated, making it much easier to experiment with different combinations. It appears that Blizzard has streamlined this system to allow players to concentrate on Tempering and Masterworking Diablo 4 Items in the later stages of the game, where the core of item crafting lies.

3. Potent Items Will Be Abundant And Frequent In Their Occurrence

The quantity of redundant item drops in Diablo 4 is set to decrease significantly.

Blizzard has removed the restrictions on Uniques, allowing them to drop in World Tiers 1 and 2, while Uber Uniques can now even drop from level 55 or higher monsters. For instance, a Necromancer might chance upon the Black River scythe, triggering devastating corpse explosions, before reaching level 50. This means that thrilling builds relying on potent Uniques no longer have to wait until deep into the endgame.

Moreover, changes to item power, one of Diablo 4’s somewhat perplexing statistics, will render loot more meaningful. It’s disheartening to come across gear with feeble stats due to its low item power, especially as it becomes irrelevant for certain gear types over time. In Season 4, item power is being standardized to the extent that it becomes a non-issue.

Gear with maximum item power (925) will consistently drop from level 95 or higher monsters. Consequently, by approximately level 80, when you’re comfortably tackling Nightmare Dungeons in World Tier 4, item power becomes inconsequential. Instead, your focus will shift solely to evaluating the actual stats on the gear and determining whether they warrant upgrades.

4. A Significantly Greater Number Of Builds Will Become Viable

Diablo 4 introduces two innovative crafting systems—Tempering and Masterworking—that empower players to customize their items with specific stats.

Whether it's enhancing movement speed or incorporating class-specific attributes, such as granting a chance for a Necromancer's Bone Splinters to cast twice, your items will now reflect the stats that are most significant to your playstyle. While this may not initially seem groundbreaking, it dramatically expands the range of potential builds available.

Previously, Diablo 4's items constrained players to universally beneficial stats like cooldown reduction and critical strike chance, leading to certain builds dominating the meta. However, with the introduction of the new crafting systems, players have the freedom to choose which stats to prioritize and to what extent. For instance, a Rogue focusing on mobility, cooldown reduction, and grenade damage could heavily invest in stun grenades, leveraging an aspect that triggers them whenever evading—an approach that would have previously been dismissed. Similarly, Druids may now have the opportunity to excel with a viable minion build.

The flexibility afforded by these customizable stat choices brings Diablo 4 closer to Last Epoch, a game renowned for its extensive variety of viable builds. Even if players opt to follow a build guide, it will take considerable time to craft the theoretically "best" items, prompting them to weigh their personal preferences for stats along the journey. If executed successfully, Diablo 4 has the potential to become one of the most accessible action RPGs available.

5. The Endgame Won't Consist Solely Of A Marathon Of Boss Encounters

Blizzard's announcement of the new endgame dungeons in Season 4 was anything but subtle.

These dungeons, named The Pit of the Artificer, closely resemble Diablo 3's greater rifts: timed challenges that escalate in difficulty as you progress through tiers. The objective is akin to Nightmare Dungeons, emphasizing speed to reach the end for the chance of rare loot and materials. With over 100 tiers featuring increasingly formidable adversaries, the quality of loot improves as you ascend to higher levels.

Within The Pit, dungeons will yield items to summon "Tormented" bosses, who, upon defeat, drop materials for crafting an Uber Unique item of your choosing on your first kill. Additionally, the introduction of Andariel to the roster of normal bosses ensures players won't be locked into repetitively battling Duriel to obtain the rarest items in the game.

While Season 4's new endgame activities may not entirely address the issue of diminishing challenge in the open world over time, they inject much-needed variety into an area of the game that was stagnating. Moreover, with details still forthcoming about the season-specific features, it lays a promising foundation for revitalizing a segment of the game that had begun to feel monotonous.

Diablo fans, I believe you have noticed that the developers revealed a series of new changes in Season 4 in the latest Diablo 4 Campfire Chat. Indeed, with the current poor state of Diablo 4, some improvements are urgently needed. The large-scale itemization overhaul announced by the developers of this time seems to have really achieved this goal.

However, I have some major concerns with the changes, especially the large amount of RNG involved in the process of obtaining actual Diablo 4 items using the new and updated system. Here, I’ll discuss the most important itemization changes and the potentially huge flaws that could push Diablo 4 back into failure.

Itemization Changes

But first, I’ll cover the major changes related to itemization. In general, itemization has many variations, and I will only mention the most influential ones here.

• Base items will have fewer affixes: 3 for rare items and 4 for legendary items.
• Only Sacred items will drop in World Tier 3, and only Ancestral items will drop in World Tier 3.
• Legendary and Unique items are now tradable, but Uber Uniques are still not.
• Monsters of level 95 or higher will always drop 925 item level gear.
• Codex of Power will store all Legendary Aspects you extract, and you will apply the strongest Aspects you extracted to items an unlimited number of times.
• Three brand new systems will be added that can be used to improve the new items you loot. These are Masterworking, Tempering and Greater Affixes.

New System

Masterworking replaces the current item upgrade system and makes it more complex. Players will be able to “masterwork” each item 12 times, and most of these upgrade levels will increase all the item’s affixes by one point, once every 4 levels. Therefore, a random affix will be added at levels 4, 8, and 12, and the same affix can be added multiple times using this system.

Tempering is the name of the second newly added system, which involves adding entirely new affixes to items. Recopies that add affixes drop randomly, and once you get them, you can randomly add an affix to an item from 4 different affixes.

You will temper Ancestral items twice, so you can add 2 new affixes to these items. But you cannot adjust Unique items.

Greater Affixes are affixes that only Ancestral items can have. These affixes always roll max, and the value of these affixes is increased by 50% compared to normal items.

An item can have multiple Greater Affixes. These Greater Affixes can be increased through Masterworking, but items with Greater Affixes cannot be crafted or re-rolled.

Is Too Much RNG Really A Good Thing?

All of this looks great, but I have some very serious concerns about each of these systems: they involve too much RNG.

This, in itself, is not necessarily a problem. Some items dropped, or some low-probability events do not break immediately. For example, the rarest rune in Diablo 2 was really hard to come by because of its rarity, but Rune System was, and still is, beloved by the community.

However, RNG case that Diablo 4 is about to add is not a pleasant or exciting type of RNG. Unlike the excitement of rare drops, you just need to farm materials to keep re-rolling items until you get the perfect result. The difference is that repeatedly re-rolling items to get rare results is more frustrating than farming for rare drops.

Potential Problems With The New System

But let’s look at the specifics of each system one by one!

Tempering

The problem with Tempering comes from its randomness: you randomly add an affix to your item from a list of 4 affixes. This means you can easily get the wrong affix, which will most likely be useless to you. You can re-roll it, but only a limited number of times. The number of times you can re-roll Tempered Affixes is called Tempering Durability.

So what happens when you use up all your re-rolls and still don’t get a good affix? Then the item is destroyed.

This is new in Diablo 4: you can easily and irreversibly destroy an item if you don’t get the right affixes using this new Tempering system.

Masterworking

Not only is Masterworking more complex than the current item upgrade system, it also involves more RNG. Keep in mind that levels 4, 8, and 12 of Masterworking process involve randomly adding an affix to an item, which may affect the same affix multiple times.

Obviously, you want to spend hundreds of materials to masterwork your item until you randomly roll the correct affix for an increased number of times?

Let’s look at an example. If you have an item with 4 affixes, one of which is critical strike chance, you want to maximize that. In this case, you have a 1.5% chance of getting 3 critical hits. Therefore, if you want this to happen, you have to masterwork your items until you reach the 1.5% chance.

Greater Affixes

Greater Affixes are not inherently bad. Although RNG obtains them through random drops, you don’t have to farm some hard-to-summon boss to get Greater Affixes. You farm them just by playing the game, without forcing you to do any targeted farming.

But Greater Affixes can become problematic when they interact with other systems. Ideally, if you want Greater Affixes with Masterworking, then you can only hope that RNG gods will bless you.

All in all, I like the changes the developers have planned for next season, but I’m definitely worried about the execution. But what do you think? Will Season 4 have too much bad RNG? Or will it be better than Season 3 situation? Let’s wait and see!