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As I play more Diablo 4, the relationship between Armor and Damage Reduction confuses me more. So, I did a few research on Armor and Damage Reduction, and would like to share my findings. Knowing this, you won’t be wasting Diablo 4 Gold on unnecessary gear.
There are 3 sections in this guide:
The armor mechanism is complicated and dynamic. The aim of this guide is to give you a high level idea on the relationship between Armor and Damage Reduction and offer the necessary tools for you to find out the specific gains in your specific situations.
Let’s first start with the background, the basic formula. There are two main cases, Physical Damage and Non-Physical Damage.
For Physical Damage, let’s say an enemy’s attack is 100 Physical Damage. I am Lv87 and have 6557 Armor. This gives me 60% Damage Reduction from the same level enemy. So, let’s assume the enemy is the same level for now. I will then take 100 x (1 - 60%) = 40 Damage.
For non-Physical Damage, let’s say an enemy’s attack is 100 Lightning Damage. Armor will contribute to Damage Reduction to half of the Total Damage while Resistance contributes to the other half. So, it will be 100 x 50% x 60% = 30 Damage Reduction from Armor.
Let’s say I have 40% Lightning Resistance. In World Tier 4, Monsters’ attack overcomes 40% Resistance. So, it will be 40 x (1 - 40%) = 24% Lightning Resistance. Then, Resistance will contribute to 100 x 50% x 24% = 12 Damage Reduction from Resistance.
In total, I have 30 (from Armor) + 12 (from Resistance) = 42 Damage Reduction. And I will take 100 - 42 = 58 Lightning Damage Armor Efficiency.
Now that we know the basic formula, I’d like to dive into why my 6557 Armor equals to 60% Damage Reduction. This section contains lots of and lots of numbers. Skip to the last section if you are only interested in the conclusions and the best practices.
Diablo 4 Dev shared a few examples on Armor to Damage Reduction in their Livestream from the 1st Screenshot, per unit Armor to Damage Reduction Efficiency decreases as players level up. Also, it seems that for a specific Level, per unit Armor to Damage Reduction is constant.
For example, at Lv 88, the Damage Reduction per armor is around 0.018%. I did some local testings and found out it is partially true. I swapped gears on and off on my Lv88 Sorcerer and recorded the following Armor to Damage Reduction Data Points. Then, I calculated the differences between Armor and Damage Reduction at each stage and got the per Armor Damage Reduction.
So, the trend is that as Armor goes up, the Damage Reduction per Armor goes up, too. I assume what Dev shared is the Cap of the Damage Reduction Per Armor. Which in this case, it is approaching 0.018% gradually.
Also, one important note is that this Damage Reduction is more powerful than it looks.
Let’s pick 2 data points from the 1st graph. I have 5284 Armor that leads to 41% Damage Reduction and 5817 Armor that leads to 48% Damage Reduction. This 5817 - 5284 = 533 Armor difference leads to 7% Damage Reduction.
But the actual Damage Reduction is 11.9%. Because let’s say the damage is 100. In the 5200 Armor case, we are taking 100 x (1 - 41%) = 59 damage. And in the 5800 Armor case, we are taking 100 x (1 - 48%) = 52 damage. Relatively, we are taking 52 / 59 = 88.1% of the previous damage. That leads to 1 - 88.1% = 11.9% Actual Damage Reduction.
So, I calculated each stage for Actual Damage Reduction. It also goes up as Armor goes up, to a point of 3.5X efficient or more.
One extra note is that for the first 3 rows, I took some Armor down to just collect data points. But they are not the common cases. The last 4 rows are the common cases where I have all gear equipped but swapping with % Armor Stats or not.
To make it easier to understand, I made 2 common cases: one is Skull 250 Armor, the other is 10% Armor stat from gear, which usually leads to 500 Armor.
And we can see on average, 250 Armor is roughly 6% Actual Damage Reduction 500 Armor is roughly 14% Actual Damage Reduction.
One thing to note is that all the Damage Reduction I mentioned above are Physical Damage Reduction.
For Non-Physical Damage Reduction, I will skip the calculation steps and put the results here. Assuming the All Resistance is 35%. In World Tier 4, that is going to be 21%. In common case, roughly the actual Non-Physical Damage Reduction for 250 Armor is 3% and for 500 Armor is 7%. The higher the Armor or the Resistance, the higher the Actual Non-Physical Damage Reduction is.
Now, we have an idea on how 6557 Armor leads to 60% Damage Reduction at Lv88. And Diablo 4 Dev also shared a graph on how Higher Level Enemy makes Armor less efficient. I checked what the Dev mentioned in the Livestream and here are the keys.
First, Armor Damage Reduction Caps at 85%. So, the first flat line doesn’t mean enemies within 17 levels higher than the player. Do not depreciate the Armor Efficiency. But the 2000 Armor is too much at Lv1 that a Lv17 enemy starts to depreciate the Armor Efficiency enough that the value hits below 85%.
Second, when first looking at this graph, I am not sure whether the Armor Efficiency Depreciation is dynamic to the level difference between the Attacker and the Player.
For example, if I am Lv1, a Lv88 enemy would treat my 2000 Armor as 7% Damage Reduction from this graph. What if I am Lv50 or Lv88? Will the 2000 Armor be treated as some other value from a Lv88 Attacker?
So, I checked the Livestream more closely and the Dev explicitly mentioned that “Usually players can acquire 2000 Armor at around Lv30” “If the Lv30 Character fight a Lv100 Monster, the 2000 Armor can only absorb 5%”. This means that the Armor Depreciation is only related to the Attacker Level, not to the Level difference.
After doing a local testing that I tried to get around 2000 Armor for my Lv88 character, it says 7% too here. This confirms that the Armor Depreciation is only related to the Attacker Level. This also explains that why Armor Efficiency drops as Player level up from the screenshot earlier. Because Attacker levels up, too.
So it is a kind of designed to be always hungry for more Armor to better survive as players level up. That there won’t be a point that Armor is enough to hit 85% damage reduction cap because of the ultimately 54 levels of higher enemies in Nightmare Dungeons.
Now,we understand what Armor means to both the same level and higher-level enemies. But how can we acquire more Armor?
There are two types of Armor Source. One is the base armor. It comes from Gears, Strength and Elixir or Incense. The other is % Armor, it comes from Stats on Gears or Aspects like Disobedience.
After doing some testing on % Armor, I find it is additive, meaning that if I have 4800 Armor and 20% Armor. And if I get another 10% Armor, it will be 4000 x (1 + 20% + 10%) = 5200 Armor instead of 4800 x (1 + 10%) = 5280 Armor.
Does that mean stacking % Armor is bad? No. As I mentioned earlier, Armor Efficiency gets higher as Armor grows. And for Actual Damage Reduction, it can grow as much as 3.5X efficiency. Plus, it makes all Armor from Elixir or Incense even more effective.
To give you an example, I have around 6600 Armor and around 30 % Armor. Once I use a 900 Armor Elixir, my Armor goes to 7800, which is another 1200 difference and the Actual Damage Reduction is 1 - (1 - 80%) / (1 - 62%) = 47%. So, this 900 Armor means I am going to take only half of the Physical Damage. Isn’t that insane?
So, you may wonder, how would the Disobedience % Armor work with this? I find it is additive to the current % Armor And to my gears, its Actual Damage Reduction is as crazy as 69%! Imagine how effective it is to combine the 900 Armor Elixir and Disobedience!
Also Read: How To Calculate Damage Increases In Diablo 4? - Damage & Defense Mechanics Explained
What can I benefit from this Armor Deep Dive?
So to recap, for Lv85+, we can roughly treat
250 Armor (Skull) as
500 Armor or 10% Armor as
1200 Armor as
2200 Armor from Disobedience as
The lower Level,
For example, 300 Armor is roughly 10% Actual Physical Damage Reduction at Lv75. We can start comparing the % Armor stat with other Damage Reduction Stats. When compared to Conditional Damage Reduction, like from Burning/Close/Distant Enemy, % Armor is worse when the condition is met. When compared to % Damage Reduction, % Armor is better since the majority damage is Physical Damage.
Also, as Armor Damage Reduction Efficiency greatly increases (to 3.5x or more) as Armor goes up, the more Armor, the better. This means the Item Power of defensive gears matters. The 200 Armor on Paragon Board from the Burning Board matters. And the Armor from Elixir plays a great role in Survivability.
And all these get multiplied by % Armor from Gear Stats Try to collect as many % Armor stats as possible on your Helm/Chest/Pants/Amulet I was able to use this knowledge to switch my gears to decently survive in Tier 66 Nightmare Dungeon and beat it as a Level 85 Lightning Sorcerer.
As you know, the seasonal power of Diablo 4 Season 9 is Horadric Spells. You can combine the three elements of Catalyst, Infusion and Arcana as needed to create your own unique power for Season 9.
At the same time, as a large and complete ARPG, every new gameplay launched by Diablo 4 actually hides an exclusive mechanism network behind it.
Take Horadric Spells as an example. In order to successfully utilize it to assist in combat, you also need to understand and obtain Horadric Phials & Knowledge. They belong to “Horadric” system, but their specific functions are different.
We have already introduced the combat functions of various Horadric Spells to you in other previous guides. What we want to tell you next is the relevant information about Horadric Phials and Horadric Knowledge.
As you complete seasonal quests or clear the new dungeon Horadric Strongrooms, you will unlock different Horadric Spells in addition to the basic Diablo 4 gold rewards.
All currently known Horadric Spells and how to unlock them are:
Catalysts
Infusions
Arcana
These spells have unique combat benefits, but as you progress through the game, both your character and your enemies will become more powerful, so Horadric Spells must be upgraded - and Horadric Phials are the only item that can do this.
To keep Horadric Spells available, most elite enemies or bosses in the world map will drop Horadric Phials after being defeated. But if you want to focus on farming, focusing on Helltides is your best choice in the early game.
Because Helltides contains multiple quests that drop Horadric Phials, and each is easy to do, you can maximize your farming efficiency in a short period of time. Specifically, they include:
However, as you enter the later stages of the game, Nightmare Dungeons and Horadric Strongrooms should be better sources of Horadric Phials. They will bring more high-rarity treasure chests through stronger enemies, and you can get more Phials after opening them.
In fact, all chests and caches you can get throughout Season 9 may bring Horadric Phials, including reward caches brought by increasing Horadric Knowledge.
As you know, its main function is to upgrade Horadric Spells. It should be noted that as you complete more game content, you will also get more Horadric Spells, but not all of them are suitable for your class/builds/game habits.
So after getting a certain amount of Horadric Phials, don’t rush to upgrade by them. Instead, after determining your Season 9 battle builds, prioritize upgrading Horadric Spells that are most suitable for you to avoid waste.
If Horadric Phials is the upgrade currency for Horadric Spells, then Horadric Knowledge is more like the reputation system of the entire Horadric mechanism. The increase of Horadric Knowledge can unlock more relevant rewards and seasonal tasks/stories for you in Season 9.
Compared with Horadric Phials, Knowledge is not a must-have for completing all seasonal content, but the rewards it provides can really help you. In particular, some reward caches will also have Horadric Phials.
First of all, it should be noted that Horadric Knowledge does not exist in the game as loot, so no matter how you get it, you will not receive a notification when you get it, and you will only see relevant prompts when it is upgraded.
At present, the channels for obtaining Horadric Knowledge in Diablo 4 Season 9 are basically the same as farming Horadric Phials (you can farm at the same time), mainly including:
In addition, while you gain some Horadric Knowledge by completing the above, you can unlock more seasonal quests, which can also bring you Horadric Knowledge.
Another way to gain Horadric Knowledge is to consume Horadric Phials to exchange. But to be honest, this method is not very practical, because upgrading Horadric Spells is the key role of Phials, and the rewards brought by improving Knowledge are not very prominent in comparison.
That’s all for this time. I hope this information can help you better master Horadric Spells in Season 9 to solve those tricky quests or bosses as soon as possible. Have fun!
Although there are several classes that perform exceptionally well in each Diablo 4 season, it does not mean that other classes are not worth experiencing. In fact, each class should be valued in all seasons, otherwise it will lead to a serious imbalance in class experience.
You should have learned that the most popular classes in Season 9 should be Spiritborn or Sorcerer, but you can still play Rogue in this season as a single class enthusiast or out of preference for high agility classes.
However, the question you need to consider is how to experience Rogue smoothly in Season 9 without having an absolute advantage? We will recommend several good Rogue builds for you in order of priority based on actual conditions.
First of all, the most important thing for this build is that you must obtain the unique sword Azurewrath as a key gear through farm boss Duriel, Andariel, Harbinger or Belial, which can output cold damage and provide corresponding lucky hit bonuses.
On this basis, the skills that need to be matched include Caltrops and Poison Trap, which can increase your damage output, and Shadow Clone can provide additional lucky hits.
In addition, seasonal power Horadric Spells are also essential. For this build, Floaty Bobble Arcana with Dash can help you shuttle faster in battle.
If you want to utilize the build to get more Diablo 4 gold in dungeons such as The Pit, you can replace Floaty Bobble Arcana and Dash with Fractured Core and Subverting Smoke Grenade.
It is worth noting that this build is a melee build, but if you are tired of this play style, you can also change the key passive to Victimize, so that you don’t have to maintain melee distance and move more flexibly - at the consume of reduced damage output.
This build has performed well in Season 8, and it is a good Rogue Leveling Build in Season 9. It works similarly to the previous build in general, relying on weapons with unique sword Azurewarth as the main weapon to deal damage.
On this basis, you can continue to fuse the right skills to stack the lucky hit chance as much as possible, to trigger the fixed damage effect frequently. This will also improve the efficiency of the build’s farm resources.
The best skills and Horadric Spells selection and order for this build are as follows:
Regular combat:
After entering the endgame:
As one of the classic Rogue builds, Death Trap had a wonderful experience until Season 8, but in S9, its overall damage, unique skills, passive skills, and any super mechanism that allowed it to play an extra role were weakened.
But even in this unprecedented downturn, Death Trap is still more reliable than most ordinary Rogue builds, provided that you can accept the gap compared to previous seasons.
In terms of gameplay, this build continues the previous operating mode of fast movement + continuous Death Trap attack + sufficient damage, allowing you to keep moving while outputting damage, reflecting its high mobility.
In addition, it is recommended that you pair it with the following gear to strengthen this build as much as possible despite the nerf:
Compared to the past, the strength of this build has not changed much in Season 9, the only difference is that it has gained several available variants. If you are bored with Death Trap and don’t want to try other risky new builds, you can continue to utilize Poison Trap.
Compared to the melee focus of other Rogue builds, this build is special in that it belongs to the ranged type and is relatively rare. Although it was not very noticeable before, it has made a strong comeback in S9, especially with the nerf of Death Trap.
As the core skill of this build, Penetrating Shot can fire a huge piercing arrow to damage the enemy, while Trickshot Aspect can further expand the range of your skills.
On this basis, you can combine Azurewrath’s cold damage affix to make Penetrating Shot Build provide you with a higher lucky hit rate in addition to the output of basic damage.
In terms of overall strength, it is not a terrible choice to continue playing Rogue with the above builds in this season, but you need to accept the reality that it is not as reliable as in previous seasons.
In addition, as you can see, Azurewrath is the key gear that makes most Rogue builds work, compared to the latest unique item Deathmask Of Nirmitruq added in S9. So you need to clarify your farming goals as a Rogue in S9, rather than blindly pursuing novelty.
The above is the information we provide for you to experience Rogue class in Season 9 and the recommended builds. If you are a fan of this class, I hope this guide will be helpful to you!
Although Diablo 4 Season 9 has only been officially launched for two or three days, you should have already learned most of the content through the PTR and other information, such as the new dungeon and the new best class or builds.
If you are a Spiritborn fan, then Season 9 is still worth experiencing for you, because the new unique items make this class stronger in S9 through many available builds. Among them, Speed Spiritborn Evade Build is the best for farming dungeons.
In terms of strength, this build is not the best Spiritborn build in Season 9, but it works wonders in clearing dungeons - not only new dungeons, but also classic The Pit. In this way, you can earn enough Diablo 4 gold, XP, and Paragon points with this build.
Based on this, we will introduce you to the key points of crafting this build and how it works in the new dungeon Escalating Nightmares in S9.
As you can see from the name of this build, the core of its function lies in continuous evasion, but other offensive skills are also important. After all, you can’t kill the enemy by dodging alone.
For this reason, the core skill of this build is still Quill Volley, which is suitable for most Spiritborn builds. It can cause lightning damage by throwing feathers at the enemy.
But before utilizing this skill, you need to choose Rock Splitter as your basic skill, because it can naturally generate resources for you, and provide blocking resources and blocking chance.
Next, you also need to add Soar, Thunderspike, Brilliance and Acceleration to the build. Some of them are passive skills that can provide additional benefits, and some are active skills that can continue to provide you with lightning damage. None of them can be ignored.
After completing these skill combinations, what you have to do is to find a way to minimize the cooldown of Evade while attacking the enemy to form a “Perma Evade”.
This trick actually has nothing to do with the skill itself, but requires you to find and hold the static option in the settings, then bind “Hold Position” to the Shift key, and combine it with Thunder Spy hotkey.
In this way, in the future battles, you can just hold the Shift key, then right-click to hold position and press the spacebar to “Perma Evade”. On this basis, you can cast all other skills to deal more damage to the enemy while protecting yourself.
Due to the nature of the build, it does not require the help of Balazan’s Maxtlatl as you think, after all, this is a gear that mainly increases damage. The really important gear for Speed Spiritborn Evade Build is Harmony of Ebewaka and Sunbird’s Gorget.
As one of the exclusive gear for Spiritborn, Harmony of Ebewaka armor has the following base affixes:
On top of that, it also provides Jaguar, Eagle, Gorilla, or Centipede skills to other skills in your build, depending on your secondary Spirit Hall choice. For this build, it is recommended to choose Jaguar because it can synergize with Sunbird’s Gorget.
This item is a unique item exclusive to Spiritborn launched in Season 8. As an amulet, its affixes include:
It is worth noting that the amulet’s unique power is mainly to allow you to damage enemies by picking up Storm Feather, which is actually a Jaguar skill.
Although these two pieces of gear are not new, the synergy between them can keep you alive in Season 9 in the classic Spiritborn class survival style. If used properly, it is not inferior to the new item Balazan’s Maxtlatl, which focuses on thorns and poison damage.
As an upgraded version of the nightmare dungeons brought by Season 9, Escalating Nightmares is composed of three regular nightmare dungeons connected in series. Each dungeon has its own positive and negative affix effects, which will be stacked as the progress deepens.
To unlock and enter Escalating Nightmares, you need to obtain Escalation Sigils as “keys” by completing Season 9 quest line or farming Grand Horadric Cache in another new dungeon, Horadric Strongroom.
The most efficient way to farm Escalation Sigils is to clear Horadric Strongroom. And both Horadric Strongroom and Escalating Nightmares can bring you a lot of loot.
To complete them through Speed Spiritborn Evade Build, you undoubtedly need to master all the skills first and get the gear required for the build. Then you must understand the specific operation of each dungeon.
On this basis, you can quickly solve the large number of enemies in the dungeon through skilled and uninterrupted evade in combat, the lightning damage provided by active skills, and the benefits provided by various gear, to earn the loot brought by Season 9.
The above is the information related to Speed Spiritborn Evade Build and the introduction of how to clear the new dungeon through it. I hope it can help you!
Most new Diablo 4 seasons add new unique items with different effects to each class when they are launched, so that the class can get more benefits based on the existing skills, and it is also more playable in the new season.
Although the new unique items seems are not necessary to be compared due to different applicability, they can also be compared to determine the “best item” in the current season based on the degree of benefit they provide to their class.
For Diablo 4 Season 9, the best unique item is likely to be Balazan’s Maxtlatl, which belongs to Spiritborn class, and this judgment is based on many aspects. We will introduce you to it below.
This item is a new Ancestral Unique Pants added for Spiritborn in Season 9. After adjustments in the PTR and subsequent patches, its affixes and unique power effects now include:
Although its unique power effect has been weakened to ensure the balance of the class experience, this still cannot stop Balazan’s Maxtlatl from making Spiritborn the dominant class in Season 9.
Additionally, if you want to get this item, you need to farm the bosses Varshan and Urivar in Torment difficulty. Although getting this item may be a long process, you can also earn more Diablo 4 gold during this period.
For any piece of gear, no matter how powerful or rare it is, its single effect alone cannot change anything. Only when it is combined with relevant builds can it play a real role.
Take Balazan’s Maxtlatl as an example. In Season 9, its power lies in the perfect combination of Toxic Skin and Noxious Resistance, which amplifies the poison damage to the extreme.
In this way, enemies affected by the poison effect in combat will burst when they hit critically, taking 180% poison damage, and also dealing 20% poison damage to nearby enemies.
In general, Balazan’s Maxtlatl pants are designed to maximize your poison damage output by converting thorn damage in addition to increasing basic attributes.
From there, you can further combine Season 9’s seasonal power Horadric Spells to craft your own Spiritborn builds, or continue to utilize these reliable classic builds:
By contrast, while Quill Volley has been around since the beginning of Spiritborn, the benefits of Balazan’s Maxtlatl make this build still the most worthwhile class to play in the new season.
From a seasonal perspective, Balazan’s Maxtlatl is the new best unique item, but for Spiritborn, Kepeleke Rod of Core was the key to helping the class dominate the game before Balazan’s Maxtlatl appeared.
Kepeleke Rod of Core is a unique item added by Vessel of Hatred for Spiritborn, and its main buff is to increase your damage output based on Vigor’s release and conume.
This allows powerful Spiritborn builds like Quill Volley to maximize their damage output by converting core skills into basic skills, making them free to cast and converting any unconsumed Vigor into guaranteed critical damage.
With the release of Balazan’s Maxtlatl, it further enriches the richness of Spiritborn builds with thorns and converted poison damage, and allows you to swap core skills and basic skills according to your preferences.
While these marks the end of Kepeleke Rod of Core era, the emergence of new powerful items also means that as the youngest class in the game, Spiritborn will not disappear due to the loss of novelty, but will be favored by players in Diablo 4 for a long time.
Perhaps the prominence of Balazan’s Maxtlatl makes you wonder if this has disrupted the balance of the game, but the effects of the existing 6 new unique items have been adjusted, and if there are still problems, it is not a defect of the items themselves.
In fact, the class balance experience of Diablo 4 has been questioned by players since Season 6. I believe you have also found that the old classes represented by Druid are always weakened unnecessarily. Although various optimizations have been made to restore it, it has to be said that the effect is not obvious.
There is no doubt that in the long run, the atmosphere of Diablo 4 game community and the game experience of players of weak classes will be negatively affected. Even for players of dominant classes, this imbalance is terrible.
Therefore, while you are happy about the reliability of Balazan’s Maxtlatl, you can also make suggestions to the game development team through various channels with other players to jointly maintain Diablo 4 better.
Although according to various signs, Necromancer should not be the dominant class in Diablo 4 Season 9, it is not impossible if you want to continue to play it, provided that you can choose the right Season 9 Necromancer Build.
As you know, each class has different best builds in different Diablo 4 seasons, some of which are rookies, and some are optimized versions of classic builds according to seasonal changes.
For Necromancer, although there are no new builds available, at least Blood Wave Build in S9 is still expected to help you output enough damage in battle to get more Diablo 4 gold drops.
Based on this, we will introduce you how to make this classic Necromancer Build continue to play a role in Season 9 according to the changes in the seasonal content.
In general, Blood Wave is a stable, damage-focused build that performs well in both AOE and single-target attacks, making it suitable for most combat situations. In addition, its gameplay is relatively simple and easy to understand, and even Necromancer novices can quickly master it.
The build works by first casting Blood Wave, and then running to manually collect Blood Orbs when Blood Wave disappears. Although it is a bit cumbersome, the high overall damage and damage reduction of this build make it still one of the top choices for Necromancer builds.
Generally speaking, the content that determines the strength of a build includes gear, seasonal power, skills, and the skill rotation method. Among them, the choice of skills usually does not change much, but the rotation method needs to be adjusted according to the season.
For Season 9, it is still recommended that you pair the following skills with Blood Wave Necromancer Build:
Once you have determined your usable skills, it is recommended that you first utilize Decompose to create corpses, then pull enemies in with Corpse Tendrils and utilize Blood Wave to attack them.
On this basis, Affliction can greatly increase the damage potential of the build by dealing a certain percentage of damage to enemies in vulnerable, crowd controlled or corrupted states. But it should be noted that the core of this build to maximize damage is still Blood Wave.
The reason that usually prevents you from utilizing a good build is that the best gear it needs is very difficult to get, and it must be repeatedly farmed by bosses. This is also true for Blood Wave Necromancer Build.
But honestly, if you blindly fear the challenge and don’t improve the strength of the build, you will only waste the chance to win that the build brings you. Therefore, in Season 9, you still need to obtain the following three pieces of gear for Blood Wave Build:
Comparatively speaking, the most important one should be Kessime’s Legacy, because it has affixes that can increase the damage potential of Blood Wave and reduce the cooldown of Blood Wave.
This way, not only can you cast it more often, but you’ll also have a greater chance of dealing double damage to enemies. The item also has a unique ability to cast Blood Wave on either side of you for a wider range of coverage.
As for Shroud of False Death and Heir of Perdition, their role is to provide excellent damage bonuses to push the build’s damage output per second to the limit.
However, all three pieces of gear require you to repeatedly fight the corresponding bosses in Torment difficulty to obtain them, and Kessime’s Legacy can only be dropped by farming Lord Zir. So if you want to maximize the potential of your build, at least wait until you reach the endgame stage.
Each Diablo 4 season’s seasonal power provides additional benefits to build, allowing you to output damage in a more seasonal way. In Season 9, that power is Horadric Spells. But if you want to enhance Blood Wave Build with it, it is recommended that you prioritize the following two powers:
Catalyst - Cosmic Anomaly
Infusion - Nebulous Extract
The above is how to make Blood Wave Necromancer Build still usable in Diablo 4 Season 9 or even output more damage. If you think it is feasible, try it in the game!
Diablo 4 adds new exclusive unique items to all base classes in each season update, and Season 9 is no exception. Usually, these class-specific items determine the popular build of the current season and lead the latest build trend!
Even if you don’t plan to advance the endgame and challenge Uber bosses in the new season, these items can let you know some new skills worth trying and some classic skills that have made a comeback, so that you won’t be at a loss in the new season content.
Therefore, it is so important to get these new exclusive unique items at the beginning of the season, which not only determines the direction of your build development, but also affects how far you can go in the endgame in the end. Here, we will talk about the 6 new class-specific items introduced in Season 9.
First, let’s start with Hooves of the Mountain God on the list. This pair of Barbarian’s new exclusive boots finally gives them basic skills and generator gameplay. This means that when you reach max Fury, your Fury will deplete rapidly until it is depleted, after which all of your basic skills will now slash and deal up to 100% bonus damage.
Based on the results in the PTR, this will be the S-tier build for Season 9. Of course, this remains to be seen, as many players say that Barbarian has been nerfed a lot in the new season.
And to get this new unique boot, all you need to do is keep farming Beast in the Ice or Urivar Lair Boss. But be aware that Hooves of the Mountain God only has a certain chance to drop as a boss, and more often you will just get a bunch of common items, but you can also sell the excess loot you don’t need for additional Diablo 4 gold income.
Next, we have Rotting Lightbringer, a unique Two-Handed weapon for Druid.
This weapon is interesting because it allows Werebear Druid builds to deal a lot of poison damage. In patch 2.3.0, the poison damage of this item was significantly increased from 150% to 550%, so this one is worth a try.
To get the new unique mace, you need to farm Varshan or Urivar Boss. But if you want to make the most of this unique, it is recommended that you still try to make a Pulverize Druid build to maximize synergy with it.
Next, we move on to the new unique item of Necromancer class, which is The Hand of Naz. To be honest, I am very interested in the mechanics of this unique glove, because it allows you to successfully build a powerful Skeletal Mage Minion Necromancer endgame build.
In simple terms, you have to sacrifice all other types of minions to summon additional maces, which means no more Skeletal Warriors and Golems, but in return, your damage will increase for each minion you sacrifice.
This unique item also grants you a unique power: when your Skeletal Mage survives 25 attacks on an enemy, it will upgrade to a Skeletal Arch-Mage.
And when this happens, the final unique power is activated: Skeletal Arch-Mages teleport to safety when attacked, and their attacks occasionally shatter on impact, dealing up to 100% bonus damage to the target.
In addition, the time between their attacks shattering has been reduced by 50% compared to the PTR period, and more importantly, Skeletal Arch-Mages are now unstoppable within 1 second of teleporting.
To get this unique gauntlet, you need to defeat Andariel, Duriel, or Harbinger of Hatred, which has a chance to drop this item.
Let’s move on to Rogue. Unfortunately, things look bad for Rogue compared to last season, as the new item Deathmask of Nirmitruq only serves to increase Flurry skill ranks and damage.
Flurry Rogue Endgame build for Season 9 will be a B tier build, which makes it the weakest one on this list.
Remember that Flurry is basically a skill that quickly stabs enemies in a circular area, but from what we have read so far, to get the most out of it, you’d better try Twisting Blades, Rain of Arrows, or Rapid Fire. You can get this helmet from Beast in the Ice or Urivar.
Next, we come to Spiritborn class. Its new exclusive item is called Balazan’s Maxtlatl Unique Pants, which looks very interesting because it allows for a build related to poison and thorns.
But in the latest patch, this item was nerfed by 50%. In the previous PTR, each attack dealt 300% of Thorns’ damage to melee enemies, but in the official version, its damage was reduced to 150% of Thorns’ damage. However, 100% of the damage will be converted into poison within 3 seconds.
Another unique power is that every time you use Thorns skill to counterattack, the poison damage will increase by 100% within 5 seconds, stacking up to 300%. This new change makes many players think that Poison Thorns Spiritborn build is the most powerful build in Season 9.
But to get this unique pants, you need to participate in Varshan or Urivar boss battle and win.
Finally, for all Hydra lovers, Sorcerer will make a comeback with this build. Because the new Unique Amulet Ophidian Iris can give Hydra an extra 2 heads, increased attack speed, +30% resistance to all elements and up to 100% fire damage.
The unique power of this item is that Hydra is now a core skill and always summons a three-headed Hydra whose attacks explode on impact.
On the other hand, for each Hydra you have more than 3 heads, it will grow larger and deal 50% to 100% more damage. You need to combine this build with Shatter to deal huge damage.
In fact, Hydra is one of the iconic builds of Diablo series, and I think it’s great that it can still be used after leveling. This makes it one of the best-looking builds in the entire game.
To get Ophidian Iris, you’d better actively complete Andariel, Duriel or Harbinger of Hatred boss encounters, which have a certain chance of random drops!
These are all 6 class-exclusive items added in Diablo 4 Season 9. What do you think of them? Do you have a better understanding of the build play in the new season? Looking forward to seeing you in the game!
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