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Recently, Diablo 4 players found a very weird enemy on the preview page of the new lore book, Book of Lorath. Players have speculated that it may have some connection to Diablo 2’s most iconic boss. This new monster may also be another formidable enemy that players will face in Diablo 4.
Book of Lorath is actually a new lore codex. Among them, the world of Sanctuary, which will be released together with Diablo 4 on June 6 this year, is described in detail. Lorath Nahr actually narrated this Book of Lorath.
I believe that many players have encountered this character in the early Diablo 4 beta, and it also left a deep impression on me. Due to the gradual decline of Horadrim scholars, and Lorath Nahr as one of them, Book of Lorath also introduces the legend of Diablo’s universe from the perspective of Lorath Nahr.
And players discovered a new monster, Maggot Queen, on a preview page displayed in Book of Lorath’s Amazon listing. Legend has it that this terrible monster will secrete a liquid that can melt all substances, which are very lethal. The liquid is also said to be used to make potions that can cure sorrow.
This monster usually haunts swamps by undead and snakemen. There is a good chance that all players will meet Maggot Queen in places like Hawezar. And Hawezar is also one of the five playable areas initially announced in Diablo 4 this time.
Speaking of Maggot Queen, many players will think of Lord of Pain, Duriel. This Lesser Evil is also the ultimate boss that players find in Diablo 2’s Act 2, also known as Maggot King.
A lot of keen players have discovered that Duriel will reappear in Diablo 4 when Diablo 4 beta and trailers were first released. But considering the similarities in their character design and naming, Maggot Queen is probably not the last boss that players will encounter. It might even just be one of the mini-bosses a player is fighting against Duriel’s minions.
Duriel isn’t the only returning Diablo 2 character that players will find in Diablo 4. Some players have discovered that in Rogue’s revealing trailer, Maiden of Anguish - Andariel, who appeared in Diablo 2’s Act 1, also appear in it, although the time is very short. Although players don’t know how they will appear in Diablo 4, it is still possible that they will cooperate with Lilith.
Some players speculate whether Prime Evils will return in Diablo 4, and Book of Lorath also has a detailed introduction to Demonic relics made from their corpses. At the same time, some players are still guessing that the most annoying Bloodied Wolf in Diablo 4 is probably Mephisto or Diablo. But what the truth is remains to be seen.
With the countdown to Diablo 4’s release, players have less than two months to guess what’s in store for Sanctuary in this new patch. Although players can only experience Act 1 in Diablo 4 beta, how the battle between Lilith and Inarius will still attract everyone’s attention.
Of course, while waiting for the arrival of Diablo 4, players still must not forget to continue exploring and get more Diablo 4 Gold to upgrade their own construction, so that they can have a better start after they officially released the game. All in all, players have to continue to wait patiently, hoping that players can get a satisfactory result.
As you all know, Diablo 4 Season 8 will officially take over Season of Witchcraft on April 29, 2025. Of course, a series of new content and balance additions are naturally indispensable, but the return of an evil in S8 has still aroused heated discussions among many players, that is Belial, the Lord of Lies!
Belial’s return is the undisputed highlight of Season 8. He will lead his group of bosses to become the new Pinnacle Boss in Boss Ladder. Although this sounds quite exciting, from a plot perspective, is Belial wasted as a seasonal boss? More importantly, based on the developer’s initial setting, is it really reasonable for Belial to be stronger than other bosses in the latest season?
Here, we explore the position of Belial boss in Diablo 4 Season 8, some of his character plot and background, and whether he is wasted by the plot as a seasonal protagonist instead of appearing in future expansions.
That being said, let’s first look at Season 8, where the developers are completely revamping Boss Ladder system and introducing Belial to the top of the ladder. The arrival of the new boss not only improves the problem that the endgame that players have criticized before is too boring, but also brings players more opportunities to earn Diablo 4 Gold and Unique items, and can also better improve the main storyline.
Admittedly, it is a good thing that Diablo 4 enables more powerful characters to advance the seasonal narrative, and the stories of the previous Season 5 and 7 are very exciting and really expand the world of Sanctuary, especially Season 5, which helps advance the baseline story about Mephisto.
Still, while we have yet to see the seasonal journey and how the story will play out, I am a little skeptical whether it was a wise choice to have Belial, the Lord of Lies, one of the seven Great Evils, become the seasonal Pinnacle Boss in Season 8, or if he would be better suited for an expansion?
Firstly, the last time we saw Belial was in Act 2 of Diablo III, where he disguised himself as Emperor Hakan II of Caldeum, thoroughly manipulated the citizens, and drove the former Royal Guards out of the King’s estate.
Now, one thing we have to admit about Belial is that as Lord of Lies, he is more known for his ability to manipulate, deceive, and disguise himself than his actual physical strength and combat abilities, which makes me a little skeptical as to why Belial is considered the strongest boss encounter in Season 8.
More importantly, we can clearly see that in the boss rankings, Andariel, and especially Duriel, are actually superior in terms of actual physical threat in combat.
Belial did have two different forms in Diablo 3, a low form and a very large and intimidating form, so perhaps Belial’s return in D4S8 with a shocking form is enough for us to consider him as a formidable opponent. But overall, I still think it’s a bit puzzling that a master of deception would headline the strongest boss fight in Season 8.
Now, let’s take a quick look at Belial’s backstory. He and another Lesser Evil, Azmodan, the Lord of Sin, are considered the smartest and most cunning bosses among Lesser Evils, and Belial himself is second only to Mephisto in his ability to manipulate and deceive.
In fact, it is said that Mephisto took Belial in as an apprentice and taught him most of his knowledge, so judging by the story of Diablo 4, it makes sense that Belial would appear in some form during the main quest centered around Mephisto.
However, I feel like Belial would be narratively wasted if he were just a seasonal boss in Diablo 4, since he not only has full voice acting, but also a whole scene dedicated to him.
Perhaps we can go out on a limb and speculate that perhaps in Season 8 someone will help convince the populace that Akarat is back, even though he is actually Mephisto. Then, Belial would be disguised as his right-hand man, possibly as one of Akarat’s followers, helping to further the story of Akarat’s return and the corrupt Zakarum faith being restored to its former glory.
Of course, at some point, I’ll be skeptical of them again. Considering the story of the previous season was pretty good, hopefully Season 8 will have a wonderful narrative that allows one of the seven Great Evils to become the main villain, rather than just giving him a standalone space in the expansion.
Especially considering that Belial is one of the masterminds of Burning Hells, and he originally helped banish the three Prime Evils: Diablo, Lord of Terror, Mephisto, Lord of Hatred, and Baal, Lord of Destruction, from Hell to Sanctuary. In fact, if Belial and Azmodan hadn’t turned on each other to become the sole lord of Hell, they would have been completely defeated and become the masters of Hell.
So, what do you think of Belial’s role and setting in Season 8? Is he more suitable for the narrative as an antagonist in the full expansion? Whether Belial’s return is a wise move to fill in the plot gaps and increase gameplay or a wrong move that will lead Diablo 4 to the abyss, we will have to wait and see!
From the moment you enter Diablo 4, you enter a game world with its own characteristics. Although it is virtual, when you play a role in becoming a part of this world, you must abide by the rules of this world, just like you need to abide by the law in the real world.
Of course, Diablo 4 does not prohibit you from killing your enemies, but if you want to complete certain events, you must do it according to the guidance of the system. For example, if you want to earn Diablo 4 Gold, you need to win the battle, and if you want to craft elixirs or incense, you must find an Alchemist to proceed-each mechanism and NPC has its necessity. And this time I want to introduce you to Occultists.
Although Diablo 4 may increase or decrease the number of NPCs as the season changes, this is usually for those NPCs related to the main storyline. There is also a kind of NPC that is actually closely related to your life and battles in the game and will not be easily changed, such as Occultists.
Occultists are located in all the major towns of Sanctuary, marked on the map by a clover-like icon. If needed, you can find the nearest Occultist for help based on your location. Currently, the in-game services that Occultists can provide include:
It should be noted that since the release of DLC Vessel of Hatred, Infernal Compasses are no longer a craft-able item, but can only be dropped as a rare loot after completing the battle under Torment difficulties.
When you first enter Sanctuary in Diablo 4 Season 8 and obtain Codex of Power Aspect by completing the first dungeon, you will automatically unlock Extraction and Imprinting quest. Completing it will unlock the aspect imprinting ability of Occultists.
As you know, you can earn gear and legendary aspects in Diablo 4 through combat or other means, and the latter exist to make the former stronger - in the form of imprinted aspects. These aspects can add different benefits to your gear based on their own characteristics, such as increased damage, class abilities, or passive effects. But you can only imprint specific legendary aspects on specific gear.
When you find items with higher aspect rolls, you can recycle these items. Recycling them will unlock specific rolls of aspect values for you, and the legendary aspects and their associated power levels will be automatically stored in your Codex of Power, allowing you to apply legendary powers to the corresponding items an unlimited number of times. In addition, when a new power level is unlocked, it will directly replace the old one.
Aspects can be imprinted on other legendary items to overwrite their existing legendary aspects, or imprinted on rare items to upgrade them to legendary items (unique items cannot be modified). Although you can imprint legendary aspects on rare items, rare items will ultimately only have 2 affixes.
As you know, fighting in dungeons is one of the main gameplay of Diablo 4, and it is also the main source of your game resources and gold. The dungeons in the game include normal dungeons, as well as nightmare dungeons, The Pit of Artificers, and Infernal Hordes in the endgame.
The way to open the nightmare dungeon is to farm Nightmare Sigils to convert a normal dungeon into a nightmare dungeon. This item can be dropped by Tree of Whispers caches, world bosses, and monsters in Nightmare Dungeons, or it can be directly crafted at Occultists-prerequisite that you have completed Sigil Crafting quest.
Each Nightmare Sigil actually corresponds to a specific dungeon, and Sigils also come with Dungeon Afflictions that can customize the dungeon by affecting your or the enemy’s status and the surrounding environment, so you need to craft Nightmare Sigils according to your own abilities and needs. If you accidentally create an unwanted Nightmare Sigil, you can also convert it into Sigil Powder to craft new Sigils.
Enchanting is essentially replacing a selected affix on a rare or legendary item with a randomly generated affix. Although this feature only allows you to replace one affix at a time, the affixes can be rolled over indefinitely until you find the affix effect you want most. However, the more times you roll, the more gold you need to consume, so it is recommended that you do your best.
Although Greater Affixes can only be obtained through combat drops, the item strength of the affix regenerated through enchanting is always better than the previous one. In addition, you can view the affixes that may be generated by a specific item to get a deeper understanding of which items are worth enchanting when optimizing a specific combination.
Usually when a new season is launched, Occultists will provide new sigils or items crafting services for that season to improve the seasonal content. Since Season 8 has not yet officially launched, it is not clear what changes will be made in this regard in this season.
The above is all the information we can provide about Occultists in Diablo 4 Season 8. It has to be said that they still play a very important role in the new season, so please be sure to pay attention to them!
Do you remember what it was like to experience Spiritborn class for the first time in Diablo 4 DLC or Season 6? New classes always bring you freshness, and it is normal that Spiritborn, which is different from the old class in every aspect, will be welcomed by players.
Although Spiritborn has been weakened to a certain extent since Season 7 due to design problems, this does not mean that it has become worse, but it is just not too superior to other classes to ensure the balance of the game. So you may be curious whether those Spiritborn builds that performed well in the previous seasons can still play a role in the upcoming Season 8? Based on this, this time we will take Touch Of Death Centipede Build as an example for analysis.
The design and use of this build is based on the high continuous damage effect brought by Touch of Death, and combined with Insatiable Aspect to trigger a huge explosion in battle to form a good clearing effect. This also makes this build not only able to deal with bosses, but also easily helps you complete Diablo 4 Gold farming in various dungeons, or complete other important tasks.
As the main skill of this build, Touch of Death has been adjusted according to the needs of the build. With just a simple operation, you can make this skill release a huge range explosion of poison to the enemy, causing the enemy to be infected with a large amount of poison damage. Even after Touch of Death is upgraded, it can ignore the cooldown by consuming Vigor, which means that as long as there is enough Vigor generated, you can use this skill continuously.
On this basis, if you can combine it with the passive skill Noxious Resonance, you can make your critical hits trigger poison damage on the enemy, causing damage within the range and eliminating the poison effect, forming a perfect match with Insatiable Aspect.
Since the combination of Touch of Death, Noxious Resonance and Insatiable Aspect is very compact, the role of the rest of the build is to enhance the damage value of the main skill Touch of Death or provide you with defensive capabilities. It is not difficult to set up overall.
In addition to the main skill Touch of Death and the key passive Noxious Resonance that we have already highlighted, other skills suitable for this build include the following:
Basic
Core
Focus
Defensive
Potency
Ultimate
You can also swap Rock Splitter for Vortex, if you can solve the resource generation problem. You’ll still need to invest two points in the basic skill category, though. Another thing to remind you about Spirit Hall selection is that the best Spirit Hall combination for this build is primary-gorilla and secondary-jaguar.
In actual combat, the gorilla buff provides damage reduction and turns all your other skills into gorilla skills, further stacking the damage buff. Jaguar Spirit Hall increases your maximum Ferocity and stacks it when you kill an enemy, so that it always remains in this state.
Touch Of Death Centipede Build requires you to obtain and use many unique items for it, because this makes the build more lethal and stronger by forming good synergies with other parts of the build. Among them, Harmony of Ebewaka is indispensable for almost every Spiritborn build.
Jacinth Shell can quickly recharge your skills, but this is based on the consumption of your health. Fortunately, because of the synergy effect of the centipede skills, the rest of the build contains a lot of health regeneration and recovery capabilities, so using Jacinth Shell will not cause any substantial loss of your health.
If you also have Yen’s Blessing, its special effect will allow you to use Armored Hide, Vortex, Ravager, and Scourge at the same time in rare cases, and activate both effects at the same time, thus increasing your survivability while also increasing your damage output.
To summarize, after using Focus, Sunstained War-Crozier Unique Quarterstaff will provide a very high damage bonus to Touch of Death, and Jacinth Shell and Yen’s Blessing can effectively reduce your skill cooldowns, making it easy to maintain the damage output of the build by frequently using all skills and gear.
After crafting this build, to use it in combat, first have your character stay in Ravager mode as long as possible with the blessing of Jacinth Shell, and use Touch of Death to deal heavy damage to normal enemies, and use Scourge to deal with stronger enemies. In between using Touch of Death, it is best to use the ultimate skill The Seeker at the same time to apply multiple passive effects to deal with more damage.
In addition, Ravager can use Touch of Death to teleport you to the nearest enemy, which improves the overall mobility of the build. In fact, it is also necessary to use dodge or mount to increase the movement speed.
After our introduction, do you know how to give full play to the power of this build in Season 8? If the answer is yes, it proves that our work is valuable! Thank you for reading!
Under the mysterious story background and complex game system presented by Diablo 4, there are countless game characters, NPCs and game mechanisms. It is their existence that builds this ARPG, allowing you to read interesting game plots while having a smooth game experience.
When you play Diablo 4, in addition to the game plot itself, other gameplays are basically centered around the element of “battle”: you can get Diablo 4 Gold, gear and various items through battles, and these props will also help you complete the next more difficult battles. But in fact, there are some items that can provide gains that do not require you to defeat any enemies, but can be made by yourself, provided that you go to the corresponding NPC-Alchemist.
As one of the most important NPCs, Alchemist can provide you with services such as upgrading health potion, crafting elixirs and incense, which are very useful for improving your combat efficiency. Based on this, we will introduce to you in detail what they can bring to you in Diablo 4 Season 8.
You can think of Diablo 4 Alchemists as a type of NPC in the game. They are located in the five main towns of Sanctuary, and are shown on the map as mortar and pestle icons, which can be used as a marker to find them.
Currently, the services that Alchemists can provide include healing potion upgrades, elixir crafting, transmutation, and incense crafting. However, it should be noted that all of these services require you to invest materials and gold, so if you want to make full use of Alchemists, be sure to prepare in advance.
When your character reaches a certain level, an upward arrow will appear next to Alchemist icon on the city map to prompt you. At this time, you can find an Alchemist to further upgrade your health potions. Different health potions have different functions and require different amounts of crafting materials and gold to upgrade. In addition, you can also charge health potions by earning renown in Sanctuary.
In Diablo 4, elixirs temporarily enhance your stats, and only one type of elixirs can be activated per battle. Although different elixirs enhance different stats, what they all have in common is that they all increase XP you gain after the battle.
Quest Elixir
Basic Elixirs
Advanced Elixirs
In fact, the main function of transmutation, which provides you with the opportunity to exchange summon items, should no longer apply to Season 8, because summon materials are no longer required to fight the lair boss in this season. So it may be temporarily abolished or given other functions.
Incense can be divided into three types by stat: core, resistance, and defensive. In each battle, you can choose one incense of the three types to activate respectively, providing different types of incense effects to improve combat efficiency.
It is worth noting that all incense effects can increase XP available to nearby players by 5%, and the duration is also 20 minutes. All effects are applicable to both team and single combat situations, and the incense effects will continue after the character dies.
Overall, Alchemist mechanism is not complicated, but if you want to make the most of it in Season 8, you need to understand the specific effects of each potion, elixir, and incense, so work hard!
As you know, once you complete character creation in Diablo 4, as soon as you start fighting, you will want to quickly find a build that suits you best. Considering that there are 6 classes available in the game, and each class has different skills and unique items, it is sometimes difficult to quickly determine which builds will be more suitable for you.
Fortunately, after multiple seasons of verification, you will find that there are some builds that will suit most situations, and may even become more powerful because they can work well with the new items added in the new season, such as Hammer of the Ancients HotA Build.
This build is one of Barbarian builds. As the name suggests, it is created with Fury skill Hammer of the Ancients as the core. Due to the applicability of this skill, similar builds have provided considerable help to Barbarian players in multiple Diablo 4 seasons. Hammer of the Ancients HotA Build has become even more powerful with the addition of the unique item Mantle of Mountain’s Fury Mantle in Season 7!
After entering Season 8, Barbarian will also get new unique items, and all classes will get boss power (seasonal power), so can they make this build more powerful and more worth using in the new season? Let us introduce it to you.
As the saying goes, knowing yourself and the enemy will win every battle, so if you want to defeat the enemy with Hammer of the Ancients HotA Build, in addition to understanding the enemy’s situation, you also need to understand all the details of your build, even the shortcomings.
HotA Build can be said to be a build that fully reflects the class characteristics of Barbarian heavy-hitting berserker. In battle, it will release powerful large-scale strikes and earthquakes through the core skill Hammer of the Ancients and the unique item Mountain’s Fury Mantle, thereby quickly clearing the enemy. This combat effect is useful when you plan to accumulate Diablo 4 Gold by farming groups of enemies in low-level dungeons.
In addition, the damage that this build can deal when facing some single enemies or bosses is also very good, and the survivability is enough to cope with most situations, but some characteristics bring advantages but also cause some problems, such as when the walls in the venue block AOE range, it will be difficult to move in narrow corridors, and the mobility is not enough - this seems to be a common problem of most Barbarian builds.
In terms of skill selection and use, the use of this build in Season 8 has not changed much, just follow the information we provide. First of all, since HotA Barbarian mainly outputs damage by automatically triggering earthquakes, the core of this build is still Hammer of the Ancients skill, and the choice of the rest of the skills depends on buffs and practicality.
In combat, Hammer of the Ancients can increase your output damage and help you generate more Fury, so that you can continue to attack, while Iron Skin can serve as a defensive layer to provide you with survival guarantee. Alternatively, you can replace Iron Skin with Stomp Strategic Ground or Power Leap, both of which generate additional earthquakes to explode, but they require more skill to use. Iron Skin is easier to master, and it not only gives you passive skills, but also makes you extremely resilient.
Key Passive
Offensive Passive
Defensive Passive
Utility Passive
There is a lot of gear available for this build, but the tricky part is that most of the best items and aspects must be farmed through constant combat to get drops, so it may take some time to perfect the gear combination for this build. Although it is okay to replace some of this gear, based on actual testing, the following gear will have better results.
This season will add Bane of Ahjad-Den and Aspect of Delayed Extinction as new unique items for Barbarian class, and you’ll also gain access to boss power as one of the new available combat perks. These special seasonal powers come from the 24 bosses in Diablo 4 Season 8, among which Belial and his followers, that is, the 10 Apparition bosses, are new enemies in this season.
Although it is not yet certain whether the new items can replace the original ones in the build, at least there will be a few boss powers that can help you discover more ways to use Hammer of the Ancients HotA Build, ensuring that the build can continue to play a role in Season 8.
The above is our introduction to some tips for continuing to use Hammer of the Ancients HotA Build in Season 8, as well as speculation on the more development possibilities it can obtain in the new season. I hope it can be helpful to you!
Since its official release in 2023, Diablo 4 has brought a roadmap for the next year in the first half of almost every year. In fact, the role of the roadmap is not only to show you what you can expect in the next few months, but also one of the most intuitive ways for players and industry insiders to evaluate the development potential of this game.
Generally speaking, the content of Diablo 4 roadmap will not list all the upcoming content for you in detail like the new season PTR summary, but will be more concise. For example, the 2025 roadmap released a few days ago on April 9 only introduces some new elements that have been added or are yet to be added in units of seasons.
To be honest, if Diablo 4 wants to attract more new players and retain old players in 2025, it should show the most eye-catching keywords in the roadmap. Although on the surface, the game developers did this, the players in the game community seem to have given a completely opposite view. Next, let’s take a look at what changes this game will bring in the second half of 2025 based on the 2025 roadmap released by Diablo 4!
Since the birth of Diablo 4, the resurrection and return of Lilith destined the game to be full of Hatred atmosphere, and the release of the 2024 DLC Vessel of Hatred once again emphasized this point-Mephisto is back again. In order to continue this feature of the game, the new season in 2025 and related seasonal power and other content will continue to emphasize the “Hatred” theme.
In addition, Diablo 4 officials also revealed that they may cooperate with other IPs in the future. Although the partners have not been made public, it has to be said that crossovers are always something you look forward to, and sometimes they can indeed bring a lot of popularity to the game in a short period.
In general, after reading this Diablo 4 2025 roadmap, two voices emerged in the player community: pessimism and optimism. A considerable number of players said that from the roadmap alone, it can be seen that D4 is becoming more and more lackluster. It is true that at the beginning, various fresh seasonal powers and events can indeed provide you with freshness, but Diablo 4 seems to be “unprogressive” and increasingly dependent on this approach, so that today’s season updates seem to be repeating Season 1 in a new form.
It has to be admitted that this statement is not without reason. At least from the roadmap, Diablo 4 is indeed still moving forward in this way in 2025. However, from another perspective, more optimistic players believe that it is important to keep things fresh, but no matter which game is, it is impossible for every new season or new patch to present a completely different look from the past. Moreover, even if it is just the new season power and events, it is enough for you to experience for a long time.
If a game wants to make progress, the opinions of players must be referred to. Although the “pessimistic” view may seem a bit extreme to you, they are also telling the truth. Diablo 4 is not bad in ARPG now, but it has not made any breakthroughs for a long time. If the development team can listen to the suggestions of players and work hard to make changes, maybe you may experience more content than what is shown in the 2025 roadmap.
Shortly after the 2025 roadmap was released, the heads of various Diablo 4 expressed their views on social media and related interviews, which in a sense was a response to the comments of players. Among them, Adam Fletcher, director of social and content marketing, said that this roadmap actually only revealed a small part. Since the game is still under development, as the progress progresses, you may actually unlock more surprises later.
Game director Brent Gibson claimed in an interview that the content shown in the 2025 roadmap is not only a regular update, but also a preparation for the launch of the second DLC. They want to make the main game and DLC as connected as possible. In order to achieve this, sometimes the regular seasons seem a bit ordinary. It has to be said that this approach makes sense. If the plot and gameplay of DLC are too different from the main game, it will seem a bit out of place.
In any case, Diablo 4 2025 roadmap can be successfully released, which at least shows that this game still has development potential. Maybe it can’t satisfy you all the time, but the development team is always committed to improving your gaming experience. This alone is worth your continued expectation.
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