Are you sure to delete the selected items ?
Are you sure to delete the selected item ?
Today, we have the Icy Shadow version 2. I’ve been having so much fun with this build and I’ve made a few changes that really make this build stand out.
We’ll be going over skills, play style, the skill tree, gear, and the Paragon Board.
The skills we’ll be using are Shadowstep, Dash, Twisting Blades, Shadow Imbuement, Smoke Grenade and Puncture with Combo Points as our specialization.
Smoke Grenade got a buff recently, going from 15% to 20% damage to enemies affected by it. And with the use of some aspects, this becomes an absolutely insane utility skill. Not only does it allow us to daze, it will freeze and give us a 43% damage multi that we can have up most of the time.
This build is on the squishier side. We want to take advantage of our Crowd Control and our Mobility to avoid getting hit too much. We do take up some defensive aspect slots with some utility aspects. But trust me, it is worth it.
When you’re diving into a large pack of Elites, use Dash and instantly drop your Smoke Grenade to daze and freeze, giving you plenty of time to finish them off. This way you can easily get a lot of Diablo 4 Gold.
Use Shadow Step when you get Crowd Control. Use Shadow Imbuement whenever it’s up. And use Dash to engage, reposition, and move around the map quickly.
Onto our skill tree, starting off with Puncture. Pick up Fundamental Puncture.
Max out Twisting Blades with Advanced Twisting Blades.
Siphoning Strikes did get a nerf recently, making it on a Lucky Hit, instead of always on Critical Strikes. So, our sustain has gone down tremendously because of that. But because of how much Crowd Control we have in this build, it does make up for it.
Pick up Shadow Step with Disciplined Shadow Step.
Then we should pick up Weapon Mastery and then Dash with Methodical Dash.
Pick up Smoke Grenade with Countering Smoke Grenade, giving us huge cooldown decreases and having that up more often for more dazes and freezes.
We should put one point into Exploit and then three points into Malice.
We should put one into Shadow Imbuement with Mixed Shadow Imbuement.
Then, we should put three points into Precision Imbuement, three points into Frigid Finesse.
Go ahead and max out Alchemist’s Fortune, Second Wind, Innervation, Impetus and Haste.
Finally, put one point into Adrenaline Rush and Close Quarters Combat.
Now, I do want to note that you can pick up Victimize here. It is fun to play with, but Close Quarters Combat just feels better with the Attack Speed and that 30% increased damage to Crowd Control because we’re always crowd controlling. It’s just nice to have that up.
Also Read: Diablo 4: Why Necromancer Is The Most Powerful Class In Season 1? - Reasons And Some Analysis
Onto gear, stat priority, and aspects, start off with our armor.
For our helmet, go for Life, Armor percent, Cooldown Reduction, and either ranks to Shadow Imbuement or Basic Skill Attack Speed.
For our aspect, we’re using Frostbitten, giving us up to 25% increased Critical Strike Damage to Frozen enemies. And on top of that, it synergizes with Smoke Grenade, allowing it to also instantly freeze our targets. If you want to be more tanky, you can definitely swap Frostbitten out for Aspect of Might for some more damage reduction.
For our chestplate, look for Life, Damage Reduction, Damage Reduction from Close, and Armor percent with the Aspect of Explosive Verve. This just amplifies our Smoke Grenade and with the Lucky Hit cooldown, we have this Crowd Control Damage stem up very often.
For our gloves, get rings to Twisting Blades, Critical Strike Chance, Attack Speed and Lucky Hit chance. You can also go for Critical Strike Damage with Imbued Skills. But we don’t get much Lucky Hit anywhere else and we’re going to be using Icy Alchemist for the aspect. This got buffed in Season 1, giving us 25% chill instead of 20%, so we freeze a lot faster and more often.
For our pants, we want Life, Damage Reduction, Damage Reduction from Close, and Armor percent with the Aspect of Disobedience.
For our boots, we’re using Penitent Greaves. This is how we apply chill in order for Icy Alchemist to work.
For our weapons on our crossbow, we want Critical Strike Damage, Vulnerable Damage, Dexterity, and Core Skill Damage with, of course, Bladedancer’s Aspect. By the way, In Diablo 4, some Diablo 4 Items are very difficult to obtain. If you encounter such difficulties, you may wish to visit D4gold.com. There will be professional players to help you.
For our weapons on one hand, we have Condemnation. The extra 20% to 40% multi-on Combo Points just can’t be beat here. And on the other hand, I am currently using Asheara’s Khanjar. The amount of Attack Speed and Lucky Hit we get from this weapon allows us to proc Icy Alchemist more often. And with more Attack Speed, we get more activations out of the imbuement heart.
With the nerf took Critical Strike Damage on swords, giving up 14% Critical Strike Damage for 30% close and more Attack Speed makes daggers a little better in my opinion.
So, if you are not wanting to use Asheara’s Khanjar, go ahead and pick up a dagger with Critical Strike Damage, Vulnerable Damage, Dexterity, Core Skill Damage and the Edgemaster’s Aspect. You will hit a lot harder with this, but you also lose a lot of Attack Speed.
Lastly, I want to talk about jewelry.
For our amulet, we need to have cooldown reduction and damage reduction. For our third roll, we have some options. Frigid Finesse is the best for clear and Malice is a good all-rounder for both clear and boss damage. And for the last roll, you want either Dexterity percent, Armor percent, or Movement Speed, depending on what you feel you’re lacking.
For the aspect, we’re using Aspect of Expectant for that 15 to 30% increased damage when we’re alternating between Puncture and Twisting Blades.
As for our rings, we want Life, Critical Strike Damage, Crit Strike Chance and Vulnerable Damage.
For the aspects with one ring, we want Accelerating Aspect and the other with the Aspect of Umbral for energy sustain. I would also recommend getting a third ring with Energizing Aspect. It doesn’t have to be perfect by any means, but our energy sustain feels really bad when we’re fighting bosses without it.
For our gems, we want Rubies in our armor and Emeralds in our weapons.
At the moment, having the extra life feels better than running Topaz and with Shadow Step up so often, Topaz doesn’t feel super needed right now. And with Emeralds in our weapon, we have the extra Critical Strike Damage against Vulnerable Damage.
For the socket colors for the new Malignant Hearts, we want a Vicious, a Brutal and your last socket can be any color.
We’ll be using Tempting Fate for the huge crit damage boost. We’ll be using Revenge for the damage suppressed. This helps our survivability a lot and makes Smoke Grenade look super cool when we cast it. Lastly, we’ll be using the Vile Apothecary. With up to a 15% chance to attack with all imbuements and our insane attack speed, we can get Icy Alchemist to proc pretty reliably without even having Shadow Imbuement up.
Lastly, we have our Paragon Boards.
The glyphs that we’re using are Closer, Combat, Chip, Turf, Control, and Exploit.
The legendary nodes that we pick up are Tricks of the Trade, Cheap Shot and Deadly Ambush. This is the reason why we Aspect of Explosive Verve on our chestplate. So, our Smoke Grenade also counts as a trap skill, giving us the 20% from Smoke Grenade and on top of that giving us another 22 and a half percent increase to our Critical Strike Damage, allowing Smoke Grenade to just be an insane damage stem.
Other than that, we pick up some Rare and Magic nodes around the board, giving us even more Critical Strike Damage and Vulnerable Damage.
In order to make progress as quickly as possible in the new Diablo 4 season, you not only need to understand all the new content and changes in the season, but also need to find powerful and suitable builds based on this.
Season 9 will be launched on July 1, 2025. If you plan to show your skills in this season, you need to know in advance whether the strength of each class build has changed after entering S9. Because if the builds you insist on utilizing are weakened in this season, your efficiency in farming Diablo 4 gold will inevitably be affected.
Based on this, this time we selected those builds that have performed well in recent Diablo 4 seasons, and arranged and introduced them from S tier to B tier according to their performance in 2.3.0 PTR, and predicted their official effects in Season 9.
It turns out that if the skill is not weakened after Season 9 is officially launched, then Hydra Sorcerer will definitely be the best build of this season. Hydra itself is a skill based on fire damage, but in the PTR, the game not only enhances the skill effect, but also launches a new unique item Ophidian Iris that can be paired with it.
Compared with the original single fire damage, the current Hydra allows you to combine different types of spells to enhance it, and you can further increase the damage output by increasing the number of heads of the hydra summoned by the skill.
As for Ophidian Iris, it not only increases all your elemental resistance by 30%, but also ensures that you always summon a three-headed Hydra, whose attacks will explode on impact. Each additional head of the hydra increases the damage caused by 50-100%.
It can be foreseen that through the synergy of this core item and other necessary gear, you can utilize Hydra Sorcerer Build in any way you like and earn more loot.
It’s easy to see that Sorcerer will be the most popular class in Season 9, as not only is there a new Hydra build available, but one of the classic builds, Lightning Spear, is still available this season.
Lightning Spear, when paired with the right unique item, can provide powerful AOE damage and crowd control effects through summoning gameplay and a lot of critical hit scaling, and can quickly locate bosses in boss battles.
It’s worth noting that a large part of the power of this build in Season 8 relied on amulet Fractured Winterglass, so it is expected that you will still need to equip this item in Season 9. Or you can try other item combinations.
This tier is actually a collection of most Spiritborn builds. The reason why this class is so adaptable in Season 9 is mainly due to the addition of the new unique item Balazan’s Maxtlatl.
In addition to the basic stats, this item deals 200-300% of your Thorns damage to melee enemies every time you attack, and additionally poisons them over 3 seconds. If you utilize Thorns to counterattack, the poison damage will increase over 5 seconds.
With this powerful damage output, no matter what Spiritborn builds you plan to utilize in S9, as long as you have Balazan’s Maxtlatl equipped and can deal Thorns damage, you can deal with most enemies without even farming additional Mythic.
Honestly speaking, Necromancer builds are not worth entering A tier in terms of overall power, because many class-related mechanics have been nerfed in this season, making most available Necromancer builds relatively fragile.
However, in comparison, the damage output of Blood Bone Spear and Blood Wave builds is still very good. So if you are good at playing Necromancer and can farm gear that can enhance defense and life, you can also try to continue to utilize them.
Druid and Rogue, which we will introduce later, both performed relatively mediocre in Season 9, so even the best builds they could have for this season were only ranked in the B tier.
Poison Pool Druid Build mainly deals poison damage to enemies through the skill Pulverize and the new unique item Rotting Lightbringer.
In Season 6, these two builds, especially Dance of Knives, made Rogue shine. But with the adjustments and changes in the seasons, although they are still reliable for Rogue, the overall build strength cannot be compared with other class builds.
If you are only looking for Rogue experience, you can continue to play them in Season 9, but if you want to get more gold and gear as soon as possible and advance the game progress, S/A tier builds will be better.
The above is the ranking of the builds expected to be available in Season 9. You can decide which one to utilize based on your needs. Have fun!
Although 2.3.0 PTR has ended and Season 9 has not yet officially started, most of the new season content has been fully demonstrated through the PTR, and it also gives you the opportunity to test your commonly used class or build in advance.
If you are familiar with similar ARPGs or have been playing Diablo 4 for a long time, you should know that the change of seasons will bring a series of adjustments, so the builds suitable for different classes in the new season will also change.
So, according to the PTR test, which build is the most suitable for each of the 6 classes in the game to utilize in Season 9? We will introduce it to you in combination with the content changes in S9.
In summary, the most prominent changes in this season are the new dungeons Escalating Nightmares and Strongrooms, the new seasonal power Horadric Spells, and the new ultimate boss Astaroth.
Among them, the most closely related to the crafting of builds should be Horadric Spells and related Horadric Jewels. They are like the boss powers in Season 8, and can be combined with various new and old builds as seasonal elements.
Horadric Spells include Catalysts, Infusions, and Arcana, and each element includes multiple options. You can combine them as needed to create the most suitable spell for you and combine them with builds. Adding jewels can further enhance the effect of spells.
In other words, no matter what class you plan to play and what builds you utilize in Season 9, don’t ignore Horadric Spells. It can not only help you earn more Diablo 4 gold, but also improve your seasonal combat experience.
To be honest, this may be the most average class in Season 9. Although each class has received several new builds in the new season, Necromancer not only has an average performance in its inherent builds, but also has too fragile new builds.
As you know, this class often relies on the power of minions in combat, but the relevant AI in S9 is slow to react and is not friendly to this combat mechanism. If you really like the mage class, Sorcerer will be more suitable for you.
The most suitable build for Sorcerer this season is undoubtedly Hydra Build. Although it is also a summoning skill, Hydra’s performance is much more reliable and interesting than Necromancer’s minions. It can summon a three-headed hydra in battle to deal fire damage to the enemy.
Builds centered on it can output more different types of damage to the enemy by combining skills such as Fire Bolt and Ice Shards, and attack the enemy from multiple angles. More importantly, the combat fun brought by Hydra Build is also very good.
It is worth noting that the above combat experience is based on PTR. It is difficult to say whether the game will weaken it in S9 because it thinks that this build is too powerful.
For Druid, in addition to Horadric Spells, the new content that should be added to related builds is the newly added unique item Rotting Lightbringer. The effect of this weapon is closely related to the skill Pulverize. In addition to its own damage ability, it can also increase the chance of the skill to hit twice, and increase the damage to enemies with poison damage.
Every 10 seconds in combat, Pulverize will form a puddle, causing poison damage equivalent to 200-400% of its damage in 6 seconds, and additional splash damage equivalent to 20-40% of the total damage of the puddle in and around it.
You can simply call this build Poison Pool Druid Build. Through the combination of new weapons and classic skills, it will make Druid show its prowess in Season 9.
Due to the weakening of some mechanisms, the experience of Rogue in S9 may not be too good (but it should still be stronger than Necromancer). You can try new builds with the new unique item Deathmask of Nirmitruq helm, but this item will consume too many resources, so it is not really effective.
Based on this, if you still want to play Rogue, you can continue to utilize Death Trap Build. Although it lacks novelty, at least it won’t go wrong. However, this build is more gear-dependent, so please be sure to do the relevant farming in time.
The reliable build for Barbarian in Season 9 is also the old Whirlwind Build, which can still make you play most of your strength as a Barbarian on the basis of Gohr’s Devastating Grips brought by Season 8.
However, the reason why we recommend you to continue to choose this build is not entirely because it is reliable, but mainly because Whirlwind has been weakened less than other Barbarian skills or mechanisms.
The build suitable for this class to utilize in the new season is still Quill Volley Build that has been well received since its launch. The difference is that Season 9 adds a unique item Balazan’s Maxtlatl pants to it, allowing you to output more thorn damage and poison damage.
Based on this, other Spiritborn Thorns builds are actually pretty good, and they become even more reliable when combined with rare gear. To be honest, Spiritborn and Sorcerer based on Hydra Build should be the most popular play styles in S9.
The above is just our classes and builds experience suggestions based on PTR experience. In fact, you can explore more play styles that suit you on Season 9! Have fun!
There is only about half a month left before the end of Diablo 4 Season 8, and you should be busy participating in the various events of the second anniversary celebration. In fact, if you have invested enough time before, the content of this season should have been almost completed.
But in addition, since Season 8 brings a lot of seasonal boss powers, and you can only equip 4 types in each battle, it is very likely that you have not had time to fully experience the power of all boss powers until now.
It is worth noting that in S8, these boss powers can be well integrated with your builds, or new builds can be crafted based on power, thereby improving your Diablo 4 gold farming efficiency, which will also help your anniversary event experience.
Based on this, this time we will take Druid class as a representative and introduce you to the build that is suitable for it with Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs as the core.
As a rare boss power, Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs can only be obtained after you defeat Urivar on Torment difficulty. As for the specific effects, like all other boss powers, there are two types of modifier power and main power:
However, in order to obtain this power and loot such as gold or gear, you must also obtain 12 Judicator’s Masks as lair keys to open the boss hoard before starting the battle. The source of this item is Tree of Whispers, world bosses and mercenary bartering on Torment difficulty.
As you know, you can equip 4 boss powers in each battle in Season 8, so for this build, in addition to Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs (main power), the other three suitable modifier powers are:
Since Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs is the key to the entire build, the unlocking of skills and the utilization of skill points need to form good combat synergy with the boss’s power while playing their own role. Specifically include the following skills:
Basic Skills
Core Skills
Defensive Skills
Companion Skills
Wrath Skills
Ultimate Skills
Key Passive
Of course, after determining and unlocking all these skills, you still need to release them one by one in a fixed rotation order to truly play the role that all skills should play. Among them, active skills usually bear the responsibility of output damage, while passive skills can further increase the amount of damage or other support bonuses.
The uniqueness of this build is that it can fully utilize and show the role of boss power on the basis of this conventional builds operation form, making this build more reliable than ordinary Druid builds in S8.
After determining the skills and all boss powers, the next thing to do is to match the gear for your Urivar Druid Build. Although many gears need to be farmed by bosses many times before they drop, as Season 8 is coming to an end, you as a Druid player should have obtained quite a few.
Since the mercenary mechanism was introduced in Diablo, it should have become your indispensable combat assistant. In fact, they can also be crafted as one of the elements in builds.
Among all the 4 mercenaries, the most suitable main mercenary for Urivar Druid is Varyana. Once you’ve chosen her, unlock her skill tree in the order of Cleave-Hysteria-Bloodthirst-Bloodlust. As for supporting mercenaries, Raheir’s skill Bastion can help.
Although this build is strictly for Season 8, its idea of using boss power can actually be used as a reference for all subsequent Diablo 4 seasons. Taking Season 9 as an example, the appropriate Horadric Spells may also help you craft new and unique Druid builds!
Even the most experienced Diablo 4 players can hardly guarantee that they will not make any mistakes in the game since the first season - of course, this refers to mistakes that can be ignored, not the kind of behavior that is so obvious that it will ruin everything.
In a few weeks, Diablo 4 will officially launch Season 9 on July 1, which also marks the end of Season 8 and the two-year anniversary event. It’s too late to save your mediocre Season 8 from now, but for Season 9, everything has not yet begun.
Based on this, we will point out several wrong decisions that you may still make even in Season 9 to avoid wasting the gameplay value of the new gameplay provided by the new season.
As you know, Diablo 4 has a clearly graded difficulty system, including Standard difficulty and Torment difficulty. Both difficulties have 4 levels and different unlocking conditions. They are:
Standard Difficulty
Torment Difficulty
Not only do the difficulty levels increase in challenge in the order above, but the amount, chance, and rarity of Diablo 4 gold, XP, and gear you can get after completing battles of the corresponding difficulty will also increase.
As a result, you may rush to challenge the new difficulty level just after unlocking it because you are eager to accumulate loot. This may lead to two results:
Or there is another possibility, that is, you are too cautious after considering the above situation, and stay in the low difficulty for too long, which delays the character growth process and the opportunity to earn rare items faster.
Therefore, you need to arrange the timing of entering the next difficulty reasonably on the premise of fully understanding your own abilities and the conditions of each difficulty level.
Usually, you will reach level 50 after completing the campaign. At this time, don’t rush to enter Penitent, but fully farm all available resources at Expert difficulty to complete Penitent more safely, and this strategy also applies to the subsequent Torment difficulty.
Admittedly, when dealing with those small soldiers or low-level bosses, you can directly turn on automatic combat or press a few keys corresponding to common skills to quickly complete the battle. But it’s hard to say whether this will make you dependent.
For example, Sorcerer may ignore Ice Armor because of Fireball, and overcasting Rapid Fire will cause Rogue to miss the combat effect of Rain of Vengeance - no single skill is always reliable.
In addition, automatic combat is not completely intelligent. At least from the perspective of boss mechanism, especially those high-level bosses, they require you to develop more flexible skill selection and rotation strategies on your own, and improvise in battle to be defeated.
In fact, flexible combat strategies can not only help you win faster and more safely, but also save lives and resources so that you can gain an advantage in long battles.
The principle of this misunderstanding is actually the same as the difficulty selection. As a special Diablo 4 endgame dungeon, The Pit has a total of 150 levels, and the difficulty and loot quality are gradually increasing.
If you are a player who makes mistakes in choosing the game difficulty and no one corrects you, then you are likely to make the same mistakes when exploring The Pit.
In addition, based on properly arranging the exploration route of The Pit, to improve the efficiency of clearing, you can focus on concentrated enemy clusters and use glyph bonuses to increase combat speed or item drop probability.
Although in general, the higher the level or rarity of gear, the better, you cannot stack rare gear on your character indiscriminately. Each gear has its own characteristics, suitable for different classes, builds and combat styles, and some have significant resistance to specific bosses.
Therefore, the choice and equipment of gear requires you to make reasonable arrangements after fully considering the above factors. Sometimes it is more important to suit you than whether the gear is rare.
Perhaps you will choose to skip all narrative plots and Cutscenes when completing the prologue or campaign of Diablo 4 because you are eager to farm gold and XP, but to be honest, this has almost no benefit except saving time.
For any MMORPG with a complete story, the details and foreshadowing in the plot development are actually likely to have certain inspirations for you to complete the difficult content, which can improve your efficiency in completing related battles.
From a literary and aesthetic point of view, these plots also echo the aesthetic style of the game. Watching them will allow you to more personally experience the formation of the background and the changes in the character’s personality in Diablo 4, and even the stories of various regions.
Of course, it does not mean that avoiding the above misunderstandings will make your Diablo 4 Season 9 journey smooth, but it will definitely be better than not knowing this information! In any case, your core task after entering the new season is always to strengthen your character.
With the end of 2.3.0 PTR, it also means the end of Season 8 and the arrival of Season 9. In Diablo 4, the season change is always so fast, perhaps to avoid you getting bored after losing interest in the current season.
Of course, in the season change, Diablo 4 finally ushered in the second anniversary during Season 8. Most games will launch celebration events mainly to give back to players at this commemorative time, and Diablo 4 is no exception.
Based on this, we will introduce you to the main content of this anniversary celebration and give you some tips for a better gaming experience.
The launch date of the game itself is June 1, 2023, but whether it is this year or last year, the celebration time is not completely fixed on June 1, but is held in a set interval within June.
This year’s commemorative event started at 10am PDT on June 3rd and will last until the 17th, about 2 weeks. Although the start time has been adjusted, the duration is basically the same as last year.
Last year’s first anniversary event was held together with the second anniversary of Diablo Immortal. The joint celebration of the two games made the atmosphere in the game more lively.
Although I don’t know why they were not promoted together this year, the time of the event overlaps. If you need it, you can also experience the limited-time new event in Immortal.
Last year’s Diablo 4 anniversary event included three parts, namely March of the Goblins (the celebration is also named after this), receiving gifts, and Mother’s Blessing. Although this year there are also three events, the content is different.
As you know, the new content launched with Season 8 includes the new battle pass system Reliquary. Reliquary rewards set for special events usually require you to consume the relevant special currency to obtain them. For example, Behelits corresponding to Berserk crossover.
But the good news is that Reliquary rewards of this 2nd Anniversary can be directly redeemed by Diablo 4 gold! If you know enough about Diablo 4, you will know that this is indeed a big benefit. Because the drop rate of ordinary gold is much higher than that of special currency.
To show the grandeur of the celebration, 2nd Anniversary Event Reliquary provides many unique and beautiful cosmetics, including:
Until the end of the entire anniversary event, you can earn gold for reward redemption by completing seasonal tasks, clearing dungeons, or defeating bosses. It is worth mentioning that if you can collect all the above cosmetics within the specified time, you will also get The Burning Dawn Mount Armor.
In fact, this event is not limited to the anniversary celebration. Diablo 4 also holds it frequently, but this does not mean that it is useless. The loot bonus rate brought by Mother’s Blessing can have a great positive effect on your resource accumulation.
During this Mother’s Blessing, whether your character is a seasonal exclusive or in Eternal Realm, you will receive a 35% multiplier on XP and a 50% gold acquisition rate after the battle.
This will not only allow you to earn more gold in a short period, increasing the likelihood of earning all 2nd Anniversary Event Reliquary rewards, but also lay a solid resource foundation for the upcoming Season 9.
As one of the main components of Diablo 4 endgame, Tree of Whispers will issue a series of bounty missions. These missions are spread across the game map, and you can complete them one by one within the specified time as needed.
After that, you will receive a special currency, Grim Favors, which can be exchanged for exclusive caches when you go to Tree of Whispers again. Open them and you may get rare gear!
In addition to the normal caches, the 2nd Anniversary will allow you to get an additional Gift of the Tree cache every time you exchange Grim Favors, which will appear when you open the normal caches!
To get enough Grim Favors to redeem more Gift of the Tree cache, you need to actively farm dungeons, bosses, and other daily events that are included in bounty quests. At the same time, these quests actually reward you with Diablo 4 gold, and the gold drop rate is increased due to Mother’s Blessing effect.
So you can focus on Tree of Whispers bounties and find the quests that drop more gold, so that you can fully utilize all the celebration events in a single battle!
Above is all about Diablo 4 2nd Anniversary. Please take the time to enjoy this celebration! Have fun!
Although 2.3.0 PTR has ended, it is certain that all the new content that will be launched in Diablo 4 Season 9 must include two new dungeons, namely Escalating Nightmares and Horadric Strongrooms.
Among them, Escalating Nightmares can be regarded as an upgraded version of Nightmare Dungeon, one of the inherent Diablo 4 dungeons, while Horadric Strongrooms is a seasonal dungeon launched specifically for Season 9, just like S7’s Rootholds.
However, although these two new dungeons do not completely belong to the same system, they can not only all bring you a lot of Diablo 4 gold to farm, but also have connections with each other. Next, we will introduce them to you one by one.
As a new endgame event, this new dungeon actually connects 3 separate traditional Nightmare Dungeons in series, providing you with the opportunity to get more rewards by expanding the difficulty and scope of exploration.
To enter Escalating Nightmares, you first need to obtain Escalation Sigils that unlock the first dungeon, and the second two dungeons require you to carry the affix of the previous dungeon to enter.
After you obtain Escalation Sigils, it will tell you which Escalating Nightmares dungeon you should enter first, and show you all the negative and positive affixes you will encounter.
Because just like the normal Nightmare Dungeons, all three dungeons in Escalating Nightmares have their own positive and negative dungeon affixes, and the affixes you have will stack as you progress through the clearing process.
Later, when you defeat the final boss to complete the current dungeon, a special pillar will appear on the screen, which will teleport you to the next dungeon in Escalating Nightmares.
As you know, Escalating Nightmares is actually a combined advanced version of the regular nightmare dungeons, so the specific gameplay differences are not very big.
In general, you will still trigger random events or encounter various bosses in Escalating Nightmares, and defeating them will get rewards, including gear of varying quality, gold, and Obols.
As the key item to unlock Escalating Nightmares, the acquisition of Escalation Sigils is actually related to another new dungeon in Season 9, Horadric Strongrooms.
In fact, this is why we say that there is a connection between Escalating Nightmares and Horadric Strongrooms. You can only get this item by completing Strongrooms in Torment difficulty and opening Horadric caches.
As a Season 9 limited dungeon, Horadric Strongrooms is actually a small treasure room hidden in Escalating Nightmares and ordinary nightmare dungeons, bringing you new rewards and fun with additional adventures.
Since the entrances to Strongrooms are randomly hidden in Escalating Nightmares and normal Nightmares, and Strongrooms must be completed to open the former, the first thing you need to do is to collect Nightmare Sigils to enter Nightmare Dungeon.
You can then utilize Wayfinder to look out for unique sounds and flashes while exploring Nightmare Dungeon, and where they are located will be Horadric Gateways.
Although the appearance of gateways is random, you can increase the probability of them appearing in other ways, including:
After activating the gateway, you will encounter a wave of ambushed enemies. Kill them to open the gateway and enter the dungeon. Next, you need to activate Horadric Artifact Pillar and kill the enemies that appear to complete the initial ritual. Then continue to interact with the pillar to change the conditions of the final rituals.
Next, please kill new enemies according to the requirements of these conditions to summon the final boss of the current Horadric Strongroom. After killing it and confirming that all enemies in the dungeon have been cleared, the new gateway will take you back to where you were before entering Strongroom.
It is worth noting that the higher the game difficulty when entering Strongroom, the more artifact pillars you need to choose. Some of these pillars will provide buffs, while others will increase rewards and bring additional dangers due to the corruption caused by the boss Astaroth.
After completing Horadric Strongrooms, the first thing you get is Horadric Attunement and a cache. You can think of the former as a kind of points, because the number of rewards you get after opening the cache depends on your Attunement.
In addition to regular rewards and Escalation Sigils, if your Attunement count exceeds 2000, you may also get a rare elixir through cache.
The above is the connection between the two new dungeons in Season 9 and their respective gameplay. I hope it will be helpful for your future battles in the new season!
Surplus Stock:
Connecting to online customer service,please wait...
