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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.
As a rich ARPG, Diablo 4 has its own huge item system, in which each item will play its own specific role to help you progress smoothly in the game. Among them, the rarer and more important items include unique items and legendary aspects.
These two types of items play different roles, but there is no doubt that they can both help your Diablo 4 battles. In order to ensure that you can make full use of these two item systems in each Diablo 4 season, the game will add new specific content to some seasons in addition to the universal unique items and legendary aspects.
There is less than a week left before the release of Season 8. In order to enable you to farm and use the new legendary and unique items in time, we will introduce them to you.
The main function of unique items is to provide effective assistance to your character through the four gear affixes they have, as well as some special powers that cannot be provided by other methods or items. Not only can make you get enough XP to complete the upgrade faster, but also earn a lot of Diablo 4 Gold.
Among all the unique items, there is a rarer one called Mythic Uniques or Uber Uniques. You can only get them by defeating Tormented Bosses (lair bosses in Season 8), and Duriel and Andariel among these bosses have twice the chance of dropping Mythic Unique items than other bosses. In addition, Ancestral Uniques have an item power 800 and at least one Greater Affix.
You can think of Diablo 4 Legendary Aspect as a unique modifier. Its function is to significantly enhance the ability of your character by turning your equipped rare items into legendary items. There are currently two ways to get this type of item in the game. The first is the most traditional way: by completing quests or clearing dungeons, waiting for it to drop while killing enemies. You will also receive XP and gold as regular rewards in the process.
The second method is more like a shortcut, by obtaining Codex of Power to directly imprint the effects of the legendary aspect onto your gear. Although this method is easy, on the one hand, it does not include some really powerful aspect effects, and on the other hand its aspect effect value is always the lowest value.
Since each season has its own exclusive seasonal power and mechanics, in order to allow your character to combine class skills, weapons, unique items and legendary aspects with these new mechanics after entering the new season, to play a better synergy, Diablo 4 sometimes adds new unique items and legendary aspects to some seasons.
Since there are 6 classes in the game, and each class has different characteristics, in addition to the universal Legendary and Unique Items, these classes have their own exclusive items. In Season 8, Diablo 4 adds a unique item and a legendary aspect to each class. Let’s take a look at what they do.
Unique Item: Bane of Ahjed-Den (Gloves)
This item detonates a pulse every 12 seconds, causing fire damage and 400-600% bonus damage to enemies when you use your next Mighty Throw. The corresponding affixes include:
Legendary Aspect: Aspect of Delayed Extinction (Offensive Aspect)
The effect is that your Mighty Throw and Iron Grip can gain damage multipliers, and the damage caused can be increased by an additional 125-250%.
Unique Item: Gathlen’s Birthright (Helm)
Allows your character in human form to use Nature Magic to deal 400-200 critical strikes to the enemy, and then you can also gain Anima of the Forest that lasts for 15 seconds. After injecting it, you will gain Perfect Storm and Earthen Might as key passive skills. The corresponding affixes include:
Legendary Aspect: Aspect of Impending Deluge (Offensive Aspect)
Storm Strike attacks twice as many enemies as it can, and increases the damage enemies take from other spells by 30-50% for 6 seconds.
Unique Item: Sanquivor, Blade of Zir (Two-Hand Sword)
Allows summons to deal damage to enemies while still being affected by Vampiric Curse. Consuming corpses also contributes a soul to Vampiric Curse, which can now stack up to 20 souls. Then have Army of the Dead release these souls, and each soul releases 15-25% more damage to enemies. The corresponding affixes include:
Legendary Aspect: Aspect of Service and Sacrifice (Offensive Aspect)
Skeleton Warriors explode on death, dealing 200-300% physical damage.
Unique Item: Band of Ichorous Rose (Gloves)
Poison Trap deals full damage over 3 seconds, and all upgrades increase its effectiveness by 50-100%. The corresponding affixes include:
Legendary Aspect: Aspect of Contamination (Offensive Aspect)
Poison traps deal 150-250% poison damage when they burst, and if the burst is a critical hit, you can continue to deal 20-40% poison damage for 5 seconds.
Unique Item: Hail of Verglas (Helm)
Ice Shards not only expand two additional shards, but each time a shard damages an enemy, the actual damage you deal will increase by 1-1.5%, up to 50-75%.
Legendary Aspect: Shivering Aspect (Offensive Aspect)
Adds up to 35-55% more damage to enemies depending on how frozen or staggered they are and apply an additional 15% more Frozen effect.
Unique Item: Sunbird’s Gorget (Amulet)
Pick up a Storm Feather and create a firestorm around you for 8 seconds, dealing 200-400% Fire damage every 0.5 seconds. The firestorm becomes 100% stronger for every 5 additional Storm Feathers picked up.
Legendary Aspect: Rip and Tear Aspect (Offensive Aspect)
Increases the damage of Rushing Claw by 10-30%, and will gain more enhanced effects, such as dealing more damage or providing healing, depending on the number of charges it has when it is cast.
The above is the relevant information we provide you about the new Legendary and Unique Items in Season 8. I hope it can be helpful to you. Thank you for reading.
In the content we have introduced about Diablo 4 Season 8, the new concept of “lair boss” has been mentioned to you more than once. No doubt, this is enough to arouse your curiosity and attention, and make you realize that this will be an important mechanism in Season 8.
Before Season 8, lair boss was called endgame boss. Although the name has changed, in essence, lair boss still refers to those dangerous bosses that appear in the endgame stage. What is really worth your attention is that the unlocking of lair boss encounters and the way to obtain loot will change greatly from Season 8. If you still use the old strategy to deal with these bosses, you are likely to lose everything in Diablo 4 Season 8.
In order to avoid this situation and allow you to welcome the arrival of the new season with the most relaxed attitude, we will introduce you in detail how to earn loot through lair boss.
Since a few seasons ago, some players have always felt that Diablo 4’s endgame difficulty and loot drop settings are not good enough. The development team has fully learned from the lessons and started relevant reforms starting from Season 8 - lair boss is one of the results.
Compared with previous endgame boss battles, lair boss battles are expected to be more difficult, more challenging, and require longer battles, and have higher situational awareness requirements. However, correspondingly, after defeating these bosses, you will be able to earn more Diablo 4 Gold and unique items with a more stable drop rate.
In addition to the difficulty upgrade and more guaranteed loot quality, the special features of this new boss mechanism are mainly reflected in two aspects:
First, unlocking the lair boss no longer requires you to collect summoning materials in advance. I believe that in the past, after entering the endgame, you always ran between various areas on the map to collect boss summoning materials. Although you were happy when you got the loot, this preparatory work was indeed a bit troublesome, not to mention that you might collect the materials but still fail to defeat the boss.
As for the second feature, it is actually closely related to the first one, that is, there are very few loot you can pick up directly after killing the boss. You must collect the corresponding lair keys to open the boss’s hoard to open more loot. This change adjusts the summoning materials to lair keys, and changes the time node for investing additional materials from before the battle to after the battle, so that the process of obtaining loot can still be challenging while avoiding material waste.
When you enter Diablo 4 endgame stage and unlock Torment difficulty, you can challenge the lair boss at any Torment difficulty level. All lair bosses are divided into 3 levels, from low to high:
It is worth noting that Belial is the final boss newly added in Season 8, while Urivar and Harbinger of Hatred are new bosses from DLC Vessel of Hatred, which means that if you want to challenge the latter two bosses in Season 8, you must have DLC.
The number and type of keys required to unlock the hoards of lair bosses of different levels are also different, as follows:
Exclusive Keys
Comparatively, the drop rate of the exclusive key of the greater lair boss will be lower. In order to balance this setting, the game allows you to obtain Stygian Stone that may drop when killing the Initiate lair boss. This item can be used to exchange for the greater lair boss key.
In addition, since the above items are set as lair boss keys, their drop rates in the corresponding channels also need to be increased to meet the needs of the system. For this reason, Diablo 4 has made the following adjustments:
Diablo 4 Season 8 has set up unique icons for lair bosses on the map to make them easier to distinguish. Once you find these marks, you can use the new teleport function to teleport directly to the boss to challenge them. In addition, to ensure that you can open hoards in time after winning, the description of each lair boss will list the type of lair key required for the boss and tell you whether you have enough keys.
It is expected that after Season 8 is officially launched, there will be more details about the lair boss mechanism waiting for you to discover, which can help you farm these bosses more efficiently. Good luck!
Since the launch of Diablo 4, the battle pass has been a major bonus system alongside season blessing and season journey, and their purpose is to reward you based on your progress in the game to keep you moving forward.
However, just like the gameplay and season content need to be updated regularly, these bonus systems also need to be updated to keep up with the times if they need to continue to cooperate smoothly with the game. Take the battle pass as example, while it has not been a bad performance so far, it would be better if it gave you more autonomy and ensured that you could explore Diablo 4 more freely.
So with Season 8 approaching, Diablo 4 has made an important announcement that the battle pass will add Reliquaries as a new built-in reward system. So what can this new system reward you with, and how can you unlock it? We will tell you one by one.
First of all, after the update, you will no longer have to unlock and obtain battle pass rewards in order as in the past, but you can choose the order in which to obtain rewards. This means that you can use the battle pass as one of your shortcuts to accumulate Diablo 4 Gold in the early stages of the new season, without having to work hard to farm because of the restrictions on the order of rewards.
As for the new Reliquaries system, it is actually a reward catalog that can be divided into two parts, namely Battle Pass Reliquaries and Event Reliquaries, of which the former is more closely related to the daily operation of the game. Battle Pass Reliquaries contain four independent Reliquaries that can provide you with different rewards. Taking Season 8 as an example, the four Battle Pass Reliquaries options provided in this season are Belial’s Return, Weapons, Beasts, and Armor.
Most Reliquaries must be exchanged for Platinum, but Belial’s Return is a non-premium Battle Pass Reliquary. Not only can it be obtained without Platinum, it can even reward you with a large amount of Platinum that can be exchanged for other Reliquaries! Weapons, beasts, and armor are premium Reliquaries, which can be redeemed by Platinum or obtained as part of the battle pass bundles.
When Season 8 is officially released on April 29, you can check your Platinum inventory at any time in the game to decide how to use it. It is worth noting that each season’s Battle Pass Reliquaries are only available during the current season, so be sure to redeem Reliquaries you want within the specified time. Any unclaimed Reliquaries rewards will disappear after Reliquaries expire.
Event Reliquaries are basically the same as Reliquaries in the battle pass in terms of function, except that its rewards are set according to special events and IP collaborations, such as Berserk crossover event that will meet you soon. This type of Reliquary is usually open for a short time, so in order to avoid missing out on rewards, you need to check its status in time.
You need to kill monsters or complete tasks in the game to earn red round tokens called Favor Tokens, which can be used to redeem Reliquary items. At the top of Reliquaries’ system menu is a progress bar that shows how close you are to getting the next Favor Token. You can hold up to 99 Favor Tokens at a time, and you must use some to get more.
Each Reliquary contains cosmetic rewards, and some Reliquaries have specific themes, and the new battle pass system no longer restricts the order in which you can get rewards, which means you can decide which types of cosmetics to get for your Diablo 4 character first. In addition, if you can use Favor Tokens to unlock all the items in a Reliquary, you will receive an additional reward. This reward item will be marked with a star icon and can be claimed without consuming Favor Tokens.
This season offers 4 Battle Pass Reliquaries: Belial’s Return, Weapons, Beasts, and Armor, each of which contains a part of Guise of the Deceiver armor set as an additional reward. And in each of the 3 premium Battle Pass Reliquaries, a non-premium weapon cosmetic is available for free.
Perhaps you will want to ask, will the old battle pass tokens be directly abolished after the release of Season 8? The good news is that they will be automatically exchanged for the new Reliquary tokens on April 28:
In addition, since unclaimed Reliquaries rewards will disappear after expiration, please check the exchange period of all Reliquaries through the countdown timer in each Reliquary in the function menu or the details pane in the upper left corner of the corresponding Reliquaries’ menu.
The above is all the information we have brought to you about the New battle pass system Reliquaries. In order to make full use of it, be sure to prepare it before Season 8 goes online! Have fun!
With more and more games, movies, and anime, crossover events between them are no longer a new thing. When crossover events first appeared, it was certain that they would benefit both works, but now there are more factors to consider in order to make crossover events successful.
As one of the classic ARPG series, Diablo has not held many crossovers in general. This may be because the popularity of Diablo 1-3 in the past was very good, and there were not many anime or movies with a similar style to Diablo series. But in 2025, Diablo 4 may have its first crossover with the classic Japanese anime Berserk!
Not long ago, Diablo 4 announced its 2025 roadmap. Although most of the content seems unremarkable, it has to be said that the news that it will crossover with two IPs is really worth your excitement. What you didn’t expect is that the first crossover object was announced so quickly! This may mean that Diablo 4 has long been planning to hold a crossover.
Generally speaking, the new content that Diablo 4 crossover event may bring mainly includes new weapons or cosmetics, or limited events that can provide both Diablo 4 Gold and limited-time rewards. However, considering that you may not know Berserk and its derivative works, we will introduce you to the overview of the crossover event between Berserk and Diablo 4, and analyze whether this crossover can be successful on this basis.
Berserk is a popular comic work created by Japanese cartoonist Kentaro Miura in 1988, with a strong dark fantasy style-although the world view is not exactly the same, this style coincides with Diablo 4. Unfortunately, the original author Kentaro Miura died in 2021, but his friend and fan writer Kouji Mori did not let this work come to an abrupt end, but instead allowed the creation of Berserk comics to continue in accordance with his friend’s wishes and creative habits.
Since its birth, in addition to the basic comic original, Berserk has also launched two animation adaptations, a trilogy of animated films, three video games, a derivative novel, and even a collectible card game based on comic content. And Diablo 4 is not the first game it has cooperated with - the crossover with Dragon’s Dogma was also a great success.
Except for the linkage with World of WarCraft, Diablo 4 rarely held crossovers with other works before (it and World of WarCraft even come from the same company), which shows that Diablo 4 has stricter requirements for crossover objects.
As a classic Japanese anime work, Berserk has a certain degree of popularity worldwide. Although it may not be as popular as Naruto or One Piece, it has its own exclusive audience, and the overall age of fans is older, which can match the fan group of Diablo 4.
The second is the specific story content of the two works. Berserk author Kentaro Miura draws inspiration from many works, and describes a series of stories with both dark and fantasy styles, with the adventure and growth of the protagonist Guts as the main line. In Diablo 4, as a player and “protagonist”, you also need to complete a series of adventures in this world starting with Sanctuary, and you will also face various powerful enemies.
In a sense, you as a Diablo 4 player and Guts as the protagonist of Berserk have certain similarities in fate, which means that when the two works hold a crossover event, you can play Diablo 4 by wearing Berserk-style armor or experiencing events that Guts may have experienced, and feel the trajectory of Guts’s fate.
Although “heat” is the main purpose of holding crossover events between various works, if they can be more closely matched in many aspects, then the crossover event is not just a tool to attract more players or fans, but a truly successful cooperation.
First of all, Berserk’s crossover targets include Diablo 4 and Diablo Immortal, as did the previous crossover with World of Warcraft. In the crossover event with World of WarCraft, Diablo 4 only launched some store accessories, while Diablo Immortal hosted more in-game events, such as unique challenges and boss battles, as well as free rewards.
Although the details of this crossover with Berserk are still unclear, judging from the trailer, you should be able to get the iconic weapons and armor used by Guts in Diablo 4. In addition, considering that the 2025 roadmap does not bring any surprises, and the industry competition pressure in the first half of 2025 is not small, the crossover between Diablo 4 and Berserk is likely to be different from World of WarCraft crossover, and will bring a lot of new playable content, rather than just providing accessories.
If Diablo 4 can really do this, it will definitely break the long-standing criticism of the dullness and boredom of the game by players, at least ensure that the playability of Diablo 4 rises to a new level during the crossover event. From this point of view, this crossover is definitely likely to be a great success, otherwise it would be a waste of Berserk’s very attractive story, right?
As for the release date of the crossover event, Diablo 4 has not yet announced it, but considering that Season 8 will begin on April 29, in order to continue the heat of the new season, the start date of this crossover event is likely to be May or June 2025. Before that, Diablo 4 should announce more relevant information, so let us wait and see!
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!
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