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• Diablo 4 Season 11 Wing Strikes Build Guide | How to Maximize Damage through Arbiter Form?

  With Paladin's debut as a new class in Diablo 4, its most popular and widely used skill is Arbiter of Justice. This skill not only boasts powerful combat capabilities but also fully embodies Paladin class characteristics.

  More specifically, Arbiter of Justice allows you to transform into Arbiter form, using wings and a spear to deal damage to enemies while moving. Its basic effect allows you to maintain this form for 20 seconds, dealing 600% damage upon landing on the battlefield.

  More importantly, this skill can be upgraded with additional modifiers, triggering new automatic damage mechanisms, such as Wing Strikes.

  This guide will detail how to craft a reliable Paladin build using Wing Strikes and the basic Arbiter of Justice effect.

  How to unlock Wing Strikes?

  Wing Strikes is essentially a powerful automatic attack skill triggered after using Arbiter of Justice to enter Arbiter form, allowing you to unleash energy in a radius, dealing damage to surrounding enemies.

  Alternatively, you can unlock Arbiter form and Wing Strikes by using a Disciple skill with a cooldown, but only after reaching level 15 and unlocking Disciple Oath, one of Paladin's exclusive mechanics.

  Once in Arbiter form, you will see a small blue orb below your resource bar, indicating the duration of Arbiter form. However, it's important to note that the duration does not stack.

  This means that even if you cast multiple Disciple skills with cooldowns, the total duration of Arbiter form will not increase; you must wait for the current skill effect to end before casting a new one to extend the duration.

  However, if you obtain Arbiter form through Arbiter of Justice, you can extend the duration by modifying the skill effect itself, such as equipping gear with excellent critical hit attributes.

  The importance of maintaining Arbiter form is emphasized because the entire Wing Strikes mechanic and related builds are based on it; otherwise, you will be unable to deal effective damage.

  What kind of damage does it deal?

  Wing Strikes only deals Holy damage, so related builds focus on this damage type. By default, Wing Strikes is triggered approximately every two seconds in a three-hit combo.

  On this foundation, you should invest in Enhanced Arbiter of Justice to reduce the cooldown of Wing Strikes to 0.5 seconds, allowing you to trigger this auto-attack more frequently.

  Additionally, the key passive skill Exaltation directly increases your damage in Arbiter form and provides you with an extra Wing Strikes, and combined with Falling Star skill, each of your attacks will hit four times.

  Falling Star is one of Disciple skills and also the main movement skill in this build. It resets quickly upon killing enemies, allowing you to continuously and efficiently traverse the battlefield.

  This chain reaction is effective in many Paladin builds. For example, it can trigger additional Judgment effects for Judgment builds, resulting in higher damage.

  It's worth noting that Wing Strikes doesn't benefit from attack speed bonuses, but this doesn't significantly impact its effectiveness, as it allows for faster casting of skills like Falling Star, making it easier to move around the map and maintain buffs.

  Based on the above, if you want to further increase the damage and other attributes (such as resistance or health) of your Wing Strikes build, you can add the following skills:

  • Fanaticism Aura
  • Defiance Aura
  • Consecration

  Gear selection

  If you can obtain enough Mythics, it is recommended that you prioritize adding Heir of Perdition to your Wing Strikes build, as it provides more damage and critical strike chance bonuses.

  Shroud of False Death provides more Strength, which increases your skill damage and armor, and combined with other Paladin passive skills, provides further damage increases.

  For other lower rarity gear options, you should focus on finding items with attack speed, critical strike chance, block chance, and stats that increase in Arbiter form, such as:

  • Helm: Angelic Masterwork
  • Chest Armor: Hale's Salve
  • Gloves: Virtuous
  • Pants: Indomitable
  • Boots: Arbiter's Zephyr
  • Amulet: Tyrael's Jurisdiction
  • Ring: Celestial Strife

  Of course, simply equipping gear is not enough; you also need to consume Diablo 4 gold and other necessary materials to Temper, Masterwork, and Sanctify your gear according to its rarity level.

  However, considering the irreversible and random nature of Sanctification results, we recommend that you perform Sanctification on gear of higher rarity. This way, even if the results are not entirely satisfactory, it won't significantly impact your final build.

  Which Legendary Aspects are better?

  If you have enough gold and game time, we recommend imprinting Legendary Aspects onto your gear to enhance its affixes.

  For the Wing Strikes build, the first recommended aspect is Aspect of Tyrael's Jurisdiction. It allows your wing strikes to track and attack nearby enemies, enabling you to continuously deal damage while moving around.

  The second aspect worth imprinting is Aspect of Celestial Strife. It grants you a stacking vulnerability damage buff. As long as you kill many enemies while maintaining Arbiter form, these buffs will not reset.

  Choosing Divine Gifts

  As a seasonal power in Season 11, Divine Gifts, while not as popular as Sanctification, are still worth adding to most builds.

  The main purpose of these gifts is to help you obtain more loot, so there are generally no specific options depending on the build. You can decide which ones to equip based on your personal needs.

  Of course, if the corrupted state corresponding to certain gifts provides buffs to enemies that make the game too difficult for your character, you can also choose not to equip them. This will not affect the overall effectiveness of Wing Strikes build.

  It must be said that thanks to its rich class-specific mechanics, Paladin's build possibilities are incredibly diverse, so much so that it may continue to be popular even after the second expansion introduces a new class.

  That's all for this guide. If obtaining the recommended gear and Legendary Aspects isn't too difficult for you, try this build with your Paladin character!

• Diablo 4 Season 11 Death Trap Rogue Build Guide | Gear Setup, Skill Selection, And Optimization

  Death Trap was the ultimate choice for Rogue players in the seasons preceding Diablo 4, and in Season 11, it remains at the top thanks to its high damage output, amazing mobility, and strong survivability.

  So let's take a look at what gear and skills you need to make your build easily sweep through Helltides, Infernal Hordes, and bosses.

  Pros And Cons

  Death Trap pulls enemies together and deals massive damage. It's powerful and versatile, and its extremely high DPS allows you to instantly clear large groups of monsters and quickly melt bosses.

  You can use Dash to quickly traverse the map and eliminate monsters with continuous Dash, making its leveling speed among the fastest of all builds.

  At the same time, if your gear and stats are right, this build also boasts excellent survivability and resilience.

  Of course, Rogues can't be as perfect as Paladins, and this powerful build comes with some drawbacks.

  It has relatively high gear requirements, although these are lower than in previous seasons, but still require specific unique items, affixes, masterworks, and temperers.

  Furthermore, it needs to meet several thresholds for energy, cooldown reduction, and attack speed. If these requirements aren't met, the gameplay won't be very smooth. In short, the more materials and Diablo 4 gold you invest, the better it will perform.

  Death Trap Gear

  • Helm: Harlequin Crest
  • Chest armor: Scoundrel's Leathers
  • Gloves: Vehement Brawler's Aspect
  • Pants: Eyes in the Dark
  • Boots: Beastfall Boots
  • Amulet: Trickster's Aspect
  • Ring 1: Opportunist's Aspect
  • Ring 2: Aspect of Artful Initiative
  • Dual wield weapon 1: Frostbitten Aspect
  • Dual wield weapon 2: Aspect of Surprise
  • Ranged weapon: Aspect of Apogeic Furor

  The helmet is a replaceable piece. Until you obtain Mythic items, you can use Umbrous Aspect as a substitute. Harlequin Crest is not the only option, and if you want to increase your damage, you can replace it with Heir of Perdition.

  Regarding unique items, you need certain unique items to grant Death Trap various bonuses.

  • Scoundrel's Leathers: Allows Death Trap to be considered a core ability.
  • Eyes in the Dark: Reduces trap deployment time, making Death Trap effective immediately.
  • Beastfall Boots: Reduces the cooldown of Death Trap.

  The core damage boost of this build comes from Trickster's Aspect, allowing Death Trap to benefit from other independent damage bonuses from Stun Grenades. These bonuses come from Aspect of Surprise, Aspect of Artful Initiative, and Opportunist's Aspect. The remaining Legendary Aspects primarily increase the damage of Death Trap.

  Death Trap Rogue Skills

  Active Skills

  • Death Trap (Rank 5): Prime Death Trap And Supreme Death Trap
  • Dark Shroud (Rank 5): Enhanced Dark Shroud
  • Shadow Imbuement (Rank 1): Enhanced Shadow Imbuement
  • Dash (Rank 1): No Enhanced
  • Poison Trap (Rank 1): Enhanced Poison Trap and Subverting Poison Trap.
  • Concealment (Rank 1):Enhanced Concealment And Subverting Concealment

  Passive Skills

  • Agile
  • Alchemical Advantage
  • Aftermath
  • Balestra
  • Concealment
  • Consuming Shadows
  • Deadeye
  • Deadly Venom
  • Exploit
  • Exposure
  • Frigid Finesse
  • Haste
  • Impetus
  • Innervation
  • Malice
  • Mending Obscurity
  • Mixed Shadow Imbuement
  • Rugged
  • Second Wind
  • Shadow Imbuement Siphoning Strikes
  • Sturdy
  • Trick Attacks
  • Unstable Elixirs
  • Unto Dawn

  In most cases, you'll handle monsters, bosses, and dungeons by holding down Dash and Death Trap. If you bind Dash to Shift key and hold down Shift and your Death Trap key, you'll automatically alternate between these two skills, creating a very smooth combo loop.

  Your other skills are primarily used to provide various support or defensive buffs and can be used freely without interrupting the loop. However, Poison Trap will interrupt the loop and should only be used in boss fights.

  In more difficult sections, such as The Pit, you can add Caltrops and Smoke Grenade for increased damage and replace Dash and Shadow Imbuement.

  Death Trap Rogue Requirements

  To achieve the full potential of this build, you must precisely meet the following thresholds:

  Cooldown Reduction

  Your goal is to reduce the cooldown of Death Trap to below 10 seconds, so you'll need Heir of Perdition or similar gear, plus the Great Affixes and tempering bonuses for Death Trap cooldown reduction.

  Additionally, you'll need a total of 3 regular cooldown reduction affixes on your gloves and rings, and you'll also need to acquire Death Trap cooldown reduction from the skill tree and Paragon levels.

  Death Trap Skill Levels

  You'll need a total of 12 levels of Death Trap. The skill tree provides 5 levels, Vehement Brawler's Aspect provides 2 levels, and your helmet provides 4 levels. The remaining 1 level can be obtained from core skill level affixes on your gloves or Masterworking.

  Attack Speed

  To reach the dagger frame attack speed threshold, you need to reach 130% attack speed.

  Paragon Board nodes provide 22.5% attack speed, and your rings and gloves also need attack speed affixes. Elixir of Advantage provides an additional 15% attack speed. You can gain the remaining attack speed passively after combat.

  Energy Restoration

  Choosing Preparation specialization reduces Death Trap's cooldown by 5 seconds for every 75 energy consumed. You need at least 150 maximum energy to keep Death Trap's cooldown below 10 seconds.

  Your energy regeneration primarily comes from Beastfall Boots, Aftermath, and the ultimate ability's energy regeneration affix obtained through tempering.

  This value is amplified by your Resource Generation attribute, eventually reaching approximately 150. Once you reach this threshold, you can run your skill rotation smoothly.

  If you're willing to invest time collecting gear and power, then Death Trap Rogue offers unparalleled speed and strength. If you're still in the early stages of the game or playing casually, then this build might not be for you, as it's not easy to get started with.

• Diablo 4 Season 11 Boulder Druid Build Guide | Best Endgame & Pit Pushing Setup

  Today, we want to share a powerful Druid class build that boasts immense damage potential, excellent crowd control, and high survivability, allowing you to easily become a mobile bulldozer, perfect for quickly clearing maps or tackling high-difficulty endgame content like The Pits. This is Boulder Druid build, and it's definitely one of the best setups that can rank among the top three builds during Diablo 4 Season 11! If you're interested, let's take a look!

  Equipment

  First, let's look at the unique equipment required for this build.

  Dolmen Stone

  The first item to mention is, of course, the core item that keeps the Boulder Druid running - Dolmen Stone Unique Amulet. It releases Boulders during Hurricane activation, causing them to rotate around you. For each Boulder rotating around you, damage is increased by up to 50%, stacking up to 10 Boulders.

  So, the basic gameplay of this build is: cast Hurricane, and try to maintain Hurricane's duration at 100%, then frantically stack Boulders, constantly dealing damage to everything around you while they rotate.

  It's worth noting that you can cast Boulder while moving, which makes this build very fun, as you can essentially become a bulldozer surrounded by Boulders.

  Vasily's Prayer

  Next is a unique helmet exclusive to Druid class: Vasily's Prayer. While wearing this helmet, your Earth skills also count as Werebear skills and provide you with Fortify based on a percentage of your maximum health. This not only significantly increases your survivability but also synergizes with other passive skills based on Fortify effects, greatly reducing damage, which is why it's a core piece of equipment for Boulder build.

  Tibault's Will

  Tibault's Will is also a good option; your damage is increased while in Unstoppable state and for 5 seconds afterward. More importantly, the all-attribute bonus of this item allows you to gain the secondary bonuses of all rare nodes in Paragon Board.

  Ring of Starless Skies

  The last unique item is Ring of Starless Skies. It significantly increases resource generation speed and damage output. This ring reduces skill cost and increases damage by 10% for every primary resource consumed, stacking up to 50%. In addition, it also provides excellent attribute bonuses such as Attack Speed, Critical Strike Chance, and Lucky Hit Chance, making it a highly sought-after piece of top-tier equipment.

  Skill Tree

  Next, let's look at the skill tree setup for Boulder Druid build. Here is our skill point distribution:

  Core Skills

  • Claw: 1
  • Bulwark: 1
  • Cyclone Armor: 1
  • Hurricane: 1
  • Boulder: 5
  • Petrify: 1

  Passive Skills

  • Heart of the Wild: 1
  • Wild Impulses: 3
  • Backlash: 3
  • Ancestral Fortitude: 3
  • Vigilance: 3
  • Feral Aptitude: 3
  • Mending: 3
  • Crushing Earth: 3
  • Stone Guard: 3
  • Safeguard: 1 (if you don't have Shroud of False Death)
  • Defiance: 3
  • Natural Disaster: 3
  • Resonance: 3
  • Catastrophe: 3
  • Quickshift: 3
  • Heightened Senses: 3
  • Ursine Strength: 3
  • Neurotoxin: 1
  • Toxic Claws: 3
  • Envenom: 3

  These are some of the necessary skill point investments; you can choose the rest based on your play style.

  Paragon Board

  Now it's time to look at our Paragon Board.

  Starting Board

  On the starting board, we have Earth and Sky glyph, which provides bonuses to Magic nodes within its range. The secondary effect is Nature skills, dealing more damage to enemies under CC or Vulnerable status.

  Survival Instincts Board

  The second board is Survival Instincts, which allows you to deal more damage in bear form, and even more damage at full health. The glyph is Keeper/Abundance, which affects rare nodes within its range. The secondary skill is Companion, which deals higher non-physical damage. Almost all of our damage is converted to poison damage.

  Earthen Devastation Board

  The third board is Earthen Devastation, designed to make Earth skills deal higher critical strike damage. Its glyph is Dominate, used to increase overpower damage. Then there's the secondary skill: when you overpower enemies, they take more damage.

  Heightened Malice Board

  The fourth board is Heightened Malice. The more poisoned enemies near you, the higher the damage you deal, and this effect stacks. The illuminated glyph here is Spirit, which increases critical strike damage. The secondary skill is that when you critically strike an enemy, they take more damage from you, and this effect also stacks.

  Constricting Tendrils Board

  The last board is Constricting Tendricting Tendrils. The glyph we chose is Fang and Claw, which provides a bonus to all magic nodes in the area, dealing higher damage to close-range enemies.

  Spirit Boons

  Next are our Spirit Boons, powerful passive buffs belonging to Druid class.

  • Deer (Utility/Defense): Wariness. Reduces damage taken from elite monsters.
  • Eagle (Offense): Iron Feather & Avian Wrath. Increases maximum health and critical strike damage dealt.
  • Wolf (Offense/Utility): Energize. Allows you to restore Spirit through damage taken, but you may not actually need this.
  • Snake (Offense/Defense): Obsidian Slam. Every six attacks cause your next Earth Skill to trigger Overpower. So, you can easily clear maps by simply continuously casting Boulder.

  Mercenaries

  As for our mercenaries, here we chose Subo, mainly for his The Seeker skill. The skill selection for mercenaries actually depends on your needs. For example, since our equipment doesn't yet provide the highest movement speed, we chose Ready At Hand talent, which increases movement speed after dealing direct damage to elite enemies; we also activated Opening Fire, which allows you to deal higher critical strike damage to enemies affected by Cover Fire.

  The final reinforcement is Varyana with Bloodthirst skill. When she casts this skill, we also gain increased attack speed, so use it on Boulder or any other skill you want.

  Divine Gifts

  Finally, let's look at Divine Gifts, which, as seasonal powers in D4S11, can often provide you with nice extra bonuses in the late game. Here's what we placed in each slot:

  • Top: Essence of Lies, strengthens once per second.
  • Right: Essence of Screams, increases resistance.
  • Bottom: Essence of Sin, increases armor.
  • Left: Essence of Pain, gain maximum barrier when you take damage, 20-second cooldown.

  That's everything for this Boulder Druid build. This build is incredibly fun to play because you can constantly throw boulders around while zipping between enemies. Although the number of stackable boulders is limited each time, simply continuously casting Hurricane will trigger a series of other effects. Then you can petrify enemies to your heart's content!

• Diablo 4 Season 11 Zenith Paladin Build Guide | Infinite Cooldowns, High Mobility, and Easy Pit 100

  Diablo 4 boasts many incredibly powerful Paladin builds, with top-tier players reaching level 146 in The Pit. However, for average players, such high levels aren't the primary concern; the enjoyment of the process is more important.

  Zenith Paladin build is undoubtedly the most satisfying Paladin build currently available. It automatically resets cooldowns, allowing for near-permanent continuous casting of core abilities. Furthermore, these abilities can be converted into movement skills, enabling jumps across the map.

  Core Gameplay

  Zenith Paladin build's greatest strength lies in its similar exhilarating gameplay to Zeal Paladin build, while maintaining self-healing while dealing high damage.

  It deals considerable damage to both single targets and large groups of monsters. Combined with its excellent mobility, it even rivals the effect of continuously using Arbiter and Falling Star. This build offers two distinct playstyles depending on Zenith enhancement path. To unleash its full potential and achieve the smoothest experience, you should choose Empyrean Edge enhancement path.

  For a simpler approach, you can replace the enhancement path in the previous version with Sermon of Steel and replace Flickerstep with Ghostwalker Aspect.

  This build is very straightforward; it doesn't rely on Diablo 4 items. Its core requirements are simply 100% critical strike chance, 100% bonus attack speed, and maximizing skill levels.

  Zealot Oath

  Zealot Oath grants your attacks an additional percentage of your original attack damage based on your Fervor stacks.

  This effect has a bug, but it's a benign one. It inexplicably doubles the damage. This means that if you have Aspect of the Zealot's Covenant legendary effect on your amulet, it's the maximum damage boost you can get.

  It increases both the base Echo damage and Echo damage multiplier. It also increases your Fervor stacks from 3 to 4, meaning you'll get 4 echoes of Zenith's initial damage and 4 echoes of Zenith's secondary damage.

  It also interacts with Aspect of Jacques' Fervor. The synergy is excellent; the latter increases critical strike damage based on your Fervor stacks. Each additional Fervor stack increases the critical strike damage bonus from 60% to 80%.

  Resplendence

  Another core element of this build is Resplendence Glyph, which reduces the cooldown of your aura abilities.

  This build incorporates numerous auras, not just for increased damage, but also to reset cooldowns when there's no Flickerstep or the rotation is unexpectedly interrupted. If the rotation is interrupted, you can reduce the cooldown by casting an aura to resume your rotation.

  Aspect of Apogeic Furor

  The effect of Aspect of Apogeic Furor is that every 10 uses of your ultimate ability reset all cooldowns. This allows you to easily reuse all your abilities repeatedly. Sometimes, Zenith can also reset cooldowns automatically by killing weakened enemies. So, although these mechanics seem quite complex, once you get into the rhythm, you'll find the controls very simple because you can almost constantly unleash abilities.

  These are the core items needed for this build. You can adjust them based on your available gear. Let's look at the differences between the two versions.

  Empyrean Edge Version

  Empyrean Edge enhancement transforms Zenith into a movement skill. Besides providing 25% critical strike chance, it also inflicts Weakens on enemies. Attacking weakened enemies triggers significant damage bonuses.

  With cooldown reduction, after using Zenith, it enters a cooldown of approximately 5 seconds. This is where the cooldown reduction provided by Flickerstep comes in handy. Simply dodging Evade through an enemy will reduce your ultimate ability's cooldown by 4 seconds.

  Therefore, this playstyle essentially involves alternating between Zenith and Evade. This build works even without relying on mythic items and sanctified gear; they simply raise the potential of this build.

  How to Reduce Zenith's Cooldown?

  Zenith's base cooldown is 25 seconds, with a maximum cooldown reduction of 75%, meaning a minimum cooldown of 6.25 seconds.

  There's an affix in the Tempering affix pool that can reduce Zenith's cooldown by up to 35%. Simply obtain two such forging affixes on your gear, and then stack cooldown reduction on other regular gear slots. Of course, this requires a lot of materials and Diablo 4 gold.

  Additionally, there's a node in Paragon board that provides an additional 30% cooldown reduction after moving. So even if your gear isn't top-tier, you can still reach the minimum cooldown reduction.

  Zenith Paladin Skills

  • Advance: No Enhanced
  • Fanaticism Aura: Enhanced Fanaticism and Rite of Vengeance
  • Defiance Aura: Enhanced Defiance and Rite of Might
  • Holy Light Aura: Enhanced Holy Light and Rite of Judgement
  • Falling Star: Enhanced Falling Star and Fanatic Descent
  • Aegis: Enhanced Aegis and Stay Resolute
  • Zenith: Enhanced Zenith and Empyrean Edge

  Zenith Paladin Equipment

  • Helm: Heir of Perdition
  • Chest armor: Shroud of False Death
  • Gloves: Revelator's Aspect
  • Pants: Aspect of the Indomitable
  • Boots: Flickerstep
  • Amulet: Aspect of the Zealot's Covenant
  • Ring 1: Aspect of Utmost Glory
  • Ring 2: Aspect of Jacques' Fervor
  • Mainhand: Griswold's Opus
  • Offhand: Aspect of Apogeic Furor

  Sermon of Steel Version

  Sermon of Steel build deals significantly less damage per attack, but allows for truly continuous, mindless casting. As long as you reach the 100% attack speed requirement of the first attack speed tier, you can cast the skill indefinitely.

  However, this build currently has some bugs. Zenith's Unstoppable state should have lasted the entire duration, but in reality, it disappears between attacks, potentially leaving you vulnerable to crowd control.

  Zenith Paladin Skills

  • Advance: No Enhanced
  • Fanaticism Aura: Enhanced Fanaticism and Rite of Vengeance
  • Defiance Aura: Enhanced Defiance and Rite of Prayer
  • Holy Light Aura: No Enhanced
  • Condemn: Enhanced Condemn and Shepherd the Flock
  • Falling Star: Enhanced Falling Star and Freefall
  • Zenith: Enhanced Zenith and Sermon of Steel

  Zenith Paladin Equipment

  • Helm: Heir of Perdition
  • Chest Armor: Shroud of False Death
  • Gloves: Revelator's Aspect
  • Pants: Aspect of the Indomitable
  • Boots: Ghostwalker Aspect
  • Amulet: Aspect of Jacques' Fervor
  • Ring 1: Aspect of the Zealot's Covenant
  • Ring 2: Aspect of Utmost Glory
  • Mainhand: Griswold's Opus
  • Offhand: Vehement Brawler Aspect

  Even though this build isn't the strongest among paladin builds, it's enough to easily reach level 100 of The Pit. For casual players, besides being very fun to play, this build also progresses very quickly and is definitely worth trying.

• Why Escalating Nightmares Are Dead and Sanctification Shines in Diablo 4 Season 11?

  Diablo 4 Season 11 has been live for almost a month now, how has your experience been? While it's still too early to judge the overall quality of the season, you've probably already noticed the differences in value between the various gameplay mechanics.

  Generally, the most eye-catching aspect of each season is the exclusive seasonal mechanic, but in Season 11, this rule seems to have been broken.

  Below, based on current Diablo 4 experience and player feedback, we will analyze and summarize the best and most useless mechanics in Season 11.

  Escalating Nightmares is losing value

  Besides various seasonal mechanics, Diablo 4 is actually composed of fundamental mechanics such as Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, and different difficulty boss battles.

  Sometimes, to enrich the playability of new seasons, the development team will update them. For example, in Season 9, a version of Nightmare Dungeons called Escalating Nightmares was added and has remained to this day.

  The gameplay of this dungeon involves obtaining an Escalation Sigil and activating a chain of three Nightmare Dungeons. After defeating each dungeon boss, you are teleported to the next dungeon.

  All dungeons in Escalating Nightmares have their own positive and negative affixes, which stack up to the last dungeon, making the final Astaroth boss battle more dangerous - and of course, the loot more abundant.

  In Season 9, in addition to regular loot, more importantly, you could trigger Horadric Strongrooms in Escalating Nightmares to unlock the seasonal power Horadric Spells, and in Season 10, you could trigger Chaos Rifts battles to exchange for rewards.

  Escalating Nightmares in S11

  After entering Season 11, this dungeon is no longer associated with any seasonal mechanics or powers. Its only value is that you can farm Mythic Prankster affix to increase the chance of encountering Treasure Goblin Fancy Old Fedric, thus obtaining more Mythic drops.

  The embarrassing thing is that due to the limited drop rate, the best way to obtain Mythic Prankster affix is to complete simpler daily tasks to obtain many regular Nightmare Sigils, and then salvage them to obtain Sigil Powder.

  This powder can be crafted into new Sigils at Occultist along with gold. Although the crafting results are random, this method is much simpler.

  As a result, Escalating Nightmares is no longer valuable, whether considering playability or the final benefits, to the point that most players chose to ignore it in Season 11.

  Sanctification's reputation improves

  In 2.5.0 PTR, players were not optimistic about the new Sanctification mechanism because its random and irreversible results could potentially ruin the gear they had painstakingly upgraded.

  However, after further optimization by the development team, this situation has changed. Now, Sanctification can provide you with a wealth of advanced gear and build enhancement options without disrupting game balance.

  Now, after upgrading your gear through the optimized Tempering and Masterworking, you can use Sanctification to add extra affixes, upgrade existing affixes and the quality of the item itself, or replace normal affixes with Sanctification affixes.

  Although the results are still random and irreversible, the value ultimately added to the gear is much more stable than in PTR phase.

  This means you'll be willing to invest more time farming and upgrading your gear, making better use of all related Diablo 4 gameplay and mechanics.

  Therefore, although Divine Gifts are the seasonal feature of Season 11, Sanctification's more profound impact on the game experience has greatly overshadowed these gifts.

  It's important to note that fully utilizing Sanctification requires sufficient gear. Therefore, if you currently lack enough gear, the fastest option is to buy Diablo 4 items at D4GOLD!

  What kind of new mechanics are worth keeping?

  From the player feedback on Escalating Nightmares and Sanctification in Season 11, it can be seen that, besides seasonal gameplay that is only a limited-time feature, it's not easy for other new content to become a core part of Diablo 4.

  If a certain mechanism is intended to be preserved indefinitely, it must either consistently provide seasonal loot or have a low enough difficulty in obtaining loot to ensure you have enough motivation to play it.

  And if it's a mechanism related to character enhancement, like Sanctification, it needs to ensure that the benefits it provides are valuable throughout the entire season while maintaining a balanced combat environment, not just a bunch of inflated numbers.

  Because these requirements are not easy to meet, many Diablo 4 mechanics are constantly being added and removed. However, as things stand, Sanctification is more likely to be retained than Escalating Nightmares.

  Unfortunately, there are rumors that Sanctification may only exist for one season and will be removed along with Divine Gifts with the release of Season 12. Many players are puzzled and disappointed by this and hope the development team will retain Sanctification.

  To be honest, while Diablo 4's update pace is generally stable, it's always been quite slow in responding to player feedback. This makes it difficult to predict the future of Sanctification; all you can do is hope and wait.

  2026 has arrived, and Diablo 4 has also announced its roadmap for the new year. The immediate future includes the return of leaderboards in mid-January, followed by new seasons and expansion.

  Therefore, even if Sanctification isn't retained, there will be enough new content in the coming months to keep you entertained. So don't worry too much, just enjoy the game!

• Is Diablo 4 Season 11 Still Worth Playing in 2026 after Gameplay Improvement?

  While Diablo 4 is the fourth installment in a great series, it has been compared to other games in the same genre since its release. The general consensus among players is that Diablo 4 is an excellent ARPG, but not the best.

  More than two years have passed since its release, and Diablo 4 has undergone many changes, even adding a new class, Paladin, in Season 11. Many players have praised Season 11, so is Diablo 4 worth playing in 2026?

  Leveling Up Stage

  Diablo 4 excels among all ARPGs in its leveling up and new player tutorials. This is because players have many choices from the start.

  You can choose to experience the campaign story with beautiful cutscenes (which they've always excelled at), or jump straight into the opens world for free exploration.

  During leveling up, you can conquer Strongholds, participate in Legions events, challenge World Bosses, and experience various dynamic events. Helltides events, which occur every hour, are filled with random events and dense enemy encounters, and are a major source of enjoyment and the primary method for players to level up.

  While the developers adjusted the difficulty of monsters in Season 11, they weren't as powerful as in Path of Exile, and they simply returned to their expected level and didn't significantly interfere with the leveling experience.

  Early Endgame Stage

  When players reach around level 60 and begin accumulating Paragon Points and challenging Torment Ranks, they enter the early endgame phase. At this point, the core activities can be summarized into four main categories (although there are others):

  • The Pit: Used to upgrade Glyphs.
  • Nightmare Dungeons: Acquire equipment and items like Diablo 4 gold.
  • Infernal Horde: Provides XP, equipment, and materials.
  • Kurast Undercity: Farming Runes.

  These activity systems provide players with ways to obtain materials and equipment, and the overall process is smooth. From the start of leveling to experiencing the early endgame content, experienced players may only need one to two days. While these activities lack sufficient variability and room for modification, the player experience remains good at this stage.

  Deep Endgame Stage

  However, once the player character is fully developed and enters the true endless farming phase, Diablo 4's current endgame content lack reveals a significant weakness, which is precisely why Diablo 4 lacks competitiveness compared to similar games.

  The core gameplay loop in the late game is extremely monotonous: either constantly challenging higher levels of The Pit to level up glyphs to 100 to test the character's limits, or collecting materials, summoning Lair Bosses (which generally don't survive more than 10 seconds), and then checking the loot. This cycle repeats endlessly, switching between different bosses.

  The occasional World Bosses are insufficient to break this monotonous loop, constituting the entirety of the current Diablo 4 Season 11 late-game content, which is undoubtedly a weak point that needs improvement.

  Diablo 4 needs a deep endgame experience similar to Atlas in Path of Exile or Monolith of Fate in Last Epoch, allowing players to customize their goals and immerse themselves in long-term gameplay. If the developers could add existing gameplay elements to a system like Atlas in exchange for improved endgame content in 2026 update, it would be well worth it.

  Crafting System

  Besides new classes, the biggest change in Season 11 is the significant overhaul of the crafting system, making it almost entirely deterministic, retaining only the final step's randomness.

  If you want to craft a piece of equipment with two Greater Affixes, you first need to add a Legendary Aspect to the equipment, then add sockets through a jeweler- both are guaranteed to succeed.

  You can choose to reforge an undesirable affix until you get the desired attribute, then use Temper to select and add a new affix from the provided affix library. Although one less affix is manually added compared to previous seasons, the overall strength remains essentially unchanged due to the increased affix count of items.

  Masterworking allows you to progressively upgrade gear quality, with the chance to upgrade common affixes to Greater Affixes.

  Sanctifying gear is the only non-deterministic step. After sanctification, all item attributes are locked, but a comprehensive stat boost is granted, with a chance to upgrade multiple affixes to Greater Affix level.

  Through this series of steps, you can transform an initially ordinary piece of gear into a top-tier item with multiple Greater Affixes. This highly controllable crafting system further reduces the game's difficulty, allowing players to almost always craft the gear they need by the endgame.

  While some would prefer more randomness, the current system is actually quite reasonable. However, Sanctification is a seasonal mechanic for Season 11, disappearing after the season ends, much like Chaos Armor in Season 10.

  Retaining Sanctification and Chaos Armor as endgame content would be a great option, allowing players to strategically cultivate their gear in the endgame.

  Is It Worth Playing?

  Overall, Diablo 4 Season 11 continues to excel in its core gameplay and social co-op aspects, performing almost as well as Season 10 and well worth your time.

  However, its shortcomings cannot be ignored. Besides the lack of endgame content, the current skill and build options for each class remain limited, restricting character build diversity and exploration enjoyment. Diablo 4 needs a deeper, more expansive skill tree or similar system to truly allow players to build their characters.

  Encouragingly, the developers have revealed future update plans, including expanding the skill tree, adding fishing gameplay, more boss battles, a new endgame system, and classes for the next DLC. This indicates they are moving in the right direction.

  Diablo 4 Season 11's performance proves the game is on the rise. If you're willing to enjoy a 1 to 2-week in 2026 start, enjoyable journey with friends, now is a great time to return.