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Because of the mediocre performance of Diablo 4 in the past two seasons, which has caused complaints from players, the game has brought news of the new season faster than ever before, and opened 2.3.0 PTR on May 27.
Although this may divert your attention, no matter what, the work at hand still needs to be done! Even if you have lost interest and confidence in Season 8, completing the reward tasks will lay a solid foundation for you to enter Season 9.
In order to restore the reputation of the season as much as possible before the end, Diablo 4 Season 8 also released patch 2.2.2 on May 27. The patch does not contain many changes, but Masterworking craft-related ones should be the most concerned.
Based on this, we will focus on Masterworking and introduce you to the main content of patch 2.2.2, as well as other details worth paying attention to.
First of all, you need to be clear that Masterworking is actually an endgame system in the game. You can utilize it to increase the value of affixes for specific existing items to make them more powerful because the 8-12 separate upgrade levels Masterworking provides.
It should be noted that Masterworking must be performed at the blacksmith, and the relevant craft materials must be farmed in important dungeons such as Nightmare Dungeons, Infernal Hordes, and Kurast Undercity.
In recent seasons, I don’t know if you have found that even if you have enough Diablo 4 gold and Obducite, the craft materials consumed for a Masterworking are indeed too much. Many players in the game community have also reported this problem and said that it even makes them not want to utilize Masterworking anymore.
But to be honest, this system is really useful for improving your game battle win rate and experience, because the gear upgraded by Masterworking is much more powerful than before, which can effectively solve battles that you could not deal with before.
Perhaps because the players’ resentment accumulated by Season 8 could no longer be ignored, through patch 2.2.2, the game reduced the number of materials required for Masterworking (excluding gold and Obducite as supporting consumables).
This way, you can perform Masterworking more times than before, and the crafting efficiency and combat efficiency will be further improved. However, it should be noted that this “reduction” is only for the number of materials, and does not mean that the difficulty of farming them or the number of drops will change.
Although you may hope that Season 8 will be more interesting with a new patch, unfortunately, apart from Masterworking changes, the other patch contents are mainly to fix bugs and improve the player experience.
Bug Fixes:
Season 8 Content Adjustments (the following issues have been fixed):
Gameplay Adjustments (the following issues have been fixed):
User Experience Improvements:
Finally, I want to mention that in fact, in addition to the gameplay itself, the performance of Berserk crossover event launched in Season 8 is far from what you expect.
Originally, crossover should be a win-win activity, but the excessive emphasis on crossover item trading and the lack of novel gameplay ultimately led to the low evaluation of Diablo 4 Berserk crossover.
Honestly, if Diablo 4 wants to reverse its evaluation and performance from S9, besides improving the quality and creativity of the season, it should change the purpose of development - don’t lose the trust of players for the sake of temporary benefits.
The above is the comprehensive patch 2.2.2 information brought to you. I hope it’s helpful to you and wish you a better experience in Season 8 and PTR!
2.3.0 PTR is in full swing! You can use it to experience and test all the new content you want to experience in the future Diablo 4 Season 9, including finding and utilizing more different builds for each class.
Normally, the strength of all Diablo 4 classes should not differ much to ensure the balance of the game, but due to changes in the mechanism, it is not ruled out that some classes are more suitable for utilizing the new power of the current season-then these classes become the first choice to experience the new season.
Judging from the performance in the current PTR, although Horadric Spells are not exactly the same as the witchcraft power of Season 7, all of them seem to be very suitable for Sorcerer. Going further, you will find that this kind of “mysterious” seasonal power is very compatible with Hydra skills of Sorcerer.
Based on this, we will introduce you how to craft Hydra-centric S9 builds so that you can complete more battles as a Sorcerer as soon as possible in the PTR and the official ninth season.
To understand how Hydra builds work, you must first understand the key skill Hydra. In Sorcerer’s entire skill tree, Hydra is an active skill and part of the conjuration cluster. It can be upgraded to a maximum of 5 levels to deal more damage.
More specifically, this skill allows you to summon a three-headed Hydra in combat, which will damage enemies within range by breathing fire for the next 12 seconds. This attack feature makes this skill can help you to get more Diablo 4 gold drops in small dungeons at one time, but you can only summon one Hydra at a time.
In addition to upgrading, Hydra can also be further enhanced like most active skills. Its enhanced versions include:
Usually, the first step in crafting new builds is to determine the other available skills besides the core skills. As you can see, in addition to the summoning characteristics, Hydra essentially outputs fire damage, so other active skills that match it are also mainly of this type.
As one of the important active skills, Fire Bolt will automatically fire flaming arrows in battle to cause burning damage to the enemy. With Hydra, you will set off a fire war in Season 9! In addition, you can continue to stack Lightning Spear to output lightning damage at the same time.
On this basis, the passive skill selection recommends Devastation, which can provide you with damage reduction and barrier effects, allowing you to output stable damage while ensuring that your own health is less damaged.
The combination of the above skills will eventually bring you a lot of barrier and buff effects, as well as 60% summon damage, 60% movement speed and 120% mana recovery bonus - this is enough to solve most Diablo 4 Season 9 battles.
If you still have spare energy, you can continue to add Ice Shards to the build. Although it brings another type of damage, it can also effectively weaken the enemy and provide additional attack speed, allowing you to complete the battle faster.
Good and appropriate gear can amplify the effect of your skills while ensuring your survivability. For Hydra builds, the preferred helm is Harlequin Crest or Heir of Perdition, which can bring you considerable damage bonus.
Since you can directly obtain all Mythic Uniques in the PTR to facilitate your testing of various gear and the effects of new powers, in order to maximize the strength of Hydra builds, you can give priority to gear that can increase your resource generation and resistance, movement speed, and defensive attributes.
In this way, after sufficient testing through the PTR, you can conduct unique item farming more targetedly when entering Season 9, to get ahead in the new season with higher efficiency.
In addition to other skills, Hydra can also work with new power Horadric Spells to further improve the efficiency of related builds, and the short cooldown of Hydra will play an important role.
Among all Horadric Spells, Reactive Ooze can provide you with reliable resource generation, allowing you to gain 5% of your maximum resource generation per second for the next 10 seconds, Frigid Heart can cause freeze damage to enemies, and then run Volatile Crystal to make your Catalyst Horadric Spells deal more damage.
It is worth noting that after completing Horadric Spells matching, you can also earn Horadric Jewels to attach to these seasonal powers to provide them with richer effects. However, please note that not all Horadric Jewels have positive effects.
But if you want to get these jewels, you need to obtain Horadric Tomes in Horadric Strongrooms in Torment 1+ difficulties in advance (teaching you how to make Horadric Jewels) and farm enough materials to craft them.
The above are the main ideas for craft Hydra builds in 2.3.0 PTR and later Season 9. I hope it helps improve your Diablo 4 experience!
2.3.0 PTR for pre-testing the main content of Season 9 has been officially launched on May 27. If you have almost completed the progress of Season 8, it is time to enter the PTR and experience the new dungeons and new power Horadric Spells for a week.
Although Diablo 4 has brought almost no fundamental innovations or changes in recent seasons, there are always slight differences between different seasons. On this basis, in order to ensure the balance of the game environment, all 6 classes also need to be adjusted regularly.
Take the latest class, Spiritborn, as an example. Because it was considered too powerful shortly after its launch, it was weakened in Season 7, while other classes were appropriately strengthened to maintain the balance of class strength.
As the game progresses to Season 9, the previous adjustments may no longer apply. Based on this, we will introduce you to the nerfs and changes to classes and other related mechanisms that will be brought about in Season 9 based on 2.3.0 PTR and other information.
Of course, the PTR doesn’t blindly nerf every skill, affix, or other aspect of the game class. After all, balance means adding and subtracting in moderation. But in general, there are some major ability nerfs that you need to pay attention to, because this is related to the efficiency of your Diablo 4 gold farming.
For Barbarian, the first brunt of the nerfs is the skill War Cry, which has been reduced from 100% to 65%, and the glyph that can be paired with it, Wrath, which has been reduced from 160% to the lesser. Since they are the core components of many Barbarian builds, these nerfs mean that you will need to adjust your available Barbarian builds in the PTR or Season 9.
In addition, the attack effect of Bash, one of the main damage skills of the class, has been reduced. Although old patches have buffed this skill in the past, nothing is permanent in the game.
As a special ranged governing stone, Lightning Bolt can cause lightning damage to enemies by firing a special arc. Although it is not a Druid-only item, it is very effective for Cataclysm Druid builds - unfortunately, the effect of Lightning Bolt will also be reduced from 200% to 100%.
In addition, as one of the classes that can utilize specific overpower skills, Druid can form overpower domination on enemies through Werebear forms, but it is expected that the effect will also be reduced by half.
Comparatively, Barbarian and Druid have more changes and are more noteworthy. Adjustments to other classes include an overall reduction in overpower effects and Tempered damage. However, it is worth noting that the changes in Tempered damage include both enhancements and reductions.
At present, the specific nerf values of all unique items that will be weakened are not very clear, but it is certain which items will be weakened, including general unique items and those exclusive to each class.
General:
Barbarian:
Druid:
Necromancer:
Rogue:
Sorcerer:
Spiritborn:
In Diablo In Diablo 4, affixes are special magical properties. Each gear will have several affixes, or you can add additional affixes to your gear to make them more powerful.
Generally speaking, affixes in Diablo 4 are divided into three categories: offensive, defensive, and utility, which can provide different types of gains for gear, but the implicit affixes that come with gear cannot be changed or removed. In Season 9, it is expected that the implicit affixes of many weapons will be weakened, such as bows, crossbows, and some other long-handled weapons.
The above content is only part of the weakening reflected in 2.3.0 PTR for your reference. However, I want to tell you that the weakening is actually a normal change when Diablo 4 changes seasons. Listing it for you is just to facilitate your adjustment of your new season and PTR arrangements. Normally, they will not cause too much damage to your gaming experience.
In contrast, if you really want to adapt to the new season rhythm as soon as possible after the arrival of Season 9, you should familiarize yourself with the new content through PTR, such as the new dungeons Strongrooms and Escalating Nightmares, as well as the new bosses and new season powers.
The above is all the content introduced to you this time, you can utilize this as a basis to start your PTR exploration. I wish you all the best!
As you know, there are many items in Diablo 4. Some of them are gear that can be directly utilized, some are currencies with different functions, and some are actually raw materials for making more advanced items, such as Veiled Crystal.
In fact, material items like Veiled Crystal are not uncommon in the game. It is through various different recipes that you have the opportunity to synthesize and obtain more powerful and effective final products, unlocking more game content.
Based on this, this time we mainly introduce you in detail how to obtain Veiled Crystal and its main functions.
As we have mentioned, Veiled Crystal is a rare-level crafting material in Diablo 4, which can be used for enchanting, tempering, master-working, and imprinting legendary aspects on other gear items. Although these tasks also require other materials, Veiled Crystal is indeed indispensable.
In Season 8, Veiled Crystal actually has another important function, which is to be synthesized with other materials to unlock the lair boss hoard.
Most lair keys can be obtained by killing lower-level lair bosses, but the drop rate of keys belonging to high-level bosses is usually lower, so synthesizing through materials becomes a more stable method. Although the synthesis required are a lot of Diablo 4 gold, at least there is no gambling.
Transmute Mucus-Slick Egg:
Transmute Pincushioned Doll:
Transmute Sandscorched Shackles:
Transmute Shard of Agony:
In addition, to upgrade your gear through Veiled Crystal, you must travel to different locations. For example, weapons and armor upgrades require going to the blacksmith, while rings and amulets are related to the jeweler.
If you want to Imprint or enchant, you need to find an Occultist. Like the lair key, these functions also consume a lot of materials and gold, so you have to work hard on farming.
There are three main ways to get this material, namely direct farming, salvage rare or higher quality gear, and opening Whisper caches. We will introduce them one by one.
Considering the wide range of uses of Veiled Crystal and the high consumption of each production, its drop rate and quantity have been increased since Season 4, so you should get this item when you complete the battle in most quests.
However, if you want to do a large amount of farming at one time, clearing the dungeon should be a better choice. As you know, the main function of most Diablo 4 dungeons is to provide you with rich loot, not only crafting materials, but also gold and XP that are essential for playing the game.
In Season 8, it is recommended that you choose Helltides and Nightmare dungeons as the first choice for Veiled Crystal farming. Among them, Helltides has a high refresh frequency and a high density of enemies when they appear, which is very suitable for concentrated farming.
As one of the classic Diablo 4 dungeons, the nightmare dungeon is not so difficult overall, but there are many explorable contents, and farming can be completed easily.
You will intentionally or unintentionally obtain a lot of gear of different levels during the game. As your character level increases and your ability increases, the gear that provides you with basic combat benefits in the early stage will gradually be eliminated.
Since the value of this part of gear is not high, there is no need to sell it, but if it is not processed, it will waste storage space. At this time, you can travel to the blacksmith to salvage them. However, when performing salvage, please be sure to pay attention to the following tips:
This method is actually an indirect way to salvage items. When you complete Whisper bounties posted through Tree of Whispers, you will receive gold, XP, and Grim Favors as rewards.
Once you have enough Grim Favors, you can return to Tree of Whispers to redeem more rewards, including gear. Since completing Whisper bounties is an essential part of playing Diablo 4, you can fully utilize this opportunity while farming more Veiled Crystal.
With the above information, if you haven’t unlocked those higher-level lair boss hoards yet, it’s best to quickly collect Veiled Crystal synthesis keys to complete the related battles!
2.3.0 PTR has begun, it’s important to complete the main content of Season 8 as soon as possible to enjoy the new PTR!
Although the operation methods are similar, the names and specific functions of the seasonal powers of each Diablo 4 season are different. In order to quickly master them at the beginning of the new season, it is best to understand them in advance.
In fact, for several seasons, Diablo 4 has been criticized for being too homogeneous in seasonal power and lacking real innovation, so that the specific game experience has also declined. Therefore, Season 9 seems to intend to make changes to this.
According to the campfire chat held on May 22, it can be known that 2.3.0 PTR will be launched on May 27 to show you some of the main contents of Season 9 in the form of testing. Next, we will show you the relevant content of Season 9 seasonal power based on this.
You can call Season 9 seasonal power Horadric power like Season 7 witchcraft power or Season 8 boss power, but this power actually works by fusing three elements to allow you to output more spells.
The three elements are Catalysts, Infusions, and Arcana, each of which has its own purpose and contains multiple specific content with different powers, which we will introduce one by one.
Catalysts are the basis and main source of damage for your final customized Horadric Spells, and need to be activated through specific action bar skills - different skills correspond to different Horadric Spells slots.
This component can be upgraded, with level 20 being the highest level, and they will gain additional bonuses when you upgrade your Catalysts to level 10. All 5 Catalysts and their functions are as follows:
Catalysts are already quite helpful, but if you want to further improve your Diablo 4 gold farming efficiency with Horadric Spells in Season 9, you’ll need to continue to fuse the power of Infusions.
Infusions provide additional power and magic to existing Catalysts, and determine their damage type. Unlike Catalysts, Infusions gain a bonus when they reach level 5, allowing your Catalyst to remove special effects possessed by the enemy.
You can think of Arcana as a positive modifier that further improves Catalysts, including magic, rare, and legendary levels (I don’t know if it reminds you of boss power). Arcana can make your Horadric Spells more powerful by synergizing with Horadric Jewels that will be introduced to you later.
Magic Arcana:
Rare Arcana:
Legendary Arcana:
As we have already mentioned, Horadric Jewels can bring you more additional effects by combining with Arcana. However, first, these effects may contain negative effects; second, they cannot be farmed through combat and can only be crafted at Wayfinders.
Before crafting, you need to complete Horadric Strongrooms at Torment 1 and above to obtain Horadric Tomes, which can teach you how to craft Horadric Jewels.
In addition, crafting Horadric Jewels also requires Horadric Phials and gem fragments, and after crafting, they can only be embedded in jewelry. All craftable Horadric Jewels are expected to include:
As a source of Horadric Tomes, Horadric Strongrooms is a seasonal dungeon that will be added to the game in Season 9, similar to Rootholds in Season 7, and its random entrance can be found in the nightmare dungeon. Besides Horadric Tomes, it should also drop gold, XP, and more rewards.
The above is all the information introduced to you this time. You can fully test them in 2.3.0 PTR under the guidance to welcome the subsequent Season 9. I wish you a happy game!
According to the general ARPG gameplay and mechanism, after you create your current Diablo 4 Season 8 character, the first thing to do is to start the main quest in time and upgrade the character to the maximum level as soon as possible by completing them and other early game tasks.
The current maximum level of the character in Diablo 4 is level 60, but this does not mean that you have no room to become stronger after the maximum level. In addition to converting leveling builds into builds more suitable for the endgame stage, the game also launched Paragon board for you to utilize.
You can directly regard this mechanism as an endgame character progression system. After unlocking it, you can expand it and upgrade it by earning Paragon points to get more attribute bonuses it provides. The system can be upgraded to level 300.
It has to be said that level 300 is really too large a number. You may doubt whether it can really be upgraded to the maximum level? Next, we will introduce how to do this on Season 8.
As one of the most important and difficult endgame dungeons in the game, The Pit is not only a source of Diablo 4 gold, character XP, and gear, but also the only place to earn Paragon XP. But to upgrade Paragon to the maximum level, you need to know the necessary The Pit farming skills.
In fact, we have already mentioned this from the perspective of endgame experience at the beginning. From the normal campaign to the endgame, the difficulty and mechanics of the game will change, and you must adjust your combat plan to deal with them.
Different builds can enable the corresponding class to deal damage and defend in different forms. If you want to focus on farming Paragon XP in The Pit, we mainly recommend the following builds:
The common feature of these three builds is that they can deal a lot of damage in a short period, with fast burst power, so they can clear the enemy group with high efficiency, which is the best way to get Paragon XP in low-level The Pit.
In contrast, the other three classes lack this feature in terms of skills and available builds because of their different styles. Although this does not mean that they are not suitable for utilization in The Pit, they will be less efficient.
The Pit has 150 unlockable levels. The higher the level, the more challenging it is, and of course the more rewards. But if your character is not strong enough, or you just want to focus on getting Paragon XP instead of other high-level rewards, you can actually focus on the middle and low levels.
First of all, Paragon XP provided by this level of The Pit level is not small (of course, I don’t mean the part below level 20), which is enough for you to upgrade your Paragon board to a good level to cope with more difficult levels.
Secondly, if you die while playing a level that is beyond your capabilities, the current level timer will be increased by 30 seconds, the second death will be increased by 60 seconds, and from the third time onwards, each death will be increased by 90 seconds. This penalty effect will greatly slow down your farming progress, and it is not worth the loss.
Diablo 4 sometimes holds special limited-time events during which you can get XP boost opportunities - this type of event is usually referred to Mother’s Blessing. During Mother’s Blessing, you will gain more Paragon XP than usual when you fight at levels of your usual level.
If you have time, you can also do a little calculation within the range of levels you can handle to evaluate which specific level has the most efficient clearance time/Paragon XP ratio.
There is always more power in a team, especially if you are new to The Pit or are not very good at dealing with The Pit. If you have strong and reliable teammates in the team, you may even have the opportunity to challenge The Pit levels that are far beyond your capabilities, and gain more Paragon XP than playing alone.
Paragon nodes in the game include normal, magic, rare and legendary levels, which can provide you with different attribute bonuses and special effects, so that your character can continue to become stronger after the maximum level, and enough Paragon XP allows you to unlock more and rarer nodes until Paragon board is upgraded to level 300.
It is also worth noting that you can also find empty glyph slots in Paragon system. When you obtain glyphs through other channels and insert them, the effects of the nodes around their slots will be further strengthened.
These glyphs will also provide additional bonuses if you reach a certain primary attribute threshold through the nodes within the glyph radius. What’s more convenient is that you can always remove or reuse the glyphs in the slots according to the needs of different combat situations.
Although the method we provide should be useful, it still takes a lot of time and effort to upgrade your Paragon system to the highest level (level 300). So if you have free time, start working hard now! You will also get additional special rewards after reaching level 300!
For Diablo 4, regularly updating seasons is not only to give you a fresher gaming experience, but also to take the opportunity to make the game better by optimizing various aspects of the game mechanics.
Usually about halfway through the current season, the developers of Diablo 4 will hold a campfire chat to summarize the current season progress and give you a preview of the main content of the next season. However, this time the preview of Season 9 seems to come earlier than ever before.
At 11 am on May 22, the official held the latest campfire chat, which was less than a month after the launch of Season 8. Based on this, we will introduce you to the main information announced in this live broadcast to pave the way for your Season 9 experience.
Although the simultaneous launch of Vessel of Hatred and Season 6 last year amazed you with its rich content and high playability, the new seasons after that have been criticized by players for being too homogeneous, including the ongoing Season 8.
Take this season as an example. The biggest features of boss power and the return of Belial are indeed attractive, but the boss power mechanism itself is actually a variant of the old season power, without substantial innovation, and Belial boss battle does not bring any special mechanism.
And Apparition Incursions event, another major content of the eighth season, actually just forces you to repeat the same battle over and over again, and complete the upgrade and Diablo 4 gold farming by obtaining magic boss power - although this is important, the boring battle is indeed unbearable.
Therefore, it can be seen from the campfire chat that the development team seems to intend to change this situation starting from Season 9, and strive to ensure that you have the opportunity to carry out various activities in the future Diablo 4, rather than being trapped in a specific activity.
In Diablo 4, most PTRs are small “new seasons” that allow you to experience the gameplay of the next season in advance in the form of testing, and make corrections and adjustments in time based on your feedback and other players’ feedback, so that the new season will be more perfect when it is officially launched.
The core of this PTR 2.3.0 is Season 9, Sins of the Horadrim. PTR will be officially launched on May 27 and will last until June 3 (about a week like in the past), during which you can experience the new content that is now basically confirmed to appear in Season 9.
As an important source of your gold, XP and basic gear farming in Diablo 4, Nightmare Dungeon is a very important game mechanic. It has been running since the game was launched in 2023, and now it is time to make it better.
First, the dungeon itself will add an advanced mode called Escalating Nightmares, which allows you to challenge three nightmare dungeons in a row, and each dungeon will add new affixes that can increase both difficulty and rewards.
When you complete all the challenges brought by these three dungeons, you will usher in a final boss battle, but the premise is that you have obtained Strongrooms in challenges that require Torment 1 and above, and collected enough Escalating Nightmare Sigil from them to unlock the boss battle.
You may wonder what Strongrooms are, in fact, it comes from another update to Nightmare Dungeons. Season 9 will add a new micro-dungeon called Horadric Strongrooms to Nightmare Dungeons, and the entrance is hidden in Nightmare Dungeon.
Find the entrance and enter, and you can start collecting Horadric ‘attunement’ by killing enemies. This item can increase the number of rewards you get after killing the boss in this dungeon and unlocking its Strongroom.
This boss, like Belial from Season 8, is a return of an existing Diablo villain (old boss). The value of Astaroth is that when he appeared in the game in the past, his encounters were among the most interesting of all bosses.
In order to avoid the misunderstanding of “old wine in new bottles”, the developers said in the chat that they would not let Astaroth simply integrate into the existing boss ladder directly, but would try to find ways to integrate bosses in different ways to make the main content of the final boss battle more innovative.
Well, Diablo 4 does not seem to intend to abandon the representative mechanism of seasonal power just because of the dissatisfaction of players. To be honest, what you are tired of is not the mechanism itself, but the fact that different powers in different seasons always play the same form in the end in actual battles.
For this reason, the development team said that compared to the boss power or witch power that can be used directly after unlocking, Season 9 Horadric Spells will allow you to customize this power yourself and create your own Horadric Spell in a form similar to build.
Since neither PTR nor Season 9 has been launched yet, it is still impossible to judge the practicality of this mechanism. However, at least from the design concept, it is indeed more creative than the existing seasonal power and worth looking forward to.
In addition to the above three core contents, it is expected that Season 9 will continue to optimize each class on the basis of bringing new content, so that they can ensure it maintains balanced class strength while fitting in with the theme of the new season.
If you are interested in the changes in Season 9, please experience and evaluate it immediately when PTR 2.3.0 is launched. I wish you a happy game!
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