News Tag: Diablo 4

Usually, whether you judge by your own experience or read some Diablo 4 game guides in advance, you will know that it is better to complete some season-limited content first, because they are more fresh and may be more helpful for you to complete the season goals.

But it must be said that the fixed Diablo 4 mechanisms that have been retained since their appearance should not be ignored. Compared with seasonal content, both the challenge difficulty and the drop probability of the final Diablo 4 Gold reward will be more stable in the permanent mechanism, and your farming of different resources will be more guaranteed by them.

According to the content shown in the previous 2.2.0 PTR, it is expected that you will be able to earn gold or gear in Season 8 by equipping boss powers and exploring Apparition Incursions events, but at the same time, don’t forget to divide your energy to farm nightmare dungeons and The Pit of Artificers we are going to introduce to you this time.

What Is The Pit Of Artificers?

The Pit of Artificers, sometimes referred to as The Pit, debuted in Season 4 in April 2024 as an endgame dungeon. Unlike regular dungeons, The Pit has a lot of random changes inside it, resulting in different monsters and different dungeon layouts each time you run it.

The Pit has 150 unlockable levels, with higher levels offering more challenging and, of course, more rewarding levels. To complete a level, you must kill enough monsters and the level’s summoned boss before the 15-minute timer expires. If you’ve played Diablo 3 before, you will find The Pit works very similarly to Greater Rifts in Diablo 3.

After killing enough normal monsters to fill up the progress bar, a boss portal will spawn on you to summon the boss and start the final boss fight. It is worth noting that in addition to avoiding general attacks from bosses, you should also pay attention to attacks from minions that bosses may bring, as these attacks can sometimes be fatal.

How To Enter The Pit?

First of all, you can only unlock and enter The Pit by reaching level 60 as quickly as possible by earning enough XP in the early game. Once you meet this level requirement, go to Cerrigar in Scosglen and interact with the obelisk here, while consuming 3 Artificer’s Stones to start your first trip to The Pit - Artificer’s Stones are special items that can be obtained by completing any endgame event, such as Whispers, Helltide, or Nightmare dungeons.

It is worth noting that unlocked The Pit levels can even be shared between different characters as long as your Diablo 4 characters are in the same realm and game mode. As for how many levels you can unlock at one time, it depends on the remaining time at the end of the current level run:

• Completing the run with up to 4 minutes remaining time will unlock 1 level.
• Completing a run with 4-6 minutes remaining unlocks 2 levels.
• Completing a run with 6 minutes or more remaining unlocks 3 levels.

Possible Penalties And Rewards During The Pit Challenge

Sometimes you may be too confident in your character’s strength and challenge a level of The Pit that is beyond your ability, resulting in your character’s unfortunate death. If this really happens to you, the current timer will be increased by 30 seconds, and the second death will increase by 60 seconds. From the third time onwards, each death will increase by 90 seconds. If you enter The Pit as a group, this penalty will even affect the entire group, so please proceed with caution.

Of course, if you successfully complete the challenge, The Pit brings great rewards. In addition to the fixed gold, there may also be Legendaries, Uniques, Obols, and most importantly, Paragon glyphs. This item can be plugged into a special slot node on Paragon board to provide buffs to your Diablo 4 battles, and as long as you complete one tier of The Pit within the time limit, you will get 3 chances to upgrade Paragon glyph, and even a fourth upgrade opportunity if you can ensure that you can complete the run without dying.

The Pit In S8

Generally speaking, dungeons that are permanent in the game like The Pit will not receive any major changes due to the arrival of the new season, at least that’s what Season 8 looks like according to the PTR, so just grasp the information we provide for you to unlock and farm it smoothly. What really need to remind you is that the boss powers that will be available in Season 8 should be a great help in completing The Pit.

First, when you get the easier-to-obtain magic boss powers in the early stage, they should help you complete the low-level The Pit, and then when you get glyph upgrades through The Pit, you can further expand the role of the existing boss powers, to obtain rare or even legendary boss powers by defeating more difficult bosses!

In short, we provide you with this guide not only to help your D4S8 experience, but also to remind you not to just focus on playing seasonal content and ignore the permanent dungeons! Because old friends are always more trustworthy!

As early as the end of February this year, Diablo 4 began to reveal the news that Season 7 would be extended and Season 8 would be postponed. At that time, you might think that this was because Season 7 would bring more new events, or that Season 8 was particularly worth looking forward to, but when the time came to the beginning of April now, you will find that the reason seems to differ from what you think.

At present, it is basically certain that Season 8 will be launched on April 29, nearly half a month later than the original mid-April, and in the next less than a month, Season 7 should not release any new major events. Therefore, you will find that except for the previous March Of The Goblins, Season 7 does not provide any good gameplay outside of seasonal content.

Although according to the 2.2.0 PTR, the main seasonal mechanism of Season 8, Boss Power, performs well and is innovative in design, it does not seem so complicated that require more development time. And when you are waiting for Diablo 4 Season 8 to be released, you’ll find that some of Diablo 4’s competitors will be releasing various updates in the first half of April! Below, we will analyze the updates of these games and the performance of Diablo 4 Season 8 for you.

What Are The Highlights Of Diablo 4 Season 8?

When Season 7 was launched, the witchcraft power attracted a lot of attention - I have to say that although you may often complain about some problems of Diablo 4 with your friends, it always grabs your attention when a new season is released. Season 8 is no exception. The new boss power designed based on the villain is indeed very innovative and may even redefine the way you farm Diablo 4 Gold.

More importantly, Season 8 builds on the boss power and brings back Belial, who appeared in Diablo 3, as the ultimate boss of the season. It also adds seasonal events: Apparition Incursions and a new lair boss mechanism, as well as new unique items for different classes.

What Opponents Will Diablo 4 Face In April?

To be honest, there are only 12 months in a year, and most MMORPGs need to release several updates in these 12 months, so it is not surprising that they collide. The main opponents of Diablo 4 Season 8 are expected to be Path of Exile 2 and Last Epoch.

POE 2 Dawn Of The Hunt

Since its early access launch in December last year, the popularity of Path of Exile 2 has been rising, and the patch 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt, which will be launched on April 4, will bring many new content covering all aspects of the game, such as new classes, endgame content, and new items.

It can be predicted that if Dawn of the Hunt receives good feedback, Path of Exile 2 is likely to launch a formal version in a few months. As one of the old rivals of POE series, Diablo 4 is often compared with it, so it is normal to want to avoid its edge.

Last Epoch Season 2

Last Epoch is another popular MMORPG with a time travel theme and loot-based combat. Although it was only released last February and is not as mature as POE 2 or Diablo 4, it still has a unique charm and a group of loyal fans.

Last Epoch originally planned to release Season 2 on April 2, but in the end it also took into account the impact of POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt, so the release date was finally postponed to April 17. The season is called Tombs of the Erased and will not only introduce the new faction Woven and some new endgame content, but also a comprehensive overhaul of Sentinel class.

The “Crowded” April

Although it is common for updates from different games to “collide”, it is still surprising that three major ARPGs will release major updates within a few weeks. For you as a player, this is actually quite good, so your April will be full of freshness, with almost endless new content to play; but from the developer’s point of view, it is not necessarily a good thing, because this will undoubtedly divert the player’s group. After all, your energy is limited, and it is impossible to always play three ARPGs at the same time.

Faced with this situation, Diablo 4 Season 8 wants to stand out and avoid player loss as much as possible, and the pressure on it will be greater. At least according to various performances, the new content of POE 2 and Last Epoch is very attractive. If Diablo 4 Season 8 is launched as scheduled, this competition will become more intense because the time is further shortened.

Will This Competition Affect Diablo 4 Season 8?

It is definitely affected, but you must admit that Diablo 4 development team’s practice of delaying the launch of Season 8 can indeed minimize the negative effects caused by this influence. When Diablo 4 Season 8 is launched on April 29, the enthusiasm brought by both POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt and Last Epoch Season 2 should have subsided.

However, it must be said that the delay is just a delaying tactic. Diablo 4 can’t do this every time it encounters a similar situation, right? Therefore, seriously developing a new season and improving its own playability is the best solution to face this kind of competition.

It has to be said that as a new class that debuted in the first Diablo 4 DLC Vessel of Hatred last year, Spiritborn attracted the attention of most Diablo 4 players at that time, and also made them devote a long time to developing Spiritborn builds in DLC and Season 6.

Later, with the launch of Season 7, as the power of witchcraft became the core of the season, Spiritborn was also properly weakened because it was too powerful before (although this is normal), and the popularity of this class gradually declined. However, this does not mean that Spiritborn is not worth using. In fact, it and some related builds still have excellent performance even in the more difficult endgame stage.

Season 8 is expected to be released on April 29th. In order to ensure that you can get a wonderful experience by playing Spiritborn at that time, we will bring you an introduction to the idea of ​​using Rake Spiritborn Build in the endgame based on the actual test in the 2.2.0 PTR that ended not long ago.

Why Should You Try This Build?

As the name suggests, the main reason this build is effective and powerful is because of the core skill Rake. The strong damage value of this skill and Vigor consumed by each stack of Ferocity allow you to cast Rake freely through careful gear matching and using Duelist’s Aspect to form a powerful AOE effect in combat - this will be perfect for clearing out groups of enemies in Infernal Hordes or Pit and satisfying your need to get a lot of Diablo 4 Gold at one time, not to mention other more precious loot.

Of course, no build is truly perfect, and Rake Spiritborn Build has some shortcomings in terms of survivability. Fortunately, this can be solved by adjusting it according to the needs of specific Diablo 4 events, such as equipping legendary aspects and potions with better defense.

How To Allocate Skills?

Generally speaking, the ability point allocation of this skill just needs to follow the idea of ​​relying on Jaguar skills and passive skills, as follows:

Basic Node

Thrash is the basic ability in this build, but the appearance of Vigor generation will reduce its usage rate. Therefore, it is recommended that you put a point into the ability and then enhance Thrash to unlock the next skill node.

• Thash 1/5-Enhanced Thrash

Core Node

Rake is undoubtedly the real core.

• Rake 5/5-Enhanced Rake, Rampant Rake
• Vigorous 3/3
• Balanced Exertion 3/3
• Velocity 3/3

Focus Node

As the main skill of this part, Vortex will gather enemies, making them more vulnerable to Rake skills, and Ravager will further enhance Rake.

• Vortex 1/5-Enhanced Vortex, Replenishing Vortex
• Ravage 5/5-Enhanced Ravager, Replenishing Ravager
• Focal Point 1/3

Defensive Node

As the only defensive skill of Rake Spiritborn Build, Counter Attack can gain a stronger passive effect by stacking dodge chance.

• Counter Attack 5/5-Enhanced Counter Attack, Reinforced Counter Attack
• Endurance 3/3
• Perserverence 3/3
• Fueled 3/3

Potency Node

This build has no skills that apply to the potency node, but several passive skills in the cluster can increase the damage output of the build.

• Brilliance 3/3
• Acceleration 3/3
• Potent 3/3
• Furnace 3/3

Ultimate Node

• Hunter 5/5-Harmonious Hunter, Exhalted Hunter
• Resolution 1/3
• Spiritual Attunement 2/3
• Supremacy 3/3

Key Passive Node

For this build, the key passive choice depends on the mercenary you use. If using Aldkin, Vital Strikes would be a better choice, but if using Subo, Prodigy’s Tempo is the best choice.

Best Spirit Hall

Rake Spiritborn Builds are better with Eagle as the first Spirit Hall, as it increases your clearing speed with movement buffs, while allowing Jaguar skill to make all skills Eagle skills while benefiting from acceleration and brilliance passives. In fact, many Spiritborn builds are worth doing this.

As for the second slot, it is recommended that you choose Jaguar Spirit, so that you can not only stack Ferocity on kills but also increase the maximum stack Ferocity by 1, further improving the lethality of this build.

How To Choose Legendary Aspects & Unique Items?

If you want to make this build more indestructible, you must get as much suitable legendary aspects and unique items for it as possible.

Best Legendary Aspects

According to the way Rake Spiritborn Build works, in addition to the indispensable Duelist’s Aspect, you can further obtain and equip Aspect of the Crowded Sage and Aspect of Assimilation. These two aspects can make the build more tanky and provide benefits such as strengthening and healing while increasing the chance of dodge. If you want to further improve this build, the following aspects are also good:

• Wind Striker’s Aspect
• Aspect of Wild Claws
• Blood Boiling Aspect
• Aspect of Potent Exchange

Best Unique Items

The three recommended for general unique items are:

• Banished Lord’s Talisman: Grants levels to all core skills in the build and increases the damage of critical strike casts.
• Mother’s Embrace: Infinitely extends the uptime of Rake through resource return and grants it important stats, such as attack speed and critical strike chance.
• Peacemonger’s Signet: Causes you to gain Resolve every time you gain Ferocity (the only way to gain Resolve for this build) and makes it easier to survive in combat.

Also, while this build does not require Mythic Uniques to work, Nesekem the Herald, which can stack suppression and critical strike damage and provide movement speed bonus, is worth having.

Season 8 will add boss powers as new seasonal powers, and if you can combine them with Rake Spiritborn Build, I believe you will have the opportunity to get a better combat experience as a Spiritborn in the Season 8 endgame!

Dungeons are an important mechanic for most ARPGs. Although different dungeons may have different background stories or built-in quests, there is no doubt that they are designed to provide you with a place to farm game resources through combat. As a top-level ARPG, Diablo 4 naturally has a variety of dungeons to farm.

Generally speaking, Diablo 4 will add some seasonal additional dungeons for you to explore when a new season arrives. Although playing them can get some seasonal items and special fun, it has to be said that those Diablo 4 dungeon types that have accompanied you through multiple seasons are the truly reliable source of Diablo 4 Gold! For example, the nightmare dungeon we are going to introduce to you this time.

Maybe you think you are familiar with nightmare dungeons because you are an old Diablo 4 player, but because the game often adjusts the regular mechanics when a new season arrives-for example, you used to be able to upgrade glyphs in this dungeon, but after Vessel of Hatred expansion went online, the place for glyph upgrades became The Pit. Therefore, in order to fully guarantee your Season 8 nightmare dungeon experience, we will once again provide you with relevant game guides.

What Is Nightmare Dungeon?

As you know, from a functional point of view, all Diablo 4 dungeons can be regarded as a resource output location. Of course, the premise is that you can kill the enemies in it. However, the amount and rarity of resources provided by dungeons of different difficulties are also different. If you want to improve the efficiency of resource acquisition by challenging high-difficulty dungeons, you must use other methods to obtain the key to convert ordinary dungeons into advanced dungeons.

So if you want to enter the nightmare dungeon, you need to have enough Nightmare Sigils and then consume it to generate (or convert) the nightmare dungeon. After generating and entering it, you will find that the layout of these nightmare dungeons is random, and the events that may be encountered in them are also random, usually Resplendent Chest boss or other known events.

After completing these nightmare dungeon events, the game will reward equipment of different qualities and different amounts of Diablo 4 Gold and Obols according to the specific difficulty. If you want to continue to get more rewards by increasing the difficulty on this basis, you can use Nightmare Portal affix to increase the difficulty of the dungeon, then destroy the portal and kill various monsters that are not common in the dungeons in a specific area, such as The Butcher, which has a very random probability of appearing.

There are currently more than 140 ordinary dungeons available for exploration in the game, but not all dungeons can be used as nightmare dungeons, because only a subset of these dungeons can be converted into nightmare dungeons. As for which part can be converted, it depends on the seasonal arrangement of Season 8 in the future. In addition, if you do not enter the corresponding nightmare dungeon within 2 minutes after conversion, it will automatically close.

How To Get Nightmare Sigils?

As an important conversion item, it can be said that without Nightmare Sigils, you will never be able to enter the Diablo 4 nightmare dungeon, so we must introduce you to two ways to obtain this item.

1. Direct Drops

This method requires you to work hard to complete other Diablo 4 events and quests, mainly including completing Whispers of the Dead to obtain corresponding rewards, defeating world bosses, killing enemies in nightmare dungeons to obtain random drops, and fixed rewards for completing a nightmare dungeon.

If you are not lucky enough, cannot always find Nightmare Sigils in random drops, or find it difficult to defeat those bosses, then it is recommended that you consider the second method.

2. Crafting With Sigil Powder

Generally speaking, it only takes 4,000 gold and 60 Sigil Powder to craft a Nightmare Sigil, and Sigil Powder is mainly dropped through caches and defeating elites. After obtaining enough crafting materials, you need to go to Occultist, because only they can complete the crafting process.

Addable Affixes

As we have already mentioned, adding affixes to a nightmare dungeon can change its difficulty. Specifically, there are two types of affixes. One is the affixes that are good for you, including:

• Ancestral Awakening: The amount of XP you gain increases by 10%
• Gold Find: The amount of gold you gain increases by 30%

The other type of affixes makes enemies more powerful, including:

• Avenger
• Blood Blister
• Drifting Shade
• Elemental Totems
• Empowered Elites (Poison Enchanted)
• Empowered Elites (Shock Lance)
• Empowered Elites (Suppressor)
• Monster Barrier
• Nightmare Portal
• Stormbane’s Wrath
• Volcanic

The Value Of Nightmare Dungeons-Rich Rewards

Whether you want to earn specific items, XP for upgrades, Paragon points or gold, nightmare dungeons can do it, but its real value lies in providing you with Obducite. This item can be used to upgrade Masterworking, which is to increase the value of the existing affixes of the item, making your character more powerful. It is worth noting that completing Infernal Hordes can also do this.

The above is some knowledge you need to know in advance when farming nightmare dungeons in Diablo 4 Season 8. It is expected that some seasonal content may be added to the dungeon before and after the official launch of the season, or some changes to make it get more seasonal characteristic (boss power). Please be sure to pay attention to relevant information in time, or we will also bring you instant info! Thank you for reading!

For all the seasons that have appeared in Diablo 4 so far, you will find that if you want to sort out all the differences between each season, it is a bit like playing a spot-the-difference game - at first glance, there is no big difference between each season except for the exclusive seasonal power, but in fact there are various changes in the details.

Take Tree of Whispers as an example. In terms of location, it is a special tree located in Hawezar Swamp. As one of the most important components of Diablo 4 series endgame system, it not only has its own story origin and background but also plays the role of providing you with achievable goals and tasks, ensuring that you can continue to carry out the necessary Diablo 4 Gold farming in the endgame stage of it.

Before Season 7, Tree of Whispers has always played such a role, but in Season 7, because of the addition of witchcraft power, the development team has tied this seasonal power to Tree of Whispers in some aspects, making the role of Tree of Whispers more prominent in this season. To ensure you get the most out of this giant tree, we’re here to tell you how it works in Season 7.

Tree Of Whispers In S7

In keeping with the theme of the season, Season of Witchcraft introduces several new features to Tree of Whispers, such as opening Headhunt zones, crafting Occult gems, and allowing you to learn witch powers by interacting with NPCs. These features are somewhat systematically linked, so their addition not only makes Tree of Whispers more useful but also gives the area itself a comprehensive overhaul and upgrade.

How Does It Work?

In fact, you can think of Diablo 4’s Tree of Whispers as a bounty system. After completing the campaign to unlock Tree of Whispers, you can earn Grim Favors by participating in various activities located throughout Sanctuary. It is worth noting that different activities reward different amounts of Favors.

Once you have completed the objective combination and received 10 Grim Favors, you can return to Tree of Whispers in Hawezar and turn in your Grim Favors to Raven of the Tree to speed up your game rewards collection significantly and select collectibles for specific inventory slots.

Whispers Of The Dead Objectives

These objectives that Tree of Whispers requires you to complete are usually called Whispers of the Dead. These special Whispers will be displayed on the map as light pink to dark red icons, depending on the number of Grim Favors that Whispers can reward, and these objectives usually rotate every hour and a half.

Depending on the type of objective, the number of Grim Favors awarded ranges from 1 to 5. There are usually 5 to 7 different Whispers of the Dead in each area, and if you complete all objectives, you can generally get 12 to 15 Grim Favors.

It is worth noting that once you get 10 or more Grim Favors, you must return to Tree of Whispers in time to hand them in before you can continue farming - you can think of this as your “Favors inventory”, and it is capped at 10. Before handing them in, your excess Favors over 10 can only be rolled to the next column for temporary storage.

What Are Grim Favors?

After learning about Whispers of the Dead and Tree of Whispers, I believe it should not be difficult for you to guess that Grim Favor is actually a special currency or points obtained by completing Whispers of the Dead goals around the world. Only when you get enough Grim Favors and hand them in for redemption can you get special season rewards.

Objectives With Different Amounts Of Grim Favors

Each Whispers of the Dead objective can provide 1/3/5 Grim Favors. In Season 7, these objectives include:

Grim Favors 1:

• Dispel - Dispel Shrouding Charms.
• Seek - Seek Hidden Headrotten.
• Cellar - Tree of Whispers will mark a cellar on the map to complete.
• Event - Complete a world event in a certain location.
• “Find the Corpse” - Search the area and defeat a specific enemy.
• Slay - Kill specific enemies within a certain area.

Grim Favors 3:

• Patrol - Slay monsters with the guard.
• Purge the Rot - Slay Headrotten.
• Scour - Search for Cleansing Herbs.
• Shepherd - Guide wildlife to safety.
• Wisps - Destroy an Exposed Root to free Lost Wisps. Slay Headrotten to gather Wisps until they are laid to rest.
• Harvest - Gather Motes from certain types of enemies within the area.
• Legion Events - Legion Event will always coincide with a Whisper.
• PVP: Purify Seeds of Hatred - Complete an Altar of Extraction Ritual in a PVP zone.
• Ritual - Perform a series of Rituals within a certain area.

Grim Favors 5:

• Fugitive - Recover head or slay Husk.
• Dungeon - Tree of Whispers will mark a dungeon on the map to complete.
• PVP: Seething Abomination - Defeat Seething Abomination within a PVP zone.
• World Boss - Occasionally a World Boss will also coincide with a Whisper.
• Blood Maiden - One Helltide will have Tree of Whispers objectives every hour.

What Can Grim Favors Be Exchanged For?

After you have 10 Grim Favors, you can return to Tree of Whispers and choose between three collection options. All collections are ranked normal, greater, or ancestral based on their rarity, and it is recommended that you always choose the ancestral option if possible. In addition to the redeemable collections, you can also get rewards including gold, gem fragments, sigils, glyphs, and runes while collecting Grim Favors.

Best S7 Grim Favors Farming Strategy

If you want to farm Grim Favors more efficiently so that you can redeem more rewards faster, the best way to do it right now is to combine Whispers of the Dead objectives with other activities, such as Headhunts or Helltides. This is because when you complete objectives in an active Headhunt or Helltides. Not only do you get more XP, you are also more likely to get more gear.

Helltides occur every hour, during which specific Tree of Whispers objectives will appear, or standard Tree of Whispers objectives can also occur at the same time as Helltides. You can even complete side quests that may appear in the surrounding area when combining events such as Whispers of the Dead and Helltides to achieve the highest farming efficiency.

After our introduction, you should have a deeper and more specific understanding of the game’s Tree of Whispers. I hope this will continue to help your Diablo 4 experience. Thank you for reading.

In order to ensure that you always have the desire to play the game, in addition to launching new content and new seasons on time, Diablo 4 is also equipped with a corresponding exclusive reward system at the beginning of each new season, namely battle pass, the season journey, and the season blessings.

These three reward mechanisms are unlocked in different ways, but what they have in common is that, first, they can all bring you Diablo 4 Gold, decorative items, special buffs, and powerful resources as rewards; second, they can only play a role in the corresponding current season: for example, the season journey rewards of Season 6 will end after the arrival of Season 7 and cannot be claimed. And characters in Eternal/Regular realms cannot enjoy them.

However, considering that you should be accustomed to playing seasonal content, it is necessary to understand how to use them. Based on this, we will focus on season blessings this time to lead you to understand its role and the synergy with the other two reward mechanisms.

What Is Season Blessing?

Think of season blessings as a kind of bound buffs that are exclusive to your season realm character, and are more focused on improving quality of life than battle passes or season journeys, such as allowing you to earn more XP by farming dungeons, or increasing the drop rate of some seasonal items.

Once the season starts, the mechanic is accessible through the corresponding UI in the “Season” tab of the menu, where you will see all the blessings available for that season, the specific buffs they bring, and what can be used to upgrade each blessing - in fact, season blessings can only be activated by consuming Smoldering Ash.

Smoldering Ash is a special Diablo 4 currency that can be earned by unlocking the battle pass. After you have enough Smoldering Ash, you will need to use one Smoldering Ash each time you activate or upgrade a season blessing. You can upgrade up to four times, but the benefits of upgrading will decrease with each upgrade.

Battle Pass & Season Journey

Both the battle pass and the season journey are closely related to the season blessings, so it is necessary to understand them. First of all, the battle pass includes free, premium and accelerated. The specific rewards are different, but basically they will be gradually unlocked as you progress in the game.

As for the season journey, it will set some corresponding tasks according to the main storyline of the current season. Usually, you only need to advance the story step by step and complete the relevant tasks to complete the journey’s goal. Fortunately, the season journey will not require you to complete all the goals in each chapter, and generally leave you 2-3 tasks that can be ignored.

How To Utilize Season Blessings?

For Season 7, after you enter the current season area and complete the season character creation, you can open your season user interface by pressing “U”, which will allow you to view and access your season journey, season blessings and battle pass status. The season blessings box allows you to see which of your blessings are active and how many Ashes you have quickly. Click the box to view:

• The amount of Smoldering Ash you have
• What you need to get more Smoldering Ash
• The specific entry for each Blessing, its description, level, and the value of the next level

It is worth noting that when your Season 7 journey officially begins, the season journey, battle pass, and season blessings systems will work together as you play the game. The main connection between them can be summarized as follows:

• Complete the season journey goals by playing the game
• The season journey goals will reward you with Favor
• Favor can be used to unlock and advance the battle pass
• The battle pass will reward you with Smoldering Ash
• Smoldering Ash allows you to get powerful gains by unlocking season blessings
• The powerful gains of season blessings can help you play the game

Obviously, this is a cyclical process. These 3 reward mechanisms are closely linked and cooperated to ensure that your Diablo 4 Season 7 can run normally. The lack of any one of them may cause damage to your gaming experience.

Season Blessings Currency-Smoldering Ash

As the main driver of season blessings, Smoldering Ash can only be earned in the battle pass through Favor earned by playing games or completing objectives in the season journey, and cannot be earned directly by unlocking the battle pass - this would disrupt the order and balance of the game.

Expect to earn about 20 Smoldering Ash throughout the season, which is enough to unlock all season blessings. After claiming your first battle pass Smoldering Ash reward, you can start activating Blessings. Which one you activate first and the order in which you unlock them will depend entirely on what you want to prioritize and your play style. The current list of available Blessings includes:

• Urn of Aggression: Allows you to gain more XP after killing enemies.
• Urn of Curiosities: Increases your chance of receiving a second item at Purveyor of Curiosities.
• Urn of Whispers: Increases your chance of receiving a Greater Collection from Whisper rewards.
• Urn of Masterworking: Allows existing resource farming methods to drop more Obducite.
• Urn of Rot: Increases the amount of Restless Rot you get after killing a Headrotten, allowing you to upgrade your equipped witch powers faster.

Although the unlocking order is arbitrary, on the one hand, more XP means your character will become powerful enough as soon as possible, and on the other hand, the upgrade and use of witch powers are very important for Season 7. We recommend that you unlock Season 7’s season blessings in the following order:

• Urn of Aggression
• Urn of Rot
• Urn of Whispers
• Urn of Curiosities
• Urn of Masterworking

The above are all the precautions for unlocking and using season blessings in Season 7. I hope it will help you experience Season 7! And I also hope you can welcome Season 8 in the best condition!

Many MMORPGs will regularly release DLCs in addition to updating the basic game. This approach can not only ensure that the game as a whole is updated to continue to bring you freshness, but also increase the richness and completeness of the game from multiple angles in the form of side expansion.

As the latest series of Diablo, Diablo 4, which was launched in 2023, finally launched the first DLC in the series, Vessel of Hatred, in 2024. It not only received a lot of attention before the launch but also received countless praises after the launch, which also gave Diablo 4 more motivation to continue to develop new expansions.

Rod Fergusson, one leader of Diablo 4, announced in 2023 that the game planned to launch one DLC per year on average, but at the recent DICE Summit in Las Vegas, Fergusson said that this plan would be changed, and the release of the new DLC is expected to be directly delayed to 2026.

Diablo 4 2025 Plan Roadmap

Diablo 4 launched the latest Season of Witchcraft on January 21, 2025, which brings you an unprecedented Diablo 4 experience by providing many new witchcraft powers, and further broadens your Diablo 4 Gold farming options by adding seasonal events such as Headhunt zone and Roothold dungeon.

In addition, although the release time of Season 8 has been postponed, according to the content in the 2.2.0 PTR, the eighth season will also be a wonderful season worth looking forward to, especially the mechanism of making bosses power available may completely rewrite the rules of the game of Diablo 4. In fact, all this undoubtedly means that Diablo 4 will show its prowess in 2025, just to bring you a better gaming experience.

On this basis, perhaps you will look forward to the new DLC more in addition to the new season, after all, Vessel of Hatred performs very well. Unfortunately, franchise general manager Rod Fergusson said in a panel discussion at the previous DICE Summit that the original annual plan of one DLC per year will be changed, and the release of the second Diablo 4 DLC will be postponed to 2026.

Why Is The Release Of The Next DLC Delayed?

Just like you plan ahead for your work or study, life is full of various force majeure, and many times they will prevent you from completing your plans as usual, and the same is true for any game company. In fact, the release of Vessel of Hatred last year was about 6 months later than the developers’ ideal time.

Compared with the regular new season, the content of DLC will be richer, whether it is the setting of the main storyline or the update of the mode and gameplay, the overall volume is almost close to the development of a small RPG, so it is normal that Diablo 4 will take longer on it. On this basis, if you want to ensure that every aspect of the expansion is as good as possible to ensure your future gaming experience, developers must invest extra energy on optimization.

Given the ongoing pressure to maintain a live service game and the pursuit of making DLC ​​perfect, it is completely understandable that Diablo 4 decided to postpone the release of new DLC. In fact, most MMORPGs also encounter this special obstacle. In fact, since Diablo 4 was first released in 2023, the game has been busy with various developments.

Why Is The New DLC Get So Many Attentions?

Since 2025 has just begun, out of concern for Diablo 4 and curiosity about its next plans, players will inevitably pay too much attention to the development of the new season and new DLC. The reasons behind this may be due to the following aspects.

The Gap Caused By The Change Of Seasons

It has been more than a month since the launch of Season 7. If you have been playing since the beginning, you should have experienced all kinds of new seasonal powers and events. In addition, the launch of Season 8 has been delayed, so you may feel bored during this period, especially if you have already played Vessel of Hatred. As a result, the attention of Diablo 4 fans will inevitably be diverted to the development progress of new content.

The good news is that although Season 8 and the new expansion cannot meet you for the time being, you have the opportunity to experience the charm of Season 8 first in the 2.2.0 PTR. At least in the week from 3.11 to 3.18, you should have a fulfilling time through the PTR.

Vessel Of Hatred Performs Well

As the first expansion of Diablo 4, Vessel of Hatred not only brings you a new class Spiritborn and enriches the main storyline, but more importantly, it combines with the sixth season that was launched together to enrich the mechanism and gameplay of Diablo 4, fully ensuring your experience.

For example, in terms of upgrades and loot systems, Vessel of Hatred sets the maximum level of your character to level 60, but then you can continue to upgrade to level 300 through Paragon board, thereby obtaining more builds to use possibilities and helping you get through the endgame stage more smoothly. This is conducive to letting a new character explore and helping your character win more powerful loot.

In addition, the newly added zone Nahantu provides you with more possibilities for exploration, and the new limited-time dungeon Kurast Undercity also brings more channels for farming Diablo 4 Gold and other resources, ensuring that your character can accumulate resources steadily.

In short, although the new DLC will not be available to you until a long time later, we can foresee that the developers will devote a lot of energy and effort to it to ensure that you will be able to get a good enough experience through it. So I believe your wait will be worth it!

I believe you should have known that the game will add the armory in this season before Diablo 4 Season 7 is officially launched, and in fact it is true. Although this feature is not applicable to the entire Season 7 but only available within Eternal Realm, it means that you can enjoy this feature through Eternal Realm without being restricted by the season changes.

However, since the armory join Diablo 4 series is the first time, if you have not played other Diablo games, you may not know how to use this system, or ignore its role after entering Eternal Realm because you don’t know its importance-this is a pity! Therefore, we will introduce you to the method and necessity of using the armory in the current season.

The Origin Of The Armory

As the first feature of Diablo 3, the armory is applicable to its PC and console versions starting from the game’s patch 2.5.0. After entering D3, you can find the armory near the storeroom in the center of the town in each scene.

In Diablo 3, the armory lets you save ten outfits or builds for each character, and you can update and upgrade them as needed. The builds can include equipped items, the type of gems in the slots, Kanai’s Cube powers, and selected skills, but remember to make sure all items are in your inventory or locker when equipping these saved sets.

The armory in Diablo Immortal still allows you to save up to 10 builds, and also remembers your Paragon selections, as well as other equipment, skills, and familiars. There is no cooldown when selecting these saved builds, and the UI provides checkboxes to meet your needs such as saving specific equipment to the configuration, or only saving legendary essences and gems, reforge layouts, and Paragon points.

The Armory In Diablo 4 Season 7

In terms of how it works, the armory in D4S7 is not much different from that in Diablo 3 or Diablo Immortal, and still allows you to save and switch builds as needed. Saving a build takes everything on your current character, including your gear, skill tree, Paragon board, and glyphs, and creates a copy for you to access in any armory.

In Season 7’s Armory, however, you can now save up to five unique builds per character instead of the 10 you had in Diablo 3, but that should be enough for you to test out which builds work best with different items. This way you can determine what kind of gear and fights some builds might work best with based on how they perform - and if you don’t have the right kind of gear, you can always redeem it with Diablo 4 Gold before a fight begins.

Where To Find The Armory?

In Season 7, the armory can be found in most endgame areas and major cities, and is marked on the map by a graphic that looks like an eye, usually next to a blacksmith. When you walk up to an armory, it will appear as a basket of weapons in the surrounding scene.

The armory waypoints for all major cities are:

• Kyovashad
• Cerrigar
• Ked Bardu
• Gea Kul
• Zarbinzet

Other locations where you can find the armory are Training Grounds and Tree of Whispers. If you enter Eternal Realm via the DLC Vessel of Hatred, you can also find the armory in Kurast Bazzar and Dark Citadel.

How To Use It?

Once you have found the armory, click on the relevant option to interact with it to open the armory menu. You will see the builds to be selected or created on the left and your character on the right. To save a build, select a slot in the armory and click “Save” to save all your gear, skills, class mechanics, Paragon boards and glyphs on that slot. This will make this part of your gear a collection and will not be accidentally recycled later.

If you want to save multiple builds in your system, you will need to change the gear to the desired loadout and save the builds in different Armory slots. If you want to switch between different builds, select the equipment in the armory and click the “Load” button to complete the free change of builds to match everything in the loadout.

Why Is It Recommended That You Use The Armory?

At least in Diablo 4 Season 7, the update of the armory is actually a quality of life type update designed to make your Diablo 4 combat experience better. Sometimes you may want to test the different effects of multiple builds, or want to simplify equipment and skills to adapt to different scenarios. At this time, the appearance of the armory means that you no longer need to re-specify when you find new items for builds, just click the corresponding button to swap and adjust, which greatly saves your time and makes you more willing to study builds yourself.

What Should You Note When Using The Armory?

First of all, the gems in the armory equipment include common gems and legendary gems, and when you save equipment through the armory, only the gem type will be saved, not the specific gems, that is, when you add new gems to the armory, the highest level gems of the gem type you have will always be used, instead of being specifically specified by you.

Because of this, you can actually use the armory to take a higher-level gem from the storage room of a second character’s armory equipment with one character, even if it’s not the gem originally saved in the corresponding armory. But if the original gem is not put back in the storage room, this may cause your second character to lose the gem until the first character manually resolves it, because the armory itself does not automatically perform related operations.

In addition, you can name and give icons to each of your character’s builds or equipment combinations saved through the armory to facilitate a more intuitive reference when selecting and switching, and each combination has a preview to show you things, like clothing or skill selection (legendary gems may be difficult to see clearly). If an item in a previously saved build is not available, the preview will show you a warning, but it will not show the original item, so you need to judge and find it yourself to replace or upgrade the item in time.

The above is all about using the new features of the armory in Diablo 4 Season 7. I hope it can help you and wish you a good time.

In the past, when you were eagerly looking forward to the new season, did you carefully calculate the specific duration of each Diablo 4 season? Although the specific number of days varies, it is basically maintained at a little more than 3 months to ensure that 4 seasons can be released stably every year.

Among them, Season 3 and Season 5 are more special, one is longer, and the other is shorter, which may be because their content differs from the regular season. But now you are experiencing the third “special” Diablo 4 season, that is Season 7! Because according to the latest news, the end time of this season will be one week later than the original time.

Although this news seems insignificant, it actually affects many subsequent arrangements, such as Season of Witchcraft may need to launch more new activities to ensure that you will not feel bored during the extension time, the schedule of Season 8, and the new DLC issues that you may be very concerned about. Based on this, we will introduce them to you one by one.

New Goblin Hunting Event

During Christmas 2024, Season 6 launched an event called Slay Ride To Hell, where you can work with players from the entire game community to earn Diablo 4 Gold by hunting goblins. Now you can think of this new Season 7 goblin event as an improved version of Slay Ride To Hell, which will add six rare goblins to the game for you to hunt and get rewards, and this addition is permanent. That means you can still hunt them after the event ends, but the probability of them appearing is not as high as during the event.

March Of The Goblins event will last from March 4th to 11th, during which all goblins can provide you with rewards. It is worth noting that one of the 6 new goblins can provide extremely rare rewards, including a Mythic-level unique item and Resplendent Spark that can be used to create unique items.

In addition, the biggest difference between this event and last year’s Slay Ride To Hell is that the reward track is no longer a group-based one, but only related to your own event progress. The higher your event reputation, the higher the chance of dropping more loot when you kill goblins. When your reward track reaches the highest level, you will get the precious Resplendent Spark.

The six new goblins and their corresponding rewards are as follows:

• Odious Ector (green): Crafting materials, Obducite for Masterwork upgrades (in Torment difficulty).
• Gilded Baron (gold): A staggering amount of Diablo 4 Gold.
• Glittering Prym (diamond): Gem fragments, runes, Undercity Tributes and Scattered Prisms (in Torment difficulty).
• Curious Murl (purple): Bag of Obols, which can be used to obtain many Murming Obols.
• Gelatinous Syrus (blue): Splits into two goblins when killed, and then into three. Killing them all will give you a legendary item (higher chance of dropping legendary items in higher Torment difficulty). It may also drop gold, boss materials, and elixirs.
• Fancy Old Fedric (mythic purple): One mythic unique item and one Resplendent Spark (very difficult to kill).

Season 8 Officially Confirmed To Be Delayed

Originally, the game developers said that Season of Witchcraft would end around April 15, but recently you may have noticed that the relevant counter has changed, showing that the end date of the current season has become April 29, and this news has also been officially confirmed.

Naturally, the extension of Season 7 means that Season 8 will meet you later, and it may also lead to a shortened duration of Season 8, which will inevitably make those loyal Diablo 4 players who are not interested in the mechanics of Season 7 feel anxious and frustrated. But in fact, time is one thing, and the playability of the season is another. The length of time does not represent the value of the season. Moreover, Season 7 is not even halfway through, and any changes in the time counter are possible.

In addition, Fergusson, one of the persons in charge of Diablo 4, also announced that the game may allow a mysterious old friend to return to the game in Season 8. Regardless of whether this return is attractive enough at that time, at least this news is enough to cheer you up and accumulate resources by completing the tasks and events in Season 7 better to prepare for Season 8.

Interestingly, this season time adjustment has set off another wave of discussion in Diablo 4 player community, that is, whether Diablo series may usher in the fifth part? Fergusson also responded quickly to this. He seriously stated that Diablo 4 will be the focus for a long time in the future, and Diablo 5 is currently just an illusory “possibility”.

The Time Adjustment Of The Season Has Nothing To Do With DLC

The game developers said in 2024 that they want to release a new expansion every year after Vessel of Hatred, you might wonder if the change in the end time of Season 7 is related to that plan. Unfortunately, the answer is no, because a few weeks ago the developers said that there would be no new DLC in 2025.

Although this may disappoint you who are looking forward to DLC, from another perspective, the absence of DLC this year means that each season should become more playable, so you might as well relax and enjoy Season 7, and look forward to Season 8 or even Season 9!

The above is the latest Diablo 4 news we bring to you this time, I hope it can be helpful to you. Thank you for reading.

In Diablo 4, unique items are an integral part of every build. The biggest difference between these unique items and other items is that they have some unique affixes. Some unique items are very versatile and can appear in every build, while some unique items are only particularly useful for a certain class.

Ugly Bastard Helm Unique is a very suitable helmet for Barbarian. It allows your Barbarian to get a damage boost in Berserking and deal a lot of fire damage to the enemy. Even if this helmet is not used as a core equipment for your Barbarian, it can also appear in its builds as one of Barbarian’s powerful aids.

Ugly Bastard Helm

• [10.0 - 85.0]% Fire Resistance.
• + [2 - 5] to Prolific Fury (Barbarian Only).
• [8.0 - 12.5]% Wrath of the Berserker Cooldown Reduction.
• + [1 - 3] to Aggressive Resistance (Barbarian Only).
• Lucky Hit: Up to a 40% Chance to Deal + [605 - 6,750] Fire Damage.
• “When you cast Wrath of the Berserker, it creates an explosion around you that deals Fire damage. Your direct damage dealt is converted into Fire damage When you Berserking.”
• “[80 - 100]% [x] increased Fire damage.”

Ugly Bastard Helm Many of the unique armor mods are tailored specifically for Barbarians, which explains why Ugly Bastard Helm has been one of the best Barbarian helmets for several seasons.

Ugly Bastard Helm increases Barbarian’s fire damage and converts some of the damage dealt by Barbarian while Berserking to fire damage, which makes the damage dealt by Barbarian while Berserking also increase by Ugly Bastard Helm’s affix value of “[80 - 100]% [x] increased Fire damage.” Ugly Bastard Helm grants Barbarian the ability to deal area damage, which makes farming Diablo 4 Gold and clearing nightmare dungeons faster for Barbarian.

In contrast, items like Crown of Lucion lack uniqueness in their affixes. While it has many good affixes, it lacks a dominant direction, which makes it difficult for any build to fully benefit from its full bonuses.

Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty is also a helm specifically designed for the Barbarian. All the attributes of this helm are designed to increase Barbarian’s damage while Berserking. Godslayer Crown is more versatile than Crown of Lucion and can be used in multiple builds. However, the damage increase brought by these two helmets to Barbarian is not as good as that of Ugly Bastard Helm.

How To Get Ugly Bastard Helm?

When the player unlocks Torment 1 Difficulty, you may find this unique item in any monster drop or in any treasure chest. Generally speaking, you can try to get Ugly Bastard Helm through the following ways:

• End game bosses
• Kurast Undercity
• The Pit
• Purveyor of Curiosities
• Infernal Hordes

Purveyor of Curiosities and End game bosses are the best ways for you to get Ugly Bastard Helm. You can choose to gamble here at Purveyor of Curiosities. Purveyor of Curiosities will provide players with a random version of the optional equipment. If you are lucky enough, you can bet on an Ugly Bastard Helm. In any case, this probability is much higher than opening treasure chests and farming monsters. After all, the most you can get through these two conventional methods is still ordinary equipment and Diablo 4 gold.

A better way than Purveyor of Curiosities is to farm bosses. You need to check the boss’s item drop table before farming End game bosses, and you will find that Ugly Bastard Helm Unique helmet is lying among Lor Zir’s drops. After understanding this, you just need to focus on this boss and kill it repeatedly.

Every time you summon Lor Zir, you need to offer 12 Exquisite Blood. So you have to prepare some in advance.

Barbarian Builds Suitable For Ugly Bastard Helm

Although Ugly Bastard Helm is very versatile for Barbarians, there are always some builds that have better choices in helmet selection. Ugly Bastard Helm is the ultimate choice for some builds, while some builds just use it as a transition to Mythic Unique gear. They will later choose Mythic Unique gear to replace Ugly Bastard Helm. Mythic Unique gear is rarer than Unique gear and is usually more powerful.

Builds that need Ugly Bastard Helm as a transition:

• HoTA Barbarian
• Rend Barbarian
• Thorns Barbarian
• Upheaval Barbarian
• Earthquake Barbarian
• Mighty Throw Barbarian

Builds that rely on Wrath of the Berserker:

• Whirlwind Barbarian
• Double Swing Barbarian
• Bash Barbarian
• Rupture Barbarian

When Barbarian casts Wrath of the Berserker, he can enter Berserking state to increase his output greatly. The disadvantage of this type of build is that it lacks AOE damage and is very dependent on Wrath of the Berserker. Ugly Bastard Helm not only reduces the cooldown of Wrath of the Berserker, but also provides Barbarians with a certain AOE ability, which improves the efficiency of Barbarian in clearing monsters, participating in seasonal activities and farming gold, so it is irreplaceable in these builds.

Learn More: How To Defeat Echo Of Lilith In Diablo 4 Season 7?

The above is all the information about Ugly Bastard Helm. Even if Barbarian player does not plan to use this unique item, you can also get one as a collection. It’s fun to let your Barbarian deal fire damage occasionally.