News Tag: Diablo 4 Season 1

Here I bring you a new Diablo 4 build guide, Double Swing Barbarian. If you follow this, you’ll never even need the other Barbarian builds in Diablo 4.

Double Swing Barbarian has a ton of Crowd Control, damage, and survivability. Even better, this build requires only a handful of unique Diablo 4 Items, making it achievable even if you’re on a modest budget. Next let’s take a look at what makes this build work, and why it’s such a horror for those pesky monsters in Nightmare Dungeons.

Key Terms

First, let’s take a look at some terms we’ll be using in this guide and what they actually mean.

Fortify: Fortify is damage reduction. Let’s take an example: If you have 4,000 defense, but your max health is 10,000, you will take full damage until your current health drops to 4,000. When your health drops below the current amount of Fortify, you will start taking 10% less damage.

You become Fortify when your amount of Fortify equals your total health. This means that it reduced all the damage you take by 10%.

Berserking: Berserking is a buff that appears above your health bar when activated. While you are Berserking, it increased your damage by 25% and movement speed by 30%.

Unstoppable: You are immune to Crowd Control effects for the duration of this buff. When you’re Unstoppable, a giant golden sigil will appear above your head. This means you cannot be Crowd Controlled. You’ll also occasionally see enemies with this effect.

Skills Decomposition

Now that we understand some basic terminology, let’s take a look at some skills we use in this build.

First up, we have Lunging Strike, a Barbarian basic attack that allows us to close the gap on those pesky ranged enemies we all hate. Lunging Strike also allows us to be Berserking for a second and a half after using it to strike an enemy. We can clear all enemies and harvest a lot of Diablo 4 Gold in a short time.

Ground Stomp is an AOE Crowd Control ability that stuns enemies around the player. Deals a small amount of damage, but the main thing is that it can Double Swing, causing more damage to stunned enemies.

War Cry gives us Fortify and Berserking, and increases our damage output. Best of all, War Cry’s damage bonus also applies to nearby allies. This is a powerful ability that enhances your build and supports your close allies.

Rallying Cry is great for increasing movement speed and assisting our Fury spawn. Just like War Cry, it also works on nearby allies and increases their primary resource generation.

Challenging Shout is a taunt. It puts you in the spotlight and forces enemies to attack you. During Challenge Shout, you get a ton of damage reduction, which makes you an amazing tank.

Double Swing is the foundation upon which we build. This is our resource hog and will deal a lot of damage to enemies standing directly in front of you.

The actual power of this build comes from pairing Double Swing with Ground Stomp and other stun sources. If your target is stunned by Double Swing, you spawn 25 Fury. This means you can cast Double Swing infinitely as long as the enemy is stunned.

Skill Tree

Before we get bogged down in specific mechanics and how to play builds, let’s take a look at the skill tree and get an overview of builds. Put your first point into Lunging Strike, take Enhanced Lunging Strike, then we’ll choose to take Combat Lunging Strike. It will allow us to gain Berserking in the critical strike when using the ability.

Next, we’ll select Double Swing by placing all five points here. We’ll then pick up some passives that help us gain extra max life to reduce the extra damage from elites. Don’t worry too much about the increased Fury cost from the passive, as their damage is worth it.

Aspects

In addition, you can also pay attention to the following two Aspects to help Fury spawn.

Bold Chieftain’s Aspect

Whenever you cast a Shout ability, each nearby enemy reduces the cooldown by 1-1.9 seconds, up to a maximum of 6 seconds. This means we can have greater uptime across all Shouts, which is invaluable to our builds. And means we get less downtime for the powerful buffs we get from Shout.

Aspect Of Echoing Fury

Your Shout ability generates 2-4 Fury per second while active. This helps mitigate some of our Fury generation issues. Because every time we use Shout, we get up to 4 Fury points per second.

At this point, the build is complete. Hope it helps you find an interesting Barbarian build. Looking forward to seeing you next time.

Similar to most live service games, Diablo 4 Season 1 has received negative feedback. Currently, many are debating whether this feedback is nitpicking to the game’s success. Or maybe not the specific feedback, but the attitude of the post.

We wanted to dig into some issues with Diablo 4 and discuss some controversial design choices and patches.

High Cost

In Diablo 4, if you wanted to craft a piece of armor or a weapon, and mostly with powerful Affixes, it must have had a high cost of Enchantments. But here’s a system available where you can replace one of these unappealing stats with a randomly scrolling stat.

The controversial part of this system is how the cost of the system scales when you keep changing Affixes repeatedly. After many attempts, you will find this cost becomes more and more completely unaffordable.

Some players have mentioned that once the cost hits 1 million Diablo 4 Gold, they consider the item to be the best and no longer worth the extra investment.

Hopefully, in a future patch, we’ll see a reduction in cost scaling. Still, the developers of Diablo 4 might see this as a fair price to get God Rolls items, Uber Uniques.

These Diablo 4 Items are extremely powerful gear, and will be some of the best items you’ll find early in the game. The downside of this is that everyone is less likely to get it, similar to chances of winning the lottery.

Many people have this question: why does this happen in the game? Some people think it’s an in-game thing, because it always gives you something to chase. It’s part of the ultimate fantasy of being a broken powerhouse where nothing can stop you.

Others see it as just a cheap attempt by Blizzard. The intention is so that you never stop playing the game, and hopefully you will discover a Permanent CC opportunity.

Elite Too Powerful

In addition, players often encounter a large group of elites in the second half of leveling. Because the current elites have grown so powerful they will almost kill you with a single shot. You need to hit one hit to avoid being killed by an elite. So this is one of the most frequently asked questions by players.

Worse, even if your stacked damage reduction is enough to avoid a one-hit kill, if you’re dealing with elites with various Crowd Control Affixes. Then, until you die, you can never escape the permanent Crowd Control effect.

Difficulty Distinguishing Between Glyphs & Aspects

The developers also mentioned in the campfire chat that they are currently considering solving distinguishing between Glyphs and Aspects. When browsing your list of Codex of Power or Rare Glyphs. You’ll notice that there’s no way to tell them apart unless you hover your mouse over them.

This results in players often spending a long time trying to compare Glyphs and Aspects to avoid getting their exact location wrong. But when you come back to the list later, you completely lose your way. So you have to start over.

Related: Diablo 4 Season 1 Patch 1.1.0a Update Notes! - All Fixes & Nerfs

Bad Patch 1.1.0a

Patch 1.1.0a released before Diablo 4 Season 1 started was the most controversial patch in the game. What caused such a controversial reaction were the details of the patch. Some of the strongest parts of the various classes have been nerfed.

Stats that are highly recommended in order to get stronger have been nerfed almost across the board. This makes every building that relies on these stats instantly weaker.

Also, their XP scaling has been nerfed. Before the patch, if you fought an enemy 3 levels higher than you, it increased your base XP by 25%. After the patch, it’s reduced to 1.5% per level, up to 10 levels higher.

This also means that if you defeat a monster 20 levels higher than you, you will only gain XP of a monster 10 levels higher than you. This seriously affects the player’s ability to level up.

Many players see this as another way Blizzard is trying to slow Diablo 4’s progress. So what do you think is the biggest complaint about Diablo 4? Please let everyone know what you think.

As a Sorcerer player, my biggest pain point in Diablo 4 has always been the survivability. I can get one shot basically at anytime and from anywhere.

Sorcerer is still the squishiest class right now because of lack of Armor and Resistance not working great in World Tier 4. After spending hundreds of hours playing and researching, I am now able to face tank enemies that are 40 Levels above me.

So, I am excited to share my key learnings across Aspects, Gears and Paragon Board that helped me achieve the tankiness and enjoy the game without worrying about dying randomly. Hope it can help you enhance your favorite build and have more fun in Diablo 4 Season 1. 

Disobedience On Amulet 

First, use Disobedience at Amulet.

Armor is still the number one Damage Reduction mechanism in the game. The 15% Armor difference of the Disobedience alone is a 27% Damage Reduction to enemies 40 Levels above me. 

Aspects To The Rescue 

Second, get the Aspect of Might for 20% Damage Reduction and the Everliving Aspect for another 25%.

Before the 1.1 patch, Vulnerable Uptime has been low with Lightning and Fire Sorcerer as people use Frost Nova at that time. 

But 1.1 buffed Ice Blades that the Vulnerable Uptime is close to 100% now. So, any build running Ice Blades can take the Everliving Aspect for another 25% Damage Reduction.

Gear Stats Prioritization

Third, get all these defensive stats on Helm, Chest Armor, Pants or Amulets.

Each of them is around 10% to 20% more Damage Reduction, or, in other words, gets you 12% to 25% more tankier.

And put your belt on, I am going to dive into some complicated math now. Or, you can just remember this conclusion and skip to the next section.

Helm/Chest Armor/Pants/Amulets

• % Total Armor
• Damage Reduction (from Close/Distant Enemies)
• Dodge Chance (against Close/Distant Enemies)
• Maximum Life

So, when you are getting a 20% Damage Reduction, it means you are 1-1/(1-20%) = 25% more tankier.

For example, if you have 10000 HP, a 20% Damage Reduction stat is equivalent to a 2500 Maximum HP stat. Because a hit of 12500 Damage from enemy will deal 12500*(1-20%) = 10000 Damage after 20% Damage Reduction.

So, Damage Reduction is more effective than it looks.

As after Level 90, you will have 10000 HP. At that point, pick the 20% Damage Reductions first. That are much better than 1000 Maximum Life. 

While the % Total Armor and the % Damage Reduction are similar to the Maximum Life, that are interchangeable. I actually hate it so much. That it is so complicated.

The easy conclusion to remember is to get all these defensive stats. 

One more important note is to get 2 Damage Reductions from Close Enemies as we are face tanking for most of the time. Enemies are in close range and 1 Damage Reduction from Distant Enemy on Pants or Amulet to avoid getting one shot before the fight that I am still rerolling on my Pants.

Also Read: How To Target Farm Specific Diablo 4 Unique Items And Double Unique Drop Chance?

Best Defensive Malignant Hearts 

Next, get the Revenge Heart that is the best defensive heart right now as it offers flat 20% damage reduction in all situations. 

No Glass Cannon

Don’t add Glass Cannon after Level 70. It will just make the survivability issue even worse. 

The one rank from Raiment is unavoidable. 

Paragon Board 

In addition, get the 200 Armor from Paragon Board. It will be another 18% Damage Reduction against the Level 100 enemy.

I’ve updated the Thor Nuke Build Paragon Board to include this. If you are running other builds, make sure to get them on your boards, too. Of course, if it is very difficult for you to make builds, you can not only check the free builds here but also take a look at Diablo 4 Boosting Service. There will be professional players who tailor five builds for endgame for you.

Elixir 

Last, take Armor Elixirs for a high tier Nightmare Dungeon push.

I took this 400 Armor Elixir, and it gives me another 22% Damage Reduction vs Enemies 40 Levels above me. And if I take this 900 Armor Elixir, it will give me a 49% Damage Reduction. 

Imagine you are twice as tanky by just taking this Elixir. This 900 Armor Elixir can be farmed in the Helltide Chests. 

1.1.1 Lookahead & Summary 

When it comes to conclusion, the cold truth is that, Sorcerer is still the squishiest class right now.

And I hope this guide can help you adjust your favorite build to get as much tanky to face tank and sweep high level Nightmare Dungeons and have fun in Diablo 4 as a Sorcerer.

The upcoming 1.1.1 Patch buffs the Damage Reduction on Paragon Board Nodes and Damage Reduction on Glyphs. And this new Mage-Lord aspect will be interesting to test for further tankiness.

But to be honest, my deepest fear of getting one shot is still before the fight even starts. And these buffs would not change that situation. I’d recommend Blizzard to introduce a new Glyph to focus on Damage Reductions against Distant Enemy, like a counterpart of the Territorial Glyph.

In today's Diablo 4 build, we're discuss in my opinion the best Druid build, which is currently running a Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeon. 

Introduction Of This Build

This build named Lightning Shred Druid build, focuses on dashing quickly from one enemy to the next, delivering massive Critical Strikes, further enhanced with Stormclaw's Aspect. It boasts superior maneuverability and crisp speed that rivals the fastest builds in the game. 

This build benefits from some Diablo 4 Uniques, but definitely doesn't require them to play at a high level, making it friendly to new players and season newcomers. As we go through the article, please pay attention to other gear skills to pick in the skill tree and paragon points you should put into your build as you get past level 50. 

The build also benefits from a few other skills and passives. In addition to damage, Grizzly Rage also provides a reliable source of unstoppability, empowerment, and drastically reduces our mental drain thanks to Dire Wolf's Aspect.

How To Play This Build?

Gameplay is simple. Go into Grizzly Rage, then use Shred to dash from one enemy to another, every time you land a crit trigger Stormclaw, and thanks to Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast, the longer you're in Grizzly Rage, the more damage it will cause.

Also Read: How To Quickly Level Up Necromancer Build In Diablo 4 Season 1?

Streams And Weaknesses Of This Build

Let's break down the streams and weaknesses of this build quickly. The mainstream so weaknesses of Shred Druid build is that there's a heavy focus on mobility an area of effect. Lightning Shred Werewolf is extremely capable of dealing with medium to large groups of enemies, however since almost all our abilities will be melee, we might sometimes stroll when the numbers of enemies gets overwhelming, or when a boss has a lot of frontal mechanics that you need to avoid. 

But this is not much of a negative and able to well destroy tier 100 Nightmare Dungeons easy, it can help you farm some Diablo 4 Gold faster, I wanted to see how well a Shred Druid build will do in Tier 90 plus Nightmare Dungeon. You definitely like single target damage, but you still get high number of DPS. 

This build is really fun to play in Tier 40 or Tier 60 Nightmare Dungeons or do Helltides, I still prefer Druid since it can melt bosses and has a higher damage output. 

Once you get to a certain point in Diablo 4, getting your build close to perfect, you can solo 30 million XP per hour, which is madness in service layer or oldest cave, which means you can quickly swap out your builds level them up quickly and mix up your Diablo 4 gameplay. 

Outro

I just tried this over the weekend, but it's worth a try if you're playing as a Druid in Diablo 4. Lightning Shred Werewolf is easily one of the fastest builds in the game, flying across the battlefield, dashing from one group of enemies to another. Stormclaw's Aspect provides Lightning Damage, and also grants it very high damage. It's one of the best speed farming builds in Diablo 4, but can also push Nightmare Dungeons fairly well.

One of the major design decisions behind Diablo 4 was the open world. Here, we take a look at how open world design fits into Diablo, and discuss whether it can properly implement this concept in Diablo 4.

Level Design And Art

First, let’s talk about the level of design. There are 5 main areas or biomes in the game. Luckily, each zone has its own identity, and most of the time, you can clearly visualize which zone you’re in.

Hawezar has swamps full of rot and poison. Fractured Peaks Strongholds are full of snow mountains and polar bears. And Kehjistan is a never-ending desert. As a result, each area feels unique, with its own visual identity, but still maintains the same dark vibe.

I can safely say that one of the strongest features of the open world is the art. The art team did a fantastic job of creating this intense, dark, eerie atmosphere in the game. The detail is stunning, both in the world and in the character models.

But it’s a shame that Diablo 4 doesn’t have a bestiary or model browser to see all the places in the design in more detail. Another thing I’d love to see more of in the open world is the addition of more landmarks.

Landmarks And Memorable Moments

Over the course of my challenge campaign, the only area I can really say I remember well is Caldeum. It is a decaying city occupied by hellish forces, unlike any other city in the world.

Another place of note is Guulrahn, with its dark atmosphere and bloody streets. This is another memorable and unique place in the open world. Many games take advantage of this option of the open world format, adding landmarks and memorable places throughout the game.

Activities

The developer has been encouraging you to explore its campaign, but here, at this stage of the game, things are getting a little shaky. Which of these activities are worth doing and are actually fun and engaging?

First, Side Quests are definitely not worth doing, and their rewards are not worth your time at all. Altars of Lilith seem like a dirty campaign to me. Because I’ve never liked to gather Diablo 4 Items in the open world, especially if those items won’t add to the lore and story, but just filler.

Tree of Whispers is good until you reach World Tier 3. You start running Nightmare Dungeon, and Tree of Whispers also starts being replaced by farming Helltide. But it’s a great way to level up your character. Because it gets you into different areas, discrete events, and is more fun than spamming the same dungeon repeatedly.

Helltides are a great addition to the open world and one feature that I believe really takes advantage of it. This situation is further expanded throughout the life of the game with the addition of unique events in Tides of Hell.

Also Read: How To Quickly Level Up Necromancer Build In Diablo 4 Season 1?

Open World Traversal

Now let’s move on to what I consider being the fundamental problem with Diablo 4’s open world design: traversal. Because going from one point on the map to another is pretty boring.

First, the way we traverse the open world is extremely static. You just sit on the horse, keep pushing the analog stick on the controller, and wait to get there.

Traveling through the open world in Diablo 4, sometimes there is a random event. You might run into a bunch of mobs, but Diablo 4 Gold rewards from killing them are too small to be worth your time. Overall, the traversal of the game isn’t engaging enough that the open world feels completely lifeless.

Conclusions

The whole point of open world design is that you have the freedom to choose what to do and what not to do. But I also believe that for an open world to be successful, it has to be alive. And it had to happen something to break the cycle of just running around the world.

So what do you think of the open world of Diablo 4? I hope this improves Diablo 4’s lifecycle.

We’re doing an update on the bossing poison Rogue build for Season 1. This build allows you to skip all of your mechanics and his super cheese. But if you don’t care to learn the fight and just want the mount and the title, I’d recommend using this build. This build is fairly easy to gear. The only things that may be difficult to get are D4 Unique Items that are used, those being Penitent Greaves, Asheara’s Khanjar and Condemnation.

As normal, we’ll be going over skills, the skill tree, gear, aspects, and the Paragon Board. At the end, I’ll also talk about some tips and what to avoid when skipping her mechanics.

Skills

For the skills, I’m using Poison Trap, Dash, Twisting Blades, Poison Imbuement, Smoke Grenade, and Puncture.

We use Poison Trap for the damage multi and Smoke Grenade for the extra Crowd Control. And we use the Combo Points as our Specialization.

The idea is to stack as much CC as we can so that we can quickly stagger her and skip her phases and mechanics with our damage.

Skill Tree

As for our skill tree, it’s pretty much your standard Twisting Blade skill tree.

We have Puncture.

We have Twisting Blades with Advanced Twisting Blades.

We put two skill points into Sturdy and three skill points into Siphoning Strikes, three skill points into Weapon Mastery, one skill point into Dash. But you don’t really need Dash for this.

We have Smoke Grenade with Subverting Smoke Grenade for even more Crowd Control.

We have Poison Trap with the Subverting Poison Trap for that 10% increased poison damage multi.

Then, we put three skill points into Exploit and three skill points into Malice.

We have Poison Imbuement (Rank 5) with Blended Poison Imbuement.

We put three skill points into Deadly Venom, three skill points into Frigid Finesse, and then three skill points in Innervation. This is where we get our energy sustained from.

We put three skill points into Alchemist Fortune and three skill points into the Second Wind for even more lucky hit chance.

We put one skill point into Adrenaline Rush and three skill points into Haste.

Finally, we’re using Close Quarters Combat.

Also Read: How To Target Farm Specific Diablo 4 Unique Items And Double Unique Drop Chance?

Armor

Onto our gear and aspects, I want to start off with our armor.

On our helmet, we want Basic Skill Attack Speed, Life, Crowd Control Duration, and Ranks of Poison Imbuement with Mangler’s Aspect to help stagger her.

The chestplate is your normal defensive chestplate with Life, Damage Reduction, Damage Reduction from Close Enemies and Armor percent. But the aspect we have here is an Aspect of Noxious Ice. So, when we stagger her, we have another damage multiplier for our poison.

On our gloves, get Ranks of Twisting Blades, lucky hit chance to slow, Critical Strike Chance, and Attack Speed with Aspect of Bursting Venoms. Aspect of Bursting Venoms allows us to constantly have unlimited Poison Imbuement just to keep stacking poison damage on her.

On our pants, we have Life, Damage Reduction, Damage Reduction from Close Enemies and Armor percent with Aspect of Disobedience.

For our boots, we have Penitent Greaves for the extra chill to stagger and extra damage for when she is staggered and the Crowd Control Duration.

Weapons

For our weapons on our crossbow, we’re using our normal Bladedancer’s Warcaster crossbow with Critical Strike Damage, Vulnerable Damage, Core Skill Damage and Dexterity.

For our daggers, as mentioned before, we have Asheara’s Khanjar and Condemnation. The Asheara’s Khanjar is insane because it gives us up to 16 and a half percent lucky hit and so much Attack Speed to help stagger and build up poison faster. And Condemnation is also insane because it’s a huge DPS boost.

If you have enough Diablo 4 Gold, I suggest you upgrade all these weapons to the highest level. In this way, you will be stronger.

Jewelry

Lastly, the jewelry and hearts. I really cheaped out on the jewelry. There is only a few rolls that you really need.

On the amulet, you want at least to have Ranks of All Imbuement Skills and either Malice or Deadly Venom. If you want to go all out and min max this, get Dexterity percent and Crowd Control Duration as well. The aspect we have is an Aspect of Corruption to increase our Poison Imbuement Damage.

For your rings, you want to have at least Critical Strike Chance, and Lucky Hit Chance. If you want to have more damage, get Vulnerable Damage and Poison Damage as well. The aspects we have are Accelerating Aspect and Rapid Aspect.

For more Attack Speed, we get our energy sustained from the passive Innervation. With so much Lucky Hit, if we run out of energy, just hold Puncture down for a second and you’ll be full.

Hearts

For your hearts on your jewelry, you’ll want to have at least two Devious sockets and the last can be any color.

We have The Calculated because we attack so fast that we spend that 150 energy very quickly so that five seconds done is a huge boost to our stagger.

Next is Clipshot. Again, because of our Lucky Hit Chance and Attack Speed, it’s amazing for our stagger.

The last one is Creeping Death. When she’s staggered, our damaged to skyrockets, allowing us to just do so much damage that we skip phases and all of her mechanics.

In order to help you understand our build more directly, I will directly list the aspects and gems I use.

Aspects:

• Mangler’s Aspect (Helm)
• Aspect of Noxious Ice (Chest Armor)
• Aspect of Bursting Venoms (Gloves)
• Aspect of Disobedience (Pants)
• Penitent Greaves (Boots)
• Bladedancer’s Aspect (Ranged Weapon)
• Aspect of Corruption (Amulet)
• Accelerating Aspect (Ring 1)
• Rapid Aspect (Ring 2)
• Asheara’s Khanjar (Dual-Wield Weapon 1)
• Condemnation (Dual-Wield Weapon 2)

Gems: Emerald, Ruby, Creeping Death, The Calculated, The Clipshot

Paragon Board

Lastly, we have our Paragon Boards.

Starting off with the glyphs, we’re picking up Closer, Tracker, Chip, Turf, Control, and Ambush.

The legendary nodes that we pick up are Exploit Weakness, Tricks of the Trade and Eldritch Bounty.

Mech Skip Tips

Finally, we’re going to talk about some mechanics of skipping the mechanics.

So, some things that you should be aware of starting with the first phase, there really isn’t anything specific here. If you don’t stagger and phase her, then just run out of the ring and reset. For the most part, the first phase is super easy.

However, in the second phase, there are a few things to note here. As soon as she spawns in, you need to stagger her as fast as possible so she doesn’t slam down. If she does her slam, then when the area starts to break and she’s flying around to destroy it, she’ll start spawning Fireballs and makes it very difficult to finish the fight with those Fireballs because they do one-shot you.

So, what I do is I’ll drop two Poison Traps on her spawn point and then start attacking to build up some Attack Speed. And when her stagger bar is about 60%, then drop the Stun Grenade and then you’ll just DPS as normal.

If you’ve done this, then you’re set for the most part. She’ll fly around the area, destroying it. Do not stagger her again until she’s destroyed the top at the right and the left and comes back to the middle.

When she’s back in the middle, you’re free to finish the fight. However, if you do stagger her before, then she’ll start spawning her minions and Fireballs will start to spawn again.

Lastly, sometimes when she’s destroyed the arena right at the end, she’ll summon her Shadow Clone looking thing and it’ll attack you and it will one shot you.

So, when you kill her, just start running around in a circle kind of close to the edge to avoid getting hit by it. And if you’ve done all that, then you’ve officially cheesed the Lilith fight.

I’m here to bring you a focused guide on how to farm Wrathful Hearts effectively, including the rare Caged Heart of the Barber. You can primary Malignant Heart farming mechanic in Diablo 4 with our in-depth guide, improving your performance and progress in the game.

We’ll also discuss that Uber Varshan battle. Because this is the most guaranteed way for us to get premium gear and Diablo 4 Items. If you often waste time wandering aimlessly in the vast Diablo universe, you must not miss this guide. Without further ado, let’s get started.

How To Farm Wrathful Hearts?

To quickly farm Wrathful Hearts in Diablo 4. First, we don’t talk to Cormond after defeating Uber Varshan for the first time in Season 1 questline.

Uber Varshan

This is because killing Uber Varshan here will give you a Wrathful Heart. But only after defeating Echo of Varshan with Invoker of Varshan will you have a chance to get a Wrathful Heart.

So in “The Cold Hard Truth” quest, we’re going to beat Varshan as usual, then leave the dungeon and reset it from the map menu. Go back and kill Varshan again for more potential legendary gear and a guaranteed Wrathful Heart. Repeat as many times as you want. Just remember to ignore Cormond afterwards.

If you’ve already done this in your quest, you can still farm this route by joining a friend’s game and farming it with them. Because you’ll both get a Wrathful Heart drop.

It’s also worth noting that we can do this on any World Tiers. So as you climb levels and tackle higher difficulties, you get better hearts.

Also Read: How To Calculate Damage Increases In Diablo 4? - Damage & Defense Mechanics Explained

Ravening Pit

If this method gets patched, the next best way to farm Wrathful Heart is to head to Ravening Pit Malignant Dungeon. Because it has two Malignant Monsters that are guaranteed to spawn near the entrance. If they are not Wrathful, leave the dungeon and reset it from the map menu, then go in and try again.

In just an hour of farming this spot, I’ve managed to amass about three Wrathful Hearts. Of course, your results may vary, depending on specifics such as your level and equipment. So, before you start farming, you can use Diablo 4 Gold to get some decent gear and healing potions. This will make your operation more efficient.

Caged Heart Of The Barber

Caged Heart of The Barber belongs to Wrathful Malignant Heart. It provides a powerful defensive buff to the player.

Caged Heart of The Barber randomly drops after defeating any Wrathful Malignant enemy in Diablo 4 Season 1. Of course, these will only appear at World Tier 3 or higher. 

You can also find Caged Heart of The Barber by using Invoker of Varshan on Malignant Outgrowth at the end of Malignant Tunnel.

Players can also craft Caged Heart of The Barber by using various Malignant Ichors. We can get these Ichors after completing this Malignant Tunnel or in Uncertain Hearts Cache. This has a chance to spawn all 4 types of Malignant Hearts.

In order to craft items with Malignant Ichors, you need to find Cormon’s Wagon. You’ll be able to salvage Ichors of different colors from low-level Malignant Hearts. Saving each Vicious, Brutal, and Devious Heart will give you between 5 and 15 Ichors. And this Wrathful Heart will give you 2 to 5 Ichors.

If you’re lucky enough to craft Caged Heart of The Barber. Then, you can place it on rings and necklaces with any type of Infested socket.

Finally, the guide offers valuable tips and tricks whether you’re a seasoned veteran or new to Diablo franchise. Hope it helps you farm more efficiently and perfect your strategy, get more rare loot, and rank up in Diablo 4. Good luck.

Today, we have the Icy Shadow version 2. I’ve been having so much fun with this build and I’ve made a few changes that really make this build stand out.

We’ll be going over skills, play style, the skill tree, gear, and the Paragon Board. 

Skills 

The skills we’ll be using are Shadowstep, Dash, Twisting Blades, Shadow Imbuement, Smoke Grenade and Puncture with Combo Points as our specialization.

Smoke Grenade got a buff recently, going from 15% to 20% damage to enemies affected by it. And with the use of some aspects, this becomes an absolutely insane utility skill. Not only does it allow us to daze, it will freeze and give us a 43% damage multi that we can have up most of the time.

This build is on the squishier side. We want to take advantage of our Crowd Control and our Mobility to avoid getting hit too much. We do take up some defensive aspect slots with some utility aspects. But trust me, it is worth it.

When you’re diving into a large pack of Elites, use Dash and instantly drop your Smoke Grenade to daze and freeze, giving you plenty of time to finish them off. This way you can easily get a lot of Diablo 4 Gold.

Use Shadow Step when you get Crowd Control. Use Shadow Imbuement whenever it’s up. And use Dash to engage, reposition, and move around the map quickly.

Skill Tree 

Onto our skill tree, starting off with Puncture. Pick up Fundamental Puncture.

Max out Twisting Blades with Advanced Twisting Blades.

Siphoning Strikes did get a nerf recently, making it on a Lucky Hit, instead of always on Critical Strikes. So, our sustain has gone down tremendously because of that. But because of how much Crowd Control we have in this build, it does make up for it. 

Pick up Shadow Step with Disciplined Shadow Step.

Then we should pick up Weapon Mastery and then Dash with Methodical Dash.

Pick up Smoke Grenade with Countering Smoke Grenade, giving us huge cooldown decreases and having that up more often for more dazes and freezes.

We should put one point into Exploit and then three points into Malice.

We should put one into Shadow Imbuement with Mixed Shadow Imbuement.

Then, we should put three points into Precision Imbuement, three points into Frigid Finesse.

Go ahead and max out Alchemist’s Fortune, Second Wind, Innervation, Impetus and Haste.

Finally, put one point into Adrenaline Rush and Close Quarters Combat.

Now, I do want to note that you can pick up Victimize here. It is fun to play with, but Close Quarters Combat just feels better with the Attack Speed and that 30% increased damage to Crowd Control because we’re always crowd controlling. It’s just nice to have that up. 

Also Read: Diablo 4: Why Necromancer Is The Most Powerful Class In Season 1? - Reasons And Some Analysis

Armor 

Onto gear, stat priority, and aspects, start off with our armor. 

For our helmet, go for Life, Armor percent, Cooldown Reduction, and either ranks to Shadow Imbuement or Basic Skill Attack Speed.

For our aspect, we’re using Frostbitten, giving us up to 25% increased Critical Strike Damage to Frozen enemies. And on top of that, it synergizes with Smoke Grenade, allowing it to also instantly freeze our targets. If you want to be more tanky, you can definitely swap Frostbitten out for Aspect of Might for some more damage reduction. 

For our chestplate, look for Life, Damage Reduction, Damage Reduction from Close, and Armor percent with the Aspect of Explosive Verve. This just amplifies our Smoke Grenade and with the Lucky Hit cooldown, we have this Crowd Control Damage stem up very often.

For our gloves, get rings to Twisting Blades, Critical Strike Chance, Attack Speed and Lucky Hit chance. You can also go for Critical Strike Damage with Imbued Skills. But we don’t get much Lucky Hit anywhere else and we’re going to be using Icy Alchemist for the aspect. This got buffed in Season 1, giving us 25% chill instead of 20%, so we freeze a lot faster and more often.

For our pants, we want Life, Damage Reduction, Damage Reduction from Close, and Armor percent with the Aspect of Disobedience.

For our boots, we’re using Penitent Greaves. This is how we apply chill in order for Icy Alchemist to work. 

Weapons

For our weapons on our crossbow, we want Critical Strike Damage, Vulnerable Damage, Dexterity, and Core Skill Damage with, of course, Bladedancer’s Aspect. By the way, In Diablo 4, some Diablo 4 Items are very difficult to obtain. If you encounter such difficulties, you may wish to visit D4gold.com. There will be professional players to help you.

For our weapons on one hand, we have Condemnation. The extra 20% to 40% multi-on Combo Points just can’t be beat here. And on the other hand, I am currently using Asheara’s Khanjar. The amount of Attack Speed and Lucky Hit we get from this weapon allows us to proc Icy Alchemist more often. And with more Attack Speed, we get more activations out of the imbuement heart. 

With the nerf took Critical Strike Damage on swords, giving up 14% Critical Strike Damage for 30% close and more Attack Speed makes daggers a little better in my opinion.

So, if you are not wanting to use Asheara’s Khanjar, go ahead and pick up a dagger with Critical Strike Damage, Vulnerable Damage, Dexterity, Core Skill Damage and the Edgemaster’s Aspect. You will hit a lot harder with this, but you also lose a lot of Attack Speed. 

Jewelry 

Lastly, I want to talk about jewelry.

For our amulet, we need to have cooldown reduction and damage reduction. For our third roll, we have some options. Frigid Finesse is the best for clear and Malice is a good all-rounder for both clear and boss damage. And for the last roll, you want either Dexterity percent, Armor percent, or Movement Speed, depending on what you feel you’re lacking.

For the aspect, we’re using Aspect of Expectant for that 15 to 30% increased damage when we’re alternating between Puncture and Twisting Blades.

As for our rings, we want Life, Critical Strike Damage, Crit Strike Chance and Vulnerable Damage.

For the aspects with one ring, we want Accelerating Aspect and the other with the Aspect of Umbral for energy sustain. I would also recommend getting a third ring with Energizing Aspect. It doesn’t have to be perfect by any means, but our energy sustain feels really bad when we’re fighting bosses without it. 

Gems & Hearts 

For our gems, we want Rubies in our armor and Emeralds in our weapons.

At the moment, having the extra life feels better than running Topaz and with Shadow Step up so often, Topaz doesn’t feel super needed right now. And with Emeralds in our weapon, we have the extra Critical Strike Damage against Vulnerable Damage.

For the socket colors for the new Malignant Hearts, we want a Vicious, a Brutal and your last socket can be any color. 

We’ll be using Tempting Fate for the huge crit damage boost. We’ll be using Revenge for the damage suppressed. This helps our survivability a lot and makes Smoke Grenade look super cool when we cast it. Lastly, we’ll be using the Vile Apothecary. With up to a 15% chance to attack with all imbuements and our insane attack speed, we can get Icy Alchemist to proc pretty reliably without even having Shadow Imbuement up.

Paragon Board

Lastly, we have our Paragon Boards.

The glyphs that we’re using are Closer, Combat, Chip, Turf, Control, and Exploit. 

The legendary nodes that we pick up are Tricks of the Trade, Cheap Shot and Deadly Ambush. This is the reason why we Aspect of Explosive Verve on our chestplate. So, our Smoke Grenade also counts as a trap skill, giving us the 20% from Smoke Grenade and on top of that giving us another 22 and a half percent increase to our Critical Strike Damage, allowing Smoke Grenade to just be an insane damage stem. 

Other than that, we pick up some Rare and Magic nodes around the board, giving us even more Critical Strike Damage and Vulnerable Damage. 

Hope you had fun trying out the Thor Lightning in Season 1 so far. If you don’t know what Thor Lightning is, it is a build that combines Chain Lightning and Ball Lightning.

I am going to cover the keys that will help you dominate the mid till endgame through the Thor Lightning, or actually Thor Nuke now.

Hearts To Use

First, for the Thor build, the best heart to use is The Barber heart.

Since the Lightning Sorcerer has a high crit chance, it basically converts all damage into AOE damage with a 40+% improvement. Therefore, the Chain Lightning becomes Chain Nuke.

One trick to bring The Barber to the next level is to begin a fight with Lightning Spear and Spamming Chain Lightning and raiment Teleport to pull all enemies into one spot. And finally, all monsters get deleted instantly. You’ll also get a lot of Diablo 4 Gold for it.

For the other two hearts, use Tal’Rasha for a 36% Global Damage boost and Revenge for 20% Tankier.

I did a thorough and complicated calculation for the Tempting Fate heart. And my conclusion is that it is not worthy as even in the most ideal case with the Elementalist’s Aspect. The damage improvement is around 20%, which is far from to the flat 30+% boost from Tal’Rasha. So, just don’t use it for now unless Blizzard updates it.

If you don’t have The Barber yet, use The Picana, which is a great AOE for further Damage, Cracking Energy and Mana. And if you don’t have any of the hearts. Don’t worry. You can read my other guide ‘How To Progress Fast In Diablo 4 Season 1? - 3 Must-Know Tips’ to get the best heart and XP farming locations and tips.

Gears & Aspects

Second, for gears, always focus on these defensive stats on Helm, Chest Armor, and Pants:

• Maximum Life
• % Total Armor
• Close Enemy Damage Reduction
• Damage Reduction

Get plus Conjuration Mastery Passive and % Total Armor on Amulet.

Aspect wise, replace Recharging Aspect with Accelerating Aspect to get Attack Speed as conjuration benefits from Attack Speed. Especially Ice Blades, look at how fast my ult is back.

Below are all the gear and skills of this build:

Aspects:

• Aspect of Might (Helm)
• Raiment of the Infinite (Chest Armor)
• Accelerating Aspect (Gloves)
• Aspect of Disobedience (Pants)
• Exploiter’s Aspect (Boots)
• Conceited Aspect (Weapon)
• Elementalist’s Aspect (Amulet)
• Prodigy’s Aspect (Ring 1)
• Aspect of Control (Ring 2)

Gems: Emerald, Ruby, The Barber, Tal’Rasha, Revenge

Skills: Spark, Chain Lighting, Teleport, Ice Blades, Lighting Spear, Unstable Currents

Enchantments: Ice Blade, Ball Lightning

If you don’t have certain aspects, don’t worry, you can read ‘Diablo 4 Thor Tal’Rasha Summoner Sorcerer Build: Season 1 Sorcerer Build Guide’ because all aspects are dungeon unlockable and you can start from there. Or, You can take a look at the Diablo 4 Boosting Service on this site. Whether you encounter difficulties in fighting bosses or finding certain items, there will be professional players to help you solve them one by one.

Also Read: Diablo 4 Season 1 Patch 1.1.0a Update Notes! - All Fixes & Nerfs

Paragon Board

Third, for Paragon Board, use the Destruction Glyph for the 1st board Paragon Board as we have high Crit Chance and the 1st board has enough dexterity to unlock the 12% Global Bonus damage at Glyph Level 1.

Then, unlock the Enchantment Master board and walk to the Legendary Node as soon as possible that is extremely important for the build. Because all Cooldown Skills can generate 20% more Ice Blades where we will have on average 7 Conjurations at the same time. And with the plus 3 Rank Conjuration Mastery on Amulet, it is a 42% Global Damage Boost and even more to Cooldown Reduction on top of the Accelerating Aspect we just saw. And we also have more static Ball Lightning that are huge AOE sweepers.

Then, get the Rare Nodes for more Non-Physical Damage to greatly improve our “Damage to” bucket. And get the Elementalist Glyph since the 2nd board has enough Intelligence to unlock the 15% Global Damage Bonus.

Then, go up to unlock the Frigid Fate Board to get more Vulnerable Damage with the Tactician Glyph. And go right to the Static Surge board for more Crowd Control synergies with the Exploit Glyph to further improve Vulnerable Damage.

For upgrading glyphs, first upgrade the Destruction, then the Exploit, then the Tactician, and last the Elementalist.

Frost Nova Variant

If you are new to the Thor Lightning build, you may find using Frost Nova more comfortable as it instantly freezes all enemies around. It also works with the Thor Nuke build that I made a Frost Nova variant.

Just move 3 points from the Ball Lightning to Frost Nova, replace Ice Blades with Frost Nova on the Skill Bar and you are good to go. It has better Group Crowd Control so monsters get deleted while Crowd Controlled.

The minor downside is that a single elite or boss fight will take slightly more time. Also, get plus Frost Nova on the boots if you are going with this variant Ending.

Ending

Sorcerer is actually super fun to play in Season 1. But now, it feels just too powerful after using The Barber heart.

With the lowering Nightmare Dungeon difficulty in the recent patch, personally, I have a feeling that I can pass Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeon even before Level 100. I hope Blizzard balances the Barber in the upcoming 1.1.1 or it might kill the game too quickly given that Season 1 will last for 3 months.

I’ve summarized 3 most important tips that helped me progress fast till Lv70.

Best Malignant Heart & XP Farm Location

First tip, the Malignant Hearts are extremely powerful and the best spot to farm both Malignant Hearts and XP is Dindai Hallow. It is located in Stepp Dry, South West to the main Town.

By completing the dungeon, I not only get tons of XP but also tons of Malignant Hearts. Each one brings my character at least 30% stronger. And after completing the dungeon, leave the dungeon and reset the dungeon through the reset button located on the map after expanding the quests. You can go into the Dindai Hallow again right after.

But sometimes it has bugs. And when you see this “One or more party members are in the dungeon”, you can restart the game to fix it and reset the dungeon.

Also, don’t walk further into the invoker location as it takes time and is usually not worthy to wait, kill and get just one more heart.

Best Wrathful Heart Farming Method

There is another a trick to farm the most powerful Wrathful Heart, like the Highly Rated Barber.

The TLDR is to follow the Seasonal Quest till the end, The Cold Hard Truth. And finish the dungeon as it will guarantee to drop one Wrathful Heart. But do not talk to the guy to complete the quest. And you can reset the dungeon to farm again.

If you’ve finished the quest, you can join your friends or other people who haven’t done the quest and farm the dungeon repetitively. It might get patched in the Thursday Maintenance. So, it would be nice to farm some now since this is extremely efficient in farming the most powerful item in the season.

Also Read: Diablo 4 Season 1 Patch 1.1.0a Update Notes! - All Fixes & Nerfs

Utilize Item Power Breakpoints

Second tip, utilize the Item Power Breakpoints.

A lot of times, I got gears that have good stats, but the range of the stat is low because of low item power. But it can be improved by utilizing the hidden Item Power Breakpoints.

All items in Diablo 4 have 6 item power levels and when it reaches the next item power level, the stat range is greatly increased.

For example, this ring, when it is 620 Item Power, the Crit Chance range is from 1.5 to 3.3. And when it reaches 625 Item Power, which is the next breakpoint level, the Crit Chance range goes to from 1.9 to 4.8. And the Crit Chance of the ring goes from 2.9 to 4.8, resulting in a big 66% stat improvement. Why?

Because when the gear reaches the next Item Power Breakpoint, all stats get a reroll. But since the range is largely increased, in most cases, it will be a big increase like the 3 stats. Rarely, it will be a minor decrease for one stat.

We can at least upgrade 3 times. So, keep an eye on Diablo 4 Items with good stats within 15 item power to the next Item Power Breakpoint, like this 615 Item Power Ring.

And we can upgrade 5 times for Sacred Items. For example, this weapon is within 25 Item Power to the 725 level. So, it is feasible to be upgraded as an Ancestral item.

Item Enchantment Optimization

Third and the last tip, optimize the Item Enchantment cost through D4Craft.

We can reroll gear stats at the Occultist to get rid of the ones we don’t want into the ones we like. But it costs significantly more if we roll a 2nd time on the same item.

However, in some cases, we can roll just once to get what we want. This is because every gear has priority stat for rerolling. And if some priority stat is missing on the gear, it will always appear in the enchantment reroll.

For example, Intelligence is a priority stat for 2-Handed Weapon Staffs. Let’s say we have good stats, like Critical Damage, Damage to Close Enemies and Vulnerable Damage and one bad stat, like Ultimate Skill Damage that we want to replace to Intelligence. And great, we will get it once in the Enchantment Reroll.

This tip will save tons of Diablo 4 Gold and materials so that you can reroll many more gears to improve your character. Like rerolling % Total Armor on Helm, Chest Armor and Pants as % Total Armor are priority stats on all these 3 parts. And reroll Crit Chance on Rings as Crit Chance is a priority stat on Rings.

For early and mid game, I care about the stat itself but not the values. So, usually, I got what I want in one roll. Use D4Craft to find your best rerollings.

Hope these tips make your Diablo 4 experience more efficient and fun.