News Tag: Diablo 4 Season 8

Thanks to the almost never-short class balance and adjustments in Diablo 4, even if you have always liked the most old-school Diablo 4 classes, you have the opportunity to become one of the most powerful warriors in Sanctuary by playing them in the latest season.

As a class that has accompanied almost the entire development of Diablo 4, it has to be said that Necromancer also has the classic Diablo 4 dark aesthetic style in appearance and skill style. In battle, they mainly utilize bone and blood spells to output damage to the enemy, and can summon corpses and undead armies to help fight. They are truly strong.

As time comes to Season 8, even facing the latest ultimate boss Belial and his army of Apparition, Necromancer is still a very competitive class, but the premise is that you can quickly upgrade the character to the maximum level as a Necromancer to quickly pass the level. Based on this, we will introduce you to a good and easy-to-use Necromancer Leveling Build, so that you can continue to enjoy the unique charm of Necromancer in Season 8.

Blood Surge Necromancer Leveling Build

Based on the skill characteristics of this build, you can call it Blood Surge Necromancer Leveling Build. This build utilizes Blood Surge, one of the main skills of Necromancer, as the core damage source, and combines it with the skeletal minions that this class can summon for auxiliary output. In this way, in battle, you can not only effectively cause damage to single bosses, but also utilize minions to clear a large area of ​​​​group enemies, quickly complete effective Diablo 4 Gold accumulation, and gain a lot of XP to upgrade as soon as possible.

Best Active Skills

In addition to the essential core skill Blood Surge, this Necromancer Leveling Build also requires you to match it with other active skills, and through skill rotation, the synergy between them can further improve your combat efficiency. The main ones include the following:

1. Enhanced Hemorrhage

When you cast Blood Surge in battle, in order to keep it working, you must generate a steady stream of essence as the power source of this skill, and Enhanced Hemorrhage can do this very well. It is the most suitable essence generator for Necromancer class.

2. Paranormal Blood Surge

As an advanced version of Blood Surge, this skill can also be used as your main source of damage output. More importantly, after the paranormal upgrade, you can trigger overpower effect every five times you attack the enemy with this skill.

3. Raise Skeleton

This skill mainly allows your skeleton soldiers to provide damage assistance to Blood Surge in battle through Skirmishers with the additional skeleton upgrade and Ice Mages with the essence generation upgrade.

4. Ghastly Bone Prison

Bone Prison makes enemies more vulnerable and susceptible to damage, but Ghastly Bone Prison can generate more essence for you on top of that, becoming your extra essence generator besides Enhanced Hemorrhage is working.

5. Horrid Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden can cause enemies to take damage over time and take backlash damage when they attack you or your minions, while the horrid version can generate essence for you by cursing them.

6. Supreme Soulrift

Besides providing enough damage and vulnerability, it also provides you with a stable source of essence, ensuring that you can continuously utilize Blood Surge to attack enemies. The specific operation method is to first release Blood Surge on the enemy, then use other essence generating skills to ensure that Blood Surge continues to operate, and then continue to utilize Blood Surge through Supreme Soulrift when fighting elites or bosses until the essence is exhausted.

Best Passive Skills

The passive skills for this build are mainly blood-based, and their main purpose is to provide damage bonuses to your gear while maintaining your health. They include:

• Unliving Energy (3)
• Skeletal Warrior Mastery (3)
• Skeletal Mage Mastery (3)
• Amplify Damage (3)
• Death’s Embrace (3)
• Coalesced Blood (3)
• Tides of Blood (3)
• Drain Vitality (3)
• Transfusion (3)
• Rathma’s Vigor

The main ones that can provide damage bonuses are Coalesced Blood, Tides of Blood, Transfusion, Drain Vitality, and Rathma’s Vigor. As long as you can maintain your character’s health level and pick up Blood orbs generated by Hemorrhage and Blood Surge through Transfusion in time, these damage-based passive skills can be effective.

Best Boss Powers

As a seasonal feature of Season 8, it’s worth aligning all your builds with boss powers, which will give you an unexpected advantage during the season, and these powers only require defeating related bosses to obtain - of course, the more powerful the boss, the more dangerous it is. For Blood Surge Necromancer Leveling Build, the best boss powers include:

• Ashava’s Poison Breath (Main Power): When you attack an enemy affected by damage over time effect, you can continue to fire poison waves at them.
• Beastmaster’s Training (Modifier): Increases the damage dealt by your summoned minions based on your critical damage output.
• Hatred Embrace’s Hate (Modifier): Gives you additional critical chance based on your shadow resistance.

Best Aspects & Gear

After matching skills and seasonal powers, it’s also important to choose aspects and gear. The first and most essential aspect is Blood-bathed Aspect, because when placed in the amulet, it allows the core skill Blood Surge to cast two novas in combat. Other good aspects include Aspect of Occult Dominion, Aspect Of Reanimation and Aspect Of Rathma’s Chosen.

As for gear or other items, there are no specific options that are required. You just need to make sure your gear can provide essence, damage and survivability as much as possible, or gear that can increase the level of related skills and passive skills is also very good.

The above is the core information for leveling up quickly in Season 8 through Blood Surge Necromancer Leveling Build. If you can master them, I believe you can continue to kill people as a Necromancer in Season 8! Have fun!

Reputation is a core mechanism in Diablo 4. Although it will change its name and unlock and obtain methods according to the change of seasons, its existence is always to help you accumulate Reputation to get more precious rewards in the new season, such as skill points, Paragon points, potion charges and more.

In the recently launched Diablo 4 Season 8, the reputation system is named Unveiler’s Oath Reputation. It is combined with the new questline of the season to start the journey of the new season for you, encouraging you to earn Diablo 4 Gold and rare unique items and Resplendent Spark by actively participating in various new tasks and events in Season 8. Based on this, we will introduce you in detail how Unveiler’s Oath Reputation works and its specific rewards.

How To Unlock Reputation System?

As one of the main components of Diablo 4 Season 8, the reputation system is closely related to the main questline of Season 8. The new season NPCs associated with this questline are retired Vizjerei mage Sayeena, and Jarius, who claims to be a knight of Cathedral of Light. You need to join them and start your new season adventure around the theme of Season 8, “Belial’s Return” and the related Apparition Incursions event.

To do this, first you must make sure you have completed all Diablo 4 pre-campaign content and created a Season 8 character, then go to Kyovashad Waypoint and talk to the strange NPC here to start and gradually complete Lord of Lies questline to unlock Unveiler’s Oath Reputation.

It is necessary to remind you in advance that after unlocking the reputation system and earning points for it, you can collect the corresponding reputation rewards near Tarsarak waypoint in Kehjistan. If you want to keep track of your current reputation level at any time, click on the notice board to view the reputation rank UI.

How To Improve Reputation Rank?

For Season 8, the main gameplay and innovation is to earn boss power by killing each boss, and participate in the new seasonal event Apparition Incursions. Fortunately, the way to earn Unveiler’s Oath Reputation points to upgrade levels is also based on these two contents.

Farming S8 Bosses

In fact, farming bosses have always been the core gameplay of Diablo 4, especially when you enter the endgame stage, and this will become your main source of gold and new gear. The bosses in Season 8 can not only provide you with the boss power as a combat aid, but also their own ladder mechanism has changed.

The past endgame bosses in Diablo 4 were changed to lair bosses in Season 8. You no longer need to collect summoning materials for them. You can challenge them as long as you unlock Torment difficulty. But correspondingly, you need to collect the lair keys corresponding to each boss in order to open their hoards after killing them to take away the loot.

There are 24 bosses in Diablo 4 Season 8. Because of their different challenge difficulties, the corresponding levels are also different. From high to low, they are:

Legendary Boss:

• Andariel
• Belial
• Duriel
• Harbinger of Hatred
• Lilith

Rare Boss:

• Beast in the Ice
• Echo of Varshan
• Grigoire
• Lord Zir
• Urivar
• Ashava
• Avarice
• Wandering Death

Magic Boss:

• 10 bosses of Apparition Incursions

Completing Apparition Incursions Event

As we have introduced, there will be 10 magic-level Apparition bosses in Apparition Incursions, as well as a Belial’s lesser former. Although these enemies are easier to deal with than other main bosses, they provide a lot of benefits, not only reputation points, but also Apparition boss power and special currency Spectral Ash that can increase the power level of all bosses.

This event works similarly to Headhunts in Season 7, and will spawn periodically throughout Season 8 in various locations in Sanctuary. Entering an Apparition Incursion event and killing the normal enemies will spawn two magic Apparition bosses and a lesser Apparition of Belial. Killing them will complete the event and earn you the rewards.

Unveiler’s Oath Reputation Rewards

There are 18 reward levels in this reputation system. Every time you accumulate a certain number of points and reach the corresponding level, you will receive corresponding rewards, including items and crafting materials, etc. The most valuable rank 18 cache even contains a Resplendent Spark. Additionally, as you level up your reputation, you’ll unlock additional seasonal story quests and unique items for your class, as follows:

Rank 1-5

• Rank 1: Currency Cache
• Rank 2: Spectral Cache
• Rank 3: Buried Hope
• Rank 4: Currency Cache
• Rank 5: Masked Truths

Rank 6-10

• Rank 6: Spectral Cache
• Rank 7: Chasing Lies
• Rank 8: Currency Cache
• Rank 9: The Lord of Lies
• Rank 10: Lair Cache

Rank 11-15

• Rank 11: Masterworking Cache
• Rank 12: Mystery Archetype Cache
• Rank 13: Lair Cache
• Rank 14: Masterworking Cache
• Rank 15: Mystery Greater Archetype Cache

Rank 16-18

• Rank 16: Greater Lair Cache
• Rank 17: Masterworking Cache
• Rank 18: Resplendent Cache

In order to get all the reputation rewards as soon as possible, it is recommended that you speed up your Diablo 4 Season 8 farming progress from now on! Good luck!

Diablo 4 Season 8 is now officially online, and everything is going according to the established schedule. Although there are some minor bugs such as Reliquaries’ mechanism failing to issue rewards normally, it does not affect your experience of the new season as a whole.

Therefore, the top priority for you is to adapt to the rhythm of the new season as soon as possible and complete all the pre-tasks that are important for promoting the game progress, such as A Deceitful Incursion quest.

This quest is actually part of Season 8 seasonal event Apparition Incursion, and from the perspective of the seasonal plot, this event is closely related to the ultimate boss of this season, Belial - the small bosses in Apparition Incursion are all minions of Belial. Based on this, we will bring you a guide to A Deceitful Incursion quest based on the introduction of Apparition Incursion.

A Deceitful Incursion Quest

Think of this quest as a prequel to Apparition Incursion event, as it shows you how these Apparition Incursions work, so completing it will help you better understand the new seasonal mechanics and events.

How To Complete This Quest?

After you begin your Season 8 journey, Sayeena will tell you that she has found some rather unsettling apparitions near the eastern end of Fractured Peaks. You will then need to follow the coordinates she provides to the corresponding waypoint and clear out the enemies after entering the newly revealed dungeon.

The first enemy to attack you inside the dungeon will be Apparition of Kirma. A huge beast with multiple AOE attacks and powerful melee attacks, Kirma is very dangerous, so attack it while keeping as much distance as possible. It is recommended that you use the unstoppable movement skill if possible to get rid of any stun effects caused by Kirma, and continue to attack it until it dies. Then return to Kyovashad and speak to Sayeena again to complete A Deceitful Incursion quest.

What Is Apparition Incursion?

It’s no surprise that most of the seasonal highlights of Season Of Belial’s Return revolve around the concept of “bosses”, both new bosses and boss powers. As a seasonal event, Apparition Incursion is a bit like a boss mode. Compared to other endgame content, this event is easier to complete, but it is also rich, so it is also the best source of early boss powers and Diablo 4 Gold for you.

From a story perspective, in the early seasons of Diablo 4, the main villain Lilith has died, and Apparition enemies or bosses are low-level demons who have taken over some of Lilith’s evil purposes. The overall structure of Apparition Incursion is similar to Legion event, but the difference is that it will drop special seasonal currency and reputation for you through Sayeena’s reward track after you complete the event.

How To Start And Play Apparition Incursion?

Apparition Incursions are similar to Helltides in that they start to spawn randomly on the map after you enter Season 8, every 5 minutes, and there are no additional prerequisites for participating in Apparition Incursions. So it’s not hard to find and participate in these events, and you can do it with your teammates at any time.

After entering the current Apparition Incursion event, you will encounter special enemies with Belial’s green mark on their bodies in the corresponding area. Killing them can fill the progress bar corresponding to the event. When the progress bar is filled, an Apparition boss will appear. Killing him will gain the corresponding boss power.

It is worth noting that during the event, a green symbol called Betraying Eye will appear on the ground. Interacting with this symbol will cause more ordinary Apparition enemies to spawn near you, thereby filling the event progress bar faster to summon the boss.

Each separate Apparition Incursion event will have 2 random Apparition bosses and a Belial’s minion form encounter. These fights are all difficult, and each Apparition boss has a unique attack pattern, so you must be well prepared to deal with them immediately after you have dealt with the normal enemies.

After killing Apparition boss and Belial’s minion form, in addition to the relevant boss power, you will also receive an event chest, which can be opened to obtain seasonal currency called Spectral Ash. This currency can upgrade the boss power you have from level 1 to the maximum level 20, and can only be dropped through Apparition Incursion event and A Deceitful Incursion quest. The amount of Spectral Ash required to upgrade the power of bosses of different rarities is as follows:

Magic Boss Powers:

• Rank 1-2: 15 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 3-6: 30 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 7-11: 60 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 12-16: 120 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 17-20: 240 Spectral Ash

Rare Boss Powers:

• Rank 1-2: 20 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 3-6: 40 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 7-11: 80 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 12-16: 160 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 17-20: 320 Spectral Ash

Legendary Boss Powers:

• Rank 1-2: 25 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 3-6: 50 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 7-11: 100 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 12-16: 200 Spectral Ash
• Ranks 17-20: 400 Spectral Ash

After understanding the above content, if you have already created your Season 8 character, please start completing A Deceitful Incursion quest and Apparition Incursion event immediately! I wish you all the best!

We all know that Diablo 4 Season 8 is a seasonal journey centered around the boss mechanic, whether it is the return of Belial, the Lord of Lies, or the new Boss Powers, it proves that these powerful bosses are the core theme you want to pursue this season.

However, Diablo 4’s past seasonal bosses also have their own characteristics, and what changes and improvements have appeared in these bosses in Season 8 that are worth players’ time to challenge them repeatedly? Here, we will discuss these changes one by one, whether it is boss summons, loot, and overall quality of life, so that you are fully prepared to fight these bosses when you enter Diablo 4 Season 8: Belial’s Return.

Boss Summons

First of all, you can now teleport to the boss level immediately without having to run there from town. This slight change will make farming boss changes more streamlined. After all, no one is willing to spend a lot of time on repeated journeys.

Secondly, summoning bosses will be completely free. You can simply enter the boss’s lair, then go to Boss Summoning Altar and click on it to summon the boss, without any boss summoning materials.

The only exception is Uber Belial, you must complete the season questline to unlock Belial’s lair, but other than that, even Belial’s summoning is completely free.

The purpose of this change is to save you from wasting precious Diablo 4 Gold and materials to summon a boss you can’t kill. And this brings us to our third point.

In order to get loot from the boss you kill, you must spend a certain number of specific materials, namely Lair Boss Keys, on Hoard chest that appears after the boss dies in order to open the treasure chest and get the loot.

Loot Unlock

And the loot you can get is linked to the materials you spend. This means that if you spend materials to open a Hoard chest, even if there are players in your party who killed the boss with you, as long as they didn’t spend materials to open the chest, they will not receive the loot. Only those who actually spend materials will receive the loot, and this change is intended to prevent lazy teammates.

So even if someone without any materials joins your party, they can’t get the loot without spending their own materials. However, in Season 8, materials can still be traded, and unique items can also be traded. We can imagine that some rare materials will be sold at sky-high prices in the late game, so hoarding materials in time may bring you a lot of Diablo 4 Gold!

Let’s talk about the cost of farming these bosses and looting all the rewards. Lair Boss ladder in Season 8 is divided into three difficulty levels: Initiate, Greater, and Exalted. The higher the difficulty of the challenge, the higher the quality of the loot dropped. Currently, the material costs of bosses of different levels have been unified, which are:

• Initiate: 12
• Greater: 3
• Exalted: 2

Previously, summoning different bosses mostly required multiple different types of materials, but now they only need one, which greatly improves the efficiency of farming these bosses. In addition, all materials can be stacked up to 99 types, which makes inventory management much easier. The specific Lair Boss Keys and materials required for Hoard chests dropped by these bosses are as follows:

• Varshan Lair Keys: Malignant Heart x12
• Grigoire Lair Keys: Living Steel x12
• Beast in the Ice Lair Keys: Distilled Fear x12
• Lord Zir Lair Keys: Exquisite Blood x12
• Urivar Lair Keys: Judicator’s Mask x12
• Duriel Lair Keys: Shard of Agony x3
• Andariel Lair Keys: Pincushioned Doll x3
• Harbinger of Hatred Lair Keys: Abhorrent Heart x3
• Belial Lair Keys: Betrayer’s Husk x2

Mini Belial & Uber Belial

Now let’s continue this topic, because the boss changes are not over yet, there are two new bosses in Season 8 that deserve our attention, they are: Mini Belial and Uber Belial.

After you kill any Initiate and Greater Boss, there is a chance that Mini Belial will appear. Based on Season 8 PTR, the chance is about 20%-30%.

It is important to note that Belial will also only drop loot for the player who opened his Hoard. So if two players in your party do not have their Hoard open, and only the third player spends materials to open Hoard, and this player who opens Hoard also summons Mini Belial, then only the person who opened Hoard will get loot from Mini Belial, and no one else will.

So, this means that you can’t just focus on leveling up your character to kill the boss, it is also very important to properly farm these Lair Boss Keys. After all, you don’t want to get nothing after working so hard to defeat the boss!

Regarding the loot table, Mini Belial will drop loot from the same loot table as the boss that was just killed, so if you summon Mini Belial, the loot you just got from killing the boss will be doubled.

Additionally, Mini Belial will drop Betrayer’s Husks, which are key ingredients for looting Uber Belial’s loot chests.

Uber Belial is Pinnacle boss in Season 8. You’ll need to progress the seasonal questline to a certain point before you can summon him, but you can also summon him for free. When you defeat him, you’ll need to spend two Betrayer’s Husks to open his Hoard.

When you open Uber Belial’s Hoard, you’ll be able to freely choose which boss’ loot table you want to take loot from. This means that in addition to Uber Belial being guaranteed to drop at least two Ancestral Unique items, you can also target farming specific bosses, and more importantly, Uber Belial has the highest chance of dropping Mythic Unique items in the game, and these two things alone make Uber Belial a very desirable farming target in Season 8.

These are the major changes made to seasonal bosses in Diablo 4 Season 8. Honestly, as a boss season, these changes make our farming process easier, but unlocking these boss loot still requires repeated farming materials, so do these changes still make sense?

As one of the classic classes in Diablo 4, Necromancer has always had a good status and popularity in the game. Even when facing new classes with additional advantages, Necromancer can give you a unique combat experience in battle.

Of course, considering the changes and impacts brought about by the change of seasons, not only Diablo 4 should make relevant adjustments to Necromancer in a timely manner, but you should also adjust your builds usage strategy after entering the new season if you want to keep playing Necromancer.

Since Necromancer obtained the new ultimate skill Shadow in Season 6, several new builds built around this skill have appeared. Among them, Soulmaker Necromancer Endgame Build quickly became one of the strongest builds of Necromancer by combining it with Bone Spirit. Based on this, this time we will mainly introduce you how to match skills for this build so that it can continue to help you complete the necessary Diablo 4 Gold farming in the upcoming Season 8.

Primary Skills

Choosing primary skills for Soulmaker Necromancer Endgame is not that hard compared to most other Necromancer builds, the main thing to consider is that Bone Spirit in this build is not a primary damage source, but a utility skill that works by quickly consuming and generating the essence needed by The Unmaker.

While using this build, you can also use the huge AOE created by Soulrift to manually apply Decrepify to enemies when they are outside Aspect of the Cursed to deal more damage to them. In addition, Corpse Tendrils can be used as a source of blood orbs for Blood Begets Blood, Reap can provide you with additional damage reduction and attack speed bonuses in special situations, and Blood Mist has a chance to help you get out of dangerous situations. The following are specific primary skills point allocation suggestions:

• Soulrift: Prime Soulrift - 5/5 - Ultimate
• Bone Spirit: Ghastly Bone Spirit - 1/5 - Corpse & Macabre
• Reap: Initiate’s Reap - 1/5 - Basic
• Blood Mist: Enhanced Blood Mist - 1/5 - Corpse & Macabre
• Decrepify: Abhorrent Decrepify - 1/5 - Curse
• Corpse Tendrils: Blighted Corpse Tendrils - 1/5 - Corpse & Macabre

Passive Skills

Since its birth and being put into use, this build has been famous for its powerful passive skill effects, such as Gloom and Terror. There are also many new passive skills added in each season that can provide new benefits to this build.

Key Passive

Like other Necromancer builds, the classic Shadowblight is not a good choice for Soulmaker Necromancer Endgame Build. Affliction is a better choice, as it only provides 15% damage, but it actually does much more than that.

Offensive Passive

Generally speaking, all available offensive passives will make this build better, but Gloom is the most valuable choice overall.

Defensive Passive

Necrotic Carapace is the most important defensive passive for a Soulmaker Necromancer, as it is your only source of Fortify in combat. In addition to Soulrift, which can maintain your barrier in the heat of battle, Necrotic Fortitude can continue to maintain the barrier effect without Soulrift. As for skills that can provide damage reduction, Stand Alone is a good choice.

Other Utility Passive

Rapid Ossification helps maintain Bone Spirit’s duration, Serration has a chance to trigger Enhanced Bone Spirit’s critical hits, and Hewed Flesh allows you to use them to generate Blood Orbs after hitting an enemy - they are all passive skills worth adding.

In addition, Soulmaker Necromancer has the flaw that most Necromancer builds have, which is that its low mobility leads to insufficient movement speed. For this reason, it is recommended that you add Death’s Approach and Reaper’s Pursuit as one of your passive skills.

Skill Rotation Idea

After understanding the skills that need to be added, you also need to use these skills in the corresponding rotation order to really play their role, so it is recommended to follow the steps below:

• Use Bone Spirit or Corpse Tendrils 16 times until Runeword Yul/Xan activates.
• Enable The Unmaker through Soulrift.
• Make sure your next damage source comes from The Unmaker to ensure that all subsequent damage can trigger crit and overpower.
• Cast Bone Spirit to regenerate Essence before hitting a target, and to ensure that the damage from The Unmaker is triggered before Bone Spirit deals damage to itself.
• Decrepify can be used as a less efficient alternative to trigger Rapid Ossification if Bone Spirit is on cooldown.
• Hold Bone Spirit and consume all Essence to extend the duration of Soulrift.
• Use Tempering Affixes to generate more Essence, allowing you to trigger The Unmaker’s damage multiple times during combat.
• Use Corpse Tendrils to generate more Blood Orbs when necessary, and use Reap to gain damage reduction and attack speed buffs.

It is worth noting that when rotating skills, don’t forget to use Runeword Yul/Xan, which allows you to consume Essence to ensure that the next skill will cause crit and overpower, because you must ensure that the next skill to deal damage is The Unmaker during the relevant buff, and only Runeword Yul/Xan can do this.

After understanding the above content, it is expected that you will be able to complete your own Soulmaker Necromancer Endgame Build in Season 8. Of course, it will be even better if you can match it with rare gear or legendary aspects! So please continue to accumulate resources for building this build!

During the developer livestream on April 24, the developers announced more details about Season 8, which will be released on the 29th, and also announced that a new patch 2.2.0 will be released. According to the data released, the patch is mainly focused on strengthening and weakening the six classes in the game appropriately, while fixing some problems in the system, so that Season 8 can bring you a more balanced Diablo 4 experience.

According to this livestream and other official news, both the new content of Season 8 and the changes brought by patch 2.2.0 have a great impact on the next development of the game. To help you prepare for these changes, we will introduce the main information for you.

Main Changes In Season 8

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest changes in Season 8 compared to the past is the new battle pass system Reliquaries. This system changes the previous battle pass settings and allows you to receive rewards in the order you want, giving you more freedom in terms of benefits. Other loot and Diablo 4 Gold reward settings are also expected to be further optimized to improve your overall gaming experience.

Compared to the changes in the basic system, the pure new content is obviously more attractive to you, such as the return of the classic Diablo 3 boss Belial in Diablo 4, and the army of Apparition he brought-you will be able to experience the related Apparition Incursions event. In addition, the 24 boss powers that can be obtained and equipped are also very powerful, and some of them even come from terrible lair bosses like Lilith.

Another new event that is worth looking forward to is Berserk crossover that will be launched in Diablo 4 on May 6. During the event, you can get Behelits by defeating enemies and exchange them for more special event rewards, such as Hawks Destiny Back Trophy or Skull Knight’s Heraldry Mount Armor. And you can also exchange other new Berserk-related new armor and appearances with gold or event tokens in the in-game store.

Patch 2.2.0 Main Content

In general, the focus of the 2.2.0 update is to make the game provide a more balanced gaming experience. On the one hand, the strength of each class is adjusted uniformly, and on the other hand, the boss mechanism is changed, so that the boss battle will not be too difficult for you while maintaining a certain challenge, and the loot provided can also match the difficulty, rather than too little or too much. For example, Duriel has a new combat mechanism, and Lord Zir can output more damage.

Specific Changes To Each Class

The adjustment of the 6 classes is mainly reflected in the changes to the damage and defense values ​​of some major skills to make them more in line with the combat requirements of Season 8.

Barbarian

• Whirlwind: Damage increased from 32% to 52%.
• Furious Whirlwind: Bleed damage increased from 40% of Whirlwind’s base damage over 5 seconds to 120% weapon damage over 5 seconds.
• Double Swing: Fury consume reduced from 25 to 20; damage increased from 60% to 66%.
• Hammer of the Ancients: Fury consume reduced from 35 to 30; damage increased from 90% to 98%.
• Upheaval: Fury consume reduced from 40 to 35; damage increased from 120% to 132%.
• Rend: Fury consume reduced from 35 to 30.
• Warrior’s Mighty Throw: Damage bonus reduced from 200% to 50%.
• Steel Grasp: Base damage increased from 35% to 80%.
• Fighter’s Steel Grasp: Damage bonus reduced from 400% to 200%.
• Warrior’s Steel Grasp: Number of charges gained increased from 1 to 2.

Druid

• Storm Strike: Chain acquisition radius increased by 50%.
• Cyclone Armor: Non-physical damage resist increased from 15% to 20%.
• Ravens: Passive damage increased from 31% to 90%.
• Poison Creeper: Passive damage over 2 seconds increased from 47% to 65%; Active damage over 2 seconds increased from 126% to 180%.

Necromancer

• Blood Lance: Always spreads Lanced effect to another enemy, even when hitting a non-Lanced enemy.
• Blood Wave: Damage increased from 450% to 500%.
• Bone Storm: Damage increased from 300% to 350%.

Rogue

• Shadow Clone: Always a Cutthroat Skill, rather than only with its Rank 5 Bonus.
• Death Trap: Base cooldown increased from 50 seconds to 60 seconds; cooldown reduction from kill or Overpower reduced from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Prime Death Trap: Bonus trap damage reduced from 50% to 20%.

Sorcerer

• Ice Shards: Shard projectiles now spawn slightly further behind the player to consistently hit close enemies.
• Familiar: The casting of Familiar has been refined, resulting in snappier gameplay.

Spiritborn

• Rushing Claw: Base damage increased from 50% to 80%.
• The Seeker: Rank 5 bonus capped at 200% damage increase.
• The Devourer: Rank 5 bonus capped at 200% damage increase.
• Poised Rushing Claw: Rushing Claw now has 20 maximum charges. Casting it consumes all of its charges to increase its damage by 25% per charge and it hits a larger area.

No matter which class you decide to start with in Season 8, you must understand the basic gameplay of the class and adapt to these skill changes in order to better master the class. I hope you can achieve excellent results in the new season!

In the content we have introduced about Diablo 4 Season 8, the new concept of “lair boss” has been mentioned to you more than once. No doubt, this is enough to arouse your curiosity and attention, and make you realize that this will be an important mechanism in Season 8.

Before Season 8, lair boss was called endgame boss. Although the name has changed, in essence, lair boss still refers to those dangerous bosses that appear in the endgame stage. What is really worth your attention is that the unlocking of lair boss encounters and the way to obtain loot will change greatly from Season 8. If you still use the old strategy to deal with these bosses, you are likely to lose everything in Diablo 4 Season 8.

In order to avoid this situation and allow you to welcome the arrival of the new season with the most relaxed attitude, we will introduce you in detail how to earn loot through lair boss.

What Is Lair Boss?

Since a few seasons ago, some players have always felt that Diablo 4’s endgame difficulty and loot drop settings are not good enough. The development team has fully learned from the lessons and started relevant reforms starting from Season 8 - lair boss is one of the results.

Compared with previous endgame boss battles, lair boss battles are expected to be more difficult, more challenging, and require longer battles, and have higher situational awareness requirements. However, correspondingly, after defeating these bosses, you will be able to earn more Diablo 4 Gold and unique items with a more stable drop rate.

What Is Special About The Lair Boss Mechanism?

In addition to the difficulty upgrade and more guaranteed loot quality, the special features of this new boss mechanism are mainly reflected in two aspects:

First, unlocking the lair boss no longer requires you to collect summoning materials in advance. I believe that in the past, after entering the endgame, you always ran between various areas on the map to collect boss summoning materials. Although you were happy when you got the loot, this preparatory work was indeed a bit troublesome, not to mention that you might collect the materials but still fail to defeat the boss.

As for the second feature, it is actually closely related to the first one, that is, there are very few loot you can pick up directly after killing the boss. You must collect the corresponding lair keys to open the boss’s hoard to open more loot. This change adjusts the summoning materials to lair keys, and changes the time node for investing additional materials from before the battle to after the battle, so that the process of obtaining loot can still be challenging while avoiding material waste.

How To Participate In The Lair Boss Mechanism?

When you enter Diablo 4 endgame stage and unlock Torment difficulty, you can challenge the lair boss at any Torment difficulty level. All lair bosses are divided into 3 levels, from low to high:

• Initiate Lair Bosses: Beast in the Ice, Grigoire, Lord Zir, Varshan, and Urivar.
• Greater Lair Bosses: Andariel, Duriel, and Harbinger of Hatred.
• Exalted Lair Bosses: Belial, Lord of Lies.

It is worth noting that Belial is the final boss newly added in Season 8, while Urivar and Harbinger of Hatred are new bosses from DLC Vessel of Hatred, which means that if you want to challenge the latter two bosses in Season 8, you must have DLC.

Lair Boss Keys

The number and type of keys required to unlock the hoards of lair bosses of different levels are also different, as follows:

• Initiate: 12
• Greater: 3
• Exalted: 2

Exclusive Keys

• Malignant Heart: Varshan
• Living Steel: Grigorie
• Distilled Fear: Beast in the Ice
• Exquisite Blood: Lord Zir
• Judicator’s Mask: Urivar
• Shard of Agony: Duriel
• Pin-Cushioned Doll: Andariel
• Hatred Hearts: Harbinger of Hatred
• Betrayer’s Husk: Belial, Lord of Lies

Comparatively, the drop rate of the exclusive key of the greater lair boss will be lower. In order to balance this setting, the game allows you to obtain Stygian Stone that may drop when killing the Initiate lair boss. This item can be used to exchange for the greater lair boss key.

In addition, since the above items are set as lair boss keys, their drop rates in the corresponding channels also need to be increased to meet the needs of the system. For this reason, Diablo 4 has made the following adjustments:

• Helltide Chests will drop more Living Steel.
• Nightmare Dungeons will drop more Distilled Fear.
• Blood Maiden will drop more Exquisite Blood for each contributed Baneful Heart.
• Legion Events drop more Exquisite Blood.
• World Bosses drop more Exquisite Blood.
• Random Boss Keys are more likely to be a key other than Malignant Heart.

How To Find Lair Boss?

Diablo 4 Season 8 has set up unique icons for lair bosses on the map to make them easier to distinguish. Once you find these marks, you can use the new teleport function to teleport directly to the boss to challenge them. In addition, to ensure that you can open hoards in time after winning, the description of each lair boss will list the type of lair key required for the boss and tell you whether you have enough keys.

It is expected that after Season 8 is officially launched, there will be more details about the lair boss mechanism waiting for you to discover, which can help you farm these bosses more efficiently. Good luck!

Since the launch of Diablo 4, the battle pass has been a major bonus system alongside season blessing and season journey, and their purpose is to reward you based on your progress in the game to keep you moving forward.

However, just like the gameplay and season content need to be updated regularly, these bonus systems also need to be updated to keep up with the times if they need to continue to cooperate smoothly with the game. Take the battle pass as example, while it has not been a bad performance so far, it would be better if it gave you more autonomy and ensured that you could explore Diablo 4 more freely.

So with Season 8 approaching, Diablo 4 has made an important announcement that the battle pass will add Reliquaries as a new built-in reward system. So what can this new system reward you with, and how can you unlock it? We will tell you one by one.

What Is Reliquary?

First of all, after the update, you will no longer have to unlock and obtain battle pass rewards in order as in the past, but you can choose the order in which to obtain rewards. This means that you can use the battle pass as one of your shortcuts to accumulate Diablo 4 Gold in the early stages of the new season, without having to work hard to farm because of the restrictions on the order of rewards.

As for the new Reliquaries system, it is actually a reward catalog that can be divided into two parts, namely Battle Pass Reliquaries and Event Reliquaries, of which the former is more closely related to the daily operation of the game. Battle Pass Reliquaries contain four independent Reliquaries that can provide you with different rewards. Taking Season 8 as an example, the four Battle Pass Reliquaries options provided in this season are Belial’s Return, Weapons, Beasts, and Armor.

Most Reliquaries must be exchanged for Platinum, but Belial’s Return is a non-premium Battle Pass Reliquary. Not only can it be obtained without Platinum, it can even reward you with a large amount of Platinum that can be exchanged for other Reliquaries! Weapons, beasts, and armor are premium Reliquaries, which can be redeemed by Platinum or obtained as part of the battle pass bundles.

When Season 8 is officially released on April 29, you can check your Platinum inventory at any time in the game to decide how to use it. It is worth noting that each season’s Battle Pass Reliquaries are only available during the current season, so be sure to redeem Reliquaries you want within the specified time. Any unclaimed Reliquaries rewards will disappear after Reliquaries expire.

Event Reliquaries are basically the same as Reliquaries in the battle pass in terms of function, except that its rewards are set according to special events and IP collaborations, such as Berserk crossover event that will meet you soon. This type of Reliquary is usually open for a short time, so in order to avoid missing out on rewards, you need to check its status in time.

How To Unlock Reliquary?

You need to kill monsters or complete tasks in the game to earn red round tokens called Favor Tokens, which can be used to redeem Reliquary items. At the top of Reliquaries’ system menu is a progress bar that shows how close you are to getting the next Favor Token. You can hold up to 99 Favor Tokens at a time, and you must use some to get more.

Each Reliquary contains cosmetic rewards, and some Reliquaries have specific themes, and the new battle pass system no longer restricts the order in which you can get rewards, which means you can decide which types of cosmetics to get for your Diablo 4 character first. In addition, if you can use Favor Tokens to unlock all the items in a Reliquary, you will receive an additional reward. This reward item will be marked with a star icon and can be claimed without consuming Favor Tokens.

All Season 8 Reliquaries Rewards

This season offers 4 Battle Pass Reliquaries: Belial’s Return, Weapons, Beasts, and Armor, each of which contains a part of Guise of the Deceiver armor set as an additional reward. And in each of the 3 premium Battle Pass Reliquaries, a non-premium weapon cosmetic is available for free.

• Belial’s Return: A mixed bag containing a town portal cosmetic, weapon cosmetics, horse cosmetics, and Platinum. Gloves belonging to Guise of the Deceiver armor.
• Weapons: Weapon cosmetics applicable to all classes. Boots belonging to Guise of the Deceiver armor.
• Beasts: Mounts, mount cosmetics, and a pet. Legs belonging to Guise of the Deceiver armor.
• Armor: Decorative armor sets and town portal decorations applicable to all classes. The chest and helm belonging to Guise of the Deceiver armor.

Other Notes

Perhaps you will want to ask, will the old battle pass tokens be directly abolished after the release of Season 8? The good news is that they will be automatically exchanged for the new Reliquary tokens on April 28:

• Premium Battle Pass Token = Reliquary Premium Battle Pass Token
• Accelerated Battle Pass Upgrade Token = 1,800 Platinum

In addition, since unclaimed Reliquaries rewards will disappear after expiration, please check the exchange period of all Reliquaries through the countdown timer in each Reliquary in the function menu or the details pane in the upper left corner of the corresponding Reliquaries’ menu.

The above is all the information we have brought to you about the New battle pass system Reliquaries. In order to make full use of it, be sure to prepare it before Season 8 goes online! Have fun!

As you all know, Diablo 4 Season 8 will officially take over Season of Witchcraft on April 29, 2025. Of course, a series of new content and balance additions are naturally indispensable, but the return of an evil in S8 has still aroused heated discussions among many players, that is Belial, the Lord of Lies!

Belial’s return is the undisputed highlight of Season 8. He will lead his group of bosses to become the new Pinnacle Boss in Boss Ladder. Although this sounds quite exciting, from a plot perspective, is Belial wasted as a seasonal boss? More importantly, based on the developer’s initial setting, is it really reasonable for Belial to be stronger than other bosses in the latest season?

Here, we explore the position of Belial boss in Diablo 4 Season 8, some of his character plot and background, and whether he is wasted by the plot as a seasonal protagonist instead of appearing in future expansions.

Boss Ladder System Changes

That being said, let’s first look at Season 8, where the developers are completely revamping Boss Ladder system and introducing Belial to the top of the ladder. The arrival of the new boss not only improves the problem that the endgame that players have criticized before is too boring, but also brings players more opportunities to earn Diablo 4 Gold and Unique items, and can also better improve the main storyline.

Admittedly, it is a good thing that Diablo 4 enables more powerful characters to advance the seasonal narrative, and the stories of the previous Season 5 and 7 are very exciting and really expand the world of Sanctuary, especially Season 5, which helps advance the baseline story about Mephisto.

Still, while we have yet to see the seasonal journey and how the story will play out, I am a little skeptical whether it was a wise choice to have Belial, the Lord of Lies, one of the seven Great Evils, become the seasonal Pinnacle Boss in Season 8, or if he would be better suited for an expansion?

Why Did The Master Of Tricks Become Pinnacle Boss?

Firstly, the last time we saw Belial was in Act 2 of Diablo III, where he disguised himself as Emperor Hakan II of Caldeum, thoroughly manipulated the citizens, and drove the former Royal Guards out of the King’s estate.

Now, one thing we have to admit about Belial is that as Lord of Lies, he is more known for his ability to manipulate, deceive, and disguise himself than his actual physical strength and combat abilities, which makes me a little skeptical as to why Belial is considered the strongest boss encounter in Season 8.

More importantly, we can clearly see that in the boss rankings, Andariel, and especially Duriel, are actually superior in terms of actual physical threat in combat.

Belial did have two different forms in Diablo 3, a low form and a very large and intimidating form, so perhaps Belial’s return in D4S8 with a shocking form is enough for us to consider him as a formidable opponent. But overall, I still think it’s a bit puzzling that a master of deception would headline the strongest boss fight in Season 8.

Potential Reasons For Belial’s Return

Now, let’s take a quick look at Belial’s backstory. He and another Lesser Evil, Azmodan, the Lord of Sin, are considered the smartest and most cunning bosses among Lesser Evils, and Belial himself is second only to Mephisto in his ability to manipulate and deceive.

In fact, it is said that Mephisto took Belial in as an apprentice and taught him most of his knowledge, so judging by the story of Diablo 4, it makes sense that Belial would appear in some form during the main quest centered around Mephisto.

However, I feel like Belial would be narratively wasted if he were just a seasonal boss in Diablo 4, since he not only has full voice acting, but also a whole scene dedicated to him.

Perhaps we can go out on a limb and speculate that perhaps in Season 8 someone will help convince the populace that Akarat is back, even though he is actually Mephisto. Then, Belial would be disguised as his right-hand man, possibly as one of Akarat’s followers, helping to further the story of Akarat’s return and the corrupt Zakarum faith being restored to its former glory.

Of course, at some point, I’ll be skeptical of them again. Considering the story of the previous season was pretty good, hopefully Season 8 will have a wonderful narrative that allows one of the seven Great Evils to become the main villain, rather than just giving him a standalone space in the expansion.

Especially considering that Belial is one of the masterminds of Burning Hells, and he originally helped banish the three Prime Evils: Diablo, Lord of Terror, Mephisto, Lord of Hatred, and Baal, Lord of Destruction, from Hell to Sanctuary. In fact, if Belial and Azmodan hadn’t turned on each other to become the sole lord of Hell, they would have been completely defeated and become the masters of Hell.

So, what do you think of Belial’s role and setting in Season 8? Is he more suitable for the narrative as an antagonist in the full expansion? Whether Belial’s return is a wise move to fill in the plot gaps and increase gameplay or a wrong move that will lead Diablo 4 to the abyss, we will have to wait and see!

As you know, once you complete character creation in Diablo 4, as soon as you start fighting, you will want to quickly find a build that suits you best. Considering that there are 6 classes available in the game, and each class has different skills and unique items, it is sometimes difficult to quickly determine which builds will be more suitable for you.

Fortunately, after multiple seasons of verification, you will find that there are some builds that will suit most situations, and may even become more powerful because they can work well with the new items added in the new season, such as Hammer of the Ancients HotA Build.

This build is one of Barbarian builds. As the name suggests, it is created with Fury skill Hammer of the Ancients as the core. Due to the applicability of this skill, similar builds have provided considerable help to Barbarian players in multiple Diablo 4 seasons. Hammer of the Ancients HotA Build has become even more powerful with the addition of the unique item Mantle of Mountain’s Fury Mantle in Season 7!

After entering Season 8, Barbarian will also get new unique items, and all classes will get boss power (seasonal power), so can they make this build more powerful and more worth using in the new season? Let us introduce it to you.

Overview Of The Pros And Cons Of This Build

As the saying goes, knowing yourself and the enemy will win every battle, so if you want to defeat the enemy with Hammer of the Ancients HotA Build, in addition to understanding the enemy’s situation, you also need to understand all the details of your build, even the shortcomings.

HotA Build can be said to be a build that fully reflects the class characteristics of Barbarian heavy-hitting berserker. In battle, it will release powerful large-scale strikes and earthquakes through the core skill Hammer of the Ancients and the unique item Mountain’s Fury Mantle, thereby quickly clearing the enemy. This combat effect is useful when you plan to accumulate Diablo 4 Gold by farming groups of enemies in low-level dungeons.

In addition, the damage that this build can deal when facing some single enemies or bosses is also very good, and the survivability is enough to cope with most situations, but some characteristics bring advantages but also cause some problems, such as when the walls in the venue block AOE range, it will be difficult to move in narrow corridors, and the mobility is not enough - this seems to be a common problem of most Barbarian builds.

What Skills Are Best For?

In terms of skill selection and use, the use of this build in Season 8 has not changed much, just follow the information we provide. First of all, since HotA Barbarian mainly outputs damage by automatically triggering earthquakes, the core of this build is still Hammer of the Ancients skill, and the choice of the rest of the skills depends on buffs and practicality.

In combat, Hammer of the Ancients can increase your output damage and help you generate more Fury, so that you can continue to attack, while Iron Skin can serve as a defensive layer to provide you with survival guarantee. Alternatively, you can replace Iron Skin with Stomp Strategic Ground or Power Leap, both of which generate additional earthquakes to explode, but they require more skill to use. Iron Skin is easier to master, and it not only gives you passive skills, but also makes you extremely resilient.

Key Passive

• Unconstrained
• War Cry
• Blood Rage

Offensive Passive

• Warpath
• Violent Hammer of the Ancients
• Wallop
• Brute Force
• Heavy Handed

Defensive Passive

• Mantle of Mountain’s Fury
• Defensive Stance
• Ugly Bastard Helm
• Aggressive Resistance

Utility Passive

• Decimator
• Pressure Point

Best Gear

There is a lot of gear available for this build, but the tricky part is that most of the best items and aspects must be farmed through constant combat to get drops, so it may take some time to perfect the gear combination for this build. Although it is okay to replace some of this gear, based on actual testing, the following gear will have better results.

• Helm: Ugly Bastard Helm
• Chest Armor: Mantle of Mountain’s Fury
• Gloves: Fists of Fate
• Pants: Aspect of Bul-Kathos
• Boots: Aspect of Concussive Strikes
• Amulet: Vehement Brawler’s Aspect
• Ring: Bold Chieftain’s Aspect, Ring of Starless Skies
• Main Hand: Executioner’s Aspect
• Off-Hand: Aspect of Elements
• Two-Handed Bludgeoning: Aspect of Incendiary Fissures
• Two-Handed Slashing: Aspect of Earthquakes

Season 8 Available Content

This season will add Bane of Ahjad-Den and Aspect of Delayed Extinction as new unique items for Barbarian class, and you’ll also gain access to boss power as one of the new available combat perks. These special seasonal powers come from the 24 bosses in Diablo 4 Season 8, among which Belial and his followers, that is, the 10 Apparition bosses, are new enemies in this season.

Although it is not yet certain whether the new items can replace the original ones in the build, at least there will be a few boss powers that can help you discover more ways to use Hammer of the Ancients HotA Build, ensuring that the build can continue to play a role in Season 8.

The above is our introduction to some tips for continuing to use Hammer of the Ancients HotA Build in Season 8, as well as speculation on the more development possibilities it can obtain in the new season. I hope it can be helpful to you!