News Tag: Diablo 4 Season 8

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!

If you like to play a mana-based class in ARPG, then Sorcerer will definitely be one class for you when you play Diablo 4. Blizzard, one of the main skills of this class, has been a skill since Diablo 2. It used to be a must-have skill for Cold Sorcerers and Wizards, and now it also makes Sorcerer still very popular among players.

It is precisely because Blizzard is one of the most important Sorcerer skills that Blizzard Sorcerer Endgame Build born around it has also become one of the preferred builds for many Sorcerer players for a long time. And now with the footsteps of Diablo 4 coming to Season 8, how can this build continue to work? Let us introduce it to you.

What Is Blizzard Sorcerer Endgame Build?

Overall, this build is one of the most balanced Sorcerer builds in terms of Blizzard skills. It mainly uses AOE coverage of the core skill Blizzard to deal a lot of critical damage on the one hand and also has crowd control and stun effects on the other hand. In addition, this build can also use the support provided by Glacial Aspect and Aspect of the Frozen Wake to ensure that Ice Spikes can deal damage to enemies, while Snowguard’s Aspect can provide you with damage reduction.

In terms of combat performance, since you can cast skills while moving, this build is very suitable for clearing single targets and mobs in the field, which can effectively increase your early game farming speed of Diablo 4 Gold. In addition, if you can, it is recommended to use Unstable Currents to summon Fire Familiar, which can also cause burn damage, or let Lightning Spear synergize with Primordial Binding while dealing damage.

Active Skill Selection And Usage

When you decide to use this build after the battle begins, first you need to activate Ice Armor as much as possible through Barrier, Snowguard’s Aspect and Storm Swell Aspect, and activate Familiar and Lightning Spear to apply vulnerability to enemies. In terms of damage output, you can increase it through Primordial Binding and cast Blizzard skills in the area where there are enemies.

After that, as all enemies gather closer, AOE effect formed by Glacial Aspect and Aspect of the Frozen Wake will become more obvious. After the cooldown is over, use Unstable Currents to continuously summon Fire Familiar to output the burning effect to enemies, and refresh all cooldown skills when they can be cast again. During the entire process, you can use Teleport to stay mobile while always outputting your attacks, and repeat this process, and you will eventually win.

As for the more specific active skills available in Blizzard Sorcerer Endgame Build, as well as the corresponding modifiers, skill points, and skill trees, they are as follows:

• Teleport: Shimmering Teleport - 1/5 - Defensive
• Ice Armor: Shimmering Ice Armor - 1/5 - Defensive
• Blizzard: Mage’s Blizzard - 1/5 - Mastery
• Lightning Spear: Invoked Lightning Spear - 1/5 - Conjuration
• Familiar: Invoked Familiar - 1/5 - Conjuration
• Unstable Currents: Prime Unstable Currents - 5/5 - Ultimate

Which Passive Skills Are Better?

In terms of the overall layout, the passive skill selection of this build is not much different from most Sorcerer builds. Offensive passive skills include Elemental Dominance and Glass Cannon, while Potent Warding, Elemental Attunement, and Mana Shield can enhance your character’s defensive capabilities.

In addition, in order to bring out the characteristics of this build, it is necessary to add some new passive skills, such as Evocation and Elemental Synergies to enhance your abilities, and Permafrost, Hoarfrost, and Icy Touch to increase your damage output.

Key Passive:

• Enlightenment
• Familiar
• Blizzard
• Enlightenment

Offensive Passive:

• Glass Cannon
• Primordial Binding
• Inner Flames
• Snap Freeze
• Permafrost
• Hoarfrost
• Icy Touch
• Elemental Synergies

Defensive Passive:

• Potent Warding
• Elemental Attunement
• Dampen Layer
• Align the Elements
• Protection
• Mana Shield

Utility Passive:

• Evocation
• Frigid Breeze

Enchantments & Runewords

There are two types of enchantments suitable for this build, namely Teleport Enchantment and Ice Blades Enchantment.

• Teleport Enchantment: Transforms Evade into a Teleport, which increases your mobility and provides damage reduction.
• Ice Blades Enchantment: This is the key to your Vulnerable effects and is one reason why sustainable damage and passive skills work. It can also reduce the cooldown of skills such as Unstable Currents.

As for runewords, the following two combinations are excellent:

• TamOhm - Essential Call To Arms: Casts Enhanced War Cry after casting 20 non-channeled skills, and allows Berserking to provide 15% bonus damage. In fact, when you use Blizzard Sorcerer Endgame Build, you will constantly activate this runeword because of frequent use of Blizzard skills.
• YulWat - Pugilistic Decrepify: Although this runeword needs to be activated after casting two cooldown skills, it is not difficult to do because Blizzard Sorcerer Build requires you to cycle through defensive skills and Unstable Currents. When activated, Decrepify reduces enemy movement speed and damage output, and executes non-boss enemies below 10% health.

Best Gear

Gear selection and matching are equally important for this build, and while some of it requires constant farming to obtain through loot drops, you can also earn gold and XP in the process, which is worthwhile.

• Helm: Harlequin Crest
• Chest Armor: Tyrael’s Might
• Gloves: Aspect of the Frozen Wake
• Pants: Snowguard’s Aspect
• Boots: Aspect of the Orange Herald
• Amulet: Storm Swell Aspect
• Ring: Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop, Ring of Starless Skies
• Main Hand: Glacial Aspect

That’s all we provide to help you to know the usage of Blizzard Sorcerer Endgame Build in Season 8. I hope it helps!

Almost every Diablo 4 season has a final boss that is not only one of the most difficult challenges of the current season, but also matches the theme and background story of the season. Take Season 8’s final boss Belial as an example. As a terrible demon that appeared in Diablo 3, he was about to return to Diablo 4 with his army of Apparition and a batch of boss powers.

Among all 24 boss powers in Diablo 4 Season 8, there is a legendary power from Belial himself and a rare power from Belial’s lesser form. Obviously, it will be more difficult to defeat Belial himself, but the corresponding boss power obtained, Belial’s Eye Beams, will also be more powerful. Based on this, we will introduce you to how to defeat Belial to obtain this power.

Where Can You Find Belial?

First, you can find and fight Belial on any Torment difficulty. He is in Palace of the Deceiver, and the entrance to Palace of the Deceiver is located in Amber Sands area in northern Kehjistan, just west of Tarsarak waypoint.

Kehjistan is actually one of the six major regions in Diablo 4, guarded by a new cult and featuring many desert ruins. The other five regions are Fractured Peaks, Scosglen, Dry Steppes, Hawezar, and Nahantu. Amber Sands is part of Kehjistan, and includes multiple areas, side dungeons that provide Diablo 4 Gold when completed, and most importantly, you can even find Altars of Lilith here!

How To Summon Belial?

In the past, when playing Diablo 4, if you wanted to fight the endgame boss, you had to collect the corresponding summoning materials before finding the corresponding location, and then you could summon them. But in Season 8, first, the endgame boss mechanism is updated to lair boss, and second, summoning these bosses no longer requires materials, but you can only get the loot after the battle if you get the corresponding lair keys.

In Season 8, the lair bosses can be further divided into three levels: Initiate, Greater, and Exalted. The lair keys corresponding to all bosses are:

Initiate Lair Boss

• Varshan: 4 Malignant Heart
• Grigoire: 4 Living Steel
• Beast in the Ice: 4 Distilled Fear
• Lord Zir: 4 Exquisite Blood
• Urivar: 4 Judicator’s Mask

Greater Lair Boss

• Duriel: 4 Shard of Agony from Varshan and Grigoire
• Andariel: 4 Pincushioned Doll from Beast and Lord Zir
• Harbinger of Hatred: 4 Abhorrent Heart from Urivar

Exalted Lair Boss

• Belial: 4 Betrayer’s Husk from Mini Belial

That is to say, in order to get the reward by killing Belial, you must collect 4 Betrayer’s Husks in advance, and this item can only be obtained by defeating Mini Belial or Belial’s lesser form. Usually after you defeat initiate or greater lair bosses, Mini Belial may appear, so be sure to seize the opportunity!

It is worth noting that all initiate lair bosses will drop Stygian Stone after being defeated, which can be turned into the lair key required to summon the greater lair boss, and then continue to unlock greater lair boss hoards by defeating the greater boss.

How To Defeat Belial?

After successfully summoning Belial, you will fight him in Palace of the Deceiver. The whole battle is expected to be divided into three stages. During the first stage, Belial will not fight you directly, but will summon some minions to attack you. If you can defeat them, you will be able to smoothly enter the second stage. Belial’s health will not be very high in this stage, but he will start to use his skills while continuing to summon minions.

When the health of Belial in stage 2 drops below 25% of his total health, stage 3 will begin. During this time, Belial’s health will be restored to maximum and his available skills will change, but he will also be unable to move and will be almost immune to control debuffs, so you must seize the opportunity to cause him as much damage as possible.

What Is The Loot For Belial Boss Battle?

Due to the overall adjustment of the boss mechanism brought by Season 8, you will not get the drops directly after killing Belial, but you will need to unlock hoards through lair keys to get the rewards. Of course, you can also get the corresponding boss power Belial’s Eye Beams by killing this boss, which can provide you with benefits such as damage reduction and invisibility effects.

It is worth noting that starting from Season 8, if you complete the lair boss battle in a team, each team member will increase your chance of getting additional unique items from the lair boss by 33%, which means that if there are four people in the team, this additional chance can even reach 100%!

The above is what we bring to you about how to defeat the ultimate boss Belial in Season 8, as well as the information on the rewards he can provide. Let’s look forward to the arrival of the new season together!

When you create a new character in Diablo 4, the first thing to do is to choose a class for it. In the past, there were some limited classes in Diablo 2 or 3, but some of them were retained in Diablo 4, such as Sorcerer, Rogue, Necromancer, Druid and Barbarian in the 6 classes in Diablo 4, except for the latest class Spiritborn.

Different classes are reflected in specific characters, which will cause your character’s appearance, available skills and even cosmetics to be different, and in Diablo 4, with the change of seasons, the details of each class will be adjusted to varying degrees. For example, in Season 7, the new class Spiritborn was considered too strong before, so it was appropriately weakened.

Now with the approach of Season 8, according to the previous 2.2.0 PTR, you will find that Diablo 4 has made detailed adjustments to each class again. Based on this, we will introduce these adjustments to provide you with reliable reference information for class selection when playing Season 8.

1. Barbarian

Earthquakes is the main feature that allows Barbarian to play a role in multiple Diablo 4 seasons, and it can be perfectly combined with the new seasonal power boss power. As long as there are no major changes after the official release of Season 8, Barbarian builds with Earthquakes as the core will still be one of your best means of Diablo 4 Gold farming. On the one hand, boss power can fully improve the build diversity of most classes, including Barbarian through a variety of matching methods, and on the other hand, boss power itself is already strong enough.

In addition, although the upgrade speed of Barbarian in the new season should not be greatly affected, your game speed will be greatly slowed down between your character reaching level 60 and upgrading the boss power you have obtained to the maximum level, because you need to consume a lot of time and energy to complete the seasonal event Apparition Incursions.

2. Druid

If everything goes as planned, Cataclysm will remain Druid’s main way to dominate the new season. After all, it still performed well in Season 7 even with a nerf. Although the snapshot mechanic is limited, Cataclysm is still a high-A tier build in the 2.2.0 PTR at least.

However, it is worth noting that most of the latest tools and updates for Druid are mediocre in the PTR. For example, the helmet Gathlen’s Birthright requires too many moving parts to work. Although this unique equipment can enable Nature’s Fury builds, it cannot reliably trigger Perfect Storm and Earthen Might, even with Anima of the Forest.

3. Necromancer

Based on the PTR performance, the variety of Necromancer builds has been significantly reduced. In fact, these builds did not dominate the game content in Season 7, but then the witch power made up for it and brought the quality of life function improvements to the skills that desperately needed attention. However, the shift from seasonal power to boss power in Season 8 is likely to make these builds even more disappointing.

Another change that affects the performance of Necromancer in Season 8 is the rework of Blood Lance skill. Blood Lance was previously known for its AOE power, but lacked single-target effectiveness. The rework improves this by removing the piercing effect. However, it must be pointed out that if you use this skill in high monster density, the new changes will still make it difficult for you to be satisfied with this skill.

Overall, Necromancer performed worse than expected in Season 8 and is not the best choice when creating your character. While this change may be because of the dominance of Blood Wave Necromancer build in Season 7, which made the class eye-catching, the new adjustments make Necromancer weaker and may even ruin the class balance of the game.

4. Rogue

If you are a loyal player of this class, you should be frustrated in Season 8 because the changes to Fists of Fate and Worldly Fortune have made Rogue lose the ability to apply crowd control effects to monsters. Although you can become stronger with the help of boss power, this is not a long-term solution because boss power only exists in Season 8.

On the other hand, since the addition of Spiritborn, the original agility and high mobility characteristics of Rogue have become less prominent. If even the strength is not enough, how can the class continue to exist? This is an issue that cannot be ignored by game developers.

5. Sorcerer

According to the 2.2.0 PTR, Sorcerer will be able to have a good performance in Season 8 in both overall strength and diversity through seasonal boss power, and this is mainly due to Andariel’s Flaming Skull’s modifier power, one of the boss powers.

With Combustion, you can let your Sorcerer character convert a large amount of Combustion synergy into a raw and uncapped damage multiplier, and then convert it through Andariel’s Flaming Skull’s modifier to output more damage value. It can be said that in Season 8, as long as you can master this method as a Sorcerer, you can use any builds.

6. Spiritborn

It is expected that in Season 8, Spiritborn will maintain versatility and still have a variety of viable builds. Although this is not enough to make the class as powerful as in Season 6 or DLC, it can at least maintain a good level of damage output. In terms of using boss power, according to PTR performance, Ashava’s Poison Breath and Andariel’s Flaming Skull will be more suitable for Spiritborn.

In general, although the performance of each class in Season 8 is good and bad, if you have a class that you really want to play all the time, you can also try to continue to try it. I believe that boss power will help you! I wish you have fun!

Although Diablo 4 Season 8 has not been officially launched, you must be eagerly looking forward to its arrival through the 2.2.0 PTR and other related information! Fortunately, you are getting closer and closer to the release date of the season on April 29.

However, in order to gain an advantage in a short period quickly after the release of Season 8 and enable your new season character to obtain basic boss power as soon as possible, in addition to completing Season 7 battle pass or seasonal journey to obtain all Diablo 4 Gold or other rewards, you also need to understand some gameplay and strategies of Season 8 events in advance. Based on this, we will bring you an introduction to the core season event Apparition Incursions.

What Is Apparition Incursions Event?

Almost every Diablo 4 season has its own season theme, and in order to fully display this theme, sometimes related season powers and events are launched. For the eighth season, it is the boss power and Apparition Incursions event.

Among them, the boss power allows you to obtain their skills by killing 24 bosses of different levels and types provided by Season 8. Each boss can provide 1 main power and 1 modifier power, but you finally choose only one main power and three modifier powers to equip.

But it is worth noting that when you just enter a new season, your character will definitely not be strong enough to challenge those dangerous lair bosses directly. At this time, the 10 Apparition bosses from Apparition Incursions become your best choice to obtain the power of the first wave of bosses. They are:

• Allek’s Talons
• Beastmaster’s Training
• Blackmailer’s Sabotage
• Flesh Reaper’s Disruption
• Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste
• Kirma’s Sparks
• Outlaw Sharpshooter’s Eye
• Sinerat’s Flames
• Skerg’s Toxins
• Torusk’s Rage

These Apparition bosses are actually the minions of Belial, the ultimate boss of Season 8, who brought these dangerous followers into Sanctuary and started to create chaos. What you have to do is to drive them out and take away the power they provide.

How Does This Event Work?

Apparition Incursions will periodically spawn in the open world of Sanctuary. Once the event starts, large groups of enemies will appear around the area, and an event status bar with a timer will appear below the minimap. Killing these enemies will fill up the status bar, eventually prompting Apparition bosses to spawn at the designated Apparition Incursions icon location.

After you encounter the first Apparition boss and kill it, the event’s invasion icon will move to another location in the area, and a new timer status bar will appear - until you fill it up again by killing enough enemies, and the second Apparition boss will spawn. Killing the second Apparition boss will start a countdown until Belial’s secondary form is summoned. If you can kill Belial, the event will spawn a reward chest for you, which means you have completed an Apparition Incursion.

Best Battle Strategy

Since the timer is long enough and the difficulty of enemies other than the boss is low, you can easily fill up the status bar without a group, but just in case, you’ll want to equip some good Diablo 4 items before entering the event. You’ll also need to interact with Betraying Eye as part of the event, but they’re not hard to find.

The final boss of the event, Belial’s secondary form, is more difficult to defeat, but as long as you have good gear and pay attention to avoiding the obvious red void areas that appear on the ground, the V-shaped lines extending from Belial, and any poisonous ground effects during the battle, your chances of survival will be greatly improved.

Apparition Incursions Event Rewards

This should be the part you care about most! In addition to the various Apparition boss powers, you are expected to receive gold, and gear of varying rarities after completing the event. In addition, the reward chest obtained after killing Belial’s secondary form is expected to contain Obols that can be used to upgrade gear.

What Is Spectral Ash?

Obviously, one of the main purposes of participating in and completing Apparition Incursions event is to obtain the powers provided by the bosses in it, so how can you enhance them through upgrades after obtaining these powers? According to the content shown in the 2.2.0 PTR, you can upgrade the boss powers of your equipment with Spectral Ash, a special seasonal currency. And Spectral Ash can upgrade boss power from level 1 to level 20, but the amount consumed is also relatively large. For example, upgrading the power of an Apparition boss requires about 3225 Spectral Ash.

How To Get Spectral Ash?

It is expected that this special currency can only be obtained through Apparition Incursions event, and it may be concentrated through the final Belial battle. Although the first two Apparition bosses can provide boss powers for you, no matter what difficulty you kill them, Spectral Ash dropped is only a negligible 1-2.

Other ways to obtain Spectral Ash should also include killing wandering Apparitions (they appear as red skulls on the mini-map), as well as regular Diablo 4 welfare mechanisms, such as season blessings and seasonal journeys. Or completing seasonal quest lines may also reward you with some Spectral Ash. Although the PTR has not announced or explained this, it is indeed the case based on the performance of previous seasons.

The above is the information and help we can provide you with for playing Apparition Incursions event. I wish you outstanding performance in Diablo 4 Season 8!

Even if you didn’t have time to experience the 2.2.0 PTR, don’t worry about not being able to prepare for Diablo 4 Season 8, because the PTR is mainly to give you a hands-on opportunity, but all the information about the new content of Season 8 should not be difficult to find now.

That’s why you should already know that the biggest highlight and core of Season 8 is the new seasonal power of this season - boss power. Just like the witch power or vampire power in the past, Boss Power aims to enrich your Season 8 builds by allowing you to use their abilities after defeating various bosses.

It is expected that there will be as many as 24 boss powers available, but considering that you can only equip a maximum of 4 (one main power and 3 modifier powers) in the end, we will introduce you to 6 Apparition bosses that are worth activating first.

How Does The Boss Power Mechanism Work?

In Season 8, Belial will return to Sanctuary with his Apparition army, and on this basis, a series of new playable content will be brought, such as 24 obtainable boss powers, and Apparition Incursion event directly related to Apparition army.

In theory, you can obtain his power as long as you defeat the corresponding boss, but in the end you can only get equip 1 main power and 3 modifier powers. The main power is very powerful and can be used as the core of your new builds, while the role of the modifier power is mainly to enhance the main power. Therefore, you can completely build more new strategies by mixing and matching these boss powers to form more different combat experiences.

Why Is It Recommended That You Defeat Apparition Bosses First?

As a new boss type that will be added in Season 8, Apparition bosses are actually subordinates of the final boss of the season, Belial, which is enough to show that they will be less difficult, so when you enter the new season soon, fighting them will be more in line with your character level.

Secondly, these 10 Apparition bosses will appear at the new seasonal event Apparition Incursion, and defeating them is a must complete the event. And if you can successfully complete the event, you will not only be able to gain XP, Diablo 4 Gold and related boss powers, but also use these Apparition bosses powers to increase the strength of your character, so that you can face more terrible world bosses or lair bosses next, making the entire Season 8 journey gradual. The experience will also be better.

Specific Roles Of 6 Apparition Boss Powers

The good news is that no matter what level and difficulty your character is at, you can challenge these bosses from Apparition Incursion event, and the event will generate new ones in the wilderness of Sanctuary every few minutes, so you don’t have to worry about missing it because of lack of time. Just pay attention to the relevant signs on the map after going online. Next, we will introduce you to 6 of the 10 Apparition bosses that will be easier to deal with, as well as their boss power effects.

1. Allek Apparition-Allek’s Talons

The main power of Allek’s Talons is that when you cast a basic skill, you can deal 200% spark damage to the hit enemy for 4 seconds. The modifier power is that on top of the 5% movement speed bonus, your movement speed will increase by 0.5% for every 1% reduction in your cooldown, up to a maximum of 11%.

2. Beastmaster Apparition-Beastmaster’s Training

The main power of this boss power is that if you cast a summon skill or summon a mercenary for reinforcement, your summons or mercenaries will taunt the enemy and bring 40% damage reduction to your game character. The modifier effects are very rich, including increasing the damage caused by your summons by 5% [x]; for every 1% increase in item and bonus critical strike damage, your movement speed will increase by 0.25% [x] up to 17% [x]. If you play a summoner class, this power is a must-have.

3. Blackmailer Apparition-Blackmailer’s Sabotage

The main power is to knock down close enemies for 1.1 seconds when casting a core skill while you have a barrier, but it can only work once within 5 seconds against the same enemy; the modifier effect is to increase the barrier effect by 20% while you gain a boost. Obviously, the main power and modifier power of this boss power are closely related, so it is best to equip them at the same time.

4. Flesh Reaper Apparition-Flesh Reaper’s Disruption

Flesh Reaper’s Disruption can damage vulnerable enemies, then stun them and surrounding enemies for 0.5 seconds - this stun effect can even further increase the boss’s stagger state by 100%. The corresponding modifier effect is to grant you 5% [x] vulnerability, and then increase your vulnerability output by 0.25% [x] for every 1% increase in your crowd control duration, up to a maximum of 10.5% [x].

5. Hatred’s Embrace Apparition-Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste

The main power of this power is increasing your movement speed by 1.1% for 3 seconds while casting a Shadow or Fire skill, up to a maximum of 11%. The modifier effect is to first provide 5%[+] critical strike chance, and then increase your critical strike chance by 0.5% [+] for every 1% increase in your Shadow resistance, up to a maximum of 22.5% [+].

6. Kirma’s Spark Apparition-Kirma’s Sparks

This power allows you to deal 200% spark damage to enemies in close range for 4 seconds when you dodge. The modifier power based on this can reduce your dodge cooldown by 5%, and your dodge cooldown will increase by 0.2% up to 11% for every 1% increase in your lightning resistance.

If your Diablo 4 Season 8 character level and gear status are very good when encountering Apparition boss, you can also choose to challenge the other 4 slightly more difficult ones. However, it is still recommended that you farm these powers purposefully based on the class and builds used by your character. After all, sometimes being powerful does not mean that it is necessarily suitable, right?

Considering that the story of Diablo series was originally set up with a very large world view and complex character relationships, the game has not been in a hurry to expand more content or characters through the latest work Diablo 4 for a long time, but continued to tell the story on the original basis to ensure that the main storyline of the game can be effectively extended.

In the first Diablo 4 DLC Vessel of Hatred launched in 2024, even if the basic story is expanded, it is only presented through the return of the classic villain Mephisto. According to the 2.2.0 PTR that ended not long ago and other news about Diablo 4 Season 8, you will know that the boss Belial who appeared in Diablo 3 will also return, and will also bring more new playable content, thereby increasing your way to get Diablo 4 Gold and the fun of the game.

The time span of Diablo series from the original game to the present is very large, so it is necessary to let more popular characters or important characters in the past return again. If successful, Diablo 4 will surely attract some old players to “return” together, especially after Mephisto and Belial return. Based on this, we will speculate and introduce 5 characters that are likely to return in subsequent seasons gradually.

1. Leah

Leah appeared in Diablo 3 as the daughter of Adria the Witch and Prince Aiden of Tristram, but fate was cruel to her. Her father Aiden was possessed by Diablo as a Dark Wanderer, and her mother Adria made a secret plan after she became pregnant with her, intending to use her as a backup container needed after Diablo was defeated and become a channel for the demon to resurrect in Sanctuary. Therefore, after she was born, Leah was raised by her uncle Deckard Cain. Later, she was not only the heir to the throne of Westmarch but also an important ally of Nephalem, until she was finally killed and possessed by Diablo.

After Diablo was destroyed, Covetus Shen believed that Leah’s soul was “gone forever”, and this ending became one of the dark symbols of Diablo 3. However, considering that the world of Diablo is a surreal world, it is difficult to say whether Leah’s death is really irreversible (after all, many characters have been resurrected), and she may return through some supernatural means.

2. Deckard Cain

As Leah’s uncle, Deckard Cain not only raised and taught Leah, but in fact he has always played such a role in Diablo 1 and 2 and is a very important human mentor. Unfortunately, he also died in Diablo 3 due to the evil forces, and then in the story of Diablo 4, he has become a character who only exists in everyone’s nostalgia.

To be honest, the death of such a respected spiritual mentor may make many positive characters in Diablo feel sad and confused, but as guessed when introducing Leah, it is not impossible to resurrect a person in Diablo series. Or another way is to let Deckard Cain bring some guidance to your character in the form of a ghost in the new season or new DLC of Diablo 4, helping you defeat those evil bosses.

3. Tyrael

At the end of Diablo 3, Malthael, The Angel of Death was defeated, and High Heavens also needed to be rebuilt after being destroyed. In order to improve this situation as soon as possible, Tyrael was promoted to Aspect of Wisdom. However, this selfless angel chose to stay in Sanctuary and help Nephalem and fight against future evil threats in human form. Unfortunately, he almost never appeared in Diablo 4.

Since Tyrael is related to another fallen angel, Inarius, who plays a key role in Diablo 4, it is very likely that Tyrael will continue to appear again as humanity’s greatest ally in the future, helping your character and Sanctuary fight against the forces of darkness.

4. Mephisto & Baal

Okay, these are actually two characters, but considering how closely they are connected, we think they are likely to return at the same time, so we will introduce them together. Diablo and his brothers, the Prime Evils, were defeated in Diablo 2 and their souls were trapped in Soulstones, but then Soulstones were destroyed in Hellforge, causing all the demons to turn Diablo into the ultimate Prime Evil together in Diablo 3 eventually until they were defeated.

But neither Diablo, Baal, or Mephisto can be truly killed, and they may return at any time and cause chaos again. Since Mephisto didn’t shine in the games before Diablo 4, and Lilith, one of the villains in Diablo 4, is his daughter, Mephisto finally started to move in Vessel of Hatred, so he is likely to continue to cause chaos in Sanctuary with his companion Baal.

5. Imperius

Imperius is an Archangel of Valor who lives in High Heavens. Unlike Tyrael, this angel has a very typical “aristocratic arrogance” and looks down on most non-angelic races. It is precisely because of this arrogance that he is easily deceived by Diablo, which eventually leads to the killing of many of his angel friends. He also mistakenly believes that humans and Nephalem are the key to defeating demons.

However, after High Heavens experienced a disaster, I believe that Imperius’s views should have changed to a great extent - a more punished Imperius may return in Diablo 4, put aside his prejudice and cooperate with humans to save and protect Sanctuary and High Heavens.

In fact, in addition to the above characters, there are many characters worth returning or resurrecting in Diablo 4. I believe that their joining will definitely make the story of Diablo 4 more exciting. Let us wait and see!

As shown in the 2.2.0 PTR, Season 8 will be a world of “bosses” - not only will Belial return, but there will also be many new mechanisms related to bosses. This not only means that you may face more difficult battles in Diablo 4, but also means that the boss and endgame systems of the game will enter a new era.

However, if you are familiar with the entire Diablo series, you should find that most of the bosses with names are related to the game plot. Even some small bosses, such as the enemies that will appear in Apparition Incursion event in Season 8, are actually Belial’s minions.

In other words, when you encounter them, although you know that some of them are very powerful, at least they are not “unknown” to you, and you have many ways to prepare for the relevant battles. However, if you are doing regular exploration in a very relaxed state, and suddenly encounter a terrifying monster, it may scare you more than Lilith! The Butcher is such a Diablo 4 enemy.

Introduction To The Butcher

As a very strange enemy in Diablo 4, The Butcher usually appears randomly in cellars or dungeons, which means that as long as you plan to earn Diablo 4 Gold by clearing enemies in these places, you may encounter him. However, Diablo 4 is not his first appearance, he appeared in the original Diablo and returned as a boss in D3.

Although the probability of this powerful and brutal demon appearing is very small, once he finds you, The Butcher theme song will start playing in the scene, and then he will say his iconic “Fresh meat.” line and start chasing you until you fight to the death. It has to be said that even if you know that you may encounter The Butcher, there is a high probability that you will be startled by the sudden encounter, not to mention that his lines and appearance are combined, just like a monster version of crazy Hannibal.

The generation of this boss is not limited by your character level, and the specific location where it appears is also very random. That is to say, The Butcher may not only appear when you are at any level but also become a random target in certain cellars, and even appear when you are in a party or exploring a nightmare dungeon. In short, when you explore these areas, The Butcher is more like a ghost and you don’t know when he will suddenly pop up and start attacking you.

Fortunately, The Butcher will never spawn in dungeons or open world areas related to the campaign, and will only spawn once in the same dungeon. In the specific battle, if The Butcher defeats you, he will collide with his weapon and teleport away, leaving a pool of blood on the ground, even if you manage to climb the ladder and leave his attack range within a few seconds, he will also do this; but if you kill him, in addition to Diablo 4 Gold, you will also get The Butcher’s Cleaver.

The Butcher Seems To Have Been Forgotten

Although The Butcher is difficult to classify into the plot villain system of Diablo series in a strict sense, the thrill and excitement it has provided to players since its appearance is indeed difficult to match by many powerful bosses-the latter is more of a crushing in terms of combat power, while The Butcher’s characteristic lies in sensory stimulation. Although he was stronger as a regular boss in Diablo 3 in the past, it was not as scary as usual.

From the above perspectives, The Butcher is completely worthy of being strengthened. Imagine that such an enemy that will appear unexpectedly, wandering in all the rooms of the dungeon like a ghost, has a stronger lethality than before, which not only makes the horror atmosphere of Diablo 4 a step higher but also makes the game more challenging.

However, from Diablo 4 Season 1 to now, with the addition of more and more main bosses and the dedicated research on various seasonal powers, random bosses like The Butcher that have nothing to do with the main storyline seem to be gradually forgotten by the development team. It has to be said that this is very regrettable, because The Butcher has brought benefits to Diablo series after all, even if it may have been designed as an embellished Easter egg at the beginning, but it ultimately plays a role far beyond what an Easter egg should do.

The Butcher Should Be Upgraded In D4S8

As we mentioned before, the theme and most of the new content of Diablo 4 Season 8 are related to “boss”, so in the face of the long-standing comments from players, “Is The Butcher on vacation somewhere?”, which is dissatisfied with The Butcher being forgotten or neglected, the development team should seize the new opportunity of Season 8 to make The Butcher return to your vision with a stronger attitude.

In the past few seasons, The Butcher’s performance was very ordinary, almost making you forget the threat he brought in the past, which actually made Diablo 4 lose the rich horror and bloody atmosphere like the previous works, which should be the biggest feature of all Diablo games, right?

So before D4S8 is really launched, the development team should change the past The Butcher strategy and make it more deadly by increasing the frequency of The Butcher’s attacks, and apply it to all world levels. In this way, although you will always be in a state of fear caused by The Butcher, this is the experience that the real Diablo series of games should provide!

I believe you should have known through experience 2.2.0 PTR or watching related information that Diablo 4 Season 8 will bring boss power as a seasonal power plan, and will also bring back the classic boss Belial who once showed his prowess in Diablo 3.

According to the known information, Belial is expected to meet you in D4S8 as a Lair boss. On this basis, if you have not played Diablo 3, you may still be in a state of knowing nothing about it-in fact, 2.2.0 PTR does not fully show the combat content related to it. Therefore, in order to prepare in advance for obtaining Diablo 4 Gold and boss power by farming this boss in Season 8, you may want to know Belial’s identity, combat method, and what role he plays in the entire Diablo series plot.

Although Belial’s final performance may be different from that in Diablo 3 after Diablo 4 Season 8 is officially launched, the core information should not change too much, and the following information should be able to provide you with some reference.

What Kind Of Character Is Belial In Diablo Series?

If you know something about the entire Diablo series, you will know two premises about the plot: first, the names of almost all villains come from the Bible; second, these villains can be divided into Prime Evils and Lesser Evils according to their identity and strength. As one of the most important demons in Hell, Belial’s design inspiration comes from Belial in the Bible, and he is one of Lesser Evils.

In the story of Diablo, Belial and the other three Lesser Evils Azmodan, Andariel and Duriel often conflict with Prime Evils, including Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal, and eventually expel them from hell to Sanctuary and imprison them. However, this is only part of Diablo’s plan to escape from Hell and conquer the human world and even heaven.

In the stories of Diablo 2 and Immortal, only Belial and Azmodan are still active demons, and the rest of the demons returned to the void after being defeated, so they planned to take the opportunity to conquer Sanctuary. However, not only did they fail, but they were also imprisoned in the soul stone together, except for Diablo, whose whereabouts are unknown. After that, Diablo continued to attack Sanctuary and Heaven until he was defeated and thrown back into the abyss at the end of Diablo 3. But his failure also led to the release of Belial and other demons, which may mean a more terrible future.

In the current Diablo 4 story, Andariel, Duriel and Lilith have joined forces to put an end to Diablo and his conspiracy, but Belial and Azmodan have not yet appeared. Therefore, it can be foreseen that if Belial really returns to Season 8, Sanctuary is bound to face a more hard storm.

Belial Boss Fight In Diablo 3

In Diablo 3, Belial’s boss fight takes place in the final mission of Act 2. After a short cutscene, you will officially face him in Imperial Palace. The entire fight is divided into 3 phases. The first phase is called “Even if you defeat me...” During this period, Belial will not fight himself, but will summon a fixed number of Veiled Sentinels and Veiled Evokers to attack you.

If you enter phase 2, “I will not be undone!”, it means that the previous summons are ineffective against you and Belial needs to be alert to you. Belial’s health will not be very high in this phase, but it should be noted that he will still summon minions and use the following skills, depending on the battle situation:

• Fly Swarms
• Melee Attack
• Reinforcements

When Belial’s health in phase 2 is reduced to less than 25% of his total health, it means that phase 3 is about to begin. During this time, Belial’s health will be restored to the maximum, but he will also become unable to move, and his skills will be changed to:

• Fist Slam
• Meteor Strike
• Breath

This boss is almost immune to control impairment in phase 3, so you must deal direct damage to him. Based on this, it would be a good choice to equip Xephirian amulet. In addition, the boss skill that really deserves your attention in this phase is Fist Slam, which is the most dangerous.

Belial In D4S8

Belial is expected to have three forms in Diablo 4 Season 8. The first is Apparition boss, which you can unlock double loot drops by defeating it quickly. Later, in Torment difficulty, Belial will continue to appear as a Lair boss. Defeating Belial in this case will unlock his Crystal Decoy boss power. If you can also defeat his Exalted Lair boss version, you can even get Eye Beams power.

In addition, if Belial will receive a similar story setting as Lilith, Mephisto, and Lord Zir in Season 8, you may also encounter his story boss version in the story quest. However, these and more related information can only be confirmed when Season 8 is officially launched.

If the information we provide makes you more interested in this boss, you can try to experience Diablo 3, or go to the forum to read more detailed Belial story lines compiled by other players. Thank you for reading.

Maybe before January 2025, you were looking forward to entering Diablo 4 Season 7 as soon as possible to experience the power of witchcraft, but now you may have become tired of these fancy seasonal powers! After all, players always get tired of Diablo 4 season so easily.

Fortunately, in order to adapt to your “bad habit”, Diablo 4 will also update the season at a suitable frequency to ensure that you can play new content in Diablo 4 before you turn to other games because of boredom. Although you will know the bad news recently that the launch time of Season 8 has been postponed, at least you can still get a preview through the 2.2.0 PTR.

Among all the content shown in this PTR, the most attractive one should be the available boss power - just like the witchcraft power in Season 7. This mechanism is likely to be the future seasonal power of Season 8, which encourages you to challenge all Diablo 4 bosses in this way, even the extremely difficult Lilith!

2.2.0 PTR Introduction

This PTR for Season 8 was launched on March 11 and will last until the 18th. It shows a series of new content that may appear in Season 8, such as after defeating the boss, in addition to picking up a large amount of Diablo 4 Gold dropped, you can even get their skills and abilities as new rewards!

On this basis, 2.2.0 PTR also shows you the new boss Belial by adding the phantom invasion event-it has appeared in D3, and through it and Urivar from the DLC, a new lair boss system is established to redefine the working method of Diablo 4 endgame boss. In short, all these signs in 2.2.0 PTR indicate that Season 8 will bring you countless boss battles that subvert your cognition.

What Does The Availability Of Boss Power Mean?

While defeating bosses like Andariel or Varshan has been one of the best ways to farm resources in past seasons, the new mechanics shown in the 2.2.0 PTR, which will be part of Season 8, will undoubtedly give you more motivation to fight bosses. Because the beauty of these boss powers as rewards is that you can get its power as long as you defeat the corresponding boss, rather than randomly dropping it like regular loot.

When facing a battle where you can’t confirm the reward results, you are likely to be in a more passive state from the beginning, especially if the difficulty of this battle is high. But if the game mechanics guarantee that you will get something, like boss powers, most Diablo 4 players, including you, will be more willing to fight. This will not only drive the activity of the entire game community but also make those daunting bosses in the past better integrated into the season process, such as Lilith.

In addition, it is expected that the use and acquisition of all boss powers are not restricted by your character’s class, so you can make full use of them to improve your Diablo 4 build, and the relevant modifier abilities will also increase the possibility of you benefiting from boss powers. What’s more interesting is that using boss power may allow you to perform cool moves like the boss in battle, making your gaming experience richer.

Lilith’s High Challenge

As a classic villain in Diablo series and one of the main bosses of Diablo 4, Lilith has a good popularity on the one hand, and the difficulty of killing her on the other hand makes many players want to retreat from her encounter in actual combat, even though the loot is also rich.

However, if Season 8 really sets boss power as the main seasonal mechanism, it means that you will be able to obtain her unparalleled abilities by defeating Lilith. It can be said that the more this boss scared you in the past, the more you will want her power in the future. In fact, with Lilith as a representative, it can be foreseen that when Season 8 is officially launched, all traditional Diablo 4 bosses will be rejuvenated, and it is very likely to rewrite Diablo 4’s boss encounter completely.

Impact On Gameplay

First of all, these new powers will improve builds, which will most likely help builds that were not very strong to become better, or upgrade already strong builds to become more effective, such as Beastmaster’s Training power that you can get in Apparition Incursion event shown in the 2.2.0 PTR.

After obtaining this power, Beastmaster’s active skill will make your summons or mercenaries taunt enemies and gain 40% damage reduction when you first summon them; the modifier skill will increase the damage of all summons by at least 5%, and if you have better items or a more comprehensive Paragon board equipped, this value can even increase to 17%. In fact, this summon-related power will be very suitable for Necromancer builds.

In addition, some higher-level boss powers will be very interesting when they are yours. Duriel’s Burrow will turn your evasion into an attack, allowing you to dig tunnels underground, immobilize enemies and deal huge damage to clear them. Lilith’s Wind of Hate skill will send a wave of spikes to the enemy, dealing 250% physical damage, and further increasing the damage each time it hits the enemy.

Although it’s easy to get bored with new seasonal powers, it has to be said that at least at the beginning they all brought you a lot of novelty. Future boss powers may have a chance to perform better in Season 8, and all we have to do is wait and see.