Just a few weeks after the announcement of Shadow of the Erdtree - Elder Ring’s first DLC coming sometime unknown, we have patch 1.09, which has balancing to PVP and general gameplay balancing. 

Ray Tracing Update

The first thing obviously is that Ray Tracing was added to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and PC. I can’t really notice too much of a difference between the two versions.  

And Elden Ring isn’t like the most graphically advanced game I’ve ever played, either. So, I can’t really notice much of a difference. Maybe you guys can. I will say it did feel like my performance took a bit of a hit with it on, so you might want to be careful exactly what your settings are.

General Gameplay Adjustments

Next, let’s talk about the general balancing changes to the game before we get into PVP. This is going to apply to everyone that’s not in PVP mode of the game, which is single players and cooperative, so let’s talk about that first.

*The first thing on the list is that they’ve increased the scaling of the following attributes when infusing weapons with certain Ashes of War, magic, fire, flame art, lightning and sacred.

I’m assuming this means that those weapons are going to have more damage when using very specific Ashes of War. I’m assuming it’s magic, fire, framework, lightning, sacred, Ashes of War ones that would default give you those types without using a knife of some kind.

So, we’ll have to see what those are that are very vague. I’m not exactly sure like how much we’re talking either in terms of like the value of the scaling of weapons. This will probably take some time to get sorted out what exactly that means. That generally means probably that you’re going to have more damage with these infusions than it you did before with most weapons.

*The next point is “increased the attribute scaling of the following weapon types: Colossal Swords, Great Axes, Hammers, Flails, Great Hammers and Colossal Weapons.” These are primarily strength based weapons, so it seems like the strength scaling is being improved on these weapons.

My guess is that the difference between two-handing and one-handing these weapons when it came to strength scaling wasn’t that great. And maybe they’re trying to improve that to incentivize people to use strength builds more, although strength builds are already wildly popular. 

*Next is “increased the speed range and recovery time of some attacks from the following weapon types: Great Hammer, Great Axe, Great Sword and Curved Greatsword.”

This is really interesting because I think Greatsword is a very popular weapon type in this game. Maybe Great Axes, Great Hammers and Great Swords are not. I’m not exactly sure, but it seems like this weapon group is getting buffed again. This weapon group seems to keep getting buffed or some variation of this weapon group. So, these weapon types are going to be even stronger.

Flails are also getting a buff, increasing the speed of some of their attacks, reducing the attack recovery time and increasing their poise when two-handing through. So, they can two and through attacks, I guess.

Not too many people use Flails. I know that some people have very specific builds but this is obviously not a super popular weapon. There’s only four Flails in the game, anyway. So, it seems like they need a buff here.

*Increased running attack speed and reduced attack recovery time for the following weapon type: Straight Sword, Curved Sword, Katana, Twinblade, Ax, Hammer and Halberd.

Apparently, their running attacks of these weapons are getting faster. I didn’t think they’re that slow to begin with. I guess the Straight Sword and Katana have a bit of a delay before they attack. I wouldn’t call it the delay exactly, but it’s a little slower than you’d think. 

Maybe they’re speeding that up. But I mean Curved Swords running on attacks with curve starts is what people spam already. That’s crazy. It’s hard to say exactly.

*Increased the first attack speed for the falling weapon type: Straight Swords, Curved Swords and Whips.

This is interesting because I always felt like Straight Swords were in a bad place. They didn’t exactly have the best damage, and they didn’t have very good status effects compared to other weapons. 

I guess the same is happening for Curved Swords and Whips. Obviously, this is probably applying to R1 attacks in that dual wielding with Curved Sword. So, this is really interesting. They’re crawling to entice people to probably one-hand these weapons more.

*Increased the speed of guard counters with the falling weapon types: Straight Swords, Great Swords, Colossal Swords, Great Curved Swords, Katanas, Twinblades, Axes, Great Axes, Flails, Great Hammer, Spears, Great Spears, Halberds.

That’s like half the weapon types in the game. Guard counters have had slow follow-ups on just about every weapon type save a few in this game, mostly like Straight Swords, which is weird why they’re getting a buff here.

I guess because everything else is I don’t know. But that’ll make block counters a lot more viable, which is great. So, hopefully, people will use them more. I mean, block counters are fantastic, so maybe that’ll make them more viable with these weapon types.

Again though, I’ve sort of given a feeling that’s in a change that’s probably supposed to be aimed at PVP even though it’s a PVE change since they’re nerfing basically jump attacks and bleeds I think they want people to use block counters more. And obviously, it’s nearly impossible to land on the block counter with some of these weapon types. So, maybe they want people to use that play style more in PVP. 

*Reduced the attack recovery time for Whip weapons.

*Increase the damage of Claw weapons.

*Added Holy damage and Faith scaling to the Great Club. (So, that weapon now has holy damage and Faith scaling that’s interesting.)

*Increased damage negation when blocking Holy damage and decreased damage negation when blocking damage from other affinities.

So apparently, you’re able to block holy damage more easily now with shields or weapons, but you’re not able to block other affinities as easily again. These feel like changes that are aimed at PVP. They want people to use other damage types rather than just like believe, etc. So, maybe this is the whole change this whole patch is really aimed at PVP even though it looks like a PVE patch.

*Increased the effectiveness of the Twinblade Talisman.

I literally know nobody who uses this in a build, so that’s probably good that got buffed. 

*Slightly, reduced roll traveling distance for light equipment weights. 

They just made light rolling better in like the last patch, if I’m not mistaken. The fact that they’re nerving it here seems weird again unless they’re nerving it for PVP purposes.

*And finally decreased the hitbox size for some attacks of the falling weapon types: Thrusting Sword, Heavy Thrusting Sword, Spear, Great Spear and Halberd.

Again, this seems like this is aimed at PVP. These weapons aren’t really considered busted in DB. I mean, they’re good weapons in PVE. But I don’t know why would the developer nerved them. This seems like a PVP nerf as well. So all in all, a lot of changes that change the gameplay for everyone, but that seemed mostly aimed at PVP.

Ashes Of War Adjustments

There are also some Ash of War adjustments. I’m not going to go through all this. You can see them on the screen if you want to go through them. Great Oracular Bubble increased the projectile generation speed and reduce recovery time, that makes this very viable even more viable in PV than it already was. So, that’s really good. 

Shriek of Milos increased the close range Poise damage. This is good for this ability because it’s hard to get this ability off. So, I’m glad they added that.

Spearcall Ritual will increase projectile generation. This ability was already busted, so it seems like that’s making it even more busted.

Cursed-Blood Slice increased the projectile generation speed and reduce recovery time.

I Command Thee, Kneel increased attack generation speed. This is good because it’s hard to get off because of how long the wind-up takes.

Starcaller Cry increased the speed of the follow-up attack. The follow-up attack for that takes forever. I’m glad to see that is sped up, too.

Bug Fixes

I’m going to go through some of the bugs. I’m not going to go through all of them.

But the first one I know people will be interested in, which is a fixed debug where the Scarlet Rock buildup was not properly reflected when giving the Antspur Rapier a Cold Affinity. This has been bugged since like launch. So, this is like a huge change here or not launched, but like patch 1.03 or something like that. It’s been bugged for a very long time, so just get that fixed.

Finally, I’m sure people will be thrilled about that another bug similar to this was that the Scarlet Rock status was not properly reflected when giving the Rotten Greataxe of a Blood affinity. So, those two have now been patched.

Another one is that fixed a bug where the Roar Medallions Talisman didn’t affect the increase in power of some incantations. Dragon communion spells are now affected by the Roar Medallion Talisman. This is a huge change. 

Those are the main ones. There are other bug fixes and performance improvements of the game you can read through them if you want to see them all.

PVP Exclusive Adjustments

When it comes to the PVP exclusive balance adjustments, even though it feels like the PVE balance adjustments were really for PVP. If you look through the list here, you’ll see there’s a decrease in effectiveness in Lord of Blood’s Exultation and the White Mask. There’s a decrease in the effectiveness of the Claw Talisman. There’s a decrease in the effectiveness of two-handed jump attacks and the power of heavy and heavy running attacks of Fist and Claw weapons. 

So, I feel like generally speaking here, the nerf to PVP is nerving jump attacks and nerving blood. I feel like this is going hand in hand with them, buffing the other infusions of other elements in the regular balancing changes.

Also, they decrease the damage buffs of the tires that you could use with your flasks because, obviously, those were probably very deadly in PVP. I’m not a huge PVP player. 

Other things that were nerved: Raptors Black Feathers, the jumping attack damage again affecting jump attack damage and then waves of Gold were also nerved. And Founding Rain of Stars has had its attack power reduced as well.....

When you first enter the wonderful world of Elden Ring, you should realize that fighting various bosses is inevitable. With a huge world view and an open game mechanism, we can freely build characters and skills, which may lead to different performances of the same class in battle. When you are still a novice, you need to start your battle journey step by step to farm loot, such as runes, weapons and more.

In Elden Ring, the type of boss and the difficulty are actually not directly related. However, if we are lucky enough to kill a powerful boss, the rewards we can get are still very rich. But stop fantasizing, combat is not a 100% success rate thing. For example, if you need to face the most hard boss, Malenia, can you say that you can definitely defeat it? I estimate that no one can answer this question with great confidence. However, we can still defeat other seemingly powerful bosses, such as Godfrey, with some neat tricks.

This is The First Elden Lord in Elden Ring. Recently, a player posted a video on r/Eldenring of himself easily beating The First Elden Lord with “This Ash of War”. Here I will introduce to you what This Ash of War is. You can use this special item to replace your own equipped weapon skills and affinities, so the build you can create has more expansion options and is more suitable for everyone’s fighting style. If you learn how to use This Ash of War correctly, even defeating Malenia easily should no longer be difficult.

When this Elden Ring player fights Godfrey, it’s clear we can see the fight unfold in two phases. Initially, the player fought Godfrey using the Dismounter and the Ash of War called Lightning Slash, successfully dodging every attack and striking him hard at every turn. And when Godfrey is in the latter phase Hoarah Loux, you have to be careful at this point, because his attack can change drastically, and many people suffer here. Of course, although Godfrey at this stage looks particularly powerful in attack, his defense against lightning is not very strong, so we can use the Lightning Slash a perfect Ash of War, to kill him in one fell swoop. The trick to this whole fight is being able to spot Godfrey’s weak spots and understand how he moves.

Going back to the original topic, after more than a year of development in Elden Ring, players have gradually become more advanced in the development and exploration of in-game builds. If you encounter other more tough bosses in the future journey, you also need to focus on some smarter and less laborious methods, so as not to waste your precious resources and energy.

If you are currently suffering from a lack of sufficient Elden Ring Runes, Bundles, Consumables, Ash of wars and more items, you can use the code “CSCCA” to get 5% off Elden Ring all in-game products at IGGM.com. Just have a go!

If you’ve been following the classic scene, you’ve definitely noticed that private servers are making a big comeback as the major way to play the game and it’s really easy to see why. 

What Are Private Servers?

People love classic fresh and Blizzard’s been way too slow rolling out Season of Mastery 2. But if you’re an official Server Andy Detected, you may not realize what these servers are doing and why they’re so popular. 

I’ve been researching as much as I can and I’ve been talking to friends who love these servers, so I can tell you the five reasons why private servers are the future classic at least unless Blizzard gets their act together. 

Private Servers Are Better At Classic Plus

*First up, private servers are just doing the plus experience better. If you’ve been looking for the Classic Plus experience with new Zones quests and Dungeons. Servers like Turtle WoW are just doing it better and faster than Blizzard.

My personal favorite Classic Plus system might just be the glyph (Glyph of War) system. That system enables distinct challenges, like the hardcore mode where your character actually gets deleted if you die and we might see that we get some small tweaks here and there on classic servers, we’ll never get Classic Plus the level of Turtle WoW.

*Private server developers have so much more freedom to innovate and actually do what people want and that’s one thing private servers are just doing so much better right now - Innovation.

Innovation In WoW Classic

Isn’t it weird that every made major private server aims to improve and innovate to make the classic experience better? Getting a really simple feature like cross realm battlegrounds took nearly four years from Blizzard and while the popular Cataclysm server Whiteman already offers new features like cross-faction gameplay, Solo Arena Queue and even a PVP Spectator Mode.

And Turtle WoW offers new dungeons that perfectly fit into the leveling experience and that’s on top of the new zones, professions, titles and even music. The simple features like dual spec are no-brainers for Turtle WoW while Blizzard might think about adding them in some sex and this complete lack of short-term innovation is really going to hurt Blizzard long term. Think about how much more interesting Classic Cataclysm would be if Blizzard was committed to innovation as much as they were back in 2004.

Players Are Calling The shots

*But that leads to my third point with private servers. Actually, players are making all the decisions. 

If you’re looking to maximize profit, it’s really easy to lose sight of what’s good for the players. Unfortunately, private servers have really exposed how out of balance things have gotten. Things like the massively imbalanced servers leading to the paid faction transfers and, of course, there’s been the massive rising popularity of GDKP.

Even though I do run a few and I personally suspect they left the about wrath racial, just so they could sell a few race transfers. But on the other hand, you can easily find private servers like Maelstrom where GDKP is banned. Racial can be swapped in an NPC and the idea of a Pay to Win cash shop is absolutely laughable.

*Really, just imagine how fun classic could be if you could implement Turtle Wow’s Turtle mode. It all comes down to the fact that these new private servers have developers like Turtle WoW Shang, a long-time fan of Hardcore WoW and a classic WoW addict.

I played hardcore for three months straight in Season of Mastery and all I got was an icon. But since the developers of Turtle WoW love hardcore, they implemented a title, a tablet and a mount for hitting 60. And having long time WoW fans like Shang as your administrators helps a whole lot with the sense of community.

Related: WoW: What Blizzard Should Do To Make Season of Mastery 2 A Successful Launch?

*I see somewhere along the way Blizzard forgot how passionate GMs’ excellent support is and events can make the in-game experience so much more special.

If you read the pitches from recent and upcoming private servers, there’re no coincidences community. It’s all about how there are real humans that will assist you with your issues within 24 hours. If you make a mistake getting the wrong item, they’ll help you. If you’re hosting a big server event, GMs will actually help you to spawn mobs and objects in the game and turtle wow even offers custom Guild Housing if your Guild’s been active for at least three months.

Blizzard has left some massive holes where private servers are taking over. The private server community has happily gone ahead with new expansions and even new game modes. And servers like Turtle WoW thriving with the Classic Plus model peaking at over 4,700 players. Within the next few years, if you want to play Classic Plus, you’ll have to play it on a private server and that’s why unless something changes, private servers are the future of Classic WoW. Though the short-term future of Classic WoW is Season of Mastery 2.

I’m playing on the Turtle WoW, a vanilla + private server and having a blast leveling up my Shaman Raid Tank, which is a thing on Turtle WoW and the servers has been crazy now, with a server population hitting hundreds of thousands of players online on weekends.

While leveling, I’ve been thinking a lot about what would the ideal Classic Era timeline would even look like? What and when should Blizzard release - things like official hardcore servers, classic + or vanilla + servers, classic cataclysm? And more importantly, what do we as a community even want to see? Because now’s the time to let Blizzard know what we want from them. So, today I thought we can talk about what the timeline for Classic Era and WoW could end up being in the next few years.

Classic Era has been exploding the last few months, we have Classic Era Hardcore getting super popular, there’s even Hardcore PVE Races now, like real Competitions with actual prize pools, we have Classic Era servers growing month after month, WotLK Classic is well... It’s currently in between major patches, then there’s classic vanilla + servers like Turtle WoW and Duskhaven reaching all-time high populations.

Recently, there’s been rumors that Blizzard is releasing dedicated Hardcore Servers for Classic Era, and we just don’t know what form these servers are going to take, what the rule set is going to be, how integrated the achievements are going to be, is the server rule set going to be more like the original solo hardcore challenge we are all familiar with, or will Blizzard go for a more fun, group oriented hardcore experience like Turtle WoW.

Will there be titles, mounts for any rewards? Will the hardcore experience last past 60? These are all questions that need to be answered and quickly. I think Blizzard needs to release these hardcore servers as soon as possible, as the demand for them is only continuing to grow,

And it’s these hardcore challenges that are probably the main reason why we have seen a revitalization of the classic era servers. It’s not the only reason, of course. Vanilla has always held a special place in my heart just like a lot of people, and I think there will always be a population of players willing to play on classic era servers, but let’s be honest, if Blizzard released FRESH Classic Era Servers, that progressed from vanilla, to TBC to WotLK Classic all over again, 10,000s of people would dive into Classic Era again.

And I could see Blizzard doing just this at the end of WotLK Classic. Which brings us to what Blizzard should do after WotLK Classic ends. For me, it’s a no brainier that Blizzard is going to add classic cataclysm. But, it is a big decision point. I don’t think WotLK is that popular in terms of numbers, there just isn’t that much to do, it’s essentially an ICC waiting room. So, it’s possible Blizzard might just think the hype is over and move into a Classic, TBC, WotLK Classic maintenance mode.

But from a business perspective I think cataclysms success is already baked in, most of the Classic WoW player base is already expecting the classic experience to last until mists of pandaria and will happily sub just to enjoy the PVP alone as the two expansions are largely regarded as some of the best Arena ever, as well as some of the hardest most challenging classic PVE, at least in cata with some of the introductory raids being well… impossible for most guilds.

I know this would split the classic player base, but I think Blizzard should release a classic era fresh, that progresses all the way to WotLK Classic and beyond, and release Classic Cataclysm at the end of WOTLK. It’s unfortunate, but only from the perspective that fewer people might be playing in Cataclysm, so who cares, people will play classic era, they will play cata, they will pay, retail season of mastery, and hardcore, and private servers, let’s be honest, it’s all a bit of a mess for Blizzard right now.

So, just release it all and let the players decide where they want to play. After Cataclysm and a potential Mysts of pandaria, Blizzard needs to seriously consider a classic + server. The success or private servers like Turtle WoW, and Duskhaven has shown that the demand for classic + is very real and it’s doesn’t take a while a lot of effort to add basic things like new quests, items, zones. Duskhaven is being developed by literally ONE person and has dozens of awesome changes. Blizzard just needs to hand over development to a group of passionate creative people, that can make some changes and keep Classic WoW fresh.

Blizzard could even release the initial changes in a Season of Mastery style server to test and see the reaction of the player base. If they don’t release something like Classic +, Classic Era will eventually fade into irreverence and worse, go down in history as being one of the biggest wastes of an excellent opportunity in history.

In short, blizzard should first release a dedicated hardcore server as soon as possible, and with the end of Classic WOTLK, release classic cataclysm while offering FRESH Classic Era Servers, later develop classic +, even if it ends up being in a season of mastery style server.

I fully expect something like this to unfold over the next 4 years. It’s a very exciting time to be a World of WarCraft player, never before has the player base been so divided because there has never been so much different content, but that’s a good thing, Blizzard should embrace this fact, and not be afraid to release even more.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp on Smart Devices is of course still going strong 5 years on… But something pretty big is affecting the gaming industry right now in Austria, and if the history of Animal Crossing is anything to go by, Pocket Camp could be in trouble, and could potentially be Banned or Removed from the App Stores altogether, at least in parts of Europe…

Now, something pretty significant has just happened in Austria surrounding Sony and FIFA… Don’t worry, this will completely loop back round to Animal Crossing, I promise, just bear with me. In the last couple of weeks, in a case against Sony, regarding FIFA, courts have decided that Loot Boxes, in one form or another, violate the Gambling Laws in Austria.

This is essentially because in certain instances, players are of course paying (such as spending money to get more FUT 23 Coins) for random drops and not necessarily knowing the outcome, or what they’re actually purchasing. Specifically, I believe where certain rewards hold a monetary value, and therefore almost certainly fall under the gambling umbrella.

Anyway, the court ruled in favour of FIFA players, and to cut a long story short, have ordered Sony, the Platform, rather than EA, the publishers of FIFA, to pay out these claims, and pay back Loot Box charges to the Players. It’s a pretty complex issue, so if you want to learn more about that specific case, definitely google it.

Now, despite this specific case affecting FIFA and PlayStation, it’s likely going to have an impact on Loot Boxes and gaming in general, as it’s set a new precedent in Austria, surrounding this type of monetisation.

Anyway, I’m sure you know where I’m going with this, but Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, which is still played by millions all around the world, including a Loot Box mechanic very similar to this. If you head to the Market Place in Pocket Camp, you can, of course, spend Leaf Tickets, which is Pocket Camp’s Premium Currency on a Fortune Cookie, that once opened awards a random ACNH Items.

In many instances, players can even spend real-life money to obtain these Fortune Cookies. Now whether or not, new laws come in (because of the Sony Case) to prevent this type of monetisation surrounding Loot Boxes and alleged gambling violations, it’s likely to become a bigger issue in Austria and surrounding regions and create a bit of a grey area for games like Pocket Camp.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo are already looking into this further… With this in mind, there’s every possibility that Pocket Camp, or any game that includes Gacha Mechanics or Loot Boxes like Fortune Cookies, could be banned in European Regions. And even if they don’t, Nintendo could decide they don’t want to risk it, and pull the game down anyway and remove it from App Stores…

Now, I know what you’re thinking, this is all speculation, I’m jumping to conclusions, and leaping to the worst-case scenario… Now whilst I am speculating here, we have seen this exact situation occur in the past in Belgium in 2019, again in Europe, when Nintendo literally removed both Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Fire Emblem Heroes from the App Stores in that region.

This happened when Belgium introduced anti-gambling laws, creating a grey area for Loot Boxes in video games, and then led to new laws being passed that banned Loot Boxes altogether in video games. Interestingly enough, Belgium’s governing bodies at the time, also ordered the likes of FIFA to removed Loot Boxes from their games in the Region… which I believe they did, with the understanding that if they didn’t they’d face millions in fines and even prison time.

However, even now, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp cannot be downloaded or played legitimately in Belgium and some neighbouring counties. And rather than removing the Fortune Cookies when this happened in 2019, Nintendo removed the entire game.

So, with new headlines surrounding Loot Boxes in Austria, with all eyes on Loot Boxes in a new region, and the likely hood of new laws coming in, it’s possible it’s only a matter of time until history literally repeats itself 4 years later, in another European country, and Pocket Camp is removed. Of course, this is a worst-case scenario.

There’s every chance Nintendo would simply remove Fortune Cookies this time around, rather than the whole game, especially now the game includes even more Monetisation models, but who knows, maybe this particular issues starts and ends on PlayStation, and Pocket Camp continues to thrive.

A week ago, the game director of Last Epoch, whose name is Judd Cobler, brought us the highlights of our long-awaited multiplayer update patch 0.9 - Convergence. Next, let’s take a closer look at what he said.

Convergence drops on March 9th. For the first time in Last Epoch you’ll be able to adventure through time with up to four players in your party. Adding friends and grouping up is easy, and you can start playing together right from the start of the campaign.

Developers have upgraded all in-game content, including the Arena, Dungeons and the Monolith of Fate to ensure that group play feels great. *For example, in the Monolith, they’ve introduced a new Echo completion system that ensures fair rewards for the full party.

*And in the arena, they’ve introduced a group ready check to allow parties to strategically proceed to the next Arena wave set when the entire party is ready.

*In multiplayer, the loot you find drops per player. So, you’re not having to compete for the same items (which you can get by using Last Epoch Gold) on the ground.

Related: Outstanding Build Guides for Beginners in Last Epoch

*Additionally, if you find an item that would help your allies, you’ll be able to gift items to your party members, who are fighting alongside you.

“With multiplayer dropping on March 9th, we are looking forward to seeing what powerful team compositions you put together with your party. We hope you enjoy slaying the enemies of a Eterra with your allies,” Cobler said.

While you’re crushing enemies alongside other Travelers, you will notice a whole host of upgrades developers have made to increase the impact and polish the feel of combat in Last Epoch. They’ve added a new win hid visuals to enemies.

Visual impacts now have directionality carrying the weight through from your swing or spell cast. Death effects have been updated to correspond with the elements that are used on the killing blow. Elements applied to enemies displayed nicer on enemy models and many enemies have had death and stun animations significantly improved. All of these updates combined make slaying enemies in a Eterra feel much more satisfying.

“If you are returning to a terror from our last update, prepare to see the world come to life like never before. Our team has been hard at work and there is an overwhelming amount of new visual upgrades coming to Convergence.”, the director said.

For example, the dialog system has been updated across the game to include better ux and beautiful new NPC portraits, allowing you to get to know the iconic cast of characters a little better. Many environments across satara have received new tech that makes their visuals come to life and this new tech will continue to be extrapolated in future patches.

In addition to the many new environments and visual updates, they’re introducing 15 updated or newly added enemies, tons of skill VFX improvements and 14 entire new gear set visuals across all classes.

There are also new player summon models and animations in addition to completely updated animation kits for both the prime list and acolyte.

“All of this together results in the Last Epoch gameplay feel that you’ve never seen before and one that we’re all very excited for our players to experience,” he said.

Convergence will also be bringing a number of new powerful build shaping uniques for you to hunt down, including the Harbinger of Stars. This new unique belt enables any class to have the chance to cast Meteor when landing a Critical Strike. We’ve already seen some very interesting builds created with this belt in early testing, like Meteor.

The new Hand of Judgment gloves can bring holy Justice into the palm of your hand, giving your unarmed Paladin Divine strength, allowing you to slam your fist into the ground to cast Judgment, which will scale area and damage by stacking Attunement.

Finally, Jelkhor’s Blast Knife captures the power of the Rogue’s Detonating Arrow ability and infuses it into a melee strike, transforming your Marksman into a bomb slinging assassin.

Ailments have undergone significant changes that will make them more easily understood and bring their effectiveness against bosses and packs of low-held enemies more in line. Namely, by reducing the duration that the full effect would take place over and will now display the full amount of stacks applied to enemies.

The balance of all elements has been updated in a number of ways. “Since our last release Depths of Eterra, we’ve put a significant amount of work into improving performance across the game,” he said.

Baseline frame rates in zones and performance when using abilities have been greatly improved, especially among stabilities that were noted as poor performing in earlier patches. While this update does bring significant improvements to performance will continue to make improvements to performance in future patches, as well.

They’ll also be shipping an early version of the MTX system with this update. While you won’t be able to purchase anything new or access the shop just yet, you’ll finally be able to equip cosmetics that you own through previous supporter pack purchases.

“I’ll also take this opportunity to reinforce our commitment that Last Epoch will never sell items that grant player power. We’ve taken a hard stance against this and will continue to champion that stance into the future with that said if you have fun ideas for how certain skills pets or armor could be re-skinned we’d love to hear them”, he emphasized.

Last month was a pretty big month for Nintendo. They dropped a whole new direction for us of all kinds of fun new reveals. But nothing too out there. What’s weird is that the leak I mentioned in the title actually comes from the Pokemon Presents that happened about a week ago.

Now, when I hear the word leak, I’m thinking fake instantly and I know a lot of you feel the same. This is true for so many leaks out there. But this one actually seems to be accurate. For a start, they correctly shared pretty much everything. That was going to happen within the Pokemon Presents days before it actually happened and that’s not the interesting part. It’s what they shared at the very end of this leak that concerns all of Nintendo and especially their biggest games like Animal Crossing.

This supposed leaker works at an outsourcing company for Pokemon and they’ve been working on the latest DLC, which we’ll be releasing this year for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. At the very end of their league, they mentioned that they’ve been working on a graphics enhancement patch for new Nintendo Switch models, which will release alongside the second DLC.

Then, in a follow-up reply, they actually elaborated on this, showing that this would be Nintendo’s next gen console, which is a successor to the Switch. If this is true and it’s seeming like it is. Then, it’s an enormous piece of news, which will affect a lot of different Nintendo games, which have been waiting for new releases. Think about the new Metroid game and maybe the sequel to Super Mario Odyssey and of course potentially a new Animal Crossing release, as well.

Now, there’s a lot of speculation about what this new model would be. Nintendo Switch just celebrated sixth anniversary, so we’re definitely heading to the end of this particular console I feel.

Of course, a big thing that a lot of Animal Crossing fans know is that Nintendo doesn’t really release two main Animal Crossing games on the same system. But if a new system or effectively a new improved version of the Switch is arriving sometime in 2024, then the opportunity for a new Animal Crossing game would become available. After all, it’ll have been four years at that point since New Horizons, which is a standard amount of time the Animal Crossing games usually release in with the exception of New Horizons itself.

Given that Animal Crossing is a major system seller and New Horizons is one of Nintendo’s biggest games of all time, it seems fairly likely that they would want a new one to release alongside a new console as that would boost sales drastically. Even if it doesn’t release in 2024, I think we’d start seeing teasers and trailers for the future for sure, like they did with New Horizons to build excitement with the huge crowd of people, who brought the original switch purely to play New Horizons.

I’ve seen a lot of you saying that 2025 would be a good year for a new Animal Crossing game. Maybe in that year you will experience more game content and interesting ACNH Items. And honestly, I think this makes a lot of sense. So, we definitely learn about it alongside a new model of the Switch in 2024 or whatever this successor is.

Now, if this is effectively an upgraded Switch and they’re working on a graphical enhancement patch for existing games like Scala and Violet. It’s possible New Horizons could get the same treatment, which might be interesting too personally at that point into 2024. I just prefer a totally new game.

But if New Horizons got some love again, I don’t think that would be a bad thing. It seems likely from this league that we’d be able to play Switch games on this new system, so New Horizons would be included in that even if it’s not graphically improved. I’m sure in some way, the experience would be better though on a new system. I think it’s safe to say that from a business point of view Nintendo would do something to encourage the New Horizons crowd to purchase their new console, even now they still use New Horizons to sell their online services.

They could also use this as a way to tide Animal Crossing fans over until the next main game, just like they did with the huge welcome Amiibo update for New Leaf back in the day.

Right now, this is all speculation in terms of Animal Crossing and the other major Nintendo games. But this leak about a new Nintendo system seems fairly certain at this point. I know a lot of you will be skeptical, especially after all the switch pro rumors that kind of went nowhere.

But given this person accurately sheds so many details from the new Pokemon DLC without anyone else knowing at all, it seems like at the very least Nintendo is planning what they have shared. We’ll just have to see if it actually comes to fruition or not.

Since Chris Wilson announced Path of Exile 2 on the stage at ExileCon back in 2019, it's been nearly four years. Where has the time gone? With ExileCon 2 just around the corner, here's everything you should know about Path of Exile 2.

Campaign, Engine Upgrades & MTX

Path of Exile 2 will be a massive expansion of Path of Exile one rather than being a new stand-alone game. It will introduce a new 7x story campaign that can be played alongside the original campaign to access a shared endgame, the Atlas and mapping system we know and love.

We'll also be getting some juicy graphics updates in part from engine upgrades and back-end optimizations which will make the game look more like this - 16 times the detail.

There'll be plenty of new animations and environmental effects, too. And character models will be getting some updates, as well. But fear not, all of the MTX you've invested your hard-earned cash into over the years will still work in Path of Exile 2.

New Skill Gem And Socket System

One of the biggest changes coming to the game with Path of Exile 2 is the complete overhaul of the Skill Gem and Socket System. And Path of Exile 2, instead of socketing your support gems into linked sockets in your gear, you'll instead socket them directly into the active skill gem itself, which itself is then socketed into predetermined sockets in your gear.

There'll be a flashy new skill gem interface to support this change. Orbs of Fusing will be no more as the sockets and skill gems will always be linked and you'll be able to find up to three linked skill gems from item level 1 to 19: 4 linked skill gems from item level 20 onward, 5 linked skill gems from item level 35 onward and fully six-linked skill gems starting at item level 50.

Also did you spot that multi-colored socket? That's a new addition with the predetermined gear socket system and Path of Exile 2. Gear will always drop with the same number and color of sockets based on type, like this hybrid armor evasion helmet with a hybrid red and green socket which means it can be socketed with either color of gem.

Two-handed weapons will have four sockets. One-handed weapons and off hands will have two sockets each. Body armors will have two sockets and helmets, gloves and boots will have one socket each.

You will still be able to modify the color of sockets on gear with a new in-game currency and you will also be able to use Chromatic Orbs and Jewels to modify the sockets on skill gems. If you find a skilled gym with more links than the one you are using, you'll be able to destroy your current gem to apply the level and experience to the new gym to obtain more links.

19 New Ascendancy Classes

While the new socket and gem system may be the largest change that Path of Exile 2 will introduce, the addition of 19 new ascendancy classes might be the most anticipated feature.

The new ascendancies will be tied to the new campaign. So, if you want to play a Juggernaut or a Pathfinder, you will still need to play through the original campaign to reach the endgame.

The Ranger will be getting the new Survivalist ascendancy with an interesting dynamic with the skill tree having defensive options on the left side and defensive options on the right side.

One of the offensive options, Division grants you two copies of compatible skills socketed in your bow: one supported by GMP (Greater Multiple Projectiles) and the other by Barrage, potentially two seven links.

The Survivalist will also have an ascended-like choice between Fork, Pierce and Chain and the Multiplication skill that allows you to save your projectiles to build up larger bursts.

On the defensive side, we have Spell Avoidance, which convert your evasion into Spell Evasion. The Ranger will also be getting the Beastmaster ascendancy, which heavily supports the new shape-shifting abilities that will be coming in Path of Exile 2. This ascendancy will grant you the workout skill, a high crit shape-shifting ability, which you won't be able to find anywhere else.

You will also be able to spec into wild shape to massively improve shape-shifting bonuses and keep those bonuses even when you're in human form. Ally of the Wild will give you a nice little companion that will work like a Golem and provide buffs. You can even specialize into which type of companion you need.

The Rangers third new ascendancy, the Tactician, is possibly the most ambitious of them all. The Tactician will be able to continuously leave bombard areas with reigning arrows and even gain multiple uses of this skill, which will prevent enemies from attacking at range.

Meanwhile, the Siege Warfare and Siege Breaker notables will provide massive buffs to your totems like ensnaring enemies and making them take more range to attack damage and allowing the most recently placed totem to deal a lot more damage.

But the most interesting of all is the Close Combat Specialist, which will enable the Tactician to use ax and sword melee abilities with a bow. The developers did mention that they are re-rigging animations, which have made things like bows using melee animations possible and Path of Exile 2. We don't have a whole lot of information on the other ascendancies, but we do have some names and concepts.

Here's the Defiler, a new Witch ascendancy and the Arcanist, another Witch ascendancy that will have a heavy focus on lightning damage and charging up energy. There's also the Reaver, a war leader ascendancy for the Marauder, which will grant powerful bonuses to allies around him. And this, an unnamed Marauder ascendancy with a focus on Avatars and ancestral abilities.

New Weapon Types, Meta Gems, AI & UI

New ascendancies are pretty exciting. But there's also going to be new weapon tags, too.

We know of at least two of them, the Crossbow (Victory Core Power Shot Crossbow) and the Spear (Winged Spear). These new weapons seem to hint at a new direction in terms of gameplay in regards to your choice of weapon as both of them will grant new skills.

Crossbows grant implicit attack skills, such as PowerShot, a high damage single target ability. Instead of socketing attack skills, you can socket Crossbow bull types to augment the attack abilities and change what they do. We know of at least three types of bolts. Armor Piercing Incendiary and Permafrost.

Meanwhile, the Spear will allow you to use new engage and disengage abilities to provide freedom of movement and more interesting combat.

More Information

Aside from what we've already discussed in this article, there are a few more tidbits of information we have about Path of Exile 2.

We know that there will be a new gem type called metagems, which the developers described as the opposite of an active skill gem. Instead of socketing support gems into an active skill gem, you'll socket active gems into metagems. Like this Proficiency metagem for auras, which will allow you to turn all of your auras on or off with a single hotkey.

Cast on Critical Strike Support and Spell Totem Support will also be metagems. Speaking of Spell Totem, the developers also talked about tentative plans for new AI options to allow your Spell Totems to use skills in certain orders. In this example, they showcase the Spell Totem setup that will curse any uncursed enemies in the area before moving on to use other skills.

On the discussion of AI, they also mentioned that Monster Packs will have more interesting AI and Path of Exile, too, such as patrolling areas where appropriate.

Of course, you can also expect other upgrades, such as UI elements. like this new character sheet, which will provide information that is better laid out and easier to find.

During a discussion on some of the pain points of developing Path of Exile, the developers talked about having ascendancy skills, such as the pre-existing bomb armor (Bone Barrier) on the Necromancer or the new skills (Born to be Wild & Ally of the Wild) like those granted by the Beastmaster and having them scale as you progress in Path of Exile 2 instead of granting a static value like they do currently.

They weren't sure yet if this would be tied to level progress or based on when you take each ascendancy notable. The developers also talked about how the new ascendancy notables and Path of Exile 2 are designed to have far less clutter stats and instead focus on one or two impactful stats. They mentioned that the original ascendancies will need a rebalance to bring them to the same level.

We will know more information about Path of Exile 2 at ExileCon 2023 on July 29th and 30th in Auckland New Zealand.

If you’re having huge problems while defending the attackers in one versus one situation, then this is the exact guide you need to read to improve yourself. We are going to give you the core elements of one versus one defending to let you become a brick wall in the back.

Why 1v1 Defending Is Important?

Your defensive problem might already start a step earlier with understanding when you have to take charge and go for a manual one versus one defense against the Attacker. 

In my experience, there are a lot of players who hold themselves back defensively and try to cover the back area or they just try to let the AI (AI Defending) defend the Attacker. Both of these are going to give the opposition tons of space and they might do whatever they want without getting blocked.

Here as I receive the ball with my Attacker, my opponents, which is away from the player, who actually needs to defend him and he lets the AI do his work. However, with the skill move, I beat the Defender in square nice goal, which could be prevented by a manual one versus one defending. 

So, that means you have to take control, be confident, confront the opponent by yourself and try to block as many opportunities as possible. Of course, if you put the outstanding players, which you get by using FUT 23 Coins into the game, you will win the game more easily.

In a counter-attack situation, I know that I need to take responsibility as danger grows. I get close to Dribbler and also cover the passing lane at the same time. And once the other thread is over, I make my final move towards them in a one versus one and safely get the ball back.

We can safely say taking responsibility, observing what the opponent does, and taking action accordingly brings you to success in your defense. 

2. Positioning Defenders

Positioning your Defender is the most important thing in a one versus one situation. However, it is not easy since you have to watch out for different aspects.

Attackers will have different opportunities. They can dribble the ball, pass it to another teammate or even shoot it if they find the chance. Analyzing the occasion and seeing the next potential steps will decide your optimal positioning.

As a player myself, I tend to position my Defender directly in front of the opponent in a one versus one situation. You can always imagine a line between the Attacker and the Keeper and position yourself directly on it. I’ve seen that this method helped my students in my coachings a lot, so it might be also useful for you.

Instead of getting directly atom, I keep a safe distance between his Attacker and myself as long as he has the full control of the ball. This distance allows me to control all of his potential moves. 

If the Attacker tries to shoot, you are already between him and the goal, so you block it. If he tries to go left or right, the distance you gave him will allow you to do the same moment so that you can mirror his movements. 

There is one specific mechanic that will help you with the mirroring, which is to get the jockeying. Holding onto the L2 & LT button will let you go into a jockey, which is a magnificent defensive stance that allows you to keep your defensive positioning. Especially in tight 1 versus 1 situations, joking will help you avoid getting beaten by Attackers.

You can also use the jockey with the sprinting mechanic to go for a fast jokey if you see that the opponent is pacing up to things. Let’s see an example.

As the opponent approaches our box patiently, he looks for an opening, but we need to make sure that we use the imaginary line between the ball and the keeper and remain on it. 

Pressing the L2 and jockeying allows us to do little moves towards the sides, which don’t break our defensive positioning, and we remain in front of the opponent all the time, blocking every single opportunity.

Right after he decides to go in one of the directions and pushes the ball away, we chase him down confidently and get the ball away from him. 

After getting into the perfect position, it is time for you to decide when to execute a defensive mode to retrieve the ball.

3. When To Execute Defensive Moves?

In a one versus one, you will eventually have the opportunity to go for a defensive move. But if you do it too early or too late, you can give your opponent an unnecessary opening and concede to an easy goal. That is why waiting for the perfect moment is important.

But when it’s actually okay to execute the defensive moves, the answer is simple. The Attacker is most vulnerable right after he pushes the ball away from his feet. So, between two consecutive wall contacts, there is a brief moment that he’s not in full control of the ball and you need to catch this moment. Let me show you what I mean by this.

Here, as I received the ball with my Striker inside the box, the Defender positions himself in a suitable spot between me and the Keeper. However, he remains impatient with his tackling. He doesn’t pay attention to my ball contact and in the end, he goes for it in the wrong way, loses his defensive shape and concedes an easy goal.

In another scenario, I quickly take a look at the ball contacts of the opponent just because I see that he sprints and pushes the ball away. I know that this will delay his second contact on the ball, so I decide to select my Defender go on a one versus one challenge with him and retrieve the ball dominantly.

So, that means keeping your good positioning and patiently waiting for the Attacker’s vulnerable moment are the core elements of a one versus one defending position. 

In this article, I want to talk about the current state of Official Hardcore Servers in WoW Classic. Before I get started, I must stress that I am personally very supportive of Blizzard developing them.

Besides, I will also explain to you why this is not a priority for Blizzard, nor will it ever probably be a priority, and there is a slight chance we never get Official Hardcore Servers, no matter how much we really want them to happen, and that will be explained in this article. 

What Classic Hardcore Is?

Before we start though, I just want to do a quick recap on what Classic Hardcore is, as there is a chance someone has no idea what the term “hardcore” even refers to

Basically, Classic Hardcore is a No-Death leveling challenge in Classic WoW that is taking part mostly in the Classic Era Servers, with thousands of active players every single day. The goal of the challenge is to make it to level 60 without dying, and if you die and want to keep playing in the challenge, you have to start over from level 1 again. By the way, if you want to solve this problem, maybe you can use WOTLK Classic Gold to equip yourself.

When we talk about Official Hardcore Servers, this refers to Blizzard embracing the Classic Hardcore Gameplay & Community and supporting the movement by adding official Hardcore-type of servers, where if you die you can’t resurrect or you have to delete your character, basically permanent one-life servers. 

Pros Of Having Official Hardcore Servers

So, now that we are all caught up to speed, let me highlight some of the positive aspects of having Official Hardcore Servers. Before I introduce, some people might consider me being negative or just overall pessimistic, but it’s really me looking at the idea of Classic Hardcore Servers with an objective point of view and realizing that Blizzard is a business after all. 

Here are positive aspects of having Official Hardcore Servers:

#1

There’s an obvious demand for them. I did some player scans recently, showing exactly how many people were online at the same time on the Classic Era Hardcore Server for Europe, and there’s literally between 2 and 3 thousand people playing at the same time on a regular Monday evening. 

#2

Having Official Blizzard-Supported Hardcore Servers would make it way more appealing to everyone. First, you would have way fewer grievers, like playing on the current Classic Era Servers, there’ are a lot of grievers, because they can level to level 60 and just grieve anyone else playing Hardcore, without playing Hardcore themselves. 

If we’re on an official hardcore server, grieving will be a lot more risky and a lot more difficult, because first of all the grievers have to level themselves up in a hardcore environment, and then if they decide to grief, they actually have more risk involved because they are playing hardcore themselves. 

Less grieving equals to more fun gameplay and more appealing to quite literally everyone. Right now, playing on Classic Era, you have to deal with some people playing Hardcore, and some people not playing Hardcore, and it’s actually quite messy. 

For example, if you as a non-hardcore player want to do a somewhat difficult quest or kill a named mob, and you try to group up with a hardcore player do the same thing, that hardcore player is literally not allowed to group up with you, which might cause you to get annoyed at the hardcore player because you’re killing the same mobs and could have helped each other, and if you don’t know he’s doing the hardcore challenge, he looks like a complete jackass, so it’s quite messy.

Related: WoW: What Blizzard Should Do To Make Season of Mastery 2 A Successful Launch?

#3

It makes it a lot more convenient & easy to try out. Right now, in order to play Hardcore, you first need to find out which serves the hardcore community is playing on, then you need to download a Hardcore addon. But if we had official hardcore servers, you eliminate having to find out which server to play because they’re already public, and we wouldn’t need the hardcore addon. 

And by the way, the Hardcore Addon has over 200,000 installs, so once again there’s obviously a demand for this.

Why Blizzard Haven’t Implemented Official Hardcore Servers?

Now, let’s think about the idea of Official Hardcore Servers from an objective point of view, and think about why Blizzard hasn’t implemented them yet, if there is such an obvious demand? Actually, it’s all about money. 

Blizzard is a company, they like making money. When they came out with Classic WoW, they tried to keep it as similar to Vanilla WoW as possible, which they said was a “love letter to their community”. 

But I will bet you right now: They always had the intention of coming out with the level 58 boost and the TBC Deluxe Editions for TBC Classic. Classic WoW was just them earning your trust, for then to profit from that trust later on, they 100% thought that through before even beginning to work on Classic WoW. 

My Opinion

So, let’s continue to Hardcore Servers. Here’s how I see it: 

Everyone that is currently playing Classic Hardcore, is playing on Classic Era. 99% of people that know what Classic Hardcore is, are currently playing on Classic Era. In essence, what this means is that 99% of people that would play on Official Hardcore Servers are already playing the game and are already giving Blizzard their monthly subscription revenue. 

Blizzard needs a financial incentive to make Official Hardcore Servers, and to be honest, I simply don’t think it is quite there yet. For the people that know about Classic Hardcore, it’s a fantastic idea, but then again, most of us are already paying & playing on Classic Era, why would Blizzard spend their time & resources on implementing new types of servers for us, when it’s obvious that we are still playing and having fun on the Classic Era Servers? 

In the long run, sure, it could bring more people back to Classic WoW by offering something new & fresh, and it has been successful for some other games in the past, but is the financial incentive really there right now? 

I really do think, and I’m not motivating anyone to do this, but I think in order to get Official Hardcore Servers anytime soon, we would quite literally have to organize a gamer strike or an era boycott to actually give Blizzard a financial incentive for these Hardcore Servers, because that way we are sending the message: “If you want our money, give us what we want”, while right now, we are giving them the money either way and begging them to pet us on the head and say “good boy”. 

Diving even deeper into the financial incentive hole, I can’t help but think: What would Official Hardcore Servers actually look like: Judging by how Classic WoW went, it started off great, really authentic & vanilla-like, at least in most ways, and then when the expansion came out, they capitalized by introducing boosts & deluxe editions. What if a potential Official Hardcore Server follows the same trend? 

They give us exactly what to ask for, in the beginning, but then they start adding random things to milk us for every penny we have, first we would get cosmetics which people would be somewhat okay with, then we would get mounts which again people would be somewhat okay with, but then imagine if they went the extra mile and offered Paid Resurrections? 

For Official Hardcore Servers, I want to say “Death = Delete”. But if you pay $50, you can resurrect your character and keep playing! Or maybe they would make like a Chronoboon Displacer item that costs $50 and allows you to travel 1 minute back in time. So if your character is ever about to die, you can use that item. Or, maybe they would introduce a Light of Elune type of item into the cash-shop, allowing anyone to bubble-hearth, essentially. 

This is just me speculating on how many ways Blizzard could potentially screw up these servers, but I really wanted to highlight the financial incentive aspect of this conversation, as it’s something that isn’t being talked about enough. As players, we care about having fun while playing the game. As a company, Blizzard cares about making money. When you want something to happen, you have to consider both these things.