As we get closer to the release of Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, we want to be ready to enter a new area at any time. Here, I want to share 6 key combat tips that can help beginners master the basics of combat and make them more familiar with combat in Lands Between.

The combat tutorial at the beginning of the game is notoriously unhelpful and very basic. So hopefully this gives you an idea of some simple combat strategies that will allow you to learn more about them than the game’s tutorials allow you to do.

Choose More Suitable Weapons

First, the trick I want to talk about is making Elden Ring more fun by choosing the right weapons. Combat is probably one of the most challenging and rewarding things to do in Elden Ring, and with the right ability or weapon, it can feel great.

Most of the time, players will build their stats for a specific ability or weapon, including Ashes of War, Sorceries, Incantations for the weapon, and sometimes they will even build stats for a specific moveset on the weapon.

Because some weapons of the same type may have very different movesets, or some weapon movesets may be better suited to a specific play style. You can try different weapons at the beginning of the game until you find a move you like. Then start upgrading your weapons with Smithing Stones or Somber Smithing Stones.

There are a limited number of these materials at the start of the game, so you should generally focus on one weapon or a pair of weapons. This prevents people from trying different weapons and not having enough Smithing Stones to upgrade their weapons.

Later, however, after finding specific items in the form of Bell Bearings, you can spend Elden Ring Runes to purchase an unlimited number of various Smithing or Somber Smithing Stones, except for the rarest ones.

That being said, at the beginning and within the first few hours of the game, it’s perfectly fine not to upgrade your weapons if you want to reserve your Smithing Stones for things you really enjoy.

Melee Or Ranged

The second thing you need to decide is whether you want to do Melee or Ranged combat. Choosing whether to fight in close quarters may be your first challenge.

Personally, I usually build around a weapon and spell combo, so I have both, or I’ll use a weapon with Ranged Ash of War.

But for the most part, ranged-based characters have it easier than melee-based characters. So in most cases it helps to have Melee, Ranged, and AOE options so you can meet the needs of each situation. That is, dungeons can be cleared using only melee combat, or bosses can be defeated using only ranged attacks.

In Melee, you have Light Attacks, Heavy Attacks, Charged Heavy Attacks, Rolling Attacks, Crouching Attacks, Jump Attacks, Critical Attacks, Lunge Attack, Running Attack, and Ashes of War. In Ranged combat, you have Shooting Arrows in slot one, Shooting Arrows in slot two, Rolling Attack, Jumping Attack, and Ash of War.

Sorceries and Incantations are used by pressing Light Attack button, or by equipping a Staff or Seal with a spell.

Note that some Sorceries and Incantations can be charged and then released for greater damage, and some can be cast continuously by holding down Light Attack.

Now, some of you might consider a bow build, but I would strongly advise against it, especially for new players. Because bows can be difficult to use, and their attribute scaling isn’t that great.

Although the bow can beat the game, in most cases you’re better off using ranged sorcery or incantation, or simply using the bow to enhance your melee abilities rather than making it the focus of your build. Because this is much more difficult than a normal build.

Shields

For those who want to build with tanks, the next tip I want to talk about is about shields.

Using shield and blocking is a great way to mitigate a lot of damage and prevent premature death. If you decide to use a shield in Elden Ring, there are some key stats you should pay attention to when choosing a shield.

Shield With High Guard Boost

Our first goal is to find a shield with a high guard boost. Blocking requires stamina, like almost every other ability in combat. Guard boost is a statistic that reduces stamina cost of blocking.

If you try to block and run out of stamina, it will fail. You’ll be stunned for a second or two, and you’ll be vulnerable to critical attacks. Therefore, the higher this stat is, the lower the stamina required for block hits.

Shield Size

There are 3 different sized shield types in Elden Ring, namely Small Shields, Medium Shields, and Greatshields. Shields of different sizes allow you to protect against different types of attacks.

For example, when using Greatshields, most attacks will bounce off your shield, even slightly staggering most enemies when they occur.

Note Damage Mitigation Numbers On A Shield

Shields have a numerical value that indicates how much protection the shield can protect you from any given type of damage. The numbers are based on percentages, so if you see a shield with 100 points of physical damage mitigation, that means it blocks 100% of the physical damage from most attacks as long as you have stamina.

Note that some weapons deal physical damage that passes through your shield, such as Scythe or Bloodhound Claws. So if you’re taking damage while blocking, the most likely scenario is that either the attack isn’t pure physical damage, or they’re using a weapon with a shield-ignoring mechanic.

A great starting shield is Brass Shield, which can be obtained from Soldier enemies in Gatefront Ruins shortly after starting the game. It requires 6 strength, 7 weights and has 100 physical mitigation.

Also Read: Elden Ring: The Best One-Shot Build To Enter Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC! - Dragonborn Blood Mage

Block Counters

Additionally, Block counters are a very helpful mechanism. When you block counter, the follow-up attack you make can knock the enemy out of the fight and provide you with a chance to heal during the fight, or deal massive damage in a fatal attack that often turns the tide of the battle.

Block counters are so good that there are some builds that play the entire game using just this mechanic. Note that if you choose a block counter build, I recommend choosing Greatshields, as they have the highest guard boost in the game. But they weigh a lot more than Small and Medium Shields, so that’s something to keep in mind.

Stance

No matter what kind of character you build, whether melee or ranged, it is very important for you to understand and master the stance.

Stance is a mechanic unique to enemies in Elden Ring. Think of it as an extra hidden health bar that will break the enemy’s stance once you’ve done enough damage.

Once an enemy’s stance is broken, most of them will do a kneeling or falling animation with a glowing dot on them, indicating that they can take a critical hit. When this happens, get close to the glowing point, or for enemies that don’t have a glowing point and their stance is broken, get close to their front and press Light Attack. This will perform a fatal attack, causing massive damage.

Please note that the invisible stance bar resets approximately 6 seconds after not being hit. In other words, if you don’t attack an enemy for 6 seconds, Stance damage they take will reset. So if you think the enemy is about to be broken, it’s best to keep attacking.

Each attack you make deals stance damage. Different attacks have different values, and some attacks deal more stance damage than others. Each weapon type also deals with varying amounts of stance damage. In addition, Ashes of War, Sorceries, Incantations for the weapon will also cause stance damage to varying degrees, so this is something to consider.

Like block counters, stance damage is another way to build your character. Stance break builds tend to be more on the offensive side, while block counter builds tend to be more on the defensive side.

Parrying

The last thing I want to talk about is whether to try Parrying. When used correctly, Elden Ring’s Parrying ability is powerful.

It’s a mechanic that’s easy to try but difficult to master. You need to equip a weapon or shield with Ash of War Parry and then press your Ash of War at the right time.

There are many who say you press it when the enemy’s hand starts to move and attack you, and others who say it’s when the weapon starts moving. But I have to tell you, it definitely takes practice to get good at it.

Anyway, that concludes this Elden Ring battle guide. Hopefully, these tips will help you on your journey to Shadow of the Erdtree. Good luck!

Whitestrake's Mayhem stands out as one of ESO's biannual PvP-focused in-game events, occurring across all three of the game's PvP zones: Battlegrounds, Cyrodiil, and Imperial City.

While this event generates significant excitement among PvP enthusiasts, the same level of enthusiasm may not always be shared by PvE mains. In this guide, we'll provide several tips and tricks from a PvEer's viewpoint on how to thrive and optimize your experience during the event.

Battlegrounds

For some players, Battlegrounds may offer a less stressful PvP experience compared to other options, as event tickets and loot can be obtained simply by participating, without the need to excel in PvP skills.

Event tickets are earned through Battlegrounds by completing daily quests. If PvP is not your preferred activity and you receive the "To the Victor" daily quest, you can abandon it and acquire another. "To the Victor" necessitates winning three Battleground matches, which can pose a challenge for those less skilled in PvP.

The other 2 quests are relatively easier.

1. The "Test of Mettle" quest requires earning 1,000 medal points in Battleground matches. Achieving medals, even for less proficient players, isn't overly difficult, as long as the objective is pursued diligently.
2. The simplest quest, "Let the Games Begin" only mandates participation in five Battleground matches, regardless of victory or defeat. Simply showing up suffices to complete this task.

Cyrodiil

As someone who is new to PvP, I find Cyrodiil to be my preferred PvP setting. I'm not fond of the intense close-quarters combat that PvP often entails.

During the event, my strategy is to accumulate a substantial amount of Alliance Points (AP) by repairing walls and doors. Repair kits are available for purchase with AP or ESO Gold from the Siege Merchants at main bases, keep outposts, or owned resources.

Frequently, I move from one keep to another, repairing neglected walls and doors following intense battles. This activity doesn't require direct PvP engagement but can still yield significant AP gains, albeit without earning event tickets.

For those aiming to obtain event tickets by completing daily quests without diving into intense PvP encounters, there are alternative methods. One approach is to defend keeps from a safe distance, utilizing siege weapons to attack incoming enemies. This tactic allows for passive AP accumulation for defending the keep. Additionally, killing enemies with siege weapons progresses bounty missions, which entail killing specific enemy players.

Joining a group can greatly aid in completing these quests, particularly for players like myself who may not excel in direct combat. In group engagements, contributing to combat in any capacity earns credit for player kills, even if not delivering the final blow. Larger groups can expedite the completion of kill quests.

For those comfortable operating in large groups closer to the front lines, tasks such as capturing resources, keeps, and scrolls become more manageable. Utilizing the group finder or joining open groups in zone chat can facilitate these objectives, although they may still pose challenges even within a group setting.

Scouting missions offer a viable option for those seeking to avoid direct confrontation. These quests involve scouting specific keeps or resources, reporting on their defenses, and then returning to base to complete the task and earn tickets.

Alternatively, PvE-focused quests, such as town dailies or delve clearing, provide opportunities for ticket acquisition. However, these locations are often frequented by griefers, necessitating caution.

One advantage of Cyrodiil is the absence of penalties for dying, allowing players to enter with the intent of perishing without consequence. Additionally, completing Cyrodiil daily quests can yield Arena Gladiator's Proofs, which are obtained from Gladiator's Rucksacks received by completing conquest dailies. To maximize proof acquisition, it's advisable to open these coffers once per day, even if turning in multiple quests.

Imperial City

Imperial City stands out as the most challenging PvP zone, particularly for those less proficient in PvP scenarios.

For those prioritizing other activities over Imperial City PvP, I recommend completing quests beforehand to streamline your experience. Imperial City tends to be quieter during off-peak hours, providing a conducive environment for quest completion.

Prior to exiting the Sewer safe zone, ensure you deposit your Tel Var Stones in the bank to safeguard them. Tel Var is the sole in-game currency susceptible to loss upon death, with half being forfeited. Utilize the bank to mitigate this risk.

Also Read: Elder Scrolls Online: How To Participate In Whitestrake’s Mayhem Event And Get More Loot From It?

While carrying Tel Var in your inventory offers potential for increased earnings, it also entails greater risk. If you're prone to frequent deaths, it's advisable to deposit your Tel Var to minimize losses.

In PvP, there's strength in numbers, especially for less skilled players. Don't hesitate to join or follow larger groups, as this can enhance your survival chances and earnings.

Returning to your faction's base in Imperial City entails traversing the Sewers. If you require swift transportation, queue for any Cyrodiil campaign via the Alliance War menu to be ported to your faction's main base. You can then re-queue for Imperial City to resume your activities.

When navigating the Sewers, be mindful of the closest entrances to your faction's home base to expedite your journey. However, exercise caution as these areas are often targeted by griefers.

For those pursuing event achievements and encountering patrolling horrors, precise locations are as follows:

• Arboretum - Lady Malygda and Ysenda Resplendent
• Arena District - Glorgoloch the Destroyer and King Kurog
• Elven Gardens District - The Screeching Matron and Zoal the Ever-Wakeful
• Memorial District - Nunatak and Valgus
• Nobles District - Amoncrul and Baron Thirst
• Temple District - Immolator Charr and Mazaluhad

Lastly, for optimal rewards, open Siege of Cyrodiil merits coffers once daily, even if completing multiple quests. These strategies apply not only to Imperial City but also to other PvP zones, offering a comprehensive approach to PvP gameplay.

For those seeking lucrative opportunities during this event, here are some top-selling items worth considering:

Runeboxes contain costumes and pets, fetching high prices a few months after the event when the market stabilizes. These Runeboxes are available in both Cyrodiil and Imperial City.

Hakeijo runes, found in Imperial City, offer a profitable venture. However, it's advisable to wait a couple of months until the market becomes less saturated with PvP goods. Hakeijo runes are in demand for their association with Tri-Stat enchantments crucial for endgame content, making them valuable commodities.

Powerful Assault gear, particularly the Powerful Assault Ice Staff, is indispensable for PvE tanks. Obtaining these items involves gambling with Powerful Assault Runeboxes sold by merchants in Imperial City. As the contents are randomized and not curated, securing an Ice Staff can yield substantial profits.

Deadly Strike weapons present another lucrative opportunity. These weapons are available in Bruma, Cyrodiil, though ownership of the town by your faction is necessary to access the merchants. Acquiring Deadly Strike weapons, especially daggers, can lead to quick earnings. If switching characters, ensure your Alliance Points are deposited in the bank to facilitate purchases on the appropriate faction.

These strategies aim to optimize earnings during Whitestrake's Mayhem for PvE enthusiasts.

This is a comprehensive guide to the budget edition of the Flicker Strike Assassin designed specifically for Path of Exile 3.23 Affliction League.

Intro

The damage output is sufficient for nearly all non-Uber content, and this build seldom faces defeat while remaining relatively affordable in the later stages of the league. Realistically, you can assemble a character for approximately 10 to 15 Divine Orbs, and that character will possess ample strength to tackle all non-Uber Pinnacles.

The primary objective with this build was to be an effective Shaper Guardian speed farmer, and it excels in that aspect. While it may not be the fastest build in terms of speed, the equilibrium between speed and damage makes it an excellent choice considering its cost-effectiveness.

How Does This Build Work In POE 3.23?

Now let's talk about how this build works. There are a few interesting interactions in this build.

The first of which comes from the new sword introduced last league, Rikiata's Dance. The sword gives you inversion, which makes it so elemental resistances are inverted when you attack an enemy.

For example, when hitting Phoenix, they have a base resistance of 50% cold resistance. When using Rikiata's Dance, the inversion causes the resistance to be flipped to 50 resistance. This is why we don't try to reduce the amount of resistance a mob has. If we were using something like Frostbite, it would only lower all our damage.

Rikiata's Dance is used in conjunction with Eye of Malice, the helmet we're using, causing the enemy's cold resistance to be increased by 50%. If we use the Phoenix example from before, this increases their cold resistance to 75% or negative 75% with inversion. Eye of Malice also gives us a ton of energy shield, so we can easily run a Divine Blessing setup with a 50% aura.

About The Gear

For the chest piece, we're using Utula's Hunger, which makes you get a ton of flat life as long as you don't have any life rolls on other pieces of gear.

Make sure that you're checking the rares that you buy or craft them for this build. You want zero life rolls, including things like regeneration or leech.

In the amulet slot, we're using Badge of the Brotherhood. This makes it so we have our frenzy charges equal to our power charges.

Regarding the anoint, it's crucial to choose Tribal Fury. The effectiveness of this build is notably diminished without the Tribal Fury anointment, making it a necessary inclusion for optimal performance.

In the boot slot, we opt for Ralakesh's Impatience. This choice has undergone changes in the current Affliction League. It ensures a constant presence of maximum frenzy power, and endurance charges. These charges don't manifest as buffs on your character, but you experience their effects without the need for a source to gain endurance or frenzy charges.

For the belt, we select Auxium. This particular belt is seldom utilized in the builds I've come across. Auxium allows you to accumulate a substantial amount of elemental damage with attacks for each power charge you possess. Given the scarcity of power charge stacking elemental attack builds, this belt isn't commonly employed. However, for our specific build, Auxium provides a noteworthy 210% increase in elemental damage with attacks. Additionally, it offers a substantial amount of energy shield, facilitating the smooth running of our 50% Divine Blessing aura.

The rest of the gear consists of rares, and since they don't have life on them, it shouldn't be too hard to obtain or craft. Just make sure to get the Rage on Hit implicit roll that allows you to use Berserk. While this doesn't provide a ton of extra rage, you still get a decent amount during the end of the fight. Since we aim to keep this build budget-friendly, that's perfectly fine for the damage.

There are different ways you could potentially get more rage that using that which was taken or some form of War Cry scaling. However, realistically, it's not something that you need, especially if you don't want to spend a ton of POE Currency on this build. If you were super rich, you could also consider getting +1 power charge rings, but honestly, it's never going to be worth the investment given how expensive they are.

Also Read: A Detailed Guide On How To Craft The Golembrand Witch In Path Of Exile 3.23

How Does This Build Sustain Flicker Strike?

Let's talk about how this build sustains Flicker Strike aside from the inversion mechanic mentioned earlier. This build relies on the generation of power charges to ignore the cooldown of Flicker Strike.

Flicker Strike of Power gives us a baseline of 50% chance to gain a power charge on crit. When used with Power Charge on Critical Support, you get an extra 54% chance to get a power charge on crit. This essentially makes it so, as long as you are critting, you can indefinitely sustain Flicker Strike.

In certain instances, you might face unfortunate circumstances with critical hits after a boss is no longer at full health, leading to the cooldown triggering. This concern primarily arises with pinnacle bosses and occurs infrequently. If desired, you have the option to use a Diamond Flask for those particular bosses, although it's not a major issue and serves as a minor inconvenience. Hence, I made the decision to forego the use of the Diamond Flask.

Conclusion

This outlines the mechanics of the build. Once you've arranged all the items, simply hold down the left or right mouse button and let the gameplay unfold.

The initial aim was to develop an affordable Flicker Strike, and that's precisely what this build is. You experience the thrill of playing Flicker Strike with slightly less damage but at one-tenth of the cost. Despite the reduced damage, it remains proficient in handling all non-Uber content with ease.

I’ll discuss the various preparations I’ve made to help you be ready for the upcoming WoW Season of Discovery Phase 2.

Flight Points

Currently, there are numerous tasks at our disposal. For instance, consider acquiring all the Flight Points, not only those essential up to level 40, but every single one.

Because when we get to the max level, you could also go to higher-level zones to get new profession materials, and here there could be way less competition. So, having all the different Flight Points could definitely be a benefit.

Weapon Skills & Training

Make sure to also learn all the different weapon skills.

And talking about weapon skills, then you also got to make sure that you actually level up these.

The rationale behind this is that when advancing your character in Phase 2, you may come across new weapons. If these happen to be upgrades, you’d want to equip them promptly. Insufficient weapon skill could lead to spending around 30 minutes to an hour reaching a decent level, ensuring you don’t miss your attacks.

So, make sure to fix this now instead of when you have to level, as it’s going to reduce your leveling speed by a high amount.

Get These Consumables

Another thing you can also do when you grab the different Flight Points is to look out for particular vendors where you can purchase potions.

These will be in high demand and also increase your leveling speed, as you won’t die as often. Or, you can use them in PvP situations or if you’re about to die.

So if some of these potions are still cheap on the Auction House, then I would definitely grab these before they become more expensive. Or, you could fish in higher-level zones, but there’s also a high chance that you can get these.

Having a higher amount of health is also going to be important. Therefore, I’ve also purchased some Rumsey Rum Black Labels. These will increase my stamina by 15 for 15 minutes.

World Buff

Another thing you should also do is to go to either Thunder Bluff as a Horde player or the Darnassus as an Alliance player.

Here you should get the world buff. And once you have got this, it’s also going to be important to purchase an item that allows you to store the buff. The name of this item is Chronoboon Displacers, and this allows you to keep your world buff stored in an item.

And then, you can press on the item the moment you would also like to reactivate your world buff.

Profession Leveling

Make sure to also max out your First Aid so you have the best possible bandages for when you have to level. You could even prepare silk cloth as well so you can continue to level this profession right away.

Talking about professions, then you should also max out your main professions, whether it’s gathering professions or crafting professions.

The primary motivation for prioritizing this is primarily due to the uncertainty of the introduction of new Epic items in Phase 2, similar to what occurred in Phase 1. If such implementations are made, it’s advisable not to commence leveling your profession from the beginning.

Also, remember many of the things you can craft will be useful as you’re leveling, especially the Epic items at level 25. Those will easily last all the way up to level 40 or could even be useful at level 40.

Profession Preparation

I’ve also prepared profession materials so I can speed level my leatherworking, for example, Medium Leather, Heavy Leather, and even Thick Leather.

Collect All 12 Runes

Another important thing to do is to collect all 12 runes.

You have the flexibility to switch between these as you progress, whether you find yourself leveling or, for instance, participating in a dungeon where you may need to take on the roles of tanking, healing, or possibly DPS.

Besides this, then the runes also allow you to have up to 3 additional spells or abilities, and these will definitely increase your leveling speed.

In order to collect each individual rune, I use an addon called RestedXP that will tell me where and also how to collect them. And in Phase 2, this addon will then be updated with all the new runes so you know where to collect these as you're leveling up.

20 Completed Quests

Another thing I've also done to level up quickly is to stack up on 20 completed quests.

Instead of handing them in right now to get SOD Gold, then I will wait until I also get experience. That way, I'll get to level 26 in a matter of seconds.

To prepare as much experience as possible, then make sure to also stack up elite quests and dungeon quests as these reward a lot more experience compared to a normal quest.

Also Read: WOW Classic SOD: Farm These 8 High-Value Items To Help You Get Gold Easily!

Rank Up Now

Also, focus on getting to rank 3. Not because of the rewards you can currently purchase, but mainly because you will be able to purchase new rewards in Phase 2.

The higher rank you can get now, the easier it will also be to get to an even higher rank in the next phase.

Cheaper Mount

There's also another big benefit of getting to rank 3.

Essentially, your mount will be more affordable. I am aware that the mount price has been lowered in the Season of Discovery, but having a greater discount is advantageous. This saved gold can be utilized for other purposes.

To reduce your price even further, then you should also focus on your faction-specific reputation. So, make sure to get this to at least Honored. If you can get it to Revered, it's going to be an even bigger discount.

Quick Ranking

The quickest way to get to rank 3 is just to do Warsong Gulch.

This battleground rewards a lot of honor and also reputation that you will need. Make sure to get a pre-made group so you also increase your win rate.

Quick Reputation

Also, make sure to do the Ashenvale World PvP event.

Receiving reputation with the same faction as Warsong Gulch is significant. The reason for its importance lies in the ability to acquire items that aid in a swift leveling process, including those you can instantly utilize upon reaching, for instance, level 38.

Phase 2 Item Preparation

Achieving Revered with this faction allows you to acquire level 25 weapons. There's a possibility that in the future, there might even be a level 40 version. In the original classic, there was indeed a level 38 version.

It’s going to be easy to get this faction to Friendly. And I would highly recommend you to do this as you will be able to purchase a mount you can only use in Ashenvale. So if you plan to quest in Ashenvale in Phase 2, then this mount will also help you level up even quicker.

However, you should make sure you get this faction to at least Honored.

Phase 2 Green Items

Another thing I’ve done in order to prepare higher level green items for Phase 2 is to make sure I fish in higher-level zones.

All of these green items I’ve collected from my Rogue, and most of them I will either use when I’m leveling up or when I get to max level.

And when you’re fishing, you have a chance to get Mithril Bound Trunks and Iron Bound Trunks. And in these, you can then get these green items. Sometimes they will either be above or below level 40, or you could even be lucky enough for them to also be exactly level 40.

Supply Officers

You should also focus on the new faction where you hand in Supply Crates and get reputation with this new faction.

Getting to Revered allows you to purchase a 10-bag, and getting it to Honored allows you to get a 12-bag. It’s quite useful when you’re leveling up so you have more backspace.

You can also unlock a new room for your class. So if you’re planning to get all the runes before Season of Discovery Phase 2, then make sure to focus on the faction. And who knows, maybe in the future, it will even be mandatory to focus on the faction.

The easiest and quickest way to get reputation is simply to find chests in the open world. Here, there’s a high chance that you will also get the Supply Crates.

Focus On BIS gear

To level up even quicker between level 25 to 40, you also got to make sure that your character has amazing gear.

So, do the Blackfathom Deeps raid every single reset. And of course, also work on your professions so you can craft the Epic item.

Here, I’m going to be talking about the complete F2P guide for Gaming and his best teams.

Gaming will launch in Genshin Impact’s upcoming 4.4 version. He is a 4-star Pyro Claymore user from Liyue who has a plunging playstyle. And here, I will focus on his best weapons, artifacts, and teams.

If you want to quickly experience Gaming or obtain his weapons in the upcoming Genshin Impact 4.4, purchasing Genshin Impact Accounts directly will be your best choice!

Weapons

Beginning with his best weapons, one of his better weapons is the Favonius Greatsword, which is an energy recharge weapon. It’s great so he can get his burst easily.

Another great option is the new event weapon called Overlord’s Mega Magic Sword, with energy recharge and an ATK boost. Since you can R5 (or Refines) this weapon as well, I think this will be one of his best fits, especially to get your burst fast.

Another decent energy recharge weapon for him would be the Sacrificial Greatsword, which basically will give him a chance to use his skill again. But this isn’t completely needed since his cooldown is only 6 seconds and the burst reset CD. I only recommend this weapon if you somehow don’t have any of the other ones listed here.

Moving on to some more specific weapons, if you are running Gaming in Vaporize, Melt, or Reaction teams in general, then Makhaira Aquamarine would be the best fit for him with an Elemental Mastery bonus while also boosting ATK based on Elemental Mastery.

Lastly, Serpent Spine, while less F2P as it is a Battle Pass weapon, is great for him as he is on field for a long duration, which is perfect for the buffs the weapon gives. So, these are all of his best weapons.

Artifacts

I’ll now move into the artifacts section and what his best fits are.

Crimson Witch Of Flames

The first artifact set that I would recommend for him would have to be the Crimson Witch of Flames set as it is probably his best set.

The two-piece gives him the extra Pyro bonus and the four-piece gives a 15% melt and damage bonus.

Along with that, it will give a Pyro bonus of 50% of the two-piece’s bonus every time you use a skill for up to 3 times. This is perfect for him. Since his skill basically has a very low cooldown during his burst duration, this will maximize his Pyro damage output, which is why this set is probably his best.

Also Read: Genshin Impact 4.4: Is Gaming Worth Being Pulled As F2P At C0?

Shimenawa’s Reminiscence

While this is his best overall, another decent artifact set would be Shimenawa’s Reminiscence, but this has a slightly higher skill ceiling in terms of timing.

The two-piece gives an 18% ATK bonus, and the four-piece basically takes away 15 energy when using your Elemental skill to give a 50% plunging bonus.

However, this effect lasts 10 seconds and cannot be overridden. So, if you use his skill normally and then deploy his burst, you might not get the buffs of the artifact for the whole time you plunge.

This set is only recommended if you have a proper rotation that can use this artifact.

Gilded Dreams

Another great alternative for him would have to be Gilded Dreams if you are running him in a reaction team, since the set gives him an 80 Elemental Mastery bonus for two-piece.

Additionally, the four-piece gives him additional damage and ATK bonus, perfect for giving him great damage output as well.

Lavawalker

Lastly, I would recommend Lavawalker for him if he is in a mono-Pyro Team.

The two-piece increases Pyro resonance by 40%, and then damage against Pyro-affected enemies is increased by 35%, being significant if he is in a mono-Pyro Team.

In my opinion, I suggest opting for either the Crimson Witch or Gilded Dreams sets, as they appear to be the most beneficial choices for Gaming.

Main Stats & Substats

Now, I will move into the main stats and substats.

For the main stats, I would recommend that you run an ATK or Elemental Mastery set for the Sands, Pyro Damage Goblet, and then a Crit Rate or Damage Circlet.

As per the substats, I would definitely look for ATK, Crit Rate, and Crit Damage, Elemental Mastery, and Energy Recharge.

Teams

With all that out of the way, I’ll move on to his best F2P teams and compositions.

Gaming has 3 main compositions that I can see being used the most for F2P teams. The first one would just be a simple mono-Pyro Team.

In this team, you would definitely need Bennett for the healing and ATK buff, along with basically any Anemo character used to shred with VV (Viridescent Venerer).

The fourth character can be a flex and can really be anyone, such as Thoma or, potentially, even Dehya. However, I would recommend this comp the least since I think his max damage output would come from reaction teams like Vaporize.

With this, you would follow a similar formula with Bennett and an Anemo unit, except this time you would have an off-field Hydro character for additional damage. This could really be anyone from Kokomi, Yelan, Xingqiu, or Furina, if you have her.

Lastly, another very good comp for him would be a Melt comp where you once again follow the Bennett-Anemo pattern and then use someone like Rosaria or Charlotte for cryo application. I do think that Bennett and Anemo would be best paired with Gaming to maximize damage output, so they are useful in basically any team with him.

This is the full guide for Gaming’s best builds and teams as F2P.

Greeting gamers, here are 4 advanced tips you need to be taking advantage of in the WoW Classic Season of Discovery.

Tip 1: Battleground (BG) Teleports

With players frequently having to travel between cities and continents, it can cause a bit of a headache with how to min-max your travel time and where to put your Heartstone.

Thankfully, there's an easy trick you can take advantage of to quickly teleport across zones by simply asking a guildy or friend to cue you into a Battleground.

Whenever you're queued into a BG, if you leave the Battleground, you will appear wherever the person that quequed for you was standing.

This means, for example, if you're in Stormwind and want to go to Darnassus, you can have someone queue you up at the Darnassus Battleground Master. Join the BG. Type '/AFK' to quickly leave, and the game will place you in Darnassus where your friend was standing, saving you a ton of travel time.

There are also Battlemasters in Ashenvale for both Horde and Alliance if you want a quick teleport to the battle for Ashenvale event, saving you some travel time.

Tip 2: Hearthstone Batching

In a similar vein to the last tip, since travel is a big pain in WoW Season of Discovery, here's another easy way to maximize your travel efficiency.

If you have to hearth and know that you need to be back where you are in an hour or later, you can perform a Hearthstone batch. This is done by using your Hearthstone and then asking to set your hearth to an inn but not clicking the confirmation window until the moment before your Hearthstone is about to finish casting.

If performed correctly, you will hearth to where your Hearthstone's currently set and then set your Hearthstone to the new location at the same time, allowing you to hearth back 1 hour later. The timing for this technique will vary depending on your ping.

However, I found pressing the confirmation window within 2 seconds of the cast finishing works best for me. My ping's around 80. When in doubt, it's always better to be too late than too early because if you're too early, you will set your Hearthstone to your current location and end up hearthing in place, wasting your Hearthstone, whereas if you're too late, you would simply run back like normal, anyway.

Tip 3: Mistletoe And Snowballs

This is a time-sensitive tip during the Winter's Veil events, but it is an important one.

Players will not have access to these items again for an entire year, which is basically the entire lifespan of Classic WoW Season of Discovery. So, it's valuable to stock up now while you can. The event ends on January 2nd, 2024.

Mistletoes are an item you can get from using '/kiss' on the Winter Revelers in any inn. The item, when used on other players, grants them plus 20 spirit. That is a lot of spirit regardless of your level and is greatly appreciated by your healers and casters.

Each time you kiss a Reveler, you get 5 mistletoes and receive a debuff preventing you from getting further mistletoes for 1 hour. This can be ever so slightly circumvented by making a '/kiss' macro and kissing both of the Revelers in the inn at the same time, giving you 10 mistletoes.

I have gone as far as to make alts that are logged off in inns, and I log in occasionally to soak up Mistletoes. People will thank you for stocking up once they are no longer available.

On the other hand, snowballs are an Alliance-centric tip during this event. Paladins gain access to a spell called Judgment of Wisdom around level 40, which allows any attack on the judged target to have a chance to restore Mana.

For some reason, throwing a snowball counts as an attack on that target and is off the GCD (Global Cooldown), which means you can macro snowballs with your spells to double up on Mana Regeneration chances.

This trick is often used by speedrunning guilds or players that love parsing and will pay a premium for Snowballs during the summer season when they're unavailable. Stock up now to use yourself or sell them later for a profit. You may earn a large amount of WoW SoD Gold for this. So act quickly!

Tip 4: The Blackfathom Deeps (BFD) Logout Skip

Getting into BFD is annoying, especially on a PvP server where you're likely to encounter an array group of the opposite faction.

So, from the BFD entrance, you can swim over to the left side of the cavern entrance and hug the wall.

Make sure you're at the very top of the water level and log out. When you log back in, you'll be at the dungeon entrance. This is a logout skip.

That’s all for this guide, I hope it helps!

The New Life festival has begun in ESO, bringing with it a 100% XP boost to celebrate the holidays!

The event was originally set to end January 3rd. But ZOS has heard the complaints on the forums and extended the event to January 9th, giving you ample time to catch up with this year’s ticket items.

Introductory Quest & How To Join The Event?

To join the event, pick up the New Life Festival quest from the Crown Store and use it to locate the New Life Herald Breda, found south of the city of Windhelm in Eastmarch close to the Kynesgrove Wayshrine.

There is also a portal at all impresario tents that will teleport you directly to the New Life festival tent. The intro quest simply tasks you with talking to Breda.

Breda’s Bottomless Mead Mug

Once complete, you will unlock the Breda’s Bottomless Mead Mug collectible, which used to provide a 100% XP boost, but this has changed!

100% XP Boost!

You can enjoy the XP boost automatically every time you sign in throughout the entire event period. And its benefits stack with other XP bonuses!

How To Get Rewards?

There are a total of 10 daily quests. And when you complete 1, you’ll be rewarded with a New Life Festival Box.

Reward Box Contents

Within them, you will have a chance to receive the following goodies.

You can complete the dailies and collect these boxes on each of your characters.

New Life Daily Quests & Achievements Information

The New Life Festival Quests will send you all over Tamriel.

There’s a quest for each playable race in the game. For example, the Khajiit themed quest will send you to Reapers March.

There are achievements tied to each quest that you pick up from Breda, a few of which are straightforward.

Fish Boon Feast Achievement

In Shadowfen at the fish boon feast, catch 5 of each fish to get Fish Boon Angler.

You can do this over the time of the event or across multiple characters. This one will probably take the longest since RNG plays a part.

You can use any bait as long as you are at a New Life fishing hole, even the junk bait.

Lava Foot Stomp & Castle Charm Challenge Achievements

For the Lava Foot Shuffle and Castle Charm Challenges, it’s as simple as waiting for a second player to come along and performing your actions at the same time.

Snow Bare Plunge Achievement

The Snow Bare Plunge achievement says all you need to know.

Drop down to your knickers and jump in the water. Just one time is needed.

Stonetooth Bash Achievement

At the Stonetooth Bash, have some of the event recipe Betnikh Twice Spiked Ale ready to drink after you eat your meal.

The recipe comes from the reward crates, but you could ask other players as well.

War Orphan’s Sojourn Achievement

The War Orphans Benefactor achievement requires you to make a ESO Gold donation, and then complete the optional objective to kill the encroaching wildlife also in one trip.

The last couple can be a little more challenging, but you can remedy it by working in a team!

Signal Fire Sprint Achievement

Signal Fire Sprint requires you to light all of the braziers within 35 seconds.

You’ll want to start at the Brazier next to the Skyshard in town, then work your way around to the others.

You can use spells to run faster, like Rapid Maneuvers in the PvP skill line. Or, you can just work with someone else and they can light some of the Braziers.

Also Read: Elder Scrolls Online: A Complete Guide To Endless Archive Portals To The Unknown! - Puzzles, Quests & Upgrades

The Trial Of The Five-Clawed Guile Achievement

And the Trial of Five-Clawed Guile in Reapers March challenges you with unlocking 3 chests in 35 seconds or fewer.

Again, work with someone else, if they have the ability to force lockpicks even better.

Mud Ball Miscreant Achievement

The final achievement is Mudball Miscreant.

Throwing a Mud Ball is easy. When the quest is active, you simply need to have the leader in-front of you to use a Mud Ball on them. You could also use the collectible Mud Ball Pouch reward from the event drops when the quest isn’t active.

The challenge here can be finding the Alliance leaders. The locations listed here are in order based on quest progress in the base game.

New Life Celebrant Achievement

Completing all of Breda’s quests once will award the New Life Cerulean dye.

Magnanimous Title

And completing all of these quests, plus learning all 9 New Life crafting recipes and the full Skinchanger motif that drop from reward chests, will unlock the Magnanimous title.

Crystalfrost Skin

And finally, there’s one more achievement, Newly Charitable. This achievement rewards the Crystalfrost skin.

To unlock it, complete 12 of the New Life, Deep Winter, or Imperial Charity Writs that drop from reward crates.

Completing one of these holiday writs awards you with a Refugee Gift box. These contain a tradeable page of the Rkindaleft Dwarven weapon style.

Old Life Observance - No Achievement

There are no achievements tied to the Old Life Observance daily.

Simply go to the shrine on the map, write a message and burn it for a reward box.

How Many And How To Get Tickets?

In addition to the event boxes, you get 3 tickets per day of the event for completing 1 of the New Life daily, equaling out to a total of 60 tickets!

Remember that you can only hold 12 at one time.

Impressario

During New Life, the Impresario offers all fragments of the Passion Dancer Blossom, and all of the fragments for each morph of it released this year.

So, if you’re missing things that you wanted, you can use this event to catch up!

You can also pick up bound style pages for the new Morningstar Frostwear set, or a New Life Festival Brab Bag.

New Life Grab Bag - What’s In The Bag?

The New Life Festival Grab Bag can contain these items if you don’t already have them in your collection.

If you already have everything in the grab bag, you won’t be able to buy one.

Other Ticket Merchant Inventory

And you have some other options for spending your tickets, so use the large amount of them that this event provides wisely!

Snowglobe House Is For Sale!

This event is also the only time to pick up the Snow Globe House.

It is a Crown Store exclusive, but it is a great value. And it will provide you with an instant, free fast-travel to Breda throughout the entire event period.

As you journey across Azeroth in Season of Discovery, you may have found these uncommon items that you’ve looted across different mobs. These are called the Waylaid Supply Crates.

As of time now, so far, you’ve only been able to carry one in your bags at a time. But there’s going to be a hotfix going out later, which is going to allow you to carry multiple of these crates in your inventory.

But what are these things? How do they work? In this guide, I’ll be breaking down what these things exactly are, what they’re used for, and why you should be completing them when you find them.

What Are Waylaid Supply Crates?

Let’s first begin with what they are.

The Waylaid Supply Crates are a part of an entirely new system, and it’s all part of this new reputation grind called the Azeroth Commerce Authority.

This new reputation comes with a bunch of new rewards that I highly recommend you grind out because not only can you get some XP, but you can also get some runes for every single class. For example, if you play a Rogue and you’d like to tank as a Rogue, that rune comes from being Honored with this faction.

Also Read: WOW Classic SOD: Top 10 Things You Need To Do At Level 25

How Do Waylaid Supply Crates Work?

Next, let’s talk about how the system works.

First, you will go out and, as you’re journeying through Azeroth, you’ll kill mobs and you’ll loot one of these supply crates off said mob. And it’s completely random, whichever ones you guys find when you’re looting mobs.

As an example, let’s say that you looted the supply crate that is for Copper Bars, which means you would have to either craft 20 Copper Bars or you just buy them off the Auction House.

Once you get them, you click on the item to combine them, and it turns into a supply crate, aka a Supply Shipment.

Once you’ve got your Supply Shipment, you’re going to head over to one of the NPCs to turn it in. There are six NPCs in the game to turn these into, 3 for each faction.

Alliance NPCs:

1. Elaine Compton is in Stormwind.
2. Tamelyn Aldridge is in Ironforge.
3. Marcy Baker is in Darnassus.

Horde NPCs:

1. Jornah is in Orgrimmar
2. Dokimi is in Thunder Bluff
3. Gishah is in Undercity

And it’s really just as simple as that. You go out, complete your quests and kill mobs, and then you loot these off the mobs, and then you just complete whatever it is required and turn it in.

Rewards

So, now let’s actually take a look and see what the rewards are.

For reaching Friendly with the faction, it will unlock the purchasing options of:

• The Small Courier Satchel, which is a 10-slot bag
• The Provisioner Gloves. These are cloth gloves that are 3 stamina and 3 spirit.
• The Courier Threads, some leather boots with 4+ agility
• The mail waist is called the Hoist Strap, which is a 2 strength and 2 stamina mail belt.

And then for reaching Honored is where you get the really good stuff - the runes:

• For Mage, you’ve got Arcane Surge.
• For Paladin, you’ve got Rune of Beckoning Light.
• For Warlock, you’ve got Everlasting Affliction.
• For Shaman, you’ve got Rune of Healing Rain.
• For Hunter, you’ve got Rune of Serpent Spread.
• For Warrior, you’ve got Rune of Single-Minded Fury.
• For Druid, you’ve got Rune of Skull Bash.
• For Rogue, you’ve got Rune of Teasing.
• For Priest, you’ve got Tenebrous Epiphany.

And then there’s also two patterns here for professions. You’ve got the Phoenix Bindings and the Mantle of the Second War.

Just keep in mind that currently, the two patterns are actually bugged. So apparently, what happens is when you purchase them and then you learn them, they actually don’t show up as learned under your professions tab. So, I don’t think they’re worth getting right now, but I’m sure this will be hotfixed at a later time.

Tips

Now, let’s talk about a couple of tips for using this system.

Apparently, there are reports going out that when it comes to the amount of reputation you get for turning these in, you actually get more rep for turning in ones that require crafted items over gathering items.

So, for example, if you get a shipment and you turn it in that requires an item that you get from gathering, you get about 300 rep. However, if you turn in a shipment that calls for an item that is something that’s crafted, you actually get 450 rep.

Just be mindful that when you are turning these in, the crafted items are definitely going to be more expensive if you’re not actually crafting them.

And if you are trying to get these done while you’re leveling, you’re probably not going to have a lot of SoD Gold for buying your spells. So, I would say definitely try to focus on these once you hit Level 25, the level cap for this first phase, instead of doing it while you’re leveling.

Another important tip to remember here is that, again, there’s the level 10 items and then the level 25 ones. So, once you actually get to Friendly reputation, the level 10 Supply Crates will no longer give you reputation. So, once you get to Friendly, you’re going to have to just grind the level 25 Supply Crates.

Update 7.4, “Chains in the Dark,” is now out in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

In this guide, I’m going to give you some spoiler-free steps on how to take a look at all the new content in the game. If you want to have a better gaming experience in this new content, it is very necessary to prepare sufficient SWTOR Credits!

New Story Continuation: Chains In The Dark

The biggest addition to the game in this update is a continuation of the main storyline.

You can start the “Chains in the Dark” storyline once you have completed all previous storylines, including Ruhnuk and Voss Interpreter’s Retreat.

New Story Area: Kessan’s Landing On Ord Mantell

Once you have, you’ll automatically get a quest called “Road to Nowhere” in your quest tracker.

You can launch it, which will eventually lead you to the new area on Ord Mantell called Kessan’s Landing. This is the main story, but there are some other stories and quests to pick up.

The first is Lane Vizla and Basilisk Droid story continuation. To get it, start the “Road to Nowhere” quest. The next time you log off your character and log back in, you’ll automatically be granted a quest called “Eyes on the Prize” that you can start by answering your holocom.

The second is the Ord Mantell dailies. You can pick these up after you’ve completed the main quest from the terminal in Kessan’s Landing, near where you load in. These are the repeatable quests tied to the Kessan’s Landing reputation track and rewards.

Lastly, there’s a secret quest nicknamed the “Geothermal Shielding” questline. This quest, properly called “Schematic Aspirations,” has a bunch of different quests, is well-hidden, and is picked up at the very south of the Kessan’s Landing city from a large terminal in the Runoff Control building. You do not have to complete or even start the main quest to do the Geothermal Quest. It will eventually lead you to a super hidden “Lava Problems” quest, and you need to complete the Geothermal Shielding Quest before starting Lava Problems.

Once you’ve wrapped up the main story, you might want to explore Kessan’s Landing a little more. There’s a whole hidden questline related to the Geothermal Shielding, a new Datacron, a handful of hidden achievements, and so on. And working on the reputation track for Kessan’s Landing by doing the dailies will grant you access to the reputation vendor, which includes a new armor set, a new mount, a new Nexu pet, as well as a bunch of decorations.

New World Boss

Lastly, there’s a new world boss that has a chance to drop a rare mount walking around in the north.

If you’re a newer player and you don’t care at all about all this endgame stuff, if you already finished the story, there has been some cool new stuff added for you, too.

Cinematic Lighting

The biggest one that players have been talking about is the new cinematic lighting, which is across all of the game’s cutscenes.

This changes the way that cutscenes look compared to before the update, with improved lighting. So, if things look a little different, you know why.

They also kind of overhauled the way some of the starter planets work. The most noticeable is on Korriban.

Gearing Changes

Circling back to those level 80 players, let’s talk about gear in this update.

The way that you gear up has changed quite a bit, or rather, new easier options have been introduced, whether you’re a solo player or a group player. But the treadmill to gear up has gotten longer as now item rating for almost all items goes all the way up to 344.

So, the good news for gearing is that all players, including solo or casual players, now have the ability to earn gear going all the way up to item rating 344, which is way overkill for any type of content they’re going to play. This is because you can now exchange currencies you get from different types of content for the currency you can use to purchase Rakata gear, which is the best in the game.

The downside is that is a long set of steps to take. Good luck out there to everyone trying to get their endgame gear to 344.

However, one nice little update that will make you stronger without making you go crazy is that Hyde and Zeek, the vendors that sell modifications, now go all the way up to 340.

So, if you’re already familiar with how Hyde and Zeek works, go ahead and upgrade what enhancements and mods they have available to you. And don’t forget, you can now upgrade your legendary implants to item rating 340.

GTN Overhaul

Another big change that affects all players, new and old, is the GTN overhaul.

The GTN is the player-run market where players can sell and buy items from other players. The most obvious change is that the way you search for items has changed. You’ll notice instead of seeing a whole bunch of different listings for one item, they’ll all be condensed into a singular listing. And you can see how many are for sale total, and you don’t know who’s selling them. So there, you just kind of see the lowest price there.

When you buy an item, you can also claim it straight from the GTN. Behind the scenes, when you’re selling, there is a new fee just to list an item that is non-refundable, as well as the way taxes are applied to items is a bit different. These changes are part of the economic initiative that developers started about a year or so ago to combat inflation.

This GTN overhaul seems to kind of still be a work in progress, so feel free to give feedback to the developers on the forums.

Events

Now let’s talk about what’s coming up in the future. There’s a bunch of events that are going to be tied to update 7.4 that are coming up.

First off is the limited time Life Day Event that only comes once a year. That’ll be starting on December 12th and running until January 9th next year. Life Day this year will have a new reward in the form of an armor set.

Some of the normal events will be running, for example, Swoop Event starts December 12th, Rakghoul Event starts December 26th, PvP Season 4 is running until January 29th, and Galactic Season 5 is running to February 24th.

The event that players were most excited about and looking forward to being announced is the Double XP Event, and that will be taking place near the end of the year, starting on December 24th, lasting 2 weeks until January 4th.

So, if you want to level up super fast, that’ll be the time to do it. Not to mention, it gives you bonus Valor for those of you PVPing.

Cartel Market

In addition to all of those, they also added some new Cartel Market items to the game.

They were very proudly showing off the new color, Specularity Tech and new Metallic & Pearlescent Dyes when they announced this update. However, we only recently learned how they were going to be selling them and what they would cost.

First off, all dyes included are single-use and they’re not available in collections. The developers decided to use a fear of missing out tactic to sell these dyes and said they will only be listing them for direct sale for a limited time and will be rotating them out weekly.

As of the time now, the Metallic Black and Matte Black and its reverse dyes are each for sale for 1,750 Cartel Coins, making them the most expensive dye on the Cartel Market. The Chrome White and Metallic Gold and its reverse are also available in a bundle for 2,500 CC.

Not only are they incredibly expensive, they also have this kind of timer on them. So, you have to decide whether you want to buy them or not because the only way to get them later, they said, would be from Cartel Packs, the ultimate packs, or from the GTN at really, really high prices as it seems they’ll be in very high demand.

In addition, they’ve also been showing off and will be releasing some other more normal Cartel Market items. For example, the new Suppression Trooper’s armor set, which I think is 2,200 Cartel Coins, and the new starm toy that’s 800 Cartel Coins. So, if you’re waiting for the Sabine Wren-style armor set and the Defiant Maverick armor set, just keep your eyes open for the Cartel Market.

They also announced a whole bunch of daily sales rotating each day, and most importantly, a collections-wide unlock sale starting on December 20th.

In Elden Ring, you’re going to find many different items. But the Deathroot item is something that you are going to need for not only a questline, but also to get some really great rewards in Elden Ring.

So, here, I will show you where all 9 of these Deathroots are located in Elden Ring. Also, I will take you through the questline that’s going to start here at the Bestial Sanctum.

If you want this process to go smoothly, you'd better use Elden Ring Runes to buy some good weapons and armor to improve yourself!

Undead Mariner 1

But before we get to the Bestial Sanctum, let’s go ahead and gather all of the Deathroots within Limgrave and Liurnia.

Your first Deathroot is going to be found in Summonwater Village. You can start at the Summonwater Village Outskirts Site of Grace, and you can run into the village. There’s going to be a Tibia Mariner there. You need to kill him and grab the first Deathroot.

Deathtouched Catacombs

Staying in Limgrave, you’re going to Deathtouched Catacombs.

Head to the Deathtouched Catacombs and you’re going to go through the entire dungeon in order to kill the end boss. You will fight a Black Knife Assassin for the boss of this dungeon.

But after you defeat the boss, there’s a chest there. Open it up and that’s going to be your second Deathroot.

Undead Mariner 2

At this point, we’re going to move into Liurnia of the Lakes.

Right on the east side on the map, there’s going to be another Mariner. All you need to do for the Deathroot is to kill him and grab his Deathroot from him.

Black Knife Catacombs

At this point, you’re going to continue north all the way up until the Black Knife Catacombs.

You want to make your way through that dungeon all the way until the boss room. At the end, you will fight a Cemetery Shade with a bunch of skeletons.

But after you kill him, you will have access to the chest in the middle of the room. Grab that chest and there is going to be your Deathroot.

Guraanq Questline Check In

At this point, we’re going to go visit Guraanq, possibly for a second time, depending on if you started this questline or not already. I will assume that you have. But if you have not, you need to head here to the Third Church of Marika.

Right behind it is going to be a portal that will drop you off right here in front of the Bestial Sanctum. Gurranq Beast Clergyman is going to be there and you need to give him all the Deathroots you have received so far.

You should have 4 at this point, and that will net you the Ash of War:Beast's Roar, Bestial Vitality, Bestial Sling, the Clawmark Seal, and the Beast Eye (which is going to allow you to detect when other Deathroots are in the area).

There is something to take note of here within Guraanq’s questline, because after you give him the 4 Deathroots, the next time you come back to him, he is going to try to attack you because he’s gone mad. You need to get him down to half health and then he will calm down. You need to rest at the Site of Grace and then give him the rest of your Deathroots in order to complete the questline.

Undead Mariner 3

The next area in the Lands Between you want to venture to is the Wyndham Ruins in Altus Plateau.

There’s going to be a Mariner there who you need to kill, and he is going to drop for you your next Deathroot.

However, in order to get to Altus Plateau, you need to get two separate pieces of a medallion - Dectus Medallion (Left) & Dectus Medallion (Right). The first of which is going to be located at Fort Height in Limgrave, and the second piece is going to be located all the way to the east in Fort Faroth in Caelid.

Once you have both of those medallions, you can go up to the lift and you can get right into Altus Plateau to find this Deathroot.

Gelmir Hero’s Grave

Next up, you’re going to be heading into the Gelmir Hero’s Grave, and you will be following the Chariot all the way down the lava path until you get to the point on the right where you can jump down a little hole that will take you directly to the boss door.

And after defeating the Red Wolf boss, there’s going to be a chest at the very end of the room, and that is going to hold your next Deathroot.

Also Read: Elden Ring: How To Find All 13 Ancient Dragon Smithing Stones?

Undead Mariner 4

Next up, we are going to head north to the Mountaintops of the Giants, where there is yet another Mariner who you need to kill in order to get the next Deathroot.

Take out the skulls rolling around, dispose of the Mariner, and that Deathroot will be yours.

Giants’ Mountaintop Catacombs

You’re now going to head to the Giant’s Mountaintop Catacombs, where you need to make your way through that entire dungeon to get to the end boss fight. It can be a little tricky to get through, but if you feel like you’re going insane, you’re going in the right direction.

Destroy the Ulcerated Tree Spirit at the end of this dungeon, and in a chest at the end of the Boss Arena is going to be your second to last Deathroot.

Hidden Haligtree Path

At this point, we’re going to need to pick up our very last Deathroot, which is located in the Hidden Path to the Haligtree.

Now, there is a very special way you need to get here. You’re going to need the entire Secret Medallion. The first half is going to be located in the Liurnia of the Lakes, given to you by Old Albus, and the second portion of the medallion is going to be located in Castle Sol, on the Mountaintops of the Giants.

After you defeat the boss, continue running through that area and take the lift up, and you will be able to grab this medallion at this location.

You’re then going to take it back to the Grand Lift of Rold, go up to the lift, and it will give you a second option to lift the Secret Medallion, and then you can access this area.

Now that you have access to the Hidden Path to the Haligtree, you’re going to see that your Beast Eye is going to quiver. So, I want you to follow the path (the invisible pathways) until you get to the portion where you can jump off and fight one of the very large Land Octopus.

Right behind that octopus is going to be a lever, which is going to open the boss door. Dispose of the octopus, pull the lever, turn around, and follow the path all the way until you see the golden boss fog. You will not miss it because it’s going to be directly in front of you.

But before you fight this boss, take off your weapons, because it’s going to be a Stray Mimic Tear, and whatever you have equipped, it will also have equipped. So, it can be either as easy or as hard as you want it to be.

After defeating the Stray Mimic Tear, there is a chest in the back of the room. Open that chest and you will receive your very last and ninth Deathroot.

Finish Guraanq Questline

At this point, we’re going to tie up loose ends with Guraanq, so you’re going to head back to the Bestial Sanctum in Caelid, and you’re going to approach him to give him your final remaining 5 Deathroots.

After you give him the 5 remaining Deathroots, you are going to get some really cool dialogue from Guraanq, and then you are also going to be rewarded with a few different Elden Ring Items.

And just a side note here, you can also return every single Deathroot as you get it.

And after you do his entire questline, you will receive an Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone, Gurranq’s Beast Claw, the Beastclaw Greathammer, the Stone of Gurranq, and the Beast Claw Incantation.

That is going to be the entirety of Guraanq’s questline, as well as all 9 Deathroot locations.

BizzCon launched to exciting fanfare, moderate disappointment, some controversy, but overall satisfaction. And in that controversy, we have Season of Discovery.

Season of Discovery is Blizzard’s take on Classic Plus. It has completely changed how classic will be played, and what at its core is that it is still Classic WoW. The changes are staggering and amazing.

By the way, if you want to be far ahead of other players in WoW Classic SOD, having enough WoW Classic SOD Gold must be the key to your victory!

Quick Summary Of Content

The most exciting change of Season of Discovery is none other than the Rune Engraving system.

It’s a new class augmentation, where by exploring the world, doing quests, killing bosses, or whatnot, you are able to equip spells, abilities, some item effects, some abilities from other classes, some racial abilities, and some enchantment directly onto your armor, and acquire those passives or abilities.

When we start the game, the level cap is only 1 to 25, and we only have access to three armor slots: chest, legs, and hands. Whilst I will dive into runes for all classes later in this guide, some noticeable runes are Crusader Strike for Paladin and Wild Strikes for Druids.

Now, these two abilities are quite incredibly powerful whilst they alone don’t change the game. Considering that you can get three abilities like this at this power, at level 25 is staggering. This doesn’t even account for reaching max level and having the ability to unlock over 10 abilities, depending on if you can equip runes on weapons, shields, and trinkets.

But because discoveries are secret, and no one knows where they are. You’re probably saying it’ll be datamined. There’ll be 50 YouTube videos and 20 icyvein guides before Season of Discovery even launches. And whilst typically you’d be right, in this case, you’re wrong. Because one of the best decisions that Blizzard has ever made is the following chain: there is no public beta, alpha, or anything.

Every single person is going in blind. The only knowledge we have of the game is what they’ve said to us during BlizzCon, and the people that actually got to play the BlizzCon demo for the 10-man raid Blackfathom Deeps.

Another facet to the game is the following. There are now new tanks and healer combinations. The meta has been shifted, and many classes can do things that they couldn’t do before, like Shaman, Warlock, and Rogue tanking. Also, Paladin is fixed and can properly tank now......

Level Banded Content Phases

Now that you know what runes are, and you learn what the level cap at the start of Season of Discovery is, you’re probably asking, what does that mean?

It’s a new system that Blizzard has designed, called Level Banded Content Phases. And what this means is that Phase 1 of Season of Discovery is capped at level 25, and after a period of a few weeks, it will increase to level 40, the cap for Phase 2.

The phases are as follows, based on Blizzard purposefully leaking the next three 10-man raids, which are: Gnomeregan, Scarlet Monastery, and Karazhan Crypts after Blackfathom Deeps.

Now, though, based on the dev interviews, here we have the following phase bands. Phase 1 being Blackfathom Deeps at a level cap of 25. Phase 2 being Gnomeregan at a level cap of 40. Phase 3 being Scarlet Monastery at a level cap of 50. And Phase 4 being Karazhan Crypts at a level cap of 60.

Whilst Blizzard didn’t announce a Phase 5, I wouldn’t be surprised if Phase 5 was 40-man raids being redone. There could be a Phase 5, which starts at level 60 with a completely new 40-man dungeon raid, perhaps Dire Maul. And then Phase 6 is Molten Core remastered and onwards.

So, with those phases explained, why did Blizzard choose Phase 1 being level 25? Blizzard said that the feedback during the classic betas back in 2019 was that people enjoyed it and it was a fun time rediscovering, exploring and doing things at the level 25 cap back then. So, they chose their cap based on that, especially since it allowed them to redo and reuse old content, especially low-level content that people wouldn’t visit again otherwise.

Another major reason is since phases last a few weeks, assume between 4 to 10 weeks per phase, it means you’ll never be too far behind as a new player or someone with IRL responsibilities. You can always jump back, jump back out, play other games, not feel pressured or compelled to grind to max level immediately. You’ll have plenty of time to do that.

And the final reason is that they add exciting, unique and new content with each level banded content phase: new items, new quests, new NPCs and mobs, new discoveries and world quest, new PVP and more. And they can do this over the course of a year or two.

The other main reason is that it allows them to treat each phase as a mini beta within itself, testing what works, is overpowered, is meta, isn’t meta and allowing them to give breathing room to make each consecutive phase better and better.

With level banded content phases covered, let’s talk about the last bonus of the system. That is a new mechanic. There will be a massive XP boost to previous phases, allowing you to catch up faster or level up alt faster with every new phase. I don’t know what this XP boost will be, but I assume it’s 2x experience, maybe even as high as 5x experience. We’ll have to wait and see on that front.

Also Read: WoW Classic SOD: How Forced Faction Balance Affects The Season Of Discovery In Hidden Ways?

Endgame Content

Now that we know we’re stock at level 25 for 4 weeks minimum, up to perhaps as long as 12 weeks, what is the endgame for such a low level?

As I said earlier, there are now new 10-man raids, taking all dungeons and remixing them into raid content. And the first of these level-up raids is Blackfathom Deeps. They’ll be taking familiar settings and characters, giving them new mechanics, changing the quest around these dungeons and making it feel like a legitimate raid. Blizzard’s goal here was to make the world feel more alive, tempered and past, allowing us to take an Azeroth for all its glory and prestige.

Since Blackfathom Deeps got a full-on redesign, let’s dive into this exciting and wildly new content. Blackfathom Deeps is an ancient elven ruin with evil stirring within, familiar but mysterious. Most of you probably don’t even remember the bosses there. But even if you do, they are now completely different.

With a 3-day lockout, much like Zul’Gurub, we’re going to have plenty of time to master this level-up raid and figure out everything there is in there and every little secret. And there are plenty of secrets in Blackfathom Deeps, for example, the secret of the Black Feather Artisan, which sounds like an incredible crafting recipe skill set, as well as the mysterious new world buff Boon of Black Fathom.

And now, let’s dive into the bosses. BFD has seven new bosses, all fully reimagined encounters, and all quests and loot for BFD have been completely remastered and remade. You now have level 25 loot being better than perhaps even level 40 classic loot. Don’t quote me on that, as I don’t have a full item list, but what we did see is pretty incredible, since this is essentially level 25 raid loot and not dungeon loot.

But onto our first boss, who is Baron Aquanis, who is no longer a quest NPC and is now the first raid boss. He’s empowered by Fathom Stones, which have to be disabled, as well as jumping puzzles and a very obnoxious knockback. This knockback throws you off the platform, during which you have to jump puzzle your way back up, only for the ability to be off cooldown, so he knocks you down again. Kind of annoying as far as combat mechanics go, but it’s very interesting, nonetheless.

Then, we have Ghamoo-ra, now the second boss of the raid instead of the first of the dungeon. And he’s protected by a magical barrier, which we have to break through to be able to burn down the giant turtle.

The third boss is Lady Sarevess, a Naga Sea Witch with a retinue of Blackfathom Elite, and we have to turn her own spells against her to stop her from overwhelming us with unending adds.

The next four bosses we have almost no information about, but here they are: Gahz’rilla, the Void Murloc, followed by Lorgus Jett, and then Twilight Lord Kelris, before finally we confront Aku’mai, the Voidscale Hydra.

And that summarizes Blackfathom Deeps. I’m beyond excited to dive into this new content and see just how fun and intuitive it really feels.

Rune Breakdown

Next, I would cover runes in more depth.

As I already said, they’re treating each phase almost as if it’s a beta in of itself, which means runes will only get progressively more wild and interesting, seeing how players lean into them and how the class balance turns out.

Since Rune Engravings can be found all over the world, from quests, dungeons, raids, bosses, PvP, and who knows what else, I can’t cover every rune at the moment, just those that we know of.

At level 25, we only have access to chest, legs, and hands. Runes are permanent essentially a new talent system, which can be applied and removed at will, with no limitations or costs. You simply have to be out of combat to apply and unapply runes. The greatest benefit that runes provide to the game, though, is the simple fact that formerly faction-unique bonuses, buffs, and racials are now available for certain classes, removing that faction buffer. They are also making talent respecs cost far less, but they didn’t tell us how much less as of now.

Every class has its own runes. There is an insane amount of new abilities for player to choose. But it’s going to be a great few weeks as everyone attempts to figure out the new meta, only for the next phase to come out and completely invalidate every single guide that people write. This is good for creativity, exploration and fun. It’s terrible for min-maxes and meta chases, since your meta will never be meta for more than a few weeks or months at best.

Class Design Goals

This all ties neatly into the fact that Blizzard wants to shake up the meta with Season of Discovery, changing the concept of metas and data mining.

Meta in Season of Discovery will never be consistent or stable and thus don’t chase metas. Otherwise, expect to level a new character in every phase and completely learn a new class every phase for the most OP and broken character of that phase. Some of you will do that, that’s for sure, though.

Nonetheless, Blizzard wants to give each class something to brag about. They want to stick with what’s popular in the sense of abilities, item effects and more. Rather than just give random or terrible runes to people, they want to let people let loose and have fun.

Some of the runes will be new and unique spells never seen before. Some will be from future expansions, but they did say that they want to stay true to classic overall and not introduce anything too modern. So don’t expect spells from beyond WOTLK Classic or maybe even Cataclysm. They want to focus on class fantasy and make sure every class feels true to its fantasy.

New PvP Content

Finally, we move on to PvP, the lifeblood of WoW for some people. And what they’ve done cooked up for PvP is phenomenal and amazing.

Allow me to introduce you to Ashenvale, which lore-wise is a hot spot of war between the Alliance and the Horde since the days of Warcraft 3. And now it truly is a war between the Alliance and the Horde, not just in quest or Warsong Gulch.

Welcome to the Ashenvale PvP Zone, a massive zone-wide PvP event that will completely change how Ashenvale operates and make it a bloodbath.

On the side of the Alliance, we have the Priestess of the Moon, the leader of the Alliance forces in Ashenvale. On the side of the Horde, we have The Farseer, the leader of the Horde forces in Ashenvale. These two bosses are empowered by numerous other clans, which buff each respective leader. And whichever side can figure out a bug and blitz through into the enemy boss and kill them will get the whole experience nerfed.

Jokes aside, like Alterac Valley, you will have to defeat the numerous camp bosses to make the Priestess or the Farseer a weak enough to be defeated.

And as a special unique feature at level 20, you’ll be able to acquire a mount solely for usage in Ashenvale as a PvP unique mount, so it’s not to make the massive Alterac Valley size battlefield and event take 7 hours to complete.

But unlike Alterac Valley, there is no player cap on an open world PvP event, meaning you and your teammates will be able to group together in a massive 5 FPS 400 MS experience, where you don’t know if your side is winning or losing because there are 800 people in Ashenvale pvping at the same time or layering.

In this guide, we’re going to be going over thrown utility in Dark and Darker and what exactly can affect their damage since I often find people don’t really loot or use these Dark and Darker Items as often as they should when they give such a massive advantage in fights.

Explosive Bottles And Oil Lanterns

Let’s start with the Explosive Bottles and Oil Lanterns, also commonly referenced as Mollies.

Explosive Bottles: Throw an explosive bottle at a target location that will cause a bottle that creates a fiery explosion upon impact, scorching the surrounding area and inflicting area-of-effect (AOE) damage to all within its blast radius. It is lootable. The damage it deals depends on its tier. The higher the tier, the higher the damage it deals.

Oil Lanterns: When in someone’s hand, emits light that illuminates the surrounding area. Additionally, it can be thrown in a similar fashion to an explosive bottle, leaving fire that deals 3 magical damage per second. They can be found in loot chests.

These throwable utility items will deal no impact damage and instead spawn a ground AOE that deals 3 magic damage per second, no matter the Rarity.

Right now, I’m actually not sure what rarity does for Explosive Bottles. It seems like it only affects the sell price to the vendor. The duration and base damage are the same across the board. Anyway, if you want these bottles, be prepared with plenty of Dark and Darker Gold.

Since Explosive Bottles and Oil Lanterns are magic damage. Their damage will increase with Magic Power Bonus, + Additional Magic Damage and + True Magic Damage, all at 50% scaling.

The burn effect or tick damage can stack up to 3 times and randomly appear in the AOE. This is why Explosive Bottles may sometimes seem ineffective and other times very powerful.

Here’s just five ticks at plus 4 magic damage on my Fighter. Of course, the duration is a bit exaggerated here for demonstrational purposes since usually won’t cook for more than 2 or 3 ticks if you just run through them. Still, it’s a decent amount of damage.

Francisca Axes And Throwing Knives

Now, let us look to the Francisca Axes and Throwing Knives, which do a single instance of on-hit physical damage.

Here is a rule: just follow basic weapon damage for most time. So, + Additional Physicial Damage, + True Physical Damage, and any form of physical power will increase the damage from these two utility items at 100% scaling. This is where perk and spell bonuses make things a little crazy.

As not only do they benefit from weapon perks, like the Barbarian’s Axe Specialization, and Executioner for Francisca Axes, they will also benefit from any kind of Applied Damage Buffs, like the Cleric’s Divine Strike and the Wizard’s Ignite.

At full buff, this can cause some absurdly high damage numbers, even with absolutely no gear. For example, I can hit in the high 60s with the Starter Kit Franciscas Axes, which deals only 18 damage at base.

Note, that’s over three times the base damage.

All we need are our two strength skills, our applicable Barbarian perks, and a base gear Cleric to give us Divine Strike and Bless.

You can even throw Ignite on for more damage as it still applies to utility items even though the VFX doesn’t appear.

Another key feature of thrown physical utility is that it has a fairly strong on hit slow, actually very strong on hit slow, as they currently sit at 25% and 20%. These stats are both higher than the long sword and it sounds kind of crazy.

Now, Ironmace has addressed the effectiveness of these two utility items in the past by adding both damage and velocity falloff, making them slightly less effective at longer ranges.

However, an in-game mechanic that people often don’t know about is that you could hold down or charge up your throw over a couple of seconds to bring it up to maximum speed. And it honestly makes a pretty big difference.

One last note on these two thrown utility items is that it will trigger any on hit skills or perks, like the Barbarian’s Achilles Strike and Reckless Attack, the Fighter’s Victory Strike or the Rogue’s Rupture, Weakpoint and Poison Weapon.

Even though it doesn’t show up on the training dummy and yes, they’re not damaging utility items. But throwing torches and lanterns also can be used to apply Achilles Strike and Rupture.

Conclusion

Now, I know this isn’t exactly game-changing knowledge for those who have been playing Dark and Darker for some time, especially those who’ve been around since the early play test and witness firsthand the Francisca Axe is at their peak power.

But the bottom line here is that these items still scale up to be incredibly strong and they’ll give you huge advantages in PVP. They’re definitely worth looting and buying for cheap price since chances are your class is already optimized to deal with high damage with them.

Different Path of Exile players may have different preferences. For example, some people like to create unique characters, others are looking for extra challenges, and some just crave the thrill of intense battles. Therefore, GGG will hold three events in November based on the preferences of different players:

1. Krangled Passives (November 3 - November 10)
2. Blast From The Past (November 10 - November 17)
3. Shifting Stones (November 17- November 24)

Today, we’re diving into the intricate world of one of the special events, the Krangled Passives.

About Krangled Passives Event

Krangled Passives is the first event.

In this event, the passive skill tree and all ascendancy trees are jumbled. Minor passive skills, notable keystones, minor ascendancy skills, and major ascendancy skills have been internally scrambled within those categories. This means that a notable passive skill remains a notable passive skill, but it’s now randomly assigned.

Additionally, all players will be working with identical skill trees, but the Scion character class is not accessible in this event. The GGG team has introduced a range of additional POE Items for players based on their level achievements.

The rewards become increasingly valuable as your character’s level rises. The top three players overall will receive a full microtransaction bundle.

Tier S -Totem Build

Totems will be the first build that comes to mind. This is because Totem life bonuses are somewhat dispersed throughout the standard passive tree.

Ancestor Totem attack builds may function effectively with a Krangled skill tree. But I believe that native spell totems, such as Holy Flame Totem and Spell Totem Support builds heavily rely on the Ancestral Bond keystone.

Consequently, these Spell Totem setups may not perform as well in this special event compared to the base game. Nonetheless, we believe that investigating totem builds is a worthwhile endeavor during this event.

Here are some builds you can follow: Shockwave Totem and EA Ballista.

Tier A - DOT Build

In the regular game, damage over time is typically balanced in comparison to instant damage, which is often reliant on Critical Strike.

This balance remains consistent in this special event, although critical strike is hard to get here. So, we’ll need to locate the various damage multiplier nodes spread across the skill tree.

Notably, elemental damage has captured our attention, as it appears to hold the most promise in this event. This is because elemental damage can be amplified by various statistics and it’s already in a favorable position in the base game.

Here are some builds you can follow: Toxic Rain Ballista and Cold DOT.

Tier B - Trap (Elementalist Build)

In the case of Traps and Mines, it is important to note that the majority of Trap and Mine builds heavily depend on Critical Strikes.

However, it is worth mentioning that there are Trap and Mine builds designed around elemental damage. And we anticipate that the Trap and Mine builds will be one of the most popular and effective choices in this event.

Here are some builds you can follow: Righteous Fire + Fire Trap and Hexblast Mines.

Also Read: POE 3.22 November Events 2023 Is Coming Soon! - Everything You Need To Know

Tier C - Minion Build

Next up are Minion builds.

The critical components of the passive tree that enhance minion abilities are widely dispersed, which may pose challenges.

However, it is essential to stay vigilant as a particular ascendancy class might offer a concentrated pool of powerful minion related bonuses.

If such an ascendancy exists, there is a chance building around minions still works. But for now, we have to wait and see.

Here are some builds you can follow: Absolution and Poison SRS.

Tier D - Build Around Crit

We think Critical Strikes are going to be the hardest or near impossible to pull off in general.

In the normal game without the Krangled tray modifier, there’s a synergy involving a base tree. Critical clusters grant you both Critical Strike multiplier and Critical Strike chance together in the same cluster.

This is important because you need to have both stats for either of them to become good.

Here are some builds you can follow: Lightning Arrow and Spark.

Last Notice

There is one last to notice: when it comes to builds you want to, have a look and see or any of the base classes are ahead just due to having more options or better patterns. Of course, no matter what your options are, you’ll need to have plenty of POE Currency to craft these builds.

And one of the things you’ll notice if you look into this is that some of the ascendancies have more notables than others. The Witch starting area is stacked with more notables than the rest of the tray is. And that means there’s more chance for those notables to be good now.

This doesn’t guarantee that these ascendancies or that the witch class are going to be better than other options. It just means that they have more chance to be good.

I am pretty surprised at how good Chain Lightning is in Diablo 4 Season 2. I take down bosses almost 30 levels higher in only 8s. I soloed all Uber Bosses pretty easily, including Duriel that I slayed it without even knowing its mechanics.

With further optimized gear and fully upgraded Vampiric Powers, I chilly beat nightmare dungeon Tier 100 fast at only level 86 multiple times, with no elixir and sometimes no death.

The build has the damage to nuke everything plus the survivability to facetank everything. Be prepared with plenty of Diablo 4 Gold if you want to make such a powerful build.

Key Synergy & Aspects

We use two DPS skills in this build, Chain Lightning and Ball Lightning.

We use Chain Lightning directly on the skill bar to take down both melee and ranged monsters fast for speed farming.

We also use Ball Lightning indirectly for insanely high AOE damage from two sources:

One from the Enchantment Slot where all Critical Hit trigger a static Ball Lightning on the ground at a decent chance, unleashing massive AOE damage. Make sure to get high Crit Chance from gloves and two rings to feel like a Thor.

Another source is from the Ultimate, that every Chain Lightning we cast during the Ultimate will randomly cast Ball Lightnings and melt everything around.

I made the build that it has almost 0 Cooldown Ultimate. We use the Anticipation Vampiric Power to get 20% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction. We use Overflowing Energy that translates Crackling Energy to Cooldown Reduction plus two Crackling Energy generators, one from Destructive Chain Lightning and one from Wizard's Ball Lightning for further Cooldown Reduction.

And I recommend getting one extra Cooldown Reduction Stat on Helmet or Amulet so that it feels like we have 0 Cooldown Ultimate and just use it whenever we want.

But why do we want two indirect sources for Ball Lightning in the build?

This is because Ball Lightning does absolutely insane damage in Season 2. It gets 200% benefit from bonus attack speed and we get tons of bonus attack speed in this build.

We run the Accelerating Aspect on a two-handed weapon for 50% attack speed. The Ultimate adds another 25% attack speed as we have close to 0 Cooldown Ultimate.

Plus, we get another 48% from the Ravenous Vampiric Power. If we have Esu’s Heirloom, we get another 75% movement speed for 3s after using evade. This goes back to another 30% attack speed buff from Ravenous.

And we get another 14% attack speed from gloves. This is already 167% bonus attack speed in total that we more than quadruple the damage of Ball Lightning.

On top of that, we run the Gravitational Aspect to keep the Ball Lightning around us to not waste any Ball Lightning DPS and further improve its damage by another 25% multiplicatively.

As a result, we melt monsters, elites and bosses that are even 70 levels higher than us.

Infinite Mana

We will need infinite mana first to run the build smoothly.

To achieve infinite mana, we will use the Recharging Aspect that we get mana from each Chain Lightning bounce and Invigorating Conduit to recover 12 mana per crackling energy pick up.

Build Tankiness Effectively

Survivability becomes much more important post level 70.

We use Ice Armor in this build to get unlimited barrier for 6s. Plus, the 0 Cooldown Ultimate we basically get infinite barrier because we have the Protection passive that All Cooldown Skill cast grants a Barrier equal to 30% of our Maximum Life. Plus, the random Lightning Spear casted from the Ultimate.

We run the Snowveiled Aspect so that we have both Teleport and Ice Armor as Unstoppable Skill to stay safe if we are getting Crowd Controlled. And we get tons of extra Armor as the Armor bonus is buffed from 10% to 30% in 1.2.0.

In this build, Chain Lightning applies 100% Uptime for Vulnerable to all monsters with the benefit from the legendary node in the Static Surge Board. This is also why we don’t need the passive on Frost Nova.

So, we also take the Ice Armor passive to get further barrier to be really tanky. I can facetank butchers easily with Ice Armor on and even facetank T100 sometimes at only level 86.

We also run the Everliving Aspect for another constant 25% damage reduction as all monsters are Vulnerable. And make sure to get 70% All Resistance in World Tier 4 by combining the Resistance Stats on these 4 positions. We can also tweak the Paragon Board Nodes and use Gems if necessary.

Last, get at least 2% Total Armor Stats on these 4 positions. With the Aspect of Disobedience, we are super tanky and facetank everything. I will fast scan my full gear that passed T100 at level 86. I carefully selected all stats on each piece and I used Maximum Life stats on Rings to improve my survivability to just challenge T100.

Also Read: Diablo 4 Ball Lightning Sorcerer Build: Season 2 Best Tank Endgame Build Guide

Skill Tree

For the Skill Tree, we use Firebolt in Enchantment for burning synergy.

This is combined with Devouring Blaze for further crit damage. If our base crit chance is below 25%, replace Devouring Blaze with Elemental Dominance and replace Firebolt with Chain Lightning in the Enchantment for better performance.

If we got a Recharging Aspect that is above 2.5, we can remove all points from Invigorating Conduit and put them to Conjuration Mastery + Precision Magic for further damage.

Paragon Board

As mentioned earlier, the most important node in the Paragon Board is the Static Surge legendary node that enables our Chain Lightning to apply Vulnerable states to all monsters plus some mana regeneration. We will unlock it the first thing after we are on the second board.

Vampiric Powers

For Vampiric Powers, I recommend using:

• Resilience. It is the best Vampiric Power to help us survive in high tiers.
• Ravenous. It gives us 40-75% extra attack speed for great synergy in the build Anticipation. It helps us get, close to 0 Cooldown Ultimate for much more damage and survivability.
• Accursed Touch. It does great AOE damage to further speed up farming.
• Prey on the Weak. It helps us get another 16% multiplicative damage boost as we apply 100% Vulnerable Uptime to all monsters.

Without Gravitational Aspect

Unfortunately, the Gravitational Aspect is only dropped randomly and cannot be target farmed.

If you haven’t got one, I recommend using the Unbroken Tether Aspect for greater Chain Lightning Synergy or the Control Aspect that can be codex imprinted if you don’t have the Unbroken Tether either.

Skill Rotation

There is no specific skill rotation in this build Skill Rotation.

We are pretty flexible to fight enemies both in close range or at a distance. As the Ultimate is free, just cast Ultimate, keep pressing Chain Lightning and witness everything melt in seconds.

Ending

I really like this Chain Lightning build because it has extremely high attack speed, insane damage, superb survivability and free to cast Ultimate to greatly boost damage whenever I want.

I am not only having a blast but also having lots of fun running it.