With the launch of Official Hardcore Servers on Classic Era, I think it’s time to cover what’s different on these Official Hardcore Servers, compared to the version of Hardcore we have been playing in the past with the addon.

So, here, I will cover the major differences between the addon and the official hardcore servers, as they do not follow the same rules and are actually very different from one another.

Grouping

Let’s start with Solo / Duo / Leveling in a Group.

With the Hardcore addon, if you wanted to be in a duo or a trio, you had to be online at the same time, and level together from start to finish. There were several rules in place such as you’re not allowed to be in different zones, basically meaning you had to duo with the same person from level 1 to level 60 and always play together.

On the Official Hardcore Servers, you are free to Solo, Duo, or Trio whenever you want. You can invite whoever you want to your group whenever you want. You could, for example, group up in a 5-man group from level 1-10 and just focus on kill-quests, then split up at level 10 and then solo the rest of the way until level 60. And if you suddenly meet someone you want to duo with for a couple of hours, you can do that as well.

Basically, you are no longer locked into being a Solo, Duo or Trio Character upon starting. Because with the Addon, if you chose to be in a Duo, you were stuck in that Duo. On the upcoming Hardcore Servers, you’re more free to pick and choose throughout your journey.

So basically, Grouping was very restricted before, but now you’re free to group up when you want to.

Dungeons

Now, let’s talk about Dungeons.

With the Hardcore Addon and the Solo Self Found Ruleset, we were only allowed to do one singular run of every dungeon until we hit level 60. This could be very annoying, as a singular mistake, and losing one person could mean you miss out on the entire dungeon. Because if you lose 1 person in, for example, Zul’Farrak or Maraudon, finishing such a high level dungeon with only 4 people can be incredibly difficult and is often a risk not even worth taking on Hardcore.

This could mean you miss out on an entire dungeon because of a mistake someone else makes. And not only that but some dungeon quests were borderline impossible to do with only one run: Like for example the Stormwind Stockades Bandanas Quest, or the Zul’Farrak Mojo Quest, basically quests where you loot mobs for an item with less than 100% drop chance, and even Wailing Caverns with the Deviate Hides, though those could be farmed on the outside.

In these cases, players would literally /roll for who got to complete their quests. And if you lost the roll, you would not be able to complete your quest, which feels kinda weird.

On top of that, you also have dungeons, like Uldaman, which heavily encourages you to do multiple runs of the dungeon in order to complete every quest, although it is technically doable in one instance-run if you time it to perfection.

On the Official Hardcore Servers, all of this annoyance is removed, as we can now do several dungeon runs while leveling, although there has been one modification in order for people not to just spam Dungeon Cleaves like they did in 2019 when Classic WoW came out.

Dungeons now have a 24 hour reset timer from level 1 to 59, meaning this timer is lifted once you hit level 60, so you can freely farm dungeons. But this means while leveling, dungeons will have a daily lockout and you can run every dungeon once per day.

One more change they have made to dungeons is that mobs inside dungeons give 50% less experience, but bosses give a lot more experience than usual.

Basically, they have taken 50% of the mob experience throughout the dungeon and put it into bosses, which is done for two main reasons: Mobs inside the dungeons do reset over time, but bosses have a 24 hour reset timer. And it also encourages people to focus on killing bosses and doing the higher dungeon rather than just AoE farming mobs inside dungeons for experience.

Trading

Next up then, the use of Mailboxes, Auction House and Trading. I’ve chosen to throw all of this into one place, as it all pretty much boils down to one thing: Trading.

Sending a mail between players is essentially trading something, you’re just doing it via mails. Same thing with the Auction House, so it’s all Trading.

On Classic Era with the Hardcore Addon, Trading was not allowed, even for things, such as Mage Food or Mage Water, or Warlock Healthstones. Basically, no trading whatsoever.

On the Official Hardcore Servers, this rule will be lifted and you are free to Trade, use the Auction House, and use the mailbox. I think this is a good thing, because you have another way to make WoW Classic Hardcore Gold.

But what I will say is, all the rules we had in place with the Hardcore Addon, made it so you were pretty much forced to play in one very specific and restrictive way.

And without being allowed to Group, Trade, send mails or use the Auction House, it is a very “Solo” experience. It is definitely more challenging, but is also a lot less social, and Blizzard have verbally stated they want to focus more on the Social Element than the Challenging Element, which I think is great.

The essence of these servers being Hardcore already is quite challenging in itself, and too challenging for most people, considering if they lose a level 60 character, a lot of people simply won’t bother going again.

Also Read: WoW Classic Hardcore: An Elwynn Forest Survival Guide

Class Abilities

There are also a couple of small changes, such as Class-Abilities, which were previously prohibited or the use of certain items.

Number one here would be the Paladin Bubble-Hearth, which was technically not allowed with the Hardcore Addon, but there were a couple of work-arounds. But on the Official Hardcore Server, there will simply be a restriction in place to where Paladins physically cannot use their Hearthstone while under the Protection Effect.

However, nothing has been stated about the Light of Elune plus Hearthstone, so there might be a big favor for the Alliance here.

With the Hardcore Addon, we were also not allowed to use the Auto-Unstuck Features in order to Teleport to Major Cities, and this restriction will not be there on Official Hardcore Servers.

For most people, this won’t really matter much. But for example, as a Night Elf, this means you can use the Auto Unstuck Feature to teleport to Ironforge instead of having to walk through Wetlands, or swim to Westfall, so it definitely has some practical uses.

Minor Changes

Now, let’s talk about some minor things that might not directly impact your gameplay, but are pretty huge changes overall.

- With the Hardcore Addon, we had an Appeal System. On the Official Hardcore Server, we will not have an Appeal System. This means if you die because of a disconnect, your run is over. But, Blizzard have done a lot of work in the back-end to atleast make it so you disconnect as little as possible from the game itself. But if you have terrible internet connection, there’s really not a lot Blizzard can do.

A lot of people have speculated that they could have added a disconnect-protection-mechanic where if you disconnect, you get a protective bubble around your character until you come back in. But believe me, that could be abused and would be just as terrible as anything else.

Imagine if we had such a system, I could just install a flip switch for my internet router next to my PC on a foot-pedal and if I’m ever close to die or in an oh-shit situation, I could just hit that switch and disconnect and get a protective bubble around my character.

- There will be a lot less griefing on the Official Hardcore Server than we had on Classic Era with the Addon. With the Addon on Classic Era, we had people stand on flightmasters with PVP enabled players naming themselves after mobs and forcing you to target them. Basically, people just forcing you into PVP combat then griefing you.

On the Official Hardcore Servers, you have to physically opt in to PVP by typing /pvp in order to get PVP flagged, so that the entire category of griefing is now disabled.

We also saw people drag elite mobs such as Teremus all the way to Stormwind and Elwynn Forest, and mobs will now have a kite-leash-cap, meaning if you try to kite a mob more than 500 yards away, it will reset. So, in this example, kiting Teremus out of Blasted Lands would end up resetting Teremus.

On the other hand, there is a new category of griefs, which Blizzard really can’t to anything about, and that is “Social Griefing” by players pretending to be your friend, joining your dungeon group or raid, then wiping the entire group.

…

Here, I want to go over everything we currently know about the mechanic and rewards of Path of Exile 3.22 Trial of the Ancestors League, as well as the implications this league mechanic will have on, what build you should play, the league’s economy, and Atlas strategies.

That way, you can jump into the league with everything you need to hit the ground running!

Matches & Tournaments

First up, let’s go over everything we know about the league mechanic.

Trial of the Ancestors, which I’ll be referring to as “Trials” from now on, is an autobattler-inspired league mechanic. You’ll be recruiting and upgrading Warriors over the course of a tournament, strategically placing your team at the start of each match to counter the enemy team.

Each position you can play a Warrior has an associated role, which determines how that Warrior behaves in battle. Some will have them on the offense, others on the defense, as well as other specialized roles.

Unlike a traditional autobattler, you will fight alongside your team, much like how Blight is a tower defense game where you fight alongside your towers.

Each Warrior, including the player, has a totem that they revive at a short time after being defeated. If a totem is destroyed, that Warrior instantly dies, and will no longer respawn for the duration of the match. The goal of each match is to destroy all of the enemy team’s totems before your totems are destroyed.

Each match represents a single game in a larger tournament. These tournaments are double elimination. You can lose once without getting knocked out. But after two losses, you have to start over in a new tournament.

Before each match, you’ll get to view each team and what the reward for beating that team is. You then pick your opponent, and pay the entry fee – one Silver Coin, per match.

In addition to the rewards you get from winning each match, you get additional rewards for successfully winning the entire tournament.

Many of the best rewards seem to be exclusively available from tournament wins, so you definitely want to make sure you’re winning the whole thing!

Every time you win a tournament, your ranking will increase. The better your ranking, the higher the difficulty and the better the rewards of future tournaments.

It’s likely that consistently winning and being able to do extremely high-ranking tournaments will be the most profitable way to farm Trials.

Favour & Teambuilding

In between matches, you will get to spend tribe-specific Favour that you receive from winning matches, to recruit new Warriors for your team, and to purchase Equipment and Field Items.

There are a total of 10 different tribes, and each has a different selection of Warriors and Equipment for sale. Mixing and matching will probably be key to creating a strong team.

Field Items can be placed on the battlefield the same way a Warrior can, and serve as single use consumables that you can activate by clicking on them, to get a beneficial effect when you need it most in a match.

Equipment is given to your Warriors, to enhance their abilities. Based on the Equipment GGG has previewed, these POE Items are not simple stat boosts, but are often transformative in nature. For instance, the equipment Dying Roar makes your Warrior explode on death.

Figuring out what Equipment to buy, and what Warrior and Role to use that equipment on will probably be key to victory. For instance, the explosion on death equipment probably combines well with a tanky character, perhaps on a defensive role where they will be fighting enemy Warriors

All of these progression mechanics - Warriors, Field Items and Equipment, are tournament-specific progression only. None of them carry over. You start every new tournament from scratch.

Skill Point Tattoos

So, what are the rewards from doing all this, anyway?

Well, the Trial of the Ancestors League has some pretty spicy new rewards. The first of which are Tattoos.

Tattoos are a new consumable item, which can replace attribute passives on your Skill Tree.

So, for instance, you can overwrite a +10 strength travel node with one that gives 8% Fire Resistance, or another that gives 1% Mana Reservation Efficiency.

These tattoos are permanently applied to the skill point, unless you use an Orb of Scouring or overwrite them with another tattoo. These tattoos offer an incredible amount of power to min-max your character build to levels never seen before!

Every single build needs to take some number of travel nodes. In the past, there really hasn’t been anything you can do about that. But now, you’ll be able to turn all of those travel nodes into far more useful stats. I expect some of these tattoos to be very pricey.

Also Read: 10 Easy Ways To Make Currency On The First Few Days Of POE 3.22 Trial Of The Ancestors League

Omens

Another new type of consumable item available from the Trial of the Ancestors League is Omens.

Omens are automatically triggered and consumed from your inventory upon meeting some trigger condition. For example, one of the Omens previewed creates a portal on death, and another gives you Soul Eater upon leveling up.

While some of these seem marginally useful for mapping, the real money here is in the rare ones, such as the Omen of Fortune, which guarantees your next orb of chance will upgrade an item to a unique.

In order to prevent players from feeling like they need to fill their inventory with Omens, there’s a restriction of only one Omen being able to trigger per zone.

Hinekora’s Lock

The final reward available is a powerful new endgame crafting currency, Hinekora’s Lock.

Hinekora’s Lock has a very unusual effect. It allows you to “foresee” the result of the next currency item used on it.

It’s unclear exactly what this means, and people have different interpretations. Some claim that you have to actually use the currency item, like an Eternal Orb, whereas others believe you’ll be able to see what the outcome would be without actually using it.

Regardless of how it ends up working, one thing is clear: this is an incredibly powerful crafting option that rivals the power of the Eternal Orb. And the Eternal Orb was removed from Path of Exile for being simply too powerful at crafting.

Hinekora’s Lock will end up having a very similar effect. With enough Hinekora’s Locks, you will be able to deterministically craft, getting the exact outcome you want at every step. If it foresees an outcome you don’t like, you simply change the item’s quality, use another Hinekora’s Lock, and check again.

I expect that all of the most powerful items created in the Trial of the Ancestors League will rely heavily upon the use of Hinekora’s Lock. Regardless of how rare or common it ends up being, this will be a chase reward worth many Divine Orbs.

Build Considerations

So, now that you know everything there is to know, the question remains: what should you do to best prepare for the Trial of the Ancestors League?

Well, as far as builds go, it’s likely that strong, single target ranged DPS builds will be king in Trials tournaments. Being able to quickly burst down Warriors and Totems will allow you to simply delete the enemy team, without having to overly rely on the rest of your team.

In addition, POE 3.22 marks the return of the Sanctum league mechanic, which is a league mechanic, and also incentivizes strong single-target DPS builds.

Another consideration is that you may want to pass on playing a stat-stacker. Stat stacking builds won’t be able to take advantage of tattoos in the ways other builds will, and might end up falling short in terms of character power this league. Or at the very least, you’ll miss out on the fun of playing with the new character progression mechanics.

Atlas Considerations

As far as your Atlas and Farming strategies go, it’s worth noting that the new Maven keystone also incentivizes single-target DPS. Boss killers may find that they thrive in this league.

Other than that, something I want to highlight is the way that you interact with the league mechanic. You spend Silver Coins to play matches, but these Silver Coins are just regular POE drops.

As far as we know, they aren’t limited to one per zone or come from special league chests, or anything like that. It’s worth emphasizing just how unusual this is.

GGG hasn’t done a league mechanic like this in years. The last time they had a league mechanic that you started through regular drops off of enemies was Legacy league in 2017, over 6 years ago.

The reason why they normally don’t do this and what makes this so interesting is that it means the amount of Silver Coins you find will scale with player and area Item Quantity, as well as pack size. This means that you have the ability to specialize in farming Silver Coins by magic finding. And some players will be able to farm Silver Coins at absolutely obscene rates.

My understanding is that the current go-to strategy for magic finding is to use the strongbox sextant with the Wandering Path.

It’s worth noting that even though Strongboxes aren’t on the map device this league, the new “Seventh Gate” keystone will allow you to add strongboxes to the map device. And if you go for this niche strategy, you may be able to farm a fortune in Silver Coins, even if you don’t engage with the league mechanic directly.

Other than that, my last observation is that because Hinekora’s Lock only works with crafting POE Currency, other crafting methods that aren’t currency may be far less valuable than usual this league, as players look to craft endgame items via means they can use deterministically.

These would be things, such as Aisling T4 in Betrayal, Harvest, and possibly even fossils.

…

I’ve spent most of the last week researching the best new items coming in WOTLK Classic Phase 4. And let me tell you something. They aren’t going to come cheap.

What I found confirmed one thing: you’ll need more WOTLK Classic Gold for Phase 4 than you needed for all the other phases combined. There are just so many big-ticket items you won’t want to miss out on, like the Deathbringers’ Will trinket, the new 264 item level BOEs, and Invincible, which is the most impressive mount in the game.

If you’re curious on exactly how much gold, you’ll need to save up you should check out my top 10 most expensive ICC items guide first. No matter what items you plan to go for, there’s no doubt the need for gold making in Phase 3 is really ramped up.

I’ve personally settled on farming 150,000 gold to get everything I need from Quel’Delar to full BOEs on every character and maybe even work on a Shadowmourne down the road.

So, here’s exactly what I’m doing to save up that gold in the next 45 days.

Making Passive Gold With Dailies

The first thing I’m doing every day is making sure not to miss out on any passive daily gold.

I do have Jewelcrafting on three characters, which means I get over 320 gold per day in just a few seconds turning in the daily. I’ve managed to pre-farm the Jewelcrafting daily, which you can do by making the items as you collect them. This is also the time where I take advantage of Alchemy transmute on my Death Knight, where you could easily fit in your Titansteel transmutes as well.

I also still do a handful of dailies for 200 more gold on my Druid per day. That’s mainly because the single best perk of dual specing Boomkin is just how quickly I can destroy an entire island of Kvaldir.

Of course, you can’t forget the Daily Heroics. I have been enchanting on my Paladin, so it feels fantastic vacuuming up all the epics.

Plus, I definitely want to keep stockpiling Emblems for Epic Gems in Phase 4.

Open World Goldfarming

The next key thing I’m doing to save up over 150,000 gold is Open World Goldfarming. There are three different fantastic spots in Phase 3 right now, all with different benefits and some small drawbacks.

1. Frostfloe Deep

My first favorite spot that I keep coming back to is the Frostfloe Deep cave in Northern, Storm Peaks. The Wailing Winds mobs here drop an insanely high amount of Crystallized Fire. That sells for three gold each on Faerlina and I know the prices are even higher on some servers.

The trick here is to bring a friend to farm the upper area while you farm the lower section. And that’s because this is a true hyperspawn where the enemies instantly respawn when they’re killed.

With a good farming class, you can easily push 700 GPA. There’s also a side benefit, which is that the Crystallized Fire can be sold instantly. That means you can immediately turn around and invest that gold or do flips with it.

2. Wetlands Gnolls

My second favorite spot is the Wool Cloth farming in the Wetlands.

This is a consistent 800 gold per hour farm because you get instant farming mobs that drop Wool Cloth at a really high rate. On my server, the wool is always worth at least 70 silver and it sells instantly. So, this just prints money.

But I do have a bunch of new optimizations to make it better.

The first big optimization is to bring Scrapbots, Jeeves, and the MOLL-E mailbox. Because this method generates so many inventory problems.

Then, I like to use Speedy AutoLoot to grab all the wool really fast. Whenever my inventory is full, I can use TradeSkillMaster to sell the trash and BOEs to a Scrapbot. I try to maximize Scrapbot usage by selling multiple times with one Scrapbot. Then, whenever my character has a lot of wool, I’ll just mail it to my Alt using the MOLL-E mailbox.

One of the big tricks I realized is that the Linen Cloth is basically worthless. So, I started destroying it. Also, having a second Alt logged out at the same location, able to drop another mailbox and more Scrapoots is a huge well.

3. Converted Heroes

The other farming spot I’ve started to really enjoy recently is the Icecrown, Converted Heroes.

These are a very comfortable 800 gold per hour. I always did this farm wrong in the past by sticking to the wall and I didn’t realize there were way more spawns throughout the entire area. This is definitely one of those farms way better on a class with AOE, like a Mage, and it’s even better with Tailoring. These mobs drop a ton of Frostweave Cloth and you get even more with the tailoring passive.

Also Read: WOTLK Classic: How To Prepare For Phase 4 Icecrown Citadel? - Investing & Goldmaking Guide

AFK Goldmaking Methods

I’ve really enjoyed doing AFK gold making methods, like Potion Crafting and making Leathers recently.

The numbers are deceiving because there’s still a lot of profit to be made on things, like Potions of Speed, Potions of Wild Magic and Mighty Frost Protection Potions. I would definitely recommend crafting everything in the process like the Pygmy Oils and also having Master of Potions.

I also like to do a lot of AFK Leatherworking, making things like Heavy Borean Leather and Heavy Knothide Leather. You can’t forget classics like Netherweave Cloth, either.

I just post a low price bait cloth and then anything under 15 silver is pure profit crafting heavy bandages. I’m not just relying on AFK gold making though since I’ve also recently begun mastering flipping.

Flipping is able to consistently generate me over 4,000 gold per day. I like to primarily do an undercut strategy with fast selling items. The main items I like to flip are things like rare and epic gems, leatherworking items, and Enchanting Vellums.

I’m using the Auctionator for these quick flips. And in order to get your Auctionator to look like mine, you’ll need to enable some settings in the options. The main settings you’ll need are the “Show Crafting Costs” and “Show Bag Items” in the Selling panel.

The main thing is to check prices using Auctionator and then craft 3-10 of any given item based on profit. Some of my favorites are the gem flips like the Runed Cardinal Ruby flip as well as the Leatherworking leg armor flips like the Icescale Leg Armor. I also love Enchant Weapon like Berserking and Mighty Spellpower, too.

The key though is that the bigger the number of profitable recipes you craft each day, the more profit you’ll make. You can even do better than me if you have one of every profession, since tailoring an Inscription is also very profitable.

From the many hours of flipping the last month, the biggest tip I can give you is that the number one spot on any item will always get 99% of the sales. Don’t be afraid to run a cancel search and then repost since it’s so fast if you have a hotkey set up.

The other tip is that raid times are when most of the sales will happen, so don’t get into undercut wars at five in the morning. Either way, if you don’t want to be up until five in the morning making gold, you should definitely switch to more profitable professions.

…

Kafka has brought some of the biggest twists into the meta.

In this guide, I am going to talk about things that you need to know about her, whether you have her or not, as well as cover important questions like how game-changing some of the build decisions are. And most importantly, I will showcase the most insane teams you can build with her. Believe me, these teams are amazing and it’s not something you want to miss out on.

1. New Teams

I honestly didn’t think Kafka would be this good because there were a lot of rumors going around that she would end up inferior.

But I am happy to tell you that the woman who gave life to our character is pretty amazing if not broken. So, if you are still struggling to add Kafka to your Honkai Star Rail Account, my answer is yes.

So, let’s take a look at some of the teams that are currently dominating Memory of Chaos.

*First of all, we’ve got an interesting comp made up of Sampo, Bronya, Kafka and a healer.

Now, what’s amazing about this team is the synergy with Kafka and Bronya. Basically, Kafka can trigger DoTs immediately upon using her skill and the Ultimate can also trigger Shock state on the enemies as well. So, Bronya gives Kafka an extra turn and with the massive ATK buff in addition to sometimes having Bronya ATK boost from Ultimate, Kafka will shred enemies to pieces.

And let’s not forget Sampo is also doing a lot of good damage from his DoTs, which will get triggered by Kafka’s skill.

However, there is a big drawback to using this team as well as a few others and that mainly has to do with an extremely high skill point usage. Activating Kafka’s and Bronya’s skill each turn puts a huge pressure on the skill point economy, especially if you’re not using Luocha. Because any other healer might need these skill points to keep the team alive. So, in this case, you will most often use Sampo’s basic attack and this team becomes kind of a single target killer.

But don’t get me wrong, this is probably the most fun team I’ve played with so far and the synergy is really good here.

Also, the pressure on SP becomes lower if you have E1 Bronya since then she has a chance to refund the 1 SP from her skill.

*Now, the next team is a pretty unique. Silver Wolf is yet again showing up here because it’s made up of her, Kafka, Tingyun and Bailu. This Mono Lightning team is amazing when the enemy has Quantum Weakness.

First of all, Silver Wolf can then consistently apply Lightning Weakness on them. But in addition, Tingyun’s ATK boost coming from both skill and ultimate as well as her restoring so much energy to Kafka, means that Kafka can dish out her Ultimate really often.

Although, this team won’t have that many DoTs going on, since Kafka will be the only one here doing the DoT damage. But regardless, it’s a unique comp that you can build if you have Silver Wolf.

Also, one important thing I wanted to mention here is that normally, Kafka’s best in slot relic set is Sizzling Thunder. But with this comp and against Quantum weak enemy, Genius of Brilliant Stars is way better for her. And I am talking about actual personal damage increase you wouldn’t see otherwise in other teams.

Still, keep in mind, this relic set has an extremely niche use-case. But if you do have it, it’s going to be amazing for Kafka in this team.

*Now currently, I am seeing a lot of player reports coming that Sampo, Kafka, Silver Wolf and Luocha is one of her best teams right now, which makes sense since you’re getting a massive DEF shred and RES reduction from Silver Wolf, while Luocha keeps the skill point economy happy and thriving and Sampo is the best or should I say top-tier team mate you can pair with Kafka. So, this team can easily clear the hardest content you’ll go up against.

*But what about Luka? Well, he is also really good with Kafka. You’ve probably seen a team made up of him, Sampo, Kafka and a Healer in other content creator videos. And what I really like about Luka is that the Bleed he applies from his skill scales super well with the enemy’s health, although it does have its limit that’s tied to his ATK.

So, as you can imagine, since Kafka can trigger the DoTs immediately with her skill, this bleed becomes amazing, especially since you don’t actually reduce the remaining turns on the DoTs triggered. So, the enemy will keep bleeding and Kafka will keep smiling.

Still, keep in mind this team is also extremely SP hungry. So, the best healer, unfortunately, is the limited Luocha here. But you can make it work yet again by sometimes not using Sampo’s skill if you have another healer built. And also, Luka’s skill only needs to be triggered seldom, since Bleed lingers around for 3 turns.

I mean, however you look at it, the fact that you can trigger DoT damage that ranges from 30 to 80k is insane and this team is super fun to play. And of course, you could replace Luka with Serval here who, by the way, can have her Shock exist along with Kafka’s.

However, one of the best things about triple DoT team that has Luka is that he can equip on himself Pearls of Sweat Light Cone, which helps him reduce enemies DEF further with his ultimate, while Serval is an Erudition unit, so she can’t even equip this great DEF shred cone.

In fact, if you’re running this triple DoT team, using Before the Tutorial Mission Starts light cone on Kafka, can help her regain energy so fast. Most of the times you will be able to trigger her ultimate every 2 turns, since Luka will be shredding Enemy’s DEF with his ultimate and the Pearls of Sweat light cone.

*Finally, one of the more quirky team comps that is a bit experimental at this point. But it’s made up of Himeko, Asta, Kafka and, of course, a healer.

I’ve been mentioning healers all the time. But you can use a Preservation unit, provided that they can keep the team alive. But I digress. So, this team is pretty funny because both Asta and Himeko can produce Fire DoT on enemies. Of course, Kafka can trigger them with her skill. But in addition, Asta can boost her ATK and increase her SPD, which are both important when building Kafka.

So, these are the teams that have had the most success with her. And there’s definitely a lot of variations you could go for. For example, instead of Silver Wolf, you could use Pela in a team with Sampo and Healer. So, keep in mind these teams are not set in stone.

Also Read: Honkai Star Rail 1.2: The Newest 5-Star Lightning Nihility Unit Is Coming! - Kafka Pre-Release Analysis & Builds

2. Build Considerations

Now, when it comes to Kafka’s build considerations, they aren’t that super complex, but there are some major things you need to be aware of.

Basically, you want to build her with ATK Body and either ATK or SPD boots. If you have her signature light cone, going with ATK boots is fine, but for the most part, there are certain breakpoints that allow her to take more turns as you can see here:

• 121 SPD Extra Turn Every 2ND Cycle of New Enemy Wave
• 134 SPD Extra Turn Every 1ST and 4TH Cycle of New Enemy Wave
• 161 SPD Extra Turn Every 1ST, 2ND and 4TH Cycle of New Enemy Wave

So, you can aim for these thresholds as long as you can hit them.

Just keep in mind that if you play her with Sampo or other DoT character, make sure she has at least 1 less speed than them, so they can take their turn first and then she can trigger their DoTs with her skill.

Now, as for the main relic set, obviously, Sizzling Thunder 4-set is amazing for her. But if you don’t have it, you can go with two pieces Hacker/Sizzling or Sizzling and Musketeer.

As for Planar Ornaments, it’s super simple. You can choose Lightning DMG Sphere and ATK% Rope. You can go with Break Effect instead, but it’s not always easy to guarantee Kafka will be the one breaking the enemy toughness. So, ATK% remains far more reliable.

And honestly, there’s not much to the sets themselves. Space Sealing Station is by far her best in the slot, although again if you want to go with that Break Effect build, then Talia: Kingdom of Banditry is a good choice.

And as for the overall build, you can see the overview here:

SPD> ATK%> EHR Substats

Just focus on SPD, then ATK% substats, while picking up some Effect Hit Rate won’t hurt you along the way.

Now luckily, even if she applies status conditions on enemies, you don’t need much Effect Hit Rate. In fact, you only need 10% from substats because the other 18% comes from her traces, which is perfectly enough to land her Shock DoTs consistently.

But here’s where a bit of complexity comes in. So, there’s a lot of good light cones for our mommy character. But which one you should go for?

Well, truth be told, if you haven’t got the signature cone or Good Night Sleep Well 4-star gacha cone, then her best choice is going to be Fermata, which you can easily obtain from the Forgotten Hall shop.

In fact, I would argue Fermata is really strong on her because at max superimposition, she will consistently deal 32% more damage and even when she breaks enemies, she will have 32% more Break Effect.

Although, Good Night Sleep Well does outperform it when using her in a team with other Nihility debuff characters. But I wouldn’t sweat it too much. Because the only sweat you do need to care about has to do with the Pearls and that usually goes on to Sampo or Luka.

But everything else shown here would be her best and recommended cones:

• Patience Is All You Need
• Good Night Sleep Well
• Fermata
• Eyes Of The Prey
• In The Name Of The World
• Incessant Rain
• Resolution Shines As The Pearls Of Sweat
• Before The Tutorial Mission Starts

But keep in mind, only the signature light cone comes out on top. But even then, I would say her selection of light cones is super flexible. So, you don’t have to worry which one is best for her because the selection process is pretty easy.

3. Eidolons & Opinion

So, I think in terms of the so-called Meta that’s honestly kinda similar to Genshin Impact’s, I would say Kafka is a pretty strong unit. But the biggest thing about her has to be her ability to enable multiple new teams, which in my opinion, is the most exciting aspect of any new character.

She deals good damage. I often would see her ultimate ranging from 70 to 110 thousand. And then afterwards, enemies would take 30 to 50 thousand DoT damage depending on the team comp, which in my opinion is pretty impressive, not to mention the fact it’s funny to watch my foes die before they can take their turn.

And what’s amazing here is that I have some of the worst relics equipped on her. So, imagine how much better she would be with proper stats.

Still, if I had one minor complaint, then it would be the Skill Point problems that you’ll run into unless you’re using Luocha. I will admit it. Initially, I thought Luocha was only good because of the enemy lineups we had when he first came out. But now it’s pretty clear that the best-selling point about him is the auto-healing that doesn’t require that many skill points.

With any other healer, you will quickly notice how you will run out of SP pretty fast, especially in the triple DoT team with Sampo and Luka or the Bronya comp I showcased earlier. So, you need to resort to things like Sampo only using his basic attack, to preserve some of that SP.

And I am not sure if Kafka’s at fault here. Maybe once we get a new DoT character who isn’t skill point hungry, then we can see teams that are more flexible with healers other than Luocha. Or maybe we get a healer who is similar to the coffin guy and can heal without using that much SP.

Also, when it comes to her Eidolons, her 1st one is seriously busted. It’s a bit specific and requires more Effect Hit Rate than usual to make it work all the time. But she gets about 19% DMG increase, which you won’t see happen again until E6.

And her second eidolon is literally made for DoT teams. But that would be pushing too hard if you’re F2P and if you still enjoy her using, maybe on her rerun you can go for E2.

But overall, I think Kafka is a great character that has a fun new playstyle, enables fun new teams, and I can finally have her look at me like I am not worthy of her.

…

These are all the differences between Path of Exile 1 and its independent sequel, Path of Exile 2 that we know about after the conclusion of ExileCon 2023.

Crafting In POE 2

As it currently stands, crafting is entirely different in Path of Exile 2.

Firstly, the Crafting Bench no longer exists unless there is a replacement that has not been detailed yet. This means you can no longer add an extra affix to your gear with ease, whether it’s Fire Resistance, a bit of Maximum Life, or a few points of damage.

Additionally, metacrafting might be gone with this removal, too. This means all the metamods like suffixes cannot be changed that enable players to craft powerful items might no longer be accessible. This system was originally added to Path of Exile 1 in 1.2 Forsaken Masters and was seen as a good update by many. It’s going extinct in POE 2.

Alongside the removal of the Crafting Bench, multiple crafting currency items have been changed or removed in POE 2. Orbs of Alteration, the POE Currency that allow you to re-roll the affixes of magic items are gone completely. So are Orbs of Scouring, the POE Currency that allow you to transform a rare or magic item into a normal item. Chaos Orbs have also been changed.

Now, they randomly remove one affix and add another. Essentially, they’re re-rolling a single affix on a rare item, not all of them as they used to. As you’ve seen in the picture below, every currency item is getting a facelift with the sequel. The art looks objectively incredible.

Vendors & Gold

Sticking to the currency subject, vendors will not trade you shards or full-on currency orbs in Path of Exile 2. When you sell them items, they will give you Gold.

This Gold can be used to purchase POE Items from various vendors who are supposed to have well stocked actually decent items in their shops.

Plus, you’ll be able to use Gold to gamble for items, even unique items. It’s a bit like POE 1’s Gwennen Gambling system in Expedition.

Flasks are getting a major shake-up in POE 2. Normal monsters will no longer grant flask charges instead, only magic, rare, and unique mobs will. This drastically decreases the rate at which your flasks recharge.

Plus, flasks will no longer fill entirely upon visiting a town. You must use a well in the town to refill them. Utility flasks are also catered to be reactionary, not enhancements.

We don’t exactly know which flasks will remain in POE 2. But we do know Quicksilver Flasks currently do not exist in the sequel to POE 1. These are the flasks that increase your movement speed.

Big Boss Changes

The core mechanics surrounding boss fights are also updated in POE 2.

Corpse rushing or the act of respawning and rushing an already injured boss, is dead. If you die during a boss fight, you’ll need to begin the fight from the beginning. In the same vein, logging out midfight will no longer save you from Deadly Strikes. When you log back in, you’ll zone in to the moment you left. The boss will have no mercy on you. This kills the log out macro used by many hardcore POE players.

Unlike POE 1, every single area in the game will have a meaningful boss encounter. Most are as in-depth as the present-day Pinnacle Bosses. This will lead to POE 2 to launch with at least 100 distinct bosses in the campaign. This doesn’t account for a new endgame or Pinnacle Bosses.

Bosses are also integral even to base POE 2 character power progression. Certain optional bosses and core bosses will reward statistical character-based passive bonuses upon killing them. This function is in a similar vein to the current kill or ally with the bandits questline in POE 1 Act 2, except it appears the bonuses are varied and far more frequent.

For example, one boss might grant +5% Fire Resistance while another might increase your Maximum Life by 50%. Additionally, bosses will now be a good source of great items the first time you kill them. In the campaign, the first time you kill each boss, it will have a huge bonus to rarity, encouraging you not to skip them.

Those aren’t the only big boss changes. You are also able to stun and freeze bosses in POE 2. Each boss has a custom stun animation. Many bosses and creatures, for that matter, can now be much larger too as they’ve redone how hitboxes work. All hitboxes in POE 1 are square, but in POE 2, they can greatly customize that and allow for huge encounters.

Skill & Gem Updates

As discovered in 2019, we no longer socket gems into our gear. We socket support gems into skill gems.

A further difference between POE 1 and POE 2 revealed in Exilecon 2023 is that we initially find uncut gems and then can choose what gem to transfer support those into, selecting from dozens of scales.

Uncut gems are various tiers, which allow access to each different tier of skill gems. Firestorm might be a tier 2 skill and always begin as a fifth level gem while Fireball might be a tier 1 scale and always begin at first level.

POE 2’s new gem system will not be brought into POE 1. The system shall remain distinctly different. Many skill gems are also hyper fixated on a specific situation or use, as you can have up to 9 six-Link skills in POE 2.

Touching on support gems briefly, many don’t add raw damage anymore and instead focus on adding quite specific mechanics to your skill gems. Pure damage adding supports do still exist, but they’re fewer in number.

Unlike POE 1, weapon swapping will be important and consequential in the sequel in POE 2. You can tie specific clusters of your passive skill tree alongside specific skill gems to either of your weapons.

For example, you can have a fire damage ax and a cold damage ax. When you use a certain slam scale tied to fire damage, you will pull out the attached fire damage ax and use a passive skill tree tied to dealing more fire damage. When you use a different slam skill tied to cold damage, you will automatically swap to the cold damage ax and the version of your skill tree tied to enhancing cold damage.

This could allow characters to actually build out a weapon and skill specifically for bossing accompanied by another set catered to clearing huge packs with the ability to swap seamlessly between. The two the possibilities here are absolutely ridiculous.

Layered on top of these gems and weapon differences is the fact that GGG is designing many skill gems to be tied to specific weapons, an amount far larger than in POE 1.

The most prominent example at Exile Con was the Warrior demos, using the two-handed mace. Many of the skills used were either tied explicitly to maces or, even more specifically, two-handed maces. This is intentional, meant to give each weapon an identity.

Additionally, weapon implicits are going to be far wilder. For example, a mace implicit might destroy enemy corpses if they are killed with a critical hit, while a dagger might break an enemy’s armor by a certain amount upon crit. This is far more very than POE 1 where, for example, sword implicits are all tied to accuracy rating.

Also Read: Everything We Know About Path Of Exile 2 So Far - 11 Points

POE 2 Character Classes

In Path of Exile 2, there are 12 character classes. The only class missing from Path of Exile 1 is the Scion, which wouldn’t mesh well with the new class identities GGG is going for with the sequel.

The six new classes are the Warrior, the Sorceress, the Mercenary, the Monk, the Huntress, and the Druid.

Like the initial six, each is tied to a specific attribute or attribute combination. Each of the matched classes starts at specific points on the new massive passive skill tree. But they all have unique gem rewards and a set of three new ascendancy classes attached.

Each of the 12 POE 2 classes has their own batch of three ascendancies, stacking up to a total of 36 total ascendancy classes. All of these ascendancy classes are different to the ones in Path of Exile 1.

For example, the Ranger in POE 2 can ascend as a Beastmaster, a Tactician, or a Survivalist. But in POE 1, she can become a Deadeye, a Pathfinder, or a Raider. These sets of new ascendancies will greaten the divide between the predecessor and its sequel.

As will the fact that you do not ascend via the Labyrinth, there is a new Ascension mechanic in POE 2.

Lots Of Small POE 1 & POE 2 Differences

Now, here’s a barrage of miscellaneous differences between the two games.

Passive skill tree masteries will not be in Path of Exile 2. They’re a POE 1 only feature for now.

Portal Scrolls now have about a 2.5 second casting animation during boss fights, only you can be knocked out of the animation. This is similar to how the Portal gem in POE 1 functions.

Many league mechanics are unlocked by specific quests. For example, the revamped Delirium mechanic is unleashed upon interacting with a quest involving the strange voice. In POE 1, most league mechanics just occur randomly at first.

The world map is massive, sprawling, and far more detailed than Path of Exile 1’s.

Player characters, our Exiles, speak much more and dynamically adjust choices we make during our playthroughs. For example, if we zoom past NPCs without speaking, they’ll remark to us and will retort.

Fewer items drop from monsters. Vendor shops are more incentivized. Perhaps this is a campaign-only concept with loot becoming a bigger slice of the pie in the late game.

Area maps are much larger and they feel much larger due to the lower overall speed of movement. Fortunately, they do appear to be swarmed with monsters and boss fights.

All item icons will have a consistency between them, unlike in POE 1, wherein some icons might be cartoony or just enhanced pictures. Iconic unique items, like Headhunter and Chaperone’s wrappings, will be in POE 2.

Staves as a weapon will always include a mana free spell skill attached as implicits, while Quarterstaffs will fulfill the melee staff experience.

Resistances no longer go below zero. The new resource Spirit is used for all skills that usually dealt with Mana Reservation. There will be new support for it on the passive skill tree and items.

Scepters are extremely minion and aura focused weapons now. Additionally, Traps and Mines are now actual weapons, not skill gems.

Complete Wrap-Up

Overall POE 1 and POE 2 are both ARPGs set in the world of Wraeclast developed by Grinding Gear Games.

They do appear to have fundamental differences, especially when it comes to maintaining resources. But I’m confident both will be excellent games to play and I plan on continuing to play and cover both of them as long as I’m having fun.

…

As we all know, Diablo 4's Season 1 was successfully released last week and has received good player feedback. The new season is called Season of the Malignant, and I think Necromancer is the most powerful class in this season.

Malignant Hearts are completely broken and more powerful than you ever thought possible. Let me give you an example of Decrepit Aura, when you have at least five enemies nearby you get an aura that automatically curses enemies with Decrepit Aura for 5 - 15 seconds.

This is Caged Heart of Decrepit Aura item power 608, so not Ancestral, not 800 item power, even there's only a level three Heart, When at least two enemies are near you, gain an aura that automatically curses nearby enemies with enfeeble for 15 seconds, up to a maximum of 21 seconds, helps you get some Diablo 4 Items faster. This is not the strongest version of the Heart can this potentially go down to one single enemy and then it just works perfect on bosses.

Necromancer In Season 1

This is not the only thing, in Diablo 4 Caged heart of the Sacrilegious, we know that walking near Corpse automatically activates an equipped, equipped it needs to be in your skill bar, warp skill every second dealing 36% reduced damage. This works bonus to what you actually do, but the question was does this use your cooldowns. For those wondering Diablo 4, this Heart for Necromancer will trigger Corpse Explosion, if on your bar every second and Corpse Tendril every three seconds roughly, without triggering the cooldown of it.

There's one important key part that a lot of people seem to have missed in the patch notes, the stats you see reflect what a level 20 character would receive as a drop. So each of these is essentially one of the weakest versions, for example the 20 damage reduction right now, I mean that was five enemies close by, this 20 damage reduction could even be more.

We see the absolute basic weakest version, Tempting Fate with 60% Critical Strike damage, how high can this actually go. Now seeing how absolutely overpowered these Hearts can be, maybe the nerfs were warranted to a degree. Obviously Eternal realm players in Diablo 4, but then again that's the way how arpgs go, I'm sorry you bought a live service game.

Blood Summoner Stronger Than Ever!

Knowing now how broken the Hearts actually are, may I present you a potential Blood Summoner build, that will get super duper charged. Because Sacrilegious is now triggering Corpse Explosion every second and every third second Corpse Tendrils. Absolutely super charges our Blood Surge Summoner, why Blood Surge Summoner? Because you truly will never run out of essence again, we are using cool Mages to generate Essence in Diablo 4.

This build usually doesn't run Corpse Explosion, but if we actually now put Corpse Explosion into our skill bar, that's an equipped skill, and we can move Decrepify out. Why can you move to Decrepify out, well that's simple we play Decrepit Aura and Decrepit Aura works on two or less enemies, I mean we might get the one enemy Decrepit Aura so it's a free Decrepify cast without asking everything to do anything, we can move Corpse Explosion in the bar and then in the skill tree as we see here, you have Grim Harvest for consuming Corpses Grand 6 Essence plus Fueled by Death will constantly actually work.

Not only that in Paragon Board, we can go for the flesh eater Note 2 consuming 5 Corpses around 40% increased damage for six seconds, because we constantly automatically consume Corpses, without having to do anything. If you don't know how to build it, Diablo 4 Boosting Service can help you.

Which grants us, bonus Essence the whole time with a Skeleton Mage, followed up with bonus Essence constantly for consuming Corpses, and if we're running out of Corpses we can make bonus ones with Ghastly Blood Mist in Diablo 4, and then at the same time just Blood Surge everything around as the whole time, our Skeletons will mitigate a little bit damage that way we be taken, will fortify with ourselves with our Blood skills and Skeletons.

Eternal Realm Got Shafted

A lot of you were not so excited about Season of the Malignant, but I always expected these Hearts to be absolutely overpowered broken bonkers. It stinks for the Eternal Realm players, but this is how life service goes this is how Seasons go? Maybe just just make this season is for free, give it a try, have some fun, experiment with the hearts, play some new things and even if you only level up to 50. Maybe it brings you some joys and smiles in your face to experiment with all these crazy things.

…

Playstyles are brand new for FC 24 and look like they’re going to have a great impact on gameplay.

Here, we’re going to break down each individual playstyle and talk about what they are and what they’ll do. You’re going to want to stick around to hear about some of these playstyles because some of them do actually grant unique abilities to players.

What Are Playstyles?

First, what are playstyles?

They are essentially replacing the trait system that we’ve seen in Ultimate Team. Playstyles are going to give players extra abilities that go beyond just upgrading attributes. Besides, upgrading attributes is actually not easy, because you need to prepare a lot of FC 24 Coins.

Playstyles +

There are also playstyles + that in EA’s own words enhance their signature abilities Playstyles to a world-class standard.

Think of Howland’s Power Shot or Sam Kerr’s Finesse Shot, reflecting elite players’ abilities to play at a level that few others can reach. With that in mind, let’s now break down each playstyle.

Power Shot

Up first, we have the Power Shot. This, when applied, is going to do pretty much what it suggests it will do improve the power over short and the speed in which it’s performed.

The upgraded version of of it, Power Shot + will mean a strike is produced in even quicker time and with more power. This will be given to a player who is known for taking powerful shots outside the box.

Dead Ball

Next up is the Dead Ball playstyle.

This will be given to players who are known for being set piece specialists. When applied, this will allow a player to deliver a ball with increased speed, curve, and accuracy, and also the ball trajectory preview line will be increased.

For the playstyle plus version of Dead Ball, the speed, curve, accuracy will improve further and the trajectory on will actually be at maximum length.

Chip Shot

The Chip Shot is the next playstyle to discuss.

This will allow the shot type to be performed quick and with great accuracy. If you have the Chip Shot + version, the EA website says Chip Shot will then have exceptional accuracy.

Finesse Shot

Now, we come on to the Finesse Shot.

We all know how Finesse Shot overpowered they have been over the years. Players who try and place the ball when shooting a girl will have this and the playstyle will increase the accuracy and add a small curve. Also, the shots will be produced much quicker.

The upgraded version will see shots perform significantly faster and with maximum curve and accuracy.

Power Header

Players who are known to strike with power with headers could have the Power Header playstyle.

The gameplay effect is pretty much as you’d expect. A more powerful and accurate header will be produced with the post version, having maximum power and accuracy.

Pinged Pass

Those were the shooting themed playstyles. Now, we move on to the passing ones and we’re going to begin with Pinged Pass.

This will increase the accuracy of through balls. Swerved passes will have more care and Precision passes will travel even faster.

The upgraded version will allow for far more accurate through balls. Swerved passes will have maximum curve and Precision passes will travel at top speed.

Honestly, this playstyle sounds amazing. It’ll be given to players who are known for splitting defenses with a pass.

Incinsive Pass

The Incinsive Pass playstyle will be given to a player who is known for making high-speed ground passes. And the gameplay effect is passes will travel faster along the ground without impacting the trapping difficulty of the receiver.

The playstyle plus here means that the ball will travel even faster.

Long Ball Pass

Now, we have the Long Ball Pass to discuss.

This, like it suggests, helps with lobs and lofted through passes. They become more accurate and travel even faster.

The effect of the Long Ball Pass + here is that they’re even more accurate and faster and ultimately become hard to intercept. A player who is known for performing such passes will have this.

Tiki Taka

The Tiki Taka playstyle will help with first-time ground passes and even use Back Heels when appropriate to distribute the ball.

The upgraded effect will mean they have even greater accuracy and short distance ground passes become exceptionally accurate.

Whipped Pass

The final passing themed one is called the Whipped Pass.

This is for players known for making high-speed whipped crosses into the box. The gameplay effect is that crosses will have higher accuracy, travel faster, and come with more curve.

The Whipped Pass + means that they’ll be even more accurate and faster, have more curve and driven crosses come with exceptional power.

First Touch

The next section is Ball Control playstyles. First Touch is the name of the first one. This is for players who are known for an accurate First Touch in difficult situations.

The playstyle effect has reduced error when trapping the ball and is able to transition to dribble in faster with greater control.

And the plus version of this has minimal error when trapping the ball and then is able to transition into dribbling with much faster and greater control.

Flair

The Flair playstyle will be for players who are known to try flamboyant moves.

The effect that this has is fancy passes and shots are performed with more accuracy. And that Flair animations will happen when appropriate.

Playstyle plus for Flair means fancy passes and shots have even greater accuracy.

Press Proven

The Press Proven playstyle is for players who are known for keeping possession under physical pressure from an opponent.

And the gameplay effect here is that the player keeps close control of the ball when dribbling at jog speed and can shield the ball more effectively.

The upgraded version has the player keep the ball exceptionally close when jogging with the ball and allows them to shield the ball even more effectively against stronger opponents.

Rapid

Players who are known to use speed and knock the ball ahead of their opponent could have the Rapid playstyle.

This effect allows them to reach a higher sprint speed when dribbling and has a reduced chance of error when performing knock-ons.

The upgraded version will allow them to reach an even higher speed and the chance of an error is even more reduced.

Technical

Now, we come on to the Technical playstyle and this is for a player who regularly uses technical dribbling to beat an opponent.

The gameplay effect is that a player will reach a higher speed when performing a controlled sprint and will dribble with more Precision when performing tens.

The Technical + version will allow a player to reach an even higher speed and be even more precise.

Trickster

Next, we come on to the fun one, the Trickster.

We’ve seen Vinícius in action in the video trailers using this playstyle. It’s for players known for performing skill moves in 1v1 situations. The Trickster playstyle grants an ability to perform unique flick skill moves.

And the upgraded version grants the ability to perform more unique ground and flick skill moves and also makes the player more significantly agile when strafe dribbling. I get the feeling that this playstyle will be pretty popular.

Block

Let’s now talk about some defensive playstyles and the first one sounds pretty amazing. It’s called Block. And it’s for a Block player who is known for performing elastic and overreaching blocks.

The effect that this will have is it’ll increase the reach when performing blocks and improve the ability to make a successful one.

And then the place that I’ll post variant here is that you’ll have an even greater reach when performing said blocks and also improve the ability to make a successful one.

Bruiser

Then, we have the Bruiser.

This is for a player who is known for winning possession by just being physical in general. The playstyle effect is that it’ll give player greater strength when in those physical tackles. And the playstyle put here is even greater strength when in those physical battles.

Also Read: Things You Might Have Overlooked In The EA FC 24 Gameplay Deep Dive

Intercept

The Intercept playstyle helps with what you’d expect it to. It increases the reach and improves the chances of returning possession when performing interceptions.

The Intercept + gives an even greater reach and an even more improved chance of returning possession. This is for players known for performing interceptions and keeping the ball.

Jockey

The Jockey playstyle is the next one to talk about. And this is for a player who is known for being successful in 1v1 situations.

And the gameplay effect here sounds very good. It increases the Max Speed of sprint jockey and improves the transition speed from jockey to sprint. So, it’ll definitely help out in those defensive situations.

The Jockey + here is increased Max Speed even more, and it also greatly improves the transition speed from jockey to sprint even further.

Slide Tackle

Another playstyle that I’m definitely interested in is the Slide Tackle.

This grants the ability to stop the ball directly at their feet when performing a Slide Tackle.

The Slide Tackle + version gives improved Slide Tackle coverage. This will be for players who are known for often performing Slide Tackles.

Anticipate

The final defensive one to talk about is called Anticipate. This is for a player who is known for having a high success rate get in ball position on tackles with a low foul win rate.

The playstyle effect here is going to be improved chances of a stand tackle success and also grants the ability to stop the ball directly at their feet when performing a stand tackle.

The upgraded version of this playstyle significantly improves the chances of stand tackle success.

Acrobatic

It’s time to talk about physical playstyles.

Acrobatic is the first one, and this is for a player who tends to perform Acrobatic passes, clearances, or shots. This playstyle will allow players to perform volleys with improved accuracy and also gives them access to more acrobatic volley animations.

The upgraded version here means that volleys will be performed with more accuracy and there is also more unique acrobatic volley animations available.

Aerial

The Aerial playstyle is for players who are known for having a high success rate when in Aerial battles both offensively and defensively. This one’s going to allow players to jump higher and also improve their aerial physical presence.

And the upgraded version here means that they’re going to be able to jump even higher.

Trivela

I feel like we’re all still recovering from the Trivela meta of FIFA 23. But Trivelas are going to have their own playstyle in EA FC 24.

They’ll be for players who are known for passing, crossing, and shooting with the outside of the foot. The effect this playstyle will have is contextually triggers outside of the foot passes and shots.

And the Trivela + here is that there’ll be a reduced error on outside the foot passes.

Relentless

The Relentless playstyle sounds very good for box-to-box Midfielders because that is going to reduce fatigue locks during play and increase fatigue recovery during half time.

The effect of Relentless + sounds pretty interesting:

• Greatly reduces the long-term fatigue effects on attributes, reaction time, and defensive awareness
• Reduces fatigue loss during player
• Significantly increases fatigue recovery during half time

So, like I mentioned previously, for Midfielders who are running a lot, this is going to be great. This is for players who are known for covering a greater area of the field compared to other players in the same position.

Quick Step

For those of you who love to sprint, the Quick Step playstyle might be of interest to you. Because the gameplay effect here is that a player will accelerate faster during an explosive sprint.

And the upgraded effect means that they’ll actually accelerate significantly faster during said explosive sprint. And this is obviously for players who are known for having that quick best of speed when running on and off the ball.

Long Throw

The final of the physical playstyle is called Long Throw and you’ll never guess what this does.

Of course, it allows players to perform throw-ins with increased power to cover more distance.

The upgraded playstyle plus version does allow them to cover maximum distance. This will obviously be given to players who are known to throw the ball favor then the average player.

Far Throw

We’re going to end by talking about the Goalkeeper playstyles, which are a little different to the others. And a couple of the Goalkeeper playstyles are actually be a Goalkeeper exclusive. So, we’re gonna focus on the others. We’re going to start by talking about Far Throw.

If a Goalkeeper has this, they can target players further away with front passes.

Footwork

If they have the Footwork playstyle, a Goalkeeper will perform saves with their feet more frequently.

Cross Claimer

If they have the Cross Claimer playstyle, a Goalkeeper will try to intercept across if they can get to it slightly before the opponent.

Rush Out

And if they have the Rush Out playstyle, a Goalkeeper is more aggressive when coming out the box to gather those loose balls, whether they be over the top three balls or long through balls.

…

Blade is probably one of the biggest surprises when it comes to the meta. So, here, I am going to talk about his place in the meta, things that you need to know about him, whether you have him or not, as well as cover some important questions, like how game-changing some of the build decisions are. And most importantly, I will showcase the most insane teams you can build him.

New Teams

Let’s first talk about some amazing teams you can build with Blade and how unique some of them are.

Now initially, you might think that Blade has access to limited amount of team mates he can utilize. But surprisingly enough, quite a few characters work well with him.

*So, the first team that’s really strong is made up of Welt, Dan Heng, Blade and one of the healers. What’s great about this comp is that Welt boosts Dan Heng’s damage by consistently applying Speed debuff. Dan Heng can do that himself by using his skill, but it might not land due to the enemy’s effect resistance. So, it’s easier to apply Speed debuff with Welt since you build him with Effect Hit Rate.

But not only this, Welt can also equip on himself Pearls of Sweat and reduce the enemy’s defense in addition to increasing the damage they take by 12% thanks to his Ultimate’s trace. So, both Dan Heng and Blade can dish out some nice damage.

And what’s even better, you only need to use Blade’s skill every 3 turns. You literally cannot use it until the buff runs out. So, it’s easy to manage the skill points in this team.

*Now, the next team is an F2P variation. Pela, Natasha and Fire Trailblazer or any damage dealer is the way to go here. Pela works as an excellent DEF debuffer, so Blade can hit for big damage, while Natasha puts in the work as a freeby unit to keep Bladie alive.

But you might be wondering: Why use Fire Trailblazer? Isn’t he a shielder and that works directly against Blade’s whole purpose of losing HP against enemy attacks and building up his talent to deal damage?

The thing is, Trailblazer’s shields are paper thin, so even if Blade gets hit, he will very likely get damaged as well. So, someadditional damage mitigation won’t hurt him, since you do need to consistently keep an eye on his health.

But either way, you can just replace the main character with any other damage dealer or even support. The purpose here is to utilize an F2P team. However, we did get the final Eidolon for the fire version and it gives a nice 30% DEF boost, which works both for shielding and damage.

*Next, let’s talk about his top meta team, which is made up of Luocha, Silver Wolf and Bronya. Obviously, Luocha is the best healer for him due to how the auto heal works if Blade drops below 50%, which is convenient when he uses his ultimate.

But the character I wanna talk about here is Bronya. No joke, this team is disgusting when it comes to clearing hardest challenges and Bronya helps here big time. By himself and using my build, which I’ll talk about in a moment, Blade hits for 62k damage with his ultimate, 67k with follow-up from the talent and 30k with Enhanced Basic Attack. Really amazing numbers considering he is unbuffed. But when you plug in Bronya, his damage increases from 40% to all the way to 70%. That’s insane if you think about it.

But the irony here is that Bronya is Blade’s best Harmony support because the majority of his damage scales with HP. So, Bronya’s DMG boost works super well for him, unlike other damage boosters.

For example, if I use Tingyun instead of Bronya, she is nowhere close to the Guardian of Belobog. Bronya ends up as a better booster than Tingyun by almost 25% on average. In fact, Tingyun’s skill boost is really weak on Blade. Unless I am missing something here, it boosts by like 10%.

But the number is kinda inflated because all of my damage comparisons so far have been tested against 3 targets, which is the ideal amount for Blade. And it only gets worse with a single target. However, her Ultimate boost is great for him but it’s not consistent compared to Bronya’s skill.

So, while Bronya is the best Harmony buffer for Blade, Tingyun kinda works, same for Yukong, who can boost Blade’s Crit values.

And as for Asta, she’s just not worth it for him, unless you have no other better option. But, this meta team with limited 5-star units is insane although we’re obviously looking at a premium comp here.

However, the thing that I love most about Blade, aside from his edgy approach to life, would be the fact that he works as an amazing sub-damage dealer for any team. If you have no idea who could fill the last slot when building a team, you can just add Blade and put him to work.

I think that’s the best-selling point about him. He has a pretty self-contained playstyle. He doesn’t ask for too many skill points and he delivers amazing AoE damage.

Also Read: Honkai Star Rail: Everything You Need To Know About E0 Blade - Relics, Planar Ornaments, Light Cones & More

Meta Analysis

So, Blade is a strong and versatile damage dealer. What about his place in the meta?

First of all, we have to look at the upcoming Memory of Turbulence changes. The first one that’s coming up will make Blade pretty tanky and after each cycle he will unload damage. The stacks he gains here will require him to get hit or consume HP. So, without a doubt, this next Memory of Chaos cycle is going to be tailor made for him.

Afterwards, later in August, when using follow-up attacks, all resistance of the hit enemies will be reduced by 30%, which is huge and Blade’s damage will increase significantly, helping you end the fights with more cycles left.

Now another cool thing that was added in 1.2 update is the new Forgotten Hall made up of 6 stages. Two most prominent bosses here are Yanqing, who has a weakness to Wind and summons a lot of these annoying but squishy swords.

So, Blade can easily take care of them while in the last stage, Kafka who is also weak to Wind, has 2 of these enemies that keep respawing. But 3 targets total, the most perfect amount for Blade to unload all of his damage.

Basically, the new Forgotten Hall is going to be super easy with Blade, while the next two upcoming Turbulence changes are going to help him big time in clearing Memory of Chaos.

Right now, if you care about his pull value and you are still in the process of building a 2nd team, he is perfect for clearing the hardest content.

Build Considerations

Now, one more thing I wanna talk about would be Blade’s build considerations. I won’t delve deep here and instead.

Maybe you’ve noticed that he has dual scales with both ATK and Health. The thing is ATK is much more inferior compared to HP. And so, when it comes to picking a Rope, hands down HP mainstat is his best option.

And as for the rest of the relics, there’s a lot of talks going on whether it’s better to go for HP or SPD boots. And the truth is, if you have SPD boots, use them, and try to aim for 134 Speed, which is the breakpoint against the current highest level enemies in Memory of Chaos. And this allows Blade to act twice quite often, assuming he doesn’t get debuffed or frozen.

However, HP boot isn’t that far off from SPD boots. They provide a sizeable damage increase. So, if you don’t have SPD, then definitely go for HP.

And as for the rest of the stats, you can see them here:

• Body: Crit Rate / DMG
• Boots: SPD / HP
• Sphere: Ele DMG
• Rope: HP

Substats: Crit Value > SPD > HP% > ATK%

However, what I really wanna talk about would be the new relic set. I honestly didn’t expect it to be so good for him because essentially Blade can easily maintain the 16% Critical Rate from the new set and it’s literally achievable on turn 1. It’s by far his best relic set and everything else wane’s in comparison.

However, you still need to farm for it. In the meantime, Musketeer or the Wind sets, whether 4-sets or double 2-sets are good substitutes. Like, I have a pretty mediocre build here due to how much unluck loves me and it still works out super well for him.

Still, not everything is sunshine and rainbows with this guy. Unfortunately, Blade has some of the worst Light Cone options. I mean, it’s not that they are bad, but only a few are worth mentioning. Mutual Demise, a 3-star cone is a great option if you need a ton of Critical Rate, although he needs to stay below 80%, which isn’t always easy to utilize.

Then, there’s Herta’s shop 5-star cone. But since ATK isn’t that valuable to him and weakness break takes time to inflict, it’s a good but not an outstanding option.

But here’s where things get interesting. His best 4-star light cone has to be A Secret Vow, already at Superimposition 1. It catches up to S5 Herta’s shop light cone, assuming the enemy has more HP than Blade. But at S5, this light cone is by far the strongest thing you can equip on him. That is, until you get his signature cone, which outperforms S5 Secret Vow, although by not that much. So, if you have the 4-star Secret Vow, you’re good to go with just that, since eventually at some point you will get more copies of it.

But don’t take my word for it. I’ve heard some people haven’t managed to get a 2nd copy of Sacrificial Sword since Genshin’s launch. Still, these are basically the standout light cones. Everything else falls either below or somewhere close to these. But keep in mind, Secret Vow and the signature light cone are basically the best options to have.

Initial Thoughts

So, what do I think about Blade?

He is hands down the strongest damage dealer when it comes to 3-targets scenario. He easily outdamages Jing Yuan, which makes me feel kinda sad since I didn’t expect the power creep to show up so soon. And the fact that with 1.2, he also got an insanely good relic set is just a cherry on top.

Now, while he does have a simple playstyle, he only consumes a skill point every 3 turns, which is a godsend when it comes to managing them. And so, he becomes a really good sub-damage dealer whenever you need to fill out that last spot for any team.

Still, he does suck at early game because keeping him alive is a burden that will befall one of the healers and his best team is really limited. Like literally, you need 2 limited 5-stars and Bronya. It also doesn’t help he has a weak selection of Light Cone options.

Also, I mentioned that he only consumes 1 Skill Point. But at the same time, his enhanced basic attack does not recover SP, which was a bit of a surprise to me. But it’s not the end of the world, truth be told.

All in all, Blade is an exciting damage dealer to say the least. If you have a character like him on your Honkai Star Rail Account, that’s great! I am actually surprised that a big amount of his damage comes from the follow-up attack, which is his talent. So more than anything, make sure not to use tanks like Gepard and March 7th with him, since you want this guy to lose health and use that talent as often as possible.

But otherwise, I am satisfied the way he turned out, although I kinda wish he can get another damage booster similar to Bronya because she does improve his damage massively.

…

Recently, we saw many videos talking about why people quit playing Lost Ark. We heard many complaints about Lost Ark users since it was released. But nowadays, they’re a lot more serious than we think.

Population is massively reduced in global and there are not enough users inside the game. There was a region emerge with various updates, but still Lost Ark does not seem to improve in ways players want. That’s why we thought of some solutions.

1. One Chaos Dungeon & One Guardian Raid Per Character

Normally, we run two Chaos Dungeons and two Guardian Raids per character. It takes almost 30 minutes to finish it. If you only have one or two characters, there is no problem.

However, Lost Ark users are recommended to raise 5 more alts instead of the main. It means that three hours are needed for daily homework. That’s a lot for dailies. So, it must be reduced at least half.

Plus, it’s better if players can choose between Chaos Dungeon and Guardian Raid. Chaos Dungeon is a solo content and Guardian Raid is a co-op. Solo content is fine, but new players can easily get rejected finding a party for the Guardian Raid. If it’s allowed to earn all rewards only by running Chaos Dungeon, it will be less stress-consuming for new players who need to spend time finding a party.

2. Adding Roster Bound Rest Gauge

Roster Bound Rest Gauge is a same concept of Rest Gauge that can be shared between characters.

Let’s pretend that you only do dailies for your main character and have several alts. Then, you can get additional bound rest gauge for not playing your alts.

When you have enough roster bound rest gauge, you can decide to apply all at one character. As a result? Plenty of honing materials for your main. This is important because adding a roster bound rest gauge can provide players a chance to focus on their main.

3. Light Of Salvation Rental Service (18 Awakening)

What is the most problematic component for gatekeeping in Lost Ark? Absolutely, cards.

DPS classes need a lot of Light of Salvation to enter higher end contents, but new players need to spend a lot of time to get them. If they don’t want to spend their time, they need to spend lots of money. But that’s pay to win.

Some can say there are new player’s cards, but nobody wants new player’s cards. Players want Light of Salvation, so why not rent them?

Let’s make players spend Lost Ark Gold and rent Light of Salvation (18 awakening) weekly. Then, new players can buy their time until they collect Light of Salvation for themselves.

4. Selectable Legendary Card Packs For Clearing End Contents

This one is also for lowering the difficulty of collecting cards. Lost Ark legion raids are really well made, but rewards are not satisfying.

To make players challenge more, motivation is a must. When they clear the raid for the first time, why not give them selectable legendary card packs? In this way, players can be motivated as they can get legendary cards they need.

5. Change Of Pheons

Pheon system is very complicated because it’s related to monetization of Lost Ark.

So, I want to compare the needs of users and corporations to find an adjustment. In the aspect of Lost Ark users, Pheons are nothing but a taxation of the company. The best way is to get rid of Pheons.

However, in the aspect of Smilegate, Pheons are their monetization model. Players can exchange gold to blue crystals, but it’s more efficient to just buy the blue crystal package they sell. It’s also important for them to make a profit.

As an adjustment, I suggest one solution. Pheons should not be applied on stones and tripods. Unlike accessories, Pheons that can be spent are Limitless. We only need to buy five accessories for our setting, but we don’t know how many Pheons will be spent on stones and tripods.

6. Adding Mechanics That Can Recovery Mistakes

In Lost Ark legion raid, one player’s mistake can kill everyone, and the raid becomes more difficult as they move on to the next legion commanders.

However, we think that’s not a great solution. We don’t want to spend 20 minutes per gate again and again until no one makes a mistake. We think it’s better to add some mechanics that can recover mistakes.

For example, let’s pretend that we are in Brelshaza gate 6. Players get killed when over four floors are destroyed. When someone made a mistake and accidentally destroyed one more floor than it should be, the stagger bar appears below the boss for once. Then, they should stagger the boss and the floor resurrects as soon as the boss gets staggered.

In this way, every try will be more meaningful.

7. No More Meaningless Grinding

In Lost Ark, there are lots of collectibles we need to farm: Island Souls, Mokoko Seeds, Masterpieces, Giant Hearts, Skill Points and more.

We personally think collectibles in Lost Ark are very well designed compared to other games. However, there is a worthless grinding content in Lost Ark. It is the Tower.

Tower is a grinding content, which you need to clear every single floor until you reach the top. It’s not fun at all. Survival mission gives so much stress to players. Then, do rewards worth it?

No. Rewards are not enough to replace our time. And can we ignore them? Of course, no. There are skill points are runes we need as a reward. To sum up, Tower is not enough meaningful content we must do.

Fortunately, Smilegate changed the number of floors of towers. Now, the Tower of Shadow and Tower of Fate (tier 1&2) only have 20 floors. It is a great change.

However, the Tower of Destiny, which is tier 3, still has 50 floors. Some of the floors in the tier-3 tower have difficult missions to solve. But they are not rewarding enough.

Therefore, we believe the tier-3 tower must be changed to 20 floors, giving all previous rewards.

Also Read: Lost Ark: Fastest Way To Get 20 Island Souls In 2023

8. Livestream Communication

Since we played Lost Ark in both KR and Global, we noticed that Lost Ark Global does not communicate with users often.

For better communication, Amazon should create a team, which can deliver important notices or discussions they had with Smilegates. Then, Global users can know what’s going on between Amazon and Smilegate.

9. Additional Honing Support For Global Server

Between Lost Ark KR & Global, content gab is one of the big complaints.

To solve the problem, Amazon released so many main contents in less than a year. And we all know, when there’s a new legion raid, we need time to progress our gear to reach the given item level.

However, the time was too short. People had to do dailies again and again and create several alts to catch up. In other words, there was no support of Amazon to provide additional ways to help them catch up main contents in a short period.

We think there should be an increase of honing chance and more horizontal contents, such as islands and summer events for extra hunting materials. Maybe secret merchants can sell honing materials, too. There are plenty of ways that can back up the speed of content release. Don’t make Chaos Dungeon and Guardian Raid the only method to obtain honing materials.

That’s all we wanted to talk about Lost Ark Global. We just want to see the game changing positive ways so that more gamers can jump in.

…

Genshin Impact has been out for a few years now. There’s a ton of characters to choose from and some are more popular than others. But here, I want to talk about characters that are underrated, although in my opinion still relevant and strong in 2023.

1. Noelle

The first one I wanna talk about is Noelle.

She definitely has gotten the short end of the stick over the years. Because just to start with, Geo doesn’t have that many characters or team comps and no new Geo support units have been released during Sumeru’s cycle. And what’s even worse, when Itto showed up, she basically got overshadowed by him due to how similar both are.

And if that’s not enough, one of her biggest problems is that she doesn’t generate energy from her skill. But it’s 2023 right now and we’ve honestly seen worse energy problems. The thing is Noelle is like a puzzle you need to solve. But once it’s done, you can sit there and admire the result. In her case, you will need to use Favonius weapons on at least 2 team mates if not all 3 of them. By the way, some 5-star weapons are very difficult to obtain. At this time, directly buying a Genshin Impact Account is a good choice!

Gorou is also amazing for her, not just because he boosts Geo damage, but also he can generate a good amount of Geo and Favonius particles for her, which you can catch by swapping to her.

But the saving grace here is that her burst costs 60, which is not the worst thing in the world to have. And also, if you didn’t know, by doing normal attacks, there’s an increasing probability that will let that character generate 1 energy and it just so happens claymore and catalyst users have the best probability chance. So, doing some slashing with Noelle gets that energy restored.

But honestly, the thing I love most about her is that when there are multiple enemies, especially if they hit hard, her team wide healing by using the skill is kinda amazing and gives you a nice amount of team options you can go for when she’s taking care of the survivability.

And truthfully, it’s not the energy problems that’s holding her back, but her final constellation. If you don’t have it, a good chunk of damage will be missing.

However, this is also a bit of an outdated statement because it’s been around since Genshin’s launch. And these days we have her dedicated artifact set. We know how valuable Benny boy is, and Gorou is also there to help her out.

All in all, Noelle’s mono geo teams still hold up really well these days. Sure, she has her some problems. But as time went on, in my opinion, she is still relevant even till this day.

2. Heizou

It’s no secret that Heizou has been often compared to Sucrose or even Kazuha. And things like his underwhelming crowd control or short range normal attacks make him inferior.

But honestly, if you can get behind his playstyle, he is an extremely fun to use character. One punching enemies with his skill that scales extremely well or kicking enemies with a burst that has a low 40 energy cost is one of few things that makes him a great unit.

And the thing is because of how fast and fluid his animations are, he is a superb quickswap unit for teams like Freeze or Vape. At the same time, he is also a great driver for comps like Electro-charged due to the low charged attack stamina cost. And as you know it, charged attacks have no ICD, so you can always create reactions with his sweeping kick.

And after making guides on complex characters for a few years now, you gotta appreciate his simple yet strong passive. punch an enemy with his skill and everyone besides him gets 80 Elemental Mastery boost.

Also, if you are invested into Wanderer or Xiao and have obtained a C6 Faruzan, she is honestly amazing with him and only turns him into an even stronger damage dealer. And don’t forget, he is an Anemo catalyst, which means you can just slap on him Viridescent and Thrilling Tales and he can still land some quick punches before swapping out and buffing the main damage dealer, which works out super well in quick swap teams.

Now, I do have to be honest with you here because my Heizou is C6. However, when he first got released, I had him at C0 for a pretty long time. But I will admit, his constellations, especially C4 and C6, are amazing. But without them, he still works as a great unit for many team comps.

Also Read: Genshin Impact: How To Create The Best Yelan Build? - Artifacts, Weapons & Teams

3. Yae Miko

In the past, I really didn’t know how good Yae Miko was. That was me before Sumeru update. And now that we have Dendro reactions, she’s actually really good.

I think Hoyoverse should honestly stop with releasing characters whose potential is not yet unlocked. Because Yae Miko and Kuki Shinobu are the perfect examples here. Not sure about Thoma, though, they probably didn’t plan him to be a pretty good Burgeon enabler.

Still, the reason why I mention this is that a lot of people think Yae Miko is not that great. She looks amazing and has some of the best voicelines. But when it came to her damage, it just didn’t feel satisfying, especially when Hoyo went back and forth trying to quote unquote fix her and afterwards rolling back the changes.

However, the change that she did need the most was the Dendro element. Here is a funny fact: Aggravate and Spread reaction damage works better when characters can do many little hits which can cause reactions. And because of this, Yae Miko’s totem damage has completely changed after putting her into Dendro teams.

And what’s also great is that her burst isn’t that super mandatory. You could skip the burst in one of the rotations if she didn’t have enough energy for it. What’s most important here is to maintain the totems on the field at all times, so that they can relentlessly attack enemies.

Overall, I think Yae Miko has been underrated for a while now, even after the Dendro element, and I gotta confess. I also didn’t think much of it before I tried her out in Dendro teams. She’s kinda like Keqing to me. Because of Dendro reactions, both of them are now my go-to characters I like to use everywhere.

4. Kaeya

Going back to the classics again, I feel like Kaeya doesn’t get enough attention when it comes to the new Dendro team comps.

First of all, he is a great option when you’re playing a Freeze team. I especially love the fact that even after game’s launch: his damage numbers are pretty respectable, especially when you build him with a Blizzard Strayer set and slap on him one of the premium 5-star swords.

And of course, who could forget the Reverse Melt teams that you can run with him? But what really has set him apart after the Dendro changes were the Fridge team variations. The most prominent one is Hyperfridge. And it’s pretty simple. You build him as a damage dealer. You use either Kuki or Raiden to trigger Hyperblooms and then someone like Alhaitham or Nahida can act as the driver so that there’s enough Dendro application.

You will then choose between several Hydro options so that there are Freeze reactions happening because hitting enemies with Hyperblooms while they are frozen is really a one-of-a-kind satisfaction you’ll get.

Honestly, I am just happy to see Kaeya doing so well after all this time. I know some content creators love to showcase him and that makes me happy. But at the same time, I can see a lot of times people forget he exists and always focusing on the next shiny character. When in reality, you’ve got a cool starter character that you can build and use in many teams, including the new Fridge comp.

5. Collei

I probably haven’t seen this much injustice when it comes to a character getting overshadowed. And it was Dendro Traveler out of all people who did this to our Collei, who we must protect from the world’s harm.

No, but seriously, she obviously has some problems like her skill collision with enemies acting weird or the fact Hoyo decided to put a special limiter on her Burst’s ICD.

But with these problems out of the way, I actually love using her in various Dendro teams, especially when she is equipped with the Sacrificial Bow. This allows her to do her skill twice and if you have at least a few of her constellations unlocked, there’s some good synergy you’ll get out of those.

But even then, she is massively underrated when it comes to Nilou bloom teams. I am honestly still trying to wrap my head around her playstyle in this team. But I am having a blast using her with Nilou. Because after playing this game for so long, getting to experience a pretty unique playstyle is something else.

She’s one of the best choices to go for if you want to have a strong Nilou bloom team. Otherwise, you can still use Collei in Quicken teams or even Burgeon. She’s obviously going to require more focus than when you play DMC, who just drops his flower and switches out.

…

Since Diablo 4 is out, the Diablo 2 Resurrected’s servers are much emptier. And I found that the update frequency of many Diablo 2 Resurrected content creators is also significantly reduced.

Given the status quo, some people are wondering how things will continue and if Diablo 4 will even replace Diablo 2 Resurrected. I can clearly answer this question with a no.

Of course, Diablo 4 is just new. Not even a month has gone past since release, so there is much new content. But in this article, I have 7 points for you why Diablo 4 will not be a replacement for many Diablo 2 Resurrected players in the long term.

1. Items

Number one, the item system in Diablo 2 Resurrected is a class for its own.

There are many different affixes and host mechanics you have to understand, such as Open Wounds, Crushing Blow, or Deadly Strike. Also, the player must pay attention to certain breakpoints and there are the various popular Runewords.

In Diablo 4, the complexity develops on a completely different level. The legendary and unique aspects make a lot of difference and there are many different types of damage to understand.

2. Trading

Point number two is related to the first point - trading.

In Diablo 2 Resurrected, a gigantic market has developed. It’s hard to find the comparison for this. I can’t think of any other game where trading with other players is such a factor.

In Diablo 4, the trades are currently limited to very few goods, such as rares and Diablo 4 Gold. And even if something changes, I think items that are bound to your account will remain an integral part of the Diablo 4 mechanics.

3. Speed

Under point number three, I list the game resume and speed.

In Diablo 2 Resurrected, you teleport through the maps in no time and make high frequency runs or farm many different spots one after the other.

In Diablo 4, everything takes much longer. If you want to run a dungeon, you have to ride there first and, in the worst case, you get involved into fights on the way.

4. Skill Trees

Point number four is the Skill Trees.

The skill system is very good in both games but also completely different. Both offer the base for a great variety of characters. And even though I can’t assess the whole potential in Diablo 4 yet, I dare to say that the variants in D2R are a bit greater. I can certainly think of over 20 different builds just for the Paladin.

In any case, the build possibilities in Diablo 2 Resurrected are unique in some respects.

In Diablo 4, it will probably be difficult to build an efficient build where the Sorcerer strikes with a sword.

5. Optic

As point number five, I would like to mention the beautiful graphics of Diablo 2 Resurrected.

Diablo 4 doesn’t look bad either, but the engine is completely different. In Diablo 2 Resurrected, however, the new detailed implementation of the classic look has become so ingenious and makes the heart of an old Diablo 2 Resurrected player beat faster.

6. PVP & Speedruns

Point number six in Diablo 2 Resurrected various disciplines have been established that have kept many players happy for years, such as Speedrunning or PVP. Even though there may be both in the far as well, it will be completely different.

In Diablo 2 Resurrected Speedrunning, I loved the mechanics of how the game generates the maps and how you can read the maps to progress faster.

In Diablo 4, on the other hand, the entire outside world, as well as the specific dungeons in the main storyline, are always exactly the same. PVP is also something completely different in Diablo 2 Resurrected.

This, of course, already results from the engines and game mechanics we have already discussed. Every enthusiastic Diablo 2 Resurrected PVP player will definitely understand what I mean.

7. Offline

Last but not least, we have point number seven and that is the fact that there is an offline mode.

Diablo 2 is a game that has been modded a lot in the past and there are already some mods for Diablo 2 Resurrected, too. In addition, there is also a group of players who like to play the Solo Self Found.

In addition, it should also be mentioned that Diablo 2 has survived for so many years, although there was a long break. Without new content with Diablo 2 Resurrected, cool new content was added, and the graphics were brought to a good new standard. So, it would surprise me if there would be a sudden finish soon.

A certain car of players to which I also count myself will certainly still play the game for a long time. I also have a lot to do, so, for example, only two of my PVP charts are level 99 yet and the equipment I also have to optimize.

Diablo 4 is also pretty cool. But it’s a different grind. You have the open world and the complexity develops in a completely different direction, which also has its charm but is just no replacement. It is rather an additional offer variety. I could imagine that Diablo 4 will replace the third part, but for judging, I have played too little Diablo 3.

In any case, I'm looking forward to many more D2R content since the hype of Diablo 4 will not be forever.

…

The Dragonflight dungeon Halls of Infusion is now part of the Season 2 Mythic+ pool. So, here I will go over the most important mechanics to watch out for in this dungeon!

Dungeon Start

At the beginning, you will encounter Primalist Ravagers and Geomancers, Refti Defenders and Containment Apparatus.

The Apparatus seems to be one of the most dangerous enemies, because it continuously casts Containment Beam onto random players. This cast does heavy damage and can only be disrupted.

Additionally, it also casts “Expulse”, which is a heavy AoE damage ability that should be interrupted. A good strategy would be to avoid pulling too many Apparatuses simultaneously and focusing them down quickly if you do!

Outside of the Apparatuses, you should also try to interrupt the Defenders' Demoralizing Shout. It will reduce your groups damage done by 25% if not interrupted.

Moving into the first room, you can either go left or right. Both paths will lead to the first boss. But you unlock different perks, depending on which path you choose to clear.

If you go left, you will reach a Limited Immortality Device, usable by Dragonflight Engineers with skill 25 or higher. Activating this will give everyone in your group a 1 hour buff, preventing one death (similar to a Rogue's cheat death ability). If you go right instead, you will clear the path for a shortcut that opens up later after you kill the 2nd boss and a 2nd shortcut will open in the same area once you kill the 3rd boss.

Watcher Irideus

But before you can make use of these short cuts, you have to defeat Watcher Irideus.

During the first phase of this encounter, 3 players in your group will occasionally be debuffed by Power Overload, a magic debuff ticking for nature damage and leaving behind a puddle underneath the player on removal or expiration.

It might be best to have the 3 debuffed players stack up and then either mass dispel the debuffs or dispel none of them to make sure the puddles all spawn simultaneously and on the same location, to lessen the area of denial.

The boss will also cast Static Surge, a heavy unavoidable AoE damage channel on the group.

Tanks additionally have to watch out for a frontal attack, doing damage and stunning in a cone in front of Watcher Irideus.

Once the boss reaches 15% health, he will become immune to damage and Siphon Power from the facility itself, increasing his nature damage done by 2% every 1 second until canceled.

To interrupt his cast, you have to kill 3 of the 4 Nullification Devices close to the boss. They will explode and remove his barrier.

In phase 2, the Power Overload debuffs will do increased damage and also drop bigger puddles, so watch out for that!

After you have defeated Watcher Irideus, you can choose to either go straight forward, or you can take the stairs to a different area. Both paths will ultimately lead to the same location.

If you decide to go straight, you will see some Primalist Shocktroopers first. Make sure you interrupt their Elemental Focus cast. Otherwise, they will gain an instant Chain Lightning ability doing a lot of unpreventable damage to the group.

The Dazzling Dragonflys cast a frontal disorient. This can either be interrupted, sidestepped (even by the tank) or magic dispelled if anyone gets hit by it.

Additionally, there are Skulking Zealots patrolling this area in stealth, so watch out for them!

Also Read: Things Blizzard Can Do to Make WOW Dragonflight Better

Once you cleared all the trash in the room, the door behind you will close and a small event starts. Waves of curious Swoglets will spawn and randomly fixate players. If they successfully melee attack a player, they will stack up a poison debuff, instantly killing the player if it stacks up to 10.

After the event, the door will open and you can clear the path to the 2 minibosses, Flamecaller Aymi and Squallbringer Cyraz. If you decide to take the other path after the first boss instead, you will encounter the same type of mobs. But there won’t be a Swoglet event and additionally you will be able to access Infused Mushrooms.

Any player with Dragonflight Herbalism skill 25 or above can activate the mushrooms, giving everyone in your party a 30 minute buff, curing 1 poison or disease effect every 15 seconds. This might be useful for the next boss coming up if you don’t have anyone in your group to dispel Poison effects!

Both paths now lead to the minibosses. The more dangerous of the 2 is Flamecaller Aymi. She occasionally roots a random player with a magic dispellable debuff and then spawns a big swirly underneath that player you have to move out of. Once she is low health, she will attempt to cast Cauterize, healing her if not interrupted.

Squallbringer Cyras, on the other hand, will spawn several small Zephyrlings. But they don’t do anything other than attack their aggro target. He will also sometimes cast a whirlwind around him. So, move away from him to avoid damage.

Gulping Goliath

Once you finish off the minibosses, the door to the next boss will open.

The Gulping Goliath will spawn Swoglets on players’ locations. They will fixate players and apply the same poison debuff as the trash mobs before. So, watch out to not reach 10 applications or you will instantly die.

Once in a while, the boss will cast Gulp. It’s an AoE damage ability indicated by a circle around the boss. Any Swoglets inside the circle will be destroyed and any player in the circle will take damage and gain 3 poison applications. If no player is hit by Gulp, the boss will enrage.

Once the Gulping Goliath is defeated, you can make your way to the 3rd boss. Here you will encounter Primalist Galesingers, Icecallers and Earthshakers, as well as Glacial Proto Dragons.

Galesingers will occasionally spawn a thunderstorm underneath a player. Glacial Proto Dragons cast a frontal breath towards the tank and apply a magic debuff to the whole group, slowing and dealing damage to players. Icecallers cast a heal and it can only be disrupted, so be ready for that!

Khajin The Unyielding

Up next is Khajin the Unyielding.

One of her main abilities is Hailstorm. To avoid the damage, you will have to hide behind one of the ice blocks located around the room. The ice blocks crack if they get hit by any of her abilities (including hailstorm) and if a cracked ice block gets hit again, they will get destroyed and do AoE damage around them.

To not get damaged by a dying ice block, you should make sure you are hiding behind a fully in tact block. Keep in mind some of the blocks are already cracked as you start the encounter!

Additionally, she will cast Glacial Surge, creating rings of frost moving outward, starting around the boss. And it is similar to Kurog Grimtotem’s ability in the Vault of the Incarnates.

Once in a while, a player will be targeted by Frost Cyclone, indicated by an arrow on the floor. Make sure to move out of it and keep in mind, any ice blocks hit by the cyclone will either get cracked or be destroyed.

Once you defeat Khajin, you can move onto the bridge leading to the last boss Primal Tsunami. You will encounter some enemies you’ve already seen before and additionally there are Aqua Ragers, continuously spawning until you defeat Infuser Sariya at the end of the bridge.

Aqua Ragers cast an enrage, but it can be interrupted or soothed and at 20% health, they will attempt to split into 4 smaller mobs. This can also be interrupted.

While on the bridge, you continuously have to dodge circular water waves coming from either the left or the right. If you get hit, you get knocked and take damage. You can line of sight these circles by standing really close to the pillars on the opposite side of where they are coming from.

Infuser Sariya will be attackable once you kill the last 4 Aqua Ragers standing at the end of the bridge. Watch out for her Aqua barrier. Interrupt this cast to make sure she doesn’t shield herself.

Primal Tsunami

Now, you can start the fight against the Primal Tsunami.

In phase 1, you have to dodge a lot of swirlies and moving water bubbles while the tank has to watch out for Squall Buffet: a tank attack that knocks you back.

At 100 Energy, the boss becomes immune and players are thrown away to one of three bridges. The tank and the healer both get paired with 1 damage dealer each and the 3rd damage dealer gets sent by themselves. Everyone has to attempt to run back towards the boss while dodging waves and water bubbles.

Back in the boss room, there are now 4 Primalist Infusers channeling Infuse. This gives the boss a stacking damage increase. If the Infusers are interrupted, they instead start attacking the players and cast “inundate”, an AoE damage cast similar to Infuser Sariya. This cast can be disrupted.

Once the Infusers are dead, you can finish off the Primal Tsunami to end the dungeon and collect your loot! That means you’ll get a lot of WoW Dragonflight Gold. Hope you can learn a lot from this guide!

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