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However, this is also a bit of an outdated statement because it’s been around since Genshin’s launch.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!

The latest character in Honkai Star Rail is the 1.1 version of Silver Wolf. But the game has actually revealed a lot of new characters. Today, we are going to list all 15 currently known new characters that are likely to be playable in the near future.

It should be noted that all of the characters listed in the article have officially appeared in the game, with the exception of the Dragon form Dan Heng.

1. Luocha

Everyone knows him from the second half of 1.1.

He can heal, cleanse, and deal damage at the same time without consuming skill points, and can be fully functional at E0. And he is a super OP must-have unit. If you want to experience Luocha as a character as soon as it goes live, you might as well just buy a Honkai Star Rail Account with Luocha.

2. Yu Kong

Yu Kong is a 4-star imaginary harmony support.

She comes with the event banner of Luocha, who can buff ally’s ATK, Crit Rate and Crit Damage. You can also get her free at the 1.2 event.

3. Kafka

Kafka is a 5-star Lightning Nihilist. She is also the leader of the Stellaron Hunters who push the Stellaron Core into your chest, affectionately called “Mom” by all the Trailblazers.

Everyone tried Kafka in the tutorial, and her skill animations were just too good to be ignored. Kafka is the synergy core of a continuous damage team and works well with Serval and Sampo.

4. Blade

Blade is a 5-star wind destruction damage dealer.

He has an immortal body in the story, a terrifying Stellaron Hunter. His skills are all blood related. By burning it and healing it back, he can not only tank damage, destroy the enemies but also support more skill points to the team.

5. Luka

He is the handsome guy on the popular Light Cone Resolution Shines as Pearls of Sweat.

As the underground king of the fighters in Boulder Town, Luca is a 4-star physical nihility carry, more suitable for an F2P team.

6. Fu Xuan

She is the head of the Xianzhou Alliance’s Divination Commission, who is good at fortune telling.

She always wanted to be the general of Luofu, but Jing Yuan does not give it up easily. Based on the information we have, Fu Xuan will be a five-star quantum preserver.

7. Yin Yue

Yin Yue, who is the dragonborn of Dan Heng, is a 5-star imaginary DPS.

Dan Heng’s past is probably the most mysterious plot in the game, and HoYoverse is doing its best not to spoil it, even though his animation has already been leaked for a long time. So, we will not talk too much about him, but we know he will be with us soon.

Also Read: Honkai Star Rail: A Complete Guide To Arlan! - Builds & Skills & Teams

8. Jing Liu

Jing Liu was the former general of Xianzhou, Jing Yuan’s master, but lost herself in the cursed body.

In the animated film, Jing Yuan killed her in tears with his ultimate. However, in the promotion video for 1.1, she came back again and fought Yanqing, who is the disciple of Jing Yuan.

From the scene, we can guess that she is an ice-type damage dealer, most likely a 5-star. But her path is unknown. Some people speculate that the body in Luocha’s coffin was Jing Liu, and Luocha managed to help her resurrect, leading to the scene in the PV.

9. Gui Nai Fen

She is the pretty girl on the Light Cone Subscribe for More! That also says like before you leave!

She’s Sushang’s best friend, with an optimistic and positive character, possibly a fire type. She likes to fool around, like live streaming crushing rocks on Sushang’s chest.

Although the light cone is for the hunt, we cannot tell her path yet because Sushang is also on it.

10. Lynx

Lynx is the other girl on the Light Cone Warmth Shortens Cold Nights.

She’s the younger sister of Serval and Gepard, who is very thoughtful and caring for others. To match the light cone’s type, she should be on the path of Abundance.

11. Screwllum

Screwllum is the new character who debuted in the 1.1 event and is an important figure at the space station.

He fought Sliver Wolf both on the Light Cone We Will Meet Again and in the 1.1 event. So, he might as well be a nihility character.

12. Ruan Mei

There are 3 characters on the Light Cone Geniuses’ Repose: Herta, Screwllum, and Ruan Mei, who together built the Simulated Universe.

From her appearance, her path is more likely to be either harmony or abundance.

13 & 14. Xueyi And Hanya

Xueyi and Hanya are the sisters on two light cones: Under the Blue Sky and Return to Darkness.

Xueyi is older, and Hanya is younger. Xue Yi has been transformed into a puppet lying in Hanya’s arms. We can assume that one is the Hunt, most likely Hanya, and one is destruction based on the types of their light cones.

15. Topaz

She is the character on the Light Cone Trend of the Universal Market, who is the manager of the Pan-Galactic Commercial Enterprise.

Even though the light cone is for preservation, there are rumors that Topaz has been designed to be a damage dealer. So, let’s wait and see.

The Other Three

In addition to that, there are three characters that have not yet appeared in the game, but are already of great interest to the community.

The first is Black Swan. She showed up in one of the official trailers, but we know nothing about her identity. She looks like a nihilist to me, but we will have to wait for more information.

Finally, people are hyped about the possibility that two of the most popular swords women in Honkai Impact, Raiden Mei and Yae Sakura. They may both join the Honkai Star Rail as 5-star carries of the hunt. There are no visuals yet for their models, but we hope to see them soon.

Silver Wolf quite literally has made a huge impact on the meta. So, here, I am going to talk about her place in the meta, things that you need to know about her, whether you already have her or not, as well as cover some important questions like how game-changing her first Eidolons are. Most importantly, I will showcase the most insane teams you can build with her.

New Teams

Let’s first talk about the new amazing teams you can build with Silver Wolf and how different they are from what we’re used to.

I won’t be delving too deep into Silver Wolf’s kit, since there’ are already a lot of guides about that. Instead, I want to show you something different.

The biggest thing about Silver Wolf is her ability to implant a weakness type to an enemy that doesn’t have it. This one mechanic alone allows you to build more than 5 new teams and all of them are interesting in their own way.

*So, the first team is Mono Fire, which is made up of Asta, Himeko and Fire Trailblazer. The survivability here goes out the window without the healer. But, because of the upcoming changes to Memory of Chaos, this team is going places already. So what’s so great about it?

First of all, Silver Wolf can easily implant Fire Weakness on enemies who don’t have it, even though there is a 50/50 chance. It could be also Quantum, if the enemy doesn’t have it. It is a bit of a bummer. You have to flip a coin and hope this works out, since it doesn’t matter how many team mates you have from the same element in the team. The game’s programming basically just weighs the two elements and considers one of the two before implanting the enemy. Of course, if the enemy has Quantum Weakness but doesn’t have Fire, then it’s a 100% guarantee that Silver Wolf will just be able to keep applying this weakness.

Now, Fire Weakness matters a lot to Asta. Her whole schtick is to boost the team’s ATK when she damages an enemy. But, if the enemy has Fire Weakness, she gains an additional stack. This allows you to rapidly build those stacks, boost everyone’s ATK and in addition, she also provides 18% Fire Damage increase for the whole team from one of her major traces. I cannot tell you how good this is when Silver Wolf can literally implant Fire Weakness on any boss who doesn’t have it. And this makes the team super consistent with Asta’s buffing.

Also, breaking enemies’ weakness is Himeko’s bread and butter. The more you break, the more she unleashes her strong follow-up attack. And you will have an easy time doing this, thanks to Silver Wolf’s Fire Weakness Implant. But with that being said, I would say this is the weakest team out of the all I am going to show you. But, it couldn’t exist right now without the Wolf.

*The next team I am really excited to talk about is Mono Ice, which is made up of Gepard, Pela and Yan Qing. Probably the most amazing thing here is the absolutely disgusting amount of DEF shred you can achieve with both Pela and Silver Wolf.

All of their DEF shredding stacks together. For example, you can see Pela’s burst DEF reduction. She’s also equipped with the Pearls of Sweat Light Cone, which shreds DEF. Then, we have Silver Wolf’s Ultimate and Bug Implant, both reducing defense. All of this totaling up to 96% of reduced DEF. That’s almost attacking an enemy without any DEF at all.

And my Pela’s traces aren’t even leveled. So you can imagine what a field day Yan Qing gets to have when he delivers insane single target damage. And what’s also great is that Gepard can actually keep the team alive pretty well. So, this is legit an amazing team you can go for if you wanna build a Mono Ice team comp.

*Moving over, there’s also Mono Lightning with Jing Yuan, Tingyun and Bailu. I am sure you saw this team already, so not much needs to be said here. Thanks to Silver Wolf’s Bug Implant and the ability to reduce the enemies’ Elemental Resistance, Jing Yuan’s damage actually gets boosted by quite a lot. I don’t even have to tell you how much stronger Lightning Lord strikes become.

*Now one other great team is Mono Physical with Clara, Natasha and Sushang. Thanks to Clara’s pseudo tanking and Natasha’s healing, I can actually use this team really well in Memory of Chaos. And Sushang actually shreds the weakness bar by a lot. So, once the enemy gets Physical Weakness implant, the team’s performance skyrockets.

*And then, of course, we have Quantum. Currently, I see a lot of people running double Lightning/Quantum with Tingyun/Bailu and Seele or QQ. Honestly, this is my new team for farming Simulated Universe and thanks to Silver Wolf’s debuffing, I almost doubled Seele’s damage output going from 90k to 170k with her ultimate.

*Finally, one last bonus team to showcase. You could also go for Seele, Silver Wolf and QQ together with either Natasha or Bailu. Just so you can keep those Quantum maniacs alive while they are busy decimating the bosses. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of what potential teams you can build with Silver Wolf. And her ability to enable so many different Mono teams is actually quite staggering.

It’s not something we’re used to and even though you do have to play the coin flip game if the enemy is missing both of the weaknesses. It’s a gamble that you can live with, especially if you strategically build teams against enemies who have the Quantum weakness if it’s not a Mono Quantum team. If that is the case, Silver Wolf will never implant her own weakness.

Meta Analysis

What about Silver Wolf’s place in the meta?

*First of all, we have to look at the upcoming Memory Turbulance changes, since they warp the team building in a significant way. The first one that’s coming in June 12th will reduce enemies’ damage by 4% up to 5 times when they get debuffed.

Basically with Silver Wolf, you will be able to maintain at least on one target all 5 stacks, which is 20% reduced damage and if it’s 2 bosses or elite enemies. The other one will probably have around 3-5 stacks as well. This is a huge change for teams like Mono Fire or Mono Ice where you don’t have a healer and want to sustain the damage with shielding.

*Now the next Turbulence after this, will shred the enemy’s DEF by 6% for each debuff up to 5 times for a total of 30% reduction. For teams without Pela, this is straight up an amazing damage boost for damage dealers when you combine this with Silver Wolf’s DEF shred from her bug and ultimate.

*And finally, the last turbulence is not really important because it mostly has to do with Luocha. From June 12th to July 10th Nihility but mainly Silver Wolf is going to be dominating the Memory of Chaos in an almost unfair way.

Now even if we take out these Memory Turbulence changes out of the equation, the other major buff Nihility or for the most part any debuffer has received has is that every enemies’ Resistance to Effects have been nerfed. This change alone has easily made it possible to build Silver Wolf as a sub-dps instead of just pure support, which I’ll talk about in the next segment.

But the most important thing here to understand is that you no longer need to aim for 120% Effect Hit Resistance with her. And instead, roughly 96% is enough to achieve a guarantee you will land her skill debuff, while the Talent which allows her to implant bugs will have around 85 to 99% success rate depending if the enemy has 40 or 30% Effect Resistance and not many have 40% thanks to these changes, like Cocolia or Svarog.

Honestly, to me this last-minute change HoYoverse did to enemies feels eerily similar back when Kazuha first got released. Back in 1.6, Transformative Reactions received a massive damage boost right when Kazuha’s banner became available. So, I guess it’s pretty clear HoYoverse saw that Silver Wolf needed this in order to allow players to have more freedom with her builds.

All in all, with these additions in mind, Silver Wolf lands herself easily in a top tier spot in tier lists. Because she simply brings so much value from enabling new meta teams or remixing older ones, to providing an insane amount of debuffs her team can work with and utilize.

Right now, if you care about her pull value and Memory of Chaos, she is absolutely worth getting for the simple fact alone. She can manipulate the weakness type, even if it can be random at times, which I’ll admit. This can feel punishing if you put her into the 2nd side of Memory of Chaos. Because you might have to waste time and restart the run if she doesn’t apply the weakness you need, especially since finishing in a limited amount of cycles is really crucial right now to get all 3 stars.

Related: Honkai Star Rail: Everything You Should Know About Silver Wolf - Skills, Talent, Ultimates & More

Build Considerations

Now, one more thing I want to talk about are her build considerations. I won’t delve deep here. And instead, maybe you saw how much Effect Hit Rate she needs and became discouraged for pulling for her or you’re in the process of gearing her up. Either way, here’s what you need to think about.

Because of the Effect Resistance nerf that was made to enemies, the golden sweet spot for Silver Wolf, assuming her traces are maxed out, is 96% or about 105% if you have level 7 skill.

For ultimate and talent the numbers will differ, you will need a lot less for the ultimate and a lot more for the talent because of its low base chance. However, what matters the most is the skill.

Now, getting 96% can basically be achieved with Effect Hit Rate body, the new F2P event light cone and then 18% you get from her traces.

But here’s the thing. Effect Hit Rate body massively reduces Silver Wolf’s potential as a sub-damage dealer and instead she kind of acts like a support with some damage.

So, what’s really going to happen with her and what I am also working towards right now, is to actually use Critical Rate body and to obtain the remainder of 38% Effect Hit Rate from the subtats and if needed, the Pan-Galactic planar ornament set.

With the planar set, you only need 28% Effect Hit Rate or if you just go with the substats, you will need to roll on average 9 times on Effect Hit Rate substat to achieve this 96% threshold. This might sound like a lot. But think of it like you would normally chase Critical Rate or Critical Damage substats. It’s definitely achievable in the long run and it is something I highly recommend working towards, instead of just relying on the Effect Hit Rate Body, which is a massive DPS loss for Silver Wolf. That can otherwise be achievable with the Critical Rate Body instead.

Of course, I understand you could be using a light cone that’s not from the current event, which means you’ll need more of Effect Hit Rate it, unless you max out the 5-star options shown here. But for the most part, building her as a hybrid sub-damage dealer and debuffer is going to be your long-term goal.

Broken Eidolons

The 1st one allows her to essentially regain 35 energy after using her Ultimate, which is fine and dandy. Because now you can get rid of the need to have Energy Regeneration Rope and this allows you to increase her damage by even more with ATK or Break Effect rope instead.

However, where things get absolutely bonkers is her second eidolon. You might look at this and think “wow, that’s such a boring upgrade. All enemies have their Effect RES reduced by 20%. It is a big deal”.

Yes, it is actually a big deal. To the point that I think, this eidolon even surpasses Raiden’s 2nd constellation, which is well known in Genshin community as the most powerful upgrade in the game you can get for a character.

And here’s the thing. With this upgrade, you now only need 47% Effect Hit Rate for Silver Wolf to have a guarantee she can apply her skill debuff on all enemies in the game. And it’s going to be 85% chance to apply her bugs. Not only that, all enemies have their Effect Resistance reduced. That means anyone who can apply in the team with Silver Wolf debuffs benefits from this. For example, Gepard’s skill to Freeze becomes easily guaranteed with some Effect Hit Rate built up and so are others will massively benefit from this.

I am honestly shocked how good this Eidolon is and compared to her signature weapon, I would basically just save up my Warps until her Rerun if you want to have her absolutely cracked. Because this 2nd Eidolon is just a gamechanger overall.

And what’s even crazier is her E4 and her E6, which basically turns her into a mini-Seele. There’s already footage showing her E6 potential, and it’s crazy how strong she becomes of a damage dealer.

Initial Thoughts

All in all, its pretty clear Silver Wolf absolutely changes the meta, and she’s easily one of the strongest characters in the game right now. from manipulating the elemental weaknesses to unleashing tons of debuffs, including a massive DEF shred she can apply. She’s just too good right now. But obviously, this only applies if you care about the meta.

Otherwise, she’s a strong and fun character to use in Simulated Universe, I know I’ve had my own fair share of fun by using her in a few of the runs already. And I can only imagine she’s going to be even deadlier and versatile once those Turbulence buffs arrive.

Still, it is a bit of a greedy move by HoYoverse with the way they tempt you with that sexy 2nd eidolon. But I can assure you, she’s busted even at E0. So, don’t go spending your money unless you’re financially secure.

Since Silver Wolf is a new character, it won’t be easy for you to get her. However, if you directly purchase a Honkai Star Rail Account that includes Silver Wolf, you can easily experience her.

We’ll be going over the various things that Honkai Star Rail does better than Genshin Impact. I’m not trying to figure out which game is better or make comparisons. Both games have their pros and cons and this article is supposed to be fun and educational.

Many of the things I point out can be implemented Genshin. So, this can also be a way to encourage HoYoverse to make positive changes. A lot of these differences range from small quality of life changes to substantial overhauls in certain mechanical aspects of the game.

To start things off, one of the most convenient changes in Honkai Star Rail is the streamlining of the many different daily activities players have to complete. Daily missions in Honkai Star Rail are much easier to complete as they consist of various tasks that you could do while farming for relics or materials.

Honkai Star Rail still has quests like commissions. But these quests are usually much easier and most only require you to talk to NPCs. My favorite change personally is that I don’t have to walk to Catherine every single time I finish my dailies to collect my rewards.

Assignments, which are equivalent to Genshin Expeditions, also can be pulled out via the menu instead of talking to Catherine. Another way they also made the daily logins much more bearable was by allowing you to teleport directly to farming locations. This saves you so much time compared to teleporting to a nearby waypoint and then walking over to the location, which could sometimes take a minute or more.

On top of that, you save even more time and energy with the Auto Battle and two times speed in Honkai Star Rail. Farming your Honkai Star Rail dailies is mindless. Because you could just click the Auto Battle and literally do anything else: eat food, watch anime, talk to your friends to make the process even faster. You can farm Calyxes in multiple ways instead of doing them one at a time. This extra convenience is great. And you’ll suffer less burnout as opposed to playing Genshin Impact.

Not only that, the Relic farming process specifically is also shortered by a significant amount. In Genshin Impact, you have to walk to the center of the stage and activate the domain. Once you’re done killing the monsters, you have to walk all the way up the stairs, and then talk to the tree for your artifacts. However, in Honkai Star Rail, all of those things are cut out. All you do is start the fight, kill the enemies, and rewards pop up on your screen. No more pointless walking is required for your daily equipment grinding in Honkai Star Rail. How wonderful is that!

In addition, you don’t have to teleport to a certain statue to change your main character’s element. All you have to do is pull up the menu and click the Switch button. For those of us with terrible luck, HonKai Star Rail lets us pick any standard band character we want after 300 pulls. So, even if you pull to your heart content and still didn’t get that Bronya you wanted, you could forcibly bring her home with the guaranteed select.

Even if we’re free to play, this edition is very beneficial. You might think 300 summons is a lot. But I think you could achieve this easily after half a year or so. The game has only been out for a couple of weeks and now I already have 92 pulls and 68 of them were given to me completely for free.

Continuing on with the gacha system, the weapon banner for Honkai Star Rail is significantly improved. First of all, the exclusive light cone for the current character only features one light cone instead of two weapons, like in Genshin Impact. This greatly increases the odds of getting your ideal light cone and encourages more player to roll on the light cone banner.

Spenders also require less currency if they are pulling for an S6 light cone. Overall, this change was well needed, considering how frustrating Genshin’s weapon banner was. Additionally, Honkai Star Rail is way more generous with the amount of light cones you can get.

Unlike Genshin Impact, you can unlock 5-star light cones from the Starglight Exchange. The Genshin’s equivalent to this is the Starglitter Exchange, which only sells 4-star weapons. This change is amazing for free to play players who rarely spend on weapons and often never get the ones they want for their main characters.

The weekly bosses in HonKai Star Rail also drop entire 4-star light cones compared to Genshin bosses only dropping Prototypes for craftable weapons. Herta’s Store also has three 5-star light cones that you can farm and they even have currency for you to superimpose the light cones to level 5.

Switching between various quests is also much easier in HonKai Star Rail because characters aren’t locked to quests like they were in Genshin. Usually, Genshin quests would keep certain NPCs locked into that quest until you finish them. This prevents you from completing another quest that uses the same NPC. Because they can’t be in two places at the same time. In Honkai Star Rail, they made it so that NPC’s moved to whichever quest you have currently active, which allows you to complete quests in any order you want.

Loading times in HonKai Star Rail are also significantly better. This is because of how each area is separated into several maps as opposed to Genshin loading in entire worlds. Device performance has also improved because of this. And Honkai Star Rail is also a much smaller download compared to when Genshin first came out.

Trailblaze Power is capped out at 180 and regenerates every 6 minutes compared to Genshin’s Resin capping at 160 and regenerating every 8 minutes. Therefore, it will take you only 18 hours to fully regenerate your energy in Honkai Star Rail compared to 21 hours and 20 minutes for Genshin.

Lastly, my favorite change is the increased importance of a character’s element in Honkai Star Rail. In Genshin Impact, elements were only necessary for breaking Shields from mobs, such as the Abyss Mage. Other than that, elements do not matter and you can run the same team for pretty much any boss. In Honkai Star Rail, enemies have Weaknesses in certain elements and attacking an enemy with their Weakness would reduce their Toughness. Without breaking their Toughness, you would deal very low damage.

This makes the character’s element much more important in gameplay. Because of the importance of elemental coverage on teams, this encourages players to use more diverse team comps and makes use of the giant character roster in Honkai Star Rail. As a result, collecting characters becomes much more rewarding and fun for the player base.

Whether you like Honkai Star Rail or Genshin Impact, you will always encounter 5-star characters or weapons that are very difficult to pull. If you want to save time and effort, you can directly purchase a Honkai Star Rail Account or a Genshin Impact Account with the character or weapon you want.

After playing the Diablo 4 betas, I was pretty surprised by how it all felt. And the more I played it, the more I enjoyed it. But I kept noticing features that seemed very familiar from other games, primarily MMOs.

The long travel times between side quests, the huge open world that you can freely explore, even seeing other players walking around helping me do random events.

It felt a bit odd because it felt like I was playing an MMO within an ARPG. The combat feels great, the esthetic is dark and gritty again and we were blessed with a new antagonist that everybody seems to love - Lilith.

But as much as I love the idea of these new MMO like systems, such as World Bosses, Diablo 4 is taking a huge risk here and at the end of the day, put simply, Diablo 4 may not be for you.

Feel More Like An MMO Than ARPG

This is all from my time from the Diablo 4 betas. So, take this all with a grain of salt. But the reason why I say Diablo 4 may not be for you is because Diablo 4 feels more like an MMO than it does an ARPG.

In other games like Path of Exile or Diablo 2, you have one town that acts as a Quest hub, and from that one point you go on to different areas, usually on a linear path, killing monsters and hunting for that sweet loot.

In Diablo 4, however, you are left to your own devices. The main focus will always be the story line. But aside from the main quests, you can level how you want. If you want to farm dungeons all day, you can do that. Or, if you’d rather hop from quest hub to quest hub, doing side quests or exploring the world, you can do that.

There’s this weird sense of freedom that is present when playing Diablo 4, which is a refreshing feeling but alien at the same time.

Also Read: Diablo 4: 5 Things You Need To Know! - Status Effects, Save Gold, World Tiers, Paragon Boards and Level Up

Getting Stronger Feels Punishing

There are a few problems with this because with the freedom to play how you want, there are also additional systems now that you may not enjoy. For example, as you level throughout the world, monsters and areas will scale along with your level, which means getting stronger may feel a bit punishing.

There will be power spikes along the way whenever you get a key legendary or rare item. But that quickly diminishes once you start to out level your gear and scaling starts to catch up with you again.

One of the positives of a scaling level system is that you can just hop into a friends’ world and just play with them. There’s no big power difference between characters like in Diablo 3, because everything is scaled down to your individual levels.

My only concern with this system is that the process of slowly seeing my character become stronger and stronger is one of the reasons I love playing ARPGs. And the silver lining here is once you hit max level, scaling doesn’t matter anymore.

New Timed World Events

A big concern of mine is world bosses, simply because of how the world boss system is being implemented. Personally, I enjoyed the world bosses and I think they are a great overall addition to the game. But the bosses themselves are on set timers.

They will only spawn at certain times of the day and you will only have 15 minutes to kill the world boss. If you fail to kill the world boss within these 15 minutes, they just walk away. Literally, just that’s it. Leaving you with nothing and just wasting 15 minutes of your time.

There may be situations where halfway through the fight, people just start to leave. This is another system taken from MMOs like World of WarCraft, where you’re now being forced to do an activity you may not want to do.

My concern is that world bosses might just be the beginning. Seasonal content, such as the Seasonal Journey, which was teased earlier in the development cycle, might include daily or weekly tasks later down the road. I want to log in and play Diablo 4 when I want to, not when I feel like I have to.

Concerns About Hardcore

One thing that I think deserves a mention here is how these systems may affect hardcore players. Because it seems like they’re getting the short end of the stick.

Since Diablo 4 is now going into this MMO like direction, hardcore players are forced to try and kill a world boss that can potentially one-shot people. This could easily be a one-way ticket back to the main menu. Another option would be just to ignore the world bosses altogether, but where’s the fun in that?

There’s also a high probability that hardcore players can be lured into a death they can’t avoid, since there are now other players walking around in an open world environment and there’s no grace period for loading screens or dungeons. It would be pretty easy for players to accidentally or even on purpose kill other hardcore players by luring monsters over by a dungeon entrance, especially now that monsters and areas scale with players levels.

Final Thoughts and Concerns

Overall, I feel like Diablo 4 has a bright future. But at its core, it may not appeal to some past Diablo fans with its time gated content and open world MMO like features.

If you enjoy MMO games in general, I feel like you’ll enjoy Diablo 4 as much as I have. And now you can start preparing for Diablo 4 Gold. After all, Diablo 4 will be officially released in a few days.

However, if you’re looking for a spiritual successor to Diablo 2, I would probably suggest playing Last Epoch or maybe giving Path of Exile 2 a chance.

This all might change post-launch, but it seems like Diablo 4 is walking down a slightly different path compared to previous Diablo games.

The action RPG world rumbled when Grinding Gear Games announced Path of Exile 2 during the opening ceremony of ExileCon 2019.

The Announcement And Updates On POE 2

Mere weeks after Blizzard’s showcase of Diablo 4, Chris Wilson and a few other top-level GGG employees walked on stage, announced Path of Exile 2 and played the in-development product in front of the crowd. The people in the venue, Twitch chat, even Reddit, were all floored at the incredible edition and reinvention.

This huge expansion would introduce to one of the best ARPGs out there: two campaigns, one overhauled game. Even Chris couldn’t believe the reception.

The rest of ExileCon 2019 went swimmingly. Various developers spoke about their unique philosophy and development process while working on Path of Exile. The best racers in the scene competed to kill Act 5 Kitava’s first and ExileCon 2019 ended.

From November 2019 to April 2021, GGG remained silent on POE 2’s progress, continuing to release consistent expansions to Path of Exile 1.

Suddenly, in April 2021, GGG spoke out with an update on Path of Exile 2 and showcased portions of the new campaign’s second act, a desert area. Again, it looked fantastic. You can see the updated animations, the breathtaking terrain, two new weapons, the crossbow, the spear, boss, health bars, and so on. And community response to the content on display has also been very positive.

However, all POE 2 information went dark once again after this showcase. We waited for an update, but none occurred. We continued to wait and wait until in August 2022, GGG unveiled they’d be fully elaborating on Path of Exile 2 during ExileCon in 2023, which would be held on July 29th and 30th in Auckland, New Zealand.

Also Read: My Fastest Way To Farm Blight Maps In POE 3.21

The Numerous POE 1 Expansions

Since then, we’ve heard absolutely nothing about Path of Exile 2. In fact, nothing truly new has been unveiled since the Act 2 showcase in April 2021 more than two years ago.

So, what’s the deal? For those who don’t know Path of Exile’s developers Grinding Gear Games (also known as GGG) well, you may think they’re hiding something, something negative. Likely, that’s wrong. Instead, GGG is traveling a path untraveled by many game developers. These days, they’re working, waiting, and staying silent on the Path of Exile 2 product. This way they can focus on delivering and surprising their audience they have in the past.

All the while, they’ve been dropping decent sized expansions to Path of Exile 1. Since announcing Path of Exile 2 called the 4.0 expansion by some in the community as it’s going to be a massive addition and overhaul to the main game, GGG has introduced the following 13 expansions to Path of Exile.

Please do note, every single update also includes other minor but meaningful content, such as balance changes, new unique items, new skill gems, engine improvements, divination cards, new models, updated graphics, and more. These are only the highlights.

3.9 Conquerors of the Atlas in December 2019 was the introduction of a new endgame system, involving Sirus and the Conquerors of the Atlas, multiple different crafting tools and the metamorph build a boss mechanic. It also introduced Awakened Support Gems and new bow skills.

3.10 Delirium in March 2020 added the Delirium mechanic, which changed mapping forever and let us use cluster jewels on our passive skill tree to make our own passive skill trees.

3.11 Harvest in June 2020 gave us one of the most powerful and deterministic crafting systems in Path of Exile. That still exists in the game to this day although being in a nerfed state.

3.12 Heist in September 2020 rolled out a brand new chunk of endgame in the form of Heist, allowing us to discover new forms of every single gem in the game, old and new loot, brand new item bases and upgrade a host of rogues in an endless experience similar to delving and mapping.

3.13 Echoes of the Atlas in January 2021 presented players with the maven endgame fight and the idea of capturing bosses then fighting them all at once in a Grand Arena, The Maven’s Crucible. Plus, it added the Atlas Passive Skill Tree, allowing us Exiles to customize our endgame experience to our liking, unlike any other game out there. Plus, there is Ritual, a new way to barter and earn items while killing monsters.

3.14 Ultimatum in April 2021 surprised us with an amazing risk reward mechanic overseen by the wickedly sly Trialmaster and added multiple new powerful gems to the game like Reap, Exsanguinate, Petrified Blood and Corrupting Fever. All are used to this day in a variety of builds.

3.15 Expedition in July 2021 dropped in a gripping new narrative a brand new content system called Expedition and heavily reworked numerous pieces of character power. The changes are still controversial to this day.

3.16 Scourge in October 2021 summoned forth The Scourge faction and allowed us to clear our areas a second time. But the second run was in a literal hellscape. The league also heightened the skill ceiling with new forms of Uber content for Blight, Legion, Breach and Delirium.

3.17 Siege of the Atlas in February 2022 brought forth another huge improvement to Path of Exile’s mapping system and gave us four new Pinnacle Bosses. It also added Eldritch Currency to the game, which let players of all types craft in their gear. Plus, it began the revamp of rare monsters with the introduction of Archnemesis.

3.18 Sentinel in May 2022 added new ways to buff monsters using Sentinels, completely reworked rare monsters has just alluded to before, added seven Uber versions of bosses to the game and let us play with recombination a new crafting system that smashed items together to create something new but familiar.

3.19 Lake of Kalandra, in August 2022, introduced a new map building mechanic to the game, allowing us to enter the Lake of Kalandra and make powerful rings and amulets. It also further reworked where monsters completely changed the Beyond mechanic, replaced the old monsters with the Scourge, rebalanced hundreds of unique items, swapped the value of Divine Orbs and Exalted Orbs and changed around Harvest Crafting.

3.20 The Forbidden Sanctum in December 2022 launched a roguelike dungeon into Path of Exile, added one of the first character power enhancing account bound items into the game, further reworked rare monsters and walked back on the term Archnemesis, massively buffed a set of end game unique weapons, retooled jewels, ailments and a few other systems and added Ruthless a new game mode for Path of Exile with extreme item scarcity and numerous reworked or removed mechanics.

Finally, we’ve reached the present. 3.21 Crucible in April 2023 added the Crucible weapon combining mechanic to the game, reworked two former large mechanics Breach and Abyss, did a pass on passive skill tree masteries and completely changed up to ascendancies - the Pathfinder for the Ranger, and the Saboteur for the Shadow.

Those are the 13 major expansions to Path of Exile 1 since Path of Exile 2’s announcement at the end of patch 3.8 Blight in November 2019.

Why GGG Is Staying Quiet?

Although GGG has been almost entirely silent about Path of Exile 2, they cannot stop talking about an updating Path of Exile 1 because they are the same game folks.

Path of Exile 2 is a giant expansion to Path of Exile 1. Both campaigns will lead to the same endgame. All this work they’re doing and all this great content they’re adding and iterating on will probably be in Path of Exile 2 in some form.

Us Exiles will be able to slay the Maven as a werewolf. We’ll be able to zoom through maps with a crossbow shouting about bolts. We’ll have boss bars for our favorite foes, from Sirus to the Eater of Worlds. And we will progress through the core campaign battling Merville, Dominus, Kitava and more with the updated gem system.

So, why the silence on the Path of Exile 2 from GGG they’d rather show? It’s a meme in the Path of Exile Community to answer every problem minor or massive with the line: POE 2 will fix it.

GGG stated during their initial and second announcement that Path of Exile 2 will indeed solve some things problems with this skill gem system, poor animations, outdated graphics, outdated design and numerous other areas of the game. But they’ve backed up those statements with evidence and ideas. We know how they’re seeking to improve their game. Because when they’re asked and choose to answer, their answers are concrete about Path of Exile 2 and frank about Path of Exile 1. They’re adding and experimenting in Path of Exile 1 while developing and iterating Path of Exile 2.

Otherwise, they’re silent. They don’t want to talk boldly about Path of Exile 2. They want to show us how they’re going to make an amazing expansion and overhaul to Path of Exile. They take the “when it’s ready” line very seriously when it comes to Path of Exile 2 and we’re going to witness that firsthand on July 29th of this year as we did in April 2021 and November 2019.

When Chris Wilson walks out on stage at ExileCon 2023, he may be passionate, tearful even, but he will be confident in the game. He’s about to showcase to the world as he was at ExileCon in 2019. He believes in his team of developers. Grinding Gear Games is putting in the time and effort to ensure Path of Exile 2 will outlast the competition of new and old.

No doubt you guys have heard of Elder Scrolls Online at some point. Maybe you gave it a try back in the day and you’re probably sitting there wondering why is this game still so popular even to this day? 

If you haven’t tried it, maybe you’re sitting there thinking: what makes this game special? Why do people play this instead of playing World of WarCraft, Final Fantasy, Guild Wars or another MMO? Let’s go over the several points that differentiate ESO as an MMO and what makes the game just so good.

1. Rich Lore

If you’ve ever played an Elder Scrolls game, whether it’s Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, it doesn’t matter. You know that the Elder Scrolls Universe has a massive amount of lore going on for it. Each race, location, deity and hero has these extensive backstories behind them and Elder Scrolls Online is no different.

This game has a massive amount of rich and extensive lore. That’s been built up over the course of the game’s lifetime and of course this lore draws from the previous Elder Scrolls games, taking inspiration, but it also has introduced a ton of new stories, characters, and locations to the Elder Scrolls Universe.

One of the main reasons why people play this game so much is because it is so story driven because of the lore of Elder Scrolls Online. And if you’ve never given gaming lore a chance, Elder Scrolls is a great place to start, whether it’s this game or the single player games.

2. Level Scaling 

This is something that’s either you love it or you hate it when it comes to MMORPGs. But Elder Scrolls Online uses a level scaling system instead of a traditional MMO, where you level up a character, you ultimately out level zones and you sort of end up at the end of things in a select couple of zones that are the max level areas.

Elder Scrolls Online doesn’t do this. Instead, they have a level scaling system that allows their players to explore any part of the game world regardless of their level and it keeps every corner of the game relevant. This means that you can always find a challenge regardless of where you are in the game. 

If you’re a completionist or an explorer or whatever, this game is definitely right up your alley because it keeps things interesting with its scaling technology. Not everybody is a fan of horizontal progression, but in regard to the world, ESO does it very well.

3. Massive World

If you’ve ever played a previous Elder Scrolls title, you know that this is the kind of game that goes out of its way to be big and detailed and Elder Scrolls Online is no different.

The game world of ESO is massive, and players are free to explore it at their own pace. There are no level requirements for the zones either because of the scaling, so players can explore wherever they want. If you’re somebody that you want to quest and level up in Morrowind because that was your favorite game in the Elder Scrolls series, go over there and explore it or go to some of these regions where Bethesda hasn’t made a single player version of The Elder Scrolls at yet.

It’s completely up to you wherever you go. Across these zones, you’ll find everything from dragons attacking some areas to Oblivion Gates opening in others...... There're tons of stuff to find in each zone. Each zone has its own unique personality. It’s a world worth exploring. 

4. Player Choice 

Elder Scrolls is not a game where you just choose a class, level up the class and you’re stuck in that particular play style.

When it comes to ESO, you can play this game however you want. In Elder Scrolls Online, if you want to be an Argonian Thief, who wears heavy armor or who runs around healing people while also poisoning them with your daggers, you can do that. If you want to be a Necromancer who uses a bow and poisoned arrows, you can do that, too. 

You really can create whatever character you want in Elder Scrolls Online, which can lead to a little of a learning curve. But as you go through the game and as you gather points from leveling up or discovering Skyshards, you can spend them however you want in your skill trees that you unlock as you play the game. It makes the replayability of this game really good.

It also is cool because you’ll probably get to max before even exploring a fourth of all the zones in this game. So, going and checking out new zones and trying out new builds and new styles of playing your character. It’s awesome. 

5. Player Housing 

Player housing is a thing in Elder Scrolls Online and it is very expansive and it is very immersive. In this game, you can purchase tiny houses. You can purchase massive homes and with whatever your creativity desires. 

I’ve been in player homes that are completely vampire themed homes that are all like hunting with animal heads and stuff everywhere to even homes that are pretty much like entire castles that players have made within the giant landmass that you can purchase to customize your home on. It’s pretty wild how in-depth the player housing system is within ESO and I feel like I only scratched the surface of it despite my hundreds of hours in this game. 

6. No Subscription Required 

Unlike a lot of other MMOs, ESO does not require a monthly subscription, and the game is in no way paid to win.

When it comes to this game, if you play it, you can play it as much as you want or as little as you want without having to worry about any sort of recurring fee. 

The only thing really that you get from subscribing monthly to Elder Scrolls Online is you get points to spend in the Cosmetic Shop. You get an infinitely deep crafting bag, which some people would say it’s a little unfair. But it’s just a crafting bag. If you don’t care about crafting, it’s not a big deal. You also get access to all the content and all the expansions up to whatever the current expansion is whatever that might be. 

My first 100 hours in this game or so, I played completely for free with no subscription and I loved the game so much that I did ultimately subscribe to it. But it’s a hundred percent not necessary to progress in this game and to have a good time.

7. World PVP 

If you ever played Elder Scrolls Oblivion, you might remember Cyrodiil, a big landmass with the city in the center. 

In Elder Scrolls Online, the three factions are all fighting for control of that city. The massive scale world versus world combat in ESO, the moment that you try it, you’re going to get hooked to it: catapults and battering rams in all manner of fire and magic and fortresses...... It is wild that all of the this fortress besieging and stealing and whatever to claim the capital city right in the center of Cyrodiil and to claim an emperor for your faction.

Imagine a Classic World of WarCraft High Warlord or Grand Marshal. Because the emperor gets their own unique skill tree and abilities that they can use to dominate on the PVP Battlefield. It’s great. The world PVP in this game is so much fun.

8. Living World 

Something that I think a lot of RPG or immersive MMO gamer enthusiasts will enjoy about ESO is how interactable the world is and how immersive it can be.

In Elder Scrolls Online, if you’re walking along and you see a sword on the ground, you can pick it up. You see a potato, you can pick it. NPCs will lock the doors of their homes and you can break in. You can murder NPCs in this game. You can and get a bounty put on your head where guards will kill you on site unless you pay the fine.

If you are particular classes like a Necromancer and you were to use a Necromancer ability in the middle of town, people will freak out and try to attack you because you’re a freaking Necromancer. You’re raising the dead in the middle of the Town Square. 

So many people love this about ESO just how interactable the world is and how you can really play out whatever sort of fantasy that you want. Whether you’re a warrior, that’s going around and killing dragons to being some cutthroat rogue, who breaks into people’s homes and steals ESO Gold out of their treasure boxes, whoever you want to be, you can be that person.

Also Read: Elder Scrolls Online: The Unique Mechanics Of Arcanist Class Will Have A Big Impact On Game’s Resource System

9. Rewarding Exploration

Exploration is rewarded tremendously because Elder Scrolls Online is not a linear MMO. You can just kind of go wherever you want.

This is one of my favorite ways to play Elder Scrolls Online: just abandoning the quest that’s right in front of you and just wandering out into the world to see what you find.

As you explore, you’ll find more quests to take part in. You will find world bosses scattered throughout the world that you can fight. You can find delves, which are like these single player dungeons that you can go into. Fight the boss at the end and get an awesome piece of gear, possibly even a set piece of gear. There’s a ton of sets in Elder Scrolls Online that can all do unique things, like making your abilities poisonous, or you can summon like a Daedra. There are lots of stuff in this game in regard to sets.

You can find Skyshards out in the world, which you can collect to get more skill points. You can meet different guilds and factions. There’s a lot in Elder Scrolls Online in terms of exploration. It’s one of my favorite parts of the game.

10. Constant Updates 

Maybe a lot of you reading this article right now play World of WarCraft or Final Fantasy, which are some really large MMO today. And when you hear the term Elder Scrolls Online, you just think: it’s a dead game. It probably gets no content. Nobody really plays it...... 

You would be surprised to discover that a lot of people play this game. No matter where you go in the world, you’re going to be running into players. 

And in regard to the company behind the scenes making the content for this game, they are constantly pumping out updates whether they are new story chapters, dungeons, delves, zones, expansions, new ways to play the game like getting a follower introducing dragons and elsewhere. Whatever you want, these guys are just constantly pumping out new content into this world.

So, there’s always something to look forward to. Even right now in June, the newest Elder Scrolls Online expansion is coming out Necrom with a brand new class. Because the game has this constant steady stream of content, it does not get boring. And even when it does and you decide I’m going to take a break for a couple of months, when you come back, there’s always plenty more to do and plenty more to explore. 

What’s the point of doing damage if there’s nothing to kill?

I’ve been around gaming for way too long and the best groups always have somebody in a role when we’re trying to push harder content. We saw this in Diablo 3 even when it wasn’t really intentional by the designers, players still just figured it out. So, while everyone was worried about all the juicy info that Rhykker got from the dev talk and the service land weekend, I honed in on the subtle drop that supports are going to be required for Diablo 4 endgame.

Let us start with limited deaths and Nightmare Dungeons. The Sacred Nightmare Dungeons will have a death limit of 12. And the Ancestral Nightmare Dungeons will have a death limit of four. Four deaths per run. That’s going to be rough. Who doesn’t die in Diablo 3? They are the guys who use zBarb builds.

What is zBarb? It is also called the support Barbarian and is one of the strongest supports in the game and the addition of Crowd Control Resistance. By the way, if you want to improve your Barbarian, then you have to prepare a lot of Diablo 4 Gold in advance. In the meantime, you can also build more powerful builds.

But here’s the thing and I’ve been playing Rhykker’s video since right after beta weekend because I saw how much damage some people can do and there’s just not enough mobs for everyone to be killing 100% of the time.

Also, from Rhykker’s video, we learned that monsters are going to hit really hard. So, if you don’t spec into defense or some kind of utility, you’re going to die. It is one of the reasons we have zero damage builds in Diablo 3. Speaking of DPS, you’re going to need a Barb to group things again. Here is a side note: I’m very happy about that because I love being a zBarb in Diablo 3.

Then, that’s kind of my next point. Some people just enjoy playing support roles. It’s what I like to do, and this is also a way for casual players or players that just don’t have time to provide their skills to join endgame content. This allows everyone to provide value and play with friends and enjoy the game.The difference is that Diablo 4 supports are going to do more than just buff the party. I’ve been calling them S-Builds (Support Builds).

Let’s get a little deeper into that. The support classes are going to have different roles. It’s really impossible to say which class will have which role because there’s going to be a lot of synergy to figure out with the endgame.

One of the main things is Crowd Control. We know monsters will get CC immune just like in Diablo 3. And just like in Diablo 3, we can’t have everyone trying to CC everything. We’ll end up with a ton of unstoppable monsters coming after us and running all over the place. Veiled Shot just dropped the video on this topic, but he just barely scratches a surface that will need support builds. If you are interested in it, you can check it out.

And then, we’ll have to complete objectives. There’s a lot of endgame to do in Diablo 4. Unless you’re on a mount, you move pretty slowly between objectives and running around maps. So, if an objective focused support role comes in, he can grab the idle. He can run back and put it on the pedestal or whatever you got to put it. That means that we’re just going to be doing boss fight after boss fight and if you want farming, that’s farming.

Also Read: Everything About Diablo 4 Co-op, Open World, PVP & Strongholds

This is going to be the most useful for leveling glyphs. If this works right, we can just form the bosses and clear dungeons a lot faster and while we’re trying to kill stuff, vulnerability is just too powerful not to take advantage of. But if a DPS has to spec into it, then they miss out on more damage. So, if a support class can cause almost constant vulnerability, then they’ll provide more value than trying to do damage. And with all that, the supports are also going to be there for typical reasons: buffing and debuffing monsters. Some can do this better than others. But that’s going to be something to look at once these rolls start to flush out a little better.

As far as the classes go, I love the Barbarian and it has a lot of options for support classes and for damage, there’s a lot of a lot to work with there. Rogue is also going to be probably something to look at. Necromancer has a lot of opportunities with Bone Prison, which I think causes vulnerability. The Sorceress does a lot of CC with her ice build, so that might be a great option for like taking out the world boss.

All in all, we’re going to see supports playing a huge role in the meta for Diablo 4.

Path of Exile is an action RPG that markets itself as being the best ARPG on the market in terms of character customizations. If you have ever played Diablo 3 and thought that it’s very simple or straight up just looking for a serious game to play for the next couple of years, then keep reading as today we will go over the top 10 things that you must know in detail before thinking about making Path of Exile the next big thing in your life.

1. Monetization

First, we got monetization. Most of you already know that you can basically boot up Path of Exile and start playing for free. But is Path of Exile really free to play any sense where you can continue playing without spending any money and compensate for that with your skills?

In your first 50 to 100 hours, you won’t feel the need to purchase anything. That’s until you realize that you are running out of space. Path of Exile gives you four generic Stash Tabs. This can hold pretty much anything. The problem is simple things like POE Currency are more than enough to eventually flood these Stash Tabs.

There are also maps and a bunch of other league specific currencies like Fossils, Catalysts and Scarabs and many others that you have to store. Of course, that’s aside from the rest of your items. In a few words, the game becomes unplayable at some point unless you purchase Stash Tabs.

The bare minimum amount of in-game currency that you have to spend in order to get essential Stash Tabs are: 75 points on a Currency Stash Tab, 150 points on a Map Stash Tab and another 150 points on one Premium Quad Stash Tab, which is required if you wish to participate in the item market.

All of that is going to cost you close to 40 US dollars, which is what I think is the bare minimum that you have to spend in order to keep playing for almost ever.

So, is Path of Exile really free to play? The short answer is no.

2. Complexity

The second point we want to talk about is complexity.

Path of Exile complexity is not actually as hard as people make it out to be. It’s just filled with so much information and details that you have to memorize. If you wish to play the game properly, just to put this into perspective. I spent over 10,000 hours playing this game. More than half of that time is spent on learning. Even today, I still get to learn something now and then.

Path of Exile is not difficult. It just needs lots of time to learn and it only becomes fun once you learn it. Unless you are seriously considering pouring multiple thousands of hours into this game, I don’t recommend playing it.

3. Grind

The third point that you must know in detail before playing Path of Exile is the grind.

Simply learning the game isn’t enough to make POE Currency. If you wish to play it properly, then you should know that: in order to keep up with seasonal players in competitive environments like League, then you have to play no less than 8 hours every day. Some people even play up to 15 hours a day on league launch.

The reason why this matters is that only those who reach endgame early are the ones who make the most amount of currency and those who make the most amount of currency controls the economy. It is basically like real life. It seems unfair, but that’s one of the things that makes Path of Exile the unique game it is and on top of this, it’s possible for you to spend an entire day playing without getting a single good drop.

Path of Exiel is a very RNG heavy game. If you hate feeling unrewarded for your time sometimes, then Path of Exile is simply not for you.

4. Difficulty

The fourth point we have is difficulty. Not to be confused with difficulty or complexity, it is one thing to understand the basics of a game and it’s a completely different thing to learn how to play it.

If you are literally coming from any other ARPG, then you need to know that Path of Exile weakest aspect is visual clarity. Both monsters and players deal with an extremely high amount of damage compared to their respective life poles. And what ends up happening as a result is that you either one shot everything or everything one shot you. You will be in an extremely chaotic atmosphere where you don’t realize what’s happening before it actually happens.

It is the least engaging combat style out of any other ARPG out there and journey Path of Exile biggest downside. It is for this specific reason why Path of Exile is considered difficult. No matter how cautious you are, you will eventually find yourself in a situation where you died and there is nothing you could have done to prevent that.

5. Endgame

For our fifth point, we are going to talk about the endgame.

Path of Exile’s endgame is where it is at. There are so many things you can do and so many endgame bosses to challenge for their loot. There are also so many league content for you to engage with, from many previous updates to enough content to keep you occupied and engaged for thousands of hours. You can go Delve, you can farm Legion, you can do Harvest, you can do Blighted Maps and more.

Best part of it is that every different league mechanic has its own target load to aim for. Basically, Path of Exile’s endgame allows you to specialize in whatever you want. The game even has its own separated passive tree that its sole purpose is to allow you to customize your endgame experience. No other game comes even remotely close to Path of Exile in that regard.

6. Crafting

The sixth important point that you need to know is crafting. In Path of Exile, you build a strong character by purchasing items for it from other people with your currency.

Most of this currency will come by crafting your own items and sell them to these people for profit. Learning how to craft is detrimental to progressing in this game and I’m not going to lie crafting is like a vast ocean.

Now, I know that the landing speed of one person differs from another, but as for me, it took me over 2,000 hours to master crafting in this game. And I did take the game seriously. As for a more casual player, it’s going to take them even more. That being said, don’t let that discourage you from getting into crafting, as you don’t need to learn everything to get started.

7. Multiplayer

Our seventh point is multiplayer. I want you guys to know that aside from the ability to chat and trade with other players, Path of Exile isn’t really a multiplayer game.

Sure, you can invite people to a party and go kill a boss with them or something like that, but you almost never want to do that in 99% of content you go through in Path of Exile with some very few exceptions.

Party play is generally something that people avoid as it slows down their progress. Unless you are XP farming for level 100, odds are you will be playing solo simply because party play doesn’t actually reward you with anything that you can’t get by playing Solo.

In fact, recently, the game developers killed party play by heavily reducing the load that they generate with 3.19 patch. That’s the more reason for you to be playing Solo.

You May Interest: Best Righteous Fire Juggernaut Build In POE 3.21! - Beginner Friendly

8. The Developers

Speaking about the developers, it is the next thing that we are going to talk about.

GGG Dev Team, the creators of Path of Exile are well known for their vision, a vision that’s all about slowing down Path of Exile as much as possible. Now, I’m not talking about gameplay. I’m talking about character progression.

The dev team has been doing nothing but nerfing every possible avenue for players to attain power because they believe that the more you have to grind every day to get what you want, the longer you will be sticking around playing a league. This helps to improve player attention numbers at the cost of every individual player's experience. You are expected to play no less than 10 hours a day to experience everything that this game has to offer.

Basically, the developers want Path of Exile to become a second day job for you, one that doesn’t pay you anything. If you are a busy person with important things to do in real life, then unfortunately, you are not the target demographic for Path of Exile and its developers.

9. The Community

However, with that being said coming, we have the complete opposite of the dev team, which is the community. Allow me to say that despite the inconveniences that come alongside playing such a complicated game like Path of Exile, you get a bunch of people who are willing to sacrifice their time to help the community by making some useful tools to save time.

One good example is Craft of Exile, a website that shows you the possible odds of spawning every single modifier in the game on an item. It also allows you to simulate your next crafting project without having to waste currency on it inside the game.

You can also plan your next build with another useful tool called Path of Building, an application that tells you which passives to allocate in order to better boost your damage and survivability without having to go through trial and error inside the game and more.

10. Future Game Support

Now, for our final point, we are going to talk about future game support.

Path of Exile is an ever-growing game in terms of league mechanics. The gaming graphics even becomes noticeably better with each update.

In the future, GGG is planning on releasing Path of Exile 2. It is not a separate game, but a major expansion to an already growing Path of Exile. This is big because you can start playing Path of Exile now without having to worry about changing games anytime soon.

Path of Exile 2 is an ambition project to expand the main game. It will improve graphics and simplify some complicated game mechanics, like gym linking.

In short, it’s worth diving into Path of Exile now, but only if you are willing to take it seriously. This means having no real life commitments preferably for the next couple of years and yes, this does include marriage anyway.

Is Final Fantasy 14 is still worth playing in 2023? Why we’re still playing and loving it in 2023? Most of all, if it’s still worth to start your own adventure?

The first big positive of this game is something that is really hard to keep fresh because it totally leaves the traits of the MMO genre, but still is one of my biggest selling points for the game and that is the first time playing experience.

It’s really hard to take yourself back in time and remember all the good moments you’ve spent with things that are long gone. But if you do so for Final Fantasy, it had been the best moments of my game alive as a long time console player and single player game enjoyed. Even though back in 2014 where I came to Eorzea for the first time, it offered way more MMO aspects forced onto the player, but more to that later.

However, what really stands out in this game is not even compared to other MMORPGs on the market, but basically all single player games as well is how much this world makes sense to itself. And the developers created a universe that drags you in with every new character you meet or places you travel to. It is insanely immersive. And the laughter details references to the franchise or writing of the story’s plot are in a class of its own. Even starting into A Realm Reborn made perfect sense for me and I absolutely enjoyed the story with classical Final Fantasy elements, especially on the antagonist side.

Nonetheless, Heaven’s Ward, like for many players, was that expansion and moment in time where the game developed into an absolute masterpiece. Gameplay became complex, smooth, and much more entertaining and the story around each God and the Dragonsong War was just beautifully written.

While still having the ongoing light motif develop that leads to its conclusion in the recent and WarCraft expansion, so there had always been a lot of planning to make the whole world and story fit while still developing each expansion’s topic around it.

But even apart from all the story driven content, up to that point, there’s already so much to do in this game: so many outfits and weapons (which you can get by using FFXIV Gil) that are worth collecting, trials and raids to participate in and even the brand new crystalline conflict PVP mode is already available at that point. Crafting, Gathering, house building, Gold Saucer...... It’s crazy how much content this game is offering that even a player like Asmongold was totally stuck in Heaven’s Ward as there is so much content to tackle already.

Just when I was recently playing a good variation of single player games over the past weeks, I realized how good Final Fantasy 14 is where a good old classic, like Grandia, outplayed the other new games by longshot. Even Kingdom Hearts 3 that I absolutely love for many elements didn’t come anywhere close to the shining times of old Final Fantasies. And not talking about Strangers of Paradise, that was cool but felt super repetitive and boring after a while.

On the other hand, we had the Resident Evil 4 Remake. This game was great, not from the epic story or plot, but just how well it is crafted into a very atmospheric horror show. That was the play to have fun with the absolute basics of managing your resources, hitting enemies sharply and constantly making Leon look like the badass character he is. And while the whole engine at battle system has been pushed to the next gen standards, the mechanics of the game are absolutely 2005. To be completely honest, I think this is the best remake that’s available right now.

This is where Final Fantasy 14 comes into play again. This game is not trying to reinvent the wheel, but create the whole vehicle around it. The combat system is a classical World of WarCraft Rebrand with added strategical elements and the typical Japanese rotation system. But how all this is implemented and introduced in the game is absolutely classic.

I still hope for an earlier access to job skills and the way how the game could be more fun at lower levels. But overall, I have way more fun playing these old-functioning battle mechanics than warping my main character from spot to spot to dodge my enemy attacks or start any assault. Think about why Elden Ring was so popular? It took all the good battle made mechanics and updated them by mixing in some open world elements.

The gameplay of games like Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics, while they seem dated from a visual perspective, they’re way more fun than modern strategy games that put in real-time decisions and stuff like that.

The one exception that I thoroughly enjoyed and would rate as my personal Game of the Year for 2022 is A Plague Tale: Requiem. Here, the producers and developers of the game took the horror genre to another level and while it doesn’t feature the grotesque horror of Resident Evil, the gameplay mechanics were simply amazing. The first game in which I enjoyed the stealth parts because they made sense. And while for me personally, the story was the big selling point for the game, gameplay felt rewarding and absolutely satisfying.

Related: Final Fantasy 14: Some Players Can Get Stormblood Expansion For Free

That’s how games should be designed when the players feel rewarded for their actions and get even more when walking the extra mile. So, this leads us back to Heaven’s Ward, right? Because walking the extra mile leads you into three more expansions that develop the main plot further with the heartbreaking and genius climax in Shadowbringers and perfectly crafted conclusion in Endwalker to become one if not the best stories that any game ever created.

But it still does offer all the MMO aspects especially if you reach end game but also everything the game had in stock before that because Square Enix are insanely good at keeping old content alive and due to thinking of former content, you can always go back in time with your high-level character to relive the moments that other players felt when they played the game two expansions ago, except for some balancing changes, maybe.

I mean for example, if you don’t care about the recent Mandeville Relic weapons, you can just leave Eureka a visit, gather up some friends and try to venture as far as you can into the riddles and mysteries of that very special aisle or you could join the Bozjan Southern Front for further development of the war against galimov and how the whole all scheming and planning took place besides the big events of Shadowbringers or Endwalker.

There’s just so much content that this game is offering and only the veteran players and those that played it patch after patch will run into content draft. If you’re a new player or haven’t explored all these old forms of content, this game is a freaking must play in my opinion, especially if you like any of the main series Final Fantasies that are on par with a quality of 14 or even beaten by it. I mean, you can even treat it like a single player game with each patch more and more because Square Enix is constantly adding party support to dungeons and trials so that you’re not dependent on other players to join your efforts and story progression.