Diablo 4 is almost here and I’ve been non-stop absorbing every piece of content imaginable. With so much info to learn, I decided to put together five of my best tips for launch to ensure you’re not making some of the most costly mistakes and ultimately have the smoothest launch experience.

1. Must Do Content

For tip number one, don’t sleep on world content.

The world content available in the game is very important and all offer their own unique value for completion. Some of the most important World Content that you’re going to want to make sure is doing aside from main quests include Altars of Lilith, dungeons, events, and side quests.

The 160 Altars of Lilith provide you with XP, meaningful stat increases, and count for zone completion. Zone completion is required to level up your Renown for each zone and gain some of the most important benefits, which include two Skill Points, one potion charge, 80 max Obols and four Paragon Points for each of the five zones you complete.

When you finish leveling your Renown in each of the five zones, you’ll end with 10 extra Skill Points, 5 additional potion charges, 400 extra max Obols and 20 Paragon Points, which are going to be incredibly important.

As you can also see on this screenshot of the Renown page, dungeons, side quests, waypoints, area exploration, and strongholds, all additionally go towards completing your Renown in each zone.

Events, on the other hand, are important for their own reason. Not only are they a great source of consistent experience as you’re doing other content, but they also give you Obols, which are used for legendary gambling. This world content is going to be essential to ensure your character is strong enough to compete in some of the hardest endgame content, including World Tier 4 and World Tier 5 Capstone Dungeons and fighting the hardest difficulties of Nightmare Dungeons.

So, in my opinion, it’ll be best to make sure you get these things knocked out early. Because when you’re finally at the endgame in Diablo 4, you won’t want to have to circle back and do some of the more mundane and simple content.

Also Read: Diablo 4 Cold Assassin Rogue Build: A Level 50 Guide

2. Most Common Noobtrap

For tip number two, I want to touch briefly on World Tier difficulty.

World Tier difficulty has been a conversation point for almost everybody in the Diablo 4 Community. Generally, the consensus is that you should start on World Tier 1 to clear through their main story quickly.

The main difference between World Tier 1 and World Tier 2 is the fact that World Tier 2 makes enemies more difficult to kill, but only provides 15% more Diablo 4 Gold, which in the early game is really insignificant and 20% more XP for my monster kills.

On paper, that might sound good. But considering that World Tier 1 and World Tier 2 are only for levels 1 to 50 where we’re going to get World Tier 3, you should get through 1 to 50 as quickly as possible. So, considering that World Tier 2 makes content significantly more difficult but doesn’t provide additional XP for anything outside of monster kills is not worth doing if you’re looking for the fastest way to endgame.

But again, I do want to mention here not everyone is playing Diablo 4 to blast through the game and get to the endgame. So, feel free to play the game at your own pace. Everyone is different, and this game is magnificent no matter how you experience it. And while admittingly I’m not a huge lore or story guy, even I have to admit the cinematics in Diablo 4 are Immaculate and the raw production value of this game is very impressive.

3. Aspect Imprinting Tips

With that out of the way, let’s move into tip 3, talking about aspects.

As you’re navigating your way through content, you should be getting the aspects that are required for your build. Honestly, in my opinion, you should be getting any for your class or any classes you’ll be playing. Because the builds are strong on launch will not be the end-all beal.

So, preparing yourself for the inevitable balance patches is a wise idea. Anyway, with that mention out of the way, the most important thing pertaining to aspects in relation to Diablo 4’s launch is to know you shouldn’t be worried about having all the aspects for your build as you’re leveling. Let me explain that a little.

Let’s say you’re playing a Barbarian at level 15 and you find a nice sword. For the sake of keeping numbers simple, let’s say that sword has a raw DPS of a hundred. You hurry over to town and imprint your aspect on the sword. Now, from level 15 to maybe 18 or 19, you’re owning. But, at level 20, you find an even better sword that has a raw DPS of 200. Now, you have to imprint your legendary aspect again and each time you’re imprinting, that’s going to cost you gold and additional reagents to upgrade it. Now your weapon is going to be the biggest deal while you’re leveling. Because the damage increases from level to level will be substantial to your overall ability to clear content. And from my memory, it also costs more to imprint weapons as well.

But anyway, let me sum up my two cents about aspects. First, don’t worry about imprinting aspects on your weapon every time you get a new upgrade. You’ll waste a ton of materials and ultimately, it’s just going to cost you in the long run. You can imprint on armor, rings, and amulets. But again, don’t worry about imprinting on every upgrade you’re getting from 1 to 50.

Gear power rise is quite steady from 1 to 50, so you’ll only want to start worrying about imprints as you less frequently replacing your gear later on. And if you’re following the strategy that I’m going to be following on launch, you’re not going to need best in slot gear to clear content on World Tier 1, anyway.

4. Leveling Approach

For tip number four, plan out your build.

As you’re going through the campaign for your first time, you don’t want to worry about respecting and re-gearing. Because you’re constantly flip-flopping builds.

In my opinion, you should stick with one or two builds for launch and go with them until you’re facing more difficult content in my case. When it comes to choosing a build, I recommend bookmarking d4gold.com. On this site, you can not only find various build guides but also buy large quantities of Diablo 4 Gold directly here.

For my Rogue class, I’m going to play a Flurry build for the early game and swap to TB (Twisting Blade) around level 25. Now, this isn’t at all for optimized clear speed. It’s actually because I really just enjoy the Flurry build. But I do know from number testing that the Twisting Blade build is going to be more consistent DPS. So, by having these two builds to run on launch, I’m going to set myself up with a very clear path to progress through the story and only reset my build page one time.

In my opinion, you don’t need to play the most meta build at all. With Diablo 4 still a few days away, you can just theory craft your own builds. Because you can use this time to think about what type of build you want to make, list what you need to get done, and figure out how to fill in what you’re currently missing.

But to wrap up this tip and keep it really simple, you should have a plan coming into launch, stick to it, and don’t worry too much about having a hundred percent optimal builds while you’re leveling. As long as you have somewhat of a decent build and some decent gear, you’re not going to struggle to clear content up until World Tier 3.

5. Maximize Your Enjoyment

And tip number five is having fun.

I want to stress this point for Diablo 4’s server launch. Because ultimately, with the launch of Diablo 4, you should be looking to have fun and learn as much as possible.

The launch of the game is going to be at least for myself a big testing period before Season 1. If you’ve played Diablo 3, this game is going to operate similar in relation to seasons. In each season, your non-seasonal characters won’t transfer their level and power into the season. So, don’t feel too bad if you’re not able to grind the game or stay up to date with the best gear outside of season time.

The launch is going to allow us to learn what Diablo 4 has to offer and find the best ways to level fast, gear optimally, and most importantly, allow us to get good at our classes. The only things you need to have done by the time season releases here is make sure you’ve completed the main story, understand your class, experience the Paragon Boards, and most importantly, max out your Renown for each zone.

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.

After the recent livestream, Hoyoverse has finally revealed 5 new exciting features that are coming to the latest Honkai Star Rail 1.1 Update.

1. New Stories

When it comes to new content, we are getting 4 new Story Quests. We will learn more about Silver Wolf, Yanqing, Bailu and Luocha. Nothing has been revealed in this stream about the main story, so maybe we’ll learn more about this when the game goes live, otherwise, these 4 new quests will be featured in 1.1.

2. New Events

As for the events, there’s lots of them with amazing rewards. The main event featuring Silver Wolf is going to have an interesting activity where you go around and look for grafittis, take photos of them and then use special currency to redeem rewards, including a free 4-Star Nihility Light Cone, which is pretty awesome.

Another event based on the Belobog Museum will have an activity where you manage it and work with artifacts, not the artifacts as in from Genshin but like museum specimens. And the biggest thing about this event is that we will be able to get Self-Modelling Resin for free as a reward. This is a super rare resource and you can use to create a relic with any kind of main stat you want.

Also, a quick look at some other rewards reveals where gonna get a ton of Credits, which I am really looking forward to. I am constantly running out of them. Then, there’s going to be a special combat event, which is similar to the Forgotten Hall. Except here, you can also use trial characters and there will be some special combat bonuses and rules you’ll need to work around. And as you can see from the rewards, we will get materials to craft relics, which are always nice.

Next, similar to Genshin, there will be double Calyx drop rewards and I believe it will be Golden and Crimson Calyx that will have an improved drop rate. There’s also an event focusing around Herta’s Space Station, where we will need to go and help out with various problems that have arisen there and it seems like a new recipe among few other things will be rewarded to you for doing this.

3. New Characters

The next one I’m going to cover is probably the most exciting part of the update. We’re getting 3 new characters in 1.1.

*Let’s start with Silver Wolf. She’s a 5-Star Quantum Nihility character that we got to play for a few moments during a tutorial. We now got an official look at her kit and it seems like she’s going to be a debuffer for the team.

So, her skill deals single target damage and then it applies 1 Weakness of an on-field allies type to an enemy. Not only that, but she will also reduce the Elemental Resistance of that element.

As an example, if you have a Fire ally in your team and no enemies have Fire Weakness, Silver Wolf will make it so that these enemies are weak to Fire element, which sounds amazing.

Now, the ultimate deals with single target damage and then reduce’s enemies DEF, which again, helps everyone deal more damage to that enemy. But what’s really interesting is her talent. Each time Silver Wolf attacks, she will implant one of three bugs, which will either reduce ATK, DEF, or SPD.

Basically, Silver Wolf is going to be an insane debuffer, but of course, until we can actually see her performance on the field, we don’t know how strong she is going to be.

*Another 5-Star that’s coming in 1.1 is Luocha. He is a 5-Star Imaginary Abundance healer and his skill will restore health to an ally which seems pretty boring, but this skill is also like a reactive ability, so when anyone in the team drops down below 50% health, he will immediately heal them.

Now, his ultimate deals damage to everyone and removes 1 buff from each enemy, which is pretty amazing because only Pela was able to do that before, so now we’ve got another buff remover.

Finally, his Talent will deploy a field when he reaches 2 stacks of Abyss Flower. This field heals allies when they attack enemies and you can obtain 1 Abyss Flower by using his skill and ultimate.

Honestly, while Luocha doesn’t seem to have an AoE Heal, the fact that he can keep healing in several ways is pretty interesting and also, since he can remove buffs, I think he will be a strong healer in the game.

*Finally, there’s also a new 4-Star Imaginary Harmony character. Yukong seems pretty similar to Tingyun and not just because they both have a tail.

So, her skill boosts everyone’s ATK while her ultimate increases everyone’s Critical Rate and Damage, which seems pretty insane. Not only that, but the ultimate also deals damage to a single enemy, so there’s a great way to reduce some toughness as well.

In fact, her talent improves her Basic ATKs damage and Toughness-Reducing. So, she’s going to be excellent against enemies with Imaginary Weakness.

Finally, her Technique is pretty noteworthy since it boosts movement speed when used in exploration and when you enter combat, she will immediately boost ATK of everyone.

By the way, if you want to get the two 5-Star characters mentioned above directly, then buying Honkai Star Rail Accounts directly will be a good choice!

Now is the most important part of this feature, the banners.

In the first phase, Silver Wolf, along with Asta, Dan Heng and Serval, will be on a featured banner while in the 2nd phase, Luocha, along with Pela Qingque and Yukong will be available to summon. Also, Luocha and Silver Wolf will be getting their own signature Light Cones that you can pull for.

First of all, I am really surprised they revealed all the 4-Stars here. That’s not something we see when we play Genshin, so it’s good to know we can plan around this. I think both of these banners have their pros and cons.

One thing I also want to mention is that during the Chinese livestream, I am not sure if I understood this correctly but Yukong will be given away for free in 1.2 update, not 1.1 but please make sure to double check this once the global livestream goes live. Either way, that sounds pretty good if it’s correct.

Also Read: Honkai Star Rail: Everything You Should Know About 7 Main Paths

4. New QoL

There’s a couple of great Quality of Life changes coming in this new update.

First of all, the materials that drop from roaming enemies in the world required us to run around the map and locate them but with this new change, you can immediately teleport to the enemy by just clicking on the material in the menu, which is really nice.

Obviously, there’s still a daily limit of enemies for before the server reset but this makes farming this stuff a lot more convenient.

Now this next one, I am not super sure if I got this correctly, but we will be able to encounter Warp Trotters on the map. I don’t think they are the same kind as the ones you would find when trying to complete the whole map, as in, they would drop 60 jades when defeated. I believe these ones will spawn randomly and drop more materials than the usual roaming enemy, which seems nice.

Finally, we’re also getting chat function in the game, so anyone who is on your friend list, you can now send messages to each other.

5. Free X10 Summons

The fifth feature is probably the most awesome thing. That’s coming with 1.1 and requires the least effort. A 7-day login reward will be available for everyone by just logging in and claiming the summons.

I am honestly amazed this is happening so soon after the global launch. But to quickly summarize, we’re getting 4 new story quests in 1.1 update featuring these characters.

As for the events, there’s a lot of them, but the main rewards to look out for would be a free 4-Star Nihility Light Cone, Self-Modelling Resin and tons of credits from the museum event. The main event featuring Silver Wolf will explore her story and introduce us to some new things about her.

And as for the banners, in the 1st phase Silver Wolf along with Asta, Dan Heng and Serval will be on a featured banner while in the 2nd phase, Luocha along with Pela Qingque and Yukong will be available to summon. Also, Luocha and Silver Wolf will be getting their own signature Light Cones that you can pull for.

Finally, we’re getting a couple of great quality of life changes, including an instant teleportation to roaming enemies on the map by clicking on the material you want to farm for, as well as a chat function you can use with your friends.

Today, we’re breaking down all the changes and new additions we can expect to see throughout the month of June. We’ll be looking at Events, Limited-time items, Seasonal Changes, Weather Phenomena and everything in between.

1. Wedding Event

Now, June is a super busy month, primarily because June also marks the start of the Wedding Season in Animal Crossing New Horizons, honouring Reese and Cyrus’s Wedding Anniversary.

Beginning June 1st, and running through to the end of the month, the Wedding Season Event takes place on Harv’s Island and players are given the task of decorating the Venue each day. This is probably the largest event in the game, offering up the most rewards and furniture items for taking part.

The objective is to decorate the venue with the chosen theme that day to unlock items. The more you take part, the more ACNH Items you unlock and the more Heart Crystals you earn. These are used to purchase Wedding Furniture to keep for yourself.

Alongside the Wedding Season Event, the Able Sisters also stocks several special wedding-themed clothing items. And additional wedding-themed seasonal items are also available from the Nook Stop and are not to be missed.

2. Seasonal Items

Speaking of Seasonal Items, June is packed full of limited-time items that are only available throughout the month of June in honour of real-world events.

These include the Dragon Boat Festival and the Dano Festival, International Children’s Day, Father’s Day, the Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice, depending on which Hemisphere you’re in, and of course, the Wedding Season we already mentioned.

The Dragon Boat Festival and the Dano Festival are typically celebrated in China and South Korea respectively and introduce the Festival Zongzi and Surichwi Tteok items, which are now both edible food items.

International Children’s Day is a celebration honouring good health towards children, and introduces the Handmade Cape and Handmade Crown. Both are really cool items. These are only available for two weeks, unlike at launch.

Father’s Day returns to honour parents and, like the Wedding Season, runs for the entire month. This Seasonal Event introduces the Thank-You Dad Mug and Thank-You Dad Apron.

The Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice take place at the same time, depending on your hemisphere. Players in the Northern Hemisphere can obtain the Sunflower Crown, the Sunflower Rug, the Sunflower Glasses and the Maypole. And Players in the Southern Hemisphere can obtain the Midwinter Sweater, the Aurora Wall, the Bathtub with Yuzu and the Tangyuan.

All of these items mentioned here are available from the Nook Stop on the dates shown, and depending on when you started New Horizons, or if you went back to the game after a break, some of these items may be brand new.

3. Seasonal Materials

Moving on, whilst we’re talking about Seasonal Topics, it’s worth remembering both Hemispheres are approaching new seasons, which means new Crafting Materials are available throughout June.

The Northern Hemisphere will say goodbye to the Young-Spring Bamboo materials and instead begin to find Summer Shells washed ashore. These new materials will be available from June 1st through to August 31st. And of course if you’re playing through this season for the first time, you’ll now unlock the Summer Shell Boat Tour, too.

Anyway, Summer Shell recipes will also become available from Balloons and Bottles, and include recipes for items, such as the Water Flooring, the Tropical Vista and the Summer Shell Rug, amongst others.

The Southern Hemisphere will continue to encounter Acorns and Pine Cones for a couple of weeks, however as Winter begins, small and large Snowflakes can be obtained from June 11th through to August 24th.

4. Nooks Cranny

Now, given we are approaching new seasons, Nooks Cranny sees some pretty cool changes to both. It’s aesthetics and stock.

In the Summer and Winter months, depending on which Hemisphere you’re in, you’ll notice Nooks Cranny sees subtle changes to its decoration and window displays.

But, more importantly, Nooks Cranny also sells seasonal items. During the Summer, Nooks Cranny sells the Surfboard and Retro Fans. And during the Winter, Nooks Cranny sells the Round Space Heater and Celebratory Candles.

All of these items are actually locked to a specific colour, based on your island. However, now that Cyrus resides on Harv’s Island, it is possible to customise them with him for bells, even during the Wedding Season, which is super useful.

5. Weather Phenomena

Now, one of my favourite changes we see on the New Horizons Island is, of course, to the different types of weather.

The Northern Hemisphere is much the same at the start of Summer, though. However, Thin Clouds will disappear at the end of May, so it will be some time before you see these again.

In the Southern Hemisphere on the other hand, Cirrus and Cirrocumulus Clouds disappear, with Billow clouds taking their place. Players in the Southern Hemisphere will also begin encountering Aurora’s on clear nights once the snow starts to fall from June 11th.

You can only encounter these from 6 pm through to 4 am, although can be tricky to spot, as they often only appear for an hour or so. But if you’ve never seen one, definitely worth looking out for.

6. Bug-Off

Next up, we have another cool Summer activity, which is, of course, the Bug-off Season.

Starting on the 4th Saturday of June, which this year is the 24th, Flick will stop by the Plaza to host the first Bug-off of the year. For anyone new to New Horizons in the last 10 months or so, the Bug-off is a time-trial challenge that sees players catch as many bugs as possible before the timer ends.

Flick rewards players for catching bugs, so the more you catch, the more prizes you can earn. Some of the items available include the Bug Cage Bag, the Toy Cockroach and the Termite Mound, amongst others.

You also earn Trophies for taking part, so even if you took part last year, it’s a great opportunity to earn different items or a different type of Trophy.

The Bug-off is a Summer Event, so currently unavailable in the Southern Hemisphere, but you could always time travel or visit a friend’s island, if you wanted to.

Also Read: ACNH: How Could Splatoon 3 Affect The Next Animal Crossing Game?

7. Island Aesthetics

Another detail and change I like to see on the New Horizons Island is of course to the Bushes that go in and out of season as we change months and seasons.

Anyway, pink and white Azalea Bushes stop flowering at the end of May in the Northern Hemisphere, with blue and pink Hydrangeas blooming in their place. These will continue to be available through to July.

As we continue to transition into Summer, the weeds found around the island become less vibrant too, but tend to have more flowers, which personally I like.

In the Southern Hemisphere, Holly Bushes continue to flower until mid-June. However, red and pink Camellia Bushes bloom in their place from June 16th, all the way through to September.

As for the Weeds, they lose their feathery Autumn look, and become frosted and icy as the snow begins, which is to be expected.

8. Critters

As you’d expect, as we enter the Summer months here in the Northern Hemisphere, we see a huge shift in Bugs, Fish and Deep-Sea Creatures.

In total, players can expect to encounter 25 new Critters, including the Goliath Beetle, the Great White Shark and the Abalone, to name just a few. Naturally, as players enter the Winter months in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s much the same.

However, in total, players can expect to encounter only 9 new Critters, which are pretty much inline with what you’d expect from the Winter months. These include the Dung Beetle, the Stringfish and the Lobster, to name a few.

So, what are you looking forward to the most from the month of June?

Do you remember the 1.4 Chasm with Baizhu and Dendro Copium leaks? Cause I sure do. Those were some nostalgic times for Genshin Impact. I’ll tell you that much.

If you don’t remember or know what I’m talking about, all you need to know is that after almost 3 years of Baizhu’s existence in the story, we finally get to play him.

He fills a fairly empty role as a dendro healer and mini-shielder, joining Yaoyao as one of the dendro survivability options. This guide will teach you everything you need to know about Baizhu from his best artifacts and weapons, to general playstyle and team compositions.

Elemental Skill Basics

Baizhu’s elemental skill is quite unique and simple. He sends out a spirit that deals dendro damage to up to three enemies in an area around him and then returns to the player to heal the party.

Unfortunately, the damage scales on attack and the healing scales on his max HP, which means that for the most part, the damage from this ability is negligible as we mainly want to focus on the big heals for the party.

Elemental Burst Basics

Like Baizhu’s skill, Baizhu’s burst also has an attack-based damage and HP based survivability mechanic. Upon casting Baizhu’s elemental burst, it will create a shield for the active character.

This shield only lasts for 2.5 seconds and has a very low damage absorption compared to other shields in the game, but that’s where the rest of Baizhu’s burst come into play.

Not only does the shield have a 2.5 second duration, but it also refreshes itself every 2.5 seconds as well. Everytime the shield refreshes or is broken, your active character will be healed based on Baizhu’s max HP and a dendro spirit will emerge to attack a nearby enemy based on Baizhu’s attack.

With Baizhu’s second ascension talent, the character who is healed by this shield will gain increased bloom reaction damage, as well as increased aggravate and spread reaction damage. This buff is calculated with every 1,000 HP increment that Baizhu has, up to 50,000 max HP. Specifically, aggravate and spread reactions gain 0.8% increased damage for every 1,000 HP that Baizhu has, so that equates to 40% when Baizhu is at 50,000 HP.

Meanwhile, bloom reactions gain a little more than that at 2% per 1,000 max HP that Baizhu has, which maxes out at 100% increased damage with the 50,000 cap.

No matter how small the shield is, blocking any damage with a shield will prevent the character from being knocked off their feet, which means a benefit of Baizhu’s burst is a pseudo-resistance to interruption when his mini-shields block damage.

Theorycrafting

Baizhu is a really cool character on paper, but as we take a deeper dive into his mechanics, he doesn’t come without his minor issues.

*The first issue is very common among other characters and that issue is energy. Baizhu has the standard restrictive burst cost of 80 energy with a 20 second cooldown, while his elemental skill generates 3 to 4 particles on a 10 second cooldown.

Of course, this restrictive burst cost can be met with help from dendro teammates or energy recharge weapons like Jadefall’s Splendor, Prototype Amber, or Favonius Codex.

However, I want you to note that energy recharge benchmarks heavily change based on the type of team you play. For example, teams like Nilou Bloom give Baizhu more field time to absorb energy particles and cast 2 elemental skills while in a Cyno hypercarry team, Cyno often hogs too much time for Baizhu to absorb particles or cast his skill a second time.

*The second issue is lack of AoE damage. His catalyst attacks are similar to Heizou in the sense that they are melee, but they lack the sweeping AoE that Heizou has.

Not only does Baizhu lose the advantage of range, but he also loses dendro application in situations with multiple enemies. Nahida attacks in a fixed line in front of her and can apply dendro to multiple enemies in that line. Once we add in the elemental skills of these two dendro catalysts, it becomes no contest that Nahida is the queen of AoE dendro application.

Baizhu’s burst applies dendro every single hit, but unfortunately, the AoE on each hit is practically non-existent. This ultimately results in a limitation for solo dendro application in specific teams like triple hydro Nilou setups, so he’s not a replacement for Nahida.

Constellations

Baizhu’s constellations are not very game-changing given how much constellations will cost you, so let’s just quickly run through their biggest effects.

Like many other first constellations, Baizhu gains an extra charge on his elemental skill with C1. This is a solid first constellation that gives him better energy generation and flexibility when it comes to certain team rotations, but it’s nothing to chase after.

C2 grants Baizhu to unleash a miniature elemental skill every 5 seconds when your active character hits an enemy. Because C2 is a miniature version of his elemental skill, the healing is 20% of what his normal skill would heal for, but the biggest catch of C2 is that it also can apply dendro, increasing his rate of dendro application.

C4 is a team-wide 80 elemental mastery buff, but this number is quite small even when compared even when compared to 4-Star artifacts like the 4-set Instructor, so it’s a bit unfortunate that C4 is nothing more than a stepping stone to C6.

Regarding C6 itself, it increases Baizhu’s burst damage based on his max HP. And when elemental skills or his C2 effect hits an enemy, it will generate one of his shields from his elemental burst. As you would probably guess, since his shields also launch dendro attacks when they expire or break, creating extra shields once again can increase Baizhu’s rate of dendro application but is very expensive to justify chasing C6.

It’s much easier to pair him with dendro characters like Dendro Traveler and Collei because they’re free, or Nahida and Yaoyao since they’ve been available recently and many players might have them.

Artifacts

Similar to Yaoyao, Baizhu prefers simple healer builds due to his split scaling and low damage multipliers. The two safest artifact sets for Baizhu are either the 4-set Deepwood Memories or the 4-set Ocean Hued Clam.

In the case that no other character on your bloom, burgeon, or hyperbloom teams can hold this set, Baizhu should hold this set to reduce the dendro resistance of enemies and buff the damage output of your bloom DPS. If this is a scenario that doesn’t apply to you, then the 4-set Ocean Hued Clam is your best generalist set.

Baizhu constantly grants big heals to the team when his shields expire or break, so it’s pretty easy to get free damage out of Ocean Hued Clam’s bubble. While this free damage is definitely nice, some may prefer to use Baizhu for solely buffing the team and don’t really care about his damage contribution or healing output.

In that case, the 4-set Noblesse Oblige or the 4-set Instructor are your go to options for team buffs, each with their own strengths. For example, the 4-set Instructor can shine in a Nilou Bloom team, where the ATK% from Noblesse Oblige is negligible with characters like Nilou and Kokomi who have HP scalings.

Another example would be in an aggravate team where your electro DPS may have enough EM buffs from a character like Sucrose, and would prefer the 20% ATK from Noblesse, since maybe you’re not running an attack buffer like Bennett or Kujou Sara.

Choosing between these two sets is purely up to your own evaluation of what type of team you want to build with Baizhu, but both are nice options and easy to farm, so don’t be afraid to switch around later down the line.

Regardless of what set you run on Baizhu, his artifact stats are energy recharge or HP in the sands, HP in the goblet, and HP or healing bonus in the circlet.

Energy recharge in the sands is highly recommended, especially if you run a weapon without an energy recharge stat or passive. Otherwise, it’s pretty standard to run healing bonus in the circlet and HP everywhere else to maximize healing, with HP in the circlet as a substitute if you don’t have a healing bonus circlet yet.

Substat focus should be as much energy recharge as possible, and then HP for healing and elemental mastery for Nilou Bloom teams.

Weapons

I’ve already alluded to the fact that Baizhu heavily relies on energy from his weapons to not have insane energy recharge requirements in artifacts, and already name-dropped a few weapons, so let’s go over the best catalysts right now.

The two weapons that you want to prioritize on Baizhu are his signature weapon, Jadefall’s Splendor and the craftable 4-Star Prototype Amber. It’s undeniable that Jadefall’s passive is wonderful for energy generation, but with how little damage Baizhu does at a base level, the passive’s elemental damage bonus goes to waste.

It’s not recommended to pull for this weapon unless you just love Baizhu, because Prototype Amber exists. Prototype Amber is the F2P option of Jadefall, also providing energy over time when casting an elemental burst.

Some other options aside from these two best options are Everlasting Moonglow and A Thousand Floating Dreams. These 5-Star catalysts are delicacies for whales who have extra copies of them. By the way, if you want to get 5-Star catalysts easily, then getting Genshin Impact Accounts directly will be a good choice! Everlasting Moonglow is just a pure stat stick for healing bonus and HP, while A Thousand Floating Dreams provides a small EM buff in exchange for having no energy recharge stats or passive.

Other F2P friendly options for Baizhu include Favonius Codex and Thrilling Tales of Dragon Slayers. Just like A Thousand Floating Dreams, the idea of Thrilling Tales is to provide buffs to your team. But it also provides no solution to Baizhu’s energy problems. Favonius Codex is a part of one of the best 4-Star weapon lines in the game and it can work wonderfully on Baizhu given that it provides a hefty amount of energy and he doesn’t need to focus damage stats.

Baizhu In Nilou Teams

Moving into the last section, teams are pretty standard for Baizhu given that he doesn’t really do anything special. He’s a solid choice in the several different dendro archetype teams and Nilou Bloom highlights that flexibility he provides to teams.

The Nilou and Baizhu pairing always runs the pair plus one more dendro character and one more hydro character. Without Baizhu’s healing, most of the time, the hydro slot had to be Kokomi or Barbara for healing, unless you also have Yaoyao.

Baizhu adds a layer of flexibility to choose an offensive hydro character like Xingqiu, Yelan, Ayato, and Childe, but you can also still choose the defensive options with Kokomi and Barbara.

The second dendro character should provide sustained dendro application, which means Nahida is your best option, and Dendro MC is your best F2P option.

However, Collei and Yaoyao’s shorter duration of dendro application also work fine if you decide to on-field Baizhu for dendro catalyst attacks, or have Baizhu’s C2/C6, which increases his rate of dendro application off-field.

Also Read: Genshin Impact: How To Win While AFK?

Aggravate & Quickbloom

Another archetype where it’s easy to see the effects of flexibility that Baizhu provides to teams is in quicken and aggravate.

Before Yaoyao and Baizhu, these teams were locked into two options. Either you forfeited a second electro DPS to run Dori or Kuki Shinobu for healing to keep Kazuha or Sucrose in the squad, or you dropped Kazuha/Sucrose for a defensive option with Jean, Sayu, Kokomi, C6 Diona, etc. With Yaoyao, and now Baizhu, this issue is solved.

What makes Baizhu an upgrade over Yaoyao in these aggravate teams is Baizhu’s ascension talent, that provides extra aggravate and spread reaction damage. This can be non-negligible, especially for characters like Cyno who take a long time on the field and get a lot of aggravate reactions in one rotation.

Generally, the team consists of your main electro DPS, Baizhu, and off-field electro DPS, and either Kazuha or Sucrose in the last slot for extra buffs, or an off-field hydro character for a “quickbloom” setup which offers both hyperbloom and aggravate reactions at the same time.

Main electro DPS characters are your on-field characters like Cyno, Keqing, Raiden, or Razor, while the off-field electro DPS characters are more along the lines of Yae Miko, Fischl, and Beidou.

The hydro characters you can pick to pair with characters like Cyno or Keqing for quickbloom are generally Xingqiu, Yelan, or Kokomi, given how sustainable their off-field hydro application is.

Hyperbloom/Burgeon

The last team archetype to consider is hyperbloom and burgeon, which use very similar options to that of an aggravate team.

However, instead of an on-field electro DPS, we now have a dedicated off-field hyperbloom and burgeon trigger with Kuki Shinobu and Thoma, respectively. Other teammates should include a mandatory hydro character and a flex slot that usually consists of another hydro or dendro applicator.

99% of the time you’re going to want to select a second dendro character in the last slot, given that Baizhu’s dendro application is slow and pyro can eat up your dendro application with burning. The options outside of Baizhu generally include Nahida, Dendro MC, Yaoyao, or Collei as per usual.

Unfortunately, since Kuki and Thoma are going to be off-field triggers for hyperbloom and burgeon, it will be hard to make use of Baizhu’s ascension talent for the extra bloom reaction damage. This is because the effect only lingers for 6 seconds and the effect only refreshes for the on-field character.

It’s a bit of an inconvenience to switch back into Kuki and Thoma constantly, so generally, don’t worry about utilizing this buff too much.

If you’ve logged into the game even once, you know that the scale and scope of ESO are absolutely enormous. Because of the huge variety of things that can capture a player’s attention, a lot of really helpful features can go unnoticed.

Along with that same vain, some things that might seem obvious to long time players may be obscure to those new to the game. So, here, I’ll be pointing out ten of those features that every ESO player needs to know about.

1. Tutorials

Our first feature is located in the Help menu of all places.

The devs have put together a huge amount of information in the Tutorials area to help new and old players alike learn more about the game. The chapter and DLC sections really just include descriptions of the associated content, but the sections before and after those like Player Basics, Character Progression, Combat, Battlegrounds, and the like contain some really helpful tidbits of information about several aspects of ESO.

While you won’t become a professional PVPer just by reading through the Alliance Warfare section, for example, you will have at least a general understanding of the topic, so I definitely recommend checking the Tutorials out, especially if you’re new to the game.

2. Options Tips

The second item on our list is really an amalgamation of different settings changes that will help new and veteran players alike get more out of ESO.

Up first is the Performance versus Fidelity setting. This setting appeared back in June 2021 and allows you to swap between high-quality graphics in Fidelity mode (4k for the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 and 1440p for the Series S) and high-speed performance with Performance mode at 60 frames per second.

Performance mode results in a bit of a loss to graphics with the visuals coming in at 1080p, but it’s well worth the loss in largescale or complicated content, such as Cyrodiil or some dungeons and trials.

The audio area really allows you to customize the way you want the game to sound. Every aspect of the audio can be reduced or increased based on your preference. If you’re doing a lot of group content, I highly recommend turning up the player voice option to be louder than everything else so you can easily hear callouts from your goupmates.

Another little feature that I just recently found out about in this area is the ability to change the intro music to that of previous chapters. I definitely recommend checking out the Elsweyr chapter intro if you’re not a fan of the current chapter’s music, or you’re just looking for something a little different. It slaps.

There are just a couple of settings in the gameplay section that I want to highlight, but they’re both gamechangers if you haven’t used them before.

First, you can change the color of enemy ground effects to really pop out at you, which I’ve found is super helpful in fast-paced content. I’ve set mine to bright pink, but you can change yours to any color you like.

The other modification I recommend making is switching your ground abilities to a quick cast. When it’s set to automatic, you have to press the button twice to cast the ability. Changing this setting will automatically cast your AoEs in the area of your reticle, which really makes combat feel a lot smoother and more intuitive.

A quick change I recommend making in your camera settings is your third person field of view. If you’re unaware, you can hold the down button on the d-pad and pull back on the right joystick to expand your third-person view. This camera setting allows you to expand it even further, which is really helpful in all kinds of content.

If you’re the social type, you can have your text chat display on screen with the hud chat display setting. Additionally, if you’re in multiple guilds, you can change the text color of each guild chat to differentiate between them easily .

The last few options I recommend changing are in the Combat area.

First, we’ll look at the attribute and ability bar settings. Typically, the more information you can get in ESO, the better off you’ll be. Adding your attribute and ability bars to your display, turning on attribute numbers and percents, and activating front and back bar ability timers will help you keep up with your resources and improve your AoE and dot uptimes.

Next, you can turn on combat text to see how much damage you’re doing with your abilities. There’s something innately satisfying about watching all those numbers pop as you crush your enemies.

The final setting I recommend turning on is the buffs and debuffs option. By keeping up with the buffs, you’re giving yourself and the debuffs you’re applying to your enemies, you can really improve your overall damage per second. These options changes are undeniably powerful tools that will help any player get more out of every aspect of ESO.

3. Endeavors

The Endeavors system is a daily reward system that allows players to earn rewards by completing various tasks and objectives. It was introduced with the Waking Flame DLC back in September 2021.

Each day, you can complete certain tasks in exchange for a specified quantity of Endeavor currency and a small amount of either ESO Gold or experience. These tasks may include activities, such as killing monsters, completing quests, crafting items, or using specific abilities.

Five Endeavors are available each day, but you can only earn the rewards from three of them. Additionally, you can complete one of three weekly Endeavors that include more extensive requirements and reward greater amounts of the Endeavor currency and gold or experience.

The Endeavor currency can be used to purchase various rewards from the Endeavors store. These rewards include items from the variety of crown crates currently available in the Crown Store, such as mounts, skins, non-combat pets, costumes, and more.

The Endeavors system is account-wide, meaning that tasks completed by each of your characters count toward each of the daily and weekly Endeavors. This reward system is great because you’ll basically complete Endeavors passively by just playing the game.

Although it does take quite a while to amass enough of the currency, Endeavors are essentially a way to obtain crown crate rewards for free, so I definitely recommend taking advantage of them as often as possible.

4. Bank Tips

For our fourth spot, I’ve recently heard a few misconceptions about how the player bank works, so I wanted to quickly describe some of the attributes of the bank to hopefully help clear up any confusion for newer players.

First, your bank is account-wide. All of your characters can access the items you store there from any banker in Tamriel. Additionally, if you don’t have ESO+ and use your bank to store your crafting supplies, you can access them on any crafting station in the world without removing them from your bank.

Along that same vein, gear stored in your bank can be deconstructed or used for research at any crafting station without removing it from the bank as well.

I hope this explanation helps clarify the player bank and its uses for those of you who are new to ESO.

5. Zone Guide

Number five on the list is a great tool that isn’t directly introduced in regular gameplay and is therefore often missed entirely by new players: the zone guide.

If you’re unfamiliar, the zone guide is a feature that provides you with a comprehensive overview of the current zone you’re in. It can be accessed on Xbox by pressing select to go the map, then holding down the X button.

The zone guide is really helpful for getting a zone to 100% because it points you in the direction of your next objective, whether that’s the remainder of the zone quest, a delve or public dungeon you haven’t explored, or a set station or skyshard you haven’t discovered.

The only thing the zone guide can’t help you find is the lorebooks in the zone, but it does give you the name of each book, which is helpful if you need to google the location or search for it in some other guide like The ESO App–another tool that I highly recommend.

When you’re having trouble finding a location or the next quest giver, be sure to try out the zone guide!

6. Continuous Attack Passive

The sixth item on the list is the Continuous Attack Passive in the Assault skill line.

Continuous Attack provides some PVP-based buffs, but those aren’t what we’re after. What really makes this passive shine is that it provides Major Gallup at all times, thereby increasing your mount speed by 30%!

When you first create your character, you’ll probably be able to run faster on foot than on your mount, so this passive is really nice for helping you get to the next part of your adventure a little more quickly.

To gain access to Continuous Attack, you’ll first need to reach rank 3 in the Assault skill line, and the only way to do so is by participating in PVP activities, such as Battlegrounds or Cyrodiil. Even if you’re not really into PvP, you’ll definitely want to do a few daily BGs to unlock this helpful passive.

Also Read: Elder Scrolls Online: How To Get Undaunted Keys? - Quick Guide

7. Leaving PVP Zones

Speaking of PVP, number seven is another topic I’ve seen discussed in several posts over the years: easy ways to leave Cyrodiil and Imperial City.

Travel in these PVP zones is different from PVE in that you can’t just select a wayshrine and travel to it in exchange for gold. In Cyrodiil, transitus shrines are used to move from keep to keep, and in Imperial City there is no fast travel method other than dying, which causes you to lose half of the Tel Var you’re holding.

You can choose where you revive after dying in Cyrodiil, but if you don’t want to give the enemy alliance the satisfaction of murdering you to death, then there are a couple of quick and easy ways to leave both of these zones.

One option is to queue for whichever campaign you’re not in (that is, either Cyrodiil or Imperial City). Then, you can either use the wayshrine at your alliance’s home gate in Cyrodiil or just walk through the exit door of your alliance’s base in Imperial City.

If the other campaign is full, then another option is to just queue for a random dungeon or battlegrounds match. After you leave the dungeon or BG, you’ll be in the PVE zone you were in before going to Cyrodiil or Imperial City.

If you’re more of a PVEr, who casually PVPs from time to time, I hope this helps you stay safer out in the streets and sewers!

8. Gear Improvements Passives

For our eighth spot, be sure to take the gear improvement passives in each crafting skill line before upgrading your gear’s quality.

Each of the Blacksmithing, Clothing, Jewelry Crafting, and Woodworking skill lines contains a passive in which you can invest up to three skill points to reduce the cost of improving your gear.

For example, with no skill points in the Resin Expertise passive, it takes 20 rosin to upgrade a woodworking item from epic to legendary. After maxing out that passive, only eight rosin are required for the same upgrade. That’s a whopping 60% reduction in the improvement cost!

With the high cost of legendary improvement materials, it kills me when I hear about someone who upgraded their gear to gold quality without these passives.

So, if you only take one piece of advice from this guide, please make it this one!

9. Mundus Stones

Number nine on the list is mundus stones.

The boons you gain from these stones are some of the most important buffs in the game, and yet I’ve met some newer players who weren’t even aware that these stones exist!

If you’re in the same boat, there are 13 mundus stones scattered around Tamriel, each of which provides a unique bonus to your character. Some of these boons are more powerful than others, but they’re all helpful in some capacity, so I recommend taking the first one you come across and then swapping it for one of the more useful bonuses when you get the chance.

If you’re a member of a well-established guild, you might get that chance sooner rather than later, as most fully-stocked guild houses will have all 13 stones available for use in one place.

As I mentioned before, each mundus boon is useful in its own right, but as a DPS main, I tend to lean toward the thief for PVE and the lover for PVP.

Of course, the choice of stone depends on the content and the rest of your build, but these boons will generally serve you well in most damage dealing applications. No matter what role you play in ESO, make sure you pick up a mundus boon early on in your adventures.

10. Free Player Home

The final topic on our list is how to get access to free (or essentially free) player homes.

Housing is a huge aspect of ESO, so much so that some players make it their number one focus. If you’re the creative type, or if you’re like me and just looking for a place to store all the furnishings you pick up through questing and achievements, you can gain access to several houses without spending a dime on crowns or even using your hard-earned gold.

Many large cities will have a sign posted somewhere with a quest marker labeled “Seeking Tenant!” Through completing this short quest, you’ll receive a player home in the respective city.

Keep in mind that you can only claim one such home per character. Also, you’ll still see the “Seeking Tenant!” quest on new characters even if you’ve claimed that city’s home is on a different character in the past. So, make sure you only do the quest in a city where you don’t yet have a house.

These homes are typically very small, but they’re great starting points for the aspiring designer. If you’re looking for something a bit more substantial and you have access to the Elsweyr chapter, you can complete a few achievements to earn the keys to a fairly large house in Rimmen: the Hall of the Lunar Champion.

The home has four rooms, each of which is unlocked by completing a different achievement or quest. The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages wiki has a great guide on how to unlock the entire home.

The house has plenty of space for any housing aficionado. Be sure to complete the required achievements so you can get your own little slice of Tamriel. So, I know I said that was the last item on the list, but I do have one last bonus tip for new and old players alike: don’t be afraid of veteran content!

My advice is to pick up a couple of base game undaunted pledges, queue into them on vet with whatever role you’re most comfortable playing, and see what it’s all about. Of course, there are some challenges you’ll probably want to hold off on until you have a good bit of experience, like vet DLC dungeons, hard modes, trifectas, and things like that. But most of the base game dungeons can easily be completed by a group of CP 160 characters, even on hard mode!

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.

As many of us begin to reach closer to level 30 on our battle passes, I wanted to review and analyze which light cones are the ones you should consider adding to your lineup and which are not worth taking for now.

There are a total of seven different Light Cones to choose from. Each corresponds to a path in the game, so no matter what characters you have, you should be able to get value out of one of these. Each Light Cone will be timestamped. So, if there’s a certain one you wanted my insight on, feel free to skip to that portion, and the order they are covered does not have anything to do with their usefulness.

Since this will be our first battle pass, I will be reviewing each light code at their superimposition level one just to make things simpler.

Carve The Moon, Weave The Clouds

We will begin with our first Light Cone, Carved The moon, Weave The Clouds for their Harmony, which states at the start of the battle and whenever the wearish turn begins.

One of the following effects is applied randomly. All allies’ attack increases by 10%. All allies’ critical damage increases by 12% or all allies’ energy regeneration rate increases by 6%. The applied effect cannot be identical to the last effect applied and will replace the previous effect.

The applied effect will be removed when the wearer has been knocked down. Effects of the similar type cannot be stacked. This Light Cone has a lot of useful buffs. However, the biggest issue with it is just the lack of consistent support. The best support here being the critical damage and having a 1/2 chance of appearing can be a real coin toss and in the best-case scenario, it would only have 50% uptime, but realistically more close to 33%.

When compared to the consistency of Chorus or Dance! Dance! Dance!, and Planetary Rendezvous, even with the type restriction, it is a hard Light Cone to sell even more so since it doesn’t really boost any of our three main harmony units or change their play styles.

It’s not awful and can be great for damaged showcases if all situations line up, but I wouldn’t recommend it since I like consistency.

Related: Honkai Star Rail: All Details On Combat & Characters - Beginners Friendly Guide

Return To Darkness

Next, we Return to Darkness for the Hunt, which increases the wearer’s crit rate by 12%.

After a critical hit, there is a 16% fixed chance to dispel one buff on the targeted enemy. This effect can only trigger once per attack. Another RNG Light Cone, however I’m a bit more favorable for this one as it does have a consistent boost to a critical rate and a high amount at that.

My only issue here is the chance of this proccing can be annoying, but the spell is not something to take lightly and just that utility alone can make some fights a lot more manageable, such as the fight against the Searing Prowler and Forgotten Hall Stage 12.

Don’t worry, more enemies like this will appear in the future, as well. If you have no plans on building Pella, who is your main source for dispel, this might be a decent pickup even if you don’t run it 100% of the time, just for the small times you may need it.

Nowhere to Run

Next up, we got Nowhere to Run for the Destruction, which increases the wearer’s attack by 24%.

Whenever the wearer defeats an enemy, they restore health equal to 12% of their attack. While not as good as Something Irreplaceable, this could make a good substitute for anyone wanting to throw this on their Clara.

Arlan and Trailblazer Physical can use this, as well. But I think On the Fall of an Aeon works better for them and it’s also free to play.

The only issue with this Light Cone is situations where some other character steals to kill when you needed it to heal. But outside of that, it’s pretty solid and might be useful for some nasty Clara solo.

This Is Me

We are now on to This Is Me for the Preservation, which increases the wearer’s defense by 16%. It also increases the damage of the wearer when they use their ultimate by 60% of the wearer’s defense.

This effect only applies one time per enemy target. This is probably the most optimal Light Cone for Trailblazer Preservation for a good mixture of damage and defense and will help great against fights, such as Cocolia when she spawns her Ice Spears.

Also, I feel like this isn’t my first time mentioning this funky March 7th setup. But for a few of you looking to push her into some weird counter DPS, this is another Light Cone to help push that narrative.

Today Is Another Peaceful Day

Next up, we have Today Is Another Peaceful Day for the Erudition.

After entering battle, it increases the wearer’s damage based on their max energy. Damage increases by 0.2% per point of energy up to 160 energy.

To make this a bit easier to understand, every multiple of 10 is 2%, so a unit with 120 like Himiko will gain 24%, which honestly isn’t bad. However, when compared to the free to play option, The Seriousness of Breakfast, which is super easy to superimposition due to it being free to play, becomes much harder for this to become a worthwhile pick, not to mention on some units like Serval. It’s not good at all and it is not something really worth recommending at the moment.

We Will Meet Again

Second to last, we have We Will Meet Again for the Nihility.

After the wearer uses basic attack or skill, the wearer deals 48% of attack as additional damage to a random enemy that is attacked by abilities. This one is a kind of funky. It doesn’t offer any real boost to your base stats.

However, you get additional damage based on attack on a more support debuffing unit, making it very weird to use. Not to mention, our current Nihility units aren’t the biggest damage dealers, with raw attack numbers being average at best, such as with Welt. Not really something I can say is worthwhile, but maybe someone in the future can make great use out of this.

Warmth Shortens Cold Nights

Lastly, we have Warmth Shortens Cold Nights for the Abundance, which increases the wearer’s maximum health by 16%. When using basic attack or skill, it restores all allies’ health by an amount equal to two percent of their respected maximum health.

In the previous time, I’ve mentioned this Light Cone as being a very good option. Unfortunately, this has not changed and I think it’s great for people who want to do auto battle since I am sure people have noticed by now healers suck on auto battle since they will take until the lowest amount of health before they even consider healing you, which can result in your death.

Outside of that, I don’t think this is too great to pick up since Abundance is one of the rare paths with almost too many good options in their Light Cone choices. Only pick this up if you’re looking to use it for auto battle just for a quick.

By the way, if you want to have the Light Cones or chacracters with five stars, geting Honkai Star Rail Accounts will be a good choice!

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. 

EA Sports have lost the FIFA naming rights, which means it’s no longer going to be releasing FIFA 24. Instead, it is going to be EA Sports FC. So, in this article, we will discuss five new things that have already been confirmed for the new game.

1. There Will Still Be Women In Ultimate Team

*First, we do have women in Ultimate Team. This is something which caught absolutely everybody off guard, but we should have probably seen it coming. We have had the option for quite a while now in FIFA to play with them in kickoff. Also, we did see Sam Kerr on a FIFA cover. I heard the rumor a long time ago and now EA Sports has decided it is going to be happening in EA Sports FC.

So, we are probably going to be seeing both mixed men and women in Ultimate Team. I don’t see how we’re going to be having a separate mode just for women and men. It would be too much for EA Sports to handle, having to release promos new Team of the Week every single week, separately. I don’t see that happening. It’s definitely going to be in some way mixed in.

And, we have seen this tweet of course by Fut Sheriff leaking this and we do have EA Sports on their website, the EA Sports FC announcement page. We do have the UEFA Women’s Champions League that has been confirmed. We do also have the National Women’s Soccer League, which is the equivalent of the MLS. And we also have the Women’s Super League that is the equivalent of the Premier League. All of these are going to be coming.

Fut Sheriff is also confirmed that we’re going to be getting Women Icons and Marta Brazilian is a prediction. So, again, it will be interesting to see how it’s all going to be playing out.

2. Brand Promos

*Next, we do have brand promos in Ultimate Team. Adidas Numbers up was a promo we did see in FIFA 22. That was obvious with the Adidas brand. We have also seen collaboration with the Marvel brand in FIFA 23. Of course, we had Marvel FUT Heroes. And you can get them by using your FUT 23 Coins.

Vincent on Twitter has confirmed that we’re going to be seeing more of these and we do have many announcements already by different brands, for example Pepsi on Twitter. They did confirm that they are partners with EA Sports FC, so I feel like we could maybe see a Pepsi promo and I did make this a concept with Messi.

We could also see perhaps something with PlayStation. PlayStation did also tweet on other social media as well that EA Sports FC and sort of their partnership is going to be continuing. So, I do think that we’re going to be seeing something like this. What impresses me the most is the PlayStation Pack that appeared in FIFA 22. This was given out for free to all PlayStation Plus Members. So, I do think there is going to be a cross with more brands, for example Pepsi, PlayStation and even more brands that we haven’t even seen announcements from.

Also Read: FIFA 23: Best Tips For The Start Of TOTS Weekend League

3. Academy

*The next thing confirmed in EA Sports FC is for the Academy. Now it’s unclear whether this is going to be a separate mode or if this is going to be somehow integrated into objectives. Maybe it could just be a different tab on the objectives page, but this is essentially going to be allowing you to choose a player and then level him up. So, maybe this is going to be working just over time. Every single season, it just going to be upgrading automatically or maybe it could be you’re involved in the progression.

But it will be quite interesting to see how this is going to be working. It should be similar to Future Stars Academy, so it will be quite cool. Obviously, those objectives used to be very popular and I do think now it is going to have that sort of uniqueness. Everybody is going to be able to choose their own player and everyone’s going to have something different. It’s not just going to be everyone’s forced or if they want to participate, they are forced to have this one player. This is going to be quite cool.

Maybe they could also do something different with the Moments mode. I do think that was quite a waste this year. So, that’s going to be revamped if this is going to be involved with that somehow because that we did have a sort of Moments Tokens. Anyway, we’ll see more information from EA but FUT Academy is going to be an EA Sports FC.

4. New Icons

*Next, we do have new icons. This is something which we do see. Every single year, a few new players are added. And women this year in Ultimate Team will also get icons. There’s going to be more leaks and even more announcements, obviously for that.

But we do already have two new icons that have been confirmed. Fut Donk has said that they are in the code and also he mentioned them being in the trailer. I’m not too sure which trailer he is referring to. But Gento is going to be coming. I do believe he’s going to be Spanish. They have given him a left-wing position, and he does look quite decent.

We do also have Di Stefano. This is going to be a huge icon, which is very popular. And he is either going to be Spanish or Argentinian. We’re not too sure. I think maybe he played for both countries or something like that. But this has been going on for a while now. Everybody on Twitter is just debating which country he is going to be representing. Obviously, it’s only possible to represent one, but whichever one it is going to be, I do think Di Stefano should be a very solid icon.

One thing I want to mention here is that the Barcelona Stadium Camp now is going to be coming into EA Sports FC. But unfortunately, according to Fut Donk, this isn’t going to be happening. There were actually some rumors that this was going to be happening. There have been a lot of false rumors, including the Transfer Market being removed or things like that. Do not believe anything until you do see a reliable source and also confirmation from EA Sports.

5. Release Time For EA Sports FC

But the last thing which has been confirmed is the release date by Fut Sheriff. He has said that we are going to be getting EA Sports FC on September 29th and I do believe this is going to be the standard worldwide release date.

Usually, we see Ultimate Edition getting three days before that, so Ultimate Edition will potentially release on the 26th. And then, we do usually get Early Access or EA Play, which includes the 10 hours of the free trial. I mean, you don’t have to actually pay for it.

But there is going to be some sort of something similar to EA Play, but Fut Sheriff did say it’s going to be a little different this year. So, that’s going to be quite exciting and don’t forget: we are going to be seeing more official information from EA Sports in July.