The Dragonflight story continues in patch 10.2.5, Seeds of Renewal, which goes live on January 16th, and we've got so much to look forward to.

We'll be able to dragonride in all the zones, earn new rewards in the Outland Cup, we'll explore the story of the Dragon Isles after the defeat of Fyrakk, and the Gilneans are finally preparing to retake their lost kingdom.

There are new features, like Follower Dungeons to open up group content to everyone, and the Azerothian Archives brings us new content with an archaeology flare. Then, there are also new customizations to look forward to, more holiday updates, and so much more.

Hurry up and take your WoW Dragonflight Gold to start a new journey in Seeds of Renewal!

Dragonriding Updates

Dragonriding is finally opening up to the rest of the world, so you'll be able to take wing and zoom through any zone where you could previously fly.

In Patch 10.2.5, if a regular flying mount is permitted in a specific area or zone, you will also have the ability to utilize a dragonriding mount in that zone. This means that, from here on out, you will get to choose which flying mode you want to use to get around in all of those old zones.

The Dracthyr Soar capability will undergo adjustments to seamlessly integrate into this expansive dragonriding environment. The cooldown has been reduced to just 10 seconds. You can use all of the same dragonriding abilities and you can use and generate Vigor, so Dracthyr can choose between using a dragonriding mount or just relying on their own wings going forward.

Additional opportunities to acquire Riders of Azeroth Badges will be available during the Outland Cup event. Zoom through Shattrath, soar over the Netherstorm, and see Outland from a new perspective. Each race completed will earn you more Badges that you can trade in for a new color variation of the Drake Rider's transmog set, as well as 2 new tabards.

New Story Quests

With the Primalist threat quelled for now, and Amirdrassil safely blossoming into Azeroth, the night elves can finally start building a new home for themselves.

When Amirdrassil bloomed at the conclusion of the raid in 10.2, it brought itself and the land about its roots from the Emerald Dream into Azeroth, and beneath the boughs of the new World Tree, the night elf city of Bel'ameth is starting to take shape.

Bel'ameth is connected to other important night elf areas throughout the world, including Darkshore and Feralas. Despite being a night elf city, the Horde is encouraged to explore, and there's a convenient portal from Hyjal for their use.

Also Read: WOW Dragonflight: 5 Simple Methods To Make A WoW Token Monthly - Gold Farming Guide

But when Amirdrassil took root, heroes of the Horde and Alliance heard a mysterious voice, ancient, beautiful and almost song-like, calling out to them. At the same time, Khadgar has received reports of dark whispers. Something is moving in the shadows. An ancient enemy stirs, incited by some harbinger.

But what are they planning, and where will they strike first? New story quests will unfold in the old world as the Greymane family endeavors to reclaim their lost kingdom, with the Forsaken offering assistance upon the request of Calia Menethil. You can earn yourself a new mount and some cool transmog rewards by helping the Gilneans reclaim their land from the domination of the Scarlet Crusade.

Follower Dungeons

A new feature that a lot of folks are already very excited about is Follower Dungeons.

You'll be able to queue for all 8 Dragonflight dungeons on Normal difficulty with between one and 4 players, and the game will fill in your group composition gaps with NPCs.

So, if you don't have a tank in your group, you can still queue up, and you will have an NPC tank to take all of those heavy hits. You can even queue up all by yourself and have a full group of NPCs to explore the dungeon with. You have the option to personally guide the NPCs or designate them to take the lead, particularly if you are uncertain about the direction.

Follower Dungeons are going to be a great way to learn how group content works. Embarking on dungeons for the first time can be daunting, but Follower Dungeons provide an opportunity to ease into this aspect of the game. It allows you to familiarize yourself with mechanics, encounter bosses, navigate dungeon layouts, and obtain valuable dungeon loot.

They're also going to be great for experimenting with new roles, classes or specs. You can explore tanking or venture into healing without the constraints of time or performance expectations. I am definitely going to take advantage of that to try and get back into healing and test out any class changes in the future.

Azerothian Archives

We'll also have new content to explore in the Azerothian Archives.

Engage with distinctive characters, immerse yourself in new narratives, and delve into the iconography of zones and local cultures through archaeology-themed activities.

There are smaller sites that you can work through by yourself, uncovering lost fragments to piece together the past. Then, there are also large sites, which are group activities similar to public events. Work through multi-stage scenarios together to properly excavate the area, fend off enemies, and see what lies beneath the soil.

There are also plenty of rewards to collect, including new mounts, battle pets, and transmog.

New Customizations

Patch 10.2.5 continues the trend of adding in new customization options for a couple of races.

Trolls will get 5 new vibrant hair colors to play around with, and the draenei will have a darker skin option, which fits in with their Man'arian locks from the previous patches.

Warlock demon customization options will also be expanded to include new color variations for your demonic tyrants, as well as new color and model options for your Darkglare summons, so you can pick and choose exactly how you want your floating eyeball to look.

Holiday Updates

We also have more holiday updates to look forward to in the new patch.

Love is in the Air will have new quests to work through and all-new rewards to collect, so we're going to have even more ways to get into the WoW holiday spirit in 2024.

So there's something for everyone to get excited for in the new patch, and it's going to be an interesting adventure as we start exploring what's next for the World of Warcraft.

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

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

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

Weapons

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

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

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

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

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

Artifacts

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

Crimson Witch Of Flames

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

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

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

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

Shimenawa’s Reminiscence

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

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

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

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

Gilded Dreams

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

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

Lavawalker

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

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

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

Main Stats & Substats

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

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

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

Teams

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tip 1: Battleground (BG) Teleports

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

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

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

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

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

Tip 2: Hearthstone Batching

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

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

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

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

Tip 3: Mistletoe And Snowballs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tip 4: The Blackfathom Deeps (BFD) Logout Skip

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introductory Quest & How To Join The Event?

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

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

Breda’s Bottomless Mead Mug

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

100% XP Boost!

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

How To Get Rewards?

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

Reward Box Contents

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

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

New Life Daily Quests & Achievements Information

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

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

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

Fish Boon Feast Achievement

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

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

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

Lava Foot Stomp & Castle Charm Challenge Achievements

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

Snow Bare Plunge Achievement

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

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

Stonetooth Bash Achievement

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

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

War Orphan’s Sojourn Achievement

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

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

Signal Fire Sprint Achievement

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

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

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

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

The Trial Of The Five-Clawed Guile Achievement

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

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

Mud Ball Miscreant Achievement

The final achievement is Mudball Miscreant.

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

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

New Life Celebrant Achievement

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

Magnanimous Title

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

Crystalfrost Skin

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

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

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

Old Life Observance - No Achievement

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

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

How Many And How To Get Tickets?

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

Remember that you can only hold 12 at one time.

Impressario

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Ticket Merchant Inventory

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

Snowglobe House Is For Sale!

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

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

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

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

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

What Are Waylaid Supply Crates?

Let’s first begin with what they are.

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

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

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

How Do Waylaid Supply Crates Work?

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

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

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

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

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

Alliance NPCs:

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

Horde NPCs:

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

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

Rewards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tips

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Story Continuation: Chains In The Dark

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

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

New Story Area: Kessan’s Landing On Ord Mantell

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

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

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

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

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

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

New World Boss

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

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

Cinematic Lighting

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

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

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

Gearing Changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

GTN Overhaul

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

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

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

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

Events

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

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

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

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

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

Cartel Market

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Season of Discovery ends phase 4 with Karazhan Crypt. But what about what comes before that? And then there is the fun question of what comes after.

Intro

We all know that Season of Discovery has 4 phases. Phase 1 is Blackfathom Deeps at level 25, as well as the Ashenvale PVP zone for its PVP event.

It’s our introduction to level up raids and new PVP event zones, letting Blizzard test the waters, dipping their toes into seeing just what the classic player base enjoys and what it hates. And I think they’ve hit the nail on the head on how to properly release content and make changes to the Season of Discovery, because of the phase system.

4 to 12 weeks between each phase is a sweet spot for letting people enjoy content without getting bored. This system lets everyone share how they feel about a new experience because every person you ask will have a widely different answer to what is Classic Plus. So, this is far more useful to Blizzard than a thousand voices yelling different things.

So, Blackfathom Deeps and the Ashenvale PVP event zone are testing ground to player reactions. When you keep that information in mind, it makes the remaining phases and schedule make a lot more sense.

Phase 2 - Gnomeregan

Phase 2 is Gnomeregan at level 40, and it’s a dungeon that’s massive, full of flavor, and still abandoned in retail, leaving the Gnomes as homeless refugees for almost 2 decades.

Just like Blackfathom Deeps, it’s a large dungeon that can essentially be broken into different wings and be filled with bosses, events, and quests that just feel natural.

And just how Phase 1 had a massive PVP event zone, Phase 2 will have 1 as well. It should, so long as the player base doesn’t lose their collective minds and tear Ashenvale down so hard that Blizzard cancels their plans.

And while BFD is in the veil, so is Warsong Gulch. So, you’d think that Phase 2’s PVP zone event should be in the Arathi Highlands to tie it into Arathi Basin. But you’d be wrong because Phase 2’s PVP event zone is the Stranglethorn Vale.

Honestly, it would be funny if they kept PVP zone events in the zone of the dungeon. But how could they turn an Alliance leveling zone into a PVP event zone? Are all Dwarves and Gnomes just being exiled to Elwynn Forest? No, that won’t happen, but Stranglethorn Vale itself makes perfect sense—a highly contested PVP zone and one that should have had a battleground from the get-go.

We can likely expect a new reputation, a new Quartermaster for some PVP loot down there, but we’ll find out more in the coming weeks.

Phase 3 - Scarlet Monastery

Now, Phase 3 is where it gets spicy but also still makes perfect sense since we have Scarlet Monastery, which comes with the level cap of 50. But it’s also just north of a very conflicted and iconic battleground, Alterac Valley in Alterac Mountains.

With Scarlet Monastery being one of the most iconic dungeons because of Sally Whitemane, and Alterac Valley being one of the most recognizable Battlegrounds in World of Warcraft, it’s a perfect combination to throw out for Phase 3.

Regardless between the level cap of 50 and Scarlet Monastery being turned into a massive level-up raid with new bosses, remastered bosses, new events, quests, and perhaps even a brand new reputation, Phase 3 is looking to be incredibly exciting.

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

Phase 4 - Karazhan Crypts

The PVP is just icing on that beautiful, delicious cake. And then that brings us to Phase 4 and the first new dungeon in Classic: Karazhan Crypts, a dungeon that was designed back in 2002 or 2003 and then abandoned because they ran out of time before becoming the raid known as Karazhan in The Burning Crusade.

We know nothing about Karazhan Crypts, and people will be making pure conjecture until it comes out. But I expect us to perhaps see original questlines and ideas make it back into the game. It could be the start of an alternate timeline with ideas from Vanilla making a frontline return. We will probably get a new reputation to grind, new quests, new items, and perhaps even instead of being a 10-man level-up raid, we’re looking at the first new 20-man or 40-man raid in Classic.

But PvE without PvP just isn’t World of Warcraft, and thus the new PVP zone event for Phase 4 is also likely to be new content. Since Karazhan Crypts, an abandoned and forgotten concept and idea, is being brought back to life, so will, in my opinion, Azshara Crater, a complete new battleground, dreamed back to life for Classic as well as turning Azshara into a massive level 60 zone-wide PVP event zone.

New reputations, questlines, and much more are going to be given to us. And our dream is the limit or, in this case, the amount of risk Blizzard is willing to take.

And thus, I conclude with what I call the Season of Discovery introduction phases, which are amazing and incredible. While we don’t know exactly what we’ll be getting, it’s only the beginning of Season of Discovery because Blizzard has already said we’re getting more content at level 60.

Phase 5 - Molten Core & Onyxia

And thus, let me introduce you all to the Season of Discovery endgame phases, which is Phase 5 to 8.

You might think that 8 phases is a lot, but Classic, when it came out in 2019, had 6 phases, and that was just re-releasing the original 6 raids.

Now, this is what we call the educated guessing phase, where we have ideas and we know what they’re going to do nominally. But despite knowing we’re getting content, new and old changes, and more, we don’t know what that is. So, this is more of a wishlist for content.

So, Phase 5 is, of course, none other than Molten Core, and the top 5 most iconic raids in World of Warcraft, after Black Temple, Ulduar, ICC and Siege of Orgrimmar. Don’t crucify me for that top 5 in the comments.

While Molten Core might not be the most iconic raid, Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker, is the single most iconic in-game weapon from World of Warcraft. If you don’t count Frostmourne or the Warglaives, we’re looking at a remastered Molten Core, new bosses, mobs, quests, items, and perhaps even legendaries and reputations.

A legendary that’s already in the game but only 1 singular person got is the necklace (Talisman of Binding Shard) back from Vanilla, which got removed because it wasn’t meant to be in the game. Now that necklace might not come back, but they already have a legendary they designed back then, which they could reincorporate into Season of Discovery.

I’m not sure exactly how much they’ll change Molten Core and, with it, Onyxia. But there will be changes. As for PVP, Black Rock Mountain is the single most dangerous PVP zone in the game. If you played on a PVP server, then you’ll be having Vietnam flashbacks.

So, we know that Molten Core and Onyxia are coming, but what about new content? Allow me to introduce the new and improved Dire Maul or Blackrock Depths.

These two dungeons are massive, so massive in fact that in Cataclysm, they got cut down and reshaped into multiple separate wings. And in BRD’s case, they just scrapped well over half of it.

Either of these 2 dungeons makes the most sense as being a new 20-man-raid or 10-man raid. Logically, it makes sense because Blizzard stated that they wanted new players to be able to catch up easily from phase to phase.

Introducing more level 60 level-up raids, making gearing a lot easier and allowing a transition into raids more easily, albeit I’m not sure if they’ll focus all the effort into making the already existing raids better and more fun to interact with.

Keeping the phases between 4 and 12 weeks long, so we get a lot of hyper-focused content and then new phases before we get bored. Or maybe Phases 5 to 8 will be 6 months long, each with a storm of content to keep us all content.

Phase 6 - Blackwing Lair & Zul’Gurub

Nonetheless, Phase 6 is Blackwing Lair and Zul’Gurub, two fun and interesting raids which will definitely get more quests, reputations, mechanics changes, and loot.

The dungeons most likely to get changed with this phase are the Temple of Atal’Hakkar for ZG and Blackrock Spire for Blackwing Lair, correlating nicely with each other.

Also, Blackrock Mountain being a horrible war zone probably continues into Phase 6, maybe Stranglethorn Vale as well at this point.

But then again, perhaps this is an overload of content and I’m overestimating Blizzard’s zeal, desire, and SOD Gold when it comes to Classic Season of Discovery. There is a lot that they could do here, so much in fact that this could easily be a six-month content stretch between the 10-mans, 20-mans, and 40-mans.

Phase 7 - Ahn’Qiraj 40 & Ahn’Qiraj 20

Let’s move on to Phase 7, which is where I think we’re going to see the most new content in the game.

Scarab Lord is a very coveted title and the Black Qiraji Battle Tank is one of the rarest mounts in the entire game. The opening of Ahn’Qiraj and the Scepter of the Shifting Sands questline is a long, awesome, and genuinely a wild experience.

So, imagine the things they could do here, the things they could add. Imagine a massive zone-wide PVP event in Silithus where the Horde and Alliance battle it out for new PVP reputations and items.

AQ40 and AQ20 are incredible raids full of awesome bosses, lore mechanics, and loot, and I can’t wait to see what Blizzard does here.

Now, we aren’t theorycrafting if we don’t think about new content, and with that, allow me to introduce Uldaman, the new 10-man dungeon and another location to gear with level 60 gear, so you can delve into the raids faster.

Phase 8 - Naxxramas

Last but not least, Phase 8 and The Dread Citadel - Naxxramas, the so-called guild killer in vanilla and definitely a guild killer in Classic, as everything devolved into GDKP and triggered hyperinflation.

Naxxramas will probably get more loot, new quests, new bosses, new mechanics, and more. That’s to be expected. But what else will change in Phase 8? Let me introduce you all to the new 20-man or 10-man raid Stratholme, one of the most iconic places in World of Warcraft and the beginning of the fall for our beloved prince Arthas.

Now, this is me wishing, but it could make sense as once Eastern Plaguelands into a massive PVP zone event, which is already supported by the tower situated across the zone. It would make a lot of sense to have more than just Naxxramas for the entirety of Phase 8, and the size of Stratholme already correlates to being a miniature raid, anyway.

Even if they only include a fraction of what I’ve spoken of and even if they go on absolutely a completely different path, the amount of content that Blizzard seems to be planning to add to Classic Plus Season of Discovery is staggering. And whilst all of this might not be in Season of Discovery, it will definitely be in Classic Plus.

So, whether Season of Discovery is Classic Plus or leads into Classic Plus, expect an obscene amount of content just from the endgame phases.

Diablo 4 Abattoir of Zir Dungeon is an end game pinnacle content that players can only access once they've beaten all of the Season Journey and is incredibly hard.

The starting difficulty for the Abattoir of Zir is 20% harder than the highest tier of Nightmare Dungeons. So, this content is extremely challenging.

So, in this guide, we're going to be talking about some of the best tips and tricks to conquer the Abattoir of Zir in Diablo 4 Season 2. Of course, if you have enough Diablo 4 Gold, you'd better equip your character well, so that it will be easier for you to challenge Abattoir of Zir!

How To Start Abattoir Of Zir?

If you open up your season tab and then go to your season journey in order to start this content, all of the seasonal chapters will need to have check marks.

You need to complete the last tier. You don't need to complete every single challenge. You just need to complete enough that you get the chapter rewards. Once you do that, you will be rewarded with the Abattoir of Zir glyph known as the Tears of Blood.

In order to start using this, you're going to need to be leveling it up in the Abattoir of Zir. To access this content, you're going to want to come over to Ked Bardu. Ked Bardu is located in the Dry Steppes, and once you get here, you're going to want to come over to the glyph crafting Occultist.

When you come to the Occultist, you're going to look for the Bloodforged Sigils and craft a Tier 1. Now, there are 25 tiers of the Abattoir of Zir, each one increasing in difficulty and the amount of Sigil Powder that is required to craft it. You're going to earn them when you complete a Tier 1. You unlock the ability to do a Tier 2 and so on and so forth.

And if you're looking for Sigil Powder, you get it by breaking down sigils. So, if you have a sigil from a nightmare 100 dungeon or a nightmare 20 dungeon, anytime that you break them down, you'll earn yourself sigil powder.

If you successfully complete Abattoir of Zir, you will earn Sigil Powder. So, as long as you're not failing these, you can keep running them. But once you start failing, you can run out of Sigil Powder.

Tips & Tricks - Some Basics

The next thing to note before you jump into your first Abattoir Of Zir is your defenses.

Now, Abattoir of Zir is very different from a nightmare 100 dungeon or nightmare dungeons in general because you only have one life. That means if you die at any point, you're kicked out of the run. If you're playing with teammates or if any of your teammates die at any point, all of you are kicked out of the run. And it costs a ton of Sigil Powder to make another sigil. So, going in prepared is very important.

What do you need to be prepared? The very first thing is your resistances. You're going to want all of your resistances to 70% or as close to 70% as possible.

The next thing that you're going to want to look for is armor. Now, the armor cap of Abattoir of Zir is around 14,000 armor for fighting the hardest enemies. When you're walking into it, you're going to want around 13.3k armor. The reason you're going to want that much armor is because armor affects your physical damage negation, meaning that the more armor that you have, the more damage reduction that you take from enemies. This caps out at 85%, but it changes for the level of enemies.

For example, I have more than enough armor to fight enemies that are my level at 10,000 armor because I'm getting max physical damage negation, which is 85%. However, if I start fighting enemies that are 156 levels or level 156, then I'm going to need more armor because their damage is going to go up as their level is going up.

Also Read: Diablo 4: Best Druid Paragon Board With Tears Of Blood - Abattoir Of Zir Unique Glyph

So, walking into Abattoir of Zir, it’s really important to note that you want really high resistances. You’re shooting for around, I would say, 10,000 base armor. Then, you can use an Aspect of Disobedience to increase your armor even more so that you’re taking the least amount of damage possible via your armor.

If you’re low on your resistances or damage for the Abattoir of Zir, you can come over to the Elixir crafter and craft some Elixir to increase your defenses, increase your resistances, increase your damage.

You can also craft Incenses, which can give you more dodge chance, more thorns, more max life and so on. You can have both a potion and an incense active at the same time to increase your rate of success in Abattoir of Zir.

There are also Helltides every hour, and opening the Helltide chest can give you potions that can increase your armor, for example. This is another thing to stack up on before you go into the Abattoir of Zir.

Abattoir Of Zir Actual Run

Now that we’ve gone over some of the basics, let’s walk through an Abattoir of Zir actual run.

One of the big things that you’re going to notice about Abattoir of Zir is enemies are going to be beefy. In fact, enemies get 20% more HP per level, so their health scales exponentially. The higher you go, the more HP that they get. And if you’re playing with team members, they get even more HP.

You’ll also note that there is a time limit. You have 10 minutes to clear a run, and once you get into the later tiers, that can become a genuine issue. Right now, the big struggle with Abattoir of Zir is having enough survivability so that you don’t die in the run, but also having enough damage that you can complete the run in under 10 minutes. And this is kind of a bit of a struggle.

This struggle becomes a little easier with the new Tears of the Blood glyph. Once you complete a run, you’re going to get experience that you can socket into your Tears of Blood glyph.

Now, for leveling up this glyph, the experience required is massive and only realistically achievable in the Abattoir of Zir. The reason for this is the Tears of Blood glyph goes up to level 200, whereas all other glyphs in the game only go up to level 21. And normal nightmare dungeons just don’t reward enough experience to make meaningful level gains on this glyph.

As of the hotfix that happened on December 8th, they’ve massively buffed the amount of experience that you get from completing Abattoir of Zir runs so that you can actually earn meaningful progression on this thing. Prior to that hotfix, it was basically theoretically impossible to level up this thing to level 200 given the timeframe of the season. So now experience gains are a bit better, but it’s still going to be a lot of grinding to really level this thing up.

In terms of socketing this glyph, it’s really important to socket it in somewhere that’s going to give you more survivability for the Abattoir of Zir and hopefully more damage. There’s a lot of places in a lot of Paragon Boards that you could socket in multiple characters.

For example, the reason I’ve socketed in the Heightened Malice board for the Druid is mainly because it’s going to boost up my damage reduction from poison enemies. Damage reduction is super important in the higher tiers, and it’s also going to give me increased damage to poisoned enemies.

The reason for this is that the Tears of Blood glyph not only gives me the percent increased in damage, but it also gives me a boost to all of my rare nodes that are in radius. Rare nodes are these yellow nodes. And putting it somewhere smart that to give you more survivability is really important.

Once you complete your first two runs of Abattoir of Zir, you’ll have enough experience to level up your Tears of Blood glyph to level 1. Now, socketing this thing can be very important and critical to your success. You’re going to want to socket in it in a glyph socket that has a ton of core stats nearby as well as beneficial rare notes.

The Tears of the Blood glyph is going to give you for every 5 core stats purchased within range. You're going to get 2% increased multiplicative damage and a 50% bonus to all rare nodes within range. Bonus increases by 10% every 10 levels.

That is going to do it for our guide on the Abattoir of Zir. This is hard challenging pinnacle end game content that will push your build to the test. And if you've already gotten a character to max level and done all the content in Diablo 4 and want to try something even harder and push your build to the limit, Abattoir of Zir is the place to do it.

However, this content is brutally crushing. The enemies are incredibly strong and even on the best builds, you will most likely die. So, be careful.

When thinking about each new class in Path of Exile 2, we really try to think about what can make combat feel different from all the others. For the Mercenary, that difference is the crossbow.

A crossbow is fundamentally different from a regular bow because it fires instantly instead of needing to be drawn back. This means that you need immediate feedback. Clicking the fire button should make the character shoot instantly. Just like in a shooter.

As soon as we experienced that, we realised that there are a lot of design lessons to learn from shooters, and so we fully embraced them. No matter what kind of weapon you want to choose, as long as you have enough POE Currency, you don’t have to worry!

Different Features Of Mercenary’s Crossbow

In Path of Exile 2, we have crossbows that look like sniper rifles, shotguns, and assault rifles.

But in order to really get shooter-like gameplay, we wanted to go further. In Path of Exile 2, we now support WASD movement. You can now walk around in any direction, independent of aiming.

In fact, if this is your preferred method of gameplay, you can use it on any class regardless of what weapon type you are using. You can change between Click to Move or WASD at any time.

You can only hold two crossbows at a time, but Path of Exile 2 is all about interesting combinations of abilities. And this is where Ammo skills come in. This is a Burst Shot crossbow and right now, I have Armour Piercing Ammo equipped, which makes it very effective when facing a group of enemies, since it pierces right through them.

But there are other ammos, too. For a bigger single target, it might be a good idea to switch to Incendiary. The more projectiles hit the target, the stronger the ignite, so you will want to get up nice close and personal with this one.

If you have a bunch of targets running at you, you might want to slow them down. In this case, you could switch to Permafrost Burst Shot. Shooting a bunch of smaller enemies at range will chill them, and potentially even freeze them in place.

Also Read: Gameplay & Walkthrough Guide For Druid In Path Of Exile 2

Once you have some frozen enemies, though, you can switch back to Armour Piercing. Shooting a frozen enemy with Armour Piercing Burst Shot will explode the ice, doing a huge amount of damage to all nearby enemies.

Another feature crossbows have is attachments. This is a grenade launcher. When I equip it, it appears on the underside of the crossbow. These attachments are just like skill gems, so you effectively get extra skill slots, and you can augment these with support gems just like regular skills.

These grenades take a while to explode, so it’s a good idea to pair them with some kind of crowd control, like Permafrost Burst Shot. We have other grenades too, though. This attachment is a Flash Grenade. It does barely any damage, but it does do a huge amount of stun. It can be a great opener before you run into combat.

Oil Grenade is another one of the attachments. Firing one of these grenades coats the ground and nearby enemies in oil. Oil slows enemies down, so it’s another useful crowd control mechanic.

Another useful thing oil can do is to be set on fire. Any burning enemy or explosion will ignite the oil, causing extra burning damage. One of the problems with Burst Shot crossbows is that each pellet doesn’t do much damage individually. This means that if enemies have Armour, then it will be very effective preventing that damage.

But thankfully, you can equip an additional crossbow in your second weapon set to deal with the weaknesses of your primary weapon. This is a Rapid Shot crossbow. Rapid Shot is great for closing on enemies because you can shoot while running.

In Path of Exile 2, you now have the ability to use some skills while moving. Being able to create skills like this opens up a lot of new design space and allows you to really increase the pace of combat.

The Armour Piercing version of Rapid Shot slowly erodes a monster’s armour. Once the armour is fully broken, you can easily switch back to Burst shot to deal much more damage.

Being able to run while shooting with Rapid Shot is also great for when you want to perform a fighting retreat.

Using Permafrost ammo with Rapid Shot is also useful if you need to retreat. When you shoot the ground, it creates ice crystals. If you draw monsters back over these crystals, they explode, chilling the monsters. It’s great if you want to set up a safe zone before pulling the next pack.

Slowing enemies down can come in handy if you want to use the Incendiary version of Rapid Shot. Using this skill requires that you charge up a little before it fires, but as it continues to heat up, it will do more and more damage.

It has a really large clip size, so you can just keep firing and firing with it. But the other really useful feature is that when the crossbow is heated up, it adds extra fire damage to any grenade that you launch.

Explosive grenades will work equally as well with Flash or Oil grenades, too. If you use it with Oil grenades, the oil will catch fire immediately.

Another crossbow type that you can find is Power Shot. This one works just like a classic sniper rifle. Use it with Armour Piercing ammo and it will penetrate armour on targets, so it’s a good idea to use when something is really tough.

Now this skill has another interesting interaction with Armour Break. If the enemy has its armour broken then your power shot hits a weak spot and does a huge amount of single target damage, with a bunch of extra stun for good measure.

Now, the Incendiary version of Power Shot is more like a rocket launcher. It does a big explosive blast at a distance.

One of the really useful features of this version is that you can explode any grenades that happen to be on the ground. This combo also works really well with Incendiary Rapid Shot. I’m going to charge up the heat on my crossbow, shoot out a bunch of grenades, and then start the fireworks with a Power Shot.

The Ice version of Power Shot creates frost walls at a distance. This is great for crowd controlling monsters in tight passages. The wall segments have other uses, too. If they get destroyed by monsters, then they will explode doing a small amount of damage.

Do you remember that Burst Shot combo with frozen enemies we did earlier? That works with ice walls, too. Let’s put Burst Shot back on. Now I can fill up this area with ice walls, then shoot them with Armour Piercing Burst Shot for a huge amount of damage.

Conclusion

And that’s the Mercenary. It feels totally different from anything we’ve seen before and shows you the range of what is possible in Path of Exile 2.

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

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

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

Undead Mariner 1

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

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

Deathtouched Catacombs

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

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

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

Undead Mariner 2

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

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

Black Knife Catacombs

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

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

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

Guraanq Questline Check In

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

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

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

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

Undead Mariner 3

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

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

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

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

Gelmir Hero’s Grave

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

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

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

Undead Mariner 4

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

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

Giants’ Mountaintop Catacombs

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

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

Hidden Haligtree Path

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finish Guraanq Questline

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

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

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

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

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