The latest addition to the 4-star lineup in Genshin Impact 4.4 Update, Gaming, has the potential to be a formidable damage dealer, but there are several crucial aspects to understand about him. 

Therefore, in this guide, I will demonstrate his capabilities at C0 and recommend optimal teams, weapons, and artifacts for him. Additionally, I will clarify the disparities between C0 and C6 Gaming and disclose some distinctive details about his character. 

First, let’s examine Gaming’s potential for dealing damage.

I’ve outfitted him with the Mailed Flower claymore, although there are other viable free-to-play options. His artifact set consists of Hunter’s with ATK, Pyro DMG, and Crit Rate as the main stats.

Regarding his talents, all of them are at level 9. Now, let’s begin with his skill: by tapping it, he launches into the air, enabling a special plunge attack that inflicts 16,663 DMG in a small area of effect and generates 2 particles for him. Despite consuming 15% of his HP, his first passive skill replenishes a small amount of HP up to 4 times, sufficiently activating the Hunter’s 4-piece set bonus.

Essentially, to spam the skill, you need to activate his burst, initially dealing 23,530 DMG and restoring 30% HP to him. Subsequently, the adorable Suanni companion appears, and upon collision, the skill’s cooldown resets, allowing for its repeated use. Personally, I managed to execute 6 skill plunges over the 12-second duration of this burst.

In summary, this effectively transforms him into a 4-star Pyro Xiao, enabling the continuous use of his skill. Similar to Xiao, he also adopts a sleek new appearance that somewhat reminds me of the TRON movies.

An important point to highlight: if Gaming’s HP is not above 50% after executing the skill plunge, Suanni will not be resummoned. Nonetheless, despite being able to spam the skill, the generation of additional particles only occurs every other skill usage. Consequently, I typically end up accumulating 6 particles in total, which, honestly, isn’t a substantial amount, especially considering the burst’s cost of 60 energy.

But enough dwelling on those lackluster damage figures. Gaming truly shines when his damage is amplified through Melt or Vaporize reactions. With this Melt setup, he begins to hit significantly harder – reaching a critical hit of 175k from the burst, while several skill plunges deliver almost 150k damage. Even as the buffs start to diminish, he can still unleash potent plunges.

It’s worth noting that Mailed Flower finally activates its passive thanks to Gaming causing a reaction. Otherwise, his skill’s damage is classified as a Plunge Attack, thus not activating the passive during the initial part of the description.

Transitioning to a Vaporize setup, Xianyun, Fischl, and Bennett enables Gaming to land substantial critical hits. Although this team requires more effort to buff him, it’s satisfying to observe that even with a free-to-play claymore and a C0 build, Gaming can deliver significant damage.

You may also observe how he alternates between using skill plunges and regular plunges. This serves as an effective method to consistently deal Vaporize damage without having to wait for Suanni to return. However, this is only achievable with C6 Bennett, so it’s essential to bear this in mind.

In essence, he may initially seem underwhelming by himself, but with the appropriate buffs and teammates, you can achieve remarkable damage output. Additionally, his second passive grants a 20% increase in plunging skill damage. However, if his HP falls below 50%, he only receives a 20% bonus to incoming healing.

Nevertheless, I’ve noticed that he barely replenishes half of his energy after using the burst, even with the particles collected from skill spamming. While Mailed Flower is commendable, with this current setup, he only has 110% Energy Recharge. For the Abyss, I am considering switching to Energy Recharge Sands or an Energy Recharge weapon instead, as he must carry the team, heavily relying on his burst. However, perhaps his teammates can assist with this?

Upon conducting some testing, I've determined that Gaming's optimal team compositions currently revolve around 2 variations – Melt and Vaporize.

Starting with Vaporize teams – Bennett, alongside an Anemo and Hydro unit, serves as the core for Gaming. Additionally, ensuring the presence of a few Favonius weapons in the team is advisable, while Gaming should possess at least 140% Energy Recharge. However, this figure may vary depending on the enemies and the composition of the entire team.

Not surprisingly, my preferred Vaporize team thus far consists of C6 Bennett, Xianyun, and Fischl – this trio effectively empowers any unit, particularly a Claymore wielder, to deliver formidable plunging attacks. While one might assume that Xianyun could be redundant with Gaming, her second passive actually enhances his skill plunge attacks.

As demonstrated earlier, with a C6 Bennett, you can alternate between regular and skill plunges to capitalize on Vaporize reactions. However, it's also effective to solely utilize the skill plunge for Vaporize if you don't have or wish to activate C6 Bennett.

Moving on, there are also Melt compositions. Once again, Bennett's buff plays a crucial role in achieving significant damage, while an Anemo unit and Rosaria assist in triggering Melts for Gaming. I haven't found another Cryo unit proficient enough to apply Cryo quickly off-field, making Rosaria the top choice. Regarding Anemo units, as long as they can initiate Pyro Swirl, they suffice, although Kazuha and Sucrose are preferable due to their ability to group enemies and enhance the reliability of AoE attacks from the skill plunge.

Additionally, it's essential to monitor the enemy's Cryo aura, as there is a slight delay in how quickly Rosaria can apply it. Therefore, commit to the skill plunge animation only when the enemy is affected by Cryo, which may feel somewhat sluggish. However, once you become accustomed to the timing, it's manageable.

Now, let's explore how Gaming's performance improves with constellations.

Starting with C1, it's quite beneficial – upon reuniting with Suanni during his burst, he now restores 15% of his HP, aiding in maintaining critical stacks from the Hunter 4-set bonus, expediting Furina’s Fanfare point generation, and potentially triggering passives like Tidal Shadow if you're using it.

Moving on, C2 proves useful in teams where he receives continuous healing or can self-overheal. For instance, if he benefits from ongoing healing from characters like Xianyun or Kokomi, he gains a 20% ATK buff for 5 seconds.

C3 enhances his skill's plunge damage, providing a notable boost.

However, C4 stands out as the most significant constellation, particularly for addressing his energy issues. It restores 2 energy with each skill plunge attack upon hitting an opponent, despite the 0.2-second cooldown. This can potentially yield 10 to 12 extra energy per sequence, significantly alleviating his energy demands.

C5 amplifies his burst damage, yielding respectable results, although it doesn't match the impact of C3.

Finally, C6 marks his most substantial upgrade, granting his skill's plunge a 20% Critical Rate and 40% Critical Damage boost. Additionally, the skill's plunge attack radius is expanded, facilitating easier multi-enemy hits. Undoubtedly, this constellation offers a significant spike in Gaming's personal damage output, showcasing a stark contrast between C0 and C6.

Regrettably, miHoYo has maintained this approach toward new 4-star characters for quite some time. Considering additional constellations, C4 emerges as a solid stopping point, albeit acquiring it demands considerable Primogems unless luck favors you or you continue pulling for the featured 5-star.

Putting constellation considerations aside, let's proceed to discuss his optimal build.

Let's discuss his weapon choices. Serpent Spine stands out as one of the best options, particularly if refined, while Redhorn serves well as a stat stick. Verdict and Beacon, both excellent 5-star stat sticks, are viable alternatives, but R5 Serpent Spine often proves equally effective. Its damage output shines when Gaming can avoid enemy damage, as his skill's HP drain does not deplete the stacks, allowing him to unleash formidable damage with this claymore. However, given that it's a battle pass weapon, exercise caution before acquiring it solely for Gaming.

Wolf’s Gravestone pairs well with ER Sands, presenting another solid option. For vape teams, Rainslasher excels, thanks to its bonus damage from the passive and substantial Elemental Mastery boost from the substat. However, if you're struggling to keep his burst ready off-cooldown, Favonius Claymore becomes pivotal. Personally, I'll be equipping my C0 Gaming on my main account with this weapon until I acquire top-tier ER Sands or obtain ER substats, as seen with Serpent Spine.

Moreover, numerous F2P options are worth considering. Mailed Flower ranks among the top choices, followed by the Ultimate Overlord claymore, recently obtainable from an event. In the worst-case scenario, crafting Tidal Shadow also proves effective.

Moving on to artifact sets, the Hunter set unequivocally stands out as his best in slot. However, if unavailable, the Vermillion 4-set is a viable alternative, though its ATK buffing may not synergize optimally with Xianyun, as she prioritizes Critical DMG, EM, and Elemental DMG when boosting plunge attacks. Alternatively, the Crimson Witch 4-set can be utilized. Nevertheless, the Hunter 4-set remains the most versatile and optimal artifact loadout.

Finally, regarding stats, the substat priority is evident, with ATK Sands, Pyro Goblet, and Critical Rate or DMG Circlet being primary considerations. If facing challenges with burst readiness, Energy Recharge sands offer a solution. Conversely, swapping ATK sands for Elemental Mastery enhances Melt and Vape damage.

In my assessment, Gaming proves to be an enjoyable unit capable of delivering significant damage, albeit contingent upon robust support from teammates.

Undoubtedly, he assumes the role of primary damage dealer within teams, thus necessitating favorable stats and gear configurations. However, the considerable value unlocked by reaching C6 cannot be overstated. Additionally, C4 partially mitigates his energy concerns, resulting in a substantially different performance compared to C0. Therefore, it's imperative to consider these factors when evaluating other showcases.

In today’s guide, we’ll be focusing on the upcoming Season of Discovery Phase 2 and giving you some Rogue leveling tips. Learn how to prepare for the next phase and stay ahead of the competition with this guide!

We’ll start with profession. Ideally, it would be very convenient if you want to choose Skinning for leveling. It earns you extra WOW Classic SOD Gold and gives you something to do during the downtime before the next mob arrives. You’ll regain some health and energy while making a profit.

Personally, I would give up Skinning at the highest level and pursue Engineering. I have prepared all the materials for a quick upgrade for the second profession. I recommend you not to upgrade immediately after choosing Engineering because it will take some time to master these professions.

If you want to get ahead of other players and level up in a less competitive way, the profession you can take is First Aid. Since we don’t have a cure, First Aid is ideal for a quick cure while on the run. This way, you can maximize the time you spend killing mobs.

Cooking is also a suitable profession, but I would wait until the highest level to upgrade it.

For leveling, there are two viable builds, Combat build and Hemo build. I prefer Combat build because it’s easy to get started. And I prefer faster monster kill times to being a PVP winner.

Honestly, if you level up a little slower, Hemo build will do better. Because you will have more utility to protect yourself in PVP.

Let’s start with Combat Rogue, since that’s how most players will approach it.

First, we need to talk about the current runes, and we’ll start with Shadowstrike. It’s a great rune and one of the best ways to mark creatures in the game. Therefore, you need to get this rune quickly.

When you get Saber Slash, higher-level mobs will have a huge health scaling if you can kill them quickly. So eventually Saber Slash will get better around level 20 once we get Cheap Shot.

I think Saber Slash would be better for the leg slot, but the best is still Between the Eyes. And you have an optional Chest Rune, Blade Dance. I like using Rune of Quick Draw. It has a decent AoE damage output and, despite being slow, is especially useful in PVP.

And Rune of Deadly Brew will eventually give you more raw DPS. You don’t need to worry about that, and your poison will clear some of your back space. So if you don’t have any competing factions when leveling, I would go with Between the Eyes and Saber Slash, and Deadly Brew once you complete the runes.

Let’s review talents. First, you could invest two points in Improved Sinister Strike. You can then also invest two points into Remorseless Attacks for an additional 40% critical chance. Just remember that you need to land a critical hit on the target to trigger this talent.

Since I prefer to focus only on Combat Talent Tree, usually we’ll take Improved Gouge. Since we have Bleed and Deadly Poison, I recommend you only take the 3% extra dodge. This will make you better here and take less damage.

The next talent points will depend on the weapon you use. Besides a lot of swords, there are also some Maces that are easy to get. So you can choose Dual Wield Specialization or choose a specific Weapon Specialization based on your weapon. I would choose Aggression, and finally Weapon Expertise and Adrenaline Rush.

For Hemo builds, Rogue leveling requires more skill. Because you will have Weapon-swap Macro to use Ambush on the dagger and Stealth on the slow main hand weapon.

If you get two good daggers, as well as Mutilate, you can choose Saber Slash or even Mutilate, so you will need less weapon swapping. For the leg slot, Between the Eyes is still your best rune. For the chest, I would actually choose Quick Draw over Deadly Brew.

The talents here are all optional. You can choose any talent you like, but I recommend you choose some utility talents at the beginning so that your Stealth will be better.

When choosing a weapon, you’ll usually choose a slower weapon. This is because your skills, like Backstab, Sinister Strike, Saber Slash, Mutilate and more, all deal damage based on weapon damage, and your weapon damage is obtained by multiplying your DPS by your attack speed.

So more DPS on a weapon does not mean more weapon damage, which is the most important stat in these types. A good main hand dagger will have an attack speed of 1.8 and a good non main hand dagger will have an attack speed of 2.6.

When it comes to dealing with elites, there are going to be some problems if you can’t deal with them face to face. If Elite is dealing with too much damage, you can swap your runes for Just a Flesh Wound and Blade Dance.

All you have to do is kite the elite. You’ll reengage as it slows and bleeds, then your stun cools down and your energy regenerates. You will slowly eliminate dangerous monsters.

But if you plan to level mainly through dungeons, then I recommend you to use Backstab build. Because the normal build dies too quickly here, and you can’t increase the damage with Saber Slash and Poisons. If you want to focus on dungeon farming while leveling. I recommend balancing these abilities.

If I have good gear, I rarely use Slice and Dice because I usually kill the monster in three Sinister Strikes. But if my gear is a little low or the mob’s health is too high, I will definitely use my Slice and Dice at the beginning. It all depends on the mobs and how fast I kill them.

Overall, Melee Haste will significantly increase your damage whenever the fight lasts longer than a few seconds.

Another tip is that if you’re fighting mobs in Stealth and don’t use Shadowstrike, always use Pickpocketing. You’ll get some extra coins and an Iron Lockbox. These Lockboxes are cool because they contain the potions and powders required for Blind and Vanish, and disappear at level 26.

In the end, your rotation should look like this. The first step is to approach the mob. Step two, distract it if necessary. Make sure you are at 100 energy and have your dagger equipped, then approach the next tick. The third step is to pickpocket the poor NPC. You can use your Sinister Strikes to deal a little extra damage, and the monster will die at any time.

Leveling with Druid has never been better. In Diablo 4 Season 3, we managed to combine poison with lightning to create one of the best hybrid builds that lets you level with ease. This build has insane AOE damage, raining lightning from the sky continuously, all the while spreading poison, which infects the entire screen.

Unlike other early-level Druid builds, this one has absolutely no issue with Spirit, as we have 2 skills that instantly give us large chunks of spirit, again and again. There are absolutely no items or RNG aspects that are required for the build. Everything is obtained from the Codex or very early in the seasonal quest line.

If you have zero or low amounts of spirit, the first 2 skills you want to use are Blood Howl and Trample. Blood Howl provides you with 20% Health instantly, and then, thanks to Innate Blood Howl, you also gain a chunk of spirit. Trample is a great movement tool and good for burst damage, but thanks to Savage Trample, it now also provides a large amount of spirit on the cast.

The first attack you want to use in a pack of enemies is Rabies, which spreads poisoning damage to them. This season, we also have the Virulent Aspect, which is unlocked from the very first chapter of the season and will cause your Rabies cooldown to significantly lessen, which means you can use Rabies more often, and that is absolutely huge for that damage boost.

With Envenom, you’ll deal much larger crits against enemies that are poisoned, and thanks to Neurotoxin, any poisoned enemies are slow, which is important because Nature’s Reach, another passive, causes you to deal double the damage bonus against slowed enemies.

Poison Creeper is another ability you want to pop early on, as it immobilizes enemies, meaning Nature’s Reach is active, and thanks to Brutal Poison Creeper, your Critical Strike Chance goes up by a whopping 20%. Now, you can use your Lightning Storm ability, which can cause massive crits.

With the combination of abilities and passive stacking, clearing out large enemy packs will be a breeze. Thanks to Enhanced Blood Howl, once you start killing enormous packs of enemies, Blood Howl’s cooldown will be significantly reduced, and then you should use Blood Howl to constantly get your spirit and health back whenever it’s off cooldown.

If Trample and Blood Howl are on cooldown and you need Spirit, then we can use our Wind Shear basic attack, which is the best basic attack for Druid because it causes enemies to become vulnerable and increases your movement speed, which makes Druid much more efficient at speed leveling.

To summarize, use your spirit generators, then pop Rabies and Poison Creeper whenever off cooldown, then spam Lightning Storm. Then, pop your spirit generators again whenever they’re off cooldown. And if they’re on cooldown, you need to chuck in a few Wind Shears for that spirit.

The same rotation applies to bosses. This build may not have the best single-target boss damage, but because of the constant healing, you’re not going to struggle at all. It’ll just take slightly longer than some of the other classes out there.

So, let’s go over the skill tree in more detail. The priority when you’re leveling is to unlock a new skill on the toolbar rather than upgrading an already existing ability, and some of the earlier passive packs we actually get later on as we’re leveling. So, put one point into Wind Shear, which is our main spirit generator, and then one point into Enhanced Wind Shear and Fierce Wind Shear.

1 point into Lightning Storm, 1 point into Enhanced Lightning Storm, and then 1 point into Primal Lightning Storm, so we can immobilize enemies and take advantage of the several damage boosts. This build provides. You’ll want to max out Lightning Storm to 5 out of 5 ranks pretty quickly, as it’s your main DPS option. Along with unlocking new skills, side by side, unlock Blood Howl, along with Enhanced and Innate Blood Howl as soon as possible, so you can get healing and spirit more efficiently.

Then go for Poison Creeper, alongside Enhanced and Brutal Poison Creeper. Once Lightning Storm is 5 out of 5, put 1 point into Rabies, then go and put 1 point into Trample, which will help with mobility and burst damage. 1 point into Enhanced Trample and Savage Trample so you can then have another ability which generates spirits.

Then go back and get Enhanced and Natural Rabies, which will make the skill much more efficient. Eventually, you’ll want to get Rabies to 5 out of 5. Now, the rest of the skill tree focuses on passives. Put 1 point into Neurotoxin, so you can put 3 points into Envenom, 3 points into Nature’s Reach for more damage against crowd-controlled enemies, 3 points into Defiance for more damage against elites, 3 points into Circle of Life for constant healing whenever you cast Lightning Storm or Wind Shear.

Thanks to Circle of Life, whenever we cast Lightning Storm, we gain back even more healing. So just combined with Blood Howl, you’ll never need to pop a potion. All this healing is great because it means we can use our key passive, Ursine Strength, and deal 25% increased damage whenever we have more than 80% Health, which seems to be nearly all the time, thanks to the constant healing.

Put 3 points into Natural Disaster, one point into Heart of the Wild, so you can put 3 points into Wild Impulses, and 3 points into Abundance. 3 points into Predatory Instinct for more Critical Strike chance, and finally, 1 point into Elemental Exposure and 1 point into Charged Atmosphere, so you can put 3 points into Electric Shock, which can further increase damage against immobilized enemies.

Let’s go over the aspects I recommend while leveling. Every single aspect comes from the codex or seasonal quest line early on, so you aren’t at the mercy of RNG. For offensive aspects, Edgemaster's Aspect is good at increasing damage based on how much spirit you have when you cast Lightning Storm. Aspect of Inner Calm boosts damage for each second you standstill, which is because you’re channeling Lightning Storm and getting constant healing, is very much possible.

Shepherd’s Aspect increases your damage by 6% for each companion. Poison Creeper is a companion, so that does count for that little boost. Nighthowler's Aspect boosts Critical Strike chance whenever you use Blood Howl. For Utility or resource aspects, the Virulent Aspect, as I mentioned before, is very good as it reduces Rabies cooldown as it spreads.

And then, Aspect of the Umbal is another one I’d recommend to maybe put on one of your rings, as it will boost spirit generation quite a bit, as we constantly slow or immobilize enemies with this build, which all counts as crowd control. There are no defensive aspects that are a requirement, but Aspect of Disobedience to boost armor and Aspect of Might for easy damage reduction are beneficial aspects. But trust me, you won’t need these because of the constant healing the build provides.

There’s not much to say for gear. You’re going to be constantly out leveling gear, so keep on replacing it. This especially applies to your weapon, which you want the highest GPS weapon for.

If you’re playing on the seasonal realm, you’ll have the Seneshcal Construct. There are obviously some very strong legendary and unique stones, but these are dropped much later on in the game, so you won’t encounter a lot of them early on while leveling.

Early on, for leveling, I found the Utility Aspects more useful. Reconstruct helps even more with healing and survivability, while Protect gives you a barrier on top to help with survivability. If you don’t have these, then an attacking skill with Poison support can help to poison more enemies and apply slow to them through Neurotoxin. You’ll deal more damage efficiently. Support boosts Critical Strike Chance even more, and Slowing support adds even more slow to the mix.

If you do have Arcing support alongside an attack, you can use Resource support. You can gain back massive amounts of spirit. Unfortunately, I don’t have this combo unlocked, but if you do, by chance, get these stones, do use them, as that will help your spirit generation a lot. Have a play around with the combinations. There are some useful ones, but don’t get caught up too much on this while leveling. Most of the power from this comes from the endgame.

So there you have it, my Poison Lightning Hybrid build for Level 1 to 50. It’s faster, stronger, and just better than all previous Druid leveling builds, and you’ll be level 50 in no time.

In this guide, I wanted to give you a list of Alchemy consumables I think will have some worth in WoW Classic Season of Discovery Phase 2. These are all items I think will be in high demand after Phase 2 release, as these are pretty much just the next set of consumables likely used for the raid and other content within the game.

These are unobtainable as of now. However, the recipes that aren’t trainer-bound are already up in the auction house, so you can stay ahead by buying them now.

Starting us off is the Elixir of Agility. This is the upgrade from our current agility Elixir, and it’s bound to be used heavily by all melee classes. You’ll acquire the recipe for this craft simply through your Alchemy trainer.

It becomes available at rank 185, about halfway to the next phase’s max profession rank of 225. You’ll need Stranglekelp and Goldthorn to craft this item. You can farm Stranglekelp very easily if you’re a Tauren and get the herbs. You can also farm Goldthorn as of right now.

Our next item is the Elixir of Greater Defense. This defensive Elixir is widely used by both PvP and PvE players, so this item is guaranteed to have high value, just like the Elixir of Defense does now. The recipe is acquired naturally by leveling your Alchemy. It becomes available at rank 195. For this craft, you need Icethorn and Goldthorn, items you can start stockpiling right away.

Next, we have Elixir of Fortitude. This item is arguably one of the more controversial items on this list, as there are other Elixirs more likely to be used. Not as much as the other items on the list, but it’ll almost certainly have some value like the others.

This is just obtained from your Alchemy trainer. You can start crafting this as early as rank 175. You will need the same materials as the Elixir of Greater Defense, which is Icethorn and Goldthorn.

Up next is an item I think will arguably have the highest sell rate out of any item on this list, and that is the Greater Mana Potion. The lesser variant, the one used in Phase 1, sells out simply because Mana is always in high demand for casters and healers. So it makes sense that the upgrade of that item will have high value and demand.

You’ll get this recipe from your trainer. You will need an Alchemy rank of 225 to craft this. However, that should be pretty easily attainable if you gather the materials now in your free time. You’ll need Goldthorn and currently ungatherable Khadgar's Whiskers. There are some on the auction house, but grinding it yourself when Phase 2 hits shouldn’t be too difficult.

Our next item is a bit different, as it’s a potion. Lesser Stone Shield Potion is a solid unused armor potion. It’s bound to be used by tanks and PvP players in Phase 2. You can acquire the recipe for this item through a quest in the Badlands. It’s a pretty easy quest, so you shouldn’t have to worry. You will need an Alchemy rank of 215 to craft this, and it’s pretty expensive to make as it needs both Goldthorn and Mithril Ore.

Continuing on, we have Mighty Troll’s Blood Potion. The current variant of this item is still selling decently fast and for a decent price on the auction house, so this is bound to be a worthwhile farm. The recipe for this item is a rare world drop.

However, it is currently available at the auction house, but at a hefty price on my server. It’s going for a little over 15 SOD Gold, so I think it’s better to wait until Phase 2 to acquire this recipe, as it will plummet in value within just a few days. You need a rank of 180 in order to craft this item, and you’ll need Life Fruit and Bruiseweed, both of which are easily farmable now in Phase 1.

Up next is an item that is almost guaranteed to have value next phase, and that is Nature Protection Potion. The raid of the next phase is Naxxramas, and with the theme of the instance, there is guaranteed to be a lightning damage, and Nature Protection Potion negates that, just like Shadow Protection Potion does for Twilight Lord Kelris in BFD. This recipe is sold by Aventur in Torris, Feralas and Stranglethorn Vale.

However, it is also available on the auction house for a reasonable price, currently at around 90 silver. For this craft, you’ll need an Alchemy rank of 190 and Stranglekelp and Liferooth, both of which are easily farmed in Phase 1.

Now, this is the second controversial item on this list, as I’m not sure how valuable it truly will be, but I’m sure it’ll see some use, and that is Oil of Immolation. This item is just AOE in a bottle, so I’m almost certain it will see some value in the new raid and even, for instance, farming. This recipe is taught by your Alchemy trainer. You’ll need a rank of 205 to craft this, as well as Goldthorn and Firebloom, which are currently unobtainable.

Now, I decided to include one last bonus item, which will 100% have some value, but I’m unsure precisely how high of a value that is: Frost Oil. This item is used for quests, so I’m sure speed levelers will want to grab this quickly on a trip to the auction house, so when they stumble upon this quest in the Badlands, they’ll have it ready to hand in.

You can get this recipe from an Alchemy vendor named Bro'kin, and he’s located in a dangerous area in the Arathi Highlands. However, this recipe is also on the auction house, going for about 30 silver on my server. For this item, you need a rank of 200 Alchemy, Khadgar's Whiskers, and Wintersbite, which is currently unobtainable since you need 195 Herbalism to gather the nodes.

I hope you all enjoyed this list of ultimate consumables. I’m sure we’ll see some value in the next phase. You can start grinding a lot of these materials right now in Phase 1.

There are many different things we can prepare for Season of Discovery Phase 2, for example, a full Quest Log, materials, and so on. 

Today, I've put together a guide with many different things you can farm that will begin a quest. This allows you to get even more experience so you can also get ahead of the competition and reach level 40 even quicker.

When you slay the final boss in the dungeon Wailing Caverns, located in Barrens, you can also loot the Glowing Shard. This can be looted by both factions. 

At the Phase 2 launch day, you then want to head to Ratchet and begin the quest. Next, you need to speak to the Goblin located close to the Flight Master and ask for more information about the Glowing Shard. After that, you will have to head back to Wailing Caverns.

On top of the dungeon, there will be a small building. In here, you will find a Tauren. Both factions can speak to the Tauren. When you hand in the quest, you will also get a follow-up that will either tell you to head to the Nexus as an Alliance player or Thunder Bluff as an Horde player. 

You should also head to Ashenvale and do the world PVP event. When you kill the different guards, you can also obtain the Warsong Outrider Mark, an item that will also begin a quest. This quest item you hand in at Ashenvale, and it will reward you with experience and also an item that will increase your damage and healing by 5% for 2 hours. This is pretty nice when you're also going to level up to 40.

When you slay the final encounter in BFD, you also have a chance to obtain this item. It begins a quest and will most likely not reward you with any experience. However, you will get a world buff that will last for 2 hours. So having this item in your inventory allows you to go to the Nexus or Thunder Bluff. Activate the item, and get a new world buff. But remember, you can only do it once, but it will provide a buff to anyone in those main cities.

In the southern part of Stranglethorn Vale, there are 3 pirate ships. On these ships, you can obtain a Cortello's Riddle, an item that begins a quest at level 35. But you can obtain this item no matter what level you are. 

You can solo this if you play a class with a pet; else, it's way more efficient to find someone else and do it together. Then, one player could, for example, be standing on top of objects and prevent the monsters from hitting them. At the same time, you can then loot the riddle.

The reason why you want to focus on doing this is that it starts a big quest chain that will reward a lot of experience. At the end, you can also get yourself a 14-slot bag.

Another way to loot the riddle is simply to use defensive cooldowns. As a Rogue, I, for example, use Evasion. As a paladin, you could use a Bubble. Meanwhile, the other player in your party is going to loot the riddle.

Next, I'll show you Alliance and Horde-specific quests you can also prepare. 

As an Alliance, you should head into Deadmines and slay the final boss. Here you can obtain a letter (called "An Unsent Letter") that will begin a quest. You hand in this quest in Stormwind City. There's also going to be a follow-up for the dungeon stargates.

In the southern part of Darkshore, there’s an area where you can loot a book (Book: The Powers Below). The drop chance is awful, and I would highly recommend you to do this with someone else. It took me more than 50 kills to obtain this. The good thing, however, is that it’s shared. So if it drops for someone in your party, then all of you will be able to loot it. Even though you loot this in Darkshore, then you hand it in in Ironforge. So the next time you go to Ironforge, you just hand it in.

An Old History Book is an item you can obtain from pretty much every single creature in Duskwood. It’s a low drop chance, but still something you should be farming and prioritize getting now.

As a Horde, you should head to Thousand Needles and look for the messenger. You will be able to obtain the Assassination Note that you also hand in in the very same zone.

It seems like Horde players have way more quests that can prepare like this, at least higher-level quests compared to the Alliance. An example could be in Ashenvale, where you accept The Ashenvale Hunt and complete this instantly. This allows you to pick up 3 items that begin the quest. One of these where you need to slay a bear. If you find it difficult to find the specific target, then you type “/tar” and the name of this NPC to make it even easier.

Then you could also add a mark to the target so you can see it even though it’s behind an object. Some of them can be a bit difficult to solo, so I would highly recommend you to form a party and look for other people who are also doing this quest. This is mainly because the final target you will also have to slay is level 31. 

These quests are so important to do also because all three you hand in at the exact same location. So you’re going to end up with a lot of additional experience. Then you could find more experience in dungeons or maybe even do yet another thing. 

This is to head to Desolace and kill these higher-level creatures. They’re going to be above level 30, so you should definitely form a party. It’s a low drop chance, but you can get this item that begins a quest, and it requires you to be level 25.

Chevreuse is the newest 4-Star Pyro Polearm user in Genshin Impact 4.3. Here we will discuss the 6 best team compositions for Chevreuse. Let’s start with what is probably her most popular team.

Raiden Shogun recently returned, so it makes sense that people would try them together. Chevreuse will act as a replacement for Viridescent Venerer by reducing the opponent’s Pyro and Electro Resistance. She will also use her passive attack to add damage to the team. Her healing also makes the team more comfortable.

I recommend going for Chevreuse to deal damage, because even at C0 she actually does a lot of damage in small bursts. I find this to be more beneficial to the team than the extra attack gained by building up her full health.

I gave her Staff of Homa. But if you don’t have it in your Genshin Impact Account, you can give her any item with critical hit or attack power. You can also craft a Rightful Reward in Fontaine for more healing or a Favonius Lance for energy.

For her Artifacts, I recommend the 2 piece set. Such as Crimson Witch and Golden Troupe, for damage or life and healing combinations to enhance her healing effects.

Kujou Sara is also on the banner, so you can use her instead of Xiangling to form a Raiden Hypercarry Team. But I don’t have Sara’s C6, so I’m not showing the team here. If you have her C6, I think this will be one of the strongest Raiden Hypercarry Teams in the game.

Yoimiya also has banners. Let’s take a look at Yoimiya team. Beidou’s Electric Shield will provide Yoimiya with some immunity to full attacks and add an extra layer of survivability on top of Chevreuse’s healing.

Since we do not have a complete therapist, these two will be combined to form a composite therapist. Beidou’s damage and Fischl’s C6 are both triggered by normal attacks, so this is a team with a lot of synergy.

Since both Fischl and Yoimiya are single target, Beidou also gives us some AOE coverage. So, you can replace her with Bennett. But I feel like it would make the team more versatile and I’d rather use Beidou since she’s one of my favorite characters in the game.

I think Chevreuse brings more to this team than Kazuha’s buff and damage. And once you get her constellations, things only get better.

The next team is similar to the first, but without Bennett, Chevreuse is the only healer. Without Bennett’s attack buff, everyone on the team will deal less damage, but Fischl makes up for this by providing an additional source of damage. You can also use Yae Miko if you prefer.

Since we don’t have Bennett, you’ll probably be fighting for particles for Xiangling even with Raiden. So don’t be afraid to let one of them catch Favonius Lance.

The team may be a bit soft, but some Constellations from Chevreuse help that. If you’re good at dodging, she’ll be fine at C0.

One thing I love about Chevreuse is that, aside from her impressive performance in C0, most of the characters she works with are older characters that we have a lot of constellations with. It’s refreshing to see this instead of a character like Faruzan who wants a C6 newer unit.

Even though I said the first team is my favorite on the roster, this Razor team could challenge my favorite Chevreuse team.

Razor was my first DPS for a few days until I got Diluc, then Childe, whose design I always liked with a ghost wolf. I stopped using him because others felt more powerful. Then I didn’t use him again until Dendro was released.

Chevreuse gives us another way to use him. I think Razor’s Dendro team is better and still fun to use. Chevreuse has great synergy with this group.

Razor is going to play a lot of minutes, so you need someone like Chevreuse who only plays a lot of minutes. Since she deals damage in a small area and then her abilities are on cooldown for a while, she’s perfect for this.

It’s also worth noting that with C6 Bennett converting Razor’s Normal to Pyro, Chevreuse will allow him to deal more damage in both elements. It might even be worth trying a Pyro Goblet on him. If you have a good 4-Piece Lavawalker, this will also allow him to do a lot of damage here.

Another character who didn’t get much play was Yanfei. I’m glad to have a support that allows us to have another team that can use her.

There are a lot of nice Hydro characters here to pair with Yanfei. While this isn’t the strongest team, it clears everything in the game. However, you may still have difficulties with Spiral Abyss Floor 12.

It also has decent survivability. Yanfei gives himself a shield, then Chevreuse heals. Like the second team, it doesn’t serve as a dedicated defensive unit, but the defensive potential of a team made up of a few characters that themselves offer a bit of survivability.

This means you can have damage dealers and buffers on your team. Hopefully, Clorinde or Arlecchino can do that, but do a little more damage than Yanfei.

To be honest, this last team isn’t the best on the roster, but for those eager to play Cyno more, this is a way to bench Cyno.

Remember, he’s better with Dendro, and Raiden will be better with this team as well.

For a C0 score, I would give Chevreuse a 6.5. Her score may be higher, but her team will ultimately be deficient because of the two elements she handles.

Pyro only has one off-field damage dealer, which is actually quite good. And on-field DPS might be energy-hungry like Yanfei, weak like Yoimiya, and perform better in Mono Pyro Team like Klee.

Teams often end up with just Chevreuse, Xiangling, Bennett and Electro DPS on the field, with Raiden being the best choice. You could trade Bennett’s comfort level for Electros off-court role, but you’d lose a lot of the offense he brings to the team.

Once you get some Chevreuse Constellations, she gets better and her team becomes more interesting. These are the 6 teams that I think are the best for Chevreuse in Genshin Impact 4.3. What do you think of this roster? If you are interested, give it a try!

As of 2024, there are over 750 cars in Forza Horizon 5. But you may be wondering which ones are most important to own. So, I’ve put together this guide of the 10 Cars You Must Own in Forza Horizon 5! Let’s get into it!

We kick things off with the Ferrari 488 Pista.

This mid-engine RWD supercar is perfect for cruising. The balance is spot on, and there’s so much fun to be had with this thing, by throwing it into a corner, and power sliding out.

It’s an experience everyone needs to try, so it is therefore essential to have one in your garage.

In the number 9 spot, we have the Lotus Elise Series I Sport 190, specifically with an A-Class Road Racing handling build.

Because of A-Class Road Racing, while it may not be the best car overall, in fact far from it. At the tight twisty tracks, it’s one of, if not the best. Because it’s so light, and incredibly nimble with the short wheelbase. So, you can chuck it round the corners like no other decent A-Class car.

But more importantly, and the very reason it’s in this guide, is the fact that it’s so fun to drive. Being able to throw it into corners, and still get round, without heading straight into the shadow realm, is a truly satisfying feeling. And this is easily my personal favourite car to use for Online Racing.

In the number 8 spot, we have the Hoonigan Hoonicorn.

First things first, we need to pay out respects to the legend who made this car famous, Ken Block, who tragically passed away exactly a year ago.

The Hoonicorn was easily the most iconic car from his incredible career, and in Forza Horizon 5, it’s an absolute weapon to drive. As a Drift car, it’s obviously brilliant as that’s what it was made for.

For banking massive skill chains, it’s one of the best cars, as the multiplyer goes upto X8. And then, just as a car to Hoon around in, it’s a lot of fun.

Whichever of the two variations of the Hoonicorn you own, it doesn’t really matter, because both are identical. The main thing is you experience the madness of it.

Moving onto the number 7 spot, we have the BMW Isetta.

This thing is in this guide for one reason and one reason only. It’s the best car for Drifting. The angles it can hold through corners are quite honestly ridiculous, and perhaps a bit unrealistic.

But, it’s important to own one of these, so that you can tear up any Drift Zone with ease.

Moving onto the number 6 spot, it’s the Lamborghini Diablo GTR.

As a car for S2-Class Road Racing, if you toss on a power build, at the right tracks, it’s a very strong car. And in certain tracks, it’s the best. But that’s not why it’s in this guide. The reason why it’s in this guide is because it’s the best car for Drag Racing in the game.

I know a lot of you probably don’t care too much about Drag Racing, but even so, it’s still worth owning this car. Because owning a car with such superior acceleration will always come in handy for various Danger Signs, Speed Traps, and other activities.

At the number 5 spot, we have the Brabham BT62.

In the highly competitive realms of S2-Class Road Racing, where the best car swings from track to track, if you want the best chance of winning the Championships, you’re going to want to use the Brabham, because it’s the best all-round.

Its clear strength comes at the tracks without too many long straights, as its grip through corners is unmatched, and it feels like driving on rails.

While it’s straight line speed leaves it a bit to be desired, and you will suffer on the tracks full of long straights, it’s at least a very easy car to drive, so you should still be able to bring it home in a decent position.

While being very good for S2-Class Road Racing, it’s a joy to drive, and lots of fun to use.

Next, we have the International Scout 800A filling in the number 4 spot.

This thing is basically the king of any kind of off-road racing in A-Class or lower. Its strengths and weaknesses change from class to class.

But generally speaking, it’s just really good all-round. Particularly in B-Class, it’s just an absolute meta car, and a force to be reckoned with.

Coming in at number 3, we have the Hennessey Venom F5.

Along with the Koenigsegg Jesko, it’s very neck and neck, as to which is the fastest car in FH5. I think it’s just about the Koenigsegg, but it’s very close.

The reason I’ve put the Venom F5 in this guide instead of the Jesko, is because the Venom F5 gets upto speed quicker. So, it’s more useful than the Jesko for all the speed traps, and danger signs, where having a car with immense straight line speed comes in handy.

If you already have the Koenigsegg Jesko, you probably don’t need to own the Hennessey Venom F5. But it’s still very important to have one or the other, because there’s always times when you need to deploy speed in excess of 300mph, and the Hennessey Venom F5 is certainly the best car for that.

For the penultimate car in this guide, we have the Rimac Concept Two.

Now, you’re probably expecting it to be somewhat related to Drag Racing, as that’s what this thing is famous for. But you’d be completely wrong. Because with an Off-road tune, it’s a meta car for Off-road Speed Traps, Speed Zones, Danger Signs, and Trailblazers. It can even do alright at the Off-road Drift Zones.

So, for most PR Stunts off the asphalt roads, this will be the best car. If you’re wondering about the Rimac Nevera, that’s not quite as good, because it weighs a bit more than the Concept Two.

Finally, for the most important car to own, it’s the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento Forza Edition.

The grip, speed, acceleration, and everything about this thing is unreal. It’s comfortably the king of X-Class. And it makes such light work of speed zones, because it can carry so much speed through the corners.

Even on a lot of the Off-road Speed Zones, if you toss on an Off-road tune, it’s very decent. Driving this thing is an incredible experience, as you turn and it just grips.

And that’s all 10 of the Cars You Must Own. If you’re guilty of not owning any of these, be sure to sort it out right away.

I will guide you through a fun build for the Occultist featuring a new Transfigured spell - the new Cold Snap of Power in Path of Exile 3.23. It is seemingly the ideal spell, with very high base damage and effectiveness of the added damage, a 10% base Critical Strike Chance, and very fast cast speed. The only downside here is that it has a cooldown, which you can bypass by sacrificing power charges.

The Cold Snap itself can generate power charges on critical strikes, and if you pair this spell with the Power Charge on Critical Support at max quality, you will have over 100% chance to gain power charges when you hit with Critical Strike. With such a high base crit chance, it is trivial to reach the cap.

The Occultist is the best ascendancy for this skill. It grants you a lot of cold damage, access to additional curse, and boosts your damage and area of effect for each power charge you have. However, if you rely on energy charges to scale up your damage, spending energy charges to avoid cooldowns can be very contradictory.

The Cold Snap of Power removes the damage over time portion of the original spell but has much better hit damage. You will be easily able to Freeze or heavily Chill all enemies in the game. You will get insane damage bonuses for every additional power charge you obtain. The build is moderately tanky due to high evasion, immunity to Elemental Ailments, and a high amount of maximum life sourced from the Utula's Hunger. You can use Enfeeble as your third curse, heavily reducing the damage of affected enemies. The clear speed is great. Your cold snap can cover a wide area, shattering all enemies caught by it. The single-target damage is very good and scales with your investments very well.

You will need the fundamental unique items to start playing with this build. Rare items with basic defenses will be sufficient at first but should be upgraded as soon as your POE Currency allows.

Interacting with your charges demands unique items. The Utula's Hunger armor grants a lot of maximum life and significantly reduces the price of all other items since you don’t need maximum life. modifiers on them.

The unique Jewels are very powerful, even in the most basic version. Void Battery grants additional power charge, cast speed, Critical Strike Chance, and a lot of spell damage. You should use 2 of them. You might be tempted to use the Malachai's Loop shield for even more power charges, but it makes spending them very difficult.

The Badge of the Brotherhood is another important element of every power charge stacker. It raises your frenzy charge limit to be equal to power charges, which in this build means 36% more damage and cast speed. It also lowers the cooldown of your Frostblink.

To take full advantage of the maximum power charge, you can use Ralakesh’s Impatience Boots. These boots make it easier to gain Frenzy and Endurance charges, which are usually hard to generate. Charges must be generated in order to spend them.

Militant Faith converts nearby Keystone into Inner Conviction Keystone, which grants you more damage per power charge but disables generating frenzy charges, which you bypass with your boots. Ideally, it should give you useful bonuses for each devotion but doesn’t convert any of the picked up notables. Atula’s Hunger grants tons of Maximum life and lowers the burden on your other items. It should be corrupted for plus 2 levels for AOE gems and linked to tainted fusings. Doing so will make coloring with tainted chromatics much easier, as those ignore the attribute requirements of items.

Watcher's Eye is a very useful jewel for this build. You can use it to obtain Spell suppression, Life Leech, redirect a portion of physical damage to be taken as Elemental, or simply boost your damage with Hatred or Zealotry. The Heatshiver helmet can be corrupted to give additional power charge. It would grant you tons of damage, but you would need to get plenty of mana reservation efficiency on your Jewels or readjust your aura setup. It also doesn’t provide an energy shield, which would make sustaining casting harder.

On your rare items, you will need Spell suppression, Resistances, and Attributes to improve the damage. You should look for cast speed and Critical Strike multiplier. It is important to have a corrupted implicit on any of your Jewels that grant 2% reservation efficiency, so your Leech won’t stop once you fill 50% maximum life with Petrified Blood. You can get a lot of mana reservation efficiency, with Essence and Eldritch implicit. It should also provide Attributes or Resistance.

You can opt for an additional power charge, but you would probably need to readjust your auras, as it is hard to have both modifiers at once. At first, you can use a regular rare armor with bonuses to maximum life, spell suppression, energy shield, resistances, and Aura effect. When doing so, though, you will also need maximum life modifiers on all other rare items. It is easier to assemble, but you will miss roughly 1,000 maximum life and 2 bonus gem levels for your major spell.

Here, you should focus on defensive bonuses such as Resistance, Spell suppression, or Attributes. Although there is some damage to consider, the primary significance lies in the Eldritch implicits that apply Unnerve and Exposure on enemies. Energy shield recharge rate can significantly improve your sustain.

Your belt is another defensive item. Look for resistance and strength. You can craft a modifier that grants energy shield regeneration while a rare enemy is nearby to improve your sustain. You should use the Stygian Vice for the additional Abyss Jewel socket. Abyss Jewel is the best target to obtain the corrupted implicit that grants reservation efficiency. In addition to that, it should offer maximum life, Resistances, Attributes, and, if preferred, cast speed and Critical Strike multiplier. Jewels do not count as equipped items.

On your rare rings, you should get a lot of Resistances and Attributes to improve your damage. You should look for cast speed and crit multiplier. Make sure you can sustain the improved cast speed. Crafting mana cost reduction will also help in that regard. Make sure to concentrate on maximum life, missing resistances, and Critical Strike multiplier. It can also provide a bit of mana reservation efficiency, which will be essential if you want to use a helmet with an additional power charge.

Thanks to Cluster Jewel, you can get the Doryani's Lesson notable, which grants your life Leech. Pair it with 2 other useful modifiers depending on your budget. The Cold to the Core notable is effective in this build because you require numerous attributes for your gems. Taste of Hate is a great defensive flask that grants a decent amount of protection against physical and cold damage. Make sure to not include it when you balance your resistance, as the uptime on this flask is not perfect.

For your remaining flasks, I recommend using Quartz Flask with mana cost of skills reduction, Jade Flask with an evasion rating bonus, Quicksilver Flask with cast speed bonus, and a Life Flask with bleeding.

Cold Snap of Power deals with high cold damage in the area. Cooldowns can be avoided by consuming power charges. It has the highest Critical Strike chance in the game and has a 30% chance to generate a power charge if you critically hit an enemy. You can use the Spell Cascade Support for better area coverage and potential overlaps if you aim correctly, but it is harder to land 3 hits than it used to be before the change.You can instead use the Bonechill Support to increase the damage of the single hit, making it easier to Freeze.

Grace grants a lot of Evasion rating and helps you improve it further. It also has very potent available modifiers on the Watcher's Eye Jewel. Purity of Elements grants immunity to all Elemental ailments and provides plenty of Elemental resistances, which saves you a lot of trouble gearing up.

If you have enough resistance, you can swap it to Zealotry Aura. Petrified Blood delays the damage from incoming hits, making them easier to manage. It makes your Leech more effective and enables the Pain Attunement Keystone for 30% more damage. Vitality grants life regeneration and allows you to gain Life Leech via Watcher’s Jewel. To decrease your mana reserve, you can keep it low. You should link your main auras with the Enlightened support to reduce their mana reservation.

You will also need a bit of reservation efficiency in your gear. The Herald of Ice inflicts cold damage on your spells and detonates it around foes that have been crushed. You could replace it with Arctic Armor to gain physical damage reduction while casting. The Arrogance causes linked auras to reserve life instead of mana. If you get at least 1% Global reservation efficiency, your Leech won’t stop upon filling the Petrified Blood limit. Zealotry improves your spell damage and critical strike chance. You can also use the Hatred Aura instead.

The major difference comes from the relevant modifiers on the Watcher’s Eye. The Divine Blessing changes your permanent Aura into a temporary buff that doesn’t reserve any mana but requires an upfront mana cost, which you can pay using the Energy Shield thanks to the Eldritch Battery Keystone.

Frostbite is your primary curse that lowers the cold resistance and makes your freeze last longer on the affected enemies. Enfeeble lowers the damage and accuracy of your enemies. You can also use Temporal Chains to slow them down and further improve the duration of your freeze. Elemental Weakness lowers all Elemental resistance of your foes. You can use the third curse thanks to the Whispers of Doom notable.

Arcanist Brand is a brand skill that can attach to an enemy and cast all linked spells in rapid succession. Thanks to this skill, you will apply all 3 curses with one button. To apply your curses, you can also use the new Bane of Condemnation, which has a higher cast speed but significantly lower area of effect.

The regular Bane is not a good choice, as it lowers the effectiveness of your curses. Frostblink is a very good movement skill for this build. It deals enough damage to kill weak enemies, and the cooldown is heavily reduced by your amulet. If you find yourself out of charges very often, you should consider using any skill with a fast hit rate. You might need this setup against bosses if your Critical Strike Chance is still low or if enemies can steal your power charges. It shouldn’t be necessary during regular gameplay. Steelskin creates a protective barrier that absorbs incoming damage and stops bleeding effects.

You should kill all Bandits in Act 2 to be rewarded with 2 additional passive tree points by Eramir. For your major Pantheon power, you should pick the Soul of Arakaali, as it helps you with mitigating damage over time effects, which are the major weakness of Petrified Blood builds. As the minor Pantheon power, we recommend using the Soul of Shakari. It further reduces the damage you take from Poisons and Chaos Damage.

You will need a very high Critical Strike Chance to reliably generate power charges, so you should use any other cold spell to level up. You can start scaling crit early, but the best choice would be any cold damage over time spell, for example, the regular Cold Snap. It doesn’t require crit and scales very well with just cold spell passives.

During the campaign on the passive tree, you will pick up 2 additional maximum power charges. The third one should be allocated by the anointment on your amulet. This build utilizes 3 very powerful Keystones:

In Path of Exile: Affliction, as you venture through Viridian Wildwood, you can find a new Unique Shield: Flawed Refuge.

This new item seems to be overlooked by many. This guide aims to break down the usefulness of this new unique item versus existing mechanics to mitigate the impact of upcoming penetrating hits.

So let’s see what this new Unique Shield does: it adds Armor and Evasion. This is a very poor base type, so it doesn’t have much effect even after increasing it. And there are a lot of extra attack block opportunities here too.

Then we have two big modifiers on this shield. You take 100% elemental damage from hits that block and 40% elemental damage from hits that take physical damage. Both statistics immediately exist in the game in other forms.

What we have access to in the game is dedicated to transferring physical damage to another damage type, such as Lightning Coil, which is very popular now. It converts 50% of physical damage taken on hit as lightning damage.

But this modifier on this Flawed Refuge Shield is to transfer 40% of all elemental damage you take into physical damage, with Fire, Cold, Lightning damage coming from hits.

So the reason there isn’t a lot of discussion about this shield is mainly because it’s quite niche meta. The focus now is on shifting as much physical damage as possible into other damage types so you can mitigate the damage through resistance. But that doesn’t mean there’s no use for Flawed Refuge.

So let’s first look at a basic example of Flawed Refuge.

Let’s say a character has 75% elemental resistance and 20,000 points of armor. It takes 3,000 lightning damage without a shield, which is mitigated by 75% resistance.

However, when equipped with a shield, it will take 750 lightning damage, 40% of which is treated as physical damage. Therefore, 1,800 points of damage are considered lightning damage and 1,200 points of damage are considered physical damage.

It can mitigate lightning damage by reducing resistance to 450, and armor can mitigate physical damage. In this case, it reduced physical damage by 77%, bringing it down to 276 for a total of 726 damage taken.

So you can see that the damage taken is very similar in both calculations, but in this case, Flawed Refuge setting is slightly more effective at mitigating the damage taken.

How about more damage? Let’s say the character takes 10,000 lightning damage. Without a shield, lightning damage is mitigated purely by 75% resistance.

Taking 2,500 points of spiritual damage when equipped with a shield, 6,000 of which are treated as lightning. Resisted by 75% of resistance, bringing it down to 1,500 damage. The remaining 4,000 points of damage are treated as physical damage.

In this case, armor provides much less relief. Because it does more damage, the armor reduces physical damage by 50%, bringing this down to 2,000 for a total of 3,500 damage taken.

You can see that due to the nature of the armor application, Flawed Refuge setup is much weaker when taking larger hits.

There is one very important thing to note here, however, and that is the type of damage taken after the mitigation occurred in the second example. The unshielded setup takes 2,500 lightning damage, while Flawed Refuge setup ends up taking 1,500 lightning damage and 2,000 physical damage. This is important for damage type properties.

Let’s talk about Non-Damaging Ailments first. These Ailments are based on damage taken from specific elements.

The severity of Non-Damaging Ailments is measured based on the amount of damage taken relative to Ailment Threshold of a specific type.

So if we take the previous example. Assuming 10,000 points of lightning damage are a critical hit, this means it has the inherent property of causing shock.

In this example, Flawed Refuge setting reduced lightning damage by 40% compared to the normal setting after mitigation. Although it takes overall more damage, the portion of damage taken as physical damage does not cause shock by default. As such, Flawed Refuge setups may suffer from weaker shocks, so this isn’t limited to Non-Damaging Ailments either.

So now let’s talk about Elemental Penetration. I believe this will be the main use case parameter for this shield damage type, another property related to that specific damage type.

Let’s look at another example. A character with 80% elemental resistance and 25,000 armor with 3 Endurance Charges. The character takes about 13,000 points of cold damage and has 25% Cold Penetration without a shield, with damage mitigated purely by resistance. In this case, penetration provided 55% relief.

A character equipped with a shield takes 5,850 points of cold damage. 7,800 points of damage are treated as cold damage, which is mitigated by resistance reduced to 3,510. Then the remaining 40% is considered physical damage. Combined, this will provide a 61% physical damage reduction, bringing this down to 2,028 for a total of 5,538 damage.

Flawed Refuge setting in this example does less damage. Because it avoids Cold Penetration which takes 40% damage. And it’s also worth noting here that characters may also take weaker cold damage due to taking much less cold damage.

Note that Overwhelm has a damage type attribute related to physical damage, allowing damage to bypass a specified amount of physical damage reduction.

For example, in Expedition, you can explode a wreckage, causing all monsters to overwhelm 100% physical damage reduction. But if you’re using this shield normally, you probably don’t want to do that.

Next, let’s talk about some synergies you can take advantage of with a Flawed Refuge.

Starting with the most obvious one, that’s Divine Flesh. You can get this Keystone from Glorious Vanity Timeless Jewel, and it causes 50% of all elemental damage to be treated as chaos damage.

When used with Flawed Refuge, a total of 90% of elemental hit damage will be diverted to other damage types. This combination of mechanisms is therefore powerful in mitigating the effects of elemental penetration.

Keep in mind that you still need to limit elemental resistances, as 50% of elemental damage will still be calculated as normal over time.

If you have enough POE Currency budget, you can also add Doppelganger Guise to this synergy to make it even more powerful. This is a unique Body Armor dropped from Uber Maven. This reduces physical and chaos damage by 40%, and combines perfectly with Divine Flesh and Flawed Refuge.

In this case, no matter what type of original damage you took, just using modifiers will mitigate most of the damage.

Then there’s Fourth Vow, another unique Body Armour. It applies full armor calculations to chaos damage taken on hit and when combined with Divine Flesh. This one is powerful at negating the effects of large amounts of elemental damage.

However, when combined with Flawed Refuge, it creates an interesting setup. You’ll be motivated to stack a lot of armor to mitigate all incoming damage types from hits.

Remember that armor is applied to each damage type individually, which is why split damage types are very effective for the application of armor to mitigate damage.

As such, Flawed Refuge has some synergy with Juggernaut’s Unbreakable Notable and its natural ability to mitigate physical damage through armor stacking and Endurance Charge generation.

In this case, Juggernaut will transfer a portion of elemental damage into physical damage. This will allow him to provide more mitigating late resistance against the resulting smaller hits.

Damaging Ailments work differently than Non-Damaging Ailments. Damaging Ailments are Poison, Bleed and Ignite, whose application is based on the damage of the original attack rather than the damage taken.

Therefore, transferring damage to another type has no effect on whether the hit causes Damaging Ailment or the severity of Damaging Ailment caused.

For example, there’s a chance that Ignite’s fire damage hits will still deal Ignite based on the full fire damage of the hit, even if you have Flawed Refuge equipped.

Meanwhile, this also means that the transferred physical damage you take using Flawed Refuge will never cause Poison or Bleed to you by default, even though you also have a chance to suffer from these diseases due to vulnerability and so on.

Finally, let’s talk briefly about this modifier on the shield: You take 100% elemental damage from blocked hits. Be very careful here as these modifiers will stack and end up making you take more damage than your initial attack.

For example, if you use this shield for Glancing Blows, which causes you to take 65% of the damage from blocked hits, you’ll end up taking 165% of the elemental damage from blocked hits. That’s 65% more damage than if you didn’t block it here, so be aware of that.

That’s it for this guide. I hope you all enjoyed Affliction League and I’ll see you in the next one.

I will explore the inner workings of Frostblink of Wintry Blast CoC Occultist build, which is my favorite of many new emerging cold CoC builds in Path of Exile 3.23. It offers superb mobility, as it teleports the character just like the regular Frostblink does. However, due to the lack of cooldown, you can hook it up to a well-established Cast on Critical Strike and Cyclone gem combo.

The additional upside of this alternate Frostblink is more damage per chill effect on the enemy, which should be capped at 30%. The chill is removed on hit with this spell, so to apply it once again, you will use the basic Frostblink, as it is one of the very few instant cold spells that will not disrupt the channeling.

The greatest benefit of using a mobility spell is the main damage source, as Bronze body armor, with its unmatched local increases to gem level for ascendency, we’ve selected occultist due to the obvious synergy with cold damage and critical strikes from forbidden power stacking maximum power charges normally yields tons of crit chance.

However, in this situation, it also provides a larger area of effect and area damage. The unique items that have to be used are also heavily tied to charges of all kinds, especially Ralakesh's Impatience boots, which treat you as if you’re fully charged. You’re dealing damage with your Frostblink cast on Cyclone that has 100% Critical Strike Chance with a high crit multiplier. You will benefit from Inner Conviction and Pain Attunement. Void Beacon and Frigid Wake are excellent additions.

Enemies will take magnified cold damage. The build has a high spell suppression chance, spell block chance, Elemental damage recoup, and a sizable hybrid life pool. It cannot withstand big physical damage hits unless you’re willing to tweak the build to make it tankier at the cost of damage. Clear speed resembles that of a Flicker Strike, but you can also use a regular Frostblink to close the gaps. It’s really fast. Single-target damage is also more than enough, tens of millions of DPS.

The build uses many cheap Uniques with rares to cap resistances. You will harness the power of charges with Ralakesh's Impatience, Willclash, Malachai’s Loop, and Graven's Secret. With this combination, the character is treated as though it had all its basic charges.

You will also benefit from the absorption charges, which result in a lot of life, life recoup, and spell block chance. Other unique POE Items to implement are Badge of the Brotherhood amulet and Bronze live body armor for more damage. Willclash is an enormous bonus to spell block chance. When combined with other items, characters are treated as if they had all 10 or more power charges, and they do not lose these charges when blocking.

The damage and defense stats are also generous. Malachai’s Loop increases spell damage and grants 2 extra maximum power charges. The extra 5 levels to the Frostblink spell socketed in Bronze live will result in much more damage. Corrupt it for an extra 2 gem levels AOE gems if you can afford it, double corrupted if you like to gamble.

It could potentially increase the level of Frostblink by up to 8. Ralakesh's Impatience boots cause you to be treated as on maximum power, frenzy, and endurance charges. Conjuring these in any other way would be too inefficient and difficult. You can still benefit from Inner Conviction Keystone or absorption charges. The build is not very tanky, so using the Graven's Secret belt is quite a good idea. It grants you an extra maximum power charge and tons of life recoup from the elemental damage you take.

Use Badge of the Brotherhood to benefit from an additional 7 or more frenzy charges. These make you deal more damage and increase the cooldown recovery rate for Frostblink.

You may struggle with capping your Elemental resistances if you put Polaric Devastation on, but if that’s not an issue, consider it for extra damage, crit chance, and to cover enemies in Frost. They will take increased cold damage, and their crit chance gets reduced by 50%. A good Precursor's Emblem with +1 to max power charges is immensely powerful in this build.

Keystone of inner faith is available in the Dominus variant of Militant Faith and deals with more damage per power charge. The devotion mod shall increase your damage, grant you some Elemental resistances, Mana regeneration, or reduce the Mana cost of your skills. Shaper of Storms, Shaper of Winter, Mastermind of Discord, and Heart of Destruction are suitable keystones if you need more damage.

Shaper of Winter is particularly good to upgrade your chill and freeze for improved durability. Look for Bastion of Elements or Nine Lives, Elemental Penetration, and extra Critical Strike chance can be found as Hatred or Zealotry mods on a Watcher’s Eye. Grace offers more evasion and blind on hit. The abundance of unique items leaves you with very few rare items that will be mainly used to fix the missing resistances and attributes.

You can craft the prefix to never miss with Cyclone on your weapon. Reduce the mana cost of skills and gain Spell Suppression, Chaos Resistance, and Blocking. You need some sort of melee weapon to use with Cyclone. We recommend a claw with its instant life and mana on hit, but most weapons will do.

Craft a prefix to make your hits unavoidable and seek modifiers for Critical Strike chance and global crit multiplier with spell damage. Acquire some maximum life, resistances, and spell suppression on the gloves. Other mods are of lesser importance.

Cold Exposure and Unnerve can be gained as eldritch implicit modifiers. Rare rings are where the bulk of your resistances and attributes reside. For prefixes, get maximum life and reduce the Mana cost of your skills. You’ll probably still need a bit more resistances and attributes, so try to gain them on your rare Jewels.

If that’s already covered, go for suitable Critical Strike modifiers. You can use 1 or 2 of the cold themed Large Cluster Jewels. To proliferate freeze, you need to look for Elemental resistances, Elemental damage, cold penetration, and Blast Freeze. Medium Cluster Jewel here you may find additional Critical Strike Chance with crit damage or AOE for better clear speed. We recommend one vast power for around 30% increased area of effect.

Bottled Faith increases your Critical Strike Chance and damage as long as its consecrated ground affects you and your foes. Your block chance is high but not capped. Use room’s concoction flask for more spell and attack block chance. For magic flasks, you can pick up diamond, quartz, jade, and life flasks. Their suffixes shall increase your crit chance, evasion rating, and reduce the mana cost of skills. Life flask shall stop bleeding.

Frostblink of Wintry Blast is more suited for a trigger build, as it has no cooldown but cast time instead. Although it cannot be chilled, it deals more damage to chilled enemies and removes the chilling effect at the same time. Cyclone is used to trigger Frostblink. You can easily move and attack at a high rate. Link these 2 with cast on Critical Strike, Empower, Inspiration, and Power Charge on Critical Support gems.

A regular Frostblink is the mobility spell, which is also used to chill and freeze. Link it with Bonechill and Unbound Ailments for a more powerful chill effect, which translates into more damage. Zealotry guarantees you to have more spell damage and more Critical Strike Chance. Hits against tough enemies will create consecrated ground.

Use Grace for more evasion, which is excellent with Ghost Dance. You can swap it for determination if you prefer to take less physical damage from hits. Instead, Hatred simply grants more cold damage. If you feel like your damage is enough, use Tempest Shield or Arctic AR armor instead of it, maybe even both if you can fit them in. Link 3 skills with Enlightened to reserve less mana.

Numerous incoming hit damage is taken as dot instead of petrified blood on. It can provide you with a high life regeneration. Affects the bottom half of your life pool. Link it with Arrogance and Enlightened support gems to be just below half of your life pool permanently.

You will take less physical and Elemental damage by Immortal Call in a few moments. Frost Shield drains your energy shield to form a protective stationary sphere inside of which you take less damage and have an increased Critical Strike chance. Link both with cast when damage is taken to save your character from dangerous situations.

Enemy marked with Assassin’s Mark takes increased damage from critical strikes and is more likely to be hit with such strikes. Link it with Mark on Hit to apply it automatically against rare enemies. Activate VRF for a brief but potent bonus to your spell damage. Use Shield Charge to move around faster if there are no enemies nearby. Frostbite lowers cold resistance.

Manually kill all the bandits. It’s probably the best option. Alternatively, help Alira. This would get you extra Elemental resistances, Global Critical Strike multiplier, and 5 mana a second. It is a good option for starters.

For a major god, pick Arakaali. We don’t expect to cap chaos resistance anyway, and too much damage over time may be dangerous. As we went heavily into hit damage mitigation with block chance, petrified blood, and recoup. Minor God is less important. Abberath seems like the best pick. It reduces ignite duration for you.

The passive skill tree follows the outermost ring on the top. It’s the most efficient way to allocate all the maximum power charges and grab 2 large jewel sockets for cluster Jewels. The rest of the points are spent on maximum life, Critical Strike nodes, cold damage, reservation efficiency, and spell suppression.

For keystones, get Pain Attunement, Ghost Dance, and something to turn into Inner Conviction. Allocate 50 extra life and 15% increased life if there are no life mods on your body armor.

As life masteries, reservation efficiency as a mastery life reservation efficiency is reservation mastery crit multiplier against unique enemies and extra gem level to Critical Strike gems. As critical masteries, increased damage per charge as charge mastery, and maybe lucky spell suppression if you have any points left and low suppression chance.

This guide is about the new Righteous Fire skill for a Hierophant in Path of Exile 3.23. The build uses Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion skill, in contrast to regular RF, not only sources its damage from maximum mana instead of maximum Life but is also affected by all modifiers to spell damage, including increased spell damage from the Indigon helmet. It’s one of the most potent sources of damage that’s rarely explored in dot builds, as the dot damage doesn’t scale with it unless it’s specifically stated.

To get more damage from Indigon, get a lot of maximum unreserved mana and then spend it very quickly with Arcane Cloak to recover all this mana back. Use Armageddon Brand of Volatility with Brand Mastery that recovers 10% of your maximum mana after the brand expires, which happens after merely one activation. When mapping, there's no need to do it since you'll also gain mana on killing with Thrill Killer and/or Mind Drinker.

Hierophant is the ascendancy that specializes in mana, with passives such as Divine Guidance and Sanctuary of Thought. These nodes grant mana damage, reservation efficiency, area of effect, and energy shield, which the build heavily relies on. The damage is sourced entirely from the Indigon. It has a damage cap that you’re able to reach with enough mana, which is sourced from items and passives.

The fire damage over time can be improved with burning damage or dot multiplier modifiers on a weapon. It’s a durable build with over 10k energy shield, a lot of evasion, and reduced Elemental damage taken. It has a low block chance and almost no armor, but the high ES pool combined with Arcane Cloak guard spell will protect you from getting killed in one hit.

Clear speed is great and restricted only by your movement speed. To reach meaningful single-target damage, you will need to spend some POE Currency. The price is high, as expected from an intelligent stacking build, but it can be assembled on a moderate budget.

The build requires a lot of unique POE Items. Your focus is on mana and intelligence. Intelligence grants mana and energy shield, making it important with Shaper’s Touch gloves. It grants Evasion. mana will affect your damage with the Indigon helmet. Transfiguration of Mind adds AOE due to the Sanctuary of Thought. Strength grants mana and energy shield. Indigon increases energy shield and your spell damage alongside mana spent recently, which is the main reason to stack mana and use Arcane Cloak.

All spell damage modifiers affect the damage over time of Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion. You can’t reserve mana, but you can reserve life, and the Prism Guardian Shield is the most efficient way to do so. Socket your most expensive and important auras here. The Ivory Tower protects you from chaos damage and grants tons of energy shield regeneration, intelligence, and mana.

There is no replacement for this armor. Legacy of Fury boots will significantly improve your damage with powerful Scorch and Explosions on killing. If you can't find any resistances, mana, or intelligence, consider replacing them with rare boots. Use Shaper’s Touch gloves to gain tons of mana with energy shield from strength and evasion from intelligence. Cyclopean Coil is a reasonably priced belt with a lot of maximum mana, attributes, and freeze immunity. Use it before you’re able to afford a better one.

Astramentis is the amulet with a lot of attributes that we recommend using in this build. Eyes of the Greatwolf with suitable rolls will undoubtedly be very expensive. You’re looking for increased intelligence, strength, or all attributes with life regeneration, global defenses, fire damage, or maximum mana. Put Shavronn's Revelation on your right finger to gain tons of maximum mana and energy shield regeneration. Since you don't regenerate mana, the downside won't be a problem. Socket Healthy Mind Jewel near Cruel Preparation to gain much more mana, intelligence, and mana on Split Personality.

A rare amulet can be an excellent option. Look for maximum mana, attributes, and resistances. The best ones will have a synthesized implicit or shaper suffix for increased attributes. On a ring, you shall get the usual mana and attributes, especially intelligence. You will probably need some dexterity too for the Grace skill gem. You can obtain mana, energy shield, attributes, chaos resistance, and Elemental spell damage from Jewels. Use large cluster Jewels to create a suitable environment for 2 of your Split Personality jewels. There are quite a few notables to look for. Most importantly, Scintillating Idea from a lightning cluster Jewel for a 20% increased maximum mana.

Mana and intelligence from Clarity are the best modifier to get on a Watcher’s Eye. Another great one is the Malevolence dot multiplier. Excellent additions may manifest as Clarity, Discipline, Grace, and even Purity of Fire. It may be hard to cap your resistances after you put most of your resources into intelligence, strength, and mana. It can be done with Ruby, Topaz, and Sapphire flasks if you’ve opted for the Traitor Keystone. While searching for burning damage modifiers on your items is an option, prioritize mana and intelligence instead.

Life regeneration will affect your ES with Zealot's Oath and is very important. You need a weapon with a lot of maximum mana and various types of fire damage over time modifiers, attributes, and dot multipliers are too very valuable. We can craft some of these modifiers. Look for boots that offer attributes like movement speed, mana, and resistances. For Eldritch mods, seek life regeneration per endurance charge and maximum fire resistance. On a belt, you can increase your attributes via Hunter or Elder suffix. Try to get some intelligence from the crafting bench. energy shield, maximum mana, and resistances are good too.

Ivory Tower protects you from chaos damage until you have no mana. Use Coruscating Elixir flask to shift incoming chaos damage to affect energy shield if your mana has been depleted and to take less fire damage. You may also use a regular Ruby flask if your chaos resistance is high and you don’t run out of mana. For other flasks, get a Topaz flask with bleed immunity and a Sapphire flask with increased movement speed if you’re using the Trader Keystone for permanent flasks. These are your 3 flasks. If not, you should also get a Forbidding mana flask with a crafted mod for life regeneration during flask effect and a Quicksilver flask with increased movement speed.

Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion deals damage based on your maximum mana to your character and enemies around you in the form of fire damage over time. Link it with Burning Damage, Swift Affliction, Controlled Destruction, Elemental Focus, and Arcane Surge support gems.

It’s important to use some kind of channeling skill with Armageddon Brand of Volatility. Scorching Ray is the top choice because of its powerful fire exposure. Armageddon Brand of Volatility is supposed to recover 10% of your maximum mana when it expires, which it does after activating once. Allocate the specific Brand Mastery to achieve it. It’s a substantial source of mana recovery during boss fights. Link these 2 with Cast While Channeling and Infused Channeling support gems.

The following 3 auras shall be socketed in the Prism Guardian Shield:

Malevolence makes you deal more damage over time and increases your skill effect duration if you have no mana reserved. Eternal Blessing support allows you to have one permanently blessed aura of charge with an increased aura effect. Link Malevolence to it. Clarity does nothing with Shavronn's Revelation, but it unlocks some of the best mods on a Watcher’s Eye. If you don’t have it, use Vitality instead or alongside it if you have enough life. Link it with Arrogant support.

Your entire mana pool has to remain unreserved. Activate Arcane Cloak to spend 64% of your current mana and gain up to 2,000% increased spell damage from Indigon. Spending a minimum of 16,000 mana in just 4 seconds is necessary to reach this aspirational cap, but it's not practical to attempt with any other skill. Link it with Less Duration and Swift Affliction to use it again sooner. Flame Dash's ability is the curse that lowers the fire resistance of your enemies. If you don’t want to cast it, get a slightly worse Elemental Weakness on hit as a corrupted glove implicit, as we did. You can link your curse gem to Hextouch support to proliferate the Hex.

Shield Charge is simply used to travel faster. Spending mana within Sigil of Power enhances its strength, leading to reduced damage from enemies.

Kill all the bandits in Act 2. You will need the two extra passive skill points the most. For a major God, we recommend the Soul of Arakaali to take less damage over time and less chaos damage over time after an upgrade, which is good if your chaos resistance is not yet capped. The selection of minor Gods offers a variety of bonuses. We recommend something to take less physical damage or less damage over time against the type of damage you struggle with the most. We have picked Shakari for better protection against poison.

The passive skill tree resembles an S shape to squeeze out more mana and intelligence from forbidden jewels. So if you don’t have them, opt for a more optimized shape. Aim mostly for maximum mana, some energy shield, and intelligence. Fire damage and damage over time are less important. Eternal Youth will be transformed into the Traitor Keystone. Allocate also Zealot Oath, Iron Will, Pain Attunement, and a single brand cluster. Get passive energy shield regeneration and shift the stun threshold to ES. Two energy shield masteries lessen damage taken. As for mana recovery after using Guard skill, as mana Mastery, increased attributes as attribute Mastery, and mana recovery when brand expires as Brand Mastery.

In this guide, we will deep dive into WoW Dragonflight Season 3 crafted gear.

Crafted gear is still a force to be reckoned with in Season 3, despite a slight nerf. The max item level caps at 486, just 3 levels shy of the highest Myth gear.

But don’t let that deter you. It’s still a solid choice. For Stardust, no RNG headaches here, as crafting gear allows you to target specific slots and items, offering a strategic advantage to your gearing journey. So, you can plan ahead and farm the Reagents needed.

Speaking of Reagents, let’s take them one by one and go over the changes this season brought.

Each crafted gear piece requires an Enchanted Crest crafted by Enchanters through the work order system. Or if your main character has enchanting, you’re in luck. It can save you some WoW Dragonflight Gold there.

Enchanted Crest Recipes are found in the Emerald Dream from outdoor activities like rares, treasures, and the Superbloom Event. The drop chance is quite high as well.

Same as last season, we have 3 Enchanted Crests:

The Whelpling crest is utilized for lower-level blue gear, providing an item level of up to 447. Although this is fairly low considering it can drop from outdoor activities as well, it can prove very useful for solo players. On the flip side, the Wyrm and Aspect crests are reserved for epic-quality gear. This is the most powerful gear you can craft, but you also need another Reagent for that.

In WoW Dragonflight 10.2, all crests go directly into the currency tab rather than your bags. Due to this change, an item had to be implemented to convert the crest into a Reagent, allowing for easy transfer to the crafters. This is done by the Nascent Wyrm’s Dreaming Crest, and there are 3 kinds of them: one for each type of crest. All can be purchased from the enchanting vendors throughout the Dragonflight zones.

For example, to craft the highest crest, you need to purchase the Nascent Aspect’s Dreaming Crest by handing in 60 normal Aspect’s Dreaming Crests. To put things in perspective, gathering this amount is equivalent to completing 5 level-16 keys in time or taking down around 6 Mythic bosses. It does take some effort and time, but the high item level makes it worthwhile.

Additionally, you can obtain a free Enchanted Wyrm’s Dreaming Crest through specific milestones. One is rewarded for defeating Fyrakk as part of the main campaign, including all the difficulties. While the other is granted upon reaching Renown 20 with Dream Wardens.

So far, we have covered the enchanted crests. Now, the second reagent that you have to provide for high items is the Spark of Dreams.

This item is basically replacing the old sparks that we had in Season 1 and 2. You can create it by combining 2 Splintered Sparks of Dreams and 250 Flightstones.

There are 2 known ways to earn a half spark. The first way is by completing the “A Worthy Ally” weekly quest offered by the Renown keeper. It requires farming 1,500 reputation with Dream Wardens. The second way is by completing any of these 2 quests offered by Malicia for PVP players. You can find her in the Valdrakken’s PVP Hub.

As you may anticipate, you can generate a spark weekly by receiving one half spark per week. However, there is a unique opportunity to earn an extra spark through the one-time quest “Dreams Unified” offered by Lady Moonberry. Upon completion, you’ll have 2 sparks. But keep in mind, this occurs just once per character.

If you join in later in the patch, you do not need to fret. There’s a catch-up mechanism in place. Splintered Spark of Dreams can be obtained from raids, dungeons, PVP, and weekly activities until you reach the current spark count.

Since we pretty much cover all the universal Reagents across crafted pieces, let’s see how it works in practice.

Firstly, you need to reach out to an enchanter, open a work order for your chosen Enchanted Crest, and find a crafter for your desired gear piece. Consider the cost, quality, and Reagents needed. Many people in trade chat or your guild can help, so don’t be shy.

Besides the spark and the crest, the other Reagents vary depending on the item, and it’s not necessary to provide them yourself. The crafter can also contribute, but take that into consideration for the payment.

The quality of the Reagents is also very important, as it can help to make it faster. The ingredients can be gathered throughout farming, or you can purchase them directly from the Auction House.

So, the consistent Reagents are the Spark and the Enchanted Crest, and these will determine the final item level. If you provide only the spark, then it will be between 450 to 463, depending on its overall quality. However, it’s best to save your spark and enhance the piece further by cooperating crests. The Wyrm crest elevates it from 463 to 476, while the Aspect crest achieves levels from 473 to 486, making it very powerful.

Crafting weapons requires 2 sparks instead of 1, translating to approximately a month’s effort. Hence, it’s crucial to be strategic about the items you choose to craft, considering the sparks don’t come in as quickly.

Aside from that, crests also have a weekly cap of 90 per week, which, of course, increases every week. A good approach is to take notes from the best-in-slot gear guide for your class and spec.

Don’t forget that you can also add Draconic Missive of the Fire Flash for your preferred stuns and Embellishments for some extra Flare, providing fun effects on the piece.

Some items come with building Embellishments, such as the Elemental Lariat, and are so totally worth a look.

All in all, Embellishments give a powerful touch to the gear, and you should always utilize them, but you cannot equip more than two at a time.

Also, keep in mind that if you’ve got any crafted gear from Season 1 or 2 lying around, you can give it a refresh by adding the new Reagents.

Plus, it might even save you a bit of gold, especially if you reach out to the PvP same crafter. That’s all good and well for the PvE players. Now, let’s go over to the PvP side.

Honor and Conquest vendors offer items that let you convert professionally crafted gear into PvP gear. You can find them both in the Valdrakken’s PVP Hub. There are 3 (Greater Verdant) Crests of Honor, which will increase specific slot item levels to 476 PvP item level.

They are sold by Seltherex and they cost different amounts of Honor, depending on the slot you want to use them for. Honor is obtained from doing all types of PvP activities, ranked or unranked.

For the advanced players, there are 3 (Lesser Verdant) Trophies of Conquest, which will increase the gear’s level to 489. These are sold by Calderax and they cost different amounts of Conquest again, depending on the slot item.

Conquest is only earned from rated PvP activities and it has a weekly cap. Season 3 started with a 1,350 limit and it keeps increasing by 550 every week.

Don’t forget that the PvP item level is only enabled during Arenas and Battleground matches. In the Outdoor World, then it’s the actual item level on the piece that counts.