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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.
Hello fellow adventurers! Today, we’ll be taking a thorough analysis into Gnomeregan lore, history, mysteries, unanswered questions, and how they’ll finally be resolved in Season of Discovery.
As we approach February 8 launch, it’s crucial to understand the background, not just for curiosity’s sake but for strategy. After all, knowledge is power in WOW Classic.
Therefore, in this first part, I will discuss the controversial legend surrounding Gnomeregan.
The story of Gnomeregan is one of innovation, tragedy and unsolved mysteries. We need to explore the key events that shaped this iconic place.
It all started in the mountains, where Dwarves and Gnomes lived together in Dun Morogh. They were both smart and resourceful. Thus, after Dwarves and Gnomes worked together to create a magnificent city called Gnomeregan, the two races quickly developed a friendship.
It’s a fantastic and very tech-focused city, so for a while, everything was fine. Gnomes invented amazing machines and gadgets that more than made up for their small stature.
A high Council of Gnomes led them, eventually electing Mekkatorque as their leader. Also in this Council of Gnomes is Sicco Thermaplugg, one of the most genius Gnome inventors and the most ambitious of all Gnomes. He dreams of one day expanding Gnomeregan further into the lands of Dwarf.
Regardless, Gnomes lived here for many years until a Dwarven Expedition entered Azeroth.
After easily slaughtering Dwarven Expedition, all Troggs were awakened from their slumber, and Troggs tracked Dwarves back to Ironforge. Thus began a long and terrible war between Troggs and Gnomes. Their city is under siege. Troggs are slowly advancing, and Gnomes are desperate.
But Troggs are mainly at the bottom, which seems to be a blessing. So all they need is to move all Gnomes to the upper levels, and then Gnomes can release all the toxic radiation from the machines in the city to the lower levels. This will kill Troggs instantly. After the cleanup, Gnomes could move back, but that was how Gnomes’ downfall began.
In fact, Troggs didn’t die when the radiation was released into the ground floor. They just get stronger. Meanwhile, a filtering system that was supposed to keep the upper Gnomes safe failed completely. A shocking 80% of the entire Gnome population either died or became irradiated Evil Gnomes.
At this point, the irradiated Gnomes and Troggs have completely disappeared, with their new leader, Thermaplugg.
But Thermaplugg has also been affected by the radiation, and is more crazy and ambitious than ever. Meanwhile, their city was completely destroyed, and the remaining healthy Gnomes had to flee to Ironforge, where they remain to this day.
Despite its rich history, Gnomeregan leaves many unanswered questions: why has it not been reclaimed, and what secrets does it hold? Let’s delve deeper into these mysteries.
The first question is why the city had not been recaptured during the initial attack.
At the time, the rest of Azeroth was busy dealing with Scourge, fighting Lich King, and messing with Defile mechanics. But after Third War, powerful forces combined with the remaining Gnome population could easily reclaim the city. In fact, the only attempts to retake the city occurred far away from Little Fanfare.
Another question surrounding Gnomeregan is why Troggs attacked in the first place.
The common answer is that factories are really noisy and Troggs is attracted to the noise. Although Troggs are barbaric in nature, they are also known for hoarding Titan Artifacts.
What do you think it is about Gnomeregan that is so attractive to Troggs that it warrants a multi-year siege? This is the beauty of Season of Discovery. Because we finally have a chance to get answers to these unanswered questions in Phase 2, we no longer have to think about how to change the story and what new chapters might be added.
We’ll hear back by February 8th. Because we knew we’d be revisiting Gnomeregan with a raid group and facing a new, more challenging Thermaplugg.
If we can defeat Thermaplugg once and for all, this could be the beginning of urban reclamation.
We expect Phase 2 will feature new quest chains with raid rewards. These quest chains may open up new lore and insights.
One possibility is to create a new staging center near Gnomeregan, which has vendors and NPCs and is the perfect place to organize attacks on new raids.
There is another key legend. We found that there is also a lot of speculation about Shadowy Figure helping you get epic craft in Phase 1. Many speculate that this is Xal’atath.
If that’s the case, she’ll likely be back to help us get more epic gear and new artifacts, with new raids coming soon. This is truly the perfect time to explore the engineering marvels and rare artifacts Gnomes have preserved in the city’s underbelly.
This means that countless machines and gadgets lost during the war will eventually be recovered in engineering-themed raids. There is a good chance that there will be unique and exciting items that have never been seen before.
So you might be wondering why Gnomeregan is such a perfect raid environment. Let’s look at the different aspects that make it ideal for raiding.
The first aspect that makes it so perfect is the verticality. As you enter from the top and take the elevator down, you descend into the dungeon, where it becomes more challenging. After all, this is the most vertical dungeon in Vanilla, located next to Sunken Temple.
So we could potentially see any mechanic, and we could even get some crazy stuff like launching players into the air to assist us.
As we get deeper into Gnomeregan, the elevators kill a lot of raiders. While Gnomeregan’s elevators don’t have buttons, we’ll probably find them all in one place.
There’s another marvel of engineering in the raid, and that’s the unique vendor system. Where you can exchange specific drops for rewards.
Imagine you don’t need the typical low value rewards from Vendor-Tron. You have a chance to earn epic crafting materials and loot in new raids.
There’s also Punch Card system, which is part of Data Rescue Quest for Alliance. You can have random cards that drop and unlock doors to new rewards and maybe even some secret boss encounters. This is probably my favorite part of Gnomeregan raid.
It’s a city full of secrets, locked bolts and mysterious buttons that may well lead to rare treasures and unseen artifacts. I really hope the developers incorporate the original spirit of invention, mystery, and curiosity that built this city so long ago in Gnome.
Understanding the legend of Gnomeregan is more than just a matter of satisfying our curiosity. It is also about adding depth and experience to the challenges we will face in the future. I’d really like to hear your thoughts on Gnomeregan lore and potential solutions to unanswered questions.
I know there are still some players who are concerned about their Mage leveling and farming. So in this guide, I want to bring you my 10 tips and tricks that will help your Mage become better at AOE farming in WoW Classic Season of Discovery. So if you are ready, let's get straight to these tips without wasting any time!
For those that don’t know, AOE that comes from player models can have their range increased by jumping when they cast the spell. We used to jump to maximize the distance so that sappers would go. This works well with all AOE that come from the player. I will use Arcane Explosion, and it does not hit the mob. Neither of us moves, but when I jump in the air, my Arcane Explosion gets a little extra distance. A lot of the time when I am Arcane Explosion spamming, I will be jumping to make sure I am hitting every mob in my range.
Daze is a pretty annoying mechanic. It reduces your move speed by 50%, and if you are unlucky, you can get chain dazed and die. You have 2 options to bypass this mechanic, both of them pretty cool. When a mob strikes your back, there's a possibility of experiencing Daze. You can avoid daze easily by making sure you turn and face the mobs as they are hitting you. Another way to avoid daze is by shield effects. You are unable to be dazed when you have a shield buff applied. This includes Power Word: Shield, Mana Shield, and Ice Barrier.
Quick note: You can only be dazed by melee attacks, not ranged attacks. Using Mana Shield and Ice Barrier, as well as facing mobs, will be key to future farms in avoiding daze.
Leeway is in the game for lag and melee attacking. It’s a latency system that buffers melee combat to allow people to hit targets a little further than you normally would in case there is weird lag going on. Melee swings can cover a much larger distance with leeway attacks.
When someone in combat is strafing or jumping, melee range is increased by a lot. This happens for enemy mobs too. If you are strafing or jumping, they will benefit from leeway. This is a trick we see used a lot currently in Wailing Caverns. You can avoid a lot of melee damage taken when abusing leeway correctly, such as backpedaling while kiting.
Ice Block is used for more than just saving your life. It is very important for getting a lot of mobs stacked in one spot. When you Ice Block, all ranged mobs will stop using their ranged attacks. When you’re in an Ice Block, all ranged mobs will run to your position and start auto-attacking your Ice Block. There are a lot of farms where you can not line of sight and get ranged mobs closer to you.
You will see Mages constantly using Ice Block to get numerous units stacked for an easy kill. When you leave an Ice Block, never jump, as this will cause you to take a lot more damage from melee attacks. If you just hold forward out of the Ice Block and spam Nova, you’ll be able to avoid a lot of instant damage coming out of the Ice Block.
The World Buff from BFD is pretty massive, and the main reason for this is 20% move speed. In WoW Classic, the only way to get this kind of buff was from The Zanza elixir. This buff was massive for basically every dungeon farm in the game. The 20% move speed allows you to easily outpace mobs with Blink and avoid huge amounts of damage. While the other buffs from Boon of Blackfathom are also incredible. But it is not a good idea if you are farming without 20% move speed.
Engineers get access to a lot of cool toys and effects that can assist in farming, but the main reason you want it is for Grenades, Sappers, and Dynamite. Even for just Phase 1. Let’s talk about the the Heavy Dynamite. Heavy Dynamite does 128 to 172 damage. Arcane Explosion Rank 2 does 58 to 65 and costs 120 Mana. So, on average, one Dynamite is worth 2 to 3 explosions of damage and Mana.
Being able to kill all the mobs before they can run away very smoothly. As we get further into Season of Discovery, our pulls will become much longer and more intense on our Mana. Dynamite, having a 60-second cooldown, will allow you to get multiple casts off in the longer pulls. It’s very important. I couldn't recommend Engineering more.
This may seem like an obvious one, but I want to emphasize the scaling of spell power with Living Bomb. The kill phase is way cleaner, and I have plenty of Mana left over for Arcane Explosion. Living Bomb scaling with spell damage is amazing. I recommend prioritizing it wherever you can. Phoenix Bindings, Phoenix Gloves, Invoker's Mantle, and Invoker's Cord are all really cheap and easy spell damage options you can pick up off the auction house by your SOD Gold.
The first playstyle I want to go over is face tanking, which I use a lot in open-world farms or versus mobs that are lower level than me, such as Deadmines. The key interaction here for face tank farming is Living Flame and Regeneration. Living Flame does spell fire damage, which counts as Arcane damage for the healing from Regeneration. The amount of healing you receive will keep you alive versus some pretty insane damage.
Before casting Living Flame, make sure you have Temporal Beacon on yourself. I like to get 4 to 5 Living Bombs out, then Living Flame. Then you just spam Arcane Explosion until all the mobs die. Add on the extra healing you receive from the Arcane Explosion spam, and it’s pretty incredible what you can live through.
This is the playstyle I expect to be dominant, from now on into Season of Discovery, so I recommend learning it now. Blizzard will be amazing for massive pulls where you can’t handle the incoming damage from Elites slapping you. You can play this style with or without Regeneration. If you aren't running Regeneration, I recommend Fingers of Frost.
In Phase 2, we will have 5 points in Shatter for 50% increased crit chance. It will be pretty amazing. What you want to do for this style is grab as many mobs as you can and then get to your kite spot. You will then start throwing out 6 to 8 Living Bombs, Living Flame, and then begin to Blizzard kite. By using Living Flame after the Living Bombs are out. Make sure the Blizzard keeps all the mobs tightly stacked in the Living Flame for maximum damage. Add on the Living Bomb crits from Fingers of Frost, and you speed up the kill so much. Come Phase 2 with all the extra mana and talents we will have. This style will be king for a lot of the content.
There are a few addons I couldn’t recommend more for Mage farming, and the most important one is called WeakAuras. This addon lets you create custom code that will track certain things for you in-game. I highly recommend Plater. It makes it way easier to see what HP the mobs are at and who is missing Living Bomb. I also use Nova Instant Tracker to track my dungeon lockouts, how many mobs I’ve killed, as well as the XP and gold gained during those runs. There are a lot of WeakAuras out there that can track your uptime on buffs and other things. Make sure to customize this to your liking.
That’s my list. I hope you found these tips and tricks helpful. There’s a lot going on with Mage farming, and it can be pretty overwhelming if you dive straight into it with big massive pulls. Start small, learn small pulls first, and then work your way up to the big challenges. We Mages are kings of farming, and you can become one too.
Here, we’ll talk about the upcoming Guilds and Glory Celebration Event for the Elder Scrolls Online.
The Guilds and Glory Celebration Event is a remembrance of ESO content of the Guilds and Glory DLC pack.
During this event, you can earn unique rewards by participating in various activities in Orsinium, Imperial City, Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild DLC and as well from the Imperial City Prison dungeon, White Gold Tower dungeon and the Maelstrom Arena.
The Guilds and Glory Celebration event is for the first time hosted in January 2024. It will be active from January 18th until January 30th 2024.
To be able to particpate, you need to own the Orsinium, Imperial City, Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild DLC.
If you have an active ESO Plus subscription, you can access all event related zones.
Don’t forget that you can claim for free the Imperial City DLC via the crown store.
To start the event, you can directly travel to Orsinium, Imperial City, Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild DLC. Or, you can start the event tutorial quest for free from the crown store.
During the event, you can earn double rewards, Wrothgar, Imperial City, Gold Coast and Hew’s Bane from the following activities:
During the Guilds and Glory Celebration, you can earn Glorious Coffers and regular reward Coffers.
Completing your first daily repeatable quest in Wrothgar, Imperial City, Gold Coast and Hew’s Bane will award a Glorious Coffer
And you can earn a seperate bespoke glorious coffer once per day by defeating the final boss of the Imperial City Prison dungeon, White Gold Tower dungeon or the Maelstrom Arena.
Of course, you can also earn more reward coffers if you want to complete the dungeons or arena multiple times.
Note, if you defeat the final dungeon boss on veteran difficulty, you will get 2 reward coffers. If one of these would be eligible for a glourious coffer, you will get 1 glorious coffer and 1 regular coffer.
Furthermore, you can obtain a third glorious coffer once per day by completing an Imperial City daily repeatable quest or defeat bosses in the Imperial City or Imperial City Sewers.
That means we can earn three glorious coffer per day, per account.
Additionally, you can find sometimes regular coffers by completing more daily repeatable quests and participating in activities within Orsinium, Imperial City, Gold Coast and Hew’s Bane.
Other activities are, for example, killing delve, world, public dungeon bosses, random enemies, treasure chests and safeboxes, resource nodes, thieves troves or by pickpocketing NPCs.
Please note that regular reward Coffers have a reduced chance of providing special rewards.
You have a chance to find inside Glorious Coffers and reward Coffers:
You can find following styles in the guilds and glory reward coffers: Assassin’s League, Minotaur, Dark Brotherhood, or Order of the Hour from reward coffers obtained in the Gold Coast.
Outlaw, Thieves’ Guild, or Abah’s Watch from reward coffers obtained in Hew’s Bane.
Ancient Orc, Malacath, or Trinimac Style is found in reward coffers from Wrothgar Xivkyn, Aldmeri Dominion, Daggerfall Covenant.
Ebonheart Pact Style pages are obtained from reward coffers dropped in the Imperial City.
All reward coffers have a small chance to include a Bristleback Hunter Style page.
Now, we will talk about the Daily Repeatable Quests in the Orsinium DLC.
In Wrothgar, you can find Delve and Group Boss Daily repeatable quests.
Guruzug in Morkul Stronghold will offer you one of 6 delve daily repeatable quests.
Arzorag in Skalar’s Hostel will offer you one of 6 group boss daily repeatable quests.
You can pick up only 1 delve and 1 group boss daily per character per day. But it is possible to complete all 6 delve dailies and all 6 group boss dailies if you group up with other players and ask them to share the quest.
Next, I will explain where you can find the Daily Repeatable Quests in the Dark Brotherhood DLC.
Speaker Terenus in the Dark Brotherhood Sancutary will offer you Dark Brotherhood Sacrement Quests, which send you to an instanced area to assassinate specific targets.
Follow the Dark Brotherhood Questline to unlock the Dark Brotherhood Sacrement Quests. Dark Brotherhood Sacrement Quests can be obtained once per day and cannot be shared with others.
You can also find delve and world boss daily repeatable quests at the Gold Coast.
At the Bounty Board in Kvatch, you can pick up world boss daily repeatable quests. At the Bounty Board in Anvil, you can pick up delve daily repeatable quests.
You can pick up only 1 delve and 1 group boss daily per character per day. But it is possible to complete all delve dailies and group boss dailies if you group up with other players and ask them to share the quest.
Now, we will talk about the Daily Repeatable quests in the Thieves Guild DLC.
At the Heist Board in the Thieves Den, you can pick up the Heist Daily Repeatable Quests, which send you to an instanced area to obtain stolen goods. These quests can be obtained once per day. You may group with other players to obtain the other 4 Heist quests.
Heist Quests can be completed alone or in a group. Note that you need to complete Partners in Crime, Cleaning House, the Long Game and Master of Heists Quests of the Thieves Guild storyline to unlock the Heist Dailies.
Furthermore, you need to have rank 3 with the thieves guild.
At the Reacquisition Board in the Thieves Den, you can pick up delve daily repeatable quests. You can only pick up 1 daily quest per day, but you may group with other players to obtain the other 3 daily repeatable quests.
Note that you need to complete the Partners in Crime Thieves Guild Story Quest and speak to Spencer Rye to unlock the delve daily repeatable quests.
You can also complete 1 weekly trial repeatable quest in the Thieves Guild DLC.
Adara’hai offers you the quest into the Maw for the Maw of Lorkhaj Trial. When you enter the Trial, you will find the weekly quest giver at the entrance area.
In the Imperial City, you can complete up to 6 Imperial City Daily Repeatable District Quests.
In your Alliance Base, you can find a room with many ladders. Climb up each ladder to find a daily quest giver for that specific Imperial City district. You can complete:
During the Guilds and Glory Celebration Event, you can earn 2 Event tickets per day per account from the following activities:
This means this time you can choose which activity you like the most to obtain your Event Tickets each day.
As always, the Impresario Event Merchant will open her shop during the Guilds and Glory Celebration event.
This year she is offering the Molag Bal Illusion Imp pet fragments, the first fragment for the Planemeld’s Master Markings, Bristleback Hunter Style pages and more.
The Indrik Vendor will also open her shop during the Event.
She offers during the first quarter of 2024, Nascent Indrik feathers, Dawnwood Indrik berries and Spectral Indrik berries.
You can also purchase the Springtide Haunting Indrik Pet and Haunting Indrik Pet.
Philius Dormier, the Impresario’s Assistant, will also open his shop during the event.
He offers during the first quarter of 2024, Unstable morpholith pet fragments and Doomchar Plateau House fragments.
In this guide, let’s talk about the Blood Magic Firestorm Inquisitor build in Path of Exile 3.23. The Infernal Mantle, is a unique body armor that’s used only in certain builds. The fire spell can greatly benefit from the Critical Strike Chance because of its immense power. However, because of the 100% increased spell damage taken while on low mana, none of the conventional builds use it. Blood Magic gets rid of your mana completely, so this downside will never apply. It also forces you to make some atypical choices.
It encourages accumulating tons of maximum life that can be used to gain damage via the Rathpith Globe. Creating a lowlife hybrid build seems like the most sound option. Infernal Mantle is a very common unique that you can buy in bulk and corrupt for an additional increase in the socketed fire skill gems. It alone can grant you an extra 5 or even seven levels to selected fire area of effect or duration skills, one of which is Firestorm of Pelting.
Reaching a 100% Critical Strike Chance is rather easy for an Inquisitor with Righteous Providence and a lot of Strength and Intelligence. It is nearly guaranteed the inevitable judgment makes your critical strikes treat enemy Elemental resistances as they're 0%. We have used Firestorm of Pelting, which has a delayed damage delivery, making it rather clunky for clearing maps.
The ability to summon up to 10 Firestorms at a time combined with intense specificity support and concentrated effect will, however, more than make up for it in terms of damage output against bosses. The build is durable with its vast maximum life and ES. It has a high block chance, life and ES Leech Regeneration, and even life gained on hit, which is very desirable with this type of skill. It also has nearly capped block chance and Frost Shield but low physical damage mitigation.
Clear speed is not that good unless you’re willing to expand on your Righteous Fire setup. Single Target damage is extremely high after it ramps up, but it’s mostly against stationary targets. The relatively low cost is what makes this build so good. One can say the Infernal Mantle is the unique selling point of this build.
It’s a hybrid build with tons of maximum life and some energy Shield. Aim to maximize your overall life total, ideally reaching around 10K. This life results in a lot of damage after equipping the Rathpith Globe Shield. The remaining damage is sourced from the gem level of Firestorm, which can easily be increased with Infernal Mantle and Replica Dragon Fang's Flight.
Rathpith Globe increases your maximum life, crit chance, and spell damage by a lot. You should be able to withstand the life drain with consecrated ground Life Regeneration and Life Leech with life gained on hit. Infernal Mantle socket your Firestorm setup here. When searching, prioritize a relatively inexpensive corrupted Infernal Mantle with implicits for increased AOE duration or all socketed gems. A perfect double corruption may grant your Firestorm seven additional levels, but settling on the inherent + 3 is good for a start. It increases your crit chance, ES, and converts a small portion of fire damage to chaos.
Replica Dragonfang's Flight amulet will grant you another 3 levels to your Firestorm skill with some attributes, resistances and reservation efficiency on top of that. Hands of the High Templar could be a better option for you if you don't require any of the mods typically found on rare gloves. Try to gain extra crit chance for spells, increased maximum life, maximum ES, and cast speed as corrupted implicit mods.
The Glorious Vanity will get you the corrupted soul for more energy Shield. It is somewhat beneficial with Pious Path and a lot of both maximum life and ES, but it can be dangerous too with Rathpith Globe. Too much of your life is being drained, which may kill you. On a Watcher's Eye, most Zealotry modifiers are good enough, but the best addition to a build will be instant life gained on hit from Vitality’s mod pool.
A lot of DPS is provided by Righteous Fire, but to withstand the burning damage, you will need a source of Life Leach found on gloves, ES Leech from Ethereal Feast notable, or a flask modifier and basic Life Regeneration from POE Items. It’s also possible to gain life on hit mod. Firestorm of Pelting's rapid hits is fantastic. Other than that, get the regular life, crit multiplier, and cast speed. Try to get over 100 maximum life with some resistances on a helmet. When searching for Eldritch mods, prioritize mods that provide physical damage taken as fire damage and increased cast speed.
The weapon should provide you with a lot of increased damage Critical Strike modifiers, especially crit multiplier, +1 to fire skills, added fire damage to spells, and increased cast speed. If you’ve chosen a rare amulet, get as much maximum life and Critical Strike multiplier as you can. Resistances, attributes, and cast speed are valuable too.
Rings should be used for a lot of maximum life, resistances, especially Chaos Resistance, and Attributes like Strength and Intelligence to boost your crit chance with Righteous Providence. Maximum life and ES rare boots with Life, Resistances, movement speed, and Attributes are enough. Acquire the maximum number of these modifiers that you can afford.
For Eldritch implicits, seek maximum fire resistance, action speed, Life Regeneration rate, or brittle ground. If you need extra crit chance, focus on maximum life, Resistances, and Strength on the belt. You can also find large amounts of Life Regeneration here. Gloves are quite simple as well. Just get the usual maximum life and resistances. For the Eldritch mods, try to get unnerve on hit and fire damage leached as life.
On Jewels, get the increased maximum life with increased Critical Strike multiplier, resistances, or attributes. Progenesis is an expensive flask that’s great on its own but here, combined with Petrified Blood and rapid life recovery, it’s even better. You may be able to cap your spell and attack block chance with Rumi's Concoction. The consecrated ground created by Bottled Faith will increase your DPS and Critical Strike Chance. There are also some magic flasks you shall be equipped with. Silver Flask with increased cast speed is the most important. Diamond Flask with increased crit chance, Ruby Flask with Life Regeneration, or Basalt of quick silver flasks with movement speed or increased armor will be worth consideration.
Firestorm of Pelting summons multiple small meteors dealing fire damage every 0.15 seconds for 2 seconds. The maximum number of firestorms you can summon is 10. This spell has a basic fire duration and AOE, making it ideal for a corrupted Infernal Mantle. Link it with Elemental Focus, Intensify, Increased Critical Damage, Concentrated Effect, and Spell Echo support gems.
Storm Brand spell is used to apply shock and with added fire damage from items, it will also ignite for more damage from fire. Link it with Overcharge, Power Charge on Critical, and Unbound Ailments support gems. Replace Unbound Ailments with Combustion support if you have no ignite chance whatsoever.
Immortal Call reduces physical and elemental damage taken for a brief moment. Frost Shield drains your energy shield to form a protective bubble, causing you to take less damage and gain extra crit chance. Link these 2 to Cast When Damage Taken to activate them automatically after taking enough damage and Increase Duration to make them last longer.
Use Zealotry for more spell damage and critical strike chance. If you have no mana reserved, you’re allowed to host one blessing Aura for free if it’s linked to the Eternal blessing support. You don’t have mana, so it’s a no-brainer. Flame Dash is a simple mobility skill that is used to ignite enemies and travel with greater haste. You can link it to Faster Casting for slightly better mobility, but that’s not necessary.
Petrified Blood redistributes a fraction of the incoming damage from direct hits into a damage-over-time effect, a feature that synergizes well with a rapid life and Energy Shield recovery rate. This effect is limited to the lower half of your life pool. Tempest Shield grants shock immunity and substantial spell block chance. Vitality regenerates your life over time, which is very important, especially with the corrupted Soul. It also has good modifiers to get on a Watcher's Eye.
These 3 auras shall reserve half or more of your total life: Assassins Mark marked enemy is more likely to be hit with Critical Strike, which deals with increased critical damage. Enduring Cry regenerates a lot of life and ES on use and grants endurance charges to mitigate physical damage. Set it up as your movement key. Righteous Fire grants more spell damage. It has also quite high damage on its own because of your maximum life. If you want to improve your clear speed, you can link it up with additional support gems, but that would require you to abandon some of the previously mentioned.
In Act 2, kill all the bandits for 2 additional passive skill points. For a major God, you can pick pretty much anything. Solaris is good if you’re up against pinnacle bosses, and Brine King good for freeze immunity. For a general-purpose major God, we recommend Lunaris. It improves your clear speed and protects you from projectiles. Minor God should improve your physical damage mitigation. That’s Tukohama or Gruothkul. Both are decent.
The passive skill tree should provide you with a lot of maximum life, spell and fire damage, cast speed, block chance, or Asylum for chaos resistance and reduced effect of curses should be allocated to pick up Iron Will, Blood Magic, Call to Arms, and Pain Attunement keystones. Allocate all 6 Life masteries, Shield Mastery for Critical Strike multiplier per energy shield on a shield, Fire Mastery for increased damage against ignited enemies, Reservation Mastery for Life res conservation efficiency, and Caster Mastery for one additional maximum Intensify.
We'll be discussing the various buffs and nerfs that went into effect on January 11th. These buffs and nerfs are going to be affecting 2 main classes. That’s going to be our Beast Mastery Hunter and our Priest. I’m going to share with you some tweaks that you can make to your Beast Mastery Hunter that might counter some of the craziness that Blizzard is going to nerf in this upcoming update in WoW Classic Season of Discovery. We have a lot need to be covered, so let’s get started.
In a recent January 10th post, Blizzard stated: We intend to make the following adjustments via hotfixes for hunters:
In the developer notes, they put, 'We remain concerned that hunter pets are still too powerful and believe that the best way forward is to reign in the Beast Mastery rune while compensating via the Hunter's main spells.' I guess they’re trying to get more and more Beast Mastery Hunters to go Marksman.
Beast Master Hunters are going to take a hit in DPS once these nerfs go into effect. Now, here are some of the changes that I’m going to make to my Beast master Hunter that's going to help me to counter some of these nerves. Let’s first discuss the runes. So before this update, I was running hard of the line Beast Mastery rune, and I’d switch back and forth between Flanking Strikes and Sniper Training. I wasn’t using the Kill Command cause my primary pet that I was using was a Wind Serpent.
Now, post-January 11th update, I’m going to be running a hard of the line Beast Master rune and Kill Command cause I’m going to be switching out my primary pet. Additionally, if you don’t have access to a harded line, you could always use the Master Marksman. And if you’re one of those Hunters that really enjoy weaving in and out, you can always interchange between Kill Command and Flanking Strike.
So as far as the talent tree, my primary build is going to be 2 in Improved Aspect of the Hawk, 5 in Endurance Training, 3 in Thick Hide, 5 in Unleashed Fury, and 1 in Ferocity.
Yes, if you’re in a raid situation where you know that your pet’s going to be taking a lot of damage and dying a lot, then I would definitely recommend taking the 2 points out of Improved Aspect of the Hawk and getting Improved Revive Pet. Because, as we know, with a dead pet as a Beastmaster Hunter, that’s going to take out a gigantic chunk of our DPS. But when I’m out in the world soloing and whether it be experience farming or gold farming, my pet really doesn’t die that much. So it makes no sense to waste 2 points in the Improved Revive Pet.
And additionally, in the raids I’ve been in, my pet hardly ever dies. So it just felt like a waste of points to put into Improved Revive Pet when I just improved my all-out DPS so much more by putting those extra 2 points in Improved Aspect of the Hawk. So I would definitely recommend that you try both ways to see what fits your playstyle better. If you lean towards having that extra DPS and Improved Aspect of the Hawk, or if you just need that Improved Revive Pet because your pet keeps on dying.
Now that we talked about runes and talents, let’s talk about pets. Before this update, I was using a Wind Serpent. And Wind Serpents are also awesome pets. That Lightning Strike is just catastrophic. But it came at a price of 50 focus and getting nerf 30% in our Focus regeneration for our pets and 10% for damage. Doesn’t make sense to continue using a Wind Serpent.
So what I’m going to end up doing is switching back to my Ghost Saber, which is a 2.0 attack speed cat. That’s going to do really nice damage in conjunction with that Kill Command rune. And if I ever switch out with a Flanking Strike rune, that 2.0 attack speed is going to give me more attack damage. Therefore, I’m going to be able to pull out more damage by using a 2.0 attack speed cat.
The highly anticipated item faction system is coming to the full release of Last Epoch, on February 21st.
With this innovative new way, players can participate in the deep and rewarding item hunt that Last Epoch offers, in a way that they like to play.
By joining the Merchants Guild, you will be able to buy, sell, and trade items through the bustling bazaar. Or, if you choose to join the Circle of Fortune, you’ll set your sights on the stars and be able to bolster your item acquisition through Prophesies and increased item drop rates. So, this faction system is the result of many years of debating what the ideal trade system should look like in a loot-based ARPG.
If you have observed carefully, you will know that players of ARPGs are split nearly down the middle when it comes to those who want their experience to heavily trade and an economy, and those who want to focus on finding items themselves or, with close friends. So, it would be great if the developers of Last Epoch could provide players from both factions with a tailor-made and exciting path to finding top-tier items through the item faction system!
In Last Epoch 1.0, you will join a faction once you reach the great mercantile city of Maj’Elka.
When you select to join the Merchants Guild or the Circle of Fortune, a new interface will become available that will let you access details about your current status with your faction (known as reputation), how much Favor you currently have and what benefits your faction is currently providing you. Let’s talk about these briefly.
Reputation within a faction is a core part of how a faction is going to be benefiting you on your journey. As a representative of that faction, you will continue to increase your reputation by killing enemies and completing quests.
For the Merchants Guild, this includes participating in the bazaar and completing trades at your current level. And for the Circle of Fortune, this means completing prophesies that will divine certain items after fulfilling the foretold conditions.
Through earning reputation, you will ascend ranks within your faction, earning your unique benefits and options. Once you have earned reputation within a faction, that reputation stays with your account, in that game mode. This means, if you rank up a cycle character, all of your other cycle characters will have that rank when they join the same faction, and contribute to that faction’s reputation gain. You may switch factions and earn and maintain reputation with them with no penalty to your earned reputation with the other.
There are currently 10 ranks to achieve in each faction. With the later ranks requiring quite a bit of commitment in order to obtain. So, while you have the freedom to change your faction at any time, you will want to pick a faction and stick with it to reach the most powerful benefits that they have to offer.
It is important to note that you can only be a member of one faction at any given time per character. And items earned with the benefits from those factions will require that you are aligned with them in order to use them. So, most players will want to stick to a faction that rewards their preferred playstyle.
Next, let’s talk about Favor. Favor is the currency you will earn while slaying enemies or completing quests for each of the factions.
Favor is separate from reputation. This currency can be used to either complete trades with the Merchants Guild or acquire new prophesies from the Circle of Fortune. And if you find yourself with excess favor, you can always spin the wheel with the faction gambler.
Item gifting to party members has been in the game for a while now and it isn’t going anywhere.
However, it’s important to note that once you have joined a faction, items will start being tagged with the faction you are a part of when they dropped.
This means, that while questing if you are a member of the Merchants Guild, and an item drops for you that item will still be shareable with anyone who was in the party like always, and be available to be sold provided that you meet the rank requirements in the Merchants Guild bazaar.
Just be sure that the person you are trading it to also meets the same faction requirements.
The last use case developers wanted to solve for, are friends who choose to play together and just want their own little trade group.
To solve this problem, developers introduced Resonance, which is a new type of item that can be found when you are questing with your friends or party members. This item can be used to enable an item to be gifted specifically to the player you have a Resonance with, even if they weren't there when the item dropped.
A lot of times, players will play with their friends and then later, you'll be soloing a piece of content and the perfect item drops for your buddy. Thanks to the new Resonance system, you will be able to give them that perfect item, the next time you see them.
As those of you who love loot-based ARPGs know, trade and economy is a very complex and divisive issue to solve for when catering to a large player base and different play styles, while keeping the item acquisition hunt feeling great.
There is so much more to explore with the item faction system. Let's wait for February 21st. All the mysteries about the item faction system will be revealed during the search!
I’m going to bring you a quick Shaman tank in-depth guide about everything we need to know in WoW Classic Season of Discovery. It includes races, runes, what you want to use on certain bosses, rotation, and just kind of further information into the builds.
Hope you like this build and have a try. Now, let's just dive into this guide.
With Shaman tanking, there are only 3 races you can play as: Troll, Orc, and Tauren. Each has special racial or special things that make them better than others.
If you’re looking for more stamina and more survivability build, you’re going to go Tauren. This brings the Racial of Endurance, giving you more health pull. It also has War Stomp, which is great for AOE pulls. Stomp shock everything. It basically stuns every target for 3 seconds so you get all the aggro on them and pull them towards you.
If you’re going Orc, which has Axe Specialization, giving you a couple more points into using axes. You also get Blood Fury, which provides a damage boost but with a 50% less chance of healing for 25 seconds. So some bosses it might cost you your life.
Trolls, the last race, brings a great racial called Berserking. This increase your attack speed for some time. The other downside of it is they bring Beast Slaying, currently not very useful in BFD.
Next, we’re going to look at what type of runes you want to be running as a Shaman tank. There’s a different variety. You’re going to want to have the Way of Earth on. It’s very easy to obtain in the Barrens. This one turns your abilities, such as Earth Shock, into a taunt for you. It also gives you, on top of that, a 30% more health pull.
Other things you’d like to run for survivability include Shield Mastery, throwing on a shield, giving you 15% extra block chance without any other bonuses. So, it might be useful for you.
If you’re not getting hit much or hard in BFD, I would recommend running Dual Wield, using double Rockbiter Weapons to get an increased amount of threat. However, you would also have to run Dual Wield Specialization on your chest piece rather than Shield Mastery since you’re not using a shield.
For the hands, these are runes that I swap on each different boss in the BFD. Some bosses, I’ll throw on Molten Blast for AOE.
For single-target bosses, I’ll throw on Lava Lash.
For bosses like Ghamoo-ra, I’ll throw on Lava Burst with Overload on my chest for an increased chance of procing and doing more damage. You’ll still hold the number 1 threat, no matter what.
The runes are up to you, whichever way you like to play the game. If you want to go Shield Mastery or try new things that Shaman has offered in SOD, it’s up to you.
Something thorough that we go over doesn’t have to be crazy right now is the stat priority for Shaman tanks. You do want stamina, but it’s not something you’re going to get right away since bosses aren’t hitting that hard. So, focus on agility into strength, then into stamina. These 3 boost your threat, damage, and help you DPS.
Then focus on intellect for mana, and armor and hit rating. Currently, you don’t get a lot of armor rating since we’re on the 25 brackets, and hit rating is obtained from BFD Boon and epic gear from professions. These are quick notes about stat priority and what to look for in a Shaman tank.
I want to get into the quick rotation. When you pull a boss, pop Flame Shock right off the bat and then cast Molten Blast because, with Flame Shock up, there’s a 10% chance that this resets the cooldown of Molten Blast. So, you can keep pressing Molten Blast, generating more threat as you go in. If you don’t have another Shaman in your group, drop the right totems.
Strength of Earth Totem and Fire Nova Totem seems to be the only 2 because your mana pool isn’t crazy high. Dropping totems like Fire Nova Totem repeatedly might not be worth it because you’ll go out of mana. Strength of Earth Totem stays up for 2 minutes, so you drop it. Most bosses last 30 seconds to 45 seconds or maybe longer, which might last a minute 30.
You can also apply Frost Shock if all the targets have Flame Shock on them, and if you have enough mana, you can throw in Lightning Shields. Again, it’s situational, depending on your mana. If you have extra mana to spend, throw on Lightning Shield, Frost Shocks, or keep throwing Molten Blast.
The rotation is situational, so if your rune swapping, you might not be running Molten Blast. You might run Lava Lash, Lava Burst, or different things that are good for different bosses. But you’ll still Flame Shock, drop the same totems, and look out for those things. The rune is the biggest thing on whether you’re casting Molten Blast, Lava Lash, or Lava Burst.
Finally, I want to get into professions and maybe some consumables for the Shaman tank. Currently, there aren’t professions that increase your threat besides maybe engineering for Heavy Dynamite, but it’s for AOE damage. Most bosses in BFD are single tank bosses, so professions are up to you. I would say run Leatherworking. You get gloves that give you a hit percentage and increase your attack speed for a certain duration when you pop them.
When it comes to consumables for tanks, Strong Troll’s Blood Potion for health regeneration throughout the raid, Elixir of Defense for armor that reduces all damage by boss melee attacks, stacking with some runes like Way of Earth for armor. Elixir of Firepower is good for abilities like Lava Burst and Molten Blast. Elixir of Lesser Agility is excellent for agility, our number 1 stat priority.
Situational consumables like Free Action Potions are invaluable against bosses and enemies with stuns. If you pop it at the beginning of Lady Saravess, you won’t get frozen arrowed and can stand in her pool without getting chains in Phase 2. Shadow Protection potions are solid against Kelris.
Finally, for the last part of this guide, we’re getting into the talent tree for Shaman tanks. You’re going to want to go right into the enhancement tree, going 5 out of 5 in Shield Specialization. It increases your chance to block attacks with the shield by 5% and increases the amount blocked by 25%. This is up to you.
If you’re running a shield, it’s worth it. If not, and you’re dual-wielding, Ancestral Knowledge might be better, increasing your maximum mana by 5%. Going down, you want Thundering Strikes, improving your chance to crit with your weapon by 5%. If you’re dual-wielding, you have a double chance to crit.
Anticipation, going 5 out of 5 increases your chance to dodge by an additional 5%. You want to dodge and parry to tank less damage for a smoother raid.
Finally, since you get 16 points, we’re going to put 1 into Flurry, increasing your attack speed by 10% for the next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike. This works well with Thundering Strikes. The more you crit, the more Flurry procs you get, making you swing faster and output more threat. It’s better for you to be tanking any boss.
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:
