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WoW Season of Discovery Phase 2 will open up with Gnomeregan for its level up raid and Stranglethorn Vale for its PVP event zone. But how has Phase 1 gone, and how have people reacted to it?
In the case of Phase 1 on Blackfathom Deeps and Ashenvale, people have loved the experience. Myself included.
There has been a rush of people spamming Ragefire Chasm for Horde, Stockades for Alliance and Wailing Caverns & Deadmines for both to get geared up for Blackfathom Deeps.
The bosses were tougher than some people expected, with many wiping and struggling on later bosses. However, the loot experience and freshness of the content made it a genuinely pleasant experience.
Regarding the PVP event zone, people seem to be enjoying it. It’s an overall okay experience. Blizzard has been fine-tuning and monitoring player reception and feedback to the event, both raid and PVP. Overall, it’s good but could be better and not as good as people expected.
This doesn’t even account for the rush to get runes. The world feeling alive and active, seeing thousands upon thousands of players spamming these low-level dungeons because we’re stuck here for a few more weeks, and almost no one is bored yet.
Leveling has been fun. People are gearing up alts since the level cap is 25, and it’s not difficult to do. SoD Gold itself is now a valuable commodity, with people proud of their 50g. However, buying gold with real money trading is $1 per gold, which is exorbitant. But then again, if people are selling, that means some are buying.
Overall, Phase 1 is incredible and leaves people excited about what’s coming next.
And that is Gnomeregan and Stranglethorn Vale (STV) in Phase 2.
Gnomeregan isn’t an iconic dungeon or place, aside from the fact that the Gnomes still do not have their homeland restored after 20 years.
But what are the bosses of Gnomeregan, and what kind of changes can we expect from this dungeon?
When you go into Gnomeregan, you open up with Grubbis, a trogg that is rather brutish, but overall, a simple fight. Since this is the opening boss, I don’t think the difficulty of Grubbis will increase by much, but his loot table will definitely change.
Grubbis spawns after a short roleplay event in which you clear waves of mobs, avoiding the dynamite explosion before he comes out hollering. I wonder if they’ll keep this event or if they’ll remove it. It makes sense either way.
The second boss is Viscous Fallout, another simple boss. You simply have to clear the trash mobs around it so you can pull it without pulling extra packs, which will wipe your party. As far as being changed for a raid boss, I assume they’ll make it, so you have to fight some of these trash mobs with it. So, I expect it’ll start with some ads that pull regardless of clearing the ads around the Viscous Fallout.
Then, we move on to the third boss, Electrocutioner 6000, which is a simple boss. Most of the bosses are simple and, for the most part, spank and tank. But that’s just for Gnomeregan, the dungeon. Once it becomes a level-up raid, this will definitely change. I can assume that this mob will have a new deadly mechanic, as with most of the other bosses.
The fourth boss is also the most hated boss for Feral Druids in Classic due to the need to farm Manual Crowd Pummelers. With Season of Discovery, that is no longer the case, as we get a new and improved version of Manual Crowd Pummeler called the Automatic Crowd Pummeler. This new item is a permanent item with a 3-minute cooldown that you can use infinitely. I don’t know if they plan to remove the original version, but they likely will. As for the boss itself, the changes that’ll be implemented are likely going to involve giving it actual mechanics and things you have to keep an eye out for.
The fifth boss of Gnomeregan is the Dark Iron Ambassador, who is a rare that isn’t guaranteed to spawn. This mob will probably get turned into a named mob and given an expanded nature within the raid.
Finally, we have Mekgineer Thermaplugg, the big bad end boss of the dungeon and soon-to-be raid. This kind of boss was very likely going to be as brutal as Aku’mai has been in BFD. In the classic dungeon, like the rest of Gnomeregan, he is a spank-and-tank boss. However, for the level-up raid, expect him to have some new brutal abilities that’ll test your ability to clear this level-up raid. I don’t know what those abilities will be, but with how difficult Aku’mai has been for some people, this boss will also likely be very difficult to clear.
Now that we’ve covered the six bosses of the dungeon, let’s talk about what more they will add or change in the raid.
Gnomeregan is a level 30 to 35 dungeon for the most part. So, with it being turned into the endgame raid of Phase 2, that means the dungeon mobs and bosses will be pushed to level 40.
That also doesn’t account for the fact that BFD only had six bosses, and one of those bosses was just a named rare with no abilities. In contrast, BFD, the level-up raid, had seven full-named bosses with a whole loot table and abilities.
So for Gnomeregan, we can expect 1 to 3 new bosses, new events, new quests, and a massively changed loot table.
As BFD has shown us, the loot table of the dungeon versus the raid is staggeringly different.
The loot table of the level-up raid is significantly larger than the loot in the BFD dungeon. So, we can expect similar loot changes to happen to Gnomeregan, whose current loot table is rather pitiable.
I won’t guess as to what items they’ll add to the loot table. But considering the amount of insane and awesome loot that BFD got, expect a few new purple items, fantastic new gear, crafting recipes, elixir crafting recipes, a new world buff, more quests, and perhaps even more than what I’ve listed.
A great note for players is that getting to Gnomeregan for Horde will be much easier than it was in Classic. Players will be able to essentially teleport to Gnomeregan and not have to do the long and arduous trek that Horde players had to do to get to Deadmines in Phase 1.
Now, moving on to the PVP content - Stranglethorn Vale, the PVP event zone.
This is an iconic zone, and one that I would wager money that most people have had a terrible PVP experience on. Either you got griefed or you were the griefer.
For anyone that played on a PVP server, it’s an absolute core in experience for not just Vanilla players but Classic players to be ganked or murdered in Stranglethorn Vale. People have been ganking and abusing low levels in this zone for a long time, and I expect this to only get worse in Phase 2 of Season of Discovery.
Between the Gurubashi Arena for the trinket, the fishing event, and the whole zone being turned into a massive PVP event zone, some of the most iconic questing in where one of the go-to zones to level up...... All of these facets coming together is going to make this place absolutely wild come Phase 2.
If you aren’t one of the first people to get to level 40 early on in Phase 2, I would highly recommend leveling up in another zone to avoid experiencing the hard ganking that will probably happen. This advice is only for people that play on a PVP server. If you play on a PVE server, have fun! It’s going to be a great experience.
I personally don’t know if there’s going to be a reputation involved with the STV PVP event similar to how you get Warsong Gold reputation for doing the Ashenvale event zone, but I would guess that even if we don’t get a reputation, there’ll be more events and things happening at the Gurubashi Arena and fishing event. Additionally, even if we don’t get a new reputation, a Wrathty based reputation will likely get earned through the PVP event zone.
Whether it makes sense or not, law wise doesn’t hold much weight. The experience is what truly matters here. Having a Trollbane murdering trolls is a beautiful concept, and I say that as a Horde and Troll main.
Now, shifting focus from PvP & PvE to Blizzard’s handling of Season of Discovery.
Buffs and nerfs have been coming out pretty quickly. Changes in the quality of life are being implemented almost instantly. They’ve been monitoring feedback and reception in Phase 1. And so far, despite Hunters being nerfed twice, the game is still balanced. Yes, Hunters remain the strongest DPS even after the 2 nerfs.
Regarding Runes and how they feel, Blizzard has done a phenomenal job. Runes feel great, especially as a Druid player. Being able to spam Wrath infinitely at no Mana cost has made leveling up and playing the game much easier and enjoyable.
However, I’m personally not fond of how quickly all the runes were discovered. Given the huge player base in Season of Discovery, it’s not surprising that all the runes were found so rapidly.
I hope that the next set of 12 runes for each class introduced in Phase 2 takes longer to discover and involve more interaction and unlocking. Considering the numerous new zones and places to uncover these new runes in Phase 2, I believe it will indeed take longer to find all the runes.
To give Blizzard credit, the decision to place the Warlock Metamorphosis rune inside BFD wasn’t the smartest, but they’ve acknowledged this mistake and stated they won’t repeat it in the future. They’ve made adjustments, allowing players to acquire said rune both inside and outside BFD.
Overall, with phases lasting 4 to 12 weeks at most, the content being enjoyable and well-positioned makes the game feel like a much-improved version of Classic.
I can honestly say that Season of Discovery is my favorite version of World of Warcraft to date. Hopefully, when they finish Season of Discovery and fully unveil WoW Classic Plus, they’ll incorporate all they’ve learned to provide us with an outstanding and long-term future for Classic Plus.
Next we will talk about the first 6 druid runes in WoW Classic Season of Discovery and where to find them. There is a good balance in these 6 early druid runes of healing, balance and feral spec. So hopefully this season of discovery druid rune guide helps you get a good range of abilities early in the game.
Starting out with the first Rune, the Fury of Stormrage. This Rune completely reduces the Mana cost of Wrath, and you get it from your class trainer in Teldrassil. Up in the tree at level two, they give you a quest to go out and defeat some grills. Doing so, they will drop the Luna Idol. Once you hit level four, you can equip the idol and complete its requirements, which in this case are to defeat six creatures affected by your Moonfire. So go learn Moonfire, go out and hit things with Moonfire, then defeat them six times. Click the idol again, and you’ll get the Rune, nice and easy.
Next, the Living Seed Rune, which is a healing rune that plants a living seed on your target when you critically heal them, going off after 15 seconds for extra healing. You want to be around level seven or eight for this. Search for Glade Flowers around Teldrassil. Here’s what they look like. Keep an eye out, as they’re quite spread around. Just have this in the back of your mind while you’re doing other things.
Click on three Glade flowers, combine them to make the Glade Crown. Take it to Teldrassil at Starbreeze Village, where you can find a big Wooden Effigy. Use the crown, which you combined with the flowers, to spawn a level seven Elite mob. This shouldn’t be too hard. Once you’ve defeated it, it drops the Living Seed Rune. If there are other people, you can group up for this, but it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.
Another healing Rune, Lifebloom, a powerful heal over time, especially for the early levels. You want to be around level 9 or 10 for this. Head to the northwest of Teldrassil where the Harpies are. Once there, a skeleton can spawn. Click on this skeleton to summon a spirit. Then, you need at least one other player to help you channel a big portal that appears. Just channel the portal, and you get the Rune. It’s really as simple as that. There should be lots of people doing this quest right now, lots of movement around in this area.
If you party up with people, everyone who helps gets a copy of the Rune, so that’s really useful. You don’t have to worry about people taking it. The only hard part about this is waiting for the remains to respawn. If somebody does this quest just before you, there’ll be nothing here, and you won’t know where it spawns. Just hang around, wait for people to turn up, group up, and wait for these remains to spawn. Keep looking around; eventually, it’ll spawn. Grab it, click the portal, and get the Rune.
Number four, Sunfire. This is a big damage rune also located in Teldrassil. This deals big damage upfront and then damage over time as well. To get this, head to a specific tree in Teldrassil. You’ll notice a little circle at the entrance as a sign that you’re in the right spot. Look for lunar stones on the tree, cast Moonfire on each of these four stones, and a lunar chest will spawn at the base of the tree where the circle was. Open the chest to get your Sunfire Rune.
All you need for this is Moonfire. If you’ve got it, you can head here and get it, or you can just wait until the quests take you into this area. Once you have Sunfire and Fury of Stormrage, you have a huge damage ramp early on that is just so nice on a druid.
Now it’s time to get onto the feral stuff, your animal druid stuff: Mangle. Okay, this is the Mangle Rune. This replaces your Claw ability and lets enemies take additional damage from bleeds and Shred. To get this, be level 10 in Teldr Hil and go defeat Rageclaw, a level 10 normal mob in the central cave of Ban'ethil Barrow Den. Once you’ve defeated him, it drops the Idol of Ursine Rage. Equip the idol, keep Rage in bear form above 50 for 60 seconds.
The easiest way to do this is to go to the starting zone and aggro a really low-level mob, like a level one or a level two mob. Hit it once to get aggro, then turn your back to it. It will start hitting you in the back because it’s such a low level, and you’re in bear form. It won’t do much damage, so just stand there and take the hits. Your rage will grow and grow. You just have to stand there for 60 seconds.
If you’ve already moved on to Darkshore and the mobs are a bit higher, maybe find someone who can heal you while you do this, or just pop a heal over time. Go into bear form and just tank it out. Move from pack to pack to regain health, but this shouldn’t be too hard. This is a very fast way to do it, so time it for yourself, around 60 seconds. Just keep your rage above 50, and then that will complete the idol. All you do is click the idol again, like all other idols. Click the idol again once you’ve passed the requirements, and you will get your Mangle Rune.
Finally, Lacerate, the sixth and final early easy game Rune. That’s Lacerate, a rune for your bear form that deals bleed damage over time and also generates threat. Leave the starter zone of Teldrassil and go to Darkshore.
Now you need to collect an item here called crab treats, which can either be dropped from the fur bogs at around level 12 just south of the town Oradine or fished up right on the docks of Warden when you land. If you land, go talk to the little fisherman just south of Warden. Get a fishing rod from him and fish there. You can fish these up. Or you can go fight the fur bogs. Once you’ve done that, you’ll get crab treats. Now you need to go to the beach, which is just south of Warden.
As soon as you get here, you can do this. Look for the young Reef Crawlers. It’s important to get these and not the ones further south, which are higher level and harder to fight. Feed them the crab treats, and they will come up to you, like a little cute animation. You’ll get the Lacerate Rune, and that’s it.
That’s it. Six super easy early game runes that give a good mix of balanced healing and feral abilities and should keep you pretty comfy on period all the way up to level 20. The next runes are scattered more around the world and require higher levels to do.
Today we’re talking about some changes that need to happen in Season of Discovery Phase 2. From addressing Hardcore and player complaints to fixing some PVP issues, including the economy we’ve been focusing on. Without further ado, let’s get started.
The first thing I want to talk about is PVP. I think there can be a lot of PVP improvements in Season of Discovery.
Of course, we’ll see more PVP highlights in Phase 2, as we’ll have Arena Grand Master and Tidal Charm. Players will go insane for PVP in these areas.
But I think PVP event could also be greatly improved. For example, in Ashenvale World PVP event, many players constantly run this event to farm reputation. But imagine if instead of this style mode where you have to kill the boss, there would be a designated player.
So, assuming a player is chosen, everyone in Alliance must protect him, while everyone in Horde tries to kill him at the same time. So, in this standard PVE mode, you just have to knock down the mobs, but you can also try to defend and kill someone on the other side.
I think this will be much better for Phase 2. And I think they could do more creative things to make PVP events more interesting.
There’s one other thing about PVP that I really think needs to be looked at, and that’s layering. If something to reduce layering further, it could bring some real benefits to PVP.
I’m just imagining the next phase of Arena Grand Master and Tidal Charm. If there were something like 11 layers in Crusader Strike, it would really take away the prestige and excitement of those items.
I’ve been looking around for my Runes and half of them just come from some random farming or something. I think this might be the “Discovery” part of Season of Discovery.
As a Priest, I absolutely love Metamorphosis Rune questline. But I completely missed this, which is why I upgraded Warlock myself.
I really think every class needs at least one Rune in every phase. I’m not saying every rune has to be an epic questline. But that’s a very exciting part of the mode to me.
Meanwhile, as a Priest, I just travel around the world killing various mobs for drops. But it’s not that exciting. And that also brings me to the issue of farming Waylaid Supplies.
The developers hope to have at least one rune that everyone has, which is a huge grind. And Waylaid Supplies is the kind of grind where you have to grind so many boxes to get one of your runes.
But a big problem is that Rune is actually very related to certain classes. For example, as a Priest, my AOE damage is very poor. In order to get my Mind Sear Rune, I have to do all Waylaid Supplies farming.
I absolutely love the idea of grinding through a difficult and challenging grind to earn one of your runes. But because it is some kind of consistent grind. You’ll get consistent results every time you grind a mob and don’t get anything, or grind a treasure chest, but don’t get anything in the chest. This can be very frustrating.
Hopefully Waylaid Supplies farming will become more consistent with future phase, and I’m sure we’ll do it again for another rune. But it can definitely be improved.
Currently, there isn’t enough to do in this mode, and perhaps the next phase should have a more serious grind to really reward the most serious players.
This is actually another complaint I’ve seen from some of the best players in the game. They enjoyed the mode, but they ran out of things to do after only putting in 80-100 hours.
The problem is that the character identity is a little lost. You can’t really work 300 hours straight in your role and really build this immense advantage. This has a very personal connection to your character.
I’m not saying you have to give them some insane legendary item to invest more time in. But there really should be something that you can spend a long time with and that is visually appealing to other players. Because if they get bored and there’s nothing to do, it actually hurts the mode.
The last and most important change that I think should appear in Phase 2 is Dual Spec.
I mean, we have a lot of different Runes, but we never use them. Because I’m always stuck with the same specs and I don’t want to pay WOW Classic SOD Gold to respec. Therefore, we need Dual Spec for this new Rune system.
And Dual Spec can really stimulate excitement and energy in the player base. Because when you get these Shadow Priest Runes, you’ll never use them because you’re playing Discipline Priest.
I feel like when the developers are hyping up this Melee Hunter build, it’s taking something away from the mode. And no one wants to run it because they have to be completely rested. Therefore, if they provide us with Dual Spec, this may be welcomed by more players. I think this is something that can really be done in the future.
These are just the most basic things I’d like to see changed in Phase 2. The coolest thing is that the developers are clearly listening to us. They want to hear your feedback, and they want to make this mode as great as possible. I’m sure we can have a lot more fun in the next phase!
It’s time to start absolutely pumping in the Blackfathom Deeps in WOW Classic Season of Discovery. Here are some tips to make every single boss easier and to increase your DPS or make it easier if you are struggling at all.
For Baron Aquanis, grab a bubble before engaging the boss. This will increase your movement speed as you jump across the platforms, allowing you to engage with the boss even quicker. If anyone gets the Baron bomb, make sure they jump into the water to avoid knocking everyone else off. Interrupt their cast and make them move.
If you’re a ranged DPS, don’t worry. Just sit in the water the entire time and continue pumping the boss. You’ll have no issues, and there’ll be no downtime.
For Ghamoo’ra, a secret is that Shaman tanks can literally tank this boss the entire time. You don’t even have to worry about their Armor. Just one tank it and keep pumping while the boss has its shield. It only takes magic damage, so use any magic damage abilities you have for extra damage. Casters can pop the little bubbles to get some extra Mana back, but be aware that it damages them and everyone around them. When the boss breaks its main shield, it will do an AOE hitting for 700 damage and knocking back any melee. Take a step back or ensure you have full health to absorb this. Watch out for the threat drop. From there, make sure you start burning the boss.
Lady Sarevess is the easiest boss. She has an add, so have an off-tank this and literally ignores it the entire time. The most important thing is to make sure you’re kicking her freezing arrow. If you do this, no one will ever get frozen, and you won’t need to move. Just pump the boss down and enjoy.
Gelihast has a very low HP bar, but you need to hit him three times. As he’s healing back up, he takes almost no damage. The only thing that can wipe your group here is not dodging the little Murlocs that move around the room. It’s easier to be in the middle of the room or behind one of the little eggs, which spawns the Murlocs. If you’re there, you only have to watch for Murlocs coming from one side. The boss heals up to full and starts taking damage again before the Murlocs are gone. Pay attention if you want to increase your DPS and start pumping the boss again as soon as he’s at 100% HP.
In phase three, I suggest completely ignoring the ads that spawn and burning the boss because his HP is so low after killing Gelihast. Turn into the opening and kill the ads to unlock the Teleportation Stone. An invisible night elf next to it will help you repair if you ever have any wipes.
Lorgus Jett is a Gauntlet boss, so conserve your Mana accordingly. There are three rooms in this fight. In the first one, focus on interrupting the Healer. In the second one, again, make sure you’re interrupting the Healer. Ignore the Murlocs until you’re on the boss and passively cleave them down. The boss will spawn three totems in the exact same order every time. You can completely ignore the molten totem and the Windfury Totem.
However, as soon as he spawns the lightning Shield totem, everyone needs to stop DPS and burn that down. Otherwise, you will kill yourself because all hits to the boss will hit yourself for extra damage. Nuke this down and then burn the boss. Passive Cleave can deal with all the adds, and you can move away from any other totems.
Lord Kelris is the hardest boss in phase one. But once you understand it, it’s extremely easy. The boss will sleep with the two closest players to him and send them to the Shadow Realm. In the shadow realm, you have to nuke down the night elf mobs until they randomly spawn a portal, allowing you to exit. These night elf mobs have incredible spell resistance.
If you don’t have a lot of melees, ensure you always send one Caster with one melee into the shadow realm at a time. Assign one Caster to stand within the boss whenever it’s their turn to be sent down. This makes things easier, and all you have to do as range is ensure you’re dodging the Shadow Crashes. The boss also has a chain of lightning that gets harder for everyone at chains too. Make sure you’re always kicking that cast at 35%.
The boss phases into phase two, and you can no longer kick to interrupt any of his casts. Ensure it spread out enough of the range to avoid getting hit by the chain lightning. The boss does a Mind Blast on the tank, which is actually an AOE. If you’re a melee DPS, you can step far enough away to max melee range to avoid getting hit. Ensure yourself to max melee range, and you’ll never take any damage. Just burn the boss before he takes over the entire room. Ensure your magic dispels the debuff that goes out in Phase 2 because it will kill people.
Aku’mai, the last boss, is relatively easy. Have all your DPS stack up right behind the boss and ensure you dodge the frontal whenever it goes out. Tanks can swap around five stacks, and when the new tank taunts, the old tank needs to drop all their stacks by running to one of the Cleansing Elementals and standing there until their stacks are gone. Soon after the stacks go away, the Elemental will blow up, doing AOE damage, a Knockback, and spawning some little ads, one ad for every single stack that the tank dropped.
Have the off-tank pick these up and stack them on top of the boss. Passive Cleave should be able to take them down. At 50%, the boss phases and takes almost no damage during the phase. This is when you want to be focusing on DPS. If you can, have the second tank drop their stacks right before the phasing happens. If you don’t want to do this, drop stacks during the phase and then pick up the ads with the boss as soon as he becomes active again. The ideal way is to drop stacks right before the phase.
Move the boss on top of one of the Cleansing Elementals. It’ll explode right as he starts taking no damage in phase two. It’s easier not to drop stacks at all. Just have one tank take the boss until they die, then have the second tank pick them up and burn the boss down. If you have any issues with this, have the first tank drop stacks once, maybe around 3 to five stacks, spawning one Elemental that gets stronger for each stack that was put on the cleansing Elemental. Ignore the Void Walker and let the second tank die. Have the main tank pick up the boss again, and you should be able to down the boss. This should make every single boss extremely easy and ensure that you absolutely pump and do the most damage possible.
It is league start time, and that means that you need a good league start build. Because Path of Exile 3.23 Affliction League has some of the largest changes to the meta game that we have ever seen.
You’ll want to make sure that your first build is real solid so that you can bring it into the Wildwood. Within the Wildwood, you will be collecting Wisps as well as fighting off enemies in the darkness.
And once you’ve collected all these Wisps, they’ll come with you and buff all of the enemies on the map that you came from. These buffed enemies will drop tons of additional loot and get some additional difficulty.
On top of that, every single class has got 3 brand new ascendancies that you can have on top of your original. There are tons of powerful options here and a lot to look forward to.
And 100 + new gems have been added to the game. These are Transfigured Gems. Essentially, they’ve made alternate versions of almost every single main skill gem in the game and just tossed well over a hundred of them at us at this point.
There are tons to do in POE 3.23 Affliction League, so let’s talk about some builds. If you're going to make these builds, be prepared with plenty of POE Currency!
Starting off here, I would say that this is probably the best build for newer players and most likely Righteous Fire refugees.
Righteous Fire did get some pretty heavy changes and nerfs. But it’s not looking great early on for RF. So, why don’t you just get a big giant minion that has its own RF that covers 3/4 of the screen?
On top of that, you can have a bunch of little minions that’ll do single target damage for you. It is super easy, SSF friendly, and extremely tanky build. It does pretty well all the way up through the campaign into early maps and can handle a lot of the early Pinnacle Bosses.
One of the biggest bonuses about this build is the fact that once you get the Sentinel of Radiance, you essentially don’t have to do anything anymore through the entirety of the campaign. This skill will carry you all the way through and you don’t even have to worry about anything except shield charging through zones and picking up loot.
I highly suggest that you give this build a shot.
Next on the list, for anybody who’s interested in playing a melee build, we have the Boneshatter Slayer by Carn.
Now, Boneshatter has gotten a pretty decent amount of changes this league. And whether or not it’s a very slight nerf or potentially a pretty large buff is yet to be seen.
However, what we do know is that the build is still absolutely excellent.
In previous leagues, I had put on a Boneshattered Juggernaut guide. However, the super highend of the Juggernaut might potentially be pretty nerfed and it looks like this layer is a just kind of ending up being the better build.
So, I highly suggest that you follow Carn for this. He is the Boneshatter guy. So much that one of the new alt qualities literally got named after him.
And the Boneshatter Slayer uses a bunch of really super interesting mechanics. Make sure that you go follow Carn, so you can see any updates that he makes to this build as we get information on the new Transfigure Gems and he does some more testing with all that kind of stuff.
If there’s anybody that’s going to figure it out, it’s Carn.
Third on the list, we have Vaal Flameblast Ignite Elementalist from Jungroan.
Now, you might know about Jungroan from all of his like speed running and racing content, where he basically goes through the entirety of the game getting the first 2 Watchstones in as little time as possible.
He’s posted like 8 or 9 of those this league so far in a whole bunch of different builds, but the one that stood out to me was this Flameblast Ignite build.
This uses a pretty interesting mechanic on the tree that allows you to essentially just extend the duration of ignites infinitely, meaning that you can use just a somewhat clunky skill that does a huge amount of damage and then just extend that ignite essentially forever.
This is an extremely well-rounded build. It might be slightly clunky for some people if you’re not very good at timing, because of the way that Vaal Flameblast works and it does use Wave of Conviction early, which some people are not a huge fan of.
But this build is exceptionally strong. And once you do learn how to pilot it, it is very good for bossing, clearing, and all kinds of other good stuff.
Next on the list, we have Caustic Arrow Poison Ballista by Palsteron.
Now, it’s no surprise that Palsteron has made another Ballista/Totem league starter, but this one has gotten a pretty decent update this league with the addition of Tinctures and the ability to have all sources of damage poison.
It is going to be significantly easier to make a bow for this build, meaning that it is going to be way stronger for way less gear.
Ballistas are a super safe play style. You can essentially just drop them down and run away and let them do the damage for you. However, if you are someone who likes doing the damage yourself or likes being upfront in their business, this may not be the play style for you.
That said, this is an extremely powerful build, way easier to gear this league and something that I can highly recommend.
Lastly, we’ve got the Splitting Steel Champion by Ruetoo.
I have played Splitting Steel a lot in the past and Splitting Steel this league has gotten some pretty significant changes. Call of Steel is gone from the normal version of this gem and it works essentially the same exact way it did previously.
You’re still going to be able to overlap all of your projectiles. You’re still going to have excellent clear and excellent damage. And Ruetoo has made a pretty early league friendly build that uses a ton of very easy to get uniques.
So, I do highly recommend this build as well. This version should be perfectly fine and it should get you through pretty much all content in the game.
POE 3.23 Affliction Challenge League will be launched soon. In this guide, I want to go over what we know so far about Affliction’s league mechanics and rewards, potential farming strategies, and the implications of this league mechanic on what builds and Atlas strategies you should be playing. This way you can enter the league armed with everything you need!
First, let’s review everything we know about league mechanics.
Affliction is mechanically similar to Delirium. Near the entrance to each area, you’ll find a Sacred Wisp that will lead you to Wildwood.
This is an area shrouded in darkness. As you explore the darkness, the power of Sacred Wisp will be drained. You need to explore a limited area before running out of energy. Your goal in Wildwood is mainly to collect Wisp while keeping an eye out for Azmeri Wanderers and Bosses.
Wisps are automatically collected by walking through them or killing enemies in Wildwood.
When you leave Wildwood, it released these Wisps into your map to enhance monster abilities. Monsters that are empowered are more powerful - similar to Delirium and Tormented Spirit.
The way empowerment works is that after you leave Wildwood, every monster on the map has a percentage chance of being possessed by each Wisp independently. The more wisps of that type you collect, the higher your chances.
Monsters can have more than one type of Wisps. This makes them more deadly, but also increases the bonuses given by Wisps.
As for these rewards, each Wisp has a different effect. Primal Wisps give monsters an Item Rarity bonus, Wild Wisps give monsters an Item Quantity bonus, and Vivid Wisps are a little different and cause monsters to drop currency items.
It’s very important to note that empowerment doesn’t just affect the monsters on the map when you complete Wildwood. Afterwards, each monster spawned in your map will also gain a rolling percentage of empowerment.
Now let’s move on to Wildwood Ascendancies. Affliction Leaguer adds 3 new Ascendancies that you can unlock through Affliction content. In addition to the regular Ascendancy class, you can also choose one of Ascendancy classes to get.
You can unlock these benefits by finding relevant Azmeri Wanderers in Wildwood. If you choose to occupy their Ascendancy, you will immediately gain the first 2 points and start a quest line to get the remaining 6 points.
Warden of the Maji gives you access to a new item called Tinctures. Warlock of the Mists has Curse and life-related passives. Wildwood Primalist has Sockets that can be inserted into Charms. Wildwood Primalist also has a notable skill that allows your Warcries to open chests and cause corpses to drop additional loot.
Each of these Ascendancies has small nodes that add some type of Wisps collected in Wildwood.
Next, let’s talk about Tinctures, Charms, and Corpses. Likewise, Azmeri Wanderers NPC lets you ascend double as a vendor, allowing you to trade Wisps you collect in Wildwood for Tinctures, Charms, and Corpses. These are unmodifiable but can be traded.
Tinctures go into the flask slot, but not the flask. They provide passive bonuses to your equipped weapons, and you can activate one Tincture at a time.
Charms have 1-2 affixes and are miniature versions of the existing class Ascendance passives. I predict that certain combinations of affixes on Charms will be powerful, sought after by many players, and valuable.
Finally, Corpses are consumable items that spawn specific Corpses on the ground. We can use these Corpses with minion skills like Raise Specter, or with Warlock’s Ravenous skill.
Unfortunately, these Specters will not spawn additional Corpses once revived with Desecrate. So if your Specter dies, you will need to spend POE Currency to purchase additional Corpses to re-summon them. This sounds bad, but if they were powerful enough, I’m sure some players would use them, despite their clunky nature.
Now that we’ve had a quick look at how everything works in Affliction, I want to start discussing Affliction League strategy.
The first choice you have to make is what Ascendancy is to choose. I recommend that players first choose their first Ascendancy based on which force is most powerful at the start of the league. They can then transition to another Ascendancy later if they wish.
I think Warden is the right Ascendancy to choose first for almost every build. This is for two reasons.
First, Warden passive, Oath of the Maji, can provide many valuable rewards early in the league. Most notably, if you don’t have any gems embedded in your boots, you move 30% faster. This is a price you’ll be happy to pay in leveling up and ancient maps.
Another reason is that each vantage has small nodes that increase the specific type of Wisps collected. A type related to Warden is Vivid Wisp, which allows monsters to drop large amounts of POE currency.
If this turns out not to be the enormous boost to the currency that I was expecting, it would be cheap and easy to move to something else. The risk is tiny and the rewards are extremely high.
The next thing I want to talk about is the potential for Raw Currency farming with Vivid Wisps.
While many players have been focusing on Ascendancy, I believe the currency drops of these Vivid Wisps will become the focus of farming strategies.
There are two different paths you can take when farming currency is this way. The first is to fill your map with as many monsters as possible. The second is to gain triple-empowerment on powerful and unique monsters. Because these monsters inherently have top item counts and rarity bonuses.
The key thing to note about the first method is that monetary rewards from Vivid Wisps actually double-dip with pack size. This is because the monsters in Wildwood that drop Wisps scale according to the pack size, and there will be more monsters on your map for Wisps to empower.
So there are more monsters, and the probability of each monster dropping currency is also higher. If you go this route, you can target many league mechanics that will spawn large numbers of enemies.
On the other hand, the monsters that guarantee currency drops during the league are not the ones that cause huge currency explosions. This is a unique monster that has a tremendous bonus to item quantity and item rarity.
So, how do you extend these bonuses further? Mainly through Delirium, Tormented Spirit and Expedition. Tormented Spirit and Delirium can increase the rarity and quantity of items, and Expedition can add modifiers to farmed monsters, increasing the quantity and rarity of items even further.
Finally, there is something that absolutely everyone can relate to. Some Charms from Azmeri Wanderers Vendors will be highly sought after. This means they will be profitable if sold.
Therefore, you’ll want to focus on the prices of various accessories on Charms so you don’t miss out on items at the vendor that could be worth a lot of Divine Orbs.
For my last topic, I want to briefly talk about Affliction’s build options.
Unfortunately, it’s unclear which building is best for Affliction, as it can interact with many league mechanics, and we don’t yet know what the winning strategy will be.
If energetic bosses are going to end up dropping the best rewards, then you’re going to want a build with a strong single target. If the number of monsters is high, you’ll want a build with a high clearing speed.
Personally, I’m focusing on Explosive Arrow Ballista build. It takes advantage of Tinctures I can get through Warden Ascendancy, can take down the most active bosses in the game, and has a pretty good clearing speed if needed.
That’s all for this guide. What are your plans for how to use Affliction mechanism? Do you think it would be better to fill the map with as many monsters as possible? Or focus on creating the most exciting rare items and bosses? Hope to see you in Affliction League!
Diablo 4’s next major addition to the endgame, Abattoir of Zir was finally officially added to the game on December 5th! To help you better experience this newly introduced endgame content, I will introduce everything about it!
The Abattoir of Zir is a new level 100 piece of endgame content that, at the start, is going to be more difficult than level 100 Nightmare Dungeons. This new system is going to be very similar to Rifts from Diablo III.
You need to enter one of these dungeons and you’ll have 10 minutes to defeat enough enemies to summon a boss and then defeat that boss to actually complete that run of the Abattoir of Zir.
If you die once, the run’s over. And if you don’t defeat the boss within that 10 minutes, the run’s over. Even if you’re in a group of 4 people, if any person in the group dies, the run’s over. Even looking past that, just the difficulty of the enemies is going to be higher than nightmare 100 dungeons. It’s also only going to be one light. So, this is going to be very difficult.
To even start this new system, you will have had to complete the entirety of the Season Journey. So you’ll basically have to be level 100 and pretty progressed into the endgame to even get into the first level of this new system. And it’s going to work in a similar way to Nightmare Dungeons.
Once you complete that Season Journey, you’ll get a new recipe to craft Tier 1 of the Abattoir of Zir. And it’ll take sigil dust like your normal Nightmare Dungeon Keys.
Once you go in and complete the first tier of the Abattoir of Zir, you’ll then get a recipe to craft Tier 2. And you can go all the way up to Tier 25. But this is going to be much more difficult than going from level 66 to 67 in Nightmare Dungeons.
The difficulty increase from Tier 1 to Tier 2 is going to be a substantial jump. So, getting up all the way to Tier 25 is something that the vast majority of players will not accomplish.
One of the biggest saving graces of the system is how they’re going to be scaling that difficulty. Because they’re not actually going to be scaling the damage that enemies do to you very much.
In fact, we’re not actually certain if they’re going to be increasing the damage enemies deal at any point during the Abattoir of Zir. It did sound like they’re going to be slightly increasing it. But the primary way they’re increasing the difficulty is increasing the health of these enemies.
The reason this is actually really good is that these enemies are already going to be dealing ridiculous amounts of damage. In fact, Tier 1 of the Abattoir of Zir is going to be equivalent to level 104 of Nightmare Dungeons. That’s already going to be doing a lot of damage to you. But primarily scaling the health is going to allow a lot more builds to be able to do this.
And remember, you’re on a timer. Even if you have a super tanky build that can survive everything, you need to be doing enough damage to be able to kill enough things and then kill the boss to be able to beat that 10-minute timer or you fail. So, I think they’re actually scaling this difficulty in a much better way that’s going to actually allow a lot of builds to at least attempt some of these higher tiers.
The rewards from Abattoir of Zir are also going to be pretty substantial.
Now, we don’t actually know how gear drops are going to work in the system. Presumably, you’re going to be getting a lot of really high item level gear. Presumably, you’ll have really good chances to get 925 item level. But there are going to be some more specific rewards.
First off, you’re going to be getting a lot of glyph XP. Completing a Tier 1 of Abattoir of Zir is going to reward you with 1,000 glyph experience that you can either use on all of our normal glyphs right now or you can use on the other new reward of this system, which is going to be the first unique glyph ever added to Diablo 4 called Tears of Blood. This glyph is going to work in a completely different way than all of the other glyphs.
It’s going to start at level 1, but you’re going to be able to level it to level 200 or maybe even more. So, instead of being capped at 21, you’re capped at 200 or more, which is pretty crazy. This is also another reason why you need that massive amount of glyph experience. This glyph is also going to start at radius 4 and we know you’re at least going to be able to increase the size of this glyph at level 50 up to 5, which is bigger than any other glyph. We don’t know if you’ll be able to increase the size past that as well.
Now, the actual effects of this glyph are for every 5 core stats purchased within range. You gain 2% increased multiplicative damage. And again, this is at level 1, so that increase is also going to be increasing every time you level it up.
And then, it grants a 50% bonus to all rare nodes within range. This bonus is increased by 10% every 10 levels. Every 10 levels you put in, it’ll go up by another 10%. So, 1% per level, but it probably won’t actually increase until you get the full 10 levels. All in all, massively increased bonuses to rare nodes and just absurdly high damage increases.
What’s really interesting is this is just for every 5 core stats within range. This doesn’t mention the main stat for your class. This just says any core stat. This could potentially still mean that it’s just your main stat for your class (Willpower for a Druid). But it’s seeming like it’s meaning just any of the primary stats in the game, which would be pretty ridiculous.
And either way you look at it, either way this is going to play out, this thing is going to be giving you pretty much the biggest damage increase you can possibly get. This is probably going to give you close to infinite progression for the rest of the season, because getting like 200 levels on this one glyph is still going to take a lot of time and it’s just going to give you absurdly high damage increases.
Because of how the Abattoir of Zir is going to be scaled, where they’re scaling enemy health more than anything else, and because this glyph is tied into this, you’re probably going to actually need to continue to heavily progress this glyph to even have a chance to do higher tiers of the Abattoir of Zir. Because you’re getting such absurd damage increases with this glyph, that they would need to balance the higher tiers in a way to where you legitimately could not get enough damage without this glyph.
I do think this is actually a pretty good way to give more content and more progression halfway into a season, to continue to give you new and more difficult things to do. Because when this comes out, we’re going to be relatively halfway into the season and getting this is basically going to give you another tier of progression in the endgame.
The healer is part of the Holy Trinity and Expedition and Trial Explorations. Your main goal is to keep your teammates alive. The primary target is your tank and then your DPS buddies. This build will make sure you have the highest chance of survival and PVE content.
First, we will talk about three essential perks for any healer in PVE. These are Health, Enchanted Ward, and four stacks of Refreshing. Health is good in all situations as it increases your maximum HP and it is the best way to protect yourself against any form of damage. Enchanted Ward is very useful as the most common form of the enemy's offense is a light or heavy attack. Element Aversion is a good substitution for these perks. However, compared to light and heavy attacks, spells are much less frequent. Therefore, the Enchanted Ward is a better form of protection. The last perk that you want to have at maximum stacks is Refreshing. A lower spell cooldown means that you heal more often.
Let's take a look at almost the best in slot gear that is very strong in PVE situations. It is your faction gear. It is Health and Enchanted Ward and Refreshing — all of the perks that you need. If you buy all five gear slots, you already have the very strong gear to complete at least M2 as the recommended gear level is 675. I am fully aware that you will waste a perk slot because you will use more than four stacks of refreshing. But their turn for having health and an Enchanted Ward as your other two perks is much more valuable than not having them. New World Items are meant as a placeholder until you get a higher gear score with health and an Echanted Ward or you will get an artifact of your choice.
On the topic of artifacts, I recommend two of them. One is Featherweight. This one allows us to wear two heavy gear pieces on the head, gloves, or feet. This will give us more Armor overall and we will take much less damage and the game will be easier to play. So our gear will now look like this. You will have a heavy or light head. Featherweight as your chest piece. Then heavy or light gloves, light pants, and heavy or light feet. Up to a maximum of two heavy pieces, if you want to stay in light equip load. The next artifact that I would use as a Healer is a Nimble coat. It is a medium chest piece that gives us more refreshing. With four Stacks plus the unique perk, we will be sitting on a maximum of 24% cooldown reduction. This will allow us to spam more skills and in certain situations with a refreshing move on your weapon and life stuff passive you can have almost zero cooldowns on your skills.
I will now cover some of the New World Items that are very strong and can replace your faction gear. One of them is the Azoth Crystal set that can be crafted with mutation Material in the gypsum kiln. This set gives you an Enchanted Ward and Refreshing. It is guaranteed a gear score of 700 and the third perk is randomly picked. With health having a 15% chance of being picked. But do not worry, you can change the perks later with some other items as well. The other set that is easy to get can help you and it is two perks you want to focus on is the Empress Joe's set. It is healthy and refreshing as its primary perks and the enchanted ward has a rather small percentage of rolling at 3%, but you can change it later.
With all the gear covered, now let's talk about the weapons. For the life stuff, you have many options that can be crafted from a gypsum kiln. You just pick your favorite one, of all the three options is hard to pick the one stuff that is the best. The corrupted one can be farmed in Merk guard and the other two can be crafted with material in a gypsum kiln.
When it comes to Gems, each mutation has one element that is more prevalent and generally you will want to slot in the Gem that is resistant to it, however. I would just take the general Elemental Gem that has less resistance against one element, but has against many. In the long run, this is much cheaper than wasting your New World Coins on getting all your gems replaced each time you want to do a mutation.
The same as with the previous gear set with the body gear covered let us focus on the jewelry. My Amulet of choice that is always good is the passage of time. It has a constitutional attribute. It is guaranteed a gear score of 700 when it is crafted from a gypsum kiln. The primary perk is refreshing and stamina recovery. As a third perk, you can pick the element ward of the mutation you are doing or you could just Select Health. It will not be as perfect as element Ward perks such as fire or Abyssal. But it will do. As for the ring, I like using Vivify. It has focus as its attributes and has refreshing and Healing Breeze as its primary perks. I like taking sacred as the third perk as this gives us more healing. my favorite jewelry artifact is Endless Thirst. It gives you a big potion drink in a time of need. Usually, you do not need to drink one, but when you do you need a strong one. As a third perk, I like picking a healing heart as it heals us when we use the Heartune.
When it comes to Heartrunes, you have two options Stalwart Heartrune of Stoneform or brutal Heartsrune of Grasping Vines. Stoneform is more defensive and Vines are a more offensive option. I would use Stoneform in critical situations. Vines I would use in more offensive situations when the DPS of the group needs to be as high as possible.
When it comes to the skills, I would use the a healing skills such as sacred ground orb of protection and Beacon. I would cycle through them and then swamp to your other weapon. This playstyle would come in handy if all of your teammates are melee DPS. I would slot in the Divine Embrace if you have one or more ranged ones as it has very strong single target healing. Remember that your light attacks also can heal.
As our secondary weapon, I love taking lifetaker. It is a Void Gauntlet Artifact. Its unique perk is that it applies to disintegrate on ranged attacks on both weapons. Disintegrate is a DOT and a 10% rent that stacks up to three times. Giving us up to 30% rent, as the final perk I would take blessed as we are a healer and none of the weapon perks are suited for PVE situations. Now let's take a look at the skill tree for the VG. The primary skills that I like taking is Oblivion. It gives you and your teammates 15% in power among other buffs. Next I would take the orb as it heals your group and it applies disintegrates to your enemies. I also like using the blade for non-boss fights and essence rupture for the boss fight.
WoW Classic Season of Discovery has had us looking all over Azeroth for new rune abilities. A lot of players are enjoying finding these runes blindly because it is super fun.
But some can be easily missed, so I wanted to cover the first 4 runes that you can find on a Rogue in the Human starter area. All of these can be found in either Elwynn Forest or Stormwind City.
Starting with number one, and it’s an easy one, it’s Shadowstrike.
Shadowstrike is the rune that lets you go invisible and teleport to your target. You get this at the very start of the game.
Simply go to your class trainer in Northshire and take the quest to recover a stashed item. If you head over the river and go to the Vineyards, it’s just south of this.
As you get to the mountain, you’ll see a little shack with a couple of Defias outside and there’s a chest in front. Defeat the Defias, pop the chest, and there’s your Shadowstrike rune. If you have enough SOD Gold, you can buy some weapons and armors to equip yourself so that you can easily defeat the monsters you encounter.
The rune we can go for next is the Quick Draw rune, which is a bit difficult to get.
Quick Draw is a quick shot with a ranged weapon that slows enemies down.
To get this rune, you need to pickpocket parts of a Treasure Map and put that map together. Then, go find the treasure and the treasure is the rune.
The 4 map pieces all drop from different Humanoid monsters around Elwynn Forest. So first, get to level 4 and unlock Stealth and unlock Pick Pocket. And then, start looking for the different Humanoids.
The top left piece can be found from Defias. So, go and pickpocket some Defias. We saw this one at Jerod’s Landing. There was a Defia there. Pickpocket it, got the piece. I assume it can be any of the Defias.
The top right one comes from Kobolds. And this one was pickpocketed at Jasperlode Mine, which is where you go in the Goldshire quest. There are the Spiders at the end. But you just pickpocket the Kobolds around here.
The bottom left one is from Gnolls, which are located conveniently at the bottom left of Elwind near Hogger (near the where the map changes over on the west).
Then, the bottom right piece can be found at Murlocs. And these are all around Crystal Lake, just east of Goldshire.
Once you find all 4 pieces, you’ve pickpocketed all four pieces, that’s when you put the map together. If you’re struggling to fight these, you can just stealth and pickpocket while other people are fighting, especially on release when these servers are completely full. You can just go and pickpocket as people are just clearing the different comps.
Once you’ve got them all, put them together. It tells you to head to the treasure west of Ridgepoint Tower, near the Wolf’s Den. So, head over there and you’ll see a stump. Go to this stump and use your scroll, use your map, and then you’ll find the Quick Draw rune.
Onto the third one, Mutilate.
This deals damage with 2 weapons, and it is a super powerful rune once you get dual wield.
It again requires pickpocketing to start or to learn about it. So, you need to pickpocket an important NPC. You can get this from Morgan the Collector in the house near where Princess is on the bottom right of the map.
But I’ve also heard it can be got from Garrick Padfoot in Northshire. But this guy gets defeated in like 2 seconds because of how many people are queuing up for it. So, Morgan the Collector definitely seems easy to get it from. And he survives a little bit longer, so you can actually pickpocket it.
This note tells you to follow the river north of Crystal Lake and south of the wall. Just head south of Northshire and follow the wall right up to the east side. There’s like a hidden Stealth guy here. Just talk to him and he’ll teach you Mutilate.
Some people are saying you need to be level 10 and have unlocked Dual Wielding to get this. But it’s worth getting. It’s not that hard to get.
Next up is Between the Eyes, a ranged finisher that also stuns. This is one thing Rogues have always wanted for gap closing.
Pre-warning, this includes a fight against two level 10 mobs. So, make sure you have friends or you’re leveled enough. And this can be found in Stormwind.
Just head to the Canals, like the lake around the Dwarven District, and look for a house on the left side. Head through and you’ll be in an alley. Follow it all the way to the end and you’ll see an open house. Head upstairs to the house and as soon as you get to the top, you’ll see a big bed. And there should be a chest in front of the bed.
If it’s not here, you need to wait for it to respawn because someone’s already done it. Click the chest and two mobs will spawn. Defeat those, and that’s how you get the rune.
