Here, we’ll discuss the latest changes to Uber Unique drop rate in Diablo 4 and how it affects the game.

I feel like many of you are probably not fully up to date on every latest change to the game. Since it’s the end of the season, there usually aren’t vast changes at this point.

And Christmas event that just released is boring and uninspired, to say the least. So you have good reason not to listen closely to what’s going on with Diablo 4 right now, at least until they start announcing details about Season 3.

Duriel’s Uber Uniques Drop Rate Changes

That being said, one recent change to the game that you may have noticed is that the drop rate for Duriel’s Uber Uniques has doubled. That’s what I want to talk about here, because this change has serious implications for both future and past events.

Hardcore Diablo fans should be very aware that doubling things in a game rarely has the desired effect. Before we talk about this change, we also have to talk about Uber Uniques’ system of dropping a boss throughout the game. Because the system itself is highly questionable, to say the least.

Everyone praised the developers for their decision when they announced that Uber Uniques would be more suitable for the average player. Because the drop rates for these items have been so low since the launch of the game that only a handful of players in the world are lucky enough to get them.

Anything is better than this system, so that’s why everyone cheered when Duriel could drop Uber Unique items with about a 2% drop rate.

Influence

But little did we know it was another horrible system that players grew to hate over time. In order to fight Duriel and have a 2% chance of receiving one item, players must go through a heartbreaking grind.

The time varies depending on the class you play. But I think it’s safe to say that summoning Duriel at a time requires at least an hour of farming time.

Now, if a player kills Duriel in a group, it can increase the number of summons by 4x. But the problem remains: long hours of soulless grinding with a slim chance of getting really good items.

Trust me, 2% chance is small, especially if you want a specific Uber Unique. You can easily kill between 5 and 800 Duriel without dropping your target Uber Unique. And you can get multiple other unique items that are actually useless to your class.

It filled Reddit with posts, complaining about how many times they ran it without getting Unique drops they wanted. Other types of posts are where players post screenshots of the items they ultimately earned as proof of some kind of achievement.

But is beating a simple, easy-to-kill boss repeatedly really a tremendous accomplishment? Players are frustrated, and rightfully so. Wouldn’t it be better if it could drop Uber Uniques from any mob, but the chance of a drop didn’t limit them to a handful of players in the world?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the addition of Uber Bosses is completely useless. They serve their purpose well by letting players aim to farm regular unique items, such as Tempest Roar and Malignant Rings. But bundling Uber Unique items with Duriel is a huge mistake in my opinion.

Player Feedback

Now let’s get back to the present and look at the recent changes to Uber Uniques drop odds. The fact that the developers made such a change, especially in the middle of the season, upset more people.

First, this doesn’t solve the problem of Duriel being a single semi-reliable way to get Uber Uniques. But that’s not the only problem. Let’s see how some player groups react to this change.

Players who have gotten Unique items they wanted despite tedious grinding without buffs may feel betrayed by the developers. Because it takes new players half the time to get the same items.

The second category of players are those who obtained Unique by purchasing Duriel summoning materials using Diablo 4 Gold or even real money. I personally see nothing wrong with using gold to purchase materials. But since duping is available to certain groups, material prices can become very low due to the excessive number of duped items being sold.

So, while buying with gold isn’t inherently a bad thing, duping is questionable. As for paying real money to get summoning materials, I do understand the reasoning: people want to skip dozens or hundreds of hours of grinding to reach Duriel by paying. I understand the motivation, but it’s still bad for the game as this is clearly a case of pay-to-win and will ruin the game in the long run.

So, the target group that should benefit from the double drop chances are players who have never obtained unique items and plan to get them later in the season. However, at the end of the season, the number of these players was not as high as the developers thought.

It’s entirely possible that some players who never got Uber Uniques evaded this chore, and they still have to do it after the change. At least the price of summoning materials is expected to drop due to increased drop rates.

Conclusion

So, overall, the developers made a controversial change to an objectively terrible system. They could have redesigned the entire system, or at least they could have waited until next season to introduce the change.

Regardless, this is yet another in a long line of terrible decisions from Diablo developers. Looking at this trend, they really have to do better to compete with the upcoming Path of Exile 2. What are your thoughts on this topic? Are you planning to take advantage of Uber Uniques? See you next time!

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

General Info

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

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

Enchanted Dreaming Crests

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

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

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

Same as last season, we have 3 Enchanted Crests:

Enhanced Whelpling’s Dreaming Crest Enhanced Wyrm’s Dreaming Crest Enhanced Aspect’s Dreaming Crest

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

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

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

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

Spark Of Dreams

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

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

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

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

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

How To Put An Order & Tips

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PvP

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

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

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

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

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

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

WOW Classic Season of Discovery has started for a few weeks. Currently, almost all Warlock Runes have been discovered. Some you just click on an item, but some are more difficult to complete, like Metamorphosis Rune.

So, in this Warlock Runes guide, I want to review the five most important Runes of Warlock, which are Runes above level 15.

Incinerate

So let’s get down to business first. The Incinerate Rune deals fire damage and increases the fire damage you deal by 25%.

They dropped Rune of Incinerate from Incinerator Gar’im. This is a level 23 elite found in a cave in Render’s Valley, which is located in the southeast corner of Redridge Mountains, approximately around coordinates [77, 85].

Keep in mind that Redridge Mountains are a contested area, so rival factions on PVP server will attack you here. You’ll also have to deal with other Blackrock orc monsters in the area.

So if you’re at a lower level, you may need a friend. You just have to fight him, knock him down, and then you can loot Rune of Incinerate from him, which is actually pretty easy to get once you get to that level.

Lake Of Fire

In Season of Discovery, one of the most valuable Runes you can get as Warlock is Lake of Fire.

This spell is powerful in a fire-based Warlock build. Because it leaves an area on the ground beneath your target, causing all other targets within that AOE radius to take increased fire damage from you and your demons.

To get this Lake of Fire, you first need to find Zixil, a goblin merchant. After finding Zixil, purchase Demolition Explosives from the merchant for a total of 1 WOW Classic SOD Gold. This reagent will be the key to obtaining Lake of Fire Rune later.

Next, head northeast in Hillsbrad Foothills to Durnholde Keep reaching coordinates [79, 40]. There, you’ll find a pile of rocks and debris labeled “Rubble.”

Stand directly on the rubble and use Demolition Explosives purchased from Zixil. If done correctly, you will destroy the rubble and a locker will appear containing Lake of Fire Rune.

If you miss the rubble or stand in the wrong spot when detonating the explosives, the locker containing Lake of Fire Rune will not appear and you cannot get explosives there.

You only have one chance to get this rune, and if you mess up, you’ll have to return to Zixil and drop another gold piece before you can try again.

Everlasting Affliction

It can engrave rune of Everlasting Affliction on Legs slot and allow Warlock’s various abilities to refresh the duration of your applied Corruption.

We should note that Alliance and Horde players get Rune of Everlasting Affliction differently.

To get Rune of Everlasting Affliction, Alliance players need to turn in Waylaid Supplies until you gain a Friendly reputation within Azeroth Commerce Authority faction. You can then purchase Rune of Everlasting Affliction from the same Supply Officer for 2 WoW Classic SoD gold.

Horde players who want to get Everlasting Affliction need to turn in Waylaid Supplies until you gain Friendly reputation in Durotar Supply and Logistics faction. You can then purchase Rune of Everlasting Affliction from the same Supply Officer for 2 gold.

Shadow Bolt Volley

Shadow Bolt Volley is a Gloves Rune that enhances Warlock’s classic skill, Shadow Bolt. When this rune is activated, your Shadow Bolt can attack chain enemies within up to 10 yards, but 20% reduce the damage dealt.

In a raid or dungeon situation, Warlock can easily top the damage charts with Shadow Bolt Volley. While your single target damage may suffer as a result, Warlock still has plenty of other damage options, including pet damage and DOT spells. I highly recommend this rune to anyone running a burst damage Warlock build.

To get Shadow Bolt Volley Rune, travel to Beren’s Peril in the southeastern Silverpine Forest. The entrance to this cave is around coordinates [60, 74], which is a bit hidden. We can find it by following the road south and then northeast into the mountains below Ambermill.

You will then need to kill Ravenclaw Guardians and Ravenclaw Drudgers until one of them drops a Tortured Soul.

To use this item, you must lose some health. Use Life Tap or Health Funnel if needed. Then right-click the item to summon a level 20 elite ghost of the same name. Kill it to Shadow Bolt Volley Rune.

Metamorphosis

Finally, Metamorphosis offers the biggest overhaul to traditional Warlock gameplay by transforming spellcasters into melee tanks. This Rune increases Warlock’s armor by 5x, reduces their critical chance, increases their overall Threat generation by 50%, and doubles Life Tap’s mana regeneration.

For such a powerful, class-changing Rune, Warlock must undergo one of the most complex missions of the season. There are four quests in Metamorphosis quest chain, starting with Orb of Soran’ruk.

Orb Of Soran’ruk

To us by Doan Karhan brought this assignment to us. Doan Karhan is a neutral NPC east of Camp Taurajo in Barrens.

Karhan requires players to collect three Soran’ruk Fragments and one Large Soran’ruk Fragment. Small fragments drop from Twilight Acolytes inside and outside Blackfathom Deeps, while large fragments drop from Shadowfang Darksoul enemies inside Shadowfang Keep. Collect both, then return to Karhan.

Rumors Abound

Karhan will then ask players to collect Orb of Des and Bough of Altek, two new unique quest items.

We can find Orb of Des in Tower of Ilgalar in the eastern Redridge Mountains. Bough of Altek, on the other hand, is located at the top of Tower of Althalaxx in Darkshore. Once you’ve collected these two items, return to Karhan to complete the third part of the quest.

Conjuring

He then asks the player to collect ten Blood of the Legion. These can only be obtained from demonic enemies southeast of Ashenvale. Waves of demonic enemies will spawn here. Warlock must stand among Purple Runes that appear on the ground near the obelisk and use Drain Soul ability to kill these enemies. Survive here and Mysterious Traveler will appear.

Raszel Ander

Speak with Mysterious Traveler to complete Conjuring and begin the last steps of Metamorphosis quest. When Mysterious Traveler appears, he will give the quest Raszel Ander. After picking it up, return to Karhan one last time to complete the quest and get the Metamorphosis Rune.

That’s it for all the major Warlock Runes. These five Runes will make your Warlock even more powerful in WOW Classic Season of Discovery. Remember, patience is crucial when dealing with these challenges.

Path of Exile 2 has revealed new gameplay, a boss fight, and a new class called the Mercenary.

Additionally, new features of the game include changes and new additions to the combat. This is really looking like a straight-up improvement to the isometric genre.

Let's go through the cool new things coming in Path of Exile 2.

New Controls

Firstly, let's go over the confirmation of the new changes to how you can control your character and this applies to any class and any weapon type.

You can now use WASD movement to control and move your character, allowing you to move separately while aiming. You can still use traditional click-to-move if you want to.

On top of this, there are changes to many character skills whereby you can move while casting, increasing the pace and intensity of combat.

Honestly, these changes together are great news to me, and it really does impact how the game will feel to play.

Mercenary Class

Regarding the Mercenary class, then we got a really good look at the new Mercenary class, which is a new crossbow-wielding character.

This class comes with unique crossbow options, mimicking a variety of different firearm types but in crossbow form.

They wanted this class to feel both responsive and snappy when firing the crossbow, similar to how shooting in first-person shooter games feels. So, they've gone deep into making different crossbows that function kind of like a sniper rifle, a shotgun, and even assault rifles.

These crossbows are layered on top with different elemental ammo types and even attachments that all synergize together in different ways.

New Weapon Types

For your character's equipment, you can only equip 2 crossbows at a time, and there are 3 different types to pick from:

Burst Crossbow: Functions like a shotgun, firing a burst of arrows dealing little damage individually but packing a punch if they all connect to a single target. Power Shot Crossbow: Functions like a sniper rifle, dealing high damaging slow lower hits. Rapid Shot Crossbow: Very fast shooting with a high magazine capacity, allowing for chasing and evading enemies while keeping up the damage.

All Ammo Abilities

There are also ammo skills, which add another layer of depth on top of how these different types of crossbows function. There are slight differences in how they work across the different types, so let's go through them all.

Ammo abilities include Armor-Piercing Ammo, which makes your hits pierce through enemies, good for taking on a group at once.

However, for the Rapid Shot crossbow, each hit will erode an enemy's armor, eventually breaking it, negating the Burst Shot crossbows' drawback against armored enemies.

Meanwhile, for the Power Shot crossbow, if an enemy's armor is broken, you can then pull out your power crossbow to shoot them, triggering a special weak spot hit dealing massive extra damage and high stun on the enemy.

Then, you have Incendiary Ammo. This is good against single targets as it ignites them. With the Burst Shot crossbow, the more projectiles that connect to a target, the more damage it deals per hit, making it great for super close-range situations.

For the Rapid Shot crossbow, the incendiary ammo charges up before firing. As you continue to shoot, it heats up, dealing more damage per shot. Moreover, it boosts the fire damage of any grenades you launch and automatically ignites oil grenades.

Moving on to the Power Shot crossbow, this ammo transforms into a pseudo-rocket launcher, creating an explosive blast on impact for AOE damage. It synergizes with grenades, causing any fired on the ground to instantly explode.

Permafrost Ammo slows enemies by chilling them and has a chance to freeze them in place. Frozen enemies are vulnerable to a special effect of the armor-piercing ammo, making them explode for huge AOE damage nearby.

The rapid-fire crossbow can also shoot the ground with this ammo type to create ice crystals. These crystals act like mines, exploding when enemies touch them and applying chilling to slow them down. It helps set traps and establish a safe area before engaging in a fight.

The Power Shot crossbow creates ice walls on impact, blocking off areas in corridors and alleys to control enemies. These walls explode when broken by enemies, synergizing with Burst Shot crossbows' armor-piercing ammo for extra damage on Frozen targets.

New Grenade Gear Slots & Types

Additionally, there are new grenade gear slots and types.

The attachment slot in your crossbow is where grenades come from. It functions as a grenade launcher. It allows you to fire different grenade types with varied effects upon explosion.

These attachments function as skill gems, providing extra skill slots for your character and can be augmented with support gems. Grenades are fired separately from your crossbow's primary shooting and explode after a short delay, based on the type chosen.

There are 3 known types of grenades:

Explosive Grenades deal massive damage with a delayed explosion. Flash Grenades deal slight damage but cause massive stun on enemies. Oil Grenades slow enemies by covering them with oil, leaving patches on the floor.

These combinations allow for interesting build potentials. The different crossbow types, ammo types, and grenade varieties synergize in unique ways. Witnessing a character utilizing these synergies against a boss was impressive. The boss fight showcased these strategies in action.

This is a build guide that can help you gain infinite heals and stamina PVP in New World Season 4. I’m going to keep it short for you.

Weapon Artifacts

For weapon artifacts, I’m running Finisher Rapier mainly because of its 15% permanent damage buff, which affects both of your weapons, and you can keep it up with the Keenly Jagged on your bow. I’m still using Refreshing Move on it.

I’m also using Energy Aura as the third perk on my bow, but you can use Enchanted if you really want to. This is a stamina surplus build, as you’ll see in a second, so it’s all up to personal preference. I just end up preferring the stamina.

For gems, I’m choosing to split my damage 50/50, as it’s the best of both worlds and has the least amount of counters. The 8% damage over time (DOT) is mandatory, but make sure the element of that DOT is different on both your weapons because they don’t stack.

Armor And Jewelry Artifacts

Regarding armor artifacts, I like Tumblers because it’s a 600 heal on no cooldown. The reason I prefer it over Featherweight is that of the potential it has. Featherweight offers around a 5% extra effective hitpoints (EHP) difference, which is around 900 health. So if I proc Tumblers at least twice in a fight, it’s automatically better than Featherweight, and any proc behind that just makes the gap bigger.

For accessories, Endless sounds good on paper, but you can’t put Healthy Toast on it, which is really, really bad. Ankh is nice, but it makes you pick between protection or stamina recovery, and obviously, you have to pick stamina recovery, so you’re going to miss protection. I like the universality of having different protections, so I’d rather not use Ankh.

Armor And Jewelry Perks

The actual perks on my ring and earring are the exact same as they usually are. Everything here is pretty self-explanatory. Gear we’re looking at 5 Shirking Heals. The buff to 7 seconds turned it from a good perk to an almost mandatory perk, but you’ll find a lot of people don’t agree with that because they’re stubborn and invested a lot of their money in a build that’s not good.

For my secondary perk, I’m running Fortify, and the rest is just normal stuff: one skill perk (Siphoning Energy), and then the random perk that Tumblers have. In whatever leftover slots I have, I put Health on, which in this case amounts to two health.

For armor gems, I’m running 4 Opal and one Onyx with full Energizing Runes. The Rune choice is a bit up to personal preference, but I highly recommend using at least one Energizing Rune, mainly because there are lots of clutch scenarios where you’re one stamina away from stamina-ing yourself out. The rest you can put range damage, but I would definitely not recommend Leeching Damage unless you’re using Boltcaster. The Leeching version is a flat 18% damage reduction against Boltcaster, Fire Staff, and other fully Elemental range weapons, and it’s a 9% damage reduction against bows, muskets, and B-buses who use a split gem. My Opals additionally cover 8% less damage from all Elemental sources.

Damage Resistance

Regardless if it’s melee or ranged, that’s 8% less damage from weapons like Abyss, Boltcaster, Firestaff, and 4% less damage from weapons that have split gems. The 3 Onyx I have covered some additional defense against melee players. This is purely optional and up to your playstyle. If you’re fine with playing super defensive and ratty, you can drop the Onyx for some thrust and lightning resist instead.

For the necklace, I’m obviously going with fire resist because that’s the easiest range weapon to get hit by. You can do movement tech or whatever movement cancels you want against other bows and muskets, and they’ll end up missing 90% of their shots. But it’s hard to do movement tech against Firestaff when they have a hitbox of a Boeing 747. Plus, the fire resist also reduces explosive shot damage from bows.

My completely honest recommendation is to have a set of amulets and maybe even some accessories that you can easily swap in and out. This way, you have the freedom to swap to another resist if you’re ever when there is no Firestaff. For example, let’s say you’re getting hunted by a melee assassin squad. Then, you should obviously switch to your slash necklace. Let’s say the enemy team has 10 Boltcaster players. Obviously, switch to a lightning or thrust necklace.

If your build is threatened by a simple swap of a necklace and maybe a ring or accessory, then maybe you should reevaluate your build.

Attributes

Moving on to attributes, this does get a little interesting. 25 and 50 strength are still bugged but no longer in a good way. 50 strength doesn't do anything, and 25 strength, on the other hand, previously boosted heavy damage by 10% and light damage by 5%. Now it only boosts both damages by 2%. Classic AGS, honestly. But anyways, because of that, I'm dropping 25 strength and then also dropping 35 con to get 50 focus. This 10% extra healing affects all the pots I use and even tumblers, and I can justify the 900 Health loss from going to 240 to 2115 con with that 10% extra Health. As long as a fight lasts long enough where you go through two rotations of pots, then this 10% prevails, not even accounting for any sharing or tumbler procs.

This build shines in fights that last long, which is pretty much any fight against good players. It's also a very solo-centric build. The second you involve a pocket healer that lets these micro heals matter in the long term, at that point, you're better off running Featherweight and more pure damage reductions.

If you're investing in dex after 350, then I would still get 25 strength first. Simply because the 25 points here end up doing more damage than 25 dex after 350. So if your build is 400 dex and zero strength.

Toxic Rain Pathfinder was my starter build for League and it didn’t disappoint me at all. You can easily scale into the late game while remaining tanky. You can also easily farm tier 16 empowered Legion and Expedition. Without further ado, let’s get started.

Skill Itself And Area Solution

Our skill choice is Toxic Rain. Fire a projectile with your bow, which will spawn Spore Pods where it lands. Over time, this will start to cause chaos damage in an area, and they can overlap each other.

We’ve gained huge buffs in this league, but we’ve lost gems that increase area quality. Therefore, we need a new method to reach the area threshold of 39% increase.

I’ve seen others use Searing Exarch Helmet Implicit, which increases the area. But I think giving up 15% or more of Despair Curse effect is bad.

So I came up with a simple solution, which is to exchange for a Medium Cluster Jewel. In this way, only 1% of damage is lost in exchange for 10% Area of effect and 8% life.

Clear Skill

To increase the speed of clearing, we use Caustic Arrow. When you fire a projectile, it creates Caustic Ground where the projectile lands. Over time, this can cause chaotic damage.

But it is difficult to pass the level using this skill alone. Therefore, we added Arrow Nova Support. With this combination, our clearing speed will be much faster.

Secondary Source Of Damage And Damage Scaling

Our biggest and best multipliers come from secondary sources using Ballista. We can have 5 of these and they will help stack Wither on the boss. By default increases Chaos damage by 90%.

In addition, we also get an Ascendancy node, which will increase the Wither effect and give us the chance to cause a Wither.

The other really big damage increase is skill effect duration. Because Pods will stay in the fight longer and deal damage for longer.

We can keep all the mana because we use Eldritch Battery for the build. We’ll spend our Energy Shield just like we have mana, but we can use our skills more freely because we don’t have to worry about mana.

You need at least 400 Energy Shield as I think that’s a good breakpoint for Divine Blessing to set. Even after you use Divine Blessing, you have enough Energy Shield to send Toxic Rain and still not deplete Energy Shield.

Which New Ascendancy?

We can use Charm because we selected Wildwood Primalist as our secondary Ascendancy. I also used 2 Spell Suppression Charm and a Mana Reservation Charm, so we didn’t have to use Enlighten.

Also, because I’m using a clear setup rather than a single target setup, this means the damage we take will be much higher. And POE currency cost of running the map is very high. Therefore, this build will need to continue to be updated. Of course, you can adjust it to suit your play style.

Defensives

On the defensive side, we convert 63% of physical damage into elemental damage. Of these, 50% were achieved just by using Lightning Coil. The rest comes from the helmet.

Because we treat so much damage as elemental damage, we can use all elemental damage reduction flasks to reduce converted elemental damage, such as Ruby, Sapphire, and Topaz Flasks.

In addition, we can also use Grace Aura to increase the evasion rating, so that we will almost never die from the monster’s normal attacks or projectiles.

Now that we are almost untouchable by physical attacks, the remaining danger is spell damage. Skill Tree, Gear and Charm can achieve 100% Spell Suppression.

Items

Since we’re using Eldritch Battery, you’ll need Energy Shield and Evasion Bases and the pure Energy Base Helmet.

Weapon: Our weapon is a standard crafted bow with +1 socketed bow gems that increase attack speed and cause chaos damage over time. Quiver’s life and damage overtime are mostly related to attack skills and bow damage. Quiver: Now we use Penetrating Arrow Quiver because I also use Caustic Arrow for clearing, which is why I say this is not the best setup for a single target. Amulet: Amulet is also a crafted one. You just buy an amulet with Fractured Chaos Resistance and reforge Chaos through Harvest until you deal damage over time and get +1 for all Chaos skill gems. Gloves: High life chaos resistance and attack speed. Suppression and chaos damage multi as implicit. Boots: Suppress movement speed avoids Elemental Ailments and avoids Elemental Ailments and action speed by implicit. Helmet: Life and large Energy Shield rolls, for Eldritch Battery crafting physical damage treated as fire. And improve implicit physical damage, such as Cold or Lightning and Despair Curse effects. Ring: Life and attributes and resistance and crafting lowest Frenzy Charges. Belt: Life and strength also increase Flask Charge buff and increase the effect of flasks on you.

Flask

So the flasks we use are Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz, Quicksilver and Divine Life flask. All flasks require this mod: increased effect and reduced duration.

Be careful when you roll your flask, as there are many mod combinations of the two, but it will reduce the duration even more. So your flask won’t have 100% uptime.

The sub-mod reduces mana cost, chance to avoid being frozen, and all elemental resistances. When you get into a boss fight, change your Quicksilver flask to a Silver flask with attack speed.

That’s it for my Toxic Rain Pathfinder build guide. Ready to dive into Affliction League with Toxic Rain Pathfinder build? Looking forward to seeing you in the game!

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.

Phase 1 - Breakdown

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.

PvE - Gnomeregan: Level-Up Raid

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?

Bosses

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.

What Will Be Added Or Changed?

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.

PvP - Stranglethorn Vale

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.

Blizzard’s Handling Of SoD

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.

Fury of Stormrage

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.

Living Seed Rune

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.

Lifebloom

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.

Sunfire

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.

Mangle Rune

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.

Lacerate

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.

PVP Changes

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.

Runes

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.

Waylaid Supplies Farming

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.

SoD Needs More Content

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.

Dual Spec

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!