Hello fellow adventurers! Today, we’ll be taking a thorough analysis into Gnomeregan lore, history, mysteries, unanswered questions, and how they’ll finally be resolved in Season of Discovery.

As we approach February 8 launch, it’s crucial to understand the background, not just for curiosity’s sake but for strategy. After all, knowledge is power in WOW Classic.

Therefore, in this first part, I will discuss the controversial legend surrounding Gnomeregan.

The story of Gnomeregan is one of innovation, tragedy and unsolved mysteries. We need to explore the key events that shaped this iconic place.

It all started in the mountains, where Dwarves and Gnomes lived together in Dun Morogh. They were both smart and resourceful. Thus, after Dwarves and Gnomes worked together to create a magnificent city called Gnomeregan, the two races quickly developed a friendship.

It’s a fantastic and very tech-focused city, so for a while, everything was fine. Gnomes invented amazing machines and gadgets that more than made up for their small stature.

A high Council of Gnomes led them, eventually electing Mekkatorque as their leader. Also in this Council of Gnomes is Sicco Thermaplugg, one of the most genius Gnome inventors and the most ambitious of all Gnomes. He dreams of one day expanding Gnomeregan further into the lands of Dwarf.

Regardless, Gnomes lived here for many years until a Dwarven Expedition entered Azeroth.

After easily slaughtering Dwarven Expedition, all Troggs were awakened from their slumber, and Troggs tracked Dwarves back to Ironforge. Thus began a long and terrible war between Troggs and Gnomes. Their city is under siege. Troggs are slowly advancing, and Gnomes are desperate.

But Troggs are mainly at the bottom, which seems to be a blessing. So all they need is to move all Gnomes to the upper levels, and then Gnomes can release all the toxic radiation from the machines in the city to the lower levels. This will kill Troggs instantly. After the cleanup, Gnomes could move back, but that was how Gnomes’ downfall began.

In fact, Troggs didn’t die when the radiation was released into the ground floor. They just get stronger. Meanwhile, a filtering system that was supposed to keep the upper Gnomes safe failed completely. A shocking 80% of the entire Gnome population either died or became irradiated Evil Gnomes.

At this point, the irradiated Gnomes and Troggs have completely disappeared, with their new leader, Thermaplugg.

But Thermaplugg has also been affected by the radiation, and is more crazy and ambitious than ever. Meanwhile, their city was completely destroyed, and the remaining healthy Gnomes had to flee to Ironforge, where they remain to this day.

Despite its rich history, Gnomeregan leaves many unanswered questions: why has it not been reclaimed, and what secrets does it hold? Let’s delve deeper into these mysteries.

The first question is why the city had not been recaptured during the initial attack.

At the time, the rest of Azeroth was busy dealing with Scourge, fighting Lich King, and messing with Defile mechanics. But after Third War, powerful forces combined with the remaining Gnome population could easily reclaim the city. In fact, the only attempts to retake the city occurred far away from Little Fanfare.

Another question surrounding Gnomeregan is why Troggs attacked in the first place.

The common answer is that factories are really noisy and Troggs is attracted to the noise. Although Troggs are barbaric in nature, they are also known for hoarding Titan Artifacts.

What do you think it is about Gnomeregan that is so attractive to Troggs that it warrants a multi-year siege? This is the beauty of Season of Discovery. Because we finally have a chance to get answers to these unanswered questions in Phase 2, we no longer have to think about how to change the story and what new chapters might be added.

We’ll hear back by February 8th. Because we knew we’d be revisiting Gnomeregan with a raid group and facing a new, more challenging Thermaplugg.

If we can defeat Thermaplugg once and for all, this could be the beginning of urban reclamation.

We expect Phase 2 will feature new quest chains with raid rewards. These quest chains may open up new lore and insights.

One possibility is to create a new staging center near Gnomeregan, which has vendors and NPCs and is the perfect place to organize attacks on new raids.

There is another key legend. We found that there is also a lot of speculation about Shadowy Figure helping you get epic craft in Phase 1. Many speculate that this is Xal’atath.

If that’s the case, she’ll likely be back to help us get more epic gear and new artifacts, with new raids coming soon. This is truly the perfect time to explore the engineering marvels and rare artifacts Gnomes have preserved in the city’s underbelly.

This means that countless machines and gadgets lost during the war will eventually be recovered in engineering-themed raids. There is a good chance that there will be unique and exciting items that have never been seen before.

So you might be wondering why Gnomeregan is such a perfect raid environment. Let’s look at the different aspects that make it ideal for raiding.

The first aspect that makes it so perfect is the verticality. As you enter from the top and take the elevator down, you descend into the dungeon, where it becomes more challenging. After all, this is the most vertical dungeon in Vanilla, located next to Sunken Temple.

So we could potentially see any mechanic, and we could even get some crazy stuff like launching players into the air to assist us.

As we get deeper into Gnomeregan, the elevators kill a lot of raiders. While Gnomeregan’s elevators don’t have buttons, we’ll probably find them all in one place.

There’s another marvel of engineering in the raid, and that’s the unique vendor system. Where you can exchange specific drops for rewards.

Imagine you don’t need the typical low value rewards from Vendor-Tron. You have a chance to earn epic crafting materials and loot in new raids.

There’s also Punch Card system, which is part of Data Rescue Quest for Alliance. You can have random cards that drop and unlock doors to new rewards and maybe even some secret boss encounters. This is probably my favorite part of Gnomeregan raid.

It’s a city full of secrets, locked bolts and mysterious buttons that may well lead to rare treasures and unseen artifacts. I really hope the developers incorporate the original spirit of invention, mystery, and curiosity that built this city so long ago in Gnome.

Understanding the legend of Gnomeregan is more than just a matter of satisfying our curiosity. It is also about adding depth and experience to the challenges we will face in the future. I’d really like to hear your thoughts on Gnomeregan lore and potential solutions to unanswered questions.

I know there are still some players who are concerned about their Mage leveling and farming. So in this guide, I want to bring you my 10 tips and tricks that will help your Mage become better at AOE farming in WoW Classic Season of Discovery. So if you are ready, let's get straight to these tips without wasting any time!

For those that don’t know, AOE that comes from player models can have their range increased by jumping when they cast the spell. We used to jump to maximize the distance so that sappers would go. This works well with all AOE that come from the player. I will use Arcane Explosion, and it does not hit the mob. Neither of us moves, but when I jump in the air, my Arcane Explosion gets a little extra distance. A lot of the time when I am Arcane Explosion spamming, I will be jumping to make sure I am hitting every mob in my range.

Daze is a pretty annoying mechanic. It reduces your move speed by 50%, and if you are unlucky, you can get chain dazed and die. You have 2 options to bypass this mechanic, both of them pretty cool. When a mob strikes your back, there's a possibility of experiencing Daze. You can avoid daze easily by making sure you turn and face the mobs as they are hitting you. Another way to avoid daze is by shield effects. You are unable to be dazed when you have a shield buff applied. This includes Power Word: Shield, Mana Shield, and Ice Barrier.

Quick note: You can only be dazed by melee attacks, not ranged attacks. Using Mana Shield and Ice Barrier, as well as facing mobs, will be key to future farms in avoiding daze.

Leeway is in the game for lag and melee attacking. It’s a latency system that buffers melee combat to allow people to hit targets a little further than you normally would in case there is weird lag going on. Melee swings can cover a much larger distance with leeway attacks.

When someone in combat is strafing or jumping, melee range is increased by a lot. This happens for enemy mobs too. If you are strafing or jumping, they will benefit from leeway. This is a trick we see used a lot currently in Wailing Caverns. You can avoid a lot of melee damage taken when abusing leeway correctly, such as backpedaling while kiting.

Ice Block is used for more than just saving your life. It is very important for getting a lot of mobs stacked in one spot. When you Ice Block, all ranged mobs will stop using their ranged attacks. When you’re in an Ice Block, all ranged mobs will run to your position and start auto-attacking your Ice Block. There are a lot of farms where you can not line of sight and get ranged mobs closer to you.

You will see Mages constantly using Ice Block to get numerous units stacked for an easy kill. When you leave an Ice Block, never jump, as this will cause you to take a lot more damage from melee attacks. If you just hold forward out of the Ice Block and spam Nova, you’ll be able to avoid a lot of instant damage coming out of the Ice Block.

The World Buff from BFD is pretty massive, and the main reason for this is 20% move speed. In WoW Classic, the only way to get this kind of buff was from The Zanza elixir. This buff was massive for basically every dungeon farm in the game. The 20% move speed allows you to easily outpace mobs with Blink and avoid huge amounts of damage. While the other buffs from Boon of Blackfathom are also incredible. But it is not a good idea if you are farming without 20% move speed.

Engineers get access to a lot of cool toys and effects that can assist in farming, but the main reason you want it is for Grenades, Sappers, and Dynamite. Even for just Phase 1. Let’s talk about the the Heavy Dynamite. Heavy Dynamite does 128 to 172 damage. Arcane Explosion Rank 2 does 58 to 65 and costs 120 Mana. So, on average, one Dynamite is worth 2 to 3 explosions of damage and Mana.

Being able to kill all the mobs before they can run away very smoothly. As we get further into Season of Discovery, our pulls will become much longer and more intense on our Mana. Dynamite, having a 60-second cooldown, will allow you to get multiple casts off in the longer pulls. It’s very important. I couldn't recommend Engineering more.

This may seem like an obvious one, but I want to emphasize the scaling of spell power with Living Bomb. The kill phase is way cleaner, and I have plenty of Mana left over for Arcane Explosion. Living Bomb scaling with spell damage is amazing. I recommend prioritizing it wherever you can. Phoenix Bindings, Phoenix Gloves, Invoker's Mantle, and Invoker's Cord are all really cheap and easy spell damage options you can pick up off the auction house by your SOD Gold.

The first playstyle I want to go over is face tanking, which I use a lot in open-world farms or versus mobs that are lower level than me, such as Deadmines. The key interaction here for face tank farming is Living Flame and Regeneration. Living Flame does spell fire damage, which counts as Arcane damage for the healing from Regeneration. The amount of healing you receive will keep you alive versus some pretty insane damage.

Before casting Living Flame, make sure you have Temporal Beacon on yourself. I like to get 4 to 5 Living Bombs out, then Living Flame. Then you just spam Arcane Explosion until all the mobs die. Add on the extra healing you receive from the Arcane Explosion spam, and it’s pretty incredible what you can live through.

This is the playstyle I expect to be dominant, from now on into Season of Discovery, so I recommend learning it now. Blizzard will be amazing for massive pulls where you can’t handle the incoming damage from Elites slapping you. You can play this style with or without Regeneration. If you aren't running Regeneration, I recommend Fingers of Frost.

In Phase 2, we will have 5 points in Shatter for 50% increased crit chance. It will be pretty amazing. What you want to do for this style is grab as many mobs as you can and then get to your kite spot. You will then start throwing out 6 to 8 Living Bombs, Living Flame, and then begin to Blizzard kite. By using Living Flame after the Living Bombs are out. Make sure the Blizzard keeps all the mobs tightly stacked in the Living Flame for maximum damage. Add on the Living Bomb crits from Fingers of Frost, and you speed up the kill so much. Come Phase 2 with all the extra mana and talents we will have. This style will be king for a lot of the content.

There are a few addons I couldn’t recommend more for Mage farming, and the most important one is called WeakAuras. This addon lets you create custom code that will track certain things for you in-game. I highly recommend Plater. It makes it way easier to see what HP the mobs are at and who is missing Living Bomb. I also use Nova Instant Tracker to track my dungeon lockouts, how many mobs I’ve killed, as well as the XP and gold gained during those runs. There are a lot of WeakAuras out there that can track your uptime on buffs and other things. Make sure to customize this to your liking.

That’s my list. I hope you found these tips and tricks helpful. There’s a lot going on with Mage farming, and it can be pretty overwhelming if you dive straight into it with big massive pulls. Start small, learn small pulls first, and then work your way up to the big challenges. We Mages are kings of farming, and you can become one too.

This offense has explosive one play touchdowns, an elite running game, and domination all over the field. So, we will be using the playbook called Spread, running the formation Tight Slot Open. 

This formation is unique and hard to defend because it has one receiver and a tight end lined up tight to the line, and two receivers on the opposite side lined up near the slot. Which means defenses will need to guard a tight offensive look, and a spread offensive look, which can be very difficult for your opponent. 

The first play we will go over to Tight Slot Open is PA Read. This is one of the most underrated plays in Madden 24, simply because this stock play can destroy man coverage or zone coverage. 

In the stock play, you have this glitch bending, vertical route that absolutely fries man coverage, a zig route that puts man coverage in a blender, the tight end crossing route that creates a ton of separation, and a backside post that takes the lid off the defense. But make sure you are running this play with the zig and the streak to the far side of the field. 

In the play, your reads will be low to high. So, when you snap the ball, your first read will be the zig route. If the zig is open, which it usually is, hit it quickly for an easy gain. 

Your second read will be the vertical route, if you see that there is no help over the top, and he could beat his man of the line, free form pass the ball to lead the receiver by holding the left trigger and the left stick up. This will help to hit the receiver in stride for an explosive play. 

What makes this vertical route so good is the way it bends to the outside. Because of this, if a corner is pressing in man coverage, you will sometimes get this cool press beating animation where the receiver practically runs through the defender and leaves him stranded behind. That’s what makes that route so deadly. 

Your third read is the crosser ran by Tight End. This route takes a little more time to develop, but if you have time in the pocket, he will create a lot of separation by the time he hits the other side of the field. 

Your last read is the backside post. This route works best against a 0 Man Blitz, simply because there will be no help over the top. With enough time in the pocket, you will hit the post for one play touchdowns against all out blitzing players. 

Another way you can set this play up against man coverage is by putting the zig receiver on a slant. This will keep the defense on their toes because there will be two man beating routes crossing the field. 

So, your read in this setup is to wait and see what route gets open first, the slant or the tight end crosser like you see here in this play. 

PA Read against zone coverage is as deadly as it is against man coverage, all because it works as a delayed flood concept. 

And if you don’t know already, flood concepts destroy every zone in Madden. Flood concepts overload a side of the field, so generally, there will be a deep route like a vertical, a medium route like a corner, and a quick route like a flat. 

The reason most zone defenses struggle with this concept is because there are not enough zones on one side of the field to defend these routes. So, the reason PA Read is a flood concept is that there is a deep route, a quick route, and a medium route coming across the field flooding one side. 

But for this play against a zone, you just want to be sure to run it on a Hash Mark. 

Your reads will go from high to low. So, when you snap the ball, you will first look at the crossing route to see to see if you can hit him quick. If not, you will want to take a brief look at the zig. 

If you see that this low zone defender crashes to the zig, you will have the crosser wide open behind him towards the numbers. If the zig is wide open off the bat, though, you can give it to him for some easy yards. 

But a great offense will throw the ball to the sidelines and attack the middle of the field. So we are going to use this post route. 

To get this post route open against any zone defense, all you’re going to do is put the tight end on a streak. This streak will pull any of the deep zone defenders away from the post route.

So when we snap the ball your read will be the deep safety on the post side. If he backs up to defend the vertical, throw a bullet pass to the post, aggressively catch it away from the safety and you’ll be throwing dots all over the field. 

The next play we are going to go over is Bench Switch. 

The first setup is an ultimate zone beater. But make sure you run this play to the short side of the field. 

What you’ll want to do is put A on a streak, then motion the running back to become a receiver, and put him on a curl route. 

On the backside, leave the receiver on a corner and put the tight end on a drag. Your first read here will be C route by the outside wide receiver. If Streak by A pulls the deep defenders, the drag keeps the short zone low, and the curl route occupies the user, C route will be wide open near the sidelines. 

If for some reason C route is not open because the user guarded it or the short zone backed up to defend it, you will either have the drag or the curl route in the middle of the field for a quick check down. 

Another way to run this is to put A on a streak, the running back on a table route to the right and the tight end on a streak. Your first read in this setup is the same, C route and then, if that is guarded.

The second read will be the flat by the running back. One thing to look out for, though, is the streak by Tight End. Many people will not be ready to defend quick streaks from this position, so you can surprise your opponent with a quick snap and throw the streak quickly in the middle of the field. 

And if the defense is in a man's coverage when you thought they were in a zone, look at the corner route's backside. This corner does a great job of creating separation over the top of the defense. 

The next play we will go over is called Bench. And We will have 2 setups to beat man coverage for one play touchdowns and short yardage situations. 

For the first setup, what you’ll want to do is put X on a drag and A on a zig, then you can leave everything else. Make sure you run the zig and drag to the far side of the field. Your main read is the zig route. 

This concept is meant to clear out space for the zig and setting up a natural pick by the drag to create even more separation for the zig. This setup is great for the red zone or if you need short first downs. 

For the one play touchdown setup, you will want to be sure to be on a Hash Mark, and then put B on a drag, A on a zig, and the running back on a wheel. 

On the backside, put an X on a streak. Your main read here is the running back, but if that is guarded, shift your focus to the corner route by the tight end. If he has a step on his defender, high ball the throw using L1 or LB to throw over the defender for a deep ball dot. If the deep routes are guarded, though, you can look at your short routes for a check down. 

The last play we will go over is PRO Zone Weak. This is one of the best RPO’s in the game. What you’ll want to do is read the slot corner.

If the defender crashes towards the run, throw the ball to the flat. This will put you in a position to make moves in the open field for huge gains. If the slot corner stays with the flat, give the ball to the running back for an outside zone run. 

In short, it is important to read how your blocks develop so you can make the right cuts to optimize this run.

In this guide, let’s talk about the Blood Magic Firestorm Inquisitor build in Path of Exile 3.23. The Infernal Mantle, is a unique body armor that’s used only in certain builds. The fire spell can greatly benefit from the Critical Strike Chance because of its immense power. However, because of the 100% increased spell damage taken while on low mana, none of the conventional builds use it. Blood Magic gets rid of your mana completely, so this downside will never apply. It also forces you to make some atypical choices.

It encourages accumulating tons of maximum life that can be used to gain damage via the Rathpith Globe. Creating a lowlife hybrid build seems like the most sound option. Infernal Mantle is a very common unique that you can buy in bulk and corrupt for an additional increase in the socketed fire skill gems. It alone can grant you an extra 5 or even seven levels to selected fire area of effect or duration skills, one of which is Firestorm of Pelting.

Reaching a 100% Critical Strike Chance is rather easy for an Inquisitor with Righteous Providence and a lot of Strength and Intelligence. It is nearly guaranteed the inevitable judgment makes your critical strikes treat enemy Elemental resistances as they're 0%. We have used Firestorm of Pelting, which has a delayed damage delivery, making it rather clunky for clearing maps.

The ability to summon up to 10 Firestorms at a time combined with intense specificity support and concentrated effect will, however, more than make up for it in terms of damage output against bosses. The build is durable with its vast maximum life and ES. It has a high block chance, life and ES Leech Regeneration, and even life gained on hit, which is very desirable with this type of skill. It also has nearly capped block chance and Frost Shield but low physical damage mitigation.

Clear speed is not that good unless you’re willing to expand on your Righteous Fire setup. Single Target damage is extremely high after it ramps up, but it’s mostly against stationary targets. The relatively low cost is what makes this build so good. One can say the Infernal Mantle is the unique selling point of this build.

It’s a hybrid build with tons of maximum life and some energy Shield. Aim to maximize your overall life total, ideally reaching around 10K. This life results in a lot of damage after equipping the Rathpith Globe Shield. The remaining damage is sourced from the gem level of Firestorm, which can easily be increased with Infernal Mantle and Replica Dragon Fang's Flight.

Rathpith Globe increases your maximum life, crit chance, and spell damage by a lot. You should be able to withstand the life drain with consecrated ground Life Regeneration and Life Leech with life gained on hit. Infernal Mantle socket your Firestorm setup here. When searching, prioritize a relatively inexpensive corrupted Infernal Mantle with implicits for increased AOE duration or all socketed gems. A perfect double corruption may grant your Firestorm seven additional levels, but settling on the inherent + 3 is good for a start. It increases your crit chance, ES, and converts a small portion of fire damage to chaos.

Replica Dragonfang's Flight amulet will grant you another 3 levels to your Firestorm skill with some attributes, resistances and reservation efficiency on top of that. Hands of the High Templar could be a better option for you if you don't require any of the mods typically found on rare gloves. Try to gain extra crit chance for spells, increased maximum life, maximum ES, and cast speed as corrupted implicit mods.

The Glorious Vanity will get you the corrupted soul for more energy Shield. It is somewhat beneficial with Pious Path and a lot of both maximum life and ES, but it can be dangerous too with Rathpith Globe. Too much of your life is being drained, which may kill you. On a Watcher's Eye, most Zealotry modifiers are good enough, but the best addition to a build will be instant life gained on hit from Vitality’s mod pool.

A lot of DPS is provided by Righteous Fire, but to withstand the burning damage, you will need a source of Life Leach found on gloves, ES Leech from Ethereal Feast notable, or a flask modifier and basic Life Regeneration from POE Items. It’s also possible to gain life on hit mod. Firestorm of Pelting's rapid hits is fantastic. Other than that, get the regular life, crit multiplier, and cast speed. Try to get over 100 maximum life with some resistances on a helmet. When searching for Eldritch mods, prioritize mods that provide physical damage taken as fire damage and increased cast speed.

The weapon should provide you with a lot of increased damage Critical Strike modifiers, especially crit multiplier, +1 to fire skills, added fire damage to spells, and increased cast speed. If you’ve chosen a rare amulet, get as much maximum life and Critical Strike multiplier as you can. Resistances, attributes, and cast speed are valuable too.

Rings should be used for a lot of maximum life, resistances, especially Chaos Resistance, and Attributes like Strength and Intelligence to boost your crit chance with Righteous Providence. Maximum life and ES rare boots with Life, Resistances, movement speed, and Attributes are enough. Acquire the maximum number of these modifiers that you can afford.

For Eldritch implicits, seek maximum fire resistance, action speed, Life Regeneration rate, or brittle ground. If you need extra crit chance, focus on maximum life, Resistances, and Strength on the belt. You can also find large amounts of Life Regeneration here. Gloves are quite simple as well. Just get the usual maximum life and resistances. For the Eldritch mods, try to get unnerve on hit and fire damage leached as life.

On Jewels, get the increased maximum life with increased Critical Strike multiplier, resistances, or attributes. Progenesis is an expensive flask that’s great on its own but here, combined with Petrified Blood and rapid life recovery, it’s even better. You may be able to cap your spell and attack block chance with Rumi's Concoction. The consecrated ground created by Bottled Faith will increase your DPS and Critical Strike Chance. There are also some magic flasks you shall be equipped with. Silver Flask with increased cast speed is the most important. Diamond Flask with increased crit chance, Ruby Flask with Life Regeneration, or Basalt of quick silver flasks with movement speed or increased armor will be worth consideration.

Firestorm of Pelting summons multiple small meteors dealing fire damage every 0.15 seconds for 2 seconds. The maximum number of firestorms you can summon is 10. This spell has a basic fire duration and AOE, making it ideal for a corrupted Infernal Mantle. Link it with Elemental Focus, Intensify, Increased Critical Damage, Concentrated Effect, and Spell Echo support gems.

Storm Brand spell is used to apply shock and with added fire damage from items, it will also ignite for more damage from fire. Link it with Overcharge, Power Charge on Critical, and Unbound Ailments support gems. Replace Unbound Ailments with Combustion support if you have no ignite chance whatsoever.

Immortal Call reduces physical and elemental damage taken for a brief moment. Frost Shield drains your energy shield to form a protective bubble, causing you to take less damage and gain extra crit chance. Link these 2 to Cast When Damage Taken to activate them automatically after taking enough damage and Increase Duration to make them last longer.

Use Zealotry for more spell damage and critical strike chance. If you have no mana reserved, you’re allowed to host one blessing Aura for free if it’s linked to the Eternal blessing support. You don’t have mana, so it’s a no-brainer. Flame Dash is a simple mobility skill that is used to ignite enemies and travel with greater haste. You can link it to Faster Casting for slightly better mobility, but that’s not necessary.

Petrified Blood redistributes a fraction of the incoming damage from direct hits into a damage-over-time effect, a feature that synergizes well with a rapid life and Energy Shield recovery rate. This effect is limited to the lower half of your life pool. Tempest Shield grants shock immunity and substantial spell block chance. Vitality regenerates your life over time, which is very important, especially with the corrupted Soul. It also has good modifiers to get on a Watcher's Eye.

These 3 auras shall reserve half or more of your total life: Assassins Mark marked enemy is more likely to be hit with Critical Strike, which deals with increased critical damage. Enduring Cry regenerates a lot of life and ES on use and grants endurance charges to mitigate physical damage. Set it up as your movement key. Righteous Fire grants more spell damage. It has also quite high damage on its own because of your maximum life. If you want to improve your clear speed, you can link it up with additional support gems, but that would require you to abandon some of the previously mentioned.

In Act 2, kill all the bandits for 2 additional passive skill points. For a major God, you can pick pretty much anything. Solaris is good if you’re up against pinnacle bosses, and Brine King good for freeze immunity. For a general-purpose major God, we recommend Lunaris. It improves your clear speed and protects you from projectiles. Minor God should improve your physical damage mitigation. That’s Tukohama or Gruothkul. Both are decent.

The passive skill tree should provide you with a lot of maximum life, spell and fire damage, cast speed, block chance, or Asylum for chaos resistance and reduced effect of curses should be allocated to pick up Iron Will, Blood Magic, Call to Arms, and Pain Attunement keystones. Allocate all 6 Life masteries, Shield Mastery for Critical Strike multiplier per energy shield on a shield, Fire Mastery for increased damage against ignited enemies, Reservation Mastery for Life res conservation efficiency, and Caster Mastery for one additional maximum Intensify.

We'll be discussing the various buffs and nerfs that went into effect on January 11th. These buffs and nerfs are going to be affecting 2 main classes. That’s going to be our Beast Mastery Hunter and our Priest. I’m going to share with you some tweaks that you can make to your Beast Mastery Hunter that might counter some of the craziness that Blizzard is going to nerf in this upcoming update in WoW Classic Season of Discovery. We have a lot need to be covered, so let’s get started.

In a recent January 10th post, Blizzard stated: We intend to make the following adjustments via hotfixes for hunters:

In the developer notes, they put, 'We remain concerned that hunter pets are still too powerful and believe that the best way forward is to reign in the Beast Mastery rune while compensating via the Hunter's main spells.' I guess they’re trying to get more and more Beast Mastery Hunters to go Marksman.

Beast Master Hunters are going to take a hit in DPS once these nerfs go into effect. Now, here are some of the changes that I’m going to make to my Beast master Hunter that's going to help me to counter some of these nerves. Let’s first discuss the runes. So before this update, I was running hard of the line Beast Mastery rune, and I’d switch back and forth between Flanking Strikes and Sniper Training. I wasn’t using the Kill Command cause my primary pet that I was using was a Wind Serpent.

Now, post-January 11th update, I’m going to be running a hard of the line Beast Master rune and Kill Command cause I’m going to be switching out my primary pet. Additionally, if you don’t have access to a harded line, you could always use the Master Marksman. And if you’re one of those Hunters that really enjoy weaving in and out, you can always interchange between Kill Command and Flanking Strike.

So as far as the talent tree, my primary build is going to be 2 in Improved Aspect of the Hawk, 5 in Endurance Training, 3 in Thick Hide, 5 in Unleashed Fury, and 1 in Ferocity.

Yes, if you’re in a raid situation where you know that your pet’s going to be taking a lot of damage and dying a lot, then I would definitely recommend taking the 2 points out of Improved Aspect of the Hawk and getting Improved Revive Pet. Because, as we know, with a dead pet as a Beastmaster Hunter, that’s going to take out a gigantic chunk of our DPS. But when I’m out in the world soloing and whether it be experience farming or gold farming, my pet really doesn’t die that much. So it makes no sense to waste 2 points in the Improved Revive Pet.

And additionally, in the raids I’ve been in, my pet hardly ever dies. So it just felt like a waste of points to put into Improved Revive Pet when I just improved my all-out DPS so much more by putting those extra 2 points in Improved Aspect of the Hawk. So I would definitely recommend that you try both ways to see what fits your playstyle better. If you lean towards having that extra DPS and Improved Aspect of the Hawk, or if you just need that Improved Revive Pet because your pet keeps on dying.

Now that we talked about runes and talents, let’s talk about pets. Before this update, I was using a Wind Serpent. And Wind Serpents are also awesome pets. That Lightning Strike is just catastrophic. But it came at a price of 50 focus and getting nerf 30% in our Focus regeneration for our pets and 10% for damage. Doesn’t make sense to continue using a Wind Serpent.

So what I’m going to end up doing is switching back to my Ghost Saber, which is a 2.0 attack speed cat. That’s going to do really nice damage in conjunction with that Kill Command rune. And if I ever switch out with a Flanking Strike rune, that 2.0 attack speed is going to give me more attack damage. Therefore, I’m going to be able to pull out more damage by using a 2.0 attack speed cat.

The highly anticipated item faction system is coming to the full release of Last Epoch, on February 21st. 

With this innovative new way, players can participate in the deep and rewarding item hunt that Last Epoch offers, in a way that they like to play. 

By joining the Merchants Guild, you will be able to buy, sell, and trade items through the bustling bazaar. Or, if you choose to join the Circle of Fortune, you’ll set your sights on the stars and be able to bolster your item acquisition through Prophesies and increased item drop rates. So, this faction system is the result of many years of debating what the ideal trade system should look like in a loot-based ARPG.

If you have observed carefully, you will know that players of ARPGs are split nearly down the middle when it comes to those who want their experience to heavily trade and an economy, and those who want to focus on finding items themselves or, with close friends. So, it would be great if the developers of Last Epoch could provide players from both factions with a tailor-made and exciting path to finding top-tier items through the item faction system!

In Last Epoch 1.0, you will join a faction once you reach the great mercantile city of Maj’Elka. 

When you select to join the Merchants Guild or the Circle of Fortune, a new interface will become available that will let you access details about your current status with your faction (known as reputation), how much Favor you currently have and what benefits your faction is currently providing you. Let’s talk about these briefly. 

Reputation within a faction is a core part of how a faction is going to be benefiting you on your journey. As a representative of that faction, you will continue to increase your reputation by killing enemies and completing quests. 

For the Merchants Guild, this includes participating in the bazaar and completing trades at your current level. And for the Circle of Fortune, this means completing prophesies that will divine certain items after fulfilling the foretold conditions. 

Through earning reputation, you will ascend ranks within your faction, earning your unique benefits and options. Once you have earned reputation within a faction, that reputation stays with your account, in that game mode. This means, if you rank up a cycle character, all of your other cycle characters will have that rank when they join the same faction, and contribute to that faction’s reputation gain. You may switch factions and earn and maintain reputation with them with no penalty to your earned reputation with the other. 

There are currently 10 ranks to achieve in each faction. With the later ranks requiring quite a bit of commitment in order to obtain. So, while you have the freedom to change your faction at any time, you will want to pick a faction and stick with it to reach the most powerful benefits that they have to offer.

It is important to note that you can only be a member of one faction at any given time per character. And items earned with the benefits from those factions will require that you are aligned with them in order to use them. So, most players will want to stick to a faction that rewards their preferred playstyle. 

Next, let’s talk about Favor. Favor is the currency you will earn while slaying enemies or completing quests for each of the factions. 

Favor is separate from reputation. This currency can be used to either complete trades with the Merchants Guild or acquire new prophesies from the Circle of Fortune. And if you find yourself with excess favor, you can always spin the wheel with the faction gambler. 

Item gifting to party members has been in the game for a while now and it isn’t going anywhere. 

However, it’s important to note that once you have joined a faction, items will start being tagged with the faction you are a part of when they dropped. 

This means, that while questing if you are a member of the Merchants Guild, and an item drops for you that item will still be shareable with anyone who was in the party like always, and be available to be sold provided that you meet the rank requirements in the Merchants Guild bazaar. 

Just be sure that the person you are trading it to also meets the same faction requirements. 

The last use case developers wanted to solve for, are friends who choose to play together and just want their own little trade group. 

To solve this problem, developers introduced Resonance, which is a new type of item that can be found when you are questing with your friends or party members. This item can be used to enable an item to be gifted specifically to the player you have a Resonance with, even if they weren't there when the item dropped. 

A lot of times, players will play with their friends and then later, you'll be soloing a piece of content and the perfect item drops for your buddy. Thanks to the new Resonance system, you will be able to give them that perfect item, the next time you see them. 

As those of you who love loot-based ARPGs know, trade and economy is a very complex and divisive issue to solve for when catering to a large player base and different play styles, while keeping the item acquisition hunt feeling great. 

There is so much more to explore with the item faction system. Let's wait for February 21st. All the mysteries about the item faction system will be revealed during the search!