Diablo 4 Necromancer Build – Fate Lancer (LvL 70+): In this Diablo 4 Necromancer Build, I’ll show you how to play a LvL 70+ Fate Lancer Necromancer that’s aimed at World Tier 4. If you’re looking for a Build that focuses on the use of the Blood Lance Ability, then this Diablo 4 Fate Lancer Necromancer Build Guide is for you!

Diablo 4 Blood Necromancer Build – Fate Lancer (LvL 70+)

So just a quick recap on Blood Lance in case you didn’t see the other Diablo IV Builds. This is a Blood Skill that throws at range and sticks into an enemy. And then for every subsequent target you use Blood Lance on, deals damage to the original enemy hit and any others that you attack with it. So you’re able to chain targets together, hitting a wider range of groups. Although, you only have  3 seconds from the time you hit the first enemy with Blood Lance for all the other targets that you attack in order to deal additional damage to that first target.

Because of this, Attack Speed becomes important so that you can get those Blood Lances into enemies quickly. In combination with the Supernatural Blood Lance upgrade, you Overpower on every 6th cast of this Core Skill. And since Patch 1.0.3, you’re able to trigger it 25% more often from the 8th to the 6th cast. What’s really great about Attack Speed is it allows you to get that Overpower Attack fast, letting you get a lot of Overpowers with this Fate Lancer Diablo 4 Necromancer Build. 

Another way to activate this is through the Key Passive known as Rathma’s Vigor, which was also buffed in the latest patch. You’re now going to get a guaranteed Overpower Attack every 12 seconds that you remain Healthy instead of every 15 seconds. Chaining enemies together while dealing huge Overpower Damage against them is what you’re aiming for here. However, Overpower doesn’t take advantage of your Critical Strike Damage. It has a Critical Strike Multiplier of 0% natively, no matter what your Critical Strike is, and Vulnerable Damage doesn’t seem to be applied either. This means that both damage types aren’t particularly useful when you Overpower.

But remember that you’re not Overpowering on every attack so when you don’t, then you’ll benefit from dealing Critical Strike Damage and Vulnerable Damage. So there’s a balance between these damage types based on what your gear is. If you don’t have high Attack Speed or all the aspects for this D4 Necro Build, then landing crits and dealing more Vulnerable Damage are both going to play a larger role to compensate for your Overpower Damage.

Diablo 4 Blood Necromancer Build – Fate Lancer (LvL 70+)

Once you hit Tier IV you’ll want to start thinking about min/maxing to get the most out of your Build, and that starts with Skills. Thanks to Paragon Boards and to the increased Equipment affixes, you’ll be able to bypass most of the restrictions you previously faced while leveling up. I also won’t get too deep into Skills, as you most probably know how they work by now.

Book of the Dead

• Skeletal Warriors – Sacrificed Skirmisher to increase Critical Strike Chance.
• Skeletal Mages – Sacrificed Bone to raise Overpower Damage.
• Golems – Sacrificed Bone to gain increased Attack Speed.

Diablo 4 Blood Necromancer Build: Equipment, Gems, and Aspects

Equipment is the most important part of any Endgame Build, and It’s important to understand that it’s a long-term goal. You won’t have all Paragon Boards available right away, and getting all uniques will probably take a lot of farming, so try to use Legendary Aspects to adjust to your needs while you farm levels and better gear.

Legendary Aspects and Unique Powers

I’ll divide the Equipment into different slots, so it’s easier to understand what you should be using and what affixes you should be looking for. Remember that unique equipment has fixed affixes and powers, so if you are using one, you might need to re-slot a Legendary Aspect into a different piece.

Another important thing to notice is that, when looking for stats, you’ll want to make sure you are fulfilling your Paragon Rare Node requirements. Some rare nodes have very high requirements, and equipment is what allows you to fulfill them. These bonuses often double the rare node effect so, for example, getting an Equipment piece with +100 Dexterity might unlock one or more Node bonuses, giving you a massive bonus as a result.

Helm

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of the Protector: This gives you a damage shield upon facing an Elite or Boss. The Aspect of the Protector is a standard Defensive Aspect.

Affixes

• +Maximum Essence
• +All Stats
• +Maximum Life
• +Total Armor

It’ll also be good to get Cooldown Reduction here instead of All Stats.

Chest Armor

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Explosive Mist: This makes it so that Blood Mist triggers Corpse Explosion on surrounding Corpses, thereby dealing damage and giving your resources back via Grim Harvest. It also reduces the cooldown of Blood Mist, which is nice. The Aspect of Explosive Mist is a lot better if you’re using Black River because you can detonate up to 5 Corpses with each Corpse Explosion dealing a lot more damage. Plus, you’ll improve your resource gain.

Affixes

• +Maximum Life
• +Blood Skill Damage
• Damage Reduction while Fortified
• Damage Reduction from Distant Enemies

If you have a lot of Damage Reduction on your Chest Armor, you could probably use the Temerity Unique Item on your Legs. 

Gloves

Legendary Aspect

Blood Seeker’s Aspect: This increases your damage to the original target by up to 25% for each additional enemy. And so the damage on your first target really ramps up.

Affixes

• +Lucky Hit: Up to a 5% Chance to Heal X Life
• +Lucky Hit: Up to a 5% Chance to Restore X Primary Resource
• +Lucky Hit: Up to an X Chance to Immobilize
• +Lucky Hit: Up to an X Chance to Daze

The other affixes you can look out for when wearing custom Gloves include Ranks of Blood Lance, Attack Speed, and Critical Strike Chance.

Unique Equipment

Fists of Fate: This is a good Unique Item to have because of its Lucky Hit affixes. By remaining Healthier, you boost your damage, plus, your Essence will be topped up. You also have Lucky Hit to Immobilize and Daze enemies so they won’t be able to attack you and Damage to CCed targets apply to both of these. But the best part of Fists of Fate is its core ability where your attacks randomly deal 1% to 300% of your normal damage when you attack so this is great if you have a high roll of 290%+. And since Blood Lance throws rapidly, you’re going to be all over the place. Some hits will be low but some of them will be high so you’ll most likely come out ahead more often than not. When Fists of Fate triggers on an Overpower, it’s going to wipe out everything on the screen.

OR

Frostburn: What I like about Frostburn is it has Critical Strike Chance, and its Lucky Hit triggers on Freezing enemies. When you hit chained targets, the damage will be dealt to each and every one of them before giving you a Lucky Hit Chance to Freeze them as well. This damage can be boosted particularly if you’re using the Control Glyph, which we have for this Fate Lancer D4 Necromancer Build. 

Pants

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Disobedience: This increases your Armor for every damage you deal, stacking up to 50%. The Aspect of Disobedience is pretty rough for this Fate Lancer Diablo IV Necro Build because you don’t spread damage around as much unless you’re using Black River and Corpse Explosive to hit 10 things at once. However, it’s still good for protecting you. 

Affixes

• +Maximum Life
• +Ranks of Corpse Explosion
• Damage Reduction while Fortified
• Damage Reduction from Distant Enemies

If you’re not using Black River, you should consider getting Ranks of Blood Mist instead of Corpse Explosion to make Blood Mist have a faster cooldown.

Unique Equipment

Temerity: This gives you a Barrier from all the overhealing you get.

Boots

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Shared Misery: Upon attacking a CCed enemy, you have a Lucky Hit with up to a 50% chance to make impair another unaffected target. The Aspect of Shared Misery is really good, especially if you’re using Frostburn because you’ll Freeze everything. 

Affixes

• +Movement Speed
• +Movement Speed for 4 Seconds After Killing an Elite
• Essence Cost Reduction
• +Strength

Movement Speed is good here since you don’t move quickly as a Necromancer.

One-Handed Weapon

Legendary Aspect

Accelerating Aspect: This makes it so that Critical Strikes with Core Skills, in this case, Blood Lance, increase your Attack Speed by up to 25%. Again, Attack Speed is essential for this Fate Lancer D4 Necromancer Build. 

Affixes

• +Damage to Slowed Enemies
• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Intelligence
• +Overpower Damage

For your One-Handed Weapon, you’re better off using a Scythe to gain the Life On Kill affix as it lets you tank through a lot of enemies while you’re just sitting there flinging Blood Lances and you end up topping up your Health.  

Unique Equipment

Black River: If you have this Weapon, you can replace the Aspect of Potent Blood with the Accelerating Aspect. Black River detonates many Corpses at the same time, allowing you to factor Corpse Explosion more into this Diablo IV Necro Build. 

Offhand Weapon

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Grasping Veins: It boosts your Critical Strike Chance by up to 20% when you use Corpse Tendrils for 6 seconds. You might be wondering why this Stat is good when I mentioned earlier that it’s not particularly ideal for Overpower Attacks. But that’s because you also gain up to 60% bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils. And for whatever reason, the game actually adds this bonus damage to Overpower. So when you Overpower enemies that are also damaged by Corpse Tendrils, you’re going to get the extra Crit Damage boost, which is massive since this is an Overpower Crit. As such, you might also want to consider imprinting the Aspect of Grasping Veins to your Amulet as an alternative. 

Affixes

• Cooldown Reduction
• +Critical Strike Chance
• +Lucky Hit: Up to a 5% Chance to Heal X Life
• +Life On Kill

I’ve chosen a Focus as my Offhand Weapon instead of a Shield so that I can slot another Offensive Aspect, which I won’t be able to do if I were to equip a Two-Handed Weapon. Also, Cooldown Reduction is nice for Corpse Tendrils, Blood Mist, and Bone Prison. Now if you have a 40% Critical Strike Chance and you use Corpse Tendrils, you get 20% from the Aspect of Grasping Veins, making it so that you’re 60% more likely to crit. Additionally, anything that gives you Resource Generation, Lucky Hit to provide you with more Essence, and Overpower Damage are also good choices here. 

Amulet

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Hungry Blood: This makes it so that when Blood Lance hits an enemy that’s already been lanced, it has up to a 30% chance to fire another Blood Lance at a nearby enemy since it’s imprinted on an Amulet. But normally, the chance would be 20%. The Aspect of Hungry Blood is very important because it’s going to get you 1 out of every 3 casts or free lances into other targets. As such, the damage will spread around and you’ll end up increasing the damage you deal to that original target due to the higher number of enemies you’ll hit. 

Affixes

• Essence Cost Reduction
• +Blood Skill Damage
• +Ranks of the Death’s Reach Passive
• Cooldown Reduction

Essence Cost Reduction is probably the most important affix on your Amulet because you need to reduce the cost of Blood Lance since you fling it so fast with this Diablo IV Necromancer Build – Fate Lancer. Ideally, you’re going to tear through your Essence so if you don’t lower the cost of Blood Lance by 3-5 resources, you’re going to run out of it very quickly. Meanwhile, the Death’s Reach passive increases your damage to distant enemies. 

First Ring

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen: This makes it so that when your Blood Skills Overpower, you gain up to a 50% Attack Speed Bonus for 4 seconds and this raises the speed at which you cast Corpse Explosion and fling your Blood Lances. For instance, if you throw your first lance into an Elite and then all your lances into other enemies, it’s going to ramp up your damage really quickly. Doing so will give you the extra Overpower for every 6 casts.

Affixes

• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Fortify Generation
• +Critical Strike Chance
• +Maximum Life

Ideally though, Vulnerable Damage probably wouldn’t be on this Ring if you’re talking about optimization because you don’t really want to focus on this damage type. Fortified Generation is fantastic though as you deal more Overpowered Damage while Fortified. Maximum Life keeps you alive while also improving your Overpower Damage. 

Second Ring

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Potent Blood: While you’re at full Life, Blood Orbs give you up to 20 extra Essence. What I find good about this is that you tend to be out of Essence at the end of a battle but there will be Blood Orbs left behind. You can just collect them real quick to top you off instead of having to sit there and spam Corpse Explosion. And while you’re in combat, you’ll simply have to move around to gain more Essence. 

OR

Aspect of the Umbral: This is a good alternative to gaining Essence since this Diablo IV Necro Build – Fate Lancer does quite a bit of crowd control. 

Affixes

• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Critical Strike Chance
• +Maximum Life
• +Damage to Stunned Enemies

Gems

For gems, you’ll want to slot:

• Weapon: Rubies to deal additional Overpower Damage.
• Armor: Rubies to boost your Maximum Life and deal more Overpower Damage.
• Jewelry: Skulls to boost your Defense value.

Paragon and Glyphs for the Necromancer Build

When it comes to Paragon Boards, we are mainly going to aim for Rare Nodes that increase our damage output, as well as Glyphs that synergize with our Build. Please note that the order in which I get the Nodes is just a general guideline, and you can adjust it to your current needs.

First Paragon Board – Base

For your first Paragon Board, you’ll want to slot the Essence Glyph to increase your overall Critical Strike Damage. If you meet the requirements, you deal additional Critical Strike Damage to enemies that aren’t Healthy. Again, if you don’t have all the Overpower Damage, aspects, and tons of Paragon points, then Essence is a good Glyph to start out with but you’ll probably replace this later on.

Second Paragon Board – Bloodbath

For your second Paragon Board, you’re going to take Bloodbath and there are a couple of reasons for that. First are the good Rare Nodes that are available to you, and one of them is Powerhouse. This increases your damage while Healthy while also raising your Overpower Damage. There are a lot of clusters around it that further boost your Overpower Damage. Next, you have Thick Hide and Hardened to give you more damage while Fortified, which is great because you’ll constantly be Fortified with this Fate Lancer Diablo 4 Necromancer Build. It’ll also provide you with Maximum Life to keep you alive and boost your Overpower Damage further.

Lastly, you’re going to want to slot the Blood-drinker Glyph to give you a bonus to all Magic Nodes within range. This is ok but not very good for this D4 Necro Build but what you’re really after is the additional bonus, which makes it so that Blood Orbs Fortify you for 7% of your Maximum Life. When you have tons of Maximum Life, you’ll become Fortified quickly, allowing you to deal more Overpower Damage. You’ll also gain damage reduction from your Armor.

Third Paragon Board – Blood Begets Blood

There are a few good nodes for the Blood Begets Blood Tree like Invigorated and Aggression. Invigorated gives you +20% damage for 8 seconds after picking up a Blood Orb and it raises your damage while Healthy. Meanwhile, Aggression gives you 60% Overpower Damage. Now if you meet the bonus requirement, you gain an additional 10% damage, and it even has a lot of extra Overpower Damage nodes around it. 

For the Glyph, you’re going to use Dominate to amplify your Overpower Damage for each 5 Willpower you have so you want to make sure to get more of this attribute as possible. When you Overpower against an enemy, all damage they take from you is increased for 5 seconds so you’ll be able to deal more damage. 

Fourth Paragon Board – Bone Graft

What you’ll mainly want for the Bone Graft Board is the Rare Node cluster around Reinvigorate to give you Maximum Essence and Essence On Kill. So when you kill enemies with Blood Lance, you can get half the cost of your Blood Lance back if you’ve also managed to get some Essence Cost Reduction.

We’ve also taken the glyph socket here to place the Control Glyph. If you’re using Frostburn or Fists of Fate as well as Corpse Tendrils, you’ll CC enemies quite regularly. 

Final Tips

The other 2 Glyphs that are really good for this Diablo 4 Necromancer Build – Fate Lancer that I’ll probably swap in are Imbiber and Undaunted. Imbiber makes it so that for every 5 Willpower purchase, you have increased damage while Healthy, and you’re constantly Healthy. This is over 80% Health because you have so much healing and damage reduction. And so, you’re going to receive a flat upgrade to your damage. Imbiber is probably better than Control because of the similar damage potential and you won’t have to worry if the target is CCed or not. But remember that Bone Graft doesn’t have a lot of Willpower near the glyph socket. What’s more, is that you gain 30% increased Potion Healing as part of the bonus requirements.

On the other hand, Undaunted increases your damage and damage reduction while Fortified. If you meet the bonus requirement, you’re Fortified constantly with this Diablo IV Necro Build. We have so many passives that affect the way you gain Fortify. Willpower is rough to select and any other board than the one we have the Dominate Glyph in so Intelligence unfortunately works better at the moment.

So that wraps up my Fate Lancer Diablo 4 Necromancer Build. Once you set it up and understand the mechanics of Overpower a bit more, you’ll be able to figure out where to get the damage from. There are several options, particularly if you like Freezing enemies. 

Stay tuned for more Diablo 4 Builds in World Tier 4 as we continue our 70+ Build Guides. Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki for any other questions you have about the game and the Builds page if you are looking for more Diablo IV Builds, as well as our Ultimate Beginner Guide and All Classes Overview if you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!

The post Diablo 4 Blood Necromancer Build – Fate Lancer (LvL 70+) appeared first on Fextralife.

Diablo 4 Druid Build – Howling Tempest (LvL 70+): In this Diablo 4 Druid Build, I’ll show you how to play a LvL 70+ Howling Tempest Druid that’s aimed at World Tier 4. If you’re looking for a Build that combines the Tempest and Howl Storm Builds that I did for World Tier 3, then this Diablo 4 Howling Tempest Druid Build Guide is for you!

Diablo 4 Druid Build – Howling Tempest (LvL 70+)

Both the Tempest and Howl Storm Builds focused on the use of Lightning Storm to deal damage. Now in the Howl Storm Diablo 4 Druid Build, I not only set Poison on enemies in order to gain increased Critical Strike Damage but also to help take damage off of them. Here, we’ve sort of altered away from that in favor of other strategies, but the general concept is the same. 

We’re still going to spam Lightning Storm to annihilate everything that’s on the screen, especially since it got buffed in the last Patch 1.0.3. So the duration in which the amount of Lightning Bolts that come out has been increased from 4 to 6 seconds. This gives you a 6-second winder in between casts to get the maximum bolts out. Additionally, on the Primal Lightning Storm upgrade, the Immobilize chance has been raised from 8 to 12%, which is fantastic because you do increased damage to Immobilized targets due to a lot of passive that Lightning Druids have.

Another obviously notable passives is the Perfect Storm Key Passive. This makes is so that storm skills grant one spirit and even deal increased damage against Vulnerable, Immobilized, or slowed enemies. Bad Omen is also another great pick, since on Lucky Hit you have up to a 30% chance to deal even more lightning damage to these crowd-controlled enemies. 

The Electric Shock passive will help trigger immobilize whenever you deal lightning damage. If a target is already immobilized when this procs, then it will deal even more damage to that target. Our second Paragon Board, Constricting Tendrils, features a Legendary Node that further gives all Nature Magic skills a chance to entangle enemies in vines, effectively immobilizing them for two seconds and dealing poison damage. Lastly, the Poison Creeper can be activated to manually immobilize and poison enemies. As we’re taking the Packleader Spirit Boon, any critical hits we do will also have a chance to reset any Companion Skill cooldowns, giving us more opportunities to reapply Poison Creeper’s immobilize. 

We also make use of Blood Howl and Innate Blood Howl to help manage our Life and Spirit resources. You can potentially enhance this ability by making use of the Nighthowler’s Aspect which we will discuss later on. Last is Debilitating Roar, which we only make use of in conjunction with the Aspect of the Dark Howl which immobilizes poisoned enemies.

Diablo 4 Druid Build – Howling Tempest (LvL 70+)

Once you hit Tier IV you’ll want to start thinking about min/maxing to get the most out of your Build, and that starts with Skills. Thanks to Paragon Boards and to the increased Equipment affixes, you’ll be able to bypass most of the restrictions you previously faced while leveling up. I also won’t get too deep into Skills, as you most probably know how they work by now.

Spirit Boons

• Wariness – Take 10% reduced damage from Elites.
• Packleader – Lucky Hit: Critical Strikes have up to a 20% chance to reset the Cooldowns of your Companion Skills.
• Overload – Lucky Hit: Dealing Lightning damage has up to a 20% chance to cause the target to emit a static discharge, dealing X Lightning damage to surrounding enemies.

Diablo 4 Druid Build: Equipment, Gems, and Aspects

Equipment is the most important part of any Endgame Build, and It’s important to understand that it’s a long-term goal. You won’t have all Paragon Boards available right away, and getting all uniques will probably take a lot of farming, so try to use Legendary Aspects to adjust to your needs while you farm levels and better gear.

Legendary Aspects and Unique Powers

I’ll divide the Equipment into different slots, so it’s easier to understand what you should be using and what affixes you should be looking for. Remember that unique equipment has fixed affixes and powers, so if you are using one, you might need to re-slot a Legendary Aspect into a different piece.

Another important thing to notice is that, when looking for stats, you’ll want to make sure you are fulfilling your Paragon Rare Node requirements. Some rare nodes have very high requirements, and equipment is what allows you to fulfill them. These bonuses often double the rare node effect so, for example, getting an Equipment piece with +100 Dexterity might unlock one or more Node bonuses, giving you a massive bonus as a result.

Helm

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Disobedience: We take this Aspect to further increase the armor we have to make us much tankier.

Affixes

• Cooldown Reduction
• +Ranks of Poison Creeper
• +Maximum Life
• +Total Armor

Chest Armor

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Shared Misery: This makes it so when you crowd control an enemy, you have up to a 50% Lucky Hit chance to spread the debuff to another enemy that’s unaffected by crowd control. Essentially, this will mean that you immobilize more enemies, which increases your damage against them and increases your resource gain. 

Affixes

• +Intelligence
• Damage Reduction from Distant Enemies
• +Ranks of Blood Howl
• Damage Reduction from Enemies That Are Poisoned

Gloves

Legendary Aspect

Runework’s Conduit Aspect: This makes it so that critical strikes with Storm Skills make the air around you charged up, which casts damaging lightning bolts periodically. Just like the Lightning Dancer’s Aspect below, you’ll want to keep upgrading this Aspect for its damage. The duration on it isn’t super important, because you can keep extending it with Critical Strikes. Because Lightning Storm hits so many enemies, and because of our high Critical Strike Chance, you’re going to be able to keep extending this indefinitely. 

– OR – 

Nighthowler’s Aspect: This is an alternative aspect that we can use if you don’t want to equip the Runework’s Conduit. It makes Blood Howl increase Critical Strike Chance in addition to its effects. The skill also affects nearby Companions and Players. 

Affixes

• Lucky Hit: Up to a 5% Chance to Heal X Life
• +Attack Speed
• Storm Skill Cooldown Reduction
• +Critical Strike Chance

Pants

Legendary Aspect

Protecting Aspect: This summons a bubble whenever you get hit when not Healthy once every 90 seconds. This is great because you get to stand inside that bubble, take no damage and can freely cast spells.  You don’t need to worry about anything such as dodging hazards. 

Affixes

• +Dodge Chance Against Close Enemies
• +Total Armor
• +Maximum Life
• Damage Reduction from Close Enemies

Boots

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of the Dark Howl: This converts Debilitating Roar into a Werewolf Skill and gives it a secondary effect that immobilizes poisoned enemies for up to four seconds. The aspect is great because of Poison Creeper. Once that skill’s immobilization wears off, you can retrigger another round of immobilize with Debilitating Roar. 

Affixes

• +Dodge Chance
• Spirit Cost Reduction
• +Dexterity
• +Lightning Resistance

Two-Handed Weapon

Legendary Aspect

Lightning Dancer’s Aspect: This the most important Legendary Aspect of the build, and should be placed on a Two Handed Weapon, specifically a Staff which adds damage to crowd controlled enemies, to maximize its effect. This makes it so that any Critical Strikes from Lightning Storm will spawn 3 smaller dancing bolts that will seek out enemies and deal even more Lightning Damage. However, this is one of those Aspects that you will need to keep upgrading throughout your journey. As your level goes higher, and you pass through Sacred and Ancestral quality aspects, the damage from Lightning Dancer will keep increasing.

Affixes

• +All Stats
• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Core Skill Damage
• +Willpower

Amulet

Legendary Aspect

Accelerating Aspect: This is just a means to further increase your attack speed. Critically Striking with your Core Skill, Lightning Storm, will be extremely reliable. The faster you can cast Lightning Storm, the faster things die, and this will be greatly enhanced with this Aspect’s Attack Speed bonus.

Affixes

• Damage Reduction from Distant Enemies
• +Ranks of the Envenom Passive
• +Damage while in Human Form
• Damage Reduction from Close Enemies

First Ring

Legendary Aspect

Smiting Aspect: Both of the components of this aspect are really important. First, you get increased Critical Strike Chance against enemies below 35% health, making finishing them off much, much easier. The second part of this skill makes it so that you have 40% increased Crowd Control Duration whenever you are Healthy. Doing so will keep enemies Immobilized longer, meaning you damage them more and more. 

Affixes

• +Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Overpower Damage
• +Critical Strike Chance

Second Ring

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of the Umbral: This works extremely well with the number of sources of Crowd Control you have at your disposal. Aspect of the Umbral restores a small portion of your Spirit whenever you Immobilize a target, which we will do so regularly, whether via Poison Creeper, or just by dealing Lightning Damage. This is one of the best ways to alleviate the Druid’s Spirit management problems. 

Affixes

• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
• +Critical Strike Damage
• +Lucky Hit Chance

Gems

For gems, you’ll want to slot:

• Weapon: Emeralds to increase Critical Strike Damage against Vulnerable enemies.
• Armor: Topaz to reduce the damage taken when CCed and Rubies to boost your Maximum Life.
• Jewelry: Skulls to boost your Defense value.

Paragon and Glyphs for the Druid Build

When it comes to Paragon Boards, we are mainly going to aim for Rare Nodes that increase our damage output, as well as Glyphs that synergize with our Build. Please note that the order in which I get the Nodes is just a general guideline, and you can adjust it to your current needs.

First Paragon Board – Base

The first Glyph you’ll want to slot on your Base Board here is the Exploit Glyph. This makes it so that whenever you damage enemies, they become Vulnerable for three seconds. It also increases your Vulnerable Damage. Exploit gives a huge boost to this build’s damage, because Lightning Storm constantly makes things on the entire screen Vulnerable.

Second Paragon Board – Constricting Tendrils

For your Second Paragon Board, you’re going to take Constricting Tendrils as mentioned earlier. This makes it so that all of your Nature Magic Skills have a chance to immobilize targets and poison them as well. Since we’re also using the Envenom passive, all Critical Strike Damage against poisoned enemies will be greatly enhanced. 

The Glyph we’ll be placing here is Spirit, which further boosts the Critical Strike Damage of our Core Skill, Lightning Storm. Its secondary effect also gives Critical Strikes a ramping debuff that makes enemies take up to 12% increased damage from us for 20 seconds. 

Last on the Second Board are two really good rare nodes. You will want to get Devastation and Nature’s Will as soon as possible as both drastically increase our Nature Magic Skill Damage. Devastation, in particular, also increases our Damage to Elites. 

Third Paragon Board – Ancestral Guidance

So then you’ll move on to Ancestral Guidance for our third Paragon Board. The Legendary Node on this board makes it so that after spending 75 Spirit, you deal 30% increased damage for 5 seconds. While the Node by itself is already extremely powerful, we are actually after the rare Reclamation node and the magic nodes around it. Reclamation and the nodes directly around it increase your Maximum Spirit and also grant you Spirit on Kill. These two are huge for this build, as they really help you generate a lot of Spirit. I would even go as far as recommend that you take Ancestral Guidance for your second Paragon Board in case you don’t have enough points to get to these nodes. 

The next Glyph we’re using is Human. This increases the damage you do while in Human form, but also decreases the damage you take while in this form. While you do change into a Werewolf briefly to use two skills, you immediately shift back to Human form to cast your Lightning Storm. 

Final Tips

This build absolutely destroys. It is extremely strong and satisfying, particularly when there are lots of enemies on the screen and there’s lightning bolts going everywhere. It is tons and tons of fun to play, and for those of you that would look great looking for an upgrade to The Tempest build, here you go.

Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki for any other questions you have about the game and the Builds page if you are looking for more Diablo IV Builds, as well as our Ultimate Beginner Guide and All Classes Overview if you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!

The post Diablo 4 Druid Build – Howling Tempest (LvL 70+) appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Star Rail guide to the best Eidolons, I will discuss the top five Eidolons in the game that are worth investing your Stellar Jade in. This is not intended to be a tier list or a ranking of character power, but rather a recommendation on resource management. Consider it a way to maximize the benefits of using your hard-earned wishes. It’s generally not advised to spend wishes chasing Eidolons due to their high cost, even for four-star ones in my opinion. However, this may not hold true for every character, so the list aims to help you narrow down which Eidolons are truly worth summoning. If you’ve been wondering which character to allocate your last remaining resources to, then this guide is tailor-made for you!

Honkai Star Rail Guide: 5 Best Eidolons

When it comes to wishes, every account has access to a limited number of them. You receive a substantial amount of wishes when starting a new account and progressing through levels. Additionally, completing challenges, quests, and engaging with various content grants you a certain amount of wishes. Furthermore, you receive a steady income of wishes on a weekly and monthly basis. However, all of these sources are finite. If players fail to manage them properly, they may end up with useless or subpar Eidolons for their characters.

Obtaining a five-star character typically requires an average of over 75 wishes. The first five-star character has a 50% chance to be the rate-up character. If this chance is missed, the next five-star character is guaranteed to be the rate-up character. This is a significant investment, but five-star characters usually perform well even without Eidolons at E0.

On the other hand, there’s no guarantee of obtaining a specific character with four-star wishes. Each banner features three rate-up characters. Each four-star pull has a 50% chance of being one of those three characters. This means that with each set of ten pulls, there is a one-in-six chance of obtaining a specific character. Acquiring multiple copies to enhance Eidolons will require either great luck or a substantial number of wishes.

The Best tips for Summoning Eidolons

In this guide I’ll provide some tips to help you get more value from your wishes in Honkai Star Rail.

Plan Your Wishes Ahead

Honkai Star Rail often announces upcoming banners for the next patch before the current banners end. This provides players with valuable information about the characters they can expect to see in the next two months. It allows for better planning, and players can evaluate how many wishes they want to allocate to each banner.

Let’s take the example of version 1.0 and 1.1 banners:

• Seele as five-star, and Hook, Natasha, and Pela
• Jing Yuan as five-star, and March 7th, Sushang, and Tingyun
• Silver Wolf as five-star, and Asta, Dan Heng, and Serval
• Luocha as five-star, and Pela, Qingque, and Yukong.

Each banner lasts for three weeks, and it’s important to note that it’s unrealistic to expect to obtain all of these characters, let alone acquire Eidolons for all of them. This is where planning becomes crucial. You need to consider which characters you truly need and which ones are not worth pursuing.

For example, some players might decide to skip the Jing Yuan banner. This might be because they already have a free-to-play Erudition character such as Serval. They might prioritize obtaining more unique characters that fulfill new roles, so they main Serval and skip Jing Yuan. Serval is featured as a rate-up character in the next banner alongside Silver Wolf. Wishing on the Silver Wolf banner would provide a significant boost to their account as Serval’s Eidolons will add considerable value.

The same approach can be applied to players who skipped Seele and opted to play Sushang as a four-star alternative. They can save all their wishes and go all-in on the Jing Yuan banner to obtain more copies of Sushang.

Relax, Don’t Try for E6 From One Banner Alone

If you are aiming for an E6 four-star character, you might need over 400 wishes to obtain the seven required copies. Accumulating this number of wishes takes considerably more time than the three-week duration of a single banner. Therefore, players should not expect to acquire all Eidolons at once. They should consider waiting for character reruns to build a more diverse roster in the process.

By distributing your wishes across multiple banners, you increase your chances of obtaining new characters alongside your desired Eidolons. In many cases, new characters hold more significance than higher-rated Eidolons.

Let’s use Pela as an example. She first appeared in the banner featuring Seele, Natasha, and Hook. Then, in the three subsequent banners, she reappeared in the Luocha banner alongside Qingque and Yukong. If a player exhausts all their wishes to acquire high-rated Eidolons for Pela in the first banner, they deprive themselves of the opportunity to obtain more characters from the second banner. Therefore, adopting a patient and gradual approach is a good way to obtain the best Eidolons in Honkai Star Rail.

Summon on Banners with Several Useful Characters for Your Account

It may sound obvious, but you would be surprised how easy it is to miss this tip. One might see an amazing five-star character and spend every last wish trying to obtain it. Without considering whether the banner offers other useful characters for your specific account needs is not recommended.

Let’s take an account that pulled and focused on Seele as a single-target DPS. If you have skipped the Jing Yuan banner to save more wishes. You may be faced with the decision of pulling on either the Luocha or Silver Wolf banner in version 1.1. This account requires an AOE DPS and a second single-target DPS to build two teams for the Memory of Chaos mode. Along with an offensive support and a second healer.

In this case, the player can choose to go for Luocha, who is an excellent healer, and also acquire Yukong as a good offensive support. However, the Silver Wolf banner might offer more value. Providing Silver Wolf herself as an offensive support, Dan Heng as a single-target DPS, and Serval as an AOE DPS. Additionally, Asta can serve as a secondary support in some cases. By opting for the Silver Wolf banner, the account can also obtain Eidolons. This is for all three characters that could be utilized in their two teams. Instead of just acquiring Eidolons for a single four-star character.

These are some basic tips to optimize your gains from wishes, intended to increase the efficiency of your wishes. With that said, let’s proceed to the Best Eidolons in Star Rail.

Serval E6: This Song Rocks to Heaven

Serval‘s Eidolons, in general, are among the best Eidolons in Star Rail. She is a four-star AOE DPS who can rival five-star characters in their own game. She has a low energy cost, allowing her to spam her ultimate, and she excels at breaking shields and dealing significant damage.

Her E6 provides a straight 30% damage multiplier to all her attacks, which is a powerful buff with minimal conditions and guaranteed 100% uptime. Serval applies a lot of shock and can extend its duration. This ensures she never experiences downtime with her E6. Additionally, as she progresses to E6, Serval gains E1, which makes her normal attacks AOE, E2, which refunds energy with each attack, and E4, which applies more shock with her ultimate.

These qualities combined, build up a strong AOE dps character, that can output potent damage. Against any enemy weak to lightning, Serval will be a very competitive character to pick, and against enemies who are not weak to lightning, you can use Silver Wolf with her to force lightning weakness. Serval’s Eidolons also enable her to pair well with Kafka, Sampo, or any future character focusing on DoT.

These qualities combine to create a strong AOE DPS character capable of delivering potent damage. When facing enemies weak to lightning, Serval becomes a highly competitive pick. When it comes to dealing with enemies without lightning, pairing her with Silver Wolf can force the lightning weakness. Serval’s Eidolons also synergize well with characters like Kafka, Sampo, or any future character focused on Damage Over Time (DOT).

March 7th E4: Never Forfeit Again

In the Honkai Star Rail Defensive Support Tier List, I ranked March 7th at the highest rank. This is due to the complex nature of her kit, which allows her to fulfill multiple roles such as shielder, cleanser, shield breaker, and crowd control character. One of the key factors contributing to her high ranking is her fourth Eidolon, which adds a third counter attack and scales her counter damage with Defense.

By default, March can counter twice per turn when any shielded ally is attacked by an enemy. These counters not only deal damage and break shields, but also refund energy to March. By adding an extra counter, March is able to break more shields, deal more damage, and use her ultimate more frequently. This, in turn, enables March to break shields even more and freeze enemies more frequently.

The value of March at E4 significantly increases, especially in AOE content. Along the way to E4, she also gains E1, which generates more energy, and E2, which grants more shields.

In endgame Memory of Chaos mode, March is one of the best characters to play, and her effectiveness improves with Eidolons. I highly recommend obtaining her E4 if possible and using her more frequently.

Star Rail Best Eidolons – Sushang E1: Cut With Ease

You might be surprised by the amount of power this simple Eidolon can provide. Sushang is a single-target DPS character who relies on breaking enemy shields. She deals more damage against broken enemies and gains increased speed. Her E1 adds incredible utility to her kit by refunding the skill point used by Sushang to activate her skill.

This refund requires the enemy to have a broken shield, which is something Sushang always strives to achieve. Therefore, it is not difficult to meet this condition, and you can expect it to be active more often than not. Over the course of a lengthy battle, this Eidolon will refund a significant number of skill points, which can then be used by secondary dps, support, or a shield breaker. Thus, it not only benefits Sushang herself but also the entire team playing alongside her.

For an easily obtainable Eidolon that only requires one additional copy, E1 on Sushang is considered one of the best Eidolons in Star Rail. There are not many DPS characters who can enhance the overall performance of the team while fulfilling their primary role. Therefore, I highly recommend acquiring Sushang’s E1, whether through a banner where she is featured or from the monthly shop.

Asta E4: Aurora Basks In Beauty and Bliss

While she starts off decently at E0, Asta gains a significant amount of utility with Eidolons. Asta’s primary utility lies in buffing the attack of all allies by stacking her talent and increasing speed through her ultimate. Additionally, she buffs fire damage for fire DPS characters.

Asta’s Eidolons

Her attack buff can reach up to 75% for all allies, which is immense. However, her stacks are constantly being reduced. Therefore, her E1, E2, and E6 focus on slowing down the reduction of stacks. Each of these Eidolons adds something valuable, and while none of them are exceptionally powerful on their own, they contribute to Asta’s overall effectiveness. E4, on the other hand, focuses on generating energy for Asta, which helps her use her ultimate more frequently. The ultimate is tied to the speed buff, and usually, Asta needs several turns to charge her ultimate, while the buff only lasts for two turns. Thus, energy generation is crucial to reduce downtime, as losing the speed buff can disrupt rotation fluidity.

Asta’s buff provides a flat speed increase, which is then multiplied by speed modifiers from other sources. Therefore, in reality, her buff is larger than the listed 50-speed value. If her E4 helps her use her ultimate one turn earlier, that’s a +50 speed boost for the entire team for one turn, which is a significant enhancement.

Maintaining Asta’s E4 Buff

The condition to maintain Asta’s E4 buff is to have two or more stacks of her talent. This condition is not difficult to meet, considering how her E1 and E2 assist in slowing down the reduction of stacks. The buff itself grants 15% energy generation, which is almost equivalent to having an additional five-star Rope relic with energy generation. Furthermore, if you combine Rope, E4, and a shield break relic set, you can charge Asta’s ultimate much faster and grant your team more turns.

Dan Heng E2: Quell the Venom Octet, Quench the Vice O’Flame

This Eidolon reduces the cooldown of Dan Heng’s Talent. What this talent does is grant Dan Heng significant wind resistance penetration for one action. The condition to trigger it is a support ally targeting Dan Heng with a skill, and the cooldown is initially set at two turns. Therefore, by default, Dan Heng can utilize the powerful buff for one action and then wait for two turns before using it again.

Now, with E2, the cooldown is reduced to one turn, allowing Dan Heng to benefit from the buff for an additional action. Instead of saving it solely for his ultimate, he can use it once more during his skill. This increases Dan Heng’s damage potential, and if played optimally, he can surpass other single-target dps characters. Unfortunately, the buff still relies on another character buffing Dan Heng at the right time, making it challenging to achieve optimal rotations, even with E2.

However, the damage increase is still significant, and Dan Heng can exploit it to various extents. Even in the worst rotation scenario, Dan Heng still gains considerable benefits from E2.

So that’s it for the Best Eidolons to obtain in Honkai Star Rail. What did you think of the list? What are your favorite Eidolons you’ve summoned? Let us know in the comments below!

Stay tuned for more Honkai: Star Rail Guides. For more Honkai: Star Rail content, check our Honkai Star Rail Tier List – Defensive Supports, Honkai Star Rail Tier List – Offensive Supports, Honkai Star Rail Tier List – AOE DPS, and Honkai Star Rail Tier List – Single Target DPS As well as, the full list of our characters Build guides.

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In this guide to efficient Relics farming in Honkai Star Rail, I will discuss the Relic Sets that offer the best returns on your daily Stamina investment. Please note that this is not a tier list or a ranking of Relic power. But rather it’s a recommendation on how to manage your resources effectively. The goal is to maximize the benefits obtained from your limited Stamina. Due to the RNG of Relic drops, I don’t advise to spend stamina gambling on them. Not before getting most of the guaranteed upgrades to your character. Once you have reached a high Trailblazer Level and acquired the majority of your traces, Relic farming becomes much more advantageous. This guide is specifically tailored for endgame Relic farming.

Honkai Star Rail Guide: Best Relics To Farm

Stamina (or Trailblazer Power) in Honkai Star Rail is limited, generating 10 stamina per hour. This caps at 180. If you log in twice a day to spend them, the total daily stamina amounts to 240. In terms of Relics, there are twelve Relic sets that can be obtained from six different caverns of Corrosion. There are also eight Planetary Sets that can be obtained from four worlds in the Simulated Universe. Each cavern of Corrosion consumes 30 stamina, while Simulated Universe runs consume 40 stamina.

The maximum number of caverns of Corrosion you can farm daily without using fuel refreshes is 8. Or you can obtain 6 Immersion rewards from the Simulated Universe. The rarity and quantity of Relics obtained are determined by your Equilibrium and Trailblazer Level. It is important to note that the higher your Equilibrium level, the better Relics you will receive. This makes it unwise to farm Relics at lower levels. Focus on obtaining only a few Relics with the correct main stats for your main team at lower levels. Save all your fuel refills for farming at Trailblazer level +60.

We should aim to farm the caverns of Corrosion that provide the broadest coverage in terms of Relic sets. This means we can prioritize the caverns of Corrosion that offer two sets. These can be utilized by a large number of characters. The same principle applies to the Planetary Sets obtained from the Simulated Universe. In this guide on the best Relics in Honkai Star Rail, I will explain how to achieve optimal Relic farming.

Honkai Star Rail Relics Overview: Path of Gelid Wind

The Path of Gelid Wind Cavern of Corrosion holds a wind set and ice set which I will go over.

Eagle of Twilight Line – Wind Set

The wind set provides Wind damage as a bonus on two pieces and allows the character to advance a turn forward upon using their ultimate. As a result, it is a standard choice for any wind DPS character, such as Dan Heng, Sampo, or even a support character like Bronya. Additionally, other characters who do not possess the wind element can also benefit from using the Eagle of Twilight Line set. Due to Advance Forward being a very valuable stat, as it allows for more turns, it’s a more universal set.

If you have a support character that doesn’t necessarily require a DPS set from their own element, the Eagle of Twilight Line is a beneficial set to utilize. Not only does it generate more SP for the team, enabling energy to be refunded faster, but it also facilitates more turns. This set aids in increasing the energy generation for your support character as well as generating SP for the entire team. Typically they benefit from acting faster than DPS characters in order to provide SP and buff the DPS more frequently. This set serves this dual purpose.

Advance Forward Stat

The advance forward doesn’t happen every turn, and only when character uses ultimate. So the best characters to use it are those who have very low energy cost, or refund their ultimate easily. Other supports without Wind element who prefer Wind Set over Speed Set are Pela, Asta, and Tingyun.

The “Advance Forward” effect does not occur every turn but rather when a character uses their ultimate. Therefore, the best candidates to benefit from this effect are those with very low energy costs or those who can easily refund their ultimate. Additionally, there are other support characters without the Wind element who prefer the Wind Set over the Speed Set, such as Pela, Asta, and Tingyun.

Hunter of Glacial Forest – Ice Set

The Ice set provides Ice damage as a bonus on two pieces and grants conditional Crit Damage for two turns following the ultimate. However, upon its release, the only two Ice DPS characters available were Herta and Yanqing. Both of these characters struggle to maintain the full uptime of the four-piece bonus, resulting in the Ice set not always being the optimal choice as a DPS option. Especially with the high energy cost of Yanqing’s Ultimate, and Herta not being a popular pick as a DPS.

No other character outside of the Ice cast can fully utilize Hunter of Glacial Forest, so it’s a bit underwhelming. Ice characters can find good alternatives in hybrid sets.

Path of Gelid Wind Cavern Verdict (9/10)

It is indeed an excellent cavern, but in this Star Rail Best Relic Guide, I cannot wholeheartedly suggest solely focusing on it. Farming this cavern is ideal if you have an Ice damage dealer since drops from both sets will be utilized. You can farm it to acquire two pieces of the Ice set for a hybrid setup, which doesn’t require a significant amount of time. Alternatively, you can fully commit to building multiple sets for various characters. However, if you don’t have a need for the Ice set, it is not the only cavern worth farming, and you might discover more efficient options for your account.

Honkai Star Rail Relics Overview: Path of Drifting

The Path of Drifting Cavern of Corrosion drops a Healing set, and an Attack Set with bonus Speed.

Passerby of Wandering Cloud – Healing Set

This Relic set provides a healing bonus, and gives one extra SP at the start of a battle. This is the standard pick for every healer character. It’s also a nice way to squeeze in some extra skill use for any team setup. The SP bonus is particularly valuable for teams aiming to clear the first wave in Memory of Chaos within a zero-cycle. However, beyond that specific scenario, it is a nice bonus but not necessarily essential.

Musketeer of Wild Wheat – Attack and Speed Set

The Musketeer of Wild Wheat is the most versatile Relic set in Honkai Star Rail, offering three bonuses: % Attack, Normal attack damage, and % Speed. It is the only set that provides a Speed bonus among all the Relic sets upon its release. Speed is a valuable attribute that can be utilized by almost every character, whether they are DPS or support. While the wind set may hold more value in optimal setups, the speed set is widely accessible. It drops from weekly bosses and other sources, increasing the chances of obtaining multiple favorable pieces when farming for it. Additionally, the speed set possesses some unique properties.

What makes Speed unique is its crucial role in triggering several Planetary Set bonuses. In fact, there are three sets that require 120 speed and one set that demands 145 speed. Certain characters have inherently low speed, requiring significant bonus Speed to reach these thresholds. Furthermore, Speed enables characters to take more turns, deal increased damage, and generate more SP.

Speed is not the sole benefit you gain from the Musketeer of Wild Wheat set, as it also provides an Attack bonus. The generic attack stat is a solid choice for any character focused on dealing damage. In this Star Rail Best Relics guide, we can’t find a more versatile and universally applicable set, even if not the best.

Path of Gelid Wind Cavern Verdict (8/10)

Every healer in the game necessitates farming this cavern, whether they intend to use a healing set or the attack and speed set. Furthermore, every support character can make use of the speed set, either permanently or temporarily. Additionally, the majority of DPS characters can also equip the drops from this domain.

So while it might not be the strongest in every situation, it’s a good place to start. Especially if you don’t have Ice or wind DPS to justify farming ice and wind cavern. You can outfit your entire account with relics from this cavern, and it will provide a reasonably good setup overall.

Relics Sets Overview: Path of Jabbing Punch

This Cavern of Corrosion, Path of Jabbing Punch drops a physical set, and Break Effect Set.

Champion of Streetwise Boxing

The physical set offers the potential to stack up to a 25% Attack bonus after attacking enemies five times. The buff remains permanent, allowing characters to gain a higher value from it during longer battles. At the time of launch, the physical DPS characters available include Luka, Clara, Physical Trailblazer, and Sushang, all of whom can make excellent use of this set.

Additionally, certain characters with a high number of attacks, like Herta or Himeko, can also utilize it, although it may not be their optimal choice. There are healers like Luocha who benefit from scaling with attack since it serves as both an offensive and defensive stat. However, even Luocha can find satisfaction in using a hybrid attack/healing set if preferred.

The general use of a physical set is somewhat limited, compared to say a Wind set. But it’s worth farming if you use physical DPS. More so if you use a mono physical team with two physical DPS.

Thief of Shooting Meteor

The Break Effect Set stands out as one of the best sets in the entire game, particularly when used on the right character. Break Effect is a niche stat that remains inactive until the precise hit that breaks through enemy toughness occurs. This may initially appear counterproductive to the inexperienced observer. However, the amount of damage it can stack on some elements, makes it worth building a fully dedicated breaker.

The best support in the game right out of the gate is the Silverwolf. This is due to her superb break capability. er Quantum element enables her to accumulate stacks on broken enemies, and when the enemy recovers, they suffer immense Break damage. This type of break damage is unique and doesn’t scale with offensive stats such as attack or crit. Instead, it scales with the character’s level, break effect, enemy’s maximum toughness, and element type. Apart from the Break Effect, these stats are beyond our control or can only be raised up to a certain limit. Thus, the Break Effect serves as the only multiplier we can utilize to enhance break damage, and the Break set provides exactly that.

In this guide to the best relics in Honkai Star Rail, the Thief of Shooting Meteor set is a great pick. It not only provides the valuable Break Effect, but also grants energy when breaking enemy toughness. This feature offers a fantastic means of charging the ultimate ability faster and enhancing the overall performance of the character, particularly for those with area-of-effect (AOE) capabilities.

All three characters, Silverwolf, Serval and Yukong, excel as fully dedicated breakers for their respective elements. Additionally, Asta, and Sushang can also incorporate Break Effect into their builds, albeit to a slightly lesser efficiency.

Path of Jabbing Punch Cavern Verdict (7/10)

If you are focused on building a Physical DPS character, this cavern is an absolute must. If your main focus is on building Silverwolf, it becomes a high-priority target. Otherwise, it remains a decent cavern where you can obtain the Break set for certain support characters or for Serval.

Both the Wind cavern and the Healing cavern are more valuable if you can only farm one cavern. However, you can mix and alternate between them and still get decent results. There’s really no bad choice here.

Relics Sets Overview: Path of Holy Hymn

This Cavern of Corrosion, Path of Holy Hymn drops a lightning set and Def Set.

Knight of Purity Palace

The Def set is the optimal choice for shielders, and there are no viable alternatives to it. The four-piece set bonus directly multiplies shield strength, providing excellent protection. Additionally, the two-piece bonus offers a straightforward percentage increase to defense, which is beneficial for all shielders. I highly recommend obtaining a copy of this set for every shielder in your roster. However, I advise against expending excessive stamina on farming it.

The aspect of Def scaling is that characters can easily reach high values, resulting in diminishing returns. For shielders, other stats besides defense do not have a significant impact, so they don’t require extensive optimization. Having the correct set bonus and the appropriate main stat are more than enough for most shielders.

Band of Sizzling Thunder

The Lightning Set is more niche compared to other sets. It provides lightning damage on the two-piece bonus and a conditional Attack buff on the four-piece bonus. However, the condition to trigger the Attack buff requires using a skill every single turn, which is not something many characters can consistently meet.

On top of that, there aren’t many lightning DPS characters available. So it boils down to Jing Yuan who becomes the primary user of the Lightning Set. Other characters like Serval can focus on building the Break Set, while Arlan is generally considered underwhelming.

Path of Holy Hymn Cavern Verdict (6/10)

In our Honkai Star Rail Best Relics Guide, I recommend farming enough Def set pieces from this cavern and then moving on. It’s not necessary to extensively farm this cavern for an extended period, as it primarily benefits a single character in the long run.

Relics Sets Overview: Path of Conflagration

This Cavern of Corrosion, Path of Conflagration drops the Fire set and the Imaginary Set.

Firesmith of Lava-Forging

Fire set is most effective on fire DPS characters such as Himeko and Hook. The set provides bonuses to fire damage, skill damage, and additional fire damage after using the ultimate. This is particularly beneficial for characters who rely on their skills and frequently charge their ultimate. Himeko, in particular, perfectly aligns with these requirements, making her the optimal user of the fire set. Hook can also make good use of the set for buffing her enchanted basic attack.

Aside from these two characters, no other character can fully utilize the Fire set. Asta may gain a slight increase in DPS, but since Asta primarily functions as a support, they generally work better with Speed or Advance Forward sets. Similarly, the Fire Main Character tends to benefit more from the Def set. As for non-fire characters, they have no means of effectively utilizing the Fire set’s bonuses. So it’s a very limited pick.

Wastelander of Banditry Desert

The Imaginary set sees even less usage compared to the Fire set. The sole Imaginary character in the entire game at launch was Welt, with two additional Imaginary-type characters being released in 1.1 but unable to utilize the Imaginary set.

What makes matters even worse for this particular set is the bonuses are conditional based on offensive stats. It provides a Crit Rate bonus against debuffed enemies and a Crit Damage bonus against imprisoned enemies. While the debuffed status may initially appear easy to trigger due to any Damage over Time effect being considered a debuff, the Crit Rate itself can be obtained through main and sub-stats on Relics. Characters that are in the Imaginary category are not in favor of sacrificing a 10% damage multiplier from their correct element set for an accessible stat such as Crit Rate.

Crit Damage is further limited by a more challenging condition: Imprison. Only Welt’s Ultimate and the Imaginary break can inflict Imprison, requiring investment in Effect Hit Rate to successfully land the debuff. As a result, no character besides Welt can effectively utilize this set. Yukong, being a support, prioritizes building energy, speed, and Break effect. Similarly, Luocha requires investment in attack and healing stats rather than focusing on Crit Damage.

Path of Conflagration Cavern Verdict (6/10)

In conclusion, Path of Conflagration cavern doesn’t have any of Honkai Star Rail’s Best Relics. It has niche and harder-to-use sets. Ideally only when you use fire main DPS, and you do it half-heartedly. There are more important and broader caverns to farm, and sets to use. Probably it’s best to pretend this cavern doesn’t exist, and farm generic DPS sets for your fire DPS characters and save yourself the hassle.

Relics Sets Overview: Path of Providence

This Cavern of Corrosion, Path Providence drops the Quantum set, and another set which is pretty much useless in my opinion and no one really uses it as there are better alternatives.

Genius of Brilliant Stars

The Quantum Set is a signature set for the limited five-star DPS, Seele. It’s the best elemental set, with pure damage multipliers that work very well together. The two-piece set has standard quantum damage, and a four-piece that has a stat called Ignore Def. Ignore Def is a unique stat that multiplies character damage, and it gives increasing returns if stacked. Currently, in the game, there is no other source for Ignore Def, but it also stacks with Def reduction. You can get a Def Reduction from the Nihility debuffers such as Pela, or Silverwolf. Or even some from the Nihility Light Cones.

Overall, the Quantum set is one of the main reasons Seele is so strong damage dealer. And if future Quantum characters get released, they have potential to be top dps as well. This set is so powerful that it might rival full dps sets on none-Quantum characters, assuming enemies have Quantum weakness. This can also be achieved with Silverwolf + Mono element teams.

However, since Silverwolf performs worse with the Quantum set than a Break set, this leaves the farming of this cavern valid only for Seele and Qingqu. Otherwise, farming the Quantum Cavern is a terrible idea.

Guard of Wuthering Snow

This set reduces damage taken, heals the character when they drop below 50% health, and gives them some energy. Overall, it has zero offensive stats, and the energy generation is so small that it is not viable as a support set. Additionally, the condition to activate it is so ridiculous that no character at launch can meet it: getting below 50% health every turn to gain some energy.

The Destruction set is currently not a great set, but it may be meant for an unreleased character with a unique kit that can synergize with it in future. Until then, it is simply dead weight, and getting pieces of it instead of Quantum pieces can be frustrating.

Path of Providence Cavern Verdict (5/10)

If it weren’t for the useless self-healing set, the Path of Providence Cavern would have a chance to be one of the best. However, getting 50% trash pieces from farming is a huge downside. The other set is not effective even as part of a hybrid set. For example, we can use the Fire and Imaginary sets in a hybrid 2-piece + 2-piece set, which would justify using the better drops.

So that’s it for the Best Relics to farm in Honkai Star Rail. What did you think of the list? What are your favorite Relic Sets so far? Let us know in the comments below!

Stay tuned for more Honkai: Star Rail Guides as they are released. For more Honkai: Star Rail content, check out Honkai Star Rail Tier List – AOE DPS, and our Honkai Star Rail Tier List – Single Target DPS.

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Diablo 4 Solo Necromancer Build – Grim Reaper: In this Diablo 4 Necromancer Build, I’ll show you how to play a LvL 70+ Grim Reaper Necromancer that’s aimed at World Tier 4, and is an evolution of our Reaper Build from World Tier 3. If you’re looking for a Build that absolutely demolishes enemies with Shadow Damage, then this Diablo 4 Grim Reaper Necromancer Build Guide is for you!

Diablo 4 Solo Necromancer Build – Grim Reaper

So the general strategy with this Diablo IV Build is to continue to use the Blighted Corpse Explosion upgrade to put Shadow Damage Over Time (DoT) on enemies. This will then be stacked to trigger the Shadowblight Key Passive to deal a ton of damage that will hit like a truck. For your Core Skill, you’ll make use of Sever to deal damage to a target as well as the others who get caught in the path of your Scythe as you throw it out. And for every 4th cast, this applies Vulnerable on them.

There are a few reasons why Sever is the better Core Skill over Blight. Blight does Shadow Damage and Shadow DoT, and you can even get the Aspect of the Void to pull enemies in. However, there are some things that Sever does for you that Blight doesn’t. First, you get burst damage. Blight is pretty much DoT or alternating with Corpse Explosion. And when you’re talking about clear speed, you want things to die quickly so getting burst in there is really nice. Second, it has an exceptional range and attacks faster. As such, you can clip through multiple targets, especially those who are buffing the other enemies to make them damage resistant. 

What’s more, is the Vulnerable Damage that Sever does. Ideally, you would have this Stat on both of your Rings and Weapon if you’re not using Black River for this D4 Necro Build to make the most of the applied Vulnerability. And at some point, you’ll be using the Exploit Glyph to further boost your Vulnerable Damage.

The general strategy for most fights is to walk in and use Reap, particularly taking advantage of the Acolyte’s Reap modifier, in order to drop a Corpse. And then you’re going to hit Corpse Tendrils to pull enemies, Stun them, and apply the Vulnerable effect. When they’re all grouped up, you’re going to attack them with Sever until they start dying. Once Corpses are on the ground, you’ll use Corpse Explosion to put more DoTs on those who are still alive while reapplying Vulnerable while they’re standing in those AoE puddles.  

Finally, I’m using Blood Mist for this Diablo 4 Solo Necromancer Build. Not only does it give you a way to get out of bad situations by making the Grim Reaper Immune, but you can also use it to kite enemies. 

Diablo 4 Solo Necromancer Build – Grim Reaper

Once you hit Tier IV you’ll want to start thinking about min/maxing to get the most out of your Build, and that starts with Skills. Thanks to Paragon Boards and to the increased Equipment affixes, you’ll be able to bypass most of the restrictions you previously faced while leveling up. I also won’t get too deep into Skills, as you most probably know how they work by now.

Book of the Dead / Unique Specialization

• Skeletal Warriors – Sacrificed Reaper for more Shadow Damage.
• Skeletal Mages – Sacrificed Cold for additional Vulnerable Damage.
• Golems – Sacrificed Iron for more Critical Strike Damage.

Diablo 4 Solo Necromancer Build: Equipment, Gems, and Aspects

Equipment is the most important part of any Endgame Build, and It’s important to understand that it’s a long-term goal. You won’t have all Paragon Boards available right away, and getting all uniques will probably take a lot of farming, so try to use Legendary Aspects to adjust to your needs while you farm levels and better gear.

Legendary Aspects and Unique Powers

I’ll divide the Equipment into different slots, so it’s easier to understand what you should be using and what affixes you should be looking for. Remember that unique equipment has fixed affixes and powers, so if you are using one, you might need to re-slot a Legendary Aspect into a different piece.

Another important thing to notice is that, when looking for stats, you’ll want to make sure you are fulfilling your Paragon Rare Node requirements. Some rare nodes have very high requirements, and equipment is what allows you to fulfill them. These bonuses often double the rare node effect so, for example, getting an Equipment piece with +100 Dexterity might unlock one or more Node bonuses, giving you a massive bonus as a result.

Helm

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of the Protector: This gives the D4 Solo Necro Build – Grim Reaper a damage shield upon damaging Elites and Bosses, and provides you with a good option to protect yourself.

Affixes

• +Maximum Essence
• +All Stats
• +Maximum Life
• +Total Armor

You can also get Cooldown Reduction here if you can find it in order to further reduce the cooldown of your Corpse Tendrils, Blood Mist, and Bone Storm.

Chest Armor

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Disobedience: This increases your Armor by up to 50% upon dealing damage and since you deal a ton of damage, you’re going to be tankier. 

Affixes

• +Total Armor
• Damage Reduction from Enemies That Are Affected By Shadow Damage Over Time
• +Damage
• +Darkness Skill Damage

Gloves

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Decay: This makes it so that each time the Shadowblight Key Passive deals damage to an enemy, it increases the next Shadowblight Damage within 10 seconds by up to 40%, stacking up to 5x. So this would be up to 200% each time you deal Shadow Damage to an enemy 10x. You’ll even notice it during a Boss fight when their Health just suddenly disappears, meaning, that your Key Passive is popping. But the effect of the Aspect of Decay won’t be as noticeable against regular mobs.

Affixes

• +Critical Strike Chance
• +Dexterity
• +Attack Speed
• +Ranks of Sever

You’ll also want to have Intelligence here if possible.

Pants

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Shielding Storm: This allows you to gain a huge Barrier every time you damage an enemy with Bone Storm. So the Aspect of Shielding Storm makes you super tanky. Remember to pop in Bone Storm when going into a dangerous situation or if things aren’t looking too dicey, pop in Blood Mist, followed by this Ultimate Skill if the circumstance is still bad. 

Affixes

• Damage Reduction from Enemies That Are Affected By Shadow Damage Over Time
• Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
• +Damage for 4 Seconds After Killing an Elite
• +Dodge Chance

Now, Dodge Chance is really good for this Grim Reaper Diablo IV Necromancer Build because the other way to keep your Essence topped up besides triggering Corpse Explosion and using Black River is through the Assimilation Aspect. This increases your Dodge Chance versus enemies affected by Shadow DoT so when you dodge, you gain 10 of your primary resource back. So you’ll want it to stack. And if you keep your Shadow DoTs on targets, then you’re going to have a higher Dodge Chance against them to receive more Essence. 

Boots

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Explosive Mist: This makes it so that you automatically consume Corpses while moving around when Blood Mist is active, which is fantastic because it’ll put Shadow Damage all over the ground. For every detonated Corpse, the cooldown of Blood Mist is reduced by up to 5 seconds. And one of the nice things here is that the Aspect of Explosive Mist synergizes very well with Black River as it lets you consume up to 4 Corpses at a time.

Affixes

• Essence Cost Reduction
• +Cold Resistance
• +Dodge Chance
• +Ranks of Corpse Tendrils

Unique Equipment

Greaves of the Empty Tomb: This is a great Unique if you happen to get it. What Greaves of the Empty Tomb does is provide you with Max Evade Charges, Intelligence, Essence Cost Reduction, Lucky Hit applies Shadow DoT, which reduces the damage taken from affected enemies. But more importantly, it creates a desecrated ground underneath your Sever specters as they travel. So when you throw out your blade, it’s going to place these DoT pools to create DoT on targets and helps you trigger Shadowblight more.

One-Handed Weapon

Legendary Aspect

Cadaverous Aspect: This makes it so that for each consumed Corpse, you’re going to increase the damage of your next Core Skill. It lets you concentrate on using Sever and Corpse Explosion, and then back to Sever to deal a lot more damage.

Affixes

• +Intelligence
• +Damage to Distant Enemies
• +Damage to Healthy Enemies
• +Rank of the Fueled by Death Passive

If you’re not using Black River, then I recommend using another One-Handed Scythe because of Life On Kill. When you stand there and destroy enemies as you’re taking damage, you’re also replenishing your Health simultaneously to remain alive in the middle of combat. You sometimes don’t even realize you’re gaining Life since you stay topped up constantly. 

Unique Equipment

Black River: This makes Corpse Explosion deal way more damage, consumes up to 4 additional Corpses, and expands the AoE. Black River allows you to efficiently ramp up the damage you deal. 

Offhand Weapon

Legendary Aspect

Blood-Soaked Aspect: This makes it so that you deal Shadow Damage as you move through enemies while increasing your speed. The Blood-Soaked Aspect is optional though compared to the Aspect of Explosive Mist since you want Blood Mist to come off cooldown quicker and deal damage while you’re moving around to consume Corpses, which also replenishes Essence. 

OR

Aspect of Ultimate Shadow: This makes enemies take massive Shadow DoT with Bone Storm. In fact, the Shadow DoT is kind of overkill at this point so you’ll probably swap between the Blood-Soaked Aspect and the Aspect of Ultimate Shadow as you go higher in the Nightmare Dungeon tiers since you’ll probably need Bone Storm against most Elites. Additionally, Bone Storm is great because it increases this Diablo IV Solo Necromancer Build – Grim Reaper’s Critical Strike Damage while hitting everything around you to also help build Shadowblight. This Ultimate also reduces the damage you take. As such, enemies will periodically explode for damage.

Affixes

• +Resource Generation
• +All Stats
• Essence Cost Reduction
• +Strength

I’m using a Focus here instead of a Shield due to the native Cooldown Reduction on top of the additional Offensive Aspect you can slot instead of a Defensive one when wielding a Shield. 

Amulet

Legendary Aspect

Blighted Aspect: This increases your total damage by 6 seconds after Shadowblight triggers 10x so it can be huge. You can even max roll it at 180%! That’s an insane amount of damage, especially when you’re up against big groups with numerous enemies.

Affixes

• +Ranks of All Macabre Skills
• Damage Reduction
• +Ranks of Fueled by Death Passive
• +Darkness Skill Damage

You should also consider increasing the Ranks of your other Corpse Skills. 

First Ring

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Grasping Veins: This is going to boost your Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds as well as your Critical Strike Damage against targets. The Aspect of Grasping Veins is great at amplifying your damage a lot, particularly if you drop Corpse Explosion afterward.

Affixes

• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Critical Strike Chance
• +Maximum Life
• +Damage to Stunned Enemies

You’ll also want to look for Shadow Damage and Critical Strike Damage if possible. 

Second Ring

Legendary Aspect

Assimilation Aspect: This makes it so that you have increased Dodge Chance against enemies affected by DoT effects, which in this case, is Shadow DoT. When you dodge, you gain a portion of your Essence.

Affixes

• +Critical Strike Damage
• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Damage to Slowed Enemies
• +Critical Strike Chance

Gems

For gems, you’ll want to slot:

• Weapon: Amethysts to increase your Damage Over Time.
• Armor: Rubies to boost your Maximum Life.
• Jewelry: Skulls to boost your Defense value.

Paragon and Glyphs for the Necromancer Build

When it comes to Paragon Boards, we are mainly going to aim for Rare Nodes that increase our damage output, as well as Glyphs that synergize with our Build. Please note that the order in which I get the Nodes is just a general guideline, and you can adjust it to your current needs.

First Paragon Board – Base

The first Glyph you’ll want to slot on your Base Board here is the Essence Glyph, which raises your Critical Strike Damage with your Core Skill. This also makes it so that Critical Strikes still deal 22% increased damage to enemies that are below 80% Health, and is great for getting burst damage with Sever. One of the drawbacks of Shadow D4 Necromancer Builds is they usually don’t have burst so this solves that problem. 

Second Paragon Board – Wither

For your Second Paragon Board, you’re going to take Wither. What it does is it gives you a 5% chance to deal 50% bonus damage with your Shadow DoT. Now this chance increases by 1% and the bonus damage increases by 2.5% for every 50 Willpower you have, which you should since there are a lot of other nodes that require this attribute. There’s really no other Shadow Board so Wither is the way to go to amplify your Shadow Damage.

You’ll also gain access to a lot of good Rare Nodes here but you need to focus on those that deal Shadow Damage first because it not only boosts the damage of Sever but also enhances the damage of Corpse Explosion and Shadow DoT. You’ll then supplement it with Shadow DoT later on.

Next, you’ll want to drop the Darkness Glyph and level it up to further improve Shadow Damage, which applies to all sources of this damage type, versus Scourge, which only applies to Shadow DoT. However, I’ve swapped to Scourge here because I’m using Darkness on my third Paragon Board, and I can get more nodes like Malediction to improve Shadow Damage. Meanwhile, Lingering Shadows improves both Shadow Damage and Shadow DoT. 

Gnawing Darkness is also fantastic because it raises your damage to enemies affected by Shadow DoT as well as damage to Elites. 

Third Paragon Board – Scent of Death

So then you’ll move on to the Scent of Death, which has an average Legendary Node. But what you’ll really focus on are the Rare Nodes like Corrective. Corrective will give you increased Critical Strike Damage to boost Sever’s damage even though DoTs cannot crit and more Potion Healing. Also, Ruin is fantastic because it allows you to deal extra damage and Critical Strike Damage against Healthy enemies. 

Also, Deathbringer and Deathmark will enhance your damage to Injured targets whose Health is below 35%. This might not seem helpful because they’re probably going to die in a couple of hits anyway but when your DoT is doing a lot of your damage as with this Diablo IV Necromancer Build – Grim Reaper, it can make that 35% go by really fast so they’ll just drop to serve as Corpses. You can then use these to generate more Essence and deal greater damage.

Fourth Paragon Board – Bone Graft

Lastly, you’ll take Bone Graft for the Reinvigorate Node Cluster, which gives Maximum Essence and Essence On Kill. And here, you can get up to 4 Essence On Kill if you take some of the nearby Magic Nodes, helping with your sustain in addition to Corpse Explosion, the Grim Harvest passive, Black River, and the Assimilation Aspect. You won’t encounter many Essence management problems. 

Final Tips

In the next 17 levels or so, you’ll want to invest in the rest of the Magic Nodes you’ve missed in these 3 Paragon Boards to further boost your Shadow Damage and Shadow DoT. Some even let you reduce the damage you take. And then if you have more leftover points, then you might want to check out another board.

So that wraps up the Grim Reaper Diablo 4 Solo Necromancer Build, which also allows you to not only solo The Butcher in 10 seconds but also melt Bosses with large packs of enemies.

Stay tuned for more Diablo 4 Build Guides as we continue our way through World Tier 3 Builds. Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki for any other questions you have about the game and the Builds page if you are looking for more Diablo IV Builds, as well as our Ultimate Beginner Guide and All Classes Overview if you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!

The post Diablo 4 Solo Necromancer Build – Grim Reaper (LvL 70+) appeared first on Fextralife.

Diablo 4 Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian – Lvl 70 Juggernaut Build Guide: In this Diablo 4 Barbarian Class Build, I’ll show you how to play a Lvl 70 – Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian, which is made around the Walking Arsenal key passive. This build doesn’t use a single shout, and instead encourages you to constantly swap weapons to deal massive damage to both groups of enemies and single targets. If you are looking for a build to get you from the beginning of Tier IV up to the very late game, then this Diablo 4 Hammer of the Ancients Build guide is for you!

Diablo 4 Juggernaut Barbarian Build – HOTA

This build continues our Lvl 50 Hammer of the Ancients Juggernaut build, making some adjustments to maximize performance thanks to the paragon boards and glyphs. The general idea with the build remains the same, we’ll use Lunging Strike to close the gap with the enemies, followed up by Ground Stomp to stun them. Then, we’ll use Hammer of the Ancients to deal massive AoE damage, and finally use Death Blow to finish off any remaining enemies. For big groups of enemies, we’ll be using Iron Maelstrom, which decimates everything on the screen while cycling through all weapons.

The best thing about this build is how engaging it is to play compared to most Barbarian Builds. Most Barbarians rely on shouts to provide you with passive bonuses and increased damage, leaving you with only 1 or 2 active skills that you actually use in combat, which becomes boring very fast. This build on the other hand gives you a ton of active skills that you can use depending on the situation, making it feel fresh and rewarding at the same time.

Both Hammer of the Ancients and Death Blow deal an insane amount of damage, and you’ll be often seeing damage by the millions on the screen when landing critical strikes.

Diablo 4 HOTA Barbarian Build LvL 70+: Skill Distribution

As previously stated, the main improvements for this build will come from Paragon Boards and Glyphs as well as the increased item affixes. If you’ve been using our Lvl 50 Juggernaut Barbarian you’ll only have to make one change and that’s the upgrade for Death Blow.

We were initially using Death Blow as a Fury Generation mechanic to keep up with Fury spending when constantly using the HOTA. This changes once you unlock the “Core Reserve” and “Hungering Fury” rare nodes located on the Warbringer Paragon Board, as these not only increase your maximum fury, but also provides you with fury on kill, allowing you to constantly generate fury no matter what ability you are using to kill enemies.

Once you unlock those nodes, the Fighter’s Death Blow becomes irrelevant, and that’s when you’ll want to change the upgrade into Warrior’s Death Blow. The new upgrade will give you 3 seconds of Berserking if you hit at least 1 enemy, meaning that you’ll be berserking all the time while in combat. This is very useful both for the Berserking mechanic itself, but also because you’ll be able to get the most out of your “While Berserking” affixes on your equipment.

The other 2 skills that you might be tempted to swap out, but I don’t recommend you do, are Furious Impulse and Expose Vulnerability.

Furious Impulse is important as it will allow you to get started with your fury, which happens both at the beginning of a dungeon, and when fighting Bosses or Resource Burn enemies. On top of that, it will allow you to maintain your fury at max all the time, which increases the effect of Furious Hammer of the Ancients and the Edgemaster’s Aspect.

The other skill is Expose Vulnerability, which is somewhat replaced by the Exploit glyph, as you’ll be ably to apply vulnerable on everything as soon as the fight starts. But once again, this becomes useful against Bosses or during long fights where you are fighting many groups at the same time.

Weapon Technique

For the weapon technique, we’ll take Two-Handed Axe Expertise, as we’ll be able to constantly maintain vulnerable on enemies.

Diablo 4 Juggernaut Barbarian Build: Equipment, Gems and Aspects

Equipment plays a huge role on all builds as it allows you to build up damage thanks to the equipment affixes, but it is crucial for this build as you won’t have any shouts to support you and all your damage output and damage mitigation will come from your equipment.

The main thing you’ll want to look for is maximum fury, as this will increase the damage to your HOTA, and will reduce the percentage of Fury you are using. The other stats you should prioritize are the ones related to damage, such as Vulnerable Damage, Damage to close enemies, etc, as we are mainly focusing on killing stuff as quick as possible.

The last thing you should be looking for is Dexterity and Willpower, as these will allow you to unlock the Bonuses of your rare paragon boards, greatly increasing their bonuses and thus your overall power.

Legendary Aspects and Unique Powers

Helmet

Legendary Aspect

Luckbringer Aspect: This greatly increases the Lucky Hit chance while all passives of the Walking Arsenal are active. This is especially useful in combination with Concussion, which allows you to stun enemies while attacking with HOTA, and with Weapon Master’s Aspect, which allows you to Stun while using Death Blow as well.

Aspect of Numbing Wrath: This aspect allows you to quickly fill the Fortify Bar, which will increase the damage to your Overpower skills, as well as allowing you to use some paragon board nodes that require that you are fortified.

Affixes

• + Maximum Fury
• + Ranks of Death Blow
• + Stats
• + Damage While Berserking
• + Total Armor

Chest

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of the Protector: This provides you with a barrier when you damage an elite, allowing you to keep going at the beginning of a fight before you clear out most of the regular enemies.

Affixes

• + Damage
• + Damage to skills that swap to New Weapon
• + Physical Damage
• + Total Armor

Gloves

Legendary Aspect

Weapon Master’s Aspect: This aspect is a must for this build, as it provides an additional charge to Death Blow allowing you to use it more freely. The lucky hit stun effect is also amazing thanks to the Luckbringer Aspect.

Affixes

• + Ranks Hammer of the Ancients
• + Critical Strike Chance
• + Stats

Waist

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of the Iron Warrior: This aspect is also crucial for this build, as it will be your only Unstoppable mechanic. It’ll also give you increased damage reduction while Iron Skin is active.

Affixes

• + Damage after killing an elite
• + Total Armor
• + Stats
• Damage Reduction
• + Healing Received

Greaves

Legendary Aspect

Wind Striker Aspect: This greatly increases your movement speed after you critically strike, which allows you to compensate for the lack of mobility of this build.

Affixes

• + Movement Speed
• + Stats

Unique Equipment

100,000 Steps: These boots provide everything we need for our build. For starters, it’ll give you damage to stunned enemies and damage with skills that changes weapons. The added dexterity is great for the rare paragon nodes, and the +rank to ground stomp will reduce its cooldown.

Its unique effect will trigger when you get a full Walking Arsenal cycle (even if it’s still active), generating a ton of fury, and triggering a free Ground Stomp that stun enemies (the Strategic Ground Stomp will also apply, reducing the ultimate cooldown)

Two-Handed Bludgeoging

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Retribution: This aspect massively increases the damage you deal against stunned enemies, while also giving you a chance to stun enemies when they attack you from a distance, which helps with survivability.

Affixes

• + Damage to close enemies
• + Core Skill Damage
• + Vulnerable Damage
• + Critical Strike Damage
• + Damage to Stunned Enemies
• + Strength
• + Stats

Unique Equipment

Overkill: This mace is amazing for this build, increasing the damage to your Death Blow thanks to the +Ranks and to the unique effect that creates shockwave allowing you to deal AoE damage with it, rendering it as useful as HoTA.

First One-handed

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Limitless Rage: This aspect allows you to increase the damage of your next HOTA attack when generating fury beyond your max level.

Affixes

• + Damage to close enemies
• + Core Skill Damage
• + Vulnerable Damage
• + Critical Strike Damage
• + Damage to Stunned Enemies
• + Strength
• + Stats

Unique Equipment

The Butcher’s Cleaver: This unique axe is amazing when combined with the Luckbringer Aspect and the Mortal Draw glyph. Its unique effect has a lucky hit chance to both fear and slow enemies when you hit them with a critical strike, meaning that they won’t attack you and that they’ll be crowed controlled which can trigger many of your equipment affixes.

Second One-handed

Legendary Aspect

Conceited Aspect: This aspect increases all your damage while you have a barrier active. You’ll be able to achieve this by using either the Aspect of the Protector or Iron Skin.

Affixes

• + Damage to close enemies
• + Core Skill Damage
• + Vulnerable Damage
• + Critical Strike Damage
• + Damage to Stunned Enemies
• + Strength
• + Stats

Two-Handed Slashing

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Encroaching Wrath: This aspect massively increases the damage of your Death Blow after you spend 100 Fury (3 HOTA attacks). This allows you to one shot elites and sometimes to even one shot bosses if used in combination with the Earthstriker’s Aspect.

Affixes

• + Damage to close enemies
• + Core Skill Damage
• + Vulnerable Damage
• + Critical Strike Damage
• + Damage to Stunned Enemies
• + Strength
• + Stats

Amulet

Legendary Aspect

Edgemaster’s Aspect: This aspect increases the damage to all your skills based on the available fury you had when you cast them. You’ll often be on max fury, so this provides a flat damage increase to all your attacks.

Affixes

• + Rank to Passives
• + % Damage
• + Damage with Two-Handed Slashing Weapons
• + Damage after killing an elite
• + % Stats
• + Total Armor

First Ring

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Ancestral Force: This provides an AoE to our Hammer of the Ancients, not only dealing damage but also applying all damage effects like stuns as well. It’s not necessary to slot it into a two-handed weapon, as you’ll be direct hitting elites, and you’ll want to finish off the other enemies with Death Blow anyway.

Affixes

• + Maximum Fury
• + Damage
• + Damage to Close Enemies
• + Critical Strike Chance
• + Vulnerable Damage
• + Physical Damage
• + Damage while Berserking

Second Ring

Legendary Aspect

Earthstriker’s Aspect: This aspect will provide you with a guaranteed overpower attack with any of your skills after swapping weapons 10 times. The idea is to use it with Death Blow for single target damage, or with HOTA when dealing with big groups.

Affixes

• + Maximum Fury
• + Damage
• + Damage to Close Enemies
• + Critical Strike Chance
• + Vulnerable Damage
• + Physical Damage
• + Damage while Berserking

Gems

For gems, you’ll want to slot:

• Weapon: Emeralds to increase critical damage against vulnerable enemies.
• Armor: Rubies to boost your maximum life.
• Jewelry: Skulls to boost your defense value.

Paragon and Glyphs for HOTA Barbarian Build

When it comes to Paragon boards, we are mainly going to aim for rare nodes that increase our damage output, as well as glyphs that synergize with our build. Please note that the order in which I get the nodes is just a general guideline, and you can adjust it to your current needs.

First Paragon Board – Base

On the first paragon board, you’ll want to make a zigzag, first taking the rare node on the right and then taking the one on the left (make sure to grab the physical damage magic nodes as well). On the glyph socket, you’ll want to slot the “Territorial” glyph and assign 25 dexterity around it. The normal effect will increase damage to normal enemies, while the bonus effect will provide you with 10% damage reduction against close enemies. From here, head to the attachment gate and continue into the next board.

Second Paragon Board – Bone Breaker

On this board you’ll want to rotate until you have the “Bludgeoner” rare node on the bottom right.

Start by heading into the Bludgeoner node and getting all the magic nodes as well. Once you have it, head back and turn left aiming for the glyph socket. Here you’ll want to slot the “Exploit” glyph and assign at least 25 dexterity around it. This will increase your Vulnerable Damage, while its bonus effect will allow you to make enemies vulnerable as soon as you hit them. Once you get the Glyph to lvl 15, make sure to continue adding Dexteirty to maximize its efficiency.

Once you have the socket, take the “Brutality” rare node and its magic nodes, which increases your Overpower Damage as well as the “Vigor” rare and magic nodes that provide you with damage reduction while you are healthy.

Now that this section is covered, head back to the “Bludgeoner” rare node and continue right until you reach the attachment gate, where you’ll slot the Warbringer Board.

Third Paragon Board – Warbringer

You’ll want to rotate the board until you have the “Core Reserve” rare node on the top left side. Head straight for it and take it in combination with all its magic nodes. As previously stated, this node in combination with Hungering Fury allows you to swap your Death Blow’s upgrade, so try to prioritize getting these before the rest on this board.

From there, head right and get the glyph socket. Place the “Mortal Draw” glyph and assign at least 25 dexterity around it. This glyph massively increases your damage when using a skill that swaps to a new weapon, as well as providing the skill with an 18% chance to critically strike. This glyph provides the most amount of damage for this build, so make sure to assign as much Dexterity as possible once you upgrade it to lvl 15 and its range increases.

From here, head straight down and take the “Hungering Fury” node and the magic nodes around it, which will allow you to swap from Fighter’s Death Blow into Warrior’s Death Blow.

The last thing you’ll want to take from this board is the rare Raw Power located on the right of the glyph socket. Once you have that, head to the attachment gate on the right and attach the Weapon Master board.

Fourth Paragon Board – Weapon Master

Rotate the board until the socket is on the bottom left part. First, make your way towards the middle, where you’ll get the “Hunter Killer” nodes.

From here, head down and take the Raw Power nodes and then head for the glyph socket where you’ll put the “Crusher” glyph which increases your damage with Maces as well as the overpower damage while using maces. Make sure to assign at least 40 strength around it.

Now head back to the “Hunter Killer” node, and make your way down through the middle to get the “Brute” node and its magic nodes.

Using your remaining Paragon Points

Now that you have the most important parts of each board covered, you’ll want to go back and start getting the remaining rare nodes “Fortified” nodes.

For starters, get the unique “Warbringer” Legendary Node, which provides you with 12% fortify for every 75 fury you spend. Once you have this, head for the “Guarded Advance” node located on the same Warbringer Board.

Now that this board is complete, head back to the Bone Breaker Board, and take the Inner Strength node located near the middle and then the Bulwark node on the top right to finish the board.

Final Tips

When starting a fight against elites, it’s best to use lunging strike and then ground stomp as quick as possible. Elites are usually close to each other, and if you stun them you’ll be able to hit all of them at the same time for the maximum possible damage.

Iron Maelstrom leaves you very exposed until you finish the sequence, so if you are facing many enemies, try to use an evade to step back a little bit instead of using it right in the middle of a pack of enemies.

Make sure you avoid Melee Defender and Resource Burn affixes while running Nightmare Dungeons, as these have a very negative effect on the build.

Remember to keep an eye on your Encroaching Wrath and Overpower bonuses, as these will often allow you to one shot elites and even bosses.

Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki for any other questions you have about the game and the Builds page if you are looking for more Diablo IV Builds, as well as our Getting Started Guide and Best Class to Play if you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!

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Diablo 4 Rogue Build – Marksman: In this Diablo 4 Rogue Build, I’ll show you how to play a LvL 70+ Marksman Rogue that’s aimed at World Tier 4. If you are looking for a Build that focuses on the use of Rapid Fire and is an evolution of the Freezing Rain and Cold Archer Rapid Fire Builds, then this Diablo 4 Marksman Rogue Build Guide is for you!

Diablo 4 Rogue Build – Marksman (Lvl 70+)

So generally, what’s changed from the previous version of this Diablo IV Build is that even though I’m still using Cold, you’re free to use whichever element you want, whether it be Poison or Shadow. The focus here is really more on Critical Strike Damage and Vulnerable Damage as well as how to get a lot of damage out of Rapid Fire. And then your chosen element is the icing on the cake. 

Every time you attack an enemy, you’re going to apply Vulnerable for 3 seconds. What’s great about this is you’ll be gaining access to the Improved Rapid Fire upgrade in order to gain 15 Energy back every time you hit a Vulnerable target. As such, you won’t need to use any Basic Skill on this Build plus, you won’t encounter Energy management issues. You also don’t have to make use of any Equipment to further boost your Energy regeneration as a result. So you’re free to fire at will with Rapid Fire. 

Another good way to amplify your Vulnerable Damage is by using a Crossbow because this damage type comes with it by default. If you’re using a Bow, like myself though, make sure to get this Stat on it. Additionally, you’ll also want to look for Critical Strike Damage, Core Skill Damage, and ideally, Dexterity. When it comes to your Melee Weapons, Swords are preferable over Daggers to give you that Critical Strike Damage multiplier, Damage to Distant Enemies, and more Dexterity. On your Jewelry, at least on your Rings, you can have Critical Strike Chance to help boost your damage together with Critical Strike Damage and Vulnerable Damage.

Should your Vulnerability be down if you didn’t kill enemies within the 3-second timeframe, you can hit Concealment. You’ll be swapping to the Countering Concealment upgrade as it gives you a guaranteed Critical Strike when you come out of Concealment. So if you can’t finish off an Elite in time, pop this Skill to not only grant more Energy but also to make you invisible for a couple of seconds. And then follow through with your Imbuement Skill to go to town and finish them off with 6 more seconds of Vulnerability. If they’re not yet dead, you can activate Rain of Arrows with Concealment to reactivate the cycle of applying Vulnerable on these stronger targets.

Diablo 4 Rogue Build – Marksman

Once you hit Tier IV you’ll want to start thinking about min/maxing to get the most out of your Build, and that starts with Skills. Thanks to Paragon Boards and to the increased Equipment affixes, you’ll be able to bypass most of the restrictions you previously faced while leveling up. I also won’t get too deep into Skills, as you most probably know how they work by now.

Specialization

For the Diablo 4 Rogue Build – Marksman, you’re going to select Preparation as the Specialization. This makes it so that every 100 Energy you spend reduces your Ultimate’s cooldown by 4 seconds, and using that same Ultimate resets the cooldowns of the rest of your Skills.

Diablo 4 Rogue Build: Equipment, Gems, and Aspects

Equipment is the most important part of any Endgame Build, and It’s important to understand that it’s a long-term goal. You won’t have all Paragon Boards available right away, and getting all uniques will probably take a lot of farming, so try to use Legendary Aspects to adjust to your needs while you farm levels and better gear.

Legendary Aspects and Unique Powers

I’ll divide the Equipment into different slots, so it’s easier to understand what you should be using and what affixes you should be looking for. Remember that unique equipment has fixed affixes and powers, so if you are using one, you might need to re-slot a Legendary Aspect into a different piece.

Another important thing to notice is that, when looking for stats, you’ll want to make sure you are fulfilling your Paragon Rare Node requirements. Some rare nodes have very high requirements, and equipment is what allows you to fulfill them. These bonuses often double the rare node effect so, for example, getting an Equipment piece with +100 Dexterity might unlock one or more Node bonuses, giving you a massive bonus as a result.

Helm

Affixes

• +Dexterity
• Cooldown Reduction
• +Crowd Control Duration
• +Maximum Energy

Unique Equipment

Cowl of the Nameless: This gives you Maximum Energy so you don’t run out as easily together with the Lucky Hit Chance against CCed enemies. If you’re not playing a Cold Archer, this can be replaced with another Helm that gives bonuses to Skills, Maximum Energy, Cooldown Reduction, and other Stats. 

Chest Armor

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Siphoned Victuals: This makes it so that damaging Vulnerable enemies with a Core Skill has up to a 20% chance to give you a healing potion, which happens all the time.

OR

Aspect of the Protector: This is useful if you want to get some more damage protection.

Affixes

• +Marksman Skill Damage
• +Total Armor
• +Physical Damage
• Damage Reduction from Close Enemies

These affixes are great for the Marksman Diablo 4 Rogue Build because you don’t use Imbued Skills all the time. 

Gloves

Affixes

• +Attack Speed
• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Shadow Clone Damage
• +Ranks of All Core Skills

Unique Equipment

Grasp of Shadow: This makes it so that your Shadow Clone Damage is increased, which helps sometimes because of the proc of Shadow Clone but otherwise, we’re not really using it. And the Grasp of Shadow provides you with +3 Ranks to Core Skills, specifically Rapid Fire. The ability on Grash of Shadow is that upon damaging a Vulnerable enemy with a Marksman or Cutthroat Skill, you have a chance to summon a Shadow Clone that mimics your attack. This is really good for this D4 Rogue Build since you damage Vulnerable targets all the time. 

Pants

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Disobedience: This basically increases your Armor. 

Affixes

• +Dodge Chance Against Close Enemies
• Damage Reduction while Injured
• Imbuement Skill Cooldown Reduction
• +Total Armor

Boots

Legendary Aspect

Frostbitten Aspect: This makes it so that Chilled enemies that get hit by my Smoke Grenade have a chance to be Frozen. Also, you deal up to 25% Critical Strike Damage against Frozen targets so it’s great for this Cold Marksman Diablo IV Rogue Build. 

Affixes

• +All Stats
• +Ranks of Caltrops
• +Movement Speed for 4 Seconds After Killing an Elite
• +Dodge Chance Against Distant Enemies

Unique Equipment

Penitent Greaves: This makes it so that you basically create a Frost trail when you walk to Chill targets and increase your damage against them. The Penitent Greaves alternative allows you to CC them easily.

Two-Handed Weapon

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Repeating: This makes it so that when you use Rapid Fire, it has a 90% chance to ricochet, meaning that you’re going to get 5 ricochets if you fire it. 

OR

Rapid Aspect: This boosts the Attack Speed of your Basic Skills.

Affixes

• +Dexterity
• +Damage to Frozen Enemies
• +Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
• +Vulnerable Damage

Unique Equipment

Windforce: This makes it so that Lucky Hit: Hits with this weapon have up to a 10-20% chance to deal double damage and Knock Back the target. Windforce is an alternative here so you’ll want to put your Aspect of Repeating on the Amulet if you get this. It’ll have a lower ricochet rate though. However, if you have Word of Hakan like I do, then it’s best to imprint the Aspect of Repeating on a Ring. 

OR

Skyhunter: This makes it so that the first direct damage you deal to an enemy is a guaranteed Critical Strike. If you have maximum stacks of the Precision Key Passive when you cast the Skill, you gain 15-25 Energy once per cast. The problem with Windforce or Skyhunter is that the Vulnerable Damage of your Crossbow will most likely outperform it. Although, Skyhunter has Critical Strike Damage at least but you need to experiment with these to see how much damage they actually do.

First One-Handed Weapon

Legendary Aspect

Vengeful Aspect: Making an enemy Vulnerable has up to a 50% chance to grant a 3% Critical Strike Chance up to 9%. This happens all the time so you’ll at least get a 9% Critical Strike Chance.

Affixes

• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Core Skill Damage
• +Damage to Chilled Enemies
• +Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies

Second One-Handed Weapon

Legendary Aspect

Accelerating Aspect: This gives your Diablo 4 Rogue Build – Marksman 25% increased Attack Speed when you critically strike so you’ll be able to fire Rapid Shots faster. 

Affixes

• +Core Skill Damage
• +Damage to Slowed Enemies
• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Dexterity

Amulet

Affixes

• +Non-Physical Damage
• +Ultimate Skill Damage
• +Critical Strike Damage with Imbued Skills
• +Ranks of All Imbuements

Unique Equipment

Word of Hakan: You basically have all Imbuements when using Rain of Arrows. But if you’re using Shadow Clone, you can replace it with something else.

First Ring

Legendary Aspect

Smiting Aspect: This makes it so that you have up to a 20% Critical Strike Chance against enemies below 35% Health. Also, while you’re over 80% Health, your Crowd Control Duration is up to 40%, which is great for this Frost Marksman D4 Rogue Build. 

OR

Aspect of Corruption: If you’re not playing a Frost Build, I recommend replacing the Smiting Aspect with the Aspect of Corruption. This makes it so that your Imbuement Skill Effects have up to 40% increased potency against Vulnerable enemies. So if you’re using Shadow, this is going to him them harder and if you’re using Poison, you’ll be able to deal more damage on Poisoned targets.

Affixes

• +Cold Damage
• +Maximum Life
• +Critical Strike Chance
• +Vulnerable Damage

Second Ring

Legendary Aspect

Edgemaster’s Aspect: This makes it so that when you have higher resources, you’re going to deal more damage, which happens all the time. 

OR

Aspect of Inner Calm: This gives you up to a 30% damage increase the longer you stand still so it’s a great way to boost your damage.

Affixes

• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Damage to Injured Enemies
• +Critical Strike Chance
• +Damage to Frozen Enemies

Gems

For gems, you’ll want to slot:

• Weapon: Emeralds to increase Critical Strike Damage against Vulnerable enemies.
• Armor: Rubies to boost your Maximum Life.
• Jewelry: Skulls to boost your Defense value.

Paragon and Glyphs for the Rogue Build

When it comes to Paragon Boards, we are mainly going to aim for Rare Nodes that increase our damage output, as well as Glyphs that synergize with our Build. Please note that the order in which I get the Nodes is just a general guideline, and you can adjust it to your current needs.

First Paragon Board – Base

So you’re going to employ a similar strategy that you’ve done in the World Tier 3 version of this D4 Rogue Build by taking the Exploit Glyph, which has been moved to the first Paragon Board. Additionally, you’ll be unlocking every single Strength Node to further boost your Vulnerable Damage together with Damage to Injured Enemies, which are those with below 35% Health.

Second Paragon Board – Exploit Weakness

On your Second Paragon Board, you’ll take Exploit Weakness, which makes it so that when you deal damage to a Vulnerable enemy, they take increased damage from you. Apart from this Legendary Node, what you’ll really want are the Rare Node Passives like Artifice. This lets you have increased Vulnerable Damage, and if you have 270 Strength, you’re going to get additional 20% Vulnerable Damage. It also gives 10 Dexterity, which is fantastic.

Hunter Killer is also really good as it raises your damage to Elites as well as your Movement Speed after killing them. If you have up to 345 Dexterity, you’ll gain an extra 16% damage against them. 

The Glyph you’re going to place on your Second Paragon Board is determined by the Imbuement you’ve selected. For instance, if you’ve chosen Cold like I have then slotting the Control Glyph is what you should do. I get up to 110% damage against CCed enemies at Level 15 when I Freeze them. And then you’ll be able to deal increased damage thanks to the Frigid Finesse passive. 

If you’re going with Poison or Shadow Imbuement, then I suggest getting the Combat Glyph to considerably amplify your Critical Strike Damage with your Core Skill. But you’ll need to get this up to Level 15 to take advantage of its bonus effect. 

Third Paragon Board – Tricks of the Trade

For the next board, you’re going to take Tricks of Trade. I don’t want this Legendary Node but there are a lot of good Rare Node clusters here. First is Havoc, which increases your Critical Strike Damage and Physical Damage, which means all the shots you fire that aren’t Imbued. And you use Rapid Fire frequently imbued because you’re just applying Vulnerable while killing enemies really quickly. 

Additionally, there’s the Focused Node that grants more damage against Elites, and if you meet the secondary requirement, it’s up to 32% damage! So that’s 64% damage between this and the other nodes from the previous tree. Brawler isn’t also a bad node since a lot of times when you’re playing solo, you need to deal damage to close targets you just can’t get far enough away from. It even has Damage Reduction to Close Enemies to help keep you alive. And then up in the corner, there’s Ranger, which raises your Damage to Distant Enemies while lowering the damage you take from them. This is great because anything outside of the melee range is considered distant. 

For the glyph socket, this is going to be determined by your playstyle. So since I’m playing Cold, then I’ll place the Combat Glyph there because I have Control on my second board. However, if you have the Shadow Imbuement, you’d probably want to take Infusion, which makes it so that Imbued Skills deal increased damage. Because this is Shadow Damage, you really need to get it as high as you can with Shadow Attacks in order to cause those explosions and cause chain reactions. 

Alternatively, for Poison Imbuement, you’ll have to slot Bane, which makes it so that you deal increased Poison Damage and have a chance to deal double the amount of Poison Damage. 

Final Tips

Remember that attacking enemies and then applying Vulnerable will only give you a 3-second window so you want to try to burst them down as quickly as possible. This means that if you start hitting a target, be sure to focus on it. You don’t want to try and hit everything, otherwise, you’ll only end up weakening them. What will happen here is the Vulnerable effect will wear off so you’ll have a hard time killing enemies. 

So that wraps up the Diablo 4 Rogue Build – Marksman. I hope I showed examples of how you can change the Build. 

Stay tuned for more Diablo 4 Guides as we continue our 70+ Builds. Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki for any other questions you have about the game and the Builds page if you are looking for more Diablo IV Builds, as well as our Ultimate Beginner Guide and All Classes Overview if you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!

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Diablo 4 Frost Orb Sorcerer – Lvl 70 Ice Build Guide: In this Diablo 4 Sorceress Class Build, I’ll show you how to play a Lvl 70+ Ice Sorcerer. This is a thematic build focused on keeping your gameplay fun while still giving you quick clears of content and keeping you alive. If you are looking for a control mage build to both get you from the beginning of Tier IV up to the very late game, then this Diablo 4 Ice Shards Mage Build guide is for you!

Diablo 4 Perfected Permafrost Build – Frost Orb & Ice Shards

I made this build because I prefer to have lots of fancy effects on screen, and I wanted to recreate the classic D2 Frozen Orb build where possible. With a clever combination of skills and some unorthodox choices, you’ll be playing a very powerful build that that doesn’t just rely on mindlessly pressing Ice Shards, and has fantastic AoE capabilities. You will be clearing content very fast without losing engagement, and of course, you’ll be looking stylish while you do it.

This is an advanced version of our level 50 Permafrost Sorcerer, with some key differences based mainly around the focus of your skill allocation and the optimization of the gear you should use. The advanced paragon boards bring in extra damage and survivability that you really need.

Your gameplay rotation is simple: You can run through or past enemies to get them chilled, then when in the middle of the group use Frost Nova and quickly unleash a Frozen Orb + free Ice Shards. Or if you prefer you can cast Blizzard from outside the room and then simply funnel in Frozen Orbs to clear out a room. You get survivability from Ice Armor and a double cast of Frost Nova that can CC everything around you and let you get away with ease.

And if you run into single mobs that are moving out of your Frozen Orb: use the Ice Shards skill to quickly take them down.

The Ice Sorcerer is one of the most powerful builds in the whole game, but the gameplay can get rather boring if you opt for the more traditional Ice Shards focused build. With the Frozen Orb approach, you’ll have a lot of gameplay fun while still being able to clear rooms very quickly.

The build is simple to set up, and has a wide variety of options to further improve it, making it a good choice for both players that are just starting with Tier IV, and those engaged in the endgame grind.

Diablo 4 Ice Sorcerer Build LvL 70+: Skill Distribution

Once you hit Tier IV you’ll want to start thinking about min/maxing to get the most out of your build, and that starts with skills. Our skill choices are very similar to the Ice Sorcerer level 50, with specific adjustments based on how the endgame actually plays. The most important part of skill selection is that this build, as all the builds I make, is FLEXIBLE. If you are just starting and can’t find specific gear and want to put a point into a shield, do it. You can swap it later. If you want to use teleport, you can do it too.

My objective was to create and demonstrate an exclusively ice sorc that was viable at this point in the game, so I have focused and redoubled on ice only, but the build will work even if you change small aspects.

And of course, keep in mind your skillpoints should also move if you don’t have all of them yet and have found equipment with the skill. For example if you’re trying to build this from the start of the game, or if you are missing reputation skillpoints, you can find a head piece with +Frozen Orb – then you could not put extra points into it yet and up your Ice Shards damage first, etc.

The skill allocation speaks for itself, you will be mostly using your Blizzard to reduce your mana cost and inflict some chill, while your Orbs and Frost Nova make sure everything is vulnerable and ready to take massive damage as soon as its frozen. If you run into survivability problems, you’ll be swapping some aspects around to give yourself Unstoppable with Ice Armor, but I didn’t find this necessary so far.

Enchantments

The sorceress enchantment system is full of opportunity and can also be very tempting for opportunistic assignment. You may get a piece of gear with a free Ice Blades that we did not put any points in, and it may slot beautifully into your build. The same can be said for Teleport, etc.

That said, you absolutely must put one of the enchantments as Ice Shards. This enchantment is very powerful and the key binding aspect behind the build’s elite-deleting capabilities. Ice Shards auto-cast and seek Frozen enemies, requiring no aiming or resources, which lets you fill the room with frozen orbs as they go.

For my second enchantment, if you want to stick to my recommendation, we’ll use Frozen Orb. There’s a 20% chance of a free Frozen Orb being cast together with any non-basic skill you cast. It’s a very good mana saver and they proc often as all your skills can trigger this effect.

Diablo 4 Perfected Permafrost Sorc Build: Equipment, Gems and Aspects

Equipment is the most important part of any endgame build, and It’s important to understand that it’s a long term goal. You won’t have all paragon boards available right away, and getting all uniques will probably take a lot of farming, so try to use Legendary Aspects to adjust to your needs while you farm levels and better gear.

Legendary Aspects and Unique Powers

My current build is making use of two unique items. In practice they can be very rare drops, bad rolls, or you may get a godtier item some other way, so you can always adapt based on your own drops.

As a general note, try to prioritize Cooldown Reduction, Mana Cost Reduction, Cold / Vulnerable / Frost Skill Damage, and damage reduction from X.

Another important thing to notice is that, when looking for stats, you’ll want to make sure you are fulfilling your Paragon Rare Node requirements. Some rare nodes have very high requirements, and equipment is what allows you to fulfill them. These bonuses often double the rare node effect so, for example, getting an equipment piece with +100 Intelligence might unlock one or more node bonuses, giving you a massive bonus as a result.

Helmet

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of the Unwavering: Taking direct damage has a [2-6%] chance to reset the Cooldown of one of your Defensive Skills. This is really awesome for this build, as any direct damage you take may reset your Frost Nova or Ice Armor cooldowns, giving you a great bubble, AoE freeze and +10% damage for 4 seconds.

or

Aspect of the Protector: Damaging an Elite enemy grants you a Barrier absorbing up to [x] damage for [10] seconds. This effect can only happen once every [30] seconds. You want to have a high roll on this to maximize the usefulness of the barrier. You will engage elites all the time and 30 seconds is a quick cooldown, plus ten seconds is usually enough to decimate an elite group.

Affixes

• Cooldown Reduction (If you want more frost novas)
• +Intelligence
• +Willpower
• +Dexterity
• Life on Kill
• Maximum Life
• + Total Armor

Chest

Legendary Aspect

Frostblitz Aspect: Frost Nova gains an additional Charge but the Cooldown per Charge is increased by 30-40%. This means your maxed out 17 second Frost Nova will actually be in a ~24 second cooldown, but you’ll get an extra cast. I strongly recommend getting this aspect as the extra wait is manageable with cooldown reduction on your Helm, Amulet or Offhand. If you want to minimize the impact of the cooldown increase, you can apply this on your amulet instead.

Affixes

• + Damage
• + Frost Skill Damage
• + Cold Damage
• + Stats
• + Damage Reduction from X (if you get max damage reduction rolls they can be excellent for keeping you alive)
• + Total Armor

Gloves

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Inner Calm: Deal [3.0-10.0]%[x] increased damage for each second you stand still, up to [30]% [x]. You want to roll 9 or 10% for this to be worth it, but this aspect adds 30% damage after 3 seconds of standing still, which is completely doable if you are managing your positioning and making good use of your barrier and Frost Nova. It will also pile onto the 10% damage increase we get after using either of those skills, making your Freeze combo truly deadly.

or

Conceited Aspect: Deal [15-25%] increased damage while you have a Barrier active. If you have trouble standing still, the conceited aspect is also a good choice as you will be getting barriers whenever a frozen enemy dies, and you will also be able to use Ice Armor as a double damage boost during boss fights.

Affixes

• + Critical Strike Chance (I strongly recommend this)
• + Frozen Orb (I strongly recommend this: get up to 4 ranks)
• + Ice Shards (I strongly recommend this: get up to 4 ranks)
• + Intelligence
• + Willpower
• + Dexterity
• + Attack Speed

Unique Equipment

Unique Gloves “Frostburn” are a tempting option for this slot but I don’t think that they are as impactful as having straight up 4 ranks of both of your core skills. You’ll be freezing everything anyway, and we aren’t building for Lucky Hit so it’s overall an underwhelming choice. It’s better to get a customized aspect and the ranks to skills + stats

Waist

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Disobedience: You gain [0.25-0.50]%[x] increased Armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to [25.00-50.00]%[x]. This is essentially a big boost to your survivability, but you want to get a high roll to really make it count. You’ll be dealing damage constantly and greatly benefit from it.

or

Snowveiled Aspect: Casting Ice Armor makes you Unstoppable for [2.0-3.0] seconds. This can be very useful to break CCs and escape dicey situations in dungeons. This aspect can only be applied to helms, chest pants and amulets so I don’t run it in favor of other damage stats, but if you are having survivability issues you can consider it.

Affixes

• + Blizzard
• + Damage Reduction (all types)
• + Stats

Unique Equipment

Unique Pants “Iceheart Brais” are an excellent choice and my recommendation for this slot. It gives you a significant chance to make frozen enemies unleash a Frost Nova, which will extend the effect of your Freeze-Damage combo, and has excellent extra stats such as Intelligence and Damage to Frozen Enemies.

Boots

Legendary Aspect

Wind Striker Aspect: Critical Strikes grant [8.0-16.0]% Movement Speed for 1 second, up to 6 seconds. This slot is rather underwhelming until you get the unique boots that match the build. You can use this to move around faster if you’d like.

or

Ghostwalker Aspect: Only take this if you are using Snowveiled Aspect. While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain [10- 25%] increased Movement Speed and can move freely through enemies. This aspect greatly increases your movement speed everytime your Ice Armor pops. In addition, it will allow you to freely move through enemies, so you can use Ice Armor to break CC and this aspects will allow you to move away from the spot.

Affixes

• + Frost Nova
• + Intelligence
• + Willpower
• + Stats

Unique Equipment (highly recommended)

Penitent Greaves: These greaves provide a massive boost to movement speed. On top of that, its unique power leaves a trail of frost behind you, chilling enemies. Enemies that are chilled will move and attack slower, and if they stand on top of the chill for too long, they’ll freeze. The boots have a built-in 10% damage to chilled enemies, which you will be doing often, so they are a very good match for this build.

Weapon: Two-Handed Staff

Legendary Aspect

Two-handed staves have “Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies” built-in and it is a huge boost for your build. Wands have Lucky Hit Chance, which is not very useful for our build. For this reason I recommend using the staff instead.

Aspect of Piercing Cold: Ice Shards pierce [7-9] times, dealing [13-10]% less damage per subsequent enemy hit. This is a very powerful aspect and it should be on your two-handed weapon to maximize its effect.

Affixes

• + Intelligence (You are looking to get a roll of 100+, which you will upgrade to ~170)
• + All Stats (You are looking to get a roll of 50+, which you will upgrade to ~75)
• + Core Skill Damage
• + Vulnerable Damage
• + Damage to Distant / Close Enemies depending on your preferred playstyle

Amulet

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Control: You deal [x]% more damage to Immobilized, Stunned, or Frozen enemies. You can use this on a ring or on your amulet, based on what rolls you get for your other aspects. You MUST have this on your build somewhere though.

or

Aspect of Frozen Orbit: Frozen Orb stays in place after reaching its destination and explodes 2 additional times for 30-45% of its damage. You can use this on a ring or on your amulet, based on what rolls you get for your other aspects. You MUST have this on your build somewhere though.

Affixes

• + Icy Touch Passive
• + Permafrost Passive
• + Hoarfrost Passive
• + % Damage
• + Cooldown Reduction
• + Frost Skill Damage
• + % Stats
• +Rank all defensive skills

First Ring

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of Frozen Memories: The Avalanche Key Passive now applies to 1 additional cast. This means you’ll be getting 2 free casts of more powerful versions of your mana-hungry core skills often, because your spam of Frozen Orbs / Ice Shards / Blizzard will inevitably trigger Lucky Hits even if you haven’t gone out of your way to build for it.

Affixes

• + Vulnerable Damage
• + Damage
• + Cold damage
• + Critical Strike Chance
• + Damage to Chilled Enemies
• + Resource Regeneration
• + Damage to close/distant enemies depending on your playstyle

Second Ring

Use where whichever you did not pick for the Amulet. Make sure your build has: Two Frost Novas, Frozen Orb Explosion and Aspect of Control, plus the avalanche one.

Gems

For gems, you’ll want to slot:

• Weapon: Saphire to increase your critical damage to crowd-controlled enemies.
• Armor: Rubies to boost your maximum life for your Barriers.
• Jewelry: Skulls to boost your defense value because resistances don’t work well and having flat armor is actually better.

Paragon and Glyphs for Endgame Fire Sorceress Build

When it comes to Paragon boards, we are mainly going to aim for rare nodes that increase our damage output, as well as glyphs that synergize with our build. Please note that the order in which I get the nodes is just a general guideline, and you can adjust it to your current needs.

First Paragon Board – Base

On the first paragon board, you’ll want to first take the rare node on the right and then head up toward the Glyph socket. We will be completely ignoring any elemental resistance nodes as they are useless when compared to the flat % damage reduction ones available further up your boards. On the glyph socket, you’ll want to slot the “Control” glyph and eventually assign as much Dexterity as possible around it. The normal effect will boost damage to Crowd Controlled enemies per 5 dexterity invested, while the bonus effect will give you extra damage to chilled or Frozen enemies.

Continue up through the left of the board through the non-physical damage node, grab the ones around it too, and then unlock your second board.

Second Paragon Board – Icefall

On this board you’ll want to rotate until you have the “Frosts” and “Frigid” rare nodes and Glyph Slot on the bottom side as this will be the first nodes you’ll want to take before getting to the board’s legendary slot. Take the Damage to Chilled Enemies rare nodes then head right to grab damage reduction from chilled enemies.

For the Glyph Slot, we’ll use “Tactician” as it will boost the effects of the two rare nodes in range, increasing both your damage and defense against chilled enemies. You will need to select dexterity nodes within range to obtain the secondary boost, that will give you a 10% damage boost after you use Frost Nova or Ice Armor.

From here you’ll head up and left make a diversion to the left to grab the rare node “Polar Rime”, that increases your damage to Chilled enemies and non-physical damage. Its satellite nodes are also very good so grab them before heading up and toward the mastery glyph for the board: Icefall, that gives you 15% of your maximum life as a barrier for 5 seconds whenever you kill a frozen enemy, without any cooldowns!

Continue upward and left and unlock “Keeper of Winter” to improve your damage reduction vs chilled enemies, then head to the opposite side of the board and unlock “Cryomancy” to boost your Cold damage by 20-30% plus its satellites for Cold Damage. You probably don’t need the “Chill application” rare nodes so leave them untouched and go unlock your third board.

Third Paragon Board – Frigid Fate

You’ll want to rotate the board until you have the “Weakness” and “Oppressive” rare nodes and glyph slot on the bottom side. Head straight for Weakness and unlock it and its satellite Damage to Vulnerable Enemies nodes, and then obtain the glyph socket and assign “Unleash”, which will boost rare nodes within range, giving extra juice to the very valuable “vs Vulnerable” nodes. The secondary effect of Unleash will boost your damage by 6.7% and Mana Regeneration by 6.7% after one cast of a core skill, so it’s quite valuable.

From here, head right and down to unlock the “Oppressive” node to increase Vulnerable Damage and damage reduction from Vulnerable enemies, then get all the relevant rare nodes around it.

Return to Weakness and start making your way left toward “Guarded”, that will boost damage reduction from vulnerable enemies and improve your survivability. We won’t be taking the legendary node on this board, so head out the gate to the left onto your Fourth board.

Fourth Paragon Board – Enchantment Master

Enchantment Master should be rotated to get to “Ruinous” close to your gate, which gives + non-physical damage and damage to elites. Go there first, and then backtrack a little bit to go down toward the glyph socket.

You’ll want to assign “Exploit” here, and then take the dexterity nodes within its range to increase Vulnerable Damage. The added bonus of Exploit is a flat % increase to your damage whenever you have damaged a vulnerable enemy, which will play very well into the game’s damage calculations. If you max the range for this Glyph, you’ll be able to assign around 34 dexterity (+20%) or 39 dexterity if you reach for all nodes.

From the Glyph, unlock “Elemental Balance” and its satellite rare nodes including dexterity ones to maximize the use of this slot. Then head left and up to unlock a final node here: “Elementalist” that also gives you 20% non-physical damage and 4% max life, improving your barriers. Make sure you get the damage nodes around it before backtracking and heading down to the gate for your fifth board.

The Ceaseless Conduit board is next up, and the reason for picking this board is the “Hunter Killer” Rare node, that gives Movement Speed and increases damage vs Elites. There are also 3 other 8% damage to elites magic nodes here, so make sure to rotate the board so you can access these as soon as possible.

Final Tips

This is another successful sorceress build that does not use teleport, but has quite good run speed if you are using the unique boots.

Your playstyle should be focused on rounding up enemies to trigger satisfying mass-freeze-mass-explode-all-clear situations, so you will enjoy actually running into the middle of several packs of elites. All in all, you’ll get the benefits of one of the most powerful builds in the game without the downside of dreadfully boring “press one button” gameplay.

Using your freeze and barriers smartly is key when clearing higher level dungeons, but be mindful that the elements on the ground have a tendency to block out enemy or nightmare dungeon effects, so you may need emergency heals from explosions or the volcanic eruption affixes..

If you are struggling to get aspects and gear, remember that you can gamble for sacred and ancestral gear at the curiosities vendor, and you can run legions and helltide mystery chests with the help of randoms on the server. Overall, your drops seem to improve as you level so don’t worry if ancestrals are not coming in right away.

Remember to craft and drink Precision Elixirs, which increases both critical strike chance and critical strike damage, further boosting the build performance.

This build shines when you are facing large quantities of enemies, so try to run dungeons with tight corridors and big packs.

Lastly, whatever you do, NEVER run a nightmare dungeon that has -cold damage or -vulnerable duration!

Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki for any other questions you have about the game and the Builds page if you are looking for more Diablo IV Builds, as well as our Getting Started Guide and Best Class to Play if you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!

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In this Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide, I’m going to show you 10 tips that are essential to your journey as you step into the shoes of Clive Rosfield. Whether you are new or accustomed to the elements of APRGs, these tips should give you a better understanding of the game’s mechanics.

Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide Table of Contents

• FF XVI Beginner Guide: What Are Timely Accessories
• FF XVI Beginner Guide: Side Quests Are Important
• FF XVI Beginner Guide: How to Quickly Stagger Enemies
• FF XVI Beginner Guide: How to Chain Combos
• FF XVI Beginner Guide: Practice in the Hall of Virtue
• FF XVI Beginner Guide: Early Best Eikons and Abilities
• FF XVI Beginner Guide: How to Respec Abilities
• FF XVI Beginner Guide: How to Farm EXP, GIL, AP, and Renown
• FF XVI Beginner Guide: Save Materials Over Gil
• FF XVI Beginner Guide: Always Explore Areas

Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide

This Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide covers different Tips & Tricks for the game such as recommended side activities that you should be doing, how to efficiently farm resources, an overview of the combat system, and more. Before we start, we recommend you go through the Prologue to understand the basic combat mechanics and check the “Tutorial Messages” of the game to view all of the previously unlocked guides in the System menu.

FF XVI Getting Started Guide: What Are Timely Accessories?

When you start FF 16, you will be given the option to choose your difficulty between Story and Action Focused. Regardless of the mode you play, you will have access to using Timely Accessories which you can find under Gear & Eikons. Timely Accessories are a unique set of trinkets that allow the player to adjust the difficulty in combat by providing Clive with “Auto Effects”. If you are new to action games or require assistance in some aspects of combat, then we highly recommend using these accessories.

Equipping Accessories is the only way to create a soft build for Clive and it heavily ties in with what Eikon and Abilities you are using, however, you are limited to only using up to three of them. At the beginning of the game, it’s okay to equip all three Timely Accessories if you’re still getting used to the combat but for the time being, as you progress, we recommend equipping at least one and reserving the two slots for other useful accessories.

There are different “Auto Effects” such as Healing, Dodging, Parrying, Blocking, Commanding Torgal, and even Attacking to chaining combos. One important note though is that some of these accessories have limits. For example, the Ring of Timely Evasion will only work as long as Clive can evade some attacks so remember to choose wisely.

FF XVI Tips & Tricks: Side Quests Are Important

Side Quests are critical in Final Fantasy XVI. Not only do they provide you with additional lore and rewards, but they unlock some features such as being able to ride a Chocobo. These become available during story progression, specifically as you reach The Hideaway and are marked with a green icon on the world or area map. Side Quests gradually become available as you progress through the story, so always open the map or keep an eye on the Notice HUD. Also, make sure to speak to Gaute to check the Alliant Reports or your mail in Clive’s chambers to view more of them.

The two types of Side Quests in FFXVI are generic and important ones. Generic Side Quests are marked with a green exclamation point, and they normally provide you with basic objectives and different rewards. On the other hand, important Side Quests are what you want to keep an eye on, and these are marked with a green + sign.

If you see one, make sure to complete it in order to unlock certain features and upgrades such as improving the potency of consumables, Chocobo riding, increasing the Limit Break bars, and more. In the latter section of Final Fantasy XVI, you will start to gain Renown points. By earning a certain number of Renown, Clive can collect donations such as GIL, Items, and even AP. You can do this by visiting Desiree at the Patron’s Whisper.

FF XVI Best Tips: How to Quickly Stagger Enemies

Staggering is the most important mechanic of the game when it comes to combat, you will find it extremely useful against large enemies and bosses. To identify the stagger meter of a target which is divided into two segments, you can refer to a yellow bar underneath its health bar. By breaking its first segment, the target becomes shaken for a brief moment, while successfully bursting the second segment will have them completely fall to the ground, allowing you to follow up with chains of attacks and combos before they can even recover. If they do recover, the bar refills and it’s a matter of repeating the process of shattering their stagger meter once again.

Your weapon and abilities play an important role here as the value of the weapon or the number of stars for an ability will determine how fast you can stagger an enemy. You will want to prioritize Stagger over Damage because when you do, it just breaks the game in a way that you can’t give your target the chance to attack you. So always look at the values of your weapon before you buy or craft one.

As for Eikon Abilities, you will find the Scarlet Cyclone, Garuda’s Gouge, and Aerial Blast as the must-haves together with Titan’s Abilities. One example here is the unique Block Ability, which deals a significant amount of Stagger Damage. Additionally, some accessories can alter the effects of your abilities such as increasing their damage or reducing the cooldown.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: How to Chain Combos

In combat, you have two basic attacks. You have a four-hit combo by pressing Square and a ranged magical attack by pressing Triangle. Your basic combo is a mixture of melee and magic where you press Square and Triangle, respectively, finishing it off with a magical blast that throws light targets off their feet. To complete it, you can close the gap with Phoenix Shift by pressing Circle and then Square to execute a mortal blow.

It does take timing and you cannot just press the buttons in quick motions. When you press Square, there is a window or a delay as Clive swings his sword, then you can follow up with magic, then back to another melee hit, and finally, another magic attack. You can also transition into using an Eikonic Ability if you want to. After two to three melee hits, quickly press R2 and Triangle or Square to trigger the ability. If you launch enemies in the air, you can teleport to your target and continue with an air combo upon activating Phoenix Shift.

When it comes to continuously chaining combos, this is where Torgal comes in. Torgal has two basic attacks, specifically, Sic, which is a ground-based melee attack, and Ravage, which launches the enemy into the air. There are many ways you can use Torgal and his attacks change depending on your combos. If you execute the four-melee attack, by pressing Up on the D-pad just as Clive lands the fourth swing, Torgal’s Sic becomes a spinning attack and leaves the target in the air for about a second. This lets Clive follow up by jumping into the air for an aerial combo or by using Garuda’s Deadly Embrace that pulls the target close to him allowing for more ground combos. Luckily, there is a training room that you can use to hone his skills.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: Practice in the Hall of Virtue

The Hall of Virtue, which becomes available through story progression, is a training room that can be accessed by using the Arete Stone in The Hideaway. Here, you can play with the different combat parameters and choose what enemy you want to fight against. This is very helpful since it allowed me to experiment with the abilities that work well together, and it gave me a better understanding of how to properly utilize Torgal’s attacks. By pressing the DualSense’s Touch Pad, you can view the Training Options such as adding Torgal, Input Display, Burst Timing, enemy behaviors, and a list of targets to fight against.

If you want to put everything into action without worrying about dying during the main campaign, you can always run the Arcade Mode or Stage Replay where you can revisit previously cleared areas.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: Early Best Eikons and Abilities

Since this is a Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide, I will focus on listing down the best Eikons and Abilities to use early on. For Basic Abilities, you’ll want to unlock the following to give you an advantage in combat:

1. Charged Magic allows Clive to charge his magic attack by holding down Triangle and releasing it.
2. Swift Recovery immediately lets him recover when knocked back or downed by an enemy.
3. Burning Blade adds an attack that imbues Clive’s sword with flames and releases a powerful knockback.
4. Lunge and Downthrust provide more moves for aerial and grounded attacks.

All of these are very helpful during a combo and you can use them in various situations.

As for Eikons, you will start off with the Blessing of the Phoenix. By default, you have access to Rising Flames and Scarlet Cyclone. When you start, after unlocking the Basic Abilities mentioned above, I recommend saving enough AP in order to unlock Flames of Rebirth. This skill is an AOE attack that continuously damages enemies while restoring your HP. But only use it when necessary since it has a long cooldown.

I also found that Scarlet Cyclone is an OP Ability. Not only does it attack enemies around you but it has high Stagger Damage, knocks back enemies, and has a short cooldown. As you may have noticed, Abilities that have AoE capabilities are very useful here since most of the time, you will be fighting them in groups.

Once you have progressed, you will be able to channel the abilities of Garuda. The wind Eikon specializes in targeting a single unit but it does a considerable amount of Stagger Damage, making it the most used Eikon you will use until you unlock more. Make sure to have Gouge equipped since it has high Stagger Damage and it hits multiple targets if you are lucky to have two or more enemies in front of you. Garuda’s Unique Ability is Deadly Embrace, which can be used to pull enemies to you or if you break the first segment of their stagger bar, pull them down and follow up with more attacks. You may also want to save enough AP to unlock Aerial Blast, which summons a tornado that lifts light targets in the air and deals a significant amount of Stagger Damage to large enemies and bosses.

When it comes to combos, I like to punish targets by using Scarlet Cyclone and hitting them with basic attacks. Once I break the first segment of their stagger bar, I switch to Garuda and press Circle to use Deadly Embrace. During the animation, you want to switch back to Phoenix and use Phoenix Shift to close the gap, then switch back to Garuda, Gouge, and finish off the combo with either Flames of Rebirth or Aerial Blast. You can even use both as long as they are not on cooldown. When you gain access to more Eikons, the possibilities of mixing different Eikon Abilities are endless plus, you can always try out the many combinations at the Hall of Virtue.

Lastly, Abilities can be improved by Upgrading and Mastering them in exchange for more AP. Upgrading improves the effects of the Ability while Mastering allows the player to assign the Ability to any Eikon. You can learn more about these details by pressing Triangle on the skill itself.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: How to Respec Abilities

To piggyback off of Abilities, your next question might be “Can I respec Abilities in the game?“ And the answer is yes. It is quite simple to do, if you decide to swap to another and prefer to spend your AP on something else. You can go to the Ability that you want, then press and hold the Square Button to refund the spent AP.

If you have not upgraded it, the AP you will receive is the basic number for unlocking it, otherwise, you will acquire the total number of AP you have spent. There is no catch here or negative outcome since you can freely respec abilities and spend them on whatever you want. So respec freely and responsibly.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: How to Farm EXP, GIL, AP, and Renown

The basic method of farming EXP, GIL, AP, and eventually Renown points is by fighting enemies and completing Main Quests. As soon as you unlock Side Quests and the Hunting Board, I highly recommend doing these activities since they are the easiest way to acquire different resources, and might I say, a generous amount of it.

The Hunting Board only becomes available through story progression, and it shows you a list of Elite monsters that you need to eliminate in exchange for hefty rewards. But going against them are quite challenging. Depending on their rank, these marked Elites have high health, are deadly in battle, and usually have high levels. So be sure you are ready and stocked with healing items before you hunt them down. To find a marked Elite, you must visit the Hunting Board and read the description where it has been sighted, and then from there, you need to travel to the nearest location and start searching the area.

We have already touched on Side Quests, and as mentioned, when you see an available quest, especially Important Side Quests, take the task and complete it. Alternatively, replaying a previously cleared stage in the Arete Stone’s Stage Replay rewards the player with a minimum number of resources, including random consumables and materials.

With enough Renown Points, you can also collect different rewards from donators. This is only unlocked through story progression, and you can check these by talking to Desiree at the Patron’s Whisper in The Hideaway.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: Save Materials Over Gil

Materials are quite hard to find and are scarce in Final Fantasy XVI. Rare materials exclusively drop from the Elites you hunt, others are obtained by completing certain quests, while generic materials are generously rewarded from Side Quests and commonly found as loot. When you plan on acquiring a stronger weapon or accessory that is available to be forged, make sure to check the general merchant in The Hideaway. Alternatively, in other locations, they usually have the base weapon or accessory available for purchase. This way, you can save your materials and use them instead for reforging, which upgrades the level and stats of Clive’s equipment.

As for rare materials, especially unique weapons that are crafted with the likeness of the Eikons, you are free to build these as you wish since they can only be crafted once and cannot be upgraded. The rarity of the material is grouped into colors – White is common, Green is uncommon, Blue is rare, and Purple refers to epic resources.

Managing your resources during your first playthrough is very important since consumables are expensive and sometimes you might be tempted to even buy the music scrolls and other materials that you can find out in the field. Luckily, you have Torgal who can heal you in combat and the Limit Break recovers your HP over time. Spend your Gil on healing potions and other consumables if needed and review the different weapons and accessories that are the best before using them at the forge.

Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide: Always Explore Areas

The different locations in Final Fantasy XVI unlock through story progression and each of them gradually increases the space you can explore. Village settlements, the forest, ruins, and even desert areas are hard to search since these are large locations and it can be confusing to walk around in the absence of a mini map.

Make it a habit to open the area map by pressing the touch pad and using the marker to set a pin. This way you can easily keep track of sections you have not explored yet. For each location you visit, before reaching the goal, always explore and check every corner to find loot and small wooden or stone chests.

These small chests can sometimes be frustrating to find since they blend so well with the surroundings, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for them. If you do find one or if you are near a chest, a small indicator with the X button will appear on it.

That wraps up our Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide, hopefully, it gives clarity to some aspects of the game and it guides you with your journey in Valisthea. Be sure to check out our Final Fantasy XVI Review for our thoughts on the game, or you can watch here on YouTube.

If you have any other questions, do let us know in the comment below. You can also check out our website and wikis for more guides. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel to keep you updated with new content and for everything RPG, you can count on Fextralife. 

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Diablo 4 Werewolf Druid Build – Dire Wolf: In this Diablo 4 Druid Build, I’ll show you how to play a LvL 70+ Dire Wolf Druid that’s aimed at World Tier 4. If you are looking for a Build that focuses on shifting into a Werewolf and using the Shred Ability, which is also a continuation of the Shredder Build, then this Diablo 4 Druid Build – Dire Wolf is for you!

Diablo 4 Werewolf Druid Build – Dire Wolf

So to recap, this Diablo IV Build focuses on using Shred with the help of 2 aspects, namely the Stormclaw’s Aspect and Aspect of the Blurred Beast. The Stormclaw’s Aspect lets you deal huge damage upon landing crits with Shred while the Aspect of the Blurred Beast allows you to use Poison Creeper to absolutely obliterate them. But the problem is it takes some setup since Poison Creeper has a long cooldown. Additionally, you have to let Rabies spread around so your clear speed will take a hit. As such, we also use the Stormclaw’s Aspect to jump right into enemies and deal huge damage whether they’re Poisoned or not. 

Every Druid has issues managing their Spirit, especially early on. First is by getting the Spirit Cost Reduction Stat, around 16-17% off your Amulet and 7.5-8% off Boots minimally. This significantly lowers the cost of Shred to spam it a lot more easily. Second is by taking the Energized Spirit Boon, which makes it so Lucky Hit dealing damage has up to a 15% chance to restore 10 Spirit. This is a good amount of resources and it’s going to trigger sometimes even without you knowing it. 

The third is by using the Aspect of the Umbral, which makes it so that when you crowd control an enemy, you get up to 4 Spirit. This is done with Poison Creeper and also from any Poison you do because of the Neurotoxin Passive to Slow down enemies. So any time you Poison them, they’re effectively CCed. Alternatively, the Starlight Aspect would be better since it restores a huge chunk of Spirit when you heal yourself, which happens often while you’re attacking targets.

Diablo 4 Werewolf Druid Build – Dire Wolf

Once you hit Tier IV you’ll want to start thinking about min/maxing to get the most out of your Build, and that starts with Skills. Thanks to Paragon Boards and to the increased Equipment affixes, you’ll be able to bypass most of the restrictions you previously faced while leveling up. I also won’t get too deep into Skills, as you most probably know how they work by now.

Spirit Boons

• Wariness – Take 10% reduced damage from Elites.
• Scythe Talons – Gain 5% increased Critical Strike Chance.
• Avian Wrath – Gain 30% Critical Strike Damage.
• Energize – Lucky Hit: Dealing damage has up to a 15% chance to restore 10 Spirit.
• Masochistic – Critical Strikes with Shapeshifting Skills Heal you for 3% Maximum Life (150).

Diablo 4 Druid Build: Equipment, Gems, and Aspects

Equipment is the most important part of any Endgame Build, and It’s important to understand that it’s a long-term goal. You won’t have all Paragon Boards available right away, and getting all uniques will probably take a lot of farming, so try to use Legendary Aspects to adjust to your needs while you farm levels and better gear.

Legendary Aspects and Unique Powers

I’ll divide the Equipment into different slots, so it’s easier to understand what you should be using and what affixes you should be looking for. Remember that unique equipment has fixed affixes and powers, so if you are using one, you might need to re-slot a Legendary Aspect into a different piece.

Another important thing to notice is that, when looking for stats, you’ll want to make sure you are fulfilling your Paragon Rare Node requirements. Some rare nodes have very high requirements, and equipment is what allows you to fulfill them. These bonuses often double the rare node effect so, for example, getting an Equipment piece with +100 Dexterity might unlock one or more Node bonuses, giving you a massive bonus as a result.

Helm

Legendary Aspect

Vigorous Aspect: This makes it so that you gain up to 15% Damage Reduction while Shapeshifted, which is 99% of the time. As a result, the Vigorous Aspect considerably improves the Dire Wolf D4 Druid Build’s survivability.

Affixes

• Cooldown Reduction
• +Ranks of Poison Creeper
• +Maximum Life
• +Total Armor

Chest Armor

Affixes

• +Physical Damage
• +Poison Damage
• Damage Reduction from Enemies That Are Poisoned
• +Movement Speed
• Ranks of Werewolf Skills

Unique Equipment

Mad Wolf’s Glee: This gives +2 Ranks of Werewolf Skills as well as Damage Reduction from Enemies That Are Poisoned, which can reach as high as 20%+. That’s a huge amount of Damage Reduction so make sure to Poison targets. This is one of the reasons why you’ll use the Raging Shred upgrade to apply Poison rather than Primal Shred, which increases your Critical Strike Damage. Additionally, Claw helps keep them Poisoned, thereby allowing you to stay alive in combat. 

Gloves

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of the Blurred Beast: This makes it so that when you Dash and attack with Shred, and actually teleport to a target, nearby Poisoned enemies instantly take Poison Damage, which is up to 90%. If this is slotted on an Amulet or Two-Handed Weapon, the damage would be up to 135% or 180%, respectively. 

Affixes

• +Rank of Shred
• +Attack Speed
• +Lucky Hit Chance
• +Critical Strike Chance

Pants

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of the Protector: This gives a Barrier when fighting Elites and Bosses.

OR

Aspect of Disobedience: This raises your Total Armor every time you deal damage.

Affixes

• +Maximum Life
• Damage Reduction while Injured
• +Total Armor
• +Dodge Chance

Boots

Legendary Aspect

Stormshifter’s Aspect: This makes it so that while Hurricane is active, you gain +2 to Shapeshifting Skills like Claw. Hurricane is another amazing Skill that further reduces the damage you take by 20% when you gain access to the Savage Hurricane modifier, allowing you to run into a group of enemies, essentially unscathed.

Affixes

• +Dodge Chance
• +Movement Speed
• Spirit Cost Reduction
• +Movement Speed for 4 Seconds After Killing an Elite

Two-Handed Weapon

Legendary Aspect

Stormclaw’s Aspect: This lets you deal up to 30% damage when you Critically Strike as Lightning Damage to the target and surrounding enemies. When imprinted on a Two-Handed Weapon, it can be up to 60%, which is a huge amount of damage upon landing a crit, especially if you have a high Critical Strike Chance. 

Affixes

• +All Stats
• +Vulnerable Damage
• +Core Skill Damage
• +Willpower

Unique Equipment

Waxing Gibbous: This is a good alternative for this Diablo 4 Werewolf Druid Build as it provides you with increased Critical Strike Damage, Life on Kill, and Ranks of Shred. So if you have the Waxing Gibbous equipped, then you’ll want to place the Stormclaw’s Aspect on your Amulet to still considerably raise the damage you deal by 45%. 

Amulet

Legendary Aspect

Accelerating Aspect: This allows you to shred enemies very fast.

Affixes

• Damage Reduction from Distant Enemies
• +Ranks of Envenom Passive
• +Damage while in Human Form
• Damage Reduction from Close Enemies

First Ring

Legendary Aspect

Dire Wolf’s Aspect: This allows you to turn into a Dire Werewolf when you activate the Grizzly Rage Ultimate, which is normally a Werebear Skill. As such, your Movement Speed is improved while the Spirit cost of your abilities is reduced. The Dire Wolf’s Aspect also heals you for 10% of your Maximum Life upon killing enemies. And this synergizes very well with Starlight’s Aspect. Going back to Grizzly Rage, you have Unstoppable while it’s active, meaning you can stand in CC without this affecting you. This, combined with your Damage Reduction from Skills and gear add up to make you extremely tanky. 

Affixes

• +Physical Damage
• +Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
• +Critical Strike Chance
• +Vulnerable Damage

Second Ring

Legendary Aspect

Aspect of the Umbral: Every time you CC an enemy, you gain X amount of Spirit. But it’s not that great since you’re just flying around without getting a hefty resources from each enemy, plus you need to CC a lot of them to make the Aspect of the Umbral worth it.

OR

Starlight Aspect: This makes it so that you gain up to 20 Spirit for every 25% of your Health you heal. And constantly, you’re going to heal with this Diablo 4 Werewolf Druid Build because of Blood Howl and Shred. You’ll jump into enemies, attack, and heal via attacks. Additionally, the Masochistic Spirit Boon restores HP every time you land crits with a Shapeshifting Skill. If you can obtain a max roll on Starlight Aspect, you’ll receive way more Spirit as compared to the Aspect of the Umbral.

Affixes

• +Physical Damage
• +Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
• +Damage to Close Enemies
• +Critical Strike Chance

Gems

For gems, you’ll want to slot:

• Weapon: Emeralds to increase Critical Strike Damage against Vulnerable enemies.
• Armor: Rubies to boost your Maximum Life.
• Jewelry: Skulls to boost your Defense value.

Paragon and Glyphs for the Druid Build

When it comes to Paragon Boards, we are mainly going to aim for Rare Nodes that increase our damage output, as well as Glyphs that synergize with our Build. Please note that the order in which I get the Nodes is just a general guideline, and you can adjust it to your current needs.

First Paragon Board – Base

The first glyph you’ll be taking for this Dire Wolf Diablo IV Druid Build is Exploit. This makes it so that when you damage an enemy, they become Vulnerable for 3 seconds. Vulnerable is a huge way to deal damage so you should have it for every Build. So when you teleport to a group of enemies with Shred and then use Poison Creeper, they’ll all become instantly Vulnerable.

Second Paragon Board – Lust for Carnage

Moving over to your second Paragon Board is Lust for Carnage. This makes it so that when you critically strike with Werewolf Skills, you restore Spirit, allowing you to mitigate the resource issues for this Diablo 4 Werewolf Druid Build – Dire Wolf, especially since Shred is very expensive. Wild’s Call is a good Rare Node in this tree that provides you with increased Attack Speed and Maximum Spirit. You, therefore, have a bigger pool to drain. There are also other nodes that amplify your Werewolf Damage and Critical Damage so make sure to invest in those. 

For my second socket, I have the Fang and Claw Glyph so that enemies take 12% increased damage from you since you might struggle to deal damage with this D4 Druid Build sometimes. Next, this glyph boosts the Magic Nodes around it, particularly Werewolf Skill Damage, Healing Received, and additional Dexterity and Intelligence after expanding it to Level 15. Both attributes are needed to gain the extra bonuses from your Rare Nodes. There are probably other boards out there where your Dexterity-based sockets will fit but you essentially need Lust for Carnage to manage your Spirit well. 

Third Paragon Board – Ancestral Guidance

Ancestral Guidance makes it so that after spending 75 Spirit, you deal 30% increased damage for 5 seconds. That’s a huge amount of damage but more importantly, there are a couple of Rare Nodes that you really need. First is Reclamation to gain Maximum Spirit and more of this resource on kill. It follows that the nearby Magic Nodes give additional Spirit on Kill so, between Lust for Carnage, Reclamation, and the node clusters around it, you’re going to receive a lot of resources from attacking and killing enemies, helping you offset the Spirit problems of this Diablo IV Druid Build – Dire Wolf.

Furthermore, you’re also going to take Natural Attunement to receive Maximum Spirit and Maximum Life. You can always top yourself off before rushing into a fight to be able to trigger Shred frequently. What’s more, is that there are other nodes in the Ancestral Guidance Tree that provide you with additional Core Skill Damage as well as another glyph socket. 

Final Tips

A great alternative to the Accelerating Aspect is the Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast, which makes it so that you extend the duration of Grizzly Rage by up to 5 seconds. Now if you have this on your Amulet, it’ll be 7.5 seconds. And if you have Cooldown Reduction on any of your Equipment, you’ll be able to activate Grizzly Rage more often, probably every 20 seconds. 

So that wraps up our Diablo 4 Werewolf Druid Build – Direwolf, which I enjoyed playing. This and the Rapid Fire Archer Rogue Build are probably my two favorites since I’m able to zip around the screen while dealing huge burst damage and having good survivability. You’re very tanky, especially when you pop in Direwolf. 

Stay tuned for more Diablo 4 Build Guides and General Guides. Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki for any other questions you have about the game and the Builds page if you are looking for more Diablo IV Builds, as well as our Ultimate Beginner Guide and All Classes Overview if you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!

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