At this afternoon’s Opening Night Live show at Gamescom 2024, Grinding Gear Games formally announced that early access for Path of Exile 2 is slated for November 15th. In other words, MOARPG fans will have about a month to finish up Diablo IV’s Vessel of Hatred, which launches October 8th, before moseying on over to […]
Gamescom 2024 in Cologne, Germany, is about to begin with Geoff Keighley’s Opening Night Live spectacle, a two-hour parade of trailers, advertisements, and ideally, new game announcements that kick off the show and set the stage for the event… oh yeah, and give those of us back home some distraction. Thanks to public hints and […]
What is the best Diablo 4 Spiritborn build? The first Diablo 4 expansion is nearly upon us, bringing with it new bosses, items, and most importantly, the Spiritborn class. Hailing from the jungles of Nahantu, the Spiritborn’s incredible versatility stems from its expert level hand-to-hand skills, Spirit Guardians, and deadly Glaive.
When it comes to picking one of the Diablo 4 classes, the Spiritborn looks like the best pick for anyone who wants a flexible class that can truly do it all. Blizzard recently broke down everything Diablo 4 players should know about the Spiritborn, including its origins, how it fits into the overall story, and its skills. We’re going to be taking a look at the Spiritborn’s skills to theorycraft some Diablo 4 builds that you can take with you when the Vessel of Hatred expansion launches.
The fifth season for ARPG Diablo 4, The Season of the Infernal Hordes, once again changes up a lot of the build varieties for all classes while also adding the new seasonal Infernal Hordes mechanic. With all-new Legendary Items, some builds are looking better than ever. These are the best Leveling Builds for all Classes in Diablo 4 Season 5.
Screenshot by Blizzard
Best Leveling Builds for all Classes in Diablo 4 Season 5
The overall markers for the best leveling builds in Diablo 4 Season 5 are those that can quickly clear out a large number of enemies in a short period of time while also surviving the onslaught of enemies in the meantime. While being able to quickly burst down bosses is also important, it's not as important as being able to mass clear enemies. Here are the best leveling builds for each class in Diablo 4 Season 5:
Barbarian
One of the best overall builds for leveling in all of Diablo 4 Season 5 is the Hammer of the Ancients (HotA) Barbarian. The build uses Hammer of the Ancients to quickly AoE down enemies via the powerful hammer slam. The addition of Charge and Lunging Strike allows you to quickly traverse the map while War Cry, Rallying Cry, and Wrath of the Berserker give you added utility in the form of damage and survivability.
For Druid, Lightning Storm is the best leveling build due to the ability to zap down a ton of enemies quickly via Lightning Storm. Trample gives the Druid some extra mobility while Wolves, Ravens, and Poisoner Creeper add some tanky high-damage companions to the Druid's arsenal in between spamming Lightning Storm. Once you have Shepherd's Aspect, Lightning Storm is one of the highest damage burst abilities for leveling.
The best Necromancer Leveling Build in Diablo 4 Season 5 is Minion Necro. Perhaps the easiest build in all of Diablo 4, Minion Necro allows you to essentially run around while your horde of minions quickly exterminate everything nearby. At its core, this build relies on Skeletal Warriors, Skeletal Mages, and Golems to swarm your opponents. For survivability, you'll make use of Blood Mist, and Corpse Tendrils and Iron Maiden will give you a lot more crowd control and utility.
Rogues actually have several strong leveling build options, but Twisting Blades is probably the best. Dash and Shadow Step gives the Rogue tons of mobility to quickly dart around the map, while Puncture, Twisting Blades, Shadow Imbuement, and Shadow Clone gives the Rogue plenty of high damage options to burst down large groups of enemies quickly. While most Leveling Builds focus purely on AoE damage, Twisting Blades Rogue actually gets some added single-target boss damage via Inner Sight.
The best Leveling Build for Sorcerer for Diablo 4 Season 5 is CHain Lightning. For several seasons this has been one of the best leveling builds in the entire ARPG, and Season 5 looks to follow suit. Using the massive AoE explosions from the Fireball Enchantment mixed with Arc Lash and Chain Lightning, this is one of the fastest AoE clear builds out there. Frost Nova adds some insane Crowd Control and added damage burst via the easily Vulnerability, while Teleport and Ice Armor give you more mobility and utility than most of the classes, especially when leveling.
With Diablo 4's first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, shown at Xbox's Summer Game Fest showcase this week, players are being treated to a few premium goodies right now for preordering. But perhaps more importantly, a much-requested feature has finally arrived: pets.
Let's take a look at how to get your own dog - and I will not be calling it anything other than a "dog" - right now.
How to get the dog pet in Diablo 4
First, head to Kyovashad and make your way to the quest icon shown below to find a dog, speak with the dog, and become friends with the dog:
Screenshot by Destructoid
That's uh, kind of it, actually! There's no grand quest or anything, just a dog standing there waiting for you to come along and guide it out of the frozen streets of Kyovashad. You can equip your new pal by using the Wardrobe, going to the Pets tab, and selecting "Confirm Look." You can also pet the dog by using the "Hello" emote near it. Everybody loves to pet the dog these days.
The other three pets are locked behind a Vessel of Hatred pre-order, including a differently-colored dog and two not-so-big cats. The promise of pets being included in future Season Passes has me unreasonably excited.
Pets have been a pretty fan-requested feature for some time now, since in Diablo 3 they were invaluable for automatically gathering gold and resources as you adventure. They'll do much the same in Diablo 4, saving you just a little bit of extra running around as you slaughter foes.
What is the Diablo 4 DLC release date? As if the latest in the long-running series wasn’t big enough as a campaign and ongoing seasonal content, there seem to be at least two upcoming expansions in the works.
We can draw on our knowledge of Diablo 4, as well as our attendance at Blizzcon 2023 and Summer Games Fest 2024, to give you the latest news and expectations for the Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred release date. We already know we can expect at least one new Diablo 4 class to change the meta completely, but we're also hoping for new items for excitingly powerful Diablo 4 builds, and encounters with Prime Evils not seen in the base game.
Between the likes of Diablo 4, Last Epoch, and Path of Exile, ARPG fans are eating good right now. Each game offers something a little different while spurring the competition to learn from and bounce off of one another. Last Epoch delivers hundreds of skills while Path of Exile adopts the free-to-play model. So how does Blizzard stay distinctive from its rivals? Speaking exclusively to PCGameN at Summer Game Fest, Diablo series general manager and producer Rod Fergusson explains how D4 is staying ahead of the pack.
Diablo 4's best new endgame addition, The Pit, is a twist on Diablo 3's Greater Rift formula. These procedural, randomized dungeons reward you with the items necessary for masterworking gear, so they're essential if you want to push a build to its limits. You'll just need one thing before you head in: Runeshards.
It takes three Runeshards to enter the Pit at any tier, so stockpiling these should be in the back of your mind while doing other content. They drop from Nightmare Dungeons of tier 46 or higher, Tree of Whispers Caches, Legion Events, and World Bosses. As for farming these, here's my preferred method.
Farming Runeshards in Diablo 4
Screenshot by Destructoid
The quickest way I've found to farm Runeshards is to blitz through the lowest Nightmare Dungeon tier that drops them: tier 46. At the Occultist, you can craft Nightmare Dungeon Sigils of varying levels, which works (almost) perfectly for our farming method.
To get started, simply craft level 41-50 Sigils and save the ones between 46 and 50 while salvaging the rest. As you complete these dungeons, you'll be rewarded with Sigils of similar quality. If you're blasting even higher Nightmare Dungeons, go ahead and do those so you can level you Paragon Glyphs quicker as well.
One tier 46 Nightmare Dungeon nets you the three Runeshards you'll need for a single Pit run. If you get burnt out on dungeons, you can try blasting the Helltide for a bit and completing the Tree of Whispers bounties inside for a cache that will also net you at least three Runeshards. If you alternate these activities while keeping an eye on Legion and World Boss timers, you'll have a stockpile of shards before you know it.
It has been nearly a year since Diablo 4’s release. Despite some meandering sentiments in the community regarding the game’s post-launch support, the recently released Season 4 might prove to be a hit.
For almost a year, Blizzard has been iterating on Diablo 4 with a multitude of changes to many of the game’s core systems and content—the game’s loot specifically needed the most help. While the first three seasons of Diablo 4 weren’t entirely hated, when playing, it still felt like the game was missing some core functionality that made it fun. It didn’t take long for the community to pinpoint how the loot itself is not only pretty dull, but is a chore to sort through, and misses a lot of those big dopamine moments.
World of Warcraft. Diablo. StarCraft. Overwatch. Hearthstone. The response that Blizzard inspires from players might have shifted over the years, but it certainly still bears an incredible weight. Responsible for many of the best PC games of all time, the developer’s reach can be felt across the industry in both its own projects and those it has inspired. Now, not long past the cancellation of its mysterious survival game, it appears that a new Blizzard game is on the cards.
Diablo 4's fourth season got a hearty month-long delay, owing to the fact that it's spring-boarding a complete overhaul to the game's itemization, crafting systems, and endgame. Plenty of folks, myself included, are more than a little excited for a new start to Blizzard's powerhouse IP, but we're stuck waiting until May 14. So rather than sit on our clicking hands, I have a few suggestions to help pass the time:
Grim Dawn
Grim Dawn is my absolute favoritest-favorite action RPG. Not only is it an absolute beast in terms of its content (if you cop the expansions on one of the game's regular sales, you're looking at 100+ hours of content at least), it's unmatched in class fantasy and build customization.
Image via Crate Entertainment.
Sure, it's not the flashiest action RPG in the world, but its gruff, high contrast aesthetic is a bit reminiscent of the gold-box RPG glory days, isn't it? The oversaturated hue of the spell effects mixed with the pitch black shadows gives it some real character.
Grim Dawn is a fair bit more complex than Diablo, but not nearly the impenetrable fortress that is Path of Exile. Think of it as sitting somewhere in the middle-complexity sweet spot that games like Last Epoch occupy. You can blitz through the campaign on the breezy Normal difficulty or crank things up a few notches and see if your build can stand up to Ultimate.
If you're worried about this game's age meaning it isn't receiving updates or content, you may be pleasantly surprised to hear that that's decidedly not the case. The latest mega-patch, 1.2, saw a whole slew of changes, including difficulty scaling, loot tables, and the addition of an evade button. There's even a whole new expansion on its way, and a second game in early development. So, if you're looking for something with a little grit, it's never too late to become a fan of Grim Dawn.
V Rising
V Rising is, unlike Grim Dawn, markedly not old. In fact, it's not even fully released yet. 1.0 is hitting just a bit shy of Diablo 4's new season, on May 8, but you can explore plenty of the game's content right now in Early Access.
Image via Stunlock Studios.
The elevator pitch for V Rising probably went something like, "What if Diablo, survival crafting games like Valheim, and old-school MMO's got thrown in a blender?" You'll hunt down treacherous bosses and collect bear asses both, all in service to your ever-growing castle. The game has the same sticky mechanics that all the great survival games do: you'll craft increasingly impressive and useful tools using workbenches, but you'll only find the blueprints after defeating some of the world's many, many big-bads.
By day, you'll likely be cooped up in your castle, rearranging furniture, stocking the furnace with ore, that sort of thing. But come nightfall, when the sun's rays won't cremate you, you'll be pushing further and further into the wilds, collecting resources and slaying foes.
If you've got a knack for building houses in TheSims or seeing how big you can make your Minecraft fortress, V Rising has a fantastic base-building system that's sure to satiate your lust for interior design. If you also enjoy skill-shotting folks in MOBAs, the game so happens to use WASD movement such that its combat plays like a frenetic mix of League of Legends and Lost Ark. It'll take some getting used to, but this weird combination of cozy homebuilding and action is surprisingly harmonious.
No Rest for the Wicked
And at last, we have Moon Studio's (makers of Ori) very left-field foray into the action RPG space: No Rest for the Wicked. I was embarrassingly excited for this game, which launched last Thursday, April 18 into Early Access.
Image via Moon Studios.
My recommendation of No Rest for the Wicked comes with two caveats: first, you'll need a pretty juicy rig to run it. With a "recommended" GPU equivalent to an RTX 3070, it isn't particularly optimized in these early days. Second, it barely qualifies as an "action RPG" in the traditional, Diablo-esque sense of the phrase. Its combat is slow, methodical, and heavy.
Those caveats out of the way, what's here is very good so far. The first act of the game is available to play, which should run you anywhere from 10 to 15 hours depending on your propensity for exploration and upgrading the capital city of Sacrament using resources found along your journey.
One of the more progressive features of No Rest for the Wicked is its ever-changing landscapes that are a joy to revisit. Starter zones level up alongside your progress through the campaign, and trekking back through previously explored lands may reveal new enemies, bosses, and loot. Loot rarity has had the script flipped a bit too - "common" items are the most customizable, while higher rarities may come with hefty drawbacks in exchange for their affixed bonuses.
It's early days for the game, but after two quick and beefy hotfixes (which went live over the weekend, no less), I think it's worth keeping an eye on at the very least. Jumping in early is always a bit of a leap of faith, but I haven't regretted a moment spent with the game.
Hopefully the Gauntlet provides new end-game goals
Diablo 4 has a pretty big end-game content problem right now. There's not really much to do and hardly a reason to level all the way up to 100 other than just to say you did the grind. However, that might change with the introduction of the Gauntlet.
Accessible for both Normal and Hardcore characters, the Gauntlet unlocks for players on the Seasonal Realm once they've gained access to World Tier IV. However, the monsters in the Gauntlet are over Level 100, so it's recommended players hit Level 100 themselves before giving it an honest try.
The Gauntlet will be a fixed layout and non-linear dungeon that changes weekly. The goal is to get the highest score possible, which is based on the number of Proofs of Might you obtain in the Gauntlet. They are acquired by killing Monsters and opening chests during the eight minutes you are in the Gauntlet. Even though it changes weekly, you can run it as many times as you want, allowing you to learn a weekly layout and get better and more efficient with each attempt.
Each week the Gauntlet will close on Tuesday at 11 a.m. EST and then reopen with a new layout at 1:15 a.m. EST.
Enter the Hall of the Ancients
Leaderboards are finally coming to Diablo 4 and will be centered around progress in the Gauntlet. There are separate Leaderboards for each Class, Party Size, and Normal vs Hardcore character. You can also filter the Leaderboards to only show your Clan members or Friends to see how you rank against those you know.
Those who reach the Top 100 in any Ladder will receive a Conquerors Crest Mount Trophy. But for those who master the Gauntlet even further and reach the Top 10, you can immortalize your character in the Hall of Ancients.
In the Hall of Ancients, your name and character are immortalized with a permanent spot in the Hall, allowing future players to see how you did.
Both new features will be added as part of the Diablo 4 midseason update that goes live on March 5 on all platforms.
When does Diablo 4 Season 4 start? A much-loved feature from Diablo 3 makes its return in D4 with the (re)introduction of seasons, adding everything from new questlines to items, gameplay mechanics, and more. Expanding on the rich, gothic world of Sanctuary, Blizzard makes sure players have plenty to sink their teeth into, whether you’re a fresh-faced player taking their first steps into Sanctuary or a grizzled veteran of the Burning Hells.
It may be some time before we'll see Diablo 4 Season 4, as the Season of the Construct only began a few weeks ago. Just like every other seasonal event, it adds a whole bunch of new content to explore in Blizzard's action RPG, no matter whether you're a level 100 player who's been around since the Diablo 4 release date or someone who is considering jumping into the game now.
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