Diablo 4: How To Easily Get Shard Of Dawn Aspect In Midwinter Blight Event? - Night’s Grasp Buff Explained

Posted: Dec 18, 2023

Source: IGGM

Shard of Dawn Aspect is a new Offensive Legendary Aspect added in Diablo 4 Midwinter Blight Event. It has a complex buff: Night’s Grasp. This new buff increases your movement speed and attack speed under certain conditions.

In this guide, we’ll show you the best way to get Shard of Dawn Aspect, and explain how Night’s Grasp buff works.

Diablo 4: How To Easily Get Shard Of Dawn Aspect In Midwinter Blight Event? - Night’s Grasp Buff Explained

How To Get Shard Of Dawn Aspect?

You can purchase Shard of Dawn from Gileon’s shop in Fractured Peaks Kyovashad for 10 Midwinter Proofs.

In order to get Midwinter Proof, you need to exchange it for one of three currencies at Collection Table in town: Blighted Fragments, Lost Heirlooms, and Red-Cloaked Trophies.

You’ll find these currencies in the world of Fractured Peaks during Midwinter Blight Event. So hop on your horse and ride around killing enemies and destroying Frigid Husk ice statues!

The most efficient way to farm these items is to take part in the new event called Blighted Revelry.

As you ride around, you’ll notice a bunch of little freaks jumping around a broken cart. Kill the little monsters and interact with the cart to start the event. You need to protect the cart until the fire is big enough to thaw the nearby Frigid Husk.

Use this method to destroy all five Frigid Husk to spawn a Red-Cloaked Horror. Defeat this big goat boss to complete the event and you can earn some Diablo 4 Gold and loot, and pick up Red-Cloaked Trophy.

Once back in town, you can convert 300 Blight Fragments, 30 Lost Heirlooms, or 1 Red-Cloaked Trophy into 1 Midwinter Proof. Once you have 10 Midwinter Proof, you can purchase Shard of Dawn Aspect from Gileon.

If you need more Midwinter Proofs to buy cosmetics, you can simply go back to Fractured Peaks to explore, kill monsters, and collect currency that can be exchanged for more Proofs.

Diablo 4: How to obtain Shard of Dawn Aspect?

Night’s Grasp Buff

The new buff in Shard of Dawn Aspect, Night’s Grasp, is powerful. But it's difficult to understand when reading the tooltip. Let’s break it down.

After using Night’s Grasp for 30 seconds, get Dawn’s Haste. This increases your attack speed by 25-35% and movement speed by 20% for 12 seconds. Powered by Midwinter Ward, killing an enemy reduces the duration of Night’s Grasp by 1 second.

The description mentions three buffs, but it only tells you what one of them does.

First let’s talk about Night’s Grasp. This is a buff that appears on your character when you are in combat and wield Shard of Dawn Aspect. However, it doesn’t do anything. Its entire purpose is to indicate that you don’t currently have Dawn’s Haste buff activated.

However, once your Night’s Grasp lasts for 30 seconds, you gain Dawn’s Haste buff, which increases your attack speed and movement speed for 12 seconds.

Dawn’s Haste is a pretty neat buff. Because attack speed is ideal for most generator or spender builds, while movement speed is valuable for all builds. You want to lower the 30-second window if possible.

This is where Dawn’s Haste buff affects Shard of Dawn Aspect. Because every time we killed an enemy, it reduces the 30 second cooldown between Night’s Grasp and Dawn’s Haste by 1 second.

Dawn’s Haste is a buff you can get from a special totem next to Gileon’s shop in Kyovashad. However, you’ll need to upgrade your Midwinter Tribute level to Tier 3 before it can appear in towns.

To earn Tribute experience and level up, all you need to do is exchange Midwinter Blight currency for Midwinter Proofs on Collections Table.

Also, when you upgrade to Tier 3, you will also receive Midwinter Tribute buff. The buff lasts for about six minutes and also gives you some extra damage against Blightfiends and Red-Cloaked Horror.

Finally, Shard of Dawn Aspect does not appear in Codex of Power. Instead, you’ll need to spend 10 Midwinter Proofs to repurchase it every time you want to apply it to new gear. Therefore, when applying aspects at Occultist, be sure to choose your equipment carefully.

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Diablo 4 Season 7 Best Builds: Come And Pick The Best Build For Your Character To Challenge The New Content! - Top 3
Last week, Diablo 4 entered a new season with the theme of Season of Witchcraft. In such a season change, players are most concerned about the changes in Class and Uniques used, because this will directly lead to the effectiveness of the build they use and game experience in the new season.

In addition, those players who love to explore and innovate are looking for the most suitable build for Diablo 4 Season 7. This guide combines a lot of information from the current player community and social media to summarize several best builds for this season for you. You can make the right choice depending on your game style and goals.

In addition to the ability of the build, some of the best skills and gear in these builds will be recommended for you, but because each player’s game style and level are different, all the ones provided here are for reference only, subject to your actual exploration.

1. Barrage Rogue

First of all, we will introduce the best build of Rogue, which was not favored by players in previous seasons. In Season 7, Barrage Rogue has undergone a substantial change. It will focus on maximizing the damage ability and practicality of Barrage skill, which is very good whether it is used to clear enemies or fight against bosses.

Additionally, this build lets you use Combo Points system, Imbuements, and smart skill selections to deal significant area damage to enemies, which is helpful when fighting groups of enemies. And Fundamental Puncture upgrade in the build also makes enemies more vulnerable, increasing the damage and ricochet chance of Barrage.

However, it is important to make sure that Legendary Aspects you choose for this build are Codex of Power Aspects, so that it can be most effective. Also, invest a lot of Diablo 4 Gold in Barrage’s damage and ricochet chance to ensure that this skill’s damage is maximized. Here are some skills that can be recommended to you.
- Barrage
- Puncture
- Dash
- Shadow Step
- Shadow Imbuement Or Cold Imbuement
Because Barrage Rogue build is suitable for both single-target and group-based enemies, you choose the right Imbuement for the right situation - Shadow Imbuement for area damage, Cold Imbuement for single-target damage and freezes. Not only that, but you also need to maximize the ability of the Imbuement skill tree to increase the frequency and efficiency of these Imbuements.

2. Shred Druid

While Druid didn’t perform so well in previous seasons, its Shred skill in Season 7 makes it very likely to become a favorite for players who like a solid survivability and strong damage build, because Shred can deal high damage while maintaining mobility and resilience.

However, it must be noted that Shred Druid build is only suitable for those fighting against groups of enemies, and may be a bit difficult against single-target enemies. However, as long as you upgrade the core Shred skill of this build to the highest level, most battles can be completed easily. For those tough boss encounters, you can also survive until the last moment with a low health value.

For the gear in Shred Druid build, the first thing you need to consider is the options that can provide you with critical strike damage, Willpower and resistances. Here, it is recommended that Emeralds be placed in the weapon slot, Sapphires in the armor slot, and Diamonds in the jewelry slot, and spend as much Diablo 4 Gold as possible to upgrade them.

Additionally, for Diablo 4 Season 7, you can also use the newly added Occult Gems that can provide you with damage, survivability, or spirit generation buffs to make your build more damage output and durability. The skills provided below for your Shred Druid build can be adjusted according to your play style, but this is just a best practice for you.
- Storm Strike
- Shred
- Poison Creeper (Active)
- Trample
- Blood Howl
- Petrify
Since Druid is the only Class in the game with two forms, it is also very important to use Spirit Boons system correctly. Generally, use Prioritize Gift of the Stag to increase your spirit, and then use Pack Leader to reset the cooldown time you are waiting for Poison Creeper to deal damage, which will allow you to maintain the poison and immobilization effects, thereby dealing more damage.

3. Quill Volley Spiritborn

Although Spiritborn, which was added to the game last season, has received some attribute nerfs in S7, Quill Volley skill that can cause tremendous damage has not been affected. And with the additional support of Gorilla Spirit Guardian, a build based on this skill can cause high-range damage to the enemy and put the enemy into a vulnerable state quickly and for a long time.

Based on this effect, when choosing a skill tree, you need to prioritize Quill Volley and spend a lot of Gold on nodes that can provide you with damage and the possibility of applying Vulnerable in order to maximize its effectiveness, such as Vital Strikes. The following are recommended skill choices for you.
- Rock Splitter
- Enhanced Rock Splitter
- Quill Volley
- Enhanced Quill Volley
- Soar
- The Seeker
Gorilla Spirit Guardian just introduced can greatly upgrade and improve the survivability of the entire build, so that you can focus more on building this damage-based build. For the second Spirit Guardian, you can choose Jaguar, as it can significantly increase your attack speed and overall damage.

Of course, when making the best build for D4S7, you must not ignore the theme of this season - Witchcraft Powers. For example, in Quill Volley Spiritborn build, you can use Vengeful Spirit to reduce the damage you take or Soul Harvest to increase the main attributes of the build.

Or you can choose to add Hex of Shattering or Hex of Flames to your build depending on whether you need to deal with groups of enemies and whether you need extra damage. As for the choice of Occult Gems, you’d better give priority to those that can increase your damage and survivability, such as Witching Hour or Killing Wind.

The above is the specific information of the three best builds you can use in Diablo 4 Season 7, as well as some things to pay attention to when building. Once again, the skills and gear recommended here are all based on the attribute statistics published at this stage, and you may need to make some adjustments based on your actual combat situation. By the way, if you are facing slow or even stagnant exploration progress in Diablo 4 Season 7 because of lack of gold or items, you might as well participate in the giveaway channel of IGGM Discord to enrich your inventory of all products. I wish you a happy game!

Also Read: Diablo 4 Promotions & Giveaways
Diablo 4 Season 7 Fugitive Heads Farming: How To Collect This New Currency Fast?

The arrival of Diablo 4 Season 7 introduces a brand new currency, Fugitive Heads. This is not only a necessary material for making Occult Gems, but can also be transformed into Restless Rot, which is an important resource for improving builds, so it is highly sought after by players in the new season.

However, Fugitive Heads are very rare, and they are even rarer than Greater Affixes Legendary items under Torment difficulty. This is interesting for ordinary items, and it is entirely possible that players will not see a Head until they reach very high Paragon levels. Now let’s guide you step by step on how to get these Fugitive Heads.

Using Draught Of Whispers

First, if you have Draught of Whispers, use it first. This is a consumable elixir in Diablo 4 that increases your chance of encountering Fugitive Heads by 50%, and the effect lasts for one hour. Draught of Whispers can come from multiple sources, for example, they can come from Whisper Caches, or from Rootholds Dungeons, or from Headless Husks, all of which increase your chances of getting Fugitive Heads.

Playing On The Highest Difficulty

Next, you should play with the highest difficulty. You may have noticed that Fugitive Heads only drop at Torment difficulty. So if you play at any difficulty below Torment, you will hardly get any Fugitive Heads.

And since the chance of getting Fugitive Heads increases with Torment Difficulty Tier. So ideally, if you want to maximize your farming efficiency, you should farm in Torment IV, if your character is capable of doing so. So, if you want to get more Heads in a short period of time, don’t be stingy about investing Diablo 4 Gold in your build to better optimize the build effect.

Farming Headhunts

By far, the best source of Fugitive Heads is Headhunts. These Headhunts are the new seasonal areas in Diablo 4, and all you have to do is go there and start doing Whispers, any Whisper objectives will do. This is because when you complete any Whisper objective in the new Headhunts area, Exposed Roots will spawn around. You should click on these Exposed Roots, and then a bunch of random things will happen. Of course, the most anticipated result is that after clicking on Exposed Roots, a boss will be summoned, so you have a better chance of getting a Fugitive Head drop.

So you should run around in Headhunts and click on all Exposed Roots you find. If you are lucky, then clicking a few times will summon a boss.

You know the boss has been summoned when you get a ping on your mini-map, but other people will get this prompt too. So if someone else clicks on Exposed Roots and then summons a boss, your map will also ping, and you should go there. So once your map pings, you know the boss will eventually spawn at this location.

Now, this boss could be a Headless Husk. Unfortunately, you won’t drop a Fugitive Head when you kill it, but the boss itself has a random chance of spawning a Fugitive Head. The chance of a Fugitive Head spawning increases with each Difficulty Tier, and also with your Draught of Whispers applied. This is why you have to play on the highest difficulty, and ideally with Draught of Whispers buff.

For example, if you play on the highest difficulty, Torment IV, and have Draught of Whispers buff applied, there is a 15% chance of a Fugitive Head spawning instead of a Headless Husk. The chance of this happening is less on lower difficulties, though, and this only applies to Torment Difficulty.

Running Rootholds Dungeon

Aside from that, Fugitive Heads can also be obtained from Rootholds Dungeon. Rootholds are mini-dungeons in Diablo 4 Season 7 that operate similarly to Nightmare Dungeons. To get into it, you need to prepare some Whispering Wood Sigils. These Sigils come from Whisper Caches, so when you farm Fugitive Heads in Headhunts, you can also get these Whispering Wood Sigils in your inventory by completing Whispers.

When you enter Rootholds, you will go through a dungeon, and at the end of the dungeon you will meet a boss. This boss has a chance to be a Headless Husk and also has a chance to be a Fugitive Head. Unfortunately, the chance of them being Fugitive Heads is not very high.

I think this way of collecting Fugitive Heads is not better than Headhunts. Because the chance of getting Fugitive Heads from Rootholds is very low, and it takes longer. Therefore, I only recommend going to Rootholds to get Fugitive Heads if you need items with Greater Affixes or if you have already completed all Headhunts and are waiting for the next Headhunt to appear.

Summary

Finally, let’s summarize it once more. We recommend that you prioritize collecting Fugitive Heads while running Headhunts, and don’t forget to run around completing Whisper objectives during this time, which will spawn Exposed Roots for you. You should click on all of these Exposed Roots and try to get the boss to spawn, and if any other player spawns a boss, you should also run to that place so that you have a chance to spawn and drop Fugitive Heads.

If you have completed all Headhunts areas, then you can go into Rootholds Dungeon and try to get Fugitive Heads from there. Remember, for both Rootholds and Headhunts, you should use Draught of Whispers if you have them, as they increase your chances of getting Heads. If you are short of these items, then you might as well pay attention to IGGM Discord, where the giveaway channel occasionally launches some sweepstakes. So hurry up and get active here. Maybe you will be the next lucky person!
Diablo 4 Season 7 New Changes And Features: How Much New Game Experience Will You Get In The New Season?

Some time ago, Diablo 4 Season 7 was officially announced, with the theme of Season of Witchcraft. A lot of new game content has been added, such as Witchcraft Powers, which pays tribute to Witch Doctor class in D3, and new gear, etc., which will make players curious and look forward to this new season.

However, since many new contents in this season have been modified by the developers, many players are not clear about the specific details, which may be detrimental to the thorough exploration of D4S7. So in order to avoid this situation, this guide will list the most important features and changes to the gameplay in Diablo 4 Season 7 for you, so that you can start exploring at will when you enter the new season.

1. New Seasonal Powers

The first thing I have to introduce is the theme of this new season, which is also Witchcraft Powers that can change the gameplay the most. They are unique passive activation skills with various effects. You can unlock these powers at new altars in the improved Tree of Whispers in Season 7, each of which corresponds to a different Witchcraft ability tree.

In addition, you also need to complete whisper bounties and defeat new Headrotten enemies to obtain the exclusive seasonal currency - Restless Rot, in order to gain the favor of Coven to fully unlock the very powerful seasonal power. Among all Witchcraft Powers, the most powerful are Lost Powers, which you need to unlock at Forgotten Altars. You can put one or two of them in your build to enhance your character’s damage ability or defense ability.

I believe that with the powerful help of this Witchcraft Powers, some correct builds may allow you to complete many game contents very smoothly and easily, even endgame, so that you can get Diablo 4 Gold and other loot from it very easily.

2. Class Changes

It is worth mentioning in Season 7 that Spiritborn class, the darling of the previous DLC, has been weakened here in order to achieve harmony and balance among the classes in the entire game. This may be a little annoying for players who like to use this class to explore most of the game content, but from the perspective of overall game balance and build diversity, it is beneficial for players to make more new builds with different abilities based on the current stage of improvements to adapt to all explorations.

As for other Classes in the base game, first of all, Druid’s Shred has received a buff to increase poison damage, and other skills have also added a lot of functions that can perfectly synergize with poison damage effects, making this elemental damage another possibility in this Class build that focuses on physical damage. Necromancer’s Blood Mist and Blood Wave have also received some powerful buffs, and the latter has a Unique that can be cleverly matched.

Although Sorcerer’s performance in D4’s testing of this new season was not satisfactory, it has received some very important passive enhancements and some changes to the recast action function in the official season, which is very worth a try. Rogue also received some new functions from Death Traps and Caltrops; Barbarian’s Hammer of Ancients, Whirlwind, and Iron Maelstrom have all received some degree of enhancement.

3. Paragon Board

Paragon Board has already undergone a major overhaul last season, and it has changed again in Season 7. First of all, as some players have already experienced, you can share the experience of Paragon Board between all characters. Secondly, all experience on Paragon Board can be transferred to Eternal Realm, and the upper limit has been increased from 200 to 300. At the same time, many of the nodes have been redesigned or enhanced.

This means that your exploration in the endgame stage may produce a lot of new builds to adapt to this new mechanism. In addition, the developers have added Armory so that you can switch between different builds at will, including skills, gear and Paragon Points. This change is something that D4 players have wanted for many years, because it will prevent players from spending a lot of time and Diablo 4 Gold to rebuild or change their builds when facing battles of different difficulties.

4. Tree Of Whispers

As just mentioned, Tree of Whispers plays a new role in Season 7 - not only can you exchange Favors here for Caches that can provide you with high-value D4 Items, you will also get new seasonal powers from here. In addition, the newly added Headrotten enemies to the game also come from here, so Tree of Whispers may be the center of this season.

It is worth mentioning that the reward system in the previous Tree has also been enhanced. Your chances of getting Ancestral Collections from it have been greatly improved, which may reduce your pressure to grind and farm these high-value items in those very difficult bosses, making you more willing to explore the rest of the game content.

5. New Dungeons And Enemies

In Season of Witchcraft, you will see that Sanctuary is full of new enemies. For example, Heads near the Tree of Whispers are gone, replaced by Headrotten enemies. In addition, a new seasonal dungeon called Rootholds has been added to the game, which you can enter through Whisper Wood Sigils obtained from Whisper Caches and Silent Chests.

Although each new season will provide you with some new enemies and dungeons to keep you fresh in the game, it is different in S7. The rewards and game experiences they provide you are not available in previous seasons, which may subvert your stereotype of this game that can only be played for grinding.

6. New Gear

As with all seasonal updates of Diablo 4, the developers will add new Legendary Aspects and Uniques to Classes in the game to increase the diversity of build types and maintain the balance between all classes. In addition, Runewords, which were newly added in the last season, have also received some fresh blood.

However, what is emphasized here is not them, but a new gem - Occult Gems, which can increase your basic armor value by 160 points and increase resistance to all elemental damage by 8%. Besides this benefit, it also has additional synergistic benefits to your new Witchcraft Powers when you place it in a jewel slot in your build, such as increased damage capabilities of the power, increased effectiveness against hexed enemies, and enhancements to attributes in the build.

The above are the specific features in Diablo 4 Season 7 that have significant changes to the overall gameplay and game experience. I hope that with the help of these changes and new features, you can better explore this new Season of Witchcraft and get a different gaming experience from it.

By the way, if your game progress is slow due to lack of gold or items in the new season, you can try to participate in the giveaway channel in IGGM Discord, where game product giveaways are held from time to time, which will make your exploration smoother. I wish you a happy game!
Diablo 4 Season 7 Unique Items: Which Items Are Essential To Builds?

The content of Diablo Season 7 has changed the power of each build again. Each build relies on different things. Some builds rely on skills, some builds may become powerful due to Witch Power of Season 7, and some builds rely on certain unique items. Without these items, these builds may become unpopular.

Not all builds will lose their power without unique items, but without these unique items, the gameplay of these builds will definitely change.

Here are the unique items that will affect the strength of your build:

Kessime’s Legacy

Kessime’s Legacy is a new item on Season 7. It brings great power to Necromancer in Season 7. This piece of equipment almost completely enhances Necromancer’s Blood Wave skills. After you equip your Necromancer with Kessime’s Legacy, your Blood Wave will be able to summon waves on both sides of you and finally converge at your feet. Enemies caught in the wave will be dragged in front of you and damaged.

This unique item gives Blood Wave the ability to make multiple damage, while making it difficult for enemies on either side of Necromancer to escape. Kessime’s Legacy expands the range of Blood Wave Necromancer’s attack.

Blood Wave Necromancer is the first-tier build in Season 7, whether it is leveling up, farming Diablo IV items, or dealing with bosses. It is absolutely inseparable from the help of Kessime’s Legacy.

Eyes In The Dark

Eyes in the Dark is a pant just as Kessime’s Legacy. This equipment is very important for Death Trap Rogue Build because this equipment greatly enhances Death Trap, making this skill 50-150% more damage.

This skill will allow Death Trap Rogue to deal very high damage and make the skill cool down faster. After triggering Eyes in the Dark, it will immediately rearm itself once. This saves you precious time.

Death Trap Rogue Build is not too outstanding in Season 7. Although this build can deal decent damage and has the ability to control the whole team. However, the operation difficulty of Death Trap Rogue Build is too high, and it has strict equipment requirements. If you don’t have Eyes in the Dark, then it is not recommended to try this build.

Mantle Of Mountain’s Fury

Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian cannot leave the help of Mantle of Mountain’s Fury. This chest armor is almost tailormade for Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian. This equipment will allow Barbarian to double the damage caused within five seconds after releasing Hammer of the Ancients, and Hammer of the Ancients will leave a seismic line on the ground after being released. The affected enemies will be slowed down, and after 4 seconds, this line will burst and cause a lot of damage.

Mantle of Mountain’s Fury gives Barbarian extremely violent damage, allowing him to crush all enemies in front of him. Hammer of Ancients Barbarian was almost forgotten in the previous season, but after the appearance of Mantle of Mountain’s Fury, Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian has successfully become one of the best speed farming builds. You will be able to obtain Diablo 4 Gold, potions, gem fragments, and other materials easily on the map.

Airidah’s Inexorable Will

Airidah’s Inexorable Will can be said to be a piece of equipment specially made for Druids. This unique ring can provide the wearer with a large amount of ultimate skill cooldown, and Willpower will also be increased to a certain extent. At the same time, the wearer will greatly increase the damage to close-range enemies.

At the same time, when you use your ultimate skill, you will also pull distant enemies in front of you and make physical damage to them. For every point of willpower you have, the physical damage you deal to the enemy will increase by 10%.

This is undoubtedly very suitable for Shred Druid. Shred Druid has strong mobility and can quickly attack and knock down enemies. Airidah’s Inexorable Will will provide great help for melee Druids.

Flameweaver

Flameweaver is a unique piece of equipment that completely transforms Fire Bolt Sorcerer. This equipment completely enhances Sorcerer’s ability to cast fire spells, making Firewall larger, allowing Sorcerer to cast more Fire Bolts, and also increasing the number of Fire Bolts that pass through Firewall from one to three.

Flameweaver provides high damage to Sorcerer, allowing Sorcerer to cast many Fire Bolts from a safe distance, almost like Sorcerer standing behind Firewall and shooting at monsters with a shotgun.

Fire Bolt Sorcerer is a very interesting build, and of course the upper limit is very high. You can try to use this build to clear The Pit. If you don’t have Flameweaver, don’t try it. Flameweaver is a must-have item for Fire Bolt Sorcerer!

If you feel that it is difficult to get started in the seventh season of Diablo 4, you can enter IGGM Discord, where there are often some giveaways, which may help you get through the early difficulties.

The above are the unique items that have the greatest impact on the build in the seventh season of Diablo 4. Their strength almost determines the performance of these builds in the seventh season. If you get these Diablo 4 items in the game, you can try these builds.
Diablo 4 Season 7 Quake-HOTA Barbarian Build: How To Build It?

The exciting Diablo 4 Season 7 has finally arrived. Are you ready to face all the challenges and threats brought by the new season? In addition to the necessary consumables such as sufficient gold coins and items, a qualified construction plan is also a necessary preparation for starting a new season journey. Here, we will start to introduce a Quake-HOTA Barbarian Build that is very powerful in Season 7 in the future.

The core of this build is the new Chest Armor, which allows us to make Earthquakes explode through Hammer of the Ancients. As early as on PTR, we can clearly feel that the damage potential of Earthquake in the new season is slightly higher than HOTA itself, so this build is also more focused on Earthquake damage.

However, with the new body armor and gloves, you can also reach a Hammer of the Ancients skill level of more than 50 points. So it also has a variant that focuses on HOTA damage, and in theory you can even try to create a balanced combination of the two. How to build it depends on your game style.

Skill Tree

Let’s start with the skill tree. First, HOTA and Whirlwind, one point each. Damage scaling is crucial for Hammer of the Ancients, as it increases all the damage we deal, and overpower hits will happen quite often.

Alternatively, we can also take the passive skill below, Warpath, and use Iron Skin as our only defensive skill, which will provide additional damage reduction and make Aspect of the Iron Warrior unstoppable.

Then we have War Cry and Leap, each Leap will generate additional Earthquakes. And Aggressive Resistance will provide some nice protection. Since we will always apply Berserking in Weapon Mastery Cluster, it has very good synergy with some of the passive skills at the bottom of the skill tree to increase our Earthquakes damage. Finally, we also need Key Passive, Unconstrained.

For the pure HOTA variant, maximizing HOTA effect is of course a no-brainer, and at the same time, we also need to invest 3 points each in Heavy Handed and Brute Force. For both variants, we choose Two-Handed Axe Mastery and use a one-handed weapon to perform all other attacks except Hammer of the Ancients.

Paragon Board

Next, let’s look at Paragon Board system. For the starter board, we chose Challenger Glyph. Here we have a weapon aspect that increases our Earthquake damage proportional to our Strength value. So we want to stack as much as possible on Paragon system and equipment.

On equipment, Force Of Nature is a must-have for an Earthquake build. So for Legendary nodes, we stack damage to close enemies on equipment. Meanwhile, on this board, we also light Dominate for continuous powerful attacks.

Next up is the classic Blood Rage Dominate board. Like we said before, we also continuously stack Berserking, so we can get a double damage bonus here. In addition, there is Paragon Glyph, Rumble, which is the most important Glyph regarding Earthquake damage, so there are a lot of Strength nodes on this board to maximize its effect.

Then there is Decimator board, which also provides a solid damage bonus, depending on whether we need more Berserking damage or damage to close enemies.

The last board is Bone Breaker, which provides an additional vigorous attack, which will not only increase our damage but also generate additional Earthquake on this board. However, since we already use Exploit Glyph for a pure HOTA build and want to use Weapons Master board with Crusher and Wrath Glyph, we will abandon Force Of Nature and the last two glyphs.

Equipment

For the necessary equipment required for this build, the first thing we mention must be Ugly Bastard Helm. Because it converts all our direct damage into fire damage and then provides a significant bonus to all our fire damage.

In addition, the new Mantle of the Mountain’s Fury is also a good unique Chest Armor choice. Because we always want a higher chance to deal double Earthquake damage, and the unique item effect causes Earthquake to explode, dealing all the damage in one burst. That’s why we definitely want to increase Earthquake duration, because longer duration means more damage from the explosion.

For gloves, we used Earthstriker’s Runic Gloves. To be honest, HotA rank isn’t as important as the extra Strength and Temper here. So we prefer to choose a gear that deals more damage to close enemies and has more Earthquake size. Of course, you can definitely choose other gear, depending on how much Diablo 4 Gold you have.

Then we equipped Aspect of the Iron Warrior on the pants, and Temper determines Earthquake size and Iron Skin cooldown.

Additionally, since we need Fury per second to make sure our resource management works on Amulets, we use Aspect of Bul-Kathos, which makes our Leap generate additional Earthquakes and provides additional damage reduction when standing in an Earthquake.

New Patch Buffs

Thanks to the new patch, we also get a powerful damage multiplier that scales with Strength stat. So that’s why we stack so much Strength to easily reach over 1,000% damage bonus. Of course, Temper to maintain the duration of Earthquake and damage to melee enemies are also important.

Items Needed For Pure HOTA Variant

For the pure HOTA variant, we want to add as many ranks as possible, so we have different priorities here. For equipment, we chose Banished Lord’s Talisman, Ring of Starless Skies, and Ring of Red Furor.

In the meantime, because we also want to stack strength and critical strike damage here, different weapons are also needed. You can add Grandfather Unique Two-Handed Sword to this setup, insert Runewords into the armor pieces, and fill the weapon with red gems to deal more overwhelming damage.

If you need more good equipment to optimize your build, then you might want to follow IGGM Discord, where some giveaways from time to time may allow you to get some free resources.

Final Thoughts

In short, the above is all for this guide. Because this build has only been tested on Season 7 PTR so far and still needs to be patched and optimized, Quake-HOTA Barbarian Build you use must be much stronger than what you see so far, and you can customize it to your play style. However, keep in mind that when playing this build, the biggest damage comes from Earthquake, otherwise you can also try pure HOTA Barbarian, which is also fun and should be able to run high-level Pit. Let’s look forward to this build making Barbarian class shine in the new season!
Diablo 4 Season 7 Best Leveling Guide: How To Quickly Reach The Level Cap Of 60?

Wanderer, the new Diablo 4 season is about to start. Are you ready? For every player, the initial goal of a new season journey is to level up, and although some people don't mind seeing the scenery halfway, the vast majority of people want to reach the level cap as quickly and efficiently as possible so that they can enter the endgame mode they really want to play.

With this in mind, here, we will discuss some tips on leveling in Season 7, especially the overall leveling plan and specific strategies, on how we can optimize them and make them better according to the changes in the new season.

It is worth mentioning that most of the information we have at present comes from D4 Season 7 PTR, which may affect some parts of it, both because of the nature of Public Test Realm and because they have changed the game since the second edition, but they do tell us some new content.

Do You Need To Skip Campaign?

The first big question is whether you skip Vessel of Hatred Campaign, and the answer is very likely. If you skip the dialogue and scenes in the expansion campaign entirely, you can actually finish it and level up in a few hours.

Especially in Season 7, you don’t have to do the campaign because some new changes severely limit the actual benefits of doing so, but Vessel of Hatred Campaign itself is not actually a slow way to level up. So if you want to do Diablo 4 DLC campaign, it’s not a direct fault, but there are better ways, especially ones that overlap more with long-term goals.

Mercenaries

A quick note first, at this point we’re not sure what will happen to Mercenaries in the new season. If you skipped the campaign on both the live servers and PTR, you already have Mercenary unlocked from your main character, of course, provided your main character has already completed the campaign, and Mercenary levels are shared between characters. However, we’re not sure if skipping the campaign will automatically unlock Mercenary in the new season, or if we’ll have to do the quest again.

Regardless, for Mercenaries, I specifically recommend Subo, as he’ll help you find herbs more easily, which will help you keep your Elixirs stocked up to ensure that XP buffs from Elixirs never wear off.

Beyond that, there are more general uses in between, and it’s recommended that you use Varyana and her passive skill, which gives you extra movement speed when you kill things with Massacre Bonus. It’s a perfect open world leveling combo.

Completing Headhunts

Next, let’s look at the mainstay of the new season mechanics, Witch Powers, which are all tied to Tree of Whispers, and the result of that is a new sub-region takeover event called Headhunts.

Among these events will be a whole new and improved set of Whispers of the Dead activities that will offer more rewards, there will be a ton of new monsters in there, and when you complete them, you can repeatedly turn them in for tons of Diablo 4 Gold and XP.

Since this is Whispers of the Dead event, combined with the fact that open world activities don’t scale in difficulty with the player’s level, we’re guessing the more people you interact with, the more efficient your leveling will be.

What’s more, the developers have said that they will reduce the density of monsters and elites in Headhunts areas in the last patch made between PTR and release, so this means that the fastest way to level up is expected to be in these Headhunts areas unless they completely eliminate the monster density in them.

So let’s continue to assume that they won’t completely destroy the monster density in Headhunts and make it our main activity. Players will complete Whispers in Headhunts areas, however, it will eventually spawn a boss around the main tree of the area.

If your goal is just pure pursuit of leveling speed efficiency, I would say that you should never kill the boss. Honestly, most leveling builds in Diablo 4 don’t focus on bosses or single target damage, so it makes sense to stick to your strengths and keep doing Whispers. If you run out of Whispers in an area, just move on to another Headhunts area.

Season Questlines

It is well known that the best way to level up in Diablo 4 is to interact with the season questlines themselves, and Season 7 is no exception, especially since this season will be directly tied into Coven’s Favor Reputation.

This is the new Reputation system for Season 7, and it unlocks things for you, like more parts of the questline, and Witch Powers that you can’t get from anywhere else. So, combined with the actual reward boxes from Whispers of the Dead Caches, this has the potential to give you some really nice power upgrades when you level up, speeding up your leveling process.

Rootholds Dungeon

Also of note are the new Rootholds mini-dungeon activities, which let you get Sigils from Silent Chests and Whispers Caches. What’s more, they’re highly intensive activities, so they’re completed very quickly compared to regular dungeons, and they have decent rewards, too.

The only downside is that there’s always a boss at the end of a Roothold, so whether or not you do this when leveling up depends on your single target damage. If your single target damage isn’t good, the general Whispers in Headhunts area will be more effective, but if single target damage is good, then you can do whatever Rootholds you encounter when you run into them.

Choosing Difficulty Tiers

The next big question is how to choose your Difficulty Tiers, how difficult these activities should be when you do them.

This is a pretty easy problem to solve, just do it and don’t try to prove anything to someone. Start with Normal Difficulty, get to level 15 or so, then if you’re only half as fast on Hard Mode as you are on Normal, then maybe you can try to bump it up to Hard Mode, because the extra gold and XP from running on Hard Mode is worth it. But if it takes twice as long to kill monsters, then it’s not worth it.

So if you want to increase your leveling efficiency by increasing Difficulty Tier, the most important thing is to keep up the speed. This is an efficiency game, so only do it when your build and gear are good enough, no matter how good you think it is subjectively.

Using Elixirs

It is well known that Elixirs give you 5% extra experience as long as they are activated. These Elixirs are easy to make early on, especially the high-level Elixirs, which give you 8% extra experience once you can start making and using them. Of course, this number itself is not high, but every little bit counts, and if you activate them 100% of the time, then it will definitely accumulate.

Season Journey

Meanwhile, Season Journey itself is also a consideration. Based on information leaked by the developers, we’ve learned that our early-game quests should be more effectively aligned with the efficient leveling activities of the first few chapters of Season Journey. This means that if we’re lucky enough, it will directly align with what we’re already doing and give us some nice little power boosts when we open those reward caches.

Season Blessings

The last thing to talk about is season boosts, which you can unlock with Smoldering Ashes after reaching them on the free track of Season 7 Battle Pass. The one consistent function they have always had is to get Boost XP buffs by killing monsters. So if you only care about leveling speed, this is also where you want to stick with the first four Smoldering Ashes.

Outro

In short, these methods should allow you to level up to level 60 easily and quickly. Of course, we still need to pay attention to the new seasonal activities, interact with them, and enjoy the new content they add in Season 7, and the new things they provide also happen to be a very effective way to level up. If you want to better welcome the new content that is coming, then you can pay attention to the giveaways that are often launched in IGGM Discord. Here is your chance to get free D4 products and help you conquer the Sanctuary! Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new season!