Diablo 4 Season 2: How To Farm Living Steel Fast In Helltides? - Mechanisms Behind Living Steel Chests
Posted: Oct 27, 2023 Views: 1380
With the well-deserved success and general positive reception of Diablo 4’s second season, many players praise the quality-of-life changes, the new vampiric skill system and the addition of the world bosses.
Among these, Duriel is the most sought after, since his loot is the rarest and most powerful. The boss is a cakewalk for a decently built character. Of course, the premise is that you have to prepare a lot of Diablo 4 Gold to upgrade your character.
However, in order to summon him, players need to collect Living Steel from Helltides. And this can be a tedious task, especially when compared to the similar, but much more fun and player-friendly Blood Harvest.
So, in this guide, we’ll take a deep-dive into the mechanisms of how the new Living Steel chests operate, despawn and respawn, and how you can use this knowledge to your advantage and optimize how you farm Living Steel.
#1: The Cost Of Opening A Living Steel Chest
The average player would skip over this part of the guide, saying: what about the cost? It costs 300 Aberrant Cinders to open a chest. It’s that simple, isn’t it? No.
For some reason, even if it says that you need 300 Cinders to open a chest, you actually only need 280. In fact, you can open a Living Steel chest even if you have as low as 280 Aberrant Cinders on you.
#2: The Number Of Chests
There can be either 2 or 3 Living Steel chests up at the same time, and this number depends on which zone is affected by the Helltide.
If the Helltide is in Scosglen or Kehjistan, there will be 3 Living Steel chests present on the map at the same time. For any other zone, this number is only 2.
For example, this Helltide only affects the region of Kehjistan, therefore you’d expect 3 chests being there at any given time. Clear? Good.
So far, everything has been relatively straightforward, but there is an additional twist to the spawning of Living Steel Chests. And the understanding of this mechanism separates a decent Helltide farmer from an efficient one: the Living Steel chests, similarly to Mystery chests, respawn at another location on the top of the hour.
In practice, this means that at exactly at the top of the hour (for example at six o’clock 0 minutes, five o’clock 0 minutes and so on), the chests disappear from their original positions, and respawn somewhere else.
If you opened a chest before this reset, then you’ll get to open the newly spawned ones after the respawn. This doubles the number of chests you can potentially open during one Helltide, and dramatically changes the optimal farming method of Living Steel. Because ideally you’ll want to open all Living Steel chests before this reset, and all of them after the reset as well.
Now this is not always possible, since the Helltide can end at the top of the hour (in this case there is no respawn) or it can begin very close to the top if the hour, in which case there is simply not enough time to farm the required Aberrant Cinders before the reset.
Nevertheless, an experienced Living Steel farmer should always maximize the number of chests opened during Helltide by taking advantage of this mechanism.
Hopefully, this guide has been useful for you, and maybe you learned some tricks on how to make the grind for Living Steel just a little bit less painful.
Recommended Article
-
Diablo 4 Season 8 Uniques And Legendary Aspects Confirmed: What New Items Will You Get To Use?
As April 29, the release of Diablo 4 Season 8 draws near, players are increasingly anticipating it, and one of the most concerning things is probably the tradition of each new season, what Uniques and Legendary Aspects will the developers add to the game.
The developers recently released a new announcement on this issue, stating that six different Uniques and six different Legendary Aspects will be added in this upcoming season, belonging to the six existing classes with different play styles.
In order to give you a clearer understanding of their effectiveness in Diablo 4 Season 8 and how they will affect your exploration in the future, this guide will give you a detailed introduction to the new items that each class has. However, it should be noted that since the new season has not yet been released, the statistics or properties of the items may change, and everything is subject to the final release.
For Barbarian
The developers wanted to enhance the damage capabilities of this already very powerful Barbarian class, so they added a new Bane of Ahjed-Den Unique Gloves, which can increase your build’s critical damage by 114%-150% and increase your Fury generation by 7-10 points per second.
Not only that, Mighty Throw skill you put in the build will increase by 4-6 levels, and every 12 seconds of combat, your next Mighty Throw will detonate a pulse, causing unpredictable fire damage to the enemy. In addition, when this glove is equipped, the cooldown time of all your skills will be reduced by 8%-12.5%.
With the help of this Unique, the shortcomings of Barbarian build’s poor offensive capabilities that were previously criticized by players will be solved. If you pair this item with the newly added Aspect of Delayed Extinction for this character, the damage of both Mighty Throw and Steel Grasp will be increased by 125%-250%.
For Druid
As the only class in Diablo 4 with two forms, there is surprisingly only one Gathlen’s Birthright Unique Helm in Season 8, but the potency and affixes it brings may make it more popular with players who prefer a build with strong attacks and solid survivability.
It will allow your character to use Nature Magic to deal 200-400 critical hits to enemies in human form, and will give you Anima of the Forest for 15 seconds, which adds a fixed 15% buff to your movement speed in your build and grants you Perfect Storm and Earthen Might Key Passives.
But even if you don’t spawn Anima of the Forest, you’ll move 17.5%-23% faster in human form, and your Willpower will increase by 10.5%-15%, all of which will make this seemingly clunky class more mobile. Additionally, the increased armor value of 224-296 gives you more Diablo 4 Gold headroom to invest in mobility and damage capabilities with this type of build.
Druid’s new Unique looks to make its survivability and mobility stronger, so in order to ensure balance, the developers have created an Aspect of Impending Deluge for it, which doubles the chain attack targets during the Storm Strike, and increases the damage of other skills to these target enemies by 30%-50% for 6 seconds.
For Necromancer
Necromancer’s ability to summon minions and high spell damage made it one of the most popular classes in the first few seasons of D4, and the new unique two-handed sword, Sanquivor, Blade of Zir, is expected to maintain its top spot.
It will increase the chance of your minions to deal double damage by 32%-50%, and this damage will cause the enemy to be affected by Vampiric Curse. Although Vampiric Curse is very soul-consuming in Necromancer builds, now minions will contribute one soul for each corpse they devour, which can be stacked up to 20.
Not only consumption, these undead armies can also cast souls from Vampiric Curse in other combat situations, which will increase the damage you deal by 15%-25%. The rest of the affixes and effects are very conventional, such as increasing Intelligence by 214-242 and increasing maximum health by 1,060-1,142.
Since this two-handed sword also increases the level of Skeleton Warrior Mastery, Skeleton Mage Mastery, and Golem Mastery by 2 levels, the advice here is to place it in difficult boss encounters as much as possible, and maximize the effectiveness of each affix by using D4 Gold.
For Legendary Aspect, Necromancer has Aspect of Service and Sacrifice, which makes Skeleton Warriors explode on death and deal with 200%-300% physical damage to nearby enemies. And when Skeleton Warrior loses 25% of its health per second in combat, the damage taken by Skeleton Mages is reduced by 90%, and the damage caused is increased by 50%-100%.
For Rogue
Although Rogue has a smaller player base in Diablo 4, the developers have also brought a Band of Ichorous Rose Unique Gloves with powerful effects, which will increase your Maximum Poison Traps by 4 and give Poison Traps a 18.5%-27.5% chance of casting twice.
Not only that, Poison Traps will also gain some benefits from combo points and have no cooldown in Inner Sight. These effects and affixes will make its poison damage stronger. Coupled with the 10.5%-15% increase in attack speed, Rogue is very likely to become a powerful character who kills people invisibly in S8.
Aspect of Contamination, a new item available to Rogue in the new season, will also give Poison Traps some benefits: an explosion will occur when triggered, causing 150%-250% poison damage.
But if you are dealing a critical hit at this time, the poison damage will be increased by 20%-40% and last for 5 seconds. In addition, Rogue’s maximum poison resistance will also increase by 3%-5% with the help of Band of Ichorous Rose, and the regular poison resistance will also increase by 41.5%-55%.
For Sorcerer
Sorcerer has always been very popular with players who focus on freezing elemental damage, so I believe that after the new Hail of Verglas Unique Helm enters the game, they may have a very big surprise, because your build’s maximum life will increase by 10.5%-15%, and your maximum ice resistance will increase by 7.5%, and the regular ice resistance will increase by 50%.
These are all efforts by the developers to get Sorcerer out of the label of glass cannon. With such high survivability and flexibility, you can use your powerful damage to eliminate large groups of enemies and efficiently earn Diablo 4 Gold.
As for Ice Shards skill, which is essential in Sorcerer build, this helmet also enhances it: it will increase the level of this skill by 4-6 and allow it to generate 2 additional fragments. After causing some damage to the enemy in the current period, the damage you can cause in 5 seconds will increase by 1-1.5%, up to 50%-75%.
On the other hand, Shivering Aspect, the new Legendary Aspect that Sorcerer will have in Season 8 Belial’s Return, will increase the damage taken by the enemy by up to 35%-55%, and increase the freezing effect you cast by 15%.
For Spiritborn
Although Spiritborn class was weakened in Diablo 4 S7, it did not prevent it from becoming the most suitable class for novices to try in the minds of players. So in order to allow novice players to get familiar with the mechanics of this game faster, the developers added a Sunbird’s Gorget Unique Amulet, which will increase your resistance to all elements by 30%.
In addition, Spiritborn build has a 16%-25% increase in movement speed, so that novice players can have better survivability and higher flexibility to explore Sanctuary more healthily. At the same time, your Potent, Furnace and Acceleration levels will increase by 2-3 levels.
When you use Storm Feather, a firestorm will form around you for 8 seconds, and it will cause 200%-400% fire damage every 0.2 seconds. If you pick up 5 additional Storm Feathers in a row, the intensity of this firestorm will increase by 100%, but the duration will not be refreshed.
Not only that, the new Rip and Tear Aspect of this class can increase the Rushing Claw skill by 10%-30%, and will provide you with some enhancements based on the number of charges you have when you cast it, such as restoring 15% of your maximum health, guaranteeing super damage, or guaranteeing a critical hit.
Although the delay in the release of Diablo 4 Season 8 Belial’s Return has made many players unhappy, the appearance of these new items may make players who had previously thought of giving up this interesting game return to the game and look forward to competing with Belial Boss that appeared in Diablo 3. I wish you a happy game!
-
Diablo 4 Season 8 First IP Collab With Berserk: A Comic With The Same Style Is About To Enter The Game!
Some time ago, in order to retain the current player base, Diablo 4 released the game’s development roadmap for 2025, showing some changes that will happen in the game in the next few months, such as the introduction of new seasons and new IP Collaboration.
According to the roadmap, the developer expects to launch D4’s first IP collaboration from April to July this year. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that players do not have much hope for these cross-border collaborations promised by the developer, because the previous collaborations with Overwatch 2 and StarCraft 2 released by the developer only launched some related skins.
However, to the surprise of all players, Diablo 4 developer has just announced that this dark-themed game will have its first IP collaboration with Berserk series of comics with the same dark fantasy style. This is also the first collaboration between this series of games and other fields besides games.
In this case, players’ expectations for this IP collaboration have reached the highest point. So this guide will introduce you to the possibility and possible impact of this cooperation based on some of the information currently leaked and published, so that you can prepare for it.
About Berserk
To thoroughly understand the content of D4’s first IP cooperation, you must know the specific information of the cooperation object. Berserk is a work created by the late cartoonist Kentaro Miura that pioneered a new field of comics. It tells the story of a mercenary named Guts surviving in a dark fantasy world full of punishment.
Although this pioneering cartoonist died in 2021, Berserk series of comics has been continued by his friend Kouji Mori and Miura’s assistants and students, which also laid the foundation for this comic to influence the large output of many games of the same style during that time, such as Dark Souls and Elden Ring developed by From Software.
Over the years, Berserk has launched two anime adaptations, a trilogy of animated films, three video games, a spin-off novel, a collectible card game, and has collaborated with highly popular games such as Dragon’s Dogma, all of which have made the protagonist Guts in the comics highly recognizable around the world.
In view of this, many players feel that Diablo 4’s first external IP cooperation with Berserk, who has a similar style, is a very wise choice, because Sanctuary may have earth-shaking changes with the addition of this brave warrior. Not only that, some loyal fans of the original comics also said that it is rare to see such a unified style of IP cooperation in one work.
Also Read: Diablo 4 Season 8 May Borrow A Battle Pass From A Popular Game
About This IP Cooperation
Since the Diablo 4 developer only released a video on its social platform, some specific contents of this collaboration have not been fully announced. But this does not prevent players, including me, from finding some clues: there is a Brand of Sacrifice-marked Barbarian, carrying the very iconic Berserker Armor and Dragon Slayer sword from Berserk.
After the release of this animation video, all D4 players began to look forward to it, because before this, when cooperating with World of Warcraft from the same developer, it simply placed images of bosses and characters from Diablo IV directly into sets and accessories in the in-game store, without any regard for suitability.
Even in Nintendo Switch version of the same series Diablo 3, it only cooperated with Cucco pet from Legend of Zelda to a certain extent. So D4’s IP cooperation with Berserk this time will very likely change some very important items in the build and gameplay actions in the game, giving players more builds possibilities and creating more ways to explore and farm Diablo 4 Gold.
However, some players are wondering if the game will introduce some characters from Berserk than targets to challenge, and get more Berserk-themed items in this encounter. But from my point of view, it is unlikely, because the main villain God Hand in the comics did not experience a real battle in the game.
In addition, the icons of iOS and Android platforms appeared at the end of this animation video, so many players are also speculating that D4’s IP cooperation will be still brought free-to-play Diablo Immortal, which is also a very popular one in Diablo series. Hopefully, the two games will bring different types of cooperation to players to varying degrees, so as to surprise all players.
It is expected that this crossover event with Berserk will be launched as part of a series of updates in Diablo 4 Season 8 Belial’s Return, and the most exciting one for players may be the return of Ultimate boss Belial. We look forward to the latest season of Diablo 4 on April 29th to bring players a lot of new content to save the dwindling number of players. Wish you a happy game!
-
Diablo 4 Season 8 Twisting Blades Rogue Build: How To Build It?
Rogue was nerfed a bit in Season 8, but Boss Powers have added new possibilities to Rogue builds. Twisting Blades Rogue builds were endgame builds in Season 7, and with skills that use poison, they can deal very heavy damage to single enemies.
In Season 8, Boss Powers can increase core skills and deal a lot of poison damage to enemies, so Twisting Blades Rogue Build may become a very good build in Season 8.
Pros And Cons
Pros
- Can clear enemies at a fast pace
- High single-target burst damage
- Fast movement speed, can quickly pass through dungeons
- Easy to learn
Cons
- Very gear-dependent affixes
- Small attack range
- Gear-dependent, without Rakanoth’s Wake and Shroud of Khanduras, Rogue becomes very fragile
Twisting Blades Rogue Build was only average in Season 7. He has high single-target damage, but has trouble dealing with groups of monsters. So he will be slow to complete Season quests and farm gold.
But Season 8 requires farming bosses, and Twisting Blades Rogue Build allows you to deal with bosses efficiently, which may be an advantage.
Skills
Primary Skills
- Twisting Blades (Rank 5): Pierce the enemy with your blade, dealing 70% damage and increasing the damage you deal to this enemy over 3s for 3 seconds. The blade returns in 1.5s and deals 112% damage to the enemy.
- Caltrop (Rank 1): Create a Caltrop trap that slows enemies by 50% for 7s and deals 45% damage.
Secondary Skills
- Poison Imbuement (Rank 5): Injects poison into the weapon. The next two Imbueable Skills of Rogue deal poison damage and additional poison damage equal to 100% of its base damage over 6 seconds.
- Shadow Step (Rank 1): Rogue moves unstoppably through the shadows and comes behind the enemy, dealing 80% damage and gaining 40% speed.
- Dash (Rank 1): Dash forward and slash at the enemy, dealing damage and slowing it down.
- Shadow Clone (Rank 5): Within 15 seconds, Rogue’s shadow will imitate his movements and deal damage to nearby enemies. At Rank 5, releasing this skill can deal 200% damage and stun nearby enemies for 3 seconds.
- Specialization: Preparation.
The above is just one of the skill combinations of Twisting Blades Rogue Build. This skill configuration focuses more on single-target damage and increases Rogue’s survival space by slowing down the enemy.
Another skill combination is: Twisting Blades, Smoke Grenade, Shadow Step, Poison Trap, Poison Imbuement, and Death Trap. This skill combination focuses more on using traps and toxins, and performs better when dealing with groups of enemies.
Twisting Blades, Shadow Step and Poison Imbuement are always the core of this build. As long as you have enough Diablo 4 Gold, you can always change the remaining skills to your favorite ones.
Boss Powers
- Main Boss Powers: Ashava’s Poison Breath/Grigoire’s Lightning Square
- Harbinger of Hatred’s Volley
- Avarice’s Explosive Ore
- Sinerat’s Flames
Ashava’s Poison Breath: Hitting an enemy affected by continuous damage will generate a poison wave, causing huge poison damage to the hit enemy within 4 seconds. The poison effect will increase by 10% for every 1% continuous damage taken by the target’s current health.
Grigoire’s Lightning Square: After casting the core skill, lightning will spread outward for 1.2 seconds, causing huge lightning damage with each attack.
Both of the two Boss Powers are suitable for this build, and both are Rare Boss Powers. If you prefer to use poison, then Ashava’s Poison Breath will be a skill that suits you quite well.
If you are good at using Twisting Blades skill, then Grigoire’s Lightning Square can be used with this skill to deal Lightning damage. But you need to use affixes that can reduce the skill CD to match this Boss Powers.
Also Read: ARPG April Competition: Can Diablo 4 Season 8 Stand Out?
Equipment
- Helm: Heir of Perdition
- Chest Armor: Shroud of Khanduras
- Gloves: Slice and Dice Aspect
- Pants: Umbrous Aspect
- Boots: Rakanoth’s Wake
- Amulet: Conceited Aspect
- Ring 1: Ring of Starless Skies
- Ring 2: Aspect of Corruption
- Ranged Weapon: Bladedancer’s Aspect
- Dual-Wield Weapon 1: Accelerating Aspect
- Dual-Wield Weapon 2: Aspect of Creeping Death
Rogue is very fragile and needs Ancestral Unique items to improve his armor strength. The above equipment recommendations are mainly focused on improving Rogue’s melee attack damage and Twisting Blades damage.
Before you get the best equipment, you can use other equipment with excellent affixes as a substitute. You need to pay attention to the following affixes:
- Improve core skills.
- Improve melee damage.
- Increase maximum health.
- Increase movement speed/Dexterity.
Active Runes
- Armor: Igni and Ohm
- Weapon: Cir and Qax
Gems
- Weapon: Diamond. Increases ultimate damage by 60%.
- Armor: Emerald. Increases 60 Dexterity Attribute.
- Amulet: Skull. Increases 240 armor.
- Ring 1: Diamond. Increases elemental resistance by 12%.
- Ring 2: Skull. Increases 240 armor.
Since Twisting Blades Rogue has weak survivability and its damage is actually overflowing, Gems you choose need to improve survivability as much as possible.
The above is a brief introduction to Twisting Blades Rogue Build. Rogue is a high-damage, high-risk class, and is not good at dealing with group monsters and farming gold. But once you can live with its shortcomings, you’ll have fun seeing how quickly it can take down a single enemy.
-
Diablo 4 Season 8 New IP Collaborate Speculation: Who Will It Be?
In the 2025 roadmap announced by Diablo 4 a few days ago, besides some frustrating seasonal power updates, the only thing that can interest players is two IP collaborate. These two IP collaborations will take place in Season 8 and Season 10.
At least in PTR, players have found no menus about other works, so this has also aroused discussion among players. Which two works will these two new IP collaborate be?
Diablo IP Collaboration History
It is normal for players to be surprised that Diablo 4 requires new IP collaborate. Because in Diablo series, developers have always kept the series pure, and there is almost no history of introducing elements from other works.
But Diablo series is not completely without cooperation with other IPs, but most of these cooperations are limited to cooperation with different works of the same company, such as:
World Of WarCraft x Diablo
Diablo 4 launched a cross-border linkage with World of WarCraft in 2024. Players can get the Invincible Mount Bundle, as well as Lich King, Kael’Thas, and Garrosh transmogrification, but you can’t use gold to get these new appearances, and you need to use Platinum. In addition, Diablo Immortal also launched a cooperation project with the world of Azeroth.
Diablo Immortal Seasonal Themes & Events
Although players may not pay much attention to Diablo Immortal, Diablo Immortal always tries to make changes in the dark and cold tone.
Overwatch 2 x Diablo
The background of Overwatch and Diablo is completely different. Its game background is the near future with advanced technology. There are many exquisite skins in Overwatch, and these skins basically represent different background stories or even different games.
Overwatch 2 added several Diablo-themed skins to the game:
- Demon Hunter Sombra
- Barbarian Zarya
- Inarius Pharah
But this is only a one-sided collaboration, and Diablo 4 has not added any Overwatch-related appearances or even decorations.
Learn More: These Tips Found In Diablo 4 Season 8 PTR May Help You Upgrade Quickly In The Official Version
Who Will Be The Two IPs?
As mentioned earlier, Diablo 4 pays great attention to keeping the game pure, and cooperation with new IPs will inevitably have some impact on the game worldview. Game developers claim that IP collaborate will not destroy the immersion of the game, and these two IPs will belong to the dark fantasy category like Diablo 4.
Based on this condition, we can guess which works the following two mysterious IPs will be.
Dark Souls / Elden Ring
These two works may be the first guess of most players, at least I think so. Dark Souls and Elden Ring are from the same production company, and after years of development, they have accumulated an enormous fan base. And the backgrounds of these two works are also dark and profound, almost perfectly meeting the linkage requirements of Diablo 4.
Elden Ring is Game of the Year for 2022, but if it is an IP collaboration, Dark Souls should be a better choice, because there are many classic game elements in Dark Souls that are very suitable for IP collaborate. Diablo 4 can release some armor appearances, or replace the treasure chests in the event with treasure chest monsters, or temporarily replace Diablo 4 Gold in the player’s backpack with souls.
Demon’s Souls
At least in terms of name, Demon’s Souls is closer to Diablo 4 than Dark Souls. Demon’s Souls, as a predecessor of Dark Souls in a sense, also has very classic elements. But because of its high difficulty, the fan base of this work is far less than that of Dark Souls and Elden Ring, but this is still a very likely choice.
Castlevania
Castlevania is one of the most classic game series in the history of games. Almost every dungeon in the game has been inspired by this game. Castlevania’s main boss is Count Dracula, and Diablo 4 has many bosses and monsters made with vampire elements.
If Diablo 4 cooperates with Castlevania, Lord Zir may change his appearance and name for a short time and reappear. But Vampire Powers has been gone for too long, so the probability of cooperation with Castlevania is not that high.
The Witcher
The Witcher often cooperates with other IPs. From the background of The Witcher, Geralt often teleports to other worlds to kill some monsters. The world background of The Witcher is far less desperate than Diablo 4, but there are some similarities.
However, most players should not refuse to have a transmogrified Geralt’s appearance, or play a Gwent card game with the background of Diablo 4?
Bloodborne
Bloodborne is another game full of chaos and despair, and the monsters in it are even more twisted than those in Diablo 4. But to be honest, the background of Bloodborne is set in Victorian era, which is quite different from the era of Diablo 4, so there are some possibilities for Bloodborne and Diablo 4 to collaborate, but not much.
The Way Of IP Collaborate
These collaborations will most likely only add some appearances to the game, such as clothing appearances or mount appearances, and the gameplay will not change much. Otherwise, if the developers of Diablo 4 really have such ideas, why not add it to the game as a new mechanism earlier?
If the developers of Diablo 4 are really creative, maybe they will add some small in-game activities or a temporary task, so that players can get gold and some limited appearances after completing the task.
IP collaborate will not be officially launched until June, and players will have to wait for a while to get detailed news. Which work do you think Diablo 4 will collaborate with?
-
Diablo 4 Season 8 FireQuake Barbarian Endgame Build: How To Build It?
In Diablo 4 Season 7, Quake Barbarian Build was one of the best Barbarian builds, and Barbarian was not nerfed much in Season 8, so this build will still be playable in Season 8.
In Season 8, since Witch Powers will be removed and Boss Powers will become the new Season Powers, Boss Powers can bring additional power to each class. FireQuake Barbarian Endgame Build is based on Boss Powers and makes some improvements to Quake Barbarian Build.
Pros And Cons
Pros:
- Can quickly clear monsters
- Can cause high damage in a large area
- Fun to play
Cons
- Need to wait for cooldown
Skill Selection
Primary:
- Lunging Striker (Rank 1): Dash forward and attack the enemy for 33% damage.
- Ground Stomp (Rank 5): Slam the ground for 112% damage and stun nearby enemies for 3 seconds.
Secondary
- Rallying Cry (Rank 1): Send out a rally call. Within 6 seconds, your movement speed increases by 30%, resource generation increases by 40%, and allies are also affected within 3 seconds.
- War Cry (Rank 5): Damage increases by 21% within 6 seconds after releasing the skill, and allies are also affected within 3 seconds.
- Challenging Shout (Rank 1): Gain 40% damage reduction and taunt nearby enemies.
- Call of the Ancients (Rank 5): Summons three Ancients to aid you in combat. While active, you gain 40% movement speed and 20% ranged damage reduction.
Challenging Shout and Rallying Cry provide Barbarians with great survivability, while War Cry increases damage. After casting Challenging Shout, use Ground Stomp to easily defeat a large group of enemies.
You can also replace Lunging Striker with Leap, which is also very fun, but it will take you some Diablo 4 Gold to change skills.
The best choice for Weapon Techniques for this build is Two-Handed Axe Specialization, which applies vulnerability to enemies and helps increase damage.
Boss Powers
- Andariel’s Flaming Skull (Legendary Boss Power)
After standing for 1 second, Barbarian summons a skeleton that lasts for 4 seconds. It will spin around you and spit fire, burning enemies for massive fire damage over 3 seconds. The burning effect increases the damage of damage over time effects against enemies. For 5 seconds after activating Boss Power, all other attacks of Barbarian will burn enemies, dealing massively more damage over 3 seconds.
Andariel’s Flaming Skull is a Boss Power that is used as Main Boss Power. It is the main source of fire damage in FireQuake Barbarian Build. It is a Legendary Boss Power that requires you to kill Andariel in season 8 on Torment to unlock it, and it takes a lot of time to upgrade this power to the highest level. This is why this build is an end-game build.
But as a Legendary Boss Power, the increase it brings is also amazing. The continuous damage caused by burning, combined with the fast attack speed and multiple earthquakes and shouts, stacks burning on the enemy. Most enemies cannot withstand the damage of Barbarian’s attack, and they will be torn apart like paper.
Gears
- Helm: Ugly Bastard Helm
- Chest Armor: Aspect of Might
- Gloves: Fists of Fate
- Pants: Aspect of Bul-Kathos
- Boots: Ghostwalker Aspect
- Slashing Weapon: Vehement Brawler’s Aspect
- Bludgeoning Weapon: Aspect of Earthquakes
- Dual-Wield Weapon 1: Aspect of Creeping Death
- Dual-Wield Weapon 2: Aspect of Elements
- Amulet: Rapid Aspect
- Ring 1: Bold Chieftain’s Aspect
- Ring 2: Aspect of Inner Calm
If you need to maximize the damage output of Barbarian, then this build has high equipment requirements. The best helm is Ugly Bastard Helm for this build, because this helmet can reduce the cooldown of key skills and can also cause fire damage. And Fists of Fate can increase your critical hit chance and attack speed, etc. This unique equipment is very versatile and can bring moral improvements to each class.
Other Aspects are legendary Aspects that you need to obtain by disassembling Legendary Items and clearing dungeons. It may take some time to find all the required legendary aspects, but Barbarian is very fast in clearing dungeons and farming Gold, so don’t worry.
In addition, if you get The Grandfather, then this Ancestral Mythic Unique Two-Handed Sword is also suitable for this build, you can use it.
Rune
- Cir (Rune of Ritual) + Lum (Rune of Ritual)
- Moni (Rune of Ritual) + Tec (Rune of Invocation)
Rune is equipped with your weapon, and Rune can only exert their power after combining. These Runes can mainly help you save resources and speed up the release of skills.
Gems
- Weapon: Amethyst. Increases continuous damage by 48%
- Armor: Ruby. Increases 60 Strength Attribute
- Amulet: Diamond. Increases elemental resistance by 12%
- Ring 1: Diamond. Increases elemental resistance by 12%
- Ring 2: Diamond. Increases elemental resistance by 12%
Mercenaries
- (Primary) Subo: Seeker, Wire Trip, Cover Fire
- (Reinforcement) Raheir: Bastion, Lunging Striker
You can use gold to hire mercenaries. They can resist monster attacks on you and control them at the same time. Don’t ignore their role.
The above is the general content of FireQuake Endgame Barbarian Build. You can also adjust the skills yourself. LeapQuake Barbarian Build is also a very entertaining way to play, but it is not very suitable for Andariel’s Flaming Skull. But if you want to play easily in season 8? Then try this build.
-
Diablo 4 Roadmap 2025 Players Review: Why Does It Disappoint Players?
Diablo 4 recently announced its 2025 roadmap, which is their update plan for 2025. In their expected plan, there will be 3 seasonal updates in 2025. Each update will add new powers and make appropriate adjustments to the game content, such as the difficulty of the boss and the content of the dungeon. In addition, there will be two collaborations with other IPs in this year’s update.
However, players are not excited about the roadmap announced by Diablo 4 company. In fact, quite a few players are disappointed.
Why Are Players Disappointed?
1. Less Content
From the published roadmap, the focus of each season is to change the power of the season, and the description of other parts is very vague. Reddit user MaiasXVI described the 2025 roadmap like this:
Season 7
- Seasonal gimmick power
- Introducing new currency and armory features, which should have been available when the game was released
Season 8
- Seasonal gimmick power
- Old bosses from Diablo III
Season 9
- Seasonal gimmick power
- Slightly updated Nightmare Dungeon
- Console KB&M Support (they should have been there at Diablo 4 launch day, too)
- More to come!
Season 10
- Seasonal gimmick power
- Stay tuned!
2026
- Stay tuned!
Overall, this roadmap is lackluster. Diablo 4 has such a long development period each season, but they never come up with something that really changes the game. They took a lot of time on insignificant stat tweaks to try to get players to waste more time leveling up or collecting Diablo 4 Gold. Players complain that Diablo 4 developers are even slower than indie developers.
2. The Roadmap Is Vague
Another reason why players are unhappy or even angry about this roadmap is that the information on this roadmap is too brief and there is not much useful information. Each season has a seasonal force, and all players know that the developers of Diablo 4 will update it this way. The information about Season 10 is the most perfunctory.
These vague contents show that the developers themselves have not figured out what new content to bring to the game, perhaps making an ending, or a leaderboard, etc.
Diablo Community Manager Lyricana Nightrayne had to respond to these arguments. He said that the content shown in the roadmap is not all the content, and the content development team of the second half of Diablo 4 in 2025 is still exploring.
This roadmap is like a new coat of paint every season. It looks very perfunctory, and there is almost no new content that can continue after the end of the season.
3. Repeated Gameplay
Each season of Diablo 4 has fallen into a similar vortex, with no refreshing content. Players in each Season are almost repeating the same things: leveling, farming gold, and looking for legendary items.
And the loot of Diablo 4 is also disappointing. The essence of Diablo 3 is that you get that dopamine rush when you see a beam of color in a pile of drops and then decide if it’s worth what you want.
But Diablo 4’s loot is all boring, generic items, like gold or ordinary quality weapons. You can’t visually identify which items are really good. You have to carefully check each loot before throwing it in the trash, and most of the time the game drops are cookie-cutter garbage.
While loot filters can reduce the monotonous garbage a little, it doesn’t make the loot exciting.
4. Inducing Consumption
A common complaint in the player community is that more and more updates in Diablo 4 tend to make players consume: $70 game, $40 expansion, $10 battle pass, and skins of more than $20.
Players predict that IP cooperation is just to launch new appearances. This model provides Diablo 4 developers with sufficient funds, and the interval between each season is also long, but they still haven’t come up with something new.
Players feel that Diablo 4 is a half-finished product, and many things have not been solved, but the developers have lost their original intention and only want to come up with a new look and induce player consumption.
Learn More: Diablo 4 Reveals Roadmap For Updates In The Next 6 Months
Mike Ybarra’s Comments
Mike Ybarra, former president of Diablo 4 company, also criticized the roadmap for not solving the core problems of the game at all. He believes that the game has been stuck in a three-month restart cycle since the release of the fourth season, and has been standing still. If they can’t get rid of this cycle, then he doesn’t know where Diablo 4 will go.
The 2025 roadmap of Diablo 4 does not solve the core problems of the game, which is why all players are disappointed. Some players think that the problem with Diablo 4 is that they don’t feel any connection with the long journey of empowering and upgrading characters. It feels like a math exercise rather than a game process.
They want changes to the novice area and the end of the game area. They come to each new area and everything feels the same, which kills any sense of immersion. Games can create many ways to improve your character, but creating a world that you can immerse yourself in is what differentiates one game from another.