With WoW Cataclysm Classic just around the corner, Deathwing burst forth and destroyed the world, bringing sweeping changes to Azeroth and many of WoW’s systems. Fast forward to today, and Deathwing is returning once again in WoW Cataclysm, launching on May 20.
A lot has happened since 2010, so let’s take a moment to revisit Cataclysm patches, review the story and some features introduced, and take a look at the brand new changes coming to Cataclysm Classic!
Patch 4.0.1 is Cataclysm system pre-patch, introducing several interfaces and system updates ahead of release.
Reforging was introduced, allowing players to assign some of an item’s secondary properties to different secondary properties, and Mastery was introduced, providing a new secondary property for you to consider!
Additionally, spells and abilities changed removing ranks, instead simply scaling with character level, and Spellbook UI was updated with it.
With ammo removed from the game, hunters have seen a number of quality of life improvements, especially as cloth, leather, and mail users see their armor become as durable as plate, which normalizes repair costs across classes. This avoids the problem of spending large amounts of WoW Cataclysm Classic Gold and still not getting satisfactory results, as was the case in the past.
Patch 4.0.3 brings us Shattering. Without warning, the corrupted Dragon Aspects Deathwing bursts from the stone heart of Deepholm, the realm of earth in Elemental Planes. Jagged cracks tear through the land, and raging waves crash against coastal areas.
From Thousand Needles to Blasted Lands, the surface of Azeroth is reshaped in a violent upheaval. Forced to defend their homes against Deathwing and his minions, both the Horde and the Alliance lived with the uneasy fear that the world as they knew it had changed forever.
Shattering saw the continents of Kalimdor and Eastern kingdoms reshaped, offering unique experiences in previously existing areas and new adventures in never before seen zones.
Two races were unlocked Goblins for Horde and Worgen for Alliance, and fresh race and class combinations accompanied them. Nine new dungeons were introduced:
Three new raids saw champions face down to some of the bigger threats and allies of Deathwing!
Blackwing Descent was the layer of the resurrected Nefarian, son of Deathwing, and the site of the heinous experiments he conducted in an attempt to create a new breed of chromatic dragons.
Bastion of Twilight was the primary fortress of Twilight Hammer. Cho’gall, the leader of the cult, dwelled here, as well as Sinestra, mother of Nefarian and Onyxia and creator of the first Twilight Dragons, reanimated and overseeing the creation of another Twilight clutch.
Throne of Four Winds was located inside Skywall, and was Al’Akir’s personal lair! With the barrier between Elemental Plane and Azeroth ruptured, his invasion needed to be stopped.
Patch 4.1 Rise of the Zandalari is the first major patch for WoW Cataclysm! The days where the great troll empire stretched across ancient Kalimdor, were long past. As Azeroth recovered from the destruction of Cataclysm, the world’s divided troll population faced a bleak future.
These dark times spurred the trolls of the Zandalar to drastic action. They began a bold crusade to save their race by unifying the trolls into a powerful empire.
With Zandalari’s aid, the fallen capitals of Gurubashi and Amani nations - Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman began rebuilding, replenishing their forces for a bloody campaign to expand their territories.
Yet Vol’jin and his Darkspear trolls were not aligned with Zandalari. They vowed to work with the Horde and the Alliance to prevent the trolls from starting a new war in Azeroth. Soon Vol’jin was forced to act on his promise, for if Gurubashi and Amani were left to their own devices, the world would know the legendary strength and savagery of the ancient troll empires once again.
With the trolls attempting to rebuild and reunite, Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub were reimagined, becoming heroic 5-player dungeons.
Guilds received some attention with the introduction of Guild Challenges that rewarded achievements and gold for completing various content in a guild group. Guild finder tool was also introduced, designed to help players find like-minded friends to tackle these new adventures with.
And a very helpful quality of life improvement also came with this patch. The ability to resurrect allies from raid or party frames, instead of having to locate a fallen companion’s body in the world.
Patch 4.2 Rage of the Firelands, was the second major patch of Cataclysm. Across the breadth of Azeroth, Horde and Alliance dealt crushing blows to Deathwing’s elemental minions and fanatic Twilight’s Hammer cultists.
As the elements continue to be in disarray, it seems that the noble shamanic order may finally be on the verge of collapse under the enormous weight on its shoulders. Even Thrall, for all his wisdom and skill, had grown aggravated by his failure to effectively communicate with Azeroth’s elements.
Recently, his calls were acknowledged, but the malevolent entity that responded had only intensified Thrall’s fears and doubts.
Patch 4.2 brought with it a new raid, Firelands. This molten hellscape in Elemental Plane was forged by Titans to house Ragnaros and his servants. Ragnaros’s invasion of Mount Hyjal could not go unanswered, as champions took the fight to his domain.
A new legendary item, Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest could be obtained after completing a considerable questline. This two handed staff was incredibly powerful, and wielding it was a true testament to dedication!
A nice quality of life change, improved Durability Displays’s warnings, adjusting yellow to signify 20% durability as opposed to a durability of 5%. And access to a wealth of information and lore was added directly in-game with the introduction of Dungeon Journal.
Patch 4.3 Hour of Twilight was the third and final installment of cataclysm, and its largest content update since launch!
In the aftermath of Cataclysm, the warriors of Azeroth rose up against the forces of the mad black Dragon Aspect Deathwing. Thus far, the world’s defenders had shattered the power base of Twilight’s Hammer cult and defeated the raging elemental Lords Al’Akir and Ragnaros.
Yet despite these victories, as long as Deathwing was free to pursue his twisted goals, Azeroth would remain under threat. No one was more aware of this fact.
The great Dragon Aspects such as Nozdormu, Alexstrasza, Kalecgos, and Ysera. Together with the wise shaman Thrall, they devised a plan to vanquish Deathwing with a weapon of his own design: the infamous Dragon Soul.
Thrall and the noble aspects would call upon Horde and Alliance to help them retrieve the artifact - No longer in existence - from the distant past. Those brave enough to face the challenge would embark on a perilous journey from Azeroth’s apocalyptic End Time to Dragon Soul’s point of origin during the catastrophic War of the ancients. If the heroes succeeded, an even more harrowing battle awaited them in their present.
Hour of Twilight brought three new dungeons:
End Time saw heroes visit potential futures that would come to exist should Deathwing prevail, pitting them against visages of corrupted heroes of Azeroth and ultimately facing down a tormented version of those Nozdormu, called Murozond, who created Infinite Dragonflight and shattered the time ways in an attempt to subvert his own mortality.
Well of Eternity flung heroes back 10,000 years in time, just before Sundering to assist Illidan and Tyrande in battling Burning Legion. As Azshara attempted to bring Sargeras himself to Azeroth. Hour of Twilight saw heroes prepare for the last battle with Deathwing, and fight alongside Thrall to bring Dragon Soul to Wyrmrest Temple.
The final Raid, Dragon Soul, continued to the fight in the besieged temple through Last of Deathwing’s lieutenants and ultimately onto Destroyer himself. As Thrall, Dragon Aspects and the champions of Azeroth attempted to end Cataclysm once and for all.
A new legendary pair of daggers called Fangs of the Father could be obtained by rogues after completing a multi-quest chain that concluded with the defeat of Deathwing.
And Raid Fighter tool was introduced, offering a quick way for players to form a group for a specifically tuned version of Dragon Soul Raid.
With all these epic storylines, legendary items, dungeons, raids, Cataclysm era was densely packed.
But perhaps one of the greatest systems introduced in all of Cataclysm, perhaps one of the greatest systems introduced in all of WoW came with patch 4.3 - Transmogrification.
This new cosmetic system allows players to customize their gear like never before by copying the appearance of one item onto another. Gone were the days of mismatched armor and feeling like you had to choose stats over aesthetics!
In Cataclysm Classic, the core story and experiences will remain, but a few things have gotten some changes.
Firstly, things are going to be faster. An increased content cadence will condense the entire expansion into about one year, while an expanded pre-patch means the action starts sooner.
As of the pre-patch going live, the shattering has come to Azeroth. Kezan and Gilneas starter zones are now available, and Goblins and Worgen are unlocked and can be leveled up to 80.
Also, Transmogrification is unlocked, as are account wide collections. New class and race combos are unlocked, along with class updates like talents and spells. Archeology and Reforging are also unlocked. Accelerated leveling from 1 to 80 is in place, which will help you roll alts in this faster environment. And flying is unlocked in the newly reshaped Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms.
At launch, several more iconic features from Cataclysm will come online. Five zones will be unlocked. Mountain Hyjal, Vash’jir, Twilight Highlands, Uldum, and Deepholm will all be available for 80 through 85 questing.
And the 9 dungeons we explored earlier that were part of patch 4.0.3 will all be unlocked, along with a new heroic Dungeon system. Tol Barad world PVP zone that pits Horde against Alliance for the control of three objectives will also unlock at launch, as will everyone’s favorite fairgrounds Darkmoon Island.
After launch Throne of the Four Winds, Blackwing Descent, and Bastion of Twilight will make their appearance and a new flexible Raid Lock System, which allows players to do both the 10 and 25 player versions of raids in the same week. Plus, additional content updates will continue to roll out as the expansion unfolds.
That’s it for my review of all the major WoW Cataclysm Classic patches released so far. Anyway, the new expansion is coming soon, so let’s wait and see!
Get ready because I'm about to reveal a bunch of important passing techniques that are often overlooked but are currently proving to be crucial in the EA FC 24 Team of the Season event. However, before we delve into these techniques, let's take a moment to enhance our understanding of passing fundamentals.
Passing is the cornerstone of gameplay in EA Sports FC 24. It's not just about moving the ball between players. An effective passing involves delivering the ball to a teammate smoothly, without disrupting the game's flow. An inaccurate pass can lead to missed offensive opportunities or the opponent gaining possession.
In the game, there are various types of passing, each serving different purposes:
Let's begin with the Ground Pass, the simplest passing method in the EA FC 24. Target a player with your Left Analog Stick and press your X or A button to send a Ground Pass directly to their feet. This is the most commonly used pass, but ensure there's no opponent blocking the passing lane.
The Driven Ground Pass, which is also called the Long Driven Pass, is a more forceful version of the normal Ground Pass. Hold R1 or RB button and power up a normal pass for a faster and stronger delivery. Use it when your passer isn't under pressure to speed up the play, though it relies on the skills of the passer and receiver.
Moving on to the Lofted Ground Pass, it's ideal for bypassing Defenders blocking Ground Passes. Double-tap the Pass button to lift the ball slightly, making it harder to intercept. You can employ this pass inside the box to evade Defenders.
Lastly, the 1-2 Pass adds dynamism to your attack. Hold L1 or LB and pass to a teammate, then watch as your initial passer makes a forward run. Use this to create new passing opportunities and confuse Defenders. It's effective when combined with other passing techniques, especially on the wing to exploit space.
However, not all passes need to go directly to where the receiver is. Sometimes, you need to send the ball to his running lane so that he doesn't lose any speed while catching the ball. Therefore, we have 2 passes that point out the direction your runner is heading to.
Through Pass: Power up the Through Pass with your Triangle or Y button while giving your passer a side angle towards the receiver. This increases the efficiency of the through ball and allows the runner to get behind the defensive line.
Lobbed Through Pass: If someone is trying to anticipate the passing lane and cut it off, allowing runners to get in behind the defense, you can use a Lobbed Through Pass to get the ball past them and into the path of the player. Watch the movement of players, identify the defensive behavior of the opponent. If not, hold down the L1 or LB button and step up the Through Pass.
Another Through Pass variation is a lofted one. It can easily dodge a Defender's interception and get the ball towards your running lane. It is much easier to control the ball with this method compared to the lobbed one. In short distances, double-tapping the Triangle or Y button will allow you to execute it.
The next one is known as the Driven Through Pass, which can be executed by holding on to both the L1 and R1 or LB and RB buttons together. The Driven Through Passes are particularly effective in wider spaces. If you spot a teammate making a direct run towards the goal with minimal defensive coverage, consider using a Driven Through Pass to swiftly deliver the ball to them.
Moving on to the Lob Pass section, by only using the Square or X button, you can achieve a lot of things, especially when facing pressure. Using a simple Long Pass easily lets you break the pressure. You can also switch sides consistently with the Long Pass to get your buildup in another direction.
If you want your Long Pass to get even higher, which can be very useful for players who have the Aerial PlayStyle. You can utilize your EA FC 24 Coins to acquire a player with this particular PlayStyle. Then you can hold on to the L1 or LB button before going for a Lob Pass. This higher Lob Pass will give your pass more height, making headers easier.
On the other side, the Driven Lob Pass does exactly the opposite. Your pass loses height but gains speed, which can be very practical if there's no one between your passer and his target. To be able to use it, hold on to both L1 and R1 or LB and RB buttons together and power up the Lob Pass.
Using this Driven Lob Pass while switching sides is very effective if you're not under any pressure. It allows you to get towards the other side rapidly and increase the pace in your buildup before the defense settles.
Here are a few passing techniques I suggest trying out in the EA FC 24 TOTS Weekend League. Have fun and win more games with them!
As we all know, a new phase of WoW Classic Season of Discovery is just approaching and will release within 2 days. Today, I’m here to provide you with a closer look at some of the important adjustments planned for the highly anticipated Phase 3, which you might not yet be aware of. Let’s dive right in!
If you thought the Phase 3 announcement was a little too fast, you're not the only one. Blizzard knows that they usually would like to give us 2 weeks' notice. It is a bit frustrating, though for a lot of players to not be able to have the announcement early enough to have enough preparation.
Although there is not much time left to make adequate preparations, you can still obtain as many WoW SOD Gold as possible before this new phase in Season of Discovery.
These updates include feral Druids receiving a new helmet enchant resembling a Wolfshead Helm. This enchant grants you 20 energy every time you shift into form, augmenting the power-shifting play style, particularly beneficial for Cat Form users.
There's a potential addition of Catnip in the next phase, boosting attack speed by 30% for 30 seconds, likely obtained as a consumable in the new PVP or Emerald Dream zone. These enhancements are significant for Feral Druids, catering to their needs and play style adjustments.
Hunters might obtain the Core Hound pet, possibly becoming a favored choice with its anticipated Flame Breath ability, potentially useful in PVP scenarios. Stay tuned for these exciting developments.
There's other blaring issues, something like class tuning. In particular, something like Shaman's being ridiculously powerful now. Blizzard has taken notice of these overly powerful classes, but will also say that towards the end of a phase, we probably won't be seeing class tuning going on because you usually will have them focus their development time on basically working on the next phase.
You may have noticed some runes sharing the same slot, have interesting wordings like the Gore rune for Feral Druids. It says that a last rate swipe or Maul will reset the cooldown of Mangle, but the last rate and Mangle are on the exact same rune slot. And this is something that Blizzard is also obviously aware of, but apparently it's a tricky fix. It's something they are trying to find a solution to.
But you might also notice that some runes don't actually give you DPS increases. It actually takes 855 seconds on average for the Gore rune to proc, giving you the same energy as a single power shift, especially now with the Helm enchant. So that makes this rune quite literally one of the weakest runes of all time.
And now, just caution players to temper your expectations in the next phase. We are definitely seeing some runes seem super overpowered and some seem kind of afterthought. I think if we are vocal enough with Blizzard, they will take a look at these runes that are very much underperforming, and potentially the ones that are very much over performing.
There's a little confusion about the Blood Moon event and the new currency called Massacre Coins. If you will be able to actually use the new currency for the mount, so if you want to buy yourself a mount, but don't worry, you can actually trade the new currency down at a 1:1 ratio for the silver used before.
So you'll definitely be able to get any of the old items from the Blood Moon event at the same pace. You don't have to worry about completely hoarding all of your current currency. You could use them to gain honor really quickly right at the beginning of the next phase to try to actually hit the highest ranks and get your entire PVP set within the first week.
Shamans are amazing AOE healers, but Paladins bringing kings out scaled that towards the end. But it was really that humans had Sword weapon skill that made them so powerful in WoW Classic. At Level 60, every race will have a way to pick 2 separate weapon skills that will give you +5 weapon skill. That means that the racial of weapon skill are completely useless for both Horde and Alliance.
The only racial that is effective within PvE is going to literally just be having an increase in your attack power from the Orc racial or having an increase in your attack speed from the Troll racial. Meaning that Horde, in the aspect of racial, has a significant advantage, basically an entire extra trinket than Alliance does. So if you’re going to be trying to parse or if you’re going to be trying to speed run Horde versus Alliance.
Actually pointing out that the rep bonus for being a human, you actually get 10% more reputation for being a human, will save you a huge amount of time in the long run. As well as humans have been the undisputed kings of melee for all of WoW Classic.
It suggests that it’s somewhat acceptable for other classes or races to receive attention in the Season of Discovery, particularly because it’s a seasonal realm and not an everlasting one. Hopefully, this will diversify the gameplay. Nonetheless, it also implies that only Orcs and Trolls have racial that effectively boost DPS in PvE.
In this guide, I’ll be sharing one of my favorite POE 3.24 League starter builds, Explosive Trap Trickster. In Necropolis League, I enhanced this build and added the features we needed most, namely leveling, gear progression, and crafting sections. This build is enough to help you destroy everything early in the league! Without further ado, let’s get started.
First, I’ll show you the skill, Explosive Trap. You will throw traps and these traps will explode many times. All explosions can hit the same enemy, which is where our DPS comes from and how many traps we have.
When you view POB, you can set the number of explosions that hit the target. As always, I set it to an average blast since most enemies have a small hit range.
Now for the buffs of this build. We can automatically cast Warcry through Enduring Cry and the new Call to Arms Support. So we don’t have to press any extra buttons when mapping or fighting enemy bosses.
In addition, Enduring Cry will solve a big problem in the build, which is recovery. Warcry will give you a lot of life regen in a short period and will give you Endurance Charges. Because we are using Immortal Call as our guard skill. The uptime of the guard skill will be much greater than 1 second, which is an excellent combination.
Some players may have noticed that in this patch, they removed the reduced mana cost mods from jewels. But this isn’t a big issue for me since we’re only using one mod, so I think this build will still be good.
I know everyone is talking about Explosive Trap of Shrapnel. This patch they increased gem damage to reduce the area of effect of the explosions. This reduces the overlap of explosions, meaning less damage than before.
From my testing so far, the base Explosive Trap and Explosive Trap of Shrapnel do almost the same damage if we talk about single target damage. However, I think it’s better to clear with Shrapnel, which you can use to kill map bosses. But when you want to challenge Ubers or harder content, you need the basic Explosive Trap.
There is also a personal issue with Explosive Trap of Shrapnel, namely that you have to farm the lab for it. I think this is not a good plan because it all depends on RNG and maybe you won’t see what you want for 3 hours. But of course, if you enjoy growing gems, then go for it!
Also, there are two issues with this build. The first is mana. Our traps are very expensive in mana, so we’ll need to use Mana Flasks until the mana costs of our rings and amulets are reduced.
If you are lucky enough, or you have a little extra POE Currency, you can buy Praxis. It will easily solve your mana problem until you get the gear.
The second problem is that when you open POB, you will see that our build does not have any physical reduction. But it doesn’t matter, because we have more than 70% chance of avoiding enemy attacks, and we have enough energy shield and life pool to withstand bigger hits.
I played this build last league and completed my Atlas, defeating all endgame bosses without armor on my character. Keep in mind that you’ll get additional physical damage reduction from Endurance Charges thanks to the new support gem and Enduring Cry.
Next, let’s walk through how to navigate in my version of Path of Building.
Passive trees are the most important to a good leveling experience. You can see at the bottom, click this button and get a drop-down menu and select the current level for the corresponding tree.
First, grab a Trap Wheel here in the level 22 tree instead of going to Written in Blood. In the next one, you can choose what to pick first, but I recommend going with Snowforged and Elemental Mastery here. This is also your first lab time.
When you do the second lab, on the level 55 tree. Most of the time, you get mastery because you get Polymath Ascendancy node. The different types of masteries you assign will do more damage. So that’s why I chose a lot of masteries this time. Here again is a single small node that will be counted on the next tree.
On level 69 of the tree, you will complete the third lab and complete the campaign. I want to draw your attention to the fact that there is a node here that gives +10 Strength. Besides, if you feel you’re lacking damage, you can also get extra Curse nodes and add a second Curse to the build.
You may also want to ask some FAQs, such as the pros and cons of this build, and learn more about Transfigured Gems, mana issues, and how to solve them.
Here, I would like to talk more about leveling. As you probably know, I don’t like using other skills to level up other than my main one, so that’s why I’m not using Rolling Magma or other methods to level up here. I know this isn’t the most efficient way to complete a campaign, but for me it’s a more enjoyable experience.
I also try to include weapon progression here, what gear you can use early on, or how I did it. Even in the early stages of the league, these weapons should be cheap. Of course, this is my personal preference, but if you have something better in your pocket, I wouldn’t stop you!
Another thing that is in outrageous demand is the crafting part. You can learn how to craft items with this build with a very high success rate. Don’t forget to always double or even triple check before embarking on expensive crafting methods.
After this part is completed, only the gem part is left, which also contains the drop-down menu next to the skill set. Click on the appropriate level your character has and try using gems. Don’t worry if you can’t find the 4-link at the moment, you will find it later.
At level 38+, this is where Herald of Ash fits in. But you cannot use this Herald unless you have one of the reservation wheels found in the level 48 tree. So please keep this in mind.
Maybe you’re curious about Bandit and Pantheon. For Bandit, Alira is a good choice. She’s great for the early and mid game because of her mana regen, resistance and crit multi.
When it comes to Pantheon, Soul of Solaris must not be missed. If you haven’t been hit recently, you can upgrade this to take 8% less elemental damage. Also, this will give you a bit of movement speed and physical damage reduction.
Overall, Explosive Trap Trickster is one of my favorite skill and Asdendancy combinations. Trickster Asdendancy is very flexible, so you can easily re-spec other skills if you wish. Regardless, I hope you’ll find this league starter useful.
Welcome to this new build guide for the swift Ghostflame Lich in Last Epoch 1.0. The primary objective of this build is to swiftly navigate through the Monolith to target farm various echo rewards efficiently such as the Uniques and Exalted Items, as well as to farm Exile Mages for experimental mods.
The main skill we’re using is Ghostflame, and it deals with fire and chronic damage to us while also draining our mana when we are channeling. For this setup, we’re looking to scale the initial hit of the Ghostflame, not the ailments from it, to one-shot enemies as we go.
To deal damage and be fast, we need a lot of points for the Ghostflame skill to grab all the damage multipliers. The great thing is that the skill has so many tags on it, scaling from a lot of different sources like fire, Necrotic damage over time, spell channeling, and movement.
With this build,we can get over 200% movement speed, and we can basically stay in Ghostflame all the time without having to worry that much about getting our mana drained.
With mana, finish with Ghostflame, and this will lower the overall cost of the skill. By also using Wandering Spirits and picking up the Infuse Soul passive, provide a 15% chance to gain 12 mana whenever a spirit expires. Then, we’re also using Transplant with a Pale Blood passive, which will give us 30 flat mana when we use Transplant.
Telf'un's Mirage is a small source as it also provides us 2 mana gains when we dodge while channeling potions is a huge part of this build as well. By using Divine Girdle with the experimental mod 'mana gained on potion use', we can grant us up to 40 flat mana whenever we use a potion. While on the subject of potions, it sits very well with all the other things we’re using for this build.
One of them is a Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs, which will give us up to 40 Necrotic damage to melee attacks and spells. It also takes up to 4% less void, Necrotic, and poison damage for 4 seconds on potion use. Exsanguinous is another item which also will grant us up to 30% attack speed, cast speed, and movement speed if we have used a potion in the past 4 seconds. Some other gear you can choose depends on your amount of Last Epoch Gold.
Ghostflame: Wraith Form grants additional dodge rating per intelligence while channeling Ghostflame. Spectral Menace reduces the channel cost by up to 70%. Spirit Of Dread provides extra movement speed while channeling Ghostflame and converts it into a movement skill.
Doom Surge adds further movement speed. Fiery Desecration allows Ghostflame to deal damage in a full circle, albeit with an increased channel cost. It's beneficial if mana can be sustained. Domain Of Torment increases the damage multiplier. Disdain reduces damage taken while channeling the Ghostflame skill.
Atrocity provides an extra damage multiplier. The Decrepit Mortals release a curse on enemies for a short duration, causing them to take an additional 15% more damage over time. When triggers Banshee, enemies will also fear, and Ghostflame will deal more direct damage to them, up to 75%.
Reaper Form: Soul Shroud gives us armor per point of intelligence. Vile Shroud provides Necrotic resistance and poison resistance per point of intelligence. Soul for a Soul increases damage. Reaper's Curse adds additional increased damage. Death Comes Quickly grants the Swiftness buff upon killing an enemy.
These buffs will increase movement speed by 1% and can stack up to 10 times. With the Haunting, we have a chance to apply Mark for Death on enemies on hit. This is triggered by using Death Seal as it counts as a hit.
Transplant: Pale Blood gives us 30 mana when using Transplant. When hitting an enemy with Transplant, we gain mana per hit. Acolyte's Fervor grants the Haste and Frenzy buff upon using Transplant.
Squeamish applies fear on departure, while the other option applies fear on arrival. Fleeting Form provides extra cooldown recovery. Bone Armor grants the Bone Armor buff, providing extra armor, less damage taken, and increasing the duration of the Bone Armor.
Death Seal: This is another skill that we're using. This will seal our health, preventing us from going above the current value and deal damage to us. Moratorium increases the duration of Death Seal. Soul Stability prevents health loss from effects draining a percentage of current health.
The Quick and the Dead grants the Haste Buff upon releasing Death Seal. Doomcall amplifies the damage of Death Seal waves for each stack of Damned on us. Mortal Pulse triggers death waves every second while sealed. Tachycardia increases the frequency of death waves.
Desperate Shroud provides additional armor and stun avoidance per 10 missing health. Deadlock makes it so if our health is above 33% of your maximum health when we activate Death Seal, this will reduce it to 33% of our maximum health, making us able to stay on low life.
Wandering Spirits: Infusing Soul allows us to gain mana. We get a 15% chance to gain 12 mana per Spirit when they expire. Sheltering Spirit provides extra Ward and medium just for increased mana efficiency for the skill. Thin Veil ensures we get more spirits. Terrifying Presence ensures enemies near Spirits are also feared.
Drained Will makes Wandering Spirit also Shred resistance of nearby enemies. This helps with half of our damage from Ghostflame, as the skill is both fire and Necrotic-based. Sins of the Forgotten makes Wandering Spirit now also inflict enemies around them with the Damned ailment.
For the idols, you want to pick up mana efficiency with the Ghostflame. For the suffix, you could go with either resist, health, or Ward retention. The chance to apply fear is amazing, as we also get a 75% damage multiplier from the Ghostflame passive to feared enemies, and this will help to sustain that debuff when Death Seal is hitting enemies.
We also have 2 Grand Bone Idols with Ward per second when channeling Ghostflame and also with increased spell damage while on low life.
Next, for blessings, I recommend using Grand Echo of Solarum, Grand Light of the Moon, Grand Survival of Might, Grand Defiance of Yulia and Grand Patience of Herkir.
I’ve been playing Last Epoch consistently since its release and have spent hundreds of hours in the game. Therefore, I have also put together some tips and tricks to make our gaming experience better.
Even experienced players can make some mistakes, so check out this guide before you start to make your adventure a smoother one! Without any further delay, let’s get straight into the action.
Auto cast is especially useful for builds that have skills on cooldown that you want to recast as soon as they become available. An example here is Void Knight’s Devouring Orb ability. If your character is strong enough, you can also use this feature to a semi-AFK farm in the arena.
To activate auto-cast, you must assign the ability button you want to auto-cast to one of the numeric keys on your keyboard.
For example, here I’ve assigned a secondary button to number pad three to keep my usual button mapping intact. Next, press and hold the ability button on the number pad. Then click Num Lock to disable it.
If you want to disable auto-cast, you can simply turn on Num Lock and press the ability button again.
You can put points into multiple Mastery Trees so that you are not forced into Passive Tree of your own mastery. Therefore, you can actually unlock and use almost all active skills from other masteries as well.
The exceptions here are unique mastery skills, such as Storm Totem for Shaman or Werebear Form for Druid. These unique skills are locked to specific masteries, but everything else is fair game.
If you want to teleport to another location, you usually need to hold down the left mouse button and click the “travel” icon at the bottom of the screen, which wastes not only Last Epoch Gold but also time.
Instead, you simply right-click on a node and your character will instantly teleport to the selected location. This works both in the world map and in Monolith.
This tip is related to the crafting system in Last Epoch.
Sometimes you remove dropped items from an existing configuration that are of no use to you. The item will have some unwanted stats or not be the type of item you are looking for. But you may need to add it in the future. This is where these two runes come in: Rune of Removal and Rune of Shattering!
By the way, affixes are the stats on the lower part of the item. For example, high-level skill affixes are not that common drops and are very important for endgame builds. So you might want to extract them from items.
Most players will use Rune of Shattering to destroy items and obtain shards, which is the easiest way. But the problem is that this process does not guarantee that you will get all the shards.
As the rune’s description states: Shattering creates a random number of shards. This means you may not get the affix shards you really want.
To avoid losing potential shards, you can use Rune of Removal on the item. This rune removes one random affix at a time. So you may actually need up to four attempts to get the affix shards you want. You’re better off using Rune of Removal when you really want a specific affix or there are fewer than four affixes on the item.
Of course, the best thing about this process are the two affixes items that give you a 50% chance of getting the shards you crave.
Do you often skip nodes in Monolith because they only bring you a measly amount of XP? Note, however, that the effects of Tomes of Experience increase as you get higher in level.
At around level 75, my character gets about 1% level XP from each tome, so I get 3% from all three tomes. This is not cause for concern.
But when I run node, my Warlock is level 94 on Empowered Monolith, has 140 corruptions, and I’m getting about 7% more XP from all three Tomes. That’s a huge amount of XP for this level!
Also, have you ever really looked at XP and favor rewards you gain in a faction? Each Tome will give you about 500 favor, which means you can get 1500 favor for each Quest Echo.
Anyway, plus everything you get from running the map. This may not seem like much, but it will quickly earn you a lot of favor! Also, you can use Tomes of Experience to quickly level up your skills after respec.
Besides, Arena nodes are also an excellent source of XP for you to level up for the endgame.
I’ve done some testing and on average Arena gives a better XP percentage than the usual Monolith Echoes. Monster density is also a big factor here. You don’t have to hunt around for mobs.
Of course, some arena maps are better than others, but on average, all maps are very good for your XP gain. So if you need to level up quickly to meet the requirements for certain items, be sure to clear the arena to get to your goal faster.
During Early Access, you can test your damage on dummies in End of Time Zone. But after patch 1.0, the dummy here no longer exists.
So if you’re like me, you’re probably confused as to where this dummy went. You can actually find dummies in Champion’s Gate settlement. The gate is in exactly the same location as the entrance to the arena.
We used to have to manually find the entrance to each dungeon, so finding the dungeon you’re looking for can take some time and effort. But there is actually an easier way.
You can right-click on a Dungeon or Arena Key to open the map and focus on the entrance to that specific area. This tip can make your life easier.
You can avoid arena nodes in Monolith. There are two ways to check if a node is an arena. First, you can left-click on a node to see the name of the map. If it were, it would say Arena. Alternatively, you can hover over a node to see if it offers normal or less stability.
This assumes you’ve cleared Echo objective and summoned the portal, but maybe you saw a chest or shrine and want to continue exploring the map. But you might worry that backtracking to that portal will waste a lot of time.
This is where the “T” button comes into play. Once the portal is open, you can press the “T” key to re-summon it at your location at any time, saving yourself a lot of trouble.
These are my top 10 tips to make your life easier in Last Epoch. What do you think of these tips? Do you know of any other exciting tips? Please share it! See you next time!
Welcome to this new build guide of Last Epoch 1.0. Today, I’m excited to introduce a new Mage Spellblade known as the king of Shatter Strike. This build can successfully progress from Level 1 to Level 92, aiming for 300 corruption. It now boasts the capability to face tank bosses and Shades of Orobyss with ease. So let's just dive in!
Enchant Weapon: Upon activation, your character becomes stronger, attacks faster, and experiences a significant increase in damage output. To optimize its use, start by acquiring Frostbrand and Overloaded. Frostbrand enhances Mana management by providing a free attack with Enchant Weapon.
Next, prioritize longer duration, melee elemental damage, attack speed, and cleanse ailments. Obtain Frozen Sparks for additional damage boost and allocate the remaining points into Efficacy.
Flame Rush: Flame Rush provides damage reduction, enhancing survivability, while also granting frenzy for increased attack speed and ward generation. Its versatility allows conversion to cold damage, ensuring synergy with other skills. When utilizing Flame Rush, prioritize damage reduction first, followed by acquiring frenzy, speed, and range. Consider converting it to a cold skill for added utility, despite its primary role not being damage-focused.
Flame Ward: Flame Ward serves as one of your defensive abilities, functioning in its standard form. Begin by prioritizing the Astonish node, allowing automatic triggering when stunned. This makes it basically an automatic skill.
Ensuring Flame ward triggers automatically upon impact, signaled by an audible ding. Proceed to invest in Barrier and Prismatic Buffer for damage reduction. Conclude by allocating the remaining points into Dilation for extended duration.
Firebrand: Firebrand serves as the foundational skill for this build, essentially spammed in rotation with Shatter Strike. The sequence involves alternating between Firebrand and Shatter Strike while maneuvering. Enchant Weapon is reserved for moments requiring additional damage output.
To optimize Firebrand, prioritize acquiring the Illuminating Fire node for enhanced Shatter Strike potency. This ensures either a guaranteed crit or close to a guaranteed speed crit, significantly boosting damage. Invest in nodes that grant extra stacks per hit, reducing the number of required Firebrand attacks. Focus on maximizing attack speed. Any remaining points can be allocated towards bolstering survivability.
Shatter Strike: Begin by prioritizing the acquisition of area, Cold Penetration and critical multiplier nodes. These enhancements ensure nearly guaranteed critical strikes when paired with Firebrand, significantly amplifying damage output. Next, focus on obtaining damage and multiplicative damage nodes to facilitate swift clears, particularly noticeable against high health enemies.
Proceed to secure global cold damage and freeze rate multiplier, alongside additional multiplicative damage nodes, further augmenting damage potential. Finally, configure Shatter Strike to auto-cast with each use, resulting in double clicks and seamless execution. These skill optimizations are key components of the build's effectiveness.
Let's dive into the passive tree. In the base Mage tree, we start with 33 points. We allocate 6 into Scholar and 8 into Arcanist. While prioritizing increased attack speed, you can adjust points to prioritize Mana and life if needed. To enhance our ward generation, we invest in Reactive Ward, Warden, and Silver Rune, crucial for sustaining survivability with 8 to 10,000 ward generation.
Sorcerer remains untouched. However, if Mana becomes an issue, consider investing in Mana Shell and Wisdom for support. Transitioning to Runemaster, we invest 8 points into Sphere of Protection, significantly boosting life and damage reduction, pivotal in fortifying our defenses.
Turning to Spellblade, we distribute 6 points into Elemental, focusing on amplifying damage with Frozen Steel and Infused Weapons, while also bolstering survivability through Arcane Shielding. You want to take as much attack speed and ward as possible. Integrating Mana Reaver aids in maintaining Mana sustain.
As Dual Wielding is the chosen approach, we focus on maximizing our potential with Prismic Blade and Blade Weaver. Blade Weaver synergizes seamlessly with Enchant Weapon and Firebrand, culminating in devastating Shatter Strike hits, evident in the staggering damage output. To round it off, we allocate the remaining 10 points into Mental Fortitude, augmenting intelligence and the ward for additional resilience.
One notable aspect of this build is its low life configuration, a first since the Last Epoch 1.0. To achieve this, we incorporate Exsanguinous, Last Steps of the Living, and Eternal Gauntlets for health. It's worth noting that the Eternal Gauntlets gloves are exclusive to Exiled Mages.
We also incorporate the Shard of the Shattered Lance into our setup. This unique item provides a 20% multiplicative damage boost along with a 20% increase in movement speed. Its exceptional cold-related stats make it a highly desirable choice, and its availability makes it easily obtainable.
The build's current performance is optimized with low life mechanics. Since this setup isn't mandatory, you can decide which items you need based on your Last Epoch Gold reserves. The other gear choices are as follows:
Now, let's discuss blessings. We prioritize survivability by focusing on void resistance, Mana, crit avoidance, armor, and physical resistance. While these blessings provide a solid foundation, adjustments can be made based on the affixes present on your gear. However, this is the current setup that I really recommend:
As for idols, we choose 1 Grand Glass Idol, 3 Ornate Glass Idols, 2 Stout Lagonian Idols and 2 Small Lagonian Idols. Our selection now includes idols providing Mana, cold damage, Elemental melee cold damage, as well as life and Mana. While this setup may seem basic, its aesthetic appeal is undeniable.
The Jester’s Festival, an annual ESO celebration of the unpredictable and amusing, invites participants to engage in a variety of quests involving pranks and jokes across Tamriel.
This guide will explore the latest updates for 2024, along with insights on event participation and strategies to optimize your experience.
Similar to other annual events held in tents, the 100% XP buff that used to require consuming pie every 2 hours is now passive. This eliminates the need to constantly refresh for bonus XP.
During this year’s event quests, you can earn joke outfit style pages, specifically the Jester Seeker suit.
Additionally, the Impressario will offer all three fragments for the Molag Bal Illusion Imp Pet and the Planemeld’s Master Markings. This event marks your last chance of the quarter to acquire these fragments. While we anticipate their return for the New Life Festival, it hasn’t been officially confirmed yet.
To start, obtain the event starter either from the Crown Store for free or by visiting any of the Jester Festival tents situated in Daggerfall (in Glenumbra), Vulkhel Guard (in Auridon), or Ebonheart (in Stonefalls).
At each festival tent, you’ll receive a quest from the Jester Royals, engaging you in pranks and mischief. Jester Queen Ayrenn tasks you with completing “Springtime Flare,” where you sprinkle flowers on stuffy academics in designated locations.
Jester King Emeric assigns “Royal Rivalry,” allowing your pyrotechnic skills to shine as you gather ingredients for fireworks and set them off within the city.
For “A Noble Guest” from Jester King Jorunn, you must rescue the poor king’s lost betrothed. Borrow apples and lure the princess back to her love in the Argonian District of Ebonheart.
Additionally, near any Jester’s tent, you’ll find two extra quests. “Getting the Band Together,” given by Samuel Gourone, has you recruiting a ragtag band of dry for a concert. Visit three locations to collect wine and recruit them. In Mephala’s Nest Delve, recruit either a Scamp or a Wing Twilight, while in An’Old Delve, choose between an Ogrim or a Harvester. The danger that appears on your stage upon completion depends on your choice.
The second bonus quest, “A Foe Most Porcine,” involves fighting King Boar in Stormhaven. During the fight, "the King’s Spoils” quest offers additional rewards of Mudcrab Cider based on the number of apples collected. Before entering the arena, don’t forget to pick up the quest from Rozette the Rapscallion.
Lastly, visit Soars in Laughter near any festival tent for “Prankster’s Carnival.” Use her prank kit to play fun tricks on her friends in the spirit of the season.
However, we have some helpful tips and tricks to enhance your efficiency during the event.
Firstly, to maximize loot, consider completing the entire series of quests daily on all characters. However, be mindful as it may lead to burnout, especially if you have multiple characters. Take it easy on yourself and pace accordingly.
Regarding the “A Noble Guest” quest, if you aim to achieve the Princess Rescuer accolade, guide Princess the Pig back to Jester King Jorunn at the Jester Camp south of Ebonheart without getting caught by her owner.
If you have incurred a bounty from stealing apples, ensure you clear it first to make the pig thieving process a bit easier. Opting for the simplest route, head to the stairs on the east side of Ebonheart. Skirt along the inner walls behind the Ebony Flask to reach the gate, or alternatively, maneuver behind the two southern houses.
Another option from the eastern stairs is to cut behind the Fighters Guild Pavilion, then head southwest to the plaza, avoiding both the Ebony Flask and the Town Hall to reach the gate. If spotted by the butcher, completing the achievement becomes impossible. To retry, abandon the quest, clear your bounty, and start anew, or wait until the following day.
If you're still encountering difficulties, ensure your riding speed is maximized and utilize skills such as the Nightblade's Shadow Cloak or a potion of invisibility to evade detection. Additionally, consider equipping different gear sets like Adept Rider and Jailbreaker to enhance your overall speed.
For the "Royal Rivalry" quest, note that harpies and the Leyawiin Tower are less likely to drop dust compared to bandits. Hence, focus your efforts on eliminating bandits while searching for dust. These shards, sacks, and bone piles are not shared, even in grouped situations. Thus, if you pick up a Dragonfire Crystal, another player must wait for it to respawn to loot it.
To embark on the "A Foe most Porcine" quest, obtain it by reading the flyers titled "A Foe most Porcine" found on posts near the Jester Festival tents in Auridon, Glenumbra, Stonefalls, or at the Hammerdeath Arena. If struggling to defeat the king, consider teaming up with friends to prevent him from consuming apples, which regenerate his health and enrage him.
Regarding the "The King's Spoils" quest, it can be completed simultaneously with "A Foe most Porcine" by collecting apples while battling the king. The more apples gathered, the greater the reward of sparkling Mudcrab Apple Cider, with up to four bottles available. Although not particularly extraordinary, it serves as a pleasant refreshment if lacking other food or drink buffs.
As mentioned, group efforts significantly ease these tasks, so monitor zone chat or the group finder tool for potential assistance. Don't forget to check your guild, as fellow members may also be seeking aid.
In addition to that, here are a few general event reminders:
Ensure to check your tickets each day before proceeding with any activities. You can only hold a maximum of 12 tickets, and exceeding this limit will result in loss. While you'll receive a warning when attempting to turn in a quest with exceeded ticket count, it can still be bothersome to have to spend the tickets and return.
Furthermore, before making any purchases from the Impressario, it's advisable to test the drop rate of event items. Since tickets hold value, it's wise to reserve them for items that aren't easily obtained through drops.
Keep in mind that some individuals may have extra tickets they're willing to share. It's recommended to explore all available options before making purchases. Lastly, items acquired from the Impressario are bound, whereas those obtained from coffer drops are tradable and can be sold on Guild Traders. If you intend to trade festival loot for ESO Gold or share it with friends, remember that items purchased from the Impressario cannot be traded.