While exploring dungeons in Diablo IV, you might encounter The Butcher, a terrifying and hard-to-kill demon boss who’s been a staple of the series since the original game in 1997. But if you get lucky, you might be able to easily kill this legendary baddie if he gets stuck behind a locked door. I’d feel bad for the guy, but he’s been getting trapped like this for nearly three decades now.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Released in June, Diablo IV is the latest entry in Blizzard’s popular and long-running demon-killin’ action-RPG franchise. The game offers mostly the same classic looting and dungeon-crawling action you’d expect from a Diablo game, with some of the same enemies and classes from past titles returning for this latest entry. Also returning is one of Diablo’s most famous bosses: The Butcher.
This big demon first appeared way back in 1997 and also showed up in Diablo III in 2012. He’s a fan of big cleavers, killing adventures and asking for fresh meat. He’s scary and has been wrecking Diablo IV players when he randomly (and rarely) shows up in a dungeon or basement. However, old-school Diablo players might already know his weakness: doors. And it appears not much has changed in 2023.
What makes this funnier is that back in the first Diablo, The Butcher was known to commonly get stuck on random bits of terrain or even, like in 2023, get trapped behind doors. And just like today, back then players would take advantage of the helpless Butcher and beat the demonic shit out of him until he died and spit out some loot.
As far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be a reliable way to force the ol’ Butcher to spawn behind a locked door. But if it happens to you, don’t feel bad as you murder him. You’re just taking part in an old, time-honored Diablo tradition.
If you’re jumping into Diablo IV for the very first time, you may not know which class to start with. And since each season in Diablo IV requires you to make a new character, if this isn’t your first rodeo you might want to check out a class you haven’t played before.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Either way, it can help to brush up on some basics, review what your class options are, and take a look at some solid builds.
How to pick a Diablo IV class for the very first time
Diablo IV is a game with a lot of numbers and choices, but don’t be too intimidated by the wide variety of builds and opportunities available to you.
The Necromancer is an excellent first choice for beginners. We’ve got a list of three solid Necromancer builds that give you a variety of options for commanding the forces of the undead.
Between the exploding Corpse Necromancer, Summoner Necromancer, and Bone Spear Necromancer, you’ll get a solid grasp of how to build out and wield this class.
How to build a Sorcerer in Diablo IV
The Sorcerer is a satisfying and approachable class to jump into a new character with. We’ve put together a list of three different Sorcerer builds focusing on different elements for your consideration.
Whether you pick the Fire, Lightning, or Frost sorcerer, you’ll be able to take your character to level 50 with our builds, bending elemental forces to your will.
Our guide covers the Storm Druid, Pulverizer Druid, and Shapeshifting Druid with specific considerations for werebear and werewolf form.
Barbarian builds for Diablo IV
The Barbarian might be a very straightforward, kill-everything-in-your-way class to pick, but don’t let that fool you: Like other classes, they’re surprisingly versatile. But if you just want to cover your basics, take a look at our guide for Barbarian builds. We focus on the Whirlwind, Bleed, and Upheaval Barbarian in our list.
The extreme amount of damage output makes the Barbarian an essential role in just about any party. But even if you’re playing solo, you’ll have a blast mopping up room-fulls of enemies.
But don’t let the Rogue’s steeper learning curve turn you away from what can be a very fun class to throw down with. You might stumble a bit in the beginning, but once your Rogue starts demolishing their foes, it’ll feel that much more rewarding.
Diablo IV’s multiple options for character builds, which can combine to create some unique synergies in a multiplayer party, might be complicated to understand at first. Once you build your first character, however, you’ll get a better sense of what ability types to focus on and will find more opportunities to experiment with future builds.
The last 48 hours of Diablo IV has been a little chaotic following wildly controversial changes to player power level in the game’s first pre-season patch. Now, developer Blizzard is doing a bit of damage control, taking to a livestream on July 21 to try and explain its decision-making process, as well as what changes it’s making in response to the overwhelmingly negative feedback.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Diablo IV’s latest patch, 1.1.0, dramatically reduced player power across the board. Changes include reductions to XP earned for various activities, as well as a diminished role to status effects like Vulnerability that have played a central role in class builds. It was a tumultuous set of changes to say the least, all documented in an exhaustive list of alterations via the official patch notes. As promised, Blizzard held a livestream today to address these changes, as well as provide some updates on future changes to the game—particularly in response to the negative feedback on the previous patch. You can watch the whole stream here:
Blizzard / Diablo
Reducing player power: ’We know it is bad. We know it is not fun.’
On the stream, Blizzard’s associate director of community management, Adam Fletcher, immediately responded to the overwhelmingly negative feedback in response to the patch, acknowledging that missteps were made and that the reduction to player power has wrecked the fun of the game for some players.
While Fletcher stated that Blizzard had specific goals in mind with the most recent patch and that it wanted an opportunity to explain why it made these changes, some good news is that the team doesn’t “plan on doing a patch like this ever again.”
Blizzard plans on ‘always providing patch notes well beforehand’
While the most recent patch did dramatically reduce player power and strike at the heart of the developing meta, one of the most chaotic elements of it all was how suddenly the patch notes arrived, how lengthy they were, and how it felt like there was absolutely no heads up as to what was going to happen going into the game’s first season, which started on July 20.
As a way to get ahead of future issues like that, Blizzard has promised to provide patch notes “well beforehand,” estimating that notes will hit about a week before a new update. The game’s next patch, version 1.1.1, is expected to arrive sometime soon, and Blizzard will discuss the specific details of that patch in another livestream chat next Friday, July 28.
Changes to player power explained
Though some may find Blizzard’s explanations for the dramatic, across-the-board nerfs lacking, associate game director Joe Piepiora explained that the reductions to player attributes like cooldown rates and status effects like Vulnerability were done to try and amplify player choice. On the cooldown rates specifically, Piepiora said:
[Cooldown reduction (CDR) is the most powerful stat] in Diablo IV, and the reason for it is obvious: When you’re able to get CDR to a certain point when using certain class mechanisms, you’re able to get effectively instantaneous active skills. That can give you unlimited resources, can give you unlimited movement speed, can give you unlimited damage resistance, and it begins to dwarf the effectiveness of other options when you start trying to take these things into account.
During the stream both Piepiora and game director Joe Shely recognized that overpowered builds and mowing down tons of enemies is core to the action-RPG power fantasy. However, the team is presently concerned that player choice in builds is dying in favor of go-to metas, meaning that if you don’t emphasize cooldown reduction, or optimize builds to send foes into Vulnerable status, you’re operating at a disadvantage.
Vulnerability, which saw its damage modifier reduced significantly in patch 1.1.0, according to Piepiora, became the only way to really start dealing damage to enemies at certain levels of play. This, the team said, is not in line with their vision of the game, and in many ways they believe it’s the result of the outsized influence of high-level Nightmare Dungeons, which Piepiora said is one of the areas of endgame content that tends to demand very specific builds without much room for customization and choice.
The reality is that Nightmare Dungeons are dramatically overtuned from where they actually need to be based upon the role they fill in the game itself. So Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeons are excruciatingly difficult for most classes to be able to actually get through and as a result it begins to winnow the opportunities and options that players have when they begin to engage with content at that Tier. You need to lean on very, very specific builds, very specific setups with access to things like near-instantaneous cooldowns for some skills in an effort to actually make it through those spaces. And that was never really the intent of that content.
Apparently Nightmare Dungeons will see changes on at least two fronts: The density of hordes will be increased to play into the power fantasy of destroying vast amounts of enemies and, in respect to Piepiora’s statement that the crushing level of difficulty they pose is having too much of an effect on build choice, difficulty will be reduced, bringing Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeons down to about the current difficulty level of Tier 70 Nightmare Dungeons.
Patch 1.1.1 is expected to address some of the concerns
During the stream the team stressed that the goal was not, in fact, to reduce the speed of the game and slow progress, though many have felt that changes to game systems like an increase in the amount of time it takes to teleport out of dungeons seems to suggest otherwise. Commenting on that very change, Shely said the team will continue to evaluate changes like this, but stopped shy of saying why, exactly, that specific change was instituted in the first place.
The next patch, 1.1.1, is expected to address a wide variety of the issues present in the current build of the game. Blizzard revealed some such changes, like an extra tab in stash size to mitigate concerns over inventory management, and a 40 percent reduction in respec costs so players can more adequately respond to changes in the game’s meta while also having more choice over build variety as the game progresses. Other specific details, such as changes that have wildly reduced the power level and strength of certain classes more so than others, will be explored more in depth in next week’s livestream.
The team stressed that it doesn’t want to take powerful skills and items away as abruptly as it did with the most recent patch, and pledges to offer more alternatives when potentially sweeping changes come about in the future. A hotfix is scheduled to arrive later today (July 21), with patch notes expected to hit Diablo IV’s website shortly before it goes live.
It’s not uncommon for live-service games to make sudden changes like Diablo IV did here, but community frustration over poorly communicated and executed changes can easily build up over time to create burnout and resentment. Time will tell how quickly Diablo IV recovers from this latest kerfuffle.
On Wednesday, CD Projekt Red juiced up The Witcher 3 with yet another patch, giving the eight-year-old fantasy role-playing game improved cross-platform progression on consoles, new features for Nintendo Switch, and even better-looking grass for touching purposes.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
The Witcher 3’s version 4.04 patch introduces a hodgepodge of graphical updates and quality-of-life improvements to both console and PC versions of the game, as well as bringing certain specific improvements to the Nintendo Switch. In short, the latest patch improves the Switch’s cross-progression feature making it so that, once logged in to your CD Projekt Red account, you can pick up where you left off in The Witcher 3 on other platforms. The Switch is also getting the Netflix-inspired content other consoles received in the last patch.
Aside from numerous bug fixes like, umm… “mending grass collision,” patch 4.04 has also made it so you don’t have to do so much fussing in menu screens during combat, letting you switch oils and potions right from the game’s radial menu. It’s a welcome change, since oils are vital tools in taking down specific monsters. Now Geralt can bathe his sword in whatever specific concoction will help him defeat the beasties he’s currently battling without you needing to break the flow of combat by opening up the pause menu and fiddling around with witcher’s brew.
These quality-of-life updates come as the second half of the third season of Netflix’s Witcher series—the final season with actor Henry Cavill in the role of Geralt—is almost upon us. In his absence, Liam Hemsworth will take up the Roach-riding mantle, debuting as the Butcher of Blaviken in the show’s fourth season.
The second part of The Witcher’s third season will premiere on the streamer on July 27.
The Xbox app has a section called “popular with friends” that shows you the games your buddies are playing. It can be a handy little tool for bothering your friends about their progress in Diablo IV or needling them over their refusal to stop playing Overwatch 2 (it’s me, I’m that friend).
But based on a picture shared on Reddit, it looks like at least one person has early access to Starfield: Phil Spencer. The screenshot shared shows Spencer’s Xbox profile picture, an Xbox Avatar version of him (notice he’s also wearing a t-shirt and jeans, so it’s lore-accurate) against a purple background, underneath both Starfield and Exoprimal, a dinosaur shooter from Capcom that came to Xbox Game Pass on July 14.
While Spencer playing Exoprimal checks out as the game just launched, his apparent access to Starfield is interesting. It makes sense, though—Spencer and Todd Howard have worked closely together to promote the upcoming Bethesda RPG ever since Microsoft bought Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax in 2021. At Summer Game Fest, they sat down for a press presentation alongside the head of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty, and head of Xbox’s gaming ecosystem, Sarah Bond. If you’re the head of Xbox, you can have a little Starfield early access as a treat.
Based on the Reddit post, it seems like Spencer was playing Starfield on July 14, the day the news dropped that the FTC failed to pause Microsoft’s $69 million purchase of Activision. Maybe he was celebrating the lengthy battle by hopping from planet to planet in Starfield, his mind finally free from fretting over whether Microsoft would get another jewel in its gaming Infinity Gauntlet or not. In space, no one can hear you gloat.
Genshin Impact is one of the biggest, most successful video games in the world, bringing in tens of millions of dollars a month for developer/publisher miHoYo. However, according to some voice actors involved with the popular game, they don’t get paid for months, and it’s causing some to possibly fall behind on rent.
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Launched in 2020, Genshin Impact is a free-to-play gacha-driven online anime-themed action-RPG featuring a large roster of characters who work together to defeat enemies using elemental magic attacks. The game has been a massive hit from the moment it first went live and has spawned a giant community of players around the world. However, despite all the money and success the game has brought developer miHoYo, two voice actors who have worked on the game have publicly shared frustration about their pay on Twitter.
On July 12, Corina Boettger and Brandon Winckler, two voice actors who have voiced characters in Genshin Impact, tweeted how frustrated they were and claimed that money owed to them had yet to be paid months later. Boettger voices popular NPC Paimon and Winckler voices various minor characters in the RPG.
Winckler explained that he has sent five emails to miHoYo asking for the company to pay him, but has yet to receive any response. He said it was “inexcusable” that he has had to wait over four months for his paycheck, while he estimates the publisher brings in over $85 million a month. Between 2020 and 2021, Genshin Impact reportedly generated a total of $3.7 billion.
“It’s really hard to justify working on something for the sake of work when you can’t afford to eat,” tweeted Winckler. “Many non-union productions have this problem, I’ve waited anywhere from four to eight months for payment, and even then, it isn’t much to ask. $1000 here, $500 there, and it adds up fast.”
Winckler added that while he loves working on video games, he won’t be working on Genshin Impact anymore, saying that the game should be a “union production” with a union contract and protections.
Fellow actor Corina Boettger also tweeted about frustrations over lack of pay, saying they had worked for “months” unpaid on a “big project.” Boettger claims they are owed thousands of dollars and is currently struggling to pay rent because of the delayed payments. While Boettger didn’t directly say Genshin Impact in the tweets, follow-up replies make it clear what project the actor is referring to in their public statements.
“This project has made BILLIONS,” said Boettger. “This project should be Union. This wouldn’t happen if the game was union. Tell them to make the game SAG.”
Boettger further added that while they’re not sure if the developers, publisher, or someone else are to blame for the payment issues, they believe that if the game was union none of this would be happening.
Kotaku contacted miHoYo, Boettger, and Winckler for comment, but didn’t hear back before publication.
Diablo IV has six Uber Uniques that are the rarest and some of the most powerful items in the game. Players have spent hundreds of hours without ever coming across them—until now. A trick for easily earning them was recently discovered and Blizzard has now removed the items from the game entirely to try and stop the madness.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Previously only farmable in Nightmare dungeons, Uber Uniques were added to the game’s Helltide event in the latest patch, an in-game event where a particular zone on the map turns blood red and fills up with extra tough enemies. Players quickly found out that there was a way to significantly increase their chances of getting the Harlequin Crest, better known as Shako, one of, if not the, most powerful item in Diablo IV. That’s because characters like Barbarians don’t have many Unique helmets, meaning Helltide chests that only give out helmets are much more likely to grant those players Shakos instead.
“Just do Helltide and open the helm chest over and over and over and these are dropping like candy,” said YouTuber Raxxanterax in a how-to video about the trick. Players rushed to try and snag their Shako before Blizzard nerfed the exploit, and the Diablo IV forums and subreddits immediately began to fill up with success stories and memes. Players who chose the night of July 6 to not log on to the game were kicking themselves, while others who got Shako called on Blizzard not to take their cheesed Uber Uniques away.
It didn’t take long for Blizzard to step in and remove Uber Uniques, including Shako, from the game entirely until a hotfix goes live. Naturally, there were debates about whether this actually constituted an exploit, versus players just seizing on a seeming oversight in the game’s design following the latest patch. Others complained about how fast Blizzard reacted to what is arguably an innocuous issue when other quality of life features are still missing from the game.
On the bright side, once the hotfix goes into effect, Uber Uniques like the two-handed sword The Grandfather and the Ring of Starless Skies will be easier to earn overall since they’ll now drop in Helltide activities, as well. While players still might not earn them even after dozens of hours of end-game farming, at least they can have a change of scenery from their standard Nightmare dungeon runs.
Diablo IV’s first season, meanwhile, goes live on July 20. Players will have to start entirely new characters but also have access to a whole new raft of season-specific abilities and builds. Hopefully the action-RPG’s most devoted players manage to earn at least one or two of their most coveted Uber Uniques by then.
Update 7/7/2023 7:38 p.m. ET: Blizzard has released the hotfix and brought Uber Uniques back online. It says only 142 accounts in total earned them while the Helltide chest exploit was live and the studio doesn’t plan to take them away from players. However, if something like this happens again in the future it might in order to keep things fair. Here are the full patch notes:
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where Uber Unique items had an unintended higher chance to drop from Helltide Chests.
Developer Note: With the above change, we have re-enabled Uber Unique drops in Diablo IV. In total we have discovered that only 142 accounts obtained an Uber Unique between the launch of 1.0.4 and when we disabled Uber Unique items from the game on the evening of July 6th. We do not plan on removing these items from the accounts. In the future, we may need to take action to maintain fairness within the game when a bug or exploit impacts the gameplay of others.
Gameplay Changes
Helltide Chests will now have the chance to drop any Unique and not be restricted to specific item slot limitations from any chest.
Developer Note: With the above change players will now be able to find Unique items from ALL Helltide Chests. Uber Unique items also have a chance to be found from all chests.
With so many skill trees and loot combinations, Diablo IV has no shortage of ways to eviscerate your foes and make them fear your mathematical superiority. Players are still finding all sorts of incredible Unique-rarity items, and certain of these weapons and armors are proving to be exceptionally worth hunting down.
I’ve coordinated with our resident Diablo IV experts to take stock of what’s been discovered thus far. Here, you’ll find a collection of both class-agnostic and class-specific items with which to enhance your build. We’ll also let you know where you’re likely to find these weapons and armors. Of course, given the nature of the game, most are random drops across different tiers.
So the first game where I explored the option of romancing the same sex was Fallout 2, you can get married and explore the wasteland with your beau. She’s not all that useful, to be honest, and has never been the companion I’ve picked on replays. Yet at the time, as an impressionable teenager, it was mind-blowing, right? To be honest, though, I didn’t make a ton of it at the time. It was more, oh, this seems like some good mischief, let’s see where it takes me, let’s see how long I can keep her alive, even. It wasn’t charged.
It wasn’t until Dragon Age, which I played as an adult, that the romance choices in games started signifying something different to me. Morrigan, the mysterious witch who joins your party early on, almost feels like a fake romance choice. She’s designed to grab your attention, there’s a recent (unfortunate) quote by one of the DA writers that really lays bare how much she’s meant to be the sex appeal option. There’s one in every game, really, Mass Effect had Miranda. But the way Morrigan is written, the coyness at her center, made me feel like I was getting away with something. Playing as a man probably contributed to that feeling, because IRL what I was doing was gay as hell but in the game, it was extremely straight. I’m sure it helped that the game forces you to choose between love interests, if you’re leading them both on, something that only enhances the drama.
Mostly I appreciated that Morrigan is written in a way that makes it obvious she knows you’re looking, as it turns out, by the end you find out she was making sure of it the entire time. When the betrayal comes, it was weirdly satisfying: yes, I didn’t get what I wanted, but Morrigan having it her way was true to her character. And what’s gayer than yearning and tragedy, really? — Patricia Hernandez, editor-in-chief
Diablo IV is a big game. With multiple classes and tons of skill-tree options, a big-ass map with tons of shit to kill, and so, so much loot to equip, sell, upgrade (rinse and repeat, for eternity), there’s a lot to keep in mind, and so much more that the game kinda-sorta doesn’t tell you.
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So let’s go over some of the many features and other unique bits of knowledge the game doesn’t directly spell out for you. Some of these will save you time, others will help you optimize your build. Let’s dig in.
Elite Affixes indicate unique enemy powers
If you’ve come across an enemy and seen terms written before their names like “Vampiric,” “Terrifying,” or “Frozen,” know that those probably aren’t just nicknames given to them by their exes. They’re an indication that you’re facing an “Elite” enemy with unique attributes.
You can find a full list of the Elite Affixes from this wiki. These include terms like “Cold Enchanted,” which means the creature chills any target it touches, and “Hellbound,” which allows the creature to summon a statue that binds your character in chains. That sort of thing. Try to be prepared before you tangle with these weirdly named foes.
It’s okay (and beneficial) to upgrade some gear early on
Diablo IV is likely to hit you with that familiar RPG conundrum: “Should I sell this gear, or upgrade it?” The best answer isn’t always obvious, and the game certainly isn’t going to tell you what you should do with your own gear.
Here’s the good news: It’s not that big a deal. Upgrading early weapons and armors may not be a long-term strategic masterstroke, but it will help you learn the game and get comfortable with its systems. The first couple levels of upgrading an item at the blacksmith are relatively cheap, and in a game like Diablo IV every percentage point matters. While you’ll undoubtedly find better gear the longer you play, getting some firsthand experience with the upgrade system will help you determine what better gear to buff later on.
Not every class is great for beginners
While you can select any class from the beginning, if you are yourself a beginner, you might want to avoid certain classes. The Rogue, for example, while cool as hell, is a tough class to play as your first Diablo character (especially solo, as this game loves to swarm you with enemies).
We recommend kicking off your first Diablo IV adventure with the Necromancer or Sorcerer. Then, once you’ve a better handle on what the Diablo experience is, you’ll be better informed to grab the reins of harder classes.
You can search your skill tree via keywords
Diablo IV’s skill trees can be very, very intimidating at first. Good news: You can search abilities via keywords in the skill tree menu. Say you want to focus on a specific status effect or type of elemental damage? Selecting from the list of keywords is a great way to get a sense of how your build can make the most of such features, highlighting abilities that will relate to that keyword. This it will help you plan ahead so you don’t just stare at the tree menu with a pocket full of unspent ability points.
Don’t sleep on elixirs
Elixirs can make a serious difference when out slaying nasties on the battlefield, especially more complex and dangerous foes. You’ll need to visit an alchemist to craft them. Potions like the “Elixir of Lightning Resistance,” which lets you resist lightning attacks by 20 percent for 30 minutes (in addition to an XP boost), are excellent to pop when going up against specific enemies.
Stock up on elixirs and get ready to use them to meet specific challenges. But you can only carry 33 at a time, which means you may want to consider where you’re heading out to and which foes you’re likely to be fighting depending on how much space you have.
You should hang out with other people
Diablo IV is online only; let’s all collectively groan about that for a moment. But seeing other people, even if you’re playing solo in this dark fantasy world, isn’t a bad thing: You’ll earn an extra 10 percent experience for everything just by being around other people.
Who knew it would be beneficial to be around other people for once?
You should finish the main quest ASAP (but take breaks with side-quests)
Diablo IV really puts the spotlight on its main quest, with elaborate cutscenes, a very dominant antagonist, and plenty of “what’s gonna happen next?” intrigue. You absolutely should try and finish it as soon as you can…but it ain’t the worst thing if you don’t. In fact, it’s a good idea to move on from the main path every now and then (don’t worry, Lilith won’t really care).
Not only does the main story hit you with a couple of difficulty spikes that you’ll likely want to get yourself better equipped and specced out for, but finishing side-quests is a solid way to unlock more portions of map, with waypoints that’ll make traveling around quickly a breeze.
Also, take time to raid different Strongholds, which aren’t all created equal. The Tul Dulra or Onyx Strongholds, for example, unlock waypoints, additional vendors, more side-quests and a dungeon. But the Hope’s Light stronghold nets you a side dungeon and little else. Crusaders Monument in Hawezar just gives you 100 renown.
Some strongholds are far more rewarding of your time and the only way to really know which is best is to get out there and clear a few out—or do a Google to see what’s inside ahead of time.
Read a synopsis of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls to make sense of everything
Lilith? Sanctuary? Horadrim? What do these words mean, and what the hell is going on in this world? Diablo IV features a campaign that should mostly make the big story beats of its narrative obvious, but if you find that not everything makes sense, go on and read a good synopsis for 2014’s Diablo III expansion, Reaper of Souls.
Though Diablo IV doesn’t pick up right after that one, it does contain some critical world building that will help demystify certain aspects of the plot.
Being vulnerable is really, really bad
During my early hours, I kept seeing this cracked symbol coming and going on my health orb. And while I figured out that probably was Not Good™, it turns out this debuff is worse than its simple HUD icon might suggest. When an enemy inflicts you with vulnerable, you’re going to take an extra 20 percent damage. That, in a word, sucks. The only way to make your character less melty is to Run Away™ for about three or four seconds for your health orb to return to normal.
Enemies scale to your level
So ya got killed a few times. Time to go and level up so you numerically devastate your foes just by looking at them, right? Well, not so fast, Diablo IV’s enemies will scale to your level. And enemies in Strongholds will scale to a level above yours.
What does this mean? Well, you can’t just level your way out of poor tactics. While being more powerful is generally a good thing, you still need to take the time to understand how your character works and how your build is coming together. That’s the key to victory, not just grinding forever until your numbers get bigger.
Turn on advanced tooltips
Screenshot: Blizzard / Kotaku
Advanced tooltips made for one of the most essential parts of our guide to Diablo IV’s settings. By turning on advanced tooltip compare and information in the gameplay settings of the main menu, you’ll get a sense of how good every roll is. Each item’s stats will feature a bracketed range of possible outcomes, so you’ll know whether your found item rests on the better or worse side, making keep/sell/salvage/drop decisions that much easier.
Salvaging and extracting is an excellent use of useless loot
Whether you’ve found loot that’s uninteresting or has outgrown its utility, don’t just throw it on the ground (littering is bad!). Instead, you should take that old gear to be salvaged by a blacksmith. The resources that result will then be of use for upgrading the items you want to keep. They will be much more useful than any gold you’d get through selling the gear.
While you may benefit from selling a lot of useless loot early on to get your gold count up, stocking up on upgradables is better, as the equipment you’ll find on the battlefield will almost always be better than what you can buy from a shop. And salvaged materials will go directly toward upgrading gear that’s actually worth it.
And just as you should be salvaging lower-power gear, be sure to save unused legendary gear for extracting. By bringing these items to the Occultist, you’ll be able remove their Aspects, which you can then use to boost Rare items into Legendaries. And extracting often nets you better Aspects than what you get from dungeons, at cheaper material cost to boot.
Grab that gallowvine
Gallowvine is an essential ingredient in potions and elixirs. Become a gallowvine hoarder. You can never have enough gallowvine.
Don’t like a quest? It’s safe to abandon it
I abandon things all the time (in real life and Diablo) and it’s never a bad idea to abandon quests that are either distracting or uninteresting. You can always pick up an abandoned quest again later. Do yourself a favor though and take note of the quests you’re abandoning, so you can look up the names later to figure out where to pick them up a second time if it slips your memory.
Key story and world progress is shared across different characters
Once you finish the main story, you won’t need to do it again for future characters. Also, once you wrap the main story and start getting to work on endgame content like Grim Favors, you’ll unlock those activities for all subsequent characters you make. The same is true of major city waypoints.
This is good news if you’re not sure whether or not you’re digging your current character and are debating whether or not you should keep going. As we said in our general tips round-up, starting out with a so-so build is far from a bad thing, and it’s worth it to explore. Any time you spend working toward story completion or unlocking new waypoints is time well spent, even if you don’t fully love your current character.
Save irrelevant gear for your future characters
One time, my Rogue picked up a wand. Worried that it’d call me a slur, I got rid of it. But it turns out that by doing so, I was potentially screwing over any future Sorcerer I’d decide to build. Right after the game’s prologue, you’ll get access to your stash in Kyovashad. Anything you put in here is retrievable by other characters you’ll create later on.
So if it’s not a burden to carry around gear that’s not for the class you’re immediately playing, consider stashing it. Your future, other yous will thank you.
Diablo IV is a gargantuan experience, but these basic tips will help you wrap your head around it a little more. What other unmentioned, unexplained features have you found helpful?
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