Dear adventurers, with the arrival of SS12 Lunaria, a lot of new content is coming to us! It is worth mentioning that this is almost the norm in every new season. A new hero is always added to the game, and of course Lunaria season is no exception! This time it's Scent Weaver Sage. The abilities of this new character are not as simple as her appearance. Her extremely high damage and mobility in the final stage will definitely make your jaw drop!

For example, she can easily stack 40,000 points of armor, more than 130% defense improvement, 50% Injury Buffer, 100% AoE damage bonus, 300% movement speed, and more outrageous and perverted attributes. 

Although it is almost impossible to activate all of these attributes at the same time, the wide variety and extremely powerful tools Sage has in her hands give her extremely high mobility, allowing her to easily compete in many different build playstyles. Once it enters the later stages and is fully equipped, Scent Weaver Sage can show its extremely terrifying combat capabilities.

Obviously, Sage is still a growth hero. Although he may be a little hesitant at the beginning compared to other veteran heroes, he will achieve explosive growth soon! Therefore, we guess that this hero will most likely be significantly weakened in SS13, so now is a good time to experience her!

Next, let us talk about what this Sage hero is capable of and how she stacks up those abnormal attributes.

Elixir Skills System

In fact, the core of the entire build revolves around the reworked system of Elixir Skills; through these skills, she can choose one as a base to concoct her own customized elixir.

Custom elixir

First, you need to choose one of the many options as a starting base for elixir. After configuring it into Hero Trait, you can further add an offensive and a defensive ingredient to it.

• Offensive Ingredients: Increases extra damage on critical hits; gains a chance to trigger Double Reaps (this even stacks to 100%); automatically applies a layer of debuffs to enemies each time a skill is cast.
• Defensive ingredients: Add Injury Buffer; Damage Taken as Mana; Physical Taken as Elemental, which also has a chance to stack to 100%!

It is worth mentioning that once these ingredients are selected and added, they are completely integrated into elixir itself and become an integral part of it. This means that the elixir buffs you stack up through various means will also act on the attributes provided by these ingredients, thus further amplifying their effects.

Level 45 traits

In addition, when your character reaches level 45 and unlocks the corresponding traits, you will also gain a means to make these elixir effects last forever.

Another additional benefit brought by level 45 traits is: you will gain the ability to automatically cast Empower Skills and Curse Skills; moreover, the effects of these automatically cast skills will be dynamically increased according to your flask gain effect, doubling their power.

However, Elixir Skills themselves cannot be automatically cast through Sage skills. Therefore, you still need to reserve a Preparation support skill for it, or use the season-specific Activation Medium to trigger it manually later.

Level 75 traits

For Scent Weaver Sage, the elixir you choose as the base for custom potion is very important, because it will directly affect the hero's skill effects and damage. Among the many options, there are many options with extremely powerful effects.

Faced with these attractive elixir options, how to choose is indeed a very confusing problem. However, the good news is that this decision-making process will become slightly easier after reaching trait level 75. Because at this point you can unlock and craft a second bottle of custom elixir.

Although this second bottle of elixir cannot use the same ingredient as the first bottle, it has its own exclusive ingredient pool. For example, you can choose to convert the overflow life recovery into energy shield recovery; or obtain a multiplier bonus that can greatly increase the chance of blocking. Moreover, this second bottle of customized elixir can also enjoy the bonus of level 45 trait, thus achieving permanent coverage of the potion's effect.

How to improve the elixirs effect?

Next, let's dive into how to further enhance these elixir effects. In this regard, there are indeed many excellent matching solutions.

Steel Vanguard

First, Steel Vanguard is getting a minor rework, aiming to give Sage some additional elixir charge generation speed increases, additional damage bonuses, and some elixir effect buffs.

However, the real core highlight of this change is the new Tailored Remedy notable talent: as long as you use two or more Elixir Skills at the same time, you can get up to 60% additional Elixir effect bonus.

If you only use one Elixir Skill, although you can still get Elixir effect bonus, it will come with an extremely severe penalty: the duration of the potion is greatly reduced by 40%. In short, this is definitely a powerful talent with great value. Almost every Sage player will choose to light up this talent without hesitation.

Unique items

In addition, Torchlight Infinite SS12 also introduces new unique items specially designed for Scent Weaver Sage: including a pair of new gloves Omni that can provide elixir effect bonus and can permanently maintain an elixir active state; and a new belt Golden Touch with staggeringly powerful attributes. This belt not only provides the defense attributes and life bonus that Sage covets but also greatly increases the rate of charge generation.

Even for other builds, this is a piece of equipment with excellent attributes. More importantly, if you can use Elixir Skill frequently and continuously, this belt will provide you with a huge damage multiplier.

Pets & Hero Memory Revival

In addition, new pets can also provide massive elixir effect bonuses. With the new Hero Memory Revival mechanism, you can also add the elixir effect bonus to one of your Hero Memory to achieve further multiplication of the elixir effect.

Build gameplay

Finally, as a new hero, the question you may have been thinking about is: how exactly does she play? What are the build options?

In fact, it's the projectiles or AoE builds that we think really shine. In SS12, the most powerful build core of Scent Weaver Sage is Chromatic Shot Sage. This build takes full advantage of Sage's unique ability to convert damage into random elements and cause explosions. It improves output efficiency by focusing on high-speed AoE damage clearing, and uses Licorice Note and Basic Scent Bottles to mix ingredients to obtain various buffs, thereby creating a unique and extremely fast-paced gameplay.

One of the core features of this genre is that it triggers an explosion when killing an enemy, producing a wide range of green AoE damage, thereby achieving an efficient screen clearing effect.

In addition to this, you can also try armor stacker play in the late game, because we can get a ridiculous amount of armor just by combining armor and defense elixir even with a relatively small investment of Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium.

Completing an armor stacker with Sage was much easier than the extreme budget required for any other build. And later in the game, since the armor stacker doesn't require anything other than movement speed, you can simply switch to Blurry Steps and Movement Speed ​​potion to get 400% movement speed, making it the single fastest armor stacker variant. You can easily blow up the entire screen in a very satisfying way.

Whether you want to use Chromatic Shot to clear the screen in one second, or you want to build the most powerful armor stacker at a very low cost, this Sage advanced guide is an essential manual for you to dominate Torchlight Infinite SS12! Good luck!

ARC Raiders is rolling out a major update at the end of April, including a new map and an all-new boss. Around the same time, the third Expedition window is also set to open in late April, making this a very significant moment.

On April 17, the team released an article titled A Triumphant Exit, which essentially serves as the official announcement for the third Expedition. It lays out the timing for the third Expedition, key adjustments to the seasonal reset, and several welcome changes compared to previous Expeditions. Let's break down the details.

Third Expedition Date

The specific window for the third Expedition has now been confirmed to open on April 28, aligning closely with earlier estimates. This date also marks the release of Riven Tides update. It will be the first time an Expedition window opens on the same day as a content update - previously, the update would arrive first, followed by Expedition window a day or two later.

The only difference is that the window will open a few hours after the update goes live. This Expedition window will last for five days. The opening and closing times, by time zone, are as follows:

• UTC: April 28, 11:00 – May 4, 07:00
• PDT: April 28, 04:00 – May 4, 00:00
• BST: April 28, 12:00 – May 4, 08:00
• CET: April 28, 12:00 – May 4, 08:00
• AEST: April 28, 21:00 – May 4, 17:00
• JST: April 28, 20:00 – May 4, 16:00

Expedition Requirements

If you've been hoarding wealth or high-value items throughout this season, most of that accumulation has now become largely irrelevant. Unlike previous seasons, where coins and stash value were the final targets for earning top rewards, this Expedition requires you to deal damage to enemies during the window to obtain the highest reward: 5 Skill Points.

This adjustment is now the standard rule for the current version, whether you are taking part in your first, second, or third Expedition. The number of Expeditions you've completed doesn't matter - what counts is the total damage you deal between April 28 and May 4.

How to Meet the Damage Requirement?

To earn all 5 Skill Points for this season, you need to deal damage to any target except the shooting range within the five-day window. This change is clearly meant to encourage active combat. However, the exact damage threshold has not yet been revealed.

The team has already stated their intention to reform Expedition system, moving away from a monotonous gold grind and reshaping core mechanics such as ARC Raiders blueprints and Skill Point allocation. This shift was therefore to be expected.

Players who enjoy PvE will need to find ways to eliminate ARC enemies on the map, while PvP players can expect even more chaos and relentless killing during the window. Stella Montis is sure to become a bloody battlefield. 

Stash Value

Although your stash value is no longer needed for this Expedition, the catch-up mechanic still relies on coins and stash value for conversion. Similar to the previous Expedition, you can use 300,000 (combined coins and stash value) to make up for each Skill Point you missed earlier. However, you must first obtain the 5 skill points from the current Expedition by completing the damage challenge.

For example, suppose you earned only 3 out of 5 Skill Points in the last Expedition (missing 2). This time, you complete the damage challenge and earn all 5 Skill Points. If, when the window closes, you have a combined stash and coin value of 600,000, you will receive a total of 7 Skill Points. If you also missed points from the first Expedition, you can continue to catch up, but that will require even more value.

Last Call

A major issue with past Expedition windows was that players had to actively confirm and agree to depart within the five-day window. If you missed it, the entire Expedition window became void - no reset, no benefits.

Now, a new feature called Last Call has been introduced. It allows players who have completed all the prerequisite steps for an Expedition and are only waiting for departure confirmation - even if they missed the five-day registration window - to still depart the next time they log in, after the window has closed and the reset has already taken place.

The only difference is that because you depart through this option without needing to meet the damage requirement, you will not earn any Skill Points. However, you will still receive the basic rewards, including:

• Patchwork outfit (evolved)
• Expedition Indicator icon
• Stash capacity increase

More importantly, Last Call also allows you to retain your Consecutive Buffs. If you fail to depart, those buffs would be lost. Last Call gives you one final chance - even if you can't obtain all the rewards, you can still advance your progress and make up for what you missed in the next Expedition window.

Rewards

Permanent Rewards

Patchwork outfit from Expedition rewards will continue to evolve. However, the announcement mentions that the fourth Expedition will feature a completely different appearance. The evolved skin actually already existed in the game files in an unimplemented state after the last Expedition update, and it will now be officially awarded as the reward for the third Expedition. Depending on whether you are participating in your first, second, or third Expedition, you will receive the corresponding version of the outfit.

Stash capacity: Each Expedition adds 12 stash slots. After upgrading to the maximum capacity:

• First Expedition: 292 slots
• Second Expedition: 304 slots
• Third Expedition: 316 slots

Each Expedition grants up to 5 Skill Points, plus any additional points you catch up on. Note that you can obtain at most 5 extra points via the catch-up mechanic per Expedition, for a total of 10.

Consecutive Buffs

Depending on how many Expeditions you have completed, these buffs will stack cumulatively, up to a maximum of three stacks.

• General experience bonus: 5% → 10% → 15%
• Scrappy materials boost: 6% → 12% → 18%
• Repair value increase: 60% → 70% → 80%

If you complete the third Expedition but skip the fourth, these buffs will drop back to the base level, and you will need to complete three Expeditions in a row again to restore them to their current tier.

This third Expedition is certainly more engaging than simply hoarding stash value, but the window is rather short, and many players may miss out. The current approach to Expedition doesn't feel fully mature. Given that the team is considering adjustments to various aspects of the game, these changes may well be temporary.