Return of the Ancestors event in Path of Exile Patch 3.28 is ongoing. During this event, most Ascendancy in the game have been replaced with special Ascendancy from Legacy of Phrecia. These Ascendancy classes will disappear after the event ends. Therefore, these special Ascendancy classes bring about entirely new builds. One such build, centered around Herald, is Penance Brand Build. Through a sophisticated mechanic, it sacrifices some ease of use for an extremely high damage ceiling and survivability. Next, I will introduce this build in detail. Herald Class Role Before introducing this build, you need to understand the special role of Herald. Herald, as a special Ascendancy designed for Witch in PoE's Return of the Ancestors, has a very pure design philosophy: completely abandoning traditional Aura Skills and instead maximizing the potential of Herald Skills. This means players can simultaneously activate multiple Herald Skills, such as Herald of Ash, Herald of Ice, and Herald of Thunder, with extremely low mana retention pressure. This allows players to deal very high damage. In contrast, it offers a significantly different experience compared to Witch's standard Ascendancy class, Elementalist. Elementalist class has an advantage: its buff skill, Elemental Conflux, provides consistent application of Ignite, Shock, and Chill, greatly facilitating map clearing. However, Herald relies on kills to trigger Retribution talent to gain Elemental Conflux effect. When fighting single-target bosses, players may face the problem of not having Elemental Conflux effect available. This is one of Herald class's biggest disadvantages. Core Mechanics Having understood Herald's role, let's now introduce the core mechanics of Penance Brand Herald Build. Mechanism Introduction This build primarily utilizes a skill called Penance Brand of Dissipation. In Return of the Ancestors event in PoE Patch 3.28, you can obtain Transfigured Skill Gem for this skill through Divine Font in Labyrinth. Unlike the regular Skill Gem, it doesn't detonate when fully charged. Instead, it accumulates energy as the brand is activated, expanding its range and increasing Hit and Ailment Damage on branded targets based on the energy stacks. Additionally, this skill has a 50% Physical to Lightning base conversion, making it naturally suited for a lightning damage build. Igniting lightning deals massive damage. So, how do you ignite Penance Brand that inflicts lightning damage? The solution is to use the unique ring Stormfire. This ring allows the player to ignite their own Lightning Damage, the key to converting lightning damage into Ignite damage. Since Penance Brand of Dissipation already provides 50% Physical to Lightning, combining it with other talents or support gems that also have Physical to Lightning properties will convert the remaining Physical damage into Lightning, further expanding the damage range. Of course, other unique items with similar effects can also be used. If you lack such uniques, you can trade them with other players in-game using Currency. Increasing Ignition Chance However, Stormfire doesn't guarantee igniting lightning damage every time. To increase the success rate, players need to activate passive skills like Sealing Heat to increase the ignition chance. Additionally, you'll need Support Gem Combustion, which not only increases the ignition chance but also reduces the enemy's fire resistance after igniting, making it easier to deal more damage with the next attack. If the ignition chance is still not high enough, you can supplement it with other Notable Passive Skills. Through the above methods, you can establish a stable ignition chance and maintain high damage. Defensive Mechanics In PoE, a good build isn't just good at offense, but also at defense. Fortunately, Penance Brand Herald build from Return of the Ancestors event exemplifies this. Elemental Resistance This build achieves 90% Maximum Elemental Resistances - crucial for mitigating high elemental damage in the game. To achieve this level of defense, you need to wear the unique gear Melding of the Flesh and Aegis Aurora. The core effect of Melding of the Flesh is to copy your character's highest resistance cap to the maximum resistance cap for all elements, but this directly lowers the overall resistance cap. The core effect of Aegis Aurora is to provide a significant amount of Armor, while also providing +5% Maximum Cold Resistance. Additionally, enhancing Herald of Ice further increases your Maximum Cold Resistance. Combined with various other resistance-boosting gear and scattered maximum resistance affixes from the talent tree, you can raise your Cold Resistance cap to 90%. Increasing resistances requires a significant amount of Currency. If you lack Currency, you can join in IGGM PoE 1 and 2 Currency Giveaways on Discord, where we will randomly select participants to receive a large amount of Currency. Once you raise your Cold Resistance cap to 90%, due to Melding of the Flesh, your other elemental resistance caps will also be raised to 90%, thus creating a solid elemental defense barrier. Physical Damage Reduction In addition to elemental defense, Future Guilt passive skill in Herald's Ascendancy provides a unique means of reducing physical damage. Specifically, when you are affected by Herald of Purity, it provides an additional 15% physical damage reduction. This is extremely valuable damage reduction for spellcasters who lack armor stacking, effectively reducing the risk of instant death when facing heavy physical damage. This concludes the detailed introduction to Penance Brand Herald Build in Return of the Ancestors event of Path of Exile Patch 3.28. This class and this build are only available during the event, so if you're interested, go try it out!

With the release date of NBA 2K27 approaching (expected September 4), discussions about gameplay changes in the new game are heating up in the community. Recently, a rumor about player models has caused a huge stir in the community - it is claimed that 2K27 will comprehensively enhance the builds of all players, with tall players receiving unprecedented boosts. This article will analyze the core content of this rumor from multiple perspectives and, combined with the evolution of mechanics in previous 2K games, provide players with a forward-looking guide. Core Change: Liberation of the Tall Player Build