Diablo 4 Runeshard

With Diablo 4 Sanctuary Sitdown now over, we're really starting to get to know the new Infernal Chaos season. Season 10 features reworks to popular features and powers that will completely shake up the landscape. Are you ready for another shakeup in the leaderboards?

Here, we'll explore the core changes coming to PTR 2.4.0 to help you prepare and become unstoppable as you conquer the new Chaos Dungeons!

Chaos Rifts

First, let's take a look at one of the new Season's activities - Chaos Rifts. These are portals that appear in Helltide events and Nightmare Dungeon, unleashing countless demons into Sanctuary.

Your goal is to slay all the monsters that emerge from the portal and successfully close it to restore order. Chaos Rifts are not only a new demon-slaying activity, but also a great source of Diablo 4 gold and unique items.

Once a rift is deactivated, it drops a new Nightmare Dungeon Sigil with Chaos Rifts effects, which increases the number of rifts and monsters encountered in the dungeon, and they're quite powerful.

In addition, deactivating these Chaos Rifts also drops a Fleeting Hordes Compass. With this key item, you'll only face four waves before entering Torment difficulty version of Infernal Hordes, and you'll only have to fight two Fell Council members.

Infernal Hordes Rework

Having mentioned Infernal Hordes, it's worth mentioning that this mechanic is getting a revamp in Season 10. This endgame activity is being reworked with new rewards, a new boss type, new seasonal powers, and unique items.

First and foremost, they've added a brand-new boss that you might be familiar with: the infamous Bartuc, the Warlord of Blood. You can choose between fighting Fell Council or Bartuc. While Bartuc's encounter is more difficult, I honestly think it'll be just as manageable as Andariel in Season 9 if you have decent gear. But we'll have to wait and see.

Also, its loot drops are quite exciting. In addition to new Chaos Uniques, we'll also have the opportunity to choose Chaos Waves from Infernal Offerings.

Chaos Waves will completely overhaul the upcoming waves in Infernal Hordes, offering a more intense challenge. These waves will be significantly more difficult, but if you survive, you'll be rewarded with more Burning Aether.

Note that during these Chaos Waves, you won't benefit from boons and bans, but you will encounter many enemies and encounter special events, such as dodging threatening projectiles from Chaos Rifts, slaying powerful Hellwyrms, and swarms of Aether Goblins. Surviving these Chaos Waves will reward you with a large amount of Burning Aether, which increases with your Hordes Compass level.

Honestly, I'd prefer an endless supply of enemies in the endgame to provide a challenge, rather than the usual tedious farming cycle of nothing to do.

Also, the new Bartuc boss fight in Season 10 requires Aether consumption before starting. This means you'll need to have defeated at least Wave 10 of Torment 4 before you can fight Bartuc.

In most cases, the difficulty starts around Wave 6 or 8. These enemies deliver Void-like attacks like a barrage, and the traps within them change quickly, making them incredibly deadly. So, perhaps we'll finally get a proper Pinnacle boss fight in Season 10!

Chaos Armor

While these fights are incredibly difficult, the rewards they drop are definitely worth it, as they drop the new Chaos Armor in addition to Diablo 4 gold and materials.

Chaos Armor, also known as Chaos Uniques, is a beefed-up version of the unique armor introduced in Diablo 4 Season 10. These Chaos Uniques can be placed in the following item slots, giving players more build possibilities: Helm, Chest Armor, Gloves, Pants, and Boots.

Chaos Armor includes new and existing unique armor pieces that have enhanced Unique Powers and can only be used in armor slots where vanilla unique armor cannot be equipped. For example, Flickerstep Unique Boots can be placed in any piece of gear except Boots. However, you cannot equip both Unique and Chaos Unique versions of the same item at the same time.

These Chaos Armor pieces are more powerful than vanilla armor and always have a random maximum value, rather than scaling based on a modifier range. Their damage bonus increases as their attribute cap increases, making this a great addition. This means their Unique Powers are 20% higher than regular armor, with the multiplier displayed in green text.

Notably, these Chaos Armors always come with at least one Greater Affix, allowing you to use unique items that previously occupied the same slot, resulting in even more powerful builds.

Overall, I'm very excited for these new Chaos Uniques, as they'll change how you play and create many excellent builds that haven't even been discovered yet. The only downside is that they're currently exclusive to Season 10, but I still hope they'll consider returning to this system in the future.

Chaos Perks

Now, let's talk about Chaos Perks, which are class-specific perks.

Chaos Perks are a brand new power to collect during this season. They come in four rarities: Magic, Rare, Legendary, and Unique, and combine universal and class-specific abilities. Each rarity includes three universal perks and one class-specific perk, meaning there are nearly a thousand perk combinations available for each class!

These perks affect how your class skills work and provide you with significant benefits, but they will certainly have some cost.

For example, Necromancer's Defile the Dead perk now consumes each corpse twice, and after consuming a corpse, it creates a Chaotic Burst, dealing significant Shadow damage.

Each class has four unique perks, and the developers will probably change this in the future, tweaking your perks and how they work in different ways. This is great, as the skill system in Season 9 is pretty bland right now.

New Unique Items

Finally, let's take a quick look at the new unique items for each class introduced in Season 10. As with previous seasonal updates, these items will serve as the foundation for our builds in the new season.

• Barbarian: Sabre of Tsasgral
• Druid: Kilt of Blackwing
• Necromancer: Gospel of the Devotee
• Rogue: Orphan Maker
• Sorcerer: Galvanic Azurite
• Spiritborn: Hesha e Kesungi

That's all for Diablo 4 2.4.0 PTR update. What are your thoughts on the upcoming Season 10 content? Do you think these changes will truly make it stand out in the competitive September? Regardless, Season 10 PTR, which runs from August 19-26, is about to open, and all the unknowns will soon be revealed!

Although Diablo 4 Season 10 isn't set to arrive until mid-September, season 10 PTR Livestream about Diablo 4 offer a glimpse into what Season 10 will be like. Infernal Hordes, borne from Hell, once again tear apart the portals between Hell and Earth, bringing death and fire back to this land.

Besides continued changes to Infernal Hordes in Season 10, one area many players will be interested in is Chaos Armor. It's clearly a new type of equipment, so how does it compare to unique items, ancestral unique items, and mythic items?

What Is Chaos Armor?

Chaos Armor is still essentially a unique item, but as its name suggests, this armor set is filled with chaos. In Season 10 demo picture, the developers used Banished Lord's Talisman as an example. It's a unique amulet, while its namesake Chaos Armor is a glove, though it can also be boots or a chest armor.

If a unique item originally had gloves, Chaos Armor will not create gloves with the same name; it will only appear in a different slot.

Banished Lord's Talisman increases your critical hit damage by up to 60%, while Chaos Armor increases it to 72%, and this means Chaos Armor provides a 20% higher damage bonus than the original unique Diablo 4 item.

Chaos Armor only has the following components, not including weapon amulets or rings:

• Helm
• Chest
• Gloves
• Pants
• Boots

Why Does It Completely Change Builds?

From what we've seen so far, Season 10 builds' damage will be taken to another level. Firstly, the nerfs in this patch are minimal, mostly buffs. Secondly, the boost Chaos Armor provides.

You know some unique items are incredibly powerful, but they often share a slot with other items, which means you're forced to choose between two excellent unique items. Rogue players will undoubtedly have experienced the dilemma of choosing a helmet.

Chaos Armor solves this problem to some extent. You can equip a unique helmet, and then your gloves' unique effects are derived from another unique helmet. This allows you to swap out less powerful parts for more powerful ones, resulting in a significant boost.

Some clever players might try to maximize the multiplier by equipping two items with the same unique effect. Unfortunately, the developers anticipated this and prevented you from equipping two items with the same unique effect, or in other words, from equipping Diablo 4 items with the same name.

Also, Chaos Armor only applies to a subset of unique item effects; their affixes are randomly rolled among the following equipment pools.

General

• Banished Lord's Talisman
• Crown of Lucion
• Endurant Faith
• Fists of Fate
• Flickerstep
• Godslayer Crown
• Locran's Talisman
• Mother's Embrace
• Paingorger's Gauntlets
• X'Fal's Corroded Signet

Barbarian

• Sabre of Tsasgal (New Unique)
• Battle Trance
• Gohr's Devastating Grips
• Hooves of the Mountain God
• Mantle of Mountain's Fury
• Overkill
• Rage of Harrogath
• Ring of Red Furor
• Ring of the Ravenous
• Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty
• Ugly Bastard Helm
• Unbroken Chain

Druid

• Kilt of Blackwing (New Unique)
• Airidah's Inexorable Will
• Earthbreaker
• Fleshrender
• Greatstaff of the Crone
• Hunter's Zenith
• Malefic Crescent
• Mjölnic Ryng
• Rotting Lightbringer
• Tempest Roar
• The Basilisk
• Vasily's Prayer

Necromancer

• Gospel of the Devotee (New Unique)
• Black River
• Bloodless Scream
• Deathless Visage
• Deathspeaker's Pendant
• Ebonpiercer
• Lidless Wall
• Ring of Mendeln
• Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul
• The Hand of Naz
• The Mortacrux
• The Unmaker

Rogue

• Orphan Maker (New Unique)
• Beastfall Boots
• Condemnation
• Cowl of the Nameless
• Deathmask of Nirmitruq
• Grasp of Shadow
• Pitfighter's Gull
• Saboteur's Signet
• Scoundrel's Leathers
• Shroud of Khanduras
• Skyhunter
• Word of Hakan

Sorcerer

• Galvanic Azurite (New Unique)
• Axial Conduit
• Blue Rose
• Esadora's Overflowing Cameo
• Flamescar
• Fractured Winterglass
• Ophidian Iris
• Raiment of the Infinite
• Staff of Endless Rage
• Staff of Lam Esen
• Starfall Coronet
• Vox Omnium

Spiritborn

• Hesha e Kesungi (New Unique)
• Balazan's Maxtlatl
• Band of First Breath
• Harmony of Ebewaka
• Jacinth Shell
• Loyalty's Mantle
• Peacemonger's Signet
• Ring of the Midday Hunt
• Rod of Kepeleke
• Sunstained War-Crozier
• Sepazontec
• Wushe Nak Pa

How To Get Chaos Armor?

You have two ways to collect Chaos Armor.

Chaos Rifts

Chaos Rifts appear randomly throughout Sanctuary. Approaching these areas will unleash a burning horde from Hell. Sealing a Chaos Rift will reward you with Diablo 4 gold, materials, and other rewards. On Torment difficulty, successfully sealing a Chaos Rift has a chance to drop Chaos Armor.

Boss Bartuc

The Season 10 rework of Infernal Hordes also introduces a new boss, Bartuc. This boss requires Burning Aether to challenge and offers the best rewards, significantly more than those earned by participating in Infernal Hordes, including Chaos Armor.

You can challenge this boss with friends, and everyone needs Burning Aether, and when you get the rewards, you don't need Burning Aether, which is similar to how Lair bosses worked before Season 8. This boss is clearly quite challenging, so be prepared well before you challenge it.

That's some basic information about Chaos Armor. It's clearly going to completely change build strategies, but we'll have to wait until we get to test it on the PTR to see how it performs. If you're interested, the PTR for Season 10 will open on August 19th and end on the 26th, allowing you to download the latest content and experience it.