Diablo 4 Season 10 PTR New Event Chaos Rifts: What Is It Like To Play?

Posted: Aug 20, 2025 Views: 61

Posted: Aug 20, 2025

Source: IGGM

To coincide with the new Seasonal Powers, nearly every Diablo 4 season features a corresponding seasonal event, where you'll earn basic loot by killing new enemy types and gaining new powers.

For example, in Season 8, if you wanted to gain boss powers, besides targeted boss farming, you could also complete Apparition Incursions events early in the game to gain a more basic level of boss Power.

For Season 10, the new event that allows you to earn seasonal powers, Chaos Perks, is Chaos Rifts! While this season itself doesn't launch until September 23rd, the week-long 2.4.0 PTR launched on August 19th!

This time, we'll analyze Chaos Rifts' performance on PTR to see if it offers real value.

Diablo 4 Season 10 PTR New Event Chaos Rifts: What Is It Like To Play?

Chaos Rifts Overview

A Season 10-only event, Chaos Rifts will randomly appear in Helltides and Nightmare Dungeons throughout this season (2.4.0 PTR). Once encountered, they unleash a horde of demons, which you must defeat these enemies in a timely manner.

Chaos Rifts are divided into normal and mythic types. In addition to Chaos Perks, both normal and mythic Chaos Rifts can drop Diablo 4 gold, Chaos Armor, XP, gems, and other standard rewards, while mythic Chaos Rifts may yield Mythic Uniques.

How To Complete Chaos Rifts In Helltides?

Helltides are limited-time, regional events in Diablo 4 that respawn at random locations in Sanctuary every 75 minutes for one hour. Your goal is to kill enemies within the allotted time to collect Aberrant Cinders, which unlock Helltide Chests for loot.

In Season 10, when you enter Helltides and explore, you might see giant hands rising from the ground. These represent Chaos Rifts.

Defeat the enemies released by Chaos Rifts, and you'll most likely receive rare or magic Chaos Powers, along with other rewards and Infernal Warp, a special currency used to upgrade these powers.

In general, the chances of obtaining high-rarity perks or mythical Chaos Rifts in Helltides are relatively low. However, you can equip existing perks to enhance your character's power and increase your efficiency in finding and clearing Chaos Rifts in Helltides.

How Do You Complete Chaos Rifts In Nightmare Dungeons?

Generally speaking, you need to first obtain Nightmare Sigils to convert a normal dungeon into a Nightmare dungeon before you can enter and begin searching for Chaos Rifts.

There's nothing special to say about Chaos Rifts clearing process. Whether in Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons, all you have to do is kill enemies.

The Value Of Chaos Rifts

Of all Chaos Rifts' loot, the most important are undoubtedly Chaos Perks and Chaos Armor. The former provides seasonal bonuses in combat, while the latter acts as stronger armor, providing more reliable gear affix effects.

However, it's important to note that Chaos Perks are passively activated and don't require any additional equipment to function. However, some abilities also inflict debuffs while providing benefits.

Therefore, if you want to utilize them, you must plan ahead based on their characteristics.

As for Chaos Armor, remember that in addition to exclusive armor, the unique items added to each class in Season 10, as well as many universal armor pieces, can also be used as Chaos Armor!

How Is The Overall Chaos Rifts Experience?

Based on 2.4.0 PTR, Chaos Rifts generally spawn at a low rate. Sometimes, you might consume a significant amount of time exploring Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons, only to find one or two Chaos Rifts, with irregular spawn intervals.

Rare seasonal powers and mythic Chaos Rifts spawn even less frequently, but the common rewards and Infernal Warp drops are more than adequate, meeting your early game needs for upgrading your base character and Chaos Perks.

Honestly, however, earning a Chaos Perk, even at a lower rarity, will benefit you throughout Diablo 4 Season 10 PTR, especially after upgrading it with Infernal Warp.

Even without Chaos Rifts, Helltides and Nightmare Dungeons are essential content for completing any Diablo 4 season, as they provide the primary sources of gold, gear, and various crafting materials.

So, combining them with Chaos Rifts also saves you some unnecessary exploration time, allowing you to complete multiple quests simultaneously, both improving your character and completing necessary resource farming.

Overall, Chaos Rifts encounter itself is worth experiencing, but the associated loot drop rate, as well as other event mechanics, still need improvement.

What Changes Should Chaos Rifts Receive?

To ensure a wonderful experience for Chaos Rifts on subsequent 2.4.0 PTR and in the official release in Season 10, Diablo 4 should set a minimum number of times they should appear within a fixed timeframe. Otherwise, the low refresh rate could discourage participation.

As for Chaos Rifts in Nightmare Dungeons, Diablo 4 could add specific Nightmare Sigils as dungeon affixes that guarantee Chaos Rifts' appearance or increase their loot drops, thereby increasing the event's playability and value.

Fortunately, the purpose of 2.4.0 PTR is to find the shortcomings of existing mechanics through testing so that timely improvements can be made before the official release of Season 10. Therefore, there is no need to worry even if Chaos Rifts does not perform well at this stage!

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Diablo 4 Season 10 New Unique Items Preview: How Do They Affect Each Class?
Every season brings a few new unique items, and Season 10 is no exception. Last season's new unique items significantly boosted Sorcerer and Spiritborn. The Ophidian Iris was arguably the best unique item ever designed.

So what about Season 10's unique items? Will they deliver the same crazy boosts to a particular build as they did in Season 9? That depends on their specific effects.

Barbarian: Sabre Of Tsasgal (Unique One-Hand Sword)
- Inherent: +50% Damage
- +107-121 Strength
- +62.5-85% Physical Damage
- +2-3 Core Skill Ranks
- +2-3 Warpath
Unique Effect: Each damaging skill you equip increases your damage by 3-5% [x], and each time you use a skill, your damage is increased by an additional 6-10% [x] for 15 seconds.

This unique item is clearly a general-purpose item. These unique items can provide a significant damage boost, increasing with more damaging skills. However, Barbarian's many Shout skills provide a significant buff, and without giving up Shout skills, this weapon can provide a maximum damage boost of 15-20% [x].

Druid: Kilt Of Blackwing (Unique Pants)
- +636-685 Maximum Life
- +2-3 Ranks to Ravens
- +13-17.5% Raven Cooldown Reduction
- +16-25% Chance for Ravens to Deal Double Damage
Unique Effect: Ravens deal 60-100% increased damage [x] and can transform into other forms or activate a companion skill, summoning ravens to attack nearby enemies. Summoning ravens has a chance to inflict Unkindness for 10 seconds, increasing the number of summoned ravens to 3 for the duration.

This unique item primarily enhances Druid's Ravens skill and increases the number of Ravens. Ravens can also summon wild wolves to attack enemies. This unique item shares many similarities with Ophidian Iris, allowing you to become a Druid summoner.

Necromancer: Gospel Of The Devotee (Unique Focus)
- +80-94 Intelligence
- +424-457 Maximum Life
- +4.4-10% Basic Skill Attack Speed
- +13-17.5% Chance for Basic Skills to Deal Double Damage
Unique Effect: Your basic skills are empowered. When you damage an enemy with a basic skill, the damage dealt by your other basic skills against them is increased by 10-30% [x] for 10 seconds.
- Reap attack speed increased by 10%.
- Decompose now creates a corpse every 0.5 seconds.
- Hemorrhage triggers an additional burst on the initial target.
- Bone Splinters will pierce enemies.
This unique weapon primarily enhances Necromancer's basic skills: Decompose, Reap, Hemorrhage, and Bone Splinters. Necromancer builds centered on basic skills aren't exactly mainstream. While Reap Necromancer build might be considered one, the attack speed boost alone isn't a significant improvement. You'll also need more Diablo 4 items that increase critical hit chance to make it perform well in the endgame.

Rogue: Orphan Maker (Unique Two-Handed Crossbow)
- Inherent: +130% Vulnerable Damage
- +4-6 Ranks to Marksman Skills
- +2-4 Ranks to Exploit
- +32-45% Chance for Marksman Skills to Cast Twice
- +125-170% Vulnerable Damage
Unique Effect: Using this weapon's Basic and Core Skills now allows recharging. Recharge skills now deal 250-300% more damage, and this bonus is doubled every two recharges.

PS: Skills with recharges incur a slight delay, preventing them from being recast. Its damage and reload speed are increased by 50% of your attack speed.

This unique item significantly strengthens Rogues, as Barrage, Rapid Fire, and Penetrating Shot are already powerful core abilities. This unique item increases their damage by up to 300%, making them particularly effective against bosses.

Sorcerer: Galvanic Azurite (Unique Ring)
- Inherent: 12.5% Resistance to All Elements
- Inherent: 5% Resistance to All Elements
- +5.2-6% Critical Strike Chance
- +57-75% Lightning damage
- 8.1-8.8% Cooldown reduction
- +2-3 Ranks to Elemental Synergies
Unique Effect: Lightning damage magnetizes enemies for 4 seconds, causing them to release explosive energy and increasing all Lightning damage you deal by 40-60% [x]. If two magnetized enemies collide with Burst Energy, they will be pulled towards each other.

This unique item further strengthens Lightning Sorcerer build and adds some crowd control. This item will increase the speed at which Sorcerer can farm Diablo 4 gold pairs in the endgame. Chain Lightning Sorcerer build reached Tier A in Season 9 and it may be reach Tier S in Season 10.

Spiritborn: Hesha E Kesungi (Unique Gloves)
- 10.5-15% Attack Speed
- 46.5-60% Vulnerable Damage
- 15.5-20% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
- 3-5 Gorilla Skill Ranks
Unique Effect: A guardian summoned from a distance, whose heavy attack pulls enemies inward. Enemies within range receive 30-50% increased damage from your Gorilla skills, with double damage for knocked-down enemies or when targeting a boss.

This new unique item provides a significant damage multiplier for Spiritborn's Gorilla ability. While Gorilla's unique ability is known for its barrier-generating properties, it lacks damage compared to other abilities. This unique item addresses this shortcoming, especially against bosses, where it can even double Spiritborn's damage, creating a high-damage, high-survivability Spiritborn. This Gorilla Spiritborn build could potentially reach Tier A or even Tier S in Season 10.

Diablo 4 Season 10's unique items offer significant benefits to all classes, and some of these new unique items have the potential to rival Ophidian Iris from Season 9. Furthermore, their unique effects can be applied to Chaos Armor in Season 10. Combining them with other unique items and mythic items could be extremely effective, but this could also introduce unexpected bugs. How they perform remains to be seen through player testing on the PTR.
Diablo 4 Season 10 (2.4.0 PTR Preview): Chaos Rifts, Infernal Hordes, Chaos Armor, Chaos Perks, Unique Items And More
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!
Diablo 4 Season 10 Chaos Armor Preview: Why It Could Reshape Meta Builds?
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.
Diablo 4 Season 10 PTR Sanctuary Sitdown Preview: Is This New Communication Format The Right Decision?
Wanderers, have you finished your Season 9 campaign? Are you looking for news about the next season? Here comes the good news!

Sanctuary Sitdown Replaces Campfire Chat

Recently, the developers announced that they will host a Sanctuary Sitdown event on August 14th at 11:00 AM PDT to share information about the new season with Diablo 4 players and prepare for the upcoming releases of 2.4.0 and Season 10 PTR.

However, if you're a longtime Diablo player, you'll have noticed this change. Since Diablo 4's initial release in 2023, players have been eagerly waiting to learn about the new content before each new season by visiting Campfire Chat streams.

This isn't just a simple name change; I believe it's a way for the developers to adjust their communication strategy with Diablo 4 players. Instead of the usual Twitch streams, they'll be holding discussions and Q&A sessions on Discord. Players have two days to submit questions to the developers, but not all questions will be selected and answered.

Sanctuary Sitdown is a new form of communication. PTR updates will be discussed via voice chat in Diablo 4 Discord. Players can join the voice channel and listen to developers like Aislyn Hall, Charles Dunn, and Ben Fletcher discuss Season 10 and the PTR. This marks a significant shift in D4's news release method, moving away from live broadcasts and toward more direct, live chat-based community interaction.

Imagine if this change in communication method will rekindle player excitement and anticipation.

Is Releasing During Such A Busy September The Right Decision?

While the developers haven't revealed the specifics of the event, it's expected that Sanctuary Sitdown's Q&A will not be limited to the 2.4.0 PTR and Season 10: Infernal Chaos.

Season 10 is scheduled to launch on September 23rd, coinciding with one of the busiest months for game releases in recent years. This has sparked debate over whether the timing of the new season's release is more strategic or more risky.

As we all know, the September 23rd launch date comes just 11 days after Borderlands 4, which launched on September 12th. Borderlands 4 is one of the biggest action-RPG releases in recent years and shares some of the same player base.

But the competition goes far beyond that. September also features a host of major releases, including:
- September 4: Hell is Us and the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle DLC
- September 5: Cronos: The New Dawn
- September 19: Dying Light: The Beast
- September 25: Silent Hill
Adding to the pressure, direct competitors are also taking action.

Among them, the action-RPG Titan Quest 2 launched in Early Access on August 1st, receiving positive feedback from players. Path of Exile 2's 0.3.0 patch also went live on August 29th, featuring combat and loot hunting more familiar to Diablo fans. All of these new dynamics are making the genre even more competitive.

Is The Release Of Season 10 A Helpless Decision?

Two years after its release, Diablo 4's seasonal mode is competing for attention not only with new games but also with the ever-evolving RPG genre.

However, with Diablo 4's next DLC not expected until 2026, Diablo 4 will need seasonal updates like Infernal Chaos to keep players engaged.

The arrival of Season 10 PTR follows a period without major updates for Diablo 4. Just last month, the developers announced that no major content updates would be released before the start of the new season, a decision that disappointed some players but made sense given the timing.

Typically, the PTR gives players the opportunity to experience new content before the official season begins, exploring how the new season will play out, including end-game content, new ways to farm Diablo 4 gold, class adjustments, and more. However, the Sanctuary Sitdown event will offer players a deeper look at balance and feature changes, which are often overlooked.

Rod Fergusson's Departure May Have Been The Catalyst For This Sanctuary Sitdown

In fact, 2025 has already brought significant changes to the series. Rod Fergusson, who led the Diablo series for approximately five years, left the team earlier this month. During his tenure, he oversaw the releases of Diablo 4 and its first DLC, Vessel of Hatred, Diablo Immortal, and D2R.

It's unclear how Rod Fergusson's departure will affect future development, but it appears to be a significant factor in the Diablo 4 team's strategy adjustments this year.

With this in mind, Infernal Chaos will need to deliver some memorable highlights to stand out and prove the capabilities of the new development team.

If they can effectively leverage PTR player feedback and clearly address player questions during Sanctuary Sitdown, Season 10 still has a chance to stand out in this competitive launch window.

Regardless, August 14th's Sanctuary Sitdown will be a significant moment for the Diablo 4 community, marking the first time the developers have used this new format for news releases. With so many major releases coming in September, it will be closely watched whether the Infernal Chaos Season lives up to its name and is enough to keep Diablo 4 players engaged in the competitive landscape.
Diablo 4 Season 9 Endgame Character Improvement Guide: How To Increase Your Damage?

When players reach the endgame, their skill points and glyphs are nearly perfect. But when you face monsters, you'll find they're much tougher than in the campaign. If you're a Necromancer, you'll find your summoned armies of skeletons reduced to shattering skeletons.

So what's going wrong? Why isn't your build as damaging as other players'? How can you improve your damage? This requires analyzing Diablo 4's gameplay and mechanics.

1. Don't Focus On Attack

When you first enter the game, attack damage can provide a significant boost. However, once you reach Torment I, even with 60,000 attack damage, you still won't be able to destroy monsters. This is because attack damage becomes less important in the later stages.

What factors play a role in your combat? Attack speed, critical hit chance, lucky hits, and so on, and all of which are related to attack damage. If you focus solely on increasing your attack power, your damage will indeed increase, but the boost will be limited.

Suppose you have two amulets: one that increases attack power by 20% and critical hit chance and critical hit damage by 30%, and one that increases attack power by 50%. After damage testing, the first amulet will generally have higher damage. So if you constantly recharge your gear to stack attack power in the endgame, you're simply wasting your Diablo 4 gold.

Simply put, attack power is like the water in a pool. You can spray monsters for a whole day with a toy pistol, or you can just use a high-pressure water gun to cut them in half in a second.

2. Multiplicative And Additive

This brings us to Diablo IV's damage formula. In Diablo IV, addition and multiplication are the two primary ways character attributes and damage calculations are affected. Addition simply adds values together, while multiplication multiplies the base value.

Additive is typically used to stack attributes of the same type, such as multiple affixes that increase maximum health or multiple affixes that increase skill damage. The calculation method is to add the values of all additive attributes simply and then apply them to the base attribute. For example, if your character has two affixes that increase maximum health by 10%, the total maximum health increase is 20%.

Multiplicative is typically used to stack attributes of different types, such as increasing attack damage, critical strike chance, and critical strike damage. The calculation method is usually to multiply multiple multiplicative factors together and then apply them to the base attribute. For example, if a character has an affix that increases attack damage by 1.2 times and an affix that increases critical strike damage by 1.5 times, the total attack damage increase is 1.2 * 1.5 = 1.8 times.

On equipment, whether the affix is additive or multiplicative is marked with a symbol in front of the affix, making it easy to identify which affix is more effective. If you want to increase your damage, the most effective way is to focus on multiplicative affixes and maximize your specific abilities.

3. Equipment

Diablo 4 equipment is a major headache for every player. Besides equipment quality, you also need to consider its affixes. For players striving for maximum damage, the most worrying aspect is Greater Affix Gear (GA Gear). This gear tends to drop more frequently in Torment 4, and its affixes represent improved stats, allowing for higher damage. However, in most cases, a single piece of GA gear will suffice.

Horadric Knowledge

Let's first discuss how to get equipment. Your first choice in Season 9 is naturally Horadric Knowledge, which translates to Season 9 reputation. Mystery Archetype Cache provides Diablo 4 items relevant to your class, meaning everything in it is useful, even GA gear. The final Resplendent Cache provides items that allow you to craft Mythic items.

Infernal Hordes

In Infernal Hordes, besides exchanging Burning Aether for caches and obtaining Ancestral Legendary items, you can also obtain Scrolls of Restoration, which grant a chance to re-temper items that can no longer be tempered, preventing your gear from becoming bricked.

Nightmare Dungeons

Season 9's major change is Nightmare Dungeons. By completing both standard and upgraded Nightmare Dungeons, you can earn a considerable amount of Diablo 4 gold, materials, and gear. However, there's no guarantee of receiving Ancestral Unique items.

4. Build Guide

Many people prefer to experiment with their own builds rather than follow others' guides, which is certainly more fun. However, if you're looking for higher damage, referencing each season's meta builds may help you solve your problems.

The builds shared have been tested for damage and are guaranteed to deliver the desired damage. Ignore any builds that don't interest you and choose those that are close to your own builds as a reference.

5. Masterworking and Tempering

Masterworking and tempering are the final steps in upgrading your gear, each offering significant improvements. Masterworking and tempering are two separate equipment enhancement systems, independent of each other, but both significantly impact the stats and power of your gear. Masterworking primarily improves a gear's raw stats and adds additional attributes, while tempering modifies existing attributes to better suit your needs.

Masterworking requires materials such as Diablo 4 Obducite and gold, while tempering requires collecting Tempering Manuals. Collecting all the manuals is a bit tedious, and collecting and opening Whispering Tree caches to collect tempering manuals is a quicker method.

In short, to increase your character's damage, you need to understand Diablo IV damage multipliers and adjust your gear affixes and build accordingly.
Diablo 4 Season 9 Earth Spike Druid Build: How To Fast-Teleport In The Pit?
Season 9 finally sees the arrival of an insane Druid build. This build lets you blink like crazy in The Pit, destroying every enemy within. The clearing speed of this build is top-notch; if you can replicate it, your only concern will be whether your computer can handle the rapid blinking.

This build has already destroyed 147 The Pit instances, and in the video, they dealt a staggering 2,957,400,000,000,000,000 damage to the boss—it'll take you a while just counting the zeros. This build relies on Horadric Spells in addition to Diablo 4 items, and let's take a look at the skills and items required for this build.

Pros And Cons

Earth Spike Druid build allows for unlimited teleportation and deals incredibly high damage, making it incredibly fast whether you're farming dungeons or Infernal Horde. This build has incredibly fast teleport speeds, much faster than Sorcerer or any other class build. If you're looking to have a good time before Season 10 arrives, you absolutely must try it.

Secondly, this build has numerous protective abilities, making it incredibly tanky and difficult to kill in most situations, making it well-suited for Hardcore mode.

This build does have some drawbacks, of course. First, its high damage is inherently unnatural; it exploits a bug, but this bug has been around for a long time and hasn't been fixed, so you can play for a while without worrying about it suddenly breaking.

You can exploit this bug to achieve a one-hit kill on bosses (few bosses can withstand such high damage, after all), but triggering the bug takes time, and if you're not able to protect yourself in time, you'll be killed by the boss.

Another drawback is its high gear requirements. Not only mythical items but also your other gear needs to upgrade by Temper and Masterworking system to get the affixes up to par, requiring a significant investment in Diablo 4 gold and affixes.

Earth Spike Druid Gear
- Helm: Vasily's Prayer (Bac and Xan)
- Chest Armor: Shroud of False Death (Igni and Qax)
- Gloves: Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast
- Pants: Stormshifter's Aspect (Sapphire and Sapphire)
- Boots: Hectic Aspect
- Weapon: Shard of Verathiel (Emerald)
- Amulet: Aspect of Adaptability
- Ring 1: Ring of Starless Skies (Elemental Brand)
- Ring 2: Aspect of the Rabid Bear (Luminate Eye)
- Offhand: Aspect of the Moonrise (Emerald)
This build only requires two unique items, but it's still quite difficult to obtain because you need to obtain two mythic items. Vasily's Prayer's main function is to convert your Earthquake skill into a Werebear skill, granting her the benefits of Grizzly Rage and Aspect of the Rabid Bear.

As for affixes, since you rely primarily on Earth Spike for damage rather than regular attacks, you'll want affixes like cooldown reduction and increased Earth skill damage. The better your gear, the higher your cumulative damage.

Earth Spike Druid Skills
- Debilitating Roar (Rank 1): Enchanced Debilitating Roar and Innate Debilitating Roar
- Blood Howl (Rank 1): Enchanted Blood Howl and Innate Blood Howl
- Cyclone Armor (Rank 1): Enchanted Cyclone Armor and preserving Cyclone Armor
- Grizzly Rage (Rank 5): Prime Grizzly Rage and Supreme Grizzly Rage
- Hurricane (Rank 1): Enchanted Hurricane and Savage Hurricane
- Earth Spike (Rank 5): Enchanted Earth Spike and Wild Earth Spike
Spirit Boons
- Deer: Wariness
- Eagle: Swooping Attacks and Avian Wrath
- Wolf: Energize
- Snake: Obsidian Slam
This build mainly relies on Earth Spike to trigger Catalyst skill for flash. Pulverize has higher damage, but since it requires a target to use, while Earth Spike doesn't need this, only Earth Spike allows you to frequently flash to other areas.

When paired with Horadric Spells for quick flashing, Earth Spike's damage is sufficient to kill most normal monsters. The remaining skills are primarily used during boss fights, where their primary purpose is to deal with them. Most of these skills are used to enhance survivability, making this build highly survivable.

Horadric Spells

Catalyst (Earth Spike)
- Cosmic Anomaly: Manifest up to 5 Anomalies, which emit particles that deal damage over 4 seconds. You can cluster Anomalies and implode, each explosion dealing damage. With 5 Anomalies, you become unstoppable.
Infusion
- Corrosive Vapor: Changes the damage dealt by your Cosmic Anomaly to poison damage and disables the life steal of monsters for 5 seconds.
Arcana
- Sapping Crux: Your Catalyst ability makes enemies vulnerable.
- Floaty Bobble: You can flash to the explosion created by Cosmic Anomaly and remove the debuff.
- Gleaming Conduit: Amplifies Catalyst abilities.
Horadic Spells are the core of this build. Simply cast Earth Spike to trigger Cosmic Anomaly and Floaty Bobble, allowing you to quickly teleport around the map. You can switch between the other two Arcanas based on your farming goals.

This is the most crazy Druid build that will make it easy to clear The Pit in Season 9. This build primarily exploits bugs, so some players might not like it. However, if you're looking to bid farewell to Season 9 and wait for Season 10, I recommend giving it a try before you leave, and it's a very enjoyable build.