However, I think anyone who plays the game has the right to decide how they enjoy it. This includes rune farming strategies, using exploits in the game, and even purchasing Elden Ring Runes from third-party sellers. No one has the right to tell you how to have fun.

Farming Gatefront Ruins

One of the easiest places to farm runes in Elden Ring is Gatefront Ruins. Gatefront Ruins is located in Limgrave, just north of Church of Elleh. It’s filled with relatively easy-to-kill enemies, and with a little more strategy and caution, you can make a tidy profit here.

I’ll show you the route I took on the outside to get you the most bang for your buck. While I’m at it, I’d like to point out that there are a few things to pick up here, the first of which is Limgrave West Map. You can find it in a large stone steel in the center of Gatefront Ruins, which is guarded by several Godrick Soldiers.

Another item you can pick up is Whetstone Knife, which allows you to equip and change Ash of War on your weapon. It’s in a chest south of Ruins. You can also get Ash of War Storm Stomp from here.

You can also pick up two weapons, Lordsworn’s Greatsword and Flail. However, you can find other options from the enemies there.

The primary goal here is to kill as many enemies as quickly as possible and then reset them by resting at Sites of Grace. As long as you want to get ahead on some of your attributes, you can do that as often as you want.

I will mention that before thinking about increasing damage stats like Strength or Dexterity, I always recommend increasing your Vigor stat to 20 or 25 for increased survivability.

Kill Silver Sphere

Another decent rune farming area is located in Caelid. To get there, you’ll need torrents, and you’ll need to start at Sites of Grace, just north of Agheel Lake. You then need to head south across the bridge and then northeast to Mistwood Outskirts Sites of Grace.

You can open the map and view Glintstone on the map. You can pick up the map if you want, but be aware that there are 3 giant Runebears nearby, and they may kill you if provoked.

You can also go around them, pick up the map, and go east to Third Church of Marika. Activate Sites of Grace, grab Flask of Wondrous Physick, Sacred Tear, and Crimson Crystal Tear, go through the hole in the wall on the northwest side of the church, and head to the back of the church.

You will then be transported to a distant place in Caelid, known as Bestial Sanctum. Be careful to avoid the huge Black Blade Kindred Creature here and continue heading south. Next, cross the bridge to Lenne’s Rise and capture Sites of Grace.

Our major goal is to farm the enemy here, Silver Sphere. There are two spawning sites just west of Lenne’s Rise, one close to it and the other a little further on the road to the west.

Each Silver Sphere will grant you 1,952 runes. You then continue to Sites of Grace and rest to reset enemies and rinse and repeat.

Farming Dragon Greyoll

The third rune farming strategy I want to talk about is Dragon. This strategy is suitable for novice to intermediate players.

First, you need a weapon that causes blood loss. The most accessible and available to any class without stat investment is Morning Star. It can be found in a chest inside a broken carriage a little south of Limgrave.

Next, you’ll reach Lenne’s Rise using the strategy I mentioned above. Then head to the back of Lenne’s Rise via torrent. Go to Spiritspring and collect Golden Runes near the coffin.

Then head southwest down the hill and directly south to Fort Faroth to activate Sites of Grace. The target you want to kill is a dragon named Greyoll. If you get in the right spot, not only will nothing attack you, but you’ll also be able to kill the dragon.

If you are a Scholar or a class with a Strength below 12, you will need to use Morning Star with two hands. Get on the torrent and run towards the dragon, attack with Morning Star to trigger the blood and repeat until there is only a little health left.

Next, this is where you make your decision. Either you can kill the dragon and get about 50,000 runes in one go. Or you can use a glitch to farm the dragon repeatedly, essentially giving you infinite runes.

If you want to exploit this, get on Torrent while it has a little health left, but aim Torrent next to Greyoll so you can still hit her. If you do it correctly, you’ll gain 50,000 runes, and Greyoll will still be alive. If you do it wrong, then she disappears. You get the rune, and you get 5 Dragon Hearts.

Albunaurics & Bird

The fourth rune farming strategy I want to talk about is Albunaurics and Birds. This rune farming strategy is suitable for intermediate to advanced players.

Albunaurics and Bird I’m talking about are both located in Mohgwyn Palace. The nearest Sites of Grace is Palace Approach Ledge Road. You need to either reach Consecrated Snowfield or complete Varre questline to reach Mohgwyn Palace.

Next choose Albunaurics or Bird. If you choose Albunaurics on the slopes, then you can attack them all at once or in large groups using your maximum range weapons or magic. Sacred Relic Sword excels in this regard. On your first playthrough, you can get around 70,00 runes per run, or 150,000 runes if you use Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot.

If you choose Bird, face the edge of the cliff, equip a bow, switch to first-person mode and shoot him to attract him and lure him off the cliff. On your first playthrough, you’ll get around 11,000 runes per run, or 26,896 runes if you use Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot. This is also by far the most efficient and fastest way to farm runes in Elden Ring.

Collect Golden Runes

Which brings me to the last strategy for farming runes, which is collecting Golden Runes. This strategy is suitable for beginners to experienced players. It depends on which Golden Runes you get from which coffins.

Golden Runes can be found in several locations across the land, but the most important way to find them is to look for cemeteries with coffins or sarcophagi inside. Every place with these will have Golden Runes, so keep your eyes open when exploring. There are quite a few of them, and the best part is that you can collect them as you go through torrents.

That’s it for today’s guide. I hope these tips help you farm as many runes as possible to get your character ready for the expansion coming in June!

However, when facing bosses, we need the Scoundrel's Kiss unique ring. With a sufficient amount of Diablo 4 Gold, you can seamlessly utilize this build and enjoy a fantastic gaming experience.

Scoundrel's Kiss Explained

The Scoundrel's Kiss offers several benefits: increased critical strike chance, additional ranks to Rapid Fire, and cooldown reduction for imbuement. However, running this unique ring may slow down the game, as it is most beneficial during boss fights. The Rapid Fire shoots exploding arrows that deal with exponentially increased damage, enhancing its effectiveness, especially in terms of AOE damage. 

However, when facing bosses, a critical adjustment is needed: achieving a point-blank range. This necessity gave rise to the exploding shotgun build. The altered mechanics mean that the arrows tend to arc towards targets. Consequently, failing to position within the designated area leads to complete misses, resulting in diminished DPS. This is why it's dubbed the Scoundrel's Kiss.

Skills Setup

So as far as the skills, we choose the Puncture, so that's just going to deal with the ability to apply vulnerability to the target if our Exploit Glyph wears off. Most of the time, you can kill everything in Diablo 4 within a few seconds. Then we are running the Dark Shroud. This is going to give you extra survivability and give you extra crit or movement speed.

And then we are running Dash. This is going to proc our Cutthroat because we are going to be going back to Close Quarters like in Season 2 because it's just as much better. The Shadow Step also activates our Cutthroat skill for our Close Quarters. In terms of basic skills, if you really want to run Cutthroat, that's totally fine too.

The Caltrops skill is kind of optional. It just allows us to get a quick little damage multiplier onto the enemies, and then it will also apply the Chill effect because we're going to be in melee range. It can be used most of the time if you want to maximize DPS.

If you prefer to run the Precision, that's perfectly acceptable. Your next skill activation occurs after either critting twice or reaching the required stacks, which means it's not always active. So, if your critical hit chance is around 20%, then opting for crit damage would be more beneficial in this scenario.

Gear & Aspects

When it comes to gear, both the Disobedience and Juggernauts are important aspects. However, for lower tier content, running just one of them will suffice. However, in order to reach the new monster level cap, you need to run both, or have high armor.

For the Tempering, you can get a chance for Rapid Fire to double or you get damage to Crowd Control, which is easy to just throw on all of your pieces of gear, and it's going to give you way more value than getting your Precision. As far as the crit goes, you can actually get 100% crit in this Rogue build. So you may want to get crit in your gloves, your amulet, as well as in your rings.

In terms of gloves, we're only using the Aspect of Arrow Storms. Not only are these great for open world content, but they can also do a significant amount of damage in other scenarios. And then we're running the Umbrous Aspect. This will give us free dark shrouds when we crit with our Marksman skills.

Then we're also running the Mangler's Aspect. This will apply a daze to the enemies, and while the enemy is actually dazed, they can get knocked down, and then that's going to give us additional crit. That's something that actually got buffed in Season 3. And then we are also running the Repeating Aspect, so more of these Rapid Fire explosions for our shotgun.

And then as far as the other aspects, we're running the Edgemaster's Aspect in our amulet, just gives us some more damage. We also have the Inner Sight, which got buffed. And then we are running the Accelerating Aspect for some more attack speed.

Paragon Board

Finally, as for the paragon board of this build, it's actually very similar to the Flurry Rapid Fire, except we don't scale the Stun Grenades. So, on the starter board, we are going to be getting Ranger, and then we are going to be going up to get Exploit Weakness and Control, and then we're going to be getting the Turf glyph.

And then Tricks of the Trade with Combat, that will give us extra resource. Then, we will have the Cheap Shot, which is physical damage, increases the damage an enemy takes from you. It doesn't change the element, so if you got bonus damage to non-fist, then you could still throw in imbuement if you want to.

In fact, you could throw on poison and get the additional poison imbuement. The reason is that these new Pit bosses, when you start going higher in the tier. So you need to one-shot him before the boss one-shots you. 

We scale the projectile count to 5 and start scaling the energy shield. For this reason, we will use Ephemeral Edge with Resolute Technique corruptions. The easiest way to get this is to spend POE Currency to buy non-corrupted ones, then vaal yourself or double corrupt your weapon until you hit this.

Note that it’s not worth the price tag of 10 Divine Orbs or more, as players demand it a lot. It saves money to do it yourself.

Since our main damage type is lightning, we can use Voice of the Storm unique Amulet to get even more damage in this build.

Lightning Damage with Non-Critical Strikes is Lucky, which means that every time we deal damage to an enemy, the game rolls twice and chooses the higher number. This is very useful when your damage range is very high, especially since the damage range of our lightning build is very large compared to other builds.

Precise Technique

Because of Voice of the Storm Amulet, we can’t scale critical hits, so we can use a very interesting Keystone Passive, Precise Technique. If Accuracy Rating is higher than Maximum Life, attack damage is increased by 40% in exchange for us being unable to deal with critical hits. Because we use Chaos Inoculation, our max life is 1, and this Keystone will take effect with zero effort.

Scale Damage By Defense

I really like this build because we can scale damage with layers of defense. Where does the nearly 13k energy shield come from? Let’s start with the biggest source.

Because we selected Trickster, we have access to Escape Artist Ascendancy node. Equipped body armor has +1 maximum energy shield for every 6 Evasion Rating. We need to use a hybrid body armor base to benefit more from it.

In addition, we also need very high evasion and energy shield roll on the body armor. On this build I rolled 2.2k evasion and 490 energy shield. It’s worth noting that this chest armor alone gives us almost 5k of energy shield.

We also stacked Intelligence for more energy shields, reaching over 1.1k, which is pretty impressive.

Curse

We can use 3 curses in this build because using my favorite Anathema unique Ring, our curse limit is equal to our maximum energy cost. Each character can have 3 charges, so our curse limit is 3.

All 3 curses I use include Elemental Weakness, Conductivity and Sniper’s Mark.

Many people are worried that this unique Ring will not work if there is no power charge in the build. But actually, according to the wording of the ring, you don’t need to generate them, so don’t worry about that.

Aspect Of The Crab

Additionally, Aspect of the Crab is also crucial in this build. This will give us Crab Barriers every half second, and each crab stack will reduce physical damage, so this aura alone will reduce physical damage by 20%. But please note that when we are attacked, we will lose all stack.

In Necropolis League, we get level 30 Aspect of the Crab, which adds two extra max stacks, so we’ll get 24% physical damage reduction. I know for some of you it may not be a vast difference, but it’s better than nothing.

To combat the disadvantages of this aura, we will use our very high intelligence to convert the evasion rating with an evasion and energy shield mastery. So we can free up an aura because we won’t be using Grace.

New Tech

Next, I wanted to do something new with this build. As you can see, we use 4 flasks so that we can easily sustain ourselves even during boss fights.

We achieve this via Traitor Keystone, which will provide 4 flask charges every 5 seconds per empty flask slot. Additionally, I’m using Searing Exarch implicit modifiers to generate 1 flask charge every 3 seconds.

We get all the good Flask-related nodes on the passive tree and from now on we have 100% uptime. This is very cool. Because this way we can solve resistance problems and get more damage in the build.

Our key recovery comes from an energy shield leech. Doing this alone isn’t very good, as you’ll stop leeching when you reach full energy shield. But since we chose Trickster as Ascendancy, we can access an interesting node, Soul Drinker.

This allows us to leech the energy shield without the leech effect being eliminated if our energy shield is maxed out. This means that if we can hit the target, we can stay stationary on almost anything.

Elemental Ailment Immunity

For Tier 17 and Uber endgame you need Elemental Ailment Immunity, so we use Ancestral Vision. Additionally, Modifiers to Chance to Suppress Spell Damage also apply to Chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments, for half its value. We also get the remaining avoid% from boots.

Items

Next, let’s move on to the gear you’ll need for this build.

For weapons, we chose Ephemeral Edge. First and most important, attacks with this weapon increase the maximum lightning damage by 20% of the maximum energy shield, while also giving us a large amount of energy shield.

Then there’s Voice of the Storm Amulet. Lightning Damage with Non-Critical Strikes is Lucky. We are also anointing on this Arcane Focus.

The most important thing is Anathema unique Ring. With this ring we can use 3 curses in our build. It also gives us intelligence and a bit of energy shield.

I made most of the other rare items in this build myself, so it’s hard to estimate the cost, but it’s not expensive at all. But in short, you need to quality up all the items around 28% if possible, and get bases with fractured intelligence tier 1 mod.

Flask Setup

Flasks are a very important part of this build, so if you make a mistake here, you’ll end up with worse results than you’ve seen before.

I use Bismuth Flask with increased effect and additional elemental resistance. You can get higher reduction duration when you craft this flask, but be sure to check the uptime of PoB flask as it requires 100% uptime.

Next up is Ruby Flask with reduced charge and crafted to avoid being stunned.

Our damage flask is Silver Flask, which will give us Onslaught. Now I’m using the increased effect on this one, but if you only want to use this build for bossing, then you’ll need the flask charge recovery rate for better uptime.

Finally, don’t forget to use the Taste of Hate unique flask, which will give us a huge damage reduction in physical attacks.

Passive Tree

Finally, I just want to highlight a few things required for this Molten Strike Trickster build in the passive tree.

Through Necropolis League, we got a new unique jewel, which is Perandus Pact. We get 45% energy shield from this jewel.

The most important thing is the flask effect duration. We need 4 so that our flask can have 100% uptime. All that’s left is spell suppression, which I know can be expensive, but is worth the investment.

Since we have Trickster as Ascendancy, Polymath will give us more damage with each mastery allocated.

The most important node is Escape Artist, which is our main defense layer.

Next is Soul Drinker node. This will give us Energy Shield Over-leech, where we can leech from the damage we deal.

The last node is Spellbreaker. This will help us cap our suppression. If we’re in full energy shield mode, we’ll take less damage from spell damage.

Anyway, that’s the end of this guide. I hope you enjoyed this build of Energy Shield stacking Trickster. Good luck!

The first build features the Ripple Crescent Halberd, a rare drop obtainable from the Albinaurics in Liurnia of the Lakes. It boasts S Tier scaling in Arcane, making it unique. What's remarkable about this weapon is its versatility in applying various status effects with any grease, thanks to its high arcane scaling. Even without grease, it deals with substantial physical damage.

For the build, the Rippled Crescent Halberd is the centerpiece. Additional components include the Dragon Communication Seal for buffs, granting an extra 35% physical damage and 15% damage negation from the Flame, Grant Me Strength, and Golden Vow.

The Spear Talisman and Rotten Wing Sword Insignia are essential, with flexibility in slot number 3. The recommended options are the Ritual Shield Talisman or the Shard of Alexander for maximizing Spinning Slash. To complement the build, the Flask of Wondrous Physick should include the Thorny Cracked Tear and the Greenburst Crystal Tear for successive attacks and additional stamina.

Reduvia Dagger Build

The next is an Arcane build utilizes dual daggers, focusing on the Reduvia weapon alongside the Occult Great Knife to leverage additional blood loss effects. This setup helps alleviate the need for constant spamming of the Ashes of War ability.

This build excels at swiftly dispatching bosses, even those immune to bleeding, because of its high attack speed and respectable physical damage output. Talismans are incorporated to enhance the proc attack power of Ashes of War and provide damage mitigation.

Here’s a breakdown of the essential gear: Reduvia and Occult Great Knife, Dragon Communion Seal, synergize well with Arcane and the White Mask. Then we also need Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman or Green Turtle Talisman for extra stamina, Lord of Blood’s Exultation and Shard of Alexander.

For flask, opt for Thorny Cracked Tear and Greenburst Crystal Tear. Similar to the previous build, the utilization of Flame, Grant Me Strength, and Golden Vow buffs enhances physical damage output.

Poison Build

The next build focuses on utilizing one of the most underrated status effects to swiftly damage your enemies. This build centers on the use of Ashes of War and Poison Moth Flight. By triggering boosts from the Mushroom Crown and Rose’s Kindred, you can achieve a substantial damage increase with the 2 weapons utilized in this setup.

Here's a breakdown of the essential gear: Poison Uchigatana, Coil Shield (for fast Poison procs), Serpentbone Blade (for additional Poison buildup) and Dragon Communion Seal. Mushroom Crown (provides a damage boost when Poison is active), then we need Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman, Kindred of Rot’s Exultation and Shard of Alexander.

For flask usage, opt for Thorny Cracked Tear and Greenburst Crystal Tear. Buffs such as Flame, Grant Me Strength, and Golden Vow enhance physical damage output and complement the build's on poisoning enemies for maximum effectiveness.

Varre's Bouquet Build

The next build centers on Varre's Bouquet, a weapon that can cause significant bleeding if your enemy is susceptible to it. However, adding Frost Grease may be advisable for an extra 20% damage boost when triggering Frost buildup alongside blood loss. You have the flexibility to use any grease on this weapon to build up status effects like Blood and Frost.

For this build, you'll need Varre's Bouquet, along with the Dragon Communion Seal for Flame, Grant Me Strength and Golden Vow. The White Mask provides a boost to bleed proc attack power, while the Lord of Blood’s Exultation, Axe Talisman, Dagger Talisman, and Shard of Alexander complement the build.

To complement the build's with heavy charged R2 attacks, use the Stonebarb Cracked Tear and Thorny Cracked Tear flasks to break your opponent's stance and execute critical strikes effectively.

Regalia Of Eochaid Build

The final build we have features the Regalia Of Eochaid. It's an Arcane build that relies purely on Dexterity and Arcane, with the weapon scaling equally in both attributes, although it leans slightly more towards the Arcane side. While we primarily focus on the Ashes of War, if you have 2 Regalias or another straight sword, the Dual Straight Sword move set can also be incredibly effective.

The Ashes of War can offer flexibility in combat strategies. Knowing when to fully charge it for maximum damage or to opt for quick bursts of damage is crucial. A fully charged Ashes of War can devastate bosses. Using the Dragon Claw to slam enemies to the ground allows for charging up the Eochaid's Dancing Blade to unleash unparalleled damage upon their recovery.

For this build, you'll need the Regalia Of Eochaid, the Dragon Communion Seal, and suitable armor providing over 51 Poise to withstand hits while charging the Ashes of War. Additional gear includes the Shard of Alexander, Dragon Crest Great Shield Talisman, the Godfrey Icon, and the Rotten Wing Sword Insignia.

For the Flask of Wondrous Physick, utilize the Stonebarb Cracked Tear and the Dexterity-knot Crystal Tear to complement the weapon's dexterity scaling. Buffs include Flame, Grant Me Strength, Golden Vow, and any Dragon Communion Incantations of your choice, with Dragonmaw being a personal preference.

Moving on to other gear components: the Oracle amulet offers Necrotic Resistance, while the Necropolis Plate body armour and Spidersilk Sash belt provide additional Necrotic Resistance. With standard boots, gloves, and ring, the gear setup is complete. The choice all depends on your amount of Last Epoch Gold.

Skills & Specializations

Chthonic Fissure: The initial step is to head left and upwards to acquire the node Chaotic Rupture. This node ensures that Chaos Bolts are automatically generated from your Chthonic Fissure, eliminating the need for manual activation. The next node to prioritize is Of Gloom and Flames, doubling the size of your Chthonic Fissure, resulting in increased Chaos Bolts and spirits.

After securing these nodes, the focus shifts to acquiring Damned Waters, Twisted Waves, and Grim Tide. The Grim Tide significantly boosts Chthonic Fissure and ailment-inflicted Necrotic damage multiplicatively for every 1% added crit multiplier. Twisted Waves amplify torment damage multiplicatively for every 2% uncapped Necrotic Resistance.

Considering the build’s high mana consumption, allocating points into Fragile Crust (3 points) and Fell Fire (1 point) helps manage mana more effectively. Investing 3 points into the Tombgorger further amplifies the multiplicative damage of your torment.

Soul Feast: Soul Feast plays an important role in this build. The first thing you want to do is get Hellmind and into Waning Life, which provides Necrotic Penetration and damage chance per intelligence. Then to get mana to ensure you never run out of mana, especially when fighting rares and bosses.

After that, allocate 5 points into the Bones of the Accursed. If you want more Ward, you should invest in this setup. However, if you prefer more damage, move 1 point into Grim Affliction, which offers 35% multiplicative damage but half the ward. This decision is entirely up to you.

Chaos Bolts: The first thing you want to do is get Extracted Liberation, which makes your Rip Blood auto-cast. Then, you want to get another Affliction where your Bone Curse is auto-cast. So, with your Chaos Bolts, you don’t have to manually trigger Rip Blood or Bone Curse. This setup helps with life leech and mana leech, making it very effective.

Next, you want to get the Condemned to Chaos and Mania in Flames for the ignite chance and the damned. Additionally, you want multiplicative damage based on having ailments on the enemy. Lastly, allocate 1 point in the Grave for 2 DoT per missing health.

Bone Curse: The last skill, Curse of Bones, is its basic setup. First thing you want to do is to turn it into a Necrotic damage curse. You then want to get Marrow Thief, which is going to give you bone armor chance to kill for some survivability. Get Brittle Bones, which is where you're going to get your kill threshold, and then get slow duration.

Rip Blood: What you need to do is to put 5 point into Splatter. Then turns it into Ward Gain and made it a Necrotic spell. Boost its damage and then get more Ward back from Rip Blood. If you can handle it when it comes to mana, which is going to double your Rip Bloods.

Passive Trees

Acolyte: Starting with the base Acolyte tree, you want 8 points into Forbidden Knowledge, 6 into Stolen Vitality, 1 into Mana Mortality, and 5 into Unnatural Preservation. You want as much Necrotic Resistance as possible, and you're almost going to max your Necrotic Resistance in this first tree because you've got 6 vitality and then you've got 60 Necrotic Resistance.

Warlock: You want 5 into Soul Stealer, 5 into the Occultist Mind for mana and intelligence. You want to put 6 into Spirit Leech, which is going to keep you alive. You're then going to get some Ward, but this note is very important: Ward Decay Threshold per 1% Necrotic Resistance.

You're then going to put 5 into Harrowing Armor, which is going to help you stay alive, and 5 into Dark Protections, which is going to give you damage reduction and help you stay alive. You want to make sure you have Withering because this is also going to give you less damage taken while withering and help keep you alive.

To find it, all you need to do is build a Friendly reputation with Emerald Wardens. You can then buy it from any Quartermasters for 1 WOW Classic SOD Gold and 60 Silver.

You can participate in Nightmare Incursions in different areas through four portals and complete tasks assigned by Field Captain NPC to gain the reputation of Emerald Wardens. Missions can include defeating enemies, gathering resources, or defeating bosses, some of which require teamwork.

I would like to remind you that these portals have specific level ranges and completing higher level missions alone is risky. Therefore, I would recommend you to just choose one that suits your level.

Currently, you can start in Duskwood at level 25, Ashenvale at level 40, and Feralas and Hinterlands at level 50.

Summon Felguard Rune

To get Summon Felguard Rune for your Warlock in Phase 3, you first need an Explorer Imp. This is also Warlock companion introduced in Season of Discovery Phase 3.

Whenever you defeat certain mobs with Drain Soul, you have a chance to receive an Explorer’s Soul, which summons an Explorer Imp for you. You can use them to explore Fel Slivers, Fel Tears, Fel Scars, Fel Rifts, and Fel Cracks scattered around the map.

Note that you must keep exploring these until you get Summon Felguard Rune. Their exact locations vary, but here are a few that can currently be found:

• Fel Silver: Barrens, Westfall, Silverpine Forest
• Fel Tear: Swamp of Sorrows, Desolace
• Fel Scar: Feralas, Azshara, Blasted Lands
• Fel Crack: Barrens, Ashenvale, Redrige Mountain

Pandemic Rune

Pandemic is an extremely powerful Warlock Rune for SOD Phase 3 endgame content. Its ability to make your damage critical cannot be underestimated.

But it’s also a relatively easy rune to find. Your first task is to find two specific monsters in Feralas and loot their belongings. The items you need can be found in containers near the corpse. Among them, you can find Grimtotem Necklace on Dead Diseased Grimtotem Shaman, and Broken Woodpaw Staff on Dead Diseased Woodpaw Mystic.

Combine these two items to create a Diseased Nature Staff. Then, head to Woodpaw Camp near (72, 50) and use it on the nearby Diseased Forest Walker. Once it’s awakened, loot its Pandemic Rune.

Backdraft Rune

Backdraft is a viable rune for any DPS and Tank Warlock. To obtain the runes, you need to interact with four Leyline Confluxes scattered across Azeroth.

You still need Explorer Imp, though, so you can get 4 Worldcore Fragments from their exploration. Backdraft Rune can only be obtained by collecting all four and combining them. These four Leyline Confluxes can be found at:

• Azshara Leycryst: Azshara
• Feralas Leycryst: Feralas
• Hinterlands Leycryst: Hinterlands
• Blackrock Leycryst: Searing Gorge

Just a reminder, in the last location you have to fight a level 47 elite. It’s immune to Arcane Damage, but that’s not a big problem for Warlock.

Vengeance Rune

Vengeance is Head Rune added in SOD Phase 3. As a Warlock Tank, this is a very useful rune that provides temporary HP and makes your wings slowfall under Metamorphosis Form.

Players need to complete Wild Gods quest chain to unlock this rune. Everyone in your party will need to obtain Wild Gods from Shadowtooth Emissary in Emerald Sanctuary in Felwood. However, only one person needs to travel to Jintha’alor and farm Troll Elites.

Please note that one person in the party needs to have Wildwhisper Draught in order to travel to Razorfen Downs. Then you need to find Amnennar the Coldbringer and clean his room, drink Draught and accept his quest.

The quest requires you to go to three dungeons and claim Wild Offerings from Delirious Ancient using the items he gives you. When you see “You feel a shadowed presence” on the screen, use the item near the creature. You can only kill these souls once per lock, so many players reset the dungeon over and over. The three dungeon missions are:

Zul’Farrak: Defeat Gahz’rilla, clear the area, find the spider ghost, use Agamaggan’s Roar to spawn a level 52 elite, defeat it, and collect Wild Offering.

Maraudon: Defeat Princess Theradras, clear the area, and find the ghost in the upper-level water. Use Agamaggan’s Roar again to spawn a level 52 elite, defeat it, and collect Wild Offering.

Blackrock Depths: Kill Houndmaster Grebmar, High Interrogator Gerstahn, and complete Ring of Law. Find the basilisk ghost on Dark Iron Highway and use Agamaggan’s Roar to spawn a level 52 elite, defeat it to collect Wild Offering.

Finally, bring these Wild Offerings back to Shadowtooth Emissary to claim your new Vengeance Rune.

In any case, WOW Classic SOD Phase 3 has officially started, and we need to find the necessary runes as soon as possible to upgrade our Warlock gear so that we can be prepared before entering the new raid!

There is an option of getting a Replica Dragonfang's Flight that gives up the spectres to Level 3 extra. However, using the exclusive Perquil's Toe does more damage, requires very little POE Currency on gear, and is a great deal on the skill tree.

Skill Tree

For the low-budget approach, we are going to be going in with the Ascendancy node of Mistress of Sacrifice. This is because of the low-budget build we'll be using Bone Offering to give ourselves and our minions block chances.

We'll also be running Commander of Darkness for resistances to us and our minions, Mindless Aggression for damage and life, as well as Bone Barrier to provide ourselves with some leech. I would recommend not specking into the leech nodes and simply having the generic leech, so it has less strength to it than it should be.

We are going for the tempering as Enduring Bond mods. We're going for Spiritual Command or Sovereignty, as well as the Redemption and Righteous Army on the left-hand side, Gravepact in the bottom, and then we're just picking up Blocking nodes and resistance notes. In the former Sanctuary, we're also picking up Eldritch Battery.

Gem Links

Eldritch Battery allows you to use the Divine Blessing setup. The problem with the Divine Blessing is that it's going to cost a lot of energy shield. Because of this, it's something you will take when your gear is supplying enough energy shield for this to work. The other auras we'll be running are Generosity Wrath, Petrified Blood, and Determination.

Petrified Blood, you don't have to be on low life all the time. You can use a life flask to get full HP. The purpose of this is to create a state of over-leeching. As our minions will leech consistently to us, we will always be covering ourselves from the damage that's coming in.

We'll have a Conductivity curse, a Frostblink, Convocation, Faster Attacks with Shield Charge, and an Animate Guardian in a separate link, which you don't really need to use if you don't want to or feel comfortable with it because the medium budget cannot use an Animate Guardian.

The weapon will be a generic trigger weapon for Bone Offering, and Desecrates will have a Feeding Frenzy setup for Stone Golem and Raise Zombie, which will not only act as buffing for our minions through making the enemy take elemental damage to the Elemental Army and giving them damage buffs to our minions through Feeding Frenzy, but also act as meat shields to cover you and make you safer.

Links for the spectres are very straightforward as well. We'll have Raise Spectre, Minion Damage, Spell Echo, Returning Projectiles, Pierce, and Faster Projectiles for single Target switch gems. You would then remove the Returning Projectile for Slower Projectile.

As far as the pantheon is concerned, for the low budget, we’re going to be running the Brine King for freeze immunity and the Arakaali for the ignite reduction of duration. Outside of that, we can utilize the unique jewel Unending Hunger, which will perform well for clear speed.

Gear Setup

The goal for the low budget build is to prioritize getting block sorted and having life and resistance capped, along with sorting your attributes through your gear. For example, Perquil’s Toe provides a lot of dexterity, but you’ll need additional dexterity, which can be obtained through other gear pieces.

The weapon will be a trigger, preferably +2, but +1 is the cheaper option, with a minion damage modifier, and the shield should have life, with a level of minion skills. The helmet should have life and +1 level of minion skills if possible.

In later stages, the chest piece will be a Delve modifier chest, granting an extra spectre to go from 4 to 5 spectres. Before that, in the low budget setup, aim for a corrupted 6-link with life, resistances, or attributes.

Gloves will focus on life and resistances. Look for energy shield bases to ensure coverage of the energy shield. In a great low-budget state, the high-budget version will use Elder Influenced boots to obtain that level of spectre per kill. Double Bone Rings with minion damage and attack speed are beneficial. Additionally, prioritize attributes like light for the darkness and throne.

For jewels, focus on life combined with minion damage after using a minion skill recently, or consider flat lightning damage. Rumi’s Concoction is a recommended approach, and consider using a jewel that provides effects like taunt or blind.

You can expect to see the new endgame crafting system in Season 4 sooner as you progress to higher World Tiers faster. This is an exciting change for those who crave more powerful Diablo 4 items but don't have the time to spend weeks grinding to level 100.

Aspect System Simplified

The powerful buffs Legendary Items or Aspects bring to a build work well. But the original Aspect system forced you to keep Legendary Items or Aspects in your stash in order to put on new gear, which was very annoying.

But in Season 4, not only can you replace gear less frequently, but Legendary Aspects will now be permanently present in your Codex of Power menu.

Most Aspects can be randomly rolled to determine the strength of the bonus number. While Legendary items have increasingly higher bonuses as they roll, you can permanently increase the number in your Codex of Powe by salvaging them at Blacksmith. You can imprint this aspect on other gear as needed without retaining anything in your stash.

This means our risk of using a perfectly rolled aspect on ordinary items will disappear, and it will be easier to try different ones.

The developers seem to have simplified this system so that you can focus on Tempering and Masterworking items later in the game.

Uniques Drop Limit Remove & Item Power Change

The most exciting change is that the number of useless items dropped in Season 4 is about to drop significantly. Because the developers removed the restriction on Uniques, they now drop in World Tier 1 and 2, and monsters of level 55 or higher can even drop Uber Uniques.

For example, Necromancer can even find Black River Scythe before level 50, which causes devastating Corpse Explosions. This way, builds that rely on powerful Uniques will no longer have to wait until the endgame to reach their maximum strength.

The change to item power is also one of the surprising statistics in Diablo 4 and will also make loot more relevant. Previously, it was always bad to find gear with weak stats because of low item power. But in Season 4, item power has been standardized to where you don’t really need to think about it.

Maximum item power gear will always drop from level 95 or higher monsters. This means that by a round level 80, item power will become irrelevant when you run Nightmare Dungeons in World Tier 4. You only need to care about the actual stats of your gear and whether it’s worth upgrading them.

Build More Diversity

Also, Diablo 4 Season 4’s two new crafting systems, Tempering and Masterworking, allow you to add specific statistics to your items.

Whether you want movement speed or class-specific stats, your items will reflect which stats are important to you. On the surface, this may not seem like a big deal, but it will radically increase the number you can build.

In the new crafting system, you can choose which stats to invest in and to what extent. A Rogue with a lot of mobility cooldown reduction and grenade damage can invest heavily in Stun Grenades since they will drop whenever you evade.

Flexibility in stat selection adds variety to Diablo 4’s build options. Even if you decide to follow the build guide, it will take a while to create the theoretically best item, so you’ll have to decide which stats you personally care about during the process.

New Endgame Dungeon: Pit Of Artificers

Finally, the developers revealed the new endgame dungeons coming to Season 4, which are Greater Rifts in Diablo 3. This is a limited-time dungeon that becomes increasingly more difficult as the levels go up, and has a new name: Pit of Artificers.

You can think of them like Nightmare Dungeons, but the goal is to race through them and eventually earn rare loot and materials.

The game will have more than 100 tiers, and the monsters will become increasingly difficult. Of course, as you level up, the rare loot at the end gets better and better.

Pit of Artificers will drop items to summon Tormented Bosses, which will drop materials allowing you to select an Uber Unique on your first kill. With Andariel joining the regular boss roster, you will no longer have to fight Duriel repeatedly to find the rarest items in the game.

While the new endgame activities in Season 4 won’t solve the problem of challenge in the open world fading away over time, it will add variety where it’s desperately needed. Considering we still don’t know what the season-specific features will be, this is a promising foundation for an increasingly stale part of the game.

In any case, the arrival of Diablo 4 Season 4 is bound to bring us a series of new surprises. Let us wait and see!

See More: Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR's Feedbacks And Thoughts & Speculations On Diablo 5