I went pretty hard into the current Diablo 4 season 10 as a result of being motivated by the increased build potential from the Chaos Perks and Chaos Armor. The actual season mechanic itself wasn’t as big of a factor nor the revamped Inferno Hordes. But I wanted to share my thoughts on my two day experience.
First, I went with another Hydra Sorcerer. I don’t think this build is the best for Sorcerers this season as I believe more people are doing some sort of Ball Lightning build. But Hydra was different enough mostly due to the potential of using a few Chaos Armor uniques along with two Chaos perks that made me think that it was worth revisiting. There was apparently a nerf with regards to one of the aspects but once you acquire Mana Shield this becomes a non-issue as these things are almost mutually exclusive.
At any rate, the early part of the game where you start the seasonal quests really is dull because you’re mostly farming Helltides. The Chaos Portals themselves can be rough until around level 20+ where you need some gear to do damage. Some people don’t like this but I can assure you that this situation doesn’t really last that long. So if you’re struggling to do Chaos Portals you might consider skipping until you gain some power and AoE. You’ll still level fast enough and acquire gear with the help of the season quest line where this issue is moot for your first character.
Also, it’s worth noting that in pre-Torment difficulties, these Chaos Portals don’t spawn that often. I mostly only started taking them seriously a little later once a portion of my build started coming online and spent the bulk of my time leveling using Strongholds. I did hear that the better way to level is through Helltides and swap to Strongholds at level 50 because they provide some of the best pre-Paragon experience. My only issue is that Strongholds have been quite buggy to me especially if the boss has multiple phases and I accidentally kill them before some script finishes. So I handle that by doing them in a certain order before I get too strong. I look at this almost like eating a salad before the main course.
Now, you can do Inferno Hordes early on and they do have a special key for pre-Torment difficulties. I think they goofed on these keys because they needlessly bulk up your inventory and the pre-Torment ones become useless once you advance into Torment. I’m sure that Inferno Hordes provide good XP for certain levels once you acquire some AoE. But I don’t think every build might be capable of handling them so I think this was another mistake.
Of course, in talking about Infernal Hordes, part of the patch for this season included a revamp. There is some good stuff like the Goblin Chaos portal one. That’s probably the best thing in all the non-class/non-item type of content. But other stuff like the much hated Soul Spires continue to be horrible and somethings simply don’t make sense. For instance, if you choose the option of having Soul Spires spawn less often, you might still get a few of these in a row. That seems contradictory which means some asshole potentially programmed these things in a hateful manner and somehow left the original frequency generation table as before.
Then some old favorites like Hellborn are completely nerfed where you barely can make decent Aether from them. DatModz rightly commented how it’s stupid that the devs can get something this simple balanced. Obviously, the devs are going to have to take a few more passes at these things but given that the chaos theme is tied to this season, does that mean the end boss and the Chaos Waves will continue to stick around?
Speaking of the new end boss, he ain’t bad. You do start feeling his thickness creep up once you’re in T3 but it’s not too offensive depending on your build. The Hydra build isn’t quite as powerful as before but it feels tankier with Mana Shield so you don’t have to worry about Frost Armor being on cooldown anymore. The fight still can get a little sketchy as with any boss fight but it’s not offensive as the forced phase bosses from S8-9.
Of course, the other thing is that all bosses had their forced phase removed in favor of a shield. In theory, if you can do enough damage, you won’t have to see any phases. On my Hydra Sorcerer, I’m still not doing enough damage and may be on the border of the shield phase. Part of that is just gear and the other part is my Glyphs that I’m working on. So there’s still enough of a challenge but you can eventually overcome it through gearing, Glyphs and Paragon points.
I did manage to level two glyphs to 46 to get the legendary bonus. I might push the remaining three to level 46 as well to see how my damage improves in T3. But essentially, I need to get a Chaos Armor version of the Ophidian Amulet, an ancestral version of a Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop and the mythics for the helmet, chest and ring to really optimize my build. The mythic stuff are going to be rough no matter what. For the Ophidian Amulet, I need a glove version where I’ve been gambling Obols. I have received a Chaos Armor from the vendor once so that will be the best method to target farm that piece. It’s still rough though but at least finding one in that slot will allow me more rearrangement of my gear.
There are a few ways I might be able to obtain a mythic. The most reliable way is to simple create another character and do the season quest line. It will take a day or two but you’re guaranteed a spark. Another way is to kill Lilith. Since even her immunity phase is gone, I could probably just lower the difficulty to T1 (I think) and try to one shot her. I might give this a try once I level up the other glyphs to 46 and maybe get an Ancestral Tal Rasha.
Also, the main season journey gives out a Spark at the end. The issue is that it becomes a chicken or the egg thing because two of the final achievements/quests to get that spark involve crafting a mythic I believe. And one requires that you use the Jeweler version where you need a lot of legendary runes which sucks. So I’m not planning to do those for a while.
Another thing I’m thinking about is swapping specs to Ball Lightning. I do have a few pieces for Chaos Armor and Ancestrals to do a portion of the build. But I really enjoy Hydra. You do need some aiming like with Frost Bolt or Ball Lightning but they aren’t critical for the real damage. And for stuff like Infernal Hordes Hydra is excellent as a farmer. Maybe the better option is to eventually create a separate Sorcerer. I could use the Armory but the motivation for a separate sorcerer is to obtain yet another spark.
Before I try another Sorcerer spec/character, I definitely will be giving a few other classes a try. I’ll probably do another Companion Druid because the new Raven build looks fun. I haven’t seen it in action just yet but the play style is different for a Companion Druid. Initially, I might start off as a normal Companion Druid with Wolves and Ravens or maybe Grizzly Rage since that’s still a thing for Druids. But the real game changer is going to be the new Kilt Unique. I have been watching on stream people play Puddle Pulverize Druid. That one looks great as a beginning build for farming but Raven still I heard is quite good and will become an end goal.
Also, the other class/build that really caught my eye was the Dust Devil/Shout Barbarian. That one looks really cool. It’s like Whirlwind/Double Swing several seasons back that pushed Dust Devils except this time you use the new Chaos Perk that allows Barbarians to keep up Shouts 100% of the time. So in effect, you’re autocasting Dust Devils all the time. It sounded really cool and I’ll be doing that at least for my 3rd character since this build will only be around for this season.
Finally, I might give the Evade Spiritborn build a try. It’s supposedly top tier but I might go for Crushing Hand because I’ve heard good things about it. I’m not looking to push high end pits but I am looking to farm Infernal Hordes so all AoE builds are going to be where it’s at for me.
What about Necromancer and Rogue? I did try a minion Necromancer last season at the end but didn’t really care for it. The Shadowblight build though is something I haven’t tried and does well only for this season. So I might give that a shot. Then Rogue only has Death Trap, which is something that I haven’t tried at all. Rogue just hasn’t appealed to me in a while so I can’t say if I’ll play one. Death Trap is the only build I’d want to try because it’s something I haven’t played.
So the game still feels the same for the most part. I do think the Chaos Waves in Infernal Hordes does make the game play more dynamic and exciting but unless you get a Goblin wave, the rest are disappointing in terms of rewards. I do enjoy the Chaos Armor idea but trying to find the right one for a given slot is painful as hell. That said, I think they should consider keeping both the Chaos aspects in the Infernal Hordes and Chaos Armor since it’s already super rare and the game is in desperate need of more build diversity. And as far as I’ve seen, Season 10 is probably the first season where many builds have closed the gap.
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