As Shadow of the Erdtree DLC gets closer, I started to ask myself today what do I actually need to do to get into DLC every other Souls like we’ve seen usually have some kind of prerequisites to get into DLC.

So after thinking through the requirements to get in, I started thinking through kind of housekeeping things. What do I want to do before I go into DLC? So I started making a list, this will be very beneficial to us.

Having plenty of Elden Ring Runes ready will allow us to have plenty of fun in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.

How To Get Into DLC?

Along the Look To Stars way to start off, let’s talk about what is mandatory to get into DLC. I love what From Software has done here. They’ve taken two bosses that are optional in the game. To finish the main storyline and made them now mandatory to access DLC. First we start with Starscourge Radahn.

That is hard to say, Starscourge Radahn he in the game is optional. He’s the dude that flies up and blows you up like a comet. He’s holding the stars in the sky. It’s so cool.

So here is some b-roll of me getting clapped out by other bosses and monsters in Elden Ring, but the first thing you’re going to have to do is go make your way to Starscourge or Dawn to kill him.

And that is step one Blood And Bone. Next up on our list of mandatory things you need to do to get into he Shadow the of Erdtree DLC is to make your way to Mohgwyn Palace.

Fight With Mohg

After you’ve made your way to MN Palace, head up to Mohg and kill him, he can be quite challenging well. I think this boss fights is one of my favorite in the entire game. I don't like the way he's approached. This is one of my least favorite zones in the whole game.

In Mohgwyn Palace, there are bloody monsters and invaders everywhere. While the aesthetics are incredible, but don't look down because that's where all those scary monsters are.

But once you make your way to Mo fight him, he’s challenging, like I said earlier. But there are some ways to ease up that challenge. You can go get Mohg Shackle which is an item kind of like Margit’s Shackle which allows you to slam him to the ground once stunning him and allowing you to get some good hits in.

Secondly, to counteract M’s blood curse. I think it’s called a bloodboon or something like that. You’re going to want to go get the purifying Crystal Tear about what it does. It puts a barrier around you, essentially, which greatly reduces the damage you take from it. It will greatly reduce the healing he gets from this move and it does not allow any stacking of hemorrhage on you.

It’s awesome my first playthrough of this game. I didn’t know that this item existed. So I thought this boss was impossible so what I ended up doing was just respecting to massive amounts of health. And then anytime this move happened, I would just slam heal this Crystal Tear, make it so much easier go get it ascend.

Necessary Things For Boss

Now that we’ve covered all the mandatory things, here are some things that I’m going to be doing in preparation for DLC and I highly recommend you do as well.

And the first of that is to get to anywhere between level 130 to 150. Most people end the game somewhere.

Between 100 and 150 level , relying on how much places they explore, how many bosses they kill, how much farming they do. Every From Software DLC has began at a higher level or somewhere mid to end game. This one has been stated it’s an endgame DLC, especially since Mohg himself is a kind of endgame boss.

So my first recommendation, like I said, would be got to go somewhere between 130 and 150.

I think I’m going to get to 150 and then just leave it there gross. wants new content inevitably means new weapons, spells and gear to try. And in order to try all those things out, you might need to resp a time or two.

I’m someone that is almost incapable of doing one full playthrough of Elden ring with one single spec. I respect all the time and so my recommendation and something I’m doing is running around everywhere .

Getting all Larval Tear, I know that these are a finite resource in this game. I think there’s about 18 in total you can get per playthrough chances are. They’ll add more in DLC.

I don’t know for sure, but it just seems like something they would do given the fact that there’s going to be a lot more gear.

So if you’re interested in trying out all the new stuff with DLC, I would highly recommend going and collecting as many Larval Tear as you can find.

When you’re trying to get refine them, I know that in my last point;I talked a lot about how there’s probably going to be lots of new weapons and spells to try out and to use. That’s true, but you’re also going to want something to clear the content with.

First, until you find those new weapons and spells, my advice is to bring whatever weapons you have. Since I feel like you won't be constantly upgrading the spells you're always using, carrying a variety of weapons will open up more possibilities to your fights.

Currently, I'm at the stage where I can buy any gemstone. I need except for the final Tear from Twin Maiden Husks in the Roundtable Hold. It’s great I’ve been leveling up lots of different weapons.

I tried a lot of situations like Poison Katana and Lightning Katana which I had never used before and it was a lot of fun to use them against Mohg.

Upgrade Your Weapons

Last but certainly not least is something that is to go level up your gather weapons.

And that’s just to go stock up on materials if there’s one thing that in my mind. I am 1,000% convinced of that’s the idea that there will be some kind of horrible poison.

Scarlet Rot horrible place in DLC it’s going to happen. I know it’s going to happen if I do not go stock up on materials. I’m going to find myself in a situation where I have no items to counteract any of that stuff.

It’s miserable but I know it’s going to be a key thing, so I will make sure that when I go into DLC, I have plenty of items to counteract. Those horrible affixes that Miyazaki seems to love putting in his game.

The above are some of my friendly tips for everyone in the game. I hope you can be happy during the game.

In Elden Ring, you can have the most optimized build in the world, but without a well-upgraded weapon, you won’t see significant results. So, in this guide, we’ll share the best routes to collect Somber Smithing Stones 1 to 10 in preparation for the upcoming Elden Ring Shadow of The Erdtree DLC.

It’s worth noting that I did this without upgrading or using any weird skips or shortcuts at all. This means that whether you’re just starting your journey in the new expansion or are already on your way, you can use the information in this guide to maximize your damage potential early and easily.

I’m sure there have been many similar guides in the past to help you collect Somber Smithing Stones 1-9, but this was usually done when using the shortcut to Crumbling Farum Azula.

This is another reason why I created this guide, as a lot of people are reluctant to enter late game areas like this within the first few hours of playing the game. Additionally, executing shortcuts is cumbersome for players on some consoles. However, with this guide, you don’t have to worry about any of these issues.

Somber Smithing Stone 1

Here, I’ll start this route with Bandit Starting Class and Golden Seed Keepsake, but you can get the same results with any Starting Class.

Unlock Church of Elleh Site of Grace, then head to Gatefront Ruins to get Torrent, Map Fragment and Whetstone Knife. Teleport back to Church of Elleh and get the summoning bell and wolf summoning spell from Witch Renna.

I usually use the vent behind First Step Sites of Grace to drop down to the beach and collect a Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot to teleport back to Gatefront and go east, talk to Boc and he will reward you with 10 Mushrooms.

Continue east, cross the bridge, then go right and pick up a Somber Smithing Stone 1 from the man sitting on the chair. After that, we will get Fevor’s Cookbook, which will allow us to use Mushrooms and Trina’s Lily to make Sleep Pots to easily defeat a certain boss later.

After getting Fevor’s Cookbook, go to Third Church of Marika to get Flask of Wondrous Physick. Then head south to Minor Erdtree and pick up Greenspill Crystal Tear. Don’t forget to collect 5 Trina’s Lilies from the nearby Mistwood Ruins.

Somber Smithing Stone 2

Next, we’re going to head to Fort Haight and climb up the ladder to get the left half of Dectus Medallion. We also need to defeat Godrick Knight here to get Ash of War Bloody Slash. You can use Wolf Summoning spell to distract him and use the opportunity to perform a few backstabs.

Afterwards, we will cross Bridge of Sacrifice to reach Weeping Peninsula and look for a Stonesword Key.

All the way south you can find Somber Smithing Stone 2 on a beach guarded by 4 aggressive Jellyfish enemies.

Somber Smithing Stone 8 & 9

Return to Gatefront Site of Grace and apply Ash of War Bloody Slash to your knife. Then head to Agheel Lake and follow that path to Murkwater Cave, where you will be invaded by Bloody Finger Nerijus. However, you can easily kill him with Bloody Slash, or you can wait for Yura to help you.

After defeating him, you will receive Reduvia. This is a powerful Arcane weapon and we will be using it until the end of this game.

Then go to Third Church of Marika and use the portal behind to teleport to Caelid. Ride all the way to Lenne’s Rise and use the vent. You can loot the nearby Elden Ring Runes, then head to Minor Erdtree, and use the vent in the back to reach Fort Faroth.

Head west to Divine Tower of Caelid. You can get Somber Smithing Stone 9 from the person sitting in the chair. Attack Teardrop Scarab and push off the ledge to get Somber Smithing Stone 8.

Somber Smithing Stone 4 & 5

Then go to Isolated Merchants and buy Beast-Repellent Torch. This is a brilliant light source to ensure that certain beasts, like rats, don’t attack you.

Return to Fort Faroth and climb the ladder to obtain the other half of Dectus Medallion. We’ll also get Radagon’s Soreseal Talisman. This is not mandatory. I just use it to get the extra +5 stamina.

Afterwards, we’ll head to Inner Aeonia Site of Grace and head south through Heart of Aeonia, where we’ll fight Commander O’Neil to get Somber Smithing Stone 4. Next go back to Inner Aeonia, but this time head north through the canyon to get a piece of Somber 5.

Buy Somber Smithing Stone 1-4

We then need to go back to Gatefront and head to Stormhill Shack to get a Stonesword Key. Use the knife with Bloody Slash to defeat the knight here and get Ash of War Golden Vow.

We bypass Stormveil Castle to reach Lake-Facing Cliffs Site of Grace. Then go to Laskyar Ruins and use the portal there to teleport to South Raya Lucaria Gate.

However, you may want to grab Dexterity-knot Crystal Tear near Scenic Isle before using the portal, but you can also grab it later.

Jump down from South Raya Lucaria Gate and head west to Temple Quarter Site of Grace, then ride north to get Academy Glintstone Key behind the dragon.

The next step is optional. From South Raya Lucaria Gate, walk northeast. You can use the portal here to teleport to Kingsrealm Ruins. This is a very convenient portal, as it has Map Fragment nearby and is close to Smithing Master Iji. Iji has Somber Smithing Stone 1-4 available for sale.

Also Read: Elden Ring: A Brief Guide To Farm This Grossmesser Sword - Farming Locations & Tips

Somber Smithing Stone 6

Use the portal from South Raya Lucaria Gate to Main Academy Gate. Unlock Site of Grace and use another portal to teleport to East Raya Lucaria Gate. Take Grand Lift of Dectus and use it to reach Altus Plateau.

Then go to Forest-Spanning Greatbridge from Altus Plateau Site of Grace and use the portal there to teleport to the other side of the bridge. Once there, go down under the bridge and unlock Site of Grace.

Follow the path west and cross the bridge to Mt Gelmir. Continue heading west until you encounter several Iron Maidens. Use the ladder to go all the way up and unlock Site of Grace to get a Somber Smithing Stone 6.

Somber Smithing Stone 3

Teleport back to Academy Main Gate and take the elevator up. After opening the academy door, you can pick up a Somber Smithing Stone 3 at the end of the room.

Somber Smithing Stone 5 & 6

Continue through the cemetery and use the waterwheel to unlock Classroom Site of Grace. We’re ready to go to Volcano Manor to get Somber 7, but we still need to make Sleep Pot.

We need to go to Church of Elleh to buy three Cracked Pots and a Crafting Kit. I also purchased an additional Cracked Pot from Nomadic Merchants near Castle Morne Rampart Site of Grace on Weeping Peninsula. If you’ve followed the guide so far, you should have enough materials to make 5 Sleep Pots.

Then teleport back to Classroom Site of Grace and use the waterwheel to go all the way down and to Volcano Manor, where you can find Somber 6 and 5.

Somber Smithing Stone 7

Next, we have to prepare ourselves to face Godskin Noble. Only after defeating it can you go outside and build the bridge.

Go back into the room and use the elevator to reach the top floor. Jump off the balcony and follow this route to unlock the shortcut back to Godskin Noble room. When you take the express elevator upstairs, you can jump off before reaching the top floor to get a Stonesword Key.

You need two Stonesword Keys to unlock the path to Somber 7. But if you’ve followed the guide so far, you should have exactly two handfuls. After getting Somber 7 Guarded by Iron Maidens, you should be able to upgrade the weapon to +9.

Somber Smithing Stone 10

Now, to get Somber 10, we need to complete White Mask Varre questline. In order to do this, we need to defeat shardbearers such as Godrick, Rennala, or Radahn. This isn’t too difficult since we’re using +9 Reduvia.

Then head to Rose Church where you’ll find White Mask Varre. He will give you 5 Festering Bloody Finger to invade other players. I believe you need to hack at least three players to advance his quest.

After completing the mission, return to Rose Church and Varre will give you Lord of Blood’s Favor and Pureblood Knight’s Medal. Use Medal to teleport to Mohgwyn Palace.

There are a lot of useful items to pick up here, such as Lord’s Rune, which is worth 50,000 runes. What we’re looking for, however, is Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone, which is located inside a chest guarded by these enemies.

There is a Site of Grace nearby, so if you accidentally die while trying to grab an item, you can simply respawn and try again.

This is the last item we need to upgrade Somber weapon to +10, and we do it without taking any shortcuts. So you can do this in your own game without having to worry about your game glitching or performing any skips.

Anyway, I hope you found this guide helpful. If you have any ideas for optimizing this route, don’t forget to share them. Have a beautiful day.

With Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC coming soon, I’m here to give you the 3 best Strength Builds. Not only are these builds devastating, they’re also early game compatible, ensuring you can start your journey to greatness right from the get-go.

Before you begin, don’t forget to prepare some Elden Ring Runes to dominate the unforgiving land of Elden Ring with unparalleled ferocity and power!

Raging Wolf

Number one is Raging Wolf. The best starter class for this build is Hero class.

In this build we are using the most famous weapon in Elden Ring, the well known Guts Sword. Despite its name, this is actually a Greatsword. Greatsword has slow, large sweeps that can hit multiple enemies and cause them to recoil.

It also has a powerful Guard Boost that’s better than many shields in the game. You should definitely take advantage of this and increase your Guard Boost further with items like Greatshield Talisman.

Most Strength weapons are easy to obtain from early in the game, but Greatsword is probably the easiest. It can be found behind a carriage west of Caelid.

Ash of War we’re using here is Braggart’s Roar. This is a weapon buff that increases your stamina recovery and physical damage and damage negation. It also changes your two-handed heavy attack and charged attack into stronger attacks.

Braggart’s Roar also gives us the opportunity to increase the damage of our charged attacks with powerful items like Roar Medallion and Highland Axe.

It is worth mentioning that although Braggart’s Roar will increase all your physical damage by 10%, Roar Medallion and Highland Axe can only enhance your two-handed heavy attacks and charged heavy attacks after using Braggart’s Roar.

For Weapon Affinity, you can use Heavy Affinity to further improve Greatsword scaling with strength.

However, I really recommend you give Blood or Cold Affinities a try. The first reason is that Braggart’s Roar allows you to easily trigger these status effects with one of Greatsword’s charged heavy attacks.

The second reason is that weapon buffs in Elden Ring only apply to weapons with Physical Affinities, such as Keen, Quality, or Heavy. However, Braggart’s Roar is the only weapon buff type that works on weapons with Blood or Cold Affinities.

To obtain Braggart’s Roar, you can defeat Blackguard or complete his quest chain and loot Iron Ball, which has Ash of War on it.

Also Read: Elden Ring: The Best One-Shot Build To Enter Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC! - Dragonborn Blood Mage

Iron Pumpkin

The second build is definitely a Stance Breaking mechanic, Iron Pumpkin.

In this one, we use Iron Ball weapon and Ash of War Cragblade. The best thing about Claw and Fist weapons is that when you use them with both hands, it puts a duplicate weapon in your off-hand, so there’s no need to use another weapon to provide a power-stance to two of them.

This is a powerful feature because when you apply a weapon buff like Bloodflame Blade, you end up with two weapons in each hand with the same buff. And they’re also lightweight, which gives you more room to wear heavier armor for better protection.

The charged heavy attack of this weapon is an absolute beast. It’s relatively fast, causing you to attack with both hands while dealing with the damage of each weapon. This is probably the strongest attack you should focus on when fighting a boss.

Since you attack quickly with this weapon, you can utilize items like Rotten Winged Sword Insignia and Thorny Cracked Tear to increase the attack power of each consecutive attack.

To further enhance the power of this weapon, we use Ash of War Cragblade with Heavy Affinity. This is a weapon buff that increases your physical damage by 15% and your stance damage by 10% for one minute.

This will enhance Iron Ball’s physical and poise damage easily breaking enemies’ stance and making them vulnerable to more damage. With this combo, you’ll absolutely destroy every boss in the game.

But the only drawback is that Iron Ball’s range is too short. If you’re not standing very close to your target, you can easily miss the attack. So keep this in mind.

Gods Crusher

Last but not least is Gods Crusher, a build that uses one of the most iconic strength weapons in Elden Ring, Giant-Crusher.

Giant-Crusher has a unique R2 that spins your character forward, then slams down the hammer to crush your enemies. This looks very similar to Ash of War Lion’s Claw. You can slam attack Giant-Crusher, dealing approximately 27% additional damage.

So, you should focus most of your heavy attacks, which will not only deal extra damage but also activate important items like Axe Talisman and Spiked Cracked Tear, which will increase your charged attacks by an additional 26%.

Many guides will recommend that you inject Heavy Affinity into Giant-Crusher. However, if you want to change it from a Giant-Crusher to a Gods Crusher, you have to use Occult Affinity, not Heavy Affinity.

Giant-Crusher with Occult Affinity delivers the highest non-split AR damage in the entire game.

While it has the potential to be the highest AR weapon in the game, it is also the heaviest weapon in the game. This means you’ll need to invest well in stamina and take advantage of items like Great-Jar’s Arsenal to lower your equipment load in order to use this weapon effectively.

Additionally, it requires 60 Strength to use, but obviously, at least early in the game, you don’t need that much Strength. In fact, two-handing any weapon will multiply your strength score by 1.5. This means you only need 40 Strength to start using Giant-Crusher.

Ash of War we’re using in this build is Royal Knight’s Resolve. Activating it will increase the damage of your next attack by 80%. The buff disappears after 10 seconds or after you hit it once.

We can do massive physical damage in one attack by using Royal Knight’s Resolve and then charging Giant-Crusher heavy attack.

You can also take advantage of it to enhance your jumping attack by applying Royal Knight’s Resolve buff to both of your weapons. While you’ll need to get Ash of War again to achieve this, the damage potential is even greater than charging the heavy attack on a single Giant-Crusher.

If you want to use Dual Hammer in your first pull-through, but can’t get the second Royal Knight’s Resolve, you can use Ash of War Determination instead. It behaves exactly like Royal Knight’s Resolve, but does slightly less damage.

These are the 3 best Strength Builds I would like to introduce. They will redefine your gaming experience. What is your favorite Strength Build in Elden Ring? I hope you try these builds on your next play through. Have a great day.

Since its launch, Last Epoch has been welcomed by many players. The large number of wonderful content and mechanisms in the game have brought us a lot of fun. However, like any game, Last Epoch is not without its faults.

So here we are going to talk about five things that definitely need improvement in Last Epoch. Developers can further enhance our gaming experience by improving or removing these elements. I hope it becomes more successful and a better game over time.

Remove Damage From Off-Screen

First, I have to say that damage from the other side of the map needs to be eliminated. I think most of you will agree with me that off-screen damage is not a rewarding mechanic in ARPGs. This is annoying and feels unfair at times, especially finding it extremely irritating to be hit by powerful AOE attacks from enemies far away from our position.

While I’m currently happy with some of the damage inflicted by mobs from off-screen in the game, getting one-shotted by a mob on the other side of Monolith map is super annoying.

This is a critical issue with the sheer amount of visual effects we have on screen, especially with the more flashy builds like Runemaster’s special effects spam with invocations-based. So I’d love to see this mechanic disappear in Last Epoch.

On-screen damage doesn’t add any depth to gameplay. It doesn’t make me a better ARPG player, nor is it something I can specify to use in-game tools. Off-screen damage will also punish us, possibly just because we stopped to check for loot or possibly organize our inventory. Overall, this is not a cool feature at all and it has to be removed.

Performance Needs To Be Optimized

Next, we want to talk about Last Epoch performance. I have a nice rig with a Ryzen 7 5800x, NVIDIA 3070, and 32 GB RAM. When not much is happening on the screen, I get a good steady FPS of around 140+. At times, I could maintain a stable FPS of 80-90 even though there was a lot going on the screen.

However, with certain maps and character builds, my FPS would drop to very annoying lows. For example, we only got 30 or 40 FPS when spamming Runemaster’s Frost Claw, Elemental Novas were popping up everywhere, and it was really no fun.

In fact, lowering my settings did improve their performance. And I’ve seen a lot of players complaining about game performance or setting changes having no impact on the game’s FPS. So this is naturally related to the optimization of the game.

Therefore, I hope the developers will look into improving optimizations for the game. To be fair, they’ve come a long way over the years. In the past, the game had poor FPS performance on certain maps or when using certain character abilities. But in order for players to fully enjoy the game, further upgrades are definitely needed.

Also Read: Last Epoch: How To Successfully Clear All 3 Dungeons? - Lightless Arbor, Soulfire Bastion & Temporal Sanctum

Improve Arena Mechanism

Next, we want to talk about Arena. Currently, Arena is the least rewarding activity in Last Epoch endgame. Aside from leaderboards, unique loot drops, and a change of pace, there’s no real reason to run an arena now.

The amount of loot you get from Arena is inefficient considering the time it takes to acquire it. Sure, XP you can earn in Arena is substantial, but you can get similar XP, if not more, when running Monolith.

Plus, you can get more Last Epoch Gold there, so why should you bother with Arena?

So what’s wrong with Arena? I believe this is the flow and structure of this game mode. Some enemies crawl at a snail’s pace. This is especially problematic because of the design of some arena maps. Most of them are too big, causing you to stop frequently and look around for the last mob.

Therefore, I want all Arena maps to be as simple and compact as Arena of Champions map. Developers, please zoom out and get rid of or speed up slow enemies. Also, improve the loot and maybe add some unique rewards, just like you would in a dungeon. These improvements could make Arena a more viable option as an endgame activity in Last Epoch.

Bad UI Issues

Let’s say that UI of Last Epoch has always been a problem. Unfortunately, it hasn’t really improved over time. I’m having a lot of issues with the game’s UI.

First, often when crafting and selecting affixes, the tooltips will start going crazy. They continuously display the item’s description, or a window with affixes information. Other times, the item description doesn’t pop up after launching the game until I change the loot filter for some reason.

Also, do you sometimes get FPS drops from quickly checking many item descriptions for dropped items? I’m not sure if this is a recent issue or if I just didn’t pay attention because I didn’t get that much loot in the past.

Besides, some options don’t tick correctly on the menu, or don’t work at all. No matter what I do, I can’t turn on “show life above the character” in the game.

As a result, UI is a very annoying part of Last Epoch experience. It should be a useful tool, but it often became an obstacle I had to overcome in the game, which is a sign of poor UI performance. Instead of enhancing my experience and allowing me to better understand the game, UI often drove me crazy.

Improve The Display Of Stats

Finally, let’s talk about the way stats are displayed in Last Epoch, which needs some improvement.

At first glance, the stats visible in Last Epoch are very large, detailed, and easy to understand. But as you play more, you realize it’s not all that great.

First off, figuring out your DPS isn’t as simple as you might think. This is because some skill tooltips don’t show DPS at all.

Take Runemaster, for example. When it was built to cast random spells, we had no idea what its DPS would be. But in other cases, it shouldn’t be difficult for developers to provide us with estimates, such as Chaos Bolts, which are currently not shown at all.

Then we have some stats that don’t show up in our character stats sheets at all. For example, we have no way of knowing statistics about “Chance to apply Frailty” related to damage types penetrations or channeling skills.

I’d also love to see a breakdown of stats on the tooltip, like my Necro-based Warlock has 888% Necro damage. The source of this damage boost is shown in the table, which contains two item passive idols. This way I can understand which parts of my build are causing this damage. This will also make it easier for you to judge what to replace or what to focus on improving.

You might think that last point is a little nitpicky, but remember, items and stats are a core and integral part of ARPG gameplay. We should always be looking for ways to make our decisions around loot and character building easier.

Of course, some gaming communities resort to mods or external apps to fix inefficiencies that exist in their games. But I wish the developers of Last Epoch would put effort into UI and stats to make sure we don’t have to rely solely on fans of the game to fix problems caused by the developers.

So here are five things I hope will be improved in Last Epoch. How is your gaming experience? What aspects of Last Epoch bother you? What systems or inefficiencies would you like to see improved? I want to know what you think! See you next time!

With POE 3.24 just around the corner, I wanted to share my league starter build to help you get off to a good start when entering Necropolis, which is Ground Slam of Earthshaking Berserker. I believe that all Softcore melee players must be very interested in this build. So, without further ado, let’s get started!

Overview

This build is a pure physical build that combines Impale, Intimidating Cry, Vulnerability Curse, and 5 offensive Auras for high damage. But I prefer Transfigured version because it has a higher base damage and attack range.

Although it has a low base attack speed, it makes up for it with Berserker. Berserker is an offense-oriented Ascendancy class that allows us to gain rage during combat, thus significantly increasing attack speed and damage.

This build is very tanky, with at least 86% Elemental Resistances, Fortify Effect, 5 Endurance Charges and lots of Armor. Honestly, this isn’t a quick build, but if you like non-meta, tanky, but slow melee builds, then this is definitely for you. I had one of the smoothest leveling experiences ever with this build.

Gear Selection

For gear, just use Two Hand Maces with the highest physical damage you can find, get your Leap Slam, and you’ll be able to advance quickly through the campaign.

I stacked as much armor as possible from my gear, using only pure armor gear. I don’t need any blue sockets since all my gems are Strength or Dexterity gems.

I use Tidebreaker Two Hand Mace as my primary weapon. This weapon is best in slot, because I can’t crit.

In Yellow Map, 4-link is fine, but when you get to Red Maps, you will need a 5-link. It provides a lot of physical damage, free Endurance Charge on Melee Stun support and some Intelligence.

Another unique item is Perseverance Vanguard Belt. Since it's hard to get decent attack speed at the beginning of the league, but Onslaught will help as long as you have Fortify. Additionally, its armor and life stats are also good.

For other gear, look for the following mods: Life, Resistances, Attributes, and Attack Speed. I recommend you prioritize armor gear as this build does not use Determination.

Lion’s Roar is a cheap, unique flask that provides a huge damage boost. You should be able to buy one at the start of the league for around 2 Chaos Orbs.

PoB

Now, let’s get into PoB of this build. I’ll show you gear for the early, mid, and late game so you know what to upgrade next.

First, equip Tidebreaker as soon as possible. It should take you to the endgame. Brass Dome is the best in slot body armor because it has large chunks of armor and maximum resistance. I have a 100% chance of avoiding being shocked by Abyss Jewels and Eldritch Implicit on the boots.

Then equip Stormshroud to get a chance to avoid all other Elemental Ailments. As for Cluster Jewels, besides its passive skills, Smite the Weak and Heavy Hitter are also good choices.

Skill Tree

As for the skill tree, I have different levels of the skill tree, so you know which nodes to grab first. Of course, you don’t have to follow it exactly, but this is how I leveled up, so I put it here for your reference.

The order of my Ascendancy nodes is this: first Crave the Slaughter, then Aspect of Carnage, Rite of Ruin, and finally War-Bringer.

Besides, Uniques can be upgraded if needed. Some are so generic that you don’t need them. But if you can get them, why not?

Gem Settings

As for the gems, they are pretty self-explanatory. I just want to talk about two things specifically.

First, in order to make our Warcries instant, what we usually do is take Call to Arms keystone passive. Intimidating Cry is automatically triggered when Call to Arms is activated. Call to Arms will be replaced and made into a support gem.

Another thing I want to talk about only applies to the late game. When you get to the late game, you will need to purchase Vulnerability on Hit Ring.

Currently, I don’t know how much POE Currency it will cost when the league starts, but if you can’t afford it, you can link Vulnerability Curse with Blasphemy Support to make it Aura. Of course, it reserves mana, so you can only use 2 or 3 other Auras.

One thing to note is that this build doesn’t have a lot of intelligence, so make sure not to boost your Blasphemy Support too much.

Because of Reservation Mastery here, I linked Vitality with Arrogance Support to retain some life. If I keep life and mana, all my maximum elemental resistances will be +1.

However, please note that you only need to keep it at level 1. You know you’re over leveled if you find that you have much less life than you should.

After getting Watcher’s Eye, you can replace Vitality with Precision. Same thing, just keep Precision at level 1.

Also Read: This POE 3.24 League Starter Build Will Destroy Pinnacle Bosses With Ease! - Fire Trap Ignite Elementalist

How To Get Fortify?

As I mentioned before, this build uses Fortify, but you can get it from different sources. All I did was buy a corrupted Tidebreaker with Fortify Implicit.

Another method I also recommend is to use Overlord passive skill and then get it from Cluster Jewels. However, in the early days, when you don’t have more POE Currency, you can just use Fortify Support or get it from Fortify Mastery.

Unwavering Stance

I got stun immunity from Unwavering Stance early on, but I didn’t notice it until I got this Ascendancy node, Rite of Ruin. I feel like I will die more easily after assigning Unwavering Stance. Of course, you can still assign Unwavering Stance if you wish.

Mana Leech

There really aren't any mana issues with this build since we're carrying a Mana Flask. Then when I switched to corrupted Tidebreaker, I got some mana leech from my Cluster Jewel, Fuel the Fight passive skill.

But in fact we can easily obtain mana leech from ordinary jewelry. You can also obtain it from the skill tree, but the efficiency is relatively low.

How To Keep Owning Onslaught?

The cheapest way to continuously own an onslaught is to use Perseverance Belt. If you have a lot of maps, Silver Flask is also a good choice.

Alternatively, if you frequently summon Ancestor Totems, you can gain Onslaught effect via Sleepless Sentries passive skill on Cluster Jewel.

Farming Tips

Finally, this build is great for farming Breach, Abyss, Harbinger, Harvest and Ritual if that’s your thing. The farming strategy I would avoid in this build is Legion and Blight. Because Legion needs to be built quickly, but this build is not. As for Blight, I just don’t think a slow melee build would do it any good.

Well, that’s it for today’s Ground Slam of Earthshaking Berserker build guide. I hope you enjoyed it and see you next time!

What’s your current progress on Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 1? Are you still looking for a way to reach 100% quickly? No need to bother anymore. In this guide, we will provide both offline and online methods to help you complete Team Affinity quickly.

Offline Method

First, let’s start with the offline method.

Repeatable Single Player Missions

The first thing you should determine is what single player missions you wish to accomplish. Or, if you want to complete multiple divisions at once, see what repeatable single player missions you can complete. Note that repeatability is the key here.

We can see that in AL East, the total requirement is 20 bases, but they don’t have a pitcher. But if you go to AL Central division, you’ll find that their single player missions are both hitters hitting a total of 20 bases and pitchers pitching a total of 9 innings. Then, if we go all the way to AL West, you’ll find a total of 3 innings pitched and 20 bases here.

So the repeatable missions for all divisions appear to be 20 total bases for hitters, and then for pitchers, it’s either 3 or 9 innings.

Play vs CPU

So now how do we do this most effectively? MLB The Show 24 has a game mode called Play vs CPU that may help.

It’s worth noting the stats for this game mode. Once you exit, the stats will count towards your progress on any mission you want to complete. You read that right, if you only hit with the first hitter, then all you need to do is get 4 bases with the first hitter. If you hit a home run, you’re out and done with the mission.

In this mode, you will see the difficulty of playing against CPU rookies at the start of the match, and all you have to do is choose a way to play against them. I recommend that you race them with the easiest difficulty possible.

Note that the first place you place is your fifth-best starting pitcher. Why did you do this? Because generally speaking, they’ll also field their fifth-best starting pitcher, which is their worst starting pitcher, and that gives you an advantage.

Considering you’re hitting with diamonds now, you’re going to have different lineups, depending on what you’re using. Of course, if you have more budget for MLB The Show 24 Stubs, choosing Legends must be the best.

Assuming I’m only playing in AL East, since it doesn’t have pitches, I select two hitters, Trea Turner and Mike Trout. When I unlock the third hitter, Ken Griffey Jr, I’ll make them 1, 2, and 3.

At this point, it doesn’t matter if all of them are out, because when the fourth hitter walks up to hit after the third hit, I’m going to quit right away. I could keep rinsing and repeating this process until I had 20 bases. This would be the most ideal approach if you focus exclusively on hitters.

Mini Seasons

Assuming you want to train hitters from distinct divisions, and also want to train some pitchers, then I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Play vs CPU game mode, since it’s a complete game. We’ve got a faster way for you to continue innings pitching while also benefiting from hitting the batsman at your preferred pitch.

A great way to do this is within Mini Seasons. You can enter any of Mini Seasons, but I highly recommend choosing Classic Mode since you can hit two targets at the same time.

You can then restart your Mini Seasons each time by holding X until you get to a new Mini Season, then edit the roster and make sure you have at least six consecutive home runs.

You can choose a high-elevation park, or you download a high-elevation custom baseball diamond so your hitters can hit non-stop home runs.

Team Affinity’s mission is to hit 20 home runs in a season and total 50 home runs on Veteran difficulty.

Also Read: How To Maximize Stubs In MLB The Show 24? - 10 Ways

Unfortunately, if you’re going Mini Seasons route, you’ll be racing on Veteran difficulty, but you’ll likely still be way ahead because you don’t need to win those races at all. So you don’t even have to worry about that, just worry about 3 innings pitched and hitting the tank with hitters.

Another unfortunate thing about Mini Seasons is that, unlike Conquest, since your pitcher will be sharing energy throughout the game, it doesn’t reset. So if you use Pitcher A, then most likely the next game you’re going to have to use Pitcher B, and then most likely the next game you’re going to have to use Pitcher C.

You can work around this, but you’ll have to start Mini Seasons of every time you complete these missions. Therefore, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to complete both repeatable missions for each season in one go.

Conquest

Let’s say you don’t want to do this and you want to play on the easiest difficulty and use the same image every time. For example, let’s say you’re in an AL West game and you want to pitch three innings each with Raisel Iglesias or Jose Altuve. Conquest would be great for that.

Because the beauty of Conquest is that once you have a certain number of territories next to stronghold, you can always play on novice difficulty.

Another tip I would like to add is that if you are going to use Play vs CPU mode to gain innings, I highly recommend playing this way at home unless you are facing Rockies Team.

If you’re facing a Rockies Team, it doesn’t matter if you’re playing at home or away. But if you’re playing at home with the pitcher you pitch to, then you’ll be able to choose your custom ballpark. This will be your priority in order to gain base totals while completing innings pitched.

Online Method

For online mode, I would say you can participate in events.

Events currently allow you to use Team Affinity Season 1 cards to build a team. Next up just like the offline game mode, let’s actually see how Team Affinity’s online rewards stack up in terms of repeatable missions.

You will see that online you need to complete a total of 10 bases in each division before pitching, which is much less than offline. And we’ll see, for AL Central, it’s two pitchers pitching three innings in center field, but the total number of hits is always 10. And then if we look at AL West, you’ll see there’s a total of two innings pitched here, and those are repeatable.

So how do we do this in events? We will continue to build event teams using Team Affinity card that we will eventually need. Therefore, within the lineup, you will prioritize which Team Affinity card you need to get the total bases.

If you don’t have any pitchers at the moment, this means you need to hit first. No matter how many hitters you have, as long as your last hitter hits, you are executing a Team Affinity mission.

If you’re still batting in the first inning and don’t want to finish the entire match right after you finish batting, you can just quit and go to the next game. This doesn’t matter as the event will not be reflected in your personal record, it will only reflect the current ranking of the event. So you might as well take advantage of three hitters hitting a home run on the road.

Unfortunately, once you hit a ball with hitters, you won’t quit even if you’re not there. Instead, you’ll pitch an entire three-inning game using the number of innings pitched you need to count.

But like many seasons, the event shared energy throughout the tournament. So if you use Pitcher A in Game 1, you most likely won’t be able to use him again in Game 2 unless you want someone with no energy.

So what you can do is, if you prioritize pitching missions and hitting missions, then after every game, you use up all those pitchers.

Or, let’s say you only have two pitchers, so you pitch Pitcher A for three innings in the first game and Pitcher B for three innings in the second game. In this way, it is likely that by the third game, Pitcher A will not have enough energy to continue pitching the third game.

So every time you complete your second race, all you have to do is simply forfeit your entry. While giving up your eligibility will cause you to start over, your tournament starts with zero wins and a brand new pairing rating, or you can use Pitcher A.

Rinse and repeat the process and you’ll get two innings of pitching each time. You don’t have to win these events, all you need to do is get the stats.

Anyway, that’s the complete guide to complete Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 1 in both offline and online modes. Don’t hesitate, try it now!