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.

FC 24 Team of the Season Promo Event has officially kicked off, and every FC player will push their limits and strive for a higher ranking. So it’s time for you to become the best player you can be!

In order to achieve this goal, you must finally get rid of your bad habits and correct your mistakes. With today’s guide, we introduce you to 4 serious mistakes you often make and how to easily correct them. Now, let’s get started!

Not Paying Attention To The Defender

Let’s start with the attack. One of the most common mistakes is that you don’t pay attention to the defender you choose. If you don’t watch and understand their defensive intentions, you will easily lose possession of the ball.

You have to keep an eye on them and not force anything toward their defense. Even if you think they’re covering one side, you can’t lose focus because they can change intentions in half a second. If you don’t pay attention and take action, they will win the challenge with every encounter.

You need to focus on the player with that icon above their head and think about what their next move might be if he runs to a particular side. Your goal is to take the ball away from there and take advantage of opportunities in front of you to pass the ball at any time.

Here is an example. When I’m about to pass the ball, I see my opponent pick a defender in front of me. So I’m going to keep an eye on her as the ball travels. I see the defender continuing to defend with her instead of switching. Therefore, don’t push the ball forward or you will get a defensive challenge.

I get the ball back, avoid it and create a path in front of me to push the ball forward. Then, I saw that my opponent had changed to a new defender and was approaching me step by step. Then I just had to pull the ball back again and see him make a failed tackle and score an easy goal.

All in all, if you know what you’re doing, it’s actually quite easy to outperform your opponent’s expectations. But don’t forget that it is also important to prepare FC 24 Coins to improve your own player stats.

Wrong Finishing Setup

The next common mistake is with Finishing setup. Sometimes it’s not that you don’t know how to shoot, it’s that you forget to shoot. That means either you’re not facing the goal when you take the shot, there’s a defender standing in front of you blocking the shot, or the goalkeeper comes out and you panic.

This is a typical situation where you get in behind the defensive line and have an advantage over the defenders, and the only thing the opponent can do is take the goalkeeper out. When the goalkeeper comes out, he will risk closing the goal at an angle, which reduces your likelihood of scoring a goal.

If you don’t turn this risk to your advantage and set up the best shot opportunity, you will give up free goals from similar positions.

To create the best chance, you need to create a new shooting angle by rolling the ball away from the goalkeeper. But you also have to accept the fact that your shot didn’t go through the defender.

If someone blocks your shooting path, the shot will be easily blocked. So you have to analyze the defender’s current position or expected movement and take the ball away from there again to clear your path before you can score a nice goal.

Note that the direction of your control on your first touch may also create a tight angle to the goal, but don’t panic, additional touches into the open space can create a better scoring angle.

Also Read: EA FC 24: How To Make Full Use Of The L1 Button To Trigger Runs?

Reckless Push Away From Defender

Next, the most crucial mistake on defense pulls the defender out of his position. Do you see open spaces that the wingers can explore? When you push out your full-backs recklessly, you have to really realize that you may have been defending the ball carrier with a midfield break, and such a defensive shake will never help.

You can counter the opponent by keeping your defender close to the attacker and safely in front of him, but if he is the last line of defence, you will never allow a risky forward move like this. Because if you do that, a simple pass can penetrate the center of your defence, and you’ll concede goals easily.

To avoid this, I first take the following route. I look at the environment and decide if I have a midfielder defending instead of using my back four at the back.

If this is the case, I would switch to the midfielder and defend with him. But this way I don’t have any midfielders nearby and if I accidentally push out and go out to challenge, the opponent can easily take advantage of the midfield.

Then I see the opponent is about to pass the ball to his teammate, and if I push the ball out, it could also be a simple pass. But I also realize that potential receivers are running behind the defensive line. So, instead of pushing out, I follow the runner and cover the pass safely.

Meanwhile, the opponent made a mistake and lost possession of the ball. In a dangerous position defended safely on the other side, my opponent accidentally pushed up, which gave me a tremendous advantage.

In the most critical moments, instead of covering the runner from behind without breaking the defensive formation, he wildly slides, which makes everything easier for me because he pushes away the defender. In these circumstances, I scored without a doubt.

Therefore, you should not risk pushing the defender out of position, you must analyze where the position is going and move your defender safely back to the potential threat without disrupting the defensive shape.

Don’t Understand The Direction Of The game

Let’s come to the last point, not reading the direction of the play, but understanding the opponent’s offensive intentions defensively. This is one of the best traits we can learn instead of throwing your defender into random spots.

For example, here I found space behind the defensive line and as I was about to get into the box, the opponent covered the passing lane to the striker and controlled the running lane. But he also has to be mindful of our third option, which is passing the ball back.

He might have switched to another centre-back and taken a step to the side, but instead of doing so, he completely ignored it and pushed the defense with two passes with the selected defender. So I have a chance to score again.

If you defend an area well, the opponent will deliberately change direction after passing the ball on that side. You have to understand that the direction is to move to the other side, not to run towards the area with your currently selected player. You have to spot the next pass and switch to whichever defender is there. If you can’t see what’s coming and take action, you’ll be late and concede to the ball.

What I’m trying to do here is use player switching early and effectively after the ball has traveled. I look for potential targets and control the approaching defender for that position.

Once I see the pattern of the wing switching to the left, I pull my winger through the middle and rush out wide instead of covering the player in the middle. Because I had a substitute to defend, the opponent had to go back to the center again. My winger moved laterally, creating an advantage for me which ultimately allowed me to get the ball back.

So watch your opponent’s body language, take advantage of early player switches, and try to cover potential targets without ruining your shape.

These are 4 potential issues you can make improvements on. Following this guide’s targeted suggestions and correcting them will get your FC players ranked higher in TOTS event!

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!

Recently, the developers announced a slew of new content coming to WOW Classic SOD Phase 3. So in this guide, I’ll briefly summarize some of the key changes and cover anything you might have missed, including new runes, class changes, the new Sunken Temple Raid, and more.

New Sunken Temple Raid

The next step in players’ Season of Discovery journey will begin on April 4, 2024, when Phase 3 program launches. The level cap will be raised to level 50, and its final dungeon will be Sunken Temple, an iconic dungeon in World of WarCraft history.

While Sunken Temple has been streamlined with Cataclysm dungeon revamp, players will regain the full experience in Season of Discovery.

Also, just like Gnomeregan and Blackfathom Deeps, Sunken Temple will have its own world buff that will increase all stats by 8%, spell damage by 65, and critical strike chance by 5%, according to data-mining.

Also Read: What Are The Most Recommended Consumables For WOW Season Of Discovery Phase 3?

Depending on the faction chosen, players can easily enter Sunken Temple by taking a flight point to Stonard in Swamp of Sorrows or Nethergarde Keep in Blasted Lands.

As usual, the new Sunken Temple is a 20-player raid and will feature 8 bosses for players to challenge. It will lock loot weekly and will launch on April 4, 2024 with the remainder of Season of Discovery Phase 3.

New PVE Event

While Sunken Temple may be the endgame focus of Phase 3, Season of Discovery will also introduce a new PVE open world event, Nightmare Incursions. Interacting with this event will teleport you to a new corrupted zone and allow you to defeat enemies for top-notch loot.

If you want to farm WOW Classic SOD Gold in Phase 3, Nightmare Incursions seems like it would be an excellent way to do it.

This PVE event will take place in Feralas, Ashenvale, Duskwood, and Hinterlands areas. Players will fight against forces of corruption. There are many options for this world event. You can participate alone or with a group. This is also Phase 3’s second major event after Blood Moon.

Confirmed New Runes

In addition, for the new runes in Phase 3, here we will focus on the ones that have been confirmed by the developers first, rather than the runes that have been datamined but have not yet been confirmed.

Druid

• Gore: Hitting a target with Lacerate, Swipe, or Maul has a 15% chance to reset Mangle’s cooldown. Attacking a target with Mangle (Cat) or Shred has a 5% chance to reset Tiger’s Fury’s cooldown.
• Improved Barkskin: You can now cast Barkskin on allies without affecting melee combat speed or cast time.

Hunter

• Focus Fire: Consumes all Frenzy on your pet and increases your ranged attack speed by 3% and provides your pet with 4 Focus each time Frenzy is consumed. Every time your pet uses a normal attack, it will gain Frenzy, which increases melee attack speed by 6%.
• Lock and Load: Each time one of your traps is triggered, your next shot within 20 seconds costs no mana and has no cooldown.

Mage

• Deep Freeze: Stuns frozen targets for 5 seconds, causing damage to targets that are permanently immune to stun.
• Balefire Bolt: Each time you cast it, the damage of the next Balefire Bolt within 30 seconds is increased by 10% and 10% reduced your Spirit, stacking up to 10 times.

Paladin

• Improved Sanctuary: It will increase the damage blocked by your Blessing of Sanctuary by 100% and increase your shield block value by 30%.
• Wrath: Your Consecration damage now deals critical strikes, and damage dealt by your Exorcism, Holy Shock, Holy Wrath, and Consecration spells gain an additional critical strike chance equal to your melee critical strike chance.

Priest

• Surge of Light: Casting a critical hit causes your next Smite, Flash Heal, or Binding Heal to be cast immediately within 15 seconds.
• Pain and Suffering: Mind Flay will refresh the duration of Shadow Word: Pain on the target to the maximum duration.

Rogue

• Honor Among Thieves: When any player on your team lands a critical hit with a spell, you gain a combo point. This effect can only occur once per second.
• Cut to the Chase: Your Eviscerate and Envenom will refresh the duration of your Slice and Dice or Blade Dance skills to a maximum of 5 combo points. But if both abilities are active, it only refreshes the one with the shortest remaining duration.

Shaman

• Riptide: The next Chain Heal you cast on the primary target within 15 seconds consumes the healing over time effect and increases Chain Heal by 25%.
• Mental Dexterity: Damage dealt with melee weapons increases your attack power by 100% of your intelligence and increases your spell damage and healing by 30% of your total attack power for 1 minute.

Warlock

• Summon Felguard: Summons a Felguard under Warlock’s command. These Felguards are affected by the talents and effects of all your other Demon minions.
• Pandemic: The periodic damage from your Corruption, Unstable Affliction, Curse of Agony, Immolate, Curse of Doom, and Siphon Life abilities can now critically hit.

Warrior

• Taste for Blood: As your Rend skill deals damage, your Overpower skill becomes active for 9 seconds or 1 attack. This effect occurs no more than once every 6 seconds.
• Sword and Board: When your Devastate and Revenge skills deal damage, there is a 30% chance to refresh the cooldown of your Shield Slam skill and reduce its rage cost by 100% for 5 seconds.
• Gladiator Stance: While you’re wearing a shield, damage is increased by 10% and block chance is increased by 10%. However, the armor is reduced by 30% and 10% reduced the threat generated.

Profession Changes

In Phase 3 of Season of Discovery, the professions have finally reached their ultimate form. The profession skill cap will be unlocked, allowing players to reach level 300, and Specializations will finally be available. However, there are still some new secrets to be discovered.

In addition, the developers also stated that they have also made some changes to gold sinks related to the profession. In terms of raw gold, the cost of the new recipes added in Phase 3 will be essentially free. Besides this, the cost of Gnomeregan recipes will also be reduced, which is undoubtedly a surprise for players who want to obtain these recipes.

The above are some of the key points of Phase 3 that have been confirmed so far. When Phase 3 launches, players will probably be in for a difficult but rewarding journey. Therefore, before the new phase arrives, please prepare and upgrade your skills, and be ready to explore the secrets of Azeroth.

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!

Recently, the developers released a trailer for Path of Exile 3.24. In this trailer, we can discover that Necropolis will be making enormous changes to Ruby, Topaz and Sapphire flasks, changing their bonuses from 50% Resistance and 20% Less Damage Taken to 40% Resistance and +5% Maximum Resistance.

This change will have a big impact on high-end defense builds for later farming Valdo’s Maps and Uber Bosses. In this guide, I want to talk about the impact these flask changes can have on endgame builds and explain my thoughts.

The Synergy Of Transcendence & Loreweave

So the first thing we should discuss is Transcendence. This is a Timeless Keystone that applies your armor value to elemental damage taken.

Ever since Transcendence changed all maximum elemental resistances from -5% to -15%, the go-to gear for this Keystone has been Loreweave. Because Loreweave can set your Maximum Resistance to a specified value, you can completely overcome Maximum Resistance penalty.

This is usually a very expensive high-end setup, usually requiring a Double Corrupted Dawnbreaker, a Double Purity mod, Watcher’s Eye, and a ton of flask effects with Taste of Hate to deal with the physical damage you’re going to take.

And since the body armor slot is now occupied by Loreweave, you can’t use Lightning Coil. This means you need more POE Currency to complete high-end builds.

Recently, however, some players have experimented with using Transcendence without Loreweave and trying to scale Maximum Resistance in other ways to combat the resistance penalty. Such as Charms in Affliction League or Tattoos in Trial of the Ancestors League, or even shield modifiers on Crucible Tree during Crucible League.

For example, Molten Strike Pathfinder build I used before completely ignored the resistance penalty and rolled at 55% or 60% of maximum elemental resistance, which was crazy.

Flask Changes

But in POE 3.24, with the changes to these elemental flasks, the new flasks will provide a more consistent way to get a bunch of maximum resistance.

Compared to things like Charms and Tattoos that usually disappear once the league ends, I think this will change the meta of how high-end defense builds are put together primarily on Pathfinder or Mageblood characters.

Related: An In-Depth Analysis Of The Potential Impact Of Flask Changes In POE 3.24 Necropolis

Melding Of The Flesh

When I first saw these changes, one thing that stood out to me was the fact that Melding of the Flesh existed. Because it was previously impossible to convert Less Damage Taken modifier on one of these elemental flasks to also apply to the other two elemental damage types.

This is why the vast majority of builds run all three flasks, namely Ruby, Topaz and Sapphire flasks, to fortify defenses against almost everything they encounter.

This is also why Tempered by War setup with Dawnbreaker, Purity of Fire, and Sublime Vision started to become very popular. Because it’s so powerful, able to focus all your defenses on one damage type and significantly reduce the risk of Elemental Penetration.

But as Ruby, Topaz and Sapphire flasks changed in POE 3.24 to provide Maximum Resistance, there is a new option to use a single flask to obtain Maximum Resistance for each element type through Melding of the Flesh.

This means that scaling Maximum Resistance with Transcendence may become the first choice for very high-end defense setups like Valdo’s Maps and Uber Bosses farms.

If this does start to become a popular way of building around Transcendence. I think items like Aegis Aurora will start to be used more, especially since builds that don’t use Loreweave will free up body armor slots for items like Lightning Coil. This will also make Dawnbreaker no longer a mandatory item to achieve 100% physical damage conversion.

Traitor Keystone

There is also Traitor, which is another Timeless Keystone. Now obviously you can’t use this with Transcendence, as both are exclusive to Timeless Jewels and are limited to one piece.

But Traitor does provide the opportunity to use Melding of the Flesh to gain maximum resistance to all three elements from a flask or other item.

Among them, Micro-Distillery Belt and Traitor have a good synergy. Since you’ve kept at least one flask slot empty, this belt actually provides 30% of the flask effect, equivalent to 1%-2% of maximum resistance. Depends on the amount of flask effects you get from other sources.

Keep in mind that each 20% increase in flask effect will now provide an additional 1% of maximum resistance to the new flask, so I expect to see some strategies using this combination of mechanics.

Also, this would be great for a Chieftain who doesn’t need Melding of the Flesh Jewel, and getting a bunch of maximum fire resistance from the flask slot will allow you to randomly equip. I look forward to seeing what else players can come up with using this setting.

Elemental Flask

I think it’s also worth mentioning here that a Pathfinder set up with Melding of the Flesh will free up two flask slots that were previously used for the other two elemental flasks.

This means you can now take two identical flasks, such as two Magic Sapphire Flasks, or even two Taste of Hate Flasks, and enchant them with Enkindling Orbs to increase the flask effect to 70%. You need to alternate between the two so that the other can get charges when not in use.

Since the two flask slots are cursed, this will give you the most resistance you can get from the flask. If you do this with a Magic Flask, you can even get 133% of the maximum resistance.

Conclusion

Overall, I think some endgame or high investment setups are going to see a pretty big shift. One thing that’s definitely noticeable about this change is that these builds will have a harder time dealing with Elemental Penetration than before. So it will be very interesting to see how the metadata adapts to these changes in POE 3.24.

Especially if you're someone who’s played some of the high-end Pathfinder Builds, or Mageblood Builds with high-potential defense setups, you may be paying attention to these changes as well. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these flask changes.