The new Abattoir of Zir event is very challenging. I spent a lot of time testing different versions of Ball Lightning build and came up with one that I found to be the most fun and efficient to play. With this build, I passed T14 at level 14 and got the new Tears of Blood Glyph.

This build doesn’t use any Uber Uniques like Harlequin Crest or Melted Heart of Selig. Therefore, this build is perfect for players on a low Diablo 4 Gold budget. You can even just use this build instead of having to farm Uber Boss repeatedly while hoping for a drop.

In this guide, I’ll cover all the key synergies. Let’s start!

Unlock AoZ

Before we dive into the build, I wanted to take a quick look at the keys to the new Diablo 4 Abattoir of Zir Dungeon. In order to take part in Abattoir of Zir event, we need to complete all Seasonal Journey Chapters.

The reward for the last chapter is 3000 Potent Blood points. But this is usually not very useful, since we may have upgraded all of our Vampiric Powers at this point. But we can also use Potent Blood for alt accounts, such as starting a new character.

The New Tears of Blood Glyph

The reward of Abattoir of Zir event is a new Glyph, Tears of Blood, which can increase our damage.

Currently, I’m at glyph level 15, which doubles my overall damage with some additional added damage and damage reduction.

We should note that the core statistics here include not only Intelligence but also Strength, Dexterity and Willpower. So investing Paragon Points into all stat nodes within the radius gives us the best results.

The best place to use the new Glyph is on Burning Board, where we get extra damage reduction from burning enemies as a bonus from rare nodes. And damage reduction is very important in Abattoir of Zir event. Because we can die instantly at high levels, resulting in failure without any reward.

Key Synergies

Next, I’ll cover all the key synergies.

We use Flickerstep in our builds to maintain Permanent Ultimate. Because each dodge reduces the cooldown of our ultimate ability by up to 10 seconds.

Since attacking reduces the cooldown of evasion, we can use evasion almost once per second. So as long as we dodge through the enemy a few times within 10 seconds of Ultimate. When it ends, Ultimate will be ready to cast again.

In addition, Flickerstep can also reduce damage from close enemies to help us survive better.

So what does it mean to have permanent Ultimate uptime?

First, of course, it increases our damage. Because when Ultimate is active, every Ball Lightning we cast will trigger a random Shock Skill out of these 4 skills.

The first two are Core Skills, which trigger Accelerating Aspect. The third one is Cooldown Skill and Protection Passive. We just need to cast Ball Lightning to get Barrier.

Also, we are running Ice Armor in this build. We can maintain Barrier 100% of the time. Not only does this help us survive and face high-level monsters like in T14, but it also ensures that we get 100% of the benefits from Storm Swell Aspect and Conceited Aspect. Both rely on barrier uptime.

Another key synergy is using Ball Lightning Enchantment, where all critical hits trigger static Ball Lightnings on the ground. This greatly increases our damage.

An extra note is that our Teleport has a high Lucky Hit Chance. We will be placing a level 5 Teleport in this build to cast Teleport every 1-2 seconds, causing many static Ball Lightnings on the ground.

Also, we have Shimmering Teleport, which upon use gives us another 30% damage reduction for 3 seconds.

Since Protection Passive and Teleport are also Cooldown Skills, casting Teleport every 1-2 seconds will maintain the 30% Damage Reduction buff and a 30% Maximum Life Barrier. This helps us tank mobs further head-on in T14 without any issues.

Also Read: Diablo 4: The Simplest Way To Farm Sigil Power For Dungeons Or Abbatoir Of Zir

For armor we need 3% armor stats for 4 positions. Achieve 13500 armor through maximum stacks of Aspect of Disobedience. This way we can gain 85% armor damage reduction cap against level 155+ enemies in Abattoir of Zir.

We also use Adept Glyph in Paragon Board, as the 20% extended range is good for both cast Ball Lightnings and static Ball Lightnings in the enchantment.

Finally, we use Reinforced Glyph to get an additional 15% damage reduction since we have 100% barrier uptime. We also got magic and rare nodes for damage reduction from Burning Board’s elites.

6 Glyphs vs 7 Glyphs

I also tested performance between two Paragon Boards. In one there was a board where I removed some nodes from some glyphs so that I could use 7 glyphs and get all the glyph bonuses.

On the other board, I only used 6 glyphs, but I could max out all the nodes within the glyph radius and get a ton of bonus damage. This is my final result.

You can see that 6-Glyph is actually better than 7-Glyph. Because even if the monster is considered always under crowd control, the total damage will be higher. In actual combat, monsters are only partially subject to crowd control. Therefore, 6-Glyph will be far superior to 7-Glyph.

Tips To Push High Tier AoZ

Here are some tips for pushing high tier AoZ.

The first tip is to avoid clearing everything we see. We needed to fight a high density of monsters to make the most of the 10-minute timer.

Many times, we can just clear out the non-elites and move on. In particular, I recommend not fighting ranged elites one by one. They are fleeing from high-density crowds and it is not worth chasing them. Usually I just jump in and clear out the non-elites and move on.

Another tip is to save Shrine before the boss fights to maximize our combat power against 3 bosses. When the potion runs out, we can always go back to town to refill it.

Finally, I recommend using +50 Maximum Resource Elixir to trigger more Elementalist’s Aspects. It allows me to gain at least +1 level while pushing Abattoir of Zir.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Abattoir of Zir event was challenging, but I think it still needs some improvement.

First, the lack of item rewards is a bit frustrating. Even with stat re-rolls, I couldn’t find a single piece of gear that was of similar quality to what I had equipped.

Next, the failure and reward systems also need to be redesigned. In AoZ, there are no rewards for death or overtime, and it completely wasted our time. And I feel like the current rewards are not enough and more we need increments to keep players motivated and having fun.

What I enjoy in AoZ, though, is testing the limits of my builds, iterating on them, and creating a building that has a good balance between damage and survivability to advance to the next level. It comes with a tremendous sense of accomplishment. I hope this guide helps you make your own build and have fun testing it!