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Posted Yesterday 15:49
Diablo IV Season 10 has arrived, and with it comes a whirlwind of new content, seasonal mechanics, and opportunities to supercharge your character. From Hell Tides to Chaos Rifts, infernal hordes to Chaos Armor, the season promises to redefine power progression for both new and veteran players. In this guide, we’ll break down everything you need to know to maximize your experience, optimize your leveling, and dominate the season’s unique challenges.
Starting Your Season: Normal Difficulty is Key
When you first log into Diablo IV Season 10, your journey begins on normal difficulty. While this might seem counterintuitive for seasoned players eager to jump into the fray, there’s a method to this madness. The reason is simple: Chaos Rifts, a core new seasonal mechanic, are punishing on higher difficulties. Until your build reaches a significant power spike—usually around level 15 to 25—you’ll want to avoid dying repeatedly and losing your hard-earned rewards, such as ether and cinders.
Campaign leveling is another consideration. While running the campaign on normal difficulty does provide a significant XP boost due to quest turn-ins, it often hampers your progress in the seasonal mechanics. Diablo IV’s Seasonal Questline and seasonal powers give a much larger long-term benefit than campaign XP alone. Unless you’re committed to experiencing the story, the fastest route is skipping the campaign and diving directly into seasonal activities.
Once in-game, equip your pet to pick up loot automatically, including cinders and hell tide points. If you have the Vessel of Hatred, unlock your mercenary or mercenaries, which will assist you during early quests. Your first seasonal quest, Raising Spirits in Kiovashad, is simple: cheer soldiers, return to your quest giver, and claim elixir components as a reward.
Elixirs and Incense: Maximizing XP
Throughout your leveling journey—and essentially until you reach max paragon—maintaining an active XP boost is essential. Early on, you’ll rely on low-level elixirs, which grant around 5% bonus XP, later scaling up to 8%. At higher levels, additional buffs from incense become available. There are three categories of incense, each stacking a 5% XP bonus, allowing for a cumulative 15% boost at endgame. Early in the season, these are less relevant due to cost, but they become crucial when farming high-value content like pit farming.
Seasonal Questline and Hell Tide: Your Main Progression Path
The heart of Season 10 lies in the Seasonal Questline, which unlocks transformative powers known as chaos perks. To progress, you’ll frequently need to farm Hell Tides, which are events that spawn powerful enemies and Chaos Rifts. These rifts are extremely challenging, even at normal difficulty, but they are central to seasonal reputation progression, referred to as Vijaktar Veneration this season.
Chaos Rifts spawn monsters that drop seasonal reputation, elite gear, and infernal warp—a critical resource for leveling up your chaos perks. While farming Hell Tides, focus on completing all available whispers (small objectives within the event) and opening all chests. Avoid obsessively farming the Blood Maiden, as she is a distraction and not a primary source of reputation or loot.
Occasionally, you’ll encounter Fleeting Hordes Compasses, which are limited-use pre-Torment tools that provide additional XP and reputation. Use these strategically to maximize gains.
Smoldering Ashes and Reputation Management
As you progress through the seasonal questline, you’ll earn Smoldering Ashes, which are best spent on increasing Vijaktar Veneration. Maxing this out to four points grants a 20% reputation boost, significantly improving the efficiency of Chaos Rift farming.
After reaching the cap, you can allocate ashes to other seasonal rewards depending on your activity. For example:
Infernal Hordes → Earn of Chaos Armor
Hell Tide → Earn of Chaos Nightmares
This allows for optimized resource allocation and ensures your progression is aligned with your preferred gameplay.
Weapons, Builds, and Leveling to 50
During early levels (1–50), your most important consideration is always wielding the highest DPS weapon available. Ensure that any key aspects for your build are safely stored—amulets are recommended—to avoid constantly reimprinting them onto new weapons. Efficiency is key: downtime spent swapping or managing aspects can severely slow progression.
Once you hit level 50, your focus shifts to Strongholds. These should also be completed on normal difficulty because XP gains from quest completion do not scale with difficulty. Strongholds are essential not just for XP, but for unlocking waypoints and access to Nightmare Dungeons, which will be critical for endgame content.
Chaos Rifts: The Core Seasonal Mechanic
Chaos Rifts appear in Infernal Hordes and Nightmare Dungeons. They come in three rarities:
Magic
Rare
Mythic (Torment One and above, guaranteeing a mythic item)
Each Chaos Rift has modifiers that determine its rewards, allowing players to prioritize rifts based on desired loot. They are also the primary source of Infernal Warp, the currency used to upgrade chaos perks.
At low levels (1–60), it’s advised to hold off on upgrading chaos perks, focusing only on perks that will remain relevant at endgame. For leveling purposes, prioritize perks that enhance flat damage, as these are disproportionately powerful at low character damage levels. Examples include:
Accelerating Chaos: Deals flat damage bursts.
Lucky Hit: Inflicts 1,400 flat damage.
Invigorating Attacks: Restores 50% of max primary resource every 5 seconds.
Erupting Chaos: Random 1,400 damage bursts from chaotic explosions.
Chaos Perks and Bartuk: Endgame Power
Chaos Perks are the transformative powers of Season 10. Each character can equip:
Three regular perks (any rarity)
One unique perk
Unique perks are unlocked by defeating Bartuk, a new boss appearing at the end of Infernal Hordes when you have at least 666 ether. Each victory grants one unique chaos perk until all four are unlocked. This makes Bartuk a crucial target for players aiming for max power.
As your perks grow in potency, you can spend Infernal Warp to either level them or purchase additional reputation via the vendor Shien, located near the reputation board.
Chaos Armor: Mixing and Matching Uniques
A major new feature this season is Chaos Armor, which allows you to mix unique items across armor slots (helm, chest, gloves, pants, boots). Chaos Armor ensures:
Unique powers are max-rolled
Stats are boosted by 20% on top
At least one greater AICS is always included
This system is reminiscent of Diablo III’s Kanai’s Cube, allowing combinations of powerful unique items previously impossible to wear simultaneously.
The most deterministic way to farm Chaos Armor is by defeating Bartuk, though you can also acquire it via:
Hell Tide chests
Whispers targeting specific armor slots
Oal gambling (preferably saved until level 60 and Torment One)
Infernal Hordes: Strategy and Overhaul
Infernal Hordes has received major updates this season. Previously dominant strategies, such as running Hellborne, are no longer guaranteed to be optimal. Other boons like Atetheric Masses seem to provide strong rewards, while Soul Spires now only count kills within the spire radius. Selecting Hungry Spires can mitigate this by pulling monsters into the radius, which is particularly helpful in group runs.
Watch out for Chaos Waves in Infernal Hordes. They appear as additional fourth-choice objectives and are generally worth completing for extra rewards, except when another choice better synergizes with your current build.
During Bartuk fights and some Chaos Waves, purple portals with directional lines indicate where you’ll be teleported. Use these strategically to avoid hazards and navigate the battlefield efficiently.
Nightmare Dungeons: The Secondary Source of Chaos Rewards
Since Infernal Hordes now prioritize Bartuk and chaos perks, most of your Obsidian will come from Nightmare Dungeons, which contain:
Chaos Rifts
Infernal Warp Reserves
Always open chests or coffers in Nightmare Dungeons to maximize infernal warp gains. This is critical for leveling perks and purchasing reputation.
Conclusion
Diablo IV Season 10 is a carefully designed, high-intensity season that rewards strategic planning, efficient farming, and mastery of new mechanics. From starting on normal difficulty to navigating Hell Tides, Chaos Rifts, and Infernal Hordes, every decision impacts your seasonal progression. Chaos Perks and Chaos Armor redefine the power ceiling, while Bartuk provides a challenging endgame objective that ensures players are constantly engaged.
Whether you’re aiming to maximize XP, collect unique gear, or experiment with transformative powers, Season 10 offers the most dynamic and rewarding progression yet. Equip your pet, prepare your elixirs, and dive into the chaos—Diablo IV’s Season 10 is waiting.
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