Bayside High School: Kick Off Your Adventure Now! - Gameplay, Shining Points And More

As one of Huntress's Ascendancy Classes in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0, Amazon, as a master of life and power, is capable of dealing high critical strike damage.

Furthermore, with the enhancements to Unique items in Patch 0.4.0, Cold Bow Amazon build has become one of the most powerful endgame builds for Huntress class. This build utilizes the powerful synergy between frost and physical damage, maximizing damage output through freezing and critical strikes.

In the latest patch, it can easily one-shot high-level bosses and achieve over 50 million DPS with Snipe ability. This build is definitely a great choice for players looking to challenge the endgame content.

Below, I will introduce you to the detailed information about Cold Bow Amazon build. If you are also a player aspiring to a powerful endgame build, then you definitely can't miss this guide.

Core Mechanics

The core skill of Cold Bow Amazon build is Snipe, which unleashes a powerful arrow that explodes upon impact, dealing critical damage. Combined with Ice Shot and Kadira's Gambit, it allows for wide-area clearing of enemies, enabling rapid map clearing.

Finally, utilizing Evasion, an energy shield, and Amazon's lifesteal mechanics grants exceptional mobility and survivability, allowing for sustained damage output on the battlefield.

Main Gear

This build already performed well in patch 0.3, but it struggled against endgame and high-level bosses. However, PoE 2 patch 0.4.0, with its enhancements to certain gear and skills and adjustments to some gear, allows Cold Bow Amazon build to reach its optimal performance.

1. Gloves

The most significant upgrade to this build is replacing the previous Essentia Sanguis Furtive Wraps gloves with Sine Aequo Grand Manchettes. This allows for faster enemy freezing, significantly improving the freezing mechanism. Only 50% freeze value is needed to freeze an enemy, instead of the previous 100%.

It also increases the damage taken by immobilized enemies by 20%, further boosting your damage output. Therefore, you only need two to three freeze attacks to freeze almost all bosses, greatly improving team combat efficiency.

2. Rings

For rings, you should prioritize those that increase physical and frost damage bonuses to optimize the damage output of Snipe and Ice Shot.

Mystic Harvest, as one of Amazon's key skills, aims to achieve Life Leech effect. It allows both physical and elemental damage to participate in Life Leech, ensuring high survivability during map exploration and boss battles.

Therefore, we also need to ensure that one ring provides Life Leech buff, allowing us to maintain our health during high-damage battles.

3. Quiver

While Cadiro's Gambit Primed Quiver is excellent for clearing maps, Visceral Quiver is the best choice for high-level bosses, increasing our attack critical strike chance by 20%-30%.

You can also consume PoE 2 currency to roll suitable gear affixes for Visceral Quiver, such as those that increase projectile speed, Snipe and Ice Shot damage, and physical or frost damage. This will significantly improve your Snipe output and ensure that Ice Shot stacks are maximized.

4. Bow

Obliterator Bow is one of the best choices for this build, providing high physical damage, good base hit rating, and higher critical strike chance.

You can choose to equip affixes that increase hit rating, physical damage, and attack speed to maximize our damage output.

Besides the above, you can freely choose the remaining shoes or armor, etc., to match according to your preferred build effects. You can choose some that increase movement speed or defensive attributes.

Gems

Since we've mentioned that the core of this build revolves around Snipe and Ice Shot, our skill gems will primarily be socketed for these two skills. Additionally, you can pair them with Freezing Salvo to increase your attack range.

Next, we'll need to equip these skills with suitable Supports gems to optimize their effectiveness.

Ice Shot

First, Ice Shot. Its Supports Gems include the following:

• Elemental Armament II
• Nova Projectiles I
• Stoicism II
• Ice Bite II
• Deliberation

Make sure you use Nova Projectiles I, as many players have found their skill cooldowns increased after using Nova Projectiles II.

Snipe

Next is Snipe. To increase critical hit rate and critical hit damage, we need to socket the following Support Gems:

• Inexorable Critical I
• Window of Opportunity II
• Concentrated Area
• Close Combat II
• Blindside

Once fully equipped, it not only delivers very consistent critical hits and damage but also achieves nearly 100% critical hit rate.

Freezing Salvo

Freezing Salvo converts physical damage into frost damage and also expands the damage area to enhance the freezing effect. It requires the following Support Gems:

• Freeze
• Concentrated Area
• Ice Bite II
• Elemental Armament II
• Close Combat II

These are all to increase our frost damage.

Passive Tree

Finally, here's the passive skill tree for our Cold Bow Amazon build. You can unlock these node attributes:

• Critical Strike: Maximize critical strike chance and critical strike damage;
• Frozen: Unlock nodes that enhance freezing and frost effects, increasing damage and control;
• Dodge and Energy Shield: Enhance survivability while absorbing damage with sufficient energy shields;
• Movement Speed: Utilize speed boosts to gain an advantage in clearing maps and combat.

This concludes the main information about Cold Bow Amazon build in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0. If you want to perform exceptionally well in endgame, give this build a try.

In Diablo 4 Season 11, Paladin remains the most popular and widely used class among players, boasting powerful physical and Holy damage capable of one-shotting enemies.

Judgement Paladin build fully utilizes Paladin’s strong defensive capabilities and sustained damage output. This build is incredibly fast for clearing content, capable of completing The Pit in just over a minute. It’s one of the top-tier builds in terms of power.

Furthermore, this build continuously increases your damage output, making you stronger and stronger as you play. It can demonstrate absolute dominance in any environment.

This guide breaks down how to build a Judgement Paladin to help you perform better in the endgame.

Applicable Scenarios

Judgement Paladin build is designed for clearing maps and eliminating enemies. Whether facing hordes of low-level bosses or tackling challenging Helltide, Legion Events, The Pit, and Nightmare Dungeons, it can handle them with ease.

Advantages and Disadvantages

It can easily deliver effective and incredibly powerful damage, and thanks to skills like Fanaticism Aura and Bless Shield, it acts like a tireless bomber, automatically attacking enemies.

However, its drawbacks are also evident. This build requires high-level gear and skills, and because it requires actively judging enemies in the game, you need to frequently click skills to trigger the judgment. However, once you witness its powerful damage output, this minor flaw becomes insignificant.

How it Works?

The main skills of this build are Holy Bolt and Fanaticism Aura. In the game, you need to continuously cast Holy Bolt, which deals 90% damage to enemies; then use its modifier, Ricocheting Bolt, to trigger three bounces, thereby activating Shield of Justice, and using Bless Shield to detonate the judgment for additional damage output.

Bless Shield will also transform into an auto-targeting skill because of the synergy with other skills, detonating all targets within your surrounding area. After clearing the obstacles in your path, we then use Fanaticism Aura to deal high damage to bosses and kill them when necessary.

Gear

As the game progresses, your strength and damage will continuously increase due to skill upgrades. Therefore, when creating this endgame build, we no longer solely focus on maximizing damage, but prioritize stacking more speed to allow your build to cast skills faster.

For gear choices, we focus on speed for rings and gloves. That’s why we pick Seal of the Second Trumpet and Aspect of the Judicator, which reduce cooldowns and can occasionally deal double damage.

For armor, we chose Shroud of False Death, which provides double critical strike damage, and if you don’t deal damage for 2 seconds, it will also increase your movement speed by 40% on your next attack.

For the offhand, we chose Aspect of the Golden Hour, which makes your Judgment deal 100% extra damage and also trigger other skills. Here is the complete equipment list:

• Helm: Heir of Perdition
• Chest armor: Shroud of False Death
• Gloves: Aspect of the Judicator
• Pants: Aspect of the Indomitable
• Boots: Wildbolt Aspect
• Weapon: Griswold’s Opus
• Amulet: Aspect of Celestial Strife
• Ring 1: Argent Veil
• Ring 2: Seal of the Second Trumpet
• Offhand: Aspect of the Golden Hour

Seal of the Second Trumpet is relatively difficult to obtain compared to other equipment. You can repeatedly farm Ladder Bosses and Uber Bosses to obtain it, or you can find it in chests found in Helltide.

Skill Tree

For several important skills, we added Modifiers to increase your critical strike damage. For Fanaticism Aura, we added Enhanced Fanaticism and Rite of Vengeance; for Holy Bolt, we added Enhanced Holy Bolt and Ricocheting Bolt.

It’s also worth noting that if your Arbiter of Justice duration is shorter than its cooldown, you can invest more points in Dizzying Blow to gain more damage. This build requires constant attention to the duration and cooldowns of all your skills, as you need to stack more skills before the cooldown or duration ends. Here is the complete list of skills you need:

• Holy Bolt
• Fanaticism Aura
• Defiance Aura
• Purify
• Arbiter of Justice
• Bless Shield
• En Guarde
• Riposte
• Blessed Hammer
• Longevity
• Renewal
• The Best Offense
• Fortitude
• Consecration
• Spear of the Heavens
• Iron Sharpens Iron
• Righteousness
• Master Craftwork
• Shining Armor
• Judgement Day
• Dizzying Blow

Paragon Board

We need more attack speed and higher damage on Paragon Board, so Preacher is definitely the best choice. It increases your skill attack speed by 15% and increases your damage by 65%, so be sure to choose it. In addition, Castle, Shield Bearer, Exploit, and Endure can further increase your damage on top of your existing skills.

Besides Paragon Nodes, we have also added Paragon Glyphs to this build. The nodes surrounding Glyphs usually provide more damage.

Here are Paragon Glyphs I recommend. The upgrade order doesn’t matter much, but first upgrade them to level 15, then upgrade each Glyph to level 46, and finally upgrade them to level 100. This will complete your Judgement Paladin build.

• Spirit
• Judicator
• Law
• Canny
• Imbiber

This concludes the introduction to Judgement Paladin build, including its uses, advantages and disadvantages, and the required equipment and skill points. Although it requires many and complex Diablo 4 items, believe me, it’s well worth trying in D4 Season 11!

Since its release, ARC Raiders has been very popular with players, especially after the recent Cold Snap update, with many players enjoying the challenging gameplay in the snowy maps. Although it contains many high-risk, but also high-value rewards.

Have you started participating in these battles yet? If not, here’s a reminder: be sure to prepare items that provide high damage and high defense, such as enhanced weapons, which will give you a huge advantage in every battle you encounter.

Of course, crafting or acquiring these high-level weapons requires you to have the exclusive Augment Blueprints, which are scattered throughout the game world and require careful searching. Otherwise, you may very well miss out on it and the best opportunity to improve your role.

Therefore, this guide will introduce the detailed functions and specific locations of each Augment Blueprint in the current ARC Raiders, as well as some acquisition strategies. Trust me, this will definitely help you achieve twice the results with half the effort!

Categories

Currently, there are 5 types of Augment Blueprints in ARC Raiders, all of which are epic-level items in the game. Although their names all end with Mk. 3, each blueprint has a completely different effect. Their specific names and functions are:

Combat Mk. 3 (Flanking)

Combat Mk. 3 (Flanking) is a combat augment that focuses on mobility rather than damage absorption. Its effect is to increase the equip speed of unequipped or holstered pistols and hand cannons by 33%. It is compatible with light shields, has a weight limit of 60kg, weighs 3kg itself, and costs 5000 ARC Raiders coins.

Combat Mk. 3 (Aggressive)

Combat Mk. 3 (Aggressive) is an improved version of Combat II augment, it increases grenade storage space. Its effect is to restore 2 health to you every 5 seconds; this effect is paused for 30 seconds when taking damage. It is compatible with light, medium, and heavy shields, has a weight limit of 65kg, weighs 5kg itself, and costs 5000 coins.

Looting Mk. 3 (Survivor)

Looting Mk. 3 (Survivor) is a heavy-duty carrying aid with high carrying capacity and large backpack space. Its effect is that when downed and remaining still, health can be restored up to 75% of the maximum health at the time of being downed, which can help you a lot in some dangerous combat. It is compatible with light and medium shields, has a weight limit of 80kg, weighs 4kg itself, and costs 5000 Arc Raiders coins.

Tactical Mk. 3 (Defensive)

Tactical Mk. 3 (Defensive) is a defense-oriented augment used to maintain sufficient shield power. Its effect allows the use of Shield Rechargers while sprinting. It is compatible with all types shields, and has a weight limit of 60kg, weighs 5kg itself, and costs 5000 coins.

Tactical Mk. 3 (Healing)

Tactical Mk. 3 (Healing) is a healing-focused augment that increases the number of available healing item slots. Its effect is that upon being revived from a downed state, it releases a healing cloud that restores 20 health over 10 seconds; it has a 30-second cooldown. It is compatible with light and medium shields, has a weight limit of 55kg, weighs 4kg itself, and needs 5000 game coins.

How to Obtain Them?

Like all blueprints in Arc Raiders, the drop rate of Augment Blueprints is completely random, and even the same player may not get it in the same area twice in a row on the same map.

However, through extensive testing by some players, it has been found that these ARC Raiders Items have a higher chance of appearing in certain areas or POIs: namely, Medical areas, which usually appear in the following locations: 

• Dam Battlegrounds: Testing Annex and Research & Administration
• Spaceport: Arrival and Departure
• Stella Montis: Medical, Assembly, Security Wing, and Lobby
• Blue Gate: Reinforced Reception
• Buried City: Hospital and Pharmacy POIs

Strategy

In the locations above, black boxes, cabinets, and blue drawers are your main focus, as they have a very high probability of containing Augment Blueprints. Additionally, exploring these maps during Night Raid, Locked Gate, Electromagnetic Storm, and Cold Snap events will significantly increase your chances of finding these important items.

Alternatively, focus on Reinforced Reception area in Blue Gate, which currently has the highest drop rate for augment and medical item blueprints in the entire game. However, be aware that this area has become a highly contested zone; be mindful of other real players who are also on important scavenging missions and try to avoid them.

If you want stronger character combat abilities fast, you can easily buy ARC Raiders items on EZG.com to obtain any high-damage weapon and high-resistance shield. The above details all the categories of Augment Blueprints in ARC Raiders and how to obtain them. Although they are rare, believe me, they are definitely worth the effort to find, as they are crucial for your later game progression.

Call of Duty series has always been loved by players for its fast-paced gameplay, intense combat, and rich game modes. However, CoD: Black Ops 7, as part of the series, has been controversial since its release in late 2025.

Players felt that Black Ops 7's single-player mode was poor. While Zombies mode maintained a high standard, with the first season halfway through, the repetitive match modes had gradually worn down their enthusiasm for the game, and they urgently wanted some new elements added.

But don't worry, according to reliable sources, the highly anticipated Ranked Play mode is coming soon. If you also crave intense competition in the game, then you definitely can't miss the information about Ranked Play.

When will Ranked Play be released?

Like other Call of Duty titles, BO7 will not immediately offer Ranked Play multiplayer mode upon release. This delayed launch allows players to familiarize themselves with the maps, weapons, and game mechanics, while also giving developers time to balance gameplay and fix any early bugs.

With Season 1 ending on February 5, 2026, Ranked Play is expected to launch on February 5, 2026 at 9:00 AM (PTD), coinciding with Season 2, barring unforeseen circumstances.

Ranked Play has been highly anticipated by players because it provides a platform to compete against players of similar skill levels. Unlike traditional public matchmaking lobbies and simple CoD Black Ops 7 bot lobbies, it offers a fairer and more rewarding gaming experience.

What can players expect?

Upon the launch of Ranked Play, players can expect a completely new competitive environment. Inspired by CDL, this mode aims to provide a fairer and more skill-based experience than traditional game lobbies. Here are some key points:

1. Restricted Equipment Configurations

In Ranked Play, players can no longer rely on arbitrary weapon or attachment combinations to easily win. This mode introduces a restricted equipment configuration mechanism; certain weapons, attachments, skills, and equipment will be disabled or restricted.

This ensures that the focus of the match is on player skill and teamwork, rather than utilizing overly powerful weapons. Fair competition will be at its core; you'll need to strategically configure your equipment to ensure the effectiveness and fairness of the match.

2. Skill-Based Matchmaking

The biggest feature of Ranked Play is the introduction of a matchmaking mechanism based on player skill level. The system will match players with other players of similar skill levels based on their performance and match results, thus avoiding an imbalance where players encounter opponents who are too strong or too weak.

This is a true test of skill. Whether you are an experienced veteran or a novice, the unique matchmaking mechanism ensures fairness and competitiveness in every match.

3. Skill Rating System

Skill Rating system is the core of ranked mode. It tracks a player's performance and gameplay in matches, determining when they are promoted or demoted. Your Skill Rating score changes regardless of the match's outcome.

Therefore, you need to maintain a consistent performance in matches to improve your ranking and reach higher ranks. This mechanism adds an extra layer of responsibility to players, as you need to perform at your best in every match to advance, which also helps prevent players from being inactive.

4. Seasonal Ranked Rewards

For players who enjoy challenges and earning substantial rewards, Ranked Play offers seasonal rewards based on their highest rank achieved in different seasons. Rewards might include weapons, equipment, or exclusive skins.

This provides players with additional motivation, encouraging them to continuously challenge themselves and perform at their best in matches, while also adding to the fun of the game.

Expected game modes

Ranked Play mode in CoD: Black Ops 7 is expected to include various game modes, likely some of the most popular and competitive multiplayer modes. Here are some reasonable predictions:

Hardpoint

Hardpoint is a classic Call of Duty mode where players capture and defend rotating points on the map. Its popularity stems from skillful point rotation, map control, and the timing of attacks and retreats.

Ranked Play is expected to make this mode even more intense, requiring constant communication between teams to maintain control of points and ultimately achieve victory.

Search and Destroy

Search & Destroy is known for its high-risk gameplay. The core gameplay involves planting and defusing bombs or eliminating the enemy team, demanding tactical experience and precise decision-making, as players only have one life per round.

Ranked Play will further test players' teamwork, strategic planning, and composure under immense pressure.

Overload

Overload is a new mode designed specifically for competitive play. It adds new elements to the traditional objective-oriented mode, requiring players to transport an Overload device to one of two enemy Overload zones. Your objective depends on whether you are transporting or intercepting.

In Ranked Play, you'll need to cooperate effectively, focusing on either defense or transport, which tests players' coordination and combat skills.

Ranked Play is expected to be a major part of CoD: Black Ops 7 Season 2. To ensure a successful conclusion to Season 1 and prepare for Ranked Play, you need to claim all unlocked Season 1 Battle Pass rewards before February 5th.

I believe most players are already eagerly anticipating it. Are you ready to join CoD: BO7's Ranked Play? Exciting competitive challenges await you!

Pathfinder is an Ascendancy Class among Rangers in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0. Its key features are Poison mechanic and the use of Flasks, allowing players to inflict devastating damage on enemies by throwing different Flasks.

With numerous changes to Pathfinder in each update, it has finally become the most popular choice for early game progression in PoE 2 after the latest patch.

Next, I will introduce the most popular and effective Pathfinder builds in Patch 0.4.0, detailing their advantages, gameplay, and gear requirements.

Why choose Pathfinder?

Before introducing the best builds, we also need to understand why Pathfinder has become the preferred class for many players.

The main reason is that Pathfinder allows players to avoid being knocked down by enemies while sprinting, making it easier for players to navigate through groups of monsters and powerful bosses. Pathfinder also boasts a versatile passive tree, allowing the selection of both Witch and Warrior passive nodes simultaneously, resulting in a variety of build styles.

Furthermore, Pathfinder can apply double poison to enemies, further enhancing their build potential. Therefore, in PoE 2, its most unique feature compared to other classes lies in its ability to synergize multiple skills and boost damage output, making Pathfinder a top choice for many players.

Below are the most popular Pathfinder builds in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0:

1. Poisonburst Arrow Pathfinder

With the nerfs to Lightning Arrow, Herald of Thunder, and Deadeye Ascendancy in the game, Poisonburst Arrow Pathfinder has become the most popular build in PoE 2.

This build works similarly to Lightning Arrow build, but its core damage output relies on Chaos Damage, effectively increasing poison damage. Poisonburst Arrow Pathfinder performs exceptionally well in endgame content, but with its popularity in high-level matches, achieving its optimal effect may require significant investment.

Core Mechanics

The core ability of this build is Poisonburst Arrow, which explodes upon hitting a target, creating a pool of poison on the ground that deals continuous damage to enemies within. This is ideal for clearing large areas of enemies.

To avoid being surrounded, Vine Arrows can be used to slow enemies, allowing the poison to continuously damage them while they are trapped. The damage increases exponentially with the number of poison stacks on enemies, making it an excellent choice for clearing maps and endgame content.

Recommended Gear

As a Pathfinder, you have many gear options, but to maximize poison and chaos damage, focus on gear with the following attributes:

• Bow: Look for bows that increase poison or chaos damage;
• Quiver: Any bow that increases attack speed and chaos damage;
• Flasks: Flasks with healing effects and damage-boosting properties. 

2. Spark Cast on Critical Pathfinder

Spark CoC Pathfinder build fully utilizes Pathfinder's ability to light up Witch's passive tree nodes, making it an option for players who prefer a critical strike build. The combination of Spark and Cast on Critical can produce extremely high damage, especially when paired with powerful gems such as Comet.

Core Mechanics

Spark is the core skill of this build. When activated, it fires a series of sparking projectiles that bounce across the battlefield, dealing damage upon impact. Cast on Critical Strike allows you to gain energy upon critically striking enemies, triggering all socketed spells.

The most common pairing is Arc and Comet. Arc provides powerful crowd control and clearing capabilities, while Comet offers massive burst damage. This multifaceted approach makes this build perform exceptionally well in both clearing mobs and fighting bosses.

However, it's important to note that due to the high mana output, you need to manage your Spirit and Mana effectively. This is crucial for ensuring you can continuously cast spells and trigger CoC chain reactions.

Recommended Gear

Since this build focuses on Witch's spell passive nodes, our equipment and weapons are no longer the conventional bow and arrow.

• Weapons: Wands or daggers with high critical strike chance, preferably with spell damage bonuses;
• Helmet and Gloves: Equipment that increases critical strike chance or spell damage;
• Flasks: Flasks that generate critical strike chance and spell damage.

3. Explosive Grenade Pathfinder

While Explosive Grenade Pathfinder build is somewhat unconventional compared to other common builds, once fully completed, it can provide unique fun and powerful performance.

Because Pathfinder and Mercenary share the passive tree, it's easy to unlock passive nodes related to grenade skills. This build can clear out enemies across an entire area, making it ideal for content requiring large-scale mob clearing and challenging high-level bosses.

Core Mechanics

The core skill of this build is Explosive Grenade, which deals massive area-of-effect damage. As the skill level increases, you'll unlock more related skills, further enhancing the grenade's power. For example, the combination of Mirage Archer and Mortar Cannon can result in even higher damage.

However, while the skill's power is immense, Explosive Grenade build has a major drawback: the ground effects from the explosion can cause visual clutter on the screen, sometimes affecting the player's vision on the battlefield.

Recommended Gear

The gear selection for this build is more straightforward, primarily focusing on boosting grenade skill damage:

• Weapons: Choose equipment with high grenade damage bonuses;
• Helm and Chest: Increase projectile speed and area-of-effect damage;
• Flasks: Provide damage boosts, mana regeneration, and projectile damage buffs.

4. Ice Shot Pathfinder

For players who enjoy bow builds but want to try something unique, Ice Shot Pathfinder build is a great option. This build focuses on freezing and shattering enemies, providing not only visually appealing effects but also excellent crowd control.

Core Mechanics

The core skill of this build is Ice Shot, which fires an ice arrow that shatters enemies into fragments upon impact. This not only clears enemies quickly but, especially when paired with Herald of Ice, freezes and shatters them, dealing additional damage.

Furthermore, the enhanced Freezing Mark in patch 0.4.0 makes this build stand out even in the late game. If you feel your early-game damage output is insufficient, you can also pair it with Snipe. And Ice Shot build should be less expensive than mainstream Pathfinder builds.

Recommended Gear

This gear build focuses on enhancing Frost damage:

• Bow: Focuses on increasing Frost damage, critical strike chance, and elemental damage;
• Helmet: Can provide Frost damage bonuses or Frost resistance;
• Flasks: Flasks with Frost, Shock, and elemental damage bonuses are all acceptable.

These are the recommended Pathfinder builds for Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0. Whether you prefer mainstream builds or more interesting ones, Pathfinder has something for you. Don't hesitate to choose your favorite and enjoy the hunt!

WoW Classic player community has been buzzing lately, mainly because this vast game universe will welcome a brand new member on January 13th: The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary expansion, and there have been various discussions about the difficulty changes of the raids it contains.

According to the announcement released by the developers, the difficulty of the challenges in this anniversary expansion will be significantly reduced, which has confused many loyal fans and made them worry that the player base will be lost in large numbers after its official release. But is that really the case?

EZG.com, through visits to various gaming communities and feedback from players on social media, has reached the opposite conclusion: lowering the difficulty will actually make this new expansion more unique, which is exactly what the series needs. If you’re interested, feel free to continue reading.

Adapting to the Development of the Times

Initial, the raid instances originally found in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade and TBC Classic perfectly met the gameplay needs of players who had more free time, relatively little game knowledge, and limited understanding of the game at the time.

However, after nearly 20 years of development and the game world and environment continued to evolve, the exploring style in this type of MMOs has changed several times, so sticking to the original game difficulty and mode, like the extremely difficult process of farming WoW 20th Anniversary Gold, which was complained about throughout the previous anniversary expansion will only lead to being eliminated by the times. 

But that’s not the most important thing; it’s the changes in the players. In this process, the once spirited teenagers have become adults who have to work, have families and various responsibilities, so they no longer have enough time to spend on challenging battles like Foreman Grills encounter, but rather want to enjoy a greater sense of accomplishment.

In view of this, a raid instance that lowers the entry barrier without compromising the gameplay experience is exactly what they need. Moreover, a relaxed approach to progressing through dungeons effectively reduces the likelihood of players becoming bored with the constant deaths or the hassle of recreating builds, or even giving up halfway through.

Advanced Players’ Goal Has Changed

When World of Warcraft universe was just emerging, a high-level player was defined as someone who could complete the highest difficulty challenge in each expansion. This only applied to a few people because the player base was small at that time, and the skill level was generally low.

As the series expands and the player base grows, a large number of dedicated players have emerged who specialize in completing many highly challenging tasks. At first, they simply boasted that they could complete these game tasks, but as time went on, their goals began to change dramatically.

Based on player reviews of recent expansions, some top player groups are able to kill all bosses and reach the level cap within the first week. They don’t stop there; instead, they reorganize their raid compositions to quickly complete all existing raid content.

Therefore, the difficulty level in WoW The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary is no longer a concern for these players, nor will it affect their enthusiasm for the challenge of this expansion. In fact, lowering the difficulty may even inspire them to create more efficient and diverse builds, which is exactly what the developers want.

Some of Developers’ Personal Reasons

While it’s not unusual for WoW to take existing expansions and redevelop them, for this TBC Anniversary expansion, the developers seem determined to completely remove the label that players have always held for their new content as exhibits in a museum. Since it can’t be exactly the same as the original, let is unique.

For example, the now-leaked dual spec, Raidwide Bloodlust,Account-wide attunements, and altered economies will allow this player group, which has accumulated 20 years of gaming experience, to enjoy a completely different gaming experience. Of course, reducing the difficulty of raids is also an important measure.

With its retro-inspired yet fun and easy-to-learn gameplay, both casual and advanced gamers will be captivated by it, which will make it easier for these people to find like-minded teams within guilds to enter dungeons together and clear them. At this point, the developer’s selfish motives began to surface.

When all players are focused on running dungeons, there are very few changes in guilds or in-game personnel. This means that developers will have a healthier long-term player community, thereby improving the stability of the entire server. This is far more important than existing just for the fleeting sense of glory of a few players.

For all the reasons mentioned above, World of Warcraft’s decision to reduce the difficulty of raids in TBC Classic Anniversary expansion could be a win-win situation for both players and developers: both casual and hardcore players can find more suitable playstyles as a result; and the developers can retain a large portion of their player base as a result.

However, it must be noted that the developers have never seemed to indicate any intention to increase the drop rate of high-quality items or TBC Anniversary Gold in this expansion. Therefore, continuous farming remains your primary objective in this type of game. The only hope now is that the pre-patch on January 13th will reveal some improvements and changes. Stay tuned!