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After defeating the last boss on Nightmare, the next step is usually to prepare for Hell difficulty. However, in Season 10, many Hero Siege players encounter a significant progress bottleneck at this stage.

Many characters still have room for leveling up, their equipment is mostly transitional gear acquired during campaigns, and their Ether Tree may not provide sufficient combat power. Entering Hell too early often results in low monster-clearing efficiency, high survival pressure, and unsatisfactory overall rewards.

Therefore, when transitioning from Nightmare to Hell, it's essential to first determine which aspect of character growth is most lacking. This typically boils down to three areas: level, combat power, and gold for acquiring transitional equipment.

Best EXP Farming

In Ebontharn, when players have just finished Nightmare, their Hero Siege characters are usually around Level 80-100. It's advisable to level up to Level 100 and quickly acquire the first few Hero Levels.

The boost from early Hero Levels is significant, providing a more stable attribute base for entering Hell difficulty. Farming EXP in Forest of the Slain in Act 8-1 is recommended.

Once inside the area, find Gladsheim Halls and clear them repeatedly. Entry is relatively easy; it doesn't rely on Ether Tree and requires no special equipment or setup. If your character has completed Nightmare Campaign, they have the basic requirements to level here.

Dungeon has two levels with a simple route and good monster density. The first level is larger, allowing you to clear monsters along the way; the second level is smaller and more concentrated, making it suitable for repeated runs.

You can farm here all the way to Level 111, which is around Hero Level 11. For characters who have just finished Nightmare, Act 8-1's advantage lies in its stability, safety, and minimal preparation.

If Campaign isn't complete, progressing through the main story is the priority. Act 8-1 is more suitable for late-game Nightmare and for characters who need to level up after defeating the final boss.

Satanic Zone Relics

After leveling up, if you still feel your damage is insufficient in Hell difficulty, you can start using Satanic Zones unlocked after completing Nightmare to further boost your combat power.

Before entering, it's recommended to check the effects and reward types offered by the current zone. For the transition from Nightmare to Hell, Relic and EXP-related zones are more worthwhile, with Relic rewards directly improving damage performance.

Relics are especially important for characters in Hero Siege Ebontharn who haven't yet completed their gear build. Even without complete Satanic items, obtaining Relics that match your current build can significantly supplement key attributes.

Caster builds should prioritize +Skills and Skill Damage, while Physical builds are better suited for Crit Chance, Crit Damage, and Physical Damage.

Immediately after Nightmare ends, characters often lack several small stat boosts, such as damage, critical hit chance, or skill levels. Individually, these differences may not seem significant, but their cumulative effect can noticeably reduce mob clearing efficiency in Hell difficulty.

Relics can quickly replenish these stats during this phase, allowing characters to gradually adapt to Hell difficulty's power level even before their gear is fully developed.

Farm Gold Next

After reaching Level 100 and acquiring some Hero Levels and Relics, if you still lack transitional gear, you can start farming Hero Siege gold.

I recommend players go to Highland Graveyard in Act 6-1 and repeatedly clear Unmarked Grave. This provides a stable income even on Nightmare difficulty, and the mob clearing pressure is relatively low, making it suitable for characters who have just completed Nightmare.

Gold Find

During Nightmare transition phase, you don't need to prepare a full, high-cost Gold Find build. Any Hero Siege gear you already have that has a Gold Find attribute can be used directly.

Regular drops and low-tier Satanic Gear are worth checking. Equipment like Treasure Hunter's Boots and Tal's Pendant can provide extra gold, and Charms with Gold Find can also be added to your current setup.

For Relics, keep an eye out for King's Crown, Hand of Midas, and Fortune Card. At this stage, focus on maximizing your existing Gold Find; there's no need to aim for a specific Gold Find value.

Using equipment acquired during campaigns, increasing Gold Find to 150%-200% shouldn't be difficult for new characters.

Highland Graveyard

The advantage of Highland Graveyard is that regular monsters in Hero Siege Ebontharn continuously drop gold, without relying on bosses or special events.

A complete run of Unmarked Grave Dungeon takes approximately 3-5 minutes. If you already have a decent Gold Find, a run can typically yield around 10K gold. With increased movement speed and monster-clearing efficiency, the entire cycle can be further shortened.

This farming method doesn't require high difficulty. The difference in gold gain across different difficulties is not significant, so there's no need to increase the difficulty if your sole goal is to farm gold. Nightmare allows for faster and more consistent clearing, making it more suitable for characters at this stage.

For characters who have just finished Nightmare, 10K gold is sufficient for many transitional needs. You typically only need to get a few basic pieces of gear to get your build working, many of which cost around 1K-2K gold.

Running Highland Graveyard for several rounds will give you enough gold to upgrade several key gear pieces before entering Hell.

None of these three methods require a mature Ether Tree or expensive gear; they are essentially transitional solutions for Hero Siege characters who have completed Nightmare but haven't yet established themselves in Hell.

Once you've improved your level, Relics, and Gold reserves, re-entering Hell will generally be a much smoother experience.

Hero Siege's Season 10 is expected to launch in August, and many players are eagerly anticipating it.

The upcoming Season 10 includes a wealth of content, simplifying the previously somewhat cumbersome leveling path and difficulty system. It also optimizes and improves the system, makes some core content free, and reshapes the various classes.

These changes aim to address long-standing pain points for players, lowering the barrier to entry. Here's a detailed breakdown:

Simplified Leveling Path and Difficulty System

In previous versions of Hero Siege, a new character's progression path was almost fixed: you needed to first complete Normal difficulty levels, then enter Nightmare difficulty levels, and finally reach Hell difficulty levels to begin your loot-hunting journey.

Furthermore, the Hell difficulty was subdivided into multiple tiers, from Hell 1 to Hell 5. While this design lengthened gameplay time, it also led many players to find it repetitive and tiring.

The game developers didn't ignore this issue and made significant changes in Season 10: completely removing Nightmare difficulty.

Now, players can directly level up from level 1 to 100 by completing the entire campaign on Normal difficulty.

Completing Normal unlocks Hard and Inferno difficulties, allowing players to enter the endgame gameplay focused on loot farming and pushing higher floors.

Meanwhile, to prevent the initial leveling process from becoming monotonous, the developers added numerous new smaller areas throughout the game's chapters, such as River, Village of Lamia, and Valley of Spirits, among others.

Furthermore, Act 8 and the new Act 9 will become fixed components of this leveling process, rather than optional content. The new area "Ebenthorn" in Act 9 will unlock after you defeat Boss Odin, providing a satisfying conclusion to your progression.

This change means players no longer need to skip chapters to rush through the game; they can experience the entire game world in its entirety.

System Optimizations and Improvements

Besides simplifying the difficulty system, Hero Siege Season 10 includes several optimizations that significantly improve the player experience, detailed below:

One key improvement is performance. Hero Siege's endgame gameplay often involves screen-filling skill effects and monsters, making frame drops a common complaint among streamers and players.

To address this, the developers announced they rewrote the backend code for Skills and monster collision handling, and completely rebuilt the monster AI and Pathing from the ground up.

Internal testing videos show that even in scenes with extremely high monster density and projectiles flying everywhere, the game maintains a smooth frame rate.

Meanwhile, they've addressed the latency and lag issues unique to multiplayer mode by removing client-side object collision detection, aiming to make the online experience as smooth as single-player.

Next, Relic Storage has been added. For players who enjoy collecting and experimenting with different playstyles, this new Relic Storage is a godsend.

Relics are a core item in Hero Siege's endgame gameplay, but previously, managing them was cumbersome due to the lack of dedicated storage space.

Season 10 adds free Relic storage slots, solving the storage space problem. The game also introduces a collection system: once you collect and upgrade all Relics, you unlock corresponding titles and achievements.

Even more user-friendly, this Relic Storage may support cross-character use within the same account, allowing you to easily switch between and test Relics across different characters.

Furthermore, Stash Tabs limit has been increased to 20 pages, and the number of Skill, Incarnation, and Ether Tree point allocation schemes that can be saved has increased from 5 to 8.

This means players can experiment with multiple builds more freely and won't need as much Hero Siege Gold for fine-tuning.

Free Access to Core Content

For a game that has been running for many years, Hero Siege has had many paid DLCs and paid classes, which has put pressure on some players.

However, in Season 10, the development team's attitude in this regard is very clear: they will no longer use core gameplay and classes as monetization points.

First, Act 8 and Act 9 will be directly included as free base content. If you have already unlocked Act 8, the situation will be similar to when some classes were made free in Season 9; you will receive a special Cosmetic as compensation.

Second, another batch of classes will be available for free. The four popular classes Marauder, Plague Doctor, Shield Lancer, and Jötunn will be available to players for free. Of course, players who have already unlocked these classes will also receive some compensation.

This move sends a very positive signal: the developers are working to shift the game's monetization focus from "functional content" to "appearance and convenience".

This approach is similar to Path of Exile, where the core gameplay and main game are entirely free, generating revenue through skin sales. In short, this is good news for players.

More Talent Trees and Class Rework

In addition, according to the developers of Hero Siege, they will completely rework the skills of each class in Season 10, and each class will have two Talent Trees.

This means that not only will the class balance in the game be adjusted again, but players will also have more freedom in their character development and build design.

However, they haven't revealed the specific details of the rework yet; we may have to wait and see.

That's all for Season 10 update of Hero Siege. This update is highly anticipated, not only because it includes free core content, but also because many issues that players have complained about in the game have been addressed. Let's wait for its official release!