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Keep Driving may not look like an RPG, but, mechanically at least, all the staples are there. 'Battles' are turn-based. You build a party of characters, each with individual, unlockable abilities. Like HP, mana, or any of the other fundamental resources in Final Fantasy and Diablo, you need to maintain your engine, watch your tiredness level, and make sure there's enough gas in the tank. This is part of what makes it so special. While it's the music, atmosphere, and dialogue that really make Keep Driving shine, it's still a rich, in-depth role-playing game. Already one of the best games of this year, the new Keep Driving update - and discount - make it irresistible. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Gorgeous new RPG Keep Driving is the greatest game of 2025 so far Keep Driving is great fun, and you can try it free View the full article

From XCOM 2 to Baldur's Gate 3, we're spoilt for choice when it comes to great turn-based strategy games and tactical RPGs. Yet I'm always on the lookout for the next potential winner, and Prelude Dark Pain is shaping up to be a serious contender. A dark fantasy tale where your group of heroes attempt to save the land of Statera from a generations-old force of evil, it matches a beautiful art style with grid-based combat. The results have been immediate; just a few short hours after launching its Kickstarter, developer Quickfire Games has already eclipsed its initial funding goal. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Dark fantasy deckbuilder Deathless gets a new name as its final update lands Punishing ARPG No Rest for the Wicked bounces back with brutal Breach update The best indie games on PC 2025 View the full article

Just when you thought the situation couldn't get any worse for the Steam Deck game rating system, Valve has just trodden on another rake. With Oblivion Remastered still somehow holding a Verified rating, despite widespread criticism of its performance, Valve has now changed the rating of Clair Obscur Expedition 33 from Unsupported to Playable, seemingly just because its settings have been locked on the Steam Deck. While it may still be the best handheld gaming PC for most players, the Steam Deck and its rating system have come under fire multiple times in the last few weeks, and each time, it has all been entirely unjustified. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is so good, even the French President likes it Best Clair Obscur Expedition 33 builds Best Clair Obscur Expedition 33 weapons and how to upgrade View the full article

Fortnite's Star Wars Galactic Battle season introduces an alignment system directly impacting gameplay mechanics. You even gain experience points per quest, earning hundreds of thousands of XP if you finish the entire list. Here's a complete list of every Alignment quest you'll find during Fortnite Chapter 6, Season 3. Table of contentsFortnite Star Wars Galactic Battle Alignment quest listLight Side Alignment questsDark Side Alignment questsWhat is Personal Alignment in Fortnite?What is Community Alignment in Fortnite?Fortnite Star Wars Galactic Battle Alignment quest list Below is a list of every Alignment quest you'll find during Fortnite Chapter 6, Season 3, organized by faction: Light Side Alignment questsTravel Distance at the Resistance Base or Rebel Outposts (1,000)Visit different Rebel Outposts (3)Learn Light Side Force Abilities from Training Rift Gates (2)Search containers at the Resistance Base or Rebel Outposts (5)Dark Side Alignment questsLearn Dark Side Force Abilities from Training Rift Gates (2)Visit different First Order or Imperial Outposts (4)Gain shields after landing at either the First Order Base or Vader Samurai's Solitude (300)Collect Bars at the First Order Base or Vader Samurai's Solitude (50) We'll continue updating this list as we discover more Alignment quests. Screenshot by Destructoid Although each Alignment has 20 stages, each requiring ten quests, many of their objectives will repeat with each passing week. Each quest rewards you with 3,000 XP, gaining well over 100,000 XP if you finish all 20 stages. This doesn't include the extra XP you get from your personal Alignment quests and the "progress your Light or Dark alignment" weekly mission. What is Personal Alignment in Fortnite? Each time you complete a Light or Dark Side quest, you'll gain progress in your Personal Alignment. Finishing every Alignment mission rewards you with 10,000 extra XP per side, giving you up to 20,000 experience points towards the Chapter 6, Season 3 Battle Pass. Finishing five also completes the "progress your Light or Dark alignment" weekly mission, giving 30,000 additional XP. What is Community Alignment in Fortnite? Community Alignment is the overall progress Fortnite's community has made toward these quests. The more quests the community finishes, the higher the percentages will go. Once they reach 100 percent, various effects will happen that directly impact gameplay. At the time of writing, these effects are unknown. The icons next to each quest indicate something related to XP and storms, which could suggest increased XP rates and storm circles changing in some way. Only time will tell how they unfold. The post All Alignment quests and how to complete them in Fortnite Chapter 6, Season 3 appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

The Fortnite Star Wars Galactic Battle season has brought plenty of unique gameplay features to the island. One of the more complex systems is Alignment, and it's a crucial one to understand. This system is a great way to earn XP and unlock special gameplay effects and abilities you otherwise don't have access to. It ties in quite well with the overarching storyline present in all Star Wars content, too, so if you're a fan, you'll love this feature. Here's what Alignment is and how it works in Fortnite. Table of contentsHow does Alignment work in Fortnite Star Wars Galactic Battle?How to change your Alignment in FortniteAlignment rewards in FortniteHow does Alignment work in Fortnite Star Wars Galactic Battle? Screenshot by Destructoid Alignment essentially refers to the light side and dark side of the force in Fortnite. These two battling paths are at the core of every Star Wars project, and they're now fundamental for shaping what happens to the Fortnite island, too. How to change your Alignment in Fortnite You can change your Alignment by tackling specific Alignment quests for either the light side or the dark side. There are many quests for both sides, so there are lots of unique tasks you can work on to make progress. Alignment rewards in Fortnite It's too early to know the full scope of Alignment rewards in Fortnite, but some of them include unlocking new options available for purchase from NPCs, such as the ability to trade shields for health and Storm Forecast access. We'll learn more about what rewards are available through this feature as the season progresses and community goals are met, so we'll add all rewards here when they become available. This guide is a work in progress. We're updating it as we learn more about Alignment. The post What is Alignment in Fortnite Chapter 6, season 3? appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

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The contestants for Miss Universe Philippines 2025 revealed their National Costume Showcase outfits on April 30, and these divine and diverse creations are giving serious Dungeons and Dragons vibes. In actuality, the costumes worn by the 66 candidates are inspired by ********* folklore. We're adamant, though, that these goddesses, monsters, and mythical beings would slot right into a D&D setting. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: All DnD races and species explained Critical Role cast and characters guide New Sage Advice rulings give the DnD community fresh things to argue about View the full article

I’ve seen new Honkai: Star Rail 3.4 leaks and am convinced that Phainon has the potential to become the best DPS character released this year. Version 3.4 is still a few weeks away from arriving as the turn-based RPG by HoYoverse is moving through Version 3.2 has to go through the entirety of Version 3.3. While the current leaks are mostly focused on Cipher and Hyacine’s gameplay kits and what they can provide to future team comps, some Version 3.4 leaks are already emerging. Several of them have already hinted at Phainon’s release in Honkai: Star Rail 3.4, for example. View the full article

Players have a free new Wolverine skin to unlock as part of Marvel Rivals' new Hellfire Gala event. This event ties into the Season 2 update for Marvel Rivals, which revolves around the X-Men and the mutant island itself, Krakoa. The new Wolverine skin sees Logan sport a shiny white blazer and an eye patch, a look that will be instantly familiar to those who are well-versed in the world of Marvel Comics, but also those who caught Deadpool & Wolverine. View the full article

After recently having the chance to review the rather large UPERFECT UMax 24, the team at UPERFECT sent over the much more portable 16 inch UColor O2 for me to take a look over. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

With Season 2 of Marvel Rivals in full swing, a large event surrounding the Hellfire Gala allows you to experience moments throughout the event and earn various rewards. Separated into three Acts, the Hellfire Gala Moments event has you complete multiple missions with different requirements. Those who pursue every objective in the event even have a chance to influence another Hellfire Gala next year. View the full article

The review embargo date has been revealed for id Software’s upcoming Doom: The Dark Ages, and it’s an uncharacteristically confident ... Read more View the full article

If you're anything like me, you've been enjoying the embarrassment of riches that Pokémon TCG Pocket has been showering its players with. It's hard to even grumble about my poor pulls when the app is coming up with more ways to give me free hourglasses than I can keep track of. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The 14 best Pokémon Pocket cards in Celestial Guardians New Pokémon Pocket Sun & Moon set has one card that will rewrite the meta Can Magnezone decks shake up Pokemon Pocket's stale meta? View the full article

An overview trailer for Elden Ring Nightreign has given the first look at many of the Nightfarers' alternate cosmetics, including some inspired by iconic outfits from Dark Souls and Bloodborne. The so-called Fashion Souls movement has sprung up around FromSoftware's games, and many sets of armor from the studio's RPGs have become iconic, and now make their way into the co-op roguelite. View the full article

Unbeknowenst to us, not only did Fantasian's 2024 re-release add an easier difficulty - there's a hidden even harder difficulty players can unlock, too. View the full article

Microsoft recently revealed that at least eight titles will leave the Xbox Game Pass subscription service on May 15, 2025. The list of games leaving Xbox Game Pass includes some highly rated games such as Chants of Sennaar and Planet of Lana. Fortunately, most of these titles leaving the service are fairly short, and some can be completed in just a few hours. View the full article

The next round of Fortnite Twitch Drops are here, and they’re entirely themed around the new Galactic Battle season! Dedicated entirely to ... Read more View the full article

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Yet another EA game is confirmed to be shutting down this year, with Madden NFL 22 on the chopping block for October 20. EA keeps a list of all its games that are shutting down, with the list updated regularly. This way, fans of EA's titles know exactly when certain games are having their servers shuttered, giving them a chance to play the games as much as possible ahead of the shutdown date. View the full article

In a blow to 2025’s release schedule, Grand Theft Auto VI has been delayed until next year. Originally set for a release ... Read more View the full article

"You guys can finalize the first update by providing us with feedback"View the full article

Last Epoch sports a whopping 15 Mastery classes. Masteries are essentially a subclass that allows you to lean in on one aspect of your build. They range from traditional roles like Sorcerer to more out-there options like Falconer (which sees you flying around the map using your bird friend for damage). It can be difficult to choose which ones to focus on with so many options, but this Last Epoch Mastery tier list will help. You’re not locked into one mastery — it’s very common to dip into one or more masteries in any min-maxed build. You can put points into the first half of the passive tree of any other mastery. You can change your mastery at the Respec NPC in the End of Time. [/url]How We Ranked the Best and Worst Masteries in Last Epoch What makes a Mastery strong, weak, or somewhere in between depends on how many key checkboxes it ticks for potential builds. Every build has a long list of things it can use to make its clear (i.e. mapping) and bossing (i.e. single target), and defense as strong as it can be, but some are stronger than others, or have stronger synergies than others. For example, ‘more’ damage multipliers are stronger than increased damage multipliers, so if a Mastery offers more of the former, it’s more likely to be higher up on this list. Be sure to read passives closely to determine how they scale damage — they will tell you! There are also stats like critical hit chance, critical hit multiplier, flat damage, armour shred chance, armour shred effect, and plenty more that pull a lot of weight. Defensively, critical hit damage reduction or critical damage avoidance are, well, critical for most builds, as random damage spikes are a great way to die, and these let you avoid them entirely. Resists are also important — while you can always get them on gear and idols, having the option to get them on the Mastery passive tree gives you flexibility. Meanwhile, damage reduction is arguably the best way to survive in the game, so of course it’s a fairly rare stat to find. You also have recovery (leech, health regeneration, health/ward on hit, etc.) and eHP (Ward and/or Health) to worry about, and a ton of other things. All that is to say, any Mastery that offers these in a manner that’s point efficient is more likely to be toward the top of this list. As for Mastery skills, these are evaluated largely based on their numbers and damage potential for both bossing and clearing, with a little consideration given to how they feel to play. A skill may be S-Tier but if it feels clunky to play, that may contribute to a Mastery ranking a bit lower than it could. Of course, if you’re not the type to mind mechanics like snapshotting, you’re welcome to rank a given Mastery higher. Contribute to the community Tier List by voting on the best Last Epoch Masteries! [/url]Last Epoch Season 2 Masteries Tier ListS-Tier: Paladin, Void Knight Best overall clear, bossing, and defense, with no significant weaknesses A-Tier: Falconer, Bladedancer, Shaman, Druid Strong clear, bossing, and/or defense. Lacking significantly in one area B-Tier: Marksman, Lich, Beastmaster Good clear, bossing, and/or defense. Lacking significantly in one or more areas C-Tier: Necromancer, Forge Guard, Runemaster Decent to good clear, bossing, and/or defense. Lacking significantly in one or more areas D-Tier: Spellblade, Warlock, Sorcerer Poor to good clear, bossing, and/or defense. Lacking significantly in multiple areas Our Last Epoch Tier List explanations below feature example builds from our friends at [Hidden Content]. [/url]S-Tier Last Epoch MasteriesS-Tier: Void Knight If you want to delete screens with a giant purple sword and never die, Void Knight (and Erasing Strike) is for you. It scales well too when it transitions into the World Splitter version. A Warpath version is also just as viable, and happens to be both top tier and new player/casual friendly. Void Knight has more mobility and effective HP (eHP) than it used to, and sports the same huge clear and very respectable bossing damage. It also has the distinct benefit of being able to move and do damage simultaneously, which is always a huge boon for damage per second (DPS), while feeling very smooth to play. In terms of numbers, it sports 200% added damage effectiveness on all skills (and 600 on Erasing Strike), which is very much where you want to be. The passive tree offers resistance to and penetration for Physical and Void damage, leech and leech rate, damage reduction, increased health, slow and chill resist, mana solutions, attack speed, and plenty more. Standout nodes include Sorrow & Steel (damage, armor, and area of effect in one tidy package), Void Corruption (a huge amount of critical hit chance and multiplier), and Mortal Cleave (culling, damage, and critical hit chance all in one). There’s even more to mention, but you get the idea: Void Knight has it all. For more Void Knight builds, check out Smite Void Knight (fast, tanky, and long range) or Time Rot Void Knight (more complex, but offers huge sustain and burst). [/url]S-Tier: Paladin Developer Eleventh Hour Games (EHG) admitted it overdid it with the Sentinel rework, which is why Judgement Paladin took four of the top 5 spots in the Terminate Uber Abberoth race. So, there should be no doubt whatsoever this Mastery deserves S-Tier. As with Void Knight, Paladin has extremely potent skills, doesn’t die, and does massive damage. Judgement alone is obscene, offering 350% damage effectiveness and 200% critical multiplier against 15 mana cost and 4s cooldown, paired together in one-two healing and damage punch. The thing is, every single one of its other skills are about as potent, which can’t be said for any other Mastery. Symbols of Hope and Holy Aura both follow the damage and defense in one theme, while Healing Hands just offers a metric ton of healing (primarily for those extra tough bosses). The passive tree offers the most resistances in the game, plus plenty of recovery and damage reduction, mana, attack and cast speed, block, armor, penetration, and more. Standout nodes include Covenant of Light (which buffs Healing Hands and Holy Aura simultaneously), Covenant of Protection, and Reverence of Duality and Convenant of Dominion, which collectively offer ridiculous amounts of damage, sustain, damage over time mitigation, and defense (sometimes all at once). Though Judgement steals the show, Bleed Hammerdin and Smite are strong build options as well if you want to go a little off-meta. A-Tier Last Epoch MasteriesA-Tier: Falconer EHG has stated its goal when nerfing overpowered (OP) builds is to make them “just under OP”, and that’s exactly what happened with the Falconer Mastery and its popular builds. Outrageously powerful when it launched, it’s now simply silly good (the horror!). Movement speed on this one is unrivaled, and damage is top tier, thanks in part to easy access to critical hit multipliers and Dexterity scaling options. Even better, it has the option to employ both simultaneously thanks to Aerial Assault: just grab your bird and it’s bombs away. Its only real weakness is defense. You'll need to use Dodge alongside Silver/Dusk Shrouds and/or Glancing Blows to avoid damage, keeping you on your toes. An almost complete lack of resistance options on the tree is a factor as well, as this puts a lot of pressure to get resistance on your Blessings, idols, and gear when you might prefer other options. You can lean into the Falconer's lack of defense with a Zero HP Ballista Falconer build that hits incredibly hard, but requires you to cheese incoming damage using Silver Shrouds and Dodge. Safe to say we won't be using this in hardcore. Apart from Ballista, Umbral Blades is one of the top Falconer builds, which can be built using Shadow Daggers before you swap over to a Dexterity stacking version with Talons of Valor bow and Razorfall boots. If you like the idea of slicing enemies up and dashing all over the place while flying around on your feathered friend, you’ll find it a joy to play. It is button intensive, however, especially if you insist on maximizing DPS. A-Tier: Bladedancer While Falconer is more popular, Bladedancer is about as strong and well-rounded. Clear, single target, and defense are all where you’d want them to be, thanks to the suite of high-DPS skills, powerful passive support, and useful iframes from Lethal Mirage. If you want a strong but fast melee class, this is the one. Standout nodes on the passive tree include Pursuit (efficient damage and movement speed), Argent Veil (makes dodge a lot more reliable), and Death’s Door (damage reduction for low life builds). More broadly, Glancing Blows, Dusk Shrouds, and Dodge form a powerful defensive layer, and Dexterity stacking, crit, leech, Frailty, armour shred and armour shred effect are all on offer. In short, you have everything you need to succeed. The only thing really holding Bladedancer back is that it’s not quite as over the top numerically as things like Judgment Paladin. In terms of builds, you can go with Shadow Daggers, Shadow Cascade, Chakrams (take the Chakram node on the Shurikens tree), or Lethal Mirage using ****** Blade of Chaos (requires a 2H sword of the same name). The Chakram version at least should be Uber Abberoth viable. You can make and share your own builds using the Maxroll Last Epoch planner, and take a look at popular Community builds, too. [/url]A-Tier: Beastmaster The summoner Mastery. It’s not as tanky as Void Knight or Paladin, but Beastmaster still took 2nd place in the Uber Abberoth race. Granted it’s partly due to Storm Crows, which has top tier DPS due to snapshotting which isn’t Beastmaster exclusive, though the Summon Wolf companion buffs surely helped. In any case, Beastmaster Summons is a proven archetype, though they take some time to get going. You can go heavier on the Beastmaster skills by building around Poison Nova Scorpion (check out CookBook’s version). It’s well-rounded in terms of damage and clear but usually suffers from low movement speed, so if you’re coming from something like Rogue, it’ll be a shock. There are options to alleviate it—Haste via The Scavenger belt and increased Haste effect on idols, for example—but it will never be a fast build. The passive tree offers ever-important damage reduction, health, healing, health regeneration, endurance for companions, crit support, and stun. There is a lack of damage, but you can grab this elsewhere. A-Tier: Shaman A melee and/or elemental Mastery, Shaman is one of the highest Arena pushing builds: it can reach Wave 500-700+. The clear is quite fast, albeit not top tier, with a similar story on defense. Tornado is a lot more damage than it seems, and the vacuum effect is great, making it the star of the show. Earthquake and Avalanche see little play due to high mana costs and/or requiring Spriggan Form which is clunky. However, using Aftershock idols can be welcome for some extra damage (so you’re essentially using Earthquake without suffering the problems of Earthquake). Summon Storm Totem is fairly popular, as well. If nothing else, it’s a nice decoy with decent damage. As for the passive tree, you get a lot of Penetration (though you have to go through the defensively weak Attunement to get much of it), cooldown reduction, mana, auto trigger skills, attack and cast speed, elemental damage packaged with resists, Haste, and a lot more. The highlight skills include Fist of Stone (stun, Endurance, and health regen all in one), Lagon’s Answer and Conflux (auto and double cast Storm Bolt alongside area of effect (AoE) and damage reduction is efficient, to say the least), and Swirling Maelstrom (more auto casting fun, with health, mana, and Endurance Threshold on top). There’s even more to rave about, but you get the jist. A-Tier: Druid The shapeshifting Mastery, Storm Werebear is top of the pile here. Boasting great DPS, it can kill Abberoth (possibly even the Uber version), do 1000 corruption (the most you ever want to push due to severely diminishing returns), and around 300 Wave Arena (and as much as ~700). The eHP is very nice, to boot. If you like a combo playstyle and the idea of mauling enemies to death while filling the screen with tornadoes, this is a well-rounded, engaging Mastery to go for. Its primary weakness is that it’s not very fast at farming, though, so if you want to progress fast, Druid may not be the right fit. Taking Werebear replaces four of your skills with new ones more fitting for a bear. Rampage and Maul sport the always appreciated package of movement and competitive damage, while adding in Knockback for good measure. Roar meanwhile offers Knockback and Stun, and can be configured to sustain Rage (basically bear mana). Its skill tree sports a no cooldown version of Rampage (yes please), can make Rampage trigger Storm Bolt, and supports Stun, Rage and Health on hit (via Invigoration), and reduces the cooldown of Maul, among other standouts. Spriggan Form is very strong as well, bringing a ton of defense to the table, but is better supported by Druid/Beastmaster, and so won’t be discussed further here. Swarmblade is no slouch either (just not with Locusts), while Entangling Roots falls by the wayside. It’s not a terrible skill, but it’s mostly a buff skill for totems, which proves clunky as you can’t use it reasonably from Spriggan Form. As with everything in the top tiers, the passive tree here offers more strong nodes than we have room to go into. There’s Spirit Warden for health, mana, and sustain, Focused Wrath for damage coupled with Rage decay rate buffs, Bush Stalker (crit and leech on crit), Fetid Resilience (multiplicative damage over time), Primal Shifter/Tiger Spirit (armour, damage, crit chance, and crit multiplier, all of which can be made to apply to minions as well), and Impervious (which grants damage reduction for doing melee damage). There’s plenty more, but the point stands: Shaman is clearly here to play. B-Tier Last Epoch MasteriesB-Tier: Lich The classic ‘sacrifice your life for bonuses’ archetype, Lich can hang with the better Masteries thanks to potent skills like Reaper Form and a meaty passive tree. Drain Life has underwhelming stats, but can be useful with the Hecatomb node to convert your minions into mana. Aura of Decay is an appealing skill for the poison archetype (which gets a lot of support on the passive trees), but unfortunately is very weak in practice, because scaling applies to damage received and there are no great ways to mitigate it or turn it into an upside. Death Seal on the other hand is excellent, providing a huge 300% damage effectiveness boost and reducing damage taken to half. As with most things Lich, it’s slightly risky but well worth it. As for Reaper Form, it’s only 100% damage effectiveness but this increases a lot via the passive tree. Additionally, it’s a movement skill, and it’s AoE damage that gains you health, making for a strong all-rounder. Again, it drains you, but you can overcome this with recovery options. The passive tree provides options for Intelligence stacking, mana, health, ward, recovery, and more. The standouts here include Dance With Death, Hollow Lich, Unclosing Wounds, and Ageless Plagues, all of which offer terribly efficient damage buffs. There’s also automatic minion generation (Harvested Legions), critical strike chance and attack/cast speed buffs (Clairvoyant Insight), and Ageless Ascetic for buffs to movement, attack, and cast speed as well as leech. Not the best, but also not bad at all. B-Tier: Marksman Your classic Archer subclass. Hail of Arrows and Heartseeker are the popular builds. While not required, the former really wants the Sanguine Hoard unique quiver, but it shouldn’t be hard to pick up. If you like the idea of setting up a big bleed combo, it’s worth playing. Meanwhile, Heartseeker is pretty great if you like the idea of auto targeting projectiles. Just be sure to go with Bleed or Poison very early, before transitioning into the Icicle version once your gear is ready. One of the strengths of Marksman is it offers tons of HP on hit, and because you tend to be shooting out a ton of projectiles, it can hit a lot. Multishot is a bit weak on base with 120% damage effectiveness and base 6 phys, though this improves greatly with all the multiplicative damage nodes on the passive tree, as well as some flat damage. Plus, it has a low mana cost. Meanwhile, Hail is nice because it doesn’t care about crit and sports 325% damage effectiveness by default. Detonating Arrow is simply underwhelming numerically, so it’s no surprise it’s not played. On the passive tree you’ll find support for dodge, crit, movement speed, additional arrows, damage, recovery, and heaps more. Some of the best nodes among them include Heightened Senses (crit avoidance and crit multiplier), Thief’s Quiver (health and leech), and Death From Afar (stun and armour shred). As is typical for Rogue Masteries, it’s not going to win awards for defense, but you’ll never have to worry about damage or clear if you play your cards right. C-Tier Last Epoch MasteriesC-Tier: Necromancer Another summoner Mastery, this time with undead flavour. With a reasonably strong suite of skills and a passive tree that covers a lot of bases, it’s fitting that Necromancer can often hit 200-400 Waves in Arena. Summon Skeletal Mage is a nifty skill in that it reduces enemy health regeneration by 20% (most useful against bosses) and can be converted to a Traversal skill; you'll be focusing on a single powerful minion rather than an undead army, however. On the tree, you’ll find lots of support for Poison, Necrotic, Cold, and Fire, so there’s something for almost everyone. Sacrifice sees little to no play because the Mastery has terrible personal damage support — it’s playable, but minions do the same thing for you but better. Dread Shade offers a huge flat and increased percentage damage boost temporarily (at the cost of health), and can be made to explode your minions for big Necrotic damage (Doom Brand) or enhance Infernal Shade. There’s also the option to convert all Necrotic investment into Poison if that’s your jam. And then there’s the Beyond Death node which turns minions into exploding Zombies, Duskheart which converts Shade into a damage over time skill, and Symbiotic Apparition which grants you Shade’s buffs. Assemble Abomination, meanwhile, summons a powerful tanky minion. To make the most of it you’ll need to employ snapshotting (basically gear and skill swapping, which many players despise), but it’s still reasonable without. Finally, Summon Wraith has respectable damage thanks to Dread Shade and Wraith’s many critical strike passives. As usual, there’s lots of support here on the tree for Fire, Necrotic, or Poison variations, but also a Bleed one. And like Shade, it can convert into a damage over time skill (Spectre of Death). Notable notables on the Necromancer tree include Elixir of Hunger for health, increased percentage health, health on hit, and attack/cast speed, and Rite of Undeath for 120 total resistances on top of a nice damage boost. More broadly, you won’t find yourself short on recovery damage, minion support, armour and resistance shred, ward or ward retention, or crit in both its forms. There’s not much in the way of defense here outside of recovery and minion tanking, which holds it back some. C-Tier: Runemaster Runemaster is a rarely-seen-in-RPGs caster archetype that lets you combine spells together to make unique spells (any Gauntlet fans in the house?). While you don’t have to play it this way, Rune of Invocation — the skill that enables this — is the reason to play Runemaster, offering extreme versatility via invocations, many with very impressive damage numbers. Hydrahedron is one of the highlights — casting this spell via Rune of Invocation is part of what makes the Mastery and build 1000 corruption viable. Defense is still a serious concern, but if you keep on the move, you should stay alive. For those with a ******* budget, there’s Focus Autobomber, which uses the Brand of Deception and Runic Fortress passives to strong effect. The DPS isn’t anything special, but it’s very tanky. The idea here is to stack Strength, Intelligence, and Ward for armor and shock. As a bonus, it’s easy to play. Flame Rush is a movement skill with legitimate damage numbers paired with damage reduction, and can serve as a respectable damage skill when desired. Frost Wall, meanwhile, can brag about a very high 400% damage effectiveness, 100% chance to chill, and Freeze chance. Plus, it’s a damage over time skill, so it has less gearing requirements, and it’s a strong ******* thanks to Decree of the Burning Wind (on the Runemaster passive tree). Runebolt is no slouch either, offering a 200% crit multiplier and mana regeneration while getting around resistances with Decree of the Bountiful Ocean. Lastly, Glyph of Dominion measures up well numerically, while providing guaranteed slow. There’s also an interesting interaction there with Decree of Eternal Tundra for lots of ward per second. As for the passive tree, there’s all kinds of support for Ward, mana, elemental debuffs, cast and movement speed, reduced critical strike damage, cooldown recovery, and armour and damage for Fire builds and Freeze multiplier and damage for Lightning builds, among other things. It’s not outrageous like you see with the higher tier Masteries, but it’s still competitive. C-Tier: Forge Guard Forge Guard can hold its own as a Mastery, just not as well as the big boys. To put it another way, they do much of what it does but better. Still, there are some unique build options here that are great if you’re looking for something different. Skill-wise, Manifest Armor is nice as a decoy and rewards STR/armor stacking (the primary unique build option). Shield Throw offers high added damage effectiveness, while Ring of Shields brings great defense to the table (especially with the Shield Crafter passive). Still, comparing it to Symbols of Hope, it comes up short, as it’s situational and purely defensive. Smelter’s Wrath has a lot of potential as it scales offense and defense and boasts 600% damage effectiveness. Unfortunately, it’s a channeling skill with no option to change that, so it’ll slow you down and leave you a bit vulnerable. Next, you have Forge Weapon with a beefy 600% damage effectiveness, alongside summons for defense which scale off your weapon. Not bad at all. In terms of passives, the only really standout one is Guardian for a lovely combination of health, stun chance, and regen. Steel Aegis, Iron Attunement, Walls of Solarum, and Osprixbane are certainly no slouches, but when evaluating the best nodes in other Masteries, Forge Guard leaves something to be desired. Apart from that, you can find efficient damage scaling throughout the tree. D-Tier Last Epoch MasteriesD-Tier: Spellblade It may be D-Tier, but even D-Tier still means viable. Spellblade is not lacking in DPS at all and is pretty speedy, but can struggle a great deal with defenses. The better your positioning, the less you’ll get one-tapped, but it’s still going to happen occasionally. If you don’t mind that and like the idea of combining magic with melee, it’s worth a go. Flame Reave is playable but underwhelming. The base stats are strong enough, but damage cuts in half at a distance, AoE is limited, and the mana cost is fairly high. Worse, it only hits once per cast, which is a big no-no when compared to skills like Frost Claw that hit 20 times per cast (and for a lot more total damage), or Judgment on Sentinel—mind you, just about everything comes up short there! On top of that, it lacks unique buffs and debuffs, and its crowd control node proves ineffective in practice. Too many of the nodes require downsides that aren’t worth it, as well. It can still get you to the mid-game or so (around 500 Corruption), but not nearly as efficiently as other skills, and unlike those, it will hit a wall. Enchant Weapon is a potent DPS boost (65% situationally and 15% permanently), and if going the Ignite route, allows you to trigger Ignites instantly; always a powerful method of damage delivery. There’s also some ever-potent Leech for Lightning or Fire variations, and Chill for Cold. Surprisingly, there is no Freeze support. Firebrand is similar to Reave in that it can hit 300 Corruption but not do much beyond that. It doesn’t have all the drawbacks of Reave and is quite enjoyable to play—imagine rapidly shooting fire beams at enemies up to mid-range—but unfortunately the damage isn’t quite there compared to top skills, so you’ll have a harder time than you need to when progressing, and will eventually fall on hard times. Still, if you’re looking for something off-meta and don’t need the best of the best, this is a good skill to go for. Surge offers mobility, damage, tons of crit, and debuffs (including Stun), as well all all kinds of elemental and Ward support. Meanwhile, Shatter Strike loves crit while also providing some defense and offense in the form of cold debuffs, culling, Knockback, armor, Ward, and more. All in all, you absolutely will not have issues scaling damage, and it won’t even require much gearing, though obviously, better gear will take it even farther. As for the passive tree, it provides ward support in every form, and intriguing nodes like Flame Walker for some mobile fire damage and fire resistance shred, and Arcane Shielding and Shattered Aegis for damage reduction and armour (worth the 10 points). Apart from those, you’ll find resistances, damage, health, and mana available. Unluckily, there’s little support for Parry. It’s a decent tree for sure, but there’s nothing outrageous to help it keep up with the top tiers. D-Tier: Warlock Warlock builds are focused on damage over time, which makes them easy to gear and in that sense, very new player and casual friendly. Curses are also a major element, amplifying damage by debuffing enemies. While builds like Witchfire are viable, they don’t do much better than other Masteries, and so rarely push far on the ladder. Cthonic Fissure, Profane Veil, and Chaos Bolts are your star skills, all slotting into both the popular Bleed and Witchfire (Fire/Necrotic damage) variations. The damage they bring is what keeps Warlock at all competitive; Profane Veil even offers some defensive utility by making you invincible to everything but damage over time temporarily while granting damage over time itself. Defense is where it all kind of falls apart. While you have access to high eHP and recovery (and Profane Veil) thanks to nodes like Spiteful Decay and Spirit Leech, that’s about it, which is a far cry from the better Masteries. Fire/Necrotic focus builds will find The Ashen One passive is a must-grab for Witchfire, while Crimson Favours and Cauldron of Blood serves Bleed builds well. D-Tier: Sorcerer The classic caster class, Sorcerer is very much viable, but unfortunately doesn’t do a lot to stand out. Frostbite Frostclaw is one of the better builds available, proving itself as an all-rounder, but suffering from mana issues and lacking speed. Skill-wise, you have some strong stats on Static Orb, and as always vacuum skills like this (and ****** Hole) hold their own. It gets more interesting with skill nodes like Static Armor that grant a situational 25% less damage taken, and Overwhelming Barrage which dramatically increases stun chance. There are also options to convert it into a cold and Freeze skill for yet another defensive layer. Ice Barrage sports some respectable numbers as well, and its 40 Freeze rate is competitive with Frost Claw — even better, it auto targets enemies, and has the option to creating a Chill effect AoE or a shield that blocks projectiles. Arcane Ascendance is powerful but prohibitive, due to its high mana cost (somewhat offset on the tree), lack of crit, and lacking secondary damage. Still, its tree makes it quite versatile, providing access to Knockback, Slow, Haste, auto casting, and more. As for ****** Hole, this is a potent single skill with 600% damage effectiveness and some vacuum utility. It’s arguably best used as single target, but can be customized for clear. On the tree you’ll find even more utility in Knockback and Blind, and options to convert into Fire or Cold for builds focused on those elements. Lastly, Meteor has huge base stats (190 fire + 950% damage effectiveness), but at a high mana cost, demanding you build around it with mana stacking and Archmage, whjch aren’t in a great spot. On the passive tree you get lots of ward support in all its forms, substantial damage buffs, and cast speed, elemental debuffs, leech, and penetration. It’s certainly not the whole package, but it’s not nothing, either. The Mana Bulwark node — which deals damage to mana before health — is tempting, but unfortunately this is an ineffective mechanic in practice. Head to our Last Epoch 1.2 builds page for more guides for Last Epoch 1.2, Tombs of the Erased! [/url] Sean Ridgeley is a freelance contributor for IGN and lives for all things RPG, FPS, horror, and fighting. When he’s not grinding Last Epoch, Path of Exile, or Overwatch, he can be found headbanging in moshpits. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Stellaris and Crusader Kings 3 developer Paradox Interactive has something "ambitious" to show us next week. While the team stopped short of showing any concrete details at all, it did remind us that Paradox has been developing and publishing strategy games over the last 25 years "that have taken you from the Roman Empire to the stars," and teased it was now "preparing to announce the next major title in the genre." The mysterious new game — known only by its codename, Caesar — has been openly discussed on the studio's forum in a number of "Tinto Talks" developer diaries. Over this time, it has been welcoming community feedback on its feature ideas, key game systems, and historical research, but "now the time has come to reveal Ceasar to the world." The latest Tinto Talks — named after the studio that's developing it, Barcelona-based Studio Tinto — talked about the mechanics of Protestant religions and the "final situation involving all Western Christian confessions, the War of Religions," coming to its "entirely super-top-secret game with the codename Project Caesar." That, plus the clue that the announcement video will premier on the official Europa Universalis YouTube channel, suggests the mysterious project may be a new addition to that series… but nothing's certain right now. That hasn't stopped fans speculating, though, with many coming to the same conclusion that it's probably connected to Europa Universalis, too. "Dev Diaries haven't called it EU5 but everything we have been teased thus far heavily implies it," reminded one player on Reddit. Another, replying to someone else pointing out that the video will debut on the Europa Universalis channel, teased: "There might've been clues along the way huh." "I mean, it was an open secret for over a year thanks to the Tinto Talks Threads on Paradox forums," explained someone else. To find out more, and discover if the rumors are right, tune in to Paradox's video at 9am PDT (12pm EDT, 5pm *** time) on May 8, 2025, and discover "a new era for grand strategy." We had a great time with the last Europa Universalis game, awarding it 8.9/10 in IGN's Europa Universalis 4 review, saying: "Europa Universalis IV brings accessibility and flexibility to the strategy series without compromising its complexity." Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky. View the full article

Elden Ring Nightreign releases at the end of May, and the game has just received a trailer providing a thorough overview of what to expect from the co-op action roguelite experience. Nightreign is a major departure from its predecessor's deep RPG gameplay, and one of the lingering questions has been its map variety, since only a couple permutations were playable in Nightreign's Closed Network Test. The game's story has also remained mysterious, but this latest trailer provides some hints about how its setting differs from the Lands Between. View the full article