How to make the most of Diablo 3 Season 18’s Power of the Triune buff

Diablo 3 Season 18 is almost here, and if you’re a Diablo player you’re probably wondering what this Season’s theme is going to be — and how you can use it to smash your enemies. The Season of the Triune is an interesting one, to be sure: it’s a departure from other Seasons because the theme isn’t dependent on your gear and the buff it offers is meaningful no matter what you have equipped or what level you are. This time the Theme will be in play from your character’s first day in Sanctuary to the last, and is completely independent of what you do or what you wear.

Nevalistis breaks down the basics for us here:

Power of the Triune buffs call for a different kind of playstyle

So if you’re wondering how do I best make use of these buffs the first thing to keep in mind is that these are stationary buffs. At any time during gameplay, a Power of the Triune buff can activate, and when it does it will summon one of these three circles onto the ground. In order to get that 100% damage buff, 50% discount on resource costs, or cooldown reduction, you need to be standing in that circle.

If you have a build that relies on or requires high mobility, this is going to be something you need to make allowances for. It also means you may well have to kill your way across the battlefield in order to make use of the buff, depending on where the circle winds up.

For the best results, when you see the buff circle, move to it and determine which one it is. If it’s the 100% damage buff, just go hog wild on any demons or undead in range and explode them like the potential loot pinatas they are. For the resource cost one, if you have a move you normally use sparingly due to its cost, now is the time to spam it — Hammer of the Ancients comes to mind for us Barbarian types, and every class has something like that. However, for the cooldown reduction circle, it might be best to pop your cooldowns and kill everything before you enter the buff circle and get your cooldowns to come back faster.

If you have a build that becomes a turret or can hunker down and just crush the area around you, they’ll work well with these buffs. And remember that while these circles are all stationary, you don’t (necessarily) need to be. The buff circles will be big enough that you can move around inside them, so don’t fret if your favorite build is all about spinning. Just spin in a tight circle around the visible buff on the ground, and you’re good.

This is a different kind of season

Unlike previous Season themes the metagaming here isn’t in figuring out how to get the best bunch of Ancient Legendaries so that the damage buff becomes better than set bonuses or how to combine sets with the Ring of Royal Grandeur buff so you can have multiple set bonuses at once. Instead, it’s working out a build that can capitalize on the Power of the Triune’s buff by staying put inside the circle long enough to really make use of it. When you plan your Seasonal character, you’ll want to think about builds that let you stay in place for long enough to take full advantage of that +100% damage buff (and all the rest).

I look forward to seeing the Power of the Triune (and all the crazy lore implications of the Sin War returning — is this a hint of  the storyline in Diablo 4, he says desperately for more Diablo 4 news) unfold in Season 18.

The new season starts on Friday, August 23 at 5PM PDT, so you only have a few more days to get a gameplan in place.