Tag: Guides

Diablo 4 Season 16 War Plans Tactics and Boons Guide

Season 16 reworks War Plans three ways: War Plans Tactics lets you weight which activities and reward types your plans offer (up to 3 points per node), Marks of Wisdom pay for node respecs, and Tyrael’s Boons adds a Seasonal tree worth up to 132 points across four paths. Blizzard set the 3.3.0 PTR on PC for October 27 to November 3, 2026; Blizzard hasn’t announced a launch date.

If you’ve ever burned Marks of El’Druin rerolling a War Plan because it kept handing you activities you didn’t want to run, Season 16 goes straight at that problem. A new Tactics tree lets you put points into the activities and reward types you actually want, so the plans on offer at the Command Table lean your way.

Tactics is the change that matters most. It tilts the odds on every plan you’re offered, it works on both Seasonal and Eternal, and reworking it costs Marks of Wisdom, which you earn by turning in plans, rather than gold. Tyrael’s Boons looks like the bigger power bump on paper, but it’s Seasonal-only and undoing a point costs 5,000,000 gold on the PTR, so it rewards a plan more than a whim.

What	Details
3.3.0 PTR	October 27 to November 3, 2026 (closing 10 a.m. PST), PC only through Battle.net
Season 16 launch	Not announced by Blizzard; early estimates vary, most point to early December
War Plans Tactics	Up to 3 points per activity node and per reward node; Seasonal and Eternal
Marks of Wisdom	New currency from turning in completed War Plans; replaces gold for node changes; capped at 20 on the PTR
Tyrael’s Boons	Seasonal tree, up to 132 points, four paths; 5,000,000 gold per point to unassign

What changes in War Plans in Season 16

Three things change. First, War Plans Tactics: you earn points by completing War Plans activities and spend them on activity nodes and reward nodes, up to 3 points in each, to raise the odds that the plans you’re offered include the activities and rewards you picked.

Second, Marks of Wisdom, a new currency you get from turning in completed War Plans. It takes over from gold as the cost of changing nodes in the Tactics tree and in each activity’s own Activity tree.

Third, Tyrael’s Boons, a Season-themed War Plans tree for Seasonal characters only. It doesn’t require Lord of Hatred, and it sits alongside Seasonal Blessings rather than replacing them; those Blessings become a static set of the same five each time.

How War Plans work before Season 16

War Plans arrived with Lord of Hatred in late April 2026. You chain a playlist of endgame activities, such as Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, The Undercity, Lair Bosses, Infernal Hordes, and The Pit, and the game teleports you between them and generates any Sigil you need. Finishing a plan pays out War Chest rewards in Temis and levels your Command Table.

The Command Table is in Temis, and you reach it after completing the Lord of Hatred campaign. Each activity has its own Activity tree fed by Activity Points. If a plan doesn’t suit you, rerolling it costs Marks of El’Druin, which you earn by completing plans; a New Plan For Party reroll costs 2 and needs the party to vote.

Since Season of Hell’s Legacy, War Plans progress is shared across the characters on your account within each realm split (Seasonal or Eternal, Hardcore or not, Normal or Solo Self-Found), and you assign the shared points to each character, much like Paragon. Blizzard has also said future seasons would bring more War Plans refinements, including playlist customization. Tactics reads like the first step toward that.

War Plans Tactics: steering activities and rewards

Tactics points come from completing War Plans activities. You can put up to 3 into any activity node and up to 3 into any reward node, and each point nudges the plans you’re offered toward that choice. Blizzard hasn’t published a total point cap or how fast points come in, so don’t plan around a fully built tree on day one.

Two activity nodes have an extra layer. Put at least 1 point into Helltides and you get a choice to raise the chance of Greater Helltides; do the same in Nightmare Dungeons and you can raise the chance of Escalation Dungeons. If either is already your main farm, that first point is the easiest call on the tree.

The reward side has 10 nodes:

Armor
Weapons
Jewelry
Talisman Items
Gems
Obducite
Salvage
Horadric Cube Materials
Gold
Activity Keys

Tactics works on both Seasonal and Eternal, so Eternal-only players get it too. It’s part of War Plans, though, so it still needs the Lord of Hatred campaign; Tyrael’s Boons is the part base-game Seasonal players get.

Marks of Wisdom pay for respecs, not rerolls

Marks of Wisdom come from turning in completed War Plans, and you spend them to change nodes in the Tactics tree and the individual Activity trees. Before Season 16 those changes cost gold. Now your gold stays in your stash when you rework Tactics or an Activity tree.

On the PTR, Marks of Wisdom were capped at 20. Blizzard stated that cap for the PTR only, so check the 3.3.0 patch notes for the live number.

Some early coverage describes Marks of Wisdom as a way to reroll your plans more often. Blizzard’s PTR post describes them as the currency for changing tree nodes. Rerolling a plan still costs Marks of El’Druin.

Tyrael’s Boons: the four Seasonal paths

Tyrael’s Boons is open to every Seasonal character, with or without Lord of Hatred. Blizzard puts the maximum at 132 points, enough to choose “up to 4 of 6 available selections” within the four paths. Blizzard hasn’t said how Boons points are earned.

Path	What it changes	Who it suits
Curious Addition	Improves the Purveyor of Curiosities: a chance at a second item with either new item types or better quality, or a pricier Purveyor with a higher chance of Ancestrals	Players who already gamble at the Purveyor and want more Ancestral pulls
Merchant of Mystery	A new Torment-difficulty merchant trades caches for Forgotten Souls; points can raise Ancestral Cache odds, let you buy caches with Runes or Gems, or improve the amount and quality of Ancestral Caches	Torment farmers sitting on Forgotten Souls, Runes, or Gems
Scent of Gold	Boosts gold and experience and raises Legendary find chance; one branch adds Horadric Cube materials and Gem Fragments, the other improves monster gold and gem drops	Fresh Seasonal characters still leveling, and anyone short on gold
Trash for Treasure	Lowers Alchemist transmuting costs, can improve Forgotten Soul chances, adds Obducite and Scrolls of Restoration or boosts monster Obducite and Salvage drops; salvaging Ancestral items can grant a Scroll of Restoration	Crafters chasing Greater Affixes on gear they already wear

Trash for Treasure also adds the Greater Temper recipe, which upgrades a Tempered Affix to a Greater Affix. On the PTR it costs 30 Scrolls of Restoration and 1,000 Obducite, and those numbers may change before launch. For an endgame character with a near-finished item, that recipe is the most interesting single effect in Boons.

Horadric Items and the Talisman Items node

Season 16 also adds Horadric Items, Legendary items tied to Talisman sets. Horadric jewelry adds 1 to the set bonus count of its Talisman set, so with it equipped, one charm from that set gives you the 2-piece bonus. Horadric armor and weapon affixes add effects that turn on once you have at least the 2-piece bonus from the matching set.

That’s why the Talisman Items reward node deserves a point if you plan a set build: it’s the only Tactics node aimed at the charms those Horadric effects depend on. Pair it with Jewelry while you hunt for the matching Horadric piece.

Where to put your first points

The table below is a reading of what each node does on paper, matched to common goals. It isn’t a tested tier list: the PTR is a one-week test, and values can change at launch.

Your goal	Tactics rewards	Boons path
Greater Affix crafting	Obducite, Salvage	Trash for Treasure, for the Greater Temper recipe and Scrolls of Restoration
Gold and leveling	Gold	Scent of Gold
Ancestral gear hunting	Armor, Weapons, Jewelry; if Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons is your farm, a point there unlocks the Greater Helltides or Escalation Dungeons choice	Curious Addition or Merchant of Mystery
Talisman set builds	Talisman Items, Jewelry	Curious Addition or Merchant of Mystery for more gear rolls; no path targets Talismans directly
Keys and cube materials	Activity Keys, Horadric Cube Materials	Scent of Gold, on the branch with Horadric Cube materials
Eternal-only play	The rewards for your goal from the rows above	None; Boons is Seasonal only

Now the part that decides how bold to be: what each mistake costs. Changing Tactics or Activity tree nodes costs Marks of Wisdom, which you earn by turning in plans. Unassigning a Boons point costs 5,000,000 gold, every point, so pulling 10 points back out costs 50,000,000 gold.

So Tactics is the place to experiment, because changes there cost Marks of Wisdom from plans rather than gold. Blizzard hasn’t published how many Marks a change takes, and the PTR capped them at 20, so check what a swap costs before you rework the tree often. Commit to a Boons path only once you know what your character is chasing that season.

Each Tyrael’s Boons point you unassign costs 5,000,000 gold on the PTR, so a careless early pick in Boons is the expensive mistake in this system.

If you expect to respec Boons at some point, build a gold buffer first. Scent of Gold and the Gold reward node both help, and PlayerBay’s Diablo IV gold farming routes from Season 14 cover the farming side. If you’d rather top up than farm, you can compare Diablo IV gold listings by game mode, Seasonal or Eternal.

Season 16 dates and what isn’t confirmed yet

Confirmed: Blizzard set the 3.3.0 PTR on PC for October 27, 2026, 10 a.m. PDT, to November 3, 2026, 10 a.m. PST. It’s PC only, through the Public Test Realm option in Battle.net, with PC Game Pass access through Battle.net via the Xbox app; there’s no console PTR.

Not confirmed: the launch date. Most early estimates point to around the start of December 2026, though some run later; Blizzard hasn’t announced a date. Treat any date as unconfirmed until Blizzard posts one. Season 15, Season of Hell’s Legacy, began September 15, 2026.

Blizzard’s PTR post doesn’t give Season 16 a name, and it says some Season of Hell’s Legacy features will carry into Season 16 without being on the PTR, with details in a later post. As of November 2, 2026, that post hadn’t appeared.

Blizzard’s PTR known-issues list includes three that touch War Plans: alternate characters may show no shared War Plans points until you change zones, the Merchant of Mystery may appear in pre-Torment difficulties, and the Lair of Runes node doesn’t increase rune drops from Lair Bosses. Blizzard intends to fix them by the 3.3.0 release. Every Tactics, Marks of Wisdom, and Tyrael’s Boons number here is a PTR value, so the 3.3.0 patch notes have the final word.

PlayerBay is an independent marketplace and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or officially connected with Blizzard Entertainment or their respective owners. Game names, item names, and trademarks are used only for descriptive purposes.

At the Command Table in Temis. You can travel there once you’ve completed the Lord of Hatred campaign.

Most early estimates point to around the start of December 2026, though some run later; Blizzard hasn’t announced a date. Treat any date as unconfirmed until Blizzard posts one.

Yes. War Plans Tactics works on both Seasonal and Eternal. Tyrael’s Boons is the part that’s Seasonal only.

Marks of Wisdom replace gold as the cost of changing nodes in the War Plans Tactics tree and the Activity trees. You earn them by turning in completed War Plans, and they were capped at 20 on the PTR. Rerolling a plan still uses Marks of El’Druin.

On the PTR, unassigning a Tyrael’s Boons point costs 5,000,000 gold per point. Check the 3.3.0 patch notes in case the cost changes at launch.

Pick by what you chase, not by a tier list, since Boons has only had a one-week PTR test. Reading the node effects: Trash for Treasure fits Greater Affix crafting because it adds the Greater Temper recipe, Scent of Gold fits leveling and gold, and Curious Addition or Merchant of Mystery fit Ancestral gear hunting. Each point costs 5,000,000 gold to unassign on the PTR, so decide on your season goal first.

November 2, 2026

When Does the Fortnite Season End? Treasure Hunters Dates

Fortnite’s Treasure Hunters mini-season went live on November 1, 2026 with update v43.00, and reports quoting Epic’s patch notes point to a Chapter 7 end event on Saturday, December 5, 2026. Epic’s launch post lists no end date, event time, or pass expiry, so plan on about five weeks and check the in-game pass timer.

Treasure Hunters is a short window. It went live with v43.00 on November 1, 2026, and reports point to a Chapter 7 end event on Saturday, December 5, so there’s far less time than usual to level a pass. On Crossbones Isle, Gold Bars are vaulted and Vending Machines are gone, so your old landing-and-shopping routine needs a rethink.

The decision that matters most this time is the pass: buy it only if you’ll play most weeks until its timer runs out.

Detail	Status
Current season	Treasure Hunters, a Chapter 7 mini-season
Started	November 1, 2026 (v43.00)
Chapter 7 end event	Reported for Saturday, December 5, 2026; not in Epic’s launch post
End time	Not announced by Epic
Chapter 8	No date from Epic; reports range from late November to mid-December
Fortnite OG	Latest season is Chapter 1 Season X, started September 3, 2026 with its own OG Pass; no end announced

When Treasure Hunters ends

Reports quote Epic’s v43.00 patch notes telling players to keep Saturday, December 5 open for a Chapter 7 end event, but that line isn’t in Epic’s launch post. The launch post gives no end date either, so the pass timer in game is the place to confirm it. That’s where things stood on November 2, 2026; look again in the last week of November.

What time? Epic hasn’t said. No start hour for the December 5 event has been posted. Some countdown timers show December 5 with an exact hour attached, but Epic hasn’t confirmed when the Treasure Hunters pass expires or at what time, so treat those clocks as placeholders.

Treasure Hunters is still Chapter 7, not the start of Chapter 8. It’s a mini-season bridging Override and the next chapter, and Epic calls it Treasure Hunters rather than Chapter 7 Season 5. If it wraps on December 5, it will have run about 34 days, less than half the length of any full Chapter 7 season.

Override, Chapter 7 Season 4, ran 73 days from August 20 to November 1, 2026, and closed with the v43.00 downtime at 1 AM ET (05:00 UTC). Some timers, including the in-game pass, had shown October 31, but the changeover came on November 1.

Is the Treasure Hunters pass worth buying?

Two facts drive this. Since March 19, 2026, the standard Battle Pass has cost 800 V-Bucks, and finishing it pays 800 V-Bucks back. The Treasure Hunters price hasn’t been confirmed outside the game, so check the pass tab for the real price, and whether completion pays back the same way, before you spend.

The catch is time. A pass only pays for itself if you finish it, and this one gets about five weeks instead of the ten-plus weeks a full season gives you. Pass cosmetics can come back later, but not until at least 18 months after the pass expires, and Epic doesn’t promise any return at all.

Option	Best for	Why	Watch out for
Buy now and play most weeks	Players logging in several times a week until the pass timer runs out	You get the full window to level. Recent standard passes paid back 800 V-Bucks when finished; check this pass’s tab to confirm	No announced Battle Pass XP event to catch you up if you fall behind
Buy for one reward	You want one outfit and can see roughly where it sits on the pass	You only need to reach that level, not finish	A level you don’t reach stays locked, and a shop return is 18+ months away and not guaranteed
Skip and save your V-Bucks	Players with a few sessions a month	Keeps V-Bucks for a pass with a full season behind it	Epic hasn’t dated Chapter 8, so the next pass has no confirmed start

My take: if you can’t picture yourself playing most weeks between now and the end event, skip it. The payback only works for players who finish, and a five-week mini-season is a hard pass to finish.

What Epic has dated for November

Epic has dated most of November in its launch post, including a weekly arrival that started with Captain’s Day on launch day:

Date (2026)	What’s on	Note
Every Monday from 9 AM ET	Mastery Monday	2x Sprite XP and 2x Sprite Dust, not Battle Pass XP
November 1	Captain’s Day: A$AP Rocky arrives	Weekly arrival, launch week
November 6	One Piece: Zoro Cup	First of two One Piece cups
November 7	Lil Uzi arrives	Weekly arrival, week 2
November 12	Gold Sprite variant	Bonus XP from eliminating opponents
November 13	One Piece: Buggy Cup	Second One Piece cup
November 14	Hatsune Miku and Kasane Teto arrive	Weekly arrival, week 3
November 21	Oscar arrives	Weekly arrival, week 4

Epic says a new one arrives every week but hasn’t posted dates after November 21. If you’re after One Piece outfits in the Item Shop, the releases run through the first two weeks of November, so that’s when to keep V-Bucks on hand.

What to do first: build your Sprite plan around Mondays. Mastery Monday is the only recurring boost Epic has dated, and it doubles Sprite progress, not pass levels. The November 12 Gold Sprite adds bonus XP for eliminations, though Epic doesn’t say whether that counts toward the pass. Steady sessions beat a late sprint.

What happens to unclaimed rewards

Claim everything you’ve earned in the pass tab before the timer runs out. Epic Player Support has been quoted as saying earned rewards arrive automatically at your next login after a season ends, but other pages say unclaimed tiers don’t carry over, so claiming early is the safe move. Either way, a reward on a level you never reached isn’t yours to claim.

Override shows how long a missed outfit stays gone. Its pass expired on November 1, 2026, so none of its cosmetics can return to the Item Shop before about May 2028, and some may never leave the pass. For the outfits players chase hardest, PlayerBay’s rundown of the most expensive Fortnite skins in 2026 covers the limited promos, controller bundles and rarely seen skins at the top.

Before the reported December 5 end event

Claim your rewards early. Open the pass tab and claim everything you’ve earned, then check again in the final week.
Don’t count on a pass XP event. Epic hasn’t announced one for Treasure Hunters, and the XP needed per level isn’t confirmed for this pass.
OG Pass: separate timer. See the Fortnite OG section below.
Watch Epic’s status page. Epic posted the v43.00 downtime notice there about 31 hours before servers went down, so expect a similar heads-up.

What past season-change downtime tells you

Epic hasn’t posted any downtime for December 5. As of November 2, 2026, its status page shows no December maintenance at all. Last year’s finale is the closest guide: after the Zero Hour live event on November 29, 2025, the game went into downtime right away. If the December 5 event plays out the same way, expect servers to go down as soon as it ends.

Epic’s own status log shows how long recent changeovers took:

v43.00, November 1, 2026 (Override to Treasure Hunters): 05:00 to 08:12 UTC, about 3 hours 12 minutes.
v42.00, August 20, 2026 (Runners to Override): 06:00 to 11:31 UTC, about 5 hours 31 minutes.
Regular patches, July to October 2026: about 1 hour 53 minutes to 2 hours 44 minutes, usually Thursdays at 08:00 UTC.

For v43.00, matchmaking switched off 30 minutes before the servers went down, and Epic posted the notice late on October 30, about 31 hours before downtime. Keep an eye on Epic’s Fortnite status page in the days before December 5 for the same kind of notice.

How Fortnite seasons last

Season	Ran	Days	How it ended
Simpsons mini-season	November 1 to November 29, 2025	28	Zero Hour live event, then downtime
Chapter 7 Season 1 (Pacific Break)	November 29, 2025 to March 19, 2026	about 110	Season 2 launch
Chapter 7 Season 2	March 19 to June 5, 2026	about 78	Shattered event
Chapter 7 Season 3 (Runners)	June 6 to August 20, 2026	about 75	v42.00 update, about 5.5 hours offline
Chapter 7 Season 4 (Override)	August 20 to November 1, 2026	73	v43.00 update, about 3.2 hours offline
Treasure Hunters	November 1, 2026 to the reported December 5 end event	about 34 if that holds	End time not confirmed

Treasure Hunters is by far the shortest stretch of Chapter 7: even Override, the briefest full season, lasted more than twice as long. Last year had the same shape. A mini-season started on November 1, 2025, right after the fall season, and Chapter 7 launched on November 29, straight after the Simpsons run ended.

If that repeats, a new chapter close to the end event is a fair bet. It’s a guess built on one previous year, though, and at about 34 days this mini-season would run a week past the Simpsons one.

Chapter 8: expected, not confirmed yet

What’s confirmed: Epic hasn’t announced a Chapter 8 date. Epic says its developer roadmap now lives on the Epic Developer Community, so that and Epic’s news posts are where an official date would show up.

What’s expected: Reports range from late November to mid-December, and Epic hasn’t announced any of them. Some point to November 28, citing Epic’s older creator roadmap. Others point to Saturday, December 5, the same day as the reported end event. December 10 appears too, though pages disagree on whether that’s the Chapter 8 launch or its first patch.

Until Epic posts a date, plan your session around the end event, not a chapter launch. Recheck in late November.

Fortnite OG runs on its own calendar

Fortnite OG’s latest season, Chapter 1 Season X, started September 3, 2026 with v42.10 and has its own OG Pass; Epic hasn’t announced an end. The OG island kept running through the changeover: Epic’s OG v43.00 notes brought Starry Suburbs and Greasy Grove back on November 1.

Some pages list December 4, 2026 as the Season X end, but Epic hasn’t confirmed it, so look at the OG Pass in game rather than assuming it finishes with Treasure Hunters.

PlayerBay is an independent marketplace and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or officially connected with Epic Games or their respective owners. Game names, item names, and trademarks are used only for descriptive purposes.

Epic hasn’t announced a time. Reports quoting Epic’s patch notes point to a Chapter 7 end event on Saturday, December 5, 2026, but no event time or pass expiry has been posted.

Epic’s status log shows the last two season changes took about 3 hours 12 minutes (November 1, 2026) and 5 hours 31 minutes (August 20, 2026). Regular patches took about two hours.

Override, Chapter 7 Season 4, ran 73 days, from August 20 to November 1, 2026.

Treasure Hunters is the live season, a Chapter 7 mini-season that started on November 1, 2026. Epic hasn’t announced a Chapter 8 date, and reports range from late November to mid-December.

The latest season Epic has announced for Fortnite OG is Chapter 1 Season X, which started September 3, 2026 with v42.10 and has its own OG Pass. Epic hasn’t announced an end, though some pages list December 4, 2026.

November 2, 2026