Diablo 4 Season 1 Starts July 20th! Today's developer livestream dropped a load of Season 1 and Quality of Life information on us. The panel consisting of Joseph Piepiora (Associate Game Director), Timothy Ismay (Lead Game Producer), Rod Fergusson (Diablo Franchise General Manager) and Adam Fletcher (Associate Director of Community) give us key information on Season 1, start date and time and clarify questions players have had for a while. See below for all the key takeaways.
Key Takeaways
-Patch 1.0.4 will come later on today with a number of changes and adjustments.
-Season 1 Starts July 20th @ 10am PDT with the Season of the Malignant.
-Seasonal Theme revolves around collecting powerful Malignant Hearts that can be socketed into Jewelry.
-Login on the 18th/19th with all characters to make sure your Renown progress transfers over.
Pre-Season Information
Patch 1.0.4 is coming down the pipe today with more improvements and Quality of Life (QoL) adjustments. A big tease is Unique Items will now be able to drop from Helltide Tortured Gift chests!
Season 1 Information
Season 1 Starts July 20th 10am PDT with the Season of the Malignant.
July 18th, Patch goes live. All changes will be live for Eternal realm at that point. The "switch" will be flipped on the 20th for the Season 1. This allows players a quick glimpse of the season changes before it starts.
Seasonal Story
A new Malignant threat has emerged corrupting Wildlife, Demons, and Humans alike. Cormond is our ally in this endeavor to figure out what is going on to hopefully fix this corruption. We will get introduced to him early on in Kyvoshad.
Seasonal Theme
Any Elite enemy in the world can be corrupted by this Malignant threat. When a Malignant Monster is killed, a Malignant Heart drops. A player can then start a ritual with the Cage of Binding, which spawns a stronger version of that enemy. If killed, a Caged Heart drops that can be socketed into Jewelry (Amulets and Rings). The Cage of Binding is acquired during the Seasonal Questline.
There are 32 total Malignant Hearts that are separated into 4 different types. Three types will be socket color specific, with a fourth type being open to any socket. When a socket rolls on a piece of gear (by drop of via the Jewelry) a random color will be assigned. They will unlock major new ways to play and empower current builds, and open up other builds as well.
Hearts can be replaced in your gear, but not removed. As you fight stronger Malignant enemies, the power of the Hearts you find will grow along with the difficulty you play on. Old Hearts can be broken down into crafting materials. Invokers can be used at a specific place called the Malignant Tunnels across the world to target farm specific Hearts you want.
Malignant Tunnels allow you to target farm a specif color of Heart along with having a higher amount of Malignant Monsters in general. You fight your way through the Tunnel to the end to use your crafted Invoker on a Malignant Outgrowth. Once there, select the color you want and defeat the enemy to receive your desired heart.
New Boss Battle
While traversing the Malignant Tunnels, you can take on Varshan the Consumed! This mysterious boss doesn't have a lot of information, but you can rest easy knowing we'll have a guide for you as soon as we can.
Season Journey
As you hunt down Malignant Monsters for their Hearts you’ll earn rewards from the Season Journey and Battle Pass. The Journey also provides Favor—the resource used to climb through the Battle Pass’ Tiers—which is also earned naturally by playing the game, whether it be killing demons, completing Quests, and more. There are 7 chapters for the Season Journey, with a number of objectives per chapter to accomplish before moving on to the next. You DO NOT have to complete all objectives of a chapter to move to the next one.
The Season Journey is broken into Chapters with tasks to complete. As you progress through the Journey, you’ll earn rewards befitting Sanctuary’s defender, such as new Legendary Aspects, a Mastery Title, and a Scroll of Amnesia, which provides a free Skill Tree and Paragon Board reset! Seven new Legendary Aspects and Six Uniques are coming too!
Areas Discovered (with Renown) & Altars of Lilith (with Renown) will transfer over from pre-season character to your Season 1 characters. In order for the progress you've made to transfer to the New Season, you need to log into your existing characters sometime after July18th to transfer the progress. If you jump straight into the Season without doing this, your progress won't transfer! But don't worry, You can log on to your Eternal Realm characters at that point to transfer that progress. Not a regular thing from season to season, just a one time deal for Season 1.
Battle Pass
The Season of the Malignant Battle Pass hosts 90 Tiers, 27 Free Tiers and 63 Premium Tiers. Smoldering Ashes are earned from the Free Tiers, which can be spent on Season Blessings that provide you with a bonus to earning experience, Gold, or Obols depending on the Blessing you choose. The bonuses gained from Season Blessings only last until Season of the Malignant ends.
If you get the Premium Battle Pass, not only will the rewards of the Free Tiers will be yours to wield as you choose, but Awoken Armor Sets, Mount and Mount Armor, Platinum, and more await you!
If you purchased the digital Deluxe or Ultimate Edition of Diablo IV and want to redeem your Battle Pass for this Season, navigate to the Seasons section of the Shop and select the option to activate your Battle Pass. Players also have the option to skip Tiers by spending Platinum at a cost of 200 Platinum per Tier skip. Keep in mind that your Tier Skip might unlock a Tier that rewards Smoldering Ashes, but you must meet certain Character Level requirements to claim them.
Community Questions
Any update on respecing characters?
There are long term plans on improving the actual process of respecing itself. They are also looking at the cost of respeccing with seasons. There is also a Scroll of Amnesia, which can come in seasons to wipe your Skills/Paragon clean when used.
Will season mechanics stay after a season ends?
Not off the bat. They reserve the right with further seasons to possibly add seasonal mechanics to the base game. They want to make sure they hold a balance of what the base game is versus what it could be after several seasons of content turning it into a dense game.
Nightmare Dungeon is great. Why can't we teleport into the dungeon directly?
The team recognizes this and is looking into it further. This is more an issue of getting it done as quickly as possible.
Will there be mid-season updates?
With seasons, the developers are going to get into a cadence of major and minor changes. They will reserve big buffs/nerfs for patches before and after a season unless absolutely required.
How long are seasons?
Seasons will be at least 12 weeks. They can be a little longer, but when a season hits that 3 month mark, we can expect information for the next season.
More to Expect From Us
The Maxroll Diablo 4 Team has been working around the clock since release to update Resource Guides and Build Guides alike with every new patch to keep you ahead of the game! More tools and guides are in the works as we approach Season 1. If you haven't already, head over to our Discord and select the D4 role in #roles to stay up to date with our content development. Keep on hacking and slashing!