A lot has happened since the start of Season 1 in Diablo 4 and it can be hard to keep up with everything. We wanted to take time to go over some of the updates, patch notes, highlights and news from the first week. Let's take a look at some of the more notable things that have happened and see what we can look forward to down the road.
Diablo 4 Season 1 Launch & Reception
During global launch Diablo 4 stole the hearts of millions. It was hard to find a single piece of negative press out there and it was even being ambitiously tossed around in conversations for "game of the year." This didn't last long as players eventually progressed through the campaign and realized there wasn't much to do after. Progression slows down as you go further into the game and after a series of nerfs, players were left feeling like their characters had been pulled out from under them. Add in a rocky Patch 1.1.0a before Season 1 launched and the initial allure of Diablo 4 seems to be stagnating. Let's take a quick look at the Patch that kicked off this whole Season then dive into the happenings from this week.
Patch 1.1.0a - July 18th
Patch 1.1.0a was considered the Season 1 patch and it was released 2 days before the season started. Tons of changes big and small were scattered throughout and it brought a lot of nerfs to class with seemingly not many buffs. Below is a list of highlights from the Patch:
- Defenses on items were nerfed across the board. In combination with the loss of 750 armor from Skulls in Jewelry (Malignant Hearts from the Season Theme) all builds are going to be significantly more squishy going into Season 1, making high level content much more challenging but smoothing out the progression curve in the endgame.
- Offensive stats Vulnerable Damage and Critical Damage took massive hits while many stats in the additive damage category received buffs. This lowers overall damage output of our builds but evens out the stat rolls on items, so that having suboptimal rolls isn't as punishing. We expect Malignant Hearts will make up for most of this offensive loss during the Season, but players on the Eternal Realm are going to feel the difference.
- Experience bonuses for being underleveled were nerfed. Previously the most efficient XP strategies revolved around farming Nightmare Dungeons where monsters are precisely 3 levels higher, but now we get barely any benefit for defeating higher level monsters anymore. Boosting low level players in higher difficulties also took a major hit with that.
- Barbarian: Hammer of the Ancients and Aspect of Berserk Ripping + Skullbreaker's Aspect + Aspect of Anemia have had their unintended damage output fixed. But all is not lost! Gohr's Devastating Grips have been reworked to output its bonus damage more consistently and many underused Skills and Aspects have received decent buffs across the board.
- Druid skill Grizzly Rage has lost some power, but is still strong. The additional change to Masochistic drastically reduces your Life sustain in Shapeshifting Form. The new Unique and Legendary Aspect bring new opportunities for builds.
- Necromancer's new Unique may be included in nearly every build, Lidless Wall. Targeting improvements for Corpse Explosion on Mouse and Keyboard, minor buffs across the board, especially for Blood Lance and Minions, and a nerf to Bone Spear builds.
- Rogue's struggling Penetrating Shot build gets a new & exciting, Unique Bow. A Basic Skill build or at least more poison synergies around Puncture may be possible through the new legendary Aspect. Other than a major nerf to Siphoning Strikes that will be felt, the class is in a good spot all-around with only few changes in this patch.
- Sorcerer losses out on 60%+ damage with the Aspect of Control bug fix in addition with the general offense, defense, and cooldown changes. Speed farming will remain okay, and Burning is no longer mandatory for every build.
Campfire Chats & More Patches
Blizzard was quick to respond to mostly negative feedback surrounding Patch 1.1.0a by pushing out:
- Patch 1.1.0b (adding Armor to the Malignant Hearts)
- Hotfix 3 (Adjustments to XP in Nightmare Dungeons, etc)
- Patch 1.1.0c. (Several Bug Fixes, including Gold Exploit)
They also held an emergency Campfire Chat on to address Community Feedback on July 21st, where they addressed tons of the concerns and answered a lot of pressing questions.
The Next Campfire is scheduled for this Friday July 28 at 11 a.m. PDT.
Join game director Joe Shely, associate game director Joseph Piepiora, lead class designer Adam Jackson, and associate director of community Adam Fletcher, who will introduce Class balance changes, various quality of life updates, and more coming with Patch 1.1.1. Make sure to tune in to see what's going to unfold for the future of Diablo 4!
Malignant Heart Revelations
The Season of the Malignant introduced 32 Caged Hearts that can be socketed into Jewelry. While most of these are common and provide moderate bonuses, the Wrathful Hearts are rare and include the The Barber, which is highly sought after for its power. The explosion from The Barber is reported to be Shadow damage, allowing it to synergize with Caged Heart of Tal'Rasha as well as affixes on gear. Players have been testing and learning new things daily about these Caged Hearts, we'll keep updating our guides and report news on major findings!
Battle Pass Information & Drama
The Battle Pass has been an interesting topic since the Season started. The Smoldering Ashes are spread throughout the entire Battle Pass, requiring players to get to level 100 in order to obtain all the Seasonal Blessings.
The real hot topic has been the instant activation of the "Premium Battle Pass" button, which sits conveniently next to the Seasonal Blessings section. Many players reported clicking this by accident and activating their Premium Battle Pass ,which they intended to save for another Season. Naturally they all shouted form the roof tops that this was intentional design and that Blizzard was scamming everyone out of their Passes. Blizzard responded by adding a confirmation button to this feature.
Seasonal Blessings, Gold Exploit & Bugs
Smoldering Ashes from the Battle Pass allow you to acquire Seasonal Blessing. These provide various boosts to your character including XP earned, Gold earned from vendor sales and Elixir duration. With this system came a few bugs, allowing players to accumulate a ton of gold and also avoid a trap of spending it. Patch 1.1.0c fixed the bug where players could sell an inventory full of items to a Vendor, then reallocate their Seasonal Blessings to buy them back cheaper, rinse & repeat, profit.
With this fix there was another bug reported by Streamer DatModz where the Occultist was actually charging way more to re-roll gear affixes with this Seasonal Blessing enabled. It's recommended to reallocate these Smoldering Ashes as well when re rolling gear to save more of your precious gold!
Current Class Balance
After substantially lowering the difficulty of Nightmare Dungeons there really isn't any difficult content in the game anymore, other than the Uber Lilith Fight. This change bring up a lot of weaker builds that can now comfortably play in the higher tier NM Dungeons. While Barbarian and Sorcerer are still considered the weaker classes in Season 1, they should both be able to decimate all content with ease still.
Druid and Rogue are in a fantastic spot with tons of viable playstyles and the Necromancer is having its glory days, likely being the most powerful class in Season 1. The combination of buffs, new items and Caged Hearts have supercharged the commander of the dead to insane levels. It's almost like Bone Spear wasn't strong enough already!
Powerful New Unique - Lidless Wall
6 New Unique Items and 7 new Legendary Aspects came with Season 1. There is a clear favorite among the chatter and one that can't escape being a meme. The Lidless Wall is proving to be a tremendous Unique that Necromancers can rejoice over, while The Oculus is another reminder everything can't always be sunshine and rainbows.
Race to 100 Winners & Deaths
This Season we got in on the fun and put up leaderboards to track the Race to level 100. Just like at launch there were many thrills watching the streamers grind for endless hours. While many had triumphs there were also some tragic deaths taking first place contenders out of the race. Let's celebrate the winners and less fortunate during the race!
- mr_leguan - 1st softcore player to reach level 100.
- oogi3boogi3 - 1st hardcore player to reach level 100.
- zeroji - 1st SSF hardcore player to reach level 100.
- Binashole - SSF hardcore death at level 75
- The_SerbianTV - SSF hardcore death at level 88
- wudijo - SSF hardcore death at level 93
Unauthorized Game Modifying Software
On July 26th Blizzard put out a statement regarding the use of unauthorized game modifying software. Below is their quoted statement on the matter.
We are committed to keeping the world of Sanctuary a safe and fair place for all players, and our Game Security team constantly monitors for cheats and unauthorized modifications.
All Diablo IV players agree to the Blizzard EULA as a condition of playing the game. The Blizzard EULA explicitly prohibits cheating, bots, hacks, and any other unauthorized software which automates, modifies, or otherwise interferes with the game. This is important to players’ security as well as the game’s long-term integrity.
With that in mind, we want to make it clear that TurboHUD4, like any game-modifying software, is prohibited for use with Diablo IV. Players who install this kind of software will put their accounts at risk for disciplinary action, which can include permanent suspension.
Thank you to our players for helping to keep Sanctuary fair for all.
Maxroll Podcasts in Full Swing!
We've started hosting podcasts on multiple channels with some amazing guests. Annacakelive and wudijo have been hosting the ones we've done so far but we're planning on many more to come and to hopefully get as much of the community involved as possible. Check out some of the recent Podcasts covering the race to level 100 and the Season patch notes.
Season Guides & Wiki Updates
Now that the Season has been live we've been able to update this section further and have even more updates coming over the next few days. We've added all the new Caged Hearts, Unique Items & Aspects to our Wiki page as well as Stronghold posts.
D4Planner & Public Database
D4Planner has been updated to include the Caged Hearts. A lot of people are using the Public Database to theorycrarft and post new builds for Season 1. Head over there and toss up your own build to share with the community!
Tier Lists & Build Guides
Our team has been testing out new builds and gathering information that we'll compile in our next meeting to do further updates to our Build Guides and Tier Lists. Many of our Season Guides have been updated or are being updated to reflect the more current information regarding the new Season mechanics like Caged Hearts, Invokers, Season Journey & Battle Pass.
A common question we've received in the last week is, "where are the Eternal build guides?" As we move forward into new Seasons we will always tag our Build Guides with the current Season tag once they have been updated. For now you can be confident these guides work fine on the Eternal Realm, you just need to disregard the Caged Hearts and use Gems in your jewelry instead.
We continue to evaluate the best way to convey this to the masses and make sure that people know the content they're looking is relevant for the realm they're playing on. There will be another wave of updates for our content now that we've gotten into the Season a bit so be prepared for more updates and new content!
Tier Lists
Barbarian
Necromancer
Rogue
That's about it for the Diablo 4 Season 1 Weekly News Overview #1, we will continue to post these overviews every week as we go forward to make sure everyone can stay updated to date on the changes in Sanctuary! 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. Sanctuary here we come!
Written by: Facefoot
Contributions by: Dredscythe