The Itemization Campfire Chat Wrap Up!

The Itemization Campfire Chat Livestream just took place. The panel consisted of Joe Shely (Game Director) Joseph Piepiora (Associate Game Director), Adam Jackson (Lead Class Designer), Charles Dunn (Associate Game Designer) and Adam Fletcher (Director of Community). The topics included the massive Itemization updates, Class changes, PTR news, and so much more! See all the major points below.

PTR Details

• The upcoming PTR will run from April 2nd to April 9th.
• This PTR is PC Battle.net only, Console PTRs may happen in the future.
• Season 3 ends Tuesday, May 14th now to allow the PTR to run and incorporate all the feedback.
• Season 4 starts Tuesday, May 14th.

PTR Specifics

• Instant boost to 100 including the following:
  • Campaign completion.
  • Mount.
  • All Skill Points.
  • All Paragon Points.
  • Fog of War cleared.
  • All Altars of Lilith discovered.
  • Random set of Rare gear on your boosted character.
  • All Class systems unlocked.
  • All Glyphs (maxed level).
• When boosted, you gain 100,000,000 Gold / 1,000 Obols (this can be done multiple times).
• Legendary Drop rates doubled.

A specific PTR forum will be added to the Diablo 4 site as well the team will monitor social media channels.

Itemization Updates

The Dev Team started with three key principles:

• Quality over quantity
  • The Devs are re-focusing on having fewer items with better quality.
  • This gives items more meaning to more players for the long run.
• The best items have a journey
  • Currently, once you found your gear, that was it for the most part.
  • With new systems coming to the game, the goal is to make items more a journey.
  • To have items unique to you and give a sense of progression through crafting.
• Surprise and Delight
  • Reignite the joy when items drop. There should be exciting rewards.

Trading

Trading is being updated in a big way. Legendaries and Uniques will become tradable in Season 4! There are two exceptions:

• Doing any form of crafting on these items binds them to you.
• Also, Uber Uniques are not tradable.

Base item Updates

Items gain Affixes from a smaller pool. This is meant to remove a lot of duplicate or conditional effects. The Dev Team is also improving the potency of many Affixes including "+Ranks to Skill". Sacred items now only drop in World Tier 3 with Ancestral items in World Tier 4. Overall affix Values have been increased.

• Legendary items now only roll 3 Affixes (down from 4).
• Rare items now only roll 2 Affixes (down from 4 max).

The amount of Affixes (at least for Legendaries) is meant to give you a great base item to work on and add to. Again, this is meant to change the itemization in game to a journey.

• Legendaries from level 95+ monsters always drop at 925 Item Power.
• Many Uniques now drop in World Tiers 1 and 2.
• Starting in World Tier 3, all Uniques drop
• Uber Uniques start dropping from monster level 55+ enemies and always drop with 925 Item Power.

Other Affix Updates

Stat rolls on gear have been simplified, items now roll the Core stat associated with your Class and the All Stats Affix. For example a Sorcerer Wand now rolls Intelligence and All Stats, it cannot roll Strength, Dexterity, or Willpower.

There were mentions of new Affixes coming to the game that we haven't seen before. A short list of them are:

• Fury Per Second (Resource Per Second)
• Life Per Hit
• Expanded Affixes on weapons

Gems

Gems have had a balance pass to more align them to the new Itemization update. Conditional parts have been removed to make them simpler to understand and work into a build with greater effectiveness. Core stats have been added to them as well. Crafting progression has been slightly increased, with a little more power at the top end. They also sell for more gold.

Drops and Crafting Materials

• The rate of crafting materials are being adjusted proportionally to the new drop rates to make sure you have enough to use.
• The gold cost for item rerolling now caps after a certain point, no longer scaling forever.
• Materials like Plants Ores, Monster Parts etc. have been consolidated or flat out removed from the game to make crafting easier to handle. Some Rare materials still exist.
• Forgotten Souls can now come from completing Whispers of the Dead and have a small chance to drop from any Elite.

Codex of Power Update

All Legendary Aspects can now be placed into the Codex of power! Additionally, Aspect Crystals are gone. When you hover over a Legendary item, there is a new icon to tell you if it will increase the Power in the Codex. by Salvaging it, you increase the Power, you no longer need to go to The Occultist.

There are up to 16 breakpoints for all powers (some have less; think Umbral). If you are lucky enough to find a high value or maxed out Power, you'll have it forever (on Eternal characters) or the length of the season (on Seasonal characters)! The Dev Team did mention you won't find a maxed value power in World Tiers 1 or 2. However, once maxed, the power's icon in the list gains a golden boarder. There are more ways to filter (including a favorites tab) along with a search function to easily find what you need.

Greater Affixes

A more powerful version of a normal Affix that rolls 150% of its normal amount. This is to make for a more exciting drop that is immediately obvious. These only appear on dropped Ancestral Legendaries and Uniques in World Tier 4. However, they can appear on Uber Uniques when you craft them. You can NOT enchant into a Greater Affix, and if you reroll a Greater Affix, you lose it.

Tempering

Tempering allows you to add new Affixes to your items. This is a new way to add truly different modifiers. Tempering is done through Temper Manuals.

Temper Manuals can be generic, such as a few recipes to add a Mobility Affix, add a specific Weapon only Affix or Class specific Affix. Temper Manuals are NOT consumed when used, you have them forever. There are 6 categories to chose from when selecting Temper Manuals:

• Weapons
• Offensive
• Defensive
• Utility
• Mobility
• Resource

You can only have 1 Temperd Affix from one catergory on an item at a time.

At the Blacksmith, you place a Legendary item into the UI and select a valid Temper Manual. You'll have 5 attempts to see if you get the right Affix from the Manual. It's a random chance, but you can get lucky. Sacred Legendaries can have 1 Tempered Affix while Ancestral Legendaries can have 2. You can NOT Temper Unique items.

Masterworking

This is a new late game crafting system to increase the Affix values of your gear over 12 individual upgrades. At ranks 4, 8 and 12 a larger bonus is applied to one Affix (which can includes Tempered Affixes) at random. These three larger bonuses can hit three separate Affixes, a single Affix twice and another once, or if you are lucky a single Affix all three times!

If you have gone through the Masterworking process with an item and don't like your outcome, you can reset the item (at a cost) and work through it again for a hopefully better outcome. Masterworking applies to Legendary and Unique items.

Masterworking along with Tempering do replace the current Armor/Weapon upgrading process in game now.

Class Updates

Many changes were discussed due to all the system updates coming to the game in Season 4. There is a high volume of meaningful changes coming to classes with this update. Also making flat damage powers more viable. Lastly, opening up the design space for more playstyles and options. What you see here is but the tip of the iceberg! Stay tuned for the PTR and Patch Notes.

General

Items

• 12 new Uniques are coming this season, two per class!
• Tyrael's Might is a new defensive Uber Unique!

• Tibault's Will damage is being reduced,
• Banished Lord's Talisman damage is being reduced.
• Elixir of Death Evasion is being removed from the game, Hardcore gets more Hardcore.

Skill Tags

• An example was given for Sorcerer (see section) but tags for different Sklills and ones like Mobility are being added all around.

Flate Damage Effects

• Damage ranges with current Powers do not scale. In Season 4, these ranges will now scale with your weapon damage.

Open Design

• Effects from Legendary Powers and Uniques may become less rescrictive or more general to allow players to use them in more ways and with more Skill options.
• There are a few skills that have been given a sort of secondary modifier, such as the Grenade Skills Deal Increase Damage on the Legendary shown. This appears on other like items to have another way to get damage or other capabilities out of your gear.

Barbarian

Changes

• Windlasher has been updated to proc more Dust Devils so players get more use out of this Power.

• Native 10% reduction - This is being removed.
• Charge, Hammer of the Ancients and Unbridled Rage effectiveness is being reduced as they have been very powerful.

Druid

Changes

• Druid Pets - Now inherit 100% of the player's stats.
• Prime Lacerate will now have both components of the current Prime Lacerate and Supreme Lacerate, with the new Supreme Lacerate gaining a simple conditional damage bonus.

Necromancer

Changes

• Necromancer Minions - Now inherit 100% of the player's stats.
• Book of the Dead - Selections have been improved in values and options.

Rogue

Changes

• Inner Sight - This option fell behind the power curve in comparison to other options. Now attacking non-marked enemies contributes a small amount to your gauge. Also, when full you gain 25% Critical Strike Chance for a better pay off.

Sorcerer

Changes

• Sorcerer Skill Tags - Mastery Skills are now tagged as Core Skills as well to give more options with current powers.
• Frozen Orb - Getting love in skill functionality with exploding where player cast it; not a set distance and a new Unique (Fractured Winterglass - Amulet) to help support it.

• Flame Shield - Has been resigned to suit Hardcore changes.

• Bug fixes - The Evade cooldown was erroneously triggering off ofUnstable Currents. Esu's Ferocity now only triggers off of Fire damage as intended.

Game Updates

Many different game systems are receiving large overhauls.

Experience

The Dev Team recognizes that the game is about what you do in the endgame, and with all the new systems coming in, they want to help you get there a little faster. With that, the following XP rate adjustments are coming in Season 4:

• World Tier 2 - 20% to 50%.
• World Tier 3 - 100% to 150%.
• World Tier 4 - 200% to 250%.

Helltide Updates

• Helltide now appears in World Tiers 1 & 2.
• Monster density has been increased. This was based on feedback from community with Season 2's Blood Harvest.
• Lots of ambushes and more dynamic monster spawns.
• A new threat meter is being added that ensure more ambushes as you fill it up. Once full, multiple ambushes will happen as your meter drains. This caps off with a final Hellborne spawning to take out. Once depleted, you can do it again.
• Hellborne can drop standard gear and summoning materials for Lord Zir.

Boss Summoning Material Updates

• Hellborne can drop summoning materials for Lord Zir.
• Tressure Goblins can drop a random summoning material.
• Opening a Whisper Cache can drop a random summoning material.
• Completing the Mastery Bonus for Local Events can drop a random summoning material.
• Elites have a very small chance to drop a random summoning material.

New Ladder Boss - Andariel

She has the same drop table as Duriel and you can gain the materials to summon her from defeating The Beast in the Ice and Lord Zir.

The Pit

A new experience crafted with feedback from the AoZ Event. You gain access to The Pit after completing a Nightmare Dungeon Tier 45 and obtain the quest. For the quest, you'll travel around the world to collect Runeshards to open your first Pit level.

You want to run The Pit to collect Stygian Stones, which are used to summon much higher version of the ladder bosses. The first time you defeat one of these much tougher bosses, you'll receive a Resplendent Spark. While similar to the AoZ, there have been a few key changes:

• You have 10 minutes to complete the run and kill the boss.
• Death is a penalty, not the end of your run. 30 seconds are added if you die.
• There are no Afflictions.
• There is no loot over the course of the run.
• Artificer's Mastery is a new goal to achieve for gaining Masterworking materials.
• Each floor has portals that connect one to another and eventually the boss room itself.
• There are 3 rarities of materials being Obducite, Ingolith, and Neathiron.

• Throughout the run and fighting the boss, a random attack from an echo of a different boss happens, increasing the danger and your ability to survive.

• Level 200 versions of the Ladder Bosses have a higher Uber Unique drop rate and drop more items.

Community Questions

All current items will be flagged as legacy, so they won't be able to work with the new systems. They will continue to be used on your character.

Masterworking increases the current value, so you can go beyond the max range.

In Season 4, the camera is more zoomed out! It will be a selection in the settings.

Team is excited to bring one to the game. It's something they all want to get done.

All things being talked about, nothing to talk about now beyond what was shown.

They still have the idea, but want to see where the current changes take us in scanning gear.

Only drop rates will increase, not the rate of getting Greater Affixes, etc.

Yes, you can group for The Pit

Nothing for the game right now. There are a lot of core system changes, so handling that first is important right now.

Powers in the Codex of Power are account wide, separated by Eternal vs Seasonal and Softcore vs. Hardcore. So, if your Seasonal Softcore character has a few powers unlocked, another Softcore character will have them, but not Hardcore or Eternal.

The Road to Season 4 Begins!

The Maxroll Diablo 4 Team is ready and will be blasting the Season 4 PTR to get all the key information for you. With this our Leveling Guides, Endgame Builds Guides, Resource Guides and Tools like D4Planner will be ever better for you at season start!

With that said, head over to our Discord and select the D4 role in #roles to stay up to date with our content development to make the most of your Seasonal experience!

Written by: Dredscythe

Reviewed by: Tenkiei