The familiar Diablo 4 experience has undergone a radical transformation. Blizzard’s extensive list of upcoming changes, set to debut with its next season and persisting into the future, touches nearly every aspect of the game. It’s as if a new game has emerged, cloaked in the guise of the one released less than a year ago.
Whether you lost interest early on or remained dedicated until now, Diablo 4 Season 4—set to launch on May 14—will redefine the process of character creation and evolution into formidable demon slayers. While a comprehensive list of updates will be revealed in Blizzard’s forthcoming patch notes, some of these changes may appear deceptively modest at first glance.
Outlined below are the five most significant alterations that will fundamentally alter your Diablo 4 experience. These changes will be available for playtesting on a PTR starting April 2.
1. The Process Of Leveling Up Will Be Accelerated Even Further Than Its Current Pace
Reaching Level 50 signifies the commencement of Diablo 4’s endgame, as it’s when your gear and build should begin to coalesce.
At this stage, your aim is to conquer the Capstone Dungeon and vanquish its boss to ascend to the next World Tier, where greater XP and superior loot await. While it already takes only a few hours to reach this milestone, the upcoming season promises even swifter progression.
During the recent stream, Associate Game Director Joe Piepiora briefly outlined Blizzard’s plans to enhance XP gains across World Tier difficulties. In the upcoming season, the XP bonuses for each World Tier will be as follows:
- For World Tier 2, the bonus XP has been increased to 50% from its previous 25%.
- In World Tier 3, the bonus XP has been boosted to 150%, up from 100%.
- Finally, in World Tier 4, the bonus XP has seen an increase to 250% from its former 200%.
While one could calculate XP rates per hour, the specifics are less relevant: Blizzard is evidently intent on propelling players into higher World Tiers swiftly, facilitating earlier access to its new endgame crafting systems. This benefits players seeking more potent loot drops without the need for weeks of level grinding.
Also Read: Everything We Currently Know About Diablo 4 Season 4! - Anticipated Changes & Additions
2. There Is No Need To Keep Every Legendary Item You Encounter
The impactful effects found on Legendary items, known as aspects, such as the one that causes sorcerers’ Ball Lightning to orbit around them, can significantly shape a build.
In Diablo 4’s initial aspect system, players were compelled to store Legendary items or their extracted aspects in their stash in order to transfer them onto new gear. Thankfully, this cumbersome process is now a thing of the past.
In Season 4, not only will gear replacements occur less frequently, but Legendary aspects will now permanently reside within your Codex of Power menu, valid for the duration of the season. Most aspects can randomly generate numerical values that determine the potency of the bonus, such as “Basic Skills gain 15 to 30% Attack Speed.” As you discover Legendary items with higher rolls of the aspect, salvaging them at the blacksmith will permanently increase the corresponding number in your Codex of Power. This allows you to imprint that aspect onto other gear pieces as desired, without the need to retain anything in your stash.
The risk associated with using a perfectly rolled aspect on a mediocre item will be eliminated, making it much easier to experiment with different combinations. It appears that Blizzard has streamlined this system to allow players to concentrate on Tempering and Masterworking Diablo 4 Items in the later stages of the game, where the core of item crafting lies.
3. Potent Items Will Be Abundant And Frequent In Their Occurrence
The quantity of redundant item drops in Diablo 4 is set to decrease significantly.
Blizzard has removed the restrictions on Uniques, allowing them to drop in World Tiers 1 and 2, while Uber Uniques can now even drop from level 55 or higher monsters. For instance, a Necromancer might chance upon the Black River scythe, triggering devastating corpse explosions, before reaching level 50. This means that thrilling builds relying on potent Uniques no longer have to wait until deep into the endgame.
Moreover, changes to item power, one of Diablo 4’s somewhat perplexing statistics, will render loot more meaningful. It’s disheartening to come across gear with feeble stats due to its low item power, especially as it becomes irrelevant for certain gear types over time. In Season 4, item power is being standardized to the extent that it becomes a non-issue.
Gear with maximum item power (925) will consistently drop from level 95 or higher monsters. Consequently, by approximately level 80, when you’re comfortably tackling Nightmare Dungeons in World Tier 4, item power becomes inconsequential. Instead, your focus will shift solely to evaluating the actual stats on the gear and determining whether they warrant upgrades.
4. A Significantly Greater Number Of Builds Will Become Viable
Diablo 4 introduces two innovative crafting systems—Tempering and Masterworking—that empower players to customize their items with specific stats.
Whether it's enhancing movement speed or incorporating class-specific attributes, such as granting a chance for a Necromancer's Bone Splinters to cast twice, your items will now reflect the stats that are most significant to your playstyle. While this may not initially seem groundbreaking, it dramatically expands the range of potential builds available.
Previously, Diablo 4's items constrained players to universally beneficial stats like cooldown reduction and critical strike chance, leading to certain builds dominating the meta. However, with the introduction of the new crafting systems, players have the freedom to choose which stats to prioritize and to what extent. For instance, a Rogue focusing on mobility, cooldown reduction, and grenade damage could heavily invest in stun grenades, leveraging an aspect that triggers them whenever evading—an approach that would have previously been dismissed. Similarly, Druids may now have the opportunity to excel with a viable minion build.
The flexibility afforded by these customizable stat choices brings Diablo 4 closer to Last Epoch, a game renowned for its extensive variety of viable builds. Even if players opt to follow a build guide, it will take considerable time to craft the theoretically "best" items, prompting them to weigh their personal preferences for stats along the journey. If executed successfully, Diablo 4 has the potential to become one of the most accessible action RPGs available.
5. The Endgame Won't Consist Solely Of A Marathon Of Boss Encounters
Blizzard's announcement of the new endgame dungeons in Season 4 was anything but subtle.
These dungeons, named The Pit of the Artificer, closely resemble Diablo 3's greater rifts: timed challenges that escalate in difficulty as you progress through tiers. The objective is akin to Nightmare Dungeons, emphasizing speed to reach the end for the chance of rare loot and materials. With over 100 tiers featuring increasingly formidable adversaries, the quality of loot improves as you ascend to higher levels.
Within The Pit, dungeons will yield items to summon "Tormented" bosses, who, upon defeat, drop materials for crafting an Uber Unique item of your choosing on your first kill. Additionally, the introduction of Andariel to the roster of normal bosses ensures players won't be locked into repetitively battling Duriel to obtain the rarest items in the game.
While Season 4's new endgame activities may not entirely address the issue of diminishing challenge in the open world over time, they inject much-needed variety into an area of the game that was stagnating. Moreover, with details still forthcoming about the season-specific features, it lays a promising foundation for revitalizing a segment of the game that had begun to feel monotonous.
