The latest Campfire Chat is over, and that means we're one step closer to the next Diablo 4 update. As we mentioned in our previous blog, this patch will be a big one – notable enough to give it its own version number (more on that later). While the patch notes themselves hold all the nuts-and-bolts details you're after, below you'll find high-level explanations of some of our bigger changes and updates coming with this release.

 

• Class Changes and Legendary Powers
• Class-Specific Balancing
• The Gauntlet: A New Challenge
• Season 4 Sneak Peek

 

↖ Class Changes and Legendary Powers

 

Vampiric Powers Reimagined

Six Gnostic vampire powers return as legendary powers for any class.

• A Cursed Touch: Apply a Vulnerable effect based on lucky hit chance.
• Blood Boil: Great for overpower builds.
• Undying: Gain life on skill cast for survival.
• Metamorphosis: Provides consistent Unstoppable status.
• Moonrise: Big boon for basic attack builds.
• Hectic: Basic skill casts reduce cooldowns, which supports more build variety within Hectic's rotation window. 

 

Snapshotting Fix

This patch includes a significant change to how snapshotting bugs work; our goal is to fix them all so snapshotting can be removed entirely soon. 

 

The Gauntlet Changes

Gear, skills, and Paragon nodes will be locked during The Gauntlet runs to ensure fair play. 

 

↖ Class-Specific Balancing

• Barbarian: No nerfs to Charge; early game skills and certain ultimate cooldowns receive buffs.
• Sorceress: Incinerate gets damage and defense buff; conjuration skills and certain passives are improved.
• Druid: Basic skills are buffed for smoother leveling curve; companions (especially wolves) significantly strengthened.
• Rogue: Basic skills refined for better gameplay; flurry and Precision key passives tweaked for better performance.
• Necromancer: Overall buff to minions; new passives added for more mobility and damage. 

 

↖ The Gauntlet: A New Challenge

• Level 124 Enemies: The Gauntlet is meant to have similar difficulty to a tier 70 nightmare dungeon. 
• 8-Minute Timer: Proofs of Might are dropped by defeated enemies, so move quickly!
• Strategic Pathing: Move efficiently through the levels to maximize scoring potential.
• Death Penalty: Dying in The Gauntlet results in a 30% score loss, but it's recoverable (score and all) if you can get back to your body before the timer expires.

 

↖ Season 4 Sneak Peek

• PTR Announcement: For Season 4, we'll be launching our first Public Test Realm (PTR), which will allow players to try out upcoming changes early and give us their feedback. 
• Itemization Overhaul: General loot should feel much more rewarding.
• Uber Unique Crafting: Number of Sparks required for crafting an Uber Unique item reduced from five to four.

 

That's about all we can cover here without getting too detailed or repetitive with the patch notes themselves, but keep an eye out for those in the near future – along with lots more information on everything mentioned above as it becomes available! In the meantime, thanks again for stopping by, and look forward to seeing you in the game when these changes go live next week!