Diablo 4: Blizzard has made season 3’s most annoying mechanic less annoying

Blizzard launched patch 1.3.0a for Diablo 4 on Friday, the first update since the launch of the game’s third season, Season of Construct. While the patch does address a few bugs – including one that prevented players from completing seasonal quests – it actually mainly makes changes to many of the new features coming in the new season.

Considering Season 3 had only been live for three days at the time, you’ve got to wonder why these tweaks didn’t make it into the 1.3.0 release.

1.3.0a addresses several pain points that Diablo 4 players quickly discovered after Construct Season launched. First of all, the new Steward Companion doesn’t feel very powerful. While Blizzard isn’t directly tuning companions’ powers, it’s making it easier to level up by creating more sources of Control Stones and Tuning Stones – which ultimately determines the power of its attacks.

This is accomplished in several ways. Both types of stones can now be obtained by completing Whispers, and finding the highest level Control/Tuning Stone will now grant 150-200 Rubble. The Sons of Marfa boss will now always drop two to three Domination/Adjustment Stones, and Stewardship Stone chests will now always drop two stones.

To make it easier to interact with the system, crafting any stone now has a fixed cost of 200 gravel and 20 iron regardless of level. Also, the experience points required for any one gem has been reduced, meaning they will level up more consistently with players.

Returning to the boss fight, Echoes of Malphas was an unnecessary drain on resources. In particular, players complained about having to use their Guardian Pearl against bosses instead of its intended use to gain Zordon’s Guardianship. To solve this problem, Blizzard added a new item: Fire Nucleation.

Going forward, if you want to summon Marfa, this is what you’re going to use. To balance things out, Ma Alpha is now more difficult, although it does offer more rewards.

What this means in practice:

• Echo of Malphas level increased from 85 to 100.
• Echo of Malphas’ health increased by 30%.
• Igneous Cores have a chance to drop from the Sanctuary Herald and are guaranteed to drop from the Sons of Marfa on world level 4.
• Malphath’s unique gem drop rate increased from 0.25% to 0.5%.
• Unique stones now have a 3% chance to drop from treasure chests after bosses.
• Defeating Echoes of Malphas will now reward more legendary items. Additionally, items at item level 925 will drop more frequently.

Elsewhere in the patch, there have been some quality of life changes to the Sanctuary itself, as well as the world event Arcane Tremors. A Pearl of Protection will now grant ten levels of Zolthun’s Warding instead of three. You can also have 999 tiers of the same buff instead of just 300 tiers.

Since you often need to avoid being hit by traps, Blizzard is increasing the grace period for losing protection layers (when hit by multiple traps) from 1 second to 1.5 seconds. Regarding traps, the hitboxes for floor-based elemental grates and spike hazards have been reduced by 15%. Elemental Darts’ dangerous projectile speed has also been reduced by 20%. Finally, the elemental pillar’s jet hit range has been reduced by 15%.

At the end of the vault, you are now guaranteed to get a chest that will always drop Legendary Time, and a 35% chance of dropping another chest – although this only works from level 26 onwards. Likewise, the Marfa Herald now has a 100% chance of dropping one legendary item (level 26+), and a 15% chance of dropping another. Thankfully, everyone’s favorite pre-Obelisk Hazard knockback effect has been removed.

Read the rest of the patch notes below.

• Fixed an issue that prevented PlayStation players from displaying foyers on the map.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in being unable to interact with the brazier under certain circumstances during the “Drums of Sanctuary” mission.
• Fixed an issue where Druid players could not see the Summoning Thunder Horse trinket.
• Fixed an issue where the damage effects and visual effects of ground traps in the vault were out of sync.
• Various stability and performance improvements.