DiabloIV It’s still a few months away, but Blizzard is already stomping down some of the game’s most popular classes ahead of the June 6 release date. The studio has published a new blog on its website reflecting on the game’s recent beta and shared what is basically a full set of patch notes it will implement ahead of time DiabloIV‘s launch. While there aren’t many hard numbers to go by, you can at least get a sense of where some of the game’s character classes will be when fans get to play them again.
What is Blizzard doing with my precious baby angel Necromancer?
Late March blizzard said Necromancer and Wizard are the most popular classes among the beta players. This was especially important for Necromancers, since the class was only available during one of the game’s two testing periods, while the Sorcerer was available for both. my city‘s own Levi Winslow used Necromancer most often, and said the class was ‘really broken’ thanks to his ability to revive dead skeletons to fight alongside them. While Blizzard’s new blog says these dead minions will die more often, there aren’t any concrete numbers or evidence that lower skeletal counts will be forced upon players. The developer notes that the increased vulnerability of the dead will make their resurrection a “more active component” of playing the Necromancer, rather than something you can just set and forget.
The Sorcerer’s debuffs seem less all-encompassing as Chain Lightning deals less damage and is less effective specifically against boss characters. In addition, the class gains some buffs with abilities like Charged Bolt and an increased lucky hit chance for the Meteor ability’s enchantment bonus.
While players will experience some changes in the final game, so will some enemies. The butcher, an enemy who gave some players a rough time during the beta, may be revised before the game launches. The blog notes that the team has “re-evaluated” the enemy’s difficulty and he “will pose a greater challenge in World Tiers III and IV.” So it sounds like it gets easier on lower difficulties, but even harder on higher ones.
What happens in the DiabloIV Pre-Release Patch Notes?
Aside from balance changes, Blizzard is also optimizing DiabloIV‘s dungeon layouts to avoid backtracking, which was reportedly a common complaint during the betas. Here is the full list of patch notes for the curious:
dungeon layouts
- One of the most common feedbacks Blizzard received was that players felt they were backtracking a lot in certain dungeons. The team optimized several dungeons across all zones to minimize the need for backtracking. Here is a list of dungeons specific to the Fractured Peaks zone that have received layout updates:
- Caldera Gate
- Contaminated catacombs
- Derelict lodge
- Forbidden City
- hoarfrost sinking
- Immortal Emanation
- Kor-Dragan Barracks
- mulch
- Rimescar Caves
Developer Note: Our primary goal with the layout changes was to reduce certain types of backtracking that detract from a player’s experience. An example of this change is that players used to have to enter side rooms to interact with structure targets, causing them to go through the same path again. Now many of our structure objectives have been repositioned along the main dungeon paths to make them easier for players to reach and allow them to easily explore the dungeon after defeating the structure.
dungeon events
- Increased the chance for an event to spawn in a dungeon from 10% to 60%.
dungeon gameplay
- To reduce the need to backtrack, a small number of roaming monsters will seek out the player to help them complete the “Kill all monsters” objective.
When Animus is gathered, the player and nearby allies will:
- Gain 10 resources.
- Reduces all active cooldowns by 1 second.
- Animus channel time reduced from 3 seconds to 0 seconds.
- Time to rescue reduced from 3 to 1.5 seconds.
- All rescue objectives now drop a health potion upon completion.
- While holding the Ancient One’s Statue, Bloodstone, Mechanical Box, or Stone Carving, you gain a Momentum bonus, granting you and nearby allies a 25% increase in movement speed.
- Socket channeling time reduced from 2 seconds to 0 seconds.
- Replacing a wearable on its socket now fully restores health, resources, and potions, and resets cooldowns for all nearby players.
- All doors now generate a minimap ping when opened.
- All structure objectives in dungeons now have additional combat mechanics that players must overcome.
Developer Note: While our dungeons offer a variety of objectives to complete, player feedback indicated that completing each objective felt tedious. We hope that providing bonuses such as B. Increasing mobility when carrying certain target items will optimize and diversify experience when completing objectives. This customization is just a starting point, and we plan to extend this philosophy to keys in a future update.
Generally
- Effects like Stun and Freeze can last twice as long on Elite monsters before they become unstoppable.
- Checked class skills to confirm that all classes have access to sufficient skills that remove control-impairing effects.
- Many Legendary Powers have had their effectiveness updated.
barbarian
- Added a flat 10% passive damage reduction to the Barbarian class. Some passive skill trees have had their damage reduction effects reduced to compensate.
- Whirlwind ability now deals more damage and consumes more Rage.
- The Double Swing Skill Enhancement refunds its full rage cost when used on stunned or knocked down enemies.
Druid
- Companion abilities now deal greatly increased damage.
- All ultimate ability cooldowns have been reduced.
- Usability improvements have been made to Crush and Pulverize.
- Using a non-shapeshift ability transforms a druid back into human form.
necromancer
- Summoned minions die more often, requiring players to use corpses more often.
- Many bonuses in the Book of the Dead have had their values increased.
- The damage dealt by the Corpse Blast skill has been reduced.
- The brightness of the skeleton warriors and mages has been reduced.
villain
- Dodge skill upgrade bonuses have been increased.
- Several passive skills have had their bonuses increased.
- All Imbuement abilities have had their cooldowns increased.
wizard
- Charged Lightning’s damage has been increased and the mana cost to cast has been reduced.
- Chain Lightning’s damage and effectiveness against bosses have been reduced.
- The cooldown for the enchantment bonus of the Incinerate skill has been reduced.
- Firewalls now spawn more frequently under enemies when using the Enchantment Perk.
- Increased the lucky hit chance for the Meteor skill’s enchantment bonus.
Developer’s Note: Whenever we make changes to our classes, it’s with the goal of making both them and their abilities feel impactful and powerful – your feedback has helped us maintain that ideal. Some players cleverly noticed that certain abilities were too powerful. One of our goals for skills is to make them interesting to use and interactive in terms of items and combat feel. We’ve made some changes to help in this regard, one example being the Necromancer’s minions. We’ve made a change that makes them more vulnerable in combat, making raising the dead a more active component of the Necromancer’s gameplay. The release is just the first step in our class balance journey, and you can expect more updates based on this pillar of Diablo IV.
user interface
- Fixed an issue where the built-in screen reader would not read prompts, game option details, and other UI text.
- Fixed an issue where actions could not be bound to the mouse wheel.
- Fixed an issue where dodge would not bind to the correct analog stick on the controller.
- Chat is now displayed on the left side of the screen when using the centered action bar configuration.
- A character’s stats are displayed by default when players click the Materials & Stats button in their inventory.
- The Move and Interact inputs can now be mapped to one button, while the Primary Attack input is mapped to a secondary button.
- The sans serif font used in the game has been replaced with a new serif font.
encounters
- Fixed several issues that caused bosses like the Butcher to become unresponsive.
- The Butcher has been re-rated for difficulty and will be more challenging in World Tiers III and IV.
- Bosses like T’chort, Malnok, Vhenard, and others have been re-rated for melee character difficulty, resulting in changes to attacks and combat mechanics.
- Fixed an issue where Vampire Brutes using the Shadow Enchantment affix would cast Impale in a chain.
basement, cellar
- Increased the chance for a dungeon event to occur in basements.
- Basements now consistently reward a chest upon completion.
- Fixed an issue where basements were marked as complete prematurely.
- Fixed an issue where the guaranteed elite monster was missing from a basement.
General quality of life
- Fixed an issue where players could increase attack speed by canceling attacks early.
- Fixed an issue where characters were not immune and untargetable after loading into an area.
- The Reset Dungeon button has been disabled.
- Fixed an issue that resulted in Gale Valley and Serac Rapture having fewer monsters than intended until completing the campaign quests in those areas.
