Diablo IV Is Nerfing One Of Its Most Popular Classes

Diablo IV is still a few months away, but Blizzard is already crushing some of the game’s most popular classes ahead of its June 6 release date. The studio published a new blog on its website reflecting on the game’s recent beta and shared what is essentially a full set of patch notes that it will implement ahead of Diablo IV’s launch. While there aren’t many hard numbers, you can at least get an idea of ​​where some of the game’s character classes will be by the time fans can play them again.

What is Blizzard doing to my precious little necromancer angel?

Late March, Blizzard said necromancers and wizards were the most popular classes among beta players. This was especially important for the Necromancer, as the class was only available during one of the game’s two testing periods, while the Sorcerer was available for both. Kotaku’s Levi Winslow has used Necromancer the most, and said the class was “really busted” thanks to his ability to revive dead skeletons to fight alongside them. While Blizzard’s new blog indicates that these dead minions will die more often, there are no specific numbers or any mention of a smaller skeletal headcount being imposed on players. The developer notes that the increased vulnerability of the dead will make raising them “a more active element” in the Necromancer’s game, rather than something you can just set and forget.

Sorcerer debuffs seem less comprehensive, with Chain Lightning dealing less damage and particularly reduced effectiveness against bosses. But beyond that, the class gets buffs with abilities like Charged Bolt and increased Lucky Hit chance for the Meteor Skill enchantment bonus.

While players will benefit from a few changes in the final game, some enemies will as well. The Butcher, an enemy who gave some players a hard time during beta, can be reworked before the game launches. The blog states that the team has “re-evaluated” the difficulty of the enemy, and that it “will present a greater challenge in World Tiers III and IV.” So it looks like it might get easier on the lower difficulties, but even harder on the higher ones.

What’s happening in the Diablo IV pre-release patch notes?

Beyond the balance changes, Blizzard is also tweaking the layout of Diablo IV’s dungeons to prevent rollbacks, which it says was a common complaint during betas. Here’s the full list of patch notes for the curious:

Layout of dungeons

One of the most common comments received by Blizzard is that players feel like they are 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 specifically in the Fractured Peaks area that have received layout updates: Caldera Gate Profiled Catacombs Derelict Lodge Forbidden City Hoarfrost Demise Immortal Emanation Kor Dragan Barracks Maulwood Rimescar Caverns

Developer Note: Our main focus with the layout changes was to reduce certain types of rollbacks that hurt a player’s experience. An example of this change is that players previously had to enter side rooms to interact with structure objectives, which required them to retread the same path. Now, many of our structure objectives have been repositioned along the main dungeon pathways, making them easier for players to reach and allowing them to easily explore the dungeon after defeating the structure.

Dungeon Events

The chance of an event appearing inside a dungeon has been increased from 10% to 60%.

dungeon game

To reduce the need to backtrack, a small number of scattered monsters will seek out the player to help them achieve the Kill All Monsters objective.

When the Animus is gathered, the player and nearby allies:

Gain 10 resources. Reduce all active cooldowns by 1 second. Animus drop time reduced from 3 seconds to 0 seconds. Rescue time reduced from 3 to 1.5 seconds. Ancient’s Statue, Bloodstone, Mechanical Box, or Stone Carving, you will receive a Momentum buff granting a 25% increase in movement speed to you and nearby allies. Pedestals had their channel time reduced from 2 seconds to 0 seconds. The pedestal now fully restores health, resources, potions, and resets cooldowns for all nearby players. All doors now ping the minimap when opened.

Developer’s Note: While our dungeons offer a variety of objectives to complete, player feedback indicated that completing each objective was tedious. We hope that providing bonuses, such as increased mobility while carrying certain objective items, will streamline and vary the objective completion experience. This adjustment is only a starting point, and we intend to extend this philosophy to keys in a future update.

General

Effects like Stun and Freeze can be applied to elite monsters twice as long before they become unstoppable. Class skills revised to confirm that all classes have access to enough skills that remove control impairing effects. Many Legendary Powers have had updates to their effectiveness.

Barbaric

Added flat 10% passive damage reduction for the Barbarian class. Some skill tree passives have had their damage reduction effects reduced to compensate. The Whirlwind skill now deals more damage and consumes more Fury.

Druid

Companion skills will now deal greatly increased damage. All ultimate skills have had their cooldowns reduced. Usability improvements have been made to Maul and Pulverize.

Necromancer

Summoned minions will die more often, forcing players to use corpses more often. Many Book of the Dead bonuses have had their stats increased. The damage inflicted by the skill Corpse Explosion has been reduced. The brightness of Skeleton Warriors and Mages has been reduced.

Thug

Subterfuge skill upgrades have had their bonuses increased. Several passive skills have had their bonuses increased. All Imbue skills have had their cooldowns increased.

Wizard

Charged Bolt damage increased and mana cost to cast decreased. Decreased Chain Lightning damage and reduced its effectiveness against bosses. Decreased the enchantment bonus cooldown of the skill Incinerate. Firewalls will now appear more frequently under enemies when using its enchantment bonus. .Increased lucky hit chance for Meteor skill enchantment bonus.

Developer’s Note: Whenever we make changes to our classes, it’s with the goal of making them impactful and powerful, as well as their skills. Your feedback has helped us maintain this ideal. Some players noticed that certain Skills were too powerful. One of our goals for skills is to make them interesting to wield and interactive in terms of items and combat feel. We’ve made a few changes to help with this, such as the Necromancer’s minions. We’ve made a change that makes them more vulnerable in combat, which will make raising the dead a more active part of Necromancer gameplay. Launch is just the first step in our class balancing journey, and you can expect more updates that iterate on this pillar of Diablo IV.

user interface

Fixed an issue where the embedded screen reader would not read key 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 Evade could not be bound to the right analog stick on the controller. Chat will now display on the left side of the screen when using the centered action bar configuration. A character’s stats will be displayed by default when players click the Materials and Stats button in their inventory. Movement and interact inputs can now be mapped to a 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.

Met

Fixed several issues that allowed bosses, such as the Butcher, to become unresponsive. The Butcher has been re-rated for difficulty and will present a greater challenge in World Tiers III and IV. were re-evaluated for character difficulty in melee, resulting in changes to attacks and combat mechanics.

Cellars

Increased the chance of a dungeon event occurring in caves. Vaults will now consistently reward a chest upon completion. Fixed an issue where caves would be prematurely marked as completed. Fixed an issue where the guaranteed elite monster would be missing from a cave.

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 caused Gale Valley and Serac Rapture to have fewer monsters than intended until campaign quests in those territories were completed.