What you need to know
- Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred launches on October 7 or October 8 depending on your region, and will launch alongside Season 6: Season of Hatred Rising.
- The new Season will bring back the Realmwalkers from Diablo 3, in an activity for all players regardless of if they have purchased the expansion.
- Changes have been made following the Patch 2.0 Public Test Realm (PTR) as a result of community feedbacK, and we got to see more on the new Dark Citadel and Kurast Undercity game modes.
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred is days away from launch, in fact, you can preload the game right now! Today the developers sat down for a live stream to discuss the Season 6 theme 'Hatred Rising', post patch 2.0 Public Test Realm (PTR) changes, runewords, and more about the new content coming with the Vessel of Hatred expansion. Here's everything as it happened.
Season 6 will be the Season of Hatred Rising
Season 6 launches in tandem with the Vessel of Hatred, and will be named Season of Hatred Rising. The theme centers on how Mephisto's hatred is spilling outward from the new region of Nahantu. It will be effective across the whole of Sanctuary and available to play for all players regardless of whether you have purchased the expansion or not. All players in both seasonal and eternal realms will get:
- More skill points
- New Skills
- More Paragon Points
- New Legendary Glyphs
- New Legendaries, Uniques and Mythics
- Builds that hit levels of power we've never seen
- New Difficulty levels to challenge those builds
For the Season theme, we'll see 'Hatred Rising' events all over Sanctuary. These are zone events heralding the arrival of a Realmwalker. (Diablo 3 fans will recognize these from the Battlefields of Eternity).
- Cycles frequently between Regions
- Area will be corrupted by Hatred
- Monsters can ambush from portals
- Realmwalker will be burrowed during warm up time
Pocket realms of Hatred are accessed by a Realmwalker portal, containing brand new dungeon art from Vessel of Hatred. Inside you'll find Hatred-infested monsters, including a new Goblin.
Ruptures within these portals will lead to random bonus rooms, and finish with a Realm Gate which presents a choice of rewards.
Depending on your chosen reward, you'll receive a chest at the end of the event full of your chosen goodies. In addition to this you'll receive a Seething Opal.
These Seething Opals are a consumable which give you a buff, and they stack with Elixirs and Incense. Any Opal you use will get you Reputation with the Zakarum Remnants (this season's reward board).
The Zakarum Remnants
The Zakarum Remnants are a holy order languishing in Hawezar, and you'll find them and start your Seasonal quest in Zarbzinet. They are dedicated to the teachings of Akarat, and their order has been decimated by Mephisto's corruption. They are few in number, spread thin, and needing your aid.
The Zakarum Remnants will have a Reputation Board to complete, similar to the 'Mother's Gifts' in Season 5. Fighting Realmwalkers will increase your Reputation, but all activities will also increase it if you have a Seething Opal activated.
Post Patch 2.0 PTR learnings
The Patch 2.0 PTR ran earlier in September and allowed the community to test the new leveling system, difficulties, runewords, and other changes being implemented to the game when Vessel of Hatred launches. The team went through several things changed as a result of the feedback during this period.
Difficulty Changes
For Standard Difficulty Tiers, you will now be able to go straight to Penitent difficulty if you wish to. You do need to have completed the campaign at least once to have this unlocked.
Itemization Changes
- Masterworking - Non-Ancestral Legendaries may reach rank 8 (up from 4)
- Tempering - Non-Ancestral Legendaries may be Tempered twice
- Unique Item Drop Chance - the chance for a Unique item to drop as an Ancestral has been tripled
- Scrolls of Restoration in Season Journey - this scroll has been added to the final two stages of the Season Journey (for resetting Tempering chances on an item)
Player Power changes
The developers reiterated that all the best gear can be found in Torment 1, the only benefit of pushing the difficulty is the increased drop chance of those items. The new difficulties are a move away from the old system that pushed players to World Tier 4 to unlock the 'best gear'.
Paragon Updates
- More normal nodes to support legendary glyph radius upgrades.
- Rare and magic nodes adjusted to be more generically useful and powerful.
- Updated rare nodes across the board:
- Generally opening things up to be more usable
- Potion healing is now Healing received
- Damage reduction from DoT's is now just Damage Reduction - Doubled all additive bonuses on rare and magic nodes.
- Increased damage reduction values by 1.5x.
Infernal Hordes
Loot was dominating the reward landscape for this activity, without a reliable way to target farm Unique. Players were finding the constant opening of chests frustrating and tedious. Here are some improvements to address this:
- Keys are exclusively obtained via drops from a variety of activities.
- Council Boss always drops Infernal Hordes Unique items and dungeon boss loot, this scales with Torment difficulties.
- Chest of Greater Equipment now costs 200 Aether.
- Chest of Materials will convert all remaining Aether into materials (rather than spamming open).
- Chest of Gold remains unchanged.
Rewards
- Significantly increased Ancestral drop rates from Nightmare Dungeons and Whispers.
- Nightmare Dungeons provide experience on completion.
- Misc. buffs to loot (Hellborn, Butcher, World Boss, Treasure Goblin).
- Stronghold experience is now on first-time completion, experience adjusted from 2 levels to 1.25 levels.
- Non-legendary items auto-salvaged starting in Torment.
- Paragon Glyphs can now drop from the Pit.
Itemization and crafting
Mythic Unique crafting has been updated so that in each season everyone can craft at least ONE Mythic Unique, so 2 Resplendant Sparks will now get you a random, useable Ancestral Mythic Unique. Additionally:
- Resplendent Only crafting at the Blacksmith.
- Resplendent + Runes crafting at the Jeweler.
- 2 Resplendent Sparks + a set of runes creates a specific Ancestral Mythic Unique.
More changes...
- Large amounts of Common salvage can be used to forge random Legendary equipment at the Blacksmith (chance for Unique/Mythic).
- Sockets can now be added to gear with general salvage material.
- Scattered Prisms are required for Ancestral items.
- Jeweler no longer has a level requirement to use.
Class Updates
These are just an overview of the biggest changes, full Patch 2.0 and 2.0.1 notes are coming directly after the stream.
Runewords are being reworked
Several changes are being implemented to Runewords based on the performance in PTR. Legendary Runes were more powerful and only gave multiplicative damage leaving some runes with no usage and no long-term potential. Changes will be made to give players choices throughout their journey and make all of the runes competitive with a potential home in a build.
Some runes have been removed completely these are Ur, Ono, Met and Kaa.
The Spiritborn will undergo some changes for launch
While the Spiritborn was not available during the PTR, it was playtested at Gamescom 2024 and during other sessions and as a result of this testing some changes are being implemented for launch, including the addition of three new passives (pictured above).
Improvements have been made to the Jaguar Spirit Hall, and the 'spirit feathers' of the Eagle Spirit Hall.
Uniques
The developers showed off the final versions of the Spiritborn Uniques.
The Uniques can be farmed by each Boss in the Boss Ladder.
The Kurast Undercity
The Kurast Undercity is a new, intense multi-floor time-attack dungeon (try saying that 5 times real fast).
- Monsters and activities build reward upgrades
- Afflicted monsters yield time bonuses
The intention of The Kurast Undercity is to provide opportunistic content that allows for efficient progress towards specific goals. You'll be able to offer 'Tributes' at the start of the run to define your reward upgrades, at the cost of increasing the challenge of the run. Here are an example of some of the 'Tributes'.
Applying a Tribute unlocks the option to select a Bargain. These further customize the rewards at a varying Material cost.
The Kurast Undercity also contains a brand new goblin, the Portal Prankster, who will reward a Bonus Chest containing loot, runes and tributes.
The Dark Citadel
The Dark Citadel is a challenging 2-4-player activity, and you can find other players using the new Party Finder. This challenge will become available in Torment 1.
The Khazra have taken over the site of the Mage Clan Civil War, and the Dark Citadel will introduce a new monster family, The First Khazra.
- There will be a ping system to communicate with other players
- There will also be a combat log available
- Players can gain weekly Ancestral Rewards by completing the 3 dungeons inside
- Citadel Coins can be spent on consumables such as Incense, Elixirs and Scrolls. This includes the Scroll of Restoration for re-Tempering your gear.
- There is earnable cosmetic gear in Torment levels 1-3, with exclusive gear to be earned in Torment 4.
More on Mercenaries...
Mercenaries are followers that aid you in solo and multiplayer whether directly or as a 'reinforcement'. These will be unlocked by an in-game story quest. Each Mercenary has their own Skill tree which will unlock as you build Rapport with your Mercenaries.
Raheir The Shield Bearer
Subo The Bounty Hunter
Varyana The Berserker Crone
Aldkin The Forsaken Child
You can choose a Mercenary to Hire, and a Mercenary as a Reinforcement. The latter will be the only option available in multiplayer.
Reinforcements come to your aid at key moments in combat, you select the skill you want and the Opportunity that triggers it. Building Rapport with your Mercenary will also unlock rewards similar to the Reputation UI you will be familiar with from the Season quests.
There will also be a vendor at the Mercenary camp that you can barter with, using a currency called Pale Marks.
Community Questions and Answers
Q: How will crossplay work with players using the expansion and those not?
A: You can still play with friends who only have the base game. If you own the expansion on one platform and then jump to another platform that does not, you can still use the Runewords and equipment in the non-expansion game however you cannot access Nahantu.
Q: Will we get the Diablo 4 Campfire screen back?
A: We updated the character screen so it would be easier to add other classes, but we hear the fans on this and are talking about this.
Q: Will there be more Renown and Statues of Lilith?
A: There will be 'Tenents of Akarat' you can unlock towards Renown in Nahantu.
The developers also mentioned that The Gauntlet will be sunsetted when Season 6 starts but may be replaced later with a different activity.
Q: Are the new consumables going to take up inventory space?
A: They will be stackable, like Gems and Runes.
Q: How does the progression of Mercenaries carry over, within accounts and seasons?
A: If you unlock a Merc on a Season character that will progress across the Realm and on alts. These will reset each Season though.
Q: From a tuning and balance perspective is Pit 100 supposed to be unattainable?
A: We will be surprised if people hit Tier 100 in the Pit. We look forward to seeing who pushes this far.
Q: If you complete the campaign in the Eternal Realm, can you skip it in Seasonal.
A: There are options to skip both campaigns in both Eternal and Seasonal. If you want to join straight in with friends, you can, and there is a recap cutscene to watch to catch up with the story.
Q: What happens in Dark Citadel if a member of the group leaves?
A: It is balanced for 4 people, but if this drops you can still complete it. It will be difficult though!
Full patch notes for everything discussed in the stream today and MORE can be found on Blizzard's site here.
Release times around the world
