The first Campfire Chat about Season 5 is upon us and we’re liveblogging the whole event, so check back often for updates!
Season 5 will be the final season of Diablo 4. Season 6 should launch with the new expansion in October. We expect Blizzard to reveal more details about the season theme and class changes today.
PTR Details
- Season 5 PTR is PC/Battle.net only. It will run for 4 weeks. It’s going live next Tuesday.
- Patch notes will be going out after the stream.
- Blizzard incorporated a character copy feature for the upcoming testing.
- There will be a known issues list.
Season 5 Details
- Season 5 will run until October 8. Vessel of Hatred marks the start of Season 6.
Infernal Hordes
- The Infernal Hordes is a new wave-based feature available in Season 5 where we return back to hell. Our goal is to survive waves of attackers to summon a boss.
- In Infernal Hordes, mobs will drop a currency that you can use to unlock spoils at the end of your run.
- There is a chest that has a 100% chance to drop an item with a guaranteed 1 Greater Affix.
- Now let’s look at some of the rewards, here we have a Druid Staf, a Barbarian Sword, a Necro Dagger, a Rogue Dagger, and a Sorc Staff.
- All classes can earn a new pair of boots.
- You can earn 10 uniques and 20 legendaries from Infernal Hordes.
- Infernal Hordes have 8 tiers of difficulty.
- Legendary Powers can be targeted in the Infernal Hordes.
- Blizzard is adding over 50 uniques and legendaries in Season 5.
Quality-of-Life Updates
- You can target farm Uniques from 3 additional sources: Obol vendors, Helltide chests, and Whisper caches.
- This is also true for Mythic Uniques! If you get a Mythic Unique from a non-slot target, then you’ll get a random one.
- All existing uniques will be updated when Season 5 starts.
- The role of Uniques is to direct players to builds. Uniques are powerful items that are easy to evaluate once the player picks up the items. Uniques are rare chae items that players don’t see very often.
Changes to Uniques in Season 5
- Players build their Legendaries. Players build around their Uniques.
- They want players to run 2-4 Uniques in their build, currently, it’s like 0-3, so they want to make them more attractive.
- They want to move away from generic “fits all builds” style of Uniques.
Blizzard is updating Uniques in two ways:
- Increasing the upper power of Unique effects and the roll range from an average of 10 to 20 rolls.
- Example: Old Unique that increased damage dealt was between x40-80%, now can be x40-100% or x40-120%.
- Updating stat affixes: Change stats to fit with Season 4 updates.
- Simplify stats when appropriate.
- Add Tempering stats.
- Example: A 2H Weapon Unique will more likely have bonus Projectiles to compete with Tempered weapons.
- Update stat power levels and effects:
- Stats that fit the theme of the Uniques are better (Example: Fire damage on
- a Fire Unique).
- Stats that are generically good and don’t fit the theme of the Unique don’t have higher values (Example: +Damage).
- Mythic Uniques will have a new sound, color beam, and item UI.
General Updates
- Invulnerability Skills now start their cooldown when the Invulnerability ends instead of when the skill begins. This is to prevent infinite Invulnerability and to open design space for these skills.
- Reviewed monster CC, generally reduced CC duration and frequency.
- Potions can be used while CC’d (even while Stunned!)
Barbarian Changes
- A new Unique for Support Barbarians is coming!
Rogue Changes
- Flurry, Improved Flurry, and Advanced Flurry have changed.
Druid Changes
- Moving power of Shepherd’s Aspects to buff Companions instead of the player.
- Lots of buffs to Druid skills to compensate.
Sorcerer Changes
- A Chain Lightning unique has been added called Axian Conduit. Chain Lightning will periodically return to you and attack enemies and drain mana. It ends with an explosion that deals high damage.
Necromancer Changes
- Golems will leap to an area and hulk-smash enemies.
Helltide & Whispers Update
- Ideally, they wanted these to be an opportunity for players to drop in and gain a bunch of value in 15 minutes.
- Instead, they have been about 30-45 minutes which missed the goal.
- They have now made Helltide Whispers chunkier.
- Now there are 10 points in 1 Helltide zone and should take 15 minutes to clear.
- You can use Whisper Caches to target farm Uniques.
Baneful Hearts
- Heart drop rates used to summon the Blood Maiden have been nerfed in the Season 5 patch.
Tempering
- The developers are looking at ways for players to have more control over the RNG in the future.
- Currently, the RNG is completely out of players’ hands, which doesn’t feel great.
- For Season 5 they’re adding +1 Tempering roll per Greater Affixes.
Weapons
- They’ve looked at inherent affixes on weapons and decided to change them.
- They’ve updated class restrictions on Weapons.
- Druids can use 2H polearms, 1h Swords, and Daggers.
- Sorcerer can use 1H Swords and 1H Maces.
- Necromancer: All Maces & Axes
Beast In Ice
- You no longer have to summon the Beast In Ice. The Beast now lives in a standard dungeon. The crawl to find the boss has been removed. Eternal Players can still activate existing Sigils to the fight boss.
Varshan
- The number of body parts needed to summon is 1, used to be 4.
Resummoning Bosses
- You can resummon all endgame bosses without having to leave the dungeon.
Q&A Time!
- Druid and Sorc are getting buffed in Season 5 with more details coming in the patch notes after the stream.
- With Season 5 they want to build the endgame. On the PTR you will be testing the Eternal version of Infernal Hordes.
- Eternal Hordes will be available as an endgame feature from Season 5 onward, they don’t plan to remove it.
- Tier 8 of Infernal Hordes is equivalent to Pit 180-200.
- The team is working on loadouts but it’s a huge undertaking and takes time.
