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Ahead of its official launch on June 6, Blizzard has been busy making adjustments to several aspects of Diablo 4. These are areas that players had the biggest issues with back in the beta periods.
First up, Blizzard says that one of the most common pieces of feedback they received had to do with the amount of backtracking. This was especially apparent throughout several dungeons featured in the beta. To that end, Blizzard has already made adjustments to reduce the amount of backtracking in several dungeons. These adjusted dungeons include: Caldera Gate, Defiled Catacombs, Derelict Lodge, Forbidden City, Hoarfrost Demise, Immortal Emanation, Kor Dragon Barracks, Maulwood, and Rimescar Caverns.
Our primary goal with the Layout changes was to reduce certain kinds of backtracking which detract from a player’s experience. An example of this change is that players previously needed to enter side rooms to interact with Structure Objectives, causing them to retread the same path. Now, many of our Structure Objectives have been repositioned along main dungeon pathways, making them easier for players to reach and allowing them to readily explore the dungeon after defeating the Structure.
Several other quality of life adjustments are being made to dungeons. These include forcing the last few monsters to seek out the player when there is a "Kill All Monsters" objective. The channel time for depositing Animus was reduced from 3 seconds to 0 seconds. Rescue time is going from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds and completion of Rescue objectives will now drop a Health Potion.
Classes are also getting some changes. For example, the Barbarian is now getting a 10% passive damage reduction but its Whirlwind skill now does more damage at the cost of more Fury.
Companion skills for Druids now do way more damage, Ultimate cooldowns have been reduced, the Maul and Pulverize have been improved, and using any non-shapeshifting skill will now transform the Druid back into a human.
Summoned minions for the Necromancer will die more often. Book of the Dead stat bonuses have been increased, the Corpse Explosion skill now does lower damage, and the brightness of Skeletal Warriors and Mages has been lowered.
For you Rogues out there, note that Subterfuge has been buffed. There are also some improvements being made to multiple passive skills. All Imbuement skills have had their cooldowns increased.
Charged Bolt damage for Sorcerers have been increased and the mana cost reduced. Chain Lightning damage has been reduced and the Incinerate skill enchantment bonus has also been reduced. The Firewall ability will now spawn underneath enemies more frequently when using the enchantment bonus. The Lucky Hit chance has also been increased for the Meteor's enchantment bonus.
Whenever we introduce changes to our Classes, it is with the goal of making both them and their Skills feel impactful and powerful—your feedback has helped us uphold this ideal. Some players have adeptly noticed that certain Skills were too powerful. One of our goals for Skills is to have them be interesting to wield and interactive in terms of itemization and combat feel. We've made some changes to help in this regard, with one example being 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 component of the Necromancer's gameplay.
Launch is just the first step of our Class balance journey, and you can expect further updates that iterate on this pillar of Diablo IV.​
Launch is just the first step of our Class balance journey, and you can expect further updates that iterate on this pillar of Diablo IV.​
Several additional changes have been made to the user interface, dungeons, and more that were not mentioned here. Be sure to hit up Blizzard.com for the full details.
