Diablo 4 Season 4: Loot Reborn preview
In this Diablo 4 Season 4: Loot Reborn preview, we are going to be taking a look at everything coming up in the next season of Diablo 4, following Season 3: Season of the Construct. This season is looking to change a bunch of content, like completely overhauling core game systems on itemization, Hell Tides getting a rework, Andariel joining the fray, The Pit of Artificers and more. It’s also adding the new season theme The Iron Wolves, but it looks like the seasonal content is taking a step back so that the base game mechanics are fully overhauled. Without further ado, let’s check the patch out!
Starting off with the changes to itemization, items are going to be changed to simplify the process of identifying item upgrades when they drop. Items now drop with less affixes on them, and conditional affixes that only apply to specific situations (e.g. damage against non-elites) will no longer drop. Some examples of affixes that aren’t conditional are damage bonuses, intelligence points, summoning damage, core ability points etc.. The values for all of these stats have been buffed to make them feel more powerful. Some people may feel like this dumbs the game down too much, but personally I felt like a lot of conditionals were pretty useless, so not having them in the drop pool is a welcome change.
There are also new affix types that can be found on items. One of these is a Greater Affix, an affix indicated by a star which will only appear randomly on Ancestral, Legendary and Unique Items in WT3 and WT4. These affixes are 1.5x stronger than a normal affix, so they are definitely worth looking out for as they have a good amount of extra impact.
There are also new Tempered Stats, indicated by an anvil icon. These can be crafted onto non-unique items via Blacksmiths, using the various Tempering Manuals which can be found throughout Sanctuary. Some of these affixes are particularly special, such as a chance for Bone Spear to cast twice, so these will be pretty significant for itemization.
The upgrade system has been replaced with a masterwork system that improves all affixes and base damage on a weapon, and on the 4th upgrade, massively upgrades one of your equipped affixes. There are 12 masterwork tiers for an item, so you will be able to upgrade affixes 3 times for every item. Keep in mind that you can upgrade the same affix all 3 times, so focusing on one affix may be more effective than spreading out the upgrades. If you regret any masterworking choice you made, you can reset the masterwork tier to level it from the ground up again.
Another big change to items is the legendary aspect system. Instead of Extracting Aspects from Legendary items to be used later as a one time use, aspects will now be stored in the Codex of Power indefinitely. There will still be rolls on aspects, so you can add rolls to the codex until you get a max roll which you can use infinitely. This is probably my favourite change, since it means I don’t have to fill my storage with armour items and legendary aspects that I want to use later, which is simply just convenient.
These changes to items also come with a decreased item drop rate from enemies, with the aim of decreasing your time spent sorting loot, and increasing time spent in combat. Items that do drop are likely to be more valuable. Materials gained from Salvaging and Crafting have been adjusted for the decreased drop rate, and the materials needed for anything at the Blacksmith has been reduced.
World Tiers are also now more divided, with sacred gear only dropping in World Tier III, and Ancestral items only appearing in World Tier IV. Some uniques can now also drop in World Tier I, and uber uniques will start dropping when fighting against level 55+ monsters.
The reimagined helltide is inspired by the well received Vampiric Blood Harvest from the Season of Blood. As you fight and open chests in the Helltide, you will accrue “Threat” based on the difficulty of defeated monsters and the frequency of opening Tortured Gifts. This Threat progresses through three levels, which increases enemy spawn frequency and danger. At Level 3, players become “Hell-Marked,” triggering a frenzied attack by densely packed monsters, followed by a Hellborn—an immensely powerful, fallen warrior representing one of the classes from Diablo IV. This cycle resets after the Hellborn is defeated or the player dies.
Upon killing a Hellborn, you can acquire the special seasonal elixir “Profane Mindcage”, which temporarily increases the level of Helltide monsters by 10 and enhances Cinder drop rates, although the effects diminish as players approach the level cap. It’s worth noting here that Forgotten Souls are no longer a helltide only item, as they can now be obtained from Whisper bounties and as a rare drop from any Elite.
Another upcoming event for Helltide is the “Accursed Ritual,” which can be found as a cultist ritual with 3 beheaded cultists. You collect 3 “Baneful Hearts” from Tortured Gifts and Fallen Hellborn to initiate the ritual, which begins a swarm of demons and eventually the big bad demon, the Blood Maiden. If you add more hearts to the ritual, you can get increased rewards which is a nice bonus.
Next up is the Pit of Artificers, another permanent change to the Diablo 4 world being added to both the Seasonal Realm and the Eternal Realm.
“There are rumours that there are strange varieties of ore deep within the network of dungeons crisscrossing the north of Sanctuary, perfect for crafting exceptionally-made armour using secret Horadric techniques. However, the horrors that lay in wait for intrepid wanderers seeking to unearth these riches are unspeakably terrible.”
Once you reach World Tier IV, you will unlock a quest to complete a Tier 46 dungeon to unlock the Pit of Artificers. To play the event, you’ll need to find rune shards from various activities like Hell Tides, Legion and Whisper bounties. Once you have enough, you can go to the Obelisk in Cerrigar to begin the 10 minute challenge, killing hordes of enemies to spawn in a final boss. Once you beat the final boss, you get special materials necessary for Masterworking your weapons, and you can proceed to the next tier of the pit. You can get all the way up to tier 200 if you can manage your time well, with higher tiers rewarding you with Stygian Stones used for summoning Tormented Echoes; Level 200 variants of the summonable bosses found in Diablo IV. If the gameplay structure for Pit of Artificers sounds familiar, that’s because it’s kind of like the Abattoir of Zir event from the Midwinter Blight, only now as a permanent event.
You can enter the pit in groups of up to four players, but every time the host or other party members die, your time to kill the hordes is shortened; the first death removes 30 seconds, second death removes 60 seconds, and any subsequent deaths will remove 90 seconds. As such, you probably don’t want to bring any deadweight with you for the purpose of leveling their characters or anything like that, since you may end up wasting all of your runeshards.
The player who spends the Rune Shards to open the Pit earns the lion’s share of materials. Only the player who opened The Pit has the chance to receive Stygian Stones used for summoning Tormented Echoes—Level 200 variants of the summonable bosses. The further you descend into levels of The Pit, the more frequent these Stygian Stones will appear.
Going into more depth on the Tormented Echoes, this event features the return of Andariel, and is another piece of permanent content that will be on eternal and seasonal realms. She has the same Uber Unique drop rate as Duriel, and can be found in the Hanged Man’s Hall to be summoned for materials from Zir and Beast in Ice.
Tormented Echoes are level 200 versions of summonable bosses, namely Zir or Andariel. As mentioned before, you will need Stygian Stones from the Pit of Artificers in order to summon them, but they yield great rewards that make it well worth obtaining.
Moving on, let’s talk about the actual seasonal content of the game. It looks like in contrast to Season 3, Blizzard has opted to tone the new seasonal content down in terms of scale in favour of adding huge changes to the base game. This season, you’ll be fighting with the Iron Wolves, a band of noble mercenaries set up in Khejistan who aim to protect the people of Sanctuary. If you work with the Iron Wolves to investigate the mysterious deaths of their members, you will be rewarded with special Tempering Manuals to add new affixes to your items.
So that wraps up all the upcoming content this season. I definitely feel like going into the game on the official launch will be like playing an entirely different game, with the massive changes to itemisation shaking up the stale formula pretty well. It’s unfortunate that this seasons content is lacking a bit as a result, but all in all it’s probably a good thing since we can expect more season specific content in Season 5, and on top of that have the fresh base mechanics.
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