Diablo 4 has received its first big patch, with a focus on balancing the five starting classes players can choose from to defeat Lilith and save Sanctuary.
Blizzard shared the patch notes and the reasoning behind the changes. blog, and shared that the team is mostly happy with the character’s current state. However, the team recognizes that “there is always room for improvement.” To that end, we made it clear that these changes fall into her three categories.
- While we want players to feel their true strength, some class builds and synergies are beyond reasonable limits for game health, so their effectiveness are reducing. As an example, we generally want to avoid creating situations where players can endure unreasonably large amounts of damage for an extended period of time. This is because it distorts too much the vision of what combat should be in Diablo IV.
- Some skills and builds aren’t as effective as we’d like them to be, so we’re applying some buffs to increase their strength.
- Paragon Glyph currently provides players with a lot of power, so we’re reducing its overall effectiveness.
Blizzard also understands that “class balance is a journey, not a destination”, so it’s important to note that further balancing changes are clearly on the horizon. Blizzard hopes these will make class building “fun, powerful, and reasonably competitive.”
For this particular patch, we reduced Barbarian’s Challenging Shout damage reduction from skill ranks from 4% to 2%, increased Druid’s Lightning Storm damage from 32% to 40%, and increased Necromancer’s Army of the Dead damage reduction to Decreased from 30% to 45%, cooldown decreased from 90s to 70s, damage reduction per shadow gained from Rogue’s Dark Shroud decreased from 0.8% to 0.4%, Sorcerer’s Arc Rush lucky hit Chance reduced from 30. % to 14%, while also reducing the cooldown reduction of Glinting Arc Lash from 0.25s to 0.15s.
There are many other changes worth noting. You can check it all out below. Let us know in the comments below if you’re happy with these changes, or if they affect the character you’re trying to build.
For more details, check out our Diablo 4 review, insights on which class to choose, and our extensive Diablo 4 Wiki, which contains everything you need to save Sanctuary and have a good time.
savage
skill change
a challenging shout
- Reduced damage reduction by skill rank from 4% to 2%
Changes to Legendary Aspects
Aspects of the Brave Chieftain
- Cooldown reduction per nearby enemy decreased from 2.7-5.4 seconds to 1.0-1.9 seconds.
- Max cooldown reduced from 12s to 6s.
Disastrous Whirlwind Aspect
- Reduced critical strike chance per second from 5-10% to 3-8%.
- Decreased maximum critical hit chance bonus from 20-40% to 9-24%.
item change
Gore’s Destructive Grip
- Explosive damage gained from Whirlwind decreased from 50-70% to 16-26%.
- Damage against destructible objects no longer increases explosive damage.
- Explosive damage is only increased by the first 100 hits of Whirlwind.
druid
skill change
Smash
- Lucky hit chance decreased from 33% to 25%.
lightning storm
- Damage increased from 32% to 40%.
Grizzly Rage
- Decreased maximum extended duration on kills from 10s to 5s.
class specialization
obsidian slum
- Kills required for bonus increased from 10 to 20.
calm before the storm
- Lucky hit chance decreased from 15% to 10%.
passive change
electric shock
- Damage bonus increased from 5/10/15% to 6/12/18%.
Changes to Legendary Aspects
shockwave aspect
- Reduced damage from 90-130% to 60-100%.
Crush Stone Aspect
- Critical strike damage reduced from 40-50% to 30-40%.
Lightning Dancer Side
- Flat damage increased from .5-.6 to .7-.8.
necromancer
skill change
blood lance
- Damage increased from 67.5% to 80%.
army of the dead
- Damage increased from 30% to 45%.
- Cooldown reduced from 90s to 70s.
blood wave
- Damage increased from 90% to 120%.
passive change
shadow blight
- Damage increased from 20% to 22%.
harsh harvest
- Essence gained reduced from 3/6/9 to 2/4/6.
Serration
- Critical strike chance reduced from .5/1/1.5% to .3/.6/.9%.
death defense
- Reduced maximum minion life lost in a single hit from 75/60/45% to 60/45/30%.
class specialization
raise the skeleton
- Skeleton Warrior attack damage increased by 10%.
Golem
- Golem attack damage increased by 10%.
blood golem
- Blood Golem life drain damage increased from 40% to 90%.
- Increased enemy life drain heal from Blood Golem attacks from 4% to 5%.
iron golem
- Increased Iron Golem slam damage from 25% to 175%.
- Increased iron golem shockwave damage from 30% to 40%.
Changes to the Necromancer Paragon Board
giant monster
- Golem life and damage bonus increased from 30% to 40% of life.
cult leader
- Damage bonus increased from 10% to 15%.
Rogue
skill change
twisted blade
- Advanced Twisting Blades Reduced cooldown reduction per enemy hit from 0.25s to 0.1s.
- Advanced Twisting Blades max cooldown reduction reduced from 3s to 2s.
rapid fire
- Damage increased from 24% to 30%.
dark shroud
- Reduced damage reduction per shadow from skill ranks from 0.8% to 0.4%.
dash
- Increased dash critical strike damage bonus from 20% to 15%.
Caltrops
- Damage increased from 30% to 40%.
passive change
concussive
- Critical strike chance reduced from 5/10/15% to 4/8/12%.
Legendary Affix Changes
repetition
- Reduced maximum minion life lost in a single hit from 75/60/45% to 60/45/30%.
magician
skill change
arc rush
- Lucky hit chance decreased from 30% to 14%.
- Glinting Arc Lash cooldown reduction reduced from 0.25s to 0.15s.
Teleport
- Shimmering Teleport’s damage mitigation duration has been reduced from 5s to 3s.
Legendary Affix Changes
aspects of control
- Bonus damage reduced from 30-40% to 25-35%.
Universal
Other class changes
Druid Allies and Necromancer Minions
- Reduced maximum damage taken over time from 2% to 1% of maximum life per damage instance.
Paragon board change
Rare node
- Decreased player attack speed nodes by 50%.
Glyph
- All Glyph Bonus scaling has been reduced by up to 34% except:
- Critical Strike Damage Glyph bonus reduced by ~66%.
- Vulnerable Glyph bonus reduced by ~66%.
- Glyph bonus to rare nodes has been reduced by ~50%.
- Glyph’s bonus to Magic nodes has been reduced by ~40%.
- Glyph bonus against Cold/Fire/Lightning/Non-Physical/Physical nodes reduced by ~62.5%.
monster change
- Greatly reduced the spawn rate of Treasure Goblins in PvP zones.
Bug fixes
- Fixed name of light bearer mount.
- Wardrobe “Go to Shop” button now properly opens the shop.
- Fixed sorcerers being permanently stunned when using Deep Freeze and being affected by another freezing effect.
- Miscellaneous stability and crash fixes.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @Adam Bankhurst and further Twitching.
