Diablo 4's first live season, known as the Season of the Malignant, is mere days away from launch, and Blizzard has released a hefty patch to prepare for its coming. Amongst many, many changes (the patch notes weigh in at 5k words), the intent appears to be a general curbing of power across every class in the game, with community favourite Barbarian (Whirlwind, Hammer of the Ancients) and Sorcerer (Devouring Blaze) builds being particularly savaged.
The entire list of changes is far too extensive to get into here, plus we haven't had a chance to boot it up for ourselves since it dropped, but looking around, reactions seem mixed at best. It's admittedly never nice to see the build you poured your blood, sweat, and tears into getting struck down by the all-powerful hand of developer meddling, but this is Blizzard's world, after all; we just frolic about in it.
Was your own build hit by the latest patch? Are you looking forward to the launch of Season of the Malignant? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source news.blizzard.com]
Comments 34
Blizzard's nerfs are worth it just to upset Destin.
Things needed buffed not nerfed, the Sorc class is even worse now.
They need to overhaul the entire itemization in my opinion. Sorry if I'm not excited for a 2.7% increase to my lightning damage of close enemies who are vulnerable only on a Wednesday.
I beat the game with 4 out of 5 characters, only missing the Druid play through. Sorcerer and Rouge were so much easier to beat bosses. My barbarian just felt either too weak. I did try a few other barbarian builds and they did roughly the same. Balancing needs some work. But overall love the game. Necro was in between for me. Not weak but i had to try harder than Sorcerer and Rouge. Just on a fun level i love the rouge. The game will continue to get nerfs and buffs and they will get it just right in due time. Just can’t wait to have a jewel bag to free up my inventory. Thats coming soon they say.
@HonestHick For sure a build issue. Barb with a good build crushes the last boss.
Well over enemy power went down also due to World scaling,
Some classes did need a bit of a nerf to be fair,
However others like barb when basically enemy's look at you and you die ( that is of course if your not playing 3 shout spec and or thorns spec, they should have had more buffs, necro also especially bone spear summoner spec 🤣🤣
The worst change here is them reverting the dungeon exp buff, clearly to annoy and be blizzard and hope people don't blast the season. Why why why do this to a non-competitive game....
I'm loving this game too much to start fretting over buffs,nerfs,surf and turf blah,blah,blah..diablo 3 still goes through countless changes and it never affected my love of that game and this wont ruin my enjoyment either. Get a grip folks.
@Uromastryx seasons have a leader board. That makes it competative in some circles.
@Northern_munkey yeah sure in some circles like 3-5% of People who play, but also no reward for been top of the leader board, all.aeason rewards can be obtained by just playing.
I'm not saying it's a bad game,.not even close I've dropped.at least 190hrs in as "Casual" player just ff16 has taken me some refreshing time away from endless grind,
People.just need to get use to buffs and nerfs it will never be even and will always be flavour of the month so to say
I daren't read the patch notes in case my rogue's ridiculous Poison Trap/Shadow Imbuement/Barrage/Rain of Arrows build has been hit with the nerf bat. Looking forward to rolling a different class for the new season at least!
is it just me or does the necromancer bone spear thingy ma jig not seem any worse did it avoid the nerfs or maybe its because im only level 62 maybe if i was a higher level i would notice a diffrence? sorry if thats a stupid question anywho for the new season what u guys and or gals recommend, im thinking either whirlwind barbarian or some sort of rogue?
actually i just looked up the class specific cagged hearts im leaning towards rogue or druid now but anywho im going to bed
I don't care nerfs or buffs until they completely destroy skill (like Desintegration in Diablo 3) BUT the worst thing they've done was making share map! So if you explore something with one character, the other get it too. This completely ruined any renown and exploring.
Is it just me or was this game ridiculously easy on world tier 2, and often times 3 as well? It makes me understand the need for a nerf. Most of the time I was just mindlessly grinding and didn't need much of a strategy. I have a rapid fire/penetrating shot/shadow imbuement/shadow clone rogue build. Anyway looking forward to starting over with a new class when season 1 kicks off
@jolteon23 You don't nerf things after people got used to them. That turns people off from your game. Either make the game harder by adding new enemies/mechanics (which is what the whole damn seasons are about) or add harder modes. The whole point of these games is to grind towards the end. If my character is weak that means grinding will be even more tedious especially in a game where the loot that drops improves your character by .1%
@Jamesblob You wouldn't believe the amount of shills that tried to argue with me about that before Diablo 4's launch.
"Just because Diablo 3 and Immortal were a cess pit of monetisation doesn't mean this will be!"
I won't say I told you so but... I did.
The destruction of the experience gain for killing monsters over your level is really bad. It went from 3+ levels above you being 25% bonus XP to 3% for 2+ levels and 15% for 10+ levels. That basically killed any excitement I had to level up a new character for season one so I’m moving on.
Yes Blizzard, bring those defences even lower.
That's how they "listen" to the community... perhaps those screaming that the Sorcerer and Necromancer classes are too squishy, weren't loud enough... now they have to cope with new nerfed defences, and lower crit damage... that's how you improve a game, by effing up 2 of 5 classes, and decreasing the player's overall joy to play.
BTW - hidden nerf not mentioned in the patch notes (perhaps in those 6600 words they didn't find enough room for this).
The cinders drop rate in Hell Tides was lowered by ~40-50%
It wasn't enough they increased the requirements for the Mystery chests from 175 to 250, now they made it a LOT harder to gather those 250 cinders. With my Necro I could gather ~380-400 cinders in 30 min before the patch, now in 30 min I can barely reach the 250 limit, even though I'm killing them monsters by the hundreds and doing every event I encounter along the way...
If you enter a hell tide area when there are only 20-25 minutes left, and want to get a Mystery Chest, don't even bother to try, set an alarm to catch the next one from the beginning...
Oh and they didn't make any improvements to the Mystery Chest item drops, you get the same sheet as before... so not only it's a lot harder to open one of them, there is no actual incentive to put in the extra effort...
Oh and where are the Gems modifications they promised to include in this patch?? They are still wrecking havoc with the Inventory space... but I guess they were too busy ruining everyone's fun to include crappy stuff like QOL...
Keep it up Blizzard, you'll fall right in the same sheet pit the D3 devs fel into some time after launch... until there were so few still playing the damned game they decided to actually improve it along with the expansion, and make it fun to play. You may have forgotten it, but we, those who paid for the game, surely didn't.
No matter... Path of Exile 2 is not far away, you could certainly do with some tough competition to bring you back on track.
@Shinnok789 Apparently the lower drop rate for cinders is a bug, and will be addressed in a hotfix.
This was an overt effort to slow down the player from completing content too quickly.
They designed an arpg with more of an end than their last game (paragon maxing out, gear maxes, and really only glyphs to enhance at the very end). This is a base issue for a live service title.
So instead of, say, adding a world tier (or 2) or enhancing systems, they rolled back the power of the players. That'll make it harder for them to progress.
They also scaled back and hard capped enemy levels. This will mean general XP gains from, say, traversing the world will be far lower than before. Again, slowing the player from attaining new levels and reaching the end.
They made helltide loot harder to obtain by nerfing XP AND cinder drops. Meaning the good gear drops for maxed builds will be harder to obtain.
They changed "bugs" where elites could drop more than one item upon death. Again, slowing down loot drops and obtainment.
They painted themselves into a corner of bad design decisions and at a moment in time their player base (one of the largest, if not THE largest in the series' history based on sales numbers alone) was BEGGING them to buff characters and systems to inject more fun into proceedings, they nerfed everything into the ground, effectively pulling the rug out from everyone already playing the game, souring them on it, and surely doing themselves no favors with general word of mouth. I mean, what current player whose build just got annihilated (like my melee rogue with 115 hours under his belt) is going to go recommend the game to their friends NOW when Blizzard has shown their hand and their design intent?
It is a fundamentally slower, less enjoyable game today than it was yesterday. I have no hope for the immediate future. Blizzard can ***** off. They tricked me for the last time. D4 is the last of their games I'll ever buy/play. They're terrible at designing for fun.
@Joyfultoad i need to continue to tweak my Barbarian. I still enjoy the class. But found it a little underwhelming in story mode when i tried it. I started with sorcerer, then Barb, then Rouge then Necro. Still need to do Druid. Maybe i will do the barb on season 1. 😀
@HonestHick I'm playing barb as my main, tweaked my skills for enjoyment, rather than pure dps and have not only had great fun, but actually feel pretty powerful too!
Mixed bag of stomp (with earthquake aspect), frenzy as a basic skill to build up attack speed, rend (with vulnerable) for proccing bleed damage, kick (for the lols, and decent stun/ vulnerable applicability), death blow (for setting off berserk) and hammer of the ancients, for decent single target damage.
You can be pretty free with whatever aspects you like, or how you want to go on the paragon, but I'm veering towards bleeding people as much as possible, then just booting them to groups of enemies (which also explodes them!), beserking and oneshotting small fry, then just absolutely whaling on bigger enemies with frenzy/rend/ hammer combos.
👌
@J2theEzzo funny you mention kick. I seen a video the other day explaining why kick is highly overlooked and actually good. I too think i want to go the bleed rend option. I like the sound of your Barb to be honest. I think you have a good thing going and of course having fun is most important.
I’m still looking at picking up this game so currently I don’t have a character build to be upset over it getting nerfed hahahah.
Removed - inappropriate
@LifeGirl It took them a while, but now they've set the stage to sell you the solution to the "problem" that they created.
Here come the "fixes". The microtransactions that will increase the speed of your leveling. The ones that buff your skills. The ones that increase your stats. I bet they'll be timed.
I expect them either before the Season starts or to launch with it. I am so glad I didn't touch this game.
I am done with the game. Not doing a character reset for every new season.
Anyone try a Sorcerer after this nerf?
@AdamNovice I know Destin is a Xbot, but there's many Playstation gamers who play this game.
@XenonKnight I'm playing a level 58 sorcerer. Some things are harder, some things are easier, but I'm still having fun!
@HonestHick Yeah, I think there's a surprising amount of versatility, if you don't concentrate on purely min-maxing... I'm not far enough to know whether that's a viable option post level 70, but for the time being, I've been doing fine and it feels like a good, classic hack n slash game. Cheers- and enjoy!
@DennisReynolds Don't worry they probably sell you option to fix it afterall it's Activision Blizzard.
@PinkiePieAddict I mean loot based games always see buffs and nerfs with updates. What you're expecting won't happen because all MTX and paid Battle Pass content is cosmetic only.
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