The Diablo community was presented with a ton of new information about the Vessel of Hatred during the recent Pre-Launch Livestream and the Patch Notes for the Season of Hatred Rising. The complete list of changes runs several pages and includes many new and exciting features and activities.
Also include are a number of improvements that will make life in Sanctuary noticeably more aggregable and less tedious. Players can look forward to improvements in leveling characters, navigating the world, connecting with other players, upgrading their gear, etc. What follows is a summary of the most noteworthy QOL improvements we’ll be getting next week.
Gameplay
PARTY FINDER
Perhaps the most highly anticipated new feature to be added with the VoH Expansion is the Party Finder.
- Party Finder can be accessed in a variety of ways, with quick access to certain activities via the Map, in-game Menu, or through a pre-set action on your emote wheel.
- Party Finder gives you the ability to list the type of party you’re looking for, set what game type or activity you’d like to run, where you’d like to play, and add preferences for both casual and completionist players alike.
- You can use Party Finder to list or find a party for multiple activities within Sanctuary, including:
- Slaying through Nightmare Dungeons.
- Selecting Wings to complete in the Dark Citadel.
- Grouping up with other players to summon Endgame Bosses.
- Finding other players to share Materials.
- Completing your Codex of Power.
- The Party Finder UI will continue to evolve over time in order to better accommodate new game features and player activities.
Author’s Note: This feature will make it much easier for casual players to get their Resplendent Sparks from Tormented Bosses and the Echo of Lilith early in the Season. There will undoubtedly be lots of players offering free carries for these, as well as many other, activities, so don’t be shy about taking advantage of this new community resource. Please also feel free to send me a direct message if you’d like more information or need support in getting started.
WAYPOINTS
- Instead of teleporting by default to the closest Waypoint located in a hub city, you can now favorite a Waypoint as your default.
- To favorite a Waypoint, hover over its icon on the Map and right-click.
MAP MARKERS
Custom map markers can be added to the Emote Wheel to make it easier for party members to locate specific points on any map, including the Dark Citadel dungeons.
SUMMONING BOSSES
The process of summoning Ladder Bosses will be further streamlined in Season 6.
- Stygian Stones have been removed from the game.
- The summoning material requirements have been adjusted and standardized for the following bosses:
- Echo of Varshan
- Previous: 2(WT3)/5(WT4) Malignant Hearts
- New: 4 Malignant Hearts
- Grigoire
- Previous: 2(WT3)/5(WT4) Living Steel
- New: 12 Living Steel
- Beast in the Ice
- Previous: 9 Distilled Fear
- New: 12 Distilled Fear
- Lord Zir
- Previous: 9 Exquisite Blood
- New: 12 Exquisite Blood
- Echo of Varshan
INFERNAL HORDES
- Scrolls of Restoration have been added to the loot table.
- Chest of Equipment has been removed.
- The Council Boss now drops guaranteed Legendary items with Infernal Hordes Affixes.
- The Greater Chest now contains a guaranteed Ancestral Legendary.
- Both the Chest of Materials and Chest of Gold now consume all remaining Aether with one click.
THE PIT
Bonus tier unlocks for fast clears have increased from 3 to 5 tiers.
WARDROBE
- The Wardrobe can now be accessed through a button in the Character menu.
- Wardrobes in towns remain unchanged.
Character Progression
RENOWN
Additional Renown activities and rewards have been added to the new Nahantu region along with a few updates:
- Reaching the successive reward tiers for all regions will now require fewer Renown points, which will make achieving the rewards quicker and easier.
- The Renown reward tiers associated with increased Obol capacity and Paragon Points have been swapped, making it easier for players to achieve the bonus Paragon Points.
- The new Nahantu region was untouched by Lilith’s corruption, which means there are no statues of her scattered throughout the wilderness. Nevertheless, players will, instead, encounter Tenet of Akarat statues. However unlocking them will be more or less optional because, unlike the Altars of Lilith, the Tenets of Akarat reward only Renown and do not reward any points that affect player stats. Consequently, it will likely be more advantageous to initially focus on other more efficient activities for completing the Renown rewards in the new zones, including the three new Strongholds:
- Kichuk
- The Festering Dark
- Chakhir
- It is still recommended for players to eventually complete 100% of the Renown for all six regions in order to maximize the carry over of Renown rewards from one Season to the next.
Author’s Note: The PureDiablo Interactive Map has been updated to include the new Nahantu region. Players can toggle all the Renown activity locations on this map, including the Tenets of Akarat, and begin formulating a strategy for Renown progression.
UNLOCKING DIFFICULTY LEVELS
- Normal, Hard, Expert, and Penitent Difficulty Levels are all unlocked upon completing Diablo IV’s base campaign. This includes using the skip campaign feature.
- Capstone Dungeons have been removed from the game.
- Players will likely be looking for more Pit carries in order to unlock higher Torment levels for their Alts in place of the obsolete Cap carries .
EXPERIENCE REWARDS
- The Experience rewards from Whisper Caches and Helltide chests now give more experience, scaling with difficulty.
- Seething Opals are a new type of Elixir that provides you with a 15% experience increase and other bonuses for 30 minutes at a time.
- This 15% Exp bonus from Seething Opals will stack on top of the 8% Exp bonus from Advanced Elixirs.
- These two Exp bonuses combined with the 10% Party Exp bonus and the 5% Incense Exp bonus can deliver a total 38% Exp bonus, which should make leveling Alts noticeably quicker.
PARAGON POINTS
All Paragon Levels earned will now be shared across all your characters on the same Realm (Seasonal or Eternal) and mode (Standard or Hardcore), in their respective partitions.
MERCENARIES
All upgrades to Mercenaries will be shared across all your characters on the same Realm (Seasonal or Eternal) and mode (Standard or Hardcore), in their respective partitions and will reset with each new Season.
Loot Updates
GENERAL DROPS
- Common items now stop dropping after Level 10.
- The Butcher will always drop at least 1 legendary item and will always drop the Butcher’s Cleaver Unique weapon.
- Treasure Goblins will always drop at least 1 Legendary item.
- Starting in Torment Difficulty I, only Legendary and Unique items can drop.
- Any Normal, Magic, or Rare items that would have randomly dropped at Torment I or above will instead be automatically converted into corresponding crafting materials (i.e. auto-salvaged).
SACRED ITEMS
This item quality has been removed from the game.
ANCESTRAL ITEMS
This item quality is now guaranteed to have at least one Greater Affix.
UNIQUE ITEMS
- The chance for Uniques to roll as Ancestral has been significantly increased.
- All Unique items will now drop from only one specific endgame boss without any overlap to allow for more efficient target farming (updated Boss loot tables should be available soon).
MYTHIC UNIQUES
The audio queue for a Mythic Unique dropping now takes priority over other sounds.
GEMS
The drop quantity of Gem Fragments now increases as you ascend Difficulties.
Gear Updates
SOCKETS
- Gems and Runes can be freely swapped without needing to visit the Jeweler.
- Sockets can now be added to gear using common materials obtained from salvaging gear.
- Scattered Prisms will be required for adding sockets to only Ancestral Gear.
TEMPERING
Scrolls of Restoration, which are single-use consumables for resetting the Tempering once on an item, can be acquired through the Season Journey rewards, the Infernal Hordes, the Dark Citadel, as well as other sources.
MASTERWORKING
- The Gold cost for Masterworking Ranks 5-12 has been reduced by approximately one third.
- Non-Ancestral Legendary items can now be Masterworked up to 8 times and have two Tempering Affixes.
- Obducite will be the only Masterworking material going forward. Ingolith and Neathiron have been removed. Obducite will no longer drop in the Pit, and instead only drops in Nightmare Dungeons, Infernal Hordes, and Vessel of Hatred’s Undercity. Ingolith and Neathiron will remain in your materials tab and can be transmuted into Obducite at The Alchemist.
- Masterworking materials now drop from more sources inside Nightmare Dungeons, including:
- Resplendent chests.
- Normal chests
- Miscellaneous Interactive Objects, such as ambient corpses
- Breakable Objects
- The Butcher
- Treasure Goblins
- Local events
Game Settings
- New settings have been added in the gameplay options menu to hide certain warning messages and announcements, such as “You need more mana.”
- The number of available character slots has been increased from 12 to 14.
- A new key-binding has been added to change from run to walk.
Wish List
- The Devs keep talking about the need for an Armory, so we know it’s coming but we just don’t know when.
- Yesterday’s article talked about Leaderboards, which are also on the way at some point in the future.
- It’s unnecessary to have to uncover the Fog of War more than once in the game and the same should be true for Waypoints.
- Being able to access the Wardrobe from the Character Menu is a nice change, but it would be even better to be able to access the Stash in the same way and maybe even the Blacksmith for salvaging gear while we’re at it.
- Earning roster-wide Paragon points will save a lot of time when leveling up Alts and it would be really nice if the same were true for Glyph Levels.
- Um, more Stash tabs please.
See You Next Time
The PureDiablo community would like to know your opinion on this topic, so please sound off in the comments section below, or contact me on Twitter. Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions for future topics here at PureDiablo. In the meantime, be sure to keep an eye on the news feed so you’ll have all the up-to-date info you need to get the most out of your game.
If you believe that any of the information shared above is inaccurate in any way, please let us know, along with a reference for the correct information, so we can update this document accordingly.
Gazerrick is a staff writer for PureDiablo who focuses primarily on casual gaming interests and lore for the Diablo community. When not hacking and slashing his way through a new Season, he can be found participating in, and presenting at, various pop culture conventions in southern Arizona. You can follow him on Twitter @Gazerrick9000 for even more of his gaming indulgences. A collection of his creative media is also available at Cactus Palm Perspectives.
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