The Diablo IV developer Update revealed Diablo IV Season 11 Divine Intervention, which marks the return of a Diablo II character: Hadriel. We barely knew much about this angel other than that he served Tyrael and assisted the hero outside the Chaos Sanctuary.

Since the announcement of Diablo IV, we knew the High Heavens had closed its doors. Hadriel’s intervention in the age of Hatred opens the door for the High Heavens to be more involved, but not all of them necessarily as friends. In the novel, Diablo: Storm of Light, Tyrael in mortal form could see a taint in the Crystal Arch — placed there by Diablo — that other angels couldn’t seem to notice, and a discordant sound they couldn’t hear as new angels were born. It’s just a matter of time for the developers to implement some of those Diablo III lore ramifications into Diablo IV.

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These changes were revealed during the Developer Update livestream:

TEMPERING

  • Only one Temper per item.
  • No more randomization with Temper — meaning you can Temper what you want without losing Temper charges. No random rolls. You get the Temper you want, right away.
  • There is a chance for the applied Temper affix to become a Greater Affix.
  • Tempered affixes can be restored infinitely.
  • Items can now roll with 4 base affixes.

MASTERWORKING

  • You can Masterwork an item up to Rank 25.
  • Once you reach an item’s Rank 25 quality, you get a capstone bonus, which increases its value by 50% which stacks with the Greater Affix bonus.

DEFENSIVE UPDATES

  • Defensive stats have been equalized across all Classes and how those stats are calculated, streamlining players’ defenses for survivability.

HEALING UPDATES

  • Potions are more impactful and tactical than ever. Yeah, that’s lingo for “your 10/10 stacks of Healing Potions have been nerfed to only 4/4.
  • Healing is now instant and % based.
  • Your Healing Potion will regenerate every 30 seconds.
  • Life on Hit can now roll on items.
  • The Life on Hit, Life Regeneration, Life on Kill, and Healing Received stats have been boosted.
  • Healing Potion upgrades at the Alchemist are gone.

FORTIFY REDESIGN

  • Fortify is moving away from a type of damage reduction to a healing over time mechanic and stacks up with your Maximum Life. When Fortify kicks in, you get a Healing over time boost.

MONSTER COMBAT EVOLVED

  • Monsters now react and adapt to combat. They are no longer predictable, and packs of monsters do damage more regularly.
  • Monster affixes are more powerful.
  • Monster packs are more spread out, making them harder to kill in one swoop.

ELITE ENEMY UPDATES

  • There are now 22 Monster Affixes.
  • Monsters now spawn along with Elites that inherit some of their affixes.

SEASON REALM UPDATES

The Lesser Evils dominate hellish activities around Estuar.

  • Duriel appears in the Helltides.
  • Belial rules The Pit.
  • Andariel commands Kurast Undercity.
  • Azmodan stalks as the first new World Boss in multiple locations.

South of Zarbinzet, in Hawezar, you will find three summoning altars where Azmodan can be called forth at will. Each altar invokes Azmodan with powers borrowed from the other three lesser evils. As you battle these enemies, defeating them with their respective purified or corrupted gifts will grant you Divine Favor for the Seasonal Reputation Board.

DIVINE GIFTS

  • The angel Hadriel has returned to Sanctuary, bringing rare boons to aid you in the fight against the Lesser Evils. Each Divine Gift has three components: A Reward, a Corrupted Gift, and a Purified Gift. Corrupted Gifts unlock immediately. However, Purified Gift slots are unlocked later as you progress through the Seasonal Reputation Board.

SANCTIFICATION

Santification is done at the Heavenly Forge, granting your item one random enhancement. Items can only be Sanctified once and cannot be modified after. The Indestructible affix has been removed from the game. Instead, some items roll to gain 5-25 Quality. A random affix has a chance to upgrade into a Greater Affix or add a new Legendary Power.

SEASON RANK

The Season Journal has been overhauled and renamed to Season Ranks. Each of the seven chapters of the old Season Journal is now known as Rank. At the end of the Rank, you must complete a Capstone Dungeon to unlock the next Rank. For example, Vault of the Crucible (Monster Level 30 – Hard Difficulty) must be completed to earn rewards and to unlock access to Rank II.

Season Rank Laurel is a new cosmetic reward displayed on your Character Title so that other players can see how far in the Season Journal you are. You unlock your Seasonal Pet, Alefta, at Rank V. Some of the Seasonal Journey rewards are 2-4 Paragon Points.

CAPSTONE DUNGEONS RETURN

These Capstone Dungeons are designed to challenge you. Even if each Capstone Dungeon lists a suggested level, their difficulty doesn’t scale with your current level. Plan your approach carefully. One of the Capstone Dungeons, Enclave of Darkness, uses a mechanic similar to the Nahantu Stronghold. You are surrounded by the fog of war.

  • Vault of the Crucible – Suggested Level: 30. Difficulty Tier: Hard.
  • Hellish Descent – Suggested Level: 50. Difficulty Tier: Penitent.
  • Enclave of Darkness – Suggested Level: 60 Torment I. Difficulty: Pit Tier 15. Unlocks Season Rank IV.
  • Den of the Apostate – Suggested Level: 60 (Torment II). Difficulty: Pit Tier 30. Unlocks Season V.
  • Breach of Sin – Suggested Level 60. Difficulty: Pit Tier 45.

CLASSES

A Chaos Perk, Mana Shield, has inspired the redesign of the Mythic Unique: Melted Heart of Selig. Now, all classes will be able to access a massively increased resource pool that also functions as your Life Total.

The Sorceress’ new unique: Orsivane, grants you great power, but only if you build your character like a Glass Cannon and avoid using defensive skills. For each defensive skill you are not using, you gain increased damage and access to its associated Enchantment effect.

NECROMANCER

The necromancer can now summon three slightly smaller Golems with the new Unique: Gravebloom, and respawn 50% faster. Whether you use this unique or not, casting your Golem’s active skill now commands your other minions to focus the target. Not exactly a fix to the skeletal warriors and skeletal mages like it works in Diablo Immortal, but a step in the right direction.

ROGUE

This season, Rogues are doing a dance of knives with the new Unique item: Death’s Pavane, causing enemies hit to drop knives. When you catch these knives, they grant you 1 Charge and increase the damage of Dance of Knives by up to 20%[x] for 6 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

In addition, the developers have redesigned how Shadow Clone’s targeting logic works. They will now target the same enemy that you initially targeted with your skill.

DRUID

The Druid’s new Unique boots, Khamsin Steppewalkers, are one of the most potent mobility items in the game. Damage enemies with Nature Magic skills to grant Max Movement Speed and Unhindered for [4-8] seconds. While active, enemies you run into are immobilized for 1 second.

With the rework done to Omen passive, you will also be constantly zapping all the enemies along the way.

BARBARIAN

With the new Unique pants: Chainscourged Mail, casting a damaging Brawling skill disables it afterwards. When all of these Skills that are on your Action Bar are disabled, they become re-enabled with their Cooldowns refreshed. Brawling Skills you Cast deal [50-100]%[x] increased damage for each disabled Skill.

SPIRITBORN

With Path of the Emissary, the more you move, the more you attack. Every [12-4] meters you move, invoke a base Core skill from your primary Spiritl Hall. Rushing Claw has also been updated. Combining the Unique with this revamped skill destroys enemies in no time.

THE TOWER AND LEADERBOARDS

A new challenge is coming to Sanctuary to test the mettle of the most battle-hardened players. A multi-stage timed game mode for elite players. You unlock the Tower through the Obelisk in Cerrigar.

You will find 4 pylons throughout the run. One of them repeats one of the previous pylon powers at random. You need to collect 4 Orbs, which may drop from Elites, Champions, or Goblins. Keep an eye out for those high-value targets. There will be leaderboards for Normal and Hardcore players. The Tower and the Leaderboards will not be present at Season 11 Launch, but will be added later during the Season. You will access the Tower in 2026 when Patch 2.5.2 is released. The developers will monitor Season 11 stability through feedback, and once adjustments are made, the Tower and Leaderboards will be introduced early next year.

HELLTIDES

  • The Helltides screen vignette effect is gone after feedback from those who suffer from motion sickness.
  • The XP globes that maggots were dropping were causing players to gain 40 levels within minutes in the PTR. That bug has been fixed.
  • New Helltide Commanders and new enemies have been added to the game, not seen in the PTR.
  • Duriel has new attacks.

HAWEZAR EVENT

  • The boss has resilience to prevent one-tapping, so that you can experience the full world boss fight as you do with other world boss events.
  • Azmodan’s lesser evil influences have been updated.

EVOLVED MONSTER COMBAT

  • Developers heard feedback concerning enemy affixes with Crowd Control. The developers have placed rules that bound how often enemies can cast those AOE affixes and how long they will last, so that they are not as spammy as in the PTR. These changes especially focus on the leveling experience so that players are not smoked repeatedly as they try to level up.
  • Developers made a visual pass on all 22 new monster affixes to make sure players can see their attacks. Elites and Champions will have a blue and yellow shimmer to them instead of auras to stand out among the packs of monsters.

ITEMS

  • Developers have increased the chance for you to get 2/3/4 Greater Affixes when an Ancestral Item drops.

DEFENSIVE REWORK

  • The item comparison UI will show the Toughness stats changes by a percentage amount.
  • More information has been added to the detailed stats pane for Toughness — such as Damage Reduction per damage type.
  • In the Difficulty Selection Screen, the developers have added some minimum recommended Toughness settings per Torment Tier.

ECONOMY AND LEVELING

  • You can teleport to the Training Grounds now, and vendors have been added to it.
  • You will unlock all Waypoints as long as you select the appropriate Campaign skip.
  • Developers took a big holistic look at Undercity rewards in general. It’s a lot better now. The XP tribute grants a good amount of XP to low-level players.

SEASON RANKS

  • You can now earn 12 more Paragon Points as a reward for completing Season Ranks. These extra 12 Paragon Points are also available in the Eternal Realms.
  • There is a bigger burst of XP for completing capstone dungeons to grant Skill Points, and caches give you better loot.
  • It’s going to take a lot of work to beat the last Season (Journal) Rank VII, but you will earn a Gilded Laurel for your Character Title.