Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred Pre-Launch Developer Update

The Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred developers discussed updates done to the game after the PTR feedback. The press, fansites, and content creators were invited to play the game shortly after the PTR. We have been playing it for nearly 10 days. You can read my review on October 4 with a plethora of info and images.

In the meantime, watch the developer livestream and images they provided during their discussion.

DIFFICULTY CHANGES

Monster Challenge

Monster intensity now increases over Torment difficulties instead of Standard difficulties.

Combat

Elites, Unique Elites and Super Elites deal normalized damage.

Standard Difficulty Tiers

Looking for a challenge?

ITEMIZATION CHANGES

Masterworking

Non-Ancestral Legendaries may reach rank 8 up from 4.

Tempering

Non-Ancestral Legendaries may be Tempered Twice.

Unique Item Drop Chance

The Chance for a Unique item to drop as Ancestral has been tripled.

Scrolls of Restoration in Season Journey

A Scroll of Restoration (Tempering) was added to the final two stages of the Season Journey.

PLAYER POWER CHANGES

Torment Goals

Torment I all content is available.
Torment IV is aspirational.

Main Stat Reversion Back to Season 5

Your Main Stat now contributes far less Skill Damage.

Legendary Glyphs

Additive Damage & Multiplicative Damage were significantly reduced.

PTR LEARNINGS | SYSTEMS

Paragon Updates

More normal nodes to support legendary glyph radius upgrade.
Rare and magic nodes adjusted to be more generically useful and powerful.
Updated rare nodes across the board, examples:
- Generally opened things up to be more usable across the board.
  - Potion healing > healing received
  - Damage Reduction from DoTs > Damage Reduction
Doubled all additive bonuses on rare and magic nodes.
Increased damage reduction values by ~1.5x.

INFERNAL HORDES

Problems / Feedback

Loot was dominating the reward landscape.
Frustrating and tedious reward flow.
Difficult to target farm Uniques.

Updates

Keys are exclusively obtained via drops from a variety of activities.
Council boss always drops Infernal Hordes Unique items and dungeon boss loot, scales with Torment.
Chest updates:
- Chest of Greater Equipment – 200 Aether.
- Chest of Materials – converts all remaining Aether into materials.
- Chest of Gold – remains unchanged.
Significantly increased Ancestral drop rates from Nightmare Dungeons and Whispers.
Nightmare Dungeons provide experience on completion.
Misc. Buffs to loot (Hellborn, Butcher, World Boss, Treasure Goblin).
Stronghold experience is now on first-time completion, experience adjusted from 2 levels to 1.25 levels.
Non-legendary items auto-salvaged starting in Torment.
Paragon Glyphs can now drop from the Pit.

ITEMIZATION & CRAFTING

Mythic Unique Crafting Update

Resplendent Only crafting at teh Blacksmith:
- 2 Resplendent Sparks gets you a random, usable Ancestral Mytic Unique.
- Resplendent + Runes crafting at the Jeweler
- 2 Resplendent Sparks + a set of runes creates a specific Ancestral Mythic Unique.

Large amounts of Common salvage can be used to forge random legendary equipment at the Blacksmith (chance for Unique/Mythic).

Sockets can now be added to gear with general salvage materials, Scattered Prisms are required for Ancestral items.

Jeweler no longer has a level requirement to use.

CLASS UPDATES

BARBARIAN

Upheaval

Damage increased from 88% to 100%.
Furious Upheaval.
- Damage bonus increased from 12% to 15%.
- Maximum stacks increased from 6 to 8.

Twin Strikes

Damage increased from 10-40% to 30-60%.

Ring of Red Furor

Critical Strike Damage bonus increased from 10-40% to 30-60%.

Hellhammer

Fire damage increased by 33%. (1.5-2.5 to 2-3.3)
Damage bonus per 100 Strength increased from 20% to 25%.

Martial Vigor

Elite Damage Reduction increased from 4% to 6%.

DRUID

Nature’s Fury

Fixed an issue where it was incorrectly triggering from skills other than Casts.

Greatstaff of the Crone

Critical Strike Damage Affix replaced with Chance for Stormstrike to Hit Twice.
Bonus Stormstrike damage increased from 120 – 200%[x] to 170-250%[x].

Aspect of Retaliation

Core Skill damage based on Fortify increased from 25-45%[x] to 35-75%[x].

Lust for Carnage Legendary Paragon Node

Previous – Critical Strikes with Werewolf Skills restore 2 Spirit.
Now – Critical Strikes with Werewolf Skills restore 2 Spirit and deal 50%[x] increased damage.

Untamed Legendary Paragon Node

Previous – Casting a Companion Skill grants +4 Ranks to your Companion Skills for 5 seconds.
Now – Casting a Companion Skill grants 20%[x] increased Companion damage for 5 seconds, stacking up to 80%[x].

NECROMANCER

Reap

Damage Reduction duration increased from 2 to 4 seconds.
Enhanced Reaper’s Attack Speed duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.

Necrotic Fortitude

Barrier amount increased from 5% to 7% of Maximum Life.

Kalan’s Edict

Previous – Your Minions gain 3%[+] Attack Speed for each active Minion.
Now – Your Minions gain 3%[+] Attack Speed and deal 3%[x] increased damage for each active Minion.

Ring of Melden, Shademist Aspect, Aspect of Fel Gluttony

The damage is now attributed to your Minions, and thus will scale with Minion Damage bonuses.

Cult Leader Paragon Board

Cult Leader Legendary Paragon Node
- Minion Damage per 20% Attack Speed Bonus increased from 30%[x] to 40%[x].
Custody Rare Node
- Summons Damage replaced with Minion Damage Reduction.

ROGUE

Encircling Blades

Damage increased from 25-45% to 35-55%.

Bladedancer’s Aspect

Damage increased from 25-45% to 40-60%.

Victimize

Fixed a bug that caused its damage scaling to be much higher than intended.
Reduced base damage to 60% from 80%.

Rain of Arrows

Tempering affix changed from Hit Twice to Double Damage.
Supreme Rain of Arrows
- Damage bonus increased from 40% to 60%.
Prime Rain of Arrows
- Imbuement Bonus increased from 30% to 50%.

SORCERESS

Enlightenment

Fixed an issue where Enlightenment was incorrectly triggering from autocast Skills.
Fixed an issue where some Fire and Cold sources were not working properly with Enlightenment.

Flamescar

Incinerate Size Affix replaced with Chance for Incinerate to Deal Double Damage.

Oculus

Teleport Size Affix replaced with Chance for Teleport to Deal Double Damage.

Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop

Buff duration increased from 5 to 8 seconds.

RUNEWORDS LEARNINGS

2.0 PTR

Legendary Runes were clearly more powerful and only gave multiplicative damage.
Some runes had no usage and didn’t have good long-term potential.

Vessel of Hatred

Top down– Bottom up
- All runes should be competitive and have a potential home in a build.
Removed four runes that didn’t meet our expectations:
- Ur, Ono, Met, Kaa

Ohm: (Warcry)

Offering increased from 500 to 600.
Now uses baseline Warcry (No longer gives Berserking).

Yom: Changes to the Druid Petrify skill.

Crit Damage bonus moved to the Prime choice.
Baseline petrify now grants 100 resource when used.
This means the Yom Runeword will Stun enemies and give a large chunk of resource.

Other legendary runes adjusted.*

Runes of Invocation

Kry: (Spiritborn Vortex)

Offering decreased from 500 to 300.

Ton: (Meteorites)

Rune version damage increased from 50% to 260%.
Offering cost reduced from 25 to 20.

Ceh: (Summon a Spiritwolf)

Now jumps to targets further and much more frequently.
Increased the attack damage from 14% to 30%.
Increased the Leap damage from 14% to 50%.

Runes of Ritual

Feo: (Become Crowd Controlled or Injured)

Cooldown reduced from 15 to 10 seconds.

Moni: (Cast after moving)

Offering gained increased from 10 to 25.

Yax: (Use a potion)

Offering gained increased from 100 to 200.

Poc: (Every 5% resource spent)

Offering gained increased from 2 to 5.

And more!!!

SEASON OF HATRED | OVERVIEW

More Skill Points
New Skills
More Paragon Points
New Legendary Glyphs
New Legendaries, Uniques, and Mythics
Builds that hit levels of power we’ve never seen
New Difficulty Levels to challenge those builds

Zone event heralding the arrival of a Realmwalker.

Cycles frequently between Regions.
Area is corrupted by Hatred.
Monsters can ambush from portals.
Realmwalker is burrowed during warmup time.

REALMWALKER

Harbinger of Mephisto spreading chaos throughout Sanctuary.

Carries a portal to a realm of Hatred.
Spawns monsters including Hollows, a new enemy from Vessel of Hatred.

After the warm up, the Realmwalker uproots and takes one of several possible routes stomping its way toward a destination. The Realmwalker is immune, but every now and then 3 Seething enemies spawn. As you kill these, some of the Realmwalker’s Health goes down. When the Realmwalker reaches its destination, 3 Hatred Spires erupt from the ground. Destroy them. The Realmwalker is no longer immune to damage at this point. When the Realmwalker dies, the Seething Realm portal he carries atop his back drops to the ground.

SEETHING REALMS

Pocket realms of Hatred are accessed by a Realmwalker portal.

New dungeon art from Vessel of Hatred
More Hatred-infested monsters, including a new Goblin.
Ruptures leading to random bonus rooms.
Realm Gate presents a choice of rewards.

Enter the gate to the realm of your choice where you get the rewards you want: Equipment, Gold, or Materials. Fight through the monsters and reach the treasure room where a cursed treasure chest event starts. Kill all enemies and loot the treasure chest. It will also drop Seething Opals (rare Elixirs) that grant +15 Experience for 30 minutes and allow enemies to drop loot you specified when entering the Seething Realm type.

SEETHING OPALS

Monster kills will sometimes drop bonus loot based on the type of Opal.
Activities without monster loot (The Pit, Infernal Hordes, etc.) instead grant a bonus at the end.
15% experience bonus. Stacks with elixirs.
Their effect also provides Reputation with the Zakarum Remnants.

THE ZAKARUM REMNANTS

A holy order languishing in Hawezar.

Dedicated to the teachings of Akarat
In the past, their order was decimated by Mephisto’s corruption
Few in number and spread thin, they need heroes
Brief quest introducing the seasonal loop
Reputation rewards

SPIRITBORN

The developers have polished the Spiritborn with a new pass of changes that will make it to the Live gameplay.

Reminder: You may right-click any images below and choose Open in New Tab for the full size.

KURAST UNDERCITY

An intense, multi-floor, Time-Attack dungeon:

Monsters and Activities build Reward Upgrades.
Afflicted MOnsters yield Time Bonuses.

Role:

Novel leveling content.
Opportunistic content that allows for efficient progress towards specific goals, as the opportunities arise.

Celebrates Autonomy, Flow, and Variety.

TRIBUTES AND BARGAINS

Tributes define the Reward Upgrade opportunities of the Undercity, at the cost of increasing the Runs challenge.

Applying a Tribute unlocks the option to select a Bargain.

BARGAIN

Bargains further customize rewards, at a varying Material cost.

Here is an example of using a Tribute and Bargain. Nigh guaranteed Greater Affix Legendary items.

PORTAL PRANKSTER

Overview

Kurast Undercity Exclusive.
Rewards a Bonus Chest containing Loot, Runes, and Tributes.

DARK CITADEL

We go to the Dark Citadel to fight the first Khazra, Zagraal. The Khazra have taken over the crater left from the Mage Clan Wars, and they are using all those souls from the dead Mage Clans to power their crazy experiments. They are really evil and take people from adjacent Nahantu villages to use as power sources and batteries, and they use them to resurrect their dead god Zagraal.