Diablo 4is giving players an early look at exactly what to expect in its Season 9 content, releasing the massive patch notes for its Sins of the Horadrim update a couple of days ahead of the new season’s launch. The preemptive patch notes reveal a few specific details aboutDiablo 4’s Horadric Spellcraft, along with plenty of adjustments to multiple character classes and more.
With the end of Season 8 fast approaching at the end of June,Diablo 4’s Sins of the Horadrim is set to starton July 1. Blizzard has been very actively promoting the upcoming release of its action RPG’s ninth season for more than a week, including an in-depth livestream that took place on June 27. With the reveal of the patch notes, players can now get an even closer look at its features before getting the chance to actually dive into its content.
Probably the biggest new feature playersexpect to see inDiablo 4Season 9is the introduction of Horadric Spellcraft, a complex but rewarding system that allows players greater customization of their builds by crafting their own spells using Horadric Jewels, Catalysts, Infusions, and Arcana. While the first Horadric Tome the players had collected in playtesting had been Scornful Light, it will be switched out and replaced with a weaker version of Spark of Creation, which will have its resource generation reduced from 10 to five. Additionally, while much of the new system is built around elemental effects, one newly revealed Horadric Jewel, Willbreaker, applies a six-second debuff to bosses, elites, and more common enemies that causes them to take an additional 40% in physical damage after the first hit or when they are affected by crowd control.
As far as character builds, there are multiple changes to theSpiritborn class introduced in Vessel of Hatred. Thorn damage from Balazan’s Maxtlatl has been cut in half and can no longer be snapshotted, and maximum ferocity from Harmonius Hunter has also been halved. These nerfs are offset by a few upgrades, as Harmonious Seeker now guarantees critical strikes for the duration of Eagle Spirit, and reflected Razor Wings will now target nearby enemies with Aspect of Defelection.
There are also plenty ofbalance changes coming inDiablo 4Season 9’s base game classes, which the patch notes shed some additional light on. There are long lists of notes about changes to skills and items for Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, and Rogue, but Sorcerer players may see the most dramatic changes. One important note is that casting Hydra will now cause its heads to attack immediately after it spawns, which is meant to discourage spamming the spell repeatedly. Additionally, the Hydra Enchantment will be able to gain the benefits of the Serpentine Aspect without draining all a player’s mana.
Wrath of the Berserker
Paragon and Tempering
Greatstaff of the Crone
Skills and Book of the Dead
Skills
Advanced Flurry
Developer’s Note:In combination with the new Unique, this upgrade made it harder to achieve the powered-up state. This change hopes to compensate for that while granting a similar bonus.
Eyes in the Dark
Skills and Paragon
Hydra
Developer’s Note:This change is intended to make Hydra feel snappy and responsive after casting in most situations, but it should also discourage repeatedly spamming Hydra casts at high attack speed to trigger more immediate attacks.
Ophidian Iris
Serpentine Aspect
Developer’s Note:This update allows the Hydra Enchantment to benefit from Serpentine Aspect without consuming all of your Mana, which is only consumed when the skill is cast.
Horadric Jewels
New Horadric Jewel: Willbreaker
Developer’s Note:As this season offers extensive options for elemental character builds, we wanted physical builds to have something to chase as well.
Developer’s Note:It’s important to us to maintain the integrity and spirit of Hardcore, and welcome feedback regarding what that means to the community!
Bloody Charm: Propulsion
Miscellaneous
Developer’s Note:On the PTR, we tested an 80% reduction in these additive damage values, but still found Overpower based builds to be overperforming other options due in part to this inherent bonus. Overpower will now only grant up to a 50%[x] damage increase when it triggers, similar to Critical Strikes. However, Overpowers are still intended to be a rarer occurrence than Critical Strikes, relying primarily on guaranteed sources. As a result, balancing of Overpower damage sources are typically higher than similar ones for Critical Strikes.
Undercity of Kurast
Runes Tribute
Developer’s Note:We made this change because we observed that this Tribute was stockpiling heavily in player inventories.
Aspect of the Moonrise
Hammer of the Ancients
Passives
Outburst
Developer’s Note:It’s intended that the bonus Maximum Health threshold dynamically updates as the player levels, and that is unchanged.
Rathma’s Vigor
Legendary Aspects
Aspect of Swelling Curse - Renamed to Aspect of Decaying Humerus
Blade Shift
Enhanced Dance of Knives
Developer’s Note:This will slightly increase the movement speed requirement needed to make Dance of Knives infinite.
Paragon
Danse Macabre
Developer’s Note:We’ve updated this to improve the gameplay feel around this legendary node.
Tricks of the Trade
Item Affix Updates
Developer’s Note:Values of many Tempering Affixes in the Offensive category have been updated. Most of these affixes were conditional, required a certain type of damage, or only improved a portion of your overall damage. These new values better reflect how restrictive the condition associated with the affix is, and affixes with similarly restrictive conditions now have identical affix values.
Crafted Caches
Developer’s Note:These changes were done to create harmony between the two Cache types, and to reduce the number of clicks you have to go through to receive your Blacksmith Cache items. Finally, it was made to make the Blacksmith Cache lootsplosion feel a little moreimpactful.
Developer’s Note:We observed that some players were constantly re-logging to reset Resplendent chests in Strongholds infinitely. This change is to prevent that behavior.
Gameplay
Barbarian
Developer’s Note:The description has been updated to “Your next direct damage will create 2 Dust Devils.”
