Mount changes coming in Diablo 4’s Season of Blood

Diablo 4‘s next season, Season of Blood, arrives later this month on October 17 and today Blizzard gave players a first look at what the new season holds with the first of two planned developer livestreams. While October 4’s livestream teased at some of the new powers, enemies, and items coming in Season of Blood, there was also a focus on the gameplay and quality-of-life changes the team plans to implement on October 17 when the season begins.

One aspect of the game receiving some noticeable changes next season is mounts. Diablo 4’s Game Director Joe Shely gave some details about the changes made to the player’s equine companion and how they will behave beginning in Season of Blood:

• Improved the overall responsiveness of mounts. They are less likely to get stuck on barriers or slow down unexpectedly. Mounts automatically jumping over traversals will work more consistently.
• Reduced travel time across Sanctuary by increasing spur duration by 50%. Spur also breaks barricades.
• Base speed increased by 14%, with top speed unaffected.
• Removed the need for Players to place their cursor on the edge of their window for max speed, general speed has been improved relative to cursor placement.
• Improved combat and mount versatility by reducing ability cooldowns by 50%
  • Manual dismount cooldown has been reduced from 10 seconds to 5 seconds
  • Forced dismount damage cooldown has been reduced from 30 seconds to 15 seconds
  • The delay between a dismount combat skill becoming available after mounting has been reduced from 10 seconds to 3 seconds

One of the goals of the Diablo 4 team for Season of Blood was to improve mount control, especially on mouse and keyboard, and Shely made it a point to call out that the most significant change to the mounts is to their responsiveness and maneuverability. The team wanted to reduce the number of times a mount slowed down or came to a dead stop while turning or moving near barriers, which sometimes meant the players would need to dismount and mount again to get around.

Some of the cooldown values that didn’t lineup from the October 4 stream and the October 4 blog post seem to be cleared up when the patch 1.2.0 notes were updated after the October 10 livestream. The cooldown times in the patch notes will likely be the present in-game on October 17. Overall, the changes coming to mounts in Season of Blood are very positive. Hopefully with these changes, travelling across Sanctuary becomes a more enjoyable experience, or as much as one can be when traversing a literal hell-touched landscape.

We also learned that another patch, 1.2.1, will be coming to Diablo 4 in Season of Blood after October 17 but before BlizzCon in November so be sure to check back here to stay up-to-date on everything the season has to offer!

Originally published October 5, 2023. Updated October 10, 2023.