New and updated Unique items arrive in Diablo 4 patch 1.2 with the Season of Blood

With the imminent arrival of Diablo 4 Season 2 — the Season of Blood — the game is revamping many current Unique items as well as adding a bunch of new Unique items for players to hunt down. Diablo’s Uniques are supposed to be the best of the best, but one complaint made by a few players (myself included) is that Uniques just aren’t as amazing as we’d hoped. And Blizzard acknowledges this, saying that Uniques “aren’t as exciting or impactful as they need to be” and I think that’s fair.

Comparing Diablo 4’s Uniques to the special items you could get in D2 or D3 — like Bul’Kathos’ Children in Diablo 2 — and you’ll start to see what I mean. Uniques in D4 just aren’t as powerful and are harder to get than in previous Diablo games. But in patch 1.2, Blizzard is trying to fix that with updates to most Uniques in the game, powerful new Uniques, and new ways to farm for the Uniques you want.

New Unique items in Diablo 4 patch 1.2

In addition to these philosophical changes, patch 1.2 also brings a bunch of new Uniques to the game. Right now we know these Uniques are being added:

• Tassets of the Dawning Sky (Generic Unique Pants): When you take damage from a Non-Physical damage type, you gain +6-10% Maximum Resistance to that damage type for 6 seconds. This effect can only apply to one damage type at a time.
• Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty (Barbarian Unique Helm): When you gain Berserking while already Berserk, you have a 40-60% chance to become more enraged granting 15% (multiplicative damage) [x] increased damage, 2 Fury per second, and 10% Cooldown Reduction.
• Dolmen Stone (Druid Unique Amulet): Casting Boulder while Hurricane is active will cause your boulders to rotate around you.
• Scoundrel’s Leathers (Rogue Unique Chest): While you have unlimited Energy from Inner Sight, your Core Skills have a 60-80% chance to spawn Caltrops, Poison Trap, or Death Trap.
• Blood Moon Breeches (Necromancer Unique Pants): Your Minions have a 3-7% chance to curse enemies. Enemies affected by at least 1 of your curses take 70% [x] (multiplicative damage) increased Overpower damage from you.
• Blue Rose (Sorcerer Unique Ring): Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy has up to a 30% chance of forming an exploding Ice Spike, dealing 0.25-0.35 Cold damage. Triple this chance if the enemy is Frozen.

Diablo 4 is trying to make Uniques more unique

There are a few theoretical ideas the Diablo 4 team is working on now to make Uniques more exciting:

• One idea is to add completely new stats that will only exist on the specific Unique in question. So instead of a normal stat like Thorns, you could get a whole new stat or ability called Bloody Retribution that inflicts exactly the same percentage of damage on anyone who hits you as they deal to you. (Please note, this is just an example; it’s not something Blizzard has promised.)
• Another is to increase the range of a stat granted by a Unique. So if items in Diablo 4 usually grant between 10 – 20% bonus lightning damage, the Unique could offer 30% to 40%, making it notably better than a non-Unique.
• Usually you can’t get certain stats on certain slots, but a Unique could break that rule, making stacking a stat easier if you get a Unique with, say, bonus fire damage on a slot that normally won’t have it.
• Finally, the devs want to look at some Uniques with an eye to updating their powers, simplifying some that are too elaborate to work very often.

All of this is intended to make Uniques attractive enough that you’ll not have to say “Sure, it’s great, but I would loose too much Lightning damage if I used it” when one drops.  Hopefully Blizzard will a consider making them drop more, too — though at least there will be a way to actively farm Uniques with the new world bosses coming in the patch. One of the reasons players aren’t as excited about Uniques as they could be is because it takes a lot of guesswork and farming to even get the things — and currently drops are almost completely random. But in patch 1.2 new endgame bosses Echo of Varshan, Grigoire the Galvanic Saint, The Beast in the Ice, Dark Master, and Echo of Duriel will drop these new Uniques as well has have a specific loot table for existing uniques, so you can focus on killing specific bosses to target specific drops.

With patch 1.2 only a few days away as I write this, there’s no reason to doubt that this is where Blizzard intends to go with this process — after all, patch 1.2.0 is in seven days as I write this — but it’s also possible that we’ll see some changes before it goes live, as well as iteration on the idea after the patch drops. (Blizzard is already talking about a patch 1.2.1 coming before BlizzCon.)

The only thing we can count on in life or game design is that things are always changing, and some of Blizzard’s ideas about Unique design are pretty conjectural. We could see the devs doing all those things they suggested, and that’s great, but that’s not a guarantee that they will do them. Still, we now definitely know that change is in the wind for Unique items in Diablo 4. I’m watching avidly to see how these changes play out and if they’re enough to reinvigorate Unique items.

Originally published October 10, 2023. Updated October 18, 2023.