Everything we know about changes coming in Diablo 4’s patch 2.5.0

Diablo 4 patch 2.5.0 PTR was announced and it comes with a slew of changes (for both Seasonal and Eternal servers) that frankly, read as pretty frustrating to the casual player. The patch blog post is full of references to increased difficulty, mentioning deadlier enemies, no more predictable fights, testing defenses, and challenging progress. When I watched the Sanctuary Sitdown Interview and reviewed the patch post, I was pretty irate at the sweeping sense of “we’re making the game harder” but on second review, things may not be so dire.

Regardless, that’s what PTR testing is for, so here’s everything we know is coming to the base Diablo 4 experience with patch 2.5.0 that you can test on the PTR running from October 21, 10:30 a.m. PDT to October 28, 11 a.m. PDT.

Defense systems go back to the future

Folks, it’s time for us to trot out our Diablo 4 1.0 guides because the armor and resistance stats are going back to their original forms of a rating system “with diminishing returns at higher values.” This is pretty much exactly like that asymptote graphic some remember from the pre-launch D4 livestreams, where your damage reduction approaches 100% but will (likely) never actually hit that perfect damage mitigation. Armor will now reduce both Physical and non-Physical damage, while Physical damage will also have its own resistance type added to the game. In addition, the Armor and Resistance penalties per Torment Tiers have been removed. Player skills and Paragon nodes are getting a big rework with all these changes in mind — the initial version alters current damage reduction Paragon Nodes and Skills to now provide multiplicative bonuses to armor or all resistances.

A familiar Diablo 3 stat comes to D4 to give a birds-eye view of your defenses: Toughness. Toughness will be displayed on the main player pane right under Attack Power and represents “the total amount of raw damage of each type you can take after considering all damage mitigation sources”  as a summary value. Don’t worry, hovering over the stat in your character pane will give you additional detail on the effectiveness of your defenses against each damage type — Shadow, Poison, Fire, Cold, Lightning, and the new Physical.

Overall, this is meant to “equalize effective health across classes and builds” while “properly testing your defenses as you climb through difficulty tiers.” According to the pre-PTR Sanctuary Sitdown Interview, these changes are also meant to “even out” a player’s build, instead of being an absolute tank 90% of the time and crumpling to “one specific hit.” Players should benefit from their mitigation efforts and focus more on adding survivability to their build while climbing in difficulty.

Healing and Fortify updates change character health experience

To accompany the defense system adjustments are changes to both player potions and Fortify. The devs believe use of your health potions should be “more impactful and tactical.” For starters, your base potion capacity is now four, regardless of your previous Renown progress (although this is less notable for seasonal players — more on this below). Just four, from ten.

But there are some seriously positive changes to balance the loss of charges. Potion healing is an instant heal for 35% of your total health on use (no timed component on that regen), and you’ll now recharge your a charge every 30 seconds (similar to Diablo Immortal) in addition to still gaining a charge for picked up potions. The life on hit stat is improving (although we don’t know how) and returns to the stat affix pool for gear, while stat values for life regen, life on kill, healing percentage are increasing across the board while also becoming more readily available. Finally (and perhaps most obviously), you’ll no longer to upgrade your healing potion at the Alchemist.

Working in tandem, Fortify will change from a a sort of bonus health pool into a heal-over-time reservoir where “when you have Fortify under Maximum Life, you’ll heal for a percentage of your Maximum Life per second in exchange for an equal amount of Fortify.” This has some really interesting implications for a ready source of healing during the 30-second charge window for your potion charges. Of course, this too means some significant changes to player skills and passives that relate to Fortify, most of which read as absolute nerfs prior to PTR testing.

Overall, the healing and health changes sound like a net improvement (depending on how Fortify plays out on the PTR), especially with the supporting stats in the face of our next changes.

Tempering and Masterworking receive their 2.0 incarnation, with a minor affix improvement

We’re getting a trade-off on tempering, but really, it’s an improvement. Instead of having two, random (from a group) tempers, you can now select one specific affix to apply from a Tempering Recipe (which presumably still needs to be learned) and tempering charges can be restored indefinitely. Additionally, the amount of base affixes on non-unique items is increasing from three to four affixes, so you’ll still net five affixes on your Legendary and Ancient Legendary gear. Hear that, Blizzard? It’s the sound of thousands of grateful players, weeping with joy for the future (and maybe some grief over their previously-bricked items).

Masterworking’s benefits have a little less “wow” factor, but ties into the Defense system rework. Currently, when you Masterwork a piece it increases its affix values nine times (with a big boost to one randon affix three times), taking you to a Masterworking 12/12 on that piece. Well, Masterworking’s future initially sounds like the item upgrade system that Masterworking replaced — Masterworking increases the “Quality” of your item, adding a bonus to base damage (for weapons), armor (for armor pieces), or resistance (for jewelry) of that piece up to a maximum threshold of 20. At maximum Quality, you’ll roll one last time for a Capstone bonus, which upgrades a random non-greater affix on the piece to a Greater Affix (that you’ll be able to re-roll without resetting the Quality).

Overall, Tempering / Masterworking 2.0 (or Itemization 3.0) sounds like a net plus. We’re not losing any affixes with the tempering changes, while you’ll have a way of increasing armor and resistances on gear at max item power. No one enjoys randomization, especially when it feels arbitrary to the player, so I remain dubious of that Capstone bonus until I get to experience it in the PTR.

The Tower adds long-awaited Leaderboards to D4 (at least, in beta form)

Make their mark by completing runs in the newly added Tower, a multi-staged, timed dungeon that challenges players to “match… against others who think themselves worthy.” Like the Pit, the Tower is unlocked through the Obelisk in Cerrigar, and players can run at any difficulty level already unlocked in the Pit. Each tower floor is a random tileset where you earn progress by killing monsters and collecting orbs (dropped by Elites, Champions, or Goblins), with higher experience monsters increasing the score provided (think Diablo 3 Greater Rifts). Players are guaranteed to encounter four Pylons across the run — the first three appear in random order, while the fourth is a repeat of one of the first three. Fill the bar to spawn the Tower boss.

This is the other update that will send players rejoicing — Diablo 4 is finally getting a permanent leaderboard setup! Tied to your Tower runs, your spot on the leaderboards is determined by two things — the tier you’ve just run, and how quickly you did so. Leaderboards are initially laid out like their D3 counterpart — one each for solo classes, and one for each party size (two through four), split up by game mode (Hardcore and Normal). Now, no player rewards are initially linked to Leaderboards in Season 11 as they will launch in a beta mode, but the devs have plans for this system following their launch with patch 2.5.0, so stay tuned.

Overall, this is a cool change — the Tower is not a system tied to player power in the same way as dungeons or the Pit. It will be a system folks can engage with on their own terms, based on a benchmark they’ve successfully completed before (their Pit tier). It doesn’t necessarily sound like the Tower will be easy, but (at least initially) it is wholly voluntary to engage with it and the Leaderboards.

Challenge increases with monster combat changes, the return of Capstone Dungeons, and a new world boss

Monsters are receiving a few tweaks in the coming patch 2.5.0. First, they will “better react and adapt to combat,” behaving more dynamically in response to combat while maintaining their own role within your foes. But it’s not just intelligent combat boosting our enemies, as monster affixes and even damage regularity receive a boost, while they’ll no longer be clustered together as tightly (making them harder to take out en masse). And on the note of affixes — elite monsters now have a much bigger pool of affixes to pull from (20+ are getting added to the title), while their minions spawning with them inherit some of those affixes. All I have to say is ouch.

Not impacting the base game (at least, the Eternal server) is the removal of region Renown tracks from seasonal play. Instead, this system (and the Seasonal Journey) are replaced with a new Season Rank system powered by (the return of) Capstone Dungeons. Completing each of the five dungeons is required to progress seasonal players to max rank within the new system and the ranks reward the Skill and Paragon points lost from Renown.

Finally, the Lesser Evil gang is officially all here with the return Azmodan, joining not the Ladder system but the World Boss lineup. The Lord of Sin joins the pool of potential spawns with Ashava the Pestilent, the Wandering Death, and Avarice the Gold Cursed. Expect “flaming attacks and bloodlusted minions” from his assault.

Phew! There is a lot coming for sure, and we’ll report back as we learn more from PTR testing, starting October 21. For now, check out the video above if you’d like to catch the full Sanctuary Sitdown Interview.