Diablo 4’s next update makes Season of Loot Reborn look like a hotfix — a new level cap of 60, new difficulty levels, and the return of Runewords all in Season 6

The Season of Loot Reborn is about to be outshined by the Season of Player Progression, with huge changes to how leveling and difficulty function in Diablo 4

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What you need to know

-Diablo 4: Everything we know about the Spiritborn-The Diablo 4 Spiritborn pushes the speed envelope-Diablo 4: How to get Mythic Uniques fast-Diablo 4 interview at Gamescom-Diablo 4 Boss Ladder guide

Fresh from the reveals from Gamescom 2024 for Diablo 4, namely the new mercenary system and Dark Citadel PvE activity being introduced, we were also promised a huge livestream covering further changes coming to the game when Vessel of Hatred launches on October 8. In our interview with Rod Fergusson he said"one of the things we’re doing with Season 6, is what we did for Season 4 for loot,“and today we got to know what all that really means.

A fundamental change to progression for characters in Diablo 4 with a new level cap

The developers want to address what perhaps hasn’t aged well in the game since launch, as well as doubling down on whatisfun and working for the community. Along with this, there needs to be a meaningful challenge and reward to compensate for our increasing power. With this in mind changes are coming to:The Character Journey

Difficulty tiers

Due to these changes, World Tiers as we know them are a thing of the past, but in real terms, this means we can explore Sanctuary on what would be equal to World Tier 5 and 6 if we wish to. Right now, the only way to increase the difficulty past World Tier 4 is by eating and stacking Profane Mindcages, and this difficulty only increases in the Helltide. With these changes, all activities in the game will be open to increased difficulty.

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Boss ladder changes

The Boss Ladderis also undergoing some changes. No long will there be two versions of each boss (at the moment there is normal and Tormented) and no longer will there be different costs associated with summoning each difficulty of these bosses. If you can beat Duriel at Torment 1, he will cost the same to summon at Torment 4 but be tougher in line with the difficulty of that Tier, and drop more rewards.

More Itemization changes with power jumps at new i-levels

Finally we can level our Glyphs outside of Nightmare Dungeons

Paragon points will be shared across the Realm

Runewords return from Diablo 2

The rumors were true! The belovedRunewordsystem is coming back, for players who are familiar withDiablo 2: Resurrected. The goal with introducing them to Diablo 4 is to do so by retaining the soul of the original socketable components but do it in a new and fresh way that feels on theme with Diablo 4’s modern gameplay.

Runewordswill be a way to customize our builds with skills from other classes. For example a Necromancer can become Berserk (Barbarian skill).

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Note: Since the Campfire Chat a Diablo player has already put together a huge list ofRuneword combinations.

New Tempering Affixes coming to Diablo 4

In Patch 2.0, all Tempering affixes for weapons will be multiplicative damage increases, with two new affixes being added:

Offensive Tempering Affixes are additive damage increases. Size and Duration affixes have now been moved to the Utility category.Tempering Recipes will also be dramatically reduced to 4 affixes at most to help improve players' odds of hitting them when trying to get the affix they want.

Ultimate Skills may actually become exciting

Right now many of the strongest builds in the game do not use an Ultimate Skill at all, which is a shame as they are visually impressive but often not the most efficient damage dealers in a build. From Patch 2.0, to make Ultimates more viable you will be able to gain Skill Ranks for them, as well as opportunites to increase damage and reduce cooldowns.

You will still only be able to equip one Ultimate Skill.

New skills coming for all classes

As teased in previous chats with the developers, while Vessel of Hatred brings a new class to the game, all classes can look forward to new skills in Patch 2.0

Barbarian

Barbarian Mighty Throw is new weapon skill

New passives will enhance the new and existing skills for Barbarian

Barbarian is also getting a new item and two new aspects. Yes they really called it the ‘Ugly Bastard helm’.

Druid

New skill for the Druid is Stone Burst

The Druid is getting a bunch of new passives

Druid is getting the most new Aspects added to support it’s new skill.

Necromancer

Rogue

Sorcerer

New Mythic Uniques added to the current line up

NewMythic Uniquesare being added that will be equippable by all of the classes.

Quality of Life updates

We’ll now be able to select our preferred Town Portal location, which means I’ll never ever visit Gea Kul and it’s awkward stairs again. This also means when doing Whispers you can automatically teleport straight to the Tree of Whispers to hand in. Other quality of life updates are:

There will be a Public Test Realm for Patch 2.0

As with all major updates, we are able to test all these amazing updates prior to Patch 2.0 rolling out on October 8 with Vessel of Hatred. You will need to be playing on PC and through Battle.net. The first testing phase will run from September 4 to September 6 for levelling, and from September 6 players will be able to test new endgame content until the 11th.

Believe it or not, there is still more to come…

As the stream came to an end, the developers reminded us that they hadn’t even told us anything about the theme of Season 6 yet, so we still have updates to come on that and how it will work with Vessel of Hatred. We do know that the season steps for completion will not be tied to anything locked behind the paywall of the new DLC.With all of that in mind, I’m absolutely floored by the length and breadth of these updates and can’t wait to see how it all comes together in Diablo 4 patch 2.0. You canread the extensive patch notes here. Looks like we are going to have to rewrite a LOT of guides!

Diablo 4: Vessel of HatredUnlock a new entry in the story campaign, a new Nahantu region, and the first-ever new class for Diablo 4 — the Spiritborn. Purchase today to unlock cosmetics you can use up until the launch of October 8 and beyond, from armor to pets to a cat mount!Battle.net|Xbox|Steam

Jen is a News Writer for Windows Central, focused on all things gaming and Microsoft. Anything slaying monsters with magical weapons will get a thumbs up such as Dark Souls, Dragon Age, Diablo, and Monster Hunter. When not playing games, she’ll be watching a horror or trash reality TV show, she hasn’t decided which of those categories the Kardashians fit into. You can follow Jen on Twitter@Jenbox360for more Diablo fangirling and general moaning about British weather.