In the first of the two planned Devstreams for Diablo 4 Season 2, Blizzard revealed some pretty big changes coming to the ARPG. First, the team discussed the details of Season 2, including its new systems and content. Then a plethora of upcoming changes were discussed, most of which on the surface should improve Diablo 4 in a big way. Near the end, Blizzard casually announced that Diablo 4 would be launching on Steam at the start of Season 2. Overall I’d say it was a good Devstream. Let’s go over some of the highlights!
Season of Blood
The second season of Diablo 4, Season of Blood, will go live on October 17 at 1 p.m. ET. The current season, Season of the Malignant, will also end at the same time. Furthermore, Patch 1.2.0 will also go live the same day Season 2 begins. Blizzard has a separate Devstream planned one week from today, on October 10, that will go over some big changes coming in Patch 1.2.0 including Class balance, Unique items, Resistances, and more.
As for Season of Blood, however, it seems as though we’ll be getting a bit more content than we did with Season 1. In terms of the narrative, players will venture into a Sanctuary’s vampire-infested underbelly on a new questline. There we will recruit vampire hunter Erys to our cause and discover a sinister plot behind the vampirism.
A new Pact Armor will allow players to harness the Vampiric Powers of the new enemies we will encounter in Season 2. In order to do so, we will require Potent Blood. Potent Blood is a new resource acquired from slaying enemies, which can then be used to unlock new Vampiric Powers or upgrade existing ones. Five powers in total can be equipped, with every power being upgradable to Level 3.
In total, there are 22 Vampiric Powers in Season 2. All Classes can equip any Vampiric Power, which in theory should add a ton of build variety.
Finally, there is a new open-world event similar to Helltides that is called Blood Harvest. The event is available starting at Level 1 and will rotate through the various zones.
New Bosses
Five new bosses will appear in Season 2, with each one having different requirements to encounter them. Each boss has its own exclusive Unique items that they can drop, which will more than likely mean we have to far some of them too. Here are the new bosses:
- Grigoire, The Galvanic Saint (Encountered in World Tier 3 and 4)
- Echo of Varshan (Encountered in World Tier 3 and 4)
- The Beast in the Ice (Encountered in World Tier 4)
- Dark Master (Encountered in World Tier 4)
- Echo of Duriel (Encountered in World Tier 4)
You must defeat Grigoire and Varshan in World Tier 4 to acquire materials to summon Duriel. Duriel is a special encounter because he has the ability to drop the super rare Uber Unique items, as well as potentially a smoldering Brimstone Mount.
Lots of changes, mostly good ones
There are a lot of quality-of-life changes coming with this season. You can find them all in detail here, but here are the most important ones:
- Players will gain 40% more experience in Season 2. Goal is to make leveling smoother and quicker to get to Level 100, making it a realistically achievable goal.
- Gems no longer drop. Instead, players will automatically loot Gem Shard materials to a new material tab, which can be used to craft Gems.
- Enchantment costs have been lowered.
- In World Tier 3 and above, Normal and Magic items will no longer drop, just their crafting materials.
- In World Tier 4, only Ancestral items will drop.
- Higher-level monsters will drop items with higher Item Power potential. Whisper caches and Helltide caches will reward items with an Item Power bonus potential.
- Your Stash can now be Sorted and Filtered to find items more quickly.
- An Auto-run button has been added.
- Streamer mode can be enabled to hide identifying information.
- Combat text can be removed.
- Minimap can be zoomed out.
- Nightmare Sigils from Whisper Caches will always be within 5 levels of the highest Nightmare Dungeon you have completed.
- Gold Reward from whisper caches greatly increased.
- Experience Reward from Whispers and Helltides increased substantially.
- Helltide Chests have unique icons on the map to indicate their type.
- Teleporting to a NIghtmare Dungeon will put you inside, instead of just at the entrance.
- Dungeon Event monster density increased. NPC’s will no longer get one shot in higher World Tiers.
- Crowd Control across the board has been greatly reduced.
- Increased Paragon Glyph experience.
- Legion Events will spawn more frequently.
- World bosses will spawn more frequently, and give you a longer heads-up of their imminent spawn.
- Base mount speed increased, and can now break through barricades.
- Stashes at every waypoint, and gambling vendors closer to waypoints.
- Renown rewards persist between seasons and characters.
- Incenses grant experiences and experience bonuses are multiplicative with World Tier.
Overall these are good changes to Diablo 4. But a lot of the Devstream seemed to be focused on these changes as opposed to the actual Season 2 content. Don’t get me wrong, these are all good changes that will make Diablo 4 a better game. However, I can’t help but be a little afraid that Season 2 ends up just as lackluster as Season 1, which is not good. I hope I’m wrong, but I guess we will see soon!
Diablo 4 Season 2, Season of Blood, will start on October 17 on all platforms.
