Diablo IV Quarterly Update - Q2 June 2022

Hi all,

The second quarterly update for 2022 is now live!. This is intended to be a dedicated thread for the purpose of discussion and feedback, and our developers will be prioritizing reviewing feedback or discussion here.

Please note that this is a dedicated thread intended for player discussion and we may not respond to or immediately answer questions in this thread at this time. We may consider questions or feedback here for future inclusion in Quarterly Updates, and look forward to reading your thoughts!


If you’d like to recap or revisit previous posts on the announcement or ongoing insights on Diablo IV development, you can see everything here:

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Diablo IV is committed to the principle of player choice. It shapes how we approach many of our systems, from character customization, to the density and layout of our open world, to the design of our classes and builds. As you’ll see below, the Book of the Dead focuses on this idea of choice and what kind of Necromancer you want to be.

Choices are good. But they also require limitations. They require that you pick one thing, at the expense of another. If you can just choose “everything”, there was no choice being made.

That goes for respeccing, but it also goes for gear, such as not making affixes something you can just freely move around between items. I am not necessarily against the Legendary Essences, but it can be a dangerous path to walk down imo, if not designed well.

The choices also have to be balanced. Choosing between getting 100 power or getting 5 power is not much of a choice after all.
So to use the Legendary Essences as an example again; 1) Rares, 2) Legendaries and 3) Rares with a Legendary Essence, all need to be balanced against each other.

As far as weapons and other unique gear, Necromancers use Swords, Daggers, Wands, Focuses, and Shields. In addition to these, they are also the only class that can use Scythes.

NOOOO :frowning:
Class specific weapons. Sigh. Really bad imo.
And outside of the class specific weapons, a very limited selection of general weapons. Why not let all classes use all items. The affixes on the items would still dictate which ones you actually want to use.
What happened to Player Choice?

Bone skills are relatively physical in nature, and thus benefit more heavily from effects such as Critical Strike.

Different abilities benefitting differently from Critical Strike etc? Please be true! That would be great.

We went through a lot of iteration on how we want the experience of summoning the undead to feel for the player, and how much of their skill bar should be dedicated to this part of the class. To that end, we’ve come up with what we feel is the best possible version to ensure that players have as much customization as possible over not only their army itself, but also in which other skills they want to use to support their own unique playstyle.

If a player wants to have the maximum number of summoned units possible then they will only have to dedicate two buttons to their skill bar: one to raising Skeletons and the other for their Golem. The Raise Skeleton button is a one-stop shop to raise all the different Skeletons a player can summon, and the Golem button is used to command the Golem to use a unique effect that is dependent on the type of Golem that is currently active

Not a bad approach, but it is still hard not to think of another, relatively obvious, solution to fitting in more skills on the skill bar… Having more skill slots… :slight_smile:

Also seems potentially limiting if all Necromancer summons have to be either Skeletons or Golems, as well as never being able to have two different golems?

That said, it sure is good that you are able to have non-summon skills on your pure summoner build.

In addition to all this customization, we have also added the ability for players to sacrifice different components of their army for personal benefits. Next to each unit type in the Book of the Dead is an extra option to sacrifice the ability to summon that unit in exchange for a personal, permanent buff. These buffs are carefully designed and placed so that players can mix and match having none, some, or all the possible summoned units while still having relevant options to enhance their build.

Very nice.
The Book sounds good overall.
Although:

Reapers have slower attacks, deal damage in a AoE in front of them, and have a special wind-up attack that deals a high amount of damage

It would be interesting to hear, not specifically for Necromancer, but in general, how you have designed combat, so everyone wont just always pick the AoE option. Leading back to the Choices need to be balanced.

Aaand, that was it. As usual disappointing to see so little information about game systems :slight_smile:
At minimum this was an obvious chance to show off the skill trees again.

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The puking gold hugeboss is just totaly awesome!!! :smiley:

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in my opinion, on the contrary, it emphasizes the character and his theme

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In addition to all this customization, we have also added the ability for players to sacrifice different components of their army for personal benefits. Next to each unit type in the Book of the Dead is an extra option to sacrifice the ability to summon that unit in exchange for a personal, permanent buff. These buffs are carefully designed and placed so that players can mix and match having none, some, or all the possible summoned units while still having relevant options to enhance their build.

Does this mean there’s a limit per type of summon and you can give up the limit for that type for a buff? Or is there a total skeleton summon limit and I can have max skeletons all be one type if I want?

When I’m actually summoning them, do I just set up how many I want of each type somehow in the menu up to my total skeleton limit and it summons them in a certain order? Or I guess if the limit is just per type, it cycles through the options automatically that I haven’t chosen to sacrifice?

The way it’s written to sacrifice parts of the army for personal buffs, I would have to guess the limit is per type IE: maybe there’s a limit of 2 of each Skeletal Warriors, but you could never choose to just have 6 reapers? Or perhaps there’s also some kind of talent/skill tree with that lets you change that sort of thing as well.

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I’m loving the necromancer update – very hopeful a permanent minion army is a feasible endgame build option. I really dislike temporary armies in other games. It sounds like this is the case for the class. I’m excited.

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You have stolen my heart for the fourth time, Devs! :wink:

so i wanna mention it again because this is apparently the thread with the most developer attention

being able to turn rare items into legendary items destroys a lot of item personality and turns 2 of the strongest item tiers into crafting material rather than giving them a unique personality

so about the update:

why can’t my barb pick up and swing a scythe? it’s basically just a pole weapon
talking about freedom

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Nothing bad to say this time. Nice work Blizzard.

As long as classes aren’t tied down to that 1 or two specific class only weapons as their only choice it’s fine. If we get to endgame and the only viable weapon choice is a scythe, that’s when it becomes an issue.

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You don’t have to do it.

Apparently there is a base limit for each with 1 being for the golem. The Rod and Joe interview from yesterday talked about an item found that increased the number, so potentially you could have a ton.

With the sacrifice option it looks like you give up the ability to summon that type of minion for some form of benefit to the Necromancer itself.

As for limits, if you want all you warriors to be reapers you can. If you want all your mages to be bone magic mages they can.

no. you don’t say that
you are more intelligent
come on
try a gain

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No. I mean i have so much fun making my own buulds and doing my own thing despite not using the “best” or “better” items and skills. So if tou have a legendary you like keep it. Nothing is forcing you to add it to a yellow.

I know you don’t care about what others do, leaderboards, and that crap, so play how you see fit. Personally, i hope to be decked out in legendaries that all modify 1 skill.

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the natural behaviour of gamers is to try to be as strong as the game allows them to be
not necessarily with using guides but just by looking at what you got and what is possible

people saying “dOn’t uSe It” when people complain about bad balance are not arguing
they are relativizing

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I just hope that wont be possible.

  1. Because no items in the game only modified one skill - seriously Blizzard…
  2. Because each item slot wouldnt have legendaries that modified a category that one of your skills belonged to. Most item slots should have something for all kinds of skills, but for example, maybe there was no legendary affixes on boots that alters projectile skills, and so on.

And related to that, while I am fine with the Legendary Essence, as long as it is balanced across item rarities, and limited to one-time transfers, it really must not be possible to transfer a legendary affix from a shield to gloves for example. But as far as I recall, the blog post about it also hinted that this was indeed not possible.

:100:

Have to quote it for endless, unlimited truth. Might even call it Paragon Truth.

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as far as we know it is

All I would need are affixes that enhance channeled skills. Set up my WW barb.

:slight_smile:
Well, then in my scenario, maybe there was no Helmet skills that enhance Channeled Spender skills :smiley:

More importantly however, it should be very unviable to do this, even if possible. As in, by enhancing your WW on all items your character should be a glass cannon that would die all the time. Leading to relatively low WW dmg, since spinning in a grave does not deal WW dmg, for some reason :slight_smile:
Also, it should be relatively unviable to focus on one skill. In the WW scenario, you should maybe struggle to keep up WW without a generator + items for that generator, or enemies would move away from the weird spinning barb unless you picked some CC skill + items for it. And so on.