Dev Diary: Retiring Essences and the Future

General Discussion
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Hello everyone, we’re the Systems and Design team here from Diablo Immortal. We’ve never had the chance to speak to you directly like this before, and we’re thankful to have the opportunity to have some time with you to talk shop!

We’re here today to give you a peak behind the curtain of the Diablo Immortal development process, and an early outline of our new essence design that impacts your character builds, theory crafting, and end game content.

Back in June, we retired several essences from the game but didn’t do a great job of explaining to you all our thought process behind this change, or sharing how we plan to move forward.

Based on community feedback, we want to change that and push the needle a little bit on the level of transparency that we can deliver to you all. We hope that by giving you all a glimpse of our reasoning and priorities, you’ll have a better understanding of the “what” and “why” of our design decisions, and how they’ll make for a better and healthier game in the long run.

What’s Changing

In June, we retired several Essences from the pool, and moving forward, we plan on continuing this process of retiring essences from the pool and slowly pare down the number of total essences until we reach a stable number across all classes.

What this looks like in the end is still being discussed and developed, but our vision is to get to a place where there is a steady number of Essences for each class that are useable and create meaningful choice for players. This does not mean an end to new Essences. As we retire Essences, we plan to also add new ones. You can read more about our intention for new Essences and Design later in this post.

Essences that are retired are not chosen based strictly on their age, usage, or any single factor, but on a mix of factors such as balance, ecosystem health, diversity, usage, design goals, design space, and more.

Why We’re Making this Change

This is a big change from what our players are used to, and we also want to share with you why we’re making these changes as well.

As the number of legendary affixes keeps growing, several long-term problems emerge:

  • A steeper learning curve for new players

  • Higher re-adaptation curve for returning players

  • Increasing complexity and cognitive load for even our most veteran players

  • Continued dilution of the drop pool

  • A shrinking impact from each new legendary affix added.

Keeping the legendary pool at a healthy size lets each update produce a more noticeable change in the game experience, while lowering long-term complexity, and ensuring that new and returning players have the smoothest possible onboarding in a game that is continuously becoming more complex.

We also believe that with our current unchanged release cadence, the impact of each new piece of content on the overall ecosystem is steadily declining.

With a large existing affix pool, most players won’t see a meaningful change in their actual play experience with the addition of 1 or 2 essences per build. By controlling the size of the affix pool and increasing the magnitude of change per update, we can create a more noticeable, more worthwhile-to-explore gameplay update experience.

What does this mean for the future?

We want these changes to give players the best experience possible as we continue to grow and evolve this game that we all love.

Moving forward, new affixes should feel more impactful and worth exploring, instead of getting lost in an ever-growing pool of affixes.

Controlling the Essence pool by itself won’t automatically create better gameplay, and it can’t guarantee players will switch Builds.

What will get players to try a new Build is still whether future Essences deliver clear value, like solving pain points in existing Builds, bringing new gameplay directions, offering a compelling enough experiential change, and forming a clearer Build identity.

This change is about reducing over-all game and balance complexity, making the build ecosystem easier for players to understand, and creating the conditions for more meaningful Essence design in the future; and not about retirement alone completing a ecosystem refresh.

The Vision for the Future

We believe this change will lay out the groundwork needed for future development for years to come. These changes enable us to achieve the more ambitious plans we have in store for Diablo Immortal’s future.

We are dedicated to making Diablo Immortal the best game that it can be, and this is just one part of our planned changes coming in the next year to keep things exciting, engaging, and evolving.

We’ll be sharing more information with you as we continue to complete our plans, and as we make further decisions on how we’re retiring and introducing Essences.

We know that not all players will be as excited about these changes as we are, and hope that while you may not agree with these changes right now, this post at least gave you an understanding of our design direction and the “why” behind our plans.

Thank you for taking the time to read this today. We want to hear what you think and welcome you to join us on Discord to continue the conversation. We’ve created a special channel to contain conversations on this topic. Join #essence-retirement to continue the conversation.

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Retired Essences August 12
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FAQ:

What will the pace of future legendary affix updates look like?

Our plan is to increase the experiential change delivered by each content update while keeping the legendary affix pool at a healthy size. Future updates may include both new legendary affixes being added and some old legendary affixes being retired at the same time. This lets new affixes deliver a more noticeable gameplay change.

What is the basis for retiring a legendary affix?

Whether a legendary affix is retired will not be decided by time-on-live alone. We will weigh a combination of factors: Build ecosystem health, gameplay diversity, design goals, upcoming content plans, and of course, we will put a focus on their usage rate. We want to maintain a healthy, vibrant legendary ecosystem rather than age out content on a timer.

Does retiring one legendary affix always mean adding a new one in its place?

Not necessarily. We want to optimize the overall build ecosystem, not to do a one-for-one replacement. A new legendary affix may support a new playstyle or a new mechanic. It won’t necessarily directly replace the one that was retired.

How will PvP balance be affected?

A healthy PVP ecosystem where a variety of builds made by the community is where we see Diablo Immortal thrive. The impact of new and retired legendary affixes will continue to be monitored, with balance adjustments made based on real-world results.

Will the classes players main be fundamentally changed?

No. Every class will continue to retain its core class fantasy and identity. However, players should expect class gameplay to keep evolving as new legendary affixes are added and old ones are retired.

How will PvE content be affected?

We want essences to have a more noticeable impact on gameplay and to give players more explorable Build choices. Players can still expect many Builds viable across different PvE content.

Will there be legendary affixes designed specifically for PvE?

Possibly. Different updates may target different gameplay directions. That said, there is currently no plan to establish fully separate retirement rules for PvE versus PvP.

Will the Essence Transfer system be affected?

There is currently no plan to adjust the Essence Transfer system as a result of the legendary retirement design.

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What does this mean for essences that had transmogrify appearances with them? Will they be lost forever? Or brought back with a new effect?

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Thank you for the transparency and for opening this space to discuss the game’s direction with the community. However, I strongly believe that retiring essences is the wrong approach to solving build variety and overall complexity.
Removing essences directly reduces customization options for every class. Instead of cutting older or underused essences from the game, a much better solution would be to rebalance, adjust, and buff those forgotten options so they can compete with the current meta.
Here is why this change feels counterproductive to the player experience:
True Variety vs. A Smaller Pool: Real build diversity isn’t created by shrinking the available catalog, but by ensuring more skills and essences are strong enough to viable alternatives.
Loss of Niche Playstyles: Many older essences, while not mainstream, enable unique interactions and niche setups for specific content (PvE, PvP, or specialized dungeon runs). Retiring them completely kills theorycrafting potential for those builds.
Value of Time Invested: For veteran players, watching tools and options disappear takes away from the time and effort spent collecting and experimenting with them over time.
If the main concerns are the learning curve for new players or drop pool dilution, redesigning the Essence interface—such as organizing affixes by element, skill, or playstyle tags—would solve the cognitive overload without deleting content.
Buffing weaker essences would have sparked excitement to revisit older items and craft new meta builds. I hope the team considers keeping the essence library intact and focusing on balance passes and UI improvements instead.

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That’s a good question. How specific Essences will be handled, or which Essences will be affected is an ongoing conversation, so I don’t have an answer for you right now, but it’s a great topic to speak to our team about.

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Thank you for taking the time to share this FAQ, but I remain strongly opposed to this direction. Retiring essences directly ruins the experience for dedicated players—and I say this as someone who was personally affected.
My main build was heavily reliant on Wiltbloom. When you retired that essence, my entire setup was destroyed, forcing me to abandon my preferred playstyle and change my class altogether just to remain functional. Removing core components of players’ builds doesn’t create “fresh gameplay”; it forces frustration and ruins long-term character progression.
Addressing the arguments in your FAQ directly:
“Controlling pool size creates more noticeable changes”: Shrinking the pool doesn’t create true diversity; it just forces everyone onto a tighter, more rigid meta. If you retire 5 old options and introduce 2 new ones, players just migrate to whatever is left. Real diversity comes from making weak options competitive, not from restricting choices.
“Usage rate as a key factor”: Basing retirement on usage rates creates a self-fulfilling cycle. Essences are underused because they are undertuned, not because players don’t want variety. Instead of deleting underperforming essences, they should be buffed, recapped, or reworked.
“Reducing complexity for new players”: Deleting content is the wrong fix for UI/UX overload. If the growing number of affixes is overwhelming, the answer is a cleaner interface (filtering by skill type, element, or playstyle) rather than removing gameplay options from veterans.
“Not a 1-to-1 replacement”: Knowing that favorite niche builds can vanish at any moment without a direct replacement completely kills the incentive to theorycraft and invest time into unique setups.
In a game centered around loot and build crafting, sunsetting content feels like taking a shortcut to avoid doing actual balance work. I strongly urge the team to stop retiring essences, restore removed options, and focus on balance passes and UI improvements instead.

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After seeing this comment, I don’t need to write another one from the scratch. Please know this, an essence to have a very small use percentage doesn’t mean that essence is bad. The game has many acitivities, and some activities are being done much less than some mainstream ones. For example you removed barbarian’s best solo gauntlet/pve tank essence, “Terrible Divide” was a 3 charge Leap essence, and with class specific affixes, barbs had the chance to maintain 48% damage reduction. Was this essence used by many? Absolutely not. Was it a unique essence for niche content? Absolutely yes.

Another detail is, you removed multiple buff/debuff essences like “Enemies take 19% more damage when you use X skill”. They are type of essences that were gonna find their value when the corresponding skill gets a new and powerful essence. When the main skill has no place in any builds, of course 19% buff essence weren’t gonna be used too.

Another example, Blood Knight suffers in lethality meta, has minimal resilience in pvp. You added a new OP Wave of Blood off-hand essence, but also retired 28.5% damage reduction when using Wave of Blood chest essence. Believe me, any build using Wave of Blood in PvP, would also use that chest essence.

In summary i definitely do not recommend retiring essences already as a day 1 player, but if you remove you need to ASK expert players, as developers you cannot know what essence can be used in which niche content, and you may not realize the best synergies. Instead of removing essences, you can make everyone happier by overhauling old essences more often. Believe me, nobody gets happy when you diminish things, remove essences and sets from the game.

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I find it unfair to take away green set gear that compliments a players specific build. I agree with Saul’s post about restructering the old gear. I know a lot of veteran players that put thousands of dollars into this game, just for you to remove something without warning.

I know for myself it completely ruined my wizard build so much that I was forced to change class. I myself have spent real cash into this game. Going forward I feel there should be more thought about how you handle a game where players are spending money. Even though you didn’t remove an aspect that cost money, it still played a major impact on players.

I have been a veteran player since day 1. Going forward I will spend much more carefully and if this continues I wil return to F2P. I can only hope the big spenders do excactly the same. As for new players attempting to learn the game should not affect day 1 veterans.

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Could not agree more. 100% correct to the point.

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Same as above.

Builds diversity is what I love about DI. This requires as many essences as possible to explore synergies and see how an old essence can potentially becomes viable through new essences and meta evolution.

New players are overwhelmed by the content of the game, that’s a fact. But when it comes to builds, most players look at meta builds for their class and do not care about spending time crafting their own.

New metas emerge when a small number of crafters (and CC Influencers) test and share their ideas. Reducing the number of essences breaks these players’ memory and ideas. It becomes harder to remember if one specific essence is still available or not when we want to test something.

Old shared builds become uncertain, all this history of builds is then worthless instead of staying as a reference that could be improved by new essences. They represented kind of a landmark of some playstyle, to be forgotten.

Adjusting some old essences when new metas emerge is rather healthy for the game. Reducing or improving a buff or a mechanic to avoid OP builds or unwanted synergies.

As a comparison, when druid was out, there was not enough essences to craft viable builds (probably released based on 6p equipments instead of 8). Things got better after a few new set of essences.

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Absolutely. Spent mega £££ and a lot of time to build Wizard, and since the class was nerfed, it’s now the weakest class across all for PVP and not to say how frustrating it was.

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One simple question:

Why were the essences completely removed from the game rather than just from the drop pool and then having them available at all times?

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What about fixing bugged essences?

On wizard the chest essence Audacious Stratagem for lightning nova from inferno 12 is still not working. It does not apply shock properly, furthermore when combined with the off-hand’s Lunar Spindle it does not provide Bonus damage.

The inferno 13 head essence for scorch Inclement Alchemy in the description is saying that it gets its cooldown reduced whenever you apply shock. But, when combined with the black hole off-hand Rustic Wisdome and chest lightning nova Spark Shower it does not trigger cooldown reduction on scorch despite applying shock.

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Well, there are two ways…

  1. Release new legendary essences / set items which might tempt players to try a new build.
  2. Remove existing legendary essences / set items which forces players to try a new build, because you destroyed their existing one.

The reason for the push-back is because you chose option 2. Doubling down on it, suggesting that you’ll continue to potentially kill players’ existing builds by removing key items from them, isn’t a positive.

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Why do we need to try new builds?

I had been completly happy with my build with no desire to try new builds.

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Since I’ve started playing, what ive noticed and even more so now after reading these plans it has been evident to me that you guys must WANT us all playing the same build/builds (only ones that work, by removing so many other options that we dont use, instead of improving on what is lacking and currently exists).

It is highly discouraging to hear this, me personally am MORE worried about what might be removed than excited about what may be added.. as I am sure alot of players are. That is a bad business model for keeping players interested in continued play.

I feel each class skill and essence is cherry picked by you guys on what Build YOU want us all to play, over letting us change it up and be different. This is exactly why every class plays 1 or 2 main builds in pvp.

I am not excited for these changes and if any of my preffered essences are removed because “even though I might use them but many people dont” it will cause me more hate for the game , then excitement in trying to find the NEXT build that will work.

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Game need players this should be Your Maine goal.

Do something, its 4years and f2p players have the same caps, 300 plat per day and 12 normal gem per day.

One r10 gem is almoust 20k r1 gems, how do You expecting players after 4y will be stay or new will start.

Pvp is boring because player pool is to short.

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As the development team, over the years you’ve consistently chosen to focus on issues that almost nobody cared about, instead of the problems players have been desperately trying to bring to your attention for years, the ones the entire community has long recognized as major issues.

Nobody was complaining about Cursed Properties, yet you decided to remove them and turn three of them into a Paragon tree that virtually nobody uses.

You removed an essence like Terminus, which had been the core of almost every Wizard build for the past two years, without providing any meaningful alternative. As a result, nearly every Wizard player I know either switched classes or quit the game entirely.

Despite overwhelming negative feedback, you threw away 264 sets containing many useful essences and you seem determined to continue doing so.

On top of that, you removed an incredibly valuable set like Endwinter from the game, completely killing or severely weakening several builds.

Meanwhile, some bugs that have existed for three or four years are still unfixed. World Chat has become practically unusable because of bots. You haven’t added a single new dungeon in three years. I’m watching old friends quit the game one by one, while the number of new players joining is very low.

At the same time, you seem to believe you’re making the game more newcomer-friendly, yet you keep raising the CR requirements, making progression increasingly unattainable for new players. You’re also forcing existing players to equip higher-CR items at the expense of their optimized gear, preventing them from properly min-maxing their characters.

The Feedback section on Discord has received countless thoughtful, high-quality suggestions that could genuinely improve the game, same for Reddit and this forum, yet you haven’t implemented even 1% of them.

I’m sorry to say this, but you don’t know everything, even though you seem to think you do. If you continue ignoring your players, there won’t be much of a game left before long.

I urge you to change your mindset before it’s too late, and before the players commenting under this post decide to leave the game as well.

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Honestly, there are 10000 ways you could have handled this without removing essences and green gear. When you have major influencers, whom players rely on for tips and tricks, posting builds with the essences and greens then you remove them, a large base of players lose builds. I’m a pretty dedicated player and mostly f2p. Two of my characters had to have fully retooled builds because of this. I lost time, effort, and even a little bit of money that I put into them.

it’s honestly frustrating that you are prioritizing making this game more and more suited to pay to win players. I’m not going anywhere right now but I can’t say that I haven’t thought about it. Why suck the fun out of the game for those of us who can’t/wont pump thousands or dollars into the game? Are your whales not paying you enough money?

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