Diablo 4 Players Say Whirlwind’s Weapon Expertise Isn’t Working Properly

Building a Barbarian in Diablo 4 involves a respectable amount of weapon mathematics.

You choose the weapon.

You choose the Expertise.

You choose the Technique.

You read several percentages.

Then, ideally, the percentages happen.

Whirlwind players are increasingly convinced that some of them do not.

A long-running bug report from the Barbarian community says several Weapon Expertise bonuses are behaving inconsistently with Whirlwind, particularly when Dust Devils and certain build combinations are involved. The issue has been tested by players for weeks and is still being discussed as of August 14.

Blizzard has not officially confirmed the problem, so this remains a community-tested bug report rather than an established developer finding.

But if the testing is correct, some Whirlwind Barbarians may have been optimizing around bonuses that were not actually doing what they thought.

Dust Devils Appear to Ignore Weapon Expertise

The biggest complaint concerns Dust Devils created through Whirlwind.

According to the original report, Barbarian players testing different Weapon Expertise options found that none of the tested Techniques appeared to modify the damage of the Dust Devils generated by Whirlwind.

That feels particularly strange because Dust Devils have become deeply integrated into modern Whirlwind builds.

Blizzard has repeatedly updated the interaction over the last several seasons, including changing Dust Devil damage and giving Whirlwind-generated Dust Devils additional offensive utility.

From a player's perspective, if the Dust Devils are part of what the Whirlwind build is producing, it is natural to expect the Barbarian's weapon bonuses to matter somewhere in that equation.

According to the testers, they currently do not.

Polearm and 2H Axe May Have an Even Stranger Problem

The second issue is more specific.

Players report that Polearm and Two-Handed Axe Expertise initially affect Whirlwind itself, but under certain setups the bonuses disappear roughly half a second into the channel.

The reported combination involves Aspect of Anger Management and Whirlwind's Tornado modifier.

When testers removed the relevant gear and modifier, they say the Expertise bonuses began working normally for the full Whirlwind channel again.

That is the sort of interaction that makes Diablo build testing delightful.

Remove one legendary power.

Change one skill option.

Discover that your axe has apparently remembered how to be an axe again.

2H Sword Appears to Work Better, But Not Completely

The community has also tested Two-Handed Sword Expertise.

According to the same bug-report thread, it appears to work on Whirlwind's direct damage more consistently than Polearm or Two-Handed Axe.

But even here, players report that the bonus still does not carry over to the Dust Devils.

So "working" comes with an asterisk large enough to require its own weapon slot.

This May Have Affected Build Guides

That is where the issue becomes more important than an obscure tooltip disagreement.

Players in the thread note that Polearm Expertise had continued appearing in Whirlwind recommendations while the problem was being investigated.

The original tester later explained that the community itself had largely taken the interaction for granted until theorycrafters began checking the actual numbers and noticed damage was missing.

That does not mean every Whirlwind guide has been fundamentally wrong.

It does mean the expected value of certain Weapon Expertise choices may be different if the community testing proves accurate.

And in an endgame where people happily rearrange half a Paragon board for a few percent more damage, that matters.

We Don’t Know How Long It Has Been Happening

There is also uncertainty around when the behavior began.

One player believed Polearm Expertise worked normally during Season 13.

Another tester says the community is no longer confident about that and considers it possible the problem has existed for much longer without being noticed.

That is plausible simply because Diablo 4's damage systems are enormously complicated.

When a build contains multiple Expertise bonuses, aspects, skill modifiers, Paragon effects and secondary damage sources, a missing multiplier does not necessarily announce itself with flashing red text.

Sometimes the monster just dies slightly less enthusiastically.

For Now, Treat the Testing as Community Evidence

At the time of writing, Blizzard has not responded publicly to the bug report or confirmed that Weapon Expertise is malfunctioning with Whirlwind.

That distinction is important.

The testing described by players is detailed and has been repeated across several weeks, but it remains player testing.

If you are running Whirlwind, it may nevertheless be worth checking your current Weapon Technique rather than assuming every listed bonus is affecting every part of the build.

Especially if your damage seems lower than the spreadsheet promised.

Because somewhere in Sanctuary, there is apparently a Barbarian staring at a Polearm and asking the most dangerous question in modern Diablo:

Is this percentage actually doing anything?

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Barbarian Expertise Not Functioning Properly for Whirlwind

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo IV Patch Notes

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Diablo 4 Players Say Spawn of the Damned Is Still One-Shotting Hardcore Characters

There are many respectable ways for a Hardcore Diablo 4 character to die.

A boss you underestimated.

A terrible pull.

That moment when confidence becomes stupidity approximately three seconds before the death screen appears.

Being instantly killed beside a Helltide Hellworm by something you never saw is considerably harder to accept.

But that is exactly what Diablo 4 players have been reporting for months.

A long-running bug report about Spawn of the Damned has resurfaced again this week, with another player reporting an apparently instantaneous death near a Hellworm despite having thousands of Life and Fortify.

Blizzard has not officially confirmed that Spawn of the Damned is bugged, so this remains a player-reported issue rather than an established game bug.

For Hardcore players, however, that distinction offers limited comfort when the character is already dead.

The Reports Started Back in May

The original report appeared on Blizzard's Diablo IV forums on May 2.

The player described repeatedly being killed during Helltides by something identified in the death message as Spawn of the Damned.

According to the report, their health remained above 90% before suddenly dropping to zero, without an obvious attack, ground effect or visible Spawn of the Damned appearing first.

Another player responded that the same thing had happened while approaching a Hellworm.

Then came another.

A tanky Druid with full Life, Fortify, Barrier and Damage Reduction reportedly died instantly near a worm.

Then a Warlock player reported a similar death while fully buffed.

By this point, a pattern was beginning to emerge.

Not proof.

But certainly enough to make Hardcore players look at Helltide worms with rather more suspicion than usual.

The Reports Never Completely Stopped

The thread continued receiving reports through May and into July.

On July 3, another Hardcore player said Spawn of the Damned had killed them instantly beside a Hellworm.

Four days later, a Necromancer player reported dying twice despite entering the encounters with full Life, Fortify and Barrier.

And now the issue has surfaced again.

In a new post added on August 14, a player reported losing a level 61 character on Hard difficulty after encountering a Hellworm during Helltide.

The character reportedly had more than 4,500 Life and partial Fortify.

The player ran away from the worm, stopped to open a chest and was then killed by Spawn of the Damned before the other nearby monsters had even reached them.

That death reportedly occurred on August 12.

What Exactly Is Killing Them?

That remains the problem.

The reports consistently associate the deaths with Spawn of the Damned and Hellworms, but players do not appear to agree on the exact mechanic responsible.

Some suspect the enemy may be spawning directly on top of the character.

Others wonder whether there is a spawn or death effect dealing damage before its visual warning becomes visible.

It is also possible that the creature simply has unexpectedly high damage under certain circumstances.

Until Blizzard investigates or explains what is happening, those possibilities remain speculation.

What makes the issue unusual is not simply that players are dying.

Diablo is quite committed to that part of the experience.

It is that several players describe being unable to see or react to whatever dealt the lethal damage.

Softcore Players Have Reported It Too

This is not exclusively a Hardcore complaint.

Players in the same thread have reported similar one-shot deaths on Softcore characters.

The difference is obvious.

On Softcore, an unexplained death costs some time and perhaps a few choice words directed toward the monitor.

On Hardcore, it costs the character.

That makes any potentially invisible or unavoidable burst of damage much more serious.

Hardcore Players May Want to Treat Hellworms Carefully

Without an official confirmation, we cannot tell players that every Hellworm is carrying a secret delete-character button.

Most Helltide encounters clearly do not end this way.

But the reports now span more than three months and multiple classes, and several explicitly involve Hardcore characters dying beside Hellworms with defensive layers active.

If you are playing Hardcore, there is therefore a reasonable argument for giving Hellworms some extra space until the situation becomes clearer.

Not because Spawn of the Damned has been officially confirmed as broken.

It has not.

But Hardcore has always rewarded unnecessary paranoia.

Sometimes the chest really can wait.

Blizzard Has Yet to Explain It

The most frustrating part is that the original bug report is now months old.

At the time of writing, the thread contains no official Blizzard response confirming the cause or stating that a fix is underway.

That does not necessarily mean Blizzard is ignoring it. Bug reports can be investigated without public replies.

But from the player's perspective, the uncertainty remains.

Maybe Spawn of the Damned has an overtuned attack.

Maybe something around the Hellworm is firing before its visuals appear.

Maybe there is another explanation entirely.

Until Blizzard tells us, we simply do not know.

What we do know is that Diablo 4 players are still reporting the same frightening sequence:

Full health.

Hellworm nearby.

Sudden death.

Slain by Spawn of the Damned.

For Softcore, that is annoying.

For Hardcore, that is the sort of sentence capable of ending an evening.

Source

Diablo IV Forums: One Shot Bug — Spawn of the Damned on HC

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Diablo Immortal Reset Everyone’s Loyalty Points — Here’s Where They Went

If you opened Diablo Immortal after the August 12 update and wondered where your Loyalty Points had gone, there is some good news.

Blizzard did not delete them.

It moved them.

With the arrival of Inferno XIV Legendary Essences, every existing Loyalty Point was automatically converted into Legacy Loyalty Points.

Meanwhile, the regular Loyalty Point counter essentially begins a new cycle for Inferno XIV.

It sounds alarmingly like a reset.

Technically, it is.

But your old currency has not vanished into the same mysterious dimension that contains every useful Legendary item you salvaged by accident.

Why Did Blizzard Reset Loyalty Points?

The reason is the arrival of a new generation of Legendary Essences.

Inferno XIV Legendary Essences were added to Diablo Immortal's Loyalty Bonus system after the August 12 maintenance.

Blizzard separates current-tier Essences from older ones so players cannot simply stockpile a huge amount of current Loyalty Points before a new Essence batch arrives and immediately buy everything.

Instead, when new Legendary Equipment enters the system, the previous Loyalty Point balance is converted into Legacy Loyalty Points.

New gear from the current difficulty then starts generating fresh Loyalty Points for the new Essence pool.

It is essentially Diablo Immortal putting last season's currency in a different wallet.

Your Old Points Became Legacy Loyalty Points

This distinction is important.

If you had 300, 600 or considerably more Loyalty Points before the update, those points did not simply disappear.

They became Legacy Loyalty Points.

Legacy Loyalty Points are designed for unlocking older Legendary Essences from previous difficulty tiers.

Regular Loyalty Points, meanwhile, are used for the newest group of Essences associated with the current difficulty.

So the two currencies now serve different parts of the Legendary Essence catalogue.

How Do You Earn New Loyalty Points?

After the August 12 update, Legendary Equipment obtained in Inferno XIV can be extracted into regular Loyalty Points.

Those new points can then be spent through the Loyalty Bonus system on Inferno XIV Legendary Essences, provided you have unlocked Inferno XIV difficulty.

The basic loop is therefore:

• Reach Inferno XIV.
• Find Legendary Equipment there.
• Extract unwanted Legendary Equipment.
• Earn Loyalty Points.
• Spend those points toward new Inferno XIV Essences.

It is Diablo Immortal's attempt to put a safety net underneath one of the game's oldest frustrations.

You can still fail to find the exact Legendary power you want.

You just no longer have to depend entirely on the floor eventually becoming sympathetic.

The Loyalty System Was Built for Exactly This

Blizzard introduced the current Loyalty Bonus structure so duplicate Legendary drops could gradually become progress toward an Essence players had not yet collected.

Extracting qualifying Legendary Equipment grants Loyalty Points, and those points can eventually unlock an uncollected Essence.

When an Essence is part of the newest difficulty tier, its cost begins relatively low and increases as more new Essences are unlocked for that class.

Older Essences use Legacy Loyalty Points instead.

That separation lets Blizzard regularly introduce new powers without allowing months of saved currency to instantly remove the hunt.

Whether you consider that sensible progression design or an extremely elaborate method of making you farm more Legendary trousers is a matter of perspective.

This Reset Is Now Part of the Normal Cycle

The August reset is not an unexpected emergency change.

Blizzard changed the Loyalty Bonus system in 2025 so Loyalty Points would convert into Legacy Loyalty Points whenever new Legendary Equipment was introduced, rather than waiting for a server to reach a new difficulty threshold.

That means players should increasingly expect this process whenever Diablo Immortal launches another major batch of Legendary Essences.

New powers arrive.

Current points become Legacy points.

A new Loyalty Point cycle begins.

Sanctuary has invented fiscal years.

Inferno XIV Has Plenty of New Essences to Chase

The timing matters because Diablo Immortal has just added a substantial new round of Legendary Affixes and Essences across its classes.

We recently covered the 60 new Legendary Affixes added in the August update, giving players another large collection of build tools to experiment with.

The Loyalty Bonus reset is the less glamorous administrative machinery sitting underneath that update.

New powers would be rather difficult to chase if the system still treated them exactly like equipment from several difficulty tiers ago.

So Where Did Your Loyalty Points Go?

If you logged in after August 12 and saw your regular Loyalty balance drop, do not panic.

Your previous Loyalty Points were converted into Legacy Loyalty Points.

You can still use those for older Legendary Essences.

To start earning regular Loyalty Points again, you need qualifying Inferno XIV Legendary Equipment, and Inferno XIV must be unlocked if you want to spend those points on the new Essences.

Nothing was stolen.

Nothing expired.

Blizzard simply moved your demon-hunting store credit into another column.

Which is considerably less dramatic.

But also considerably nicer than discovering that months of points had actually gone to Hell.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Celebrate 30 Years of Diablo in Diablo Immortal

Blizzard Entertainment: Burn Through the Darkening Decades

Blizzard Entertainment: Discover Secrets Hidden in the Sharval Wilds

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Diablo 4’s Mother’s Blessing Is Live — Don’t Waste the Week

Diablo 4 has quietly given players one of the best reasons to return to Sanctuary before the next season takes over the conversation.

Mother’s Blessing is live again.

The limited-time event began on August 11 and gives players increased Experience and Gold for one week. That makes the next few days unusually useful for finishing characters, leveling something new or simply building a healthier pile of gold before Mother changes her mind.

And unlike a complicated seasonal mechanic involving seventeen currencies and a suspicious altar, taking advantage of this one is remarkably simple.

Play Diablo.

Kill things.

Receive more stuff.

This Is a Good Week to Level an Alt

If you have been considering another character but did not particularly fancy dragging it through the slower parts of progression, this is probably the moment.

Mother’s Blessing increases Experience at a multiplicative rate, meaning the bonus works alongside the other tools Diablo 4 already provides for accelerating progression.

That makes high-density activities particularly attractive.

Helltides, Nightmare Dungeons and other content where monsters arrive in industrial quantities let you turn the temporary XP boost into actual progress quickly.

You do not need to invent a revolutionary farming strategy.

The general rule is wonderfully Diablo:

The more demons you can fit onto the screen before everything explodes, the better.

Gold Is Worth Farming Too

Experience is the obvious attraction, but the Gold bonus may be equally useful depending on where your character currently sits.

Endgame Diablo 4 has developed a remarkable talent for making enormous amounts of money disappear.

Enchanting gear costs Gold.

Masterworking consumes resources and Gold.

Changing equipment, experimenting with builds and generally refusing to accept that the third reroll was probably good enough can steadily chew through your reserves.

Mother’s Blessing provides a convenient opportunity to rebuild that bank balance while doing content you would probably have been running anyway.

If your character is already finished with leveling, this is where the event still has some value.

Season 14 Is Entering Its Cleanup Phase

The timing is also interesting.

Diablo 4’s Season 15 PTR has now finished, and much of the hardcore community has already started talking about Soul Splinters, Challenge Dungeons, Legacy Uniques, Rebirth and everything else waiting in the next update.

Season 14 is still here.

But psychologically?

We are beginning to pack the furniture.

That makes Mother’s Blessing useful as a final cleanup opportunity.

Finish a character you abandoned at an awkward level.

Push some remaining Paragon progression.

Experiment with the build you kept promising yourself you would try.

Or simply farm enough Gold that the next expensive idea does not immediately bankrupt you.

Don’t Expect a New Game Mode

There is also a fair criticism of Mother’s Blessing.

It is not particularly exciting.

Players reacting to the event on Blizzard’s forums have already pointed out that Mother’s Blessing has become one of Diablo 4’s recurring fallback events alongside things like March of the Goblins.

There is no new boss.

No unusual dungeon.

No bizarre mechanic involving Lilith opening a seasonal casino beneath Kyovashad.

It is simply more XP and more Gold.

For players who have already reached their progression goals, that may not be enough reason to return.

But boring and useful are not mutually exclusive.

A hammer is not very exciting either.

It remains quite effective when you actually need a hammer.

Use It Before August 18

The current Mother’s Blessing window lasts one week from its August 11 launch, putting the end around August 18.

That leaves only a few days to take advantage of it.

If you are already completely finished with Season 14, there is no reason to manufacture homework for yourself.

Sanctuary will survive without you.

Probably.

But if you still have an alt to level, Paragon progress to make or an expensive Gold habit to support, this is exactly the sort of temporary bonus worth exploiting while it is active.

Mother is feeling generous.

Historically, that never lasts very long.

Sources

Diablo: Mother’s Blessing Returns — August 11, 2026

Diablo IV Forums: Mother’s Blessing Week

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Blizzard Quietly Changed Manald Heal’s Season 15 Buff Before It Even Went Live

Manald Heal was finally about to become interesting.

For a few glorious days, Diablo II: Resurrected's famously disappointing Unique Ring had something no other ring could casually offer:

10% Faster Run/Walk.

Then Blizzard changed its mind.

Ahead of Ladder Season 15, the official Patch 3.3 notes have been quietly updated. Manald Heal will now receive 10% Faster Cast Rate instead.

No announcement. No developer note. No explanation.

Just one letter disappearing from the abbreviation.

FRW became FCR.

And somehow that one letter has started a surprisingly serious Diablo II argument.

Manald Heal Was Originally Getting Faster Run/Walk

When Blizzard first published the Season 15 Patch 3.3 notes, Manald Heal was listed as receiving +10% Faster Run/Walk.

Copies of the original patch notes shared when the announcement went live still show the FRW version. By August 13, however, players noticed that Blizzard's official page had changed.

The current Patch 3.3 notes now read simply:

Manald Heal: Added +10% Faster Cast Rate.

Ladder Season 15 does not begin until August 21 at 5 p.m. PDT, or August 22 at 2 a.m. CEST in Europe, so Blizzard has changed the item before the new version has even reached the live Ladder.

Why Are Players Upset About 10% Run Speed?

On paper, this sounds microscopic.

Ten percent movement speed.

On Manald Heal.

This is not exactly Enigma being deleted from the game.

But the original change was interesting because Faster Run/Walk on a ring is unusual. It would have given Manald Heal a distinct identity rather than simply adding another stat commonly found elsewhere.

That mattered particularly for early melee and martial characters.

Manald Heal already has Mana Stolen Per Hit, making it a natural leveling option for weapon-based builds struggling with resource sustain. Faster movement would have complemented that role nicely.

Hit things.

Steal mana.

Run toward the next thing slightly faster.

Diablo II has built entire careers on more complicated concepts.

Faster Cast Rate Pushes It Toward Casters Instead

The replacement bonus changes the audience considerably.

Faster Cast Rate is obviously useful for spellcasting characters trying to reach important casting breakpoints, and some players have pointed out that a low-level Unique Ring with 10% FCR could still be useful during progression.

That is fair.

The problem is that casters already have considerably more ways to obtain Faster Cast Rate than melee characters have ways to put Faster Run/Walk on a ring.

That is why much of the community reaction has not been "10% FCR is useless."

It is more:

"Why replace the weird stat with the normal one?"

The FRW version gave Manald Heal a reason to exist that was specifically Manald Heal's.

The FCR version makes it compete with Rare and Magic caster rings that can eventually provide additional useful affixes.

Not Everyone Thinks the Change Is Bad

There is another side to the argument.

Several players discussing the change on Blizzard's forums argue that 10% Faster Cast Rate could make Manald Heal genuinely useful during early leveling, particularly before stronger Rare rings and other caster equipment become available.

War Cry Barbarians have been mentioned as one possible beneficiary, while any low-level caster trying to hit an early breakpoint could find the ring more appealing than before.

And frankly, getting players to look at a Manald Heal without immediately sighing is already progress.

The Bigger Story Is That Blizzard Is Touching Old Uniques

The argument also reveals why Patch 3.3 has attracted more attention than its modest size might suggest.

Blizzard is actually changing old Diablo II items.

Bloodletter gets Faster Run/Walk.

Pluckeye gets Increased Attack Speed.

Bane Ash and Gravenspine gain Faster Cast Rate.

Blinkbat's Form gets significantly more movement speed.

The Ward gets a socket.

Even Angelic Raiment receives new bonuses.

These are not enormous endgame revolutions, but they suggest Blizzard is willing to dig into parts of Diablo II's loot table that have spent decades gathering dust.

That makes every individual choice more interesting.

Bring Back the Running Ring?

Maybe Blizzard has internal testing showing that Faster Run/Walk on Manald Heal caused problems.

Maybe FCR simply fits the intended identity better.

Maybe the original note was a mistake from the beginning.

We do not currently know.

Blizzard has not explained the edit.

What we do know is that for several days, Diablo II players were strangely excited about putting on two Manald Heals and running around Sanctuary a little faster.

That opportunity may now be gone.

Manald Heal is getting buffed either way.

It just went from becoming weirdly unique to becoming another caster option.

And in a game where practically every item has been analyzed for a quarter of a century, weirdly unique might have been exactly what it needed.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: Manald Heal Changed to +10% FCR

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Is Diablo 4’s PTR Solving Problems — Or Spoiling Every Season Before It Starts?

Diablo 4's Season 15 PTR did exactly what a Public Test Realm is supposed to do.

Players broke things.

They found strange item interactions, argued about class balance, pushed Challenge Dungeons far beyond sensible limits and discovered combinations Blizzard will now have several opportunities to stare at nervously before launch.

That is useful.

But now that the PTR is over, another question is gaining attention:

Does publicly testing every new Diablo 4 season also spoil too much of it before players ever get there?

The Next Season Arrives Before the Current One Has Left

A discussion on the official Diablo 4 forums this week raised an interesting objection to Blizzard's current PTR structure.

The complaint is not simply the familiar argument that Blizzard does not act on enough feedback.

It is about timing.

When a public PTR opens during an active season, much of the Diablo conversation immediately moves forward.

Content creators start testing next season's builds.

Build makers begin calculating the next meta.

New items are catalogued.

Interactions are tested.

The strange new seasonal mechanic becomes something we have already watched somebody use for six hours on YouTube.

Meanwhile, the current season is still standing in the corner holding its coat.

Season 15 Was Solved Surprisingly Quickly

The Season 15 PTR ran from August 4 through August 11 and exposed players to Soul Splinters, Challenge Dungeons, Overland Ambushes, Legacy Uniques, Mythic changes, new Charms, Rebirth and the Horadric Post. Blizzard explicitly said the purpose was to gather feedback, tune balance, eliminate bugs and test new systems before release.

And the community did what the Diablo community does.

Efficiently.

Within days, players were already comparing Soul Splinters mathematically, identifying powerful combinations, testing extreme Challenge Dungeon builds and discovering questionable interactions between new items.

We have spent much of the last week writing about exactly that.

By the time Season 15 actually arrives, anyone who has followed the PTR closely will already understand a significant part of its mechanical vocabulary.

That removes some mystery.

Blizzard Apparently Understands the Problem Too

The most interesting evidence may actually come from Blizzard itself.

This PTR deliberately did not contain everything coming in Season 15.

Blizzard said the different feature selection was intentional because it has more to reveal at BlizzCon and did not want everything coming with the season available before the company had a chance to talk about it.

Which is reasonable.

It is also a tacit acknowledgement that discovering something before launch has value.

If revealing everything months in advance made absolutely no difference to the player experience, there would be little reason to hide anything.

There Is a Very Strong Counterargument

The forum debate is far from unanimous.

Several players immediately pushed back on the idea that PTRs are killing seasons.

One obvious problem is scale.

Most Diablo 4 players probably do not install the PTR, read every datamine, watch hours of testing or spend Wednesday evening calculating whether Splinter of Hellfire has murdered their Critical Strike build.

For those players, Season 15 will still contain plenty to discover.

Others point out that seasonal ARPG populations naturally decline as a season gets older. By the time a PTR appears, many of the most active players have already completed their goals and moved on anyway.

And there is another uncomfortable truth.

Even without a PTR, Diablo players are extraordinarily good at solving Diablo.

Remove the public test and the strongest builds would probably still be identified within days of launch.

The spreadsheets cannot be stopped.

They can only be delayed.

PTRs Catch Things We Would Rather Not Discover at Launch

There is also a practical reason Blizzard keeps doing this.

Diablo 4 is enormous.

Every new item interacts with skills, Paragon nodes, Aspects, gems, Charms and other systems across multiple classes.

A week involving thousands of determined players doing deliberately ridiculous things provides information internal testing cannot easily reproduce at the same scale.

Season 15 demonstrated that perfectly.

Players found buggy item interactions, questioned balance changes and stress-tested new systems before those problems reached the live game.

That is considerably less romantic than discovering everything naturally on launch day.

It is also considerably better than discovering that your new seasonal mechanic crashes when somebody puts the wrong gem into Leoric's Crown.

Maybe the Problem Is Not the PTR

The better solution may therefore sit somewhere between public testing and complete secrecy.

Season 15 is already experimenting with that balance.

Blizzard showed enough permanent systems and mechanics to collect useful data while deliberately holding other content back.

That could become a healthier model.

Test the systems that genuinely need thousands of players trying to destroy them.

Keep some bosses, encounters, story elements and seasonal surprises out of the test.

Let theorycrafters inspect the plumbing without giving everybody a guided tour of the entire house before opening day.

Diablo Needs Bugs Fixed. It Also Needs Surprise.

Public PTRs are useful.

They are also inherently strange for a seasonal game built partly around discovering new things.

Every successful test makes launch more stable.

Every successful test also teaches us more about the season before it begins.

There probably is no perfect solution.

But Blizzard's decision to deliberately hide part of Season 15 suggests the company already understands the tradeoff.

Maybe that is where future PTRs should go.

Show us enough to break the game.

Just leave us a few demons we have not already met.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: The 3.2.0 PTR: What You Need to Know

Diablo IV Forums: Strong Objection to the Current Diablo IV PTR Process

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Diablo Immortal Just Retired Three Wing Materials — Here’s What Happens to Your Old Wings

Diablo Immortal has started cleaning out another corner of its increasingly enormous cosmetic system.

This time, it is wings.

Three existing Wing Material types can no longer be obtained through Wing Customization following the August 12 update:

• Mirror Glass
• Spectrum Crystal
• Astral Prism

Before anyone begins checking their character's back for missing decorative architecture, there is some important good news.

Your existing wings are safe.

Blizzard says wings already created with those materials, along with their refinement records, remain unaffected and can continue to be used and retained.

The materials themselves are simply leaving the active customization pool.

You Can Keep the Old Wings

This is not the same kind of retirement Diablo Immortal recently applied to Legendary Essences or the Issatar Imbued Set.

Nothing is being deactivated.

If you already have wings using Mirror Glass, Spectrum Crystal or Astral Prism, their appearance remains intact.

The associated refinement records remain intact too.

What changes is your ability to produce more of them.

Blizzard says the three outgoing materials can no longer be locked during Wing Customization and can no longer appear through random refinement.

So if you already have a particularly nice old combination, congratulations.

You now own the Diablo Immortal equivalent of discontinued wallpaper.

Three New Wing Materials Take Their Place

The old materials are being replaced by three entirely new material series:

• Frost
• Mother of Pearl
• Voidrealm

These are now part of the Wing Customization system and form the next stage of Blizzard's expanding Awakened Wing progression.

The important word here is progression.

Diablo Immortal's wings stopped being simple Resonance trophies quite some time ago. They are increasingly becoming a customization system of their own, complete with materials, refinement records, scores, saved appearances and leaderboard rewards.

Apparently attaching two enormous glowing objects to your shoulder blades was only the beginning.

The Maximum Wing Score Is Now 10,200

The new materials also push the upper end of the system higher.

Blizzard has increased the maximum possible Wing Score to 10,200.

New server-wide reward tiers have been added at Wing Scores of 10,100 and 10,200, giving the most dedicated wing refiners another pair of milestones to chase.

Whether that sounds exciting or like a spreadsheet has grown feathers probably depends on how deeply you are already invested in the system.

Favorites Might Be the Better Change

The more immediately useful addition may actually be the new Favorites feature.

Once a player refines a Wing above a Wing Score of 8,000, they can permanently save up to four refinement records as Favorites.

Favorited records are removed from the normal refinement history and preserved permanently, which means a particularly good result no longer has to sit precariously in a rolling history while you continue experimenting.

Players who already owned a Wing above 8,000 before the update automatically unlock Favorites.

That may sound like a small quality-of-life improvement.

If you have ever accidentally refined away from something you immediately wanted back, it probably sounds considerably larger.

Diablo Immortal Is Rotating Cosmetics Too

The wider pattern is becoming increasingly clear.

Blizzard is not only rotating Legendary powers and Set items anymore.

Parts of Diablo Immortal's cosmetic progression are beginning to rotate as well.

The difference is that the wing system is handling the transition much more gently.

Your old result stays.

Your old refinement record stays.

Only the ability to generate more versions using those materials disappears.

That is probably the least painful version of retirement possible in a game built around collecting things.

And with Frost, Mother of Pearl and Voidrealm arriving immediately afterward, Blizzard clearly does not intend for the Wing Customization menu to get any smaller.

Just different.

And, inevitably, slightly more complicated.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Burn Through the Darkening Decades

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Diablo Immortal Adds Cosmetic Dyeing — But Unlocking It Costs 4,500 Eternal Orbs

Diablo Immortal has finally added something players have been asking for in one form or another for years.

Proper cosmetic dyeing.

There is, naturally, a catch.

For the new Temptation’s End customization feature, that catch is 4,500 Eternal Orbs.

Blizzard added dye customization for the Temptation’s End and Temptation’s End Collector’s Edition cosmetics in the August 12 update, allowing owners to change their colors using an expanded collection of dye settings.

But before you start coordinating your demon-slaying wardrobe with your favorite Legendary Gem, the dye system itself has to be unlocked.

For 4,500 Eternal Orbs.

Sanctuary’s tailors have apparently discovered premium pricing.

The New Dye System Is Limited to Temptation’s End

The important detail is that Blizzard has not introduced a universal dye system for every cosmetic in Diablo Immortal.

At least not yet.

The feature currently applies specifically to Temptation’s End and its Collector’s Edition variant.

Those cosmetics have returned as part of the latest Revenant Market, which also brings back Reigning Harmony and Born Ablaze alongside the new Terror’s Bane Diablo-themed skin.

After upgrading Temptation’s End, players can customize its colors.

Blizzard describes the paid unlock as providing a range of color options and expanded dye settings.

That could make it one of Diablo Immortal’s more flexible cosmetic systems, especially for players who already spend a worrying amount of time making their character’s armor match their wings.

You know who you are.

4,500 Eternal Orbs Is the Real Headline

The customization itself sounds useful.

The price is what people are going to notice.

Eternal Orbs are Diablo Immortal’s premium currency, used for everything from cosmetic purchases to other paid systems.

Blizzard’s patch notes state plainly that players can unlock Temptation’s End dye customization for 4,500 Eternal Orbs.

That is not the price of an individual dye.

It is the cost Blizzard lists for unlocking the customization feature for these cosmetics.

And because Eternal Orb bundles and real-money pricing can vary between platforms and regions, the safest comparison is simply the official number Blizzard gives us.

4,500 Orbs is not a small unlock.

Cosmetics Are Becoming More Customizable

The dye feature also fits into a much broader cosmetic push in the August update.

Blizzard introduced three new Wing Material series: Frost, Mother of Pearl and Voidrealm.

The maximum Wing Score increased to 10,200.

Players with sufficiently advanced wings can now permanently save up to four refinement records through the new Favorites feature.

Loading screens can now show your selected cosmetics and wings, while Battleground MVP share cards also display your character’s equipped appearance.

In other words, Diablo Immortal increasingly wants your character to look distinctive everywhere.

Including while the game is loading.

Which is impressive dedication to fashion.

The Question Is Whether Players Want to Pay for the Paint

There is nothing inherently wrong with adding more cosmetic customization to a free-to-play game.

In fact, dye systems are exactly the sort of feature that can give premium cosmetics more value over time.

The interesting question is whether players see 4,500 Eternal Orbs as a reasonable extension of an existing premium outfit or as another expensive layer placed on top of something they already bought.

That distinction matters.

Especially because Temptation’s End itself is returning through the Revenant Market rather than being handed out as part of the update.

For players who love the cosmetic, more control over its appearance is genuinely welcome.

For everyone else, this may simply be another reminder that Diablo Immortal’s endgame has two very different currencies.

Power.

And looking fabulous while acquiring it.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Burn Through the Darkening Decades

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Five Years Ago Today, Diablo II: Resurrected Let Players Back Into Sanctuary

Five years ago today, thousands of Diablo players did something they had already done hundreds of times before.

They walked out of the Rogue Encampment.

Only this time, the grass had individual blades.

On August 13, 2021, Blizzard opened the Early Access multiplayer beta for Diablo II: Resurrected, giving players their first broad opportunity to experience the remastered classic together online before its September release.

It was simultaneously very new and extremely familiar.

Which, as it turned out, was exactly the point.

The Gates Opened at 10 AM PDT

The Early Access test began on August 13 at 10:00 a.m. PDT and ran until August 17. Access was available to players who had pre-purchased Diablo II: Resurrected or the Prime Evil Collection on supported platforms, while PC players could also earn access through a limited Twitch Drop by watching 2.5 hours of eligible streams.

The fully public Open Beta followed one week later on August 20.

In 2026, a pre-order beta hardly sounds revolutionary.

In 2021, however, this one carried an unusual amount of emotional baggage.

Blizzard was not merely showing people a new ARPG.

It was handing them Diablo II.

Again.

Five Classes and Two Acts

The beta featured five of the final game's seven classes: Amazon, Barbarian, Sorceress, Paladin and Druid. The Necromancer and Assassin remained locked away until launch.

Players could explore the entirety of Act I and Act II, including their remade cinematics, while multiplayer supported games with up to eight players. Cross-progression was also enabled across PC, Xbox and PlayStation during the test.

That meant the beta contained enough Diablo II to answer the question everyone actually cared about.

Had Blizzard messed with it?

The answer, thankfully, was mostly no.

The Weirdest Feature Was How Little Had Changed

Diablo II: Resurrected looked dramatically different.

The new renderer replaced the old 800x600 presentation with high-resolution 3D visuals, rebuilt cinematics and modern audio, while quality-of-life changes included a larger stash and automatic gold pickup. Players could even switch back to the original presentation at the press of a button.

But underneath all that expensive new masonry was the same game engine.

The same monsters.

The same skills.

The same suspiciously addictive sound of a useful item hitting the floor.

And the same compulsive belief that the next boss run would definitely produce something wonderful this time.

It usually didn't.

We went again anyway.

The Beta Was Also a Stress Test for Nostalgia

There was something slightly dangerous about Diablo II: Resurrected from the beginning.

People did not merely remember Diablo II.

They remembered being younger while playing Diablo II.

No remaster can reproduce that.

You cannot patch 2001 back into your life or restore the mysterious biological ability to play until four in the morning and still function normally the following day.

What Resurrected could do was preserve the game closely enough that the old memories still made sense.

The August beta was the first real proof that this might actually work.

Five Years Later, Diablo II: Resurrected Is Still Moving

The more surprising anniversary is not that the beta happened five years ago.

It is that Diablo II: Resurrected is still receiving meaningful updates five years later.

Ladder Season 15 begins August 21, 2026, with Patch 3.3 rolling out beforehand. The update changes a collection of older items including Bloodletter, Pluckeye, Bane Ash, Gravenspine, Blinkbat's Form, The Ward and Manald Heal, while also adjusting Terror Zones, Sunder Charms and Colossal Ancients.

That follows the much larger Reign of the Warlock era, which did something that would have sounded almost absurd during that 2021 beta:

It added a new class to Diablo II.

This is no longer simply a preserved museum piece with prettier lighting.

It has become a strange second life for one of PC gaming's most stubbornly durable action RPGs.

Back to the Rogue Encampment

On August 13, 2021, nobody knew exactly what Diablo II: Resurrected would become.

Players knew the launch date was September 23. They knew Blizzard had rebuilt the graphics without replacing the underlying game. And for one long weekend, they had two Acts, five classes and a very large number of Fallen to kill.

Five years later, we are still killing them.

The graphics are no longer surprising.

The remastered cinematics are familiar.

And somebody has probably found another mathematically superior way to run Terror Zones while you were reading this.

But that first walk out of the Rogue Encampment remains one of the rare examples of a remaster immediately answering the most important question.

Yes.

It still feels like Diablo II.

Now please move.

You're standing on the loot.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Play Diablo II: Resurrected During the Early Access & Open Beta

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected — The Gates of Hell Open September 23

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon

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Diablo Immortal Retired These Essences — Then Fractured Plane Started Offering Them Anyway

Diablo Immortal spent August 12 carefully removing old Legendary Essences from the game.

Fractured Plane apparently did not get the memo.

Just hours after Blizzard's latest Essence Retirement wave went live, players discovered that Fractured Plane was still offering some of the newly retired Legendary powers through the Chaos Broker.

There is one fairly significant problem with that.

Those Essences no longer work.

Blizzard has already acknowledged the issue and says the team is working to resolve it as quickly as possible.

Monk Players Found Retired Essences Immediately

The bug was documented shortly after the August 12 update, when Fractured Plane became available with Monk among the playable options.

One player reached the Chaos Broker and was offered Consuming Trappings, a Monk Essence that had just been included in the retirement wave.

Consuming Trappings previously changed Flying Dragon into a forward dash that knocked enemies back and stunned them.

Then another retired Essence appeared.

Tiger's Flight, which transformed Flying Kick into a flaming tornado, also showed up among the available Fractured Plane choices.

Which creates an unusual shopping experience.

Here is an item.

You may select it.

It does absolutely nothing.

Retired Essences Are Supposed to Be Inactive

This is not simply a case of an old item accidentally remaining available after Blizzard removed it from normal drops.

The new Essence Retirement system explicitly makes the retired powers inactive.

Blizzard's August 12 retirement announcement states that affected Legendary Equipment is removed from the active drop pool and its corresponding Essence power is rendered inactive.

That distinction matters enormously inside Fractured Plane.

The mode is built around creating a temporary character build from the equipment and powers offered during the run.

If one of those choices contains an inactive Essence, the player is effectively being offered a dead build component.

Fractured Plane Was Supposed to Be Getting Cleaner Too

The timing becomes even stranger because Blizzard specifically adjusted Fractured Plane in the same update.

The developers removed several builds for each class as part of the new Affix rotation, saying there would still be enough options to provide diverse builds during Fractured Plane runs.

So Blizzard was already pruning the mode's build pool.

It simply did not prune all the things that had been deleted elsewhere.

Live-service housekeeping is apparently a little like cleaning a garage.

You throw something away, feel extremely productive, and discover it again behind another cupboard six hours later.

Blizzard Has Already Responded

The good news is that this one does not appear destined to become a month-long mystery.

A Blizzard representative replied directly to the bug report and confirmed that the team is working to get the problem resolved as soon as possible.

That is exactly the response you would hope for.

The bug is easy to understand, easy for players to demonstrate and directly connected to a system Blizzard only introduced yesterday.

There is not much philosophical debate required.

Retired powers should probably not appear in a mode where players are expected to build around the powers they are offered.

This Is the Messy Side of Essence Retirement

We have already covered the larger debate around Diablo Immortal's Essence Retirement system.

Blizzard wants to prevent the Legendary pool from expanding forever, make new Essences easier to find and remove powers that are no longer contributing enough to the wider build ecosystem.

The logic is understandable.

But removing systems from a four-year-old live-service game creates dependencies.

Loot tables remember them.

Build templates remember them.

Old activities remember them.

And apparently the Chaos Broker remembers them too.

The Essence Is Dead. Please Stop Selling It

This is unlikely to become one of Diablo Immortal's great controversies.

It is a bug.

Blizzard knows about it.

A fix is already being worked on.

But it is also a perfect illustration of how complicated retirement becomes once an online game has accumulated years of interconnected content.

Deleting an Essence from the main loot pool is easy.

Making every corner of Diablo Immortal forget that it ever existed is apparently harder.

For now, if the Chaos Broker offers you an old retired Essence during Fractured Plane, perhaps admire it for a moment.

Then choose something that still exists.

Sources

Diablo Immortal Forums: Fractured Plane Offers Legendary Essences That Have Been Removed

Diablo Immortal Forums: Retired Essences August 12

Blizzard Entertainment: Burn Through the Darkening Decades

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Diablo 4’s Season 15 PTR Is Over: Soul Splinters May Have Been Its Best Idea

The Diablo 4 Season 15 PTR is over.

The bugs have been reported.

The spreadsheets have been abused.

Several classes have been declared dead, resurrected and declared dead again.

And after a week of testing, one of Season 15's new ideas seems to have emerged with surprisingly broad approval.

Soul Splinters.

They are not perfectly balanced yet. Some combinations are clearly suspicious, and others may need stronger incentives.

But the basic idea works.

Mostly because Blizzard finally remembered that power becomes more interesting when it costs something.

Soul Splinters Actually Ask You to Make a Choice

Diablo 4 seasonal mechanics have often followed a familiar pattern.

Find the thing.

Equip the thing.

Receive larger number.

Soul Splinters are different.

Splinter of Anguish increases Critical Strike Chance and Attack Speed, but raises Primary Resource costs.

Splinter of Sin increases Maximum Life, but reduces Maximum Primary Resource.

Splinter of Pain can provide enormous Damage Reduction, but takes away 30% Movement Speed.

Splinter of Hellfire can double your damage at the highest tier while removing your Critical Strike Chance entirely.

Those are not free bonuses.

They are arguments.

And arguments are good for buildcrafting.

The Best Choice Depends on the Build

That is probably the biggest success of the system.

There is not necessarily one obvious Soul Splinter that every character equips because somebody discovered it gives 38% more damage than everything else.

A build that barely uses Primary Resource may happily accept Anguish's downside.

A build that does not care about Critical Strikes can look at Hellfire and start behaving irresponsibly.

A slow tank might love Splinter of Pain.

A speed-farming build may look at the 30% Movement Speed penalty and react as though Blizzard personally insulted its family.

The downside changes the value.

That is much more interesting than adding another passive multiplier and waiting for Maxroll to tell everybody which one won.

The PTR Also Found the Problems

None of this means Soul Splinters are ready to ship untouched.

We have already seen strange interactions involving Splinter of Pain and Leoric's Crown, where tooltip values and actual behaviour did not always agree.

Some players also worry that certain Splinters will become effectively mandatory for the hardest Challenge Dungeon content.

And a tradeoff only works if both sides of the trade actually matter.

If a build completely ignores the penalty, then the clever choice becomes another free multiplier wearing a fake moustache.

That is exactly the sort of thing Blizzard now has to tune before Season 15 goes live.

Legacy Uniques Were Another Clear Win

Soul Splinters were not the only part of the PTR that landed well.

The return of classic items such as Stone of Jordan, Leoric's Crown, The Furnace and In-Geom gave Diablo 4's loot pool something it occasionally lacks:

Memory.

These are names Diablo players already recognise.

They have identities before you even read the affix text.

Combined with Rebirth, Mythic crafting changes and new Charms, Season 15 showed several signs that Blizzard is thinking more about permanent systems and item personality rather than simply attaching another temporary progression bar to the side of the screen.

Challenge Dungeons Still Need to Prove Themselves

Other new systems left the PTR in a more uncertain position.

Challenge Dungeons have a good premise.

Find a portal in the overworld, voluntarily raise the difficulty, fight something horrible and receive better rewards.

Fine.

Very Diablo.

But Blizzard has already warned that the encounters tested on PTR are not the final Season 15 content.

That means the system still lives or dies on rewards, variety and whether players actually feel excited when a portal appears after the first week.

The same applies to Overland Ambushes.

Making Sanctuary dangerous again sounds excellent.

Making players wait around for an enemy with mediocre rewards sounds considerably less excellent.

The Old Problems Are Still Here

The positive reaction to Soul Splinters does not erase the complaints we have covered throughout the PTR.

Class balance remains messy.

Build diversity at extreme difficulty remains a concern.

Several item systems still pile RNG on top of RNG.

And some classes continue to rely on a much narrower collection of competitive builds than players would like.

Season 15 can add excellent new toys.

Eventually Blizzard still has to repair the toy box.

Season 15 Leaves the PTR With Something Valuable

Still, there is something encouraging here.

Soul Splinters suggest Blizzard understands a basic truth about Diablo itemisation:

Interesting power is not always about giving players more.

Sometimes it is about asking what they are willing to give up.

That creates choices.

Choices create builds.

And builds are considerably more memorable than another green arrow telling you the new item has 4.7% more damage.

The Season 15 PTR found plenty that needs fixing.

That was its job.

But it also found at least one idea worth protecting.

Keep the Soul Splinters weird.

Just preferably make sure the tooltips agree with reality first.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: The 3.2.0 PTR: What You Need to Know

Diablo IV Forums: Season 15 PTR Has Concluded, The Good, The Mid, The Bad, and The Ugly

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Diablo Immortal Is Pushing Challenge Rifts All the Way to Level 900

There was apparently not enough Diablo Immortal.

So Blizzard has added another fifty floors.

Challenge Rift Season 20 begins on August 24, raising the maximum Challenge Rift level from 850 to a fairly unreasonable 900.

The new season adds levels 851 through 900, with the final twenty floors — 881 to 900 — becoming the new highest-difficulty tier for players who have reached the point where ordinary demons mostly serve as background decoration.

But Blizzard is not simply moving the finish line farther away.

It is also lowering the difficulty of the old top-end floors.

Challenge Rift 900 Is the New Summit

Challenge Rifts have been steadily expanding as Diablo Immortal's character power has increased.

Season 19 pushed the cap from 800 to 850.

Season 20 does exactly the same thing again.

Another fifty levels arrive.

Another twenty floors become the serious endgame challenge.

And somewhere, somebody is already preparing a spreadsheet.

Levels 881 through 900 are specifically intended as the new highest-difficulty content for players chasing the absolute limit of their characters.

For everyone else, there is slightly better news.

The Old Hardest Floors Are Getting Easier

Blizzard is reducing the difficulty of Challenge Rift levels 831 through 850.

Those were the highest-end tiers during Season 19.

Now that the ceiling is moving upward, Blizzard wants more players to continue progressing through the older content rather than getting permanently stuck below last season's wall.

It is becoming a familiar rhythm.

The best-geared players get another mountain.

The previous mountain becomes slightly less mountainous.

Everyone moves forward.

Or at least moves forward until another demon explains otherwise.

The Server-First Race Is Coming Back

Season 20 also brings back the race to finish the final Challenge Rift level first.

The previous server-first avatar frame reward is being retired and replaced with another reward for the first players on each server to conquer Challenge Rift 900.

That gives the new cap a purpose beyond simply producing a larger number on the Rift selection screen.

For the strongest players on each server, August 24 becomes a proper race.

Not just:

“Can we clear 900?”

But:

“Can we clear it before those people over there?”

Competition has always made demons considerably more urgent.

Challenge Rifts Have Quietly Become Enormous

It is worth remembering how far the system has travelled.

Only last year, Diablo Immortal was still pushing Challenge Rift caps through the 500s.

Now the game is approaching four-digit Rift levels.

That tells you something about the scale of Diablo Immortal's long-term progression.

Characters accumulate Resonance.

Secondary stats rise.

New Legendary Affixes arrive.

Paragon continues climbing.

And eventually content that once represented the absolute limit becomes another staircase leading to the next thing.

This Is the Sensible Way to Raise the Ceiling

Simply adding harder levels forever would create a problem.

Veterans would continue climbing while everyone behind them gradually stared at an increasingly absurd vertical wall.

By reducing the difficulty of the old top tiers whenever the cap expands, Blizzard effectively creates a moving progression curve.

The elite still get something difficult.

Players further behind get a better chance to catch up.

And the Challenge Rift ladder keeps moving rather than becoming a museum of places most players will never reach.

There is obviously a limit to how long numbers can keep climbing before “Challenge Rift 1,450” starts sounding like somebody forgot to reset the counter.

We are not there yet.

Probably.

Season 20 Starts August 24

The important dates are simple.

August 24: Challenge Rift Season 20 begins.

November 2: Season 20 ends.

Levels 851–900 become available.

Levels 881–900 become the new hardest Challenge Rift tier.

And levels 831–850 get easier for players still working their way upward.

If you have been sitting comfortably at the old cap, enjoy the view.

You have twelve days before Blizzard adds another fifty stairs.

Source

Blizzard Entertainment – Burn Through the Darkening Decades

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Diablo Immortal Is Retiring Issatar Imbued — And Existing Set Bonuses Will Stop Working

Diablo Immortal has spent the past few weeks teaching players a new word.

Retirement.

Legendary Essences can retire.

Old powers can retire.

And now an entire Set is being shown the door.

Beginning August 12, Issatar Imbued is being removed from Diablo Immortal's drop pool because Blizzard says the Set sees low usage.

That alone would be fairly straightforward.

Stop dropping an unpopular Set and improve the odds of finding something players actually want.

But Blizzard is going further.

On September 17, existing Issatar Imbued items will become Legacy Set items.

The equipment itself will continue to work.

The Set bonuses will not.

Issatar Stops Dropping Today

From the August 12 update onward, players will no longer receive Issatar Imbued from the normal Set-item drop pool.

Blizzard's stated reason is simple:

Low usage.

Removing Issatar should improve the chances of finding pieces from the remaining Sets instead.

On paper, that makes sense.

Every unwanted Set piece occupies the same psychological category as receiving socks for Christmas.

Technically useful.

Still not what you were hoping for.

September 17 Is the Important Date

The more controversial change arrives with the September 17 update.

At that point, Issatar Imbued will officially become a Legacy Set.

Blizzard says existing pieces will retain their normal item functionality.

The stats do not simply disappear.

The items are not deleted from your inventory.

But the Set bonuses will no longer take effect.

That means owning two, four or six Issatar pieces will no longer activate the bonuses that made the Set a Set in the first place.

It becomes a collection of green equipment with a history.

Issatar Was Built Around Movement

Issatar Imbued has always been one of Diablo Immortal's movement-focused Sets.

Its two-piece bonus grants 30% increased Movement Speed for three seconds after defeating an enemy.

The larger Set rewards continued movement and converts Movement Speed into offensive value.

That made Issatar particularly useful for speed farming and builds designed around moving rapidly from pack to pack.

It was never necessarily the glamorous endgame choice.

But it had an identity.

You killed something.

You moved faster.

You reached the next thing faster.

You killed that too.

There are worse philosophies for a Diablo game.

This Is Different From Simply Retiring Drops

This is where the Issatar decision becomes important.

We have already seen Blizzard begin retiring older Legendary Essences, and the same argument keeps appearing:

Should Blizzard remove old options from the drop pool?

Or should it remove their functionality entirely?

Issatar pushes that question directly into Set gear.

If Blizzard merely stopped new Issatar pieces from dropping, players who enjoyed the Set could continue using what they already owned.

Instead, September 17 places an expiration date on the actual Set synergy.

That is a much more aggressive form of cleanup.

The Loot-Pool Argument Is Easy to Understand

To be fair, Blizzard has a legitimate problem.

Diablo Immortal has been adding Sets, Essences and equipment options for years.

Every addition dilutes the probability of finding everything else.

If a Set is rarely used, keeping it in the active pool means players continue finding pieces they overwhelmingly do not want.

Removing Issatar makes the remaining pool more focused.

That part is easy to defend.

The more difficult question is why the bonuses on already-owned equipment also need to stop functioning.

Low Usage Does Not Mean Zero Users

This is the same uncomfortable mathematics we saw with Essence Retirement.

Low usage sounds harmless when expressed as a percentage.

If only a small part of the population uses Issatar, removing it looks efficient.

But percentages contain actual players.

Someone built around it.

Someone farmed the pieces.

Someone upgraded them.

Someone probably ignored a technically superior meta setup because running extremely fast through Sanctuary was more entertaining.

After September 17, those players will need another plan.

Diablo Immortal Is Becoming More Comfortable With Removing Old Power

That may be the larger story here.

Blizzard is no longer treating Diablo Immortal's item pool as something that can only expand.

The new model increasingly looks rotational.

Old Legendary Essences retire.

New Affixes arrive.

Underused Sets leave the pool.

And in Issatar's case, old bonuses eventually stop functioning altogether.

From a live-service maintenance perspective, that makes the game easier to balance and the loot pool easier to navigate.

From a player's perspective, it introduces a new question every time an unusual build begins to feel comfortable:

Is this permanent?

Issatar Has Five Weeks Left

The important dates are simple.

August 12:

Issatar Imbued stops dropping.

September 17:

Existing Issatar pieces become Legacy Set items and their Set bonuses stop working.

If you still enjoy using Issatar, nothing explodes today.

You have a little over a month before the actual Set functionality disappears.

After that, the equipment can stay.

The synergy cannot.

Apparently even Sanctuary now has mandatory retirement age.

Source

Blizzard Entertainment – Burn Through the Darkening Decades

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Diablo Immortal Just Added 60 New Legendary Affixes

Diablo Immortal has spent the past few weeks talking about having too many Legendary Essences.

Naturally, the next step was to add 60 more.

That sounds slightly contradictory, but it is actually part of the same plan. Blizzard is retiring older and underused Essences while simultaneously introducing a fresh batch designed around current class builds.

The August 12 update adds six new Legendary Affixes for every one of Diablo Immortal's ten classes, giving Barbarian, Blood Knight, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Druid, Monk, Necromancer, Tempest, Warlock and Wizard new toys to chase.

And several of them do considerably more than make a familiar number slightly larger.

Demon Hunter Gets a Lot More Chakram

Demon Hunter has one of the more immediately ridiculous-looking batches.

Bloodstained Legacy changes Spinning Chakram into a cone of saw blades that damages and knocks enemies back. More importantly, your other Skills can then launch the same volley of saw blades when cast.

Irebrand adds a Chakram Mark that increases damage against marked enemies, while Sharp and Sharper causes Spinning Chakram to shatter enemy armor and increase the damage they take by 24% for three seconds.

In other words, Blizzard has looked at Spinning Chakram and decided the main problem was insufficient quantities of spinning metal.

Reasonable.

Necromancer Can Ride a Bone Beast

The Necromancer batch may contain the winner for sheer visual nonsense.

Khemsklet Khud changes Bone Spikes so that the Necromancer summons an undead Bone Beast and mounts it.

While riding, the player becomes immune to knockback, takes reduced damage and charges through enemies, knocking them aside while generating an absorb shield.

That is not a passive stat improvement.

That is transportation.

Necromancer also gets several new Corpse Explosion tools, including Brazen Sepulchre, which detonates nearby corpses and summons Bone Spirits around the player, and Gilt Scultetus, which restores Life when Corpse Explosion hits a Feared enemy.

It is especially interesting because Blizzard is simultaneously retiring a large number of older Legendary Essences. The new batch gives a clearer idea of what Blizzard means when it talks about replacing outdated options with powers designed for the current game.

Wizard Gets a Moving Black Hole

Wizard also gets some wonderfully unnecessary physics.

Infinitesimal Authority makes Black Hole surround an ally and follow them around, continuously pulling in and damaging enemies. Hitting Chilled enemies can extend its duration and increase the vortex's radius.

Rime Grotto does something similar with Meteor, creating a moving area of falling ice shards around an ally, while Gelid Dunewatcher turns Scorch into a giant rolling ice boulder that grows and accelerates before exploding.

It is difficult to complain when a patch note contains the phrase “large boulder of ice.”

Warlock Gets More Malignant Shadow Synergy

The relatively new Warlock class receives six Affixes built heavily around Devouring Darkness, Spiteful Sacrifice and Warp Strike.

Itinerant Spite makes Primary Attacks throw dark magical swords and apply Malignant Shadows, with every third Primary Attack blinking the Warlock forward.

Undreamt Calamity then allows Devouring Darkness to consume Malignant Shadows, immediately dealing their remaining damage and granting increased damage for each stack consumed.

Meanwhile, Griefmuzzle gives Devouring Darkness a 22.8% Critical Hit Chance boost after using its Sacrificial Power ability.

There is a fairly obvious attempt here to create packages of Essences that talk to each other rather than six isolated bonuses sitting in six equipment slots.

Every Class Gets Six

The rest of the update follows the same general pattern.

Barbarian gets new Leap, Furious Charge and Demoralize interactions. Blood Knight receives a strong Dash theme. Crusader gets new Falling Sword, Condemn and Holy Banner tools, including a Banner that can prevent death and teleport the player back to safety.

Druid receives Raven Swarm, Fire Tornado and Oak Sage synergies. Monk gets new Flying Kick, Cyclone Strike and Shield of Zen interactions, while Tempest receives new Movement Speed scaling, Drenched synergies and additional Zephyr support.

There are certainly plenty of familiar “damage increased by 18%” lines in the notes.

But the better Affixes are the ones that change what actually happens when you press the button.

Retire Old Powers, Add Better Ones

This is ultimately the test of Blizzard's controversial Essence Retirement strategy.

Removing old build options is much easier to defend if the replacements create genuinely interesting new ones.

Sixty new Legendary Affixes arriving on the same day that another collection of old Essences disappears makes Blizzard's direction unusually clear.

Diablo Immortal is not trying to make its Legendary pool permanently smaller.

It is trying to stop it growing forever.

Old powers leave.

New powers enter.

Whether the new ones are better will take players considerably longer than one afternoon to decide.

But if nothing else, the Necromancer can now ride an undead Bone Beast through Sanctuary.

That is a reasonably strong opening argument.

Source

Blizzard Entertainment – Burn Through the Darkening Decades

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Diablo Immortal Is Giving Players 5 Legendary Crests After the Essence Retirement Backlash

Diablo Immortal players complained about Essence Retirement.

Blizzard listened.

Essence Retirement is still happening.

But there are five Legendary Crests in the mail.

On August 12, Blizzard is giving players 5 Legendary Crests through Diablo Immortal's in-game mail as a direct thank-you for feedback surrounding the controversial first wave of retired Legendary Essences back in June.

It is not an apology.

Blizzard does not call it one.

But it is a fairly clear acknowledgement that the first retirement wave landed considerably harder than intended.

Five Legendary Crests Are Arriving Today

Blizzard announced the gift alongside the second major list of Legendary Essences being retired from Diablo Immortal.

The developers specifically thanked players for their feedback regarding the June retirement wave and said the five Legendary Crests would be delivered on August 12 through in-game mail.

That is a useful reward.

Legendary Crests guarantee a Legendary Gem when used in an Elder Rift, so five of them represent five guaranteed Gem drops rather than another decorative anniversary frame destined to live permanently inside a menu.

There is no complicated event attached.

No boss needs killing.

No currency needs converting into another currency before eventually becoming a third currency.

Check the mail.

Take the Crests.

But Essence Retirement Is Absolutely Not Going Away

This is the important part.

The gift does not represent Blizzard reversing its new design direction.

Quite the opposite.

As we recently covered in our look at Diablo Immortal's Essence Retirement plans, Blizzard intends to continue removing older Legendary Essences until every class reaches what the developers consider a healthier and more manageable pool.

The second retirement wave goes live on August 12.

The affected Legendary Equipment is removed from the drop pool, while the corresponding Essence powers are rendered inactive.

That last part remains the source of most of the controversy.

Blizzard is not simply making certain old items harder to find.

Some existing build tools stop functioning.

Players Are Still Losing Real Builds

The latest retirement list has already produced another wave of complaints.

Necromancer players have highlighted Draff Cryptic, whose Dark Curse variant could strip beneficial effects from enemies, as an important specialised PvP tool.

Others point to Hair of the Priestess and Silvered Wings as pieces used in niche PvP and Helliquary setups.

These were not necessarily the most popular Essences in the game.

That is partly Blizzard's argument for retiring them.

But low usage and low value are not always the same thing.

A strange Essence used by three percent of players may be useless to the other 97 percent.

It may also be the entire reason those three percent enjoy their build.

Blizzard Says the Loot Pool Has Become Too Large

The developers have explained why they believe some form of retirement is necessary.

Years of Legendary additions have created an increasingly enormous affix pool.

Blizzard says that makes Diablo Immortal harder for new and returning players to understand, dilutes the drop pool and makes every new batch of Essences feel less important.

The long-term plan is therefore to reach a relatively stable number of Legendary Essences across all classes.

New powers will continue to arrive.

Old ones will continue to leave.

And Blizzard says retirement decisions will consider factors including usage, build diversity, balance, future content and the health of the wider build ecosystem.

Five Crests Won’t End the Argument

The five Legendary Crests are welcome.

Free Legendary Gems generally require little philosophical debate.

But they do not answer the underlying question.

Should Diablo Immortal solve loot bloat by removing old powers entirely?

Or should retired Essences disappear from the active drop pool while remaining available to players who already unlocked them?

That debate is going nowhere.

Blizzard has become much more transparent about why Essence Retirement exists, which is an improvement over June.

Players now understand the plan.

Some of them simply still do not like it.

For today, however, everybody can agree on one small thing.

Check your mailbox.

There are five Legendary Crests in there.

Sources

Diablo Immortal Forums – Retired Essences August 12

Diablo Immortal Forums – Dev Diary: Retiring Essences and the Future

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Diablo 4 Is Finally Fixing the Infernal Hordes War Plan Bug

Diablo 4's War Plans are supposed to tell you what to do next.

For the past couple of weeks, some of them have instead been telling players to enter an activity the game literally would not let them enter.

That changes on August 12.

Diablo 4 Patch 3.1.3 fixes an issue where the War Plans teleport to Infernal Hordes could fail on difficulties below Torment.

It sounds like a small teleport bug.

For affected players, it could effectively stop the entire War Plan.

The Portal Opened — And Then Immediately Closed

Players started reporting the problem after the late-July update.

A War Plan would assign Infernal Hordes as one of its activities. The player would select the teleport option, the blue portal would briefly appear, and then it would disappear again.

The character remained exactly where they started.

No Infernal Hordes.

No completed objective.

And, in some cases, no obvious way to progress the War Plan.

One player described being stuck at two out of three objectives while levelling because Infernal Hordes remained the required final step.

That is not a particularly inspiring definition of a plan.

The Problem Was Difficulty, Not Character Level

Early reports made the bug look like it might be connected to character level.

Several affected players were below level 70.

Then somebody tested it properly.

A level 70 character was moved down to Penitent difficulty.

The Infernal Hordes teleport failed.

Move into Torment, and the problem disappeared.

The common factor was therefore not character level.

It was playing below Torment difficulty.

That explains why the bug was particularly annoying for levelling characters and Hardcore players who were not ready to simply increase the difficulty to make their seasonal progression work.

Patch 3.1.3 Fixes It on August 12

Blizzard has now added the problem to Patch 3.1.3.

The patch notes specifically state that the War Plans teleport to Infernal Hordes will no longer sometimes fail on pre-Torment difficulties.

That means players should once again be able to follow an Infernal Hordes War Plan without first having to reach Torment simply to make the portal function.

It is one of those fixes where the patch note is only a single sentence long.

The inconvenience behind that sentence was considerably larger.

War Plans Get Another Progression Fix Too

Patch 3.1.3 also addresses another Season of Death Awakening progression problem.

The Season Rank III objective Set Fire to the Beacons will now correctly count Escalation Nightmare Dungeons containing the Ruptures affix toward completion.

So players who did the correct activity but watched the objective stubbornly refuse to acknowledge reality should finally get credit.

Diablo 4 occasionally has the unique ability to make killing thousands of demons easier than convincing a checklist that you killed thousands of demons.

Echo of Mephisto Gets a Party Fix

There is also a useful multiplayer change.

Party members who join an Echo of Mephisto encounter already in progress will now be able to use a portal to access the third stage of the fight.

Blizzard is also cleaning up Corrupted Reaper encounters so resummoning the boss removes the previous Reaper's corpse.

Patch 3.1.3 is therefore not a major balance update.

There are no enormous class reworks or new endgame systems hiding inside it.

It is cleanup.

But cleanup matters when the thing being cleaned up is preventing seasonal systems from working.

A War Plan Should Probably Be Possible to Complete

The Infernal Hordes bug was especially awkward because War Plans are supposed to provide structure to Diablo 4's endgame and seasonal progression.

If the system tells you to complete an activity, the absolute minimum requirement is that the activity actually opens.

That bar was temporarily missed.

Patch 3.1.3 should put it back where it belongs.

So if your levelling character has been staring at an Infernal Hordes objective that refuses to go anywhere, August 12 is the date to try again.

The demons were always willing.

The portal was the problem.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment – Diablo IV Patch Notes, Patch 3.1.3

Diablo IV Forums – War Plan Stuck on Infernal Horde

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