Diablo 2’s PS5 Offline Stutter May Finally Be Fixed After Six Months

Diablo II: Resurrected players on PlayStation may finally be able to identify items without the game briefly reconsidering its existence.

For roughly six months, PS4 and PS5 players have reported an irritating offline hitch introduced around the Reign of the Warlock 3.0 update.

Talk to Deckard Cain.

Freeze.

Use the Horadric Cube.

Freeze.

Enter a portal.

Freeze.

Buy something from a vendor.

You get the idea.

Now, following the August 18 Patch 3.3 rollout, several of the players who spent months documenting the issue say the stutter appears to be finally fixed.

The Problem Started With the Reign of the Warlock Update

The first major PlayStation bug reports appeared on February 12, immediately after Diablo II: Resurrected's 3.0 update.

Players on both the native PS5 version and the PS4 version running through backward compatibility reported short freezes while playing completely offline.

One of the easiest ways to reproduce the problem was having Deckard Cain identify multiple items.

The game would briefly freeze for roughly 0.2 to 0.3 seconds.

But Cain was only the beginning.

Players eventually reproduced similar hitches while entering portals, changing areas, leveling up, using the Cube, interacting with vendors and during ordinary gameplay.

Most importantly, players reported the issue even on characters that did not own or use Reign of the Warlock content.

The expansion may have arrived with the update.

The hitching apparently came free.

Autosaves and Transactions Became the Main Suspect

Over the following months, the PlayStation community became impressively forensic about the problem.

One player recorded the Cain identification freeze frame by frame and spotted a brief message appearing during the hitch:

Waiting For Confirmation Of Transaction.

That led players to suspect the visible Cain freeze was only one symptom of a broader slowdown involving transactions, validation or game-state saving.

Later testing seemed to support that theory.

Players reported the same hitch around:

• Cain identification
• Manual item identification
• Horadric Cube transmutation
• Moving items into the Cube
• Vendor purchases and sales
• Gambling
• Entering portals
• Area transitions
• Autosaves
• Some item drops and gameplay events

That is unfortunately most of Diablo II.

Gambling Made the Problem Almost Comical

By August, players had found an especially effective demonstration.

Gambling.

Normally, players can rapidly buy items from the gambling screen and fill an inventory in seconds.

With the PlayStation hitching problem, each purchase could briefly lock the game before the next input registered.

Repeated purchases made the stutter occur again and again, turning an ordinary gambling session into a sequence of tiny pauses.

The same thing reportedly happened while repeatedly cubing gems.

Insert three gems.

Transmute.

Hitch.

Repeat.

The Horadric Cube already has enough opportunities to disappoint you without requiring a loading break between them.

The Problem Was Especially Uncomfortable in Hardcore

A menu hitch is annoying.

A gameplay hitch is potentially lethal.

Several players specifically stopped playing Hardcore offline characters because stalls could also happen during combat, immediately after entering an area or around portal transitions.

A fraction of a second is usually irrelevant.

In Diablo II Hardcore, a fraction of a second standing beside the wrong pack can become an obituary.

That is why the issue continued generating console bug reports long after smaller visual glitches would normally have been forgotten.

Several Earlier Updates Helped, but Didn’t Finish the Job

Players reported improvements during the months after launch, but the underlying hitch never completely disappeared.

In March, some players felt freezes had become shorter.

Others still reproduced them consistently.

Reports continued through April, May, June and July.

Even in August, PlayStation players were still opening new threads about offline hitching, freezing and autosave-related stalls.

The issue had effectively survived multiple patches and most of Reign of the Warlock's first six months.

Then Patch 3.3 Arrived

Patch 3.3 began rolling out on August 18 as part of the run-up to Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15.

Blizzard's published notes do not contain a line saying:

Fixed the six-month PlayStation offline hitch.

Instead, the Bug Fixes section simply begins with “Various stability and performance improvements.”

Apparently one of those improvements may have been doing quite a lot of work.

Players Immediately Started Stress-Testing It

One of the players who had spent months documenting the problem downloaded the new patch on August 18 and began testing the old triggers in real time.

Enter the Tristram portal.

No hitch.

Return to town and ask Cain to identify items.

Instant.

Use the Horadric Cube.

No chop.

Visit Gheed.

No obvious delay.

The player concluded that the issue finally appeared to be resolved.

Another PS5 player confirmed the result early on August 19.

A separate PS4 Slim player also reported no freezes after updating.

And another long-time reporter said Cain identification, Cube stuttering and ordinary gameplay hitching all appeared fixed.

This Is More Than One Happy PS5 Owner

That distinction matters.

If one person said their game suddenly felt smoother, we would not have much of a story.

But several people who had previously reproduced the problem across PS4, PS5 and PS5 Pro are now independently reporting that their known triggers no longer cause the same stalls.

That is strong community evidence that something meaningful changed in the new patch.

It is still not the same thing as Blizzard officially confirming the precise fix.

Patch 3.3 Is Turning Out to Be More Interesting Than Expected

The console fix is not the only seemingly small Patch 3.3 change producing a much larger practical effect.

We have already covered how a Miasma Chain collision fix appears to have made Abyss Warlock dramatically stronger in early player testing.

The patch also reduces Worldstone Shard and Ancient Statue drop rates, while improving Rare-or-better drops from higher Herald tiers.

It makes Latent Sunder Charms harder to obtain through Magic Find.

And Season 15 will bring eight older Ladder-only items into Non-Ladder.

Patch 3.3 looked fairly small.

Its consequences are proving considerably larger.

Season 15 Could Arrive With PlayStation in Much Better Shape

The timing is excellent.

Ladder Season 15 starts August 21 at 5 p.m. PDT, with European players joining on August 22 at 2 a.m. CEST.

That gives PlayStation players a few days to test the new patch before deciding whether they trust another Hardcore character with it.

If the early reports hold up, console players may finally be entering a new Ladder without the constant fear that talking to Deckard Cain will briefly freeze the universe.

We Should Still Call This “Appears Fixed” for Now

There is one final caveat.

Blizzard has not explicitly identified the PlayStation offline hitch in the Patch 3.3 notes.

The company only lists general stability and performance improvements.

So we cannot say with absolute certainty which technical change solved the problem, or whether every edge case on every PlayStation configuration has disappeared.

But this is the strongest evidence players have had in six months.

The same people who were reproducing Cain freezes, gambling delays, Cube stalls and portal hitches days ago are now trying those same actions and reporting smooth gameplay.

Six months.

Dozens of reports.

Multiple patches.

And finally, Deckard Cain may once again identify your inventory without requiring Diablo II to stop and think about it first.

Sources

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: PS5 Offline Stuttering/Hitching Has Ruined My Favorite Game

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: PS4/PS5 Offline Hitching — Gambling Exposes Severity

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: PS5 & PS4 Console — Freeze When Deckard Cain Identifies Items

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon / Patch 3.3 Notes

Read More

Diablo Immortal Players Say Normal Gems Are Disappearing During Salvage and Quick Craft

There are few things in Diablo Immortal more satisfying than finally ranking up a Normal Gem.

There are also few things less satisfying than watching the gems required for that upgrade disappear without producing anything.

Players are now reporting two separate cases where valuable Normal Gems apparently vanished during completely ordinary inventory actions.

One involved salvaging a Set item.

The other involved using Quick Craft at the Jeweler.

Blizzard has not confirmed that the two incidents share the same cause, or even that they are manifestations of the same bug.

But if you are sitting on high-rank Normal Gems, this may be a good week to click things slightly more carefully than usual.

A Rank 8 Topaz Disappeared After Salvaging a Set Item

The first report appeared on August 16.

A player had just reached Paragon 1600 and was replacing some Inferno XIII Set equipment.

They salvaged a Restitution glove at the Blacksmith and converted it into a Wisp.

Afterward, one of the Rank 8 Topaz gems associated with their equipment was gone.

The player says they checked their inventory, stash and other equipped items and could not find it anywhere.

That is a particularly painful disappearance because high-rank Normal Gems represent a considerable amount of accumulated lower-rank gems.

The player was also close to having enough resources for another Rank 9 Topaz.

Instead, one of the Rank 8 building blocks apparently entered the Void.

Possibly the most expensive inventory tab in Sanctuary.

Then 81 Aquamarines Disappeared During Quick Craft

A day later, another player added a completely different Normal Gem problem.

They attempted to use Quick Craft at the Jeweler to turn 81 Rank 1 Aquamarines into a Rank 5 Aquamarine.

According to the report, all 81 gems disappeared from the inventory.

No Rank 5 Aquamarine appeared in their place.

The player later created a dedicated bug report and provided their device information, character UID and exact number of missing gems.

They also noted that at least some of the Aquamarines had effectively been acquired using paid services, making the loss considerably more than an inconvenience.

The Player Thinks Mixed Bound and Unbound Gems May Matter

The Quick Craft report became more interesting after other forum users tried to understand the sequence.

The affected player says they had previously crafted Rank 3 and Rank 4 gems without any problems.

The failure happened specifically while attempting Rank 5.

They later suggested a possible reproduction method:

• Have exactly 81 Rank 1 gems.
• Use a mixture of bound and unbound gems.
• Select Rank 5 at the Jeweler.
• Use Quick Craft.

According to the player, that is the situation developers should test.

Blizzard has not confirmed that this sequence reproduces the problem, so players should treat it as community troubleshooting rather than an established technical explanation.

These May Be Two Completely Different Bugs

It would be tempting to declare that Diablo Immortal has one giant Normal Gem deletion bug.

We do not have enough evidence for that.

The Topaz disappeared after Set-item salvage.

The Aquamarines disappeared during crafting.

Those are entirely different systems.

The only obvious connection is the end result:

Player had gems.

Player performed a normal game action.

Player no longer had gems.

That is enough reason to pay attention, but not enough to claim a shared technical cause.

Normal Gems Have Disappeared Before

There is some uncomfortable history here.

In May 2025, another Diablo Immortal player reported losing a Rank 7 Citrine while switching equipment and Armory loadouts.

The same player said they had previously lost two Rank 7 Sapphires and managed to recover those through an older saved Armory configuration.

They suspected another gem may have disappeared when a Set item was salvaged and the socketed gem failed to return correctly.

That older thread also linked to previous reports involving Normal Gems disappearing during Armory and gear-switching sequences.

Again, there is no evidence that the 2025 cases and this week's incidents have the same underlying cause.

But Normal Gems apparently finding creative exits from the inventory is not an entirely new complaint.

That Matters Because Normal Gems Are Painfully Expensive to Replace

Normal Gems are not decorative pocket gravel.

High-rank gems represent enormous quantities of lower-rank gems accumulated through regular play, events, the Marketplace and other sources.

Players have repeatedly complained that Normal Gem progression is one of Diablo Immortal's harder long-term systems to catch up on, particularly for newer accounts.

That is why losing a Rank 8 gem feels considerably worse than accidentally salvaging another random Legendary shoulder.

One can be replaced after some farming.

The other represents a small geological era.

Diablo Immortal Has Had a Rough August for Expensive Items

The Normal Gem reports arrive during an awkward run of inventory and premium-system problems.

We just covered another player who says 6,000 Eternal Orbs were spent on an unusable Celestial Serpents cosmetic upgrade.

That followed the earlier 4,500-Orb Fanal of Hope purchase that Blizzard is investigating.

Another player says the Temptation's End dye system still would not change colors after a 10,960-Orb setup.

And underneath all of this, players are still adapting to the Inferno XIV Loyalty Point conversion and new Essence progression cycle.

None of those problems necessarily share a cause.

But August has been an unusually educational month for the importance of checking what happened after pressing Confirm.

For Now, Manual Crafting May Be the Safer Option

There is no confirmed Blizzard workaround for either new Normal Gem report.

Still, players concerned about losing expensive gems may want to take a few temporary precautions until the situation becomes clearer.

If you are salvaging Set equipment containing valuable Normal Gems, verify where those gems are before and after the salvage.

If you are combining a large pile of Rank 1 gems, particularly a mixture of bound and unbound gems, manually ranking them in smaller steps may be worth considering instead of immediately using Quick Craft to Rank 5.

And screenshots of your inventory before performing expensive operations are rarely a terrible idea when reporting a potential item-loss bug.

That advice is precautionary.

It is not confirmation that either process is universally unsafe.

Gems Should Become Bigger Gems, Not No Gems

Diablo Immortal is built around upgrading things.

Equipment becomes better equipment.

Essences become builds.

Small gems become larger gems.

That last progression step becomes considerably less attractive when 81 Aquamarines apparently become air.

For now, we have two current reports involving two different systems and some older history suggesting Normal Gem disappearances have happened before.

What we do not yet have is a Blizzard explanation.

Until then, perhaps treat that Quick Craft button with the respect normally reserved for a suspicious Horadric Cube.

Sources

Diablo Immortal Forums: Normal Gems Disappeared After Salvaging Set Item

Diablo Immortal Forums: Aquamarine Disappeared After Quick Craft at Jeweler

Diablo Immortal Forums: Normal Gem Gone

Read More

Another Diablo Immortal Player Bought an Unusable Cosmetic — This One Cost 6,000 Orbs

Diablo Immortal has another expensive cosmetic problem.

And this time the number is even larger.

A player says they spent 6,000 Eternal Orbs on an upgraded Celestial Serpents cosmetic after the option appeared in-game.

After completing the purchase, they say they received no cosmetic or anything else they could actually use.

The report was filed on August 19 and directly references the recent case where another Diablo Immortal player spent 4,500 Eternal Orbs on a Fanal of Hope enhancement that required a base cosmetic they did not own.

One case can be an unfortunate edge case.

Two expensive cosmetic reports within days of each other start making the purchase logic considerably more interesting.

The Player Spent 6,000 Orbs on Celestial Serpents

The new report is remarkably short and direct.

The player says Diablo Immortal showed them the option to purchase the Celestial Serpents upgraded cosmetic for 6,000 Eternal Orbs.

They bought it.

Then nothing useful appeared.

The player is using an iPad and filed the issue under Diablo Immortal's iOS Bug Report section.

At the time of writing, Blizzard has not publicly responded to this specific 6,000-Orb report.

Celestial Serpents Has a Separate Upgrade System

The important context comes from Blizzard's original Celestial Serpents announcement.

The cosmetic debuted through the Lunar New Year Phantom Market in January 2025 and included an optional upgrade system called Tempering & Refining.

Tempering changes the appearance of the gilded serpents and alters the color of Primary Attacks.

Polishing adds a special finisher animation when killing Elites or bosses.

But Blizzard's wording contains a particularly important condition:

The Celestial Serpents cosmetic must already be unlocked before players can spend Eternal Orbs to Temper and Polish it.

That makes the new report difficult to dismiss as someone simply misunderstanding what an upgrade does.

If a player does not meet the requirement, the more important question becomes why the 6,000-Orb purchase option appeared at all.

We Don’t Yet Know Whether the Player Owns the Base Cosmetic

There is an important difference between this report and the earlier Fanal of Hope case.

The new player has not yet explained whether they already own the Celestial Serpents base cosmetic, a portal or another component from the original set.

So we cannot say the exact same bug has happened again.

The failure could involve account ownership detection.

It could involve delivery of the upgraded cosmetic.

It could involve another problem entirely.

Right now, all we know is that the game accepted 6,000 Eternal Orbs and the player says nothing usable arrived.

That is enough to warrant investigation.

Not enough to diagnose the patient.

The Player Links Directly to the 4,500-Orb Case

What makes the timing particularly awkward is that the new player explicitly connects their experience with the 4,500-Orb Fanal of Hope case we covered last week.

In that earlier report, a player purchased a cosmetic enhancement believing they were buying usable cosmetic content.

They later discovered that the purchase only modified the Fanal of Hope base armor cosmetic.

They did not own that armor.

Worse, the base cosmetic was no longer obtainable.

The player therefore had 4,500 Orbs tied up in an upgrade for something they could not currently acquire.

Blizzard Is Already Investigating the Earlier Case

The previous story eventually reached Blizzard's development team.

A Blizzard representative responded publicly on August 12 and said the team was investigating the bug and would communicate what steps it planned to take.

That was significant because Customer Support had previously told the player it could not reverse the purchase, refund the Orbs or provide another form of compensation.

The new 6,000-Orb reporter had actually already appeared in that older thread on August 18, saying they had encountered the same general type of problem and had not heard back regarding their support ticket.

Less than a day later, they created a dedicated Celestial Serpents bug report.

This Makes Purchase Validation More Important

We still do not know whether both cases have the same technical cause.

But they raise the same basic design question.

Should Diablo Immortal allow an account to purchase an expensive cosmetic enhancement unless the game has verified that the enhancement will actually be usable?

The cleanest version of the system would be boring.

Own the base cosmetic?

Purchase button available.

Do not own it?

Purchase button disabled.

That would eliminate a considerable amount of customer-support archaeology.

Premium Cosmetic Systems Are Becoming More Complicated

The issue is particularly relevant because Diablo Immortal has recently been expanding cosmetic customization aggressively.

We recently covered the new Temptation's End dye customization system, which costs 4,500 Orbs just to unlock.

Then another player reported that their full Temptation's End dye setup still refused to change colors after they had spent 10,960 Orbs.

Now we have Celestial Serpents and another 6,000-Orb purchase dispute.

None of those reports proves that Diablo Immortal's entire cosmetic system is broken.

But the more layers Blizzard adds to premium cosmetics, the more important it becomes that ownership requirements, upgrade dependencies and purchase results are absolutely clear.

6,000 Orbs Should Probably Produce Something

There is no Blizzard response on the new Celestial Serpents report yet.

There is also not enough information to say the player definitely encountered the same ownership bug as the Fanal of Hope buyer.

For now, this remains one newly documented case.

But it arrives while Blizzard is already investigating another expensive unusable-cosmetic purchase.

That makes it worth watching.

Because premium cosmetic systems can be complicated.

Temper.

Polish.

Refine.

Upgrade.

Change colors.

Add finishers.

Fine.

But after 6,000 Eternal Orbs leave the account, the next step should probably not be:

Open a bug report.

Sources

Diablo Immortal Forums: 6000 Eternal Orbs Spent on Unusable Cosmetic

Diablo Immortal Forums: 4,500 Eternal Orbs Spent on Unusable Cosmetic

Blizzard Entertainment: A Gilded Dawn — Tong Shi's Renewal

Read More

Diablo 4 Players Are Finishing Their Entire War Plan — Then Getting Stuck at 9/10

Diablo 4's War Plans are supposed to reward you for completing endgame activities.

Some players have discovered a slightly less satisfying final objective.

Finish everything.

Then stare at 9/10 forever.

A long-running Diablo IV bug report describes War Plans becoming permanently stuck one level short of completion even after every available activity on the board has been maxed out.

The problem was first reported in June and is still receiving fresh reports on August 19.

For affected players, the missing rank means they cannot unlock the final War Plan reward despite apparently having nothing left to complete.

Every Activity Is Finished, But the War Plan Still Wants One More

The original report came from a Barbarian player on the Asia servers.

They completed every activity shown on the right side of the War Plan tree.

The activities were done.

The points were spent.

But the overall War Plan remained at Rank 9/10.

The interface still said another activity or skill point was required to reach the final rank.

There was only one minor problem.

There were no activities left.

The player tried restarting Diablo 4, restarting Battle.net, verifying the game files and logging out and back in.

Nothing changed.

Yes, War Plans Really Can Reach 10/10

One of the first questions in the bug thread was whether 9/10 might simply be the intended maximum because War Plans begin at Rank 0.

Other players quickly ruled that out.

War Plans can reach 10/10, and the UI continues showing unfinished progression after Rank 9 for affected players.

Later reports are even more explicit.

One player finished the entire War Plan and received the associated completion achievement, but the board itself remained at 9/10.

Another reported every activity sitting at 7/7 while the War Plan remained one rank short.

Achievement complete.

Activities complete.

War Plan apparently unconvinced.

Players Think Double Rank-Ups May Be Losing a Point

The most interesting community theory appeared after players began comparing how their War Plans progressed.

Several suspect the bug happens when an activity gains two ranks at once around the same time the overall War Plan should gain a level.

One player suggested that doing two Nightmare Dungeon Escalations or two Greater Helltide upgrades together may cause the system to count only one of the activity ranks.

A later player described what appears to be the same problem in more detail.

According to their testing, if an activity double-ranks while the War Plan itself is close to leveling, one activity rank may fail to count toward the overall total.

Nothing looks obviously broken at the time.

The problem only becomes unavoidable weeks later, when every activity is maxed and the missing point can no longer be earned.

That explanation has not been confirmed by Blizzard.

But it would explain why the bug feels like it appears at the end even though the actual mistake may have happened much earlier.

Another Theory Points to the First Activity Rank

There is not complete agreement on the cause.

Another player testing a fresh character noticed that the first rank gained in one activity tree appeared not to contribute an expected point.

So the community currently has at least two possible explanations:

• A double activity rank-up causes one point to be skipped.
• An early activity rank sometimes fails to count correctly.

Neither theory has received official confirmation.

What players do agree on is the outcome.

Eventually the board reaches a state where everything is finished but the numbers no longer add up.

The Bug Is Still Happening on August 19

The original thread did not disappear after June.

Players reported the same problem throughout July and August.

On August 3, one player said they had finally maxed their War Plan after several weeks of progression and ended up permanently one point short.

More reports followed on August 11.

And early on August 19, another Barbarian player confirmed the same issue again.

Interestingly, that player said their Warlock did not have the problem.

They wondered whether the difference might relate to one character starting Seasonal while the Barbarian began on Eternal.

That is only speculation, but it adds another variable worth investigating.

War Plans Have Already Needed Plenty of Fixes

This is not Diablo 4's first argument with the War Plan system.

Blizzard has already fixed multiple problems involving War Plan progression, boss spawns, activity tracking and rewards since Lord of Hatred launched.

We previously covered an Infernal Hordes War Plan bug that could completely block progression, which Blizzard later addressed.

We have also been following the Ultimate Nemesis party loot problem, where groups report completing the final encounter only for some players to receive no proper reward.

Blizzard's official patch notes include numerous War Plan fixes, from Nemesis Lairs failing to trigger to activity icons displaying incorrectly and campaign states being evaluated inconsistently between party members.

The system is clearly complicated.

Unfortunately, Rank 9 apparently still knows how to count to ten about as well as a Fallen.

This Is Another Progression Bug With No Way Forward

The reason this one matters is not simply that the UI displays the wrong number.

The final rewards remain locked.

There is no additional activity to grind.

Reassigning points reportedly does not solve it.

Restarting does not solve it.

And because every activity is already at maximum rank, the player has no obvious way to generate another progression event and force the missing point to appear.

That puts it in the same unpleasant category as several progression issues we have covered recently.

Some Eternal characters still cannot access the campaign skip they should have unlocked.

Players can become soft-locked during the Secret Cow Level quest despite completing the required steps.

And even 65/65 Skovos exploration can leave the Amazonian Charge mount locked for some accounts.

The common theme is particularly frustrating:

The player has already done the work.

The game just has not finished counting it.

Blizzard Has Not Announced a Specific Fix Yet

Blizzard's current patch notes contain plenty of War Plan fixes, but we have not found a published correction specifically addressing the 9/10 progression issue.

The main bug thread is also still active today.

That does not mean Blizzard is not investigating it.

Bug reports can be tracked internally without receiving a public developer response.

But from the player's perspective, there is currently no confirmed fix or reliable workaround.

Weeks of Grinding Should Probably Add Up to Ten

War Plans were introduced with Lord of Hatred as a way to give Diablo 4's endgame more structure, allowing players to customize and progress through chains of activities after finishing the expansion campaign.

That structure only works if the progression system remembers all the progression.

Players reporting this bug are not asking for free levels.

They are not asking Blizzard to reduce the grind.

They have already finished the grind.

They would simply like:

Seven out of seven.

Plus seven out of seven.

Plus everything else completed.

To eventually equal ten out of ten.

Sanctuary has more complicated mathematics than that.

This should not be one of them.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: War Plans Level Stuck at 9/10 — Missing Skill Point After Completing All Activities

Blizzard Entertainment: Prepare for the Reckoning — Lord of Hatred Draws Near

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo IV Patch Notes

Read More

Diablo 2 Patch 3.3 Fixed One Warlock Bug — Players Say It Made Abyss Ridiculously Strong

Diablo II: Resurrected Patch 3.3 contains one very innocent-looking Warlock bug fix.

Miasma Chain no longer collides with friendly and neutral units.

That is it.

No giant damage multiplier.

No doubled skill coefficient.

No developer note announcing that Hell Diablo should immediately begin updating his will.

And yet, less than a day after Patch 3.3 went live, Warlock players are already reporting that the fix may have given the Abyss Warlock a much larger practical damage boost than anyone expected.

Miasma Chain Was Hitting Things It Wasn’t Supposed To

Blizzard's official Patch 3.3 notes describe the change very simply:

Miasma Chain had missile collision with friendly and neutral units. That has now been fixed.

On paper, this is quality-of-life.

Miasma Chain projectiles should reach enemies instead of colliding with things that are not actually trying to kill you.

In practice, however, Miasma Chain is one of the main single-target damage tools in Abyss Warlock builds.

And if those chains are suddenly reaching bosses more reliably, the difference can be much larger than the patch note makes it sound.

Players Say Hell Diablo Is Melting

The first post-Patch 3.3 testing is already raising eyebrows.

One player on Blizzard's forums described the new Abyss Warlock performance as so overwhelming that it becomes difficult to consider starting Season 15 with another character.

Another player tested the build against Hell Diablo and reported that the boss went down extremely quickly after stacking a large number of Miasma Chains around his spawn point.

The important detail is the gear.

The player described using relatively inexpensive equipment with only around +5 total skills and no skill Grand Charms.

That is hardly the sort of setup where Diablo should evaporate because somebody looked at him aggressively.

This Is Really a Miasma Chain Story

Calling this an “Abyss buff” is slightly misleading.

Blizzard did not actually buff Abyss in Patch 3.3.

The change affects Miasma Chain.

But Abyss Warlocks already commonly use Miasma Chain as part of the same build, particularly against bosses and tougher targets.

That relationship was obvious even before Patch 3.3.

Earlier Hardcore testing from Season 14 described Abyss as excellent AoE damage and crowd control, while Miasma Chain became the real heavy hitter against bosses and enemies that survived the initial Abyss damage.

So if Patch 3.3 has substantially improved Miasma Chain's ability to connect with a target, the entire Abyss package benefits.

The skill did not become stronger mathematically.

It simply became better at actually delivering the mathematics to Diablo's face.

Abyss Was Already Very Strong

This is the other reason the early reports matter.

Abyss was hardly waiting for Blizzard to rescue it.

Players were already calling it one of the strongest Warlock leveling tools during Season 14 because it combines several unusually useful properties:

• Strong area damage
• Magic damage, avoiding many common immunities
• Large-area crowd control
• Continued scaling through synergies
• Safe off-screen targeting

One Hardcore player documented beating Hell Baal at level 78 with modest equipment while praising Abyss for handling dangerous enemies such as Gloams and Dolls.

That makes Patch 3.3 potentially dangerous from a balance perspective.

You are not fixing the broken steering on a weak build.

You may be fixing the broken steering on something that was already driving extremely fast.

Season 15 Starts in Just a Few Days

The timing could hardly be better for build experimentation.

Patch 3.3 is already live, but the actual Diablo II: Resurrected Season 15 Ladder does not begin until August 21, or early August 22 for European players.

That gives the community a few days to test Abyss and Miasma Chain before everyone begins again from level one.

And suddenly the Warlock starter question becomes much more interesting.

If this performance survives deeper testing, Abyss could become one of the obvious early Season 15 choices.

Patch 3.3 Is Already Changing the Season 15 Meta

The Miasma Chain fix is only one part of a surprisingly consequential patch.

We have already covered how Patch 3.3 makes Sunder Charms harder to obtain, while also changing how Magic Find interacts with some drops.

Blizzard is also reducing Worldstone Shard and Ancient Statue drop rates, which will affect how players approach the Reign of the Warlock endgame.

At the same time, eight older Ladder-only items are moving into Non-Ladder, while the newly adjusted Season 15 items remain part of the fresh Ladder economy.

Blizzard even changed Manald Heal from Faster Run/Walk to Faster Cast Rate shortly before the patch arrived.

Season 15 looked relatively modest on paper.

The details are doing quite a lot of work.

Warlock Has Already Changed Diablo II More Than Expected

When Reign of the Warlock arrived, adding an entirely new class to Diablo II was already a fairly extraordinary event.

The class has since become deeply connected to the game's expanded endgame, including Terror Zones, Heralds and the Colossal Ancients pinnacle encounter.

Patch 3.3 now shows how even tiny mechanical fixes can change that ecosystem.

A projectile collision bug sounds boring.

Until removing it allows twenty poisonous chains to stop colliding with somebody's goat and start colliding with Diablo.

Don’t Call Abyss Broken Yet

There is still a very important caveat.

These are early community tests.

Blizzard has not said Abyss Warlock is overpowered after Patch 3.3.

We do not yet have large-scale Season 15 performance data, fully optimized comparisons or enough testing across player counts and endgame encounters to declare a definitive new meta.

Pre-casting large numbers of Miasma Chains at a known boss spawn is also an unusually favorable scenario for the skill.

Hell Diablo standing patiently where twenty chains are waiting for him is not necessarily representative of every fight in Diablo II.

It is, however, representative of a very bad morning for Diablo.

One Bug Fix May Have Changed the Best Season 15 Starter Conversation

The interesting part is that nobody needed a giant Warlock balance patch to create this discussion.

Blizzard fixed one collision problem.

Miasma Chain started behaving more like players expected it to behave.

And suddenly the community is asking whether one of the strongest Warlock builds just became dramatically better.

That is exactly the sort of interaction worth watching before Ladder Season 15 begins.

If the current results hold up, players may remember Patch 3.3 less for its item tweaks and drop-rate changes than for one wonderfully understated line buried under Bug Fixes.

Fixed an issue where Miasma Chain had missile collision on neutral and friendly units.

Diablo may eventually request that Blizzard puts the bug back.

Sources

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

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: 3.3 Abyss Warlock Has Become Too Strong

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: Abyss Warlock After Beating Hell Baal in Hardcore

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Diablo Immortal Player Says a 10,960-Orb Dye Setup Won’t Actually Change Colors

Diablo Immortal recently added proper dye customization to Temptation’s End.

One player says they have now discovered an unfortunate limitation.

The colors refuse to change.

A new Android bug report says the player unlocked every available dye option for the Temptation’s End cosmetic, including the variable color controls, only to find that the outfit continues displaying its default appearance regardless of which colors are selected.

The player estimates the complete dye setup cost 10,960 Eternal Orbs for that cosmetic.

That is a great deal of premium currency for a color picker currently behaving like a decorative button.

Blizzard Added Temptation’s End Dyeing on August 12

The dye system arrived with Diablo Immortal’s August 12 update.

Blizzard officially added color customization for both Temptation’s End and the Temptation’s End Collector’s Edition, allowing players to unlock expanded color options for 4,500 Eternal Orbs.

We covered that initial price in our look at Diablo Immortal’s new 4,500-Orb dye customization system.

That 4,500-Orb figure is the feature unlock Blizzard advertises.

The player behind the new bug report says continuing to unlock the full range of dye options, including the variable color bar, brought the total to 10,960 Orbs per cosmetic.

And after doing that, Temptation’s End apparently remained exactly the same color.

No Matter Which Color Is Selected, It Stays Default

The report was filed on August 16 by a player using a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra running Diablo Immortal version 5.0.0.

Read More

Diablo 4 Lowered the Skovos Requirement — Some Players Still Can’t Get the Mount

Diablo 4 fixed one of Skovos' most irritating exploration problems.

Then apparently forgot about some of the players who had already finished it.

The No Island Unturned achievement originally asked players to discover 67 areas in Skovos. Unfortunately, many players reached 65/67 and discovered there did not appear to be another two areas to find.

The requirement has since been changed to 65/65.

Problem solved.

Except players who had already explored those 65 areas before the change say the achievement can remain stuck at Not Started, preventing the associated Amazonian Charge mount from unlocking.

The Original Problem Was 65/67

The main bug report dates back to July 5.

The player had fully explored Skovos on Eternal Softcore and then repeated the process on Eternal Hardcore.

Both times, the map stopped at 65/67.

After Diablo 4 changed the requirement to 65/65, the exploration counter correctly updated.

The achievement did not.

The player says No Island Unturned remained incomplete despite the map now showing full exploration, which also meant the Amazonian Charge reward never arrived.

Other players immediately reported the same thing.

One described the challenge as showing Not Started despite all of Skovos being visible.

Another confirmed the problem still existed on July 17 after completing the regions during the earlier 65/67 bug.

65/65 Apparently Isn’t Enough for Some Accounts

A separate Technical Support report from July 29 describes the same situation in even simpler terms:

Exploration Progress: 65/65.

No Island Unturned: incomplete.

The player had also completed the Lord of Hatred campaign on both Softcore and Hardcore and said exploration was the only remaining challenge preventing full completion.

By August 17, the issue was still being reported.

One player said they had 65/65 on both Softcore and Hardcore before the fix and still had not received retroactive credit.

That makes the current problem less about discovering Skovos.

Players already did that.

The game just needs to notice.

The Likely Problem Is Retroactive Progress

Players have developed a fairly convincing theory.

If you discovered the 65 valid Skovos areas after the requirement changed, the final area can trigger the achievement normally.

If your account already had all 65 areas discovered beforehand, there may be no new exploration event left to trigger the achievement check.

That would explain why some players can reach 65/65 and receive the mount while others remain permanently stuck despite displaying the exact same number.

Blizzard has not publicly confirmed that technical explanation, so it remains a community diagnosis rather than an official cause.

The Community Workaround Is Not Especially Convenient

One workaround suggested by players is completing Skovos exploration on a fresh realm state, particularly Hardcore if the player has not already explored it there.

The idea is simple:

Start with fewer than 65 discovered areas.

Reach 65/65 naturally.

Let the final discovery trigger the achievement.

That has reportedly worked for some players.

It is less helpful for people who already explored Skovos on both Softcore and Hardcore before Blizzard changed the requirement.

Those players have effectively run out of fresh maps to complete.

That is an impressive achievement in itself.

Unfortunately it does not come with the mount.

The Amazonian Charge Is the Part Players Actually Care About

Achievement completion is nice.

The Amazonian Charge is nicer.

The mount is tied to No Island Unturned, which means this is not merely a challenge counter displaying the wrong percentage.

Players are being prevented from receiving a cosmetic reward attached to completing the exploration requirement.

That puts the bug in the same irritating category as several progression problems we have covered recently.

Some Eternal characters still cannot skip the Lord of Hatred campaign despite completing it elsewhere.

Players are still reporting that the Secret Cow Level quest can soft-lock during the Anger step.

And groups reaching Ultimate Nemesis can still finish the fight without everyone receiving the expected loot.

Different systems.

Same sentence:

I did the thing. Where is my reward?

Skovos May Have Another Tracking Problem Too

There is another fresh Skovos-related report from August 17.

One Eternal player says their Skovos World Event Master progress is stuck at 93/100 even after repeatedly killing the Skovos World Boss enough times that they believe the count should have reached 100.

That is currently only a single report, so there is no reason to assume the two problems share the same cause.

But it is another example of Skovos progression apparently not always registering the activity happening directly in front of it.

Season 14 Has Had a Strange Collection of Tracking Bugs

Diablo 4 is currently carrying several bugs where the underlying action seems to work while the progression or stat attached to it does not.

We recently covered a Block Chance problem where Greater Affixes and Masterworking reportedly leave the stat unchanged.

And today we looked at a Transfiguration report where a near-perfect amulet became Unmodifiable without any visible reward.

That is what makes No Island Unturned particularly frustrating.

There is no mystery about whether the player completed the requirement.

The game itself says:

65/65.

Blizzard Needs a Retroactive Check

Players affected by the old 65/67 state are asking Blizzard for a backend or retroactive progression check that recognizes accounts already sitting at 65/65 and grants the missing achievement and reward.

That sounds like the cleanest solution if the community diagnosis is correct.

Do not ask players to rediscover an area that is already discovered.

Do not ask them to create another character.

Do not ask them to explore an island for the third time.

Just look at the counter.

65.

Out of 65.

There are more complicated mathematical problems in Diablo 4.

This probably should not be one of them.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: No Island Unturned Achievement and Amazonian Charge Mount Not Granted After Skovos Requirement Update

Diablo IV Forums: Unable to Complete No Island Unturned Achievement Despite 65/65 Exploration

Diablo IV Forums: World Boss Kills in Skovos Are Not Being Counted in Eternal

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Diablo 4 Players Are Still Getting Locked Out of the Secret Cow Level Quest

Diablo has spent almost thirty years insisting that there is no cow level.

Diablo 4 has apparently found a new way to preserve the tradition.

There may be a cow level.

You just might not be allowed to reach it.

Players are still reporting that the hidden Secret Cow Level questline can become soft-locked during its Anger step, leaving them unable to obtain the required Amazon Training pieces, Mother’s Rose or activate the final brazier.

The main bug report began back on May 9 and was still receiving new complaints on August 17.

The Anger Step Can Apparently Stop Progressing

The original player had successfully collected and equipped all five pieces of the Amazon Training set.

While waiting for Vasha the Unbroken, they removed the Training Boots because of an inconvenient Fury-draining affix, returned to town and accidentally salvaged them.

That should have been annoying.

Instead, it apparently became permanent.

From that moment onward, Corrupted Amazons stopped dropping replacement Training pieces. The player salvaged the remaining set, restarted the Anger ritual, reacquired the initial helm from the training dummy and cleared multiple Celestia zones.

Nothing.

Vasha also refused to drop Mother’s Rose, and the Temple of Courage brazier remained non-interactable.

The player believes some hidden progression flag may remain set after the game registers the full armor set, preventing the quest from correctly resetting if part of the sequence is interrupted.

Blizzard has not confirmed that explanation.

Other Players Are Getting Stuck in Different Places

The worrying part is how many variations of the same problem have appeared.

One player reported collecting three Amazon Training pieces before a Helltide began, after which nothing except the helmet would drop.

Another said they killed more than 10,000 Corrupted Amazons while trying relogs, Cross Play changes, quest resets and different characters without fixing the problem.

Others successfully collected all five armor pieces but repeatedly killed Vasha without receiving Mother’s Rose.

One player tried the process on three separate alts.

Still no Rose.

At some point this stops being secret-content discovery and becomes bovine bureaucracy.

Moving Items Between Characters Can Make Things Stranger

Players have also discovered that the hidden quest appears unusually sensitive to which character completes each step.

One player eventually obtained the Amazon equipment and Mother’s Rose on a Warlock after their Barbarian became stuck.

They then placed the Rose in the stash and moved it to the Barbarian.

The Barbarian could not light the associated brazier.

Switching back to the Warlock allowed the brazier to activate, but introduced another progression problem afterward.

That player concluded that the safest approach may be completing all three ritual branches on the same character.

Again, that is community troubleshooting rather than confirmed Blizzard guidance.

There Are Workarounds, but They Don’t Work for Everyone

One July player reported a successful recovery without creating another character.

Instead of repeatedly resetting Anger, they completed another ritual branch first, returned to Anger afterward, activated the talisman again, reread the journal, equipped the Amazon Training armor and went directly to Vasha.

This time Mother’s Rose dropped.

Another player confirmed in August that the same workaround fixed their quest.

Unfortunately, later reports say even that method does not always work.

On August 11, one player said they had tried multiple characters, salvaged and refarmed the equipment four times, reread the notebook and restarted Anger repeatedly.

No Rose.

On August 17, the same player returned with a wonderfully concise summary of the entire situation:

They just wanted to moo.

Still no confirmed Blizzard acknowledgement.

Diablo 4 Has Had a Bad Run of Progression Bugs

The Cow Level problem fits an unfortunate pattern we have been following recently.

Just yesterday we covered how some Eternal characters still cannot skip the Lord of Hatred campaign months after players completed it elsewhere.

We have also covered an older progression problem where Diablo 4 removed Elixirs while an old Vessel of Hatred quest still appeared to require one.

And at the endgame, players continue reporting that Ultimate Nemesis parties can complete the encounter only for some members to receive no proper loot.

Different systems.

Same particularly unpleasant result:

The player does what the game asks, and progression simply stops.

Hidden Quests Are Especially Vulnerable to This

A normal quest bug is frustrating.

A hidden quest bug is worse because players are already working without normal guidance.

The Secret Cow Level chain deliberately relies on obscure objects, unusual drops and player experimentation.

When one step fails, it becomes extremely difficult to know whether you have discovered another secret condition or whether the game has simply broken.

Do you need another armor piece?

Did you perform the rituals in the wrong order?

Should Vasha drop something?

Is the brazier intentionally inactive?

Or did a hidden progression flag give up three hours ago?

That uncertainty is entertaining when solving a secret.

It is considerably less entertaining after 10,000 Amazon kills.

Don’t Salvage the Training Set Until You’re Finished

Until Blizzard clarifies the problem, the safest community advice is fairly conservative.

If you are working through the Anger sequence, keep the full Amazon Training set intact.

Try to complete the associated steps on the same character.

And avoid moving or salvaging quest-related items until Mother’s Rose has been used successfully.

Those precautions are based on player reports rather than an official fix, and even following them does not appear to guarantee success.

But they may reduce the chance of ending up in one of the broken states described in the forum thread.

The Secret Cow Level Should Be Difficult to Find, Not Impossible to Finish

There is something wonderfully Diablo about a hidden Cow Level quest requiring players to decipher strange rituals, wear ridiculous equipment and murder suspicious numbers of monsters.

That part should remain obscure.

The quest should feel like something the community collectively uncovers.

But once a player has figured out what to do, the challenge should be completing the secret.

Not determining whether the secret currently works.

Diablo has spent decades telling us there is no cow level.

Diablo 4 apparently added an asterisk.

There is no cow level if Mother’s Rose refuses to drop.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Cow Level Anger Step Soft-Locked — Amazon Training Set Drops Stop, Vasha Drops No Mother’s Rose, Brazier Non-Interactable

Read More

Diablo 4 Player Says Transfiguration Bricked a Near-Perfect Amulet and Gave Nothing Back

Diablo 4's Transfiguration system is supposed to be risky.

You take an excellent item.

You put it into the Horadric Cube.

You press the button.

And then you discover whether Sanctuary has decided to reward months of optimization or turn your prized possession into an expensive cautionary tale.

One player says the system has now discovered a third option.

Do absolutely nothing and lock the item anyway.

A fresh August 18 bug report describes a near-perfect Ancestral Legendary amulet becoming permanently Unmodifiable after Transfiguration despite receiving no visible new affix, no Item Quality increase, no Greater Affix upgrade, no Indestructible effect and apparently no other Transfiguration result.

This Was Not a Disposable Amulet

The player, Apokriphos, had already put a considerable amount of work into the item before attempting the final roll.

According to the report, the amulet had an enchanted +4 skill affix, several important Greater Affixes, finished Tempering and Masterworking, a finalized Legendary Aspect and a successful Kullean Transfiguration already applied.

In other words, this was not something picked up during a Helltide and thrown into the Cube because there was nothing interesting on television.

It was an endgame item.

The sort of item where every additional crafting step is preceded by a short conversation with yourself about whether greed is really worth it.

Apparently it was not.

The Final Transfiguration Locked It With No Visible Reward

The player then performed one final normal Transfiguration using Volatile Primordial Dust.

The result was immediate.

The amulet became Unmodifiable.

That part is not unusual. Transfiguration is intentionally capable of permanently locking an item from further modification.

What was unusual was everything that did not happen.

The player reports receiving:

• No new affix
• No Item Quality increase
• No Greater Affix upgrade
• No Indestructible result
• No visible replacement or additional Transfiguration effect

The item simply became locked.

Bad RNG is one thing.

RNG forgetting to generate the R is another.

Transfiguration Is Already Diablo 4’s Final Gamble

This hurts because Transfiguration sits at the very end of the crafting process.

By the time players seriously consider using it on a valuable item, they may already have invested Enchanting, Tempering, Masterworking and substantial time finding the correct Greater Affixes.

Blizzard has continued integrating Transfiguration into high-end itemization, including Season 14 changes to Mythic crafting and fixes for several Cube interactions. The current patch notes still contain Transfiguration-specific fixes, including preventing non-functional Greater Affixes from being added to Mythic Unique items.

That is why a no-result roll feels different from simply receiving the wrong bonus.

The player was prepared to gamble the item.

The expectation was that the gamble would produce something.

This May Not Be the First Time

There is another reason the new report deserves attention.

A separate bug report from May describes a remarkably similar outcome on another amulet.

That player started with a four-star amulet, performed a basic Transfiguration and watched the item become Unmodifiable and display five stars.

But the player could not identify any actual stat increase or additional Greater Affix afterward.

Their theory was that Transfiguration may have selected an affix that was already Greater or already enhanced, resulting in no meaningful visible improvement.

Blizzard never publicly confirmed that explanation.

But it raises an uncomfortable possibility:

A Transfiguration outcome may occasionally select something that produces no useful change while still consuming the roll and locking the item.

Amulets Have Already Had Transfiguration Problems

This would hardly be Diablo 4's first strange interaction involving amulets and the Horadric Cube.

Players previously reported cases where changing a Legendary Aspect after using a Kullean Tuning Prism caused the Transfigured Aspect to disappear, sometimes leaving the amulet unable to be Transfigured again. Multiple players reproduced that problem in May.

Blizzard has fixed several Cube-related problems since then, but today's report suggests highly invested amulets may still have dangerous edge cases.

That fits a broader pattern we have been watching across Diablo 4's increasingly complicated item systems.

We recently covered how Block Chance may fail to improve through Greater Affixes and Masterworking, despite players investing heavily into the stat.

We have also looked at the enormous damage gap that extreme endgame scaling can create between builds.

Different problems.

Same underlying reality.

Modern Diablo 4 has an extraordinary number of systems stacked on top of each other.

The Risk Is Supposed to Be the Outcome, Not Whether There Is an Outcome

There is an important argument in favor of Transfiguration's brutality.

Endgame gear should probably have some risk.

If players could endlessly reroll every final modification until perfection appeared, there would eventually be very little tension left in the item hunt.

That is part of why Transfiguration has generated so much debate since Lord of Hatred introduced the modern Horadric Cube systems.

And it is also why players have spent so much time debating whether Diablo 4's public testing process catches enough of these interactions before they reach live servers. We recently explored that question in our piece on whether Diablo 4's PTR solves problems or spoils too much before launch.

But risk only feels fair if players understand what they are risking.

Bad affix?

Fine.

Indestructible when you wanted damage?

Painful, but understandable.

Permanent lock with no observable reward?

That feels considerably less like gambling and considerably more like the machine ate your coin.

Season 15 Will Make Item Reliability Even More Important

Season 15 is already preparing another wave of buildcrafting changes through Soul Splinters, Legacy Uniques, Challenge Dungeons and further item-system adjustments.

We came away from the PTR particularly positive about Soul Splinters and their meaningful build tradeoffs.

But adding more interesting build choices also makes reliable item behavior more important.

Players can work around balance.

They can choose a different affix.

They can farm another item.

What they cannot easily plan around is a crafting system occasionally producing no identifiable result.

For Now, This Is Still a Player Report

There is no Blizzard response on the new August 18 thread at the time of writing.

We therefore cannot confirm that the Cube definitely failed to apply an outcome internally.

It is possible something changed that is not immediately visible.

It is possible the system selected an already-maximized or otherwise redundant result.

It is possible there is another explanation entirely.

That is exactly what the player is asking Blizzard to investigate.

But because a similar no-visible-change report exists from May, players with truly exceptional amulets may want to think carefully before using that final normal Transfiguration.

Diablo 4 has always encouraged greed.

The Horadric Cube has historically punished it.

Still, when it eats a near-perfect amulet, the least it can do is leave a receipt.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Transfiguration Bricked My Near-Perfect Amulet With No Result Added

Diablo IV Forums: Amulet Transfiguration — Greater Affix Bug?

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo IV Patch Notes

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Diablo 2 Told Players Their Old Ladder Stash Was Safe Until August 22 — Then It Disappeared on August 17

Diablo II: Resurrected players were warned that old Ladder stash items were about to disappear.

We warned about it too.

The problem is that Diablo II itself apparently gave at least one player a completely different deadline.

A new bug report says the game displayed an in-game message stating that players had until August 22 to remove items from the old Season 13 Withdraw Only stash.

Instead, when Ladder Season 14 ended on August 17, those Season 13 tabs were immediately replaced by Season 14's stash.

The items were gone.

Five days before the date the game itself had apparently displayed.

Blizzard’s Patch Notes Said August 17

There is an important complication here.

Blizzard's official Season 15 announcement actually got the mechanic right.

It clearly stated that when Ladder Season 14 ended on August 17 at 11:00 a.m. PDT, Season 14 characters would move to Non-Ladder and their Shared Stash would become the new Withdraw Only tabs.

Any Season 13 items still sitting in the previous Withdraw Only tabs would be lost at that moment.

That is why we published our earlier warning that Diablo II players had until August 17 to save their old Ladder loot.

If you followed Blizzard's web announcement, the deadline was clear.

If you followed the game itself, apparently not.

The In-Game Message Apparently Said August 22

The player behind the new report says that before Season 14 ended, logging into a Non-Ladder Reign of the Warlock character produced a popup telling them they had until August 22 to withdraw items from the previous season's Shared Stash.

That date makes sense from a player's perspective because August 22 is when Ladder Season 15 begins in Europe.

Blizzard recently changed the Ladder schedule so that the old season ends first, Patch 3.3 arrives separately, and the next Ladder does not begin until several days later. We covered that new structure in our Diablo II Season 15 Ladder reset schedule guide.

For Season 15:

• August 17: Season 14 ended.
• August 18: Patch 3.3 begins rolling out.
• August 21: Season 15 begins in North America.
• August 22: Season 15 begins in Europe and Asia.

So an in-game message using August 22 looks very much like somebody attached the stash deadline to the new season start instead of the old season end.

The Tooltip Makes It Even More Confusing

The popup is not the only problem.

The player also points out that the Withdraw Only stash tooltip says items in those tabs will be deleted when “the next season starts.”

That wording used to be much less dangerous when Ladder endings and launches happened close together.

Season 15's new staggered schedule exposes the ambiguity.

Season 14 ended on August 17.

Season 15 does not start until August 21 or August 22 depending on region.

If the tooltip says “when the next season starts,” a player could reasonably assume the stash remains available during that gap.

Apparently it does not.

Diablo II has always enjoyed hidden mechanics.

Stash deletion deadlines perhaps should not be one of them.

The Player Says They Deliberately Left Items Behind

This is what separates the report from somebody simply forgetting the usual Ladder rules.

The player says they had already begun removing Season 13 items but deliberately left some behind because the in-game message told them August 22 was the deadline.

Only after discovering the old tab had disappeared did they read Blizzard's Season 15 article and find the August 17 rule.

They are now asking Blizzard to temporarily restore access to the Season 13 Withdraw Only stash until August 22, or provide another way to recover those items.

Blizzard has not yet publicly announced such a restoration.

Season 15 Already Has Enough Stash Administration

The timing is unfortunate because players already have several Season 15 changes to keep track of.

Patch 3.3 is moving eight previously Ladder-only items into Non-Ladder, including Metamorphosis, Cure and Bulwark.

It is also making Worldstone Shards and Ancient Statues harder to find, while improving some Herald rewards.

And Blizzard even quietly changed Manald Heal's Season 15 buff from Faster Run/Walk to Faster Cast Rate before the Ladder began.

There is plenty for returning players to read.

That is precisely why the information shown inside the game needs to be reliable too.

This Is Not the Same as Blizzard Secretly Changing the Deadline

It is important not to overstate what happened.

Blizzard's official web announcement did not promise August 22 and then secretly delete the stash early.

The official Season 15 article said August 17 very clearly.

The problem is that the game itself appears to have contradicted that information.

That is still a meaningful problem.

Players should not need to decide whether the website or the software running on their screen contains the real deadline for permanent item deletion.

There Are Already More Stash Reports Appearing

The original thread is also no longer the only stash-related complaint appearing around the reset.

Another General Discussion thread about the Season 13 “Past” stash disappearing early quickly accumulated additional discussion, while a separate August 18 bug report says a player found their Shared Stash missing items after maintenance. The latter may be a different issue entirely, so it should not be treated as confirmation of the same bug.

For now, the strongest documented problem remains the contradiction between August 17 in Blizzard's official article and August 22 reportedly shown inside the game.

When Items Can Be Deleted Forever, the Date Needs to Be Right

There are plenty of places where Diablo II can afford to be vague.

Drop rates.

Hidden mechanics.

Whether Baal personally hates your account.

A deadline for permanent item deletion is different.

If Blizzard says August 17 on the website, August 22 in-game and “when the next season starts” in the tooltip, players are eventually going to choose the wrong one.

One player already says they did.

And unfortunately, the items sitting in that old Season 13 stash did not get to vote.

Sources

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

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: Season 13 “Past” Shared Stash Unavailable Earlier Than Expected

Read More

Diablo Immortal Player Says a Faction Reset Wiped 3.6 Million Stored Tower XP

Diablo Immortal players have discovered many creative ways to lose experience over the years.

Dying is the traditional method.

Logging in after a faction reset and discovering that roughly 3.6 million XP has apparently vanished from your Accursed Towers is considerably more unusual.

That is exactly what one player is reporting after Diablo Immortal's weekly reset on August 17. According to a newly filed bug report, three Legendary Accursed Towers that should have been almost completely full of accumulated Experience instead appeared to have reset at the same time the player's clan changed factions.

Blizzard has not confirmed the issue, so for now this is a single detailed player report rather than an established game-wide bug.

Three Towers Should Have Held Around 3.6 Million XP

The player, Meteorblade, says their clan controls three Legendary Accursed Towers: Tower of Secrets, Tower of Fortitude and Tower of Blessings.

According to the report, each tower takes roughly 36 hours to completely fill its stored XP bar and contains around 1.2 million XP when full.

The player had last collected the XP around midday on Saturday.

By Monday's weekly reset at 3:00 a.m. server time, approximately 39 hours had passed.

In other words, all three towers should have been full.

Three towers.

Approximately 1.2 million XP each.

Roughly 3.6 million XP waiting to be claimed.

At least, that was the plan.

The Faction Reset Happened at the Same Time

There was one additional complication that night.

The player's server had reached the end of an Immortal reign.

The clan had previously been Shadows and, according to the report, briefly returned to Adventurer status during the reset before subsequently joining the new Immortal alliance and becoming Immortals.

When the player logged in at approximately 3:15 a.m. server time and checked the towers, the stored XP was nowhere near full.

Instead, the amount available reportedly looked like only around 15 minutes of accumulation.

The player estimates the missing total at roughly 3.6 million XP.

Sanctuary apparently has taxation now.

The rate is concerning.

The Player Says It Happens When Reset and Faction Change Coincide

The most interesting part of the report is that the player does not describe this as a completely random disappearance.

They specifically claim the stored Tower XP is lost when the normal weekly reset coincides with a faction change.

That would suggest the problem may involve the transition between Shadow, Adventurer and Immortal states rather than Accursed Tower XP accumulation itself.

That is still speculation.

Blizzard has not identified the cause, confirmed that those systems are interacting incorrectly or announced a fix.

Accursed Towers Are Built Around Long-Term Clan Rewards

Accursed Towers were introduced as a clan-based system in which groups compete to claim and control towers around Sanctuary. Holding towers provides clan-wide benefits and recurring rewards, making ownership something players maintain over time rather than a one-off dungeon completion.

That is what makes an accumulation problem particularly irritating.

The reward is specifically something that builds while the player is away.

You leave it alone.

You let it fill.

You return later.

Finding the meter unexpectedly near empty rather defeats the administrative elegance of the arrangement.

This Could Matter During Paragon Pushes

Stored Tower XP is not trivial for players deliberately preparing for new Paragon thresholds.

Earlier this year, players openly discussed saving around 3.6 million XP from Accursed Towers as part of planned Paragon progression pushes.

That makes the amount in this new report particularly believable as something players intentionally bank rather than claim immediately.

If a faction transition can wipe that reserve, the safest time to discover it is definitely not after spending the weekend carefully saving everything.

For Now, This Is One Report

There is an important reason not to overstate this story.

As of August 17, the bug report has no replies and only a handful of views. The official Bug Report index confirms that it was filed today, but there is not yet a wave of other players reproducing the same behavior.

So we cannot say faction resets definitely erase Accursed Tower XP for everyone.

We can say one experienced player has documented a very specific sequence with exact tower names, timings, faction changes, expected accumulation and resulting XP loss.

That makes it worth watching.

Maybe Collect Before the Next Faction Change

Until more players reproduce the issue or Blizzard responds, there is no confirmed workaround.

But if your clan is approaching a faction transition and your Accursed Towers are sitting on a large amount of unclaimed XP, this report gives players at least one reason to consider collecting it beforehand.

Three million experience is difficult enough to earn.

It should not need an evacuation plan.

Sources

Diablo Immortal Forums: Faction Reset Causes XP Stored in Accursed Towers to Be Lost

Blizzard Entertainment: Reign Supreme in the Age of Falling Towers

Read More

Diablo 4 Players Say Greater Affixes and Masterworking Still Can’t Improve Block Chance

Diablo 4 players have found a remarkably stubborn problem with Block Chance.

Greater Affixes apparently do not improve it.

Masterworking apparently does not improve it either.

And according to a bug report that has now survived from December 2025 into August 2026, the problem is still happening in Season 14.

For most characters, that may sound like an obscure stat problem.

For builds actually designed around blocking attacks, it is considerably less academic.

A 5% Roll Apparently Stays at 5%

The original report was posted on December 16, 2025.

The player tempered 5% Block Chance onto Ancestral pants with a Greater Affix.

The expectation was that the Greater Affix would improve the value beyond the normal maximum roll.

It did not.

The item still displayed 5% Block Chance.

The player then Masterworked the item to 25 Quality.

Still 5%.

Even after hitting a Masterworking capstone bonus, the Block Chance remained unchanged.

At that point, the stat has achieved a level of stability normally reserved for geological formations.

The Bug Was Still There in Season 13

The report did not disappear with a new season.

On May 4, another player returned to the thread and said the issue still persisted in Season 13.

Another report followed on May 13 involving Heir of Perdition, with the player asking whether there was any workaround or whether Greater Affixes and upgrades were simply pointless for Block Chance.

There was no confirmed workaround in the thread.

Now It Is Being Reported in Season 14

On August 17, the same thread became active again.

A player said they had encountered the bug only a few days earlier in Season 14.

The timing matters because the player was using an Evade Hammerdin build that specifically relies on Block Chance.

According to their report, discovering that the stat could not be improved through Greater Affixes or Masterworking left the build effectively dead in the water.

That moves the issue beyond an ugly tooltip.

If Block Chance genuinely fails to scale when the item system says it should, players can invest substantial time into finding and upgrading the correct gear before realizing the central defensive stat never improved.

Why Block Chance Matters More Now

Diablo 4 has continued expanding itemization systems around Greater Affixes, Tempering and Masterworking, making high-end gear increasingly dependent on improving specific affixes rather than merely finding the right item base.

Blizzard continues to patch class, item and War Plan bugs regularly, with the latest August 12 update fixing issues across multiple classes and systems. But the current published patch notes do not list a specific correction for Block Chance failing to scale with Greater Affixes or Masterworking.

That is why this old report suddenly feels relevant again.

A stat that behaved strangely on an obscure build in 2025 can become much more important when a newer build starts depending on it.

This Looks Different From a Simple Display Error

There is one important uncertainty.

Blizzard has not officially confirmed whether the problem is purely visual or whether the underlying Block Chance calculation is genuinely failing to increase.

The players reporting the issue believe the stat itself is not scaling correctly, but we do not have a developer explanation confirming the exact technical cause.

That distinction matters.

A broken tooltip is irritating.

A broken defensive stat can ruin an entire build.

Until Blizzard comments on the issue, players should treat the community reports as evidence rather than final diagnosis.

Players May Want to Test Before Investing Heavily

If your Diablo 4 build depends on pushing Block Chance through Greater Affixes or Masterworking, this may be one stat worth checking carefully before pouring large amounts of resources into the item.

The same basic problem has now been reported across multiple seasons, from December 2025 through August 2026.

That does not prove every item, platform or Block Chance source is affected identically.

But it does make the issue difficult to dismiss as a single bad roll.

Diablo 4 asks players to hunt the perfect item.

Then it asks them to find the Greater Affix.

Then Temper it.

Then Masterwork it.

If the number at the end remains exactly 5%, somebody should probably have a look at that.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Block Chance Cannot Be Improved by GA or Masterworking

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo IV Patch Notes

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Diablo 4 Players Are Reaching the Ultimate Nemesis — Then Party Members Get No Loot

Diablo 4 has a fairly straightforward agreement with its players.

You kill the horrible thing.

The horrible thing drops loot.

It is one of gaming's more successful economic systems.

Unfortunately, players are still reporting that Diablo 4's Ultimate Nemesis Lair occasionally forgets the second half when played in a party.

A bug report that began in May has resurfaced again in August, with groups saying they can complete the entire Ultimate Nemesis encounter while only one party member receives the proper rewards.

Everyone else gets the satisfaction of having helped.

Which is lovely.

But traditionally not why people farm Diablo bosses.

The Bug Has Been Reported Since May

The original report appeared on May 4.

Two players had unlocked the relevant War Plan progression, including Two by Two, Greater Nemesis and Ultimate Nemesis.

According to the report, both players received loot normally from the earlier Nemesis and Greater Nemesis encounters.

Then they reached Ultimate Nemesis.

Only one received the expected loot.

The player said the same sequence happened three times in a row.

Other groups quickly reported similar results.

It Is Not Even Completely Clear Who Gets the Loot

The first theory was that the player who paid the required keys at the altar was the only one receiving rewards.

Several reports support that idea.

One group of three said only the player who spent the keys received loot.

Another player described opening the encounter personally and receiving the main rewards while their friend got only minor materials.

But other reports complicate the picture.

One player said their friend paid the keys while they entered the portal first, yet the person who did not pay received the reward.

So even the community has not found a perfectly consistent trigger.

Diablo loot science remains an exciting field.

The Problem Was Still Happening on August 15

This is what makes the issue current rather than an old launch-week curiosity.

On August 15, another player returned to the same bug thread and confirmed that the problem was still happening.

The group reportedly had enough Superior Lair Keys, but only the party member opening the Ultimate Nemesis portal received the proper loot while the others reached the end without the expected rewards.

The player suggested that Diablo 4 could simply deduct the required keys from every eligible party member, similar to other group activities where each player pays their own entry cost.

At the very least, that would make the rules understandable.

The Key Names Have Changed, but the Problem Hasn’t

Older reports refer to Betrayer's Husks.

Blizzard later renamed these Tier 3 boss keys to Superior Lair Keys, because Belial is no longer the only boss using that tier of key.

The terminology changed.

The August report suggests the party-loot problem did not.

Some Players Are Missing the Reward Chests Entirely

There may also be a related but slightly different Ultimate Nemesis reward problem.

Separate reports describe completing the encounter and finding that the expected reward chest simply never appears.

That has happened in parties, and some players have even reported it while playing solo.

One July player described defeating the Ultimate Nemesis and receiving only a handful of ordinary items, with none of the expected reward chests appearing afterward.

That does not necessarily have the same cause as the party-specific problem.

But it adds to the broader impression that the final reward state of Ultimate Nemesis is not behaving consistently.

Blizzard Has Fixed Other Nemesis and War Plan Bugs

Blizzard has already repaired several War Plan and Nemesis issues since Lord of Hatred launched.

Patch notes have included fixes for Nemesis Lairs failing to trigger, Nemesis Lairs becoming infinitely farmable and War Plan activities failing to grant rewards or progress correctly.

More recent updates have also clarified how party-based War Plan board generation works.

So the surrounding system has received attention.

What we have not found in Blizzard's published notes is a specific fix for the recurring Ultimate Nemesis party-loot problem described in these reports.

This Is Exactly Where a Loot Bug Hurts Most

An Ultimate Nemesis Lair is not something players accidentally wander into while looking for a cellar.

It sits at the end of War Plan progression and requires players to work through the preceding Nemesis structure before reaching the final encounter.

That makes losing the reward considerably more frustrating than missing a random chest in the overworld.

Players have already invested time.

They have invested keys.

They have completed the bosses.

Then one member of the party gets paid.

The others apparently participated in a very elaborate volunteer program.

For Now, Parties Should Know the Risk

Blizzard has not publicly confirmed the exact cause of this specific issue or stated that Ultimate Nemesis is intended to reward only one party member.

Given how the preceding Nemesis encounters reward multiple eligible players, the people reporting the problem understandably believe the final behavior is a bug.

But until Blizzard clarifies or fixes it, groups attempting Ultimate Nemesis should at least know that the problem is still being reported.

Because there is one thing worse than finally reaching Diablo 4's ultimate boss encounter and getting terrible loot.

Getting no loot gives you nothing to complain about statistically.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Ultimate Nemesis Lair Not Providing Loot Despite Having the Node in the War Plan When in a Party

Diablo IV Forums: Ultimate Nemesis Lair Is Bugged/Broken

Diablo IV Forums: Is the Ultimate Nemesis Lair No Loot?

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo IV Patch Notes

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