Diablo 4 Finally Fixes Moophisto’s Loot and Shuts Down an Elite Farming Exploit

Diablo IV's latest hotfix contains exactly two fixes.

One makes a cow give players their loot again. The other stops players from turning a training room into an industrial Elite monster factory.

Season 15 continues to be magnificent.

Blizzard released Hotfix 1 for Patch 3.2.2 on October 2, fixing Moophisto's broken loot table and shutting down an exploit that allowed players to spawn Elite monsters inside Training Ground dungeons. It is a tiny hotfix on paper, but both changes affect surprisingly useful Season 15 farming methods.

Moophisto Is Dropping Loot Properly Again

The more important fix concerns Moophisto, the Divine Bovine. Blizzard says the boss was not dropping loot as intended, an issue we already mentioned when looking at the Season 15 problems Patch 3.2.2 had failed to resolve.

That was particularly irritating because Moophisto is not an ordinary boss you casually stumble across while looking for the blacksmith. Players must reach the Bovine Sanctum and spend Prime Ribs to summon him. Using those materials only to watch the Divine Bovine collapse without producing his intended rewards made the encounter considerably less divine.

The October 2 hotfix should restore his proper loot table.

Among the special rewards associated with Moophisto are Bell of the Bovine and Udder's Milk, items that had previously appeared during the pre-Season 15 Moophisto event but were reportedly missing from his modern encounter. The fix does not mean those rewards are guaranteed on every kill, only that Moophisto should now be capable of dropping his intended loot again.

That also matters for cosmetic hunters. We previously found that Brisket of the Bovine appears to come from Moophisto, making repeated kills part of Season 15's increasingly elaborate attempt to dress Diablo players as livestock.

The Training Grounds Elite Farm Is Dead

The second fix targets something rather more profitable.

Players had discovered an interaction involving Nemesis Bracers that allowed Elite monsters to be spawned repeatedly inside Training Ground dungeons. Because those Elites could provide loot and seasonal reputation, the Training Grounds stopped functioning purely as a place to test builds and became, briefly, one of Sanctuary's more convenient factories.

Blizzard has now closed that loophole.

The official hotfix notes simply state that players can no longer spawn Elite monsters inside Training Ground dungeons. Anyone using the interaction for repeatable Elite farming will therefore need to return to actual combat zones, where monsters traditionally live.

The Training Grounds have had an oddly eventful life in Diablo IV. They were originally introduced as a safe place to test damage against training dummies, and Blizzard later moved systems such as the Welcome Back Booster there. As we recently covered, even that supposedly simple returning-player feature has produced its own collection of problems.

Adding infinite Elites was perhaps asking too much of the room.

Patch 3.2.2 Is Still Being Repaired

The timing is notable because Patch 3.2.2 itself arrived only days ago with a lengthy collection of Season 15 bug fixes. Blizzard corrected quest progression, Rune interactions, Tower issues and several reward problems, but our original review noted that Moophisto's missing loot was still unresolved.

Now it is fixed.

That is the good news.

The less comforting interpretation is that Season 15 continues receiving fixes for systems that arrived only weeks ago. Hell's Legacy has been packed with secrets, anniversary content and genuinely entertaining discoveries, but it has also produced enough bugs to make every patch note feel slightly provisional.

For Moophisto farmers, though, the important part is simple.

The cow has loot again.

For Training Grounds farmers, the message is equally simple.

Find another cow.

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Diablo 4 Season 15’s Helltide Multi-Farm Is Ridiculously Efficient

Diablo IV farming usually begins with a simple question: what do you need?

Gold? Run one activity. Boss materials? Run another. Reputation? Change your War Plan. Soul Splinters? Perhaps consult a spreadsheet, sacrifice a goat and discover that the Splinter you actually wanted dropped somewhere else entirely.

Season 15 has produced a much more attractive alternative. With the correct Helltide and Tree of Whispers setup, players can stack several farming systems on top of each other and turn one small section of Helltide into a conveyor belt of Soul Splinters, reputation, keys, Boss Trophies, Gold, crafting materials and ordinary loot.

The central trick is combining Pandemonium Ruptures with Corrupted Roots while using War Plan nodes that keep adding enemies and rewards to the same patch of Sanctuary.

Find Two Pandemonium Ruptures Close Together

Pandemonium Ruptures can appear inside active Helltide zones and continuously spawn enemies once activated. One is useful. Two sitting close enough together that both can feed the same killing area are considerably better.

The goal is not to wander around Helltide completing unrelated objectives. Find a strong cluster, activate the Ruptures and turn that location into your farm.

This works particularly well with Diablo's seasonal path. As we explained in our Diablo, Baal and Mephisto Splinter guide, Diablo's Splinter of Terror specifically modifies Helltides and Infernal Hordes. Season 15 therefore rewards you for actually building your War Plan around the content you intend to farm rather than simply selecting whatever node sounds least inconvenient.

Add Corrupted Roots to the Same Area

The second part comes from the Tree of Whispers.

Corrupted Roots can appear in Whisper Caches, and planting one attracts additional enemies. With Roots of Power active, those enemies receive increased Monster Power and provide improved Helltide rewards. Headrotten Feast can add bosses, while Grim Retribution, Colossal Foe and Malignant Invasion create further opportunities for ambushes and upgraded Whisper Cache rewards.

Stack that on top of two active Pandemonium Ruptures and the screen begins to resemble somebody accidentally enabled every Diablo event simultaneously.

That is precisely what we want.

Season 15 made this kind of experimentation considerably easier because War Plan progression is now shared across compatible characters. You still configure each character separately, but an alt no longer needs to repeat the entire reputation grind just to access the farming nodes your main character already earned.

Use the Helltide Nodes to Make the Spawn Loop Worse

Several Helltide nodes then push enemy density even further. Tainted Shrines doubles Threat progress from enemies killed while a Shrine buff is active. Hated Foe increases Monster Power for maximum-Threat enemies. Meat Brothers replaces the normal Hellborne ambush with two Butchers, while Hellmouth creates additional enemies through Hellwyrms.

Then it gets silly.

With Writhe and Rot, Hellwyrms continuously produce Maggots and can spawn Pangs of Duriel. Bursting Brood allows those creatures to drop Boss Trophies. The result is a farming loop where killing ordinary enemies creates more enemies, those enemies advance Helltide Threat, Threat creates more dangerous encounters, and several of those encounters can produce completely different reward types.

This is why the method is so efficient. You are not farming one currency quickly.

You are making several reward systems happen in the same place.

Splinter of Lies and Damnation Make It Even Better

The two particularly useful Soul Splinters for this setup are Splinter of Lies and Splinter of Damnation.

Splinter of Lies increases Gold and crafting material drops while also providing 25% bonus experience, although the trade-off leaves your character Weakened and Vulnerable. Splinter of Damnation rewards repeated Elite Pack kills with increased Monster Power and additional experience.

A farm built around endless enemy and Elite spawns is therefore almost comically well suited to both effects.

If you still need specific Soul Splinters rather than general farming efficiency, our Season 15 Soul Splinter, Rune and Gem farming guide covers the Cabochon Merchant route through Kurast Undercity. The Helltide method serves a different purpose. It is the route for players who want to farm almost everything at once rather than target one specific purchase.

The Best Farm Is the One Where Everything Overlaps

The ideal loop is straightforward: enter Helltide, find two nearby Pandemonium Ruptures if possible, plant Corrupted Roots in the same area, activate the appropriate Tree and Helltide War Plan nodes, then keep killing whatever the game throws at you until the screen becomes an accounting problem.

You will accumulate Splinters, seasonal reputation, Whisper rewards, keys, Boss Trophies, crafting materials, Gold and ordinary loot without repeatedly changing activities.

Diablo IV's endgame has spent years giving players more currencies than a small nation.

Season 15 has finally discovered the obvious solution.

Farm all of them at once.

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Diablo 4 Has a Faster Way to Unlock the Bovine Sanctum

Diablo IV Season 15 has spent several weeks proving that cows are apparently one of Sanctuary's most complicated forms of endgame content.

Reaching the Secret Cow Level normally means working through one of the game's more elaborate hidden quest chains, defeating the Cow King and then farming enough Prime Ribs to continue toward the Bovine Sanctum and Moophisto. That is perfectly reasonable if your definition of reasonable includes secret relics, suspicious altars and livestock with boss mechanics.

Fortunately, there is a considerably faster route.

Players can obtain five Prime Ribs directly from a quest involving the Butcher in Old Tristram, allowing them to reach the Bovine Sanctum without first farming the Cow King inside the Secret Cow Level.

Start With the Wounded Townsman in Old Tristram

The shortcut begins in Old Tristram, so you still need access to Season 15's recreated version of the original Diablo town. We previously covered the route there while explaining how Old Tristram eventually leads into Uber Tristram and the Hellfire Torch.

Once inside Old Tristram, head toward the Cathedral in the northern part of town. Outside you can find the Wounded Townsman, another wonderfully unpleasant callback to the original Diablo.

Speak to him and pick up the quest to hunt down the Butcher.

The Butcher can be found inside The Labyrinth, Diablo IV's anniversary capstone dungeon in Scosglen. Kill him while completing the quest and the reward includes five Prime Ribs.

Five.

Exactly the number we need.

You Can Skip Farming the Cow King for Your First Five Ribs

Until now, the obvious source for Prime Ribs was the Cow King. He drops them inside Diablo IV's Secret Cow Level, alongside some of the stranger rewards Blizzard has attached to Season 15's enormous bovine conspiracy.

We have already looked at how players are assembling the hidden Bovine cosmetic set, with different pieces scattered across cow-related activities. The Cow King is also responsible for one of Diablo IV's finest joke items, the wonderfully ridiculous Cow King's Crown.

The problem is getting to him.

Diablo IV's Cow Level quest remains unusually complicated, and we have repeatedly covered players becoming soft-locked by the Hadopelagic Key portion of the hidden chain. For anyone stuck there, or simply more interested in Moophisto than solving the entire cow archaeology project first, the Butcher route is far more useful.

Take the Prime Ribs to the Altar of the Heifer

Once you have the five Prime Ribs, travel to Skovos and use the Tyrael's Encampment waypoint. Head east into Celestia until you find the Altar of the Heifer.

Interact with the altar while carrying all five Prime Ribs and you can enter the Bovine Sanctum.

Importantly, this first interaction does not consume the ribs.

Once inside, activate the Bovine Sanctum waypoint immediately. The area includes Bovine versions of a Blacksmith, Jeweler and Occultist, because apparently even supernatural cattle understand that every proper Diablo endgame hub needs crafting services.

North of the waypoint is another Altar of the Heifer. This is where the five Prime Ribs are actually consumed to summon Moophisto, the Divine Bovine.

The Cow Level Is Still Worth Visiting

This shortcut does not make the Secret Cow Level obsolete.

The Cow King still has unique rewards, Prime Ribs remain useful for additional Moophisto summons, and Season 15's broader cow mystery includes cosmetics, secrets and enough historical references to keep Diablo archaeologists occupied for considerably longer than any sensible game about killing demons should manage.

But if your immediate goal is simply reaching the Bovine Sanctum, the Butcher quest provides a much cleaner route.

Go to Old Tristram.

Talk to the Wounded Townsman.

Kill the Butcher.

Take your five Prime Ribs to Skovos.

For once, Diablo IV's secret cow content has become simpler.

We should probably enjoy that while it lasts.

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Diablo V Director Says the Right Build Should Beat Any Challenge

How much of an action game should Diablo actually be?

It sounds like a slightly ridiculous question about a series built around hitting demons until increasingly colourful objects fall out of them, but it has become one of the more interesting debates surrounding Diablo V. Path of Exile co-creator Chris Wilson recently questioned whether modern Diablo has drifted too far toward reflexes and moment-to-moment execution, and now Diablo V Senior Game Director Joe Shely has provided a surprisingly clear answer about where Blizzard wants the next game to sit.

Yes, Diablo V will require some player skill.

But the build is supposed to win the fight.

Diablo V Will Be More INT and STR Than DEX

Shely describes Diablo V's combat philosophy using traditional RPG attributes. There will still be what he calls DEX mechanics, meaning positioning, timing and moment-to-moment execution. But overall, Blizzard wants Diablo V to behave more like an INT/STR game, where planning, investment and character construction matter more.

Most importantly, Shely says Blizzard is designing around a fundamental ARPG principle: any challenge should be beatable with the right build.

That matters because Chris Wilson's surprisingly hopeful reaction to Diablo V came with one major reservation. He believes Diablo combat has become increasingly "arcadey" since Diablo III, shifting some of the emphasis away from character preparation and toward the player's ability to dodge, position and react quickly.

There is nothing inherently wrong with action-heavy combat. Diablo IV can feel excellent when movement, attacks and enemy mechanics all click together. The concern is what happens when mechanical execution becomes more important than the collection of skills, equipment and terrible statistical decisions you have spent 80 hours assembling.

Your Build Is Supposed to Be the Solution

Shely's answer suggests Blizzard understands the distinction.

A difficult boss may still require you to move out of something glowing ominously on the floor. You will probably still have to aim attacks, react to enemies and occasionally discover that standing directly underneath a giant demon's axe was not an advanced strategy.

But Diablo V wants character building to remain the actual solution.

That philosophy fits neatly with several other systems Blizzard has already discussed. We know Diablo V wants loot to borrow more ideas from Diablo II, including meaningful stat requirements and stronger item identity. Blizzard is also building a more procedural version of Sanctuary, where revisiting an area may not produce exactly the same layout or situation every time.

Then there is the enormous class roster. Diablo V is planned to launch with more classes than any previous Diablo game has ever contained, which only works if those classes support genuinely different ways of solving problems rather than simply providing different animations for the same dodge-and-attack rhythm.

This Does Not Mean Diablo V Is Becoming Diablo II Again

It is worth keeping expectations under control.

Diablo V is still targeting a Spring 2029 release, and Blizzard has repeatedly stressed that many systems remain early in development. Shely has not revealed how bosses work, how severe movement mechanics will become or whether Diablo V will reduce the sort of level scaling that Wilson has also criticised.

What we have is a design principle rather than a finished combat system.

Still, it is a useful principle.

Diablo has always been at its best when the answer to an impossible encounter is not simply "press dodge better."

Sometimes the answer should be finding a ridiculous sword, rebuilding half your character, discovering an interaction nobody sane would have predicted and returning twenty minutes later to turn the monster into soup.

According to Joe Shely, Diablo V still believes that is what an action RPG should be.

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Diablo 4 Accidentally Gave Players Free Cosmetics, and Blizzard Says Keep Them

Diablo IV bugs have deleted rewards, broken quests, confused wardrobes and occasionally sent bosses wandering somewhere they were very clearly not supposed to be.

For once, though, a bug worked in the player's favour.

Shortly after Patch 3.2.2 went live on September 30, some Diablo IV players logged in and discovered cosmetics appearing on their accounts that they had never actually earned or purchased. Blizzard investigated, discovered that the items were being granted unintentionally, fixed the problem and then made the rarest possible live-service decision.

You can keep them.

Blizzard Says the Accidental Cosmetics Will Not Be Removed

Community Manager filthierich confirmed that the problem appeared around the launch of Patch 3.2.2 and caused certain cosmetics to be automatically awarded when affected players logged into Diablo IV. Blizzard has since stopped additional items from being granted, but anyone fortunate enough to receive something before the fix will retain it permanently.

So if you logged in after the patch and wondered why your wardrobe suddenly contained something unfamiliar, congratulations. Sanctuary has finally experienced a loot bug where the appropriate response is not opening a support ticket.

Blizzard's official clarification does not specify exactly which cosmetics were affected, how many players received them or whether every affected account received the same items. The important part is considerably simpler: the grants were accidental, the bug has been fixed, and Blizzard has no plans to claw the cosmetics back.

Diablo 4 Has Been Giving Away Quite a Lot of Clothing Lately

The timing makes the whole thing slightly funnier because Diablo IV has already spent the last few months distributing cosmetics through almost every method imaginable.

In August, players began finding random free cosmetics inside Diablo IV's personalized shop, although those legitimate gifts did not appear for everyone. One player might find a free wand, another a bow, while somebody else received the traditional Blizzard reward of absolutely nothing.

More recently, Game Pass subscribers were offered more than 50 Diablo IV cosmetics after connecting their subscription to Battle.net. Blizzard has also continued filling seasonal tracks, events and promotions with armour sets, weapons, portals and enough decorative skulls to suggest Sanctuary employs an entire department devoted exclusively to accessories.

The Patch 3.2.2 cosmetics are different because nobody was supposed to receive them this way at all.

This Is Probably the Best Kind of Diablo Bug

Patch 3.2.2 itself was mostly a repair job. Blizzard fixed problems with the Season of Hell's Legacy questline, Chamber of Bone rewards, Nihlathak teleporting outside his arena, several Rune interactions and various Tower and UI issues. None of those changes mentioned a surprise wardrobe lottery.

Then players logged in and discovered one anyway.

There is also a sensible reason for Blizzard not to remove the items. Taking cosmetics away from players after they appeared automatically would create considerably more frustration than simply allowing the lucky accounts to keep them, especially when players did nothing to exploit the issue.

It is a refreshingly simple solution.

The bug happened.

Blizzard fixed it.

The people who got free stuff keep the free stuff.

Check Your Wardrobe

Additional accidental grants have now stopped, so repeatedly logging in and out is unlikely to summon free armour through sheer optimism. But if you played around the release of Patch 3.2.2, checking your cosmetic collection may still be worthwhile.

Diablo IV players have spent years arguing about cosmetic prices, Battle Pass rewards and whether older seasonal cosmetics should eventually return.

This time Blizzard found an entirely new distribution model.

Make a mistake.

Give players cosmetics.

And, remarkably, leave everyone happier than before.

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Diablo 3 Season 40 Starts Today: Light’s Calling and Angelic Crucibles Return

Diablo III is thirteen years old, has been replaced by Diablo IV, has another sequel officially waiting in 2029, and apparently has absolutely no intention of going quietly.

Season 40 begins today, October 2, at 5:00 PM CEST, bringing back the Light’s Calling seasonal theme and its wonderfully excessive Angelic Crucibles. At this point Diablo III is less a retired game and more that one Nephalem who keeps turning up for work despite nobody being entirely certain who is still paying them.

And honestly, there are worse problems to have.

Angelic Crucibles Are Back

Light’s Calling originally appeared in Season 27, and its central mechanic remains Angelic Crucibles. These consumable items allow players to Sanctify any equippable Legendary item, transforming it into Ancient-level quality while also giving it one of three special class-specific Sanctified Powers at random.

That makes Season 40 considerably more interesting than a simple numerical reset. Sanctified Powers can fundamentally change how familiar builds behave, and they encourage exactly the sort of ridiculous experimentation Diablo III has become very good at during its later life.

Blizzard is no longer pretending these recurring seasons represent enormous new chapters for the game. Diablo III is firmly in its rotating-season era, something we discussed when asking whether Diablo III is still worth playing in 2026. What keeps the system working is that some of those old themes were genuinely fun, and Light’s Calling belongs near the top of that pile.

Season 40 Haedrig’s Gift Sets

As always, completing Chapters II, III and IV of the Season Journey rewards Haedrig’s Gifts containing pieces of a class set. You only get one complete set this way per season across Hardcore and Non-Hardcore, so opening everything on the character you actually want to play remains highly recommended.

• Barbarian: Horde of the Ninety Savages
• Crusader: Aegis of Valor
• Demon Hunter: Gears of Dreadlands
• Monk: Patterns of Justice
• Witch Doctor: Mundunugu’s Regalia
• Wizard: Typhon’s Veil
• Necromancer: Masquerade of the Burning Carnival

The seasonal Conquests also rotate again, including Speed Demon, Boss Mode, Curses!, Years of War and the challenge to level three Legendary Gems to 65.

Diablo III Somehow Reached Season 40

The number itself deserves a moment.

Season 40.

When Season 38 launched earlier this year, Diablo III already felt like a fascinating survivor from another era of Blizzard. Six months later, we are starting Season 40 while Diablo IV is deep into its own seasonal cycle and Diablo V is officially scheduled for Spring 2029.

Blizzard has increasingly described Diablo as a franchise where older games do not necessarily disappear when the next one arrives. We have already seen that philosophy applied to Diablo IV, with the studio confirming that Diablo IV seasons are expected to continue after Diablo V launches as long as players remain interested.

Diablo III is the evidence that this can actually work.

It no longer receives giant expansions or completely new endgame systems. Instead, Blizzard rotates some of its strongest seasonal ideas back into circulation and gives players another excuse to create a fresh character, rediscover an old build and spend a weekend turning Greater Rifts into brightly coloured particle soup.

Season 40 Begins Today

Blizzard’s official Season 40 preview confirms that Light’s Calling begins today, October 2, with Angelic Crucibles, returning seasonal rewards and the latest Haedrig’s Gift rotation.

There is a new Diablo game coming in three years. Diablo IV is still receiving major seasonal content. Sanctuary currently has considerably more modern ways to consume your free time.

And yet somewhere this evening, thousands of people are going to create another level-one Diablo III character.

Season 40 has arrived.

Apparently Hell still has monsters left.

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Diablo 4 Season 15: How to Turbo Farm Soul Splinters, Runes and Gems

Kurast Undercity has a merchant that can turn spare Gold and crafting materials into one of Season 15’s fastest shortcuts for socketable power.

Diablo 4 Season 15 has created a familiar endgame problem: the game gives you several excellent new toys, then quietly asks whether you have enough time to farm all of them. Soul Splinters are central to the seasonal buildcrafting, Runes matter more than ever, and high-tier Gems can devour resources at a rate normally associated with small infrastructure projects.

There is, however, a remarkably direct shortcut hiding inside Kurast Undercity. With the right War Plan nodes, a Portal Prankster can unlock the Cabochon Merchant after the District Boss. The node description says this merchant sells Runes and Gems for Gold. That is true, but it undersells the interesting part: the current shop can also stock Soul Splinters, and the inventory can be refreshed. If your account already has a healthy pile of Gold and crafting materials, this becomes less of a normal farming route and more of a controlled shopping spree.

The Cabochon Merchant can stock Soul Splinters alongside Runes and Gems. Lesser Soul Splinters shown here cost 400,000 Gold each.

1. Unlock the two War Plan nodes that make the farm possible

The loop starts in the Undercity War Plan tree. You want Gutter Filth and Bauble Day. Season 15 finally made War Plan progression much friendlier for alt-heavy accounts, and our guide to the account-wide War Plans change explains how that progression is shared. The important thing here is that the character you are using still needs the correct Undercity setup.

Gutter Filth gives every Beacon activation inside the Undercity a small chance to summon a Portal Prankster. That means Beacons are no longer merely part of the Attunement route. They are lottery tickets with legs. Hit as many as you reasonably can, and when the goblin appears, stop pretending the timer is your biggest problem and kill it before it escapes.

Gutter Filth gives Beacon activations a chance to summon a Portal Prankster. This is the node that creates the opportunity.

Bauble Day is the second half of the machine. If you kill a Portal Prankster during the run, the Cabochon Merchant appears after the District Boss. That merchant sells Runes and Gems for Gold. We have already covered how War Plans can turn Kurast Undercity into a loot machine, but for this route the merchant is the real prize.

Bauble Day makes the Cabochon Merchant appear after the District Boss when a Portal Prankster has been killed during the run.

2. Run the Undercity for Beacons, not sightseeing

Once the two nodes are active, the actual run is simple. Enter Kurast Undercity, keep moving, activate Beacons, and watch for a Portal Prankster. The goblin behaves like a Treasure Goblin with an advanced degree in being irritating: it can move through portals and waste precious seconds if your build lacks burst damage or mobility. A fast speed-farming setup is therefore ideal. You do not need to kill every demon that expresses an interest in your personal space. You need enough time, enough Attunement to make the run worthwhile, and the goblin dead.

After killing the Portal Prankster, finish the District Boss. The Cabochon Merchant will then be available, and that is when the run changes from dungeon farming into economics. If the Prankster never appears, there is no merchant trigger to cash in at the end, so the whole method is naturally streaky. The advantage is that each successful appearance can be squeezed for far more than one purchase.

3. Buy Soul Splinters first when the price is absurdly good

The most striking item in the shop is the Soul Splinter. The current inventory shown during testing offered Lesser Splinters for just 400,000 Gold each. For an established endgame character, that is barely money. It is especially attractive when you need several copies for upgrading or simply want to test different seasonal trade-offs without farming the exact drop again.

That matters because Season 15’s Splinters are not generic stat sticks. Some completely change how a build behaves, and the choice of Diablo, Baal or Mephisto and their associated seasonal paths can push you toward different endgame activities. The Cabochon Merchant does not replace the entire seasonal progression system, but it is an excellent way to fill gaps in the socketable part of your setup.

Do not assume every merchant inventory will look identical. Stock is randomized, and that is precisely why refreshes matter. The useful rule is simple: when a Splinter you actually want appears for pocket-change Gold, buy it. Diablo has offered considerably worse investment opportunities.

4. Use Rune prices as a target farm, not an excuse to buy everything

Runes occupy the middle ground between wonderfully cheap and 'perhaps we should consult the accountant.' Current merchant stock demonstrates several price bands: some Runes appear at around 500,000 Gold, others at 5 million, and high-end examples can reach 50 million. The exact value depends on what the shop rolls, so the best use of the merchant is targeted purchasing rather than clearing the shelves because they are there.

Rune prices can vary dramatically by tier. This stock shows examples at 500,000, 5 million and 50 million Gold.

Season 15 also gave Runes a second life through the hidden Diablo II-style recipes inside the Horadric Cube. If you are hunting a specific combination, the merchant can save an enormous amount of random drop farming. Our guide to Season 15’s hidden Diablo II Runewords covers why familiar names such as Tal, Eth and Jah suddenly matter in a very different way.

5. Gems are the Gold sink, so buy with a purpose

Gems are where the Cabochon Merchant stops pretending to be charitable. The current pricing ladder shown in the shop is brutally clear: a Flawless Gem can cost around 5 million Gold, Royal Gems around 50 million, and Grand Gems around 500 million. That is not a farming method for a fresh seasonal character. It is a conversion tool for accounts sitting on billions and wondering what the pile is actually for.

The Gem ladder gets expensive quickly: Flawless examples at 5 million Gold, Royal Gems at 50 million and Grand Gems at 500 million.

Still, there are situations where that price makes sense. High-end Gems have become a major part of character power, and we have already looked at how filling top-end Gem slots can become its own endgame grind. If the only thing separating your build from the next upgrade is one Gem and your Gold reserve resembles a telephone number, buying the problem away is perfectly rational.

The wrong approach is buying expensive Gems merely because the merchant finally appeared. The right approach is arriving with a shopping list. Know the Gem type and tier you need before you start rerolling. Sanctuary already contains enough gambling without turning grocery shopping into another one.

6. The first refresh is cheap. The next ones are paid in Forgotten Souls

The merchant’s inventory can be refreshed. The first refresh is the pleasant one: you get a free reroll of the stock. After that, additional restocks cost 666 Forgotten Souls each. At that point the bottleneck stops being Gold and becomes one of Diablo 4’s most useful crafting materials.

This is why the farm can feel spectacular for a well-stocked account and terrible for a character still trying to fund basic enchanting. Forgotten Souls are used elsewhere, so repeatedly throwing 666 of them at the merchant is not free just because no Gold leaves the wallet. Use the free refresh every time. Use paid refreshes only when you are actively targeting something valuable enough to justify them.

7. Convert Baleful Fragments into Forgotten Souls when you need more rerolls

There is one useful pressure valve. At the Alchemist, Baleful Fragments can be transmuted into Forgotten Souls. The current recipe converts 100 Baleful Fragments into 10 Forgotten Souls and charges 250,000 Gold. This lets you turn a large stockpile of Baleful Fragments into more merchant refreshes instead of simply waiting for Souls to accumulate naturally.

At the Alchemist, 100 Baleful Fragments can be converted into 10 Forgotten Souls for 250,000 Gold.

The numbers also show why you should not treat paid rerolls casually. Starting from zero Forgotten Souls, one 666-Soul merchant refresh requires 67 transmutations to get at least 666 Souls. That consumes roughly 6,700 Baleful Fragments and 16.75 million Gold before you have bought a single item from the new stock. It is a useful conversion, not a licence to mash the Restock button until your materials file for bankruptcy.

8. Farm Forgotten Souls from the activities you already run

The better long-term plan is to collect Forgotten Souls as part of normal endgame play and reserve conversion for emergencies. The material tooltip itself lists several sources: salvaging Ancestral equipment, Salvage Spoils from War Plans, Legion Events, Tortured Gifts in Helltides, Tree of Whispers caches, Infernal Hordes and Kurast Undercity. In other words, you do not need a separate full-time career in Forgotten Soul production.

Forgotten Souls come from multiple endgame sources, including salvaging Ancestral gear, War Plans, Helltides, Whispers, Infernal Hordes and Kurast Undercity.

That makes this merchant route fit naturally into the broader endgame instead of replacing it. Diablo 4 now has so many overlapping activities that almost every endgame road eventually feeds another progression system. Here, the elegant loop is to earn Souls and Baleful Fragments while doing the things you already wanted to do, then spend those reserves only when the Cabochon Merchant gives you a genuine shortcut.

9. The best farming loop

For most endgame players, the efficient version looks like this: set the Undercity War Plan to include Gutter Filth and Bauble Day, enter with a fast build, activate Beacons aggressively, kill the Portal Prankster when it appears, finish the District Boss, buy any useful Soul Splinters, Runes or Gems, use the free stock refresh, and only then decide whether a 666-Forgotten-Soul reroll is worth the price. When Souls run low, rebuild them through normal endgame play or convert excess Baleful Fragments at the Alchemist.

1. Unlock Gutter Filth in the Undercity War Plan.

2. Unlock Bauble Day so a killed Portal Prankster can summon the Cabochon Merchant after the boss.

3. Activate as many Beacons as practical during the run.

4. Kill the Portal Prankster before it escapes.

5. Defeat the District Boss and open the merchant.

6. Prioritize cheap Soul Splinters and specific Runes you actually need.

7. Treat high-tier Gems as deliberate Gold sinks, not impulse purchases.

8. Always use the free stock refresh.

9. Spend 666 Forgotten Souls on extra restocks only when the target is worth it.

10. Convert 100 Baleful Fragments into 10 Forgotten Souls at the Alchemist when necessary.

The real trick is knowing when to stop

This farm is powerful because it converts resources you can control into rewards that are normally random. Gold becomes Runes and Gems. Gold plus Forgotten Souls becomes repeated chances at better shop stock. Baleful Fragments can become more Forgotten Souls. The whole thing is very Diablo: kill monsters, collect several currencies, feed them into increasingly suspicious machines, and eventually emerge with the exact purple rock you wanted.

But the farm is at its best when used surgically. If you need one Rune, a handful of Soul Splinters, or a specific high-tier Gem, the Cabochon Merchant can be one of Season 15’s fastest shortcuts. If you are simply refreshing because the button exists, the merchant will happily convert a week of crafting materials into a valuable lesson about self-control.

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Two Weeks Into Diablo 4 Season 15, Warlock Still Rules the Tower

Two weeks ago, Diablo 4 Season 15 launched with one fairly obvious question hanging over it.

Did Blizzard actually fix the Warlock?

During the PTR, the class was producing numbers that looked less like damage and more like somebody had accidentally pasted a bank account into the combat log. We covered Warlock builds reportedly hitting 80,000 trillion damage, and by early September we were already asking whether Warlock might completely dominate Season 15.

At the time, there was an important disclaimer: it was the PTR. Numbers could change. Bugs could be fixed. Blizzard still had time to adjust the class before millions of players were allowed near it.

Well, we have live data now.

The Warlock is still ridiculous.

1,000 Warlocks Have Already Cleared Tower 150

The current Tower leaderboard paints a fairly brutal picture. All 1,000 players displayed on the Warlock leaderboard have cleared Tower Tier 150. That means clearing the highest listed Tower tier is no longer enough to make you unusual among serious Warlock players. It is effectively the entry requirement for appearing on the leaderboard at all.

Blazing Scream is the main culprit. The build that looked terrifying during testing has survived into the live season as the defining Warlock setup, combining enormous damage with enough consistency to make Tower 150 look considerably less frightening than Blizzard probably intended.

This is not completely surprising. Our Season 15 PTR review already highlighted the enormous gap between competitive builds, and Warlock was the clearest example. What is surprising is how much of that gap survived the journey from test server to live game.

Paladin Is Still Looking Up at Tier 150

Then there is Paladin.

At the time of the latest leaderboard review, Paladin remained the only class without a Tower 150 clear. The top three Paladins had reached Tier 148, and every single top-20 clear was using Shield of Retribution.

That last part may actually be the more worrying statistic.

We already looked at Blizzard's attempts to improve the class when Judgement received double single-target damage for Season 15. Paladin also received broader scaling improvements, yet the live leaderboard suggests those changes have not produced the same range of competitive endgame options enjoyed by some other classes.

Season 15 even removed some possibilities before launch, including Paladin's ability to use X'Fal's Corroded Signet, which becomes particularly interesting now that Damage over Time has become one of the season's defining mechanics.

Season 15 Is Becoming the Season of Damage Over Time

Warlock is not the only class telling us something interesting about the current meta.

Sorcerer has dozens of Tower 150 clears, with Firewall and Burning effects playing a major role. Druid's strongest pushes revolve heavily around Rabies. Rogue's Penetrating Shot builds are using Poison Imbuement. Spiritborn's leading Stinger setups are also built around Poison.

The common language is Damage over Time.

Season 15 introduced new ways for DoT effects to scale, including Deadly Strike mechanics and powerful interactions with seasonal systems. The result is a leaderboard where poison, burning and other lingering damage effects keep appearing wherever players are pushing the absolute limit.

Warlock simply appears to have received the largest flamethrower.

The PTR Warning Was Correct

This is the interesting part.

Back in August, it would have been easy to dismiss Warlock's absurd PTR numbers as exactly what a test realm is supposed to uncover. Players find broken interactions, Blizzard collects the data, numbers are adjusted and everyone starts again on launch day.

Except the basic prediction survived.

Warlock entered Season 15 enormously powerful. Blazing Scream became the dominant build. Tower 150 clears multiplied until the entire visible Warlock leaderboard was filled with them, while Paladin still had not crossed the same finish line.

Blizzard did not necessarily need every class to perform identically. Diablo has never worked that way, and perfect balance would probably be considerably less entertaining than players imagine.

But there is a difference between having a strongest class and having 1,000 Warlocks sitting at Tower 150 while another class is still trying to reach it once.

We asked before launch whether Season 15 would become the season of Warlock.

Two weeks later, the Tower has supplied its answer.

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Diablo Immortal Is Under EU Consumer Protection Scrutiny Over Virtual Currency and Game Design

Diablo Immortal has spent four years developing increasingly elaborate ways to separate demons from their limbs and players from their Eternal Orbs. Now some of those systems are receiving attention from European consumer authorities. The EU's Consumer Protection Cooperation Network has confirmed that it launched a coordinated action against Microsoft and Activision Blizzard earlier in 2026 covering both Diablo Immortal and Call of Duty Mobile.

This is not a fine, a court ruling or a declaration that Diablo Immortal has broken EU law. The process is still at the dialogue stage. But the list of practices being examined is broad enough to make this considerably more interesting than another argument about whether one cosmetic costs too much.

Virtual Currency Is Only Part of the Investigation

The CPC Network says its concerns include the use and sale of in-game virtual currencies, collection of consumer data, potentially addictive game design, preselected parental-control settings, direct exhortations to children, insufficient information before purchases and unilateral blocking of gaming accounts.

That is an unusually wide net. Diablo Immortal's economy has always relied heavily on virtual currencies, bundles and layered purchasing systems, but European authorities are not looking only at the price of Eternal Orbs. They are examining how players are presented with purchases, how vulnerable consumers are treated and whether the structure surrounding those transactions complies with EU consumer law.

The timing is particularly interesting because Diablo Immortal has just launched its large Spawn collaboration. As we covered in our look at the divide between the Spawn event's free content and premium cosmetics, much of the actual crossover is free while the full Crimson Cloak cosmetic sits inside a Phantom Market and Lil' Violator appears in a separate bundle.

That does not automatically make either system illegal.

It does make the broader discussion about how games communicate prices considerably less theoretical.

The EU Wants Virtual Currency Prices to Be Clearer

The CPC Network has already published broader principles for virtual currencies in games. Its position is that players should receive clear and transparent pricing information, including information that makes the real-world cost of digital content understandable before a purchase is made.

That sounds simple until you remember how many games place an intermediate currency between your credit card and the object you actually want. A skin does not cost €17. It costs 1,700 Shiny Demon Coins, which arrive in bundles of 1,250 or 2,600 because apparently arithmetic is now part of the endgame.

The EU's principles specifically warn against practices that obscure the cost of digital content or effectively force consumers to purchase more virtual currency than they need.

Diablo Immortal is hardly alone here. The CPC Network announced new coordinated actions against several other game companies on September 30, covering titles including Minecraft, Valorant, Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga. The wider message is therefore aimed at the industry rather than Diablo specifically.

Children and Addictive Design Are Also Part of the Conversation

The investigation becomes more serious once it moves beyond price presentation. The CPC Network's Diablo Immortal action also lists potentially addictive design and practices affecting children among its concerns.

European regulators have increasingly focused on systems that use urgency, repeated prompts, reward loops or other design techniques capable of influencing spending behaviour, particularly when younger players are involved. The EU's broader consumer policy work now treats those questions as part of digital fairness rather than simply leaving them to parental judgement.

Again, that does not mean the CPC Network has concluded Diablo Immortal deliberately exploits players. It means those systems are among the issues being discussed with Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.

Diablo Immortal Has Also Been Improving Its Less Commercial Systems

It would be equally misleading to reduce

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Diablo 5 Says the Right Build Should Beat Any Challenge, Not Just Fast Reflexes

Diablo V is going to have dodging, positioning and all the other moment-to-moment decisions modern action RPGs have taught us to expect. But Blizzard has now drawn a surprisingly clear line around what it does not want the game to become. According to Senior Game Director Joe Shely, Diablo V should fundamentally be a game where planning your character, investing in the right systems and building intelligently matter more than possessing the reflexes of a caffeinated teenager.

Shely described Diablo V as having some “DEX” mechanics, meaning moment-to-moment execution, but said the game will ultimately be much more of an “INT/STR game” built around planning and investment. More importantly, he spelled out what Blizzard considers a core rule for the genre: any challenge should be beatable with the right build.

That is one sentence, but it tells us an awful lot about what Blizzard thinks Diablo V is supposed to be.

Diablo V Is Not Supposed to Be a Reflex Test

The timing is particularly interesting because Path of Exile co-creator Chris Wilson recently raised almost exactly this concern. Wilson said he was cautiously optimistic about Diablo V, but worried that the series had increasingly moved toward a more arcade-like style where player dexterity mattered more than the RPG machinery underneath. We covered Wilson's surprisingly hopeful reaction to Diablo V, including his enthusiasm for the game's darker presentation and more traditional inventory ideas.

Shely did not directly name Wilson in his statement, so this should not be treated as an official back-and-forth between the two developers. But the design philosophy he described addresses the same question almost perfectly.

You should still need to move out of the fire.

You just should not need to become Elden Lord before Diablo lets you finish the campaign.

The Build Is Supposed to Be the Answer

The important part is not that Diablo V will contain less action. It is that Blizzard apparently wants character construction to remain the primary way players solve problems. If a boss is destroying you, the answer might be better resistances, different skill interactions, another weapon, a redesigned passive setup or simply more investment into the character.

That fits remarkably well with what Blizzard has already revealed about Diablo V's attempt to make loot feel more like Diablo II. Items are supposed to have stronger visual and mechanical identities, Sets and Runewords are returning, and Blizzard has even experimented with old-fashioned stat requirements. None of those systems matter very much if every difficult encounter ultimately boils down to whether the player can press dodge at precisely the correct millisecond.

The RPG needs to be allowed to win occasionally.

That Does Not Mean Standing Still and Holding One Button

There is an obvious opposite danger here. Diablo II fans sometimes romanticize older combat to the point where one could imagine Diablo V consisting entirely of spreadsheet preparation followed by a character standing in one spot while Hell politely explodes around them.

That is not what Shely said either.

Diablo V will still contain those DEX elements. Positioning, reacting to enemy attacks and making decisions during combat remain part of the formula. The difference appears to be one of balance. Execution can improve how well you perform, but Blizzard does not want execution to replace the character-building game underneath it.

That distinction could become particularly important if Diablo V really does succeed in making character progression feel meaningful again. A world only feels dangerous if your decisions about equipment, skills and preparation visibly change how dangerous it is.

This Is Starting to Look Like a Pattern

Individually, Blizzard's Diablo V comments can look like disconnected design notes. Put them together, however, and a fairly coherent picture is beginning to appear.

We have a game where the world itself is supposed to tell stories through its ruins and survivors. We have loot moving back toward stronger identities. We have progression being reconsidered. We have more playable classes planned than any previous Diablo game. And now Blizzard is saying that the correct build should be capable of overcoming every challenge.

None of this guarantees Diablo V will suddenly become Diablo II wearing a very expensive 2029 coat. The game is still years away, and design philosophies have a habit of encountering production schedules, balance patches and millions of players doing things developers never anticipated.

But the language matters.

Blizzard is not describing Diablo V as an action game with some RPG systems attached. It is describing an ARPG where the build remains the machine at the center of everything.

You can still dodge the demon.

But apparently, the real victory

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Diablo 4’s Annihilus Mystery Is Finally Cracked: Uber Diablo Walks the Earth

For almost two weeks, Diablo IV players have known that Annihilus exists somewhere inside Season 15. We found the item in the data. We found a hidden Stone of Jordan salvage counter. We found references to Uber Diablo and the wonderfully familiar warning “Diablo Walks the Earth.” What nobody could do was make the thing actually happen. That changed on September 30. Players are now encountering Uber Diablo immediately after World Boss kills, and when the Lord of Terror goes down, he drops the long-missing Annihilus.

The Season 15 mystery is therefore half solved in the most Diablo II way imaginable.

We finally know who has Annihilus.

We still do not know what makes him show up.

“Diablo Walks the Earth” Is Finally Happening in the Live Game

The first wave of confirmed reports arrived after World Boss encounters on September 30. Players defeated bosses such as Azmodan, received the message “Diablo Walks the Earth”, and then watched Uber Diablo appear directly afterward.

Killing him produced Annihilus as a Unique Seal.

More reports quickly followed. One player initially failed to get Uber Diablo after a World Boss, then successfully spawned him after a later kill. Others reported Annihilus dropping on different Torment levels, including Torment VII, which tells us this is not simply a Torment XII reward reserved for the absolute top end.

That finally confirms the central theory behind our original Annihilus investigation. The Season 15 item was not unused data or an unfinished reward waiting for some future patch.

Uber Diablo really was standing behind the curtain.

World Bosses Are Involved, but They Are Not the Whole Trigger

This is where things remain interesting.

A World Boss kill appears to provide the opportunity for Uber Diablo to spawn, but it does not guarantee him. Several players have killed the same World Boss during the same general period and received nothing unusual afterward. Others immediately saw “Diablo Walks the Earth.”

So the recipe is not simply:

Kill World Boss. Receive Diablo. Collect Annihilus.

Something else appears to determine whether the Uber Diablo event fires.

And that brings us straight back to the biggest clue we found last week.

The Stone of Jordan Counter Is Suddenly Even More Suspicious

Datamining previously revealed that Diablo IV secretly records how many Stones of Jordan an individual character has salvaged. That was already almost impossible to ignore because Diablo II tied Uber Diablo directly to players sacrificing Stones of Jordan.

Now we know Uber Diablo genuinely exists in the live game.

That makes the hidden counter considerably more interesting.

We still cannot say that salvaging Stone of Jordan triggers him. Players have encountered Uber Diablo without being able to identify anything unusual they personally did beforehand, and some reports suggest another player in the World Boss group may have satisfied whatever requirement matters.

One player even said they were wearing Stone of Jordan “just to be safe,” which is excellent Diablo science but unfortunately not yet peer-reviewed.

The possibility of a shared trigger also fits the old Diablo II joke rather nicely. Diablo Clone was never purely an individual event. Enough Stone of Jordan sales across the relevant server eventually caused him to invade games and announce that Diablo walked the earth.

Season 15 may be doing something spiritually similar without copying the original mechanic exactly.

Annihilus Is Exactly as Ridiculous as We Expected

The reward explains why people have been chasing this secret so aggressively.

Annihilus is not merely a nostalgia trophy. Diablo IV's version is a Unique Horadric Seal capable of rolling enormous universal bonuses, including up to +10 to All Skills, alongside All Stats, resistance and bonus experience.

Those bonuses echo the original Diablo II Annihilus while translating the item into Season 15's Talisman system.

In practical terms, it is the kind of drop that causes a build planner to stop whatever it was doing and quietly open another spreadsheet.

Players are already discovering the next layer of the problem: Annihilus can roll with Set bonuses that may not match the build you are actually playing. So even after solving one of Season 15's largest mysteries, Diablo has thoughtfully preserved the traditional endgame question:

Excellent item.

Wrong version.

The September 30 Patch May Have Enabled the Encounter

The timing is difficult to ignore. Confirmed Annihilus drops began appearing after the September 30 update, and players on Blizzard's forums immediately wondered whether the patch silently enabled Uber Diablo.

There is no Annihilus or Uber Diablo line in the published Patch 3.2.2 notes.

That does not mean nothing changed server-side. Season 15 has already relied heavily on hidden content, undisclosed triggers and systems Blizzard deliberately chose not to explain. Quietly enabling the final major anniversary secret would be entirely consistent with the season's philosophy.

For now, the safest wording is that Annihilus began dropping after the update.

Whether the patch itself unlocked the encounter has not been officially confirmed.

Season 15’s Secret Checklist Just Lost Its Biggest Question Mark

Our Season 15 secret checklist has spent most of September accumulating increasingly strange discoveries. Hidden Runewords led to Diablo II equipment. Wirt's Lucky Coin opened Uber Tristram. Ogden handed out a guaranteed Harlequin Crest. Mefishto required fishing equipment because apparently somebody at Blizzard had been waiting thirty years to make that joke.

Annihilus remained the big unresolved item.

Not anymore.

We now know the final step of the chain:

Uber Diablo drops Annihilus.

What remains is discovering how Season 15 decides when Uber Diablo gets invited to the World Boss afterparty.

Do Not Salvage Your Entire Stone of Jordan Collection Yet

That warning from our previous article still stands.

The hidden SoJ salvage counter is more suspicious than ever, but nobody has yet demonstrated a reproducible sequence such as “salvage ten Stones of Jordan, kill the next World Boss and Uber Diablo appears.”

Until somebody can repeat the process deliberately, destroying valuable rings remains an experiment rather than a guide.

We finally have Annihilus.

We finally have Uber Diablo.

We finally have “Diablo Walks the Earth” appearing in actual live games rather than datamined text.

Now Season 15 has one last trick left to explain.

What, exactly, makes Diablo start walking?

v

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Save 38% on Diablo: Sword of Justice – A Trip Back Into Sanctuary

Diablo's 30th anniversary has understandably put most of the attention on Season 15, Diablo V and the various demons currently finding new ways to ruin Sanctuary. But if all the anniversary nostalgia has left you wanting something from the older corners of Diablo lore, Amazon currently has Diablo: Sword of Justice at 38% off. It is a 128-page hardcover graphic novel collecting the complete five-issue comic series, and unlike another evening spent farming Prime Ribs, this one can actually sit on a shelf when you are finished.

Check the current Diablo: Sword of Justice deal on Amazon

As always with Amazon discounts, prices can change without warning, so the 38% saving reflects the deal available when we spotted it.

A Diablo Story From Before Diablo III

Sword of Justice originally appeared as a five-part comic series beginning in 2011, before Diablo III had even launched. Written by Aaron Williams and illustrated by Joseph Lacroix, it follows a young man named Jacob who has fled his northern homeland after being accused of murder. Unfortunately for Jacob, Sanctuary has never been particularly good at allowing people to simply move somewhere quiet and reconsider their life choices.

Jacob begins receiving visions connected to an ancient prophecy and eventually finds himself drawn toward a weapon considerably more important than the average rusty sword lying outside Tristram: the sword of the Archangel Tyrael.

The result is one of those Diablo stories that works particularly well away from the games. Instead of beginning with a hero capable of destroying several hundred demons before lunch, it focuses on somebody being dragged into the larger mythology of Sanctuary one unpleasant revelation at a time.

Tyrael Makes This Particularly Interesting for Lore Fans

The Tyrael connection is the obvious attraction. Few Diablo characters have been involved in more of Sanctuary's history, from the destruction of the Worldstone through Diablo III and the rebuilding of the Horadrim. We have recently spent plenty of time talking about how Diablo V wants its ruined world to tell the history of what happened before, but Sword of Justice comes from an era when Blizzard and its partners were filling some of those gaps through novels and comics instead.

That also makes it a nice companion piece to Diablo's current 30th anniversary. Season 15 has spent weeks digging through the franchise's past, bringing back old bosses, Runewords and pieces of Diablo history. Sword of Justice represents another layer of that history, created long before anyone knew what Diablo IV, Lilith or the current version of Sanctuary would eventually look like.

This Is the Hardcover Collection

The Amazon listing is for Blizzard Entertainment's later hardcover edition, published in 2021. It collects the complete story in one 128-page volume rather than asking you to hunt down five individual comic issues from more than a decade ago.

That is probably the best way to approach it today. Original Diablo comics can become collector hunting projects of their own, and there are already enough Diablo systems asking us to search for obscure objects.

The hardcover gives you the entire Jacob story, Lacroix's dark Sanctuary artwork and one of the more unusual pieces of Diablo's expanded universe in a single book.

A Nice Pickup While Diablo Lore Is Everywhere Again

The timing is also unusually good. Blizzard has just announced an animated Diablo series for Netflix, Diablo V is building an entirely new era of Sanctuary, and Season 15 is essentially one enormous history lesson disguised as an ARPG season.

If that has sent you back toward the books, comics and lore that exist between the games, Sword of Justice is an easy place to start. It is self-contained, short enough to read without committing to an entire novel series and connected to one of Diablo's most important characters.

And at 38% off, it is currently cheaper than discovering you suddenly need another cosmetic from a Phantom Market.

Diablo: Sword of Justice – see the current Amazon price and discount

Sanctuary has never been especially kind to Jacob.

Amazon, for the moment, is being slightly more generous to us.

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Blizzard Says Diablo 4’s Switch 2 Compromises Are “Barely Noticeable”

Putting Diablo IV on a handheld was always going to require compromises. Sanctuary was originally built for considerably larger boxes, stronger graphics hardware and people sitting close enough to a television or monitor to appreciate every miserable corpse Blizzard carefully placed beside the road. Nintendo Switch 2 has less power to work with, yet Diablo IV Game Director Brent Gibson says the concessions Blizzard had to make are “barely noticeable.” After years of wanting Diablo IV on Nintendo hardware, his reaction to the finished version is rather simple: it was about time.

Speaking to TechRadar following BlizzCon 2026, Gibson described the Switch 2 version as something the team had wanted for a long time. The challenge was never whether Diablo made sense on a portable machine. Diablo III had already demonstrated that remarkably well on the original Switch. The problem was squeezing a much larger, more technically demanding Diablo IV onto Nintendo hardware without making it feel like the version you bought because no other version was available.

There Are Compromises. Blizzard Is Not Pretending Otherwise

We already went through the technical details in our Diablo IV Switch 2 performance breakdown, and there is no magic happening here. Performance Mode targets 40 FPS at 1080p in handheld mode. Docked Performance Mode also targets 40 FPS at 1080p, although Blizzard requires a compatible 120 Hz display. Quality Mode runs at 30 FPS, with 1080p handheld output and up to 1440p while docked.

There is no 60 FPS option.

Textures, effects and other rendering details inevitably have to fit inside a smaller performance budget than they do on a powerful PC, PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X. Blizzard has not discovered a secret Horadric recipe that turns Switch 2 into an RTX graphics card.

Gibson's argument is different. The compromises exist, but during actual play he believes they fade into the background quickly enough that the game still feels like Diablo IV.

Forty Frames Per Second May Be the Smart Compromise

The 40 FPS target initially looked slightly odd because console discussions normally revolve around 30 or 60. On a display capable of supporting the appropriate refresh rate, however, 40 FPS sits in a useful middle ground. It provides smoother frame pacing and more responsive combat than 30 FPS without requiring the severe visual reductions often needed to chase 60 on portable hardware.

Diablo IV is also unusually well suited to that compromise because its combat does not depend on twitch aiming or frame-perfect competitive inputs. Smoothness matters, especially when twenty demons, six explosions and half a Necromancer's extended family occupy the screen simultaneously, but a stable presentation matters more than winning a specification-sheet contest.

Early Switch 2 players have echoed some of that sentiment. Blizzard's own forums contain players praising the handheld 40 FPS mode while still reporting occasional frame pacing issues during especially busy scenes. That sounds considerably less dramatic than the sort of performance disaster people understandably feared when Diablo IV on Nintendo hardware was still only a rumor.

The Portable Format Makes Almost Too Much Sense for Diablo

The more important question is whether Diablo IV benefits from being portable enough to justify the compromises.

It does.

A surprising amount of modern Diablo consists of self-contained twenty-minute tasks. Run a Nightmare Dungeon. Finish several Whispers. Clear a few Waking Nightmares. Progress a War Plan. Farm Prime Ribs from demonic cattle for reasons that would require far too much explanation to anyone watching over your shoulder.

That structure fits handheld play extremely well. Diablo does not always require a four-hour evening with headphones and the curtains closed. Sometimes you want to clear one dungeon while sitting on a sofa and discover that the one dungeon has somehow become six.

Cross-progression makes that considerably more useful. Characters, progression and most account content can move with you between Switch 2 and other supported platforms. The handheld therefore does not need to become your new primary Diablo machine. It can simply become another door into the same account.

Touchscreen Support Is More Useful Than It Sounds

Blizzard has also done more than simply shrink the console version onto a smaller display. Switch 2 supports touchscreen navigation through most menus, the map and inventory. That sounds like a small feature until you remember how much time Diablo players spend moving through precisely those screens.

Inventory management has always been one of the slightly awkward parts of translating a mouse-driven action RPG to a controller. Diablo IV's controller interface is already good, but tapping directly on the map or inventory makes more sense on a handheld than repeatedly moving focus boxes around with an analog stick.

USB mouse and keyboard support is available too, which creates the slightly strange possibility of turning Nintendo's portable console into a tiny Diablo PC.

One feature is conspicuously absent: Joy-Con 2 mouse functionality is not supported. Blizzard confirmed that before launch, despite the feature looking like a natural fit for Diablo's PC heritage.

The Biggest Portable Compromise Has Nothing to Do With Graphics

Ironically, the Switch 2 limitation that may matter most is not the one Gibson was discussing.

Diablo IV remains an always-online game.

That requirement is much easier to ignore when playing on a desktop PC connected to home broadband. It becomes considerably more noticeable when the game is running on something designed to leave the house.

Want to play on a train? You need a connection.

Want to clear a dungeon during a flight without Wi-Fi? Sanctuary is closed.

Want to suspend the console, put it in a bag and resume hours later? Diablo IV's server connection may have other opinions.

Some Switch 2 players have already pointed out that this undermines one of the traditional advantages of owning a portable version. Blizzard can optimize shadows, texture quality and frame pacing. It cannot optimize the railway tunnel currently blocking your mobile signal.

This Is Still the Full Modern Diablo IV

What Switch 2 does not feel like is an archival version of Diablo IV arriving several years late. The Age of Hatred Collection includes the base game alongside Vessel of Hatred and Lord of Hatred, which means Nintendo players are entering the same modern Diablo IV ecosystem as everyone else rather than beginning with the version released back in 2023.

That distinction matters even more after Blizzard confirmed that Diablo IV seasons are expected to continue even after Diablo V launches. Switch 2 is not receiving Diablo IV near the end of its useful life. Blizzard expects the game to remain active for years.

Season of Hell's Legacy is already available there, and future classes, seasonal stories and systems are intended to arrive as part of the same ongoing game.

“Barely Noticeable” Is Probably the Right Goal

A Switch 2 port was never going to become the technically definitive version of Diablo IV. Anyone expecting 4K, ray tracing and 120 FPS on a handheld was probably setting both Nintendo and mathematics an unfair challenge.

The more realistic goal is exactly what Gibson describes.

Make the compromises disappear once you actually start playing.

If you stop thinking about texture resolution halfway through a dungeon, the port has done its job. If 40 FPS feels smooth enough that you notice the monsters rather than the frame counter, the compromise worked. If cross-progression means you can put the console down and continue the same character elsewhere that evening, the Switch 2 version has justified its existence.

Diablo IV is not at its prettiest on Nintendo's handheld.

It may be at its most convenient.

And for a game built around saying “one more dungeon” far too many times, convenience can be a dangerous feature.

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