Diablo 4 Season 4 release date sees the ARPG’s live service saga continuing as the first half of 2024 slowly comes to a close, giving us fresh powers to tap into as we face off against a new threat.
Aside from tasking us with defending Sanctuary between its start and end dates, D4’s Season 4 ushers in long-awaited changes to itemization that alter how we interact with the gear dropped by foes and rewarded upon completing quests.
Diablo 4 Season 4 Release Date
During March’s Campfire Chat livestream, Diablo 4’s Season 4 release date has been officially locked down to May 14, 2024.
Blizzard previously promised quarterly seasons for the ARPG, each lasting for around three months, but its fourth comes after a month’s delay, which is needed to properly implement feedback from the Public Test Realm.
Diablo 4’s first-ever PTR will allow players to test the new changes and help the developer tweak them in advance of Season 4’s launch. It is set to run between April 2, 2024 and April 9, 2024.
Since new seasons usually kick-off as old ones end, this also means that Season 3 will stick around for an extra month.
- Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR start date: April 2, 2024
- Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR end date: April 9, 2024
- Diablo 4 Season 4 start date: May 14, 2024
- Diablo 4 Season 4 end date: August 2024 (GameWatcher estimation)
D4 Season 4’s end date should then occur at some point during August 2024, provided another delay won’t be on the horizon.
Diablo 4 Season 4 Content
Blizzard previously confirmed that “a really massive itemization update” is on track to go live during Diablo 4’s Season 4, and has now given us a thorough look at how it intends to shake things up.
The main goal is to provide quality over quantity, which should result in items that are ”much more likely to be useful to your build” dropping from different sources. In addition, the best items should ”have a journey associated with them,” while picking up gear should be more satisfying overall.
The itemization changes introduced with D4’s Season 4 will be available across the entire game – including the Eternal Realm – and, at a base level, will not only significantly reduce item drop rates, but also feature a smaller pool of affixes that are stronger and more relevant.
Players who reach World Tier 3 will only find Sacred items, while making it to World Tier 4 will only reward Ancestral items.
The number of affixes on gear will also be reduced from 4 to 3 on legendary items and from 4 to 2 on rare items to accommodate the updated crafting and new Tempering system. During the later stages of a playthrough, greater affixes can appear on gear, providing bigger bonuses.
Legendary and unique items will be tradeable, starting in Season 4, as long as they haven’t been customized using crafting, which makes them account-bound.
Characters will only find items that increase either their primary stat or all stats, bringing peace of mind to troubled Barbarians who, in the past, picked up items granting Intellect.
Legendary items dropped by monsters at and above level 95 will always have 925 item power, which is the highest in the game. The gold cost for rerolling items will be capped, while crafting materials will be consolidated, to provide a more streamlined experience.
“Many” unique items can drop starting with World Tier 1. Furthermore, Uber Uniques have a small chance of dropping starting from monster level 55, doing so at item power 925.
Starting in Diablo 4’s Season 4, all legendary aspects will appear in the Codex of Power. Salvaging legendary items automatically upgrades aspects within the Codex, removing the need to extract aspects at the Occultist.
Tempering, Masterworking, and More
Tempering is a new crafting system that enables adding affixes to items. Tempering Manuals will drop from a variety of sources, being themed around specific builds.
Heading to the Blacksmith, you can use manuals to add one of their affixes to an item at random. These affixes can be rerolled until that item’s Tempering Durability is depleted.
This adds a layer of fine-tuning that wasn’t previously available with items. Complementing this system, Masterworking enables the improving of affix values on all gear across 12 ranks.
Every 4th rank offers a significant improvement to a single affix.
Diablo 4’s Season 4 also gives each class two new Unique items while also introducing a set of balance changes. As an example, Necromancer minions and Druid wolves will inherit 100% of their master’s stats, while the Book of the Dead will see “many upgrades.”
On top of that, Helltides will appear in world Tier 1 and 2. A new threat meter will build up the pressure as you dispatch foes, ambushes are set to keep the events more exciting, while rare materials will allow for summoning the Bloodmaiden, a new public event boss.
Speaking of bosses, Andariel enters the fray as a farmable enemy with the same drop table as Duriel.
Another new feature dropping in D4’s Season 4 is The Artificer’s Pit. After completing a Tier 45 Nightmare Dungeon, a new quest becomes available, tasking you with collecting Rune Shards.
This material opens Artificer’s Rifts, which send you through the Pit itself. Said to feature ”hundreds of levels,” it is very much an endgame challenge.
Interestingly enough, Stygian Stones drop within it, enabling us to summon higher-level variants of the various endgame bosses.
That is what we currently know about Diablo 4’s Season 4 release date. For more on the game, check out how its patch notes timeline has evolved since launch.
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