The Biggest Changes in the 1.1.0a Major Patch for Diablo IV

It has finally arrived as Diablo IV was just updated with the 1.1.0a patch, a major update in preparation for the game’s first season which is launching on July 21. The patch notes are long, so we focus on the major changes that will be the most impactful moving forward.

Diablo IV 1.1.0 Biggest Changes

Season 1 Unique Items

For starters, the patch has added six unique items that will start showing up in World Tier 4. Only one unique item — Ahavarion Spear of Lycander — is available for all classes and is a very rare drop, while the others are class specific.

• Ahavarion Spear of Lycander (Uber Unique Staff – World Tier 4): Gain a random Shrine effect for 10-20 seconds after killing an Elite enemy. Can only occur once every 30 seconds.

• Azurewrath (Barbarian Unique Sword): Lucky Hit - Your Core Skills have up to a 20% chance to Freeze enemies for 3 seconds and deal 0.75-1.5 Cold damage to them.

• Fleshrender (Druid Unique One-Hand Mace): Debilitating Roar and Blood Howl deal 0.5-1.0 damage to Nearby Poisoned enemies.

• Lidless Wall (Necromancer Unique Shield): Lucky Hit - While you have an active Bone Storm, hitting an enemy outside of a Bone Storm has up to a 5-25% chance to spawn an additional Bone Storm at their location. Each of your active Sacrifice bonuses increases the chance by 25% and the total number of additional Bone Storms you can have by +1.

• Eaglehorn (Rogue Unique Bow): Penetrating Shot has a 30-80% chance to fire an arrow that bounces off walls and scenery. Hitting enemies from behind with Penetrating Shot will make them Vulnerable for 3 seconds.

• The Oculus (Sorcerer Unique Wand): Gain the effect of the Teleport Enchantment for free. When you Evade using Teleport Enchantment, you are taken to a random location.

Season 1 Legendary Aspects

The patch also adds seven Legendary Aspects, with two available for all classes, while the others are class-specific.

General

• Audacity (Utility Aspect): When there are at least 5 Close enemies, Stun them for 2-4 seconds. This can only occur once every 20 seconds.

• Craven (Mobility Aspect): You gain 20-40% increased Movement Speed when moving away from Slowed or Chilled enemies.

Barbarian

• Ancestral Charge (Offensive Aspect): Charge calls forth 4 Ancients who also Charge, dealing 50-100% of normal damage.

Druid

• Subterranean (Offensive Aspect): Poison Creeper’s active also casts Landslide in a circle around you. Earth Skills deal 10-20% increased damage to Poisoned enemies.

Necromancer

• Gore Quills (Offensive Aspect): Blood Lance will consume Blood Orbs to also conjure lances from them. Each additional Blood Lance deals 20-50% of normal damage and prioritizes targeting un-lanced enemies.

Rogue

• Pestilent Points (Offensive Aspect): Every third cast of Puncture is Poison Imbued with 100-150% of normal potency.

Sorcerer

• Searing Wards (Offensive Aspect): After spending 200-100 Mana your next Firewall is free to cast and will destroy incoming Small Missiles.

Altar of Lilith unlocks and map discovery are now account-wide

This was mentioned in the last developer stream as the only thing that will carry over through seasons is your progress in unlocking the Altar of Lilith and your current map discovery. Simply put, you only need to find each Altar of Lilith once in the entirety of the game. Just login with the character with the most progress and all characters in your list should have the same progress.

Experience changes

For those still in World Tier 2, they improved the gold earned from 15% to 20%, and monsters in that tier will now drop 15% more items. A nice buff to those still going through the game and those starting new characters, especially during season 1.

As for World Tier 3 players, enemies will start to fall behind by a maximum of five levels starting after level 56. This is the same for World Tier 4 but it will start showing after level 76 as Blizzard wants players to have a sense of power progression and mastery over the current world tier.

World of Whispers are getting buffed once again in World Tier 3 and 4 as the experience gains for the activity has significantly increased.

Monster experience against higher level enemies decreased

This is where your head will boil as they’ve adjusted how much experience is earned when you kill an enemy at a higher level.

Before the patch, players would receive more experience when killing higher level enemies. After 1.1.0 patch, they severely nerfed it as Blizzard says they want players to “participate in powerleveling together instead of one player killing enemies while another member of their Party waits at the dungeon’s entrance.”.

Here’s the breakdown as it’s a pretty severe change as power leveling will never be the same.

Pre-Season of the Malignant bonuses:

• 1 Level higher: +15%.

• 2 Levels higher: +20%.

• 3+ Levels higher: +25%.

Post-Season of the Malignant:

• 1.5% bonus per Level up to 10 Levels.

Example

• +1 level: +1.5%.

• +2 levels: +3%.

• +10 levels: +15%

Helltide changes made harder

Another major change is the Helltide activity as they made enemies found in Helltides now 3 levels higher than the player’s level. Also, it’s harder to unlock the generous Gift of Mysteries chest as it now costs more Aberrant Cinders to open.

• Helltide monsters are now 3 Levels higher than the player instead of 2.

• The Tortured Gift of Mysteries chest has had its cost increased to 250 Aberrant Cinders from 175.

• All interactable objects in Helltide zones now have a small chance of dropping Aberrant Cinders.

Item affix changes

Another big change is the nerfs of key affixes that are major contributors to a build’s damage and survivability. The biggest affixes hit is Vulnerability as it was given a heavy nerf. They didn’t stop there as Critical Strike damage percentages now roll less and dominant defensive affixes were nerfed as well. So, if you feel week when you log in, you are not alone.

Here’s a rundown of the changes.

Item Affixes

• Control Impaired Duration Reduction: Can now appear on Pants.

• Barrier Generation: Can now appear for all Classes. It will also begin dropping later in the game.

• Lucky Hit Chance while You Have a Barrier: Can now appear for all Classes. Reduced by ~12% when on Helm and ~20% when on Amulet or Offhand.

• Mastery Skill Damage: Newly added; can appear on Sorcerer Weapons. Scales identically to Core Skill Damage.

• Resistance to All Elements: Can now appear on Shields.

• Strength: 50% Stronger when on Weapons → 25% Stronger when on Weapons.

• Dexterity: 50% Stronger when on Weapons → 25% Stronger when on Weapons.

• Intelligence: 50% Stronger when on Weapons → 25% Stronger when on Weapons.

• Willpower: 50% Stronger when on Weapons → 25% Stronger when on Weapons.

• Cooldown Reduction: Reduced by ~30%.

• Imbuement Skill Cooldown Reduction: Reduced by ~30%.

• Trap Skill Cooldown Reduction: Reduced by ~30%.

• Critical Strike Damage: Reduced by ~17%.

• Lightning Critical Strike Damage: Reduced by ~17%.

• Critical Strike Damage with Bone, Earth, Imbued, and Werewolf Skills: Reduced by ~17%.

• Vulnerable Damage: Reduced by ~40%.

• Cooldown Reduction (Inherent on Offhands): Reduced by ~35%.

• Critical Strike Damage (Inherent on Swords): Reduced by ~50%.

• Vulnerable Damage (Inherent on Crossbows): Reduced by ~65%.

These are what we believe are the major changes. This isn’t the only thing in the patch notes as the update features balance changes across the board for all classes and more.

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