Image via Blizzard

Diablo 4 Patch 1.3.0 Brings Big Balance Changes and Tweaks Ahead of Season of the Construct

Season of the Construct is upon us, and with it comes the big meta shakeup and changes to Diablo 4.

Matthew Fuller

Published: Jan 19, 2024 06:13 pm

Diablo 4 Season of the Construct is set to begin January 23, and just ahead of its launch, Blizzard has revealed the patch notes for the upcoming season. With them comes all the details on class balancing, endgame changes, and bug fixes and tweaks players can expect.

Class Changes

Diablo_4_Season_3_Constructs — Image via Blizzard

All Classes

There are a couple of changes and reworks coming to some class-agnostic Aspects and features, starting with Overpower, which will now only gain +1% damage per 1% of your Base and Bonus life when you have in Fortify.

Additionally, Ring of Starless Skies and Melted Heart of Selig have both gotten some changes, and there is a new Unique item and Legendary Aspects. Paingorger’s Gauntlets are Unique and see you mark an enemy you damage with a Non-Basic Skill for three seconds; when a Basic Skill hits them, the damage is echoed to all marked enemies and deals 100-200% increased damage to those affected.

Aspects of Adaptability sees your Basic Skill generate three of your Primary Resources once per cast when below 50% Maximum Resource, and when above 50%, Basic Skills deal 40-80% more damage. Lastly, there is the Juggernaut’s Aspect, which sees you gain 0.75-1.25 Armor, but at the cost of Evade getting a 100% increased Cooldown.

Barbarian

With each new season comes the big class changes to abilities, items, and balance, and Season of the Construct sees some rather big changes coming to the game’s five classes.

For starters, the Barbarian will be getting some love, with Charge being particular stand out with a massive 900% base damage increase, as well as tweaks to the terrain impact damage of Enhanced Charge, which will now be 1.5, and Power Charge no longer requires terrain impact to reduce its cooldown. It will now work if you charge a boss and reduce the cooldown by six seconds.

Diablo_4_Season_3_Traps — Image via Blizzard

Additionally, all Key Passives have received buffs, with Walking Arsenal being a highlight, and several items and Aspects have seen changes, with a new Unique being added called Ring of the Ravenous, which increases Rend’s duration by 2.0–4.0 seconds, and damaging enemies with Brawling Skills applies two stacks of Rend’s Bleed, with this effect only occurring every 4 seconds per enemy.

Druid

Druids will see several skills get some love which will make some builds a little more viable. Enhanced Rabies is a particular standout, with the maximum damage bonus being increased from 30% to 60%. They will also see several Passive abilities get reworks like Bestial Rampage and Thick Hide, as well as changes to the Spirit Boons with Prickleskin and Gift of the Stag getting some buffs for increased Thorns and Maximum Spirit increases, respectfully.

This is in addition to the new Unique item, Unsung Ascetic’s Wraps, which sees Lighting Storm gain an extra strike each time it grows, and Critical Strikes cause Lighting to strike twice, with 10-20% increased damage. There is also the new Virulent Aspect, which sees Rabies reduce its cooldown by 0.3-0.6, with the effect tripled when infecting Elites.

Necromancer

Necromancers will see several abilities get reworks, notably a lot of Bone Skill, as well as changes to Book of the Dead and several Minion and Golem elements, such as Golem attacks with now cleave and hit multiple targets in an area and Skeleton Priests will now healer 40% over eight seconds, compared to their original 25%.

Along with that, they will get a new Offensive Aspect called Shattered Spirits Aspect that works with Bone Spirit to launch 18 Bone Splinters in all directions, dealing big damage and generating Essence per enemy hit. They also have the Mutilator Plate Unique, which is described as such: “You are Blood Lanced, and when Blood Lance would deal damage to you, it instead Fortifies you for 1–2% of your Maximum Life and has a 5% chance to form a Blood Orb. Blood Lance deals 10–20%[x] increased damage.”

Rogue

For Rogues, we can expect to see ranged builds getting some love, with several of their abilities, such as Rain of Arrows, Forceful Arrow, and Penetrating Shot getting buffed. The Precision Key Passive is getting a rework, too, and you can see the changes made below.

Previous: Critical Strike with Marksman Skills grants you Precision. You gain 4%[x] Critical Strike Damage per stack of Precision, up to a maximum of 20%[x]. When you reach maximum Precision, your next Marksman Skill is guaranteed to Critically Strike and deal 40%[x] increased Critical Strike Damage, then consume all stacks of Precision.

New: Each Marksman skill cast grants one stack of Precision, or two if it has Critically Struck. When you reach six stacks, your next Marksman Core or Ultimate Skill is a guaranteed Critical Strike that deals x50% increased Critical Strike Damage, consuming all stacks of Precision. This damage is further increased by an amount equal to x15% of your Critical Strike Damage bonus.

In addition, they will get the new Unique Beastfall Boots, which see Rogue’s next Core Skill after an ultimate Skill consumes all their Energy and deals 0.5-1.5 increased damage per Energy used, and using a Cooldown will restore 5 Energy. They also get the Resistant Assailant’s Aspect, which sees them gain 10% Resistance and Maximum Resist to all elements for four seconds after breaking Concealment, with killing an Elite reducing the cooldown by 6-10 seconds.

On top of that, several Uniques, including all the Bows, will be getting some tweaks and reworks that once again will make Ranged builds a little more appealing and powerful in Season of the Construct.

Sorcerer

Sorcerer will see the least amount of changes, with the main skills getting changes being Ball Lighting, Blizzard, and Lighting Spear, and only a handful of Paragon Nodes and items getting changes.

Aside from these, the Sorcerer will also get the Starfall Coronet Unique, which sees Meteor get a second charge and an 11-6 second Charge Cooldown instead of a Mana cost, as well as dropping three additional meteors. This also works with the Enchantment effect and Enhanced Meteor Skill. They also get the Aspect of Shredding Blades, which has Ice Blades chance to apply Vulnerable increase by 20% and the duration increase by four seconds, as well as granting 15-25% Vulnerable Damage.

Endgame Activities

Diablo_4_Season_3_Fiery_Cave — Image via Blizzard

Several endgame pieces of content are getting tweaks, with the biggest being Helltides, which will now be around for 55 minutes, with a 5-minute gap in between, essentially making them permanent fixtures on the overworld in the future.

Distilled Fear will also now be a guaranteed drop from Nightmare Dungeons of Tier 30 or higher, and every 10 Tiers, there is a chance to get additional Distilled Fear, and any from Tier 90 or above will always drop three. Lastly, the Purified Sigil reward will now always grant a Sigil 1 tier higher than the one complete.

Notable Changes and Quality of Life Improvements

Season of the Construct will see several changes and quality-of-life additions players will welcome. This includes the introduction of WASD movement, Material caps increasing to 999,999, World Tier 3 and 4 World Boss Weekly Cahces dropping Uniques, Uber Uniques can now be unlocked as transmogs, and plenty more. This is in addition to Item Power changes that drop from World Bosses and Nightmare Dungeons, which are laid out in the full patch notes.

Bug Fixes

Diablo_4_Season_3_Loom — Image via Blizzard

Along with all the big changes and reworks, as well as new content, there is a slew of bug fixes coming in this patch that will fix any issues encountered by players and make the game an overall better experience. We have listed these fixes for Patch 1.3.0 below.

Accessibility

Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader did not read the quantity of a consumable in the action wheel.
Fixed an issue where subtitles for dialogue and lorebooks could not be turned off.
Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader could malfunction when repeatedly opening a vendor’s services menu.

Gameplay

Fixed an issue where player attacks could still be suppressed when some of their character’s body was outside a Suppressor Field.
Fixed an issue where effects that increased Max Life by a percentage (such as an Elixir of Fortitude) did not account for certain other Max Life bonuses, such as granted by an Affix on equipment.
Fixed an issue where the Drowned Sea Hag could spawn an excessive number of minions.
Fixed an issue where the Echo of Lilith could still attack the player after being defeated during the second phase of the encounter.
Fixed an issue where the Umbral aspect could grant large amounts of resources when using crowd control Skills on Structure enemies.
Fixed an issue where various Skills and effects, such as Devouring Blaze, did not consider Staggered bosses as Crowd Controlled.
Fixed an issue where the Butcher could stand in place if the player stood near a Resplendent chest.

Barbarian

Fixed an issue where the Bone Breaker legendary paragon node didn’t have a buff indicator.
Fixed an issue where the guaranteed overpower from the Earthstriker aspect could trigger on Basic attacks.
Fixed an issue where Charge cast by Ancients spawned by the Aspect of Ancestral Charge did not trigger explosions from the Brawler’s aspect.
Fixed an issue where Hammer of the Ancients was dealing more damage than intended due to the bonus from the Violent upgrade also being applied even if the Furious upgrade was chosen.

Druid

Fixed an issue where the tooltip for Envenom displayed its damage bonus as additive, when it was multiplicative.
Fixed an issue where Enhanced Ravens wasn’t increasing Critical Strike Chance to enemies hit.
Fixed an issue where the Dire Wolf’s Aspect did not specify that it also made Grizzly Rage function as a Werewolf skill.

Necromancer

Fixed an issue where the bonus from the Ring of Starless Skies could get removed when the Aspect of Gore Quills was activated.
Fixed an issue where Shadow and Bone mages did not cast Blizzard when the Coldbringer aspect was equipped.
Fixed an issue where Blood Mist could fail to activate while under the effect of a Bandit’s Smoke Bomb.
Fixed an issue where the Splintering Aspect would scale more than 2x when used on a two-handed weapon.

Rogue

Fixed an issue where Tibault’s Will increased the cap for combo points.
Fixed an issue where returning Twisting Blades while using the Bladedancer’s aspect were applying full Poison Imbue Damage, instead of the expected percentage of damage detailed in the Aspect’s description.
Fixed an issue where the Paragon Glyph Snare did not benefit Smoke Grenade when it is considered a Trap Skill by the Explosive Verve aspect.
Fixed an issue where Gorger enemies could still target Rogue players under the effect of Concealment with their stun attack.

Sorcerer

Fixed an issue where various powers and effects that are granted by evading, such as the unique powers of Esu’s Heirloom and Flickerstep, did not work properly when using the Teleport Enchantment.
Fixed an issue where the bonus evade charges granted by The Oculus didn’t increase when upgrading the Weapon at the Blacksmith.
Fixed an issue where Ball Lightning was dealing far more damage than intended.

Developer’s Note: Ball Lightning was dealing an unintended amount of damage because of its Enhanced upgrade. This bug fix returns the amount of damage done by this Skill to intended quantities.

Fixed an issue where the Static Surge legendary node would trigger from automatic casts of skills, such as the Chain Lightning enchantment.
Fixed an issue where Ice Spikes would instantly explode when casting Deep Freeze with the Frozen Tundra aspect equipped.
Fixed an issue where the buff from the Battle Caster’s aspect could unexpectedly fall off.
Fixed an issue where the Protection passive did not take into account any bonuses to Barrier generation.

User Interface and User Experience

Fixed an issue in the Season Journey menu where hovering over aspects rewarded for completing a chapter of the Season Journey could sometimes not display the name of the Aspect.
Fixed an issue where the minimap icon for indicating the Stash has new items (i.e. recovered lost items) only displayed when close to the Stash.
Fixed an issue where the Creatures of Night incense had an incorrect tooltip.
Fixed an issue where certain stats would not display for all Classes in the character details window, such as Damage with 2-handed slashing weapons not showing for Necromancers.
Fixed an issue where pressing X or Square on console would confirm the salvage of a Legendary or Unique Item.
Fixed an issue where controller navigation in the Vendor buyback menu could malfunction.
Fixed various instances where the minimap was inaccurate.
Fixed various instances where Quest Pins and Objectives were inaccurate.

Quests and Dungeons

Fixed an issue where progression through the Flooded Depths could get broken if a ladder traversal was skipped with Teleport.
Fixed an issue where the Animus Urn in the Bastion of Faith could be skipped by using Leap or Teleport.
Fixed an issue where progression could be blocked in Uldur’s Cave if all enemies were killed before destroying the second barricade.
Fixed an issue where some enemies were not marked on the minimap during the Slay All Enemies objective in Nostrava Deepwood.
Fixed an issue where elites encountered that transformed from initially harmless people could respawn after being defeated.
Fixed an issue where the Tomb Lord boss in the Shifting City could teleport outside of the boss arena, which would cause the fight to restart.
Fixed an issue where there was no Healing Well in the Conclave.
Fixed an issue where the Battle Hardened nightmare dungeon affix could grant Damage Reduction even if the player was above 90% life.
Fixed an issue where the Sealed Penitent’s Cache quest didn’t properly grant rewards for completion.
Fixed multiple instances where the Final Straw quest could not be completed properly.
Fixed an issue where the Quest Objective wouldn’t update when entering the Cellar during the Acts of Atonement quest.

Miscellaneous

Fixed an issue where upgrading a damaged item at the Blacksmithwould further lower the item’s durability.
Various stability, visual, and performance improvements.

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