With the recently concluded Campfire Chat, we have more information on all the changes coming to Diablo 4 for Season 5.
Season 5 Start Date and Details
Diablo 4 Season 5 “Season of the Infernal Hordes” will begin on August 6th. No delays or changes in plans are in sight!
Going by past patch times, this will go live around 10AM PST. Pre-load for the patch will be available for launch.
Infernal Hordes
They went over the details of the Infernal Hordes once again, showing how it plays out and what to expect.
As a quick Summary, it’s a Wave-based mode with a little bit of a Roguelike touch to it. You fight waves of monsters to Spawn Aether events, or mini-events within the Infernal Horde, with the number of waves determined by the Infernal Compass used to enter.
Each Wave ends with an Infernal Offering, which is akin to the Blessing/Curse type of system you see in most Roguelikes. These often result in making different Aether Events more rewarding, while making the enemies more dangerous.
At the end of the final waves, you’ll need to fight the Fell Council to gain access to the Spoils of Hells. These are reward chests that can be opened with Burning Aether, a currency earned from the Aether Events during the run.
If you want a more detailed look at the Infernal Hordes, we have a guide for Infernal Hordes that was created during the PTR and will be updated before Season 5 launches with any changes.
Changes to Infernal Hordes
Compasses will now drop more often, which is a huge change for the mode. During Helltides, Tortured Gifts will drop them at a 50% Chance. This Chance in increased to 100% for the Tortured Gift of Mystery, Living Steel Chests, and Doomsayer Chests. This will amount to around 4-5 per hour which can be earned this way.
If you’re worried about not being able to clear all the Helltide Chests for the most amount of Compasses, you may want to check out our Helltide Guide. This guide breaks down all the mechanics you need to know and how to efficiently farm the Helltides.
In addition to Helltides, Compass Tiers 4-8 will also drop in Nightmare Dungeons and the Pit. Which Tier that drops will be determined by the Tier of Nightmare Dungeon or Pit you run. So content with an Enemy Level around 120 will result in Tier 4s, while the closer you get to 200, the closer you will be to Tier 8 Drops.
Combat will now be faster-paced in the Infernal Hordes. Waves will now last 60 seconds instead of 90, but spawn enemies and events more frequently. As a nice quality-of-life bonus, Pets can now pick up Burning Aether for you.
Burning Aether has also increased drops from a base of 1 to a base of 2. The Fell Council now also naturally drops Burning Aether as well. In addition to getting more Burning Aether, the Spoils of Hell are much cheaper. The Greater Equipment chest is reduced from 250 Aether down to 60, while the minor chests were reduced from 25 down to 20.
Upcoming Seasonal Content
After going over the Infernal Horde and its changes, the discussion was moved toward upcoming seasonal-only content.
Mother’s Gift Seasonal Reputation
For Season 5, the Reputation is awarded more broadly across more types of content. This is because it will be awarded by defeating Elites, Champions, Hellborne, and Boss-type enemies.
This largely makes it available in all content. However, just due to the way Infernal Hordes generally play out, it’s likely to be the most effective route for earning the reputation.
The Seasonal Quests for Season 5 will also be tied to the Reputation System as well, unlocking as you advance the Reputation further. As usual, the Seasonal Reputation rewards as well as the Season Questline are meant to provide you with items to prepare you as you enter World Tiers 3 and 4.
Hellbreach Dungeons
These are new dungeons designed to show off the Infernal Hordes mechanics before reaching World Tier 3.
These dungeons are sectioned off and give you chances to make enemies stronger or easier as you progress though the dungeon. They might be good fun while leveling, but at the moment, they seem unlikely to be great for overall EXP compared to other options.
If Getting EXP and leveling fast is your goal, we also have a Quick Leveling Guide to help you along the way. This covers the general strategies to keep in mind while leveling.
Helltide Changes
Baneful are being made less common compared to Season 4, though they’re up quite a bit from the S5 PTR. In addition to this, they now have multiple guaranteed drops being added.
Tortured Gifts will be 75 Cinders in World Tiers 1 and 2, this makes them easier to open at a faster rate, which also helps with overall gear progression and bonus XP from them.
Helltide Whisper will now grant 10 Grim Favors total per sub zone (20 total for the full helltide) This will make them a great way to boost your overall Gold income, even early into the game.
Profane Mind Cages will be available in Season 5. They’ve been improved to stack up to three times as well, letting you push for better rewards earlier in the game. If you’re able to handle the increased levels, you’ll get to increase enemy levels by up to 30 with this change.
General Changes
Legendary Drop Rates are being increased after Level 100. While this only applies to Helltides, Nightmare Dungeons, and Infernal Hordes, it’s very welcomed. This will make it easier to pursue Greater Affixes and just better items in general.
Enchanting will no longer require Angel’s Breath as a resource, instead using the Legendary Salvage materials.
Crowd Control against us has been reduces by ~40% on average, with the average CC time being around 1.5 seconds. Additionally, we’ll be able to use Potions while CC’d.
World Bosses have a new mechanic, Resilience. Resilience will “normalize” damage in open world content. This means you’ll generally deal less damage to them and be way less likely to one-shot them with other players present.
Pit Bosses also now deal 66% Less damage across the board. Shadow Boss attacks however will apply a stacking debuff, similar to Tormented Bosses, that increases damage. This will stack a maximum of 3 times, and essentially bump their damage back to where it currently is. Additional Pits will now drop 100% of the Masterworking Materials for all players, not just the party leader.
Class Balance
Class Mechanics will get some love, but also a massive overhaul after Vessel of Hatred releases. The goal being to bring them close to the Season 4 changes for Necromancer, giving them more tools to work with within their theme.
The Damage bonus from Core Stats will now function differently for each class. Instead of 1% Damage per 10 core stat for each class, it will be changed to every 9 Dex for Rogues and every 8 core stat for Sorc, Druid, and Necro.
Barbarian
Reduce Key passive strength, which includes Walking Arsenal being brought down to prevent it from becoming the new outlier for damage.
To compensate, many Aspects for underperforming builds will get getting buffed, Which they showcased Hammer of Ancients and the Aspect of Ancestral Force being about 10% stronger and having its effect doubled against bosses.
Upheaval is being buffed by 15%. Additionally, Hellhammer is being updated to grant more ranks of Upheaval, Upheaval Size, Ranks to the Wallop Passive, and a huge amount of Strength (250-360). It’s Unqiue Effect will now also deal increased damage for every
Sorcerer
Sorcerers are getting a ton of buffs to their unique in addition to their Core and Mastery Skills being around 15-20% stronger.
They’re also buffing their defensive power as well, including changes some lacklust aspects to be more appealing. The Example given was Ice Armor granting 56% Max Life to start as well as the Snowveiled Aspect, which previously increased Armor during Ice Armor. It will now instead grant Damage Reduction.
Some Paragon Nodes are getting re-buffed. Like Burning Instincts having it’s cap raised from x40% Damage to x80% damage, as well as scaling every 20 Intelligence rather than every 50.
Druid
Many quality-of-life and damage buffs coming to help them out. below are the examples given.
Paragon buffs, increasing the bonus damage caps on Thunderstruck, Earthen Devastation, and Survival instincts.
The Upcoming Unique for Cataclysm has been moved to the Ring slot to not compete with the Lightning Storm Gloves.
Rogue
Not many updates, as it’s in a good spot currently. Flurry however will be getting some of the damage previously provided by the new passive upgrades to the base skill to make it less reliant on stacking.
They also showcased the changes fo the Windforce Unique Bow. It’s now more Barrage Focused, and has the affixes of Movement Speed, Chance to cast Barrage Projectiles Twice, Ranks to Barrage, and Ranks to Malice. Additonally, the channel fo its unique effect now rolls up to a 50% chance to deal double damage and knockdown enemies.
Necromancer
Blood Builds are getting some love, including buffs to their Tempering Recipies an Paragon nodes. Bloodbath will grant more Overpower damage. Blood begets Blood will stack to give more damage, but require less stacks in total.
They’re also getting a Lucky Hit Chance buff to multiple Skills, again mostly Blood Skills. The skills affected are as shown in the image below.
Unique Changes
Season 5 will change nearly every unique in the game. The Updates they will be getting are fairly large and should make them more impactful to their respective builds.
The things you’ll see most commonly gaming the changes are the Unique effects getting buffed. They’ll also have a slew of other changes to make them stand out as attractive items, as listed below.
In general, this means they will significantly impact a build, rather than being an extra that may or may not be effective.
While they did show off multiple of the Uniques in the stream, we talk about them more in our 1.5.0 Patch Notes Overview, where you can find more details about the changes.
