Diablo 4 update makes major change to damage calculations for greater build variety
Arrives alongside Season of Blood.
A new update for Diablo 4 - released on 17th October alongside Season of Blood - will bring a major change to the way damage is calculated.
Previously, Critical Strike Damage and Vulnerable Damage were calculated separately, meaning players could use skills with these attributes to pile on huge amounts of damage.
Now, Critical Strike Damage will be capped at 50 percent and Vulnerable Damage at 20 percent as part of a "baseline multiplicative bonus" - bonus damage will be added together and multiplied by these percentages for each.
The aim of this, Blizzard says, is to even out build variety so players don't rely solely on skills with these damage outputs.
"This change represents an overall decrease in damage output, so we are adjusting monster scaling to ensure that the best Class builds are still as powerful as before," read the patch notes.
"This change is not intended to lower the power of the best builds, but rather allow more builds to reach that same level of power. We have also added a variety of mechanics to classes that encourage them to chase other stats for multiplicative bonuses, rather than always chasing Critical Strike and Vulnerable Damage."
Elsewhere, Blizzard is making a number of changes to its UI. Items can now be marked as Favourite, meaning they cannot be sold or salvaged. This will work in the Stash too.
The Stash can also be searched and filtered, which will be particularly useful now that season one items will return here.
Additionally, Streamer mode has been implemented so players can hide identifying information; auto-run has been added; the minimap has been zoomed out to display a wider area; there are more, higher contrast, cursor icons; and other small changes.
The update is extensive with other additions including new unique items and Legendary Aspects, plus tweaks to Paragon Glyphs, Nightmare Dungeons, and item enchanting. Oh, and mounts are less likely to get stuck now too.
Check out the full patch notes for more.
Season of Blood will arrive on 17th October with a vampire theme and stars Gemma Chan as Eris the vampire hunter.