Diablo 4 is walking back several changes from its big Season 1 patch which had made the game an even bigger slog and proved to be overwhelmingly controversial with fans. Blizzard had previously spoken about the upcoming 1.1.1 plaster update during a developer livestream, but the new patch notes detail everything we can expect, including crucial fixes, tweaks to mounts, and big buffs for the Sorcerer and Barbarian classes. The patch drops on August 8th.
Revisions for the Sorcerer aim to “improve late-game survivability” and “adjust some class mechanics to move away from the Kiss-Curse effect,” which is where players gain power in one respect and lose power elsewhere. Meanwhile, changes to the Barbarian look to “add late-game excitement” and speed up combat flow in the early game. Both classes also enjoy plenty of stat boosts on various abilities.
Elsewhere in the patch notes, boss monsters over Level 35 will have a 100% chance of dropping a legendary item, and so will Treasure Goblins that are over Level 15. That’ll hopefully cut down on the game’s grind. Or some of it, maybe.
Another nice incoming change affects our trusty steeds, though. After last week’s campfire chat, developer Joe Shely confirmed that horses would receive a mount charge ability to “break through barricades”. Whenever enemies randomly decide to ambush you in Sanctuary, you can just bulldoze straight through their defences, rather than dismounting to manually chop away at the barricades. A small but appreciated change.
Diablo 4 hopefully won’t need another band-aid patch, since associate director of community management Adam Fletcher previously said they “don’t plan on doing a patch like [1.1.0] ever again” and that the team “know it is bad.”