Blizzard is committed to make Diablo IV a better game with their regular quarterly updates. Diablo IV Quarterly Update: December 2020, the last update for the year, has been made in accordance with the most requested topic this year: Itemization.
Here’s everything new in Diablo IV after the December update.
Update Objectives
- 1. Strengthen class identity by providing intuitive fantasy hooks. Items and skills that lean into the fantasy of your class are best.
- 2. Support deeper customization through our itemization. Items should support and enhance your class, not define it.
- 3. Provide years of things to discover and countless ways to build a class.
Skill Tree
Blizzard updated the Skill tree during their previous update as well. After a positive feedback on the prvious update, Diablo IV Quarterly Update will follow in its footsteps.
In Diablo IV, you will be able to respec your skills and passives. The number of times you can do this will be unlimited, but it won’t be free. It will be easy to do when you first start a character; as your character grows, the effort and cost required to respec will grow too. In the end-game, changing your build will require a significant investment, to appropriately match the time and effort you’ve put into defining your character.
Primary Stats
Blizzard stated, “In our last blog, we agreed with your feedback that too much of a character’s power came from the items they wore.” The new update has finally fixed this issue. Now, level and points will play a greater role in determining your attributes than items.
When you gain a level, you’ll receive points to spend in Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, or Willpower, along with your skill points.
And here’s where it gets really interesting. Many of the nodes in each class skill tree have additional effects if you meet specific primary stat thresholds. You’ll get the baseline effect of these nodes when you spend the skill points to unlock them, but get enough of the corresponding primary stat and the bonus effect will activate.
Weapon Types
Diablo IV Quarterly Update focuses on distinctive of each weapon type. To see what that feels like, in action, weapon speeds and inherent characteristics have been added to all weapons in the latest internal test environment.
In general, one-handed weapons excel at letting you attack and reposition quickly, while slower two-handed weapons deal more damage. You can really feel the differences between them.
In addition to speed, each type of weapon has an inherent physical characteristic. For shields this is block value, meaning that any shield you find in Sanctuary is going to have block, in addition to any magical affixes it may have. As physical properties, these traits are consistent across all weapons of the same type and cannot be modified.
Item Qualities
Blizzard is increasing the potential power of individual affixes on Magic items. The update will increase the maximum number of affixes on Rare and better items in the endgame. Legendary affixes now roll randomly on Legendary Items. And Unique items will replace Mythics.
Legendary Affixes
You can think of Legendary items as Rare items with one affix replaced with a legendary effect. These new legendary affixes work just like regular affixes, in that they can roll randomly on different items and in different slots. Many can be used by any class, while some are specific to a particular class.
Uniques
Unique items are making a comeback in a big way in this Diablo IV Quarterly Update. Blizzard is embracing the fantasy of these build-around items with completely fixed affixes, heavily thematic and usually class-specific powers, and distinctive looks.
Finally, we’d like to remind you that none of these features is final, they’re still in development.