Diablo 4 Received Its First Big Patch and It's All About Class Balance

Diablo 4 has received its first big patch and it’s mostly about balancing the five starting classes that players can choose to take down Lilith and save Sanctuary with.

Blizzard shared the patch notes and some reasoning behind the changes in a blog, and it shared that the team is mostly happy with where the characters are currently at. However, the team knows there is “always room for improvement.” To that end, it has revealed the three categories these changes fall into;

1. While we want players to both feel and be truly powerful, some Class builds and synergies are outside of our bounds for what is reasonable for the health of the game, so we are reducing their effectiveness. As an example, we generally want to avoid creating situations where players can survive unreasonably high amounts of damage for long periods of time because it too greatly warps our vision for how combat should be in Diablo IV.
2. Some skills and builds are not as effective as we would like, so we’re pushing out some buffs to increase their strength.
3. Paragon Glyphs are currently providing too much player power, so we’re reducing their overall effectiveness.

Blizzard also understands “class balance is a journey, not a destination,” so it’s important to note that more balancing changes will obviously be on the way. Blizzard hopes these will make class builds “fun, powerful, and competitive within reason.”

In regard to this specific patch, some of its changes include reducing the Barbarian’s Challenging Shout’s damage reduction gained from skill ranks from 4% to 2%, increasing Druid’s Lightning Storm damage from 32% to 40%, increasing the damage of the Necromancer’s Army of the Dead from 30% to 45% and reducing its cooldown from 90 to 70 seconds, reducing the damage reduction per shadow gained for the Rogue’s Dark Shroud from .8% to .4%, and reducing the Sorcerer’s Arc Lash’s lucky hit chance from 30% to 14% while also reducing the Glinting Arc Lash cooldown reduction from .25 seconds to .15 seconds.

There are plenty more changes to look through, and you can see them all below. Let us know if you’re happy with these changes or if they impact the character you are trying to build in the comments below!

For more, check out our Diablo 4 review, our look at which class you should choose, and our extensive Diablo 4 Wiki that includes everything you need to save Sanctuary and have a great time doing it.

Barbarian

Skill Changes

Challenging Shout

• Damage Reduction gained from Skill Ranks reduced from 4% to 2%

Legendary Aspect Changes

Bold Chieftain’s Aspect

• Cooldown reduction per Nearby enemy reduced from 2.7-5.4 seconds to 1.0-1.9 seconds.
• Maximum Cooldown reduction from 12 to 6 seconds.

Aspect of the Dire Whirlwind

• Increased Critical Strike Chance per second reduced from 5-10% to 3-8%.
• Maximum Critical Strike Chance bonus reduced from 20-40% to 9-24%.

Item Changes

Gohr’s Devastating Grips

• Explosion damage gained from Whirlwind reduced from 50-70% to 16-26%.
• Damage against wreckable objects no longer increases explosion damage.
• Explosion damage is only increased by the first 100 hits of Whirlwind.

Druid

Skill Changes

Pulverize

• Lucky Hit Chance reduced from 33% to 25%.

Lightning Storm

• Damage increased from 32% to 40%.

Grizzly Rage

• Maximum extended duration from kills reduced from 10 to 5 seconds.

Class Specialization

Obsidian Slam

• Kills required for bonus increased from 10 to 20.

Calm Before the Storm

• Lucky Hit Chance reduced from 15% to 10%.

Passive Changes

Electric Shock

• Damage bonus increased from 5/10/15% to 6/12/18%.

Legendary Aspect Changes

Shockwave Aspect

• Damage reduced from 90-130% to 60-100%.

Crashstone Aspect

• Critical Strike Damage reduced from 40-50% to 30-40%.

Lightning Dancer’s Aspect

• Flat damage increased from .5-.6 to .7-.8.

Necromancer

Skill Changes

Blood Lance

• Damage increased from 67.5% to 80%.

Army of the Dead

• Damage increased from 30% to 45%.
• Cooldown reduced from 90 to 70 seconds.

Blood Wave

• Damage increased from 90% to 120%.

Passive Changes

Shadowblight

• Damage increased from 20% to 22%.

Grim Harvest

• Essence gained reduced from 3/6/9 to 2/4/6.

Serration

• Critical Strike Chance reduced from .5/1/1.5% to .3/.6/.9%.

Death’s Defense

• Maximum Minion Life lost in a single damage instance reduced from 75/60/45% to 60/45/30%.

Class Specialization

Raise Skeleton

• Skeleton Warrior attack damage increased by 10%.

Golem

• Golem attack damage increased by 10%.

Blood Golem

• Blood Golem Life drain damage increased from 40% to 90%.
• Blood Golem Life drain healing from enemies hit increased from 4% to 5%.

Iron Golem

• Iron Golem slam damage increased from 25% to 175%.
• Iron Golem shockwave damage increased from 30% to 40%.

Necromancer Paragon Board Changes

Hulking Monstrosity

• Golem Life and damage bonus increased from 30% to 40% Life.

Cult Leader

• Damage bonus increased from 10% to 15%.

Rogue

Skill Changes

Twisting Blades

• Advanced Twisting Blades Cooldown reduction per enemy hit reduced from .25 to .1 seconds.
• Advanced Twisting Blades maximum Cooldown reduction reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.

Rapid Fire

• Damage increased from 24% to 30%.

Dark Shroud

• Damage Reduction per shadow gained from Skill Ranks reduced from .8% to .4%.

Dash

• Enhanced Dash Critical Strike Damage bonus from 20% to 15%.

Caltrops

• Damage increased from 30% to 40%.

Passive Changes

Concussive

• Critical Strike Chance reduced from 5/10/15% to 4/8/12%.

Legendary Affix Changes

Repeating

• Maximum Minion Life lost in a single damage instance reduced from 75/60/45% to 60/45/30%.

Sorcerer

Skill Changes

Arc Lash

• Lucky Hit Chance reduced from 30% to 14%.
• Glinting Arc Lash Cooldown reduction reduced from .25 to .15 seconds.

Teleport

• Shimmering Teleport’s Damage Reduction duration reduced from 5 to 3 seconds.

Legendary Affix Changes

Aspect of Control

• Bonus damage reduced from 30-40% to 25-35%.

General

Miscellaneous Class Changes

Druid Companions and Necromancer Minions

• Maximum damage over time taken per damage instance reduced from 2% to 1% of maximum Life.

Paragon Board Changes

Rare Nodes

• Player Attack Speed nodes reduced by 50%.

Glyphs

• All Glyph Bonus scaling has been reduced by ~34%, except for the following:
• Critical Strike Damage Glyphs’ Bonus reduced by ~66%.
• Vulnerable Glyphs’ Bonus reduced by ~66%.
• Glyphs’ Bonus to Rare nodes reduced by ~50%.
• Glyphs’ Bonus to Magic nodes reduced by ~40%.
• Glyphs’ Bonus to Cold/Fire/Lightning/Non-Physical/Physical nodes reduced by ~62.5%.

Monster Changes

• Significantly reduced the spawn rate of Treasure Goblins within PvP zones.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the name for the Light Bearer Mount.
• The Go to Shop button from the Wardrobe will now properly open the shop.
• Fixed an issue where if a Sorcerer uses Deep Freeze and is affected by another effect that would freeze them, it caused them to be permanently stunned.
• Miscellaneous stability and crash fixes.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.