Diablo 4 Season 8 only started just over three weeks ago, yet it's a short season, and today Blizzard went live with a remarkably early season Campfire stream (which really should change to Developer stream now they've taken the Campfire from the game menu but I digress).
With Season 8 still fresh in players’ minds, and Season 9 'Sins of the Horadrim' on the horizon, Diablo 4 developers sat down to introduce the new season theme, huge changes to Nightmare dungeons, a huge nerf to a dominating damage type, and more in today's Campfire.
Here's everything you need to know.
The State of Diablo 4 so far
Levelling was slowed down for Season 8 quite considerably in the PTR, but the team pulled back on this thanks to some feedback, ready for launch. This highlighted other issues however, that there isn't enough activity variety for players while levelling up.
Apparition Incursions, for example, which are part of the Season 8 theme, feel like a mandatory event for players and nobody wants to feel like they have to do a certain activity to progress.
The team is looking at levelling variety going forward, as well as endgame activities and player fatigue in fighting Lair Bosses. The intention is for the game to encourage you do a variety of events rather than hyper-focusing on one in particular.
Season 9 will be tested with PTR 2.3.0
Season 9's theme will be 'Sins of the Horadrim' which we already knew from the Diablo 4 roadmap, but today is the first time we got a peek at what that means exactly. The Public Test Realm (PTR) will be testing the new game mechanics and not the story content.
Season 9 focuses on improvements to dungeons and will add:
Nightmare dungeon updates
Horadric Strongrooms
This is a potent micro dungeon for which the entrance is hidden somewhere within the Nightmare dungeon. As an activity it effectly replaces the previously removed 'Gauntlet' as somewhere players can put their builds to the test.
You will collect Horadric 'attunement' from slaying enemies, and this attunement improves the chest earned by defeating the mini-boss. There will be different gizmos around the Strongroom to interact with and maximize your attunement (so far it sounds much more similar to the Kurast Undercity mechanics to me).
Escalating Nightmares
This is a progression that allows you to fight through series of three nightmare dungeons in succession, new affixes being added with each dungeon. This will increase both difficulty and reward efficiency. The challenge culminates with a boss fight and requires an 'Escalating Nightmare Sigil' to unlock. These will drop in Strongrooms from Torment 1 and above.
Astaroth returns!
Asteroth, a pivotal boss we fight in the main Diablo 4 campaign, will be returning for the Season theme. Prepare for a rematch, but it won't be exactly the same fight with many new twists and mechanics added.
This doesn't mean he will be added to the Boss Ladder immediately, the team are finding ways to integrate bosses in different ways going forward.
I'm personally really happy about this as Asteroth was a personal favorite fight from the main campaign and I've been waiting for the opportunity to squash him again. It's been too long!
Horadric Spells
In previous seasons, Diablo 4 has been criticised for relying heavily on the gimmick of borrowed powers. Unfortunately, it does seem they are sticking with the theme for Season 9 with Horadric Spells, but it does have a few unique twists in that you 'build' spells yourself, so the possibilities are endless (though if we are being honest, 3 days in the community will find the meta).
That being said the more the team told us about these spells, the more I got excited for the idea and the sheer level of customization here.
Starting with a Spell Catalyst, you'll need to level up your spell's power and reduce its cooldown. The catalyst gives the spell its form and function.
The bar on the UI mimics the action bar interface, and these spells can be bound using this to your base actions (for example, binding your catalyst to the Dash skill if you are a Rogue).
The example shown by the developers was a Rogue with Celestial Surge, a new Horadric Power, bound to their smoke bomb, which culminated in a barrage of stars on the enemies. It looks pretty neat.
The combinations are down to the player and what feels natural, so the catalyst can be bound to your skills however you like and will perform in different ways depending on if bound to melee or range.
Infusion will allow you to change the elemental damage, with Arcana adding other small, subtle effects. You'll be able to add 3 Arcana to your custom spells. All of the spells available will be revealed and tested during the PTR.
Q&A note: Later during the stream the developers said that they are currently considering allowing players to change visual settings from other players, this will be implemented on the Horadric powers.
Powers also displayed a rank up to 5. Getting your spells to rank 5 will allow you to deactivate some enemy affixes. Depending on the interactions of course, so for example Fire spells would deactivate Chilling Winds (so great to use against the Beast in the Ice). This should provide more player customization and control over gameplay.
Horadric Jewels
Playing in Strongrooms will net you Tomes with which to craft Horadric Jewels, these can be socketed into gear to power your Horadric Spells even further.
I can imagine that the combination of spells, arcana and catalysts are going to cause pure chaos with balancing in the game, so I look forward to seeing how these perform on the PTR.
Class Balance
The team believes class balanc,e broadly speaking, is in a pretty good place with a lot of build diversity (although don't talk to our Editor Jez Corden about trying to complete Torment 4 with a Minion Necromancer build).
Class balance is always an ongoing process, though with each seasonal change. Season 9 should include yet more improvements to class balance in general.
In the PTR we can expect for all classes:
- Nerfs to Overpower as it's currently dominating the builds, expect this to be nerfed around 80%.
- Basic Skills will see their damage increased, typically by 2 to 3 times.
- Overall balancing changes will be applied to additive damage.
- The cap for Maximum Resistance will be raised to 75%.
- Key Passives will undergo adjustments, averaging a 75% boost to damage output.
Then here are the changes coming for each individual class:
Barbarian
- The Earthquake Skill will be redesigned with a new mechanic.
- A new Unique item will enable players to add a Cleave effect to the Bash ability.
Druid
- Cataclysm and its modifiers will be toned down to encourage diversity in build choices.
- Aspects related to Grizzly Rage and Poison mechanics will be revamped to improve their appeal.
Necromancer
- Soul Rift will no longer grant a Barrier.
- Blood Wave-related Unique items will be weakened.
- The new Unique item, The Hand of Naz, will allow summoning additional empowered Skeletal Arch-Mages.
Rogue
- Unique items tied to Death Trap will see reductions in power.
- The Infiltrators and Bursting Venoms Legendary Aspects will be enhanced.
- To encourage ranged Rogue playstyles, the Eaglehorn Bow will receive a significant boost.
- A new Unique item will let Rogues use Health as a resource once Energy is depleted.
Sorcerer
- Lightning Spear will be adjusted for better balance.
- Burning Skills will receive a 25% damage boost across the board.
- A new Unique item will summon a 3-headed Hydra, with each additional head above three increasing both size and damage.
Spiritborn
- The Deflection Aspect will now provide multiplicative damage to Razor Wings.
- The Hunter Ultimate reset will undergo a redesign.
- A new Unique item will allow Spiritborn characters to transform Thorns damage into Poison damage.
Updates to Seasonal activity variety
All Elites and Bosses in the game from Season 9 going forward will reward the player with Seasonal Reputation. So players can earn progress wherever they play in the game without feeling like they have to hyper focus on the seasonal specific activity.
New Nightmare Sigil Affixes
New affixes, available in varying rarities, will be introduced to Nightmare Dungeons, offering exciting bonuses to empower players as they delve into these challenging dungeons.
To ensure fairness and build diversity, negative affixes will no longer target specific elements or playstyles,.
Additionally, players will now have the ability to teleport directly to another Nightmare Dungeon from within their current one. These dungeon changes apply for both Eternal and Seasonal Realms.
Other changes coming to Diablo 4 in Season 9
- Improved loot rewards for lower World Tiers.
- An increased drop rate for Legendary Runes.
- Enhanced rewards for several Whisper Caches.
- A general boost in Legendary Rune drop frequency.
- The Tribute of Harmony now grants additional Rune drops.
- All Undercity Tributes will guarantee a Rune drop.
- Whisper Caches will provide more resources overall.
- Reduced costs for Jewelry Caches.
- Infernal Hordes will now drop more Gems.
- Mouse and keyboard support for console will be added, but this won't be testable in the PTR (as it's a PC only server)
The new Reliquary has been controversial, but change is coming
During the Q&A portion of the stream, a viewer asked the team if there are changes coming to the Reliquary to provide more value for paying players.
The Reliquary replaced the Battle Pass in Season 8 and has been met with negative feedback from the community as it seems to offer less content than the previous Battle Pass.
"We do have some changes coming to get some more content into Reliquaries." It's not clear if this will be in Season 9 or further into the future, but they are looking to inject more content into this.
A Diablo die-hards thoughts
Season 8 marks the first time I haven’t jumped into a new Diablo 4 season on day one. It’s not because Blizzard has done anything wrong, but rather because the past few weeks have been packed with major releases, and I’ve been completely absorbed by Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
I finally gave Season 8 a try this week, and while it’s fine overall, I’ve found the Accursion events, the centerpiece of this season’s theme, a bit of a slog. Thankfully, I’ve heard they aren’t necessary later in the Season Journey, so I’m pushing through to reach the new Lair Boss fights I’m excited about, especially facing Belial in his massive new form.
That said, after seeing today’s developer livestream and the incredible customization potential of the Horadric theme in Season 9, I’m seriously tempted to hold off and fully commit when it launches. (Though let’s be honest — I won’t be able to resist until I’ve unlocked Iris the cat.)
You can read the full Patch notes from Blizzard here.
How to play Diablo 4 Season 9 PTR
The PTR for Patch 2.3.0 will run from May 27. 2025 to June, 3. 2025 on Battle.net so as usual you do need to be playing on PC to test this out.
- Open the Battle.net launcher.
- Navigate to Diablo 4.
- In the bottom left corner, select the dropdown and you'll find Public Test Realm.
- Click Install.
- Click Play and select a test server.
- Create a test character (create a Seasonal one for anything related to the Seasonal themes)
- Skip Campaign
If you are an Xbox Game Pass player on PC, you can access the PTR through the Xbox app and follow the same steps above.
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