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 Diablo IV Quarterly Update - August 2022

Season 27: Light's Calling

Season 27 introduces Light's Calling. Valiant Nephalem who recover Angelic Crucibles, a new consumable item, may use them to Sanctify any equippable Legendary item, infusing it with one of three new class-specific powers at random. The Angelic Crucibles lean into the expertise of each class, further exemplifying its respective prowess.

Season 27 begins on Friday, August 26th at 5:00pm in each region. Season 27 goes live on all Consoles world wide at 5:00pm PDT, the same time as PC in North America. For timezone conversion, visit this site!

Table of Contents

• Season 27: Light's Calling
• Discord Server
• Haedrig's Gift & Seasonal Rewards
• Seasonal Conquests
• Season 27 Starter Guides
• Level With A Cause
• Challenge Rift Week 270
• Patch 2.7.4 Notes

 DiabloFans Discord

Join us on our Discord server! It's the perfect place for finding people to group with, get your questions answered, and stay up to date on the latest news! You can join our server by clicking on the banner below, or by going here! 

If you don't use Discord you're missing out, but you can also find people to play with by using our forums! 

 Haedrig's Gift & Seasonal Rewards

Completing Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the Seasonal Journey will reward you with three of Haedrig’s Gifts. Each Gift contains a few pieces from one of your Class Sets. Players can only unlock one Class Set in this manner per Season across Hardcore and Non-Hardcore, so choose wisely!

The set you will receive depends on the class of the character you’re playing when you open each Haedrig’s Gift. To collect a full Class Set, you’ll need to open all three on the same character.

Here are the sets granted by Haedrig’s Gift in Season 27:

• Barbarian – Wrath of the Wastes
• Crusader – Roland’s Legacy
• Demon Hunter – Unhallowed Essence
• Monk – Raiment of a Thousand Storms
• Necromancer – Bones of Rathma
• Witch Doctor – Helltooth Harness
• Wizard – Tal Rasha’s Elements

In Season 17, Blizzard began re-introducing previous Seasonal rewards to make them available to players who may have missed them the first time around. This means that for Season 27, awards originally available from Season 15 are returning to the Season Journey.

Blizzard is continuing to provide new End of Journey rewards as was introduced in Season 17, with two new cosmetic rewards for those who complete the entirety of the Season Journey. These rewards will be the Laurels of Knowledge portrait and the Cadaverous pet.

 Seasonal Conquests

 Want to prepare your Conquests plans for Season 27? Here are all the conquests you'll face this season!

• Sprinter & Speed Racer
  
• Avarice & Avaritia
  
• Boss Mode & Worlds Apart
  
• The Thrill & Superhuman
  
• Masters of the Universe & Master of Sets
  

 Season 27 Starter Guides

Any players looking to level quickly and get the best start to Season 27 should browse the selection of starter guides from various content creators below!

Weapon Upgrade & Gambling Suggestions:

If you wait to complete the weekly Challenge Rift for after Season 27 begins, you will be able to begin your season with a stack of materials and gold to jump start your progress! Because of this, it's possible to upgrade a level 70 rare crafted weapon to a legendary and extract that power into your cube to give yourself a damage modifier for leveling. Additionally, with the starting Blood Shards you can gain access to specific items from Kadala at level 1. You will find our item upgrade and blood shard gambling suggestions for the start of this season below!

Ultimate Seasonal Starter Guide:

Level With A Cause

Level With A Cause (#LWAC), a coalition of streamers from the Diablo III community, will be uniting once again for a charity fundraising event during the first three days of the Season 27 opening weekend in Diablo III. This marks the team’s 16th event over the last few years. Several Diablo III community members will be holding live-streams during this weekend in support of this charity drive. During these live-streams, viewers will be able to donate to the SaveTheChildren charity organization. 

Level With A Cause was founded prior to the start of Season 11 of Diablo III and has been a mainstay of the opening weekend of each new season since that time. The LWAC team has raised over $100,000 to date for deserving charities such as Save The Children, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Take This. LWAC hopes to continue to grow and raise even more money for charities in the future. If you are a streamer looking to participate, more info can be found on the LWAC website. As a viewer, you can simply search for LWAC within stream titles on Twitch during the August 26th to 28th event.

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In the U.S. and around the world, Save The Children gives children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, they are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. They do whatever it takes to save children, transforming their lives and the future we share.

You can donate to the Level With a Cause charity event here!

Challenge Rift - Week 270

Challenge Rift Week 270 is live! Because Season 27 begins this Friday, we advise that you DO NOT complete the challenge rift until after you've made your seasonal character! This week the Challenge Rift features the Wizard! If you are curious how Challenge Rift builds are chosen each week, you can view this official blog post!

Patch 2.7.4 Changes

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Official Post)

Patch Notes

Below you will find the patch notes for the upcoming update to Diablo III: Patch 2.7.4.

Note: All changes apply to all versions of Diablo III, including PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC unless otherwise indicated.

Season 27

Season 27 introduces a new type of consumable item called Angelic Crucibles. Once uncovered by Nephalem, these heavenly artifacts can be used to Sanctify any equippable Legendary item. Sanctifying an item reforges it to have perfect Ancient-level stats on all affixes while also preserving the item's Legendary Power. In addition, this process adds one of three new powers unique to each class.

Season Theme Details:

• Angelic Crucibles and Sanctified items can only be acquired in Seasonal play and will not transfer to your non-seasonal character when the season ends.
• Angelic Crucibles can drop anywhere in Sanctuary at level 70.
• Players can obtain as many Sanctified items as they would like, however, only one Sanctified item can be equipped at a time.
• Sanctified items can be Sanctified again using another Angelic Crucible.
• No stats are preserved when Sanctifying an item.
• Only level 70 equippable items can be Sanctified—crafted items cannot be Sanctified.
• Followers cannot equip Sanctified items.
• The drop rate of Angelic Crucibles has been doubled.

Developer's Note: We heard your feedback regarding the Angelic Crucible drop rate. . . then we doubled it.

New Class-Specific Sanctified Powers

Barbarian

• Whirlwind pulls in and holds all enemies within 25 yards.
• Hammer of the Ancients hits in all directions around the Barbarian. Every tenth cast of Hammer of the Ancients unleashes a powerful shockwave.
  • The shockwave now deals 10x damage.
• Hitting enemies generates stacks of Tempest Rhythm. Activating Wrath of the Berserker consumes 50 stacks of Tempest Rhythm and startles enemies within 16 yards, causing them to take 2% increased damage per stack for 20 seconds. Max 50 stacks.

Crusader

• Blessed Hammer now crackles with energy, damaging enemies within 15 yards of its path. All runes but Dominion now throw the hammer in a direct path in front of the Crusader.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Blessed Hammer to stop when hitting allies.
• Every two seconds, call down Fist of the Heavens on a random nearby enemy. After casting Steed Charge, this effect occurs more rapidly for five seconds.
  • Updated the visual effects of the Fist of the Heavens Sanctified power to differentiate it from Fist of the Heavens cast by players.
• After casting Falling Sword, you descend from the sky with two Archangels that can cast Consecration and Condemn.
  • Updated the Archangels abilities to not benefit from bonuses and removed the Heaven's Fury skill.
  • Archangels no longer take damage.
  • Removed the cooldown to spawn Archangels when casting Falling Sword. A maximum of two Archangels can be present at a time.
  • The damage done by Archangels has been reduced.
  • The Archangels will no longer cast Condemn and Consecration immediately upon being summoned.
  • The Archangels damage has been reduced 33% of its previous value.

Demon Hunter

• Strafe now casts the last non-channeled Hatred spending ability cast.
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the Strafe sanctified power to stop casting the Hatred spending ability.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the Multishot visual effects to fire in the wrong direction.
• Casting Vengeance unleashes a barrage of rockets that deal damage equal to a percentage of the maximum life enemies possess. The number of rockets fired increases over 30 seconds. Elites and Bosses receive less damage per rocket.
  • Fixed a bug in the tooltip to correctly state that damage is equal to a percentage of maximum life, not current life.
• Firing Cluster Arrow no longer drops explosive ordinance. Instead, it concentrates its explosive force into piercing rays of light.
  • Updated the Cluster Arrow tooltip to clarify the power and potential interactions with other skills.
  • Adjusted the animation to feel more fluid.
  • Updated the Cluster Arrow visual effects and sounds.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Cluster Arrow from proccing Restraint and Thrill of the Hunt.
  • Fixed a bug where Cluster Arrow didn’t properly cost 40 Hatred.

Monk

• Casting Wave of Light now summons a bell at the target location that deals damage when any player attacks the bell. Up to five bells can be active at one time.
  • The Shattering Light rune now respects which way you’re facing when you strike the bell, and your bells can no longer proc your own bells.
  • Updated the tooltip to reflect that other players can attack summoned bells.
  • Added sounds to the Wave of Light Sanctified power.
  • Bells no longer count as kills to other players.
  • Bells now despawn if not destroyed within 10 seconds.
• All Way of the Hundred Fists combo punches use the second stage combo punch. Consecutive hits from Way of the Hundred Fists increases its damage by 2%. Max 350 stacks.
• The target of your Seven-Sided Strike is barraged with spiritual punches for 15 seconds. This can only affect one enemy at a time.

Necromancer

• Your Golem now picks up corpses within 20 yards. Each corpse it stores allows you to cast any corpse spending ability with the max number of corpses consumed per cast. Up to 30 corpses can be stored.
  • Updated the tooltip to clarify which Corpse skills are impacted by the Sanctified power.
• Enemies within 50 yards are constantly assaulted by the Army of the Dead - Unconventional Warfare while this item is equipped.
  • Fixed a bug that caused an unintended interaction with Fate's Vow and the Army of the Dead Sanctified power.
• Hitting enemies with Death Nova five consecutive times adds a spirit that afflicts an enemy every fifth cast of Death Nova. Up to three spirits can be sent at a time.

Witch Doctor

• Enemies affected by Locust Swarm are also Haunted. When you cast Piranhas, all Haunted enemies within 60 yards are pulled into the pool. A lesser enemy stunned by Bogadile is instantly killed. Elites and Bosses stunned by Bogadile take massive damage.
  • Added a visual effect to indicate the area where monsters are pulled in by Piranhas.
• Horrify becomes an aura that causes enemies to receive 100% more damage and deal 15% less damage in addition to its other effects.
• You summon two Gargantuans and three Zombie Dogs periodically. Gargantuans gain the effect of the Restless Giant rune. Zombie Dogs gain the effect of all runes. Enemies hit by Sacrifice are Immolated, causing them to take 100% more damage from your Pets.

Wizard

• Your Storm Armor charges over 30 seconds. Casting Storm Armor at full charge releases a powerful thunderbolt, instantly killing a random enemy within 30 yards. Bosses and Elites are not killed but take significant damage.
• Arcane Orb now periodically spawns up to four orbiting charges that will generate an additional orb when cast. All charges from the Arcane Orbit rune now detonate at the same time.
• Magic Missile fires 10 missiles and gains the effect of the Seeker rune.
  • Reduced the number of Magic Missiles from 20 to 10.

Developer's Note: With the Lords of Hell Season, we explored what Nephalem would do if they possessed the powers of Hell. This season we invite players to witness what Nephalem can accomplish with the powers of Heaven. Our goal with the 21 unique class-powers was to introduce changes to skills that can redefine the way you play a build or set. We're excited to see how players will harness the powers of Heaven in Season 27.

General Updates

• Adventure Mode is now unlocked for all accounts by default. Players are no longer required to complete the Campaign to access Adventure mode.
• Default difficulty selection has been updated to be consistent for all players and platforms. All players now have access to Normal-Torment 6 difficulties by default, and upon reaching level 70 with a character, players gain access to Torment 7–Torment 16.
• Uber Boss Realms now automatically close 60 seconds after the Uber Bosses have been defeated. Additional portals to the same Uber Boss Realm can now be opened in a single game session.
• The Experience rewarded upon completion of an Echoing Nightmare has been reduced by 83%.

Developer's Note: With Echoing Nightmares transitioning from a Seasonal theme to a permanent feature moving forward, we felt it was necessary to dial back the Experience rewards to avoid players feeling obligated to maximize their time spent inside the activity. Our vision for Echoing Nightmares is to be a fun bonus activity, like the Vault, that serves as a good source of loot and Augment materials. We've also made several changes to Adventure mode and difficulty unlocks—these will align the Diablo III experience across all platforms for new players and should make it easier to jump into your preferred activity. Lastly, we improved the Uber Boss flow so that players and groups can kill multiple rounds of bosses without having to remake games.

Item Changes

General

• Guardian's Jeopardy (2-piece bonus): Your melee damage reduction is increased by 1% per 1000 base Vitality from equipped items. Your missile damage reduction is increased by 1% per 1000 base Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence from equipped items depending on your class.
• Guardian's Jeopardy (3-piece bonus): You gain an additional 100% of your base Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality attributes from equipped items.

Developer's Note: We've heard from players that the Crafted 3-piece sets have had some of the most significant impacts on itemization, so we're introducing another to add more choice.

Crusader

• Armor of Akkhan (2-piece bonus): Judgment has no cooldown and gains the effect of every rune.
• Armor of Akkhan (4-piece bonus): Attacks from Phalanx Avatars reduce the cooldown of Akarat's Champion by 0.5 seconds, and also apply Condemn when attacking enemies that is affected by Judgment.
  • Fixed a typo in the Armor of Akkhan 4-piece bonus.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed any attack to proc the 4-piece bonus to reduce the cooldown of Akarat's Champion.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the damage bonus of Akkhan's 6-piece to sometimes not work with Phalanx Avatars.
  • Updated the visual effect of Phalanx Avatars proccing Condemn to reduce visual clutter.
  • Updated the AI of Phalanx Avatars to prioritize targets around the player.
  • “Increases Phalanx Damage” affixes and the Enforcer Legendary Gem can now benefit Phalanx Condemns.
• Eternal Union: Increases the duration of summoned Phalanx Bowmen and Bodyguard indefinitely.

Developer's Note: Our goal with the Armor of Akkhan rework is to narrow the focus of the set to give a distinctive identify, highlighting a fantasy where the Crusader is the Knight-Commander, passing judgment on the enemies of the Light.

Necromancer

• Trag'Oul's Avatar (2-piece bonus): Blood Rush and Siphon Blood gains the effect of every rune. Your Life-spending abilities no longer cost Essence.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the Siphon Blood - Power Shift rune damage bonus to be multiplicative.
• Trag'Oul's Avatar (4-piece bonus): While at full Life, your healing from skills is added to your maximum Life for 45 seconds, up to 300% more.
• Trag'Oul's Avatar (6-piece bonus): Your Life-spending abilities deal 10,000% increased damage and your healing from skills is increased by 100%.
• Iron Rose: Attacking with Siphon Blood has a 100% chance to cast a free Blood Nova. After cumulatively losing 10% of your maximum Life, your Death Nova deals 40% increased damage for 60 seconds. This effect stacks up to 10 times.
• Bloodtide Blade: Death Nova deals 300-400% increased damage for every enemy within 25 yards, up to 25 enemies.
• Funerary Pick: Siphon Blood drains blood from 2 additional targets. Each target takes 250-300% increased damage from you unless there is only 1 target, then it gains double the increased damage. The bonus from Siphon Blood - Power shift is now 20% per stack and benefits all skills.

Developer's Note: We wanted to recapture the Blood Necromancer fantasy of Trag'Oul's Avatar and increase its effectiveness against single targets.

Wizard

• Delsere's Magnum Opus (2-piece bonus): Casting Arcane Orb, Energy Twister, Magic Missile, Shock Pulse, Spectral Blade, Electrocute, or Arcane Torrent also casts Slow Time at them. This effect will not trigger if the target is already inside a Slow Time bubble. The cooldown of Teleport will reset while you're inside bubbles generated from this set or cast by you.
• Delsere's Magnum Opus (4-piece bonus): You take 75% reduced damage while you have a Slow Time active. Allies inside your Slow Time gain half benefit.
• Delsere's Magnum Opus (6-piece bonus): Enemies affected by your Slow Time and for 5 seconds after exiting take 12,500% increased damage from your Arcane Orb, Energy Twister, Magic Missile, Shock Pulse, Spectral Blade, Electrocute, and Arcane Torrent abilities.
• Crown of the Primus: Slow Time gains the effect of every rune except Point of No Return and permanently follows you.
• Tal Rasha's Elements (2-piece bonus): Damaging enemies with Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning will grant immunity to that element and cause a Meteor of the same damage type to fall from the sky. The same meteor cannot happen twice in a row.
• Tal Rasha's Elements (4-piece bonus): Arcane, Cold, Fire, and Lightning attacks each increase all of your resistances by 50% for 8 seconds.
• The Smoldering Core: Lesser enemies are now lured to your Meteor impact areas. Meteors deals 40-50% increased damage on consecutive hits to the same target. This stacks up to 10 times.
  • Fixed a typo in The Smoldering Core's tooltip.
• Mirror Ball: Magic Missile fires 2 extra missiles and deals 400-500% increased damage.
• Mempo of Twilight: Meteor Shower rune is now applied to all casted Meteors and deals 300–400% increased damage.

Developer's Note: Delsere's Magnum Opus has been feeling weak, clunky and isn't meeting the desired gameplay flow, so we've streamlined the playstyle to make it more engaging, allowing Wizards to feel like masters of time. The core of Tal Rasha's Elements has changed over time, so we're revisiting it to reintroduce a playstyle that utilizes Meteor.

Monk

• Inna's Mantra (6-piece bonus): Gain the passive abilities of the five runed Mystic Allies at all times. Attacking enemies creates your chosen Mystic Ally that lasts 15 seconds, up to 10 Mystic Allys. The damage of your Mystic Allies is increased by 900% for each Mystic Ally you have out.
• Bindings of the Lesser Gods: Enemies hit by your Cyclone Strike take 150-200% increased damage from your Mystic Ally for 5 seconds. Split Fire Allies gain 3 times this bonus.

Developer's Note: Inna's Mantra Monks have been riding high on the waves of success for several seasons, so it's time to bring in the nerf shark.

Demon Hunter

• Strafe: Updated base skill to allow any equipped weapon, rather than requiring a Bow.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that prevented the Legendary Spear Empyrean Messenger from dropping.
• Captain Crimson's Trimmings: Fixed a bug that caused the 3-piece set bonus to occasionally drop off.
• Updated Bone Spike and Siphon Blood tooltips to reflect the appropriate damage values.
• Fixed a bug that caused Sanctified items to not always roll with Ancient-level stats.
• Fixed a bug where Slow Time and Archon Slow Time stacked.

We’ll see you in Sanctuary, Nephalem!
-The Diablo III Team