Diablo 4: Five Secret Changes Blizzard Made During The Server Slam

We’re going to reveal five secret changes Blizzard made to Diablo 4 that they didn’t tell anyone about.

Change 1

Number one Obols cost of gloves and boots increased from 25 Obols to 40 Opals. That’s almost a 50% increase in the cost of gloves and boots. Now, this changes everything in terms of gambling strategies, but that wasn’t the only item that they changed the price on.

The Obols cost of rings has also been increased from 40 to 60. This is huge, and this means that gambling priority for items has shifted for searching for different types of Legendary Aspects.

For example, gloves are no longer the best item to gamble for offensive legendary aspects. Instead, you’re going to want to gamble for offhands because they have a 100% chance to be an offensive aspect. And out of all the items that can have an offensive aspect, they are the cheapest. So, it’s the perfect item for it.

We need to be purchasing the cheapest item as we can. Because the chances of getting a legendary is really low and the cost change to boots and gloves also makes them no longer the best option for gambling a utility aspect. Instead, you’ll want to purchase chest items, which are the new best option for finding utility aspects.

And with the price increase to ring, you actually have the exact same odds of finding a resource legendary aspect from a ring versus a helm because helms has three total aspects while rings have two possible. But they are more expensive. So, I tip my hat to the Diablo 4 team for rebalancing Obol costs for equal probability.

Change 2

Let’s move on to number two. Now gems in Diablo 4 got mostly nerfed. There is one exception to that rule, the diamond. When placed into a weapon, it actually gives almost double the amount of increased ultimate damage than before. Maybe it’s worth trying out if you can lower the cooldown of your ultimate with certain builds. Getting a diamond, your weapon could totally be worth it. Maybe you can choose Druid because they have the Spirit Boon. You can also choose Necromancer because if you go bone, you can reduce your ultimate skill as well.

You’ll have to do your calculations. But perhaps you do want to put a diamond in your weapon to increase your ultimate damage. That is the only buff. Now, there are several nerfs to all the other gems. The one consistent affix you could say that did not get nerfed is the resistances. Shadow resistances, poison, fire, cold, lightning...... those all remain the same, but almost every single gem or every single gem did in fact get a nerf. And I’m going to go through those nerfs very quickly.

First of all, the Damage Taken Over Time Reduction of the Amethyst was nerfed. The Barrier Generation of the Diamond was nerfed. If you put it into your armor, these are both armor slots and it was basically every single armor slot was nerfed and there were some other slots that also got nerfed to a lesser extent. Emeralds now give fewer Thorns when you put them in the armor.

Ruby was my plan for every single character. The bonus 2% life in the Ruby was actually nerfed. It was very strong before and you could get it up to 6%. Now, it’s down to 3%. So, you can’t increase your max life as much anymore. The Sapphire, when putting the armor slot percent, damage reduction well fortified that was nerfed severely went from four percent at crude to one percent. That’s a huge nerf. So, it’s a massive nerf to fortify if you’re going to get a Sapphire.

Then, the Topaz has actually had basic skill damage nerfed. I actually felt this during the beta. I love it because it used to be strong. Now, it’s much weaker. You don’t get as much basic skill damage, a bonus with the Topaz and the weapon. And then the percent damage reduction well control impaired. So, let’s say you get CC, you can reduce the damage you take while CC with a Topaz and the armor slot that was nerfed. The base level the crude is the same. But as you upgrade it, it does not give you as much.

Finally, with the Skull, if you put into a weapon got severely nerfed, the Life On Kill will be down to one-third of what it used to give. So, that’s a massive nerf. Actually, Skulls were nerfed all around every single one of them. No matter what slot you put, the Skull got nerfed, the increased healing received was nerfed as well on the skull and then the jewelry you would get armor and that armor is reduced as well.

So, all around the Skull got completely slammed. Every single one of its potential bonuses was reduced. So, those are the nerfs that happen to the gems. Then, don’t forget, the ultimate percent ultimate damage with diamond and weapon actually got buffed, the one exception to the rule.

Change 3

Moving on to number three. The third hidden change to Diablo 4 that we discovered during the Server Slam weekend is that you can no longer reduce the level requirement of items.

You can apply in a Legendary Aspect to an item. You could reduce its level apply in a legendary aspect to an item and you could reduce its level requirement back in the open beta. But you can no longer do that and this was a sort of bug slash exploit type of thing. I don’t think it was intended to be this way.

So, the Diablo 4 Developer Team basically fixed it and you can’t lower the level requirement of items anymore in Diablo 4 through that method.

Change 4

Moving on to number four, we learned from a Diablo 4 developer that Osgar Reede, the level 35 mob that was everyone’s favorite, won’t be dropping loot other than his special rare mace anymore, plus Diablo 4 Gold and crafting materials.

The developers continued by saying that those special rare monsters having a regular loot table were not intentional. So, that very popular farming spot is now dead for the foreseeable future.

This was also something that was very exploited: characters could basically die to Osgar Reede. Then just not resurrect go AFK and then come back in a few minutes. And Osgar Reede would have respawned, players would have killed him again. There would just be a ton of loot waiting for them to just basically come back to.

So, I think it’s a good thing that they fixed this. Because players won’t do that anymore since he only has a very specific loot table to get that rare mace and nothing else. So, it won’t be as valuable to do something like that. And people aren’t going to be farming it like crazy like they did in the past beta.

Change 5

Let’s move on to tip number five.

I don’t know if you checked this out. But loot from the corpses that you could flip over to check for items in Kor Dragan had an absolutely insanely high legendary drop rate. I went up to Kor Dragan, and I was getting roughly one legendary per run through. You just run through there to avoid the mobs. Don’t even worry about clearing the infestation there. Just start flipping over the corpses and you actually can find legendaries extremely easily.

Now, I got one legendary per run through. I did two runs and got two legendaries, and I just couldn’t believe it. There’s no guarantee that you can use these legendaries because, in fact, I did find a legendary that I could not use. So, it was a kind of useless because even if you try to extract a legendary aspect from an item, that is unusable. That legendary aspect itself will have the item level requirement of that item as well.

Diablo 4 Developer Team share that same item level requirement, making it unusable. But it was an absolutely insane drop chance. I did find another one I could use, but I am assuming that this will probably be fixed for the live release. I don’t imagine they want players to just never capture Kor Dragan and to just farm these corpses.

So far, as far as the problems I have encountered, Blizzard has not made timely adjustments. Whether these issues will be fixed when Diablo 4 is officially released is unknown. Therefore, all we can do is wait quietly.