Blizzard posted the Diablo IV update 1.1.1 patch notes nearly a week before it goes live (on August 8th, according to the developer's schedule).
Update 1.1.1 focuses heavily on balance changes. Sorcerers and Barbarians characters will have their effectiveness improved. Sorcerers will receive increased endgame survivability through Paragon Board tweaks, and some class mechanics have been modified to shift away from the method where Sorcerers gained power in some aspects but lost power elsewhere. Barbarians, on the other hand, will enjoy increased Fury generation in the early game (the Basic skills will generate more) and benefit from the increased power of Unique items in Diablo IV's endgame.
Update 1.1.1 also aims to buff character builds that aren't powerful enough while also diversifying the usage of Legendary items that are too situational right now.
The patch also increases the health of bosses above level 60 in the following pattern:
- Bosses at Level 80 have 50% increased health
- Bosses at Level 100 have 100% increased health
- Bosses at Level 120 have 120% increased health
- Bosses at Level 150 and above have 150% increased health
Rewards are being improved, too. All Diablo IV bosses level 35 or higher will be guaranteed to drop a Legendary item when defeated. Legion Events have had their rewards improved, too, and will drop a guaranteed Legendary item from level 35 onward. Defeating a Treasure Goblin, provided you can find one and kill it before it escapes, will also get you a Legendary item from 15 onward.
Arguably one of the most anticipated changes is the reduction of respec costs. Diablo IV players had asked for this since the beta and Blizzard is finally obliging the community.
- The cost for refunding Skill and Paragon Points has been reduced. The reduction starts small at lower Levels and hits a maximum of 40% at Level 100.
- Ex: Level 50 - 12%, Level 60 - 18%, Level 70 - 24%, Level 80 - 30%.
Diablo IV update 1.1.1 also adds a couple of quality-of-life improvements by increasing the Elixir stack limit to 99 (from 20) and introducing an extra Stash Tab that can be acquired with in-game gold. Of course, there's a laundry list of bug fixes to be found in the full patch notes.
Blizzard appears to have learned its lesson after the wholesale nerfs of update 1.1 and the subsequent backlash of the community. It's never a good idea to punish players for no good reason and make their gameplay experience worse.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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