A big new Diablo 4 patch buffs everyone with bug fixes, and solves War Plans frustrations

Blizzard has released Diablo 4 patch notes for its next update, and while the vast majority of the list are bug fixes, many of them will result in welcome buffs across the entire roster of the action RPG. There are hundreds of lines of changes to dig through, so it’s worth checking to see if anything that might have been affecting your chosen build is included, whether you’re running with the newcomers Paladin and Warlock, or sticking to an old favorite. There are also some handy upgrades for trading and War Plans on the table. I’ve picked out the most notable details from Blizzard’s long and convoluted Lord of Hatred changelog.

To kick us off, the next Diablo 4 update gives Set Charms a distinct minimap icon and drop sound to ensure you don’t miss them. The ability to trade non-Mythic Charms and Seals has been added, and a wide range of instances of bonuses not being applied have been solved. Among them are absent minion health and damage boosts, particularly for Necromancers, and Rogues losing their Lucky Hit Chance when using multiple Imbuements in succession. Blizzard has also corrected “an issue where Mythic Seals could be missing affixes.” I haven’t run into this myself, but that’s certainly a big problem if you have.

There’s a new dedicated ability to teleport to your active War Plan. If you currently have an objective, it’ll take you there; if you don’t, it’ll warp you to Temis instead to pick up a new one. Both Echo of Mephisto and Echoing Hatred are now available through the party finder. “Various” inaccurate loading screen tips have been corrected, and several new ones added. The stats panel was previously showing the wrong values for resource generation in some instances; this should now work as intended. Objectives and challenges that weren’t contributing to your Season progress as they should have will now do so.

A heap of bug fixes have come to the Horadric Cube, most notably for an issue that caused aspects imprinted onto transfigured amulets to not use the correct values. Several currently missing affixes to upgrade skill ranks should now correctly appear when using that Tuning Prism, transmuting armor will no longer occasionally create gear that can’t be worn on your class, and several tooltips that wrongly or insufficiently described how interactions work are being changed to better explain them.

The ability to infinitely farm Nemesis Lairs with co-op resets has been solved, as has the reverse issue where they wouldn’t trigger correctly during War Plans. You should no longer run into multiple instances of Varshan in a single wave of Infernal Hordes, and failed Kurast Undercity runs will not kick players out of the party in co-op. There are numerous other similar fixes across all the activity nodes, which should hopefully cut down on unexpected annoyances.

New Nightmare Dungeon Sigils that drop post-patch can no longer include dungeons that require you to have completed a stronghold to access. This was previously causing some of the War Plans Dungeon Escalation chains to break, and Blizzard also mentions fixing a separate issue where “dungeons could fail to initialize” in such scenarios. It’s also corrected instances of dungeon bosses simply not dropping loot or experience upon death.

The Butcher’s Lair Boss incarnation had the potential to spawn with “far more health than intended” and deal “far more damage than intended” – both of these have been corrected. He’ll also stick around for longer in Infernal Hordes if you go into stealth, rather than leaving immediately when you disappear from his view.

Druids’ Storm Shepherd’s set bonus has been buffed – the two-piece now increases the damage of all Storm skills rather than one, but at a lower 40% rate rather than the previous 75%. The five-piece effect now stacks its damage bonus with the two-piece one, rather than overriding it. The class’s Mark of the Old Wolf ring also gets stronger, with the poison bonus changed from additive to multiplicative, and the extra inclusion of any damage-over-time multiplier bonuses.

For Paladins, the biggest adjustment is the Aspect of Glynn’s Anvil now properly granting the damage reduction it was supposed to. Warlock sees more corrections, including more consistent behavior on the ‘bonus Sigil duration’ affix and a fix for Terror Swarm ending unexpectedly early. Spiritborn’s Armored Hide variant Trampled Under Foot, which has been disabled since the end of April, will be returning with a fix for the bug that was causing it to hit much harder than intended.

Also back from the void is Rogue’s Umbracrux, which was benefiting from a similar power-boosting bug. The Oculus returns for Sorcerers as well, although its absence was mostly due to it not granting you the damage and cooldown reduction bonuses it was supposed to.

Even with everything I’ve covered here, there are still many more bug fixes, including adjustments across every class. If you’re curious about your build, I’d recommend studying the full notes directly, because there are a wide range of specific skill interactions, legendary aspects, and variants that have been modified or corrected. In most cases, these were things that weren’t working as they should and now are, so if your output has seemed a little impotent, hopefully it’ll feel better once the patch lands.

Diablo 4 patch 3.0.2 releases on Wednesday May 13. It’s good to have the changes in mind, but with a few days to wait until my Paladin boasts the defenses they’re supposed to, I might take the weekend to level another class instead. I’ve been eyeing the Sorcerer up since launch; perhaps now’s the time.