The armies of the Burning Hells grow restless, anxious to inflict more wounds upon Sanctuary. Muster the strength to protect your home, wanderer.
The 2.0 Public Test Realm (PTR) for Diablo IV will be available from September 4–11, offering you the chance to test upcoming changes and features releasing for the base game with the next Season and the Vessel of Hatred Expansion. plywood basement wall
The purpose of the PTR is to test updates and features before the launch of Season 6. Then, using your feedback, we’ll adjust the content within before it goes live for everyone. The feedback we receive helps us to fine-tune balance changes, eliminate bugs, and create the best experience possible. Having a PTR gives us a chance to test new systems, and we’re grateful for your assistance.
The fires of Hell burn bright in their anticipation of your arrival! Here is what the 2.0 PTR will be previewing.
New Class Skills and Passives
Runewords: A New Source of Power
Wander Boldly with Party Finder
How to Install the PTR
Please note that this is a preview for PTR content, which is subject to change. The content shown in this PTR will be accessible to all players upon launch and won’t require the Vessel of Hatred Expansion to experience (unless otherwise noted).
Developer’s Note: Our original vision for character progression was that you would have a grand journey, traversing through World Tiers, swapping out gear, gaining incremental strength through the Paragon system. We felt that was fun the first time, but on repeated play throughs, World Tier III and Sacred items felt artificial and added a lot of stat bloat that didn’t make the game more fun. Since launch we’ve added endgame features, like Infernal Hordes and The Pit of the Artificer. Vessel of Hatred will expand the endgame line up even further, adding Dark Citadel and Undercity to the mix. Our hope is that these new systemic changes allow for new characters to reach the endgame faster.
The way Paragon Points function has been adjusted. Going forward, earned Paragon Points will now be tied to Realm versus Character Level. This means that all Paragon Levels earned will be shared across all your characters on the same Realm. To support this shift, we’ve made a variety of alterations to the leveling journey, other stats, and monster levels. Numbers and values are also more easily understandable.
Paragon and character levels are now split out, with Levels 1–60 representing character level. This means you can earn an additional 10 Skill Points, opening additional avenues of character customization. Starting at Level 60, players will begin to earn Paragon Levels which can be used to unlock Paragon Nodes.
Characters above Level 50 will have all their experience-based Paragon Points converted to a Paragon Level. Here’s an example of this change:
Developer’s Note: The changes to leveling and Paragon were made with the intent of getting you to endgame activities and gear at a more rapid pace and making it easier to ramp up your alt characters for the fight ahead.
In addition to splitting out character and Paragon levels, we've revisited stats like Health, Armor, and Core Stats.
Developer’s Note: We’ve received player feedback stating that the numbers used to depict stats and damage have gotten out of control. We’ve adjusted stats in a way that makes the information more consumable. This change has no bearing on the strength of your character.
Developer’s Note: Much of what drove these changes was noticing that it was more fun to be able to control your difficulty and reward pacing using Profane Mindcages and Tormented versions of bosses.
World Tiers have been changed to Difficulties, a new way to control your challenge and reward. The first 4 Difficulties—known as Standard Difficulties—are Normal, Hard, Expert, and Penitent. The purpose of Standard Difficulties tiers is to temper your character while you strive to hit character Level 60, the new maximum.
As you accelerate in Difficulty, the amount of Gold and experience you earn will rise too. Here’s how to unlock each Difficulty:
Making it to the new Torment Difficulties is the mark of a veteran warrior—this is where the endgame truly begins. In Torment Difficulties, your progression is directly linked to the Pit. As you strive to higher Pit Tiers, the Torment Difficulty you have access to will also increase. The higher the Torment Difficulty, the more likely you are to encounter Legendary and Ancestral item drops. Here’s the breakdown of how to unlock each Torment Difficulty:
As if danger wasn’t abundant enough in Sanctuary, Torment Difficulties foster a new hazard: Curses. While playing in Torment Difficulties, your armor and Resistances are reduced as follows:
By adding more Difficulties and separating them out in this way, players now have increased choice in how they engage with the risk and reward style of Diablo IV going forward.
Monsters will no longer have their level displayed and will scale to the Difficulty you’re playing on.
Developer’s Note: We received feedback at launch about level scaling and feeling weak. By removing monster levels entirely and leaning into Difficulty, you now have the freedom to more precisely choose your challenge level.
Developer’s Note: There were a few issues with Paragon Glyphs, the Pit, and Nightmare Dungeons. We received feedback that the Pit rewards were feeling lackluster. We wanted to make the action of upgrading Glyphs more satisfying, while simultaneously offering better rewards for pushing deep into the Pit. Our desire was to give Glyphsmore power, but the Glyph upgrading experience system did not scale well and was needlessly grindy. So, to achieve this goal, we moved Paragon Glyphs upgrading out of Nightmare Dungeons and into the Pit, and also redesigned the system to give more control over how quickly Glyphs can be upgraded.
Glyphs have undergone a metamorphosis to better meld with the other changes we’ve made.
Every 20-level difference between the completed Pit Tier and Glyph Rank grants a bonus upgrade per attempt. Here’s an example of this system in action:
Three deathless Pit Tier 30 runs would take a Glyph all the way up to Rank 19, rapidly unlocking the additional Radius Size increase:
The maximum level of a Glyph has been increased from 21 to 100. At Level 45, a Rare Glyph can be upgraded to a Legendary Glyph using Gem Fragments with the following bonuses:
Each Class has received 1 new Paragon Board. These Paragon Boards each come with a new Legendary Node as well. Additionally, only 5 Paragon Boards can be equipped, including your starting board.
Developer’s Note: With the introduction of so many new sources of power, namely Legendary Glyphs, we wanted the focus to be more on which board and glyphs you want. By limiting the number of boards, we can inject more power into choices made within the system.
The number of Paragon Points that can be earned by leveling has increased from 200 to 300.
Developer’s Note: Limiting the number of Paragon Boards attached allows us to concentrate more of the power into the boards and Glyphs themselves. This puts more of the decision-making focus on boards and Glyphs that fit your build.
Developer’s Note: We felt Sacred and Ancestral Items lost their specialness and flair due to how common they became. These changes transform Ancestral items into mighty endgame items worth the chase.
Martial experts in Sanctuary have developed new techniques to vanquish darkness. Now you must learn them for yourself. Each of these Skills uncovers a new direction to take your Class build.
Refine your character into the ultimate agent of destruction with 5 new Passives for each Class. We’ve also added additional connections for some Passives in each Class’s Skill Tree. This means there are more avenues to unlock these Passives, allowing greater flexibility when leveling.
Outside of the 2.0 PTR, Runewords are a feature that can only be accessed if you have the Vessel of Hatred Expansion.
Runewords are a way to take your character’s power to a new level by creating your own abilities. There are two types of Runes you’ll find in Sanctuary: Ritual and Invocation. Runes of Ritual specify actions you must take to trigger them, and Runes of Invocation grant a powerful effect when you meet said trigger.
Let’s take the Bac Rune of Ritual as an example. Its condition is for your character to move 5 meters.
And then there’s the Jah Rune of Invocation. Its effect is: Replace your next Evade with the Sorcerer’s Teleport (2 sec cooldown).
Runes work off a resource system called Offering, which is generated by Runes of Ritual upon meeting their listed condition. Runes of Invocation consume this Offering to activate their effects. The more demanding of a requirement, the more Offering the Rune of Ritual will generate. On the inverse, the Offering requirement to activate a Rune of Invocation scales with the strength of its effect.
You may generate more Offering than is required to activate your Rune of Invocation. This is where another mechanic, Overflow, comes into play. Many Runes of Invocation apply a bonus to their effects when more Offering than requires is generated, cranking them up a notch briefly.
To make a Runeword, you must socket a Rune of Ritual and a Rune of Invocation into an item containing two Sockets, such as Chest, Leg, and Two-Handed weapon slots. The Helm slot has also received an additional Socket and can now house a Runeword. Any Rune of Ritual is compatible with any Rune of Invocation. Runes come in 3 rarities: Magic, Rare, and Legendary. The higher a Rune’s rarity, the more potent its effect will be.
Here’s an example of how two Runes formed into a Runeword would function:
Let’s use the Bac Rune of Ritual as an example again: While equipped, every 5 meters your character moves will generate 50 Offering.
And we’ll pair it again with the Jah Rune of Invocation, which has an effect of: Replace your next Evade with the Sorcerer’s Teleport (2 sec cooldown). Requires 500 Offering.
Having both the Bac and Jah Runes equipped to an item you’re wearing created the BacJah Runeword. It also means that every time your character travels 5 meters, they will generate 50 Offering. Once they have generated at least 500 Offering, their next Evade is replaced with the Sorcerer’s Teleport.
Runewords can give you access to Skills from other Classes. They can also do things like temporarily increase your Movement Speed, Skills, and more. There are 17 Runes of Ritual and 28 Runes of Invocation available. With a multitude of ways to pair them, the sky’s the limit. Here are the tooltips for all 45 Runes:
Keep these aspects about Runes in mind:
Runes can be used to craft other Runes.
Runes can also be used to craft Mythics at the Jeweler.
Runes of any rarity can be acquired throughout Sanctuary as a monster drop. For testing during the PTR, 2 caches containing each Rune can be acquired from the ‘PTR boost’ NPC located in Zarbinzet through a dialogue option. To give you enough time to experience everything the 2.0 PTR has to offer, Runes will not be available in the PTR until September 6. We cannot wait to see the formidable Runeword combinations you come up with during the PTR.
Party Finder is here to help you locate the right allies! This new feature allows you to find wanderers of a similar mettle within Sanctuary.
Party Finder gives you the ability to list the type of party you’re looking for, set what game type or activity you’d like to run, where you’d like to play, and add preferences for both casual and completionist players alike.
You can use Party Finder to list or find a party for multiple activities within Sanctuary: from slaying through Nightmare Dungeons, selecting Wings to complete in the Dark Citadel, and finding other players to share Materials to summon Endgame Bosses, to completing your Codex of Power. Party Finder can be accessed in a variety of ways, with quick access via the Map, in-game Menu, or through a pre-set action on your emote wheel.
We will have servers for PTR in our largest regions: North America, Europe, Korea and Japan, South America, and Australia. Characters on your account have been copied ahead of time to help prepare for the PTR, although some of their items may be out of date compared to how they are currently set up in-game. Once you log-in through Battle.net, your account will carry over the following account-based progress:
As many of the changes in this PTR are systematic, the following features will be offered to aid players in testing everything. At the Boost NPC in Kyovashad you can:
These commands can be ran all at once or individually. The Boost NPC will be available starting September 6. For the first bit of the 2.0 PTR, we want to be able to collect information and feedback about a player’s natural experience without any modifiers.
Your feedback on the changes you will see and experience in the PTR is important to us and is vital in ensuring the 2.0 PTR is the best it can be when it goes live in Diablo IV proper. If you participate in the PTR, please let us know what you think!
You can provide feedback through the in-game feedback tool or the Diablo IV PTR forums. Pressing the Esc key while in the in-game menu will bring up the Report a Bug menu. You can select the dropdown filter and select the In-game feedback tool to provide feedback without leaving the game.
Here are the steps to join the PTR:
If you’re a PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate user, you’ll be able to access the PTR through the same flow as other Battle Net users. Access the Battle Net client through the Xbox App, then continue to access the PTR through Battle Net.
Players may now enable Hybrid Targeting, a new feature that allows for proximity selection of interactables to be used when mouse movement is disabled. This is meant to assist with item selection in instances where cursor targeting could prove challenging.
Heir of Perdition - Mythic Unique Helm
Shroud of False Death - Mythic Unique Chest Armor
Shattered Vow - Mythic Unique Polearm
Elemental Surge Tempering Recipe has been split into two recipes
All class's Skill Trees have been updated to create new connections between nodes.
Mighty Throw - Weapon Mastery Skill - 12 second Cooldown
Ugly Bastard Helm - Unique Helm
Aspect of Shattering Steel - Offensive Aspect
Aspect of the Flaming Rampage - Offensive Aspect
Aspect of the Flaming Rampage - Offensive Aspect
Bleed Innovation – New Utility Recipe
Barbarian Breach – New Utility Recipe
Brute Innovation – New Utility Recipe
Core Augments – Barbarian New Weapon Recipe
Brawling Augments – New Weapon Recipe
Weapon Augments – New Weapon Recipe
Stone Burst - Earth Core Skill - 30 Spirit Cost
Stone of Vesten - Unique Totem
Aspect of the Agile Wolf - Utility Aspect
Aspect of the Rabid Bear - Offensive Aspect
Stormcrow's Aspect - Offensive Aspect
Aspect of Shattered Defenses - Offensive Aspect
Aspect of Anticline Burst - Offensive Aspect
Soulrift - Darkness Ultimate Skill - 50 second Cooldown
The Unmaker - Unique Helm
Reaping Lotus' Aspect - Offensive Aspect
Phasing Poltergeist's Aspect - Offensive Aspect
Aspect of Fel Gluttony - Offensive Aspect
Bone Innovation - New Utility Recipe
Blood Innovation - New Utility Recipe
Decay Innovation - New Utility Recipe
Execution Innovation - New Utility Recipe
Dance of Knives - Cutthroat Agility Skill - 6 Charges, 1 second Charge Cooldown
Pitfighter’s Gull - Unique Ring
Aspect of Poisonous Clouds: Offensive Aspect
Aspect of Splintering Shards: Offensive Aspect
Aspect of Star Shards: Offensive Aspect
Agile Augments - New Weapon Recipe
Assassin Augments - New Weapon Recipe
Warped Augments - New Weapon Recipe
Familiar - Conjuration Skill - 3 Charges, 12 second Charge Cooldown
Sidhe's Bindings - Unique Gloves
Aspect of Charged Flash - Offensive Aspect
Aspect of Elemental Constellation - Offensive Aspect
Aspect of Overheating - Offensive Aspect
Pyromancy Augments - Fiery - Weapon Recipe
Frozen Augments - Frozen - Weapon Recipe
Sorcerer Innovation - Utility Recipe
The following lists all the affixes now available for each Tempering recipe.
Wasteland Augments – Changed to a Utility recipe
Developer’s Note: Cataclysm was previously updated to be guaranteed to hit an enemy with its lightning strikes, if one is in range. We really like how much better the skill feels to use with this change! However, It turned out to be a bit overpowered. Now we’re limiting how frequently Cataclysm's lightning strikes can repeatedly hit the same target to ensure that other Ultimate Skills can still be a competitive option in single target situations. The damage of the lightning strikes is being increased to compensate.
Developer’s Note: Ursine Strength is one of the most popular Key Passives for Druids. It was designed with Werebear and or Overpower focused builds in mind. However, it is often being used in builds that have little interest in Werebear Skills or Overpower effects, simply because the 30%[x] Damage bonus while Healthy was generically powerful. We are reducing the power of this effect, while increasing the Maximum Health and Overpower damage bonuses to better support its Werebear and Overpower niche, and not be as generically appealing to other builds that it was not intended for.
All Weapon Tempering recipes have been updated with the following stats.
All Weapon Tempering recipes have been updated with the following stats.
All Weapon Tempering recipes have been updated with the following stats.
Tricks of the Trade Board
Meteorites from Aspect of Armageddon and Aspect of Shattered Stars now more consistently land around or on the enemies near the cast target.
All Weapon Tempering recipes have been updated with the following stats.
The following Shrines now scale off of Weapon Damage, similar to Skills.
All Unique items now have a single boss for target farming.
Developer’s Note: This was only possible on the eternal realm since the tempering recipe for additional ranks of these skills was removed in the Season of Infernal Hordes. The Damage Reduction from these passives is now capped at 80%, which requires 20 ranks of the skill.
lvl floor Developer’s Note: Call of the Ancients has been slightly rebalanced to compensate for this issue, dealing slightly less damage for low level Barbarians, and dealing slightly more damage for Barbarians with stronger late game gear.