Diablo 4’s next patch buffs Barbarians, Sorcerers, and boss health
After Diablo 4’s massive season 1 patch — which shook the game up a little too much for most players — Blizzard previewed another patch (1.1.1) that would give a boost to the game’s weakest classes. And while the patch itself won’t be out until Aug. 8, Blizzard published the full patch notes on Wednesday, and they include a lot more than buffs for the Barbarian and Sorcerer.
The biggest changes in this patch aren’t actually angled toward a specific class, and instead focus on monster density. Nightmare Dungeons and the Helltide activity will include a significantly increased number of monsters once the patch goes live. While that might sound like a bad thing, or an increase in difficulty, this is actually a major buff to player XP. Most builds in Diablo 4 can mow down large groups of enemies with a single click, and adding more just means that each spell cast nets you more XP and more rewards.
The catch to the increased monster density change, is that it also comes with an increase in boss health. All bosses above level 60 will have a little extra health come Aug. 8. At level 80, that increase is +50%, and at level 150 it’s up to +150%.
Most Nightmare Dungeon bosses go down very quickly in Diablo 4, and have since the game launched in June. As a result, most endgame builds focus on rapidly clearing groups of enemies, rather than burning down one big target. This increase to boss health promises to be one of the biggest shifts in the game’s meta since launch, as players will almost certainly need to shift away from pure area-of-effect builds like the Barbarian’s Whirlwind or the Druid’s Pulverize, which already do abysmal boss damage.
To compensate for their increased difficulty, all boss-tier monsters over level 35
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