The glory days of the Spiritborn's utter dominance in Diablo 4 may be about to be over, but it's looking like the new class will still be among the strongest.
Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment.
We pretty much know everything there is to know about Diablo 4’s Season of Witchcraft, the game’s upcoming seventh season. Blizzard recently revealed all the new content, and major changes coming to the game with the new season.
Last night, the Diablo team hosted its first livestream of the year to dig a little deeper into some of the finer details on class balance, gameplay tweaks, and many of the updates made since the December PTR.
Class rebalance is always one of the most interesting aspects about any new Diablo 4 season. Season of Witchcraft is no different, and it’s especially true in this case because it's the first season where the new Spiritborn class is going to see a few major changes.
The Spiritborn is the class introduced with the Vessel of Hatred expansion. Its launch coincided with the start of Season 6, so the class hadn’t yet spent enough time in players’ hands to justify any big changes to how it plays.
Once people started playing with it, however, it became clear that it was far and away that season’s most powerful class. Even setting aside the silly exploits players took advantage of early on (before they got fixed), the sheer power of the Spiritborn’s various builds simply put it a tier above the rest.
Rather than alter that meta in the middle of the season, Blizzard decided to allow players to have their fun with the Spiritborn, but warned that much of what players relied on to create their room-clearing builds will be adjusted in Season 7.
Well, we’re now days away from the end of Season 6 and the beginning of Season 7, and the Spiritborn has indeed had much of its power stripped away. The only surprise? It’s still looking like one of the most powerful classes!
The Spiritborn was already strong in the patch 2.1 PTR, and Blizzard hasn’t made major changes to that iteration - apart from fixing some unintended synergies that caused the power spikes of Season 6. That said, Razor Wings builds will have a new Unique to play with, as well as a new Aspect that should make that build more viable.
On the opposite end of that, the Sorcerer has emerged as the weakest class in the Season 7 PTR, so Blizzard buffed a bunch of its passives. Searing Heat, and Icefall are two Legendary Paragon nodes that got some love, too, mainly to make them compatible with a wider range of builds. Sorcerers are also getting two Uniques this season that seem to be designed for lightning builds.
Elsewhere in the patch, other classes have seen a few tweaks of their own. The Druid has seen what could be its most impactful change yet. The class’ early game has traditionally been characterised by a slow regeneration of resource. Season 7 smoothes out that curve, in part thanks to some updates to Spirit Boon. Blurred Beast has been reworked (again) to help with shred builds, too.
The Barbarian’s Hammer of the Ancients has been buffed yet again, which should nicely complement the power enabled by the new Unique chest added to the game - for all your earthquake build needs. Whirlwind has also seen some numeric buffs.
For all the nitty gritty details, check out the 2.1.0 patch notes on the official blog. Season of Witchcraft begins Tuesday, January 21.
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