Earlier this week, Blizzard said 63% of all Diablo 4 players are spending their time with its newest class, the spiritborn. The other 37% of players who choose to play lesser classes are probably standing off to the side as their new sibling wipes out entire dungeons in seconds. It's rough out there for non-spiritborn players, but the next patch will at least make life at the bottom of the meta a little more fun.
Next Tuesday, Diablo 4 will drop a patch with some meaty buffs for its weakest classes. Some of them seem targeted at builds that have either been popular with players before or have yet to be more than a novelty. Rogues, for example, will get to return to using Twisting Blades, a skill where you stick your blades in monsters and have them return to you after a short delay, killing everything in their path. And sorcerers who have been patiently waiting for fire skills to have their time in the spotlight will be delighted to see huge improvements to Meteor and Incinerate.
None of the changes will boost the classes up enough to start dealing quadrillions of damage like the spiritborn can. Blizzard is leaving the bugs fueling the new class mostly untouched until the next season so players who have invested time into gearing their spiritborn won't feel robbed.
- Diablo 4 players pleasantly surprised to find the first boss of the new season is a challenge for once: 'it's nice to actually have to think and prepare for fights'
- Baldur's Gate 3's Patch 8 is so big, it needed its own patch before it even released, and we're one step closer to a Permanent Booming Blade Economy
Here's what next week's patch will look like for the other classes:
- Barbarians will be stronger overall, especially using their new Mighty Throw ranged skill
- Rogues will also be stronger overall, but most notably for close-range Twisting Blades builds and mid-range Rapid Fire builds
- Sorcerers will do significantly more damage across the board and might finally be able to make fire skills like Meteor and Incinerate work
- Druids will have some new build options with buffs to most of their important passive skills, but will largely play the same way
- Necromancers were already the top class aside from the ridiculously OP spiritborn, so they only have a few small improvements to their basic skills
As far as midseason patches go, this is actually a fairly light one. In past seasons, Blizzard would use midseason patches to make major changes to the season's new systems. A lot of those changes already happened with the release of the expansion. Even the balance changes are mostly number increases—vital ones, but nothing world-shattering.
Next week, Blizzard will detail what to expect in season 7, which it says will have some major new features. There were hints in the recent stream that one of them could finally allow you to swap between builds using a system similar to Diablo 3's armory. As someone who can't stop themselves from playing several builds and classes every season, I'm both excited and a little scared for what that'll do to my free time.
