Diablo IV to test major system updates to itemization, monster combat and more ahead of Season 11

Updates to Diablo IV, focusing on major system updates to itemization, monster combat, an invasion of the Lesser Evils, and more, will be tested ahead of the launch of Season 11 on the 2.5.0 Public Test Realm (PTR) from Oct. 21, 2025, 10:30 a.m. PDT, to Oct. 28, 2025, 11 a.m. PDT.

The game’s publisher and developer Blizzard Entertainment posted the detailed plan of changes on the game’s official website on Oct. 16, 2025.

Tempering & Masterwork Chanages

Tempering is no longer randomly applied, allowing players to select which specific affix to utilize on an item from a Tempering Recipe. Items can only have one tempered affix, and Tempering Charges can be restored indefinitely.

As for Masterworking, it no longer increases an item’s affix values; instead, it improves the Quality of an item, which gives a bonus to the base damage, armor, or resistance of the item.

Items can be Masterworked to a maximum Quality threshold of 20. Each time players Masterwork the item, it adds a random amount of Quality to the item (from 2-5 levels). Once at maximum Quality, players can roll it one last time for a Capstone bonus.

This Capstone bonus upgrades a random non-greater affix on the item into a Greater Affix. Players can then choose to re-roll the Masterworked Greater Affix, without resetting Masterworking Quality. Re-rolling the current Masterworked Affix will cost Obducite and Neathiron.

Sanctification with power from The High Heavens

Sanctification will bring the fraction of power from The High Heavens in the upcoming Season. This featuer will allow players to imbue power of the Angels into their items.

Sanctifying an item has the chance to apply a bonus Legendary power, improve an Affix into a Greater Affix, add a bonus Affix from a pool of special Sanctification affixes, replace an existing Affix with a random Sanctification affix, or make an item indestructible, preventing it from losing durability. Notably, Sanctifying makes items unmodifiable, ending their journey, so it should be the last upgrade players make to their items.

Monster Combat Evolved

Monsters’ behavior and tactics will be improved in the upcoming season, so they will better react and adapt to combat, becoming more dynamic in how they respond to players’ characters.

Monster affixes will become more powerful, making them more necessary to deal with before moving on to other less important enemies. Meanwhile monster packs will group up less, making them harder to take out in one fell swoop.

On top of that, champion enemy rarity has been reworked to form champion packs.

As for the elite enemies, there will be over 20 new monster affixes to learn and conquer. Elites from now on will spawn with minions that inherit some of their affixes.

These changes apply to all monsters across Sanctuary.

Defense Overhaul: Introducing Toughness

A new stat called Toughness, which represents the total amount of raw damage of each type a character can take after considering all damage mitigation sources, will be added to the game.

Toughness will be displayed under a character’s stats, beneath Attack Power, with its value summarizing the character’s average defense against each damage type.

Besiedes that Armor and Resistances will both become rating systems, with diminishing returns at higher values.

A new type of Damage Resistance, Physical Damage, will be introduced in the upcoming season, as armor now reduces all damage taken, both Physical and Non-Physical.

The Armor and Resistance penalties per Torment Tiers have been removed.

Skills and Paragon Nodes are being reworked with these changes in mind, so Paragon Nodes and Skills that provided various form of Damage Reduction now grant a multiplicative bonus to your armor or all resistances.

Healing & Potions Updates

• Base Potion capacity has been reduced to 4 (regardless of previous Renown progress).
• Potion healing is now an instant, percentage based heal. Using a Potion heals you for 35% of your total Health immediately on use.
• In addition to the regular Potion pick up, character will also slowly regenerate a Potion every 30 seconds.
• Life on Hit has been improved and re-added as a potential affix.
• Values for Life Regeneration, Life on Kill, Healing % will be increased.
• Healing Potion upgrades have been removed considering Potions are now a portion of your overall Health.

Fortify Re-design

To work in tandem with the changes to Healing and Potions, Fortify is shifting from a type of Damage Reduction to an additional reservoir of Life that’s drained to heal you over time.

• When you now gain Fortify, it will stack up to your Maximum Life. When you have Fortify under Maximum Life, you’ll heal for a percentage of your Maximum Life per second in exchange for an equal amount of Fortify.
• You will be considered Fortified as long as you have any amount of Fortify.
• Specific changes to Skills, Passives, and items related to Fortify are detailed in the 2.5.0 PTR Patch notes found at the bottom of this blog.

Lesser Evils

Monster called Lesser Evils will invade in the Seasonal Realm, each of them dominating a different game mode, Duriel in Helltide, Belial in The Pit, Andariel in the Kurast Undercity. Azmodan stalks across Sanctuary, appearing as a formidable new World Boss in multiple locations.

In addition to appearing as one of the World Bosses that can appear, in an area just south of Zarbinzet, Azmodan can also be summoned at will. You’ll find three Summoning Altars to call Azmodan forth. Each Summoning Altar will invoke Azmodan with powers from one of the other three Lesser Evils.

Divine Gifts

In the upcoming Season, the Angel Hadriel has returned to Sanctuary to grant rare boons in the fight against the newly returned Lesser Evils, a fraction of the power the High Heavens possess which manifest as Divine Gifts.

Each Divine Gift has three components: a Reward, a Corrupted Gift, and Purified Gift.

• Within the Divine Gifts panel within your inventory, Divine Gifts can be slotted in the interior to activate the Purified Gift, or the exterior to activate the Corrupted Gift.
• When slotted, the Divine Gift will activate the reward bonus associated with each gift, increasing the rewards for that specific Divine Gift.
• Corrupted Gifts will make each activity they relate to more difficult, but still grant the reward bonus on the Divine Gift.
• Purified Gifts remove the negative affect, add a positive effect, and double the Reward gained.
• Each Corrupted Gift slots are unlocked automatically. Progress through the Seasonal Reputation board to unlock the Purified Gift slots found for the Divine Gifts.

Killing a Lesser Evil for the first time drops their Corrupted Essence. Returning this Essence to Hadriel will unlock the two Divine Gifts associated with that Lesser Evil. Players will be able to find Essences of different types including Essence of Pain, Essence of Squalor, Essence of Lies, Essence of Shadows, Essence of Sin, Essence of Hellfire, Essence of Anguish and Essence of Screams.

The dark fantasy action RPG Diablo IV is set in the world of Sanctuary, during a time when, after the defeat of the demon lords, the resurrected Mephisto’s daughter Lilith seeks to reshape the world through chaos, aiming to free Sanctuary from both the High Heavens and the Burning Hells, placing humanity at the center of the conflict.

In order to stop Lilith’s plans, players can create a hero of one of six playable classes: Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Spiritborn, with Paladin rumored to join in the future.

Diablo IV is playable on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

In its first five days after launch on June 5, 2023, Diablo IV earned $666 million, becoming Blizzard Entertainment’s fastest-selling title at that time. As of September 2024, the game has generated over $1 billion in revenue since its release, with this figure including approximately $150 million from in-game microtransactions.