We’re going to reveal five secret changes Blizzard made to Diablo 4 that they didn’t tell anyone about.

Change 1

Number one Obols cost of gloves and boots increased from 25 Obols to 40 Opals. That’s almost a 50% increase in the cost of gloves and boots. Now, this changes everything in terms of gambling strategies, but that wasn’t the only item that they changed the price on.

The Obols cost of rings has also been increased from 40 to 60. This is huge, and this means that gambling priority for items has shifted for searching for different types of Legendary Aspects.

For example, gloves are no longer the best item to gamble for offensive legendary aspects. Instead, you’re going to want to gamble for offhands because they have a 100% chance to be an offensive aspect. And out of all the items that can have an offensive aspect, they are the cheapest. So, it’s the perfect item for it.

We need to be purchasing the cheapest item as we can. Because the chances of getting a legendary is really low and the cost change to boots and gloves also makes them no longer the best option for gambling a utility aspect. Instead, you’ll want to purchase chest items, which are the new best option for finding utility aspects.

And with the price increase to ring, you actually have the exact same odds of finding a resource legendary aspect from a ring versus a helm because helms has three total aspects while rings have two possible. But they are more expensive. So, I tip my hat to the Diablo 4 team for rebalancing Obol costs for equal probability.

Change 2

Let’s move on to number two. Now gems in Diablo 4 got mostly nerfed. There is one exception to that rule, the diamond. When placed into a weapon, it actually gives almost double the amount of increased ultimate damage than before. Maybe it’s worth trying out if you can lower the cooldown of your ultimate with certain builds. Getting a diamond, your weapon could totally be worth it. Maybe you can choose Druid because they have the Spirit Boon. You can also choose Necromancer because if you go bone, you can reduce your ultimate skill as well.

You’ll have to do your calculations. But perhaps you do want to put a diamond in your weapon to increase your ultimate damage. That is the only buff. Now, there are several nerfs to all the other gems. The one consistent affix you could say that did not get nerfed is the resistances. Shadow resistances, poison, fire, cold, lightning...... those all remain the same, but almost every single gem or every single gem did in fact get a nerf. And I’m going to go through those nerfs very quickly.

First of all, the Damage Taken Over Time Reduction of the Amethyst was nerfed. The Barrier Generation of the Diamond was nerfed. If you put it into your armor, these are both armor slots and it was basically every single armor slot was nerfed and there were some other slots that also got nerfed to a lesser extent. Emeralds now give fewer Thorns when you put them in the armor.

Ruby was my plan for every single character. The bonus 2% life in the Ruby was actually nerfed. It was very strong before and you could get it up to 6%. Now, it’s down to 3%. So, you can’t increase your max life as much anymore. The Sapphire, when putting the armor slot percent, damage reduction well fortified that was nerfed severely went from four percent at crude to one percent. That’s a huge nerf. So, it’s a massive nerf to fortify if you’re going to get a Sapphire.

Then, the Topaz has actually had basic skill damage nerfed. I actually felt this during the beta. I love it because it used to be strong. Now, it’s much weaker. You don’t get as much basic skill damage, a bonus with the Topaz and the weapon. And then the percent damage reduction well control impaired. So, let’s say you get CC, you can reduce the damage you take while CC with a Topaz and the armor slot that was nerfed. The base level the crude is the same. But as you upgrade it, it does not give you as much.

Finally, with the Skull, if you put into a weapon got severely nerfed, the Life On Kill will be down to one-third of what it used to give. So, that’s a massive nerf. Actually, Skulls were nerfed all around every single one of them. No matter what slot you put, the Skull got nerfed, the increased healing received was nerfed as well on the skull and then the jewelry you would get armor and that armor is reduced as well.

So, all around the Skull got completely slammed. Every single one of its potential bonuses was reduced. So, those are the nerfs that happen to the gems. Then, don’t forget, the ultimate percent ultimate damage with diamond and weapon actually got buffed, the one exception to the rule.

Change 3

Moving on to number three. The third hidden change to Diablo 4 that we discovered during the Server Slam weekend is that you can no longer reduce the level requirement of items.

You can apply in a Legendary Aspect to an item. You could reduce its level apply in a legendary aspect to an item and you could reduce its level requirement back in the open beta. But you can no longer do that and this was a sort of bug slash exploit type of thing. I don’t think it was intended to be this way.

So, the Diablo 4 Developer Team basically fixed it and you can’t lower the level requirement of items anymore in Diablo 4 through that method.

Change 4

Moving on to number four, we learned from a Diablo 4 developer that Osgar Reede, the level 35 mob that was everyone’s favorite, won’t be dropping loot other than his special rare mace anymore, plus Diablo 4 Gold and crafting materials.

The developers continued by saying that those special rare monsters having a regular loot table were not intentional. So, that very popular farming spot is now dead for the foreseeable future.

This was also something that was very exploited: characters could basically die to Osgar Reede. Then just not resurrect go AFK and then come back in a few minutes. And Osgar Reede would have respawned, players would have killed him again. There would just be a ton of loot waiting for them to just basically come back to.

So, I think it’s a good thing that they fixed this. Because players won’t do that anymore since he only has a very specific loot table to get that rare mace and nothing else. So, it won’t be as valuable to do something like that. And people aren’t going to be farming it like crazy like they did in the past beta.

Change 5

Let’s move on to tip number five.

I don’t know if you checked this out. But loot from the corpses that you could flip over to check for items in Kor Dragan had an absolutely insanely high legendary drop rate. I went up to Kor Dragan, and I was getting roughly one legendary per run through. You just run through there to avoid the mobs. Don’t even worry about clearing the infestation there. Just start flipping over the corpses and you actually can find legendaries extremely easily.

Now, I got one legendary per run through. I did two runs and got two legendaries, and I just couldn’t believe it. There’s no guarantee that you can use these legendaries because, in fact, I did find a legendary that I could not use. So, it was a kind of useless because even if you try to extract a legendary aspect from an item, that is unusable. That legendary aspect itself will have the item level requirement of that item as well.

Diablo 4 Developer Team share that same item level requirement, making it unusable. But it was an absolutely insane drop chance. I did find another one I could use, but I am assuming that this will probably be fixed for the live release. I don’t imagine they want players to just never capture Kor Dragan and to just farm these corpses.

So far, as far as the problems I have encountered, Blizzard has not made timely adjustments. Whether these issues will be fixed when Diablo 4 is officially released is unknown. Therefore, all we can do is wait quietly.

I believe many players know that Diablo 4 Server Slam has already started. You may recall that we saw elite level 35 players in the far west of Fractured Peaks area, where there were many people farming high-level loot. Because we’ve stayed at level 25. But now things have changed a bit. We will never find this person again.

In fact, as far as I know, he doesn’t even drop anything, so you get nothing there, but one might still want to be the most powerful character. So I have some new ideas for you.

The Key To Leveling In Server Slam

I’ve been thinking about how we level up to level 20 and the key to the most efficient way to level up in Server Slam. We need some other strategies.

Some people really enjoy farming this level 30 mob in the Gathering Legions event, but as far as I can tell, they only show up every once in a while. So you can go there, but you have to clear a quarter of the gun stronghold for it.

So overall, it’s going to be really hard to actually finish a stronghold because the bosses are so powerful. However, if you’re feeling confident enough and want to get higher-level loot, you can try farming the same dungeon over and over again.

You may recall that Anica’s Claim dungeon used to be one of the valid ways to open dungeons, but that doesn’t work anymore, either. Because Blizzard has removed the reset dungeon button, the way the dungeon is loaded now is that you have to leave the dungeon for a while.

Although they don’t specify, I think it can take up to three minutes if you haven’t finished the dungeon yet. Then the time is much shorter. But it still takes a minute, and you know it takes about a minute between dungeon runs to get something done.

Related: Diablo 4: 5 Tips For Beating Ashava During Server Slam!

Find The Best Dungeons And Events

You can know to complete Mastery objective to get more rewards. But there is little chance of getting Legendary items there. That way they can try to make whatever build you want.

So I’ve been looking around the complete map and just picking dungeons and events, trying to find the best spots where we can combine both at the same time. This way you can complete a dungeon and go out and do an event.

To the southeast of Fractured Peaks, there is a very simple dungeon, Dead Man’s Dredge dungeon. It ends up having no real boss. So it’s easy to do in any situation, even if your single target has low damage and has an event in front of the door.

Of course, you can also use the downtime between dungeon runs to unlock Town Portal, and maybe you can find some rare items to help you level up or a rich Diablo 4 Gold. So that’s obviously an option, and if you don’t like Dead Man’s Dredge dungeon, you can do another dungeon, maybe with some variations.

You can find a Lost Archives dungeon in the far southwest, and there’s an event on the opposite side. Those are basically the two destinations where I think it makes sense for you to execute this strategy. But it’s probably the best way to equip and even upgrade.

How To Level The Fastest?

I think running this dungeon over and over as fast as possible and then completing events in the middle might also result in some of the fastest upgrades. This might not be the best way to do it, since when only running one dungeon, there is a minute or two of downtime between runs.

So I definitely want to try combining it with Legendary items. It only takes an hour, and you get some free Legendary items as well.

At this point, you’re around level 11 or 12. You can complete your Renown over the course of a Codex of Power collected from various dungeons. If you want to prepare yourself for facing Ashava, this is probably the best way to get here.

The above is my level process in Server Slam and the summed up skills. I hope it can be helpful to you. Finally, I wish you the best of luck in Server Slam.

As we all know, Diablo 4 Server Slam is about to begin. And this time around we have the regular legend drop rate, no longer the booster drop rate we saw in the open beta.

An important detail of leveling up new characters in Diablo 4 is unlocking Occultist NPC. If you plan on leveling up your Alts, this guide might save you from a lot of unnecessary item swaps and waste Diablo 4 Gold.

No one knows exactly what this means right now, but it’s safe to say that Occultist will become more important than ever. Players will not be able to kill Occultist with one shot, and once killed successfully, it can be used to extract Infrared Legendary Items. Players can even craft three Legendary Aspects there by completing Codex of Power, which is unlocked in certain dungeons.

The problem though is that Occultist doesn’t actually unlock until level 25. But the highest level in Server Slam is only level 20. So unless you get a Codex of Power, that actually unlocks Cultist Refuge even at lower levels.

Almost everyone has at some point completed at least some dungeon quests and encountered Occultist here. But if you try to make multiple characters and you want to level them up, you need to try again with different patches for different classes and things like that. You’ll realize that if you complete all the dungeon quests on your first character, you won’t be able to access Cultist Refuge on your Alt.

Related: 5 Tips For Beating Ashava During Diablo 4 Server Slam!

I can recommend the world map tool here, where you can filter the various things you can find in World of Sanctuary, at least for Fractured Peaks so far.

You can click on dungeons and Legendary Aspects, and then you can easily see which aspect comes from which dungeon before the service time actually goes live. You can also see it in-game on your Cultist. If you’re not going to play a certain class, you can leave those dungeon quests out while you’re doing your Renown, and just do some other dungeon quests.

This might actually give your dominant class some extra boost. You’ll need to complete at least you know a new dungeon quest that unlocks Occultist so you can visit that NPC.

Now this is not actually necessary. I think in most cases you can also keep all your items in your stash. Then go to your Carlos character and you’ll know what the extract is. I think it’s definitely worth your knowing, to save yourself a headache. Just remember how many dungeons you have.

During the past Beta weekend, many players were expecting their old characters to be kept. Because you know how annoying it is to run out there with another character and do the same thing over and over again. But I can no longer unlock Occultist early until we complete all dungeons.

We need to complete the famous level 3 dungeon quest to get a second skill point that you might want to unlock. But you don’t need to clear all the dungeons, you can also do some side quests, you can explore Alts and some new dungeons. You can, like most people, have somewhere ready to face challenges at any time.

The above is the complete process of my Diablo 4 Server Slam leveling Alts. Hope this helps and saves you from giving yourself too much headache when leveling Alts. I wish you a pleasant gaming experience.

Diablo 4 has decided to run what is essentially a second beta for the game on May 12th running through May 14th called the Server Slam. Now, this is technically not a second beta. However, it’s going to operate much in a similar manner to a beta, allowing players to play from May 12th to May 14th and you don’t have to pre-purchase the game in order to play. It seems that the focus here though is not on beta testing the game, but on rather stressing the servers to see how they can handle the load.

Diablo 4 Server Slam Platforms

Players will be able to play on PC, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 with couch Co-op for consoles being a thing as well as cross play and cross progression available for all platforms Server Slam Progress.

Server Slam Progress

A couple of important points about this Server Slam is that all progression made during the early beta period from previous beta will not be carried over, meaning that you’ll have all new characters. You’ll have to start over and that the level cap this time around is capped at level 20 instead of 25, so you will not be able to gain additional points past level 20. 

On top of this, the legendary item drop rate has been changed to reflect the actual drop rate present at the launcher Diablo 4. What this means is that you’re not going to be having happy fountains of loot like you were legendary wise from the open beta. So, we’ll get a better idea of how rare these legendary items actually are. We will also know exactly how much Diablo 4 Gold we will earn.

Diablo 4 Server Slam Changes

Now, it’s also important to note that there have been some changes to the game that were taken from the feedback from the open beta. There are a couple of the things I want to mention here. 

First, the dungeon layouts have a lot of dungeons in the game where you needed to backtrack have been updated in order to remove a lot of this backtracking. This was seen as a very big pain point for me during the beta and a lot of other players, so you should have a lot less backtracking in some of the dungeons.

Besides, you’ll also have a higher chance for random events to spawn inside dungeons that has this has increased from 10% to 60%, so you should see a lot more cool things happening in these dungeons as you play through them.

Related: Best And Worst Things About Diablo 2, Diablo 3 & Diablo 4

General Changes

There are a couple of important general points. Now Stun and Freeze can be applied to Elite monsters for twice as long as before, but then they become unstoppable, meaning that they are no longer going to be CC, so you’re going to adjust the way that your CC plays, which is interesting.

They’ve also done a change to the Legendary Powers of the game. Found on these legendary items, there have been updates to their effectiveness. Obviously, we’re not sure exactly what those are. We’ll have to see what those are as the game goes. But this is a big change and I think players will be interested to see how that plays out.

Barbarian Changes

There are class specific changes as well. 

For instance, the Barbarian has a 10% passive reduction added to their class. This means they’re just going to take less damage than other classes, which is exactly what they need since they’re the tank character.

Other changes to it are that Whirlwind now deals more damage, but consumes more Fury, making it more viable and the Double Swing skill enhancement refunds its full Fury costume used on stunner knockdown enemies.

Druid Changes

When it comes to the Druid Companion Skills, we’ll now deal heavily increased damage. I can’t wait to see the Vine Creeper. This ability was already busted. I’m hoping it’s even more busted.

All Ultimate Skills have had their cooldowns reduced. I didn’t really use Ultimate Skills much on the Druids. This is good to see. Usability improvements have been made to mall and pulverize hopefully that make like a Werebear a little easier and using a non-shapeshifting skill will transform Druid back into their human form instantly.

Necromancer Changes

When it comes to the Necromancer, a nerf here is summon minions will die more often. They were tanky as hell in Diablo 4, so this was probably a good change.

Many bonuses in the Book of Dead have had their stats increased, so Book of Dead is going to impact your character and your minions a little more.

The damage dealt by Corpse Explosion skill has been reduced, who could have seen that one coming. And the brightness of the Skeletal Warriors and Mages has been reduced. I guess this means that it’d be harder to see them on the screen, which probably makes it better to see what else is happening on the screen. 

Rogue Changes 

Rogue changes are the upgrades for Subterfuge Skills have had their bonuses increased.

Multiple passive skills have had their bonuses increased and all Imbuement Skills and have their cooldowns increased. You should not be able to use Imbuements as often with everything else about the Rogue or not everything. But a lot of things else about the Rogue should be improved.

Sorcerer Changes

When it comes to Sorcerer, Charged Bolt’s damage was increased and the Mana cost to cast has been decreased to make you want to use this more.

Chain Lightning got a bit of nerf and its damage was reduced and its effectiveness against bosses was also reduced. This is one we used in our Immortal Lightning build. I am not surprised that this got nerfed. It’s very strong. 

The cooldown for the Incinerate Skill’s enchantment bonus has been reduced to making that more viable. 

Firewall will now spawn underneath enemies more frequently when using its enchantment bonus. This makes it more viable.

Also, they increase the lucky hit chance for the Meteor Skill’s enchantment bonus. So, basically, these are some improvements to other areas of the Sorcerer and a big nerfing to Chain Lightning. 

My Thoughts

All in all, I think these are some good changes things that are heading in the right direction. It’s good to see they took feedback from that open beta and already implemented it and we get to see how they’ve implemented and give further feedback to see if they are enough changes or not enough changes. In my opinion, these are all really good signs. Transparency is always good and getting feedback from players implemented is fantastic.

Now, I really want to see how the servers handle this whether there’s going to be login issues or whether we’re getting the rubber banding, we were getting during the open beta, particularly when leaving the city or loading into certain parts of the map where it seemed like it was loading into that area. I can’t wait to see how these changes have impacted the game in just like one month’s time already. Hopefully, it’ll be much improved and it’ll give us a much clearer picture of how things should be in June.