The Diablo 4 1.1.0 patch notes are finally live, and one of the biggest global changes is tucked away in a developer's note acknowledging that Vulnerable is so good that it feels mandatory.
Mosey on down to the item affixes portion of the big Diablo 4 Season 1 patch and you'll see that Blizzard reckons "many Affixes are too efficient and are outshining alternatives," which is putting it mildly. With the first seasonal patch, Blizzard's trying to hammer down the outliers and bring up ignored build options, and Vulnerable, which is widely regarded as a must-have for nearly all top-tier builds, is a lynchpin here.
"We're seeing Critical Strike Damage and Vulnerable Damage often viewed as a hard requirement for a build's success in Diablo 4," Blizzard agrees. "We believe this is a step towards allowing more builds to flourish and will continue to make changes in support of this goal."
To that end, today's patch notes have made the following changes to affixes:
- Critical Strike Damage: Reduced by ~17%
- Lightning Critical Strike Damage: Reduced by ~17%
- Critical Strike Damage with Bone, Earth, Imbued, and Werewolf Skills: Reduced by ~17%
- Vulnerable Damage: Reduced by ~40%
- Critical Strike Damage (Inherent on Swords): Reduced by ~50%
- Vulnerable Damage (Inherent on Crossbows): Reduced by ~65%
Other Diablo 4 affix nerfs include core stat bonuses on weapons, cooldown reduction, and damage to crowd controlled enemies. Overall, Blizzard says it's also deliberately "shifting power to many offensive Affixes from defensive Affixes" to make it more difficult to fight monsters above your level. Blizzard says it "wants to support" punching above your level, "but the current situation is beyond what we believe is correct for the long-term health of the game."
Fortunately, these many nerfs are offset by a raft of Affix buffs benefiting things like:
- Raw damage (physical, fire, etc.) and damage over time
- Damage with specific weapons
- Skill damage types (Companion, Werewolf, Cutthroat, etc.)
- Attack Speed and damage after dodging an attack
It wasn't in the patch notes, but it looks like a new Diablo 4 uber boss is on the way.
