Diablo 4 season 8 is all about bosses, Blizzard has revealed in a new Campfire livestream.
The biggest season 8 highlight revealed today is the return of the fan-favorite Diablo 3 boss, Belial, otherwise known as the Lord of Lies, otherwise known as the freaky dragon-looking boss fight that happens during the final quest of Diablo 3's third act - you know, the one that probably wrecked you so hard that you had to lower the difficulty.
True to form, Belial is coming to Diablo 4 as the pinnacle fight on the boss ladder, meaning he'll be an even tougher fight than Duriel and Andariel. He'll offer the "highest challenge" and "highest reward" Diablo 4's endgame has to offer, Blizzard said in today's livestream. Meanwhile, Vessel of Hatred DLC characters Urivar and the Harbinger of Hatred are also being added to the lower rungs of the boss ladder.
Blizzard is also making some pretty significant changes to Diablo 4's boss ladder generally. Chiefly, the season 8 update will make endgame bosses free to summon. They'll drop a lot less loot alongside a Hoard chest where most of your rewards will be locked up. You'll need a Lair Key, which is just the old summoning material you'd normally use to summon the boss, to open the chest and reap the rewards from the fight.
Furthermore, everyone in your party will need their own Lair Key to open their loot chest, but Blizzard said there will be a 33% increased chance of an extra unique with each additional party member. These changes were in response to feedback saying some players "would jump into a party, have a member of their party pay the material cost to summon a boss, kill the boss to earn the rewards, then leave the party."
Another big new mechanic coming in season 8 are boss powers, which you can collect from bosses you kill and add 'em to your build. You'll be able to collect boss powers from all 24 World, Event, and Lair encounters. Each boss power has two effects, a main and a modifier, and you can add up to one main and three modifier powers to your Power Slot at a time.
You'll be able to test out and provide feedback on all of these changes and more in the upcoming 2.2.0 PTR, which runs from March 11-18. For all the nitty gritty details, check out the full patch notes here.
Meanwhile, here's our guide to the Diablo 4 Goblin event and how to claim rewards.
