Diablo 4 patch notes 1.1.0a: pre-season 1 update

Diablo 4's big pre-season patch brings better loot, but bad news for Sorcerers

Blizzard Entertainment has released a huge patch for Diablo 4 in preparation for the game’s first season of content, the Season of the Malignant. The patch contains a host of buffs and nerfs for every starting class, some very helpful bonuses for players about to start new characters for the new season, and a big change to enemy scaling.

The full Diablo 4 1.1.0a patch notes are massive, with dozens of bug fixes and hundreds of minute changes to damage values, ability effects, and more. But who’s got time to read all that? We’ve gone through and picked out the biggest changes in Diablo 4’s 1.1.0a patch notes.

Make sure to check out the best builds for Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, Rogue, and Sorcerer on videogames.si.com to level the right skills as your power grows.

Diablo 4 1.1.0a: Class buffs and nerfs

Most classes in Diablo 4 have had buffs to some of their skills and item aspects, but some have fared far better than others. The Druid, for example, has had its most powerful ability Cataclysm buffed significantly, with the duration increased and Lightning and Tornado damage pumped up by a very healthy chunk.

Sorcerers get the short end of the stick in version 1.1.0, with a huge nerf to their best ability

Sorcerers on the other hand have taken a pretty big hit to one of its key skills. Devouring Blaze, a passive skill that’s key to many late-game Sorcerer builds, is popular for its increase to critical strike damage and damage to immobilized enemies. Unfortunately for Sorcerers, the critical strike damage boost has been scaled back a little bit, and the bonus to immobilized enemies has been more than halved. This is devastating to Sorcerer builds, as the class is already one of the weaker classes in the game, and Devouring Blaze made it significantly more viable.

Diablo 4 1.1.0a: World changes

Blizzard has changed a bunch of details related to world tiers, including how enemies will scale against the player level, and the bonuses given out in some of the lower tiers. World tier 2 in particular now drops 20% more gold than world tier 1, up from 15% previously, and monsters will drop 15% more items. Blizzard says the increase is to “better align” the tier’s rewards with its difficulty, which is a good thing, since there wasn’t much reason to move up a tier before now.

Enemies in world tiers 3 and 4 now start to trail behind the player once they reach a certain level, up to 5 levels behind. This doesn’t apply to high-level activities like nightmare dungeons and world bosses, but there are some bonuses for that too. Defeating monsters that are a higher level than your character now gives up to 25% more experience, while the experience awarded for completing whispers has also been significantly increased.

Diablo 4 1.1.0a: Quality of life changes

Of course, with every Diablo 4 patch comes some smaller changes to quality of life, although 1.1.0a has brought some bigger changes than prior patches. Altar of Lilith unlocks and map discovery are now both account-wide, meaning when you start new characters for season 1 you’ll have all of that available from the get-go. Renown awarded for side quests and dungeons has been increased, and will apply retroactively to characters who’ve already completed these things.

Silent chests will now drop significantly better loot, which is a huge boon for anyone who spent their precious obols on keys for them, and the channeling time for leaving a dungeon has been increased a little bit so you don’t accidentally leave early. Barbarians get a nice little buff in these quality of life changes too, as a bunch of monsters have had their behavior changed to make them easier to hit with melee attacks.

Diablo 4’s first season is set to launch tomorrow, on July 20, 2023, on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, and PS5.