Diablo 4 Plans To Make Items More Complicated Than Before

BlizzCon 2019 was a big one for Blizzard, for reasons both exciting and controversial. Nonetheless, one of the bigger announcements to come out of the keynote this year was the official reveal of Diablo 4. The isometric dungeon crawler is back, and Blizzard has been drip-feeding us updates ahead of its eventual release. This week, lead systems designer David Kim published a blog post detailing how items will work in Diablo 4.

First off, item affixes work a little differently from Diablo 3. They still provide you bonuses, like +20% to Fire Resistance, but now they depend on a new system of stats: Ancestral, Angelic, and Demonic powers. More Ancestral Power improves your chances of activating on-hit effects. More Angelic Power means a longer duration for helpful effects. And more Demonic Power does the same for harmful effects. So if you want that +20% Fire Resistance, you might need to hit a certain amount of Demonic Power.

Additionally, unlike Diablo 3, weapons will only affect your attack stats, while armor will only affect your defense stats. We know that sounds like an obvious statement, but the prior system was such that any piece of gear could affect nearly any stat. This might make Diablo 4 sound a little more streamlined, but the Ancestral, Angelic, and Demonic system adds far more customization and player choice than before.

Kim also revealed that Ancient Legendaries won't be making a return in the upcoming dungeon crawler. For the uninitiated, Ancient Legendaries were extremely rare, extra powerful versions of Legendary items. Diablo 4 instead will implement a system where players can farm for consumables that add new powers to existing Legendaries. So instead of grinding for a specific Ancient Legendary, you can take a Legendary you already like and modify it with all sorts of new buffs to complement your playstyle. Overall, the changes Blizzard seem to be making with Diablo 4 go for more player agency instead of ramping up the power curve.

Diablo 4 has no release date as of yet.