Sorcerers and druids have had a rough time competing with Diablo 4's other classes even though Blizzard has improved almost everything else about the game. Both of them fall behind the others when it comes to raw power, and their most effective builds are not as fun. But in season 5, which starts next week, sorcerers and druids are getting loads of buffs to help them out before Blizzard takes a more comprehensive look at them after the expansion's release in October.
To start, Blizzard is solving the boss problem. In season 5, all endgame bosses will have considerably less health, and those in The Pit, a series of brutal dungeons made to be the ultimate test of your build, will have their damage reduced by a massive 66%. While these nerfs will obviously help everyone, sorcerers and druids now won't feel quite as pigeonholed into specific builds to survive the hardest fights in the game.
Unique items will add variety too. Blizzard has reworked almost every single one to feel essential for the builds they're made to enable. It'll be much harder to use a normal legendary item over a unique that transforms your favorite skill. The renewed Flameweaver gloves, for example, expand the size of a sorcerer's firewall so it's easier to shoot fire bolts through them, which splits them into three bolts for double the normal damage. Instead of giving you a bunch of small damage boosts, uniques reinforce a specific playstyle so using them actually feels different.
That's the main theme of the new uniques: they should make you play your class differently than a normal item as long as you build around them. Blizzard may have gone too far with the buffs to some of them, but, as we've learned over the last year, it's better to start too strong than too weak. Nobody wants to jump into a fresh season with a bunch of mediocre new toys to play with.
Here are some of the biggest reasons sorcerers and druids won't be left behind in season 5:
- Sorcerers' main core and mastery skills are all 15% to 20% stronger
- Sorcerers are encouraged to blend different elements to trigger a whopping 80% buff to their damage with the new version of a popular unique ring
- Druids won't need a whole item to make one of their ultimate's lighting strikes actually target enemies
- Druids' shred-focused unique has a new stat that allows its powerful effect to finally work against bosses
There are even more buffs to both of them listed in the patch notes, but they aren't quite as beneficial as the ones above. Even though Blizzard ran a short playtest last month, none of us had a chance to use the reworked uniques, so I expect players to start sharing clever new builds once the season starts.
Season 5 could've been Diablo 4's quietest season, especially with the expansion on its way in two months, but Blizzard put in a lot of work to fix things players have been asking about. In addition to a whole new wave-based endgame mode called Infernal Hordes, the leveling process will be even faster, uniques will be easier to find, and spamming bosses for the coveted mythic uniques won't force you to sit through a loading screen every time you summon one. In many ways, season 5 feels like a part two of the massively successful overhaul in season 4.
Diablo 4 season 5 launches on August 6.
