Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred Welcome Back Guide - ALL Changes Since Launch
Oct. 6, 2024Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred Welcome Back Guide – ALL Changes Since Launch
In thisDiablo 4 Vessel of Hatred WELCOME BACK Guide, we’re going to be bringing you up to speed all the major changes made since thelaunch of Diablo 4 last June, which will prepare you for everything you need to know before you jump into the new expansion,Vessel of Hatred. For instance, did you know allClassesare getting 1 newSkill, 1 new Key Passive, and 4 new Passive Skills? If you want to know more about these specifics, however, you can see ourClass videos about these.
For this article, we will specifically be covering the big new systems (especially those inPatch 2.0) that you might not be aware of if you have not played in some time. There have been lots of quality of life changes, from adding a pet that picks up dropped gold for you, to rearranging towns for easy access to all services and stashes, and an option to favorite a town so you always teleport there. There’s even a party finder now so you can do group content easier. After we catch up on the eternal realm knowledge, we will also cover all the brand new features you can expect from the Vessel of Hatred expansion, such as the new Spiritborn class, the new region ofNahantu,Runewords,Mercenariesand more.
The first things to discuss are the changes to leveling and level cap. Diablo 4 characters will now only level up to level 60, not level 100, making it much faster to make a “max level character”. This will allow Diablo 4 players to try other Classes out more easily, and will encourage people to participate in theSeasonal content, since it won’t take as long to reach max level. Additionally, you will gain Skill Points from levels 51-60, adding a total of 10 more Skill Points to all players, and these changes apply regardless of whether you own Vessel of Hatred or not.Note that players who own Vessel of Hatred will gain an additional 2 Skill Points from exploring the new region.
Characters will now begin earningParagon Pointsonce they reach level 60, but with two HUGE changes. Firstly, players can now earn a total of 300 Paragon Points to use on each character, which is a significant increase. And secondly, but more importantly, Paragon Points are now earned account wide. This means if you earn Paragon Points on yourRoguefor example, your other characters will also gain those Points. If your character was level 100 before the launch of Vessel of Hatred it will be lowered, and Paragon Points added depending on how many you had before in order to fit into this new system.
Players will also now only be able to equip 5Paragon Boardsin total, including your first board, so 4 Boards in addition to your starter Board. This means that each Build will have a max of 5 Glyphs equipped, where many Builds had 7 or 8 Glyphs before. You’ll have to narrow down both the Boards andGlyphsyou want to use.
The good news is that all Classes have received 1 new Paragon Board, and there have been many changes to existing Paragon Boards as well, so be sure to check what nodes they now have and make sure they are still bonuses that benefit yourBuild.
Once you reach level 60 Glyphs will begin dropping for you, and you can start leveling them up just like before, but there are some changes to how to rank them up.
Instead of runningNightmare Dungeonsto assign experience to Glyphs, players will now run thePit of Artificers(found inCerrigar) and level up their Glyphs upon successfully completing their attempt. The better their run, the more chances they have to level up their Glyphs. Higher level Pit runs yield more ranks when improving a Glyph, and also increase the chances of successfully improving it.
This system is similar to end game ofDiablo 3, where the higher level your Glyph, the higher level of Pit you will need to run in order to continue to upgrade it effectively, as failure rate gets higher as your Glyph levels.
Glyphs can also be upgraded to level 100 now, up from 21, so there is much more room to grow with them, and players will need to make many many Pit runs in order to max these Glyphs out. Glyphs also have Legendary effects now that are “unlocked” once you level up your Glyphs high enough, providing even further benefit to you.
The next thing to know is thatDiablo 4’s difficulty systemhas been changed, and no longer features World Tiers I-IV. Instead, players will now have to choose from Normal or Hard while playing the game, with Expert and Penitent difficulties unlocking as you progress the game. For returning players who have already finished the campaign, these difficulties will already be unlocked for you.
Note that you can now do Nightmare Dungeons on any difficulty of the game, even Normal, and that these no longer go up to 100. These have been simplified to be in line with the difficulty you are playing on, so Hard Nightmare Dungeons will easier than if you’re playing on Expert. If you have Nightmare Sigils in your inventory and want use them on a different difficulty, simply change the difficulty at a World Stone before using them.
In another throwback to Diablo III, Torment difficulties will also be making a return in order to allow players to customize their difficulty more. These difficulties, unlike the others however, need to be unlocked by completing certain tiers of the Pit of Artificers once you reach level 60. You’ll be aiming to complete Tier 20 first as this unlocks Torment I.
Once you reach Torment IBoss Summoning materialsandMasterworking Materialswhich were previously not available to you will begin dropping for you. You’ll also begin obtaining Ancestral gear from this point onward, though once you unlock Torment I, it can drop at any level, even Normal. So once reaching max level of 60, reaching Torment I will become your prime objective.
The jump from Torment I to Torment II will not be an easy one, and for reference it’s about the same as jumping from Normal to Torment I by my estimation, so you will spend a significant amount of time on Torment I perfecting yourBuildandGear. Because each Torment level significantly reduces your resistances and armor, you have to find better and better versions of the gear you are currently using in order to make your way to Torment IV, and this will take some time.
Since we’ve gotten Leveling and Difficulty out of the way, next I want to cover a recap of the itemization changes from Season 4, since this is probably the most fundamental change Diablo IV has undertaken since release.
In the past, the gameplay loop of Diablo IV heavily focused on finding items with 4 very specific, perfectly rolled affixes and then imprinting it with another perfectly rolled aspect you would extract from another legendary. Thankfully, this system has been completely overhauled.
Now, all rare items only drop with 2 affixes, making them virtually useless once you are level 60. And legendary items drop with only 3 affixes on them, and many conditional affixes have been completely removed from dropped gear. This simplifies the pool of affixes, and makes it easier to get what you are looking for.
Additionally,statshave been reduced nearly tenfold with the Vessel of Hatred update, and this is true for all players regardless of whether they purchased the expansion or not. Damage, Armor and Health are now much lower than they were previously, though things fundamentally work the same, you won’t have to do as much math.
On top of that, Sacred Legendary items are being phased out and will be marked Legacy and cannot be upgraded orTempered, and that all level 60 Legendary items will now all drop at Item Power 750.
Level 60 Ancestral Legendary Items always drop at Item Power 800, the highest possible, Greater Affixes only appear on Ancestral items, and Ancestral items will now always contain at least 1 Greater Affix.
Lastly, because Character Levels are being re-adjusted in the new Realm-wide Paragon system, existing items with Item Power over 540 are being adjusted down to 540 and the affixes on these adjusted items will be rerolled at the highest values in their respective ranges. What this means is that EVERYONE will have to re-farm their gear.
There are also 2 new affix types. One of these is aGreater Affix, an affix indicated by a “*” which can only appear on Ancestral Legendary and Unique Items once you’ve unlocked Torment I. These affixes are 1.5x stronger than a normal affix, making them incredibly powerful, and you can roll up to 3 on an Ancestral Legendary Item, or 4 on a Unique Item. The higher Torment level you go, the more likely it is for these to drop.
The other type of affix areTempered Affixes.Temperingin Diablo 4 is a system that allows you to add custom affixes to your gear at any Blacksmith. To add these affixes, you need to find and useTempering Manualsfrom defeatingBosses, World Bosses and Nightmare Dungeons. The manual will be added to your codex, and you will be able to use it on applicable gear via the blacksmith in any town.
Each manual has a different focus; for example theAgility Efficiency manualfor theRoguehas 4 affixes focused on the agility tree:Agility Cooldown Reduction,Shadow Step Cooldown Reduction,Caltrops Cooldown ReductionandDash Cooldown Reduction. When you apply this manual to any gear, you will imprint 1 of these affixes at random onto that piece of gear. Hopefully it’s the one you want, but if it’s not you can reroll up to five times.
You can apply 2 Tempered Affixes to each piece of Legendary gear, and the options available are different for each, not unlike how some Legendary aspects can only be applied to certain pieces of gear. If you don’t end up getting the Affixes you want, you can use a new item from Vessel of Hatred to give you more attempts, but you will need the expansion in order to get it and they are rare, so don’t count on them.
Once you have Tempered 2 Affixes onto a piece of gear in the case of Legendary Items, or once you have aUnique, you can begin Masterworking it at a Blacksmith with a crafting material called Obducite. These materials drop all over the game on Torment I, and this system replaced the previous system of just upgrading equipment.
Each time you Masterwork a piece of gear it will improve all Affixes on that gear by +5%, making it more powerful. And on the 4th Masterworking you will randomly increase one of the Affixes on your gear by 25%! Level 750 Item Power gear can only be Masterworked 8 times. However, 800 Item Power gear can be Masterworked 12 times, which means you can get 3 random 25% increases on these items. These might all land on the same Affix making it incredibly strong, or they might spread out among your Affixes. However, if you didn’t boost the Affix or Affixes you wanted, you can start over for a gold fee at theBlacksmithand try again.
This means the best practice is to find the correct Affixes on a piece of gear via farming, changing one if needed at theOccultist, and then Imprinting theLegendary Aspectyou need onto it. Then head to the Blacksmith to Temper the two bonuses you want onto it, and then begin Masterworking it. Once you start getting Ancestral gear, you’ll replace your 750 Legendary Items and Uniques, and begin this process again.
And speaking of Legendary Aspects, as ofSeason 4you now no longer need to save your best Aspects for salvaging in your storage, and once you salvage a piece of Legendary equipment at a Blacksmith, you can Imprint that Aspect as many times as you want at the Occultist using your Codex of Power, as long as you have the materials. The higher roll you salvage, the better your Imprint will be, and once you salvage a max rolled aspect, whenever you imprint that Aspect it will always Imprint at max roll. So salvage your unwanted Legendaries and upgrade the Aspects in your Codex for future use.
Two lasts note on itemization is thatGemshave changed, and most have completely different effects, which you should look over and decide what is best for your build. Gems can also now be salvaged and reformed into better Gems, so you don’t take up valuable inventory space with them.
Runewordshave also been added to the game that allow even more customization of your Build. You will mix two Runes together to create a Runeword that will take up 2 gem slots in your legs, chest or helm (helms now have 2 gem sockets). These Runewords have different effects, and can even cast skills of other classes. We will have a full video on this, but just know they are now a part of Diablo IV. Note thatRunesonly drop for you if you own Vessel of Hatred, but you can trade them from other players even if you don’t own the expansion.
TheEnd Game of Diablo IVhas change remarkably since launch, and there many more activities that have been introduced with the Seasons over the past year, and gone are the days where you would just try to run Nightmare Dungeons forever trying to get as high as you could, and maybe fighting Uber Lilith if you got bored.
Now End Game activities include Boss fights (added in Season 2), The Pit of Artificers (added in Season 4),Infernal Hordes(added in Season 5), andHelltidesare more rewarding than ever with more mob density and the Maiden of Blood who you can fight for guaranteed loot drops. We’ll have a complete End Game guide later, but for now let’s just give you a rough overview of what these are:
Yes Nightmare Dungeons are still a thing, and you will run them mainly for two reasons. First they are a great source of Legendary Item drops for the time spent to complete them, and if you need Legendary Aspects this is a good place to begin. Second,Elitesdrop lots of crafting materials, most notablyIron Chunkswhich seem to always be in demand, and Nightmare Dungeons are usually full of them. So run these if you need Iron Chunks or just some Legendary Aspects. Note that you can run these on lower difficulties than Torment and still get legendaries and materials.
Yes,Tree of Whispersare still in the game, and you will do some Tree of Whisper objectives from time to time, mostly as a byproduct of farming Helltides. Not too many people will go out of their way to do these when they don’t coincide with another activity, though they are a great form of XP if you’re trying to level a new character solo, which is arguably the best reason to do them. Note that you can do them from the start of the game on a new character.
Helltidesare way more fun now than ever before. Not only has the mob density been drastically improved, making them quite hectic some times, there is now a gauge that fills as you defeat enemies in a Helltide, and as it gets closer and closer to being full more and more enemies start spawning around you until a Hellborn arrives and your gauge resets. Additionally, the Blood Maiden has been added which is a Boss with guaranteed loot, and Helltides are a great place to farm Boss Summoning materials as well.
Just like before you can face off againstWorld Bossesperiodically when they spawn on the map. Each one has weekly caches that give you guaranteed loot, so they are worth doing at least once a week for each Boss. They haven’t changed all that much, so don’t expect anything crazy here.
End Game Bosses have also been added to Diablo 4 as of Season 2, and you cannot face them until you make it to Torment I. In order to fight one of these 6 Bosses you will need to acquire enough of their summoning materials, which are blue when they drop, and these can drop from all over the game world or be found in caches from mercenary den bartering and seasonal reputation rewards. You will then need to proceed to their spawn locations and use these materials on the summoning altar. These Bosses have 2 guaranteed Uniques per run, with their own loot pools, so you can target farm specific uniques you might want. They also have a chance to drop Mythic Items. See our guide on this for all the details.
Season 4 added a new end game activity calledThe Pit of Artificers. It might be familiar if you’ve ever played Diablo 3, since it is quite similar. Interacting with the Portal Activator in Cerrigar will spawn a portal to a dungeon of whatever tier you select, using 3 Artificer’s Stones. These stones drop from all kinds of activities in the game world, so you should have plenty of them.
Once inside the portal you will run a random dungeon against a clock killing enemies quickly in order to face off against a Boss. You won’t get loot when doing this until you defeat the boss, so don’t worry about looting, just defeat enemies as quickly as you can. Once you face the Boss, it will have some altered mechanics that Nightmare Dungeons don’t have, making it more challenging, and once the boss is defeated you will get rewards and will be able to upgrade your Glyphs. This is the only way to upgrade your Glyphs in Diablo IV, so get used to running The Pit regularly. It is also the main measure for difficulty advancement as specific Pit tiers unlock higher torment difficulties.
Season 5 addedInfernal Hordeswhich is a special arena with waves of enemies that you face off against while trying to acquire as much Aether as you can from defeating specific spawns. If you successfully survive all waves then you will face off against “The Council” and once you’ve defeated them you will get to spend your Aether on loot, materials and gold. You need 200 Aether to open the loot chest that guarantees a Great Affix drop, and the more waves your Infernal Horde Compass has the more likely you are to gain enough Aether to open it, but also the more challenging it will be.
Like Nightmare Sigils the difficulty you use the Infernal Horde Compass on is the difficulty it will be with the variable being the number of waves each has. If you want to do Infernal Hordes on another difficulty, you must change the difficulty at a World Stone and then use the Compass.
TheKurast Undercityis a special Expansion location in Kurast Bazaar inNahantu. After doing a short quest to unlock the activity, you will create a portal to the area and enter a time trial focused on clearing 3 floors before facing off against a boss with some interesting mechanics. Each floor of the dungeon has special pillars that reward you Attunement. Filling your attunement by defeating enemies and clearing the special enemies from those pillars will increase your dungeon rewards up to 4 levels. Of course as you’re fighting against a clock, you need to also defeat some special elites called “Afflicted” to add more time to our run. The Kurast Undercity is very special because you can use “offerings” to customize the rewards you get, ranging from experience to guaranteed class unique drops. It’s also very fun!
And lastly, also exclusive to those who own Vessel of Hatred isThe Dark Citadel. This is the end game equivalent of a “Raid” in an MMORPG with light Raid mechanics that require some teamwork between players. There are three “wings” to this “Raid” and each one is harder than the last, culminating in boss fights in each wing. The Dark Citadel gives special loot and currency, and is the only way to buy a Scroll of Restoration to add more “rolls” to your Tempering, so it’s definitely worth doing (although you may get those scrolls from seasonal rewards and bartering mercenary caches). There are weekly locks on this for the cache, just like World Bosses, but it can also show up as a Whisper task.
Finally it’s the expansion and the new features that come with it. Of course there’s the runewords as mentioned above, and the Kurast Undercity and Dark Citadel are the endgame activities added, but there’s also an entire new zone to explore.
Vessel of Hatred adds Nahantu and allows us to explore a jungle region with new enemies and new combinations of ideas. The zone has manysidequestsand objectives to complete, including finding some special idols and removing corruption from them to gain zone reputation. Gaining this reputation will reward you with 2 extra skill points, a new potion slot, Paragon Points and obol capacity, so it’s well-worth doing. You can find them on ourDiablo 4 Map
There’s of course the story side of this, which is the main quest advancement for the overall plot of Diablo 4. I won’t spoil anything but it is certainly an interesting play for those who can resist the urge to skip all dialogue because they are eager for the loot. If you are one of such people, you’ll be happy to know once you complete the campaign your alts can pick to start with only base game completed or with both base game and expansion completed.
Nahantu also allows you to unlock the new game feature:Mercenaries. These companions are first found via the main quest and then have to be unlocked one by one with smaller sidequests. There are four of them, and each has their own “Rapport” meter from the time they spend playing with you. This is like a experience bar, and the more elites you kill or content you do the more they will fill up until rank 10. Gaining rapport gives you many rewards, including caches of loot, bartering coins to buy stuff from the mercenary special shop at the den, and skill points to fill out the mercenaries’ own skill tree, which they will use in combat and has synergies with your play. As with the campaign, your alts will retain all unlocked mercenaries and their advancement level, reducing grind and tedium.
And last but by no means least it’s the new class, theSpiritborn. This pseudo monk-druid-witchdoctor mashup is a dexterity class with four elemental spirit guardians that govern its skill lines. Because it has four distinct trees, the class is incredibly versatile and can be built in many different ways, be it a direct damage heavy hitter to a speed and crit zoomer or an eazymode damage over time poisoner. This is probably the biggest appeal of the expansion for everyone, as it can be its own entire world of discovery. We have beginner and advanced builds for the class ready so check them out on the channel near launch.
And this concludes our rather lengthy catch-up of Diablo 4. I really tried to keep this short but there have been so many massive changes over the past year, and the expansion is adding so many more, that I feel we’re really experiencing a completely new game from the one I originally played. If you are one of those people who enjoyed the launch but got burnt out on the season system or upset your build got nerfed, you should absolutely give it a new try and enjoy the revamped loot system and the many quality of life changes.
Was this guide helpful? Will you be trying out the base game or the expansion? Let us know in the comments below.
Castielle
Senior Editor at Fextralife. I enjoy gaming, playing and watching sports, cooking yummy food, watching a good movie and hanging out with Fex.
