Diablo 4 Season 2 will massively reduce its endgame grind

Diablo IV’s endgame is set to get a much-needed adrenaline boost with the release of Season 2, with Blizzard introducing all the ways it can reduce the hassle and make the activities more rewarding.

Blizzard discussed the upcoming changes in its latest Diablo IV Campfire Chat. Initially, Blizzard stated that they want to make the path to level 100 “approximately 40% faster” by “significantly” increasing the amount of XP received from monsters above level 50 with patch 1.2. The amount of XP increases with the player’s level, and XP bonuses from things like Elixirs and Seasonal Blessings now multiply by the World Tier XP bonuses, providing an even greater XP boost.

To sweeten the deal even further, essentially all of Diablo IV’s endgame activities become more rewarding. Helltide Chests, redeeming Grim Favors at the Tree of Whispers, and completing individual Whispers will yield more XP and gold in Season 2. World bosses appear much more frequently (every 3 hours and 30 minutes instead of every 6 hours). Legion events.

The Nightmare Dungeons, an important part of Diablo IV’s endgame, are also undergoing major changes. Players can teleport directly within a dungeon instead of just outside. Backtracking in dungeons, which players have long complained about, has also been reduced, with dungeon layouts also becoming more procedurally generated and random. Better yet, the amount of Glyph XP you receive for completing a Nightmare dungeon will also be increased.

Another way Blizzard is looking to spice up the endgame with Season 2 is by introducing five new endgame bosses, each tied to specific endgame activities. For example, the Echo of Varshan boss can be summoned by collecting parts of Varshan’s body. These body parts are guaranteed rewards for implementing Grim Favors. Another boss, Grigoire, the Galvanic Saint, can be summoned by collecting Living Steel from torture victims in Helltides. The Dark Master requires items obtained from completing world bosses, while another, the Beast in the Ice, can be summoned by completing level 30 or higher Nightmare Dungeons. The most challenging of these new endgame bosses requires players to have defeated both Grigoire and Varshan in World Tier IV in order to collect items needed to summon the Echo of Duriel, which has a chance to unlock unique Uber items as well to drop a rare mount.

Another grind that Blizzard wants to eliminate is Renown. As Blizzard previously announced but now clarified, Renown rewards will transfer between both seasons and characters starting in Season 2. This means that there is no reason to complete every side quest, unlock every waypoint, or complete an entire region’s dungeons every season. This change does not apply to hardcore characters, who will still need to re-complete various Renown activities, with the exception of Altars of Lilith and map discovery progression.

In another big change, Blizzard will be removing the requirement that a player must have completed the game’s campaign to have the option to skip it on a new character. With Season 2, players only need to have completed the campaign prologue to jump straight into the seasonal content when creating a new character.

Mounts will see improvements in Season 2, something Blizzard previously announced but hadn’t explained in detail until the Campfire chat. Players will no longer be stopped if they encounter a barricade in the middle of the street. The Trail mount ability will be able to break through barricades and last longer in Season 2, while cooldowns will be reduced for mount abilities, including manual mount and dismount and dismount attacks. Mounts’ base movement speed will be increased by 15%, and players on PC will no longer need to drag their mouse cursor to the edge of the screen to reach top speeds.

It’s an impressive list of changes, and there’s even more where they came from. Blizzard is making more changes to address player complaints about Diablo IV’s inventory and hiding system. This is in addition to the new seasonal content, which introduces a new quest line as well as 22 vampire powers for players to collect and upgrade.

Blizzard will detail more changes, particularly those related to class balance, the game’s disappointing Toughness, and damage ranges like Vulnerable and Overwhelm, in another Campfire chat on October 10th. Diablo IV Season 2 begins the same day on October 17th Blizzard’s ARPG launches on Steam.