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Diablo IV: Season 4 PTR: Sorceress Patch Notes

Season 4 PTR Patch Notes for Sorceress

I have tiered all the changes by their relevancy and impact for the Upcoming Season 4 PTR. Note that this is only Sorceress changes

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New Items

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Diablo IV: Unique Item Fractured Winterglass Fractured Winterglass - Unique Amulet
  • Casting Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb has a 35-50% chance to spawn a random Conjuration when it explodes. Lucky Hit: Your Conjurations have up to a 70-100% chance to launch a Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb at Nearby enemies.

Depending on how the stats actually work with conjurations this item might be completely nuts.
This has the potential of stacking Diablo IV Skill Conjuration Mastery Conjuration Mastery to 20-30 Stacks easy for crazy amounts of damage.
It also give very strong synergy from conjurations to Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb and backwards.

Furthermore it has very good stats, especially the +2 Diablo IV Skill Conjuration Mastery Conjuration Mastery is very valuable!

Fractured Winterglass

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Diablo IV: Unique Item Flameweaver Flameweaver - Unique Gloves
  • Casting Diablo IV Skill Fire Bolt Fire Bolt through your Diablo IV Skill Firewall Firewall causes it to split into 4 bolts, each dealing 80-100% more damage.

I don't think it's gonna be massive. I think even at 100% extra damage, Diablo IV Skill Fire Bolt Fire Bolt will not be very good. Maybe it can be a good leveling item

Item Updates

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Diablo IV: Unique Item Staff of Lam Esen Staff of Lam Esen
  • Damage to Close Enemies replaced with Ranks of Diablo IV Skill Charged Bolts Charged Bolts.

Diablo IV Skill Charged Bolts Charged Bolts is a fun build with the Staff, and this is a pretty big Buff.

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Diablo IV: Unique Item Tibault's Will Tibault's Will
  • Damage increase while Unstoppable reduced from 20-40% to 10-20%.
  • Damage increase persists for 1 second longer after being Unstoppable.

It essentially makes the item useless I would assume. It might still be good for Helltides, etc., but for high-level content we will definitely prefer the defensive Aspect.

New Legendary Aspects

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Flamethrower's Aspect Flamethrower's Aspect
  • Diablo IV Skill Incinerate Incinerate splits into 3 beams, each dealing 70-85% of normal damage.

This might make Diablo IV Skill Incinerate Incinerate a very high DPS build if the high-level Pits are going to allow being stationary and casting Diablo IV Skill Incinerate Incinerate. We will see on the PTR, for now I guess I'm still considering it a fun build.

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of Tenuous Destruction Aspect of Tenuous Destruction
  • Deal 25-40% increased damage while you have no Defensive Skills on your Action Bar.

The downside not playing any defensive skills is absolutely not worth it. There is a lot of aspects we can use in the 30-35% damage rage, this is just going to be slightly better with a very huge downside.

Legendary Aspect Updates

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of Disobedience Aspect of Disobedience
  • Armor stacks no longer fall off independently. They now refresh or reset at the same time.
  • Armor gain changed to 25-40%.

It is a huge buff to Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of Disobedience Aspect of Disobedience. Especially in high-level Pits we might need Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Juggernaut's Aspect Juggernaut's Aspect + Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of Disobedience Aspect of Disobedience to stay alive!

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of the Bounding Conduit Aspect of the Bounding Conduit
  • Previous - Gain 15-30% Movement Speed for 3 seconds after Teleporting.
  • Now - Diablo IV Skill Teleport Teleport's Cooldown is reduced by 1.0-2.5 seconds. After Teleporting, Crackling Energy hits 2 additional enemies for 5 seconds.

Together with cooldown reduction being higher due to greater affixes, this might get regular Diablo IV Skill Teleport Teleport cooldown to like a second.

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of Frozen Orbit Aspect of Frozen Orbit
  • Damage increased from 30-40% to 45-60%.

The aspect has already been pretty strong. Now together with targeting Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb this will create an awesome new build.

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Snowguard's Aspect Snowguard's Aspect
  • Damage reduction increased from 10-25% to 15-30%.

With Blizzard being a very strong endgame build with high burst damage, this extra damage reduction is very handy.

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of Concentration Aspect of Concentration
  • Previous - Your Mana Regeneration is increased if you have not taken damage in the last 2 seconds.
  • Now - Casting a Conjuration Skill grants you 10-25% Damage Reduction for 5 seconds.

We shall see how important damage reduction will really be.

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of Splintering Energy Aspect of Splintering Energy
  • Previous - Diablo IV Skill Lightning Spear Lightning Spear has a 35-50% chance to spawn an additional Diablo IV Skill Lightning Spear Lightning Spear when you cast it.
  • Now - Casting Diablo IV Skill Lightning Spear Lightning Spear always spawns an additional Diablo IV Skill Lightning Spear Lightning Spear and increases your damage with Lightning Skills by 10-25% for 3 seconds.

If the damage is multiplicative, this is a nice addition to all lightning builds. Also, might be good for conjuration builds if you can reach extremely high cooldown reduction with ice blades enchantment.

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Shattered Aspect Shattered Aspect
  • Enemies no longer need to die while Frozen to trigger the bonus damage.
  • Damage increased from 25-40% to 30-45%.

Shatter might be useful in very deep Pit levels, but for now I leave this as a situational choice.

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of Inner Calm Aspect of Inner Calm
  • Previous - Deal 5-10% increased damage for each second you stand still, up to 40%.
  • Now - Deal 5-10% increased damage. Triple this bonus after standing still for 3 seconds.

I feel like this aspect is mostly used for bosses and it is actually weaker vs bosses now. It will be slightly better in leveling phase, but I would call this a nerf.

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of Abundant Energy Aspect of Abundant Energy
  • Chance to chain to an additional enemy increased to 35-50%.

This remains useless.

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of Singed Extremities Aspect of Singed Extremities
  • Now both Immobilize and Stun trigger the Slow effect.

Still useless...

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Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of Conflagration Aspect of Conflagration
  • Previous - While channeling Diablo IV Skill Incinerate Incinerate, your Burning damage is increased by 25-40%.
  • Now - While channeling Diablo IV Skill Incinerate Incinerate, your Burning damage is increased by 25-40%. Enemies hit by Diablo IV Skill Incinerate Incinerate explode, Burning all surrounding enemies for over 6 seconds. This effect occurs once per 3 seconds.

I still don't believe in Diablo IV Skill Incinerate Incinerate. Also, I don't think one explosion every 3 seconds is gonna be cutting the cheese.

Skill Updates

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Conjuration Buffs
  • Necromancer, Barbarian, Druid, and Sorcerer Companions now receive 100% of the player's attributes.

This is an extreme buff to conjurations. We get extra 70% Crit, 70% Attack Speed, 70% Lucky hit on Conjurations which is completely out of control!

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Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb
  • New Functionality: Travel distance is now controllable.
  • Damage increased by 20% (.34 to .41).
  • Diablo IV Skill Enhanced Frozen Orb Enhanced Frozen Orb
    • Previous - When cast above 40 Mana, Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb's explosion damage is increased by 45% against Elites and 30% against all other enemies.
    • Now - While Healthy, the explosion of Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb deals 45% increased damage.
  • Diablo IV Skill Greater Frozen Orb Greater Frozen Orb
    • Vulnerable chance increased from 30% to 40% and duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds.
  • Fixed an issue where Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orbs fired from the Enchantment effect did not prioritize targeting enemies on-screen.

Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb will be nuts. Not more to say about this one.

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Diablo IV Skill Hydra Hydra
  • Baseline maximum amount increased from 1 to 2.

GOTTA LOVE Diablo IV Skill Hydra Hydra!

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Diablo IV Skill Devouring Blaze Devouring Blaze
  • Crowd Controlled enemies now provide the damage bonus instead of Immobilized.

This is massive. Now all build can get the full devouring blaze bonus!

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Diablo IV Skill Conjuration Mastery Conjuration Mastery
  • Previous - You gain 1% increased damage for each active conjuration.
  • Now - You gain 1% increased damage, 1% Movement Speed, and 2% Mana Generation for each active Conjuration.

This is some very good buffs for free. Also, the Mana Regeneration might give Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb Conjuration Build infinite mana for a very low investment.

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Diablo IV Skill Esu's Ferocity Esu's Ferocity
  • Fixed an issue where Diablo IV Skill Esu's Ferocity Esu's Ferocity was applying increase Critical Strike Damage to all damage types, instead of just Fire Damage.

This is a very significant nerf especially for cold build since these were lacking a good key passive. We will have to see if shatter can supplement this.

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Diablo IV Skill Teleport Teleport
  • Diablo IV Skill Enhanced Teleport Enhanced Teleport
    • Previous - Diablo IV Skill Teleport Teleport's Cooldown is decreased by 0.5 seconds per enemy hit, up to 3 seconds.
    • Now - You gain 30% Movement Speed for 3 seconds after Teleporting.
  • Diablo IV Skill Mystical Teleport Mystical Teleport
    • Previous - For 4 seconds after Teleporting, Crackling Energy hits 2 additional enemies.
    • Now - Diablo IV Skill Teleport Teleport deals 500% increased damage. It also forms a Crackling Energy for each enemy it hits, up to 3.

The 30% free movement speed is awesome. Also, together with the new Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Aspect of the Bounding Conduit Aspect of the Bounding Conduit, this will maybe even enable a Diablo IV Skill Teleport Teleport build since we can get cooldown to about 1 second and 500% damage sounds kind of nuts here together with Diablo IV: Unique Item Raiment of the Infinite Raiment of the Infinite.

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Diablo IV Skill Ice Armor Ice Armor
  • Diablo IV Skill Enhanced Ice Armor Enhanced Ice Armor
    • Mana Regeneration increased from 25% to 30%.
  • Diablo IV Skill Shimmering Ice Armor Shimmering Ice Armor
    • Previous - Enemies that hit you while Diablo IV Skill Ice Armor Ice Armor is active have a 15% chance to become Frozen for 3.23 seconds.
    • Now - While Diablo IV Skill Ice Armor Ice Armor is active, you reduce its Cooldown by 2 seconds for every 50 Mana you spend.
  • Mystical Ice Armor
    • Previous - Damage against Vulnerable enemies contributes 50% more to Diablo IV Skill Ice Armor Ice Armor's Barrier.
    • Now - While Diablo IV Skill Ice Armor Ice Armor is active, you periodically Chill Close enemies for 20% and deal 15% increased damage to Frozen enemies.

If we have a slot for Diablo IV Skill Ice Armor Ice Armor, this will give us a great damage buff for all frost builds. Furtherore it now has 100% uptime for every mana spending build.

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Core-Skill Tag
  • Mastery Skills are now also considered Core Skills.

This will give use some additional Synergies, such as using Diablo IV: Legendary Aspect Accelerating Aspect Accelerating Aspect directly with Mastery Skills. Also, there is a few Core-Skill only Damage buffs like Diablo IV Skill Elemental Dominance Elemental Dominance which will now affect mastery skills.

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Diablo IV Skill Elemental Dominance Elemental Dominance
  • Damage increased from 3% to 4%.

Especially for upcoming Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb build this is a nice little buff.

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Diablo IV Skill Greater Charged Bolts Greater Charged Bolts
  • Damage increased from 25% to 35%.

Nice but also seems pretty irrelevant. But since there is some buffs for the Diablo IV: Unique Item Staff of Lam Esen Staff of Lam Esen, I will give it an A for now.

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Diablo IV Skill Frigid Breeze Frigid Breeze
  • Fixed an issue where the Diablo IV Skill Frigid Breeze Frigid Breeze passive would activate on any type of damage, instead of just cold damage.

This was used in some builds, but overall it is not very impactful

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Diablo IV Skill Shimmering Frost Nova Shimmering Frost Nova
  • Previous - Diablo IV Skill Frost Nova Frost Nova generates 4 Mana per enemy hit.
  • Now - Diablo IV Skill Frost Nova Frost Nova grants 3% Dodge Chance per enemy hit, up to 15%. Hitting a Boss gives the maximum amount. For the next 8 seconds, you keep this effect, and successful Dodges generate 20 Mana.

I doubt dodge is gonna be a thing for Sorc. But maybe this will become interesting with stuff like if it works. We will see on PTR.

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Diablo IV Skill Flame Shield Flame Shield
  • Diablo IV Skill Enhanced Flame Shield Enhanced Flame Shield
    • Previous - Diablo IV Skill Flame Shield Flame Shield grants 25% increased Movement Speed while active.
    • Now - Diablo IV Skill Flame Shield Flame Shield has a 50% larger burn radius.
  • Diablo IV Skill Mystical Flame Shield Mystical Flame Shield
    • Previous - You gain 25% Mana Cost Reduction while Diablo IV Skill Flame Shield Flame Shield is active.
    • Now - After Diablo IV Skill Flame Shield Flame Shield ends, surrounding enemies are Stunned for 3 seconds and your next Skill within 10 seconds is a guaranteed Critical Strike.

I guess this is a little buff to Diablo IV Skill Flame Shield Flame Shield, but I don't see a huge impact here.

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Diablo IV Skill Supreme Deep Freeze Supreme Deep Freeze
  • Now applies Vulnerable for 5 seconds when it ends.

It's cool but not a game changer...

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Diablo IV Skill Elemental Attunement Elemental Attunement
  • Cooldown reset chance increased from 5% to 7%.

Since Diablo IV Skill Elemental Attunement Elemental Attunement is limited by its cooldown and not by the Lucky Hit chance this is not very relevant, but still a nice to have

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Diablo IV Skill Mana Shield Mana Shield
  • Damage Reduction increased from 7% to 8%.

3% more Damage Reduction is a tiny buff, so I don't give this a whole lot of relevancy here.

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Diablo IV Skill Ice Shards Ice Shards
  • Damage increased by 28% (1.25 to 1.6).
  • Diablo IV Skill Enhanced Ice Shards Enhanced Ice Shards
    • Ricochet chance increased from 40% to 50%.

It's another cool buff, but it will not make Diablo IV Skill Ice Shards Ice Shards endgame viable.

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Diablo IV Skill Flame Shield Enchantment Flame Shield Enchantment
  • Previous - Diablo IV Skill Flame Shield Flame Shield automatically activates upon taking fatal damage. This effect can only happen once every 120 seconds.
  • Now - Diablo IV Skill Flame Shield Flame Shield automatically activates after cumulatively losing 100% Maximum Life. Can only happen once every 30 seconds.

The new enchantment seems to be much better for softcore. But since this is likely only used in hardcore I would consider this a big nerf.

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Diablo IV Skill Shocking Impact Shocking Impact
  • Damage increased by 100% (.2 to .4).

The passive remains pretty useless, but it gives some extra juice in overworld content or gauntlets.

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Diablo IV Skill Lightning Spear Lightning Spear
  • Damage increased by 8% (.15 to .16).

Feels pretty irrelevant.

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Diablo IV Skill Incinerate Incinerate
  • New Functionality: Gain 15% baseline Damage Reduction while channeling.
  • Damage increased by 10% (.76 to .84).

Damage reduction is nice, but the 10% still seems to be irrelevant

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Diablo IV Skill Frost Nova Enchantment Frost Nova Enchantment
  • Chance for conjuration skills to case a Diablo IV Skill Frost Nova Frost Nova increased from 30 to 35%.

This 5% buff is pretty much irrelevant.

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Diablo IV Skill Frost Bolt Enchantment Frost Bolt Enchantment
  • Chill amount increased from 15% to 18%.

This buff is irrelevant. Diablo IV Skill Frost Bolt Enchantment Frost Bolt Enchantment is basically never ever used, and with new buffs to Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb it likely never will be.

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Diablo IV Skill Convulsions Convulsions
  • Lucky Hit Chance increased from 3% to 5%.

Irrelevant. Diablo IV Skill Convulsions Convulsions is completely useless since in any Lightning Build Diablo IV Skill Lightning Spear Lightning Spear is going to do all the stuns anyway.

Paragon Board Updates

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Tactician Glyph
  • New Functionality: Now lasts 4 seconds longer for each Defensive Skill not on your Action Bar.
  • Fixed an issue where the bonus damage from the Tactician Glyph was additive instead of multiplicative.

Tactician glyph is a very strong glyph due to it buffing Rare Paragon nodes. This is a very important good bug fix. The longer duration is also a nice buff in case you're not spamming defensive skills.

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Winter Glyph
  • Cold damage increase maximum raised from 15% to 18%.
  • Fixed an issue where the damage bonus for the Winter Glyph was additive and not multiplicative.

Winter glyph is a very strong glyph due to it buffing Rare Paragon nodes. This is a very important good bug fix.

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Torch Glyph
  • Fixed an issue where the bonus damage from the Torch Glyph was additive instead of multiplicative.

I still don't think there will be viable burning builds so I will keep this as mostly irrelevant for now.

Elixir Updates

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Elixir of Resource
    • Resource cost reduced by 15%, Maximum Resource increased by 10.
    • Experience gained increased by 5%.
  • Elixir of Resource II
    • Resource cost reduced by 30%, Maximum Resource increased by 25.
    • Experience gained increased by 8%.

If we require Resources, this will 100% solve all issues there. This might be useful in very high-level content or leaderboards.

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Elixir of Momentum
  • After killing an enemy, increase Movement Speed by 3% for 5 seconds, this effect stacks up to 15 times.
  • Experience gained is increased by 6%.

45% movement speed seems to be very impactful, especially in the early game. Late game this is probably not going to be used which is why I'm just giving it an A tier.

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Elixir of Holy Bolts
  • After killing an enemy, holy bolts fire from the corpse of that enemy.
  • Experience gained is increased by 6%.

Not sure if this will do any significant damage.

Miscellaneous

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  • Esu's Heirloom now denotes the bonus Critical Strike Chance based on Movement Speed in the Item's tooltip, instead of as a buff on the buff bar.
  • Traversal skills — such as Leap and Diablo IV Skill Teleport Teleport — can now have their distance determined by how far the analog stick on the controller is deflected. This will enable players on controller to have better control on the range for these abilities, improving parity with Mouse and Keyboard play.
  • More skills will now appear more visually powerful as the skill gains power. Additionally, existing visual scaling has been improved.
  • Fixed an issue where Diablo IV Skill Frozen Orb Frozen Orb was applying vulnerable to frozen enemies without the Diablo IV Skill Greater Frozen Orb Greater Frozen Orb upgrade.
  • Fixed an issue where the Diablo IV Skill Destructive Ice Shards Destructive Ice Shards vulnerable effect could be applied by free Diablo IV Skill Ice Shards Ice Shards casts granted by the Ice Shards Enchantment.
  • Fixed an issue where the effect from the Aspect of Searing Wards could be consumed by free casts granted by the Firewall enchantment.
  • Fixed an issue where other players in the party could trigger the Diablo IV Skill Fireball Enchantment Fireball Enchantment effect when far away from the Sorcerer.
  • The tooltip for the Aspect of Engulfing Flames now properly describes that it can grant both effects simultaneously.
  • Fixed an issue where the Mana Reduction from the Efficiency aspect only benefited Diablo IV Skill Incinerate Incinerate for the first second of channeling the ability.
  • Fixed an issue where the additional Diablo IV Skill Ice Shards Ice Shards from the Aspect of Piercing Cold were dealing more damage than intended.
  • Fixed an issue where the damage bonus from the Conceited Aspect did not get applied by the Barrier granted by Soulbrand.

This is just random stuff which is not really interesting (at least for me).

Enchantment Effect

Lightning Damage
Cold Damage
Fire Damage

Legendary Aspect

Allowed Item Types

1H Weapon
2H Weapon (Power increased by 100%)
Gloves
Ring
Amulet (Power increased by 50%)

Helm
Chest Armor
Pants
Amulet (Power increased by 50%)
Shield

Ring

Boots
Amulet (Power increased by 50%)

Helm
Chest Armor
Boots
Gloves
Amulet (Power increased by 50%)
Shield

Ancestral Unique

925+25 Item Power