Diablo IV‘s eleventh season changes various things up:
- Map rewards have been folded into seasonal rewards and an equipment affix.
- Seasonal ranks have been decoupled from the individual challenges (you now only need to complete certain dungeons and hit Pit level 75 to get all account-related rewards).
- The Pit’s been seasonally overhauled to be notably more hectic and always have you facing off against Belial.
- Equipment now has four random affixes and can have a single non-random temper affix added to it.
- Tempers are no longer limited and can roll a greater affix.
- Physical and elemental resistances have been made more complicated (but are no longer hard-capped).
- A season-specific equipment enhancer was added that turns every item into a unique (meaning you can’t modify it afterward).
There are also minor changes like a new world and undercity boss, Helltide blood maidens getting replaced with Duriel, and masterworking getting condensed. As for the seasonal storyline, all that’s there this time around is a short paladin-related quest and Azmodan showing up in the last capstone dungeon.
At the start of Torment 4 right now at Paragon 180 with three of my five nodes at 46, and didn’t have any trouble getting here. I had planned on making a wolf-focused Druid as my first character this season and nothing in the patch notes altered that plan:
- Skills
- Rank 1 Claw & Innate Blood Howl
- Rank 5 Primal Shred, Ferocious Wolf Pack, Brutal Ravens, & Supreme Lacerate
- Rank 1 Heart of the Wild, Neurotoxin, & One With Nature
- Rank 3 Wild Impulses, Digitigrade Gait, Predatory Instinct, Backlash, Ancestral Fortitude, Vigilence, Feral Aptitude, Call of the Wild, Clarity, Envenom, Defensive Posture, & Quickshift
- Spirits: Stag 3, Eagle 1 & 4, Wolf 1, Snake 3
- Companions: Raheir + Varyana
- Paragon: Territorial, Lust for Carnage/Fang&Claw, Ancestral Guidance/Wilds, Untamed/Shapeshifter, Heightened Malice/Spirit
- Equipment
- Doombringer Sword, Mad Wolf’s Glee Chest (NaguOhm), Storm’s Companion Legs (Sapphire)
- Ancestral Helm (IgniWat & Spirit Bond), Gloves (Stampede), Boots (Metamorphosis)
- Ancestral Totem (Emerald, Moonrage), Amulet (Skull, Shepherd’s), Rings (Diamond, Alpha & Unsatiated)
Originally the idea was to claw things and then use the Ravens/Wolves whenever they came off cooldown… but with the wolf spirit bonus neither of them ever go on cooldown to begin with. So for general area clearing I ended up with a playstyle of casting Ravens twice, Shred to return to werewolf form and refresh Quickshift’s bonus, then back to Ravens. Tossing out a Wolf whenever I run across an Elite or particularly dense monster pack. For lair bosses the play is Lacerate (immediately cancel) -> Howl -> Ravens -> Wolves -> Shred, then alternate between Wolves and Shred/Howl.
This character is basically done now, so after getting the other paragon nodes to legendary I’ll move on to making my second character this season (a Hakan Rogue). Once they’re also up to T4 I’ll figure out which one I want to clear the 75th Pit level with (probably the Rogue).
