Blizzard recently unveiled an abundance of information about the forthcoming Season of Blood in Diablo 4 during a Developer Update livestream. This comprehensive reveal provided players with an in-depth glimpse into the game's upcoming content and numerous quality-of-life enhancements.

In this guide, we'll provide you with a detailed summary of everything that was disclosed during the livestream, covering the new content, improvements, alterations to the endgame, and what players can anticipate in the upcoming season.

All Announcements for Diablo 4 Season of Blood

The Developer Update livestream for Diablo 4 introduced a plethora of details regarding the Season of Blood. This encompassed fresh content, seasonal features, and a substantial list of quality-of-life adjustments to various game systems. The abundance of information presented held great promise for the game's future.

Here, we have compiled a list of all the new content and changes that players can expect in Diablo 4's Season of Blood.

New Content

Season of Blood in Diablo 4 is bringing a cornucopia of new content, some specific to the season and others integrated into the core game, destined to persist beyond the season's end. These additions include:

Vampiric Powers and Pacts

The Season of Blood introduces a significant new mechanic known as Vampiric Powers. This mechanic provides players with a wide array of unique abilities and effects to diversify gameplay and fortify their character builds. There are 22 powers available for unlocking and use, all of which are class-agnostic. Players can enhance these powers and unlock additional ones by spending Potent Blood, a currency earned during the season.

These powers will synergize with a novel keyword called "Vampiric Curse", which accumulates souls as players defeat cursed enemies. These souls can be unleashed to damage nearby foes when using Defensive, Macabre, or Agility Skills, with a capacity for storing up to eight souls.

To equip and utilize these powers, players will require Pacts, a resource found on their primary armor during the season. Pacts come in three varieties: Ferocity, Divinity, and Eternity. Different Vampiric Powers will demand varying amounts of Pacts to be socketed and used. As players acquire more armor, use Pacts to upgrade their Pact total, and unlock new abilities, they gain greater flexibility in customizing their character.

Blood Harvest and Hunter’s Acclaim

In addition to Vampiric Powers, Season of Blood introduces a new world event called "Blood Harvest." This event provides players with opportunities to engage in combat and earn rewards, including Potent Blood and gear. Blood Harvest is reminiscent of Helltides and involves battling new adversaries, including the Blood Seekers, while completing various objectives in the affected area, such as freeing prisoners, defeating formidable foes, and participating in World Events and rituals.

Players can also discover Blood Lures to attract Blood Seekers and Seeker Keys to liberate prisoners or unlock Seeker Caches for additional rewards and items. This event remains active throughout the season and periodically shifts to different regions, allowing players to retain their hard-earned items, currencies, and keys as it transitions.

Completing objectives, both within and outside the Blood Harvest, will earn players Acclaim, which can be exchanged for rewards at billboards in towns.

5 New and Returning Endgame Bosses

Season of Blood introduces five endgame bosses into the Diablo 4 world, each requiring different items to summon and defeat. These bosses offer increased chances of dropping unique and uber-unique gear, along with cosmetic items. The new bosses are as follows:

1. Grigoire, The Galvanic Saint (World Tier 3 and 4) - Obtain Living Steel from the Tortured Offering in Helltides to summon.
2. Echo of Varshan (World Tier 3 and 4) - Defeat Grotesque Debtors during Whispers of the Dead to acquire parts of Varshan's body. Tree of Whispers collections guarantee a body part drop.
3. The Beast in the Ice (World Tier 4) - Gather Distilled Fear while completing Tier 30 or higher Nightmare Dungeons to summon.
4. Dark Master (World Tier 4) - Defeat a World Boss on World Tier IV or complete a Legion Event to acquire Exquisite Blood.
5. Echo of Duriel (World Tier 4) - Defeat both Grigoire, The Galvanic Saint, and Varshan in World Tier IV to collect Mucus-Slick Eggs and Shards of Agony.

Each boss has specific requirements for summoning and offers unique rewards, including cosmetic items and gear.

Quality of Life Changes

Season of Blood brings substantial improvements to numerous game systems and features in Diablo 4. These enhancements encompass various aspects, from inventory management to mounts, experience gains, and adjustments to specific content types. The extensive list of changes promises a more enjoyable gaming experience.

General Improvements

Several changes to core gameplay elements in Diablo 4 are coming with Season of Blood. Notably, Renown rewards will now persist between seasons and characters. This means players no longer need to reengage in content like Waypoints and Strongholds to obtain these rewards; they will have them available for all characters moving forward.

Experience bonuses tied to World Tiers will now be multiplicative with the World Tier Bonus, resulting in more significant experience gains when completing content. Additionally, overworld enemies in World Tiers 3 and 4 will scale with the player's level, Incenses will grant experience bonuses and persist after death, and each zone will feature two waypoints. Players will also have access to two additional character slots on the character select screen, and Scrolls of Escape will be consumed upon disconnects.

Town Tidying

Towns and their vendors will undergo various adjustments in Season of Blood. Purveyors of Curiosities will be positioned closer to waypoints in major towns, more stashes will be added to towns with waypoints, additional stashes will be available near crucial vendors in major towns, and the Occultist will now be accessible at the Tree of Whispers.

Mounts

Season of Blood introduces improvements to mounts, enhancing their controls and responsiveness. Mounts will receive a 14% boost to their base speed, and Spur will have a 50% duration increase, allowing them to break through barricades more effectively. Additionally, all dismount abilities will have cooldown reductions, enabling players to use their combat dismount more frequently, with cooldowns now set at five seconds for regular dismounts, 15 seconds for forced dismounts, and three seconds for combat skill dismounts.

World Events and World Bosses

World Events and World Bosses will become more accessible in Season of Blood. The downtime for Legion Events will be reduced to 25 minutes, and World Bosses will respawn every three and a half hours, down from the original six hours. Both events will feature extended warning timers, providing players with more time to reach them. Additionally, a broadcast message will notify all players 15 minutes before the events commence. Some bugs preventing markers from appearing on minimaps will also be addressed.

Nightmare Dungeons and Affixes

Nightmare Dungeons will undergo several notable adjustments, including teleportation directly into the dungeon to minimize loading screens. Events within Nightmare Dungeons will boast higher mob density, and NPCs will exhibit increased resilience, reducing the likelihood of being defeated in one hit. Traps will be made more discernible, crowd control effects against players will be less potent, and Paragon Glyphs experience gains will be accelerated for faster progression. Specific dungeons will see the removal of objectives, while others will be redesigned to streamline objective-finding and reduce backtracking for players. Several Affixes, such as Backstabbers, Monster Critical Resist, Death Pulse, Lighting Storm, and Drifting Shade, have been reworked to offer a more balanced and fair experience.

Endgame

Nearly all endgame activities in Diablo 4 will receive substantial changes, with a primary focus on increasing experience gains and improving rewards. Notable adjustments include:

• Whispers will yield larger gold rewards and increased experience gains.
• Helltides will experience an expansion in experience rewards.
• Whisper Caches will consistently provide items based on the player's chosen type, ensuring that players receive items relevant to their preferences.
• Helltide chests will feature more distinct and detailed icons on the minimap, simplifying their identification.
• Nightmare Sigil will consistently be available within five levels of the highest Nightmare Dungeon completed by the player.
• With these changes and additional tweaks, the developers anticipate a 40% faster leveling experience compared to the Season of the Malignant.

UI and UX

The Season of Blood will introduce multiple improvements to the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) systems. These enhancements will include:

• A revamped Stash system, allowing players to filter and sort their items for quicker access.
• The ability to designate items as favorites in the inventory, preventing accidental sales or salvaging.
• Grouping of Extracted Aspects with identical effects for enhanced organization.
• Introduction of a Streamer mode.
• An option to hide combat text.
• A wider zoom-out range for the minimap.
• The addition of an auto-run feature.
• Quicker availability of Smoldering Ashes during the season.

Items and Gearing

The Season of Blood will usher in substantial changes to gear and item mechanics. These changes encompass the following:

• Transition from receiving Gems to obtaining Gem Shards, which can be used to craft Gems at the Jeweler.
• Reduction in Enchantment costs.
• A significant alteration to crafting materials, which will now replace low-quality gear drops in World Tiers 3 and 4. Consequently, in World Tier 3, Normal and Magic items will no longer drop, while in World Tier 4, only Ancestral items will be available, with the rest being materials. This adjustment eliminates the need for players to manually break down items.
• A direct correlation between item power and Monster level, along with Item Power rewards of +10 from Whisper Caches, +20 from Legendary Caches, and +20 from Helltide Cache rewards.

Campfire Chat and Steam Announcement

In addition to these exciting revelations, it was announced that Diablo 4 will be available on Steam simultaneously with the Season of Blood launch, offering full crossplay and cross-progression features. Furthermore, players can look forward to a Campfire Chat scheduled for October 10, delving into class changes and balance adjustments in greater detail. Additionally, another Developer Update is planned before the season's release on October 17.

This Season of Blood promises a wealth of content and enhancements that will undoubtedly revitalize the Diablo 4 experience, providing players with a more enjoyable and rewarding journey through the world of Sanctuary.

The next broadcast with the Diablo developers is set to commence on October 4th at 21:00. During this event, we will delve into details about the upcoming Blood Season and share insights into the game improvements that were unveiled during the Gamescom 2023 opening broadcast.

Developers and Assistant Community Manager Adam Fletcher will be sharing information about the menacing vampires threatening Sanctuary and their ominous abilities. Discover how to withstand the relentless assault of the forces of evil and leverage the power of blood for your advantage.

The broadcast with the developers will also feature comprehensive information about various game enhancements slated for the 2nd season. Developers will address diverse player requests, such as expanding stash capacity and capabilities, dungeon improvements, transportation options, and more. In the final segment, players will have the opportunity to directly pose questions to the developers.

Furthermore, on October 10th, there will be a Campfire Chat session where we will thoroughly dissect upcoming class balance adjustments and updates to several in-game systems.