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Diablo 2’s PS5 Offline Stutter May Finally Be Fixed After Six Months

2026-08-19T01:39:00.451-07:00

Diablo II: Resurrected players on PlayStation may finally be able to identify items without the game briefly reconsidering its existence.

For roughly six months, PS4 and PS5 players have reported an irritating offline hitch introduced around the Reign of the Warlock 3.0 update.

Talk to Deckard Cain.

Freeze.

Use the Horadric Cube.

Freeze.

Enter a portal.

Freeze.

Buy something from a vendor.

You get the idea.

Now, following the August 18 Patch 3.3 rollout, several of the players who spent months documenting the issue say the stutter appears to be finally fixed.

The Problem Started With the Reign of the Warlock Update

The first major PlayStation bug reports appeared on February 12, immediately after Diablo II: Resurrected's 3.0 update.

Players on both the native PS5 version and the PS4 version running through backward compatibility reported short freezes while playing completely offline.

One of the easiest ways to reproduce the problem was having Deckard Cain identify multiple items.

The game would briefly freeze for roughly 0.2 to 0.3 seconds.

But Cain was only the beginning.

Players eventually reproduced similar hitches while entering portals, changing areas, leveling up, using the Cube, interacting with vendors and during ordinary gameplay.

Most importantly, players reported the issue even on characters that did not own or use Reign of the Warlock content.

The expansion may have arrived with the update.

The hitching apparently came free.

Autosaves and Transactions Became the Main Suspect

Over the following months, the PlayStation community became impressively forensic about the problem.

One player recorded the Cain identification freeze frame by frame and spotted a brief message appearing during the hitch:

Waiting For Confirmation Of Transaction.

That led players to suspect the visible Cain freeze was only one symptom of a broader slowdown involving transactions, validation or game-state saving.

Later testing seemed to support that theory.

Players reported the same hitch around:

Cain identification
Manual item identification
Horadric Cube transmutation
Moving items into the Cube
Vendor purchases and sales
Gambling
Entering portals
Area transitions
Autosaves
Some item drops and gameplay events

That is unfortunately most of Diablo II.

Gambling Made the Problem Almost Comical

By August, players had found an especially effective demonstration.

Gambling.

Normally, players can rapidly buy items from the gambling screen and fill an inventory in seconds.

With the PlayStation hitching problem, each purchase could briefly lock the game before the next input registered.

Repeated purchases made the stutter occur again and again, turning an ordinary gambling session into a sequence of tiny pauses.

The same thing reportedly happened while repeatedly cubing gems.

Insert three gems.

Transmute.

Hitch.

Repeat.

The Horadric Cube already has enough opportunities to disappoint you without requiring a loading break between them.

The Problem Was Especially Uncomfortable in Hardcore

A menu hitch is annoying.

A gameplay hitch is potentially lethal.

Several players specifically stopped playing Hardcore offline characters because stalls could also happen during combat, immediately after entering an area or around portal transitions.

A fraction of a second is usually irrelevant.

In Diablo II Hardcore, a fraction of a second standing beside the wrong pack can become an obituary.

That is why the issue continued generating console bug reports long after smaller visual glitches would normally have been forgotten.

Several Earlier Updates Helped, but Didn’t Finish the Job

Players reported improvements during the months after launch, but the underlying hitch never completely disappeared.

In March, some players felt freezes had become shorter.

Others still reproduced them consistently.

Reports continued through April, May, June and July.

Even in August, PlayStation players were still opening new threads about offline hitching, freezing and autosave-related stalls.

The issue had effectively survived multiple patches and most of Reign of the Warlock's first six months.

Then Patch 3.3 Arrived

Patch 3.3 began rolling out on August 18 as part of the run-up to Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15.

Blizzard's published notes do not contain a line saying:

Fixed the six-month PlayStation offline hitch.

Instead, the Bug Fixes section simply begins with “Various stability and performance improvements.”

Apparently one of those improvements may have been doing quite a lot of work.

Players Immediately Started Stress-Testing It

One of the players who had spent months documenting the problem downloaded the new patch on August 18 and began testing the old triggers in real time.

Enter the Tristram portal.

No hitch.

Return to town and ask Cain to identify items.

Instant.

Use the Horadric Cube.

No chop.

Visit Gheed.

No obvious delay.

The player concluded that the issue finally appeared to be resolved.

Another PS5 player confirmed the result early on August 19.

A separate PS4 Slim player also reported no freezes after updating.

And another long-time reporter said Cain identification, Cube stuttering and ordinary gameplay hitching all appeared fixed.

This Is More Than One Happy PS5 Owner

That distinction matters.

If one person said their game suddenly felt smoother, we would not have much of a story.

But several people who had previously reproduced the problem across PS4, PS5 and PS5 Pro are now independently reporting that their known triggers no longer cause the same stalls.

That is strong community evidence that something meaningful changed in the new patch.

It is still not the same thing as Blizzard officially confirming the precise fix.

Patch 3.3 Is Turning Out to Be More Interesting Than Expected

The console fix is not the only seemingly small Patch 3.3 change producing a much larger practical effect.

We have already covered how a Miasma Chain collision fix appears to have made Abyss Warlock dramatically stronger in early player testing.

The patch also reduces Worldstone Shard and Ancient Statue drop rates, while improving Rare-or-better drops from higher Herald tiers.

It makes Latent Sunder Charms harder to obtain through Magic Find.

And Season 15 will bring eight older Ladder-only items into Non-Ladder.

Patch 3.3 looked fairly small.

Its consequences are proving considerably larger.

Season 15 Could Arrive With PlayStation in Much Better Shape

The timing is excellent.

Ladder Season 15 starts August 21 at 5 p.m. PDT, with European players joining on August 22 at 2 a.m. CEST.

That gives PlayStation players a few days to test the new patch before deciding whether they trust another Hardcore character with it.

If the early reports hold up, console players may finally be entering a new Ladder without the constant fear that talking to Deckard Cain will briefly freeze the universe.

We Should Still Call This “Appears Fixed” for Now

There is one final caveat.

Blizzard has not explicitly identified the PlayStation offline hitch in the Patch 3.3 notes.

The company only lists general stability and performance improvements.

So we cannot say with absolute certainty which technical change solved the problem, or whether every edge case on every PlayStation configuration has disappeared.

But this is the strongest evidence players have had in six months.

The same people who were reproducing Cain freezes, gambling delays, Cube stalls and portal hitches days ago are now trying those same actions and reporting smooth gameplay.

Six months.

Dozens of reports.

Multiple patches.

And finally, Deckard Cain may once again identify your inventory without requiring Diablo II to stop and think about it first.

Sources

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: PS5 Offline Stuttering/Hitching Has Ruined My Favorite Game

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: PS4/PS5 Offline Hitching — Gambling Exposes Severity

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: PS5 & PS4 Console — Freeze When Deckard Cain Identifies Items

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon / Patch 3.3 Notes

Diablo Immortal Players Say Normal Gems Are Disappearing During Salvage and Quick Craft

2026-08-19T01:28:31.956-07:00

There are few things in Diablo Immortal more satisfying than finally ranking up a Normal Gem.

There are also few things less satisfying than watching the gems required for that upgrade disappear without producing anything.

Players are now reporting two separate cases where valuable Normal Gems apparently vanished during completely ordinary inventory actions.

One involved salvaging a Set item.

The other involved using Quick Craft at the Jeweler.

Blizzard has not confirmed that the two incidents share the same cause, or even that they are manifestations of the same bug.

But if you are sitting on high-rank Normal Gems, this may be a good week to click things slightly more carefully than usual.

A Rank 8 Topaz Disappeared After Salvaging a Set Item

The first report appeared on August 16.

A player had just reached Paragon 1600 and was replacing some Inferno XIII Set equipment.

They salvaged a Restitution glove at the Blacksmith and converted it into a Wisp.

Afterward, one of the Rank 8 Topaz gems associated with their equipment was gone.

The player says they checked their inventory, stash and other equipped items and could not find it anywhere.

That is a particularly painful disappearance because high-rank Normal Gems represent a considerable amount of accumulated lower-rank gems.

The player was also close to having enough resources for another Rank 9 Topaz.

Instead, one of the Rank 8 building blocks apparently entered the Void.

Possibly the most expensive inventory tab in Sanctuary.

Then 81 Aquamarines Disappeared During Quick Craft

A day later, another player added a completely different Normal Gem problem.

They attempted to use Quick Craft at the Jeweler to turn 81 Rank 1 Aquamarines into a Rank 5 Aquamarine.

According to the report, all 81 gems disappeared from the inventory.

No Rank 5 Aquamarine appeared in their place.

The player later created a dedicated bug report and provided their device information, character UID and exact number of missing gems.

They also noted that at least some of the Aquamarines had effectively been acquired using paid services, making the loss considerably more than an inconvenience.

The Player Thinks Mixed Bound and Unbound Gems May Matter

The Quick Craft report became more interesting after other forum users tried to understand the sequence.

The affected player says they had previously crafted Rank 3 and Rank 4 gems without any problems.

The failure happened specifically while attempting Rank 5.

They later suggested a possible reproduction method:

Have exactly 81 Rank 1 gems.
Use a mixture of bound and unbound gems.
Select Rank 5 at the Jeweler.
Use Quick Craft.

According to the player, that is the situation developers should test.

Blizzard has not confirmed that this sequence reproduces the problem, so players should treat it as community troubleshooting rather than an established technical explanation.

These May Be Two Completely Different Bugs

It would be tempting to declare that Diablo Immortal has one giant Normal Gem deletion bug.

We do not have enough evidence for that.

The Topaz disappeared after Set-item salvage.

The Aquamarines disappeared during crafting.

Those are entirely different systems.

The only obvious connection is the end result:

Player had gems.

Player performed a normal game action.

Player no longer had gems.

That is enough reason to pay attention, but not enough to claim a shared technical cause.

Normal Gems Have Disappeared Before

There is some uncomfortable history here.

In May 2025, another Diablo Immortal player reported losing a Rank 7 Citrine while switching equipment and Armory loadouts.

The same player said they had previously lost two Rank 7 Sapphires and managed to recover those through an older saved Armory configuration.

They suspected another gem may have disappeared when a Set item was salvaged and the socketed gem failed to return correctly.

That older thread also linked to previous reports involving Normal Gems disappearing during Armory and gear-switching sequences.

Again, there is no evidence that the 2025 cases and this week's incidents have the same underlying cause.

But Normal Gems apparently finding creative exits from the inventory is not an entirely new complaint.

That Matters Because Normal Gems Are Painfully Expensive to Replace

Normal Gems are not decorative pocket gravel.

High-rank gems represent enormous quantities of lower-rank gems accumulated through regular play, events, the Marketplace and other sources.

Players have repeatedly complained that Normal Gem progression is one of Diablo Immortal's harder long-term systems to catch up on, particularly for newer accounts.

That is why losing a Rank 8 gem feels considerably worse than accidentally salvaging another random Legendary shoulder.

One can be replaced after some farming.

The other represents a small geological era.

Diablo Immortal Has Had a Rough August for Expensive Items

The Normal Gem reports arrive during an awkward run of inventory and premium-system problems.

We just covered another player who says 6,000 Eternal Orbs were spent on an unusable Celestial Serpents cosmetic upgrade.

That followed the earlier 4,500-Orb Fanal of Hope purchase that Blizzard is investigating.

Another player says the Temptation's End dye system still would not change colors after a 10,960-Orb setup.

And underneath all of this, players are still adapting to the Inferno XIV Loyalty Point conversion and new Essence progression cycle.

None of those problems necessarily share a cause.

But August has been an unusually educational month for the importance of checking what happened after pressing Confirm.

For Now, Manual Crafting May Be the Safer Option

There is no confirmed Blizzard workaround for either new Normal Gem report.

Still, players concerned about losing expensive gems may want to take a few temporary precautions until the situation becomes clearer.

If you are salvaging Set equipment containing valuable Normal Gems, verify where those gems are before and after the salvage.

If you are combining a large pile of Rank 1 gems, particularly a mixture of bound and unbound gems, manually ranking them in smaller steps may be worth considering instead of immediately using Quick Craft to Rank 5.

And screenshots of your inventory before performing expensive operations are rarely a terrible idea when reporting a potential item-loss bug.

That advice is precautionary.

It is not confirmation that either process is universally unsafe.

Gems Should Become Bigger Gems, Not No Gems

Diablo Immortal is built around upgrading things.

Equipment becomes better equipment.

Essences become builds.

Small gems become larger gems.

That last progression step becomes considerably less attractive when 81 Aquamarines apparently become air.

For now, we have two current reports involving two different systems and some older history suggesting Normal Gem disappearances have happened before.

What we do not yet have is a Blizzard explanation.

Until then, perhaps treat that Quick Craft button with the respect normally reserved for a suspicious Horadric Cube.

Sources

Diablo Immortal Forums: Normal Gems Disappeared After Salvaging Set Item

Diablo Immortal Forums: Aquamarine Disappeared After Quick Craft at Jeweler

Diablo Immortal Forums: Normal Gem Gone

Another Diablo Immortal Player Bought an Unusable Cosmetic — This One Cost 6,000 Orbs

2026-08-19T01:21:56.824-07:00

Diablo Immortal has another expensive cosmetic problem.

And this time the number is even larger.

A player says they spent 6,000 Eternal Orbs on an upgraded Celestial Serpents cosmetic after the option appeared in-game.

After completing the purchase, they say they received no cosmetic or anything else they could actually use.

The report was filed on August 19 and directly references the recent case where another Diablo Immortal player spent 4,500 Eternal Orbs on a Fanal of Hope enhancement that required a base cosmetic they did not own.

One case can be an unfortunate edge case.

Two expensive cosmetic reports within days of each other start making the purchase logic considerably more interesting.

The Player Spent 6,000 Orbs on Celestial Serpents

The new report is remarkably short and direct.

The player says Diablo Immortal showed them the option to purchase the Celestial Serpents upgraded cosmetic for 6,000 Eternal Orbs.

They bought it.

Then nothing useful appeared.

The player is using an iPad and filed the issue under Diablo Immortal's iOS Bug Report section.

At the time of writing, Blizzard has not publicly responded to this specific 6,000-Orb report.

Celestial Serpents Has a Separate Upgrade System

The important context comes from Blizzard's original Celestial Serpents announcement.

The cosmetic debuted through the Lunar New Year Phantom Market in January 2025 and included an optional upgrade system called Tempering & Refining.

Tempering changes the appearance of the gilded serpents and alters the color of Primary Attacks.

Polishing adds a special finisher animation when killing Elites or bosses.

But Blizzard's wording contains a particularly important condition:

The Celestial Serpents cosmetic must already be unlocked before players can spend Eternal Orbs to Temper and Polish it.

That makes the new report difficult to dismiss as someone simply misunderstanding what an upgrade does.

If a player does not meet the requirement, the more important question becomes why the 6,000-Orb purchase option appeared at all.

We Don’t Yet Know Whether the Player Owns the Base Cosmetic

There is an important difference between this report and the earlier Fanal of Hope case.

The new player has not yet explained whether they already own the Celestial Serpents base cosmetic, a portal or another component from the original set.

So we cannot say the exact same bug has happened again.

The failure could involve account ownership detection.

It could involve delivery of the upgraded cosmetic.

It could involve another problem entirely.

Right now, all we know is that the game accepted 6,000 Eternal Orbs and the player says nothing usable arrived.

That is enough to warrant investigation.

Not enough to diagnose the patient.

The Player Links Directly to the 4,500-Orb Case

What makes the timing particularly awkward is that the new player explicitly connects their experience with the 4,500-Orb Fanal of Hope case we covered last week.

In that earlier report, a player purchased a cosmetic enhancement believing they were buying usable cosmetic content.

They later discovered that the purchase only modified the Fanal of Hope base armor cosmetic.

They did not own that armor.

Worse, the base cosmetic was no longer obtainable.

The player therefore had 4,500 Orbs tied up in an upgrade for something they could not currently acquire.

Blizzard Is Already Investigating the Earlier Case

The previous story eventually reached Blizzard's development team.

A Blizzard representative responded publicly on August 12 and said the team was investigating the bug and would communicate what steps it planned to take.

That was significant because Customer Support had previously told the player it could not reverse the purchase, refund the Orbs or provide another form of compensation.

The new 6,000-Orb reporter had actually already appeared in that older thread on August 18, saying they had encountered the same general type of problem and had not heard back regarding their support ticket.

Less than a day later, they created a dedicated Celestial Serpents bug report.

This Makes Purchase Validation More Important

We still do not know whether both cases have the same technical cause.

But they raise the same basic design question.

Should Diablo Immortal allow an account to purchase an expensive cosmetic enhancement unless the game has verified that the enhancement will actually be usable?

The cleanest version of the system would be boring.

Own the base cosmetic?

Purchase button available.

Do not own it?

Purchase button disabled.

That would eliminate a considerable amount of customer-support archaeology.

Premium Cosmetic Systems Are Becoming More Complicated

The issue is particularly relevant because Diablo Immortal has recently been expanding cosmetic customization aggressively.

We recently covered the new Temptation's End dye customization system, which costs 4,500 Orbs just to unlock.

Then another player reported that their full Temptation's End dye setup still refused to change colors after they had spent 10,960 Orbs.

Now we have Celestial Serpents and another 6,000-Orb purchase dispute.

None of those reports proves that Diablo Immortal's entire cosmetic system is broken.

But the more layers Blizzard adds to premium cosmetics, the more important it becomes that ownership requirements, upgrade dependencies and purchase results are absolutely clear.

6,000 Orbs Should Probably Produce Something

There is no Blizzard response on the new Celestial Serpents report yet.

There is also not enough information to say the player definitely encountered the same ownership bug as the Fanal of Hope buyer.

For now, this remains one newly documented case.

But it arrives while Blizzard is already investigating another expensive unusable-cosmetic purchase.

That makes it worth watching.

Because premium cosmetic systems can be complicated.

Temper.

Polish.

Refine.

Upgrade.

Change colors.

Add finishers.

Fine.

But after 6,000 Eternal Orbs leave the account, the next step should probably not be:

Open a bug report.

Sources

Diablo Immortal Forums: 6000 Eternal Orbs Spent on Unusable Cosmetic

Diablo Immortal Forums: 4,500 Eternal Orbs Spent on Unusable Cosmetic

Blizzard Entertainment: A Gilded Dawn — Tong Shi's Renewal

Diablo 4 Players Are Finishing Their Entire War Plan — Then Getting Stuck at 9/10

2026-08-19T01:06:09.097-07:00

Diablo 4's War Plans are supposed to reward you for completing endgame activities.

Some players have discovered a slightly less satisfying final objective.

Finish everything.

Then stare at 9/10 forever.

A long-running Diablo IV bug report describes War Plans becoming permanently stuck one level short of completion even after every available activity on the board has been maxed out.

The problem was first reported in June and is still receiving fresh reports on August 19.

For affected players, the missing rank means they cannot unlock the final War Plan reward despite apparently having nothing left to complete.

Every Activity Is Finished, But the War Plan Still Wants One More

The original report came from a Barbarian player on the Asia servers.

They completed every activity shown on the right side of the War Plan tree.

The activities were done.

The points were spent.

But the overall War Plan remained at Rank 9/10.

The interface still said another activity or skill point was required to reach the final rank.

There was only one minor problem.

There were no activities left.

The player tried restarting Diablo 4, restarting Battle.net, verifying the game files and logging out and back in.

Nothing changed.

Yes, War Plans Really Can Reach 10/10

One of the first questions in the bug thread was whether 9/10 might simply be the intended maximum because War Plans begin at Rank 0.

Other players quickly ruled that out.

War Plans can reach 10/10, and the UI continues showing unfinished progression after Rank 9 for affected players.

Later reports are even more explicit.

One player finished the entire War Plan and received the associated completion achievement, but the board itself remained at 9/10.

Another reported every activity sitting at 7/7 while the War Plan remained one rank short.

Achievement complete.

Activities complete.

War Plan apparently unconvinced.

Players Think Double Rank-Ups May Be Losing a Point

The most interesting community theory appeared after players began comparing how their War Plans progressed.

Several suspect the bug happens when an activity gains two ranks at once around the same time the overall War Plan should gain a level.

One player suggested that doing two Nightmare Dungeon Escalations or two Greater Helltide upgrades together may cause the system to count only one of the activity ranks.

A later player described what appears to be the same problem in more detail.

According to their testing, if an activity double-ranks while the War Plan itself is close to leveling, one activity rank may fail to count toward the overall total.

Nothing looks obviously broken at the time.

The problem only becomes unavoidable weeks later, when every activity is maxed and the missing point can no longer be earned.

That explanation has not been confirmed by Blizzard.

But it would explain why the bug feels like it appears at the end even though the actual mistake may have happened much earlier.

Another Theory Points to the First Activity Rank

There is not complete agreement on the cause.

Another player testing a fresh character noticed that the first rank gained in one activity tree appeared not to contribute an expected point.

So the community currently has at least two possible explanations:

A double activity rank-up causes one point to be skipped.
An early activity rank sometimes fails to count correctly.

Neither theory has received official confirmation.

What players do agree on is the outcome.

Eventually the board reaches a state where everything is finished but the numbers no longer add up.

The Bug Is Still Happening on August 19

The original thread did not disappear after June.

Players reported the same problem throughout July and August.

On August 3, one player said they had finally maxed their War Plan after several weeks of progression and ended up permanently one point short.

More reports followed on August 11.

And early on August 19, another Barbarian player confirmed the same issue again.

Interestingly, that player said their Warlock did not have the problem.

They wondered whether the difference might relate to one character starting Seasonal while the Barbarian began on Eternal.

That is only speculation, but it adds another variable worth investigating.

War Plans Have Already Needed Plenty of Fixes

This is not Diablo 4's first argument with the War Plan system.

Blizzard has already fixed multiple problems involving War Plan progression, boss spawns, activity tracking and rewards since Lord of Hatred launched.

We previously covered an Infernal Hordes War Plan bug that could completely block progression, which Blizzard later addressed.

We have also been following the Ultimate Nemesis party loot problem, where groups report completing the final encounter only for some players to receive no proper reward.

Blizzard's official patch notes include numerous War Plan fixes, from Nemesis Lairs failing to trigger to activity icons displaying incorrectly and campaign states being evaluated inconsistently between party members.

The system is clearly complicated.

Unfortunately, Rank 9 apparently still knows how to count to ten about as well as a Fallen.

This Is Another Progression Bug With No Way Forward

The reason this one matters is not simply that the UI displays the wrong number.

The final rewards remain locked.

There is no additional activity to grind.

Reassigning points reportedly does not solve it.

Restarting does not solve it.

And because every activity is already at maximum rank, the player has no obvious way to generate another progression event and force the missing point to appear.

That puts it in the same unpleasant category as several progression issues we have covered recently.

Some Eternal characters still cannot access the campaign skip they should have unlocked.

Players can become soft-locked during the Secret Cow Level quest despite completing the required steps.

And even 65/65 Skovos exploration can leave the Amazonian Charge mount locked for some accounts.

The common theme is particularly frustrating:

The player has already done the work.

The game just has not finished counting it.

Blizzard Has Not Announced a Specific Fix Yet

Blizzard's current patch notes contain plenty of War Plan fixes, but we have not found a published correction specifically addressing the 9/10 progression issue.

The main bug thread is also still active today.

That does not mean Blizzard is not investigating it.

Bug reports can be tracked internally without receiving a public developer response.

But from the player's perspective, there is currently no confirmed fix or reliable workaround.

Weeks of Grinding Should Probably Add Up to Ten

War Plans were introduced with Lord of Hatred as a way to give Diablo 4's endgame more structure, allowing players to customize and progress through chains of activities after finishing the expansion campaign.

That structure only works if the progression system remembers all the progression.

Players reporting this bug are not asking for free levels.

They are not asking Blizzard to reduce the grind.

They have already finished the grind.

They would simply like:

Seven out of seven.

Plus seven out of seven.

Plus everything else completed.

To eventually equal ten out of ten.

Sanctuary has more complicated mathematics than that.

This should not be one of them.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: War Plans Level Stuck at 9/10 — Missing Skill Point After Completing All Activities

Blizzard Entertainment: Prepare for the Reckoning — Lord of Hatred Draws Near

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo IV Patch Notes

Diablo 2 Patch 3.3 Fixed One Warlock Bug — Players Say It Made Abyss Ridiculously Strong

2026-08-19T00:54:54.180-07:00

Diablo II: Resurrected Patch 3.3 contains one very innocent-looking Warlock bug fix.

Miasma Chain no longer collides with friendly and neutral units.

That is it.

No giant damage multiplier.

No doubled skill coefficient.

No developer note announcing that Hell Diablo should immediately begin updating his will.

And yet, less than a day after Patch 3.3 went live, Warlock players are already reporting that the fix may have given the Abyss Warlock a much larger practical damage boost than anyone expected.

Miasma Chain Was Hitting Things It Wasn’t Supposed To

Blizzard's official Patch 3.3 notes describe the change very simply:

Miasma Chain had missile collision with friendly and neutral units. That has now been fixed.

On paper, this is quality-of-life.

Miasma Chain projectiles should reach enemies instead of colliding with things that are not actually trying to kill you.

In practice, however, Miasma Chain is one of the main single-target damage tools in Abyss Warlock builds.

And if those chains are suddenly reaching bosses more reliably, the difference can be much larger than the patch note makes it sound.

Players Say Hell Diablo Is Melting

The first post-Patch 3.3 testing is already raising eyebrows.

One player on Blizzard's forums described the new Abyss Warlock performance as so overwhelming that it becomes difficult to consider starting Season 15 with another character.

Another player tested the build against Hell Diablo and reported that the boss went down extremely quickly after stacking a large number of Miasma Chains around his spawn point.

The important detail is the gear.

The player described using relatively inexpensive equipment with only around +5 total skills and no skill Grand Charms.

That is hardly the sort of setup where Diablo should evaporate because somebody looked at him aggressively.

This Is Really a Miasma Chain Story

Calling this an “Abyss buff” is slightly misleading.

Blizzard did not actually buff Abyss in Patch 3.3.

The change affects Miasma Chain.

But Abyss Warlocks already commonly use Miasma Chain as part of the same build, particularly against bosses and tougher targets.

That relationship was obvious even before Patch 3.3.

Earlier Hardcore testing from Season 14 described Abyss as excellent AoE damage and crowd control, while Miasma Chain became the real heavy hitter against bosses and enemies that survived the initial Abyss damage.

So if Patch 3.3 has substantially improved Miasma Chain's ability to connect with a target, the entire Abyss package benefits.

The skill did not become stronger mathematically.

It simply became better at actually delivering the mathematics to Diablo's face.

Abyss Was Already Very Strong

This is the other reason the early reports matter.

Abyss was hardly waiting for Blizzard to rescue it.

Players were already calling it one of the strongest Warlock leveling tools during Season 14 because it combines several unusually useful properties:

Strong area damage
Magic damage, avoiding many common immunities
Large-area crowd control
Continued scaling through synergies
Safe off-screen targeting

One Hardcore player documented beating Hell Baal at level 78 with modest equipment while praising Abyss for handling dangerous enemies such as Gloams and Dolls.

That makes Patch 3.3 potentially dangerous from a balance perspective.

You are not fixing the broken steering on a weak build.

You may be fixing the broken steering on something that was already driving extremely fast.

Season 15 Starts in Just a Few Days

The timing could hardly be better for build experimentation.

Patch 3.3 is already live, but the actual Diablo II: Resurrected Season 15 Ladder does not begin until August 21, or early August 22 for European players.

That gives the community a few days to test Abyss and Miasma Chain before everyone begins again from level one.

And suddenly the Warlock starter question becomes much more interesting.

If this performance survives deeper testing, Abyss could become one of the obvious early Season 15 choices.

Patch 3.3 Is Already Changing the Season 15 Meta

The Miasma Chain fix is only one part of a surprisingly consequential patch.

We have already covered how Patch 3.3 makes Sunder Charms harder to obtain, while also changing how Magic Find interacts with some drops.

Blizzard is also reducing Worldstone Shard and Ancient Statue drop rates, which will affect how players approach the Reign of the Warlock endgame.

At the same time, eight older Ladder-only items are moving into Non-Ladder, while the newly adjusted Season 15 items remain part of the fresh Ladder economy.

Blizzard even changed Manald Heal from Faster Run/Walk to Faster Cast Rate shortly before the patch arrived.

Season 15 looked relatively modest on paper.

The details are doing quite a lot of work.

Warlock Has Already Changed Diablo II More Than Expected

When Reign of the Warlock arrived, adding an entirely new class to Diablo II was already a fairly extraordinary event.

The class has since become deeply connected to the game's expanded endgame, including Terror Zones, Heralds and the Colossal Ancients pinnacle encounter.

Patch 3.3 now shows how even tiny mechanical fixes can change that ecosystem.

A projectile collision bug sounds boring.

Until removing it allows twenty poisonous chains to stop colliding with somebody's goat and start colliding with Diablo.

Don’t Call Abyss Broken Yet

There is still a very important caveat.

These are early community tests.

Blizzard has not said Abyss Warlock is overpowered after Patch 3.3.

We do not yet have large-scale Season 15 performance data, fully optimized comparisons or enough testing across player counts and endgame encounters to declare a definitive new meta.

Pre-casting large numbers of Miasma Chains at a known boss spawn is also an unusually favorable scenario for the skill.

Hell Diablo standing patiently where twenty chains are waiting for him is not necessarily representative of every fight in Diablo II.

It is, however, representative of a very bad morning for Diablo.

One Bug Fix May Have Changed the Best Season 15 Starter Conversation

The interesting part is that nobody needed a giant Warlock balance patch to create this discussion.

Blizzard fixed one collision problem.

Miasma Chain started behaving more like players expected it to behave.

And suddenly the community is asking whether one of the strongest Warlock builds just became dramatically better.

That is exactly the sort of interaction worth watching before Ladder Season 15 begins.

If the current results hold up, players may remember Patch 3.3 less for its item tweaks and drop-rate changes than for one wonderfully understated line buried under Bug Fixes.

Fixed an issue where Miasma Chain had missile collision on neutral and friendly units.

Diablo may eventually request that Blizzard puts the bug back.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: 3.3 Abyss Warlock Has Become Too Strong

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: Abyss Warlock After Beating Hell Baal in Hardcore

Diablo Immortal Player Says a 10,960-Orb Dye Setup Won’t Actually Change Colors

2026-08-17T23:55:50.851-07:00

Diablo Immortal recently added proper dye customization to Temptation’s End.

One player says they have now discovered an unfortunate limitation.

The colors refuse to change.

A new Android bug report says the player unlocked every available dye option for the Temptation’s End cosmetic, including the variable color controls, only to find that the outfit continues displaying its default appearance regardless of which colors are selected.

The player estimates the complete dye setup cost 10,960 Eternal Orbs for that cosmetic.

That is a great deal of premium currency for a color picker currently behaving like a decorative button.

Blizzard Added Temptation’s End Dyeing on August 12

The dye system arrived with Diablo Immortal’s August 12 update.

Blizzard officially added color customization for both Temptation’s End and the Temptation’s End Collector’s Edition, allowing players to unlock expanded color options for 4,500 Eternal Orbs.

We covered that initial price in our look at Diablo Immortal’s new 4,500-Orb dye customization system.

That 4,500-Orb figure is the feature unlock Blizzard advertises.

The player behind the new bug report says continuing to unlock the full range of dye options, including the variable color bar, brought the total to 10,960 Orbs per cosmetic.

And after doing that, Temptation’s End apparently remained exactly the same color.

No Matter Which Color Is Selected, It Stays Default

The report was filed on August 16 by a player using a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra running Diablo Immortal version 5.0.0.

Diablo 4 Lowered the Skovos Requirement — Some Players Still Can’t Get the Mount

2026-08-17T23:50:48.039-07:00

Diablo 4 fixed one of Skovos' most irritating exploration problems.

Then apparently forgot about some of the players who had already finished it.

The No Island Unturned achievement originally asked players to discover 67 areas in Skovos. Unfortunately, many players reached 65/67 and discovered there did not appear to be another two areas to find.

The requirement has since been changed to 65/65.

Problem solved.

Except players who had already explored those 65 areas before the change say the achievement can remain stuck at Not Started, preventing the associated Amazonian Charge mount from unlocking.

The Original Problem Was 65/67

The main bug report dates back to July 5.

The player had fully explored Skovos on Eternal Softcore and then repeated the process on Eternal Hardcore.

Both times, the map stopped at 65/67.

After Diablo 4 changed the requirement to 65/65, the exploration counter correctly updated.

The achievement did not.

The player says No Island Unturned remained incomplete despite the map now showing full exploration, which also meant the Amazonian Charge reward never arrived.

Other players immediately reported the same thing.

One described the challenge as showing Not Started despite all of Skovos being visible.

Another confirmed the problem still existed on July 17 after completing the regions during the earlier 65/67 bug.

65/65 Apparently Isn’t Enough for Some Accounts

A separate Technical Support report from July 29 describes the same situation in even simpler terms:

Exploration Progress: 65/65.

No Island Unturned: incomplete.

The player had also completed the Lord of Hatred campaign on both Softcore and Hardcore and said exploration was the only remaining challenge preventing full completion.

By August 17, the issue was still being reported.

One player said they had 65/65 on both Softcore and Hardcore before the fix and still had not received retroactive credit.

That makes the current problem less about discovering Skovos.

Players already did that.

The game just needs to notice.

The Likely Problem Is Retroactive Progress

Players have developed a fairly convincing theory.

If you discovered the 65 valid Skovos areas after the requirement changed, the final area can trigger the achievement normally.

If your account already had all 65 areas discovered beforehand, there may be no new exploration event left to trigger the achievement check.

That would explain why some players can reach 65/65 and receive the mount while others remain permanently stuck despite displaying the exact same number.

Blizzard has not publicly confirmed that technical explanation, so it remains a community diagnosis rather than an official cause.

The Community Workaround Is Not Especially Convenient

One workaround suggested by players is completing Skovos exploration on a fresh realm state, particularly Hardcore if the player has not already explored it there.

The idea is simple:

Start with fewer than 65 discovered areas.

Reach 65/65 naturally.

Let the final discovery trigger the achievement.

That has reportedly worked for some players.

It is less helpful for people who already explored Skovos on both Softcore and Hardcore before Blizzard changed the requirement.

Those players have effectively run out of fresh maps to complete.

That is an impressive achievement in itself.

Unfortunately it does not come with the mount.

The Amazonian Charge Is the Part Players Actually Care About

Achievement completion is nice.

The Amazonian Charge is nicer.

The mount is tied to No Island Unturned, which means this is not merely a challenge counter displaying the wrong percentage.

Players are being prevented from receiving a cosmetic reward attached to completing the exploration requirement.

That puts the bug in the same irritating category as several progression problems we have covered recently.

Some Eternal characters still cannot skip the Lord of Hatred campaign despite completing it elsewhere.

Players are still reporting that the Secret Cow Level quest can soft-lock during the Anger step.

And groups reaching Ultimate Nemesis can still finish the fight without everyone receiving the expected loot.

Different systems.

Same sentence:

I did the thing. Where is my reward?

Skovos May Have Another Tracking Problem Too

There is another fresh Skovos-related report from August 17.

One Eternal player says their Skovos World Event Master progress is stuck at 93/100 even after repeatedly killing the Skovos World Boss enough times that they believe the count should have reached 100.

That is currently only a single report, so there is no reason to assume the two problems share the same cause.

But it is another example of Skovos progression apparently not always registering the activity happening directly in front of it.

Season 14 Has Had a Strange Collection of Tracking Bugs

Diablo 4 is currently carrying several bugs where the underlying action seems to work while the progression or stat attached to it does not.

We recently covered a Block Chance problem where Greater Affixes and Masterworking reportedly leave the stat unchanged.

And today we looked at a Transfiguration report where a near-perfect amulet became Unmodifiable without any visible reward.

That is what makes No Island Unturned particularly frustrating.

There is no mystery about whether the player completed the requirement.

The game itself says:

65/65.

Blizzard Needs a Retroactive Check

Players affected by the old 65/67 state are asking Blizzard for a backend or retroactive progression check that recognizes accounts already sitting at 65/65 and grants the missing achievement and reward.

That sounds like the cleanest solution if the community diagnosis is correct.

Do not ask players to rediscover an area that is already discovered.

Do not ask them to create another character.

Do not ask them to explore an island for the third time.

Just look at the counter.

65.

Out of 65.

There are more complicated mathematical problems in Diablo 4.

This probably should not be one of them.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: No Island Unturned Achievement and Amazonian Charge Mount Not Granted After Skovos Requirement Update

Diablo IV Forums: Unable to Complete No Island Unturned Achievement Despite 65/65 Exploration

Diablo IV Forums: World Boss Kills in Skovos Are Not Being Counted in Eternal

Diablo 4 Players Are Still Getting Locked Out of the Secret Cow Level Quest

2026-08-17T23:44:59.210-07:00

Diablo has spent almost thirty years insisting that there is no cow level.

Diablo 4 has apparently found a new way to preserve the tradition.

There may be a cow level.

You just might not be allowed to reach it.

Players are still reporting that the hidden Secret Cow Level questline can become soft-locked during its Anger step, leaving them unable to obtain the required Amazon Training pieces, Mother’s Rose or activate the final brazier.

The main bug report began back on May 9 and was still receiving new complaints on August 17.

The Anger Step Can Apparently Stop Progressing

The original player had successfully collected and equipped all five pieces of the Amazon Training set.

While waiting for Vasha the Unbroken, they removed the Training Boots because of an inconvenient Fury-draining affix, returned to town and accidentally salvaged them.

That should have been annoying.

Instead, it apparently became permanent.

From that moment onward, Corrupted Amazons stopped dropping replacement Training pieces. The player salvaged the remaining set, restarted the Anger ritual, reacquired the initial helm from the training dummy and cleared multiple Celestia zones.

Nothing.

Vasha also refused to drop Mother’s Rose, and the Temple of Courage brazier remained non-interactable.

The player believes some hidden progression flag may remain set after the game registers the full armor set, preventing the quest from correctly resetting if part of the sequence is interrupted.

Blizzard has not confirmed that explanation.

Other Players Are Getting Stuck in Different Places

The worrying part is how many variations of the same problem have appeared.

One player reported collecting three Amazon Training pieces before a Helltide began, after which nothing except the helmet would drop.

Another said they killed more than 10,000 Corrupted Amazons while trying relogs, Cross Play changes, quest resets and different characters without fixing the problem.

Others successfully collected all five armor pieces but repeatedly killed Vasha without receiving Mother’s Rose.

One player tried the process on three separate alts.

Still no Rose.

At some point this stops being secret-content discovery and becomes bovine bureaucracy.

Moving Items Between Characters Can Make Things Stranger

Players have also discovered that the hidden quest appears unusually sensitive to which character completes each step.

One player eventually obtained the Amazon equipment and Mother’s Rose on a Warlock after their Barbarian became stuck.

They then placed the Rose in the stash and moved it to the Barbarian.

The Barbarian could not light the associated brazier.

Switching back to the Warlock allowed the brazier to activate, but introduced another progression problem afterward.

That player concluded that the safest approach may be completing all three ritual branches on the same character.

Again, that is community troubleshooting rather than confirmed Blizzard guidance.

There Are Workarounds, but They Don’t Work for Everyone

One July player reported a successful recovery without creating another character.

Instead of repeatedly resetting Anger, they completed another ritual branch first, returned to Anger afterward, activated the talisman again, reread the journal, equipped the Amazon Training armor and went directly to Vasha.

This time Mother’s Rose dropped.

Another player confirmed in August that the same workaround fixed their quest.

Unfortunately, later reports say even that method does not always work.

On August 11, one player said they had tried multiple characters, salvaged and refarmed the equipment four times, reread the notebook and restarted Anger repeatedly.

No Rose.

On August 17, the same player returned with a wonderfully concise summary of the entire situation:

They just wanted to moo.

Still no confirmed Blizzard acknowledgement.

Diablo 4 Has Had a Bad Run of Progression Bugs

The Cow Level problem fits an unfortunate pattern we have been following recently.

Just yesterday we covered how some Eternal characters still cannot skip the Lord of Hatred campaign months after players completed it elsewhere.

We have also covered an older progression problem where Diablo 4 removed Elixirs while an old Vessel of Hatred quest still appeared to require one.

And at the endgame, players continue reporting that Ultimate Nemesis parties can complete the encounter only for some members to receive no proper loot.

Different systems.

Same particularly unpleasant result:

The player does what the game asks, and progression simply stops.

Hidden Quests Are Especially Vulnerable to This

A normal quest bug is frustrating.

A hidden quest bug is worse because players are already working without normal guidance.

The Secret Cow Level chain deliberately relies on obscure objects, unusual drops and player experimentation.

When one step fails, it becomes extremely difficult to know whether you have discovered another secret condition or whether the game has simply broken.

Do you need another armor piece?

Did you perform the rituals in the wrong order?

Should Vasha drop something?

Is the brazier intentionally inactive?

Or did a hidden progression flag give up three hours ago?

That uncertainty is entertaining when solving a secret.

It is considerably less entertaining after 10,000 Amazon kills.

Don’t Salvage the Training Set Until You’re Finished

Until Blizzard clarifies the problem, the safest community advice is fairly conservative.

If you are working through the Anger sequence, keep the full Amazon Training set intact.

Try to complete the associated steps on the same character.

And avoid moving or salvaging quest-related items until Mother’s Rose has been used successfully.

Those precautions are based on player reports rather than an official fix, and even following them does not appear to guarantee success.

But they may reduce the chance of ending up in one of the broken states described in the forum thread.

The Secret Cow Level Should Be Difficult to Find, Not Impossible to Finish

There is something wonderfully Diablo about a hidden Cow Level quest requiring players to decipher strange rituals, wear ridiculous equipment and murder suspicious numbers of monsters.

That part should remain obscure.

The quest should feel like something the community collectively uncovers.

But once a player has figured out what to do, the challenge should be completing the secret.

Not determining whether the secret currently works.

Diablo has spent decades telling us there is no cow level.

Diablo 4 apparently added an asterisk.

There is no cow level if Mother’s Rose refuses to drop.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Cow Level Anger Step Soft-Locked — Amazon Training Set Drops Stop, Vasha Drops No Mother’s Rose, Brazier Non-Interactable

Diablo 4 Player Says Transfiguration Bricked a Near-Perfect Amulet and Gave Nothing Back

2026-08-17T23:38:16.190-07:00

Diablo 4's Transfiguration system is supposed to be risky.

You take an excellent item.

You put it into the Horadric Cube.

You press the button.

And then you discover whether Sanctuary has decided to reward months of optimization or turn your prized possession into an expensive cautionary tale.

One player says the system has now discovered a third option.

Do absolutely nothing and lock the item anyway.

A fresh August 18 bug report describes a near-perfect Ancestral Legendary amulet becoming permanently Unmodifiable after Transfiguration despite receiving no visible new affix, no Item Quality increase, no Greater Affix upgrade, no Indestructible effect and apparently no other Transfiguration result.

This Was Not a Disposable Amulet

The player, Apokriphos, had already put a considerable amount of work into the item before attempting the final roll.

According to the report, the amulet had an enchanted +4 skill affix, several important Greater Affixes, finished Tempering and Masterworking, a finalized Legendary Aspect and a successful Kullean Transfiguration already applied.

In other words, this was not something picked up during a Helltide and thrown into the Cube because there was nothing interesting on television.

It was an endgame item.

The sort of item where every additional crafting step is preceded by a short conversation with yourself about whether greed is really worth it.

Apparently it was not.

The Final Transfiguration Locked It With No Visible Reward

The player then performed one final normal Transfiguration using Volatile Primordial Dust.

The result was immediate.

The amulet became Unmodifiable.

That part is not unusual. Transfiguration is intentionally capable of permanently locking an item from further modification.

What was unusual was everything that did not happen.

The player reports receiving:

No new affix
No Item Quality increase
No Greater Affix upgrade
No Indestructible result
No visible replacement or additional Transfiguration effect

The item simply became locked.

Bad RNG is one thing.

RNG forgetting to generate the R is another.

Transfiguration Is Already Diablo 4’s Final Gamble

This hurts because Transfiguration sits at the very end of the crafting process.

By the time players seriously consider using it on a valuable item, they may already have invested Enchanting, Tempering, Masterworking and substantial time finding the correct Greater Affixes.

Blizzard has continued integrating Transfiguration into high-end itemization, including Season 14 changes to Mythic crafting and fixes for several Cube interactions. The current patch notes still contain Transfiguration-specific fixes, including preventing non-functional Greater Affixes from being added to Mythic Unique items.

That is why a no-result roll feels different from simply receiving the wrong bonus.

The player was prepared to gamble the item.

The expectation was that the gamble would produce something.

This May Not Be the First Time

There is another reason the new report deserves attention.

A separate bug report from May describes a remarkably similar outcome on another amulet.

That player started with a four-star amulet, performed a basic Transfiguration and watched the item become Unmodifiable and display five stars.

But the player could not identify any actual stat increase or additional Greater Affix afterward.

Their theory was that Transfiguration may have selected an affix that was already Greater or already enhanced, resulting in no meaningful visible improvement.

Blizzard never publicly confirmed that explanation.

But it raises an uncomfortable possibility:

A Transfiguration outcome may occasionally select something that produces no useful change while still consuming the roll and locking the item.

Amulets Have Already Had Transfiguration Problems

This would hardly be Diablo 4's first strange interaction involving amulets and the Horadric Cube.

Players previously reported cases where changing a Legendary Aspect after using a Kullean Tuning Prism caused the Transfigured Aspect to disappear, sometimes leaving the amulet unable to be Transfigured again. Multiple players reproduced that problem in May.

Blizzard has fixed several Cube-related problems since then, but today's report suggests highly invested amulets may still have dangerous edge cases.

That fits a broader pattern we have been watching across Diablo 4's increasingly complicated item systems.

We recently covered how Block Chance may fail to improve through Greater Affixes and Masterworking, despite players investing heavily into the stat.

We have also looked at the enormous damage gap that extreme endgame scaling can create between builds.

Different problems.

Same underlying reality.

Modern Diablo 4 has an extraordinary number of systems stacked on top of each other.

The Risk Is Supposed to Be the Outcome, Not Whether There Is an Outcome

There is an important argument in favor of Transfiguration's brutality.

Endgame gear should probably have some risk.

If players could endlessly reroll every final modification until perfection appeared, there would eventually be very little tension left in the item hunt.

That is part of why Transfiguration has generated so much debate since Lord of Hatred introduced the modern Horadric Cube systems.

And it is also why players have spent so much time debating whether Diablo 4's public testing process catches enough of these interactions before they reach live servers. We recently explored that question in our piece on whether Diablo 4's PTR solves problems or spoils too much before launch.

But risk only feels fair if players understand what they are risking.

Bad affix?

Fine.

Indestructible when you wanted damage?

Painful, but understandable.

Permanent lock with no observable reward?

That feels considerably less like gambling and considerably more like the machine ate your coin.

Season 15 Will Make Item Reliability Even More Important

Season 15 is already preparing another wave of buildcrafting changes through Soul Splinters, Legacy Uniques, Challenge Dungeons and further item-system adjustments.

We came away from the PTR particularly positive about Soul Splinters and their meaningful build tradeoffs.

But adding more interesting build choices also makes reliable item behavior more important.

Players can work around balance.

They can choose a different affix.

They can farm another item.

What they cannot easily plan around is a crafting system occasionally producing no identifiable result.

For Now, This Is Still a Player Report

There is no Blizzard response on the new August 18 thread at the time of writing.

We therefore cannot confirm that the Cube definitely failed to apply an outcome internally.

It is possible something changed that is not immediately visible.

It is possible the system selected an already-maximized or otherwise redundant result.

It is possible there is another explanation entirely.

That is exactly what the player is asking Blizzard to investigate.

But because a similar no-visible-change report exists from May, players with truly exceptional amulets may want to think carefully before using that final normal Transfiguration.

Diablo 4 has always encouraged greed.

The Horadric Cube has historically punished it.

Still, when it eats a near-perfect amulet, the least it can do is leave a receipt.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Transfiguration Bricked My Near-Perfect Amulet With No Result Added

Diablo IV Forums: Amulet Transfiguration — Greater Affix Bug?

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo IV Patch Notes

Diablo 2 Told Players Their Old Ladder Stash Was Safe Until August 22 — Then It Disappeared on August 17

2026-08-17T23:29:53.747-07:00

Diablo II: Resurrected players were warned that old Ladder stash items were about to disappear.

We warned about it too.

The problem is that Diablo II itself apparently gave at least one player a completely different deadline.

A new bug report says the game displayed an in-game message stating that players had until August 22 to remove items from the old Season 13 Withdraw Only stash.

Instead, when Ladder Season 14 ended on August 17, those Season 13 tabs were immediately replaced by Season 14's stash.

The items were gone.

Five days before the date the game itself had apparently displayed.

Blizzard’s Patch Notes Said August 17

There is an important complication here.

Blizzard's official Season 15 announcement actually got the mechanic right.

It clearly stated that when Ladder Season 14 ended on August 17 at 11:00 a.m. PDT, Season 14 characters would move to Non-Ladder and their Shared Stash would become the new Withdraw Only tabs.

Any Season 13 items still sitting in the previous Withdraw Only tabs would be lost at that moment.

That is why we published our earlier warning that Diablo II players had until August 17 to save their old Ladder loot.

If you followed Blizzard's web announcement, the deadline was clear.

If you followed the game itself, apparently not.

The In-Game Message Apparently Said August 22

The player behind the new report says that before Season 14 ended, logging into a Non-Ladder Reign of the Warlock character produced a popup telling them they had until August 22 to withdraw items from the previous season's Shared Stash.

That date makes sense from a player's perspective because August 22 is when Ladder Season 15 begins in Europe.

Blizzard recently changed the Ladder schedule so that the old season ends first, Patch 3.3 arrives separately, and the next Ladder does not begin until several days later. We covered that new structure in our Diablo II Season 15 Ladder reset schedule guide.

For Season 15:

August 17: Season 14 ended.
August 18: Patch 3.3 begins rolling out.
August 21: Season 15 begins in North America.
August 22: Season 15 begins in Europe and Asia.

So an in-game message using August 22 looks very much like somebody attached the stash deadline to the new season start instead of the old season end.

The Tooltip Makes It Even More Confusing

The popup is not the only problem.

The player also points out that the Withdraw Only stash tooltip says items in those tabs will be deleted when “the next season starts.”

That wording used to be much less dangerous when Ladder endings and launches happened close together.

Season 15's new staggered schedule exposes the ambiguity.

Season 14 ended on August 17.

Season 15 does not start until August 21 or August 22 depending on region.

If the tooltip says “when the next season starts,” a player could reasonably assume the stash remains available during that gap.

Apparently it does not.

Diablo II has always enjoyed hidden mechanics.

Stash deletion deadlines perhaps should not be one of them.

The Player Says They Deliberately Left Items Behind

This is what separates the report from somebody simply forgetting the usual Ladder rules.

The player says they had already begun removing Season 13 items but deliberately left some behind because the in-game message told them August 22 was the deadline.

Only after discovering the old tab had disappeared did they read Blizzard's Season 15 article and find the August 17 rule.

They are now asking Blizzard to temporarily restore access to the Season 13 Withdraw Only stash until August 22, or provide another way to recover those items.

Blizzard has not yet publicly announced such a restoration.

Season 15 Already Has Enough Stash Administration

The timing is unfortunate because players already have several Season 15 changes to keep track of.

Patch 3.3 is moving eight previously Ladder-only items into Non-Ladder, including Metamorphosis, Cure and Bulwark.

It is also making Worldstone Shards and Ancient Statues harder to find, while improving some Herald rewards.

And Blizzard even quietly changed Manald Heal's Season 15 buff from Faster Run/Walk to Faster Cast Rate before the Ladder began.

There is plenty for returning players to read.

That is precisely why the information shown inside the game needs to be reliable too.

This Is Not the Same as Blizzard Secretly Changing the Deadline

It is important not to overstate what happened.

Blizzard's official web announcement did not promise August 22 and then secretly delete the stash early.

The official Season 15 article said August 17 very clearly.

The problem is that the game itself appears to have contradicted that information.

That is still a meaningful problem.

Players should not need to decide whether the website or the software running on their screen contains the real deadline for permanent item deletion.

There Are Already More Stash Reports Appearing

The original thread is also no longer the only stash-related complaint appearing around the reset.

Another General Discussion thread about the Season 13 “Past” stash disappearing early quickly accumulated additional discussion, while a separate August 18 bug report says a player found their Shared Stash missing items after maintenance. The latter may be a different issue entirely, so it should not be treated as confirmation of the same bug.

For now, the strongest documented problem remains the contradiction between August 17 in Blizzard's official article and August 22 reportedly shown inside the game.

When Items Can Be Deleted Forever, the Date Needs to Be Right

There are plenty of places where Diablo II can afford to be vague.

Drop rates.

Hidden mechanics.

Whether Baal personally hates your account.

A deadline for permanent item deletion is different.

If Blizzard says August 17 on the website, August 22 in-game and “when the next season starts” in the tooltip, players are eventually going to choose the wrong one.

One player already says they did.

And unfortunately, the items sitting in that old Season 13 stash did not get to vote.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: Season 13 “Past” Shared Stash Unavailable Earlier Than Expected

Diablo Immortal Player Says a Faction Reset Wiped 3.6 Million Stored Tower XP

2026-08-17T01:15:47.220-07:00

Diablo Immortal players have discovered many creative ways to lose experience over the years.

Dying is the traditional method.

Logging in after a faction reset and discovering that roughly 3.6 million XP has apparently vanished from your Accursed Towers is considerably more unusual.

That is exactly what one player is reporting after Diablo Immortal's weekly reset on August 17. According to a newly filed bug report, three Legendary Accursed Towers that should have been almost completely full of accumulated Experience instead appeared to have reset at the same time the player's clan changed factions.

Blizzard has not confirmed the issue, so for now this is a single detailed player report rather than an established game-wide bug.

Three Towers Should Have Held Around 3.6 Million XP

The player, Meteorblade, says their clan controls three Legendary Accursed Towers: Tower of Secrets, Tower of Fortitude and Tower of Blessings.

According to the report, each tower takes roughly 36 hours to completely fill its stored XP bar and contains around 1.2 million XP when full.

The player had last collected the XP around midday on Saturday.

By Monday's weekly reset at 3:00 a.m. server time, approximately 39 hours had passed.

In other words, all three towers should have been full.

Three towers.

Approximately 1.2 million XP each.

Roughly 3.6 million XP waiting to be claimed.

At least, that was the plan.

The Faction Reset Happened at the Same Time

There was one additional complication that night.

The player's server had reached the end of an Immortal reign.

The clan had previously been Shadows and, according to the report, briefly returned to Adventurer status during the reset before subsequently joining the new Immortal alliance and becoming Immortals.

When the player logged in at approximately 3:15 a.m. server time and checked the towers, the stored XP was nowhere near full.

Instead, the amount available reportedly looked like only around 15 minutes of accumulation.

The player estimates the missing total at roughly 3.6 million XP.

Sanctuary apparently has taxation now.

The rate is concerning.

The Player Says It Happens When Reset and Faction Change Coincide

The most interesting part of the report is that the player does not describe this as a completely random disappearance.

They specifically claim the stored Tower XP is lost when the normal weekly reset coincides with a faction change.

That would suggest the problem may involve the transition between Shadow, Adventurer and Immortal states rather than Accursed Tower XP accumulation itself.

That is still speculation.

Blizzard has not identified the cause, confirmed that those systems are interacting incorrectly or announced a fix.

Accursed Towers Are Built Around Long-Term Clan Rewards

Accursed Towers were introduced as a clan-based system in which groups compete to claim and control towers around Sanctuary. Holding towers provides clan-wide benefits and recurring rewards, making ownership something players maintain over time rather than a one-off dungeon completion.

That is what makes an accumulation problem particularly irritating.

The reward is specifically something that builds while the player is away.

You leave it alone.

You let it fill.

You return later.

Finding the meter unexpectedly near empty rather defeats the administrative elegance of the arrangement.

This Could Matter During Paragon Pushes

Stored Tower XP is not trivial for players deliberately preparing for new Paragon thresholds.

Earlier this year, players openly discussed saving around 3.6 million XP from Accursed Towers as part of planned Paragon progression pushes.

That makes the amount in this new report particularly believable as something players intentionally bank rather than claim immediately.

If a faction transition can wipe that reserve, the safest time to discover it is definitely not after spending the weekend carefully saving everything.

For Now, This Is One Report

There is an important reason not to overstate this story.

As of August 17, the bug report has no replies and only a handful of views. The official Bug Report index confirms that it was filed today, but there is not yet a wave of other players reproducing the same behavior.

So we cannot say faction resets definitely erase Accursed Tower XP for everyone.

We can say one experienced player has documented a very specific sequence with exact tower names, timings, faction changes, expected accumulation and resulting XP loss.

That makes it worth watching.

Maybe Collect Before the Next Faction Change

Until more players reproduce the issue or Blizzard responds, there is no confirmed workaround.

But if your clan is approaching a faction transition and your Accursed Towers are sitting on a large amount of unclaimed XP, this report gives players at least one reason to consider collecting it beforehand.

Three million experience is difficult enough to earn.

It should not need an evacuation plan.

Sources

Diablo Immortal Forums: Faction Reset Causes XP Stored in Accursed Towers to Be Lost

Blizzard Entertainment: Reign Supreme in the Age of Falling Towers

Diablo 4 Players Say Greater Affixes and Masterworking Still Can’t Improve Block Chance

2026-08-17T01:06:53.397-07:00

Diablo 4 players have found a remarkably stubborn problem with Block Chance.

Greater Affixes apparently do not improve it.

Masterworking apparently does not improve it either.

And according to a bug report that has now survived from December 2025 into August 2026, the problem is still happening in Season 14.

For most characters, that may sound like an obscure stat problem.

For builds actually designed around blocking attacks, it is considerably less academic.

A 5% Roll Apparently Stays at 5%

The original report was posted on December 16, 2025.

The player tempered 5% Block Chance onto Ancestral pants with a Greater Affix.

The expectation was that the Greater Affix would improve the value beyond the normal maximum roll.

It did not.

The item still displayed 5% Block Chance.

The player then Masterworked the item to 25 Quality.

Still 5%.

Even after hitting a Masterworking capstone bonus, the Block Chance remained unchanged.

At that point, the stat has achieved a level of stability normally reserved for geological formations.

The Bug Was Still There in Season 13

The report did not disappear with a new season.

On May 4, another player returned to the thread and said the issue still persisted in Season 13.

Another report followed on May 13 involving Heir of Perdition, with the player asking whether there was any workaround or whether Greater Affixes and upgrades were simply pointless for Block Chance.

There was no confirmed workaround in the thread.

Now It Is Being Reported in Season 14

On August 17, the same thread became active again.

A player said they had encountered the bug only a few days earlier in Season 14.

The timing matters because the player was using an Evade Hammerdin build that specifically relies on Block Chance.

According to their report, discovering that the stat could not be improved through Greater Affixes or Masterworking left the build effectively dead in the water.

That moves the issue beyond an ugly tooltip.

If Block Chance genuinely fails to scale when the item system says it should, players can invest substantial time into finding and upgrading the correct gear before realizing the central defensive stat never improved.

Why Block Chance Matters More Now

Diablo 4 has continued expanding itemization systems around Greater Affixes, Tempering and Masterworking, making high-end gear increasingly dependent on improving specific affixes rather than merely finding the right item base.

Blizzard continues to patch class, item and War Plan bugs regularly, with the latest August 12 update fixing issues across multiple classes and systems. But the current published patch notes do not list a specific correction for Block Chance failing to scale with Greater Affixes or Masterworking.

That is why this old report suddenly feels relevant again.

A stat that behaved strangely on an obscure build in 2025 can become much more important when a newer build starts depending on it.

This Looks Different From a Simple Display Error

There is one important uncertainty.

Blizzard has not officially confirmed whether the problem is purely visual or whether the underlying Block Chance calculation is genuinely failing to increase.

The players reporting the issue believe the stat itself is not scaling correctly, but we do not have a developer explanation confirming the exact technical cause.

That distinction matters.

A broken tooltip is irritating.

A broken defensive stat can ruin an entire build.

Until Blizzard comments on the issue, players should treat the community reports as evidence rather than final diagnosis.

Players May Want to Test Before Investing Heavily

If your Diablo 4 build depends on pushing Block Chance through Greater Affixes or Masterworking, this may be one stat worth checking carefully before pouring large amounts of resources into the item.

The same basic problem has now been reported across multiple seasons, from December 2025 through August 2026.

That does not prove every item, platform or Block Chance source is affected identically.

But it does make the issue difficult to dismiss as a single bad roll.

Diablo 4 asks players to hunt the perfect item.

Then it asks them to find the Greater Affix.

Then Temper it.

Then Masterwork it.

If the number at the end remains exactly 5%, somebody should probably have a look at that.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Block Chance Cannot Be Improved by GA or Masterworking

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo IV Patch Notes

Diablo 4 Players Are Reaching the Ultimate Nemesis — Then Party Members Get No Loot

2026-08-17T00:58:23.807-07:00

Diablo 4 has a fairly straightforward agreement with its players.

You kill the horrible thing.

The horrible thing drops loot.

It is one of gaming's more successful economic systems.

Unfortunately, players are still reporting that Diablo 4's Ultimate Nemesis Lair occasionally forgets the second half when played in a party.

A bug report that began in May has resurfaced again in August, with groups saying they can complete the entire Ultimate Nemesis encounter while only one party member receives the proper rewards.

Everyone else gets the satisfaction of having helped.

Which is lovely.

But traditionally not why people farm Diablo bosses.

The Bug Has Been Reported Since May

The original report appeared on May 4.

Two players had unlocked the relevant War Plan progression, including Two by Two, Greater Nemesis and Ultimate Nemesis.

According to the report, both players received loot normally from the earlier Nemesis and Greater Nemesis encounters.

Then they reached Ultimate Nemesis.

Only one received the expected loot.

The player said the same sequence happened three times in a row.

Other groups quickly reported similar results.

It Is Not Even Completely Clear Who Gets the Loot

The first theory was that the player who paid the required keys at the altar was the only one receiving rewards.

Several reports support that idea.

One group of three said only the player who spent the keys received loot.

Another player described opening the encounter personally and receiving the main rewards while their friend got only minor materials.

But other reports complicate the picture.

One player said their friend paid the keys while they entered the portal first, yet the person who did not pay received the reward.

So even the community has not found a perfectly consistent trigger.

Diablo loot science remains an exciting field.

The Problem Was Still Happening on August 15

This is what makes the issue current rather than an old launch-week curiosity.

On August 15, another player returned to the same bug thread and confirmed that the problem was still happening.

The group reportedly had enough Superior Lair Keys, but only the party member opening the Ultimate Nemesis portal received the proper loot while the others reached the end without the expected rewards.

The player suggested that Diablo 4 could simply deduct the required keys from every eligible party member, similar to other group activities where each player pays their own entry cost.

At the very least, that would make the rules understandable.

The Key Names Have Changed, but the Problem Hasn’t

Older reports refer to Betrayer's Husks.

Blizzard later renamed these Tier 3 boss keys to Superior Lair Keys, because Belial is no longer the only boss using that tier of key.

The terminology changed.

The August report suggests the party-loot problem did not.

Some Players Are Missing the Reward Chests Entirely

There may also be a related but slightly different Ultimate Nemesis reward problem.

Separate reports describe completing the encounter and finding that the expected reward chest simply never appears.

That has happened in parties, and some players have even reported it while playing solo.

One July player described defeating the Ultimate Nemesis and receiving only a handful of ordinary items, with none of the expected reward chests appearing afterward.

That does not necessarily have the same cause as the party-specific problem.

But it adds to the broader impression that the final reward state of Ultimate Nemesis is not behaving consistently.

Blizzard Has Fixed Other Nemesis and War Plan Bugs

Blizzard has already repaired several War Plan and Nemesis issues since Lord of Hatred launched.

Patch notes have included fixes for Nemesis Lairs failing to trigger, Nemesis Lairs becoming infinitely farmable and War Plan activities failing to grant rewards or progress correctly.

More recent updates have also clarified how party-based War Plan board generation works.

So the surrounding system has received attention.

What we have not found in Blizzard's published notes is a specific fix for the recurring Ultimate Nemesis party-loot problem described in these reports.

This Is Exactly Where a Loot Bug Hurts Most

An Ultimate Nemesis Lair is not something players accidentally wander into while looking for a cellar.

It sits at the end of War Plan progression and requires players to work through the preceding Nemesis structure before reaching the final encounter.

That makes losing the reward considerably more frustrating than missing a random chest in the overworld.

Players have already invested time.

They have invested keys.

They have completed the bosses.

Then one member of the party gets paid.

The others apparently participated in a very elaborate volunteer program.

For Now, Parties Should Know the Risk

Blizzard has not publicly confirmed the exact cause of this specific issue or stated that Ultimate Nemesis is intended to reward only one party member.

Given how the preceding Nemesis encounters reward multiple eligible players, the people reporting the problem understandably believe the final behavior is a bug.

But until Blizzard clarifies or fixes it, groups attempting Ultimate Nemesis should at least know that the problem is still being reported.

Because there is one thing worse than finally reaching Diablo 4's ultimate boss encounter and getting terrible loot.

Getting no loot gives you nothing to complain about statistically.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Ultimate Nemesis Lair Not Providing Loot Despite Having the Node in the War Plan When in a Party

Diablo IV Forums: Ultimate Nemesis Lair Is Bugged/Broken

Diablo IV Forums: Is the Ultimate Nemesis Lair No Loot?

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo IV Patch Notes

Diablo 4 Players Say a Campaign Skip Bug Has Trapped Eternal Characters for Months

2026-08-17T00:47:49.488-07:00

Diablo 4 players are still reporting a particularly irritating Eternal Realm problem more than three months after Lord of Hatred launched.

Some existing characters simply cannot skip the expansion campaign.

That is despite the player already completing Lord of Hatred on another character.

Blizzard’s own pre-launch guidance says completing the campaign once should unlock the Skip Campaign option for all other characters, regardless of whether they are Seasonal or Eternal.

For some Eternal players, that is apparently not happening.

Some Characters Can Skip. Others Cannot.

The original bug report appeared on May 1.

The player had seven level 60 Eternal characters prepared for Lord of Hatred and completed the entire expansion campaign on one of them, including defeating Mephisto and progressing into War Plans. Yet six other Eternal characters still had no option to change their campaign state.

Other players quickly reported similar behavior.

One had six Eternal characters and found that three could skip while a Paladin and Barbarian could not. Another reported that some classes worked and others did not, making it difficult to identify any obvious class-specific pattern.

That is perhaps the most annoying version of a bug.

The button exists.

Just apparently not for Steve.

Players Suspect Older Campaign States Are Involved

Several affected players noticed a possible connection with characters that previously used the Vessel of Hatred campaign skip.

One player tested four old Eternal characters that had skipped Vessel of Hatred, completed Lord of Hatred on both Seasonal and Eternal characters and even leveled one Eternal alt to 70.

The skip option still did not appear on the remaining characters.

That does not prove the old Vessel of Hatred campaign state is the cause.

It does suggest the problem may involve how Diablo 4 stores campaign-completion data on older characters.

Blizzard Already Fixed a Campaign-State Display Bug

There was briefly hope that a May patch would solve the problem.

Blizzard’s patch notes included a fix for an issue where Character Select displayed incorrect campaign completion states.

Players in the original thread immediately tested again.

Several reported that the patch did not restore their missing Skip Campaign option.

Blizzard later expanded campaign-state information further, adding each character’s current campaign progression directly to Character Select.

Useful information.

Slightly less useful if the character is still being informed that it must complete a campaign you already completed elsewhere.

The Thread Is Still Active on August 17

This is what turns an old bug report into a current story.

The forum thread has continued receiving replies and, as of August 17, has reached 37 responses and more than 1,600 views. It remains one of the active PC Bug Report topics today.

There is also a separate fresh report from August 16 specifically concerning a level 60 Paladin with the Skip Campaign option missing, suggesting the general issue has not completely disappeared.

Why Eternal Players Care So Much

Seasonal players are used to creating fresh characters.

Eternal players often are not.

These are frequently characters with hundreds of hours behind them, carefully assembled gear and years of history.

The entire point of the Eternal Realm is that you can continue playing those characters rather than starting over every few months.

Blizzard explicitly positioned Lord of Hatred that way too, telling players they could return to an existing Eternal character and continue their journey.

If six old characters are unexpectedly required to replay the full expansion campaign, that undermines one of the Eternal Realm’s main attractions.

There Is Still No Confirmed Fix

At the time of writing, Blizzard has not publicly identified the precise cause of this specific long-running campaign-skip problem or announced a dedicated fix for the affected Eternal characters.

That distinction matters.

There have been several campaign-state and Character Select fixes since Lord of Hatred launched, and campaign skipping itself continues to receive updates. For example, the current patch notes state that skipping Lord of Hatred now automatically clears Fog of War around Capstone Dungeon locations.

The skip system clearly still exists.

The problem is getting every eligible Eternal character to actually see it.

For players sitting on six old characters and one completed campaign, the desired solution is not especially exotic.

They do not need another multiplier.

They do not need a new currency.

They just need the button Blizzard says they should already have.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Prepare for the Reckoning — Lord of Hatred Draws Near

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo IV Patch Notes

Diablo IV Forums: Can't Skip Campaign on Subsequent Eternal Characters

Diablo 2 Season 15 Is Bringing Eight Ladder-Only Items to Non-Ladder

2026-08-17T00:20:53.329-07:00

Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 is not only bringing another fresh race to level 99.

It is also freeing eight previously Ladder-only items.

When the new season transition is complete, the following items will become available in Non-Ladder:

Mania
Hysteria
Metamorphosis
Ground
Temper
Hearth
Cure
Bulwark

Blizzard confirms the change directly in the Patch 3.3 notes, saying previous Ladder-only items will become available in Non-Ladder with the new season.

For players who prefer keeping long-term characters rather than starting from nothing every few months, that is a surprisingly nice Season 15 bonus.

Several Familiar Rune Words Are Finally Escaping Ladder

Five names on that list will be particularly familiar to players who followed Diablo II: Resurrected's earlier seasonal additions:

Bulwark, Cure, Ground, Hearth and Temper.

Blizzard originally introduced these defensive Rune Words during the Patch 2.6 era, with each designed around different survivability needs. Bulwark focuses on physical protection and sustain, Cure helps against poison, while Ground, Hearth and Temper provide specialized protection against Lightning, Cold and Fire respectively.

Metamorphosis was introduced during the same period as an endgame option for shapeshifting Druids, built around separate Werewolf and Werebear marks.

These items have spent years associated with seasonal progression.

Season 15 finally loosens that restriction.

Why This Matters for Non-Ladder Players

Non-Ladder Diablo II is where characters go to become permanent projects.

You keep the gear.

You keep the levels.

You keep the stash tab containing seventeen items you absolutely intend to organize one day.

The tradeoff has traditionally been that the newest seasonal toys remain on Ladder for a while before eventually becoming available elsewhere.

Patch 3.3 moves another batch across that line.

That means players maintaining established Non-Ladder characters gain access to several build options without having to abandon years of accumulated gear and start over.

Season 15’s Newly Changed Items Are Staying Ladder-Only

There is an important distinction.

The older items are moving to Non-Ladder.

The newly changed items in Patch 3.3 are not.

Blizzard says the modified versions of items including Bloodletter, Battlebranch, Rogue's Bow, Pluckeye, Bane Ash, Gravenspine, Blinkbat's Form, The Ward, Manald Heal and Angelic Raiment will only be available in the Reign of the Warlock Ladder.

So Non-Ladder players are getting yesterday's exclusives.

Ladder players still get first access to tomorrow's experiments.

The ancient seasonal circle of life continues.

That Includes the New Manald Heal

This distinction is especially relevant because Blizzard has been tinkering with several forgotten Diablo II items ahead of Season 15.

We recently covered the last-minute change to Manald Heal, where Blizzard replaced its originally announced Faster Run/Walk buff with 10% Faster Cast Rate.

That modified Manald Heal will remain a Ladder item for now. The same applies to The Ward gaining a socket, Bloodletter gaining Faster Run/Walk and the various other Patch 3.3 item updates.

Season 14 Ends Today

The timing is important.

Ladder Season 14 ends today, August 17 at 11:00 a.m. PDT, which is 20:00 CEST for European players.

Patch 3.3 begins rolling out tomorrow, August 18.

The actual Season 15 Ladder race does not begin until August 21 at 5:00 p.m. PDT, or August 22 at 2:00 a.m. CEST in Europe. Blizzard says future seasons will use a similar separated Patch-and-Ladder schedule.

So there is now a small transition period between the old Ladder ending and the new one beginning.

Don’t Forget the Old Withdraw-Only Stash

There is also one last piece of housekeeping to handle before Season 14 disappears.

When Season 14 ends, its characters move into their appropriate Non-Ladder groups, and their Shared Stash becomes a new set of Withdraw Only tabs.

But anything still sitting inside the older Season 13 Withdraw Only tabs will be permanently lost when that happens.

If you have been ignoring that little Past checkbox for months, today would therefore be an excellent time to stop ignoring it.

Diablo II has many legitimate ways to lose valuable items.

Letting a calendar delete them is one of the less heroic ones.

Non-Ladder Gets a Little Bigger With Season 15

Season 15 is primarily about the new Ladder, Patch 3.3 balance changes and another race through Sanctuary.

But the movement of eight older Ladder-only items into Non-Ladder is a useful reminder that seasonal content does not always remain trapped there forever.

Mania.

Hysteria.

Metamorphosis.

Ground.

Temper.

Hearth.

Cure.

Bulwark.

Eight more pieces of Diablo II's expanding modern item pool are about to become available to characters who have absolutely no intention of starting over again.

Some heroes race to level 99.

Others have been wearing the same boots since 2023.

Sanctuary has room for both.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected PTR 2.6

Diablo 4 Players Are Finding Random Free Cosmetics in the Shop — But Not Everyone Gets One

2026-08-16T02:24:18.675-07:00

If you are playing Diablo 4 this weekend, there may be one more activity worth adding to your routine.

Check the shop.

Not because Blizzard has released another enormous armor bundle containing enough decorative spikes to endanger nearby pedestrians.

Because some players are finding completely free cosmetic items waiting for them.

The strange part is that not everyone is getting one.

Players on the official Diablo IV forums have reported different free weapon cosmetics appearing in their individual shops over the last few days, suggesting Diablo 4's personalized shop system may once again be quietly distributing account-specific gifts.

One Player Found a Free Wand

The discussion began on August 14 when a player noticed a weapon cosmetic in the shop priced at exactly the best possible amount:

Free.

The item was a simple wand cosmetic.

The player had no idea why it had appeared and wondered whether it might have been related to not logging into Diablo 4 for a while.

Other players immediately went to check their own shops.

Some found nothing.

Which is where things became interesting.

Another Player Got a Bow Instead

A second player reported receiving a free bow cosmetic earlier in the week.

This was particularly useful because, according to the player, they had only played Paladin and Barbarian.

Neither class is famously dependent on bows.

Still.

Free is free.

By August 16, another player said they had noticed a couple of similar freebies during the previous week and had assumed everyone was receiving them.

Apparently not.

These Appear to Be Account-Specific

The inconsistent reports strongly suggest this is not a traditional Diablo 4 giveaway where every player receives the same cosmetic on the same day.

Instead, the items appear to be associated with Diablo 4's personalized shop system.

That would not be unprecedented.

Blizzard has officially used personalized free gifts before.

In November 2024, Blizzard specifically told players to check the in-game shop for free personalized gifts alongside discounted Fortunate Finds.

The wording matters.

Personalized.

Different accounts can receive different offers.

One player gets a wand.

Another gets a bow.

A third gets the ancient and respected Diablo reward known as absolutely nothing.

This Is Different From the Anniversary Giveaway

Diablo 4 has also distributed universal free cosmetics through the shop this year.

During the game's June 2026 anniversary celebration, Blizzard released a new free weapon skin each day between June 2 and June 6.

Those included Blood Raven's Talon, King Kanai's Last Stand, Nangari Wounder, Overlord's Odium and Flamefinger's Claws.

Everyone had the same opportunity to claim those items before the event ended.

What players are seeing now appears different.

There is no matching August announcement listing a new set of universal free cosmetics, and the reported rewards are not identical across accounts.

Fortunate Finds May Explain Part of It

Players in the current discussion have also connected the freebies with Fortunate Finds, Diablo 4's personalized shop selections.

Those offers can vary between accounts, which would explain why checking somebody else's shop does not necessarily tell you what will appear in yours.

Blizzard has previously paired Fortunate Finds with free personalized gifts, so the current reports fit an established system.

What we do not currently have is an official Blizzard announcement explaining why these particular free items are appearing in August 2026, how accounts are selected or how frequently the offers rotate.

There May Be No Notification

This is the useful part.

If these freebies are being delivered through personalized shop rotations, waiting for Blizzard to send you a giant notification may not be the best strategy.

The players discussing them found the items by looking through the shop.

That makes this one of those rare Diablo situations where opening the premium store without intending to spend money may actually be financially responsible.

Do not tell anyone we said that.

Check Before the Shop Rotates

We do not yet know how long individual free offers remain available.

And because Blizzard has not announced a dedicated August giveaway, there is no confirmed event end date to work from.

So if you are logging into Diablo 4 anyway, checking the cosmetic shop costs very little.

You may find nothing.

You may find a weapon your class cannot use.

Or you may discover Blizzard has quietly left you a free cosmetic.

Sanctuary does not hand out many gifts without eventually asking you to kill something.

Take the victories where you can get them.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Free Item in Shop Today (At Least for Me)

Blizzard Entertainment: Return to Sanctuary for a Brilliant Boost

Blizzard Entertainment: Celebrate the DIV Anniversary

Diablo Immortal Players Say the New Warlock Essence Overwrote an Old One

2026-08-16T02:15:09.267-07:00

Diablo Immortal's August 12 update added a new Warlock Essence called Itinerant Spite.

Some Warlock players now think it may have accidentally moved into somebody else's house.

Players are reporting that an existing Spiteful Sacrifice setup has suddenly changed its tooltip after the update and now describes mechanics belonging to the brand-new Inferno XIV Essence, even when the new Essence has never been acquired or equipped.

The old skill configuration still appears to behave partly like the old version.

Unfortunately, players say it no longer deals the damage they expect either.

The New Tooltip Looks Suspiciously Familiar

The new Inferno XIV Pants Essence is called Itinerant Spite.

Blizzard says it changes Spiteful Sacrifice so that Primary Attacks hurl swords of dark magic, damage enemies and apply Malignant Shadows. Every third Primary Attack also causes the Warlock to blink forward in the direction of movement.

That is a fairly specific collection of mechanics.

Which is why players became suspicious when essentially the same description suddenly appeared on an older Spite Bolts setup after the August 12 patch.

The original bug reporter specifically says they do not own or have the new Itinerant Spite Essence equipped.

Yet their existing Spiteful Sacrifice setup now describes Primary Attacks, piercing dark blades, Malignant Shadows and a teleport on every third attack.

Diablo Immortal appears to have handed one Essence another Essence's instruction manual.

The Old Skill Has Not Completely Become the New One

That would almost be simpler.

According to the report, the existing skill still appears as a three-charge ability, rather than becoming the five-second Primary Attack empowerment expected from the new mechanic.

The player's Primary Attack also continues to fire Lunatic Rush instead of the dark swords described in the new tooltip.

So the game is apparently displaying one mechanic while running something else underneath.

And neither side seems especially happy about the arrangement.

Damage Appears to Be Missing Too

The problem is not purely cosmetic.

The original reporter says using their old Spiteful Sacrifice / Spite Bolts charges now deals little or none of the expected damage, while Malignant Shadow damage on the training dummy appears missing, inconsistent or dramatically lower than before.

Another Warlock player replied on August 15 and reported the same basic problem, saying their existing Pyrestorm pants now display the description of the newly introduced Essence instead.

That gives the bug a little more weight than a single corrupted tooltip.

Two players are describing an existing Essence changing after the same patch, and both connect the new description to Itinerant Spite.

The August 12 Update Changed a Lot of Warlock Powers

The timing is important.

Blizzard added six new Warlock Legendary Affixes in the August 12 update, including Itinerant Spite, Hardened Heart, Harmonized Screams, Unending Darkness, Griefmuzzle and Undreamt Calamity.

The same patch also retired a large number of older Legendary Essences across every class as part of Blizzard's ongoing attempt to keep the Essence pool manageable.

That is a substantial amount of data moving around in the same system at once.

We have already seen another consequence of that update, with retired Essences accidentally continuing to appear inside Fractured Plane after their powers had been disabled.

Now Warlock players may be looking at another migration problem.

We Still Don’t Know the Exact Cause

Blizzard has not yet replied publicly to this Warlock bug report or confirmed that Itinerant Spite literally overwrote another Essence.

That means the headline remains a player interpretation of what the symptoms suggest, not an established technical diagnosis.

The issue could involve a mismatched tooltip.

It could involve the wrong Essence data being referenced.

It could be a separate mechanical problem that merely happens to display the new description.

Until Blizzard investigates, we do not know.

Warlock Players Should Check Their Old Spite Builds

If you were using Spiteful Sacrifice before August 12, it may be worth checking the Essence description and testing the build against the training dummy.

The problem currently appears limited to player reports rather than a confirmed widespread bug, so there is no reason to assume every Warlock setup is affected.

But if your old Spite build suddenly starts describing magical swords you never equipped and dealing considerably less damage than yesterday, you are probably not imagining things.

The August update gave Warlocks a new Essence.

It may just have given it to the wrong pair of pants.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Burn Through the Darkening Decades

Diablo Immortal Forums: Warlock Spite Bolts / Pyrestorm Not Working After Aug 12 Patch

Diablo 2 Season 15 Is Nerfing Worldstone Shard and Ancient Statue Drops

2026-08-16T02:09:16.198-07:00

Diablo II: Resurrected Season 15 is about to make two pieces of Reign of the Warlock's endgame economy harder to find.

Worldstone Shards.

Ancient Statues.

Patch 3.3 reduces the drop rate of both when it arrives on August 18, just a few days before Ladder Season 15 begins. Blizzard has not revealed the new percentages, so we do not yet know how severe either reduction will be.

But players planning to spend another season farming Colossal Ancients may want to prepare for a little more actual farming.

Worldstone Shards Are Getting Rarer

Worldstone Shards are central to the modern Terror Zone system introduced with Reign of the Warlock. Patch 3.3 simply states that their drop rate is being reduced.

There is one consolation.

Whenever a Worldstone Shard does drop, an additional item will now drop alongside it.

So Blizzard appears to be moving the system toward fewer Shard drops with slightly more value attached to each successful drop.

Less frequent button.

Slightly better confetti.

This Comes After Blizzard Previously Helped Solo Players

The change is interesting because Worldstone Shards were adjusted in the opposite direction earlier this year.

Season 14 removed player-count scaling from their drop chance, which Blizzard described as an effective increase for solo players. Patch 3.2 also fixed Western Worldstone Shards dropping more frequently than the other variants from high-level Terrorized monsters.

Season 15 now pulls the overall rate back down.

Blizzard has not explained exactly why, although community reaction suggests some players felt Shards had become plentiful enough to justify a reduction. Others are already happily mentioning that they stocked up before the patch.

Ancient Statues May Be the More Controversial Nerf

The second change is potentially more painful.

Patch 3.3 also reduces the drop rate of Ancient Statues.

These statues are required to open the Colossal Ancients encounter. Reign of the Warlock introduced five statues tied to the Act bosses, which are combined through the Horadric Cube to access the pinnacle fight.

Season 14 made statues somewhat easier to acquire by allowing them to drop from non-Terrorized Act bosses at a reduced rate.

Now Blizzard is reducing their overall drop rate again.

And that has already made some players nervous.

Diablo and Baal Statues Are the Ones Players Worry About

Community reaction is not uniformly negative.

Some players feel Worldstone Shards became too common and welcome that adjustment. Ancient Statues are receiving considerably more skepticism.

Several players specifically point to the Diablo and Baal statues as pieces they already struggle to collect. One concern is that reducing their rates could turn access to the Colossal Ancients into even more repeated boss runs before players get another attempt at the encounter.

That matters because the statues are not the reward.

They are the ticket to the thing that might reward you.

Diablo has always respected layers.

Heralds Are Getting Better Normal Loot

Patch 3.3 is not simply reducing rewards everywhere.

Blizzard is simultaneously increasing the chance that Tier 3 and higher Heralds drop Rare-quality or better items.

That follows months of adjustments to Heralds after Blizzard admitted the original Reign of the Warlock implementation made both Herald encounters and Latent Sunder Charms too rare.

The broader direction seems fairly clear.

Blizzard wants Terror Zones and Heralds to remain rewarding, but it also does not want Worldstone Shards, Ancient Statues or Sunder Charms becoming so common that their chase disappears.

We Need the Actual Drop Rates

The unanswered question is how large these nerfs actually are.

A reduction from 10% to 9% is one story.

A reduction from 10% to 2% is a very different weekend.

Blizzard has not provided those numbers.

So until Patch 3.3 goes live and players begin gathering data, there is no reason to declare Worldstone Shards or Ancient Statues impossibly rare.

We only know they will be rarer than they are now.

Season 15 begins August 21 at 5 p.m. PDT, with the European start arriving August 22 at 2 a.m. CEST. Patch 3.3 rolls out August 18.

If you still need statues before then, however, perhaps this is not the weekend to develop a sudden interest in another game.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 14 Now Live

Blizzard Entertainment: Rain Annihilation in Reign of the Warlock

Diablo Immortal’s New Necromancer Mount Has One Problem: It Breaks Corpse Lance

2026-08-16T02:04:33.214-07:00

Diablo Immortal finally gave the Necromancer something every responsible practitioner of forbidden magic obviously needed.

An undead Bone Beast to ride around Sanctuary.

Unfortunately, the new mount appears to come with an unexpected feature.

It may turn off Corpse Lance.

Players testing the new Khemsklet Khud Legendary Essence report that activating its Bone Beast transformation disables Corpse Lance while mounted, leaving one of the Necromancer’s other skills unusable until the mount ends.

Blizzard has not officially confirmed the bug, so this remains a player-reported issue. But the problem has now been reproduced after the latest patch, and the original report includes video evidence.

Khemsklet Khud Turns Bone Spikes Into a Mount

Khemsklet Khud arrived with Diablo Immortal’s huge August 12 batch of new Legendary Affixes.

The Head Essence transforms Bone Spikes into something considerably more ambitious.

Activating it summons an undead Bone Beast that the Necromancer mounts.

While riding, the player becomes immune to knockback and takes reduced damage. The Bone Beast charges forward, damages and knocks back enemies in its path, and generates a stacking absorb shield for every enemy hit.

Bone Spikes also gets an 18% damage increase.

It is one of the stranger and more visually distinctive additions among the 60 new Legendary Affixes introduced in the August update.

There is nothing in Blizzard’s official description suggesting that mounting the beast should interfere with Corpse Lance.

Corpse Lance Becomes Disabled While Mounted

The first bug report appeared on August 14.

A Necromancer player demonstrated that before activating Khemsklet Khud, Corpse Lance could be used normally.

After mounting the Bone Beast, however, Corpse Lance became disabled.

The player specifically noted that the interaction had previously worked before the Essence changes and rework.

Another community member helped embed the accompanying video directly into the forum thread, making the reported behavior relatively easy to see.

Mount beast.

Corpse Lance stops working.

Dismount.

Necromancer remembers how corpses work again.

There are more complicated Diablo bugs.

This one has the advantage of being wonderfully direct.

A Patch Apparently Didn’t Fix It

The report became more interesting on August 15.

Another player asked whether a recently released patch had addressed the problem, noting that the Essence had also been discussed as bugged elsewhere in the community.

The original reporter tested Khemsklet Khud again afterward.

According to that follow-up, Corpse Lance was still disabled while mounted.

So whatever the recent patch changed, this specific interaction apparently remained.

That Is a Big Problem for Hybrid Builds

On its own, the Bone Beast sounds like a useful mobility and defensive tool.

Knockback immunity.

Damage reduction.

A stacking shield.

Forward movement through enemies.

That combination has obvious appeal in crowded PvE encounters.

But if activating the mount temporarily removes access to Corpse Lance, the Essence becomes much harder to combine with builds relying on both skills.

Instead of providing another tool, it effectively asks the player to trade one skill away while the Bone Beast is active.

That might be an interesting design decision if Blizzard actually described it that way.

At the moment, it does not.

The August Update Has Created a Few Strange Essence Problems

Khemsklet Khud is also arriving during an unusually messy week for Diablo Immortal’s Legendary systems.

The August 12 update introduced dozens of new Affixes while simultaneously retiring older Legendary Essences.

We have already seen retired Essences accidentally remain available inside Fractured Plane, despite their powers being inactive.

Now one of the brand-new Necromancer powers appears to be interfering with an entirely different skill.

Live-service games have many moving parts.

Diablo Immortal currently seems determined to demonstrate all of them at once.

For Now, Necromancers Should Test Before Committing

There is still no official Blizzard response confirming the cause or announcing a fix for Khemsklet Khud.

That means we should not assume every Necromancer, platform or configuration will reproduce the issue identically.

But the existing report is specific, includes video evidence and was retested after an additional patch.

If your build relies heavily on Corpse Lance, it is therefore worth testing Khemsklet Khud before restructuring everything around the new Bone Beast.

The mount itself looks excellent.

It charges through monsters.

It protects the rider.

It is made of bones.

For a Necromancer, that is basically transportation perfection.

It would just be nicer if getting on it did not make another button stop working.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Burn Through the Darkening Decades

Diablo Immortal Forums: Khemsklet Khud Breaks Corpse Lance

Diablo 4’s Paladin Can Lose a 500% Damage Bonus Just by Changing Zones

2026-08-16T01:49:42.454-07:00

Diablo 4 Paladins have discovered a remarkably efficient way to lose damage.

Walk through a door.

Players are reporting that the five-piece bonus from the Light’s Epiphany Charm Set can stop applying its enormous 500% multiplicative damage bonus after loading screens, zone transitions and other changes in game state.

The bonus is supposed to increase Discipline Skill damage by 500% while Arbiter of Justice is active.

When it works, that is obviously enormous.

When it does not, players say their damage can collapse until they manually reset their Oath.

Blizzard has not publicly confirmed the cause, so this remains a player-reported bug. But multiple reports stretching back into July describe remarkably similar behaviour.

Light’s Epiphany Is Built Around a Huge 500% Multiplier

The five-piece Light’s Epiphany bonus is supposed to transform Arbiter of Justice into one of the Paladin’s biggest damage windows.

Casting Arbiter triggers the Paladin’s Ultimates, replaces Arbiter of Justice with Zenith temporarily and makes all Ultimates count as Discipline Skills.

Most importantly, Discipline Skills receive 500%[x] increased damage for the duration of Arbiter of Justice.

This is not a decorative little 8% passive hiding somewhere on the character sheet.

The multiplier is basically the reason you wear all five pieces.

Which makes it rather noticeable when it disappears.

Loading Screens Can Apparently Break It

A detailed bug report posted on August 12 describes several situations where the bonus reportedly stops functioning.

The player says ordinary loading screens can trigger the issue.

Distinct sub-zones can trigger it too, including boss rooms and treasure rooms, even when there is no traditional loading screen.

The player also reports that if the Arbiter buff expires and is later reapplied, the five-piece damage bonus sometimes fails to reactivate with it.

The result is a Paladin that still appears to have the correct set equipped and can still activate Arbiter of Justice, but suddenly deals dramatically less damage.

Everything looks normal.

Except the part where the demons stop dying.

Switching Oaths Temporarily Fixes It

Players have found a workaround.

Switch away from Disciple Oath.

Then switch back.

According to several reports, doing this forces the game to recalculate something connected to the Oath or set bonus, restoring the missing 500% multiplier.

An August 1 reproduction report describes the same behaviour: entering new content can leave the multiplier inactive, while toggling Disciple Oath off and back on causes the expected damage increase to return.

Unfortunately, the fix only lasts until the next transition if the reports are accurate.

Change area again and you may have to repeat the ritual.

Apparently maintaining divine power now requires turning Paladin off and on again.

Some Activities Make the Workaround Impossible

This becomes much more serious in content where players cannot freely change their build.

The August report specifically highlights The Tower and Kurast Undercity.

If the bonus breaks after entering an area where Oath switching is disabled, the player cannot use the temporary workaround.

They may simply be stuck with dramatically reduced damage until leaving the activity.

That is particularly unpleasant in timed content such as Kurast Undercity, where losing the central damage multiplier from a five-piece set can turn a perfectly normal run into an emergency surprisingly quickly.

This Problem Has Been Reported Since July

The August reports are not the first.

A console bug report from July 5 describes Light’s Epiphany failing to activate its 500% Discipline damage bonus and says switching Oaths restores it.

Another report from July 14 describes essentially the same test: equip all five Light’s Epiphany pieces, enter combat content, activate Arbiter and compare the damage with the set disabled.

The player reported that damage remained unexpectedly similar until the Oath was refreshed.

An even earlier July discussion includes players describing enormous practical differences after toggling the Oath, with one saying a boss could go from taking more than a minute to dying almost immediately.

These are community observations rather than controlled Blizzard testing, but the consistency is difficult to ignore.

A 500% Bonus Should Not Be Easy to Miss

That is what makes this particular report unusually compelling.

Small multipliers can be difficult to verify inside Diablo 4’s avalanche of Critical Strikes, Vulnerable damage, Paragon bonuses and temporary buffs.

A 500% multiplicative bonus is somewhat less subtle.

If players are repeatedly seeing similar damage before and after activating what should be one of the build’s largest multipliers, something deserves investigation.

And because manually refreshing Disciple Oath appears to restore the expected increase, players naturally suspect the set bonus is failing to initialize correctly rather than merely displaying the wrong tooltip.

That suspected cause has not been confirmed by Blizzard.

Paladin Has Enough Math Problems Already

The timing is also unfortunate for the class.

We have already covered Paladin players questioning whether Judgement remains strong enough despite substantial Season 15 PTR buffs.

Light’s Epiphany represents a different problem entirely.

This is not players asking Blizzard for a larger multiplier.

The multiplier is already enormous.

They just want the one written on the item to remain attached to their character after walking into another room.

That seems like a reasonable theological position.

For Now, Paladin Players Should Watch Their Damage

Until Blizzard confirms the issue or provides a fix, Light’s Epiphany users may want to pay attention after loading screens and area transitions.

If Arbiter of Justice suddenly feels dramatically weaker, players report that toggling away from Disciple Oath and back can restore the bonus in content where build changes are allowed.

In locked activities, there may be no equivalent workaround.

Again, Blizzard has not officially confirmed the bug or its exact cause.

But after multiple reports over more than a month, one thing seems increasingly clear:

A Paladin should probably not lose 500% damage because Sanctuary needed to load the next room.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Paladin’s 5-Piece Light’s Epiphany Bonus Frequently Breaking

Diablo IV Forums: Light’s Epiphany 5 Set Bonus Is Bugged

Diablo IV Forums: Charm Set of Light’s Epiphany — The 5 Piece Bonus Is Not Active

Diablo 4 Doubled Judgement’s Single-Target Damage — Paladin Players Still Aren’t Convinced

2026-08-15T03:00:29.122-07:00

Blizzard clearly knows Diablo 4's Judgement Paladin needs help.

The Season 15 PTR gave it help.

Quite a lot of help, actually.

Judicator Oath now makes Judgement deal 100% increased damage when it hits only one enemy. Aspect of the Judicator was buffed. Blessed Shield gained another way to increase Judgement damage. Paladin's core Strength scaling went up as well.

On paper, this sounds like the moment Judgement finally graduates from interesting idea to serious endgame build.

Paladin players who tested it are considerably less convinced.

Blizzard Specifically Targeted Judgement’s Single-Target Problem

The most obvious Season 15 change is attached to Judicator Oath.

If Judgement hits only a single enemy, it now deals 100% increased damage.

That is effectively double damage under the right circumstances.

And those circumstances are clearly aimed at bosses.

Judgement-based builds could already deal with groups more comfortably because marks and detonations naturally spread through packs. Single-target encounters were where the build frequently started looking as though it had forgotten why it entered the dungeon.

Blizzard's solution is simple.

One enemy.

Twice the Judgement damage.

Unfortunately, Diablo bosses have developed the inconvenient habit of bringing friends.

Adds Can Turn the Bonus Off

That is the biggest criticism appearing in post-PTR Paladin feedback.

The Judicator Oath bonus requires Judgement to hit only one enemy.

If a boss summons adds, or ordinary monsters remain close enough to be caught by the skill, the condition is no longer satisfied.

So the build's special single-target solution can disappear precisely during a boss encounter.

One player demonstrating the build after the PTR closed argued that this forces Judgement Paladins to clear surrounding enemies before receiving the bonus again, costing both boss damage and time.

It creates a peculiar situation.

The skill is better against one target.

The boss is one target.

Until the boss invites Greg and three skeletons over.

Blessed Shield Is Becoming Almost Mandatory

Blizzard also strengthened the interaction between Blessed Shield and Judgement.

The Shield of Justice variant already detonates Judgement and empowers subsequent Blessed Shield throws.

Season 15 adds another effect: detonating Judgement now increases your Judgement damage by 50% for five seconds.

That is a considerable bonus.

It also creates another complaint.

Why should Blessed Shield be the obvious skill for scaling Judgement?

Players arguing for more Judicator variety point out that the Paladin has several Judicator skills, but this one interaction makes Blessed Shield increasingly difficult to avoid if the goal is maximizing Judgement itself.

The result risks turning a system that should support several builds into another familiar Diablo equation:

You technically have choices.

One of them is just much better.

Aspect of the Judicator Got Buffed Too

Blizzard did not stop with the Oath.

Aspect of the Judicator previously increased Judgement's damage and size by 40–60%.

Season 15 raises that to 60–80%.

Aspect of Watkin's Law was also redesigned so Judicator Skills can consume and immediately reapply Judgement while using Judicator Oath, although this can only happen once every three seconds per enemy.

There is clearly a deliberate attempt here to make Judgement flow better through a full Judicator build rather than existing as a mark players apply because another skill tells them to.

The issue is whether the numbers and interactions are finally strong enough at the highest difficulties.

PTR Players Say the Answer Is Still No

Feedback throughout the Season 15 PTR repeatedly described Paladin single-target damage as one of the class's biggest weaknesses.

One tester said that even with the new 100% Judicator Oath bonus, high-end bosses remained painfully slow and suggested Judgement would need dramatically larger increases to compete with stronger builds.

Another player dedicated much of the PTR to a Judgement Paladin and managed to push into the high Pit 120s.

That was better than the previous season.

But the player still described the build as behind stronger Paladin options and far behind the top output available elsewhere.

That does not prove Judgement is mathematically doomed.

PTR characters, gear, player skill and build decisions vary enormously.

But it does show that doubling one part of Judgement's damage has not immediately convinced the people actually trying to push it.

Cathedral Song Still Sounds Expensive

The new Cathedral Song design has attracted criticism too.

In Season 15, consuming Judgement 100 times calls down Spear of the Heavens onto a random enemy.

Judgement consumed on bosses counts as ten.

That sounds considerably more reasonable against a single boss.

In large packs, however, the reward is still one Spear targeting one random enemy after a substantial number of consumptions.

Some testers are already asking Blizzard either to reduce the requirement or dramatically increase the payoff.

One heavenly spear after one hundred administrative procedures does feel slightly bureaucratic for divine intervention.

The Paladin Buff Is Bigger Than Just Judgement

It is worth remembering that Judgement does not exist in isolation.

Season 15 also increases Paladin's core Strength damage scalar from 1.25% to 1.625% per 10 Strength.

That is a broad class-wide damage increase.

Combined with the Judicator changes, Season 15's live version could therefore perform noticeably better than the same build did before the PTR.

Blizzard still has time to adjust numbers based on the test.

The PTR is finished.

The balance pass is not necessarily finished with it.

The Idea Is Good. The Conditions May Be the Problem.

There is something fundamentally appealing about Judgement.

Mark enemies.

Condemn them.

Build around divine punishment.

It is exactly the sort of mechanic a Paladin should have.

The concern after Season 15 testing is that too much of its power remains attached to conditions that can become awkward in actual endgame fights.

Double damage against one enemy sounds excellent.

Until two enemies stand next to each other.

A 50% Judgement boost from Blessed Shield sounds excellent.

Until every Judgement build feels obligated to use Blessed Shield.

The Season 15 PTR made Judgement stronger.

That part is not really in dispute.

The question is whether Blizzard has made it strong enough to justify all the hoops players still have to jump through.

Judgement has been passed.

The Paladin community is requesting an appeal.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: The 3.2.0 PTR — What You Need to Know

Diablo IV Forums: Paladin Judgement — PTR Feedback

Diablo IV Forums: Paladin Feedback Season 15 PTR

Diablo 4 Players Say the Damage Gap Between Builds Has Reached Thousands of Times

2026-08-15T02:48:14.835-07:00

Diablo 4 has never been particularly afraid of large numbers.

Millions became billions.

Billions became trillions.

Eventually the damage numbers started looking less like combat information and more like somebody had accidentally pasted a bank statement onto the screen.

But a new community calculation illustrates the problem in a much more useful way.

According to players examining Diablo 4's highest endgame tiers, the difference between clearing level 120 and level 150 can represent a required damage increase of roughly 4,142 times.

Not 4,142 percent.

Four thousand times.

And that is before comparing how quickly the strongest builds actually complete the content.

How Do You Get From 120 to 4,142 Times More Damage?

The calculation being discussed on Blizzard's forums starts with a claimed scaling factor of approximately 1.32 times per tier after level 120.

There are 30 steps between 120 and 150.

Multiply the requirement by 1.32 thirty times and you get:

1.32³⁰ = approximately 4,142.

So if one build is only strong enough to clear 120 and another can just barely clear 150 under otherwise comparable conditions, the second build theoretically needs thousands of times more effective damage output.

The original forum post puts the required increase at roughly 414,207%, or about 4,142 times.

Suddenly "this build is a little stronger" feels inadequate.

Clear Speed Makes the Comparison Even More Absurd

The player behind the calculation then adds another layer.

If the level 120 build takes nine minutes to finish its run while the level 150 build finishes in three minutes, the effective damage difference becomes even larger.

The post estimates that scenario at roughly 12,426 times the damage output.

That number is obviously a simplified comparison rather than an official Blizzard balance metric. Different encounters, movement, survivability and build mechanics complicate any direct damage calculation.

But the broader point remains difficult to ignore.

The upper end of Diablo 4 allows an extraordinary difference between viable builds.

The Real Problem Is Build Balance

Big numbers themselves are not necessarily bad.

If every build dealt twelve trillion damage instead of twelve million, the game could theoretically function exactly the same.

The problem begins when one optimized build exists on an entirely different mathematical planet from another optimized build.

A 10% balance difference can be adjusted.

A 30% difference can be adjusted.

Even double damage can be understood without requiring advanced mathematics and spiritual guidance.

Thousands of times more output is different.

It means that simply buffing the weaker skill by 20% does almost nothing to close the practical gap.

Multipliers Are Doing a Lot of the Damage

Diablo 4's modern builds stack numerous multiplicative bonuses from skills, Paragon, Legendary Aspects, Uniques, class mechanics and seasonal systems.

Season 15's PTR provides another reminder of how quickly these values accumulate. Soul Splinters can provide large multiplicative damage bonuses, while Blizzard is simultaneously changing core-stat scalars, class mechanics, Unique powers and numerous other multipliers in an attempt to keep classes aligned.

The danger is that multiplicative systems compound.

Give two builds the same 20% bonus and the stronger build remains stronger.

Give the stronger build several additional interactions that multiply together and the gap can become enormous very quickly.

This is how Diablo eventually arrives at builds separated not by percentages, but by entire postal codes.

Not Everyone Thinks This Is Actually a Problem

There is an important counterargument.

Some players responding to the discussion say the extreme final tiers exist precisely to expose how powerful the very best builds can become.

If one player is happily progressing at 120 with a self-made build, another player clearing 150 does not necessarily diminish that experience.

The highest levels can function as prestige content rather than something every class and every skill is supposed to reach.

That is reasonable.

Diablo does not need every build to finish identical content at identical speeds.

If it did, buildcrafting would become considerably less interesting.

But Extreme Builds Can Still Shape the Rest of the Game

The opposing argument is that extreme outliers eventually influence Blizzard's decisions.

When the strongest builds trivialize available content, players ask for harder content.

Blizzard adds harder content.

The weaker builds then find themselves even further behind.

The forum discussion specifically points to progression systems such as Glyph leveling as an example where a stronger build's ability to cruise through high tiers can create a materially different experience from someone playing off-meta.

That is where this stops being purely a leaderboard problem.

Diablo 4 Has Been Here Before

Damage inflation is hardly new to Diablo.

Diablo III eventually reached a point where enormous multipliers, escalating Greater Rifts and increasingly absurd set bonuses became fundamental parts of the game.

Diablo 4 has already undergone major restructuring of its progression and difficulty systems once.

And the current community discussion is increasingly asking whether the numbers are beginning to run away again.

One player in the thread suggests another eventual number squish may become unavoidable if damage continues expanding at this rate.

4,142 Times Is a Warning Sign, Not an Official Balance Number

The important thing is not to treat 4,142x as Blizzard announcing that one class officially does 4,142 times more damage than another.

It isn't.

This is a community calculation based on the reported scaling requirements between the highest endgame tiers.

But it provides a useful illustration of why Diablo 4's balance conversations have become so difficult.

When the top of the game requires exponentially more power, tiny differences become large differences.

Large differences become ridiculous differences.

And eventually somebody opens a calculator and discovers that one build apparently lives four thousand builds away from another.

At that point, perhaps the problem is no longer that the number needs another zero.

Perhaps it could lose a few.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Multipliers, the 1,242,600% Imbalance!

Blizzard Entertainment: The 3.2.0 PTR: What You Need to Know

Diablo Immortal Is Running Four Mirrored Jewels Events in a Row — Save Your Crests

2026-08-15T02:18:40.186-07:00

Diablo Immortal is currently doing something it normally makes players wait considerably longer for.

Mirrored Jewels is running again.

And again.

And then once more for good measure.

As part of Diablo’s 30th Anniversary celebration, Blizzard scheduled four Mirrored Jewels events back-to-back, effectively giving players four separate opportunities to dramatically improve the value of an Elder Rift run between late July and August 26.

We are currently in the third event.

Which means if you have been sitting on Legendary Crests, now might be a good time to remember why.

The Third Mirrored Jewels Event Is Live Now

Blizzard’s full anniversary schedule looks like this:

July 29 – August 5
August 5 – August 12
August 12 – August 19
August 19 – August 26

Each reset happens at 3:00 a.m. server time.

So as of August 15, the third Mirrored Jewels window is active.

And when it ends on August 19, another one begins immediately.

No week off.

No mysterious lunar calendar.

Just more gems.

What Does Mirrored Jewels Actually Do?

Mirrored Jewels is an Elder Rift enhancement that can be activated for a single run.

When active, every Legendary Gem you receive from that Elder Rift is accompanied by an additional random Legendary Gem of the same type and random quality.

The underlying Legendary Gem drop probabilities do not increase.

Instead, the event duplicates the successful Legendary Gem rewards you do receive. Blizzard has historically recommended activating Mirrored Jewels on an Elder Rift using 10 Legendary Crests to maximize its potential value.

In simpler terms:

You are not becoming luckier.

You are making your luck count twice.

Which is about as close to financial planning as Diablo Immortal usually gets.

This Is Why Saving Crests Can Matter

The important part of Mirrored Jewels is that the opportunity is limited.

If you are planning to spend Legendary Crests anyway, activating the event on a full 10-Crest Elder Rift gives the mechanic the maximum number of Legendary Gem rolls to work with.

That does not guarantee a 5-Star masterpiece.

Mirrored Jewels does not secretly turn Sanctuary into Christmas morning.

But if one of those Crest rolls produces something valuable, the event gives you another Legendary Gem alongside it.

That makes spending Crests during Mirrored Jewels significantly more attractive than casually burning them on ordinary Elder Rifts between events.

Four Events Changes the Usual Calculation

Normally, Mirrored Jewels feels like one of those moments where players suddenly remember they should have saved more Crests.

This anniversary run is different.

Blizzard has given everyone four consecutive opportunities.

If you already used Mirrored Jewels during the first two weeks, the August 12 reset created another event window.

And August 19 creates one more.

That means players who have been earning Legendary Crests throughout the anniversary period can potentially spread their resources across several Mirrored Jewels runs instead of treating the event as a single all-or-nothing moment.

Don’t Confuse Double Rewards With Double Drop Rates

This distinction is worth repeating because Diablo loot terminology has been responsible for several headaches over the years.

Mirrored Jewels does not double your chance of obtaining a particular Legendary Gem.

Blizzard explicitly states that Elder Rift Legendary Gem probabilities remain unchanged.

The event adds another random Legendary Gem of the corresponding type and quality structure when a Gem reward is generated.

That can still be extremely valuable.

It is simply not the same thing as doubling the underlying odds.

The casino remains a casino.

It just occasionally hands you two envelopes.

You Still Have Two Windows Left

If you missed the first Mirrored Jewels events, there is no need to mourn your terrible calendar management yet.

The current event remains active until August 19 at 3:00 a.m. server time.

Then the final anniversary Mirrored Jewels event begins immediately and continues until August 26 at 3:00 a.m.

That gives players another chance to collect Crests before the final window closes.

So if your inventory currently contains a respectable pile of Legendary Crests and you were considering casually throwing them into an Elder Rift tonight, check Mirrored Jewels first.

There are few experiences in Diablo more painful than discovering you spent the useful resource one day before the useful event.

Except perhaps doing it four times in the same month.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Celebrate 30 Years of Diablo in Diablo Immortal

Blizzard Entertainment: Seek Abundance in Tong Shi’s Renewal

Diablo II: Resurrected Is Changing Its Ladder Reset Schedule Starting With Season 15

2026-08-15T02:07:55.302-07:00

Diablo II: Resurrected players are used to Ladder resets.

Characters move over.

Stashes require attention.

Somebody reaches level 90 approximately seven minutes after you have finally decided on a character name.

But starting with Season 15, Blizzard is changing the rhythm of the reset itself.

Instead of treating the patch and new Ladder as one closely connected launch moment, Diablo II: Resurrected will now have a gap between the end of the old season, deployment of the new patch and the beginning of the next Ladder race. Blizzard says future seasons will follow a similar schedule.

Season 15 Has Three Different Dates

The important thing this time is not to remember one date.

It is to remember three.

August 17: Ladder Season 14 ends at 11:00 a.m. PDT, which is 8:00 p.m. CEST.
August 18: Patch 3.3 begins rolling out.
August 21: Ladder Season 15 begins at 5:00 p.m. PDT.

For European players, that final launch happens on August 22 at 2:00 a.m. CEST.

So when Patch 3.3 arrives on Tuesday, do not immediately create your new Ladder character and wonder where everyone is.

The race does not begin until Friday evening in North America and early Saturday morning in Europe.

This Is the New Model Going Forward

The most important sentence in Blizzard's announcement is easy to overlook.

The developers describe this as a “slight adjustment” to Patch and Ladder timing and explicitly say that future seasons will use similar timing.

That means Season 15 is establishing a new pattern:

End the old Ladder.

Deploy the update.

Then open the new race several days later.

Blizzard has not given a detailed explanation for the change, so we should not invent one for them.

But separating a major patch rollout from the competitive Ladder start does have one very obvious practical characteristic: the game update is no longer arriving at exactly the same moment thousands of players are attempting to begin a fresh race to level 99.

Whether that is the specific reason Blizzard made the change remains unconfirmed.

Patch 3.3 Arrives Before the New Ladder

Patch 3.3 is not enormous, but it contains several changes players will want installed and understood before Season 15 starts.

It adjusts Terror Zones and Colossal Ancients, changes Sunder Charm drops, fixes several Warlock issues and updates a collection of old items including Bloodletter, Pluckeye, Bane Ash, Gravenspine, Blinkbat's Form, The Ward and Manald Heal.

We have already covered Blizzard's last-minute change to Manald Heal, which switched from Faster Run/Walk to Faster Cast Rate.

There is an important restriction, however.

Blizzard says the newly changed versions of these items will be available only in the Reign of the Warlock Ladder. Previous Ladder-only items, meanwhile, become available in Non-Ladder with the new season.

So Patch 3.3 arriving on August 18 does not mean you can immediately start collecting every new Season 15 item outside the new Ladder.

Season 14 Characters Move to Non-Ladder on August 17

The old character transition still works as expected.

When Season 14 ends, its Ladder characters move into their corresponding Non-Ladder groups.

The Season 14 Shared Stash becomes a new set of Withdraw Only tabs, allowing players to retrieve those items during Season 15.

But there is another deadline hiding inside that reset.

Anything still sitting in the older Season 13 Withdraw Only tabs will be lost when Season 14 ends.

We covered that deadline separately because it is exactly the sort of small administrative detail capable of deleting an item you spent six months refusing to throw away.

The Actual Season 15 Race Starts August 21

Once the new Ladder opens, the usual four modes return:

Pre-Expansion Ladder
Pre-Expansion Hardcore Ladder
Ladder with Lord of Destruction content
Hardcore Ladder with Lord of Destruction content

The goal remains wonderfully unchanged.

Start with nothing.

Race toward level 99.

Acquire far too many items.

Promise yourself that this season's stash will remain organized.

Lose control of it by Sunday afternoon.

Remember the Gap

The practical takeaway for Season 15 is simple.

August 17 is the reset.

August 18 is the patch.

August 21 is the new Ladder.

And Blizzard says this separated schedule is the model players should expect again in future seasons.

It is not a dramatic redesign of Diablo II.

It will not change your build.

It will not make Baal drop the item you want.

But it is exactly the sort of scheduling change worth remembering before you take Friday off work on the wrong day.

Source

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon

Diablo Immortal Player Spent 4,500 Orbs on an Unusable Cosmetic Upgrade — Blizzard Is Investigating

2026-08-15T01:19:56.573-07:00

Spending 4,500 Eternal Orbs on a Diablo Immortal cosmetic is one thing.

Spending 4,500 Eternal Orbs and discovering that you cannot actually use what you bought is considerably less festive.

That is the situation one Diablo Immortal player says they found themselves in after purchasing a Fanal of Hope cosmetic enhancement.

The enhancement requires the underlying Fanal of Hope armor cosmetic.

The player does not own it.

And according to their report, the base cosmetic is not currently obtainable.

After several unsuccessful conversations with Customer Support, Blizzard's development team has now stepped in and says it is investigating the problem.

The Player Thought They Were Buying the Cosmetic

The problem appears to begin with how the purchase was presented.

The player, Issabel, explains that they previously obtained the Fanal of Hope portal from the cosmetic set through its original event.

Because that portal was already attached to their account, Diablo Immortal later displayed an option in the cosmetic interface to spend 4,500 Eternal Orbs on the related enhancement.

Issabel says they believed the offer would provide the displayed cosmetic content.

Only after completing the purchase did they discover that it was actually a modification for the Fanal of Hope base armor cosmetic.

Which they did not own.

The enhancement does not modify the portal they already possess either.

So the account currently has an expensive customization option for an item it cannot equip.

Diablo has always enjoyed making players acquire one item before another item works.

Usually the first item is at least obtainable.

The Base Cosmetic Is Currently Unavailable

According to the player's correspondence with support, Fanal of Hope itself cannot currently be obtained.

The player asked Blizzard whether the base cosmetic was guaranteed to return and, if so, when.

They say they received no confirmation.

That distinction makes the situation considerably worse than accidentally purchasing an upgrade and then simply going back to the shop for the missing component.

There is currently no obvious way for the player to make the 4,500-Orb purchase usable.

They just have to own something they cannot currently acquire.

Customer Support Initially Couldn’t Resolve It

The player contacted Blizzard Customer Support several times.

According to screenshots and messages summarized in the forum thread, multiple Game Masters said they could not reverse the in-game transaction, refund the Eternal Orbs or provide alternative compensation.

Support instead directed the player toward submitting a Bug Report.

When the player then asked for the individual case to be escalated to someone with the authority to resolve it, they say the eventual response was that there was no further escalation path available.

That created a rather magnificent customer-service circle.

Support cannot fix it.

Report it as a bug.

The bug forum cannot issue refunds.

Return to support.

There is no escalation path.

Even Deckard Cain would need a flowchart.

Blizzard Is Now Investigating

The situation changed on August 12.

A Blizzard representative responded directly to the forum thread and confirmed that the team had noticed the report.

More importantly, Blizzard described it as a bug and said it was actively investigating what happened.

The representative also said Blizzard would communicate what steps it intends to take to resolve the situation and acknowledged the multiple support tickets connected to the case.

That does not yet mean the player is getting 4,500 Eternal Orbs back.

Blizzard has not announced a refund, compensation package or technical fix.

But it is the first indication that the issue has moved beyond normal customer-support limitations and reached a team capable of investigating why the purchase was offered in the first place.

The Bigger Problem Is the Purchase Check

The interesting question extends beyond one player's account.

Why was Diablo Immortal willing to sell an enhancement that apparently required a base cosmetic the account did not own?

If the system knew enough about the account to surface the enhancement in its cosmetic menu, players reasonably might expect it to know whether the required base item was present too.

At minimum, a purchase like this should make the dependency unmistakably clear.

Requires Fanal of Hope cosmetic. You do not own this cosmetic.

That would solve quite a lot.

Ideally followed by a purchase button that does not work until the requirement is satisfied.

Computer technology has achieved greater feats.

4,500 Orbs Makes the Mistake Harder to Ignore

The price also matters.

This is not a 50-Orb curiosity accidentally clicked while navigating a menu.

The enhancement cost 4,500 Eternal Orbs, Diablo Immortal's premium currency.

That puts more responsibility on the purchase interface to make clear exactly what the player receives and what else is required before it becomes usable.

We recently covered another 4,500-Orb cosmetic customization feature in Diablo Immortal, showing just how heavily Blizzard is expanding premium appearance customization.

The more complicated those systems become, the more important clear ownership checks become too.

Now We Wait for Blizzard’s Solution

For the moment, this is one player's documented case rather than evidence that large numbers of Diablo Immortal players have experienced the same problem.

That is important.

But Blizzard's decision to investigate suggests there is enough here to warrant attention.

The ideal outcome is straightforward.

Prevent players without the required base cosmetic from purchasing an unusable enhancement.

Clearly label what every upgrade requires.

And find a reasonable solution for someone who already spent the Orbs.

Because 4,500 Eternal Orbs should probably buy you something more useful than the privilege of staring at a cosmetic you cannot wear.

Source

Diablo Immortal Forums: 4,500 Eternal Orbs Spent on Unusable Cosmetic — Blizzard Investigation