Takes place after the events of the D4 campaign. New threat emerged - malignance, corruption spreading in beast, demon, human hearts. Changing them into blood thirsty fiends.
New character Kormand (ph). Ex-preist of the cathedral of light, diving deeper into the new threat. Finding himself out of his depth.
Will start season in Kyovashad, can start new story right away. Start at level 1 and start following new storyline.
Trying to add more stuff to seasons to appeal to everything a player does - new story, new challenges, new things to fight, new powers and builds, wants to hit all those notes.
New mechanic, the threat - the malignant. Any elite monster can spawn as a malignant monster with additional powers, will expose a heart that can be interacted with to start a ritual. New more powerful version spawned. If you can beat the more powerful version, now it drops a caged heart item that can be used like a gem. Can be socketed into gear, “enormous amount of power” on par with a legendary item.
New builds “stupid powerful, hopefully balanced”
32 new malignant powers. Come in categories (Brutal are blue) and can only go in sockets of matching colours. 3 colours of sockets, 4 colors of hearts. Wrathful hearts fit in any socket, rare and powerful. (Showed off two hearts but my youtube stream decided to auto downgrade down to 280p, so I couldn’t read the effects.)
Super elites buff nearby enemies, want to fight them in higher world tiers to get stronger hearts. Can break down hearts into crafting materials to craft new items like “invokers.” Can use them at specific places (Malignant tunnels) to spawn malignant elites. Specific dungeons with malignants, and can guarantee a specific type of malignant. Targeted farming. Invoker items look like “turkey basters from hell.”
New boss monster, not talking about it too much.
New legendary items and powers.
New unique items.
New items not season exclusive, will show up in eternal realm too.
Season patch will be out July 18th so season can launch on 20th. On 18th, all new stuff will be available on eternal realm (Sneak preview.) As well as new balance changes, features, etc.
Seasonal journey feature. Season journey has 7 chapters, each chapter has a number of objectives to advance to next chapter. (Don’t have to do them all). Collect favor for things like collecting 15 gallowvine, complete any dungeon, complete a cellar, etc. Season journey can let you collect new legendary aspects.
Don’t need the battlepass to have access to season journey.
Battlepass has stuff for free players too, can unlock stuff without buying it.
Special cosmetics, titles, in the season journey.
Can play through original campaign in season and still unlock stuff during seasonal journey, won’t encounter malignant until you progress seasonal story. Some features only available after you beat the campaign.
Can skip campaign to with new seasonal characters if you’ve already beaten campaign. They recommend beating the campaign before the season starts.
Not all seasons will start in Kyovashad.
New mounts and mounts armor - tier 1 battle pass rewared. New transmogs. Free stuff is “low fantasy” stuff like artisans tunic, epic stuff is premium.
Some stuff will be class specific.
Only difference between free and premium battle passes are cosmetics.
Blessings are in the battle passes (free and premium). Smoldering ashes - if you have a character of a specific level, you can take them and use them to seasonal blessings. Invest ashes to give exp boosts, gold boosts, elixir durations, rare salvage material drop chance, malignant heart drop chance. Invest more ashes to improve boosts. Available to everyone, limited based on level of the player so if you were to use tier skips, can’t unlock stuff until you hit level requirement.
Yep, pass skips are a thing.
Emphasizing power that is part of the pass for all players, you don’t have to spend a cent. Premium stuff is transmog only, no items or pay to win.
Renown and fog of war: When season 1 goes live, players can carry over fog of war they’ve explored, as well as all renown earned. Altars of Lillith carrying over. Will have skill points, extra potions, etc at the very start of the season with your character as long as they are unlocked in the eternal realm. Recommend clearing renown before season starts.
Will need to log in with an existing character to migrate data - for example if you have one character with all map cleared, and one alt with partial map cleared, log in with your character with most progress to set your progress baseline, and will unlock all that progress across all your characters. Only have to do it once.
Hot damn, Blizz really came through with this one! Not having to redo altars or clear the map is huge!