We did spend a little time in Season of Death Awakening when it launched at the end of June, though nowhere near as much as I thought we would. So many other games have come out since then that Diablo IV kept sliding down the list until it fell off entirely. Blizzard is already looking past that season anyway, because the 3.2.0 Public Test Realm opens on August 4 at 10:00 AM Pacific (1:00 PM Eastern) and runs through August 11 at the same time, giving PC players a week with what is headed into Season 15.
Blizzard is upfront that this PTR has a different offering of features than players are used to, and the team says that is by design. There is more to share at BlizzCon, and Blizzard did not want everything in Season 15 out in the open before it gets a chance to talk about it. That lines up with the tease from the Diablo 30th Anniversary Spotlight, where game director Brent Gibson closed the broadcast by saying fans are going to freak out at BlizzCon over an announcement. As I said at the time, best to temper your expectations, because it is probably something mild, like finally being able to fight Diablo in Diablo IV.
The headline addition on the PTR is Soul Splinters, a new class of socketable that slots into jewelry and comes with a catch attached to every single one. They arrive in five rarities, running from Common through Magic, Rare, Legendary, and Unique, and they can be upgraded in the Horadric Cube. Each one provides an elemental or physical resistance alongside its main effect, and the values scale depending on the item quality tier.
There are eight in total, and every one pairs a real upgrade with a real drawback. Splinter of Anguish hands over up to 35 percent critical strike chance and attack speed while raising your primary resource costs by 30 percent. Splinter of Sin trades 30 percent of your maximum primary resource for up to 40 percent maximum health. Splinter of Lies boosts gold and crafting material drop rates along with 25 percent bonus experience, but leaves you permanently Weakened and Vulnerable. Splinter of Pain offers up to 40 percent damage reduction at the cost of 30 percent movement speed. Splinter of Hellfire makes the sharpest trade of the group, granting up to 100 percent increased damage in exchange for all of your critical strike chance.
The remaining three are built around active mechanics rather than flat stat trades. Splinter of the Black Soulstone absorbs a soul for 15 seconds every time you kill something, with each soul stacking damage while also stacking the damage you take, and the effect stacks without refreshing. Splinter of the Mother makes you Unhindered and applies Vulnerable to enemies you touch, though it stuns you for four seconds once you have touched enough of them. Splinter of Damnation raises Monster Power for a short window every time you clear an Elite pack.
Challenge Dungeons are the other new activity, opening as portals out in the Overland and dropping you into a fight against a single boss. On Torment difficulties you can dial the encounter up to three Torment tiers above whatever you are currently playing on, with rewards scaling to match. Blizzard notes the encounters on the PTR exist specifically to test the underlying system, so the actual content shipping in Season 15 will be different.
Overland Ambush is the smaller of the two additions, triggering on rare occasions while you are out roaming Sanctuary. A demon begins hunting you, you get a warning that you are about to become prey, and you have 30 seconds to either run or stand and fight. Blizzard describes it as a difficult encounter built to test Sanctuary’s strongest warriors.
Ten legacy Uniques are being pulled forward from Diablo, Diablo II, and Diablo III, and they are permanent additions across every version of Diablo IV rather than seasonal one-offs. Five are usable by all classes: Leoric’s Crown as a helm, Nemesis Bracers as gloves, Ring of Royal Grandeur and Stone of Jordan as rings, and Squirt’s Blouse, which folds Squirt’s Necklace into a chest piece.
The other five are restricted to specific classes, and the spread varies quite a bit between them. Arioc’s Needle is a two-handed polearm for Barbarian, Druid, and Spiritborn, while Henri’s Perquisition is an offhand focus for Sorcerer, Necromancer, and Warlock. In-Geom covers the widest range as a one-handed sword available to Barbarian, Druid, Rogue, Necromancer, Paladin, and Warlock, and The Furnace returns as a two-handed mace. Messerschmidt’s Reaver is the exception, arriving as a two-handed axe in Season 15 rather than on the PTR.
Blizzard is keeping the affixes reminiscent of the originals without copying them exactly, adjusting where needed to fit current itemization. Leoric’s Crown is the example the team gives. The original increased the effect of any non-Legendary gem socketed into the helm by 75 to 100 percent, while the Diablo IV version counts the item as Jewelry and increases the effect of any socketed gem by that same amount.
The Mythic overhaul is the largest systems change in the build, and the outcomes are far more deterministic than before. Mythic Uniques can now be crafted two ways. The Horadric Cube’s Upgrade Direct Item to Mythic recipe costs more than the alternatives but performs a straight 1:1 transfer, so a Tibault’s Will with the affixes, Tempering, and Masterworking you want comes out the other side as a Mythic version of that exact item. The only restriction is that it will not work on an Unmodifiable item, so be careful about Transfiguring anything you were saving as a candidate.
Items made through that recipe carry a Crafted tag, and you can only equip one Crafted item at a time. The Jeweler’s Rune Crafting path skips the tag entirely, letting you pick a slot and combine Resplendent Sparks and Runes for a random class-specific Mythic Unique from that slot. The Blacksmith’s Mythic Cache recipe now pulls from both Mythic Uniques and Iconic Mythics valid for your class, also without the tag, which the team says exists so players have a way to spend excess sparks that does not also require runes. Every Iconic Mythic is getting a regular Unique version too, so build-defining pieces show up earlier in a character’s life.
I do not have a stake in Season 15 yet, but the direction here lines up with what won me back in the first place. In my Lord of Hatred review, I said the returning Horadric Cube opened up an entirely new layer of crafting and gearing possibilities, and that the chase finally worked the way a Diablo chase should. Itemization was one of my biggest complaints in my review of the base game, which I called death by a thousand cuts, a pile of small annoyances that added up to the first Diablo that got less fun the more I played it.
Charms are expanding alongside the Mythic changes, with the Talisman system picking up Mythic Unique Charms for the first time. They roll their properties at maximum value with a significantly buffed Unique property, and any Unique Charm in the game has a low chance to drop as one. There is no crafting recipe and no way to target farm them, though Mrak gives you a way to test them during the PTR. Sixteen new Unique Charms are also coming, built on existing Uniques that have not been represented until now, and eight of the 10 legacy Uniques are getting Charms of their own. Charms were one of the things I pointed to in the Lord of Hatred review as bringing build-altering set bonuses back to the game.
Rebirth is aimed squarely at seasonal players, letting you convert an Eternal character into a Seasonal one instead of rolling something fresh every season. The character resets to level 1 but keeps its class, name, appearance, and Normal or Hardcore state, along with cosmetic preferences covering transmogs, pigments, mounts, accessories, pets, portals, and headstones. You also keep a running tally of hours played across every Rebirth that character goes through.
There is a catch worth knowing before you use it, because any gear or items still on the character are lost. Blizzard warns you first and gives you the option to remove everything or destroy it, and the Rebirth will not go through until the character has nothing equipped and nothing in its personal inventory. Move it all to your Eternal stash first.
The Horadric Post rounds out the list as a new delivery system, letting the Diablo IV team send rewards, supplies, and commemorative items straight to your account. It is one-way, which Blizzard describes as a blessed PO box straight from the ether. PTR participants get an early commemorative reward so the team can test the system before Season 15 goes live.
Mrak, the PTR vendor, is back next to the main Waypoint in major cities with the usual pile of boosts for skipping the grind. You can grant yourself gold, obols, every crafting material, every rune, every unique, all glyphs, and all temper manuals, along with lair keys, tributes, infernal compasses, and nightmare escalation sigils. On the progression side you can complete the campaign and all strongholds, set your level to 70, push Paragon to 200, unlock every waypoint and Torment tier, and max out War Plans. Helms and amulets from the boosts carry minimum level requirements of 7 and 15 respectively, so you will need to level a bit before those show up.
Getting in works the same as previous PTRs, through the version dropdown above the Play button in the Battle.net app, where you select Public Test Realm and install the client. PC Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate users go through the same flow, reaching Battle.net through the XBOX app first. Feedback runs through the PTR forums or the in-game tool, which you can pull up by hitting ESC and selecting it from the dropdown in the Report a Bug menu.
Blizzard did act on PTR feedback last time around, reworking Mythic Uniques ahead of Season of Death Awakening so that converting a Unique returned a Mythic in the same gear slot instead of a random one, and so every Unique kept two guaranteed affixes rather than the single one that was tested. The 3.2.0 PTR is PC only, and whatever Blizzard is holding back is waiting for BlizzCon.
