What's going on, everybody? This is Stephen at The Apprentice Corner, and I want to talk some more Diablo.

I made my return to the game, and since then I'm roughly Paragon 120. I've beaten the Lord of Hatred campaign, and I want to give a relatively brief overview of the things that are new to a returning player, even one who has played a lot like me, along with some of my opinions and takeaways on the current state of the game going into Season 15, which releases in about a month.

I'm going to try to go in the order that I encountered things, just to make it easier to understand where I'm at.

Leveling

First off, the leveling speed in this game now is absolutely insane. I got to Level 70, which is max level, in just a couple of hours, I think. Honestly, I spent the first few hours being very confused and not really knowing what content I should be doing to level fast.

I used to always do Helltides, so I started there. My build felt supremely underpowered for the first bit as a Spiritborn, so I ended up swapping to a Druid, which felt a lot better. I actually leveled a Spiritborn to around Level 50 and then switched to Druid. I feel like I got to Paragon leveling within basically a single play session.

I ended up doing the Lord of Hatred campaign after I hit Level 70, and I played it on Penitent difficulty. The story was fun. I don't want to spoil it for anybody who might be a returning player, but there are a lot of cool cutscenes. As usual, Blizzard always does cinematics well, and the Mephisto boss fight is really fun.

If you do enjoy it, you'll be happy to know that Mephisto is a lair boss, so you can fight him multiple times now. Fun fight, cool visuals, and I liked the story overall. The campaign felt a little short, but for an ARPG nobody really cares. Everybody wants to rush to the endgame, which is exactly what I was doing.

I'd give the campaign about a 7.5 / 8 out of 10. The cinematics are fantastic as always, so props to Blizzard's art department. They're always excellent.

The New Skill Tree

The next thing to mention is the changes to the skill tree.

As you level, you'll notice that the skill tree has VERY different nodes now a days, main differnce you'll notice is that almost none of them are passives.

If you played Diablo 4 around the Vessel of Hatred release like I did, you'll remember all the passive nodes throughout the different trees. They've basically done away with almost all nodes that were just incremental stat boosts. Now, everything is either a skill or a modification to that skill.

The only things with multiple ranks are the skills themselves, while the modifier nodes are generally one point and directly change how the skill functions.

For reference, I'm a Druid player. I've played Companion Druids since Season 0, and one of the biggest aspects for a Companion Druid was always Aspect of the Alpha, which turned your wolf companions into werewolves. It was always one of the biggest damage spikes for the build. Other than Shepherd's and Stampede, Alpha was the OG aspect and was always the last one you'd find. It was extremely rare, almost like a meme.

Now that's simply on the Wolf skill tree as a modifier. That's great IMO.

Overall, I think the tree is pretty nice. I like that a lot of power has been moved into the tree and doesn't revolve around praying that you get a certain legendary item so you can extract the aspect. I also like that a lot of the gear now revolves around empowering the skill rather than enabling the skill in the first place.

I will say, though, that I wish there were some kind of middle ground instead of having almost no passives at all.

What I've noticed is that without passives, a lot of builds can be relatively shallow. I know everyone will tell me Diablo has always been shallow, so who cares, but passives often gave different ways to play similar builds and different stats to focus on. They added at least a little bit of nuance.

Without passives, every Pulverize build tends to play the same. Every Tornado build plays the same. Every Lightning Storm build plays the same. You get what I'm saying. I do think there's room for some passive nodes. That said, if I had to choose, I'd much rather have a powerful skill tree, and it definitely feels more powerful now.

Itemization

While we're talking about progression, let's discuss items.

As you hit Level 70, you'll start focusing on gear and aspects. Itemization is relatively similar to what I remember, but there are some significant changes.

The biggest thing is that a lot of uniques and aspects have changed since I last played. If you've only been away a season or two, it probably won't feel that dramatic, but returning from earlier Diablo 4 is a different story.

Many iconic uniques, if you want to call them that, like Vasily's Prayer, Tempest Roar, and Insatiable Fury, have either been heavily reworked, renamed, or had their effects substantially changed.

So far, that's been a welcome change.

Builds feel more tied to skill choices and player decisions rather than one mandatory item holding the entire build hostage. Gone are the days where you felt like you couldn't play the build you actually wanted until a specific unique dropped.

Playing Druid in Seasons 1 and 2 while waiting for Tempest Roar was miserable. Tempest Roar felt rarer than Mythics (what the community is calling “iconic mythics” now, real mythics and not just Uniques with upscaled rarities), at least for me. Your entire character felt terrible until you got it, and you were often forced into a completely different build while you waited.

Now they've opened things up significantly. Certain uniques, Mythics, and aspects make a functioning build stronger or smoother, but they don't completely determine whether the build works at all.

I like that approach a lot more.

Mythic Changes

One thing I will say about the new itemization system, though, is that I don't really like the current Mythic system.

It's effectively turned Mythics into another item rarity.

You can craft Mythics using the Horadric Cube, and you can also get the traditional uniques drop as “Mythic” versions. My first and only Mythic so far was the two-handed mace that used to be called Rotting Lightbringer when I played, its now called Purifying Lightbringer.

Now when a purple item drops, there's no telling whether it's a truly rare chase item like a Harlequin Crest or Ring of Starless Skies, or whether it's just a Mythic version of something you'll never use.

Honestly, that takes a lot of the excitement away.

Seeing a purple item hit the floor used to be one of the biggest dopamine hits in the game. Now it might just end up being a Mother's Embrace or some random scrap fodder.

If they're going to keep the Mythic system the way it is, I think they need some distinction for the original uber uniques / Mythic Uniques. Call them Celestial, Primal, Ancient, whatever. Make them red on the ground. Give them something.

Right now, purple doesn't mean much anymore, and it used to mean everything.

I hope they eventually find a middle ground where they keep all the endgame crafting systems intact while also preserving those true pinnacle drops that create unforgettable moments.

Endgame and War Plans

Next up is the overall game.

I haven't done a ton of endgame yet because I'm only around Paragon 120, but I will say I really like the War Plans system.

Most endgame activities have received tons of quality-of-life improvements, but War Plans are especially nice. They remind me a lot of the Atlas passive tree from Path of Exile.

Essentially, as you play different activities, you level up progression trees associated with those activities. Those trees allow you to customize, enhance, and modify the content in ways that sound interesting to you.

It's a simple concept, but it adds a surprising amount of control over how you spend your time. This, along with the cube crafting, lair bosses, finally having a season with actual staying power due to the breaches being intertwined in other content, and overall various improvements to Compasses, Undercity runs, NM and Escalation Dungeons, and the heaven sent loadout system and NEW TO ME loot filter (THANK GOD) this return has been really something for me personally.

Thoughts so far

All of this is to say that if you didn't like Diablo 4 before and your mind is made up, I'm not sure these changes are going to completely blow you away.

But, if you're someone who felt like they had "completed" the game like I did and stopped playing, there's enough here to make it feel fresh again.

The quality-of-life improvements, refined endgame progression, additional lair bosses, twelve Torment tiers instead of four, more open-world bosses, a seasonal mechanic that's actually fun to engage with, and changes to the skill tree and itemization have all made the game far more enjoyable than I expected.

The moment-to-moment gameplay is still what Diablo does best, and that's ultimately why we play these games.

If you're like me and had a lot of fun with Diablo 4 through Vessel of Hatred but stepped away because the content stopped feeling fresh, I think it's worth another look. Likewise, if you haven't played in a very long time and you're not completely against giving it another shot, I'd say it's absolutely worth revisiting.

I have my Druid “Zoo build” cooking (and no, not just a Companion build. If you look those up online, most of them are really just wolf builds leveraging Storm's Companion to scale Storm and Lightning damage. In my opinion, they're basically less efficient Lightning Storm builds). I'm actually running all companions, plus the bear companions from the Bestiary charm set - I’m happy with what I’m seeing, just looking for a couple more power spike items like the Stampede Aspect to multiply my companions, which will then proc the Shepards aspect for more DPS, level my Paragon Glyphs, and get a couple fun Uniques that are new to me (Kilt of the Blackwing, Accord of the Wilds seem like fun drops to try out).

I also got a Greater Affix Mythic Purifying Lightbringer mace very early, so I may end up trying a Pulverize loadout. I know the current "meta" Pulverize setup (if there is such a thing) seems to revolve around the Petrify interaction through Basilisk Staff, but we'll see.

Much more to come, including a Season 15 preview, since that season is right around the corner.

Take care, and I'll see you soon!

DIABLO 4 - SEASON 14 : IMPRESSIONS AND PROGRESS UPDATE!