It is a busy time for the Diablo community. Yesterday, the team behind Diablo 4 held their casual chat (also known as Sanctuary Sitdown) in the official D4 Sanctuary Discord to answer questions following their recent spotlight event.
The talk focused mostly on the Lord of Hatred expansion, upcoming systems, and what the team learned from feedback. A lot of the discussion revolved around how Diablo 4 is moving away from raw power stacking and toward clearer, more understandable character building.
Skill Tree and Power Progression Rework
The biggest news around the new skill tree was the devs’ confirmations on the removal of the old passive-heavy structure. Instead of stacking layers of passive bonuses, the new skill tree focuses on modifying how skills behave.
The goal is for builds to be easier to read and easier to adjust without needing spreadsheets. So instead, power progression will move toward:
- Items
- Crafting
- Legendary effects
- Paragon
All skills are getting new customization options to help fill the gap left by the old passives. This also helps the team balance builds more consistently, since the difference between strong and weak setups becomes easier to tune.
How Sets Return Through Talismans
We already know that sets are making a comeback (finally), but not as gear pieces. They are not tied to your armor slots this time. Instead, sets are part of the new Talisman system. This is great, as it simply means you do not have to choose between a cool legendary item and a set bonus.
The devs also mentioned that these sets focus more on changing your playstyle than just boosting damage numbers. For example, they teased a Druid set that gives you bear companions. You can also use Seals to modify these effects, even allowing you to mix and match smaller bonuses from different sets.
The idea is to support playstyle variety instead of forcing a single best setup.
Endgame Becomes Player-Directed
The new Warplans system lets players choose how they want to spend endgame time. You select preferred activities and progress a dedicated activity tree tied to them. This system is meant to work for both casual and heavy players and to reduce the feeling of running content you do not care about.
Naturally, players were eager to discuss this new feature, too. Not much new info was given on it; however, what we did learn now is that this new mechanic might even bring back past seasonal mechanics like Blood Seekers.
Items, Loot Filter, and QOL
Loot filtering is coming with Lord of Hatred and is being improved so unwanted items can be hidden. Auto-salvage is not planned.
Other highlights from the devs related to the topic of upcoming quality-of-life include:
- Uniques will still unlock builds instead of acting as stat sticks
- Salvaging matters less in late game to reduce clutter
- SSF mode is planned but not ready for launch
- Rebirth is being discussed internally
- Combat readability is under review
- More itemization changes are coming (no further details on this yet)
The team also confirmed that they are monitoring feedback closely, especially regarding stash management and item handling.
Warlock And Season 12 Soon
If you are looking for more details on the Warlock or Season 12, there is a much larger stream planned for March 5th. That is when we will get the full breakdown of the new class and the specific system updates for the next season.
You can check out the full community discussion recording of the Sanctuary Sitdown here:
More updates on Lord of Hatred can be found in our Diablo 4 news hub.