Image: Blizzard Entertainment
More XP and damage buffs - what’s not to like?
Blizzard Entertainment has released Diablo 4’s 1.0.3 patch, adding highly-anticipated XP buffs for Nightmare Dungeons and damage buffs for Basic skills across the board. The update was previously scheduled to drop before Season 1 releases in mid-to-late July, but it seems to have been pushed out early to combat players’ complaints over the current Nightmare Dungeon system.
The new update targets the game’s Nightmare Dungeons and Helltides in order to make them more worthwhile to chase as endgame activities, where before they didn’t quite provide enough XP or loot to be worth grinding through. Patch 1.0.3, “significantly increased the experience awarded for completing Nightmare Dungeons,” as well as the XP gained from, “killing monsters in Nightmare Dungeons,” according to the official patchnotes.
Helltide chests will also grant players, “substantially,” more bonus XP when opened, and individual Whispers will do the same. It’s not all about XP, however. Helltide roaming bosses will also drop higher-quality loot more consistently than before, and weekly bonus caches dropped from world bosses no longer have a level requirement for opening. Players can also teleport directly to Nightmare Dungeons through the map, which means that they won’t have to walk across the map to get from one dungeon to the next anymore.
Blizzard is also making some tweaks to character class abilities with this patch, but there’s nothing too major here. This patch targets Basic skills to strengthen them a little more, along with a few other skills that players, “feel are lagging behind their peers.” Most of the changes are minor percentage buffs to Basic and Core skills. For example, Sorcerers have gotten the Frostbolt buffed up from 35% to 38% base damage.
Players have reported a lack of worthwhile content in Diablo 4’s Level 70 to 100 endgame loop, most of which has to do with the Nightmare Dungeons and how little XP they grant. The new patch intends to make them the best way to grind out XP once the campaign is over, and provide a more unique challenge compared to the standard dungeons. You can read the official patchnotes here.