Diablo 3 Patch Notes: Season 27 Update, and v2.7.4 Confirmed Changes

Below you will find the patch notes for the upcoming update to Diablo III: Patch 2.7.4.

Note: All changes apply to all versions of Diablo III, including PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC unless otherwise indicated.

Season 27

Season 27 introduces a new type of consumable item called Angelic Crucibles. Once uncovered by Nephalem, these heavenly artifacts can be used to Sanctify any equippable Legendary item. Sanctifying an item reforges it to have perfect Ancient-level stats on all affixes while also preserving the item’s Legendary Power. In addition, this process adds one of three new Sanctified powers unique to each class.

Season Theme Details:

• Angelic Crucibles and Sanctified Items can only be acquired in Seasonal play and will not transfer to your non-seasonal character when the season ends.
• Angelic Crucibles can drop anywhere in Sanctuary at level 70.
• Players can obtain as many Sanctified items as they would like, however, only one Sanctified item can be equipped at a time.
• Sanctified items can be Sanctified again using another Angelic Crucible.
• No stats are preserved when Sanctifying an item.
• Only level 70 equippable items can be Sanctified—crafted items cannot be Sanctified.
• Followers cannot equip Sanctified items.
• The drop rate of Angelic Crucibles has been doubled.

General Updates

• Adventure Mode is now unlocked for all accounts by default. Players are no longer required to complete the Campaign to access Adventure mode.
• Default difficulty selection has been updated to be consistent for all players and platforms. All players now have access to Normal-Torment 6 difficulties by default, and upon reaching level 70 with a character, players gain access to Torment 7–Torment 16.
• Uber Boss Realms now automatically close 60 seconds after the Uber Bosses have been defeated. Additional portals to the same Uber Boss Realm can now be opened in a single game session.
• The Experience rewarded upon completion of an Echoing Nightmare has been reduced by 83%.
• Developer’s Note: With Echoing Nightmares transitioning from a Seasonal theme to a permanent feature moving forward, we felt it was necessary to dial back the Experience rewards to avoid players feeling obligated to maximize their time spent inside the activity. Our vision for Echoing Nightmares is to be a fun bonus activity, like the Vault, that serves as a good source of loot and Augment materials. We’ve also made several changes to Adventure mode and difficulty unlocks—these will align the Diablo III experience across all platforms for new players and should make it easier to jump into your preferred activity. Lastly, we improved the Uber Boss flow so that players and groups can kill multiple rounds of bosses without having to remake games.

Item Changes

General

• Guardian’s Jeopardy (2-piece bonus):
  • Your melee damage reduction is increased by 1% per 1000 base Vitality from equipped items. Your missile damage reduction is increased by 1% per 1000 base Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence from equipped items depending on your class.
• Guardian’s Jeopardy (3-piece bonus):
  • You gain an additional 100% of your base Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality attributes from equipped items.
• Developer’s Note: We’ve heard from players that the Crafted 3-piece sets have had some of the most significant impacts on itemization, so we’re introducing another to add more choice.

Crusader

• Armor of Akkhan (2-piece bonus): Judgment has no cooldown and gains the effect of every rune.
• Armor of Akkhan (4-piece bonus): Attacks from Phalanx Avatars reduce the cooldown of Akarat’s Champion by 0.5 seconds, and also apply Condemn when attacking enemies that is affected by Judgment.
  • Fixed a typo in the Armor of Akkhan 4-piece bonus.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed any attack to proc the 4-piece bonus to reduce the cooldown of Akarat’s Champion.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the damage bonus of Akkhan’s 6-piece to sometimes not work with Phalanx Avatars.
  • Updated the visual effect of Phalanx Avatars proccing Condemn to reduce visual clutter.
  • Updated the AI of Phalanx Avatars to prioritize targets around the player.
  • “Increases Phalanx Damage” affixes and the Enforcer Legendary Gem can now benefit Phalanx Condemns.
• Eternal Union: Increases the duration of summoned Phalanx Bowmen and Bodyguard indefinitely.
• Developer’s Note: Our goal with the Armor of Akkhan rework is to narrow the focus of the set to give a distinctive identify, highlighting a fantasy where the Crusader is the Knight-Commander, passing judgment on the enemies of the Light.

Necromancer

• Trag’Oul’s Avatar (2-piece bonus): Blood Rush and Siphon Blood gains the effect of every rune. Your Life-spending abilities no longer cost Essence.
• Trag’Oul’s Avatar (4-piece bonus): While at full Life, your healing from skills is added to your maximum Life for 45 seconds, up to 300% more.
• Trag’Oul’s Avatar (6-piece bonus): Your Life-spending abilities deal 10,000% increased damage and your healing from skills is increased by 100%.
• Iron Rose: Attacking with Siphon Blood has a 100% chance to cast a free Blood Nova. After cumulatively losing 10% of your maximum Life, your Death Nova deals 40% increased damage for 60 seconds. This effect stacks up to 10 times.
• Funerary Pick: Siphon Blood from 2 additional targets. Each target takes 300% increased damage from you. The bonus from Siphon Blood – Power Shift is now 20% per stack and benefits all skills.
• Developer’s Note: We wanted to recapture the Blood Necromancer fantasy of Trag’Oul’s Avatar and increase its effectiveness against single targets.

Wizard

• Delsere’s Magnum Opus (2-piece bonus): Casting Arcane Orb, Energy Twister, Magic Missile, Shock Pulse, Spectral Blade, Electrocute, or Arcane Torrent also casts Slow Time at them. This effect will not trigger if the target is already inside a Slow Time bubble. The cooldown of Teleport will reset while you’re inside bubbles generated from this set or cast by you.
• Delsere’s Magnum Opus (4-piece bonus): You take 75% reduced damage while you have a Slow Time active. Allies inside your Slow Time gain half benefit.
• Delsere’s Magnum Opus (6-piece bonus): Enemies affected by your Slow Time and for 5 seconds after exiting take 12,500% increased damage from your Arcane Orb, Energy Twister, Magic Missile, Shock Pulse, Spectral Blade, Electrocute, and Arcane Torrent abilities.
• Crown of the Primus: Slow Time gains the effect of every rune except Point of No Return and permanently follows you.
• Tal Rasha’s Elements (2-piece bonus): Damaging enemies with Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning will grant immunity to that element and cause a Meteor of the same damage type to fall from the sky. The same meteor cannot happen twice in a row.
• Tal Rasha’s Elements (4-piece bonus): Arcane, Cold, Fire, and Lightning attacks each increase all of your resistances by 50% for 8 seconds.
• The Smoldering Core: Lesser enemies are now lured to your Meteor impact areas. Meteors deals 40-50% increased damage on consecutive hits to the same target. This stacks up to 10 times.
  • Fixed a typo in The Smoldering Core’s tooltip.
• Mirror Ball: Magic Missile fires 2 extra missiles and deals 400-500% increased damage.
• Mempo of Twilight: Meteor Shower rune is now applied to all casted Meteors and deals 300–400% increased damage.
• Developer’s Note: Delsere’s Magnum Opus has been feeling weak, clunky and isn’t meeting the desired gameplay flow, so we’ve streamlined the playstyle to make it more engaging, allowing Wizards to feel like masters of time. The core of Tal Rasha’s Elements has changed over time, so we’re revisiting it to reintroduce a playstyle that utilizes Meteor.

Monk

• Inna’s Mantra (6-piece bonus): Gain the passive abilities of the five runed Mystic Allies at all times. Attacking enemies creates your chosen Mystic Ally that lasts 15 seconds, up to 10 Mystic Allys. The damage of your Mystic Allies is increased by 900% for each Mystic Ally you have out.
• Bindings of the Lesser Gods: Enemies hit by your Cyclone Strike take 150-200% increased damage from your Mystic Ally for 5 seconds. Split Fire Allies gain 3 times this bonus.
• Developer’s Note: Inna’s Mantra Monks have been riding high on the waves of success for several seasons, so it’s time to bring in the nerf shark.

Demon Hunter

• Strafe: Updated base skill to allow any equipped weapon, rather than requiring a Bow.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that prevented the Legendary Spear Empyrean Messenger from dropping.
• Captain Crimson’s Trimmings: Fixed a bug that caused the 3-piece set bonus to occasionally drop off.
• Updated Bone Spike and Siphon Blood tooltips to reflect the appropriate damage values.
• Fixed a bug that caused Sanctified items to not always roll with Ancient-level stats.
• Fixed a bug where Slow Time and Archon Slow Time stacked.

On 7 March 2022 Blizzard released their detailed preview blog for Diablo 3 Season 26, known as Echoing Nightmare which was eventually uploaded to the game’s PTR on 10 March 2022.

The patch notes can be found just below, but do note, the developers could make changes to these before the eventual release of Season 26.

Page updated on April 6 to reflect latest changes ahead of the Diablo 3 update releasing on April 12. Some changes were made post-PTR testing.

1. Seasons

New Season Theme: Season 26 introduces the Echoing Nightmare, an optional and rewarding end-game challenge where players fight within the memories of Nephalem who fell in a Greater Rift. Today’s Nephalem must stand their ground until they are inevitably Overwhelmed or defeated. Players must collect a Petrified Scream from defeated Greater Rift Guardians to gain entry to the Echoing Nightmare. Transmuting a Petrified Scream in Kanai’s Cube summons a portal that players can enter to face the horrors of the Nephalem’s past.

Season Theme Details:

• Petrified Screams and the Echoing Nightmare can only be accessed with seasonal characters.
• Only one player is required to transmute a Petrified Scream to open an Echoing Nightmare in a multiplayer game.
• Similar to a boss encounter, all players in a multiplayer game must accept a prompt to enter.
• While within an Echoing Nightmare, the difficulty scales as players progress in the encounter. Players can progress faster by defeating monsters quickly.
• Players receive the following rewards upon completing an Echoing Nightmare: EXP, Legendary Items, Blood Shards, Gems, and a new Legendary Gem, Whisper of Atonement.
• The Whisper of Atonement is a Legendary Gem used exclusively for Augmenting Ancient Legendary items. It drops pre-ranked based upon player’s performance in the Echoing Nightmare.

• Rare monsters now spawn within an Echoing Nightmare.
• Meteors now fall from the sky.
• Hellish Machinations now appear, which spawn streams of Exploding Lunatics.
• Rift Guardians now spawn.
• Increased the frequency of which monsters spawn.
• Updated the Shadow Clone explosion to better reflect the area of effect.
• The exit timer has been increased to 60 seconds.
• Increased the possible rank a Whisper of Atonement can drop to 125 based on the Tier completed.
• Monsters in Echoing Nightmares can no longer be Frozen, Stunned, Rooted or Knocked Back.
• Fixed a bug that caused Conduit Shrines to deal less damage than intended.

New Updates (Post-PTR)

• Monsters from the Echoing Nightmares no longer drop gold, items or health globes.
• Adjusted the damage done by Exploding Lunatics and Meteors to be more deadly.
• Adjust Meteor and Fallen Lunatic Molten damage to be Physical.
• Adjusted the difficulty of Tiers 100+.
• Replaced the Shield Pylon with a Speed Pylon.
• Adjusted the EXP rewarded by Echoing Nightmares to be aligned with Greater Rift turn-in rewards.
• Reduced the Echoing Nightmare closing timer to 30 seconds.
• Prevented Echoing Nightmares from being opened in games lower than level 70.
• Adjusted the drop rate of Petrified Screams from Greater Rift Guardians.

Greater Rift Updates –

Orek’s Dream: Greater Rifts have a small chance to roll as Orek’s Dream. These dreamlike rifts have a curated list of maps and monster compositions.

• 3 maps have been added and 2 maps have been removed from the Greater Rift pool.
  • Added: Fields of Misery, Desolate Sands and Briarthorn Cemetery
  • Removed: Sewers of Caldeum, and Hidden Aqueducts
• The probability of Greater Rift maps has been adjusted.
• The probability of monster groups has been adjusted.
• The following monsters have been adjusted to grant more progression and EXP within Greater Rifts.
  • Blazing Guardians
  • Smoldering Guardians
  • Frost Guardian
  • Noxious Guardian
  • Shock Guardian
  • Blood Clan Spearman
  • Dark Moon Clan Impaler
  • Moon Clan Impaler
  • Blood Clan Impaler
  • Ice Clan Impaler
  • Hell Witch
  • Vile Temptress
• Players can speak to Orek to close an active Greater Rift. This option is only available when in a single player game.

• Further increased the progression granted by some monsters in Greater Rifts.
• Additionally, increased the progression granted by Fallen Shaman, Fallen Conjurer, Fallen Prophet and Fallen Firemage.
• Updated visual effects upon entering an Orek’s Dream.
• Updated the Orek’s Dream vignette to be more pronounced.

Item Updates –

Barbarian

• Legacy of Raekor (4-piece Bonus): Furious Charge gains the effect of every rune and deals 1000% increased damage. For every 1% Life you are missing, the damage of your Ancient Spear is increased by 2%.
• Legacy of Raekor (6-piece Bonus): Hitting enemies with Furious Charge or Weapon Throw increases the damage of your next Ancient Spear by 5500% and causes it to release multiple spears from its target. This effect stacks and each spear throw consumes a maximum of 5 stacks.
• Arreat’s Law: Weapon Throw and Ancient Spear deal 150-200% increased damage.
  • Weapon Throw generates up to 25 50 additional Fury based on the distance of the enemy hit. The generated Fury can go above the maximum cap by 200 Fury.
  • Ancient Spear refunds up to 25 50 Fury based on the distance of the enemy hit and resets your Fury cap to its base maximum.
• The Three Hundredth Spear: Increase the damage of Weapon Throw and Ancient Spear by 150-200%. The attack speed of Weapon Throw is increased by 200%.
• Skular’s Salvation: Increase the damage of Ancient Spear by 150-200%. If your Ancient Spear – Boulder Toss hits 5 or fewer enemies, the damage is increased by 100%.

Developer’s Note: We’ve added additional Weapon Throw buffs to give players more build options when playing the reworked Legacy of Raekor set. We’ve also updated Arreat’s Law to allow players to reach new levels of Fury.

Developer’s Note: We reworked Raekor’s Legacy to give the set its own identity. It felt natural to the team to infuse the charging fantasy of Raekor’s Legacy with the Barbarian’s ranged skills.

Crusader

• Thorns of the Invoker: The attack speed of Punish and Slash are increased by 100% and deal 67,500% of your Thorns damage.
• Norvald’s Fervor: Gain 200% increased damage while using Steed Charge and for 5 seconds after it ends.

Developer’s Note: Norvald’s Fervor is overperforming across multiple sets. We want to bring its power down, but we are Increasing the utility of Thorns of the Invoker to compensate.

Monk

• All Mystic Allies spawned by Inna’s Mantra 6-piece bonus now have their duration refreshed with each attack.
• Mystic Ally – Fire Ally: Mini allies now have Passability.
• Mystic Ally – Earth Ally:
  • Earth Ally boulders speed has been increased. Boulders always leash to the player regardless of how many monsters are on screen.
  • Prevented Earth Ally boulders from being slowed by missile dampening.

Developer’s Note: We’ve made improvements to Mystic Ally that should make the skill feel more fluid and less clunky at times.

• Bindings of the Lesser Gods: Enemies hit by your Cyclone Strike take 150%-200% more damage from your Mystic Ally for 5 seconds.

Developer’s Note: We’re happy with the gameplay of Inna’s Mantra Monks, but the Fire build is overperforming, so we removed the Fire Ally bonus from the Bindings of the Lesser Gods.

Bug Fixes –

• Prevented players from changing difficulty while an Echoing Nightmare is active.
• Fixed a bug where Boon of the Hoarder allowed gold to drop in Echoing Nightmares.
• Fixed a bug where Orek’s Dream vignette sometimes goes away on Shrouded Moors and Festering Woods when entering anything other than level 1.
• Fixed a bug that caused Orek’s Dream opening VFX to display inconsistently.