Diablo 4 Won't Nerf Spiritborn. Blizzard Will Buff All Classes in Mid-Season Patch
Blizzard won't nerf the Spiritborn in Diablo 4 for the time being but has already announced the buffing of other classes and the testing of the seventh season.
Developers of Diablo 4 revealed changes coming to the game. Details were revealed during the next episode of “Campfire” – a very short summary of the stream can be found on the official Blizzard Entertainment website.
Spiritborn without nerfs
Most of the stream was devoted to discussing class balance changes, all of which will be buffed next week. Even the Spiritborn will receive boosts to less practical skills, despite the belief of many players that this class is too strong. Blizzard will keep its word and won't nerf the latest class in the Diablo series until the end of this season. The devs point out that 62% of all D4 players played as Spiritborn – almost twice as many as the previous season's record holder, the Sorcerer (32%).
Blizzard admits that the power of this class is largely due not so much to "balance issues," but mainly to "interactions" unforeseen by the developers. This was well illustrated by the example of the infamous "build" that turned the player into a deadly wheel running over enemies.
Power fantasy in Diablo 4, but not at the expense of stability
The developer also discussed how the creators' approach to balance has changed in subsequent seasons of Diablo 4. In the beginning, Blizzard too often quickly limited players' overly powerful characters, much to their irritation. As a result, the strategy was changed, allowing players to "spoil" the game, so they could feel like heroes of power fantasy novels.
Of course, there are exceptions. The aforementioned "spin2win" build has been nerfed - but not even because of how excessively strong it was. Blizzard has stated that the developers will immediately deal with any “bugs” that affect the game’s performance for other players. As a reminder, the "crazy" Spiritborn build was supposed to clear dungeons so quickly that the servers (and players' PCs) couldn't keep up, leading to slowdowns and crashes.
In other news: Blizzard will soon reveal details about the testing of the seventh season of Diablo 4. The next season will also first hit the game's Public Test Server (PTR). We will learn the details "soon" during a stream. This will take place next week, as confirmed by Adam "PezRadar" Fletcher in a post on X.
