Blizzard reveals how hard the nerfs to Diablo 4's sorcerers and barbarians will be next season as it outlines a new balance philosophy

It's official: Barbarians and sorcerers won't rule Sanctuary in Diablo 4's next season, at least not using the same builds that absolutely crushed season 2. On a developer stream today, Blizzard said tomorrow's patch notes will include fixes to the bugs that fuel the strongest builds in the game, as well as changes that elevate the weakest ones.

Barbarians who spent the season bonking bosses to death with a single hammer blow were actually benefiting from a skill upgrade whether or not they put a point in it. Any brbarian using Hammer of the Ancients had a big 30% multiplicative damage boost for free. That will be fixed when season 3 launches on January 23, which might dethrone HotA as the best skill in the game. Likewise, the orbiting lighting balls of destruction that almost every sorcerer abused this season won't tear through enemies quite as fast when Blizzard fixes a bug related to the attack speed bonus from the Enhanced Ball Lightning skill upgrade.

After the gut punch that season 1's patch 1.1 brought when Blizzard dramatically lowered everyone's power by reworking how damage is calculated, these nerfs are rather light. Jackson repeated the promise Blizzard made during an emergency stream following the brutal update last year: nerfs will always come with considerably more buffs, and all of it will be announced before it happens so people can prepare.

Going forward bug fixes are the priority, senior class designer Adam Jackson said. Blizzard doesn't want to ruin anyone's fun in a new season, but if something is not working correctly, it will try to fix it fast. If a build is wildly overpowered due to something Blizzard overlooked, however, the decision to nerf it will be based on «qualitative types of feedback» from players and how much it impacts the rest of the game. «We're going to really try and lean on the side of not changing unless we really feel like it's needed to keep the game healthy.»

«Our strategy with players is to communicate early and