Diablo 4 Patch Takes Another Swing At Reducing Massive Endgame Gold Costs

Yet another Diablo 4 patch will look at reducing the amount of gold needed in its endgame, specifically when it comes to Masterworking items.

Update 1.4.1 won’t officially arrive until May 28, but Blizzard has already released the official patch notes. The biggest change coming in the update is the reduced gold cost for Masterworking, Diablo 4’s new endgame upgrade system introduced as part of Season 4, Loot Reborn. Masterworking improves the values of an item’s affixes, making them much more powerful, with the other materials required obtained from a new endgame dungeon, The Pit.

Though the cost of lower Masterworking ranks will remain the same, the cost from rank 5 upwards will be reduced. At the max rank of 12, players will be spending 7.5 million less gold per item.

“We want to make the main push for Masterworking to be focused on the acquisition of materials, and less focused on needing the gold,” Blizzard writes in the patch notes. “We want to avoid the possibility of having the materials available, but needing to take extra time to collect the gold.”

Other changes related to Masterworking coming in the patch include Masterworking unlocking for all characters once it’s unlocked by one character and the ability to transmute Masterworking materials directly instead of needing to open a materials cache to acquire them.

Blizzard’s previous hotfix already addressed Masterworking material trasmute costs, reducing the gold required by millions. Taken together with the upcoming changes, it should be much cheaper overall for players to Masterwork their items without feeling the need to hoard all their gold.

Though the Masterworking changes are the star of the patch, there are a few other minor changes as well, like how Hellborne enemies in Helltides will deal additional fire damage come the update, the drop rates for Scattered Prisms will increase, and how much armor a player needs to hit the armor cap will now be displayed via a tooltip on the character stats page.

Diablo 4’s Loot Reborn update has gone over well with fans, with some on places like Reddit and Steam commenting on how much more fun it is and stating the game as it is now is how Blizzard’s ARPG should have been at release. Players can even craft Uber Uniques now, items that were so rare at launch, Blizzard had to confirm they even existed. The first expansion for Diablo 4, Vessel of Hatred, is slated to release in late 2024.

Diablo 4 Patch 1.4.1 Notes

GAME UPDATES

• The Enchanting window now explicitly informs you that you can’t re-roll into a Greater Affix.
• Hellborne enemies in Helltide now deal additional fire damage with their attacks.
• Masterworking materials can now be directly transmuted instead of requiring the opening of a Materials Cache to receive them.
• Once Masterworking is unlocked by one character, it is now always accessible on all characters across realms.
• The Gold cost of Masterworking has been reduced.
  • Examples:
    • Ranks 1-4: Unchanged
    • Rank 5: reduced from 450,000 to 400,000
    • Rank 8: reduced from 1,000,000 to 800,000
    • Rank 12: reduced from 10,000,000 to 2,500,000

Developer’s Note: We want to make the main push for Masterworking to be focused on the acquisition of materials, and less focused on needing the Gold. We want to avoid the possibility of having the materials available, but needing to take extra time to collect the Gold.

• The Armor cap is now displayed in the tooltip when hovering over Armor in character stats.
• The surge damage from Sorcerer’s Enhanced Charged bolts has been increased from 30% to 45%.

Developer’s Note: We investigated an issue where the surge from Enhanced Charged Bolts was happening too frequently when enemies were tightly stacked together, which caused performance issues. We also found that the surge damage was doing less damage than intended while the Piercing Static aspect was equipped. While fixing those two issues (see bug fixes below), it was decided that a 50% buff to the surge damage would compensate for reducing how often it procs when enemies are stacked together.

• The drop rates for Scattered Prisms have been increased from multiple sources.
  • Treasure goblins now drop Scattered Prisms more often.
    • 15% Chance in World Tiers I and II
    • 25% Chance in World Tier III
    • 30% Chance in World Tier IV
  • World Bosses now always drop Scattered Prisms, and the amount they drop increases by World Tier.
    • World Tiers I and II: 1 Scattered Prism
    • World Tier III: 2 Scattered Prisms
    • World Tier IV: 3 Scattered Prisms
  • The Butcher will always drop a Scattered Prism on defeat.
• Reworked item stat comparisons to be more intuitive when the same stat appears on an item multiple times, which most often occurs with tempered items.

Developer’s Note: Previously, if you compared an item’s stats and it had a value appear twice (such as Cooldown Reduction,) it would display those two different values individually. We have now updated this to combine those individual values to only display one value, making it easier to compare stats across items.

• The Whisper bounty requirements for defeating Hellborne has been reduced from defeating 3 to defeating 1.

Developer’s Note: We’ve made this change to compensate for a bug fix that can be seen further down in the patch notes.

BUG FIXES

Accessibility

• Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader did not properly announce supported item slot categories for Aspects in the Codex of Power.
• Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader did not properly differentiate between locked and unlocked Tempering recipes.

User Interface and User Experience

• Fixed an issue where Bloodmarked players could not send party invites to each other.
• Fixed an issue where trading Gold to a player at the Gold cap would exit the trade without any feedback to the player.
• Fixed multiple instances where Skill tooltips did not update after being affected by Sorcerer Enchantment effects or new affixes introduced with Tempering.
• Fixed an issue where the tooltip for Tempering re-rolls was inconsistent.
• Fixed an issue where the preview and comparison tooltip values for Tempered Amulets and Two-Handed weapons were inaccurate.
• Fixed an issue where the way interacting with Tempering recipes was inconsistent between Keyboard and Mouse play and Controller play.
• Fixed an issue where the Masterworking menu could become locked when switching World Tiers.
• Fixed an issue where the icons for denoting levels of Masterworking on an item were inconsistent.
• Fixed an issue where the Progress section on the Trials screen would fail to update when a new Class completes the Gauntlet for the first time on the same account.
• Fixed an issue where several skills newly labeled as Core Skills, such as Kick and Firewall, would not come up when searching for Core Skills in the Skill tree.
• Fixed an issue where saving changes in the Wardrobe by switching tabs would not reflect the changes.
• Fixed an issue where Soudeh’s dialogue was missing a line after defeating the Blood Maiden.
• Fixed an issue where the visual size of Stun Grenades did not increase with the actual effect’s size when using the Tempered Affix that increases their size.
• Fixed an issue where the Greater Affix icon on an item overlapped with socketed Gems.
• Fixed an issue where item stat comparisons were incorrect when one of the items involved in the comparison had two different sources of the same item stat. Now, multiple sources of the same stat will be condensed into a single value for item comparison purposes.
• Fixed an issue where the tooltip for Veiled Crystals could be seen in the Replace Affix menu when enchanting an item.
• Fixed an issue where stacks of Baneful Hearts did not display as multiple when on the ground.
• Fixed an issue where a popup would mistakenly state that a new Pit tier had been unlocked when it had not actually unlocked.
• Fixed an issue where the penalty timer applied to Mastery for dying in the Pit would still display even after the Mastery timer had expired.
• Fixed an issue where tier 130 for The Pit in the Artificer’s list was incorrectly labeled as 131.
• Fixed an issue where Helltide Chests in World Tiers I and II took 3 seconds to open instead of 1.5 seconds.
• Fixed an issue where Objective markers did not display on the map when the Confront Doomsayers whisper was active.
• Fixed an issue where the button to start the Gauntlet did not display that it is unavailable during the rotation blackout period when it rotates each week.
• Various miscellaneous fixes and quality-of-life improvements for the Tempering, Masterworking, and Codex of Power menus.
• [PC Only] Fixed issues with NVIDIA DLSS Frame Generation, a setting available to players with NVIDIA 4000 series graphics cards, which was temporarily disabled due to stability issues. These issues have been fixed, and the setting has been re-enabled.

Gameplay

Helltide

• Fixed an issue where Hellborne enemies that despawned after Player death would drop loot.
• Fixed an issue where Helltide Zealots could spawn underground.
• Fixed an issue where Screaming Hell Veins could be looted multiple times when in a party.
• Fixed an issue where Aberrant Cinders did not reset when logging back in to an active Helltide with a character that previously had Cinders.
• Fixed an issue where the damaging effect from Spires of Corruption did not match the visual effect.
• Fixed an issue where Trembling Mass enemies could infinitely respawn.
• Fixed an issue where enemies during the Waves of Darkness could engage and chase nearby Iron Wolves, which made earning mastery for the Event more difficult.
• Fixed an issue where Hellborne Disciples spawned during a Blood Maiden Encounter counted towards the Cull Hellborne Whisper Objective.

Developer’s Note: The Hellborne Disciples that spawn while fighting the Blood Maiden do not count as Hellborne in other contexts, such as the fact they do not drop loot like normal Hellborne. This change is to ensure these enemies are treated consistently.

• Fixed an issue where Threat progress could become permanently locked if the player exited Helltide while Threat was near zero.
• Fixed an issue where Hellworms could sometimes leave behind invisible walls after disappearing.

The Pit

• Fixed an issue where Orb beams from the Den Mother could damage players before they had been released.
• Fixed an issue where you could only interact with the Pit Obelisk if you had Rune Shards in your inventory.
• Fixed an issue where Runeshards could drop in World Tier III Nightmare Dungeons and from the Seething Abomination in the Fields of Hatred.

Skills and Class Mechanics

• Fixed an issue where the surge damage from Enhanced Charged Bolts was exploding too often on enemies that were stacked together (as noted previously in Game Updates).
• Fixed an issue where the surge damage from Enhanced Charged Bolts was doing less damage than intended when using the Piercing Static Aspect.
• Fixed an issue where the Druid Spirit Boon Overload’s damage was Physical Damage instead of Lightning damage.
• Fixed an issue where the Aspect of the Alpha did not properly mark the Wolves skill as a Werewolf skill in-game.
• Fixed an issue where Boulders orbiting the player from the Dolmen Stone Amulet could stop doing so indefinitely when destroyed by projectile-destroying entities, such as Suppressor Fields or monster-spawned walls.
• Fixed an issue where Barbarian’s Bash was dealing multiplicative damage instead of additive damage when combined with the Tempering Affix that causes Bash to cleave.
• Fixed an issue where Rapid Fire used with the Scoundrel’s Kiss Unique Ring had a further range than intended, allowing enemies to be damaged and defeated off-screen.

General

• Fixed an issue where walls spawned by Elites with the Waller Affix could be destroyed by other monsters coming into contact with them. Hell’s Legions care little when it comes to morality, but they do not mess around with keeping Walls up to code.
• Fixed an issue where the Head Librarian in the Sunken Library could spawn behind the locked door, which would block progression.
• Fixed an issue where items dropped in the Cathedral of Light had a higher level requirement than they should.
• Fixed an issue where End Game bosses, i.e. Uber Duriel, could still drop gear that was lower than Rare quality.
• Fixed an issue where End Game bosses were dealing more damage than intended in certain scenarios.
• Fixed an issue where a Shrine could reset after you take a teleport out of a dungeon and then re-enter.
• Fixed an issue where Cooldown Reduction granted by the following Tempering affixes was less for higher tier recipes.
  • Defensive
    • Frost Cage
    • Nature Magic Wall
    • Barbarian Strategy
  • Utility
    • Alchemist Control
    • Daze Control
  • Resource
    • Companion Efficiency
    • Weapon Mastery Efficiency
    • Subterfuge Efficiency
  • Fixed the debuff from the Beast in Ice boss fight persisting after death and stacking unintentionally.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed an issue where the Blood Maiden’s Mantle Trophy cosmetic dropped by the Blood Maiden didn’t function properly.
• Fixed an issue where the Leave Dungeon animation would play but the actual portal would stop if the portal was started while moving.
• Fixed an issue where Andariel’s rotating laser was invisible when VFX quality was set to low.
• Fixed an issue where taking a Town Portal right after killing the Blood Maiden during the Voice of the Night quest could block quest progression.
• Fixed an issue where some Legacy items had their affixes re-rolled during Seasonal migration.

Developer’s Note: The intention of the change is that all stats on items should either be completely restored to what they were, or get the maximum stats if the previous values were unavailable.

• Fixed an issue where killing Echo of Lilith did not reward a Resplendent Spark.

Developer’s Note: Anyone who has killed Echo of Lilith in any season will receive a Resplendent Spark this season. In future seasons, you will have to defeat her again to get one. This implementation is to retroactively reward players who have defeated Echo of Lilith this season, but did not receive a Resplendent Spark. For players that have yet to defeat Echo of Lilith this season, defeating her will still grant you a Resplendent Spark.

• Various UI, visual, audio, stability, and performance improvements.