Season 25 - The Lords of Hell - Preview Blog

Update on 12/3: Content in red represents changes recently made from PTR 2.7.2.

Season 25 will begin on December 10, at 5PM (PST/CEST/KST) shortly after our next Diablo III update. Read on to learn more about the season theme and balance changes coming in Patch 2.7.2. We are expecting this update to be released on December 7.

Table of Contents

• Season Theme
• Season Cosmetic Rewards
• Season Journey Rewards
• Season Conquests
• Haedrig's Gifts
• Patch Notes
  • Seasons
  • Items
  • Bug Fixes

New Season Theme

Though the Black Soulstone has been destroyed, lingering fragments of The Lords of Hell once contained therein still persist in Sanctuary. These Soul Shards hold immense power—power that once belonged to the Prime and Lesser Evils. Cunning Nephalem who find and wield these Soul Stones must exercise caution. Power can be alluring, and the road to the Burning Hells is paved with good intentions...

With the upcoming 25th Anniversary of the Diablo Franchise, we wanted players to delve into the darker side of the Nephalem's past. In Season 25, players can embrace evil by infusing themselves with the essences of The Lords of Hell. Players will embark on their Season Journey to discover and upgrade demonic Soul Shards based on the seven Lords of Hell. By embodying a Prime and Lesser Evil, players will inflict new forms of pain and suffering on the demons of Sanctuary. We can't wait for players to get their hands on Soul Shards to start unlocking their true power.

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Seasonal Cosmetic Rewards

Beginning with Season 17, we began reintroducing previous rewards to make them available to players who may have missed them the first time around. For Season 25, this means awards originally available from Season 13 are returning. In addition to the Helm and Shoulders slots of the exclusive Conqueror Set, portraits themed around Imperius will be available. Those who enjoy collecting pets will also be pleased to see the return of—Blaine’s Bear! While traveling together, you may be tempted to ask him why he’s covered in blood, or try removing the sharp objects he carries around. We strongly advise against this.

However, we know it’s nice to have something new to aim for if you’ve participated in previous Seasons. We’re continuing to provide new End of Journey rewards as introduced in Season 17, with two new cosmetic ones for those who complete the entirety of the Season journey. Survive The Lords of Hell and complete the Season 25 Guardian Journey to earn the Pane of Tristram Portrait and The Dark Lordling Pet.

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Season Journey Rewards

If you’ve been playing the past few Seasons diligently and reached Conqueror in the Season Journey each time, you’ve accrued a few extra stash tabs. Players who have not yet earned a total of five stash tabs via the Season Journey can still unlock an additional one by completing the following tasks at the Conqueror tier:

• Complete a Torment XIII Rift in under 5 minutes
• Complete Greater Rift 60 solo
• Kill Greed on Torment XIII
• Kill Cydaea on Torment XIII in under 15 seconds
• Reforge a Legendary or Set item
• Augment an Ancient item with a Level 50 or greater Legendary Gem
• Level three Legendary Gems to 55
• Complete two Conquests

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Seasonal Conquests

Speaking of Conquests, we’re rotating those, too! Love going fast? Sprinter and Speed Racer will be making a return. Enjoy testing your mettle in Greater Rifts? Divinity and Lionhearted are also coming back. If you’d rather max out your kill count with Cursed Chests, Curses! and Stars Align will be right up your alley. Those who enjoy seeing how far they can go without Set Items will get a kick out of The Thrill and Super Human. Finally, if you’re keen to show off your mastery of Set Dungeons, Masters of the Universe and Masters of Sets will be available once more.

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Haedrig’s Gift

Finally, just as before, you’ll get a shiny new Class Set courtesy of Haedrig’s Gift for completing certain chapters in the Season Journey. We’ve listed the available Sets below. For those new to Seasons, here’s how it works:

Completing Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the Season Journey will reward you with three Haedrig’s Gifts. Each Gift contains a few pieces from one of your Class Sets. Players can only unlock one Class Set in this manner per Season across Hardcore and Non-Hardcore, so choose wisely!

The set you will receive depends on the Class of the character you’re playing when you open each Haedrig’s Gift. To collect a full Class Set, you’ll need to open all three on the same character.

Here are the sets granted by Haedrig’s Gift in Season 25:

• Barbarian – Might of the Earth
• Crusader – Thorns of the Invoker
• Demon Hunter – The Shadow’s Mantle
• Monk – Monkey King’s Garb
• Necromancer – Grace of Inarius
• Witch Doctor – Raiment of the Jade Harvester
• Wizard – Firebird’s Finery

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Patch Notes

Below you will find the patch notes for the upcoming update for Diablo III, Patch 2.7.2

PATCH 2.7.2

Table of Contents:

• Seasons
• Items
• Bug Fixes and Misc Updates

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.

Seasons

Season 25 introduces a new type of socketable item calledSoul Shards. Nephalem can find 7 unique Soul Shards, based on the Lords of Hell, which give players demonic new powers. One of 3 Prime Evil Soul Shards can be equipped into Helms and one of 4 Lesser Evil Soul Shards can be equipped into Weapons. Each Soul Shard can be upgraded three times using a new seasonal-exclusive consumable, the Hellforge Ember.

Soul Shards and Hellforge Embers can drop from anywhere in Sanctuary, but Soul Shards have a higher chance to drop from Bosses. Soul Shards cannot be traded, but can be salvaged or utilized in Caldesann’s Despair. You may only equip one Prime Evil Soul Shard and one Lesser Evil Soul Shard at a time. Lastly, Soul Shards and Hellforge Embers only drop in Seasonal play, and will not transfer to your non-seasonal character when the season ends. For a look into the capabilities for each of the Soul Shard powers look below:

Prime Evil Soul Shards

Sliver of Terror

• Base Power: Your cooldowns are increased by 25%. For every skill on cooldown, you take 12.5% reduced damage and deal 25% 12.5% increased damage.
• Additional Powers:
  • Your attack speed and critical hit chance are increased by 7% 5% for each skill on cooldown.
  • You cast a devastating Ring of Fire after killing 100 enemies.
  • If three or more skills are on cooldown, your lightning and fire skill damage are increased by 50%.

Shard of Hatred

• Base Power: You deal 15% reduced damage while you have 3 or fewer enemies within 25 yards. If more than 3 enemies are within the same distance, you deal 10% 5% increased damage per enemy (to a maximum of 100% 50%).
• Additional Powers
  • Killing an elite enemy pulls all enemies within 40 yards to where the elite died.
  • Your Movement speed is increased by 50%. Each enemy within 25 yards reduces your movement speed by 10% up to 70%.
  • You now deal 15% 10% increased damage for every enemy instead of 10% 5% (to a maximum of 150% 100%)

Fragment of Destruction

• Base Power: You move unhindered through enemies. Each enemy you pass through receives Mark of Destruction for 7 seconds. Each marked enemy that dies removes 1 second from one of your skills on cooldown. If the Mark of Destruction expires before the enemies die you lose 2% of your maximum health as damage. Marks are not applied if you are below 35% health.
• Additional Powers
  • You have a 25% Chance to restore 5% health when an enemy dies with Mark of Destruction active.
  • When you apply Mark of Destruction to an enemy, you increase your movement speed by 5% for 7 seconds. Max 10 Stacks.
  • You now leave a trail of fire in your wake that slays enemies with the Mark of Destruction and are below 10% health.

Lesser Evil Soul Shards

Stain of Sin

• Base Power: You deal 25% less damage. When you kill 50 enemies, you spawn a pool of blood that increases the damage done to elite enemies by 150% and lasts 15 seconds.
• Additional Powers
  • The pool of blood now negates Elite affixes within its area.
  • You gain an additional Rift Progress Orb when you kill and elite pack.
  • The pool of blood now collects Rift Progress Orbs.

Dregs of Lies

• Base Power: You deal 25% less damage. Your pets deal 50% 25% increased damage.
• Additional Powers
  • Killing an elite enemy reduces all your active cooldowns by 5 seconds.
  • On receiving fatal damage, spawn a shadow that prevents your death, restores your health to 35%, and grants +225 All Resist to all party members while it is active. The shadow only lasts 15 seconds.
  • Each time your pet hits an enemy, your damage is increased by 1% 0.5% for 5 seconds. This stacks up to 100 times. When you reach 100 stacks, the stacks quickly reset to 0.

Remnant of Pain

• Base Power: Your Critical Hit Chance is reduced by 15%. Attacks against Incapacitated enemies are automatically critical hits.
• Additional Powers
  • Hitting enemies with cold damage has a 50% chance to freeze them. Cold skill damage is increased to frozen targets by 20%.
  • Gain passability while your movement speed bonus is over 50%. When you move through enemies you knock them back and stun them for 2 seconds.
  • When you critically hit an enemy you increase the attack speed all players by 5% for 5 seconds. Max 10 stacks.

Essence of Anguish

• Base Power: Every time you deal poison damage to an enemy you increase your cooldown reduction and movement speed by 2.5% while your damage received is increased by 5% for 10 seconds. Max 10 stacks.
• Additional Powers
  • Your movement speed and cooldown reduction can be increased up to 15 times by dealing poison damage to an enemy.
  • When you deal poison damage to an enemy they receive 50% increased poison damage from all sources for 10 seconds.
  • Killing an enemy deals the damage done by the death blow to all enemies within 25 yards.

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Items

General

• Depth Diggers: Primary skills deal 80-100% additional damage.

Barbarian

• Remorseless: While both Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients are active, Hammer of the Ancients deals 600-800% increased damage.

Witch Doctor

• Shukrani's Triumph: After the initial duration of Spirit walk ends, it will continue to last until you attack 3 times or until an elite enemy is within 20 yards of you. Attacks while in the spirit realm deal 75-100% increased damage.
• Lakumba's Ornament: Reduce all damage taken by 60% if your Soul Harvest stack is at least (1-3), and an additional 2% for each stack of Soul Harvest.
• Spider Queen's Grasp​: Corpse Spiders deals an additional 600-800% damage and releases a web on impact that Slows enemies by 80%.
• Brood of Araneae​: Corpse Spiders deals an additional 75-100% damage, and each spider bite causes the target to take an additional 1% damage from Corpse Spiders for 5 seconds.
• Spirit of Arachyr (2-piece bonus): Summon a permanent Spider Queen connected to you by an infested thread. Enemies caught in the thread are infested. Corpse Spider attacks against infested enemies inflict the same damage to all infested enemies. The Spider Queen is commanded to move to where you cast your Corpse Spiders. Corpse Spiders now spawns with health.
• Spirit of Arachyr (4-piece bonus): The Spider Queen now leaves behind webs that lasts for 15 seconds and Slows enemies. Infested enemies remain infested while on the web. You take 75% reduced damage while in the web and for 4 seconds after.
• Spirit of Arachyr (6-piece bonus): The damage of creature skills is increased by 17500% 25000%. Creature skills are Corpse Spiders, Plague of Toads, Firebats, Locust Swarm, Hex, and Piranhas.

Demon Hunter

• Marauder's Encasement (4-piece bonus): Sentries cast Elemental Arrow, Chakram, Impale, Multishot, and Cluster Arrow when you do, as well as automatically cast your equipped Hatred spenders.
• Marauder's Encasement (6-piece bonus): Your primary skills, Elemental Arrow, Chakram, Impale, Multishot, Cluster Arrow, Companions, Vengeance, and Sentries deal 12000% increased damage for every active Sentry.
• The Shadow's Mantle (6-piece bonus): Impale deals an additional 75000% weapon damage to the first enemy hit, and 25000% to subsequent enemies.
• Bombardier’s Rucksack: You may have 2 additional Sentries. Cluster Arrow deals 150-200% increased damage.

Necromancer

• Bones of Rathma (6-piece bonus): Each permanent active minion increases the damage of Army of the Dead by 1750%, up to 31,500%.

Wizard

• Firebird's Finery (6-piece bonus): You gain 5000% increased damage while Ignite is applied to a target. Hitting an Ignited enemy with a non-channeling fire spell deals Ignite damage multiplied by Combustion stacks.Pets cannot trigger this effect

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Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that prevented pets cast by the player from proccing Oculus Ring if it is equipped on a Follower.
• Fixed a bug that caused Momentum stacks to not always apply properly when using Calamity and The Ninth Cirri Satchel.
• Fixed a bug where Life per Second granted from Mantra of Healing isn't being applied to the shield generated by Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard.
• Fixed a bug where Mystic Ally: Earth Ally damage was not increased by The Crudest Boots.
• Fixed a bug that prevented Mystic Ally: Fire Ally active from attacking the Rift Guardian Perendi.

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