Diablo 4 Public Test Realm and Itemization Update

Season 4's Public Test Realm (PTR) is right around the corner. Starting from Tuesday, April 2 you'll be able to test all planned changes for the upcoming season.

Public Test Realm

The PTR will only be playable on PC through the Battlenet client, meaning that you will not be able to play the PTR if you own the game through the Steam client.

The PTR will be available for 1 week until Tuesday, April 9 at 2:30 PM UTC. A more detailed blog will be released soon.

On the PTR, you will start with a fresh character, but there will be plenty of boosting options available, so you can playtest all endgame and itemization content. You will have the following boosts:

Boost to lvl 100
100m gold / 1k Obols (repeatable with multiple characters)
Campaign completion
A Mount
Max Skill & Paragon points
Fog of War cleared
All altars of Lilith unlocked
Random set of rare gear
Class system mechanics completed
All Paragon Glyphs unlocked and maxed
Legendary drop rates doubled

The Codex of Power will not be completed, as this is a key feature that is changing in this update.

Season 3 Extended

Because of the PTR, and the time required to gather and process feedback from the PTR, season 3 will be extended by a few weeks. Season 4 will start Tuesday, May 14.

Base Item Updates

Starting with the biggest issue of itemization, the affix pool will be significantly reduced. The remaining affixes will be more relevant and more potent.

Affix will spawn more logically to avoid useless affixes. for example, ranks to a Core Skill will only be able to roll once, to avoid having ranks to multiple core skills that are never used together.

Affix values will be more "punchier", and will be more noticeable.

Attribute affixes will also only spawn related to the Class you're playing. Meaning that a Sorcerer will only be able to get Intelligence or All Attributes.

Furthermore, items on World Tier 3 will always be Sacred, and Ancestral on World Tier 4.

Lastly, the amount of affixes that can roll on an item are reduced. Legendary items will only be able to roll 3 affixes, down from 4. Rare items will only be able to roll 2 affixes, also down from 4.

Trading

A much asked change is also happening to trading. From Season 4 on, Legendary and Unique items will also be tradeable!

Note that Uber Uniques remain untradeable and crafting on an item will make the item account-bound.

Item Drops

To reduce the amount of junk Legendaries, Legendaries dropped from 95+ monsters will always be item power 925.

The amount of items that will drop will also be significantly reduced. This change is made in the hope that players will have to spend less time sorting through their items and have more time slaying.

Gems will be made simpler, better, and will get a longer crafting path.

Most common materials will be consolidated into one type.

Different common herbs are now Bundled Herbs

Forgotten Souls will now drom from Whispers and will be a rare drop from Elites in the overworld.

Most Uniques will be able to drop from WT1 & WT2, while all Uniques will be able to drop from WT3. Uber Uniques will also start dropping from monster level 55, while still dropping as item power 925.

Codex of Power

The Codex of Power is also undergoing a major transformation. Aspect Crystals are being removed. Instead of extracting a Legendary Aspect, you will now salvage the Legendary item to upgrade your Codex of Power.

The Codex of Power will store the highest salvaged version of that Aspect and you can use it as much as you want.

Max rolled Aspects will not be able to drop in World Tier 1 & 2, so if you want the best version of an Aspect, you'll have to farm in WT3 and up.

The range of values the Aspect can roll is also being increased (up to 16 ranks). The extended range will only be atainable on WT3+.

The Codex of Power will reset each season for Seasonal Characters. Eternal Realm Characters will keep the upgraded Codex of Power forever.

Tempering

Tempering is a new Crafting system coming in Season 4 that allows you to use a Tempering Manual to add affixes to an item.

You will be able to Temper Legendary and Rare items by using a Tempering Manual. the Tempering Manual has a pool of Affixes. Each time you Temper, you have a chance to apply one of the Affixes to the item.

Items have a Tempering Durability of 5, meaning that you can reroll Tempered Affixes up to 5 times per category. Ancestral items can be Tempered in 2 categories.

Greater Affixes

Another new system are Greater Affixes. These are special tiers of Affixes that will always roll the maximum value times 1.5!

When an item drops with a Greater Affix, it will be immediately visible and will surely be a great base item to continue crafting on.

Greater Affixes can only roll on Acestral Legendary and Uniques and can only appear as a drop. This means you cannot get them through Enchanting (though you can remove them with Enchanting).