Diablo 4 Season 16 is delivering some great upgrades to the endgame

The Diablo 4 Season 16 PTR is just about to start, and Blizzard has laid out the key new features that we’ll be able to test ahead of the update’s full launch. Season 15 has, by all accounts, been rousing success. Deeply woven secrets and a wide variety of fresh encounters and gear have spiced the action RPG up in just as many ways as the Lord of Hatred expansion managed, and the developer says it’s planning to carry some of those anniversary features forward. The big new inclusion, however, is an overhaul to the Diablo 4 endgame system, War Plans, and it’s looking pretty promising.

The Diablo 4 PTR patch notes for update 3.3.0 won’t include everything in Season 16, as Blizzard wants the focus to be on testing new features. By far the most interesting part is what’s changing with War Plans, the new system implemented with the Lord of Hatred expansion to give the Diablo 4 endgame more structure. It’s been a notable improvement, but there’s still room for work, and this feels like another step in the right direction. There are two fresh parts to this meta progression: War Plan Tactics, and Tyrael’s Boons.

War Plan Tactics will rank up as you complete activities across the various different endgame options, and you can invest these into a new web of nodes that will impact both the types of content you’re offered to do, and the potential rewards you’ll earn. You can pump up to three points into a given activity type such as Helltides, Nightmare Dungeons, or The Pit to increase their chance of being included in future War Plans. There are also ways to improve the frequency of finding advanced variants like Greater Helltides and Escalation Dungeons.

Elsewhere on the tree, you’ll find a section branching out across all the key types of loot that can show up as you’re grinding. Each of these can have up to three points invested to raise their chance of dropping. You’ve got the basics of armor, weapons, jewelry, and talisman items; upgrade materials including Obducite, salvage, gems, Horadric Cube materials, and Gold; and also the various specific activity keys. This system will be available whether you’re playing in the Seasonal or Eternal league.

For those taking part in Season 16 and beyond, you’ll find another page called Tyrael’s Boons that’s more directly catered towards the new activities and features. It will combine boosts to the likes of seasonal reputation and currency, reductions to certain crafting costs, and other ways to affect the season-specific mechanics. You’ll also be able to respec with gold, although expect to pay five million per point. Blizzard notes that this new tree “does not replace Seasonal Blessings,” which will instead become a static set of the same five blessings every season.

For Season 16, there are four trees within Tyrael’s Boons. ‘Curios Addition’ lets you make the Purveyor of Curiosities cheaper, boost the chance for double items, or raise prices in return for a better chance at Ancestral items. ‘Merchant of Mystery’ introduces a merchant who will sell caches for your Forgotten Souls. As you rank this up, there will be options to spend gems or runes instead, along with increasing the rate of Ancestral caches for sale. ‘Scent of Gold’ offers straight-up gold and experience boosts, along with the likes of better chances for Horadric Cube materials, gem fragments, and Legendary gear drops. 

Finally, ‘Trash for Treasure’ lowers transmuting costs, and opens a special recipe called Greater Temper that will let you upgrade a tempered affix to a greater one. There are also ways to earn more Forgotten Souls, Obducite, and Scrolls of Restoration; the latter two being particularly notable as you’ll need them in large quantities for the Greater Temper crafting option. Blizzard says that maxing out your point allocation will let you invest in “up to four of the six available selections within the four available paths.”

While Tyrael’s Boons will be respecced with Gold, the other War Plans can now be swapped out using a new currency called Marks of Wisdom. This will be paid out as you turn in completed War Plans, and can be used across each of the individual activities trees along with the new Tactics page.

For even more late-game buildcrafting, Blizzard has introduced Horadric items. These are special Legendary items that bear an extra affix designed to modify a specific Talisman set bonus. For jewelry, this will simply apply an additional count towards the bonus, while armor and weapons bearing Horadric affixes will include an additional effect that automatically applies when you reach the base two-item bonus threshold for the set in question.

Last but not least for now comes the returning Corrupted Reaper. This time, the endgame boss has brought a friend, the Fractured Reaper, who you’ll have to fight at the same time. That means “two eldritch powerhouses working together synergistically, abilities combining to annihilate all but the most powerful challengers.” Manage to overcome this, and Blizzard promises some particularly powerful loot payouts.

After the excitement of the Season of Hell’s Legacy, which has brought us throwback boss battles and a final conclusion to Diablo 4’s longest-running secret quest chain, Blizzard says it’s intending to carry “some features” forward into Season 16, although it doesn’t specify which of these will be. Don’t expect to see them during the PTR, but the developer promises more information on this next week.

The Diablo 4 update 3.3.0 PTR will be live from Tuesday October 27 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST / 7pm CEST until Tuesday November 3 at the same time. As always, you’ll have access to a testing NPC that will let you quickly boost your character level and Paragon rank to max, along with giving you any Gold, crafting materials, or equipment that you desire.