The folks at Blizzard revealed Diablo 4’s Season 3 details ahead of their January 18 livestream. It’s called Season of the Construct and comes with a new end-game activity called Vaults.
From the devs:
“The Vaults are specialized dungeons that house elemental Hazards devised by Zoltun Kulle and Ayuzhan themselves. Amongst the Hazards lay The Constructs, an entirely new monster family. Several elemental variants of these monsters lurk in wait for any unsuspecting wanderers to fall into their mechanical clutches.”
There are a couple of new mechanics here – Pearls of Warding and Zoltun’s Warding. Once you convert the required Pearls of Warding, you’ll receive Zoltun’s Warding. Finish the Vault with Zoltun’s Warding intact, and you’ll unlock a Wardwoven Chest (this comes with a higher chance of granting a Legendary item). Based on the blog post, you’ll lose stacks of Zoltun’s Warding each time you die. It sounds similar to the current system of Nightmare Dungeons, where you get a set number of revives to complete.
And just like Nightmare Dungeons, you’ll unlock Nightmare Vaults at World Tier III.
On the more immediate gameplay side, Season of the Construct introduces the Seneschal Companion.
Governing and Tuning Stones will offer plenty of ways to customize how our companion will help us. Here are a few examples:
Governing Stones:
- Autodefense: The Seneschal Construct activates an antimaterial field around itself shooting down enemy projectiles. Can not shoot down Boss or Player projectiles.
- Bushwhack: Quickly ambush dealing damage to each target. May strike the same target multiple times.
- Firefly: Deploy a small construct that lands on the target and explodes 3 times, dealing damage.
Tuning Stone Abilities:
- Voluminous Support: The supported skill’s effect size is increased.
- Swift Support: The supported Skill gains an Attack Speed bonus.
- Breaking Support: Damage from the supported Skill instantly destroys enemy Barrier effects. In addition, there is a chance to make enemies Vulnerable for 2 seconds.
Season of the Construct also brings several quality-of-life updates we’ve been waiting for. First up, Helltides. Besides a five-minute rest once per hour, Helltides will always be active. We’re also getting an Extra Stash Tab. And PC players can use W-A-S-D keys for movement instead of their mouse if they want. These are some of the announced changes coming when the new season launches on January 23. Full patch notes detailing every change is coming on January 19.
Season 3 will not include the itemization changes Blizzard first announced late last year. The latest we’ve heard is the team is targeting Season 4 for that.
We’ll see all of the new stuff in Season of the Construct in action on January 18 at 9 am PST during a Developer Update Livestream.