Diablo 4: Vessel Of Hatred May Have Players Deal Less Damage, And That Could Be Good

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred is coming in October, and players now have reason to believe there will be major changes to the game’s max level, Paragon system, and even the amount of damage players deal come the release of the game’s first expansion.

Blizzard recently gave players an in-depth look at the expansion’s new class, the Spiritborn. As pointed out by Wowhead and discussed on places like the Diablo 4 subreddit, nestled among all the new Spiritborn gameplay footage from various media outlets and content creators is evidence that the game’s maximum level cap might be going down from level 100 to just 60. It also indicates a major change in the way the game’s Paragon Points are distributed.

There are a few clues as to why this might be the case. Spiritborn gameplay footage shows XP bars post-level-50 without the Paragon Point unlock nodes seen in the current version of the game. Instead, it looks like players may earn Paragon Points each “level” after max, in a way that could be closer to how players earned Paragon points in Diablo 3. That being said, it’s unlikely players will be able to earn “infinite” Paragon Points like in Diablo 3, as that would require Blizzard to completely rework Diablo 4’s existing Paragon Board system.

Other evidence suggesting a new, lower max-level is an in-game tooltip that states the amount of armor players will need at level 60. In the current game, the tooltip references the amount of armor needed at level 100. The healin- potion upgrades from the Alchemist shown in the Spiritborn gameplay footage is another indication, with the new upgrades looking like they will cap out closer to level 60 instead of level 90 like in the current game.

Going hand-in-hand with the max level and Paragon changes looks to be a damage-number squish. It’s something many players have requested given that damage values in Diablo 4 can currently be in the millions or even billions, making them extremely hard to read and requiring bosses to have health in the trillions in order to compensate.

Those requests look like they’ve been heard, as players have noticed from the Spiritborn gameplay that not only do the level 30 Spiritborn characters seem to be dealing far less damage in terms of raw numbers than is typically seen in the current game, but that items themselves–like a recently showcased Spiritborn Unique weapon–have much lower damage values than in the current version of Diablo 4. Gameplay likely won’t be affected much by this change, as enemies will still die and take damage at the rate they currently do, but the numbers displayed themselves will likely be much lower (and easier to parse) come Vessel of Hatred.

Keep in mind that Blizzard has not officially detailed these changes as of yet, so all of the above has simply been pieced together by the community with available evidence. We will know more once Blizzard spills additional details about Vessel of Hatred closer to its October 8 release. In the meantime, those curious about the game’s new class can check out our hands-on Spiritborn preview, where we describe the Spirit Guardian-wielding warrior as unlike any other class seen before in the franchise.