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Diablo Immortal Just Got a Major New Feature

38K View2022-07-21

After a disappointing kickoff to Diablo Immortal's second season earlier this month, Blizzard promised that more substantial changes and additions would be coming soon. And for as much as I love to complain about this game, I've got to give it credit when it earns it: Blizzard has followed through on that promise this time.

Yesterday, Diablo Immortal went down for maintenance, and when service came back up, a fairly significant content patch had been applied. Some of the additions include a new quest series titled "Hero's Journey," a third raid boss opening up in August, and a new limited-time event called Adventurer's Path that's full of useful rewards.

All of that stuff sounds great, and it's sure to keep me busy for my daily check-in with the game, but that's not the real star of the show. With this patch, Blizzard added a huge feature that they've been talking about since before the game launched, and one that sets it apart quite nicely from other Diablo games: the ability to change classes.

Since Diablo Immortal leans much more heavily into the MMO space than previous games in the series, the usual idea of just starting a new character to experience other classes has always felt at odds with the design. This is a game where players have to fight for every inch of character growth and progress, and none of that—including, amazingly, most of your store purchases, such as the season battle pass—gets carried over to new characters.

With the new class change system, though, players will finally be able to try new classes without having to start over from scratch. As long as you've reached level 35, you can visit the Shifting Flames in the game's hub city of Westmarch to swap classes. You can only change classes once every seven days, so you'll need to be a little thoughtful, but on the plus side, it's a totally free process and Blizzard says there are no plans to charge for it in any way in the future.

Of course, change classes does come with some complications. Blizzard says players will receive placeholder gear for their new vocation that will "have an equivalent rank" to the gear you had equipped when you switched. That old gear will be placed in your inventory, so you can save it in case you ever decide to switch back from a barbarian to a necromancer, or whatever your evil-slaying hero of choice is.

Players who class change will also have an opportunity to change their character's appearance and, naturally, will have their Paragon Tree skill points reset, so they can craft their build properly for the new playstyle.

There's almost certainly some bugs to be worked out—the Diablo Immortal Reddit has a bunch of posts talking about some already—but the class change system is a really huge addition to Diablo Immortal and a positive change for the game's future and longevity. Anything that gives players more ways to engage with and enjoy the game's content without feeling like they have to give up progress is positive.

And while the big marquee feature is great and the new content sounds cool as well, it's worth mentioning some of the smaller tweaks Blizzard has made with this update. Most notably, there are now a few different methods (albeit slow methods) for free-to-play players to gain Eternal Legendary Crests, a specific type of Legendary Crest that was previously only available by spending the real-money Eternal Orbs currency. It's not going to completely change the game or anything, but opening up Eternal Legendary Crests to free players, even if they're rare and hard to get, will in turn make the game's player marketplace friendlier to those who haven't paid real money.

Diablo Immortal still has a long way to go to recover from the disastrously bad buzz it got at launch, but this is the first update I've seen where it genuinely feels like they're headed in the right direction. Here's hoping for more like this!

You can check out the full rundown of the new Diablo Immortal update on the game's official website. And you can read my review of Diablo Immortal here.

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Diablo Immortal

5.5

Action RPGLootRPGAction role-playingOpen WorldMultiplayerMMORPG

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Comments

Ghostii

What I don't understand is, who are you really Kef? I mean, you complain about the game, bashing it cause You don't like it. I never heard of your name before even... If you don't like it, then don't play it. If you don't like some features, then write it to Blizzard instead. They do listen to their players. Why do you think that You are important in the matter of what you think of the game?

2022-07-23

Kef Author

I'm just sharing my opinion. That's one of the things TapTap exists for! I'm neither saying nor expecting that Blizzard (or anyone else!) should give my opinion any special weight compared to anyone else. I definitely wouldn't say I'm bashing the game though! I don't like some parts of it, but I really like how it plays and I gave it 3/5 when I reviewed it, which is not a score I'd give to a game I hate! and this article was positive. I'm also still playing it, which I wouldn't be if I hated it.

2022-07-23

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wawan base

well this diablo only good with ranger, everything with range att class, monk to much wasting move, hope this new features change job can help a melee class

2022-07-21

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Kef Author

I've heard barbarians are incredible! I'm demon hunter and love it tho

2022-07-21

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