Many changes are being made in Diablo 4 Season 8, ranging from the difficulty to the powerful new seasonal gimmick. Although every season sees some changes and it's not really a shock, forcing players to fight bosses to get powers, and then making the gameplay more difficult on top of that does leave some feeling a bit frustrated. While some content creators feel like the boss powers won’t be a requirement, that doesn’t stop players from feeling otherwise.
That said, an important takeaway from the PTR is that its purpose isn’t to demo the game, and it necessarily might not be the way the live servers are presented — even if some players insist otherwise. That said, parts of the playerbase still fear that these changes will make the seasonal powers required for builds, instead of how things “used to be.”
Some Diablo 4 players are worried about seasonal builds being built around season gimmicks
Redditor ExtremeCertain4837 shared a sentiment about the upcoming Season 8 that is mirrored by quite a few other Diablo 4 players. They believe that by combining the increased difficulty with the new boss powers feeling forced/required, flavor and variety in game builds will go down all the way to nothing.
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Instead, the only variety will be what your character looks like in Diablo 4 seasonal builds. However, this might necessarily not be the case. We won’t know for sure how much of your damage is based on boss powers until the actual live servers release the Season 8 update. However, I get it. I certainly understand that kind of worry.
The notion that the game is going to get “much harder”, and then tacking on these amazing powers could lead some to think that they will make up the majority of your damage. But, I don’t think that’s the case. It seemed like a lot of the boss powers enhance your gameplay in a variety of interesting ways, like when you evade, hit something with Vulnerable, Crowd Control something, et cetera.
That’s not the case with all of the Diablo 4 boss powers, mind you. I understand the frustration, and I’m not exactly thrilled with the game being made “much harder." I think D4 is having a bit of an identity crisis and is not sure about what kind of ARPG it’s trying to be. So we’re getting these major changes every other season.
However, one Diablo 4 player pointed out that this kind of thread pops up on Reddit practically every season until the season patch notes drop. So, until there’s concrete info instead of ridiculous hot takes from the PTR, there’s no reason to be worried.
This is the line of thinking I align with. I’ve played in every season, and not once has the various powers — whether they’re Witch Powers or Construct Upgrades — ever affected what build or class I play. I play what I want, and then figure out which abilities from the current season will benefit me the most. Who cares if it's not the meta? You are not the meta. You can play the game however you’d like.
I do understand the stress and frustration, the fear of it being another season that’s mediocre, or frustrating, or even that builds will stop being interesting, and instead be based solely on season gimmicks. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I understand where players are coming from.
If that does become the case, it’s really going to make the game less fun, though. More often than not, the best powers are often hidden behind a frustrating grind or tedious RNG, and adding that on top of finding the right gear, aspects, and other parts that make a build work? Yeah, that would be a hard pass for me.
Check out our other Diablo 4 guides and features
- Did Diablo 4 Season 8 make Whirlwind better in the PTR?
- Is Diablo 4 Season 8’s Torment 4 too difficult for casual players?
- Diablo 4 2.2.0 PTR patch notes: Everything new in Season 8
