We just wrapped up and concluded the Server Slam of Diablo 4, which is the final beta test. It gave us another opportunity to experience the game. We will review some discussions around Legendary Drop Rates, Buff to the Minions, and the Difficulty of World Boss Ashava of Diablo 4 for its official release.
The Legendary Drop Rates
During the open Beta back in March, the drop rate of legendaries was evidently buffed to somewhere around 300%. For this round of testing of Server Slam, Blizzard tuned it back, and it is much more in line with what we should expect drop rates to become when the game is released.
This was a rather significant change. Although some players still complain, it’s fine for a level 20 character, as we don’t expect legendaries to start raining from the sky until we get higher levels and higher tiers.
When you level up and go up to the higher world tiers, the drop rates of legendaries will increase significantly. A level 20 character can get almost 12 legendary items around 10 hours just by playing the game normally, doing things going around the map, and unlocking the dungeons.
The Buff to the Minions
Minions were pretty bad at first, especially the Necromancer skeletons. They were just getting obliterated in the previous Beta. When playing Necromancer, skeletons would barely die except for the world boss fights or certain boss fights. Although you can feel they are invincible for the most part, you occasionally have to re-summon a few of them here and there. And they significantly reduced the durability of the summons, and it seemed that the necro skeletons liked to spend more time dying than actually attacking things and being useful.
Many players had complained about the Nerf to Necromancers since the previous beta phase. The weakness and very quick deaths of skeleton skills were one of the primary concerns. However, Blizzard directly addressed this issue and even issued a hotfix to buff it. That makes skeletons a bit stronger. We have seen Minions’s update in Server Slam. Ideally, this is a great example of what we can expect in the future.
The Difficulty of World Boss Ashava
The test capped us at level 20, which means the fight was significantly more difficult. When you couple our lower level and fewer skill points with the reduction in legendary drop rate, every character will become weaker.
Some players may complain about the world boss zone that Blizzard designed because not everyone plays the same way at the same pace and tries to level up quickly like the boss is there. But more difficulty of Ashava can support you have a good challenge experience.
Suppose you are willing to spend 30 to 60 minutes leveling up gradually. Once you are capped at level 20 or higher levels, the world boss Ashava isn’t suddenly outside of your level range. So the difficulty is good if we pay attention to the fights in the proper way.
