Diablo 2 Resurrected 2.4 patch: Ladder Rank play, new Rune Words, class balance changes, more

The first big update for Diablo 2 Resurrected is set to be released in early 2022, and it will mark a very exciting moment for the community around the cult classic action RPG.

Not only that Ladder Rank play is finally coming to the game, but all seven Diablo 2 classes will receive balance changes, which means that patch 2.4 will bring the first balance changes for classes since Patch 1.13c, which was released back in March 2010 for the original Diablo 2.

Diablo 2 Resurrected Ladder Rank play

The first ranked ladder season is around the corner and will also bring a slew of new Rune Words in the ladder system, never before seen in Diablo 2!

And they won't be accessible in non-ladder play just like the previous set of ladder-only Rune Words in the original Diablo 2.

When the ladder season is over, your ladder character will be transferred into a non-ladder version of the game, and you will start the next season with a new ladder character with an opportunity to earn new rewards.

Diablo 2 Resurrected will have four ladder modes, the same as in the original version of Diablo 2:

When it comes to the duration of ladder seasons, Blizzard is "considering four months" as they think that's the perfect time frame to "create the rush of a new ladder."

Diablo 2 Resurrected 2.4 balance changes

As we've already mentioned, this will be for the first time since 2010 that Diablo 2 classes will undergo tuning and receive adjustments.

Blizzard currently has plans for balance changes across all seven classes, mostly focusing to "expand character build diversity, and retain class fantasy and speciality."

They are still not ready to talk about specific details of these changes, but in the blog post about the patch, they've shared their general idea of changes for each class.

Amazon balance changes

• They want to improve the Amazon's melee skills
• Buffing Impale and Fend "to give more reasons to use them"
• Removing some synergy requirements for melee skills
• Minor buffs in the Bow and Crossbow tree

Assassin balance changes

• Looking to improve generating and spending Combo Points
• More options for promoting various Martial Arts builds
• Lowering synergy requirements for various unused Trap skills

Barbarian balance changes

• Enhancing the Double Throw and Throwing Mastery skills to make Throwing Barbarians builds more viable
• Improving Leap Attack and Grim Ward
• "Re-evaluating" certain skill synergy requirements

Druid balance changes

• Druid Fire skills are underperforming currently
  • Re-evaluating Casting Delays for Fire skills
  • Exploring improvements to some of their Physical Damage components
  • Looking into other Elemental skills that are underused
• Arctic Blast will get improved controllability
  • More free form while channelling
  •  Will no longer lock your targeting onto one enemy at a time
• Summon skills
  • More health gains per level 
  • Quality-of-life improvements
  • Bigger damage output
  • New synergies for Ravens, Wolves, and Vines 
• Werebear skills synergy improvements

Necromancer balance changes

• Lesser used Golems will be more effective
• Bone skill improvements in high difficulty
• Improvements for underused Summons

Paladin balance changes

• Fist of the Heavens buffs
• Improvements to AoE Damage auras (more effective at a closer range)
• Thorns will scale better and deal more damage at higher levels. 

Sorceress balance changes

• More diversity with the armour skills, looking for more distinctive advantages
• More build possibilities around lesser-used Lightning skills
• Hydra improvements
• More controllability for the Inferno skill so that it is less clunky to use

And that's it, these are the preliminary changes that we should expect to see in the Diablo 2 Resurrected 2.4 patch. These are all still just general ideas and options the team is exploring in order to improve underused skills and make some skills scale better on harder difficulties, and we expect to see more concrete details in the coming weeks as we approach PTR for Patch 2.4.

If you were hoping to test these changes during the holiday season, unfortunately, that's not going to happen, as PTR for Patch 2.4 is scheduled for sometime early next year.

• Read more: World First Diablo 2 Resurrected holy grail challenge completed

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Featured image courtesy of D2 Forge / LucasFilm / Paramount.

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