16 June 2023 , 09:30
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Diablo 4 has had yet another hotfix that has nerfed what is arguably the worst class in the game, patching out what Blizzard calls an "unintended damage interaction" with the Druid's Toxic Claws.
Despite having launched just last week, Diablo 4 patches are coming thick and fast. Early access to the game started on June 1 and since then, Activision Blizzard has rolled out 10 hot fixes for the game to fix things that were apparently missed during the beta weekends and the server slam.
The list of hotfixes so far have included just two class tweaks prior to this week's small update. The Sorcerer and Rogue had the cooldowns tinkered with on their Flame Shield Enchantment and Inner Sight respectively, and the Rogue's Advanced Twisting Blade cooldown was also tweaked last week. But none have been so savage as this week's Druid hotfix.
Posting on the official forum, the Diablo 4 patch notes for hotfix 10 are minimal, with a vague reference to "further stability and improvements" alongside the Druid 'fix' which has been deployed to resolve "an unintended damage interaction with the Druid’s 'Toxic Claws' passive." But what exactly does that mean?
The Druid's Toxic Claws is a passive class skill that allows you to mete out critical strikes with Werewolf skills to apply poison damage equal to 8% of of an enemy's base damage over four seconds. That percentage increases to 15% at Rank 2 and 23% at Rank 3. Paired with Aspect of the Blurred Beast – that enhances Shred to deal damage to poisoned enemies during a dash – you can become lethal.
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Over on another forum discussing the nerf, one user simplifies the situation, asking "You mean the poison damage was stacking on itself when paired with blurred beast?". Another chimes in to add "Shred crits were stacking on themselves, it was absolutely insane. Was getting 300m+ crits on uber Lilith earlier as a level 90 with not so great gear...would start off at 1m and it would grow exponentially. Could send her to phase 2 before she even went up in the air to cast that one shot ability."
Nerf-tastic
There's some warranted frustration around the Druid nerf – and not just because the class is worse off that it was. And given it's generally considered the worst class of the bunch, that would be annoying enough. On the same forum, one user expresses frustration at the elements Blizzard is choosing to address, and those it's neglected, saying "Funny blizz fixing gamebreaking buffs which people talked about since beta two weeks after launch…Yet they were unable to fix one looting table."
Another exasperated user asks if wolf companions' damage has been fixed, whether they're still flying into the sky and doing no damage, or if the Poison Creeper passive has been sorted out yet. And it looks like a resounding no on all counts.
"Alright. So we can tell that it was a huge nerf," concluded another user. "One of the most weak builds got nerfed."