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Nightmare Dungeon Affixes Changed in Season 2 - Backstabber, Monster Critical Resist, Drifting Shade
Diablo IV
Posted
2023/10/09 at 1:00 PM
by
Arktane
Diablo 4 Season of Blood is coming soon, and we'll all need to prepare. Blades must be honed, spells must be prepared, wills must be steeled and knowledge must be gained. Let's explore the changes to Nightmare Dungeon affixes, and what it will mean for us as we venture into the Season of Blood.
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Previously, Backstabbers just made monsters deal 150% more damage when attacking from behind the player. This affix was a particularly deadly one as depending on the particular monster types in the dungeon, players could be killed in a single hit, especially when combined with other affixes. With the new change, players aren't inherently punished outright with instant damage. Subsequent incoming hits will be dangerous however, and can make some enemies like Khazra Maulers an even higher kill priority.
Monster Critical Resist mostly guaranteed that the sigil would be salvaged unless the player vastly overpowered that particular tier of sigil. Due to the current reliance on Critical Strike Damage as a Damage Multiplier, all this affix did was serve to slow the player down unnecessarily. With this change, it is significantly less punishing and no longer immediately warrants throwing the sigil into the lava pools in Hell. Players can work around managing the stacks of their Critical Strike Damage debuff by waiting a few seconds for the stacks to fall off before engaging a pack of Elite Monsters or otherwise throwing themselves into trouble. This affix change will also make instant on-demand stuns more valuable to players to prevent the debuff from stacking when engaging Elite Monsters.
Death Pulse changes mean that double exploding Zombies are now a thing of the past - where they should stay. This will prevent Death Pulse in dungeons like Putrid Aquifer from no longer being a death sentence. Death Pulse previously did not have any safeguards in place, so if a player's build had any sizable AoE, it was likely that they would be nervously hitting their Evade key as the Death Pulses would all overlap into a giant Death Pulse field. It appears that with these changes to Death Pulse, it might not be the most deadly affix by a wide margin anymore. However, you still won't want to let your guard down!
Many players have loathed Lightning Storm since it generally slows down the speed of the dungeon run, but with the Movement Speed increase granted, this should offset the time spent somewhat. The device will also now only activate to cause the Lightning Storm when enemies in the dungeon are following the player or attacking them. Finally, players will have fewer complaints about unfair damage and deaths from Lightning Storm with the direct path changes - no more damage on ladders!
Drifting Shade is still one of the more troublesome affixes for most builds, however the duration reduction of the Blind pool will still make all the difference at times. The Drifting Shades appearing less frequently is a very nice quality of life improvement as well, since before they would seemingly fire off one after the other with no pause.
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