Diablo 4's Season 1 cosmetics won't be restricted to character classes

Diablo boss Rod Fergusson recently claimed that Seasonal cosmetics in Diablo 4 will be wearable on any class in the game.

Image via Activision Blizzard
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Diablo 4 is about to enter the first Season of its cycle as a live-service game, and part of that means a battle pass that will offer rewards to players who pick it up and complete its milestones. Players will be able to buy into the pass to make progress through the season and gain various bonuses such as armor cosmetics for their character. Don’t worry about not having the right character for something on the battle pass either. Diablo franchise manager Rod Fergusson claims that the cosmetics found in the battle pass will be class agnostic.

Fergusson made this claim in response to a question on Twitter regarding Diablo 4’s Season 1 battle pass. When asked if Diablo 4 would be similar to Immortals where there were sometimes class specific items in the battle pass, Fergusson said that no it would not. Rewards earned in the Season 1 battle pass will be “class agnostic” according to Fergusson, meaning that you should be able to equip any cosmetic reward on any character, be they Barbarian, Necromancer, Rogue, Sorcerer, or Druid.

Diablo 4 franchise manager Rod Fergusson on class restrictions in the Diablo 4 Season 1 battle pass.
According to Diablo 4 general manager Rod Fergusson, you won't need to be any certain class to enjoy any of the cosmetics in Diablo 4 Season 1's battle pass.
Source: Rod Fergusson

Diablo 4’s Seasonal system has been looming overhead since the game was announced as a live-service title. With it, players will be able to explore unique challenges and activities, as well as taking part in the aforementioned battle pass where they can earn rewards for everything from in-game resources to cosmetics that allow you to change up your look. Of course, the battle pass will likely also have a free and premium track, the latter of which will be purchasable.

Diablo 4’s live-service state may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it also allows Blizzard to implement new content that much quicker, with the developers already claiming several expansions are in the works. With the Diablo 4 Season 1 set to launch in July, stay tuned for more details here at Shacknews as they drop.

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    June 27, 2023 9:30 AM

    TJ Denzer posted a new article, Diablo 4's Season 1 cosmetics won't be restricted to character classes

    • reply
      June 27, 2023 10:14 AM

      guess this is today's Diablo 4 thread! PC patch is out, unknown what it does. my battle.net client just pulled something down...

      • reply
        June 27, 2023 10:16 AM

        There is no major patch today

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        June 27, 2023 11:00 AM

        Did we ever get a clear explanation of what things we've earned *will* carry over into seasons?

        I know you make a new character, but it feels like there's been a lot of conjecture and no straight from Blizzard answer about the rest.

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          June 27, 2023 11:03 AM

          wasn't it like, lilliths + exploration carries over, the rest doesnt?

          but youll still have to go back and activate the wps + do side quests etc

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            June 27, 2023 11:36 AM

            Yeah I think they said statues, map exploration, and capital city waypoints. The other waypoints and everything else needs to be done again.

        • reply
          June 27, 2023 11:04 AM

          You get the first 2 ranks of Renown carry over, and you get only the basic waypoints (basically like if you started a new character after finishing the game)

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            June 27, 2023 12:38 PM

            I'm sorry tired of seeing this misinformation. This is wrong. Stop saying this.

            Only Lilith statues and map exploration carry over. That means IF you have discovered every Lilith Statue and explored every portion of the map, the based on the rewards for those 2 specific categories carrying over, the amount of renown you start with is going to approximately be enough to unlock the first 2 ranks of renown in each zone.

            If you somehow managed to get to renown rank 2 in a given area, but haven't found any Lilith statues and haven't explored much of the map areas, even though you may be at a current rank 2 renown, in the season you wouldn't be.

            • reply
              June 27, 2023 12:39 PM

              Really hoping they realize punishing people 20 paragon points is a bad decision

            • reply
              June 27, 2023 12:40 PM

              I am so very very sorry. I am so sorry that you are frustrated that people are parroting wrong information.

              It’s almost like… Blizzard have done a terrible fucking job at communicating anything!

              • reply
                June 27, 2023 12:42 PM

                Indeed. Blizzard is waffling around as well

              • reply
                June 27, 2023 12:43 PM

                They never once claimed what you originally posted. This is being perpetuated by people posting flat out wrong information.

                Rather than be snarky at me for pointing out this stupid misinformation keeps getting reposted over and over and over, furthering the confusion, you don't go making claims based on what you heard. If you want to post something as definitive fact, get it from the source, AKA someone from Blizzard.

                And I say that fully aware that means you shouldn't trust my contradiction of what you're claiming. But by all means, I invite you to go watch the dev video and find official blizzard comments that either confirm or refute what I'm saying.

                • reply
                  June 27, 2023 12:46 PM

                  You sound like you need a potato. Like one covered with sugar or cocaine.

                  • reply
                    June 27, 2023 1:01 PM

                    you listen here buddy

                    don't you dare fucking get this information wrong

                    we are all fucking SICK of it and if i see the wrong information about diablo 4 seasons again i'm going to personally visit and attack you

                • reply
                  June 27, 2023 1:00 PM

                  No no you’re right, I’ll email Blizzard asking for clarification of their intentions and then I’ll start posting here again once I can be sure that all information has been properly fact checked and has been approved through all official channels.

                  I’m sure they’ll get back to me asap.

        • reply
          June 27, 2023 11:12 AM

          You can make a new character or you have to?

          Is there a wipe? I'm behind on how this works.

          • reply
            June 27, 2023 11:15 AM

            To progress the Pass, it needs to be a seasonal character.

            If it works like how I remember Diablo 3 working, then the Seasonal features and additions will be exclusive to the new Seasonal Realm, and the Eternal Realm will be like a "Vanilla" realm until the Season ends and I think some of the Seasonal content will move to Eternal realm?

          • reply
            June 27, 2023 11:21 AM

            You have to make new characters if you want to progress the seasonal content (battle pass, new cosmetics, etc)

            You don't have to replay the campaign, because once you finish it once a Skip Campaign button appears next to every new character you create

          • reply
            June 27, 2023 11:21 AM

            It’s not so much a wipe as it is a parallel universe. You can still play your eternal realm characters, they won’t be touched. They will basically be on a different server (for lack of a better term) than the seasonal ones though

            • reply
              June 27, 2023 12:31 PM

              Huh, that sounds not so fun.

              Wasn't an end game D3 player obviously. Oh well, maybe it's more fun than it sounds.

              • reply
                June 27, 2023 12:35 PM

                It encourages people to try new classes which is kinda cool. It’s all totally optional, you can keep chugging along on the eternal realm, that doesn’t get wiped

              • reply
                June 27, 2023 12:36 PM

                Also, if it works like d3, at the end of the season the seasonal characters get moved to the eternal realm, at which point they can play together if you want

              • reply
                June 27, 2023 12:41 PM

                Diablo isn’t like an mmo. You will have many characters. The character you have now isn’t intended to be the only one you play

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                  June 27, 2023 12:42 PM

                  But I'm emotionally attached to my current character.

                  • reply
                    June 27, 2023 12:45 PM

                    I mean it’s totally fine to play an eternal character forever if that’s more you’re style. You just aren’t going to experience any seasonal content, which is what keeps the game fresh

        • reply
          June 27, 2023 12:34 PM

          The only concrete information we have so far is this:

          1) Lilith statues will carry over to seasons, including their associated renown rewards
          2) Map exploration (aka uncovering fog of war) will carry over to seasons, including their associated renown rewards
          4) As of the latest official information, nothing else will carry over to seasonal
          3) Characters, loot, stash, etc will all be starting over fresh*

          This is the latest official information, most of it discussed during the Dev Campfire Discussion video. They mentioned they're looking into other things, but this was the only thing confirmed, and nothing more has been confirmed/denied since then.

          *THIS DOESN'T MEAN YOUR CURRENT CHARACTERS WILL BE DELETED, THEY WILL STILL EXIST AND ARE PLAYABLE, JUST IN A DIFFERENT REALM THAN YOUR SEASONAL CHARACTERS

      • reply
        June 27, 2023 12:01 PM

        We are currently working on increasing the monster and elite density of end-game content and plan to introduce this change early in Season 1.

        This is interesting. I’m not sure how this can be done without redesigning the combat (in terms of skills) altogether. Because the way skills are designed, particularly in terms of cooldown, appears to be intended to fit the existing enemy density. In practice, this means the gameplay overall is slower and more methodical than in D3. But if density is increased here, isn’t there a real risk of players being underpowerered (because they’ll be overwhelmed by mobs) unless the skills are reworked from the ground up? In which case the game will tend to go back to being D3 in terms of combat.

      • reply
        June 27, 2023 4:12 PM

        Players can now teleport to their Nightmare Dungeon directly through the map.

        Players can now teleport to their Nightmare Dungeon directly through the map.

        Players can now teleport to their Nightmare Dungeon directly through the map.

        Players can now teleport to their Nightmare Dungeon directly through the map.

        YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

        • reply
          June 27, 2023 4:16 PM

          yep, the game being open world was a mistake

          • reply
            June 27, 2023 4:24 PM

            Hard disagree, but not surprising based on our vastly different opinion on what a game is.

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              June 27, 2023 5:05 PM

              All it did was enable you to go wherever you want to do MMO caliber side quests instead of key rewarding quests like the old games. They didn't want to force you anywhere in particular so they did this very dumb level auto scaling which no games do because whenever it's tried it sucks. It didn't create a bunch of memorable zones with discrete feel like D2's acts. You just spend a bunch of time running from place to place which they then have to patch out with things like instant teleport to dungeons.

              • reply
                June 27, 2023 5:06 PM

                Yup, you don't like the design. Got it.

                I'm a fan of it. This is just one aspect I'm glad to see a change for.

          • reply
            June 27, 2023 4:52 PM

            A large group of players demand open world and live service in all their games these days because they want the games to be endless.

            • reply
              June 27, 2023 5:02 PM

              I don't know how many people were demanding open worlds other than assuming it's the obvious next evolution of the game. Players have wanted ongoing updates to Diablo since Diablo 2 so that's really unrelated to whether it's an open world or not.

    • reply
      June 27, 2023 11:11 AM

      Based on some initial testing by wudijo:

      Nightmare Dungeons = 80% XP Increase for finishing and killing mobs

      Can also teleport to Nightmare Dungeons now!

      • reply
        June 27, 2023 11:13 AM

        That’s great. It was way too low. Leveling in the 80s has been excruciatingly slow.

    • reply
      June 27, 2023 11:45 AM

      Looks like some nice buffs for barbarians, we'll have to see how it plays but the XP changes are much appreciated

      • reply
        June 27, 2023 11:48 AM

        the off-meta stuff looks like it all got buffed. it's clear how fast people gravitate to posted builds

        • reply
          June 27, 2023 12:03 PM

          That’s a thing now with any game that has some kind of build-crafting: the try-hard no-lifers beat the game within days of release, then pump out “meta” guides everyone follows and relays on social media. It distorts the natural progression of gameplay that would otherwise hold, IMO.

          • reply
            June 27, 2023 12:10 PM

            I hate this so much and intentionally gimp myself in protest

        • reply
          June 27, 2023 12:07 PM

          it's clear how people gravitate toward the highest damage abilities, so that means the others need to be brought up to par

          • reply
            June 27, 2023 12:24 PM

            Kind of a never-ending cycle though because unless everything is exactly equal, there will always be something that outperforms and becomes the meta. Then people complain about the stuff left behind. But if everything is made exactly equal there’s no creativity/challenge and people complain about “re-skins,” etc. And around we go.

      • reply
        June 27, 2023 12:43 PM

        doesn't feel like any of those buffs make a difference tbh

        • reply
          June 27, 2023 1:33 PM

          if the only way for barbarians to be effective is for whirlwind to be buffed, there are bigger problems with the class

        • reply
          June 27, 2023 1:34 PM

          Call of the ancients is already incredibly strong. This buff is pretty crazy

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        June 27, 2023 1:21 PM

        meh, those are off meta skillls/builds, absolutely nothing for ww build.

        i've been at level 100, for about 2weeks now, the dmg does not scale well at all.

        all classes can kill single target much faster.
        and about on par with aoe/nightmare clears.

        • reply
          June 27, 2023 1:22 PM

          i think that's the point, though?

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            June 27, 2023 2:38 PM

            it is. it highlights how easy the path to 100 is for the WW barb. it's not remotely a priority since as a meta spec, it's totally fine.

            it gets nothing because it needs nothing

        • reply
          June 27, 2023 1:32 PM

          this is not a problem many people can relate to here

          i am guessing we have fewer than 10 level 100 players

          • reply
            June 27, 2023 1:37 PM

            does that invalidate my experience at 100?
            wait till you get there and you’ll see my point.

            • reply
              June 27, 2023 1:41 PM

              i have to imagine the vast majority of people have no intention of grinding out 100

              most people never hit 99 in d2 either

              • reply
                June 27, 2023 1:47 PM

                again what/how does that matter to the state of the endgame barb?

                • reply
                  June 27, 2023 1:50 PM

                  i was only responding to "wait till you get there and you’ll see my point."

                  you're complaining about the absolute maximum periphery of the game. a meta build that isn't performing as well as you'd like it, though probably only because you're judging it in relation to other level 100 end game meta builds and some of them happen to be better which is an inevitability

                  that they're buffing 'off meta' skills and builds is like, entirely the point. they're rounding out the experience for the 95% of consumers who will go 1-50, maybe 50-70, and want to be able to challenge themselves and the content with a few more options other than the netbuild they pulled down from icyveins

                  i mean bummer that you're flustered with it but honestly try some other classes / fuck around. they're probably not going to have endgame content adequately ironed out for a few seasons looking at past performance

                • reply
                  June 27, 2023 1:53 PM

                  it just means it's one of the lowest priority things they're likely to fix

                • reply
                  June 27, 2023 2:28 PM

                  I guess the answer is, who's endgame? Yours or mine 30 levels under where you are?

              • reply
                June 27, 2023 1:51 PM

                I think that will change over time. one of the D3 seasonal journeys was often max level

                • reply
                  June 27, 2023 1:53 PM

                  level 70 in diablo 3 was reasonably trivial though, no?

                  from the sounds of it the grind to 100 is much more comparable to diablo 2's grind to 99

                  at least more or less

                  • reply
                    June 27, 2023 1:55 PM

                    only years later. 60 (it was bumped to 70 in the expansion) was hard until you could power level in a rift / grift.

                    not saying it isn't a grind, just over time that grind will be far easier when other forms of leveling take place. probably. hard to compare a game 10+ years old with 28 seasons, an expansion, a character pack, and over 100 balance changes

                    • reply
                      June 27, 2023 1:59 PM

                      yeah, i think you can read into their intention though with the unlocking of paragon with max level attainment in d3 vs unlocking at 50 in d4

                      though naturally i do imagine to your point this will change a ton over the next 1-2 years

                  • reply
                    June 27, 2023 1:57 PM

                    It feels about like D2 yeah. It’s exponentially slower the closer you get to 100. I guess 1-85 takes same time as 86-100.

            • reply
              June 27, 2023 5:34 PM

              i wasn't trying to invalidate the point you were making, just saying it's hard to relate

              but if i am honest level 65 already felt like a grind before the nightmare XP changes they made today, so I am not sure I ever would have joined you at 100, at least prior to any new activities or DLC content gets added

              but my opinion is just that, i never played a single season of Diablo 2 or 3, never placed on a leaderboard, never played a hardcore character or a seasonal character and have really no idea what to expect from what seasons will be in this game. to me it feels like everything after 80 is undercooked and underserved in terms of content. you should probably be in world tier 5 at that point, but gear power creep might have made balancing that difficult before shipping the game.

    • reply
      June 27, 2023 11:56 AM

      Sorc changes are meh. It might make the ball lightning build a bit better with the crackling energy buff but I don't really see a change from ice shard being the standard.

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        June 27, 2023 1:45 PM

        Really, my build got everything almost juiced up minus Hydra and a few more, I think the changes own! Hahahaha I think I have been rolling the harder Mage builds(Conjurer + Ice) since all my stuff got buffed it must of been down bad even though I love it. I am really happy right now.

      • reply
        June 27, 2023 2:41 PM

        Im just glad they didn't nerf anything. Good move honestly.

    • reply
      June 27, 2023 11:57 AM

      Minions focusing cursed enemies is HUUUGE

      • reply
        June 27, 2023 1:36 PM

        As a pet/Iron Maiden/shadow necromancer, I approve of these patch notes.

        • reply
          June 27, 2023 6:11 PM

          Oh yeah, those are some tasty buffs.

    • reply
      June 27, 2023 11:57 AM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      June 27, 2023 2:42 PM

      RIP to all the poopsockers grinding regular dungeons instead of the new 3x XP nightmare dungeons. This is so much better.

    • reply
      June 27, 2023 4:16 PM

      Is there a guide to Barbarian that isn't about following a specific build, but more understanding the various synergies?

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        June 27, 2023 5:46 PM

        most guides are useless to levelling players, but maxroll.gg has some levelling guides that might help?

        basically with a barbarian you want to be stunning enemies or bleeding them. both cause enemies to take more damage from you, which you can enhance much later on through your gear. bleeding builds usually use your 2h sword and start out with Flay and Rend as the basic starting combo. as you level up, you will find obvious passive perks along the way that enhance bleeding, including causing bleeding enemies to be slowed, which is another way you can do added damage to them on top of bleed damage. later in the game you can swap rend for whirlwind which makes clearing packs of enemies fun!

        stun builds are less familiar to me but generally build around your 2h hammer. you can stun with kicks and stomps and enemies can't hit you back if they are stunned, you can build into your gear to take advantage of them while they are stunned, etc.

        at some point you should try some of the defensive abilities and shouts to get familiar with how they work because you will need to use them on higher difficulty content (which only comes AFTER you finish the campaign). learn how fortify affects your defense and how to stack more of it through gear, shouts, and other abilities in the skill tree. once you get up in the 40s if you want to look at build guides you can but it's really not worth spending any of your saved gear or money investing in your gear until you get to World Tier 4 (which again is only AFTER you complete the campaign)

        the most important thing you can learn about with any mid to late game Barb build is how to make enemies vulnerable and then to pile on as many other debuffs as you can: bleeding, slowed, stunned, etc while doing damage and staying mobile.

    • reply
      June 28, 2023 1:35 AM

      wish i could change my character's hair. what the heck is that about

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