It’s now easier to find unique loot in Diablo 4

Blizzard made a lot of noise on Thursday with the announcement of a new character class for Diablo Immortal – the first new Diablo class in nearly a decade – and the reveal of Diablo 4‘s first season. But it also slipped a new patch for it Diablo 4 that makes a handful of meaningful adjustments to the game.

In addition to a series of bug fixes, patch 1.0.4 changes Helltide chests so they now drop unique items – the most powerful loot class in the game. The change came as news to Diablo big cheese Rod Fergusson, who conceded to Blizzard’s developer update live stream that he had no idea about Helltide chests not drop unique. Well, they do now.

This gives players an alternative to grinding Nightmare Dungeons for growing Uniques. Helltides, which are unlocked in Nightmare difficulty and above upon completion of the campaign, are the hourly events in which parts of the open-world map are overrun with more powerful monsters. If nothing else, this will be a welcome change of scenery for them Diablo 4 players on the treadmill for item farming in the late game.

However, if you’re looking for the six ultra-rare Uniques in the game – which Blizzard now appears to be calling Uber Uniques – don’t dive in just yet. At the time of writing, a note in the game’s launcher says that Uber Unique drops have been temporarily disabled altogether “while we address an issue with Helltide Chest drops.” Blizzard expects to release a hotfix and make the six rarest items in the game available again by late Friday or early Saturday.

Lower level players might be pleased to learn that three of the game’s more frustrating bosses – Vhenard, Brol, and Cyhrach – have had their health pools and damage output worked into the patch. The cannibal warlord Brol in particular proved to be quite the roadblock during my first solo run through the campaign, so I’m pleased to see the big bully has been tailored.

Finally, avid endgame crafters will get an upgrade to the limit of crafting materials they can collect from 9,999 to 99,999.

Diablo 4Season 1, Season of the Malignant, kicks off July 20 and introduces pluggable items called Maligne Hearts that grant new powers to players and open up new character-building opportunities that Blizzard describes as “stupidly busted” — in a good way. But you have to complete the campaign and start a new character to participate.