Diablo 4 Season 5 PTR Details and Patch Notes - Diablo 4 Guide - IGN (2024)

The PTR for Season 5 of Diablo 4 has arrived, bringing dozens of balance changes, bug fixes, new quests, weapons, and items, and much more!

This page acts as a comprehensive breakdown of the Season 5 PTR for Diablo 4, including a link to the full PTR Patch Notes.

New Eternal Quest

As part of Season 5, a new Questline will be introduced that occurs after the main questline and can be played on Seasonal and Eternal Realms. As expected, the storyline will then remain on the Eternal realm after Season 5 has concluded.

To begin the questline, head to Hawezar in World Tier III. By completing the questline, you'll be able to partake in the new activity - fighting the Infernal Hordes.

Infernal Hordes

This aforementioned new activity will have you defeating hordes to earn Burning Aether. This Burning Aether can then be used to unlock powerful new weapons and rewards. After defeating the Hordes, you'll face off against the Fell Council.

The details pertaining to the Hordes are as follows:

• Infernal Hordes has time-limited waves, lasting 90 seconds each.
• Collect Burning Aether during a wave to spend at the end of a successful Infernal run.
• At the end of the 90 seconds, kill the remaining enemies and decide between three Infernal Offers. Once selected, the next wave will begin.
• Successfully slay all waves in the Tier you are attempting to advance to the Well of Hatred then battle the Fell Council. Upon defeating the Fell Council, spend your Burning Aether on Spoils of Hell

To partake in the activity, you'll need to use an Infernal Compass:

• Hell Compasses can be found by defeating Endgame Bosses, Helltides, Nightmare Dungeons, and Whispers
• A Hell Compass will be granted to you upon completing the newest Eternal quest

Infernal Compasses can be used at the following levels/World Tiers:

• Tier I
  • Available at World Tier III
• Tier II
  • Available at World Tier IV
    • Includes Bonus Affixes which increase crafting materials, and Legendary and Unique Drop rates
• Tier III
  • Available at Level 100
    • Includes Bonus Affixes
    • Includes Spoil of Greater Equipment

Infernal Offer

After defeating each wave, you'll receive an Infernal Offer. These will give you a choice of 3 different Boons & Banes that will affect your run moving forward. Infernal Offers will stack, meaning many can be active at once. These can increase your difficulty for better rewards, or make things easier.

Burning Aether

• Earn Burning Aether by slaying Aether Fiends and Aether Lords, or by destroying Soulspires and Aetheric Masses
• Burning Aether is earned individually, regardless of playing solo or in a group. This lets you decide how to spend it at the end of your run

Spoils of Hell

• On a successful run, you’ll use Burning Aether to unlock Spoils of Hell. There will be four different Spoils of Hell available on completing your Infernal Hordes run:
  • Spoils of Equipment
  • Spoils of Materials
  • Spoils of Gold
  • Spoils of Greater Equipment
    • This Spoil of Hell guarantees an item with a Greater Affix

New Weapons & Items

New Legendaries, Uniques, and Items will be introduced within Season 5, and have the best chance of appearing by playing the Infernal Hordes activity.

QoL Updates

Endgame Bosses

• You no longer need to reset the dungeon to replay the same boss. Upon killing them, the summoning Altar reappears and allows you to use more resources to play them again
• Summoning Varshan now only requires Malignant Hearts. Trembling Hands, Blackened Femurs, and Gurgling Heads have been removed from the game
• Endgame Bosses now drop additional gold instead of Rare items

Beast in Ice

• The Beast in Ice boss fight now functions as a standard dungeon; you no longer have to craft a sigil to enter the fight.
  • Any leftover Beast in Ice sigils held by previous Seasonal Realm or Eternal characters can be used to summon Beast in Ice instead of using Summoning Materials.
• The boss fight is now much closer to the entrance, so you’ll no longer need to progress through the Dungeon before the fight.
• Sigil Dust has been removed as a material cost to summon

Loot Rewards

• Resplendent Spark awards for defeating Tormented bosses can now be earned separately on both Hardcore and non-Hardcore.
• Resplendent Sparks and Scattered Prisms will no longer be automatically picked up. Additionally, these items can now be found in the lost items Stash if forgotten when they drop.
• Unique and Mythic Unique Items can now be acquired through Whisper Caches, the Purveyor of Curiosities, and Tortured Gifts in Helltide.
• The chance to find Mythic Uniques through all non-boss drop locations has been increased

Treasure Goblins

• The loot Quality from Treasure Goblins has been improved. They can now drop 1-3 Legendary Items and 2-6 Rare Items. The higher the number of Legendary Drops, the lower the number of Rare Drops. The opposite is also true e.g. if 2 Legendary Items drop, then 4 Rares will drop in addition.
• Now drop 1-2 Elixirs and are guaranteed to additionally drop Common Ore, Herbs, Leather, and Gem Fragments.
• Increased the amount of Gold that drops.
  • Examples:
    • Level 1 in World Tier I: 40k Gold
    • Level 100 in World Tier IV: 150k Gold
• In World Tiers III and IV, Treasure Goblins also drop Forgotten Souls.
• Additionally, they now have a 10/20/30% chance to drop 1-2 Scattered Prisms in World Tiers I and II/World Tier III/World Tier IV respectively

Future Accessibility Items

• Auto-Pin
  • This feature automatically drops a map pin on the destination of a selected quest or task
• Audio Navigation Assistance
  • The player can receive spatial audio pings that will direct the player towards the placed pin on the overworld map
• Compass
  • This feature brings an on-screen HUD that will circle around you and point you towards the placed pin

Full PTR Patch Notes

For the full PTR Patch Notes, including balance updates and bug fixes, you can do so via the official Blizzard websites Season 5 PTR Patch Notes blog post.