Diablo 4 Red Dust

Diablo 4 Campfire Chat not only announced the changes for Season 11, but also its release date. However, this date is unusual, being two days later than players had predicted.

This is clearly unusual, leading players to speculate that Season 11 might have some surprises in store to counter the challenge from its biggest rival, Path of Exile 2 patch 0.4.0.

Why Is The Release Date Unusual?

Season 11 Release Date

According to Diablo 4's usual practice, the end date of each season pass typically signifies the end of the season. Therefore, according to the original schedule, Season 10 would end on December 9th, which usually means that Season 11 would begin immediately afterward on the 9th.

However, the latest official patch notes and blog indicate that Season 11 will begin at the following times:

• 8:30 PM Pacific Standard Time (PT), Thursday, December 11th
• 11:30 PM Eastern Time (EST), Thursday, December 11th
• 4:30 AM Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), Friday, December 12th
• 5:30 AM Central European Time (CET), Friday, December 12th

The Unusual Reason

Official releases are rarely on Thursdays, and they typically release new seasons on Tuesdays. Furthermore, 8:30 PM EST is an unfavorable time for players worldwide, as it's close to midnight or nighttime in most regions.

This time also means that Diablo IV development team and engineers will probably need to work through the night to ensure a smooth season launch, resulting in additional overtime costs.

Furthermore, Diablo 4's official season updates deliberately avoid clashing with the seasons and leagues of other popular ARPGs.

This timing puts Season 11 very close to the release of its main competitor, Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0. Patch 0.4.0 will be released on December 12th, bringing the new Druid class to Path of Exile series.

The Impact Of The Game Awards

The biggest reason for the two-day delay in Season 11's release is likely The Game Awards ceremony, also scheduled for December 11th, 2025. It's not just an awards ceremony, but also a platform for announcing major game news of the year.

The Game Awards will begin at approximately 7:30 PM Eastern Time / 4:30 PM Pacific Time, and Season 11 will be released a few hours after the awards ceremony.

The developers of Diablo IV have repeatedly hinted at revealing new content at The Game Awards, almost certainly the game's second expansion.

However, expansion announcements shouldn't affect season release dates. Therefore, this deliberate arrangement might suggest that Season 11 itself will include a surprise release linked to the expansion announcement. This content could be revealed at The Game Awards and released a few hours later with the season.

Speculation On The Surprise Release

New Class Paladin

Paladin is an extremely popular class in Diablo series, and its addition would greatly boost its popularity. Furthermore, some players have discovered that one of the cosmetic rewards for Season 11 Battle Pass closely resembles a flail, a classic Paladin weapon, and currently, there is no actual flail weapon type in the game. However, Season 11 already includes a major rework of core combat and stats systems, including elites, game difficulty, capstones, toughness, defense caps, and health potions.

Adding a completely new class without prior community testing or feedback on the public test server is extremely risky and logically illogical. Therefore, while the possibility of a new class is there, it is very small.

Expansion 2

So, is it possible that the official announcement of DLC 2 will be made directly? Generally, expansions, as paid content, require several months of promotion to introduce their features and attract players. It's unlikely they will be released without prior notice, and the official announcement has already stated that the expansion will be delayed until 2026. Therefore, the probability of announcing DLC 2 directly at TGA is very small.

However, Season 11 might release a brand new area connecting to the new expansion. After all, it's been over a year since the last DLC was released, and the official development of DLC 2 should be nearing completion, allowing them to promote it in-game beforehand.

The new area could serve as a prelude to the expansion. For it to be meaningful, the area would need to include side quests, new Diablo 4 items, main story clues, or new exclusive activities—which in itself constitutes a significant update.

While the specific content is unknown, Season 11 has a high probability of including unannounced surprise releases; otherwise, the seemingly illogical release timing of the season cannot be explained.

Other Clues

After the announcement of the first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, Diablo 4 added a free pet system. This proves that the developers have a history of adding free content alongside major announcements.

Furthermore, renowned game journalist Jez Cordon revealed that Diablo IV's content at The Game Awards goes far beyond just one expansion, indicating that there are even more surprises to come.

In any case, these hidden surprises have significantly increased the player community's anticipation for Season 11. What new content awaits us at 2025 TGA.

Diablo 4 Season 11, Season of Divine Intervention, has been postponed from the previously speculated December 9th to December 11th, specifically at 8:30 PM Pacific Standard Time, unlike the usual 10:00 AM start time.

Season 11 differs significantly from PTR 2.5.0, including a large amount of new content, system rework, and balance adjustments. However, the core theme is a slower overall game pace, increased difficulty, and a general nerf to build strength compared to Season 10.

In PTR, players were generally dissatisfied with changes to crafting aspects such as Sanctification system and Masterworking, and the official response was that these would be adjusted. These changes are now live in Season 11 release. Let's take a look at the specific changes.

Sanctification System

Sanctification is a new seasonal mechanic introduced in Diablo IV Season 11. The development team seemed to have considered making it a permanent system, but recent campfire chat hints that it might not be.

Veteran ARPG players will recognize that this system's core concept originates from similar systems in other ARPGs, such as Vaal orbs in Path of Exile and Worldstone Shards in Diablo 2 mod.

Essentially, it's a gambling mechanic with gear. Players can potentially gain powerful buffs to a piece of gear or brick it. Based on strong feedback from the player community, the development team made two key changes to Sanctification mechanic.

Removing Negative Effects On Specific Gear

In PTR, Sanctification could replace an affix on gear. While the new affix might be powerful, it could also brick the gear by replacing Greater Affix on Uniques and Mythic Unique items.

The current official solution prevents the attributes of Unique and Mythic Unique gear from being replaced. This means that the risk of destruction for top-tier gear, which is of greatest concern to most players, is no longer present. This negative effect may only exist on Legendary gear, and its impact is significantly reduced.

Changing No-effect Outcome Result

In PTR, there was approximately a 20% chance that sanctification would result in no change, meaning the equipment neither improved nor damaged. In Season 11 live servers, this 20% probability has been replaced with an increase in equipment quality.

This effect works in conjunction with Masterworking system, as Masterworking can increase equipment quality by up to 25%, with each 1% quality increase boosting all equipment stats by 1%. Sanctification now directly increases equipment quality by 5% to 25%, improving base stats such as armor, resistances, weapon damage, and the values ​​of all affixes, tempers, and mythic equipment stats.

Sanctification Probabilities

Based on official information and player testing results in PTR, the possible results and approximate probability distribution of sanctification are as follows:

10% probability: Replace an affix

• Approximately 15% probability: Add a new power.
• Approximately 20% probability: Add a more powerful affix.
• Approximately 30-35% chance: Adds a random powerful affix.
• Approximately 10-15% chance: Improves equipment quality.

According to Diablo 4 community manager, the new Might pool contains some incredibly powerful options, and the affixes added by Sanctification come from a specific pool of powerful affixes, which may include:

• Cooldown reduction
• Attack speed
• +2 to all skills on jewelry
• Doubling the strength of gems
• Percentage core stats
• Total resistance
• Crit chance
• Movement speed
• Lucky chance
• Resource cost reduction
• Maximum resource
• Maximum life

Defense System Overhaul  

Diablo 4 has made many changes to the defense system, including a rework of Fortify and Toughness system.

Fortify Reworked

Diablo 4 Season 11 introduced a new attribute, Fortify. It has also been reworked in the live servers of Season 11. It no longer directly provides damage reduction. The new mechanism is: when you take damage, Fortify points are converted into health regeneration, essentially a second health bar.

Fortify can coexist with Barrier, but they function differently: Barrier adds a shield to health, while Fortify quickly regenerates health after it is depleted.

New Defense System

Season 11 introduced a completely new Resistance and Armor system, but the specific workings (such as the cap) are somewhat unclear.

Additionally, UI displays a comprehensive Toughness value as a reference for survivability at each difficulty level, but you shouldn't blindly rely on this value. You must balance improving all resistances; otherwise, too low a single resistance can still lead to instant death.

Intelligence class can equip Skulls gems. For non-Intelligence classes, if the primary attribute is Armor, socket Diamonds to increase all resistances.

Affix Updates

Rings and gloves will have new affixes such as life on hit and coldown reduction, and Life on hit will be a crucial survival affix.

Crafting Changes

Tempering System

Tempering changes are consistent with PTR, and each item can now only be tempered once. As compensation, Diablo 4 items will drop with an additional base affix. While player control over affixes is reduced, the total number of affixes remains unchanged.

Masterworking Upgrade Rework

Masterworking has received some adjustments compared to PTR. Its maximum level has been increased from 12 to 25. While the increase per level is smaller, the cumulative increase may be greater, perhaps providing a 50% increase in base stats. Furthermore, there is now a chance to critically strike upon upgrading, resulting in an even greater boost.

Potion System Changes

Basic potions can no longer be upgraded, and players will only have four basic potions. As compensation, your character will automatically replenish one potion every 30 seconds to cope with prolonged battles.

These are the main changes to crafting and items in Diablo 4 Season 11 live server. Compared to PTR, it restores the strength of builds, preventing players from struggling this season.