Crisis averted—Blizzard quickly axes busted Diablo 4 build that turned players into teleporting gods of destruction on the PTR, because it was 'basically eclipsing everything else'

A maddened sicko raises a knife — (Image credit: Blizzard)

The latest Diablo 4 season'll be introducing Horadric Spellcrafting—a seasonal power that lets players kitbash their own spells together which, as you might imagine, is being tested on the public test realms (PTR). Anyone who's played Oblivion before will be able to tell you that custom spell creation systems are notoriously hard to balance, and that truth has borne out here to spectacular effect.

As announced in a developer diary (thanks, GamesRadar), Blizzard's taking an axe to the knees of a Horadric spell that combined the Propulsion catalyst with the Floaty Bubble and Bloody Charm infusions. That's a lot of proper nouns, but essentially, the resultant spell drops an AoE, teleports you to that AoE, and then resets your cooldown (as long as you've killed something) so you can do it again. The result looks something like this.

New teleport tech from s9 powers is going to enable speed farming for all classes if it doesn’t get nerfed. from r/diablo4

Clearly, this is a little busted. Systems designer Aislyn Hall states: "It was transformative—so transformative to the point that it was actually stomping on build identity in many cases. We really want you to experience the full breadth of what different characters can offer in Diablo 4, we don't want it all to be condensed down to one thing."

Which is fair. I think the metagame can sometimes be overstated in MMOs and live-service ARPGs, but when the meta is 'do DBZ-style instant transmissions and obliterate everything in sight', it feels silly to pick anything else. As game designer Charles Dunn observes, the system was meant to be "a compliment on top of what you're already doing, it's a unique utility, it's an interesting wrinkle to your build."

Dunn continues: "On the PTR we found this particular teleport Propulsion interaction was basically eclipsing everything else. If you looked at a clip of people playing different classes, it looked identical. And that's not exactly the kind of gameplay we feel is healthy for Diablo 4."

The solution's surgical. Per these patch notes, Bloody Charm—the cooldown resetting part of the equation—will only be changed based on how it impacts Propulsion, specifically.

Previous: The Mana Blast from Propulsion Executes non-Boss enemies. Successful Executions reset it.
Now: The Mana Blast from Propulsion Executes non-Boss enemies. Successful Executions grant 70% Movement Speed for 5 seconds.

Honestly, while Hall and Dunn are using a lot of dev speak to justify this nerf, it seems pretty self-explanatory—it's fine to be careful about slapping everything that's good with the balance hammer, but I think we can all agree that this was beyond the pale. It's a good example of why PTRs are important and, hey, at least it wasn't crashing the servers this time.

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Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

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