Diablo 3 Season 5 Details, Starts January 15

By Rory Young 26 December 2015

Details regarding Season 5 of Diablo III are now available, care of Blizzard. Changes include Season Journey set rewards and exclusive Season rewards.

Another Season is quickly approaching its conclusion in Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. Another Season is quickly approaching its beginning. On January 15 Season 4 will have ended and Season 5 started. The leaderboards will lock up, all Season characters will be shifted over to standard character slots, and the race to create the strongest Diablo III character shall begin again. Most importantly, a new opportunity to collect tons of loot with new rewards will present itself.

Season 5 will bring with it several changes that are not particularly large but hardly inconsequential. Blizzard has now detailed these Seasonal changes, which stand apart from the much larger patch 2.4.0 hitting live servers soon. The Seasonal changes focus on the structure of the event, rather than the game itself. Here’s how Blizzard plans to shift things around in Season 5:

Season Journey Updates
- Seasonal Legendaries Removed – All legendaries from patch 2.4.0 on will be “immediately available” regardless of Season participation.
- Haedrig’s Gift – New item-based reward will give players set pieces as they progress in the Season Journey, with all pieces given out by the completion of Chapter 4.
  - Barbarian: Might of the Earth
  - Crusader: Thorns of the Invoker
  - Demon Hunter: The Shadow’s Mantle
  - Monk: Monkey King’s Garb
  - Witch Doctor: Raiment of the Jade Harvester
  - Wizard: Firebird’s Finery
New/Updated Conquests
Cosmetic Rewards – Season 5 rewards include the Conquerer’s Boots transmogficiation, exclusive Portrait Frames, and the Wickerman Pet.
Season Rebirth – Non-Seasonal characters can be “rebirthed,” resetting them at level 1 and removing all items and accomplishments except: player name and time played.

As should be clear, Blizzard isn’t shaking the boat in terms of Season structure with Season 5, though the shift from Seasonal Legendaries to a full set may change the difficulty curve. The jump from hitting level 70 and dressing down in Legendaries to earning that first full set is likely the most challenging content jump for new players. That said, all the change will likely do is lead to players quitting the season after they earn that set and decide not to farm Ancients afterwards.

Season 5 arrived on the back of patch 2.4.0, with many of its smaller changes meant to take advantage of the patch’s new content. For instance, with the addition of Set Dungeons – non-randomized dungeons which challenge players after they’ve completed a full 6-piece set – Season 5 will feature new Masters of the Universe and Masters of Sets Conquests. Meanwhile, additional Stash tabs will be unlocked through the Season Journey.

What patch 2.4.0 is really about, and why most Season 5 players will be returning to Diablo III, is the addition of 40 new Legendary powers. Some of those will be put onto classic, now revamped Legendaries, to be fair. Sets are also getting a huge revamp, with near all of the 34 class sets in-game getting touched to a small or large degree. Since loot is everyone’s Diablo III priority, there’s really nothing more exciting that Blizzard could have done.

As a Diablo III player, there’s nothing more exciting than the opportunity to try out different styles of gameplay with each different set. Yet it’s also important to note just has frustratingly time consuming it can be getting all of the pieces in a set. Sure, Blizzard has added several small crafting systems to help make set acquisition faster, but it’s still all kinds of tedious. Before, however, there were very few “viable” sets. Maybe having a wide selection will make that grind less mind numbing.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls‘ Season 5 will begin on January 15, which also stands as the end of Season 4. Patch 2.4.0 is currently on the Diablo III public testing server and should go live soon on PC. No release information is yet available for the console release.

Source: Blizzard