Originally published at: Diablo 4 – Patch 1.2.3 Notes and AoZ – Episode 4 – Alphagamer
During BlizzCon Blizzard announced the Diablo 4 roadmap for the season including the scheduled patches. I covered the roadmap in my blog post here. We already received the first patch (1.2.2) on the 7th of November bringing new Class Unique Malignant rings into Season 2 (carried over from previous season). However, now we are nearing the release of patch 1.2.3 which will be released to the public on Tuesday, December 5th.
Let us have a closer look!
Abattoir of Zir
Probably the biggest addition in patch 1.2.3 is the Abattoir of Zir (AoZ). In short, the Abattoir of Zir is a timed dungeon, that is significantly harder than the known and existing Nightmare Dungeons and should be considered high end “End Game” content. This is targeted at semi-pro and pro players.
In order to be able to enter an Abattoir of Zir dungeon the following requirements must be met.
Players must have completed all Chapters of the Season Journey first, before flaying adversaries in the Abattoir of Zir.
Completing the Seasonal journey doesn’t mean that you need to complete every single challenge. All chapters have a threshold that need to be met in order to mark the chapter complete. I consider myself a serious but certainly not semi-pro or pro players and I was able to achieve the completion of the season journey early or middle of November. Currently the only outstanding objective I didn’t complete is “Siphon from an enemy as the Hatred’s Chosen”as part of the Champion chapter.
Once all chapters are completed are recipe to craft a Bloodforged Sigil will be unlocked at the Occultist (where you would salvage or craft your normal Nightmare Dungeons). This Bloodforges Sigil opens a portal in Ked Bardu granting access to the first Abattoir of Zir.
The Abattoir of Zir dungeon will likely be the hardest challenge to complete in Season 2 with 25 tiers to progress through. As a comparison, Blizzard says that the first level of the Abattoir or Zir (AoZ) is comparable with a level 100 Nightmare Dungeon. Another thing to take in account is that these tiers scale different from Nightmare Dungeons, which don’t show a huge increase in difficult when increasing in level.
To complete an AoZ dungeon you will need to clear the trash mobs in 10 minutes and then kill the summoned Bloodseeker bosses. Each dungeon and bosses will have affixes which will not be shared ahead of time and will change each run.
Completing an AoZ dungeon will unlock the next tier Bloodforged Sigil, that can be crafted at the Occultist. Completing the level 1 AoZ dungeon will also unluck a powerful unique Glyph, called “Tears of Blood”. This is said to be a very powerful Glyph that can be upgraded until level 200. This Glyph will be essential to progress through the tiers of the Abattoir of Zir.
It seems significantly more experience will be required to upgrade this Tears of Blood Glyph, however one of the key changes in the patch is the awarded experience after completing Nightmare Dungeons.
The Diablo 4 developers provided the following inputs on Nightmare Dungeons and the Glyph experience they reward:
Developer’s Note: After reviewing gameplay data and player feedback, we recognized that completing higher Nightmare Tiers was not as rewarding as we initially hoped for, with many players stopping their journey after reaching Tier 50. The experience increase to Glyphs at higher Tiers was made with the intent of incentivizing players to push their builds, making their arrival at Tier 100 feel that much more fulfilling. We will monitor how this change in experience pans out for players and encourage you to provide us with any feedback you have around this system.
With this patch the earned Glyph experience will be changed as follows:
- Tiers 1-17: No Change
- By Tiers 30: From 66 to 79
- By Tier 50: From 106 to 139
- By Tier 75: From 156 to 239
- By Tier 100: From 206 to 339
This should allow players to progress through dungeons quicker and in turn upgrade the new Tears of Blood Glyph quicker.
I think the Abattoir of Zir will be a good addition to season 2’s End Game content. I think it gave most players an objective to prepare for over the last couple of weeks and for sure will give the D4 players a new challenge to get busy with during the last month of season 2.
Lastly, one of the things said during the campfire chat is that Blizzard doesn’t expect this to be a returning theme in future seasons. with the Leaderboards being released in Season 3. I might be missing part of the puzzle here but the way I understand the AoZ and Leaderboards, I don’t believe this will be the same. For one I don’t really care ending up on a leaderboard but I am very interested to see what tier I can reach on the Tears of Blood Glyph.
Really curious to hear what you think about patch 1.2.3 and the Abattoir of Zir.
For those interested in the full patch notes, you can find the patch 1.2.3. details here.