'Diablo 3' to adjust enemy difficulty, polish unpopular skills in version 1.04

Blizzard offers a preview of Diablo 3 version 1.04, with changes to enemy difficulty, character classes, legendary items, and the effectiveness of "unpopular" skills and runes.

As Blizzard continues to tinker with the systems of Diablo 3, the next major update to the game, version 1.04, will bring with it significant changes to enemy difficulty, character classes, legendary items, and the effectiveness of "unpopular" skills and runes.

Blizzard's Wyatt Cheng offers Diablo 3 players a top-level view of what's coming in the game's next major release, with an emphasis on the strength of enemies in single-player and co-op play. Blizzard will be lowering the health multiplier in co-op games, making it easier to get your loot on with a group of friends.

"This makes enemies far more manageable in co-op games, and rewards a co-ordinated group with a higher farming efficiency than playing alone," Cheng writes. Diablo 3 version 1.04 will also close the gap between normal monsters and their Champion and Rare counterparts. In short, normal monsters will be a "smidge" stronger, while Champion and Rare enemies will be slightly easier. Higher level monsters with fire chain and shielding affixes will also be adjusted in 1.04 to make them less "frustrating." Even better, Invulnerable Minions will be going away with the update.

"We're making a metric-ton of changes to classes..."

High-level weapons will also see changes, with level 61 and 62 weapons seeing their damage range extended. Two-handed weapons will also get a boost to make them feel more viable compared to dual-wielding. Blizzard will also tweak weapon damage over time, hoping to make damage descriptors both easier to understand and improve the effectiveness of one-handed builds.

Blizzard says it's also taking another look at class skills and runes, and how those systems work together. It's reviewing skills that are unpopular, redundant, or inefficient, with plans to rework underused abilities. Blizzard specifically mentions tweaks to the Barbarian's Rend skill, the Monk's Wave of Light skill, the Demon's Hunter's bola shot, the Witch Doctor's zombie dogs, and the Wizard's Hydra runes.

Blizzard promises to go into further detail on the major changes coming in Diablo 3's 1.04 update and how they'll affect classes and legendary items at a later date.

There's no firm release date for version 1.04 yet, with Blizzard saying it's "still a few weeks away."