Diablo 4 Season 14 will dramatically reimagine how Mythic Uniques work, and it’s a change that doesn’t seem to be sitting well with many in the game’s community.
Since Diablo 4’s launch, a handful of Mythic Uniques have been the best, and rarest, items in the entire game, with nearly every maxed-out endgame build wanting to use at least one (or likely several) if possible. Not every Mythic Unique currently in Diablo 4 is a winner, but finding or crafting items like The Grandfather, Heir of Perdition, and Harlequin Crest have always been a surefire way to gain an incredible amount of power. That was, in part, because these items had guaranteed stats and affixes. In a game of random loot, Mythic Uniques were set in stone, letting players build around them with confidence.
That’s changing in Diablo 4 Season 14. As revealed in the public test realm patch notes for Diablo 4’s next season, Mythic Uniques will go from best items in the game to simply a “modifiable item quality,” according to Blizzard. Every Ancestral Unique item in the game (of which there are over 100) will have a chance to drop as a “Mythic” Unique. Existing Mythic Uniques are now becoming regular Uniques with drastically reduced power. On top of that, just like Uniques in the game’s Lord of Hatred expansion, Mythic Uniques will have mostly random stats and affixes.
In Season 14, a Mythic Unique simply means that a particular Unique item has rolled with max stat values and the potency of its special power increased by 30%. Regular Uniques can be crafted into Mythic Uniques using the Horadric Cube, though Blizzard notes players will only be able to equip one crafted Mythic Unique at a time. Players can additionally use the cube to re-roll affixes on Unique items before potentially turning them into Mythic Uniques, giving at least some control over the randomness.
It’s a massively controversial change, in more ways than one. Players have already voiced their displeasure with the RNG added to regular Unique items as part of Lord of Hatred, which once upon a time also had set stats. Now Uniques can roll with completely unwanted affixes, making the hunt for a usable one much more time-consuming. Blizzard appears to be doubling down on the already unpopular idea and proposing that exact change to Mythic Uniques too. Whereas before seeing a purple item drop on the ground would cause a rush of excitement, there will now be a good chance it will be practically worthless if it doesn’t have the right stats.
Players are already arguing about the pros and cons of the change on places like Diablo 4 subreddit. While there are some players who like the changes and argue Mythic Uniques will be even stronger with the addition of being able to re-roll affixes with the cube, many don’t see the point and sound frustrated by yet another layer of RNG.
“I’m not looking for constant RNG within my RNG,” user VagueSomething writes. “Uniques and especially Mythics need some consistency to stats or they’re not worth mixing into your build. I’m already gambling if they’ll drop and now I’m gambling if they will drop in a usable state.”
But not everyone agrees. User StrikingSpare100, in a post diving into the details of the changes and arguing why it’s an improvement, is a fan of the changes. What were once Mythic Uniques will now drop far more frequently, with players having the option to craft them into even more powerful Mythic versions than existed previously.
“Personally I like this much more than [the] current situation of Mythic Unique,” they write. “70% of them are utter trash, and the rest are mandatory [items] that exist on every single build.”
Blizzard hasn’t yet fully explained its reasoning for the change or whether or not it will be a permanent addition to Diablo 4 or is just in place for Season 14. It’s possible the developer thinks this change will increase build variety and give players more options–something the community is always wanting to see more of. But if a greater variety of builds comes with the cost of far more work and hours of slogging through bad drops, it might not be a good trade.
The Diablo 4 Season 14 PTR will run from June 2-9, so perhaps player feedback will see Blizzard divert course on the Mythic Unique changes before the season’s launch on June 30.
