In just a few days, the first expansion for Diablo 4 will launch with Vessel of Hatred. MeinMMO editor and Diablo expert Benedict Grothaus was able to play it in advance and faced greater difficulties than he wants to admit – despite a lot of experience. Is Vessel of Hatred that tough?
Since its release in 2023, Diablo 4 has become one of my main games, to which I return for a few weeks at least every season. The Battle.net doesn’t show me an exact playtime, but based on my cumulative character levels, I should be somewhere just beyond 300 hours.
On top of that, there are dozens of hours in Diablo 2 and Diablo Immortal, and more time in Diablo 3 than would be healthy. Now, I have already had the chance to play the new expansion for Diablo 4 for several hours in advance.
Months ago, Blizzard invited MeinMMO to test the Spiritborn at their home in Los Angeles. Now I had access to the full game for a week and can say that I really like Vessel of Hatred.
Unfortunately, my test was a bit shorter than hoped, and I barely made it just under the new maximum level 60, but I completed the entire campaign and saw some endgame content. What stood out to me was that I had real problems, even on the lowest difficulty.
Campaign instead of season is more exhausting than expected
Those who own Vessel of Hatred can choose when creating a new character to either play the campaign of Vessel of Hatred, complete the entire campaign, or – if the campaign has already been completed – start directly with the concurrently launching Season 6.
Since Season 6 has already been extensively tested and the feedback has certainly reached Blizzard, I took a look at the campaign. Here are my impressions summarized:
- Nahantu is actually a beautiful region and much more than just a green jungle hell full of poison, snakes, and spiders.
- There is significantly more lore behind the indigenous people and the city of Kurast than I previously thought. And even as a story nerd, I could learn something.
- Yes, the really annoying enemies are back – as far as I can see, but fortunately somewhat toned down.
- The story of Vessel of Hatred is great, even if my colleagues from GameStar vehemently disagree. However, I don’t want to spoil anything just yet.
As in the campaign of the base game, the quests mainly introduce the new area. However, what is missing: loot. Occasionally there is a boss fight, but from the regular enemies you encounter, there is hardly any noteworthy loot. The only exception is the revised loot goblins, who always have something good.
In the newly revised difficulty levels, I foolishly chose “Hard” right away since I usually start on world level 2. Even the first miniboss of the story kicked my butt so hard that I played the rest only on “Normal”.
A fresh account has a really hard time
It should be noted that we did not have access to the achievements of our main accounts for testing, meaning: My collected Lilith statues and all reputation in other areas were not available.
I had to cope with fewer skill points, lower stats, and especially fewer potion slots than usual. So it was exactly as if I were a completely fresh player just starting with Vessel of Hatred.
By now, I know the community quite well and understand how much people love to brag about completing the toughest content as quickly as possible or already achieving a way too high difficulty with level 1. World level 1 is absolutely frowned upon.
New players might find that intimidating, but as an expert, I say: Ignore what people are babbling. “Normal” is perfectly fine for the start. As soon as you have some gear and understand how your class and build work, you can crank it up.
Nice bonus: Blizzard directly gives tips in the game about when which difficulty level is advisable. You can use that as a rough guideline.
This is what it looks like when you have assembled some gear:
In Vessel of Hatred, you need to rethink everything
Even veterans need to learn a lot of new things in the game. With Vessel of Hatred, there are no huge numbers anymore, at least if the values from our test are accurate. I noticed that in LA as well. Back then, it was said that it was due to the test build.
However, when I look at the new uniques from the spiritborn and especially the values there, the “number squish” seems quite real. With up to nearly 500 bonus life on the highest item level, you wouldn’t get very far in Season 5.
A similar situation applies to armor or damage. A bonus of 100 damage is already a decent boost by level 60. So those who have been playing Diablo 4 since its release will first have to get used to not dealing multiple billions of damage anymore – or even more:
I had a similar impression of Vessel of Hatred while playing as I did when testing Diablo 4 itself: it is significantly tougher than I know Diablo to be. Back then, I also played a druid, who was way too weak at that time.
Similarly, it may be the case now. The spiritborn feels a bit wobbly on its feet especially at early levels, but with a good build towards the end, it becomes really strong. Even with mediocre gear, I could venture into higher difficulties.
Nonetheless, I think that Vessel of Hatred will provide more of a challenge in the first weeks than Diablo 4 currently does. How quickly people will then find completely insane meta builds remains to be seen. The first build creators are already hard at work: All classes in Diablo 4 will receive new skills with Season 6 – an expert has already built an absurd build with it
