On June 17, Patch 1.4.3 for the Mid-Season of Diablo 4 went live and fixed several bugs in the game. The seasonal elixir was also supposed to be fixed – now it is completely broken.
- Patch 1.4.3 brought some buffs for all classes in Diablo 4 during the Mid-Season. However, players find that: Two classes deserve much more love and are getting overshadowed by the strongest builds.
- The patch also adjusted the difficulty levels of the Endgame activity “The Pit”. All players should be able to access their materials for Masterworking (completion).
- Additionally, bugs were fixed, including one that caused the new pets to be recognized as minions. The seasonal “Holy Bolt” elixir was also defective.
The “Holy Bolt” elixir is a seasonal elixir that came with Season 4 in Diablo 4, alongside the “Elixir of Momentum.” The “Holy Bolt” elixir grants you two strong bonuses:
- After you kill an enemy, holy bolts are shot from their corpse
- XP gain is increased by 6%
The elixir came with Season 4 in Diablo 4. If you missed the trailer for the new season, you can watch it here:
Elixir was especially strong against bosses
Why was the elixir the most important seasonal tool? Before the bug fix, the damage dealt by the elixir was related to the health of the enemies. This made it especially strong against bosses and elite enemies. For necromancers, this provided a particularly strong effect, because: The elixir triggered when you killed an enemy, but also when your servants did the job. This effectively turned servants into bosses.
After the patch, however, the damage now scales with the damage of your weapons. How strong the elixir still is after the patch will become apparent as soon as it functions properly again.
What exactly was changed? Before Patch 1.4.3, the “Holy Bolt” elixir caused the damage to scale “unintentionally high” when you had minions with you. It was apparently just too strong when players fought against powerful enemies. This was supposed to be addressed with the patch.
Blizzard writes the following in the patch notes:
The Holy [Bolt] elixir now deals a percentage of your weapon damage as damage instead of a percentage of the enemy’s health. This change aims to reduce effectiveness against stronger enemies in higher tiers of the Pit […].
news.blizzard.com
However, the overhaul of the elixir apparently introduced a new bug into the game: Activating the “Holy Bolt” elixir caused crashes. Currently, you can’t use it at all. Its effectiveness against bosses and elite enemies has also been weakened.
Why is the elixir broken? On one hand, the change in damage means that the elixir is no longer as strong against bosses. Additionally, community manager Adam Fletcher wrote in the Diablo 4 forum on June 17 that the “Holy Bolt” elixir is apparently causing game crashes.
The specific “power” of the elixir has been disabled. While players were still able to use the potion at that time, Fletcher did not recommend doing so. The team is working on a solution.
Elixir is now completely disabled
Has the issue been resolved? The current status is that the issue has not been resolved; on the contrary. In the game, the “Holy Bolt” elixir has now been completely disabled. When you use it, you hear the usual sound, but nothing happens; no icon appears above the skill bar. You have the same number of potions after using it as you did before.
The adjustment of the powerful elixir was also related to the “Pit.” The developers wanted to reduce its effectiveness against strong enemies in higher tiers of the Pit. However, the elixir was still intended to be useful in the game. Especially the high tiers of the Pit are quite a tough nut to crack. The patch adjusted the difficulty levels of the Pit; before that, players were asking if the high levels are even doable without cheats.
