In Diablo 4, you usually see numbers indicating how much damage you deal. For many, this is an important tool to assess the strength of their build. One player accidentally played for weeks without damage numbers and draws a conclusion.
What’s the deal with damage numbers? Especially strong builds that cause enormous damage flood your screens with damage numbers when you play Diablo 4. It’s practical to keep an eye on the damage, but for many, it’s also a real immersion killer. The numbers often overlay the actual action.
Not only can you disable the damage numbers, but all combat text in the game can be turned off as well. That’s exactly what happened to one player—though accidentally. He has been playing the entire current season without damage numbers, roughly for eight weeks, if he started right at the start of Season 9.
Players find: Damage numbers disturb immersion
What does the player say about the damage numbers? In a post on Reddit, the user unknownholiday reports that he turned off all damage numbers in Diablo 4 at the end of Season 8. At that time, his build was so strong that he was “melting everything away” anyway. When Season 9 began, the setting remained unnoticed active, and he played for weeks without the usual flood of numbers.
“And now … I don’t think I can go back,” he says.
His conclusion: “It’s really a much more enjoyable gaming experience without the whole mess of almost arbitrary numbers popping up everywhere. I can only absolutely recommend it!” The only reason he sees to turn them back on is for the training dummy, to measure maximum values or the frequency of critical hits and “overwhelming”.
Many other players share his opinion. Strungeng writes: “Once you turn off the numbers, there’s no going back. They provide NOTHING but screen chaos and performance issues.”
And DanBalls mentions that he has always played without damage numbers. “It completely destroys immersion. It’s a beautiful game when you remove as much overlay as possible […], to enjoy the details.”
The issue of damage numbers has been a topic of discussion in the community for a while. Back in April 2024, it was said that the “number diarrhea” significantly impairs the game feel of Diablo 4. Without the pop-ups, the world of the ARPG feels more immersive – you can enjoy the fights, animations, and effects in a different way.
Especially builds that throw around damage values in the billions cause the numbers to completely flood the screen. You can see which classes and builds currently dominate Season 9 and are responsible for the most absurd damage numbers in our tier list: Diablo 4 Season 9: Tier List with the best builds.
