The goal of this major change is to give players more agency in how they build their characters. A new item isn’t just a stat stick designed to increase your power. Instead, each new item presents you with choice. If you upgrade for stats, you may lose some Demonic Power, and therefore an affix that really makes your build sing Diablo IV Items.

This plays into another major change for the franchise. Attack and defense stats are now only on related items. If you want to increase your attack, you’ll need to change out your weapons. If you’re looking to bolster your defense, you need to find better armor.

This removes some of the frustration from Diablo 3 of finding a great new sword that makes your hero far too easy to kill. But Blizzard clearly states in the post that only picking items based on stats won’t be the optimal way to play. However, it’s still a viable choice for players who don’t want to fuss with all the stats and affixes.

The studio also declares that items are only a piece of the puzzle for Diablo heroes. If you want to truly increase your power, you’ll need to upgrade your skill ranks, character level, talent trees, the end game progression system, and the items you wear. Power comes from everywhere in Diablo 4, a key difference from Diablo 3.

Finally, the studio revealed that it’s removing Ancient Legendaries from the game. Ancients used to be very rare, super powerful versions of Legendary items. Instead, there’s a new, yet unnamed consumable item to customize late-game builds cheap Diablo 4 Items. This new item will drop from destroyed enemies with a random Legendary power attached. Players can then attach the Legendary power to any non-Legendary item.