The first Diablo 4 expansion, Vessel of Hatred, has been out for nearly three weeks now. I’ve been playing it regularly, so I decided to share my thoughts on the expansion and the new game mechanics introduced or adjusted for Season 6.
The Spiritborn Class
The Spiritborn class centers around four Spirit Guardians: Centipede, Eagle, Gorilla, and Jaguar. Each Guardian gives players access to unique elements of Spiritborn capabilities, allowing for various damage styles, from Lightning and Fire to Poison. Each element corresponds to specific skills tied to a particular Guardian.
Overall, the class plays smoothly—it feels fluid, quick, and fun. I’ve mainly been using a Quill Volley-focused build, which utilizes a ranged attack, making it highly efficient for clearing dungeons and challenges. This build combines different Guardian abilities, providing a mix of benefits that enhance damage output or survivability.
However, a downside of the expansion is that nearly everyone is playing the Spiritborn class. It almost feels like other classes have been “deleted” because Spiritborn characters are so prevalent. It seems Blizzard decided to overpower the class upon release, likely to ensure its acceptance. While understandable, this imbalance disadvantages the existing classes, something that could have been avoided with more thorough testing before launch.
The Campaign
Vessel of Hatred picks up where the base game’s story left off. Neyrelle, a character from the base game, plays a central role, alongside Mephisto. The story lets players naturally explore the new area, Nahantu.
Unfortunately, the story feels bland, without any true “holy crap” moments. There’s a lot of repetition, like the frequent “speak to this person” quests that don’t add to the game’s quality. The campaign length is adequate, but by the end, it starts to feel like a chore before accessing the more exciting end-game mechanics. A positive aspect, however, is that Blizzard significantly increased the experience gained from the main questline, so players at least level up as they complete the campaign.
The campaign needs to be completed once to unlock the option to skip it in future playthroughs.
Nahantu: The New Area on the Map
With Nahantu, the game now has six areas to explore. Fittingly for the Spiritborn theme, Nahantu is a jungle setting, though it’s ominously dark and foreboding due to an evil influence.
The aesthetics of the area, dungeons, and mobs are impressive; you can tell a lot of effort went into creating its unique look and feel.
The area introduces several new features as part of the expansion:
- Mercenaries
- Timed Dungeon in Kurast Undercity
- Runes (socketable into weapons and armor)
- Multiplayer Dungeon called “Dark Citadel”
These new features bring plenty of fresh gameplay to the table. I’ll delve deeper into each in a separate post.
Missed Opportunities
With the addition of a new class, campaign, area, and end-game content, Blizzard has revitalized Diablo 4 going into Season 6. The timing, almost 1.5 years after the initial release, is good, as it adds new dynamics to the game.
However, as usual, there are areas for improvement.
Group Play
Despite introducing a Multiplayer Dungeon that requires 2+ players, Blizzard missed an opportunity to enhance group play. While the World Bosses are now tougher, they still aren’t as challenging as you’d expect—they’re beatable without much group synergy. Even with a team of five Spiritborns, you’ll manage fine; it just might take 15 seconds longer. There’s no death penalty, which lessens the need for cooperation.
Aside from the Dark Citadel, playing in a group mostly just allows players to voice chat, with no direct gameplay benefits.
Clans
Similarly, Clans offer limited value beyond providing a chatroom for friends and a way to form groups. While that’s useful, the new Party Finder feature largely covers this need. Since different classes and builds don’t need to complement each other, Party Finder is sufficient; the risk of failure is minimal.
One big oversight is the lack of a Clan Bank, a feature that would allow players to share items among clan members. In Diablo 2, sharing items was a big part of clan culture (this was one of the reasons the Alphagamer Forum started). A Clan Bank, where members could donate gear, weapons, crafting materials, gold, and runes, would incentivize joining a clan.
Finally, while Blizzard might avoid adding clan-specific content to ensure equal access for solo players, a few clan-exclusive challenges or content would add depth to clan interactions. Without at least a Clan Bank, clan features in Diablo 4 remain limited to social chat rooms rather than meaningful gameplay additions.
