Season of the Construct is underway in Diablo 4, and naturally, the first week or so of a new season sees some patches released to tweak and fix any issues and address some of the concerns players have raised. This time around, it’s been the Seneschal Companion that has gotten some love and improvements.
As always, we encourage you to read the full patch notes for all the details, but we have taken the time to highlight some of the key points and additions in patch 1.3.1 and laid them out for you so you can see what’s changing in Sanctuary.
Related: Diablo 4 Lunar Awakening: Everything We Know About Lunar Shrines, Tasks, & Rewards
Seneschal Companion Buffs Make Your Mechanical Ally Even Stronger
The biggest and main feature of the patch is the buff to the Seneschal Companion, which sees most of the Governing Stones and a handful of Tuning Stones getting pretty hefty buffs, making them stronger and better allies in Season of the Construct.
During the season launch, many players felt the Seneschal Companion didn’t have the same impact or power seen in the Vampiric Powers from the previous season, Season of Blood. These changes, along with some others made in a smaller update last week, seem to address these concerns and look to make this season’s primary feature a little more worthwhile for players.
Affix Tweaks and Dungeon Adjustments
In addition to these buffs for the Seneschal Companion, a few nerfs and adjustments have been made to some Affixes that have proven to be a little too tough or unclear for players. These being the Vampiric and Suppressor Affixes.
For Vampiric, the amount the affix will heal a monster has been reduced across all World Tiers, which are listed below.
- World Tier I: 10% → 5%
- World Tier II: 20% → 10%
- World Tier III: 35% → 15%
- World Tier IV: 50% → 25%
In addition, the developers have stated they intend to make additional improvements, such as better visual effects to make it clearer to players.
As for Suppressor, this affix will no longer always be on and instead has a six-second duration and a 50-75% uptime, and can be cancelled when you inflict Stunned, Frozen, Knocked Down, or Dazed on the enemy with the affix.
Related: Diablo 4: Season 3 Class Tier List (Best Classes This Season)
Lastly, Nightmare Dungeon Sigils will now display the levels that monsters will be in that Nightmare Dungeon, and several dungeons have had some adjustments to their monster spawns and layouts.
Bug Fixes
Along with these changes, there have been the usual bug fixes and tweaks to make the game a better experience and address some issues found by players. We have listed all the details for these fixes in Patch 1.3.1 below.
Accessibility
- Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader did not read out Available Points in the skill tree or paragon menus.
- Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader didn’t function properly when viewing possible Affixes when enchanting.
- Fixed an issue where the Screen reader didn’t announce if an active Governing Stone would function with a highlighted Tuning Stone.
- Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader pronounced the rank incorrectly when ranking up the Seneschal.
- Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader didn’t properly communicate the text related to Smoldering Ashes.
- Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader didn’t read out the titles of the Tabs in the Social Menu.
Season of the Construct
- Fixed an issue where Season Journey Chapters V and VI did not reflect the Item Power for the rewards received from completing the chapters.
- Fixed an issue where Ayuzhan was missing from the Gatehall after the Seasonal Questline was completed.
- Fixed an issue where Ayuzhan didn’t attack enemies during The Tumor quest.
- Fixed an issue where a Duplicate Ayuzhan could be seen during the A Body Stolen, A Body Made quest. (Look in my eyes—I’ve got double vision).
- Fixed an issue where A Body Stolen, a Body Made could have progression blocked if all enemies were killed before the objective updates to Destroy the Corrupted Runestones.
- Fixed an issue where the fog wall encounter in the A Body Stolen, a Body Made quest could malfunction when playing in a party.
- Fixed an issue where the player could get stuck between a wall and a chest during The Miracle quest.
- Fixed an issue where items carried on the player character’s back could become invisible during The Miracle quest.
- Fixed an issue where The World He Knew quest could not be completed if all Seneschal stones had already been upgraded to max level.
- Fixed an issue where The World He Knew quest displayed that the player must craft a Tuning Stone, when instead the objective is to craft a Seneschal Cache.
- Fixed an issue where progressing through the Drums of the Vault quest could cause instability in Local Co-op play.
- Fixed multiple issues where quest progression for A Suppurated Wound could be blocked if the player teleported away and back.
- Fixed an issue where the dungeon could be left before completing The Ennead quest.
- Fixed an issue where the Seneschal ability Gyrate displayed an incorrect damage value for the next rank of the ability.
- Fixed an issue where Chill stacks from the Seneschal’s Frigid Support ability would not apply in certain circumstances, such as when the player dies and is revived.
- Fixed an issue where Damage Over Time effects applied by a Seneschal did not benefit from Class Passives or Legendary item effects, such as Burning damage not benefiting from Sorcerer’s Warmth.
- Fixed various other UI issues related to the Seneschal.
- Fixed an issue where Seneschal Caches could be opened before acquiring a Seneschal, which would result in getting nothing from the Cache.
- Fixed an issue where Tuning and Governing Stone’s rarities didn’t display properly when socketed.
- Fixed an issue where Slowing Tuning Stones had the wrong name in the tooltip when dropped on the ground.
- Fixed an issue where multiple Tuning Stone tooltips wouldn’t update when paired with a Duration Stone.
- Fixed an issue where Son of Malphas could be damaged by traps, which could lead to players first encountering him with low health.
- Fixed an issue where Turret traps could fire invisible projectiles.
- Fixed an issue where Lightning Floor traps could still affect player characters with various Immune effects active, such as Bloodmist or Deep Freeze.
- Fixed an issue where Rotating Pillar traps could not fully go back underground if the player died and came back to where the trap was.
- Fixed an issue where the visual effect for damage over time applied by trapped chests did not last the entire duration of the damage.
- Fixed an issue where the Gatehall displayed an Alchemist as an available service in the map.
- Fixed an issue where the Ritual of Undoing menu displayed placeholder text.
- Fixed an issue where players couldn’t use Leave Dungeon while inside the Library in various circumstances.
- Fixed an issue where the warning prompt about removing charges was missing when using Leave Dungeon to exit a Vault.
- Various miscellaneous fixes for the Seasonal Questline.
Gameplay
- Fixed an issue where the Ring of Starless Skies wouldn’t grant stacks when casting channeled skills.
- Fixed an issue where a Rogue being Frozen mid-Dash could be unable to cast any Skills.
- Fixed an issue where Bloodmarked could not be cleansed if it was applied while mounted.
- Fixed an issue where Whirlwind could channel and stay in place when using keyboard navigation or in certain circumstances when using a controller.
Dungeons and Strongholds
- Fixed an issue where Animus could not drop in the Broken Bulwark or Dark Ravine, which would block progression.
- Fixed an issue where the fog wall in the Zenith could be passed through while the player was under the effect of a Conduit Shrine.
- Fixed an issue where the Slay all Enemies objective in various Dungeons could fail to update properly, which would block progression.
- Fixed an issue where Baelgemoth in Tur Dulra could leave the boss arena if another player in the party was outside the fog wall.
- Fixed an issue where players could sometimes not leave a Dungeon through the emote wheel action or the Dungeon’s entrance.
- Fixed an issue where Watchmen could spawn outside the map in Light’s Watch, which would block progression.
- Fixed an issue where progression in the Fallen Temple could be blocked if the Idol was killed too quickly.
User Interface and User Experience
- Fixed an issue where the Sorcerer’s Incinerate skill didn’t have additional visual effects when cast with 10+ Ranks.
- Fixed an issue where hits from the Barbarian’s Frenzy did not display damage numbers consistently.
- Fixed an issue where Damage over Time visual effects didn’t appear correctly on some Necromancers.
- Fixed an issue where players could move around with keyboard controls while engaged in a trade.
- Fixed an issue where movement was not interrupted when using keyboard controls and interacting with the Stash.
- Fixed an issue where mouse interaction with chat could malfunction when keyboard controls were enabled.
- Fixed an issue where the selection would not be saved when applying a Cosmetic in the Effects tab.
- Fixed an issue where actions mapped to the action wheel could still function while in menus, which could cause odd behaviors.
- Fixed an issue where Battle Pass rewards that granted a Title only displayed the prefix and not the suffix of the Title.
- Fixed an issue where the names for the Enhanced Penetrating Shot and Improved Penetrating Shot skills were reversed.
- Fixed an issue where the notification for new Cosmetics in the Stable wouldn’t disappear.
- Fixed an issue where stat comparisons between two items or when upgrading could display inaccurately if the item(s) being compared had multiple sources of the same stat (Ex: Comparing two totems with Cooldown Reduction—both have Cooldown Reduction as an inherent affix and as an additional affix).
- Fixed an issue where assigned emotes could still be labeled as unassigned in the Emote menu.
- Fixed an issue where the cursor would not be visible when opening a lore book while using keyboard navigation.
- Fixed an issue where assigning Skills to number pad keys did not properly display what the Skill bindings were in the UI.
- Fixed an issue where the players listed in Local Players were not sorted properly.
- Fixed an issue where the Reset to Default button in options menus didn’t function.
- Fixed an issue where the game could become unstable when viewing the Well Supplied Challenge in Collections.
- Fixed multiple issues where the settings for changing between keyboard and mouse navigation had slightly inaccurate description text.
- Fixed multiple instances where fog of war was not displaying properly.
- Various quality-of-life fixes for Respec Mode.
Miscellaneous
- Fixed various instances where invites would not send properly while having a Local Co-Op player in the party.
- Fixed an issue where crafting the Elixir of Lightning Resistance failed to count for the Master Mixology challenge.
- Fixed an issue where the equipped Portal Cosmetic did not apply to Portals used when teleporting to a Nightmare Dungeon through the map.
- Fixed an issue where Harlequin Crest was the wrong color when equipped.
- Various performance, stability, visual, UI, and audio improvements.
