Tuesday, October 27, 6 p.m. in Paris: that is when the Season 16 PTR for Diablo 4 opens. This time the date is official. Blizzard published it on October 22 in its article "The 3.3.0 PTR: What You Need to Know", together with the full patch notes. This public test server, where the studio lets players try a season before its release, runs for one week, on PC only.
The Season 16 PTR hours, in Paris time
Blizzard sets the opening on October 27 at 10 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) and the closing on November 3 at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST). The clocks change in between: Europe goes back to winter time on October 25, the United States on November 1. Our conversion therefore gives an opening on Tuesday, October 27 at 6 p.m. and a closing on Tuesday, November 3 at 7 p.m., Paris time. The one-hour gap between the two comes from that calendar offset, not from a mistake.
You install it from the Battle.net app: in the game list, the version menu next to the Play button offers "Public Test Realm". PC Game Pass also gives access, by launching Battle.net from the Xbox app. You need to create a new character, a seasonal one to test the season's new features.
Our site published a hypothesis of a PTR opening on October 20 on October 21. It relied on the pattern of the last two PTRs, including Season 15's (our 3.2.0 PTR notes), and it did not come true: the 20th passed without a test server. Only Blizzard's date counts.
What the PTR tests: War Plans, Boons and Horadric
The first system tested on the Season 16 PTR is War Plans (the activity objectives that give rewards). A new tree, War Plans Tactics, lets you spend points in nodes to raise the chance of seeing certain activities or certain rewards, with up to 3 points per node. The rewards involved range from armor and weapons to jewelry, Obducite, gems, gold and Talisman items. To change your choices, you no longer pay in gold: a new currency, Marks of Wisdom, serves as the respec currency (the way to reassign points). On the PTR, it is capped at 20.
Another new feature, Tyrael's Boons, a season-specific tree with four paths: Curious Addition, Merchant of Mystery, Scent of Gold and Trash for Treasure. Blizzard states that you can earn up to 132 points there, enough to pick up to 4 options out of 6, and that the Lord of Hatred expansion is not required to access it. Horadric Items, for their part, are legendary items tied to Talisman set bonuses: a Horadric piece of jewelry adds 1 to the number of pieces counted for a given set, so a single equipped charm is enough to activate the 2-piece bonus.
On the boss side, the Fractured Reaper joins forces with the previous season's Corrupted Reaper in the "Dual Threat" challenge at Pandemonium. Blizzard promises "epic" loot, to be earned. Maxroll covers all of these announcements in an article by Avarilyn, updated on October 23.
Druid: the end of tag stacking
For the Druid, the developer's note states the goal: tackling tag stacking (stacking labels such as Nature Magic or Shapeshifting, which make the legendary board upgrades work). Skills will no longer gain these tags through their upgrades and variants: they will be tied to the base skill. A build that relies on a single tag could thus, according to Blizzard, benefit from four legendary boards. MMOHuts (Kipp Stryxs, October 22) picked up on this Druid work.
The skill details say more than the principle. Petrify now has a base stun of 10 seconds, and its Resolve upgrade becomes "Stopping Power", which prevents enemies from becoming Unstoppable (immune to crowd control) for 5 seconds. Grizzly Rage no longer gives 100% Fortify (a fortified life bar) with its upgrade: it grants 8 stacks of Resolve, the resource Blizzard wants to separate from Fortify. In the same spirit, Landslide's Resolve upgrade is renamed "Overpower" and lets you consume up to 2 stacks to add one pillar per stack.
The Talisman moves too. For the Storm Shepherd set, the 2-piece bonus becomes 40% increased damage for Storm skills, with a 20% chance to Double Cast and a 5% chance to Triple Cast.
Paladin: Aura Potency, Fortress and Zealot Oath
On the Paladin side, the underlying change concerns Aura Potency: it now applies to the final value of an aura, skill ranks included. Before, it only inflated the base value, hence a weak effect when you raised your ranks. Blizzard describes a significant increase in power and compensates by lowering some sources: the 2-piece bonus of Cathan's Iron Conviction goes from 55% to 40% Aura Potency, and the unique Sundered Night from 160-200% to 140-180%.
Other figures for your builds: Fortress sees its Resolve-based damage bonus drop from 4% to 2% per stack, and it now only applies to Juggernaut skills. The Zealot Oath rises from 35% to 45% damage and gives 15% damage reduction at maximum Fervor. The 5-piece bonus of Cathan's Righteous Will goes from 15 to 20 seconds. For Cathan's Dauntless Faith, the Afterimages can now reuse Advance, which Blizzard presents as support for builds built around that skill.
The other classes, Season 16 and what we still don't know
Each of the eight classes has its own section in the notes. The Barbarian, for example, sees Double Swing damage go from 75% to 150% per hit. On the game side, Helltides (events with empowered enemies) will start on the hour in base-game zones and on the half hour in expansion zones, so that a Helltide is always active in the base zones. These are PTR values: they can still change before the season.
Two points remain open after this Season 16 PTR. Some Season 15 features (Season of Hell's Legacy, whose 3.2.3 hotfix had unblocked the seasonal quest) will carry over into Season 16, but they are not part of this PTR, and Blizzard promises more details next week. As for the Season 16 date, it has not been announced. The estimate of December 1, drawn from the expiry date of the Season 15 Reliquary (the seasonal battle pass), remains a deduction, not information from the studio.
The studio asks players for feedback: "Your feedback on the changes you will see and experience in the PTR is important to us". It goes through the in-game feedback tool, reachable with the Esc key, or through the PTR forums.
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