Blizzard sums up Season 15 in one formula: power, with a bite. The Soul Splinters are eight items you socket into jewelry, and each one grants a massive bonus by taking away something that matters. A hundred percent more damage, but no more Critical Strike Chance at all. Forty percent more Maximum Health, but a third less Primary Resource. None of them is a free upgrade.
The PTR ran from August 4 to August 11, PC only, and the season kicks off on September 15. Here's how the system works, what the eight Splinters are worth, and the combos the community has already spotted.
How Soul Splinters Work
A Soul Splinter is set into a socket on a piece of jewelry. That means three slots total: the two rings and the amulet. That limit of three shapes your entire approach, since every slot you use is a trade-off you're accepting for good.
Every Splinter brings three things at once. A resistance, elemental or physical, that costs nothing and simply stacks. A signature effect, which is the real reason to wear it. And a permanent drawback, active for as long as the Splinter stays socketed.
Five rarities exist: Common, Magic, Rare, Legendary, and Unique. The higher the rarity, the stronger the signature effect. The drawback, though, stays identical across the whole scale. A Common Splinter costs you just as much as a Unique one while giving you far less. Upgrading rarity becomes a priority from the first few hours.
Splinters drop in combat at any rarity, and the Horadric Cube lets you upgrade the weaker ones. For the details on the patch's other additions, we went through the full PTR 3.2.0 patch notes.
The Eight Splinters: What They Give and What They Take
The values below come from the PTR. The ranges track the rarity ladder, from weakest to strongest.
| Splinter | What It Gives | What It Costs | Resistance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Splinter of Anguish Anguish | 15 to 35% Critical Strike Chance and Attack Speed | Primary Resource cost increased by 30% | Fire |
| Splinter of Sin Sin | 10 to 40% Maximum Health, multiplicative | Primary Resource pool reduced by 30% | Lightning |
| Splinter of Lies Lies | 40 to 100% Gold and crafting materials, plus 25% experience | You are permanently Weakened and Vulnerable | Cold |
| Splinter of the Black Soulstone Black Soulstone | Every enemy you kill grants a soul for 15 seconds, and each soul adds 2 to 5% multiplicative damage | Each soul also increases damage taken by 0.5% | All Resistances |
| Splinter of Pain Pain | 10 to 40% Damage Reduction | 30% less Movement Speed | Poison |
| Splinter of the Mother The Mother | You are Unhindered, and simple contact makes enemies Vulnerable for 10 seconds | After hitting 100 to 250 enemies, you are Stunned for 4 seconds | Physical |
| Splinter of Hellfire Hellfire | 40 to 100% multiplicative damage | 100% less Critical Strike Chance | All Elements |
| Splinter of Damnation Damnation | Every elite pack you kill increases Monster Power by 1 for 10 to 25 seconds | The effect is the risk: monsters get tougher the longer your streak runs | Shadow |
One detail changes everything about Splinter of the Mother. The counter tracks enemies hit, not time elapsed. A character who plows through tight packs will hit that stun far faster than a character who plays at range. The same Splinter doesn't cost the same at all depending on how you play.
The Combos That Change Everything
Two Splinters placed side by side can cancel each other out. Splinter of Hellfire offers up to a hundred percent multiplicative damage and wipes out your entire Critical Strike Chance. Splinter of Anguish gives back up to thirty-five. Maxroll tested the pairing during the PTR and reckons Anguish is enough to cancel out Hellfire's drawback for a crit build.
Splinter of Pain stacks differently. Its Damage Reduction combines multiplicatively with the rest of your gear. Maxroll's writers describe characters becoming impossible to kill once the Splinter is pushed to its highest rarity.
The most talked-about piece from the PTR isn't a Splinter at all. Leoric's Crown is a Unique from Diablo 3, reintroduced with Season 15. It counts as a piece of jewelry and amplifies whatever is socketed into it. According to Maxroll's roundup, it accepts up to two Soul Splinters and doubles their positive effects while leaving the drawbacks untouched. A fourth and fifth slot, with double the output.
If this reading holds up at launch, the Crown becomes the season's most sought-after item. It would also redefine the helm slot for every class. Maxroll's team goes as far as writing that the power drawn from the Splinters makes you forget the nerfs taken in the same patch.
Which One to Pick for Your Build
The choice rarely comes down to the single best Soul Splinter overall. It comes down to what your build can afford to lose.
- Crit build: Splinter of Anguish is the obvious pick, and it opens the door to Hellfire as a second. Keep an eye on resource consumption, which climbs by thirty percent.
- Non-crit build (minions, damage over time, area effects that don't crit): Splinter of Hellfire costs you nothing at all. A hundred percent multiplicative damage against a penalty that doesn't apply to you.
- Squishy endgame build: Splinter of Pain and Splinter of Sin complement each other well, provided you accept the mobility loss and a shorter resource bar.
- Melee build that plows through packs: avoid Splinter of the Mother. The four-second stun will hit at the worst possible moment, and it will hit often.
- Farming sessions: Splinter of Lies doubles Gold and materials, and adds twenty-five percent experience. Permanently Weakened and Vulnerable makes it a Splinter reserved for content you've already mastered.
- Pushing difficulty: Splinter of Damnation rewards clean chains of kills. On a well-tuned character, the rising Monster Power translates into better loot; on a middling one, it translates into a death.
One last methodological point. Soul Splinters take up jewelry sockets, so they compete with whatever you were socketing there before. The math isn't between a Splinter and nothing at all, it's between a Splinter and the gem it replaces.
What's Left to Do Before September 15
The numbers in this article come from the PTR, and Blizzard almost always tunes things after this phase. Treat the ranges as ballpark figures rather than final values. The structure of the system, on the other hand, is unlikely to change: three jewelry sockets, five rarities, a bonus against a drawback.
You can already start planning your setups without waiting. D4Guides has opened the Season 15 preview in its planner while Season 14 keeps running. Soul Splinter combos can be tested even before launch.
Three other threads are running in parallel. Challenge Dungeons open free difficulty jumps from portals crossed outdoors. Rebirth lets you carry an Eternal character into the season without starting from zero. And for the exact date, Season 14's Reliquary has been giving it away for several weeks already.
One question remains open, one the PTR didn't settle: how often will Unique-rarity Splinters actually drop in-game? The whole balance of the system hinges on it, since a permanent drawback only makes sense if the bonus that comes with it hits the top of its range.
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