Diablo 4’s War Plans system is getting a major upgrade in Season 16, giving players even more control over their endgame activities and rewards.
Developer Blizzard introduced War Plans earlier this year as part of the game’s second (and last) expansion, Lord of Hatred. It’s an endgame system where players can essentially create a playlist of endgame activities, along the way ranking up those activities via a skill tree to make them even more rewarding.
It was a welcome addition, but unfortunately only gave players minimal control over what activities would appear as part of their plans. Players could also only reroll their War Plans a limited number of times, meaning if you didn’t like a particular activity, oftentimes you were stuck having to do it.
All of that looks to be changing in Season 16 with the addition of a new meta-progression system called War Plans Tactics. By completing War Plan activities, players will be able to invest points into the tactics tree to make it so certain activities are more likely to appear and specific types of rewards will drop. How players reroll their War Plans is also changing, with a new currency called Marks of Wisdom that will cap at 20 and should let players reroll their plans more often.
As detailed by Blizzard in a blog post ahead of the season arriving on the Diablo 4 public test realm October 27, players will be able to assign up to three points into each endgame activity and up to three points into different types of rewards.
“Earn points from completing War Plans activities, then invest these points into nodes to increase the chance of preferred activities or rewards appearing,” Blizzard said. “This allows you to tailor your War Plans more closely with both your goals and playstyle.”
Putting at least one point into Helltides or Nightmare dungeons also grants the choice of increased chances for Greater Helltides and Escalation Nightmare dungeons, respectively. On the reward side, players will be able to make it so they are more likely to earn armor, weapons, jewelry, Obducite, salvage, gems, gold, activity keys, Horadric Cube materials, or Talisman items from activities.
The new tactics system isn’t the only change coming to War Plans. A new seasonal War Plans tree, Tyrael’s Boons, will also be coming with Season 16. There will be four Tyrael’s Boons’ paths to invest points into, with Blizzard stating players will be able to choose up to four of the six nodes within each path. Those four paths are:
- Curious Addition: Upgrades the Purveyor of Curiosities to increase the chances for more and higher quality items.
- Merchant of Mystery: Adds a new merchant in Torment difficulties that sell item caches in exchange for Forgotten Souls.
- Scent of Gold: Increases the amount of gold, experience, and materials you earn.
- Trash for Treasure: Reduces transmuting costs, increases chances to earn Obducite and salvage, and can even grant a new Horadric Cube recipe that allows players to upgrade a Tempered Affix on an item into a Greater Affix.
The changes to War Plans look to be the biggest features coming as part of Season 16, but there will additionally be a new type of gear to acquire, Horadric legendaries. These special legendaries will synergize with specific Talisman charms, with Horadric legendary jewelry items even counting for Talisman set bonuses. That should open the door to all kinds of new set and charm combinations that are sure to result in some wild new endgame builds.
Diablo 4 Season 16 will be playable on the PTR until November 3, with the full season set to launch December 1. Though Diablo 4 won’t be getting additional expansions, it will get a new class, the Amazon, in the first half of next year.
As for what’s next for the franchise, Diablo 5 is slated to arrive in 2029. Blizzard has already revealed three of the game’s playable classes and promised it will have more classes at launch than any previous Diablo game.
