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Look—it's great that paladins have finally made it into Diablo 4, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun to play them without the massive shakeup to loot in the latest season. A good action RPG needs exciting items to chase and Blizzard has finally cracked how to do that in a game with piles and piles of loot.
I can't imagine playing Diablo 4 without sanctification, a new crafting system that is technically exclusive to the season but shouldn't be because it's almost perfect. It is responsible for dramatically improving the core loop of the game in ways I wasn't really expecting after playing with an unfinished version on the test server a few months ago.
Sanctification is essentially a way to gamble with items for a chance at extraordinary outcomes. You take a piece of gear to a special forge and roll the dice to see what new bonuses are added to them. And those bonuses aren't always some extra strength or maximum life; they can add effects from the best items in the game. A forgettable pair of gloves can become the most powerful gloves you've ever worn, if you're lucky enough.
This means every piece of loot is an opportunity for something amazing. Diablo 4 has previously failed to keep loot exciting once you've found the right pieces for your build: Unlike other action RPGs, upgrades quickly become too inconsequential to matter much. The root of the problem was that items had almost no variance, with most having the same handful of stats and only varying by the legendary effect you imprint on them. Two players running similar builds would basically have identical gear without even trying.
Now, everyone has something different and gets to build their characters differently as a result, and it's all thanks to sanctification. The very first item I ever sanctified was a low-level shield that randomly got the same bonus as an amulet you can't even wear until you're far into the endgame. Suddenly I was leveling my paladin up with the power of a mythic item that swaps your mana (or faith for paladins) into your health. Later on, sanctifying my gloves granted them a second legendary effect that I was already using on another piece of gear, which freed up a slot for one I wanted to use but didn't previously have room for.
Instead of trashing inventories full of loot, I'm actually looking at the most valuable pieces and saving them to sanctify.
There aren't really any bad outcomes other than a rare chance for sanctification to replace an existing stat with something else. Blizzard designed it so there's really no fear of using it. The only downside is that you can't modify an item in any way after, which just means you gotta find new items in order to keep trying. And given the variety of bonuses you can get, it's always worth doing no matter how perfect your character is.
Players have been showing off their most impressive sanctification outcomes all over the Diablo subreddit and official Discord. One person managed to duplicate the effect on the best helmet in the game, giving them not just four but eight free points in every skill. When I finally pick one up myself, you can bet I'll be standing over that heavenly forge and praying for the same result.
Instead of trashing inventories full of loot, I'm actually looking at the most valuable pieces and saving them to sanctify. Maybe that's why Blizzard included an extra stash tab when you pre-order the Lord of Hatred expansion. I've turned into a loot hoarder because the sanctification slot machine isn't going to pull itself.
New sanctification can have some wild outcomes! from r/diablo4
I'd argue that sanctification—and to a lesser extent the reworks to tempering and masterworking—is a far more important change to Diablo 4 than introducing paladins. Don't get me wrong, I am having a blast crashing down on enemies from the heavens with a tornado of holy hammers on my paladin, but I'm having a lot more fun picking up loot that I actually care about a week into the season.
This bodes well for what's coming in the expansion next year.
Gearing up your character is actually a journey with unexpected steps to work around now. Diablo 4 was in desperate need of giving you that kind of ownership over your character, especially when games like Path of Exile have had this figured out for decades. It took a few years for Diablo 4 to get here, but all the reworks are finally starting to pay off.
This bodes well for what's coming in the expansion next year. Blizzard has already teased that Diablo 2's Horadric Cube will make a return, bringing with it traditional recipe-based item crafting. If it keeps sanctification around, you might be able to create a piece of gear entirely from scratch that competes with the best items in the game. This season is already a taste of what it's like to have items that feel entirely your own and I think it's only going to get better next year.
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