Diablo 4 Weekly News: Season 12 PTR & Lord of Hatred Leak
If you’ve been waiting for real movement in Diablo IV, this is finally the week where things start lining up — even if Season 12 itself looks like a throwaway.
Blizzard’s 30th Anniversary Diablo spotlight goes live on February 11, and it’s shaping up to be the first meaningful systems update since launch. According to this week’s breakdown by Rhykker, Blizzard will reveal:
The second playable class coming with the Lord of Hatred expansion
A full look at Diablo 4’s new skill tree and endgame system
Major updates for Diablo Immortal and Diablo II: Resurrected
There’s also a Diablo 4 developer Q&A scheduled for February 12 inside the Sanctuary Discord.
This matters — because everything happening right now on the Season 12 PTR feels like groundwork for that expansion, not a season meant to stand on its own.
The Lord of Hatred Class Just Leaked (And It’s Not What You Expect)
Speculation about Diablo 4’s second expansion class basically ended this week.
Players logging into the Season 12 PTR without owning Lord of Hatred were greeted by a splash screen showing a massive blood-mage style character standing next to the Paladin. Shortly after, datamined strings surfaced containing the word “Warlock.”
Blizzard often uses internal placeholder names, so don’t lock onto “Warlock” too hard. It could ship as a Diabolist, Demonologist, Blood Mage — whatever. The important part is this:
Visually and mechanically, this class doesn’t resemble anything Diablo has shipped before.
This isn’t Necromancer 2.0.
This isn’t Witch Doctor.
It looks like an entirely new archetype.
We’ll get the official reveal in days, but the leak already confirms Blizzard is finally taking risks with class identity.
That’s a good sign.
Season 12 PTR: Killstreaks, Bloodied Items, and Why It Feels Empty
Season 12 introduces a killstreak-based theme with a new item category called Bloodied gear.
These items roll Bloodied affixes that scale off your killstreak.
On paper, that sounds interesting.
In practice, it collapses fast.
Killstreak bonuses don’t function against bosses, which immediately makes these items useless in any meaningful endgame scenario. In open content like Helltides, fast-clearing builds (especially Sorcerers) erase mobs before slower classes can even tag enemies, killing streak consistency altogether.
Leveling XP from killstreaks also feels weak compared to Diablo III’s massacre bonuses. Instead of rewarding aggressive pacing, the system feels muted and unrewarding.
There is one small upside: Bloodied affixes stack.
One roll feels pointless.
Three identical rolls start to become noticeable.
Still — this isn’t enough to carry a season.
Bloodied Sigils Preview Expansion Reward Systems
Nightmare dungeon keys can now drop as Bloodied Sigils.
These versions increase difficulty by roughly one Torment level and permanently spawn the Butcher, who relentlessly hunts you through the dungeon. Kill him, he respawns. Rewards scale upward accordingly.
This isn’t revolutionary — but it’s clearly a preview of the reward-juicing mechanics Blizzard is building for Lord of Hatred.
Season 12 isn’t the destination.
It’s the test environment.
Blizzard Basically Admitted Season 12 Is a Filler Season
Blizzard officially described Season 12 as:
“A focused, streamlined season supporting our broader roadmap toward launch of the Lord of Hatred expansion.”
Translation: shorter and smaller.
Season 11 ends March 10.
Lord of Hatred launches April 28.
That leaves Season 12 running at roughly half the length of a normal season.
This will likely be the most skippable Diablo 4 season to date.
Personally? That’s fine.
A short filler season beats extending Season 11 or doing nothing at all. At least this gives players a reason to log in briefly before the expansion drops.
Surprise Features Still Hidden
PTR access doesn’t show everything.
Datamined UI references include:
A new Butcher lair boss
Objectives like “kill monsters as the Butcher”
None of this is playable yet.
Blizzard is holding content back for launch, which tells us Season 12 is intentionally barebones while they prep expansion systems.
Paladin Armor Stacking Exploit Finally Dies
The Castle legendary paragon node allowed Paladins to stack armor into absurd damage multipliers — over 10,000% in some builds.
That’s gone.
Blizzard reworked the node entirely. Paladins now average around 100% bonus damage instead, translating to roughly a 15 Pit tier drop across builds.
They also buffed other Paladin skills to compensate.
End result:
Paladin remains strong.
The exploit gameplay is dead.
This brings the class back in line with the rest of the roster instead of letting it dominate through unintended scaling.
Healthy change.
Lunar Awakening Returns February 12–26
Lunar Awakening is back with reskinned cosmetics and free rewards.
Nothing major here — but Blizzard has kept events rolling steadily this season, which at least maintains some momentum between patches.
Verdict
Season 12 is filler.
The leaked Lord of Hatred class is the real story.
Bloodied systems are clearly expansion prototypes.
Paladin needed that nerf.
And February 11 is the moment Diablo 4 either proves it’s evolving — or confirms Blizzard is still stuck in seasonal busywork.
Everything else this week is noise.
