Recently, many players have done some data mining and leaks regarding potential themes for Diablo 4 Season 4, and some of these leaks have the potential to change the future of Diablo 4.
But in this guide, we’re going to focus on one of the most interesting parts of this leak, which is a new Diablo 4 Item. It was both data mined and discovered on Season 4 PTR.
Profane Mindcage Elixir Explained
This Elixir has some very interesting effects, and I think these effects have the potential to be applied to more elements currently in Diablo 4, and that’s Profane Mindcage Elixir.
This is a rare elixir that increases Helltide monster level by 10 levels and increases Cinder drop rate and Threat gain for 60 minutes. So basically this Elixir offers players the ability to increase the difficulty and rewards of Helltide for an hour. But if you extend this type of system to other content, you get some very interesting possibilities.
If you can collect a bunch of these Elixirs and stack them up, you can significantly increase Helltide monster level, as well as Cinder drops and Threat gain. This is basically the most important part of all in overhaul Helltide.
How Will This Elixir Affect The Game?
Now this Elixir is interesting on its own, but this effect can be applied to many other systems in Diablo 4, making them even more interesting.
Increase The Difficulty Of The Open World
It’s no secret that almost all of Diablo 4’s open world content is very simple, but this is actually a negative throughout the game’s life cycle. Because once you reach the max level, there’s almost nothing to do.
But overhaul Helltide is already much more difficult than before, and with this Elixir potentially stacking in Helltide, Helltide may now become an even more tough part of the endgame. On top of that, as the difficulty increases, you obviously get more rewards as part of this elixir buff.
Therefore, the addition of Profane Mindcage Elixir ensures that players will receive a level of challenge even in powerful builds. This is a great addition to the game as it allows players to continue enjoying endgame content without it becoming trivial.
Leveling Up Is Faster, The Risk Is Higher
If you have a more powerful build, you can pop Elixir to get more XP for quick upgrades, which will also help a lot with alt. Because alt is usually stronger, especially after a Codex System overhaul. So maybe when you go alt you can accumulate more elixir and level up faster.
But again, this isn’t just giving you more Diablo 4 items or XP, it’s going to be you increasing the difficulty for a limited time, but in doing so you’re getting a pretty big reward, so there’s some risk involved with that reward.
Because even if you can still kill enemies after buffing them with these elixir, you’ll be much less efficient, so maybe this won’t even give you more Diablo 4 Gold as a reward. Because you’re much less efficient at killing enemies and progressing, high rewards come with high risks. But these are the parts of Elixir that give you more control over different things in the game.
Other Thoughts On Applying This Elixir
However, converting this Elixir into more instance content doesn’t really make much sense right now.
For example, Nightmare Dungeons can actually increase their difficulty through Sigil system, they don’t need to add Elixir to do this.
And we now have hundreds of levels of Pit in Season 4. So you don’t need an Elixir to increase the difficulty further. Then you also have to face all the endgame bosses, and they will have level 200 Uber versions. So you don’t actually need Elixir to enhance them either.
So the idea of extending Elixir to enhance content can actually be expanded into more interesting areas. Because this Profane Mindcage Elixir will only increase the monster level and then give you more Cinder drops and Threat gain.
Assuming you’re just running Uber Duriel, maybe there’s an Elixir that doubles Duriel’s health, but you have a 50% chance of getting another unique item drop. Well, this might be worth it for any endgame character farming Duriel.
But this requires you to get Elixir, and you’ll probably need a build with enough damage to really be useful.
Alternatively, let’s say you can get Elixir for Nightmare Dungeons, which causes all enemies in that dungeon to deal double damage, but also doubles the glyph XP you gain from completing Nightmare Dungeons. This again gives you a lot of control over what you’re doing.
But there are always risks and rewards with Elixir. Because let’s say you’re doing a level 100 Nightmare Dungeon and you pop up Elixir, which will cause all enemies to deal double damage. The amount of glyph XP you’ll earn if you can get through that dungeon is pretty insane.
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But let’s say your build isn’t tanky enough and you go into that dungeon and fail after taking just one shot. You’ll lose a level 100 Nightmare Sigil, as well as your elixir. This can potentially waste a lot of Diablo 4 Gold, so there’s risk and reward involved.
I think these elements are very useful for an ARPG like this. As mentioned earlier, combining these elements with Elixir this time around, which gives you impressive control over what you want to enhance, can also be a lot of fun.
It also allows you to make all the resources around those Elixirs more relevant, and you can even do things to balance specific Elixirs to accomplish specific content more.
Final Thoughts
Finally, one reason I really want to discuss this elixir is because this is an actual data item that someone also found on PTR. So that’s something we’re going to get at some point.
But more importantly, we know this system actually can pop Elixir and retroactively increase the difficulty of monsters in Helltide. So a specific piece of content will give you more drops from enemies specifically in that area.
Because there are a lot of games that can’t actually make something like this work, or just take a lot of time to get something like this to retroactively buff drops and difficulty. So I’m interested to see how Profane Mindcage Elixir eventually develops.
I also think there’s plenty of room for a similar system to be extended to most other content in Diablo 4, but that’s all I want to discuss. See you next time!