S13 Review: What We Got, What We're Still Waiting For

June 28, 2026

S13 has been out for a few weeks, and it’s a good time to look at the changes through the lens of our Top 10 list and design philosophy. Fair review: some good things happened, but the structural changes that would truly unlock build diversity are still ahead.

Things that moved in the right direction

Several S13 changes overlap with ideas we — and many others in the community — have been pushing for. Good to see.

• Frenzy and Tiger Strike splash is now local. The melee splash bonus now only applies to the skill itself, not to other skills. This is exactly what we suggested in our Top 10 #1 and patch notes. It opens up build paths for Frenzy and Tiger Strike without indirectly buffing Whirlwind assassins.

• Hydra now pierces. We suggested Lesser Hydra pierce to make it viable for mapping, not just boss fights. The team applied it to the full Hydra. Great change — it gives Hydras a real mapping identity.

• Blue maps removed. Maps now only drop as white or unique. This is something we advocated for — it simplifies the map economy and removes a confusing tier.

• S-tier nerfs landed. Volcano, Nova, and Corpse Explosion all got toned down. These were our Top 10 #1 targets. The nerfs are moderate — they didn’t overdo it, which is the right call.

• Smite and other D-tier skills buffed. Smite got crushing blow efficiency improvements and cap removal. More of this, please. Smite for mapping maybe ?

Good changes we didn’t see coming

Not everything worth mentioning is on our list. A few S13 changes caught our attention:

• Critical Strike rework. All crit sources are now combined instead of rolling independently, and the multiplier went from 1.5x to 2x. This is a clean, systemic improvement that makes crit more consistent and more impactful across the board.

• Mastery reworks. General Mastery became One Handed Mastery (applies to any 1H melee weapon), and Spear/Polearm became Two Handed Mastery. This removes the old “which mastery do I pick” confusion and makes weapon choice more flexible. Good for build diversity.

• New Barbarian skill: Split Throw. A dedicated throwing skill with returning projectiles that pierce and shotgun on the way back. Throwing barbs have needed love for a long time, and this gives them a real active skill.

• Crushing blow scaling rework. The old formula made CB nearly useless in p8. The new scaling keeps it relevant without making it trivial. This was long overdue.

• Fend, Fury, and Zeal splash bug fixes. Turns out the splash bonus never worked properly for these skills. This is the first season they actually apply. That’s a significant buff hiding in a bugfix.

• Potions during mobility skills. You can now drink potions during charge, leap, whirlwind, etc. Simple QoL, big quality of life improvement.

• New uniques and maps. Several new uniques (Embersworn, Giant Maimer, Ephemeral, Skyfall, Nethercrux) and new unique maps (Djinn’s Domain, Na-krul’s Abyss). More items and more content is always welcome… unless they don’t find a reason to exist. Maybe there’s some iteration needed on the new uniques?

Credit where it’s due — the team shipped some solid work this season.

Steps in the right direction (but not far enough)

• Infinity nerfed directly. The team removed the +35% FCR on staves and reduced the -lightning res from 45-55% to 40-50%. It’s a step, but self-wield Infinity remains BiS for most light sorc builds, and Conviction is still “break immunities AND lower resistances” in one package. Our proposed Conviction rework would have opened up more alternatives.

• Boss difficulty reduced. T2 uber minions got HP cuts and damage reduction removals, and drop rates were normalized to 1/200. Welcome tuning. But the structural issues — currency consumed on failure, rejuv dependency, separate balance numbers for boss fights — remain unaddressed.

• Raven got attention. The team reworked Raven — cold damage, new limit scaling, synergy reductions. But they went the opposite direction from what we proposed: base damage was nerfed, and Raven stays a summon support skill rather than becoming its own build. We still think a dedicated Raven Druid is worth exploring.

Still missing — hopes for S14

Going through the rest of our Top 10:

• #2 Snapshotting / prebuffing. CTA can no longer be made in bows or crossbows. That’s it. Demon Limb untouched. Prebuffing is still alive and well. Our proposal would remove it entirely.

• #5 Naj’s set. No set changes at all this season. Naj’s is still just a staff you use alone, which isn’t how sets should work.

• #6 Synergies. A few token reductions (Jab 18%→15%, Cold Arrow 17%→15%, Volcano 9%→8%). These are 2-3 percentage point drops — not the overhaul we proposed, where most synergies would drop to ~3% and base damage would be buffed to compensate. Hybrid builds remain non-viable.

• #8 Fluid breakpoints. Not mentioned. The proposal to make partial progress toward breakpoints meaningful would help new players without harming veterans.

• #9 Aurabot mercs. No aura cap. Faith untouched. Innocence untouched. Mercs are still aura platforms. Our 2-aura cap proposal would keep the big power spikes while removing the aurabot nonsense.

• #10 Conviction. Not reworked. Only the Infinity item was nerfed. Conviction still does too much — break immunities, lower resistances, lower defense, all in one aura.

Closing thoughts

S13 is a net positive. Several of the changes we’ve been advocating for are clearly things the community wants too — it’s good to see them happen. The local splash fix, Hydra pierce, and S-tier nerfs are all meaningful improvements.

But the structural changes — the ones that would truly unlock build diversity — are still ahead of us. Prebuffing, synergies, aurabot mercs, Conviction: these are the bottlenecks. Until they’re addressed, we’ll keep seeing the same builds dominate, the same items mandatory, the same mercs on every character.

S14 could be the season where it happens. We’ll keep posting ideas on Discord’s #feedback channel — feel free to join the conversation.