The Tower is officially live later today in Diablo 4 Season 11, but players jumping in will notice that it is not exactly the same version that appeared during PTR testing. Blizzard made a number of balance adjustments and quality-of-life changes based on early feedback, with the goal of making the mode feel fairer, smoother, and more consistent with other endgame activities.
If you spent time testing the Tower on PTR, here is what changed before launch.
What Changed Since The PTR
The Tower now unlocks tiers the same way the Pit does, making its structure easier to understand and more familiar for endgame players.
Encounters also received multiple adjustments. Monster populations have been tuned to feel fair for both ranged and melee builds, and bosses no longer show problematic behavior such as self-healing or turning invisible. Boss health was also lowered to better match Pit bosses, which should make runs feel less punishing.
Pylons saw the most noticeable changes:
- The delay between breaking a Pylon Cage and using the Pylon is gone
- Pylons are less tanky overall
- Spawn order has been tuned to reduce unfair rolls
Specific pylons were also updated:
- Pylon of Power now grants 3x damage instead of 4x
- Pylon of Speed grants +50% Attack Speed and lets players knock down enemies they pass through
- Pylon of Channeling now provides resource gain per second to help builds that struggle with resource drain
Orb behavior was cleaned up as well. Orbs now drop immediately when enemies die, instead of waiting for post-death effects. They also spawn closer to the player when possible, cutting down on unnecessary backtracking.
Last but not least, several quality-of-life improvements also made it in since PTR:
- Dying will no longer respawn players on a previous floor
- Exit portals now appear closer to the player at the end of a run
Overall, this will help the live version of the Tower feel more refined than its PTR counterpart. Keep in mind that it is still a beta feature, but these changes suggest Blizzard is actively working on making the new leaderboards mode a more reliable endgame pillar for future seasons.
You can read the Tower part of the patch notes here:
2.5.2 Build #70156 (All Platforms)—January 12, 2026
Game Updates
The Tower and Leaderboards
General
- Tower now unlocks Tiers the same way the Pit does.
Encounters
- Monster populations have been tuned to be fair to both ranged and melee builds.
- Bosses have been adjusted to remove unwanted behavior such as self healing and invisibility.
- Boss health has been lowered to have parity with Pit Bosses.
Pylons
- Removed the delay between when a Pylon Cage is destroyed and when a Pylon can be used.
- Pylon health has been reduced in an effort to make them less tanky.
- Tuned the pylons to be more balanced to avoid unfair rolls of pylon spawn order.
- Pylon of Power
- Damage from 4[x] to 3[x].
- Pylon of Speed
- Player gains a chunk of Temporary Attack Speed (+50% Attack Speed).
- Player can Knockdown enemies they pass through.
- Pylon of Channeling, Shrine of Channeling
- Resource gain per second to support builds that drain resource which don’t benefit from Cost Reduction.
Orbs
- Orbs drop immediately when the monster dies, and no longer wait for post-Death effects (Elite affixes like Fire enchanted, certain spiders, etc.)
- If the orb drops close enough to the player, orbs will appear closer to you to avoid backtracking. If you are too far, orbs will drop at the corpse of the enemy that dropped it.
Quality of Life
- Dying will never respawn players on the previous floor.
- Exit portals now spawn closer to the player at the end of a run.
For more updates on Season 11 and beyond, head to our main Diablo 4 news hub.
