Marathon's Vault Breaker ended on 18 August. Steam figures put the peak near 14,800 concurrent players at launch, roughly triple baseline, sliding back to about 2,070 by the close. That is the population read Report #005 said we were waiting on, and the conclusion is clean: PvE brings lapsed players back and does not hold them. Both things stay true though — Bungie extended the mode and retuned it on feedback, so it now carries four weeks of research into the permanent PvE mode rather than two. Season 3 lands 22 September.
Housekeeping: Meta Report #007 was due Tuesday 18 August and went out on the 20th. We missed it. Rather than backdate the file we have said so in the report's opening section — a site that corrects its own tier lists in public does not get to quietly fix its own publishing record. The next one goes out on Tuesday. Read Meta Report #007 →
Three weeks of reporting nothing on Path of Exile 2, and there is finally something concrete: GGG is confirmed on the Gamescom 2026 exhibitor list with a live PoE2 demo. Gamescom runs in Cologne in late August. That is not a 0.5.5 date, but it is the venue where GGG has historically announced them, and it is the first hard anchor the 0.5.5 question has had since we started tracking it.
One thing worth correcting from our own coverage. We have described 0.5.5 as an economy reset event, which is right, but the fuller picture is that GGG confirmed in a May 2026 Q&A that at least two event leagues will run before 1.0 — 0.5.5 is the first of them, not the only one. That matters for the spend logic we have been giving: if you are holding currency, there is a second reset behind this one.
Everything else stays where it was. No official 0.5.5 date. The early-September estimate remains community reasoning about the calendar rather than a source, and the December 11 figure for 1.0 is still arithmetic from a 28-week cycle, not a GGG statement. ExileCon is November 7–8 and sold out. Price your build against the live economy with Mirrorcheck →
The 3.2.0 PTR shut this morning after a full week, and Blizzard did not reverse any of the Barbarian cuts. Warlock took the largest buffs and the emerging read is that Warlock and Rogue lead Season 15. The Diablo IV board still does not move — PTR numbers are a proposal until 3.2.0 ships live, and Whirlwind Barbarian remains the strongest pick in Season 14 until it does.
Time-critical for Marathon players: Vault Breaker closes 18 August and unspent Vault Data does not survive it — no conversion, no carry-over into Season 3. Spend down to zero, minding the weekly Armory stock caps. Update 1.1.5.2 also buffed the V22 Volt Thrower and adjusted the KKV-9SD, and those changes apply to standard matches rather than only inside the event, so the weapon board has been updated. Read Meta Report #006 →
The 3.2.0 PTR opened this morning and the class balance section is not subtle. Barbarian — the sole S+ on our board and the class whose Whirlwind build we call the best overall pick in Season 14 — has been cut systematically. Damage per 10 points of Strength drops from 1.1% to 0.8%, which on a 2,000 Strength character is 160% instead of 220% before any skill, Aspect or Glyph multiplier is applied. The Blood Rage Paragon node falls from 60% to 45%. And Ramaladni's Magnum Opus now drains 10% of maximum Fury per second rather than a flat amount, which is aimed squarely at sustained spinning — that is Whirlwind specifically, not Barbarian generally.
Meanwhile the two classes at the bottom of our board are among the biggest winners. Druid, Necromancer, Paladin and Sorcerer all get their core stat scalar lifted from 1.25 to 1.625 damage per 10 points — a change Blizzard's own notes frame as correcting for how classes differ holistically. Paladin's Holy Bolt and Blessed Shield both get reworked for higher active damage, and Warlock reportedly received more attention than any other class in the patch. Paladin and Warlock are the two classes we have ranked B for five straight weeks.
So: the test realm is telling us our top pick is coming down and our bottom picks are coming up. The board is not changing, and this is exactly the case it was built for. PTR numbers are a proposal, not a measurement — Blizzard says outright that they use this week's feedback to adjust before the season goes live, which means at least some of these figures will not survive contact with players. Re-ranking Season 14 on Season 15 test data would tell you to reroll a character for a patch that does not exist yet, on numbers that are explicitly provisional. If you are playing live right now, Whirlwind Barbarian is still the best pick in the game, and it will be until the day 3.2.0 ships. We will re-rank then, on live data, like always.
What else actually landed: Soul Splinters turn out to be a direct callback to Diablo III's Soul Shards, down to the names — Anguish, Sin, Lies and Pain return alongside Splinters of the Black Soulstone, the Mother, Hellfire and Damnation. Each pairs a real buff with a real cost: one grants 15–35% Critical Strike Chance and Attack Speed but raises resource costs by 30%; another grants 10–40%[x] Maximum Health but cuts maximum primary resource by 30%; the Splinter of Lies boosts materials, experience and gold but leaves you permanently Vulnerable and Weakened. Blizzard's own PTR post also lists new Charms, which was not in the July 30 summary anyone ran, and confirms Mythic Uniques become substantially easier to obtain in a slightly weakened form.
Two practical notes. The PTR is not available on Steam — it needs Battle.net directly, or Xbox PC Game Pass through the Xbox app, so a lot of players cannot test this at all and will meet these changes for the first time on live. And a PTR vendor in the major cities hands out instant level boosts and testing materials, so there is no need to level anything to try the new systems. The window closes August 11. There is still no announced Season 15 date. The Season 14 board, unchanged →
This week's cross-game briefing is live. Diablo IV's 3.2.0 PTR opens with the first Season 15 features — and lands roughly six weeks earlier than the estimate we printed last week, which we correct in the opening paragraph. Marathon's Vault Breaker extension to August 18 postpones the population measurement Report #004 said would resolve on August 4. Path of Exile 2 had a genuinely quiet week and the report says so rather than dressing a recycled estimate as news.
Time-critical if you play Marathon: unspent Vault Data and Sponsored Kit progress vanish when Vault Breaker closes on 18 August — no conversion, no carry-over into Season 3. The event guide now carries a spend-down section for the final week. One position worth restating: no board on this network re-ranks on PTR data. Test-realm numbers exist to be changed, and a ranking built on them is a forecast wearing a measurement's clothes. The Diablo IV board stays on live Season 14 balance for the whole PTR window. Read Meta Report #005 →
Blizzard has opened the door on the next season. The 3.2.0 Public Test Realm runs from August 4 to August 11, and the headline addition is Soul Splinters — socketables for jewelry across five rarities, upgradeable in the Horadric Cube. Alongside them: Challenge Dungeons reached through portals that open in the Overland, scalable up to three Torment tiers above your current difficulty; Overland Ambushes; ten legacy Uniques pulled from Diablo I, II and III, five of them all-class, arriving in Season 15 but not testable on the PTR itself; character Rebirth, which finally moves Eternal characters into a seasonal realm; the Horadric Post; and a more deterministic Mythic crafting pass aimed squarely at the season's loudest complaint.
Two caveats worth holding onto. Blizzard has said explicitly that the PTR does not show everything — some Season 15 content is being kept back for BlizzCon — so this is a partial picture by design. And no Season 15 start date has been announced. The estimates circulating range from late August to mid-September and none of them come from Blizzard, so we are not printing one. The Season 14 board stays authoritative for live play throughout the PTR window; PTR balance is not live balance, and we will not re-rank anything on test-realm numbers.
Bungie has pushed the Vault Breaker window back by a fortnight. The mode was built as a two-week experiment closing August 4; the development team has now confirmed it stays live until August 18, citing the volume of feedback the first week generated in Cryo. Our Vault Breaker guide has been updated to the new date.
This corrects the closing date given in our Meta Report #004, which went out before the extension was announced and said the mode ended August 4. The substance of that report's read is unchanged — the population spike collapsed back to baseline within days — but the extension is a fair point against the gloomiest interpretation of it: a studio does not extend an experiment nobody is engaging with. Whether the extra fortnight changes the Season 3 picture is a question for the next report. The full permanent PvE mode is still slated for Season 3.
This week's Meta Report: after three weeks of predicting a Death Trap nerf, the honest resolution is that none came — the build simply fell out of S-tier as gear caught up, and Whirlwind Barbarian takes the top of Diablo IV. Marathon's Vault Breaker spike collapsed back to baseline within days, and PoE2's 0.5.5 reset slipped to autumn while the July 24 reveal turned out to be Path of Exile 1's expansion.
Diablo IV's 3.1.2 (Build #73020) is live across all platforms — Whisper-icon, Soul Eater, Deathtoll Chamber, Altar of Avarice and Cosmic Archives fixes, plus a Mythic-recycling naming cleanup. No balance touches, which quietly confirms the meta story: Death Trap Rogue drifted out of S-tier on its own, and Whirlwind Barbarian is the settled top pick.
Update 1.1.5 brought Vault Breaker, Marathon's first PvE-only mode: solo/duo/trio roguelite runs through Cryo Archive on a fixed Sponsored Kit, running until August 4. Our full guide covers the two Vault Data tiers — including the UESC Commander that pays out even on a failed run — plus the Armory gear that carries into other modes. Loadout tier lists don't apply inside a fixed-kit mode by design; the Runner Shell board covers the main game.
Update, July 29: Bungie extended Vault Breaker to August 18. The August 4 date above was correct when written and is left as published.
This week's Meta Report: Marathon's Vault Breaker goes live, and in Diablo IV we correct the record — no Death Trap nerf came, and a surprise 3.1.1a instead buffed Rogue by lifting the crafted-Mythic equip limit. PoE2's 0.5.5 soft reset waits on the July 24 reveal, now with two reset events reportedly planned before 1.0.
A second unscheduled patch landed two days after 3.1.1: the one-crafted-Mythic equip restriction is lifted for the rest of Season 14, and Corrupted Reaper now drops up to two Pandemonium Fragments scaling with Torment. Net effect is more Mythic supply and a stronger Rogue — Death Trap remains un-nerfed, so the D4 board's hotfix watch rolls into a third week.
The promised post-3.1.1 pass is live on the D4 board, one day after the patch. The Storm Shepherd's Call fix trimmed Druid's toggled Storm builds — Storm Shred drops to A while Shred's breadth keeps the class at S — and Death Trap survived the patch untouched, so the bug-assisted Pit 150 era (and our hotfix watch) continues. Mythic itemization fixes noted throughout.
This week's Meta Report: Diablo IV's 3.1.1 lands today with Mythic drop fixes and a Druid nerf — and we own last week's Death Trap hotfix prediction that never came. Plus PoE2's reported 0.5.5 soft economy reset and what Marathon's Vault Breaker means for tier lists (nothing, by design). D4 board updates within 24 hours of the patch settling.
New weekly series: The Meta Report — one briefing covering what actually moved across Diablo IV, Path of Exile 2 and Marathon, settled data over launch hype, our own wrong calls corrected in public. Report #001 is live now.
The promised settling pass is live on the D4 board. A week of Torment and Pit data corrected the launch script: the Ramaladni's Magnum Opus fix crowned Ancient Singer Barbarian, Whirlwind is the season's best all-round build, and our launch Paladin S+ call is publicly walked back — it settles seventh, keeping the Hardcore and group-aura crowns. Death Trap Rogue's bug-reliant ceiling is flagged with hotfix risk.
Blizzard released the full 3.1 patch notes — massive class reworks, Mythic 3.0 changes, and the final balance pass before Season of Death Awakening. Our D4 tier list has been refreshed with Paladin rising to S+, Druid surging, and Sorcerer falling out of the top tier. Season 14 goes live in 3 days — expect another update when the meta settles.
Our brand‑new Mirrorcheck tool is live on poe2.tierlisthq.com. Paste a Path of Building code or pobb.in link, and Mirrorcheck prices every item against the live trade economy, then gives you a budget‑ranked upgrade path. It's the fastest way to plan your next purchase.
The Marathon tier list has been updated for Season 2: Nightfall. Recon leads the solo meta, while Sentinel enters as a brand‑new Runner Shell. The weapon meta shifted with the D54 Battle Pistol entering top‑tier contention. All Shells ranked for solo, squad, and ranked play.
The Dune: Awakening tier list is in early preparation for the console launch in September 2026. We've also begun work on a dedicated AI Oracle for Path of Exile 2, bringing personalised build recommendations to Wraeclast. More details soon.
After the 3.1 PTR closed, it was clear Paladin dodged virtually every major nerf, while Druid received the biggest buff package of any class. Our preliminary rankings were adjusted accordingly — and the final tier list is now confirmed ahead of the season launch.
Mirrorcheck now supports the current Runes of Aldur league economy. All unique and rare pricing reflects the live trade data, refreshed every hour. Import your build and see where your currency should go next.