I thought Diablo 4 was already a great action-RPG, but the latest season made it even more so

My sorceress hasn't reached Diablo 4's maximum level yet, but she's already frying rooms of monsters with her lightning. It's like I'm playing an endgame version. Blizzard did not need to reinvent the wheel after a highly successful season 4. Diablo 4 Season 5 is the most fun I've ever had in the action RPG.

The stats of almost every unique item have been boosted to a ridiculous level. This will make your little demon-slayer a god. Their powerful effects like making your fireballs bounce off the floor are largely unchanged, but their stats were boosted to ridiculous levels. In previous seasons, you wouldn't have gotten an item that duplicated your chain lightning. That would only be available at level 100. I wore a pair of pants that resembled my chain lightning when I reached level 30. Since then, I haven't removed them.

The Axial Conduit trousers are one of the smart new unique items for season 5. They turn you into a walking storm of lightning that electrifies anything in your path. They not only give you the chance to cast chain lightning twice but they also ping-pong between you and your enemy and explode with a lot of damage. The only downside is that it consumes mana quickly. However, this can be fixed in your skill tree.

Infernal Hordes is the debut system for Season 5. It's a set hellish arenas, which are Diablo's version a wave-based mode. As you collect aether, enemies will come from all directions. At the end, you can cash it in for loot. Each wave ends with the option to choose between a few modifiers or 'boons and banes' that increase the difficulty in order to earn more aether. I enjoyed the infernal hoards in Blizzard’s public test realm season 5 version last month, but have only been able try the dungeon version in the live season.

These dungeons are called Hellbreach Dungeons (a permanent feature of the game) and they mimic the real wave-based modes by scattering the exact same random events inside. At the end, you'll find chests that reward the aether. As you progress through the dungeons, you will find spires which need to be destroyed. You can modify the next encounter once you have enough Aether to move on to the next section. I gave the final boss of the dungeon 50% more health in exchange for just enough aether at the end to open the largest chest. My lightning pants did the majority of the work and I was rewarded by a room filled with powerful loot as well as a lot of XP. Hellbreach dungeons may not be as exciting as Infernal Hordes but they are a nice way to break up your normal leveling.

The uniques that you find in Hellbreach dungeons will help you fill out your codex with legendary powers you can craft onto your gear. I was fortunate enough to find powers that boosted my damage against bosses, something chain lightning isn't very good at. This allowed me to cruise through a dungeon with monsters 30 levels above me.

Last season was lacking in power spikes. Despite the fact that all items were more powerful, there was no build-defining unique item that would change how you played. Diablo 4 is reducing the time to level up but it's becoming a chore. It's so much fun, I may try a few new classes to see what I can do.

It's clear that Blizzard had a plan to change Diablo 4 so that everyone could feel powerful and use its most creative items, before reaching the endgame. It's finally all come together. All the work done to make the process of finding and upgrading gear, as well as using it in a way that changes your playstyle, has been a success. With the Vessel Of Hatred expansion looming, I expect the game to get even better with the rumored squish of levels and reworked paragon boards - the one system not touched since its release. Season 5 is much better than I thought it could be, given the changes made in season 4. Diablo 4 has never been better.