Diablo 4 is Finally Adding The Tower and Leaderboards to Season 11, But There’s a Catch

A brand-new Diablo 4 update is finally set to add The Tower and leaderboards to the game, following their initial delay at the launch of Season 11. However, the update comes with a catch. While The Tower and leaderboards will be added to Diablo 4, they’ll still be in beta, with Blizzard promising plenty more changes to both in the future.

The Tower is a brand-new end-game activity coming to Diablo 4. Players will grind their way through randomized floors of dungeons, and the goal is to complete them as quickly as possible. This is where leaderboards come in. Players’ progress in The Tower will be tracked using numerous metrics, including class and Tier completed, and leaderboards will allow players to see where they sit globally based on how quickly they complete The Tower. Both of these features were initially planned to appear in Diablo 4 Season 11, but were delayed due to not being quite ready for the season’s start date.

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The latest Diablo 4 patch notes for the upcoming 2.5.2 update confirm that The Tower and leaderboards are finally arriving in the Seasonal Realm, “challenging those who consider themselves the pinnacle of monster-slaying prowess.” However, this is not a full release for either feature. Both will be in beta when patch 2.5.2 launches on January 12, and Blizzard has committed to adding more features to both in future seasons. One such feature is rewards for those who top the leaderboards. The developer previously confirmed that Diablo 4‘s leaderboard-topping players in The Tower will receive exclusive cosmetic rewards, and they will not be present for 2.5.2. Blizzard claims it is releasing The Tower and leaderboards in beta to gather community feedback and iterate on them in a live version of the features to ensure the final version reflects as much critique as possible. Players will be able to access The Tower after completing Rank 2 of Season 2. From here, players enter via the Obelisk in Cerrigar.

The new leaderboards will run in two-week rounds, after which they’ll be reset. The first round begins on January 12 at 11 AM PST and runs until January 26 at 11 AM PST. This cycle will continue until the day before Season 11 ends, although Blizzard says “this timing cadence may be subject to change.”

The return of leaderboards will come as great news to many Diablo 4 players. They were always a staple of previous Diablo games, and were initially added to the latest title in Season 3. However, Blizzard removed leaderboards from Diablo 4 in Season 6, as they were too easy for players to manipulate. Despite this, the developer has always maintained that it planned to bring them back when it could find the right way to do so. Now, one of the community’s biggest demands for the game has been solved as of the January 12, 2026 Diablo 4 update.

Diablo 4 is gearing up to release its second expansion in late April. Lord of Hatred was first announced during The Game Awards 2025, where one of the expansion’s classes, the Paladin, was shadow-dropped for those who pre-ordered the DLC. The upcoming expansion will also include a second class, which remains unknown at this point, as well as a level cap upgrade and a brand-new storyline for players to complete. It’s going to be a huge year for the game, which continues to go from strength to strength with great seasonal content.

Diablo 4 Update 2.5.2 Patch Notes (January 12, 2026)

Game Updates

Base Game

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.

Game Updates

• Spinning hazards in certain areas in the Vault of the Crucible dungeon have been removed.
• Locked Capstone Dungeons will now show on the map and display a tooltip which describes requirements to unlock.
• Various updates to The Tower.
• Meteors spawned by the Essence of Hellfire now only deal damage over time, and no longer deal immediate damage or Stun players hit.
• When attempting to sanctify items that cannot be sanctified, you’ll now be better informed why it can’t be sanctified.

Bug Fixes

Expansion

Paladin

• Fixed an issue where Flails couldn’t be enchanted or drop with the following affixes:
  • Critical Strike Damage
  • Damage
  • Bonus Damage over Time
  • Damage to Vulnerable enemies
  • Overpower Damage
  • Lucky Hit to Gain Resource
• Fixed an issue where Paladins could become stuck while climbing.
• Fixed an issue where Shield Charge could fail to hit enemies who were close to the player.
• Fixed an issue where the player would get stuck in place if using Advance assigned to the right mouse button while March of the Stalwart was equipped.
• Fixed an issue where the Rite of Mercy upgrade for Holy Light made Paladins untargetable by Spiritborn’s Toxic Skin Passive when playing in PvP.
• Fixed an issue where Falling Star with the Freefall upgrade and Rally with the Words of Sacrifice upgrade didn’t generate resolve when the Aspect of Valiance was equipped.
• Fixed an issue where the Aspect of Valiance could not be imprinted on the expected equipment slots.
• Fixed an issue where the Strength node next to the Ironclad Rare node in the Castle Paragon Board was magic instead of normal.
• Fixed an issue where the Renewal passive was granting healing instead of Fortify.
• Fixed an issue where the player could go out of bounds and get stuck when casting Falling Star towards a Fog Wall.
• Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader did not read the Paladin Unique Icon on items.

Spiritborn

• Fixed an issue where Spiritborn players could not use the Armory until after unlocking Spirt Halls.
• Fixed an issue where the below balance changes to Spiritborn, introduced in Season of Infernal Chaos, were unintentionally reverted.
  • Skills
    • Rampant Crushing Hand
      • Damage bonus increased from 3% to 5%, up to 40% from 24%.
  • The Devourer
    • Line damage increased from 140% to 200%.
    • Spit damage increased from 40% to 95%.
  • Harmonious Devourer
    • Poison damage bonus increased from 50% to 100%.
  • Key Passive
    • Vital Strikes
      • Vulnerable damage bonus increased from 80% to 100%.
  • Paragon
    • In-Fighter
      • Damage bonus increased from 15% to 30%.
    • Viscous Shield
      • Stacking damage bonus increased from 1% to 2%.
    • Bitter Medicine
      • Poison damage bonus increased from 40% to 60%.
    • Revealing
      • Damage bonus increased from 15% to 30%, up to 60% from 30%.

Base Game

Accessibility

• Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader did not properly read out buttons in the Season Rank menu.

Dungeons and The Pit

• Fixed an issue where the Hellfire Adherent boss in the Hellish Descent dungeon could leave the boss arena.
• Fixed an issue where quickly leaving boss arenas after entering minor boss arenas in Capstone Dungeons could allow players to circumvent the encounters.
• Fixed an issue where the Leave Dungeon ability could teleport the player back to the first floor of Vault of the Crucible instead of outside the Dungeon.
• Fixed an issue where enemies could endlessly spawn in the second floor of the Enclave of Darkness.
• Fixed an issue where teleporting via the world map to the Hellish Descent dungeon took the player to the wrong location.
• Fixed an issue where the Guardian’s Lair Portal in The Pit could spawn in an unreachable location.
• Fixed an issue where Belial could be damaged before he fully spawned in The Pit.

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where Druid players could not use the Armory until they unlocked Spirt Boons.
• Fixed an issue where previously earned renown rewards for extra potion charges still applied for some players.
• Fixed an issue where Elite Monsters with the Soul Drinker Affix could scale indefinitely, becoming extremely large and eventually unkillable. Who knew drinking souls could be so good for bulking?
• Fixed an issue where sometimes mounts would fail to break through barriers when using Spur.

User Interface and User Experience

• Fixed an issue where Greater Affixes would lose their unique colored text after being upgraded through Masterworking.
• Fixed an issue where the Boss Health Bar would be duplicated after it revived when fighting the Entwined Souls in Enclave of Darkness.
• Fixed an issue where Toughness did not display properly when comparing items.
• Fixed an issue where the visual effect for the Poison Enchanted affix could persist after the damaging effect was complete.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed an issue where players on controller could accidentally re-summon Azmodan when trying to collect loot after defeating him.
• Various stability, performance, UI, and visual improvements.

Released

June 5, 2023

ESRB

Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact