Diablo IV: Uber Rare Items Can Now Be Farmed Again After Being Taken Down

Some players in Diablo IV were able to get the Harlequin Crest easily by taking advantage of an exploit. This prompted Blizzard to temporarily disable certain uniques from dropping, and then swiftly released a hotfix to resolve the issue.

For those unaware of the situation, Blizzard launched Patch 1.0.4 recently which made Helltide chests drop unique items. While this is surely great for players who indulge in Helltide events, some have actually found an exploit that allowed them to earn the Harlequin Crest, more popularly known as the Shako.

The Shako is an ultra-rare item in Diablo IV that increases max HP, improves resource generation, provides a noticeable boost in stats, increases cooldown reduction, and more importantly, raises the rank of all skills by four. It is called "Shako" because it originated from Diablo II with the same name.

While all classes can technically farm a Shako, the Barbarian and Sorcerer have a higher chance of acquiring it because they have a limited helmet drop pool.

That said, the exploit involved using a Barbarian or Sorcerer for a vastly improved chance of getting the item. Players would just do Helltide events over and over until they acquired the Shako.

Of course, Blizzard wanted to maintain the uber-rare status of the said item, so the company did two things. The first was temporarily disabling uber uniques from dropping in the game. The second was releasing a hotfix, which resolved the exploit. As a result, uber uniques can now be farmed again; only this time, players who want to get their hands on the Shako must spend countless hours.

Even though the Shako is quite hard to get now, Patch 1.0.4 still managed to do a lot of good things. For one, it raised the cap for crafting materials from 9,999 to 99,999. Furthermore, bosses Vhenard, Brol, and Cyhrach had their HP and damage output reduced, making them easier to deal with.

The update implemented a plethora of bug fixes as well:

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where the Elixir of Expertise was reducing resource cost by 10% instead of the displayed 20% value.
• Fixed an issue where the Barbarian's Whirlwind ability would briefly stop channeling when a Cooldown skill was cast while using it.
• Fixed an issue where the player character would freeze when using the Rogue's Shadow Step skill if used outside the range of your intended target.
• Fixed an issue where Aspects that deal flat damage imprinted through the Codex of Power scaled with player level instead of item power.

UI

• Fixed an issue where the QR code used for account linking on console was improperly sized, which made scanning it difficult.
• Fixed an issue where the Imprint cost for Legendary Aspects would be inaccurately displayed.
• Fixed an issue where the Weekly Reward Cache for defeating a World Boss would display as available if there was an active Whisper for defeating the boss, even when the Cache had already been claimed previously.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed an issue where the NPC Arlo couldn't be interacted with.
• Fixed an issue where the Fields of Hatred Killer Cosmetic Set was missing helmets for Druid, Necromancer, and Rogue.
• Fixed an issue where the cost of the Sturdy Saddle Cosmetic from the Stable Vendor would scale with the player character's Level.

Were you able to get the highly coveted Shako in Diablo IV?