Diablo IV Brings Back Leaderboards — The Tower Beta and Two-Week Resets Shake Up Competitive Play

This caught my attention because leaderboards have always been the clearest, messiest measure of how deep Diablo players will push a build – and Blizzard has just handed the community a fresh ladder to race on while The Tower remains in beta.

Diablo IV 2.5.2: Leaderboards Return, The Tower Goes Beta – What to Expect

• Leaderboards are back: Class-separated rankings tied to performance in The Tower, live Jan 12 on PC, Xbox One/Series and PlayStation.
• Two-week resets: Ranks refresh every 14 days, offering frequent fresh starts while the system is tested.
• Tower is beta: Performance, pylons, orbs and spawn tuning aimed at balancing melee vs ranged and reducing frustrating boss behavior.
• Patch sweep: Pylon tuning, orb QoL, boss fixes, accessibility and many class-specific bug fixes ahead of the Lord of Hatred expansion.

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Publisher|Blizzard Entertainment
Release Date|January 12, 2026
Category|Patch 2.5.2 (Leaderboards & Tower Beta)
Platform|PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
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Main analysis – why this matters to Diablo fans

Leaderboards returning is both a gameplay and culture play. Historically, Diablo leaderboards drive experimentation: players refine min-max builds, discover exploitative combos, and create streaming competitions that bring new life to a title between major expansions. By tying ranks to The Tower — a multi-floor, increasingly punishing dungeon — Blizzard focuses the competition on an encounter-space they can iterate on.

Two design choices stand out: leaderboards are class-separated, and they reset every two weeks. The class split prevents cross-class apples-to-oranges comparisons (you won’t compare how a Necromancer stacks up against a Barb), which keeps the competition focused and gives each class its own meta to evolve. The bi-weekly reset is a clear concession to balance and fairness: frequent windows reduce the impact of any one dominant build and give more players a chance to climb. It also limits the prestige of ‘permanent’ leaderboard placement — for now, the focus is on iterative testing and short-term runs rather than season-long prestige.

Making The Tower a beta is the right call. The patch notes show the team is listening: pylons now spawn more fairly, pylon cages have no use delay, pylon health is lowered, and the Pylon of Power’s numbers were trimmed. Orbs drop immediately and telegraph closer to the player when possible — a small change but one that cuts down on irritating backtracking. Boss health and behavior were tuned so encounters don’t feel unfair compared to The Pit.

Balance buffs to specific skills and passive nodes (several increases to damage multipliers and passive bonuses) reveal Blizzard nudging underused options toward viability. Expect meta shifts as players test these pros and cons under Tower scoring pressure.

Concerns and open questions

• Leaderboards in beta mean scoring rules and anti-boosting measures are likely incomplete — watch for clarifications on cheating and party exploit mitigations.
• Two-week resets reduce the value of long-term leaderboard prestige; will Blizzard add separate seasonal rewards or an all-time leaderboard for top runs?
• Pylon randomness still matters — even with tuning, spawn order can shape a run’s outcome more than player skill. Continued telemetry will be key.

What this means for players

Competitive players and streamers have a new playground: expect a sprint of tower-optimized builds, speedrun routes and meta guides. Casual players benefit from pylons and channeling adjustments that reduce backtracking and provide ways to handle tougher floors. If you’re grinding for the upcoming Lord of Hatred expansion (April 28), this is a good time to test out new builds under pressure and learn mechanics that Blizzard may preserve or further tweak.

For those worried about fairness: treat this as a soft launch. Blizzard called both systems beta and explicitly asks for feedback — that should keep the community involved in shaping scoring, spawn fairness and anti-abuse systems.

TL;DR

Diablo IV’s 2.5.2 brings back leaderboards tied to The Tower (beta), with class-separated rankings that reset every two weeks. Patch fixes address pylons, orbs, bosses, QoL issues and several class bugs. It’s a competitive reintroduction meant as an iterative test run — expect rapid meta development, streamer competition, and further tuning before the Lord of Hatred expansion lands in April.