The ups and downs of Diablo 4's balance patches have often left certain pieces of gear in drastically different states from season to season. Some items that have been the cornerstones of meta builds one season can find themselves outclassed by new Uniques or Mythics in the next. The Crown of Lucion has been one of the most inconsistent Uniques in Diablo 4, but Season 10 could help boost it back to the top of the meta, where it briefly dominated in Season 8.

A lot of Uniques that may not have been useful in past Diablo 4 seasons are set to get a second wind in Season 10 thanks to the new Chaos Armor mechanic. With a pool of Chaos Armor offering the chance for certain Uniques to appear in different gear slots, items that would have been passed over in favor of more powerful alternatives have the chance to work in tandem with them on a different piece of gear. With the Crown of Lucion set to join the pool of potential Chaos Armor drops, players will be able to make use of a devastating combo—as long as it doesn't repeat the Unique's Season 8 performance too closely.

Diablo 4's Crown of Lucion Unique Could See Another Heyday in Season 10

Diablo 4 Crown of Lucion

The Crown of Lucion Was So Broken in Season 8 That It Had to Be Removed

Prior to the official start of Diablo 4 Season 8, the PTR was terrorized by the Crown of Lucion, which was able to take advantage of an unintended bug. The Crown of Lucion typically has the following affixes:

  • Crown of Lucion
    • +[489-526] Maximum Life
    • +[8.1-8.8]% Cooldown Reduction
    • +[7.0-8.0]% Lucky Hit Chance
    • +[40.0-50.0]% Shadow Resistance
    • Each time you use a Skill with a Resource Cost, gain [5-15]% increased damage and Resource Cost is increased by 30%[+] for 4 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.

Diablo 4 Crown of Lucion Stats

What made this Unique so dangerous in Diablo 4 Season 8's PTR build was that a bug allowed its damage scaling to far exceed what was intended to be possible. As such, builds that could activate the Crown of Lucion's Unique affix with a resource-consuming skill, like the Hydra Sorcerer, could deal unimaginable amounts of damage. Unfortunately, this bug allowed the Crown of Lucion to be so broken that Blizzard deactivated the Unique, making it unusable for Season 8 until a patch could be deployed.

The Crown of Lucion returned to Diablo 4 in Season 9, but couldn't carve out a niche for itself on any of the season's top builds.

Crown of Lucion May Not Be As Broken as in Season 8, But Chaos Armor Could Make It Feel Like It Is

Without this bug to drastically boost the damage output of the Crown of Lucion, the Unique slides back to being a good but not great option as a helm. For Hydra Sorcerers, the better option in the helm slot is the Mythic Harlequin Crest, also known as the Shako, since it has a more broadly applicable affix that grants a 20% damage reduction as well as adds +4 ranks to all skills. However, with the Crown of Lucion in the pool for Chaos Armor, players could potentially use both it and the Shako for a one-two punch of insane damage scaling.

  • Harlequin Crest
    • +20.0% Cooldown Reduction
    • +800 Maximum Life
    • +18 Maximum Resource
    • +350 Armor
    • Gain 20% Damage Reduction. In addition, gain +4 Ranks to all Skills.

diablo-4-harlequin-crest-shako-unique

The bonus ranks to Hydra that the Shako grants, combined with the massive damage increase the Crown of Lucion offers the player's summoned Hydra from the resource cost needed to summon them, creates a situation where the Hydra Sorcerer builds can get the best of both worlds, when they would otherwise have to choose between one or the other. While the combination of these two items likely won't allow the Crown of Lucion to reach the same heights that required it to be removed from Season 8, it offers a fantastic combo for players to experiment with in Season 10.

Rating block community and brand ratings Image
Diablo 4 Tag Page Cover Art
9 /10

Diablo 4
Display card tags widget
Action RPG
Hack and Slash
Display card system widget
Systems
PlayStation-1 Xbox-1 PC-1
Display card community and brand rating widget Display card open critics widget
Top Critic Avg: 88 /100 Critics Rec: 93%
Display card main info widget
Released
June 5, 2023
ESRB
Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
Developer(s)
Blizzard
Publisher(s)
Blizzard
Display card main info widget end Display card media widget start
Diablo 4 Press Image 1
5 Images
Diablo 4 Press Image 1
Diablo 4 Press Image 2
Diablo 4 Press Image 3
Diablo 4 Press Image 4
Diablo 4 Press Image 5
Display card media widget end

WHERE TO PLAY

SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL
Checkbox: control the expandable behavior of the extra info

Engine
Proprietary Engine
Genre(s)
Action RPG, Hack and Slash