Did they make change on Diablo?

What difficulty are you on?

And do you mean that you get hit by the lightning when standing right next to him?

The Red Lightning Hose would always hit you in melee range on normal difficulty also in the past, but on Nightmare and Hell it would start further out and thus leave a safe space right next to Diablo.

If you're on Nightmare or Hell and still get hit by it in melee range now, that does sound like a change.

Oh this is interesting. Can anyone else corroborate this?

Well, Kano should know since he was involved with making RotW happen in the first place (like MrLlamaSc and a couple more).

This then probably also affects

Diablo Clone, and

Pandemonium Diablo (in

Uber Tristram), since it's the same skill, as far as I know. In that case, it will make both of them considerably more dangerous for melee fighters, especially on HC. That lightning hurts (it's part physical damage, which is why you usually can't just shrug it off with max lightning resistance).

I've actually been kinda hoping they'd change this, as the lightning hose doesn't even tickle on Nightmare/Hell if you're in melee range (well, until now).