Blizzard Entertainment has posted a preview of what’s going into Diablo 3’s upcoming patch, which brings the game and its expansion, Reaper of Souls, to version 2.1.0.
The studio states that with the patch right around the corner, they are preparing a Public Test Region to give players a hands-on look at all of the upcoming changes. Before the PTR goes live, the studio has prepared a high-level overview of what to expect from the major update.
Seasons
Functioning similar to Ladders in Diablo 2, Seasons offer players a chance to periodically start fresh characters, leveling from level 1 (including Artisans) fomr scratch. As a reward for their efforts, players will receive exclusive rewards and unique Legendaries, as well as the “thrill of climbing all-new Leaderboards by completing achievements, earning Conquests, or running Greater Rifts”. Greater Rifts, you say? More on that later.
Conquests
First up on the list are Conquests, which is the name for Season-only achievements. They represent a variety of challenging goals that vary in terms of gameplay and difficulty, such as killing Malthael at level 70 on Torment VI, to finishing Acts I to IV in an hour or less.
According to the studio, Conquests are “first come, first served”, and the first 1000 individuals to complete a Conquest within a given Season will be immortalized on that Season’s regional Leaderboard. There’s 10 to 15 Conquests for each Season, and each Conquest will have its own Leaderboard.
If you don’t care about participating in Seasons, you can still get the new Seasonal Legendary items after the Season concludes. You’ll just have to wait awhile.
Greater Rifts
So you’ve read about Greater Rifts above, but what are they exactly? A Greater Rift is simply a special type of Nephalem Rift that is designed to provide players with a way to measure their gear progression and efficiency. You might have seen them referenced to as “Tiered Rifts” prior to Blizzard’s new post.
To enter a Greater Rift, you’ll need to first kill a boss within the Nephalem Rift, which has a chance to drop a Greater Rift Key. You can then use this key at the Obelisk. For other players to join in on the fun, they too will have to contribute Greater Rift Keys.
Here’s what it offers:
- You'll race against a clock to fill a progress bar by accruing monster kills.
- Most monsters do not drop loot; rewards have been completely shifted to the Rift Guardian.
- This removes conflicting pressure from attaining a better time versus picking up all your loot.
- Monsters grant differing amounts of progress for your progress bar; the tougher the monster, the more they fill up your progress bar.
- You cannot resurrect at your corpse or in town while in a Greater Rift—only at the last checkpoint.
- Note that if you die in a Greater Rift on a Hardcore character, that death will be permanent.
- You cannot use player banners or the Teleport option if the target player is in a Greater Rift.
- Higher Greater Rifts levels are progressively more difficult.
- This difficulty is separate from the standard difficulty settings (Master, Torment I-VI, etc.)
If you complete a Greater Rift before time expires you'll advance to the next difficulty level. Should your time be exceptionally good, you might even skip a few levels! If time instead expires, you'll have reached the end of your current Greater Rift journey and your best results will be posted to the appropriate Leaderboards.
Legendary Gems
The fact of the matter is that Greater Rifts will offer a huge challenge to players. To reward players for completing that challenge, Blizzard is introducing new Legendary Gems.
They aren’t currently available on the PTR, but once they are, they will be “infinitely upgradeable” and provide special Legendary powers when socketed into the appropriate gear slot. They can only be slotted into Rings and Amulets, and can even be upgraded by completing additional Greater Rifts. The higher you place in a Greater Rift, the more likely your gem will be successfully upgraded. Not bad.
Nephalem Rift Changes
Regular Nephalem Rifts will be getting some changes coming to them in the upcoming update. Notably, the completion bar will advance based on monster difficulty so you don’t end up skipping tough monsters in favor of killing weak ones. Also, Blizzard is modifying the entry mechanism for all Rifts. Every player will need to have a Rift Fragment to enter a Nephalem Rift. To compensate for this, Blizzard is reducing the cost of entering a Rift down to one fragment per character.
The Rift it Forward community is going to be heavily affected by this change, as it will make it impossible for players without Rift Fragments to access Nephalem Rifts.
Combat Changes – Dexterity & Survivability
Blizzard has listened to complaints about the Dexterity stat, which affects both Monks and Demon Hunters—two of the characters with the least amount of survivability. So instead of getting Dodge chance for each point of Dexterity, characters that use the stat will gain one point of Armor instead. Additionally, existing passives that grant 30% of your Dexterity as Armor (Seize the Initiative and Awareness) will be completely redesigned.
Combat Changes – Healing
At present, Healing gear isn’t very valuable because it doesn’t scale well to your level and game difficulty, especially since you receive most of your healing from Health Globes. To change things up, Blizzard is reducing the amount of healing that Health Globes provide, but buffing Life on Hit and Life Regeneration on gear to compensate. The change should make a more consistent experience when you reach a higher tier in a Greater Rift or play on higher Torment levels.
Cesspools
Last but not least are Cesspools, which will be added to the list of player environments available in Nephalem Rifts and Greater Rifts. This area was originally designed for Reaper of Souls but didn’t make it into the game due to time and development limitations.
That’s all for now! We’ll be sure to keep you updated with details about the game’s 2.1.0 patch as more information becomes available.
