1.0.4 Systems Preview

[420]

Blizzard posted a preview for the upcoming previews for patch 1.0.4 (which is still "a few weeks away"):

1.0.4 Systems Preview

Here are a few choice nuggets:

Magic Find

The first change we're making in 1.0.4 for co-op is to remove averaging in multiplayer games of Magic Find and Gold Find. You'll benefit from your full Magic Find stat, independent of other players in the game. We originally added Magic Find averaging so optimal play did not involve people stacking what we call "adventure stats" to the detriment of their party. While this may re-emerge as a problem, we think the current solution feels like too much of a penalty, and is doing more harm than good.

Monster Difficulty

Along the same lines as the change in 1.0.3, we're going to be lowering the health multiplier for monsters per additional player in co-op games.

So, in 1.0.4 we're increasing the health of normal monsters by approximately 5%-10% in Inferno, but also increasing the likelihood they drop magic or rare items by a factor of four. We're correspondingly lowering the health of Champions and Rares by 10-25% and editing specific affixes to shrink the difficulty gap. We're still working on those numbers, but that's approximately what we're shooting for.

To further reduce the gap between normal and Elite monsters, we're adjusting some of the more frustrating monster affixes, such as Fire Chains and Shielding.* Of course there are some normal monsters that are massive spikes in difficulty too, and we'll be making polish adjustments to a few of those as well, like reducing the damage of two-handed skeletons like Skull Cleavers.

*P.S. We're getting rid of the Invulnerable Minions monster affix.

We're removing Enrage Timers and the "heal back to full" behavior from Champion and Rare monster packs. We don't think they fit well into the general philosophy of the game, which is more about trying to farm as efficiently as possible. You're already incentivized to kill things quickly, if a pack happens to take you a long time it can just feel unfair to have the pack enrage, kill you, and then heal back to full. The original intent behind Enrage Timers was to have a few encounters that served as a "DPS check" that also add tension and excitement.  Due to the randomness of Champion and Rare monsters, combined with a general philosophy of efficient farming, this was simply the wrong approach for us to take.

Weapon Damage

Weapon damage is the most important stat on a weapon. It can be disheartening to get a lot of weapon drops and you know before even looking at them that they have no chance of being good. To help give weapons a fighting chance, the raw damage value on all level 61 and 62 weapons will be able to roll damage that extends all the way to the top end of level 63.

We also want to close the gap between dual-wielding and two-handers, and so we're improving two-handed melee weapons by creating a new set of stronger affixes to compensate for the loss of stats that can come from your offhand.

Repair Costs

That said, we think repair costs are just a bit too high, so in 1.0.4 we're going to be reducing repair costs of high-end items by 25%.

Class Changes - Basically just buffing the less used skills and skill runes. (Like the non-venom hydras.)

Legendary Items - As stated before, legendary items will be improved but the improvements will not be retroactive, in that the changes will only affect legendary items dropped or forged after the 1.0.4 patch.

-420

[420]

Some clarifications to the above information from Blizzard:

Drop Rate Increased by "Factor of Four"

Just to clarify, we aren't making any changes to the chance that an item will drop. Instead, we're changing the quality of that item when it drops. And when we say we're increasing the likelihood that non-Elite monsters will drop magical items "by a factor of four," it means that those monsters should drop 4 times (or "4x") the amount of magical items as they do now. It's important to note, however, that this will only affect Magic items and Rare items.

So, for example, if doing a full clear of an area currently yields 500 items from non-Elites, it will still yield 500 items after 1.0.4. Whereas you may have only gotten 20 Magic (blue) items and 4 Rare (yellow) item from those non-Elites before, you

[420]

Very interesting information on changes to legendary items.

1.0.4 Legendary Item Improvements

Video Preview

Examples of improvements:

Old vs. New






-420

EDIT: Here are a couple items for Mo:

[Mo]

Now if only I could find some of those.

[420]

Class change previews are coming fast and furious. They all look promising, buffing less used skills/runes and not changing the ones that are already popular.

Patch 1.0.4 Preview: Barbarian
Improving Bash and Cleave to be more competitive with Frenzy.

Patch 1.0.4 Preview: Wizard
Improving all other Hydra runes to be more competitive with Venom Hydra:

Arcane Hydra: Best at AoE
Lightning Hydra: Good against targets that move a lot
Venom Hydra: Good against targets that stand still
Frost Hydra: Good for snaring
Mammoth Hydra: Best in hallways

I recently switched my non-whirlwind barb's main attack from Frenzy to Cleave because he lacked an effective attack against mobs. I thought it was kicking ass as is, but I guess Cleave will be getting even better!

-420

[420]

Patch 1.0.4 Preview: Monk
Looks like all three spirit spending attacks that my Monk uses (Exploding Palm, Seven-Sided Strike, and Wave of Light) are getting a boost! Sweet. (I'll post his build next.)

-420

[420]

Patch 1.0.4 Preview: Demon Hunter
My magic find, trap/explosive based Demon Hunter build, Nightgaunt, is getting a big boost to both her primary (Bola Shot) and secondary (Grenades) attacks.

Also, Rain of Vengeance is getting a massive damage buff. I don't know why, but I don't think any Demon Hunters will be complaining.

And a note on the Sentry skill:

Sentry is also a very distinctive spell that doesn't get used very often. It's interesting mechanically, and it has some nice potential for team play, so we'd like to make it more attractive. The solution was pretty simple for this one: we took its damage, and then we doubled it.

My main Demon Hunter, JimmyJames, uses both Rain of Vengeance and Sentry, so good news for him!

-420

[Mo]

Blah I don't use Rain of Vengeance...but that's one hell of a buff.  Maybe I'll have to add it back.

[420]

Blizzard posted the change preview for the fifth and final class:

Patch 1.0.4 Preview: Witch Doctor
Witch Doctor is getting the biggest makeover of all the classes.

First up, mana regeneration rate:

The first thing we're doing is increasing the baseline Mana regeneration of all witch doctors from 20 Mana per second to 45 Mana per second.

As for skills:

Speaking of how a skill feels, the reason players avoid many of the lesser used witch doctor skills have more to do with the skill feeling "slow."  For example, Firebomb, Plague of Toads, and Corpse Spiders all have animation timing issues which are being improved for 1.0.4. In general, all of these skills will cast faster, which will make the class feel snappier and more responsive.  We're also doing a straight damage increase on many skills including (but not limited to) Acid Cloud, Firebats, Firebomb, and Spirit Barrage.

Summon Zombie Dogs
In addition to getting life regen. Their life and defense (which is based on the caster's life, armor, and resists) will now be calculated differently to make them more viable for low defense, high offense Witch Doctor builds. There will also be a maximum amount of damage that can be dealt to them in a single hit.

Example:

• The base Life of a level 60 Zombie Dog is 10,000 Life
• With scaling, each Zombie Dog will have 21,200 Life (10,000 [base] + 32,000 * 35% [scaling])
• The maximum damage the Zombie Dog can take in a single hit will be 3850 Life (10,000 [base] * 55% [damage not mitigated by armor] * 70% [damage not mitigated by Resistances])
• Ignoring passive Life regeneration, this means each Zombie Dog will always be able to take at least 5.5 hits (21,200 [Life] / 3850 [damage])

Vision Quest
The mana regen from this skill will no longer be activated by having 4 skills on cooldown (which was a horrible idea in the first place) and instead be active for a few seconds after you do damage with one of the Witch Doctors "Primary" attacks; Poison Dart, Corpse Spiders, Plague of Toads, or Firebomb.

This will have an interesting effect on the extremely popular Vision Quest/Zombie Bear build. (Arguably the only viable WD build right now.)

-420

[420]

Blizzard Community Manager "Vaeflare" posted this interesting tidbit on the forums:

Puzzle Ring (Ring) - This ring gives heroes a chance to summon a Treasure Goblin when they're hit. The tooltip will be something along the lines of: "This ring sometimes calls forth a Treasure Goblin when you are hit."

...I bet that will prove to be entertaining during a boss fight.

-420

[420]

There will be a leveling system after level 60 added in patch 1.0.4, called Paragon levels. Which are exactly the same as normal levels as far as gaining attributes but will also add a base 3% magic find and gold find per Paragon level. The magic find level will be capped at 300% (before Nephalem Valor) so that a max level Paragon (level 100) will no longer get any benefit from magic find gear.

Read about it here:
Introducing the Paragon System

-420

[Mo]

Read it and like the change I guess.  One thing is for sure, with all these changes they should definitely call the patch 1.1 and not 1.04 lol

[420]

Patch 1.0.4 will be live around 1pm Pacific time today. (10 hour maintenance started at 3am).

Here are the full patch notes:

1.0.4 Patch Notes

Diablo III Patch 1.0.4

As usual the quotes option on the forum is totally fucked so I'll post a link to it when the Blizzard web site comes back up. You can view the full notes right now in the Diablo III launcher.

-420

[420]

Here are the patch notes wihtout the quote option:

1.0.4 Patch Notes
Diablo III Patch 1.0.4

EDIT: Fuck it. I'll attach it as a .rtf doc:

EDIT EDIT: OK... this board really does suck. I'll try to attach it as some format that the board accepts.
EDIT: RTF now attached.

[Mo]

Here are the patch notes wihtout the quote option:

1.0.4 Patch Notes
Diablo III Patch 1.0.4

EDIT: Fuck it. I'll attach it as a .rtf doc:

EDIT EDIT: OK... this board really does suck. I'll try to attach it as some format that the board accepts.

Looking into these issues.

EDIT: Support for RTF attachments added.

[420]

Looking into these issues.

The problem seems to be with certain punctuation marks that are copied and pasted. Even from formats as basic as rich text format.

I've had problems with the following: ' " , - (and possibly others)

I can fix it if I take the time to search and replace every instance of those punctuation marks. To do that I copy the mark from the text and paste that into search then I type the corresponding punctuation mark into the replace field and that will work.

The odd thing is that the punctuation marks (and the entire post) always shows up properly in the preview and then gets truncated when it is posted.

Patch notes:
In the middle of reading the patch notes, looks like a lot of my favorite skills across all classes are getting a boost. I'll be making at least one build change to my level 60 Monk's passive skills. I'll post all build changes I make due to changes in the patch here.

-420

[Mo]

The problem seems to be with certain punctuation marks that are copied and pasted. Even from formats as basic as rich text format.

I've had problems with the following: ' " , - (and possibly others)

I can fix it if I take the time to search and replace every instance of those punctuation marks. To do that I copy the mark from the text and paste that into search then I type the corresponding punctuation mark into the replace field and that will work.

The odd thing is that the punctuation marks (and the entire post) always shows up properly in the preview and then gets truncated when it is posted.

Patch notes:
In the middle of reading the patch notes, looks like a lot of my favorite skills across all classes are getting a boost. I'll be making at least one build change to my level 60 Monk's passive skills. I'll post all build changes I make due to changes in the patch here.

-420

The issue is definitely special characters.  And it's not limited to quotes.  Won't post regardless.  The board will truncate the post up until the problem character is reached.

[420]

1.0.4 is now live!

Time to get to work on those Paragon levels.

(Ooo, and thanks for adding .rtf support Mo!)

-420

EDIT: Just tried out Exploding Palm and I can actually see the graphic above the affected target now!

Here are some pics showing new information windows (super exciting right?):

[420]

Official post regarding XP gear and Paragon levels:

I just wanted to swing by to confirm that +EXP gear and gems on followers indeed counts towards your Paragon experience gains. Much like Magic Find and Gold Find, 20% of your followers +EXP will apply to your hero, although unlike MF and GF, +EXP does not have a cap.

Official post about Fortune Shrines and the MF cap

The Magic Find and Gold Find percentages for both follower contributions and Fortune Shrine bonuses are intended to respect the 300% MF/GF cap. Nephalem Valor bonuses will continue to stack beyond this cap, however.

-420

[420]

I've noticed some graphical changes in the 1.0.4 patch (in addition to the color pallet changes for dyes) that don't seem to be in the notes.

In addition to improved fog/smoke effects and general skill vfx improvements they seem to have done something to the banner's textures and colors. Check out these before and after shots. (Note: The gloves and helm are actually different items, not related to graphic changes).

Before 1.0.4





After 1.0.4




-420


EDIT: This may be easier to compare.

[420]

Here is the official word regarding the Trail of Cinders rune for the Vault skill:

In patch 1.0.5, we will be fixing a bug with Trail of Cinders that is causing the rune to deal five times more damage than intended. As a result of this fix, the amount of damage done by Trail of Cinders will be reduced from its current value (1500% weapon damage over 3 seconds) to the value we originally designed for 1.0.4, which is 300% weapon damage over 3 seconds.

-420

[Mo]

Here is the official word regarding the Trail of Cinders rune for the Vault skill:

-420

Weird.  The patch notes say it is supposed to deal 1500% dmg.

[420]

Weird.  The patch notes say it is supposed to deal 1500% dmg.

Yeah, if you read the replies it's a lot of "Don't call it a bug when it's clearly something you guys intended to do."

-420