Patch 2.0.1 on PTR

[420]

If anyone is interested patch 2.0.1 for Diablo III is now on the Public Test Realm. Take a look at the patch notes to get a taste of what's coming.

2.0.1 PTR and Closed Beta Patch Notes

-420

[Mo]

New class skills look exciting!

[420]

New class skills look exciting!

Totally, I have some thought below:

Barbarian

I'm confused by this skill rune for the new Barbarian skill Avalanche:

Skill Rune - Tectonic Rift (Level 69) - Store up to 3 charges of Avalanche.

I like this new Barbarian passive as it makes use of shields! (Fucking finally Blizzard got their heads out of their asses about shields.)

Sword and Board (Level 68) - Blocking an attack generates 20 Fury.

This could be huge with the Wrath of the Berserker, Thrive on Chaos rune. Combine that with a Mighty Weapon and the Weapon Master passive and you can be in Berserker mode even longer!

Demon Hunter

Vengeance... is... awesome! Berserker mode for the DH. *tents fingers* Excellent.

The extra rockets and the Personal Mortar rune will go great with Throbble's rocket and grenade themed DH.

As for passives, Awareness is a great defensive version of Sharpshooter. And the DH seriously needs to have some kind of dodge based skill. Single Out seems like the perfect passive for boss battles.

Monk

Epiphany doesn't really seem that interesting. Though I like how the Soothing Mist rune and Unity passive encourages playing in a full party that stays together.

The Momentum passive will go great with my Tempest Rush build.

Witch Doctor

While I love the idea of the "Piranhado", it looks like the Wave of Mutilation rune is far superior than the other runes considering the number of AoE DoT effects that the WD can produce. Combine that with a full party and elites become a lot easier to take down.

Creeping Death passive is good enough to make me switch back to Locust Swarm and ditch Acid Cloud and Bad Medicine. Midnight Feast passive was made for my hard core summoner WD.

Wizard

The Absolute Zero rune for Black Hole will go nice with Frostillicus, but the Event Horizon rune is intriguing. What do they mean by "objects from Elite monster affixes"?

As for the passives I'm not that impressed with them. I can see that they each help a specific type of build. But I don't play any of those builds so I'll be interested to see which ones people use. "Unwavering Will" seems most promising.

And with a 4th passive slot unlocked at level 70 you don't even have to worry about which existing passive you're going to switch out!

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[420]

Looks like my beta b.net launcher program decided to download and install the PTR to my computer (Remember to check default settings!) so I'll be getting a first hand look at the new features and skills. I'll post here with my findings and screenshots.

-420

[420]

I got into the PTR and loaded up my characters. Turns out I don't have the expansion beta just the expansion load screen and menus. But here is what I've seen in the first few minutes:

First, my account wide paragon level is 90. But that hardly matters since there is no longer a cap.

I started a new campaign with my main barb on the hardest difficulty I could, "Master" I think, which is the fourth of five difficulties. My estimated damage was at 65k (down from 101k). Part of this problem is that my crafted amulet now requires level 61. So I lose 200 strength and 8 crit chance.

Here are some interesting skill rune changes that render my barb's current build nonviable:

Battle Rage (Into the Fray)
Old text: "While under the effects of Battle Rage, Critical Hits have a chance to generate 15 additional Fury."

New text: "Gain increased critical hit chance when surrounded by enemies."

Wrath of the Berserker (Thrive on Chaos)
Old text: "Every 25 Fury gained while Wrath of the Berserker is active adds 1 second to the duration of the effect."

New text: "While active gain life per fury spent."

Ruthless passive
Old text: "Critical Hit Chance increased by 5%. Critical Hit Damage increased by 50%."

New text: "You deal 40% additional damage to enemies below 30% health."



So... yeah. Berserker mode is now a set amount of time and there doesn't seem to be any runes that generate fury.

I was able to spend "paragon points" to increase my crit chance, crit damage, attack speed, strength, vitality, resist all armor, and reduced my resource cost. There are a bunch of other things I can invest points in like movement speed, cooldown reduction, life regen, life on hit (among other things).

-420

EDIT: Wrath of the Berserker no longer costs Fury!!!

[420]

Just loaded up my Critical Mass wizard to see how they nerfed it.

There is no more Critical Mass skill. They didn't even try to rework the mechanics, just removed it entirely.

-420

[420]

It turns out that, in 2.0, when one of your characters kills certain bosses (ie Rakanoth but not Iskatu) for the first time (in a difficulty setting) there is a guaranteed Legendary item drop. So I have been killing Rakanoth with each of my characters to see what sort of new legendaries there are.

Yesterday I killed Rakanoth with my cold wizard Frostillicus and he dropped TWO legendary items!

This brought her damage from 73.9K to 88.5K which makes a huge difference in her ability to dish out damage. It also boosted my "Toughness" by a whopping 26.2%! Now "Master" difficulty level doesn't feel like Inferno MP 5 any more. (More like MP 2 now.)








Good stuff!

-420

[420]

New patch out for the Public Test Realm.

The patch notes are pretty lengthy and I just started reading them but a few things caught my eye right off the bat.

Master difficulty now unlocks upon completion of Act IV, and Torment difficulty (I-VI) unlocks at level 60

The highest level of difficulty was not available before. Master seemed equivalent to MP 2 or maybe 3 so it will be interesting to see what they have done with the new highest difficulty level.

Certain crafted items that are copied over to the PTR no longer have a level requirement of 61 or higher (PTR only)

Finally, I can test out my builds with their crafted amulets equipped!

Hammer of the Ancients
Skill Rune - Birthright
No longer has a chance to drop treasure

Uh, what the fuck? Why would anyone use this rune if it only gives health globes.

I'm not sure why Blizzard wants to phase out magic find. They won't really explain their reasons behind it.

-420

[420]

They doubled the drop rate of legendaries on the Public Test Realm to give testers a better chance to check out the new legendaries being added.

This dropped for me from the first group of champs I ran into:



Also, they haven't quite worked out all the kinks as illustrated by this item:




-420

[420]

New patch out for the PTR.

Most of the skill changes for the Barb, DH, and Monk revolve around changing the damage types of various skill runes. Not sure where they are going with this but I suspect they will add damage resistance (immunity?) to specific damage types to monsters like they did with one of the later Diablo 2 patches.

Here is one of the most interesting changes I saw (for the unique ring Unity):

Unity
 -Now has the power "All damage taken is split between wearers of this item."
  -This ability works on Followers

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[cuchulann]

New patch out for the PTR.

Most of the skill changes for the Barb, DH, and Monk revolve around changing the damage types of various skill runes. Not sure where they are going with this but I suspect they will add damage resistance (immunity?) to specific damage types to monsters like they did with one of the later Diablo 2 patches.

-420

Perhaps Blizzard is trying to quietly appologise for the fact that then new Trolls' Folly needs various elemental damage to proc its unique power and thus makes it a caster sword? Nah, silly me.

[420]

I was playing this morning and found this:
(The bonus stacks, remains in effect between games, and doesn't go away until you die.)









-420

[Mo]

Are you at 91 paragon level? damn.

[420]

Are you at 91 paragon level? damn.

I had just leveled before taking that pic. I was at 90 paragon when the PTR combined all my levels. My current paragon levels for my non-hardcore characters is 36, 20, 21, 20, 20, 16, 17, 20, 12. So, however they calculate it, those numbers combined to make 90 when I transferred the characters to the PTR.

-420