Let me ask…
What the hell is the point of leaving the Altar of Rites in the game when you’re just going to “balance” the game around it and nerf everyone?
There are STILL underperforming class sets that haven’t been touched in years and you devs are messing with sets that you’ve changed several times in the last few seasons.
Let’s try to be fair here, the Altar was adjusted upward during the PTR to compete with other seasonal themes power creep - to have that power level mostly kept (let’s say they just removed Power pylon from potions) is a bit much.
It’s already giving us more power, loot, build flexibility and QoL, it doesn’t need to be +10 tiers, plus more loot with VoE’s and then we also get a rotating seasonal theme that’s another +5-10 tiers.
That being said, some nodes toward the end are pretty disappointing and maybe need their order switched. 5% more boss damage certainly isn’t worth waiting till the end for.
It’s fine for me, I am just sad there is no “seasonal event” in s30, can’t really count the altar and portals as they are now permanent features 
Having a few nodes not worth taking will be useful if they left the SoH on with terrible GG rate, we can just not do that one at all and leave the useless nodes incomplete.
SoH gates 2x primals which is 2x ashes.
Well, they said they gonna reuse old seasonal themes from season 30 on.
I’m fine with having PTR to test “general changes” only, so far. If they want to put up PTR for season theme later, to finetune it, I’m fine with that, too.
They actually said S30 would see Altar of Rites return on a permanent basis but with tweaks and following seasons (i.e. S31 onwards) will see old seasonal themes being on rotation).
Though, I guess technically you could consider Altar and Fissures in S30 being a reuse of old seasonal themes, albeit not verbatim.
I’m curious though… could the un-nerfed Altar of Rites be a future seasonal theme?
Well, then maybe I misunderstood it. If S30 is “only” Fissures and redone Altar (and both are supposed to become part of the “base” game), we actually would have no season theme whatsoever.
Or, am I wrong with that assumption, too?
Not in my opinion. Since the Altar and Fissures are the new baseline, they’re not a theme.
However the S29 blog stated the themes rotate starting S30. So there will be a theme. It’s just unnecessary to have one active on the PTR since themes themselves no longer need further testing. For some reason people interpret this as S30 not having a theme.
Yeah, there’s technically no seasonal theme since we’ll have Altar and Fissures in NS too.
You’d only play S30 if you wanted the fresh start, compete on the S30 LBs or to get the seasonal cosmetics which might be the only new thing as I don’t recall Season 18 (the season S30 will be repeating) having a Guardian specific pet and portrait.
From memory, S18 was a straight repeat of S6 (which suited me at the time as I didn’t guardian that season so didn’t have the guardian variant of the blood shard portrait).
If there is no Guardian specific pet and portrait, I think S30 will be very dead since not even the casuals who just want cosmetics will do it.
If I remember it correctly there are 6 nodes at the bottom level and you only needed to unlock one above each potion slot to reach them, resulting in 3 nodes that could be skipped and still achieve the double primals bonus.
Does anyone know how to talk without words like “garbage” or “trash”? Are there any players out there that can post a critique without sounding like a 15 year old boy?
Very few, unfortunately. Composure is an alien concept to many here.
Correct. Except it was verbatim.
Season 30…
…will usher in the permanent return of a community-favorite theme, Rites of Sanctuary, which will be playable across all modes.
Correct.
But the Rites of Sanctuary will be active on the PTR and the first recycled “Theme”, as quoted above from the S29 Blog.
It’s understandable why we wouldn’t consider it a Seasonal Theme though. Seeing how it will be available across ALL Game Modes.
Correct.
Incorrect.
The last Seal is grayed-out and cannot be activated until ALL 26 Seals plus the 3 Potion Seals are unlocked.
What I meant by verbatim was that the altar isn’t returning in the same state as it did originally.
Well, for future reference, verbatim literally means “word for word”.
I can’t read your mind and what you said was:
It sounded to me like your point was that the “Altar and Fissures” would be considered S30 “seasonal themes”, which I agree with.
You finished that thought with:
To me you were saying: …although Blizzard did not say this word for word.
Sorry I misunderstood what you were trying to say.
Get over it. Nerfs are a key part of balancing. Blizzard should’ve taken a hardline approach years ago and apply proper nerfs when necessary instead of giving buffs after buffs after buffs after buffs after buffs after buffs after buffs…
Are you saying you want them to just leave it as is and not make anymore changes? Then why would you continue to play? If they do not do any tinkering anymore then the game is essentially abandoned. Is that what you want?
Here, have a flag.