PTR Patch Notes published. What is your first opinion?

PC General Discussion
22

Hopefully with the level boost enough of us test lower leveled and leveling characters. That’s the kind of content that gets easily overlooked in testing when such a level skip is implemented.

A second thought: a massive amount of changes. A PTR is greatly needed but there still exists an amazing amount of potential for missed interactions. Hopefully the PTR forum is more focused than it was on the D3 boards because they’re going to need a tremendous amount of high quality feedback if they’re doing to deliver a smooth season launch with such a high impact patch.

2 Likes
23

Preferably with a lot of vulnerability damage

24

They have already done total mob difficulty revamps twice. I think they have a system in place to scale monsters pretty easily and can address power creep as they need to.

25

When you get down to it though, power creep is the only thing that will keep interest in a game. You can’t do higher level content unless you have some way of becoming more powerful. If nothing else AoZ showed that. Players with builds they thought were OP turned out not to be so OP as soon even modestly increased difficulty was added to the game.

Content alone will not keep a player’s interest, the character has to be able to advance.

2 Likes
26

My big concern for the changes for next season are locking masterbuilding behind The Pit. It sounds like regular upgrades we did won’t be available so without masterbuilding characters items are not going to be very good. With blizzards track record on locking stuff behind a certain activity it doesn’t leave me feeling warm and fuzzy, for the prospect of improving armor. Good thing there will be a PTR so if it does end up being too much of a grind it can be adjusted before the season starts.

Everything else looks pretty good to me.

3 Likes
27

1 - Never realized Druid had Shouts :slight_smile:

Of Vocalized Empowerment (Previously of Echoing Fury)
Now equippable by both Barbarians and Druids.
    Previous - Your Shout Skills generate 2-4 Fury per second while active.
    Now - Your Shout Skills generate 5-10 Primary Resource per second while active.
Fleshrender
Now - Casting a Defensive Skill deals damage to Nearby Poisoned enemies, increased by 15% for every 100 Willpower you have.

Yep, shout Druid may be a thing :slight_smile:
2 - Overpower Rogue :thinking:

  • Dealing damage to a Dazed enemy with an Agility Skill grants Stealth for 4 seconds. When Stealth breaks, you gain 85-100% Dodge Chance for 2 seconds.
  • Assimilation Now - You have 8% increased Dodge Chance. When you Dodge, Fortify for 5-20% of your Maximum Life.

3 - Crowded Sage and Disobedience nerfed - bit bummer but good moves

4 - IDK what this is but sounds powerful (combo ?)

Of Mending Stone
Killing an enemy with any Skill now replenishes the Barrier as well as Earth Skills.
Earthbreaker - Unique Ring
Landslide causes the ground to erupt in tectonic spikes which continue to deal 0.6-0.9 damage over 2 seconds. Casting Landslide in this area has a 20-30% chance to cause additional Landslide pillars to spawn within.

5 - Necro notes gave me headaches, lol, have to take a break for the rest

Overall seems like in general:

1 - Shout Druid
2 - Overpower Rogue
3 - Conjurer Sorc

Hydra
Baseline maximum amount increased from 1 to 2.

Of Concentration Now - Casting a Conjuration Skill grants you 10-25% Damage Reduction for 5 seconds

4 - Army Necro

Will (or could) become a thing for S4 :slight_smile:

5 - Barb will be more balanced overall (HotA and Overpower no longer king but Rupture, DS, Frenzy, e.t.c. will be viable), even Polearm might become a thing with the 15% LH of Mastery unlock

This one is also implying some intrigue, wasn’t even aware that DoT prevented channel (WW Barb anyone ?)

  • Damage over time effects will no longer interrupt channeled skills.

Can’t think of much DoTs by mobs, but guess good to know

1 Like
28

Barb will still remain OP.

29

My first impression… “Damn son! That’s a lot of text!”

1 Like
30

Great patch. Of course it’s my personal mission to ask for ALL of the Shadow Clone bugs to be fixed not just a minor one. I will complain every patch until the skill is fixed…

1 Like
31

What’s the maximum number of affixes an item can have now? I see that Rares drop with 2 and Legendaries drop with 3, but how many can we add with Tempering?

32

You are welcome.

(20 characters)

33

I think they focused on empowering Grenade builds and Flurry ?, also seems something about Marksman build (Arrow Storm) got some buffs, but not sure…

Also - Overpower Rogue ? :slight_smile:

Assimilation looks really interesting, especially when combined with Uncanny Treachery and Agility skills (though have to double check which they were)

Overall, must say I’m kinda pleased by the patch tbh… Think Druids are gonna have the most fun then Sorcs, Barbs could try out something else but didn’t strike me much (except maybe Ancients shenanigans ?), and not sure but feels like Necro S4 will be almost all about army tbh

And one more thing:

They’re adding +X to Basic skills as a new affix, kinda wanna try this one also (have like Puncture lvl14, perhaps might not need Core) :slight_smile:

34

I was really hoping for changes to the Whirlwind build for the Barbarian. Especially now that all other builds are being nerfed. Or do they expect to do the damage via the Dustdevils again like it used to be the case in Diablo 3 once?

35

Saw buffs to Rupture, call of the Ancients, DS, Frenzy, and Polearm as a Weapon

They’re kinda trying to buff unused/less-popular skills rather than make the class strong

36

I’ve only been loosely following the updates - so the pit is going to be just another “grind a ton of materials and do one run in the pit” type systems? Why is this the only design mechanic this game has?

1 Like
37

They shat on Sorcs survivability and resource management by nerfing flame and ice armor, and ice nova. They made teleport useless because of cd. Now bounding aspect is mandatory. Buffs seem miniscule with the exception of aspect of concentration. In fact, any lightning sorc that aint balls seems buffed overall.

1 Like
38

They do have a system in place, and every time it was used, it made the mobs easier.

1 Like
39

Seems collecting the materials for The Pit won’t be so bad, considering it says they drop from end game activities, I would assume this would be from everyone from nmd’s, helltides, probably whatever season 4 mechs will be, ect. So I doubt it’s going to be hard to get enough of them to do a few runs.

40

Mine is pretty narrow:

Bone Skeleton Mages can cast Bone Spear and Skeleton Priests can empower the player. Those are very interesting additions on top of the pure # improvements that minions got.

41

I like how inner calm went to buff and then nerf to worse than original state. I mean…why bother changing it in S3.5 patch in the first place? Really gives an idea of how disconnected the even and odd season teams are.

3 Likes