Patch Overview
So welcome everyone, we just had the patches drop and we watched a developer live stream for season two and there are some pretty massive changes here. It is a massive patch, as you can see, and it’s not even everything in there; there’s still some stuff missing, but they gave us a lot of the details.
Crit and Vulnerable Changes
About the crit and vulnerable changes, the class balance updates are in there, lots of the legendary and unique changes The TL;DR is, they really nerfed crit and vulnerable heavily. Basically, the way this works now is that crit just gives you like a 50% extra multiplier when you crit, and vulnerable gives you a 20% multiplier.
Modifiers and Scaling
All of these different modifiers now have a much smaller multiplicative scaling, and instead, the extra bonuses to them are additive damage bonuses similar to damage to close or damage like non-physical damage or physical damage. However, they did add a bunch of extra effects to start scaling some of those modifiers into multiplicative effects. For example, on the Rogue, we have a change to the “no Witnesses” legendary node.
Class Reworks
Every class has gotten some of these kinds of reworks, where now you take one of those additive damage stats and actually transform them into a multiplicative scaling tool. This is going to be quite interesting, where now you have a lot of variety in the stats that you’re chasing. In some cases, this can get really ridiculous because they’re not necessarily capped.
Build Adjustments
A few strong builds got nerfs, outside of this crit and vulnerable change. They also tuned down a lot of builds or fixed bucket builds. For example, bulwark is gone, the Hydra burning bug was gone, but they buffed Hydra to compensate. That might kind of even out for most cases. The lucky hit bone prison stuff is gone, so that stuff is obliterated.
Meta Balancing
Probably bone spear also got a pretty heavy hit, and yeah, we’re looking at like a relatively balanced meta now. It seems because they nerfed a lot of the builds that used crit and vulnerable together because those two effects are just way weaker. All of the other builds, especially DOT builds and pet builds, are lifted way up, and in general, they also brought down the monster power to kind of compensate for that.
Build Adjustments
They said that the idea is that monster power and the player power are roughly similar to what it was before for the top builds like those that already used crit and W, for example. This means that all other builds are just way better because the monsters were brought down, so that will be quite interesting to see.
Diversity of Builds
I think it’s going to be a much more balanced matter between different types of builds with different scaling mechanisms like DOT versus crit versus overpower, and we’re going to see how this will play out in terms of the builds themselves.
Class Updates
All classes have really good stuff. Bob, in general, got some pretty massive updates here, especially with berserking, but now being multiplicative plus a bunch of other changes. Uphe got some nice buffs also through unique items, so definitely looking pretty strong here on the bar.
Class Specific Changes
Necromancer, I mentioned bone spear is down; minions are up, and blood builds in general look pretty good. Rogues interestingly, they fixed a bunch of bugged builds, and a bunch of other things you can do here with some of the changes, so necros are in a pretty good spot, I believe.
Poison Builds and Bursting Venoms
But they did not fix the poison builds; in particular, blade dancer plus bursting venoms plus poison imp interactions have not been fixed. In fact, they buffed bursting venoms for whatever reason, and with DOT builds just being better than usual, bursting venoms hitting blades is going to be completely out of control.
Skill and Build Enhancements
I expect it’s going to be the best boss killer in the game, or at least near that. This is going to be absolutely busted, so they made it so that bursting venoms no longer requires a crit and has a better lucky hit chance, and they didn’t fix a blade dancer bug where your spinning blades dealt 100% of the poison damage and not just 15 or something, so that is going to be crazy.
Rain of Arrows
On top of all of this, they actually massively buffed the word of rain of arrows. It’s going to be a thing. I’m really pumped to play that; they gave it a lot of good reduction, and they gave it movement speed and ultimate skill damage, and there’s also a vampiric power that reduces the cooldown on ultimate skills.
Various Build Improvements
You can get down to as little as 27 seconds cooldown on your arrows before preparation procs, and there’s also a new unique that I have previewed where I can reset the cooldown even faster with some pair of boots. Outside of that, a few small buffs here to passives, to generators, nothing really too crazy.
Sorcerer and Lightning Builds
Sorcerer overall looks really good, I think, because also of the resistance changes. Sorcerers got a bunch of buffs here for burning builds, for example, incinerate, firebolt. In general, Sorcerers are looking strong, and also a lot of lightning builds got buffed, so basically all lightning builds are way better now.
Empiric Powers and Lightning Builds
Of empiric powers mostly, and because lightning builds, in general, get some pretty massive buffs here, I think lightning is going to be the overall best element, let’s say, on a sorcerer. They’re looking really strong, but I think that a lot of things are going to be viable.
Sorcerer: Buffs and Modifications
They also buffed, for example, stuff like some of the legendary nodes here, like Fidget Fate and Ice Fall, which are way more offensively and way stronger now, in my opinion. So for cold buffs, for example, they also added some extra single target to Frozen Orb. They made Frozen Orb have a shorter distance so that it’s easier to target enemies with that. Yeah, a bunch of reworked legendary nodes here. Sorcerers got a lot of really good changes, in my opinion.
Resistance and Armor Adjustments
Now talking about the resistances. This is like here in the general updates. The prediction system is essentially like a Diablo 2 system now, where you have additive resistances and not multiplicative scaling resistances anymore, so you have a cap of 70% resistance that you’re trying to hit, and you are supposed to hit that by around level 80.
Armor and Resistance Caps
So, you try to get that from your amulet and your rings, and then maybe a few armor pieces or maybe some Paragon or, you know, maybe the jewelry gem sockets and stuff like that. So you try to hit 70% on all of your resists, and it seems like they have also done some tweaks on armor. They want you to hit the armor cap of 85% against physical. Resistances are only going to apply for the individual elemental types, and armor is only going to apply for physical damage now.
Simplification of the Resistance System
It sounds like you just cap everything, and then you’re kind of fine. They also made it easier to cap armor now by buffing percent armor values across the board, aspect of Disobedience percent armor. You’re going to have higher level, higher item power items that give you more armor next patch, and other kinds of things. So, I think reaching armor cap will be relatively easy, outside of like certain rankings or so.
So there’s that; it sounds like probably a more straightforward and easier to grasp system. Just stack resistances to 70, which is a new cap that can be increased to 85, stack your armor to 85, and there you go, basically. So you just need to make sure that you get very close to that cap, at least outside of that, lots of buffs to some.
Endgame System Modifications
Of the endgame systems, they already mention that they wanted to balance them out better so that they can now do not only night dungeons but also other content types. For example, they massively buffed Hell Tide chests, giving you plus 750 per bonus XP, which is pretty massive. I’m not sure if that is enough to make it competitive, but it definitely sounds worth investigating.
New Bosses and Endgame Activities
You get other perks, like Forgotten Souls, that you will mainly get from Hell side now. And of course, the target farming of items and stuff like that, so hell has a reason to be played. On top of this, you also need to do some of those endgame activities for the new bosses. So if you’re not aware, there are five new endgame bosses, and each of them is dedicated to a certain endgame activity.
Whispers and Hell Tide Improvements
They also buffed The Whispers pretty massively, especially in World Tier 1 and two, plus 200% for turning in Grim favors, and also individual whispers are much more powerful now. I’m not sure if this is good enough to make whisper leveling 1 to 50 better than domain tunnel leveling, but it could be somewhat viable to players and also late-game.
Unique Items and Boss Loot
They showed us some other stuff, like some of the cool new uniques and some of the boss loot tables as well. So here’s a unique, for example, that gives you some funny trap effects. I think one of the best ones they have published is one that allows you to evade enemies and reset your ultimate cooldowns, enhancing the gaming experience.
Game Modifications and Unique Items
Broken at all, there’s also some funny stuff they actually previewed, like Boulder now rotates around you, enhancing gameplay dynamics. Additionally, a bunch of other uniques have been previewed, looking really cool and interesting. They have also massively buffed a lot of uniques across the board, ensuring that most of the unique items are more potent and generally more useful.
Bosses and Endgame Adjustments
Certain items are now dropped by individual bosses that are part of the new endgame, which allows for targeted farming of specific items. For instance, the Uber dual drops many new uniques, making it the most valuable target for farming. The adjustment seems to make the endgame activities more straightforward and focused on getting materials to summon the bosses.
Patch Notes and Updates
The changes covered are substantial, but further exploration and discussion will be needed, intending to keep players updated.
Conclusion and Forward Look
The conclusion brings a sense of excitement looking forward to Season 2, which seems promising. The quicker leveling and enhanced item progression make the gaming experience more engaging and exciting. In summary, the improvements and changes bring a fresh perspective, ensuring an enhanced and engaging gaming experience, keeping players eagerly waiting for more.
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