Rift Balancing
With the Diablo 3 20th anniversary almost upon us, hordes of Nephilims are ready to scour every demon filled level for new cosmetics, enemies, and most importantly loot. Thanks to the 2.4.3 patch a wealth of new content will make its way into this massive dungeon crawler as well as some much-needed changes to the actual characters, rifts, and enemies in the game.
One of the changes comes in the form of Greed Rifts, which used to only open once per play session. This made it frustrating as your team would have to log out and log back into the world if they wanted to enter this special location more than once. In the patch notes for the next update, Blizzard have addressed this problem and will now close the rift after 60 seconds, allowing for teams to do multiple runs.
Other changes to the base game include the dyes receiving their own tab and no longer being sold by the different merchants. Greater Rifts also got a new makeover, with the enemy placement now evenly distributed across the various floors, each level is now around the same size, and the Cesspool variant is not as densely packed. These alterations are in an attempt to make both Lesser and Greater Rifts more consistent for players when they’re running at the highest level.
The Darkening of Tristram
The biggest additions comes with The Darkening of Tristram expansion that adds the first Diablo game as an expansion. This means all of 16 levels and the core bosses will be available for users to explore with either new or currently created characters from their Diablo 3 file. While the Necromancer class won’t be added in with this update, users can play with any of the others and their gear with no limitations or restrictions.
In addition to the first game being added, both the visuals and audio will remain the same and receive no massive changes. The Darkening of Tristram will still be heavily pixelated and actually feature the original audio and HUD system from the core title. This event will only be available in January and requires users to have the Reaper of Souls expansion to access. All of these changes will come to both PC and next-gen consoles, allowing the entire audience to try out this legendary title.
Character Balancing
There were a fair amount of alterations to the different Diablo 3 classes with this anniversary update, most of which are tied to the various armor sets that give bonuses to each hero. While you can read the full list of changes here, some of the most notable were focused around the Crusader, Witch Doctor, and Wizard.
The Crusader’s Roland armor got hit with the biggest changes as the 4 set passive got a buff to the Shield Bash damage bringing it up from 750% to 1250%. If you have 6 pieces of the armor equipped at once all of your Shield Bash and Sweep Attacks grant users a 15% damage reduction, as opposed to the original 10%. This is to make the character more tanky and increase his survivability as the Crusader is meant to be a frontline fighter.
For the Witch Doctor, their Spirit of Arachyr 6 set bonus had their pet’s damage increased from 1500% to a whopping 2400%. While the Wizard’s Delsere’s Mangnum Opas not only upped the slow time effect from 2000% to 2800% but received a general damage buff to the Energy Twister, Arcane Orb, Magic Missle, Explosive Blast, Shock Pulse, Spectral Blade, and Wave of Force powers.
With the Diablo 3 20th anniversary event almost here, it looks like a hefty amount of changes are coming to this title. It’s fantastic to see that despite being released in 2012, this dungeon crawler is still receiving new and interesting content for players to enjoy. Now if you excuse us, we need to go back to farming monsters for loot.
Published: Jan 2, 2017 09:18 am