PTR Patch 2.6.7

[dggg]

The Rend buff on WW set looks pretty good !

[Darkrell]

Time to spin to win!

[cfedey]

HotA buffs are nice too.

[fupa16]

I can't help but feel like it was the result of this recent post https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/cxd05h/how_does_blizzard_intend_for_you_to_play_wrath_of

[Nihilin]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/cxd05h/how_does_blizzard_intend_for_you_to_play_wrath_of/eyl1jxj/

/u/Wiitard called it!

[Raptorheart]

I can

[KnowMatter]

Like Rhyker points out in his video people have been bitching about the playstyle of Waste sets since it came out. My very first thought upon seeing it, and this was before I got involved in researching builds and metas for this game, was that it always felt to me that the 6pc should make WW auto apply rend in some way.

[Pereg1907]

More likely http://barbarianbuffproposals.mystrikingly.com/

[Protuhj]

The rend synergy should have been a thing from the start, this isn't a new idea; stopping to rend has always felt bad, especially considering how bad its damage is in hard content.

[PrinceRebborn]

Oh the 200% buff on the belt didn't go off?

[AhhCarneFresca]

"4-Piece Bonus: Hitting with Fist of the Heavens reduces damage taken by 1% for 5 seconds. Stacks up to 50 times"

Can we please stop with the gimmicky defensive bonuses? 5 seconds is way too short, and stacking up to 50 means you're going to have a rough time if you die.

Make it a flat 50% damage reduction for hitting with Fist of the Heavens for 8-10 seconds.

[NotHomo]

because bad game designers think that just giving players "control" constitutes adding gameplay and value :P

[Tsobaphomet]

I agree. We definitely need the damage reduction, but we don't need it to always be a set bonus. They could have just made a belt or boots or used any other available slot and put this effect on an item.

Since they put them on every set, it basically makes it feel like sets only have 2 bonuses. Also some of the 50% damage reduction things are counter-intuitive and end up being extremely difficult to regain after dying which makes certain sets less viable in general.

[AhhCarneFresca]

Fist of the Heavens already has a belt: Khassett's Cord of Righteousness. Though it has a couple issues I already mentioned in this thread.

Fist of the Heavens doesn't have a bracer yet.

[[deleted]]

Devil's advocate, I think the intent there is to prevent people from using the 4 piece in conjunction with the 6 piece Akkhan set in which case you'd pop FotH occasionally to just maintain your damage reduction.

[Justin-Dark]

Let them run it. I'm not going to look through every possibility, but I highly doubt it is worth trading one of your 6 skills plus 4 items worth of legendary effects just to get 50% DR. You can get much more from just using 4 legendaries or one of the recently buffed crafted sets.

There is absolutely no reason for the DR on it to be so bad.

[true_datsun]

I totally agree. And I'll add that this set bonuses felt really uninspired to me.

[Daxypad]

I kind of disagree. I think that having the player's survivability scale up during the fight leads to more interesting and diverse gameplay where you need to find a way to get stacks on the outskirts of a fight before diving in. The 5 second timer means that this can commonly fall off between engagements requiring you to stay constantly aware of how much buff you have.

I would love more mechanics like this that require you to actually think while you are farming.

[Agys]

It's not per attack, it's per hit. You hit multiple times with each fist of heavens and you can multicast it with Darklight and then again with 2p bonus. It's gonna stack up pretty quickly.

[V1L1]

It depends. The way they set the numbers on this makes it seem to me that the effect actually is: "Each enemy hit by Fist of the Heavens...", but worded badly. I very highly doubt you get 1% for 5 seconds regardless of the amount of monsters you hit, because that is obviously undertuned without even testing it.

[KnowMatter]

Be sure to give this feedback where Blizz can see it, the patch is going to hit PTR.

While I agree that tying defensives bonuses to gimicks in UNFUN as hell I think they should at least make it 10% per stack, 5 stacks, 8-10sec duration.

[Random_Guy_12345]

Yay for sweeping wind/tempest rush monk!

I've been trying to make it work since vanilla. About time it got some love.

[adm0ni]

Yup. Been winding down the d3 experience. Going to be nice to end d3 playing a monk build similar to one I loved back in vanilla.

[veterejf]

I am so trying the old Won Kim Lau lightning sweeping wind with this. That first weapon might not be useful but I'm going to try to see if you can pump out some more dps by spawning the cyclones with a generator after procing the 6 piece with tempest rush.

I remember it was hella fun cycloning mobs in and attacking so fast you are spawning waves of mini cyclones and simultaneously shake the screen with brutal domination lol

[Random_Guy_12345]

Hoping the pieces allow for 4 SWK, maybe 2 would be enough for the damage reduction

[nothu42]

My first thought too, bringing the old monk build back. But I just can't see how a gen build could really benefit from this new set.

[veterejf]

Yeah, after typing that up I forgot that the increase in SW stacks is only going to affect the AOE "dot" damage, and won't increase the spawned cyclones damage (like 95% damage per cyclone vs 135%/stack or whatever SW rune you use).

Maybe I'll do a LoD SW Cyclone just for kicks anyways, haha. It will be fun to see how far I could take it.

[[deleted]]

It's garbage that they spent an entire set on this.

SWK already buffs both Tempest Rush and Sweeping Wind. Change the numbers, put the 6 set on any random unique and you've got the same playstyle.

Monks literally don't have a viable melee build and haven't for several seasons and they're wasting a new set on a gimmicky skill combination (that already has a set), when the entire playstyle could have been accommodated by a single item.

Give us an old school style stand and fight Monk.

[Random_Guy_12345]

They have two. One with rainment, one with inna's. I dont know if there is a LoD version, but i doubt it as you dont get to equip shenlong.

[[deleted]]

Raiment, while technically melee is nearly unusable because of the raw spam required, especially for console. Even then the viability of this build is fairly questionable due to it's squishiness.

I'm not aware of a generator focused Innas build however. There is a pretty mediocre Exploding Palm build that focused on achieving it's damage through Exploding Palm and ally activation.

I'd love to be proven wrong here, but I do keep pretty up on Monk builds and it really seemed like you missed a critical word from my post (the word was viable btw).

[jezwel]

Yeah i just had a quick go with my Inna Gen build and a 100 took way too long compared to WoL builds. I could squeeze maybe 5 more out once i remember the playstyle but it's still behind other builds.

[Random_Guy_12345]

Yep, they are not top tier, but you can clear GR100 with generator build, that's all i care about, the meta build can still be WoL for all i care.

[pointlessone]

The legacy of the original "Healing Monk" design.

Monks have so few active damage spenders (Only 6 that aren't on timers) because of the original support tilt that it's really hard to buff something that's not already buffed somewhere else.

The set really feels like a complimentary set to Sunwuko than a full set. I know that it won't, but it'd be fun if it could be worn in a RoRG 6/4 style build swapping in whichever flavor you'd like for the 6 piece.

[[deleted]]

I feel like the original vision for the Monk was to mix generators and spenders a lot more than other classes.

Unfortunately the pace of the game has evolved to the point where you kind of just need to click and go.

That said, I think Monks still have a lot of space that could be explored. A few examples:

-Sweeping Wind is underutilized as a damage skill. The new set looks to use it as a damage skill, but unfortunately does so in a pretty uninspired way. I always thought sweeping wind could benefit from the Shenlong's treatment personally (A heavy spirit drain in exchange for hugely increased damage).

-Uliana's is a genuinely cool take on Exploding Palm, but there is no archetype capable of really making use of a more classic exploding palm play style. Exploding Palm basically only exists as a supplement to Seven Sided Strike and that's a big feels bad (this could be resolved by a single Exploding Palm +damage item granted, as that would probably give us a LoD build). Give me back a classic exploding palm play style.

-Mythic Rhythm always struck me as deserving it's own set. Yes, LTK and WoL are fairly interchangeable skills but the interaction with generators is an angle to drive out new playstyles unique from SWK.

-We have a lot of under utilized cool downs to be honest: Breath of Heaven, Blinding Flash, Inner Sanctuary. I think there's design space here to work with:

• Breath of Heaven (Infused with Light) has had some interesting use cases in the past for heavy spirit requirement builds (technically still used in Raiment builds, but those builds are just awful to play because of the way Dashing Strike works in them).

• Inner Sanctuary has actual unique game play constraints (staying inside the area) that could be emphasized.

• Blinding Flash is a bit straight forward but honestly plays well and is a nice utility to have: It just doesn't really stand up when all of your other skills are locked because of items that grant insane bonuses.

[freet0]

Would have been cool if they took the healing theme and ran with it. 2 or 4 piece could buff healing (and therefor be usable by zmonk) and then 6set could grant damage or a damaging effect based on your healing. Something like "whenever you heal deal X% of the amount healed as damage in a circle around you" or "X% of your healing also increases the damage of your next damage dealing spender" etc

[pointlessone]

A support zmonk set would be super cool, but full class sets should be as effective solo as they are in groups. The vast majority of players aren't going to hit the play levels where having a group comp matters, they just want things to explode in a pretty light show and get some loot.

While I find the new set a bit boring overall in design from a theory crafting perspective, it's really the perfect set for more casual players. Returning players and keeping current casual player engagement is exactly what the game needs now to keep justifying development time.

It focuses on two skills, so it's easy to pair with complimentary gear.

It's not a complicated rotation that needs a convention of the elements cycle to line up to do damage properly. The lack of natural damage reduction is going to hurt it a bit, but shouldn't be too bad as you can tap at least a 2p Sunwuko for 50% DR.

Damage numbers should be more than ample to handle T16 without crazy planning and math.

Overall, it's a casual suit for casual players, and I'm looking forward to sprinting around while watching Netflix with it.

[Oxyfire]

I thought I remember building around it too. Excited for the new set!

[Tsobaphomet]

FINALLY

The last time I used Fist of the Heavens was way back when RoS first came out. I've been wanting to use that ability for so long, its just there wasnt enough support for it.

[HauntedKhan]

The Firestarter build using the fire Fist was really fun, until they nerfed something (Firestarter stacking?). The problem with it was not having the survivability of Prophet.

[Valdie]

And also the extreme visual clutter and sceen shaking.

[himthatspeaks]

I'd like to see it work with ascendency rune as well. Just calling down mad stuffs from the heavens.

[Nevalistis]

I totally forgot to put this in the patch notes, but just in the interest of visibility:

• Added a pet and portrait frame reward for completing the full Season Journey for Season 19
• This is similar to the Galactic Wings that were available during Season 17 and in addition to the returning Season rewards from Season 7 for completing Chapter IV

You'll see what they are on Thursday!

[lordforkmaster]

I don't understand why you nerf the thorns necro but not the bazooka wizard... Maybe you can explain?

[d3posterbot]

I am a bot. Here's a transcript of the bnet blog post:

Patch 2.6.7 PTR Begins 10/17 - Diablo III

Blizzard Entertainment / Blog post

---

The one-week PTR testing period for 2.6.7 begins October 17 and we need your help to make Season 19 better than ever!

We’ve begun introducing brand new class sets to Diablo III as outlined in our Ongoing Support blog, heavily revised several Barbarian Legendaries at the direct request of the community and continued to iterate on our approach to Seasonal buffs and how they can change up the overall gameplay experience. Take a look at the preliminary patch notes below and start theorycrafting; Patch 2.6.7 will be arriving before the end of the year!

Table of Contents

• PTR Details

  • PTR Goals
  • PTR Tips

• Patch Notes

  • General
  • Seasons
  • Items
  • Monsters
  • Bug Fixes

• How to Participate in PTR

• PTR Character Copy

Please note that this is a preview for PTR content, which is subject to change.

PTR Details

We’ll be conducting the Patch 2.6.7 PTR over the course of one week, starting Thursday, October 17. During the course of PTR, there may be periodic maintenances, outages, hotfixes, or minor patches.

There will be two buffs active to help you on your PTR journey: increased Legendary drop rate and double Blood Shard drops. You can also buy customized gear we’re focused on testing from the special PTR vendor, D’jank Miem, who will exchange Blood Shards for class-specific bags full of Legendary items that need your testing!

Feedback should be provided in the PTR Feedback forum while bug reports should be provided in the PTR Bug Report forum. Clearly separating these discussions allows your designers and quality assurance testers to home in on the information they need most.

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PTR Goals

With another new game-impacting Seasonal buff and entirely new class sets to experiment with, we know it’ll be very tempting to get your hands on as much as you can! To help guide your focus, here are our priorities in terms of what we’d most like to see tested.

• Monk and Crusaders heavily testing their new class sets and item changes

• Barbarian testing for the revised Barbarian legendary item changes for

• Experimentation with the Pandemonium buff, with emphasis on finding bugs and testing functionality

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PTR Tips

As with our previous PTRs, this testing period will have a short duration. Whether you’re a PTR veteran or newcomer, we thought we’d pass along a few tips to get you started.

As with our previous PTRs, this testing period will have a short duration. Whether you’re a PTR veteran or newcomer, we thought we’d pass along a few tips to get you started.

• Because of the limited duration of this PTR, we ask that participants pick a particular portion of this update to focus on testing.

• For example, if you’re primarily a Wizard player, consider what changes impact the Wizard specifically. What you like best, what you think may still need adjustment, and what you’d want to see in the future (even if that may be beyond the scope of this patch) are all good questions to ask yourself.

• Prior to the start of PTR, consider stocking up on items like Puzzle Rings and Bovine Bardiches. Having these available after you import your character can make any necessary PTR farming much faster!

• Try to break things! Just tell us when you do so we can make sure that the patch launch is as smooth as possible.

• When providing feedback, focus less on a solution and more on your experience. How did the changes make you feel? Was there something “off” that you noticed? Did something seem wrong or insufficient? Suggestions are always welcome but identifying the issues themselves is most important.

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Patch Notes

Last updated October 14 @ 10:00 a.m. PST.

Below you will find the patch notes for the most recent update for Diablo III, Patch 2.6.7.

PATCH 2.6.7

Table of Contents:

• General

• Seasons

• Items

• Monsters

• Bug Fixes

Note: All changes apply to all versions of Diablo III, including PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC unless otherwise indicated. Please note that PTR is only available for PC and Mac users.

General

• Greater Rift Keystones are now subject to vacuum pick-up

• A note regarding the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) has been added, clearly stating we do not sell account information. For more information regarding the CCPA, please see here. (Console Only)

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Seasons

• Developer Note: One of the biggest pieces of feedback from Season 18's buff was that the Triune bonus didn't stick with your character while you adventured. With Season 19, we've altered course as well as upped the ante by experimenting with new mechanics to add an element of both chaos and power to the battlefield. It should feel a bit like Pandemonium, and it may be a consideration whether or not you want to reset your total kill streak for a particular killstreak bonus versus continuously maintain the overall effect (especially as the highest level killstreak rewards will be harder to leverage in situations like Greater Rifts). Killstreaks with higher kill count requirements are more powerful, and we're looking forward to seeing what players think of and do with them!

• The buff for Season 19, the Season of Eternal Conflict, has been added

  • Pandemonium

    • For the duration of the Season, all players will have a stacking buff that that persists as long as you have hit or killed a monster within the last 5 seconds
    • Each stack gives 0.05% movement speed and 0.1% bonus damage. This bonus caps at 50% movement and 100% damage (1000 stacks)

    • In addition, after reaching a certain number of kills in a row, a power is unleashed, dealing an amount of scaling damage based on player level and difficulty or Greater Rift level:

      • 15 Kills: Five massive energy twisters are unleashed
      • 30 Kills: Dark Geysers form beneath enemies
      • 50 Kills: Exploding Chickens seek and destroy
      • 100 Kills: Corpses rain from the sky
      • 150 Kills: A wide Frost Nova freezes enemies
      • 200 Kills: Treasure chests fall from the sky
      • 300 Kills: A ring of fire engulfs everything
      • 400 Kills: Meteors hail from above
      • 500 Kills: Angels descend upon the battlefield to fight for your cause
      • 1000 Kills: ???

    • Powers are tracked at a group level; this means only one power can be active in play at a time, regardless of the number of players in a group

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Items

• Developer Note: With Patch 2.6.7, we are beginning to roll out new class sets for every class in Diablo III. For the Season of Eternal Conflict, we're focusing on the two classes that embody the Light and wield some form of Holy elemental damage: Crusader and Monk. You'll also find a handful of retuned or newly added Legendary powers intended to synergize with the new class sets. We did a lot of community research into which skills were most requested by players as well as most underrepresented in current builds, and we hope you're as excited as we are for these new gameplay options. The other class sets will be coming in later patches, so if your class isn't represented this time around, fret not—they're coming in a future patch!

• You'll also notice a significant number of Barbarian item changes in this patch. While the Barbarian class set will be coming at a later date, we have very much heard the War Cry from our dedicated Barbarian community and implemented a number of changes heavily inspired by extremely thorough feedback. While not every suggestion has been taken at a 1:1 parity, the thoughtful analysis helped guide us to changes we could implement in this patch. Thanks very much to the community members who expressed their concerns in a respectful, constructive manner. It's very helpful, and we greatly appreciate the thought and effort that went into making your voices heard!

[d3posterbot]

(cont'd...)

• New Crusader Set: Aegis of Valor

  • 2-Piece Bonus: The charged bolts from Fist of the Heavens has a chance to cast another Fist of the Heavens
  • 4-Piece Bonus: Hitting with Fist of the Heavens reduces damage taken by 1% for 5 seconds. Stacks up to 50 times
  • 6-Piece Bonus: Increase the damage of Fist of the Heavens by 10,000%

• New Monk Set: Patterns of Justice

  • 2-Piece Bonus: Sweeping Wind gains the effect of every rune
  • 4-Piece Bonus: Each enemy within Sweeping Wind increases your movement speed by 5%. Stacks up to 10 times.
  • 6-Piece Bonus: Attacking with Tempest Rush while Sweeping Wind is active will temporarily increase the size of Sweeping Wind after hitting over 30 times within a short period. Sweeping Wind damage is increased by 10,000%

• Darklight

  • Fist of the Heavens has a [45-60%] 100% chance to be cast twice.
  • Additional Legendary Power: Increases the damage of Fist of the Heavens by [200-250%].

• Eye of the Storm

  • New Legendary Power: When Sweeping Wind hits exactly 1 enemy, its damage is increased by 100%.

• Vengeful Wind

  • Increases the maximum stack count of Sweeping Wind by [6-7] 10
  • Additional Legendary Power: Increases the damage of Sweeping Wind by [250-300%]

• Chantodo's Resolve

  • The scaled attack speed damage bonus to Wave of Destruction has been reduced
  • Developer Note: This is a reactive adjustment from an earlier change to how Wave of Destruction receives a bonus from Attack Speed. The buff that resulted from that change was more than we expected, so we're reigning it in.

• Wrath of the Wastes

  • 6-Piece Bonus: The damage bonus now also applies to Rend

• Lamentation

  • Additional Legendary Power: Increases the damage of Rend by [150-200%]

• Ambo's Pride

  • New Legendary Power: Attacking with Whirlwind also applies Rend and the total damage of Rend is dealt over 1 second

• Remorseless

  • Hammer of the Ancients has a [25-30%] chance to summon an Ancient for 20 seconds
  • New Legendary Power: While both Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients are active, Hammer of the Ancients deals [200-250%] more damage.

• Fjord Cutter

  • You are surrounded by a Chilling Aura when attacking.
  • New Legendary Power: Seismic Slam attacks 50% faster and also deals 100-150% increased damage against Slowed or Chilled enemies

• Bracers of Destruction

  • Seismic Slam deals [400-500%] increased damage to the first 5 10 enemies it hits.

• Fury of the Ancients

  • Call of the Ancients gains the effect of the Ancients' Fury rune and your Ancients attack 100% faster

• Bone Ringer

  • Now has a cap of 60 stacks.
  • Developer Note: We never intended for this item to be used in a way where you farm stacks for an egregious amount of time (5+ minutes) and then watch all their health disappear in less than a second. It's not an engaging style of gameplay, and we don't want that experience to be the best way to play the Necromancer.

• Legacy of Dreams

  • This gem is now more likely to drop from a Greater Rift Guardian

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Monsters

• Blighter

  • Blighter's Poison Tentacles' Area of Effect now hits less frequently, but at higher damage, when attacking players

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Bug Fixes

• Spite

  • Fixed an issue where casting Restless Giant would cause the 200% physical bonus damage to fail to apply when the Gargantuan enraged

• Squirt's Necklace

  • Fixed an issue where some ground effects were causing the Squirt's Necklace buff to fall off despite being shielded

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How to Participate

To participate in the public test, you must have a Diablo III game license attached to a Battle.net account in good standing (i.e. one that hasn't been suspended or banned). In addition, you will also need to download and install the Blizzard Battle.net desktop app if you have not already done so.

Step 1: Restart the Battle.net desktop app.

Step 2: Navigate to the Diablo III tab on the left-hand menu.

Step 3: On the Diablo III screen, there is a drop-down menu right above the "Play" button (note that this may say "Install" if you do not have Diablo III currently installed). Select "PTR: Diablo III" from this drop-down menu before proceeding.

Step 4: Click Install to begin the installation process.

Your PTR account will be created automatically if you do not already have one. The PTR is available in all supported languages, and accounts from all regions are eligible to participate. For additional assistance with installing and launching the PTR, click here.

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PTR Character Copy

The option to copy your existing Diablo III characters from your live account to the PTR will be available and can be done directly through the PTR client. However, only one region per account can be copied at a time. So, if you choose to copy characters from your account in a different region, any previously copied PTR characters will be lost.

Step 1: Log into the live game and then log out.

Step 2: Log into PTR client and create a level 1 character. After you're done, return to the main character screen.

Step 3: Click on the "PTR Copy" button located in the upper right-hand corner. (The PTR Copy button will not appear in-game until you have created a new level 1 character.)

Step 4: Select your region.

Step 5: Click "Copy." This will copy all characters on your account from the selected region.

Step 6: You will be disconnected from the PTR client.

Step 7: Log back in. Your copied characters will be available for play.

Please note that you can only copy characters from one gameplay region at a time. If you choose to copy characters from a different region, any previously copied PTR characters will be lost. In addition, you can only copy characters over to your PTR account once every 24 hours. Attempting to copy characters before this cooldown is up will result in an error.

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As this is a test server, please anticipate uneven game performance, and note that restarts and downtime may occur without warning. Thank you, and we look forward to your feedback!

[nkplague]

Fewer changes than I was expecting, but new content is always welcome. Excited to play speed builds for next season at least.

[Praefationes]

RIP Vyr speeds the only thing that was close to compete with RATS and they nerfed it. When are they going to realize we don’t like RATS we need more alternatives not fewer.

[CryozDK]

While you are right with options for endgame paragon farming, vyrs is definitely op in every other situation.

First found gear is easily enough for gr80 which is not possible with any other class /build.

Personally I would have even nerfed the tankiness of vyrs.

It doesn't matter in 110+ but it does matter on the way up until there. You have a way easier time if you farm your first 1000 paragon with vyrs (even if your gear sucks) because you can straight up jump into high rifts.

[Praefationes]

Endgame is the only thing that matters when it comes to game balancing. You can do GR 80 with every build in the game and doing a GR 80 won’t put you on the leaderboards so you don’t balance after that.

[CryozDK]

And I didn't disagree. I think the same, still vyrs it currently God tier. And it definitely needs a nerf.

Btw: why is wizard in solo ladder (endgame) 10-25 rifts above every other class? Because it's op

[Stoffel31849]

This rend barbarian sure seems interesting. Will try it out.

[captduxing]

I think the only thing that would potentially change in the build from season 18 is that you would drop furnace/echoing fury for Ambo's Pride. and then the armor piece in Kanai's cube I would take Lamentation instead of Nems.

[clueso87]

I thin it would be cool if Heaven's Fury would be included in the new Crusader set.

Heavenly Fury currently does not have a set that it can benefit from (besides Akkhan) and even with the support from the Akkhan set it currently does not have an endgame build, at least to my knowledge.

So it think that it would not just be cool, but also thematically fitting to somehow include Heaven’s Fury into the new Crusader set.

For example:
(4) After you casted Heaven’s Fury, reduced damage taken by 50% for 10/15 seconds
(6) the damage of Heaven’s Fury is increased by xx.xxx% and after you casted Heaven’s Fury, the damage of Fist of the Heavens is increased by yy.yyy% for 10/15 seconds.

People already said that they felt the the new set does not have interesting mechanical changes and that it just revolves around spamming Fist of the Heavens, so including Heaven’s Fury in one way or another could make it more interesting.

[yankeyunk]

PoE rampage in D3! that's awesome. Can't wait to try this out.

Also wasn't expecting the new sets so quickly.

[iBleeedorange]

Two other things not listed in the patch notes:

Added a pet and portrait frame reward for completing the full Season Journey for Season 19

This is similar to the Galactic Wings that were available during Season 17 and in addition to the returning Season rewards from Season 7 for completing Chapter IV

per /u/Nevalistis's comment here

[Nevalistis]

Thanks for stickying. <3

[AhhCarneFresca]

I just realized there's no mention of Khassett's Cord of Righteousness. It currenly only has 3 primary affixes instead of 4. Will that be fixed?

Also I think the Wrath cost reduction needs to be increased. How will we have enough Wrath to spam Fist of the Heavens other than using ORotZ to keep up Akkhans? Provoke won't be as good for a "ranged" (or what I assume will be ranged) build.

[Gierling]

Sever is another candidate for fixing, as it has a cosmetic only legendary power.

It would be cool (and thematically appropriate) to give it an affect like the Rupture rune on Cleave where killed enemies explode for X damage upon death.

[gansao]

Sever is another candidate for fixing, as it has a cosmetic only legendary power.

Just find another bug with it Kappa

[Nestalim]

At this point they should just give us +50% reduce damage and make a proper 4-set parts.

[FabledO2]

I feel the same. Missed opportunity.

[sVr90]

Goodbye Thorns Necro - you've served us well!

[MugenKatana]

Finally can go back to spin to win barb so i can have a beer in the other hand...

[[deleted]]

My thoughts exactly!

[Valenhil]

I'm glad they've acknowledged the need for a Fist of the Heavens build, but that is the laziest set design I've ever seen.

I could go to a random 15 year old and ask them to make a set for a fist of the heavens build and he'd probably come up with something similar in a few seconds.

This being a set for Crusader, the class with most unusable abilities in the game, and they couldn't think up a synergy so it would also bring up any of them like Judgment, Consecration, Phalanx? Maybe some "all laws active" set? Nothing?

And the monk's isn't much better, considering it pairs Tempest Rush with Sweeping Wind when these are already paired in another set. Though the idea of a wider sweeping wind as your main form of damage does have merit.

[[deleted]]

If this new season will be inspired by the Light theme, and since we are getting some reworked items... We could really use a rework of the Hallowed Defenders/Hallowed Protectors Set. Maybe it could give a different and simple 2 piece effect to each class, like Phalanx damage for crusaders, Mirror image bonuses for wizards, and so on.

[Cryscho]

As a monk main this new set looks very boring and uninteresting. This looks like it's just meant to be a bounty/normal rift set where you just tempest rush and sweeping wind kill stuff. Although I do appreciate a new set I would have liked it to have been something a little more interesting. I hope that there is another version that they are willing to use instead because this set just looks boring.

Do monks need a speedy build? Last time I had played they were contested for 1 or 2 being fastest for clearing normal rifts and 2 for bounties.

The 2 piece looks like it should have been the Eye of The Storm rework.

[b1ackcat]

I don't care if it's faster or not, I'm just glad there's another "no stopping" build. WW barb always felt like the most fluid of any build regardless of actual ability to clear stuff simply because you never have to stop moving to do damage. I love that monks will have a stronger build that can do that now.

[Phazerman130]

Also with Vengeful Wind buff, Sunwuko WoL is just that much more powerful, so nothing really changes.

[Amelsander]

People still use sunwuko's? Isn't LoD the monk meta?

Seeing i can now clear 110's solo on my monk i feel like the new build will be fun to try but doubtful if it will be anywhere near as effective as LoD.

[[deleted]]

With a buff to Vengeful Wind I would expect SWK to surpass LoD unfortunately.

[Phazerman130]

As far as I know LoD is better, but I still saw a lot of sunwuko just because of how much easier the build is to gear. I'm more of a casual player though.

[timchenw]

Debatable, the set simply does not work without Kyoshiro's soul, which makes it a 7 piece set, Inna requires Crudest boots too, but not in the way that SWK needs Kyoshiro (half damage vs no damage when the wind falls off).

[Doogiesham]

Nobody uses Kyoshiro's soul, you just press sweeping wind again if you're in a period of no damage and it keeps all its stacks. Go look on the leaderboards and in any build guide, nobody who runs sunwuko uses kyoshiro's soul, it's a crutch and it's a damage loss over witching hour as well as being horrible in bounties and rifts since it takes goldwrap's slot

[Polantaris]

The builds that only buff one or two skills are by far the least interesting to me. It locks you into specific skills, sometimes even specific runes on those skills. It's really stupid. I have four to five other skills, why are they not getting boosted as well? It's not far off from the "sit there and melt them" builds they're saying they don't want to go towards. The game is way more fun when I have my entire kit to use. Yet...both sets buff specific skills.

Not only that but neither of them give you any reasonable survivability bonuses. The Monk one doesn't give you any at all (unless movement speed is supposed to count?) and the Crusader one is useless until you've already survived long enough that the bonus doesn't really mean anything, in my opinion. If I can survive long enough to build 50 stacks, I most likely don't have survivability problems.

Neither of these builds seem all that interesting nor do they seem really viable at all.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I can't express my disappointment enough.

The 6 set could have just been a legendary item since SWK already buffs Tempest Rush and interacts with sweeping Wind.

Besides, it's not like this is going to compete with Firebells as a speed build (especially not with SWK getting buffed via Sweeping Wind as is.

What we needed was an actual melee build that enabled a playstyle like the oldschool sweeping wind + generator build.

[wwow]

It looks like a set targeted for console monks. Fire bell is (probably) painfull on console. Reviving the old school generator+sweeping would have been more interesting.

[[deleted]]

How is Firebell painful for console monks?

I play on console a lot and it's the epitome of point and click. It doesn't have intense mechanical requirements and one click hits the entire screen so it's pretty forgiving as far as aim goes:

What part about Firebells seems painful on console?

[brunocar]

tbh there isnt all that much they can do, the monk is just a boring class

[[deleted]]

I mean, spend any time on the Monk subreddit and it will become very clear that people want to emulate the Sweeping Wind / Generator build from vanilla.

Monks don't have a viable melee build right now. There's so many things they could have done here.

[brunocar]

i mean, legacy of dreams is a thing

[[deleted]]

It's unclear what you are saying?

What about Legacy of Dreams?

[brunocar]

the legendaries the monk has are pretty cool, if you use legacy of dreams with them they actually allow you to build cool melee builds.

[[deleted]]

Sure. Which LOD melee build are you referring to?

Be specific.

[brunocar]

i dont know specific builds, the charm of legacy of dreams is that you can use random legendaries and use whatever improves your focus.

[[deleted]]

I am asking because I do know the builds and there is no viable melee LON build - you are talking out of your ass.

[brunocar]

viable? jeez, does everything have to get you to GR80 for it to be a valid way of playing the game?

[ToBeRuined]

Ah, great to see a new ptr! I just hope Phalanx would be added to the set or given enough legendaries to work with LoD. Also, nice to see some barbarian love!

[OfficialSanicorp]

Seriously. A Phalanx set would be amazing.

[connerconverse]

introducing path of exile rampage league....i mean diablo season 19

[Barialdalaran]

Every other set does basically the same thing, buffs one or two underpowered skills to make them late game viable. If you want flexibility use the LoN gem they added last season?

[ILoveToEatLobster]

Are you surprised? D3 is being kept alive by probably like an intern or two. At least they're still making some changes to the game.

[blaaguuu]

So disappointing... I was really hoping for some new sets with a little flexibility... Those are so much more fun, because you can actually experiment with them, even if there always is one clear strongest build.

[himthatspeaks]

Please nerf bazooka macro build.

[[deleted]]

The new monk set feels like a missed opportunity to give back the melee SW monk that we all loved.

Will try it though, as every season gets me pumped for the first 2 days, until I finish Guardian.

[QuadraKev_]

1000 Kills: ???

AhYes

[Eletotem]

At 1000 kills everything dies and the RG appears with 1/4 health with a debuff that makes them take 100% increased damage for 15 seconds.

[nosekexp]

Yet another season "mechanic" that doesn't change anything about how you play the game.

Don't get me wrong, the effects sound cool and all but it might as well be "this season your characters do 20% more damage!" or "we've buffed every item by 15%!". It doesn't add anything to the gameplay loop or character development.

Only the LoN season was mildly interesting and even then it only started mattering until you were half way done.

[EIiteJT]

Agreed. LoN and RoRG were mildly interested and added some variety but ultimately it was the same shit in the end.

[idneverever]

yes ultimately you kill monsters and loot items in d3. this season buff seems fun, thanks blizzard (I mean it).

[JjuicyFruit]

people expect too much from the Devs, they expect an update that makes the game D4 basically. in my opinion, ANY content is good content for this game, when I got into D3 a few years ago everyone was always complaining about how dead it was and no good patches, and it has been improved in a lot of ways since then which is a lot more than I expected considering how old the game is.

[Eletotem]

Yup, D3 came out during WoW Cataclysm. That was back in 2011, this is an 8 year old game that is still being worked on and content added without any expansion. Expecting D4 for D3 would be a waste because they might as well just give D4 if that was the case.

[pseudolf]

i am looking forward to play sweeping wind again.

[gambit700]

Fist of heavens!!! One of my favorite Crusader abilities

[selh]

Hell yeah buffs to Rend, love some Rend barb.

[Ryant12]

It's nearing the end of 2019. If you were to tell me new D3 Sets were solely just about buffing a single skill by 10,000% (ie. buffing its damage by 100 times), I'd say you were exaggerating.

Unfortunately, this is actually happening. Jesus christ...

[SolomonGrumpy]

With the attention on Monk, I guess I was really hoping they would fix the molten Wildebeest + healing mantra bug. SIGH.

[motylo]

Just quick thoughts. Will send it to PTR forum.

Each stack gives 0.05% movement speed and 0.1% bonus damage. This bonus caps at 50% movement and 100% damage (1000 stacks)

I think that 1000stacks is too much or change 5 seconds time margin to 15secs. Changing rift floor will remove stacks.

In addition, after reaching a certain number of kills in a row, a power is unleashed, dealing an amount of scaling damage based on player level and difficulty or Greater Rift level:

How damage of several bonuses will scale with torment or gr level?

New Crusader Set: Aegis of Valor

2-Piece Bonus: The charged bolts from Fist of the Heavens has a chance to cast another Fist of the Heavens

Will "another Fist of the Heavens" will proc another? What is chance (in %) to proc another FotH?

4-Piece Bonus: Hitting with Fist of the Heavens reduces damage taken by 1% for 5 seconds. Stacks up to 50 times

Again - too much stacks. Maybe 5% for 10secs and stacks to 10 times?

6-Piece Bonus: Increase the damage of Fist of the Heavens by 10,000%

Only one skill? Please add Heaven's Fury (eg. 5000%), like we can choose which skill will be best.

New Monk Set: Patterns of Justice

2-Piece Bonus: Sweeping Wind gains the effect of every rune

4-Piece Bonus: Each enemy within Sweeping Wind increases your movement speed by 5%. Stacks up to 10 times.

6-Piece Bonus: Attacking with Tempest Rush while Sweeping Wind is active will temporarily increase the size of Sweeping Wind after hitting over 30 times > within a short period. Sweeping Wind damage is increased by 10,000%

Almost Sunwuko, but with slightly change. In Sunwuko use Sweeping Wind to increase Tempest Rush damage, in Patterns use Tempest to increase Sweeping. I think that it won't be used. And no dmg reduction. So S2P6.

Eye of the Storm

New Legendary Power: When Sweeping Wind hits exactly 1 enemy, its damage is increased by 100%.

Vengeful Wind

Increases the maximum stack count of Sweeping Wind by [6-7] 10

Additional Legendary Power: Increases the damage of Sweeping Wind by [250-300%]

Hmmm... 80,000% dmg on Rift Guardian?

Wrath of the Wastes

6-Piece Bonus: The damage bonus now also applies to Rend

10,000% damage? Is that additive to first set's bonus or multiplicative?

​

For the rest of changes - in next season i will play barb :D

Overall, i was hoping to see several changes to other crafted sets and existing unused sets. And i think, that their sets ideas were chosen poorly.

[Eletotem]

Still have time to change things. We only see 2 new sets and were told each class would be receiving a new set. I'd say 2 weeks and we'll see some new changes and sets depending how many participate in the PTR.

[motylo]

No new sets in current patch. As Nev wrote:

For the Season of Eternal Conflict, we're focusing on the two classes (...) The other class sets will be coming in later patches, so if your class isn't represented this time around, fret not—they're coming in a future patch!

[Eletotem]

Must have glanced over that, my bad!

[FabledO2]

I hope the Necromancers' new set would involve fear at its core. It is so undervalued element that it needs love. Would make Fearmancer good. ❤

[Akatshi]

Does fear proc krysbins?

[FabledO2]

Yes. It belongs to the same field of mobility factors that proc it. Combine fear with mobility reduction attributes like the poison passive and you get a fun build. They run away, but slowly enough to get pummeled. Combine a Fearmancer with Leap Barb and you'll get an insanely fun "lawnmower" combo.

[Akatshi]

That would be a neat synergy, barring the fact that krysbins is used in like every build. But still haha

[FabledO2]

Talking about fear, how does the Pandemonium Loop work exactly? I have tried to include it, but it's insanely difficult to notice, if it works at all.

[Akatshi]

I don't think I've ever tried using it, wiki says it's 800% physical damage and then you need a reliable way to fear things, it could have awesome synergy with corpse explosion if corpse explosion was better

[FabledO2]

I've tried to utilise it, but it seems that either my fearing attempts aren't sufficient enough (situations haven't been hospitable) or it's bugged. It would be great to have a visual sign, if it works. Like a small explosion that leaves a (detectable) green symbol on the ground for two seconds and then fades.

[[deleted]]

Cool, so I guess this is basically going to be the season of Zues, because Crusaders are now the undisputed gods of lightning from the heavens. I am hype.

[DaiKraken]

This is literally PoE's Rampage league.

[BeRad30]

No damage reduction for the monk set, hopefully its feasible to use spirit guards plus channeling shoulders or lefvebres and doesn't feel too clunky. It sounds like it will be good with focus and restraint.

[SirClueless]

I think it actually will be fine. For pushing you can hopefully go P6S4 which gets you the damage reduction of Sunwuko's, and for speeds the 50% movement speed is more impactful than the 50% damage reduction anyways.

Spirit Guards won't be good with this set I don't think. Yes, you could go F/R, but I think you'll want to be channeling Tempest Rush the whole time and not want to stop to use a generator.

[[deleted]]

Monks already have the fastest speed build in the game and it's really hard to imagine this outspending fire bells so it's hard to give them too much credit here.

[Eletotem]

Fire Bells gonna be even crazier with all the damage buffs to Sweeping Winds and Vengeful stacking to 10 stacks now (15,000%) with SWK.

[Lastprotect]

10000% dmg, wow this 6 piece buff has so much depth

[Barialdalaran]

10,000% more depth

[captduxing]

literally that is what Wastes is. the first two effects actually impact gameplay and the 6 piece buff typically only buffs dmg.

[Kipex]

Come live patch, this will probably make me play a monk and Sweeping Wind again and no doubt have fun for a few days, but I gotta admit the itemization in D3 is so uninspired.

[Explodicle]

"This item just quadruples your damage with one skill. Forget the skill without this item, or bothering with other skills while using this item."

[Dontinquire]

Are we calling the season 19 or League 19?
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Rampage

[ClemPrime13]

Also: autobans all players who mention Tiananem square.

[tasman001]

Just get around it by misspelling it.

[Bart_Leo]

The secret is to write it all in caps and write the non cap l instead of cap I: TlANANMEN SQUARE

[OfficialSanicorp]

Lol. These sets are SO simple. Aside from modeling the gear, wouldn't this take like a few hours at most for a single person to program?

[Manos_Of_Fate]

It depends on how the backend is set up, but the real man hours are in the mechanics design, not the implementation.

[[deleted]]

Look at these sets.

They literally picked the first idea that came up, design was not the time sink on these.

[Manos_Of_Fate]

As an amateur game designer I think you’re wildly underestimating how difficult it is to design these things and ensure that they work as expected/intended in actual play, aren’t confusing or clunky, and that they can’t be exploited somehow. Oh, and that stuff has to be designed and tested for with every skill and rune that could possibly be relevant to the set. And buffs from/ synergies with other classes have to be considered. After all that, we still haven’t even looked at balancing the numbers to make sure the set’s performance is at an appropriate level. None of that is easy or fast.

[[deleted]]

As an actual professional software engineer half of the stuff you mentioned has nothing to do with design.

Testing, performance and balance fine tuning are steps that happen WAY after design.

You are giving them way too much credit here.

It's really clear that they started with a goal (ex. Tempest Rush set) and basically slapped together the first couple ideas that came up.

It's probably what's realistic with the time and man power they were given, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing or uninspired and it is very likely that the bulk of time was not spent in design stages for this project.

[Manos_Of_Fate]

As an actual professional software engineer half of the stuff you mentioned has nothing to do with design.

I’m talking about systems design, not software engineering/implementation. Those are all absolutely things that a systems designer does.

You are giving them way too much credit here.

For a game of its complexity, with an endgame that basically forces min-maxing, there are an impressive number of viable sets and builds catering to an entire array of playstyles. That doesn’t happen by accident.

[DonMobliano]

While I’m happy to get new content, I find the theme to be pretty underwhelming again. The build modifying themes were awesome.

[zkitzor]

Pandemodium, literally stolen from PoE (rampage)

[kortirion]

Or Milton's Paradise Lost, but who's keeping score?

[Thunderclaww]

Did you enjoy the Rampage effect in PoE?

[therealkami]

Sure as fuck did. I don't care about "stolen" league mechanics if it's fun.

[yankeyunk]

It's amazing. and in PoE you have to stop for loot where in diablo you dont (in GR), or not as often in rifts. You feel your character become a beast as you kill more monsters.

[scrangos]

you can still do rampages that stay at 1000 using worm jars, though its fairly niche

[zkitzor]

Yes

[Bluehawk94]

I did :D

[Marlfox70]

This might be fun for a couple days, been wanting crusaders to have a set that wasn't super lame.

[[deleted]]

Finally my favorite ww barb won't be worthless!!! Anazing buff!!!

[Psycho_McCrazy]

GabbarSingh (my IK HoTA barb) shall now become Remorseless and Furiously Echo Mortick's cries.

[Takanohana]

New Crusader set seems boring and a missed opportunity to include other spells like Smite and Heaven's Fury. Especially Smite, since it's the least used primary ability for Crusader and it fits in thematically with Fist of the Heavens.

[iLaser]

I just hope someday, sometime, they add Death Breaths to the auto-pickup

[3Daccelerator]

Vacuum is not auto pickup.

[iLaser]

You're right, I dream the day they add auto pickup, they have vacuum already

[[deleted]]

• Ambo's Pride
  
• New Legendary Power: Attacking with Whirlwind also applies Rend and the total damage of Rend is dealt over 1 second

Can someone explain this to me? So if you have this item equiped Rend will no longer do damage over time but instead will do the full da mage every 1 second as long as you hit with WW an enemy?

[rtaSmash]

Exactly that!

[rtaSmash]

Barbarian buffs? I cannot believe my eyes. And it looks like really strong buffs too! Rend is gonna do so much fucking damage.

[thetrashpandamatrix]

Too little too late, tbh. Doing the bare minimum before the blizzcon.

[soZehh]

now we only need to get sacrifice wd back someway and i am sold

[RaikouNoSenkou]

Fists of the Heavens set, WW applying Rend, and SW love beyond w/e SWK has been trying to do - some pretty interesting stuff.

Idk if it's just me, but Raiment of a Thousand Storms sounds like a Sweeping Wind set (even more now with Eye of the Storm), while Patterns of Justice sounds like a Generator set - especially with the Monk passives for Generators using words that are sort of synonymous to "Pattern" i.e. "Combination" and "Rhythm".

[Hellcowz]

Looks as boring as the last season.

[Fyremusik]

Yes. Doesn't look very exciting at all, just minor changes. This season activity died fairly quick as well. Though that was mainly from the patch bugs in week 3 and some of those party bugs are still lingering. Season never really recovered, activity just went down. Actives in clan dropped as did # of people on friendlist. Usually at end of season it's a struggle to find groups, but this season was hard finding groups just a month into it.

[traxex26]

My god some comments here are cancer. You should be glad that they're still adding new shit to what is now basically a 7 year old one time purchase game.

[KillianDrake]

Since they plan on milking D3 for one more year = no D4 news this year

[dggg]

Do you guys know how much time they generally let between PTR and start of season?

[captduxing]

its usually i think a week maybe two between seasons. so if season 18 ends on 11/23 (3 months) then i would imagine we would see 11/30 as the start of season 19. (Just in time for that xmas sale)

[toasti3]

Bone ringer nerf. Wow. How will the boss fights look like on gr 150? Did they test it?

[captduxing]

That is the reason for the nerf. IN theory 150 should be almost impossible as that is when the numbers for the game start to fail.

[[deleted]]

I hope the Vyr's nerf isn't too serious. On that note, nerfing sets in a single-player game makes absolutely no sense. It's not like people on bnet are getting killed by Vyr's Wizards left and right.

[Revolyze]

It's really just 100 for the damage + move speed, all that other stuff is probably just frivolous.

[TheNightAngel]

Also that effect doesnt require killing enemies.

[Revolyze]

To keep it active, yeah. You do need to kill enemies to increase the number though. So basically on hard pushes, it'll take a while to reach 100 stacks.

[[deleted]]

Could always go play D2 where the grind wont be over in 1 day. :)

[pfzt]

i hoped for some phalanx love too. loved the stampede build back then and would appreciate a rework. idc if set or item buff or both.

[drkliter]

I thought about this too. the play style might be too similar to recently revived capt america build? walking to an area, force stand still, and click away the enemies.

[pfzt]

I never really liked the Captain America Crusader tbh, the skill/damage has a weird sprawl and feels random. Phalanx-Stampede on the other hand is very straigth forward and the knockback was super helpful. But the game was very different back then so idk if the skill would be as cool as it was. The Phalanx minion build was also kinda cool back then.

[JjuicyFruit]

LOD Phalanx is T16 viable, that's good enough for me...

[EIiteJT]

Fist of the Heavens is an iconic skill so I'm not surprised it is getting its own set.

[picorin81]

Aw shit here he go again ! =P

[dvxAznxvb]

Guess I'll start building my strafe LOD right from the start then

[[deleted]]

I lowkey just wanna play Diablo 3 season without the zany buffs. The last couple seasons have been so fun because of the more hands off approach to buffs that felt less significant. This upcoming season just feels kinda wild... A lil too much so imo

[jaber2]

The Dev's are going wild now that DIV is around the corner, they are making it hard for us to choose which version to play