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Quote from inkcheese

TBH I think RoS is coming out earlier than it should be because of the much needed overhaul of vanilla. :/

I was honestly surprised with the expansions announcement.

I feel a Spring release would be the latest we would get the game. However, depending upon how much we see at Blizzcon, I would say February would be the earliest. That is still almost six months till. But I am not surprised that they announced it now. Diablo 3 is kinda in the back of my mind. I will occasionally play it but that is like once a month right now. I am spending more time play LoL, SC2, and even WoW. So this feels, in my opinion, a bit late. It is something interesting to think about and with Paragon levels having more meaning in RoS, that it might get people back earlier so that they can get more for those extra stats. I know I want to get more paragon levels so I can hit harder.

Quote from Jinshin

Why would Death want to bring Tathamet? he doesn't want to destroy the heavens otherwise Tyrael would be in pieces right now.

I was thinking earlier about my hypothesis that Malthael wants to do to the Angiris Council what happened to the Prime Evils; have them all absorbed -- perhaps into the Black Soulstone, which can conveniently house Angels as well -- to restore balance. Perhaps that would mean Tyrael himself will be the cause of the End since, having given up his Angelic powers, his Aspect cannot be absorbed into the Black Soulstone to make it whole.

But what would happen if it were whole? Anu/Tathamet? Or would it completely cancel out the Prime Evils, stopping their cycle of carnage forever? If so, that could mean Tyrael is involved in the End of Days. Such a grim and ironic tragedy would be a fitting ending, I think, to the Diablo saga.


Quick Edit: Two things I noticed while rewatching the cinematic. One, it looks like Tyrael is hiding the Black Soulstone in a temple beneath a marshland. Sound familiar? Necromancers, anyone?

Also, when Malthael begins to reap Tyrael's soul, he watches it flow into his sickle, then abruptly looks at Tyrael (in surprise?) and casts him away, sparing him. Maybe he WAS trying to absorb his angelic essence and found it useless since Tyrael didn't have any?

Oh you and your Necromancers! When are y'all gonna learn to not play with Death? Serious time now. So I don't know what Malthael saw in Tyreal's soul, but I think it was something huge that even he could not deal with. Otherwise, why would he spare him? Past feelings, maybe. But he killed others without a doubt yet let Tyrael live.

Second, which lends credit to both my Tathamet theory and the Trag'Oul Theory is that on one of the Blizzard posts, there is a line that is interesting.

Shrouded in mystery and imbued with a power as ancient as the universe itself,

That there can support both. Tathamet is known to be as old as the universe but Trag'Oul can almost be described in the same way. For it is said that he is is a celestial dragon whose body resembles a constellation of stars. That can easily be interpreted at him being as old as the universe.

There is so much we don't know. I still feel that the final boss for the Trilogy will be Tathamet. I mean, why would Blizzard go into the origins of EVERYTHING on Diablo Universe right before the final game? Maybe Maltheal doesn't just want to reborn Tathamet and Anu but reform them back into Anu's original form? But, maybe, there being some corruption still in the Crystal Arch, that would create a more powerful but also more evil Anu?

Quote from cmagik

Well the theory is good but I do not think Tathamet could be involved in this way.
It wouldn't make sens that Tathamet would have survived and not anu.
The 7 prime heads were Tathamet as the crystal arch was the spin of Anu (if i'm right it's the spine...)
and the archangels and all other angels comes from this spine.
Everything is balanced and if it wouldn't have been so, we can bet that at some point during the eternal conflit that lasted for some millenar, the demons would have done something.

The prophecy (which I was sure would involve Malthael as the archangel of death) has two important parts.
To me, this ".. , at last, .." isn't nothing. We can trust blizzard to put comma at some very specific place.
It sounds as we were waiting for something. Which could mean (as you pointed out) that Malthael was indeed waiting for the fall of the prime evil that he probably had forsee. Also, the wings which were the main way to think of Malthael are not tied to Tathamet.
As you pointed, "in our own lore dragon have wings"
True, in OUR lore. Trag'Oul doesn't and from the ... small picture we have of tathamet he doesn't seem to have wings. So far, the only things with wings are "Angels" (and some crappy flying demons).

We had a small preview of Malthael skill capabilities in the Wrath animated video. So far, it didn't seem to be able to sucks people soul. So this is indeed a new power.
Some people wonder if Trag'Oul could be involved.
It would highly depend of what Malthael intend to do with the BS. (sounds funny)
If it implies balance that has been shattered by the end of the 7 primes: Yes, probably.
if it doesn't implie balance: Then probly not.

Trag'Oul only purpose is to keep balance, and death and destruction are part of that balance.
In the book of cain (if I'm right) Cain said that when Demons and angel tried to build their own personnal universe they simply collapsed. They couldn't exist. The only was that succesfully existed is "Sanctuary" because it is made of both angels and demons.

Right now, demons have been vanquished and I remember that somewhere Cain said that even if human were to face all demons, it would be just the beggining has he feared what angel would do once demons would be gone.
We are at this point, what angels will do as there's no more demons?
This is where, probably, Valor shall turn to Wrath and so on

And this is maybe, what Malthael is trying to do, restor balance, restore the demons. He was wisdom right? (plz don't say Tyrael is wisdom). If Malthael was wise enough he knew that without demons creation wouldn't make sens. The destruction of the worldstone meant Nephalem could get their power back. Which implied that at some point demons could have their but kicked, which could break the balance. Maybe this is what starting to make darken his mood.
He probly discovered Trag'Oul (or have been contacted by him) to set the plan in motion.
But Trag'Oul MUST have been the one acting because otherwise, we can bet that at least one Necromancer in sanctuary would have noticed that Trag'Oul was gone.

So, in short, Malthael is in fact Death, and he may be working with Trag'Oul to restore the balance whihc has been destroyed by the demon's fall.

As I've said before, I don't believe Trag'Oul is involved. He wants balance but not at the cost of history repeating itself. He wont release the Evils unless he can prevent their power from grouping up like it currently is. Plus Maltheal was becoming more dark even before the destruction of the Worldstone. Why was he turning like that? As he has given up his mantel of Wisdom, he has fallen but differently from Tyreal. And that absence of twenty years only leads to more speculation of him becoming corrupt. I can only seen him being corrupted by a being that is either stronger then him or even older than him. Which is why I still believe Tathamet is involved.

Because of how strong and dangerous the Black Soulstone is, it had to be locked away. But the uses I see for it are pretty limited. He could try to use that power for his own but he might lose himself further. He could release the Evils but then we would be right were we started. Kinda a slap in the face from Blizz. The only other use I can see is trying to resurrect something that has long thought been dead. Which Tathamet would be perfect. The big, bad evil. A great way to end this story in my opinion. But we will have to wait and see.

And Cain's comment on Angels was based on the information that Tyreal gave him. Many angel, including Imperius, despised the Nephalem because they were unnatural. The offspring of both Angels and Demons. Even that unnatural event has cause Fate to see less of the future, because the Nephalem are involved in the future. Cain feared that if Angels won, they would set their eyes on the Nephalem and get rid of the unnatural race. But with the Nephalem having saved the High Heavens, I no longer believe that to be the case.

Quote from Mienta

Cause if all evil needed to be used for Tathamet to be awakened, then that would also include the Nephalem who embody both Good and Evil. But if we are thought of as offsprings of them, then the Nephalem would not be necassary to create him. But I understand where you are coming from. This whole, One guy spawns all bad, one guy spawns all good, is really confusing.

Which is exactly why Tathamet won't ever exist again. Furthermore hell was created by his body, which also means that hell would have to cease to exist if he was to reappear. If that includes nephalem and/or all lesser demons doesn't matter that much. I really think Tathamet reappearing would just be waaay too complicated and far off to actually ever happen.

But what about his mind? What his Tathamet's mind wasn't destroyed and sent off with Anu? What if it is somehow still around, and only that could be used to pretty much recreate him, the missing link to the strength of evil? I don't think it would be too complicated. I feel it would really drive home the fact that the Nephalem are the strongest creatures in Creation. We can take on Angels, Demons, and even Gods themselves.

Quote from Jinshin

That seems like a good theory but I feel it is outside of Trag'Oul's self. Reasoning being is that he has defended Sanctuary against both Heaven and Hell.

No, you're totally right. I can still see some Priests of Rathma allying themselves with Malthael in the misguided belief that preserving the Balance means serving the role of evil. At the same time though, Necromancers are supposedly the least corruptible of all the Nephalem. So might that mean that Malthael may actually not be doing something fundamentally wrong? Might he, indeed, be striking a balance in some way we don't yet know about that we will prevent, spelling the end of Sanctuary? That might mean the Nephalem themselves are bringing about the end.

Us causing the End of Days? Brilliant! What we might think is just simple defense against Corrupted Angles and Demons is in fact the cause of the world to end. But I feel we are missing a huge piece to Malhael. What happened to him during those 20 years after the destruction of the Worldstone? If we can learn that before the expansion comes out, than maybe we can get a better grasp on his true intentions.

Quote from Mienta

Quote from Drkclone

Quote from Mienta

Tathamet = The Prime Evil, which is currently stored in the black soulstone.
Or do you think it was some sort of fake prime evil we defeated in act 4?

What we defeated was Diablo. Just a more powerful Diablo then we have encountered previously. Despite having all the Lords of Hell residing in one stone, Diablo still was only able to use his abilities when we fought him. Being he was the dominate personality in the Black Soulstone, Diablo controlled their strength but I feel he did not control their power. That is why I believe that Tathamet may still be alive. Only he alone can control all of the Lords of Hell and their powers.

We agree that the Prime Evil in the end of act 4, wasn't really THE tathamet, but pretty damn close considering he contained the essences of all 7 lords of hell.

However, Tathamet is EVEYRTHING evil put together into one body, so he essentially can't exist with all the lords of hell inside the black soulstone. The lords of hell was spawned by the death of tathamet, and is essentially part of him. So if what you're saying is true we would actually have 2x diablo, 2x mephisto, 2x andariel etc. etc. if he died again. That really doesn't make sense to me.

Do you get it? Tathamet is pretty much half the universe. The half that is evil. So if anything evil besides tathamet exists, he himself can't fully exist.

Think about it this way. The Seven Lords of Hell are a part of Tathamet himself. However, all the other demons and such we are accustomed to now are the offspring of them. So the kids of Tathamet would not be required to complete him, but his main parts are. That is at least how I percieve it. Cause if all evil needed to be used for Tathamet to be awakened, then that would also include the Nephalem who embody both Good and Evil. But if we are thought of as offsprings of them, then the Nephalem would not be necassary to create him. But I understand where you are coming from. This whole, One guy spawns all bad, one guy spawns all good, is really confusing.

Quote from Jinshin

Instead of Tathamet, I wonder if Death my refer instead to Trag'Oul, the symbol of the Necromancers? Like Tathamet, Trag'Oul is depicted as a large, dragon-like creature with sweeping wings. The Necromancers act to preserve balance in the world, but with the Burning Hells broken, anything resembling balance has been destroyed. Malthael may seek to unleash the Prime Evils to restore the Balance on Trag'Oul's behalf.

That seems like a good theory but I feel it is outside of Trag'Oul's self. Reasoning being is that he has defended Sanctuary against both Heaven and Hell. And the balancing out seems like the perfect solution, except that the only way he would release the Lords of Hell back into the world is if he can guarantee that the Black Soulstone incident can't happen again. Cause next time, one of them could become more powerful than a Nephalem and spell the end of Creation as we know it. But maybe Trag'Oul got corrupted? All we know of is the High Heavens, Burning Hells, and Sanctuary in this universe. Who's not to say that there might be some dark creature from another world that wants to use it for their own good?

Quote from Mienta

Tathamet = The Prime Evil, which is currently stored in the black soulstone.
Or do you think it was some sort of fake prime evil we defeated in act 4?

What we defeated was Diablo. Just a more powerful Diablo then we have encountered previously. Despite having all the Lords of Hell residing in one stone, Diablo still was only able to use his abilities when we fought him. Being he was the dominate personality in the Black Soulstone, Diablo controlled their strength but I feel he did not control their power. That is why I believe that Tathamet may still be alive. Only he alone can control all of the Lords of Hell and their powers.

With the introduction to the new expansion, we all know that Maltheal is alive. Now, I doubt he has retained his role of Wisdom but looks to have potentially gained some new powers. If they are new, we don't know. For his way of combat have not been recorded for us to confirm. However, it is rampant speculation that Maltheal has taken up the mantle of Death. I do not believe this is true.

Why don't I find this true? Well the first part is the name of the Expansion, Reaper of Souls. While Death does reap souls, he is not the only one. Death has given the power of reaping to his minions so that he doesn't always has to do the job. And I feel Maltheal is in that position. He is not Death, but in fact a lieutenant or general of the real Death. Absurd, I know. An Archangel becoming a minion of someone else? Wont happen! But I feel it did.

Even if you don't agree, hear me out. So why would Wisdom fall and instead becoming a minion? And who would be able to take up the role of Death if not Maltheal? Well, the later I will start first and it will lead to why I believe Wisdom fell. But who could be Death if not Maltheal? I'm glad you asked. I believe it is Tathamet.

WHAT? HOW? WHY? I know, I know. Also seems absurd. However, I will point back to the prophecy of the End of Days.

And, at the End of Days, Wisdom shall be lost
as Justice falls upon the world of men.
Valor shall turn to Wrath
and all Hope will be swallowed by Despair.
Death, at last, shall spread its wings over all
as Fate lies shattered forever.

I feel the prophecy has actually not been fulfilled yet. I will argue that Valor has not turned to Wrath, but instead was consumed by Pride when he ignored help and denounced Tyreal. And Fate, is currently not shattered. Sure he can't see the future of the Nephalem, and I doubt he could see Maltheal falling, but what is the one thing that could cause Fate to be shattered forever? The rise of Tathamet. Which is where my second point lies. In the Book of Cain, it is said,

the Dragon, Tathament was his name - and he breathed unending death and darkness from his seven devouring heads.

Sure, the term is ambiguous, but it fits. A dragon, based on most of our own lore, has wings. But it also explains why Maltheal took the Black Soulstone. Because Tathamet needs it. Because Tathamet is actually not dead.

Tathamet not dieing would mean that there is a being more powerful than any in the plane of Creation. But he was not, because the Lords of Hell were his power. So he was weakened, so even Wisdom should have been able to kill him. However, I feel Maltheal was also weakened. It was said that his mood was darkening before he left. I think he found something. Something that proved that Tathamet was alive. And Anu was in fact, dead. The savior of the Angels, Anu. Learning that his greatest feat had in fact never happened would seem to be a crushin blow to Wisdom. Someone who is supposed to know many things would start to question if one thing was false, how many other things are false as well. So we went to search for Tathamet after the destruction of the Worldstone and had in fact found him. Just the confirmation of him being alive shattered Maltheal, allowing Tathamet to corrupt him and use him.

Why would he need Maltheal? Well, Tathamet probably wants to still act in the shadows. Plus with using a corrupted Archangel, it would be hard press for another angel to even defeat him, as we saw in the cinematic. And Maltheal would be able to locate the location for the Black Soulstone and take it. As I have said, Tathamet it weaked. And while theory would say that Tathamet should of been born right when all Lords of Hell entered the stone, he was not. Tathamet wasn't just a name for all of the power combined, it was also a name for the controling personality. The one creature that was only given the name of Dragon. The one creature that no one knows nothing about and could easily be described as Death.

Edit
As someone pointed out, how could Maltheal find the Black Soulstone, especially so fast? I believe that Tathamet was the one that told him. Not that Tathamet knew the location before Tyreal and the Horadrim decided on it but that Tathamet can sense the power from it like someone knows where their arm is. That power, the Lords of Hell, are a part of Tathamet so the ability to find where it is does not seem unbelievable. And so I think Tathamet knew that it was going to be placed in Sactuary, probably general location due to the travel to the location was going to be long, so he had Maltheal follow the Stone to where we see in the Cinematic and then we get what we saw.

Thanks you for reading my speculation. If you have any opinions or maybe want to add further, please do so. I look forward to the Reaper of Souls and learning more about what is to come in the Future of Sanctuary.

This is incorrect. The official "Prime Evil" Is a Dragon with 7 heads each one the embodiment of the 7 Evils. It's name is Tathamet. If anything that picture looks liek a gigantic ass Baal that is much spikier than I remember.

Oh I know that, but as we saw at the end of D3 with Diablo as the combined "Prime Evil", the form is subjective. Perhaps it is Baal, but if that's truly his real form (he is absolutely gigantic), then why didn't reveal himself as that in D2? Seems like he would've had a much better chance of winning if he was all godzilla'd out like that.

What I think is that while we had the combination of 7 Lords of Hell, we had Diablo as the dominate one out of the seven. Thus that means it resemebles more of Diablo than of any of the others or even Tathamet. If that is the case, then I would guess that if neither had full control and they all shared(PSSSH!! Who are we kidding?) then we would get closer to the true form of Tathamet. Though I think what might recreate him would have to be someone combining all the powers but not the personalities.

No Indeed the stone does fall, what you see disintegrating is what's left of Diablo the stone for sure 100% falls and does not disintegrate.

Although I definitely think it's possible, I don't think it's a "100%" confirmation as you say. If the stone does continue to fall, it picks up pace exponentially all the sudden as it becomes the size of.. well.. nothing within a second or so.

Does this look like the real world to you? If you remember from the cinematic after Act 1, Tyreal fell from the High Heavens to Sanctuary. He WAS the meteor that all the heroes were searching for. If he can survive that with only slight amnesia, then I bet a crystal holding the power of the Lords of Hell can stay intact.

Quote from Enty

I really hope this is a launch title for the Ps4. I'd definitely buy it. No AH, Offline mode, still fun game. I'd take that anyday. Plus PS4 is right now looking to be the better system out of the next-gen hardware. Hopefully Xbox wows us and maybe Blizzard will make D3 for Xbox too if it becomes the better system after announcement.

If this is a launch title for the PS4, I am automatically getting it both. Though I wonder if the helm could be accessible on the PC version of D3. That would be sweet and would really reward those PC gamers for support both versions of the game.

Man, while I'm glad that Diablo is coming to consoles, I am saddened at the fact that it is a direct port. But I will surely try it if I ever get the PS4. Though I will still keep with playing Diablo on the PC for my main playtime.

I've honestly got little problems with the game, but I feel it was worth the wait overall. The problems I have with it is the auto-join into General Chat. That should have never been implemented. And y'all talking about blocking words, I am not an advocate of censorship. Any game that decides to filter words automatically, and I'm not talking about replacing with asterisks, will not get any support from me.

Another issue of mine is the loot. I like the loot. I even like the idea a bit of how a perfectly rolled blue or rare could be better then an average Legendary. But I feel that Legendaries should already have a bigger advantage because they are actually rarer than rares. And along the same lines is the first boss kill loot. While it is being changed, I am not actually advancing past Normal on new characters and further on my other characters until they implement the guaranteed rare for first time boss kills per difficulty.

Quote from Diktat

Completely doctored stats. They take ALL chars into account for their stats. Given that probably 50-60% of all characters are mules, or under level 5, it's complete BS.

I'd estimate about 30-40% of all players are in Inferno. Probably more.

Did you know, 70% of statistics are made up on the spot?


On topic, I'm looking forward to the patches and even testing out 1.1 on the D3 PTRs. Though I gotta get to Inferno and beat it before even getting the good gear for PvP.

Almost all of those ideas are bullshit. The only one that I can agree with is change the color for the pages and tomes. But I pick everything up so it doesn't even effect me. The biggest problem I have with the list is that people are bitching about broken skills getting nerfed to make them not broken. Where is the logic in that? I thought people wanted a hard game. Not an easy one.

Quote from rEDNiNE

I think they will definitely nerf Inferno. The casual players are QQ-ing as expected about it being too hard.

Some guy made a video in which he says he gets 2-3 shot. He took fire chains in the face. Game's fault! Bad design!

Why would Blizz nerf Inferno due to casuals? They already said that they wont nerf it unless it was, in fact, impossible. Yet we have multiple people beating it so there is no reason to nerf it.

But I expect them to at least increase the chance of higher and better attributes on Legendaries.