Battle.net US Forum Thread: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/14729583066 (thanks to ruksak for helping me in promoting my ideas)

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/14730473069 (this is my old one but it didn't get many replies, so pls, comment the one up here

Battle.net EU Forum Thread: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12286639114

Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/2i8fev/suggestions_battlegrounds_of_eternity_black_realm/

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Hi guys!
I'm back again to suggest a couple of ideas I had in mind, for additional Challenge Mode "PvEvP-games".

First off I want to say that my fist idea (Battlegrounds of Eternity) was inspired by my friend Uranux's idea (you can check it here).
Unfortunately he didn't get replies on his thread but please, if you have some spare time just give it a read because, trust me, his idea is really valid!

With that said let's start!

TLDR version at the end of the post!


I thought it would be really really nice to revisit old places, redo old quests and kill again old bosses.

But how to make it happen without ruining the lore?

In the battlefields of eternity, in act 5, you can find "time prisons" where battles of the past got time-stopped.
When you "pop" the "time bubble", the monsters will "awake" and attack you.
I thought that in the mess that it is the Pandemonium Fortress (and its surroundings), there might also be "time-bubbles" that bring you back in time.

I don't know if it could fit the lore, but anyway I think that the Battlegrounds of Eternity could be a nice addition to the game.

So, what are BoE?
The Battlegrounds of Eternity are maps where you have to complete quests in order to progress and then kill the final boss.
Pretty easy, but the nice things are that you will redo old quests, kill old enemies (such as Baal, Mephisto etc.) and that you will compete against other players.

Let's start with some images so you'll have a better idea of my suggestion:



As you can see, you can choose which battleground to play, and each one will have different quests and monsters/bosses to kill.

You can also choose how many players you'd like to fight against



But first let's have a look at the "details and options" pane.

Time-defeat disabled
This refers to the "Race against time" option which I will talk about later.

Rewards based on quests completed and progress-difference between teams
This means that the more quests you complete (in a battleground there are bonus quests that you can skip) and the more difference there is between your team progress and the enemy team progress, the more rewards will get the winner team.
"Which rewards?" you might ask... well I don't know. Depends what Blizzard has in mind with PvP/PvEvP (if they'll ever implement it): they could be "PvP points" for ladder ranking or a "PvP currency" that allows you to buy PvP cosmetic rewards, sigils, banners etc.

Let's now jump inside a game:



As you can see the maps between the two teams are exactely the same (this is also true for monsters, placement of the monsters and everything else) and you can always check your progression and your enemies' progression as well as their position on the map.

To progress you have to complete quests (bonus quests are there for more final rewards) and when you have completed them all on a "floor" you can continue to the next "floor".
When you are at the final "floor" and you completed the final quests, the boss will spawn.
The first team to kill the boss will win.

In the case of The Siege of Harrogath you will have 3 total floors to complete and then you'll have to kill Shenk the Overseer to win.

A note about BoE is that you cannot resurrect.
Once you're dead, you're dead for the rest of the battle:
there will be a "ghost mode" so you can follow and see what your allies are doing and in case all your team is dead you'll have the opportunity to watch the enemies.
Yes, there might be no winners in case the members of both teams die.

Let's take a step back and explain what "Race Against Time" (RAT) is.



Now "Time defeat" is enabled.
Basically when you enable RAT you will also fight against time.
This means that both teams have a set amount of time to finish the battleground.
If they can't make it they will both lose.

Of course, as you can see from the image, the rewards will be higher depending on the remaining time.

Here you can see the RAT version of a battleground:



If this idea will ever get implemented, it would be nice to have many battlegrounds to play.
At first there might be only few of them but as time pass the devs could implement more of them:



There might be the Chaos Sanctuary where you have to open the five sigils to free (and kill) Diablo and where you have to kill the Sigil guardians such as Lord De Seis (and these guardians could be Avatar monsters. If you're wondering what an Avatar monster is just check Uranux's idea here), there might be the Old Tristram "event" where you have to help Lachdanan kill his king, there might be the Tal Rasha Tomb where you have to free Tyrael and kill Duriel etc.
Here's my second idea.

Did you wonder where the fragments of the Black Soulstone have gone?
They're spread all over Sanctuary and while many evil souls have been released, some of them are still inside these fragments and are trying to get free.
This influences the Nephalems' sleep making their dreams become nightmares.

While in these nightmares the physical body of the Nephalems will remain safe but their minds might become corrupted.
In order to maintain sanity and to purify the fragment, the Nephalems must destroy the "Nightmare Summoning Portals" and at last the Black Realm boss.
Unfortunately many Nephalems are "connected" to these fragments and only the fastest one (team) have the possibility to escape the nightmare.

How it works

Both teams will play on a random generated map with exactely the same shape, placement of the monsters, monsters type, etc.
Every map has 4 portals and each of them spawn on a different lane (more on this later) and they'll keep summoning monsters on a regular basis.
These monsters will always follow the players, no matter how far they are.



Every summoning lasts for 3 minutes (I'm calling these summonings "rounds") and then a new one will begin with new type of monsters, and all the "old" monsters will perish.
Kinda what happens on the Realm of Trials where you get the Greater Rift Keys.

What's the difference between an "endless wave dungeon" and this idea then?
There are many differences and I'll try to be as clear as possible (images will help me achive this I hope).

The main difference is that a certain amount of monsters killed by one team in next previous round will spawn at the start of the next round on the other team's map at the nearest Summoning Portal.
These monsters will also have a 50% damage, health and movement speed increase boost and they will NOT count as kills.
This means that the teams will not fight only to be the first to destroy the summoning portals but also to kill as fast as they can and as many minions as they can so they can slow the other team's progression.

Now I won't list all the differences one by one, however I will keep explaining and you'll see all other differences on your own.

Summoning Potential

As I wrote above, a certain amount of monsters will spawn on the other team's side at the start of a new round.
This amount is determined by the "Summoning Potential"

Every Summoning Portal still active gives the team a 10% summoning potential.
At the start of the game, each team will have a base 40% summoning potential.

So, if at the end of a round, both teams didn't destroyed any portal, at the start of the next round each team will see spawn 40% of the enemy team's total kills obtained on the previous round.

E.g.
If no portals are destroyed and the blue team killed 100 monsters and the red team killed 80 on round 1, at the start of the round 2 the nearest (to the players) summoning portal will spawn 32 "red minions" for the blue team and 40 "blue minions" for the red team.

This "summoning potential" is diminished by 10% for each portal destroyed but if one team has more portal destroyed than the other one, then the team who has the less amount of portal destroyed will receive a "summoning potential penalty" that increases the base "summoning potential" by 10% multiplied by the difference between the two team's portals that are still active.

E.g.
If the red team is the first to destroy a portal (so it's 1-0 in favor of the red team), then the red team summoning potential will be 30%, while the blue team will receive a penalty of 10% and will see its portals reach a 50% summoning potential.
If the score changes to 2-0 for the red team, the red team will have a summoning potential of 20% while the blue team will have a it at 60%.
If the score changes again to 2-1 for the red team, the red team will always have a summoning potential of 20% while the blue team will see its own go down to 40% (10% for each summoning portal still active and 10% for "score difference").
One last example, if the score changes once again to 2-2, then the summoning potential for both teams will be set at 20%.

Portals Guardians

Each lane (more on this later) will have 3 Portal Guardians that make the Summoning Portal invulnerable until they are dead.
This Guardians are very strong unique monsters and will slow a team's progression also because they don't count as kills.

Team Minions

Team Minions are the monsters that are summoned for the enemy team at the start of a new round and that will help your team to slow the enemy one.
As I wrote earlier, these minions have their damage, health and movement speed increased by 50% and they do NOT count as kills.

Elites

Every now and then, the nearest Summoning Portal will spawn a pack of Elite Champions (blue elite).
These packs do not count as kills but they will increase the potency of your team's minions.
This means that for every pack of elite killed, the Team Minions receive a 2% damage, health and movement speed increase boost!

This potency is reset whenever a new round starts.

Note: remember that all numbers you see here are just examples!!

Normal Black Realm

Now that the majority of my idea has been explained I can continue with other details.



As you can see there are more elements I have to explain, but once again let's slow down and explain everything in detail.

Straightforward-style maps
This means that the random generated maps are "mirrored maps" and every element on the map is placed in a "linear" manner.

Portal Guardians have no minions
This is self-explanatory

Portal Guardians deaths do not increase monsters summonning rate
Differently from Chaotic Black Realm, everytime you kill a Portal Guardian it doesn't increase the spawning rate of monsters from Summoning Portals.
For example in a Chaotic Black Realm if a pack of monsters spawns every 10 seconds, when you kill a Guardian, this spawning rate will increase and the pack will be summoned every 9 seconds.

Note: remember once again that numers are just an example



As you can see from the image, you can notice that there are 4 "lanes" and each lane has 3 Portal Guardians and a Summoning Portal.
To destroy the Summoning Portal of a certain lane you have to kill all three Portal Guardians of that same lane:



Once a team has destroyed all 4 Summoning Portals, the Black Realm Boss will spawn it must be killed in order to achieve victory:

Adding complexity: Nightmare Pillars

What are these "Nightmare Pillars"?
These are destructible "objects" that weaken the players.
If Nightmare Pillars are enabled they will spawn (3 of each) in the Black Realm.

There are two types of Nightmare Pillars: Disrupting and Constraining.



The first type will slow players' movement speed (this includes "animation speed" for "travelling abilities" such as leap, vault etc.) while the second one will decrease the amount of damage the players do.
Each Pillar have a malus of 15% which means that players will start with -45% movement speed and damage.





These Pillars work in a similar way of the one of Summoning Portals:
the team who has more destroyed pillars will give the other team a penalty.

E.g.
If the red team has 1 Constraining Pillar destroyed while the blue team has 0, then the red team will have a 30% damage penalty while the blue team will have a 60% damage penalty.
This means that if a team is winning with the score of 3-0 Constraining Pillars destroyed, that team will have 0% damage penalty while the other will have a 90% damage penalty!!!

Note: here again.. numbers are just examples!

With Pillars enabled you will have much more tactical games and they add a bit of RNG because you don't know where they spawn (even if in Normal Black Realm it's easier to find them) so the first team that find them might get a bit of advantage but since this is an option, why not?

Pillars won't be easy to destroy, as at 50% health they become invulnerable and spawn a "Pillar Guardian" that is a unique monster with great powers and that does NOT count as a kill.
Once this Guardian is killed the Pillar will become vulnerable once again and you can destroy it.

Teams: 1vs1, 2vs2, 3vs3, 4vs4

Of course there is the option to choose with and against how many players you can fight:

Adding even more complexity: Chaotic Black Realm

The main difference between a Normal and a Chaotic Black Realm is that the maps in the Chaotic one are not "mirrored" and all "elements" are placed at random.



Portal Guardians will also have minions (they are not needed to be killed in order to make a Summoning Portal vulnerable.. but they hurt!).
In addition, everytime you kill a Portal Guardian, the summoning rate of monsters will increase:

Entrance Portal

Whenever you destroy a Summoning Portal, an Entrance Portal will activate and they can be used to return at the start of the map so you can reach faster the next Summoning Portal:

Another example of a Chaotic Black Realm map

As you saw, I showed you an example of a Chaotic Black Realm map but you might have been confused because the map was not very "messy", so I will show you another example of a Chaotic Black Realm Map:



With this you might get even more confused, but I can assure you that every element is where it must be and to prove this here's an easier image to understand:

Teams Details

The last thing I want to show you is the "Team Details" pane:



And to have a better idea of how "everything" works here's a .gif image:

Player Deaths

As for BoE, also in Black Realm whenever a player dies, he cannot resurrect.
About Hardcore characters I think that it would be nice to make the death not permantent (for both BoE and Black Realm) so they can enjoy as much as they like these two challenge modes but this would go against the "hardcore phylosophy" so I thought that an alternative is to allow only the Normal Black Realm to not have a permanent death while the other two modes (BoE and Chaotic Black Realm) will make them RIP forever.
Remember that even if a team loses its members won't die of course.

Conclusion

Alright guys!
I've finished.
I hope you enjoyed it as mush as I did to create all of this!

P.S. If you're wondering what Wave of Death, Defence of the Outpost and Infernal Rift are and how you can open "the challenge mode window" have a look here

P.P.S. Sorry for my not-so-perfect english :/

If you have any criticism or would like to write a comment please don't refrain from posting!

Battlegrounds of Eternity
The Battlegrounds of Eternity are maps where you have to complete quests in order to progress and then kill the final boss.
Pretty easy, but the nice things are that you will redo old quests, kill old enemies (such as Baal, Mephisto etc.) and that you will compete against other players.

Black Realm
Both teams will play on a random generated map with exactely the same shape, placement of the monsters, monsters type, etc.
Every map has 4 portals and each of them spawn on a different lane (4 lanes total) and they'll keep summoning monsters on a regular basis.
A certain ammount of these summoned monsters will spawn in the other team's summoning portals at the start of each round so they'll slow the enemy team's progression.

A team must destroy these Summoning Portals before the other team does and in order to make them vulnerable to attacks, players have to first kill the Portal Guardians.

There are options to make these maps more tactical and to add some RNG such as enabling "Nightmare Pillars" that weaken the players' powers or by choosing a Chaotic Black Realm that will generate "non-mirrored" maps.

Similar to The Grandfather also The Flavor of Time doesn't have +% attack speed as a fixed stat anymore (also it rolls 5 primary stats, but it is already written in the OP).

Quote from TheRabidDeer

Pig Stickerrolls 5 primaries and could actually be good now

It already does in live

Earthquake fury cost is now 25 (down from 50)

The Grandfather no longer has % attack speed as fixed affix and has 5 primary and 1 secondary stats:

Here's the image of the stormshield:



Note that string of ears has the same rolls as the live version so I don't if this is an intended change just for the shield.

P.S. I don't know if the 2.1 version of the string of ears will have double value on damage reduction, but my stormshield is from 2.0 as I didn't drop it in the PTR but I already had it so if this is an intended change it will be retroactive.

It seems that stormshield now rolls with double value on melee damage reduction.

A friend of mine told me that this is because they buffed damage reduction stats but I didn't read of it anywhere (I read just about LoH and regen buffs) so I will report this stormshield change anyway.

I will try to upload an image of the shield on a later time.

Thanks guys for the replies.
Much appreciated!

Hi guys!

I'm looking for some info about elemental damage.

After this hotfix:

Skills that deal Physical damage should no longer benefit from items that increase elemental skill damage.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/10004140329

are skills such as http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/barbarian/active/bash benefitting from +X% fire damage if I have a fire weapon?

Because I tested but it seems that now Bash (without runes) coverts all damage to be physical.

So.. is the type of damage of a weapon useless? (except for abilities like: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/wizard/passive/elemental-exposure )

Edit: since it seems that for someone this is really what I would create, actually it's not. The real purpose of this thread is to make an actual suggestion to the devs to make the itemization and all other things covered in this post better and to create a really solid base where to add other features (PvEvP and so on)

However, I'd like to hear anyway some of your "mod-ideas"



Link to U.S. Forums: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12089868974

Link to E.U. Forums: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/10033983428

Link to Italian Forums: http://eu.battle.net/d3/it/forum/topic/10033613440

Link to Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/20fj5c/if_diablo_3_had_mods/




Hi guys,

today I'm here to show you the features that you can try in the Mod I'm working on: Diablo 3: Revenge of the Nephalems.
Remember that this is quite a long read and it is still a work in progress so keep in mind that the numbers you see here might be changed in the future and that much more has to come!
This is just the beginning!

In this first version of the Mod I focused more on itemization and affixes (including some changes to artisans) to get a solid base for eventual future changes (see below) and/or additions.
The Mod also includes some Quality of Life changes.

One big change I've done is to affixes:
I liked the new 4/2 system implemented in patch 2.0, where some affixes couldn't compete with each other but I felt that the system still had some flaws because there were still some affixes that were mandatory or completly/almost useless.

This is why some affixes have been updated/removed and why I created another category of affixes: Innate.

Innate affixes are magic properties that:

• always felt mandatory for some items
• cannot be changed in any way (no mystic/blacksmith)
• do not compete with each other
• always roll on items.

Sockets and "item level requirement" work in a bit different way: these ones do not have a 100% chance to roll on an item even if they're now innate affixes.

Note: a reason why "item level requirement" is rolled as an innate affix is because I think it might be kinda useful for some alt leveling (even if it cannot roll on legendaries) and because so it can no longer compete with secondary affixes (which are now much more useful)

I wanted to have even secondary affixes to matter so all the ones I felt were useless are gone.
Diablo 2 had affixes like "increases light radius" and Diablo 3 had affixes like "experience per kill" which were both there just for "fun".

It's ok to have some affixes that are not very powerful but I think that in some way they ALL must be useful.

Let's have a look on the new affixes table:


Note 1: this is the list of new/updated/removed affixes. Affixes that are not listed here remain the same
Note 2: 1-handed and 2-handed weapons include ranged weapons too of course
Note 3: some values for 2-handed weapons are higher than the ones of 1-handed weapons (not shown in the table)
Note 4: single resistance and all resistances can now roll on a same item once again (much like it happened in Diablo 2)


REMOVED AFFIXES

• Experience per kill / Ignores durability lost: I felt they were completly useless so they're completly gone


• Life per kill / Health Globe and Potion healing bonus: replaced with "healing bonus"


• Pickup radius: replaced with "Increased Area of area of effect abilities"


• Gold Find: I think that difficulty levels are enough to increase/decrease gold find


• Bleed damage: more on this later

NEW AFFIXES

• Increased chance to deal splash damage: this one is an innate affix and it increases the chance (not the damage) to deal splash damage by 30% (total of 50%) and it's exclusively and always rolled on 2-handed weapons. This has been done to give 2-handed weapons a way to compete with 1h+off-hand or 2x1h. Heavenly Strength has been changed. It was kinda sad that for just one passive you couldn't rely on a complete set of items.


• Chance to Bleed: it increases the chance to make your target bleed (base % is 0). More on Bleed damage later.


• Chance to spawn a Nephalem Glory orb: description says it all


• Increased Nephalem Glory duration: description says it all


• Increased Area of area of effect abilities: it increases the area of all your AoE abilities both defensive (Shouts, Mantras etc) and offensive (Rend, Rain of Vengeace etc.). It does not increase the area of "movement-abilities" such as Dashing Strike or Teleport etc.


• Increased healing effects: it increases the effects of potions/globes/runes/abilities (both active and passive). In the current build of the Mod it does not affect healing affixes such as Life Regeneration, Life on Hit, Life per Fury/Spirit/Wrath spent etc. but things might change during the testing.

UPDATED AFFIXES

• Chance to roll a socket: sockets now have a chance to roll and are an innate affix. Note that for 2-handed weapons you can have up to 2 sockets now.


• Chance to immobilize / stun / etc. on hit: it is now an innate affix and it rolls tied to the type of weapon damage (physical, fire, frost etc.). To see the exact percentage of proc you have just to press the CTRL button while viewing the item (much like you do to see the min-max values of an affix).

• Cold: Freeze
• Fire / Holy: Blind
• Poison / Arcane: Slow
• Physical / Lightning: Stun

• Increased value on single resistance affix: single resistances can now roll up to 200. One With Everything has been changed. It was kinda sad that for just one passive you couldn't have a decent amount of single resistance to make it a real choice.


• Thorns: the damage values have been changed to weapon damage so the player has a better understading of how much damage they do


• Reduced Level Requirement: it's an innate affix and has a chance to roll on non-legendary items only

Note: fear and knockback proc effects have gone from "normal" items, but you can find these affixes as innate affixes on some legendaries such as Windforce.

AFFIXES WITH NEW CLASSIFICATION

• +X-Y damage: it's now an innate affix found on weapons, sources and mojos. No one would have ever used a 250 DPS weapon at high levels so this affix is pretty much mandatory. A proof of this is that no one legendary weapon/source/mojo (even in an un-modded patch 2.0) will ever roll without this affix.


• Movement speed: it does not increase your power in any way so it's basically a secondary affix. I don't know why it was considered a primary one.

ADDITIONAL CHANGES

Bleed damage

Bleed damage is now a base "property" that every character has.
Your base chance to make a target bleed is 0% which can be increased with items.
The new bleed damage consist in dealing a X% (numbers still in phase of test) of the damage dealt over 3 seconds (in testing as well) to the target, stacking indefinitely.
This means that everytime I get a "bleed damage hit" it stacks and refreshes to its maximum duration.

E.g.:
let's assume to have a 10% bleed damage.
If I deal 200 damage per hit, I will deal an additional 10% (that's 20 damage) over 3 seconds if I get a "bleed damage" hit.
If I get a second "bleed damage" hit, before the bleed effect fades, then I will deal 40 damage over 3 seconds.
If I get a third "bleed damage" hit, before the bleed effect fades, then I will deal 60 damage over 3 seconds and so on.

Bleed damage hits can be inflicted only with NON-CRITICAL hits so it can compete with CC+CHD.
If you think that this affix might become OP, remember that your critical hits are usually 4/5 times higher than you normal hits and that the bleed effect has a short duration, so if you have to get away or you have a low chance to make the target bleed, the bleed effect might fade before you hit the target with another "bleed hit" and this will make you start from zero.
Anway it's only a matter of number balance

New calculations

The total amount of Chance to Crit, Chance to Bleed, Chance to spawn a Nephalem Glory orb on hit among all items is now calculated the same way as the one of Melee/Ranged Damage Reduction, Cooldown Reduction and Resource Cost Reduction.


This is to limit the potency of said affixes (mostly for Critical Strike Chance which I find somewhat weird that it didn't already have the same calculation rule as Cooldown Reduction, Resource Cost Reduction etc.)

Note: Bleed chance (with the max values shown in the table) for dual-wielding characters will be a total chance of ~40% while for 1h+off-hand characters the chance will be ~42% (same as 2h). Remember that numbers might change during testing.

I really like the new legendaries of patch 2.0.
To be honest I like the ones with strong legendary powers, while the others... well... not so much.
Travis Day said in an interview that they cannot find out 400 new legendary powers that are balanced and that there should be a "gap" between rare and "strong-legendaries": this gap are "not-so-good-legendaries".
I find this a bit awkward since some legendary powers are everything other than balanced and I cannot understand why some legendaries are called in this way if they're pure garbage.

I can understand that they wanted to have an additional "type" of items between rares and strong-legendaries, so I thought: "why not calling bad-legendaries legendaries and strong-legendaries something like mythical items by giving these a different color?"

In this way you really know that if you find a mythical item you REALLY jump on the chair!

But then I re-thought about this: "we want to make legendaries as epic as we can make them".

Why did I wrote this?
Because I wanted to say that there's no need to create every legendary with a legendary power but there's a need to make them better, mostly the bad ones, so you can really feel the epicness in dropping one of them! EVERYTIME you get one!

What I'm talking about is this:


There's nothing legendary in here! Just because it rolls a bit higher stats than a rare, it does not make this item a legendary! It cannot even roll a socket (mystic cannot be an excuse)!

Let's see how it's gonna look like in the Mod:


Much much better!



Oh well! You've just added two currently "primary" stats as "fixed" stats... and anyway even here there's nothing legendary on this weapon!
You're completly right.
But those two innate affixes were mandatory so basically you were not in a 4/2 environment but you were actually in a 2/2 one.
With the mystic, wouldn't you have rerolled one of those stats to have a socket?
Would you have ever consider that weapon if it didn't roll with the "+X-Y damage"?

Also, that legendary is not he final version because the final version is this:


Here's something legendary!
The "Increases Nephalem Glory duration by 20-30 seconds" is a peculiarity of this weapon because the maximum values on an item for this affix is "8-12".
Yes, nothing great but even without a legendary power you might consider this for a more sustainable Nephalem Glory power with less items.
You don't need a legendary power for every legendary, but you need peculiarities... these are the things that every legendary should have.

Much like this:


25-30% melee damage reduction! Hell... this is an insane peculiarity which makes this legendary really worth it!

Another example?

Patch 2.0 version:



Mod version:


Now, leaving a part the innate affixes, what's changed here?
The attack speed is increased by a lot! That's a peculiarity of this legendary! (the patch 2.0 version had the % life affix which was not enough to make it worth for the loss of a socket)
You still might get the "lower-tier" of rolls but if you get the "higher-one" you know this weapon can become really strong! (more on higher and lower tiers rolls later)

Let's have a look on a crafted chest-armor:

Patch 2.0 version:


With this you have high chances to get really bad rolls... and you know you spent a lot (time, materials etc.) to get it and if it rolls bad affixes you're gonna throw your computer away (lol).

Mod version:


It has now a peculiarity: other than rolling a high value of splash damage, it also rolled this affix which normally cannot roll on a chest.
You still might get bad rolls but the chances are far less due to sockets being an innate affix and also you know that this chest has something different compared to rares other than just higher rolls.
Imagine this chest combined with a mod version of a 2-handed weapon!

What about legendaries with "weird" combinations of affixes?

Patch 2.0 version:


This amulet has the peculiarity to have "+X% movement speed".
But.. would you ever consider it with those low values on attack speed and cooldown reduction?
You would have to sacrifice some important stats (main stat, critical hit, crit damage etc.) to wear it. Is it really worth it?

Mod version:


Even if movement speed was still on the primary "table" and there was no chance for a socket I think that this amulet could have been considered a nice choice (20% as and 15% cdr) anyway.

I think that "weird" legendaries should exist but they really should have meaningful peculiarities to make them worth the loss of other items with better combinations of affixes.

Imagine an amulet with like "20% ias, 20% cdr, 20% resource cost reduction and 30% splash damage". You would lose CC, CHD, main stat etc... but you'd gain much higher values on these other affixes.
This is just a "stupid" example of how even a "weird" legendary can have a high chance to be a real choice for the player, even without a legendary power or a "perfect combination" of affixes.



I put a spoiler button just in case you don't want to know how the mystic works in RoS



Finally it's back!
The add socket feature is now become a reality in D3:RotN Mod!

If one of your items didn't roll a socket you can add it by going to the blacksmith.
All you have to do is giving him the item you want to socket, some materials, some gold and an Evil Soul, a new legendary material dropped from all end-act bosses once you pressed the "reset story" button for Campaign Mode.
If you are in Adventure Mode you can visit Kadala and buy an Evil Soul with your Blood Shards (quantity to be decided).

Note 1: only one socket at a time will be added to an item so for an unsocketed chest you will have to go to the blacksmith 3 times.
Note 2: this new material can be found only on torment difficulty.
Note 3: chances to drop an Evil Soul to be decided.

Devs said that the quest in Diablo 2 was mandatory and "not fun", but I think that sockets are mandatory in Diablo 3 too and I consider this new feature a garanteed way to improve your gear.
At least in this way the player will be sure that he can improve! No RNG involved!



One of the main concerns of people who played RoS beta was that there was no actual "benefit" to go to higher difficulty levels other than an increased chance to find legendaries (a part from +%XP and +%gold).
The difficulty increase was not really worth it, so how can you change that?

One of the nice things that this Mod has is that many legendaries have preset-affixes that may roll with "lower-tier values" or "higher-tier values".

An example is The Grandfather:



It can roll +8-12% attack speed or +15-20% attack speed.
While in patch 2.0 the difficulty levels do not influence the quality of an item, in this Mod they are because the more difficult is the game and the more chances you have to roll a "higher-tier value".

Basically if I play in Torment 1 I will have a 90% chance to get lower-tier value roll (8-12% IAS) and only a 10% chance to get a higher-tier one (15-20% IAS) while if I play in Torment 3 I will have a 50% chance to roll either a lower-tier or a higher-tier.

Currently the chances to roll the different tiers are divided in this way (this might change during testing):

• NORMAL:


• Lower-Tier roll chance: 99%
• Higher-Tier roll chance: 1%


• HARD:


• Lower-Tier roll chance: 98%
• Higher-Tier roll chance: 2%


• EXPERT:


• Lower-Tier roll chance: 97%
• Higher-Tier roll chance: 3%


• MASTER:


• Lower-Tier roll chance: 95%
• Higher-Tier roll chance: 5%


• TORMENT I:


• Lower-Tier roll chance: 90%
• Higher-Tier roll chance: 10%


• TORMENT II:


• Lower-Tier roll chance: 75%
• Higher-Tier roll chance: 25%


• TORMENT III:


• Lower-Tier roll chance: 50%
• Higher-Tier roll chance: 50%


• TORMENT IV:


• Lower-Tier roll chance: 25%
• Higher-Tier roll chance: 75%


• TORMENT V:


• Lower-Tier roll chance: 10%
• Higher-Tier roll chance: 90%


• TORMENT VI:


• Lower-Tier roll chance: 0%
• Higher-Tier roll chance: 100%

I think that with this new "feature" it will make much more sense to farm higher difficulty levels.



ONE WITH EVERYTHING
Currently it is set to make the Monk gain 0.5 points of armor and all resistances for each point of Dexterity.
Earlier it was the same as in patch 2.0 but with the negative effect of having all the resistances reduced by 25%.
I didn't like that solution so I changed it to the current version which makes this passive still a strong ability.

Remember that numbers might change during testing.

HEAVENLY STRENGTH
In addition to the patch 2.0 version, this passive has another negative effect which removes the 30% splash chance bonus that 2-handers give.


This is a list of some of the QoL you will find in the Mod:

• Dynamic Tooltips: by activating elective mode and by pressing CTRL button while viewing your abilities, you can see the exact damage they deal, the exact cooldown they have, the exact cost they have etc.


• "Detail" pane additions:


• Thorns: you can check the total weapon damage you deal and by overing the percentage you will get the exact damage your thorns do


• Abilities damage: you can also check here the exact damage your abilities do


• Base weapon damage: you can finally see the exact amount of base damage of your weapons


• Pickup Radius: base pickup radius has been increased to 5 yards


• Movement Speed: base movement speed has been increased by 15%

I'm already looking at D3: RotN Mod v2.0.
Don't get me wrong, I like the changes in the first version but I think that there is more I can do to improve the game so the first Mod is more a "get the players in habit with these new mechanics/features" other than a complete "fix" to some problems.

One of them is the mandatory affixes.
I like Diablo and its RNG and in the first version of the mod I introduced Innate affixes which are evertyhing other than "random" since they always roll on items and do not compete against other affixes.
Unfortunately the game was set in a way where affixes like "+X-Y damage" were really a must have.

I think that the biggest cause of this problem is how main stats (strength, dexterity, intelligence) work.

This is why I'm thinking to change how the whole system of stats / abilities works in RotN v2.0.

Abilities will be divided in 3 categories:

• Weapon damage abilities: these abilities work like they currently do


• Fixed-damage abilities: these abilities will have fixed damage (Diablo 2 style)


• Hybrid-damage abilities: these abilities will have a component of weapon damage and a component of fixed damage

Statistics will work like this:

• Strength: increases the weapon damage component of abilities


• Dexterity: increases both the weapon and fixed damage components of abilities (Dexterity will be less effective than Strength and Intelligence since it will increase both damage components)


• Intelligence: increases the fixed damage component of abilities

Needless to say that each class will have at least one of each type of abilities and that:

• Barbarians and Crusaders will have more skills relying on weapon damage


• Monks and Demon Hunters will have more skills relying on both weapon and fixed damage


• Wizards and Witch Doctors: will have more skills relying on fixed damage

With this change you can also have a more flexible system between classes (some barbarians with a "fixed-damage" build might want an item with intelligence or a wizard with a "weapon-damage" build might want an item with strength), you can really think of "crazy-builds" and also you don't always need to have the "+X-Y damage" affix on a weapon (thanks to "fixed damage abilities").

Sockets are a different matter and all I can think of is a nerf to gems or to make sockets not roll at all so the only way you have to add them on an item is to go to the blacksmith.
We'll see.


I was one of the people who was against to the "free-skill-switch" but after some time I completly changed my mind and I really liked to not be tied to something similar to the old Diablo 2 Skill tree.

However, I think that with the patch 2.0 the player is now tied to an item tree mostly due to affixes like "+X% [element] skills damage" and "+X% [skill] damage".

This is why I thought of implementing a system where the player can choose which bonus to get (something similar to one of my previous ideas --- for "+X% [element] skills damage" the new affix would be something like "+X Elemental Power").

But I was unsure how it would have played out in the Mod v1.0 and how people would have reacted with another "not-so-rng" feature so I didn't implement this change.

Only time will tell if I will need to add this feature in the future or not.


PvP and PvEvP is something I'd like to add (already working on some features) but I would like to see how these/future changes feel first before implementing them.

When everything is set in stone then I will be able to add those features, an improved version of the Paragon "talent-tree" and more (that's a surprise! ).

That's all for now!
Thanks for reading the "mod notes"!

(Sorry for my english!)



This is my "imaginary" mod...

I think another weapon that you can consider as very good for a Lightining Barb is this:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/fulminator

This + Thunderfury + BattleRage (Bloodshed) = AoE awesomeness ^^

P.S. Oh and with this double lightning weapon combo you can also use abilities that deal physical damage ^^ so it's a double win

Try to ask him some of these questions please: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/11644244382

I laughed when the male barbarian transformed into Berserker and the female barbarian looked at him like "ooh! soo sexy!"

This is my favorite as well! EPIC!

Nice post as always MrMonstrosity.

I would like to give you a +1 but it says "you cannot thank yourself"... oh well :/

Edit: ok here we go. fixed!

Edit 2: Maybe this would lead to an even more "need-to-have-socket-to-not-be-junk" situation... I hope Blizzard will change sockets into "innate" affixes... much like Diablo 2 plus a quest/feature to add sockets.