Arcane Enchanted monsters were modified in the latest Beta patch, they no longer spawn hydras and they now spawn pretty cool looking arcane beams.
Blue Posts
Official Blizzard Quote:
ETA on Extra Beta Keys
For those looking to get keys now that a patch is out, please be aware that we're still monitoring stability issues and will be releasing keys as needed once the service is a bit more stable.
It's not a real action/reaction situation. The patch is a big milestone for us, the beta, and the game, but keys are still going to be metered out as we feel additional testers are necessary for testing purposes. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Annoyance of picking up items
This is one of those user experience issues where some players really want convenience, and we have to sort of fight back against that for the betterment of the experience and enjoyment of the game.
It potentially sounds ridiculous. Of course convenience means you're able to have more fun, right? Actually it can seriously degrade even short term enjoyment of a game.
We maintain that the act of clicking to pick up items is important for a few reasons. It obviously allows you to pick and choose what you actually want to pick up, and that's actually an important player choice. And it happens a lot. You could argue that you want to pick up everything! For gold this is true, there's never a reason not to pick up gold, but for items the reality is that in the long term it's pretty unlikely that you're always going to want to pick up every item that drops. In fact I'd personally guarantee it. And for all of the convenience options we have, all of the streamlining, making the game easy to approach (but difficult to master), and all that junk, the fact remains that Diablo is about clicking, clicking, clicking. It works. It has always worked, and we know that it's integral to the formula of why it does.
In my personal outlook, it's a situation where - and this is potentially getting into the psychology of games a little - your direct interaction with the game, where upon completion of a goal (killing demons) you're presented a reward (phat lewt) it's important that you're involved in actually receiving the reward. Hitting a button to vacuum it all up devalues that system, and ultimately the enjoyment of the game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Griswold's Edge No Longer Legendary
Griswald's Edge is now a blue item that randomly spawns from the Anvil of Fury. It is no longer a legendary. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Followers can't die
It is intended for Followers to not die when you die. Followers actually can't die, they can only get knocked unconscious. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
I liked the hydras version better but hope Blizz will implement both. Knowing it's an arcane (or molten or whatever) but not exactly which way it will attack you would make the game more challenging.
And have to agree with Blizzard on click to collect, I played Sacred where you can vacuum everything and to me it feels a bit like you are tiding your room.
Looks like a laser grid from a museum or bank security system.
Well, arcane hydras is kinda the same in that regard.
It's funny how Blizz couldn't see the problem with this implementation into the beta...hopefully they'll hear the cries and fix it somehow in the next path...bleh
Hydras were much more of melee killers than ranged killers. They spawned in melee right next to the mob, which gave melee classes practically no reaction time to dodge the purple orbs they spit.
I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Hydras returning in Nightmare or Hell. I wouldn't even be surprised if we see a combination of the two come Hell/Inferno, so we're dodging both arcane bolts from hydras as well as maneuvering between laser beams.
Also, the range goes all the way off the screen, so I don't see how this makes it even easier for ranged classes.
I think they lowered the damage by quite a bit, and now it actually feels more tactical choosing when to dodge the beams (specially when they cross each other), instead of instantly dying if you're melee and being forced into constantly moving if you're ranged.
Maybe the old Arcane Enchanted was just a taste of what they could do to us to make the game more difficult (and maybe it comes back on Inferno).
(godammit, after writing all that I read page 2, everybody said everything I wanted to say.. com'on..)
I always love their excuses for small things, like picking up items. Maybe, just maybe, the flaw is that everything is worth picking up now? No, lets ignore that. A player shouldn't even -want- to pick everything up. It doesn't matter if you have to click everything manually or you have a special button that does it for you. I don't think Torchlight had one (or I never used it) and I still vacuumed everything, and it still felt bad.
You want them to add useless items that you don't want to pick up just so they can justify not adding a more convenient item pickup system..?