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GvG Card Reveals: Call Pet, Mech-Bear-Cat, Toshley
Intro to Hero Design, Town Hall Heroes #40 - Balance Discussion, eSports, Early Game
Upcoming Dungeon Changes and Hotfix, Conquest Changes, Blue Posts, Warlords Marketing

Death Penalty on Greater Rifts

The current PTR is experimenting with a new death penalty, removing the "checkpoint" system and bringing back "revive timers". Some players weren't happy with this new system, as sitting through long periods of time staring at a death penalty screen isn't exactly fun. The developers are aware, as a recent post from Wyatt on Reddit shows, and are tinkering with solutions.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

why not penalize my time? Add on a couple of seconds to the time elapsed meter.

We're toying around with a few different solutions, and this is the most likely option. Wyatt shared some of the thought process on Reddit recently, but here's the summary in case you missed it:

We're not happy with the current situation where your resurrection location is flooded with monsters and you're unable to recover. However, we also want to avoid creating a situation that makes you have to calculate on the spot which is more advantageous, resurrecting at your corpse or reviving at your last checkpoint. It's contradictory to the goal of making the death penalty consistent. 

In short, we're aware of the issue, and while we haven't decided on a final solution yet, an option to revive at checkpoint for a small penalty is likely.

Marauder's Changes

There are a couple changes coming to the Marauder's set with the next PTR Patch, as some blue posts on the focused feedback thread show. Check them out in the snippet of Nevalistis' post below! Also bear in mind she clarified on another post that only the Spenders cast from your character get the increased damage bonus.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Finally, we've already got some additional changes pending for the Embodiment of the Marauder. It’s great to see that players are enjoying the more active gameplay of this redesign, and we want to further shift the source of damage from your Sentries to your Demon Hunter. To accomplish this, the set bonus order is being shifted around and retuned. Bear in mind that tuning on the exact number values will likely continue through the PTR and are not yet final. 

Here's our latest anticipated changes, which will be coming to the next PTR patch:

• 2 Piece Bonus
  
  • Companion calls all companions to your side.
• 4 Piece Bonus
  
  • Sentries cast your Hatred spender when you do.
• 6 Piece Bonus
  
  • Your generators, Elemental Arrow, Chakram, Impale, Multishot, and Cluster Arrow deal 100% increased damage for every active Sentry.

This should bring the set's damage potential closer to what it currently provides on live, if not a bit better. Once again, thank you for your ongoing diligence in PTR testing!.
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Does this mean that only our shots are buffed by 100% for every sentry, or also the shots of these sentries?

Good question! This set bonus applies only to your shots, not the shots fired by Sentries.

Season 2 on PTR

Season 2 is underway on the Public Test Realm (and we had quite a few familiar posts about the procedure), so for those interested you now have access to exclusive Season 2 gear and conquests! Also, since the developers need feedback as soon as possible on Conquests and Seasonal Legendaries, they have a specific buff active for a limited time that should make finding that sweet loot much quicker! Read the details below.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

As Season 2 begins on PTR, we realize it may be challenging to level up and gear effectively with a short testing window. In order to facilitate Seasonal testing, particularly for our new Conquests and Seasonal Legendaries, we're activating several Community buffs to help you along the way.

The following buffs will be active on the PTR for all characters (both Seasonal and Non-Seasonal) once Season 2 begins:

• 300% Bonus Experience Earned
• 2000% Bonus Chance to Find Legendaries
• Double Goblins
• Double Blood Shards

These buffs will be available for a limited time and will not last the full duration of the PTR, so if you plan on testing Season 2 Conquests, now's the best time to jump in and take advantage of them! 

As always, your feedback is appreciated and we thank you for participating in our latest testing phase.

Seasonal Exclusive Content

There was also a huge post yesterday clarifying how much of the game is "exclusive" Season content. It was said that some of the items showed during Blizzcon are not planned for Patch 2.1.2, and will be coming on a future patch. And it was explained how Legendaries which are getting new special affixes will not be retroactively affected (aka you will have to drop the new ones).

Bear in mind that the exclusive Season 2 items and content (like Transmogs and Banner customization options) are very specific and defined, and everything else from the new patch (new goblins, new rift randomizations, skill and set changes) will be available to other, Non-Seasonal characters.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Am I correct to assume that all the new contents meant for 2.1.2 will only be implemented for seasonal only, specifically season 2? i.e. Ancient legendary, New set items, New legendary etc? Is there anything for people who doesn't like or play seasonal to look forward to for the new patch?

Some of the new content coming in patch 2.1.2 - including new Treasure Goblins and Ancient Items - will be available to all heroes, regardless of whether they're Seasonal. 

In addition, when Season 2 begins, Seasonal heroes will have a first crack at brand new Seasonal Legendary items (as well as a few existing Legendary items which have been updated with shiny new powers). The two new Legendary Gems that were announced at BlizzCon will also be Season-only, at least to start. 

Just as a reminder: At the end of Season 2, all Seasonal Legendary items (including the new Legendary gems) will be rolled over into the non-Seasonal loot pool, at which point non-Seasonal heroes will also have access to them. The only items which are truly exclusive to Seasons are the Seasonal transmog appearances, new Conquests, and new banner rewards.

For more info on Season 2, you can check out our Season 2 preview blog here. Hope that answers your question, Irvin!.
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Does it mean the new wizard slow time set is also season only?

The new Set items shown during our BlizzCon panel are currently designed to be available to all heroes, regardless of whether they are Seasonal. That said, I do want to clarify that these items will not be coming in patch 2.1.2; they’re scheduled to arrive in a later patch (no date to share just yet).

So to clarify, older legendaries that are getting changes (Wormwood, Gungdo Gear) aren't getting retroactively changed, like The Furnace did?

Correct. For any Legendary items in patch 2.1.2 that are getting a new Legendary power, the old version will not retroactively have the new powers added.
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Please give us some clarity here - existing legendaries that are getting changes (Wormwood, etc)... will they be available to non seasonal players or not? Do non seasonal players have to wait until the end of season 2? Your posts on this have NOT been clear.

But will the new Wormwood and Gungdo be exclusive to seasons?

Now that I reread it, I can see how my answer was confusing. Let me clarify a bit:

• In patch 2.1.2, we'll be adding new versions of several existing Legendary items that do not currently have a unique power to the game.
• Some of these new Legendary items are Seasonal, available only to heroes who participate in Season 2 (until the Season ends), and some are not.
• As soon as the patch hits, two things will happen:
  • The old, no-power versions of these Legendary items will stop dropping (in both Seasonal and non-Seasonal games)
  • The new versions of these Legendary items that are non-Seasonal will start dropping (in both Seasonal and non-Seasonal games)
• The new versions of these Legendary items that are now Seasonal will not drop until Season 2 begins.

To find out more about which of these new items are Seasonal or non-Seasonal, be sure to visit our patch notes here.

Hope that makes more sense!

So apparently the new areas AND the new sets will all be in a future patch and this new patch will be:
rift balance
/treasure goblins
/ancient items
/3 new season only legendary items (old legs redone)
/all other announced season 2 content
/new rift maps
/and two new legendary gems that are for season only to start.

That's looks correct. 

Please keep in mind that the new Seasonal Legendary items (including the three new Legendary gems) will only appear in Season 2, and we are looking to start Season 2 sometime after patch 2.1.2 goes live. As a result, players won't begin to see these items drop right away.

What about the Raiment of a Thousand Storms set for Monks? The redesign isn't in the PTR, but that's the set I was most excited about testing out.

The change to the Raiment of a Thousand Storms Set will be coming in a later patch, along with the introduction of the new Set items shown at BlizzCon.

Triple HC RIP

Drahque, a record breaking HC player mentioned a few times before, has uploaded some footage of 3 top HC players dying to a huge lag spike.

While the video in itself isn't the most enjoyable watch, it serves to raise awareness and inform players of an issue with one of the more popular builds these days - the Lightning DH. It is also said that Raekor's Barb on the PTR  is showing some lag issues after density changes. Hopefully this can be solved during the PTR, so that players don't have to deal with it once Patch 2.1.2 hits.