Goblins vs Gnomes: 61 New Cards, Upcoming Balance Changes
Heroes Technical Alpha Patch Notes: December 2, 2014 - Jaina Proudmoore
Argi the Inter-goat-lactic Pet and Grinning Reaver Mount Now on Sale
Legendary Workshop Livestream
There will be a livestrem event next Tuesday, December 9 at 11.am. PST, where some game developers will talk more about the final community idea selected from the Legendary Workshop that happened on Blizzcon. They will also discuss which ideas were considered viable by the team and which were not - and why. There will also be a Q&A at the end of it, so make sure to tune in!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Post)
Mark your calendars, nephalem!
We heard a lot of great questions from all of you following our Legendary Workshop at BlizzCon, and we wanted to take the time to address those questions, plus a whole lot more!
So, next Tuesday, December 9 at 11 a.m. PST, we'll be hosting a Legendary Workshop livestream on our official Diablo Twitch channel featuring lead technical artist Julian Love, associate game designer John Yan, and community manager Brandy "Nevalistis" Camel.
In addition to talking more about our design team's goals for the Legendary Workshop at BlizzCon, Julian and John will also discuss how they selected the final community idea to use for a new Legendary power, which ideas for Legendary powers were viable and which weren't (and why), and what ideas from the community players may see in the game in the future.
At the end of the discussion, Julian and John will also take questions from community members via Twitch chat. If you watched the Legendary Workshop at BlizzCon and still have questions for our designers, this is the stream for you!
To hear the discussion and share your questions with our design team, simply visit our official Twitch channel on Tuesday, December 9 at 11 a.m. PST. Come, stay awhile and listen.
Future Raekor Changes
The Legacy of Raekor set for Barbarian has caused some issues in both solo and group play. It can cause some major video lag due to the massive clutter of monsters, and in group play it feels like the Barb just grabs all the fun and runs away with it. Due to that, a few changes are planned to improve the set while solving these problems - the Dreadnought rune will be reworked. Check them out!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)
Not because it's OP - but because it's insanely frustrating to be grouped with a barb using this set. Far too often I've been in a 4 player game where a Raekor barb zooms off into the distance gathering all the elites with no way for me or the rest of the party to catch up.This is actually pretty offensive to us as well, but we don't think the problem is with the concept of Raekor's. When you observe the gameplay as a teammate, it kind of reminds you of that kid on the playground who would take the ball and run with it rather than passing it around and letting the other kids play with him.
I'm absolutely fine with barbs having nice things - except when those nice things are annoying to everyone else.
Sets should provide synergy within a party, not troll the party.
That's not a great feeling, especially for the rest of the party. It doesn't live up to the spirit of multiplayer or create good teamwork opportunities. We're looking to fix this by redesigning the Dreadnought rune and the Raekor's set. Here's the current plan:
The gameplay of zipping back and forth across the screen and dealing huge amounts of damage is a lot of fun, and we want to preserve that. What we want to combat is how this gameplay was downright incompatible with multiplayer. Rather than charging forever forward, it should feel good to charge through existing groups before moving on to the next pack, and it'll be even better if your buddies line 'em up for you to knock back down. This change should be in the next PTR patch, which we're hoping to get to you shortly. We look forward to seeing your feedback!
- Furious Charge
- Dreadnought
- Has been redesigned. Now grants Furious Charge two charges.
- The Legacy of Raekor
- 2-piece bonus: The first enemy hit by Furious Charge takes 100% additional damage.
- 4-piece bonus: Furious Charge gains the effect of every rune.
- 5-piece bonus: Enemies hit by Furious Charge take 3000% weapon damage over 3 seconds.
More Sunwoko Tweaks
The Monkey King Garb set for Monks has received some significant improvements in the latest PTR patch, but it looks like there are additional quality of life changes planned. Instead of debuffing enemies so they take 500% increased damage from some spenders, your hero gains a buff that increases the damage of those spenders automatically. Check it out!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)
We've got another update coming regarding the Sunwuko set. A slight change will be coming to the 4-piece bonus in the next PTR patch:
This should help make this damage boost feel a little less clunky and more reliable to use in practice. As always, thank you so much for your feedback and we look forward to hearing your thoughts as we move on to the next phase of PTR testing!
- Monkey King's Garb
- 4-piece set bonus has been slightly redesigned
- When your decoys explode, you gain a buff that increases the damage of Cyclone Strike, Exploding Palm, Lashing Tail Kick, Tempest Rush, and Wave of Light by 500% for 3 seconds.
Diablo Gear on Sale
Blizzard is holding a one-day sale for all Diablo related gear on their store. Looking to get that Treasure Goblin plushie? How about that Diablo III Mug? Now might be the best time to do so!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Twitter)
Deck the hells with your favorite Diablo merchandise, now 15% off! http://bit.ly/DiabloMerch #CyberWeek#BlizzardGear
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Posted Dec 3, 2014-
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Posted Dec 3, 2014One of Nevalistis posts on Twitter, replying to a similar concern, said it's meant to be as strong if not stronger than the current live version of it. Didn't add it to the post because it seemed a bit pointless - a random "it's gonna be fine" public statement. But I'm sure that's what the devs want.
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Posted Dec 3, 20142pc seems very lackluster.
6pc dot over 3 seconds? doesnt feel right idk.
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Posted Dec 3, 2014So the strenght (and fun?) of the set was having infinite resources (no cooldowns, infinite fury) along with near invulnerability (from perma unbreakable zero cooldown crowd control)? That sounds kinda broken at a fundamental level, doesn't it?
I wonder how long it might take for us to acknowledge how problematic those issues are.
I've said it before: remove the very limited real time interaction D3 has - fluid combat through positioning and resource/cooldown management (maybe some target priority) - and you're left with a 1-click grind fest that requires almost no player thought or input. That might be fun for players that only like the planning and grinding aspect of ARPGs, but for most it's gonna be an awful experience.
And that paired with limited end-game viable builds is a dangerous threat to the future of this franchise - and I think the devs should go into full red alert whenever these are detected. Complete lack of interaction, and cookie cutter end-game planning (builds) should be taken extremely seriously.
So far it seems they realize this as well. But seeing a problem and solving it are two very different things.
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Posted Dec 4, 2014-
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Posted Dec 5, 2014Current Raekors set bonus'
2) +500 Vitality
4) +500 Strength
5) Furious Charge gains the effect of every rune.
New set bonus' (tentative)
2)The first enemy hit by Furious Charge takes 100% additional damage
4)Furious Charge gains the effect of every rune
5) Enemies hit by Furious Charge take 3000% weapon damage over 3 seconds
The only rune they are changing as of right now is the "Dreadnought" rune for no longer pulling enemies but giving a 1 extra charge to the skill. So in big groups of enemies we will still get instant cooldown on the skill. Combine this with the fact we get TWO CHARGES we can almost perma-charge a single target(too early for math for figuring out the cooldown needed) This in my opinion is good for the set, it might means we will have to play differently in higher Greater rifts but coop will be better hopefully and it seems that single target will be stronger.(Two charges with second gaining 100% more damage and then 6000% weapon damage as a DOT.
Now this might not be the ideal changes barbs running Raekors need but its better. Ya 500 vitality and strength are nice but added effects are much more beneficial (look at Akkhans)
Thats just my two cents
EDIT: was thinking about the whole thing and really depends on how they handle the "charges" granted by the Dreadnought rune in regards to getting them back. It could potentially be a 1 second downtime(maybe less taking into account the animation) on a single target or it could be meh. We'll see.