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WD Set Changes

John Yang posted on the forums a preview of some changes coming to WD sets and what their gameplay should look like in the next PTR patch. Read below.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hi all,

I wanted to share updates on two of the sets that since 2.3 PTR launched have had significant changes - Helltooth and Spirit of Arachyr - with the goal re-aligning the discussions and theorycrafting to what the sets/playstyles might look like next PTR patch.

Firebats
The initial starting cost of 150 Mana has been removed and the channel cost has been increased from 75 to 125 Mana. Summed up, this means when you channel Firebats for less than 3 attack cycles (roughly 2-3 seconds depending on attack speed) Firebats will cost less total Mana than previously. Additionally, the time needed to fully charge up Plague Bats and Cloud of Bats has been reduced by 40%.

These changes are intended to make a channeled skill like Firebats more friendly to use in fast-paced gameplay environments where movement is important. Some of the runes will still reinforce standing still to channel the skill but will do so by granting increased damage rather than consuming all of your Mana if you have to move due to danger or other reasons.

Spirit of Arachyr
6pc bonus
Creature skills now include Locust Swarm.Damage bonus has been increased from 500% to 800%.
These adjustments along with the Firebats changes above should sum to meaningful improvements to the build.

Helltooth Harness
2pc bonus
Grasp of the Dead now also applies Necrosis.Necrosis now increases damage taken from all sources by 15% but the damage over time has been reduced to 1000% per second. This shifts some of the damage off relying on Wall of Death hitting as well as provides some group benefit.6pc bonus
The damage bonus has been moved from requiring Necrosis on the enemy to be a self-buff on you. The bonus currently reads "After casting Wall of Death, you gain 300% increased damage to your primary skills, Acid Cloud, Firebats, Zombie Charger, Grasp of the Dead, Piranhas, and Wall of Death for 10 seconds. This effect stacks up to 3 times." Casting Wall of Death refreshes the duration of all existing stacks of this buff on you.
We want there to be some payoff for hitting with a challenging-to-use skill like Wall of Death but the difference between Necrosis being on the enemy or not was too large. Moving the 6pc bonus to a player buff also lets the set be more mobile.

Additionally, we are adding two weapons that synergize with this set:
1H Spear
Reduces the Mana cost of Zombie Charger by 30-40%.
Rolls with +25-30% Zombie Charger damage.

2H Staff
Acid Cloud gains the effect of the Lob Blob Bomb rune.
Rolls with +30-40% Acid Cloud damage.

These are not the only changes coming to sets but are what we wanted to share today. Thanks for all the focused feedback so far - keep it up.

Barbarian's Bracers

John Yang also did a quick post going over the philosophy behind some Barbarian Bracers and what changes we can expect for those. Read below.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Bracers of the First Men
Bracers of the First Men were intended to work with a Hammer of the Ancients-centric build. As most of you can guess, this bracer was not intended to be a buff to Whirlwind builds. With that said, this item has been redesigned to work exclusively with Hammer of the Ancients, and will provide a 150-200% damage bonus and a 50% attack speed bonus to Hammer of the Ancients in the next PTR patch. Additional tuning is always possible - those are the current numbers after internal testing.

Bracers of Destruction
We think the general design of this item is fine but the damage bonus needs to affect a few more enemies to be effective in more situations. In the next patch the damage bonus will apply to the first 5 enemies hit by Seismic Slam instead of the first 2.

Additionally, the bug where the Immortal King's 6pc bonus currently does not work on the PTR will be fixed with the next PTR patch.

As I've said before, we do want Hammer of the Ancients and Seismic Slam builds to be high-end builds and your continued testing, theorycrafting, and feedback is helping. Thanks all in this thread, other threads in this forum, and in class forums.

S4 on PTR and Community Buff

Season 4 is now live on the Public Test Realm! Keep in mind that because they want to test the pacing of seasonal play, the +2000% buff to legendary drop ratio will be inactive for now. Nevalistis also explained why the buff exists in the first place. Read the posts below.

Originally Posted by Blizzard

The following buff has been disabled and is no longer active on the PTR:

• 2000% Bonus Chance to find Legendaries

This buff was removed on July 9 at 5:00 p.m. PDT. Should this (or other) buffs go live during the course of the PTR, we'll update this thread accordingly. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

---

The Community Buff will be coming on and off throughout the course of PTR, depending on testing needs.

There will be times, like the start of a Season, where that kind of buff actually works counterintuitive to what we want to test (when we want to see more natural character progression and observe its pacing). After we can get a good bundle of data, we may re-enable it to encourage more focused testing on different areas, such as on sets, Seasonal items, or Kanai's Cube. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

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The real question is: Why does the buff exist anyway
With it:
- Unrealistic feel for drop rates and thus - no test feedback
- Greater % of players simply on to play - no useful feedback and more pressure on servers
With out it:
- More actual testers
- Gear could easily be provided for testing via either a special vendor - or alternatively add Blood Shards to an existing vendor to give us an unlimited supply - which would negate the only reason I can see for such a buff

We utilize the Legendary drop when we need players to test things that require a lot of Legendaries, like trying out new item powers or, in the case of this PTR, using Kanai's Cube.There is so much to experiment and play around with where the Cube is concerned, so naturally we wanted testers to have a slew of items for this purpose. When we need more a more natural drop rate experience (like we currently do), we disable it.

Having a ton of players on the PTR is actually pretty useful. While it may prevent some players from participating, what it facilitates is the ability for us to get a lot of data, observe player behavior, and track trends. Not all feedback comes in the form of a forum post, Reddit thread, or errant tweet, or is necessarily visible to the public eye. Sometimes we just need people playing.

The Legendary buff fulfills a lot of our testing needs by ramping up the rate of acquisition of items in the way you most naturally acquire them - by seeing them drop. If that ever stops being true, you can rest assured that we'll re-evaluate it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Torment 10 Testing

MHM has uploaded a video on the new Torment 10 difficulty, which should be the equivalent of a Greater Rift 45. He goes over the pros and cons compared to other endavours while he clears a Rift with a Tal's Wizard. Check it out!