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Reforging Items
JohnnyDeath asked about the possibility of players having an un-enchant option with the new patch, and Nevalistis clarified that the reforging option has a similar effect, but rerolling the whole item rather than keeping its original rolls. Players who have been asking for a feature like this for a while can rejoice!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Twitter)
Any chance of the new patch having an option to UnEnchant Items? The players really need this!Reforging an item actually does this. It will remove any enchants from the item, as well as give it a chance to roll as Ancient
Rift Monsters Focused Feedback
John Yang and Nevalistis made some interesting posts in the focused feedback thread about Rift Monsters and Guardians, explaining the philosophy behind some of the changes coming on Patch 2.3, and giving us a preview of what changes are coming in the near future. Read them below.
Originally Posted by Blizzard
We have made a number of changes in 2.3 to reduce the disparity in difficulty between different instances of the same Greater Rift Level. The overall goal is to more appropriately reward rift progress based on the effort required to kill the monster. Ultimately, we want randomness in rifts to provide differing gameplay experiences but not be a huge deciding factor between rift completion success or failure.
The experience granted/rift progress awarded for many monsters has been brought more in line with the effort required to kill the monster. This might be due to one of several reasons: the monsters have more than usual health, deal more than usual damage, run away, have dangerous special abilities, have defensive abilities/immunities, etc. These changes are intended to more appropriately reward players for the effort they spend to kill an enemy so that they are less incentivized to skip certain monster types. Additionally, we are reducing the experience granted for the easiest monsters and bringing them closer to the midline so that fishing for that Slow Zombie Rift is less rewarding.
We reduced the health of rift guardians by 50% because we’d like players to spend less time on the rift guardian and more time clearing the rift. At higher rift levels it could take 6+ minutes to kill the Rift Guardian with some builds and that is more than double what we'd like ideally.
Please continue to provide feedback on on rift monsters and rift guardians here. Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback in the general forum, class forums, and PTR feedback forum. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Loads of great feedback in here, I'm reading through all of it. Keep it up!
On to topic of Reflects Damage, we've got some changes coming in the next PTR patch for it. We’re still finalizing the changes, but there are two you’ll want to watch for. First, we’ve changed the type of damage reflected to match the same type of damage dealt. This introduces a level of gearing strategy, especially for builds that utilize a single element. In addition, we’ve added an internal cooldown to the affix to prevent it from triggering multiple times from certain skills (like the Witch Doctor’s Poison Dart). This should severely reduce (if not remove entirely) that "instagib" effect from too many abilities going off at the same time, especially those that you can’t necessarily control.
The intention behind the original change was to introduce a level of avoidance to the affix; with only one target having it up, you can pick and choose which targets to hit, similar to how Shielding currently works. The largest problem seems to be arising from DoTs or other ongoing area effects that render that intention moot. That’s what we’re working to address. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Hammerdin GR 57+
TryHardNmity has put together a very complete Hammerdin Crusader guide with a build that's capable of doing GR 57+. Check it out!
I've been messing around on the PTR with a Hammerdin(ish) build. Where I am using the Cube to give myself the Belt bonus where whenever Justice hits an enemy, you cast Blessed Hammer. And I'm going for normal tri-fecta damage stats. Attack Speed / Crit Chance / Crit Damage. Its nice because it is a ranged build which is a lot safer, and also nice because you no longer have to care about Wrath at all. Its essentially an auto attack build that poops on everything.
Though with my build I'm unsure if Ring of the Obsidian Zodiac would work, even with Cube. I have not tested it yet. For example, with my set up I wonder if auto attacks that proc'd Blessed Hammer would proc the ring to lower CD on other abilities. If so I think I may throw Akkarat's Champion back on my bars.
All of that being said Falling Sword is -OK-. It is not good. It gives the +50% damage reduction effect which is great, and it is a decent escape tool. The damage on it is really negligible though. Another reason why the auto attack Blessed Hammer build works nicely, is that you can use other weapons with REALLY high attack speed and use Cube to get Furnace effect.
Also I am thinking of another reason why I like my setup compared to yours. You can equip a RoRG, and another ring (not sure what the 2nd ring should be yet, probably Convention) and only use 5pc of the new set and still use 2pc of say... Aughild's. So you get a lot tankier, and with the Cube'd Furnace you'll end up with +65% dmg to elites.
Personally I like Falling Sword if for no other reason then the initiating at times. Imagine if you're with others, and you can hop in instantly, CC the shit out of them (with the CC rune for Fallign Sword + Provoke) and then just auto attack the piss out of them. It can work nicely. Maybe. Or if Ring of the Obsidian Zodiac doesn't work with this build, you could always use the Cube for RoRG and equip a SoJ for even MORE damage to elites!
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I wonder if hammerdin is going to viable in hardcore, or just one more softcore build.
That blue post about reforging being the same as unenchanting gave me cancer
Technically speaking though, reforging does remove all the "enchantments" and resets the cost of enchanting the item, which is what unenchanting would be; with the downside of resetting the item's original rolls as well.
Like it was said in the article, that is kinda necessary to prevent reforging from being used as a means to reset the material and gold cost of enchanting an item, and adding an element of RNG to it. Reforging isn't meant to trivialize those costs, but rather to give the player a new chance when an incredibly important item rolls horribly (SMK for instance). It has a completely different goal, but which ends up being useful for those who can't afford to pay insane material costs for enchanting anymore.
Bzzard is trying to bring back the teleporting-hammer-throwing paladin / crusader from d2 with this set. Falling sword being the teleporting part of the set, is not working out because a) it's damage is low even with the buff from the set and the animation is way too slow and you miss on too many hammers while in it. If they fix those two things like making the animation instant and giving it the same damage mult as they give blessed hammer, the set will be 100% awesome. Or even better, leave falling sword as it is on the set, except make it so you can continue casting bleesed hammer while in the air and falling (sword). Or just remove the falling sword stuff from the set and give something that is actually usefull.