Diablo III continues to develop its distinct graphics as Blizzard continues to modify skill visuals. Many of the skills have been amazing as far as their effects went, though some allegedly went a bit over the top.

HhdkXcQNPvQ

Blizzard released today that some spells, including those we have already seen, will be going under renovation with new effects:


This makes one wonder what prompted such things to be changed. Could it be that Magic Missile's purple color was decidedly off-putting for a Diablo game? Could Acid Cloud's breadth have been too saturated with green ooze? Do these things call for change, or are they fine how they are?

What skills look amazing already, and which ones could use improving? Personally, I believe the Witch Doctor's Plague of Toads skill looks completely awesome- who doesn't love biohazardous amphibians bouncing about the screen (see The Witch Doctor's Plague of Toads lame? Hardly.)? In addition, so far I'm loving the Wizard's Slow Time spell, with its big, flashy bubble.

CE4jxEn4t2I

Do you have any suggestions for better skill effects? Are any of them too flashy or boring? Do any of them seem to out-pace the "Diablo feel", as many fans call it? Could it be in response to some of the more flamboyant skills that Blizzard could be tuning them down, or is this only a tune-up?

Since the beginning of the Diablo series, mankind has always fought against Heaven and Hell for their survival. Neither the Heavens nor Hell want humans to exist. However, in both Diablo I and Diablo II we only fight against the forces that come from Hell. The only experiences we have with Heaven in the game is Tyreal and Izual. Now, with the destruction of the Worldstone the Heavens are aware of our presence and most odds are that they will not be happy to see us. It only makes sense that we would have to fight both the Minions of Hell and the Angels of Heaven for the continuation of our survival.

So far, Blizzard has not revealed anything about the fight of humans against any foes from Heaven. Are we still continuing our fight against only the minions of Hell or is Blizzard going to surprise us with fights against angels?

I hope that we do get to fight some creatures from Heaven. It only makes sense that they want us dead just as much as the minions from Hell, so why wouldn't we fight them?


Disclaimer: DiabloFans' Rumors are not the officially recognized positions of the staff, management, and/or administration of DiabloFans.

First a word of warning, the following post is seriously TL: DR. For all of you either suffering from dyslexia or general allergy to long posts, I'll summarize this entire post:

*Drumroll*

Until lately, fifth class was the reincarnation of Rogue. It was originally intended to be the class announced in Blizzcon 2009 instead of the monk. The current form of the fifth class is closely related to rogue, but the focus of the class is somewhat shifted from pure archetype of a ranger. They're trying to add some fun twists to just plain bows.

Cue the applauding.


Now for all of you not afraid of a lot of text, and not satisfied without any evidence, I'll carefully construct the necessary proof. I'll also give you some tidbits I accidentally stumbled upon when cross-examining various interviews mainly regarding the fifth class. Most of this information has been available for a long time, and every piece of credit shall be directed to those that produced the information, my part in this play has merely been the role of a collector of information, a sort of musical conductor.


I got the idea for this submarine ride to the mystery known as the unannounced class when I was reading the "5th class known information" thread originally posted by purelog1c. At first I was bit stupefied to notice that the general consensus in the thread was that no class from D2 would be returning.


This consensus stems from the following quote from Jay Wilson from September 16 2008 which he said during a VideoGamer.com interview.


Source.


Now, because I remembered reading somewhere where Jay Wilson clearly stated that the fifth class will most likely be a returning class, I took great effort to find the information I remembered reading a while back (well effort was mostly due to me only having vague memories of it so it was hard to find).

Eventually I found this quote by the same Jay Wilson on August 23 2009, where in an IGN interview Jay Wilson said the following:


Source.


For about 20 minutes I sat staring at the wall, puzzled by the clear contradiction between these two quotes by the same person. At first I thought that after all, they're a year apart, maybe they changed their plans.
Then an epiphany hit me, like when Archimedes suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced when he sits into his bath must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged, and I, much like the said Greek genius, shouted "Eureka!"


What is the only way the two quotes can both be true? If you carefully read both answers by Jay Wilson in relation to the questions asked, it should eventually come pretty obvious.

The fifth class is somebody from Diablo ONE!

Because in the first interview quoted he denies it is somebody from Diablo 2, and later on says it is somebody from previous games. It also made sense on more levels than one, when I started to think about this. By carefully answering both questions he seemed to make a contradiction, adding to the confusion surrounding the last class and trying to make sure it remains a secret until the date they decide to reveal it.

Now, if you read the shortened version of my post at the beginning, you already know which class I think, but I'll continue building my evidence first before going into excessive speculation.


Now, this epiphany about the Diablo one class made even more sense when I remembered an article I read yesterday on wired, which was posted on September 1 2009, bit over a week after the IGN article, where Jay Wilson said the following:


Source.


I'll comment more on the implications of that Wired article (which is a good read altogether, by the way), but I'll first stir the soup some more.

After reading the wired article I now remembered another interview, which caused much speculation at its time as well, and when put into the context of my epiphany, it makes clear sense. This was said by the same Jay Wilson on December 23 2008 in a 1up interview:



Source.

And to prove my point, I'll add one quote, by the same Jay Wilson, on October 27 2009, when asked about the monk by the gameinformer, he replied this (part of a longer reply, only this is relevant to my point):



Source.


And now comes the time of my second big epiphany. What if this fifth class Jay Wilson is speaking about in the 1UP interview, in fact is the monk? And the reason they could not use a placeholder because of the complexity of his various moves?

While they refer to the un-modeled class as the "fifth", there's no reason to think that it could not have been the one they presented in Blizzcon 2009 - the Monk.

Now, when we put this idea in the context of the wired article, what if only some months before Blizzcon 2009 Blizzard decided they were not happy with the fourth class (the one being tested using a NPC placeholder model), because it was bit of a dull one. The one that originally was the reincarnation of a Diablo 1 class, and were forced to showcase the monk instead?

I mean the Monk clearly hadn't been polished excessively when it was announced, a fact which should be obvious seeing as the monk skill trees were unnamed and not even a concept photo of the female monk was published let alone a 3d model of her.


Now, I'll add some very shady evidence to the mix, but sometimes the Freudian slips are the most giving ones.

On the official Diablo 3 site and its game features (listed on the front page behind a click of the "view game features"), reads the following:




"... re-imagined warriorS from Diablo's past", is the plural perhaps a bit of a Freudian slip, seeing as they had the second recurring class undergoing various iterations since day 1 of development?

(Credit of this goes to Murderface Cody and his idea here: )


Now to another shady Freudian slip:

This is the original character selection screen of Diablo 2, what we have there is:



amazon - necromancer - barbarian - sorceress - paladin


Now, on the official d3 site the character classes shown are:



If you revert that order, you get:

...........- witch doctor - barbarian - wizard - monk

Now consider the archetypes:

ranger - summoner/curser - barbarian - magician - holy warrior

Is this another example of a Freudian slip?
(credit goes to watcher 83 here.)


And now, third example of shady proof:

In the same gameinformer interview on October 27 2009 I already spoke about, this questions seems to have gotten Jay Wilson bit off guard:



Now, I among others took that just as a bad and hastily conceived joke. But consider the following:

It seems as if the question got him off-guard, and he just quickly replied with first thing that sprung into his mind. These kind of answers can reveal a lot more information than what is obvious.

The non-canon Hellfire expansion of the original game featured one new class, Monk, the other two were Barbarian and Bard. So because 2/3 Hellfire characters are already appearing in the game, he just quickly joked about it not being a bard.

Now stop to think about the following fact:

The "secret" bard class of Hellfire was using the Rogue model.

Is this another case of a Freudian slip?

After all, sorcerer and warrior are bit of implausible classes, because barbarian and wizard are already far too close to those archetypes.


So as a quick summary, I'll put my facts into fancy bullet points:

• It was the first class chosen for Diablo 3
  
• It features in Diablo 1, or is at least closely based off it
  
• Final concept of the class was not ready as of September '09
  
• The main focus of the class was shifted lately, before Blizzcon 2009, most likely because it didn't feel exciting enough
  
• However, most of the old skills could still be transferred over, and the class isn't a complete departure from the original concept

Now, if I could take a time machine and travel back half a year, I could say that the fifth class is Rogue, but now I'll just have to say that it is Rogue, with some sort of an interesting twist. Now you can just start thinking what the twist is.

Or continue speculating, and return reading this thread after Blizzcon 2010.


Disclaimer: DiabloFans' Rumors are not the officially recognized positions of the staff, management, and/or administration of DiabloFans.

Once more, it seems that news is beginning to pick up.

First off, it seems appropriate to point out that the new patch has been released (complete with in-depth analysis), meeting mixed reception among users. Some love it, some hate it, and some fall somewhere in between.

NOW, without any further delays, I've got a community to spotlight.

The Forums

One subject that has slowed in discussion lately is the monsters, but, as it happens, pwnsickle is fixing that. He's identified the monster archetypesoutlined by the guys at Blizzard, and offered his thoughts about what each one could entail. Only 2 pages of discussion so far, but I thought it was an incredible topic, deserving to be pointed out. Good work mate.

Not much interesting discussion going on in this next thread, but it's important nonetheless. Iceblade has created a thread for us Diablofans to get together on the public test realm for the new patch. So if you want to play with some of the users around here, get in there and post up your account.

Finally, is a possible exploit that Coldsthil posted out. It has been confirmed that bosses will have "finishing moves", or "fatalities", basically interesting ways to kill us, once we reach 0 health. But, Coldsthil brought into question if the bosses would be immune to damage while executing these moves. Essentially, we would be getting free time to heal, further damage the boss, or get into better positions as it used up time with its flashy moves. Quite impressive that users are finding exploits in a game that doesn't exist yet, good work.

Fan Creations

Well, it seems our fan art and fiction forums are still quite... dead. Once more, I'm calling on ya'll to post some stuff up. This section will only be included when we have fan art, or fiction, to show for.

BUT, we've got activity in the Roleplaying forum. Thanks to yours truly, and Party_Foul. After several minutes of discussion, we decided to try our hands at running a roleplay, and Abbadon's Legions was spawned. Thus far, players have woken up aboard a slaver ship, battled for freedom, killed a kraken, and made landfall on an island. If you wish to join, feel free to give either of us a shout.

The Wiki

The team is scrambling to modify articles according to the changes brought about by the new patch. Placeholders have been put in place while we wait for the articles to be spiffied up. See here if you wish to chip in.

Also, they're currently working on filling out NPC pages. Most are already done, but, like pages effected by 1.13, need to be given some modifications. They're currently working on adding several quotes, a list of items sold (if the NPC is a vendor), and possibly sound files. See here if you wish to contribute.

In addition to the above, quest pages need to be given a facelift. Phrozendragon pointed out that the majority are already finished, but just like the above two, modifications need to be made. See here if you wish to help out.

The Posts

You voted, and it turns out that a list of impressive posts is one of the things you wanted. So, now onto the posts...

For funniest, I thought that this post by Turmobil took the cake. Turmobil found a list of the best metaphors and analogies used by students in the USA, and posted it up. I nearly had to change my pants, was laughing THAT hard. Hopefully you won't suffer a similar fate.

For most speculative, this post by purelog1c stood out. Now, there have been many posts and threads about the fifth class being a ranged class, but none of them measure up to the amount of proof, speculation, and overall thought that went into this one.

I'm not entirely sure what other categories I should include for this section, so if you've got some suggestions, throw em' at me and I'll try to include them next time.

Blue Posts That Got Away

This was the other section you wanted, a section for blue posts that didn't make the news, but still stand out.

Thankfully, Scyberdragon took the work out of this section for me, by creating this thread. He found a twitter post mentioning the Diablo III calendar, being sold for just over $12. Anyone else considering buying one?

... And he struck again, pointing out yet another blue post, in this thread. As it turns out, Diablo II made #7 for the top 50 games of the decade, according to Destructoid. Good to see our beloved franchise outstripping the competition.


And thus concludes Chapter 3, once again, if you see any threads or posts you think deserve to make it into Chapter 4, drop me a PM.

The 1.13 release will in fact change more within the Diablo II community than many players expect. First off, i'd like to start by talking about some undocumented patch notes. The first of which, is a cool new Battle.net feature. The new patch added an option to change your Home Channel on Battle.net. That is, when you login to Battle.net, instead of going to your standard language specific channel, you will join the private channel of your choice. Follow the steps below to use this new feature:

• Go to Start > Run > type regedit
  
• Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Blizzard Entertainment\Diablo II"
  
• Right-click in the right-hand pane, select "New -> String". The name of the Key should be "Default Channel" The value is the channel name.

http://diablofans.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=66&pictureid=411&thumb=1

Something else I would like to note in regards to Battle.net is a possible change in The Chat Gem... As unbelievable as this may sound, while repeatedly clicking on the gem, I did not receive one of the normal responses, instead I received a blank line. This could mean one of two things:

• They are messing with the Chat Gem and inadvertently added a blank line.
  
• There is a response that is shown in black text, which matches the background.

Either way, it means that the Developers are looking to do something with it. Could this mean further development of the mystery in the coming days? As a result of this, could it further support a cameo in Diablo III? It has already made an appearance on the diablo3.com.

Next line of business, is the new Respec system. By completing the Den of Evil quest, you will receive a Stat/Skill respec in addition to Skill point, per difficulty. Already existing characters will receive a free Respec in the Hell difficulty, as noted in the 1.13 patch notes.

Furthermore, we now see the addition of the five new items and a new cube recipe. We now have the following items, which will completely revolutionize the current Currency system on Battle.net.

• Twisted Essence of Suffering
  
• Charged Essence of Hatred
  
• Burning Essence of Terror
  
• Festering Essence of Destruction
  
• Token of Absolution

http://diablofans.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=55&pictureid=409&thumb=1

The four Essence items are similar to the Uber Keys and the Token of Absolution is similar to an Organ. You can create a Token of Absolution by using the Horadric Cube to transmute one of each Essence item. The Token of Absolution now grants a Stat/Skill respec. This is a must-have for every user, you can use it for respecs in addition to the three granted from Akara. With that in mind, this will be a highly farmed item; I would like to compare it to the Hellfire Torch, Annihilus, and Gheed's Fortune charms, in saying that it will be added to those as "required" for every character.

The patch has also brought about some bug fixes, game play changes and class balances. The first bug fix includes a stop to duping. Hopefully this will help bring runes back to the state they were meant to be. Blizzard seems pretty confident that it will, by increasing the drop rate for most of their high runes. After taking a look at the new Diablo II game MPQs and comparing them to the 1.12 files, it looks like the Rune drops have started increasing at the Rune Treasure Class 12, which drops the Mal and Ist runes, going up to RuneTC17, which drops the Zod rune. The following are approximate increases in drop rate for each rune:

• Mal/Ist: 1.45x
  
• Gul/Vex: 1.78x
  
• Ohm/Lo: 2.3x
  
• Sur/Ber: 2.98x
  
• Jah/Cham/Zod: 4.0x

Also keep in mind, there are a total of 169 Runewords possible in the game, and as of 1.12, only 78 were being used. It's more than possible that 1.13 brought about more from the list. We will have to do more research in this, if anything is found, we'll keep you updated.

http://diablofans.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=66&pictureid=412&thumb=1

The future of leveling has also been changed, or rather, reverted. Players will no longer be able to use Uber Tristram to gain quick levels, Uber Mephisto's summons no longer grant experience to users. Players will now have to use old techniques; Chaosing and Baaling, to gain levels. Luckily, for players looking to do some Chaos runs, Iron Maiden was removed from the Oblivion Knight.

On a similar note, there have been quite a few balance changes to each class. The Amazon has received some buffs to her Immolation Arrow skill, which is good for all Ele Bowazon's. The Assassin's Shadow Master was slightly buffed and since most builds utilize the free minion, it will do some good for any Assassin player. The Barbarian's Masteries skills were all buffed and his Whirlwind skill now uses less mana. Unfortunately for the Paladin, his Blessed Hammer skill was nerfed slightly, though these will still remain to be one of the more popular classes within our community. The Werebear Druid skills have been buffed, I would expect to see more of these guys hanging around now as well. For Summoning Necromancer's, you received a few buffs in Blood Golem and some Poison and Bone Skills. Last, but certainly not least, is the Sorceress. She has received more changes than any of the other classes; all for the best. You'll be seeing some guides and information in regards to new 1.13 builds for each class in the near future. The first of which is the Hydra Sorc, by Seth.

Unfortunately, this patch did not bring about a few very popular suggestions nor did it fix quite a few major bugs, which the users made very clear in the Diablo II Test Realm Forums. A few worth noting:

• TPPK Exploit
  
• Removing Teleport from Enigma
  
• No new Classic or Single player additions
  
• End-game content
  
• Shared Stash
  
• Increased resolution

Though, there are endless amounts of suggestions and improvements that can possibly be made to Diablo II in the coming years. Hopefully we will still see some further development to solve these bugs. Perhaps 1.13 was the start of a new beginning for D2. Only time may tell...

In addition to my analysis, maximusje has blogged about his experiences on 1.13.

---

[/hr]
Also, anyone want the chance to win a brand new processor in preparation for Diablo 3's intense graphics? Check out the contest Curse is running here.

Since the Public Testing Realm (PTR) (see The Wait is Over -- PTR Patch 1.13)went live this week with Diablo II: Lord of Destruction patch 1.13, I decided to try out the Sorceress with her newly arranged skills, primarily Hydra and a build wired for it.

Her fire-based skills at first seemed changed enough to merit trying a fire-based build once more (I often avoid them and go with a cold-based or lightning-based build because of the lack of slowing effects or a huge impact from FCR that Lightning gets and skills like Meteor and Hydra do not):

http://www.diablofans.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=55&pictureid=408&thumb=1

So, I began by using the nifty instant level-up cheat that is active on the PTR to decrease effort in testing new characters (simply type level 99 in a game and press enter). I spread my points to invest in Teleport and its prerequisites and one point in Frozen Armor (for a significant bonus of defense). After that, I crammed them in to the Fire Spells skill tree, maxing Fire Mastery, Hydra, Fire Ball, and Fire Bolt.

As for my stat point investment, well, it was a bit odd to do. Normally, I save all of my stat points until I can wear my gear so that I don't waste a single point. In this case, I didn't have any gear saved up to look forward to, and since I had all my stat points available from using the instant level cheat, I decided to just cover my bases, so to speak, with 100 in STR, 200 in VIT, and  245 in ENG. The excessive amount in ENG was due to the fact that I had no gear that added a ton to ENG or Mana Regeneration and I needed to Teleport through Normal, Nightmare, and Hell difficulty modes.

Yes, if any of you recognize her name, it used to be my name here on DiabloFans. Kudos to you guys!

Normal mode was, of course, a cinch. As we all know, Normal doesn't even require gear. I could probably have played it naked and been completely fine. Of course, the allure of the gold cheat (typing Gold x in a game, where x is the amount of gold you would like to hold, so long as it doesn't exceed your carrying limit) brought me to gamble a ton for some interesting rare items. Item stats typically included FCR, Resistances, ENG, and +skill modifiers.

http://www.diablofans.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=55&pictureid=407&thumb=1

Nightmare mode was fairly easy, as well, aside from some fire immune baddies I met along the way, primarily in the Chaos Sanctuary, where Doom Knights, if I remember correctly, were immune to my fire-based attacks. Luckily, I had my smexy Act II mercenary Vikhyat by my side to defend me while I ran in circles like a dog with its tail on fire as the Doom Knights trailed me. After about fifteen minutes of that, and the help of some friends that popped in, I managed to finish the rest of Nightmare mode on my own with relatively little hardship.

The real problem hit me full-force in Hell mode, as I had been anticipating. The whole while I had been hoping that the Legacy team had tuned-down immune monsters in Hell to give elemental characters a fighting chance when poor. Of course, they were all still there, and I ended up scratching the entire build, despite the updates in casting delay and damage for Hydra, via the respeccing option at Akara after completing the Den of Evil quest.

Right now, I'm working on building-up a good lightning-based build, my personal favorite (still have an incomplete but somewhat in-depth guide here on our Wiki- hoping to finish it with the updates of 1.13). After that, I'm looking forward to a good session building an ultimate tank with  the Druid as a Werebear, especially because of the upgrades Werebears got in the patch so far. Overall, the patch isn't everything I wanted, but there are some fun bits here and there to fiddle with and I'm making the best I can of it. Hopefully more will be fixed and added as progress on the patch continues in the PTR.

(See here for discussion.)