The anniversary event is now live in all regions, and will end on January 30th at Midnight PST! During this time, you will have an opportunity to unlock all of the cosmetic anniversary rewards by playing through The Darkening of Tristram and completing the event specific achievements.
When you open the game, you will be greeted with a message:
"The past is never far in these parts... Cultists have delved through the remnants of Adria's belongings and discovered the secret to reviving her memories. For a fleeting time, this town will appear as it was many years ago..."
To begin the Darkening of Tristram, head to Act 1. When you open your map, you will see that The Old Ruins now has a pentagram symbol next to the waypoint. Head to The Old Ruins, and in the center of town you will find a strange portal.
When you enter the portal, you will be teleported to Old Tristram where you are greeted with glorious retro-vision! Delve deep into the anniversary dungeon to find an ancient evil waiting for you at the end. Be sure to check your achievements for the event if you desire to unlock all the rewards!
Have you completed the event already, and earned all the rewards? Let us know in the comments if there is anything you would like to see added to the event in the future!
The Darkening of Tristram Pre-Cursor event has begun in game, and players should now see Roaming Cultists appearing in Adventure Mode! The portal to Old Tristram will not be available in game until January 4th. Community Manager Nevalistis took to the official forums to clear up any confusion on this matter:
Saw the confusion pop up and wanted to hop in to reaffirm this! Apologies for not reiterating this information in the blog; we'll get that updated as soon as the rest of us are back in office.
Again, just to be clear: only the pre-cursor event (roaming cultists in Adventure Mode) is currently available. The portal to Old Tristram will open on January 4th.
The Darkening of Tristram anniversary event is almost upon us once again! The event begins January 1st at midnight PST, and ends January 30th at the same time. You can find more details in the official blog post below!
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Official Post)
Diablo’s anniversary is right around the corner, along with the Darkening of Tristram event! Whether you’re a series veteran craving nostalgia, or a newcomer hungry for your first taste of the franchise’s past, this loving homage to the earliest days of Diablo is for you.
Read on for more, including a closer look at the anniversary dungeon and its unique rewards.
Stop the Cultists
Your journey begins on the trail of a group of mysterious cultists causing trouble in Sanctuary. As you hunt them down in Adventure Mode, you’ll uncover clues leading to a portal into Tristram’s past, and the terrifying darkness that took hold of the town so many years ago. . . .
Explore the Cathedral
Follow the clues and you’ll soon find yourself in a realm of glorious RetroVision™, where an all-too-familiar cathedral looms. Explore the depths and you’ll discover familiar enemies and iconic items, all brought to life in the Diablo III engine. Meanwhile, deep beneath the catacombs, the Dark Lord himself awaits any intrepid adventurer who dares to challenge him. . . .
Discover Precious Loot
What is a Diablo game without shiny new loot to call your own? Completing activities in the anniversary event yields unique transmogrification effects, achievements, portraits, pets, and more.
While some rewards are easy to find, others may have you scouring every nook or unlocking every achievement before you can get your hands on them. Can you earn them all? There’s only one way to find out!
Your Journey Begins…
Exclusive rewards and challenging enemies await you, but they won’t last forever! The anniversary event begins January 1 at midnight PST and ends January 30 at the same time. Enter the dungeon, reap your rewards, and survive the evils within—or die in the process, never to be heard from again. . . .
Some nice discounts can be found on Diablo III, Reaper of Souls, and the Rise of the Necromancer pack just in time for the holidays! See the official blog post below for pricing and sale dates!
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Official Post)
There’s something in the air this time of year, and we think we know what it is: fire and brimstone! Give your dearest friends the gift of demon-slaying with savings of up to 50% on Diablo III on select platforms.
PC/Mac
Sale begins December 20 and ends January 2:
Diablo III ($9.99)
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls ($9.99)
Diablo III: Battle Chest ($19.99)
Rise of the Necromancer ($9.99)
PlayStation 4
PlayStation 4 sale begins January 2 and ends January 9:
Diablo III: Eternal Collection ($35.99)
Rise of the Necromancer ($11.49)
Xbox One
Xbox One sale begins January 2 and ends January 8:
Diablo III: Eternal Collection ($29.99 w/ Xbox Gold Subscription)
Rise of the Necromancer ($9.74 w/ Xbox Gold Subscription)
Xbox 360
Xbox 360 sale begins January 2 and ends January 8:
Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition ($15.99 w/ Xbox Gold Subscription)
These deals are only available for a limited time, so head on over to the Blizzard store or your preferred digital sales front for more information. Happy Hellidays!
A new official blog has been posted detailing what Challenge Rifts are, and how they work! We also have received the new challenge rift for the week! You can view both the blog and the challenge rift for your region below!
Challenge Rifts give players the opportunity to try out challenges with a class and build they might not have ever used. Never played one? Read on to learn about what they are, how to play them, and the rewards you can earn!
What’s a Challenge Rift?
Challenge Rifts are exact copies of a Greater Rift that has been previously completed by another player. To create the weekly Challenge Rift, we pull a “snapshot” of a Greater Rift directly from a given player’s account. We recreate that player’s exact character for the Challenge Rift, including their equipment, paragon levels, and skill loadout.
Want the low-down in video form? Check out our original Challenge Rift announcement.
When you play through a Challenge Rift, you’re effectively going through an exact copy of the Greater Rift the player completed with that very same character. The enemies, pylons, and the level layouts you encounter will all be exactly the same. The first time you beat the original runner’s time each week, you’ll get a satchel full of rewards, including crafting materials and Blood Shards.
Challenge Rifts rotate every Monday afternoon, in the following class order: Demon Hunter, Necromancer, Barbarian, Wizard, Monk, Witch Doctor, and Crusader.
How Do I Play a Challenge Rift?
Challenge Rifts are a separate, self-contained game mode. You can select it on the same screen where you choose to enter Story or Adventure mode. Don’t worry about picking a character before you enter a Challenge Rift—everyone has access to the same one, down to the gear, gems, and paragon points. Once you load in to the Challenge Hub, you can check out the tools at your disposal by visiting the Soul Mirror.
There are a few other tools available to help you get familiar with the build you’ve been given. On the left side of the Challenge Hub, you’ll find a single, beefy, constantly-respawning Punisher who’s more than willing to take the worst punishment you can dish out—so feel free to test your single-target damage capabilities. To the right, you’ll find a group of Revenant Soldiers waiting to endure your most powerful area-of-effect attacks.
When you’re ready to give the Challenge Rift a shot, just click on the Challenge Obelisk in the center of the Hub to get started.
Once inside the Rift, you’ll find it’s very similar to a typical Greater Rift, only this time, you’re racing the clock to beat the original runner’s completion time. Can you complete the Rift before they did? There’s only one way to find out!
What Else Should I Know About Challenge Rifts?
Challenge Rifts are a unique experience in Diablo III—they’re an opportunity to compete against your friends and the rest of the community in a totally static, completely level playing field. All players have the same gear and skill loadouts and paragon points, and they’re all running through identical Greater Rift layouts, right down to the monsters. Completing the Challenge Rift as fast as possible is a testament to your knowledge of the game, your skill with that class, and your ability to analyze situations and make the best of them.
It may be worth taking time to mark down elite packs, pylons, or other important layout information.
Still, not everyone is down for competition, and it’s totally fine if that includes you. Most Challenge Rifts are easily completable within the first few tries, and beating the original time will get you a tidy bag of crafting materials. You can earn this reward once per week, and it resets each Monday afternoon, when the newest Challenge Rift is made available.
If you want to get in, get your rewards, and go back to your seasonal character, but feel that this week’s Monk build just isn’t your cup of tea, consider gathering a group of friends to tackle the Rift with you. You’ll find it’s a quick process when you divide and conquer, and it can be a lot of fun racing each other to the next juicy pack of minions.
Finally, don’t be surprised if you see some strange builds and gear loadouts pop up in Challenge Rifts from time to time. Maybe the original player hastily swapped characters and was missing a Legendary Gem or two when we captured their snapshot. Or perhaps that week’s challenge is a freshly-leveled seasonal character, with the sort of hodgepodge gear loadout you’d expect. Just go with it. It’s okay to try something a little wacky and “off the meta.” Diablo III is, after all, a game of progression and we’ve all been there. Now, go forth and conquer those challenges!
Fixed an issue that caused players with 32-bit clients to have trouble joining parties (12/11)
Fixed an issue where occasionally a party invite would result in a string error (12/11)
Fixed an issue where the right-click context menu in the Social pane occasionally disappeared (12/11)
Challenge Rift - Week 25:
The new weekly Challenge Rift is live! Be sure to complete it for a quick set of crafting materials and other rewards! Are you competing for the top leaderboard positions on this Challenge Rift? Let us know in the comments, and share any tips you may have!
A new weekly challenge rift is live! The challenge this week features Hammer of the Ancients Fire Barbarian! Make sure you complete the challenge rift this week for quick set of bounty materials and blood shards!
You can view the challenge rift build below. Are you competing on the leaderboard for this rift? Let us know in the comments what rank you've achieved, and leave any tips you may have for other players!
I'm the kind of person who tends to seek out the best build for whatever class I am playing in a season, and I will stick with it until I feel like I can no longer push any higher in greater rifts. The feeling I get out of optimizing and tweaking a build until there is no more performance to squeeze out of it is just one of many reasons I continue to play Diablo on a regular basis. I'm always looking at how I can possibly improve my gear, skills, or play-style; however, if you are anything like me, you know that you need a break from the cutting edge every once in a while... Sometimes, you just need to laugh maniacally at your screen and have some fun.
One of my favorite things to do in Diablo is to come up with dumb builds. These are builds that put a massive grin on my face, but they don't need to be very good or serve any specific purpose. They are often centered around one or two ideas, and their only requirement is that they make me have a hysterical amount of fun. Not every build in the game needs to be able to clear greater rift 120+ solo with time to spare. There is plenty of room in the game for builds that are simply fun to play, and put a smile on your face.
Today's build spotlight for the Mad King's Laboratory is a build I made with only one goal for my Necromancer: I wanted to go fast!
I was tired of being left behind in rifts, so I needed to shed my old identity as the brooding corpse-raising-pale-skinned man who didn't socialize well in Tristram because of the horrible smell of undeath around me. I needed to become someone else, I needed to become something else.... I needed to become the Flash.
The Build:
Big things sometimes have small beginnings, and this build began with the Steuart's Greaves---a pair of Necromancer boots that increases your movement speed by 100% after using Blood Rush. I incorporated the boots in my Necromancer Torment XIII speed farming build that I call the Corpse Party. While using these boots, I was suddenly much quicker in rifts at the expense of a little extra damage; although, I realized it wasn't enough... I wanted to be even faster. I shifted my entire focus on not necessarily being good, but being fast. As it turns out, it's possible to do both.
This build is quite impressive for clearing Torment XIII rifts quickly, finishing bounties, or even power leveling a friend. Your toughness is reliant on picking up gold to boost your armor with Goldwrap, but if you want to do low level greater rifts you can easily switch it out for Dayntee's Binding. All of your damage is coming from Bone Armor and Corpse Explosion. Keep an eye on your Golem, since he will be dropping a corpse every second for to you explode with the use of the Moribund Gauntlets. If you ever find yourself needing a corpse immediately and your Golem is too busy trying to kill a lone enemy in the corner of your screen, just use your Blood Rush to drop a usable corpse at your feet!
This is fairly easy to gear for, but there may be a working variation of this build that uses the Legacy of Nightmares ring set and ancient pieces of the gold gear---such as Goldskin and Kymbo's Gold. In fact, you should feel free to adjust anything you see in this build in order to fit your needs. You can easily drop some speed in favor of more damage, or vice-versa! But just remember, the entire goal of this build is not to be good, but to be fast!
Let me know in the comments what changes you would make to the build, or you can share your own crazy build with me for future spotlights with the Mad King's Laboratory!
A hotfix has gone live that fixed earning achievements while using the Monkey King's Garb, and re-enabled the Shield of Fury after it was disabled late last week due to a bug allowing other Crusaders in the same party to benefit from the effect. You can view the hotfix notes below:
The hotfix went live just after 6 p.m. PST on Friday, 11/17 and the Legendary ability on Shield of Fury was re-enabled at that time. If you notice further issues, please post in the Bug Report forum. Thanks!
A bug has arisen during Season 12 that is allowing the Crusader item Shield of Fury to trigger its effect for other Crusaders' Heavens Fury instead of only your own. The item has been temporarily disabled until a hotfix is released. You can view the official blue post below:
It's come to our attention that the Legendary power of Shield of Fury is unintentionally affecting other Crusaders' Heavens Fury instead of only your own. We are immediately disabling this power across all regions while we work on a hotfix to resolve this issue.
We anticipate releasing this hotfix as soon as possible (after thorough testing is completed) and, in the meantime, believe that it is too early in the season for this to have a lasting impact on the leaderboards.
Once the hotfix has been applied, we will be re-enabling the power. We'll update this thread once we can confirm the hotfix and the power are both live.
Thanks for your patience and understanding while we work to resolve this issue.
Battle.net Currency Conversion
Within the next 24 hours, Battle.net will begin conversion to local currency in Canada, Japan, and New Zealand. You can find the full official blog post below:
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Official Post)
In October, we announced that we’ll be converting from USD to local currency on Blizzard Battle.net® in Canada, Japan, and New Zealand. These changes will begin to roll out in these regions within the next 24 hours.
For players in these regions, Blizzard Balance will be unavailable during the brief update process, but purchases can be made using other payment methods. Any purchases made during this period will be processed in local currency.
For World of Warcraft® subscribers, the recurring subscription will continue to be charged in USD for the next 12 months. If there’s any interruption to your subscription, however—including an expired card, changes in payment methods, or account cancellations—any new subscriptions will be charged in your local currency.
We want to make as many of our players as possible feel at home in the Blizzard ecosystem, and make managing your account with us easier. By switching from USD to local currency, we’re expanding the types of payment we accept and helping some of you avoid paying transaction fees charged by financial institutions.
Please see our announcement in October for more information and follow @BlizzardCS for the latest updates.
Level with a cause is a charity event that will run from November 9th to November 12th. During this event you will find your favorite Diablo streamers raising money during the start of Season 12 for Take This, a non-profit charity that is raising awareness of mental health issues within the gaming community! You can see a full list of the streamers and help support this amazing charity here! Or, you can keep an eye out for #LevelWithACause in stream titles on Twitch!
Patch 2.6.1 Roundup
Patch 2.6.1 is out, and Season 12 is about to begin! With the new patch comes countless item and balance changes, and all of the changes help to establish a far more balanced competitive meta between individual builds! You will find far more viable build options available to you this season, regardless of what class you are playing! Thanks to ComradeKoch for compiling the patch changes!
Season 12 begins Thursday, November 9th at 5:00 p.m. PST in North America, 5:00 p.m. CET in Europe, and 5:00 p.m. KST in Asia.
The double treasure goblin event has gone live, and will end on Thursday, November 9 at 5:00pm PST! The event will end when the new season begins; however, it should provide some extra fun in Diablo until the start of season 12! You can view the full blog post below.
Patch 2.6.1 is now live worldwide, and Season 12 is just around the corner.
We want to help you stretch your muscles and get prepared for the latest patch with a special in-game event—double Treasure Goblin spawns! Each time you encounter a single Treasure Goblin, they’ll be hanging out with a buddy whose bags are overflowing with all your favorite treats and treasures.
This Double Goblin event will begin in the Americas region on November 6 at 5:00 p.m. PST, and ends on Thursday, November 9 at 5:00 p.m. PST.
Note: This buff does not affect the number of goblins encountered via a Bandit Shrine, Goblin “Rift” packs, or in the Realm of Greed.
We hope you’re excited for all the balance changes crammed into Patch 2.6.1, and we look forward to hearing about your upcoming Season 12 adventures. In the meantime, good luck, have fun, and we’ll see you in Sanctuary!
In this panel Brandy Camel (the Diablo Community Manager) interviewed several content creators for Diablo that you are likely familiar with: Rhykker, Leviathan, BigDaddyDen, and Lynxaria. A lot of the questions were fun and entertaining, but an interesting question was asked at the end that will likely satiate some of our conspiracies about a potential new Diablo game.
For the last question, Brandy asked the following to the panel: "As you guys know, those of us working on Diablo at Blizzard, we're exploring what's next... While we don't have anything to discuss today, or this weekend, I want to know what your thoughts are. What are you speculating?" She then turned to the crowd and emphasized "Again, speculation! Let's be clear about that!"
While we certainly have our own speculations about what the next game could be, this at least seems to indicate that there is indeed something being worked on. With that in mind, I pose the same question. What do you speculate the Diablo team is working on? Let us know in the comments!
You can find bullet points of the entire panel below.
What was your first diablo game?
BigDaddyDen: Diablo.
Leviathan: Diablo 2, right before LoD released.
Rhykker: Diablo.
Lynxaria: Diablo 2.
Brandy: Diablo 2.
What is it about Diablo that makes you want to create content?
BigDaddyDen: Fun factor, and the Diablo community as a whole.
Leviathan: Educating players with new builds or ideas.
Lynxaria: Playing a game that you love, and being able to share the passion with everyone in the community
Rhykker: Already doing research on the game, why not share it by making content?
What is a good Diablo memory that you want to share?
BigDaddyDen: First ever Starmetal Kukri drop.
Leviathan: Getting Rank 1 on the Cursed Chest conquest in Season 3.
Lynxaria: Completing a greater rift when it's the worst layout/monsters/guardian.
Rhykker: Playing Demon Hunters with his cousin when Reaper of Souls launched.
Brandy: Doing panels like these. Hearing these stories and moments is what community management is all about, and it is very fulfilling.
What is your favorite class?
Rhykker: Wizard in vanilla, but Demon Hunter in Reaper of Souls.
BigDaddyDen: Witch Doctor.
Leviathan: Crusader.
Lynxaria: Crusader.
Brandy: Most hours played on Barbarian, and the name Dayntee comes from her tabletop RPG barbarian.
If you were a treasure goblin, what type would you be?
Lynxaria: Rainbow Goblin.
Leviathan: Blood Thief, because they must have some kind of shady deal with Kadala... Where else are they getting all those blood shards?
BigDaddyDen: Want to see new goblin that is fat, when you hit them they bounce around the screen and drop bounty materials.
Rhykker: Gem Hoarder... Because Rhykker is apparently a notorious hoarder.
Brandy: Can't pick a goblin, because she resonates with Kadala the most.
If you could create a legendary, what would it do?
BigDaddyDen: One that has a pet mechanic, such as stacking your Witch Doctor fetishes so they make one large fetish, or one that allows your fetish to jump onto the back of your zombie dog and use it as a mount. It wouldn't effect just the Witch Doctor, but all the classes that have pets.
Leviathan: Offhand that matches the Horadric Hamburger
Lynxaria: Flail that turns blessed hammers into hamsters.
Rhykker: An item that applies to any class and adds more options. Such as a legendary gem for your weapon. It would need to be strong enough to compete with losing critical hit damage from an Emerald. Maybe give some kind of attack speed and movement speed buffs.
What are you speculating is next for Diablo?
Rhykker: Frank Pearce pledged his loyalty at BlizzCon last year, and stated that Diablo has a future. That information, combined with the job postings that we've seen, indicates there is no doubt that something is coming. Ready and can't wait for what is next.
Leviathan: Likes what Destiny 2 has. Maybe the next game could add MMO mechanics such as 8 person "raids."
BigDaddyDen: Some kind of end game raid mode, maybe even a level-field competitive mode that doesn't require farming paragon points.
Lynxaria: Easy to speculate, and we each know what we individual want. Envisioning a new project can be a challenge. We all know something is coming, but it's a matter of when and being patient. Can't even imagine what is next, but it's going to be amazing either way.
Brandy: Even in moments the development team becomes quiet, it doesn't mean they aren't listening to feedback or what the community is saying. The team has been evolving how they interact with the community over time. They are just people working on their passion project, and are excited about Diablo as much as the community.
This BlizzCon panel gave us some insight on how Blizzard created some of the visual effects for the Necromancer in Diablo 3. While we didn't get any important pieces of news, we did learn a little bit about how the Necromancer effects were made! Here are some bullet points covering several topics that were discussed.
Skeleton Mage
This ability seemed strait forward at first, but it took a long time to find its spot in the Necromancer kit.
Pets have an unspoken cool factor, and if they don't immediately feel awesome then it doesn't matter what the pet actually does.
Once the team received really cool art from a character artist, it set the tone for the skill.
Readability
Because of the nature of a Diablo style game, visual readability can often be a problem.
With curses in Diablo 2, it was hard to tell what enemies were going to be effected by your curse when you cast it.
This lead to a focus on showing the area your curse would effect when it was implemented into Diablo 3, and also if the enemies were effected or not.
The icon that shows if an enemy is cursed was at one point multiple colors based on what curses were active or not, but they pulled back on the color since it started to feel clownish and too happy.
Creation of a Skill
Starts between a dialog with the artists and designers as they determine what would best suit the skill.
What is the best way to express the fantasy of the skill? What is its usage like? How can Players break the skill with legendary items later? What kind of damage type is it?
If a skill is going to have a huge effect on screen, it can't also be one that you are spamming.
Poison Skills
There weren't many memorable poison skills that the Necromancer had in Diablo 2.
The Witch Doctor already had a poison theme.
When it came to the death and decay theme of the Necromancer, it took on a dead serious look and tone compared to the silly tone the Witch Doctor has.
Team 3 Workflow
The team doesn't use a "Waterfall Workflow" like others in the industry.
They create a "Feature Team" that includes many people with all different skills, such as different kinds of artists and designers.
The team meets often and discusses what needs to be done, rather than handing off responsibilities to separate departments without communicating between each other.
Command Skeletons
Raising Skeletons from dead enemies meant you had to kill enemies before you can have skeletons, which can lead to game play problems.
The team wanted to relieve players from the burden of having to raise the skeletons yourselves, but having them all at once made it not seem fun to use as a skill.
This lead to the design we currently have. The skeletons summon slowly over time which feels like they are being raised from bodies, but you don't actually need corpses to do it.
Other Classes
Playing a Necromancer with other Necromancers lead to a lot of readability issues. This lead to the team developing new tech that allowed some skills to play locally for the player, but not fully to other players.
They found time to retrofit all of the other classes with this tech.
This tech was added in the Necromancer patch.
Updating the Necromancer from D2 to D3
In order to do it properly, they had to love the class and understand what the players loved about the class.
Virtual Ticket Giveaway & New Diablo Fans Community Manager
Greetings, fellow adventurers of Sanctuary! My name is Chris, but on the internet, I'm better known as "Zenkiki" (or Zen if you are feeling pithy)! It is an honor and a privilege that I get to introduce myself to everyone as the new Diablo Fans Community Manager! Like many of you, I have been using Diablo Fans as my primary source of Diablo news for countless years. Additionally, it remains my favorite place to find and share builds every season! I am excited for this amazing opportunity, and look forward to helping grow the site into the best place it can be!
As for myself, I sincerely love the Diablo franchise! I have fond memories of playing the original Diablo on my dad's PC back in the late 90's, and later beating Diablo 2 with my first Necromancer when the game was released. I've yet to miss a single Diablo 3 season since they were introduced, and love to compete for leaderboard positions with whatever class I choose to play! Also, my favorite class is the Assassin, and I really hope to see it in a future game... blizzplz
I'm a passionate gamer at heart, and you can often find me playing a variety of different games. Anything from Shooters to RPG's, or even tabletop games! On the side, I stream and run a successful YouTube channel. Finally, I'm an aspiring game designer who is working on an easy-to-learn cyberpunk tabletop RPG rule set!
But none of that would matter if I didn't also bring gifts... So, like a generous grand parent looking to spoil their grand children, I present you with a BlizzCon Virtual Ticket giveaway!
Giveaway:
Update: The giveaway has ended, and all of the winners have been contacted! Check your inbox!
In celebration of Zenkiki joining the team, and BlizzCon being nearly upon us, we are giving away three Virtual Tickets to three lucky community members! With the virtual ticket, not only will you have access to all the usual BlizzCon panels, but you will also receive all of the awesome in-game loot... Such as the horribly terrifying yet questionably adorable Murkromancer pet for Diablo 3!
(The jury is still out on whether he is a Murkro-Mancer, or a Murk-Romancer... I'll let you decide)
How to Enter:
Leave a comment on this post welcoming Zenkiki to the site, and include what class you will primarily be playing for Season 12!
Follow those easy steps, and you will be entered into a random drawing on Thursday @ 4pm PDT! Any entry after that point will not be counted! Winners will be contacted through private message shortly after the drawing. Time is running out! Hurry and enter into the giveaway before the portal to the Vault closes!
