DiabloFans

I saw that Heroes of the Storm has a big 2.0 relaunch coming and I was checking it out. It turns out they are adding Cassia, the Amazon Warmatron, as a playable hero in that game. The description of her skins tells a little about what happened to the Amazon after Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, I don't remember if this was ever detailed before.

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/heroes/cassia/

After shattering the Worldstone, the young Amazon Cassia had changed.
She had seen hatred, terror, and destruction firsthand. If the Askari
were to survive the coming darkness, they needed an army. She would
begin their training immediately.

After her victory against the Prime Evils, Cassia ascended through the
ranks of the Askari to become their most legendary commander. The
Warmatron’s battle armor is a gift from Queen Xaera herself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZkdtQ1fOZY

I was leveling my Season character last night and I'm not sure if things legitimately slowed down in the 50s (a relic of the 'vanilla' D3 when 60 was cap?) or if it was just because almost every game I was in after I hit 50 had 1-2 AFK leechers, until I finally said to hell with that and just started playing single player.

It reminded me of the 'hell levels' from EverQuest where things would slow way down. Things felt good once I got past 60 and seemed to be leveling at a decent pace.

I was thinking about the Diablo story tonight and had an interesting idea about where it might be headed. Could Diablo have 'good' intentions? Is his goal to escape from the tragic destiny of endless warfare he and the others share?

One of Diablo's major pieces of lore is the Eternal Conflict, a never-ending battle between angels and demons, good and evil, light and shadow, order and chaos. In Reaper of Souls, Malthael (Archangel of Wisdom/Death) tried to end the conflict by killing all the beings that opposed his side. It was the only solution he could think of. No more demons/nephalem, no more war. A very rational conclusion for an angel that lived by the ideals of order.

During RoS we also learn some startling news: as we engage Adria we are informed that Diablo has foreseen his return, and it will be us that is responsible. We eventually confront Malthael and he ends up destroying the Black Soulstone and consuming the souls of the Evils within to try and defeat us. We beat Malthael and thus free Diablo, just as he had planned.

What is Diablo's desire? We know he conspired to kill off his siblings so he could become the one Prime Evil. We know he somehow knew he would fall at the Crystal Arch since he sent Adria off to prepare for the next phase. We know he somehow even knew that it would be the Nephalem hero that freed him in the end. As RoS ends, we learn that Tyrael and the angels are afraid of the Nephalem and their power to choose between good or evil. Malthael in particular did not like that aspect of humanity.

"The humans are corrupt, and are not worthy of the choice between good or evil. Angels and demons do not choose, as it should be." - Malthael

A being of order sees nothing wrong with how things are in the universe. What would a being of chaos think about that? I don't think they would agree that they should do things 'just because' like the angels.

Which brings us to Diablo. Through his manipulations and scheming, he has sown discord in the Angiris Council and thus weakened his long-time foe, eliminated his brothers and sister and become the Prime Evil, and ends RoS as a free demon lord. What's next? In a conversation with Tyrael about Tathamet - the 7-headed dragon and original embodiment of evil that Diablo and his siblings were the heads of - it is said that Diablo wishes to become the Dragon again.

When Diablo became the Prime Evil it was by corrupting his host, Leah. That body was presumably destroyed when it disintegrated, but now Diablo - and only him as the Prime Evil, not his brothers/sister - is free. Through time immemorial, the Evils (and angels) are always reborn when they are killed unless something crazy is done like Soulstones being rigged to trap their souls. Diablo doesn't fear death, he has died many times, perhaps even willingly as seen in Diablo III. If the chain of events up to the end of RoS are part of his plan, will Diablo be able to regenerate as Tathamet now that he is considered the Prime Evil and has absorbed the other Evils' souls?

If Diablo becomes Tathamet, what then? Gameplay wise, we know we'd inevitably fight him, we'll probably defeat him, somehow. What if that is again just all part of Diablo's plan? Diablo doesn't give a hoot in hell about dying, he was already one of Tathamet's heads and survived the first death - a death that helped create the known universe. What if his plan all along was to become Tathamet and then martyr himself in the hopes, or knowledge, that a new universe would be created, one where demons have free will, where they can choose what to do, where they don't have to endlessly fight an unwinnable war? A universe where demons would rule because there would be no angels to stop them. This could leave the existing universe with Sanctuary, or what's left of it, and a new universe made from the reborn Tathamet's death (the setting for Diablo IV).

What else can we look at that shows where the story is heading? The Prophecy of the End Days is a new part of the lore they came up with in D3 that tells of a coming apocalypse. It is likely we have seen all but one of the lines of the prophecy be fulfilled, it ends with the line "As Fate lies shattered forever." The Prophecy was supposed to be a warning of what was to come, the "key to salvation" to prevent the end times according to Deckard Cain. We've had zero luck preventing any of these things from happening, so odds are not in our favor that we will prevent this final line from occurring. The Prophecy refers to the angels by aspect, which would mean something involving Ithereal comes last. Ithereal is the Archangel of Fate, and he had a Scroll of Fate upon which was written everything that would transpire to the angels. According to the Scroll, Diablo was victorious during the events of Act IV. The Nephalem were not on the scroll, and thus able to circumvent that fate. It is likely unknown what has happened regarding fate since then, but according to the wiki about Ithereal in the Book of Tyrael, he was 'inconclusive' when asked what the angels should do with the Black Soulstone, potentially meaning they are now going completely 'off the rails' instead of following a preordained destiny, which is how surprises such as Malthael can happen. The barbarian tells Auriel that the 'chains of fate' shall bind her no more when you save her.

There is one curveball here, a big old dragon entity called Trag'Oul, who was the guardian of Sanctuary that tried to maintain a Balance between good and evil. According to this mantra, "Good must always outshine Evil, but never should Evil be completely eradicated, lest Good eventually turn on itself." It is also said that the world will cease to be should one side take over. (That should mean Malthael was destined to fail from the get go since his plan would result in the end of any semblance of Balance.)

The Nephalem themselves are also a bit of a mystery in what role they will play in the future. The angels fear their strength and ability to be good or evil. The Nephalem are tired of being used as pawns in the Eternal Conflict and want to stand up for themself, to throw off the oppression of both demons and angels. The Amazon lore says that "Amazons regard the destruction of the Three Prime Evils as their destiny, ushering in a new era when mortal men and women can at long last take their rightful place in the universe, no longer merely playthings for the beings of the Outer Realms." The Crusaders believe that humanity are the only 'Balanced' beings in all of creation. The Crusader PC also playfully tells Ithereal, after Ithereal explains why he voted to save the Nephalem, that when the time comes the Crusader would vote to spare the angels. Ithereal says, "You jest, but that day is not impossible." I don't know if the Crusader is the only one he says that to (he did not say it to Barbarian), so if it is a new line they had Ithereal's VA record it could be a hint of things to come.

How does this all come together? The final doomsday prophecy line implies something happens to Fate. We assume it means Ithereal, but it could mean fate itself. The Nephalem taking over as masters of the universe would possibly mean Fate had been shattered, since they were never part of the Scroll of Fate in the first place. The Nephalem destroying all demons and/or angels would likely have the same effect as well. Diablo's scheme may not be to shatter Ithereal (he has already screwed over the Angiris Council to being mostly harmless), but he may try to 'shatter forever' the fate that angels and demons have to fight each other merely because that is 'as it should be.' These scenarios could certainly cause the 'end of all things' that was prophecized - not an end not to life itself, but an end to a way of life. An end to the insane eternal conflict that plagued all of creation.

Regardless, something big should be going down in the Diablo universe once the D3 story concludes. Perhaps the 'endgame' for the Diablo trilogy was spoiled in D3's trailer. "It has been said that in the end of all things you can find a new beginning."

If the part about there being a 'loot table'/system that assigns a handful of items per slot when you make a game is true (which Flux says it is on the link), then that's kind of BS, since you could play for hours in a game that has zero chance of dropping what you want and no way of knowing all your time is being 'wasted.'

The abysmally low drop rates for certain things isn't too surprising since they've told us they were doing that, but I suppose it can be disheartening if you want Item X and see it has less than a 2% chance to drop, and that's if all the other RNG rolls line up. (a Wand of Woh might have to pass % chance for legendary to drop, % for Smart Loot to activate, % for a 1h weapon, % for a wand, then finally roll against the 1.52% chance for the Wand of Woh vs. any other legendary wand, and that's if it's even 'allowed' to drop in the game if that pre-set loot system is real)

I was thinking about this earlier today to pass the time, what could have been different/what I would have done.

• How could they have brought Diablo back without using the Black Soulstone route? If the Prince Aidan/Dark Wanderer x Adria angle is retained, I thought of this cinematic from E3 1998 and how he leaves a chunk of the soulstone behind. If Diablo/Aidan had left part of his soulstone with Adria (or just let it drop in some random town I guess) that could be used to explain the whole 'How can he be back if we smashed it on the Hellforge?' bit a little better than 'Adria marked all their souls for the Black Soulstone, suck to be you.' Mephisto would be the only one 'KIA' since his soulstone did get smashed in full, but I would probably have Belial/Azmodan find a way to steal his essence to further their goals/go towards becoming the Prime.
• Tyrael would definitely not have made himself mortal. It's just silly, and I don't think there is any example of that ever occurring throughout the Eternal Conflict. If he has to fall from grace, I would make it similar to the Dark Exile where he willingly banished himself in spirit form to Sanctuary, where he then could possess a willing host. At the end of the game the Crystal Arch could still offer him Wisdom instead of Justice, but he wouldn't be an idiot and think Justice was 'met' by disintegrating Diablo and just having him trapped in the Black Soulstone. (Auriel wouldn't think that 'all evil' was vanquished by defeating Diablo then, either)
• Deckard Cain would either not die, or do so in a way that didn't upset fans nearly as much. There's all these prophecies about the final battle between demons and man, the end of all things, the end of days (Besides a reference in the promo materiel for RoS, was this even mentioned at all in Act V? It's like they just completely forgot about all of this in-game), and they kill off the one guy that had dedicated his life to them in the first Act. According to the Behind the Scenes, Leah was supposed to become 'the new Cain' for us. Perhaps if Deckard was willing to be Tyrael's host, that makes him a target for Belial/Azmodan and he is killed for that reason, by a major Evil and not some dragonfly witch. Leah would also actually believe in the 'stories' Deckard was trying to teach her, and not be trying to burn the Book of Cain after he died, and actually become that 'new Cain' that they wanted her to be until Adria's betrayal.
• The Belial 'deception' needs a lot of work. Make there be an 'evil' vizier that gets all the blame or something, making everyone think he is that guy while secretly being the innocent character all along. Have him flee into his Realm of Lies where it is said nothing is as it seems, and what first appears to be a paradise of beautiful growth and pleasure is revealed to be full of torturous traps, illusions, mazes, a realm where a maggot-ridden piece of food may be the most nutritious around, and every time an unlucky soul falls into a trap, Belial's laughter would echo.
• The original Horadrim had to dismantle Zoltun Kulle's body and magically imprison the pieces to keep him 'dead.' We did nothing of the sort. This bit is kind of messy, I think at least having Adria be with us and she being the one to initiate the attack might make more sense. She attacks him to stop him from revealing what she had done to his work, Leah goes to save her mom, we attack to save Leah. He would, and maybe will, come back later on now that Malthael has proven to The Nephalem that the angels aren't really on our side and the only way out is to rise against both order and chaos.
• Not sure what to do with Black Soulstone. Was kind of lame that they had Tyrael telling us we had to smash it, then it ends up being 'Oh, uh, we didn't know if smashing it would be okay' in RoS. It was also explicitly said to be able to hold the souls of demons and angels, and that apparently never happened since it just got destroyed already, so that seems kind of weird.
• Take away the minutes on Azmodan's holophone and his Act would be pretty good. Instead of him telling us his plans, have it revealed by the panicked defenders of Bastion's Keep. Make all 7 of his SIn Lieutenants show up as bosses.
• Act IV - No taunts over holophone from Diablo. Izual wouldn't be threatening us with the 'chill of Hell.' The lighting would get darker and darker as you progressed, signifying Diablo's corruption of the heavens. Nephalem wouldn't just randomly pitch him over the edge, either. Body dissolving into the soulstone and having the angels gather around it, uncertain of what to do, would probably work better, especially since a lot of people thought the Black Soulstone was destroyed at the end.
• Act V - I kind of knew Malthael was coming back as Death, and figured his plan would be to kill all demons, so I liked where that went. No more telephoning in over the Black Soulstone to mutter 'Nephalem...' Their original plan was for Imperius to be the bad guy here and kill/gravely injure Tyrael, that makes a lot of sense and probably was what the End of Days was supposed to head towards since it began with the 'loss' of Wisdom, which the mortal Tyrael had become (which could be why the End of Days may not be referenced in Act V). Imperius, who voted to destroy humanity, working with Malthael, who wants to kill them for being part demon, makes a lot more sense than Imperius reluctantly helping us because Malthael for some reason decided to attack the Heavens.
• Malthael definitely would not have shattered the Black Soulstone. He despised demons, so much that he was going to just straight up murder them all, even the innocent nephalem. The next expansion would still be able to continue with Diablo escaping anyway since we were told by Tyrael that the Black Soulstone was flawed and wouldn't be able to hold all the Evils for long, so they could have easily escaped without something facepalm worthy happening in the final boss fight.
• Would the 2nd expansion be the final one? I don't know, but I would have it eventually come down to the demons and Man waging their final battle as foreseen by the Druids, probably with some incarnation of Tathamet as the final boss.

May be some other things I'm forgetting, but I think it definitely could have been more enjoyable if they tweaked how some of the events played out.

I wasn't even in-game but the battle.net launcher lost connection, so it's probably widespread.

Something to remember is that the video/stats in question would have been done long before they nerfed things like chests, Uniques, whatever got exploited and thus nerfed in the beta, etc.

And the most important thing of all: RNG, is - annoyingly - RNG. Even on my best night ever, I don't think I've come close to 6 legendaries in any reasonable amount of time (best night ever might have dropped that many in around 8-10+ hours of play, but I'm fairly sure it was less), and some nights I won't even see one, then sometimes I find two within a half hour of each other.

Possibly a bizarre coincidence, but it's strange that it has happened every time: I've noticed that friends I play with that completely stopped logging onto D3 months ago get at least triple the legendary drops I and my friend that still played the game do. Same game, same difficulty, same level characters playing together, none of them are using stockpiled 300% MF gear or anything like that, yet they get at least 3 legendaries to our 1 (the most recent returnee got 5 vs. my 1 in the same session). It almost seems like there's a hidden 'rested experience' like Marvel Heroes had that ramps up your legendary find if you haven't played in some time (a good way to hook people that are coming back to check it out), but probably just RNG being lame.

At the end of Lord of Destruction Tyrael destroys the worldstone in the Diablo 2 cinematic which seems like a really huge event. Does that have any implications on Sanctuary?

Chris: Yes…. Yes. The destruction of the worldstone… or was it? Is a huge moment in the universe of Diablo. Can you destroy a worldstone? I know what we saw, but was that real?

That was from the lore panel at BlizzCon 2011.

Malthael became obsessed with human souls and humanity's ability to permanently die.

If you ask Tyrael in Act IV about Malthael's Fate, he tells you Malthael was tortured by being unable to find the Worldstone after Inarius stole it, and that "Some say he haunts the silent halls of Pandemonium, forever seeking answers to the unknowable mysteries of life and death."

Malthael's writings you can find in Act V tell us that souls called to him like a siren's song, he checked all over creation and eventually found they were calling him from Pandemonium, where the Worldstone was. He studied this swirling, writhing souls and learned the truth of mortals - no matter what they do, they die, and that is wisdom. His studies of the souls show to him that man can stand for good like any angel, or commit evil worthy of the lowest demon. He does not like that aspect one bit. To an immortal being like himself, the thought of these mortals that are here for but an instant before flaring and dying being able to choose to be good or evil is wrong.

Malthael says that the humans can't be trusted. They are part demon, and demons pervert everything they touch. The humans are therefore corrupt, and not worthy of being able to choose between good or evil. The angels and demons do not choose, and that is how it should be.

With the Prime Evil trapped in the Black Soulstone, Malthael realized that it was the perfect time to end the Eternal Conflict. The demons are leaderless and will be easy prey, but the humans must die, lest they grow too strong.

Diablo, imbued with the essences of all seven Prime Evils of the Burning Hells, was defeated by the Nephalem.

The leader of the Angiris Council, imbued with the powers of death and the Prime Evils, was defeated by the Nephalem.

The Nephalem's personal thoughts as they go to confront Malthael (What's interesting is that Malthael's plan would have ultimately failed since eliminating all the demons/evil in the universe would have upset the Balance. "Good must always outshine Evil, but never should Evil be completely eradicated, lest Good eventually turn on itself.") hint towards what may come. "It is past time for us to say "No more." The days of angels and demons threatening the existence of our world must end."

At the end, Tyrael is also worried that the Nephalem hero is susceptible to corruption, and that he may be 'our' aka the angels' doom.

We know we are at the final line of the Prophecy of the End Days (The 'Death, at last, shall spread its wings over all' line was used during RoS' advertising), or at least the final line as portrayed in the Book of Cain: "As Fate lies shattered forever." Everything else is talking about one of the angelic Aspects, so Fate should mean Ithereal, but we also know that the Nephalem are not part of the Scroll of Fate and at the end of RoS are fed up with being harassed and murdered by the angels and demons, so that could be used to shatter the 'fate' of demons and angels endlessly fighting. (One thing to note though is that they may've gone 'off the rails' storywise as the RoS behind the Scenes says Valor aka Imperius was very much supposed to go Wrath since he was the primary antagonist originally and was supposed to kill or gravely injure the mortal Tyrael, which very well might have started the End of Days since Tyrael claimed Wisdom, which is 'lost' at the start of the prophecy.)

So, there's a couple things I can see them doing from what they've got set up:

Diablo becomes Tathamet again as the 'endgame' for the trilogy's storyline, which they said would be resolved in Diablo 3 (but not the end of the Diablo series). This is hinted at in a conversation with Tyrael, and seemingly is one of the few ways to make Diablo a threat again. We also know he's definitely not out of the fight yet, since he had a vision he shared with Adria that you would be responsible for freeing him again, technically it was Malthael but we were the cause.

The Final Battle/End Days that have been hinted at since Diablo II finally happens. "The Prophecy of the End Days is contained within the Horadric tomes I inherited from my ancestor Jered Cain. It is a warning to those who could interpret it regarding Hell's ultimate invasion of our world, written by many different people throughout history in many different lands."

'At the End of Days, angels and demons fight on the land of man.' This was said in the Behind the Scenes DVD from the base game, and I'm sure the majority of us thought it meant the angels would be fighting against the demons. Well, now that the Nephalem have firmly cemented themselves as an enormous threat to both sides, perhaps the angels and demons do indeed fight on the land of man, but in an unthinkable alliance against the mortal threat since they share a common goal. We are told that Imperius controls the angelic host, so if that scenario did happen it has to be by his command, unless it's a splinter group of angels like the minions of Malthael. (On the other hand, this bit of the prophecy could have been fulfilled already by Belial/Azmodan's forces and then Malthael's forces invading Sanctuary)

Evil/corrupt/power hungry Nephalem(s) may appear, such as Zoltun Kulle (which the Crusader hints might return), and try to gather followers to lead an assault on the angels and demons to purge them from Sanctuary once and for all. "There are some who believe this world should be cleansed of demons and angels, that there should be no Light or Darkness, and men should find their own way in life."
Lilith may return to do the same as the above, since she originally wanted to use her children - the Nephalem - to end the Eternal Conflict. They've also delved a little bit more into her and Inarius' lore during Act V where you can hear/read their personal thoughts as they set out to make Sanctuary.

Gods such as Dirgest may get involved, possibly to do the same as the Zoltun Kulle/Lilith scenario. I don't think we really know what 'gods' are in the Diablo universe, some seem to refer to Nephalem of old, the Monks' are the angels/demons I think, there's the 59 gods of the Xiansai, Dirgest the god of desire, etc. Whatever they are, they are likely powerful and based on Sanctuary, so if angels/demons are trying to destroy it (and assuming all gods aren't angels/demons), they could work to intervene.

Trag'Oul, the guardian of Sanctuary, the maintainer of the Balance, founded the Priests of Rathma aka Necromancers and disappeared. Will he return now that the Balance has been upset by Malthael's actions? (as evidenced by Necromancer NPCs in Act V trying to restore it)

^ Facepalm... You should probably take a break from grinding and get some fresh air, every post I see of yours tends to be full of bitter ignorance.

http://www.diablohub.com/database/item/gloves-of-worship/information/

The minimum level this item can drop at is 12. Below you will find the range of stats found on the level 12 version, however the item can drop at any level above 12. The legendary effect does not change with level.

"does this drop in any difficulty?"

"Yes."

The Gloves are also not on the official or unoffical list of Torment only legendaries. So you've just had bad luck OP. How many legendaries did you get from all the caches you opened?

They did have the stats working similar to your idea early on.



Early stats:
Strength - Physical damage, Block amount, Armor
Dexterity - Dodge, Critical chance, less chance to be interrupted
Vitality - Life, Mana regen
Willpower - Spell damage, health globe bonus

Later, stats were simplified and names changed:
Attack - Damage bonus for all attacks
Precision - Critical Strike chance
Defense - Damage Reduction, reduced all types of damage
Vitality - Life

The stats were changed to how they work now due to the infamousSystem Changes where (amongst other 'why the heck did they do that?' changes) they decided that instead of every item that drops, including white items, being potentially useful for your character either due to the stats being better or to salvage it, it should be the opposite and tons of useless items should drop to give that loot explosion feeling, but that of course required them to balance the 'value' of the items that drop.

This change makes the stats more intuitive and fixes some of the itemization issues we were running into. We want to make it clear that junk items aren’t worth picking up, and make it easy to identify other items as not for your character. We want to drop a ton of items, but to really pull off a sense of excitement when finding a great item, there needs to be non-optimal items, both for your class, and in general. By specifically targeting stats at classes, we can reduce the amount of item overlap, diversify our item pool, and create a cleaner, more exciting itemization system.

By and large these changes have little impact on which items you’re going to want. The item hunt has always been based on secondary stats and affixes, and we’re working hard to ensure build diversity is as large as possible by getting as many affixes into the game as possible (adding more item affixes is also something we’ve been working on). Simply including affixes that augment specific skills greatly expands the itemization pool and build possibilities.

I think I remember their reason for removing the Add Socket option from the artisans being that it, like the original Mystic Enchanting, didn't make for compelling gameplay, since every time you found an upgrade you would feel like you had to go enchant it and add sockets....which is pretty much what we do now anyway, innit? (Unless you somehow lucker into a perfectly rolled legendary)

The Lost Warrior is in the Battlefields of Eternity, he was a corpse right near where I entered that zone on adventure mode.

I think it starts you off in whichever act has a bonus going on. Bonus was in Act I and III? started in Act I. Bonus was in Act II and V, started in II. III and IV? Start in III.