What We've Learned From BlizzCon, Ladders are Still Experimented With, RoS BlizzCon Fan Reviews

What We've Learned From BlizzCon
BlizzCon is over and with it the stream of potential new information has stopped, at least for a while. A lot of what we heard from the convention has been either announced publically or datamined, but there have been a few things that we thought might need to be highlighted.
  • Legendary items will be soulbound. Not sure if account bound. You'll only be able to trade them to friends in your party and within 2 hours of them dropping
  • There is a fourth passive slot (unlocked at 70)
  • Ladders are still experimented with (not from BlizzCon, but confirmed right after)
  • Item rolls have been split into Primary and Secondary stats. This is visible on the tooltips as well
  • Some changes have been made to existing monster affixes. For example Jailer now gives about a second of warning before its red ring binds you to the spot
  • Clans have been confirmed, with their own roster screen and chat. In addition, if a Legendary item drops for you it'll be announced to everyone online in your Clan
  • There is no stash increase
  • No mention of PvP (developers want to fix the core of the game first)
  • No mention of a potential release date for either the pre-expansion patch nor the expansion itself


Ladders are Still Experimented With
Even though they weren't mentioned at BlizzCon ladders/seasons are still being talked about by the Blues. Josh hinted at them on his personal Twitter account, but Lylirra flat out said they're still experimented with.


Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

For clarity (before anyone gets too crazy), we don't have any additional details or information right now about ladders in Diablo III. At this point, it's still something we're looking into and experimenting with -- i.e. in terms of how a ladder system might integrate into the game and mesh with features like Paragon, for example -- but not something that's confirmed 100%. We'd love to hear your thoughts/feedback/desires in the meantime. (Source)



Reaper of Souls BlizzCon Fan Reviews
Some players had the chance to try out the early version of Reaper of Souls present at BlizzCon. A lot of them have posted their thoughts on the key features of the expansion. Check out their reviews below.

Reddit user wolfpaq777. Original link and full review.

So I mentioned earlier that bounty rewards weren't that impressive. One of the rewards was a rift shard which theoretically would let you open a nephalem rift except the demo had one permanently open every time you started the game. Nephalem rifts were easily my favorite part of the demo. It's exactly as they described. Any environment (including act 5). Any monster (including act 5!). Crazy density. WILDLY OVERPOWERED SHRINES. Up to 10 levels though the deepest I got was 6. Every level 100% random and unrelated to the level above it. Crazy monster combinations that you could never experience in game. Wildly fun.

Basically you head into these rifts and a gauge starts filling up for every monster you kill. Once you've killed "enough" which was quite a bit, another super boss would spawn. You'd kill him and take his loot and that's when I stopped but I guess I could have kept going all the way down to 10 if I wanted to. It really gives you an appreciation for the environments in this game when you are able to experience them in their crazy variety back to back like that.

Reddit user Thunderclaww. Original link and full review.

The Crusader class feels soooo good. He's the perfect blend between close-combat melee and ranged. This is how I played with the skills that were available on the show floor. I'd run up to a group of monsters and start generating Wrath with the Punish skill, then smashed them with Fist of Heavens, which does a huge amount of damage. Then I'd use the Steed to charge to the next group and cast a Fist of Heavens on the upcoming group. If there was an elite pack, I'd first cast the Falling Sword, doing huge amounts of damage. Then I'd set up a healing area with Consecration, activate Laws of Valor, and start attacking. If there was any issue, I'd use the Steed to escape.

Wrath seems to work exactly like Spirit, only generating when you attack and spent via skills. However, there were a couple more ways to generate skills, such as some sort of blocking skill that I can't recall too much.

A passive I really enjoyed was the one that allowed holding a shield and a two-handed item. I managed to get a Legendary two-handed item and used that passive. The speed decrease wasn't super noticeable because of the charging Steed. Already there there seems to be a couple of ways to play the Crusader. You can be a tank and take the damage for your team. You can deal tons of damage up close. You can run around the sidelines and deal ranged damage from there.

Reddit user menagese. Original link and full review.

Bounties are another system that I am also extremely excited for. You are able to travel around to any act and any waypoint across all five acts. There were five quests marked on waypoints within the act. The target for each bounty is one of three things: Complete an event, kill a certain number enemies to spawn a boss, or simply kill a boss, such as King Leroic. After finishing the five bounties you receive gold and experience with a chance at a random legendary. There were some previewed in the build that I got to play and they all had some very interesting affixes. With one of the rings, the legendary affix was (paraphrasing) You require one less item to activate a set bonus, with a minimum of two. So what that means is if you are wearing two items in a set, with this ring, you get the 3-piece bonus as well.

Fact sheet by Jaetch and Melkor. Original post and full review. Topic on the official forums.

- Spectral blades rune increases all fire damage duration - interesting because certain fire damage skills have 3-5 second durations. Fire spells are def an interesting build choice.
- Items have primary and secondary stats. Items show range of stats possible.
For example - a source has 7-13 damage but next to that damage range there is a parenthetical reference showing you what you COULD have rolled. (Ie: 5-20)
- Dropped blue boots that had 9% meteor damage bonus...
- Global waypoints - port anywhere and everywhere. Simple enough.
- Arcane orb Spark rune uncontrollable but - buffs next lighting damage - you can not control anything other than the direction of the orb. Its range is fixed but all enemies that get hit by the orb buff your next lightning spell by 1% per enemy hit (no cap mentioned)
- Slow time casts at location - imagine this- cast slow time at location. Lob an above mentioned arcane orb at slow time point, drop a couple of meteors..run in to the fray with DS popped, pick up all those globes...cast nova, chain drop meteors for freeeee. GG.

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