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Furnace and Rimeheart Changes

The Furnace and Rimeheart changes are finally live on the PTR, as they no longer scale with monster health. The changes were made as a balancing factor to limit the abuse in higher difficulties on Greater Rifts.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

As some of you are aware, we made a changes to a few items so that their damage no longer scales with monster health. The most recent changes in line with this philosophy were made to the Legendary items Rimeheart and the Furnace: 

Rimeheart

• Has been redesigned
  • 10% chance to instantly deal 1800-2400% weapon damage as Cold to Frozen enemies

The Furnace

• Has been redesigned
  • Increases damage against elites by 40-50%

As noted above, the primary goal of these changes was to remove their Crushing Blow mechanics. From there, our secondary goal was to rebalance both items so that they would remain compelling choices for players, but not necessarily be best in slot. 

In the case of The Furnace, the redesign is aimed to keep the item in line with one of its primary uses on live—to kill bosses. In the case of Rimeheart, the chance on hitting a Frozen enemy with a lot of Cold damage was kept, and the additional tuning is intended to allow Rimeheart to remain competitive with the current best Legendary 1-Handers in the game. With that goal in mind, we do agree Rimeheart’s current damage on the PTR is a little low and are looking to increase its damage in the next PTR patch.

We'd like to make sure that we are keeping an eye on your feedback about these changes, and this thread is intended to be a central place to help us do that. With that in mind, we kindly ask you to keep the posts in this thread on-topic and focused on Rimeheart and the Furnace. (Off topic replies will likely be head butted right off the mountain.)

New Crusader Set

Blizzard is looking for feedback on the new Crusader set launched with the latest PTR build. Check out the post below!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Greetings Crusaders (and other assorted heroes of Sanctuary),

We recently unleashed a new Crusader set into the wilds of the PTR. With this set, our goal has been to encourage a melee playstyle and to promote new builds and synergies apart from the established builds (looking at you, Blessed Shield and Darklight). 

As we move forward with the PTR, please feel free to share any and all general feedback you may have about this new set in this thread. However, info which specifically relates to the topics below may offer the most productive commentary for us to share with our development team.

Related topics on which we're seeking feedback (again, in this thread) include: 

• What synergies prove most useful?
• How do you see this set competing with existing sets?
• How has your playstyle been affected by the set, and/or the individual items in the set?
• What changes might you suggest?

Recent patch note information regarding the set can be found here. 

As for one last point, we do ask that everyone tries to keep suggestions focused and on point. Off-topic commentary will be moderated.
Thanks again everyone! Your feedback is most appreciated and continues to be instrumental in helping us to bring 2.1.0 into the mortal world. As ever, your deeds of valor will be remembered.

Amazonian Parma Affix

Just as a clarification to the previous post, the affix from the Amazonian Parma, which allows your Phalanx to summon twice as many Avatars, has been moved to a new Crusader Shield (instead of a "normal" Shield) on the PTR.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

GUYS!
CALM DOWN!
There is a new CRUSADER Shield: Unrelenting Phalanx!
It has the SAME effect (Phalanx now summons twice)
BUT it is a CRUSADER Shield, which is WAY better for us! Since it can roll Phalanx Damage and CDR!
Stop flaming, they just made it BETTER

This is indeed correct. The legendary affix on the Amazonian Parma shield has been moved onto the new Unrelenting Phalanx crusader shield. Please do keep in mind that this is a PTR and that iteration on items, skills, and systems are still happening at a fairly rapid rate, so changes like this can occur.

Thanks again for the reports, everyone!

PTR Disabled Mechanics

Some mechanics are currently disabled on the Public Test Realm, while the developers work on them. Check the post below!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Greetings everyone, 
We are currently working to address active PTR bugs with the following mechanics:

• Carnevil's Legendary ability
• Fierce Loyalty (Witch Doctor passive)
• Bane of the Powerful (Legendary Gem)

As a result, these mechanics have been temporarily disabled in the most recent PTR build. Witch Doctors, please note that you will still be able to equip Carnevil; however, the mask will not cause Fetishes to shoot poison darts when the player does. Similarly, Fierce Loyalty will continue to provide your hero an extra Zombie Dog, but all other conferred bonuses will not be available. 

Again, these are only temporary changes. We are looking to re-enable all three mechanics in the next PTR build. 
Thank you for your patience, and for continuing to assist us as we test patch 2.1.0!

D3 and Reaper of Souls Sales

The Activision 2nd Quarter Financial Results are out (you can check them here), and it is reported that Diablo 3 and its expansion, Reaper of Souls, have sold, as of 30th June 2014, more than 20 million copies worldwide!