First Look at Patch 2.5.0
Earlier today on the official Diablo 3 website, Blizzard posted a first look at Patch 2.5.0.
Originally posted by Blizzard (Official Blog)
Patch 2.5.0 is right around the corner! Read on to learn more about the new features coming in our latest patch, including The Armory, Primal Ancients, and numerous quality of life updates.
The Armory
We’re happy to present a long-awaited feature we know you’ve been eager to get your hands on! The Armory enables players to store up to five complete character builds on each character, allowing you to swap seamlessly between set items, skills, runes, and gems with the click of a button.
Any items equipped via the Armory will automatically swap to wherever the exchanged equipment was stored—whether that’s back into your stash or your personal inventory. Gems and Legendary Gems will also swap and, if you ‘ve upgraded or leveled up your gems, the Armory will automatically select the highest quality or level available for that gem type. Lastly, your skill bar will also update to your selected skills, rune, and Kanai’s Cube power preferences, and you’re welcome to name your setups whatever you like!
As a note, the Armory does not store Paragon points, so you’ll need to redistribute those if you have a preference with your build. However, we’ve added a new hotkey to use your points more efficiently. While you can still spend 10 points at a time by holding Shift and clicking, you can now spend them 100 points at a time by holding Ctrl and clicking!
Crafting Materials UI
Sifting through your crafting materials in your stash is a thing of the past! All crafting materials including Arcane Dust, Veiled Crystals, Reusable Parts, Death’s Breaths, bounty crafting materials, and Hellfire crafting materials are stored in a convenient, separate UI tab. Just click the small anvil located next to your gold total in your inventory screen to view your materials.
All crafting materials will be moved automatically into the Crafting Materials tab upon the launch of Patch 2.5.0, so there’s no need to store them somewhere specific before the patch hits. When using your crafting materials at Kanai’s Cube, there is now a convenient new Fill button to automagically transport your items directly into the cube interface for transmuting.
Adventure Mode Updates
Several additional changes are coming to Adventure Mode, from iterating on Greater Rift changes that were made in Patch 2.4.3 to quality of life updates coming for Bounties and Horadric Caches.
First, the frequency of several different tile sets in Greater Rifts has been adjusted. Many of the more frequent areas, like various caves and Keep Depths, have had their appearance rate reduced. On the flip side, wide open areas that were previously rarer, like Festering Woods or Stinging Winds, have had their appearance rate increased. This should, overall, result in a more varied environmental experience in Greater Rifts.
In addition, bonus acts in Bounties are being removed. Bonus Caches previously granted by the old system have instead been combined with the base Horadric Cache to form Large Horadric Chests. These are granted after completing a full set of five Bounties in any one Act and hold the total amount of materials and loot that previously would have been contained in the two separate caches. Now, you can complete whichever Acts you prefer in any order and at your leisure without feeling like every game session needs to be at least twenty-five Bounties long.
Primal Ancients
Players have different goals from Season to Season or game session to game session, and for some of our more dedicated players, there wasn’t a clear progression track beyond augmenting your Ancient Legendary items or completing the Season Journey. Enter Primal Ancients, a new tier of very rare Ancient items that allow you to aim for that perfect set of gear.
Primal Ancients are Ancient items with perfectly rolled affixes. This means every affix including Primary, Secondary, and Legendary are at their ideal value, whether that means the maximum or minimum value. While the items don’t try to guess what kind of affixes are perfect for your build, you can be certain that they will roll with a couple specific rules. First, they will always drop with the appropriate main stat for your class (Strength for Barbarian/Crusader, Dexterity for Demon Hunter/Monk, and Intelligence for Witch Doctor/Wizard). Second, they will always have the ideal number of sockets for that item. For pants, chest, and jewelry, this means the maximum number of sockets. Since ideally you will want to use a Ramaladni's Gift on your weapon, Primal weapons will roll with no sockets.
Primal Ancients can drop from any source of Legendary item in the game, including Horadric Caches, Kadala, and Kanai’s Cube, but only after you have completed at least a level 70 Greater Rift. This requirement need only be completed once per game mode (Hardcore vs. Non-Hardcore, or Seasonal vs. Non-Seasonal), which means it will reset with every Season. However, once that requirement has been met, all characters in that game mode will benefit from it. Happy hunting!
Patch 2.5.0 is almost here! Which new feature are you looking forward to the most? What’s the first build you’re going to store in the Armory? Which Primal Ancient are you dying to get your hands on? Let us know in the comment section below, or ask questions you might have about what’s in store!
Did anyone at Blizzard grab a true percentage of how much of the population has ever done a greater rift over 69 each season? I only know 4 people I have ever played with in 5 years that ever got over 69. And of those 4, maybe 2 did that solo. GRift 70 is totally unreachable for the average player, for them to ever get to 60 is a challenge. This is only for the very few and the meta cliques that reach paragon 900 in 4-5 days. Its a 1% drop rate and on top of that you only allow a very small percentage of players to have access to it, sad.
This might be the coming week or the week after (just before season 10 start). I'm more inclined to say it's gonna be the week the season starts.
...but that's just guessing..
I am actually looking forward to this patch:
1. didn't had the chance to play barb last season, and he still looks good
2. armory will give me option to alternate easy between supp/ww/ik/leap
3. ctrl+click for 100 para points is nice (not Like I ever went above 900 in season, but still, it's nice to click 8 times rather than 40)
4. separate mats stash should give me loads of free space, which is always nice.
5. perfect rolled items sound like good grail to chase, and I love doing that, ever since D2. This could actually be quite incentive.
6. bounties... :thumbs_up:
downsides:
1. no new items
2. no skill overhauls
So, overall, not a major patch, but everything I see I like.
I sure miss few things, but at least they're not screwed up, they are just absent.
I cannot make an argument against or for based on numbers only Blizzard is privy to, but probably. The argument for the gating in the blue post is pretty sound. This added content isn't for everyone. It's for those that reach their seasonal goals and need a reason to keep going. And perhaps that reasoning is reinforced by past numbers? ~X amount of players stop after ~Y amount of time every season. Their hope would then be to smooth out the drop off and engage longer play times. Again though, only speculation on my part.
I have the sneaking thought that after this season, assuming primals mechanically stay the same (perfect stat sticks), that the requirement will be relaxed if not abolished. They are likely testing the scenario described above for a desired change in behavior and if the diagnosis doesn't align with their predicted outcome they will look at it again. May take some time though.
Personally, and I've said it before elsewhere, I feel that gating primals is counterproductive to their ultimate purpose. Just make them unbelievably rare drops that can pop up at the same time ancients can. Finding an ancient weapon is just as "progression-breaking". The ooo's and ahh's you get from a player are from finding a great piece of loot. The spice to that experience is when it's an item you need, not an item that barely edges out your current equipment.
-+-
That all being said. It's a pretty decent patch. Things a lot of us clamored for all along but it's coming. Yay for the QoL love! Happy for the armory, bounties redux and UI material integration finally.
LOL, how many months have been passed and this is all blizz is giving us? armory, crafting tab and new stupid idea of ancient items, gj
The tabs are cool but really I'm just happy the 0.1% get a feature only they will see because surely the people who spend 30 hours a week in a game they paid for once 3 years ago should have demands
+1
wow
i can't wait to bone some corpses