Are you happy with the Barbarian changes? Interested in the new Crusader or Monk sets? Stop by our Discord or sound off in the comments or forums and let us know!
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Official Post)
The one-week PTR testing period for 2.6.7 begins October 17 and we need your help to make Season 19 better than ever!
We’ve begun introducing brand new class sets to Diablo III as outlined in our Ongoing Support blog, heavily revised several Barbarian Legendaries at the direct request of the community and continued to iterate on our approach to Seasonal buffs and how they can change up the overall gameplay experience. Take a look at the preliminary patch notes below and start theorycrafting; Patch 2.6.7 will be arriving before the end of the year!
Table of Contents
- PTR Details
- Patch Notes
- General
- Seasons
- Items
- Monsters
- Bug Fixes
- How to Participate in PTR
- PTR Character Copy
Please note that this is a preview for PTR content, which is subject to change.
PTR Details
We’ll be conducting the Patch 2.6.7 PTR over the course of one week, starting Thursday, October 17. During the course of PTR, there may be periodic maintenances, outages, hotfixes, or minor patches.
There will be two buffs active to help you on your PTR journey: increased Legendary drop rate and double Blood Shard drops. You can also buy customized gear we’re focused on testing from the special PTR vendor, D’jank Miem, who will exchange Blood Shards for class-specific bags full of Legendary items that need your testing!
Feedback should be provided in the PTR Feedback forum while bug reports should be provided in the PTR Bug Report forum. Clearly separating these discussions allows your designers and quality assurance testers to home in on the information they need most.
PTR Goals
With another new game-impacting Seasonal buff and entirely new class sets to experiment with, we know it’ll be very tempting to get your hands on as much as you can! To help guide your focus, here are our priorities in terms of what we’d most like to see tested.
- Monk and Crusaders heavily testing their new class sets and item changes
- Barbarian testing for the revised Barbarian legendary item changes for
- Experimentation with the Pandemonium buff, with emphasis on finding bugs and testing functionality
PTR Tips
As with our previous PTRs, this testing period will have a short duration. Whether you’re a PTR veteran or newcomer, we thought we’d pass along a few tips to get you started.
- Because of the limited duration of this PTR, we ask that participants pick a particular portion of this update to focus on testing.
- For example, if you’re primarily a Wizard player, consider what changes impact the Wizard specifically. What you like best, what you think may still need adjustment, and what you’d want to see in the future (even if that may be beyond the scope of this patch) are all good questions to ask yourself.
- Prior to the start of PTR, consider stocking up on items like Puzzle Rings and Bovine Bardiches. Having these available after you import your character can make any necessary PTR farming much faster!
- Try to break things! Just tell us when you do so we can make sure that the patch launch is as smooth as possible.
- When providing feedback, focus less on a solution and more on your experience. How did the changes make you feel? Was there something “off” that you noticed? Did something seem wrong or insufficient? Suggestions are always welcome but identifying the issues themselves is most important.
Patch Notes
Last updated October 14 @ 10:00 a.m. PST.
Below you will find the patch notes for the most recent update for Diablo III, Patch 2.6.7.
PATCH 2.6.7
Table of Contents:
- General
- Seasons
- Items
- Monsters
- Bug Fixes
Note: All changes apply to all versions of Diablo III, including PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC unless otherwise indicated. Please note that PTR is only available for PC and Mac users.
General
- Greater Rift Keystones are now subject to vacuum pick-up
- A note regarding the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) has been added, clearly stating we do not sell account information. For more information regarding the CCPA, please see here. (Console Only)
Seasons
- Developer Note: One of the biggest pieces of feedback from Season 18's buff was that the Triune bonus didn't stick with your character while you adventured. With Season 19, we've altered course as well as upped the ante by experimenting with new mechanics to add an element of both chaos and power to the battlefield. It should feel a bit like Pandemonium, and it may be a consideration whether or not you want to reset your total kill streak for a particular killstreak bonus versus continuously maintain the overall effect (especially as the highest level killstreak rewards will be harder to leverage in situations like Greater Rifts). Killstreaks with higher kill count requirements are more powerful, and we're looking forward to seeing what players think of and do with them!
- The buff for Season 19, the Season of Eternal Conflict, has been added
- Pandemonium
- For the duration of the Season, all players will have a stacking buff that that persists as long as you have hit or killed a monster within the last 5 seconds
- Each stack gives 0.05% movement speed and 0.1% bonus damage. This bonus caps at 50% movement and 100% damage (1000 stacks)
- In addition, after reaching a certain number of kills in a row, a power is unleashed, dealing an amount of scaling damage based on player level and difficulty or Greater Rift level:
- 15 Kills: Five massive energy twisters are unleashed
- 30 Kills: Dark Geysers form beneath enemies
- 50 Kills: Exploding Chickens seek and destroy
- 100 Kills: Corpses rain from the sky
- 150 Kills: A wide Frost Nova freezes enemies
- 200 Kills: Treasure chests fall from the sky
- 300 Kills: A ring of fire engulfs everything
- 400 Kills: Meteors hail from above
- 500 Kills: Angels descend upon the battlefield to fight for your cause
- 1000 Kills: ???
- Powers are tracked at a group level; this means only one power can be active in play at a time, regardless of the number of players in a group
Items
- Developer Note: With Patch 2.6.7, we are beginning to roll out new class sets for every class in Diablo III. For the Season of Eternal Conflict, we're focusing on the two classes that embody the Light and wield some form of Holy elemental damage: Crusader and Monk. You'll also find a handful of retuned or newly added Legendary powers intended to synergize with the new class sets. We did a lot of community research into which skills were most requested by players as well as most underrepresented in current builds, and we hope you're as excited as we are for these new gameplay options. The other class sets will be coming in later patches, so if your class isn't represented this time around, fret not—they're coming in a future patch!
- You'll also notice a significant number of Barbarian item changes in this patch. While the Barbarian class set will be coming at a later date, we have very much heard the War Cry from our dedicated Barbarian community and implemented a number of changes heavily inspired by extremely thorough feedback. While not every suggestion has been taken at a 1:1 parity, the thoughtful analysis helped guide us to changes we could implement in this patch. Thanks very much to the community members who expressed their concerns in a respectful, constructive manner. It's very helpful, and we greatly appreciate the thought and effort that went into making your voices heard!
- New Crusader Set: Aegis of Valor
- 2-Piece Bonus: The charged bolts from Fist of the Heavens has a chance to cast another Fist of the Heavens
- 4-Piece Bonus: Hitting with Fist of the Heavens reduces damage taken by 1% for 5 seconds. Stacks up to 50 times
- 6-Piece Bonus: Increase the damage of Fist of the Heavens by 10,000%
- New Monk Set: Patterns of Justice
- 2-Piece Bonus: Sweeping Wind gains the effect of every rune
- 4-Piece Bonus: Each enemy within Sweeping Wind increases your movement speed by 5%. Stacks up to 10 times.
- 6-Piece Bonus: Attacking with Tempest Rush while Sweeping Wind is active will temporarily increase the size of Sweeping Wind after hitting over 30 times within a short period. Sweeping Wind damage is increased by 10,000%
- Darklight
- Fist of the Heavens has a [45-60%] 100% chance to be cast twice.
- Additional Legendary Power: Increases the damage of Fist of the Heavens by [200-250%].
- Eye of the Storm
- New Legendary Power: When Sweeping Wind hits exactly 1 enemy, its damage is increased by 100%.
- Vengeful Wind
- Increases the maximum stack count of Sweeping Wind by [6-7] 10
- Additional Legendary Power: Increases the damage of Sweeping Wind by [250-300%]
- Chantodo's Resolve
- The scaled attack speed damage bonus to Wave of Destruction has been reduced
- Developer Note: This is a reactive adjustment from an earlier change to how Wave of Destruction receives a bonus from Attack Speed. The buff that resulted from that change was more than we expected, so we're reigning it in.
- Wrath of the Wastes
- 6-Piece Bonus: The damage bonus now also applies to Rend
- Lamentation
- Additional Legendary Power: Increases the damage of Rend by [150-200%]
- Ambo's Pride
- New Legendary Power: Attacking with Whirlwind also applies Rend and the total damage of Rend is dealt over 1 second
- Remorseless
- Hammer of the Ancients has a [25-30%] chance to summon an Ancient for 20 seconds
- New Legendary Power: While both Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients are active, Hammer of the Ancients deals [200-250%] more damage.
- Fjord Cutter
- You are surrounded by a Chilling Aura when attacking.
- New Legendary Power: Seismic Slam attacks 50% faster and also deals 100-150% increased damage against Slowed or Chilled enemies
- Bracers of Destruction
- Seismic Slam deals [400-500%] increased damage to the first 5 10 enemies it hits.
- Fury of the Ancients
- Call of the Ancients gains the effect of the Ancients' Fury rune and your Ancients attack 100% faster
- Bone Ringer
- Now has a cap of 60 stacks.
- Developer Note: We never intended for this item to be used in a way where you farm stacks for an egregious amount of time (5+ minutes) and then watch all their health disappear in less than a second. It's not an engaging style of gameplay, and we don't want that experience to be the best way to play the Necromancer.
- Legacy of Dreams
- This gem is now more likely to drop from a Greater Rift Guardian
Monsters
- Blighter
- Blighter's Poison Tentacles' Area of Effect now hits less frequently, but at higher damage, when attacking players
Bug Fixes
- Spite
- Fixed an issue where casting Restless Giant would cause the 200% physical bonus damage to fail to apply when the Gargantuan enraged
- Squirt's Necklace
- Fixed an issue where some ground effects were causing the Squirt's Necklace buff to fall off despite being shielded
How to Participate
To participate in the public test, you must have a Diablo III game license attached to a Battle.net account in good standing (i.e. one that hasn't been suspended or banned). In addition, you will also need to download and install the Blizzard Battle.net desktop app if you have not already done so.
Step 1: Restart the Battle.net desktop app.
Step 2: Navigate to the Diablo III tab on the left-hand menu.
Step 3: On the Diablo III screen, there is a drop-down menu right above the "Play" button (note that this may say "Install" if you do not have Diablo III currently installed). Select "PTR: Diablo III" from this drop-down menu before proceeding.
Step 4: Click Install to begin the installation process.
Your PTR account will be created automatically if you do not already have one. The PTR is available in all supported languages, and accounts from all regions are eligible to participate. For additional assistance with installing and launching the PTR, click here.
PTR Character Copy
The option to copy your existing Diablo III characters from your live account to the PTR will be available and can be done directly through the PTR client. However, only one region per account can be copied at a time. So, if you choose to copy characters from your account in a different region, any previously copied PTR characters will be lost.
Step 1: Log into the live game and then log out.
Step 2: Log into PTR client and create a level 1 character. After you're done, return to the main character screen.
Step 3: Click on the "PTR Copy" button located in the upper right-hand corner. (The PTR Copy button will not appear in-game until you have created a new level 1 character.)
Step 4: Select your region.
Step 5: Click "Copy." This will copy all characters on your account from the selected region.
Step 6: You will be disconnected from the PTR client.
Step 7: Log back in. Your copied characters will be available for play.
Please note that you can only copy characters from one gameplay region at a time. If you choose to copy characters from a different region, any previously copied PTR characters will be lost. In addition, you can only copy characters over to your PTR account once every 24 hours. Attempting to copy characters before this cooldown is up will result in an error.
As this is a test server, please anticipate uneven game performance, and note that restarts and downtime may occur without warning. Thank you, and we look forward to your feedback!
