Watching some gameplay videos of D2:R and D4 earlier, after playing a lot of D3 the past few days, made me feel like D4 is still going to feel a lot more like D3 in its fluidity and general movement. D4 is definitely more D2-ish in the aesthetics and visuals, but even with the nice coat of paint in D2:R, movement (EDIT: In D2:R; D4 is much more fluid and actiony. I actually felt a bit of Hades (which I know isn't the first to do that sort of action/dodgey/isometric gameplay)) is very clearly tile based and (IMO obviously) janky relative to D3/D4. Heck, if anything, the nicer graphics make the stilted movement of enemies and player characters that much more obvious than when it was sorta masked behind the low rez and pixels.
I dunno, I'm feeling pretty torn on D2:R. It isn't like I didn't love D2 and spend a lot of time with it, I'm just not sure after watching some gameplay of the remaster, if I really want to go back to it, and pay $40 for it. It's ok, it doesn't have to be for me, and I hope people really dig it. It's just hard to not feel like any sort of remaster like this (or FFVII, etc) is kind of a monkey paw situation. Then again, I also thought (and still do, honestly) that WoW Classic was a really bad idea, because you simply can't ever recreate the moments that make people nostalgic for that stuff in the first place. It'll never be what you remember it being.
But, on the other hand, there's always a chance of making new memories, as long as you come at it with the right attitude, so that's worth something; right?
The D3 wings from the preorder are pretty rad, though.
Only semi-related, the pet for next season in D3 is very clearly just the same as the green serpent pet from WoW in Mists. Kinda disappointing.
Bummer on the pet, but by now I think I have all the regular rotation pets. Wonder what the special one will be.
I wasn't aware there was a pet rotation? I'll have to look into it. I just saw it on a PTR stream.
EDIT: PTR related, I think something is going to change with the Rathma set, or how it interacts with the Rathma's Shield skill. Bluudshed got his AotD cooldown to be under the the 4s invulnerability the skill provides, with relatively basic gear. It definitely depends on how many pets you can maintain, and attack speed, but you could get pretty much functionally immortality. I know Necro already has a variation of this with getting Land of the Dead cooldown to basically nothing, but this seems easier? I dunno, maybe it's not as easy to achieve as it appeared, and you're still at risk from other stuff, like explosions and terrain damage, but still.
EDIT2: Ok, yeah, I see, that's the same as the Season 11 pet. I didn't realize they were cycling things like that. That works for me, since I didn't do many seasons, so there's plenty of things I never got, that would be cool to get. I don't know what the final Journey reward pet is going to be, it doesn't show that. Just an icon for portrait and pet, to indicate there will be one.
Have they said anything about how the cycle of Haedrig will work going forward? I know they said they're putting the new sets in the rotation, but I wonder if otherwise the rotation is the same. Because if it stays the same, next season will be: Wrath of the Wastes, Roland's Legacy, Unhallowed Essence, Raiment of a Thousand Storms, Bones of Rathma, Helltooth Harness, Tal Rasha's Elements. Which kind of makes sense with the pet, since that was the S11 sets. I'd think that they'd want to get Firebird into peoples hands though, particularly if Necros are getting the revamped Rathma?
I didn't realize how many of the seasonal rewards are cycled.
Man it was a hell of a coincidence that I started playing again when they started adding additional rewards for Conquerer on top of cycling in the older season stuff. :rotate:
I'm not sure if I have the banner accent stuff from S1/2, I apparently played some in S3, because I have that portrait and pennant. S4 looks like the only season that isn't in the rotation (yet?, they started with 5), with a unique pet/portrait frames that aren't anywhere else. That is assuming they just continue the cycle of rewards they've been doing. EDIT: I wonder how long they'll continue with the unique Conqueror rewards? Till D4 is out, at least, presumably?
I’m hoping both Rathma’s Shield and Defiler Cuisses will be tweaked or replaced. Probably not, but I never liked either so I can dream.
I had tried the sets but I’ll add to the comment I made earlier for necro... I had tried having both spirit and army and that’s wrong. You go army for general use, and spirit for awkward guardian killer.
And set wise, I don’t think they specifically said one way or they other yet, but it seemed more likely to me that it would just be inserted and bump the rest of the rotation forward. That would make this coming season Raekor, Akkhan, Marauder, Inna, Pestilence, Zuni, and Delsere’s.
I’m hoping both Rathma’s Shield and Defiler Cuisses will be tweaked or replaced. Probably not, but I never liked either so I can dream.
I had tried the sets but I’ll add to the comment I made earlier for necro... I had tried having both spirit and army and that’s wrong. You go army for general use, and spirit for awkward guardian killer.
And set wise, I don’t think they specifically said one way or they other yet, but it seemed more likely to me that it would just be inserted and bump the rest of the rotation forward. That would make this coming season Raekor, Akkhan, Marauder, Inna, Pestilence, Zuni, and Delsere’s.
Could be, but right now, at least from a video I saw of someone doing the PTR, it shows Helltooth for WD for next season, which if it's following the rotation they've been on, matches up with the other seasonal reward cycling.
Convenient for the buffed sets I suppose. Firebird 4 is so busted good, and FB6 so underwhelming, that it’s actually a Tal rasha build. Lots of people expecting the bonuses to be flipped around a bit, but if not then the TR haedrigs is a better head start.
I've played a bunch of seasons but I never stick with them long.
I've owned the Necromancer set since it came out, and I've leveled multiple necros to 70, but I've never actually "completed" a build. I keep trying though. Each time I roll a new seasonal necro I always tell myself that this will be the time that I stick with it and finish a build, meaning I get all the right set items, legendaries, fully gemmed, correct items in the cube, and all that. But every time I've not stuck with it long enough.
The description is pretty long but uh, this follower revamp for next season sounds awesome.
TLDR: They’ll have 14 item slots and certain powers (nems, flavor, Cains/Sage, etc) will “Emanate” to the player so you have the power as well.
- GoD, Spirit Barrage nerfed
- Sortable leaderboards (set/non set/overall)
Dreadlands tweaks:
Gears of Dreadlands 6-Piece Set: Hungering Arrow pierces a maximum of 2 times while wearing the Gears of Dreadlands. Your primary skills deal 15,000% increased damage.
The Ninth Cirri Satchel: Hungering Arrow is guaranteed to pierce and also deals 450% to 600% increased damage. Hungering Arrow can only pierce up to 3 times.
Set reworks for Rat and Firebird:
Bones of Rathma 2-Piece Set: Your minions reduce the cooldown of Army of the Dead by 10.25 seconds each time they deal damage. Your skeletal warriors spawn faster, and your revived minions no longer expire.
Bones of Rathma 4-Piece Set: Your minions no longer take damage. You gain 1% damage reduction for 15 seconds each time one of your minions deal damage. Maximum of 75 stacks.
Bones of Rathma 6-Piece Set: Each active minion increases the damage of Army of the Dead and Bone Spirit by 1000%500%, up to 8500%.
Defiler Cuisses: Bone Spirit's damage is increased by 400% to 500% for every second it is active and will also freeze enemies on impact. Maximum of 5 seconds.
New item* Bonds of C'Lena: Army of the Dead and Bone Spirit deal 300% to 400% increased damage. Bone Spirit deals an additional 2% increased damage for 5 seconds each time Army of the Dead hits an enemy.Bone Spirit deals 300% to 400% increased damage and deals an additional 2% increased damage for 10 seconds each time Army of the Dead hits an enemy. Maximum of 500 stacks.
Firebird's Finery 2-Piece Set: Disintegrate Ignites enemies, causing them to take 7500% weapon damage per second until they die. When you die, a meteor falls from the sky and revives you. This effect has a 60-second cooldown.
Firebird's Finery 4-Piece Set: Casting Disintegrate adds Combustion stacks that reduce the cooldown of Teleport by 1% per stack. Stacks up to 100 times. You gain 80% damage reduction while maintaining Combustion stacks.
Firebird's Finery 6-Piece Set: You gain 4000% increased damage while Ignite is applied to a target. Hitting an Ignited enemy with a non-channeling fire spell deals Ignite damage multiplied by Combustion stacks.
Changes in bold, except Firebird which was completely reorganized.
Triple post be damned, I’m excited for the new Firebird. It’ll be nerfed for sure, but as long as the mechanics stay the same then it will still be very fun.
The gameplay trailers for Diablo 4 definitely look more like 3's movement emphasis than 2's "Well, you can run. For a while." Not surprising, given that it's generally difficult to sequels to go back that far on their movement evolution.
I think druid is probably the class I've played the least. Is there a viable end-game creeper vines build? I like the idea of just roaming around with vines constantly feeding me and leeching health from enemies. All the times in the past when I did play druid, I went Werewolf or Werebear. I've never played an elemental or creeper build before.
Only proper D2 druid build is level 9 werebear that wears a horadric staff full of shael runes and an inventory full of movespeed charms so you can hunt down low level players in PVP and stunlock them to death via turbo attack speed.
Edit: more serious answer for Lucas, I think you'd be hard pressed to make a creeper build since you can only ever have one out at a time if I remember correctly.
yeah creepers weren't a build. the poison one doesn't do enough damage and the other two eat dead bodies. elemental though is very strong, stronger than the shapeshifting. you do your big bad wolf impression except instead of werewolf you do it with hurricane+tornado. I don't think anything is immune to tornado because it's a combination of physical and magic damage
It is apparently possible to take a summoner Druid through Hell, but vines wouldn't be your focus beyond much beyond Act 1 of Normal. Dire Wolves do much better damage.
As he explains, the druid summoner tree is the only one in the game where synergies, not just the skill itself, are boosted by plus to skills that you get from items. I have no idea if that's a bug, or if it will continue to be the case in Resurrected, but there you have it.
Something goofy going on with blizzard's servers today?
Getting timeouts left and right in D3. I'll try to pull up my hero list and it'll just sit there empty. If I leave a game it'll tell me I'm still in it for a minute or two, etc.
Another PTR change I missed:
Rathma's Shield passive skill now has a 60-second cooldown
Should just replace it with something new at that point!
Yeah this is silliness. Making a passive completely useless because of one set bonus that they ended up nerfing to uselessness anyway? Feels super reactionary and not thought out at all.
So Rathma's Shield is pointless, and Rathma's set is now LotD with Bone Spirit instead of Bone Lance. Fun.
I guess they still have time to work something else out, to make Rathma's a skele build that isn't so overpowered as it was for a minute, they still haven't announced the season end date. But I'm just going to assume that Rathma's is just a boring ass knock off of a better set/build. I think what bums me out about it so much is that I wasn't even expecting anything, before the initial patch notes, but then the idea of a straight up pet build for Necro got me excited, because it's what I've wanted forever with them (not skele's that exist to buff mages, but serve no real purpose on their own, full on army mode, which you can get with Witch Doctor, but can't really get with Necro). But instead of working out the blatantly obvious problems, that probably should have been caught before there were even patch notes to post, they just nuke it to the ground and end up with something with no flavor of its own, and serves no purpose when compared to other sets that are already options.
We’ll see. I mean PoJ completely flipped and became amazing between PTR and live.
Necro seems less likely to be as lucky though, since their design continues to feel messy. Like, ok they killed the Rathma’s Shield immunity build, but you can also still get immunity via Land of the Dead and Captain Crimsons. :rotate:
So I sleepwalked through the season, realizes it ends at the end of the month, and started busting my ass to get the conquests done for the pet. Got the 3 gems to 65, and 5/6 of the GR with set bonuses done. I just need to get my Necro a set so she can do her part.
Then I need to figure out the third conquest.
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
So I sleepwalked through the season, realizes it ends at the end of the month, and started busting my ass to get the conquests done for the pet. Got the 3 gems to 65, and 5/6 of the GR with set bonuses done. I just need to get my Necro a set so she can do her part.
Then I need to figure out the third conquest.
Easiest to solo third conquest is just Master 8 set dungeons. It's only two more sets to collect after the six you needed for the GR conquest. I really need to stop tinkering with my Necro and just run rifts until his sets drop. Did all four of the wizard ones, but only have Pestilence on the Necro so far
I should probably look up how hard the Necromancer set dungeons are to master...
I updated the OP a bit, which had really fallen behind, woops! Parts are still TBA until the new sets are finalized and the uncertainty over the haedrig's rotation is settled.
But anyway, I thought it'd be useful to share some options about how you can get both sets on the follower, because RoRG does work on them. (not shared!) Basically, if you lock in Sage's belt & Cain's Pants, your options from there are:
- boots of one, gloves of the other, Broken Crown for gems
- boots of one, helm of the other, Gloves of Worship for shrines (not pylons!)
A bit of speculation on the 5th and final launch class of D4:
In both D2 and D3, the game shipped with a dark magic wielding class. In D2 it was the necro, and in D3 it was the witch doctor. So I think a dark magic class is a strong contender for the 5th and final slot. Necro has proven to consistently be a popular class, and the whole reason they released the necro pack in D3 was due to the massive community request for it. Massive.
On the other hand, there has also traditionally been a holy warrior class, i.e. Paladin and Crusader, in D2 and D3. So I think some sort of holy magic class would be the other most logical contender for the coveted 5th spot at launch.
Or!
Hang with me on this one. This is a bit of a reach (and also just a bit of wishlisting here), what if they were to combine the two ideas above and give us an altogether new class for D4. Combine the idea of dark magic and a holy warrior. What does that fusion make? A death knight. A plate wearing melee class, much like a paladin, only wielding dark magic instead of holy.
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
A bit of speculation on the 5th and final launch class of D4:
In both D2 and D3, the game shipped with a dark magic wielding class. In D2 it was the necro, and in D3 it was the witch doctor. So I think a dark magic class is a strong contender for the 5th and final slot. Necro has proven to consistently be a popular class, and the whole reason they released the necro pack in D3 was due to the massive community request for it. Massive.
On the other hand, there has also traditionally been a holy warrior class, i.e. Paladin and Crusader, in D2 and D3. So I think some sort of holy magic class would be the other most logical contender for the coveted 5th spot at launch.
Or!
Hang with me on this one. This is a bit of a reach (and also just a bit of wishlisting here), what if they were to combine the two ideas above and give us an altogether new class for D4. Combine the idea of dark magic and a holy warrior. What does that fusion make? A death knight. A plate wearing melee class, much like a paladin, only wielding dark magic instead of holy.
That would be pretty cool yeah! I can think of all sorts of possibilities to make some kind of death knight work.
Usually they come up with a new power source rather than rehashing an old one with a different set of armor on it. The closest have been wizard and sorceress. I'd want it to be thematically different than a DK, since that's just a platemail necromancer. Necros wear plate in D3, anyway.
Some streamers had been saying death Knight, but lately I’ve been hearing Inquisitor.
The official site has a silhouette for the 5th spot at the campfire, which appears to be at least somewhat robed with some chunky looking gauntlets.
Yeah a holy jackass seems like the more likely way to split the difference.
Remember Diablo already has Blood Knights (red eyes in full plate, maybe corrupted Tristram soldiers) and Death Knights (undead fighter/mages in the Chaos Sanctuary), so D4 would have to be real careful how they distinguish a dark magic plate guy from those demons, especially in the name.
I wouldn't put too much stock in that campfire silhouette. I'm not saying that it isn't the exact silhouette of the final class. But it also just as easily could be nothing at all. A red herring. A distraction.
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Bummer on the pet, but by now I think I have all the regular rotation pets. Wonder what the special one will be.
Steam: betsuni7
EDIT: PTR related, I think something is going to change with the Rathma set, or how it interacts with the Rathma's Shield skill. Bluudshed got his AotD cooldown to be under the the 4s invulnerability the skill provides, with relatively basic gear. It definitely depends on how many pets you can maintain, and attack speed, but you could get pretty much functionally immortality. I know Necro already has a variation of this with getting Land of the Dead cooldown to basically nothing, but this seems easier? I dunno, maybe it's not as easy to achieve as it appeared, and you're still at risk from other stuff, like explosions and terrain damage, but still.
EDIT2: Ok, yeah, I see, that's the same as the Season 11 pet. I didn't realize they were cycling things like that. That works for me, since I didn't do many seasons, so there's plenty of things I never got, that would be cool to get. I don't know what the final Journey reward pet is going to be, it doesn't show that. Just an icon for portrait and pet, to indicate there will be one.
Have they said anything about how the cycle of Haedrig will work going forward? I know they said they're putting the new sets in the rotation, but I wonder if otherwise the rotation is the same. Because if it stays the same, next season will be: Wrath of the Wastes, Roland's Legacy, Unhallowed Essence, Raiment of a Thousand Storms, Bones of Rathma, Helltooth Harness, Tal Rasha's Elements. Which kind of makes sense with the pet, since that was the S11 sets. I'd think that they'd want to get Firebird into peoples hands though, particularly if Necros are getting the revamped Rathma?
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Man it was a hell of a coincidence that I started playing again when they started adding additional rewards for Conquerer on top of cycling in the older season stuff. :rotate:
I'm not sure if I have the banner accent stuff from S1/2, I apparently played some in S3, because I have that portrait and pennant. S4 looks like the only season that isn't in the rotation (yet?, they started with 5), with a unique pet/portrait frames that aren't anywhere else. That is assuming they just continue the cycle of rewards they've been doing. EDIT: I wonder how long they'll continue with the unique Conqueror rewards? Till D4 is out, at least, presumably?
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I had tried the sets but I’ll add to the comment I made earlier for necro... I had tried having both spirit and army and that’s wrong. You go army for general use, and spirit for awkward guardian killer.
And set wise, I don’t think they specifically said one way or they other yet, but it seemed more likely to me that it would just be inserted and bump the rest of the rotation forward. That would make this coming season Raekor, Akkhan, Marauder, Inna, Pestilence, Zuni, and Delsere’s.
Could be, but right now, at least from a video I saw of someone doing the PTR, it shows Helltooth for WD for next season, which if it's following the rotation they've been on, matches up with the other seasonal reward cycling.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Convenient for the buffed sets I suppose. Firebird 4 is so busted good, and FB6 so underwhelming, that it’s actually a Tal rasha build. Lots of people expecting the bonuses to be flipped around a bit, but if not then the TR haedrigs is a better head start.
And they waffled on auto pickup gold. And tossed open map and play right out. This is 1 guy and some artists it sounds like.
I still like D2 without all this QOL, but I do feel like it could use some balance tweaks around melee builds. No, not more aoe/splash.
I'm looking forward to it, so I started up a new Necro to play through as a boner.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
It is not, but it will hopefully be changed.
It’s either perma-immune army of the dead, or lining up long distance, CoE-timed bone spirits. The pets are neat shields that reset cooldowns.
I've owned the Necromancer set since it came out, and I've leveled multiple necros to 70, but I've never actually "completed" a build. I keep trying though. Each time I roll a new seasonal necro I always tell myself that this will be the time that I stick with it and finish a build, meaning I get all the right set items, legendaries, fully gemmed, correct items in the cube, and all that. But every time I've not stuck with it long enough.
Maybe this season will be the time...
Changes in bold, except Firebird which was completely reorganized.
Rathma's Shield passive skill now has a 60-second cooldown
Should just replace it with something new at that point!
Flame blades
Meteor for funzies
Such hard decisions!
D3: HexDex#1281, PSN: DireOtter, Live: DireOtter
Steam: betsuni7
The mount and dismounting attacks look fun, as long as we aren’t having to ride through empty areas.
Sad they jumped on the interaction with tal rashas though
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I think druid is probably the class I've played the least. Is there a viable end-game creeper vines build? I like the idea of just roaming around with vines constantly feeding me and leeching health from enemies. All the times in the past when I did play druid, I went Werewolf or Werebear. I've never played an elemental or creeper build before.
Edit: more serious answer for Lucas, I think you'd be hard pressed to make a creeper build since you can only ever have one out at a time if I remember correctly.
Speedrunner MrLlamaSC recently did a guided playthrough of a summoner druid:
As he explains, the druid summoner tree is the only one in the game where synergies, not just the skill itself, are boosted by plus to skills that you get from items. I have no idea if that's a bug, or if it will continue to be the case in Resurrected, but there you have it.
Getting timeouts left and right in D3. I'll try to pull up my hero list and it'll just sit there empty. If I leave a game it'll tell me I'm still in it for a minute or two, etc.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Yeah this is silliness. Making a passive completely useless because of one set bonus that they ended up nerfing to uselessness anyway? Feels super reactionary and not thought out at all.
So Rathma's Shield is pointless, and Rathma's set is now LotD with Bone Spirit instead of Bone Lance. Fun.
I guess they still have time to work something else out, to make Rathma's a skele build that isn't so overpowered as it was for a minute, they still haven't announced the season end date. But I'm just going to assume that Rathma's is just a boring ass knock off of a better set/build. I think what bums me out about it so much is that I wasn't even expecting anything, before the initial patch notes, but then the idea of a straight up pet build for Necro got me excited, because it's what I've wanted forever with them (not skele's that exist to buff mages, but serve no real purpose on their own, full on army mode, which you can get with Witch Doctor, but can't really get with Necro). But instead of working out the blatantly obvious problems, that probably should have been caught before there were even patch notes to post, they just nuke it to the ground and end up with something with no flavor of its own, and serves no purpose when compared to other sets that are already options.
At least Firebird got good!
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Necro seems less likely to be as lucky though, since their design continues to feel messy. Like, ok they killed the Rathma’s Shield immunity build, but you can also still get immunity via Land of the Dead and Captain Crimsons. :rotate:
Then I need to figure out the third conquest.
Easiest to solo third conquest is just Master 8 set dungeons. It's only two more sets to collect after the six you needed for the GR conquest. I really need to stop tinkering with my Necro and just run rifts until his sets drop. Did all four of the wizard ones, but only have Pestilence on the Necro so far
I should probably look up how hard the Necromancer set dungeons are to master...
But anyway, I thought it'd be useful to share some options about how you can get both sets on the follower, because RoRG does work on them. (not shared!) Basically, if you lock in Sage's belt & Cain's Pants, your options from there are:
- boots of one, gloves of the other, Broken Crown for gems
- boots of one, helm of the other, Gloves of Worship for shrines (not pylons!)
In both D2 and D3, the game shipped with a dark magic wielding class. In D2 it was the necro, and in D3 it was the witch doctor. So I think a dark magic class is a strong contender for the 5th and final slot. Necro has proven to consistently be a popular class, and the whole reason they released the necro pack in D3 was due to the massive community request for it. Massive.
On the other hand, there has also traditionally been a holy warrior class, i.e. Paladin and Crusader, in D2 and D3. So I think some sort of holy magic class would be the other most logical contender for the coveted 5th spot at launch.
Or!
Hang with me on this one. This is a bit of a reach (and also just a bit of wishlisting here), what if they were to combine the two ideas above and give us an altogether new class for D4. Combine the idea of dark magic and a holy warrior. What does that fusion make? A death knight. A plate wearing melee class, much like a paladin, only wielding dark magic instead of holy.
That would be pretty cool yeah! I can think of all sorts of possibilities to make some kind of death knight work.
The official site has a silhouette for the 5th spot at the campfire, which appears to be at least somewhat robed with some chunky looking gauntlets.
Necrocleric.
I was going to say Aliens, but yours is better.
Steam: betsuni7
Yeah a holy jackass seems like the more likely way to split the difference.
Remember Diablo already has Blood Knights (red eyes in full plate, maybe corrupted Tristram soldiers) and Death Knights (undead fighter/mages in the Chaos Sanctuary), so D4 would have to be real careful how they distinguish a dark magic plate guy from those demons, especially in the name.