Author: Game Infliction

The Xbox Developer Direct 2024 was a cornucopia of reveals, footage, and information about what’s coming to Xbox this year. We got a formal reveal of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a release date for Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga, more information about Obsidian’s Avowed, a surprise appearance from Square Enix with an update on Visions of Mana, and an in-depth look at Ara: History Untold. But fans also spotted something else on MachineGames’ whiteboard: the words Quake 6, right next to the iconic Quake logo. Naturally, they’re freaking out.

The tease was first spotted on the Quake subreddit, and speculation for what a new Quake might look like has already started. You can see the logo and title for yourself in Machinegames’ Official Gameplay reveal at about 11:36 in, or in the screenshot below.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is right around the corner, and our month-long IGN First covering the game has revealed tons of new details about its incredible new monsters, systems, and vocations. In our conversations with creator Hideaki Itsuno, we also learned about a number of new features of the NPC systems in Dragon’s Dogma 2, including one that might result in NPCs fighting one another over the player character.

The first Dragon’s Dogma featured a “pawn” system, where players could customize an NPC assistant that would follow the player around the world, fight alongside them, and assist with quests. They could then flesh out their party with two additional pawns borrowed from other people playing online who would arrive with their own skills, personalities, and knowledge of quests they’d done in their respective games. When not in the player’s party, these pawns would fill out the world of Dragon’s Dogma, wandering the roads and towns available to be recruited at any time. It was a strange and unique system that helped the world feel full, if occasionally a bit robotic.

In Dragon’s Dogma 2, that system is back, says Itsuno. But Capcom has had a lot of time and tech to improve on the system since then. Itsuno says he wanted to create “properly detailed NPCs” and ended up with a “ridiculous number of people” in the world, and he’s been trying to build systems where characters behave as if they have goals and are making decisions in the world regardless of what the player is doing. One notable improvement is that now not only can NPCs have affinity for the player as they did in the previous game, they can also feel attached to other NPCs.

“For example, if you find a pair of friends, hitting one will cause the other to get mad at you too. Or if you do something nice for a child, the parent might thank you and like you more as well. That’s what I mean by relationships between NPCs.”

But the relationships between NPCs and players may also be enhanced. Itsuno notes that while the team is still finalizing this feature, it may be possible in Dragon’s Dogma 2 for NPCs to get into fights over the player if they perceive another NPC as a threat.

“A character who grows close to you might come over to your house to play, but if they meet another character there who’s done the same thing, a fight might break out,” he explains. “Personally, we just made the system because we wanted to be able to say, ‘Stop, don’t fight over me!’ It might be best if your readers play through the game while trying to avoid that kind of outcome.”

Along those same lines, we should also expect improvements in character creation and character customization, both for the player and the appearances of NPCs themselves. Itsuno tells us that the game’s character creator has been improved to allow for extremely ridiculous levels of detail and customization, thanks to improved hardware performance since the previous game.

“It’s something I was thinking even when we made the first game,” Itsuno says. “I thought that there aren’t any action RPGs that allow for proper character creation, so my initial goal was to make one that could at least allow you to create the kind of character you wanted to see. While the first game’s character creator is actually limited in a lot of different ways, and I know this might get cut, but we did go so far as to allow for profiles with extreme settings, to the point where you could make something like a character from the popular series Kaiji. Doing that ruins the character though, and so we didn’t make that available to users, but there was enough freedom in the settings to basically allow you to recreate manga characters as-is.

“It’s something we put a lot of work into for the first game, but with better hardware performance this time around, we could add as much freedom to the system as we wanted. The problem is that this means that the act of creating a cool character, or the character that you want to see, becomes no different from doing so with clay. It becomes impossible if you don’t have an understanding of art. You could have your ideal character in mind, but you’d basically need to be an artist to form that character with your own hands, so that’s where we had to begin when deciding how character creation would work.”

Itsuno goes on to talk about improvements in photogrammetry technology, which allows for scanning of real objects in 3D and then creation of in-game graphics that look real, such as with a human face. The team wanted to make use of this, allowing for heavy customization while also letting players who were less artistic make faces that looked good. Here’s the solution they came up with:

“The first idea we had was to scan nearly a hundred human faces, then use those as a base for creating characters. This real-life data acting as our base meant that it would be easy to create realistic faces so long as you don’t apply absolutely ridiculous values to them. The other thing we did was to make it easy to create the base face that you would directly edit. By picking the face that seems the most acceptable among the ones that come up, you’re then given other possibilities based around that face. By repeating this process of picking the best out of a group, you’re able to get pretty close to the kind of face that you like. From there, you can make the final adjustments yourself, which gave us a system where you can do whatever you want while not requiring everyone to be an artist. If you’re able to control truly detailed settings, a perfectionist like myself could spend hours upon hours and still not finish creating a character.”

We have tons more new information about Dragon’s Dogma 2 from our month-long IGN First on the game, including a feature on how pawns specifically are being improved, more on the character creator, and a detailed look at the new Trickster vocation. Dragon’s Dogma 2 debuts on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC on March 22, 2024.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Blizzard Entertainment has posted Diablo 4’s update 1.3.0 patch notes in preparation for its upcoming third seasonal update, Season of the Construct.

It’s a meaty update with changes and tweaks for players across PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S. These include new items that should help some Class Skills pack a slightly bigger punch.

“It’s important to us that when a player chooses to fully invest in a Skill, the payoff is immense,” a developer note for patch 1.3.0 says. “In pursuit of this goal, several of our new Unique and Legendary items are targeting Skills that have yet to reach their full potential.”

All Classes are gaining access to the Paingorger’s Gauntlets, Aspect of Adaptability, and Juggernaut’s Aspect items. Meanwhile, the Barbarians are getting two items: Ring of the Ravenous and Aspect of the Sundered Ground. The former, for example, should help out with Rend, as it increases its duration by two-to-four seconds and adds two stacks when Brawling Skills damage enemies.

Druid players are getting the Unsung Ascetic’s Wraps item, which should buff Lightning Storm, as well as the Virulent Aspect, which reduces the cooldown for Rabies when it infects an enemy. Sorcerers can look forward to the new Starfall Coronet and Aspect of Shredding Blades items to bolster Meteor and Ice Blades.

Blizzard was pretty generous with its changes for each Class this time around, but the update also takes aim at plenty of other elements with other adjustments, too. These include increases to Glyph experience in Nightmare Tiers, improved performance, and a more streamlined Skill Tree Respec experience.

In our 9/10 Diablo 4 review, we called Blizzard’s latest a “stunning sequel with near perfect endgame and progression design that makes it absolutely excruciating to put down.” Season 3, the Season of the Construct, launches January 23.

You can see Diablo 4’s full 1.3.0 patch notes below.

CLASS UPDATES

Developer’s Note: It’s important to us that when a player chooses to fully invest in a Skill, the payoff is immense. In pursuit of this goal, several of our new Unique and Legendary items are targeting Skills that have yet to reach their full potential. We’re excited to see what players accomplish with our new Unique items for Barbarian’s Rend, Druid’s Lightning Storm, and Sorcerer’s Meteor. We’re also targeting some pressing issues for each Class. Necromancers with Cult Leader should see their Minions strike a bit harder, Barbarians shouldn’t feel that 3 Shouts are a requirement for their success, and Sorceresses applying Vulnerable with Lightning Spear should open new build opportunities. There are also Class updates to items and Skills that are underperforming, such as the Rogue’s Ranged Unique Items, and the Necromancer’s Golem.

All Classes

New Items

Paingorger’s Gauntlets – Unique Gloves

• Damaging enemies with a cast Non–Basic Skill marks them for 3 seconds. When a Basic Skill first hits a marked enemy, the Basic Skill’s damage is echoed to all marked enemies, dealing 100–200%[x] increased damage.

Aspect of Adaptability – Utility

• When cast below 50% Maximum Resource, Basic Skills generate 3 of your Primary Resource, once per cast.
• When cast at or above 50% Maximum Resource, Basic Skills deal 40–80% increased damage.

Juggernaut’s Aspect – Defensive

• Gain 0.75 –1.25 Armor, but your Evade has 100% increased Cooldown.

Item Updates

Ring of Starless Skies

• The unique power has been changed.
  • Previous: Casting a Core Skill reduces Resource cost of your Core Skills by 12%, up to a maximum of 40%. Resets upon using a non–Core Skill.
  • New: Spending resources reduces your resource costs and increases your damage by x10% for 3 seconds, up to 40%.
• Offensive Aspect of the Expectant
  • Damage bonus now has a 5-second duration to be used.

Melted Heart of Selig

• All Stats increased to 2x normal value.
• Core Skill Damage changed to Movement Speed.
• Damage While Healthy increased to 3x normal value.
• Unique Power Changed
  • Previous: Gain 30 Maximum Resource. In addition, when you take damage, drain 3 resources for every 1% of life you would have lost instead.
  • New: Gain 60 maximum Resource. 75% of incoming damage drains 2 Resource for every 1% of Life you would have lost instead.

Overpower

• Overpower attacks now gain +1% damage, down from +2%, per 1% of your Base Life you have in Fortify.
• Overpower attacks now gain +1% damage, down from +2%, per 1% of your Base Life that you have in bonus life above your Base Life.

Barbarian

New Items

Ring of the Ravenous

• Rend’s duration is increased by 2.0–4.0 seconds. Damaging enemies with Brawling Skills applies 2 stacks of Rend’s Bleed. This effect can only occur once every 4 seconds per enemy.

Aspect of Sundered Ground – Offensive

• Every 25 seconds, Upheaval is guaranteed to Overpower and deals 10–20% increased damage. This timer is reduced by 4 seconds when Upheaval Overpowers a Boss or an Elite enemy.

Skills

Charge

• Base damage increased by 900%, from 0.25 to 2.50.
• Enhanced Charge terrain impact damage increased by 150%, from 0.6 to 1.5.
• Power Charge no longer requires a terrain impact to reduce the cooldown of Charge, and now charging a boss will reduce the cooldown by 6 seconds.

Leap

• Base damage increased by 30%.

Passives

Brute Force

• Overpower damage decreased from 15% to 8% per rank.

Walking Arsenal

• Duration of each weapon bonus increased from 8 to 10 seconds.
• Additional damage from having all bonuses increased from 15% to 20%.
• Having all bonuses now also increases attack speed by 20%.

Unconstrained

• Berserking damage bonus increased from 60% to 100%.

Gushing Wounds

• Bonus bleed amount increased from 115% to 140%.
• Overpower explosion damage increased from 70% to 85%.

Weapon Expertise

• Expertise leveling has been cut by 50%.

Paragon

Marshal Glyph

• Now reduces the cooldown of every non-Shout skill by 4 seconds, instead of every other Shout skill by 1.2 seconds.

Item Updates

Resource Aspect of Echoing Fury

• You now generate 6–10 Fury per second while any Shout skill is active, instead of 2–4 Fury per second for each Shout skill active.

Offensive Aspect of Limitless Rage

• Damage bonus now has a 5-second duration to be used.

Veteran Brawler’s Offensive Aspect

• Reduced bonus damage per stack from 15%–20% to 6%–8%, up to a reduced maximum bonus of 225%–300% to 30%–40%.

Offensive Aspect of Ancestral Charge

• Reduced bonus damage from 75%–125% to 20%–30%.

Offensive Aspect of Encroaching Wrath

• Reduced bonus Weapon Mastery damage from 82–100% to 40–60%.
• Damage bonus now has a 5-second duration to be used.

Ring of Red Furor

• Damage bonus now has a 5-second duration to be used.

Druid

New Items

Unsung Ascetic’s Wraps

• Lightning Storm gains 1 additional strike each time it grows. Lightning Storm Critical Strikes cause lightning to strike twice, dealing 10–20% increased damage.

Virulent Aspect – Utility

• When Rabies infects an enemy, reduce its cooldown by 0.3–0.6 seconds. This cooldown reduction is tripled when infecting Elites.

Skills

Enhanced Rabies

• Maximum damage bonus increased from 30% to 60%.

Lacerate

• Cooldown reduced from 45 to 35 seconds.

Prime Lacerate

• Changed functionality: Lacerate hits Heal for 3% Maximum Life, increased to 6% on Critical Strikes.

Cataclysm

• Twister damage increased from 23% to 46%.
• Lightning damage increased from 77% to 95%.

Supreme Cataclysm

• Vulnerable duration increased from 3 to 6 seconds.

Passives

Mending

• Additional Healing received increased from 5% to 6% per rank.

Thick Hide

• Fortify gained increased from 6.4% to 10% per rank.

Unrestrained

• Control Impairing Effects duration reduction increased from 3% to 5% per rank.
• Increased benefit while over 50% Fortify reduced from tripled to doubled.

Natural Fortitude

• Fortify gained on Shapeshifting increased from 1.4% to 2% per rank.

Bestial Rampage

• Required Shapeshift duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 seconds.
• Attack Speed bonus increased from 25% to 30%.

Spirt Boons

Prickleskin

• Thorns increased from .15 to .6. (from 1,194 to 4776)

Gift of the Stag

• Maximum Spirit increased from 10 to 20.

Avian Wrath

• Critical Strike Damage bonus is now Multiplicative instead of Additive.

Paragon

Tectonic

• Bonus Lucky Hit Chance increased from 15% to 20%.

Poise

• Barrier increased from 5% of Maximum Health to 15%.
• Duration increased from 4 to 6 seconds.

Wilds

• Passive Companion damage bonus increased from 80% to 120%.

Item Updates

Aspect of the Blurred Beast

• Previous: While dashing, Shred seeks out Nearby Poisoned enemies instantly dealing 70–100% of the Poisoning damage to them.
• New: While dashing, Shred seeks out Nearby Poisoned enemies and deals 20–40%[x] increased damage to them.

Aspect of Metamorphic Stone

• Boulder Spirit Cost reduced from 50 to 40.

Aspect of the Unsatiated

• Spirit Generation and bonus damage increased from 20–30% to 30–40%.

Aspect of Retaliation

• Bonus damage reduced from 20–40% to 20–30%.

Necromancer

New Items

Mutilator Plate

• You are Blood Lanced, and when Blood Lance would deal damage to you it instead Fortifies you for 1–2% of your Maximum Life and has a 5% chance to form a Blood Orb. Blood Lance deals 10–20%[x] increased damage.

Shattered Spirit’s Aspect – Offensive

• Casting Bone Spirit also launches 18 Bone Splinters in all directions, dealing 200–400%[x] increased damage and generating 6 Essence per enemy hit.

Skills

Iron Maiden

• Damage increased from 0.2 to 0.3.

Horrid Iron Maiden

• Bonus damage increased from 20% to 30%.

Corpse Explosion

• Lucky Hit Chance reduced from 40% to 25%.
• Base damage increased from 50% to 70%.
• Blighted Corpse Explosion damage decreased from 110% to 95%.

Blight

• Damage over time increased from 80% to 95%.

Sever

• Initial damage increased from 66% to 75%.
• Return damage increased from 21% to 25%.

Bone Spirit

• Damage is increased by 4% per Essence spent casting Bone Spirit, up from 3%.

Dreadful Bone Spirit

• Now restores 30% of your Maximum Essence, instead of a flat 30 Essence.

Acolyte’s Decompose

• Previous: You and your Minions deal 10%[x] increased damage to enemies being Decomposed.
• New: Every 1.5 seconds, Decompose makes enemies Vulnerable for 4 seconds.

Initiate’s Decompose

• Previous: Decompose Slows enemies by 50%.
• New: Decompose Slows enemies by 50%, and if you channel Decompose for at least 1.5 seconds, you gain 30%[+] Movement Speed for 5 second after ending the channel.

Dreadful Blood Mist

• Previous: Blood Mist Fortifies you for 0.5% of your Maximum Life each time it hits an enemy.
• New: You gain +10% Critical Strike Chance for 4 seconds after Blood Mist ends.

Bone Prison

• Friendly players and Minions can now freely pass through Bone Prison walls.
• The functionality of Enhanced Bone Prison and Ghastly Bone Prison have been swapped.

Enhanced Bone Prison

• Enemies inside of Bone Prison are Vulnerable.

Ghastly Bone Prison

• If an enemy is trapped by Bone Prison, gain 25 Essence, plus an additional 5 per enemy trapped.

Dreadful Bone Prison

• Previous: Fortify for 8% of your Maximum Life for each enemy trapped by Bone Prison.
• New: Reduce your active cooldowns by 0.5 seconds for each enemy trapped by Bone Prison, up to 3 seconds.

Passives

Ossified Essence

• Now displays the current bonus on the tooltip.

Book of the Dead

Golem

• When Golems finish casting their active ability, they will first try to target a new close enemy before reverting to their previous target.
• Blood Golem and Iron Golem
  • Basic Attacks now hit enemies in an area around the main target.
• Bone Golem
  • Active ability now grants the Golem Thorns equal to 70% of your Armor for the duration of the Taunt.
• Bone Mage
  • Upgrade now Fortifies based on your Maximum Life instead of Base Life.
• Skeleton Priest
  • Healing increased from 25% to 40% over the 8 second duration.

Paragon

Cult Leader Legendary Paragon Node

• Previous: Your Minions deal 15%[x] increased damage for each Minion type you have active.
• New: Your Minions deal 10%[x] increased damage for each 20%[+] of Attack Speed Bonus they have.

Golem

• Additional Bonus changed from 25% Health to 25% Damage.

Item Updates

Aspect of Swelling Curse

• Previous: Bone Spirit deals increased damage based on distance traveled, up to 15-25%[x].
• New: Bone Spirit’s Critical Strike Chance is increased by 15–25%[+]. Your Maximum Essence is increased by 2 for each enemy hit for 15 seconds.

Torturous Aspect

• Previous: Enemies afflicted by your Iron Maiden have a [15–25]% chance to be Stunned for 1 Second when they deal direct damage.
• New: Iron Maiden is now also a Darkness skill and deals Shadow damage. Enemies afflicted by your Iron Maiden have a [15–25]% chance to be Stunned for 1 second when they deal direct damage.

Rotting Aspect

• Chance to spawn additional corpses increased from 30–60% to 50–100%.

Hulking Aspect

• Chance to reduce Golem’s active cooldown increased from 2–5% to 4–10%.
• Chance to spawn a Corpse increased from 1.0–2.5% to 2%–5%.

Rogue

New Items

Beastfall Boots

• When you cast an Ultimate skill, your next Core skill consumes all of your energy and deals 0.5–1.5% increased damage per Energy consumed. Using a Cooldown restores 5 energy.

Resistant Assailant’s Aspect – Defensive

• Breaking Concealment grants +10% Resistance and Maximum Resist to all elements for 4 seconds. Killing an Elite enemy reduces Concealment’s cooldown by 6–10 seconds.

Skills

Blade Shift

• Damage increased from 16% to 20%.
• Duration increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.

Fundamental Invigorating Strike

• Vulnerable now applies while you are below 85% Energy, up from 75% Energy.

Enhanced Caltrops

• Previous: Enemies takes 5%[x] increased damage from you each second they are in Caltrops.
• New: Enemies in Caltrops take 10%[x] increased damage from you, increased by 5%[x] each second.

Rain of Arrows

• Cast time reduced by 15%.
• The first wave of arrows now hits closer to the player.

Cold Imbuement

• Chill amount now increases by 5% per skill rank, up from 2.5%.

Blended Cold Imbuement

• Removed the Critical Strike requirement, and increased the Lucky Hit chance from 20% to 35%.

Mixed Poison Imbuement

• Previous: Lucky Hit: Poison Imbued skills have up to a 30% chance to apply double the amount of Poisoning damage over time.
• New: Lucky Hit: Poison Imbued skills have up to a 30% chance to reduce Poison Imbuement’s cooldown by 2 seconds.

Forceful Arrow

• Vulnerable duration increased from 3 to 5 seconds.

Enhanced Penetrating Shot

• Previous: Penetrating Shot deals 10%[x] increased damage per enemy it pierces.
• Now: Penetrating Shot has a 10%[+] increased Critical Strike Chance. If Penetrating Shot damages at least 3 enemies, gain 10%[+] Critical Strike Chance for 5 seconds.

Improved Penetrating Shot

• Previous: If Penetrating Shot damage at least 3 enemies, your next Penetrating Shot has 20%[+] increased Critical Strike Chance.
• New: Penetrating Shot deals an additional 10%[x] increased damage per enemy it hits.

Passives

Close Quarters Combat

• Amount of Damage vs Crowd Controlled bonus conversion percent reduced from 40% to 10%.
• Attack Speed per stack increased from 10% to 15%.

Precision

• Previous: Critical Strike with Marksman Skills grant you Precision. You gain 4%[x] Critical Strike Damage per stack of Precision, up to a maximum of 20%[x]. When you reach maximum Precision, your next Marksman Skill is guaranteed to Critically Strike, and deals 40%[x] increased Critical Strike Damage, then consumes all stacks of Precision.
• New: Each Marksman skill cast grants 1 stack of Precision, or 2 if it has Critically Struck. When you reach 6 stacks, your next Marksman Core or Ultimate Skill is a guaranteed Critical Strike that deals x50% increased Critical Strike Damage, consuming all stacks of Precision. This damage is further increased by an amount equal to x15% of your Critical Strike Damage bonus.

Chilling Weight

• Previous: Chilled enemies have their Movement speed further reduced by 10/20/30%.
• New: Chilled enemies have their movement speed further reduced by up to 10/20/30%, and you gain 5/10/15%[x] increased Chill effect.

Concussive

• Previous: After Knocking Back or Knocking Down an enemy, you gain 4% increased Critical Strike Chance against them for 4 seconds.
• New: After Knocking Back or Knocking Down an enemy, you gain 4% increased Critical Strike Chance for 4 seconds.

Paragon

Leyrana’s Instinct

• Previous: When Inner Sight’s gauge becomes full, you gain 100%[+] Dodge Chance for 1.5 seconds.
• New: When Inner Sight’s gauge becomes full, you gain 100%[+] Dodge Chance for 2 seconds. Your next 3 Core skills deal additional damage equal to 20%[x] of your Core Skill Damage bonus.

Item Updates

Bladedancer’s Aspect

• The orbiting blades can now hit each enemy 2 times, reduced from 3.

Developer’s Note: This change was made to properly match the visuals of 2 rotations around the player.

• Previous: Twisting Blades orbit for a short time after they return to you, dealing 10–15% of Twisting Blade’s return damage per hit. Based on the distance the blades returning, the orbit damage increases up to 20–30% of the return damage.
• New: Twisting Blades orbit for a short time after they return to you, dealing 20–30% of Twisting Blade’s return damage per hit.

Aspect of Stolen Vigor

• Previous: Each stack of Momentum Key Passive Heals you for 0.04–0.08 Life per second.
• New: Each stack of Momentum Key Passive Heals you for 0.04–0.08 Life per second and grants you 5% Damage Reduction.

Icy Alchemist

• Previous: Lucky Hit: Damaging a Chilled or Frozen enemy with a Shadow Imbued Skill has up to a 75% chance to release an explosion that deals 0.3–0.48 Cold damage to the target and surrounding enemies, Chilling them for 25%.
• New: Lucky Hit: Shadow Imbued Skill have up to a 75% chance to release an explosion that deals 0.3–0.48 Cold damage to the target and surrounding enemies, Chilling them for 25%. If they were already Chilled or Frozen, increase this damage by 100%[x].

Toxic Alchemist

• Previous: Lucky Hit: Damaging a Poisoned enemy with a Shadow Imbued Skill has up to a 75% chance to create a toxic explosion that applies 0.15–0.2 Poisoning damage over 5 seconds to the target and surrounding enemies.
• New: Lucky Hit: Shadow Imbued Skills have up to a 75% chance to create a toxic explosion that applies 0.2–0.3 Poisoning damage over 5 seconds to the target and surrounding enemies. If the enemy was already Poisoned, increase this damage by 100%[x].

Windforce

• Lucky Hit Chance increased from 20%–30% to 30%–40%.

Skyhunter

• Inherent affix changed from Damage to Distant Enemies to Critical Strike Damage.
• Critical Strike Damage affix value increased by ~100%. This does not apply to the inherent Critical Strike Damage Affix.
• Effect updated to reflect changes to the Precision Key Passive.
  • Previous: The first direct damage you deal to an enemy is a guaranteed Critical Strike. If you had maximum stacks of the Precision Key Passive when you cast the Skill, gain 20–30 energy, this can only happen once per cast.
  • New: The first direct damage you deal to an enemy is a guaranteed Critical Strike. When you consume Precision casting a Skill, that Skill gains x10–30% increased Critical Strike Damage and you gain 20–40 Energy.

Eaglehorn

• Previous: Penetrating Shot has a 30–80% chance to fire an arrow that bounced off walls and scenery. Damaging 5 enemies with Penetrating Shot will cause your next cast to make enemies hit Vulnerable for 3 seconds.
• New: Penetrating Shot makes enemies Vulnerable for 3 seconds. Every 4th cast bounces off walls and scenery and deals 20%–40%[x] bonus damage.

Sorcerer

New Items

Starfall Coronet

• Meteor now has 2 charges and a 11–6 second Charge Cooldown instead of a Mana cost and drops 3 additional meteors around the target. Meteor’s Enchantment effect and Enhanced Meteor drop 1 additional meteor.

Aspect of Shredding Blades – Offensive

• Ice Blades’ chance to apply Vulnerable is increased by 20%[+] and the Vulnerable duration is increased by 4 seconds. You gain 15–25%[x] Vulnerable Damage.

Skills

Ball Lightning

• Enhanced Ball Lightning changed to have its attack rate increase with attack speed, up to 25%.

Blizzard

• Mage’s Blizzard condition to be cast while over 50 mana has been removed.

Lightning Spear

• Critical Strikes now apply Vulnerable for 3 seconds.

Paragon

Searing Heat

• Fixed an issue where the Critical Strike Chance bonus was not properly applying.
• Critical Strike Chance bonus increased from +10% to 12%.

Elemental Summoner

• Conjuration damage bonus increased from x3% to x5% of the total amount of your Bonus Damage with Fire, Lightning, and Cold.

Burning Instinct

• Amount of Intelligence required to gain x1% bonus Burning Damage reduced from 75 to 25.

Item Updates

Offensive Aspect of Shattered Stars

• Meteorite damage has been changed to be 20–30% of the casted Meteor’s damage.

Staff of Lam Esen

• Increased Charged Bolt chance to be attracted to enemies from 30–50% to 40–60%.

Iceheart Brais

• Chance to unleash a Frost Nova when enemies die increased from 11–20% to 21–30%.

GAMEPLAY

End-Game Activities

• Helltide will now be active every hour on the hour, with a 5-minute gap in between. Helltide will be active 55 minutes of every hour.
• So players can more consistently acquire Distilled Fear, we’ve reworked how Distilled Fear is collected from Nightmare Dungeons.
  • Players will always gain a Distilled Fear after completing a Nightmare Dungeon of at least Tier 30.
  • Every 10 Tiers after Tier 30 there’s an increasing chance for additional Distilled Fears to be rewarded.
  • Completing Tier 90 Nightmare Dungeons and beyond will always grant 3 Distilled Fears.
• The Purified Sigil reward for completing a Nightmare Dungeon will now always grant a Sigil 1 Tier greater than the Nightmare Dungeon just completed.

Items

• Scrolls of Escape
  • Now will populate in the lost items stash if the player missed one that was dropped.
  • Stack limit increased from 20 to 99.
  • Appear as Legendary so that they are harder to miss when dropped on the ground.
• The chance for Scattered Prisms to drop when defeating an Elite Monster has been reduced.
• Scattered Prisms can now be acquired from Legion Event Chests.
• The Material cap has been increased from 99,999 to 999,999.
• Treasure Goblins spawned while fighting Avarice now have the same loot potential as normally encountered treasure goblins.
• World Tier III and IV World Boss weekly caches can now drop Unique Items.
• The increased cap for Item Power on drops from World Bosses has been adjusted.
  • Previous: +100 to min, +100 to max
  • New: +65 to min, +25 to max

Developer’s Note: World Bosses are intended to reward powerful loot for your level. With this change, at a high level, players will see maximum Item Power gear from World Bosses at higher levels.

• The Item Power ranges for items dropped by end-game bosses, such as Varshan and Zir, have been decreased for Rare and Legendary Items. Unique Item Power has not been changed. Examples (note that the current range for Unique Items was previously the range for all items):
  • Varshan in WT3 (Level 55)
    • Unique Item Power Range: 675-750
    • Rare/Legendary Range: 650-725
  • Grigoire in WT4 (Level 75)
    • Unique Item Power Range: 850-925
    • Rare/Legendary Range: 800-875
  • Beast in the Ice (Level 85)
    • Unique Item Power Range: 900-925
    • Rare/Legendary Range: 850-925
  • Duriel remains unchanged (always drops 925)
• Nightmare Dungeon Item Power scaling has been adjusted to more consistently drop high Item Power loot in high Tier Nightmare Dungeons. Examples:
  • Monsters at level 100
    • Legendary Item Power Range
      • Previous: 820-925
      • New: 845-925
    • Rare Item Power Range
      • Previous: 785-925
      • New: 810-925
  • Monsters at level 125
    • Legendary Item Power Range
      • Previous: 845-925
      • New: 910-925
    • Rare Item Power Range
      • Previous: 810-925
      • New: 885-925
• All monsters above Level 144 (Nightmare Dungeon Tier 90+) now are guaranteed to drop 925 Item Power gear.

Miscellaneous

• Potion count will no longer be reset after dying and being revived by another player.
• The Hatred’s Chosen syphon effect is no longer based on Lucky Hit.
• The Greed Shrine effect also now will drop additional Gold after the effect expires. The amount of Gold dropped is determined by how many enemies were killed while the Shrine buff was active.
• Uber-Unique Items can now be unlocked as transmogs.

User Interface and User Experience

• New settings have been added to allow navigation in the world with full Keyboard controls—including movement using the W-A-S-D keys—instead of your mouse.
• Bonuses from keywords, such as Berserking, now also denote whether any associated damage bonus is additive or multiplicative.
• Event Timers are now displayed on the world map.
• The visual effect for being Chilled will now visually increase in intensity to denote how close the Chilled character is to being Frozen.
• The default button bindings for Mount actions have been adjusted to be more intuitive on controller.
• An additional stash tab is now available to be purchased in-game with Gold. Maximum stash tabs available are now 6.
• The icons for the Helltide Chest of Mysteries and Living Steel Chest have been updated to make them more visually distinctive from the other chest icons.
• The button for confirming Gold amount in the trade interface on controller has been changed to Yor Triangle on console. This will allow pressing A or X on console to bring up the virtual keyboard to manually enter Gold amounts when trading.
• We have introduced a new way for players to approach reworking their Skill Tree.
  • Players can now refund whole paths orSkill clumps whilst seeing a preview of it all.
  • Players can also see how many Skill points will be refunded to them and how much Gold it will cost in advance.

Developer’s Note: he new Respec options allows players to easily refund or re-add their Skills in a flexible way. Our goal with these additionsis to make purchasing and refunding Nodes less time consuming while encouraging players to experiment more.

BUG FIXES

Accessibility

• Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader did not read the quantity of a consumable in the action wheel.
• Fixed an issue where subtitles for dialogue and lorebooks could not be turned off.
• Fixed an issue where the Screen Reader could malfunction when repeatedly opening a vendor’s services menu.

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where player attacks could still be suppressed when some of their character’s body was outside a Suppressor Field.
• Fixed an issue where effects that increased Max Life by a percentage (such as an Elixir of Fortitude) did not account for certain other Max Life bonuses, such as granted by an Affix on equipment.
• Fixed an issue where the Drowned Sea Hag could spawn an excessive number of minions.
• Fixed an issue where the Echo of Lilith could still attack the player after being defeated during the second phase of the encounter.
• Fixed an issue where the Umbral aspect could grant large amounts of resources when using crowd control Skills on Structure enemies.
• Fixed an issue where various Skills and effects, such as Devouring Blaze, did not consider Staggered bosses as Crowd Controlled.
• Fixed an issue where the Butcher could stand in place if the player stood near a Resplendent chest.

Barbarian

• Fixed an issue where the Bone Breaker legendary paragon node didn’t have a buff indicator.
• Fixed an issue where the guaranteed overpower from the Earthstriker aspect could trigger on Basic attacks.
• Fixed an issue where Charge cast by Ancients spawned by the Aspect of Ancestral Charge did not trigger explosions from the Brawler’s aspect.
• Fixed an issue where Hammer of the Ancients was dealing more damage than intended due to the bonus from the Violent upgrade also being applied even if the Furious upgrade was chosen.

Druid

• Fixed an issue where the tooltip for Envenom displayed its damage bonus as additive, when it was multiplicative.
• Fixed an issue where Enhanced Ravens wasn’t increasing Critical Strike Chance to enemies hit.
• Fixed an issue where the Dire Wolf’s Aspect did not specify that it also made Grizzly Rage function as a Werewolf skill.

Necromancer

• Fixed an issue where the bonus from the Ring of Starless Skies could get removed when the Aspect of Gore Quills was activated.
• Fixed an issue where Shadow and Bone mages did not cast Blizzard when the Coldbringer aspect was equipped.
• Fixed an issue where Blood Mist could fail to activate while under the effect of a Bandit’s Smoke Bomb.
• Fixed an issue where the Splintering Aspect would scale more than 2x when used on a two-handed weapon.

Rogue

• Fixed an issue where Tibault’s Will increased the cap for combo points.
• Fixed an issue where returning Twisting Blades while using the Bladedancer’s aspect were applying full Poison Imbue Damage, instead of the expected percentage of damage detailed in the Aspect’s description.
• Fixed an issue where the Paragon Glyph Snare did not benefit Smoke Grenade when it is considered a Trap Skill by the Explosive Verve aspect.
• Fixed an issue where Gorger enemies could still target Rogue players under the effect of Concealment with their stun attack.

Sorcerer

• Fixed an issue where various powers and effects that are granted by evading, such as the unique powers of Esu’s Heirloom and Flickerstep, did not work properly when using the Teleport Enchantment.
• Fixed an issue where the bonus evade charges granted by The Oculus didn’t increase when upgrading the Weapon at the Blacksmith.
• Fixed an issue where Ball Lightning was dealing far more damage than intended.

Developer’s Note: Ball Lightning was dealing an unintended amount of damage because of its Enhanced upgrade. This bug fix returns the amount of damage done by this Skill to intended quantities.

• Fixed an issue where the Static Surge legendary node would trigger from automatic casts of skills, such as the Chain Lightning enchantment.
• Fixed an issue where Ice Spikes would instantly explode when casting Deep Freeze with the Frozen Tundra aspect equipped.
• Fixed an issue where the buff from the Battle Caster’s aspect could unexpectedly fall off.
• Fixed an issue where the Protection passive did not take into account any bonuses to Barrier generation.

User Interface and User Experience

• Fixed an issue in the Season Journey menu where hovering over aspects rewarded for completing a chapter of the Season Journey could sometimes not display the name of the Aspect.
• Fixed an issue where the minimap icon for indicating the Stash has new items (i.e. recovered lost items) only displayed when close to the Stash.
• Fixed an issue where the Creatures of Night incense had an incorrect tooltip.
• Fixed an issue where certain stats would not display for all Classes in the character details window, such as Damage with 2-handed slashing weapons would not display for Necromancers.
• Fixed an issue where pressing X or Square on console would confirm the salvage of a Legendary or Unique Item.
• Fixed an issue where controller navigation in the Vendor buyback menu could malfunction.
• Fixed various instances where the minimap was inaccurate.
• Fixed various instances where Quest Pins and Objectives were inaccurate.

Quests and Dungeons

• Fixed an issue where progression through the Flooded Depths could get broken if a ladder traversal was skipped with Teleport.
• Fixed an issue where the Animus Urn in the Bastion of Faith could be skipped by using Leap or Teleport.
• Fixed an issue where progression could be blocked in Uldur’s Cave if all enemies were killed before destroying the second barricade.
• Fixed an issue where some enemies were not marked on the minimap during the Slay All Enemies objective in Nostrava Deepwood.
• Fixed an issue where elites encountered that transformed from initially harmless people could respawn after being defeated.
• Fixed an issue where the Tomb Lord boss in the Shifting City could teleport outside of the boss arena, which would cause the fight to restart.
• Fixed an issue where there was no Healing Well in the Conclave.
• Fixed an issue where the Battle Hardened nightmare dungeon affix could grant Damage Reduction even if the player was above 90% life.
• Fixed an issue where the Sealed Penitent’s Cache quest didn’t properly grant rewards for completion.
• Fixed multiple instances where the Final Straw quest could not be completed properly.
• Fixed an issue where the Quest Objective wouldn’t update when entering the Cellar during the Acts of Atonement quest.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed an issue where upgrading a damaged item at the Blacksmithwould further lower the item’s durability.
• Various stability, visual, and performance improvements.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.

Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.