March 2, 2024 • 38 mins
In this episode, I read you not one, but two articles about Blizzard; Diablo Immortal has a lot going on in March;
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
- It is time for Shattered Soul Stone
featuring the latest newsfrom Sanctuary and beyond.
Each episode a heroic partyof Nephilim Band together
to help keep you informed on everything in
the Diablo universe.
(00:28):
And now your Diablo Community podcast
- Coming to you fromsomewhere in sanctuary.
This is episode 4 4 8of Shattered Soul Stone,
your Diablo Community podcast.
This episode is called March Monsters.
It is March 1st, 2024. And this is Jen.
(00:48):
I got a whole bunch ofstuff to talk about.
So let's just dive right in.
PC Gamer has an article publishedone day ago by Tyler Culp.
The article is titled DiabloFour's upcoming Loot Rework
will be so massive.
Blizzard will let you play.
Test it early in its firstPTR, which is interesting
because we haven't had a PTR
(01:09):
for Diablo four at allsince the game came out.
Unless you wanna count the alpha
and the beta as something like that.
But anyway, I'll read you some of this
'cause I think it'sexciting in a stream today,
and this would've been,uh, yesterday actually.
Blizzard said Diablo four'snext season quote goes
beyond the scope end quote ofthe massive changes it brought
(01:32):
to the game in season two last year.
And if you haven't played
or you don't remember, thatwas like the vampire season
where your character gotvampiric powers to mess
with to make them stronger.
And all that kind of stuffgoes beyond the scope
of the massive changes it brought
to the game in season two last year.
And for the first time,you'll be able to play
with all the new features
(01:52):
before the season goes livevia a play test server.
In a few weeks, players havebegged Blizzard to offer a PTR
or a public test realm forDiablo four's New Seasons
as it did with Diablo three
and does with Diablo tworesurrected since season
one last month's.
Rocky launched to season threewas an important example of
(02:13):
how bad it can be when blizzard'sinternal testing doesn't
meet players' expectations,progress blocking bugs,
and a disappointing seasonalpet wasn't how anyone wanted
to start a fresh season.
And blizzard agree.
I think the seasonal petis the um, the construct
that's following around your character.
If you're playing in theseason this time around
(02:34):
to continue, not everyseason will get a PTR,
however Blizzard explainedin today's stream.
It depends on the scaleof changes that we have,
but for season four,
we most definitely havea plan on having a PTR
Associate director of community.
Adam Fletcher said A date for the PTR
and what to expect in seasonfour will be announced on
(02:55):
another stream in a few weeks.
Details on what's coming inseason four remain vague,
but Blizzard has promised itwill make foundational changes
to how loot works.
Right now items are either worth keeping
or salvaged for craft forcrafting materials, you have
to train yourself to quickly skim
for valuable stats on every single item,
(03:15):
which can take longer thanrunning an entire dungeon.
The goal with season four
as Blizzard has said in previousstreams, is to make items
valuable regardless of thembeing an upgrade for you.
And if you take a lookat other action RPGs
that do this well, like last Epoch
and Path of Exile, I think it'spretty safe says the writer,
uh, to assume that it'll besome kind of crafting system
(03:38):
that lets you improve theitems you actually care about.
And there's more in this,
but that's where I'mgonna stop here on that.
Uh, we also have an articlefrom Game Developer, which was,
uh, it's a two minute read
and that one out February 29,
it's titled Diablo Boss Rod Ferguson
(03:58):
Don't treat devs like knobs
and dials in a time of industry crisis.
Diablo franchise Head RodFerguson is urging industry
leaders to act with empathy.
This is written by BryantFrancis, rod Ferguson,
the venerated game industry producer
who joined Blizzard Entertainment
to oversee the Diablo franchisehas built a reputation
(04:20):
as a trusted leader with realexperience from the trenches
of game developmentreporting on Diablo four's,
troubled developmentindicated his stewardship
and his hiring of game directorJoe Shelley helped get an
unstable project back on track
and revitalize development,uh, developer motivation
to make the next great Diablo game
(04:40):
that stewardship givesFerguson authority to speak on
how game industry leadersneed to behave in the midst
of a major layoff crisis.
As his most relevant advice was
that his most relevantadvice was this, be empathic.
These people aren't knobs and dials.
End quote, catching up with Ferguson,
after Microsoft had laid off1,900 workers, parentheses,
(05:02):
many who had worked on Diablo four
and elsewhere at Blizzard Entertainment
and of parentheses was aslightly surreal affair.
Ferguson had just accepted theaward on behalf of the studio
for online game of the year,a huge win for his team,
but a win that wouldn't be shared,
quote back home end quote,
by many no longer with the studio.
That means Ferguson has gonefrom an executive who had
(05:24):
to revitalize developmenton a struggling game to one
who must now rally acreative team devastated
by the loss of their colleagues.
Sharp-eyed readers will note
that Ferguson's advice onempathy, while strong isn't
that far off from the wordswe've heard from industry
leaders who preach about care
and kindness for employees moments
before gutting their income
(05:44):
and in the United Statestheir healthcare, it is
to his credit then thathe offered advice on
what can help leaders showthey are practicing empathy,
not just preaching it.
Quote, one of the things that helps people
through these moments is knowingwhat you have to do next.
He said it's important forpeople in his position to be able
to answer the question,what's that focus quote?
(06:07):
What I really liked about ourplans is that when we know
what our plans are, when people have to go
through challengingtimes, they're not lost.
And like, I don't knowwhat to do the next day.
One hopes that those wordsmean Blizzard's leadership does
have real plans for gameproduction After years
of blundering comments fromformer President Mike Ybarra
and a return to office plan
(06:28):
that seems built moreon spite than empathy.
It continues from there.
Everything I tell talk abouthere is gonna be in the show
notes@shatteredsoulstone.com.
So you can pick that up and read the rest
of this if you care to.
Moving on to some Diablo immortal stuff,
there is a a thing herefrom Diablo Immortal
and there's this creature ina picture frame kind of thing
(06:50):
and it is a female looking person
who looks like they've been half gutted
and bleeding with like all these like long
nails and stuff like that.
And um, it says at the top of this,
the calendar said Leap day,but she heard Leap Slay.
And this is a creaturecalled, uh, EA I-S-C-E-A
(07:11):
and then Diablo I Mortal Rights.
Happy leap year. There's no better way
to spend your extra day thanbattling fearsome bosses like
Isia and more in Diablo.
I Mortal. And there'salso something new in um,
Diablo Mortal right now.
It's called March into Battle.
It's uh, got a lot going onjust from looking at this.
I wish I had like anactual like readout of it,
(07:32):
like you can get for like Diablofour and things like that.
But, but no.
So Diablo Immortal wrote this,
this March more excitinglimited time events
are coming to sanctuary.
Which ones have you hyped?Tell us in the comments.
So there's this calendarhere starting on the 14th.
There's a battle pass24 that's gonna happen
and that seems to be continuing
through the rest of the month.
(07:54):
Um, there's a major update warmup towards
the very end of the month.
Here's the, uh, the thingsthat are gonna happen.
So March one through eighthtrials of the hoards, March two
through ninth, all clans ondeck March eight through 15,
fractured plane eightthrough 15 conqueror nine
(08:15):
through 16 Hungering moon,
which I think is a staple in this game.
It's always there. March15 to 22 is the Wild Brawl.
March 16 to 23 is shady stock 22
to 29 is Survivor's Bane.
22 to 29 is also alley of blood.
23 to 30 is all clans on deck
and 29 to uh, April 5this trial of the hoard.
(08:39):
So if you wanna do any of thatstuff, some of these overlap
so if you wanna likehit all of these things
to get whatever you wantfrom each of these events,
you'll have time to do it.
'cause some of them kindof overlap a little bit.
So it just depends onhow much time you have.
And there was a campfire chat
and we now have a campfire chat recap.
(08:59):
I didn't watch the campfire chat
because I feel like I do alot better if I just read
what they said instead of tryingto summarize a giant video.
So this is what they wrote.
Um, lizard Entertainment wroteon February 29 of this year,
on February 29,
we held a campfire chatshowcasing the gauntlet,
a fixed layout end game dungeon.
Coming on March 5th, communitydirector Adam Fletcher,
(09:23):
associate game director Joe Pri Aporia
and lead live class designerAdam Jackson sat down
to discuss our midseason updatefor season of the construct.
This update brings manyclass balance updates
and the return of a few updatedvampiric powers from season
of blood Vampiric powersreturn as legendary aspects
(09:44):
that have a chance to dropfrom all enemies in sanctuary
play of the Gauntletshowcase event where members
of our development teamshowed gauntlet gameplay,
they were joined by Anna CakeLive and macro bio boy who
provided skillful commentaryduring the carnage.
And there's also anembed in here of the chat
and then there's a blog hereactually that's with it.
(10:06):
So let's see what that has to say.
I think I have this one in heresomewhere else. Yeah, I do.
So I'll just read this other one
and I think I just dumpedthe first one there.
So that's, that's great.
The Diablo four thing is calledundying Gloria Waits in the
trials also posted on February 29th, 2024.
The trials call you fourth wanderer fight
(10:27):
to earn your place on theleaderboards when they
arrive on March 5th.
Each week you can master a new gauntlet,
a fixed non-linear dungeonthat will have you fighting
to earn the mightiest score who will fight
to dominate the competitionearned covered seals
and carve their place on the leaderboards.
Do you have what it takesto become undeniable?
(10:50):
With the um, upcoming mid-season patch,
there will be impactfulclass balance charge changes
and sendal companionupdates coming in the patch
that will introducethis challenge dungeon.
So we will be actively monitoringfeedback to make tweaks
with the gauntlet in mind.
To read more on our upcoming changes,
please read our Diablo four patch notes.
(11:11):
I'll be getting to that in a little while.
Test your prowess in the gauntlet.
This adrenaline fueledchallenge is available
to all classes in the seasonal realm,
whether they're normal or hardcore.
Once you've gained accessto world tier four, travel
to the southwestern pointin gaa Cool at the end
of their longest docks.
(11:31):
It's the formidablehorn of trials activated
to access the gauntlet.
Even though the gauntletis accessible to you.
Upon reaching tier four
or world tier four, monsterlevels will be beyond level 100.
So characters that have hitlevel 100 will be most likely
to triumph in the carnage ahead.
The gauntlet is a fixed layout non-linear
(11:53):
dungeon that changes weekly.
It's an end game dungeonwhere mastery, cunning
and skill will achieve the highest score.
Your score is based on how many proofs
of mite you can earn from killing monsters
and opening chests With theeight minute time limit,
each time you enter thegauntlet during the week you,
it will be identical.
So you can devise your mostefficient mode of slaughter
and let the corpses mark your progress.
(12:14):
The gauntlet concludes eachweek on Tuesday 8:00 AM PST
with the next completelydifferent gauntlet emerging at
10:15 AM PST Strive for your personal best
and fight to the bitter end each week
before the gauntlet begins.
A no proving your mightis the name of the game.
Proofs of M might which dictateyour overall score can be
earned by killing endlesshoards of monsters.
(12:37):
And opening chests pillarscan increase the number
of proofs you can earn, whetherthrough score multipliers
or responding themonsters you just killed.
While score based pillarsincrease your proofs
of might power-based shrinescan also spawn in the gauntlet.
After killing a boss within the dungeon,
a shrine will appear withafn slain activate the shrine
to revive one of the variousshrine effects available,
(12:58):
which will be identicaleach time the same boss is
killed within the gauntlet.
Ferocity and deficiency
and strategy will lead you
to eternal success in the gauntlet.
Considering this is afixed layout dungeon,
each time you enter for the week,
the dungeon layout will be identical.
Attempting different routes
and adjusting your build will be paramount
to mastering each week's layout.
There's some pictures here.
(13:18):
You will be able to respondupon death in the gauntlet,
but you will lose a third
of your score each time you perish.
However, you or your teammatescan recover all your lost
proofs of might at the place
of your last death uponreturning to the dungeon.
As your score increases, sodoes your rank within trials.
Your final score canearn you seals the mark
of your prowess in thegauntlet for that week.
(13:39):
Earning seals proves yourmastery to fellow wanderers.
There are four ranks of seals to earn.
Okay, so there's seal of the blooded seal
of the steadfast steel seal
of the iron willed seal of the worthy.
The seal of the blooded is what most
of you will strive to earn first.
While the seal of the worthywill only be granted to those
who have dedicated themselvesto absolute blood lust
(14:01):
and the gauntlet, the score needed
to earn each seal will vary week by week.
Depending on the layout of the gauntlet
and the class you're playing.
These scores scale with party size.
Larger groups will have aneasier time earning a higher
score than solo players
and will be tracked at a separate leader.
A ladder leaderboard.It will take some sweat
to reach the highest seals.
Do not expect a feeble showingto rank you among the greats.
(14:23):
And there's a little picturehere of you ranked up
and seal of the iron willed kind of thing.
For somebody earning proofs
of might is your sole prioritywithin the visceral strewn
passageways of the gauntlet.
So loot will be rewardedupon completion regardless
of whether you've earned a seal.
If you participate in the gauntlet,
you'll still obtain a minor cash
after each run upon theweekly reset of the gauntlet.
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And depending on your best score,
you'll earn caches of trials.
The higher the score, the better the cash
you'll earn earn for that week.
Earning a cash of trialsguarantees one ancestral,
legendary and scales in rank.
With the cash awarded earning the seal
of the worthy will grant themost coveted tr treasures
as they are guaranteed to drop items
with level 925 power earning.
(15:06):
A seal of higher rankwill still grant you the
rewards of a lower seal.
With the seal of the worthygranting you all seal cash
is available for that week.
You can also earn multiple seals
for the multiple gauntletladders that are available.
And then there's the leaderboardsand hall of the ancients.
Leaderboards are separated byladders for class party size,
normal and hardcore.
They can also be filtered by friends
(15:28):
and by clan to see
how you measure up againstyour closest allies.
For those of you who wantfriendlier competition,
apply these filters toindividual ladders to see whom
among your friends is the deadliest
of all class specificladders will only be designed
for those playing solo.
This means there are 16 possibleweekly ladders to ascend.
In total your best scoreacross all classes, characters
(15:51):
and platforms are the ones
that will mark your tenuousspot amongst the great.
You do not need to have cross play enabled
to have your score rankon the leaderboards,
but you do need toenable cross play to view
that leaderboard in game.
Note that while the ladders
for each weeklyleaderboard will be active,
once the gauntlet arrives onMarch 5th, we'll be waiting
to launch our gauntlet gauntlet contest
(16:12):
until we have been able to balance it
around your skills and abilities.
Considering this mid-seasonupdate introduces class balance
updates and changes to theChaw companion, we want
to ensure we can monitor your feedback
and make updates as needed.
More details for the gauntletcontest will be revealed soon.
If you manage to secureyour place in the top 100
of any ladder, you willalso earn a conquerors
(16:34):
chest mount trophy.
If you can manage to becomethe greatest among us
and place in the top 10 onany of the leaderboards,
you'll have your name andcharacter immortalized in the
permanent hall of the ancients,allowing future legions
of wanderers to gaze uponyour coveted performance.
Best the trials and masterthe gauntlet when it goes
live on March five.
Over on max roll we have thegauntlet Camp fire chat wrap up
(16:57):
written by Dred Sy who doesexcellent work over there.
So here's just some stuff.
The gauntlet, campfire chat,live stream just took place.
The panel consisting of Joseph Priya,
associate game director AdamJackson, lead class designer
and Adam Fletcher, associatedirector of community
with special guests Macrobio Boy and Anna Cake live.
If you don't know who thoseare, both of those are streamers
(17:19):
that play Diablo for the topicsincluding the gauntlet class
Balancing season four updates and q and a.
The patch notes will bereleased tomorrow, March 1st,
which is today, and go live on March 5th.
See all the major points below.
So returning Vampiric powers,there's a little picture here
with some words in it it says,returning Vampiric powers,
(17:39):
six vampiric powers arereturning from season of blood.
These are being reintroduced
as legendary powers not uniques.
They are not all exact one-to-Onecopies largely are close
to matching their previous functionality.
The powers that are returningare a cursed touch blood boil,
hectic, hectic, hectic metamorphosis.
(18:02):
Moonrise and undying six fanfavorite vampire vampiric
powers are coming back this time.
They're compared tomalignant rings being unique.
So these are returning aslegendary powers instead.
So the a curse touchis an offensive skill.
Blood boil is an offensiveskill. Hectic is a utility skill.
Metamorphos is mobility skill.
Moonrise is an offensive skill
(18:22):
and undying is defensivefor class balance.
The dev team went overgeneral balance changes
for classes in regards to theseason three theme as well
as true class updates.
So here's some stuff.Mid-season updates snapshotting.
We fixed many cases of snapshotting
that have been reported to us in general.
We want to move towards
completely removing it from the game.
(18:44):
Gauntlet for the gauntlet gear skill tree
and paragon cannot be changed.
Rogue fixed an issue
where the weapon masterypassive was double dipping
on critical strike damage.
Bonuses such as with theprecision key passive fixed an
issue where the precisionkey passive was incorrectly
scaling based on the player'scritical strike damage bonus.
There's also some other issueshere for the mid-season.
(19:06):
Updates a few issuesof are being addressed
to make sure the gauntlet is as smooth
and fair as possible in order to do so.
Many instances of snapshottinghave been reported
and the team has made a statementtowards removing it from
the game as much as possible.
If not completely, this candrastically reduce the possible
points of exploiting many skillsslash gear slash lucky hit
interactions that could breakthe game resulting in certain
(19:29):
builds being too powerfulfor the gauntlet itself.
Your gear skills, paragon, et cetera,
are locked once youenter no funny business
of swapping out weapons or the like.
This is very similar to what was done
for greater rifts in Diablo three.
Lastly, the rogue weapon masteryPassive was double dipping.
So the team got the reportsand and is fixing the issue.
(19:49):
If you wanna know what yourclass is gonna be like in this,
you can look at a, you canlook it up in this Maxwell
article for the Barbarian, Druid,
necromancer, rogue and Sorcerer.
Um, and then there's a littlebit more in here about the
gauntlet, which I kind of read some of it,
you know, some of it here.
But Dready goes very deeplyinto what all these things are
and how that's gonna affect you.
There's also Diablo fourpatch notes done on March 1st
(20:11):
and uh, I always read these
'cause sometimes thereis hysterically funny
and sometimes I'm justlike, what are you doing?
You know. So the Diablofour team has been monitor
monitoring your feedback.
As we introduce patchesto keep your experience
and sanctuary smooth, wewill update the below list
and denote whether the fixesare intended for pc, Xbox,
PlayStation, or all platforms.
So here we are developers note,
(20:33):
select Vampiric powers fromseason of blood have returned
with some tweaks to maketheir power level fit into
season of the construct.
These powers will be available
as legendary aspects in allworld tears and both the eternal
and seasonal realms of a cursed touch.
Lucky hits up to a 20 to 35% chance
to inflict vampire curse on enemies.
(20:55):
Enemies afflicted by vampirecurse are also vulnerable.
Vampire curses stored souls deal 20%
to 50% increased damage of metamorphosis.
When you evade
and you turn into a cloudof bats becoming unstoppable
for 2.5 seconds.
Enemies along your pathtake physical damage
and are inflicted with vampiric Curse.
(21:15):
Evades cool down is increased by five
to 10 seconds, blood boiling.
When your core skills over power
and enemy, you spawn threevolatile blood drops.
Collecting a volatile blooddrop causes it to explode,
dealing physical damagearound you every 20 seconds.
Your next skill is guaranteedto overpower hectic.
For every five basic skills you cast, one
(21:36):
of your active cooldowns is reduced by two
to four seconds On dying.
Casting skills heals youfor 0.5, uh, to 2% of life.
This heals for an additional 1% of life.
While you are below 50% of life
of the moonrise damaging an enemy
with a basic skill grantsyou 4% attack speed
(21:56):
for 10 seconds stacking up to five times
upon reaching maximum stacks,
you enter a vampiric blood rage gaining 40
to 80% basic skill damage at 15% movement
speed for 10 seconds.
Personally I think that'sgonna be a lot of fun.
I really liked Season of Blood.
I've been putting videos up on YouTube,
slowly takes a while to get 'em there.
(22:16):
Um, but I had a lot of fun with that one
and I'm kind of strugglinga little bit in the current
season, which I'll talk aboutlater if I still have time.
So we have some balance updates in
general, there are unique items.
Ring of starless skies nowshows a buff on the bar.
While active penitent grieves damage
to chilled enemies increasedfrom seven to 10% to 12 to 15%
(22:37):
tats of the dawning sky.
Maximum resistance increasefrom six to 10% to eight to 12%.
Mothers embrace resourcerefund increase from 20 to 40%
to 30 to 50%.
There's more of these
and then it goes intothe different classes
and the stuff that they've got.
Then there's some bug fixes,which are usually interesting.
Fix an issue where the algained double the benefit from
(23:00):
skills that benefit allies such
as the barbarian's warcry or druids blood.
How fix an issue where anattack that swaps from melee
to crossbow would doublethe bonuses from the
precision and weapon mastery.
Rogue passives fixed an issue where some
interactable objects associatedwith various quests such
as lyndon's stash
during the discretionaryspending quest could not be
(23:22):
interacted with while mounted.
I just did that one againin the current season
and I didn't have a problem with this
because I just didn't use the mount.
Just kind of followedLyndon around the little.
If you haven't done the question,
I'm not gonna tell you about it.
But that, you know, I justdidn't have, I have a horse,
I have many horses, I just don't use them
very often in this season.
(23:42):
Fix an issue where the camerawould not reset if the player
died during the echo
of Lilith encounter whilethe camera was zoomed out.
, that's prettybad. You know what I mean?
that is pretty bad fixed.
An issue where the juggernautaspect didn't apply armor
while the player was mounted.
Oh, okay. So what I'm lookingat here is maybe don't use
your horse if you'rerunning into these dungeons.
(24:04):
Fix an issue where theguaranteed overpower granted
by the druids enhancedpulverized did not immediately
did not apply immediatelyafter acquiring 12 stacks.
That's a problem. Fix an issue
where the necromancerskeleton reaper's chance
to create a corpse wasbased on lucky hit instead
of a flat percentage fix.
An issue where bone splinterscast from the shattered spirit
(24:27):
aspect didn't receive thevulnerable effect granted
by the initiates bone.
Splinter fix an issue
where thorns was not consistentwhen applying lucky hit
example, thorns couldtrigger a born deify,
but not hued flesh fixed anissue where the cult leader,
legendary paragon node didn'tproperly give bonus damage
(24:48):
based on bonus minionattack speed fixed an issue
where the rotting acts aspectwouldn't spawn additional
corpses, which I guess you'resupposed to have a fixed,
an issue where the sorcerer'sfrigid fate and elemental sum
or legendary paragon effectsdid not work properly
with the aspect of el of the elements.
Fix an issue where the fierysurge passive was not granting
(25:08):
as much man regenerationas it should fix an issue
where bonus damage fromenhanced cal traps could apply
more often than intended.
When stacking multiple casts
of Cal Trops on the sameenemy fixed an issue
where enhanced Cal Tropswas dealing less damage
than expected to bosses.
Here's a developer's note,some items, legendary aspects,
passives, paragon bonuses
(25:30):
and skills displayedbugs that allowed players
to gain more power thanintended when you equipped
and then unequipped them.
We believe these interactionslead to a worse experience
for all players as it creates a stigma
that these bugs must be exploited
to reach new levels of power.
The bug fixes below addresses all known
instances of this issue.
So here's some bug fixes fixed an issue
(25:51):
with multiple legendary aspects
where equipping duplicateaspects would always apply the
effect of the first equipped aspect.
Ignoring the rule of applyingonly the strongest equipped
aspect fixed an issue whereunlearning of of rise mastery
with the major Lords aspectequipped would cause the effect
of rise mastery to remain active, fixed.
An issue where a power
(26:12):
that grants a bonus stat basedon another stat would not
readjust after thetemporary bonuses wore off.
There's some uh, interfaceexperience stuff here
and some miscellaneous stuff,
but that's pretty mucheverything you probably
need to know from this one.
Going back to Max roll, we haveanother one from Dready, uh,
talking about the patchI just write about, um,
he might have some stuff in here
(26:33):
that wasn't mentioned in there.
So this one's called Diablofour patch 1.3 0.3 notes,
wow head posted Diablo four Battle pass
and Tear Skips purchasablewith Microsoft Rewards.
That probably sounds strange if you
haven't been paying attention.
This was posted three days ago by popular,
popular on Wow head andit has a lovely photo
(26:54):
or image of an aria with like a sword
and like some red background
and all of those like, you know,
wing light things going on there.
Here's what they wrote.
Did you know that the Diablofour premium battle pass,
accelerated Battle Pass
and Battle Pass tier skipscan be purchased using
Microsoft rewards points.
While this option has beenavailable for some time,
(27:15):
blizzard has restated thisoffer in a recent tweet.
Here's what they tweeted about.
Leave no bounty unclaimedredeem your Microsoft rewards
points for Diablo four BattlePass upgrades and tier skips.
Learn more. Well, what arewe gonna learn more about?
Let's find out. Okay, so ittakes you to the microsoft.com
(27:38):
rewards site
and it says Earn rewards withMicrosoft just by simply doing
what you love to do.
Sign in or create a Microsoft account
and get points for giftcards sweepstakes and more.
Um, it tells you, you you have to sign in.
You may already be a member.
Try logging in with your Microsoft account
before creating a new one.
Visit the rewards dashboard.There's a link to that.
(28:01):
Earn points, score top rewards.
And there's all this other stuff in here
that you might wanna look atif you, if you're gonna do it.
But the thing is you have to be part
of Microsoft Rewards is the thing.
So if you're thinking,oh, I'm gonna just use
that Battle Pass thing and
and be fine, uh, maybenot, you know,
I think they want youto like buy something
(28:21):
or purchase that in some way
and I don't tend to do that very often.
So if if that's something
that you think is gonna helpyou get through the game,
by all means go for it.
Also on wow head top fivefan Pric powers, we'd like
to see return to Diablo four.
So let's see how thisparticular article features, uh,
or connects with or maybe is the same
(28:41):
or different from the onesthat we're talking about.
The six different aspectsthat you could possibly get
after this week's approaching.
Campfire Chat promises a discussion
regarding the resurgence.
Vampire Vampiric Powersplayers are looking forward
to reuniting with theirfavorite seasonal features from
season of Blood with so manypowers to choose from though,
which will make the cut.
We've taken a look at all theVampiric powers from season
(29:03):
two in Diablo four
and picked our top five that we'd like
to see return to the game.
And there's a littlepiece here from Blizzard.
It says, join associate directorof community Adam Fletcher,
associate game director Joseph Priya
and lead live class designer Adam Jackson
as they delve into the gauntletleaderboards balance updates
and blood thirsty powersset to make their return.
(29:24):
Season three introducedChaw companion combat pets
with a wide range of abilities
that have mostly been wellreceived after patch 1.3 0.1.
But Vampiric powers weredifferent in the sense
that they felt active and intentional.
You weren't left trying tofigure out how much of an impact
hemo mancy was making.
You saw the animation
and subsequent damage preyon the weak equated increased
(29:47):
damage to vulnerable enemiesto a direct damage increase.
Undying made basic focusbuilds like the Storm Cloud
Druid feel immortal.
Vampiric powers are a greatexample of two things.
Joyable engaging seasonal features
and the downsides of borrowed power.
While Chel companions are favored enough
that some players have requestedthey become a permanent
(30:08):
part of Diablo four, the lossof vampiric powers was felt
by most builds in regardsto both play style
and overall effectiveness.
We don't know exactly what the return
of vampiric powers will look like.
Patch two 1.2 0.2introduced malignant rings
that incorporated parts ofmalignant hearts from season one
into uniques, uh, such ast Russia's iridescent loop.
(30:29):
It seems rather unlikely thatwe'll see more unique rings
as it's difficult enough for most builds
to lose even a single ringexclusive legendary aspect.
Unlike malignant hearts,
vampiric powers weren't class specific.
So a unique for any slotwould need strong universally
valued gear apexes to justify.
Regardless of how Vampiric powers return,
we know which ones we would like
(30:50):
to see other than Metamorphs.
And then it's got somedescription of all of those things
that I already kind of readto you and little pictures
and stuff like that, um,
that could show you alittle bit more about it.
And that's, yeah, that's that article.
We've got one here fromBlizzard watch 60 Ablo four.
Season two Vampiric Powersreturned to the game
as apexes in Mid-seasonupdate written by Liz Pat.
(31:11):
And it does have all of the same ones
that I've mentioned already in here,
but I'll read you a little bit around
that part since I don't need to repeat it.
Over and over. Diablo four,
season three will be bringingback six popular Vampiric
powers from season two, thefan favorite season of blood
as new legendary a Xes.
These powers were some of the highlights
of playing season two
(31:32):
and tied in so well with theseason's Vampiric aesthetic.
Metamorphos Bat Cloudwill stick with my memory
for a while, says Liz Pat.
I think that's her name.Let me make sure I'm right.
Yes, that's right. Okay,
and spoiler Metamorphs isreturning these new vampire
inspired Legendaries will be going live
with the mid-season patch on March 5th.
And then the dev team it, itmentions the campfire thing
(31:55):
and all of that and then what these, um,
what these aspects are going to be.
I'll skip over that 'causeI've already talked about
that in this episode.
Uh, she continues with, frankly,
these are pretty spectaculareven in their modified forms.
Name one player that didn'tenjoy metamorphosis. Go on.
I'll wait. Yes, havingan increased cool down
to evade isn't awesome,
but that's why you stack extraevade charges on your boot
(32:17):
stats, even with a longer cool down,
I'd much rather turn intoan unstoppable bat cloud.
Now keep in mind these aregetting added as drop aspects.
They won't be showing upin your codex of power,
at least not anytime soon.
You'll have to extract them from pieces
of gear if you want them applied
to existing legendary items,
but they're definitely stillworth working into your gear.
(32:38):
So that's a thing to do.
This is from the Diabloaccount on x slash Twitter.
It is a short video of 51 seconds.
There's a person here talking about it.
They didn't actually tell me what the name
of this person is.
Um, and he seems to bejust like showing you
what you could do with yourhaw and your vampiric powers.
(33:00):
And then the last one in heretwo days ago from WOW head
written by Redna Ani.
Why Herb Gathering needsimprovement in Diablo four.
Some topics in the Diablocommunity will always spark
controversy slash stashspace drop rates, itemization
and the in-game shop have allbeen hot topics burning their
way through circles of wanderers.
(33:21):
Since Diablo four launched,
we've got our own opinions read on
to find out more aboutour take on the herb
system in Diablo four.
There's a lot in here.
Um, it's not incredibly long,
but there's a bunch of stuff in here,
but I'll give you some of it.
Table of contents.
There's a table of contents in this thing.
Uh, it starts with theentire herb collection system
(33:42):
for making elixirs
and upgrading Potions wascreated for a different game era.
It's time for a seriousrevisit to the herb, elixir,
and incense system.
Back before season one, everyonewas doing a lot of running
around above ground, doingside quests, going after alters
and finishing the campaign.
Since herbs are onlyobtained by direct farming
or doing side quests that giveyou a, um, like a herb cache
(34:04):
and assorted herbs, gettingenough herbs wasn't much
of an issue because you spentso much time above ground
where you could grabthem as you went along.
In today's world ofspamming, nightmare dungeons
and vaults to level, becauseopen world experience gives
so little well experiencegetting enough herbs even
to upgrade your healing potioncan cause serious problems.
There are four key areas where herbs
and elixirs could usesome serious improvement.
(34:26):
So herb farming isn't viable.
Getting enough herbs oftenmeans open world farming.
Without an in-game way totrack herb nodes in the world,
it's often a complete guess as to
where you'll even find these nodes
and they have a terriblehabit of disappearing.
I've gone back to previous hotspots only
to find a local herb Plaguehas wiped everything out.
Herb node yield is also ridiculously low.
It is frustrating to findthose elusive bite berry nodes
(34:49):
only to have it yield onebite berry when you need 27
to upgrade a major healingpotion at level 80 solution.
There are many possible fixesthat would help these issues,
including improving yieldsfrom herb nodes, density
of outdoor nodes and respon rates.
However, reducing the relianceon an open world farming
would've a much bigger impact.
The lack of quote, indoor options.
(35:10):
Currently, there are no methodsfor reliably gathering herbs
inside dungeons or vaults.
You may on occasion havedropped a low level piece
of gear roll into an herbinstead of, instead of due
to the changes in lootimplemented in season two.
This is completely randomand UNT targetable.
So you can't rely on RNG toget your herbs stocked up.
Since these dungeons vaultcom comprise a large portion
(35:30):
of players' time due to needingto great upgrade glyphs,
it also isolates playersfrom being able to use GA
or to gather useful herbs or elixirs.
While you have, sometimeswhile you will sometimes get
elixirs or drops fromchest, you don't always get
what you want, nor do you have any method
to turn them into something new
and there's a solution in there.
Lack of an alchemy vendor.That's interesting.
(35:51):
There are vendors connected tothe blacksmith who sell magic
and rare armor and weapons.
The jeweler has a sales representative
for rings and amulets.
The occultist job is madeeasier by selling ENC chance
through the farmed famed, sorry, nope.
Farmed codex of power.
The Alchemist is the only one
that has no direct sales option
and players running lowon elixirs can definitely
feel loss solution.
(36:11):
Adding pre-made elixirs
to the Alchemist shopcould alleviate a large
portion of the herb burden.
An Alchemist vendor could sellbasic utility elixirs like
resistances, armor and extra health,
but without the 5% inexperience, perk, crafted
or dropped, elixirs would always be better
and have a wider range of abilities.
But it would give playersan option to use gold
to cover basic quality of life shortfalls.
(36:33):
No way to salvage unwanted elixirs.
The blacksmith can salvageunwanted gear for upgrade bits.
The occulus can remove legendaryaspects to transfer them
to better items or a different slot.
The jeweler can break downgems so you can upgrade
to better gems withoutwasting lower level gems.
But while the al Alchemistscan recycle one type
of herb into another, thatdoesn't help when your overall
(36:55):
herb stock is already low.
The solution is there's nothing you can do
with unwanted elixirsother than use them just
for the experience bonus,give them to an alt
or sell them for a pittance.
So why not allow the alchemist
to salvage unwanted elixirswhile converting elixirs into
whole herbs would require some real magic.
The Alchemist should be able
(37:15):
to salvage unwanted potionsinto components essences
that can take the place of that herb.
This would be a welcomeaddition to Potion Management.
And that's the end of the things I needed
to talk about in this show.
And with that, I'm gonnaclose out this episode.
You have been listening to episode 4, 4 8
of the Shattered Soul Stone.
Your Diablo Communitypodcast missed an episode.
(37:38):
You can find the show blog
and listen to the show archives at
www shattered soul stone.com.
Come join us in game ourin-game community and clan.
Both named Shattered Soul Stone are open
to anyone who would like to join.
You could also join us on Discord.
For the ultimate team andcommunity-based experience,
find the Discord invitationlink on our Twitter at shattered
stone as well as theShattered Soul Stone website.
(38:00):
Thank you for listening.
- It is time for Shattered Soul Stone
featuring the latest newsfrom Sanctuary and beyond.
Each episode a heroic partyof Nephilim Band together
to help keep you informed on everything in
the Diablo universe.
(00:28):
And now your Diablo Community podcast
- Coming to you fromsomewhere in sanctuary.
This is episode 4 4 8of Shattered Soul Stone,
your Diablo Community podcast.
This episode is called March Monsters.
It is March 1st, 2024. And this is Jen.
(00:48):
I got a whole bunch ofstuff to talk about.
So let's just dive right in.
PC Gamer has an article publishedone day ago by Tyler Culp.
The article is titled DiabloFour's upcoming Loot Rework
will be so massive.
Blizzard will let you play.
Test it early in its firstPTR, which is interesting
because we haven't had a PTR
(01:09):
for Diablo four at allsince the game came out.
Unless you wanna count the alpha
and the beta as something like that.
But anyway, I'll read you some of this
'cause I think it'sexciting in a stream today,
and this would've been,uh, yesterday actually.
Blizzard said Diablo four'snext season quote goes
beyond the scope end quote ofthe massive changes it brought
(01:32):
to the game in season two last year.
And if you haven't played
or you don't remember, thatwas like the vampire season
where your character gotvampiric powers to mess
with to make them stronger.
And all that kind of stuffgoes beyond the scope
of the massive changes it brought
to the game in season two last year.
And for the first time,you'll be able to play
with all the new features
(01:52):
before the season goes livevia a play test server.
In a few weeks, players havebegged Blizzard to offer a PTR
or a public test realm forDiablo four's New Seasons
as it did with Diablo three
and does with Diablo tworesurrected since season
one last month's.
Rocky launched to season threewas an important example of
(02:13):
how bad it can be when blizzard'sinternal testing doesn't
meet players' expectations,progress blocking bugs,
and a disappointing seasonalpet wasn't how anyone wanted
to start a fresh season.
And blizzard agree.
I think the seasonal petis the um, the construct
that's following around your character.
If you're playing in theseason this time around
(02:34):
to continue, not everyseason will get a PTR,
however Blizzard explainedin today's stream.
It depends on the scaleof changes that we have,
but for season four,
we most definitely havea plan on having a PTR
Associate director of community.
Adam Fletcher said A date for the PTR
and what to expect in seasonfour will be announced on
(02:55):
another stream in a few weeks.
Details on what's coming inseason four remain vague,
but Blizzard has promised itwill make foundational changes
to how loot works.
Right now items are either worth keeping
or salvaged for craft forcrafting materials, you have
to train yourself to quickly skim
for valuable stats on every single item,
(03:15):
which can take longer thanrunning an entire dungeon.
The goal with season four
as Blizzard has said in previousstreams, is to make items
valuable regardless of thembeing an upgrade for you.
And if you take a lookat other action RPGs
that do this well, like last Epoch
and Path of Exile, I think it'spretty safe says the writer,
uh, to assume that it'll besome kind of crafting system
(03:38):
that lets you improve theitems you actually care about.
And there's more in this,
but that's where I'mgonna stop here on that.
Uh, we also have an articlefrom Game Developer, which was,
uh, it's a two minute read
and that one out February 29,
it's titled Diablo Boss Rod Ferguson
(03:58):
Don't treat devs like knobs
and dials in a time of industry crisis.
Diablo franchise Head RodFerguson is urging industry
leaders to act with empathy.
This is written by BryantFrancis, rod Ferguson,
the venerated game industry producer
who joined Blizzard Entertainment
to oversee the Diablo franchisehas built a reputation
(04:20):
as a trusted leader with realexperience from the trenches
of game developmentreporting on Diablo four's,
troubled developmentindicated his stewardship
and his hiring of game directorJoe Shelley helped get an
unstable project back on track
and revitalize development,uh, developer motivation
to make the next great Diablo game
(04:40):
that stewardship givesFerguson authority to speak on
how game industry leadersneed to behave in the midst
of a major layoff crisis.
As his most relevant advice was
that his most relevantadvice was this, be empathic.
These people aren't knobs and dials.
End quote, catching up with Ferguson,
after Microsoft had laid off1,900 workers, parentheses,
(05:02):
many who had worked on Diablo four
and elsewhere at Blizzard Entertainment
and of parentheses was aslightly surreal affair.
Ferguson had just accepted theaward on behalf of the studio
for online game of the year,a huge win for his team,
but a win that wouldn't be shared,
quote back home end quote,
by many no longer with the studio.
That means Ferguson has gonefrom an executive who had
(05:24):
to revitalize developmenton a struggling game to one
who must now rally acreative team devastated
by the loss of their colleagues.
Sharp-eyed readers will note
that Ferguson's advice onempathy, while strong isn't
that far off from the wordswe've heard from industry
leaders who preach about care
and kindness for employees moments
before gutting their income
(05:44):
and in the United Statestheir healthcare, it is
to his credit then thathe offered advice on
what can help leaders showthey are practicing empathy,
not just preaching it.
Quote, one of the things that helps people
through these moments is knowingwhat you have to do next.
He said it's important forpeople in his position to be able
to answer the question,what's that focus quote?
(06:07):
What I really liked about ourplans is that when we know
what our plans are, when people have to go
through challengingtimes, they're not lost.
And like, I don't knowwhat to do the next day.
One hopes that those wordsmean Blizzard's leadership does
have real plans for gameproduction After years
of blundering comments fromformer President Mike Ybarra
and a return to office plan
(06:28):
that seems built moreon spite than empathy.
It continues from there.
Everything I tell talk abouthere is gonna be in the show
notes@shatteredsoulstone.com.
So you can pick that up and read the rest
of this if you care to.
Moving on to some Diablo immortal stuff,
there is a a thing herefrom Diablo Immortal
and there's this creature ina picture frame kind of thing
(06:50):
and it is a female looking person
who looks like they've been half gutted
and bleeding with like all these like long
nails and stuff like that.
And um, it says at the top of this,
the calendar said Leap day,but she heard Leap Slay.
And this is a creaturecalled, uh, EA I-S-C-E-A
(07:11):
and then Diablo I Mortal Rights.
Happy leap year. There's no better way
to spend your extra day thanbattling fearsome bosses like
Isia and more in Diablo.
I Mortal. And there'salso something new in um,
Diablo Mortal right now.
It's called March into Battle.
It's uh, got a lot going onjust from looking at this.
I wish I had like anactual like readout of it,
(07:32):
like you can get for like Diablofour and things like that.
But, but no.
So Diablo Immortal wrote this,
this March more excitinglimited time events
are coming to sanctuary.
Which ones have you hyped?Tell us in the comments.
So there's this calendarhere starting on the 14th.
There's a battle pass24 that's gonna happen
and that seems to be continuing
through the rest of the month.
(07:54):
Um, there's a major update warmup towards
the very end of the month.
Here's the, uh, the thingsthat are gonna happen.
So March one through eighthtrials of the hoards, March two
through ninth, all clans ondeck March eight through 15,
fractured plane eightthrough 15 conqueror nine
(08:15):
through 16 Hungering moon,
which I think is a staple in this game.
It's always there. March15 to 22 is the Wild Brawl.
March 16 to 23 is shady stock 22
to 29 is Survivor's Bane.
22 to 29 is also alley of blood.
23 to 30 is all clans on deck
and 29 to uh, April 5this trial of the hoard.
(08:39):
So if you wanna do any of thatstuff, some of these overlap
so if you wanna likehit all of these things
to get whatever you wantfrom each of these events,
you'll have time to do it.
'cause some of them kindof overlap a little bit.
So it just depends onhow much time you have.
And there was a campfire chat
and we now have a campfire chat recap.
(08:59):
I didn't watch the campfire chat
because I feel like I do alot better if I just read
what they said instead of tryingto summarize a giant video.
So this is what they wrote.
Um, lizard Entertainment wroteon February 29 of this year,
on February 29,
we held a campfire chatshowcasing the gauntlet,
a fixed layout end game dungeon.
Coming on March 5th, communitydirector Adam Fletcher,
(09:23):
associate game director Joe Pri Aporia
and lead live class designerAdam Jackson sat down
to discuss our midseason updatefor season of the construct.
This update brings manyclass balance updates
and the return of a few updatedvampiric powers from season
of blood Vampiric powersreturn as legendary aspects
(09:44):
that have a chance to dropfrom all enemies in sanctuary
play of the Gauntletshowcase event where members
of our development teamshowed gauntlet gameplay,
they were joined by Anna CakeLive and macro bio boy who
provided skillful commentaryduring the carnage.
And there's also anembed in here of the chat
and then there's a blog hereactually that's with it.
(10:06):
So let's see what that has to say.
I think I have this one in heresomewhere else. Yeah, I do.
So I'll just read this other one
and I think I just dumpedthe first one there.
So that's, that's great.
The Diablo four thing is calledundying Gloria Waits in the
trials also posted on February 29th, 2024.
The trials call you fourth wanderer fight
(10:27):
to earn your place on theleaderboards when they
arrive on March 5th.
Each week you can master a new gauntlet,
a fixed non-linear dungeonthat will have you fighting
to earn the mightiest score who will fight
to dominate the competitionearned covered seals
and carve their place on the leaderboards.
Do you have what it takesto become undeniable?
(10:50):
With the um, upcoming mid-season patch,
there will be impactfulclass balance charge changes
and sendal companionupdates coming in the patch
that will introducethis challenge dungeon.
So we will be actively monitoringfeedback to make tweaks
with the gauntlet in mind.
To read more on our upcoming changes,
please read our Diablo four patch notes.
(11:11):
I'll be getting to that in a little while.
Test your prowess in the gauntlet.
This adrenaline fueledchallenge is available
to all classes in the seasonal realm,
whether they're normal or hardcore.
Once you've gained accessto world tier four, travel
to the southwestern pointin gaa Cool at the end
of their longest docks.
(11:31):
It's the formidablehorn of trials activated
to access the gauntlet.
Even though the gauntletis accessible to you.
Upon reaching tier four
or world tier four, monsterlevels will be beyond level 100.
So characters that have hitlevel 100 will be most likely
to triumph in the carnage ahead.
The gauntlet is a fixed layout non-linear
(11:53):
dungeon that changes weekly.
It's an end game dungeonwhere mastery, cunning
and skill will achieve the highest score.
Your score is based on how many proofs
of mite you can earn from killing monsters
and opening chests With theeight minute time limit,
each time you enter thegauntlet during the week you,
it will be identical.
So you can devise your mostefficient mode of slaughter
and let the corpses mark your progress.
(12:14):
The gauntlet concludes eachweek on Tuesday 8:00 AM PST
with the next completelydifferent gauntlet emerging at
10:15 AM PST Strive for your personal best
and fight to the bitter end each week
before the gauntlet begins.
A no proving your mightis the name of the game.
Proofs of M might which dictateyour overall score can be
earned by killing endlesshoards of monsters.
(12:37):
And opening chests pillarscan increase the number
of proofs you can earn, whetherthrough score multipliers
or responding themonsters you just killed.
While score based pillarsincrease your proofs
of might power-based shrinescan also spawn in the gauntlet.
After killing a boss within the dungeon,
a shrine will appear withafn slain activate the shrine
to revive one of the variousshrine effects available,
(12:58):
which will be identicaleach time the same boss is
killed within the gauntlet.
Ferocity and deficiency
and strategy will lead you
to eternal success in the gauntlet.
Considering this is afixed layout dungeon,
each time you enter for the week,
the dungeon layout will be identical.
Attempting different routes
and adjusting your build will be paramount
to mastering each week's layout.
There's some pictures here.
(13:18):
You will be able to respondupon death in the gauntlet,
but you will lose a third
of your score each time you perish.
However, you or your teammatescan recover all your lost
proofs of might at the place
of your last death uponreturning to the dungeon.
As your score increases, sodoes your rank within trials.
Your final score canearn you seals the mark
of your prowess in thegauntlet for that week.
(13:39):
Earning seals proves yourmastery to fellow wanderers.
There are four ranks of seals to earn.
Okay, so there's seal of the blooded seal
of the steadfast steel seal
of the iron willed seal of the worthy.
The seal of the blooded is what most
of you will strive to earn first.
While the seal of the worthywill only be granted to those
who have dedicated themselvesto absolute blood lust
(14:01):
and the gauntlet, the score needed
to earn each seal will vary week by week.
Depending on the layout of the gauntlet
and the class you're playing.
These scores scale with party size.
Larger groups will have aneasier time earning a higher
score than solo players
and will be tracked at a separate leader.
A ladder leaderboard.It will take some sweat
to reach the highest seals.
Do not expect a feeble showingto rank you among the greats.
(14:23):
And there's a little picturehere of you ranked up
and seal of the iron willed kind of thing.
For somebody earning proofs
of might is your sole prioritywithin the visceral strewn
passageways of the gauntlet.
So loot will be rewardedupon completion regardless
of whether you've earned a seal.
If you participate in the gauntlet,
you'll still obtain a minor cash
after each run upon theweekly reset of the gauntlet.
(14:44):
And depending on your best score,
you'll earn caches of trials.
The higher the score, the better the cash
you'll earn earn for that week.
Earning a cash of trialsguarantees one ancestral,
legendary and scales in rank.
With the cash awarded earning the seal
of the worthy will grant themost coveted tr treasures
as they are guaranteed to drop items
with level 925 power earning.
(15:06):
A seal of higher rankwill still grant you the
rewards of a lower seal.
With the seal of the worthygranting you all seal cash
is available for that week.
You can also earn multiple seals
for the multiple gauntletladders that are available.
And then there's the leaderboardsand hall of the ancients.
Leaderboards are separated byladders for class party size,
normal and hardcore.
They can also be filtered by friends
(15:28):
and by clan to see
how you measure up againstyour closest allies.
For those of you who wantfriendlier competition,
apply these filters toindividual ladders to see whom
among your friends is the deadliest
of all class specificladders will only be designed
for those playing solo.
This means there are 16 possibleweekly ladders to ascend.
In total your best scoreacross all classes, characters
(15:51):
and platforms are the ones
that will mark your tenuousspot amongst the great.
You do not need to have cross play enabled
to have your score rankon the leaderboards,
but you do need toenable cross play to view
that leaderboard in game.
Note that while the ladders
for each weeklyleaderboard will be active,
once the gauntlet arrives onMarch 5th, we'll be waiting
to launch our gauntlet gauntlet contest
(16:12):
until we have been able to balance it
around your skills and abilities.
Considering this mid-seasonupdate introduces class balance
updates and changes to theChaw companion, we want
to ensure we can monitor your feedback
and make updates as needed.
More details for the gauntletcontest will be revealed soon.
If you manage to secureyour place in the top 100
of any ladder, you willalso earn a conquerors
(16:34):
chest mount trophy.
If you can manage to becomethe greatest among us
and place in the top 10 onany of the leaderboards,
you'll have your name andcharacter immortalized in the
permanent hall of the ancients,allowing future legions
of wanderers to gaze uponyour coveted performance.
Best the trials and masterthe gauntlet when it goes
live on March five.
Over on max roll we have thegauntlet Camp fire chat wrap up
(16:57):
written by Dred Sy who doesexcellent work over there.
So here's just some stuff.
The gauntlet, campfire chat,live stream just took place.
The panel consisting of Joseph Priya,
associate game director AdamJackson, lead class designer
and Adam Fletcher, associatedirector of community
with special guests Macrobio Boy and Anna Cake live.
If you don't know who thoseare, both of those are streamers
(17:19):
that play Diablo for the topicsincluding the gauntlet class
Balancing season four updates and q and a.
The patch notes will bereleased tomorrow, March 1st,
which is today, and go live on March 5th.
See all the major points below.
So returning Vampiric powers,there's a little picture here
with some words in it it says,returning Vampiric powers,
(17:39):
six vampiric powers arereturning from season of blood.
These are being reintroduced
as legendary powers not uniques.
They are not all exact one-to-Onecopies largely are close
to matching their previous functionality.
The powers that are returningare a cursed touch blood boil,
hectic, hectic, hectic metamorphosis.
(18:02):
Moonrise and undying six fanfavorite vampire vampiric
powers are coming back this time.
They're compared tomalignant rings being unique.
So these are returning aslegendary powers instead.
So the a curse touchis an offensive skill.
Blood boil is an offensiveskill. Hectic is a utility skill.
Metamorphos is mobility skill.
Moonrise is an offensive skill
(18:22):
and undying is defensivefor class balance.
The dev team went overgeneral balance changes
for classes in regards to theseason three theme as well
as true class updates.
So here's some stuff.Mid-season updates snapshotting.
We fixed many cases of snapshotting
that have been reported to us in general.
We want to move towards
completely removing it from the game.
(18:44):
Gauntlet for the gauntlet gear skill tree
and paragon cannot be changed.
Rogue fixed an issue
where the weapon masterypassive was double dipping
on critical strike damage.
Bonuses such as with theprecision key passive fixed an
issue where the precisionkey passive was incorrectly
scaling based on the player'scritical strike damage bonus.
There's also some other issueshere for the mid-season.
(19:06):
Updates a few issuesof are being addressed
to make sure the gauntlet is as smooth
and fair as possible in order to do so.
Many instances of snapshottinghave been reported
and the team has made a statementtowards removing it from
the game as much as possible.
If not completely, this candrastically reduce the possible
points of exploiting many skillsslash gear slash lucky hit
interactions that could breakthe game resulting in certain
(19:29):
builds being too powerfulfor the gauntlet itself.
Your gear skills, paragon, et cetera,
are locked once youenter no funny business
of swapping out weapons or the like.
This is very similar to what was done
for greater rifts in Diablo three.
Lastly, the rogue weapon masteryPassive was double dipping.
So the team got the reportsand and is fixing the issue.
(19:49):
If you wanna know what yourclass is gonna be like in this,
you can look at a, you canlook it up in this Maxwell
article for the Barbarian, Druid,
necromancer, rogue and Sorcerer.
Um, and then there's a littlebit more in here about the
gauntlet, which I kind of read some of it,
you know, some of it here.
But Dready goes very deeplyinto what all these things are
and how that's gonna affect you.
There's also Diablo fourpatch notes done on March 1st
(20:11):
and uh, I always read these
'cause sometimes thereis hysterically funny
and sometimes I'm justlike, what are you doing?
You know. So the Diablofour team has been monitor
monitoring your feedback.
As we introduce patchesto keep your experience
and sanctuary smooth, wewill update the below list
and denote whether the fixesare intended for pc, Xbox,
PlayStation, or all platforms.
So here we are developers note,
(20:33):
select Vampiric powers fromseason of blood have returned
with some tweaks to maketheir power level fit into
season of the construct.
These powers will be available
as legendary aspects in allworld tears and both the eternal
and seasonal realms of a cursed touch.
Lucky hits up to a 20 to 35% chance
to inflict vampire curse on enemies.
(20:55):
Enemies afflicted by vampirecurse are also vulnerable.
Vampire curses stored souls deal 20%
to 50% increased damage of metamorphosis.
When you evade
and you turn into a cloudof bats becoming unstoppable
for 2.5 seconds.
Enemies along your pathtake physical damage
and are inflicted with vampiric Curse.
(21:15):
Evades cool down is increased by five
to 10 seconds, blood boiling.
When your core skills over power
and enemy, you spawn threevolatile blood drops.
Collecting a volatile blooddrop causes it to explode,
dealing physical damagearound you every 20 seconds.
Your next skill is guaranteedto overpower hectic.
For every five basic skills you cast, one
(21:36):
of your active cooldowns is reduced by two
to four seconds On dying.
Casting skills heals youfor 0.5, uh, to 2% of life.
This heals for an additional 1% of life.
While you are below 50% of life
of the moonrise damaging an enemy
with a basic skill grantsyou 4% attack speed
(21:56):
for 10 seconds stacking up to five times
upon reaching maximum stacks,
you enter a vampiric blood rage gaining 40
to 80% basic skill damage at 15% movement
speed for 10 seconds.
Personally I think that'sgonna be a lot of fun.
I really liked Season of Blood.
I've been putting videos up on YouTube,
slowly takes a while to get 'em there.
(22:16):
Um, but I had a lot of fun with that one
and I'm kind of strugglinga little bit in the current
season, which I'll talk aboutlater if I still have time.
So we have some balance updates in
general, there are unique items.
Ring of starless skies nowshows a buff on the bar.
While active penitent grieves damage
to chilled enemies increasedfrom seven to 10% to 12 to 15%
(22:37):
tats of the dawning sky.
Maximum resistance increasefrom six to 10% to eight to 12%.
Mothers embrace resourcerefund increase from 20 to 40%
to 30 to 50%.
There's more of these
and then it goes intothe different classes
and the stuff that they've got.
Then there's some bug fixes,which are usually interesting.
Fix an issue where the algained double the benefit from
(23:00):
skills that benefit allies such
as the barbarian's warcry or druids blood.
How fix an issue where anattack that swaps from melee
to crossbow would doublethe bonuses from the
precision and weapon mastery.
Rogue passives fixed an issue where some
interactable objects associatedwith various quests such
as lyndon's stash
during the discretionaryspending quest could not be
(23:22):
interacted with while mounted.
I just did that one againin the current season
and I didn't have a problem with this
because I just didn't use the mount.
Just kind of followedLyndon around the little.
If you haven't done the question,
I'm not gonna tell you about it.
But that, you know, I justdidn't have, I have a horse,
I have many horses, I just don't use them
very often in this season.
(23:42):
Fix an issue where the camerawould not reset if the player
died during the echo
of Lilith encounter whilethe camera was zoomed out.
An issue where the juggernautaspect didn't apply armor
while the player was mounted.
Oh, okay. So what I'm lookingat here is maybe don't use
your horse if you'rerunning into these dungeons.
(24:04):
Fix an issue where theguaranteed overpower granted
by the druids enhancedpulverized did not immediately
did not apply immediatelyafter acquiring 12 stacks.
That's a problem. Fix an issue
where the necromancerskeleton reaper's chance
to create a corpse wasbased on lucky hit instead
of a flat percentage fix.
An issue where bone splinterscast from the shattered spirit
(24:27):
aspect didn't receive thevulnerable effect granted
by the initiates bone.
Splinter fix an issue
where thorns was not consistentwhen applying lucky hit
example, thorns couldtrigger a born deify,
but not hued flesh fixed anissue where the cult leader,
legendary paragon node didn'tproperly give bonus damage
(24:48):
based on bonus minionattack speed fixed an issue
where the rotting acts aspectwouldn't spawn additional
corpses, which I guess you'resupposed to have a fixed,
an issue where the sorcerer'sfrigid fate and elemental sum
or legendary paragon effectsdid not work properly
with the aspect of el of the elements.
Fix an issue where the fierysurge passive was not granting
(25:08):
as much man regenerationas it should fix an issue
where bonus damage fromenhanced cal traps could apply
more often than intended.
When stacking multiple casts
of Cal Trops on the sameenemy fixed an issue
where enhanced Cal Tropswas dealing less damage
than expected to bosses.
Here's a developer's note,some items, legendary aspects,
passives, paragon bonuses
(25:30):
and skills displayedbugs that allowed players
to gain more power thanintended when you equipped
and then unequipped them.
We believe these interactionslead to a worse experience
for all players as it creates a stigma
that these bugs must be exploited
to reach new levels of power.
The bug fixes below addresses all known
instances of this issue.
So here's some bug fixes fixed an issue
(25:51):
with multiple legendary aspects
where equipping duplicateaspects would always apply the
effect of the first equipped aspect.
Ignoring the rule of applyingonly the strongest equipped
aspect fixed an issue whereunlearning of of rise mastery
with the major Lords aspectequipped would cause the effect
of rise mastery to remain active, fixed.
An issue where a power
(26:12):
that grants a bonus stat basedon another stat would not
readjust after thetemporary bonuses wore off.
There's some uh, interfaceexperience stuff here
and some miscellaneous stuff,
but that's pretty mucheverything you probably
need to know from this one.
Going back to Max roll, we haveanother one from Dready, uh,
talking about the patchI just write about, um,
he might have some stuff in here
(26:33):
that wasn't mentioned in there.
So this one's called Diablofour patch 1.3 0.3 notes,
wow head posted Diablo four Battle pass
and Tear Skips purchasablewith Microsoft Rewards.
That probably sounds strange if you
haven't been paying attention.
This was posted three days ago by popular,
popular on Wow head andit has a lovely photo
(26:54):
or image of an aria with like a sword
and like some red background
and all of those like, you know,
wing light things going on there.
Here's what they wrote.
Did you know that the Diablofour premium battle pass,
accelerated Battle Pass
and Battle Pass tier skipscan be purchased using
Microsoft rewards points.
While this option has beenavailable for some time,
(27:15):
blizzard has restated thisoffer in a recent tweet.
Here's what they tweeted about.
Leave no bounty unclaimedredeem your Microsoft rewards
points for Diablo four BattlePass upgrades and tier skips.
Learn more. Well, what arewe gonna learn more about?
Let's find out. Okay, so ittakes you to the microsoft.com
(27:38):
rewards site
and it says Earn rewards withMicrosoft just by simply doing
what you love to do.
Sign in or create a Microsoft account
and get points for giftcards sweepstakes and more.
Um, it tells you, you you have to sign in.
You may already be a member.
Try logging in with your Microsoft account
before creating a new one.
Visit the rewards dashboard.There's a link to that.
(28:01):
Earn points, score top rewards.
And there's all this other stuff in here
that you might wanna look atif you, if you're gonna do it.
But the thing is you have to be part
of Microsoft Rewards is the thing.
So if you're thinking,oh, I'm gonna just use
that Battle Pass thing and
and be fine, uh, maybenot
I think they want youto like buy something
(28:21):
or purchase that in some way
and I don't tend to do that very often.
So if if that's something
that you think is gonna helpyou get through the game,
by all means go for it.
Also on wow head top fivefan Pric powers, we'd like
to see return to Diablo four.
So let's see how thisparticular article features, uh,
or connects with or maybe is the same
(28:41):
or different from the onesthat we're talking about.
The six different aspectsthat you could possibly get
after this week's approaching.
Campfire Chat promises a discussion
regarding the resurgence.
Vampire Vampiric Powersplayers are looking forward
to reuniting with theirfavorite seasonal features from
season of Blood with so manypowers to choose from though,
which will make the cut.
We've taken a look at all theVampiric powers from season
(29:03):
two in Diablo four
and picked our top five that we'd like
to see return to the game.
And there's a littlepiece here from Blizzard.
It says, join associate directorof community Adam Fletcher,
associate game director Joseph Priya
and lead live class designer Adam Jackson
as they delve into the gauntletleaderboards balance updates
and blood thirsty powersset to make their return.
(29:24):
Season three introducedChaw companion combat pets
with a wide range of abilities
that have mostly been wellreceived after patch 1.3 0.1.
But Vampiric powers weredifferent in the sense
that they felt active and intentional.
You weren't left trying tofigure out how much of an impact
hemo mancy was making.
You saw the animation
and subsequent damage preyon the weak equated increased
(29:47):
damage to vulnerable enemiesto a direct damage increase.
Undying made basic focusbuilds like the Storm Cloud
Druid feel immortal.
Vampiric powers are a greatexample of two things.
Joyable engaging seasonal features
and the downsides of borrowed power.
While Chel companions are favored enough
that some players have requestedthey become a permanent
(30:08):
part of Diablo four, the lossof vampiric powers was felt
by most builds in regardsto both play style
and overall effectiveness.
We don't know exactly what the return
of vampiric powers will look like.
Patch two 1.2 0.2introduced malignant rings
that incorporated parts ofmalignant hearts from season one
into uniques, uh, such ast Russia's iridescent loop.
(30:29):
It seems rather unlikely thatwe'll see more unique rings
as it's difficult enough for most builds
to lose even a single ringexclusive legendary aspect.
Unlike malignant hearts,
vampiric powers weren't class specific.
So a unique for any slotwould need strong universally
valued gear apexes to justify.
Regardless of how Vampiric powers return,
we know which ones we would like
(30:50):
to see other than Metamorphs.
And then it's got somedescription of all of those things
that I already kind of readto you and little pictures
and stuff like that, um,
that could show you alittle bit more about it.
And that's, yeah, that's that article.
We've got one here fromBlizzard watch 60 Ablo four.
Season two Vampiric Powersreturned to the game
as apexes in Mid-seasonupdate written by Liz Pat.
(31:11):
And it does have all of the same ones
that I've mentioned already in here,
but I'll read you a little bit around
that part since I don't need to repeat it.
Over and over. Diablo four,
season three will be bringingback six popular Vampiric
powers from season two, thefan favorite season of blood
as new legendary a Xes.
These powers were some of the highlights
of playing season two
(31:32):
and tied in so well with theseason's Vampiric aesthetic.
Metamorphos Bat Cloudwill stick with my memory
for a while, says Liz Pat.
I think that's her name.Let me make sure I'm right.
Yes, that's right. Okay,
and spoiler Metamorphs isreturning these new vampire
inspired Legendaries will be going live
with the mid-season patch on March 5th.
And then the dev team it, itmentions the campfire thing
(31:55):
and all of that and then what these, um,
what these aspects are going to be.
I'll skip over that 'causeI've already talked about
that in this episode.
Uh, she continues with, frankly,
these are pretty spectaculareven in their modified forms.
Name one player that didn'tenjoy metamorphosis. Go on.
I'll wait. Yes, havingan increased cool down
to evade isn't awesome,
but that's why you stack extraevade charges on your boot
(32:17):
stats, even with a longer cool down,
I'd much rather turn intoan unstoppable bat cloud.
Now keep in mind these aregetting added as drop aspects.
They won't be showing upin your codex of power,
at least not anytime soon.
You'll have to extract them from pieces
of gear if you want them applied
to existing legendary items,
but they're definitely stillworth working into your gear.
(32:38):
So that's a thing to do.
This is from the Diabloaccount on x slash Twitter.
It is a short video of 51 seconds.
There's a person here talking about it.
They didn't actually tell me what the name
of this person is.
Um, and he seems to bejust like showing you
what you could do with yourhaw and your vampiric powers.
(33:00):
And then the last one in heretwo days ago from WOW head
written by Redna Ani.
Why Herb Gathering needsimprovement in Diablo four.
Some topics in the Diablocommunity will always spark
controversy slash stashspace drop rates, itemization
and the in-game shop have allbeen hot topics burning their
way through circles of wanderers.
(33:21):
Since Diablo four launched,
we've got our own opinions read on
to find out more aboutour take on the herb
system in Diablo four.
There's a lot in here.
Um, it's not incredibly long,
but there's a bunch of stuff in here,
but I'll give you some of it.
Table of contents.
There's a table of contents in this thing.
Uh, it starts with theentire herb collection system
(33:42):
for making elixirs
and upgrading Potions wascreated for a different game era.
It's time for a seriousrevisit to the herb, elixir,
and incense system.
Back before season one, everyonewas doing a lot of running
around above ground, doingside quests, going after alters
and finishing the campaign.
Since herbs are onlyobtained by direct farming
or doing side quests that giveyou a, um, like a herb cache
(34:04):
and assorted herbs, gettingenough herbs wasn't much
of an issue because you spentso much time above ground
where you could grabthem as you went along.
In today's world ofspamming, nightmare dungeons
and vaults to level, becauseopen world experience gives
so little well experiencegetting enough herbs even
to upgrade your healing potioncan cause serious problems.
There are four key areas where herbs
and elixirs could usesome serious improvement.
(34:26):
So herb farming isn't viable.
Getting enough herbs oftenmeans open world farming.
Without an in-game way totrack herb nodes in the world,
it's often a complete guess as to
where you'll even find these nodes
and they have a terriblehabit of disappearing.
I've gone back to previous hotspots only
to find a local herb Plaguehas wiped everything out.
Herb node yield is also ridiculously low.
It is frustrating to findthose elusive bite berry nodes
(34:49):
only to have it yield onebite berry when you need 27
to upgrade a major healingpotion at level 80 solution.
There are many possible fixesthat would help these issues,
including improving yieldsfrom herb nodes, density
of outdoor nodes and respon rates.
However, reducing the relianceon an open world farming
would've a much bigger impact.
The lack of quote, indoor options.
(35:10):
Currently, there are no methodsfor reliably gathering herbs
inside dungeons or vaults.
You may on occasion havedropped a low level piece
of gear roll into an herbinstead of, instead of due
to the changes in lootimplemented in season two.
This is completely randomand UNT targetable.
So you can't rely on RNG toget your herbs stocked up.
Since these dungeons vaultcom comprise a large portion
(35:30):
of players' time due to needingto great upgrade glyphs,
it also isolates playersfrom being able to use GA
or to gather useful herbs or elixirs.
While you have, sometimeswhile you will sometimes get
elixirs or drops fromchest, you don't always get
what you want, nor do you have any method
to turn them into something new
and there's a solution in there.
Lack of an alchemy vendor.That's interesting.
(35:51):
There are vendors connected tothe blacksmith who sell magic
and rare armor and weapons.
The jeweler has a sales representative
for rings and amulets.
The occultist job is madeeasier by selling ENC chance
through the farmed famed, sorry, nope.
Farmed codex of power.
The Alchemist is the only one
that has no direct sales option
and players running lowon elixirs can definitely
feel loss solution.
(36:11):
Adding pre-made elixirs
to the Alchemist shopcould alleviate a large
portion of the herb burden.
An Alchemist vendor could sellbasic utility elixirs like
resistances, armor and extra health,
but without the 5% inexperience, perk, crafted
or dropped, elixirs would always be better
and have a wider range of abilities.
But it would give playersan option to use gold
to cover basic quality of life shortfalls.
(36:33):
No way to salvage unwanted elixirs.
The blacksmith can salvageunwanted gear for upgrade bits.
The occulus can remove legendaryaspects to transfer them
to better items or a different slot.
The jeweler can break downgems so you can upgrade
to better gems withoutwasting lower level gems.
But while the al Alchemistscan recycle one type
of herb into another, thatdoesn't help when your overall
(36:55):
herb stock is already low.
The solution is there's nothing you can do
with unwanted elixirsother than use them just
for the experience bonus,give them to an alt
or sell them for a pittance.
So why not allow the alchemist
to salvage unwanted elixirswhile converting elixirs into
whole herbs would require some real magic.
The Alchemist should be able
(37:15):
to salvage unwanted potionsinto components essences
that can take the place of that herb.
This would be a welcomeaddition to Potion Management.
And that's the end of the things I needed
to talk about in this show.
And with that, I'm gonnaclose out this episode.
You have been listening to episode 4, 4 8
of the Shattered Soul Stone.
Your Diablo Communitypodcast missed an episode.
(37:38):
You can find the show blog
and listen to the show archives at
www shattered soul stone.com.
Come join us in game ourin-game community and clan.
Both named Shattered Soul Stone are open
to anyone who would like to join.
You could also join us on Discord.
For the ultimate team andcommunity-based experience,
find the Discord invitationlink on our Twitter at shattered
stone as well as theShattered Soul Stone website.
(38:00):
Thank you for listening.
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