Nephalem, not long to wait! The first Reaper of Souls update is on its way, and now we are preparing to open a test game world so that you can evaluate all the changes in practice. Soon you will be able to crunch into new items! And today we will briefly talk about all the important changes so that you know what awaits you in the test world.
Please note: This is a preview. It may not fully cover the changes that will appear in the 2.1.0 update, and the features we are talking about may change in the course of testing and further development. Some illustrations show fragments of the game during development - they may differ from the final version.
Table of contents
Seasons
As in Diablo II, players will now periodically have the opportunity to restart the game, returning their characters and artisans to the first level. Participation in the seasons entitles you to exclusive rewards and unique legendary items appearing in each new season. In addition, once you start climbing the new leaderboards, you will quickly get a taste and will not resist the temptation to face off against other players in conquests, achievements and races through the great Nephalem portals.
Left: the seasonal crusader is ready to join the battle.
On right: a full overview of your seasonal characters can be seen in the character profile.
Conquest
Conquests will be available at the start of each season. These are special achievements tied to the season (in addition to the regular achievements already in the game). Each conquest has a challenging goal that depends on the gameplay and the level of difficulty: some conquests are easier, others are more difficult. This can be anything from killing Malthael at level 70 of Torment VI to completing all Acts I through IV in an hour. Conquests deliberately emphasize different play styles.
Conquests go to those in a hurry: The first 1000 players to complete a Conquest in a given season will be immortalized in the leaderboard for their region. We are currently planning to offer 10-15 unique conquests in each season, and for each of them there will be a separate leaderboard. But regardless of whether you get into the rating or not, achievement points are also awarded for completing a conquest. They will count towards your total points total this season.
Are you not up to the seasons? Please!
If you're not in the mood to start from scratch, then fine. After all, seasons are purely voluntary. At the end of the season, new Legendary items from this will be added to the list of regular, non-seasonal loot. In addition, non-seasonal characters can participate in the ratings of the great portals, which means you can measure your strength with friends and other players from your clan.
Greater portals
Greater portals (formerly "rating portals") are special Nephalem portals, during which you will be able to fully assess the effectiveness of your combat equipment and its compliance with your level.How to get to the great portal?
To access the Great Portal, play the Normal Nephalem Portal on any difficulty. If you defeat the Portal Guard, he will drop the Greater Nephalem Portal Key. Using this key, as with the portal stones, you can open the great portal while at the obelisk of the nephalem. When the Great Portal opens, your fellow travelers must use their own keys to the Great Portal to join you!
A special key is required to enter the great portal.
The device of the great portals
While Greater Rifts are a subset of Nephalem Rifts, there are several major differences between the two. This is how great portals work.
- Your progress is measured by a timer; a record of killed monsters is kept.
- Most monsters do not drop loot. All of it is transferred to the guard of the portal.
- This way, you don't have to sacrifice good loot to get through the portal in record time.
- Killing different monsters fills the progress bar in different ways. The stronger the monster, the faster the indicator will fill.
- In the great portal, you cannot resurrect near your body or in the city. This can only be done at the last savepoint.
- Please note that now, if you are killed in the Great Portal in Heroic Difficulty, your hero will not be able to resurrect.
- You will not be able to use player banners to teleport if the target player is in a great portal.
- The difficulty level of great portals increases gradually and does not depend on the difficulty level set in the game settings ("Master", "Torment I-VI", etc.).
The progress bar in the Grand Portal looks slightly different.
It shows the relationship between passing and efficiency.
Legendary Gems
Greater Rifts are an arduous ordeal, and must be rewarded with solid rewards for completing them. Therefore, we are introducing legendary gems into the game - special rewards, the power of which can increase as the game progresses.
Legendary gems are still on early stage developments and in the PTR will not appear immediately. In a nutshell, these gems will give your hero special legendary abilities when placed in a specific slot of equipment. They can be "developed" indefinitely through the passage of other great portals. The better you prove yourself in the great portal, the more likely your gem will become more powerful. We will talk more about this innovation as we develop it further. Nephalem Portals
The usual Nephalem portals will also be affected by the changes. For example, the progress bar when killing a monster will fill up according to the same principle as in great portals. In addition, we are planning to slightly change the mechanics of entering all portals. Previously, all players needed its fragments to enter the Nephalem Portal. However, we have slightly reduced the requirements: now you only need one fragment to enter the portal.
Leaderboards
Players have a lot of reasons to compete with each other, and you need to view the results quickly and conveniently. Therefore, update 2.1.0 introduces an important new feature - Leaderboards.Great Portals, Seasonal Achievement Points, and Conquest Results for a variety of play styles are displayed here. In this informative table, you will find detailed information and can compare your result with the results of a friend, a player from your clan, or other players from your region. Each rating table has its own criteria for assessing progress.
IN rating tables you can compare your achievements with the results of friends and other players from your clan.
Evaluation criteria in each table are different.
Great Portal Leaderboards
There are separate Leaderboards for Normal and Heroic Greater Rifles. In addition, Seasonal and Non-Seasonal Leaderboards will be added to the game. To help our users diversify their play style and compare their results with those of other players, we have developed the following leaderboard categories:
- single player game for each character class (barbarian, demon hunter, crusader, etc.);
- groups of 2 players;
- groups of 3 players;
- groups of 4 players.
Some of the leaderboards will be highly seasonal. For example, Conquest Results are only tracked for Seasonal Players, so there are no Conquest Leaderboards for Non-Seasonal Players. The same goes for Seasonal Achievement Points. In addition, since conquests and achievement points apply to the entire account, the corresponding results in the leaderboards will be displayed without reference to Normal or Heroic modes (although you will have to play in a certain game mode to complete some tasks).
Changes in combat mechanics
Of course, by introducing so many competitive elements into the game, we are forced to revise the mechanics of each class so that all players have an equal chance of reaching the goals of the next season. We will not go into details now, but instead present you with a couple of examples of changes made for the future. We will experiment with these changes in the open testing phase.Agility and survivability
The first big change will affect Monk and Demon Hunter Agility. Agility provides bonuses to survivability that are completely different from those that give strength and intelligence. The dodge stat provides less reliable protection compared to armor or damage resistance, and does not work at all when faced with plague monsters and petrels. We want to leave the tank role to classes like crusader, but we want to achieve this at the expense of their class skills, and not at the expense of reducing the survivability of monks or demon hunters.
Therefore, agility will no longer affect your dodge chance. Instead, for each point of agility, the character will receive one point of armor. With this in mind, we will be changing the mechanics of the Monk and Demon Hunter skills, but you will have to play the test version to find out the details!
Treatment
The next change will affect treatment. Currently, the healing received from equipment does not have of great importance, since the lion's share of the replenished health falls on the health spheres. We want equipment to have a stronger effect on healing, so we are reducing the amount of health restored by orbs, and strengthening such elements of mechanics as health replenishment on damage and health regeneration rate. This change will also have a positive effect on situations where the player spends more time fighting each enemy, and therefore requires more healing - for example, when the difficulty of the game or the level of the passage of the great portal increases.
Sewage pits
In this update the main role the great portals and the seasons system play. But we are trying to update other elements of the game, so that you don't get tired of the adventure mode.Sewer pits, the sewers of Westmarch, were planned to be introduced into the game in Reaper of Souls, but this zone of the game was not yet quite ready for the release of the add-on.
In the Sewers, you will meet - and fight - with a variety of creatures.
However, we loved the look and feel of this dungeon — an oppressive environment of dampness and decay. Therefore, we refined the Sump Pits, and now it is a new randomly generated dungeon. You can get into it through the regular and great Nephalem portals (during the passage of the portal, you can randomly find yourself on one of the levels of the Sewers). We hope you enjoy it there!
We're going to add some more new features to the game ... But let's not get ahead of ourselves. You will see it all in the PTR soon!
1. Introduction to Greater Portals
There are three main directions in Adventure Mode: game process, in which you will spend most of your game: "Orders", "Normal portals" ("Nephalem") and "Greater portals". Greater Portals are considered the most difficult of the three modes, in which you can see all your efforts to develop your character. Greater Portals take the randomization of Normal Portals, but remove all loot (loot) and interactive objects in favor of pure combat, up to the Great Guardian of the Rift. By defeating him, he receives all the looted items at the end of the passage. Loot depends on difficulty (portal level).
2. Rewarding Great Portals
Greater Rifts are the only place where you can get legendary gems and upgrade them. With a new character, each new Great Portal completed will reward you with one Legendary Gem until you complete your entire collection, Urshi, the NPC that spawns after killing the Portal Keeper will be your source of legendary updates precious stones but only if you finish the VI within a 15 minute timer. You have three chances to upgrade your gem. You get an extra chance if you don't die even once inside a VP, and before the VP starts, you can pay gold for an “opportunity” for another chance to upgrade the quality on successful completion. The success of a gem upgrade is displayed with a percentage based on the difference between the VP level and the current gem level:
- 100% chance of increasing the difference at level 10;
- 90% chance of 9;
- 80% chance for 8;
- 70% chance for 7;
- 60% chance of a difference in levels from 6 to 0;
- 30% chance -1;
- 15% chance -2;
- 8% chance -3;
- 4% chance -4;
- 2% chance for -5;
- 1% chance for -6;
- 0% chance for -7;
Since Greater Rifts can increase significantly in difficulty than other portals or assignments, it is natural for the VPs to become a farming location for Paragon's levels.
Successfully completing the solo Great Rift increases your Blood Shards limit (from 500) by 10 per level.
Last but not least, Greater Portals are the leading activity in, and of course the most widely recognized. Each class has its own solo leaderboard, and there are multiplayer (group) leaderboards for 2, 3, and 4 people. Naturally, the ratings are also split between seasonal and non-seasonal, as well as Normal and Heroic modes.
3. How to effectively pass the Great Portals
The entrance to the Great Portals is limited by the number of your stones. To help you understand better, the locations of the VP will be divided into three levels: Fast farming, Medium farming, and Paragon leveling.
High-speed farming covers VP levels from 1 to 70. The goal of high-speed farming is primarily to acquire decent equipment at the earliest levels and get legendary gems and pump paragon. The advantages are that they can be launched in any team composition, including regular open play early season for 4 people.
Medium farming starts around level 70-80. Intermediate goals are primarily Paragon levels, moderate gem upgrades, and extra gem leveling for Caldesann enthusiasts. This is the most common launch type you'll encounter during the first week or so, and requires at least one support hero to protect your DPS allies. In turn, DPSs are more limited in build selection and will need to run efficient meta-matching builds.
Paragon leveling usually starts at 90+ for solo and 105+ for groups. However, this is a very personal level and only depends on the person or group that uses it - it only has two goals: perfecting legendary gems and placing on the board of honor. This level assumes that you have excellent equipment, skills and knowledge of the game and know its basics. In groups, this level also requires strict adherence to the meta, performing 2 supports and 2 DPS - one AoE and one target.
3.1. The importance of pylons
Pylons are much more powerful than the shrine and can spawn in VP, but are balanced with a shorter duration. Their timely use on a good threshold can be decisive for a successful EP push attempt.
The first factor in the appearance of the pylon is your pass rate.
The second important factor is your current location on the map. Pylons have fixed points in various maps where they can appear. Try to make mental points of the places where they appear, that is, the circular intersection of the plague tunnel maps, the upper right room of the cathedral, the T-sections of the crypt maps, etc.
Using real pylons can be as difficult as obtaining them. The timing of the use of pylons is important and they can vary greatly from assembly, but the following guides will help you:
- Power Pylon lasts 30 seconds and increases your damage by 400%. If the Keeper is not already present, you can try to take down a bunch of enemies near the Pylon and continue with the rift, then return to finish them with the appropriate% remaining to summon the Rift Keeper next to the Pylon. Before you take it, evaluate the strengths of your build and try to take it as soon as you have more damage, take down the boss.
- Lightning Pylon lasts 30 seconds and triggers lightning arcs that branch out to different targets, striking 5-10 times per second. Lightning strikes do fixed damage, it does not affect the player's damage, buffs and debuffs. It is better to take this pylon during the demolition of packs of mobs, since it is almost useless on the boss.
- Support Pylon lasts 30 seconds, reduces cooldowns by 75%, and removes all resource costs (except for skills that clearly indicate that they are depleting the entire resource). This pylon has different strength depending on your build and can range from vital (on CD-heavy builds) to nearly useless (generator builds).
- The speed pylon lasts 60 seconds, increases movement speed by 100% and attack speed by 30%, and allows you to move freely through enemies. You also hit enemies as you walk through them. It can be used equally on the boss and on mobs.
- The Pylon of Defense lasts 60 seconds and provides immunity to all incoming damage and crowd control.
3.2. The importance of monsters and elites
The ever-changing Greater Portal maps combined with their monster difficulty levels can lead to some very different results in similar levels due to the fluid structure. It is the generation of certain cards and the population of mobs that has a great influence on the level of passing the VP. Monsters can stand in packs, or stand as units on the map. Such rifts usually need to be restarted, since you will not get anything worthwhile except for wasting time.
There are a few rules to watch out for:
Be careful with monsters that can keep their distance from you, or run away (for example, ghosts, snake mages, jumpers, etc.) - they can waste valuable time.
Beware also monsters that explode, or leave behind poisonous puddles, they can quickly kill you, so you must be vigilant.
Try to fight in and around slow moving, high cost per kill monsters (indicator fill).
Stay on top when facing monsters with powerful debuff abilities. For example, enslaved nightmares applying curses that can cut your toughness or healing in half without being able to retreat, followed by an amazing, inevitable explosion. Skip these monsters without hesitation!
Some of these tips also apply to assessing elites with their affixes. Study your participation in the following elite affixes carefully.
Elite with shields are temporarily invulnerable to damage, forcing you to lose DPS and reset cooldowns. Pay special attention to the currently protected monster.
Elite with teleporters can dodge large chunks of your DPS, displacing themselves or you. This makes it difficult to control and predict your character.
Elite illusionist cause some confusion with additional interference on the screen and you waste time looking for the right mob.
Blizzard does not make official ratings. But fan sites make them. The most popular one in the world is DiabloProgress.com. This entire page will be dedicated to him.
Important: information is collected from all servers (American, European, Asian), therefore the ratings on diabloprogress.com are the most complete.
How to add your character to statistics
To do this, you need to go to your BattleTag in the search box (you can take it from personal account in battle.net):
If your data is already there, you will see a list of characters:
If not, a message will appear that "information about your heroes will appear a little later", in practice - after 1-10 minutes.
After that, by clicking on the desired character, you go to the information page on him and on all his places in the ratings:
If your eyes run up from the number of digits and nothing is clear - below is a description of all the parameters in the statistics.
How to quickly update information
Those who follow the ratings, including the positions of their character, know how important it is to quickly update information on their character. But not many people know how to do this, and they wait 1-2 days for the information to update itself. Or out of their ignorance, they then scold the rating, they say it is slowly updated there, although everything can be done almost instantly.
Let's say you've just taken a new level of excellence and want to see how much you've climbed in the rankings. For this:
1. We exit the game completely (you can go to the login window).
2.
Go to your profile at eu.battle.net/d3/ and see if the information has been updated there. If not, go in and out of the game again.
The information there is updated almost instantly after you exit the game.
3. After the information on eu.battle.net/d3/ has been updated, go to the character's page on diabloprogress.com and click the button on the right "Update Now":
4. Wait 1-3 minutes, and refresh the page (F5) - the information will be updated, as well as your positions in the ratings will be updated.
Description of ratings
For each of the parameters, you can see your 4 positions:
- World- your place among all players in the world (only the division by softcore / hardcore is taken into account)
- Europe- your place among the players of European servers
- Class- your place is only among your class (in the world and in Europe, respectively)
If there are no positions for some parameter, then the value of this parameter is very small, and you are not included in the rating.
- Progress- here it is shown how much you completed the game (and all difficulty levels: Nightmare, Hell, Inferno), and your place in passing among other players
- Paragon Level- your place in the level of excellence (most popular rating)
- Heroscore- rating by the total sum of the following parameters: damage per second, effective health, health regeneration and stats. To put it simply, this rating reflects the overall coolness of the items you are wearing.
- DPS Unbuffed- damage per second (no buffs)
- EHP Unbuffed- for effective health
- Elite kills- by the number of killed elite monsters
- Life- for health
- Resistance- by resistance to all types of damage
- Armor- an indicator of armor (without buffs and without taking into account pissive skills)
- Strength- strength rating
- Dexterity- dexterity rating
- Intelligence- IQ rating
- Vitality- rating by vitality indicator
- Attacks per Second- by attack speed
- Critical Hit Chance- by the chance of a critical attack
- Critical Damage- by the strength of a critical attack
- Life per Second- health regeneration per second
- Life on hit- by the amount of health restored per hit
- PvP Dummy- unknown
- Dodge chance- by the chance of evasion
- Block chance- by block chance
- Life bonus- by bonus to health
- Exp Bonus- by bonus to experience
- Magic find- by the chance of finding magic items
- Gold find- according to the bonus to the dropped out gold
Links
Chronology
For personal use and for history, I collect statistics on the level of excellence. It is especially interesting for them to follow the rating on hardcore - how someone dropped out of the top, and someone, on the contrary, made their way to the first places (see the positions of the sorcerer Mage, the player Azimuth).
(at first I collected statistics only for Europe, then around the world)
