Nephalem, not long to wait! The first Reaper of Souls update is on the 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 bite into the novelties with a crunch! 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 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 during testing and further development. Some of the illustrations show parts of the game in development and may differ from the final version.
Table of contents

Seasons

As with Diablo II, players will now periodically have the option to restart the game by returning their characters and artisans to the first level. Participation in seasons is rewarded with exclusive rewards and unique legendary items appearing in each new season. Plus, once you start climbing the new leaderboards, you'll quickly get the hang of it and be tempted to face off against other players in conquest, achievement, and running through the great Nephalem Rifts.


Left: seasonal crusader is ready to join the battle.
On right: a full overview of your seasonal characters can be seen in the character profile.
conquests
At the beginning of each season, you will be able to get "conquests". These are special achievements tied to the season (in addition to the regular achievements that are already in the game). Behind each conquest there is a challenging goal, which 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 Torment VI level 70 to completing all Acts I through IV in an hour. Conquest deliberately emphasizes different playstyles.
Conquests go to those who rush: the first 1,000 players to complete a Conquest in a given season will be immortalized in the leaderboard of their region. Now we plan 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 the conquest. They will count towards your total points this season.
Are you not up to the seasons? You are welcome!
If you're not in the mood to start over from scratch, then fine. After all, seasons are purely voluntary. At the end of the season, new legendary items from this fall into the list of regular, non-seasonal, loot. In addition, non-Seasonal characters can participate in Greater Rift leaderboards, which means you can face off against friends and other players in your clan.

Great portals

Greater Rifts (formerly "Rating Portals") are special Nephalem Rifts that allow you to fully evaluate the effectiveness of your battle gear and its suitability for your level.
How to get into the great portal?
To access the Greater Rift, complete a regular Nephalem Rift on any difficulty. If you defeat the Portal Guardian, he will drop the Great Nephalem Portal Key. Similar to Portal Stones, this key can be used to open a Greater Portal while at the Nephalem Obelisk. When the Greater Portal opens, your companions will need to use their own Greater Portal Keys to join you!


A special key is required to enter the great portal.
Construction of great portals
Although great portals are a type of Nephalem portal, there are several major differences between them. This is how the great portals are arranged.

• 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 guardian 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 differently. The stronger the monster, the faster the indicator will fill up.
• In the great portal, you will not be able to resurrect next to 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 Greater Rift on 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 Greater Rift.
• The difficulty level of the Greater Rifts increases gradually and does not depend on the difficulty level set in the game settings (Master, Torment I-VI, etc.).

If you manage to complete the Greater Rift before the time limit expires, you will advance to the next level of difficulty. And if you show just a brilliant result in time, then you will generally be transported through several levels at once! If the time runs out before the end of the passage of the portal, the race will be interrupted, and your best result will be published in the ranking table.


The progress bar in the Greater Rift looks a little different.
It shows the relationship between passing and efficiency.
Legendary Gems
Greater Rifts are a difficult challenge, and solid rewards should be awarded for completing them. Therefore, we are introducing Legendary Gems into the game - special rewards, the power of which can increase as the game progresses.
The 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 perform in the great portal, the more likely it is that your gem will become more powerful. We will tell you more about this innovation as we develop it further. Nephalem Portals
The changes will not bypass the regular Nephalem portals either. For example, the progress indicator when killing a monster will be filled in the same way as in the great portals. In addition, we plan to slightly change the mechanics of entering all portals. Previously, all players needed Nephalem Rift Fragments to enter. However, we have slightly reduced the requirements: now you only need one fragment to enter the portal.

Ranking tables

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 a new important feature - leaderboards.
Greater Rift results, Seasonal Achievement Points, and Conquest results for a variety of playstyles are displayed here. In this informative table, you will find detailed information and compare your score with that 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 the 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.
Greater Rift Leaderboards
There are separate leaderboards for Normal and Heroic Greater Rifts. In addition, seasonal and non-seasonal leaderboards will appear in the game. To help our users diversify their play style and compare their results with those of other players, we have developed the following categories of leaderboards:

• single player for each character class (barbarian, demon hunter, crusader, etc.);
• groups of 2 players;
• groups of 3 players;
• groups of 4 players.

Seasonal leaderboards
Some leaderboards will be purely seasonal. For example, Conquest scores are only tracked for Seasonal players, so there are no leaderboards showing Conquest scores for non-Seasonal players. The same applies to seasonal achievement points. In addition, since conquests and achievement points are distributed throughout account, the corresponding results in the leaderboards will be displayed without reference to normal or heroic mode (although some tasks will require you to play in a specific game mode).

Combat Changes

Of course, with so many competitive elements in the game, we are forced to rethink the mechanics of each class so that all players have an equal chance of achieving the goals of the next season. We won't go into too much detail right now, but instead will present you with a couple of examples of changes made with the future in mind. We will be experimenting with these changes in the open testing phase.
Agility and survivability
The first major change will be to the agility of Monks and Demon Hunters. Dexterity provides survivability bonuses quite different from those given by Strength and Intelligence. The dodge stat provides less protection than armor or damage resistance, and does not work at all when facing Plague Monsters and Petrels. We want to leave the tank role to classes like the Crusader, but we want to achieve this at the expense of their class skills, not at the cost of lowering the survivability of Monks or Demon Hunters.
Therefore, agility will no longer affect dodge chance. Instead, for each point of dexterity, the character will receive one point of armor. With that in mind, we're changing the Monk and Demon Hunter skill mechanics, but you'll have to play the test game to find out the details!
Treatment
The next change will affect the treatment. Now the amount of healing received from equipment does not have of great importance, since the lion's share of the replenished health falls on the spheres of health. We want gear to have a stronger effect on healing, so we're reducing the amount of health healed by orbs and buffing mechanics such as health regeneration on damage and regeneration speed. This change will also have a positive impact on situations where the player spends more time fighting each enemy and therefore requires more healing - for example, when increasing the difficulty of the game or level while passing through the great portal.

waste pits

In this update leading role great portals and the system of seasons play. But we are trying to update other elements of the game so that you do not get bored with the adventure mode.
The sewers, the sewers of Westmarch, were planned to be added to the game in Reaper of Souls, but this zone of the game was not quite ready by the release of the expansion.



In the Sewers, you will encounter - and battle - with a variety of creatures.
Nevertheless, we liked the appearance and atmosphere of this dungeon - the oppressive environment of dampness and decay. So we've tweaked the Sewers, and now it's a new randomly generated dungeon. It can be accessed through normal and greater Nephalem portals (during the passage of the portal, you may randomly end up in one of the levels of the Sewers). We hope you enjoy it there!
We're going to add a few more new things to the game... But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Soon you will see everything in the PTR!

1. Introduction to the Greater Portals

There are three main areas in Adventure Mode: game process, where you will be spending the majority of your game: Errands, Common Portals (Nephalem), and Greater Portals. Grand Portals is considered the most difficult of the three modes, in which you can see all your character development efforts. Greater Portals takes the randomization of the Regular Portals, but removes all loot (loot) and interactive objects in favor of pure combat, all the way down to the Great Rift Guardian. By defeating him, he receives all the items obtained at the end of the passage. Loot depends on difficulty (portal level).

2. Greater Portal Rewards

Greater Rifts is the only place where you can get Legendary Gems and upgrade them. With a new character each new completed Great Portal will reward you with one legendary gem until you fill your entire collection, Urshi, the NPC that spawns after killing the Portal Guardian, will be your source of legendary upgrades precious stones, but only if you finish the VI within the 15 minute timer. You have three chances to upgrade your gem. You get an extra chance if you don't die even once inside the OT, and before the OT begins, you can pay gold for an "opportunity" for another chance to upgrade on success. The success of upgrading gems is displayed with a percentage based on the difference between the VP level and the current gem level:

• 100% chance to increase margin at level 10;
• 90% chance at 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 quests, it naturally becomes a place to farm Paragon levels.

Successfully completing a solo Greater Rift increases your Blood Shard limit (up from 500) by 10 per level.

Last but not least, the Great Portals are the leading activity in the world, 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 divided between seasonal and non-seasonal, as well as Normal and Heroic mode.

3. How to effectively navigate Greater Rifts

Entrance to the "Great Portals" is limited by the number of your stones. To help you better understand, VL locations will be divided into three levels: Speed ​​Farm, Medium Farm, and Paragon Leveling.

Speed ​​farming covers VP levels from 1 to 70. The purpose of speed farming is primarily to acquire decent equipment at the earliest levels and get legendary gems and level up paragon. The advantages are that they can be launched in any group composition, including the usual open game early season for 4 people.
Average farming starts around level 70-80. Mid-level goals are primarily Paragon levels, moderate gem upgrades, and leveling extra gems for Caldesann enthusiasts. This is the most common launch type you will encounter during the first week or so and requires at least one support to protect your DPS allies. In turn, DPS are more limited in build selection and will need to run efficient meta-appropriate builds.
Paragon leveling usually starts at 90+ in solo and 105+ in groups. However, this is a very personal level and only depends on the person or group that uses it - it only has two purposes: perfecting legendary gems and being placed on the leaderboard. This level assumes that you have excellent equipment, skills and knowledge of the game and know its basics. In groups, this level also requires a strict meta that does 2 supports and 2 DPS - one AoE and one target.

3.1. The importance of pylons

Pylons are much more powerful than the Sanctuary 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 VP push attempt.

The first factor in the appearance of a pylon is your pass percentage.

The second important factor is your current location on the map. Pylons have fixed points in various maps where they can spawn. Try to make mental points of the places where they spawn, i.e. 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 just as difficult as getting them. The timing of the use of the pylons is also important, they can be very different from the assembly, but the following guides will help you:

• The Pylon of Power lasts 30 seconds and increases your damage by 400%. If the Guardian is not already present, you can try to take down a stack of enemies near the Pylon and continue with the Rift, then come back to finish them with the appropriate % left to summon the Rift Guardian 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 to take down the boss.
• The Lightning Pylon lasts 30 seconds and summons arcs of lightning that branch out at different targets, striking 5-10 times per second. Lightning strikes deal a fixed amount of damage, and are not affected by player damage, buffs, or debuffs. This pylon is best taken during the demolition of packs of mobs, since it is almost useless on the boss.
• Support Pylon lasts 30 seconds, reduces cooldown by 75%, and removes all resource costs (with the exception of skills that explicitly state that they drain the entire resource). This pylon has different strength depending on your build and can range from vital (on CD-heavy builds) to almost useless (generator builds).
• The Speed ​​Pylon lasts 60 seconds, increases your movement speed by 100% and your 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 both boss and mobs.
• The Pylon of Protection lasts for 60 seconds and provides immunity to all incoming damage and crowd control.

3.2. The Importance of Monsters and Elites

The ever-changing Great Rift maps combined with their monster difficulty levels can lead to some very different results in similar levels due to the variable structure. It is the generation of certain maps and the population of mobs that has a great influence on the level of passage of the VP. Monsters can stand in packs, or stand in the form of units on the map. Such rifts should usually be restarted, since you will not get anything worthwhile except for wasting time.

There are a few rules to pay attention to:

Be careful of monsters that can keep their distance from you or run away (eg ghosts, snake mages, jumpers, etc.) - they can waste precious time.
Beware also of 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 (gauge-filling) monsters.
Be at your best when facing monsters with strong debuff abilities. For example, Enslaved Nightmares cast curses that can cut your durability or healing in half, with no way to retreat, followed by a surprising, inevitable explosion. Skip these monsters without hesitation!

Some of these tips also apply to evaluating elites with their affixes. Carefully study participation in the following elite affixes.
Elites with shields become temporarily immune to damage, causing you to lose DPS and reset cooldowns. Pay special attention to the currently protected monster.
Elites with teleporters can dodge large chunks of your DPS by pushing themselves or you out. This makes it difficult to control and predict your character.
Illusionist Elites cause some confusion with additional screen clutter and you waste time looking for the right mob.

Blizzard does not make official ratings. But they are made by fan sites. 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), so ratings on diabloprogress.com are the most complete.

How to add your character to statistics

To do this, you need to go to conduct your BattleTag in the search box (you can take it from personal account battle.net):

If there is already data for yours, 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 for him and all his places in the ratings:

If your eyes run wide and nothing is clear from the number of digits, 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. Either from 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 just took a new level of perfection, and you want to see how much you have risen in the rankings. For this:

1. We leave the game completely (it is possible in the login window).

2. We go to our profile on eu.battle.net/d3/ and see if the information has been updated there. If not, go in and exit 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 page on diabloprogress.com and press the button on the right "Update Now":

4. Wait 1-3 minutes, and refresh the page (F5) - the information will be updated, and your positions in the ratings will also be updated.

Description of ratings

For each of the parameters, you can see 4 of your positions:

• World- your place among all the players in the world (only the softcore / hardcore division 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 in the rating.

• progress- this shows how much you have completed the game (and all difficulty levels: Nightmare, Hell, Inferno), and your place in the passage among other players
• Paragon Level- your place in the level of excellence (the most popular rating)
• Heroscore- rating by the total sum of the following parameters: damage per second, effective health, health regeneration and stats. Simply put, this rating reflects the overall coolness of the items you are wearing.
• DPS Unbuffed- damage per second (no buffs)
• EHP Unbuffed- effective health
• Elite Kills- by the number of elite monsters killed
• life- for health
• Resistance- resistance to all types of damage
• armor- armor indicator (without buffs and without taking into account pissive skills)
• Strength- rating by strength indicator
• Dexterity- agility rating
• Intelligence- IQ rating
• vitality- rating in terms of survivability
• Attacks per second- attack speed
• Critical Hit Chance- by critical attack chance
• Critical Damage- by critical attack strength
• Life per second- health regeneration per second
• Life on Hit- by the amount of health restored per hit
• PvP Dummy- unknown

• Dodge Chance- by dodge chance
• Block Chance- block chance
• Life Bonus- health bonus
• Exp Bonus- bonus to experience
• Magic Find- by the chance of finding magic items
• Gold Find- according to the bonus to the dropped gold

Links

Chronology

For personal use and for history, I collect statistics on the level of perfection. It is especially interesting to follow the rating on them on hardcore- how someone fell out of the top, and someone, on the contrary, made their way to the first places (see the positions of the magician Mage, the player Azimuth).

(at first I collected statistics only for Europe, then for the whole world)