It's been one hell of a year. Heroes have risen, angels have fallen, and the mortal realm of Sanctuary has once again been saved from the brink of despair. As Nephalem, your accomplishments are innumerable. You’ve saved a village from the risen dead, laid to rest the tortured soul of a dishonored king, solved the mystery of the Fallen Star, avenged the death of a powerful Horadrim, unlocked the secrets of the Black Soulstone, cast Belial from his throne of deceit, stopped a demonic invasion almost single-handedly, restored Hope, and vanquished the Prime Evil, preserving the sanctity of the High Heavens and ushering in a new age for the world as we know it.

But have you ever wondered how your deeds measure up in the real world? To showcase the strength of the Diablo III community and how awesome you all are, we've put together some interesting statistics.

How many heroes have been created? How many demons have been slaughtered in pursuit of treasure? And just how many times has the Lord of TERROAR Terror been killed? Find out below!

Diablo III patch 1.0.8 is now live in the Americas. Check out the full patch notes below to learn about all the latest changes.

Important: Please note that you will not be prompted to download patch 1.0.8 until the patch is live in your home region. If you are logging in from a European or Asian client, you will need to wait for this patch to release in that region before it can be installed. Additionally, if your home region is the Americas, you will be unable to log into Europe or Asia using Global Play after patch 1.0.8 is live until those regions have also patched.

Diablo III Patch 1.0.8 – v.1.0.8.16416

The latest client patch notes can be found here.
Visit our Bug Report forum for a list of known issues.

Table of Contents

• General
• Achievements
• Auction House
• Battle.net
• Bosses
• Classes
• Crafting
• Followers
• Monsters
• Quests
• User Inferface

GENERAL

• Players can now identify all items in their inventory by speaking to Deckard Cain or by using the Book of Cain that can be found near the shared stash in all Acts
• The cooldown incurred by changing skills outside of town on Inferno difficulty has been reduced to 30 seconds (down from 60 seconds)
• The bonus experience granted by Enlightened shrines is now also calculated multiplicatively
• The Magic and Gold Find granted by Fortune shrines can now exceed the 300% cap
• There is now an option in Video Settings to lock the cursor to the window when in fullscreen windowed mode, if Diablo III is the active window
• Multiplayer Co-Op
  • Players now receive a 10% bonus to Magic Find, Gold Find, and Experience per additional player in a multiplayer game, up to a maximum of 30% in a four-player game
    • The Magic Find and Gold Find bonuses can exceed their respective 300% caps
    • The Experience bonus can stack with other bonuses from items and Monster Power (the bonuses will stack multiplicatively)
  • A notification is now sent to all players in a multiplayer game whenever a party member engages an Elite monster or Treasure Goblin in combat, and their location will be shown on the mini-map
    • In addition to this, an icon will also appear over player banners in town to indicate if they're in combat with a monster, Elite monster, or Treasure Goblin

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Bug Fixes
  • The "Massive Blow" achievement should once again be obtainable
  • The "Fallen Angel" achievement now only requires the player to kill Izual within 120 seconds
  • The "Bashanishu" achievement no longer requires the player to use Basic Attack to complete it
  • The "Hero's New Clothes" achievement no longer requires the player to deliver the fatal blow to meet the criteria
  • Fixed a bug that prevented monsters killed by a follower or pet, before being attacked by a player, from counting toward achievement criteria

AUCTION HOUSE

• General
  • The stack size for gold sales on the auction house has been increased from 1 million to 10 million
• User Interface
  • Tooltips in the Auction House will now show an item comparison for a player's currently selected character

BATTLE.NET

• Matchmaking
  • Players will now be able to search for games that were started on any quest once they have reached level cap
  • Matchmaking "Tags" have been added
    • In addition to selecting your Difficulty, Monster Power, and Quest, players will also be able to choose from the following tags when searching for Public Games: Monster Slaying, Brawling, and Key Warden
      • Note: When the Brawling tag is selected, your Monster Power selection will not be taken into account
• Social
  • Players can now add a note about a friend by right-clicking the name in their Friends List
  • Players can now enter a message that will be broadcast to their friends
  • Players can now create multi-user conversations
    • There are multiple ways to start a conversation or invite other players to an existing conversation:
      • To start a conversation, open Public Chat Options, then select Invite Friends > Start Conversation or use the "Start a Conversation" option in the Social window by right-clicking on a friend's name
      • To invite or add friends to an existing conversation, open Public Chat Options, then select Invite Friends or use the "Invite to a Conversation" option in the Social window by right clicking a friend's name and selecting the desired conversation
    • Similar to public channels, private conversations can support up to 99 players
  • A new section has been added to the friends list called "Players Near You"
    • Any player who is on your local network will be displayed here (even if they're not currently your friend)
    • If needed, this feature can be disabled from the Social Options of the Game menu
  • Players may now be marked as a "Party Guide"
    • The Party Guide is assigned to the first person who joins a Public Game
    • If multiple characters join a Public Game at the same time, the game will choose the hero with the highest level or Paragon level to be Party Guide
    • When a Party Guide leaves the Public Game, a new one will be chosen automatically
    • Alternatively, the Party Guide can right click on a party member's portrait and pass them the Party Guide title
    • The Party Guide will have a unique icon that will appear on the mini-map
  • Names in your "Recent Players" list will now expire if they become older than a month
  • Blocked players will no longer appear in your "Recent Players" list

BOSSES

• Bug Fixes
  • Skeleton King
    • The Skeleton King and The King of the Dead will now play an animation when performing their Whirlwind attack

CLASSES

• Barbarian
  • Active Skills
    • War Cry
      • Skill Rune – Invigorate
        • Now regenerates 620 life per second (up from 310)
  • Passive Skills
    • Inspiring Presence
      • Now affects all party members
  • Bug Fixes
    • The sound that plays whenever a Barbarian's Overpower ability comes off cooldown is no longer similar to a Legendary item dropping
    • Male barbarians no longer run faster than the other heroes while feared.
• Demon Hunter
  • Active Skills
    • Companion
      • Skill Rune – Boar Companion
        • Now regenerates 310 life per second (up from 155)
    • Rapid Fire
      • Base weapon damage increased from 276% to 438%
      • Hatred cost while channeling has been reduced from to 6 (down from 10)
      • Skill Rune - Bombardment
        • Weapon damage increased from 345% to 414%
        • Explosion radius increased to 8 yards (up from 4)
      • Skill Rune - Fire Support
        • Weapon damage of Homing Rockets increased from 35% to 145%
      • Skill Rune - Withering Fire
        • Now reduces the initial Hatred cost to 10 (up from 5)
    • Sentry
      • Skill Rune – Aid Station
        • Now heals nearby allies for 2% of max life per second (up from 1%)
  • Passive Skills
    • Brooding
      • Now regenerates 2% of maximum life per second (up from 1%)
• Monk
  • Active Skills
    • Mantra of Healing
      • Now causes party members to regenerate 620 life per second (up from 310)
        • Skill Rune – Sustenance
          • Now increases Mantra of Healing’s life regeneration to 1240 per second (up from 620)
  • Passive Skills
    • Guiding Light
      • Damage bonus increased from 16% to 20%
• Witch Doctor
  • Active Skills
    • Firebats
      • Now has a larger initial cost but a much lower continual cost while channeling
        • Base weapon damage increased from 180% to 385%
        • Skill Rune – Cloud of Bats
          • Initial damage increased from 234% to 500% weapon damage
        • Skill Rune – Plague Bats
          • Maximum damage increased from 270% to 578% weapon damage
  • Passive Skills
    • Blood Ritual
      • Now regenerates 2% of maximum life per second (up from 1%)
• Wizard
  • Active Skills
    • Arcane Torrent
      • Base weapon damage increased from 210% to 285%
      • Skill Rune - Arcane Mines
        • Weapon damage increased from 180% to 340%
      • Skill Rune - Cascade
        • Weapon damage of bonus missiles increased from 210% to 285%
    • Archon
      • The duration of Archon should now be extended by assists from players in multiplayer games, in addition to kills
    • Disintegrate
      • Base weapon damage increased from 170% to 220%
      • Skill Rune - Entropy
        • Weapon damage increased from 196% to 253%
      • Skill Rune - Intensify
        • Maximum damage increased from 221% to 286% weapon damage
    • Familiar
      • Skill Rune – Vigoron
        • Now regenerates 620 life per second (up from 310)
    • Ray of Frost
      • Base weapon damage increased from 215% to 280%
      • Skill Rune – Black Ice
        • Ice patch weapon damage increased from 387% to 504%
      • Skill Rune – Sleet Storm
        • Weapon damage increased from 280% to 364%
      • Skill Rune – Snow Blast
        • Maximum damage increased from 280% to 364% weapon damage
    • Teleport
      • Players may now Teleport to any location within range, as long as a path is available
  • Passive Skills
    • Galvanizing Ward
      • Now regenerates 620 life per second (up from 310)
  • Bug Fixes
    • Fixed a bug causing Teleport – Safe Passage to only reduce damage from physical attacks

CRAFTING

• General
  • Players can now queue up multiple items and gems at a time within the same tier to be crafted, so long as they possess the necessary materials
  • Players can now craft items using materials located in the shared stash
• Blacksmith
  • Salvaged item information will no longer be displayed in the chat log
  • Players can now disable the confirmation dialog when salvaging items of Rare quality
• Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug preventing players from salvaging an item by dragging it onto the Blacksmith's anvil icon

FOLLOWERS

• Templar
  • Skills
    • Loyalty
      • Now regenerates 310 life per second (up from 155)

MONSTERS

• General
  • Players should now encounter more monsters in Acts I, II, and IV in Inferno difficulty when playing at Monster Power 1 or greater
  • In multiplayer games, the increase in monster hit points per additional player has been reduced to 50% (down from 70%)
  • The damage dealt by the fire pool left by Blazing Guardian attacks has been reduced by 50%, but it's minimum damage has been increased
  • Poison damage dealt by Brood Hatchlings has been reduced by 40%
  • Damage dealt by Tormented Stingers has been reduced by 75%
  • The health of normal Spiderlings has been reduced by approximately 68%
  • The health of Elite Spiderlings has been reduced by approximately:
    • 4.5% for Champions
    • 3% for Rares
    • 9% for Rare minions
  • The following monsters have their experience and chance to drop loot modified to better align with their hit points:
    • Accursed, Betrayed, Bile Crawlers, Blazing Guardians, Blazing Ghouls Brood Hatchlings, Cavern Spiders, Charged Constructs, Chilling Constructs, Crazed Cultists, Crazed Summoners, Dark Conjurers, Dark Cultists, Dark Moon Clan Impalers, Dark Summoners, Dark Zealots, Deranged Cultists, Doom Wraiths, Dust Shamblers, Enraged Zealots, Fallen, Fallen Grunts, Fallen Peons, Fallen Soldiers, Foul Conjurers , Frost Guardians, Ghouls, Hungry Corpses, Moon Clan Impalers, Murderous Fiends, Noxious Guardians, Ravenous Dead, Retching Cadavers, Reviled, Savage Fiends, Spiderlings, Shade Stalkers, Shadow Vermin, Shock Guardians, Skeletal Crawlers, Smoldering Constructs, Spine Lashers Stygian Crawlers, Tormented Stingers, Toxic Constructs, and Vicious Ghouls
  • Keywardens
    • Nekarat the Keywarden now has a chance to drop a random Key (of Destruction, Hate, or Terror) in addition to the Infernal Machine plans
    • All Keywardens will now only appear in Inferno difficulty
  • Bug Fixes
    • Monsters with the Avenger affix now correctly gain +25% damage each time a monster in their pack dies
    • Monsters with the Vampiric affix now correctly heal for 200% of their damage done in all difficulties

QUESTS

• General
  • Experience earned by completing a quest is now granted to players that have reached the level cap

USER INTERFACE

• General
  • A maximum of eight buffs and debuffs will now be displayed on the UI
    • The maximum number of debuffs that will be displayed is three
• Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug preventing damage numbers from being displayed if a monster was affected by a spell such as Hex

If you are experiencing technical issues with the patching process, connecting to Battle.net after installing the patch, or errors while playing a newly-patched game, please visit our support site or post in the Technical Support forum for assistance.

As foretold in ancient Horadric texts, Diablo® III is coming soon to the PS3™. The launch date still has yet to be announced, but you can prepare for it now AND receive this exclusive Infernal Helm in-game item in the process, simply by preordering Diablo III at your local retailer.

Wearable at level 1, the Infernal Helm confers a +EXP bonus to help you whip your new PlayStation® characters into tip-top shape. Plus, it looks sweet as hell (pun intended) on all five mortal heroes of Sanctuary—Witch Doctor, Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Wizard, and Monk. Keep in mind that the redeemable key for the Infernal Helm, which you will find in your preordered copy of Diablo III on launch day, will apply to all of your PS3™ characters, but will not transfer to any PC characters.

We'll be announcing a launch date for Diablo III on the PS3™ as it gets closer. In the meantime, get your preorder lined up, and begin preparing your living room for the imminent arrival of your three closest demon-slaying friends.

You're going to need a bigger couch.

It's that time again! On the morning of Tuesday, May 14, we'll be conducting maintenance in order to reset the Diablo II ladder. We anticipate the realms could be down for up to six hours, and during that time all existing ladder characters will be converted to non-ladder. All characters and items being converted to non-ladder will remain intact, but once converted these characters will no longer have access to ladder content such as creating ladder-only rune words.

This ladder reset, like all those before it, creates a clean slate where all ladder characters begin at level 1 with no previous items to help them. To participate, simply wait until the Diablo II realms return to service on May, log in to Battle.net, and tick the “Ladder Character” checkbox when creating a new character. You can track ladder character leveling progress by clicking on the Ladder button from the main Diablo II in-game Battle.net interface.

For more information on ladder characters please visit here.

Why did you nerf Weeping Hollow? (Blue Tracker | Source)

Not harsh, just passionate. No worries. :)

The changes we made to The Weeping Hollow in the most recent PTR patch were really just an experiment. Based on feedback we'd seen regarding density (in terms of monster spawn pacing), it wasn't totally clear what players preferred; some wanted more clumps, some wanted less, and some liked things just the way they were. There wasn't a clear-cut answer, so our designers made a change to see what would happen. Rapid iteration like that is one of the cool things we can do with the PTR.

Given the response from players since the change went live (thanks for all your posts, btw), we're going to be restoring monster density and spawn pacing in The Weeping Hollow to its earlier PTR levels, and that will most likely be what we stick with for 1.0.8.


Watch Tower nerfed??? (Blue Tracker | Source)


The Watch Tower was changed because of how good it was compared to most farming locations. It benefited from having an abnormally high Elite density, resplendent chest spawn, and was located conveniently close to a waypoint. We wanted to make sure players didn’t feel like they had to farm that spot or else they’d be missing out, so in patch 1.0.5 we moved it from Northern Highlands to Southern Highlands with the idea that it would require spending some extra time to find it. Initially we didn’t want to nerf the dungeon, but eventually the Elite density was toned down anyway, and the tower remains in Southern Highlands.

To answer your question, though, parts of the Watch Tower were nerfed, but the chances for it (and the merchant) to spawn have not changed. I wish you good luck in your search for the merchant, but it’ll probably take a few attempts!


I think this is a pretty simplistic way to view the situation, but I agree that having a favorite farming spot nerfed doesn't feel good. The alternative (in situations like this, where that spot is way beyond the norm) is that people feels forced into playing one tiny section of the game, and that's arguably worse for the health of the game overall.

This is a reminder that the first batch of BlizzCon® 2013 tickets goes on sale Wednesday, April 24 at 7 p.m. PDT. When the time comes, hit the link below for your chance to buy!

Click here to go to the BlizzCon 2013 ticket sales page.

Remember, tickets usually go fast—so if you want to attend this year’s show, it pays to be prepared on the first sale date. If you miss out, you’ll get a second chance when the second batch goes on sale Saturday, April 27 at 10 a.m. PDT. In addition, tickets to an exclusive pre-BlizzCon dinner to benefit Children's Hospital of Orange County go on sale Wednesday, May 1 at 7 p.m. PDT. Visit the BlizzCon Ticket Information page for more details.

BlizzCon 2013 will take place November 8 and 9 at the Anaheim Convention Center, and tickets cost $175 USD each. Tickets to the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner cost $500 USD each and include BlizzCon admission. Even if you can’t join us at BlizzCon in person, in-depth coverage will be available at home through the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket; further details will be announced at a later date.

If you want to buy tickets and make the journey to Anaheim, here are some steps you can take right now to help ensure the ticket-purchase process goes smoothly:

• You’ll need a Battle.net account to buy from the U.S. Blizzard Store, which is where the tickets will be sold. Click here to create one if you don’t have one already.
• Make sure that all of your credit card information is up-to-date on your Battle.net account. Note that credit and debit cards are the only payment methods accepted for BlizzCon ticket purchases.
• Some credit cards can experience issues at checkout when attempting to make purchases from the Blizzard Store, or may have purchase limits. If you believe that your card might experience issues, it’s wise to contact your credit card company in advance to let them know you’re planning to make this purchase. You might want to also consider setting up a backup credit card.
• Make sure that cookies and Javascript are enabled on the browser you’re using to access the Blizzard Store.
• Keep your browser window open until your ticket purchase is confirmed so you don’t lose your place in the queue!
• If you’re buying tickets for family or friends, have their names handy (to be printed on each badge), as well as each attendee’s Battle.net account name (email address) so they can participate in this year’s pre-BlizzCon online merchandise pre-sale. You’ll have until May 14 to enter or change this information.
• Keep in mind that tickets are only being sold online. Our customer support team won’t be able to take orders on the phone.

For more information about BlizzCon 2013, please visit the official BlizzCon site.

Click here to go to the BlizzCon 2013 ticket sales page.

This is a reminder that the first batch of BlizzCon® 2013 tickets goes on sale Wednesday, April 24 at 7 p.m. PDT. When the time comes, hit the link below for your chance to buy!

Click here to go to the BlizzCon 2013 ticket sales page.

Remember, tickets usually go fast—so if you want to attend this year’s show, it pays to be prepared on the first sale date. If you miss out, you’ll get a second chance when the second batch goes on sale Saturday, April 27 at 10 a.m. PDT. In addition, tickets to an exclusive pre-BlizzCon dinner to benefit Children's Hospital of Orange County go on sale Wednesday, May 1 at 7 p.m. PDT. Visit the BlizzCon Ticket Information page for more details.

BlizzCon 2013 will take place November 8 and 9 at the Anaheim Convention Center, and tickets cost $175 USD each. Tickets to the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner cost $500 USD each and include BlizzCon admission. Even if you can’t join us at BlizzCon in person, in-depth coverage will be available at home through the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket; further details will be announced at a later date.

If you want to buy tickets and make the journey to Anaheim, here are some steps you can take right now to help ensure the ticket-purchase process goes smoothly:

• You’ll need a Battle.net account to buy from the U.S. Blizzard Store, which is where the tickets will be sold. Click here to create one if you don’t have one already.
• Make sure that all of your credit card information is up-to-date on your Battle.net account. Note that credit and debit cards are the only payment methods accepted for BlizzCon ticket purchases.
• Some credit cards can experience issues at checkout when attempting to make purchases from the Blizzard Store, or may have purchase limits. If you believe that your card might experience issues, it’s wise to contact your credit card company in advance to let them know you’re planning to make this purchase. You might want to also consider setting up a backup credit card.
• Make sure that cookies and Javascript are enabled on the browser you’re using to access the Blizzard Store.
• Keep your browser window open until your ticket purchase is confirmed so you don’t lose your place in the queue!
• If you’re buying tickets for family or friends, have their names handy (to be printed on each badge), as well as each attendee’s Battle.net account name (email address) so they can participate in this year’s pre-BlizzCon online merchandise pre-sale. You’ll have until May 14 to enter or change this information.
• Keep in mind that tickets are only being sold online. Our customer support team won’t be able to take orders on the phone.

For more information about BlizzCon 2013, please visit the official BlizzCon site.

Click here to go to the BlizzCon 2013 ticket sales page.

Confirmed: intentional!

We know a lot of players were doing runs where they'd play high MP and skip Elites. That's still an option, but we wanted to make Elites more enticing. This seemed like the best way to do it that worked across all MP levels. Let us know what you think/how it feels!

(Also, moving your post to the PTR feedback forum.)

Travis: Applying innate benefits to each weapon type gets brought up a lot. While we don't currently have plans to make each weapon do something different, it isn't off the table. At the heart of that question, though, is the desire for weapons to be more than just a DPS number and that is something we would like to add, but that will most likely come in the form of elemental damage.

Elemental damage is something we are actively trying to find a good solution for. The stat already exists in the game, but currently it's just six different flavors of the same affix—Cold is the only exception in that it snares targets. One thing we are actively discussing is what kind of effects we could associate with each element and then add it not only to weapons but all damage sources of that type. We haven't finalized anything just yet, but we really want to make this happen.


Wyatt: We did not intentionally design physical (black) damage weapons to be superior (damage-wise) to elemental damage weapons. The reason that they are superior is actually due to two bugs.

The first bug is that "+x% damage" was supposed to work for elemental damage only. So, for example, "+5% Fire damage" was supposed to take any fire damage that you did and add 5% more. If you dealt 100 Fire damage, you would get 5% more Fire damage and deal 105 Fire damage in total.

However (and this is where the bug comes in), instead of looking at your elemental damage, the game would always look at your physical damage, and add a percentage of that as elemental damage. So, to continue with my example, "+5% Fire damage" would take 100 physical damage and then produce 100 physical damage, plus 5 fire damage on top of that. As a result, rather than making you want items that matched the elemental damage types you had bonuses for, the bug simply made black weapons the best.

The other bug is the way the MinMaxDamage affix works. As you mention, minimum damage is applied first and increases the maximum damage to be 1 more than the minimum value. This is correct behavior, since we don't want maximums that are less than the minimum. The bug here is that the game always attempts to ensure that the maximum damage on a weapon is higher before maximum damage values are even applied, which results in inflated damage amounts. (We actually fixed this bug in the new version of the Ruby in 1.0.7.)

So, hopefully it's clear that the current situation was not the intended one—it's the result of two bugs that had some very radical and significant effects.

Now, this obviously raises the question, if this situation is due to two bugs, why weren't the bugs found before release and now that they're found, why don't we just fix them?

One of the realities of developing software is that a) you're not going to find every bug before you ship a product and b) when you do find a bug, there are multiple approaches to addressing it. Some bugs are very difficult to resolve, both in terms of time and resources as well as complexity.

In this specific case, we don't want to change how existing items work, and fixing these bugs would absolutely do that. We know that acquiring and valuing items is an important part of the Diablo experience and do not want to change the mechanics of how an item property works when people have already invested in it.

We're also looking to revamp itemization, and part of the revamp will include moving to fixed versions of the elemental damage increasing attribute, as well as the MinMaxDamage affix—put simply, we'd fix the bugs for new items. "Legacy" items will continue to use the current (bugged) version. The new versions will likely bear different language such as "Fire damage you deal is increased by 5%" to differentiate from the old mechanics. (That wording isn't final, it's just an example.)

Travis: There are no current plans to devalue Critical Damage. Yes, it is one of the single largest DPS increasing stats in the game across all classes, but that's not necessarily a problem. The real problem is that Critical Damage is the only thing that all players want and we need to try to address that. It's OK to say "Crit Damage is awesome, give me more!" but we would prefer it if some classes or builds wanted to prioritize something else over Crit Damage.

So, no we have no plans to nerf player items at any point. We do want to encourage diversity, but we want to do it right by providing more choice, and that is a much more difficult problem to solve.


Travis: These were pretty cool, but there haven't been any discussions about adding these effects to the game. On the surface they were great, but they did have their own set of issues.

For example, adding a socket to an item as the result of a one-time quest reward feels really awesome, but over time it starts to become more of a burden instead of a benefit. When you have to level a new character through the entire game just so you can socket the new cool weapon you want to use, the shine starts to wear off really fast.

The ones that I thought were "cool" but not really burdensome were the ones that gave you permanent resists, but really those were artificial gameplay—your resists were permanently reduced and then you were given a potion to offset that a little bit.

We do like the idea of customizing your items, though, and giving players more opportunities to really feel invested in what they're equipping. As Don pointed out in the last round of developer answers, we're considering a few options, including:

• The ability to change a portion of a particular stat on an item to another stat of your choice
• The ability to augment an existing item with a stat bonus of your choice
• The ability to create an item with one or several fixed affixes—similar to the Rare recipes introduced in 1.0.7
• We've also discussed adding other types of "socketables" with a wide variety of possible affixes that you can put in your socketed items instead of gems

Adding a socket isn't off the table, either. We just want to make sure that whatever we add makes sense for Diablo III, and aren't just fluffy mechanics that only make it seem like you have more customization and control (but actually provide little overall value).


Travis: Class specific items can sometimes fall into a weird place. For example, you're playing your Demon Hunter, you see a Rare quiver on the ground, you identify it, and BAM! +300 Strength. At this point, you're probably thinking (or even saying aloud) "Why is that even possible?!"

While we feel that randomness is an incredibly important aspect of Diablo games, we also agree that players need to feel like their next great item is just around the corner. Items can roll many stats that may not be valuable to the player who finds them, and that's fine—but most items should feel like they could be good for someone.

Quivers rolling their primary stat as Strength doesn't really play any role here; however, we don't want to remove randomness completely and have it be a forgone conclusion that every quiver you pick up will roll with the exact stats you want. While we are changing it so that class specific items can't roll the primary value of a different class's stat, that doesn't mean you will never see +Strength on a quiver. What it does mean is you will only see +Strength on a quiver if it came as part of a Dex/Str affix or a Str/Vit affix, which is providing some benefit (even if not ideal) to the class the item is intended for.

Q. You talk about "game changing" items but mention only gimmicks that affect certain skills or builds. There is a reason people choose best in slot items. These items allow for the greatest damage and survivability possible so that the player can efficiently farm as high of a monster power as they can. Since damage affects any build out there to (usually) the greatest extent, would there be any reason to choose anything besides best in slot items?

Travis: Best-in-slot is a subjective term. What is the best for one class or play style isn't necessarily the best for everyone.

Currently, itemization has the problem that it is largely supported by a handful of affixes that increase your damage in varying degrees. Because almost all items can very easily be distilled down to their DPS value, it quickly turns into a numbers game. This is a side effect of the fact that there really aren't any items that provide intangible benefits beyond raw damage. It is also an issue because there are no items that can improve your play experience or efficiency other than those that simply increase your character sheet DPS.

We have plans to try to create more interesting item choices, and I've talked a bit about what those plans are in my previous blog, if you want to take a look. Will there still be a "best-in-slot" item for a particular build of a particular class? Probably, but that's never really been the problem. There will always be best-in-slot items for specific builds and setups. The problem today is that we have items that are universally best-in-slot, regardless of your class or build. Right now, items that are best-in-slot for a Demon Hunter are probably also best-in-slot for a Monk, and that's one of the big things we're looking to address.

Wyatt: We aim to provide players with some sort of global context for the full spectrum of item rarity and power. In a sea of items, we want to emphasize that, at least in this universe, white items, blue items, yellow items, and legendary/set items are increasingly rare relative to one another. White items are currently the baseline, and all other items become rarer and more powerful beyond that.

If we removed white items completely, there might be a tendency to feel like blues are the new baseline. Some of you might think, "Well, that'd be really cool! I want blue items to be the baseline." As developers, we want items to feel increasingly special, so that means some will always be more useful than others. If we just kept removing whatever tier of items is "worse" from the game and moving up the baseline, then there's the risk that all items will become equally valuable, and that kind of homogenization (while totally appropriate for other games) doesn't really fit with what Diablo is all about. That said, it definitely feels like too many white items drop right now and we are already looking at some significant changes to these ratios in the future. We'd rather drop less white items rather than removing them or adding an option to hide them completely, however.

We've also talked about allowing white items to have alternate uses—for crafting, for example, like you noted. It's interesting, though, that some people are excited at the prospect of having white items with purpose, while other folks are almost offended that their end-game characters would want white items. If we were to introduce a system that made white items appealing to pick up, it would need to be something that has wide appeal since it affects everybody (and since different players have different opinions towards white items).


Travis: We're still trying to find a better solution for Magic Find and Gold Find. In the past, we've talked about removing it from gear, reducing the effectiveness of it, lowering the cap, or even implementing diminishing returns.

The problem with MF, specifically, is that it makes it really difficult to design a game that feels rewarding to all of our players instead of just some of them. When players first started getting to max level and farming Inferno, we used to get a lot of feedback saying "I haven't found a single Legendary item yet" and other people who would say "I find about one Legendary an hour," and the difference was really how much MF they were stacking. While we like the idea MF, because of how it allows players the option to customize their character for item finding, we don't like that, in many situations, it feels mandatory. We also want players to feel like their time playing Diablo III is always rewarding, and having an MF discrepancy of up to 300%+ between players makes that incredibly hard from the design perspective.

So, while we haven't finalized what we want to do just yet with MF, we know we want to do something, and we want that change to be meaningful. We'll be sure to let you know about any changes to MF or GF that might be coming your way, and of course we'd love to hear your feedback in the meantime.

IRVINE, Calif.— Get ready for a storm of epic proportions! Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that tickets for its seventh BlizzCon® gaming convention will go on sale in two batches on April 24 and April 27. In addition, a limited number of tickets to an exclusive pre-BlizzCon dinner to benefit Children’s Hospital of Orange County will go on sale May 1.

Set to tear through the Anaheim Convention Center this November 8 and 9, BlizzCon is a thundering celebration of all things Warcraft®, Diablo®, and StarCraft®. The annual-ish two-day community gathering features in-depth discussion panels with Blizzard developers, hands-on play time with the latest Blizzard games, and tons of other exciting events and activities. As announced earlier this week, BlizzCon 2013 will also host the StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals—a high-stakes showdown where the top pro players in the world will battle for the right to be crowned StarCraft II World Champion.

“We love having the opportunity to hang out with our players at BlizzCon, and it’s always awesome to see the greatest gaming community on earth swarm Anaheim,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We look forward to delivering two full days of gaming, activities, and other entertainment, and we can’t wait to show some of the exciting projects we’ve been working on.”

Tickets to attend the convention will be priced at $175 USD each and will be available for purchase from the official BlizzCon website (www.blizzcon.com) in two separate batches. The first batch goes on sale Wednesday, April 24 at 7 p.m. Pacific time, and the second batch goes on sale Saturday, April 27 at 10 a.m. Pacific time.

Tickets to the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner, which include admission to BlizzCon, will be priced at $500 USD each, with proceeds going to Children’s Hospital of Orange County (http://www.choc.org). Taking place the evening of November 7, this exclusive event offers guests an opportunity to /eat, /drink, and /lol with Blizzard game developers, community managers, and other folks from Blizzard before the show. Approximately 200 tickets to the benefit dinner will be available for purchase beginning Wednesday, May 1 at 7 p.m. Pacific time through www.blizzcon.com.

Gamers from the far reaches of Azeroth, the Koprulu sector, or Sanctuary looking to enjoy BlizzCon from the comfort of their own home will once again have the option to order a BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, offering comprehensive live coverage of the event via a multi-channel Internet stream. Further details on the Virtual Ticket, including pricing, availability, and programming information, will be announced at a later date.

As BlizzCon draws closer, more information about the show will be posted at www.blizzcon.com. To keep pace with the continued growth of World of Warcraft as well as development on other Blizzard Entertainment games, the company is currently hiring for numerous open positions. More information on available career opportunities can be found at jobs.blizzard.com.

In sitting down to plan out features for patch 1.0.8, we decided as a team that we really wanted to improve multiplayer co-op. We have other more long-term improvements planned as well (like the itemization updates Travis discussed earlier), but we knew there would be a lot of immediate benefit if we could just made it easier and more rewarding for people to play with each other.

Making Two Heads Actually Better Than One

From day one, it’s been our goal to make Diablo III a great co-op experience, but right now it's not living up to its full potential. Even if you enjoy playing with your friends, it can often feel easier and more efficient to play solo.

Playing solo has a number of advantages. For instance, you can choose your own route. If you're farming for something in particular (like a specific recipe), you can do it as many times as you want. And you can pause the game and attend to things in real life without making anyone wait.

Of course, multiplayer is awesome, too, and comes with its own benefits. For example, leveling up characters with a group of friends can be an amazing experience. Working together with other players to take down bosses or destroy Elite packs super quickly makes for great farming runs. There's resurrections and the banner system, and don't forget farming for Infernal Machine keys and organs. But, there are also disadvantages, like having to coordinate where you're walking and what you're attacking, losing your followers, and trying to find groups that have similar goals to yours without a defined matchmaking system in place.

The point is that multiplayer can be lot of fun, but given the downsides it can often feel not worth the effort. By making it easier for players to find one another, improving social features, and providing direct buffs to co-op groups, we hope to change that perspective.

Multiplayer Improvements in 1.0.8

Here are some changes going into 1.0.8 that we feel will help achieve our multiplayer goals:

Multiplayer Bonuses
Many players have already figured out that if you coordinate well with your party, you're more efficient. That's definitely true, but we'd like this benefit to be more explicit. So, we're going to straight up add a bonus for playing in multiplayer. 

We're still working on the details of what that buff is going to be, but at the moment we're looking at 10% more XP per extra player in the game for a maximum bonus of 30% more XP in a 4-player game. This bonus will be multiplicative with MP bonuses. For example: suppose you are playing on MP10 with an XP bonus in Inferno of 510%. This means a monster is worth 610% of its normal XP (510% more). If you are playing in a 4-player game the monster will be worth 793% as much XP as normal. On top of this, you will also earn a flat 10% Gold Find and 10% Magic Find for each additional player in the game, and this bonus can exceed the 300% Gold Find and Magic Find caps.

Matchmaking Tags
Patch 1.0.8 introduces the ability to specify what we call a "matchmaking tag" for Public Games. The way this new system will work is pretty simple: in addition to selecting a difficulty, quest, and MP level, you can also select a tag that will identify what kind of gameplay you're looking for from a Public Game. The tags going onto PTR are Questing, Full Act Clear, Keywarden, and PvP. Selecting one will tell the matchmaking server to place you in a group with other players who have selected the same tag as you.

The goal is make it easier for players to find groups that fit their personal play style or will yield the best experience during any given play session. We'll be evaluating these tags during PTR, so if you have suggestions for other tags please don’t hesitate to let us know!

Monster Health
Monsters currently gain 70% extra health per additional player in the game. This is being reduced from 70% to 50%. This means in a two-player game, monsters have 150% as much health as a single-player game. In a three-player game, they have 200% as much health. And in a four-player game, they have 250% as much health (compared to 310% on live). 

This further compensates for some of the inefficiencies that come with playing in a group. Ideally, this will allow you to play with someone who is less geared than you and still be better off than playing solo. It also means if someone strays from the group temporarily in a 4-player game (which inevitably happens from time to time), you'll still be at a greater advantage than if you were playing on your own.

Archon Kills
For the Wizards out there, many of you don't play multiplayer because you need those kills to fuel your Archon. In 1.0.8, your Archon duration will also be extended by assists, so as long as you’re around when a monster dies, your Archon duration will be extended. (We have it on our radar to review other mechanics such as Life on Kill bonuses, but that's not something we'll be addressing this patch.)

Identify All
As previously mentioned, 1.0.8 adds Identify All to the game. In addition to being a huge quality of life improvement, ID All is good for co-op play too!  We found during our playtests that a common time for players to get separated from one another is when somebody's inventory was full and they spent a non-trivial amount of time in town identifying items, so this should help keep players together. 

Combat Alerts
When you're playing co-op, one common practice is to say "e" in chat when you come across an Elite pack.  So we thought—why doesn't the game just do this for you? 

Starting in 1.0.8, when a player deals damage to or takes damage from an Elite pack or Treasure Goblin for the first time, a notification will be sent out to the entire party to let your teammates know what you've found. This will be accompanied by a "combat" icon on the mini-map so other players in your group can locate those enemies. On top of that, we're also going to put a combat icon over your banner in town. This way, players who are in town will know that you're fighting an Elite pack or Treasure Goblin and be able to quickly determine whose banner to take to get right into the action. 

Players Near You
Similar to the feature in StarCraft II, the "Players Near You" window will display all players who are logged into Diablo III from your local network. This feature is great if you're playing while at a university dorm or frequent Internet cafes, and will help you easily connect with other local players. 

Private Chat
We're also adding private conversations in 1.0.8, which will allow you to chat with up to 99 of your closest friends. Think of private conversations in Diablo III as being similar to multi-user conversations in your favorite IM client. You're not making a permanent "channel," you're simply inviting multiple people to chat for the duration of that session. 

This is really just the first step in the process of improving the social experience in Diablo III and supporting its vibrant community. We know that players want bigger and more varied group chat functionality (like guilds and chat channels that are more permanent), and we do have concrete plans for additional features in the future. In the meantime, we hope private chat is a useful tool and look forward to delivering more systems that foster player interaction.

Testing, Testing 1 . . . 2 . . . 3

This is just a snapshot of the improvements coming in 1.0.8, and you'll be able to test out these changes and more before they go live by hopping onto the PTR. We definitely encourage you to participate, test out what's new, and let us know what you think!

Wyatt Cheng is a senior technical game designer for Diablo III. He is currently toying with molecular gastronomy recipes. For science!

Boston, Mass.—March 22, 2013 — Pull up a chair across from an old friend at the tavern table and prepare for a few rounds of lively card-vs.-card warfare. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. laid its virtual cards on the table today with the unveiling of Hearthstone™: Heroes of Warcraft™, a new cross-platform free-to-play game for Windows®, Macintosh®, and iPad®.

In Hearthstone, players build card decks centered around one of nine iconic Warcraft® character classes and duel each other for fun, glory, and the chance to win awesome new cards. PAX East attendees are able to go hands-on with Hearthstone this weekend, and Blizzard will begin beta testing for the game very soon—no, seriously.

“We’ve always loved collectible card games at Blizzard, so it’s been exciting to bring everything we love about the genre to life in Hearthstone,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re putting a lot of focus into creating a fun new game that’s easy to pick up and play, but also has a lot of depth. We can’t wait to share it with everyone.”

Deceptively simple in design but epically engaging, Hearthstone will be instantly accessible to players regardless of their familiarity with Warcraft or collectible card games. Whether players prefer to wield magic or arms in battle, strike from the shadows or head on—or have never given any of that much thought—they’ll be able to jump right in, create a deck, and get in on the card-slinging action.

In addition to honing their skills in practice matches against the computer and taking on their buddies via their Battle.net® friends list, players can challenge each other in two competitive game modes. “Play Mode” features traditional head-to-head battles, with players facing off for a chance to increase their medal ranking and earn card packs along the way. And for a different type of challenge, players can enter “The Forge,” where they start each match by building a deck from a new set of cards, and then use that deck to duel other Forge participants. Aside from winning new cards, players will be able to round out their collections by purchasing new card packs or disenchanting some of their existing cards to craft the ones they’re missing.

With hundreds of cards to choose from, featuring a wide range of colorful Warcraft spells, weapons, and characters, players will have limitless possibilities for developing and fine-tuning their deck-building strategies. Further details about Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft will be announced as development progresses. To learn more about the game, stay tuned to http://www.PlayHearthstone.com. With multiple games in development, Blizzard Entertainment has numerous positions currently available—visit http://jobs.blizzard.com for more information and to learn how to apply.

We are looking to improve co-op farming efficiency in 1.0.8. Co-op play in general is a big focus of the 1.0.8 patch and efficiency is definitely one component of that. Co-op is already more efficient for some players, but this is the exception rather than the norm. The degree of co-op efficiency depends heavily on the co-ordination of the party, skill builds, and the relative gear level of the teammates. Since launch we've made some modest changes to encourage co-op play but there's still room to go farther. At the same time, we don't want to go so far as to make multiplayer feel "mandatory" for those who prefer to play solo, but we still want to err on the side of being co-op favorable.

There's also a number of hurdles to co-op play beyond raw efficiency, so we'll be looking to alleviate/solve some of those hurdles too. The Identify All feature in 1.0.8 is an example of this. Sometimes the trip back to town to sort through a bag of gear is enough of a hurdle to make somebody feel playing co-op isn't worth it. Nobody wants to be in the dungeon fighting monsters while your teammate is off in town identifying a full inventory.


Lots of good comments here! Just a few quick points

1. As a point of clarification, "dropping less loot on the ground" is not slated for 1.0.8. It's part of our general philosophy for beyond the 1.0.8 timeframe.

2. I really like the suggestions that don't make multiplayer feel mandatory. Suggestions along the lines of "I don't want to feel penalized for playing with my friends" or "provide a small bonus to overcome the logistical overhead" are in the scope of what we're thinking.

3. We totally see the appeal of having more than 4 players in a game, but it has its downsides, and the big one is that the screen becomes so crowded you can't tell what's going on. It's important that a player can discern important information from the game world and make tactical decisions based on this information. We know some of you may disagree and you'll always want 8 players, and I can respect that. This is something we've debated heavily though, and feel strongly about.

4. We've discussed the "leecher" problem. Nothing to share yet but it's definitely rough when it happens.

Thanks for all the great discussion thus far!

We’re fairly satisfied where the with the overall mob density in Act 3, and the mob density changes we’re currently working on will apply to Acts 1, 2, and 4 of Inferno difficulty only.

That’s one of the reasons we added the Monster Power system: it allows players to further tune how challenging enemies are in each difficulty setting, regardless of level. Also when Travis Day spoke about allowing Legendary items to scale up in our recent Developer Journal: Itemization Update, that means they will be able to drop at lower levels too. We’ll be looking not only at letting low-level Legendaries drop at higher levels, but we’ll also be allowing higher level Legendaries to drop at lower levels. In addition, the targeted drops we mentioned in the Itemization Update are intended to improve the level up game as well.

Below are some specific examples we’re considering which we feel will benefit all players, regardless of level:

One idea that we have discussed is “targeted Legendaries,” where named NPCs have an increased chance of dropping specific legendary items. For example, The Butcher could have an increased chance of dropping The Butcher's Carver.

Another idea is that we introduce a system that will help alleviate some of the bad randomness players encounter by ensuring that at least some of the Rare and Legendary items you find will be something good for your class.

We've also discussed allowing bosses the first time you kill them in each difficulty to have a guaranteed chance to drop a Legendary.

We're currently working on patch 1.0.8, and as part of that process, we're still busy determining what will make it into the final patch. Once we get closer, however, we'll be posting more discrete details. :)

Yup! Pretty much this.

We're spending time working on monster density in Acts I, II and IV because while optimal routes are inevitable, we want things to be close enough that options exist.

Currently we have a situation where a small number of specific runs are twice (or more) as effective as your average run. This margin is too large and overshadows other factors. Our goal is to make the monster density in Inferno close enough that factors such as your skill choices and gear level start to become more relevant. Let's suppose you were trying to optimize XP/hour. What if a cookie-cutter Archon build on MP1 had one optimal run, but an SNS Wizard on MP3 had a different optimal run? Different areas also have different monsters with different abilities. Some classes have an easier time dealing with particular monster types, this can cause the “optimal run” to shift as well. If we get the overall densities closer, these other factors will start to become more relevant rather than the current situation where the raw monster density of a run dominates all other factors.

When things are close enough, you may try a run that is a little less XP/hour if it means increased Demonic Essences. Maybe you just really enjoy the art of the Act I jail. Maybe you just want some variety and haven't been to an area in a while. Maybe you want to do a full play through in co-op with a friend. It’s a matter of degree -- these aren't tradeoffs most players would make when the run results in a 50% loss in efficiency, but if the difference is 5-15% then these other factors come into consideration.

So, like Lylirra said, our goal is to avoid creating a new “most optional” run, and instead provide players with an environment that allows them to choose from multiple different options.


Ok I've finally caught up on all the responses in every location I could find them! This blog was written a while ago and between when I wrote it and when we released it a lot more relevant ideas came up so I want to mention a couple of them. I'm going to keep this short and to the point so I can get back to working on actually improving the game instead of talking about it. ;)

Below is a list of things that players can hopefully expect to see as soon as patch 1.0.8.

Mob density
Acts 1, 2, and 4 will be receiving some adjustments in Inferno difficulty games. We want to try to make all of the acts as comparable as possible so that players don't feel they always have to farm the same areas of the game repeatedly, diversity is the spice of life.

Multi Craft
We want to make it easier to craft lots of items, so we plan on giving players the ability to specify how many of an item they want to craft and then to make that many. Want to make 20 Archon Shoulders of Dexterity? Cool, push the button and watch it go.

AH tooltip compare
Ever wish you could compare the item you are thinking about buying with the item you are wearing? You want it, we want it, and we hope to have it in game soon.

In addition to the changes we introduce in 1.0.8 we also have longer term plans to address issues that need more attention. I mentioned a lot of these long term plans in the blog and outlined some of our philosophies that will drive the itemization of Diablo forward. One of those ideas that I saw mentioned repeatedly in response to the blog is the fact that class specific items can roll non class appropriate primary stats, we have plans to change this down the road. While random really is at the core of Diablo in so many ways this is certainly one of the areas where it has no potential to benefit players. Wizards don't use Strength, Demon Hunters don't use Intelligence so let's just remove those as potential random attributes on Orbs and Quivers respectively.


Sure does!


For right now (since 1.0.8 is still being developed), we aren't going to have a lot of additional details to share about what's included in the patch. As development continues, though, we'll be sure to share more information -- most likely in the form of a patch preview blog like we've done in the past, as well as just talking about stuff in here in the forums.

The distinction I was making with my previous post is that most of the changes Travis' discussed in his blog aren't coming with 1.0.8, but are instead being planned for sometime after 1.0.8 ships.

(PS - HI WYATT. HI TRAVIS.)

The item hunt is core to the Diablo experience and we're determined to make it even better in Diablo III. We've made several adjustments to the item game since launch with this goal in mind, but today I wanted to talk about a few of the underlying philosophies that are driving future changes to itemization.

Rarity = Power

One of the big things we want to focus on is making sure items that feel like they are rare and powerful are actually powerful . . . instead of just rare. The first and most obvious place for improvement here is Legendaries.

By design, Legendary items are going to drop far less often than Rare items, and we want that rarity to be reflected in their power. When a Legendary drops, the question that goes through a player's mind should never be "is this a good item?" It should be "how awesome is it?" For example, if you are playing a Demon Hunter wielding a Rare crossbow and a Legendary crossbow drops, we want your reaction to be "Holy crap, YES!" not "*sigh* another Hellrack." It's a problem if players don't want to bother identifying their Legendaries, let alone pick them up. We want to change this.

Legendary Stat Ranges:
Lots of factors go into making an item good, and one of those factors is how high the stats on the item can roll. When the game first launched, an item's potential stats were largely indicated by its item level. This made it so you'd know in advance whether or not an item was worth the trouble of identifying. In 1.0.5, we made it so that the stat ranges for affixes were based on the level of the monster or container that dropped the item rather than the item's level, which created the possibility of more items rolling competitive values.

We’d like to continue with this line of reasoning and use it to make Legendaries more powerful. In the future, we plan to allow Legendary items to also roll their base stats (weapon DPS and armor value) at the level of the monster that dropped them. So, for example, if you found a Heart of Iron from a level 63 monster, its base armor would be increased to that of Archon Armor and its stat ranges would roll at level 63. This gives us the opportunity to broaden the range of Legendary items, providing players with more diversity. Love Leoric's Signet, but hate wearing a level 17 ring? Me too. Instead of farming Act II Normal to find a Leoric's Signet, let's go farm Inferno and get a level 63 version of the ring!

(Everything we're suggesting for Legendaries also applies to Sets, too, by the way.)

Increased Item Diversity:
Item diversity is a topic that comes up a lot. Right now when people are talking about the best items in the game or looking for ways to improve their power they gravitate towards items with Critical Chance, Critical Damage, and Attack Speed. While these stats are great for boosting your damage they aren’t necessarily interesting or what we like to call "game changing."

We want players to feel like entire new builds can open up if they get their hand on the right items. Glimmers of this idea are already in the game with The Three Hundredth Spear and Thing of the Deep. The plan is to embrace the idea and push them to more extremes. Potential future Legendary item ideas include a Voodoo Mask that increases pet damage, a Barbarian set that makes Call of the Ancients last until they die (after we give them full pet survivability), a Wizard Orb that allowed for two Hydras to be active at once, or the "Ethereal" boots idea I posted here. While these specific ideas may not make it into the game, they are good examples of the kinds of game changing effects we want to introduce to items. It will take time, but our goal is to try to provide players with compelling alternatives to trifecta items when talking about what items they want to acquire.

Less is More

Between Paragon levels, Nephalem Valor stacks, and all the other assorted buffs and bonuses, it's possible to find a tremendous amount of Rare items during any given play session. But the quality of these Rare items just isn't where it needs to be, so even though players see a lot of them, they no longer feel special. When you identify hundreds of Rares and only a small percentage are worth equipping or selling, those items become a burden rather than something to get excited about. "Great. Now I have to identify them all, read their stats, and I’m probably going to salvage all of them." I feel your pain.

We want to make it fun and rewarding to hunt down new items through play, and really instill the feeling that your next awesome item could come from anywhere, and is just around the corner. We need to get rid of some of the clutter first, so we plan to reduce the frequency at which Rare items drop down the road.

Before anyone panics and posts an angry comment in the forums, this doesn't mean we want players to earn even fewer good items. It just means we don't feel it's necessary to present the player with hundreds of bad Rares for every one that they might want. As an example, suppose items currently roll between 1-100 Intelligence. Now, imagine that we dropped 25% as many items, but the Intelligence range was instead somewhere around 75-100. In the end, you'd find fewer items, but more of the items you find would be worth equipping. That's our goal.

(On the topic of identifying hundreds of Rares, it's worth adding that while most of this blog is about overall item philosophy and our goals down the road, one of the short-term changes we're making is adding an "Identify All" option, which should be coming in 1.0.8.)

Gold Sinks Should be Exciting

We frequently discuss the Diablo economy, as we want players to feel that gold is a valuable commodity, useful in ways beyond just the auction house. We don't want out of control inflation, but we also don’t think that taxing players is the proper approach. Ultimately, we want to provide players with things that they are excited to spend their hard-earned gold on.

The most concrete example of how we're supporting this philosophy would be the crafting recipes we introduced in patch 1.0.7. While they aren’t meant to be the silver bullet for all economic concerns, they provide more avenues for people to spend their gold to receive something they can be happy about—in this case, potential upgrades for their character or alts.

For more insight into Bind on Account items, check out Wyatt's 1.0.7 preview here.

Other avenues we want to explore include providing players with vanity options or potential ways to differentiate themselves from their friends or other characters (i.e. character customization options in terms of gear). We are also exploring ways to make crafting more exciting by adding not just more ways to make appealing items, but also introducing ways to modify existing items.

Farm Monsters, Not the Auction House

The auction house is a new addition to the Diablo franchise. And, while it serves many purposes for our players and helps to keep the economy fluid, some would argue that it has done more harm to the game than good. There is value to be had in providing players a way to freely exchange unwanted items for gold, or giving Demon Hunters an easy means to sell unwanted rubies in order to purchase emeralds, but the question has to be asked: is what the auction house provides worth what it took away from some players?

If the "right" way for some people to play the game changes from killing monsters to camping the auction house, is the game better off for it? Ultimately we don't think it is, but we also don't want to take something away that has become such an enjoyable part of the game for others. So, the question instead becomes: how can we refocus the end game away from farming the auction house back to farming monsters? It's a complicated issue, but one we are committed to addressing.

The first solution always presented when we discuss this problem is "Why don’t you just get rid of the auction house?" and while completely removing the feature would in fact fix the problem it created, it would also create a void that the auction house was originally designed to address. For example, we don't want players to feel like the only way to trade with other people is by sitting in chat and spamming "WTS [item link]" and "WTB [awesome item]" all day. This is definitely not ideal.

There are a number of ideas for how to address this long term that don't include removing the auction house outright, and most of the ideas are centered around giving players more ways to find items they are excited about:

• One idea that we have discussed is “targeted Legendaries,” where named NPCs have an increased chance of dropping specific legendary items. For example, The Butcher could have an increased chance of dropping The Butcher's Cleaver.
• Another idea is that we introduce a system that will help alleviate some of the bad randomness players encounter by ensuring that at least some of the Rare and Legendary items you find will be something good for your class.
• We've also discussed allowing bosses the first time you kill them in each difficulty to have a guaranteed chance to drop a Legendary.

The list goes on and, as with all design, nothing is ever final. This is just a snapshot of what we're working on currently with regard to itemization, and we hope to provide more specifics as we get closer to implementing these changes into the live game. In the meantime, we'd love to hear what you think about our approach, since much of what's cited above has been inspired by your feedback.

Travis Day is a Game Designer for Diablo III. His brother, Morgan, also works at Blizzard Entertainment. They're kind of like the Venture Bros, except without the super violent, super secret agent bodyguard. Go Team Blizzard!

The minions of Hell grow stronger.

We're excited to announce that Diablo III is being developed for the Sony PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system. We'll also be adapting the award-winning action–role-playing game for Sony's newly announced platform: the PlayStation® 4!

Sit Down, Relax, and Kill Some Demons

Diablo III for the PS3™/PS4™ will be based on the core PC game and feature all the latest updates, including Paragon levels, the Infernal Machine event, Monster Power, Brawling, and more. This version is also being tailored with customized controls, a new user interface, and a dynamic camera perspective to provide an awesome Diablo III experience for PlayStation gamers.

Players will be able to wage war against the Burning Hells on their own in single-player games as well as team up and destroy countless demons with their fellow Nephalem in multiplayer games. For multiplayer, players will have the option to choose between four-player online (complete with matchmaking) and four-player local co-op modes for their couch-based warfare.

Follow the Falling Star to Boston, MA

The PS3 version of Diablo III will make its public debut at PAX East in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center from March 22–24, and attendees of the convention will be some of the first to defend the world of Sanctuary via handheld controllers.

We call upon all heroes to join us at the official Blizzard booth, where you can enjoy some fast-paced hack-and-slash, participate in fun contests and giveaways, and learn more about the game. (Community managers will also be on-site, and they look forward to answering your questions and slaying some of Diablo's many malevolent minions with you.)

For more information, be sure to check out the official press release, and stay tuned to Diablo3.com for future updates.

BLIZZCON!!!!!! The seventh BlizzCon is coming to the Anaheim Convention Center Friday, November 8 and Saturday, November 9, 2013. Those who join us for this epic community gathering will experience two solid days of hands-on time with the latest Blizzard games, in-depth developer discussion panels, intense eSports action featuring some of the top players in the world, and a variety of other exciting activities and events. Further details on the show, including ticket pricing and availability, will be posted here on BlizzCon.com at a later date. In the meantime, check out the press release for more info and prepare to help us blow Anaheim's mind.

IRVINE, Calif. – February 19, 2013 – Gather your guildmates, muster your minions, and summon your swarm! Blizzard Entertainment today announced plans for its seventh BlizzCon® gaming convention, taking place Friday, November 8 and Saturday, November 9 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. For two epic days, members of Blizzard’s gaming community from around the globe will descend on Anaheim to meet, play, and celebrate their shared passion for all things Warcraft®, StarCraft®, and Diablo®.

“BlizzCon gives us a chance to connect with our players and share our latest projects in a very personal way,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Members from all of our gaming communities have helped make this event bigger and better every time, and we look forward to meeting up and celebrating with them in November.”

In addition to serving as a gathering place for Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, BlizzCon will offer attendees a chance to enjoy:

• Hands-on play time with the latest versions of Blizzard Entertainment games
• Global finals for Blizzard eSports, featuring top pro gamers from around the world
• In-depth discussion panels with Blizzard game developers and artists
• Competitive and casual tournaments for players to showcase their talents
• Community contests with great prizes
• Commemorative merchandise based on Blizzard Entertainment’s game universes
• More activities and attractions to be announced

The previous BlizzCon was held in Anaheim in October 2011. Tickets to the event sold out in seconds, and highlights included the unveiling of the fourth World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria®, and an epic closing concert featuring rock legends Foo Fighters.

Further details about BlizzCon 2013, including ticket availability and pricing, will be announced on the official BlizzCon website (www.blizzcon.com) as the event draws closer. Those interested in attending the show in person can make advance hotel reservations now and receive special BlizzCon rates by booking through the BlizzCon hotel website.

Blizzard Entertainment is currently hiring for numerous open positions. More information on available career opportunities can be found at www.blizzard.com/jobs.

Health potions are red
Magic items are blue
I just killed a Treasure Goblin
And he dropped loot for you!
 

The battle between the forces of the Burning Hells and the heroes of Sanctuary rages on, but during this lovely season it's not unheard of for demons and Nephalem to exchange tokens of friendship.

This year, we wanted to get the community involved, so we're asking for you to put on your crafting hats and submit Diablo-themed Valentine's Day art and cards. We'll be collecting your submissions and showcasing some of your best work in a gallery that will be featured on the official Diablo Facebook page throughout the week!

To submit your diabolical Valentine's Day greetings, email us at blizzardcontest@blizzard.com or send us a tweet to @Diablo using the hashtag #D3Valentine. The pieces of art you submit must be your own original work, and should be less than 2 megs in size.

We look forward to seeing the results of your creativity!

FEBRUARY 13

• Bug Fixes
  • The Archon Spaulders of Strength recipe can now drop in the game
  • It is no longer possible for players to trade Demonic Essences and Marquise Gems
  • Fixed an issue where certain damage effects were not being removed from players when exiting the Scorched Chapel

We've recently opened up five new forums:

• Trading [Hardcore]
• Brawling
• Looking for Group [PvP]
• Gameplay Videos & Streams
• Community Creations

As always, community forums work best when participants treat their fellow posters with respect and courtesy, so we ask that you take the time to read through the forum Code of Conduct and guidelines before posting.

Code of Conduct: http://us.battle.net/en/community/conduct
Posting Guidelines: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3074647446#2

Thanks!

With the release of patch 1.0.7, we will no longer be reviving or undeleting Hardcore characters as part of an account rollback. This adjustment to our rollback service is being done for two reasons:

• Hardcore characters were never intended to be revived or undeleted by an account rollback. Bringing Hardcore characters back to life via rollback really isn't in the spirit of Hardcore (where death is permanent, no matter the circumstances). When we originally adapted our rollback services for Diablo III, however, we didn't have the technology to make Hardcore characters exempt. We've wanted to bring our rollback policies regarding Hardcore characters in line with the game for a while, and as of patch 1.0.7 we will have the tools to do so.
• In recent months, we've discovered that some players who’ve lost Hardcore characters through normal gameplay will fake an account compromise and request a rollback through Customer Support in order to get their characters revived. Not only is this an abuse of the services we provide to the community, but it also impacts other players who have submitted legitimate inquiries by increasing wait times across the board.

Patch 1.0.7 is currently scheduled to release tomorrow in all regions. For more information about our restoration and rollback policies for Diablo III, please view the following Support articles:

• https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/diablo-iii-restorations
• https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/compromised-diablo-iii-account

To learn more about account security, check out: http://us.battle.net/en/security/

[BRAWLING]


Kevin: Considered? Yeah, definitely. Not only did we debate the idea of having point systems and other forms of tracking for brawling during the initial development stage, but we also carefully revisited those points as we saw incoming feedback from the PTR. We know that, for many players, having some way of "showing off" your skills in battle either through a point tracker or reward system is very desirable, and we debated various different ways of doing that within the current design of brawling. We even discussed adding ears for players to collect after they'd slaughtered their opponents, and whether that type of "reward" could exist as items or as an ever-growing counter in the UI.

After all those discussions, though, we always came back to the same principle: brawling is a simple, straightforward way to knock your friends and/or enemies into next week. That's it. No rewards, no objectives, no scores. The goal of the feature is to give players a way to fight each other in a no-holds-barred kind of environment, and we want to keep that environment as simple, straightforward, and "no-holds-barred" as possible. While we will remain open to player feedback on the idea of point trackers and rewards and may consider making adjustments based on that feedback in the future, we really feel that brawling will be at its best when it is just simply a free-for-all fight. We like that this allows players to sort of define what brawling means to them, as well as build their own "mini-games" around the feature (for example, there's this thread over on Reddit that's pretty cool, same for the rules streamer Inigo Montoya developed).

I also want to point out that brawling is not a replacement for Team Deathmatch or any other types of more complex PvP modes, and that a lot of the design choices we made with brawling were done to navigate around the issues we experienced with Team Deathmatch. Some players may not have seen this, but Jay wrote a major update of PvP in December and he explained why Team Deathmatch was not coming soon (the bad news), and that mode actually had rewards and points. You can read the blog here. But let me try to summarize the primary points:

• We are a PVE-focused game. Killing more demons more efficiently is what the skills are and should be balanced against. As such, we have so many skills and rune combos, coupled with an enormous amount of items and affixes, and then major power variance based on those items that the formal and organized direct team competition of the scored Team Deathmatch mode really drew that into stark contrast.
• In addition, while Team Deathmatch was fun for a while, the lasting depth wasn't there. So, and I realize I’m getting a little long-winded here (how does one apply that metaphor to typing, exactly?), rather than potentially repeating those issues with another system that had rewards, and objectives, and scoring, just getting a solid way to bash people was our primary goal and to get it out as fast as possible. Brawling is the result of that.

Kevin: So you thought you could convince me to add betting by offering me a 15% cut, eh? While I like your style, I'm afraid I don’t think the concept will work. I do think it’s cool! But I also think it suffers from two issues -- one solvable and one not so much.

So first, see my notes above about class balance. Betting on a mode that is not balanced has some inherent perils and fairness issues in it. We can always say "buyer beware" or let you do what you want with your own money, but we've found that the variance is so enormous that we’re rather hesitant to offer a formal way to wager on something we well know is not balanced. This can easily be seen as a seal of approval. Now, if none of that applies to you, you can always make a gentleperson’'s agreement with your opponents to trade a prize (be it items or gold) in chat before you enter the Scorched Chapel.

Second, the solvable problem is the UI issue. Creating a betting UI would add additional time and complexity to get into a very simple mode that’s primary goal is to be straightforward. Our UI is rather crowded, too, so any additions to it are tricky to add for any purposes, not just betting. Again, the interface issue could be worked on but the balance issue trumps it.


Kevin: 2v2 brawling is another form of team-based Deathmatch. The problems we had with depth and balance with 4v4 aren’t better at all with 2 people per side. It's not like we don’t like this idea, to be clear. Here's where we are right now: we want to get the basic player-vs-player combat to you all as quickly and as simply as we can. Brawling in the Scorched Chapel is that. As Jay said back in December, we will continue to ponder (picture Rodin's Thinker only with more foam axes, nerf guns, and beer) a way to add lasting depth to a team-based mode but, in the meantime, please enjoy beating the living daylights out of each other in free-for all combat.


Kevin: The rewards are the satisfaction of seeing your enemies (and…well… friends, I guess) driven before you and hearing the lamentations of their followers. What more does one need?
The serious answer is honestly only a little different. Like the answer I provided to DarkAlucoc, brawling is just a fun way to bash each other around and if you like testing your skills and powers against other players, then that will be fun on its own. If not, there are so, so many demons to slay and, really, they have totally been asking for it. Especially Heralds of Pestilence—those guys are jerks.


Kevin: We feel that the social features in Diablo III could be more robust, absolutely. Along with that, we understand that finding other players to brawl with could probably be easier. On a very high level, we've been discussing ways to help players find groups more easily according to their specific play style, be that for questing, Paragon leveling, item farming, key runs, or brawling, etc. One of the ideas we've explored—and this is by no means set in stone, but I did want to bring it up since it is something we’re actively considering it—is the possibility of allowing players to identify what kind of experience they’re looking for when entering Public Games by using "tags." So, in addition to selecting your MP and Quest, you could also hypothetically select your "Game Type," and "Brawling" could certainly be one of the types we make available. Again, this isn't a feature we're committed to making yet, and it's a pretty big change from both a UI and mechanical standpoint, so we don't have an ETA for when social improvements of that level might be added.

So, to answer your question: while we don’t have any additions planned for 1.0.7 (we were paying pretty close attention to how people were finding one another on the PTR and think players were doing just fine), we'll continue monitoring your feedback.


Kevin: I worked with Lylirra closely on a post that covers this question pretty much in its entirety. Rather than make you go look for it, I can quote the relevant points for you here.

Regarding why we don’t allow brawling in the open world:


If anything, the list of complicating issues above was rather short. There are so many more factors that could negatively impact a player’s experience if we were to allow open-world PvP in the existing PvE environment.

Regarding why we don’t offer a right-click > duel option:


We've already added the PvP channel, and Nek the Brawler is now available in all Act hubs. As noted in one of my earlier responses, we're also discussing ways for like-minded players (including brawlers) to find one another more easily through the game's social features.

Additionally—and I think this is important to specify—one of the big reasons that we changed the name from "dueling" to "brawling" is that we understood the word "dueling" comes with certain connotations. It makes you think of 1v1 combat that’s initiated within the existing world, something that feels similar to the battle between the Dread Pirate Roberts and Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. There’s spontaneity to it, as well as more formality. Also, it only refers to a fight between two people.

That's really not what dueling was (or is) in Diablo III, so we changed its name to something more fitting: brawling. Brawls are more about getting people together to fight each other in a blur of fists and ferocity where the winner takes all. That’s exactly what our form of brawling offers, as opposed to something more formal and balanced (and only between 2 people). In that context, a right-click > duel option doesn't make a lot of sense.


Wyatt: There are essentially two different questions being asked. Question one: "The current environment seems very one-hit kill, are there any plans to address this?" The second question is "What effect does the AH/RMAH have on brawling?"

Players have a great deal of control over the gear that you wear. Many players in the current live environment choose to build their characters to be extremely offensive, forgoing defense almost completely. Other players choose to build their character extremely defensively, so they can take a few hits and keep on ticking. Most players fall somewhere on the spectrum between these two extremes, though there is a tendency in PvE to lean more on the offensive side as it results in faster clears of PvE content.

When the 1.0.7 PTR went live, you saw a lot of one-hit kills because players are stepping into the Scorched Chapel with their offensively-oriented PvE gear and sometimes even their PvE skill builds. You are certainly going to see a lot of one-hit kills in an environment like this. Sometimes you see one-hit kills simply because you’re vastly out-geared by your opponent. However, if players re-gear for some survivability in their item and skill choices, things have the potential to shift. Indeed, if two players are both extremely defensively-minded you quickly get into stalemates in which neither player is able to ever kill the other. Ensuring that it is at least somewhat worthwhile to build defensively is part of the reason for the 30% damage reduction for all classes (35% for Monks and Barbarians) seen in the latest PTR patch. If a person who makes a balanced build between offense and defense is still getting 1-shot by somebody who is completely offensively-minded, then it doesn’t feel worthwhile to have built defensively at all, so the 30%/35% damage reduction is intended to close the gap to help people survive the 1-shot scenario.

With regards to the AH/RMAH question, brawling is really no-holds-barred. Players entering a brawl are going to have different gear levels and that gear is going to come from multiple sources. Some gear might be acquired through drops, some might be found on the AH, and some might be crafted -- particularly with the introduction of the new crafting recipes in 1.0.7 to accompany the account-bound Hellfire Rings. When two people enter the Scorched Chapel, one player may vastly out-gear the other. That’s to be expected. We like that brawling is more open-ended in terms of your gearing choices, and we've no plans to limit that by introducing a separate item system.

Asking about the AH/RMAH with regards to brawling, though, is really just a variant of the larger question of what role the AH/RMAH should play in Diablo III. We think the fact that most players get their gear from the AH is an issue, but it’s not one that’s specific to brawling. And we’d rather fix the larger issue (which is in turn will benefit brawling), rather than come up with some new gear system that will only address the problem for PvP. That said, no matter what we do, some players are going to have vastly better gear than others, and that’s probably always going to be the case depending on your level of investment.

Overall please remember that brawling with your friends may not be fair fight. So, if you’re looking for a perfectly balanced, pure skill-based, highly structured PvP mode where everybody has identical gear, then brawling may not be the feature for you. Even so, we still think (for a lot of players) it’s going to be a lot of fun to jump into a game and just beat each other up.


[NEW CRAFTED ITEMS]


Wyatt: The most important thing to keep in mind about the new crafting recipes is that they are not for everybody. They are designed primarily for two groups:

• High-end players who already have extremely good gear, but are having difficulty finding new upgrades (either through drops or the Auction House).
• Self-found" players who don't use the Auction House and, as such, are happy for any opportunity to upgrade their gear through available means.

Certainly players can (and should) compare the new crafted gear to current AH pricing. If you are still finding the occasional upgrade on the AH, then you may not want to make the investment in the new crafting recipes – and that's okay.

Any analysis being done on the tradeoff between AH pricing and the crafting recipes’ probabilities assume a current gear level. If the AH has upgrades for you at the 10,000 gold price point, then you probably don't want to craft the new items. If your next upgrade on the AH tends to cost around 500,000, then the new crafting recipes may start to look more appealing. Similarly, if reasonable upgrades to your current gear cost around a billion gold or more, then the new crafting recipes should be worth making.

Also, keep in mind that the new items have a chance to roll higher-than-ever values of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality. Anybody who has spent time looking at high-end items knows that the value of items at the best items increases at an incredible rate. The difference between a 98th percentile and 99th percentile item can increase the value by tenfold or more. We expect that the new crafted recipes will appeal to those who are operating at this elite end of the market.

For those who fit into neither audience category, you may want to try your luck on some of the new crafted recipes, or you may just want to wait. Maybe you'll find yourself at the high end of the market in the future, and those recipes will start to seem more appealing. Maybe you'll decide to make a self-found character and you'll find the new crafting recipes to be a huge boon. If you never find yourself in either of those groups and the crafting recipes just never appeal to you, that's okay too -- not every feature in the game will appeal to every player.

This really begs the question: why not also add recipes for the other 99%? Part of this is caused by the restriction imposed by the way that crafting works currently, with its built-in randomness. This actually makes it very challenging to provide a solution for players who would like to make something for themselves, but don’t have the gold in the bank to press the button enough times to benefit. We actually feel there are better solutions for crafting out there, and we are working on some of them, but it’s no small issue to solve, which is why you haven’t seen much progress on it in patches.


Travis: Making the new crafted items account bound was done for one very distinct reason: to give players more incentives to play the game rather than the Auction House. Something we discuss frequently is how the Auction House has impacted the game and how we can refocus players away from farming the Auction House and onto farming monsters.

Demonic Essence was made account bound to encourage players who wish to create the new items to play the game instead of simply going to the Auction House and buying all the mats necessary to mass produce the items. For that same reason we wanted the product of the recipes to be account bound as well. We want players to not only find or produce their own items more often but also diminish the impact the Auction House has on the game, and we felt like this was a good opportunity to take our first steps in that direction. (Okay, well our second steps since the Hellfire Ring was designed with the same goal in mind.)


Andrew: This change only affects the Rare crafting plans and jeweler designs. The Legendary crafting plans remain very challenging to find.


Andrew: Auto-pickup of gold and health globes is a clear choice for all players for a few reasons that don’t really translate well to other kinds of items. To begin with, I can’t think of a situation where you don’t want to pick up gold! Health Globes are a little different, though, in that there can be a strategic choice during combat when to pick them up, but generally collecting them doesn’t do you any harm.

Both of these items also have their own dedicated storage slot that isn’t restricted in any way (you can pick up as much gold or as many health globes as you want). If we were to expand that auto-pickup to items that consume slots in your inventory, the question of whether you should pick it up or not becomes muddy, and we’d prefer not to overcomplicate that. Some players may not be farming for Demonic Essence and ignore it, so they wouldn’t want to pick it up, but some others may want to hoover everything.

It’s also important for gameplay reasons for players to be making active choices about their decisions on a regular basis. If everything was auto-pick up and you never had to make choices, there wouldn’t be an ebb and flow to the gameplay experience. These pauses to make a decision inspire your brain to a different form of activity as opposed to killing monsters, which can actually feel good and we’d like to encourage that.

So, to answer your question: we’ve definitely considered it, but we’ve decided not to have the new crafting plans and items qualify for auto-pick up.


[GEMS]


Wyatt: Let's see if I can address both of these questions with one answer.

The Amethyst serves a different role than the other gems in providing defense rather than offense. For players who are looking to increase their Life On Hit or survivability in general, the Amethyst fills that role. We're not looking to see some minimum percentage of the audience using Amethysts; it's okay if less than 25% of players use an Amethyst. It's even okay if less than 5% of players use the Amethyst. What's important is that if you want to increase your survivability, you can look at the Amethyst and say it's providing a worthwhile boost.

With the lowering of damage at Inferno since the game's release, and the introduction of Monster Power, we've seen a natural shift towards offensive builds and maximizing damage in general. This is totally expected. As a result, there has also been a corresponding decline in the use of the Amethyst in weapons, which is also expected and normal. Those who have been playing since release will recall that the Amethyst was an extremely popular gem choice, particularly for Barbarians and Monks. In situations where Life on Hit or survivability is desired -- such as new characters, Hardcore characters, or people who really want to build super tanky -- then the Amethyst is still a solid choice.

The Topaz, on the other hand, is a different story. No -- the damage from the Topaz is not competitive in comparison to other gems. Thorns damage in general is underpowered in the game and we're looking to correct that n the future. While we're discussing a number of ways to do this, the favored idea internally is to allow Thorns to benefit from your primary stat (Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence). So if you have, say, 2000 Intelligence as a Wizard or Witch Doctor, then your Thorns items will do +2000% damage, much like your weapon damage. This is, of course, a huge buff to the Thorns property and there is no specific timeline on when we're going to make such a change.

What we don't want to do, however, is buff the Topaz considerably today only to have it be grossly overpowered in the future. This would then put us in the situation where we'd either have to go back and nerf the Topaz, or not move forward with allowing it to buff your primary stat.

Now, some of you may be thinking "Buff it now so we can use it and nerf it later! We don't mind!" but it's not that easy. Buffing it now would lead to one set of builds and gearing options, which would be adversely affected if it got nerfed later. What if (hypothetically) a Topaz weapon buff lead to a class of builds that skipped any stacking of your primary stat? If we later made Thorns benefit from your primary stat and nerfed the Topaz accordingly, this entire class of builds would become invalidated.

So, while we do want improve Topaz gems and with it the Thorns affix, we don’t have any immediate plans to do so. This kind of change is likely something we’d incorporate into Diablo III alongside similar improvements.


Andrew: We agree that crafting gems can be slow and tedious, and we've seen a number of great suggestions from the community on how to address this issue. We are definitely looking into allowing you to perform a "craft all gems of this type" style action. Worth noting: we will only allow this for gems, as the crafted outcome is a very known quantity with fixed affixes. We still believe the process of crafting one random item at a time has value.


Andrew: Trading is certainly super important, but I wouldn’t say the game is based on trading. Diablo III is about killing monsters and finding evermore powerful enemies and items to kill them with. Trading is just one method by which players can obtain items, and the Auction House is currently the most popular way to do that. We feel that gearing up is perhaps too skewed towards trading right now, and account-bound items are a way of balancing that out with farming.

We don’t really like that, for most players, all of your current gear is very likely to be something you’ve found on the Auction House. This can create a situation where it doesn’t feel like you "own" the gear you’ve obtained; instead, it feels like you are renting it. This is one of the big draws of making items account-bound. We also need more end game item and gold sinks, and making something account bound permanently "removes" those items from the game. Having gear (or gems) that feels like you own it forever is good for you, and removing a lot of things from the economy is good for the game.


Andrew: We wanted to add a new tier for a few reasons:

• We wanted to make them attractive, and an increase in power is very attractive.
• We wanted a way to remove some of the current top tier gems from circulation.

We don’t feel that adding a whole new type of gem to the game was the right answer at the moment. We do have ideas for what we would want from new gems, but now isn’t the time to add that to the game. The Marquise gems are gold and item sinks (which is something we feel the economy can really benefit from right now), and very attractive ones at that.

(As for "why didn’t we fix Topax in weapons", I believe Wyatt provided a pretty comprehensive answer to that question already.)


Andrew: We love that players are able to remove gems from sockets in Diablo III, as it helps provide more flexibility as you gear up rather than locking you to single choice. However, since un-socketing is so painless and costs so little, what we’ve found is that players will simply recycle the same gem across all their characters rather than creating new ones. An important goal with the new Marquise gems is to act as a gold and Radiant Star gem sink. Currently, there’s nothing in the game that actually pulls those gems out of the economy, but to keep their value up, that’s important.

In all honesty, I wish the cost to remove the lower tier gems was much higher, more in line with the cost of the Marquise gem. We would prefer players to be crafting new gems of all types rather than just shuffling them around as that makes the gem economy more dynamic (more things coming in, lots of things coming out). Right now it’s almost entirely stagnant, with demand going down every day. If you only had to craft one Marquise Ruby for all 10 characters, that would remove some Radiant Stars from the economy, but realistically it won’t remove much. With the unsocket cost set to 5 million, you now have a clear choice: "should I move my gem 4 times or just craft a new one?" For the sake of the economy, we actually hope you’d prefer to craft a new one.


[CLASSES]


Don: Since launch, we’ve been increasing the damage on the Wizard’s Secondary abilities to try and make them useful tools in specific builds and for specific play styles. While we believe we’ve made them viable for specific builds and specific gear setups, these builds are being overshadowed by the ease and effectiveness of CM and Archon. We don’t want to just keep on increasing numbers, as that would make that class spiral out of control balance-wise.

That being said, we are aware that Arcane Orb and every channeled ability not named Archon Disintegrate are not very popular. We have plans to reevaluate the Arcane Orb skill as a whole and are working toward solutions to the innate problem of the Wizard’s channeled abilities: e.g. Wizards are vulnerable when they’re standing still to channel.

One of the problems with the unattractive Arcane Power spenders is that the only way to sustain casting these abilities is with APoC. Since this relies on procs, Arcane Power spenders with high proc scalars outshine the ones with low ones. We are looking at ways other than APoC for those Wizards with high attack speed to be able to sustain casting Arcane Power spenders for an extended period of time.


Wyatt: Overall we're okay with the current state of Monk passives. That's not to say they're perfect (we'll definitely be working on them more), but we did not feel the current issues were severe enough to warrant changes at this time. The Monk got some changes to passives in previous patches, so keep that in mind as well.

There's a lot of moving parts on any class—interdependencies in which changes to one part of the class can have many downstream effects. In the case of the Monk, there are two big outstanding issues to address before further changes to passives happen: the inequity between the 4 spirit generators and their rune variants, and One with Everything.

Speaking of One with Everything, we've mentioned many times in the past that we're looking to make this passive feel less mandatory and a number of options have been discussed. This seems like a good opportunity to discuss some of the solutions that have come up internally. Please keep in mind that this topic is still very much in the air.

• The most commonly proposed solution is to simply bake One With Everything directly into the Monk's class. In essence, give the passive away for free. This has a few issues. We don't currently bake a mechanic like this into other classes, so it would be something that’d need to be explained to new players or otherwise exist as a hidden bonus. It also represents a big boost to one class that's inequitable with the other classes. In addition, some Monks don't really like the mechanic, and have built their character around not taking One with Everything. Baking this into the class would make it so all Monks would be foolish not to take advantage of it. On the upside, it certainly frees up Monks to choose new passives without invalidating the current gear choices. Besides, who doesn't like getting something for nothing?

• Another option is to alter gear in the future to not drop both an elemental resistance and resist all. Many people already comment that if you have an item with resistance to only one particular school, it's counter-intuitive that the values are lower than a similar-tier affix for resist all. One thing we have talked about doing is increasing the element-specific values so they are higher than the resist all values by a comfortable margin, while simultaneously disallowing both affixes from rolling on the same item. This would allow Monks who want to specialize in a single school of resistance to do so, and pick up One With Everything, without making the benefit of double-stacking resistances so hard to ignore.

• A third option that has been discussed is breaking up the effect across all the existing passives. For example, Resolve might become "Damage you deal reduces enemy damage by 20% for 2.5 seconds. In addition any resistance lower than your Cold Resistance is increased to the level of your Cold Resistance." The advantage of such an approach is letting people continue to gain the effect, as well as creating a lot of diversity across different Monks. The disadvantage is your gear choices will lock you even more into particular passive choices, not to mention the cumbersome tooltips.

There are other solutions that have been discussed, but my intent in sharing these is to not only spark discussion and grant insight into our thought process, but also to demonstrate that when we say "we don't want to invalidate the gear Monks are currently wearing" we mean it.


Travis: One of our goals with the Monk changes of 1.0.7 was to try to encourage build diversity and open up more options to people who enjoy more active gameplay. To actually provide players with more build diversity, the first thing we have to do is make more skills desirable. So you are correct in your statement that we buffed skills people don’t use -- that’s kind of the point. :) Prior to patch 1.0.7, monks suffered from an underlying problem that caused many of their skills to simply not be worth a slot on their bar. In many cases, a player would gain a larger DPS increase by simply spending Spirit on Conviction Aura than they would spending a similar amount of Spirit on Wave of Light or Lashing Tail Kick. Our intent with these changes was to try to bring the skills that have more interesting gameplay associated with them up to a similar level as those that have little to no gameplay associated with them (i.e. the more passive abilities like Mantras).

We have plans on the table for how we want to change the existing Mantras, but none of them are final yet. In the case of Retribution for example, we think the mechanic is flawed at its core and touches on the same things that make Thorns an unappealing stat on items. However, one potential solution we are looking into is to make Retribution the same as Thorns and reflect a flat amount of damage instead of a percentage of incoming damage, and at the same time change all Thorns mechanics to be effected by your primary attribute. We think this approach will help give Retribution a place in certain character builds, though we also suspect that simply making all Thorns mechanics deal 2500% more damage than they currently do may be a bit too extreme. So, when we transition to this new mechanic we will have to do more tuning.

Not much longer now

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I would give you an ETA if I could, but I will not risk the wrath of the community and having my soul cursed into the afterlife if any ETA I provided turns out not to be accurate :-)

To be more serious though, I cannot give you an ETA yet because the release date we are aiming for is still set as tentative.

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"Not much longer now" == "Soon" ?:D

Hmm... Soon doesn't quite cut it. I would rather say it's sooner than soon, but maybe not soon enough ;-)

Adding Sockets To Items (Blue Tracker | Source)
I know adding sockets to items is a game feature that a lot of players want, and I don’t want to sound dismissive to that feedback, but I was really was hoping that the reason you wanted to loot a drill was so you could theme your character after an angry dentist. Like a melee Wizard named DrNoNovacain. :P

In regards to adding sockets to items, I would like to say that it's still on the table for consideration and certainly something we'd like to add, but it would be a long term design goal if it were to be implemented at all.

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Account Bound Items + Crafting (Blue Tracker | Source)
One of the great things about crafting is the multiple functions it can serve. A healthy resource sink at this point in the game’s life cycle seems like it would be a good thing, and the 1.0.7 bind-on-account crafting recipes and gems should help in that regard. The crafting recipes also provide you the chance to roll a best-in-slot item that you can't buy or sell on the Auction House (something which players have been asking for), and the Marquise gem of course will be the highest tier available in the game.

As time goes on and the game changes, it is likely crafting will as well. We feel that bind-on-account items are the right thing for the game at this moment, but of course we want to keep adapting with the community and the economy as they evolve. In the meantime, and as always, it would be great to hear your ideas about crafting, and we encourage you to keep talking about what you'd like to see out of the system. :)

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Archangel and Deathangel As Playable Classes (Blue Tracker | Source)
Archangel and Deathangel classes wouldn't really fit with the lore, simply because they are not Nephalem. The Nephalem are the offspring of angels and demons, and within them is the combined essence(or spirit if you will) of both angels and demons, which is what is giving the Nephalem the potential to be even greater than both.

but what if an angel wants to become human like tyrael wanted and he still has some angelic powers

An angel may become human as was learned when Tyrael renounced his immortality and was cast from the high heavens, but even if angelic powers are retained after an angel become human, this will still not be enough as those powers are still "only" angelic.

Achievements

• General
  • Subjugators now count towards the achievements "We are Champions" and "Champion's Collection"

PTR Bug Fixes

• General
  • Using the PTR Character Copy feature for a region on which you have no active characters will no longer result in login errors or your PTR account becoming locked
• Crafting
  • Marquise designs and Archon crafting recipes are now searchable on the Auction House
• Dueling
  • Players are now correctly considered "Elites" in PvP and PvE combat
  • Players should now be automatically healed and have all active debuffs removed upon leaving the Scorched Chapel
  • Followers should no longer become hostile towards players after exiting the Scorched Chapel
  • Storm Armor shocks can now be dodged
  • Nek the Brawler will no longer die if another player joins or leaves a game while someone is standing near him
  • It's no longer possible to have inactive followers providing buffs in duels
• Items
  • Goldskin's proc will no longer work when in the Scorched Chapel
  • The Puzzle Ring's proc will no longer work when in the Scorched Chapel
  • The Incense Torch of the Grand Temple and Neanderthal can now drop

We do our best to ensure that we alert the community in advance of game changes (just like we did for the Legendary Item Improvements), and in this particular case, I wanted to jump in to reassure everyone that “black weapons” (i.e. weapons with the MinMaxDamage Affix) are not going to be nerfed in patch 1.0.7, and we have no plans going forward to nerf them.

Known Issues are just that, bugs that we know about. They are NOT necessarily bugs that are going to be fixed. The MinMaxDamage bug has been a bug known to us since July of last year, however, we did not want to fix a bug that would effectively nerf a large number of existing weapons. That’s why we did not fix the bug in any previous patch that we've released since the bug was found, nor are we fixing it in patch 1.0.7. Currently, the plan is that at such at time that we address the bug, the bug fix will only apply to newly created items, so as to not adversely affect existing items.

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I'm still curious though, in the hypothetical scenario that this bug is fixed, will it be a buff or a nerf?

I think the theorycrafting folk would really appreciate clarification on what the expected proper behavior of the minmaxdam affix is.

If and when we consider making adjustments to the MinMaxDamage affix (whether it be a bug fix or some other change), we’ll be sure to let you know in advance or otherwise provide as much warning as possible. We haven’t decided on anything yet, though, or really even discussed much in the way of possible changes. So, while I definitely admire theorycrafting and appreciate why you’re posting the hypothetical, there’s not a lot more clarity to provide other than what I’ve already given. It’d just be speculation at that point, and that’s not a very good role for me or any Community Manager to really serve.

This thread saddens me greatly. I know that the Battle.net forums have earned a reputation for rough justice, but I do not believe justice is being served by how people are speaking about Jay’s departure from Diablo III.

I am very proud of the Diablo franchise and what the team was able to accomplish with Diablo III. As a gamer I have enjoyed the game and played for many, many nights with friends and family. I’m not, however, going to use that as an excuse. The Diablo community deserves an even better game from Blizzard and we are committed to improving it. We have a talented team in place and have no intention of stopping work on Diablo III until it is the best game in the franchise.

I’m the only person in this thread who has actually worked with Jay. I hired Jay to head up the Diablo project and had the pleasure of getting to work with him, both in building the team and designing the game. He has great design instincts and has added so much to the franchise with his feel for visceral combat, boss battles, and an unparalleled knack for making it fun to smash bad guys. I’ve worked with many, many designers at Blizzard and Jay is one of the best. He has a great career at Blizzard ahead of him and I guarantee that you will enjoy Jay’s game designs in future Blizzard games.

If you love Diablo as much as we do, then please continue to let us know how you feel we can improve the game. If you still feel the need to dish out blame, then I would prefer you direct it at me. I was the executive producer on the project; I hired Jay and I gave him advice and direction throughout the development process. I was ultimately responsible for the game we released and take full responsibility for the quality of the result.

One statement I’ve seen over and over on these forums and elsewhere are proposals for “easy” fixes and overarching assumptions about how long implementation for a variety of changes “should” take.

The reality is, game development is a hugely iterative and time-consuming process, with many people involved along the way. Design takes time, Coding takes time, art takes time, QA takes time: you name it. There are also multiple steps in the pipeline for each and every proposed change and bug fix, no matter how minor, and what issues are being worked on in what order and by who can and do change as new matters arise. Sometimes extra testing is also needed for bugs that come back broken and need to be retested, because we didn't want them to go live with a bad fix.

While there may indeed be a list of known issues and bugs that run alongside some patches, for every one you are aware of, there can be dozens or hundreds being worked on behind-the-scenes that you likely never be aware of. We do things just as quickly as we can, but even then, it’s a process that takes time.