Season 18: The Season of the Triune
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Season 18 is the Season of the Triune! For the duration of Season 18, all players will benefit from the Power of the Triune buff, which will periodically summon circles around the battlefield that provide one of three random buffs:
- Triune of Love (Power): Players in the circle receive a 100% damage bonus while active
- Triune of Determination (Resource Reduction): Players in the circle receive a 50% discount on resources spent while active
- Triune of Creation (Cooldown Reduction): While standing in an active circle, any skills currently on cooldown come off of cooldown more quickly
Season 18 begins on Friday, August 23rd at 5:00pm in each region. For timezone conversion, visit this site!
Table of Contents
- Season of the Triune
- Discord Server
- Haedrig's Gift
- Season 18 Starter Guides
- Solo Self-Found League
- Level With A Cause
- Challenge Rift Week 113
- Season 18 Changes
DiabloFans Discord
Join us on our Discord server! This is perfect place for finding people to group with, get your questions answered, and stay up to date on the latest news! You can join our server by clicking on the banner below, or by going here!
If you don't use Discord you're missing out, but you can also find people to play with by using our forums!
Haedrig's Gift & Cosmetic Rewards
Completing Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the Season Journey will reward you with three of Haedrig’s Gifts. Each Gift contains a few pieces from one of your Class Sets. Players can only unlock one Class Set in this manner per Season across Hardcore and Non-Hardcore, so choose wisely!
The set you will receive depends on the class of the character you’re playing when you open each Haedrig’s Gift. To collect a full Class Set, you’ll need to open all three on the same character.
Here are the sets granted by Haedrig’s Gift in Season 18:
- Barbarian – The Legacy of Raekor
- Crusader – Armor of Akkhan
- Demon Hunter – Embodiment of the Marauder
- Monk – Inna’s Reach
- Necromancer – Pestilence Master’s Shroud
- Witch Doctor – Zunimassa’s Haunt
- Wizard – Delsere’s Magnum Opus
Beginning with Season 17, Blizzard began re-introducing previous Seasonal rewards to make them available to players who may have missed them the first time around. For Season 18, this means rewards that were originally available from Season 6 are returning to the Season Journey.
In addition to the Chest and Gloves slots of the exclusive Conqueror Set, players will be able to earn a series of portrait frames bedecked with the mysterious beauty of Blood Shards. A ghastly All Hallow’s pennant will also be available, allowing you to proudly proclaim your love for all things grim and creepy.
Season 18 Starter Guides
Bluddshed has published a series of guides for getting started in Season 18, including his guide for utilizing your Challenge Rift Cache efficiently at the start of the season! Keep in mind that this guide was uploaded for the start of Season 17, but the information is still relevant for Season 18. Additionally, check out the class starter guides linked below! If you're looking for a guide to leveling, Rattlez posted a comprehensive written guide on the Diablo Subreddit!
Class Starter Guides:
Solo Self-Found League
The Solo Self-Found League is a player-created competitive league. The goal of the Solo Self-Found League is to give players the opportunity to play competitively in a purely solo space. Players who are interested in joining the Solo Self-Found league should fill out the submission form and visit the SSFL Discord server!
Be sure to visit our forums for more information on the SSFL, and keep an eye on the SSFL public leaderboard throughout the season!
The Solo Self-Found League begins at the start of the season, and ends on September 22nd at 5:00pm in each region.
- North America ends at 5:00pm PDT
- Europe ends at 5:00pm CEST
- Asia ends at 5:00pm KST
Level With A Cause
The Level With a Cause charity event is returning for Season 18! Level With a Cause is a recurring charity event that occurs at the start of each new season in Diablo 3. Level With a Cause was created by Wolfcryer as a way to unite the Diablo community in an effort to raise money for various charities.
The first Level With a Cause was held on Thursday, July 20, 2017 with the release of Season 11 and continued throughout the weekend. Twitch streamers and YouTubers from the Diablo community played and directed viewers to donate to St.Jude's Hospital. In that first Level With a Cause, the Diablo community raised over seven thousand dollars and cemented this as a recurring event.
As Level With a Cause continues to grow and the community generates more and more funds for charity, all streamers are encouraged to join the cause and be a part of something awesome!
You can donate to the Level With a Cause charity event here!
Be sure to watch some of the featured LWAC charity streams below:
Challenge Rift - Week 113
Challenge Rift Week 113 is live! We highly suggest that you do not complete this challenge rift until you have created your seasonal character on Friday. For more information on how to utilize the Challenge Rift Cache to enhance your seasonal start, check out the videos in our starter guides section. This week the Challenge Rift features a variety of Demon Hunter builds! If you are curious how Challenge Rift builds are chosen each week, you can view this official blog post!
Patch 2.6.6 Changes
Patch 2.6.6 added several new powers to existing legendary items and also changed some of the crafted set bonuses!
Originally Posted by Nevalistis (Official Post)
Below you will find the patch notes for the most recent update for Diablo III, Patch 2.6.6. Changes from the PTR have been highlighted in RED.
PATCH 2.6.6
Table of Contents:
Note: All changes apply to all versions of Diablo III, including PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC unless otherwise indicated.
General
- A pet has been added that will be available for players who pre-purchase Warcraft III: Reforged Spoils of War Edition (PC Only)
Seasons
- The buff for Season 18, the Season of the Triune, has been added
- Triune's Will: All abilities have a chance when hitting an enemy to spawn a circle that gives a power. Only one circle can be active at a time.
- Triune of Love (Power): Players in the circle receive a 100% damage bonus while active
- Triune of Determination (Resource Reduction): Players in the circle receive a 50% discount on resources spent while active
- Triune of Creation (Cooldown Reduction): While standing in an active circle, any skills currently on cooldown come off of cooldown more quickly
- Developer Comment: The last couple of Seasonal buffs have been focused primarily on end-game content. We wanted to try something different this Season with a buff that was more beneficial to players regardless of where they might be in their Season Journey. Triune's Will can come into play as early as level 1 and continue to make an impact on your game experience from the beginning to the end of the Season, and we're looking forward to seeing how players leverage this ever-changing boost throughout their adventures!
- Developer Comment: In addition, we received feedback from players during the PTR about colorblind accessibility. We've changed one of the blue-tinted circles to a darker, green earth tone that should stand out a lot more for affected players. We greatly appreciate your feedback!
Items
- Developer Note: There are additional specific notes below, but broadly for 2.6.6, we wanted to introduce a handful of new item powers targeted at two audiences: (1) certain classes with long-standing requests for balance/quality of life adjustments and (2) the broader player base for experimenting with Kanai's Cube. This means fewer class-specific new additions, but more additions that everyone has an opportunity to play with. We also experimented with making some of the craftable sets from Haedrig more appealing for fresh level 70's or players looking to maximize their farming runs. We hope to see some interesting new theorycrafting and tactics out of 2.6.6 and can't wait to see what the community does with this new loot!
- Updated Item Notes: There are a number of notes below clarifying the intention of certain item functionalities. In a couple cases, such as with Flavor of Time, the item wasn't behaving properly during PTR per our intentions (which has been fixed). For others, we just wanted to provide more clarity about exactly how these items behave.
- Flavor of Time
- New Legendary Power: Pylon effects last twice as long.
- Note: Only wearers of this item gain this effect. This is intended.
- The Executioner
- New Legendary Power: Attacks will slay enemies with less than (5-10%) health.
- Note: This item's power does not work on followers. This is intended.
- Stone Gauntlets
- New Legendary Power: Getting attacked will slowly turn you to stone... (You gain 50% more armor, but your movement speed is reduced by 15% and attack speed is reduced by 20%. This effect stacks up to 5 times)
- PTR Update: This item now displays a buff icon and has a clearer in-game description. Thank you for the feedback!
- Note: Immunity to control-impairing effects can work against the reduced attack and movement speed penalties. This is intended.
- Echoing Fury
- New Legendary Power: Slaying enemies engulfs the wielder into a Frenzy. (Killing enemies increases your attack speed by 15% and movement speed by 5%. This effect stacks up to 5 times)
- PTR Update: This item's power now works on kill assists and pet kills. Thank you for the feedback!
- Squirt's Necklace
- New Legendary Power: While not taking damage, your damage is increased by up to 100% and damage taken is increased by up to 50%.
- PTR Update: This item now displays a buff icon. Thank you for the feedback!
- Messerschmidt's Reaver
- New Legendary Power: Reduce the remaining cooldown of one of your skills by 1 second when you slay an enemy.
- PTR Update: This item's power now works on kill assists and pet kills. Thank you for the feedback!
- Mortick's Brace
- New Legendary Item: Wrath of the Berserker gains the effect of every rune.
- Developer's Note: If you played during the Patch 2.2.0 PTR, you'll recognize this as an item that was later removed from the game before it went to live servers. At the time, Mortick's Brace gave too much power for a single item slot. However, the power curve of Diablo III has changed significantly since then and we're comfortable with bringing it back.
- Developer's Note: We're not done with Barbarians, either. However, this is a change that required less testing and could be easily added to 2.6.6, so rather than waiting for a larger batch of changes, we saw no reason to hold this one back.
- Spite
- Note: This item can be crafted from the Blacksmith and is not a normal loot drop
- New Legendary Power: Non-cleaving Gargantuans gain the cleave and chilling effects of the Humongoid rune.
- Legacy of Dreams
- New Legendary Gem:
- While you have no set bonuses equipped, every Legendary item you have equipped increases your damage dealt by 3.75% and reduces your damage taken by 2%. (Max level 99)
- Rank 25: This bonus is doubled for Ancient items.
- Developer's Note: The end game opened up significantly with Season 17's Legacy of Nightmare's buff (and the community was clear about how much these new options were appreciated), but wanted to make this addition a more permanent fixture in a more streamlined way than simply making it baseline. This Legendary Gem should open that path up even further and at more opportunities than just late game Greater Rift pushing.
- Crafted Sets
- Note: The following sets have been significantly revised from their existing level 70 counterparts. Items crafted prior to 2.6.6 will continue to exist in their old forms but will not be updated after the patch. In addition, after the patch, the old recipes will no longer be available to craft and all players will need to re-acquire these recipes by finding the plans again through Horadric Caches or by killing Odious Collectors.
- Sage's Journey
- A Belt has been added to this set.
- Haedrig the Blacksmith now automatically learns how to forge this set at Rank 12.
- Captain Crimson's Trimmings
- (2) Set Bonus
- Regenerates 6000 Life per Second
- Reduces cooldown of all skills by
10%20%.- Now also reduces Resource Costs by 20%
- (3) Set Bonus
- Set bonuses have been replaced
- Damage dealt is increased by your total percentage of Cooldown Reduction
- Damage taken is reduced by your total percentage of Resource Cost Reduction
- Aughild's Authority
- (2) Set Bonus
- Set bonuses have been replaced
- Reduces damage taken by 15%
- Increases damage dealt by 30%
- (3) Set Bonus
- Reduces damage from elites by
15%30%- Increases damage against elites by
15%30%- Cain's Destiny
- (2) Set Bonus
- Attack Speed increased by 8%
- +50% Experience. (5.0% at level 70) (Moved from (3) Set Bonus)
- (3) Set Bonus
- When a Greater Rift Keystone drops, there is a 25% chance for an extra one to drop.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an error that occurred when reporting a player via a friend request
- Fixed an error that occurred when saving an existing Friend Note without making changes
PTR-Specific Bug Fixes
- Squirt's Necklace
- Fixed an issue where the damage taken increase was not reaching the 50% cap
- Captain Crimson's Trimmings
- Fixed an issue where the bonus provided by this class set was subject to snapshotting
