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Sounds like a good idea - thanks for taking the time to post your feedback! I'll pass it forward.

So for now I removed some of the parts that explain how to perform this exploit. I fully understand that publicizing something (and then popularizing its use) is the best way to bring attention to and have the dev hotfix it, but for now I'll ask you guys to keep this to yourselves. I have forwarded a bug report directly to their "hacks" e-mail in the hopes that something is done about this exploit - I believe there's a reasonable chance of them hotfixing this if we all do that.

I hope you guys understand where I'm coming from. Many wouldn't use the bug, but some people definitely would take advantage of this while it lasts. They don't really care about the integrity of the ladder (as previous banwaves due to botting showed). And yes, I am fully aware this info is available on other places.

Also don't take this the wrong way homerjnick. I know you had good intentions there, so that's why I'm not even issuing a warning to you. I just wanna keep this less accessible a little longer if possible.

I'm gonna also lock this thread. Feel free to send me a PM about this matter if you wish to discuss it further with me. And please do not edit info on how to execute the exploit into previous posts, or make new posts about this. Thanks in advance for your cooperation!

I was actually the one who deleted your comment there. Generally speaking, those types of comments (as you admitted yourself, non constructive) can be usually seen as just random trolling, meant to provoke our users into pointless arguments rather than serving any discussion purpose.

If you tell me that wasn't the case and you were only legitimately expressing your opinion and wanted an actual discussion, by all means I'll restore your post. But my personal stance regarding that kind of post is to be "safe rather than sorry". If you check previous news, there are a ton of negative posts about the game, and they're not deleted. But every now and then, it feels like someone is just really trolling everyone else. I'm sure you can understand why we have to adopt such a posture. As for the "no warning" part of the moderation, it's meant to give you the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes we gave out unofficial warnings for these, but they don't really work when the person is actually trolling.

This is the post, for reference:

Quote from Tides >>

Wait.. People are still playing this? Nothing out of the ordinary happened during the last two seasons to my knowledge, why on earth are people still interested in this game? Would'a thought people hated this by now

New Torment Levels & Gold Gains

• New difficulty levels, Torment XI-XIII have been added to the game
• Our moderation manager Bagstone has updated his a handy difficulty guide with in-depth info on each of them!

• Gold rewards have been adjusted:
  • Greater Rift 26 and up has been rescaled to a flat 3% increase per tier
  • Torment VII-XIII has been changed to match Greater Rift reward scaling
  • The cost to empower a Greater Rift has been reduced to match the new gold reward rate
  • The amount of gold dropped by the Gilded Baron Treasure Goblin has been reduced

Crowd Control vs Enemies

• Knockbacks now apply a flat 40% increase to crowd control resistances
• Monsters cannot be knocked back if they are over 65% crowd control resistant
• This greatly affects the use of "pulling" skills like Cyclone Strike in high GRs.
• Powers that apply knockbacks continuously, such as Black Hole, can bypass this resistance if they already knocked a monster back successfully. These powers increase the crowd control resistance by 20% per knockback instead of 40%

Season Journey

• Season 7 rewards include a new "snowy" portrait, a new Undead Horse pet and the usual rotation of the Conqueror's set. See them below.

• Inside the spoiler brackets you can check a side by side comparison of all the Season 6 and 7 chapters:

Haedrig's Gift Sets

• The steps that unlock these gifts are different this season - rather than tying the rewards to specific steps of the Season Journey, Haedrig’s Gifts are now tied to completing certain chapters.
• Chapters II, III, and IV will all reward you with one Haedrig’s Gift. In addition, Chapter IV will also be the reward step for the new Portrait and cosmetic item for Season 7.

Below you can see which Set each class is awarded for completing these Chapters in Season 7:

• Barbarian: Wrath of the Wastes
• Crusader: Roland’s Legacy
• Demon Hunter: Unhallowed Essence
• Monk: Raiment of a Thousand Storms
• Witch Doctor: Helltooth Harness
• Wizard: Tal Rasha’s Elements

New Season Conquests

Items

• Socketing a Topaz into your helm will now provide Resource Cost Reduction rather than Magic Find. This grants the same percentage bonus as Cooldown Reduction and caps at 12.5%
• Bottomless Potion of Chaos
  • New Legendary Potion
    • Teleport to another location when used below 40% health
  • Graphical and sound effects have been added to the teleport
  • Added a camera smoothing effect to the teleport
• Invigorating Gemstone
  • Has been redesigned
    • Each hit done increases healing received by 1% for 5 seconds
    • Stacks up to 10 times
    • You are now immune to Crowd Control effects at Rank 25

Campaign Mode

• The Skeleton King will now drop Leoric's Crown beginning at Level 5

Adventure Mode

• Infernal Machine drop rates have been adjusted:
  • There is now a 50% chance for a machine to drop on Torment I increasing to 100% on Torment IV
  • Torment levels V-XIII have an increasing chance for a second machine to drop
• Nephalem Rifts
  • Greater Rift Keys are now guaranteed from any Nephalem Rift and increasing the difficulty now increases your chance of getting a second or third key
  • Greater Rifts
    • Some of the Experience earned in a Greater Rift has been shifted from killing monsters to the reward for closing the rift. The overall amount of Experience earned should be roughly the same

USER INTERFACE

• Pylons in Nephalem Rifts now have unique minimap icons
• A hotkey has been added to the game to hide the UI
• When the Blacksmith is trained to maximum level his recipe list will now start collapsed
• The Menagerist Goblin now has a unique minimap icon

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that prevented Ray of Frost - Black Ice from creating an ice patch when the player didn't land the killing blow
• Fixed an issue that prevented the maximum of 8 Energy Twisters from applying
• Fixed an issue that was causing stacks of Archon from a previous cast due to The Swami to stack multiplicatively instead of additively with a subsequent, overlapping cast of Archon
• Fixed an issue that prevented Wolf Companion’s active ability from applying the 15% damage buff to pets and followers
• Fixed an issue that prevented the buff from the Orb of the Infinite from being applied if the damage killed the enemy

• Fixed an issue that caused the Firebird's Finery (2) Set Bonus to proc early if there was another damage shield on the player
• Fixed an issue that caused the Treasure Goblin spawned by the legacy Puzzle Ring to pick up Transmog items
• Fixed an issue that caused Girdle of Giants to increase the damage of all skills by the percentage it applied to Earthquake damage
• Fixed an issue that caused Scarbringer to grant a damage bonus of 200%. It has been increased to 300% to match the tooltip
• Fixed an issue that caused Lashing Tail Kick (Vulture Claw Kick) DoT to not benefit from the bonus damage granted by Scarbringer
• Fixed an issue that caused the Fireball proc from Gyana Na Kashu to not do damage to a target if the target has previously been hit with the amplified damage of Lashing Tail Kick from Scarbringer
• Fixed an issue that caused Lashing Tail Kick – Vulture Claw Kick to give all targets the amplified damage from Scarbringer instead of the first 5-7 hit
• Fixed an issue that caused Lashing Tail Kick - Vulture Kick to apply 230% weapon damage per second instead of 230% over 3 seconds
• Fixed an issue that prevented Bracers of Destruction’s Seismic Slam bonus damage from being applied to the Rumble rune
• Fixed an issue with Blade of the Warlord that prevented the Fury spent with Bash from triggering the 2-piece Might of the Earth set bonus and reducing the cooldown of Earthquake, Ground Stomp, Leap, and Avalanche
• Fixed an issue that prevented Kyoshiro’s Soul from activating the 4pc Set bonus from the Monkey King’s Garb set
• The Sweeping Wind bonus provided by Kyoshiro’s Soul will now properly expire after transitioning between level areas

Season 7 F.A.Q.

• Q: When does Season 7 start?
• A: Season 7 will begin Friday, August 5 at 5:00 p.m. PDT in North America, 5:00 p.m. CEST in Europe, and 5:00 p.m. KST in Asia. For assistance with time zones, click here.

• Q: How long will Season 7 last?
• A: All seasons going forward will last approximately three months.

• Q: When are the non-Seasonal Leaderboards being wiped?
• A: Non-Seasonal Leaderboards are tied to what we call “Eras.” The next Era is planned to end on Friday, August 5 at 5 p.m. PDT, when Season 7 begins.

• Q: Will Seasons be coming to console?
• A: Some features on console are best designed for that platform, and the same is true for the PC version of the game. A large part of the fun of Seasons is the entire community rerolling heroes together at the same time. Because the offline and disconnected nature of console does not support this style of play, we do not currently have plans to implement Seasons on console.

• Q: What will happen to older Seasonal records?
• A: As we continue on into additional Seasons, we will no longer be able to store some personal Seasonal records. While Season 7 will store your personal bests for all Seasons to date, at some point in a future Season, we will begin removing old personal bests, beginning with Season 1. This will be true regardless of your personal participation in previous Seasons. We will have more information on this change at a later date.

Seasonal Leaderboard records are not being cleared, and will remain archived both in game and on our website.

We have tried to be as neutral as possible and let people discuss this topic freely without much interference from the staff / moderation team, even though in some cases people didn't strictly follow the forum rules.

But I feel like this thread has run its course, with both sides presenting their arguments (which we have carefully considered when discussing this matter internally), but which sadly has devolved into some personal bickering. I don't see much more coming out of this thread, except offenses and tons of violation reports from both sides (as we already have).

We have refrained from removing some posts which might contain personal bickering because they usually have an argument beside it, AND we felt like it could send the wrong message - that we were censoring that specific opinion (from either side). That is NOT our intent. But please refrain from reigniting this flame again (with a new thread or comments on other threads).

As such I will be locking this thread now. I hope both Drahque and the others understand why I'm doing that - and that it has nothing to do with the opinions stated here. Thanks a lot for taking the time to provide us with feedback and discuss this subject.

Every now and then either our anti-spam measures bug out, or we're hit by a new spam wave that the measures take a while to adapt to. What you see is just the tip of the iceberg to be honest, as the system picks up hundreds of posts/threads every day, and only a few get through. I assure you we are trying our hardest to keep our forums tidy and clean for our users!

Thanks for your patience and understanding in this matter.

Oh btw, I wanted to thank all you guys for doing an absolutely phenomenal job keeping the forums clean! Thanks so much for all your help in 2015!!!

Also, still in time - Happy New Year to you guys. And may 2016 be an amazing year for all of us!

Avatar Q&A

Nightcrest87, the creator of the featured fan-made Avatar on the front page, made this Q&A for those interested in having a little more insight and knowing his thought process when designing the class. Check it out!

Avatar Fanart by Applibot Inc© and Nathalia Gomes©

To help people visualize the idea even better, Nightcrest has also set aside these amazing fanart ideas from Applibot Inc (male) and Nathalia Gomes (female).

General Concept:

Q: This class is clearly the Diablo II Druid. Why did you choose the name Avatar instead of Druid?
A: First of all,  in this fan creation Avatars are Druids. It is just an honorary title bestowed to the wisest of druids. That being said, when I was researching the thematic aspects of the Druid in Diablo II, it became fast apparent that the original concept was lacking. The original concept had basically 4-6 themes depending on how conservative you are in the way you categorize them. The rest of the classes had an average of 8 themes in their skills trees. That being said, the theme of the Druid class had to be significantly enhanced in order to become something functional in D3. Therefore…, Avatars.

Q: Can you compare the themes of the Druids and the Avatars?
A: The Druids have the following themes: volcanism, weather, transformation (dps/tank) and companion (support/offence). The avatars have kept the same thematic identity but have diversified them as well as adding new aspects to it. The Avatars have the following themes: tectonics (volcanism, quakes, tidal forces), weather, companion (offense/support/utility), transformation (beast – melee dps, wisp – caster dps, oak – defensive/support, hybrid – utility), nature (growth, cleansing, survival), piercing weapon affinity and special interactions with poison elemental damage.

Q: What are the Avatars exactly?
A: The Avatars are the elite of the Diablo II Druid class. They are the ones who have reached the high peak of being a Druid either through their mental age or some genetic enabling trait. They are the embodiment of nature. They are one with everything. If Sanctuary had flesh and bones and was a living entity, that would be the Avatars. And this is where the name came from, *Avatars* are the *image/representation* of Sanctuary; even literally. All Avatars were once Druids, but not all Druids will manage to become Avatars. I could have called them Archdruids but it felt too cliché.

Q: Why is Will (Willpower) their primary resource?
A: The Avatars can command nature itself. They can animate the elements, they can influence animals and give conscience to plants. In my mind, willpower seemed like the resource that made absolute sense for them.

Q: Why is Wisdom their primary stat?
A: When I started designing the Necro, the Druid was also at the back of my mind, although I wasn’t sure if I would actually design it as well. I needed a primary stat that both classes could use. In fact, I decided on Wisdom for both long before I even created the first spell for the Necros.

Q: Why did you choose Fire, Lightning, Cold and Poison damage for their runes and skills?
A: As a class that is one with nature, I chose to use the 3 powers that are nature itself (Cold, Fire and Lightning) and the one that nature frequently enhances its creations with (Poison). Those 4 powers are also a small tribute to the Diablo II game, as they were the only ones present back then. My original idea on this class also employed a thematically primal version of Shadow damage but I quickly changed my mind on that.

Q: What is the gameplay and synergies of the class?
A: Unlike Crusaders and Monks which are tank(-ish) classes that can also heal, the Avatars are mainly a support class that has the ability to also wreak havoc if they so choose. Their primary role in a group is to be their safeguard against failure. I even created an item set that highlights this design; The Shards of Awye. That being said, the Avatars also have multiple DPS builds. In addition the avatars are capable of utilizing most tertiary statists in a variety of ways by employing internal synergies. No tertiary stat is useless to the Avatar; they can use everything provided they have the right combination of skills, items and passives equipped. Finally, their skills have a lot of inner synergies with themselves.

Q: What are the class specific items of the Avatar and what weapons can they use?
A: They have three class specific items: Spirit Cuffs (wrists), Javelins (1-h ranged, dual wielded), Lances (2-h melee). Their only weapon proficiency is piercing weapons. They can use all types of non-class specific piercing weapons from daggers (sorry, didn’t have enough space to add them to the passive – they would be in the 1-h sword/spear category) to crossbows. I choose piercing weapons for thematic reasons only. The avatars are naturalists, their favourite colour is green for Elun… ehmm… Tyrael’s sake!!! I wanted them to give quick merciful deaths to their enemies through precise strikes. Slashing and bludgeoning weapons are anything but… So… no furnace for you! …not that you would need one. >_>

Skills & Gameplay:

Q: Are skill costs high, low or balanced?
A: Skill costs are high but so are resource generation mechanics. The avatars will find themselves starved as often as they find themselves satiated. The class was designed in such a way that resources are awfully limited but they can also be generated very fast. It’s a way to actively promote the overall theme of alternation and vigor that the class possess through gameplay design. Of course, all that only comes into perspective if you understand how small the resource “globe” of the avatar would be which I didn’t have a way to describe in any place other than here.

Q: Why do the Avatars have so many channeled abilities?
A: I wanted the Avatars to a class that needs to make decisions on when to support allies and when to destroy enemies. I didn’t want them to be able to do both at the same time equally in efficiency. Channeled spells are a good way of doing that because they gate APM. I also gave them some additional support on the channeling theme through some of the passives. When you play the Avatar you won’t have to be a channeler by default. But if you choose so, there are synergetic passives that can make it easier for you. Finally, I added additional flexibility by making a couple of spells work with toggle mechanics

.
Q: Where are Werewolf and Werebear?
A: The entire shape-shifting tree in the Diablo II Druid was very distinct from all other trees on all other classes. It had an amazingly singular thematic identity. That being said, the skill tree was lackluster as hell in terms of recoding it into Diablo III format. It was clear from the very start that I could not have 2 spells (Werewolf, Werebear) so I decided to recode the entire D2 tree into a D3 single skill. The original idea had 3 abilities for the wolf form (base and 2 runes) and 3 runes for the bear but eventually I decided that I could make it even more diverse than that. The result is Beast Within, which is the entire shape-shifting skill tree compressed into one skill, and then some!

Q: Why does the primary and secondary attacks of Twisted Lineage do the same weapon damage?
A: The base damage is the same because the gameplay on this particular skill revolves about making the right choice in the right time. Both abilities are legit but they work kind of like the rogue from WoW. Think of the primary one as a combo stacker and the secondary one as a combo spender. More or less…

Q: What is the purpose of wisp form?
A: Just like Barbarians have Wrath of the Berserker that empowers their melee prowess, the Avatars have Will-O-Wisp that empowers their casting prowess. The Avatars are resource starved by design and wisp form is a brief solution to that problem that comes at a very unique cost that requires micromanagement. It’s a completely different type of gameplay that can be both rewarding and risky at the same time.

Q: Why is oak form a toggle? It’s not like you can cast other spells while it is active.
A: Oak form is basically a panic button when in dire need of defense. I wouldn’t want you accidentally die to a molten explosion because your fingers moved out of the button in your duress. Besides, making it a toggle spell can also help you plan ahead and queue up the defensive abilities you are going to use the moment you disable the form.

Q: Speaking of toggles, what is the deal with Raven Flock?
A: Raven Flock is an AoE spell that buffs itself up depending on how long it has been active. I can’t imagine that any spell that actively summons 40ish companions would be good for your FpS or the game itself; even the animation of the spell I imagined would be set in stone and unchangeable regardless of how many “ravens” you would have around. It’s a toggle spell because I don’t want you to waste time buffing the spell up. Throw it at the face of your enemies while your primary focus is either to support or deal damage with stronger spells. That spell is in the Dominion tree because of its theme, which is basically “call companions to my side”, but it is by no means a companion summon like the other skills in Dominion.

Q: What’s the deal with the primary abilities? They all feel, strangely familiar…
A: It’s a tribute to nostalgia to the Amazon class from Diablo II. {nostalgia} I’d like to think that female Avatars could visually resemble the Amazons a bit. {/nostalgia} Amazons have been mostly absorbed by the Demon Hunters and I don’t expect them to ever make an appearance in Diablo III as a playable class although they can definitely appear as lore characters I guess. The only part of their theme that was not absorbed was their Javelin/Spear skills. When I was planning out the primary and secondary abilities of the Avatar, I was originally thinking of designing nature spells for both categories. After further thought, I decided to only design half of them as pure nature spells and the rest as javelin and lance spells that have a decent number of elemental and nature related runes.

Q: Some runes don’t mention what type of damage they deal. What’s up with that?
A: With the exception of Elemental Spirit that deals damage similar to the one it buffs up, all other unspecified runes deal the same type of damage as the base form of the ability. It was mostly omitted for convenience’s sake.

Q: Why is X ability so broken?
A: Guys, I’m … I’m sorry. When you are creating something on your own, the moment it starts to take shape, you get excited and you kind of end up falling in love with it. You become blind to its flaws because in your own mind it somehow made sense in the first place and you have no feedback from anyone at all to slap you back into reality, because it’s a fan creation that you do on your own; it’s not a group endeavor. I tried to iron out the biggest extremities but I’m sure things slipped through, especially in the between-skill synergies.

Misc Info:

Q: How did you plan out the Avatar and in what order did you design the abilities?
A: I started by devoting a few hours to research and trying to remember what the D2 Druid was all about. Immediately after, I had the transformation spells planned out followed shortly by the elemental ones. After that I planned the dominion spells and the defensive ones, leaving the secondary and primary for last. While I was working on the concepts of the spells, I was also thinking of possible passives and had pretty much established what I wanted my two 6pc sets to be about gameplay-wise.

Design wise, I finished the abilities in this order: Transformation -> Elemental -> Defensive -> Secondaries -> Passives -> Dominion -> Items -> Primaries.

Q: How many hours did this fan creation take you?
A: Around 60ish hours just like the Necro last month. But I had to do it in about half the days because I wanted it ready before Blizzcon.

Q: Where are the character models, concept arts, VFX etc.
A: My creativity sparks in concept creation and theorycrafting. Artworks is not my best side. /hangs head in sadness

Q: Is there a list to see the skill recodings from Diablo II to Diablo III?
A: Here are the 3 Druid skill trees and the Amazon javelin/spear skill tree:

Firestorm -> Eruption (Fire and Brimstone)
Molten Boulder -> Eruption (Molten Boulder)
Arctic Blast -> Monsoon (Base)
Fissure -> Tremors (Blazing Pillar)
Cyclone Armor -> To the Bitter End (Passive) / Natural Remedies (Acquired Tolerance)
Twister -> Already in game: Wizard (Energy Twister - Base)
Volcano -> Eruption (Stratovolcano)
Tornado -> Monsoon (Cataclysm)
Armageddon -> Eruption (Stratovolcano)
Hurricane -> Monsoon (Supercell)

Werewolf -> Beast Within (Hunger of Lupus)
Lycanthropy -> Beast Within (Alpha Beast)
Werebear -> Beast Within (Might of Ursus)
Feral Rage -> Beast Within (Hunger of Lupus)
Maul -> Beast Within (Might of Ursus)
Rabies -> Beast Within (Cunning of Vulpus)
Fire Claws -> Beast Within (Fervor of Catus)
Hunger -> Beast Within (Hunger of Lupus)
Shock Wave -> Beast Within (Might of Ursus)
Fury -> Beast Within (Base)

Raven -> Raven Flock (Base)
Poison Creeper -> Creeping Vine (Poison Creeper)
Oak Sage -> Elemental Spirit (Gravelus)
Summon Spirit Wolf -> Already in game: Demon Hunter (Companion – Wolf Companion)
Carrion Vine -> Creeping Vine (Vampiric Coil)
Heart of Wolverine -> Natural Remedies (Celerity)
Summon Dire Wolf -> Already in game: Demon Hunter (Companion – Wolf Companion)
Solar Creeper -> Creeping Vine (Vampiric Coil)
Spirit of Barbs -> Barbed Skin (Reflective Carapace)
Summon Grizzly -> Feral Guardian (Base)

Jab -> Triple Jab (Base)
Power Strike -> Aimed Throw (Headshot)
Poison Javelin -> Piercing Thrust (Dissipating Plague)
Impale -> Piercing Thrust (Base)
Lightning Bolt -> Piercing Thrust (Charged Strike)
Charged Strike -> Piercing Thrust (Charged Strike)
Plague Javelin -> Piercing Thrust (Dissipating Plague)
Fend -> Omnistrike (Base)
Lightning Strike -> Dart Rain (Meteorological Tantrum)
Lightning Fury -> Dart Rain (Meteorological Tantrum)

We hope you guys enjoy this one as much as the Necromancer. Feel free to leave feedback on what you think could be improved and what you liked the most! The devs are always watching these and, who knows, maybe it can even influence the future direction of the game.

I just loved going through what Nightcrest wrote and picturing it in-game. Transforming into cool new forms, summoning the elemental forces of nature (Tsunami, Volcano, Monsoons), having animals and plants help you and follow your lead - seems like an amazing Diablo class

@wowaccounttom not sure if you're implying that we would ban or punish members who admit using adblock, but we certainly would not do such a thing. But maybe I misunderstood you.

That said, we certainly appreciate those who choose to support DiabloFans and add us an exception to their blocked websites, or even disable the plugin altogether. So thank you @rejeost and whoever else takes a similar stance