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A musical tribute to the Firebird wizard!

"Firebird" (Firework parody)

» Lyrics by: Jaetch
» Performed by: Scooper#1685

Special thanks to LeafOnTheWnd#1138 for making this project possible!

» Lyrics:

Oh, whoops, didn't see it was vitality. Okay, I would use it once it's rolled to 10%, but not necessary others. If it's rolled to 10%, the ~150 or so weapon damage can make up for some of the intelligence loss. I would also be able to remove a lesser vitality roll on gear for something more DPS-oriented, like skill bonus.

Experiment with it. And if you have a Sunkeeper, use that, too. I've done 39 and 40 with a Sunkeeper and one of my clan mates yesterday finished his own GR40 with a Sunkeeper.

Miss the CM wizard?

The CM wizard is reborn! Without the CM.


This is just for fun. It's nowhere near as powerful as the top builds, e.g. Firebird and its variants, but it's definitely viable for T6 farming.

If anything, it's a lot of fun and gives players a little something to quell the nostalgia.

Spec: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#VQhYST!ZbiW!aaZZbc

Core base stats:
~60% CDR
~40% RCR
4 APoC

Core gear:
Leoric's Crown
Wand of Woh
Frostburn
Born's set
Crimson's set
Level 25+ Gogok of Swiftness
Level 25+ Taeguk
Level 25+ Moratorium

I still need to iron out some more stats because I threw all of this together in less than a day.

Use the Furnace. No question. How is that Furnace bad? It's far better than the vast majority of Furnaces out there, including mine and my clan mate Void's (who's currently #1 on the US solo wizard leaderboard at 42). Use Firebird Pants. Hexing Pants do not dynamically update the Firebird DoT damage, only the fire spell damage you deal + Hydra.

@Conflagration passive - Works for general fire spells, but the debuff is not accounted for when the Firebird DoT kicks in so it's relatively useless.

@Hydra + Zei's - Both Hydra and Sentries are stationary pets, thus they are considered standalone damage sources. Placing them further from the target will ramp up the damage they deal. Damage changes dynamically, so if the target moves closer, the damage will automatically decrease and you'll have to reposition the Hydra.

Quote from Nyqwill

I like beating dead horses... So, in my experience with g38/39 my main problem has been getting the elites to follow me while i go grab more, *especially* things like bowmen ect. So my question is, you say that BotT is preferable to BoP always. But to activate it your follower has to slow the mobs you're trying to kite, which as you pointed out with Mirror Images seems counter productive.

I'm going to start leveling up my trapped gem and test it out myself now, but I'd still like to hear how you overcome the always slowed mobs... Or do they die faster now so it isn't as much of a problem maybe? Thanks

I really need to make a video of this one of these days. Firebird is a true L2P kind of build. Sometimes it's just better to see it in action. You have to adapt to everything that's happening on your screen and your movements will have to match up with what you're facing. You can't just sprint forward 100% of the time. Sometimes you do have to circle around. Sometimes you have to zigzag forward. Sometimes you have to pull things ahead to bring back to stragglers, etc.

1. Hydra out-DPSes all your other fire options against a single target.

2. If you cannot ramp up the damage fast enough while a debuff is applied, you're screwed because Firebird's DoT cannot be overwritten.

3. You cannot kite over a fixed distance or else the infinite DoT will fall off and you have to reset everything (see #2).

4. Mirror Image = defense. You're going to get to GR40-42 and your problem will be kill time, not defense, especially if you run Safe Passage/String of Ears.

5. Mirror Image also interrupts your herding capabilities by holding back mobs that are supposed to follow you. It's counterintuitive to the core gameplay of Firebird. The only instance it'll come in handy is if you're intentionally trying to abandon content.

6. Hydra positioning just involves placing it a distance away from the target to maximize Zei's output. That's all. It's incredibly easy to set up, the trail stacks on top of one another, and you can also recast Hydra to bypass its APS.

Fore Re#2 you just contradicted yourself for the whole argument against Hydra. If the RG is taking X damage already, your goal is to stack as much extra damage on top of that in as little time as possible. Mirror Image does absolutely nothing in that regard.

Your goal is to hit the infinite DoT ASAP and Hydra helps that case. Your goal after that is to tack on as much damage as possible and Hydra does that, even better than Molten Impact, which is another popular choice (more for T6 because of its long CD). Hydra's DoT is duplicated by the initial Firebird DoT, and while the Hydra DoTs stack, so too do the Firebird secondary DoTs, all while taking into account the infinite DoT that triggers. All of these DoTs are also amplified by any debuffs you apply to the target. None of these perks apply to Mirror Image.

With the initial fire DoTs you apply via spells (Blizzard/Hydra), secondary and infinite Firebird DoTs in effect, with any debuffs applied, it's easy to see 200-300M ticks of combined damage while running solo. In group play, e.g. with a monk/WD, damage can scale over 1 billion per 0.8 seconds with Blizzard/Hydra (optimal conditions).

Quote from Junotekh

They do crit, but they tick like *50 times in a second, and it only shows you the damage once every second. All those *50 ticks would need to crit for it to appear as a crit. (*random number, probably much higher)

They don't crit. DoT damage in the likes of Firebird, Blizzard, Haunt, Locust Swarm, etc. deal normalized damage based on your CHC and CHD.

Firebird DoT value = (30) * (0.8) * ((MinDmg+MaxDmg)/2) * (1+INT/100) * (1+CHC*CHD/10,000) * (Buffs)

It deals flat damage, period, every time, depending on your stats, modified by buffs/debuffs you apply. Firebird doesn't tick 50 times a second (nor does it tick random times per second). It deals 3000% weapon damage per second with damage displayed at 0.8-second intervals.

Not all DoTs tick at the same rate. Blizzard ticks 5-20 times per second over 6 seconds and displays damage every 0.8 seconds. Non-Wicked Wind ETs tick 13 times over 6 seconds. Frozen Mist ticks 27 times over 8 seconds. On and on and on.

Not sure where you pulled your info from, but... wrong.

Re-posted from the official forum

It seems like some people are having issues figuring out what they want to do or how to get started in creating a build for their wizards. This guide is designed for beginner wizards and it is highly, highly advised that one plays through the game from levels 1 through 70, experimenting along the way, in order to get a better grasp of what's in the wizard's arsenal.

Complementary Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Dk8xiG1ic0


1. What's the focus?
What are you building around? First understand the term "spender." Every class, including the wizard, has spenders. These are spells that consume your resources and are regarded as your primary damage dealers. Common spenders include Arcane Orb and Meteor. These are traditional spenders and they generally have no cooldown and can be cast in succession for big damage as long as you have the resources to sustain them.

Another type of spender is the channeled spell. These include Arcane Torrent, Ray of Frost and Disintegrate. The goal is to try and stand still without moving so you can continuously dish out heavy damage. The more you move around, the more you're not channeling, the less damage you'll be doing.

So we pick a spender to build on. Let's say we pick Arcane Orb - Frozen Orb. This skill will be our primary damage dealer. We will kill the majority of the content with this skill. If we're running multiple spenders (say, Frozen Orb along with Energy Twister - Mistral Breeze), chances are we're going to run out of resources very fast and we'll be sitting around wondering what went wrong. This also applies to combining a traditional spender with a channeling spell. If we're running Frozen Orb with Ray of Frost, we have an issue. If we're channeling Ray of Frost, we're not using Frozen Orb. If we're casting Frozen Orb, we cannot channel Ray of Frost. So a skill is wasted. So generally speaking, we focus on one spender. Now we have to figure out how to sustain this spender to keep it going constantly throughout a fight.

Current build progress

2. Supporting the spender
There are several ways to go about this. The most basic way is to run a signature spell that aids in recovering resources. Skills like Spectral Blade - Siphoning Blade, Electrocute - Surge of Power, and Shock Pulse - Power Affinity all have their uses. You can also use any signature spell with the Prodigy passive to aid in resource generation. There's also resource cost reduction and arcane power on critical hits (APoC) on gear. But to keep it simple, let's say we're going to support Frozen Orb with Spectral Blade - Siphoning Blade.

The situation is that we're running Frozen Orb, spamming it on enemies. At some point or another, we might run out of resources. Now's the time to recover the resources by hitting a few targets with Siphoning Blade. You'll recover a lot of resources in a short period of time, allowing you to start casting a series of Frozen Orbs again.

Now that we have this little combination going, we can focus on controlling scenarios. This means running spells that aid in defense, especially positioning, or supplementary damage. Spells like Teleport, Mirror Image and Slow Time are phenomenal for defense and setting ourselves up in a good spot. Blizzard, Hydra and Explosive Blast are samples of supplementary damage. These skills tend to be "cast and forget." Remember, our main damage dealer right now is Frozen Orb.

Let's say we're running Slow Time - Point of No Return as a defensive spell. We can use it to stun enemies, allowing us to reposition ourselves as necessary. We can also pick a spell to add supplementary damage, like Hydra. We have to think carefully now. Frozen Orb is a ranged AOE spell, so we'll likely be doing our best to cast the spell at a distance to maximize damage before enemies get too close. That means we can go with two different play styles. We can run Blizzard as supplementary damage (since we can't stack it), casting it before Frozen Orb to set up a snare. We can also run Explosive Blast, just to cast when enemies get too close.

Or, we can forgo the supplementary damage and pick a second defensive spell. Do we want more mobility in the form of Teleport? Or do we want Mirror Image for breaking crowd control effects? One thing about Mirror Image is that illusions are able to cast certain spells, which I will cover in the next part.

Current build progress

3. Managing synergies
Every build needs synergy. Take a look at the old CMWW build. That build was the epitome of synergy. Wicked Wind triggers Critical Mass, Critical Mass refreshes Frost Nova for repeated crowd control and refreshes Diamond Skin for pseudo-permanent invulnerability. It also refreshes Explosive Blast to turn a spell meant for supplementary damage into the primary damage dealer. Wicked Wind also triggers Storm Armor - Shocking Aspect for significant supplementary damage. Everything clicked together to form the build that functioned with different engines churning simultaneously.

So what kind of synergy can come from a build focusing on Frozen Orb? Frozen Orb slows enemies by default because it's cold-based. Keeping that in mind, remember we're also running Slow Time - Point of No Return as a way to position ourselves and to also stun enemies. A spell that works very well with Slow Time is Mirror Image. Illusions from Mirror Image can cast their own Slow Time (meaning more stuns in this build) and they can also cast Frozen Orb. They only deal 10% damage, though (with the exception of the Mirror Mimics rune, which allows illusions to deal 20% damage). So now what rune do we pick for Mirror Image? Do we pick Duplicates so we can get five extra Slow Time casts up? Or do we pick Mocking Demise for added stun a little more damage? Let's go with Duplicates so we can get more layers of Slow Time to stun enemies.

Now, if you're familiar with the wizard class, know that the Illusionist passive can reset Teleport, Mirror Image and Slow Time instantly if you take 15% or more of your max HP's worth of damage within 1 second. This means if we're in a situation where we cast Mirror Image, which then results in 5 extra Slow Time bubbles to stun enemies, we can instantly refresh all the bubbles and Mirror Image if we intentionally try to take some damage. In the scenario where we end up taking too much damage, we can repeatedly cast Mirror Image and Slow Time to escape. This is where running Teleport (instead of Mirror Image or Slow Time) can also help.

By slowing enemies with Frozen Orb, constantly stunning with Mirror Image + Slow Time, we have a build that's capable of maneuvering around the map to capitalize on attacking from a safe distance. In other words, it makes for a solid kiting build.

Current build progress

4. Rounding out the build
With a spender in place, a way to sustain it, along with basic synergies to keep a build running, all that's left for us to do is to start padding the build and rounding it out. Usually the options are buffs, in the likes of Magic Weapon, Familiar and/or an armor spell, or with one of the aforementioned spells in addition to a source of supplementary damage (like Blizzard). Magic Weapon is a common choice just because of the straight damage boost that costs nothing but an active skill slot. For the sake of simplicity, let's pick Force Weapon.

Now for the last slot most people pick an armor spell. Do we want Storm Armor - Scramble to help with mobility? Or do we want Pinpoint Barrier for added crit chance to aid with any APoC we have on gear? Or do we want Prismatic Armor for added survivability? I wouldn't recommend Storm Armor - Power of the Storm because there's really not that much of a difference between an Arcane Orb that costs 30 AP versus 27 AP. We're going to run out of resources by the time we cast ~4 Orbs unless we stack bonus max AP and plenty of resource reduction stats so it's more gear dependent. In addition, since we're already running Siphoning Blade to aid in managing resources, Power of the Storm is likely not needed at all. Let's run Scramble to aid in mobility.

Now we need to pick the last couple of passives. Blur is always nice for added survivability. Power Hungry could be worth looking at for resource management, but that involves moving around the map to pick up health globes, which costs us time in casting more spells to deal more damage. Perhaps Glass Cannon or Cold Blooded for more damage? Or Astral Presence to aid in more resource management (if necessary)? How about Dominance for more survivability? The thing about Dominance is that shielding wears off quite quickly on higher difficulty levels, where it's also less likely to ramp up the shielding effects in short periods of time due to higher HP levels on enemies. There are plenty of options, but we'll go with Blur for defense and Cold Blooded for offense.

Finalized build

5. Notes and variations
The way to play the build is very simple. We start off at a distance to cast Frozen Orbs while our enemies make their way to us (if they survive). At any point where resources become scarce, we cast Siphoning Blade a few times to recover AP, then repeat with more Frozen Orbs. At any point where enemy numbers start becoming a little overwhelming, we defend ourselves with Point of No Return. If necessary, we cast Mirror Image for additional Slow Time bubbles. If one cast of Slow Time is enough to stun enemies long enough for Frozen Orb to finish them off, that's good, we can save Mirror Image for other situations.

And that's really it. Here's an older video of a variation of the build running during RoS Beta:
http://youtu.be/OYsWWxDCZPo?t=3m52s
*Build uses high resource reduction so spamming Frozen Orb is a lot easier and straightforward

The play style is similar in the build we put together, though ours might be a little slower in terms of performance (based on standard gear).

Now we can talk about variations. Instead of Frozen Orb, we can use Meteor instead or any other Arcane Orb rune outside of Arcane Orbit (which sort of serves the role as a spender/supplementary damage source).

Then the build looks like this. Still works, we just need to manage the resources a little more closely as Meteor costs 10 more AP than Arcane Orb.

We can also shift one of the defensive spells to Teleport so it looks like this.

Note how I selected Calamity. If we take enough damage to trigger Illusionist, Calamity can be cast multiple times to chain stun enemies. This can be combined with Point of No Return for even more stuns.

Now what if I change Meteor to the Thunder Crash rune? And swap out Cold Blooded (since we're not using cold spells) to Paralysis? Now the build looks like this.

We can also sub Siphoning Blade for Electrocute - Surge of Power. Now we have a lightning wizard build. It focuses on chain stunning with Paralysis and pumping out some good damage with Thunder Crash. We can also add supplementary crowd control via Calamity and Point of No Return.

These builds all follow the same simple template:

1 spender (traditional or channeling)
1 support spell (e.g. signature spell)
Combination of supplementary damage source (Blizzard, Explosive Blast, Hydra), defensive spells (Diamond Skin, Frost Nova, Teleport, Mirror Image, etc.), and/or buffs (Magic Weapon, Familiar, armor spell) that can synergize with each other and/or with the spender.

A build looking like this will likely not perform optimally.

Looks like a massive arcane-centered build, but there are issues. Two channeling spells mean one of them cannot be used while another is active. If you're Disintegrating, you cannot cast Arcane Torrent nor Meteor, meaning spells on the active bar are wasted. If you're dropping Meteor, especially Star Pact that consumes all your AP, then two channeling skills aren't being used. This is why we focus on one spender, traditional or channeling.

By moving a few skills around, we can get something much more focused.

The build has a spender in the form of the channeled Disintegrate. Thrown Blade, perhaps in combination with a healthy amount of APoC, can be enough to recover resources. Teleport serves as a repositioning and mobility tool. Arcane Attunement is a supplementary damage source that can buff up Disintegrate (the ability snapshots, too, so the entire channeling duration is buffed until you let go of the mouse button... or get interrupted). Familiar works very well with channeling spells, so there's the synergy. Cannoneer happens to deal very solid AOE damage so it's a great choice to serve as supplementary damage. Power of the Storm aids in sustaining channeling spells, so that's a good pick to round out the build. Temporal Flux allows all arcane damage (in this case, every damaging spell in the arsenal) to slow enemies. Blur for more survivability so you can stay in one spot longer to channel. Illusionist, as mentioned before, to allow multiple recasts of Teleport.

Let's use another example of a focused build, like this one.

This is one of the more recent renditions of the Sleet Storm build. Sleet Storm is the spender. Glacial Spike aids in recovering resources with Prodigy. You don't necessarily have to use Prodigy either. Safe Passage reduces damage, allowing you to stand your ground with Sleet Storm for a longer period of time. You can also run a different defensive spell, maybe Fracture/Reversal Teleport or Slow Time - Time Warp. Magic Weapon works well. Force Weapon may or may not be the ideal choice considering it knocks enemies around (it can potentially knock enemies outside Sleet Storm's AOE). Ignite makes for decent supplementary damage. You probably get the rest by now. There's not too much synergy in this build other than the good ol' Familiar + channeling spell combo.

Let's look at a more up-to-date example, a variant of the Firebird build:

In this build, Blizzard becomes the main spender while Molten Impact and Blazar, both cooldown-based skills, act as supplementary damage. In addition, the build revolves around the 6-piece Firebird set so most of the damage will be coming from the gear. The defensive spell is Safe Passage, which provides mobility and positioning, shining most when combined with Illusionist. Evocation supports Molten Impact, Blazar and Safe Passage.

Closing statements
Hopefully this helps some newer wizards out in constructing a functional build. Too many times have I seen builds centered only on supplementary damage sources (Blizzard) that cannot stack with each other or cannot be cast successively while maintaining reliable performance. Too many times have I seen builds running multiple spenders (e.g. two channeling spells), conflicting with each other for sustained use.

Firebird DoTs don't trigger the poison. Your spells do. However, a spell with 0 proc coefficient will not, e.g. Hydra.

The poison DoT does not stack with itself. The 10-second duration will just refresh when you cast another spell and reapply the debuff.

Disintegrate counts as DoT damage. It doesn't show up as yellow numbers. As it's a DoT, the white number you see on screen is the combined total number of all active DoTs on a target. If you run Firebird, all the secondary/infinite DoT numbers will stack with the Disintegrate damage numbers, making it appear as if it's a higher number. Same applies to Blizzard and Hydra. Casting them all at once and having them all deal damage to the same target will result in a single massive white number.

Arcane Torrent, on the other hand, does not count as a DoT and will display separate damage numbers.

It's always worked this way since the beginning of D3.

Patch 1.0.9 Preview

Well, we just recently launched patch 1.0.8 but we're already well into development on 1.0.9, and while it's still weeks away we're going to start hitting you fast and furious with blogs aimed at explaining the upcoming changes. The next patch is going to be the biggest patch we’ve developed to date and most certainly provide the most features and systems changes. To kick things off, I wanted to provide an overview of some of the larger features, systems changes and game improvements.

Introducing the Trading Post

When we first started working on the Auction House the initial idea was to make a system that was easy to use and as efficient as possible for players to buy and sell gear. The end result was a system that was almost too efficient at what it did and removed all player interaction completely from the process.

We want to get back to the roots of what made Diablo II trading so popular over the years, but at the same time also improve it by taking what works rather well with Diablo III's Auction House to enhance it. In patch 1.0.9 we'll be removing the Auction House and introducing the Trading Post. The Trading Post works in a similar fashion to the Auction House in terms of its search functions and interface but with some key differences. Gold will no longer be used as the currency when it comes to buying items, instead you'll be trading the items you collect through your adventures with other players. You'll be able to use an interface to select which items you have for trade and also search for items other players across your region have for trade.



The Trading Post will offer an easy to use interface to make the trade process simple:

• Choose the items you wish to trade.
• Search what others have to offer or the offers you receive.
• Accept offers through the interface without needing to be in game.
• Ability to barter back and forth with other players.

We think this system will give back the player interaction Diablo III was missing and at the same time improve on Diablo II's trading system by making the items you're looking for easy to find, removing the potential of scams, removing the need to be in game with the other player, and also letting trades happen at literally any time of day even when the other player isn't logged on.

Here's an example of how a trade might work:

Player A just finished his play session for the night and has a sword that he wants to trade. He opens up the Trading Post interface and adds the sword he just found to his trade window and then logs off for the night.

Player B is searching for a new sword for his Barbarian and uses the search filter to find one that matches the criteria he's looking for, he sees the sword that Player A just posted. Player B selects the items he feels he'd be willing to part with from the items he has for trade and creates an offer.

Player A logs in the next day and finds he's received many offers for the sword he'd posted the night earlier. Player A goes through a couple of the individual offers but decides to use the search feature instead to filter the offers to help find a specific item he's interested in. Player A finds the offer Player B has sent, likes the item, feels it's fair trade, and clicks approve.

The items are traded to each players account.

The removal of the AH also means the removal of the Real Money Auction House. Many players refer to the RMAH as a “Pay to Win” feature, that wasn’t our original intent but in reality it does hold true in many scenarios and we feel it really is removing the enjoyment out of actually playing the game for a majority of our players. It will no longer be possible to purchase items using real currency, however we still have plans to offer the option to buy and sell gold. Gold will still remain as the main currency in the game but instead of being the sole currency will be used in combination with other in game items.

We’re also exploring the idea of drastically reducing the amount of gold dropped from normal monsters. We’d like the main source of gold to be from killing bosses, elites and champions, opening chests, and completing side dungeons. This should result in the value of gold to increase as we add in new features that rely on gold and also act as an extra step to combat gold sellers and bots. We'll provide some more details on this further down in our blog entry and will also be sharing more information in the near future.

Crafting

To salvage, or not to salvage…

We’ve introduced 7 new Brimstones to the game, each corresponding to one of the 7 types of available weapon damage. Salvaging a weapon with a specific type of weapon damage whether it be Holy Damage, Cold Damage, Fire Damage, Lightning Damage, Arcane Damage, or Poison Damage will have a chance to produce one of the new Brimstones. Salvaging a legendary Physical Damage weapon or a legendary armor piece will also produce a new type of Brimstone. Salvaging jewelry will provide a chance to receive any of the new Brimstones.



Salvaging legendary Lightning Damage weapons and jewelry will sometimes produce a Charged Brimstone.


Salvaging legendary Poison Damage weapons and jewelry will sometimes produce a Toxic Brimstone.


Salvaging legendary Cold Damage weapons and jewelry will sometimes produce an Icy Brimstone.


Salvaging legendary Fire Damage weapons and jewelry will sometimes produce a Fiery Brimstone.


Salvaging legendary Arcane Damage weapons and jewelry will sometimes produce an Arcanic Brimstone.


Salvaging legendary Holy Damage weapons and jewelry will sometimes produce an Angelic Brimstone.


Salvaging legendary Physical Damage weapons and armor will sometimes produce a Somatic Brimstone.


These new Brimstones are not a 100% guaranteed when salvaging legendary items, but rather will only a small 5-10% chance to be produced. While you may not receive a Brimstone every time you salvage an item, we’ll also be making a type of “consolation” item which can be sold to a vendor for a significant amount of gold. This should create a market not only for the Brimstone’s themselves, but the legendary items that produce them. We want you to be faced with a difficult choice when you find a legendary item, do you keep the item, trade the item away, or salvage the item for hopes of a Brimstone?

These new Brimstones will be the key ingredients used to craft the newly updated Blacksmith and Jeweler items which are also being introduced with patch 1.0.9.

A New Ally

Patch 1.0.9. not only updates the current crafting system for the Blacksmith and Jeweler but will also introduce a third type of craft. We’re introducing the Mystic, Myriam Jahzia, who was first introduced during beta. The Mystic’s primary purpose will be enchanting items which will include the upgrading of existing stats on items and also the re-rolling of the randomly generated properties found on an items.



The Mystic will require significant amounts of gold and combinations of the newly introduced Brimstones in order to purchase her services, further strengthening the market value of legendary items and gold.

The point of the mystic is to offer players a new way to improve their characters in terms of item progression as they play the game instead of relying solely on finding drops. Now all legendary drops, no matter if the item is an upgrade or not, can potentially be used to upgrade your character. We think this system offers players fantastic item progression and will allow all players including some of the top geared players in the world to continue upgrading their gear for a very long time.

We haven’t decided on the costs associated with upgrading each of the many different stats yet but we do know they will vary from stat to stat. We expect stats such as Increased Attack speed, Critical Hit Chance, and Critical Hit Damage to fall into one category, primary stats in another, and so on. We don’t expect unique procs or unique properties found on legendary items to be included with this feature. Expect this to broken down into a different blog post all together in the coming weeks.



We would also like to point out that by using the Mystic to enchant items the item itself will also become Account Bound. This will ensure items are constantly being removed from the economy as they’re upgraded and still allow non-enchanted items with desirable properties or highly rolled stats to have a high trade value and continue to be sought after as they will help players skip some of the steps necessary to eventually upgrade to a “perfect item”. We don’t expect players to ever be able to fully upgrade every item on their character or even be required to, but it’s something the min/maxing type players can strive for over time.

The Mystic will also offer unique potions and elixirs that can’t be purchased or found anywhere else in the game. These items can be purchased with gold and brimstones and when used will give the player bonuses to stats such as Magic Find, Experience Gained, and Movement Speed, for a limited amount of time. Think of them as a Shrine that persists through death and lasts much longer.



Truly Legendary Items 1.0.9 and Beyond

We want to make “game-changing” legendary items the norm going forward. Our philosophy for legendary items has always been the same, to be powerful and promote build diversity. We know we haven’t been able to deliver on this fully up to this point, but with patch 1.0.9 we think we’ve finally been able to make this reality. When a player finds a legendary or set item the first thing they should be thinking is how can they use this item on one of their characters or how it might fit into a specific build.

Class specific items

We feel the one of the best ways make legendary items truly game changing is to allow certain items to alter the way specific class skills and passives work. While we can’t obviously give every single legendary item the ability to alter skills and runes we chose to focus only on class-specific items and set bonuses. This made the most sense in terms of design, we could take an item that was already exclusive to one class and use it to provide new and interesting ways of playing that class.

Patch 1.0.9 introduces revamped class-specific items and set bonuses that provide unique alterations to already existing skills and passives. The most intriguing idea behind this concept is going forward we’ll be able to constantly open up new and exciting builds for each class as new items are introduced to the game. With the introduction of one new item or even mixing different items an entire build could be born. This will truly allow new builds to be built around items.



Legendary status

We're not just updating class specific items in patch 1.0.9. We're going to revisit all legendary items to make sure they live up to their legendary status by not only providing great stats but also providing unique properties that will change a players game experience. While class-specific items will change the way skills and runes work for classes, we still want to make sure non-class specific legendary items also have an impact on build diversity. We decided to go a little bit of a different route with non-class specific items. Rather than focusing on individual class skills and passives, these items will introduce new unique properties that might change a players gameplay or change the way specific stats interact with a character. By doing this we can take a non desirable stat and change it into something a specific build highly values when using one new item. We plan on releasing a entire blog post dedicated to this topic in the next few days but here's a taste of the type of things we'll be talking about.



Itemization

In addition to the upcoming legendary items we're going to be reworking the way elemental damage and physical damage work with weapons. Weapon damage including the base damage of the item will roll either as Holy, Cold, Poison, Fire, Arcane, Lightning, or Physical weapon. By doing this we can use the "adds % elemental damage" affix found on many of the legendary items in the game to provide a direct damage boost to weapons that also have the corresponding damage type.

For example, if you have a sword that has a damage range of 700-1000 Fire Damage and you equip an item with the property "Adds 5% Fire Damage", the new damage range of the sword will be 735-1050 Fire Damage. This not only provides a simple way of calculating damage but also provides an interesting way to combine weapons and armor.

We'll also be including more information in the next coming days in addition to the blog post regarding legendary items.

Promoting Exploration and Adding Excitement

You call that a dungeon? This is a dungeon!

Many ideas have been discussed by our developers in terms of how we can constantly add exploration back to game after the initial play through for our players. There’s nothing that saddens us more than seeing 90% population running the same act or in many cases the same zone over and over knowing that if they do anything different they’re hindering efficiency in both terms of items and experience gained. While repetition has always been part of the Diablo series we feel this can be cut down substantially. You’ve already seen improvements when it comes to giving players options in regards to this when we adjusted the monster density in patch 1.0.8, we’d like to go a bit further.

In 1.0.9 we’ll be improving on the randomly generated side dungeons found in all acts across the game in Inferno difficulty. We’ve created new tiles for almost every zone across all 4 Acts which will allow spawn locations to be found in every part of the game. An entrance in the wall found in the Cathedral, a burrow found the in Dahlgur Oasis, many different possibilities exist. We’ll also be taking a look at every aspect of them to truly make them a random experience. Things such as:

• Increasing the amount of spawn locations substantially in terms of both Acts and where they can spawn in each zone.
• The difficulty, dungeons can be found with additional monster power levels above the current game.
• Dungeon size, number of levels, the layout, and tile sets.
• The type of monsters
• The “end boss(s)”, which includes a random elite/champion pack which is buffed considerably

Of course there needs to be an incentive to search out for these improved dungeons, which is why we’ve created them to provide a fairly substantial buff in terms of experience gained from the monsters inside and also completing the entire dungeon. We’ve also decided to add a new type of chest found exclusively inside these randomly spawned dungeons which not only provides a much higher than average chance to drop legendary items but also provides a small chance to find items of immense power that can’t be found anywhere else.

We think by adding these new features it will promote exploration across all acts and provide a much needed type of end game experience for our players which doesn’t take away from Diablo III’s storyline.

Beam me up...

One of the most exciting events in regular play session is hearing that special “clang” legendary items make and seeing that beam of light coming from the pile of corpses at your feet. Over the past patches we’ve increased the chance of finding these items and we really think they are in a very good place in terms of drop rates. While RNG is still a huge factor when it comes to the amount of legendary items you see drop in a play session we still wanted a way to add to the excitement without actually increasing the drop rates any further. We think we’ve found an artificial solution that does just that.
Now when playing with your friends or other players in public games you’ll be able to see and hear all legendary and set items that drop in game, even if they aren’t yours for the taking.



We’ve received very positive feedback on the elite/champion and goblin announcement introduced in patch 1.0.8, so much that we’ve decided to extend it to also include an announcement when players identify legendary items. Now through your chat window you’ll be able to see and view the items your friends and party find during their play session. Obviously this won’t be taken positively by all players so we’ve also added the option to hide or display these messages from chat.

In Conclusion

We’re very excited to share this new patch with you and gather your feedback. This patch will be our biggest one to date and we think it adds to Diablo III immensely in terms of fun game play and longevity. We defiantly aren’t done yet when it comes to improving the game and we’ll work hard to provide our player base with many features to come.

Be sure to check out the new information on Dungeons, which can be found here: http://www.diablofans.com/topic/92538-patch-109-dungeons-a-dream/




And then I woke up from my dream and came to the realization that we were still only in Patch 1.0.7...

We're seeing exactly why these pseudo-celebrities irk me so.

They are polarizing figures, and within every thread that their filthy names are invoked, fights break out.

So far, this thread contains very little discussion about what they said and instead, has turned into diablofans exchanging fuck yous.

Let's get something straight, and it's something that Zero touched on. These guys don't have real jobs. Credit to them for making a living doing something they love, but I would suggest that most gamers have to go outside from time to time, work 40+ hours a week, do homework with their kids and fuck their wives.

I'm sure their is a contingent of unemployed followers whom march in lockstep with their (Kripp/Alk/Athene) ideals. However, I would think most gamers are the "casuals" and "WoW fanboys" they espouse so much hatred for. I've never played WoW BTW...just throwin that out there.

Point being, many of us here, Diablo Fans, gamers, cannot relate with unemployed gaming "pros".

Clearly, the structural integrity of that side path has been compromised greatly. Choosing to explore that path would be most unwise. The insurance carrier for the Cells of the Condemned have already been up their asses for a lack of hand-railing, slippery pools of blood and zero wheelchair accessible ramps.

Also....I noticed you had 24 friends online at once. I couldn't get 24 friends to get online simultaneously if I offered sexual favors and billions of gold for them to do so.

You could quote everyone and try to show them why you think they are wrong.

In order for people to lose an argument, they must first be in a discussion. There has been no back and forth for someone to lose an argument. Losing an argument is only really possible when the matter being discussed has a semblance of science. In games, it's mostly about players preference (some people like complex systems, some like simpler ones, some like long 100+ hour journeys, some like quick 6 hour campaigns) so talking about them as if there was some absolute truth we need to discover is a fallacy in itself.

Comparing games of the same franchise and company, and within the same genre (ARPG) is a very valid point, and far from a fallacy. And even within those types of games, there's always going to be people who prefer the previous systems (Mass Effect, CoD, Age of Empires, LotR:BfME, Pokemon). That's perfectly fine. What isn't fine, though, is people talking as if their personal preference is simply put better than others', that's just their ego talking.

Quote from Indimix

1 - No incentive to play another character except your main, for obvious reasons. <- this is a huge problem
2 - Even with the last additions, looting is still an unrewarding experience and everything is better/faster to do it with the AH as a first and only option.
3 - Itemization.. well, they seem to refuse to touch it, this is a lost cause.
4 - The only grindable places are still the same, I can't believe they didn't address this yet..
5 - Too much "rares" too bad.

1 - I play a total of 7 characters. 2 different Barbarians, and 1 hardcore Monk. I find them all equaly fun.

Your obvious reasons might not be a reason to others. I even imagine your reasons are related to a word called efficiency. I try to be efficient in my daily job, by reading, writing and meeting clients as efficiently as possible. Neither I, nor a huge portion of the playerbase (which is definitely not even active anymore), care about efficiency. Simply put, I don't have 2k+ hours to pour into the game and become a KingKongor/Alkaizer/Jaetch.

2 - Let me fix that for you: "Even with the last additions, looting is still an unrewarding experience for me and everything is better/faster to do it with the AH as a first and only option, because I'm quite well-geared already (either from the AH, which is more likely, or due to playing a crapton, if you still follow your non-AH philosophy)."

I just started playing again and found a boring, useless Sun-keeper, which I gave to my Templar. Yes, I could've bought one for 25k (or something) from the AH, and yes I still enjoyed having found it. I'm having fun playing a video-game. Go figure, right?


3 - We all have different issues and proposed solutions to the "itemization" monster.

They could all be great and solve the issue, and they could all be shitty and not solve a thing. We're only certain about one thing: Blizzard acknowledges the problem and will work on it. ETA to the testing/delivery of the solution? Absolutely unknown. Bottom line? Deal with it.

4 - Oh look, another "efficiency" related complaint. Yes, a couple areas are better populated than others. Yes, a couple classes are faster and more efficient than others. Yes, a couple builds/runes outshine pretty much everything else out there.

And yes, I can still enjoy the game despite all that. Again, go figure. I feel bad for those who can't, because they're too obsessed with an ARPG having the balance and flawlessness of a strategy/moba game.

Same answer to all these in the aforementioned point. The developers acknowledge all those problems (probably not to the extent the players' drama make it look like), and they're working on it. Whining about it over and over and over again (which you seem to enjoy more than playing the game) isn't going to make them work harder or faster. Check the past 6 months for reference.

5 - Launch: rares too good, legendaries with very little possibility of being good. Early-patch: a lot of BiS legendaries, with an insane chance of being good (thus making 80% of what were useful rares before into very weak items). Recent-patch: attempt to swing things back into balance with the introduction of rares that have the potential to be BiS.

Future-patches: more improvements + more complaints, as usual in all Blizzard games. Working as intended.

Quote from Indimix

I mean, come on, they took how many months to fix the "you cant identify anything while the vendor screen is open thing"... now you right click -> identify -> right click -> sell, how it should have been from day 0.

Such a gamebreaking problem, right? If things like these are making you feel angry and not allowing you to enjoy the game, there's only one thing left to do.

Then again, we both know what bothers you in D3, you've said it a thousand times already here on the forums, all that anger and the other issues very likely originate from that.