Update: The Uber Unique drops have now been re-enabled across the game. Helltide chest Unique drops have also been changed and you can read the full details on both in the hotfix notes here.
Original post:
It seems Shakos are raining from the heavens! The ultra-rare Unique helm with +4 to all skills, also known by its real name, Harlequin’s Crest, has seemingly been dropping like candy in the past hour or so! Considering we’ve only heard of one or two ever reported so far, there’s definitely something strange going on.
The World First level 100 player, Rob, was getting many player reports of the helm dropping on his stream. It was mostly images at first, but soon there was a video as well. And then another.
What Is Happening?!
Rob and his discord soon got up to over 20+ reported Shako’s dropping (as well as one Andariel’s Visage) in the past hour or so. And they may have figured out why as well! First off, Blizzard enabled Unique item drops from Helltide chests in today’s patch, which went live around 3 hours ago. Secondly, Barbarians don’t have any “normal” Unique helms of their own. They only have the two utra-rares Harlequin’s Crest (aka Shako, named for the base helm it was on in Diablo 2) and Andariel’s Visage in their Unique helm loot pool. And so when the Helltide helm chests wanted to reward these Barbarians with a Unique, they seemingly had no choice but to spit out these incredibly rare ones! Here’s Rob to explain it and show one of the video drops:
Whether this was in any way intended is unknown, as Blizzard may be scrambling to fix this bug right now. It also may have been a coincidence and we’re just seeing some insane RNG, but that seems extremely unlikely. Even if we were to discount the over 20 reported drops in image form, we do have the two videos. And these would be pretty huge in and of themselves even if they were the only ones reported. Here’s the second, as Rob continues to talk about what’s happening on his stream:
Update: we have now also seen Sorcerers report getting the drops, as they also do not have a “normal” helm Unique!
Can This Be Intended?
It’s very unclear what is happening, and even if other ultra-rare Uniques could be gained this way. It seems extremely unlikely this was intended in any way by Blizzard. Having one of the most powerful items in the game being much easier to get for just two classes doesn’t sound right at all.
Now do keep in mind, these aren’t just “free” and actually dropping all over the place. You still have to get a Unique drop from a Helltide chest, which is also pretty rare. But, compared to their previous rarity, the drop rate for Barbs is incredibly high. It’s also very interesting to see that there was just the one report of Andariel’s Visage and so many Harlequin’s Crests.
Other Reports of Drops
Now, Rob’s discord isn’t the only source of players reporting getting the helm. There are quite few reddit threads (with images) claiming to have gotten one as well. Sorcerers also don’t have regular helm Uniques, but we haven’t really seen any of them report getting drops. We’ve seen players say they’ve heard Sorcs getting one, but no image or video proof just yet.
Also, don’t forget, you can only get these from the chests if your Helltide zone is level 85+ (although you may also need to be level 85+ as well, it’s not quite clear how the chests work), as Blizzard clarified in an earlier tweet that the ultra-rare Uniques only drop from sources over level 85.
Some players are even sad when they get Andariel’s Visage instead of Shako!
Helltide Tips
If you’re going to try this out (or just want to get some action from the the newly added Uniqe drop chances) and you don’t know all the tricks, you should check out our Helltides guide. We also have a timer for them right up in the top left corner, and you can find all the Mystery Chest locations here as well. There’s also this useful tip for farming Cinders, and this extremely useful tool for everything Helltide-related as well.
Good luck on the hunt – if it’s even still possible when you read this!
