d3 Patch 2.6.5 Patch Notes & Season 17 Preview

[Stan 5,240]

Patch 2.6.5 and Season 17 will be playtested on PTR starting on April 5 and here are the official patch notes with all details.

Patch 2.6.5 Highlights 

• In Season 17, dubbed the Season of Nightmares, player's damage dealt will be increased by 750% and damage taken reduced by 4% for every Ancient item you'll have equipped while having no active Set bonuses.
• Torment 14, 15 & 16 difficulties have been added.
• Portals left behind by Treasure Goblins will lead you to the Cow Level.
• Using an Ancient or Primal Puzzle Ring will yield a new result, probably a more lucrative version of The Vault.
• Plenty of quality of life improvements are coming to Rifts!
  • When a boss is killed in a Nephalem Rift, you'll see a permanent ping that marks the location of the boss' death until the Rift's closed.
  • Greater Rift notification & completion screens have been reworked (PC only).
  • Matchmaking won't prevent from joining the game when a Greater Rift's in progress.
• In Patch 2.6.5, they're making changes to multiple Legendary powers to open up build diversity.
• More Stash space is coming for all players.

Blizzard (Source)

With Patch 2.6.4, we started a new process for testing content both internally and externally that worked well for our production schedule and helped ensure that we received focused, actionable player feedback. We’re going to continue using this process for Patch 2.6.5, with a one-week PTR to fully test Season 17.

On the docket are also highly-requested quality of life changes, item changes that should boost some fan-favorite playstyles, and an all-new Season 17 buff that'll help us bring the terror to the Season of Nightmares!

Table of Contents

• PTR Details
  • PTR Goals
  • PTR Tips
• Patch Notes
  • General
  • Quality of Life
  • Seasons
  • Items
  • Bug Fixes
• How to Participate in PTR
• PTR Character Copy

Please note that this is a preview for PTR content, which is subject to change.

PTR Details 

We'll be conducting the Patch 2.6.5 PTR over the course of one week, starting Friday, April 5. During the course of the PTR, there may be periodic maintenances, outages, hotfixes, or minor patches.

There will be two buffs active to help you on your PTR journey: increased Legendary drop rate and double Blood Shard drops. This should allow everyone to acquire any class set items (or supplemental items) that they might need!

Feedback should be provided in the PTR Feedback forum while bug reports should be provided in the PTR Bug Report forum. Clearly separating these tracks allows our designers and quality assurance testers to hone in on the information they need most.

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PTR Goals 

With another new game-impacting Seasonal buff and several beefy boosts to Legendary items, we know it will be very tempting to get your hands dirty with as much as you can! To help guide your focus, here are the priorities in terms of what we’d most like to see tested.

• Players pushing Greater Rifts as high as possible with the new item changes listed below
• Experimentation with the Legacy of Nightmares Seasonal buff, with emphasis on finding builds with unforeseen interactions or bugs

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PTR Tips 

As with our previous 2.6.4 PTR, this testing period will have a short duration. Whether you’re a PTR veteran or newcomer, we thought we’d pass along a few tips to get you started.

• Because of the limited duration of this PTR, we ask that participants pick a particular portion of this update to focus on testing.
  • For example, if you’re primarily a Wizard player, consider what changes impact the Wizard specifically. What you like best, what you think may still need adjustment, and what you'd want to see in the future (even if that may be beyond the scope of this patch) are all good questions to ask yourself.
• Prior to the start of PTR, consider stocking up on items like Puzzle Rings and Bovine Bardiches. Having these available after you import your character can make any necessary PTR farming much faster!
• Try to break things! Just tell us when you do so we can make sure that the 2.6.5 launch is as smooth as possible.
• When providing feedback, focus less on a solution and more on your experience. How did the changes make you feel? Was there something "off" that you noticed? Did something seem wrong or insufficient? Suggestions are always welcome but identifying the issues themselves is most important.

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Patch Notes 

Last updated March 29 @ 10:00 p.m. PST.

Below you will find the patch notes for the most recent update for Diablo III, Patch 2.6.5.

Table of Contents

• General
• Quality of Life
• Seasons
• Items
• Bug Fixes

Note: All changes apply to all versions of Diablo III, including PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC unless otherwise indicated.

General 

• Torment 14, 15, and 16 have been added to the game
• Portals left behind by Treasure Goblins may occasionally lead somewhere udderly ridiculous
• Using an Ancient or Primal Puzzle Ring in Kanai’s Cube will produce a new result
• Party portraits now display if a player’s Cheat Death buff has been recently used (PC Only)
• When a boss is killed in a Nephalem Rift, a permanent ping will mark the location of the boss’ death until the Rift is closed
• The Boss Notification screen has received a rework (PC Only)
• The Greater Rift Notification screen has received a rework (PC Only)
• The Greater Rift Completion screen has received a rework (PC Only)
• Matchmaking no longer prevents players from joining a game while a Greater Rift is already in progress
  • Players who join the game will still be unable to join a Greater Rift in progress
• The progress bar for a Greater Rift is now visible to all players in the game, regardless of whether they are participating in the Rift or not

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Quality of Life 

• Additional stash space has been added for all players
  • PC: 5 additional stash tabs are now available
  • PS4/XB1/Switch: 140 additional stash spaces are now available
• Search functionality has been added to Stash (PC Only)
• All Crafters now have an Expand/Collapse All button for recipes (PC Only)
• Most Bounty indicators are now displayed immediately after entering the Bounty area
• Death's Breath now drop in Horadric Caches

Developer Comment: With 2.6.5, we’re aiming to address some of the longest standing and most desired quality of life features the community has brought to us. We’ve hit a little bit of everything, from adding additional Torment levels, making Ancient/Primal Puzzle Rings feel rewarding, and rehauling stash space in both size and functionality. Other changes were made to help smooth out overall gameplay, such as making Bounties feel less of a chore and more rewarding and reworking a few of our notification screens.

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Seasons 

• The Season Journey Journal now displays all chapters, regardless of current progression
• Added the buff for Season 17
  • Player’s damage dealt is increased by 750% and damage taken is reduced by 4% for every Ancient Item they have equipped while having no Set Bonuses Active

Developer’s Comment: The Season of Grandeur was by far our most popular Themed Season yet. In the wake of having a free Ring of Royal Grandeur active, we saw a lot of requests to try the same thing with the Legacy of Nightmares set power. We had been toying with the same idea internally, and the community request really nudged us over the edge of giving it a go!

Items 

• (NEW) Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered
  • Become immune to control-impairing effects for 5-7 seconds after drinking this potion
• Akkhan's Leniency
  • Each enemy hit by your Blessed Shield increases damage of your Blessed Shield by 15-20% 75-100% for 3 seconds
• Bloodtide Blade
  • Death Nova deals 80-100% 300-400% increased damage for every enemy within 25 yards
• Chantodo's Will
  • Every second while in Archon form you expel a Wave of Destruction, dealing 1000% 4000% weapon damage to enemies within 30 yards. Every time you hit with an attack while not in Archon form, 1000% 4000% weapon damage is added to the Wave of Destruction, stacking up to 20 times
  • Wave of Destruction ticks now scale with attack speed
• The Dagger of Darts
  • Your Poison Darts and your Fetishes’ Poison Darts now pierce and deal an additional [400-500%] damage.
• Iron Rose
  • Attacking with Siphon Blood has a 40-50% 100% chance to cast a free Blood Nova
• Jekangbord
  • Blessed Shield ricochets to 6 additional enemies and has its damage increased by 225-300% 300-400%
• Sage’s Set
  • Now doubles the amount of Death’s Breaths that drop
    • Previous: Increases Death’s Breath drops by 1

Developer’s Comment: With Patch 2.6.4, we focused on making a lot of changes to different class sets to open up build diversity and level out the comparable power between classes. With 2.6.5, we’re continuing that trend through adjustments to (mostly) Legendary powers we feel have a very strong, fun fantasy, but needed some damage bumps.

Bug Fixes 

• Fixed and issue where Xbox One/PS4 Voice Chat within public games was failing to work (Xbox One and PS4 Only)
• Fixed an issue where The Immortal King’s Set Dungeon objective numbers were incorrect
• Fixed an issue where the player counter UI was incorrectly showing 0 players online
• Fixed an issue where Greater Rift 70 first-time completion Primal drops were occurring for players even if they did not succeed at the 15-minute completion time
• Fixed an issue where Bounties that required interacting with an object would not update the next objective immediately after completing one
• Fixed an issue where a second Puzzle Ring tab would be shown in the Kanai’s Cube UI when a Puzzle Ring was equipped (Console Only)
• Fixed an issue where Keywarden icons would not show up on the map in Torment level games (Switch Only)
• Fixed an issue where some subtitles in the Taiwan localization would exceed the screen limit (Switch only)
• Fixed an issue where the mouse cursor may be hidden when launching the client (Mac only)
• Fixed an issue where players would not be blocked from entering Public Games with the Key Warden tag when Key Wardens have already been defeated

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How to Participate 

To participate in the public test, you must have a Diablo III game license attached to a Battle.net account in good standing (i.e. one that hasn't been suspended or banned). In addition, you will also need to download and install the Blizzard Battle.net desktop app if you have not already done so.

Step 1: Create a PTR account. To create a PTR account, log in to Blizzard Battle.net Account Management and double-click on your Diablo III game license; this will bring you to the game management page. On this page, click "Create a PTR account.

If you've participated in any previous Diablo III PTR, the "Create PTR account" button may not appear. This is because you've already created a PTR account and can therefore skip this step.

Step 2: Once you have created a PTR account, installed the Blizzard Battle.net desktop, and logged in with your Blizzard Battle.net credentials, select "Diablo III" from the main menu on the left-hand side of the application.

Step 3: On the Diablo III screen, there is a drop-down menu right above the "Play" button (note that this may say "Install" if you do not have Diablo III currently installed). Select "PTR: Diablo III" from this drop-down menu before proceeding.

Step 4: You should now have the option to install and play the patch.

The PTR is available in all supported languages, and accounts from all regions are eligible to participate.

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PTR Character Copy 

The option to copy your existing Diablo III characters from your live account to the PTR will be available and can be done directly through the PTR client. However, only one region per account can be copied at a time. So, if you choose to copy characters from your account in a different region, any previously copied PTR characters will be lost.

Step 1: Log into the live game and then log out.

Step 2: Log into PTR client and create a level 1 character. After you're done, return to the main character screen.

Step 3: Click on the "PTR Copy" button located in the upper right-hand corner. (The PTR Copy button will not appear in-game until you have created a new level 1 character.)

Step 4: Select your region.

Step 5: Click "Copy." This will copy all characters on your account from the selected region.

Step 6: You will be disconnected from the PTR client.

Step 7: Log back in. Your copied characters will be available for play.

Please note that you can only copy characters from one gameplay region at a time. If you choose to copy characters from a different region, any previously copied PTR characters will be lost. In addition, you can only copy characters over to your PTR account once every 24 hours. Attempting to copy characters before this cooldown is up will result in an error.

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As this is a test server, please anticipate uneven game performance, and note that restarts and downtime may occur without warning. Thank you, and we look forward to your feedback.

The Season of Nightmares is going to utilize the Legacy of Nightmares buff, there will be 3 new Torment difficulties, and various quality of life improvements in Patch 2.6.5.

[Koxsos 38]

Sounds like "insert two ring class like necro/WD here" season.
I am hopeful although the bonus on it's own might be too weak.
To jump ahead of silly question like I wanted to ask  : LoN set bonus is a set bonus and thus negates the season bonus.
PTR down for maintenance atm.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Koxsos

[Rhondis 148]

39 minutes ago, Stan said:

while having no active Set bonuses.

So I am assuming we can not double the bonus by equipping LoN? Or am I misinterpreting the statement incorrectly?

EDIT: Koxsos may have answered my question, literally right when I was posting this lol.

The changes are actually a pleasant surprise and I can not say I am not mad about them either, having Death's Breath dropping from Horadric caches actually gives people a little bit more of an incentive to complete the boring bounties. And the addition of stash space, torment difficulty, and little changes here and there are actually a breath of fresh air for once. 

Edited March 29, 2019 by Rhondis

[Trest 61]

1 hour ago, Stan said:

Additional stash space has been added for all players

• PC: 5 additional stash tabs are now available
• PS4/XB1/Switch: 140 additional stash spaces are now available

 

Talk about burying the lede—this is the biggest piece of news in all this, from my perspective!

[rickster 12]

"Torment 14, 15 & 16 difficulties have been added."

"More Stash space is coming for all players"

Good, and it's about time,

but we still need to deal with the wasteful conundrum of constantly having to run backwards, wasting time, picking  up, globes, leg's, gold, ..., when they should all be awarded automatically by KILL, no matter the Rift., ...

 AND, the RnG of Diablo/Blizzard still leaves very little to be desired. !

Obviously ALL required items should be Questable, and NOT just depend on this weird, and unfair RnG of Blizzard.

Edited March 30, 2019 by rickster

[Misuteri 26]

On 3/29/2019 at 3:45 PM, Trest said:

Talk about burying the lede—this is the biggest piece of news in all this, from my perspective!

I can finally move beyond 4 classes.

[darkinchworm 20]

Increasing stash space could have been the only change they made and I'd still be hyped

[Cambios 0]

The always neglected WW barb will actually be *WEAKER* in Season 17 than 16. ?

RoRG at least allowed WW barb to get a little more damage from Hexing Pants or Swamp Waders. But still WW was a solid 30+ GRs behind charge and HOTA. 

Now WW won't even have that, and there are no LoN builds for WW. ?

I have no idea why the team constantly neglects this iconic barb skill/build.

Necros and Wizards, already the 2 most dominant classes will be even more super powered. Unfortunate. ?

Stash spaces and extra torments though - WOO! :)

[Zakerum 0]

I was never interested in the LoN set. Thought it was silly. I loved the season of grandeur but the season of nightmares doesn't get me excited at all sadly. As far as quality of life. I'm still begging for a way to lock the chat window. I click that thing on accident way too often.