d3 Patch 2.6.6 PTR Patch Notes: July 25th

[Stan 5,242]

The latest patch for Diablo 3 is now available on test servers for one week. It comes with 13 new legendary powers, the Season 18 buff, updates to craft set bonuses, and more!

Highlights

• Testing will be conducted over the course of one week, starting today.
• The buff for Season 18, the Season of the Triune, has been introduced and this time, they decided to not focus on endgame by introducing a buff which is beneficial to players regardless of level.
  • Triune's Will: All abilities have a chance when hitting an enemy to spawn a circle that gives a power. Only one circle can be active at a time.
    • Power: Players in the circle receive a 100% damage bonus while active
    • Resource Reduction: Players in the circle receive a 50% discount on resources spent while active.
    • Cooldown Reduction: While standing in an active circle, any skills currently on cooldown come off of cooldown more quickly.
• A new pet has been added for players who pre-purchased Warcraft III: Reforged (PC Only).
• Crafted sets have been updated and there are 13 new legendary powers introduced in Patch 2.6.6.
• A new legendary gem called Legacy of Dreams was introduced to make the Legacy of Nightmares Season 17 buff more permanent.
  • While you have no set bonuses equipped, every Legendary item you have equipped increases your damage dealt by 3.75% and reduces your damage taken by 2%. (Max level 99)
  • Rank 25: This bonus is doubled for Ancient items.

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 2.6.6, with a one-week PTR to test the full extent of Season 18.

We’ve acted on your feedback and we’re introducing new powers across a number of existing Legendaries that previously had none. A brand new, unique Season buff for the Season of the Triune aims to change your moment-to-moment game play right from level one, so what are you waiting for? Jump in and get a taste of what Season 18 has to offer!

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

PTR Details

We’ll be conducting the Patch 2.6.6 PTR over the course of one week, starting Thursday, July 25. 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 new items (or supplemental items) that they might need for testing!

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 home in on the information they need most.

PTR Goals

With another new game-impacting Seasonal buff and several beefy boosts to Legendary items, we know it’ll be very tempting to get your hands on as much as you can! To help guide your focus, here are our 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 Triune’s Will Seasonal buff, with emphasis on finding bugs

PTR Tips

As with our previous PTRs, 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 patch 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.

Patch Notes

Last updated July 25 @ 10:00 a.m. PST.

Below you will find the patch notes for the most recent update for Diablo III, Patch 2.6.6.

Patch 2.6.6

General

• A pet has been added that will be available for players who pre-purchase Warcraft III: Reforged (PC Only)

Seasons

• The buff for Season 18, the Season of the Triune, has been added
  • Triune's Will: All abilities have a chance when hitting an enemy to spawn a circle that gives a power. Only one circle can be active at a time.
    • Power: Players in the circle receive a 100% damage bonus while active
    • Resource Reduction: Players in the circle receive a 50% discount on resources spent while active
    • Cooldown Reduction: While standing in an active circle, any skills currently on cooldown come off of cooldown more quickly
  • Developer Comment: The last couple of Seasonal buffs have been focused primarily on end-game content. We wanted to try something different this Season with a buff that was more beneficial to players regardless of where they might be in their Season Journey. Triune's Will can come into play as early as level 1 and continue to make an impact on your game experience from the beginning to the end of the Season, and we're looking forward to seeing how players leverage this ever-changing boost throughout their adventures!

Items

• Developer Note: There are additional specific notes below, but broadly for 2.6.6, we wanted to introduce a handful of new item powers targeted at two audiences: (1) certain classes with long-standing requests for balance/quality of life adjustments and (2) the broader player base for experimenting with Kanai's Cube. This means fewer class-specific new additions, but more additions that everyone has an opportunity to play with. We also experimented with making some of the craftable sets from Haedrig more appealing for fresh level 70's or players looking to maximize their farming runs. We hope to see some interesting new theorycrafting and tactics out of 2.6.6 and can't wait to see what the community does with this new loot!
• The Flavor of Time
  • New Legendary Power:Pylon effects last twice as long.
• The Executioner
  • New Legendary Power:Attacks will slay enemies with less than (5-10%) health.
• Stone Gauntlets
  • New Legendary Power:Getting attacked will slowly turn you to stone... (You gain 50% more armor, but your movement speed is reduced by 15% and attack speed is reduced by 20%. This effect stacks up to 5 times)
• Echoing Fury
  • New Legendary Power:Slaying enemies engulfs the wielder into a Frenzy. (Killing enemies increases your attack speed by 15% and movement speed by 5%. This effect stacks up to 5 times)
• Squirt's Necklace
  • New Legendary Power:While not taking damage, your damage is increased by up to 100% and damage taken is increased by up to 50%.
• Messerschmidt's Reaver
  • New Legendary Power:Reduce the remaining cooldown of one of your skills by 1 second when you slay an enemy.
• Mortick's Brace
  • New Legendary Item: Wrath of the Berserker gains the effect of every rune.
  • Developer's Note:If you played during the Patch 2.2.0 PTR, you'll recognize this as an item that was later removed from the game before it went to live servers. At the time, Mortick's Brace gave too much power for a single item slot. However, the power curve of Diablo III has changed significantly since then and we're comfortable with bringing it back.
• Spite
  • Note: This item can be crafted from the Blacksmith and is not a normal loot drop
  • New Legendary Power:Non-cleaving Gargantuans gain the cleave and chilling effects of the Humongoid rune.
• Legacy of Dreams
  • New Legendary Gem:
    • While you have no set bonuses equipped, every Legendary item you have equipped increases your damage dealt by 3.75% and reduces your damage taken by 2%. (Max level 99)
    • Rank 25: This bonus is doubled for Ancient items.
  • Developer's Note: The end game opened up significantly with Season 17's Legacy of Nightmare's buff (and the community was clear about how much these new options were appreciated), but wanted to make this addition a more permanent fixture in a more streamlined way than simply making it baseline. This Legendary Gem should open that path up even further and at more opportunities than just late game Greater Rift pushing.
• Crafted Sets
  • Note: The following sets have been significantly revised from their existing level 70 counterparts. Items crafted prior to 2.6.6 will continue to exist in their old forms but will not be updated after the patch. In addition, after the patch, the old recipes will no longer be available to craft and all players will need to re-acquire these recipes by finding the plans again through Horadric Caches or by killing Odious Collectors.
  • Sage's Journey
    • A Belt has been added to this set.
    • Haedrig the Blacksmith now automatically learns how to forge this set at Rank 12.
  • Captain Crimson's Trimmings
    • (2) Set Bonus
      • Regenerates 6000 Life per Second
      • Reduces cooldown of all skills by10%20%.
      • Now also reduces Resource Costs by 20%
    • (3) Set Bonus
      • Set bonuses have been replaced
        • Damage dealt is increased by your total percentage of Cooldown Reduction
        • Damage taken is reduced by your total percentage of Resource Cost Reduction
  • Aughild's Authority
    • (2) Set Bonus
      • Set bonuses have been replaced
        • Reduces damage taken by 15%
        • Increases damage dealt by 30%
    • (3) Set Bonus
      • Reduces damage from elites by15%30%
      • Increases damage against elites by1530%
  • Cain's Destiny
    • (2) Set Bonus
      • Attack Speed increased by 8%
      • +50% Experience. (5.0% at level 70) (Moved from (3) Set Bonus)
    • (3) Set Bonus
      • When a Greater Rift Keystone drops, there is a 25% chance for an extra one to drop.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an error that occurred when reporting a player via a friend request
• Fixed an error that occurred when saving an existing Friend Note without making changes

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 appif you have not already done so.

Step 1:Restart the Battle.net desktop app.

Step 2:Navigate to the Diablo III tab on the left-hand menu.

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:Click Install to begin the installation process.

Your PTR account will be created automatically if you do not already have one. The PTR is available in all supported languages, and accounts from all regions are eligible to participate. For additional assistance with installing and launching the PTR, click here.

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.

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!

Patch 2.6.6 is available on PTR and comes with new legendary powers, a new buff for Season of the Triune, and more. 

[DeadOfKnight 0]

Now that's what I'm talking about.  More changes like this please, keep 'em coming!

[xendrius 9]

1 hour ago, DeadOfKnight said:

Now that's what I'm talking about.  More changes like this please, keep 'em coming!

What specifically do you like about these changes?

[DeadOfKnight 0]

3 hours ago, xendrius said:

What specifically do you like about these changes?

Well the LoN gem and the sage belt for sure are needed.  Bringing back the barb belt is good too.  Other than that it's just more interesting.  New legendaries.  New builds maybe.

[Rhondis 148]

8 hours ago, Stan said:

Legacy of Dreams

• New Legendary Gem:
  • While you have no set bonuses equipped, every Legendary item you have equipped increases your damage dealt by 3.75% and reduces your damage taken by 2%. (Max level 99)
  • Rank 25: This bonus is doubled for Ancient items.

 

Now this, this I like.

[darkinchworm 20]

It's about time they stuck some new abilities on existing "Legendary" items. Too bad this only barely scratches the surface.

[Koxsos 38]

Now this is a patch we were looking for ... the past 2 years? It's pretty darn great start!
Most of these legendaries are actually valid.
Executioner looks like it even might shake up the meta a tiny bit, but probably not.

But most of these news truly resemble the "not so endgame, more variety" philosophy and I like it.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Koxsos

[Kaelos 74]

LoD gem sounds great but considering LoN set is no longer worth getting, it seems too hard to make it usable for me. It's probably useless until we lvl it up to 99 but it requires some pretty high greater rift farming. Getting full ancient gear is already high requirement to get started with the LoN build. But maybe it's for endgame option only and fine I dunno.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Kaelos

[DeadOfKnight 0]

6 hours ago, Kaelos said:

LoD gem sounds great but considering LoN set is no longer worth getting, it seems too hard to make it usable for me. It's probably useless until we lvl it up to 99 but it requires some pretty high greater rift farming. Getting full ancient gear is already high requirement to get started with the LoN build. But maybe it's for endgame option only and fine I dunno.

The rings will most likely be obsolete now.  The gem will be usable a lot earlier because they don't actually have to be ancient to get the benefits.  In fact, you get half of the benefit with zero ancients, which is pretty sweet.

[Marto358 2]

I think there are some very nice changes announced. But the main thing I wanna know is... will they make Blackthorns viable!?

[darkinchworm 20]

15 hours ago, Marto358 said:

I think there are some very nice changes announced. But the main thing I wanna know is... will they make Blackthorns viable!?

Nah, they'll just up the chances that a Blackthorne's item is your first primal.

[Yolo 40]

Aside from having enormous queue times on ptr, the whole thing looks pretty nice. 

The seasonal thing could be tweaked a little bit tho - sometimes they spawn under you, but most of the time in the most utterly, ridicolously retarded places. (Like you kill a trash in the upper left corner of the screen and the circle spawns in the upper right corner, where an arcane beam is swinging with a plagued underneath.)