PTR Patch 2.6.7 Notes - Season of Eternal Conflict (S19)

[Starym 3,800]

 

Update: we're also getting a new pet and portrait frame in addition to the reurning rewards from Season 7!

The next season's PTR will be up this Thursday and we have all the patch notes already! The big news is the new seasonal power, and it's a pretty solid one. The Pandemonuim effect will not only buff your speed and power (up to 50% speed and 100% damage) based on killstreak, but also has a combo effect depending on when you choose to end your killstreak (from massive frost novas, angels descending to help and more). All the effects are listed below and will scale based on the GR level as well, making them (hopefully) relevant in higher GRs as well.

We're also getting new sets! Crusaders and Monks will be getting them this season, with the other class ones arriving in later seasons, and there will be new and returning legendary powers that will synergize with the sets.

Barbarians also get a lot of tweaks to their legendary items, hopefully addressing the issues players have had with the class.

New Pet (source)

I totally forgot to put this in the patch notes, but just in the interest of visibility:

• Added a pet and portrait frame reward for completing the full Season Journey for Season 19

• This is similar to the Galactic Wings that were available during Season 17 and in addition to the returning Season rewards from Season 7 for completing Chapter IV

 

PTR Patch 2.6.7 (source)

The one-week PTR testing period for 2.6.7 begins October 17 and we need your help to make Season 19 better than ever!

We’ve begun introducing brand new class sets to Diablo III as outlined in our Ongoing Support blog, heavily revised several Barbarian Legendaries at the direct request of the community and continued to iterate on our approach to Seasonal buffs and how they can change up the overall gameplay experience. Take a look at the preliminary patch notes below and start theorycrafting; Patch 2.6.7 will be arriving before the end of the year!

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PATCH 2.6.7

Table of Contents:

• General
• Seasons
• Items
• Monsters
• Bug Fixes

Note: All changes apply to all versions of Diablo III, including PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC unless otherwise indicated. Please note that PTR is only available for PC and Mac users.

 

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General

• Greater Rift Keystones are now subject to vacuum pick-up
• A note regarding the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) has been added, clearly stating we do not sell account information. For more information regarding the CCPA, please see here. (Console Only)

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Seasons

• Developer Note: One of the biggest pieces of feedback from Season 18's buff was that the Triune bonus didn't stick with your character while you adventured. With Season 19, we've altered course as well as upped the ante by experimenting with new mechanics to add an element of both chaos and power to the battlefield. It should feel a bit like Pandemonium, and it may be a consideration whether or not you want to reset your total kill streak for a particular killstreak bonus versus continuously maintain the overall effect (especially as the highest level killstreak rewards will be harder to leverage in situations like Greater Rifts). Killstreaks with higher kill count requirements are more powerful, and we're looking forward to seeing what players think of and do with them!
• The buff for Season 19, the Season of Eternal Conflict, has been added
  • Pandemonium
    • For the duration of the Season, all players will have a stacking buff that that persists as long as you have hit or killed a monster within the last 5 seconds
    • Each stack gives 0.05% movement speed and 0.1% bonus damage. This bonus caps at 50% movement and 100% damage (1000 stacks)
    • In addition, after reaching a certain number of kills in a row, a power is unleashed, dealing an amount of scaling damage based on player level and difficulty or Greater Rift level:
      • 15 Kills: Five massive energy twisters are unleashed
      • 30 Kills: Dark Geysers form beneath enemies
      • 50 Kills: Exploding Chickens seek and destroy
      • 100 Kills: Corpses rain from the sky
      • 150 Kills: A wide Frost Nova freezes enemies
      • 200 Kills: Treasure chests fall from the sky
      • 300 Kills: A ring of fire engulfs everything
      • 400 Kills: Meteors hail from above
      • 500 Kills: Angels descend upon the battlefield to fight for your cause
      • 1000 Kills: ???
    • Powers are tracked at a group level; this means only one power can be active in play at a time, regardless of the number of players in a group

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Items

• Developer Note: With Patch 2.6.7, we are beginning to roll out new class sets for every class in Diablo III. For the Season of Eternal Conflict, we're focusing on the two classes that embody the Light and wield some form of Holy elemental damage: Crusader and Monk. You'll also find a handful of retuned or newly added Legendary powers intended to synergize with the new class sets. We did a lot of community research into which skills were most requested by players as well as most underrepresented in current builds, and we hope you're as excited as we are for these new gameplay options. The other class sets will be coming in later patches, so if your class isn't represented this time around, fret not—they're coming in a future patch!
• You'll also notice a significant number of Barbarian item changes in this patch. While the Barbarian class set will be coming at a later date, we have very much heard the War Cry from our dedicated Barbarian community and implemented a number of changes heavily inspired by extremely thorough feedback. While not every suggestion has been taken at a 1:1 parity, the thoughtful analysis helped guide us to changes we could implement in this patch. Thanks very much to the community members who expressed their concerns in a respectful, constructive manner. It's very helpful, and we greatly appreciate the thought and effort that went into making your voices heard!
• New Crusader Set: Aegis of Valor
  • 2-Piece Bonus: The charged bolts from Fist of the Heavens has a chance to cast another Fist of the Heavens
  • 4-Piece Bonus: Hitting with Fist of the Heavens reduces damage taken by 1% for 5 seconds. Stacks up to 50 times
  • 6-Piece Bonus: Increase the damage of Fist of the Heavens by 10,000%
• New Monk Set: Patterns of Justice
  • 2-Piece Bonus: Sweeping Wind gains the effect of every rune
  • 4-Piece Bonus: Each enemy within Sweeping Wind increases your movement speed by 5%. Stacks up to 10 times.
  • 6-Piece Bonus: Attacking with Tempest Rush while Sweeping Wind is active will temporarily increase the size of Sweeping Wind after hitting over 30 times within a short period. Sweeping Wind damage is increased by 10,000%
• Darklight
  • Fist of the Heavens has a [45-60%] 100% chance to be cast twice.
  • Additional Legendary Power: Increases the damage of Fist of the Heavens by [200-250%].
• The Eye of the Storm
  • New Legendary Power: When Sweeping Wind hits exactly 1 enemy, its damage is increased by 100%.
• Vengeful Wind
  • Increases the maximum stack count of Sweeping Wind by [6-7] 10
  • Additional Legendary Power: Increases the damage of Sweeping Wind by [250-300%]
• Chantodo's Resolve
  • The scaled attack speed damage bonus to Wave of Destruction has been reduced
  • Developer Note: This is a reactive adjustment from an earlier change to how Wave of Destruction receives a bonus from Attack Speed. The buff that resulted from that change was more than we expected, so we're reigning it in.
• Wrath of the Wastes
  • 6-Piece Bonus: The damage bonus now also applies to Rend
• Lamentation
  • Additional Legendary Power: Increases the damage of Rend by [150-200%]
• Ambo's Pride
  • New Legendary Power: Attacking with Whirlwind also applies Rend and the total damage of Rend is dealt over 1 second
• Remorseless
  • Hammer of the Ancients has a [25-30%] chance to summon an Ancient for 20 seconds
  • New Legendary Power: While both Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients are active, Hammer of the Ancients deals [200-250%] more damage.
• Fjord Cutter
  • You are surrounded by a Chilling Aura when attacking.
  • New Legendary Power: Seismic Slam attacks 50% faster and also deals 100-150% increased damage against Slowed or Chilled enemies
• Bracers of Destruction
  • Seismic Slam deals [400-500%] increased damage to the first 5 10 enemies it hits.
• Fury of the Ancients
  • Call of the Ancients gains the effect of the Ancients' Fury rune and your Ancients attack 100% faster
• Bone Ringer
  • Now has a cap of 60 stacks.
  • Developer Note: We never intended for this item to be used in a way where you farm stacks for an egregious amount of time (5+ minutes) and then watch all their health disappear in less than a second. It's not an engaging style of gameplay, and we don't want that experience to be the best way to play the Necromancer.
• Legacy of Dreams
  • This gem is now more likely to drop from a Greater Rift Guardian

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Monsters

• Blighter
  • Blighter's Poison Tentacles' Area of Effect now hits less frequently, but at higher damage, when attacking players

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Bug Fixes

• Spite
  • Fixed an issue where casting Restless Giant would cause the 200% physical bonus damage to fail to apply when the Gargantuan enraged
• Squirt's Necklace
  • Fixed an issue where some ground effects were causing the Squirt's Necklace buff to fall off despite being shielded

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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: 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.

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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!

 

A killstreak-based seasonal power, new Crusader and Monk sets, Barbarian reworks and more!

[Bobbis 208]

Hey guys, wrong tag, looks like Diablo ?

[Starym 3,800]

1 minute ago, Bobbis said:

Hey guys, wrong tag, looks like Diablo ?

I was too excited by all this new stuff! I mean D3 getting this many changes, my brain must've thought, oh, this is another WoW patch, clearly.

[Valhalen 1,484]

13 minutes ago, Starym said:

Greater Rift Keystones are now subject to vacuum pick-up

Quality of Life changes. Gotta love it. I wish they did the same with materials, since they no longer take up inventory space, and also allow non-combat pets to pick 'em up.

[Koxsos 38]

Well extra sweeping wind stacks mean monkey king! =D

[Yolo 40]

I am happy to see new sets and affixes, they clearly show that D3 is not fully in maintenance mode.

The new Crusader set is very nice, FotH is almost never used as a spender, mainly because there weren't items that support it (outside of general ones, obviously). With Darklight, i imagine huge orbital bombardment. On the negative side, I'm not seeing any cost reduction or refund, and in the current state of Diablo, it's a huge nono using generators for resource. Maybe LoV+Akarat. 

Monk one is... Interesting. They already have a set fully dedicated to SW. Also, this one lacks damage reduction, which means SWK 2 set is a nobrainer inclusion to any builds with this set. 

Barbarian changes are very welcome. WotW+Ambo is pure awesomeness, maybe a bit too OP. SS builds are getting love, and IK HotA gets a new toy (my favorite change, personally). 

Chantodo nerf is justifiable given how high damage it has in current season. Bone Ringer nerf was well deserved, it was cancer meta. (Sorry kiddos, dealing more damage per second than anything, automatically is not something anybody wants in an action RpG) 

But still, i am longing for Damage Reduction changes. We are too glassy already, don't make it any worse, please.

[HugeMurloc 43]

3 hours ago, Yolo said:

I am happy to see new sets and affixes, they clearly show that D3 is not fully in maintenance mode.

The new Crusader set is very nice, FotH is almost never used as a spender, mainly because there weren't items that support it (outside of general ones, obviously). With Darklight, i imagine huge orbital bombardment. On the negative side, I'm not seeing any cost reduction or refund, and in the current state of Diablo, it's a huge nono using generators for resource. Maybe LoV+Akarat. 

Monk one is... Interesting. They already have a set fully dedicated to SW. Also, this one lacks damage reduction, which means SWK 2 set is a nobrainer inclusion to any builds with this set. 

Barbarian changes are very welcome. WotW+Ambo is pure awesomeness, maybe a bit too OP. SS builds are getting love, and IK HotA gets a new toy (my favorite change, personally). 

Chantodo nerf is justifiable given how high damage it has in current season. Bone Ringer nerf was well deserved, it was cancer meta. (Sorry kiddos, dealing more damage per second than anything, automatically is not something anybody wants in an action RpG) 

But still, i am longing for Damage Reduction changes. We are too glassy already, don't make it any worse, please.

Which one of the two new sets do you believe it's better?

[Boothyp 48]

Woo-Hoo!

Haven't played Barb for several seasons now, might be time for a return to my original class!! ? 

[darkinchworm 20]

I agree with the above assertion that the vacuum effect/pet pickup should apply to materials too. When you're at endgame and picking up white/blue/yellow items is almost totally worthless BUT you still want mats... it's a little maddening.

Also, the Blighter change, holy crap. Long overdue.

[Mordogh 0]

My major issue is no love to the WD. We have not exactly been sitting in the best of places. Also where is the nerf to bazooka wiz, they have sat on top for way to long, time to drag them down some. I like a lot of the changes though.

My running partner is a crusader so he will be crazy happy. I guess I'll have to run a zoo build and be his initial defense til he can make all those stacks for defense on the 4 piece. Maybe time to switch for a season and go barb, I dunno.

If they do make changes to WD I would love to see a group build for 2's and 4's that ( with a few gear piece swaps) can also be a strong GR push as well like s18 barbs with the reakor set. It can be a strong HotA build or run as support. Maybe a strong garg build, or a fire bats build. Another nice one if they are gonna make a new set for each class would be a stronger nuke build where you dont spend the first 6 seconds trying to build up to being able to nuke like the Jade set. The concept of the helltooth set where the WoD is put down and let's the garg nuke targets but make it for the genuine caster build. At least then you could decide if you wanna be a pet nuke or caster nuke.

[Rhondis 148]

On 10/14/2019 at 2:54 PM, Starym said:

New Monk Set: Patterns of Justice

• 2-Piece Bonus: Sweeping Wind gains the effect of every rune
• 4-Piece Bonus: Each enemy within Sweeping Wind increases your movement speed by 5%. Stacks up to 10 times.
• 6-Piece Bonus: Attacking with Tempest Rush while Sweeping Wind is active will temporarily increase the size of Sweeping Wind after hitting over 30 times within a short period. Sweeping Wind damage is increased by 10,000%

Is this... a dream??? My main build for monk uses the Monkey King Garb Set that focuses on Tempest rush and Sweeping winds! One of my favorite builds of all time...! I can't believe these past few patches man. Are they trying once more?? Lol

[Rhondis 148]

On 10/14/2019 at 3:06 PM, Starym said:

I was too excited by all this new stuff! I mean D3 getting this many changes, my brain must've thought, oh, this is another WoW patch, clearly.

I thought exactly the same... just alone adding more leggo effects and one more class set for every class is amazing! These past few patches have been hitting the mark for me honestly, hopefully it continues! 

[Bobbis 208]

On 10/14/2019 at 9:06 PM, Starym said:

I was too excited by all this new stuff! I mean D3 getting this many changes, my brain must've thought, oh, this is another WoW patch, clearly.

haha no worries happens every now n then ?

 

I keep getting an urge to try D3 but then install, load, aaaaand it's gone

[Yolo 40]

On 10/15/2019 at 9:51 AM, K1ngMrglMrgl said:

Which one of the two new sets do you believe it's better?

I'd go with with the Crusader one. Its pretty standard additional mechanic+dr+damage super buff bonuses lean toward progress content. Additionally, as i mentioned above, FotH was overlooked since forever and was never really used in the endgame. 

Meanwhile the monk one is more speed farm oriented and lacks DR, which limits its use in progress. 

And while the Crusader one already moves my theory crafting nerves, monk feels just "meh, another sw set". 

But thats just my judgement.

[HugeMurloc 43]

11 minutes ago, Yolo said:

I'd go with with the Crusader one. Its pretty standard additional mechanic+dr+damage super buff bonuses lean toward progress content. Additionally, as i mentioned above, FotH was overlooked since forever and was never really used in the endgame. 

Meanwhile the monk one is more speed farm oriented and lacks DR, which limits its use in progress. 

And while the Crusader one already moves my theory crafting nerves, monk feels just "meh, another sw set". 

But thats just my judgement.

Ιi feel the same mate

[Lhoken 1]

So read through the patch notes and i like what there doing so far. But I am curious about the Pandemonium buff. I get how it works with a stacking buff based off kills. Same thing we currently have with the xps buff from getting high kill counts. But what I wonder about is how this will play out in GRifts since in there their is no kill counta at all. So it makes me wonder if that is something they will be adding this patch or if this will work differently with the stacking killing counts. 

[albabe 33]

So, has anyone got the 2.6.7 PTR yet?  I can't connect... and it was supposed to be released today, right?

[MayStarr 0]

For someone who plays daily, having the test realm ONLY available on pc or Mac is disappointing..... Its 2019.. Technology isn't advanced enough to make it available on xbox??

[Stan 5,239]

20 hours ago, MayStarr said:

For someone who plays daily, having the test realm ONLY available on pc or Mac is disappointing..... Its 2019.. Technology isn't advanced enough to make it available on xbox??

They don't own any of these platforms and I imagine it's complicated to deploy. When they release a patch on consoles they first need to send the data over to Sony in advance, so that for testing would be all but ideal, given that PC testing lasts for just a week.

It wasn't so long ago that we didn't even have patches launch at the same time on all platforms; consoles were always for some reason, so at least that's an improvement.