d3 Deadset's Thoughts on Season 23: the Builds, Followers and Leaderboards Changes

[Starym 3,800]

Diablo 3 Season 23 is coming on Friday at 5, and it's one of the bigger ones in recent memory (at least for solo players), so we poked our resident expert and guide writer Deadset to hear his thoughts on the upcoming season, currently live patch and all the changes it's bringing with it. One of the major things discussed is the change for Leaderboards, with each set getting its own!

Start Date

Firstly, I can't help but notice that Season 23 continues a tested Blizzard tradition of starting out on a holiday. This date of choice this time is April 2nd, which is Easter weekend for western countries - and falls less than a week from the Season 22 end date, March 28th. I have mixed feelings about this choice; part of the playerbase might appreciate the chance to grind on a holiday weekend, but others have already voiced their displeasure with what seems a rushed start, and especially their irritation with the inconsistency of seasons' end and start dates. The closeness of the new Season start to end of the previous Season's leaderboard push grind certainly doesn't help. A more uniform approach will be helpful to players that need to schedule time off work, especially if they plan a more focused burst of grind at the start. Let's hope this is something Blizzard considers going forward.
 

Season Theme - Follower and Leaderboard Changes

The seasonal theme for Season 23 is a mildly amusing topic, since it doesn't have a "theme" in the strict sense of the word. The patch notes have worded the follower changes - which are not to be underestimated, mind you - as the "theme" this time around, but the companion rework applies to non-seasonal players as well, which makes it a little hard to pass off as something exciting to restart a character around. With that being said, the cosmetic rewards of Season 23 are excellent - with the return of the Emerald Dragon pet, as well as the addition a very memorable Lacuni pet and Butcher-themed portrait. If you are a cosmetics-driven player, you definitely have an incentive to grind the Seasonal Journey out.

  

Speaking of the Seasonal Journey, the Conquests for Season 23 are some of the easiest and least annoying in the game, so if you're in just for a quick weekend, you can easily knock out Divinity, Speed Demon and Avarice and get on with your gaming life. Of course, we have full guides on those and the remaining conquests here on the website. The best Haedrig's Gifts this Season are for Demon Hunters (Unhallowed Essence) and Barbarians (Wrath of the Wastes), both of which will carry you through the Seasonal Journey before you can say "I'm grinding".

While we have a full guide on Followers and the changes made to their systems, which you can read here, I want to briefly touch upon the companion rework as one of the more notable changes to the game in recent memory. In Patch 2.7, followers turn from a ragtag bunch of mildly helpful walking buffs into nearly full-fledged characters, with the ability to equip a full character's worth of items - that's right, all 13 slots that you're used to on your character, plus the unique follower slot for the follower tokens. While dealing damage is still way out of their reach (they can't equip any damage-oriented sets), they have the ability to equip a plethora of incredibly useful legendary powers and have their effect apply to your character via a system called Emanate. This is an incredible buff to solo play, as your follower easily triples his overall usefulness with powers like Nemesis Bracers, The Flavor of Time,Avarice Band and the Cain and Sage sets, among others.

On the topic of seasonal changes, I should mention that of the unsung heroes of Patch 2.7 is the Leaderboard update, which now creates a separate Leaderboard for every set in the game, as well as a leaderboard for non-set (Legacy of Dreams-based) builds. I cannot overstate how good of a change that is for competitive and semi-competitive play, as well as the overall health and creativity within the game! Diablo 3 has often been (rightfully) admonished for pushing Leaderboard performance around the "meta set" of the Season, and having individual categories for specific playstyles is one of the better band-aids the set-centric Diablo system can hope to receive. I have nothing but praise for its implementation, and can't wait to see what players come up with as they push with their favorite off-meta builds!
 

Item Changes

The two targeted reworks in Patch 2.7 are the Bones of Rathma set for Necromancers and the Firebird's Finery set for Wizards. Keeping up with tradition, some of the changes are well warranted and amazing, while others leave us perplexed and confused as to their purpose. Let's dive briefly into what they bring!

Bones of Rathma

The Bones of Rathma have been changed into a Revive, Army of the Dead and Bone Spirit-centric set. Do not be fooled by the summoner-heavy appearance of the new Rathma Necro - he maintains a vast army of *permanent* minions at his side simply in order to reset and empower his nuke abilities. Note the emphasis on permanent; the developers very intentionally shifted the Rathma focus away from Skeletal Mages, which are a well trodden path for Necromancers, to say the least - all in all, a good mechanical shift on the dev's part. The set allows for two playstyles, one focusing on Army of the Dead, and another - on Bone Spirit for dealing damage, with dedicated items being created or buffed for both skills.

From a purely meta perspective, the current damage numbers and overall capability of Rathma playstyles hovers around the middle of the Necromancer pack, and will definitely not outclass staples like the Skeletal Mage "Rat" Necro or the Bone Spear Masquerade Necro. The playstyles however are solid, fun, and different - and likely just a few multipliers away from becoming flavor of the month, which is something we might see as early as next Season.

Firebird's Finery

The Firebird's Finery set has been a maligned part of the Wizard arsenal for long, and with good reason; its ignition mechanic simply didn't bring anything inspiring to the table, and at some point early in Seasons' development, got vastly outclassed by other sets and builds. It has lingered dormant ever since, but the changes in Patch 2.7.0 just might bring it back to life!

The playstyle has been entirely shifted into a "set on fire - detonate stacks" playstyle that tries its best to shy away from the all-reaching grasp of channeling builds, but doesn't quite fully escape it. Currently, the set encourages you to ignite enemies with Disintegrate (finally, a use for the skill!) and then stop channeling altogether and incinerate your enemies into oblivion with an arsenal of non-channeling fire spells of your choice. While the meta points to Spectral Blade - Flame Blades as the optimal way to slice-and-dice-and-sear your foes, you can viably alter into a good number of other fiery incantations including Hydra, Meteor and others.

On top of that, one of the more curious interactions spotted in the PTR is the ability of Mirror Images (remember that skill?) to proc the combustion effects of the set, as your clones duplicate your spell selection - leading to a very interesting Mirror Images summoner build that will likely be the top end pusher for the Firebird set, albeit trapped in a channeling playstyle yet again. (Guess what you do if your clones are the one doing the manual attacks? That's right, keeping up the Deathwish buff.)

Gears of Dreadlands, Mundunugu's

Last but not least, the GoD Demon Hunter build was nerfed as well, but with a timely and reasonable buff to the The Ninth Cirri Satchel, developers have ensured the build remains well into the strong category, and we won't have to endure a dominant Sentry meta once again. The Mundunugu Spirit Barrage build however got hit hard, and with no compensation for this or any other WD build in sight, the Witch Doctor community has every reason to be irritated with the state of the class this season.

 

Final Thoughts

With some very robust (and frankly, unexpected and welcome!) mechanical changes like the follower and Leaderboard reworks, Season 23 has the potential to be one of the game's best Seasons yet. On the other hand, the lack of a discernible Season theme and the meandering numeric changes on what are supposed to be the fresh new builds of the Season dampen the excitement of the community overall. I remain hopeful that the acknowledgment of the miscalculated nerfs will lead to a last minute reversal of fates for Firebird at least, and we can have a true - if you would pardon the pun - Phoenix of a Season!

[bambina 7]

Who?

[darkgreenwax 412]

4 hours ago, bambina said:

Who?

The guy who's poured 100s of hours into creating and maintaining Diablo guides for this website. He's a talented guy.

[Muleface 16]

No slight intended here, but I'm not sure you're reading if you don't know who. When I was first getting started I would deviate from the guides thinking "I knew better." Yeah, no.

Thank you for your continued work Deadset. It's appreciated far more than you possibly know.

[darkgreenwax 412]

11 minutes ago, Muleface said:

No slight intended here, but I'm not sure you're reading if you don't know who. When I was first getting started I would deviate from the guides thinking "I knew better." Yeah, no.

Thank you for your continued work Deadset. It's appreciated far more than you possibly know.

💯

Even if I tweaked builds to my personal preference, Deadset's guides were always a fantastic jump-off point to learning synergies you didn't realize would occur, or just brushing up on the meta after a long absence.

[Muleface 16]

6 hours ago, TyZone said:

💯

Even if I tweaked builds to my personal preference, Deadset's guides were always a fantastic jump-off point to learning synergies you didn't realize would occur, or just brushing up on the meta after a long absence.

Thanks, and yes, exactly. Over too many seasons I've learned where I can deviate a bit and where not to. I ALWAYS start with him, though. Every single time.

At this point I'm sounding a bit fan-boyish, but for the average Joe, the work that theorycrafters and guide writers on ANY game do is invaluable. I just don't think people appreciate it like they should, whether they hit the donate button or not.

[Cyan101 0]

Hi I haven't played since RoS launch, I'm curious what builds people would recommend trying to S23? No real care for which class, multiple would be nice as I should probably play not DH for once

[darkgreenwax 412]

55 minutes ago, Cyan101 said:

Hi I haven't played since RoS launch, I'm curious what builds people would recommend trying to S23? No real care for which class, multiple would be nice as I should probably play not DH for once

While builds and classes are very personal, top contenders are listed here:

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/57620-which-class-to-play-in-season-23/

And there's fresh suggestions for start-of-season builds here:

https://www.icy-veins.com/d3/season-23-compendium-for-diablo-3

 

I recommend checking out Deadset's guides here under the Diablo 3 tab; builds are ranked by effectiveness.

Another content creator that I can recommend checking out on youtube is Bluddshed, I really enjoy his insights as well.

 

However, if you want my personal opinion: my all-time favorite is the spin-to-win Barbarian. Guide can be found here:

SPIN TO WIN