100% bonus to Legendary Drops May 15th-22nd

[Storm 426]

AND THEN WE DOUBLED IT - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DIABLO III!
Lylirra 5/14/2014 143
 

On May 15, 2012, the gates of the Burning Hells opened and Diablo III was unleashed onto the world. Since then, millions of heroes have been created, billions of hours have been spent in games, and trillions of demons have been slaughtered without mercy. We've even released an expansion!
To celebrate the game's second anniversary and the community that made it all possible, players who log in to defend Sanctuary this week will receive double Rift Fragments as well as a +100% boost to their chance to find Legendary items. This bonus birthday buff begins in the Americas on Thursday, May 15 at 12:00 a.m. PDT and ends on Thursday, May 22 at 5:00 a.m. PDT.

Happy demon-hunting, nephalem. Thank you for your continued support, and we wish you many awesome adventures in the coming year!
*The buff is only available on PC and Mac, but it will apply to all characters and stack with similar bonuses.

[SparkSovereign 61]

I'm wondering if they turned on the buff early, given the insane rate of legendary drops my friends and I were getting earlier.  (Rifting on T4, wheeee witch doctors and crusaders.)  Then again, last community event had a little buff icon, so if they didn't... this is gonna be great.

[Storm 426]

Ya, double legendaries for a few days will be awesome. I'm also looking forward to the extra gold from the latest patch. Hopefully I can finally afford to finish upgrading all my gems.

[Zagam 1,982]

I got 30 legendaries in 5 rights last night with 2 rifts giving 0 and the other 3 giving 10.  It was absurdly amazing.  With the lady out of town for the weekend, ain't nothing interrupting my Wizard and her destruction of anything that moves.

[kitsu 55]

lol yah i had a few 3s and a couple 7s and 9s. its pretty nuts. i keep getting that flava flave time amulet though. its like that thing is competing with itself to get the worst affixes of all time.

 

ive been doing t3 at a reasonable pace, has anyone been tried burning through t2 super fast to see if you still get tons of oranges?

[Hybrys 199]

lol yah i had a few 3s and a couple 7s and 9s. its pretty nuts. i keep getting that flava flave time amulet though. its like that thing is competing with itself to get the worst affixes of all time.

 

ive been doing t3 at a reasonable pace, has anyone been tried burning through t2 super fast to see if you still get tons of oranges?

I've been mixing it up between t2 and t3, and I think t3 might be the better way to go.  In comparison, it only took us about 3 minutes longer on T3 in comparable maps, and at that rate, I don't think it's worth it to go down.

 

Since I got my Crus to 1.1mil DPS, 8mil tough, I'll probably try t4 with a few friends tonight to see how it goes.

[Zagam 1,982]

T3 is too easy for me, but that's where my friends play so it's easy to do it for pure speed.  I'm a 1.9M MM Fire Archon Wizard and shit just bows down to me.  I can comfortably solo T4 and can push T5 with some patience.  If I get my 4th Vyr's piece, I'm going right to T6.  I just need a control Monk to come along with me. 

 

The rule is that if you can do the next higher torment level with less than a 15% increase in time, then that's where you belong.  Repeat until you hit your difficulty level.

 

Example: T3 takes 10 minutes (600 seconds) to clear.  If you do T4 in 13 minutes (780 seconds), you've gone up 180 seconds, which is 30%.  If you could do T4 in 11.5 minutes, then T4 is where you'd belong. 

[kitsu 55]

when you all get a ten minute rift is that pretty average or are you discounting the super lame rifts that are sparse and have lots of dead ends?

 

ive had some rifts where im fighting a minimum of 2 elites at once at all times and then all of a sudden a rift guardian died in the fray, and those are awesome. on the other hand ive gotten a few where im in hole 8 of some crappy twist and turn rift with tons of dead ends and backtracking and i feel like i need a mount.

[Zagam 1,982]

Big graveyard and big prison rifts = the best.  These are packed of elites and you typically want to clear past the Rift Guardian, so they take a bit longer, but usually around 10-15 mins. 

 

The high density rifts can be done sub 10 minutes.  I think 8-10 minutes is the goal time of most players to pull off a rift.  Sometimes, you just get completely screwed with low density rifts.  Thankfully, they removed Pandemonium rifts.  That helps out tremendously.

[Hybrys 199]

when you all get a ten minute rift is that pretty average or are you discounting the super lame rifts that are sparse and have lots of dead ends?

 

ive had some rifts where im fighting a minimum of 2 elites at once at all times and then all of a sudden a rift guardian died in the fray, and those are awesome. on the other hand ive gotten a few where im in hole 8 of some crappy twist and turn rift with tons of dead ends and backtracking and i feel like i need a mount.

Yeah, I think my fastest was 7 minutes, and slowest was 25.  The 25 was 8 levels of next to no density.  Awful waste of a rift.

[Storm 426]

I've mostly still been running T2. I can do T4 if I'm in a group, My toughness is about 6mil, but I get hit way too hard if things are actually focusing on me, so I just stick with T2 and mow stuff down fast.

 

I've been averaging 3-4 legendaries per rift even in T2 though. Luckily I just got my blacksmithing pattern achievement too, so hopefully I'm running out of patterns that can drop.

[Zagam 1,982]

I've been averaging 3-4 legendaries per rift even in T2 though. Luckily I just got my blacksmithing pattern achievement too, so hopefully I'm running out of patterns that can drop.

I thought that, too - then got another 20+ after the achievement.  There are a LOT of bullshit, generic legendaries you'll never craft.

[kitsu 55]

I've mostly still been running T2. I can do T4 if I'm in a group, My toughness is about 6mil, but I get hit way too hard if things are actually focusing on me, so I just stick with T2 and mow stuff down fast.

 

I've been averaging 3-4 legendaries per rift even in T2 though. Luckily I just got my blacksmithing pattern achievement too, so hopefully I'm running out of patterns that can drop.

 

after basing all my characters on trying to live, i was shocked while doing a public game when i was grouped with hunters that could one shot anything in t3, but they died like 5 or 6 times a rift. i was running implosion on my monk and keeping them alive was an impossible, but entertaining game.

 

we did a rift where there was a lot of wasps, and at one point it was like crouching tiger hidden dragon. i used serenity to block a wall of projectiles, and one got by for the killing blow on this DH.

 

to be fair to them, i dont like spending spirit unless its on an entire army, so i do aggro a lot of stuff.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Leg drop buff made baseline

 

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12926172697

[Storm 426]

Leg drop buff made baseline

 

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12926172697

 

I'm really excited about this. I was actually worried I wouldn't enjoy the game anymore once the drop rate went back to normal. I was thinking the whole time that the buff might have been a test for exactly this.

 

I think the 100% increased drop rate is perfect. 1-2 legendaries per rift on lower levels and 4-5 per rift on higher levels is a good number, since even legendaries have a good chance of being salvage trash.