Some of the key highlights (there were more in the stream):
• Demon Hunters are currently performing several rifts higher compared to other classes on the Greater Rift leaderboards to where they see it as a slight problem which isn’t damage related, but more on the lines of being able to evade damage as well as how Sentries don’t die. Uh hello, DH’s are a ranged class. It was designed this way at the expense of not being able to take large hits very well. So of course players are going to take on a playstyle where they use their key ranged tools to their advantage. I see nothing wrong with this. I hope the cheap solution IS NOT to put in even more unavoidable damage. Most likely, they are going to make changes to sentries
• They acknowledged there was an additional bug with the wizard’s Firebird 6-piece set (and likely resulted from their last minute changes hotfixing the set) where the damage over time was being based on whether or not the skill crit or not. Thus the set will get both Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage rolled into the effect. Right now, the damage can be either underwhelming or downright overpowered (after playing through several more T6 rifts, there were times when elite packs were going down in one or two hits while most times, it was a slow going affair).
• Invoker set likely won’t change; they want to introduce newer/better items than constantly revisiting and changing existing ones.
• Witch Doctor’s Horrify skill was stronger compared to similar skills of other classes which is why they nerfed it.
• The reason certain elite affixes (Thunderstorm and Jailer for example) deal unavoidable damage immediately is their answer for dealing with ranged classes from taking a purely glass cannon approach (all damage, no toughness). By subjecting them to immediate damage, it forces the player to think about damage mitigation as well. In a nutshell, cheap unavoidable damage like this isn’t going to go away…
• They are closely watching Greater Rifts in terms of its reward structure. Note: I did an entire series of rank1-10 Greater Rifts (purposely doing the AFK thing and waiting until under 4-5 minutes before clearing the Greater Rift Guardian) and noticed the drops were nerfed pretty badly (at lower tiers, there’s a larger amount of whites and arcane dust). The sweet spot for drops (my character as it likely will be different depending on capability) was between tiers 15-24.
• Rift density is still an issue which they are working to fix. Some maps are really fruitful (one elite pack after another which makes progression extremely quick so long as you are able to do enough damage towards the limits of your gears capability).
• No additional rewards for being at the highest levels on the leaderboards (IMHO, this is one thing they are doing right – the incentive of being at the top should be the reward).
• With the recent release of the Ultimate Evil Edition on consoles, they once again reiterated there will be no new content patches for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The Playstation 4 and Xbox One will get updates though but for the time being, will not be released simultaneously with the PC versions (their objective though is shorten that and hopefully do simultaneous with all supported platforms). The newer architectures of the PS4 and Xbox One allowed them to provide post launch updates.
• Reiterated again that there are currently no plans to bring Seasons to the PS4 and Xbox One.
• They also discussed offline mode on consoles and reiterated something they said before.
“When we made the decision to bring Diablo III to consoles, we knew we would need to make significant changes in order to ensure that the game was accessible to the widest possible console audience. One of those changes was to allow offline play on supported platforms. Naturally, offline games don’t require save file verification, allowing you to get right to the business at hand—slaughtering copious amounts of demons. While we will continue to explore ways to discourage exploitative behaviour, we believe that most players will value the experience of battling the vile forces of the Burning Hells and finding cool loot over copying someone else’s inventory.”
I already noted my thoughts on offline mode before (I’ve been a proponent for a limited/sandboxed offline mode for the PC versions – but know this won’t happen). Thus the console is the next best thing (I’ll have a separate posting on this).
