- It is time for Shattered Soul Stone featuring the latest news from Sanctuary and beyond. Each episode a heroic party of Nephilim Band together to help keep you informed on everything in the Diablo universe. And now your Diablo Community podcast - Coming to you from somewhere in sanctuary. This is episode 4 4 5 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called Classes and Notes. It is February 10th, 2024. And this is Jen.
I'm gonna start with an article from PC Gamer that seems kind of important. It was published by Rick Lane about a day ago, and it's got a really long title. Former Overwatch two artists alleges Shocking Mistreatment by Blizzard Management quote, I spent most of a year stressed out of my mind. There's another quote down there. Biz Blizzard had every opportunity to do the right thing and they continually failed at that. Okay, so I'm gonna read you some of this. It's kind of long.
I won't read all of it to you, but if you wanna find out more, everything I talk about would be in the show [email protected]. Blizzard's reputation has taken a pummeling over the last few years In 2021, horrifying descriptions of the company's toxic workplace culture spilled out into the internet after a lawsuit was filed by California's Department of Fair Employment regarding quote, unlawful harassment, discrimination and retaliation.
End quote. Following the lawsuit, blizzard made extensive promises about how they were going to address these problems. And an article published in January of 2022, former President Mike Ybarra, explained the company had established clear internal guidelines as to appropriate conduct and had made multiple hires to improve culture, leadership, human resources and equality within the company. Three years on from the initial fallout.
You might be wondering how all that is going well if recent statements made by former Overwatch two artist Chris Sayers, are anything to go by. The answer is extremely badly. On Thursday evening, Sayers took a social me, took two social media to describe a shocking run of events that led to his departure from Blizzard Sayers who was promoted to lead FVX artist on Overwatch two's cosmetics team in July of 2023.
Said he spent quote most of a year stressed out of my mind end quote, due to an array of alleged mistreatment by Blizzard, enter Blizzard Management that included lying to him, gaslighting him and giving him a quote, fake promotion. I don't know what a fake promotion is, but here we go. In a lengthy thread posted on Twitter, sayers explains the trouble began with that promotion.
In July of 2023, I was invited to a meeting by Art Leadership and production to let me know they were interested in promoting me to lead VFX Artist of the cosmetics team. He writes Sayers who'd only been at Blizzard for six months, accepted the role before doing so. However, he insisted everyone was on the same page regarding the details, what it meant, what I would be doing, and also what the promotion would come with. Parentheses, pay increase, title change.
And there's a little uh, tweet here in the article I'll leave you to read. Sayers states numerous management leads were present for these discussions, including lead VX or VFX art directors, associate art directors, production directors, and also hr. He said that everyone was happy end quote with the agreements made and that sayers would start the job effective immediately with details to come at the end of the week.
The first warning signs appear days after sayers commencement for the role quote Friday. If that week comes, nothing he writes. But the production director does announce my promotion to lead to the whole team on the Thursday. Sayers didn't worry about this too much at the time though as he was so excited, he was quickly brought back down to Earth.
However, when one of his first jobs was to fire one of my new reports, because he won't return to the office, sayers pointed out the individual, one of his closest friends on the team say was waiting for a medical accommodation because he is a carer for his parents to this blizzard. Management allegedly responded. Yeah. And in a bracket it says laughing. We're not going to do that for a junior. Blizzard.
Management then apparently refused to hire an intern to help with say's workload, which now included the responsibilities of his previous role, his new role, and the role of the artist he had just fired. After a month, Sayer said he had still not heard about the pay increase in title change. He was supposed to be receiving Blizzard, apparently told him he'd have to wait until August for details in writing.
At this point, he also discovered that he was quote, earning less than 50% of every other lead V FX artist on Blizz at Blizzard. So much so that as a lead, my salary is lower than every person I was managing. Blizzard Management allegedly told him it's because he is UK based and that the salary is based on market value, not my value. Sayers took to the the issue to HR who responded, why would we pay you more than we have to? That doesn't make any sense.
And it just goes on from here for quite a while. You know, if you missed it, there is a howler hunt going on in Diablo Immortal, and it's going to last until February 21st. You get a bunch of adventurers together and you have to figure out, like within your grouping, someone becomes like the werewolf and it kills players and it's trying to, whoever has that role is, you know, inflicted upon them I guess, or chosen.
Um, I don't know how that works exactly 'cause I haven't played it yet, but I think what happens is if you are the howler, the werewolf, you sneakily creep up on your friends of your group that are maybe isolated and murder them and then people find the body or maybe you find the body and go, oh no, someone killed this one. And then people have to figure out who you are and which one is the person doing that. And it's just kind of interesting.
Blizzard Watch has an article by Liz Pat titled, which class should you play in Diablo four, season three. And I really wish I read this before I started playing season three, let me tell you. So here's some uh, stuff in this article. Diablo four, season three season of the construct is here and patch 1.3 0.0 introduces new legendaries uniques and aspects turning to supplement class balance changes all of the adjustments combined with the season chaw.
And its unique supplementing skills make for another fascinating three month gameplay cycle. But what do the changes in the season of the construct mean for your favorite class It and will it change what you play in season three? Let's review Diablo four's five classes and discuss how they look for season three. Here's what you need to know to pick your Diablo four patch, uh, 1.3 0.0. So the barbarian in that patch barbarian is your pure millet class welding an arsenal to blast through baddies.
If you love tanky gameplay, the barbarian is the first of your two options with multiple options to leverage fortify which has gotten stronger with the shift to using maximum life.
To calculate the amount the barbarian survivability translates into push opportunities for high in high tier nightmare dungeon tears without burning through ancestral for rebirths in patch 1.3 0.0 barbarian class turning, uh, drastically increased the base damage of charge and reworked both the enhanced charge and the power charge options. Leaps based damage has also been increased by 30%. These tweaks turn your barbarian into a veritable freight train of trash one shots.
And while the leveling is moderately slow, you can track down the updated resource aspect of the Echoing Fury to generate extra resources while only needing one shout on your skill bar. So the main things you want for your chaw if you're playing a barbarian, is governing the lightning bolt and reconstruct and tuning mockery electrocution swift efficiency, fortify and arching the druid. It's D four's hybrid class with the chance to swap quickly between multiple play styles.
Shifting into a tanky were bear or a slashing werewolf, slinging tornadoes from a distance and overall surrounding yourself with nature's strength to dominate the D four druid is the jack of all trade classes. But remember that saying ends with master of none. That said, Druid has so many options for survival. Patch 1.3 0.0 was incredibly nice to werewolf builds. First they doubled enhanced rabies bonus damage from 30% to 60%.
Then factor in the new virulent utility aspect, which reduces the cool down of rabies when it infects an enemy tripled the cool down on reduction on elites. The lacerate ultimate skill has a reduced cool down and prime lacerate uh, adds healing for 3% max life. Double for crits seek out aspect of the blurred beast to top it all off.
So shreds dash seeks out nearby poisoned enemies and deals boys, uh, bonus, sorry, damage to them you want governing for pebble and reconstruct and you want tuning for mockery electrocution swift efficiency, safeguard and devastation. Necromancer is the second class with barbarian to continue through the franchise wielding the powers of life and death as a minion. Summoning castor blood and bone shadows, corpses and curses are the tools in the Necro Answers toolkit.
You have one of the faster leveling experiences to start, but all that casting awesomeness comes with the cost. You're just as immortal as your enemies. And sometimes infinitely squishier bone spear builds have additional useful skills on the osseous spectrum. Now Bone Spirit received a damage increase in patch 1.3 0.0 and dreadful bone spirit now returns 30% of your MA's essence Dreadful Bone prison reduces cool downs for each enemy trapped inside the bone prison.
While friendly players and minions can finally pass through its skeletal bars, add in the revised aspect of swelling curse to boost the critical strike chance of your bone spirit and return even more essence when enemies are hit with the skill for your sinal. You need pebble and protect. And for governing and tuning, you need mockery, electrocution, swift efficiency, arcing and devastation.
And now we have the rogue rogues are Diablo four's undisputed monarch of mobility, dashing into the fray with poisoned tr blades, laying traps and escaping to barrage their foes from afar. Shadows, cold and poisons are the rogue's friends, whether you're dashing into the fray with blades or laying down punishing bow fire from afar, their twisting blades build continues to dominate the killing fields. Basically you can blast through foes at unreal speeds.
I did this last season with a rogue and it was super fun. The name of the Rogue Patch, uh, 1.3 0.0 game is penetrating shot. Enhanced penetrating shot increases the critical strike chance of the skill, more so if it hits at least three enemies and improved in penetrating penetrating shot deals. Increase damage per enemy hit combined with the eagle horn and add vulnerable or sky hunter for the guaranteed larger crits with the precision key.
Passive cold amin is also a viable option now and your sh your haw should have pebble and reconstruct. Uh, for governing and for tuning a mockery electrocution swift efficiency safeguard and devastation sorcerer embrace the pure elemental caster fantasy with the sorcerer. You are the quintessential ranged character specializing in lightning fire and frost magic leveling is practically explosive with sorcerer's.
Fire skills and enchantment based elemental resistance make way more sense, make way more sense with the resistance systems. Rework. That said, you'll be the literal glass cannon and benefit strongly from keeping a defensive skill on your bar.
While blasting sorcerers had the fewest tweaks in patch 1.3 0.0 with small adjustments to ball lightning blizzard and lightning spear, the new Starfall Corrine's unique changes the meteor skill, giving it two charges and trading cool down for manacos while dropping three additional meteors. The meteor enhancement and enhanced meteor also drop one additional meteor. This single item boosts the meteor, builds new in end game heights.
For governing you want pummel and protect and for tuning you want mockery, electrocution swift efficiency, arching and devastation. So yeah. Um, I'm gonna switch back to a barbarian because I've been trying to play the source. I've never played one in Diablo before.
I didn't know what I was doing and I wasn't having a good time, but I know how to barbarian so I'm probably gonna go back to do that instead and just kind of like let my little sorcerer who's not doing very well with things, just kind of maybe ease into like the uh, the non season content . We also have patch notes for Diablo four from February nine, and here's some of the patch notes. So there's game updates.
Uber unique crafting Uber unique items are highly sought after with season of blood, we introduced target farming Uber unique items with Uber durio to give players another source of acquiring this type of item. However, we want to give players increased autonomy in obtaining their desired Uber unique by addressing feedback that expressed how acquiring a duplicate or undesired uber unique items lessens that feeling of triumph.
A new system empowers players to make use of duplicate and undesired uber unique items by salvaging them for a new resource which can be used to eventually craft an Uber unique of their choosing. Additionally, the chance for Uber unique items to drop everywhere but in Uber durio encounters has been increased. So here's some little notes Out of that, Uber unique items can now be salvaged to provide a new resource.
Resplendent Sparks players can bring five res resplendent sparks to the Alchemist and transmute and Uber unique of their choice. The refined resources tab at the Alchemist has been renamed Transmute and the option to craft an Uber unique item can be found under that tab. Note that the preview window for the for crafting an Uber unique won't display the items apexes the drop chance of Uber unique items acquired outside of Uber dural encounters has been increased.
Miscellaneous, the Curse Shrine event now gives the shrine bonus at the start of the event instead of when it is finished. That makes more sense to me and there's some bug fixes. These are sometimes hysterical, fixed. An issue where the screen reader did not read the claimed status. For lunar awakening rewards fixed an issue where the screen reader did not read ancestral favor. Tears correctly fixed an issue where the screen reader misread ancestral favor upgrade text.
Oops. Season of the construct fixed an issue with where vis visier wasp constructs were not affected by immobilizing effects fixed an issue where the tool tip for in igneous cores was missing information, fixed an issue where journal pages didn't drop. During cool's heart quest fixed an issue where the only, where only the first person in the party would get credit for looting obelisk whispers.
Oh that's bad. Uh, fixed an issue where arcane tremors in Hawar and sk Glen would have a volta, uh, voltaic braziers that can't be interacted with. Fixed an issue where attacks from Malus could still damage players after he's defeated. That's kind of, yeah, that needed a fix fixed an issue where the season journey objective keeper of nothing still references pearls and wording to summon echo of malus instead of igneous cores.
Lunar awakening fixed an issue where the final quest for lunar awakening could not be started if the player already had maximum ancestral favor fixed an issue where the shrine related to the cleanse of the North Shore shrine whisper could be missing, fixed an issue where the ancestral favor window wouldn't automatically close.
When walking away from, and I'm gonna pronounce this wrong, it's like ying y or something like that, fixed an issue where treasure goblins could fail to spawn while fighting. Arvis fixed an issue where enemies kicked a killed via an execute effect could not drop loot fixed.
An issue where the melted it says here melted here, maybe it meant melted heart of Selig was not always rolling the maximum value for its movement speed AFI fixed an issue where the Echoing fury aspect didn't grant Bo bonus Fury If tactical rallying cry was learned, fixed an issue where advanced rapid fire would incorrectly override the bonus.
Critical strike damage from other sources fixed an issue where damage increase and resource reduction cost from Ring of the Starless skies was not calculating correctly, fixed an issue where the final lieutenant failed to spawn in the Onyx Watchtower preventing completion without a reset user interface and user experience fixed an issue where adding a friend when playing with a controller would immediately reopen the menu for adding friend. Okay, that seems good.
Uh, maybe I don't know what they're saying. There fixed an issue where setting a note on a friend would open the menu for adding a friend after adding the note fixed. An issue where icon for animus were missing from the mini map in the betrayers row dungeon and miscellaneous fixed an issue where a socketed gem in a legendary or unique item could disappear if the item was dropped fixed.
An issue where some players using NVME solid state drives were experiencing instability and various visual performance and stability improvements. Okay, now we have a lot of stuff from wow head. So the first one is, um, it was from eight days ago. Blizzard uh, did this Diablo four season two stats email sent out by Blizzard. Now I know I have one somewhere in my email and I couldn't find it, so I'm just gonna read through what this is. This one is written by, uh, SIC eight days ago.
So this is what it would say if you got one, which I did but I couldn't remember. You know where I put it. So anyway, so this is from Blizzard is it's what you'll see in your email. Go check it if you haven't. Uh, Fang defeats and community highlights. Thank you for calling the Vampire Invasion Invasion Bracket wanderer. It would have your name in there though if it's in your email. Uh, before we put a stake in season of Blood. Ha ha .
Let's take a moment to look back at what the community accomplished together in Diablo four second season, the crimson tide of the Vampiric invasion was no match for the wanderers of sanctuary who drove a stake into the opposition. With over 497 million blood seeker slain, their dark master's ascension sought to bleed the mortal realm dry, but the community transmuted immortality into an eternal rest by defeating lord's. Zero 9.4 million times no glorious gained without a little pain though.
And the 21.3 million deaths to blood seekers and 1.2 million deaths to Lord Zero will never be forgotten. Speaking of gains, the community came out on top during season of blood by contributing to the discovery of 350 million unique items, 674 million seeker keys and 41 billion potent blood. We hope you're enjoying the mechanical machinations of in season of the Construct. And we will see you on February 6th to celebrate the Lunar Awakening event, which isn't only on February 6th.
I hope there's also a little like screenshot here and it puts your stats with, um, it shows you like season of blood stats and things. So this one says, savor your triumphs. Making pacs and harnessing vampiric powers is a normal day in the life of a vampire hunter, but it was a bloody good time thanks to.
And this is from CYS email, uh, with 343 hours played during season of Blood, you accomplish the following, potent blood earned 51,206 Monster Slain 428,800 to 29, blood Seeker slain 600 to 34 and Blood Lure donations 47. So that's what that is. I am certain when I finish recording this and look it back in my email, I will find it again, but maybe I, maybe it's just gone. I don't know. We have another one from wow head lunar awakening models, data bind doodads, weapons and mounts.
And so these are like all the weapon things. It's kind of hard to explain. And there's trophies. There's this really pretty sort of reddish horse, maybe kind of an orange horse with all these lovely white decals all over it and some gems coming out of its Maine. It's really neat. There's, um, some things that I assume like I don't know what these things are. Uh, I don't know if that's a backpack thing or something.
You can get, there's doodads, which are the shrines and some other things and little carved figures, just a lot of stuff. There's no real description here. It just shows you pictures of them in this. So if you wanna see that, maybe that'll point you towards one in the game 'cause it should be there. Now, world Tier four, vault of the Loom and Trading Re-Enable, that's by SIC from seven days ago. Um, it's a small little article here.
Um, a Hot Fix has rolled out this evening, uh, from four days ago resolving the connection issue in the world. Tier four vault of the Loom, we have re-enabled World Tier four. Vault of the Loom Trading has also been re-enabled, so if you wanted to trade, you can do it again. And last of all, we have future Diablo four patch will allow claiming cosmetics on any character, which is really interesting. So here's what Blizzard wrote on that. And this one was written by Popular. Popular, okay.
So in there it says, just wanted to toss in that the team has an update for those who are having to create new characters to redeem some cosmetics for the lunar year New Year event. For example, if you are a necromancer and you have a wand cosmetic from the event, you aren't able to redeem it on your necromancer due to some restrictions in the game. This then forced you to store it in your stash and make a new sourcer just to redeem the reward.
This will be fixed so you can redeem them on any class. We ask that you just store them in your stash until this patch hits. Thanks for the feedback and apologies on the confusion with this. So I think that's good to know. And there's gonna be a Diablo Valentine's Day sale, 67% off of, uh, on Diablo's, uh, Valentine's Day sale through February 19. Let's see what we have in here. There's a description.
No better way to say I love you than spending ti quality time felling fiends and racking up kill streaks. Together now until February 19, get discounts of 67% off of some of battle net's. Most beloved games and goodies. Squad up and drop into Call of Duty. Go on a demon sling spree in Diablo, spread love and flower pedals across world of Warcrafts as a Roth and Moore. Visit the Valentine's Day sale page on the battlenet dot, uh, battle.net. Shop now or check out an overview of the details.
I'm just gonna read the Diablo ones. So, um, Diablo four standard Edition is up to 40% off Digital Deluxe edition, 40% off Ultimate Edition, up to 40% off. They, I'll say up to in front of them. Uh, Diablo collection up to 40% off, uh, Diablo two resurrected up to 67% off.
Interesting, uh, Diablo three up to 50% off Diablo, three reaper of soles up to 50% off the battle chest, up to 33% off the rise of the Necromancer, which I strongly suggest you get if you don't have it for Diablo three because it's really fun. It's up to 30% off, 33% off, and the eternal collection is up to 25% off. So if you have all of these things and you have friends that don't have them, you could maybe point them there and play together. And that's where I'm gonna end the show.
Um, it's kind of a quicker show than typical, but it's okay. It had a lot of info in it. And hopefully you've enjoyed at least some of this . So I'm gonna close out the show right now. You've been listening to episode 4, 4 5 of the Shattered Soul Stone. Your Diablo Community podcast missed an episode. You could find the show blog and listen to the show archives at www.shatteredsoulstone.com. Come join us in Game.
Our game community and clan are both named Shattered Soul Stone and open to anyone who would like to join. You could also join us on Discord. For the ultimate team and community-based experience, find the Discord invitation link on our Twitter at Shattered stone, as well as the Shattered Soul Stone website. Thank you for listening.