- 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 8 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called March Monsters. It is March 1st, 2024. And this is Jen. I got a whole bunch of stuff to talk about.
So let's just dive right in. PC Gamer has an article published one day ago by Tyler Culp. The article is titled Diablo Four's upcoming Loot Rework will be so massive. Blizzard will let you play. Test it early in its first PTR, which is interesting because we haven't had a PTR for Diablo four at all since the game came out. Unless you wanna count the alpha and the beta as something like that.
But anyway, I'll read you some of this 'cause I think it's exciting in a stream today, and this would've been, uh, yesterday actually. Blizzard said Diablo four's next season quote goes beyond the scope end quote of the massive changes it brought to the game in season two last year. And if you haven't played or you don't remember, that was like the vampire season where your character got vampiric powers to mess with to make them stronger.
And all that kind of stuff goes beyond the scope of the massive changes it brought to the game in season two last year. And for the first time, you'll be able to play with all the new features before the season goes live via a play test server. In a few weeks, players have begged Blizzard to offer a PTR or a public test realm for Diablo four's New Seasons as it did with Diablo three and does with Diablo two resurrected since season one last month's.
Rocky launched to season three was an important example of how bad it can be when blizzard's internal testing doesn't meet players' expectations, progress blocking bugs, and a disappointing seasonal pet wasn't how anyone wanted to start a fresh season. And blizzard agree. I think the seasonal pet is the um, the construct that's following around your character.
If you're playing in the season this time around to continue, not every season will get a PTR, however Blizzard explained in today's stream. It depends on the scale of changes that we have, but for season four, we most definitely have a plan on having a PTR Associate director of community. Adam Fletcher said A date for the PTR and what to expect in season four will be announced on another stream in a few weeks.
Details on what's coming in season four remain vague, but Blizzard has promised it will make foundational changes to how loot works. Right now items are either worth keeping or salvaged for craft for crafting materials, you have to train yourself to quickly skim for valuable stats on every single item, which can take longer than running an entire dungeon. The goal with season four as Blizzard has said in previous streams, is to make items valuable regardless of them being an upgrade for you.
And if you take a look at other action RPGs that do this well, like last Epoch and Path of Exile, I think it's pretty safe says the writer, uh, to assume that it'll be some kind of crafting system that lets you improve the items you actually care about. And there's more in this, but that's where I'm gonna stop here on that.
Uh, we also have an article from Game Developer, which was, uh, it's a two minute read and that one out February 29, it's titled Diablo Boss Rod Ferguson Don't treat devs like knobs and dials in a time of industry crisis. Diablo franchise Head Rod Ferguson is urging industry leaders to act with empathy.
This is written by Bryant Francis, rod Ferguson, the venerated game industry producer who joined Blizzard Entertainment to oversee the Diablo franchise has built a reputation as a trusted leader with real experience from the trenches of game development reporting on Diablo four's, troubled development indicated his stewardship and his hiring of game director Joe Shelley helped get an unstable project back on track and revitalize development, uh, developer motivation
to make the next great Diablo game that stewardship gives Ferguson authority to speak on how game industry leaders need to behave in the midst of a major layoff crisis. As his most relevant advice was that his most relevant advice was this, be empathic. These people aren't knobs and dials.
End quote, catching up with Ferguson, after Microsoft had laid off 1,900 workers, parentheses, many who had worked on Diablo four and elsewhere at Blizzard Entertainment and of parentheses was a slightly surreal affair. Ferguson had just accepted the award on behalf of the studio for online game of the year, a huge win for his team, but a win that wouldn't be shared, quote back home end quote, by many no longer with the studio.
That means Ferguson has gone from an executive who had to revitalize development on a struggling game to one who must now rally a creative team devastated by the loss of their colleagues.
Sharp-eyed readers will note that Ferguson's advice on empathy, while strong isn't that far off from the words we've heard from industry leaders who preach about care and kindness for employees moments before gutting their income and in the United States their healthcare, it is to his credit then that he offered advice on what can help leaders show they are practicing empathy, not just preaching it.
Quote, one of the things that helps people through these moments is knowing what you have to do next. He said it's important for people in his position to be able to answer the question, what's that focus quote? What I really liked about our plans is that when we know what our plans are, when people have to go through challenging times, they're not lost. And like, I don't know what to do the next day.
One hopes that those words mean Blizzard's leadership does have real plans for game production After years of blundering comments from former President Mike Ybarra and a return to office plan that seems built more on spite than empathy. It continues from there. Everything I tell talk about here is gonna be in the show [email protected]. So you can pick that up and read the rest of this if you care to.
Moving on to some Diablo immortal stuff, there is a a thing here from Diablo Immortal and there's this creature in a picture frame kind of thing and it is a female looking person who looks like they've been half gutted and bleeding with like all these like long nails and stuff like that. And um, it says at the top of this, the calendar said Leap day, but she heard Leap Slay. And this is a creature called, uh, EA I-S-C-E-A and then Diablo I Mortal Rights.
Happy leap year. There's no better way to spend your extra day than battling fearsome bosses like Isia and more in Diablo. I Mortal. And there's also something new in um, Diablo Mortal right now. It's called March into Battle. It's uh, got a lot going on just from looking at this. I wish I had like an actual like readout of it, like you can get for like Diablo four and things like that.
But, but no. So Diablo Immortal wrote this, this March more exciting limited time events are coming to sanctuary. Which ones have you hyped? Tell us in the comments. So there's this calendar here starting on the 14th. There's a battle pass 24 that's gonna happen and that seems to be continuing through the rest of the month. Um, there's a major update warmup towards the very end of the month. Here's the, uh, the things that are gonna happen.
So March one through eighth trials of the hoards, March two through ninth, all clans on deck March eight through 15, fractured plane eight through 15 conqueror nine through 16 Hungering moon, which I think is a staple in this game. It's always there. March 15 to 22 is the Wild Brawl. March 16 to 23 is shady stock 22 to 29 is Survivor's Bane. 22 to 29 is also alley of blood. 23 to 30 is all clans on deck and 29 to uh, April 5th is trial of the hoard.
So if you wanna do any of that stuff, some of these overlap so if you wanna like hit all of these things to get whatever you want from each of these events, you'll have time to do it. 'cause some of them kind of overlap a little bit. So it just depends on how much time you have. And there was a campfire chat and we now have a campfire chat recap. I didn't watch the campfire chat because I feel like I do a lot better if I just read what they said instead of trying to summarize a giant video.
So this is what they wrote. Um, lizard Entertainment wrote on February 29 of this year, on February 29, we held a campfire chat showcasing the gauntlet, a fixed layout end game dungeon. Coming on March 5th, community director Adam Fletcher, associate game director Joe Pri Aporia and lead live class designer Adam Jackson sat down to discuss our midseason update for season of the construct.
This update brings many class balance updates and the return of a few updated vampiric powers from season of blood Vampiric powers return as legendary aspects that have a chance to drop from all enemies in sanctuary play of the Gauntlet showcase event where members of our development team showed gauntlet gameplay, they were joined by Anna Cake Live and macro bio boy who provided skillful commentary during the carnage.
And there's also an embed in here of the chat and then there's a blog here actually that's with it. So let's see what that has to say. I think I have this one in here somewhere else. Yeah, I do. So I'll just read this other one and I think I just dumped the first one there. So that's, that's great. The Diablo four thing is called undying Gloria Waits in the trials also posted on February 29th, 2024.
The trials call you fourth wanderer fight to earn your place on the leaderboards when they arrive on March 5th. Each week you can master a new gauntlet, a fixed non-linear dungeon that will have you fighting to earn the mightiest score who will fight to dominate the competition earned covered seals and carve their place on the leaderboards. Do you have what it takes to become undeniable?
With the um, upcoming mid-season patch, there will be impactful class balance charge changes and sendal companion updates coming in the patch that will introduce this challenge dungeon. So we will be actively monitoring feedback to make tweaks with the gauntlet in mind. To read more on our upcoming changes, please read our Diablo four patch notes. I'll be getting to that in a little while. Test your prowess in the gauntlet.
This adrenaline fueled challenge is available to all classes in the seasonal realm, whether they're normal or hardcore. Once you've gained access to world tier four, travel to the southwestern point in gaa Cool at the end of their longest docks. It's the formidable horn of trials activated to access the gauntlet. Even though the gauntlet is accessible to you. Upon reaching tier four or world tier four, monster levels will be beyond level 100.
So characters that have hit level 100 will be most likely to triumph in the carnage ahead. The gauntlet is a fixed layout non-linear dungeon that changes weekly. It's an end game dungeon where mastery, cunning and skill will achieve the highest score. Your score is based on how many proofs of mite you can earn from killing monsters and opening chests With the eight minute time limit, each time you enter the gauntlet during the week you, it will be identical.
So you can devise your most efficient mode of slaughter and let the corpses mark your progress. The gauntlet concludes each week on Tuesday 8:00 AM PST with the next completely different gauntlet emerging at 10:15 AM PST Strive for your personal best and fight to the bitter end each week before the gauntlet begins. A no proving your might is the name of the game. Proofs of M might which dictate your overall score can be earned by killing endless hoards of monsters.
And opening chests pillars can increase the number of proofs you can earn, whether through score multipliers or responding the monsters you just killed. While score based pillars increase your proofs of might power-based shrines can also spawn in the gauntlet. After killing a boss within the dungeon, a shrine will appear with afn slain activate the shrine to revive one of the various shrine effects available, which will be identical each time the same boss is killed within the gauntlet.
Ferocity and deficiency and strategy will lead you to eternal success in the gauntlet. Considering this is a fixed layout dungeon, each time you enter for the week, the dungeon layout will be identical. Attempting different routes and adjusting your build will be paramount to mastering each week's layout. There's some pictures here. You will be able to respond upon death in the gauntlet, but you will lose a third of your score each time you perish.
However, you or your teammates can recover all your lost proofs of might at the place of your last death upon returning to the dungeon. As your score increases, so does your rank within trials. Your final score can earn you seals the mark of your prowess in the gauntlet for that week. Earning seals proves your mastery to fellow wanderers. There are four ranks of seals to earn. Okay, so there's seal of the blooded seal of the steadfast steel seal of the iron willed seal of the worthy.
The seal of the blooded is what most of you will strive to earn first. While the seal of the worthy will only be granted to those who have dedicated themselves to absolute blood lust and the gauntlet, the score needed to earn each seal will vary week by week. Depending on the layout of the gauntlet and the class you're playing. These scores scale with party size. Larger groups will have an easier time earning a higher score than solo players and will be tracked at a separate leader.
A ladder leaderboard. It will take some sweat to reach the highest seals. Do not expect a feeble showing to rank you among the greats. And there's a little picture here of you ranked up and seal of the iron willed kind of thing. For somebody earning proofs of might is your sole priority within the visceral strewn passageways of the gauntlet. So loot will be rewarded upon completion regardless of whether you've earned a seal.
If you participate in the gauntlet, you'll still obtain a minor cash after each run upon the weekly reset of the gauntlet. And depending on your best score, you'll earn caches of trials. The higher the score, the better the cash you'll earn earn for that week. Earning a cash of trials guarantees one ancestral, legendary and scales in rank.
With the cash awarded earning the seal of the worthy will grant the most coveted tr treasures as they are guaranteed to drop items with level 925 power earning. A seal of higher rank will still grant you the rewards of a lower seal. With the seal of the worthy granting you all seal cash is available for that week. You can also earn multiple seals for the multiple gauntlet ladders that are available. And then there's the leaderboards and hall of the ancients.
Leaderboards are separated by ladders for class party size, normal and hardcore. They can also be filtered by friends and by clan to see how you measure up against your closest allies. For those of you who want friendlier competition, apply these filters to individual ladders to see whom among your friends is the deadliest of all class specific ladders will only be designed for those playing solo. This means there are 16 possible weekly ladders to ascend.
In total your best score across all classes, characters and platforms are the ones that will mark your tenuous spot amongst the great. You do not need to have cross play enabled to have your score rank on the leaderboards, but you do need to enable cross play to view that leaderboard in game.
Note that while the ladders for each weekly leaderboard will be active, once the gauntlet arrives on March 5th, we'll be waiting to launch our gauntlet gauntlet contest until we have been able to balance it around your skills and abilities. Considering this mid-season update introduces class balance updates and changes to the Chaw companion, we want to ensure we can monitor your feedback and make updates as needed. More details for the gauntlet contest will be revealed soon.
If you manage to secure your place in the top 100 of any ladder, you will also earn a conquerors chest mount trophy. If you can manage to become the greatest among us and place in the top 10 on any of the leaderboards, you'll have your name and character immortalized in the permanent hall of the ancients, allowing future legions of wanderers to gaze upon your coveted performance. Best the trials and master the gauntlet when it goes live on March five.
Over on max roll we have the gauntlet Camp fire chat wrap up written by Dred Sy who does excellent work over there. So here's just some stuff. The gauntlet, campfire chat, live stream just took place. The panel consisting of Joseph Priya, associate game director Adam Jackson, lead class designer and Adam Fletcher, associate director of community with special guests Macro bio Boy and Anna Cake live.
If you don't know who those are, both of those are streamers that play Diablo for the topics including the gauntlet class Balancing season four updates and q and a. The patch notes will be released tomorrow, March 1st, which is today, and go live on March 5th. See all the major points below. So returning Vampiric powers, there's a little picture here with some words in it it says, returning Vampiric powers, six vampiric powers are returning from season of blood.
These are being reintroduced as legendary powers not uniques. They are not all exact one-to-One copies largely are close to matching their previous functionality. The powers that are returning are a cursed touch blood boil, hectic, hectic, hectic metamorphosis. Moonrise and undying six fan favorite vampire vampiric powers are coming back this time. They're compared to malignant rings being unique. So these are returning as legendary powers instead. So the a curse touch is an offensive skill.
Blood boil is an offensive skill. Hectic is a utility skill. Metamorphos is mobility skill. Moonrise is an offensive skill and undying is defensive for class balance. The dev team went over general balance changes for classes in regards to the season three theme as well as true class updates. So here's some stuff. Mid-season updates snapshotting. We fixed many cases of snapshotting that have been reported to us in general. We want to move towards completely removing it from the game.
Gauntlet for the gauntlet gear skill tree and paragon cannot be changed. Rogue fixed an issue where the weapon mastery passive was double dipping on critical strike damage. Bonuses such as with the precision key passive fixed an issue where the precision key passive was incorrectly scaling based on the player's critical strike damage bonus. There's also some other issues here for the mid-season.
Updates a few issues of are being addressed to make sure the gauntlet is as smooth and fair as possible in order to do so. Many instances of snapshotting have been reported and the team has made a statement towards removing it from the game as much as possible. If not completely, this can drastically reduce the possible points of exploiting many skills slash gear slash lucky hit interactions that could break the game resulting in certain builds being too powerful for the gauntlet itself.
Your gear skills, paragon, et cetera, are locked once you enter no funny business of swapping out weapons or the like. This is very similar to what was done for greater rifts in Diablo three. Lastly, the rogue weapon mastery Passive was double dipping. So the team got the reports and and is fixing the issue. If you wanna know what your class is gonna be like in this, you can look at a, you can look it up in this Maxwell article for the Barbarian, Druid, necromancer, rogue and Sorcerer.
Um, and then there's a little bit more in here about the gauntlet, which I kind of read some of it, you know, some of it here. But Dready goes very deeply into what all these things are and how that's gonna affect you. There's also Diablo four patch notes done on March 1st and uh, I always read these 'cause sometimes there is hysterically funny and sometimes I'm just like, what are you doing? You know. So the Diablo four team has been monitor monitoring your feedback.
As we introduce patches to keep your experience and sanctuary smooth, we will update the below list and denote whether the fixes are intended for pc, Xbox, PlayStation, or all platforms. So here we are developers note, select Vampiric powers from season of blood have returned with some tweaks to make their power level fit into season of the construct. These powers will be available as legendary aspects in all world tears and both the eternal and seasonal realms of a cursed touch.
Lucky hits up to a 20 to 35% chance to inflict vampire curse on enemies. Enemies afflicted by vampire curse are also vulnerable. Vampire curses stored souls deal 20% to 50% increased damage of metamorphosis. When you evade and you turn into a cloud of bats becoming unstoppable for 2.5 seconds. Enemies along your path take physical damage and are inflicted with vampiric Curse. Evades cool down is increased by five to 10 seconds, blood boiling.
When your core skills over power and enemy, you spawn three volatile blood drops. Collecting a volatile blood drop causes it to explode, dealing physical damage around you every 20 seconds. Your next skill is guaranteed to overpower hectic. For every five basic skills you cast, one of your active cool downs is reduced by two to four seconds On dying. Casting skills heals you for 0.5, uh, to 2% of life. This heals for an additional 1% of life.
While you are below 50% of life of the moonrise damaging an enemy with a basic skill grants you 4% attack speed for 10 seconds stacking up to five times upon reaching maximum stacks, you enter a vampiric blood rage gaining 40 to 80% basic skill damage at 15% movement speed for 10 seconds. Personally I think that's gonna be a lot of fun. I really liked Season of Blood. I've been putting videos up on YouTube, slowly takes a while to get 'em there.
Um, but I had a lot of fun with that one and I'm kind of struggling a little bit in the current season, which I'll talk about later if I still have time. So we have some balance updates in general, there are unique items. Ring of starless skies now shows a buff on the bar. While active penitent grieves damage to chilled enemies increased from seven to 10% to 12 to 15% tats of the dawning sky. Maximum resistance increase from six to 10% to eight to 12%.
Mothers embrace resource refund increase from 20 to 40% to 30 to 50%. There's more of these and then it goes into the different classes and the stuff that they've got. Then there's some bug fixes, which are usually interesting. Fix an issue where the al gained double the benefit from skills that benefit allies such as the barbarian's war cry or druids blood. How fix an issue where an attack that swaps from melee to crossbow would double the bonuses from the precision and weapon mastery.
Rogue passives fixed an issue where some interactable objects associated with various quests such as lyndon's stash during the discretionary spending quest could not be interacted with while mounted. I just did that one again in the current season and I didn't have a problem with this because I just didn't use the mount. Just kind of followed Lyndon around the little. If you haven't done the question, I'm not gonna tell you about it.
But that, you know, I just didn't have, I have a horse, I have many horses, I just don't use them very often in this season. Fix an issue where the camera would not reset if the player died during the echo of Lilith encounter while the camera was zoomed out. , that's pretty bad. You know what I mean? that is pretty bad fixed. An issue where the juggernaut aspect didn't apply armor while the player was mounted.
Oh, okay. So what I'm looking at here is maybe don't use your horse if you're running into these dungeons. Fix an issue where the guaranteed overpower granted by the druids enhanced pulverized did not immediately did not apply immediately after acquiring 12 stacks. That's a problem. Fix an issue where the necromancer skeleton reaper's chance to create a corpse was based on lucky hit instead of a flat percentage fix.
An issue where bone splinters cast from the shattered spirit aspect didn't receive the vulnerable effect granted by the initiates bone.
Splinter fix an issue where thorns was not consistent when applying lucky hit example, thorns could trigger a born deify, but not hued flesh fixed an issue where the cult leader, legendary paragon node didn't properly give bonus damage based on bonus minion attack speed fixed an issue where the rotting acts aspect wouldn't spawn additional corpses, which I guess you're supposed to have a fixed, an issue where the sorcerer's frigid fate and elemental sum
or legendary paragon effects did not work properly with the aspect of el of the elements. Fix an issue where the fiery surge passive was not granting as much man regeneration as it should fix an issue where bonus damage from enhanced cal traps could apply more often than intended. When stacking multiple casts of Cal Trops on the same enemy fixed an issue where enhanced Cal Trops was dealing less damage than expected to bosses.
Here's a developer's note, some items, legendary aspects, passives, paragon bonuses and skills displayed bugs that allowed players to gain more power than intended when you equipped and then unequipped them. We believe these interactions lead to a worse experience for all players as it creates a stigma that these bugs must be exploited to reach new levels of power. The bug fixes below addresses all known instances of this issue.
So here's some bug fixes fixed an issue with multiple legendary aspects where equipping duplicate aspects would always apply the effect of the first equipped aspect. Ignoring the rule of applying only the strongest equipped aspect fixed an issue where unlearning of of rise mastery with the major Lords aspect equipped would cause the effect of rise mastery to remain active, fixed.
An issue where a power that grants a bonus stat based on another stat would not readjust after the temporary bonuses wore off. There's some uh, interface experience stuff here and some miscellaneous stuff, but that's pretty much everything you probably need to know from this one. Going back to Max roll, we have another one from Dready, uh, talking about the patch I just write about, um, he might have some stuff in here that wasn't mentioned in there.
So this one's called Diablo four patch 1.3 0.3 notes, wow head posted Diablo four Battle pass and Tear Skips purchasable with Microsoft Rewards. That probably sounds strange if you haven't been paying attention. This was posted three days ago by popular, popular on Wow head and it has a lovely photo or image of an aria with like a sword and like some red background and all of those like, you know, wing light things going on there. Here's what they wrote.
Did you know that the Diablo four premium battle pass, accelerated Battle Pass and Battle Pass tier skips can be purchased using Microsoft rewards points. While this option has been available for some time, blizzard has restated this offer in a recent tweet. Here's what they tweeted about. Leave no bounty unclaimed redeem your Microsoft rewards points for Diablo four Battle Pass upgrades and tier skips. Learn more. Well, what are we gonna learn more about?
Let's find out. Okay, so it takes you to the microsoft.com rewards site and it says Earn rewards with Microsoft just by simply doing what you love to do. Sign in or create a Microsoft account and get points for gift cards sweepstakes and more. Um, it tells you, you you have to sign in. You may already be a member. Try logging in with your Microsoft account before creating a new one. Visit the rewards dashboard. There's a link to that. Earn points, score top rewards.
And there's all this other stuff in here that you might wanna look at if you, if you're gonna do it. But the thing is you have to be part of Microsoft Rewards is the thing. So if you're thinking, oh, I'm gonna just use that Battle Pass thing and and be fine, uh, maybe not , you know, I think they want you to like buy something or purchase that in some way and I don't tend to do that very often.
So if if that's something that you think is gonna help you get through the game, by all means go for it. Also on wow head top five fan Pric powers, we'd like to see return to Diablo four. So let's see how this particular article features, uh, or connects with or maybe is the same or different from the ones that we're talking about. The six different aspects that you could possibly get after this week's approaching. Campfire Chat promises a discussion regarding the resurgence.
Vampire Vampiric Powers players are looking forward to reuniting with their favorite seasonal features from season of Blood with so many powers to choose from though, which will make the cut. We've taken a look at all the Vampiric powers from season two in Diablo four and picked our top five that we'd like to see return to the game. And there's a little piece here from Blizzard.
It says, join associate director of community Adam Fletcher, associate game director Joseph Priya and lead live class designer Adam Jackson as they delve into the gauntlet leaderboards balance updates and blood thirsty powers set to make their return. Season three introduced Chaw companion combat pets with a wide range of abilities that have mostly been well received after patch 1.3 0.1. But Vampiric powers were different in the sense that they felt active and intentional.
You weren't left trying to figure out how much of an impact hemo mancy was making. You saw the animation and subsequent damage prey on the weak equated increased damage to vulnerable enemies to a direct damage increase. Undying made basic focus builds like the Storm Cloud Druid feel immortal. Vampiric powers are a great example of two things. Joyable engaging seasonal features and the downsides of borrowed power.
While Chel companions are favored enough that some players have requested they become a permanent part of Diablo four, the loss of vampiric powers was felt by most builds in regards to both play style and overall effectiveness. We don't know exactly what the return of vampiric powers will look like. Patch two 1.2 0.2 introduced malignant rings that incorporated parts of malignant hearts from season one into uniques, uh, such as t Russia's iridescent loop.
It seems rather unlikely that we'll see more unique rings as it's difficult enough for most builds to lose even a single ring exclusive legendary aspect. Unlike malignant hearts, vampiric powers weren't class specific. So a unique for any slot would need strong universally valued gear apexes to justify. Regardless of how Vampiric powers return, we know which ones we would like to see other than Metamorphs.
And then it's got some description of all of those things that I already kind of read to you and little pictures and stuff like that, um, that could show you a little bit more about it. And that's, yeah, that's that article. We've got one here from Blizzard watch 60 Ablo four. Season two Vampiric Powers returned to the game as apexes in Mid-season update written by Liz Pat.
And it does have all of the same ones that I've mentioned already in here, but I'll read you a little bit around that part since I don't need to repeat it. Over and over. Diablo four, season three will be bringing back six popular Vampiric powers from season two, the fan favorite season of blood as new legendary a Xes. These powers were some of the highlights of playing season two and tied in so well with the season's Vampiric aesthetic.
Metamorphos Bat Cloud will stick with my memory for a while, says Liz Pat. I think that's her name. Let me make sure I'm right. Yes, that's right. Okay, and spoiler Metamorphs is returning these new vampire inspired Legendaries will be going live with the mid-season patch on March 5th. And then the dev team it, it mentions the campfire thing and all of that and then what these, um, what these aspects are going to be. I'll skip over that 'cause I've already talked about that in this episode.
Uh, she continues with, frankly, these are pretty spectacular even in their modified forms. Name one player that didn't enjoy metamorphosis. Go on. I'll wait. Yes, having an increased cool down to evade isn't awesome, but that's why you stack extra evade charges on your boot stats, even with a longer cool down, I'd much rather turn into an unstoppable bat cloud. Now keep in mind these are getting added as drop aspects. They won't be showing up in your codex of power, at least not anytime soon.
You'll have to extract them from pieces of gear if you want them applied to existing legendary items, but they're definitely still worth working into your gear. So that's a thing to do. This is from the Diablo account on x slash Twitter. It is a short video of 51 seconds. There's a person here talking about it. They didn't actually tell me what the name of this person is. Um, and he seems to be just like showing you what you could do with your haw and your vampiric powers.
And then the last one in here two days ago from WOW head written by Redna Ani. Why Herb Gathering needs improvement in Diablo four. Some topics in the Diablo community will always spark controversy slash stash space drop rates, itemization and the in-game shop have all been hot topics burning their way through circles of wanderers. Since Diablo four launched, we've got our own opinions read on to find out more about our take on the herb system in Diablo four. There's a lot in here.
Um, it's not incredibly long, but there's a bunch of stuff in here, but I'll give you some of it. Table of contents. There's a table of contents in this thing. Uh, it starts with the entire herb collection system for making elixirs and upgrading Potions was created for a different game era. It's time for a serious revisit to the herb, elixir, and incense system.
Back before season one, everyone was doing a lot of running around above ground, doing side quests, going after alters and finishing the campaign. Since herbs are only obtained by direct farming or doing side quests that give you a, um, like a herb cache and assorted herbs, getting enough herbs wasn't much of an issue because you spent so much time above ground where you could grab them as you went along.
In today's world of spamming, nightmare dungeons and vaults to level, because open world experience gives so little well experience getting enough herbs even to upgrade your healing potion can cause serious problems. There are four key areas where herbs and elixirs could use some serious improvement. So herb farming isn't viable. Getting enough herbs often means open world farming.
Without an in-game way to track herb nodes in the world, it's often a complete guess as to where you'll even find these nodes and they have a terrible habit of disappearing. I've gone back to previous hotspots only to find a local herb Plague has wiped everything out. Herb node yield is also ridiculously low. It is frustrating to find those elusive bite berry nodes only to have it yield one bite berry when you need 27 to upgrade a major healing potion at level 80 solution.
There are many possible fixes that would help these issues, including improving yields from herb nodes, density of outdoor nodes and respon rates. However, reducing the reliance on an open world farming would've a much bigger impact. The lack of quote, indoor options. Currently, there are no methods for reliably gathering herbs inside dungeons or vaults.
You may on occasion have dropped a low level piece of gear roll into an herb instead of, instead of due to the changes in loot implemented in season two. This is completely random and UNT targetable. So you can't rely on RNG to get your herbs stocked up. Since these dungeons vault com comprise a large portion of players' time due to needing to great upgrade glyphs, it also isolates players from being able to use GA or to gather useful herbs or elixirs.
While you have, sometimes while you will sometimes get elixirs or drops from chest, you don't always get what you want, nor do you have any method to turn them into something new and there's a solution in there. Lack of an alchemy vendor. That's interesting. There are vendors connected to the blacksmith who sell magic and rare armor and weapons. The jeweler has a sales representative for rings and amulets.
The occultist job is made easier by selling ENC chance through the farmed famed, sorry, nope. Farmed codex of power. The Alchemist is the only one that has no direct sales option and players running low on elixirs can definitely feel loss solution. Adding pre-made elixirs to the Alchemist shop could alleviate a large portion of the herb burden.
An Alchemist vendor could sell basic utility elixirs like resistances, armor and extra health, but without the 5% in experience, perk, crafted or dropped, elixirs would always be better and have a wider range of abilities. But it would give players an option to use gold to cover basic quality of life shortfalls. No way to salvage unwanted elixirs. The blacksmith can salvage unwanted gear for upgrade bits.
The occulus can remove legendary aspects to transfer them to better items or a different slot. The jeweler can break down gems so you can upgrade to better gems without wasting lower level gems. But while the al Alchemists can recycle one type of herb into another, that doesn't help when your overall herb stock is already low. The solution is there's nothing you can do with unwanted elixirs other than use them just for the experience bonus, give them to an alt or sell them for a pittance.
So why not allow the alchemist to salvage unwanted elixirs while converting elixirs into whole herbs would require some real magic. The Alchemist should be able to salvage unwanted potions into components essences that can take the place of that herb. This would be a welcome addition to Potion Management. And that's the end of the things I needed to talk about in this show. And with that, I'm gonna close out this episode. You have been listening to episode 4, 4 8 of the Shattered Soul Stone.
Your Diablo Community podcast missed an episode. You can find the show blog and listen to the show archives at www shattered soul stone.com. Come join us in game our in-game community and clan. Both named Shattered Soul Stone are 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.