- 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, 3 4 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called Mid-Winter Blight.
It is November 18th, 2023 and this is J. I'm gonna start off with a game that I haven't really mentioned much in Shattered Soul Stone episodes. It's about heroes of the Storm Blizzard Entertainment on November 16 posted a a blog about it and they wrote to this heroes of the storm patch notes November 16th, 2023. Heroes of the Storm has just been updated with the patch. We would like to take a moment to thank the community for providing insight and feedback for these changes.
Here's a few things that are new game camera. Camera Follow release timer Increase from six seconds to 12 seconds. You can now pan the camera further away from your hero with camera lock enabled before it will prevent further panning user interface. Floating text display for last hits updated to golden display. I'm not sure what that means. I haven't played heroes in a very long time. Fixed an issue that allowed the active ability hot key buttons to be dragged in the hot key menu.
Holding down shift or control will now also register as having the announcement modifier held for clicking on on the top bar. There's stuff with experience globes. Miele minions reduced from 84 to zero or experience value from 84 to zero. Experience value of Wizard Minions reduced from 75 to zero. Experience value of ranged minions reduced from 72 to zero. There's an observer thing.
Experience globes will now be displayed as blue for the team on the left and gray for the team on the right, the interface has been updated to display Misha Olaf bail log and Eric's Health Bars. Not sure exactly well the last three, those are the uh, lost Vikings. I don't know who Misha is though. A fix and issue that caused D vs. Health Bar in the interface to only display the pilot's health Recap.
Combat Healing will no longer register Manna or Shields restored to Allied Heroes as healing clutch healer will now only register healing done to health Protector will now register. Damage prevented by protected as protection. There's some new maps. Alterac Pass fixed an issue that caused Knolls to reduce the armor of evading targets. Abraxis holdout fixed an issue that caused hell bats to reduce the armor of evading targets.
Mura Temple, which I think they talked about, um, on BL at BlizzCon, fixed an issue that caused the recon camp to have the scaling value reset when captured. Warhead Junction fixed an issue that caused hell bats to reduce the armor of evading targets. That seems to be a pattern there. So I'm glad they fixed that. And then there's heroes that they're talking about and they're all in alphabetical order. There's a whole lot of 'em.
Some of these if you're still playing heroes might be ones you enjoy playing. There's one called Deckard. Guess who that is? . I didn't even know that. Here's what they did for Deckard.
Uh, fixed an issue that caused poison of shielding to increase Deckard self-healing when damage is prevented to Allied Heroes fixed an issue that caused her Rodrick staff to not be placed on cool down while blinded fixed an issue that caused rejuvenation potion to heal Theoric while undying is active, fixed an issue that caused a scroll of identify to detect targets before the first quest milestone and ancient blessings will now reveal the area for 0.75 seconds. Um, there's Diablo in there.
Difficulty updated from medium to hard. Fixed an issue that caused a black soul stone's. Health bonuses to stack multiplicatively with other health bonuses fixed an issue that caused hellfires damage aura to display as a critical when damage was not increased. Fixed an issue that caused dying breath apocalypse to display incorrectly in the death recap and Soul Shield icon updated. There's so many more in here. It's the whole, the whole ETC band is in there .
Um, and then there's just so many more in here. I'm trying to find ones that are specifically Diablo kind of things. Um, but there's not a lot of those. There's some of these. I have no idea who they even are 'cause I don't play every game from blizzard. Believe it or not, I really don't. Okay, here's Laic. So that's the skeleton king, right? Uh, difficulty updated from easy to medium. Fixed an issue that caused buried alive silence to be reduced in duration by abolish magic's.
Duration reduction fixed an issue that caused burning despairs damage aura to display as a critical when damage was not increased. Fixed an issue that caused drain hope and drain essence to remain active on targets after they enter a vehicle. Laic self-healing is no longer increased by drain essence's, undying death time or reduction.
Laic is no longer capable of activating ossian renewal while undying is active Wrath of the bone king effect reveal duration reduced from one second to 0.75 seconds. It's a whole bunch of people in here or characters in here that I have no idea who they are. Mouth eel mouth eel's. Part of this too with heroes of the storm, difficulty updated from medium to hard.
Fixed an issue that caused touch of death to display floating texts for healing prevented twice ethereal existence will now display a block visual at maximum stacks. Sole rip no longer reveals the area mephisto. Wow Mao's in there too. Difficulty updated from medium to hard. Fixed an issue that caused a lightning reaction to not be affected by damage reduction if caused by a shade of Mao's lightning Nova. Hmm. I guess they were getting in way the way of that particular skill. Um, let's see.
A lot of these, I have no idea who these people are. Um, let's see. Some of them I've heard the name like some of these are like World Warcraft and other stuff. Let's see. The butcher difficulty updated from medium to hard fixed and itch. Wow. fixed an issue that caused butcher to lose more meat than intended wind slain. That sounds hysterically funny to me. Cleaver no longer reveals. Target's hit. Cleaver will now reveal the search area for 0.75 seconds.
Furnace blast will now reveal target's hit for two seconds. Butcher is no longer revealed to the enemy if unseen when lamb to the slaughter damages an enemy. There's a whole bunch here about the Lost Vikings and all the ones they can do. I think it is my understanding, well there's three of them and it's my understanding that you kind of like rotate them around or something like that.
But I'm not sure Teel TE's in there difficulty updated from medium to hard fixed an issue that caused swift retribution to not apply to channel the basic attacks fixed an issue that caused basic attacks to activate bound by law while blinded or if the target is evading fixed. An issue that caused burning halos damage aura to display as a critical wind damage was not increased. Archangel's wrath explosion will now reveal target's hit for two seconds.
Burning Halo icon updated burning Halo is now classed as a passive talent. Har Roderick Reforging icon updated and Har Roderick Reforging is now classed as a passive talent. That's probably it. Uh, there's a bunch of other characters in here. If you play, you know, if you play heroes you might already know about those. But I tend to highlight the Diablo stuff because this is mostly a Diablo podcast. So there we are. Blizzard also posted on November 15th. The battle.net Black Friday sale is live.
It's through Battlenet Items are up to 67% off through November 27. So I'm gonna read you a little bit of this now through November 27. We're serving up savings so you can dive into your next epic adventure. Maybe something on your wishlist has gone on sale. Maybe there's a specific in-game goodie you've been meaning to grab or maybe you're simply in the mood to embark on a brand new journey into the unknown with your gaming friends.
Whatever Quest you are on the Black Friday sale is here to get you underway. Visit the Black Friday sale page on the battle.net Shop now or check out an overview of all the deals below. And they have for Diablo, this is what they're uh, talking about. So you can get the Diablo four standard edition up to 40% off Diablo for deluxe edition.
Up to 40% off Diablo four ultimate edition up to 40% off Diablo two resurrected up to 67% off Diablo three resurrected prime evil collection up to 60, 67% off Diablo. Three up to 50% off. I was just playing that a little while ago. I jumped back in because I had a video that I recorded with my monk in Diablo three and I thought, is that season still running? And it turns out yes, yes it is. It's still there. You can go and do that if you want to. Diablo four Reaper of Souls up to 50% off Diablo.
Three Reaper of Souls Digital Deluxe Edition. Up to 25% off Diablo three battle chest up to 33% off. That's the one where you can get like all the stuff at once. Um, Diablo three eternal collection up to 25% off. And Diablo three rise of the Necromancer up to 33% off. If you don't have that one, I highly recommend it. It's a lot of fun. That is the only class that I was able to complete all of the set dungeons for back in the day when that was a new content thing.
So I highly recommend it if you're, you know, interested in playing in acro for a while. It's really fun. Amazon has books obviously. And this book is titled The Hi Rodrick Vault, the Complete Collection. It is Hard Cover and it was put here on Amazon on November 7th, 2023. So here's what this is about. Now, some of you may already have some of these. I have quite a few of these. So here's what the description says.
In sanctuary knowledge can often be the deciding factor between utter defeat and hard won victory. Now fans of Diablo can seize these ancient and sometimes forbidden truths with har Rodrick vault. The complete collection, this unmatched box set includes stunningly illustrated artifacts including Book of Cain delve deeper into the dark medieval world of Diablo.
As Deckard Cain of the Hirum shares history and lore about the angelic and demonic beings that wage constant war with one another Book of Teel join Teel, the renowned champion and former archangel of the high heavens as he reveals secrets about the history of sanctuary.
The evil threats that yet face humankind and his decision to join the ranks of humanity as immortal in this stunning tome book of Adria Pour over the mysterious witch Adria's instructional guide showing the ways of forbidden magic and arcane knowledge about the demons beasts risen dead and angels that roam the dark, dangerous world of sanctuary and the realms beyond.
In this breathtaking bestiary book of loath, make your stand against the Darkness with loath nar of the rum as he journeys through sanctuaries most powerful relics that have often been and mighty yet be the key to tipping the fate of the world in this must have reliquary. Whether readers are facing the grim world of Diablo for the first time or are eager to re-immerse themselves in the terror.
These detailed and beautifully crafted tomes are the perfect companions to guide travelers safely through sanctuary. Lift the lamp of knowledge against the gathering dark and let the voices of sanctuary guide your path. I have maybe all of these, I know I have book of Cane, book of cheer and book of Adria. I'm not sure if I have Laura, but maybe these are pretty good.
If you really wanna dig into like the lore of things from the viewpoint of a specific character that supposedly put all this stuff in the book. You know, it's just kind of an interesting way to learn more about the lore of Diablo. I think last episode I talked about the blood harvest and the blood harvest was actually uh, posted by Blizzard Entertainment on October 20 and it was donate to the blood harvest earn in-game rewards.
So that happened and it was, it's running from October 20 to November 20 for players in the United States over 18. And you can help save lives by visiting any blood donation center donating your blood and logging your contribution. Not only will you be helping someone in need, but you'll also help earn coveted in-game rewards based upon the total amount of blood donated by all eligible players. And there's another like website here.
It has a fountain with a, uh, statue on it that looks like a woman who has been surrounded by snakes. Uh, everything is dripping blood into the fountain and if you scroll over it a little bit, it will actually start like rolling the blood down the fountain and out there is off to the side a thing that says blood harvest. It says the ascension of Lord's zero next to it. There are three portions of it that needed to be hit in order to have people who donated blood to reap these rewards.
So the first one was weapons, the second was armor, and the last one was a mount. So they're at a hundred percent now. So it's all done. Okay. And the rewards, which I'm gonna click on right here, anyone who participated in this can unlock community in-game awards. And some of them are weapons for different classes. There's some kind of, um, armor and a horse. All unlocked rewards will be distributed to players in-game on November 22. And you can still contribute your blood.
Apparently it is still at a hundred percent. So I don't know how that's gonna work. I know that me personally, I'm anemic, I can't do this, but I'm hoping a lot of other people got to do this because it seems like a really good cause in a really, really weird way. So y'all did it. Congrats. And I'm posting here something that was actually posted in October from IGN. It is a Diablo four guide for the season of blood.
So if you haven't jumped in there yet, you can, this gives you like little videos like how to unlock 'em out and you know, all of this sort of thing. So there's like season of blood release time, which we already know it's been up for a little while. Uh, the Vampiric powers, you'll need potent blood for this and you know, all this other stuff is in here.
So if you're kind of stuck, if you've joined season two and you haven't been able to like get far or you decided to stray and do all the little exclamation point quests, which I've been doing for a while actually 'cause I don't know where I'm going in many cases there's a lot in here that can, you know, explain things to you and kind of show you what the rewards are and stuff like that. So there's a lot in there. Um, if you're stuck, read that it'll help you.
On November 16th, blizzard, a posted mothers blessing returns to sanctuary and there's a picture of Lila there of course 'cause who else could that be? So here's what you need to know. Rise wanderer and stand triumphant before your hoard of spoils and alluring glow descends across the land in increasing the clarity and temperament of all starw Walt demon slayers, not the ones in Diablo. Three, uh, scholars have unlocked new secrets in their ancient toes while coffers threaten to burst with gold.
Unearth from long forgotten Crips. Make haste to hone your blade through a week of adventure and plunder to become the deadliest force in all of sanctuary blessings of plenty earn increased experience and gold from November 20 couple days from now. 10:00 AM through November 27 PST uh, A-M-P-S-T. All players will earn experience and gold at a 35% multiplicative increased rate. Lilith blesses all her children as this bonus applies to both seasonal and eternal realms and all world tears.
This bonus stacks so it pairs with elixirs and the earn of experience to maximize your experience gains. For those curious where to attribute this newfound boon look for the new in-game icon beside your potion count that signifies the increased rate of earning gold and experience.
Use this boost to carve through ranks of the battle pass, climb to higher levels and world tears with burning swiftness and to complete your season journey so you can confront the trials waiting for you in the abattoir of Zeer.
On December 5th, gather round stoke the fire and rally your most savvy of companions to decimate demons with renewed f The blessed mother's cruelty is matched by her generosity, but not for long rise to new heights and earn more gold for your blood loss during a mother's blessing. And uh, that's what that's about. So that starts, um, November 20 and through November 27. You get more gold basically is what I'm understanding here. There's also a post on the Diablo immortal, uh, Twitter account.
I know it's X now, but if you go to look at something on Twitter, it still says twitter.com at the top of the website. So whatever. But this is the Diablo mortal account and they wrote this Raise a tanked with Glee and celebrate with the feast to topple all others with Harvest Bounty from November 17, which was yesterday to December one. Revel joyous excess by completing daily tasks to fill in the title tiles on the event board, fill out the entire board and receive a proper ottum bounty.
And there's a little video here which shows a bunch of food, um, fish and birds and uh, pumpkins and things like this there and there's some cranberries. So that's what that's for. It's a limited time thing because that seems to be what Diablo Mortal does. Uh, if you're interested in that, you can go do it. I might go do it, you know, just to see what that's like 'cause I haven't been in there in a while.
And then there's a post by Joe Shelley who is the, uh, designer at Blizzard Entertainment on Diablo. This is his personal Twitter account and he has a screenshot here of a couple of characters standing in front of a hearth, uh, that's been lit with a bunch of candles around it. I don't know if they're in an inn or what. And he wrote to this, you probably know you could emote hello to pups hashtag Diablo four towns to pet them, but you might not know that.
You could also say hello to cats to get them to stretch. If you score a critical greeting, the cat will even roll over on its back for belly rubs. And there is a character that seems to be petting. I'm not sure if it's a dog or a cat laying there. It's kind of fuzzy to me. But yeah, I did not know that for this whole time I've been playing Diablo before. I had no idea how to pet the dog os and I haven't seen any cats so far, but I'm gonna try that.
You know, I didn't know you could just say hello to the dog and have it come over and then somehow you can pet it I suppose. I mean, we've got a character sitting on the floor there, so maybe you sit, maybe it automatically does this for you. I want to find out, so I'll probably try that later today. And the title of our show, Midwinter uh, blight is, um, is something that's going to happen.
This was posted a while back on, uh, wow Head from and it's just titled Midwinter Blight Rewards and Gameplay Diablo Four's First Holiday event. Well, of course it's the first holiday event. The game hasn't been out that long yet, but I do dig these things sometimes because it's like, ooh, collection stuff, right? So it's got a photo of a bunch of the weapons and armor and things like that. And, um, so here's what you need to do.
Uh, blizzard has also shown event gameplay to give players an idea of what to expect during the midwinter blight event. In essence, players will need to defeat the red cloaked horror and his goat men minions. Check out all the shown rewards and the gameplay sequence below. So here we have like a variety of weapons and cross bows and axes and skulls and all these kinds of things and, and a shield with a goat head on it. And then there is the mid winter, uh, midwinter cosmetic rewards.
These are things you can wear on your back. So it's mostly goats and like some of them are for like one for each class kind of thing. And um, so they have horns. Some of them are like covered in blood. Some of them have like the whole goat head with like the fluffiness on it and just different things like that. And they sit on your back like your pet would if you had a pet. I think I got for my barbarian, um, a pet of some kind.
I think it was like the sleeping, like a sleeping, uh, wolf pet kind of thing. And I think I got it for killing a Shava with a group of people in the Alpha I think. Um, so that was kind of fun. But these are, these are cool too. There's a little video here of somebody run somebody's character running through the snow and then there's the monsters and they're gruesome looking and they all have horns on their head and different varieties.
It looks like the mid-winter blight event is going to be on the fractured peaks map, um, somewhere in there. And the whole section of that from wherever Wow. Head pulled this from is kind of a purple color around all of it. So it should be interesting to try at the very least. Wellhead also has mid-winter blight rewards teaser trailer back trophies and weapons. The back trophies are the ones with all the skulls of these goat people. Like, I guess they're really detailed too.
They're pretty neat. If you go on Twitter, which I'm gonna call that forever honestly, um, there is a video Mid-winter blight play December 12 through January 2nd and there is a character here holding up the, uh, like a shield with a goat head on it. And you earn free rewards for every class coming to Diablo four on Septe December 12th. Um, so there's some stuff to do for the holidays if you wanna do that. and another one from Wow Head.
We have everything we know about Grigor and living steel chests in Diablo four. I know nothing of this, so I'm gonna read it and see what I can learn. Since the drop rate of living steel has been increased, now is the best time for players to har to farm Uber dural, although I guess you could harm him as well.
In search of obtaining all powerful Uber unique items, these ultra rare and powerful items will become even more important once the new Pinnacle challenge, uh, abattoir of Zu becomes available on December 5th. And there's a map here and it looks like it's, gosh, where are they? It's a red colored area and it has mysteries chest mysteries chest that are inactive, living steel chest and living steel chest inactive colors for it. If it's purple, it's inactive.
I guess with that one I'm not sure, but here's what was written by, uh, popular, popular for Wow head to aid players in their search for, for living Steel. We've developed a hell tied tracker, which shows all the locations of the tortured gifts of living steel. This first step should allow players to obtain enough living steel to summon griego the galvanic Saint multiple times per hell tide.
This is important since successfully slaying Griego will reward players with a shard of agony, the first material required to summon Uber Doel. Grigor also has his own drop table of target farmable uniques, meaning that elusive piece you you need might be just around the corner. In addition to dropping the shard of agony, Griego also has a chance to drop the demon binder.
Mount Armor cosmetic. This Mount Armor drops exclusively from Griego and so, and with the increase in living steel drop rates, now is the best time to farm some living steel and defeat griego the galvanic saint. And so here's some stuff, there's like a little item drops thing with unique items.
So barbarians could get, uh, Ram Lana's magnum opus rage of Harrath ancients oath battle trance and the butcher's cleaver druids can get insatiable fury hunter's zenith waxing GIAs, which sounds like a moon related thing, and the butcher's cleaver necromancer can get blood artisan curious howl from below and grieves of the empty tomb.
Rogue gets word of Haan, grasp of shadow and wind force sorcerer gets staph of La Sen or Essen Hi Ice Heart Brays and gloves of the illuminator and all classes will get penitent grieves in this thing. Um, there's also some links here about, you know, how to fight, uh, where to find the living steel and how to fight the abattoir of Zer.
And the last thing I have here was, uh, last episode I talked about jewelry that was based on Lilith and Denarius and um, it looks like Blizzard is just continuing to branch out with these things because now it's uh, it's from a company called Cocoa Fresh Tea and Juice, and it's also a Blizzard Entertainment Unveiled Diablo for collaboration. This was on, um, October 20, I think. Let me see if I can figure out what the actual date was. But there's a picture here of Lilith and Cocoa Welcomes all.
There's a Lilith Advocate drink and a mouse pad you can get from achievements. I'm not sure how that works exactly, so let's find out. Cocoa Fresh Tea and Juice has partnered with Blizzard Entertainment to bring a thrilling experience to Diablo four fans across the United States, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
This exceptional partnership delivers them drinks exclusive merchandise and exciting in-game benefits. There's a link to find your nearest participating store.
This marks a significant moment in the bubble tea industry being the first time a Boba Tea brand has teamed up with a major gaming brand At this level, cocoa is introducing two new Diablo, four inspired flavors, frozen Orb and a Lilith Advocate Purchase these themed drinks at select locations and you'll receive a gift card unlocking an in-game reward, like free Diablo, four game codes, exclusive merchandise stickers, postcards, pins, key chains, and mouse pad and more.
And there's a picture here of all the stuff you could get. There are key chains with different classes on them. There's the drinks Lilith advocate, which has like a lot of like blood colored things in it and frozen orb, which has like three different colors stacked one up on the other. There's a scratch card that I guess gives you something. There's a cup sleeve, so if you have your cocoa cup, you could stick this image of Lilith, you know, it could stick it in that to like hold it there.
I guess there's also an anari version of that. There is an an Arius pin and a Lilith pin. There are postcards of Lilith herself. And then I'm not even sure what's going on in the second one. It's kind of small. There is a mouse pad with the sorceress and that big yellow snake that goes around and kills everything. And then there are stickers of different classes. Um, this is a first come first serve type thing while stocks last. And it starts on, let's see, in the United States.
It's going to start on, uh, well this was October actually, so this might be done. But I, I just find it kind of interesting all of the ways that the Diablo teams are hooking up with different types of companies that you might not think about. If, if what your main idea is is I wanna play Diablo games. You might not be looking for Diablo jewelry, you might not be looking for whatever this cocoa thing is . And, um, but they did it.
And I just think it's really strange and interesting and I think they'll keep doing this sort of thing, which would be good. It's kind of fun in a way. It's a little bit lighthearted. It's like, oh yeah, let's have Lily's face on our, you know, fluffy little drinks here, . I mean, I find it amusing. And that's where I'm going to end today's show. You have been listening to episode 4, 3 4 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.shatteredsoulstone.com. Come join us in game our in game community and clan, both named Shattered Soul Stone, or open to anyone who would like to join. You can 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.