News

Blizzard has released the patch notes for their latest 3.3.0 PTR, which will be doing the heavy lifting for testing shiny new things for Season 16. It runs on PC from the 27th October to the 3rd November.

We'll summarise below.

Seasonal & Eternal: War Plans Tactics

The Diablo IV team has introduced something called War Plans Tactics, which makes the War Plans content you actually want more likely to turn up.

This appears as a new tab in your War Plans activity window, and appears to level up to 10 as opposed to 7 for standard War Plans activities.

Blizzard says you can put up to 3 points into any activity - so if you want more Infernal Hordes (shudder...) then just put 1-3 points into there. Same with all the others, really. Putting at least 1 point into Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons also lets you raise your chances of Greater Helltides or Escalation Dungeons. Seems pretty simple at a glance, and a decent and much-needed quality of life improvement.

Additionally, you can assign up to 3 points into the following reward nodes for better rewards:

• Armour
• Weapons
• Jewellery
• Obducite
• Salvage
• Gems
• Gold
• Activity Keys
• Horadric Cube Materials
• Talisman Items

War Plans Tactics is available on both Season and Eternal realms, which means this appears to be a permanent addition.

Blizzard also outlined the following:

When you turn in completed War Plans, you’ll be rewarded with a new currency, Marks of Wisdom. Instead of spending gold, you’ll use Marks of Wisdom to change nodes in both your War Plans Tactics tree and the individual Activity trees. In the PTR, Marks of Wisdom are capped at 20.

— Blizzard, in their 3.3.0 PTR post

Seasonal Only: Tyrael's Boons

Tyrael's Boons lets you spec into things such as more season reputation, currency, and perks such as cheaper Obols costs at the vendors - and similar such things. And, apparently, all Seasonal players can access this - you don't need the Lord of Hatred expansion (which is very un-Blizzard-like).

Blizzard says you can earn up to 132 points, and choose up to 4 of the 6 options, which allow you to change certain paths:

• Curious Addition: If you want a chance at a second item from the Purveyor of Curiosities. You can also spec into more likely Ancestrals. (Note: Blizz, just use the Obols vendor like the rest of us...)
• Merchant of Mystery: You meet a new merchant in the Torment difficulties, who sells Forgotten Souls caches. You can also change the path to gain more gem fragments, runes, and other stuff.
• Scent of Gold: Increases your gold & exp rate. Choosing another path can grant you Cube materials, gem fragments, and other stuff. The other path improves monster drops of gold & gems, and also enhances legendary drops.
• Trash for Treasure: Alchemist Transmute costs are reduced. You can choose a path that also gives more Obducite and Scrolls of Restoration, or another that gives monsters a chance to drop more Obducite and Salvage materials. If you salvage Ancestral items at the end, you apparently have a higher chance to receive Scrolls of Restoration. This also unlocks the "Greater Temper" recipe in the Horadric Cube, which upgrades a Temper to a Greater Affix for the cost of 30 Scrolls of Restoration and 1,000 Obducite.

Pro tip: DON'T USE THIS. It's still cheaper to GA Temper fish at the Blacksmith. Not sure what they're thinking here...

You can also unspec points for 5 million gold per point, and the above paths don't replace Seasonal Blessings - they run alongside them, and the Seasonal Blessings will now be static: the same five every season. Interesting.

Horadric Items

Horadric Items are Legendary items that have Talisman set bonuses tied to them, which looks like they create better synergy between equipped items and charms. Looks like they're tied to item types? It's not really clear, here.

Something Blizzard said in their article was interesting, and it's best I quote it so as not to paraphrase and confuse people:

Jewelry items with Horadric affixes increase your set bonus count by 1 for the specific Talisman set. Unlike Seal of the Diamond Mind, you only need to have 1 charm equipped to enjoy the 2-piece set bonus with a corresponding Horadric jewelry item. You’ll be able to activate a larger bonus with fewer charms, freeing up slots for multiple set bonuses or new charm combinations.

— Blizzard, in their 3.3.0 PTR post

So, if I'm correct, it works exactly like the Seal of the Diamond Mind, but WITHOUT the minimum set requirement of 2. Actually pretty insane.

Other items like Armour and Weapons have special Horadric Affixes which show as second Legendary Aspects. These can be an addition to set bonuses, or stats such as Ultimate Cooldown Reduction, Frost Cooldown Reduction (as shown in the image), or many others.

Other Additions

Oh, the Corrupted Reaper from Season 14 returns with backup: the Fractured Reaper joins the fight. Yay. Better loot, apparently.

Blizzard also says Infernal Hordes, the Pit and lair bosses are being reworked, but there's nothing to test on this PTR yet. Helltides now start on the hour in the base game zones and at half past in the expansion zones, so there's always one running, and Aberrant Cinders no longer reset between Helltides.

Features for Testing on the PTR

Blizzard says the usual PTR boosts are available (e.g. grant gold, Obols, unlock masterworking, lair keys, all runes, aspects, etc), alongside:

• Max Tyrael's Boons
• Grant Seasonal Items (Horadric Items)

PTR Notes

If you'd like to have a read through it all yourself, here's Blizzard's full 3.3.0 PTR post.